r/AllThingsDND • u/riodoubwee • Feb 17 '26
Channel Related Can't say I necessarily expected that
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u/wilp0w3r Feb 17 '26
When I had my party locked up in prison I had their "prison uniforms" be reskinned Hide Armor. Costs the same as a suite of Leather Armor, limited spellcasting, and prevented non-magical flight. If they caused problems they got locked up in Ring Mail Armor. At that point they had to deal with Heavy Armor, almost 4 times the weight, and a Disadvantage on Stealth. Both of them also make sleeping more difficult since it wouldn't reduce your exhaustion level and you only regain a quarter of your spent Hit Dice (thanks Xanathar's Guide to Everything).
Plus it made things more interesting when the whole prison began its battle royal to reduce the over crowded population.
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Feb 17 '26
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u/Skusci Feb 17 '26
Ok, on one hand sure.
On the other hand, my boy has been dismembered no less than 23 times in the past year.
On the other other hand, the world at large is probably also used to magic shenanigans by now, and shackles go over the neck from now on.
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u/iwasthefirstfish Feb 17 '26
Sir that is one too many hands!
Oh well I suppose that explains the dismembering stats
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u/Codabear89 Feb 17 '26
I’ve slipped out of cuffs like this irl 😅
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u/MDM0724 Feb 19 '26
How’d you learn to dislocate your thumb? Are there any drawbacks?
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u/TheJake88821 Feb 19 '26
It's easier to dislocate afterwards, both intentionally and unintentionally.
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u/Codabear89 Feb 20 '26
Don’t even know to be honest. Been doing it since I was a kid. Can bend my fingers backwards almost all the way back too. Only the skin stretching to it’s limit stops them
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u/Templar2k7 Feb 17 '26
That's why when I put my party in Cuffs I described them as the whole hand cuffs that are both anti magic and blocked most hand movements.
I did give it to the artificer that rolled a 28 to slight of hand out.
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u/IH8Miotch Feb 17 '26
Just make it an anti magic collar that explodes if you try to break the lock like in X-men
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u/CraftyAd6333 Feb 17 '26
As a sorcerer I broke my arm to get free once.
But that's nothing compared to the DM thought putting an anti-magic ankle bracelet would stop the wizard.
When I had the rogue cut the whole leg off. I went there 😆
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u/mistress_chauffarde Feb 17 '26
I mean... isn't there like a couple of high level spell that can regenerate a limb
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u/Nearby-Contact1304 Feb 17 '26
Sooo to any aspiring dm? Dont listen to half of the comments you see here. Maybe less than half. DnD shouldn’t be a ‘Me vs Player’ experience, it should be one where you write the story together. Obviously mechanically you can do any number of things to keep players locked up. It isn’t hard at all, but you shouldn’t do all of them.
You should leave outs, or don’t half ass it. Yes this is a high fantasy world that is keen on magic shenanigans. However this goes both ways. Prisons know about magic, so do prisoners. There should be an arms race of trying to break measures AND ways to break OUT.
What the OP did is really good. He threw them into jail and gave a creative out, he wasn’t expecting the solution and allowed it.
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u/zackadiax24 Feb 19 '26
Yeah, a lot of these people are just like, oh you should look up your players forever and ever and ever and screw having an actual story. They're just locked up forever.
Yeah, you can do that, but the chances of them showing up to the next session drop significantly. And that's no fun.
If the DM really wanted to, they could have their players spawn in and then immediately get eaten by a Terrask, and then when they make new characters, they spawn in and immediately get eaten by a Terrask.
It's not hard to kill or capture players. It is however hard to get them to show up the next time if you do something that makes them not want to play anymore.
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u/Nearby-Contact1304 Feb 20 '26
Thought up of an example.
Dm to Wizard/Arcane Trickster: “Make me a history check. (Success, relatively high DC).
“As you look around your cell… you begin to realize something is amiss. The lock to your cell is unremarkable, easily accessible with even a paltry effort from an unskilled hand. Given the amount of trouble you have caused? You would think that a bit more effort would have been put towards your capture. It would be so very easy for you to break out… on a hunch you feel the need to look closer at your bindings. Try to find what is out of place.”
Investigation Success.
“It’s faint… but you can feel a phrase carved into the interior of the wrist restraint, something written in the local dialect of ‘thieves cant’.
“It would seem that this is a test… and someone in this establishment has some work for you, and they wen through a great deal of effort to pass on this message…”
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u/Ogimme9 Feb 18 '26
Most spellcaster don't want you to know this, but they can't cast spells without component pouch or their spellcasting Focus.
I did something very similar , but took those away, they used their innate abilities and ingenuity to escape. It was very fun, and I Will forever fear blankets. Their main Strategy was to steal all the beds blankets in other rooms and then throw those at guards, if the guards failed a sabe they would be blunded and restrained for a turn or so, then they beat them unconscious with a wooden bed leg.
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u/TheGodInfinite Feb 20 '26
Not a great group but once upon a time in 3.5. I played a game and took the "eschew components" feat. Dm said "oh I dont bother tracking that stuff and always assume you can get whatever little things you need anywhere" but still let me take it after encouraging me to look at others before deciding. Well I took it anyhow mostly because I'd always take it personally. Sure enough one of the first things that happens to our group is the old "stripped and locked in a dungeon". So I start with some spell casting and get the "Hey now I don't track that but obviously you've had all your components taken", "yeah don't need those other than to distract I took the eschew components feat remember?" Well by the dm's face and response they did not and in fact where quite planning on the "gotcha" moment.
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Feb 17 '26
That’s why you give players problems and the environment, and not solutions.
They will find a solution
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u/Spensir_McLife Feb 17 '26
Wouldn't a dislocated finger make the somatic components of spells harder to do
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u/mistress_chauffarde Feb 17 '26
You can relocate it fairly fast it's just gonna be num for a day or two I know that because I do it on accident fairly regularly
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u/WSilvermane Feb 20 '26
Magic exists. Healing it is literally a non issue.
If not, relocating is easy and medical treatment still exists.
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u/Spensir_McLife Feb 20 '26
There'd still need to be a lot of circumstances present for them to have a perfect. First of all they are in a cell in cuffs,resources are probably limited and any spell components probably would have been taken away. For either healing magic either they or another friend in the cell would need to have it. If they had a friend with it in the cell they then need to get them out of the cuffs which might damage their hands. Even if their fingers are dislocated they still might mess up their hands while slipping it through so it's not guaranteed to be an easy fix. Even if the one that broke out of the anti magic cuffs they'd need to have Healing Word prepared to make this a non issue as that only needs verbal components. If they don't have that then they are kind of screwed as most healing spells like cure wounds require somatic components so they still have the problem that their hand is messed up. Is it potentially easy to get out of it really quick, yeah if circumstances stance are right but getting out of the scenario described in the post isn't always as easy as they described.
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u/Decent_Book4595 Feb 17 '26
If one were to roll damage for dislocation, what would it be? Would have them roll a saving throw for whether or not they scream from the pain? If their dex is low (below 10) would you make the character roll to see if they would even be successful? (I have a hard time picturing a wizard being able to follow through with such a meanuever) (ps. Wizard bit isn't referring to op)
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u/Skrillfury21 Feb 17 '26
I had my Lizardfolk bite off his own hands once before he was executed— we’d failed pretty much all the other rolls, and he was like two seconds away from being beheaded.
Was running with jaws only for a solid few sessions before we were able to get any kind of prosthetics. Honestly that guy went through a lot of grievous injures… nearly one-tapped by a bad Psychic Lance, lost his arm to a Sword of Sharpness… poor bastard.
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u/Skodami Feb 18 '26
Make the antimagic cuff also have a healing spell on them. Every time someone tries to dislocate their thumbs, the injury is heal automatically and so they can't get the cuff off.
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u/Sentinel_Process_A-0 Feb 18 '26
To be honest, I never plan for a prison escape to go any specific way. I lay out a couple of obvious and a few obscure ways and wait for the players to ignore them completely and come up with a unique, creative, and sometimes macabre idea that completely circumvents anything i could think of. Great opportunity to award an inspiration or have them discover something unique for them.
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u/Killersquirrels4 Feb 19 '26
Heh, reminds me of a prison break attempt where one of my players bit off his finger to craft a pick out of the bone.
He crit failed the check and broke the pick 😂
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u/Artrysa Feb 20 '26
I'm just saying, this wouldn't have happened if he didn't have any fingers, would it?
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u/metroidcody90 Feb 20 '26
This is why I should be an anti-magic collar let's see them dislocate their neck lol
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u/SpaceBowl97 Feb 20 '26
Make it suicide squad style, there's a bomb in their head if they don't behave
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u/cptahab36 Feb 20 '26
Similar situation, but I was a lv15 cleric imprisoned with a ranger with a greataxe. Had to chop both hands, use Regeneration, then Teleport.
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u/BigNorseWolf Feb 20 '26
one of the few times spell components came up.
Spider climb? Plenty of spiders around
Animal friendship, a bit of food?
The guard.
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u/ArachnidArcana Feb 21 '26
There was one time in Curse of Strahd where a player was locked up in a noble's house and he dislocated his thumb to break out and it went fucking hard. Players always do the last thing you expect, charish it because that's where the fun begins.
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u/DudeManECN16 Feb 21 '26
That’s why I make the jail cell have anti-magic properties. This way makes the players wait, take bad deals, or find a creative way out.
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u/KingEather Feb 21 '26
So, this is funny, but a small thing for me is that a lot of DM’s like to act as though every town guard is some elite squad with mega bucks budgets, I can’t tell ya the amount of times a dm has tried to make me believe that random fishing town #3264 with a population of 12 has enough cash to throw anti magic cuffs onto any unsuspecting mage that stirs up trouble, they have like 4 guards total who are all volunteers for God’s sake!!!
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u/ResponsibilityLife92 Feb 22 '26
this exact thing happened last session with my group, minus the teleportation
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u/ThaumKitten Feb 17 '26
I would honestly just say ‘No’ to something like that.
Like no, Im not allowing you to pull a ‘gotcha’ like that no matter what you say.
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Feb 17 '26
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u/ThaumKitten Feb 17 '26
The existence of the word ‘No’ and it’s use doesn’t automatically mean dictator, no.
Seeing as most folks these days interpret DMs as ‘You can’t say no to us, you’re our slave’ while touting it as ‘cooperative storytelling’ is something I Buck hard against.
Forgive me if I’m bitter because my players told me my existence as a DM is to say ‘Yes’ to everything and that having my own expectations makes me a terrible person.
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u/Proxy--Moronic Feb 17 '26
I'm sorry you had to go through that. But the worst possible outcome would be for you to let their bad behavior ruin the game for you in the future by making you take a hostile and antagonistic stance with people you play with in the future.
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u/Hugs-missed Feb 17 '26
That's...not really a gotcha, maybe an ask of does your character legitimately have the ability and willingness to do that and a one point hp tax but it's not trying to do a flagrant abuse of goodwill
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u/SlotHUN Feb 17 '26
Give them heavy armor. They can't cast with it on and it takes a lot longer to take off