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Post by Ahrek on Mar 13, 2017 17:06:26 GMT
My players got captured by some drow last session.
Long story short, after having made a daring raid on the drow mines to rescue the deep gnome slaves held there they decided to go back to "rescue" the gnome leader's husband (really half of them want to kill the dragon the drow have enslaved the other half want to take the artifact the drow are using to enslave said dragon). Anyway, they came up with the genius plan of taking the exact same way back in to the drow stronghold. This way was now reinforced since obviously this was a weak-spot in the drow defenses. And instead of running away from the large number of drow they fought until they all went down.
So now they are locked up in cells and all their stuff is gone. Yay prison break side quest!
The issue I have is what to do with all their stuff. To take away all their magic items and gold is way to harsh, but on the other hand the drow would not leave all their stuff in the same place. Especially all their gold and magic items (a drow magic staff for one).
Has anyone done something like this before and how did you handle it?
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Post by dmgenisisect on Mar 13, 2017 23:12:48 GMT
The easiest way out is to have the equient require some processing (in the bureaucratic sense of the word, though if you can come up with a good reason for some magical processing then go for it). All their gear thus is being held in one place while it gets decided where it all will end up. This gives your PCs a small window of time to escape with all of their things. If they take too long escaping the some of the higher priority items and easily to process items (gold, gemstones which act like gold, etc) will be gone.
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Post by dmgenisisect on Mar 13, 2017 23:18:13 GMT
Also what edition are you playing? If it's 5e it won't be too brutal if they loose some/all of their magic items. The balance doesn't require that you have them, and the situation you described should represent a pretty extreme loss to the party, and it's perfectly natural for that cost to be made manifest in their loot being taken away...
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dmtreat
Squire
Posts: 48
Favorite D&D Class: Ranger
Favorite D&D Race: Dwarf
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Post by dmtreat on Mar 17, 2017 1:26:26 GMT
I tend to agree with dmgenisisect. When your PCs actually get captured completely by their own decisions, then the natural thing would be to have all of their things taken away. Sometimes its hard as a DM to make your players actually follow the true consequences of their actions, but sometimes it has to be done. Having said that I really like dmgenisisect's idea about having the higher priority items going away from the "vault" first. Such as the staff you mentioned. Like he said, this gives your players not only a window to get their things back, but a motive to get out and get them quickly. To show them this time slot in character , you could have a Drow guard come up and brag about how their staff now lays in the hands of such and such and soon all their stuff will be gone, blah blah blah. I am the Kind of DM that has my players pay completely natural consequences, but then again my players KNOW this about me. This all really depends on the feel of your group. If you want it to be something super easy, do the old west style "your stuff is all gathered in a bag across the room by a guard" Or make it super super complicated. Just have fun with it. Also, it never hurts to have the players to a quick slight of hand role before the game starts to see if any of them were able to hide anything before going down in the fight. Maybe a small blade? A lockpick perhaps?
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