Lovecraftian madness

[Bhu]

I am cobbling together rules for sanity for d20 modern campaigns on the BG forums for a Mythos style campaign I have set in Colonial America. I'm not entirely sure I could post it on GitP so it could be found here:

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11421.msg390870#msg390870

I tried to only list insanities commonly resulting from mental trauma/stress. Before defining them I'd like anyone who may know more about mental disorders than i can find via google to weigh in (also if you can think of any disorders I didn't put down).

[Bhu]

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11421.msg390871#msg390871

I'm also attempting to make a new casting system

[awa]

no idea how accurate they are to real life as i have barely glanced at them but the pathfinder srd has rules for sanity you might want to swipe some of their ideas

[Kuma Kode]

The one problem I see, and one I encountered while working on the Sanity adjustments for Shadow Theory (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147142), is killing monsters to regain Sanity.

As you have it, they automatically gain Sanity for defeating a monster, equal to the maximum amount that could have been lost. Between the Will save and the dice roll, however, the chance of them actually suffering this damage is slim. Characters using those rules would actually gain Sanity from encountering and defeating monsters, which is in direct opposition from standard Lovecraftian horror. Even in the few stories in which the monsters were defeated, the characters lived on haunted by the memories and fearful of what else could be waiting in the dark.

A net loss.

I do like the idea of a rank system for spells, however. More information is necessary as to where these points come from. Are they spent from the normal allotment of skill points? If so, most spells will remain firmly at rank 1 and only a handful would get increased.

[Bhu]

The sanity regain idea is straight from the Call of Cthulhu rules. You lose sanity for every monster encounter, but you only get a chance to heal once at the end of the campaign. So you can still end up with a net loss depending on how bad you roll. It's also one of the few ways characters in colonial times will have regaining anything considering psychiatry doesn't exist yet.

Ans yes ranks for spells will be bought with normal skill points (and possibly some help from PrC's). Spells will definitely be upgraded because the effects depend on your ranks, not your level. For example if I did Fireball this way, it would do 1d6 damage for every 2 ranks in the spell for example (and this isn't exactly how I'm doing it it's just an example to throw out there).

One of the problems with doing CoC style spellcasting in d20 is that anyone can learn spells given sufficient time and intellect, but in d20 you have to have a class because of the level structure and the power of spells. So this way anyone can learn the spell, but how much they get from it depends on what they put into it, and I as DM don't end up with one God, and the rest of the party his mundane familiars, At least I'm hoping it works out that way.

[Kuma Kode]

The sanity regain idea is straight from the Call of Cthulhu rules. You lose sanity for every monster encounter, but you only get a chance to heal once at the end of the campaign. So you can still end up with a net loss depending on how bad you roll. It's also one of the few ways characters in colonial times will have regaining anything considering psychiatry doesn't exist yet. Yes, but the reward is for completing an adventure, not for killing or defeating a monster. Unless I'm misinterpreting your Defeating Things from Outside, if I encounter a ghoul, I make a will save. If I fail, I lose 1d6. If I succeed, I lose 1, so my average loss would be around 2 or 3. If I destroy the ghoul, though, I get 6. The chances of me losing 6 are very low; I would almost always benefit psychologically from encountering monsters. Nowhere did you state any time or limit on this kind of recovery, so it reads like I gain that increase when the encounter ends.


Ans yes ranks for spells will be bought with normal skill points (and possibly some help from PrC's). Spells will definitely be upgraded because the effects depend on your ranks, not your level. For example if I did Fireball this way, it would do 1d6 damage for every 2 ranks in the spell for example (and this isn't exactly how I'm doing it it's just an example to throw out there). One or two spells will definitely be upgraded; most spells will be abandoned. There's simply not enough skill points around, since most characters will still want, ya know, actual skills. Decipher Script, Knowledge (Arcane Lore), and a few other obvious skills for an occultist come to mind. At most, your average smart hero could keep 10 spells maxed out, abandoning all other skills and going into the deep end of magic.


One of the problems with doing CoC style spellcasting in d20 is that anyone can learn spells given sufficient time and intellect, but in d20 you have to have a class because of the level structure and the power of spells. So this way anyone can learn the spell, but how much they get from it depends on what they put into it, and I as DM don't end up with one God, and the rest of the party his mundane familiars, At least I'm hoping it works out that way. You'll still have that problem. One character, probably a smart hero, will spend his skill points on a few really good spells. the tough or strong hero won't bother spending what few points he has on them, so even if you aim for a classless magic system, you're still kind of restricting them by class. Even if he wanted to, he only has a few points to spend.

[Mordokai]

I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but srd (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm) has some rules already established on sanity.

May be useful to you.

[Bhu]

Yes, but the reward is for completing an adventure, not for killing or defeating a monster. Unless I'm misinterpreting your Defeating Things from Outside, if I encounter a ghoul, I make a will save. If I fail, I lose 1d6. If I succeed, I lose 1, so my average loss would be around 2 or 3. If I destroy the ghoul, though, I get 6. The chances of me losing 6 are very low; I would almost always benefit psychologically from encountering monsters. Nowhere did you state any time or limit on this kind of recovery, so it reads like I gain that increase when the encounter ends.


The idea is that you'll lose up to 1d6 per encounter. You get the reward at teh end of the campaign. So you could lose 1d6 times the number of times you encounter a ghoul, but only get 6 back.



One or two spells will definitely be upgraded; most spells will be abandoned. There's simply not enough skill points around, since most characters will still want, ya know, actual skills. Decipher Script, Knowledge (Arcane Lore), and a few other obvious skills for an occultist come to mind. At most, your average smart hero could keep 10 spells maxed out, abandoning all other skills and going into the deep end of magic.

That will keep spell lists small which is keeping in tune with CoC. Most 'wizards' know a handful of spells.



You'll still have that problem. One character, probably a smart hero, will spend his skill points on a few really good spells. the tough or strong hero won't bother spending what few points he has on them, so even if you aim for a classless magic system, you're still kind of restricting them by class. Even if he wanted to, he only has a few points to spend.

He could always multiclass for the skill points but i see what you mean. I'm working on ways around problems now, I just wanted to see how people thought of the preliminary stuff before i get too far in.

[Owrtho]

He could always multiclass for the skill points but i see what you mean. I'm working on ways around problems now, I just wanted to see how people thought of the preliminary stuff before i get too far in.

You could make a separate set of skill points for magic vs. actual skills. This would allow you to make it more even between classes, without allowing everyone to be skill monkeys. You could also then put some other rules onto these points, such as loosing sanity based on how many you assign. One way to look at it is if you have normal skills, you could then have occult knowledge points, which would be used to learn spells, but might also allow some other types of occult knowledge, such as learning about specific monsters, and granting some bonuses when fighting them. Since actually using the points would cause sanity loss, not everyone would want to use them (at least not too much), and would try to be careful in their choices (hopefully).

Owrtho