That would be 54. Invocation doesn't double your WP bonus, but it lets you add your WPB to your next focus power roll (in addtion to the WP bonus you add anyway). if that WPB is three times the tens digit of the WP score, then that's what gets added to it.

As for Lightning Reflexes and Unnatural Agilty, for example.

And Unnatural Toughness and Daemonic.
And Unnatural Strength and Powerfists/Daemonhammers.

Cifer said:

I'm not sure this works the same way.

That giant flying daemon thingy in Disciples (should be either from the Menagerie or the Pilgrims) says so.

Cifer said:

Right, the rakasya.

Yes, Psykers are covered under the normal rules without Unnatural Characteristics...

BUT. It is also made clear (and I will try to look up a source for this) that being a Psyker, in and of itself, is a mutation.

"A critical to the head could easily be modded to damage the implant and you either need to get it removed or replace. Unnatural Intelligence as a "natural" trait within the character doesnt have that inherit drawback."

Untrue. Let's say a character with Unnatural Intelligence as a "natural" trait takes a critical hit to the head.

Umm, haven't you heard of brain damage? So in that sense, if you were to lose Unnatural Intelligence as the result of brain damage, it would be all but impossible to recover... it isn't like you can replace the damaged section of the brain as easily as an implant. (Replaced BY an implant, yes... but the Storyteller is within his rights to say that the implant, at best, restores you to your original level of functioning before you bought Unnatural Intelligence.)

In my opinion unnatural characteristics are ok for humans under certain circumstances.

But I would say that 1 should be the limit.

Say: no human should have more than one unnatural characteristic.

For the Vindicare that would mean that he could choose which one to take.

If a career has more than one to choose from I wohld allow to buy higher levels from the chosen one.

So again the Vindicare could buy rank 4 in one of his unnatural characteristics.

But as I think that wohld be fairer, every ascension career, that has no unnat. char. on their list could buy one of their choice as an elite advance.

As it is the vindicare with Ag, Str, T and Speed as unnatural compared to most other careers with not one just seems too much.

Even if it may sound cheesy, I stopped playing my Guardsman when our group reached ascension because we have a vindicare in our team wo would, after buying the unnatural characteristics, have been better or at least equal at everything my char was good in, while stimm exelling at other areas.

In that aspect Ascension is heavily unbalanced.

So I said good bye to playing a combat heavy char and are now playing a sage.

nabs said:

Using this comment as an example, how would it work? If psyker 'x' wants to cast a power that requires anything less than 36 (ie, pretty much every power in the books), then he can Fetter every single thing he does unless he wants to get Overbleed. He only every needs to roll a single die, even for the most pwoerful abilities.

There's never any need to Unfetter or Push powers. This seems stupid to me. Psychic powers suddenly become the safest things in the game.

Or am I missing something?

With the up to +30 on stats characters can get in ascension, even an average stat character can build up to a dynamo in his skills of choice, especially with Skill Matery.

If you start with say 30 at character generation (20+2D10 averages at 30) and buy all you advances for the stat you have it at 60, with Skill mastery and Talented (skill) you have your skill you are using at +30 with a bonus degree of success fo mastery. That puts you at 90.

Why on earth would you need Unnatural stats?

Peacekeeper_b said:

For some characters, they do make sense, though - a Magos, whose mind and body are as much steel, silicon and lubricants as flesh, bone and blood, should not necessarily be hindered by the natural limitations of his flesh. An Officio Assassin (who we know to be approximately as strong and tough as the Astartes, and also significantly quicker) is a heavily-augmented living weapon rather than a person (though I don't necessarily agree with them being viable choices as player characters)... I don't think they should be quite so prevalent as they are in Ascension (why the hell can a Death Cult Assassin pick up Unnatural Agility (x4) when the "inhumanly quick" Eldar Exarch in the same book only has Unnatural Agility (x2)?), but I can see places where they are appropriate...

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I will give you those examples, But adjusting the Machine (or is it The Flesh is Weak) trait/talent to be treated as additional TB would also work. But then again, I have no problem with Tech Priests getting Unnatural S or T or even INT.

Vindicare shouldnt be a PC and Death Cult assassins shouldnt get Unnat Agility at all.

Earlier on in the thread I noticed talk about unnatural toughness for Vindicare Assassins. I, personally, don't see this as much of a problem as an assassin is limited to low armour values unless they want to suffer penalties to sneaking etc. how ever this does seem to be counteracted by unnatural agility. Hmm, I think I may have just nerfed my own argument, oh well.

Continuing on with unnatural toughness, yes, it makes sense that a tech-priest could get it as he is hardly human and mostly machine however a tech-priest will normally have insane armour (read power armour or close to).

Also, in relation to scenarios which actually put PCs with unnat. toughness in damage, the other PCs should have decent armour by that point to start to make up for a lack of toughness.

Stern X said:

Which kind of degrades the worth of Unnatural Toughness as the oalayer pays for the advance with like 1000XP, while power armour is just money.

But as you said, that Tech Priest is going ot have other traits as well, such as Unnatural Toughness (x2) and Armour-Monger and Machine and Armour Plating. Plus good armour as well for a soak of around 18-20 or so.

LuciusT said:

So, you run games without psykers? What kind of enemies do you face?

On topic, I'm of the opinion that the Vindicare assassins are represented pretty faithfully to the lore. I also think that makes them death on two legs in any campaign that isn't tailored around them. The same could be said of the Primaris Psyker. The unnatural stats are a large part of this, and if you feel they're overshadowing the rest of your players in a campaign, I could definately see brining them down a notch or two.

One way to do it is to emphasize the "unnnatural" part of the characteristic. Make it clear that they're not just going to dish out XP, no matter how tidy a sum, and get the reward. They'll have to gain access to the highest quality Adeptus Mechanicus bio-Magi and facilities, or the finest biomancers of the Adeptus Telepathica, or other, perhaps more sinister means. It should be an adventure in and of itself, and once they gain the trait, you need to make it clear that it's not fail-proof, and that overuse or overreliance can strain/overload/compromise whatever is giving them that unnatural stat. If despite your best effort, there's still a disparity in power, take the player aside and explain the situation to them. Ask them their thoughts and opinions, see what they say. The result might surprise you.

Generally, I allow Unnatural Characteristics (UC, for simplicities sake) to effect passive abilities only; Damage, Speed, Wounds (I allow Toughness Bonus to HP in my games) etc. Any special ability that states an Attribute that has UC in effect doesn't count the heightened Bonus, for instance, th Vindicares dodge ability would count normal Agility Bonus, not the UC Agility Bonus, same with the Psyker.

I know I have a natural bent towards using the nerf bat on psykers, but to the points... there really are few uses of unnatural stats, and unnatural WP is the really bad offender here....

Unnatural strength : Ya, you might be rockin, but my normal strength guardsman in power armor is still rolling with an auto cannon. GG with that power fist

Unnatural speed: so your assassin gets to go first in the round? Meh, sounds ok, considering she is 1/3 the assassin the vindicare is... I can accomplish going first in the round with lightning reflexes

Unnatural Agility: not a super huge problem on its own, unfortunately the class that gets this also gets extra dodges and unnatural toughness... by itself, Eldar are still squishy, unless they happen to be dire avengers with dire avenger shurken catapults (1d10+4, tearing 6 pen)

unnatural Int: let me see. no combat effectiveness ,EXCEPT for medicae. Every other instance, he progresses the story line with his higher skill checks. I'm ok with that!

Unnatural toughness: This is definately a problem stat... but not so much on the tech priest (who can still get his damage resist almost to 30), and really just a major problem with the vindicare class in general.

Unnatural Will: Well, not really a big problem on any class at all, unless ofcourse you have a psy rating... If you nerf Psychic power to be Psi rating based as opposed to will based.. this trait is really quite fine.

I strongly doubt there are many groups who struggle with unnatural Willpower characters... There is no problem at all! This involves talking about psykers, which comes to 3 camps.

a) those who understand math, and how horribly broken they are, and want balance in their game.

-A has probably already nerf bat psykers with using their psy rating instead of WP for bonus, and likely already changed unnatural to a +1 bonus

b) those who understand math, and how horribly broken they are, but want them to be true to the Warhammer fluff

-B doesnt care about unnatural willpower, Psykers are supposed to be broken!

c) Those who dont understand the math, and somehow think they are balanced.

-C doesnt care about unnatural willpower, afterall, psykers are balanced!

All of the unnatural stats are fine really, and the main problem is the vindicare... In my opinion, thats why they put TWO assassin classes in the book. The death cultist is for PCs and the vindicare is mainly a NPC class. Seriously, does anyone actually have a vindicare in their group with the unnaturals? Our group looked at it, and nobody wanted it, as we collectively decided it was off limits and not really appropriate to the gaming group.

I think the vindicare is properly represented, but I dont think even inquisitors just get pet vindicares for entire campaigns... they are like use as needed kind of tools... being more rare than space marines. they just arent a real good PC class.

linearblade said:

AND when used with the talent Combat Formation, which allows other PCs to use the chacter's Intelligence Bonus for Initiative rolls. Most individuals with Unnatural Intelligence have a high Intelligence as it is, so you are talking about the entire party using a +8 (or +10 or +12) for initiative.

Hopefully at that level, it will be capable of representing the experience the team has working together and getting into scraps - everyone is fast to react, as a team.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Well, if the parties Sage is providing combat use to the combat... I'm really OK with that

The fact that unnatural INT actually alittle more use now, I'm way way happier...

IMO the biggest mistake in unnatural characteristics (not necessarily the concept) is the multiplication. Why they thought this was a good idea I do not know.

It creates silly jumps in stats in a game where things have at least some semblance of gradation/progression (I'm not too happy about advanced skills going from 0-100 in one go either).

If instead Unnatural Characteristics were like Sound Constitution then it would solve many of the problems associated with them. You wouldn't NEED to have an ork at TB8 simply because UT doubles Toughness. Space marines wouldn't NEED to be SB10 and thus do more damage in a single punch that a deadly hand gun can do and so on. You wouldn't NEED to have TB15 hive tyrants to compete with the above.

That multiplication is at the heart and soul of most of the problems with unnatural characteristics.

Instead, how about each level of an UC adds 1 to the Bonus value. Someone going from Ag54 to Unnatural Agility 4 has an AgB of 9, not 20...

If the increase needs to affect the % chance of success on tests with that stat then you could double the level as a % - so that aforementioned Death cultist with UAg4 would get +8 to tests with Agility. Not as good as actually increasing your agility, but then this isn't a standard agility increase.

This also allows a PC ork to level to nob stats (where at the moment a nob is USx2) without jumping from S56 to S56 (10) in one go.

Hellebore

I kinda see why people like the +1 increase as opposed to the multiplier increase, but really the major problem again with unnatural stats is when they are applied to certain classes that have balance issues...

Your tech priest may actually resemble a dreadnaught, or some combat servitor... but I'm guessing he has the agility of one as well... Not to mentionhe doesnt get to play except when you are going to find something and kill it. Krak missiles and lascannons WILL kill him, as will psykers, who dont really care too much about your armor rating anyway...

Unnatural toughness problems come from the vinidare... you could have every class get unnatural tough, and it wouldnt be a problem for any of them... Thats why monsters have it rather prodigiously... But add it to the vindicare, who also stacks it up with extra dodges , and super high agility etc, and now you have a problem.

Same with unnatural Willpower... if psyker abilities were based on psi rating and not will power. nobody would care if psyker got it. why? because the incremental power increase is minimal... ya he overbleeds alittle more, but bottom line is he was already auto casting his spell anyway.

its really poor class design, not the unnatural stat that is breaking the character.

linearblade said:

Does the Vindicare get Unnatural Toughness?

What I dont like about Unnatural stats is when PCs just pay a XP fee and get them. These are things that should be gained from plat related events in game and not some game mechanic. Most Unnatural stats represent something natural about a xeno species or critter. Some unnatural stats are rather simple to get (as a means to explain away the advance), since we know strength, toughness and intelligence can be altered that way by bionics and cybernetics, I would also allow perception to be altered that way. But things like agility and will power and fellowship, these things should only be altered by external forces, such as daemonic pacts, divine intervention and so forth.

Gaining cyberware faces the consequneces of surgery (infection, rejection) and logically could be damaged by criticals and other sustained injuries. There is also the finance cost and time.

Nope, I dont like the "hey, here's 1000XP, no I got super agility" effect.