D&D 4E Adjusting 4e for a modern Cthulhu game
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Fanaelialae
Legend
One of my DMs runs a modern, horror-esque game using 4e. Mostly it's just involved a fair bit of creative reskinning. A repeating crossbow can just as easily be a gun, the Artificer's Static Shock can be reflavored as a taser, etc. Cars and modern technology can also be an issue, but they shouldn't be a problem as long as you keep them in mind while creating the adventure.
I think the biggest hurdle for running Cthulhu under 4e is that the characters are very capable, even at 1st level. My only experiences with Cthulhu involved characters who weren't well suited to taking on the old ones, and ended up dying or going crazy (usually both). My weakest 4e characters are complete badasses compared to my old Cthulhu characters.
Still, if you aren't looking to create a feeling of desperation, or you are and you're either willing to nerf the characters or toss insane encounters at them, I don't see why it couldn't work.
I think the biggest hurdle for running Cthulhu under 4e is that the characters are very capable, even at 1st level. My only experiences with Cthulhu involved characters who weren't well suited to taking on the old ones, and ended up dying or going crazy (usually both). My weakest 4e characters are complete badasses compared to my old Cthulhu characters.
Still, if you aren't looking to create a feeling of desperation, or you are and you're either willing to nerf the characters or toss insane encounters at them, I don't see why it couldn't work.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Yeah, I think it can be done. I also share the concern about the "feel" of the game due to character power. I think 1st level 4e characters maybe aren't radically out of line, but certainly in CoC the PCs were never amazingly powerful and maybe more to the point they didn't GET more powerful. The mythos was just out there and while you could learn about it and gain some minor defenses like an Elder Sign you were never going to become powerful in mythos terms.
I guess the real question to my mind is what does 4e bring to the table in terms of playing a mythos based game? Super tactical combat is OK but combat in general isn't a core element of mythos stories and when it does happen its rare that the battle is more tactically interesting than the PCs looking for the nearest place to run.
Powers? Just don't really feel in keeping with a mythos setting. CoC had a rudimentary spell casting system but it wasn't really meant to give the PCs an armamentum of magic tricks to use constantly, more like you might cast a spell 2-3 times in a whole campaign (and usually the consequences were pretty grim).
Feats? I can see maybe a feat system tied to the 4e skill system where you'd use it to provide your character with special tricks like rock climbing expertise or knowledge of how to use dynamite or something. Most of the combat trick kind of feats that 4e has probably wouldn't translate too well though.
Just leveling in general doesn't seem to me to fit well with a mythos game. The last thing I'd expect a mythos PC to be able to do would be shrugging off loads of damage or surviving falling 100'. The whole horror of the mythos is just how NORMAL the world is, until you peek through the corner of the shade and see what's outside the window...
Just my thoughts. I think its perfectly doable mechanically and I can think of modern setting genre that probably would work pretty well with 4e, like superheroes and espionage. Mythos or anything else where the characters are basically ordinary people, not so much.
I guess the real question to my mind is what does 4e bring to the table in terms of playing a mythos based game? Super tactical combat is OK but combat in general isn't a core element of mythos stories and when it does happen its rare that the battle is more tactically interesting than the PCs looking for the nearest place to run.
Powers? Just don't really feel in keeping with a mythos setting. CoC had a rudimentary spell casting system but it wasn't really meant to give the PCs an armamentum of magic tricks to use constantly, more like you might cast a spell 2-3 times in a whole campaign (and usually the consequences were pretty grim).
Feats? I can see maybe a feat system tied to the 4e skill system where you'd use it to provide your character with special tricks like rock climbing expertise or knowledge of how to use dynamite or something. Most of the combat trick kind of feats that 4e has probably wouldn't translate too well though.
Just leveling in general doesn't seem to me to fit well with a mythos game. The last thing I'd expect a mythos PC to be able to do would be shrugging off loads of damage or surviving falling 100'. The whole horror of the mythos is just how NORMAL the world is, until you peek through the corner of the shade and see what's outside the window...
Just my thoughts. I think its perfectly doable mechanically and I can think of modern setting genre that probably would work pretty well with 4e, like superheroes and espionage. Mythos or anything else where the characters are basically ordinary people, not so much.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
The power level is only important in relation to monsters. The PCs are not too powerful if the enemies are all 4 levels higher or Elites and Solos.
I think it's okay for any game to present the protagonists as "competent" in their area of expertise, and for characters routinely getting into such trouble, a "general competency" bonus by level feels right to me, too.
I think CoC would require a lot of elaborate and interesting skill challenges. More than just n successes before 3 failures, but creating a kind of "path" out of them, leading to different story events (and conclusions) depending on what the Pcs succeeded at and which skills they used.
I think the biggest issue is that there is really a lot of reflavoring to be done to make it feel right. For that, I would prefer using the framework of D&D 4 but creating your own classes.
One thing regarding "The Mythos". Combat scenarios might be distinguished into traditional combats and "Mythos" combats.
Traditional combats are typical between the PCs and cultists, gangs, criminals or similar antagonists. They might feature a little of the mythos, maybe something like zombies or even some demon-type creatures.
The "Mythos" combats are against greater creatures - the monster the Cultists summoned, the awakening Elder God (high levels). These should probably be challenging Solo encounters with a complex monster, the combat itself requiring a few skill challenges. And the creature can't be destroyed at all until some important fact or relic is discovered, or a ritual completed. Make the monster particularly nasty as long as this isn't done. Something like the 4E gods "Discorporation" ability is a start, but you might want to add more, like an attack that reduces one creature to 0 hit points or dominates one creature each round (at least when it hits). This is just there to make it clear to the PCs that they _really_ need to run until they have figured out what to do.
I think it's okay for any game to present the protagonists as "competent" in their area of expertise, and for characters routinely getting into such trouble, a "general competency" bonus by level feels right to me, too.
I think CoC would require a lot of elaborate and interesting skill challenges. More than just n successes before 3 failures, but creating a kind of "path" out of them, leading to different story events (and conclusions) depending on what the Pcs succeeded at and which skills they used.
I think the biggest issue is that there is really a lot of reflavoring to be done to make it feel right. For that, I would prefer using the framework of D&D 4 but creating your own classes.
One thing regarding "The Mythos". Combat scenarios might be distinguished into traditional combats and "Mythos" combats.
Traditional combats are typical between the PCs and cultists, gangs, criminals or similar antagonists. They might feature a little of the mythos, maybe something like zombies or even some demon-type creatures.
The "Mythos" combats are against greater creatures - the monster the Cultists summoned, the awakening Elder God (high levels). These should probably be challenging Solo encounters with a complex monster, the combat itself requiring a few skill challenges. And the creature can't be destroyed at all until some important fact or relic is discovered, or a ritual completed. Make the monster particularly nasty as long as this isn't done. Something like the 4E gods "Discorporation" ability is a start, but you might want to add more, like an attack that reduces one creature to 0 hit points or dominates one creature each round (at least when it hits). This is just there to make it clear to the PCs that they _really_ need to run until they have figured out what to do.
The advantage is that I have fairly casual players who won't be willing to pick up and learn another system. I think I could have them wrap their heads around the concept of PCs/investigators/main characters to the story who are above average. The other advantage to a modern campaign is that I can set them in Denver and everyone knows the area, so people aren't struggling with what their character does and doesn't know about the setting. The insanity problem can be handled fairly easily, I think, by saying, "Make a wisdom roll."
This also allows many of the cultists being minions, with possibly a head cultist as a real normal "monster" and then the tentacled things being solo or elites.
This also allows many of the cultists being minions, with possibly a head cultist as a real normal "monster" and then the tentacled things being solo or elites.
Alisair Longreach
First Post
To run a modern day Call of Cthulhu game with 4E rules you could do this:
Only allow Martial PCs if the world setting is non-magical. There are currently no rules for technology for 4E that I know of so you have to kitbash some stuff yourself.
As for monsters, Goodman Games is just about ready to release a .pdf of Cthulhu Mythos monsters with 4E stats with a price of only 6$.
On the other hand you could invest in either the official Call of Cthulhu rpg which has easy to learn rules or you could try to hunt down the d20 Call of Cthulhu rulebook from Wizards of the Coast.
Only allow Martial PCs if the world setting is non-magical. There are currently no rules for technology for 4E that I know of so you have to kitbash some stuff yourself.
As for monsters, Goodman Games is just about ready to release a .pdf of Cthulhu Mythos monsters with 4E stats with a price of only 6$.
On the other hand you could invest in either the official Call of Cthulhu rpg which has easy to learn rules or you could try to hunt down the d20 Call of Cthulhu rulebook from Wizards of the Coast.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
I can really see the desire to use one system for all sorts of different genre, I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around a 20th level investigator ala CoC. Part of the charm of CoC to me was always the relative powerlessness of the PCs. Beyond that they don't even really follow much of an upwards power curve. In fact its more the opposite. Its true that a CoC character can gain points in various skills, but overall throughout a campaign the PCs actually get weaker in the most important way (sanity) and at best get a little more competent at mundane things. It really focuses the game on plot and atmosphere since there is essentially no aspect of "power gaming" involved. Plus the investigators are always basically normal people.
In any case, I'm not saying an interesting game couldn't be put together, but I think it would feel a lot more like Comic Book Heroes vs Cthulhu than what you get in CoC. Also I do think you'd have to heavily revise the classes. 4e style fighters for instance aren't going to be terribly useful. They have really limited potential for useful skills, their melee combat oriented class features are not much use in a setting where combat is infrequent and usually involves guns and other ranged weapons, etc. Rogues are in better shape as they could apply a lot of their powers to firearms (reflavored bows etc maybe) and light weapons fit better into the genre than big two handers or sword and board style meleers. Warlord seems to me it doesn't really work all that well at all though. Some of the warlord's leader type abilities are OK, but again its too much focused on melee weapons.
Overall I think you'd have to devise some suitable classes, which is a lot of work. It could be done, but then the question is whether or not its really worth the effort and if the game is still similar enough to 4e that there's much advantage to doing it.
Granted its not 4e and the players would have to learn a different system to play CoC, but to be honest CoC is a REALLY good system. Its also a very simple system to learn, probably an order of magnitude simpler than 4e. Anyone familiar with 4e should be able to pick up CoC in about an hour of play, tops. Also consider the sheer volume of existing CoC material thats out there. The adventures are consistently very high quality and there are a number of good source books (dreamlands, gaslight, modern, etc). Anyway, maybe this is going too far off topic and I'm happy to give any pointers I can on how to do a 4e mythos game if that's what you're set on doing. Just be advised its probably a lot of work and IMHO CoC will do a better job in the long run.
In any case, I'm not saying an interesting game couldn't be put together, but I think it would feel a lot more like Comic Book Heroes vs Cthulhu than what you get in CoC. Also I do think you'd have to heavily revise the classes. 4e style fighters for instance aren't going to be terribly useful. They have really limited potential for useful skills, their melee combat oriented class features are not much use in a setting where combat is infrequent and usually involves guns and other ranged weapons, etc. Rogues are in better shape as they could apply a lot of their powers to firearms (reflavored bows etc maybe) and light weapons fit better into the genre than big two handers or sword and board style meleers. Warlord seems to me it doesn't really work all that well at all though. Some of the warlord's leader type abilities are OK, but again its too much focused on melee weapons.
Overall I think you'd have to devise some suitable classes, which is a lot of work. It could be done, but then the question is whether or not its really worth the effort and if the game is still similar enough to 4e that there's much advantage to doing it.
Granted its not 4e and the players would have to learn a different system to play CoC, but to be honest CoC is a REALLY good system. Its also a very simple system to learn, probably an order of magnitude simpler than 4e. Anyone familiar with 4e should be able to pick up CoC in about an hour of play, tops. Also consider the sheer volume of existing CoC material thats out there. The adventures are consistently very high quality and there are a number of good source books (dreamlands, gaslight, modern, etc). Anyway, maybe this is going too far off topic and I'm happy to give any pointers I can on how to do a 4e mythos game if that's what you're set on doing. Just be advised its probably a lot of work and IMHO CoC will do a better job in the long run.
BLACKDIRGE
Adventurer
Yup, Critter Cache VI: Lovecraftian Bestiary will be released on Monday (10/26), and will be offered for an introductory price of $3.99. The book has over 30 Lovecraftian critters, and should simplify any 4E conversion of a CoC game, modern or otherwise.
BD
Alisair Longreach
First Post
Blackdirge, I have a suggestion for a future product you could write:
Lovecraftian Magic
A Mythos Lore multiclassing feat giving access to a dozen of offensive and utility Mythos spells and the ability to learn and perform Mythos rituals.
A couple dozen of Mythos rituals.
A Mythos Scholar paragon path and maybe a Thrall of the Elder Gods epic destiny.
An adaption of the Sanity rules for 4E.
Lovecraftian Magic
A Mythos Lore multiclassing feat giving access to a dozen of offensive and utility Mythos spells and the ability to learn and perform Mythos rituals.
A couple dozen of Mythos rituals.
A Mythos Scholar paragon path and maybe a Thrall of the Elder Gods epic destiny.
An adaption of the Sanity rules for 4E.
The original edition (now edition 6) is a really simple system and very easy for players to understand. All the skills are expressed as percentages that you have to roll under.
What can be easier than rolling a Library Use check where you look at your sheet and see you have it at 50%?
You might want to check out my system for psychological conditions (with examples) which is included in The Book of Distant Stars, link in my sig.
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