Madness?

[GutterFace]

We have a Fighter in a side group im involved with that is fairly new. he wants to be kind of a lose cannon. he is going to take Deformity: Madness

i don't know much about it. is it worth it? his Will save is low to begin with....

would it end up being a determent in the long run?

[CRtwenty]

Immunity to Mind Effecting Spells is nice, and it's not like Fighters have any need of Wisdom. Plus he can boost his Will save once every minute for those saving throws he's not immune to.

So it seems fairly useful, I don't see it hurting him, though there's probably lots of other feats he could take that would be more useful in the long run. Especially since he needs a pretty lackluster prerequisite feat (Willing Deformity) for it.

He's also got to be Evil, which can cause problems especially if he wants to be an insane loose cannon type character. But that has nothing to do with his build.

[GutterFace]

True on the Evil part but the DM is a stickler for Alignment per se. but it does factor in.

he has 2 flaws as well so feats are defiantly not his issue hahaha

thanks you for the advice though, it will make him happy

[Fenryr]

The Fighter loses 4 Wisdom to become immune to all mind-affecting spells and abilities. That takes Dominate Person, Zone of Truth and fear effects. Also most scrying effects, many illusion effects, Plane Shift, Trap the Soul, a few others.

Also remember that the feat allows to get bonus Will = 1/2 your level to a single Will save every minute.

I think it's pretty cool.

Edit: SWORDSAGED.

[Gemini476]

Beyond Willing Deformity and it's relevant feats having a requirement of being completely and unrelentingly evil, it's a pretty decent feat. Mind Blank is a good effect, even if it doesn't have the full immunities.

The description is

You revel in madness, embracing your hallucinations, erratic behavior, and deviant cravings. Your mind cannot be touched by outside influences.
so it's really up to the player to roleplay it (if he cares enough to).

But yeah, immunity to mind-affecting is good. Even with -4 Wis.

Having [Vile] feats is explicitly ridiculously capital-E Evil, though.

[GutterFace]

All excellent points. thanks all ill relay the info to him.
he will love the input lol

[Fates]

It's always seemed silly to me that Willing Deformity feats are vile, frankly. Gross? Yes. Disturbing? Yes. Probably CN at best? Yes. But I don't see anything exactly evil about voluntarily maiming oneself. I always handwaive that bit for those sorts of feats, just like I remove the alignment restriction from the "Vow of X" feats from BoED. I see no reason why a LN character, for example, shouldn't be allowed to benefit from taking a vow of poverty. :smallannoyed:

[Captnq]

I just finished reviewing them for the augmentation section of my handbook.

Madness deformity is great for a fighter. Lousy for a cleric. Madness, tall, and teeth are the best three to get. The rest... kinda suck.

Tell him he needs to gibber often, and keep saying, "THIS. IS. SPARTA!"

Then mix it up. When he gets served in an Inn say, "THIS. IS. TASTY!"

That sort of thing.

[GutterFace]

I just finished reviewing them for the augmentation section of my handbook.

Madness deformity is great for a fighter. Lousy for a cleric. Madness, tall, and teeth are the best three to get. The rest... kinda suck.

Tell him he needs to gibber often, and keep saying, "THIS. IS. SPARTA!"

Then mix it up. When he gets served in an Inn say, "THIS. IS. TASTY!"

That sort of thing.

Hahaha he has already, and often yelled; "Stop Following Me" at the inn. he also has deformity Tongue which i find hilarious because he will yell with a lisp.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The Fighter loses 4 Wisdom to become immune to all mind-affecting spells and abilities. That takes Dominate Person, Zone of Truth and fear effects. Also most scrying effects, many illusion effects, Plane Shift, Trap the Soul, a few others.

Yeah. no. Dominate person is mind affecting and all fear affects are mind affecting and so is zone of truth but most scrying effects and illusions are not. Neither is trap the soul. To the best of my knowledge, there are no scrying affects that are mind affecting and only illusions of the pattern and phantasm subschools, both very few in number, carry the mind affecting tag while figments, glamers, and most shadow effects do not.

These all too common misconceptions stem from people conflating things that require will saves with things that affect the mind. Not everything that requires a will save is mind-affecting and neither does everything mind-affecting require a will save.



It's always seemed silly to me that Willing Deformity feats are vile, frankly. Gross? Yes. Disturbing? Yes. Probably CN at best? Yes. But I don't see anything exactly evil about voluntarily maiming oneself. I always handwaive that bit for those sorts of feats, just like I remove the alignment restriction from the "Vow of X" feats from BoED. I see no reason why a LN character, for example, shouldn't be allowed to benefit from taking a vow of poverty. :smallannoyed:

The thing of it is this; causing those deformities wouldn't normally produce the effects that they do when you take those feats. Filing down your teeth will make your bite sharper but it doesn't strengthen or lengthen the jaw at all and wouldn't make a person any more capable of attacking foes with his mouth than he was before. Stretching out one's limbs not only wouldn't extend a person's reach appreciably but it would, in fact, cripple him instead; quite badly at that. The morbid obesity represented by the feat would put a massive strain on the body's immune and vascular systems leaving the person much less healthy, not more sturdy, while being as gaunt as the feat suggests would leave you severely weakened and certainly wouldn't improve your coordination.

They grant you the effects that they do, not because of the changes to the body itself, but because of the supernatural evil that the patron granting those feats infuses the creature's warped body with, in exchange for that self-mutilation.

[Yahzi]

would it end up being a determent in the long run?
One of your fellow PCs is going to play for Team Monster (i.e. a mindless force of destruction)?

I kind of see that being a Paladin-attracting thing... so ya, it sounds pretty detrimental. :smallbiggrin:

[GutterFace]

Haha No LG's so we are ok, for now.

im pretty sure any city guards we run into will be a funny situation

[Fates]

The thing of it is this; causing those deformities wouldn't normally produce the effects that they do when you take those feats. Filing down your teeth will make your bite sharper but it doesn't strengthen or lengthen the jaw at all and wouldn't make a person any more capable of attacking foes with his mouth than he was before. Stretching out one's limbs not only wouldn't extend a person's reach appreciably but it would, in fact, cripple him instead; quite badly at that. The morbid obesity represented by the feat would put a massive strain on the body's immune and vascular systems leaving the person much less healthy, not more sturdy, while being as gaunt as the feat suggests would leave you severely weakened and certainly wouldn't improve your coordination.

They grant you the effects that they do, not because of the changes to the body itself, but because of the supernatural evil that the patron granting those feats infuses the creature's warped body with, in exchange for that self-mutilation.

I suppose that's reasonable. I'm still going to maintain the house rule in my own games, but I understand now why someone would keep the feats as they are.

[Slipperychicken]

Tell him he needs to gibber often

Yeah, you really need to roleplay something like that. Like suggest that he watch a bunch of Joker performances, listen to some metal, catch up on his Cthulhu Mythos, read about WH40K chaos, and also the D&D entries for the Far Realm.]

He's a fighter, so he could also be fine with the whole Blood for the Blood God (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-gSJW3sHXE) schtick, which is kind of fitting with the usual PC mentality of "murder everything for the XP/lulz". Of course, the gibbering paranoia works quite well too.

[GutterFace]

Absolutely. he's loving the Madness and Tongue deformities.

actually, Kudos to him as a new player playing a bland class with some panache.

[otakumick]

This makes me think http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUhOnX8qt3I

[Big Fau]

Did he spend actual feats on his Willing Deformity stuff? Cause he could have gotten them for free.

[GutterFace]

Did he spend actual feats on his Willing Deformity stuff? Cause he could have gotten them for free.

oh? how so?

[Slipperychicken]

Did he spend actual feats on his Willing Deformity stuff? Cause he could have gotten them for free.

Are you talking about swearing service to an elder evil? That gets you one [Vile] feat at first level, plus one for every 5 HD thereafter.

[Big Fau]

oh? how so?


Are you talking about swearing service to an elder evil? That gets you one [Vile] feat at first level, plus one for every 5 HD thereafter.

Question answered. Have him swear fealty to one of them and see if the DM will let him trade out his existing ones via PH2 Retraining (if that's not an option, a Limited Wish can duplicate Psychic Reformation or you can just get someone to manifest the power for him).

[GutterFace]

Veeeery interesting. ill pass the information along and see. thanks!

[Slipperychicken]

Question answered. Have him swear fealty to one of them and see if the DM will let him trade out his existing ones via PH2 Retraining (if that's not an option, a Limited Wish can duplicate Psychic Reformation or you can just get someone to manifest the power for him).

If he chose to swear fealty, I'd just cut him a break and retcon the feats with fiat. He clearly didn't know about the elder evil option before.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I suppose that's reasonable. I'm still going to maintain the house rule in my own games, but I understand now why someone would keep the feats as they are.

Fair enough.

[Thurbane]

He could always take the Steadfast Determination feat to base will saves off Constitution, so his Will saves vs. non mind-affecting attacks (Slow, Glitterdust etc.) don't suffer from low Wisdom.