Insanity spell vs calm emotions

[larskrygan]

Good day,

first post here, i am running Rise of the RL campaign at the moment.

one of my players has been hit by the orange prismatic ray ( cf as insanity spell) and missed the DC.

he is now effectively insane.

to cut short, one of the player will want to cast the 2nd level calm emotions spell on him ( Saving thrwo pending ) to calm his violent acts

i am loathe to grant that, insanity is a 6th lvl spell, to be countered by a 2nd lvl is kind of a cheat mode for me ...

What is your input on that matter ?

[GM Rednal]

Your player is correct - Calm Emotions can suppress the effects of Insanity. Calm Emotions removes the Confused condition - which Insanity causes - as long as it lasts.

Note that Calm Emotions doesn't last very long, so unless they plan to do something else, it will only give them a few rounds (at most) of sanity. To permanently remove Insanity, you need a spell like Greater Restoration.

[Azothath]

BTW with Prismatic Spray - Indigo(RGB:75,0,130) causes Insanity, Orange(RGB:255,128,0) does 40pts of acid damage.

Calm Emotions suppresses the confused condition effect of the Insanity spell for Caster Level(CL) rounds(r).

[Claxon]

Plenty of low level spells defeat high level spells, because the low level spells are specialized to do so.

That just how things work.

In this case, Calm Emotions would suppress the effects of Insanity for the duration of Calm Emotions.

Do keep in mind though, if the character tries to get back into combat it will end the Calm Emotions effect, resulting in them being affected again.

Of course...confusion is kind of stupid, because you always attack the last thing that attacked you and you only roll on the chart if you hadn't been attacked. Unfortunately, the Insanity affect was definitely an attack.

[blahpers]

Quote:

i am loathe to grant that, insanity is a 6th lvl spell, to be countered by a 2nd lvl is kind of a cheat mode for me ...

This instinct right here? Better to nip it now rather than later. Lots of high level effects are mitigated by low level effects.

For the duration of calm emotions, the victim is no longer confused. Once that spell runs its course, though, the continuous effect of insanity returns.

[RealAlchemy]

blahpers wrote:

Quote:

i am loathe to grant that, insanity is a 6th lvl spell, to be countered by a 2nd lvl is kind of a cheat mode for me ...

This instinct right here? Better to nip it now rather than later. Lots of high level effects are mitigated by low level effects.

For the duration of calm emotions, the victim is no longer confused. Once that spell runs its course, though, the continuous effect of insanity returns.

For a really broken example of a low level effect mitigating a high level effect, look up the phrasing of unwelcome halo and what it can do vs deeper darkness.