Silencing Your Spies When They Get Caught

[kevin_video]

We've all seen it in the movies, and read it in books. A spy gets caught, and they're forced to talk. However, little to the interrogators know that the spy has an ace up their sleeve. In Complete Scoundrel I found the poison tooth. It gets both the person who has one, and the attacker themself. Now while I thought that was kind of cool, it didn't quite do it for me. I'm thinking something more along the lines of Batman, or Predator. Actually, I'm looking for something EXACTLY like from Predator. Instead of a countdown machine on their wrist (or maybe you could make it a bracer or something if you really wanted), I'm looking for something that'll allow my spies to go kamikaze if they get caught, and threatened with interrogation. It could be a psionic tattoo, or fake fingernail, maybe a tooth, a bracer, an amulet, whatever. Just something that they'll have easy access to when they're near death, so they can finish themselves off, and maybe take down one or two of their captures with. Can't let the heroes get off that easily.

Any ideas how to do this?

[veekie]

One thing is that, in D&D, being dead just makes it easier to interrogate the corpse somehow. You would want a combined effect to be truly thorough, one to wipe the memory, one to kill the spy, one to destroy the corpse(which may or may not be the same as the one that killed the spy) and one to spirit the soul away. Wrecking divinations(e.g. Hindsight) may be handy as well.

For one thing, you could define the level of the spy and the level of resources his opponents possess. Int targeting cocktail of lethal poisons could do the trick, for example, if the spy was rendered an idiot before he died(hence blocking Speak with Dead, or at least tremendously frustrating it). Explosive Runes, or it's mundane equivalent of lots of oil+alchemical fire deals with the corpse.

That said, usually, barring security measures, a combined Dispel Magic and Teleport/Plane Shift effect is ideal, the former to attempt to break any teleportation blockers, and the latter to physically remove the live spy from the scene, upon which he can either go to ground(easy enough, with magical support), or destroy himself in a suitably irreversible manner(e.g diving into lava, leaving no corpse, and nothing to trace where he died either)

[kevin_video]

Hmm. That is and isn't what I was looking for. Other than explosive runes, nothing's really been talked about regarding items. I am looking to absolutely destroy the body. Can't bring it back if it's pile of chunks, or disintegrated to dust. And what good does it for the capturer to have a lab of stuff to interrogate with, when the spy releases his death, and takes out everyone. Think of it as a suicide bomber I guess. If you're going to kill him anyways, he's going to take you too.

I read energy burst from the psionic srd, and that's not too bad. 5d6 at 40 ft. Get most of the people, but chances are it wouldn't do any real damage.

Like I said earlier, let's go with the Predator aspect. The Predator loses, he turns on his countdown bracer, and a miniature nuke explodes at 0 taking out half a city, and of course him too. Definitely not going to interrogate that later.

[Alastar]

Actually, in D&D you CAN bring it back if it's a pile of DUST

Kewl huN?

[veekie]

Actually, in D&D you CAN bring it back if it's a pile of DUST

Kewl huN?

Even if there IS no dust left. That can be fixed.
You need to get rid of the soul(and even that can be circumvented by sufficiently determined application of magic).

Basically, for a suicide strategy, item wise, what needs to be known is the resouce level of both parties. If Wish is in the offing, all bets are off except who can find more convoluted statements.

[Prime32]

Contingency: when killed cast shatter + gust of wind? (Replace shatter with disintegrate at higher levels)

[kevin_video]

Actually, in D&D you CAN bring it back if it's a pile of DUST

Kewl huN?

It is and isn't. Can't even get a last "f*ck you" in there by sticking it to them. That kind of sucks actually.

Contingency: when killed cast shatter + gust of wind? (Replace shatter with disintegrate at higher levels)

You're the second person that's told me to use contingency. How exactly does that work? I mean I've read it, but it's kind of vague to me.

[PhaedrusXY]

Actually, in D&D you CAN bring it back if it's a pile of DUST

Kewl huN?

It is and isn't. Can't even get a last "f*ck you" in there by sticking it to them. That kind of sucks actually.

You can't bring people back to life against their will, anyway. And Speak with Dead allows a Will save (unless the caster has the same alignment as the dead guy had), and requires an intact corpse. So really, this isn't all that difficult. Optimizing their Will save will let them resist the spell most of the time. And simply having some Contingency to destroy their body will get rid of that option entirely.

Craft Contingent Spell (in Complete Arcane, and Unapproachable East)  is the easiest way to do the Contingency, and the fluff in the description even specifically mentions Red Wizards having Contingent Fireballs set to go off upon their death to try and take out their enemies with a retributive strike. I think it might even mention that this destroys their bodies, and so sacrifices their chances of being Raised, too.

It is a fairly broken feat, though... So as an alternative, you could use the lesser glyphs in the Magic Item Compendium. I can't remember their specific name now, but they work like Glyph of Warding, but let you put any spell you want in them. The Greater one has a typo that says it works on spells above 5th level or something, when it should say below. So watch out for that.

[kevin_video]

Craft Contingent Spell (in Complete Arcane, and Unapproachable East)  is the easiest way to do the Contingency, and the fluff in the description even specifically mentions Red Wizards having Contingent Fireballs set to go off upon their death to try and take out their enemies with a retributive strike. I think it might even mention that this destroys their bodies, and so sacrifices their chances of being Raised, too.

It is a fairly broken feat, though... So as an alternative, you could use the lesser glyphs in the Magic Item Compendium. I can't remember their specific name now, but they work like Glyph of Warding, but let you put any spell you want in them. The Greater one has a typo that says it works on spells above 5th level or something, when it should say below. So watch out for that.

I'm fine with broken feats since it's in my favour anyways. Heh heh. It might be what I end up going with should I figure out how to work them right. I haven't seen anything on the contingency spell regarding red wizards and death fireballs. I'm assuming that's in the Complete Arcane book though. I'll have to read through it.

Reading over the glyphs, I'm not sure it's what I want. It's just a glyph of warding spell. And yeah, it does say that it can be used on spells 5th or higher for the greater one, but the revision errata says nothing about it being wrong. I'd say it's right. If one only works up to 4th lvl spells, then surely the greater version can use 5th and higher.

[PhaedrusXY]

I'm fine with broken feats since it's in my favour anyways. Heh heh. It might be what I end up going with should I figure out how to work them right. I haven't seen anything on the contingency spell regarding red wizards and death fireballs. I'm assuming that's in the Complete Arcane book though. I'll have to read through it.

It's not the Contingency spell. It is a feat called Craft Contingent Spell. And yes, it's in CA and also the Unapproachable East.

Reading over the glyphs, I'm not sure it's what I want. It's just a glyph of warding spell. And yeah, it does say that it can be used on spells 5th or higher for the greater one, but the revision errata says nothing about it being wrong. I'd say it's right. If one only works up to 4th lvl spells, then surely the greater version can use 5th and higher.

Do whatever you want, but it is preposterously broken if you let it hold 5th level and higher. If you think they catch everything that they should in Errata, then you are deluding yourself.

And it's not "just" a Glyph of Warding spell. You can put any spell in it, whereas Glyph of Warding only works with offensive spells. So in fact the best use of these is to preload a crapload of them with all of your buffs, and then trigger them all to go off when you speak some nonsense word as a free action. Then you can have like ten 9th level spells all cast on you as a free action that don't even count against your spells for the day. See how insane this can be?

[JaronK]

My recommendation is to use undead spies (Necropolitans with a high enough disguise skill to pass for living are a great one).  They're immune to mind reading anyway, and if your DM is nice about it you can let Destructive Retribution apply to them so they explode when killed.  If you do speak with dead, you're probably going to talk to who they were when they were alive anyway, so you won't get useful information (assuming that's how it works, that's debatable).

JaronK

[Prime32]

If your spy has an elemental subtype (like a white dragonspawn) you can always take the Death Throes feat from Savage Species so that he explodes when killed.

[veekie]

Hmm, does reanimating someone do the trick as well? I mean if you make them into sentient undead that are under your command...

[officeronin]

Why on earth do you want them to explode?!!  They are spies, and the purpose of the spy is to gather information and hamper the enemy's ability to gather information.  Stick to the mission, I say!

In addition, if I were the interviewer, I'd have my mooks check the spy out thoroughly, removing and dispelling magic, prior to the interview.  So, the mouth bomb is only likely to kill some mooks.

1.  Modify their memory with false information.  That way, when they are caught, they spread bad information.  This can be done magically, or through simply giving them bad information as true.  Since they had to torture the spy to get the information, so as long as the story is believable, they are pretty likely to believe it.

2.  A modification of the above -- make the spy believe they work for someone else.  Relatively repressive societies are especially prone to create several espionage agencies that investigate each other for attempts to grab power, so the story that the spy is a member of a secret group under the same government is plausible.  Alternately, the spy believes that they work for an entirely different country.

3.  If you really want the information the spy has, use a contingency for a sending spell upon their death.  The high power clerics in your capital have kept a lock of hair from the spy and resurrect him immediately upon receiving the sending.  Since I generally rule that a contingency is detectable via detect magic, another way to do it easily is to have your clerics attempt a speak with dead every day, and raise him when they get a response.  Combine this with a non-magic poison tooth.  Since the spy is aware that they will get raised, they are likely to bite.

[Prime32]

3.  If you really want the information the spy has, use a contingency for a sending spell upon their death.  The high power clerics in your capital have kept a lock of hair from the spy and resurrect him immediately upon receiving the sending.  Since I generally rule that a contingency is detectable via detect magic, another way to do it easily is to have your clerics attempt a speak with dead every day, and raise him when they get a response.  Combine this with a non-magic poison tooth.  Since the spy is aware that they will get raised, they are likely to bite.

Speak with dead doesn't contact the dead person, it just reads the imprints of their memories left on their body when they died.

[Alastar]

Then why is it a will save?

And why can he lie?

[PhaedrusXY]

Then why is it a will save?

And why can he lie?

Because the WotC authors are retards?

[Havok4]

Then why is it a will save?

And why can he lie?

The will save only applies if the caster is of a different alignment then the corpse. And there is nowhere in the description that says it can lie.

[McPoyo]

Just have the jaw get removed/destroyed. Without a jaw, it can't answer questions. Without a brain, not much else will work, either. Just have the head blow up. Done.

Also, don't tie it to a removal item. PCs are entirely too paranoid for that. Maybe an explosive runes scribed on one of their back teeth, attached to a tooth capsule with acid. Use Nystul's to mask the runes magic.

All you have to worry about at that point involves mind-reading, which is relatively easy to block.

[Prime32]

Just have the jaw get removed/destroyed. Without a jaw, it can't answer questions. Without a brain, not much else will work, either. Just have the head blow up. Done.

Also, don't tie it to a removal item. PCs are entirely too paranoid for that. Maybe an explosive runes scribed on one of their back teeth, attached to a tooth capsule with acid. Use Nystul's to mask the runes magic.

All you have to worry about at that point involves mind-reading, which is relatively easy to block.

And now you've given me an idea. If all your spies have telepathy they don't need jaws and tongues to begin with. This might make them easy to identify, so hire changelings who revert to their natural (jawless) form on death.