Using d20 Modern Characters in Cthulhu d20

[Lord Zardoz]

I intend to use a decent amount of the material in d20 Modern in my d20 Cthulhu sessions. For instance, I love the wealth system used in d20 Modern, and I really like the way Professions are used.

The one thing that I am hesitant on is using Modern Characters in a Cthulhu setting. The Modern characters are much more durable then Cthulhu characters combat wise, and Cthulhu is not meant to involve much actual combat. Between the better hitpoints available to the Modern characters (All Cthulhu investigators use the d6), and the Defense Modifier that Modern characters gain as they advance, a Modern Hero is quite durable.

On the other hand, Combat in Cthulhu will often come down to Sanity. It would not matter much if a character is using a d10 instead of a d6 for HP when they get one good look at a Shoggoth and fill their pants.

The basic problem can be summed up as follows. In Cthulhu, its a given that the player characters will either get killed or go insane within a fairly short period of time. In Modern, its more like D&D; its assumed that characters will not die frequently.

Given those circumstances, how much of an impact would using Modern style characters have on a typical Cthulhu game? What alterations to the Modern characters could be made to make them better fit within the world of Cthulhu?

 

[ced1106]

The one thing that I am hesitant on is using Modern Characters in a Cthulhu setting. The Modern characters are much more durable then Cthulhu characters combat wise, and Cthulhu is not meant to involve much actual combat. Between the better hitpoints available to the Modern characters (All Cthulhu investigators use the d6), and the Defense Modifier that Modern characters gain as they advance, a Modern Hero is quite durable.

Well, arguably, in the movie Aliens, you had Modern Heroes going against some rather nasty opponents. IIRC, The massive damage rule has you saving against death on only 10 hp of damage. So just make sure the major monsters (not the cultists or even Deep Ones) cause enough damage to trigger such a save.

Hint: Add a gung-ho powerful NPC to the party, have him swaggar and boast around a lot, then have him killed by a Thing in two rounds. In horror games, Red Shirts are **very** useful.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I actually had planned on having NPC's found dead fairly often anyway. However, the adventure I have in mind is not combat intensive. The reason I ask is for more of a long term view. Sooner or later, I will have the players encounter something like a few hostile Mi-Go from Yuggoth, or a Byhakee, or maybe some good old zombies led by a spell weilding Cultist.

Under Cthulhu rules, a few zombies and a 4th level cultist can be quite dangerous. But under Modern rules, they probably would not bee so difficult to work against.

I do like the red shirt idea though. Consider it filed for future use.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Crothian]

Well, you can increase the power of the creatures the characters are fighting. You can give them a few extra immunities especially to modern weapons, then give them a weakness that the PCs will have to research or figure out.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

It sounds like the damage thresholds for Coc and Modern are the same (ten hps). If that's the case, then there shouldn't be too much of a problem. Sure, the characters have more abilities, but the same amount of damage will still take them out.

Personally, I think having more character survivability would be a good thing. Like you said, then SAN becomes the main "life" stat, and I think it tends to get overlooked a lot in CoC games. If the players are positive that they're going to be around for several sessions, then they can actually look into RPing their responses to alien horrors and slowly degenerating psyches and all that good stuff.

If you really want to make the monsters tougher, I'd look through the original Chaoisum rules. In my opinion, a lot of monsters got toned down for the d20 system. Mi-Go, for example, now just have DR I think, while in the original system they were immune to piercing damage (and thus all gunfire). That's a big difference. It's also something that your average investigator may not think about, and with good reason- the characters have no real way of knowing how the anatomy of these things functions.

Ced's right- Red Shirts are useful. Another good heads-up warning is to make the PCs go through a ton of trouble to encounter the monster. If they have to explore the catacombs, find the secret door, go down the stairs into the foul smelling caverns, and then break three different sets of occult seals imprisoning the thing- well, they should have seen it coming.