I'm running a homebrew campaign with my 5 players, who are level 6. They are about to get captured and transported to the first level of hell, and thrown into a prison to be tortured for information, then corrupted into devils themselves. They wake up in cells after getting knocked out on the material plane, in some underground catacombs after they get over powered by one of my bbegs. I want some advice how to play this. Should I take their weapons and gear and have it stored outside their cells? Should the cells have anitmagic fields, to limit their use of powers to escape? Should I have one of their members be dragged off to be tortured until they break, to instill sense of despair in the group? I want to give them the opportunity to escape from prison and plane jump back to my campaign world. I have no idea how this will play out, my characters are mostly first time players but, they are very creative and overcome obstacles more easily than I would have expected.
How would a devil torture a pc for information and attempt to corrupt them?
I am open to ideas as I am a newer dm, and want to make their next session as terrifying as possible.
There's a lot of railroading going on there, and the possibility is real that it will frustrate players. But first you need to entrtain the very real possibility that: 1: They won't let themselves get captured. If this happens, you need to be able to pivot, fast. What if the party splits up against the BBEG. Is it just the one, or does he have minions to mop up stragglers? Or are you going to get stuck dealing with a split party on different planes?
After that little issue.... prison time is hard time in a game. You need interesting things to narrate while they're just sitting there. Otherwise it narrates as "You wait for what seems an eternity, before finally a demon comes to drag you away." Not exactly ratcheting up the tension, right?
I would have other prisoners who are in various levels of corruption. Prisoners they can talk to, maybe get a little info, form a bit of an attachment, and then they get dragged away and either a) never return or b) return more corrupted than before. This gives the players something to do while they're stuck in a cell.
Then you have to think about the prison itself. Antimagic is a good option, otherwise they're just going to mistystep or something out of the place. At the very least get rid of all teleporting magic, ala Silverymoon. Are there guards? If not, why not? Why are they so confident in their ability to just have someone in the cell?
As far as gear: You could go a few routes, depending on what outcome you want. The good stuff might be divied up between the guards. So if they want it back, they have to kill them. The mundane stuff is sitting in a sack in the corner, because the devils have no use for it. There may be something nice left unnoticed in there, particularly if they had a magic item that looks normal like a pouch or feather or hat or something easily mistaken for a normal item. Or you could give the devils some interesting weapons that they could overpower and use. A whip, pitchfork, jagged sword all suit the flavour.
All in all, I don't recommend railroading into a jailbreak. It can be insanely frustrating for a player. But you know your players better than I do, so hopefully they'll have a blast.
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Hello,
I'm running a homebrew campaign with my 5 players, who are level 6. They are about to get captured and transported to the first level of hell, and thrown into a prison to be tortured for information, then corrupted into devils themselves. They wake up in cells after getting knocked out on the material plane, in some underground catacombs after they get over powered by one of my bbegs. I want some advice how to play this. Should I take their weapons and gear and have it stored outside their cells? Should the cells have anitmagic fields, to limit their use of powers to escape? Should I have one of their members be dragged off to be tortured until they break, to instill sense of despair in the group? I want to give them the opportunity to escape from prison and plane jump back to my campaign world. I have no idea how this will play out, my characters are mostly first time players but, they are very creative and overcome obstacles more easily than I would have expected.
How would a devil torture a pc for information and attempt to corrupt them?
I am open to ideas as I am a newer dm, and want to make their next session as terrifying as possible.
There's a lot of railroading going on there, and the possibility is real that it will frustrate players. But first you need to entrtain the very real possibility that:
1: They won't let themselves get captured. If this happens, you need to be able to pivot, fast. What if the party splits up against the BBEG. Is it just the one, or does he have minions to mop up stragglers? Or are you going to get stuck dealing with a split party on different planes?
After that little issue.... prison time is hard time in a game. You need interesting things to narrate while they're just sitting there. Otherwise it narrates as "You wait for what seems an eternity, before finally a demon comes to drag you away." Not exactly ratcheting up the tension, right?
I would have other prisoners who are in various levels of corruption. Prisoners they can talk to, maybe get a little info, form a bit of an attachment, and then they get dragged away and either a) never return or b) return more corrupted than before. This gives the players something to do while they're stuck in a cell.
Then you have to think about the prison itself. Antimagic is a good option, otherwise they're just going to mistystep or something out of the place. At the very least get rid of all teleporting magic, ala Silverymoon. Are there guards? If not, why not? Why are they so confident in their ability to just have someone in the cell?
As far as gear: You could go a few routes, depending on what outcome you want. The good stuff might be divied up between the guards. So if they want it back, they have to kill them. The mundane stuff is sitting in a sack in the corner, because the devils have no use for it. There may be something nice left unnoticed in there, particularly if they had a magic item that looks normal like a pouch or feather or hat or something easily mistaken for a normal item. Or you could give the devils some interesting weapons that they could overpower and use. A whip, pitchfork, jagged sword all suit the flavour.
All in all, I don't recommend railroading into a jailbreak. It can be insanely frustrating for a player. But you know your players better than I do, so hopefully they'll have a blast.