...We're gonna need a bigger boat

[Scaevola]

Okay, so I've been checking these forums off and on for like, two years now, and I've yet to run a campaign (Thursday night could change all that, though)--but here's one huuuge question I have:

How the hell do investigators take down big game?

For those of you who have run or participated in a campaign featuring creatures like the Dark Young, or a shoggoth, the shantaks, a dhole, etc.; how exactly did the investigators come out on top? Or did they? The way I see it happening, I guess that fighting a shoggoth would be likened to fighting a Gargantuan in the Half-Life games; killing it with bullets and weapons would be futile, but perhaps finding some sort of environmental solution would help (maybe discerning a Bind spell, or something along those lines.)

Please, share, I'm really curious to see how your run-in with a starspawn high priest turned out.

[old_school]

For some of the creatures -like the Dark young say- dismissing them is probably easier than killing them.

For the shoggoth trapping it or taking control of it with magic and leading it away from civilisation might be the best they can manage.

With these kind of creatures though, just surviving the encounter with sanity intact is victory of a sort. Half the horror of CoC is knowing that these things are out there; when that shoggoth in their bathroom slides down the toilet bowl and disappears into Arkham's sewers without them having to find a way to kill it, its something thats going to be on their mind for a good long time.

[christian]

My regards to Chief Brody

in twenty years of gaming, rarely have we managed to "kill" anything bigger than a Deep One. Driving away these things, escaping from them, shutting them up in a dark cavern with explosives or on another plane of existence with a spell, using some spells to hurt or dispell them.... that's about all my players ever managed to do. Now, cultists, if you ask me... we've landed a good few over the years.
Look at my BTMOM Journal:
expeditions lose dozens of men, we stop a shoggoth ( thanks to the cold), wound an Elder Thing, and I guess that's about IT...

no offense meant, but it's far from DnD, and killing the monsters, often, is not even an option

[theshoveller]

Big game need an elaborate plan involving rituals or somesuch. My investigators never kill anything bigger than, as you say, a deep one. If they were trying to fight a Shoggoth, I'd provide some ritual/magical means to bind it or dismiss it. I'd structure a significant sub-plot around it if it were part of a scenario. If I wanted to make it possible. Sometimes you just want them to run.

[jtull_84]

You could always try the "Back-a-yacht-over-its-face-and-drive-away" approach. . . It worked against Big C. . . if only temporarily. . .

[red_bus]

That is really a dilemma for your players, not for you.

You should assume that the big creatures (which should not pop up in the first 5 mins of any campaign really), are largely un-killable. The flip side is that they are not always out just to slay the investigators and will often do erratic or surprising things (such as exit the scene for no apparent reason or leave survivors) - their motives (and their powers and weaknesses) are way beyond the easy understanding of your investigators.

If (after years of Cthulhu campaigns), you are left with some very jaded players - you could run a big game hunt - and they would then have the information to try and get the right arsenal together. BUT you said that your players have yet to play a campaign. Be careful. If you even let them even think that this is just like hunting elephants - you risk ruining the suspense for your Cthlhu games ever more.

[Secret3]

The only time I can remember killing anything remotely large was in the case where some lunatic had summoned what I can only surmise was a dhole. It was a large wormy thing anyway, I wasn't running the campaign so I can't be sure exactly what it was.
It emerged through the basement of an old house. We broke some natural gas pipes on our way out of the basement, and someone's shotgun blast ignited it, blowing the house to smitherenes. Needless to say only a few of us escaped with our lives. There was no trace left of the creature, so either it decided to leave (very possible) or it was completely obliterated, as we chose to believe.

[ThothAmon]

I've had long-surviving players (and their characters) come down on both extremes. Some just assume that the critters are unkillable, others follow the Burt Gummer route.

Memorable moments would include:

Dark Young - One paranoid PC spent a small fortune purchasing a Boys Anti Tank Rifle as his personal defence weapon. Upon realising he might again be facing 'walking trees' he got his beloved rifle from the hidden compartment in the boot of the car and went a-hunting. He got one shot off before being grabbed and used as the DY equivalent of sippin' whiskey. The other PCs found his precious rifle ground into the mud as part of a large cloven hoofprint

Mi Go - Many moons ago a gangland PC emptied the 100 round drum of a Thompson SMG at a Mi Go in human disguise. When the target got back up off the ground buzzing angrily the PCs fled for their lives in their roadster, with the mobster perched on the running board yelling "Put your foot down!"

Hunting Horror - The best attempt was accidental. Whilst rigging a powerful electric generator for a trap, the critter attacked early. The electrical expert wasn't finished so his mates tried (unsuccessfully) to distract the Beast. Electrician Man was the initial target. He and the HH were terminally cooked by a critical failure when attempting to rush the job :P

The moral of these tales is that avoidance is generally healthier than confrontation. The most notable success was the astonishing outright assassination of an adult Cthonian, a feat which earned the first entry in the 'How To' section of the old webby.

[Scaevola]

That really suprises me; how in the hell did all your investigators get anything accomplished in Masks of Nyarlathotep, for example?

Like, the attack on Gray Dragon Island pits them against a shoggoth, a horde of cultists and Deep Ones, and the Bloated Woman! Did anyone manage to defeat Omar Shakti? The Ghoul Queen? The chakota? I'm really interested to see how a band of investigators could survive a run-in like that? What happened in your past campaigns?

[CAThompson]

Like, the attack on Gray Dragon Island pits them against a shoggoth, a horde of cultists and Deep Ones, and the Bloated Woman! Did anyone manage to defeat Omar Shakti? The Ghoul Queen? The chakota? I'm really interested to see how a band of investigators could survive a run-in like that? What happened in your past campaigns?

Let's see,

Some spoilers for masks
The Chakota: left it in it's well No one looked. No one wanted to.
Ghoul Queen: Ran away (the investigators)
Omar Shakti: Never met him.
Haunting Horror: Killed by the dynamite Lt. Firstogo was holding when it pucked him up. The rest of the investigators were running away.
The Shoggoth: killed when one of the investigators shot the glowing rock with a lightning gun.
Other encounters: they managed to gun down a couple of flying things, they let the Yithian deal with the polyup (they ran away, you see a pattern here?)

And no, none of them sholud have survived the Grey Dragon Island section due to their "solution." But I'm a sucker for leaving one survivor to write the adventure down (he had radiation posiong and died the next year.)

[ThothAmon]

BEWARE! HERE BE MAJOR SPOILERS!



BEWARE! HERE BE MAJOR SPOILERS!



BEWARE! HERE BE MAJOR SPOILERS!



BEWARE! HERE BE MAJOR SPOILERS!



BEWARE! HERE BE MAJOR SPOILERS!

Like, the attack on Gray Dragon Island pits them against a shoggoth, a horde of cultists and Deep Ones, and the Bloated Woman!

Ho Fong's yacht was blown to pieces in Shanghai Harbour. The entire party died during the climax. During the warding ritual that kept all but one occupied, the non-participant semi-insane, magic-intolerant Irish priest went a wandering and ended up tossing his satchel full of dynamite and caps into the lava beneath the shiny construction. Gray Dragon Island is now known as Gray Dragon Reef

Did anyone manage to defeat Omar Shakti?

Omar Shakti was ignored as 'unimportant'. The nasty archaeologists were ambushed in the desert on the way back from Shakti's home. All were killed by combination of automobile wreck and massed gunfire.

The Ghoul Queen?

Nitocris' resurrection was foiled by a double whammy. The medium was assassinated by sniper fire at the start of the ritual. The resultant chaos allowed one soul with brass cojones to enter the Temple and plunge Thoth's Dagger into the altar, thus desecrating the Temple and rendering it useless for magical rituals.

The chakota?

One PC has a peek and stumbled away in Chief Brody fashion. Someone anonymously called the NYPD. Mukunga ended up in the pit as an entree for the Chakota whilst the building was torched

The body count in our run of Masks came in other areas. Example: The Serpent Man red-herring provided one of the best PC deaths in 20(ish) years of roleplaying. Hardbitten gamers were rendered helpless by tears of laughter, inclduing the player of the unfortunate PC. Even now it brings a smile

[christian]

The body count in our run of Masks came in other areas. Example: The Serpent Man red-herring provided one of the best PC deaths in 20(ish) years of roleplaying. Hardbitten gamers were rendered helpless by tears of laughter, inclduing the player of the unfortunate PC. Even now it brings a smile
_________________
Cheers.

Peter Devlin.


You're begging the question. here it is: what happened, man???????????

[Scaevola]

Yes, pre tell! That's my favorite of the side adventures in Masks!

[Azimerthemad]

That really suprises me; how in the hell did all your investigators get anything accomplished in Masks of Nyarlathotep, for example?

In my game, they lifted the well in order to find something of use against the zombies. The wailing began, and they freaked. Then they started Grappling zombies into the well. One of the players is afraid of things under water, so I filled the well with water. They heard the Chakota stop wailing, and the zombie start SCREAMING. One other zombie went down the well (and one PC nearly too) before they closed it.

Of course, the next few minutes, one of the PCs loses 70 sanity. And in the after session month of ritual research and spell learning wrap up they end up on the Innsmouth coast running from a Star Spawn of Cthulhu. Players are SO resourceful sometimes.

[Nescio]

Shoggoths are vulnerable to massed autofire.

The real bitches are things like Hounds of Tindalos and Servitors of the Outer Gods that are immune to material weapons.