This is best done if the PCs are the victims of mistaken identity or were targeted for capture and framed by some evil boss. Unless the players want to play an evil party.The one time you can definitely get away with this scenario is at character creation time. You just tell them, "Create characters of X level. Don't worry about equipment, you start out without any. Your first adventure will be a jailbreak." All of the problems of capturing the player characters then become mere background.
Okay, change "jailbreak" to "escape". I did not intend to imply anything about who captured the player characters or why.
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Sometimes however, being captured, is a part of the story. I am sure that there were people mad at the end of A3 after they fought the slave lords and then get gassed into sleepiness. Part of roleplaying would entail rolling with the punches.
Guy, as I and others have repeatedly stated, if the OP wants to do this, talk to the players to get their input before inflicting it on them. That appears to be what you did.
This can be done and can be fun, especially for a party where the players have anticipated and planned for this scenario. The sorcerer or wizard with eschew materials, still and silent spell is a classic example of a character built for this sort of thing.
Talk to the group and make sure they are OK. If so then go for it. But come up with something plausible then. I like the idea of the party agreeing to allow themselves to be "captured" and enslaved to infiltrate and sow rebellion from within. But that's different than "you lose all your stuff". Then the players can arrange to stow their good stuff and have replacement stuff to be taken from them so that when they do escape, they can get their real stuff back.
It's the rails that we are disagreeing with, not the concept.
Easy there big Dragon :)
I don't have a dog in this fight, was just sharing an example I could think of where it worked and what I did. Heck, it really wasn't my idea, except I saw that pattern in his feat list and learned of his desire. Good times.
Total aside, I realized I did it twice in that campaign. The PCs were trying to make political alliances and the PC ruler decided to trying wooing a female NPC who has been an antagonist to the party for a really long time. I thought she had bad guy tatooed on her forehead fairly obvisouly. (The fellow players/PCs were also questioning this decision, but go figure.) So I had the ruler PC get kidnapped and be slowly tortured to death, which forced the other PCs to save him. What was fun is that there were several NPCs to make these marriage alliances with and I had one who would have assisted the PCs tell them where the player was being held. The player who's PC was captured, took control of that NPC in the rescue. Everyone had fun that session too, made the female NPC (Now co-ruler) that much cooler and it made my bad guys much more bad.
This was a spontaneous one that made sense to me. (This group of villains were actually attempted to unify the world beneath one banner, so turning a ruler as opposed to killing him would have served there purpose much better. Silly evil NPCs should realize that Player's don't feel pain.)
This is a very good way to start a campaign.
This is a very good way of ruining an already in progress campaign.
Don't do it.
Yes, AD tends to come across rather harsh to those who are simply adding another point of view.
Yes, AD tends to come across rather harsh to those who are simply adding another point of view.
Heh, but I don't attack people personally for all of that.
I just state things, the harshness mostly is due to the lack of subtlety of raw text... ;-)
I was actually reinforcing and endorsing Guy's post. I just forgot to put the "nice post Guy" tag on the front of it...
No, you dont attack people but being read as harsh is the same thing as being harsh no matter what your intention might be. Such is the foible of online communication.
No, you dont attack people but being read as harsh is the same thing as being harsh no matter what your intention might be. Such is the foible of online communication.
That's only true if it matters to me if you misinterpret my information sharing as being "harsh." Since it generally really doesn't matter to me, it's NOT the same thing as me actually being harsh. It's not my fault people are touchy.
;-)
(See, a smiley! I'm only kidding!)
. Part of roleplaying would entail rolling with the punches.
Hard to do when so many players appear to have a glass jaw when it comes to adversity :p
Here's the huge problem with most capture scenarios.
If the opposing force uses half the intelligence they supposedly possess in maintaining you as a prisoner as they did capturing you in the first place, your chances of escape are next to nothing.
I think you make a very good point but those that capture you need not be the ones who become your masters. Slavers sell slaves. Powerful slaves like the PCs might be worth a pretty penny to the right buyer (crazy archmage, high preist, an evil tyrant). That said I think you really need to understand your players and their PCs before venturing down this road.
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Even wizards and especially clerics can contribute without their spell components and holy symbols.
It'll vary depending on the situation and the setting.
What's around them? Is there a vase they can use as an improvised weapon? A whip that they're not proficient with but can still swing to aid another? A bastard sword? Their skills?
All of these are still valuable. It should be a good wake up call for players to think creatively so long as the GM can provide them some options and match-worthy encounters.
Think outside the square.
"Powerful slave" is sort of oxymoronic. A wizard "slave" given access to his wizard powers is going to be more trouble keeping captive than it's worth. And when (not "if") he does get free, you now have a powerful sworn enemy.
Not many folks willing to take that on, I don't think.
"Powerful slave" is sort of oxymoronic. A wizard "slave" given access to his wizard powers is going to be more trouble keeping captive than it's worth. And when (not "if") he does get free, you now have a powerful sworn enemy.
Or for the true mastermind, it was part of the plan all along :)
Just to play devil's advocate on this for a bit, a captured wizard probably won't have "no spells", he/she will have whatever spells they hadn't yet cast before being captured. For a tenth level wizard that could be well over a dozen spells.
Plus they will still have cantrips, which are not useless.
Well, there are some spells that have components like "a bit of spiderweb" or "dust" or "A small twig" or things like that.
Quite a lot of them actually. Some of them quite useful in a captured and need to get free situation.
Keep in mind that one of the best possible spells to have if you are captured and put in a cell is "mage hand" which requires no material components at all.
I'm sure you would like to use a mage hand. Shame you won't have any after they chop em off =P.
But yes.
1.) Mage Hand is a telekinetic force, not an actual hand.
2.) A slave without hands can't work very well, now can he? So you have just made all the effort required to capture him useless and no one will even consider buying him. Good job.
Yes, AD tends to come across rather harsh to those who are simply adding another point of view.
I wasn't offended. I usually enjoy and agree with most of AD's post. I was just making sure that if there was disagreement with something I said he would have the opportunity to express it, while using a light hearted rejoinder to set the tone for communication.
His "I agree" makes sense. If I felt attacked, I would send him a message and discuss it in private.
It's a great idea if your players aren't dorks with gear-butthurt. S really it depends on your group.
The thing I caution you on, though, is don't railroad it too much. If a PC comes up with a slick way to avoid the trap, don't cheese them out of it.
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Of course at the time I had well-behaved players who accepted DM fiat.
Not like some specific nowadays types who whine constantly about rules fairness and such.Kids these days :) grumble, grumble :)
You do know that some of those "kids" you currently play with are older than you, right ? ;-P
Simply saying "you're captured" without playing it out or having any mechanics to back it up is nothing less than a cop out from a GM who is either lazy, or incompetent.
I've never met a player who wouldn't consider that a smack in the face. There characters and their abilities mean absolutely nothing in YOUR world. You have all the power.
Good for you. Bad for them. Good luck finding a new group after the dust settles.
Man, I would love to see a Ciretose vs Ravingdork debate.
If it is done right (the prisoners' story, not the debate), the players can enjoy themselves tremendously. And saying "you have been captured" does not necessarily mean a GM is "lazy or incompetent". Maybe he (and the players) are more interested in what follows their capture than in what preceded it.
Forbidding this prevents the GM AND the players from playing many kind of stories which hang on the characters knowing setbacks and even outright defeats. And those stories can be great too.
And some GMs need lessons on running good and proper games that are fun for everyone involved.
(If your game is fun for everyone involved, only then it is "good and proper.")
Giving hell to the PCs at the beginning and ensuring that they have the opportunity to not only survive but also to escape, or even get even with their jailors, can be quite fun for everyone involved.
Of course, the GM needs his players to trust him and he has to prove worthy of this trust.
For the record, my sessions at the time were really well received. Because my players knew that payback would be coming at some point.Interesting.... how did their characters know that?
For the record, my sessions at the time were really well received. Because my players knew that payback would be coming at some point.But how is that not metagaming? The CHARACTERS are letting themselves get captured because the PLAYERS know the GM will make it worth their while?
That almost exactly mirrors the example of metagaming as set forth in several roleplaying books.
EDIT: Ninja'd! :|
Honestly, in this kind of situations, I have seen far more metagaming on the other side of the equation : a player so angered at his over-optimized PC being taken prisoner that he was willing to get his PC killed in a situation where a normal being would have gladly surrendered. It is after all far easier to play a "death before surrender" fictional character when there is no real incentive to act out the PC's sense of preservation.
I call this bad roleplay though.
Also, Metagaming has its place in the game too. As RD stated, what matters is that everyone has fun. If the NO METAGAMING ALLOWED rule prevents this, then the rule should be discarded so that fun for all wins the day.
A tenth level wizard with no spells is going to get trounced by a third level fighter while a tenth level monk or sorcerer would steam roll like 12 of them on their own easily.Even wizards and especially clerics can contribute without their spell components and holy symbols.
It'll vary depending on the situation and the setting.
What's around them? Is there a vase they can use as an improvised weapon? A whip that they're not proficient with but can still swing to aid another? A bastard sword? Their skills?
All of these are still valuable. It should be a good wake up call for players to think creatively so long as the GM can provide them some options and match-worthy encounters.
Think outside the square.
How do you figure? A lvl 3 fighter has a 3 BAB, an average of 26 hitpoints before con Ans his weapon. A 10 level wizard has a BAB of 5 and 42 hitpoints on average before con bonus. Then they get their spell Luke abilities. I would call it an even fight at the least.
You're forgetting about wizard's specialist schools. For an evocationist a wizard gets force missile which does roughly 1d4 plus 6 ish damage for a 10 level wizard plus he can grapple the fighter who cant use his big weapon and still use his forcemissiles which are auto hits. Plus thier CMD's and CMB 'S will be pretty close to each others
Plus your assuming the Mage didn't take the feat that lets him prepare some spells from memory.