Re: Rescue Or Ransom A Prisoner Warband
Golda Barocio
A Lord or Lady will ask you to rescue a member of their family from captivity, who have been denied the treatment they deserve as noble prisoners. The imprisoned person in prison will always be a Vassal, as Ladies can only be taken captive by Players and are never kept in dungeons - the throwing of the noble in a dungeon instead of granting them proper conduct.
The prisoner you need to rescue is kept within the dungeon of a Fortification - either a castle or a town - belong to a faction that is hostile to the quest givers.This does not necessarily mean that it is hostile to you - in fact, rescuing lord from a non-hostile faction is easiest as you don't have to give up your equipment and sneak into the town.
There are several ways of achieving this goal - you can take the straightforward route of capturing the Fortification, as it will automatically free all friendly prisoners, but that requires you to be at war with the faction of the captors and to have an army strong enough to take it.
Another approach is to sneak into the town, beat up the prison guard, take their keys, free the lord and fight your way out. This one relies much less on the skills of your army and more on the experience of the player character and the skill level of the player.When sneaking into a town, you disguise yourself as a pilgrim, wielding a Quarter Staff and Throwing Knives to use as weapons. Thus, characters with high Power Strike and Power Throw skills and a high Proficiency in Polearms will benefit greatly. Since you will be wearing very light armor (the Pilgrim Disguise and the corresponding hood) you cannot take many hits. Instead, you should rely on running away and kiting your enemies - a high Athletics skill should help with that.
An optional way to make the whole thing much easier is to find a nearby village with a relationship of 0 or higher to the player and ask them to start a fire outside the village. After paying them at least 200 denars and/or telling them your plan, they will agree to do so, and you can choose to get the fire within an hour or at midnight. This option decreases the number of guards you have to fight once you get the lords out to 1, and also deals with the castle guard that may be near the dungeon, so it is highly advisable when you're rescuing from capitals. Note that creating a distraction does not guarantee you safe entry, and you may still have to fight four or five guards with only a staff and throwing knives.
Once you're in, you need to find the prison guard. Speak to him and demand the keys from him (you can also bribe him, but since the Deliver message to prisoner lord quest has been cut from the game, this option does not have any functionality and is thus a red herring). You will then need to kill or KO the guard (very easy if the town is not hostile to you and you can fight him with your own weapons). You will then get the guard's keys, at which point you can enter the dungeon and speak to the captive lord(s) inside.
When you speak to a captive, they will ask you what is going on. You have the option of telling them you're there to save them, which progresses the quest. The lord tells you that they're weaker than usual because of being kept in prison, and you then have the option of telling them to come kill some guards with you or to tell them to wait near the door until you do the job yourself. If you're not sure you can take on the guards, know that lords are experienced and well-equipped and will thus be a great asset in your prison break - just tell them to follow you and make sure they don't get killed. Companions can get imprisoned too, but the only reward you get for getting them out is having them in your party, and later on just ransoming them is faster.
Note that you can take lords entirely unrelated to your quest with you if they happen to be imprisoned at the same place. They can be used as backup for your breakout efforts, and the relation bonus with the rescuee is nice. However, you will not be rewarded separately for getting out lords you had no quest for.
Once you're out, you'll need to kill the remaining guards, and, as soon as you kill the last one, all of the people you rescued will thank you. You will gain 6 relations with the person you rescued and +2 relations with all their family members (including the quest giver!) and the faction they belong to. You can then find the person who gave you this quest, and you will be rewarded with +10 relations, around 1500 denars and 2000 experience.
We need you to get my (relative) out of prison. You may be able to pay a ransom -- in which case we could cover your expenses up to 5000 denars. If you have connections within (prisoner location), you may be able to use them to sneak him out. Or, you can try a more direct approach -- walk up to the gaoler, take the keys by force, and then fight your way out. Can you do this for us?
Originally, there was meant to be a quest that is was a blend of Meet spy and this quest. It was called Deliver message to prisoner lord, and its former existence is the reason for the seemingly red herring-like addition of bribing the guard. It would be given by ladies and would consist of delivering a message to their captive husband. It was cut from the game for unknown reasons.
You can take prisoners at the end of most battles or sieges. Some fights do not allow the option, such as freeing a village from bandits or attacking a bandit lair. Not only troops can be captured, but lords and monarchs too, as well as unique spawns leaders.
You can only capture the enemies who have been knocked unconscious through the use of blunt weapons (horse charging is also blunt damage). Very rarely, sharp weapons may result in wounding, due to reasons unknown (possibly the surgery skill on the opposite side). Once you have taken prisoners, you may recruit them to your party, ransom them to Red Brotherhood agents or Ramun the Slave Trader (found in taverns in cities), or garrison them in a city. Also, if the enemy has prisoners, after defeating him the player is allowed to get these prisoners to his army, and trade them for theirs (if he lacks party room). This feature only applies to non-elite troops (nearly all troops with level 39 and lower, except for the Noldor Warrior)
Prisoners can be a great source of money if you have high Prisoner Management, or a city or castle to store them in*. If you have a city, you can put all your prisoners in it until a ransom broker appears in your tavern. If you have no city but have higher prisoner management, you can travel around capturing prisoners and selling them as you find ransom brokers. If you have a castle, you can check nearby cities until you find a broker, and then convey your prisoners to his location.
Prisoners are considered party members for the sake of calculating speed, thus the amount and speed of prisoners can result in increasing or decreasing Party Speed. You may want to avoid dragging around low value infantry, while keeping mounted prisoners around for a bit longer.
For captured lords and monarchs, every 24 hours there is a 5% chance that the kingdom from which they come will offer a good deal of denars to get the prisoner released, this amount depends on how important the lord is and the overall wealth of the kingdom; refusing this will result in loss of honor, but will prevent them from raising a new army for as long as they are held captive.
You can also talk to the prisoner directly (while they are in your party) for an option to immediately get a ransom and release the prisoner. This is recommended if you do not have a walled fief to detain the prisoner in, as they will likely escape anyway.
Prisoner heroes (monarchs, unique spawn leaders and vassals) will attempt to escape captivity every 48 hours, their chance of success is dependent on where you are holding them. Prisoner Management reduces the escape chance. The escape check occurs for all prisoners at once, at fixed intervals, so if the timing is wrong a lord can escape right after you capture him. Chances:
These chances are only for you and your kingdom (if you own it, if you joined a faction it will only affect you). For other kingdoms and minor factions, escape chances are way lower, but they are not affected by Prisoner Management skill, being 5% if they are in field, 2% if they are in a walled fief and 0.5% if they are on a walled fief with prisoner tower.
If you keep the captive nobles as your prisoners while you travel, you will notice that they gain the + symbol next to their name, like they have leveled up. Although this means that the noble has an unused skill point available, there is no way to upgrade their skills as you are not the captured lord's monarch.
Due these high escape chances, it is recommended the player talks to these when they are captured and take the deal of money they offer, as risking to wait for a better offer will likely result on him fleeing, rewarding the player with nothing.
Monarchs work the same way as nobles, but PoP adds a feature that may trigger when the kingdom of the monarch is weak (it has 6 or less walled fiefs, and player must be monarch), a special option will show up when talking to him when being your prisoner. This option trades his unique weapon in exchange for his freedom, but this will reduce your relations with that monarch by 40 and with his kingdom by 5.
The leaders of the unique spawns can be captured, their capture chance relies on your Prisoner Management Skill level, by 5% per level, from 40% at 0, up to a max of 90% capture chance at 10. They are considered as Nobles (you can pick them up even when no space is left for them), but they have an unique dialogue and options:
If you are a monarch and have sufficiently good relations with a captured lord, they will offer to defect to your faction if you talk to them. This is a potentially easy way to get good personality lords, and they can sometimes even bring their fiefs with them.
7fc3f7cf58