cjbowser

So I'm introducing a vile necromancer into my campaign soon.

I found a bit of confusion when it comes to animating a skeleton.

The books reads, on P.70, that MPs are spent to enhance the skeletons characteristics and skills as per Demon rules.

The demon rules, on P.37, reads that 1 MP must be sacrificed per 1d8 of characteristics.

Since skeletons only have STR, DEX, SIZ characteristics (and SIZ would be based on the corpse animated)

for say 10 MPs the skeleton would be animated with 5d8 STR and 5d8 DEX!

My questions are as follows:

1. Should I require the necromancer to spend points equivalent to the SIZ of the corpse to be animated?

Perhaps 1MP per 1d8 or species SIZ?

2. Should the skeleton be restricted to the original species max STR & DEX?

3. Should I require at least a 1d8 in INT for the skeleton to be able to understand and follow commands?

Without INT the skeleton can ONLY be controlled via sorcerer concentration.

Appreciate your advice!

1. I would. I'd consider that the basic cost of doing business.

2. Not in my opinion. This is magic, after all. And the results could be quite surprising for the unwary or arrogant.

3. I wouldn't make it a requirement. Maybe a really strongly worded encouragement, but not a requirement.

You know what's harder than waiting for a book to be published?

 

Waiting for a book to be published when you've got a chapter in it. Especially when you're paid after publication.

 

I'm really eager to see what people do with Expanded Allegiance, and it's been over 2 years since I wrote it. I think I've reached new levels of ancitpation.

Try waiting 10 years... After a while, you just give up and move on. Then suddenly, "BAM!" a book and money show up.

To be fair to Chaosium i have little knowledge of the new system

 

I would like to see the following

 

(1)  A better system for move rates for humanoids, animals . I just don't like that everyone moves at the same rate. 

 

(2)  Actions per round, # of attacks,parry, or dodge etc.  I  have issues with everyone having the same

    # of hand to hand or melee weapon attacks. Please no strike ranks.

 

(3)  A full size comparison chart would be nice, with pounds, killograms, tons etc.

 

I am current working on rules mod that fixes #1 and #2  above, i would prefer an official rules fix though.

 

If  the COC 7E book addressed  those issues, that alone would make the purchase worth it to me.

CoC 7e fixed number 1. MOV is now calculated.

You'll need to take a look at the combat rules to see if they'll meet your needs for #2. It's not too different from 6e, except now it's possible to damage a foe on their attack.

Three isn't in the core book.

A Hawkmoon book like this one?

http://www.nobleknight.com/ProductDetailSearch.asp_Q_ProductID_E_-1673984500_A_InventoryID_E_2147915112

I once again mention I would also be interested in stuff on Historic/Mythical Ireland, Ancient/Mythical Greece, and Ancient/Mythical Egypt. Perhaps also Ancient/Mythical Persia, or an Arabian Nights Persia, or an Arabian Nights Sinbad. I didn't see any supplements on those topics, if anyone is looking for a niche that has not been covered.

Hmm...One of those is nearing the top of my to-do list. I wonder which one it is? Could there be a clue in some years old Pegasus-Spiele magazine? Perhaps.

I just turned in one mostly historical manuscript and am working on the follow up as I type this.

Who will check their Latin? 

 

The authors of Cthulhu Invictus, and particularly Oscar Rios, have been prone to terrible howlers in the language of Cicero and Vergil.

 

Don't get me started with 'Malum Umbra' and ahem ... 'Extrico Tabula'. When I tried to point it out on fora I got the impression that they did not realize that looking up word by word on the dictionary just doesn't work for Latin.

 

 

In contrast the Latin of BRP Rome was impeccable. A real gem of a supplement.

 

Actually, the Latin in Cthulhu Invictus was intentionally made to be dog Latin. The game's main inspirations are the pulps, where dog Latin came pretty close to becoming an actual language at some points. 

As somebody who read Latin for grad school, coming up with dogged versions was painful, but fun.

I supposed I should have dropped hints to the tie-ins. But, like they say, if you have to explain it, it's not as clever.    Maybe for future CI projects, I'll keep my Latin pure. But, where's the fun in that? 

As for Oscar, he's learned his lesson after somebody really savaged him on the yog-sothoth forums. He's retained the services of a classics professor for anything he writes in Latin.

Anyway, thanks to everybody who backed the kickstarter in some way, even if only spreading the word. Everything helped. I've been toying with the idea of turning out some Renaissance-ized Roman material just to get material out there faster. Perhaps one of the missed rewards will end up there.

I ran it a couple years ago with only three players. I didn't cut anything out and ran it as is. However, my players are some of the most cautious and suspicious out there.

My advice would be to run it by the book for the first session or two and adjudicate from there.

I believe it's a quasi post apicalyptic urban fantasy setting. But, I could be getting that confused with another upcoming book

Sorry about the long quote, haven't figured out how to split it up yet in the new forum.

 

With regards to 4: Combat does seem to have been streamlined a bit. Do you think the reduction in time is due to the simultaneous combats(the ability for either party to damage during a particular attack), or something else?

 

With regard to 8: Agreed. They could have handled its display a bit different though. Starting with the rolled characteristics and having the x5 and x5/2 in the smaller boxes would have made the in initial impression of compatibly stronger IMHO. As you noted though, there probably is a Cthulhu Character Sheet industry starting up as we speak. 

 

Something that seems a little vague though, or that I've simply missed in my first run-thru...

 

If required to make a Hard or Extreme roll due to difficulties, how do those work out (based on your experience) with the degrees of success. Are they Hard and Extreme victories? If not, how would those be figured with the required rolls?

 

SDLeary

Sorry for the late reply, I didn't get a notification. I'll need to check my preferences.

Anyway, I do think combat was sped up by the fact that its possible for a single combatant to damage a foe twice in one round. I'll be the first to admit that I was concerned about how the simultaneous combats played out, but once we got the hang of it, things moved much quicker and really added to the narrative. We found it easier to be more descriptive of what was going on in combat. It wasn't the same ol', same ol' "I swing. You hit" type of combat. I think that was because it was no longer broken up into such stratified turns, but instead players were invested in every round because they got to roll the dice every round.

I think I parsed your hard/extreme question, so I'll give it a go at answering. In my games, we didn't change the targets for Hard and Extreme rolls. So, if I, as Keeper, called for an extreme roll, the player was either going to succeed with flying colors or fail. I could see different Keepers making different calls in the same situation. I just didn't want to have to rework the math. 

I've been playing 7th since about this time last year and have even turned in a few manuscripts to Chaosium for 7e support material.

Since it's not out yet, I don't want to comment on too much, but, here are few things based on my experience with playing the game...

1. I could pick up a scenario written for an earlier edition and run it with the 7e rules with only a little mental math.

2. I could pick up a scenario written for 7e and run it with earlier rules with only a little mental math.

3. The Luck rules are optional. Unfortunately, the Luck matrix does take up a lot of real estate on the sheet. But, I'm sure there will be a char sheet cottage industry popping up soon.

4. In my opinion, combat is actually a little faster and leaner than it was under earlier editions. Most of the combats in my games now take about half as many rounds. And not because the characters are beefier. They still drop fast.

5. Traits (a la Gaslight) aren't in the book. But... they are in one of the books I wrote as supplemental material. They are very tied to the setting though.

6. SAN is pretty much unchanged.

7. Pushing the Roll is an optional rule. In my games, even with brand new players, it only came up a few times. But those times were pretty cool implementations. 

8. The 60/30/12 stat blocks are just for to streamline the math. You don't need. 60 is full value, 30 is half value, 12 is a fifth of the total. Rather than tossing -30% or -15% all over the place, it was codified to full/half/fifth.

This is the exact Renaissance campaign I've been running for the last year or so.

1640. Germany. The Thirty Years' War is approaching its climax, and Germany is in dire straits. But rampaging armies that pillage, loot and rape wherever they go will soon be the least of the people's problems. For something lurks in the depths of the Black Forest. Something that thrives on blood and chaos. Something that makes fighting worse and turns battles into mutual annihilation. Something that destroys for its own sake, without reason or mercy. Something that can't be fought, reasoned with or understood. Something with the potential to swallow the world. And only a rag-tag groups of deserters from two opposing armies and a young girl threatened with charges of witchcraft are able to stand against it....

And this is the campaign I ran for about five months prior to that:

Russia in the reign of Peter the Great, who is trying to drag his empire kicking and screaming into a modern way of life they don't really want. Player characters can working for or against the Tsar and his increasingly strident demands. Plus he's building a great city (to name after himself, of course) in a location where no sane person would want to live, especially in winter, and insisting on making it his capital! throw in the supernatural legacy of Old Russia, the ongoing war with Sweden, and the growing influence of Western powers.

Cool. PM me your email and I'll send the files.

I'm working on another book and have finished the setting material. I'd like to get some of your opinions on the setting material. The book is for Cthulhu Dark Ages, but the setting material is divorced of any Mythos content.

If you're interested, post here or PM me.

In a nutshell, I want to know if you feel there's enough setting information to allow you to play in the setting.

Does this get some kind of award for the longest time for a supplement to get published?

Not even close. We're still waiting for Pulp Cthulhu, which was announced in 2003 and The Black Box which was announced in 1998. There are many others as well.

Sounds groovy! - good concept, too.I like the idea that some supplements are so cool they get their own supplements!

Is this the historical project you had me guessing about last year (or was it 2 years ago now?)

Nope. This wasn't the historical project I was talking about two years (yes, two years) ago. The MoNC was Bret Kramer's idea and a lot of people worked on it. I don't think a single person could have brought together all the knowledge that's contained in this one book. It's definitely the amazing book that it is because of all the talented people involved.

The historical project I mentioned way back when and that I still think about finishing was Imperial and slightly later Russia -- specifically Alexander II to the death of the Romanovs. I made a lot of progress, but then got side tracked with contracts that pay money. Silly me...

Fun fact: The Romanovs actually appear in the chapter on Egypt that I wrote for the MoNC.

Yes ! This certainly does sound awesome! Absolutely brilliant news, I can't wait for this!

It's the first I've heard of it though, so unfortunately I guess it is a 2013 release as it isn't in the above posted list.

I was going to run a few basic one-shots, then launch into the 'Masks of Nylathotep' campaign - is it worthwhile waiting for this Nyarlathotep Companion to be released?

I'ld really like to know more about this if possible...

As currently planned, it's a monograph, so it's not going to to appear on Chaosium's list of upcoming publications. I assume that's because the list Charlie provided is probably the same list he'll provide to distributors; and monographs don't go into distribution.

All the text is finished, art work is done, and layout is progressing so 2012 is not a stretch goal. It should be achievable. It was really close in 2011, actually. I'm not saying that it'll be out in 2012, but it stands a good chance.

As for whether or not you *need* the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion (MoNC), that's up to you. It's not necessary for running the campaign. People have been doing that for decades. But, each chapter of the MoNC serves as either a Secrets of... book for a given location in MoNC or offers a lot of advice to keepers for getting the most out of the campaign. For locations that have a currently in-print Secrets of... book (ex. New York), the chapter focuses less on general NYC and instead delves straight into the Nyarlathotep connections. For locations without a currently in-print Secrets of... book (Shanghai, Cairo, etc), the chapter provides general information on the setting and then delves into the Nyarlathotep connections. Want to know what type of guns Shanghai police carried or what secret, internationally famous guest was supposedly staying in Cairo at the same time the investigators are there? Then you might want to check out this book.

IIRC, it weighs in at 400+ pages. It is a beast.

"Grand Campaigns," and "Secrets of Shanghai," +1!

The upcoming Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion will have a huge amount of info on Shanghai. All the chapters are good, but the Shanghai chapter is amazing for it's depth.

As for Chronicles of Future Earth, Chaosium lives off free lance submissions, so if nobody submits material for a given line, there will be no material for that line. If you want more CoFE material, beg somebody to submit something.

Also, will there be weapon charts that have modern weaponry as well as futuristic weaponry? Is there any charts of the OpenQuest system for modern contemporary weaponry?

Not to derail the thread from John's River of Heaven, but Rik's The Company, also from d101 games, has an impressive and well illustrated collection of contemporary weapons.

I'm always eager to see another pulp adventure game. But while BRP's gritty mechanics are great for pulp horror (Lovecraft) and pulp fantasy (Conan), are they a good fit for the outrageous antics of the pulp adventure heroes? Secret Agent X-1. Tarzan. The Phantom. The Shadow. The Green Hornet and Kato. Chandu the Magician. The Green Lama. Nalan Smith and Dr. Petrie battling the ever-insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. The fiendish Fantomas. John Carter of Mars. Carson Napier of Venus. The Saint. Nero Wolf. Ellery Queen. Red Ryder, The Cisco Kid, and Tom Mix. Gene Autry vs. The Phantom Empire or Crash Corrigan vs. The Undersea Kingdom. Buck Rogers, Brick Bradford, and Flash Gordon. Heaven protect us from the Crimson Ghost and the Purple Death.

We'd need to at least use CON+SIZ for hit points, the mook rules various of you GMs have concocted over the years. We'd need guidelines for weird science gadgets, dinosaurs, genius talking apes with global ambitions, totalitarian zombies on snowboards, gee-whiz vehicles.

The rules are tiered, so you could handle a lot of these characters.

I've said too much...

This was put on hiatus while I worked on other, larger projects. I might return to it this year, depending on my schedule. As of right now, the rules, setting, and a scenario are finished.

If there's enough interest I can look into revisiting my time table.

Thanks for confirming that it's not every book, which I'm happy for. I'd hate to have each copy illegible on those pages.

My copy arrived last week, and overall it looks nice.

I was curious if anybody else had a copy with the same issue as mine. Pages 378-379, 382-383, 386-387, and 390-391 are all mis-printed. It looks as though the paper slipped in the press while they were doing the four-ups or something, which would explain why it's pairs of pages separated by a normal pair of pages.

It's not a big deal. I was just curious.

Well I have 'Chronicles of Future Earth' currently on order from Amazon, so I should be checking it out next week.

The setting looks really interesting. If it's going to succeed however, it will need to have support - Chaosium need to fully support another setting outside of CoC (which they have done really good), there needs to be supplements to flesh things out and to keep the punters interested. I have high hopes for Future Earth, but it will only succeed with heaps of support.

Chaosium released Chronicles in January and followed it up with Children of the Worm in February. That's not a bad release schedule.

hoy all,

i bought the pdf from rpgnow and printed it.

then ordered it (along 277 dollars of stuff) from chaosium but, BUT i never received the shipment (they first told me they shipped it in november then it was told the 12 december.. lol i ordered it the 30 october).

after a lot of mails between me and the laughable customer care at chaoisum, i got my money back.

but didnt received the shipment.

asked to do a different kind of order and they answered ok, but now i find out that THE GREEN isnt available anymore..

that really pisses me off.

anyone here know where i can buy a paper copy ?

i really want it BAD

also, PUCK go along ! give us more stuff, that setting is really totally awesome and i am planning a campaign in it !

thanks for your fantastic job

tommy

Monographs are printed in small runs and go in and out of print pretty quickly. Wait a few weeks and it should be back in stock.

Right now, they're typically only available in print through Chaosium's site. Some are available from Leisure Games periodically. But they don't enter the traditional distribution chain. You can check ebay and second-hand venues such as nobleknight, but they'll only be available is somebody else has sold their copy.