How to subdue a magician?, When you can't disarm your prisoner Options

[Aerospider]

I may answer my own question in this post, but am curious to hear of any alternative suggestions.

The team have found and physically subdued the magician they were sent to find. He's quite a powerful magic-user, but they've got him unconscious and nearly dead. Now they need to interrogate him.

So the party mage is asking me how they can prevent the captive from casting spells or summoning spirits to get out of his predicament. The team hadn't thought to bring a mage mask with them, or any other magical paraphernalia. All I can think of is that with a held action and a successful Notice Spellcasting roll someone can blow his head off before he gets the spell out, much like shooting someone if you think they're going for their gun.

Would it be fair to assume that the same could/should apply to conjuring? Well conjuring should be very noticeable, I would think, though summoning probably not at all since it's really just a psychic request.

Can anyone think of any techniques for this situation besides "no funny business or else"?

[Abstruse]

I don't know if it's been covered in 4e, but 1st through 3rd had lots of info on what was done to incarcerated mages/shamen. For short term offenders, they're usually kept bound, gagged, drugged, and blindfolded with magemasks (imagine a gimp mask that has a white noise generator and flashing lights behind the blocked eyeholes). Keeps the person disoriented so they can't concentrate to do a spell. Most prisons will also have a lot of elementals/spirits running around ready to scream bloody murder if someone even thinks about going astrally active.

Long-term prisoners? Lobotomies and forced cybernetic implants until they're complete burnouts.

[sabs]

Drug him out? It has issues I admit. But.
What about a reverse Mana Ward around him?

Hook him up to a BTL HotSim using electrodes with REALLY powerful reality filters?
Do the entire interogation in VR?
Couple that with electroshock everytime he 'tries' to cast or summon?
How experienced is this mage with VR? He might not even realize he's in VR if the Hacker has the right programs up and running.

Get together with the mage in the party and make the spells start to work and then 'fizzle'
You can use a modified IC, and basically not allow him to 'jack out'

[Makki]

find an interrogation place with a big background count. e.g. hire some poor astral hazing changeling for a few nuyen to sit around

[FriendoftheDork]

The good old bag over the head, coupled with threats of being killed and/or drugs/beatings. You're not as eager to throw spells around when you're at 9 stun already.

[Lansdren]

I'm fond of a slap patch of slab if you need some quiet time without the mage doing anything. 10 - body hours of peace.

[Abstruse]

That'll teach me to read more thoroughly before replying.

If you don't have a magemask, get one. Until then, drug the hell out of the guy. Tie his wrists (no gestures). Gag him (no chants). Beat the hell out of him so he's too beat up to concentrate. Hard or stupid to cast a spell if you've got so much stun damage you're at a -4 penalty and one box away from going unconscious and into physical with the drain. Even that's risky. Depending on how ruthless you are or how undamaged you need him, break his fingers. Lots of pain to make it harder to cast. Standard torture methods can help too...loud noise/music, flashing lights in complete darkness, stripped naked with cold water running over. Anything to make it hard to focus.

And it goes without saying that any foci/fetishes should be stripped off the guy immediately. Best case scenario, the guy's got a geas requiring something to cast.

[DWC]

Or just Mind Probe him while he's unconscious, then put a bullet in his head when you're done.

[Chance359]

Theres a story about a physad trying to question a mage, here it is. The relevant portion is about half way down.

[Drats]

(I took awhile searching through books while I wrote this, so some of these have probably been mentioned already.)

I don't know what area you're running in, but if there happen to be any mana warps or voids available to you, I'd say that'd be a good place to have your little chat with him.

Aside from that, I can't think of anything foolproof, especially not if you're on a short timeframe. FAB might help with the spirits, but I doubt you happen to have immediate access to it. You make it sound like this guy's more powerful than your party's mage, but counterspelling might help keep him from dousing you with mojo.

It's gross, but a blindfold will impede (or at least hinder) LOS spell targeting on the physical and the astral if you can somehow cover or fill it with living creatures or materials (plus, you get the intimidation factor that comes from skin-to-surface contact with a gym sock full of spiders). Come to think of it, blindfolding him with his hands bound and placing him within a very small ward that you happened to be standing outside of should protect you from all but indirect combat spells-- the blindfold's got you covered on the physical, of course, and the ward is opaque on the astral.

[CeeJay]

If your mage knows the spell, Mana Static is a nice option.

-CJ

[DireRadiant]

Put the mage in a big cardboard box along with an explosive device that will go off if it does not receive it's encrypted signal every other complex action.

Mage can't target the team. Mage could summon an on call spirit, but even if it takes out the team, the mage goes boom. If the mage disarms the explosive device, shoot the cardboard box. Since the team also has a mage, a ward would be useful, but watchers and spirits could also be used to be your eyes in the box watching for the summoning or spell casting.

[Ascalaphus]

Plug a sim module on the mage and converse in VR? Hot Sim should enable pretty nasty interrogation tactics, too.

[Drats]

-deleted on account of reading comprehension failure-

[Sengir]

Get a commlink with sim module and trodes, have the hacker disable the off switch on the sim module. Welcome to the real world...

[sabs]

Get a commlink with sim module and trodes, have the hacker disable the off switch on the sim module. Welcome to the real world...

This was my thought.
With the right software, the right amount of processing. You can really mess with someone's brain.

[Sengir]

This was my thought.
With the right software, the right amount of processing. You can really mess with someone's brain.

Why mess with his brain? VR is already enough to seperate Mr. mage from perception of his physical body and meaningful actions in the physical world, which is all that was needed.

[Kanada Ten]

Find something important to the mage and hold a gun to its head?

[Whipstitch]

A li'l elaborate for my tastes. Presumably, his own head should be pretty important to him.

[kzt]

VR interrogation is actually about the best shot. Just make sure you have the RAS override locked down. You don't need hot sim, that causes real damage. And with hot sim you can only set him on fire once.

[tagz]

The VR way is pretty good, but some of use like getting our hands dirty. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

Gammascopaline should be a staple at all interrogations as it's a form of truth serum and reduces willpower, even those interrogations involving mind probe spells since it will make it that much easier to get the info. The paralysis wears off by the time the truth serum kicks in (1 hour), but that's no big deal as you should have the victim restrained and blindfolded by then.

On a mage this will have the added benefit of reducing his willpower and therefore drain soak. His spells will be much more likely to put him right back out into unconsciousness.

When you're ready to begin hit him with a stim-patch that's speed-balled with Asia. Cheap and effective disorientation.

GloWands are cheap and detect astral activity. Get one. Have someone who's entire job is to just move around the room waving it.

Have someone sitting behind the victim with a knife. When you start, before you ask any questions, give him a quick jab to let him know it's there and ready.

I don't think the mage will be inclined to fight unless he knows he's a deadman anyhow. Make some promises about letting him go, etc. I think he'd be pretty cooperative.

Cost: 495 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) counting the knife and rope. Did not factor in renting a safehouse, assume you can make a blindfold out of sheets or a shirt if need be.

[Redcrow]

Kind of expensive, but just stuff the Mage full of cyberware until he can't cast spells anymore. lol

<edit> don't forget to deactivate the ware before he wakes up though.

[MikeKozar]

From the "When all you've got is a baseball bat, everything looks like a kneecap" school - rack up the wound modifiers until his pool is shot.

The mage in my group is a pretty hardcore rules lawyer - he insists that his mage uses neither gestures nor chants, as they might give away his character and they aren't strictly required (unless you deliberately take them as some sort of penalty thing). Me, I think a mage that gets incapacitated when bound and gagged is more interesting to the story - I mean, if the only way to stop him is a bullet in the head, well...

Ammo is cheap.

[Aerospider]

Kind of expensive, but just stuff the Mage full of cyberware until he can't cast spells anymore. lol

<edit> don't forget to deactivate the ware before he wakes up though.

lmfao

Thanks guys, all fun and/or interesting ideas.

[Hagga]

find an interrogation place with a big background count. e.g. hire some poor astral hazing changeling for a few nuyen to sit around

A big hug from someone with Hazing combined with the team magician standing there counterspelling anything (and spirits just in case the bastard has some on call) SHOULD be enough. Spirits would be the real problem - if he has them 'on call' a simple command will translate into a large and most likely irritated spirit who'd love to have a brief and friendly chat with the characters about their treatment of the company man.