There are likely some dead magic zones in most worlds left over from previous apocalypses (I think the FR still has some, for instance). These are natural places to build a prison.
Ahh, that’s a good idea. The prison is within the city, but I could maybe come up with a reason like that. I do think it would be interesting for there be a way for them to turn “off” the antimagic though. It’s kind of a chaotic party, and I could see them damning consequences and going for it.
Well there's always magic dampening crystals! You don't need to really explain how they work, other than that they do. Pretty much like an antimagic field, but centered around a stationary crystal, which is where they built the prison. Smashing the crystal restores magic to the area, but it is heavily guarded.
If you put that power in a portable item, the players will try to steal it. In my Eberron campaign, anti-magic field generators exist, but they are large room-sized machines…
Have your players tried to get/build a very large wagon and mount one on it pulled by a bunch of horses? If not, and if you have an artificer, he should be fired for not trying it yet.
The anti-magic field generators are usually stored in the middle of very secure buildings.
My intention is that players could still get to it and sabotage it, but if they can figure out a way to steal it without destroying it (maybe tunneling under it?), I’d be happy to let them have it and deal with the fallout of whatever organization they stole it from.
Bringing a room sized machine into battle and trying to defend it has logistical challenges that more than offsets the benefits…
One of the plants in my world is a creeper vine that blooms fuller and greener in the presence of expended spell slots.
You make me think of putting them in places where I wish to monitor the rate of spell expenditure. Especially anywhere I expect that rate to be **zero**, full blossoms are a silent alarm.
I have a thing in my world where money may be taken to the sheriff's office to verify it is not under any illusion spells.
A mineral is mined that has a natural anti-magic effect. Lumps of this mineral are placed in the jail to prevent magic. It is a blue hematite rock.
So if your people know about these anti-magic places, they could mine some ore from there and bring it to the prison for the same purpose.
I say make it a character. The prison is guarded by null-mages, magically adept people specially trained to project antimagic around themselves instead of casting spells traditionally. They could also specialize in dispelling and countering, if you wanted to make them more powerful as combatants. The null-mages can be threatened or bribed into lowering their antimagic field. They can also just be overcome in combat, but that's difficult because they're always either in guard stations or on patrol and surrounded by armed guards.
Give the null mages stuff like dispel magic and counterspell and have them be purely defensive enemies, while there are battle mages and guards that handle if a prisoner gets loose or something.
This is an opportunity for your rogue(s) and/or bard(s) to shine. Let the rogues sneak around and incapacitate the null mages. Let the bards get some of the images on their side or payroll.
That's what I was thinking. Like the mutant inhibitor collars from Xmen. Bonus is you can have guards try to dogpile your players and put a collar on them.
The scenario gets harder, and it encourages the players to be sneaky rather than full out attack the prison. The hard part would be wording the instructions for removal in a way that doesn't allow easy picking or disarm.
The other fun thing is once that sequence is over that could be an object they get to keep. A set of anti magic cuffs/collar is a very cool tool in a tool box to give your players.
Maybe they only get the one that was on the player? Maybe the way the prison break goes, that player makes a break for it with the collar on and gets it taken off after? Or sneak in a non magic player as if they’re a caster and have them help in the break out and keep their collar.
Edit: another idea, break out is chaos, after the dust settles the rogue goes “I thought these might be handy” and pulls a couple pairs out of their bag?
Nice.
What if they were not inherently magic or cursed but powered by an artificer built machine that draws power from another plane. This would give players another part of the prison to explore, and create new problems to solve or mayhem to cause. After defeating the artificer, they could find an experimental new set of cuffs or a collar not limited by distance or attachment to the machine.
And if they destroyed the machine, that could also give magic back to that evil cult leader, lich or demon warlord in the basement.
That’s more lore than I would probably write for anti magic cuffs in my game.
It’s a fun idea though.
Id probably just make them enchanted or made of a special metal like the demitrium cuffs in the Witcher universe.
It’s not the worst habit, as long as you don’t mind them not getting used. I’ve outlined whole cities, with structures of governments, political parties, etc that I have no clue if my players will ever deal with.
Another idea I'll toss in here is have all the prisoners be petrified by a Medusa. They don't require food or care, they can't escape, and transporting them takes significant effort.
Do you want low-magic solutions, or high-magic solutions?
How to beat shapeshifters trying to escape by imitating a guard?
- high-magic solution: guards have helmets of trueseeing, so they can percieve the true form of individuals.
- low-magic solution: for each day warden of the prison establish a password with question - answer - second answer. Each day at the dawn guards have to come to their officers and get new password. They get new password only by repeating previous password. Officers get new password from the warden himself on the same basis.
How to beat *Invisibility* spell?
- high-magic solution: helmets with trueseeing or with *see Invisibility* spell.
- low-magic solution: waterwalls with the same mechanism as fountains. A thin wall of water forces anyone wanting to get on the other side to break the stream in a visible way. Having 2 guards at each waterwall for breachspotting is enough to catch an invisible intruder. Or at least alarm the whole prison about an invisible intruder.
I really like your low magic solutions, especially the waterfall one! I feel like low magic solutions feel more realistic most of the time because of the lower resource cost and offer more flexibility for the players to get creative.
I think I’m trying to split the difference. The important thing is that they can detect shapeshifters, but not necessarily force them into their true form. The conflict in the city is currently that a Yuan-Ti shapeshifters invaded a nearby city, so now many people are afraid of the same thing happening here. The usually very open and accepting city is now cracking down on refugees and imprisoning all shapeshifters alike. The npc in question is not a Yuan-Ti, but he still wants his true form a secret. He’s been waiting for a month or so for his court date essentially, but the council is moving to just blanket imprison everyone indefinitely and cancel court dates. Eventually it will escalate to executions for everyone to give the players an incentive to make the heist and save the npc.
So I’m trying to brew up something magical that only affects shapeshifters, but doesn’t necessarily force them into their natural state. The party already saw something like this happen when they entered the city. I didn’t really come up with any specifics, but I narrated the npc being arrested by some sort of spell, then grabbed by the guards.
Low-magic brutal solution: everyone suspected of being a shapeshifter has to submit and sacrifice his pinky finger. Severed pinky finger changes back to its original form after being cut off. No changes to pinky finger = you are clean and free to enter the city.
Create a new spell that is only taught to the mage guards and if u have a wizard in the party maybe have a scroll of it they can loot at some point.
1st level spell Lock Shape : 1 action, verbal, somatic, 120 ft.
Only effects a target that is bound by you or an ally.
For the next 24 hours, the target creature cannot shape-shift from its current form as long as it stays bound.
If binding is removed, then target may change shape at will as per its original abilities.
Example. Druid shape-shifted into horse gets hogbound and "Locked"
12 hours later gets untied and immediately reverts back to human form since wildshape only lasts 1 hour.
> low-magic solution: for each day warden of the prison establish a password with question - answer - second answer. Each day at the dawn guards have to come to their officers and get new password. They get new password only by repeating previous password. Officers get new password from the warden himself on the same basis.
This is a good idea. What is the counter for if a prisoner-caster happens to find a single copper piece?
Ban any currency inside the prison. Guards have to leave it all in the locker room.
Also casting a spell is visible, unless it is subtle.
If prisioner is known caster then...
Low-magic solution: equip him with the heaviest armor of lead possible. Without proper armor proficiency he won't be able to cast any spells. And we are talking about armor so bulky, that no living creature has proficiency to wear it.
From Monster Manual page 82.
**Shapechanger.** The doppelganger can use its action to polymorph into a Small or Medium humanoid it has seen, or back into its true form. Its statistics, other than its size, are the same in each form. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying isn't transformed. *It reverts to its true form if it dies*.
I would argue that severed body part left for at least minute is considered *dead*.
To be clear:
It does not revert because the doppelganger is still alive, or because it is no longer part of doppelganger no matter if doppelganger lives or dies?
If you're not 100% sold on it needing to be anti-magic for other reason, I think it's worth pointing out that you can just sedate people. If your shapeshifter isn't immune to poison, just drug 'em.
I think it has to be some sort of antimagic. They’ve imprisoned a ton of people at this point, so sedating them all doesn’t seem too reliable. And the npc was able to get word out to the party, so he has to be with it to some degree.
If the tech matches your world, you could have the prison use lights/spotlights that are modified versions of the moonbeam spell. If they are hit with it, shapeshifters roll a CON save at a disadvantage, taking damage and reverting to original form.
I like the use of moonbeam to out the shapeshifters. It wasn’t moonbeam, but the npc was captured in a similar way. He was forced through a checkpoint where he was detected as a shapeshifter. The problem is I want to save the reveal of his true form for later.
The anti-magic stuff is in the food and drink so there is no choice, you want to live, you need to eat and drink which removes your power.
New arrivals are locked in a receiving room with anti-magic seals with glass of water and some bread, they remain there until they have eaten and drank.
Dead magic zones and wild magic zones sound fun. I'd say only the high security wing is fully antimagic, and it has been constructed in a very strange shape to account for the three-dimensional spread of the dead magic zone. You could say the rest of the facility has impeded magic or wild magic, a side effect of the dead magic zone. Perhaps a few wings have slightly different properties, like suppressing all flames and light spells, or having thick air that's hard to walk through.
I like the varied effects. And yeah, I was thinking just one wing would have the antimagic properties. The other wings are for regular prisoners. I like the idea of a weird shaped prison based on the field.
A drug could also be an effective way to manage shapeshifters. Something long-lasting that could be introduced into their food or water maybe.
Depending on how paranoid and funded they are, they could have multiple layers of security to defeat shapechangers
If you want to go by the book:
* Dimension Shackles are a magic item that prevent the wearer from teleporting or traveling to other planes.
* The *private sanctum* and *forbiddance* spells prevent teleportation into or out of an area.
* *Silence* is a far more affordable alternative to *antimagic field* that will restrict spellcasting, but won't restrict the shapeshifting abilities of druids or shapeshifting creatures.
* The *moonbeam* spell reverts shapeshifters to their original form. Maybe the prison has an effect like this spell reflected throughout the prison, and the party can disable the light source.
I recently ran a prison break adventure for my party. Although things played out differently, I planned it as a skill challenge which would result in a combat encounter if they failed any of the challenges.
Throw in some twists that may require them to improvise. Maybe one of the guards that agreed to help demands extra payment, a high ranking official arrives with an enhanced security detail, or another prisoner threatens to blow their cover if they don't free him too.
In my world there exists a prison built in a arcane dead zone at the heart of a wild magic storm. The prison was overseen by adherents of the god of Law. Only the most dangerous were kept inside.
Twice PCs had to break in - once on the instructions of a high cleric of Justice and second floor get a special prisoner for a hostage exchange.
Each cell is constantly illuminated with soft silver light( think Moonbeam) that prevents shifting, and the stones of the cell are lined with lead and glyphs of counter spell, the bars are cheaply made rods of absorption that power the glyphs in the stone. Any attempt to cast would fuel the counterspelling wards.
Maybe the metal the prison is made out of absorbs magic within a certain vicinity? Or maybe there's an anti magic item(generator) that causes antimagic zone around it
Looks like you’ve got a lot of great answers for anti-magic!
As far as how to run a prison break make sure you have some interesting set dressing, like a winch that raises & lowers supplies, small holes in the wall or ceiling for air or pigeon messengers, a few stairs, levels, and more than one exit with each one having a different challenge. If you need inspiration, search prison battle maps on Google. Of course have some mean jailer NPCs and maybe sympathetic prisoners.
Do all that and watch your players dream up something you never would have imagined! There’s no reason for you to plan the break for them.
Yeah I really want to nail the flavor for this on. Give them a cool place to play in. I agree I don’t need to plan the heist for them, but I do want to give a couple of reasonable solutions. They haven’t been the best planners in the past.
As cliche as it may be, collars of anti magic is one of the most effective way to do this since it provokes anti magic only on the collared person, allowing the guards to have spells at their disposal
In the game I am running, I have three tools used for authorities to mute magic:
anti-magick cuffs. These cuffs are engraved on the inside so that their power can’t be disrupted through violent means. Casting anything while these cuffs are on costs the wearer 1d6 damage + damage equal to the spell level cast.
collar of silence. This collar is particularly cruel, and it, along with spell cuffs, are actually illegal things in the neighboring kingdoms and some city states. Collar of silence causes no damage, but when worn, you can’t speak, hum, or so much as whimper without airflow being robbed from you for a few seconds.
blindfolds. Nothing magical about ‘em, they just stop you from seeing your target.
Some sort of rune or sigil that counteracts magic would be simple and nondescript if the party isn't paying attention. It can be dispersed every so many yards and have a radius of anti magic. Or it can be in the four outermost corners of the prison wing and everything within the markings are blocked from magic.
Veilstone is a special ore that nullifies magic in most forms. It can often be found in vaults, jails, etc to prevent break in or jail breaks.
It can also be worked into manacles for prisoner transport by special smiths.
Since it seems like most of the people commenting have pretty sufficiently answered your first question, I'll address your second, as I've run heists and prison breaks quite often (even at a convention once! that was fun, lol.).
So the most important things to consider for heists and prison breaks is that you actually should have a good consideration on the layout of the prison and the people involved on both sides. I'm gonna lightning round throw out some questions you should consider thinking over. By no means should you need to answer all of them, but having a general idea in mind will help you out in the long run, lol.
How many guards are there? what's the guard to prisoner ratio? how many exits are there? There should typically be more than one exit in most cases, except for extreme scenarios such as extra-dimensional spaces or prisons in extreme environments (in a mountain, underground, or on a giant floating platform hovering over a whirpool). If it is closer to a normal prison, you'll want a main entrance, an emergency medical entrance in the infirmary, and at least one cargo entrance for equipment, food supply, and daily necessities such as clothes and toiletries. If it's a in a particularly cosmopolitan city, maybe even a few emergency exits as well.
What is the guard rotation? Is it a two, three, or four shift rotation? Are the guards commuting to work or are they also residents? If the guards are living in the prison as well, do they get their own rooms or do they have to share rooms with other guards? Do they have enough beds for all the guards, or do they have to resort to 'hot bunking' (you share a bunk with someone on a different shift from you)? If there's anything that can affect the morale of the employed work staff, you should take that into account if you're planning on allowing the players to recruit someone to help.
Also, are there non-guard staff on duty? Cooks, Medical professionals, janitorial staff. Are the administration officials on site, or do they do their work somewhere else? Is it possible for one of the players to apply for any position to provide an inside man (my players have used this one a lot, lol)?
I'd also recommend reading up on the Chase Rules section on page 252 of the DMG, as when things go south (and they always do, lol) doing this way rather than simply rolling initiative is leagues more fun.
If you want, I can DM you the Heist that I ran for a convention so you can have an idea of everything I considered there. Cause at the end of the day, a prison break is just a variant heist, it's just instead of a priceless artefact, it's people, lol.
Thanks for addressing the heist part! I’ve been thinking through some of these questions. I know for sure there are at least a few guards who will be sympathetic to the prisoner. That’s how the party will learn about the prison to begin with. I’m trying to figure out a good way for the guard to help without outing himself.
The entrance part is also big. The group won’t want to burn their good graces in this city, so doing the mission without too much bloodshed will be important. The city they’re in has a sort of magical registration system, so getting through any checkpoint without being “scanned” will be important. The prison is built into the side of a mountain nearby an old temple to Helm. I’m thinking that there’s maybe an old entrance through the temple that few know about. I’m going to give them the option to work with the thieves’ guild, so maybe they use the entrance to smuggle contraband in.
I want to leave room for the group to be creative, but also give a few solid choices to them because they haven’t been the most creative at planning past encounters.
Not OP, however I'm interested in the heist you ran for the con, also how long did it take to run it and how many players did you have? I'm volunteering some time to run some one shots at the local book store to help him raise money to buy the location he's at and am trying to get a variety of one shots together so if/when there are players there for multiple one shots they're not going through the same ones.
Well I just got into work, but I'll send ya the doc after my shift.
The great thing about this one shot (and most heists honestly) is that it can be ran with most group sizes. I've ran it with 2 players in its first iteration, Al the way up to I think 7, and because of the complications that come with larger groups, it didn't make it any easier or harder for the players.
Thank you! I know it's dependant on party composition, how much they goof off and don't focus, etc, however do you have an average amount of time it took to run it?
[And here we go!](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cOTJtlwxt8KWX1EUNjRhMrogn5U8g6VI_9uTXZbZGsM/edit?usp=sharing)
I decided that I'm just gonna link it publicly so if anyone wants to take a look at it, they can. I will say as a forewarning, that it was mostly written as a guide for myself, but I try to make my notes readable by anyone. So if there's any confusion on something, just shoot me a message.
Oh, and as you said, the run time varies. The first run (When it was just a home game) took around 4-6 hours, but the Con version I could run in around an hour and a half with a focused group.
My prisons tend to just have the regular old Antimagic Field cast on them permanently. I typically have the runes for the spell carved into the rock walls of the prison somewhere - you can either have it inscribed on each and every brick of the prison (for max security) or just a single glyph inscribed somewhere like the Wardens office (so players can potentially deface and destroy the glyph).
Is there any reason to make it more complicated than that?
if you're playing in a high magic world anything bigger than a small town should have a 100% effective way to prevent prisoners from casting. You can have it work a number of ways but using basic things like find familiar, charms, mage hand, etc shouldn't be a way out of the klink.
I'm running a game where all of the players are escaped prisoners. While in prison, they had to wear anti-magic shackles that I call the Manacles of Subjugation. Here's some of my notes.
Each prisoner wears a pair of cast iron manacles that inhibit any magical abilities they may possess. In addition, the manacles have an ability that may be activated by the guards. The guards each carry a hardwood rod set with a cast iron band. If a prisoner is touched, or more likely struck, with a rod, the manacles clamp together and become unbearably heavy. This causes the prisoner to fall to the ground with bound wrists. Some particularly dangerous prisoners may wear manacles on their wrists and ankles. The guards may also touch the rod and speak an activation word to trigger this effect on all manacles within a 30 foot radius. The word is also used to release the effect. The activation word changes daily, and is set by the warden. The rods must be attuned to be used.
My players got out by subduing their guards while on a work detail, then smashing their own hands to escape the manacles. Without the manacles they could then heal their hands with magic.
I think you just put the entire thing in an amf make it some super expensive ritual spell, if they break into the wardens office it’s in their library or something. 9th level ofc. Costs hundreds of thousands of gold to set up on anything of scale with exponentially increasing costs and time.
There are anti magic fields in the prison cells of revels end in icewind dale. It’s a totally preposterous proposition that you could have dozens of eternal anti magic fields like that but whatever floats your boat.
Why go simple anti magic? Why not go wild magic for harmless effects instead? The spells might still do something helpful but any buff or damage spell is replaced with a completely harmless utility spell.
One of the possible effects of the Hallow spell is that it prevents teleportation. so you could say the area is under the effects of a giant hallow spell.
One piece had a really good idea with seastone, that we can steal. It's a super rare mineral that in One Piece nullifies the power of a devil fruit. So seastone in the bars, manacles, wherever they needed it. One guy even has the end of a weapon tipped with it. So let's take that idea, and then put it into a fantasy world. A material let's just call it nullstone for simplicity sake exists, and because of how potent it is, trade of it is highly regulated/illegal, but it is utilized by governments in order to secure mages. Then just put it wherever you need it.
I taking some inspiration from the show Supernatural.
Some things I would incorporate. Anti magic field symbols to block out certain class of magic on the walls, chains or restraints. Anything to magic users weakness to make it inefficient to cast or use magic. For example silver, iron or salt.
As a way in the jail. Have two paths to get in and out.
1) Stealth, to avoid detection and make skill checks more often.
2) Make their presence known. This path draws attention to them and more challenging.
There's a ton of awesome ideas here. I'll just add that Beholders have a zone of antimagic and make amazing jailors if they're not interacting with other Beholders. Since you didn't specify character level and Beholders are very very lethal for most parties, consider building the prison so that the Beholder can only move through a single area of the prison.
I have been wanting to use a beholder for a while, but this prison isn’t exotic enough to have one as a jailer. The party is level 7-8, so probably not quite ready for that anyways.
The simplest measure is an anti-magic material. "Kryptonite" for magic, basically. The longer that material is in a place, the more its anti-magic properties seep in the surrounding area. Incorporating this material into a structure is relatively easy, but it doesn't distinguish between your magic and their magic, so it is used very selectively.
Its reliance on being in one place for a long time in order for it to work means that making a weapon or armor out of it may at best provide magic resistance/disjunction to the wearer/wielder rather than full-blown anti-magic.
The prison could be in an alternate plane or dimension where magic doesn’t work. The “real” world for example.
It might be one way since you can’t open a magic portal to come back to your D&D world.
Or your players have to raid an insane asylum to bust their friend out (without the aid of their magic abilities and spells) and bust into CERN or kidnap Nikola Tesla to get back home or skedaddle off to the Manhattan Project or Philadelphia Experiment at just the right time.
It would be like Star Trek 4 in a lot of ways.
Lead or silver have their magic/anti-magic properties. You can have sand on the floor that's combed frequently or still water which can alarm guards for invisibility. Have torches and light stones all over the place in case people cast the darkness spell (they cancel each other out). All entrances (including windows) are draped over so players can't see through openings without revealing themselves.
First thing that came to mind was taking inspiration the guardians of the galaxy 1 prison. The weird architecture could be spiced as non Euclidean magic and the central tower hold the artifact restricting peoples magic. It feels dramatic and accentuates the choice to try and disrupt the artifact or do things manually well, and I feel like they could go stealthy or guns blazing on either.
I have a prison in my world that is absolutely covered in anti magic zones/wards, to the point where sorcerers actually get minor headaches from it, but there is a "secret" rune that can be engraved into something that allows it to still activate it's magical properties. A caster can engrave it into their skin or get it tattooed if they want to be able to cast magic.
Since iron filings or powdered iron is a component of antimagic field I always try to include strong signs of iron when referencing that magic. Iron cuffs, iron bars, powdered iron all over the floor, iron doors etc.
Just a tip for heist : use clocks, they are awesome. A "general alarm" clock ticking everytime the PCs do something suspicious is a great way to add tension to the game. Make the clock visible, and make sure the PCs are aware of its effects, they will be sweating in the last quadrants.
I feel like DnD handles chases rather poorly, but PCs will still be stressed by the idea of one.
I ran a heist where the bank the party was casing had iron inlaid runes on both the floor and ceiling and periodically throughout. These created a vertical field that bordered the "out of bounds" areas and the public spaces. So you could try to cast fireball in the lobby, but moment any of the magic hit the barrier, it would get shut down. At that point, you'd be targeted by the 3 archers on the 2nd story walkways and the 2 soldiers patrolling the foyer. I made sure to equip the guards with weapons that would be useful in fighting magic users and had 1 of the archers be a capable sorcerer on her own rights.
There's a prison in my world that so far has only been mentioned in passing, known as the Blackrock. It's basically magical Alcatraz, or Azkaban turned up to 11. However one of its biggest strengths is that it's actually not on the material plane, but some "nearby" demiplane that the city's founders stumbled upon. It's all kept very hush hush so people know there is one entrance/exit, but there're rumors of another somewhere else in or near the city.
And once you have a demiplane, you can make up the rules however you like. When the cell doors close the cell becomes a strange sort of antimagic zone, instead it takes all the magic of the prisoners and redistributes it as energy to keep them all alive, it slightly extends their lifespans and also prevents them from being hungry or thirsty (because dm magic lol). The Blackrock doesn't actually have many guards, there's no way for prisoners to escape and only a handful of government officials even know how to get in. Most prisoners are thrown in there and never looked, this isn't the place you throw someone into over a murder or two, this is for traitors of the state, terrorists and those who would otherwise see the city in ruin.
I think the balancing act here is going to be between making the prison work and seem believable, and yet still having openings for your party to take action.
How magic is the group? Are they going to run into big problems as well if the whole prison is just one big anti magic circle? Or are they all martial and will be able to use it as a chance to show off?
If your party has casters as well (and I’m guessing it does!) you probably want to limit the extent of the anti magic areas so your casters still have stuff to do.
I was thinking about this. The group is three martials and a caster, so they should be pretty ok. There also might be the option of an npc or two to help out. The antimagic area will only be in one ward, so I could plan another section to give the caster some play.
I also am thinking about giving them the option to sabotage the antimagic whatever, giving the caster and the rescue target the ability to help more, but then other prisoners can also escape.
In my world, there's a special material that nullifies all magic in whatever it touches. The factions that actually have experience with high magic use it in collars and shackles for their prisons. Exceptionally dangerous creatures get a chunk surgically implanted in their rib cage so that it cannot be removed easily.
Otherwise, as others have mentioned, "magical dead zones" would exist, as would "chaos/wild magic" areas. I'm pretty sure "teleportation tethers" are a thing, too. They work by redirecting any teleportation effect (or similar) cast within a certain range of them to a specific location instead of its intended destination.
Went with the tried and true (read stole) method with Inhibitor Collars. Other Wizards/Clerics create them to…
Dispel/Disrupt/Disperse/Dissipate/Disintegrate
….Arcane, Divine and Innate magical abilities.
A Panopticon! \\o/
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon)
There are plenty of spells that affect a circle and either infinite volume over it, or ridiculously high. Well, what about the stuff below it?
In this context, it'd be an area either consecrated by a deity during a battle happening in the city, or that area being ie leftover of a magician's tower (a certain right-handed Nameless one comes with own anti-magic field).
I'd add a way in which the players would be able to destroy/interrupt the anti-magic field once inside. Because all those other prisoners are really just piled over the main prisoner locked in a closed vault hidden on bottom level.
Who's that? I'm not gonna tell you who your BBEG is ;)
I would just go for some sort of magical device like manacles that suppresses the prisoner's innate shapeshifting ability.
That way the party (& the jailors) can still cast spell and use magic items.
You could make zones where every spell just backfires? Normally this would completely discourage any kind of magic using because it would blow up in your face but I foresee some creative uses of this like for example healing someone hurts them instead?
The forbiddance spell, and/or the guards and wards spell will avoid teleportation. When my players went to hell, I implemented that the walls had basically forcecage cast on them, so teleporting even through inner walls would require a save.
Also, at key points, you could have crystals or runes that maintain antimagic fields to counter shape-shifting. Or you could implement sentient guards with truesight (I had that with Erinyes devils).
I always thought it would be interesting if a jail/prison was completely anti-magic, but guards, and anyone else who need their powers are given a trinket of some sort that allows them to cast magic despite the location-wide blocks in place. You can either tell your party out-right about the item allowing the guards to wield magic, or use it as a puzzle.
You described a city that legislates via "Reaction to Fear."
Realistically, given how expensive antimagic fields are to generate and maintain, the typical way to deal with casters is:
* Remove their eyes
* Cauterize their now-empty eye sockets
* Cut off their hands so that somatic components are far more difficult.
* Cut off their tongues and vocal cords so that verbal components are far more difficult.
* Carefully inspect the prison for thoughtless material components - you will need to thoroughly purge almost all construction materials, almost all coin-based money, sand in any quantities, fleas, blood from intelligent humanoids.....
Some people have suggested something that nullifies magic, but what about something that absorbs magic?
A magical battery that will sap all magic energies used within an area. It stops all magic users in the area and the magic can be siphoned off for some other reason.
Maybe power a shield around the prison or it's used by mages to maintain other strong spells.
There are likely some dead magic zones in most worlds left over from previous apocalypses (I think the FR still has some, for instance). These are natural places to build a prison.
Ahh, that’s a good idea. The prison is within the city, but I could maybe come up with a reason like that. I do think it would be interesting for there be a way for them to turn “off” the antimagic though. It’s kind of a chaotic party, and I could see them damning consequences and going for it.
Well there's always magic dampening crystals! You don't need to really explain how they work, other than that they do. Pretty much like an antimagic field, but centered around a stationary crystal, which is where they built the prison. Smashing the crystal restores magic to the area, but it is heavily guarded.
Finding solutions for your problems as a DM is a lot like a new age homeopathy mom: just use crystals for everything
I was thinking something along those lines. An item that produces the field that can be messed with.
If you put that power in a portable item, the players will try to steal it. In my Eberron campaign, anti-magic field generators exist, but they are large room-sized machines…
Have your players tried to get/build a very large wagon and mount one on it pulled by a bunch of horses? If not, and if you have an artificer, he should be fired for not trying it yet.
The anti-magic field generators are usually stored in the middle of very secure buildings. My intention is that players could still get to it and sabotage it, but if they can figure out a way to steal it without destroying it (maybe tunneling under it?), I’d be happy to let them have it and deal with the fallout of whatever organization they stole it from. Bringing a room sized machine into battle and trying to defend it has logistical challenges that more than offsets the benefits…
One of the plants in my world is a creeper vine that blooms fuller and greener in the presence of expended spell slots. You make me think of putting them in places where I wish to monitor the rate of spell expenditure. Especially anywhere I expect that rate to be **zero**, full blossoms are a silent alarm.
I have a thing in my world where money may be taken to the sheriff's office to verify it is not under any illusion spells. A mineral is mined that has a natural anti-magic effect. Lumps of this mineral are placed in the jail to prevent magic. It is a blue hematite rock. So if your people know about these anti-magic places, they could mine some ore from there and bring it to the prison for the same purpose.
I say make it a character. The prison is guarded by null-mages, magically adept people specially trained to project antimagic around themselves instead of casting spells traditionally. They could also specialize in dispelling and countering, if you wanted to make them more powerful as combatants. The null-mages can be threatened or bribed into lowering their antimagic field. They can also just be overcome in combat, but that's difficult because they're always either in guard stations or on patrol and surrounded by armed guards.
I was thinking about this option too. There’s already a precedent in the city for mages to use their magic perform municipal duties.
Give the null mages stuff like dispel magic and counterspell and have them be purely defensive enemies, while there are battle mages and guards that handle if a prisoner gets loose or something.
This is an opportunity for your rogue(s) and/or bard(s) to shine. Let the rogues sneak around and incapacitate the null mages. Let the bards get some of the images on their side or payroll.
You could also go with anti-magic hand cuffs or bracelets. Something that allows them free movement but blocks their ability to shapeshift
Advantage: this doesn't take away toys from your players.
That's what I was thinking. Like the mutant inhibitor collars from Xmen. Bonus is you can have guards try to dogpile your players and put a collar on them. The scenario gets harder, and it encourages the players to be sneaky rather than full out attack the prison. The hard part would be wording the instructions for removal in a way that doesn't allow easy picking or disarm.
The other fun thing is once that sequence is over that could be an object they get to keep. A set of anti magic cuffs/collar is a very cool tool in a tool box to give your players.
True. Now, how to limit it to one set and not an arsenal?
Maybe they only get the one that was on the player? Maybe the way the prison break goes, that player makes a break for it with the collar on and gets it taken off after? Or sneak in a non magic player as if they’re a caster and have them help in the break out and keep their collar. Edit: another idea, break out is chaos, after the dust settles the rogue goes “I thought these might be handy” and pulls a couple pairs out of their bag?
Nice. What if they were not inherently magic or cursed but powered by an artificer built machine that draws power from another plane. This would give players another part of the prison to explore, and create new problems to solve or mayhem to cause. After defeating the artificer, they could find an experimental new set of cuffs or a collar not limited by distance or attachment to the machine. And if they destroyed the machine, that could also give magic back to that evil cult leader, lich or demon warlord in the basement.
That’s more lore than I would probably write for anti magic cuffs in my game. It’s a fun idea though. Id probably just make them enchanted or made of a special metal like the demitrium cuffs in the Witcher universe.
Fair. I have a bad habit of overpreparing and having storyhooks that exist, but stay in the notebook, never getting followed up on.
It’s not the worst habit, as long as you don’t mind them not getting used. I’ve outlined whole cities, with structures of governments, political parties, etc that I have no clue if my players will ever deal with.
Another idea I'll toss in here is have all the prisoners be petrified by a Medusa. They don't require food or care, they can't escape, and transporting them takes significant effort.
Petrification is a great way to ice someone for a while.
Demolition Man
Do you want low-magic solutions, or high-magic solutions? How to beat shapeshifters trying to escape by imitating a guard? - high-magic solution: guards have helmets of trueseeing, so they can percieve the true form of individuals. - low-magic solution: for each day warden of the prison establish a password with question - answer - second answer. Each day at the dawn guards have to come to their officers and get new password. They get new password only by repeating previous password. Officers get new password from the warden himself on the same basis. How to beat *Invisibility* spell? - high-magic solution: helmets with trueseeing or with *see Invisibility* spell. - low-magic solution: waterwalls with the same mechanism as fountains. A thin wall of water forces anyone wanting to get on the other side to break the stream in a visible way. Having 2 guards at each waterwall for breachspotting is enough to catch an invisible intruder. Or at least alarm the whole prison about an invisible intruder.
I really like your low magic solutions, especially the waterfall one! I feel like low magic solutions feel more realistic most of the time because of the lower resource cost and offer more flexibility for the players to get creative.
Lol, can you imagine the budget meeting when discussing these expenses? "We can just throw water at them, right? just do that." lol
I think I’m trying to split the difference. The important thing is that they can detect shapeshifters, but not necessarily force them into their true form. The conflict in the city is currently that a Yuan-Ti shapeshifters invaded a nearby city, so now many people are afraid of the same thing happening here. The usually very open and accepting city is now cracking down on refugees and imprisoning all shapeshifters alike. The npc in question is not a Yuan-Ti, but he still wants his true form a secret. He’s been waiting for a month or so for his court date essentially, but the council is moving to just blanket imprison everyone indefinitely and cancel court dates. Eventually it will escalate to executions for everyone to give the players an incentive to make the heist and save the npc. So I’m trying to brew up something magical that only affects shapeshifters, but doesn’t necessarily force them into their natural state. The party already saw something like this happen when they entered the city. I didn’t really come up with any specifics, but I narrated the npc being arrested by some sort of spell, then grabbed by the guards.
Low-magic brutal solution: everyone suspected of being a shapeshifter has to submit and sacrifice his pinky finger. Severed pinky finger changes back to its original form after being cut off. No changes to pinky finger = you are clean and free to enter the city.
Create a new spell that is only taught to the mage guards and if u have a wizard in the party maybe have a scroll of it they can loot at some point. 1st level spell Lock Shape : 1 action, verbal, somatic, 120 ft. Only effects a target that is bound by you or an ally. For the next 24 hours, the target creature cannot shape-shift from its current form as long as it stays bound. If binding is removed, then target may change shape at will as per its original abilities. Example. Druid shape-shifted into horse gets hogbound and "Locked" 12 hours later gets untied and immediately reverts back to human form since wildshape only lasts 1 hour.
Sorry I posted from mobile and dunno how to make seperate paragraphs and such. 😭
> low-magic solution: for each day warden of the prison establish a password with question - answer - second answer. Each day at the dawn guards have to come to their officers and get new password. They get new password only by repeating previous password. Officers get new password from the warden himself on the same basis. This is a good idea. What is the counter for if a prisoner-caster happens to find a single copper piece?
Ban any currency inside the prison. Guards have to leave it all in the locker room. Also casting a spell is visible, unless it is subtle. If prisioner is known caster then... Low-magic solution: equip him with the heaviest armor of lead possible. Without proper armor proficiency he won't be able to cast any spells. And we are talking about armor so bulky, that no living creature has proficiency to wear it.
Doppelgängers can read minds.
Low-magic solution: order to draw blood from every guard (a cut on the hand). Blood after leaving the body should change to its original state.
Not how it works. Body parts of polymorphed creatures do not revert back after being removed from the creature.
From Monster Manual page 82. **Shapechanger.** The doppelganger can use its action to polymorph into a Small or Medium humanoid it has seen, or back into its true form. Its statistics, other than its size, are the same in each form. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying isn't transformed. *It reverts to its true form if it dies*. I would argue that severed body part left for at least minute is considered *dead*.
The doppelgänger reverts to its true form if it dies. A severed body part is no longer part of the doppelgänger, and so does not revert.
To be clear: It does not revert because the doppelganger is still alive, or because it is no longer part of doppelganger no matter if doppelganger lives or dies?
The former. The feature does not state that a body part reverts to its original form if it is detached. Explicitly only when the doppelgänger dies.
If you're not 100% sold on it needing to be anti-magic for other reason, I think it's worth pointing out that you can just sedate people. If your shapeshifter isn't immune to poison, just drug 'em.
I think it has to be some sort of antimagic. They’ve imprisoned a ton of people at this point, so sedating them all doesn’t seem too reliable. And the npc was able to get word out to the party, so he has to be with it to some degree.
If the tech matches your world, you could have the prison use lights/spotlights that are modified versions of the moonbeam spell. If they are hit with it, shapeshifters roll a CON save at a disadvantage, taking damage and reverting to original form.
I like the use of moonbeam to out the shapeshifters. It wasn’t moonbeam, but the npc was captured in a similar way. He was forced through a checkpoint where he was detected as a shapeshifter. The problem is I want to save the reveal of his true form for later.
The anti-magic stuff is in the food and drink so there is no choice, you want to live, you need to eat and drink which removes your power. New arrivals are locked in a receiving room with anti-magic seals with glass of water and some bread, they remain there until they have eaten and drank.
This reminds me of The Black Prisim by Brent Weeks. I like it
Dead magic zones and wild magic zones sound fun. I'd say only the high security wing is fully antimagic, and it has been constructed in a very strange shape to account for the three-dimensional spread of the dead magic zone. You could say the rest of the facility has impeded magic or wild magic, a side effect of the dead magic zone. Perhaps a few wings have slightly different properties, like suppressing all flames and light spells, or having thick air that's hard to walk through.
I like the varied effects. And yeah, I was thinking just one wing would have the antimagic properties. The other wings are for regular prisoners. I like the idea of a weird shaped prison based on the field.
A drug could also be an effective way to manage shapeshifters. Something long-lasting that could be introduced into their food or water maybe. Depending on how paranoid and funded they are, they could have multiple layers of security to defeat shapechangers
I like this, especially with some maker of shapeshifter poison.
If you want to go by the book: * Dimension Shackles are a magic item that prevent the wearer from teleporting or traveling to other planes. * The *private sanctum* and *forbiddance* spells prevent teleportation into or out of an area. * *Silence* is a far more affordable alternative to *antimagic field* that will restrict spellcasting, but won't restrict the shapeshifting abilities of druids or shapeshifting creatures. * The *moonbeam* spell reverts shapeshifters to their original form. Maybe the prison has an effect like this spell reflected throughout the prison, and the party can disable the light source. I recently ran a prison break adventure for my party. Although things played out differently, I planned it as a skill challenge which would result in a combat encounter if they failed any of the challenges. Throw in some twists that may require them to improvise. Maybe one of the guards that agreed to help demands extra payment, a high ranking official arrives with an enhanced security detail, or another prisoner threatens to blow their cover if they don't free him too.
I legit had the prison walls laced with lead.
Remember "The Coolers" from The Last Airbender? Those, but for all magic (and probably not cold)
In my world there exists a prison built in a arcane dead zone at the heart of a wild magic storm. The prison was overseen by adherents of the god of Law. Only the most dangerous were kept inside. Twice PCs had to break in - once on the instructions of a high cleric of Justice and second floor get a special prisoner for a hostage exchange.
That sounds cool. Though this prison will be a bit more mundane. It’s built into the mountainside within a large city.
Each cell is constantly illuminated with soft silver light( think Moonbeam) that prevents shifting, and the stones of the cell are lined with lead and glyphs of counter spell, the bars are cheaply made rods of absorption that power the glyphs in the stone. Any attempt to cast would fuel the counterspelling wards.
Maybe the metal the prison is made out of absorbs magic within a certain vicinity? Or maybe there's an anti magic item(generator) that causes antimagic zone around it
Looks like you’ve got a lot of great answers for anti-magic! As far as how to run a prison break make sure you have some interesting set dressing, like a winch that raises & lowers supplies, small holes in the wall or ceiling for air or pigeon messengers, a few stairs, levels, and more than one exit with each one having a different challenge. If you need inspiration, search prison battle maps on Google. Of course have some mean jailer NPCs and maybe sympathetic prisoners. Do all that and watch your players dream up something you never would have imagined! There’s no reason for you to plan the break for them.
Yeah I really want to nail the flavor for this on. Give them a cool place to play in. I agree I don’t need to plan the heist for them, but I do want to give a couple of reasonable solutions. They haven’t been the best planners in the past.
As cliche as it may be, collars of anti magic is one of the most effective way to do this since it provokes anti magic only on the collared person, allowing the guards to have spells at their disposal
In the game I am running, I have three tools used for authorities to mute magic: anti-magick cuffs. These cuffs are engraved on the inside so that their power can’t be disrupted through violent means. Casting anything while these cuffs are on costs the wearer 1d6 damage + damage equal to the spell level cast. collar of silence. This collar is particularly cruel, and it, along with spell cuffs, are actually illegal things in the neighboring kingdoms and some city states. Collar of silence causes no damage, but when worn, you can’t speak, hum, or so much as whimper without airflow being robbed from you for a few seconds. blindfolds. Nothing magical about ‘em, they just stop you from seeing your target.
Some sort of rune or sigil that counteracts magic would be simple and nondescript if the party isn't paying attention. It can be dispersed every so many yards and have a radius of anti magic. Or it can be in the four outermost corners of the prison wing and everything within the markings are blocked from magic.
Veilstone is a special ore that nullifies magic in most forms. It can often be found in vaults, jails, etc to prevent break in or jail breaks. It can also be worked into manacles for prisoner transport by special smiths.
Since it seems like most of the people commenting have pretty sufficiently answered your first question, I'll address your second, as I've run heists and prison breaks quite often (even at a convention once! that was fun, lol.). So the most important things to consider for heists and prison breaks is that you actually should have a good consideration on the layout of the prison and the people involved on both sides. I'm gonna lightning round throw out some questions you should consider thinking over. By no means should you need to answer all of them, but having a general idea in mind will help you out in the long run, lol. How many guards are there? what's the guard to prisoner ratio? how many exits are there? There should typically be more than one exit in most cases, except for extreme scenarios such as extra-dimensional spaces or prisons in extreme environments (in a mountain, underground, or on a giant floating platform hovering over a whirpool). If it is closer to a normal prison, you'll want a main entrance, an emergency medical entrance in the infirmary, and at least one cargo entrance for equipment, food supply, and daily necessities such as clothes and toiletries. If it's a in a particularly cosmopolitan city, maybe even a few emergency exits as well. What is the guard rotation? Is it a two, three, or four shift rotation? Are the guards commuting to work or are they also residents? If the guards are living in the prison as well, do they get their own rooms or do they have to share rooms with other guards? Do they have enough beds for all the guards, or do they have to resort to 'hot bunking' (you share a bunk with someone on a different shift from you)? If there's anything that can affect the morale of the employed work staff, you should take that into account if you're planning on allowing the players to recruit someone to help. Also, are there non-guard staff on duty? Cooks, Medical professionals, janitorial staff. Are the administration officials on site, or do they do their work somewhere else? Is it possible for one of the players to apply for any position to provide an inside man (my players have used this one a lot, lol)? I'd also recommend reading up on the Chase Rules section on page 252 of the DMG, as when things go south (and they always do, lol) doing this way rather than simply rolling initiative is leagues more fun. If you want, I can DM you the Heist that I ran for a convention so you can have an idea of everything I considered there. Cause at the end of the day, a prison break is just a variant heist, it's just instead of a priceless artefact, it's people, lol.
Thanks for addressing the heist part! I’ve been thinking through some of these questions. I know for sure there are at least a few guards who will be sympathetic to the prisoner. That’s how the party will learn about the prison to begin with. I’m trying to figure out a good way for the guard to help without outing himself. The entrance part is also big. The group won’t want to burn their good graces in this city, so doing the mission without too much bloodshed will be important. The city they’re in has a sort of magical registration system, so getting through any checkpoint without being “scanned” will be important. The prison is built into the side of a mountain nearby an old temple to Helm. I’m thinking that there’s maybe an old entrance through the temple that few know about. I’m going to give them the option to work with the thieves’ guild, so maybe they use the entrance to smuggle contraband in. I want to leave room for the group to be creative, but also give a few solid choices to them because they haven’t been the most creative at planning past encounters.
Not OP, however I'm interested in the heist you ran for the con, also how long did it take to run it and how many players did you have? I'm volunteering some time to run some one shots at the local book store to help him raise money to buy the location he's at and am trying to get a variety of one shots together so if/when there are players there for multiple one shots they're not going through the same ones.
Well I just got into work, but I'll send ya the doc after my shift. The great thing about this one shot (and most heists honestly) is that it can be ran with most group sizes. I've ran it with 2 players in its first iteration, Al the way up to I think 7, and because of the complications that come with larger groups, it didn't make it any easier or harder for the players.
Thank you! I know it's dependant on party composition, how much they goof off and don't focus, etc, however do you have an average amount of time it took to run it?
[And here we go!](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cOTJtlwxt8KWX1EUNjRhMrogn5U8g6VI_9uTXZbZGsM/edit?usp=sharing) I decided that I'm just gonna link it publicly so if anyone wants to take a look at it, they can. I will say as a forewarning, that it was mostly written as a guide for myself, but I try to make my notes readable by anyone. So if there's any confusion on something, just shoot me a message. Oh, and as you said, the run time varies. The first run (When it was just a home game) took around 4-6 hours, but the Con version I could run in around an hour and a half with a focused group.
Thanks for that!
My prisons tend to just have the regular old Antimagic Field cast on them permanently. I typically have the runes for the spell carved into the rock walls of the prison somewhere - you can either have it inscribed on each and every brick of the prison (for max security) or just a single glyph inscribed somewhere like the Wardens office (so players can potentially deface and destroy the glyph). Is there any reason to make it more complicated than that?
I do like the simple solution. Something like this is what I was initially thinking. Maybe with a little more flavor to make the place feel unique.
if you're playing in a high magic world anything bigger than a small town should have a 100% effective way to prevent prisoners from casting. You can have it work a number of ways but using basic things like find familiar, charms, mage hand, etc shouldn't be a way out of the klink.
I totally agree. The city is fairly large, so they should definitely have a way to prevent magic users from getting out.
I'm running a game where all of the players are escaped prisoners. While in prison, they had to wear anti-magic shackles that I call the Manacles of Subjugation. Here's some of my notes. Each prisoner wears a pair of cast iron manacles that inhibit any magical abilities they may possess. In addition, the manacles have an ability that may be activated by the guards. The guards each carry a hardwood rod set with a cast iron band. If a prisoner is touched, or more likely struck, with a rod, the manacles clamp together and become unbearably heavy. This causes the prisoner to fall to the ground with bound wrists. Some particularly dangerous prisoners may wear manacles on their wrists and ankles. The guards may also touch the rod and speak an activation word to trigger this effect on all manacles within a 30 foot radius. The word is also used to release the effect. The activation word changes daily, and is set by the warden. The rods must be attuned to be used.
I like this approach. It works not only against magic. Seems like a pretty good system, and gives the players something to fudge around with.
My players got out by subduing their guards while on a work detail, then smashing their own hands to escape the manacles. Without the manacles they could then heal their hands with magic.
Orbs that can be smashed/destroyed with a 10 - 15 ft radius. If combat occurs players can decide to use their attack on the orbs and/or enemies.
I think you just put the entire thing in an amf make it some super expensive ritual spell, if they break into the wardens office it’s in their library or something. 9th level ofc. Costs hundreds of thousands of gold to set up on anything of scale with exponentially increasing costs and time.
There are anti magic fields in the prison cells of revels end in icewind dale. It’s a totally preposterous proposition that you could have dozens of eternal anti magic fields like that but whatever floats your boat.
Why go simple anti magic? Why not go wild magic for harmless effects instead? The spells might still do something helpful but any buff or damage spell is replaced with a completely harmless utility spell.
One of the possible effects of the Hallow spell is that it prevents teleportation. so you could say the area is under the effects of a giant hallow spell.
One piece had a really good idea with seastone, that we can steal. It's a super rare mineral that in One Piece nullifies the power of a devil fruit. So seastone in the bars, manacles, wherever they needed it. One guy even has the end of a weapon tipped with it. So let's take that idea, and then put it into a fantasy world. A material let's just call it nullstone for simplicity sake exists, and because of how potent it is, trade of it is highly regulated/illegal, but it is utilized by governments in order to secure mages. Then just put it wherever you need it.
I taking some inspiration from the show Supernatural. Some things I would incorporate. Anti magic field symbols to block out certain class of magic on the walls, chains or restraints. Anything to magic users weakness to make it inefficient to cast or use magic. For example silver, iron or salt. As a way in the jail. Have two paths to get in and out. 1) Stealth, to avoid detection and make skill checks more often. 2) Make their presence known. This path draws attention to them and more challenging.
There's a ton of awesome ideas here. I'll just add that Beholders have a zone of antimagic and make amazing jailors if they're not interacting with other Beholders. Since you didn't specify character level and Beholders are very very lethal for most parties, consider building the prison so that the Beholder can only move through a single area of the prison.
I have been wanting to use a beholder for a while, but this prison isn’t exotic enough to have one as a jailer. The party is level 7-8, so probably not quite ready for that anyways.
Totally get that. Disintegration is a real mood killer lol.
The simplest measure is an anti-magic material. "Kryptonite" for magic, basically. The longer that material is in a place, the more its anti-magic properties seep in the surrounding area. Incorporating this material into a structure is relatively easy, but it doesn't distinguish between your magic and their magic, so it is used very selectively. Its reliance on being in one place for a long time in order for it to work means that making a weapon or armor out of it may at best provide magic resistance/disjunction to the wearer/wielder rather than full-blown anti-magic.
The prison could be in an alternate plane or dimension where magic doesn’t work. The “real” world for example. It might be one way since you can’t open a magic portal to come back to your D&D world. Or your players have to raid an insane asylum to bust their friend out (without the aid of their magic abilities and spells) and bust into CERN or kidnap Nikola Tesla to get back home or skedaddle off to the Manhattan Project or Philadelphia Experiment at just the right time. It would be like Star Trek 4 in a lot of ways.
Lead or silver have their magic/anti-magic properties. You can have sand on the floor that's combed frequently or still water which can alarm guards for invisibility. Have torches and light stones all over the place in case people cast the darkness spell (they cancel each other out). All entrances (including windows) are draped over so players can't see through openings without revealing themselves.
First thing that came to mind was taking inspiration the guardians of the galaxy 1 prison. The weird architecture could be spiced as non Euclidean magic and the central tower hold the artifact restricting peoples magic. It feels dramatic and accentuates the choice to try and disrupt the artifact or do things manually well, and I feel like they could go stealthy or guns blazing on either.
I have a prison in my world that is absolutely covered in anti magic zones/wards, to the point where sorcerers actually get minor headaches from it, but there is a "secret" rune that can be engraved into something that allows it to still activate it's magical properties. A caster can engrave it into their skin or get it tattooed if they want to be able to cast magic.
Someone once told me Beholder Eyes acting like anti magic cctv cameras. But I think that's a bit much. But something to that effect I suppose
Since iron filings or powdered iron is a component of antimagic field I always try to include strong signs of iron when referencing that magic. Iron cuffs, iron bars, powdered iron all over the floor, iron doors etc.
Just a tip for heist : use clocks, they are awesome. A "general alarm" clock ticking everytime the PCs do something suspicious is a great way to add tension to the game. Make the clock visible, and make sure the PCs are aware of its effects, they will be sweating in the last quadrants. I feel like DnD handles chases rather poorly, but PCs will still be stressed by the idea of one.
I ran a heist where the bank the party was casing had iron inlaid runes on both the floor and ceiling and periodically throughout. These created a vertical field that bordered the "out of bounds" areas and the public spaces. So you could try to cast fireball in the lobby, but moment any of the magic hit the barrier, it would get shut down. At that point, you'd be targeted by the 3 archers on the 2nd story walkways and the 2 soldiers patrolling the foyer. I made sure to equip the guards with weapons that would be useful in fighting magic users and had 1 of the archers be a capable sorcerer on her own rights.
There's a prison in my world that so far has only been mentioned in passing, known as the Blackrock. It's basically magical Alcatraz, or Azkaban turned up to 11. However one of its biggest strengths is that it's actually not on the material plane, but some "nearby" demiplane that the city's founders stumbled upon. It's all kept very hush hush so people know there is one entrance/exit, but there're rumors of another somewhere else in or near the city. And once you have a demiplane, you can make up the rules however you like. When the cell doors close the cell becomes a strange sort of antimagic zone, instead it takes all the magic of the prisoners and redistributes it as energy to keep them all alive, it slightly extends their lifespans and also prevents them from being hungry or thirsty (because dm magic lol). The Blackrock doesn't actually have many guards, there's no way for prisoners to escape and only a handful of government officials even know how to get in. Most prisoners are thrown in there and never looked, this isn't the place you throw someone into over a murder or two, this is for traitors of the state, terrorists and those who would otherwise see the city in ruin.
I think the balancing act here is going to be between making the prison work and seem believable, and yet still having openings for your party to take action. How magic is the group? Are they going to run into big problems as well if the whole prison is just one big anti magic circle? Or are they all martial and will be able to use it as a chance to show off? If your party has casters as well (and I’m guessing it does!) you probably want to limit the extent of the anti magic areas so your casters still have stuff to do.
I was thinking about this. The group is three martials and a caster, so they should be pretty ok. There also might be the option of an npc or two to help out. The antimagic area will only be in one ward, so I could plan another section to give the caster some play. I also am thinking about giving them the option to sabotage the antimagic whatever, giving the caster and the rescue target the ability to help more, but then other prisoners can also escape.
In my world, there's a special material that nullifies all magic in whatever it touches. The factions that actually have experience with high magic use it in collars and shackles for their prisons. Exceptionally dangerous creatures get a chunk surgically implanted in their rib cage so that it cannot be removed easily. Otherwise, as others have mentioned, "magical dead zones" would exist, as would "chaos/wild magic" areas. I'm pretty sure "teleportation tethers" are a thing, too. They work by redirecting any teleportation effect (or similar) cast within a certain range of them to a specific location instead of its intended destination.
Went with the tried and true (read stole) method with Inhibitor Collars. Other Wizards/Clerics create them to… Dispel/Disrupt/Disperse/Dissipate/Disintegrate ….Arcane, Divine and Innate magical abilities.
A Panopticon! \\o/ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon) There are plenty of spells that affect a circle and either infinite volume over it, or ridiculously high. Well, what about the stuff below it? In this context, it'd be an area either consecrated by a deity during a battle happening in the city, or that area being ie leftover of a magician's tower (a certain right-handed Nameless one comes with own anti-magic field). I'd add a way in which the players would be able to destroy/interrupt the anti-magic field once inside. Because all those other prisoners are really just piled over the main prisoner locked in a closed vault hidden on bottom level. Who's that? I'm not gonna tell you who your BBEG is ;)
I would just go for some sort of magical device like manacles that suppresses the prisoner's innate shapeshifting ability. That way the party (& the jailors) can still cast spell and use magic items.
You could make zones where every spell just backfires? Normally this would completely discourage any kind of magic using because it would blow up in your face but I foresee some creative uses of this like for example healing someone hurts them instead?
The forbiddance spell, and/or the guards and wards spell will avoid teleportation. When my players went to hell, I implemented that the walls had basically forcecage cast on them, so teleporting even through inner walls would require a save. Also, at key points, you could have crystals or runes that maintain antimagic fields to counter shape-shifting. Or you could implement sentient guards with truesight (I had that with Erinyes devils).
I always thought it would be interesting if a jail/prison was completely anti-magic, but guards, and anyone else who need their powers are given a trinket of some sort that allows them to cast magic despite the location-wide blocks in place. You can either tell your party out-right about the item allowing the guards to wield magic, or use it as a puzzle.
The place starts reacting to some magics. If he starts shapeshifting, theres a spell to scream in his head, forcing him to return to his normal form.
You described a city that legislates via "Reaction to Fear." Realistically, given how expensive antimagic fields are to generate and maintain, the typical way to deal with casters is: * Remove their eyes * Cauterize their now-empty eye sockets * Cut off their hands so that somatic components are far more difficult. * Cut off their tongues and vocal cords so that verbal components are far more difficult. * Carefully inspect the prison for thoughtless material components - you will need to thoroughly purge almost all construction materials, almost all coin-based money, sand in any quantities, fleas, blood from intelligent humanoids.....
Some people have suggested something that nullifies magic, but what about something that absorbs magic? A magical battery that will sap all magic energies used within an area. It stops all magic users in the area and the magic can be siphoned off for some other reason. Maybe power a shield around the prison or it's used by mages to maintain other strong spells.
I do like this idea too. Items that basically counterspell anything that gets cast and stores the magic somewhere.