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Big damn heroes don't say Cthulhu for sure. Running scared does. I have never been a fan of the d20 Call of Cthulhu because its plain silly. However, I was thinking if when you level your character the only thing you gain is skill points and perhaps feats then it might work (i.e. no pluses to hit, saves, or more hp's). Bloated PC hp's and ridiculous bonuses to hit and damage fail to capture the feel of Lovecraft.
The OP subtitled the thread "how many XP is a Shaggoth worth" - if you mean in a stand up battle-matted combat? If so then it doesn't matter because the PC's should NEVER be able to defeat one! If you mean, find the cultist lair and the ancient script that drives one PC insane but allows the Shaggoth to be sent to the angle betwixt reality then lots of XP.
2 cents,
S.
I still think the answer to how to introduce horror and fear to a heroic FRPG is to keep the characters in the dark about what they face as much as possible, and imply rather than describe the horror.
The point here is that it does not matter how powerful you are, if you think that what you face is worse. Possibly a lot worse, and an unknown quantity to boot. Not for nothing are CoC games largely investigative work trying to figure whatever it is you are up against.
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The point here is that it does not matter how powerful you are,
This is where PF/3.5 don't really work. The whole PF/3.5 system is designed around players be roughly equal to the challenges they face as they are meant to 'defeat the encounter'. CoC games just plain don't follow this model. Most things are far more dangerous than your average PC and it's only the magnitude that differs, and how fast you will actually die. Which in turn means that "levels" are sort of a waste of time as your level based combat powers shouldn't play a great part in a Lovecraft type game. Leveling is a way of gaining uniform power so you can defeat that which you couldn't defeat in combat before, i.e. higher CR creatures, after all.
Now I'm not saying you can't have horror in D&D, Ravenloft in 2e was a wonderful example of horror in D&D, just that Lovecraftian Horror doesn't suit D&D.
My humble opinion,
S.
I don't get how people say that mythos creatures can't be or shouldn't be defeated, heck even great Cthulhu himself was rammed down by a damn boat in the original "The Call of Cthulhu" story. They might be alien, horrifying and beyond human comprehension, but they are not always unbeatable. You might not always be able to beat one physically but with magic and guile and the power of the human spirit a lot can be done.
Personally I have had great success in using the Mythos in almost all RPG's I have played, sometimes blatantly and openly, but often by subtly hinting at the cosmic horrors beyond. My players are terrified when they find a scribbling of an elder sign on a wall or a mention of Yog-sothoth in an ancient manuscript even though it doesn't really mean anything to the plot or have any consequence. It is all about how you introduce the Mythos and how you describe it.
Horror is mostly about atmosphere anyways, speaking in a low almost whispering voice, using creepy music or dim lighting etc. All these things aid in creating dread in your players even though they know that even the horrible abominations from beyond have stats, they still fear them and sometimes I even use the metagame to scare my players by telling them about the horrible abilities of a Shoggoth and then a few sessions later starting to hint at shoggoth activity when they know they are ten levels to low to even stand a chance against one.
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This is where PF/3.5 don't really work. The whole PF/3.5 system is designed around players be roughly equal to the challenges they face as they are meant to 'defeat the encounter'.
I disagree. The players are meant to be able to determine how powerful the challenge they face is in regards to their own power. The CR system is supposed to allow you to throw variable challenges at a party, from cakewalk to unwinnable. Not every encounter is meant to be defeated.
I don't get how people say that mythos creatures can't be or shouldn't be defeated, heck even great Cthulhu himself was rammed down by a damn boat in the original "The Call of Cthulhu" story.And it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience to him.
Defeated doesn't always mean killed or destroyed ;). Just surviving an encounter or banishing the evil momentarily might also be a victory in a sense.
Personally I don't like to stat up the major Mythos creatures like great old ones or elder gods since I mostly want them to stay in the background as cryptic and incomprehensible horrors. I do however think it is just fine to allow the pc's, through struggle and hardship be able to strike a telling blow against these creatures, although such efforts are seldom permanent and often at great personal cost to the pc's.
As for lesser Mythos creatures and appropriately Lovecraftian critters I like to amp up their "wrongness" and incomprehensible nature. I use foreboding signs and create creepy strange descriptions of the smell, appearance or feelings the critters evoke. I also like to tie them to the larger Mythos through subtle hints if possible. I still allow the pc's to defeat them and fight them as I don't think every cosmic horror should be beyond mere mortals to destroy.
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I disagree. The players are meant to be able to determine how powerful the challenge they face is in regards to their own power. The CR system is supposed to allow you to throw variable challenges at a party, from cakewalk to unwinnable. Not every encounter is meant to be defeated.
This is where PF/3.5 don't really work. The whole PF/3.5 system is designed around players be roughly equal to the challenges they face as they are meant to 'defeat the encounter'.
Not wishing to seem argumentative but point to an encounter in an AP that isn't meant to be defeated?
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Not wishing to seem argumentative but point to an encounter in an AP that isn't meant to be defeated?I disagree. The players are meant to be able to determine how powerful the challenge they face is in regards to their own power. The CR system is supposed to allow you to throw variable challenges at a party, from cakewalk to unwinnable. Not every encounter is meant to be defeated.
This is where PF/3.5 don't really work. The whole PF/3.5 system is designed around players be roughly equal to the challenges they face as they are meant to 'defeat the encounter'.
End of Second Darkness, when the maralith rogue shows up to laugh at the PCs. Not a combat encounter, but the adventure flat out states 'if the party attacks her, they will lose'.
Edit: Page 44, Descent Into Midnight. The maralith Alistraxia.
This was off the top of my head, but I also recall the first meeting with Nabthathoron in the Shackled City Adventure Path as one where the PCs were unlikely to defeat the enemy, and indeed he was only there to kill the NPC.
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PCs were unlikely to defeat the enemy, and indeed he was only there to kill the NPC.
And would you say this is a rule or an exception in D&D like games?
Edit: Expectation in D&D by players is "hit the bad thing", expectation in CoC is "run screaming". A not so subtle difference. No single person in any of Lovecraft's stories was a hero or became a hero. D&D is a heroic game and was designed as such. Using D&D for a non-herioc game is shoe-horning the system and trying to create a heroic version of Lovecraft's mythos in my opinion makes it no longer Lovecraftian but rather more Ravenloft. Nothing wrong with that however. What I mean is Lovecraft is a feel not just using names like Cthulhu and Shaggoth.
S.
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I would say there are no rules or exceptions as no DM runs the same. :)PCs were unlikely to defeat the enemy, and indeed he was only there to kill the NPC.And would you say this is a rule or an exception in D&D like games?
+1, beauty of human driven RPG's compared to computer games. Long live Pen & Paper!!!
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Not wishing to seem argumentative but point to an encounter in an AP that isn't meant to be defeated?
On the general topic of this thread:
- Is there a point in having Shoggoth stats in the Bestiary?
Sure! They're iconic monsters that could make a fun cameo appearance in even rather typical fantasy games, just for fun. They are also level 19. It's not like just any party of adventurers will be able to defeat them! You'll have to be close to epic levels! What would you gain from not having the Shoggoth in there? What doyou lose from having it in there? - Can the Mythos work in Pathfinder?
Sure! The Mythos isn't about having or not having stats. Monsters have stats in the CoC-RPG. It's about atmosphere, about bringing the horror to life, making the players, with all their magical gear, wonder what's really going on. Make the Mythos be something that defies the order of the planar cosmology. Something that comes from OUTSIDE! Just because there's monsters and wizards doesn't mean there are no things "other" enough to drive people insane! Keep in mind that it is the GMs decision whether to turn this into a simple combat encounter or make it a complicated run-away/banish-the-creature/whatever kinda scene.
Also, there's rules for Sanity in the Gamemastery Guide.
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Sure! The Mythos isn't about having or not having stats. Monsters have stats in the CoC-RPG. It's about atmosphere, about bringing the horror to life, making the players, with all their magical gear, wonder what's really going on.
I agree with you completely, but we are talking a specific kind of horror, that portrayed by Lovecraft. That feeling of hopelessness is, I would suggest, counter to the design of Pathfinder. So horror, yes in Pathfinder can be done very well, Lovecraftian horror, that is what I question. Any high level Cleric or Mage can open a gate to the nether-realms, so where is the horror of things from beyond? Summoners have what in CoC would be a "horror from beyond" as a pet!
S.
Big damn heroes don't say Cthulhu for sure. Running scared does. I have never been a fan of the d20 Call of Cthulhu because its plain silly. However, I was thinking if when you level your character the only thing you gain is skill points and perhaps feats then it might work (i.e. no pluses to hit, saves, or more hp's). Bloated PC hp's and ridiculous bonuses to hit and damage fail to capture the feel of Lovecraft.
If I'm remembering my read-through of the d20 CoC supplement from several years back correctly... you didn't get additional HP or BAB or anything like that. You got some character advancement stuff, possibly BAB and saves, but certainly not HP. You were always excessively squishy no matter how "high" in level you got.
And Cthulu is evil for the same reasons that Tharizdun, Rovagug, Shar, Slaanesh, or any of the thousands of other apocalypse entities are evil. In D&D, alignment is a universal constant - you don't get out of it by playing an "unspeakable other" card. Just because the Old Ones are inscrutable to mortals doesn't make them above universal laws. They care nothing for the lives of others or their well-being, any more than that antipaladin cares about the villagers he's slaughtering. They'll eat everything and destroy the world. How is that anything other than evil in the D&D scheme of things?
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How is that anything other than evil in the D&D scheme of things?
Well said. Lovecraftian horror shouldn't be "ho hum, another interplanar evil here to eat the planet", and in the D&D-verse I can't see how the Mythos can be anything but. Can a Cleric's god trump Cthulhu or is Cthulhu greater than a god?
S.
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The Investigator class got D6 hps per level. The game allowed the option to simple suspend hp advancement altogether if the GM wanted it that way.
Apologies, the only game of d20 CoC I played I was a player and we seemed to have a battery of hp's and wade through the cultist in true D&D style. If the DM had capped the hp's I think I would have had a better opinion of the experience. I may just have to give it another bash as DM. I'm not against the d20 system in CoC. I will say I do like the BRP for CoC as a system however... ;)
S.
EDIT: Here is a great online d20 CoC character gen; CoC Char Gen
I love Cthulhu. And the Mythos.
So. With help from a friend with making a pantheon, and a purview.
I'm currently running a Scion game with lots of that Mythos.
Three Scions versus a Shoggoth equals the Scions RUNNNNING!
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No single person in any of Lovecraft's stories was a hero or became a hero.
Randolf Carter says "hello!"
What I mean is Lovecraft is a feel not just using names like Cthulhu and Shaggoth.
Unfortunately, using names and little else has become rather standard for non-Lovecraft Mythos works since Derleth. At the very least Paizo hasn't yet put white hats on "Elder Gods" and black hats on "Great Old Ones" and "Outer Gods" and had them fighting over control of Golarion.
Which actually brings me to one of the few criticms I have of BRP Call of Cthulhu and the one way in which I find d20 Call of Cthulhu better than it. Chaosium, perhaps in an effort to be complete, seems to have bought into Derleth's interpretation of the Mythos a bit too much for my tastes. For example, the Malleus Monstrorum is an amazing book, one of the better monster collection products for any game system ever. But I could have done without the entries for Kthanid and Lumley's other "good twin" Elder Gods.
d20 Call of Cthulhu focused more narrowly on Lovecraft's own work. Yes, a few monsters and a couple of Great Old Ones are there that he never even mentioned, but it's much more focused, and the only Elder God menioned is Lovecraft's own Nodens...who is presented not as good, but merely as unknowable. It also diverged from the BRP version in not bothering to present stats for the Great Old Ones, Outer Gods, or Nodens (the stats that are given are explicitly stated as being for D&D, and GMs are advised that if an investigator engages one of these entities in combat, he dies).
The point here is that it does not matter how powerful you are,This is where PF/3.5 don't really work. The whole PF/3.5 system is designed around players be roughly equal to the challenges they face as they are meant to 'defeat the encounter'. CoC games just plain don't follow this model. Most things are far more dangerous than your average PC and it's only the magnitude that differs, and how fast you will actually die. Which in turn means that "levels" are sort of a waste of time as your level based combat powers shouldn't play a great part in a Lovecraft type game. Leveling is a way of gaining uniform power so you can defeat that which you couldn't defeat in combat before, i.e. higher CR creatures, after all.
Now I'm not saying you can't have horror in D&D, Ravenloft in 2e was a wonderful example of horror in D&D, just that Lovecraftian Horror doesn't suit D&D.
My humble opinion,
S.
I would agree with you in a typical D&D adventure. Using Mythos involves using a different kind of adventure, the horror adventure rather than the action adventure.
1) Atmosphere in the horror adventure is different; the characters have little advance knowledge of what they are up against, and the 'monsters' are not in your face but lurking in the shadows. They are inferred and confusing, not seen and obvious.
2) Encounter levels are generally much higher. The party should be scared of any direct confrontation without a profound advantage. A single character in an encounter should have no chance of surviving if they do not make an escape.
3) Monsters should not be bags of hit points, they have esoteric defences and multiple immunities. They should also be at least as smart as the characters, although in an alien and obscure way. They have their own agenda, and will follow it.
In a way it is a clash of genres: action heroes generally follow a different path to horror heroes. But it can work when the action heroes discover that their in-your-face method of dealing with encounters doesn't work. The first encounter with the foe should keep it's nature concealed, and highlight how badly out-classed the heroes are.
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Apologies, the only game of d20 CoC I played I was a player and we seemed to have a battery of hp's and wade through the cultist in true D&D style. If the DM had capped the hp's I think I would have had a better opinion of the experience. I may just have to give it another bash as DM. I'm not against the d20 system in CoC. I will say I do like the BRP for CoC as a system however... ;)
I personally think the fact that WotC actually printed rules for up to 20th level is somewhat moronic. If I had been in charge I would have thrown a hard cap of ~5th level, and increased the XP requirements between levels drastically, especially beyond 3rd level.
The BRP mechanic uses conventions I'm just not fond of such as a flat % to hit that seems largely unmodified in most instances, as well as overspcecificty of skills that a number of skill based systems suffer from (I can learn to kick well, but my punching is still at base, or I've learned to hit with a club, but I can't swing with a sword, I know Egyptology, but not History).
Well, the BRP system, unlike d20, doesn't feel the need to hard-code all modifiers. It's up to the GM to apply modifiers that he feels are appropriate to the situation. As for weapon/combat skills, that actually seems more realistic to me. In d20, your BAB applys to ALL combat...the bonuses you get for being specially trained in a weapon are rather minor...if you're an amazing shot with a crossbow, you're also really good at swinging a battleaxe or wrestling. In BRP, however, just because you're good in a fistfight, that doesn't mean you're also an expert swordsman and marksman.
Your character will eventually go insane because you just don't recover enough
That's intentional, as it should be. In fact, d20 Sanity Loss is much more forgiving, because the skill ranks you gain in Cthulhu Mythos are d20 based instead of d% based like in BRP. So reading the Necronomicon doesn't have anywhere near the long-term effect on your sanity (I think it's 3 ranks in d20, as opposed to 15% in BRP).
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I feel D20 is a bit too general in their notion that your BAB applies to most everything. They modify that, of course, by using Feats and Class features to allow for Weapon Proficiencies. However, it's just damn silly to think that someone trained to become a world class kicker, but has no real idea how to throw a punch. The skills are somewhat related and you tend to learn them together. That's my criticism of their skill system, it's simply far too specific. Good with a Rifle, but can't hit anything with a Shotgun. Knows Medicine, but, strangely, not Biology.
While I agree that perhaps BRP is too specific, d20 being too general annoys me more. Let's say you create a librarian character who has never held a gun in his life, and during the course of his CoC career he still never takes up arms. In BRP, his Handgun skill would never increase beyond it's base percentage. In d20, however, his accuracy increases as he levels, despite the fact that he's never actually fired a weapon in that time.
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I agree with you completely, but we are talking a specific kind of horror, that portrayed by Lovecraft. That feeling of hopelessness is, I would suggest, counter to the design of Pathfinder. So horror, yes in Pathfinder can be done very well, Lovecraftian horror, that is what I question. Any high level Cleric or Mage can open a gate to the nether-realms, so where is the horror of things from beyond? Summoners have what in CoC would be a "horror from beyond" as a pet!
It's weird, the next line I wrote, right after you stopped quoting is where I tried to answer just this concern. :)
Make the Mythos be something that defies the order of the planar cosmology.
Getting Lovecraftian horror to work in a fantasy environment requires you as the GM to focus on the strangeness and otherness of the creatures, phenomena, etc. involved. Take the star pact warlock from 4e, it goes (albeit slightly) in that direction. She doesn't draw her powers from creatures from a different plane. It's something from the cold depths of space, an area not often dealt with due to the nature of the planes. Just because Pathfinder has the planes all mapped out and people ok with the concept of there being other dimensions doesn't mean there couldn't be something above and beyond that. Imagine a high-level wizard, his special interest being the planes. What if he discovers that there are places beyond the planes, places not reachable from the astral plane, or through magic, places that defy logic in ways none of the planes do! (Afaik, even the weirdest planes adhere to euclidean geometry, for example)
My point is: if you keep everything just normal fantasy flavour and then randomly drop a shoggoth into a dungeon, that won't produce Lovecraftian horror. But if you build a campaign around the concept, you can use the PFRPG rules set to play that campaign. The rules won't kill the (Lovecraftian) horror, but they can't produce it, either. Even the CoC rules can't. The GM has to produce it by making things obscure, strange and horrifying.
Some methods for that have been mentioned here already.
- Let divination magic not work correctly for matters related to the mythos. Perhaps even the gods don't know this threat, rendering commune useless. Hell, the gods might even be threatened themselves. Perhaps the Great Old Ones, should they ever be awakened/find their way to Golarion, would have the entire Pantheon for breakfast!
- Let knowledge skills fail, no matter how high the players roll.
- Make sure they realize at some point that this threat comes neither from the Darklands, nor from another plane, but from a place nobody thought even existed!
- Let them discover ruins unlike any other. Monolithic, built from materials that don't exist on Golarion, perhaps even with non-euclidian geometry.
- Use Psionics for Mythos-related things. Something that works like magic but can't be influenced by it. Mythos-spell-like-abilities, -spells and -items can't be dispel magic-ed. They can't be Use Magic Device-d, and so on. Or perhaps they can be, but there is a price to pay. Characters magically interacting with Mythos elements might lose their Sanity as they learn and experience things that defy everything they thought they knew about the nature of magic and its workings.
Thing is, for us, a car is not something that would drive people insane. Neither is a computer. Or the internet. Put one of them into Golarion. "Ah, a magic device!" they will say. Then they cast detect magic. Then it starts getting unpleasant.
Magic and the study of the planes are to Golarion what Physics and Geometry is to Lovecraft's protagonists. Kill it, break it, shatter their belief in it.
You could also go the way of saying that magic and the planes all revolve around the planet Golarion. You can't reach other planets from the planes, Magic doesn't work too far away from the planet, it's all tied to it (as in a certain cyberpunk/fantasy game).
It's the same thing with monsters. Of course, in the educated 1920s with all that science, the sudden realization that monsters do, in fact, exist, is horrifying. But what is a monster? Why don't people who discover dinosaur skeletons lose their mind? Why don't people who discover a new species of animal go insane? Because it fits the broader picture.
Just because a variety of creatures lives in Golarion (and, I'd say, a far greater variety than in our world) doesn't mean any and all creatures will now be considered normal there. Make sure you contrast the otherworldy horror of Mythos creatures with the more "normal" monsters in your campaign. Don't run oozes and mind flayers and other things like that. Run humanoid monsters, leave planar stuff out of that campaign and then hit them with tentacled horrors!
Also, you as the GM decide which creatures are normal. If you decide Aboleths and Mind Flayers are unheard of, utterly alien, then they are. Describe them a little differently, let them react to magic in odd ways and don't go into mechanics details. This way, lots of "normal" 3e Monsters can become Mythos monsters!
God, I really want to write a fantasy-Lovecraft-adventure now... *sigh*
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Just because Pathfinder has the planes all mapped out and people ok with the concept of there being other dimensions doesn't mean there couldn't be something above and beyond that. Imagine a high-level wizard, his special interest being the planes. What if he discovers that there are places beyond the planes, places not reachable from the astral plane, or through magic, places that defy logic in ways none of the planes do! (Afaik, even the weirdest planes adhere to euclidean geometry, for example)
This isn't even a new idea in the game. 2E and 3.X had the great wheel, and 4E has a similar "mapping" of the planes, but all those editions also contain references to the Far Realm, which is not found on any of those planar arrangements. Nothing prevents homebrew Golarion from having a similar plane that somehow lies outside even the the Maelstrom.
There's also the Dark Tapestry, which is already hinted to contain Mythos horrors. And if you like both these ideas, nothing stops you from using both. After all, Lovecraft himself had entities that came both from other diemnsions and from beyond the stars.
Lots of really great advice for running Lovecraftian horror in Golarion (or any other fantasy game)
Amazing advice, TerrorTrig. You get two dozen tentacles up from me!
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I don't get how people say that mythos creatures can't be or shouldn't be defeated, heck even great Cthulhu himself was rammed down by a damn boat in the original "The Call of Cthulhu" story.And it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience to him.
Was it a magical boat? That could be the problem.
The lesson we can all take from Call of Cthulhu is that when you investigate the risen city of R'lyeh you should do so on a holy, flaming, aberrant-bane steamboat +3. THAT would have made more of a lasting dent on dread Cthulhu.
I don't get how people say that mythos creatures can't be or shouldn't be defeated, heck even great Cthulhu himself was rammed down by a damn boat in the original "The Call of Cthulhu" story.And it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience to him.Was it a magical boat? That could be the problem.
The lesson we can all take from Call of Cthulhu is that when you investigate the risen city of R'lyeh you should do so on a holy, flaming, aberrant-bane steamboat +3. THAT would have made more of a lasting dent on dread Cthulhu.
When I ran Shadows of Yog-Sothoth (or was that Shadows of the Frog's Yoghurt, I never can tell) one party member went out in style at the end charging Great Cthulhu on the boat they had fitted with a four-inch gun in the prow, blasting away. It didn't make any difference, but the player felt better about his grisly death shortly thereafter.