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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6268408" data-attributes="member: 4937">Sure.  But I'd be willing to bet the number that believe 'temporary insanity' exists is measurably lower than those that believe 'insanity' exists.  People in my homebrew don't doubt that possession and bewitchment exist.  They just are very skeptical of its use in a legal defense.Many people aren't nearly as trusting of 'expert' opinion, or the social 'sciences', as you seem to be.Should it be?  So he has to make a pilgrimage.  This is odd or unusual?  In most cases it would be a few days to at most a few weeks journey to find a confessor.  I guess it is relative whether this is 'no big deal' or not.  Or he might have been able to ask for a divine intervention check to see if his diety was willing to send a confessor to him (though, granted, he'd probably have to burn a destiny point to succeed under such conditions, and even then its a long shot, though I might give a circumstance bonus if the player did a really good job of pleading for intercession).   There are also sacred locations where you can get atoned just by bathing in the sacred water (or breathing the sacred smoke), for example.   I'm a generous enough of a DM I'd probably invent one a few days away if the circumstances were right.   And if Magical Polygraph's are really common, then the magical devices that allow them to be decieved are also very common and any NPC specializing and in deciet and infiltration would have one.   Likewise, if Zone of Truth is common, then surely the power to erase or alter memories - allowing people to testify in full conviction that something is true - is also not unknown.  The ordinary villager though knows only that some spellcasters - those very untrustworthy beings whose ability to alter the minds of others is at the heart of the problem - are saying something that they have neither the knowledge nor the power to evaluate is true.   In most parts of my campaign world, the use of a Magical Polygraph to determine veracity is not submissable as evidence because, in the past, the reliance on these devices has created a false presumption of utter reliability and accuracy allowing the truly fiendish and deceptive to use these devices and the evidence that they provide to overturn other evidence - even say eye witness testimony or forensic evidence.   Conversely, devices have been tampered with by fiends to unjustly punish the innocent who might otherwise be above suspicion.Beyond that we'd have to get into the specifics of my rules, but you know how people are always complaining about things like Magical Polygraph, Speak with the Dead, Detect Evil and the like making investigation and mystery pointless?   Well, they are a lot easier to thwart and a lot more unreliable the way I've written them.   Zone of Truth for instance doesn't make lying impossible.  It just gives you a penalty on your Bluff check.   So again, the people of my homebrew don't have any easy answers for the problem, to an even greater extent than would be true of any generic D&D game world.</blockquote>

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