The suitability of any monster for a particular role depends on a lot of different criteria.įor example, ghouls tend to get on with their own business, which occasionally intersects with living humans. Obviously, the balance of those will vary between groups, play styles and campaigns. ![]() And sometimes, you do want an interesting fight. Sometimes you want something that doesn’t do combat at all: a psychic parasite, a malevolent presence, a predator on the vulnerable. Sometimes you want something a single human can realistically defeat, or maybe outsmart. Sometimes you do, in fact, want something that will wipe the floor with a whole army. Different kinds of capabilities are appropriate for different cases. Very broadly speaking, I think the balance issue for Call of Cthulhu is not “how powerful is this monster compared to the party?” but “how will this creature interact with the party?”. Also, you’re not just trying to create combat challenges of various levels for the party, but a whole range of possible interactions, with direct combat just one option. You’re not weighing up Challenge Ratings or build points, and the power of monsters can be pretty difficult to establish. However, I agree that it’s not the same kind of balance. Similarly, if you're looking for a terrifying abomination that needs to be evaded until they can escape or find a cunning solution, a ghoul just isn't tough enough to cut it (unless they're unarmed kids, for example). To take an ridiculous example, when you're picking something to scare the party outside the antagonist's lair and prove her sinister connections, but which they can overcome and proceed to a confrontation (or just blow the place up) you want to pick a ghoul rather than Great Cthulhu. ![]() In fact, forget monsters – an ordinary human is a serious threat to the party, in a game where a single lucky headbutt can kill. Monsters are extremely powerful in Call of Cthulhu, and most of them are perfectly capable of a TPK. On the other hand, I think you can make a reasonable argument that monster balance is an issue you need to consider in scenario design. At the same time, PCs don't level, so their power level compared to the monsters doesn't change much, except through changes in equipment or acquisition of a vital spell. So you're not looking for a monster that provides a particular combat role and has a particular mathematical power relationship to PCs. Monsters aren't a tactical challenge, but typically a narrative one, to be overcome by intellect or endured, rather than defeated. It's true that Call of Cthulhu doesn’t have the same monster balance situation as games with more of a PC power scale in them, like D&D or GURPS or Vampire or whatever. This post was inspired by episode 17 of the MUP.
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