Help me capture my party.

[Wisdom Penalty]

Folks -

For various reasons, I would like to capture - not TPK - my party in an upcoming session. I intend to have my melee monsters doing non-lethal damage, but I'd like to know if anyone has any recommendations about certain spells, special abilities, or even monster types that can more effectively lead to a captured group of characters.

My characters will likely be 11th-12th level when this event occurs.

I know this may sound like I'm railroading them - and that's certainly true in some ways - but capturing them (and then allowing them to escape with certain information) will both challenge them in a way different than the norm thus far in this campaign, and allow the campaign's plot to progress more fully.

I know certain characters will be more difficult to subdue than others (dimension door), but if I can get the bulk of them trussed up - so that the wiggly guys realize it's time to call it a day - then we can call the mission accomplished.

In addition to any recommendations, please let me know if you've done this before and if you have any advice to offer or pitfalls to avoid. I know PCs in 3E are generally hell-bent on being captured, so I realize I have to be careful to avoid a TPK.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
W.P.

Edit: One important note - I know I could simply throw a CR 19+ at them and do whatever I dang well please, but I don't want it to look like being captured/defeated was a foregone conclusion in the players' minds.

Edit #2: Also, the bad guys doing the capture attempt are not the "intrigue" type, so I can't really play the game of nabbing one PC or holding some valued NPC hostage and what-not as leverage. In fact, there will be little if any in-character talking at all. The bad guys (whatever they end up being) will simply ambush/attack the party during an overland trek through deep forests.

 

[der_kluge]

I'm going to say it before 18 other people jump in here and say the exact same thing.


There is NO WAY you can do this without it NOT really pissing off all your players.


In short. Don't do it.

 

[WhatGravitas]

What der_kluge said. Generally not a good idea - perhaps try a "willing railroad", i.e. either ask the players OOC (just ask them, that you have a plot niftiness and need that - if they're story-inclined, they may accept), or IC, i.e. a NPC asks them to be willing captured for an undercover mission or something like that.

If you're really bent on it - use spellcasters. Use Nonlethal Substitution from Book of Exalted Deeds to modify (no-save) damage spells, and use stuff like suggestion, dominate, flesh to stone, and forcecage to incapacitate them.

But that's tantamount to just saying "you guys are knocked out by a hard hit".

I'm still recommending against it.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Goobermunch]

Why is capturing important? Who is doing the capturing?

--G

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Ask your players first, and if they say yes then hand wave it.

"You all wake up, shackled, in a dungeon." Otherwise you'll just make them angry, assuming you can actually pull it off.

 

[Capellan]

Lord Tirian's suggestion to have an NPC ask the PCs to be let themselves be captured for an undercover mission is the best way to approach this, because it makes the PCs win by "losing".

My advice on forcing PCs to be captured can be summed up in one word:

Don't.

 

[mhensley]

Eh, just tpk them and then when they whine about that, backpeddle and say that they wake up as prisoners instead. Then they'll feel lucky to have gotten off so easily.

 

[Goobermunch]

So here's my thought. Go with a pair of mercenary medusa sorceresses. Bump their charisma up high. Then, start hitting the squishies with petrification gazes. Take out the low fort save types and then focus on the heavy hitters. Lock down enough of the party and then give them the choice: flee and let their friends become art deco, or surrender and buy their freedom.

If you want to be fairer about it, give the party members a chance to know that these two are a known pair of honorable, but evil, bounty hunters.

Whoever the villain who wants the party captured wants it badly enough that he'll pay their exorbitant rates and will also pay to have them restored from stone.

Whatever you do, run the encounter straight. Don't fudge to help the monsters, and give the party a chance to win.

--G

 

[Warren Okuma]

Here's my advice to you... don't do it.

Never.

That's why I'm currently DMing. The capture DM got voted off the island.

 

[Hammerhead]

Again, my advice is don't. Never capture the party unless you really, really, really know what you're doing.

That being said: the best way to capture the PCs is to skip the capturing. Do a flash-forward with the PCs in jail, just now enacting their daring escape and ready to wreck bloody vengeance on the arrogant pissants who dared lay a finger on them.

The second best way is to have some legitimate, respected authority arrest the PCs, while the idealistic LG saps comply.