Yeah getting trapped is basically the GM 'proving' that he can kill you, but instead is 'showing mercy'.
Wow, I'm so impressed, you managed to trap me with your infinite resources, good for you GM. ;)
It's like bragging about how you can walk past a baby and NOT punch it.
Or, you know, it's an interesting thing to happen in the game.
Sure, sure...
Having all your gear taken away and roleplaying being stuck in prison is always fun.
Especially if you're a caster with no spell components.
Wheeeeee!
*wake me up when I have the opportunity to play my character again please*
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Or, you know, it's a logical consequence of a character's actions.
Or, you know, it's a logical consequence of a character's actions.
Absolutely! But don't forget how fun it is to not have any say in the fate of your character! That's the best part!
Why isn't the game just SET in a prison?!?!
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You're harshing my mellow, man.
Having to escape a prison/jail/etc with none of your Christmas Tree items is hardly an untenable scenario, especially if something the character(s) did brought it upon themselves. Knocking up the princess, robbing the socially important types (robbery of any sort depending on the setting), murdering annoying beggars, and wuss-slapping mouthy NPCs that were getting too uppity for your liking are often sure-fire ways to get beaten unconscious, stripped of your stuff and tossed in the slammer awaiting your 'trial'. Let alone simply losing a combat to the types of foes that actually prefer to take prisoners as opposed to simply eating them.
You also missed the OP's opening statement: "hypothetical situation".
To the OP: if this is a scenario you're attempting to be prepared for, you need Eschew Materials and/or to primarily prepare spells without F and M spell components. Even with the Eschew Materials feat you still need to avoid any F component spells and any spells that have components with a gp value. If you're higher level, take a close look at the Silent Spell, Still Spell, Spell Mastery (if a Wizard), Intensify Spell, Empower Spell and Maximize Spell feats to get the most out of your few Mastered spells. The Fast Study and Knowledge is Power arcane discoveries for Wizards synergize especially well with this scenario.
Sorry, I don't mean to harsh anyone's mellow, my bad.
I just very much dislike having control of my character taken away from me.
It's kinda the only thing I control in the game world.
Sorry, I don't mean to harsh anyone's mellow, my bad.
I just very much dislike having control of my character taken away from me.
It's kinda the only thing I control in the game world.
You still have control, you just don't have many options.
Or, you know, it's a logical consequence of a character's actions.Absolutely! But don't forget how fun it is to not have any say in the fate of your character! That's the best part!
Why isn't the game just SET in a prison?!?!
This is actually the entire plothook of the Way of the Wicked adventure path.
And you know what? It's awesome.
Sorry, I don't mean to harsh anyone's mellow, my bad.
I just very much dislike having control of my character taken away from me.
It's kinda the only thing I control in the game world.
You're one of those players who complains about Dominate and Confusion effects, aren't you...
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Yeah getting trapped is basically the GM 'proving' that he can kill you, but instead is 'showing mercy'.
"Bonus points" if the opposition has no reason what so ever to keep you alive but does so because...
...the GM just wanted to show you how powerful they are....the GM isn't man enough to follow through with it
...they want to make you do stuff for them
...other, mostly childish reasons
edit: Sometimes keeping PCs alive against all reason is worse than killing them. It breaks immersion and forces you to keep on playing this ruined pc.
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In my home game i don't like killing off PC's so anytime a party wipe happens i fit it in with the story that they are captured in some way and have to escape now, it works out quite well and doesn't break immersion, the PCs are the important people the BBEG wants for some reason, his minions and generals are out actively trying to capture them, sometimes they actually succeed in this the the PCs fail at the task at hand but now the immediate task is to escape and make the best of the situation and they have to deal with the consequences of failing the task, maybe the village they were protecting got ransacked or the item they were after is gone now.
In my home game i don't like killing off PC's so anytime a party wipe happens i fit it in with the story that they are captured in some way and have to escape now, it works out quite well and doesn't break immersion, the PCs are the important people the BBEG wants for some reason, his minions and generals are out actively trying to capture them, sometimes they actually succeed in this the the PCs fail at the task at hand but now the immediate task is to escape and make the best of the situation and they have to deal with the consequences of failing the task, maybe the village they were protecting got ransacked or the item they were after is gone now.
That would less infuriating than the situations I have experienced.
Last time my character was captured, it was a random bandit attack on the road (we were level 9ish if I recall).
Bludgeoned to near death, woke up in their camp tied to trees...
They kept us for several days... the GM attempted to roleplay it, I basically just sat there after telling him I was gonna wait for my opportunity to escape.
It never came. We got rescued by GMPC. It was lame all around.
I had you down as a pouter til you clarified that. It's always a bad GM move to have a Special NPC Save the Day. Your enemies may be clever, but under the James Bond rule they have to slip up at some point allowing you an implausible opportunity to escape. Part of the genre, you know?
Oh I'm a pouter, you were right, but for a reason.
Pretty much every time it happens, it's like my example.
*sad face*
Though the question has already been more or less answered there is the potential for temporary ability damage due to fatigue and torcher dropping your mental stats below the required stat to cast that spell level, releasing the spell from your mind. Even after you heal the ability damage the spell is gone even if the slot is back.
One of the reasons I hate prepared spell casters, Sorcerer for life.
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Sorry, I don't mean to harsh anyone's mellow, my bad.
I just very much dislike having control of my character taken away from me.
It's kinda the only thing I control in the game world.
Honestly, on my primary character I relish opportunities to escape from prisons. a well thought out escape plan can be quite entertaining, and I for one never feel more in control then when the enemy falsely assumes i am helpless.
Here are some fun ideas for the next time you're imprisoned (may require some skill ranks to be effective):
1. Try having a set of lock picks sewn into the hems of your clothing (stealth check to avoid them being discovered and Disable device to use them).
2. Cast Undetectable Aura on a scroll of silent knock, fold tiny and place in a waterproofed leather pouch with a long string tying it shut. hold the string and swallow the pouch for later regurgitation. This one might require some craft checks as well as money for the scroll and possibly ranks of UMD if you're not an inherent spell caster. This one is great for infiltrating a prison.
3. Have spells useful for escaping tattooed to your body so you can memorize them after being imprisoned. (spell mastery is better).
4. Save the fat from your prison meals, glob it in the corner of your spells and use it to grease your limbs and slip through the bars (escape Artist).
I had a campaign start in prison. "Your parents weren't very good adventurers. They went into debt to buy magical gear and were killed on that adventure. Now their debt falls to their heirs, you. And you're in Debtor's Prison. You don't feel that this is very fair, so you have no qualms about escaping." So, the PCs didn't have any nifty items to 'lose' as they were only first level anyway.
In a different campaign, during a succession war, the noble that the group supported, who was also a major contender, was placed into "protective custody" by a rival for his safety while the rival got all of the other nobles in line. The group considered a smash 'n' grab, but decided against it because they didn't like the idea of collaterally releasing all of the real criminals. They elected to leave their stuff behind and get arrested (they were around 7th level).
I've also run Escape from Meenlock Prison (Dungeon #146) and Chains of Blackmaw (#135). There are plenty of good uses of a prison.
Look at James Bond, that guy gets captured almost every movie. And manages to escape just fine all by himself. And since most prison guards are low level warriors without even masterwork equipment, let alone magic, I really don't have any sympathy for a group of heroes that can't escape a prison.
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Yes for DMs it's generally frowned upon to kidnap characters with the "you wake up in a cell with no equipment" trope, it is just ... painfully overused and often the result of a GM on a power trip, or unimaginative.
(unless they do something horribly stupid, and you pity them and don't want to tpk them, and even then, there are other things you can do. watch game of thrones and plenty of people are captured with no escape without needing a prison)
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Yes for DMs it's generally frowned upon to kidnap characters with the "you wake up in a cell with no equipment" trope, it is just ... painfully overused and often the result of a GM on a power trip, or unimaginative.
(unless they do something horribly stupid, and you pity them and don't want to tpk them, and even then, there are other things you can do. watch game of thrones and plenty of people are captured with no escape without needing a prison)
Unless PFS has made copious use of the trope, I can count on one hand the number of "wake up in prison with no stuff" adventures I've seen in the past 30 years. That is a far cry from "painfully overused".
It's not published adventures that's the problem, but not every GM uses published adventures. Many of them make up their own, and some of them are not as imaginative as they think they are. That's where this becomes painfully overused. And it is. I've had far to many characters 'wake up in prison with no stuff' through no fault of my own.
Heck, I been in a group where the GM started the campaign where the party had to 'wake up in prison with no stuff', regain stuff, escape prison, end adventure, then THE VERY NEXT session the GM said "Ten years have gone by, two days ago you were given a job to protect someone and you failed, and so your superiors have decided to punish you by throwing you in prison. With no stuff."
It's not published adventures that's the problem, but not every GM uses published adventures. Many of them make up their own, and some of them are not as imaginative as they think they are. That's where this becomes painfully overused. And it is. I've had far to many characters 'wake up in prison with no stuff' through no fault of my own.
Heck, I been in a group where the GM started the campaign where the party had to 'wake up in prison with no stuff', regain stuff, escape prison, end adventure, then THE VERY NEXT session the GM said "Ten years have gone by, two days ago you were given a job to protect someone and you failed, and so your superiors have decided to punish you by throwing you in prison. With no stuff."
That's rather lame on that GM's part, which means that GM overused the concept not the adventure making populace as a whole. Especially the ones that get paid to do so.
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The "wake up in prison" were the characters had no control or say in anything is extremely irritating, out of all the times my party has been captured, whether it have been from the Law and city guards or the Henchmen of the evil boss, the party has been awake and fighting and knew what failure meant for them if they couldn't beat them or escape them. in some cases only some of the party got captured and it was the goal of the rest of the party to either complete the mission on hand or break their friends out, if they choose to prison break the rest of the party out the mission time fails if they choose to do the mission they have to complete it at half power since they are missing people. its led to some actually pretty interesting strategies. and lets a person elect to get captured so the rest of the party can escape, knowing that they will come back for him after they finish with the task on hand.
Once again, this isn't really a problem with published adventures. In the very very few cases where I have seen people who get paid to create scenarios/modules/adventure paths have used prisons or escapes, they have done so with enough creativity and imagination to make the experience worthwhile (Such as the Way of the Wicked opening).
But many GMs do not use published adventures, and that is where this problem tends to crop up. Over the years I have had MANY different GMs use the same concept, though obviously not as massively blatant as the one I mentioned previously. It has happened enough times over enough years to enough parties that many people now agree that it is an overused trope.
I have had:
(The modern sounding ones were mostly Shadowrun)
- You wake up in a Hospital with no weapons, the hospital is being attacked
- You wake up in some strange box with no equip
- You have to fight an invincible foe, are unconscious (some would have been dead RAW) and after you wake up, bound the BBEG brags and is killed by the little girl you came to rescue
- You are caught in a trap + ambush drunk and weaponless by some trolls who don't kill you because they just wanted to prove how mighty they are.
- You wake up in prison x Times
- Your plane crashes you are on a tropical island
- You are in a house surrounded by enemies and no plan you come up with works until the GMPC rescues you
- The FBI knocks at your door and uses the file they have on you to blackmail you into doing dirty work for them despite you having done everything possible to prevent someone to get intel on you.
- You are infected with nanites that can kill you and forced to work for the one with the kill switch.
Yes, overused by many GMs.
I am now VERY sensitive about "Do this or else..." or "Mwahaha I'm soo mighty..." that all my PCs attack to kill or suicide once one of those is uttered. Followed by a serious talk with the GM sometimes followed by leaving the group.
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all my PCs attack to kill or suicide once one of those is uttered..
haha so does my group. They refuse to be taken alive and will fight to the death, or run, in every single battle. Or start battles when they could have just talked.
They also sleep with their shoes on, after one shoeless trek through the wilderness years ago.
Every-time a GM pulled that he failed in my case and infuriated the players.
Because usually the capture process involve some sort of incredible turn of event, that is 100% railroaded. It take away agency of the players towards their characters and as a designer of games I cannot stand by that. I avoid to use dominate spells and charm persons spells on PCs, I find these so intrusive and violate a fundamental trust that my player give to me to craft a fun and awesome story involving them. Wanna write an adventure where you get to put everyone in their place and feel like god, write a book and spare people your power trips.
Now not saying that PC should never end up in a tough situation like a jail, but never, ever should their power of character agency be compromised, it's what make this game a game and keeps it dynamic.
Some wonderful storyteller killed my whole party a year ago to prove a point, most of player of the group never recovered. let's just say that cloudkill + getting your whole gear taken away was a very very very stupid move to do to a group that had had little experience with the system.
It is the beginning of every Elder Scrolls game ever, just sayin...
A one player video game.
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Every-time a GM pulled that he failed in my case and infuriated the players.
Because usually the capture process involve some sort of incredible turn of event, that is 100% railroaded. It take away agency of the players towards their characters and as a designer of games I cannot stand by that. I avoid to use dominate spells and charm persons spells on PCs, I find these so intrusive and violate a fundamental trust that my player give to me to craft a fun and awesome story involving them. Wanna write an adventure where you get to put everyone in their place and feel like god, write a book and spare people your power trips.Now not saying that PC should never end up in a tough situation like a jail, but never, ever should their power of character agency be compromised, it's what make this game a game and keeps it dynamic.
Some wonderful storyteller killed my whole party a year ago to prove a point, most of player of the group never recovered. let's just say that cloudkill + getting your whole gear taken away was a very very very stupid move to do to a group that had had little experience with the system.
So I will say this, when I DM a game, I make it clear from the outset that I will role play the NPC's as if they were living breathing thinking beings in their own right (except the undead ones, they're just thinking). This means that I as a DM will not pull punches on my players if they put themselves into a situation in which the NPC's most logical and/or in character course of action will result in a TPK then it does, and the next group of adventurers will have to deal with the campaign consequences of the previous groups failure. Often after 50 or 100 years have past. However If it makes reasonable sense for the NPC to spare the party, he will do so. events in which it makes reasonable sense are things like The NPC is a law-keeper and the PC's are breaking the law but haven't escaped before the watch arrived. in that circumstance it makes sense to imprison the PC's. If the villain has a larger goal in mind and believes the PC's have valuable intel to offer, then if they fall to him he will spare their lives at least long enough to interrogate them. But only if the dice go that way or the PC's surrender. I have no qualms about letting a PC bleed out.
With regard to charm and dominate, if the plot i have in mind warrants it, I will A. leave enough evidence that the PC's have a reasonable opportunity to prepare for it, and B. Absolutely try to charm dominate or otherwise enthrall as many of the PC's as I possibly can and force them to kill their friends. In my mind the opportunity for characters emotional growth and development is greatly expanded by being forced to deal with the consequences of having murdered a friend against their will. Players always have agency in the form of how they build their characters to handle the potential situations their DM challenges them with.Also I mentioned Elder Scrolls as an example of a game designer over using the trope in a published medium.
It's funny how many people are saying that being taken prisoner is totally cool...
Okay.
Let's do this:
Your best efforts and spells have failed. Every effort you have taken has failed.
You simply cannot beat this opponent.
You aren't dead though... Death, at least, would allow for a release.
With death, your friends could bring you back.
This is worse.
Your gear has been taken away. Your friends don't have a corpse to loot.
Not only are you unavailable to raise, your gear isn't available to sell to bring you back.
You are trapped in prison.
It doesn't matter what class you are. The situation is that you are trapped, in prison.
Trapped.
Allowed to escape only if the GM says ok.
fun fun.
*hands over character sheet*
"let me know if I can roll something to escape, or should I just make a new character? Clearly, I'm helpless"
Trying to make this crappy situation sound like something fun is stupid.
I like to play a heroic, powerful character.
Attempting to escape, naked, from a slimy, dirty prison cell isn't heroic.
Being trapped is being defeated.
Being alive is actually WORSE than being dead, in some cases. At least if you are dead you can be Reincarnated or True-rezzed...
in prison? Can't use EITHER of those.
Being trapped sucks monkey-butter. It isn't cool. It isn't fun.
Personally I appreciate dark themes and roleplaying more than playing a hero who never experiences being beaten down. If it honestly is a DM on a power trip then I will be pissed, but as long as there is good roleplay and experiences to be had then I don't mind.
Personally I appreciate dark themes and roleplaying more than playing a hero who never experiences being beaten down. If it honestly is a DM on a power trip then I will be pissed, but as long as there is good roleplay and experiences to be had then I don't mind.
The GM has unlimited resources, he can just declare a character dead, or trapped...
In our group, either of these is considered lame.
We like to be in situations where our characters contribute to the story as heroes, not be stuck in crappy situations where they require help.
I mean, seriously, beyond level three or four, getting captured seems... odd...
I had it happen at (I think) 9. With a random encounter.
Lame.
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Perhaps I'm just less sensitive about feeling as if my autonomy is being stripped from me. It's true that some DMs go on power trips and decide to just hard-railroad, but that doesn't mean that every time a player has every gotten captured and thrown in jail is a hair-pulling frustration module. You're generalizing because of your isolated experiences.
Perhaps I'm just less sensitive about feeling as if my autonomy is being stripped from me. It's true that some DMs go on power trips and decide to just hard-railroad, but that doesn't mean that every time a player has every gotten captured and thrown in jail is a hair-pulling frustration module. You're generalizing because of your isolated experiences.
Actually, it's the exact opposite of generalizing.
It's specific experiences that sucked donkey parts.
That's...what generalizing means. You are taking your specific experiences and saying that because of those, all similar experiences must be awful.
Pretty much every time it happens, it's like my example...
Death, at least, would allow for a release.
With death, your friends could bring you back.
This is worse.
Your gear has been taken away. Your friends don't have a corpse to loot.
Not only are you unavailable to raise, your gear isn't available to sell to bring you back.
You are trapped in prison.
It doesn't matter what class you are. The situation is that you are trapped, in prison.
Trapped.
Allowed to escape only if the GM says ok.
fun fun.
*hands over character sheet*
"let me know if I can roll something to escape, or should I just make a new character? Clearly, I'm helpless"
Trying to make this crappy situation sound like something fun is stupid.
I like to play a heroic, powerful character.
Attempting to escape, naked, from a slimy, dirty prison cell isn't heroic.
Being trapped is being defeated.
Being alive is actually WORSE than being dead, in some cases. At least if you are dead you can be Reincarnated or True-rezzed...
in prison? Can't use EITHER of those.
Being trapped sucks monkey-butter. It isn't cool. It isn't fun.
Generalizing.
Anyway, to answer the OP.
"Prepared Spell Retention: Once a wizard prepares a spell, it remains in his mind as a nearly cast spell until he uses the prescribed components to complete and trigger it or until he abandons it. Certain other events, such as the effects of magic items or special attacks from monsters, can wipe a prepared spell from a character's mind."
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A reason this often goes wrong is because GMs take their cue from movies; if it's a cool plot element in a movie, it's got to be cool in a game, right?
Thing is, there are some major differences in how games and movies work. A movie has to entertain the audience; a game has to entertain the players (actors, in the movie).
Also, you have to consider the mechanical effects of the game system. Pathfinder is very equipment-based; losing access to it affects PCs heavily, though not everyone equally (sorcerer vs. wizard: eschew materials vs. spellbook; fighter's armor vs. monk).
Equipment in PF isn't very interchangeable, if you lose your favorite sword, armor, shield etc; you basically need to somehow recover all of them or your build will be severely messed up.
Another problem is how people get captured. Many players have a "fight to the death" mindset. This is somewhat caused by the penalty for losing gear, and by how badly capture scenarios are often run.
I posit that for a GM to capture a "fight to the death" party, he needs GM fiat to make it happen. And it'll feel bad.
If the players are willing to trust the GM about the outcome to be bearable, they might adopt a "surrender to escape another day" mindset instead. The players have to trust the GM and the GM needs to validate that trust with his handling.
Escape scenarios do offer some interesting possibilities, if you have player buy-in.
- You can use guards with level substantially lower than you'd use "in the wild" against fully kitted PCs, because PCs are operating at a handicap.
- Recovering gear can be a subplot of the escape.
- You can have intrigue, where PCs try to talk some guards into assisting their escape. (Bribes, threats, cons.)
- Stealth, Escape Artist, roguey skills, unarmed combat and illusions are much more important.
- If players are willing to occasionally accept surrender instead of fighting to the death, it becomes safer to occasionally have encounters that can't be brute-force won; if players don't flee, capture is a viable alternative. So now you don't have to "coincidentally" only meet monsters with CR close to APL; you still get to see the occasional lower-CR monster which can challenge you when you lack gear, or the occasional high-CR monster that might capture you.
Another problem is how people get captured. Many players have a "fight to the death" mindset. This is somewhat caused by the penalty for losing gear, and by how badly capture scenarios are often run.I posit that for a GM to capture a "fight to the death" party, he needs GM fiat to make it happen. And it'll feel bad.
If the players are willing to trust the GM about the outcome to be bearable, they might adopt a "surrender to escape another day" mindset instead. The players have to trust the GM and the GM needs to validate that trust with his handling.
You are partly right.
But we are playing roles and some characters are not the surrender kind of guys. Some might be "run while I occupy them" guys or the "I take you with me" guys so with a mix of personalities it can always be hard to capture a whole group. Even if the players trust the GM. And then the GM must be willing to either let part of the group flee or to let another part of the group die. If GM fiat is used to ensure all are captured and no one dies immersion breaks and with it the attachment to the saved characters.I surely lost trust in GMs to handle such a situation well. And as such I see each attempt at such a plot as a GM fail. But only because I've seen too many of those plots end bad.
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I agree many GMs should not be trusted with capture scenarios. They're hard to GM, which many GMs don't realize. So even while they mean while, they may do badly.
That said, I think the player's mindset is much more dominant than the character's mindset. I think in most cases, the idea of surrendering doesn't even occur to the players, or not seriously; and when it's suggested, the first impulse will normally be "my character wouldn't do that".
It's kind of odd that most characters would never surrender, don't you think? In both the real world and fiction, it happens a lot. People who fight to the death against obviously bad odds are rare. That happens to religious fanatics and to people convinced that there's no escape or chance of surrender; that to surrender is to just be killed anyway.
The latter one is to blame in many games I think. Many players are convinced that surrender is as good as death. Better to roll up a new PC with full WBL than to lose your gear? I've heard about that one before.
If a GM wants to have surrender on the table as a realistic option, that players may actually accept from time to time, it requires preparation. He needs to establish what enemies are honorable enough that you can surrender to them. And he needs to request the players' trust, probably even openly OOC. Tell them that he's not going to ruin the game for them if they surrender. That suddendering is something you can recover from; in the long run, you'll get a chance to regain your WBL and so forth.
So, here's my thesis: the massive tendency to "never surrender" is a sign of a bad working relationship between GM and players, born of a usually bad history of earlier games. In a more healthy situation, there will still be occasional moments when surrender won't happen (enemies known to have no mercy or honor, PC sacrificing himself to get the rest to escape) but it won't be such an automatic choice.
It's kind of odd that most characters would never surrender, don't you think? In both the real world and fiction, it happens a lot. People who fight to the death against obviously bad odds are rare. That happens to religious fanatics and to people convinced that there's no escape or chance of surrender; that to surrender is to just be killed anyway.
Often in fiction (movies for example) I am very puzzled by how people act. People dig their own graves, knowing it's their own. Why?
People follow villains with guns to some quiet place where the villain can kill them without witnesses. Why? Sometimes guys with pistols run amok and kill more people than they have ammo in one clip. Why?The answer: People are scared and because they are scared they don't act. Player characters are meant to he heroes so they should be able to act. Sure, it might mean the bad guy shoots you in the street but at least there are witnesses. The bad guy might shoot you for not digging the grave but he'd have shot you anyways. That way at least someone else has to dig the grave. And if several people attack the one running amok at once while he is short on ammo he can't kill all of them and in the end less people die.
If the fighter tells the party: "Run, I'll buy you time" he does so to save his friends.