Paladins and Insanity

[knifespeaks]

Anyone have a point of view on this?

I am planning to have an adventure line featuring a paladin who has gone insane - not totally nutsoid, just suffering from a case of homicidal mania.

Now, the question I am posing is simply - are paladins able to contract insanity, or would it be considered (as is the case in our modern psych treatments) as a disease? If so, would the affliction, and the actions performed by said pally result in loss of paladinhood?

No outside force has caused this insanity, it is simply a case of a mind that has become unstable. There will be a few interesting additional issues for our psycho pally, but I just wanted to get some impressions from the community. My players are pretty relaxed (ie, not hardcore lawyers), but as always - precedents in the campaign world need to be carefully considered before implementation.

Homicidal mania (using the first edition DMG here) causes the sufferer to become obsessed with killing (no probs there in a city for a paladin, evil is everywhere), every 1-4 days or so - let's say once a week. Afterwards, the afflicted person falls into a state of melancholia (religious observance perhaps?) for a week before returning to a homicidal state.

Paladins, certainly imho anyway, are borderline psychos anyway - they believe in their righteousness with such fervour and fanaticism that it is easy to see them suffering from any number of insanities to some extent. The question is whether the more severe ones cross over into diseases or not.

 

[SteelDraco]

I can see that pretty easily - a paladin who's gotten to the point that he goes out and looks for evil to punish, rather than reacting to it. I certainly wouldn't say that a paladin is immune to disease as a result of his Divine Health ability - that's a completely different animal, IMO, than becomng mentally unstable. Diseases have a pretty strict meaning in D&D, and homocidal mania isn't part of that.

On the other hand, it is strongly risking the guy's paladin status. He should be getting some indication that he's doing something wrong, though how he interprets those messages might well be skewed. Temporary loss of paladin abilities, or perhaps even permanent loss, wouldn't be too far out of line. 'course, it sounds like you want to play with the idea of someone who's teetering on the edge of losing it, rather than someone who's already gone completely around the bend.

Sounds like fun, btw. I've played a paladin who wasn't the most stable of people before, and it was really fun. What's the back story you've got going on for this character?

 

[Sejs]

This is all Sejs-Brand Oppinion stuff here, but:

Yeah, paladins can go insane. They're immune to disease, they can handle icky stuff without flinching, they can walk thru a plague-stricken village without fear. Insanity, however, isn't a disease. You don't catch it from anything. If you use a crazy person's toothbrush you don't go nutso yourself. It's an affliction rather than an infection.


Personally, what I would do with your Paladin On A Rampage - he went too far in what he thought was fighting the good fight; something happened and he was given a choice in what to do and boy howdy did he ever choose poorly. Willingly sacrificed innocents to what he thought was the greater good in order to lure out some baddies, or what have you. Stuff that would even make Batman frown and shake his head. He gets his status yoinked. But instead of going and realizing what he's done wrong, he goes far off the deep end in the other direction - he figures the reason he's being punished is because he didn't go far enough in his persuit of the Big Pervasive Evil.


So he figures the only way he can get back into the Light is to do so atop a mountain of the dead. There's only two kinds of people in his mind; the wicked that need to die for their wrongdoings, however small, and the pure, who would gladly sacrifice themselves to see this evil cleansed. Even if they don't say so. In their hearts, a good man would be happy to die for the right cause. If not, then maybe they wern't so pure to begin with...

 

[knifespeaks]

Well, actually here's a little insight into where I am thinking of going with him....

Consider the mental condition of PP (psycho Pally) as always a little unstable anyway.....righteous and good, pure of heart and strong of will....but just a trifle prone to use the sword where perhaps an alternative existed. Nevertheless, he has never used the sword in an evil way - he was always perfectly justified in smiting the heathens. But kindness and mercy weren't terribly high on his list of traits.

Consider then, the power of detect evil. What if, as part of the mental decay, this ability began to be more like a light switch, one that could flick on and off of it's own volition? The mind, as it begins to get more unstable, starts to detect evil without conscious effort on behalf of our PP. Much like the dial on a radio transmitter which is being flicked from one end of the spectrum to the other, snippets of radio stations blaring out and quickly fading to static and garbled voice or music....so too the detection of evil in the mind of our PP. He will be walking down the street, on his way to markets, when suddenly his detection sense will flick on - woe betide any evil folk who happen to be nearby!

For no reason, other than he has detected evil in the most mundane of situations, a market day. The flash of steel, a cry of pain and a life is extinguished. Justifiable to his own, certainly. Warranted? Who can say? But as the mind gets more and more unstable, the urge to seek out the unclean builds. Combined with the wild fluctuation of his detection, you have a walking timebomb, one who can seemingly lash out at random.


The milieu is suited to having a branch of enforcement akin the the Judges from Mega City 1 (ie, Judge Dredd), who are Paladins. Judge, jury and executioner. Not above the law, for they report internally to their clerics and higher level paladins. But certainly above the jurisdiction of a constable or sergeant. Such a person is a boon to the frontier lands, passing through on a quest or recovering from wounds sustained in the wild lands. Usually the mayor and constable of a town or small city will be pleased to have the extra help around....but our PP might be more trouble than a few roving cutpurses or brigands after dark....

But how to deal with this situation? Difficult decisions for our players to handle, a political hot potato!

 

[Impeesa]

Of course, once he crosses the line, there's nothing to stop an evil god from generously stepping in and providing similar powers when his old patron casts him off. The poor ex-paladin may never notice the difference.

--Impeesa--

 

[irdeggman]

I depends on whether the paladin is a paladin of principle or one associated with a deity - both are viable options.

In Birthright (a 2nd ed TSR game) all paldins had to follow a specific deity. Each of the 4 that had paladins had different aspects/philosophies that the paladins were expected to follow, as well as different abilities. In addition each deity had different temples that focues on different interpretations of the deity's philosophy - hence even more diversity.

One deity, Cuircean (god of battle and storms - not noble war which was his father) had paladins that had to be chaotic good, didn't gain spells or ability to turn undead but did gain the ability to specialize in a weapon as if a fighter.

These paladins were more likey to smite first and ask questions later while those of his father (the god of rulership and noble war) were more the typical paladin - negotiate and find the facts and then deal out the appropriate punishement - as such they were granted to ability to mete out justice as they saw fit (basically outside of the laws of the land, but due to their deity they basically followed the laws as long as they were just)

Unearthed Arcana also introduced paladins of different alignements (including evil). Basically changed the the general conception of the name paladin to correspond more to an extremely religious knight.


Back to your example - if the paladin in question has his detect evil going off on its own many questions arise. The asumption it is only the presence of evil (1st round benefit) and not the specific location (3rd round benefit). Which means that someone is evil in the rang of the detect - which triggers off the immediate meting out of justice (obviously based on the paladin's perceptions).

Colorful, but mechanically wise awkward. Reason for this being that it would be logical for players to want for their PCs to also have their detect spells in effect all the time (i.e., unconscious free actions). This could cause issues in the long run.


By the way here is the "official" 3.5 conversion of the Birthright paladins - for any inspiration it may inspire for you.

Also this is not OGC/OGL material. It is "free" as required by the "Official fansite" contracts with WotC, but it is IP of WotC and is jointed "owned" by WotC and the authors.

 

[Tonguez]

Yeah, paladins can go insane. They're immune to disease, they can handle icky stuff without flinching, they can walk thru a plague-stricken village without fear. Insanity, however, isn't a disease. You don't catch it from anything. If you use a crazy person's toothbrush you don't go nutso yourself. It's an affliction rather than an infection.
...

catching disease? Disease is caused by the Touch of the damned and by evil magics - demons, undead, magery,foul and unnatural powers this is the cause of Disease. It is the Paladins goodness that saves him from these afflictions of body and mind.

so imho - Paladins are immune to insanity if it is caused by a monsters attacks or magic (mind affecting) spells. Other forms of insanity don't have rules but might be possible