Help me hide someone from magic

[Milodiah]

So, organized crime has snatched the daughter of a very rich man. They're not stupid, they know the first thing that will be tried is that a whole room of powerful divination wizards will be put on the case. They also know their magicians will eventually lose anything that takes opposed checks or can be brute-forced.

So, what's the best way for these guys to shut down magical detection of this person? They've stolen an Amulet of Protection against Scrying and Nondetection, or whatever the actual name is, and have roughly at their disposal the capabilities of a 12th level wizard at max. They also don't need it to last for weeks, one at most should do.

[Lurkmoar]

A previously set up room with lead lined walls, floor and roof?

If the other side has access to Contact Other Plane or the like... good luck.

[Curmudgeon]

The best way for a creature not be detectable is to no longer have that exact creature exist. Baleful Polymorph the kidnapped princess into a cute bunny rabbit. Then put her in a nice lead-lined room.

[Hiro Quester]

Cast Mind Blank on them.

Protects against knowing their thoughts, and against knowing location by scrying etc. Even a wish or miracle won't find them.

Edit: 12 level wiz can't cast that. I guess they would need to buy a scroll.

[jiriku]

Infest her with a ghostly visage so she can't be scried. Put her in suspended animation and store her in a box. Arrange through the criminal underworld, to anonymously hire a handler for the box, in such a manner that you do not learn the identity of the handler whom you have hired. Pay the handler a large sum of money to place the box in the hands of a second unknown party with instructions to warehouse the box in a location that will be unknown to you and the handler as well.

Now the princess is immune to divination, and her kidnappers do not know where she is, nor who holds her. The princess herself, being in suspended animation, does not know where she is or who has been involved in her transport. Moreover, those who currently hold her do not know that they do (and as they are merely storing a crate in a warehouse, could not properly be said to have kidnapped her nor to be holding her against her will), and and those who kidnapped her are entirely unknown to those who hold her. The players are unlikely to even stumble by luck across a question that could be answered with anything other than "unknown" by their divinations. If this setup seems too elaborate for the short timescale involved, you can always scale it down and simplify it. The key elements are that anyone whom the players are likely to target with divinations is either a) immune to divination or b) ignorant of the details that the players would want to know.

A much simpler version of this is "pay a high-level wizard to hold her". Your typical security-conscious high-level wizard could be assumed to already have warded himself and his homestead against divination, so the sort of divination protection you're looking for is built right in to his everyday operations.

[Baroknik]

Overkill solution:
Make her Vecna-blooded

[Douglas]

Sequester (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/sequester.htm) should do the job, and can be done with either a 13th level wizard (just one level above your stated max) or a single scroll. One casting at minimum caster level will cover almost two weeks. No checks, no exceptions, no conditions, no loopholes, just straight up the Divination school of magic is not capable of finding or detecting the target for a minimum of 13 days. PCs don't normally use it because it also takes the target out of action for the duration, but in this case that might actually be beneficial.

This won't block Discern Location, because that spell quite explicitly overrides all protections short of Mind Blank. If the diviners have access to Discern Location, then you pretty much have to have Mind Blank somehow to beat it.

[Zweisteine]

Antimagic field could do the job nicely, I would think.

Or antimagic manacles (BoED), but be careful about those falling into adventurer hands; they're probably very extensive. On the other hand, they make fighting in front of her to save her much more feasible.

[Seclora]

Sequester (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/sequester.htm) should do the job, and can be done with either a 13th level wizard (just one level above your stated max) or a single scroll. One casting at minimum caster level will cover almost two weeks. No checks, no exceptions, no conditions, no loopholes, just straight up the Divination school of magic is not capable of finding or detecting the target for a minimum of 13 days. PCs don't normally use it because it also takes the target out of action for the duration, but in this case that might actually be beneficial.

This won't block Discern Location, because that spell quite explicitly overrides all protections short of Mind Blank. If the diviners have access to Discern Location, then you pretty much have to have Mind Blank somehow to beat it.

Discern Location is definitely a problem, but depending on how you read Sequester there's also the chance that what's-her-butt passes her Will save against the sequester, and given that she is the daughter of a wealthy and influential man it's likely she has training to that end, or the Aristocrat NPC class's good Will save even.

Luckily, I know, and love, a spell that will stop both and synergizes nicely with Sequester.
Flesh-to-Stone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fleshToStone.htm)
By exploiting her, likely weaker, Fort save you spare yourself the trouble of needing to beat her Will at all, keep your minions from causing irreparable emotional harm, or engaging in ungentlemanly conduct. You also negate Discern Location (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/discernLocation.htm) by altering the parameters of the search. They are looking for a person, who they have some possession of or may even have seen, and that person does not exist, as such. Now that she is an object, they would need to have touched her, which unless your minions are casting the spell, they cannot possibly have done.

Obviously, you then kill the minions to close the loop.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I rather think that any stage of 'kill the minions' means that you should have been using skeletons or voidmind thralls or golems, not actual sentient minions. But yes, close the loop by all means.

You could use Mass Time Hop to jump 1h/ml forwards in time. You can jump in stretches of, say, 12 hours, and check each time whether it's time to do whatever you were going to do with the hostage yet.

[Seclora]

I rather think that any stage of 'kill the minions' means that you should have been using skeletons or voidmind thralls or golems, not actual sentient minions. But yes, close the loop by all means.

You could use Mass Time Hop to jump 1h/ml forwards in time. You can jump in stretches of, say, 12 hours, and check each time whether it's time to do whatever you were going to do with the hostage yet.

Well of course I use Sentient minions, they get stronger without an investment of resources on my part and make the stupid mistakes needed to ensure the heroes beat me before I get stuck ruling the whole world.

Have you seen the world? It's huge! I don't have time to rule all of that, even if I persisted Time Stop, somehow, shenanigans most likely, maybe some sort of Death Clock...

[Douglas]

Discern Location is definitely a problem, but depending on how you read Sequester there's also the chance that what's-her-butt passes her Will save against the sequester, and given that she is the daughter of a wealthy and influential man it's likely she has training to that end, or the Aristocrat NPC class's good Will save even.
No, Sequester is quite explicit that the save is only for attended or magical objects. For a creature, there is no save but the creature must be willing - which is trivially satisfied as far as magic is concerned by knocking her unconscious.

[atemu1234]

Overkill solution:
Make her Vecna-blooded

So the simplest option is to dunk her in the blood of the God of secrets.

[Seclora]

No, Sequester is quite explicit that the save is only for attended or magical objects. For a creature, there is no save but the creature must be willing - which is trivially satisfied as far as magic is concerned by knocking her unconscious.

For the life of me, I have never been able to find the part in the 3.5 rules where it says an unconscious target is considered willing. I'd certainly appreciate a page number so I can have a look.

I can see being tricky about it, contingency Sequester on a target who lifts object X or steps on floor tile Y, and arguing that they were willing to meet the contingency. Unconsciousness, however, seems like an especially poor indication of willingness.

[Douglas]

For the life of me, I have never been able to find the part in the 3.5 rules where it says an unconscious target is considered willing. I'd certainly appreciate a page number so I can have a look.

I can see being tricky about it, contingency Sequester on a target who lifts object X or steps on floor tile Y, and arguing that they were willing to meet the contingency. Unconsciousness, however, seems like an especially poor indication of willingness.
Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#targetorTargets), 3rd paragraph, 3rd sentence.

For a print reference, PHB page 175, "Aiming A Spell" section, "Target or Targets" subsection, 3rd paragraph, 3rd sentence.

In both, the relevant paragraph says (emphasis added):

Some spells restrict you to willing targets only. Declaring yourself as a willing target is something that can be done at any time (even if you’re flat-footed or it isn’t your turn). Unconscious creatures are automatically considered willing, but a character who is conscious but immobile or helpless (such as one who is bound, cowering, grappling, paralyzed, pinned, or stunned) is not automatically willing.

[Seclora]

Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#targetorTargets), 3rd paragraph, 3rd sentence.

For a print reference, PHB page 175, "Aiming A Spell" section, "Target or Targets" subsection, 3rd paragraph, 3rd sentence.

In both, the relevant paragraph says (emphasis added):

Fair enough.

Still feels like bad reasoning, but such are the rules. And knowing that unconsciousness qualifies as willingness for magic only redoubles my desire to turn all my prisoners into statues to prevent my evil minions from doing anything to the prisoners.
We are not vile after all.

Edit: Also resolves the confusion around how I'm going to feed the comatose prisoner.

[Douglas]

It's not "reasoning" of any sort at all. It's not meant to say that unconscious people are in any sense actually willing. It's more, this type of spell allows the target to decide whether it works or not. Someone who is unconscious is not capable of making such a decision, so there has to be a default in such cases. The rule is saying that the default is to let the spell work.

I think the main reason for the rule is probably to allow retreating via Teleport even when a party member is knocked out.

[Stake A Vamp]

You could just use a maguffin.

These kidnappers have no doubt been planning this dastardly deed for a while now, and as such, have had time to think of this. Likely, they found an object in the local mages guild/wizards tower (or other mystical place) that can block divination.

for example, say the local mages guild has had the "shroud of the great Ozymandias (or other suitably Egyptian name)" it is a magical artifact that was created to prevent the tomb of a great king from ever being discovered (they hadn't thought to say, hide the pyramid, but you know, live and learn.) however, a few weeks before the kidnapping, it was stolen. now, the guild has been discretely investigation, but tracking down an anti-divination artifact is a major pain, so they've gotten nowhere.

now, after the first few divinations fizzle, have some NPC suggest (or foreshadow this Maguffin heavily enough that the players put it together) that no doubt those who stole the shroud did so in preparation for this crime, and that clearly this will only be solved by good, honest detective work.

afterward, either let them keep the shroud, or have the guild thank them profusely for recovering the shroud, and maybe have them offer them some less priceless artifacts as a thanks.

[Seclora]

Which is all well and good when working with your allies, but clearly can be manipulated for more nefarious purposes. It just seems like there's a flaw here that should have been given a little more attention at the design stage. Maybe something to the effect that an unconscious ally is treated as willing. It adds one more level of complexity to kidnapping via teleport, sure, but it also stops a whole lot of the mindrape and dominate shenanigans. Especially since its clear that many targets would not be willing if they were conscious.

It just seems like that's a dangerous thing to consider the default state.

[Milodiah]

I think the thing is that according to the mechanics, making a Will save is a conscious act when dealing with magic, just like making a Reflex save is when dealing with a trap. If the target is unconscious and therefore cannot make the conscious decision to try resisting, they cannot make a Will save, just like how someone unconscious couldn't exactly make the Reflex save to dodge a boulder.