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Group patterns and mind affecting toxins.

I am planning to run betrayals sting for my party tomorrow, it is most probable that one or more of the PCs will be infected with the enrages kiss, a poison that causes paranoia.

The problem is that the party will have a group true pattern (they are planning to choos name and symbol and perform ritual first thing tomorrows session). And the paranoia will almost certainly lead to actions that under other circumstances would constitute a breach of the oath of peace.

How much flexibility would normally be given on the oath of peace for somebody who was affected by such a poison, and how much to another party member responding to attack (verbal, shoving level or homicidal) by an affected character.

Quick responses would be appreciated, as this is tomorrows game and I need to know whether I can even include the effect (I won’t deliberately make them loos there group pattern the same session they are making it)

Edward

Assume that the oath applies to actions where you have a choice only. There's more than enough abilities where you don't have a choice any more in ED (for example, the oath mentions "through inaction", so any Horror with Terror would make you break it), so you could pretty much forget about a group true pattern if forced or involuntary actions made you break it.

So the section on page 124 on blood magic where it says " Blood oaths posses great power - Rgardless of curcumstance or intent, magic binds those who swear their pledge." was only ever envisioned by the game designers to applies to the swearing of the pledge. Magic is strict on the swearing of the pledge but flexible on people breaching it.

I want Blood magic in my ED to be dangerous for many reasons and the "regardless of curcumstance or intent" is the biggest danger for oath makers.

I guess that the role and decisions of 'magic' and how and when it chooses to impede on anyone that interacts with it is probably one of the biggest responsibilities/rolls that the GM takes on. It also forms possibly the biggest potential for differing game 'feel' bettween various GM's. Every bit of information redgarding the workings of magic seem to be written from an in character scholarly view point. No-one seems to know the truth of it. That mystery helps a GM as nothing says magic neede to be consistant. In fact evidence would suggest that it is very inconsistent.

the difference here is that the "regardless of curcumstance or intent" is stopped by the fact that the namegiver is not the originator of the breaking.
if you promise you will not burn down someones house and will try everything you can to save it if someone does, but when you are asleep while someone else burns down said house is it still your fault?

as such, the paranoia is the cause for "breaking" the oath, not the namegiver.
and since the namegiver isnt the one braking the oath, it endures.

my 2 cents
Ukhata