Hi, my character's are about to start a plot line where a co-conspiritor of a plot that has occurred in one of the cities has been taken prisoner by wood elves who are refusing to extradite him. I've not run anything quite like this before so just trying to fine tune it so any inputs would be appreciated. The characters have been charged with preferably retrieving this prisoner or at least getting information from him. They can either attempt to negotiate with the elves who will allow access (but not for them to take the prisoner) in return for clearing out a grove or dungeon or something. However knowing this group they're probably going to try and break him out. I'm trying to design a wood elf prison but am drawing blanks on how to not make it too impregnable to avoid the party just ending up in endless combat. So far I've got a wall of thorns (same stats as the spell) surrounding a number of trees which have cages hanging from the branches which contain the prisoners. The floor is guarded by 2 assassin vines. Any suggestions for how I can refine this or incorporate mechanisms and weaknesses that the characters can use to retrieve the prisoner. TIA
The biggest thing to remember when designing prisons in D&D, well, a couple of the biggest things. 1. Don’t design the way to break out. Just pretend you’re a prison designer. You actually should try and make it impregnable, that’s what those wood elves would do. Leave it to the players to surprise you and come up with a plan. Maybe they fight their way through, maybe be they bribe a guard. Or use disguise, or something else, or a combination. 2. Magic exists, and everyone knows this. In particular, spells like misty step, dimension door and teleport can render most prisons trivially simple to get out of. So, if this place is high security, consider some kind of anti-magic zone, or permanent Forbiddance area or both surrounding the cells.
The Wood Elf prison could have a variety of traps such as leaves net drop, suspended snares and mud pits. Watch could be done by small animals, alarm raised by birds etc ...
If you want to put a twist, the prisoner could be kept in an induced state of reverie by elven magic or herbal toxin, therefore being unconscious but still aware of it's surrounding. Like this, even if there's a breakaway, the creature isn't really free unless the have a way to undo this with magic or antidote to counter the effect.
Have it be high up in the trees, so that any potential falls could be fatal, making the risk/reward higher and helping them understand why they may not want to just try and kill everything in sight as acrobatics checks may come into play during combat
Okay, so you've got some good ideas already thrown at you for this, but can I suggest a slightly different tack?
Wood Elves in my world don't mess about with prisons. Any breaking of the law and the available elders will decide the case there and then. Found Guilty? Death. Not Proven Verdict? Exile. Innocent? freedom. The reason in my world is because while there are a few established settlements most elves like to be nomadic in my world. So, complex structures from Elves aren't really a thing, and any that do exist are either ancient or in harmony with nature. A prison is kinda the antithesis of this. Elves live long enough to know that justice should be swift one way or another. The eldest of them usually have lifetimes of experience so can rely on that experience to make a good judgement.
Perhaps instead of burning up time trying to design a prison to break the NPC out of, have them trussed up and ready to be executed by firing squad or smashed by treants. I tend to have them guarded by two treants and four awakened trees at the first two tiers of play. Add in a cage of thorns (think wall of thorns stats) and it's not meant to be impregnable, just tough enough for the accused to wait out their trial until either freedom, exile, or execution. The Elves can then offer the same quest you want (clear this dungeon or whatnot), and there's another option open to the party - take on the Treants and Awakened Trees. Stealth here still becomes possible, but not too easy (six perception vs stealth checks), you could throw in a ward or two along with the wall of spikes stat block. Options are limitless.
Just thought I'd chime in an option that didn't require a massively detailed prison complex.
As a second idea here - maybe the prison is an old crypt, tomb or mine that the elves have reclaimed. One way in or out minimises the number of guards needed...and as it was an old location traps and monsters can exist within?
I'm kinda leaning more towards the post from martintheactor to be quite honest. When i think prison, i think that outside of the concept of "many enter, few survive", for elves. So i'd be more inclined to make it some sort of sealed away dungeon that technically has a door, but none/few make it out alive, and never unscathed. It would set up a nice little arc where you have them dealing short term with others recently thrown in looking to take advantage of new resources to survive, and after overcoming that obstacle you can mix and match traps, puzzles, boss mobs, or really whatever you want. The challenge here is it has to at some point be believable, but if you do it right it's rewarding and sets up a situation where they wont actively pursue you anymore because they aren't anticipating you being able to depart, so you can tie up some loose ends. So a complex dungeon for the DM to create perhaps, but not a legitimate prison.
My old boss once said that the best security you could buy wasn't alarms or extra locks on the windows or even a safe bolted to the floor - it was a troll with a giant club sitting in the corner.
I like the wall of thorns as a prison - I'd spice it up, myself, and rules be damned, so it does consecutively more damage the harder and longer you try to pass through. And then, I'd add forest lion. Now, forest lions aren't really lions, although the basic shape is there. But a forest lion is a plant creature, full of thorns and leaves and tough, fibrous vines. Very hard to kill, very unpleasant to fight. And it doesn't need to sleep, it just needs to be watered now and again. Or you know, sink it's thorns into the soft, moist flesh of other creatures. It's mostly well behaved, but if the prisoner starts bleeding from trying to escape the wall of thorns ... well, that's another matter.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I would have the prison similar in type mentioned above with thorn walls, hanging cells, spider and living tree guards. Then have the party discover that prison is for Elves. Other folk are polymorphed into fish and thrown into a nearby lake.
If they party wants their friend turned back, they have to fulfill a quest.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I would have the prison similar in type mentioned above with thorn walls, hanging cells, spider and living tree guards. Then have the party discover that prison is for Elves. Other folk are polymorphed into fish and thrown into a nearby lake.
If they party wants their friend turned back, they have to fulfill a quest.
Or just start casting dispel magic on random fish and see what happens.
I would have the prison similar in type mentioned above with thorn walls, hanging cells, spider and living tree guards. Then have the party discover that prison is for Elves. Other folk are polymorphed into fish and thrown into a nearby lake.
If they party wants their friend turned back, they have to fulfill a quest.
Or just start casting dispel magic on random fish and see what happens.
The point being that the party doesn't know their friend is a fish.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I would have the prison similar in type mentioned above with thorn walls, hanging cells, spider and living tree guards. Then have the party discover that prison is for Elves. Other folk are polymorphed into fish and thrown into a nearby lake.
If they party wants their friend turned back, they have to fulfill a quest.
Or just start casting dispel magic on random fish and see what happens.
The point being that the party doesn't know their friend is a fish.
Right. I was just thinking it would be kind of funny to stand there and keep casting. It could be like:regular fish, regular fish, oh crap that was an ogre, regular fish.
Other folk are polymorphed into fish and thrown into a nearby lake.
The principle here is awesome. For your crimes, this court sentences you to 60 years as a giant turtle. Since the giant turtle can reach 1000 years of ago without problems (I have no care what the books say on the age of giant turtles), you can spend 60 years in that form, and lose only a few years of your normal lifespan (arguably).
Enjoy eating .... whatever turtles eat, and contemplating your sins for 60 years.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Haha these are all great ideas. I think I might have the wall of thorns with hanging cells for those awaiting trial but if found guilty of minor crimes (not worthy of death) then the prisoners are polymorphed (using an enchanted collar) into various beasts to provide labour for the elves.
It can be hard to gauge the ability of something like elves which are mystical and ancient. You also have to take into account the prisoner, elves are unlikely to open up another dimension for petty theft.
I personally kind of like the idea of elves petrifying mortals who are perhaps otherwise too short lived for the long deliberative processes of the elves. Maybe they turn them to wood which slowly grows into a great tree but until a verdict is given a gardener carefully tends them cutting away new branches and vines stopping them growing to full tree. The defenses of such a prison may just have the defenses of the druid grove. There's also the option that the prison doesn't have much defense at all because the elves themselves are well defended. Maybe the whole forest is under a druid grove like protection spell.
Though what you currently have is a kind of wild / aggressive plant prison with thorns and whipping vines. Which to me would fit with the elves feeding prisoners to some kind of aggressive plant like monster. Maybe something like a Yggdrasti
How about if the prison itself is in or partially in the Feywild? Or following from an above suggestion, the guilty are exiled to the Feywild?
this sounds really cool when you realize that time goes wack in the feywild, minutes could pass in the feywild while days pass in the real world, and because elves can live over 1000 years, they can pass crazy long sentances(especally for world breaking villains, sutch as industrialists, to allow the world time to heal). imagine the look on your party's face when they realize the've been sentanced to 10,000 years of prison. the elves can put you in prison for an hour and you age, and feel like you were in prison for 60 years
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Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
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Hi, my character's are about to start a plot line where a co-conspiritor of a plot that has occurred in one of the cities has been taken prisoner by wood elves who are refusing to extradite him. I've not run anything quite like this before so just trying to fine tune it so any inputs would be appreciated. The characters have been charged with preferably retrieving this prisoner or at least getting information from him. They can either attempt to negotiate with the elves who will allow access (but not for them to take the prisoner) in return for clearing out a grove or dungeon or something. However knowing this group they're probably going to try and break him out. I'm trying to design a wood elf prison but am drawing blanks on how to not make it too impregnable to avoid the party just ending up in endless combat. So far I've got a wall of thorns (same stats as the spell) surrounding a number of trees which have cages hanging from the branches which contain the prisoners. The floor is guarded by 2 assassin vines. Any suggestions for how I can refine this or incorporate mechanisms and weaknesses that the characters can use to retrieve the prisoner. TIA
The biggest thing to remember when designing prisons in D&D, well, a couple of the biggest things.
1. Don’t design the way to break out. Just pretend you’re a prison designer. You actually should try and make it impregnable, that’s what those wood elves would do. Leave it to the players to surprise you and come up with a plan. Maybe they fight their way through, maybe be they bribe a guard. Or use disguise, or something else, or a combination.
2. Magic exists, and everyone knows this. In particular, spells like misty step, dimension door and teleport can render most prisons trivially simple to get out of. So, if this place is high security, consider some kind of anti-magic zone, or permanent Forbiddance area or both surrounding the cells.
The Wood Elf prison could have a variety of traps such as leaves net drop, suspended snares and mud pits. Watch could be done by small animals, alarm raised by birds etc ...
If you want to put a twist, the prisoner could be kept in an induced state of reverie by elven magic or herbal toxin, therefore being unconscious but still aware of it's surrounding. Like this, even if there's a breakaway, the creature isn't really free unless the have a way to undo this with magic or antidote to counter the effect.
Have it be high up in the trees, so that any potential falls could be fatal, making the risk/reward higher and helping them understand why they may not want to just try and kill everything in sight as acrobatics checks may come into play during combat
Okay, so you've got some good ideas already thrown at you for this, but can I suggest a slightly different tack?
Wood Elves in my world don't mess about with prisons. Any breaking of the law and the available elders will decide the case there and then. Found Guilty? Death. Not Proven Verdict? Exile. Innocent? freedom. The reason in my world is because while there are a few established settlements most elves like to be nomadic in my world. So, complex structures from Elves aren't really a thing, and any that do exist are either ancient or in harmony with nature. A prison is kinda the antithesis of this. Elves live long enough to know that justice should be swift one way or another. The eldest of them usually have lifetimes of experience so can rely on that experience to make a good judgement.
Perhaps instead of burning up time trying to design a prison to break the NPC out of, have them trussed up and ready to be executed by firing squad or smashed by treants. I tend to have them guarded by two treants and four awakened trees at the first two tiers of play. Add in a cage of thorns (think wall of thorns stats) and it's not meant to be impregnable, just tough enough for the accused to wait out their trial until either freedom, exile, or execution. The Elves can then offer the same quest you want (clear this dungeon or whatnot), and there's another option open to the party - take on the Treants and Awakened Trees. Stealth here still becomes possible, but not too easy (six perception vs stealth checks), you could throw in a ward or two along with the wall of spikes stat block. Options are limitless.
Just thought I'd chime in an option that didn't require a massively detailed prison complex.
As a second idea here - maybe the prison is an old crypt, tomb or mine that the elves have reclaimed. One way in or out minimises the number of guards needed...and as it was an old location traps and monsters can exist within?
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
I'm kinda leaning more towards the post from martintheactor to be quite honest. When i think prison, i think that outside of the concept of "many enter, few survive", for elves. So i'd be more inclined to make it some sort of sealed away dungeon that technically has a door, but none/few make it out alive, and never unscathed. It would set up a nice little arc where you have them dealing short term with others recently thrown in looking to take advantage of new resources to survive, and after overcoming that obstacle you can mix and match traps, puzzles, boss mobs, or really whatever you want. The challenge here is it has to at some point be believable, but if you do it right it's rewarding and sets up a situation where they wont actively pursue you anymore because they aren't anticipating you being able to depart, so you can tie up some loose ends. So a complex dungeon for the DM to create perhaps, but not a legitimate prison.
My old boss once said that the best security you could buy wasn't alarms or extra locks on the windows or even a safe bolted to the floor - it was a troll with a giant club sitting in the corner.
I like the wall of thorns as a prison - I'd spice it up, myself, and rules be damned, so it does consecutively more damage the harder and longer you try to pass through. And then, I'd add forest lion. Now, forest lions aren't really lions, although the basic shape is there. But a forest lion is a plant creature, full of thorns and leaves and tough, fibrous vines. Very hard to kill, very unpleasant to fight. And it doesn't need to sleep, it just needs to be watered now and again. Or you know, sink it's thorns into the soft, moist flesh of other creatures. It's mostly well behaved, but if the prisoner starts bleeding from trying to escape the wall of thorns ... well, that's another matter.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I would have the prison similar in type mentioned above with thorn walls, hanging cells, spider and living tree guards. Then have the party discover that prison is for Elves. Other folk are polymorphed into fish and thrown into a nearby lake.
If they party wants their friend turned back, they have to fulfill a quest.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Or just start casting dispel magic on random fish and see what happens.
The point being that the party doesn't know their friend is a fish.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Right. I was just thinking it would be kind of funny to stand there and keep casting. It could be like:regular fish, regular fish, oh crap that was an ogre, regular fish.
The principle here is awesome. For your crimes, this court sentences you to 60 years as a giant turtle. Since the giant turtle can reach 1000 years of ago without problems (I have no care what the books say on the age of giant turtles), you can spend 60 years in that form, and lose only a few years of your normal lifespan (arguably).
Enjoy eating .... whatever turtles eat, and contemplating your sins for 60 years.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Haha these are all great ideas. I think I might have the wall of thorns with hanging cells for those awaiting trial but if found guilty of minor crimes (not worthy of death) then the prisoners are polymorphed (using an enchanted collar) into various beasts to provide labour for the elves.
How about if the prison itself is in or partially in the Feywild? Or following from an above suggestion, the guilty are exiled to the Feywild?
It can be hard to gauge the ability of something like elves which are mystical and ancient. You also have to take into account the prisoner, elves are unlikely to open up another dimension for petty theft.
I personally kind of like the idea of elves petrifying mortals who are perhaps otherwise too short lived for the long deliberative processes of the elves. Maybe they turn them to wood which slowly grows into a great tree but until a verdict is given a gardener carefully tends them cutting away new branches and vines stopping them growing to full tree. The defenses of such a prison may just have the defenses of the druid grove. There's also the option that the prison doesn't have much defense at all because the elves themselves are well defended. Maybe the whole forest is under a druid grove like protection spell.
Though what you currently have is a kind of wild / aggressive plant prison with thorns and whipping vines. Which to me would fit with the elves feeding prisoners to some kind of aggressive plant like monster. Maybe something like a Yggdrasti
What exactly was the crime that the conspirator was picked up on? Nasty Dante-esque punishments are proportional to the crime.
this sounds really cool when you realize that time goes wack in the feywild, minutes could pass in the feywild while days pass in the real world, and because elves can live over 1000 years, they can pass crazy long sentances(especally for world breaking villains, sutch as industrialists, to allow the world time to heal). imagine the look on your party's face when they realize the've been sentanced to 10,000 years of prison. the elves can put you in prison for an hour and you age, and feel like you were in prison for 60 years
Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!