Ye Olde Inn

The concept of cooking up a dungeon where the point of the quest was to subdue and capture as many of the monsters in the place as possible has been dancing around my head. (the imperial academy needs more 'training' monsters for the imperial gaurd)

Anyone have ways that they handle non leathal bruising damage?
Seeing the barbarian and the dwarf get into fist fights with some orks and fimirs would be a hoot.

Nets and sleeping gas 'potion grenades' come to mind imediatly. But of course these won't always work....

anyways...it is just a morsel in the brain at this point

For actual combat, keep the same amount of combat dice for weapons. In order to use
them non-lethally, however, one needs more expertise with them. Make it so that the
players have to roll white shields for an attack, or even a black shield, if you want to
make it hard. Damage is still done, but it simply knocks the monster out once they
reach 0 body points...and they stay unconscious for a number of turns equal to their
total body point possibility x 2 (or 3, if you want to keep them down longer).

Allow the characters to make traps - spring traps...net traps...things like that.

Great minds think alike.

The white shield to land a hit came to mind but then I thought, maybe I should allow the monster to block with white shields instead of black shields in this case.

Maybe only allow the Dwarf to set up an actual trap...He will need excavating tools and a 'potion of mighty digging' if there are to be pit traps made in a quick fashion.

For nets perhaps require two heroes to be on adjucent squares with one of them adjucent to a monster and both must get a skull and the monster must not roll any black shields to dodge?

Sleep potion grenades require a throw with 2 dice. If they get a skull it hits on the monsters square. If they get no skulls it lands on a nearby square, Evil wizards choice. If they roll 2 black shields they botch and the grenade falls at thier feet.
Make the sleep last 2 turns. Just enough time to bind a monster up.

Mercs....
Probably need a few mercs to guard the monsters at the entrance to the dungeon as they are captured.
Probably require 1 merc crowd control for every 5 captured monsters. Or require 1 hero for crowd control for every 6 monsters. (heroes are always tougher than mercs...)

Thinking that this would be a slow dungeon. Setting up ambush points and traps, lurring monsters into said traps and ambushes. Securing prisoners. Maintaining control and compliance with said monsters once they are captured. These things would eat up allot of time. Certainly not going to clear the board rapidly under such circumstances.

You could speed it up by reducing it from lots of monsters to only 1 monster, something big like a dragon. They have to capture it to use in their army. Certain things need to be done like 1) hit with sleep grenades to slow it down. 2) Bind it's jaws 3) Net it 4) Bind it's legs 5) Drag it out.

Got a good dragon template?

Subdueing a dragon harkens back to old school dungeons and dragons.
I have only seen one party of adventurers ever pull it off.
Evry other group that tried such a fools task either wiped, retreated, or ended up needing to kill the dragon.

I agree, it would probably take up some time - even if you had only three to four
monsters for them to capture. I think the players would have a lot of fun, however.
Allow them to plan out their ideas...give them a good adventurer's equipment shop
to buy their stuff from before they leave...give them the time to set up their traps
and such, but make them move their characters to take account of the number of turns
it takes to set up the traps.
Maybe give them a set time when the monsters will be showing up...add that sense of
urgency that the traps have to be planned and set quickly, so there's no goofing off
the whole game (the character's I mean).

Of course no plan survives contact with the enemy.
So I imagine that they may have to kill quite a few monsters just to capture a few.

Also just came to mind....

The monsters that the Heroes need to capture are on the other side of an army of monsters not on the capture list.

Another way to knock monsters out is to force the Heroes to attack without weapons, allowing just 1 attack die. Rule a monster defeated this way as unconscious rather than dead for this particular Quest. Monsters would roll white shields to defend against an unarmed attack.

The Sleep spell will also be useful. Rather than -or in addition to- sleep potion grenades you could instead go with a sleep scroll (if you have the Kellar's Keep expansion). A Hero would need rope to truss up a sleeping monster before it broke the spell.

Daedalus wrote:Another way to knock monsters out is to force the Heroes to attack without weapons, allowing just 1 attack die. Rule a monster defeated this way as unconscious rather than dead for this particular Quest. Monsters would roll white shields to defend against an unarmed attack.

The Sleep spell will also be useful. Rather than -or in addition to- sleep potion grenades you could instead go with a sleep scroll (if you have the Kellar's Keep expansion). A Hero would need rope to truss up a sleeping monster before it broke the spell.

Is this for real We could always bring in Orc Cymbals & his Karaoke Boys, Lots of loud noise, the monsters drop everything, clap their hands, or paws over their ears. Now is the time to grab them, no need for any fisticuffs. Time for a or three