Idaan said:

I ranted to my group a little bit the other night during a discussion about Ascension, and the main point I made was we as a group need to stop thinking of it as simply Dark Heresy if we're going to be playing Ascension. The scale is increased, the power of everything has dramatically skyrocketed and your lowly little redshirt Acolytes are now important, powerful Throne Agents. Where Daemons might have been a boss before, now they are almost cannon fodder.

I think the best example I gave was I just pointed to the back of the book where they have the stats for a Lord of Change and said "They expect us to fight something like this at some point. That is how far we've come."

If you're worried about your Vindicare dodging everything, throw something at him he can't dodge or simply tell him/her no. You're the GM, you have every right to look your player in the eye and tell them "I don't think so, you aren't dodging a charging Juggernaut" after it bursts through the wall next to them.

Mrakvampire said:

Yeah, probably. While I'm not sure the VA should be viable as a PC class, the stats seem accurate representations of the fluff.

Artemesia said:

Bombernoy said:

What, exactly, do you want a Psyker to be able to do, then? If he can do the same things as everyone else, but worse or with immense risk involved, then he's pointless, and the natural, obvious uses of things like telepathy, telekinesis, etc, etc are, shock horror, things like reading minds, moving objects with only willpower, and so forth. Do you want telepaths to be incapable of reading or influencing minds? Telekines incapable of moving objects with their minds? Do you want them to catastrophically implode if they dare to attempt anything beyond the mundane?

In the time since DH was first released, I've seen as many people complain that psykers are too risky to play as people who complain that there's not enough risk. Both sides invariably quote all manner of carefully-selected statistics to back up their claims... essentially, the matter is one of personal opinion and personal bias.

As an aside, people who feel that telepathy > all other forms of information gathering clearly have run across games/GMs that didn't account for the telepath properly. It's all fair and good reading minds for info (it's one of the reasons the Inquisition is so effective; they're willing to use psykers to get the evidence)... until you realise that the information you need isn't actually in the mind of any character you've come across, and you'll have to work a little harder for it. That's a matter of GMing and nothing more.

*remembers the days when DH came out and the first posts on the forums were~This games broken, we're so weak we cant do anything wah wah wah~*

Nothing really changes i guess, some folks just gotta whine about something to validate themselves.

Velvetears said:

Including you it would seem, who has come into a forum where people have been pointing out overlying flaws, to complain about it. And to respond to the person who responded to what I said. I want Psykers to not lose all the risk inherent in being a psyker, I really don't think that's asking a whole lot. And at Ascension level forget trying to read a mind, why not do the whole room? And while you may not get the deepest thoughts, you're likely to know who you need to get deeper into after that, because they will likely be thinking about how best to lie to the big =I=. But that's just my 2 cents, and I am definently not saying my word is right or law or never wrong, it is a lot and I may be over/under thinking it.

Me complain? so far not once about the game, oh i've asked Q's here and there but not complained once about this game, it's one i've waited over 20 years to have been made so i've no gripes about it.

As for Psy powers, in Acension i just take it that level is akin to the novels, so it's even more fun to do.

Velvetears said:

Didn't say anything about the game, you complained about the complaining. And if thats the level of power you like, that's the great thing about PnP games, you can play at those power levels, while another group can completely scrap that power, meaning everyone gets a game they enjoy.

Bombernoy said:

Thats somethign we both agree on, the mystical 1st Rule of gameing.

It's your game, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law

N0-1_H3r3 said:

This reminds me of the heretical organisation from Dan Abnett's Ravenor that trained its members in deep memory suppression and transformation techniques such that even under telepathic interrogation critical memories couldn't be uncovered as they no longer existed.

Khouri said:

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I think the problems not that the psyker can be better at anything but that the risk for being better at potently anything has been removed so they could be better at most things and suffer little to no drawbacks for it.

Graver said:

I just had a page by page flick of a friend's copy, and I can say imo this is indeed the worst book of the line today. It is considerably worse imo than RH (the previous low water mark imo), and worse even than I was expecting having seen all the negative buzz here.

I won't get into the rules as I have not read them, but there is almost no new setting detail or fluff in the entire book. Malfi gets a few pages, but doesn't really get much that we don't already know, the Inquisitorial factions are repeated again (does anyone not know these yet?), the adventure is nothing special, and the equipment chapter is brief and largely uninspiring, the classes don't even give engaging and interesting backgrounds (unlike the IH).

I can see why it's getting slated, it's the first DH book I won't be buying. I just hope Lure of the Expanse is a lot better than this.

EDIT - The only slight good note is that at least there is considerably less repeat art in this book, and the art quality generally is okay.

Uh Oh... this book seems to get alot of critisism...

Not even Ravenor is as powerfull as some of the stuff here suggests, and he was one of the strongest psykers around(even when he was unaugmented).

But sure this is "your" story so why wouldnt "your" characters happen to be the badass of that segmentum during "your" time?

Buying Unnatural Cha seems a little bit strange but a good GM can with the help of the Players solve this.

I will get it but im not keeping my hopes up. Most Acolytes die in my games before they get to this level anyway.

Ravennor isn't portrayed as being particularly powerful. A Gamma level psyker outmuscles him in the first Ravenor book . Some Alpha plus Psykers can destroy Titans according to the background material.

Ravenor is considered one of the most potent psyker in the service of the Imperium. (was what i meant).

Anonymus said:

Potency can mean many things; Ravenor has a particular combination of dedicated focus (because he hasn't really got anything to focus on but his psychic powers), skill, and a reasonable amount of raw power. Considered collectively, those factors make him an exceptionally capable psyker (for a human).

Also his power seems to grow as time goes on, Eisnhor theoryises that he is an alpha towards the end of Malleus.

UncleArkie said:

OT:

Oh nice. Where have you read this? Omnibus? (i bought the books separatly when they came out)