As we join our heroes today, we find them in a disgusting prison. The DM has shanghaied the party and now it's up to them to find a way out! AS a brief recap, our party consists of: Nash (Hobgoblin alchemist that's kind of a dick), Sinclair (human noble egotistical asshole that's also a pretty good fighter/fencer), Soltrani (useless bard / battle dancer), Alvada (dwarf soulknife), Marik (Tiefling wizard / pyromancer), Ackint (Fetchling summoner), and me, Wren (apparently forgettable Tiefling witch).

PAY ATTENTION!

The DM explains the prison to us: those of us in the party who are magical are put in the “Day Care” ward, which is essentially solitary confinement plus a constant Feeblemind spell to keep casters in check. The rest of the group is in the general population. Since my character is a witch, I'm stuck in Day Care for the first 6 months, so I can't do anything. The group members that are non-magical, that is, the alchemist, bard, and fighter, all get right to work....towards absolutely nothing.

At the start, they ask some rather pertinent questions – who are their cellmates, what are the cells made out of, how big are the cells... But then quickly falls apart as they find out about prison gangs and they start trying to make friends. They don't take any steps to actually prepare or gather materials, not even shivs, as they wait for the casters to get out of Day Care. So that's six months wasted. Further, we soon discover that every time a serious length of time passes, the DM makes us all do a random save, and failure subjects the character to a very unsettling torture that leaves PERMANENT damage, both physical and mental. The physical damage is permanent, and nothing short of really potent mind-affecting magic or a Limited Wish can undo it. Without going into specifics, Sinclair (the fighter) took permanent damage to his legs and is no longer as good at resisting combat maneuvers.

With the first six months done, the casters rejoin the party as they are released from Day Care, the guards believing that we had exhausted all of our spells trying to escape. While none of us have our respective spellbooks (or their equivalents), the DM rules that we do still have whatever spells we had already prepared when we were captured. Unfortunately, we still can't cast many of them as we don't have much access to material components. That doesn't stop me though, because I'm a witch! And I get to use my hexes whenever I want. So, I start asking questions. I ask what happens when the guards find someone sick or dead, what happens when a riot breaks out, how many guards are watching the prisoners in the “yard”, how the guards change shifts, if they have uniforms, how they carry the keys, if they patrol solo or in groups, and so on.

Finally, I come up with a plan. See, I can fly at will, and I found out that, at certain times, there is only one guard on duty on the catwalk while the rest are elsewhere. So, I tell the group, “I can fly for 6 minutes a day (that's 60 rounds of combat, tons of time), and I can also put a guard to sleep whenever I want, as many times a day as I want. So I'll just fly up to the catwalk when there's only one guard up there, knock him out, slit his throat with my claws (gotta love natural weapons, plus he'd be helpless, so coup de grace), and then lower the ladder for the rest of the group. We could escape right then and there.

Everyone ignores me and goes back to talking about the gangs, how to get on kitchen duty, how to weaken the cell bars, if they can get a mutagen for the alchemist, who should take a raping for the team so they could curry favor with the other prisoners....

I try to cut in, saying that if not flying, I can just knock out a guard on patrol, emphasizing that I can do this AT WILL, and then just pick up his keys and let everyone else out. Again, I'm ignored. So time passes, another year in fact. The DM has already mentioned to me out of game that the longer we stay in prison, the more likely that our stuff will have been removed from the prison. We've now been in prison for a year and a half. The cells have been horrifyingly filthy, the food has been a watery slop made with rotting vegetables every day, beatings have been a daily occurrence, and most of us have been raped at least once. Oh, and remember how I said that each time major time passes, the DM makes us roll to avoid traumatic torture? Two more party members fail. One of them is branded, cut up, seared, inscribed, scarred, and tattooed so as to be a living holy symbol for a demon lord, and the other is repeatedly put into a paralyzed state and subjected to numerous bouts of humiliation, disfigurement, and torture. Both party members again have PERMANENT physical and psychological scars that will take extremely potent magic to heal. Thankfully, I had managed to avoid such a fate both times, and was not going to press my luck a third time. I put my foot down and said, “F this. We are not staying here long enough for any more of these horrors to be committed.”

By now, some of the other party members had managed to find weapons. Weapons in this case being broken bars from the cells, and shards of glass stuck in a plank to make a makeshift axe. Both weapons are treated as improvised. I'd like to remind you, dear reader, that virtually any length of a sturdy object qualifies as a club in D&D/PF terms, so if they were just holding out to get weapons, they could have had them at any time. Furthermore, three party members have natural weapons, and the others are decent enough that they could get by at least one fight with a basic club.

Having been ignored earlier, I had decided to remain silent while they came up with a plan. After thirty minutes though, they're already starting to say, “Yeah...we got nothing, let's let more time pass and see what happens.” I blink in disbelief, then remind them, “You know, I still say we could just go up to the catwalk and lower the ladder for everyone.” Nash (the alchemist) replies, “Yeah, but that would require someone who could fly and take out a guard...”

….No no, just pause there for a moment. Pause there for a good few seconds, because I certainly did.

When I stopped staring in disbelief, I responded, “I can fly. At will. And I can knock out a guard from a distance. At will. I can do both of those things in the span of two turns.” “Really? Aright, let's do this thing then!”

So we waited a year. A friggin YEAR. Being subjected to nightmarish conditions for a year, just because people didn't pay attention and didn't focus on the simple task of GTFOing as quickly as possible. Two of our party members have permanent physical and psychological scarring, and I don't even want to think about how much gear was lost.

The lesson?

FRIGGIN PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR PARTY MEMBERS! I can respect that you want to play to your own character's strengths and try to maximize their potential in a given environment, but you know what? Sometimes someone else excels in an environment. Sometimes they've got tools, experiences, or skills that you don't, and they know just what to do in a given situation. FIND OUT WHAT THEY'RE GOOD AT AND WORK TOGETHER!

As of right now, I don't really know what my character will do in response to this. The actual break-out happens next session, but he is -not- going to be thrilled that they're going with the same plan he could've done to escape at ANY TIME. I know not everyone roleplays things like food, sleeping conditions, or cleanliness, but just imagine yourself in the situation. And then imagine that all that crap you dealt with for the past year? You didn't have to do it. Try and gauge how pissed you'd be, because that's what I'm currently trying to do.