Common forms of anti-magic....ideas?

[Lazlo.Arcadia]

I'm looking for ways to suppress mostly low level magic within my campaign through relatively common mundane means. Specifically there are 3 areas of interest with this: 1) how to bind a caster while held prisoner so they cant escape or fry your face off during transportation to the local jail. 2) How do you hold such a spell casting prisoner once you have gotten them to the jail? 3) How to extend this idea to making castles and strongholds safe(r) from invading casters, scrying, teleportation and spell slinging assassins.

These counter measures need to be relatively easy for someone with money and resources (such as a king) to put into place, but don't need to be excessively powerful such as requiring high level spells or the blood of a sacrificed angel, etc or other really crazy things to implement.

So far one idea that my players came up with was to simply make the prison and castle construction costs higher by 20% - 50% and state that the engineer knew some trick to screw up the "magical signature" of the area. I like this idea quite a bit actually as it would work well with allowing a lot of freedom in the description of exactly what had been done to hose up the signature of the area. Maybe it was built in a old iron mine for example, or a cave with a heavy obsidian deposit, or had the blood of some low level magical beast mixed in to the construction mortar of the fortress, etc.

I'm sorta feeling the same about iron shackles. Maybe they need to be crafted from cold iron (an expensive but reasonably common material within the campaign) and have to be of masterwork quality in order to work properly. These would likely be carried by mage-hunter type of constables as special equipment that not every guard had due to their expense. Sorta like a fantasy SWAT team of sorts.

It could be safe to assume the average NPC caster (vs the "exceptional npc caster") would simply fail to overcome such counter measures and thus they would see relatively common use within the campaign setting. At least within larger cities, etc.

A PC caster faced with such devices / environments might be faced with a significantly high spell craft check for successfully casting a spell instead of outright denying it? For example, while wearing such shackles maybe there is a DC 30 spell craft check for casting any spell (yes, this means spell casting would fail most of the time), or while held within the "witches hold" prison cell they would be faced with similar penalties. Perhaps some types of magics (like conjuration) would simply fail out right when at or near these locations, and thus why that location was chosen to start with.

Important disclaimers about the campaign: these will be used in a low magic campaign were very few npc's ever reach 10th level and any spell above 4th level most people have never even seen, etc.

[doomman47]

There is a pair of cuffs that are designed to prohibit casters from ever making sematic components, those plus a gag should suffice to prevent casting.

[FascistIguana]

I like the idea of a magic resistant metal or material. (thanks dominic deegan)it could have suppressing or dispelling properties.

[LordKailas]

You could steal the idea from dresden files and turn it on it's head. Instead of magic messing with technology, make it the other way around technology messes with magic. A lot of worked stone creates a dampening effect. Something really high tech like manacles majorly foul up a casters abilities to cast spells.

It means that spell casters have to go out of their way to get their stuff to work. "civilized" areas naturally mess with casters.

It would severely limit spell casting and it would mean that most of your casters are hermits and/or druids because they have to be.

[Loxsis Bale]

FascistIguana wrote:

I like the idea of a magic resistant metal or material. (thanks dominic deegan)it could have suppressing or dispelling properties.

Lead already has precidence as a magic-blocking material.

[Lazlo.Arcadia]

doomman47 wrote:

There is a pair of cuffs that are designed to prohibit casters from ever making sematic components, those plus a gag should suffice to prevent casting.

What do you mean? Is there already a cannon item in one of the books / supplements that I've missed? Maybe something in the Arms and Equipment Guide from 3.5?

[Mr. Bonkers]

A cheap option might be the simple but effective Masterwork Straitjacket from Occult Adventures. DC 30 Escape Artist to get free, constantly grappled and unable to use your arms/hands at all.

You can combine it with a Gag of Silence to prevent vocal components.

[doomman47]

Lazlo.Arcadia wrote:

doomman47 wrote:

There is a pair of cuffs that are designed to prohibit casters from ever making sematic components, those plus a gag should suffice to prevent casting.

What do you mean? Is there already a cannon item in one of the books / supplements that I've missed? Maybe something in the Arms and Equipment Guide from 3.5?

Don't remember the name of the item but they were hand cuffs that covered the entire hand and part way up the arm they completely restrained the hands of the wearer and had like a dc 30+ str check or a dc 40 escape artist check to get out of them no sematic components could be provided while they were worn, a standard rag in the casters mouth also stops verbal components, wont stop still/silent spell but will stop most things.

[Pizza Lord]

Mr. Bonkers wrote:

You can combine it with a Gag of Silence to prevent vocal components.

Wow. A 500 gp one use item that does exactly what a <1 sp strip of cloth, balled up sock, or normal gag would do in most cases. (Yes, I know it would keep them from mumbling or moaning, but still.)

That's right up there with the magic blindfold of sightlessness and the hat of head covering.

[blahpers]

torch of burning

rope of roping

fetters of hold still please

[Kayerloth]

Many mundane things should, especially in light of the nature of the campaign, work.

Manacles - it may not say so but having a couple pounds of steel preventing freedom of movement to both arms should certainly put a dent in Somatic component use. If not totally messing up it up (which is where I'd put it) I'd say it at least calls for a concentration check for "entangled while casting"

Gag - well covered already.

Blindfold or sack over the head-can't get Line of Effect if you can't see anything.

Movement - "Just keep walking buddy!" Hard to cast if every round is a double move even at stumbling speed, due to those pesky manacles.

All the above-cheap protection for the guys escorting the caster prisoner reinforced by prodding as necessary, gentleness not required.

Then add in a lack of sleep equals fatigue, then perhaps exhaustion. Neither is conducive to spell casting particularly once your spells per day is needing replenishment.

Can a high fantasy character deal with the above, sure potentially. But use them in a world where the idea of a high level spell is 3rd or maybe 4th doesn't leave a lot of room for tacking potentially multiple metamagic feats to a spell or magic item use to bypass things (never mind the first step is strip the prisoner down to his loin cloth if they even get to keep that).