Hi to all!

i need some clarification about those rules:

- Medicae Mechadendrite:

How medicae works with that? is it possible to first aid in combat (if so, it's a full action or half action)? it extends the range of first aid or is simply a bonus for the skill?

- Psychic powers:

Can Psychic bolts be used in melee?

Can Psychic bolts (ranged) suffer -20 against someone in melee?

Thank you for the time.

is it possible to first aid in combat (if so, it's a full action or half action)?

Using Medicae is a full action, so I believe it can be used in combat. Even more, Medicae Mechadendrite description shows directly that it created to do combat first aid.

Also medicae mechadendrite allows to use medicae as half action as rules says directly. I don't believe it extends the range though, because mechadendites are close-range things.

Can Psychic bolts be used in melee?

I believe they can.

Can Psychic bolts (ranged) suffer -20 against someone in melee?

Yes, I believe so - rules says psychic bolt attack is a subject for the same basic rules. Also enemy can dodge them as like as they dodge any shooting attack. So psyker using his mental capabilities to target an enemy, but it's targeting, not autohit.

I wonder though: can a psyker take Aim bonus to psychic attack?

Yes you can provide first aid in combat, it is a full action. Aenno, the medical mechadendrite doesn't say anywhere that it changes first aid to half action. The only mentions of half actions in its rules are that it allows you to automatically staunch bleeding as a half action (normally a free action that has a -20 penalty test that you can spend more actions to lower penalty) and attack with it as a half action.
It could be argued that the medical mechadendrite being 2m long could allow you to provide first aid from roughly that far away.

Aim specifically states that it does not work with psychic powers.

I would also say that the penalty for shooting into combat does not apply. Basically none of the ranged modifiers seem to apply to psychic bolts. Think of it this way, it would be much easier to hit your intended target rather than your ally when using an attack that you guide by thought rather than one that you must aim by hand.
Most combat penalties state specifically that they affect weapon skill or ballistic skill tests which focus power tests are neither.

There is nothing about focus power tests or psychic bolts in particular that would prevent them from being usable in melee.

You right about aim and mechadendrite, sorry.

About shooting in melee I'm not so sure though. This kind of attack can miss. It can be dodged. Also it uses random hit locations. Looks like it's not really guided attack but launched from your mind and flying it's own path later. And I never tried to hit a target guiding attack by thought, so I can't compare. I believe for some penalties focus test should be counted as ballistic skill test. Can't say why psy bolt should ignore darkness, for example,

I like an idea some homerules sets using though - that focus power test is for creating bolt, then you should hit your target with BS roll. Or use non-bolt powers.

I agree that its not super clear and that some modifiers like darkness could still be applied. Good thing about difficulty modifiers is they are pretty much always up to the GM so it's his/her call as to whether any particular one would apply in any specific circumstance.

With psychic powers it's questionable whether they miss exactly. A failed test is just as likely or even more likely to represent a failure to manifest any effect at all. So rather than throwing a fireball and missing it more often represents trying to manifest a fireball and nothing actually happening other than maybe a puff of smoke (or losing control and summoning a daemon instead in the case of a failure with a phenomenon or perils result mixed in). Dodging is abstract with ranged attacks so it can be with psy powers too. Might just be that the psyker needs to maintain focused eye contact and the dodge breaks that eye contact rather than avoiding a visible bolt. Assail is described as possibly being a bolt of invisible force or as being small objects hurled at the target. Clearly dodging an invisible bolt of force should be impossible but since the power is described in multiple ways it is both simpler and more fair to have the ability to dodge always apply. Since powers can be described in multiple ways, the ability to dodge doesn't indicate that a power is not at least somewhat guided by the mind. At the very least the initial aim would still be guided by thought though, which would leave hand eye coordination out of the picture and therefore still seem easier aiming wise.

Its also worth noting that you can argue psychic powers are technically not melee or ranged attacks, just attacks. All other attack actions are classified either ranged, melee or both in their subtype. No psychic powers have the ranged or melee subtype. This is why psychic attacks can all be made in melee. They are not bound by the ranged or melee subtypes.

This when combined with the fact that most combat modifiers specifically state weapon skill tests and/or ballistic skill tests leads me to believe that they shouldn't apply unless the GM has reason to believe they should in specific circumstances.

For the most part I would not have many of the normal modifiers apply since the focus power tests are more about manifesting the effect rather than being accurate. Penalties like adverse weather conditions, deafeningly loud noise and other things where some of the penalty could be from the distraction I would have apply but I wouldn't in the case of things like the target running or the target being stunned or prone etc.

I don't think shooting a psy power at an enemy in melee has actually ever come up in the game I'm in so I don't know how my GM would rule it. Our psyker is also one of our many melee characters.

Well, there are some powers that are attacks, but aren't dodgeable, such as Haemmorage or Life Leech, but they need to be in sight contact as well, it's noted. So I believe bolts (and all variations) are ranged attacks and so should use all the ranged attack basic rules. But it's really not as clear as I want.

i think that i will restrict the psychic bolts and barrage to ranged only for 2 reasons:

there are force weapons for melee and ONLY pistols can shoot into melee (so the rules is that you can't shot in melee, unless you have a pistol: psychic bolts are not pistols); i will keep the -20% peanlity for shooting into melee because it's the only thing that keeps someone alive (no cover)

i will look into black crusade and only war faqs for more info.

edit: the dh2 faq says only that you cannot use called shot action (because the action to manifest a psychic power is Focus Power).
so i presume that a psychic bolt use all the modifier of a ranged attack (size, special conditions ec.) apart from range (you don't have short range or long range for psychic powers) and the modifier for weapon fire mode (you can't use standard/semi/full with Psychic Powers, the power itself describe the difficulty of the action)

Both Aenno and I agreed that psychic bolts can be used in combat so why are you choosing to say they can't? It was one of the few things we completely agreed on. Why'd you ask in the first place?

That really cripples psykers' offensive capabilities when all you have to do is charge them to render many of their abilities useless. Access to force weapons doesn't make up for the lose of the ability to use so many of their abilities in combat considering force weapons are very difficult to acquire weapons that only very high level characters should have.

True psychic bolts are not pistols but they are not technically ranged attacks at all so it doesn't matter. Since they do not have the ranged subtype and also because they are not actually weapons they are not bound by the restrictions of weapon classes or ranged attacks so the pistol thing doesn't matter at all. They completely have their own set of restrictions and downsides and modifiers.


Not sure how you came to that modifier conclusion from the called shot FAQ...or maybe I'm just confused by your edit placement...but roughly that's how I would play it. Giving the -20 penalty for shooting into combat is reasonable though same with things like darkness.

Called shot is a completely separate action from focus power (so are suppressing fire and overwatch) and there is no way to combine actions which is why it can't be done with psychic powers but has nothing to do with situational modifiers or how they should be applied to psy powers at all.

Edit: first couple sentences come across as confrontational which was not my intention, sorry. I'm just curious how you came to that decision.

i made the assumption of considering all ranged attack not applicable in melee.
so normally, any ranged attack of any kind can't be used in melee
only pistol weapons are an exception to this rule.

maybe i'm generalizing too much (anyway i'm still talking about the bolts; Haemmorage, Life Leech and other powers that are not bolts can be used in melee i think)

i will talk to my players in the next session and ear their ideas about that and contact F.F.G. to a definitive answer!

i will post the answer here!

I have the answer here:

Yes, you can indeed use them in melee. It’s something I have on my list for the next FAQ release. Using blast of course might be dangerous though

I was assuming wrong!