Leonine Roar

Binding the hands and feet of prisoners is a classic way to end a combat early or without having to kill everyone in sight.  It’s an especially heady (if not civil) decision when you need to interrogate prisoners, keep them safe (or out of your way) somewhere until you come back, or turn them in to the local authorities for a reward. 

And don’t forget – your enemies have their own nefarious reasons to bind you, too!

Yet the rules and options aren’t all clear or in one place when it comes to this simple and effective way to deal with the scoundrels you capture on your adventure.  Here’s a quick review of your options, from skills to mundane gear and finally, a few magical tools. 

Thievery & Rope

Rope has lots of creative uses throughout your adventures, and tying up your prisoners has been around since the dawn of D&D – it’s just something everyone’s done at some point.  Whether it’s a bandit or some other criminal, or a kobold or goblin, chances are your earliest D&D adventures including taking one of these creatures prisoner at some point. 

You wanted more information about what lay ahead down the rest of the road, or about what else was inside the nearby cave where the rest of the goblins lair.  Or perhaps it was more than that: one of bandits or goblins must know what became of the the constable’s missing daughter who was last seen heading south of Fallcrest on horseback.  They had to have at least seen her, right?  When it’s information you want, tying up a prisoner is often a good idea. 

Improvising with Thievery: Bind a creature with rope (check result sets escape DC) 

Adventurer’s Kit (includes 1 Hempen Rope): 15 gp

Hempen Rope (50′): 1 gp

Silk Rope (50′): 10 gp

Any type of rope will do, hempen or silk (there is no mentioned difference in DC), and a hempen one is already included in your Adventurer’s Kit.  So go ahead and make your Thievery check and bind your prisoner, and hope they’re not too strong or slithery.  You might want your DM to make this check for you as you’ll never know for certain just how securely you bound them, giving it a bit of reasonable mystery, even if you’re an expert in Thievery.

Now just apply your best good cop-bad cop dialogue and earn that Intimidate or Diplomacy check for the information you’re after.  Don’t forget any kind of leverage to help out in “negotiations” – such as a bribe of gold or even food or drink.  Cooperation from prisoners isn’t something you should count on every time – even if expertly tied ropes around their wrists and ankles are. 

Manacles & Shackles

When rope isn’t enough or isn’t stylish enough, go with what the pros use: manacles and shackles!  

Delver’s Kit (includes 1 Iron Manacles): 40 gp

Iron Manacles: 10 gp

Adamantine Manacles: 650 gp

Cold Iron Shackles: 30 gp

The DCs to get out of manacles, whether using an Acrobatics check or a Strength check are nothing to sneeze at any level, and makes them especially ideal for low-level play or binding weaker creatures. 

Heroes of the Feywild adds a magical touch with Cold Iron Shackles, despite still being “mundane gear.”  Ironically, there aren’t any other shackles in the game, though logically you could simply apply “cold iron” to existing manacles, adding the costs together.  Still, unless you’re running a Heroes of the Feywild-themed campaign, these fey-binding tools likely won’t see much use in your games.

Magical Bindings

If a simple rope, manacles or shackles still aren’t good enough for the kind of company you need to tie up, then it’s time to turn to rituals and wondrous items. 

Tenser’s Binding (ritual, level 10; 1,000 gp market price, 400 gp component cost)

Dimensional Shackles (wondrous item, level 17 uncommon; 65,000 gp)

Now we’re talking!  This is how you bind your prisoners!  Sure, they’re expensive, even extravagant, but Tenser’s Binding lasts 12 hours and offers a scaling Arcana-based DC to escape while the dimensional shackles can be applied as an attack in combat, requires an Acrobatics check against a massive DC of 35 to escape, and locks victims down by restraining them and prohibiting teleportation. 

I can see paragon and epic level creatures – adventurers or otherwise – making use of Tenser’s Binding occasionally.  Similarly, prolific power groups, mighty constabulary forces, or even large, rich armies keeping a few dimensional shackles handy wouldn’t come as a surprise.  Planar trips by skiff to or through the Astral Sea, Elemental Chaos or Sigil, the City of Doors are great opportunities for adventures that include and feature the magical binding of more powerful prisoners. 

Take No Prisoners?

So there you have it – three different ways to tie up your prisoners, drawn and bound together, all in one convenient place. 

How often has taking prisoners come up in your D&D games, especially your 4e games?  How smoothly has it gone?  What binding tools or magic does your playgroup use or like most?

This entry was posted on Friday, December 2nd, 2011 at 12:00 am and is filed under Design, Mechanics & Efficiencies, Storytelling & Roleplaying. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.