Here is the situation...

My Psyker used Soul Killer on the big bad guy in a mission, the power had no effect (the GM grinned), and I was left wondering why. Before he told me there was no effect, he spent time going over the write up of the power.

Once the battle was over, it came to light that the baddie had a rosarius. The GM informed me that by the write up of the power, the rosarius protected the bad guy. I don't have the book handy, but I will paraphrase what line the GM was reffering to in the write up... the power fires off an invisible shard of psychic energy.

Now, I try not to argue rules during a game, I feel it distracts and makes the GM look bad, so I have been waiting until now to get a better understanding so I can bring it up before next game. I realize that the rosarius protects against ranged attacks, but there is no attack roll used for Soul Killer, only the Power roll used to determine success or failure in the activation of said power. Does a rosarius protect against such a power, if only because the description mentions an invisible shard of psychic energy flying off to the target(s), or does it not protect?

I hope there is a real answer here, and not just "it is up to the interpretation of the GM." He's a real rules bastard at times.

Thank you for any and all quick responses.

As with most things, I think it's the GMs call. By my reading, neither the description of the power or the rosarius are clear on the matter. Soul Killer ignores armor, unless that armor is warded. However a rosarius is not armor, it's a force field. Any table-top 40K player will tell you that force fields work against things that ignore armor. Whether or not that logic holds true in the Dark Heresy rules, well as I said the rules are unclear.That makes it the GMs call and your GM made his call. By the rules, where the rules are unclear the GM is the final arbiter of the rules.

It's a psychic power not a ranged attack so it should have worked.

Yep the rosarius would require a hexagramic ward, for the rosarius to have any effect or there would atleast been the effect of a photon grenade since the rosarius has a conversion field.

I came to think, does soul killer, destroys souls like holocaust? permanetly kills demons?

since holocaust= burn the soul

and soul killer=kill the soul

but it doesnt really say so.

Wbush3 said:

The real answer is it's kinda tricky. Since your GM is a real rules bastard he certainly could read into the 'wording' of the power and say that "the power fires off an invisible shard of psychic energy" and thus it's blocked by the Rosarius. If he is all hell bent on sticking to this interpretation, which he very well may be, then inform him that in the future you'll be 'creating your invisible shard of psychic energy directly in front of their face and inside the Rosarius field (or any other force field)' since it does not say anywhere that the 'shard' starts from your head or hand or any other part of your body (thus reinforcing the concept that you don't have to roll to hit).

Now, stepping back from that banter...

Since Soul Killer is a Telepathy power rather than a Telekinesis power it represents a different avenue of attack despite that short phrase stating a shard of psychic energy...if it was physical in nature in order to bypass armor they would have just said it had the warp weapon quality.

what book is soul killer in?

Disciples of the dark gods, p.30