Insanity as plot & curing thereof.

[kahlzun]

Hi all, I am working on being a DM for the first time, and i have come up with a plot that relies on curing Insanity.

Long story short, an evil god is destroying the world, and 6 wizards were tasked with fighting against it.

Two of them have gone 'to the dark side', two of them have given up, and the last two have been driven mad by the power/responsibility/whatever.

In-game, what options would exist for the characters to cure the insanity? What level of cleric or skill would be required for that? How much warning or preparation would be fair to give them before encountering an insane wizard?

Thanks for any help,

Sam

[Necroticplague]

Well, you can base things on the spell, which is on the srd

Insanity
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Sor/Wiz 7
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target: One living creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

The affected creature suffers from a continuous confusion effect, as the spell.

Remove curse does not remove insanity. Greater restoration, heal, limited wish, miracle, or wish can restore the creature.
Of course, it depends on what exactly you mean by 'driven mad', because the kind of insanity this represents isn't horrifically realistic for any kind of nonmagical mental illness.

[Pleh]

Get access to Heroes of Horror, if you can.

That book tackles this subject head on.

[Ludic]

BoVD offers this as an alternate curse.


Each time the target meets someone for the first time,
there is a 50% chance that the new person will confuse the
target with a hated enemy, a well-known criminal, or a
raving lunatic.

Maybe they aren't really insane, but because of Bestow Curse everyone thinks they're insane. So your PCs search for a cure to the insanity is actually for naught because it's actually a Deity Level Bestow Curse that makes the rest of the population think the wizards are insane. Helps if they are also feebleminded. Wink wink.

So, you spend the first few levels trying to learn a spell to heal Insanity (per the spell), but find out it didn't work. Research, realize it's a Curse cast by a deity and are now on your way into an epic campaign to stop an evil deity AND remove the curse from the wizards.

Of course, the 'evil'two could be possessed, also in the BoVD, and along the way you have to exorcise the fiends, and the apathetic ones might be under a geas that prevents them from actively participating as they should be.

[kahlzun]

Research, realize it's a Curse cast by a deity and are now on your way into an epic campaign to stop an evil deity AND remove the curse from the wizards.

Of course, the 'evil'two could be possessed, also in the BoVD, and along the way you have to exorcise the fiends, and the apathetic ones might be under a geas that prevents them from actively participating as they should be.

That kinda makes sense, as these wizards had been all prophecied to fight the deity, and as such a savvy planner could have targeted them specifically for such a treatment.

i like that.

[Ludic]

That kinda makes sense, as these wizards had been all prophecied to fight the deity, and as such a savvy planner could have targeted them specifically for such a treatment.

i like that.

Use it, I am more than amicable towards you using it as the plot twist.

I should probably mention by epic, I don't mean epic levels. But something like, since it's a Bestow Curse cast by a deity, don't let remove curse work (let the players try it of course). But when they do try it (because that's the first thing the players will try when they realize it's a curse, and if they don't nudge them about it), have them all visited in their sleep by the evil deity's nemesis and reveal to them an amazing journey they must go on to collect tokens that will restore him to his full power so he can remove the ailments of the chosen wizards.

[Crake]

Heal specifically cures insanity and other mental ailments, and is a 6th level cleric spell, meaning an 11th level cleric could cast it.

[Fizban]

Book of Exalted Deeds makes any insanity plot laughable with the Heart's Ease spell: deals with all sorts of emotional wounds including fear, despair, PTSD, confusion, insanity, and cures temporary wis damage, all for one 3rd level spell.

Only catch is that you have to get them to fail a will save if they're unwilling (spell is tagged harmless), and you'll have to check with your DM if the Duration: Permanent is being considered a typo (as the spell is explicitly described as a cure for other effects that are instantaneous), or if it's actually a patch-job that can be dispelled.

With the latter, you could have a situation where bringing someone into a Magic Circle Against X actually makes them crazy again, as it suppresses the Heart's Ease effect and allows the damage to surface.

On the other hand, I think an argument could be made that regardless of the Instantaneous duration on Insanity, it's still clearly a mind-affecting compulsion and Magic Circle would suppress it on it's own, which would be my counter if the DM made Heart's Ease dispellable.

If it's being run as a curse, the Shaman from OA has Detect Curse as a 3rd level spell. If you can't be a Shaman or access it via some other class based workaround, you can always dupe it with Limited Wish, though at that point you could just remove the insanity directly.

[Pleh]

Any time you want insanity to be a plot element, you are incorporating a sense of disempowerment for your players. 99% of the game is designed to empower them, so whatever insanity rules you use will have dozens of ways to get around them.

If you want insanity to be a real obstacle in your adventure, you'll need to custom tailor the campaign. Talk to your players about their expectations, so they know they're playing with forces bigger than themselves and shouldn't expect a quick Heal to be the answer. The insanity should be pervasive, like in Batman's Gotham City, where mental health is only a temporary cure that treats the symptoms.

This gets into elements of horror (the genre that naturally places the hero in a position of disempowerment. It doesn't have to override the rest of the game, but it needs to have some extra oomph from somewhere to help it compete with the heavy, pc empowering fantasy tropes the rest of the game is saturated in.

Giving horror more strength than seems reasonable is probably what you need to make sure it is the right balance of strong, but not insurmountable. After all, how many races and classes have features that have Immunity to confusion or insanity?

[kahlzun]

BoVD offers this as an alternate curse.



Maybe they aren't really insane, but because of Bestow Curse everyone thinks they're insane. So your PCs search for a cure to the insanity is actually for naught because it's actually a Deity Level Bestow Curse that makes the rest of the population think the wizards are insane. Helps if they are also feebleminded. Wink wink.


One other thing I thought of: When they figure out its the BBEG doing the curse, they cure the guy, and find his scrying stone which is still attuned to the BBEG. ME1 Sovereign conversation!
None of my guys have played ME1 before (sad, I know) and so they'll not expect the awesomeness. I've recorded a number of likely responses to what they're likely to ask or say to the guy, but hopefully it will be memorable.

[Crake]

Book of Exalted Deeds makes any insanity plot laughable with the Heart's Ease spell: deals with all sorts of emotional wounds including fear, despair, PTSD, confusion, insanity, and cures temporary wis damage, all for one 3rd level spell.

Only catch is that you have to get them to fail a will save if they're unwilling (spell is tagged harmless), and you'll have to check with your DM if the Duration: Permanent is being considered a typo (as the spell is explicitly described as a cure for other effects that are instantaneous), or if it's actually a patch-job that can be dispelled.

With the latter, you could have a situation where bringing someone into a Magic Circle Against X actually makes them crazy again, as it suppresses the Heart's Ease effect and allows the damage to surface.

On the other hand, I think an argument could be made that regardless of the Instantaneous duration on Insanity, it's still clearly a mind-affecting compulsion and Magic Circle would suppress it on it's own, which would be my counter if the DM made Heart's Ease dispellable.

If it's being run as a curse, the Shaman from OA has Detect Curse as a 3rd level spell. If you can't be a Shaman or access it via some other class based workaround, you can always dupe it with Limited Wish, though at that point you could just remove the insanity directly.

Magic Circle only suppresses enchantment effects that allow exercising mental control, so I somehow think that it wouldn't suppress the effects of heart's ease, it's not exactly exerting any control over the target.

Insanity being instantaneous means that there's no more magic to suppress. You're just insane now, that's what you are. You could maybe make the arguement for confusion, though most peoeple I know don't consider confusion as "exercising mental control", since the caster can't control the subject in any direct way, their actions are purely random.


Any time you want insanity to be a plot element, you are incorporating a sense of disempowerment for your players. 99% of the game is designed to empower them, so whatever insanity rules you use will have dozens of ways to get around them.

From what I gathered from the OP, it's not the players who are insane, it's NPC wizards and the plot is for the players to cure the insane wizards?

[D&DPrinceTandem]

Gave you ever played blood borne, then there is your answer heroes of horror

[VisitingDaGulag]

Sanity Variant Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=17042.0)