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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8692897" data-attributes="member: 4937">One of the things that has always bothered me about every edition of Call of Cthulhu is the fact that the profession list is always both incomplete and greatly unbalanced, with many supplemental professions simply being better than the normal professions the game originally began with.   To that end I post here my list of hopefully largely complete and balanced professions for classic Call of Cthulhu RPGs.  I think these were originally developed for 5e but they should be useable with just a little bit of amendment by every edition up to the current 7e.  There will be little signs of my other house rules in the text.  I will clarify if anyone is interested.  Feedback welcome.  If you can think of a concept that doesn't fit even if you squint into an existing category let me know.ProfessionsActor/Entertainer:The two professions are considered close enough to be mechanically identical within the rules.  Actor and entertainer include professions such as film and stage actors, stunt men, musicians, singers, comedians, announcers, vaudeville acts, and so forth.  Many actors are classically trained in this period and expected to perform their own stunts, gallop a horse into the sunset, sing their own musical numbers, dance, and so forth.  Conversely musicians may be called on to perform in other roles.  While education is of a benefit, much of the profession is raw native talent and can’t be taught.  Acting and entertaining are still considered somewhat shady and disreputable professions, and this may be reflected in the contacts an entertainer has.Knowledge: The stage, night life, and the artsContacts: Fellow entertainers, agents, directors, producers, socialites, night club owners, bouncers and admirers. Professional Skills: Art, Credit Rating, Disguise, Fast Talk, Persuade, Psychology, plus 2 of the following as personal specialties: Brawl, Jump, Handguns, Language, Melee Weapon, or Ride. Special: Points from EDU are half normal, but bonus to Credit Rating, Fast Talk, Persuade and one Art skill of twice APP, and a bonus of twice DEX to your choice of Jump, Ride, or one Art skill.  Bonuses are earned before allocating points,Base Credit Rating: APPAlienist:You are a rare practitioner in the field that will come to be known as psychiatry and specializing in the study of mental illness and deviance.  Your profession is poorly known and often poorly regarded in this period, and to learn it you have had to personally seek out the few scholars investigating this field.  Your advice might be increasingly sought out by those seeking to practice police work and investigation with a scientific basis, and your consultation is increasingly welcome in asylums and sanitariums. Knowledge: Psychology, mental illness, crime and deviance, mass psychology, hysteria and panics, mob mentalityContacts: Practicing psychologists and mental health practitioners, asylum wardens, orderlies, and the mentally ill. Professional Skills: Accounting, Forensics, Library Use, Medicine, Persuade, Pharmacy, Psychoanalysis, PsychologyBase Credit Rating: EDUAntiquarian:The investigator is a collector and sometimes seller of rare and old curios and artifacts, and may publishes scholarly works on the subject of collecting or on the historical significance of objects. Knowledge: Rare books, numismatics, philately, antiques, bric–a–brac,Contacts: Fellow antiquarians and hobbyists, scholars and professors of history, pawn shop owners, archaeologists and museum curators.Professional Skills: Art, Bargain, History, Law, Library Use, Language, plus two of the following as personal specialties: Anthropology, Archaeology, Fast Talk, Occult, or Spot Hidden.Base Credit Rating: EDUArtist:The investigator is an artist of some skill.  While the artist may have had some degree of classical education, he is more noted for the native born talent and genius for his work.Knowledge: His art and all that pertains to it.Contacts: Fellow artists, collectors, admirers, and possibly high society, gallery owners, museum curators and the like depending on the artist’s credit rating.Professional Skills: Art, Craft, Bargain, Credit Rating, History, Library Use, Persuade, Psychology. Special: EDU bonus is half normal, but add a bonus to one Art or Craft skill, Bargain, Credit Rating, and Persuade equal to twice APP, INT, or DEX (whichever is higher) before allocating points. Base Credit Rating: APPAthlete/Thug:The investigator is either a professional athlete noted for their skill in a sport, or else their physical talents have come to the attention of either the famous or infamous, who employ him as a bodyguard or heavy to enforce their wishes.  Gifts of this sort cannot and sometimes need not be taught, though the skills specific to a competition often are.Knowledge: Sports, gymnasiumsContacts: Fellow athletes, coaches, trainers, admirers and employersProfessional Skills: Climb, Brawl, Grapple, Dodge, Jump, Ride, Swim, ThrowSpecial: EDU bonus is half normal, but gain a bonus to Brawl, Climb, Jump, Swim, and Throw of twice STR before allocating points. Base Credit Rating: STRAuthor/Linguist:The investigator is a writer, in either fiction, non-fiction, or perhaps both.  The investigator may earn money from the royalties of book sells, or by selling small pieces to magazines.  Many writers struggle financially in veritable obscurity, while others are extremely wealthy and renowned. Know: Almost anything depending on the subject matter that they specialize in.Contacts: Fellow authors, book publishers, book sellers, librarians, and admirers. Professional Skills: Art, Credit Rating, History, Library Use, Language, Persuade, Psychology, plus one of the following as a personal specialty: Anthropology, Archaeology, Forensics, Occult, or Natural History.Base Credit Rating: INTAviator:Aviation is a new profession still tinged with romanticism, even as the profession becomes more and more like an ordinary trade.  Aviators are employed as mail couriers, the forestry service, cartography and surveying firms, small taxi services, test pilots, and the military.  A few of the more famous still work as ‘barnstormers’ at rural fairs, awing local rubes with the still new wonders of air travel.  While some are still dilettante aristocrats pursuing a hobby for the wealthy, many more were trained by the military in the Great War and have more ordinary roots.Know: Airplanes, weather, navigation, the thrill, freedom and danger of the skyContacts: Other aviators, airfield owners, aircraft manufacturers, and aeronautical engineersProfessional Skills: Astronomy, Electrical Repair, Mechanical Repair, Navigate, Pilot Aircraft, Spot Hidden, plus two of the following as a personal specialty: Bargain, Crewed Weapon, Pilot ParachuteBase Credit Rating: DEXClergy/Missionary:You are a member of a professional clergy, or else a pious individual who has devoted themselves to spreading their particular faith.  Most have been trained in academic seminaries specifically to produce individuals of particular beliefs and character, while others have come to the profession after conversion experiences or out of sudden conviction that they should help those less fortunate.  Clergy of major sects are often quite serious scholars, while missionaries are often in the fore front of anthropological exploration in remote areas with no prior contact with the outside world.  Others are marked more by zeal than any practical preparation and training.Know: Religion, comparative religion, heresies, human frailty and foiblesContacts: Fellow clergy, laity, parishioners, celebrants, philanthropists, the miserable and lost.  Very high credit rating clergy or missionaries may attract the attention of politicians and coat-tail riders. Professional Skills: Accounting, Bargain, Language, Persuade, Psychology, plus any three of the following as personal specialties: Anthropology, Art, Credit Rating, History, Library Use, Medicine, Psychoanalysis, or Occult. Base Credit Rating: APPCorporate Executive:The investigator is a leader in business and is involved in trade and manufacturing.  He may be the owner of his own small business or positioned somewhere on the rung of a corporate ladder – even perhaps the chairman of the board or director of the firm.  They often have some technical or legal training and are skilled salesmen and otherwise socially adept. Know: Business, their business in particular, and everything that pertains to it.Contacts: Other leaders in the same field, business leaders, captains of industry, suppliers, customers, and employees.Professional Skills: Accounting, Bargain, Credit Rating, Fast Talk, Language, Psychology, plus any two of the following as a personal specialty: Craft, Chemistry, Electrical Repair, Geology, Law, Mechanical Repair, Persuade, or Pharmacy. Base Credit Rating: INTCriminal:The investigator is a street-wise criminal that practices one of the varied trades that share in common a disregard for the law and often the well-being of others.Know: Crime, the law, cons, the streets, how to get unsavory work, how to pick out a good markContacts: Other criminals, cops good and bad, people who’ll look the other wayProfessional Skills: Fast Talk, Listen, Psychology, Spot Hidden, plus 4 of the following as personal specialties: Art, Brawl, Climb, Drive Auto, Grapple, Bargain, Conceal, Disguise, Handgun, Hide, Locksmith, Pick Pocket, Sneak, Melee Weapon. Base Credit Rating: INTDetective:The investigator is a detective, whether a member of a police force, or a private detective for hire.  Bounty hunters, magistrates, and similar profession may also be included in this category.    Some work in laboratories and are more like applied scientists, but most work in the streets and so must be the street-wise but respectable counterparts of criminals and other low-life if they are to successfully track or capture their quarry.Know: Crime, the law, cons, the streets, how to get work (respectable or otherwise), how to avoid get set up or picked outContacts: Other detectives and investigators, police, criminals, fences, employersProfessional Skills: Brawl, Handgun, Listen, Psychology, Sneak, Spot Hidden, plus 2 of the following as personal specialties: Drive Auto, Grapple, Fast Talk, Hide, Library Use, Forensics, Photography, Law, Track. Base Credit Rating: INTDilettante/Socialite:The investigator are an heir or scion of a very wealthy family, having inherited sufficient funds to never need practical employment – or having at the least, lived as if this was the case.  You pursued an education because it was expected of you, but never applied yourself seriously to any subject if doing so meant interfering with your pleasures.  You have indulged your whims and hobbies primarily to avoid boredom and have something less boring to talk about during cocktail parties.Know: Who is whoContacts: Other wealthy, fashionable, and generally dissolute people, former college friends, film stars, literatiProfessional Skills: Credit Rating, plus take any seven skills as personal specialties.  However, no more than one combat skill can be taken. Special: EDU bonus is half normal, but add a bonus to Credit Rating and Fast Talk of twice APP or INT whichever is higher, and bonus to any three other personal specialties of twice INT or DEX (whichever is higher).  Bonuses are earned before allocating points. Base Credit Rating: POWDoctor of Medicine/Physician:The investigator is a medical professional with a doctorate in medicine. Know: Disease, treatments, injury, medicines, medical anomalies and curiositiesContacts: Other doctors, hospital staff, coroners, first responders, current and former patientsProfessional Skills: Library Use, Medicine, Pharmacy, First Aid, Forensics, plus three of the following as personal specialties: Accounting, Biology, Credit Rating, Persuade, or Psychology. Base Credit Rating: EDUDrifter:The investigator is an itinerant of some sort.  He may be aimless, or he may ply a simple trade.  Some may engage in petty crime, but only to gain the essentials of survival for movement and discovery and freedom is the purpose – not the acquisition of wealth.  Often he differs from a Dilettante primarily by lack of funds and social standing.  Not all are completely without resources, and some may even come from a more privileged background.Know: The hard knock life, back allies, and by-waysContacts: Employers of temporary labor, drifters, dreamers, layabouts, vagrants, con artists, carnies, and travelers of every sortProfessional Skills: Bargain, Conceal, Fast Talk, Hide, Listen, Psychology, Sneak, plus one of the following as a personal specialty: Art, Craft, Pick Pocket, Mechanical Repair, Natural History, Spot HiddenBase Credit Rating: POWEngineer:The investigator has significant training in designing and manufacturing various practical items.Know: How to make things, how things work, how stuff gets doneContacts: Other engineers, scientists and researchers in related fields, manufactures and factory owners in related fields, machinists, craftsmen, tradesman and other fabricators of the sort of things the Engineer designsProfessional Skills: Chemistry, Craft, Credit Rating, Electrical Repair, Geology, Mechanical Repair, Operate Heavy Machinery, Physics. Base Credit Rating: INTFarmer/Forester:The investigator is a rural farmer or forester.Know: Agriculture, rural life, crops and prices, tractors, power tools, plants, fertilizers, pests and pesticidesContacts: Other farmers, truckers, migrant laborers, agriculture extension agents, tractor salesmen and commodity buyersProfessional Skills: Accounting, Bargain, Craft, Electrical Repair, Mechanical Repair, Natural History, and two of the following as personal specialties: Drive, Long Guns, Operate Heavy Machinery, Pilot Boat, Ride, or Track. Base Credit Rating: CONGuide/Hunter:The investigator is a professional hunter or guide, usually placed in the service of the wealthy, to provide them adventurous thrills.   Big game hunters, mountaineers, and those that specialize in navigating exotic locales and cultures fall into this category.Know: Hunting, scenic and remote areas, firearms, game, game laws, passing through customs, travel laws and permitsContacts: Other guides and hunters, wealthy clients and patrons, local landowners, park rangersProfessional Skills: Craft, Climb, Natural History, Navigate, Listen, Long Gun, Spot Hidden, Track. Base Credit Rating: CONJournalist:The investigator works for a newspaper, magazine, or radio service and is generally paid by the word or the column length and is paid to describe report or comment on current events and affairs.  Most are comparatively struggling and must continually get an article sold to make ends meet.  Some have some significant secondary knowledge that they employ in analysis and share in their columns.  Others make stuff up and rely on the fact that the audience is generally incapable of knowing the difference.Know: The business, the rumor mill, the scoop, the grape vine, who can spill the beans, what the public wants to hear.  And occasionally, even what they write about.Contacts: Other journalists, editors, publishers.   The exact contacts depend on the subject matter the journalist commonly writes about but are generally the sorts of famous people other people want to hear about or who want to be heard.   These can include politicians, entertainers, athletes, adventurers and depending on the periodical in question businessmen and scholars.Professional Skills: Accounting, Fast Talk, Library Use, Listen, Language, Photography, Persuade, Psychology Base Credit Rating:  APPLawyer:The investigator is a practitioner and student of the law, such as a prosecutor, an attorney, or even an elected official or politician.  The profession is simultaneously one of high social standing and great popular derision and suspicion. Know: The law, backroom deals, crimes, the halls of power  Contacts: Other lawyers, judges, magistrates, elected officials, clients, and people who need protection from the law or who have transgressed itProfessional Skills: Bargain, Credit Rating, Fast Talk, Law, Library Use, Language, Persuade, PsychologyBase Credit Rating: APPNurse:The investigator is a medical assistant or orderly trained in hospice care of the sick or invalid.  Nurses work in asylums, sanitariums, hospitals, retirement homes and in the private homes of the wealthy.  The trade is considered very noble, but womanly and consequently generally commands lower salaries than similar medical professions.  It however is more accessible, both to women specifically and to members of the lower social classes generally, and education of this sort is more readily obtained.  They are often no nonsense sorts that are skilled in getting their way, one way or the other, from the uncooperative. Know: Hospitals, diseases, injuries, medicines, folk remedies, gossip and rumorsContacts: Doctors, hospital staff, patientsProfessional Skills: Accounting, Grapple, First Aid, Listen, Medicine, Persuade, Pharmacy, PsychologyBase Credit Rating: CONNoble:The investigator is a member of the aristocracy, and received the training expected of a member of his rank, to live the life of a gentlemen or lady.  Not all nobles are in fact wealthy, and many may have titles quite outsized compared the present advantages of their station and position in life.  Some are quite penniless, and unable to pay the taxes and upkeep on their lands and holdings and are surviving only by slowly selling off their legacy.Know: Heraldry, heritage, bloodlines, the peerage, pomp, circumstance and the leisurely elegant life.Contacts: Other aristocrats, gentry, socialites, and persons of leisure.  May have some contact with members of government and military officers.Professional Skills: Art, Credit Rating, History, Law, Language, Ride, and two of the following: Accounting, Craft, Long Gun, or Melee Weapon.Base Credit Rating: APPParapsychologist/Occultist:The investigator is a researcher into phenomenon considered mystical, bizarre and occult to ordinary society.  The investigator might be motivated by curiosity, skepticism, or sincere belief in such things.  Thus they may either observe and study the occult, or actually practice occult arts themselves.  As of yet, the observations and practices have not yielded any truly tangible results, though faith of the devotee might not in the slightest be shaken by this.Know: Secret societies of the non-mythos variety, dubious legends, widespread myths, folk tales, rumors of haunting and paranormal activity, useless spells and rituals, astrology and other superstitionsContacts: Practicing magicians, skeptics, students of the occult, fortune tellers, psychics, earnest believers, fakes, and con artistsProfessional Skills: Art, Anthropology, History, Language, Library Use, Occult, Photography, PsychologyBase Credit Rating: POWProfessor/Scholar:Depending on the age of the investigator, the investigator is a student (if young) or professional scholar – even likely a tenured professor.Know: University life, sabbaticals, field work, journals, the culture and history of their academic specialties, who is who in their fieldContacts: Fellow academics, editors of journals, amateur enthusiasts, investors and inventors that might be interested in their workProfessional Skills: Credit Rating, Library Use, Language, Persuade, plus any four of the following as personal specialties: Archaeology, Anthropology, Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Natural History, History, Occult, Photography, or Physics. Base Credit Rating: INTRancher/Veterinarian:The investigator is a rancher, herdsman, or veterinarian.  Know: Livestock, rural lifeContacts: Ranchers and farmers, agriculture supply salesmen, commodity buyersProfessional Skills: Bargain, Craft, Credit Rating, Grapple, Medicine (Veterinary), Mechanical Repair, Natural History, Ride, RopeBase Credit Rating: CONSailor:The investigator is a sailor or boat captain. Know: Currents, fish and sea life, weather at sea, maritime trade, ports of call, basics of maritime law, everything to do with ships and shippingContacts: Coast guard, sailors, ship owners, shipping magnets, stevedores, fishermen, and possibly smugglersProfessional Skills: Astronomy, Mechanical Repair, Natural History, Navigate, Pilot Boat, Spot Hidden, Swim, plus one of the following as a personal specialty: Accounting, Bargain, Climb, Craft, Crewed Weapon, Electrical RepairBase Credit Rating: INTSoldier:The investigator is a professional solider, generally having trained and served in the military of some nation.Know: Military bearing and discipline, weapons, warfareContacts: Military officers, former comradesProfessional Skills: Climb, Brawl, Melee Weapon, Handgun, Long gun, plus three of the following as personal specialties: Accounting, Crewed Weapon, Drive, First Aid, Navigate, Mechanical Repair, Pilot Boat, Sneak, Throw, or Ride.Special: Half normal EDU bonus, but add twice DEX to as a bonus to any 5 professional skills (including personal specialties). Base Credit Rating: CONTradesman:The investigator is a professional skilled laborer who practices a craft or trade.Know: How things work, distribution, infrastructure, trades, tradecraft, and the common life.Contacts: Union bosses and members, employers, customers, colleagues in related tradesProfessional Skills: Bargain, Craft, Drive, Electrical Repair, Mechanical Repair, Psychology, plus any two of the following as a personal specialty: Accounting, Climb, Fast Talk, Locksmith, PersuadeSpecial: Half normal EDU bonus, but add twice DEX or INT (whichever is higher) as a bonus to any 5 professional skills (including personal specialties). Base Credit Rating: INTTribal Member:The investigator was born and raised in a more primitive and isolated culture before entering the wider world and now is half or barely civilized in the eyes of modern society.Know: A more primitive worldContacts: Other tribal members of the same cultureProfessional Skills: Climb, Jump, Listen, Natural History, Swim, plus 3 of the following as personal specialties: Archery, Brawl, Craft, Grapple, Heavy Melee, Melee Weapon, Occult, Spot Hidden, Throw, or TrackBase Credit Rating: STR</blockquote>

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