Are any other GM's having trouble with Biomancers using the Seal Wounds power? I have a reasonably powerful biomancer in my group that isn't powergaming as far as I can tell and yet he can regularly heal characters 10-17 worth of wounds in a single turn. On rare occasions he has been known to heal OVER 20 points of damage. This makes it nearly impossible to make challenging encounters.

In my last fight against Theodosia I gave him a bolt pistol to increase his attack power and he blasted a PC down to -3 wounds, then he got healed back to FULL HIT POINTS the very next round before Theodosia was even able to move again. So basically if I don't kill a character outright in 1 turn, they are always at full hit points making it **** near impossible to have a game with any dramatic tension whatsoever. And psychic phenomenon just doesn't cut it as a deterrent. "Oh no, all the food spoiled in the enemy hideout, how tragic!"

Has anyone else had this problem? And what did you do about it?

Well, the Errata putting the Threshold at 20 helped a great deal.

Target the Psyker.

(Says the man who designed the psyker rules. )

By the by, Seal Wounds originally only worked on any given person a finite number of times in any given day - this restriction was removed in playtesting, a decision I still disagree with.

TS Luikart said:

I knew someone would say that. Unfortunately my players have a tactical acumen greater than lemmings and don't leave their fountain of unlimited life unguarded or out in the open. He is always just around the corner, just outside the door, or taking cover behind a tanking character. At one point they gave him infrared goggles so he could heal in pitch black. Unless I purposefully put a sniper in every encounter with specific orders to shoot him and only him targeting the psyker would be the equivalent of blitzing the QB on every play. That is going to get both old AND obvious.

By the by, Seal Wounds originally only worked on any given person a finite number of times in any given day - this restriction was removed in playtesting, a decision I still disagree with.

I agree, but I would have made the restrictions even worse. I think being healed by a psyker should give you 1 corruption every time. Because it is manifesting the WARP to heal your BODY. That is pretty much the very deffinition of corruption. Unfortunately my group would never ratify that house rule because obviously, it would suck for them.

In addition there is no reason for anyone to take anything from the Medicae line of skills if a biomancer is in the group. And it pretty much makes a Biomancer a default character in every group.

@fideru

My psyker only needs to roll 2 power dice to guarantee a casting of the power and almost always overbleeds. Limiting maximum healing to 20 at a time doesn't really help when the lowest score my biomancer can heal is 5 on a roll of 1, so that is a 10 on 2 dice. That is 10 wounds every turn healing tanks that can take 9 or 10 damage before even taking a wound. Who needs space marines?

No with Threshhold is the the number of 'pionts needed to manifest that power. So, instead of 10 you now need 20 'points' to heal somebody. So now even the best psykers have to roll at least 2 dice, most need 3, therefore increasing the risk of Psychic Phenomena.

Out of a GM's view it would be nicer if you would heal slower, say 1 point per round. That would force the PCs to be more careful till they are fully healed (and also giving their opponents a better chance to kill 'em or to get away). A limitation per day, like the Minor Power Healer, would also work quite well. But without such powers things can get a little boring as well.

I had a group that did not have a 'healing' Psyker for half a year. Belive me, when half the group has to wait over a month for the other half to get out of the Hospital they tend to do stupid things out of boredom. As an example: my Arbitrator was thanks to Hardy out of the Hopsital after only 4 days, while our Assassin and Guardsman were still in for 4 more weeks (thanks to Critical Wounds and not so good Medicae Rolls). So when our Scum asked him for help in 'organising' a few things for the group he agreed, starting a second career as a black market dealer (we were on Tranch at that time). If i as a GM had not agreed to do the rather harmles dealer job my group would have started to go grave robbing/treasure hunting in the burned out spires. With only 4 instead 6 people and the two best DDs in Hospital not a wise idea, but they talked about it anyway.

Corruption points for getting healed with psychic powers ... no, that would be too hard. Following that logic would mean that all Psy forces would earn the user/receiver some CPs, since they all 'use the warp', therefore all Psykers (even the Marine Scriptors) are on their way to eternal damnation.

As i said in your other thread.

I personally don't let my psyker heal any player more than once in a single combat encounter for just this reason, well its not strictly true that i don't let them, but i do have consequences to repeated psykic healing.

For any encounter the first time a character is healed it is done as normal, the second time the character being healed must succeed on a Toughness test or gain a corruption point, 3rd and successive tests call for toughness tests to avoid d5 corruption points.

I argue that this is due to the character being repeatedly exposed to and their flesh manipulated by warp energy.

It means in the really tough fights they have the choice to keep fully healing, but i find it is enough of a deterant to keep them from using it too often.

Besides "target the psyker", ... Send in more Opponents!

Your problem (as stated) was that if you do not kill a pc outright, he will be back to life in zero time. So, how about sending in more opponents? If you "bring down" not only one of the pc but two of them (or three), the situation will grow a little tighter since the "Seal Wound"-Psyker will only be able to

a) fully restore one of them

or

b) Semi-restore two (or three) of them.

Of course, this means that you have to "tweak" most bought/downloaded modules a bit... but adding another lump (3-4) henchmen never hurts, does it?

And in round two.... target the psyker! If you are able to bring him into spending a full action for "getting away", it is combat again.

But please-please-please do not overdue this. If a player character is so successfull in something, his player normally enjoys it. Allow him is "stage time" in every adventure... and then throw in the waves.

Think of circumstances where using Psychic powers may be detrimental.

A backwater world with a highly superstitious population known for burning witches at the drop of the hat but who are otherwise (or because of this) good Imperial citizans. You need thier help to complete your mission but you cannot let them know that you have a Psyker with you (make sure they know this before they start). Then ambush them in a busy area, cause some hurt and then run away, if the Psyker heals even out of sight people will notice that they have recovered insanely quickly and the normally friendly population will turn on the "Evil outsiders" who "consort with Daemons. You could even have the groups enemies have a hand in this and stir up the mob. Make sure they can use this knowledge to thier advantage as well though otherwise is will seem that you are using it to punish the PC's. If you can make this fear of witches the reason for going to the planet in the first place.

An area where the Warp is wearing thin, add +20 to any psychic phenomina rolls and have the chance of a Daemon manifest if psychic powers are used. In the end make sure the Biomancer is critical to saving the day due to his powers having an increased effect on your end boss. This could be turned into a really good horror scenario where everything seems to be turning against the players even thier gear so as not to single out the psyker again.

Try simply attempting to disable them without killing, Seal wounds aint much help against a shock maul to the face or a Hullucinogn grenade.

An enemy psyker could always try to mind control your biomancer and use his powers to heal his minions.

Kaihlik

Like Gregorius said: SEND IN MORE OPPONENTS!

A psyker can only heal one character at the time. But if the acolytes are attacked by a larger force outnumbering them say 3 to 1 or 5 to 1 they will have a hard time on their hands, regardless of their psykers healing powers. Oh and don't be afraid to beef the enemies up. If you say that ONE Theodosia was to easy for them, well then send in SEVERAL Theodosias the next time (or enemies on par with Theodosia). Should make your players sweat a bit...

The psyker can actually heal another character for every 5 points of overbleed. That power needs a rewrite, it is far too powerful as is, a half action to heal multiple people of thier critical wounds is mad, it should be a full round action and have the same limitations as Healer execpt you have to take a toughness test or spend d5 rounds incapacitated on the floor as you suffer the pain of nerve regrowth. It is far too powerful for a half action power.

Kaihlik

i do not know about your psykers but the one in my group (with a WPB of 5) would need to roll at least two dice to reach the Threshold of 20, and minimum 3 dice to get the needed 25 to heal two people. Even with an Invocation Test (that takes a full round) he still needs to roll a 10 with one die, not bloody likely. Therefore most have to roll all 3 dice to get overbleed, the risk for Psychic Phenomena jumps up to 30% ... wohoo!

Lob a few grenades (or mean firebombs) between your Acolytes and your Psyker will have to risk those 30% every round if he wants to keep your party on it's feet. As others said: Send more goons to do more damage over the whole group. Force your Psyker to take that 30% risk several times in combat. You will see, he tone done that healing pretty fast.

Well their psyker is rank 6 and if he went down the scholar path he can easily have +4 to his roll and Favoured by the Warp which reduces the risk of getting a bad Phenomena roll. Either way he likely has psy rating 4 and as such can quite easily heal 2 or maybe even 3 players a turn.

I dont understand why Healer has all of these negative effects that dont apply to Seal Wounds as the logic behind it means it should apply to both and if anything Seal Wounds should suffer worse from it. If I had a Biomancer I would definetly give it the disadvantages of Healer plus the adition penalty that I mentioned in order for people to think twice about using it in combat and to give Healer a point even when you had Seal Wounds.

Kaihlik

Take a toughness test or spend d5 rounds incapacitated + take a level of fatigue seems fair to me.

Or take a toughness test or take d5 levels of fatigue.

You should get 1 or 2 insanity points the first few times you get healed this way.

Kaihlik said:

My group isn't concerned with psychic phenomena. First of all the psyker is "favored of the Warp" so almost never gets a phenomena test. Although once using bio-Lightening he caused himself to explode which was quite entertaining.

Second It would take the entire PDF of a backwater planet to even put a scratch on my level 5 and 6 PCs. The tanks are all kitted with carapace and high toughness. Primitive weapons bounce off them like spitballs and with automatic weapons they can kill half a dozen peons a turn. I don't think any chieftan is going to sarcrifice his whole village to take down one psyker. We are at that point in DnD when barfights are boring unless its a bar full of dragons.

That is right the threshold is up to twenty, I had forget. Indeed we are playing with that as I wrote it over in my book. But my psyker has a psy rating of 4, Willpower bonus of 4, and 2 power wells. I think the most he ever rolls to heal is 3 dice because that starts him out at 18 points. Guaranteed for the spell to go off and nearly guaranteed to overbleed. And like I said, favored of the warp, so, very few phenomena.

Targeting multiple characters wont work either. My three tanks each have Carapace, high toughness and substantial wounds. Most of them have to be hit with over 10 points of damage before they even take a single hit. Frag grenades are laughable in DH, same with fire bombs. I've seen a pc catch a krak grenade one round and be not quite dead. That means bolters, or heavy weapons. I try to keep it real and only give bolters to the bosses unless they are fighting space marines. Heavy bolters are oddly overpowered in the game but the last time I used one I was able to drop 3 people in a massive automatic spray of fire. Took an arm off one tank, A leg off the psyker and outright killed a lesser PC. Maybe I should put a few more in now that I think about it.

For now they will start to go up against some deamons. Real nasy ones. Unbound and full of killyness. Problem is, psykers almost never fail WP tests.

Err .. in what Errata did they change 'Favoured by the Warp'? In my CRB it stills states that you roll twice on the Phenomena Table and choose one. And don't underestimate those. Once my group was traveling by train, and when some robbers showed up my groups Psyker caused all mirrors and reflective surfaces to shatter in a 50m radius, therefore blowing the windows of two train cars to smithereens. Quite a few reactions from the passengers and robbers followed.

@ Backwater Planets: your boss allows your PCs to go down there in that armour, with those guns? Are they his eyes and ears or his personal strike team ('If your naughty i will send some of my favourite boys to teach you some manners') ? We meant undercover missions on backwater planets, and there they will NOT laugh about a Blunderbuss pointing in their faces.

@Legion3000: it seems your PCs are very good in killings things. Tell me: Do all their enemies fight to the death or do some run away? If some run away do your PCs catch/kill them or leave them alone? And what do the scumbags do after they ran away and hid for a while?

I wrote before in another Thread from you: If they are soooo good, send them against the big bad boys and groups, not just local sleaze bags. Don't play A-Team Season 1-3, go punch the big EVIL in the face, see how long they last against a cadre of Chantry Guards (DotDG), or a elite cadre of Ashen Tear Assassins. Set them up to be framed (like suggested in the Adventure Seeds for the Genestealer in CA). Yes, that are opponents with similar equipment (or better), or let them kill another Inquisitors Acolyte who was undercover. Now they have enemies in their own ranks. Fun guaranteed.

The whole point is not that the villagers try and kill them is that the villagers become hostile when they are needed to complete the mission. There is no point killing the only people with the knowledge of how to complete your mission. They are on your side and you need them and that is why you need psychic poweres, also who mentioned anything about primitive weapons. There is vast parts of the Imperiums with perfectly modern technology who are considered backwater, are extemely superstitious and fear witches. Having access to advanced weapons hardly makes you less prone to superstition in the Imperium, the guys who make it are the most affected by superstition in the first place

Give them situations where the threat isn't a direct enemy but simply letting a very powerful enemy know about your presence. Give them a puzzel and have those villagers that they could casually gun down have the answer to and then jump them with a highly trained and well equiped mecenary band in full view of said villagers, cause some damage and then retreat, if the psyker does his thing even out of sight then the villagers will notice and not help, they may even start helping the mercinaries kill them by leading them into traps.

Its so easy to think up situations where good equiptment means nothing or where having it on you is more trouble than its worth. Try and infiltrate an Underhive with full carapace armour, they will spot you in an instant and then kill you in your sleep. Carapace armour is worth alot of money you know.

Also I was aware of what your psyker had, I posted it 2 posts up from yours .

Kaihlik

It does not have to be "Daemons".

You stated your pc are wearing carapace and have high tougness. I assume this mean TB:5 and 5 points of armour. Nasty, indeed.

If they are prepaired for war, you need to give them hell. If the scenario/type of enemy allows for army-type-squad s , a send in seven guys in Guard Flak Armour and arm them with Krak Grenades (Pen:6; 2d10+4) and one of them even with a grenade launcher. A "heavy flamer" (I assume same stats as the "core" flamer, but with "Tearing") could help to damage some of them further. Allow them +2 Ini Bonus if the pc are a) on the defenses and b) your pc´s "Commander" does not pass an Ordinary Check on "Tacticae Imperialis". Feel free to opne with a "Photon Flash". Your High-Toughness-Tanks will swallow it, but the psyker might go blind for 1w5 rounds. Can´t heal your budy if ya can´t see him.

If you are up against ugly mutants , make them really ugly. A brute with ST 48 and T: 48 that comes with Unnatural Strenght and Toughness should give your group at least some headaches. Give hime some scraps of patch armour (flakk 2) and heavy medivial helmet (primitive 5). Make him really frigging big, so you can justify high amount of wounds (15 or 18). Give him "Fear 1", just for the case. And use WS of at least 36. Add "Crushing Blow"
Make sure his "friends" are with him. A dozen mutants , a third of them throwing fire bombs. Not for the damage. No matter how mad your pc are, they cannot simply stay still in fire. Even if the do not get damage, the fire eats up there air, a fatigue level per round they volunteer to stand inside the fire is totally alright!. If they move out, it is no full auto fire for them. Chance for "Biggy" to close in.
Add a "wyrdling" somehwere who got "Weapon Jinx" and a Psi-Power of 2. give him a decent willpower, so he can "overbleed" and therefore cause 2 or three weapons to Jam. More time for biggy and friends. And will the pc spot him? Add two or three hounds charging the pc. They deal with them or they "jump them". Even if there teath can´t hurt them, a large dog jumping at you full speed is totally able to just send you flat on your beg. More wasted time for getting up. If they "shot them like the dogs they are", it is more fire distracted from biggy and the boys.

If you are up against a cult, simply send fanatics at them, covered in bizarre runes carved in to there flesh all over them. Three success on an Ordinary "Forbidden Lore" check might warn them that these are not only "runes of khorne" (standard succcess) but mark them a offerings. If they slay them to the last one of them, have a Bloodletter appear. If they kill them swiftly, have additional Bloodletters appear since so much blood was spilled in so little time. The "Forbidden Lore" will reveal this. Anyway, make sure these cultists wear chain weapons and have "Furious Assault". Oh! And treat the warp blades of the Bloodletter not as "Primitive" but "Warp Weapons".

Battlling a psyker with a psyker is a good thing as well. How about making them hunt / going up against a mighty Pyro ? "Wall of Fire", "Fire Storm" and "Fire Bolt". make a good combo. Add Minor Power "Healer" to help himself... and have some suiting minons arounds. Oh! And this bastard needs to be caught alive, for interrogation!

Messing with arcane forces of technology ? Battle Servitors can be as heavly armoured as your pc, simply better there stats. And are even meaner, since the Machine-Trait gives them an edge in ADDTION to TB. Send in enough of them so one of them WILL go after the psyker. Since these nasties do not really breath, they can unleash some gas in close combat. Make themact stupid while the Hallo-effect lasts. Add an renegade AdMech and make sure he has all those nice combat-talents. Like feedback screech and stuff.

Send them onto a death world . Such places are excellent hide outs. Most people do not tend to hang or search around in such places. For a reason, since while your group goes around in search for the hideout, you are in any right to send Appex Predators after them. Those whose attacks are not primitive and who use the underbrush to sneak around so you do not even notice them until one of them is on your bag. Use pack predators, so the group can not concentrate on one. While the first one strikes from behind, allow the pc to react (1 round). Then the rest of the pack will attack..from the other sides, surprising the pc again. Since you need 10 points to even damage them, use something with 1d10+4; non-primitive&Tearing and Pen:1. Not over the top for an DeathWorld Predator. Add enough Talents that give bonus and multi-attacks. Like Swift Attack and Furious Assault. Allow it to bite while grappling (+30 on attack. I suppose a Tiger would fight like that), doing damage while pinning his prey.
Swarms of tiny creatures are a good thing as well.Not as tiny as an ant...but ants or spiders as "tiny" as a hand. Scores of them from a nest. Or a "large moving hunting pack", like soldier ants.
Or go big time. Hunt them with saurians. Add +1d10 to the bite for suitable huge jaw (and keep the primitive).

Send in the Orks! If you own "Creatures Anathema", make them go up against well-equipped freebooters. With make-boys building "breachin ammo" (PEN: 3). Since it is "orkonoid" weapons, chances are slim that they will pick up any of the weapons you turn on them.
Send in the Eldar! Shuriken Weapons make short work out of most armour.

I hope something of this prooves helpfull

Our group are at the 10K XP mark and whilst our psyker has power rating 5 and Seal wounds, she eventually got so sick of doing nothing but healing us every round (which got boring as hell for her) and not using her other powers that we all need to be carefull in combat even at this level. Yes she can put us all back together very fast after combat but she has other stuff to do..

Does your Psyker not get bored with healing ALL the time?

S.K.