Interrogation/Torture rules - Also, Mitch Rapp

[Silus]

Just so everyone knows, this comes from an almost 12-hour car ride from Florida to Texas while listening to Vince Flynn.

So, is it possible to torture NPC's like Mitch Rapp does without making skill checks? Or are intimidation rolls required when you'll do just what you say you are going to do to the person if they do not cooperate? Or would it be up to the DM?

Also, while we are on the topic of good'ol Mitch, what alignment do you figure he is?

[Kilbourne]

Who is Mitch Rapp?

[Silus]

Who is Mitch Rapp?

Mitch Rapp

Mitch Rapp is a fictional character in a series of novels by Vince Flynn and in the planned film adaptation of Consent to Kill. The character first appeared in Transfer of Power and in the 11 subsequent novels by Vince Flynn.

[Kylarra]

The answer is technically no, you'd get circumstantial bonuses for creativity, but those shouldn't outweigh the effect of having actual ranks in the intimidate skill.

[TurtleKing]

Congratulations on survivng the trip back home. Do you need some brain bleach to forget the trip?

[Silus]

Congratulations on survivng the trip back home. Do you need some brain bleach to forget the trip?

Nah, it's fine =P

Little upset that I won't be able to make the Sunday game via skype. Got a birthday I have to go to.

The answer is technically no, you'd get circumstantial bonuses for creativity, but those shouldn't outweigh the effect of having actual ranks in the intimidate skill.

Well I was thinking more like what happened in one of the books (as an example):

Spoiler

Show

After capturing three enemy combatants after a firefight, Mitch goes up to each of them, one by one, and threatens to cut off their, er...nuts in they lie. He later comes in with some severed...equipment from some dead enemy combatants. He throws the severed members in front of them (They're each in separate rooms and he had been playing recorded interrogation clips of screaming and begging), saying simply "The other guy lied to me" before leaving.

One of the guys (the first one he actually began questioning) spilled the beans almost immediately.

[Sir_Chivalry]

Nah, it's fine =P

Little upset that I won't be able to make the Sunday game via skype. Got a birthday I have to go to.




Well I was thinking more like what happened in one of the books (as an example):

Spoiler

Show

After capturing three enemy combatants after a firefight, Mitch goes up to each of them, one by one, and threatens to cut off their, er...nuts in they lie. He later comes in with some severed...equipment from some dead enemy combatants. He throws the severed members in front of them (They're each in separate rooms and he had been playing recorded interrogation clips of screaming and begging), saying simply "The other guy lied to me" before leaving.

One of the guys (the first one he actually began questioning) spilled the beans almost immediately.

+2 for the 5 Bluff ranks I assume he has, +2 for using scary noises. Still likely fails unless the guys are complete complete mooks.

[ryu]

So actual severed genitalia means nothing at all? Please tell me you're kidding...

[Shademan]

just use proffession (torturer)
?

[gibbo88]

I think the last time we did it we used a will save with circumstance bonus. Eg if you knew your master could definitely cause you more lasting harm you got a bonus to the save, and thinking that your torturer was insane generally increased the DC. I think it's more something the DM has to decide on since he knows what the character knowns and the relative danger the mook is in with party vs. his boss.

[Xuc Xac]

The problem is that torture doesn't actually work (outside of fiction) for extracting truthful information. If you torture someone long enough, they will eventually tell you something to make you stop. But they won't tell you the "truth", they'll tell you what they think you want to hear.

Think about it. "I'll cut stuff off if you lie to me!" How do you know they're lying? If you already know the right answer, why are you bothering to ask the question? If your victim says he doesn't know (and he really doesn't know) but you torture him anyway, he'll make stuff up just to get you to stop. Congratulations: you now have a bunch of false information.

Torture is a punishment, but it's not an effective interrogation technique.

[Shademan]

The problem is that torture doesn't actually work (outside of fiction) for extracting truthful information. If you torture someone long enough, they will eventually tell you something to make you stop. But they won't tell you the "truth", they'll tell you what they think you want to hear.

Think about it. "I'll cut stuff off if you lie to me!" How do you know they're lying? If you already know the right answer, why are you bothering to ask the question? If your victim says he doesn't know (and he really doesn't know) but you torture him anyway, he'll make stuff up just to get you to stop. Congratulations: you now have a bunch of false information.

Torture is a punishment, but it's not an effective interrogation technique.

chaotic evil, my freind

[Ravens_cry]

chaotic evil, my freind

Then you're not interrogating someone, you're just indulging in a sick hobby.
I do not like that in a game, even an Evil game.

[Ranos]

Torture is a punishment, but it's not an effective interrogation technique.

Unless you have an immediate way to verify the information. Torturing someone for the command word to an item, for example.

[Sir_Chivalry]

So actual severed genitalia means nothing at all? Please tell me you're kidding...

Nope, no bonus at all. The torturer's ability to convincingly say "This is your buddy's severed genetalia" is already handled by the synergy bonus from Bluff and Intimidate ranks. Even a +1 to the check is too high.

And yes, torture does not work that way. It's far more effective for implanting than extracting, and I don't think the PCs would be into mental reprogramming.

[Ormur]

The problem is that torture doesn't actually work (outside of fiction) for extracting truthful information. If you torture someone long enough, they will eventually tell you something to make you stop. But they won't tell you the "truth", they'll tell you what they think you want to hear.

Think about it. "I'll cut stuff off if you lie to me!" How do you know they're lying? If you already know the right answer, why are you bothering to ask the question? If your victim says he doesn't know (and he really doesn't know) but you torture him anyway, he'll make stuff up just to get you to stop. Congratulations: you now have a bunch of false information.

Torture is a punishment, but it's not an effective interrogation technique.

That's why I like the BoVD rules best, not that they accurately portray the (in)effectiveness of torture but at least they give the torturer a circumstance penalty to sense motive to realize that the victim is just making things up to make the pain go away.

[Beowulf DW]

chaotic evil, my freind

But if the character is not CE, and actually thinks that torture works, how interesting would it be if the DM had an NPC give false information. Or, better yet, false info that the NPC believed to be true?

On a side note:

In a recent campaign, our characters had a tendency to threaten torture to get information. Our resident ambiguously gay character would rattle off a list of various items (like carrots and oil), would have my NG character run of to get them (my character thought that he was constantly being sent out for groceries), and would then let the victim's imagination do the rest. This character had no ranks in intimidate, but somehow it worked every time.

[Fouredged Sword]

One of the major tricks of torture is to prevent s subject from being able to determine what you know and what you can verify. You can do this by mixing questions you know and questions you don't. This requires pre knowledge though. you can also set up a prisoners delema with multiple people to interogate. You use one to verify the answers of the other and torture them both if they disagree in any way. This fails to a pre aranged story. Also the ability to find a person and interogate them later is powerful. This can be done through catch an release into a controled enviorment.

Idealy you use a variety of methods to render your victim unable to clearly think and unable to determine what you know or don't know. The ideal is the victim thinking you are an omnipotent, omnicient person simply doing this for verification to an outside agent who requires verification of what is already known.

In the end though, interogtion is tricky and fails unless done very, very carefuly.

In Dnd, if you want to interogate a person I would suggest wis damage poison and fatuige, fear, and hunger penelties. Beyond that I would actualy use diplomacy. You are convincing somebody to take a deal after all. Intimidation to apply fear and Sense Motive to tell lies from truth. This isn't pure Raw, but it seems the most realistic way to do it to me. With stacking penelties the problem won't be breaking them, but telling truth from lies.

[Telonius]

Book of Vile Darkness has a full rules section on this. Torturers get a bonus to Intimidate checks based on the torture device they use. (There's a set formula for determining the Intimidate DC required to get the information). Victims can also try to lie to the torturer. The torturer gets a penalty to their Sense Motive checks to determine truth of the statement.

[Earthwalker]

Torture is a punishment, but it's not an effective interrogation technique.

This really.

If you do want Torture to work in your game, the character doing it also should have skill points to back up is plan or its even more likly to fail.

I hate looking back how we played some games in the past and how supposedly sane normal people (the player characters) would say in a modern day campaign start just chopping bits of people to find out information, I am more shocked at how often that worked.

[icefractal]

So actual severed genitalia means nothing at all? Please tell me you're kidding...

Just because the intimidate check failed, doesn't mean they won't tell you anything. Intimidate forces them into compliance - but they can still choose to comply, to avoid injury. And most non-fanatics will. Of course, they might lie, if they think they can get away with it, or they might stall because they believe you'll kill them either way.

[Ravens_cry]

Exactly. If you're too evil with your interrogation, you're not going to get anywhere because they feel you're just going to kill them anyway. That's why the good cop, bad cop system works pretty well. You got someone to give them a feeling of hope, that actually cooperating might be beneficial to them.

[Earthwalker]

Just because the intimidate check failed, doesn't mean they won't tell you anything. Intimidate forces them into compliance - but they can still choose to comply, to avoid injury. And most non-fanatics will. Of course, they might lie, if they think they can get away with it, or they might stall because they believe you'll kill them either way.

I think this all depends on how you play the game.
For me if you fail a check then you fail, you can try again on some checks.

Intimidate works no different then other skills, if you fail you still don't get the information as if you had succeeded.

Same as failing a gather information check, if you fail then you get nothing.

Of course I know some people do not roll social checks, and let people role play it out. For me I like the characters to have the skills the player is good at role playing out, thats just me tho.

[Callista]

Why are you using torture? D&D characters don't need it unless they're torturing for the sake of torture.

The characters you'd most want to torture if you're an evil type are often fear-immune and/or have contingencies against torture, bonuses to their Will saves, or high Bluff checks. Good-aligned paladins (both the standard LG variety and the CG paladin of freedom) are outright fear-immune, which means also immune to torture and to all Intimidate checks--they simply don't break, period. A Good-aligned rogue or other sneaky type will often have an ace in the hole like an alchemical tooth or a high Bluff check allowing them to convince you they've spilled the beans when they actually haven't. And wizards? Don't even try it. They've prepared for everything.

Your better option is to spam spells in this order:
1. Dispel Magic. If high-level, strip magic items and then Mordenkainen's Disjunction.
2. Detect Magic. Be sure to check for Nystul's Magic Aura.
3. Charm Person, until it takes. Heighten if necessary.

Get yourself a potion of Glibness. Chug it.

At this point you have someone who is friendly to you and will pretty much believe you when you say, "I'm going to cast a Cure spell on you for that nasty hangnail," and willingly fail their saves (including against another Charm Person). What you do after that depends on your style.
Mindrape and other "pillage your brain" options, for the very evil.
Dominate Person and similar, for those who just like tyranny.
More subtle options include modifying memories, creating amnesia, or flipping alignments. Turn them into your willing slave for good, if you like.
And if you're into torture, you can go to town with any number of options.

Good-aligned characters can just leave it at the Glibness stage and talk their prisoners into giving away the information they need. Note that Good-aligned people will generally treat charmed prisoners with a good deal of respect, because these prisoners are essentially helpless--if evil--creatures under the PC's protection. Forcing answers out of anyone, however kindly it's done or however necessary it is, doesn't sit well with most Good-aligned PCs.

There are still reasons to torture, of course; but all of them have to do with extremely Evil things like creating Liquid Pain or torturing prior to sacrifice--not things even the run-of-the-mill Evil will stoop to.

But there's very little reason to torture anyone for information, whether you're Good or Evil. It's unreliable and there are better methods. If you are too low-level to spam Charm, you're probably facing a low-level opponent--one who will respond to Indimidate and Diplomacy eventually by the sheer odds. At first level, nobody but an extremely optimized character can beat a natural-20 Intimidate or Diplomacy check from a low-level character; and there's still a good chance that, because of your relatively low Intimidate check, even torture won't get you a sure source of information. And of course if you're mid- to high-level, magic or your optimized Diplomacy, Bluff, or Intimidate presents the solution.

In in-game terms: Torture doesn't work reliably enough to make it feasible if you are not powerful enough to use magic to force someone to talk; and if you can use magic, there's no reason to rely on torture.

So if someone is using torture in a D&D world, it is entirely because they are evil enough to actually prefer it.

Regarding RP and rolling social skill checks: This is not a one-or-the-other option; there is nothing stopping you from rolling the skill check and role-playing depending on how the roll comes up. This is the version I've seen in most games I've been in. For example--I want to convince the guard to let me into the palace, so I roll a Bluff check. If I roll high, I tell a more-or-less convincing lie. If I roll low, I may fumble about and finally claim to be the milkman, despite the obvious lack of any milk delivery. Most DMs will give bonuses depending on how good your RP was, of course. I would. But rolling in addition to RP lets your character use a skill you're not good at yourself.

[Fouredged Sword]

Wiz and Cha damage and a zone of truth could help force the truth to be told. Once again stack penelties on the will save and force them to speak.