Cthulhu d20 -- Is it worth it?

[Wicht]

Oh yeah, that reminds me, the firearms writeup is very detailed in CoC d20. I was impressed.

 

[Black Omega]

In fact, the firearms write up in Cthulu d20, curiously enough, is -far- superior to that in Spycraft. Given Spycraft should be more about guns and Cthulu is more about running, I was surprised by this. That said, Cthulu d20 has been my favorite non fantasy d20m product by a wide margin.

 

[Henry]

The first classless, maybe. The first gun rules, not at all.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he meant to imply "first gun rules" also - the DMG has those. It's an easy mistake, because of the ambiguous wording, though.

(Did you know how much I had to go through to get those "classes" into PCGen??? )

My opinion is that the d20 version is well worth it, if you plan on doing ANY modern day gaming. The following is a list of genres the d20 COC book is useful for:

-Cthulhu gaming
-Modern Day General horror / "X-files" style gaming
-Modern Day non-horror gaming
-Inserting the Mythos into D&D gaming
-Just looking for high-level challenges for your D&D PC's
-any classless d20 gaming

The basic character rule is simple: besides the six attributes, you have four "stats" - Attack bonus, fort save, reflex save, will save. Choose which two are good, and which two are bad. pick your skills. End of story. You can't get much more classless than that.

 

[Henry]

One thing Black omega said:

Everyone accepts that running away is vital to survival in CoC, in both versions.

DID anyone ever notice that even though running is a vital part of Call of Cthulhu survival, the Chaosium rules have NEVER had rules on how fast you could run, or being able to outrun various horrors that may chase them? It took me a looong time to find investigator base move rates in the Chaosium rules - but you cannot by the book adjudicate if someone gets away if they run?

 

[Mordax]

DID anyone ever notice that even though running is a vital part of Call of Cthulhu survival, the Chaosium rules have NEVER had rules on how fast you could run, or being able to outrun various horrors that may chase them?

Yep. We found out when I tried to run away from zombies, one time, and the zombies started very close to me.

IIRC, a human moves "5 units." Any human, Olympic athlete or granny. Whatever a unit is.

The other thing I'd like to bring up is, I *love* AoO on Mythos creatures. If we ever did play the Chaosium version again, I'd just have to figure out a way to add those.

 

[mmadsen]

The only reason I'd want it is for the stats.

I really don't see the allure of D&D stats for Mythos gods. If you're running around killing "gods", they're not playing a very Mythos-esque role, and there are plenty of other big nasties in D&D to kill.

 

[Corinth]

Tell it to Conan. He's done that sort of stuff in his adventures.

 

[Numion]

I was here wondering...

Would metagame knowledge of D20, through D&D, actually enhance the horror aspect of Cthulhu D20? I mean, players with D&D experience actually know how wimpy their characters are. Players with no previous knowledge of the systems might be fooled into a false sense of security, that they really have a chance or can make a difference...

Any thoughts? Or are D&D players always cocky-enough powergamers, who DO have a chance no matter what?

 

[Darkness]

Re: Re: Cthulhu d20 -- Is it worth it?

I really don't see the allure of D&D stats for Mythos gods. If you're running around killing "gods", ...

No biggie - they'll come back anyway, don't they?

 

[Orco42]

Would metagame knowledge of D20, through D&D, actually enhance the horror aspect of Cthulhu D20?

I think so. I play and DM 3e and I am about to start playing in a CoC campaign.

After reading the rules I have made several character because I don't expect anyone to make it through 2 sessions.

My first character has over a thousand sticks of dynomite. Of couse he is not proficient so I might get more player kills than the DM.