The Black Shadow
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One issue I have with Pathfinder/D&D is that imprisoning people with Divine Powers seems like a difficult if not dangerous prospect. Someone who gets spells from divine sources could cast spells in prison to mess with fellow prisoners, captors or facilitate escape. Not all divine spells require a divine focus to cast so as long as one does not violate their Gods edicts, there does not seem to be a way to "Turn Off" a divine caster's ability.
Now any legal system with a grain of salt would know just how dangerous spell-casters can be and would probably take precautions against Spell-singing unless the prisoner was able to conceal their abilities. Using special anti-magical chains might be one solution but chains can be picked or slipped out of.
One interesting house rule a DM I played with once did was that divine casters could be stripped of their spell-casting ability by painting and/or branding a holy symbol of an opposing God on the flesh. This came up in a 3.5 game when the PC's rescued two slaves from the Drow who had burned the symbol of Lloth on the chest of two prisoners who were clerics of Helm but as they were enslaved the Drow didn't want them flinging around spells so had branded them to surpress their divine magic. Would something similar work in Pathfinder?
| Issac Daneil |
There's no written clause for it in PF, but it's a thematic idea for sure. I fear it would make players run away from Divine more often though. I already know that among the 15 or players I regularly game with, I'm the only one who actually LIKES worshiping a deity.
As for an alternative; the best you can do is binding them physically, or else going the extra mile and removing their hands and tongues.
Even then, they may know Silent and Still, but you start to narrow down the odds. Deafen them also helps for a 20% fail chance.
If it's druids, put them in metal armor. As for other divines, that's where you're SOOL beyond the first steps. And gods forbid you ever try to capture a deaf oracle with eschew materials, secret signs, and still spell. Then, you're just not gonna win it.
Magda Luckbender
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Any prison system designed for adventurers must have an anti-magic field. Even so, expect them to escape, PCs or no.
There's no way at all, within the Pathfinder rules, to permanently prevent a divine caster from casting. Any such method would have to be a house rule. Such a house rule seems reasonable, but be sure to inform your players of it before they create characters. I'd be leery of playing a divine caster in a world where such a thing existed.
archmagi1
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You also will need to bother them physically at least once per hour every hour for a good ten to fifteen minutes. If you can't meditate to regain spells without interruption, you can't prepare spells or regain slots.
There is also a literary and cinematic trope of a magical potion that saps all your prepared spells and spell power. Start with it, bind them and gag them, and beat them wtih a sap for a few minutes on the hour. They'll be exhausted by morning 2, and completely without the needed 1 hour to commune with their deity.
Magda Luckbender
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Here's a quote from ancient AD&D adventure A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords. The PCs were taken prisoner by slavers and imprisoned for months, with an unpleasant and entertaining (for the Slavers) death the eventual likely outcome. Several PCs are divine casters, and their guards face this very issue. Note that,while this is 30 years old for AD&D Version 1, the basic rules for how divine casters recover spells are vaguely similar to Pathfinder.
The characters have been kept in separate cells in a dungeon for an unknown period of time. The only clue as to the duration of their imprisonment is the fact that all of their wounds have healed. Spell-casters’ spells are all long gone from their memories, cast in desperate and clever attempts to escape from the dungeon.
Unfortunately,all attempts were failures, though they succeeded in giving the jailers a very hard time. Clerics have received special treatment: the jailers, knowing that clerics can regain their spells by prayer after sufficient rest, have not allowed the clerics to sleep more than three hours in succession, and have given them even smaller rations of food and water than the other characters have received. Despite this treatment, the clerics’ faith has enabled them to persevere, and the jailers have occasionally slipped up in their routine abuse. This has allowed the clerics to quickly pray for (and receive) spells useful to their current condition: cure light wounds, purify food and drink, resist cold, create water.
Something finally occurs to break the monotony of imprisonment ...
The pre-made PCs then have to work their way out of a nasty dungeon. Their only starting equipment is a loin cloth. The more ingenious sorts will combine their loin cloth, and found rocks, into a sling.
| Selgard |
Doesn't sound like something Arcane casters should be able to do at all, actually.
*maybe* another deity could interfere with the powers of another towards their followers, but not some mortal wizard. Lets not forget here what we're talking about. The power of a deity linking a cleric to themselves. I really don't think Mages should be able to just snap their fingers and cut that off.
If you want a cleric/oracle/whatever to not cast spells then do to them what you do to wizards. Break their fingers, remove their tongues, and keep them locked away in Anti-magic fields.
-S