Do I see another fine thread headed down the toilet?

Aside from perils, there is no limit to the number of powers that can be manifested, right? I have always felt there should be a test to see if the psyker becomes fatigued. Seems to happen in the fluff, with the more powerful manifestations being more tiresome. Not sure how to work it though. Just a thought.

Eponral said:

If you are sustaining a power and try to activate another power the threshold is increased. Look at the Sustaining powers section.

linearblade said:

I'm going to assume you didn't play the original 40,000 RT. From day one psyker's were fear for that very reason. They draw things from the warp to them like moths to a flame. While you should have some way to midigate, like favored of the warp, I whole heartedly hate Fettered. No use should ever be free from fear unless your an Eldar or something.

As to Fate, i believe you could allow the player to Burn a fate to avoid perils, but I'd never allow just spending a fate to avoid it.

JMTC.

Eponral said:

Indeed, each power increases the thresh hold (requiring more power to be pumped into it, making it more likely to fail or manifest a peril), and you can only have 4 powers up at once I believe.

<Ahem>

To clarify, I SPEND FPs to reroll on perils chart & have BURNED several points to avoid a negative peril that would have resulted in either my character's death or the deaths of one or more of my party (I used to spend points, now I have Favoured bythe Warp, so that's much less of an Issue).

Along the way, the GM's character has managed to amass 6 or 7 FPs, never having BURNED even one FP. So why do you insist that Psykers have it easy?

Also, one other thng I have noticed, after re-reading the orignal post,and a few others. A common thread is to make the Psykers use Ballistic Skill or Strength or some other stat, other than what they specialize in to make their powers work. Ok, I might buy something like that... maybe if we started making Guardsmen or Assassins start making Fellowship rolls to appease their gun spirits, so their weapons work all the time. Or make Tech-Priests make a Willpower test if they want to use something other than tech to fight an opponent.

Yes, those seem like silly comments. But changing the rules of the game because some of you can't handle the issues of a Psyker seems ludicrous. Tell ya what, when you try running a Psyker, in game, and start living with the issues, then come talk to me.

Also, one other thng I have noticed, after re-reading the orignal post,and a few others. A common thread is to make the Psykers use Ballistic Skill or Strength or some other stat, other than what they specialize in to make their powers work. Ok, I might buy something like that... maybe if we started making Guardsmen or Assassins start making Fellowship rolls to appease their gun spirits, so their weapons work all the time. Or make Tech-Priests make a Willpower test if they want to use something other than tech to fight an opponent.

Psykers are the only class who can base their entire character around a single stat. Try making a guardsman with nothing but Ballistic skill stat-wise and pit him against a psyker with nothing but willpower.

The guardsman then has the awesome ability to shoot a gun with great accuracy. Meanwhile, the psyker can destroy just about anything, turn invisible, mind control, heal, dodge, block projectiles, teleport and just about anything else he can think of, all based on WP+psy rating.

So yeah, other classes actually NEED more than one stat as is. Psykers do not, they have a WP-powered swiss army knife of ultimate gamebreaking in their head.

But changing the rules of the game because some of you can't handle the issues of a Psyker seems ludicrous.

Why? You seem perfectly fine with changing the rules to allow for things such as fate point re-rolls of psychic phenomena and your proposed ascended über psyker. In fact, the pattern seems to be that it's all right to change the rules so your psyker gets better, but never in the opposite direction.

Which is fine and understandable, you don't want a character you love to become worse at what s/he does. But don't claim it's on some kind of general principle against changing the rules when it's clearly not.

Tell ya what, when you try running a Psyker, in game, and start living with the issues, then come talk to me.

I have. Also, I've GM'd with a psyker in the group and I've played as something other than a psyker with a psyker in the group. And I still think psykers shouldn't get an easier time. I'm not sure I dislike that psykers are that good, but it needs to come with a drawback. In DH's case this is perils of the warp, and when you introduce houserules that take away from that danger the class becomes truly overpowered.

Shoot, double post.

Denmar1701 said:

Spending FP's to reroll perils makes it actually quite easy, since the GM doesn't have to let you really. The chances of you rolling something REALLY bad considerably. **** can and still does happen, but its a bit more controlled for you. However, if the GM-PC has 6 or 7 FPs I would kind of wonder if he's not handing out FP a bit too freely.. Thats quite a considerable amount. But yeah, keep in mind that the reason you've had to burn your FP's is probably liberal use of psyker abilities. Psykery is powerful as hell, and definitive to the character, but using them a lot results in.. Well, that.

However, when we talk of a Guardsman with nothing but massive BS versus a Psyker, than we can deal with some fun as well. Suddenly, we can have a Guardsman 1,000m (well outside of the effect range Psyker can do anything, or even sense) taking an aimed shot at the Psykers face, and he can suddenly end up with 3d10+5 pen 3 smacking him in the gob. Or even more fun, at 1,200m a MP las cannon smacking the Psyker in the face for 5d10+10 pen 10. The psyker isn't aware of these attacks so he cant react to them until they hit him, and that is a fast way to ruin his day. Hell, if we wanted something even more simplistic a strong character could just charge in and grapple the psyker, and the psyker is now helpless since by RAW Psykers cant focus power while in a Grapple, and psykers don't tend to have high Strength required to take control of a grapple.

Yes, psykers will get the most out of pumping one stat, but it leaves them weak in other areas - they can only have 4 manifests and they can only manifest once per round, so they require some setup time to go from 0 to God, and without other stats it can hurt them. Force Swords are probably the most insanely dangerous thing in the game, and that requires WS and S pumped up. To be in Melee you'll want to be able to soak blows or avoid them, so T or AG, and those are good to have either way. Yadda yadda. I could argue as well that the Adept who just pumped Intelligence is effective, the Scum who just pumped FEL is effective, the Guardsman who just pumped BS is effective, the assassin who just pumped AGI is effective. It just narrows their roles more than the Psyker - and the Psyker can also be shut down by circumstances. Psyker abilities are generally flashy and can draw attention to themselves, no-one likes psykers. Psykers can detect other psykers, and using powers auto-prompts detection. Psykery doesn't work on nulls, yadda yadda.

However, when we talk of a Guardsman with nothing but massive BS versus a Psyker, than we can deal with some fun as well. Suddenly, we can have a Guardsman 1,000m (well outside of the effect range Psyker can do anything, or even sense) taking an aimed shot at the Psykers face, and he can suddenly end up with 3d10+5 pen 3 smacking him in the gob. Or even more fun, at 1,200m a MP las cannon smacking the Psyker in the face for 5d10+10 pen 10. The psyker isn't aware of these attacks so he cant react to them until they hit him, and that is a fast way to ruin his day. Hell, if we wanted something even more simplistic a strong character could just charge in and grapple the psyker, and the psyker is now helpless since by RAW Psykers cant focus power while in a Grapple, and psykers don't tend to have high Strength required to take control of a grapple.

I'd still bet on the psyker. Some creative use of divination and telepathy would have that guardsman dead without even knowing something was wrong.

Graspar said:

Assuming, of course, she has those abilities and has them active. Sustaining powers constantly is not only going to be physically and mentally taxing, but mechanically it will mean you suffer negatives to the activation of all other powers. Once a psyker knows he is in combat, he's a god - but a good surprise attack can even most fields of battle.

Yeah, but this is a hypothetical. If the psyker is to be either poorly built for the encounter or unaware even of the fact that there's a good chance someone will try to hurt him today there's no real point. Every character ever would die under such circumstances.

Graspar said:

The proper build is a subjective issue. Is a person who specializes in Pyromancy and thus has no DIvination and Telekinetic baddassery a poor build? They are a combat powerhouse, but he isn't all knowing, all seeing ... still, put a bunch of enemies in front of him and they are toast. Or what of the character who specializes in Biomancy and Healing? He can be a combat beast and heal the party from all sorts of baddness, but that doesn't mean he is omniscient.

It is ridiculous to say "All psykers must have this power combination" - if this is the case you had might as well admit the entire system is broken.

Oh yes, and part of the point about the psyker not being unstoppable because that sniper could take him out is - yes - ANYONE can be taken out in the right circumstances ... and a smart enemy isn't going to try to assassinate you on the day you're most expecting it.

The proper build is a subjective issue. Is a person who specializes in Pyromancy and thus has no DIvination and Telekinetic baddassery a poor build? They are a combat powerhouse, but he isn't all knowing, all seeing ... still, put a bunch of enemies in front of him and they are toast. Or what of the character who specializes in Biomancy and Healing? He can be a combat beast and heal the party from all sorts of baddness, but that doesn't mean he is omniscient.

It is ridiculous to say "All psykers must have this power combination" - if this is the case you had might as well admit the entire system is broken.

A valid point, but it's hardly fair to tailor a suprise encounter and then say "Oh, and the psyker doesn't have the powers that would help against this".

So let's take a look at what the different disciplines could do against such an ambush assuming they find out about the ambush prior to the first shot.

Telekinetics: Catch projectiles stops WPB hits per round as a reaction. Shouldn't be a problem.

Biomancy: I'll just manifest "shape flesh" and fly, a run action puts me outside the range of anyone still on the ground.

Divination: Far sight let's me spot the ambush before I'm in range, then I'll manifest Preternatural awareness to add my WPB+WPB/10 overbleed to initiative. SO I'll go first and Divine shot let's me hit with any ranged weapon automatically.

Pyromancy: Kind of suck in this scenario. Nothing that helps survivability or has enough range. But then again since this is a psyker optimized for WP He'll get his mastery long before he runs out of psy ratings to gain new disciplines with. *edit* Actually, molten man from DotDG would at least help some in enduring the damage, especially against the proposed las-cannon.

Telepathy: Projection let's you move up to the guardsman at "the speed of thought" as an incorporeal spectre and use whatever telepathy powers you want on him. Terrify, Psychic screech, dominate or soul killer.

So yeah, depending on the disciplines the psyker has chosen he might be slightly worse or better off. But all except one gives a decent chance to survive or even dominate the encounter if the psyker has given some thought to what can be done about long range ambushes. And this is an encounter that is just about as good as it gets for a BS focused character. Long range with good visibility, knowledge of your targets path and heavy weapons.

Oh yes, and part of the point about the psyker not being unstoppable because that sniper could take him out is - yes - ANYONE can be taken out in the right circumstances ... and a smart enemy isn't going to try to assassinate you on the day you're most expecting it.

But that kind of invalidates the whole idea of comparing characters against eachother. Giving one side the enormous force multipliers of "You don't know he's there, you don't get to do anything until you're dead" would give the guardsman a decent chance against anything up to greater daemons and armoured vehicles. It's a valid situation for a game, that doesn't make it a valid situation for an encounter unless you can show how that situation logically follows from the build of the characters you're comparing.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that the Psyker is probably the most overpowered career in the game (prior to the temple assassin) - I just don't believe he is unstoppable as some people are suggesting.

As for the Psyker being a god with only one good stat ... there is the issue that Perils should make many psykers gun shy and thus they are all well advised to improve other stats to make themselves less warp dependent. (I know I've seen enough Perils to have had to tell Players "yeah, sucks, I advise improving your BS so you can actually shoot people sometimes")

That said, I don't like the idea of making their powers more reliant on another stat ... people have suggested elsewhere that instead of WP bonus, many powers should use Psy rating when determining bonuses ... this seems a good idea, especially since Psy rating doesn't get a stat multiplier at any point like WP does.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that the Psyker is probably the most overpowered career in the game (prior to the temple assassin) - I just don't believe he is unstoppable as some people are suggesting.

As for the Psyker being a god with only one good stat ... there is the issue that Perils should make many psykers gun shy and thus they are all well advised to improve other stats to make themselves less warp dependent. (I know I've seen enough Perils to have had to tell Players "yeah, sucks, I advise improving your BS so you can actually shoot people sometimes")

I agree, the psyker who spends all his XP on psy ratings, psychic powers, WP advances and other psyker exclusive stuff is poorly rounded and will probably pay for it down the line. If nothing else, such a character will either sit idly by in most situations or get a boatload of phenomena and perils. Which isn't as much fun as playing a psyker who augments his mundane skillset with psychic powers now and again. And fun is as you all know mandatory.

But a psyker CAN be built to rely solely on psychic powers and can do pretty much everything anyway. It's more risky than a well rounded psyker, but psyker is the only class who can get away with increasing a single stat while keeping the others mediocre. As a tech priest you really need to increase either toughness or agility to survive damage (or just hide in a corner when there's combat, that's not as fun), WS or BS to kill stuff, WP to handle fear and Int to actually be able to work with technology.

The psyker can kill with WP, endure damage with WP, pretty much everything with just WP. In that it's a unique class. Anyway, I was making this entire argument as a response to Denmar1701s argument that making some psychic powers reliant on other stats than WP would be akin to "having the guardsman boost fellowship to appease the machine spirit" or "having the tech priest make WP tests to fight using other things than tech". It wouldn't, and anyway those classes ALREADY need more than one stat and that was my entire point.

That said, I don't like the idea of making their powers more reliant on another stat ... people have suggested elsewhere that instead of WP bonus, many powers should use Psy rating when determining bonuses ... this seems a good idea, especially since Psy rating doesn't get a stat multiplier at any point like WP does.

Yes, that's about the only way fettered/unfettered/push system introduced to DH in ascension makes sense.

Graspar said:

If I hadn't been allowed to use FPs to re-roll phenoms, then I likely would have run out of FPs by now, and be quite dead.

And so would half the party.

And it seems grossly unfair for other players to use FPs to re-roll tests, and not to allow Psykers to do the same thing when using their abilities.

And finally in case you weren't paying attention, I have probably the second lowest FP total (one idiot has none, and I should have let him die seveal sessions ago) of anyone in my group, because I have burned several to stay alive or to keep others alive. I know my gm's character has 6 or 7, the assassin has 6 and others have 4 or 5.

Argue as much as you want about RAW. That's the point of a forum, to find a fair middle ground for all the players, not just a way to stick it to one group or another, because someone has been lucky on a few dice rolls or cheated better than you could catch.

I f I hadn't been allowed to use FPs to re-roll phenoms, then I likely would have run out of FPs by now, and be quite dead.

And so would half the party.

And it seems grossly unfair for other players to use FPs to re-roll tests, and not to allow Psykers to do the same thing when using their abilities.

That's just the thing. Perils of the warp isn't a test. The dice you use for manifestations are the test, you should re-roll those instead. My problem isn't with psykers re-rolling tests like everyone else, it's when you roll the actual test (the power dice for manifestations) and want to spend a fate point not to re roll the effects of that test instead of the actual test.

Example: You roll 5 power dice, get one nine. If you spend your fate point like everyone else for your test you might get no nines. Or two. Or get more or less overbleed. Or outright fail to manifest. And you're not sure if it was just a chill breeze or full out daemonhost.

If you instead re-roll your phenomena you can just wait and say "Oh so that one nine was perils of the warp? Well naturally I'll re-roll that" with no risk of messing up more (like everyone else has to take when re-rolling tests) and you get to see the full result of your screwup before you have to decide if it's worth a fate point or not.

Compare to an assassin dodging 7 FA hits, doing reasonably well and avoiding 6 hits. If he has to choose there if he wants to spend a fate point to re-roll there's no way anyone would do it. On the other hand, suppose the assassin gets to re-roll the damage of that one bullet after the fact like re-rolling phenomena would be, it's suddenly a whole different thing. The GM might roll really well on damage, confirm righteous fury or something like that. When you GM, which of the alternatives would the assassin use?

Tl;dr: There's a difference between re-rolling phenomena and re-rolling tests. When you re-roll tests there's always a chance that you'll do worse (and the results of a re-roll is final) while re-rolling phenomena almost always can only do better or about the same as the existing situation.

And finally in case you weren't paying attention, I have probably the second lowest FP total (one idiot has none, and I should have let him die seveal sessions ago) of anyone in my group, because I have burned several to stay alive or to keep others alive. I know my gm's character has 6 or 7, the assassin has 6 and others have 4 or 5.

That actually means surprisingly little without context.

How often do you use your powers? If it's the same psyker that you've described as typically starting the fight with half action manifesting bio-lightning with all her dice, spends the second on invocation in order to gain more overbleed on the next barrage of power dice? If so I'd suggest that you're going rather heavy on your powers and should expect a quite high rate of phenomena, it's a high risk high gain style of play.

Is the GM's character a DMPC or simply his character in another game? If it is a DMPC, are you absolutely certain that he's not going easy on his own character? That might explain how the GM's character has so many fate points left.

If this the same psyker who's GM gave her "the effects of weakened veil with none of the bonuses"? How often does he spring this x3 chance of phenomena on you (almost every session I seem to remember from an earlier post)? Personally I'd take that as a hint from the GM that s/he feels somewhat overwhelmed by the way you play your psyker. Or perhaps the GM simply doesn't like psykers in general. It certainly isn't RAW.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that from what I've read of your posts it seems like most of your problems are caused by something else than just the RAW pertaining to psykers.

Argue as much as you want about RAW. That's the point of a forum, to find a fair middle ground for all the players, not just a way to stick it to one group or another, because someone has been lucky on a few dice rolls or cheated better than you could catch.

No, the point of the forums is to discuss the rules. Opinions will differ and more often than not there'll be people who still differ when the discussion is over. I argue that the RAW is fine for psykers because I really think the RAW is fine for psykers and I resent the twin accusations that I'm just trying to stick it to "one group" and that I'm misinformed as to how psykers actually play because my players cheat.

I genuinely feel that psykers are fine the way they are, that someone who spams bio-lightning round after round with all available dice should suffer the inevitable phenomena and perils and I try to back up my opinions with reasoning and examples from the game.

Typically the way I do Fate Points with psykers is as follows: If the Psyker rolls one or more 9s manifesting a power he cannot spend a fate point to reroll that test, instead he must roll on the Phenomenon chart. (multiple 9s do not result in multiple rolls, however, but a +10% to his one roll for each 9) If he does not roll high enough to get on the perils chart, but doesn't like the result of his roll, he may spend a fate point to reroll; if he does roll onto the Perils chart he cannot reroll to avoid it , but must move on to the more dangerous chart ... if, however, he doesn't care for his roll on the perils chart he may spend a fate point for a reroll.

Thus a psyker who rolls a Phenomenon always gets one, and a Psyker whose luck is poor and rolls on the Perils chart always gets one - only the specific result on either of those charts are up for a reroll with fate. If, at any point along the way, the PC burns a fate point he suffers some lesser affect (much as if you spent a fate point to avoid death) and no longer has to deal with the chart.

This can make life a little more tolerable for the psyker, but still means he can eat through FPs in a session if he uses his powers often. (and I've seen PCs first spend, then burn almost all their FPs in one session before) Keeping in mind that I almost never grant PCs more Fate Points than they started with. (so if a player started with 3FPs and burned two - he might eventually earn those two back - usually one at the end of a campaign or after doing something incredibly cool - but it can take months of play to get one back and he will likely only ever raise that cap of 3 once in his first nine levels)

I know that some have mentioned that bonuses should be tied to Psy-Rating instead of Wp like RT, just an FYI, Unnatural WP multiplies Psy-rating in RT. The Designers want that trait to make Psykers very fearsome.

As to have a psyker unwittingly unleashing hell and the party somehow is out ways to survive (which really shouldn't happen with good GMing), well I'd continue with the campaign. The mission failed, a new cabal is formed by the inquisitor to pick up the pieces. It makes for great storytelling when done properly. Just make it memorable, that's the key.

Pc's die, and they all die to a a die roll or sequence of die rolls that don't go in their favor. Missions fail, things go wrong.

I played a game where the entire party was TPK'd by one characters rash action, and my group still laughs about it and enjoys the memory. I guess maybe I come from a different generation of players...

Unnatural willpower multiplying Psy rating makes that particular fix less effective but it's still better since you'll be slightly less crazy powerful when using fettered casting and more crazy powerful when you push, it removes the problem of casting at almost full strenght safely. Anyway, that makes me think they did primaris psyker on purpose!!!

Netherek said:

Actually, Unnatural WP in the Rogue Trader/Deathwatch psychic system doesn't multiply Psy Rating. It does have an effect, however.

Essentially, a character with Unnatural Willpower gains, after determining whether he's using a power Fettered, Unfettered or if he's Pushing, a number of points of bonus effective Psy Rating equal to his Unnatural Willpower modifier. So, a Psyker with Psy Rating 10 and Unnatural Willpower (x2) could use 7 of his Psy Rating while Fettered (5 naturally, +2 from Unnatural Willpower (x2)).

Yes, it makes psykers powerful - that's the point - but it's not quite so ludicrously potent as tying almost every power's effects to a WP bonus that could be in the high teens or low 20s.

Good catch, I misread that one and I like how that would work with Psy Rating. That does make it more manageable, though I'm still not keen on fettering powers. It allows spamming powers, and there is no way to have that start to fail.

That seems a lot better. However, shouldn't it be that one adds +1 to psy rating for unnatural X2? I mean, there's no such thing as unnatural willpower X1, that's natural willpower.

That's how I feel, but apparently you add the number, just like you add the number to the DoS, i.e. 1 DoS becomes 3 DoS.