Unearthed Arcana: Fear and Madness

[josha]

UNEARTHED ARCANA
FEAR AND MADNESS

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IN THE DARKEST CORNERS OF UNKNOWN SPACE, in the maddening reaches of the
Far Realm, in the most remote depths of the Underdark, and in the infinite expanse of the Astral Sea lurk dark horrors beyond imagination.
Aboleths preform decades-long rituals of unspeakable might in vast, subterranean seas. Wraiths and dark spirits stalk abandoned streets in the dead of night, searching for fresh life energy. Twisted fey set sadistic traps for unwary travelers, pressing their fingers to their lips and cackling quietly. And necromancers stalk bleak graveyards in the mist, thinning the line between life and death.
I present here rules for fear and insanity, meant to be used with the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 4th edition rules-set.


SANITY POINTS
SANITY POINTS ARE A SYSTEM which allows Lovecraftian-style madness in your 4E game. Each character starts out with a number of sanity points determined by their wisdom. As they come face-to-face with whatever creepy stuff you have in store for them they gradually lose them slipping into the depths of madness and growing constantly more twisted.

DETERMINING SANITY POINTS
EACH PLAYER CHARACTER STARTS OUTwith sanity points equal to their wisdom score x3, this makes wisdom much more important in character creation so remember to declare this before the characters are made.

LOSING SANITY POINTS
AS THE PLAYER CHARACTERS ENCOUNTER alien horrors and twisted abominations it begins to take a toll on the very foundations of their mind. When they see/make contact with such a creature or sight you ask them to make a sanity check. When they make a sanity check they roll a d100, if they roll higher than their total remaining sanity they succeed, if they roll lower they fail. On a failed check they loose several randomly rolled sanity points, on a successful check they loose little or none. Here is a table to demonstrate how much sanity is lost from certain experiences and to give you an idea of the numbers.
Experience - Sanity Lost on Successful Check/Sanity Lost on Failed Check
Seeing a Zombie. - 0/1d4
Seeing a Ghoul. - 1d4/2d4
Seeing a Fell Taint. - 1d8/2d8
Seeing a close friend or family member die. - 1d4/3d4
Looking at the severed stump of your hand. - 0/1d6
Seeing an Illithid or Beholder. - 1d12/2d12
Touching a mangled, rotting corpse of a sentient - 0/2d4
Discovering that you are eating the flesh of a sentient. - 2d4/2d10
Seeing a good deity. - 2d4/5d4
Seeing an unaligned deity. - 2d8/5d8
Seeing an evil deity. - 2d12/5d12
Living for a week without food - 1d4/3d4


REGAINING SANITY
WHEN A PLAYER CHARACTER TAKES a short rest they regain sanity equal to their wisdom modifier, when they take an extended rest they regain sanity equal to their wisdom score.

RUNNING OUT OF SANITY
WHEN A CHARACTER RUNS OUT of sanity points their mind is broken beyond repair and the DM takes control of them.

FEAR AND PARANOIA RULES COMING SOON!
​

 

[Reydragk]

That "preform" in the sentence about aboleths is bugging me

On a more helpful note, I really like system, but I don't feel like it's quite effective as-is--you need to have something HAPPEN mechanically as the PCs slip into madness. As currently written, the Sanity Points subsystem would just be more numbers to keep track of, and a shiny new way to lose your PC.

Perhaps at 3/4, 1/2, and 1/4 of your total sanity points, there are effects that happen to show the loss of sanity. I'm thinking a list of powers that the DM can gain to use against the mad PC; as a PC passes each of the 3 "checkpoints", the DM can choose one additional Insanity Power. A Daily power at 3/4, an Encounter at 1/2, and an At-Will at 1/4. The pool of powers would be separate for each PC, and a power could only target the PC whose slide into madness allowed the DM to gain that power.

As an example: PC1 has just finished a short rest, but is still at less than 3/4ths of her total sanity points. The DM chooses the power "Hallucinatory Enemy" as a daily. The next encounter begins, and the DM decides to expend "Hallucinatory Enemy". A new enemy appears that can only be seen by, attacked by, or attack, PC1, and cannot interact in any way with the rest of the party. A sanity check can be made as a Standard action to try to banish the hallucination--success eliminates it, failure causes further loss of sanity.

Edit: Just thought of further ideas--Feats and items that give bonuses to Sanity Checks, so that characters who don't key off of Wis can still stand a chance.