The rules exist to approximate in the moment the elements that make up gameplay so you can narratively fill in the blanks as you go (i.e. your characters aren't just standing around taking turns in combat, just hitting or missing wildly, etc), so I think it's entirely reasonable to imagine a scenario off screen where something happened to your character when they weren't at peak readiness that they could've been captured.
Again it depends on the relative level of the creatures involved. A level 3-5 party it is relatively plausible for them to get randomly captured by some bandits or cultists targeting random civilians. But not so for level 14 characters who are capable of easily taking on multiple adult dragons, beholders, mindflayers, or a whole family of giants. A level 14 character is more powerful than most generals, kings/queens, or high priests/priestesses, they can single-handedly take out a small platoon of soldiers. The equipment you need to be able to capture one is significantly more than what you'd need to kidnap a random civilian, and most are probably well known for their grand deeds and heroism. It's highly implausible for them to be kidnapped by mistake by some random cultists capturing random homeless people.
Kidnapping your players is illegal, kidnapping their characters is completely okay
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In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Best quote from a book ever: "If you love with your eyes, death is forever. If you love with your heart, there is no such thing as parting."- Jonah Cook, Ascendant, Songs of Chaos by Michael R. Miller. Highly recommend
Even without a nautoloid, everyone sleeps. Most people bathe. Some people trust folks they shouldn't. I don't think anyone is always immune from that kind of thing, especially if the pitch the DM sold the players on for the campaign is "you start out captured and get to escape."
Again, it's not that capturing level 14 characters is impossible. It just requires overwhelming force, specialized capabilities, or extreme luck, and the first two just aren't the kinds of things you use to kidnap random people, the second requires a great deal of SoD when it's an entire party, particularly since some of them may have abilities that require fairly specialized countermeasures.
Even without a nautoloid, everyone sleeps. Most people bathe. Some people trust folks they shouldn't. I don't think anyone is always immune from that kind of thing, especially if the pitch the DM sold the players on for the campaign is "you start out captured and get to escape."
Again, it's not that capturing level 14 characters is impossible. It just requires overwhelming force, specialized capabilities, or extreme luck, and the first two just aren't the kinds of things you use to kidnap random people, the second requires a great deal of SoD when it's an entire party, particularly since some of them may have abilities that require fairly specialized countermeasures.
I'm not saying it's easy, but since this is happening off-screen before the start of the campaign, I don't consider it immersion-shattering as I might if this happened in session 4 after a railroaded combat encounter.
Revisiting my suggestion from before, I would even open on the players being the ones to narrate how their characters got taken, thus establishing it from their end and decreasing the likelihood that they declare the whole thing unfair and implausible.
The fun part of this campaign setup is that because a level 14 character is do powerful, indulgence in that fantasy of escape is so much more powerful. You get that sense of "oh boy these cultists don't know what they're messing with" and the eventual comeuppance is that much stronger. You see this type of story play out all the time where a powerful character is imprisoned and gets to escape (Mad Max: Fury Road and Thor Ragnarok are the two examples at the top of mind), and in order to have the badass escape and revenge part, narratively you NEED the initial depowering element.
It sounds like the OP wants to play out a specific fantastic scenario that I have seen before, that is really fun, but has to start this way. If their players are on board to play the opening of Thor Ragnarok, then I don't think their characters being too powerful is an insurmountable obstacle to the narrative.
(1) those are mindflayers, who have evolved specifically to capture sentient beings, and have an entire civilization dedicated to capturing & eating sentient beings.
(2) they immediately permanently cripple their captured prisoners thus preventing them from using their high level abilities to immediately escape.
(3) as far as I know it is never actually explained how they managed to capture those people and the player doesn't have the opportunity to investigate it / ask about it (whereas they can definitely do so in a table game).
(4) presumably they have some kind of technology aboard the ship to grab people directly, as landing in the middle of the blood war, or in the city of waterdeep then exiting to go grab people and drag them back would be very risky for them.
play the opening of Thor Ragnarok
Sure, that movie where the antagonists have a special item that completely incapacitates people regardless of their powerlevel, and where Thor is made helpless by said item for a significant part of the movie, and where they run for their lives rather than go on to kill everyone involved in capturing them.
I'm not saying it can't be done, merely that a cult picking up random civilians and vagrants to sacrifice to their god is unlikely to be able to do so. If it was instead a powerful assassin group or bounty hunter group deliberately targeting powerful beings it would be much more plausible.
(1) those are mindflayers, who have evolved specifically to capture sentient beings, and have an entire civilization dedicated to capturing & eating sentient beings.
(2) they immediately permanently cripple their captured prisoners thus preventing them from using their high level abilities to immediately escape.
(3) as far as I know it is never actually explained how they managed to capture those people and the player doesn't have the opportunity to investigate it / ask about it (whereas they can definitely do so in a table game).
(4) presumably they have some kind of technology aboard the ship to grab people directly, as landing in the middle of the blood war, or in the city of waterdeep then exiting to go grab people and drag them back would be very risky for them.
play the opening of Thor Ragnarok
Sure, that movie where the antagonists have a special item that completely incapacitates people regardless of their powerlevel, and where Thor is made helpless by said item for a significant part of the movie, and where they run for their lives rather than go on to kill everyone involved in capturing them.
I'm not saying it can't be done, merely that a cult picking up random civilians and vagrants to sacrifice to their god is unlikely to be able to do so. If it was instead a powerful assassin group or bounty hunter group deliberately targeting powerful beings it would be much more plausible.
I feel like the discussion is becoming unproductive so I'll just reiterate my counterpoint to your earlier point that 14 is too high a level to get taken prisoner:
I can think of reasons it would work, I've come up with examples of stories that could serve as inspiration, and I think if the DM successfully pitches the players on an escape mission to open a new campaign, they'll easily suspend their disbelief because they think it sounds fun.
Like, I guess if the DM pitches this campaign to their players and nobody has seen Gladiator or wants to play that type of narrative, then no it won't work. But playing any type of game the players don't want doesn't work, so the issue there isn't even the concept that the players are too strong to be kidnapped, it's just that nobody wants to do it.
My last word on it is if you have player buy-in (as you should for any campaign), then it works just fine.
narratively you NEED the initial depowering element.
Narratively, you don't have a "depowering element". That's the problem. You're just declaring them depowered by fiat
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
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Again it depends on the relative level of the creatures involved. A level 3-5 party it is relatively plausible for them to get randomly captured by some bandits or cultists targeting random civilians. But not so for level 14 characters who are capable of easily taking on multiple adult dragons, beholders, mindflayers, or a whole family of giants. A level 14 character is more powerful than most generals, kings/queens, or high priests/priestesses, they can single-handedly take out a small platoon of soldiers. The equipment you need to be able to capture one is significantly more than what you'd need to kidnap a random civilian, and most are probably well known for their grand deeds and heroism. It's highly implausible for them to be kidnapped by mistake by some random cultists capturing random homeless people.
Kidnapping your players is illegal, kidnapping their characters is completely okay
In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Best quote from a book ever: "If you love with your eyes, death is forever. If you love with your heart, there is no such thing as parting."- Jonah Cook, Ascendant, Songs of Chaos by Michael R. Miller. Highly recommend
Again, it's not that capturing level 14 characters is impossible. It just requires overwhelming force, specialized capabilities, or extreme luck, and the first two just aren't the kinds of things you use to kidnap random people, the second requires a great deal of SoD when it's an entire party, particularly since some of them may have abilities that require fairly specialized countermeasures.
I'm not saying it's easy, but since this is happening off-screen before the start of the campaign, I don't consider it immersion-shattering as I might if this happened in session 4 after a railroaded combat encounter.
Revisiting my suggestion from before, I would even open on the players being the ones to narrate how their characters got taken, thus establishing it from their end and decreasing the likelihood that they declare the whole thing unfair and implausible.
The fun part of this campaign setup is that because a level 14 character is do powerful, indulgence in that fantasy of escape is so much more powerful. You get that sense of "oh boy these cultists don't know what they're messing with" and the eventual comeuppance is that much stronger. You see this type of story play out all the time where a powerful character is imprisoned and gets to escape (Mad Max: Fury Road and Thor Ragnarok are the two examples at the top of mind), and in order to have the badass escape and revenge part, narratively you NEED the initial depowering element.
It sounds like the OP wants to play out a specific fantastic scenario that I have seen before, that is really fun, but has to start this way. If their players are on board to play the opening of Thor Ragnarok, then I don't think their characters being too powerful is an insurmountable obstacle to the narrative.
(1) those are mindflayers, who have evolved specifically to capture sentient beings, and have an entire civilization dedicated to capturing & eating sentient beings.
(2) they immediately permanently cripple their captured prisoners thus preventing them from using their high level abilities to immediately escape.
(3) as far as I know it is never actually explained how they managed to capture those people and the player doesn't have the opportunity to investigate it / ask about it (whereas they can definitely do so in a table game).
(4) presumably they have some kind of technology aboard the ship to grab people directly, as landing in the middle of the blood war, or in the city of waterdeep then exiting to go grab people and drag them back would be very risky for them.
Sure, that movie where the antagonists have a special item that completely incapacitates people regardless of their powerlevel, and where Thor is made helpless by said item for a significant part of the movie, and where they run for their lives rather than go on to kill everyone involved in capturing them.
I'm not saying it can't be done, merely that a cult picking up random civilians and vagrants to sacrifice to their god is unlikely to be able to do so. If it was instead a powerful assassin group or bounty hunter group deliberately targeting powerful beings it would be much more plausible.
I feel like the discussion is becoming unproductive so I'll just reiterate my counterpoint to your earlier point that 14 is too high a level to get taken prisoner:
I can think of reasons it would work, I've come up with examples of stories that could serve as inspiration, and I think if the DM successfully pitches the players on an escape mission to open a new campaign, they'll easily suspend their disbelief because they think it sounds fun.
Like, I guess if the DM pitches this campaign to their players and nobody has seen Gladiator or wants to play that type of narrative, then no it won't work. But playing any type of game the players don't want doesn't work, so the issue there isn't even the concept that the players are too strong to be kidnapped, it's just that nobody wants to do it.
My last word on it is if you have player buy-in (as you should for any campaign), then it works just fine.
Narratively, you don't have a "depowering element". That's the problem. You're just declaring them depowered by fiat
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)