Hello everyone, and welcome to another in a series of articles focusing on the Cleric Domains in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The goal for each of these is to provide you with a quick overview of your domain powers, spells, and introduce you to a god or goddess from real-Earth mythology who could be a deity using this particular domain.
All that said, welcome to this week’s article on the domain of: Madness.
The Madness domain is described as “You embrace the madness that lurks deep in your heart, and can unleash it to drive your foes insane or to sacrifice certain abilities to hone others..” – In short, you are most likely crazy, or you’ve spent so long working with those who are, that you’re no longer able to distinguish between madness and sanity within yourself. Due to the nature of the domain, you’re almost certainly of Chaotic alignment and quite likely Neutral or Evil.
The powers granted are “Vision of Madness” – where you give a penalty to two types of checks for 3 rounds, with the penalty equal to ½ your level, and a bonus to a single type of checks. This is a very versatile ability that can allow you to boost certain abilities for your comrades, or hinder your enemies, depending on the choice made for the 3 check types (attack rolls, saving throws, or skill checks) – most likely, you’ll find that in combat situations, giving an enemy a penalty to attack rolls and saving throws, with the boost going to skill checks, to be the most sensible choice. But then again you ARE mad. 😉
The second power is “Aura of Madness” which is a confusion aura. Critically though, it does NOT affect your allies (stated within the ability as being enemies), which can make for a very strong defense against those needing to engage you in melee combat.
The spells you get with the Madness domain are as follows:
Confusion, Lesser (and Confusion and Insanity)
This is one of those spells that a GM might want to avoid. This is due to the fact that you’re taken away player agency. By this, I mean that confusion does not allow for your players to control their own actions, in 75% of the cases. That, to most players, is not FUN, and we’re at the game table to enjoy ourselves. This is one of those very effective spells that you should limit to the players and “end-bosses” only. Otherwise, players are likely to get very tired of their Game Master.
As a PLAYER however, this is an excellent spell as it gives the opponent only a 25% chance of acting the way they would normally, which can take some strong enemies out of the situation, at least for a while (1 round in the case of lesser confusion and 1 round/level for confusion – or permanently for insanity)
Touch of Idiocy
One of my own favorite spells, it is a very handy tool against any type of spellcaster, especially as your opponent becomes more powerful. The reason for this is simple: The spell causes 1d6 Points of Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma damage. Now that doesn’t sound so bad until you realize that a spellcaster’s maximum spell level is defined as 10+spell level and that their casting stat must be of the same number or higher to cast it. (I.e. for a caster to cast a 5th level spell, their casting stat has to be 15 or higher). If the caster’s stat drops below that level, then he or she cannot cast those spell, until they recover. That could effectively shut down a caster completely or at least severely limit their ability to hurt you. For example, it’s much easier to kill a level 18 wizard with 19 INT who can only cast 3rd level spells after having his intelligence reduced to 13, rather than facing all his 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th level spells. And even if he can still access the higher-level ones, you’ll have reduced the DC of those spells.
Rage
Rage provides a +2 to Strength and Constitution (and a +1 to Will saves) in the form of a morale bonus. Just be warned of the -2 to your AC. As it is a morale bonus (and the spell is mind-affecting) it might not be all creatures or classes who are affected by it. It does make for an excellent boost to your allies.
Nightmare
A great spell, though not for its damage, and likely more for a villain than for a PC. The reason it’s great? Because it prevents people from regaining spells. The more you know about them, the more difficult it gets for them to make the saving throw against the spell, though most PCs would not get much use out of it; they can, of course, assault a villain, retreat and then use this spell and try again the next day, where they should find that he/she is a much easier target. As for the use of a villain – Well, they throw their minions at a group of PCs, and cap off the night by sending this spell on the healer/spellcaster. Then the next day, they make their attack, making the group a much easier target than before.
Phantasmal Killer
The applications of this spell are obvious, but the damage done by it is drastically reduced if a person disbelieves it. Therefore, having it appear as something dangerous is highly advantageous. This is not an issue when you cast on an NPC, as the NPC automatically sees whatever their greatest fear is, but for PCs that doesn’t really do it justice. What I tend to do is to write down, and often remind myself, which creature or monster has proven most deadly to the character in the past, and then simply have the phantasmal killer take on that appearance once more. If the characters have progressed far beyond that previous target, simply have it appear beefed up. The goblin that nearly killed the 1st level fighter, is no threat to him when he’s 10th level. So, we turn that goblin into a goblin-half dragon warrior priest of the god of death or something similar, to have it appear as scary as possible, and give the PC the least amount of warning on a “time to disbelieve.” Of course, they may very well do so if the timing is odd, but that is the beauty of the spell, as that is entirely appropriate too.
Scintillating Pattern
Again, this gives creatures the confused condition, similar to insanity and confusion. However, it also stuns and/or knocks creatures unconscious. Again, due to the confusion taking away player agency, this is a spell I’d be tempted to avoid as a GM.
Weird
Okay, take everything I said about phantasmal killer and now give that spell multiple targets. It can be extremely deadly in the right circumstances.
Normally we’d be recreating a “real-world” god or goddess for this segment, but I wanted to do something a little different this time, as I have a particular love for Warhammer. So this week, we’ll be converting one of the Warhammer gods for use in Pathfinder.
New Deity
Tzeentch
Changer of Ways, Chaos God of Change, Evolution, Intrigue and Sorcery, The Great Keeper of Secrets
Alignment CE
Worshipers sorcerers, wizards, alchemists, oracles, those who believe that things can change, plotters and viziers
Cleric Alignments CN, NE, CE
Domains: Artifice, Chaos, Evil, Knowledge, Luck, Madness
Sub-domains: Alchemy, Corruption, Fate, Insanity, Thought, Whimsy
Favored Weapon: a quarterstaff tipped with the symbol of Tzeentch
Symbol: in blue and gold
Tzeentch is the weaver of fates, intrigues, and plots. A deity so mad, but so smart that he is continually plotting for all eventualities, but with each plan constantly intersecting with others, at times even contradicting these in unpredictable ways, but all with one goal in mind: The ultimate ascension of Tzeentch to rule as the supreme power. In many ways, Tzeentch is the ultimate corruption of HOPE. He represents all those bad moves that anyone is willing to do to get to where they hope to be, only for them to fall at the last possible moment.
The worshipers and the priesthood of Tzeentch represent this duality of the deity as well. Some strive to achieve their hopes, while other strive to hold others from achieving their hopes, by dashing opportunities. More often than not, this means that the worshipers are working AGAINST each other, rather than with each other, something the deity seems perfectly happy with, as it seems to fulfill some unknowable goal.
There is absolutely NO pattern to how the clergy go about their day, each going with whatever interpretation of the god’s latest message they believe is correct. Often, multiple worshipers will have received contradictory messages and orizons, but they are a force to be reckoned with when marching to the same tune, as they are often powerful magical practitioners.
Only two generalities can be given regarding the clergy and places of worship: Clergy is mutated with some form of physical deformity, some more than others, but the mutation is often quite distinct, though some lucky few might have one that can be hidden. As for the places of worship, they’re usually grand cathedrals covered in gold and blue colors but completely covered in illusions and deceptive spells to prevent any non-worshiper from entering or even noticing the structure.
Kim Frandsen
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