Prison-Building

[theonetruenerd]

As the title kind of implies, for a setting I am making there is a prison which needs to be built. The general idea is that it is extradimensional (a la Civil War comic, etc.), and is virtually impossible to escape from. The prison is designed to hold mostly wizards who are too powerful to just kill (for fear of spells like status clone and contingency etc.), so they need to be permanently incarcerated. It is stocked with wizards, summoned creatures and mundane guards, and has many spells active permanently to help keep the prisoners secure.

Help with either picking which plane to put the prison on for it to be safe from external intrusion or the spells which should "furnish" the prison would be much appreciated. For the sake of this, expensive material components, xp cost, spell level and permanency tables can be ignored. However, as the town is comprised of solely wizards and sorcerers for casters, only spells obtainable by wizards and sorcerers are allowed.

Currently I have:

Blindness
Energy Transformative Field
Walls of Stone with Hardening
Walls of Force
Genius Loci
Alarm
Arcane Lock
Sign of Sealing
Dimensional Anchor
Anticipate Teleportation Greater

[TalonOfAnathrax]

Stasis. Seriously, temporal stasis is the only real way to imprison someone. Spells like Imprisonment and Smoky Confinement are nice, Temporal Stasis is better.
Of course then you have to guard the wizard to stop their minions/allies/Geas-ed Outsiders from freeing them, which justifies the existence of the Prison.

[InvisibleBison]

You might want to put your prison on a demiplane with the dead magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#deadMagic) trait. This would stop both the prisoners and any would-be rescuers from using any magic at all.

Alternatively, a somewhat liberal interpretation of the limited magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#limitedMagic) trait would let you set up a plane where only specific people can use magic. Unlike the dead magic trait, limited magic doesn't reference antimagic field, so the few ways of getting around an AMF wouldn't apply.

If you do want to stick with using spells to defend your prison, I'd recommend putting it on a custom demiplane created via the genesis (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/genesis.htm) spell. A forbiddence (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forbiddance.htm) spell (duplicated via wish) will stop anyone from being able to get there at all (except probably via wish's transport travelers clause). I believe there's something called a weirdstone that can block wish as well, but I don't know where to look for the rules about such an item.

Individual prisoners should be subjected to temporal stasis (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/temporalStasis.htm) or imprisonment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/imprisonment.htm).

[BowStreetRunner]

One of the most difficult decisions in this sort of arrangement is how to manage the judicial application of Antimagic Fields. On the one hand, it's a powerful remedy to many of the threats that your prisoners (and anyone trying to break them out) might pose. On the other hand, if your defenses are all magical then it hurts you just as bad.

I'd at least recommend having Antimagic Field as a fallback option, along with powerful non-magical types who aren't limited by the field. On the other end of the spectrum, there's always the antimagic shell option - overlapping Antimagic Fields that form a complete shell around the prison. Magic works inside, magic works outside, but going through the fields is a problem.

[Karl Aegis]

Carceri is an entire plane of prisons within prisons. Just have your demodand warden shout, "No one escapes from Cassandra!" from time to time and you're all set.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Put it in hades. You don't even have to hold them for that long before the plane's natural traits make incarceration moot.

[johnbragg]

Genesis up a nested set of demiplanes such that the prison cell is its own demiplane, nested inside another demiplane. The inner demiplane has the trait that it is highly responsive to the desires of people in the plane, to the extent that it will rearrange itself in the image of what they want, including generating the impression that you have escaped the demiplane.

So basically, when you walk into the cell, you download into a VR where your unconscious mind is God of the setting, allowing you to do whatever you want--as far as you know.

[tiercel]

Flesh to stone.. It’s Instantaneous, so there are no follow-on saving throws, and resulting stone doesn’t even have an ongoing magical aura. The victim explicitly isn’t killed, but also doesn’t register as alive.

Fabricate an exact-as-possible statue duplicate, then stone shape your petrified prisoner into a paving slab. (Also both Instantaneous in duration.) Put statue duplicate atop paving slab in prison cell with whatever godsforsaken other security measures you see fit. Now if someone beats all your other defenses and has beaten your divination defenses and is homing in on the prisoner’s location, when they get there they’ll see Obvious Statue and waste time figuring out This Is Not The Prisoner You Are Looking For (especially if the decoy statue is, say, trapped, or not even a statue but Something Nasty that got a polymorph any object into Prisoner Shape before getting petrified) while your reserve defenders pour in to quash the would be rescuers.

[Mechalich]

In terms of planes, good options include private demiplanes, Carceri, the dead magic region in the Outlands near the Spire (if you have good relations with the Rilmani), or Mechanus (if you have good relations with the Inevitables).

[SangoProduction]

Flesh to stone.. It’s Instantaneous, so there are no follow-on saving throws, and resulting stone doesn’t even have an ongoing magical aura. The victim explicitly isn’t killed, but also doesn’t register as alive.

Fabricate an exact-as-possible statue duplicate, then stone shape your petrified prisoner into a paving slab. (Also both Instantaneous in duration.) Put statue duplicate atop paving slab in prison cell with whatever godsforsaken other security measures you see fit. Now if someone beats all your other defenses and has beaten your divination defenses and is homing in on the prisoner’s location, when they get there they’ll see Obvious Statue and waste time figuring out This Is Not The Prisoner You Are Looking For (especially if the decoy statue is, say, trapped, or not even a statue but Something Nasty that got a polymorph any object into Prisoner Shape before getting petrified) while your reserve defenders pour in to quash the would be rescuers.

Interesting.

[Selene Sparks]

The optimal solution depends on whether or not you care about potentially being able to get them back or not.

If you do want them back at some point, the best way to do this is to Genesis up a plane with a dramatically slowed time, such that one round on this demiplane is a frame of time on the material long enough to be functionally indistinguishable from eternity. You do this so they cannot remove themselves, but if you need them back, you can just cast Wish. This fails to stop an ally from Wishing them out, but absolutely nothing actually does that, so it doesn't matter.

If you don't care about getting them back, your only problem is that killing them could let them come back, there is, fortunately, a solution to permanently remove them that cannot be retrieved by method I'm aware of, but it does require a very logical but, technically speaking, strictly not as-written magic-psionics transparency ruling. First, you must incapacitate your target somehow(Which is a precondition for any capture that's not wish-spamming, so I'm assuming this is an acceptable step for this discussion). Then you plane shift them and a level 5 psion to the astral plane. You then have this psion manifest Time Hop (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timeHop.htm) on the wizard in question. You see, the astral plane has the timeless trait, and one often missed aspect of timeless traits is any spell cast on them that's not instantaneous is considered permanent. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#timeless) Thus, the target is permanently removed from existence. The sole problem is that, as far as I can tell, planar traits strictly aren't subject to transparency, but, in practical terms, it's a rather obvious extension thereof and I've never played at a table where it wasn't the case.

[Mechalich]

If you don't care about getting them back, your only problem is that killing them could let them come back, there is, fortunately, a solution to permanently remove them that cannot be retrieved by method I'm aware of, but it does require a very logical but, technically speaking, strictly not as-written magic-psionics transparency ruling. First, you must incapacitate your target somehow(Which is a precondition for any capture that's not wish-spamming, so I'm assuming this is an acceptable step for this discussion). Then you plane shift them and a level 5 psion to the astral plane. You then have this psion manifest Time Hop (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timeHop.htm) on the wizard in question. You see, the astral plane has the timeless trait, and one often missed aspect of timeless traits is any spell cast on them that's not instantaneous is considered permanent. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#timeless) Thus, the target is permanently removed from existence. The sole problem is that, as far as I can tell, planar traits strictly aren't subject to transparency, but, in practical terms, it's a rather obvious extension thereof and I've never played at a table where it wasn't the case.

The long-winded and pre-3e interpretation of the Astral Plane is not that it is timeless, but that it is functionally outside of the process of time. Ergo, the logical ruling for what happens when you cast time hop on the astral is that nothing occurs whatsoever. You can't send someone forward into time that does not exist.

[tiercel]

Interesting.

Once had a BBEG who used more or less this approach, but basically used the paving stones (made from would-be heroes who tried to stop him) to lead up to his front door, partly because it warmed his dark heart to tread upon his defeated foes underfoot...

...but also because the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

[Selene Sparks]

The long-winded and pre-3e interpretation of the Astral Plane is not that it is timeless, but that it is functionally outside of the process of time. Ergo, the logical ruling for what happens when you cast time hop on the astral is that nothing occurs whatsoever. You can't send someone forward into time that does not exist.
The Astral Plane has the following traits.

Subjective directional gravity.
Timeless. Age, hunger, thirst, poison, and natural healing don’t function in the Astral Plane, though they resume functioning when the traveler leaves the Astral Plane.
Mildly neutral-aligned.
Enhanced magic. All spells and spell-like abilities used within the Astral Plane may be employed as if they were improved by the Quicken Spell feat. Already quickened spells and spell-like abilities are unaffected, as are spells from magic items. Spells so quickened are still prepared and cast at their unmodified level. As with the Quicken Spell feat, only one quickened spell can be cast per round. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#theAstralPlane)Outdated and replaced fluff aside, I cannot see how you can pull that from the text at hand. Unless there's text in a later sourcebook I'm missing, I don't see anything that qualifies that as a "ruling" and not a "houserule." And if you're houseruling to patch the exploit, there are far better ways to do that then arbitrarily changing the explicitly spelled out traits of specific planes, such as dealing with the Timeless trait proper and its ease of exploitation for permanent buffs.

Of course, even if that houserule were in place, you could simply Genesis up a timeless magic plane(which you probably should anyways if you're throwing around Genesis, just to make buffing more convenient) and do it there instead.

[InvisibleBison]

If you don't care about getting them back, your only problem is that killing them could let them come back, there is, fortunately, a solution to permanently remove them that cannot be retrieved by method I'm aware of, but it does require a very logical but, technically speaking, strictly not as-written magic-psionics transparency ruling. First, you must incapacitate your target somehow(Which is a precondition for any capture that's not wish-spamming, so I'm assuming this is an acceptable step for this discussion). Then you plane shift them and a level 5 psion to the astral plane. You then have this psion manifest Time Hop (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timeHop.htm) on the wizard in question. You see, the astral plane has the timeless trait, and one often missed aspect of timeless traits is any spell cast on them that's not instantaneous is considered permanent. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#timeless) Thus, the target is permanently removed from existence. The sole problem is that, as far as I can tell, planar traits strictly aren't subject to transparency, but, in practical terms, it's a rather obvious extension thereof and I've never played at a table where it wasn't the case.

Time hop allows the subject a DC 15 Wisdom check to break free, though. Even if using it on the Astral Plane makes the duration permanent, it's not going to hold for very long.

[mabriss lethe]

Drop your prisoners in a quintessence vat? It's a solution that comes online rather early. Every precaution after that is just to ensure that rescuing your preserved prisoners is as difficult as possible.

Edit to add: also, if you're going to be putting powerful casters in stasis, consider abandoning the idea of giant prisons holding them all in one spot. Instead, scatter the prisoners around. A human sized coffin filled with quintessence (created out of adamantine, or whatever material works best for you.) Could be stashed nearly anywhere on any plane. Now to add to the confusion, don't let anyone know which prisoners is located in which sarcophagus. Or deliberately falsify the records.

Build huge elaborate tombs to imprison the evil necromancer. But leave them empty of anything except traps and monsters. While his lieutenants and henchmen die in droves to breach the tomb and free their master, the real sarcophagus is buried in the foundation of some nameless bureaucratic office under the floor of the privy.

[Karl Aegis]

The Wells of Darkness on the 73rd layer of the Abyss is also a pretty fool-proof prison. Short of Greater Dieties intervening you aren't getting out.

[Selene Sparks]

Time hop allows the subject a DC 15 Wisdom check to break free, though. Even if using it on the Astral Plane makes the duration permanent, it's not going to hold for very long.Hence, my statement regarding incapacitating them first, which I should have made clearer. The most efficient manner is to PoA/Flesh to Stone them into an object so they aren't allowed to make saves. Sillier options include Nar Fiendbond plus Implore plus Minimus Containment to turn them into gems, which you then send away forever, but the principle is the same.

To be clear, you should always turn your prisoners into objects immediately, regardless of what your plan is, so they cannot be wished away, as Wish can only transport creatures, not objects.

[Jack_Simth]

This fails to stop an ally from Wishing them out, but absolutely nothing actually does that, so it doesn't matter.Imprisonment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/imprisonment.htm) explicitly does stop Wish, actually.

For Pathfinder (which this obviously is not, but eh), you:

Create a Demiplane (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/create-demiplane/) (and Permanency it).
Get your prisoners there, and cast Imprisonment (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/imprisonment/) on all your prisoners until it sticks.
Cast Greater Create Demiplane (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/create-demiplane/) to give the place the Dead magic trait.
Have someone use Wish-transport (pre-arranged) from outside the demiplane to retrieve you.

Wish can't get them out (foiled by Imprisonment, which is Instant, and existed prior to the creation of the Dead Magic trait).
Someone could get to the plane via Wish... but in order to save them, you'd need to cast Freedom on a dead magic plane.
I can't think of any ways to do that in Pathfinder (in 3.5 there's the Initiate of Mystra, of course).

Artifacts and deities (read: DM fiat) can of course get around that.
Also: You'll need a new plane for each new set of prisoners. So this is super-expensive.

[tiercel]

Drop your prisoners in a quintessence vat? It's a solution that comes online rather early. Every precaution after that is just to ensure that rescuing your preserved prisoners is as difficult as possible.

Edit to add: also, if you're going to be putting powerful casters in stasis, consider abandoning the idea of giant prisons holding them all in one spot. Instead, scatter the prisoners around. A human sized coffin filled with quintessence (created out of adamantine, or whatever material works best for you.) Could be stashed nearly anywhere on any plane. Now to add to the confusion, don't let anyone know which prisoners is located in which sarcophagus. Or deliberately falsify the records.

Build huge elaborate tombs to imprison the evil necromancer. But leave them empty of anything except traps and monsters. While his lieutenants and henchmen die in droves to breach the tomb and free their master, the real sarcophagus is buried in the foundation of some nameless bureaucratic office under the floor of the privy.

A problem with “security through obscurity” is divinations — unless you have sarcophagi of 100% Total Immunity to All Divination Spells and Divination Spell-Like, Supernatural, or Extraordinary Abilities AND Appeals to Divination Info From Divine Beings, you’ll want some extra security measures.


The Wells of Darkness on the 73rd layer of the Abyss is also a pretty fool-proof prison. Short of Greater Dieties intervening you aren't getting out.

Well..... depends on if you have/play a certain Adventure Path...


Since one of the major plot points of the Savage Tide Adventure Path IS freeing a being from the Wells of Darkness in order to learn what should be, in part, a not-very-surprising secret about Demogorgon.

[Falontani]

A problem with “security through obscurity” is divinations — unless you have sarcophagi of 100% Total Immunity to All Divination Spells and Divination Spell-Like, Supernatural, or Extraordinary Abilities AND Appeals to Divination Info From Divine Beings, you’ll want some extra security measures.
Coat it in lead?

[Jack_Simth]

Coat it in lead?
That stops all the Scrying ones, and most of the short-range "Locate Creature" or "Locate Object" type spells. It does NOT stop Vision, Contact Other Plane, Discern Location, or Commune. Maybe Mind Blank the victim prior to dropping them in Quintessence ... but how that interacts with Contact Other Plane and Commune is pretty regularly debated with neither side being a clear victor.

[tiercel]

That stops all the Scrying ones, and most of the short-range "Locate Creature" or "Locate Object" type spells. It does NOT stop Vision, Contact Other Plane, Discern Location, or Commune. Maybe Mind Blank the victim prior to dropping them in Quintessence ... but how that interacts with Contact Other Plane and Commune is pretty regularly debated with neither side being a clear victor.

Indeed, completely and assuredly stopping all forms of Divination is a real problem, much less digging through every possible non-Core spell or ability (circle dance, anyone?).

Even should someone seal most/all Divinations off from the prisoner per se, as soon as would-be liberators learn or even guess that, say, large pools of quintessence are in play, now Divinations (including appeals to extraplanar beings) can be brought to bear seeking sufficiently large concentrations of quintessence (and chances are there aren’t all THAT many in the world).

[Selene Sparks]

Imprisonment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/imprisonment.htm) explicitly does stop Wish, actually.Indeed it does. It does have the problem, though, that Wish can still locate it and the subject is still accessible. So, while you could Imprisonment someone, they can have someone Wished to their location just fine and free them. It adds extra steps, but still doesn't really render someone irretrievable.

On a related note, a dead magic/slow time plane, on closer examination, isn't a really good defense in that Planar Bubble is a thing(as well as the aforementioned IoM), so while it's a decent filter for the low-end stuff, it's not really good even when combined with casting Flesh to Stone on your target.

The problem with the Wells is that the limitation on the magic applying in the Wells is a local condition, and Wish explicitly ignores local conditions. Beyond that, Mind Blank+Quintessence is actually a pretty slick combination there, which really only fails against Metafaculty or Wish, and turning the subject into an object definitely stops Wish and may stop Metafaculty. So I think the best solution without wiping them from existence is to taken them to the Astral Plane, Mind Blank and Flesh to Stone them, and then hide them on the astral however you see fit. If doing this, I recommend against actually adding anything else, as any real defenses on this that isn't a Mind Blanked creature could be divined without running into Mind Blank.

[Jack_Simth]

Indeed it does. It does have the problem, though, that Wish can still locate it and the subject is still accessible. So, while you could Imprisonment someone, they can have someone Wished to their location just fine and free them. It adds extra steps, but still doesn't really render someone irretrievable.

On a related note, a dead magic/slow time plane, on closer examination, isn't a really good defense in that Planar Bubble is a thing(as well as the aforementioned IoM), so while it's a decent filter for the low-end stuff, it's not really good even when combined with casting Flesh to Stone on your target.

The problem with the Wells is that the limitation on the magic applying in the Wells is a local condition, and Wish explicitly ignores local conditions. Beyond that, Mind Blank+Quintessence is actually a pretty slick combination there, which really only fails against Metafaculty or Wish, and turning the subject into an object definitely stops Wish and may stop Metafaculty. So I think the best solution without wiping them from existence is to taken them to the Astral Plane, Mind Blank and Flesh to Stone them, and then hide them on the astral however you see fit. If doing this, I recommend against actually adding anything else, as any real defenses on this that isn't a Mind Blanked creature could be divined without running into Mind Blank.

You can layer things... but when it boils down to it, there's very little you can do in terms of "absolute". I mean, if you use Trap the Soul, you can then use them as a material component (see the Book of Vile Darkness) and then their soul is gone forever. But that's not the challenge, here. At best, you can spend progressively more resources to add a progressively longer list of resource requirements to the person or organization doing the rescue. The person or organization doing the rescue will only have / be willing to commit so many resources to the task. When the resources required exceed the resources available, you win.

[captain fubar]

you could attempt to prevent divination...but creating a plainer breach to the far relm overlapping the sit of their imprisonment should insure that what ever was doing the divination becomes a rather unreliable source of info.