I have a player who loves to play against stereotypes and in an upcomming game she is deadset on playing a melee weapon wielding astropath. We don't really have a dedicated melee powerhouse in the party (or any melee characters, if we disregard our Colochite Servo Master or more specifically - his minions), so it's not like she will be compeeting with the rogue trader's alternative of Khorne's Incarnate, still surviving in melee and doing at least something once there is important.

Is there some disciplines, psyker specific items and alternative ranks that can help her in this endeavor? The other players are easily distracted by elite advances with little combat benefit (gambling, cooking, etc.) so she can afford a melee centered elite advance or two (or struggling with the WS, S, T advances) without falling too much behind in XP. Rolling a 9 and 10 for her starting weapon skill also helps (it actually inspired her for the whole melee astropath fiasco on the first place). Her other stats are pretty average although I don't remember them in detals... low strength and balistics, average toughness and fellowship, average to high perception and willpower.

The rest of the party is in the middle of rank 3 by the time of her introduction to the group, so she will have a bit of XP under her belt. They also seem to work pretty well together and cover their major skill needs, so besides being a two-legged fax - there is nothing else expected from her so she can follow her fencing obsession.

If the Astropath in question lacks Strength, going for a raw Damage build may be needlessly expensive while underperforming. In that case, I would consider "fishing" for Righteous Fury rolls with Chain weapons or find weapons that can scale with Characteristics other than Strength. Which books are you pulling from? I can give more detailed responses once I know what to limit my scope to. My suggestions would likely span gamelines otherwise.

The fact that the Astropath is a Psycher gives her access to Force Weapons, which can be a lot of fun, as well as particularly unique to the Melee-Astropath concept. (found in Into the Storm). If your generous with equipment, you might even consider letting her start with an Eldar Witchblade, whose damage is also tied to Psy-rating.

The Force weapons indeed seem to pack a punch... probably pretty hard countered by dodge (being a full round action to use optimally and incompatible with extra attacks), but still... if faced with an elusive target - the astropath should have the option to resort to his techniques.

Do force weapons add Str bonus to damage as well? Can see a reason for them not to. Can powers like sensory depravation or psychic scream be used to deny the target a reaction (dodge/parry against your attacks)?

What is the casting and duration of the Blessed by the Emperor technique (Rogue Trader p.169)? It seems tailor made for her needs providing both defense and attack, not to mention the team support.

She can go for the telekynesis discipline. One of the spell is about a telekinesis blade that do a lot of damage (damage and penetration is tied to psy-rating). Be sure to read the official errata, it adds some damage on the telekinesis discipline.

The psyker in my group has this spell. He uses it when the ennemy is outnumbered because he doesnt have much in WS and he needs the bonus, but when he land a hit, he delivers much much pain.

She will not have multi-attack...

DIvination discipline can be another way to go...

About the force weapon, I add the Str bonus to damage.

About the eldar sword, the special power is only available to eldar psychic (i m pretty sure about that point, but I don't remeber where I have read it).

One of the fun bits of RT is how you can have the voice of YGO Abridged Kaiba paraphrase "f***the rules! I've got money?" all over the stereotypes 40k often has.An Astropath is a frail, withered husk of a psyker, wearing simple robes, clutching a staff, and not often looking for combat. YOUR ATran can have access to their benefactor's money, and equip power armor, get a great Force weapon, and lunge into combat. I'm not entirely sure on the Disciplines in RT, right now, if they get Biomancy, or not, but TK and others can be good softeners, and then the Force weapon can be the punch you kill them with. it's not a perfect mirror, I grant, but in OW, I slapped together the fluff of an Inquisitor who fights against the Orks. Her name is Karina von Strauss, though the Orks no her as "da Quasit".

It's sort of silly, but she goes in carapace, and still kills Orks that might swat a "little Humie" easily, but evades them, and kills even their best with Force cheesery. Variant methods of Force weapon rule, and such, might not make the example so "she one-shots anything", but she's a psyker with a Force weapon, going up against foes MADE for melee combat. so, it certainly CAN work, if you, your money, and your GM can hammer out all the details.

Force weapons are terrifying if the psyker has a decent willpower and psy rating. And either a good WS or the various divination powers that boost stat rolls.

If she is willing to take the risk, there are several combat drugs available to take, and with her highish willpower should resist addiction longer. Also if you have access to the navis primer the " voidomancy" powers can really help with those pesky dodgers ( I think it has been a bit since I looked at them)

If an Astropath has access to the outright broken stuff in Navis Primer then things just get more hilarious for them.

You might also want to consider letting her buy powers from other gamelines. There's one in the Only War core rulebook that gives you a strength and unnatural toughness bonus. Something like warpspeed will help you close the distance and act first. There's an ability called precognitive strike that gives you a bonus to either your next WS or BS test. Force swords are badass just for coolness points, and true monsters with the right psykers. With a say PR 7 character you're looking at 1d10+ 8 9 Pen.

That's before you count her strength bonus. Let's say she has a natural SB of 3. Then she gets a normal craftsmenship synth muscle implant. That bumps her up to 5, she wears either light or normal power armor. That bumps her up to 6 or 7 respectively. Then add on the tried and true best craftsmenship sword arm. That's popping her up to 8 SB. She go even further with some implants which would in the RT version pop her up into the teens. But those have an agility bonus, are somewhat gross looking, and pretty overpowered in it's RT version. She could also use one of the aforementioned abilities to get her another 3 or 4 SB. So let's say she only does some but not all of these, adds 9 SB to her sword. 1d10+17 8 Pen is pretty badass in raw damage.

Killing will for a high level psyker is basically a free kill against any opponent that doesn't have unnatural WP. And if you want you want you can always let her buy some melee stuff as an elite advance, or even at normal cost if that's really the focus of her character. The lighting strikes, killing strike, and other various melee crazy person abilities. If that's what you want, but even just letting her buy various sustained abilities from other books will allow her to buy herself pretty well and wreck with a best craftsmen chainsword, which as a RT character should be fairly cheap. Force swords are tough to buy, but you can always have an adventure for it, or even *gasp* letting her have one at char gen for some contrived reason so she's not at quite such a disadvantage for going with specific idea.

The fact that the Astropath is a Psycher gives her access to Force Weapons, which can be a lot of fun, as well as particularly unique to the Melee-Astropath concept. (found in Into the Storm). If your generous with equipment, you might even consider letting her start with an Eldar Witchblade, whose damage is also tied to Psy-rating.

I beg you, please tell me FFG didn't make Witchblades into a regular uber force weapon that every psyker can use... It'd be allmost as much of a fluff-ra pe as Remembrance shield from DW.

The fact that the Astropath is a Psycher gives her access to Force Weapons, which can be a lot of fun, as well as particularly unique to the Melee-Astropath concept. (found in Into the Storm). If your generous with equipment, you might even consider letting her start with an Eldar Witchblade, whose damage is also tied to Psy-rating.

I beg you, please tell me FFG didn't make Witchblades into a regular uber force weapon that every psyker can use... It'd be allmost as much of a fluff-ra pe as Remembrance shield from DW.

You're in luck. The current RT errata make that witchblade only attunable as a force weapon by eldar psykers. Everyone else just treats it as a weird power weapon.

The fact that the Astropath is a Psycher gives her access to Force Weapons, which can be a lot of fun, as well as particularly unique to the Melee-Astropath concept. (found in Into the Storm). If your generous with equipment, you might even consider letting her start with an Eldar Witchblade, whose damage is also tied to Psy-rating.

I beg you, please tell me FFG didn't make Witchblades into a regular uber force weapon that every psyker can use... It'd be allmost as much of a fluff-ra pe as Remembrance shield from DW.

You're in luck. The current RT errata make that witchblade only attunable as a force weapon by eldar psykers. Everyone else just treats it as a weird power weapon.

There is special rules for a witchblade that can be attuned to a human psyker in Lure of the Expanse.