Recurring Villains and D&D

[Lago_AM3P]

Okay. It's easy to note that D&D is a heavy discourager of recurring foes, mostly because the battle system is very lethal, battles don't last very long, and encourages a high volume of foes.

For those of you who see that as a problem, what are some ways to alleviate this problem? Examples:

Non-lethal damage is superior to killing. Shadowrun 4th is a system that weirdly enough encourages you not to kill anyone. On the mechanics side, stun damage is superior 95-99% of the time because gel rounds rock, you can't heal stun damage in the middle of combat, and trying to drop a foe wearing body armor with lethal damage can extend combat to undesirable lengths.

On the theme side, not killing people makes you less of a target by police and revenge-killers. Destroying a military compound that has bioweapons will piss off certain people doing this without anyone dying also spawns fewer negative consequences.


I'm just starting things out. Feel free to contribute.

[Book]

A significant amount of campaigns will have tempo and derailing issues if the party spends a lot of time subduing and capturing their enemies. When you capture enemies, the game often comes to a screeching halt. As the group now has to first discuss their next phase of action (which in these cases, sometimes turns into lengthy arguments), and then possibly allocate some of all party memebers to trundle back to local authorities to drop off the captured foes. Which also leads to possible rescue attempts (more of a time-draining hassle) of said POW's by their allies.

It's often more expedient and gameflow-friendly just to kill your enemies and move on to the next objective.

[Save_versus_Stupid]

I agree that discouraging the destroyer mentality can be helpful for any given campaign, but that really does require more work for the GM and more concentration on role playing than I have experienced with players.

I blame the black and white alignment system though. If you're evil, you're probably slaughtering everyone who stands in your way (lawful evil excluded) and if you're good, you're most likely fighting "vile" foes who don't deserve mercy.

The easiest way I can think of to solve the problem and one you already mentioned is to simply give the players something to lose. If there is nothing to gain from letting X badguy live or turning him in to the proper authorities, then players won't do it.

[Book]

Does anybody recall if there are any published D&D modules (WotC or D20) where a significant amount of combat encounters are intended to subdue or capture your foes over outright killing them?

I'll be *very* dissappointed to hear there is none.

[RandomCasualty]

Well, really the issue isn't so much making nonlethal good, so much as putting down some kind of reputation penalty to PCs if they go around slaughtering people.

I mean even if you've got a ton of stunning abilities, it's often easier just to Coup de grace them anyway.

Actually using abundant true resurrection may well be the best deterrant. Kill someone and you can be sure they'll be coming back, because some cleric learns they're dead and true resses them. Lock them up and at least someone has to rescue them.

The main problem is still that magic so easily bypasses prisons and stuff. So I really advise making a series of warding spells you can cast on people. One to really subdue a prisoner, so that he loses all his casting and gets a bunch of huge penalties till it gets dispelled. And another to prevent all kinds of scrying and teleporting attacks. Make them go in the old fashioned way.

At lower levels, really your only option is to make it part of the mission or just talk to the PCs about wanting to incorporate that into your game. Where you play more with a certain degree of comic book realism as opposed to grim and gritty Conan style sword and sorcery. Set it such that major characters never actually die, they're just really stunned and subdued after you would normally have killed them (so much so that normal healing won't bring them back in a fight).

[Essence]

Feeblemind+Forbiddance = teh win.

[MrWaeseL]

1148099037[/unixtime]]Feeblemind+Forbiddance = teh win.

Feeblemind
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target: One creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes

If the target creature fails a Will saving throw, its Intelligence and Charisma scores each drop to 1. The affected creature is unable to use Intelligence- or Charisma-based skills, cast spells, understand language, or communicate coherently. Still, it knows who its friends are and can follow them and even protect them. The subject remains in this state until a heal, limited wish, miracle, or wish spell is used to cancel the effect of the feeblemind. A creature that can cast arcane spells, such as a sorcerer or a wizard, takes a -4 penalty on its saving throw.
Material Component

A handful of clay, crystal, glass, or mineral spheres.

Forbiddance
Abjuration
Level: Clr 6
Components: V, S, M, DF
Casting Time: 6 rounds
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Area: 60-ft. cube/level (S)
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: Yes

Forbiddance seals an area against all planar travel into or within it. This includes all teleportation spells (such as dimension door and teleport), plane shifting, astral travel, ethereal travel, and all summoning spells. Such effects simply fail automatically.

In addition, it damages entering creatures whose alignments are different from yours. The effect on those attempting to enter the warded area is based on their alignment relative to yours (see below). A creature inside the area when the spell is cast takes no damage unless it exits the area and attempts to reenter, at which time it is affected as normal.
Alignments identical

No effect. The creature may enter the area freely (although not by planar travel).
Alignments different with respect to either law/chaos or good/evil

The creature takes 6d6 points of damage. A successful Will save halves the damage, and spell resistance applies.
Alignments different with respect to both law/chaos and good/evil

The creature takes 12d6 points of damage. A successful Will save halves the damage, and spell resistance applies.

At your option, the abjuration can include a password, in which case creatures of alignments different from yours can avoid the damage by speaking the password as they enter the area. You must select this option (and the password) at the time of casting.

Dispel magic does not dispel a forbiddance effect unless the dispeller’s level is at least as high as your caster level.

You can’t have multiple overlapping forbiddance effects. In such a case, the more recent effect stops at the boundary of the older effect.
Material Component

A sprinkling of holy water and rare incenses worth at least 1,500 gp, plus 1,500 gp per 60-foot cube. If a password is desired, this requires the burning of additional rare incenses worth at least 1,000 gp, plus 1,000 gp per 60-foot cube.

I don't get it.

[Username17]

What we need is not spells and spell combos to keep wizards in prison. We need entirely non-magical means of keeping wizards in prison. I'm talking about "Characters in tin helmets can't cast any spells" and "noone can teleport or scry through a lead sheet"

That kind of thing. If it takes a 13th level spellcaster to keep an 8th level Sorcerer from just getting up the next morning and leaving - taking prisoners just can't happen in any real way. People need real ways to really keep spellcasters and demons under wraps without recourse to magic. Otherwise the basic idea of heroes (who are high level) turning villains over to the authorities (who are low level but numerous), is patently absurd.

Also it would be good if PCs could have goals that weren't advanced by actually killing their foes. That's really missing from the basic D&D.

-Username17

[Lago_AM3P]

I guess you could always just put a mask over their faces and put them in restrictive gloves for the rest of their life.

The downside is that you look like Strong Bad, but, whatever.

For the contingent of spellcasters whom this will not work on (for example, if a villain has been shown to have silent/still spell) then you could forcefully keep arcane spellcasters awake and exercising/stressed/whatever such that they never get more than 6 hours of continual sleep. Godded clerics have their deity discerned and then they are kept busy during the time of the day in which they pray for spells.

Or something. It's not very thorough but there are nonmagical ways of detaining many (if not most) spellcasters.

[power_word_wedgie]

Well, I've seen adventures where parties get more gold for turning a villian in alive rather than dead. In fact, in a way, that is an adventure arc onto itself. Yes, you might have captured the BBEG, but you have to take him from Castle Dark to a big enough town far enough away that has high-level constables that can actually hold him. Hey, that's a seven day ride, but can you hold him or prevent minions from trying to free him during the trip? Also, at high levels, there are teleport spells so you can just pop them to the appropriate high-level town.

Hey, it's just like real life. It isn't like the Silver City NM police department is going to hold Al Capone back in the day. Thus, you just can't drop off the high-level BBEG to the frontier town law officials.

[RandomCasualty]

1148167181[/unixtime]]
Godded clerics have their deity discerned and then they are kept busy during the time of the day in which they pray for spells.

Would this even work for clerics? I got the impression that if they missed their prayer period by anything other than thier own choice, they could just pray later.

On a side note, I agree with Frank that nonmagicl means of neutralizing captured casters are necessary.

[Lago_AM3P]

Would this even work for clerics? I got the impression that if they missed their prayer period by anything other than thier own choice, they could just pray later.

They have to do it at the first available opportunity, which can be taken up by doing things like farming (by hand) or breaking rocks in the field.

[Crissa]

Frank, I think this is another argument for the so-called 'non-magical' skills to have magical effects - a mason able to make a wall that cannot be scryed or passed by something not matching some basic key, etc.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1148195532[/unixtime]]
They have to do it at the first available opportunity, which can be taken up by doing things like farming (by hand) or breaking rocks in the field.

Well all I'm saying is that if they try to pray and then you hit them to disrupt them, would that not count as an available opportunity?