Detecting the Thoughts of Fiends causes Insanity?

[Hand of Vecna]

A friend of mine was telling me the other night about a game he's been running for a while, one where the party had just gotten stuck on Avernus (a Layer o' Hell). He told me of how the psion in the party had tried to read the mind of a fiend, and became confused. I asked if that was a house-rule he was using, but he said no, it was something he had seen in some 3.0 book, but he remembered seeing it mentioned in 2nd Ed., and he'd really liked the idea (he's a big Lovecraft fan). However, he could not remember which 3E book it was mentioned in, and I've skimmed through mine and can find no mention of it.

The "read a fiends mind & go insane" thing sounds very familiar to me, but I can't figure out where I've seen it. Does anyone here know of any 3.0 (or 2nd Ed.) books that mention this phenomenon?

 

[Ferret]

I've not heard of it, but I would say that perhaps reading the mind of a devil might not be as bad as a demon, although the throughts would be more organised in the devils, so you be more suseptable.

I would also like the idea of that same thing happning with angels. To pure for mortal minds.

 

[Feathercircle]

I don't know from actual experience, but it certainly seem like the kind of rule to be found in Ravenloft... I remember that they had Madness checks, certainly.

 

[Junkheap]

I am pretty Planescape had that as a general rule when trying to read demons minds, especially the upper tier ones. DOnt know it if was in the box of chaos or what, but i have read that as well.

 

[WayneLigon]

I've not seen an actual rule about it but I have seen similar things happen in games and other media. There's a great scene in one of the Dark Horse Darth Maul comics where another Dark Side user peers into Maul's mind and recoils in terror, just muttering 'So... dark...' I can certainly see something similar happening to someone stupid enough to try and read the mind of a demon or devil.

 

[Aaron L]

This is from Van Richtens Guide to Fiends, or the psionic rules from the revised Ravenloft boxed set. Pretty sure its from the boxed set, the psionic booklet.

 

[Alzrius]

As far as I know, this hasn't been stated in 3E. In 2E Ravenloft's Van Richten's Guide to Fiends (later renamed Van Richten's Guide to Demons in the Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendium) there was a rule about making madness checks if you read a fiend's mind (they were also the only ones who could not only read undeads' minds without fear, but also could see past the wall of false thoughts).

I'm not sure, but I think some approximation of that rule was in Planescape. Either in Hellbound: The Blood War or Faces of Evil: The Fiends.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

This was a 2e rule. In fairness, it should apply to anyone who can read a fiend's mind, including wizards and bards.

 

[Wycen]

Yes, this was a 2E rule. You can find it in For Duty and Deity, and probably many Planescape products. Any mental contact initiated with a fiend would result in the contacter being affected negatively somehow, but I don't remember the specific details.

In our campaign at the time, my character was a psionicist who's henchmen included an alu-demon (half succubus half mortal) who I mentally contacted all the time. So, we ruled that she chose to suppress the abyssal background noise whenever we linked.

Against other fiends, the only safe forms of mental contact were violent forms, aka the attack modes, mental blasts, etc.

 

[Staffan]

Haven't seen it as a general rule in 3e, though there is at least one monster that has that as a special ability (Eberron spoiler:

Spoiler

the Daelkyr

).