Preliminary draft of Sanity rules up for review

[bhu]

Sanity Rules

Beginning Sanity All PC's start with a beginning Sanity equal to their lowest mental stat times 5.  They take damage to this score from committing acts they find difficult to deal with, seeing things they were not meant to see, encountering things from other worlds, etc.

Losing Sanity Whenever a PC encounters a difficult event, he or she must make a Willpower Save (DC is given below) or take the appropriate amount of Sanity loss.  Once Sanity reaches 0, that character becomes incurably insane, and is retired from the game as they are effectively dead.  Their mind is a shattered wreck and they are incapable of doing much of anything but scream, and fight.  Should a PC roll a Natural 1 on a Willpower Save to avoid Sanity damage, or take more than 20% of their current Sanity all at once (or within 1 hour), they will develop a temporary form of insanity detailed below.  Temporary is a bit of a misnomer, as unless they are cured it won't really go away for 1d6 months, and cures are difficult to come by (though they can regain some Sanity by successfully defeating Things From Outside).  If during Temporary Insanity the PC loses up to 20% of their current Sanity again, their Insanity is permanent, rendering them incapable of functioning for (20 minus Wisdom Score weeks) and providing permanent symptoms thereafter.  Sanity Loss for Monsters is listed in their description.  For other events consult the chart below (Sanity damage listed before the slash is for a successful Save, damage listed after is for an unsuccessful Save):

Regaining Sanity

There are several ways to regain Sanity damage:

Defeating Things from Outside: If the PC's can defeat a monster they regain sanity equla to the maximum Sanity lost encountering one.  Choose the monster doing the worst Sanity damage from the encounter, and the players receive Sanity equal to the max they would lose for a failed Willpower Save encountering the beast (for example if a Ghoul does 0/1d6 damage, and the PC's defeat/capture/murder the Ghoul, they can regain 6 Sanity).  If the PC's can defeat a cult without encountering monsters they can regain 3 Sanity.  If the PC's can put down the summoning of a God they regain 20 Sanity.

By increasing their mental stats: If the stat their Sanity is based on increases, so does their Sanity.  For every permanent +1 to that mental stat they gain +5 Sanity. 

Maxing out ranks in a skill: The first time a PC maxes out ranks in a particular skill, they gain 2d6 Sanity due to increased confidence.  This can only be done once per skill.

Psychotherapy and Psychiatric medications are, alas, not available in this time period.

It is also possible to 'get used' to seeing monsters.  Once the player has lost the maximum possible Sanity done by a particular monster (i.e. if it does 1d6 Sanity damage on a failed Willpower Save, and you've taken a total of 6 Sanity in one or multiple encounters) you stop losing Sanity for a reasonable period of time.  Reasonable being defined by the DM.  One never gets used to seeing Gods or spellcasting (with the possible exception of Class Features).  Eventually after enough time has passed you will take mental damage again.

Event   San Loss

Surprised to find mutilated animal carcass or a human corpse/body part (DC 13) 0/1d2
See a river flow with blood or other unexplainable phenomena (DC 14) 0/1d3
Find a mutilated human corpse, Perform an objectionable act (varies by persons beliefs, but would be things like hiding among corpses or mutilating a corpse) (DC 15) 0/1d4
Awake in a coffin, witness a friend's violent death, see a minor monster (DC 16) 0/1d6
Meet someone you know to be dead (DC 17), seeing most monsters 0/1d8
Undergo severe torture, Perform a very objectionable act (Forced to commit rape/incest/necrophagy/necrophilia, murder a friend, etc), See corpse rise from the grave or another event you know to be impossible, see powerful monster (DC 20) 0/1d10
See a gigantic alien head fall from the sky or other completely unexplainable alien event or witness the end of a civilization (DC 22), see very powerful monster 2/2d10
Confront a deity (DC equals 10 plus Deities Hit Dice plus Charisma Modifier i.e. you aren't making it)  1d10/1d100


Insanity

If the PC goes temporarily or permanently insane they may suffer from one of the following disorders (Note: I do not believe in randomly rolling for insanities gained by an encounter.  Pick one appropriate to the situation.):


Acute Stress Disorder:

Amnesia:

Anorexia:

Anxiety Disorder:

Brief Psychotic Disorder:

Catatonic Scizophrenia:

Conversion Disorder:

Depression:

Megalomania:

Nightmare Disorder:

Obsessive-compulsive Disorder:

Pain Disorder:

Paranoia:

Phobia:

Pica:

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:

Pyromania:

Extremely powerful entities such as Gods or the most powerful monsters can cause minor strokes or other physical damage which may result in the following insanities (It should be noted these are not common and usually only result as permanent as opposed to temporary insanities):

Autophagia:

Body Dysmorphic Disorder:

Psychopathy:

Psychosis:

Scizophrenia:

work in progress.

[Daniel678]

My suggestion is that once a player has made a few successful saves they are jaded enough that they don't need to save for a similar event. Depending on a player's class there should be events which they don't need to make a save for.

[Tr011]

Will saves are a problem for this. You say the obvious wizard who just saw his academy in his whole life with his high mental stats and a good will save has never problems with seeing dead corpses, while the 4-int-barbarian with low will-save looses sanity after crushing some goblins. I don't think that fits.

[Tonymitsu]

This system also discounts other potential factors like character fluff or alignment in favor of general randomness.

For example:

-A 30th level character probably could comfortably stare down a middling deity in the same vein he would a dragon.  I'd think Divine Rank should play more of a factor than hit dice in this instance.

-Depending on how they are played, there's a strong chance that a chaotic neutral or chaotic evil character has more than a few screws loose already.  The idea that they would be horrifically unsettled by coming across a mutilated carcass when odds are even they were the cause of it comes off as laughable.

Then there's the matter of perspective.
Seeing a body rise from the grave and meeting someone you know to be dead is impossible to us, because we don't live in a world that contains wizards and clerics who make these things happen on a daily basis with a snap of their fingers (and 5k gp in diamond dust).  Unless such a thing is prohibitive in the specific campaign setting, some of these instances that would call for a roll simply don't make sense.

[veekie]

Hmm, perhaps base it off a Limit system?
Exalted has them.

Basically you have a track of 10.
Each time you experience something disturbing to you, you gain one point on the track. When the track is full, you experience a Limit Break, where you basically go nuts for a while(depending on the insanity, it can go on for an hour or a whole day), then recover. Permanent insanity is handled by permanent Limit, which would cause low level derangements, building up to greater madness.

Or you can borrow the overcharge mechanics from this system here
The general idea here is to have several tracks, based on different sorts of mental stability.
You get to 'flare off' insanity by going mad for a while, or it can accumulate and cause permanent damage.

[archangel.arcanis]

Just as a point of note guys. This is for a d20 Modern game that is very Cthulhu based. So there are no wizards, as we would think of them, or goblins, normally at least. Plus I doubt there will be epic levels, "some characters die early, and the others lose" 

[Thaosyr23]

def. add in some jaded option then. People see so much stuff on tv that after awhile, violence just stops phasing them.

how about after seeing something will save (dc+5) to never be effected by it again. or something like that.

[veekie]

Just as a point of note guys. This is for a d20 Modern game that is very Cthulhu based. So there are no wizards, as we would think of them, or goblins, normally at least. Plus I doubt there will be epic levels, "some characters die early, and the others lose" 

Could still add a jaded(or more appropriately, broken) option.

Basically, you just take a minor dysfunction(like a minor phobia, OCD etc), in exchange for immunity to a minor disturbance after being exposed to it and resisting successfully. You take a major(maniac depression, Multiple personality disorder, severe delusions) for greater disturbances.

[archangel.arcanis]

I agree some kind of jaded or "screwed up in the head but not enough to lose your character yet" mechanic would be good.

There are some Sanity rules in the SRD, I believe BHU has already gone through them. As well as a similar system in the Wheel of Time RPG for male channelers who slowly go insane.

[weenog]

Modern?  Mutilated animal has got to go.  Anyone living anywhere both small animals and motor vehicles exist has seen enough smeared, crushed, twisted, dismembered and otherwise mangled animal carcasses that they really aren't going to be bothered by another piece of roadkill unless the sun's been beating on it for a few days and they have to stand downwind.

[archangel.arcanis]

Modern?  Mutilated animal has got to go.  Anyone living anywhere both small animals and motor vehicles exist has seen enough smeared, crushed, twisted, dismembered and otherwise mangled animal carcasses that they really aren't going to be bothered by another piece of roadkill unless the sun's been beating on it for a few days and they have to stand downwind.

Modern Game system but we are in 1776. So unless you are counting that retarded squirrel standing in front of a horse drawn buggy or the fact that people actually hunted & butchered much of their own food, it isn't quite the same.

[PhaedrusXY]

Modern?  Mutilated animal has got to go.  Anyone living anywhere both small animals and motor vehicles exist has seen enough smeared, crushed, twisted, dismembered and otherwise mangled animal carcasses that they really aren't going to be bothered by another piece of roadkill unless the sun's been beating on it for a few days and they have to stand downwind.

Modern Game system but we are in 1776. So unless you are counting that retarded squirrel standing in front of a horse drawn buggy or the fact that people actually hunted & butchered much of their own food, it isn't quite the same.

Even in the modern world, there are people who've routinely seen and participated in the killing and butchering of animals (I'm one of them... grew up on/near farms, etc). Seeing an animal mutilated means basically nothing, if you grew up thinking of animals as walking sacks of meat that you knew you were going to kill and eat eventually, anyway... (My grandfather and his generation had absolutely no empathy for animals at all... I could give examples, but I won't... because even I find them disturbing...)

Back in the 18th century, this would have been common for pretty much everyone, except the very rich. So I agree that it has no place on the chart. Finding a human corpse/body part would be an entirely different thing, however.

[bhu]

My suggestion is that once a player has made a few successful saves they are jaded enough that they don't need to save for a similar event. Depending on a player's class there should be events which they don't need to make a save for.

will be adding this in

[bhu]

Will saves are a problem for this. You say the obvious wizard who just saw his academy in his whole life with his high mental stats and a good will save has never problems with seeing dead corpses, while the 4-int-barbarian with low will-save looses sanity after crushing some goblins. I don't think that fits.

the rules are for d20 modern

also a WIzard may very well have worked with corpses in the academy, and the barbarian may most likely be a superstitious tribesman afraid of the sight of the full moon because of his tribal religion.  It's meant for horror campaigns.

[bhu]

This system also discounts other potential factors like character fluff or alignment in favor of general randomness.

For example:

-A 30th level character probably could comfortably stare down a middling deity in the same vein he would a dragon.  I'd think Divine Rank should play more of a factor than hit dice in this instance.

-Depending on how they are played, there's a strong chance that a chaotic neutral or chaotic evil character has more than a few screws loose already.  The idea that they would be horrifically unsettled by coming across a mutilated carcass when odds are even they were the cause of it comes off as laughable.

Then there's the matter of perspective.
Seeing a body rise from the grave and meeting someone you know to be dead is impossible to us, because we don't live in a world that contains wizards and clerics who make these things happen on a daily basis with a snap of their fingers (and 5k gp in diamond dust).  Unless such a thing is prohibitive in the specific campaign setting, some of these instances that would call for a roll simply don't make sense.

The campaign this is made for is a lot like Call of Cthulhu.  The odds of the PC's getting to 30th Level is small, and regardless of what level they reach, no human being will ever be powerful enough in this campaign to take on a God with an army at his side much less by himself.  Thats just there as an example.  If the PC's SERIOUSLY fuck up, they may see a deity from afar laying waste to civilization, but otherwise they are fluff and not meant to be encountered.  Even if a PC becomes a Wizard and gets a lot of power, the deity he's facing has been in existence since the beginning of time, or possibly even beforehand.  It has eons more experience at it than he does.  The campaign setting exists in the american revolutionary war in this case.  Up until this point monsters, magic, etc have not existed, but we opened the gates to win the Revolutionary war.  The stars finally became right, and now beings from other diemnsions are slipping in, and humans are discovering the true physics of the universe (i.e. magic).

[bhu]

Modern?  Mutilated animal has got to go.  Anyone living anywhere both small animals and motor vehicles exist has seen enough smeared, crushed, twisted, dismembered and otherwise mangled animal carcasses that they really aren't going to be bothered by another piece of roadkill unless the sun's been beating on it for a few days and they have to stand downwind.

Modern Game system but we are in 1776. So unless you are counting that retarded squirrel standing in front of a horse drawn buggy or the fact that people actually hunted & butchered much of their own food, it isn't quite the same.

Even in the modern world, there are people who've routinely seen and participated in the killing and butchering of animals (I'm one of them... grew up on/near farms, etc). Seeing an animal mutilated means basically nothing, if you grew up thinking of animals as walking sacks of meat that you knew you were going to kill and eat eventually, anyway... (My grandfather and his generation had absolutely no empathy for animals at all... I could give examples, but I won't... because even I find them disturbing...)

Back in the 18th century, this would have been common for pretty much everyone, except the very rich. So I agree that it has no place on the chart. Finding a human corpse/body part would be an entirely different thing, however.

In this case mutilated animal means disturbing stuff like genitalia removal, weird sacrifices, or mutilations you cant explain, like why a horse drained of blood is hanging by his neck from a cliffside a thousand feet in the air with no blood anywhere near the scene, and no signs of scuffle.  The list was based off CoC to get something up, I plan on revising it

[bhu]

Rules have been revised somewhat and I am beginning to add in specific insanities.  I tried to specifically go for ones caused by mental trauma so if anyone knows more about mental disorder than i can find via google please chime in.

Also if you can think of any disorders I should include.

[bhu]

I agree some kind of jaded or "screwed up in the head but not enough to lose your character yet" mechanic would be good.

There are some Sanity rules in the SRD, I believe BHU has already gone through them. As well as a similar system in the Wheel of Time RPG for male channelers who slowly go insane.

Actually I has not I must peruse this.

[Mister Lamp]

I highly recommend the rules used in the Call of Cthulhu D20 book, they were basically the same as the other CoC's but i think it is a really good system. also, please tell me "lowest mental stat" doesn't include CHA, i can't imagine that affecting sanity.

[altpersona]

my 2c, group support should aid / hinder checks.

if every one else around you is ok w/ the weirdness then your more likely to be ok with it. and verse visa