I'm a new DM and am loving it. My PCs have come to a point where they may need to break into a prison to break an NPC out, but I'm struggling to think of the best way to do this, preferably without much combat.
The only thing I can think to do is just stealth the whole way through, but that seems dull. Any help would be very much appreciated.
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Watch the movie "The Rock" for some ideas. Research before going in. A prison in an isolated location. A time limit. Maybe the prisoner is to be moved or executed. There could be tunnels under the prison. Traps. Loose stonework.
Another team might also be interested, maybe willing to work with the party if properly approached, otherwise either trying to beat the party to their target, stop the party from getting there, or waiting until the rescue has been done and trying to kidnap the target.
Combat if you want it. Could be Things down there. If not, plenty of environmental challenges. Negotiating with other prisoners who want to escape too.
Depending on the setting and levels, the location could be *really* isolated. Prison in the basement of a castle that used to belong to a Cloud Giant and floats miles above the ground. It could be in another plane of existence. It could be deep under water. Prisons are not usually in easy to get to places. Jails are, prisons are less friendly. Even in a city, the prison could be under the King's palace. The classic Dungeon sort of place. Much sneaking around, perhaps disguised as nobles to get in, then guards once they are at the prison.
does it have loads of guards all the time, EG a prion in a guard house, or does it have guards in the day and a few at night, being a guardhouse where the guards sleep elsewhere, or does it have just a couple of guards all the time, because it's out of the way?
How secure are the doors, locks etc? Is it like pirates of the Caribbean where the doors can be levered off? Is the door solid oak and banded with steel?
How is it adapted for a magical world. Regular prisons won't mean much to magic users, so if magic is common in your world, how do they counter it? magical bars & walls that prevent people teleporting through is an obvious answer. Knock-proof doors is another. The guards keys need to be attacked to bells so they can't be mage-handed away. That sort of thing.
What are the ways in & out? front door, back door, warden's window on the third floor - easy to get into, but much riskier for getting caught. Sewer? Secret tunnels? Escape tunnel filled in but excavatable?
what are the guards like? Is one a drunk who regularly falls asleep? Do they change the guard? If so, do they stop for a chat when they do so, leaving a big gap in the patrol?
Once you've got the prison planned out, in theory, you need to work out what to tell your players to get them to come up with a plan. "there's rumor of someone who escaped before", which leads to talk of a tunnel that had been filled in at both ends, which the party can try to find. Telling them of guard changes (EG it's quieter at night) would give them a basis to think of for their plan. Potentially following the drunk guard and buying him drinks to get him to talk about his job, or things like that.
Once they make their plan, you need to work out how to run it. The best bet is to ask the players to come up with the plan and explain it to you at the end of a session, so that you can work out how to make it more interesting than a set of stealth rolls. If they are trying to time climbing up the building whilst the guards are walking around it, have something happen - perhaps the guard drops something and comes back around, looking for it - that will add tension and make the party think on their feet. Don't make it seem like you're trying to catch them out (EG "it just so happens that this night there are more guards"), just make chance play a little role in the proceedings. Inject this sort of thing if their plan is a really good one and it has little chance of going wrong (EG they have drugged the warden so he will be asleep, are climbing up, carefully copied the keys, dressed as guards, and done everything to make it go faultlessly). Reward good plans and execution with success, because otherwise the players will not bother to make a good plan again ("last time we did that, it went wrong anyway, so let's just Leeroy Jenkins this one").
In summary (TL; DR):
Plan your prison, with entrances, weaknesses and such.
Reward good plans with success and bad/lazy plans with conflict or failure. Bad or lazy plans should prompt many more rolls, to increase the chance of failure.
Run the scenario in the way that makes sense; this sort of thing is about them seeing how their plan unfolds, not seeing a variety of dice rolls. If it's all stealth, it's all stealth.
Inject a random chance thing if it's looking to be uninteresting, like a guard coming back, the warden waking up, or the guard you stole the clothes from turning up in his underwear.
It’s not up to you to think about how they should do it. You should just design the prison, and let them figure out how they to break the guy out. Different parties will have different strengths, and approach it differently — charge in and slaughter the guards, talk their way through, cast stone shape on the wall into the prisoner’s cell, teleport, bribe, fly, climb onto the roof, put the guards up there to sleep and carve a hole in the ceiling above the prisoner, use their connections with the mayor to get the NPC a pardon. There are limitless ways to do it.
If you design the prison with a flaw in mind, and decide that’s the only way to get them out, now you’re railroading them. Just make a prison and let them take it from there.
It’s not up to you to think about how they should do it. You should just design the prison, and let them figure out how they to break the guy out. Different parties will have different strengths, and approach it differently — charge in and slaughter the guards, talk their way through, cast stone shape on the wall into the prisoner’s cell, teleport, bribe, fly, climb onto the roof, put the guards up there to sleep and carve a hole in the ceiling above the prisoner, use their connections with the mayor to get the NPC a pardon. There are limitless ways to do it.
If you design the prison with a flaw in mind, and decide that’s the only way to get them out, now you’re railroading them. Just make a prison and let them take it from there.
I read through all the answers and was about to say this.
Create the prison, create the NPCs that are in the prison, prison guards, other prisoners and then let the players tell you what they want to do, who they want to investigate and how. There is another system called cyberpunk I have recently been playing as a player, we had a simple warehouse heist to plan. 9 sessions (that’s over 30 hours) later we had infiltrated the security firm, stolen the plans to the building, got fake outfits and tags made, hacked the computer system by getting ourselves in the day before. We had spent hours planning and coming up with ideas. All along the DM simply listened made notes and on the fly responded to the plans we made to allow us to actually roleplay it out. Finally after 3 months the plan went down, turned into a firefight within 3 mins of game time and the GM laughed and told us he thought we where just going to storm the place when he created the mission.
My advice to you, just let the place breathe and give your players time to create there own plan, it will be more fun for all of you then anything you might think of. If you don’t want it to become a big fight just ensure there are rules in your world that if they get caught or found, or if they kill any guards and get caught, they are going to go straight into prison themselves.
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I'm a new DM and am loving it. My PCs have come to a point where they may need to break into a prison to break an NPC out, but I'm struggling to think of the best way to do this, preferably without much combat.
The only thing I can think to do is just stealth the whole way through, but that seems dull. Any help would be very much appreciated.
My first thoughts are.... are the PC's breaking this NPC out of Azkaban or Sherif Mac Snoozy office in nobodysheardof's vil?
ideally The PC's come up with a plan based on your description of the prison... and what efforts they make to recon the prison
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Watch the movie "The Rock" for some ideas. Research before going in. A prison in an isolated location. A time limit. Maybe the prisoner is to be moved or executed. There could be tunnels under the prison. Traps. Loose stonework.
Another team might also be interested, maybe willing to work with the party if properly approached, otherwise either trying to beat the party to their target, stop the party from getting there, or waiting until the rescue has been done and trying to kidnap the target.
Combat if you want it. Could be Things down there. If not, plenty of environmental challenges. Negotiating with other prisoners who want to escape too.
Depending on the setting and levels, the location could be *really* isolated. Prison in the basement of a castle that used to belong to a Cloud Giant and floats miles above the ground. It could be in another plane of existence. It could be deep under water. Prisons are not usually in easy to get to places. Jails are, prisons are less friendly. Even in a city, the prison could be under the King's palace. The classic Dungeon sort of place. Much sneaking around, perhaps disguised as nobles to get in, then guards once they are at the prison.
<Insert clever signature here>
Think yourself through the prison itself.
Once you've got the prison planned out, in theory, you need to work out what to tell your players to get them to come up with a plan. "there's rumor of someone who escaped before", which leads to talk of a tunnel that had been filled in at both ends, which the party can try to find. Telling them of guard changes (EG it's quieter at night) would give them a basis to think of for their plan. Potentially following the drunk guard and buying him drinks to get him to talk about his job, or things like that.
Once they make their plan, you need to work out how to run it. The best bet is to ask the players to come up with the plan and explain it to you at the end of a session, so that you can work out how to make it more interesting than a set of stealth rolls. If they are trying to time climbing up the building whilst the guards are walking around it, have something happen - perhaps the guard drops something and comes back around, looking for it - that will add tension and make the party think on their feet. Don't make it seem like you're trying to catch them out (EG "it just so happens that this night there are more guards"), just make chance play a little role in the proceedings. Inject this sort of thing if their plan is a really good one and it has little chance of going wrong (EG they have drugged the warden so he will be asleep, are climbing up, carefully copied the keys, dressed as guards, and done everything to make it go faultlessly). Reward good plans and execution with success, because otherwise the players will not bother to make a good plan again ("last time we did that, it went wrong anyway, so let's just Leeroy Jenkins this one").
In summary (TL; DR):
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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It’s not up to you to think about how they should do it. You should just design the prison, and let them figure out how they to break the guy out. Different parties will have different strengths, and approach it differently — charge in and slaughter the guards, talk their way through, cast stone shape on the wall into the prisoner’s cell, teleport, bribe, fly, climb onto the roof, put the guards up there to sleep and carve a hole in the ceiling above the prisoner, use their connections with the mayor to get the NPC a pardon. There are limitless ways to do it.
If you design the prison with a flaw in mind, and decide that’s the only way to get them out, now you’re railroading them. Just make a prison and let them take it from there.
I read through all the answers and was about to say this.
Create the prison, create the NPCs that are in the prison, prison guards, other prisoners and then let the players tell you what they want to do, who they want to investigate and how. There is another system called cyberpunk I have recently been playing as a player, we had a simple warehouse heist to plan. 9 sessions (that’s over 30 hours) later we had infiltrated the security firm, stolen the plans to the building, got fake outfits and tags made, hacked the computer system by getting ourselves in the day before. We had spent hours planning and coming up with ideas. All along the DM simply listened made notes and on the fly responded to the plans we made to allow us to actually roleplay it out. Finally after 3 months the plan went down, turned into a firefight within 3 mins of game time and the GM laughed and told us he thought we where just going to storm the place when he created the mission.
My advice to you, just let the place breathe and give your players time to create there own plan, it will be more fun for all of you then anything you might think of. If you don’t want it to become a big fight just ensure there are rules in your world that if they get caught or found, or if they kill any guards and get caught, they are going to go straight into prison themselves.