It also bears pointing out that this is not the same scope as Dark Heresy. In Dark Heresy you play grunts, semi-random folks with a few useful skills to ferret out bad men and thier plans. Rogue Trader is about the exceptional few who command ships and thier exploits among the stars. These are clearly the more exceptional members of the crew, not the rank and file.

The Astropaths are the weaker of the two by definition, being bonded to the Emperor makes them safe enough to put on ships in the void and bolsters thier lack of will. To me that clearly means that the majority of Astropaths are going to be "Formated" to comunication will have little to no personallity beyond that. On the other hand, in a Rogue Trader vessel they could favor a more autonomous communicatior and would actively seek the ones that survived the bonding more intact than not. This would make the player Astropath the shining exception to other Astropaths like the Militant is the shining exception of the Guardsman. I would play an Astropath like a mind wiped character, but the psyker would have history and social awareness reflecting a complete person in a way my Astropath could not.

Just my .02, I have not read Rogue Trader yet so I reserve the right to hang my head in shame when I get the complete rules. I am just basing this on the books I have read, I have yet to see an example of an astropath who was not like the precogs in the Minority Report movie.

Inquisitor Huntingmoon said:

There's nothing explicitly forbidding this, but nothing supports it either. I think I would find it less interesting as a player, but to each their own.

I always felt that there should be two real characteristics in dealing with psychic powers: psychic POWER and psychic SKILL.

In the Ravenor books, Ravenor encounters a far more powerful psyker (Beta to his Gamma) but defeats him through his more profound psychic skill and subtlety.

The reason I raise this is in relation to the argument about sactioned psyker power levels v astropath power levels. I would agree that the background suggests that, on the whole, sanctioned psykers would tend to have more psychic POWER, and perhaps even willpower, because the Adeptus Astra Telepathica has decided that they're safe to use their powers with soul binding.

But this doesn't preclude an Astropath being far more skilful in the application of his powers.

So I don't see any reason why an astropath would be unable to mix it with the best of them in psychic combat, subject to a set of psychic powers that nicely.link to the setting.

(I always felt the best way to do 40k psychic powers would be to randomly generate power level at character creation, stick with that forever, but increase psychic skill as time went on. The background always suggests that power level is something you're born with, but how you apply that power is somethng you learn over time. I suspect this wouldn't be popular with most players, though! TS Luikart has (to wildly paraphrase/misquote) suggested that the DH system was always designed as an approximation of this process, power levels being a theoretical amalgam of inherant power AND accumulated skill.)

The novel Blind deals heavily with astropaths. Definitely recommended reading for anyone who wants to play an astropath. Here's what I can recall off the top of my head.

In the book there seems to be two ways an astropath can go; either they are worn away by their work and the soulfire that burns within them or, as time goes on, they harden like leather, becoming more resilient and sure in their abilities. Sensory degradation can occur, one example being an astropath who looses more of her sense of touch as time goes on, starting from the head and travelling downwards. Even the latter, stronger examples of astropaths can start to have their minds stretched thin by their work as they grow older. Many of the more powerful astropaths are not blank slates, some remembering their previous lives upon their homeworlds. Others feel that they become new people during the soul binding, taking on new names (Sacredsteel being one that springs to mind).

Astropaths Trascendant most definitely fall into the latter category and they seem like powerful psykers in their own right, if more limited in terms of variety.

So, I'm curious how (if) Invocation works with all of this.

How do sustained powers work ?

Each additional sustained power adds a -10 modifer to your skill check, you also check a different column on the "power chart" or whatever its called, which determines the possibility, and severity of the perils of the warp.

ok then.. how does Power well work? Discipline Mastery? Discipline Focus?

All of these talents add to your Power roll (or in the case of Discipline Mastery reduce the PT)...Does that mean they are now just Bonuses to your rolls?

Also, and this may just be me, but doesn't this make the use of psychic powers a hell of a lot more difficult to use than they where before...I could use the example of a character from our game with uber high willpower and Psy ating 4.. but its at the lower levels I'm more concerned.

Minor Psychic Discipline Torch, Power Threshold of 5. Lets assume an average WB of 3, our psyker elects to create a "torch" and ignores invocation. He is at 3 to begin with and needs to roll a 2 or more to successfully manifest his Warp created glo-stick. That's a 90% chance of success...

Now admittedly I don't have the RT book yet and can only go from the bare bones peeps have presented on here but rolling off of willpower with a +5% bonus for the Psyker's 1 rating translates to a basic 35% chance...

So that's made it 55% less likely.

AND if the brief comment about Perils occuring on doubles is correct then your still going off of the "ridiculously over frequent" 1 in 10 Perils chance... except this time your not only getting the same degree of perils BUT 7 times out 10 when your peril occurs you've also failed to use the power!

I'm obviously going to wait till I get the book to make any solid conclusions but thought I'd throw this out in the meantime.

Ok, I recommend everyone take a much closer look at the Psychic Power section and play test as-is before jumping to conclusions and making a bunch of game-breaking house rules.

First, every power is not equally easy to use, some of the most basic don't even require a roll, while the most powerful require multiple rolls or a large DoS to achieve their full effect. The BASE target number is [stat+{Psyx5)], but how much above that you can go, or below that you NEED to go, or whatever other rolls that follow it are required depend on the scale and scope of the power.

Second, there is a chart distinguishing the difference in how phenomena and pushing works for Astropaths, Sanctioned Psykers, Unsanctioned Psykers, and Sorcerers.

Finally, the big differences between Sanctioned Psykers and Astropaths is in the powers themselves. Astropaths generally only get Telepathy, Divination, and Telekinesis, and always have to start with Telepathy first. They get some special abilities that Sanctioned Psykers generally don't, and their soul-binding (a career path ability they start with) makes things even safer for them. Sanctioned Psykers follow the same Fettered, Unfettered, and Push rules, but lack the soul binding, and have a lot more powers (there isn't a long list of minor powers that Astropaths load up on) that can cover disciplines that no Astropath normally could develop (no Astropath will ever let loose with 'Holocaust').

Personally I like the new system because, as someone already mentioned, you can have a difference between raw-power and finesse/skill. A high perception and willpower is almost as good as a high Psy rating, and two "psy 4" psykers can be vastly different in actual ability.

Aureus said:

I agree. I think the new astropath rules present a kind of a "professsional psyker" much more along the lines of the various astropath models which have graced the tabletop over the years. Their powers are broad, and subtle, but controllable and are based on their personal abilities as much as their connection to the warp

. The adition of the fettered/unfettered/push dynamic more or less fixes the Sanctioned Psyker career and keeps them more or less in line with their original concept. A sanctioned psyker now has the possiblity of being the same, unpredictable, overpowered, and potentially catastrophic force he used to be. Now, however, we have the fettered options, which allow for a more calm and collected "inquisitorial" psychic if that's what the player prefers. I love the complexity.

Aureus said:

QUOTED. FOR. TRUTH.

/It's nice to see that there are other people who read the full rules before forming conclusions.