Call Of Cthulhu - D20 Core !!INSTALL!!
Call of Cthulhu (D20) comes as a 319p hardback book. The cover art, by Ann Koi and Jason Soles, suggests a old leather tome that has distorted into a demonic face, is quite evocative. The book itself is well bound, with gloss paper and full colour throughout. The content is in a dense slanted two-column justified serif font throughout with a page margin that clearly provides page number and chapter heading. There is a two-page table of contents and a two-page index, which is possible a little short. There are twelve chapters to the game, along with two adventures, and appendixes, and a single-page character sheet. The artwork, a mixture of black and white and colour, is typically very good in terms of technique (Ithaqua on page 306 is an unfortunate exception), shows creativity, and is mostly contextually appropriate.
Call of Cthulhu - D20 Core
The first four chapters, taking up a modest fifty one pages, are essentially about character generation. This is a D20 so most gamers will be in familiar territory here. The well-known character abilities (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma) are based on 4d6, drop lowest, and assign according to player's choice. Abilities have positive and negative modifiers to the ubiquitous d20 checks with a consistent scale (10-11 no difference, every plus or minus two points is a plus or minus one modifier). If age ever becomes an issue, there's notable breakpoints at 50, 65, and 80. For every four levels a character gains +1 to the an ability score.
Yes, levels - and experience points, and hit points, and base attack bonuses, oh my. They are slightly different however. In a sense there's two broad classes (or classes of classes, goodness, it's like an object-orientated programmer has been let into the room); offensive or defensive. An offensive character starts off with one good progression of saving throws (from Will, Reflex, and Fortitude) and a good progression in base attack bonus. The defensive character receives two good progressions in saving throws. Both classes have the same experience point requirements for level progression, the same number of skill ranks, feats, and ability increases. Regardless of what class is taken, characters are also differentiated by their selection of profession which determines their core skills. Character class does not determine profession; a character can be an offensive clergyman and a defensive soldier, if the player so desires. Professions also modify savings and income, based on 1d6 roll multiplied by the 20th century era that the individual game is set in. An optional, more "pulp era", rule gives offensive classes a free weapon proficiency and a level based bonus to AC for defensive characters.
Characters start with four times their usual level of skills ranks at first level. Ranks are capped by level and whether the skill in profession is core or non-core to the character profession. Non-core skills also cost double, so the character really is heavily biased towards their core professional skills, which cannot be changed (there is no multiclass option as such). Skill modifiers are the sum of the skill and an relevant ability modifier, with skill tests based on a d20 roll over Difficulty Class (5 for easy, up to 30 for heroic). Certain skills checks are based on opposed rolls (e.g., Move Silently vs Listen) with the Difficulty Class equal to opposed roll. There is just under fifty core skills, along with a variety of specialisations for Know, Speak Other Language, Craft, and Performance. The time taken for a skill varies, with the game noting six action times ranging from automatic reactions to greater than full round actions; and action represents six seconds of time. Characters may take 10 (i.e., automatically have a result of 10 plus modifiers instead of rolling d20) if not subject to distraction, or even take 20, although this will take 20 times as long as the standard test. Characters may sometimes co-operate in skill use, and use skills for further bonuses (e.g., Animal Empathy to Handle Animal).
The Sanity system is pretty much taken directly from the BRP Call of Cthulhu, but with a scaling issue. As with the original game, characters must make a Sanity check when encountering a gruesome or supernatural event and roll under the Sanity for a minor effect (or none at all), with a major effect if the character fails. Starting Sanity is based on five time the character's Wisdom score, and maximum Sanity is 99 minus the character's Cthulhu Mythos rank. Note that this is the rank - not the rank times five. Characters can now acquire significant levels of Mythos knowledge without the threat of insanity; the knowledge of "things than Man was not meant to know" is not so much at all. Sanity checks are made on a d100, roll under mechanic, the same as BRP. Note that this is a break from the usual D20 mechanic, of roll d20, roll high. If a character loses more Sanity points than half their Wisdom in a single roll, they suffer an temporary insanity (lasting rounds to hours), if they suffer more than 20% of their current score they become Indefinitely Insane, lasting 1d6 months with an active infliction. If they reach -10 Sanity, they become Permanently Insane. Sanity improvements occur through therapy, medications, and level improvements. There is an excellent description and game effects of various disorders, along with historical information on treatments.
Overall, this is less than optimal method. Indeed, call it a kludge. Whilst the massive damage threshold does reduce the heroic fantasy trope where a character receives enormous damage (whether abstracted or direct) and shurgs it off, it still exists to a point; experienced characters - even those with sedentary professions - will have more hit points than low-level professional soldiers, along with better overall combat abilities (BAB etc). Assuming that they have taken the same broad class, a 10th level technician is, ceteris paribus, far more dangerous than a fifth level soldier - and that certainly should not be the case. In general, lower level characters are much weaker in combat situations than standard BRP-based CoC characters and higher level D20 CoC characters are stronger.
The magic system begins with "strange events" on tomes and artifacts, but with an overall similar system to that in BRP CoC. Essentially there is a list of mythos tomes which take a long to time to properly study, but which grant bonuses to the Cthulhu Mythos skill, contain a number of spells, and reduce Sanity. The number of spells is notably higher than BRP CoC, and the number of books and artifacts described is notably fewer. The spell system is an interesting amalgamation of the BRP approach and that of the D20 line. The format (saving throw, duration, components) etc are derived from the D20 line, as are some of the requirements (e.g., concentration, caster level). But the effects and costs are very much in the style of BRP CoC, with both Sanity loss and temporary Ability score loses, especially for Int, as the character allows for alien knowledge with real effects to take their mind. Arguably this could also improve Int. In actual play, the ability loss significantly reduces the number of spells that can be cast in succession - spellcasting is, and should, be quite rare. Some one hundred and twenty spells are described, most of which are less orientated towards the ritualistic summonings and bindings and more orientated towards immediate effects.
The first, and subject to a relatively easy fix, is the issue with maximum Sanity and Cthulhu mythos. Rules-as-writ, this reduces the core theme of "knowledge being dangerous"; fortunately the fix is relatively easy - simply multiply the Mythos modifier by five when calculating maximum Sanity.
Since the early 1900's, H.P. Lovecraft has been considered one of the top writers in the entire horror genre. Elements of his work have appeared over the years in numerous horror arenas, but now roleplayers can delve into a campaign centered around the author's popular Cthulhu Mythos. The Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game contains everything needed to play or narrate a roleplaying campaign, including all core-game rules for the d20 game system.
Call of Cthulhu is set in a darker version of our world based on H. P. Lovecraft's observation (from his essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature") that "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." The original edition, first published in 1981, uses Basic Role-Playing as its basis and is set in the 1920s, the setting of many of Lovecraft's stories. The Cthulhu by Gaslight supplement blends the occult and Holmesian mystery and is mostly set in England during the 1890s. Cthulhu Now and Delta Green are set in a modern/1980s era and deal with conspiracies. Recent settings include 1000 AD (Cthulhu: Dark Ages), the 23rd century (Cthulhu Rising) and Ancient Rome (Cthulhu Invictus). The protagonists may also travel to places that are not of this earth, such as the Dreamlands (which can be accessed through dreams as well as being physically connected to the earth), other planets, or the voids of space. In keeping with the Lovecraftian theme, the gamemaster is called the Keeper of Arcane Lore ("the keeper"), while player characters are called Investigators of the Unknown ("investigators").
In 1987, Chaosium issued the supplement titled Cthulhu Now, a collection of rules, supplemental source materials and scenarios for playing Call of Cthulhu in the present day. This proved to be a very popular alternative milieu, so much so that much of the supplemental material is now included in the core rule book.
On May 28, 2013, a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for the 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu was launched with a goal of $40,000; it ended on June 29 of the same year having collected $561,836.[25] It included many more major revisions than any previous edition, and also split the core rules into two books, a Player's Guide and Keeper's Guide.[5][15] Problems and delays fulfilling the Kickstarters for the 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu led Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen (who had both left in 1998) to return to an active role at Chaosium in June 2015.[26] 041b061a72