Resisting interrogation

[kjones]

My group has gotten themselves involved in a conflict between two factions. They're considering a plan in which they would deliberately get themselves captured by one side in order to feed them misinformation, and then get "rescued" by their friends.

What are some reasonable precautions interrogators could take and what are some good countermeasures? It seems obvious that if you take prisoners, the first thing you'll do is hit them with a couple of dispels, so even if they had access to something like mind blank, I don't think it would work. If they had some potions of glibness, maybe they could trick their way out of that. Are there any defenses against bluffing, other than a high Sense Motive score?

The party is 4th level, but they have NPC allies up to around 9th level or so, and the interrogators probably cap out around 9th level as well.

[Metahuman1]

This depends on how much monetary resource they have access too and how smart they are both at individual levels and at the command structure level.

[Feralventas]

Zone of Truth.

Spam Intimidation effects combined with torture.

Weapons that deal normal damage while also casting a Cure spell so as to keep the victim alive.

Debuffing will saves and dealing mental ability damage to Intelligence and Charisma so that they aren't aware of what they're saying and won't know to lie while leaving Wisdom intact so that their memories are stable.

Dominate Person, force them to tell the truth.

Greater Dispel Magic, take away abjuration and protection spells.

Disjunction, takes out any magic items they've hidden on themselves.

Mindrape, 9th level spell, book of vile darkness.

Crystal Memory spell, Complete Mage.

Psionics if you don't have Magic/Psionic transparency.



All you have to be is persistent; everyone breaks eventually.

[Metahuman1]

Edit: Had a glitch, sorry folks.

Anyway,

Weapons that just have the merciful property and are doing none lethal damage would work.

[kjones]

I was always under the impression that Intimidate couldn't be used on PCs, for the same reason that Diplomacy couldn't be used on PCs.

[Feralventas]

Just because your players have seen it all doesn't mean their character has. PF treats a failed sense mot against an intimidate check as a morale penalty, shaken. Stack it several times and they start taking penalties to Constitution and will saves to not give in; if they keep at it, npc's group could force a pair of saves every hour with a cumulative penalty until the pc cracks.

[Circle of Life]

Book of Vile Darkness has a few rules and equipment options for torture. Might be worth looking into.

[Campbellk8105]

I've had the same issue. In the real world there are people that no matter how bad you may beat, torture, or do what ever to try and get information out of someone. The person would not give in and say a word.

I know it becomes more difficult for game mechanics wise but, personally, it's happened to me in a game before that my character was basically a knight, but without the stupid class, and there is no way a knight would give up information on who they are protecting. The DM did finally allowed the whole "no matter what you do to me, I will not tell you what you want."

But, in the end, I succumbed to tell them what they wanted as they proceeded to bring in magic users casting suggestion, dominate monster, etc.

[Slipperychicken]

Ring or Helm of Detect Thoughts (27,000gp?, SRD). Don't let the target know you have it. After the round of Dispels, spam it until target fails a save. After that, play the "don't think about elephants" game till he thinks the information you want.

Divinations to check if info is legit.

Waterboarding. I hear the guys literally trained to resist the procedure last seconds.

[Jeff the Green]

Well, Intimidate (and thus torture) is a fear effect, so Paladins would be immune. Likewise Paladins of Freedom are immune to compulsion, which is probably even more useful.

[Ingus]

I suggest you to play it roleplaying wise.

Make them clear to prepare their version and let them discuss in role the route to take and the lies to tell.

As a premise, imagine a dispel, chain, interrogation routine by some "general purpose torturer" and a vanilla interrogation. Your players will probably spill the fake informations by this time (Bluff involved, maybe).

At this time, let "the chief inquisitor" in. Describe him as an annoyed, clumsy person if you want to take your players off guard. Then, interrogate them in roleplaying one at the time, possibly bringing them in another room.
Now, prepare yourself roleplaying wise to let them offguard, asking questions they already answered looking bored and, after few question, start to ask here and there something they've never answered before. Then confront the versions and, if something is different, repeat the interrogation.

If you want to be fair, prepare yourself before your players start to plan out their version (so you don't know what they have left unclear).
For the question, start from the obvious (who are you, what bring you here, who bring you here, who are your companions, what's the plan) and then follow their lie for a while. Since a fake, prepared story is distinguishable by the lack of secondary elements, your interrogator would ask minor details to check if they match. Do it faking lack of interest.

As a RL suggestion, try to keep separated the already interrogated players from the others (this may require 3 rooms) or kindly ask them to not talk about the interrogation.

At the end, evaluate the result: if there is some difference between the versions, start a second round of interrogations, and this time be brutal. Threatening not them, but their companions has always a good grasp on good adventurers, so use it :smallwink:
If your players are good enough, they are allowed a bluff check with the modifier of the face: low result = they are believed, but the enemy thinks they may don't know the plan of their leaders; medium = they're believed, but the enemy consider other options as well; high = they're absolute right, must take serious countermesures.

In any case, take into consideration that even the success of this plan has as consequence the imprisonment of the PCs. So, in both cases, they have to be rescued by the allies.

[SpaceBadger]

Had this problem once long ago, PC was captured and being tortured for info, but the player wouldn't go along with it at all, just refused to talk. I got tired quickly of trying to describe new tortures - so his PC was losing a few toenails or fingernails, that didn't bother the player at all.

I finally dropped it and had the bad guys just throw him in a dungeon cell so he could work his Thief-ly ways and get loose to continue the adventure, but it kinda irritated me that he just refused to cooperate.

I think if I had that situation again there would be some intimidation checks, maybe Fort or Will saves depending on the interrogation, and then if he fails tell him that he needs to say something. I'd still leave it to the player to decide what his character says, whether he tries to lie or tell half-truths or whatever, but unless the PC actually has some stats to back up the iron willpower of the player, pure silence isn't gonna be acceptable.

[kjones]

Thank you for the good advice, everyone. Ingus, your suggestions in particular are excellent, I'll definitely incorporate some of those.

The new plan stands as follows - The party knows that right off the bat, they're probably going to be "sorted" by alignment (detected magically). The good characters will put up a fight, while the neutral characters will be throwing off "um, not with those guys" vibes throughout. Add in a few potions of glibness, and hopefully the neutral characters will be able to convince the enemy that they're genuine turncoats.

The neutral characters will willingly feed false information that will confirm the stuff the good characters will reveal after torture. Then, either the good characters will attempt an escape, or their friends will stage a raid, allowing a "rescue".

[Psyren]

Ebon Saints are fantastic interrogators. All they have to do is sneak attack with a sap every 3 rounds and they can eventually learn everything their target knows - no save, no SR, no mind blank.

[Zergrusheddie]

Well, there are a few ways to look at this. The first is the way is was done, the way it is done, and the way it would be done.

It was done with torture mostly. You would do incredibly inhumane things to them for hours on end to the point where their mental status was more or less shattered and they were willing to tell you anything.

It is done with a couple of tactics, mostly sociological and psychological. You get them to like you and you help them out. It can also be done by sweetening the pot, so to speak. "Tell us what we want to know and if the information is useful, we will take care of your family."

It would be done with magic. It exists, so it would be done. Zone of Truth, a couple of dispels, and a really good sense motive check. There is a spell in some book that is similar to Zone of Truth but it only shows when someone is lying rather than stopping them from lying. With that spell, it is easy as pie:

Detective: "Is your name Marcus?"
Marcus: "Yes." (Green light)
Detective: "Are you a 7 foot tall hippopotamus?"
Marcus: "Yes." (Red light)