For my Dart Heresy campaign I expanded the Insanity Reduction rule. My goal was to given the players some more options to mitigate getting some unlucky rolls. So please take a look at roadtorole-playingmastery.blogspot.com/2009/08/dark-heresy-alternative-insanity.html and let me know what you think.

I have a few issues with this. I guess I should say at the start that I don't really approve of trying to make it easier to get rid of insanity points - for me the universe is supposed to be dark and unrelenting, ultimately grinding down any character who spends long enough carrying out the Inquisition's work. But putting this aside:

- Someone with a high willpower will be able to save XP - potentially a lot of XP - by passing their rolls and getting d5 insanity points removed for their 100XP instead of only 1 insanity point. This seems potentially rather unbalanced to me, especially as low-WP characters will presumably be gaining more insanity points in the first place.

- Flavour-wise, I don't think that medical care is particularly appropriate here. The book refers to "long-term palliative care" which might mean any number of things. But I don't think that modern psychiatric practices would translate into DH. Perhaps electro-shock therapy, or something similarly medieval in feel.

- I would question whether 500 XP is the right amount to remove an insanity. It depends how much XP you give out. It would work in my campaign, because I give out around 200XP for a 6-hour session. Point being, it should really hurt - not just lose you 1 session's XP, but several sessions. Otherwise insanity just won't feel like a big deal.

While I concur with Cardinalsin about your rules favoring WP-heavy characters too much, I have the opposite stance on insanity treatments in general: In the DH rules, there's no reason to take them - you pay them with hard-earned XP that could be used for learning better ways to kill people and break stuff (and, incidentally, avoid becoming more insane). Further, the first 20 points are actually more beneficial since they negate the quite often present Fear 1.

So, how to get around that? Create another ressource for players: Downtime points. Under ordinary circumstances, players get around 2 downtime points per month. Those can be spent on several things:

-Working: Obvious. For one downtime point, get your career's income. Usually, no more than one downtime point can be spent on working.

-Meditating: Do something for your spiritual and mental health in whatever ways your character deems appropriate and remove one corruption or two insanity points

-Go socialising: Obtain a contact with a value of 50 xp, improve an existing contact's value by 50xp or save up 50xp for a major contact

-Hunt down items: Increase the availability of three items by one step or the availability of one item by two. (The GM can rule certain items simply too rare to be hunted down - you won't find a power armour in the wilderness of Iocanthos no matter how long you search for it)

-Search for clues: Assuming there's what one might call a season-arc going on, characters can try to find some extra clues about it by doing their homework in what is supposed to be their off-duty time. The GM hands out a valuable hint that might open up new stories or come in helpful later on.

Other conceivable activities should be assigned a point value by the GM.

Ooh, that makes a lot of sense, Cipher. I was thinking of something similar for contacts to encourage players to develop a network (with the 50% discount for a contact being plausible).

I... like that a LOT Cifer! I think I'll take that and run with it... though I might make getting rid of corruption a lot harder otherwise it opens up the "he, everybody can be saved and all we have to do is repent after summoning this demon here and everything will be fine!" mantality. Still, the concept is a good one especially if you have a few players in your group who crave structure and go a bit blank when you ask what their acolytes plans are for the next 3 months or so. ;-)

Cifer said:

That could be a good thing though. It was quite a shock the first time my group encountered a creature that caused fear - with low-level characters, their willpower just wasn't up to the job. The idea that as you get more experienced you become increasingly hardened to horrors while simultaneously losing your mind a bit, fits with the feel of the setting for me.

That could be a good thing though. It was quite a shock the first time my group encountered a creature that caused fear - with low-level characters, their willpower just wasn't up to the job. The idea that as you get more experienced you become increasingly hardened to horrors while simultaneously losing your mind a bit, fits with the feel of the setting for me.

Oh, I definitely like it too - but it means that buying off insanity is a doubleedged sword and at 100xp per point a **** expensive one. Up until about the second insanity, I'd say that removing insanity points is a much worse option for spending your XP than many others.

though I might make getting rid of corruption a lot harder otherwise it opens up the "he, everybody can be saved and all we have to do is repent after summoning this demon here and everything will be fine!" mantality.

Considering that Corruption can often be handed out by the D5 or D10, repenting after that might take a while (as in 6 months - or six seconds when the confessor pushes the "incinerate" button in the confessional). I've thought about rising the time needed, but then it becomes ineffective again, especially when considering that for some characters 10 CP is a death sentence, depending on Pure Faith and the resulting Malignancy.

Cardinalsin said:

Thanks for the input. I don't have any problems with someone with high willpower being able to shrug off the effects of insanity more easlily. Those same characters are less likely to need to try and reduce their insanity points anyway. But I do appreciate the different point of view. As for the flavour the rest of the setting has advanced medical procedures so I feel, in my campaign at least, that the psychiatric practices are appropriate. One thing to consider is that the cost may be more than just the XP. How is the character's Inquistor going to view the psychiatric care. What kinds of secrets will the character let slip during treatment.

I give out about 100 XP per 4 hour session so to get rid of disorder is about 5 sessions. So a character trying to remove insanity points and disorders is going to seriously fall behind the other characters in terms of development. I think insanity still is a big deal, but these rules give my players some more options to help repair the damage of a bad roll or two.

I really do appreciate the feedback.