Shackles of Durance Vile give you a permanent Dominate effect while worn by your captive. But very expensive.
Blindness until it lands could help, as it makes many things harder and is dismissible by the caster. Deafness too (also imposes a 20% failure chance). You could also get a sap and keep him unconscious indefinitely, but this has an awful lot of risks. Still, its easier to remove the evidence than chopping him up.
Alternatively, charm person or suggestion might do the trick.
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Flesh to Stone is pretty foolproof, if you have it. Follow up with Shrink Item. Then drop it in your Bag of Holding for safe keeping.
If you need him later, make sure you have Stone to Flesh, too. Of course that part is optional.
There is this item from 3.5 : Antimagic Shackles
I have made them available in my games since it's practically the only way you've got if you want to be able to capture casters alive... Without this most players will not evern try to get them 'cause, well, it's too easy for them to get away... ;)
They have also put permanent anti magic field in the cells of their capital's jail (we're playing Kingmaker, they have a all kingdom, they can afford it :p )
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Tie his hands, preventing Somatic components. Also making touch attacks harder.
Gag him, preventing Verbal components.
Blindfold him, preventing line of sight for various targeted spells. Note that PF is nowhere near consistent in which spells require LoS, but a lot of them to.
Take away holy symbols and spell component pouches.
If you're feeling insecure, "redecorate" his holy symbol tattoo.
If feeling nervous, keep him at a comfortable amount of nonlethal damage that he can be quickly subdued.
If you're feeling extremely insecure, keep him at 0 HP.
If you're feeling over the top insecure, keep him at -1 HP and stable and use smelling salts to keep him conscious.
The only sure-fire way to prevent a caster from casting a spell is to take away their actions. Period. Everything else is just a difficulty to be overcome. Some are easier to overcome than others, but as long as the caster has actions available to them, they can try and they may have tricks that you don't know about.
To take away someone's actions, you need to either incapacitate them or kill them. If you've taken them prisoner, then killing them wasn't on your mind, so that leaves the former.
Poison them, knock them unconscious, turn them to stone, use a Mirror of Life Trapping, etc. Whatever you have on hand that does the job will do. Though some are obviously less expensive and more reversible than others.
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Fire
Make him cast all his spell slots and don't let him pray/prepare afterwards.
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Just try this:
If he has a tattoo that is acting as a holy symbol you could cut the skin it is on off and then heal the damage. You may also be able to achieve the same result by altering it without having to cut off the skin. A couple of cuts or otherwise defacing the tattoo should work.
My group is playing through Hell's Vengeance and we just had to use a caster as sacrifice to Hell.
We ended up breaking his hands and gagging him as applying curses (to reduce saves, all ability scores, and give him a 50% chance to act). We also stripped him of all his gear. This was also an arcane spell caster so we put him in splint mail for the arcane spell failure chance, but that doesn't apply here. Manacles and shackles.
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Also make sure not to give him an hour of quiet contemplation to prepare new spells. If you can figure out what time of day he prepares you can keep him from being able to replenish lost spells, which can inhibit him more if he has metamagic feats like Still Spell as he must prepare his spells with those already on.
My group is playing through Hell's Vengeance and we just had to use a caster as sacrifice to Hell.
We ended up breaking his hands and gagging him as applying curses (to reduce saves, all ability scores, and give him a 50% chance to act). We also stripped him of all his gear. This was also an arcane spell caster so we put him in splint mail for the arcane spell failure chance, but that doesn't apply here. Manacles and shackles.
Arcane spell failure chance only applies to somatic components, if his hands are broken it sounds redundant and pointless, he already can't make somatic gestures, and if it's a stilled or verbal only spell the armor doesn't do anything anyway.
The armor does something, it slows them down and possibly encumbers them depending on what they put their strength score at. It's not just about stopping them from casting, it's about stopping them from escaping or doing much of anything.
The armor does something, it slows them down and possibly encumbers them depending on what they put their strength score at. It's not just about stopping them from casting, it's about stopping them from escaping or doing much of anything.
Weird, someone edited your post to make it claim it was about stopping them from casting (which it wouldn't, given other precautions) and took out the real reason.
And of course the shackles you put on him would slow him more than the armor, so it's still not doing anything.
The armor does something, it slows them down and possibly encumbers them depending on what they put their strength score at. It's not just about stopping them from casting, it's about stopping them from escaping or doing much of anything.Weird, someone edited your post to make it claim it was about stopping them from casting (which it wouldn't, given other precautions) and took out the real reason.
And of course the shackles you put on him would slow him more than the armor, so it's still not doing anything.
I'm not sure what you mean? My original post looks like it always did, I don't recall editing it. I never specifically said it was only to stop casting.
Though I did say it was in part to cause arcane spell failure chance, which didn't apply in this case.
Anyways, the whole idea is to have multiple layers of problems for the target to overcome. That way if they manage to get through one they're not out of trouble.
Once PCs start doing this, as a GM I consider the same tactics more than fair for everyone else.
This
I make this clear before I start any campaign. Players should not use tactics they don't want used against them.
Pump up your bluff score and convince the captured cleric that his god doesn't actually exist.
Once PCs start doing this, as a GM I consider the same tactics more than fair for everyone else.This
I make this clear before I start any campaign. Players should not use tactics they don't want used against them.
I mean, sure NPCs might use the same tactics against players. But usually as a player I only go to such means if I need a character alive but subdued. Which is very rare.
The example I provided earlier was due to the need to sacrifice a specific individual in a specific place at a specific time of year. Otherwise the party would have normally just killed the enemy.
Our group just assumes a TPK is the end of the campaign (at least with that group). There are no "you were defeated but the enemy keeps you alive for incomprehensible reasons".
We've taken a cleric prisoner but need him, well, not cast spells.
He's been stripped to his skivvies, but what else can we do, short of cutting out his tounge (and hoping he doesn't have Still Spell)?
Have the party guard him with a merciful weapon. When he wakes up give him a little tap.
Maybe put a ring of sustenance on him so he does not need food or water. Keep him unconscious.
Once PCs start doing this, as a GM I consider the same tactics more than fair for everyone else.This
I make this clear before I start any campaign. Players should not use tactics they don't want used against them.
I mean, sure NPCs might use the same tactics against players. But usually as a player I only go to such means if I need a character alive but subdued. Which is very rare.
The example I provided earlier was due to the need to sacrifice a specific individual in a specific place at a specific time of year. Otherwise the party would have normally just killed the enemy.
Our group just assumes a TPK is the end of the campaign (at least with that group). There are no "you were defeated but the enemy keeps you alive for incomprehensible reasons".
My warning is much broader than the simple treatment of captives. It applies to using munchkin tactics anywhere in the game.
One of the examples I make explicit is putting a Skinsend infusion in an injection spear.
If you really want to stop a caster from casting, use This.
My warning is much broader than the simple treatment of captives. It applies to using munchkin tactics anywhere in the game.
One of the examples I make explicit is putting a Skinsend infusion in an injection spear.
If you really want to stop a caster from casting, use This.
I would say I feel like your warning is misplaced in regards to this specific topic though. You're warning amounts to "if the party is defeated and doesn't kill you for some reason you're going to have a difficult time doing anything".
However, I do agree with you that shenanigans on the order of touch injection and skinsend do warrant saying to players "Oh great, I'll use that on the party". It's usually enough for them to say "Nevermind!"