RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
|
Never quite a fan of HP Lovecraft, actually. I find the "lovecraft-creep" into Golarion a bit... unfortunate.
After all, what do you need a Sub-Niggurat when you have a perfectly fine Lamashtu? Where is the "selling point" of adding a lot of "old cults" if you already have plenty of dark gods, horsemen, demon lords by the dozen and archdevils, whore queens, and whatever these things that replaced the Obrynth are called these days (I know what they are, but couldn't spell that word...)
Its not that I am opposed to the "pulp feel" per se - but please, don't go too deeply into the xenophobic, borderline nihilist world of HP Lovecraft. Heroes need to be heroes, not barely surviving victims. Oh, and don't introduce whacking elder things in the head with a ship as the means to prevent the end of the world as we know it ;)
Though if there is a mint-berry prestige class, that would be awesome. 0:-)
|
Oh, and don't introduce whacking elder things in the head with a ship as the means to prevent the end of the world as we know it ;)
Just like to add a bit of commentary here. Ramming the entity with the ship in the story "The Call of Cthulhu" did NOT defeat it. At most, it was a minor inconvenience. The entity went back to R'lyeh because the stars were only right for those few short minutes, not because of anything that Johansen did.
|
Oh, and don't introduce whacking elder things in the head with a ship as the means to prevent the end of the world as we know it ;)Just like to add a bit of commentary here. Ramming the entity with the ship in the story "The Call of Cthulhu" did NOT defeat it. At most, it was a minor inconvenience. The entity went back to R'lyeh because the stars were only right for those few short minutes, not because of anything that Johansen did.
I think this illustrates a big part of the problem some of us have with Lovecraft in heroic fantasy.
You mean it's not a case of DR 100/ship?
I think this illustrates a big part of the problem some of us have with Lovecraft in heroic fantasy.
I don't know, I think punching out C'thulhu would be pretty heroic and fantastical!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Your players can have a jarring reaction from anything that they haven't memorized from the Bestiary, but it's actually the type of reaction you usually want them to have with Mythos creatures. They aren't supposed to be worldly or understood very well after all, and fighting them should be disconcerting.I'm really not expressing myself well here (and, incidentally, the idea of my players picking up a Pathfinder book and reading it is highly unlikely. That's my job, as far as they're concerned).
What I'm trying to say is that the monster was just a souped-up blink dog to them. All of the things that make it eerie and exciting were lost on my players; they never even worked out that it needed angles to move through.
They also couldn't really fathom why it was there beyond the 'ooh-crazy-wizard-stuff' reasoning.I find the cthulhu stuff interesting in small doses but I prefer a light sprinkling to a hefty side-order.
Then I suggest you perhaps didn't set up for it as well as you might have.
I would suggest getting a copy of Graham Walmsley's stealing cthulhu. It is effectively the cheat sheet for how to set up a mythos story, what the core elements and themes of each of the stories and monsters.
If you want to use a hound, you need to set it up right. Here is some of the stuff I might do with it.
Hook:
The PCs tracking down a mathematician, drug addict or magician interested in time, because he has a clue to the ongoing campaign.
location:
A strangely angled house on a wind swept moor.
Motifs:
- strange angles
- repetition of language(houndsworth chant from the anima version of black butler would be especially useful for this.)
- messed up causality
- distortion of time
- Deja Vu(via repeating of events)
Mechanic:
Non-sequential encounters with the hound. It attacks them, before they discover anything about it, when it attacks, it is already injured and has used up powers, but flees before it has been killed, later when they search for the subject and details on the creature, let them attract its attention and be what drew it to them, hit them hard with it, when they start to get the better of it, if attacks them at the first encounter, the it moves forwards to the final show down encounter and attacks them there, after it has taken tie to heal up and recover its spells.
Use haunt like traps to which have effects that mess with stuff like the age mechanics, distance, and time.
You might even consider having the final encounter not being against the PCs, but against one their ancestors. "what do you mean my buffs just run out and I am fatigued, they are good for minites yet" "But hours have just passed my friend, in the blink of an eye."
Simply do not allow them knowledge checks on the beast, without spending house pouring over the books held within the house.
After all, what do you need a Sub-Niggurat when you have a perfectly fine Lamashtu? Where is the "selling point" of adding a lot of "old cults" if you already have plenty of dark gods, horsemen, demon lords by the dozen and archdevils, whore queens, and whatever these things that replaced the Obrynth are called these days (I know what they are, but couldn't spell that word...)
That's how I feel about it. "If one Cthulhu is good, then three Cthulhus are awesome!" Um, not really.
|
|
The trick to keeping the themes of Lovecrafts unknowableness and madness inducing antics is to have plenty of red-shirts around. Victims to drive mad and turn against the PCs. Or to just turn inside out like a gymsock full of blood.
That the PCs survive, and stand bravely where their peers fell keeps both Lovecraft's heady horror, and Robert E. Howard's heroic ideal that looks in the face of horror and lets out a bellow of fury. :)
As to "why do we need Lovecraftian horror when we already have demons, evil gods and dragons?"
Because some GMs focus on Dragons, other GMs focus on horrors from beyond the stars. :)
|
|
The trick to keeping the themes of Lovecrafts unknowableness and madness inducing antics is to have plenty of red-shirts around. Victims to drive mad and turn against the PCs. Or to just turn inside out like a gymsock full of blood.
That the PCs survive, and stand bravely where their peers fell keeps both Lovecraft's heady horror, and Robert E. Howard's heroic ideal that looks in the face of horror and lets out a bellow of fury. :)
As to "why do we need Lovecraftian horror when we already have demons, evil gods and dragons?"
Because some GMs focus on Dragons, other GMs focus on horrors from beyond the stars. :)
To put it another way, why both to have evil gods, demons, or devils when you have dragons? Taking this to a logical extreme, why bother to have more than one monster for each CR?
Answer: VaR1tY!
The trick to keeping the themes of Lovecrafts unknowableness and madness inducing antics is to have plenty of red-shirts around. Victims to drive mad and turn against the PCs. Or to just turn inside out like a gymsock full of blood.
That the PCs survive, and stand bravely where their peers fell keeps both Lovecraft's heady horror, and Robert E. Howard's heroic ideal that looks in the face of horror and lets out a bellow of fury. :)
As to "why do we need Lovecraftian horror when we already have demons, evil gods and dragons?"
Because some GMs focus on Dragons, other GMs focus on horrors from beyond the stars. :)
To put it another way, why both to have evil gods, demons, or devils when you have dragons? Taking this to a logical extreme, why bother to have more than one monster for each CR?
Answer: VaR1tY!
And variety of a very awesome kind.
|
For example, the Hound of Tindalos write-up is a pleasure to read but it made for a quite confusing encounter which resolved in the players seeing it as a demonic blink dog.
They had no way of understanding the weirdness of it all or connecting it with the circular room, even when I dropped hints.
In the end I had to read out part of the monster description, which they thought was cool, and then the players fled and did some research to bump their knowledge skills so that they could fight it.
This just seems a bit odd to me. Why would you put a Hound in a circular room? Seems to me that you sould want it it a room with lots of edges. Maybe somthing shaped like the sihedron star.
Nor do I get why it should be perticularly challengeing to know about the creature. The knowledge check to know everything about it is only 23 (or 28 if you rule the creature perticularly rare, which I would not). A group who can't hit those knowledge levels will seldom know whats going on unless they are relying on metagame knowledge.
This just seems a bit odd to me. Why would you put a Hound in a circular room?For example, the Hound of Tindalos write-up is a pleasure to read but it made for a quite confusing encounter which resolved in the players seeing it as a demonic blink dog.
They had no way of understanding the weirdness of it all or connecting it with the circular room, even when I dropped hints.
In the end I had to read out part of the monster description, which they thought was cool, and then the players fled and did some research to bump their knowledge skills so that they could fight it.
I'm assuming it's from the original story. When the person who drew the attention of the Hounds tried to protect himself, he filled all of the corners and edges of his room with plaster in order to eliminate them and round out the room. This works until an earthquake knocked some of the plaster down and the hounds got him.
But yeah... Hounds aren't going to spend long in a round room, even if there is an angle it can use. They're going to prefer more crooked, cramped places.
If I was going to use a Hound, I'd suggest an ancient, decrepit house where the warping walls have cause really strange angles. Then you can have it attacking hit and run style. Include the round room, but make it clear the Hound doesn't want to go it. Then, to ensure the flavour of Lovecraft, have them find a few sheets that explain a bit about the Hound from the last man it killed.
I believe he is referencing Fortress of the Stone Giants, where Mokmurian has bound a small pack of Hounds of Tindalos as guardians by summoning them into a room with no angles.
|
|
I believe he is referencing Fortress of the Stone Giants, where Mokmurian has bound a small pack of Hounds of Tindalos as guardians by summoning them into a room with no angles.
But wouldn't they just leave? They have a move speed. And with vital strke a 4d6+3 bite will gnaw their way though anything up to and including adamantite doors. I have clearly not ran the relavant module, but that just dosn't make a lot of sense. Besides that the Hounds arent limited to leaveing at corners - just arriving there (in the PRD write up anyway).
They might have been bound somehow, but that strikes me as really silly. Why summon Hounds if you're not going to let them use their most effective hit and run tactics?
|
|
Nor do I get why it should be perticularly challengeing to know about the creature. The knowledge check to know everything about it is only 23 (or 28 if you rule the creature perticularly rare, which I would not).
Really? Creatures who inhabit the angles outside of our space and time? I'd say were the very epitome of 'rare'.
I'm usually the one arguing for a lowering of Knowledge DCs, reducing the 'knowledge steps' (from increments of +5, to say, +2), and disassociating the Base DC from a creature's CR; but I'm willing to let creatures like the Hounds of Tindalos require higher DCs than the formula would suggest.
Certainly higher than a devil of the same CR, whose likeness one could find carved on any street in Korvosa.
|
|
I'm usually the one arguing for a lowering of Knowledge DCs, reducing the 'knowledge steps' (from increments of +5, to say, +2), and disassociating the Base DC from a creature's CR; but I'm willing to let creatures like the Hounds of Tindalos require higher DCs than the formula would suggest.
Certainly higher than a devil of the same CR, whose likeness one could find carved on any street in Korvosa.
This is somewhat valid for most mythos creatures but odd things living in corners of reality dosn't seem that odd of a sidebar in your local theurgist's Manual of Extrareality. Especially since the story text suggests that they are peroidcly summoned to the material by insane mystics.
Thats the thing about bringing the mythos to D&D. What seems impossible to a Bostonian in the 20s is a completly reasoable topic for study by an arcanist. Now creatures from the deep that have never been seen outside expidtions to lost Azalant those I'd up the DCs (and FWIW a residant of Korvosa probably has a +4 to identify devils).
I have to agree with Matthew. It would be rather strange if not a single diviner or other caster had caught wind of what happens if you look too far ahead or behind, or mess with the laws of space. They start passing around the knowledge and it becomes likely that someone with the right knowledge may have heard of them, but not know a lot about them.