I am still a relatively new DM and am running a game for a few friends. They have a level 3 party with a pair of dwarven fighters, a pair of elven clerics, a mage and a rogue. They've mowed through most that I've thrown at them with an occasional hiccup along the way. Their latest foray has had them kill a pair of hobgoblin captains (the remaining 2 out of 3 brothers) along with a strong group of goblins. Of course, one goblin just had to escape while issuing a warning that they'de be sorry.
The party managed to trade the first hobgoblin captain's head to a barkeep for information. The barkeep is a mindflayer and runs an unusual establishment called "Ickans". It worked quite well and everyone was kind of creeped out by the entire tavern.
Going forward from their latest exploits, I know that they're going to want to make a beeline to the town where Ickans is to get goblin ear bounties and trade 2 more heads to Ickans. Knowing their most likely course of action, one of the thoughts running through my head is, "What if goblins snuck into the local towns overnight and posted bounty notices offering a sizeable reward for the party?" Mind you the goblin and hobgoblin presence in the are has been growing as of late so most townfolk aren't going to be too keen on cooperating with the goblin forces, but.. there are always those who are looking to make a quick buck. I already know that I can peel the rogue off of the group as a shady character whispered something to the PC rogue the last time they were in the main town.
I really want to get a couple, but not necessarily all, of the characters subdued and kidnapped for the ransom.
The remaining back story which they found out the last time through the town was that there were 3 hobgoblin brothers, all captains, under the orders of their uncle who was a higher level commander. The loss of the nephews will be what drives the commander to see if he can pit the locals against the fearless adventurers.
I've got plenty more adventures set up for them if they stay in the area or leave, I just want them to have to work as a team against some adversity before they decide if it is worth staying and fighting the uncle and his forces or bailing out and heading down the road.
Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?\
Honestly? The only guaranteed, sure fire way to capture PC's is to tell the players, straight up, "Hey, I have this cool idea for an adventure. It starts with some of you being captured. Can we roleplay that out (no dice) and then start from there?".
There is very very little in my multi-decade experience as both a player, and a DM, harder than trying to get PCs to surrender. It is one of the few times I advocate out-of-game elicitation of player cooperation.
Although you can manipulate a capture (with multiple cgarm or hold spells, grappling and the fact that damage can be decalred non lethal at the end to knock the enemy out. Then if you capture just a few of the party what do those players do while the rest play out the scenario? I agree with DemoMonkey's sentiments and experiences. You mentioned a ransom - are you trying to take money from the PCs? Or just set something up where they try to avoid a ransom? Have a friendly NPC help/befriend the party then get kidnapped for being associated with them. As far as I can tell you have the same basic set up but all the players are free to act.
Yeah, most PCs will either fight to the death or run away rather than surrender, in my experience. If I wanted to subdue the party, at level 3 I'd spam them with sleep spells or just have some tough opposition that fights to KO, not kill, like an ogre or hill giant ally.
If you do want only part of the group held for ransom, how will you make the game interesting and fun for both the captured and free PCs? What if the free PCs try to free their comrades by force or stealth, rather than paying the ransom?
Yeah, I don't think that I'll be able to pull it off a capture scenario very effectively. ut there is always a plan B.
The Hobgoblin commander, the uncle, put out the bounty (I did call it a ransom once) with the intent of getting possession of the PCs to make them pay for what they did to his nephews as well as an effort to agitate the locals. On their travel to the last battle a little old woman threw a rock at them and cursed them for stirring up the goblins.
Some town hostility might very well play into some other thoughts that I've had for the long term campaign. Certainly the uncle will be entering the picture with heavy reinforcements. And I've been toying with the dragon in human form as some a benefactor of sorts. <- There is another discussion here on the DM fsub forum about that idea. Certainly there can be a tie in story between the HGs and the benefactor.
Thanks all, I do greatly appreciate the insights.
Sounds like a good challenge and something to investigate and drive the story.
Here would be the questions I'd need to know to set something like this up. Would the authorities accept a bounty on the PCs? Have they done anything illegal for a legitimate bounty like you're talking about to happen? Is the Illithid the one posting the bounties? Couldn't the Uncle just send some nefarious types to do the job, why does it have to be a bounty? Do the PCs have a chance to discover the plot before it can take place?
Regardless of the specifics, the encounter should be easy to set up. The dramatic question is, "Can some/all of the PCs avoid being captured?" The motivation and tactics for the NPCs are obvious. They want money, but how bad? Is it worth dying over? Figure out what would make a good challenge (and how difficult of one) for your players and spring the encounter. If they avoid capture, great. If they don't, great. If you can get some of them before the baddies cut and run, all the better!
As some build up to the story line, the local militia/soldiers are all pretty drained and have been on edge as the goblin/HG attacks have been increasing as of late. Forces stretched thin waiting for reinforcements with not a lot of sleep. Dedicated and loyal though, they won't be interested in the bounty.
The party did get the attention of the captain of the town by taking down one of the HG captains as well as turning in several pairs of goblin ears for bounties though so they are viewed as a helping force by the militia. The captain, when he finds out about the death of the other 2 HG captains, will have a sense of foreboding and understand why the bounty was placed. There will be war with the HGs and goblin horde and the last thing that he needs is additional distractions of a seedy elemtn trying to get some fast gold by working with the enemy against the PCs.
There are going to be some ambushes ahead for them, some seen and some not so easily discovered. If they play it right, they might just meet a benefactor with a shared common goal.
Have the PCs be part of a larger force, or under an NPC commander. The officer is persuaded to surrender (perhaps by overwhelming display of force or perhaps by clever enemy trickery) and the PCs can try to sneak off before anybody is the wiser. Or they can follow orders and surrender too.
Make sure the group you want them to surrender to, has a reputation for decent treatment of prisoners. As noted above, no PC is going to surrender if he thinks it is the first step towards Certain Death.
IRL (World War Two), you surrender to the Americans rather than to the Waffen S.S. Because surrender is supposed to be a tactic to help you survive the war, not become yet another casualty / statistic.
DemoMonkey wrote:
As a Dm I think that captured players are a "nice to have " thing and not a "need to have". That means when Im in the mood for some captured players I usually plan my adventures as normal, and then IF I can manipulate the players to do something stupid that will get them captured I will do it. If I cant, then I will just reflavour the "captive" scenario for the next time and try again.
So Id say you should just plan your campaign as usual, but maybe dial the opposition up a single notch, as youve said yourself, theyve mowed through just about anything youve thrown at them. And IF they either due terrible tactics, very bad rolls or even an encounter miscalculation on your part are forced to flee and leave behind half the party or are defeated, THEN you have you "captive" scenario. It might not happen next time, or the next one after that, but at some point you might get lucky.
Another thing to consider would be how to keep everyone at the table interested in the game. Its not very fun for one player if some mercenaries managed to lure his character away from the party and hand him over to the hobgoblins, only for the rest of the evening, to sit and observe the rest of the gang planning his rescue, with the occasional, cutscene to his own character still in a dank, rank dungeon. In that case I would suggest you have some alternative characters ready for when/if one or more characters get caught. And make them with a twist, for instance have the Illithid tavern keeper send some of his loyal and creepy servants (in truth those are just some hapless victims with some nasty intellect devourers (pg 191 MM), as brains), o rlet them play a disguised hag, a doppelganger, wererat or whatever. Give them some small sidequests with their new temporary characters, and let them in on a bit of whats going on behind the curtain, dont tell them your whole plan of course, just enough so they feel rewarded.
Well, as the party came into the main town, they got a cold shoulder. A local member of the thieves guild approached the party and using the thieves cant informed the rogue that his presence was required at a meeting. Alone...
He went and learned of the bounty on the party. His options were aid the local guild in capturing the party or die. He opted to make a break for it and succeeded surprisingly enough. It made for a pretty charged scene while everyone was trying to figure out what was going on as the rogue came running up the street with others hot on his heels. After escaping and making their way to the milita captain. they grasped how much of a hornets nest that they had turned up. All in all it was a good night with a lot of action.
I do need to post an image of where the wizard dropped a cloud of fog right in the middle of an open area in a dungeon battle. As PCs and NPCs moved into and out of the fog, everyone had to keep track of where their people were. It was something that I've not worked with before but it went well.
Awakened_Gazebo wrote:
I personally hate adventures that require PC's to fail at something. I try to alter the adventure so that such things are not necessary. I don't like my players to feel railroaded.
Ironically, I played an adventure that required a PC to be framed. I attempted to frame one of them and failed due to his high skill. I actually expected it to fail, but the frame attempt was to advance the plot. The PC thought I would railroad him and after the unsuccessful attempt he incriminated himself. 
I would say, plan for the attempt to fail, but if it succeeds, then it's a bonus.