Introducing Mythos Elements from D20 Cthulhu (circa 2002 by Monte Cook and John Tynes)

[King Chicken]

I was poking around all my CoC books, and had an idea to build up the Mythos side of things, my players might have (involuntary?) dream quests where they were investigators in a D20 Mythos adventure.

Plot spoiler:

You know, they fall asleep outside the Chapel in Book 1, or someone kicks over the shrine and they have a dream.

If they succumb to this, they are handed a character sheet for a random D20 investigator in some Mythos case, 1920s, 1990s Delta Green, what have you, that we can complete in short bursts. Whether they die or go insane it won't matter, this is the blurring of dimensional lines, not gambling with their own lives. I expect to keep the outside questlines short and interesting, largely to show how terrible dealing with the mythos is without destroying PCs permanently.

Anyway, the root of my question is this. The D20 Cthulhu Sourcebook from 2002(D&D v3.0 basis) has a number of great spells that have Sanity costs and ability damage costs and I'm thinking of trying to adapt them. I was debating changing the ability damage to fatigue or exhaustion, or keeping the ability damage and adding fatigue penalties.

Sample spell

Spell details:

Augury Component: VSM Cost: 2 WIS dmg and 1d2 Sanity points and become fatigued Casting Time: 1 action Range personal Target You etc...

I was considering adding them to books found and being ritual castings, rather than being on a spell list, so anyone could cast them, but would anyone? Such is the lure of forbidden knowledge.

We start Book 1 on Monday, and the Pathfinder/Cthulhu Kickstarter isn't due to ship until mid-month. Anyone have any "beta access" to let me know if my idea is in line with it? Are there any great leaps in making this work in a world where ability damage is a shrug and a wand of lesser restoration away from being dealt with?

Failing that, do you have any suggestions on applying this idea to a pathfinder campaign successfully? Has to have enough risk/reward to make it worth it.

[Shadowfane]

Hi King Chicken,

Really neat idea.

I'm a SPs Cthulhu Mythos for Pathfinder backer but don't have any beta access so can't help you there. (But I'm definitely waiting until I get my copy of the book and minis before kicking off Strange Aeons!)

The only info I've seen that relates to your question is a comment that the existing character sheet by Paizo supports the insanity system in SP Cthulhu Mythos for Pathfinder, suggesting that it won't involve a new stat, perhaps?

Regarding the spells, I think you want to make the risk of using such a mythos spell or ritual significant but not too serious. It should give one definite pause, but also be proportionate to the benefit and not so detrimental that it makes the game 'unfun'. Something that requires expenditure of resource (e.g. rest time, restoration spells, etc.) that the PCs can get access to would be fine, as it makes using the spell a meaningful choice. But if it is too harmful, or can't be countered at all at their level, then it may make their PC unplayable or severely handicapped and this might make it unfun and therefore more of a non-choice.

One other thing that's worth looking at if you haven't already is the mindscape and nightmare rules in Occult Adventures and Horror Adventures. Might give you some ideas.

Hope that's helpful