Hi Dark Heresy fans!

This week, I have a guest designer diary from author Sam Stewart talking about the Ascended Psychic Powers you will find in Ascension . Enjoy!

Looking good. Anxiously waiting this book. 1000 XP? Ouch . The ability to “trade in” Major and Minor Powers to reduce the cost is a REALLY good idea.

Sweet.

One Q however.. Will these powers also be subject to the Fettered, Unfettered, and Push rules?

threseshold of 16 for the rank one ability.. lots of force lightning stormwroth bolts flying round going by the average WPbonus of rank 8 psykers..

That seems awesome, I might end up making a psyker character.

Though, I'm worried it might end up with unbalanced characters, also it could lead to over powered ones as well, IDK how the XP system works (I presume when you trade in XP it could only go towards other powers) but I just hope you did a good system. (But I'm sure it is, off course.)

Also, now DH:A is green, does that mean next weeks Design Diary will be a press release? I know that'll make us happy. (Also, can you say if you've shipped to any shops in the UK or not, but I'm not really super how the shipping system works.)

Velvetears said:

True. 5 or 6 on average. More than enough to vapourize several tough opponents. But always remember the Golden Rule of Roleplaying regarding fireball tossing wizards/sorcerers/whatever: they will become primary targets. Even the most dimwitted evil minion will realize that nuking the Psyker will increase his chances of survival.

Velvetears said:

Yes. Last sentence, second to the last paragraph:

"Of course, the psyker will likely have to Push to manifest [Lightining Storm], but what’s a reward without a little risk?"

Nice news, great use of new Primaris Psyker art and one little question: would us not-so-petty warp dabblers, master sorcerers and devoted xanthites/oblationists get some sort of Ascended Arcana for Sorcery?

Aajav-Khan said:

Not to mention the power is said to act "like a shooting attack". Does this mean it just functions as an attack for the purposes of reactions ("Haha! I Parry your lightning bolts with my lightsab-errr...powersword!"), or does this also mean it requires an attack roll to hit?

Also, on the subject of trading in old powers to reduce the XP cost of new ones...this still, to me at least, begs the question of "What do I spend all my XP on?" 1000XP for a power off the bat isn't really too unrealistic considering its power, the costs of comparable abilities like mastered skill fields, paragon talents, and heroic-level characteristic advances, and the fact that Throne Agents are presumably going to wade through another 8 ranks and still have to make hard choices on what to buy.

I'm getting that sinking feeling from RT again, where I found things like an Arch-militant, a "warrior without peer" unable to receive Lightning Attack while half the other careers could (The Rogue Trader, for instance, at rank FIVE ), and other little disappointments amongst the careers. I'd really hate to open up Ascension, take a look at the Interrogator career (has myself and several others very interested) and go "Oh....is that all? Guess we're all playing the same interrogator now"

The Hobo Hunter said:

That is how I read it. You distribute the bolts among targets ( 3 vs A and 2 vs B ) and then roll to hit ( taking into account cover etc. ) for each bolt.

An interesting option, to trade in Major and Minor Psychic Powers for an XP reduction on the Ascended ones, however if one were to drop below 10 Powers in a Discipline, one would lose the huge advantage conferred by Mastery of it. I wonder if there will be some allowance made for that in the Ascended rules, or if it will simply be a choice between losing Psychic Mastery and having to pay the full XP cost...

There are certainly some Telekinetic Powers I would gladly lose, provided I could keep that +5 Manifestation for Mastery!

So we keep the DH dice pool system instead of the RT percentile system? Or did I read that wrong?

Aajav-Khan said:

I assume "acting like a shooting attack" is defined elsewhere.

....

Or I would have expected that, if this wasn't a DH book where standard is for rules to be vague and terms are not defined at all.

Hard to tell from just the one page tease if this power being used "as a shooting attack" means that the Psyker rolls BS for each bolt, rolls WP for each bolt (like some of the telekinesis powers) or some as-yet unmentioned system. What I DO take from that phrase is the target can spend their reaction to DODGE this attack (Or perhaps try to parry with a power/force weapon for cool Jedi action). In short, this is NOT an automatic death sentence to all you Guardsmen and Assassins out there with a WP 26.

The Hobo Hunter said:

My take would be that it means the target has a chance to dodge at least the first of the many bolts of electrified death heading at him as he could any other shooting attack. As long as he actually remembers that he can dodge them that is, we keep forgetting this in my group.

It's a psychic power aimed at a target by the mind so it shouldn't really miss unless the guy gets out of the way.

This power is almost exactly the one that Ciaphas Cain faces in Duty Calls, and he dodges a few force bolts (before killing the wyrds and emerging covered in glory).

When characters approach the level of influence where they can requisition a battalion of the Imperial Guard or perhaps exterminate an entire planet with orbital bombardment, I'm less concerned with a psycher being able to throw lightning and being overpowered

Besides, most of my players fear psychers. There's about a 1% chance that any time an ability is used the psycher will die horribly (A player lost one on his third session due to this and they've been wary ever since). A pretty big drawback! Of all the characters that my players envy, it's actually our Scum Acolyte. He's had some pretty cool scenes in meddling with the underworld, and it's ultimately these niche roles and spotlight moments which draw my players to classes more than being able to fry a henchman in combat.

The Hobo Hunter said:

Well, in that specific instance, Rogue Traders are the melee class, whereas Arch-militants are very much about blowing people up. I'm not sure why it's that way, but there you go.

Come on, even an Explorator out-melees a 'warrior without peer', and a Voidmaster does that while being better at commanding.

Will there be a new errata for Corpus Conversion? I feel the current errata3 version to be quite terrible.