Elder Lore and Sanity

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Joshua
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Elder Lore and Sanity

Post by Joshua »

so, Leagues of Cthulhu had some great Cthulhu feel to it. But, <sparta>this is steampunk!</sparta> So, I was reading over the Pulp Cthulhu rules, and want to incorporate some of those.

Elder Lore is a specialized skill, which means it's actually a group of 5 separate skills. (Artifacts, Creatures, Great Old Ones, Locations, and Tomes)
  • Base Attribute is intelligence.
  • You may substitute your elder lore skill for spellcasting and horror checks if you choose.
  • You may not take it at creation. (Except, maybe, if you're in a cult.)
  • You may not spend xp on Elder Lore.
  • You may not take Well-Educated for Elder Lore.
  • You get Eldrich Experience for adventuring exposure (1 optional point), reading tomes (based on their level), and going insane (50% chance of 1). This MUST be spent on Elder Lore (you may wait to spend it on the most expensive skill, but you must spend it when you have enough).
  • For the record, it takes 30 xp to get this skill at level 5. or 150 to get all 5 at level 5.
All of this is good.

The issue comes from the sanity cost. In Chthulu, there's a Mythos skill (as a percentage), and your max sanity is 100 - mythos skill. This is bad, but not crippling as getting your mythos skill to even 30 is beyond most campaigns.
In Leagues, you lose a permanent point of sanity for every skill level you have, and for every specialization you have. This is fine, except...

These aren't one skill. And, that same 30 xp could get you 2 of the skills at level 3 and one at level 2... for a total of 8 permanent sanity loss. That's a bit much. Even in base Cthulhu you really can't drop your max sanity to 0 as it's next to impossible to raise skills above 90... (you have to use the skill, then roll over it at the end of the adventure, and when it's that high, it only goes up by 1...)

So, poking at some ways to mitigate this. Not eliminate, I mean, getting the skill at 5 with a specialization drops even someone with an above average wisdom and charisma to a max sanity of 1 or 2... and the skill doesn't max.
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*: Elder Lore is not sufficient to gain access to the dog park. The City Council would like to remind everyone that dogs are not allowed in the Dog Park. People are not allowed in the Dog Park.
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Joshua
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Joined: Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:59 pm

Re: Elder Lore and Sanity

Post by Joshua »

Things in game:
The talent stable gives a +2 to (max) sanity and may be taken twice.
You can up your Charisma and Willpower to 5 each, which gives you 10 initial max sanity.
Combined this is a max sanity of 14.

And that's about it...

So, thoughts are making some additional Talents or options...

One of the easiest and simplest thoughts would be two talents.
  • Desensitized: Your character has looked hard into the Abyss and didn't blink. Only your highest level of Elder Lore reduces your permanent sanity as normal. The others only reduce your permanent sanity by the amount they are above half your highest (round up). Specializations reduce max sanity per normal.
    Taking this talent makes you somewhat broken. If you do not have a mental flaw, you must take one.

    Example: If you have Creatures at 3, Artifacts at 3 and Great Old Ones at 2. Creatures reduces your max sanity by 3. Half of 3 rounded up is 2. Thus, Artifacts (one higher than 2) reduces your max sanity by 1, and Great Old ones doesn't affect your max sanity. Still harsh, but 4 is better than 8.
  • Nerves of Steel / Brain of Jello: (Requires Desensitized) Uh, the Abyss blinked first. Huh... Only your highest level of Elder Lore reduces your permanent sanity as normal. Only one specialization affects your max sanity. If this specialization is taken multiple times, they all affect it.
    Taking this talent makes you fairly broken. You need a total of two mental flaws, preferably one that's severe to take this. (Maybe one per Elder Lore discipline you have?)

    Example: If you have Creatures at 5 (with a specialization in Mi-Go), Artifacts at 4 (with a double specialty in mi-go artifacts) and Great Old Ones at 4. Creatures reduces your max sanity by 5 and your mi-go artifacts specialization reduces it by another 2. The others have no effect. Harsh, but 7 is better than the 16 point reduction you would have otherwise.
    Also, this is an end-game level of lore, and you could up your artifacts to 5, Great Old Ones to 5, or take Tomes (And Locations) up to 5 without further sanity loss.
At that point, while it requires a lot of XP, it does allow you to function with a decent amount of elder lore. And if you're dumping 30 - 60xp into being able to handle elder knowledge, I am okay with that...

More complicated ideas would be to allow some level of trading sanity loss for corruption...

Definitely thinking of allowing something like that to replace the permanent insanity of being dropped to -5 sanity. (Which is supposed to make you unplayable, but again, in Pulp Cthulhu characters bounce back from that.)

So, intial thoughts anyhow... I do want it to keep it's edge, but... make it more pulp-level instead of pure horrorshow.
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