I want to have a scenario where bandits will use stealth to secretly sneak up on a caravan my PCs are with. They will hold one or two of the caravan members at knife or sword point and demand a ransom. They could have horses.
If they are paid, they will leave and not kill the prisoner. HOwever, I wanted there to be something that made the PCs not be able to chase the bandits down. I was thiking of putting a necklace on the prisoner that would blow up if anyone moved past her to chase, but not sure that makes sense.
Can you think of anything that would cause the PCs to think twice before chasing the bandits?
(as a side note, I know this plan could all go completly wrong, which is fine, but I at least want to have the plan in place in case it does work).
Thanks everyone.
An alchemist is a good idea. Stinking Cloud bombs could prevent pursuit.
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Trapped and ambushed escape route seems the obvious thing.
The bandits have one trick to delay pursuit just enough to get out of sight. The traps and ambushes are for anyone foolish enough to chase/track the bandits. Smart bandits would do this.
The ambush location should be awful for the pursuers and great for the defenders. It might include tripwires for horses and riders, pits, a narrow gorge, falling rocks, magical traps, a gate, archers lobbing arrows from a safe distance, burning oil, explosives, and an angry ferocious beast.
For instance, Bandits ride near a known monster lair, ring the doorbell and leave an offensive message on the front doorstep, which will be discovered as the pursuing PCs get close.
A smart and thorough bandit leader would prepare several such obstacles, to lose persistent pursuers. Note that the obstacles need not kill the PCs. Killing a horse or two is probably good enough, since the bandits will be fleeing at speed.
This is a tricky goal you attempting. In my experience, many PCs view bandits as little more than "monsters".
A don't know what your gaming group is like, but if you want to challenge yourself and your group try to convey to the party that the bandits don't really want to kill and certainly don't want to be killed. I think this is kind of what you're going for anyways.
Perhaps when the ambush occurs a caravan members recounts to the party (quickly, quietly, and fearfully) that he has encountered the bandits before and the example they made of the leader of the caravan guard (beat the snot out of him). Allow them to be creative in their solution, especially if it doesn't involve attacks intended to kill.
Environmental hazards could work well depending on the level. A classic rope bridge would hamper any party that lacks flight, and might not have feather fall prepared. Simply walk the hostage to the middle, tell them to move the ransom over to their side, and then have the hostage under the threat of an ax even when he is out of reach. Obviously you cut off the immediate route of pursuit once the hostage is clear.
Why are you trying to rob the players? If this is just to reduce their wealth and nothing more then it's a very not nice encounter. I do hope you're planning on leading this into a story arc or quest.
*Bandits set fire to a carriage with children in it.
*A bandit places timed alchemist bombs.
*They release the horses and ride off
*They throw down a spell of obscuring mist or a bunch of smoke sticks everywhere.
*They throw down hand fulls of calthrops as they escape.
Depending what kind of bandits they are, I think low tech solutions like fire and calthrops work best.
Why are you trying to rob the players? If this is just to reduce their wealth and nothing more then it's a very not nice encounter. I do hope you're planning on leading this into a story arc or quest.
*Bandits set fire to a carriage with children in it.
*A bandit places timed alchemist bombs.
*They release the horses and ride off
*They throw down a spell of obscuring mist or a bunch of smoke sticks everywhere.
*They throw down hand fulls of calthrops as they escape.Depending what kind of bandits they are, I think low tech solutions like fire and calthrops work best.
This is more of a random encounter type thing. As of now it's not something that is directly related to the story arch. I just wanted to come up with something at least a little bit interesting. The bandits might be frozen shadow, which will be encountered again.
Thanks for all of the awesome ideas!!