Good points. But for a first level character?
Too often have I seen stuff being done in backgrounds of first level characters that even 9th level one would have difficulties to pull off.
Sure. Obviously not if the PC was trying to escape a super-max, heavily guarded, magical prison. But a PC that managed to escape a small jail, especially if there was luck involved? Why not?
From a purely mechanical point of view, a 1st-level PC should be able to sneak past or even injure/kill a typical CR 1/8, 11 hp, AC 16 NPC guard with only a small amount of trouble (and especially if they're playing something like a stealthy rogue with sneak attack).
Also, what a lack of imagination. Don't you think that in a world with magic, most "civilized" kingdom would not have some protection vs magic in or on their jail? In a world with such small characters such as halflings, gnomes and even fairies there would be jails made with them in mind? Just think of the amount of classes in 5ed that can use magic, no way any lord or lady would not have contingencies for that.
Wow, random insult time.
Sure, I think that it's possible a kingdom might not have the magic involved. For starters, depending on the setting, magic may not be common; it might even be vanishingly rare.
PCs are often loaded with magic, because they go kill monsters and people and take their stuff. But how much magic do
NPCs have? Does each jail have one or more wizards on staff? Are they built with magical materials?
Antimagic field is an 8th-level spell that lasts for an hour. Even if it had an option for casting each day for a period of time to make it permanent option--which it doesn't--you'd still need at least a 15th-level cleric or wizard to cast the spell. That's going to be
prohibitively expensive to hire even once. Maybe you could justify prisons like that in your world, but
every prison? Even small-town jails? Really?
Would there be a single jail cell for all criminals, or would there be a Medium-sized cell and a Small-sized cell? And if so, why couldn't a Medium person escape from a Medium cell? If Small races are barely known in the area, or
are known but aren't really trouble-makers or who have their own areas (and thus their own law enforcement), who would waste time and money creating a Small jail in a human town?
Are faeries common in the area? Are they bound by human laws, or if you try to put one in jail, would a more powerful fey noble come and turn you into a mouse for your audacity?
Also, what would he the point of playing medieval fantasy or even Renaissance fantasy and using modern world point of view? Where would the immersion and escapism.
Right, because I, a woman, want to escape into a world where I'm considered property of my husband and wouldn't be allowed to travel, let alone learn how to use a sword or cast (heretical) spells. Riiight...
You can also rephrase the above to include "man who is of a different ethnicity than the local norm," "non-heterosexual," and "any person who doesn't want to be an illiterate serf who dies of the plague."
So now who's lacking an imagination? You seem to be assuming that in an incredibly fantastic world that shares absolutely no history with the real world, has magic, non-humans, and demonstrably real gods, the inhabitants will have the exact same point of view as they did in the real world.
Most fantasy novels where heroes are in jail imply that the hero must escape before his or her execution or that the ransom is paid. Executions were still public events at the beginning of last century. Our modern sensibilities make us forget that not so long ago, public hanging were relative common place. I for one, am truly happy that here in Canada we have gotten rid of the death penalty. But that is not so in the game we play. There are harsh realities that many forget but I play with them.
"That many forget." Or, that people may have deliberately chosen not to include because reality often sucks, or that people have decided "hey, this is society is actually mostly Lawful Good, so they aren't going to have such horrible prisons, and any horrible, corrupt sheriffs will be removed from office by Lawful Good superiors." I don't want to get into real-world politics, but I think we can all agree that in the medieval and renaissance periods there weren't any societies that were D&D-style Lawful Good.
(No, a Lawful Good society doesn't mean all inhabitants are LG. But it does mean that there's
enough LG inhabitants that evil, corrupt people wouldn't be able to get away with evil acts for long.)
(And no, many people don't use alignment. I don't. But many people
do.)
If there are nothing to gain from you either in a public execution or in the form of ransom, you can ber that a corrupt official will simply kill you in the spot. Remove your tongue so that speak with dead will not be used on you and claim he had no choice but to kill you. And guess what? He will get away with it because, like judge Dread, he is the law! The first level character found out that he was corrupted? Why leave a live witness?
At least until you rise as an undead and get your revenge...
(Also,
speak with dead requires a mouth; it doesn't say anything about a tongue.)
My games are hard and often lethal, especially in the first few levels. I play monsters as close to what is their supposed intelligence as possible. Players rarely have an undeserved break and guess what? If a fight is suspiciously too easy, they will ask me if I played optimally or not. I roll everything in the open and still my players wants to be sure that I do no go easy mode on them.
Before a game, I roll 20 times a 20 sided die for secret rolls and note each one in order and note what they are used for if I use some. At the end of a session, I show them the roll that were used and exactly what they were used for. I hide nothing. When the players succeed they know they earned it in earnest.
What sort of secret rolls? For things you
should be rolling in the game, like attack rolls, Perception checks, and saves? Because if so, you're sounding like you cheat (by picking a pre-rolled number) to make sure that combats go the way you want them to instead of sometimes going awry because the enemy rolled badly. If this is actually the case, I'm pretty sure that everyone in
my group would be ready to kick you out. If you're not rolling for attacks, skills, and saves, then what are these secret rolls?
But you know what? My combats are almost always really hard as well. I generally balance for "difficult" or "deadly" encounters, often several in a row (since I see no point in spending time stating up easy encounters that are over in a less than a round), and
no, the PCs don't usually rest between each of them. But I don't cheat, and sometimes the enemies roll badly and screw up. Just yesterday, one of the warlocks
enemies abound'ed one monster and it attacked one of the other monsters (I rolled randomly to determine the target; fortunately, there were exactly ten participants in the battle, making it easy). Because these monsters weren't allies to each other (they were undead who rose at the same place but beyond that had no loyalty to each other), I decided to give the second monster a Wis check to see how it would react. I rolled a 1 for it, and decided that it would attack the first monster. It only did a point or two of damage, but it used up the second monster's turn, thus giving the PCs a very necessary brief break from taking more damage.
