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Hanuman
2010-11-26, 05:31 AM
Ok, to start this is an adventure meant for high level adventurers.

The purpose of this jail is to be what is essentially a "TPKO via jail", or "No Hope of Escape" scenario where only the most foolish or brave adventurers would ever try to recover a lost party member from. The point of that is to force an interception and make it a "save or die" scenario, without the actual death. This grants captured characters a second chance and a very cinematic rescue, if that's failed then players may opt to channel it into a wider story arc by trying for a jail break.

This jail should be THE TOUGHEST nut to crack and I mean absolutely impervious to all of the normally most effective ways to do this to the point that only an extremely well coordinated team of high level adventurers or a sheer force helping you such as a celestial army or a demigod.

The only purpose of this jail is to:

Defend it's prisoners from being injured, killed or otherwise accessed. This includes information access to make sure NOTHING gets in or out.

Accept incoming prisoners and have room for them, transfer them securely and make sure once locked up they are incapable of leaving.

Defend it's structure from being overrun, its securities from being breached, and to make sure it's not messed with.

Sustain it's prisoners, probably with a stock of sustaining spoon-like technology, create water and prestidigitation to clean surfaces and prisoners and warm the food.

------------

Let's get down to business.

We need a few things:

Basic Design

Geography

Plane

Warden

Main Theme of Guards

Weather and Climate

Exterior Surveillance

Protective Measures

Contingencies and Reactions

List of most popular breakout scenarios.

JeminiZero
2010-11-26, 05:41 AM
In lieu of being a normal prison where the inmates eat, sleep, breath and plot outbreaks etc, maybe make it a stasis prison instead? Essentially, all inmates are stored in quintessence (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Quintessence). This prevents them form attempting any sort of escape, and also prevents sending or similiar from contacting them.

FelixG
2010-11-26, 05:46 AM
Or use Trap the Soul on them and then store the gem they are trapped inside in a secure location. That way they would be even hard pressed to locate the person

Hanuman
2010-11-26, 05:55 AM
In lieu of being a normal prison where the inmates eat, sleep, breath and plot outbreaks etc, maybe make it a stasis prison instead? Essentially, all inmates are stored in quintessence (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Quintessence). This prevents them form attempting any sort of escape, and also prevents sending or similiar from contacting them.
I was thinking of a matrix-like trap but I like this idea better.

I like this idea, though I am conflicted between turning them to stone, shrinking the object and then sealing them in quintessence OR the less practical but more graphic just leaving them as a statue.

This would allow better identification of a prisoner.

THOUGH, my mind splits into 2 paths, 1 path being that the added difficulty in needing to understand the convoluted storage system they use in organizing their prisoners (like a prisoner library except with just numbers on the books, ect. seems more effective and more to the root of "this is a jail no one escapes from".
Alternatively one could assume they never expect anyone to break in, so making a more stylized storage system doesn't seem to matter as no one is ever going to break in.


Or use Trap the Soul on them and then store the gem they are trapped inside in a secure location. That way they would be even hard pressed to locate the person
Perhaps for maximum difficulty trap the soul, flesh to stone on the body and then shrink the statue to tiny size and seal both in quintessence?

Thoughts? Additional points?

Kaww
2010-11-26, 06:05 AM
StF, shrink them and sell them as DnD miniatures? In game - maybe the prison's location is not known. Instead it is the place for worlds chess tournaments? Since casters have high enough mental stats to play it has every reason to be protected against divination, have antimagic rooms etc. They make prisoners dress up like game pieces and then puff they are peons, kings, bishops, succubus queens... :smallbiggrin:

FelixG
2010-11-26, 06:10 AM
Perhaps for maximum difficulty trap the soul, flesh to stone on the body and then shrink the statue to tiny size and seal both in quintessence?

Thoughts? Additional points?

Well, Trap the Soul pulls their material body inside after their soul is pulled out, so you only have one item to deal with.

Another trap could be all of the gems are stored in one area, each has a number carved or magically placed on it, whenever one is picked up all others jump to another area, so they have to find a way to ensure that they retrieve their friends gem and not another otherwise they are going to be chasing these things across multiple dungeons

Ormur
2010-11-26, 06:10 AM
Wondrous architecture and wall augmentations from the Stronghold Builders guide can help. If you want to keep the prisoners in relatively normal prison conditions without allowing for escape you could house them in cells made out of walls of force with antimagic sigils and the only opening being on the top. That only leaves mundane ways of getting out (or Mystra). The DC for climbing walls of force is 70, the escape artist check to get through them is 120. I suspect jump checks for whatever height the cell is would be much easier so that would have to be negated whenever the cell is opened.

Regardless of the conditions of the prisoner I think most of the prison should at least be built out of walls of force but unfortunately they can't be shaped (unless possibly with metamagic) which makes creating openings and doors harder. They're also vulnerable to disintegrate just like mundane walls. Building it underground or on the elemental plane of earth with hundreds of metres of solid rock or some ways of automatically countering disintegrate spells might be enough passive protection for the structure of the prison. Prismatic walls are better on the outside.

I suggest the only way would be to get in should be via teleport, that solves the problem of no openings. There should be only one room which you could teleport into and that should be heavily defended. Maybe it's possible to even make sure no one can teleport there without permission or it could be restricted to certain individuals.

Edit: Duh, of course it should be on a demiplane to boot.

I've seen threads about structures that are neigh impervious and ways to break them. Sofawall's Cube (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132436) is one, Living in a Flying Box (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19857754/Living_in_a_Flying_Box) is another.

Eloel
2010-11-26, 06:11 AM
1- Flesh to Stone
2- PaO to paper with photo
3- Make a book
4- ???
5- Profit! (Or rather, prisoner catalogue)

FelixG
2010-11-26, 06:12 AM
If you want to go all out as well, you could have the entire prison on another plane, maybe even a custom one made from Genesis

Hanuman
2010-11-26, 06:15 AM
StF, shrink them and sell them as DnD miniatures? In game - maybe the prison's location is not known. Instead it is the place for worlds chess tournaments? Since casters have high enough mental stats to play it has every reason to be protected against divination, have antimagic rooms etc. They make prisoners dress up like game pieces and then puff they are peons, kings, bishops, succubus queens... :smallbiggrin:
I think that's a great idea, but perhaps not have it a widespread theme of the prison.
The chess masters could be one of the prison levels elite team of guards enlisted by the warden, each with their own special powers.
One of the traps could be protected by Chaturani, hold person and translocation spells, where another could be a glammer of one of the chess masters and he actually uses magehand to move the pieces, where if you refuse or lose the game, the ceiling drops. Harsh but effective trap.


If you want to go all out as well, you could have the entire prison on another plane, maybe even a custom one made from Genesis
I like the custom plane, what is the best combination of planar traits to make a jail with?


1- Flesh to Stone
2- PaO to paper with photo
3- Make a book
4- ???
5- Profit! (Or rather, prisoner catalogue)
I do like this idea, but at the same time wouldn't the most brilliant idea for a prison to have the way prisoners are stored to be completely bizarre fashion?
This might take some thinking.... Something the players would NEVER suspect...

hydraa
2010-11-26, 09:10 AM
cast Imprisonment from within a hostile environment (lava) or plane, or if it works from such thing as a rope trick and then burn the rope. If the location from where it was cast no longer exists, can they be retrieved (wish can not bring them back, but then wish may be able to bring the entry poiint back)

Duke of URL
2010-11-26, 09:16 AM
If you want to go all out as well, you could have the entire prison on another plane, maybe even a custom one made from Genesis

Yeah, demiplane with all interdimensional access blocked would be my first thought as well. The only way around the dimensional blocks would be some kind of portal that is not only heavily guarded, but requires multiple keys to open, with each key held by a powerful being or extremely heavily guarded, and a reliable communications link between them.

The only way to force a way into the prison would be to collect all of the keys, and that would have to be done in a very limited timespan, so as to not alert the other keyholders of the attempt so that they can take steps to prevent the attack. Obviously, this means the best time to do so would be when they're already meeting to open the portal, but of course, security would also be at its highest point then.


I like the custom plane, what is the best combination of planar traits to make a jail with?

In this case, any, really. It comes down to why they are being imprisoned, not slain, but generally, the same as the material plane they come from. The biggest variable might be the time trait, but that would be very situationally dependent.

Darrin
2010-11-26, 09:30 AM
Flesh to stone is an interesting option because it creates some unexpected complications, particularly for divinations. Once turned to stone, the target is no longer considered living or dead. They cease to be a creature for the target of divination spells, such as discern location, which can be very difficult to counter).

Discern location can still be used to find an object, such as a statue of the target (assuming you know the target was turned into a statue), but you can complicate that by polymorphing the statue into something else... make it roughly the same size and material, and it should be permanent (but can be dispelled). You could also break the statue into different pieces, and store the pieces in separate locations.

Since flesh to stone also turns the target's equipment into stone, it can also be used to similarly hide any distinctive equipment that could be used to divine their location. ("Okay, discern location failed to find Aragorn, try discern location on Aragorn's Sword").

There's also a spell in Complete Mage, an alternative to magic jar that could be used to store creatures: smoky confinement. It involves a Fort save rather than a Will save, and the target is trapped "unaware and ageless" inside a 100 GP bottle or vase made out of glass, crystal, etc. The creature/vase would still be findable via divination, but fluff-wise this sounds a lot cooler than "yeah, he got turned into a statue".

LOTRfan
2010-11-26, 09:31 AM
Isn't Carceri the Plane of Prisons?

Granted, its not very like a prison, as people are allowed to move around on the pseudo-planet they are assigned to.

Perhaps have some of the guards be Gehreleth mercenaries that have been rescued from Carceri. They already have experience being wardens. Plus, the fact that they (along with any gear they are wearing) can be liquefied into a bottle of instant army could be pretty useful, especially when intruders are found or if someone actually tries to escape.

FelixG
2010-11-26, 09:47 AM
Well, perhaps have PART of the plane be under different time rules, like 1 second real time to a million years passed in the time zone, to retrieve and place the items they use a special transportation spell as i assume magic would be instantaneous no matter the frame of relative time

Hanuman
2010-11-26, 10:57 AM
Isn't Carceri the Plane of Prisons?

Granted, its not very like a prison, as people are allowed to move around on the pseudo-planet they are assigned to.

Perhaps have some of the guards be Gehreleth mercenaries that have been rescued from Carceri. They already have experience being wardens. Plus, the fact that they (along with any gear they are wearing) can be liquefied into a bottle of instant army could be pretty useful, especially when intruders are found or if someone actually tries to escape.
Thats a little like comparing Alcatraz to Australia.


OK, I think it's decided that PLANES should be both the type and geographical location but I have some questions about that.

1) How many planes can fit in another plane? Can we go for Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-Demi-(20)Plane?
2) Can we have different planes which are visible and contained without the ability to actually access them? This draws off a few principles at a time:
A) Overlapping planes like the plane of Shadow.
B) Inter-Demi-Planes, demi-planes within demi-planes
C) Shaped and fixed location planes, planes that both have a custom shape and a visible appearance from the underlying plane they overlap, but perhaps one-way impeding such as the boundaries of the plane impede movement yet are one-way altered, as in you need to be in the plane to alter whats in it thats blocking you from entering it. Catch 22.
3) Can we have overlapping planes that are both fixed and occupy the same space but cannot by any means access eachother?



OK, how about this for some brainstorming.

For simplicity sake for now, the demiplane which the prison is located on will be called Plane 1 or P1.
The outside of the prison is something like a big concave cone which sinks underground, the structure isn't important because any parts that aren't moving are made of adamantium or something else that's ridiculous, the size of the prison is MASSIVE.

Inside the cone are square doorways that are closed and locked, but not trapped, they simply require a massive key built into the Prison Transport Vehicle (PTV) whatever that is, which is going to be the thing that players try to intercept BEFORE it gets to P1, or else they are usually sunk.

There are about 100 doorways arranged on several heights going up and down the inside of the cone, each doorway protrudes squarely and is sheer. There are several if not dozens of doorways per level in arrangement, these are aligns in a checkerboard alternation kind of like a cone sift or a strainer would have.

The center of the cone at the bottom has a glorious magical fire (real hot fire) which's light pierces even magical darkness and is enough to illuminate the entire prison cone.

While the PTV is not approaching to dock or leaving from a door the prison is in "active" mode, which means the cone starts spinning and creates an alternating centrifuge, one layer of doors goes clockwise on a track and the next goes counterclockwise and so on, between 0 and 10 rounds it picks up enough speed to be able to generate strong wind while standing infront of a door (massive balance check) and within 20 rounds it builds up to hurricane force and anyone not rooted to the ground starts being swept away. Getting hit by a door is pretty much assured instant death or dismemberment.

Above the cone are sheer cliffs in a circle with observation decks stationed all around, the gravity for the cliffs faces the wall so you could step off the top layer ground and then "fall" about a foot and walk on the cylindrical cliffside as if it were the floor, this allows guards to be able to face upwards, turn around 180 degrees and face downwards.


Thoughts so far? Things to change?

Ravens_cry
2010-11-26, 11:10 AM
Line all the cells with lead and a magic trap that sprays randomly selected paint on the walls every day. That way, no scrying in, no chance of blind teleportation because the appearance changes every day.

Hanuman
2010-11-26, 11:54 AM
Line all the cells with lead and a magic trap that sprays randomly selected paint on the walls every day. That way, no scrying in, no chance of blind teleportation because the appearance changes every day.
Hmm, what about a mixture between that, glams and material switching, like, the walls ACTUALLY reconfigure?

Ravens_cry
2010-11-26, 12:04 PM
Hmm, what about a mixture between that, glams and material switching, like, the walls ACTUALLY reconfigure?That would also be good, better in fact.

super dark33
2010-11-26, 12:05 PM
first: lots of traps,
second: too tough guards
third:bars are burning adamentine spiked bars +5
forth:antimagic on cells
fifth: evidence locker is far away
sixth and last: the prisoners are naked

Ravens_cry
2010-11-26, 12:14 PM
first: lots of traps,
second: too tough guards
third:bars are burning adamentine spiked bars +5
forth:antimagic on cells
fifth: evidence locker is far away
sixth and last: the prisoners are naked
seventh: casters are bound, gagged, and loud gongs are played at all hours.
eighth: uniforms for guards are not uniform, every single one is distinctive to them.
ninth: prisoners are tattooed on arrival with individual and magical designs as well as text detailing their physical description, with records detailing each prisoner kept in several secure locations.

PersonMan
2010-11-26, 12:20 PM
If statues of prisoners are kept, carefully label and slice apart the statue. Keep right arms in one end of the prison, left arms in the opposite end, etc. to ensure that rescuers must travel as much and as long as possible to get all the parts.

Also, before petrification/soul trapping smack on a Mind Rape to implant false memories of their arrest, put in stuff like small weak points in the defense which lead to traps, etc.

EDIT: Probably make casters forget their casting ability, too. Or instill a belief that it's being blocked by [device], which is at [heavily guarded location, actually a trap]. In actuality, they just have a tiny metal sphere surgically implanted in their heart that's radiating an AM field.

Callista
2010-11-26, 12:59 PM
So what's stopping the party bard from seducing the prison guards?

Eloel
2010-11-26, 01:01 PM
So what's stopping the party bard from seducing the prison guards?

They are constructs?

WeLoveFireballs
2010-11-26, 01:19 PM
Howzabout this? Turn to stone, miniaturize and stick inside of a balors heart. Enchant it so that it has dr 80/- or so. Leave an antimagic field around the Balor. Now he can only be overpowered by physical force without any magic items and should they accomplish that he will explode instantly destroying the figurine and probably them.

Hanuman
2010-11-26, 01:27 PM
Ok, very nice thoughts everyone, let's turbo charge these:


first: lots of traps,
second: too tough guards
third:bars are burning adamentine spiked bars +5
forth:antimagic on cells
fifth: evidence locker is far away
sixth and last: the prisoners are naked
seventh: casters are bound, gagged, and loud gongs are played at all hours.
eighth: uniforms for guards are not uniform, every single one is distinctive to them.
ninth: prisoners are tattooed on arrival with individual and magical designs as well as text detailing their physical description, with records detailing each prisoner kept in several secure locations.
1) Everything is just one big trap, filled with more traps, which are trapped.
2) Guards, instead of being things could be a force, like, a haunting or souls bound to a massive artifact interlaced into the plane, that way you have a constantly recharging undying supply of defenses, and each type of guard could be different themed per level meaning less predictability and more complexity in a battleplan.
3) Having bars would be cute.
4) Agreed.
5) Evidence locker == furnace flame in the center of the outer jail at P1? This is a permanent holding facility, I'd imagine it would be incinerated or gated to the negative plane.
6) Probably best.
7) Same precautions for everyone, if casters are bound and gagged then everyone is. Psionic dampening shackles that disrupt recharge resting, drain stats to 1 each and eat spell slots, PP and anything that isn't at will.
Guards per level are all naturally psionically connected thus silent alarm and advanced teamwork?
8) Guards have a complex and contrived system of near impossible to duplicate mannerisms, they simply do not have uniforms but trying to impersonate one would require careful study, shapechange and an epic Perform [Acting] roll, reroll each target?


If statues of prisoners are kept, carefully label and slice apart the statue. Keep right arms in one end of the prison, left arms in the opposite end, etc. to ensure that rescuers must travel as much and as long as possible to get all the parts.

Also, before petrification/soul trapping smack on a Mind Rape to implant false memories of their arrest, put in stuff like small weak points in the defense which lead to traps, etc.

EDIT: Probably make casters forget their casting ability, too. Or instill a belief that it's being blocked by [device], which is at [heavily guarded location, actually a trap]. In actuality, they just have a tiny metal sphere surgically implanted in their heart that's radiating an AM field.
What about use the mind rape to show the people closest to them and begin scrying away?

I like the sliced statue idea, but what about these 2 things:
A) Can sliced statues be mended back together?
B) Even better is in each statue is represented as the finished product held together in a stasis field of force, but only a few of the pieces are actually real, the rest would be duplicate regular stone statue slices made to duplicate the originals, that way you could have a finished statue, have the real thing there, AND everywhere else?
C)I don't think full usage of the mindrape ability goes well with rescuing them, having 1 in every stat is fine since they can't cast at 1 mental stat anyway.


So what's stopping the party bard from seducing the prison guards?
Nothing, but a brilliant answer would be that the guards don't have any real power to change anything, are all misinformed to how anything works, and almost everything is automated. The guards probably act more like janitors in this scenario.

Additional thoughts: Why not make all the demi-planes function (in 10' sections) as segmented pocket dimensions "quilted" into demi-planes? That way any pocket dimension items will cause 10' sections to collapse and form gates which would be negated and warded, ect?




MORE IDEAS PLEASE! =D

Kelb_Panthera
2010-11-26, 01:28 PM
If this is intended for use in a game, don't you guys think you're going a tad overboard, what with the dissected statues being stored all over the prison? A good adventure is supposed to be difficult, not nigh-impossible.

Hanuman
2010-11-26, 01:34 PM
If this is intended for use in a game, don't you guys think you're going a tad overboard, what with the dissected statues being stored all over the prison? A good adventure is supposed to be difficult, not nigh-impossible.
This is basically a "fate", it's not actually meant as an adventure but instead it's more like "if you are sent here it's the same as losing your body, mind and soul".

Creating it is more of a "walk the walk" exercise, so if you threaten an impossible jail that you can actually back it up a session later and see how deep your characters feel like going down the rabbithole to rescue a character who is technically worse than dead.

Ormur
2010-11-26, 02:41 PM
If you want to reduce all stats for the prisoners to one and you're allready going into mindrape territory there's a spell that does that from the same source. Eternal torture in BoVD is a permanent 9th level evil spell.

PersonMan
2010-11-26, 03:15 PM
How far does the "prevent prisoners from being killed" thing go? If I were the prison-people, I'd beat prisoners down to 1 HP, deny them sleep and stack on loads of status effects(blind, deaf, slowed, sickened, etc.) so that even if they are rescued, they're 100% dead weight for the rescuers.

randomhero00
2010-11-26, 03:23 PM
I say homebrew a bit and totally play the matrix theme up. That sounds like an interesting off the wall adventure (just make sure your players like that sort of thing.)

Make it so that there's one level none of them are aware of is that its a dream state. They are actually in stasis. Give them lots of npcs to fight and interact with, each one giving subtle hints. As soon as they start to figure out they can roll once a round to "wake up" from stasis. Make it a high will or con check depending on the character (no fun for the melee to be left behind while the casters easily make it).

Then make the real life area, guarded by empty warforged. Machines basically. And take it from there. Obviously most areas would have anti magic just outside the stasis pods, so no teleporting or anything. Plus they'd have no items.

Make some sort of con check or be weakened in some way from when they are first "unhooked" from the stasis pod. Give them some kind of sickness if they fail. Like -5 on all rolls until they pass a check.

BunnyMaster42
2010-11-26, 05:26 PM
I'd like to point out a nice little spell that always seems to go unnoticed: Sequester (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/sequester.htm).

It renders any one creature or object impossible to detect or locate with divination as well as making it invisible to any form of sight or seeing. How far this spell goes is subject to interpretation, but to me it seems like it would effectively render anything practically impossible to find for the duration.

Now, couple Sequester with either the flesh to stone or trap the soul ideas, and place the resultant object in a vat of quintessence and you have a prison where the prisoners are still technically alive, time-locked, and practically impossible to detect. If you wanted to go even further you could construct the vats out of pure force (wall of force-like), coat them in a thin layer of lead and then maybe even sequester the vats themselves. If you go that route then it would also probably be a good idea to place the wall of force vats (which would be more like small boxes I thik) in a room that is constantly under the effect of an antimagic field, since walls of force aren't affected by AM fields if I remember it correctly.

Or, if you want something a bit more traditional you could always go with a sort of Uber-Oubliette. A small room, possibly a pocket dimension in itself, constantly under the effects of an antimagic field and/or with the dead magic trait if a separate plane. The entire room would also be under a constant Silence effect, just because. Make the walls out of pure force once again if it's just a single room in a larger area. And just to top it all off, the only enterance to the Uber-Oubliette sould be a one-way portal, which should allow for the prisoner to be fed without any hopes of escaping.

olelia
2010-11-26, 06:12 PM
1. Trap the soul
2. Flesh to stone
3. Stone shape all statues to look the same
4. ?????
5. Profit!

WeeFreeMen
2010-11-26, 06:27 PM
I keep trying to theory craft..
but for some reason all I can think of is Impel Down from One Piece

As for something more constructive, I'm reminded of the prison in the anime Outlaw Star. Perhaps you have your prison on a plane were gravity is to an extreme, this will make any normal person automatically go to heavy load of more. Encumbered is annoying, yet effective.. especially when trying to escape. :p

Just my thought.

Thiyr
2010-11-26, 06:39 PM
While sadly, there are no rules as far as I see for making a repeating trap of this (which would have made it easier and cheaper), there's a wonderful invocation from Dragon Magic: Baleful Geas. No save, the creature (who's HD can't be higher than class level) must perform some action or refrain from some action (say, trying to escape). In addition, 24 hours after the invocation is used on the, they take 1d4 str damage, repeating every 24 hours until their str is 0. And its an invocation, so it can be spammed. Not perfect (mind effecting, language dependent, has a HD limit, dragonfire adept only) but for those it can effect, it's a good extra layer to throw on top with some frequency. toss it on before flesh to stone with the command to make every effort to remain incarcerated, and they're going to be unhappy even if they do get freed(presuming the invocation stays on them). If they don't recognize what it is on them, and they keep trying to heal the ability damage, it never stops, as well. And they get killed slowly if they don't try to put themselves back in jail. Better hope they've got a high level caster to wish it off. More fun when maximized.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-11-26, 07:18 PM
Here's my bid for the "matrix" prison. First you craft an item that produces a permanent metaconcert. This gives you a mindless mental entity with no body that's locked within 20ft of the object. You then manifest microcosm on the mental entity. Manifest sense link so that you can see inside the microcosm. Direct the entity in the creation of its imaginary world. You now have a matrix into which you will be sending your first few prisoners minds.

Now then, you craft a pod that produces 5 permanent sense links targeted on the metaconcert entity, as well producing a fuse flesh effect and a permanent sustenance, and connecting the imprisoned to the metaconcert. You stuff prisoners into this pod.

Once you find you need to expand your Matrix because you've imprisoned 9 beings, you create another such setup and craft an item of permanent mindlink to start stringing the matrices together.

You only need permanent mindlink to string the matrices (metaconcerts) together because they can simply communicate between themselves what's going on in their worlds, allowing them to work in concert (no pun intended) to create a single, continuous world.

This has the fun side affect of producing for the care-taker/guard a near infinite source of pp as long as they have at least a handful of psionic manifesters.

PEACH

WinWin
2010-11-26, 07:48 PM
Ravenloft : The Demiplane of dread.

Sure, all of the prisoners had their own little playground...but they could not leave and usually had some very particular limitations keeping them in check.

Even had Vecna as a resident for a while.

Custom plane with morphic traits dependant on the Domain Lord.

stabbitty death
2010-11-26, 07:59 PM
what about carceri?

Darrin
2010-11-26, 08:18 PM
I'd like to point out a nice little spell that always seems to go unnoticed: Sequester (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/sequester.htm).


Sequester has a few drawbacks. The biggest is it has a duration limited to 1 day/CL, and it can't be permanenced. So it would have to be recast periodically.

Also, discern location still works. Only mind blank or divine intervention prevents discern location from working.

Another possible weakness is it only stops divinations. A spell like dragoneye rune, which has a "locate object" kind of feature, is not a divination spell, and could probably be used to find a marked object/creature.

BunnyMaster42
2010-11-26, 10:16 PM
Sequester has a few drawbacks. The biggest is it has a duration limited to 1 day/CL, and it can't be permanenced. So it would have to be recast periodically.

Also, discern location still works. Only mind blank or divine intervention prevents discern location from working.

Another possible weakness is it only stops divinations. A spell like dragoneye rune, which has a "locate object" kind of feature, is not a divination spell, and could probably be used to find a marked object/creature.

Well, submerging the subject in quintessence would solve the duration problem if I'm not mistaken.

As for discern location, maybe you could cast mindblank on the subject before sequestering them. I'm not really sure about the other ways of locating an object, by RAW you're right about them not being stopped by sequester, but I guess it depends on what the DM feels like going with.

Back to the matter of the prison, this little exchange has given me an idea. What would happen if you were to use trap the soul to imprison a target, and then you PAO the gem into a small animal of some sort, like a fruit fly? Would the soul still be trapped inside the fly as if it was the gem? If so, then you could mind blank it, sequester it, dunk it in quintessence, and whatever else you feel like doing. I'm really not sure if it would be an improvement or if it would just be a needless complecation but it would certainly be different.

Tvtyrant
2010-11-26, 11:20 PM
I think it would be easiest to cast Imprisonment on the person, then build a fortress over the top that acts as a permanent anti-magic field. They would have to destroy the fortress to cast freedom, and they cannot be freed otherwise (not even by Wish or Miracle). You could take the prisoners to the positive energy plane and cast the spell, so invaders will die within a few hours of getting on the plane, much less attacking the fortress. Then use Warforged and constructs to guard the castle and you win.

mikeejimbo
2010-11-26, 11:42 PM
I think the easiest thing to do would be to destroy the prisoners' souls and bodies.

After all, you cannot injure or kill them any longer, nor can any information be exchanged.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-11-27, 12:03 AM
I think the easiest thing to do would be to destroy the prisoners' souls and bodies.

After all, you cannot injure or kill them any longer, nor can any information be exchanged.

The only problem with that, is that it's not imprisonment, it's utter destruction. BoVD lists destruction of the soul as one of the vilest of actions; and, using all of the sources I have as reference and precedence, I think it leaves the character's mind as a vestige outside reality.

Hanuman
2010-11-27, 12:08 AM
How far does the "prevent prisoners from being killed" thing go? If I were the prison-people, I'd beat prisoners down to 1 HP, deny them sleep and stack on loads of status effects(blind, deaf, slowed, sickened, etc.) so that even if they are rescued, they're 100% dead weight for the rescuers.
I think that would be far too cruel somehow, and it would require a system to maintain the effects if not people, and people or constructs being able to walk around freely in the prison sounds too easy.
What about an effect on the last level of the prison that causes global stat drain? If the prisoners are statues they don't need to be constantly drained as they recover nothing.

Bringing that up actually, there needs to be a facility or something, some system in place for transferring prisoners from the PTV to the Final Destination (FD).

The route from the PTV to FD is probably the only way the players will figure it out but because the PTV travels manually (cooler that way?) through everything there has to be some sort of automated system or driver, and then once the prisoners are out of the PTV they need to be processed, put back in, transferred to FD and processed again.

These are major things to figure out.


I say homebrew a bit and totally play the matrix theme up. That sounds like an interesting off the wall adventure (just make sure your players like that sort of thing.)

Make it so that there's one level none of them are aware of is that its a dream state. They are actually in stasis. Give them lots of npcs to fight and interact with, each one giving subtle hints. As soon as they start to figure out they can roll once a round to "wake up" from stasis. Make it a high will or con check depending on the character (no fun for the melee to be left behind while the casters easily make it).

Then make the real life area, guarded by empty warforged. Machines basically. And take it from there. Obviously most areas would have anti magic just outside the stasis pods, so no teleporting or anything. Plus they'd have no items.

Make some sort of con check or be weakened in some way from when they are first "unhooked" from the stasis pod. Give them some kind of sickness if they fail. Like -5 on all rolls until they pass a check.
I'm thinking something like tranquility lane from fallout 3 =]

Some sort of eerie really familiar place to the players.


I'd like to point out a nice little spell that always seems to go unnoticed: Sequester (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/sequester.htm).

I think this is going to be the best choice for PTV transport, flesh to stone then sequester.


I keep trying to theory craft..
but for some reason all I can think of is Impel Down from One Piece

As for something more constructive, I'm reminded of the prison in the anime Outlaw Star. Perhaps you have your prison on a plane were gravity is to an extreme, this will make any normal person automatically go to heavy load of more. Encumbered is annoying, yet effective.. especially when trying to escape. :p

Just my thought.
I'm on episode 239, I'll take a look.

I do like the clever usages of gravity, I'm sure if we end up making a couple dozen planes that at least 1/4 of them will have some sort of inventive gravity usage.


While sadly, there are no rules as far as I see for making a repeating trap of this (which would have made it easier and cheaper), there's a wonderful invocation from Dragon Magic: Baleful Geas. No save, the creature (who's HD can't be higher than class level) must perform some action or refrain from some action (say, trying to escape). In addition, 24 hours after the invocation is used on the, they take 1d4 str damage, repeating every 24 hours until their str is 0. And its an invocation, so it can be spammed. Not perfect (mind effecting, language dependent, has a HD limit, dragonfire adept only) but for those it can effect, it's a good extra layer to throw on top with some frequency. toss it on before flesh to stone with the command to make every effort to remain incarcerated, and they're going to be unhappy even if they do get freed(presuming the invocation stays on them). If they don't recognize what it is on them, and they keep trying to heal the ability damage, it never stops, as well. And they get killed slowly if they don't try to put themselves back in jail. Better hope they've got a high level caster to wish it off. More fun when maximized.
Is there any way to dispel the trap? Would it need a wish or miracle spell?

On a related note, should divine magic be blocked within the prison walls?
"Your Gods can't hear you now."


Here's my bid for the "matrix" prison. First you craft an item that produces a permanent metaconcert. This gives you a mindless mental entity with no body that's locked within 20ft of the object. You then manifest microcosm on the mental entity. Manifest sense link so that you can see inside the microcosm. Direct the entity in the creation of its imaginary world. You now have a matrix into which you will be sending your first few prisoners minds.

Now then, you craft a pod that produces 5 permanent sense links targeted on the metaconcert entity, as well producing a fuse flesh effect and a permanent sustenance, and connecting the imprisoned to the metaconcert. You stuff prisoners into this pod.

Once you find you need to expand your Matrix because you've imprisoned 9 beings, you create another such setup and craft an item of permanent mindlink to start stringing the matrices together.

You only need permanent mindlink to string the matrices (metaconcerts) together because they can simply communicate between themselves what's going on in their worlds, allowing them to work in concert (no pun intended) to create a single, continuous world.

This has the fun side affect of producing for the care-taker/guard a near infinite source of pp as long as they have at least a handful of psionic manifesters.

PEACH
I do like this idea, but I think it should be a trap for anyone who's there who's not supposed to be, and that the PP should power automated psionic defenses or help power the prison's other needs and barriers in surplus.


The only problem with that, is that it's not imprisonment, it's utter destruction. BoVD lists destruction of the soul as one of the vilest of actions; and, using all of the sources I have as reference and precedence, I think it leaves the character's mind as a vestige outside reality.
Yup, this is a prison, not a soul incinerator.

Thiyr
2010-11-27, 12:18 AM
As far as my suggestion goes, Baleful Geas works as per Geas/Quest does, aside from a few noted changes (namely the HD limit and the str damage). So it gets removed with a wish, miracle, limited wish, or remove curse if it has a caster level 2 higher than the caster level of the Geas, but that's it.

Hanuman
2010-11-27, 12:52 AM
As far as my suggestion goes, Baleful Geas works as per Geas/Quest does, aside from a few noted changes (namely the HD limit and the str damage). So it gets removed with a wish, miracle, limited wish, or remove curse if it has a caster level 2 higher than the caster level of the Geas, but that's it.
Hm, thats tricky. Perhaps they'll have to bring a ring of wishes for each party member. just in case.

FelixG
2010-11-27, 06:25 AM
Here is one
1) You flesh to stone the prisoner
2) Cast Trap the Soul onto a gem
3) Give the gem a contingency that if it is activated it teleports to a second holding area
4) Stone shape their statue and place the Gem somewhere non vital in the statue.
5) Break the statue into SIX parts (head, torso, arm, arm, leg, leg)
6) Get raw stone and Fabricate it into a statue of the person, missing appropriate body part.
7) Use Mending to attach the body parts to the false statues
8) Place statues in said containers of anti magic/force/what have you goodness

9) VICTORY!

Necroticplague
2010-11-27, 08:50 AM
On the subject of planar traits: I would recommend Heavy Gravity, Timeless, Self Contained, Static,Strongly Negative-Dominant, Strongly Lawful Good aligned, Dead Magic, Dead Psionic.

Give each cell a spell clock that casts death ward on the prisoner(s), and make the clock out of the heaviest thing you can think of. In order to cut cost, staff the place with undead so you can save on spell clocks. If you use mindless undead, you don't have to worry about taking bribes or getting distracted, seeing how their not smart enough to do so. Since very few prisoners are going to be lawful good, they will take a penalty on even thinking very hard. If the clocks are sufficiently heavy, then the static trait combines to make them impossible to move. Now they can't leave, or they'll end up turning into a wraith.
For bonus points, re-hire the wraiths as wardens, or force them to do so using necromancy.

Hanuman
2010-11-27, 09:16 AM
Here is one
1) You flesh to stone the prisoner
2) Cast Trap the Soul onto a gem
3) Give the gem a contingency that if it is activated it teleports to a second holding area
4) Stone shape their statue and place the Gem somewhere non vital in the statue.
5) Break the statue into SIX parts (head, torso, arm, arm, leg, leg)
6) Get raw stone and Fabricate it into a statue of the person, missing appropriate body part.
7) Use Mending to attach the body parts to the false statues
8) Place statues in said containers of anti magic/force/what have you goodness

9) VICTORY!
I think that the pieces will be separated and not bound together via mending when they are in FD, but instead suspended within force.

I've also decided that there will be 10 sections of the body, each will be the real person's parts:
Head
Neck
Upper Torso
Lower Torso
Upper Pelvis
Lower Pelvis
Arm/Arm
Leg/Leg

There will be 7 gems adorning all pieces except for the legs and arms, they will be centered on the central chakra points, one real soul gem and 6 fake ones.

Each of the gems is a different color and is also trapped with a different type energy subtype:
Fire/Cold/Electric/Acid/Positive/Negative/Light

Each of the gems traps will also detonate the piece it was attached to, not harming the gem that cast it and because of the force, not the other pieces or gems.

------------

The PTV will be a fairly rectangular vehicle with no treads, gargantuan in size and only having 4 strange gems on it on each of the length sizes, it hovers off the ground when not active and can fly at a speed of 90' (Poor), accelerates slowly.

The body is made of adamantium, the front side has a massive thick circle with various square jigs and jags variating from the circle which functions as the PTV's key, this opens any of the doors located on the prison surface of P1.

The PTV unlocks a door in this way:

First, the PTV flies directly over the center of the massively wide tunnel which leads to the prison, then faces straight down and descends, the gems then activate and start shining a specific light which triggers the prison face into active mode, which slows it in a matter of 100 rounds to a stop.

The PTV gets to the desired level, and then turns towards a door already perfectly lined up with it from the center of the tunnel.

The PTV then flies gently straight towards a door, the key matches up perfectly, and then the gems activate a super charged telekenetic burst which hammers the PTV forewards, pressing the key into place as it takes tremendous strength to be able to activate the tumblers to begin with.

When the hammering goes forewards the PTV is completely integrated into the doorway and is considered "docked", there is no gap between the PTV and the doorway.

In docked mode the magical seal on the door fades from just the front, and the PTV then activates it's second stage.

The second stage of the PTV is called PTV2, which is a Huge sized inner-vessel that has a fly speed of 420' poor and carries almost all of the abilities to get past all the various defenses of the prison.

The PTV then shifts its charge to the PTV2 and casts a variety of spells on it, including a modified Ironguard that work reverse to the spell. Instead of allowing a single creature to go through metal, this allows any huge object including objects inside of it to pass through metal, but because the PTV2 has various magical shieldings any non-object material would be instantly squished in between the shield and the metal door unless Ironguard was cast on them.

The PTV2 once passed through the door takes off at full speed and does not slow down until it reaches FD, it passes through all the magical barriers with a combination of complex timing, harmonistic and wave-canceling homebrew jargon, and let's say coffee, somehow.

Thoughts? Improvements?

Dragon Elite
2010-11-27, 10:37 AM
You forgot to have the only way to get in be one of 50,000 teleportation circles. All of them but one lead to, say, the Abyss. But otherwise, this is amazing. Keep up the good work!

TheGeckoKing
2010-11-27, 10:55 AM
Since it seems your going all out with this, how about a Genesis'd
plane for each and every prisoner, the cell on one end and the only Gate out on the other side, with the Heavy Gravity, the Erratic Time (6 seconds/1 round in the demiplane = 1 day at home) and the Major Negative-Dominant Traits, meaning the longer you stay on the plane, the less chance anyone you know will be still alive, and if you leave your specially protected cell, you gotta make a DC25 Fort save or get closer to becoming one of the Wraiths who guard the plane.

Oh, and if your feeling outright malevolent, add the Dead Magic trait for good measure, so the only way in is the specially created Gate that is guarded by various Constructs with Wands of Zone of Truth.

Asheram
2010-11-27, 10:56 AM
Ravenloft : The Demiplane of dread.

Sure, all of the prisoners had their own little playground...but they could not leave and usually had some very particular limitations keeping them in check.

Even had Vecna as a resident for a while.

Custom plane with morphic traits dependant on the Domain Lord.

I did wonder when someone would mention this.

Redshirt Army
2010-11-27, 01:24 PM
Beat all the prisoners down to negative health with vile damage. Have the prison made out of riverine. Use flesh to ice on the prisoners. Use shrink item. Immerse prisoner statues in quintessence. Have the jail have a constant anti-magic field on. Surround jail with high temperature rooms, have the entrance be sealed with a wall of ice (energy substitution fire).

FlyMolo
2010-11-27, 02:53 PM
Beat all the prisoners down to negative health with vile damage. Have the prison made out of riverine. Use flesh to ice on the prisoners. Use shrink item. Immerse prisoner statues in quintessence. Have the jail have a constant anti-magic field on. Surround jail with high temperature rooms, have the entrance be sealed with a wall of ice (energy substitution fire).

So when they touch it it burns them, but cone of cold strengthens it. A clever trick.

Thiyr
2010-11-27, 03:02 PM
Ooo, that just reminded me of another one. Brown mold, found at the bottom of here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/dungeons.htm). Not only should the rooms be coated in it (being too close means you're taking 3d6 nonlethal cold damage a round), toss antimagic on the areas it's in use to deal with the more common means of resisting it, and set up a trap such that when the door is opened improperly, a small amount is dropped into, say, a furnace. or a lava pit. Now, so long as fire is within 5 feet it doubles in size, due to the heat. So something like lava would do something similar, I'd argue, but faster. For an extended duration. So much mold, so little space, so I guess it'll spread upwards, trapping you with a mold-based deathtrap. No risk of killing, but being persistently unconscious due to having the heat drained out of you has got to be painful.

AslanCross
2010-11-27, 06:19 PM
If you're taking suggestions for guards, Spellwarped Voidmind Trolls (or if you want to be even nastier, Voidmind WAR TROLLS). They're highly resistant to magic, are immune to one of their weaknesses (acid; Voidmind War Trolls would be pretty much resistant to everything, as only acid deals them normal damage and now they're immune to it) and have a laundry list of immunities (most notably, mind affecting, acid, ability damage, ability drain, and energy drain) and the ritual they undergo puts in a built-in alarm system that alerts their hosts (a cabal of three illithids).

The illithids can manifest their psionics through the Voidmind creatures, as well as dominate them at will from a distance of up to five miles.

Bonus: They get a tentacle attack with improved grab that is not penalized on its grapple check and attack rolls even if the creature is otherwise fighting. Normally they'd be penalized -20 on their grapple checks.

Hanuman
2010-11-27, 09:03 PM
Hm, good suggestions everyone.

I think that a few things should happen:
A) FD for the majority will be relatively non-hostile, as in it has constant global stat drain to living creatures and has between 0 and -1 atmospheres of pressure.
By non-hostile I mean once negated you'll be able to stroll around comfortably until you set off "the alarm".

B) I do like the ice trick, it will def. be implemented somewhere.

C) I like the mold idea and I'll make sure to add various molds including black mold and brown mold all over the place, perhaps in a plane which serves as a magical residue trap for all the magical pollution the prison must spit off.

D) A large tribe of trolls sound nice, I think in the many planes there will be sentient monsters trapped there with a constant baleful geas to destroy all creatures of a different race, this both makes the race defend their pocket "zoo cage" plane and if the players stay too long they get cursed and will probably get geas'd to destroy each other.

Dr.Epic
2010-11-27, 09:05 PM
Make sure the thing does fall victim to Stone Shape or a Rust spell. Either make sure the thing is magic proof, or is made out of some hard substance I imagine.

Hanuman
2010-11-27, 09:06 PM
Make sure the thing does fall victim to Stone Shape or a Rust spell. Either make sure the thing is magic proof, or is made out of some hard substance I imagine.
Is adamantium ferrous? :smalleek:

AslanCross
2010-11-27, 10:12 PM
Is adamantium ferrous? :smalleek:

I think in older editions, the fluff of Adamantine was that it was an alloy of its ore, iron, and other metals. That's not RAW in 3.5, though.

By RAW, the Rust Monster only affects steel or iron, and so does the rust ray spell in SC (iron and iron alloys only).

Hanuman
2010-11-27, 10:29 PM
Then I think it's safe as it's neither stone nor ferrous?
Perhaps the outside also casts a ring of antimagic so you'd need to be within touch range to use magic within 100', and it can cast telekinesis as an immediate action (once from each crystal) 4 times as a 20th level caster before the start of it's next turn every round?

And how bout a concussion force shield which absorbs kinetic energy?


I'm making a new thread to continue discussion purely on the PTV as it's an adventure in itself.

Dr.Epic
2010-11-28, 02:44 AM
By RAW, the Rust Monster only affects steel or iron, and so does the rust ray spell in SC (iron and iron alloys only).

An entire dungeon made out of mithril? Sounds epic!

AdamSmasher
2010-11-28, 04:15 AM
If you want the jail to be a specific location, I vote the Trap The Soul + Shrink Item + Quintessence method.

Put them in a tiny jar made invisible and enchanted with nondetection spells and the like.

Surround it in walls of force.

Enchant the whole thing with a Repeating Plane Shift trap that goes off every round and ports the whole thing to a random place in a new plane. Get the Enduring metamagic on all the enchantments so they come back 1d4 rounds after being dispelled.

You could also take that jar and hide it somewhere in a dungeon. NEVER in the last or most well guarded room. Pick a random brick in the dungeon and remove it. Dig five feet back and put the jar in place. Fill the whole back in and replace the brick.

PersonMan
2010-11-28, 05:00 AM
Why put them all in one place? We've already shown absurd amounts of wealth, why not separate the statues into smaller pieces, spread the pieces around, and hide the soul-gems in rooms full of normal gems?

Or, just Imprison each individual gem on the Elemental Plane of Earth at a specific location. A warden for each prisoner(at least as powerful as the prisoner they're "guarding") knows the location and/or has a preset Plane Shift/Teleport to get to the site above the gem.

Necroticplague
2010-11-28, 05:24 AM
On the subject of planar traits: I would recommend Heavy Gravity, Timeless, Self Contained, Static,Strongly Negative-Dominant, Strongly Lawful Good aligned, Dead Magic, Dead Psionic.

Give each cell a spell clock that casts death ward on the prisoner(s), and make the clock out of the heaviest thing you can think of. In order to cut cost, staff the place with undead so you can save on spell clocks. If you use mindless undead, you don't have to worry about taking bribes or getting distracted, seeing how their not smart enough to do so. Since very few prisoners are going to be lawful good, they will take a penalty on even thinking very hard. If the clocks are sufficiently heavy, then the static trait combines to make them impossible to move. Now they can't leave, or they'll end up turning into a wraith.
For bonus points, re-hire the wraiths as wardens, or force them to do so using necromancy.

Actually, you could pretty much replace Negative Aligned with any hostile attribute, and just change the clocks and guards to match. A water aligned plane will use clocks that cast water breathing, with aquatic guards, while fire planes cast energy resistance: Fire and use fire elementals.

Hanuman
2010-11-29, 12:04 AM
Why put them all in one place? We've already shown absurd amounts of wealth, why not separate the statues into smaller pieces, spread the pieces around, and hide the soul-gems in rooms full of normal gems?

Or, just Imprison each individual gem on the Elemental Plane of Earth at a specific location. A warden for each prisoner(at least as powerful as the prisoner they're "guarding") knows the location and/or has a preset Plane Shift/Teleport to get to the site above the gem.
The reason for having the statues less obscure is mostly because it's got a better style. There's something to be said for EXTREME difficulty, but theres another thing to be said for that sweet moment where you reach the golden alter or find the bomb you need to diffuse.