Best occupations for a Call of Cthulhu investigator

The best occupations in Call of Cthulhu are the ones whose point formula matches the characteristics you rolled and whose skill list covers the investigation rather than the fight. That rules out any answer given in the abstract. An Antiquarian is a strong pick for an investigator with EDU 80 and a weak one for an investigator with EDU 45, and no ranking that ignores your rolled numbers is telling you anything useful.

Two forces decide the value of an entry. The first is the size of the pool it hands you, which is a multiple of your own characteristics. The second is how much of that pool the occupation immediately takes back as Credit Rating, since every entry prints a band the investigator's wealth has to sit inside.

Coverage against cost

Chaosium's conversion notes explain why the multipliers differ at all: EDU is no longer the only characteristic used to generate Occupational Skill Points, because some characters may have a low level of education but be extremely proficient in some of the less academic skills. A variety of characteristics feed the calculation depending on the occupation chosen, and the design note says the change also lends more value to APP.

So the pool is personal. An Antiquarian, an Author and a Doctor of Medicine each get EDU times four. An Artist gets EDU times two plus either POW times two or DEX times two. A Dilettante gets EDU times two plus APP times two. Roll EDU 75 and APP 40 and the Antiquarian pool is 300 against the Dilettante's 230. Roll EDU 45 and APP 85 and the Dilettante wins, 260 to 180.

The cost side is Credit Rating. Chaosium's quick-start rules band wealth as 0 for penniless, 1 to 9 for poor with the bare minimum, 10 to 49 for average comfort, 50 to 89 for wealthy with some degree of luxury, 90 to 98 for rich, and 99 to 100 for super rich. An occupation that demands the wealthy band takes 50 or more points off the top before a single investigative skill is bought. An occupation that sits in the poor band costs almost nothing there.

Occupations that keep earning their place

The Antiquarian is the default for a reason. Flat EDU times four gives the largest pool available to a well-educated investigator, the Credit Rating band is modest, and the skill list is the investigation itself: Library Use to find the reference, History to understand it, Appraise to know what the object on the table is worth, Spot Hidden for everything else. An Antiquarian with EDU 80 walks in with 320 points and spends almost all of them on things the scenario is made of.

The Doctor of Medicine buys the party's survival. First Aid and Medicine are the difference between a wounded investigator who continues and one who is carried out, and Medicine also unlocks scenes nobody else can enter: the morgue, the asylum, the body on the slab. The same EDU times four applies, so the pool is as large as the Antiquarian's.

The Journalist is the social investigator who is still built on education. Fast Talk gets past the desk, Library Use works the archive, and Psychology reads the witness. A table that already has an academic gets more from a Journalist than from a second Antiquarian, because the skill lists overlap only at the edges.

The Dilettante is the odd one, and the one that rewards a specific roll. EDU times two plus APP times two is designed for the investigator who is charming rather than schooled, and the high Credit Rating band means the character can fund the expedition, hire the boat and buy the artefact. That wealth is a party resource. It is also the entry that costs the most in points to establish, so a Dilettante with a middling APP is usually a mistake.

Occupations that struggle

Anything with a combat-weighted list tends to disappoint in a game where combat is a failure state. A Soldier or a Police Officer arrives with Firearms and Fighting and comparatively little that finds the cult before the cult finds them. They work as a second character in a long campaign, or in a Pulp Cthulhu game where the tone supports it, and they are a hard sell as a party's only investigator.

The other weak position is an entry whose Credit Rating band forces spending the investigator will never use. A high-status occupation played in a scenario set in a swamp or on a ship gets no return on the points parked in wealth.

Picking against the dice you rolled

Choose after rolling, never before. Read three entries against your own characteristics, work out each pool, subtract the Credit Rating the band demands, and compare what is left. The Investigator Handbook is where the full range lives, and the Keeper Rulebook prints a shorter list that runs a whole campaign without trouble.

A group building its first characters can let the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set do the first one: its solo opener, Alone Against the Flames, teaches character creation while it is being played, before anyone has to run the calculation cold.

One last check before you commit. Look at what the other players have written down, then pick the entry that covers what nobody else does. A party of four Antiquarians has 1,280 skill points and no way to stop bleeding.