Attempted Kidnapping of PC

Ok, one of my guys is a half-drow gauntlet archtype witch, the patron is strength, the archtype gives him levitate, fly, dimension door, and teleport.

When the character was made we talked about the problems he would have such as people hating/fearing drow and the other drow trying to drag him home. He often goes around with ancestral regression to not look like a drow to get avoid the first. However, I think he has forgotten about the second. I think this is a good time to arrange an attempted grab by the drow.

The party is 11th level.
I’m looking for a small team that will follow them around waiting until they are in the midst of a decent fight then try to grab the drow PC while the rest of the party is involved with a fight. Note: However, I don’t want the team to actually succeed. I just want to put a good scare into him.

So how would you build a grab team for this?

If you start the drow part of the fight with a dim anchor to the half drow, it will put the fear of Lolth in him.

Obscuring mist is a good cover for a kidnapping. Not knowing what's going on around you can be scary

They will need some way of neutralizing or mimicing his fly spell.

Drow love poison. Especially sleep poison. Makes the kidnapping much more easy. Str poison(purple worm) also makes kidnapping easier(and is more fun for the PC because they don't stop getting to play their character), and a poison focused alchemist can make amazing purple worm poison with the right discoveries.

The drow should be taking precautions to not be outed as drow, since they are super rare in golarion and would stand out like a sore thumb.

Nonlethal damage. Nothing scares a player more than discovering the bad guys are targeting his character with nonlethal damage.

I was originally thinking of them mostly staying invisible and following the PC's.

But one of them has been using see invisibility on a pretty regular basis recently (with reason). So suddenly appearing drow would give away the surprise. So yes, they need to be able to disguise themselves.

Ohhh! What about a sythesist whose disguise is his eidolon?

If they know he's a caster, their first step will be a silence spell on a tanglefoot bag hitting him in the face. No casty for you!

He'll still have Hexes, of course, though you'll need to make certain if any of them are stopped by silence (I don't think any are, but at least Cackle is a gray area for most DMs).

Drow kidnapping team, trying to get a witch? Poison! And lots of it!

The assassin PRC is also good. Unlike the ninja and slayer assassinate option, it can be used to paralyze for a few rounds. Combine that with the previous suggestion of str poison, you can knock him out for a few rounds while his strength drops to 0, which makes thing easier. EDIT: Oh, the bounty hunter archetype slayer has an option similar to this- knocks people unconscious, which works just as well for the poison, I suppose

Nonlethal sneak attack that paralyzes while you are poisoned so you can't move- yeah, throwing all that in 1-2 rounds after a surprise obscuring mist seems like it would give the player a lot to think (read: panic) about.

For an ambush- how about making it appear that the players got caught up in someone else's problem? Have a bit mean scary monster (synthesist) attack a group of 'elves' (he isn't the only one that can cast ancestral regression). At some point, an obscuring mist gets thrown out. Then suddenly, the fleeing victims that ran past the backline of the party turn around and start grabbing and poisoning the witch.

Oh, and have the 'elves' try to disguise themselves as well. I am not really an expert on the mechanics of that, but make it look like they were elves trying to disguise as humans. And if the perception check sees through that but not the ancestral regression... make it appear that a group of lantern bearers have figured the witch out and are trying to silence him. That would get your witch paranoid.

Well the group is very likely to get in a series of fights with fey in the very near future. So obscuring mist, silence, tanglefoot bag, and various poisoned arrows raining down on the back of the party seem ideal.

Until he tries to teleport or dimension door, he shouldn't realize there is also a dimensional anchor up.

What do I give the grab team so they can see and operate in the obscuring mist?

So the team will need at least one decent caster to get a dimensional anchor going.
At least 2 casters to get the obscuring mist and silence at the same time.
Bounty hunter to try and knock him out or incapacitate him.
Sythesist summoner to pound him with nonlethal damage. (Could be the one casting the dimensional anchor.)

So maybe a cleric 8, sythesist 7, and bounty hunter 7. All of them of course should have drow hand crossbows with poisoned bolts.
Sound reasonable? Any further suggestions?

3 man(actually woman) team.

Alchemist (vivesectionist) with the poison skills.
Brawler to grab and drag him away, slip him a dose or 10 of poison.
Shaman to buff and heal the group.

Familiars do the actual scouting, probally the Shaman's but the alchemist could grab tumor familiar. This solves the see invisibility problem, who looks twice at a crow?

If real combat, not just the smash and grab, happens the alchemist jumps in with a feral mutagen roar. Shaman can also buff and summon. The shaman is likely also the leader and you can make them a Drow Noble.

What if the team helps the players at first?

Step 1. Some overwhelming foe attempts to kill the PCs, preferably in town. The drow team helps out.

Step 2. The drow team helps provide intelligence on some beastie the players are fighting like, say, some faeries out in the woods or something.

Step 3. A group of uber-obvious driders attempts to "capture" the drow party in front of the players. An illusion drops and, what, one of the drow turns out to be a drow half-elf in disguise!! (Bonus points if its of the gender that the witch finds attractive.)

Step 4. Undercover drow team helps players with a couple other things.

Step 5. The undercover drow team has "intelligence" that a group of driders somewhere north of town are trying to get them. The undercover team asks the PCs to help them take out the driders. Big fight ensues. After fight is over ... the "half-elf" in the undercover group pulls the old "surprise!" and the undercover drow attack the players while they're weakened from the drider fight.

Why would you have the Alchemist jump into melee for a kidnapping?

Naw. What you use the Alchemist for is tossing a Stink Bomb at the fella.

Good chance he's Nauseated, and obscures the happenings.

Then you have a couple of guys in Goz Masks, with Air Bubbles over their heads wade in and pump him full of as many arrows laced with Drow Poison (augmented by the Alchemist to be Concentrated) as they can manage.

Chances are even with a DC of only 15, they'll knock him out pretty quick, either with nonlethal or the poison itself.

Then, escape under the cover of an Invisibility Sphere once the target is in hand.

.... Note: However, I don’t want the team to actually succeed. I just want to put a good scare into him. ...

LOL, remember the goal guys.

This isn't a major part of the plot. At least not at this time. It may become more central later since the PC's are now about to become pretty famous.

Stinking cloud instead of obscuring mist is a good idea. I might add a few more really low level drow to throw tanglefoot bags and shoot bunchs of low danger poisoned bolts. from inside the cloud.
I don't think Goz masks would be appropriate for the drow. But I'm sure their religion could have something similar.
What is the religion for drow in Golarion since they don't have Lolth?

And related to the becoming famous, didn't I hear that there is some organization on Golarion that hunts down and exterminates drow? I might throw some of those at him in the future.

Goz Masks are one of the few items I consider pretty much broken. If you open that can of worms, you can bet your PCs will all soon have one and every fight will be in mist/smoke from then on.

ElterAgo wrote:

.... Note: However, I don’t want the team to actually succeed. I just want to put a good scare into him. ...

LOL, remember the goal guys.

So, the drow's leader should cast Mythic Cloudkill ....

Well the group is very likely to get in a series of fights with fey in the very near future. So obscuring mist, silence, tanglefoot bag, and various poisoned arrows raining down on the back of the party seem ideal.

Until he tries to teleport or dimension door, he shouldn't realize there is also a dimensional anchor up.

What do I give the grab team so they can see and operate in the obscuring mist?

So the team will need at least one decent caster to get a dimensional anchor going.
At least 2 casters to get the obscuring mist and silence at the same time.
Bounty hunter to try and knock him out or incapacitate him.
Sythesist summoner to pound him with nonlethal damage. (Could be the one casting the dimensional anchor.)

So maybe a cleric 8, sythesist 7, and bounty hunter 7. All of them of course should have drow hand crossbows with poisoned bolts.
Sound reasonable? Any further suggestions?

Under normal descriptions, Dimensional Anchor is a beam of energy hitting you that then covers you in a glowy emerald field of no-teleporting.

Which is actually a decent way to announce their presence.

Alternatively, have some plot behind the band. Team leader is a pompous jerk who Starscream (I mean, "second in command") wants to kill. There's a betrayal during the battle which costs them success when they would have otherwise succeeded. This has the added benefit of making the hit squad appear scarier (they almost won) while still letting the witch get away.

...

Under normal descriptions, Dimensional Anchor is a beam of energy hitting you that then covers you in a glowy emerald field of no-teleporting.

Which is actually a decent way to announce their presence. ...

Whoops! You are correct.

What is the spell that makes teleports not work for a large area?

There's one that takes like 10 minutes to cast, so not really practical unless you lead them to a pre-determined ambush spot.

There's one that takes like 10 minutes to cast, so not really practical unless you lead them to a pre-determined ambush spot.

I'm pretty sure I can work with that. What is it called?

Alternatively, Drow are notorious for using others to do their dirty work. Have a bunch of crummy Morlocks try to take him while a low level (5th) evil adventuring party watches from the shadows.

When the minions fail, have the low level evil adventuring party immediately try to take him, while the actual kidnappers (level 7ish Drow) also watch from invisibility.

Once the party has fought group 2, have the Drow fight them immediately again, or threaten him into surrender.

Allow people with see invisibility to see the drow watching.

The trick with Drow is to always leave the players wondering what they missed.

Rynjin wrote:

There's one that takes like 10 minutes to cast, so not really practical unless you lead them to a pre-determined ambush spot.

I'm pretty sure I can work with that. What is it called?

Forbiddance.

And I was mistaken, it's 6 rounds to cast.

At this level, an 11th level Cleric is not an unreasonable encounter, especially if she's an aloof Drow type who wants to do as little as possible.

Forbiddance is also expensive, but it has the advantage of being permanent, and I don't think you can get rid of its alignment-damage thing.

Dimensional Lock is 1 action, does a 20 foot area, and is also 8th freakin' level (scroll is an option, I suppose) and is still flashy green energy field-y.

Hallow or Unhallow can have a permanent dimensional anchor effect on it (which has basically NO explanation for how that even works, like, can somebody teleport in and then not out? Does a green energy beam just zap anyone who enters? nobody knows!) and lasts for a year.

Separate and conquer is usually a good tactic. I guarantee you, your party is going to freak out when they figure out that one of their members is singled out , basic easy tactic, walk around invisible surround the pc and have one of the people in the kidnap team, cast wall of stone (make a dome around them) by the time, the others are trying to break into the dome, the strike team is trying to knock the pc unconscious and have a teleport scroll ready to use, as soon as they can get away with the pc.

What makes you think the Shaman/Brawler/Alchemist team is too deadly.

Alchemist is there to create the poisons the others are using.
Brawler is looking to grapple and tie up the player, not kill.
Shaman is there to get the group out once they have the player.

The point of the alchemist going feral mutagen melee is to make a distraction so the other 2 can attempt to run. If the players do not take the bait of the crazy beast, his distraction is nearly wasted. (it is also less optimal to trade away bombs for sneak attack and then not be able to use SA because the others are running away)

If you do not want the drow to succeed, the teleport might fail (cause they are still in the lock area) or the scroll tears in battle. Could also be a failed UMD roll to activate the scroll. This leave the drow vulnerable as they smash and grab plan was what they prepped for.

There is an Anti-Drow group among the elves. I forget the name, but they are basically trying to hide/destroy all information about the drow.

Interesting that you made this post as I am GM'ing for a group with a very similar half drow witch. I'll need to work in a similar kidnapping subplot! Thanks for the idea.

Also you could have small incidents start to happen, mysterious people are inquiring about them. For example, at a new inn the innkeep seems to recognize the half drow, or a message appears under the door in the morning.

If they have plans to go someplace, but change their minds for some reason, have an incident happen that they hear about.

just some thoughts

Various random thoughts:

Seeming and/or Veil could be used by the kidnappers to aid in avoiding being spotted while tailing the party.

If he or his party has a mount(s) give the kidnappers access to a Cauchemar Nightmare (CR 11). Use Veil to disguise the Nightmare as his mount then give him the ride of his life.

Use Nondetection as needed to ward against things like Detect spells, See Invisibility etc.

Mirror Hideaway and/or Mirror Transport could be a lot of fun to use in a smash and grab attempt.

Darkness, the drow use Darkness! It makes it so no one can tell they are drow, causes confusion, gives them an advantage, and oh, drow use darkness. Just give them all Blind Fight and improved blindfight.

Bah, Darkness is pretty lame as far as obscuring actions go. Anybody with Darkvision (many PCs, including this Half-Drow PC) can see through it.

Mist is much harder to simply ignore. If they use Deeper Darkness, then sure, but even that makes it just as hard for the Drow to function as the PCs.

Bah, Darkness is pretty lame as far as obscuring actions go. Anybody with Darkvision (many PCs, including this Half-Drow PC) can see through it.

Mist is much harder to simply ignore. If they use Deeper Darkness, then sure, but even that makes it just as hard for the Drow to function as the PCs.

True, deeper darkness needs some specialized build (mostly a lot of blind fighting feats) to avoid those problems. And that is still rather dicey at the expected levels.

You could also throw some tieflings. Because drow society seems like a fairly tiefling friendly place. Just make them dark skinned and pointy eared to show that they are drow based tieflings. Anyway, taking the fiendish sight feat allows you to grab See in Darkness if you take it twice.

Drow still use darkness, just because it's cheap and easy. If they layer darkness/deeper darkness right it ends up making it dark enough for darkvision (which most races don't actually have) but not supernaturally dark. Blinding half the party until someone burns a 3rd level spell slot (or equivalent) helps, especially if it's done in the surprise round.

Fun tangent: current party we're gearing up to run Rappan Athuk has conspired to make sure we all have darkvision, so we don't need light sources that muck up stealth and let enemies with darkness magic pull that crap.

Drow still use darkness, just because it's cheap and easy. If they layer darkness/deeper darkness right it ends up making it dark enough for darkvision (which most races don't actually have)

Eh? Most races DO have Darkvision, or access to it.

Among the Core races, only Human and Halfling have no way to get Darkvision as a racial trait.

Among the Featured races, only Catfolk and Tengu don't.

Only among the Uncommon races is there a large proportion of races without Darkvision either by default or with an option to have it, with only the Changeling, Duergar, Grippli, Strix, Suli, and Svirfneblin having it.

All in all, only 10 out of 37 races (barring the "other races" that might see play, like Skinwalker and Monkey Goblin) lack Darkvision.

Elf, gnome, and half-elf have to take alternative traits to get it, and the usually have "better" alternatives they would rather take, AND I've been assured that human's bonus feat is da bestest, so I feel safe saying that most (over 50%) PCs won't have darkvision. I mean if you want to start splitting hairs about how many races that have ever been made for pathfinder and whether or not they get darkvision then maybe most do, I don't care. Point is a raid against surfacers by Drow has a good chance of not having full darkvision coverage.

And the point is that along with having a greater-than-zero chance of working, it is very cheap. They get it as a spell-like ability, at-will uses, any character class. It is a traditional tactic because it works.

It's cheap in uses, but not in opportunity cost.

Look at it this way: Cast one Darkness, that MIGHT work on one 1/3 of races in the best case (13/37), and waste your Surprise round, or one Fog Cloud, which will work on pretty much everybody?

All but one of the party has darkvision. That one has the spell (or maybe potions, I forget).

When the group is traveling in the wilderness, the drow character is usually (though not always) guarding the rear of the line to protect the sorcerer.

While a distraction seems very drow, to me a frontal assault by just one of them to provide the distraction does not.

There is a dark fey infested area near the PC's that they will probably want to check out. So I think I will have the drow at least in communication with the dark fey. And they will use an encounter with the fey as the distraction.

I'm thinking of a team something like:
Leader drow female cleric Lv 12
Lieutenant drow female bounty hunter Lv 9
Meat drow male sythesist Lv 8
4 Muscle drow male magus Lv 4

leader should know where the fey are going to spring their surprise. And can have the Forbiddance up.
After the things start with the fey: the leader will conjure some kind of wall, the Lt and Mt obscuring mist, maybe a pit spell, right after the mist goes up the muscle use Spell Combat to true strike some poisoned crossbow bolts (not sure which poison yet). Then the Muscle, Lt, and Mt close to try deliver more poison and knock him unconscious. The leader isn't going to risk herself. She will cast some buffs and AoE spells.

How high up does forbiddance go and/or is there a way to stop fly and levitate?

Not sure I want to give the party a bunch of Goz masks as loot at this time. Is there some other way to let the drow see through mists, deeper darkness, stinking cloud type things?

I want the kidnapping to fail but most of the drow to escape (at least the leader).

Forbiddance is Cubes, so you can arrange it in any way you want. Higher and smaller, wider ad lower, narrow instead of wide, etc.

On the Goz Masks, you could do the cheesy thing and make them restricted to Drow only.

In terms of god or goddesses of the drow in Golarion I suggest taking a look at the adventure path Second Darkness: Armageddon Echo.

It has a nice section on the drow as well as a listing of the demon lords that they worship.

Abraxas
Andirifkhu
Areshkagal
Cyth-V'sug
Flauros
Haagenti
Jubilex
Mazmezz
Nocticula
Shax
Socothbenoth
Zura

...

There is an Anti-Drow group among the elves. I forget the name, but they are basically trying to hide/destroy all information about the drow.

Anyone remember what this group is called?

The Lantern Bearers is the group you are referring to I believe.

The Lantern Bearers is the group you are referring to I believe.

Thanks.

I highly recommend pennywit's idea of subterfuge. The Drow infiltration (DIU) unit arrives to help the party with a fight. The DIU shows a "Wanted" poster of the drow party member (DPM) and says that the enemies had probably taken the bounty.

The DIU's story: They are refugees fleeing oppression. The DPM has become a hero of the underground for his long success at evading the drow (plays to the player's ego). They've sought the DPM out because he's become too powerful a symbol and must be removed. They've come to help.

Of course, the party will be leery. Enter the driders (with some of the same "Wanted" posters on their bodies. The driders have been ordered to capture the DPM. If successful, they live another day, if they fail, or kill the DPM, the driders will be dead.

This should make it easier to isolate the DPM and capture him later. And if the subterfuge fails, the ambush is always a good fallback.

It's cheap in uses, but not in opportunity cost.

Look at it this way: Cast one Darkness, that MIGHT work on one 1/3 of races in the best case (13/37), and waste your Surprise round, or one Fog Cloud, which will work on pretty much everybody?

but that statistic still assumes 'adventurer' level statistics, rather than the actual population. By number, I would imagine that most of the population in civilized areas would be humans, who usually do not have darkvision.

Even Absalom, which seems fairly metropolitan, is 64% human (lets throw in halflings too since they also lack methods for darkvision for a nice 75%). And even with the races with alternate racial traits for darkvision, those are usually due to a minority ethnicity within the race. So, again looking at Absalom, I would only suppose 7% have darkvision naturally (5% dwarf, 1% half-orc, 1% alt racial traits). Maybe 9% if you imagine that every race under 'other' have darkvision (unlikely, but sure, lets say that). So this trick most likely works 9/10th of the time (and usually it would take out most of a normal group, with 1-2 that can still see and should be made priority targets).

Also remember- these are meant to be failed assassins. They are not meant to be that good. Sometimes you need to get out of the logic of an adventurer who has to 'win' and instead look at it as a story teller. This is just the first team of hunters from the underdark- a foreshadowing of what is to come. These are the slightly disposable scouts that tell the higher ups of the party's existence. Let's keep the good tactics for the experienced teams that will come later.

Well that was a bunch of effort down the tubes.

I spent the weekend working on the setup, builds and tactics. I was actually kinda worried that it might be too good and have a significant chance to succeed.

But then the day before the planned event the drow witch got killed in a main plotline fight. The player decided he is tired of the witch and refused to be raised from the dead.

So the capture team arrived on the island and no longer have a target!

Oh well. This group is good at making enemies. So I will save the concept for down the road when someone will try and kidnap one of them.

You can always have them accost the party demanding for the location of the body of the half drow.

Perhaps they need the body as proof of the death to bring back to their superiors.

Maybe the body was actually needed for some sort of horrible ritual that needed a half drow.

Your imagination is the limit.

Still I would recommend dropping them in demanding the body or doing something sneaky to demand the body from someone who was close to the half drow from the party.

Nothing says sneaky like waking someone up in the middle of the night in their inn room all by themselves and having a brief conversation asking about a deceased former adventuring party.

It would definitely bring the world to life by showing even dead characters still matter.

Heck they might even not believe you that the half drow is dead and demand to know where they have run away to.