Prison Break

[Doughnut Master]

Hi all,

Looking for some ideas/inspiration to challenge my players for an upcoming quest.

Setting: Medieval WWI. Rather than strictly organized by race, the continent has developed several large nation states and war has broken out. The world itself is somewhat low magic, in that it exists and people know about it, but individuals with magical talent are rare. Likewise, magical items are also uncommon, but things like potions and alchemical items are readily available.

The Party: 4 level 2 PCs (might be level 3 by the time this rolls around). A battle sorcerer, 2 rangers, and a fighter. In addition 2 npc allies, a warrior bugbear and a level 4 cleric/warlock (however, the warlock doesn't kill people).

Their mission is to bust into a POW camp, rescue the prisoners inside, and bring them back to friendly lines.

The party has access to a few mass lockdown options and they reliably put out enough damage to drop l1 and l2 npcs, so I'm thinking that just having a lot of guards won't be effective, nor very fun. So I welcome ideas for challenges, details, and twists to make things a little more dynamic.

Thoughts? Questions? Diatribes?

[Flickerdart]

Guard monsters are very effective - perhaps the prisoners are kept inside a cavern, and the cavern's only entrance is blocked by a super-strong monster (whose tamers can come and go as they please). The PCs need to lure the monster out of its vantage point so that the prisoners can escape.

The real question is - why is the a PoW camp in the middle ages? The attitude towards captives was "kill the peasants, ransom or hold hostage the nobles ."

[Socratov]

please remember: if the warlock has baleful uttereance then he can open just about any lock...

[BowStreetRunner]

Start with the basic design of the camp itself. (Note that many of these defenses are not specifically designed to stop the NPCs, but rather are there to ward off large-scale attack as well as keep the prisoners inside.) A simple earthen berm with wooden palisade on top is sufficient for a POW camp, as most such structures have to be constructed hastily and are somewhat temporary. On the outside put a ditch filled with wooden spikes. Towers atop the wall will each have a pair of crossbow archers at all times, with four more off-duty in a guardhouse below waiting to join them if an alarm is sounded. Guard patrols also involve guards in pairs with twice as many additional guards in a barracks ready to respond to an alarm. Each guard patrol also has a canine of some kind with the scent ability. The prisoners are divided between several prison barracks fenced off from the rest of the compound. There are also some sort of holding cells for trouble-makers, each with room for an individual prisoner. In addition to the guard barracks there will be a structure for the officers/warden.

Locate the POW camp within a short distance from a military encampment currently housing some higher-level enemy units. Make it clear that some of the guards have horns to sound in case of trouble and there is also a signal tower where a signal fire can be lit. While the military encampment may not send out reinforcements every time the POW camp sounds an alarm, they will definitely respond if the signal fire is lit. This puts a bit of pressure on the party to not just bust in and hack and slash their way through the guards. They need to make sure the signal tower doesn't send up a warning.

Put a pair of enemy troops being punished inside the solitary-confinement cells. These are loyal enemy troops who are confined awaiting judgement for some offense or other. If freed along with the prisoners they will look for an opportunity to assist the guards and thwart the prison break attempt.

Make it so some of the prisoners have been digging their own escape tunnel beneath the prisoner barracks. If things get hairy, they have managed to dig the tunnel out to a nearby copse of trees, and the tunnel can be used as an alternative escape route. The prisoners have not used it so far however because they were waiting for their leader to be released from solitary confinement before escaping together and the nearby military unit encamped right next to the trees while they were waiting.

[Doughnut Master]

Thanks for the responses!

Thoughts:
Monsters aren't super common, but perhaps something like a Troll flavored as a big bruiser guy might work. To answer your question FD, the societies themselves are more like 1900s empires but with middle age technology. My reasoning is that even with some low level magic concentrated in the hands of the state, you could develop some impressive logistical and organizational capabilities, though weapons technology may still lag behind. The other reason is because I'm a fan of that time period but didn't want to have to make/adopt a whole bunch of new rules ;).


Warlock does have baleful utterance, so I'm thinking the "breaking in" part is probably not going to be so tough. But splitting up the prisoners is a good idea as well as having the pressure of a full military camp close by as a potential threat.

I was also thinking of extending some of the challenges even if the break is successful. Getting back to friendly lines is a tough task, especially if you're being hunted...