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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ceredhion" data-source="post: 2009265" data-attributes="member: 3642">Well, whaddya know. A while ago . . . maybe a few months . . . I had a garage sale. I raised 40 bucks (among other things) and so raced off to Borders. I ran to the roleplaying section, and picked up d20 CoC. Ahhhhhhh . . . what a sweet prize. This I had been waiting for for at least 4 months! And now I had the cash!So I purchased it. I had a canoe trip the next day; it lasted for 1 week. Naturally, I brought it along. I don't have too much regrets. The book has healed that water spill. That was the only real thing. Of course, it was my little precious. I took good, good care of it. So anyway, the lowdown on the book.The first chapter has the info on character creation. One of the nice things about this book is that it has a Lovecraft quote at the beginning of every chapter, all 12 of them. First we hear info about the abilities. You know the deal. Then we get an example of creating a new character. Whaddya know . . . almost an exact copy of the NPC cleric. Herm . . . the example characters coincide nicely with the iconic characters of D&D. Alright, now we go to the two 'options': Attack (good attack, only one good save), and Defense (bad attack, two good saves). All characters have 1d6 for hit dice.Now we go to the section on professions. This is basically a grouping of 9 class skills for you (you can individually choose 3 more), also giving you your income rate. Of course, it also gives information on the 'vital statistics': name, age, etc. The 16 professions they give:Agent, Antiquarian, Archaeologist, Artist, Blue-Collar Worker, Criminal, Detective, Dilettante, Doctor, Parapsychologist, Priest, Professor, Psychologist, Soldier, Technician, White-Collar Worker, Writer/ReporterThe next chapter we come to is Skills. I'm ashamed of WotC for copying the information from the D&D PHB and copying it into the CoC D20 book. Here's the intro on the Skills chapter:'Marie can quietly walk up to a door, put her ear on it, and hear a cultist on the other side casting a spel. If Kristof were to try the same thing, he would make so much noise that the cultist would hear him. He might, however, identify the spell the insane priest is casting.'Now everyone, get out your Player's Handbooks and open up to the Skills chapter. See the similarities?It continues more in the 'How Skills Work.' Grrrrrrr. Alright. Enough of that. Now back to the review. The skills are all the ones from the PHB minus the fantasy ones, plus some modern ones as well as a very special skill: Cthulhu Mythos. Can't be bought with ranks, only raised by reading ancient tomes of evil and seeing creatures of obscene blasphemy, an utter parody of all that is good and holy. All right, I'm getting a bit too Lovecraftian with the adjectives. Anyway, the skills are very nice. I like the picture of Drive. It's pretty good.The next chapter is 'Feats'. You know the set. The weapon proficiency rules are split into the following: pistol, rifle, melee, thrown, shotgun, and submachine gun. Far different from the Simple, Martial, and Exotic in the PHB. Next is a very interesting thing: Psychic Feats. They have different powers, ranging from the simple of Second Sight (seeing strange things) to the strange of Mind Probe (delving into another's mind to find out a secret). They all cost Sanity points (I'll explain later, unless you already know) and some cost temporary Wis damage.After that, we get to Sanity. Completely unique. A Sanity score is equal to Wisdom times 5. It represents the subject's well, sanity. Once it gets to 0? You're insane. The max is 99. Of course, there are many things that make one go insane, from being surprised to see a mangled animal carcass to actually viewing Great Cthulhu. Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!Naturally, there is a small list of insanities. Such an interesting chapter.Next up? Combat. Once again, WotC has plugged stuff from the PHB. Read the combat section and you'll see. *Sigh*. Such a copy. All in all, this is a pretty normal chapter. It's pretty much the same as D&D, so if you're a gamer (which I almost positively know you are), you don't need to read this chapter.Coming forth is the next chapter, Equipment. First, they break down the basic weapon stuff.Next is a list of weapons. The firearms section is very, very long and detailed. Then is the general equipment stuff. I don't need to fill you in on that.Bwahahaha . . . the insane reaches of the Far Realms have infected my mind while telling you of the next chapter: MAGIC! First are descriptions of mindwatering artifacts such as the cursed NECRONOMICON! There are quite a few books, and I don't want to take you through them. So let's go on. Next, are the artifacts. These are mostly strange objects. Most of them have harmful effects. This *is* Lovecraft, of course. Next? The Spells. Of course, you can cast as much spells as you want once you learn them. But doing that requires reading horrible tomes. However, with each spell cast, you lose sanity and/or ability damage. BWAHAHAHAHA! There is a list of many horrible, blasphemous, and evilly insane spells. But we'll have to hold up . . . for the Monsters are next.Ah, your sanity must have drained to want to come see me now. For the creatures are truly horrible! There are almost 40, counting the templates. They range from the utterly despicable Animated Corpse to the dreaded Mi-Go to the horrible, beasty WORM THAT WALKS!Soon following is even more insane: The Cthulhu Mythos! This includes horrible tidbits, filling poor players with thoughts like that of Y'Golonac and the Great Race. But then it's the GM's turn for a bit of fun, with info for creating cults, books, magic, gods, and more! Surely I must have perished by now!But stay alive, poor souls, for the next chapter is for the Game Master! In here are evil tricks on scaring the living daylights out of players. There are quite a few, at least for the short size of the chapter.Next is quite chunky: Stories. Quite important, it provides info on creating adventures, as well asor planning out entire CAMPAIGNS! MWAHAHAHAHA! Surely I have been corrupted by this darkness! But the next chapter is even more superb: Settings!This chapter includes information for running campaigns ranging from the 1890's to modern day, as well as listing helpful subgenres to find adventure ideas for your campaign, with the cross-referenced events charters.Finally come two adventures. As I don't want to release any spoilers for players, I won't provide information on these. And finally, all good things must come to an end (yes, all evil things, too). But not yet! With an appendix, listing ways I can horrify players in a D&D game with the horrible information here! Bwahahahaha! I fear for their poor souls! And last, but certainly not least: stats for the Great Old Ones!All of the material in this book is top-notch, as well as the art. I just love the spells and psychic feats, as well as the creatures. The one big disadvantage is the copying from the PHB. That I don't like. It can get annoying. I just hope that WotC doesn't plan to do this with their next d20 game. Still, the Call of Cthulhu d20 game is awesome. All I can say is: Get out and buy this book . . . but fear for thy sanity or lest thou be corrupted!</blockquote>

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