Call of Cthulhu and PC Spellcasters

So, previously I've only run CoC for one shots, and sort of had the attitude that if anyone survives a scenario with their sanity intact that I was doing it wrong.

But now I'm thinking of running one of the classic campaigns with the intention of somewhat more extended play, which means not necessarily picking the most brutal scenarios possible and treating PC's as the victims of one of those slasher/horror films where everyone dies.

One topic that this raises that has never been an issue before is PC spellcasting. Hitherto, I've always treated any CoC spell that was potentially useful to the PC's as badly designed, and - with the possible exception of prominent mythos spells like the Elder Sign - something certainly to be kept out of PC hands. Likewise, hitherto, to the extent that I ever thought of PC spellcasting at all, it was to think that in the unlikely event the PC's learned a spell, it would probably be one with face melting consequences and in any event they'd probably never learn more than 1 or 2 of them anyway.

But in this, am I being 'fair'. Does anyone consider it reasonable and expected for investigators that survive a while to become reasonably competent sorcerers with access to actually useful magic? It feels like there is enough in the lesser grimoire these days, that you could almost manage to be a D&D style spellcaster if you had the starting POW and SAN to support it. Should I be appalled at that concept, or should I just inwardly smile as the PC's spend their SAN away drop by drop?

The longer an investigator is around the more knowledgeable they become but also the more brittle the mental state is.

If you give them more "tools" to better deal with the mythos they lose a lot in using those tools.

CoC spell casting PCs is great! They add their own horror and erode their own sanity and I don´t even have to do anything.

In my playthrough of Horror on the Orient Express one of the PC's tried to sticht the decapitated (but still alive) head of a poor cultist victim back on it's body (using stole body magic). The spell drained all his POW, he dropped unconcious and the Frankenstein-style monstrosity he had created escaped into the night.

kalil said:

CoC spell casting PCs is great! They add their own horror and erode their own sanity and I don´t even have to do anything.

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That is (or was) my perception of how CoC spell casting should work. Spells do horrific and esoteric things that aren't immediately useful to a PC caster, and they have costs that make even attempting to do something useful with them not worth it. And as long as you stick to the Greater Grimoire, it largely will work that way.

But there have always been a few spells that don't have a POW cost, have SAN costs of 1d4 or less, and which do something actually useful and non-horrific - I'm thinking spells like Bless Blade, Elder Sign, Command Animal, Wrack, and Voice of Ra, among others. Over the years the number of those spells has increased, to the point that I think you could play a PC sorcerer if you had enough SAN and POW.

Celebrim said:

That is (or was) my perception of how CoC spell casting should work. Spells do horrific and esoteric things that aren't immediately useful to a PC caster, and they have costs that make even attempting to do something useful with them not worth it. And as long as you stick to the Greater Grimoire, it largely will work that way.

But there have always been a few spells that don't have a POW cost, have SAN costs of 1d4 or less, and which do something actually useful and non-horrific - I'm thinking spells like Bless Blade, Elder Sign, Command Animal, Wrack, and Voice of Ra, among others. Over the years the number of those spells has increased, to the point that I think you could play a PC sorcerer if you had enough SAN and POW.

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Well, that depends entirely if PC casting "safe" magic is something the DM desires? Unlike fantasy games there is no genre convention that all or most spells should be available. The DM literally picks which spells are available by selecting what tomes of occult horror the investigators an come across. If you want more accessible magic I guess you can cherry pick less destructive (to the caster) spells, maybe even devise tomes with that specific purpose. But for me a large part of the charm with coC magic is the helish cost the player characters pay to use it

I played a spellcaster in CoC back in the day. It definitely added tension to the game. Weighing the casting of each spell, trying to slow the freefall descent into madness. And still feeling the corruption, the beckoning, of power.

Ralif Redhammer said:

I played a spellcaster in CoC back in the day. It definitely added tension to the game. Weighing the casting of each spell, trying to slow the freefall descent into madness. And still feeling the corruption, the beckoning, of power.

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So, in your opinion, what spells would go to far? Can you give examples of a spells in the game where you would feel access to the spell would do the opposite, reducing tension without creating this problem of a the slow freefall into madness and the beckoning of corruption?

Alas, I cannot....it's been 26 years since I played that professor. I’ve got a good memory, but I couldn’t even begin to recall the specific spells.

Celebrim said:

So, in your opinion, what spells would go to far? Can you give examples of a spells in the game where you would feel access to the spell would do the opposite, reducing tension without creating this problem of a the slow freefall into madness and the beckoning of corruption?

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Most of CoC spells involve sanity loss or Pow loss. So beyond Elder Sign, a couple of Dust spells (I don't remember the names - Ibn-Ghazi's and Suleiman's? - , but one of them can harm Mythos creatures and the other one allows to see invisible beings)... maybe an enchanted weapon to fight minor races. The Call/Dismiss spells are too difficult to use as you match PC's Pow versus the creature's... of course if you manage to keep sane to cast it. Those PC have to be very picky about the magic they use.

Moraine said:

Most of CoC spells involve sanity loss or Pow loss. So beyond Elder Sign, a couple of Dust spells (I don't remember the names - Ibn-Ghazi's and Suleiman's? - , but one of them can harm Mythos creatures and the other one allows to see invisible beings)... maybe an enchanted weapon to fight minor races. The Call/Dismiss spells are too difficult to use as you match PC's Pow versus the creature's... of course if you manage to keep sane to cast it. Those PC have to be very picky about the magic they use.

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Granted, most CoC spells seem to have one or more of the following problems and are such not practical:

1) Cost too much SAN
2) Cost POW
3) Require SAN destroying and unsavory practices like human sacrifice
4) Don't do anything useful compared to the costs
5) Aren't likely to work

But I'd long noted that there were a few exceptions, and the more that gets published and the more that I look, the more potential I see in a PC sorcerer that is picky about the magic they use. Consider the following spells:

Augur
Bless Blade
Bind Enemy
Breath of the Kappa
Brew Love Filter
Brew Paut
Brew Space Mead
Cast Circle
Circle of Warding
Chant of Thoth
Cloud Memory
Charm Animal*
Command Animal*
Cure Blindness*
Detect Enchantment*
Dominate
Evil Eye
Heal*
Healing*
Seek the Lost
Summon/Bind Byakhee
Summon Nightgaunt
Voice of Ra
Voice Thoughts
Warding
Wrack

Now granted, the Sorcerer would have to be picky about casting most of those and shouldn't cast them too often. Some of them could be consider emergency use only in the event its the only way the save the world, and I suppose that's OK as a plot device. But the ones marked with '*' cost no sanity points and basically can be used at will, and some of the rest are cheap enough that they could be reasonably used a time or two an adventure with hopes that the success they bring would payoff in reduced problems (and thus reduced SAN loss) in the long run. 'Evil Eye' and 'Bind Enemy' are particularly nasty attack spells considering the low costs, and the healing spells let you play a D&D style cleric. The only real limiting factor I can see is you generally have to read face melting sanity destroying mythos tomes just to get spells.