Hey all,

Thinking about changing Psyker rules in our Dark Heresy game to the following:

1. Allow Fettered Casting / push casting mechanics, at ALL levels, not just Ascension or Rogue trader.
2. Minor powers cannot invoke perils of the warp, and can only cause phenomena. Any roll that results in perils, is instead rerolled. (excpetion being powers or abilities that deliberately invoke perils of the warp.
3. If Casting Fettered, No overbleed is permitted.
4. Replace all melee Psyker power attacks that use Willpower to Weapon skill tests. (just cuz you are iron willed, doesnt make you the dread pirate roberts)
5. Replace all Ranged Psyker power attacks that use willpwer to Ballistic skill tests. (flinging Force missiles with your mind seems remarkably similar to pointing at someone with a gun 'using your mind' to line up the target and puller a tiny trigger)
6. Replace all remaining Will power Tests to 'Effective Psi rating' ... Meaning if you are Psi rating 6, and fetter to 3, your effective rating is 3.

This would seem to solve all the problems with Psykers having insane WP bonuses. WP allows the character to manifest a power easier, but they cannot rely on high WP to use the power, do extra damage, and hit easier. If they want to get overbleed or dominate a combat (or any situation really given their range of abilities), they still have to risk perils of the warp... Thus preserving the grimdark of Dark heresy.... and a great deal of game balance

Now the psyker can still be a bad ass, but he cannot do it every round of the day.

On a side note, it also 'fixes' the galaxy from being overrun by Sanctioned Psi rating 1 baby psykers turn Daemonhosts.

Thoughts / Comments / Critiques ?

linearblade said:

Seems pretty good to me. Playtesting is the only way to really know though.

I will say that I highly approve of forcing psykers to branch out beyond their WP bonus if they want to become a powerful combatant. Makes much more sense to me.

Atheosis said:

We were thinking of making opposed willpower checks for mind affects abilities become opposed Fellowship instead, however I wasnt too keen on it because I felt fellowship didnt really represent force of personality in this game (since amongst other things... getting your face blown (critical hits) off lowers your Fellowship) ... None the less, what do you think of that?

I would have reservations about bringing in the Fettering rules at DH level, because to me they seem pretty overpowered. No risk of warp peril at all when doing things Fettered? Doesn't sit right with me, and that's coming from someone whose characters have suffered a lot from Psychic Phenomena and Perils. I guess I just think, especially for new, low-level psykers who are just coming into their powers and learning how to control them, the unpredictability and danger of the warp is an essential part of the story. Also, it keeps them from being too overpowered (and spamming abilities that the rest of the group couldn't hope to match).

For Ascension, on the other hand, I really like the idea that when using powers Fettered, you can't have overbleed. That balances the massive advantage of Fettered, in my opinion, and would also go some way to smoothing out the sticky Unnatural Willpower + Psy Powers = WIN issue.

Never thought I'd be out there championing harsher rules for psykers. Hope my GM doesn't read this...

linearblade said:

I don't really like the idea. Willpower would seem to be the best stat to use for battles of will wouldn't you agree?

linearblade said:

I agree with chorus here. Forcing the psyker to put points into more then just WP will go miles to smoothing them out a bit. After all, for most of the other careers to excel in their chosen field, they have to rely on more then just one characteristic, it should be no different for the psyker. I'll definitly be incorperating that into my game if I get anouther psyker in the group.

I'd also agree with Niqvah. At the earlier levels, the psyker should not have as much potential power nor control as the Primaris. The Fettered/Push should be a bonus, an Ascended Trait for the Primaris marking them out from the lesser psykers and rewarding them and their player for having survived through 8 ranks of hell. Likewise, for that reason, a sanctioned psyker's standard use should come in the form of very infrequent use with a large group of heavily armed men ready to put the psyker down if he/she/it gets even the least bit twitchy. However, that doesn't quite work that well for PCs but there is one little item that has been so grossly overlooked it should be criminal: the Psykanna Mercyblade.

Granted, there is absolutely no mechanics what-so-ever for it in the core of DH or most any supplement making the damned thing utterly pointless except for a psyker to point out at the beginning of the game that he has such a thing in case things go horribly wrong which he'll never reference again nor actually get the chance to use when things do go horribly wrong. Ascension corrects this, though it almost never gets mentioned on the boards (once in one thread by my count): the second half of the Scholastica Psykanna Failsafes which, let's face it, should be applicable to every sanctioned psyker from the freshly scared novice to the ancient primaris. With that second half (the first half should be reserved for Primaris Psykers only), psykers who are unfortunate enough to become a baby daemonhost stand a chance of offing themselves like they are supposedly programed to do before it can happen.

Another very minor little thing that is almost never mentioned (and I reckon because of that, scarcely thought of) is the minor power Resist Possession. Barring some very specific story circumstances, this power will never come into use except for one other little thing, keeping you for becoming a baby daemonhost! As it can be kicked on as a reaction, a reaction to being possessed none-the-less and is specifically listed in the errata as ignoring the Only One Focus Action Per Turn rule as well, not getting the power and not using it when one is about to be possessed is really only the psyker's fault.

So, if the second half of the Psykanna Failsafes are ported over for sanctioned psykers, then most Imperial psykers going about their Imperial duties (and not the nutty ones running around with acolytes of the Inquisition... they're a special case) have three failsafes in place to prevent the whole baby daemonhost problem. First, most should be trained in the Resist Possession power and use it if need be. Failing that, they are conditioned to kill themselves if they feel the daemon coming on. Failing that, there's that group of dead-eyed more-then-likely mind-scrubbed killers standing behind him ready to light his fire the second he gets a touch too twitchy, summons a daemon, corrupts everyone around them, etc.

I think the failsafes for keeping the Baby Daemonhosts at bay are already in place background-wise. They just have to be acknowledged as existing for the multitudes of psykers as well as for the PCs, at a lesser degree naturally.

Atheosis said:

Yes, I kinda do agree with you... But I can see logic in it. the other way too.. As fellowship represent the social aspect of your mind... and dominate is in many ways making your argument to surrender control to that person sound reasonable.

Niqvah said:

Well I guess the Fetter / Non Fetter rules really comes down to this:

If you allow Fetter... are these rules an improvement?

If you do NOT allow Fetter, are these rules minus the fetter part an improvement?

I personally dont think the psyker powers are all that unbalanced without overbleed. and effective psi rating instead of will power. In many ways they are weak even! Say you force barrage with effective psi 3, (quite possibly the most abused of all powers) ... Your damage is now 1d10+3 , and 3 bolts ... Does this even come close to firing your standard issue Autogun on full auto, and god forbid, pack it with some manstopper rounds? And we are talking a MINIMUM Psi 5-6 toon in order to fetter down to 3, which is the best level you can get in Dark heresy... So in order to be a bad ass, you still must RISK perils of the warp, but now you dont have to risk if you are doing minor things....

Which I believe is the way it is represented in the books and canon anyway... I've yet to read a book where a sanctioned psyker makes a little light at a non critical moment in the book, and turns into a daemon host Its always when they are going 'hog-wild' with their powers.

I house-ruled something similar in regards to fettering/pushing, but with one additional drawback - fatigue for fettering Powers for non-ascended characters.

1. Allow Fettered Casting / push casting mechanics, as soon as the Psyker has chosen a discipline (Psy-Rating 3)

this keeps the "Warp is dangerous, be careful" thing going for new Psykers, and developing their potential into a Discipline also gains them the ability to use their powers more or less safely. I.E. A Telepath sending a Message can not result in everybody in the room gaining corruption except the Psyker who managed his WP save ...

2. Casting a major power Fettered as a non Ascended Character costs one level of fatique after the power takes effect, or after it is no longer sustained.

this limits the amount of WP Bonus 6 Force Barrages a Psyker can cast safely, of course if he wants to (or is forced to by his GM )there is always unfettered casting without fatique . If the Caster reached his Fatigue - Threshold, he can test against toughness to stay conscious until the end of combat/scene but can no longer cast anything fettered. The talent Meditation has proven to be very useful for the Psyker in my group, as an after encounter ritual...

Whizzer said:

Obviously, each to their own, but I don't really see the point - a low-Psy Rating character benefits far less from fettering anyway. A Psy Rating 1 character cannot use powers at a fettered level, and those at Psy 2 and 3 can only use 1 dice when using a power fettered... beyond that, it starts to become useful for anything more than minor powers, but that takes a little while to reach.

On another note - and one I know is relevant to only some people - Astropaths Trancendent have the full range of Psy Ratings available to Imperial/Primaris psykers except 1, 9 and 10 (and a rank 8 Astropath Transcendent has the same Psy Rating of a Primaris of the same XP), and can use powers fettered, unfettered and pushed with no drawbacks whatsoever, even at Psy Rating 2...

Beyond all that, the rules for fettered/unfettered/pushed powers work best if the powers scale to Psy Rating instead of Willpower Bonus, and if you change the Invocation skill's effect as well to the way it works in Rogue Trader (successful Invocation test increases the maximum Psy Rating you can use while Fettered by 1, failure reduces it by 1), then it helps keep overbleed in check (as psykers can't add such a huge static bonus to the power rolls; a Primaris Psyker with Psy 8 and WPB12 who uses Invocation normally can roll 4d10+24 without risk of phenomena... change the way Invocation works to the Rogue Trader method, and that becomes 5d10+12 without risk of phenomena - not much lower, but less predictable)

Whizzer said:

I like this one and i might impliment it. Do these rules work well?

Ac4189 said:

Well, I think they work well for my group, but it makes psyker powers more reliable and less of a wildcard. Our psyker uses his powers more often than before the change, but I do not think that is such a bad thing or too unbalancing. Since minor powers cause no fatigue gain and are easily activated fettered, it makes our Psykers use those whenever they can be useful.

Even with Invokation, powers with higher Thresholds are hard to reach if you have only one or two dice.

I personally like that Sanctionites can use their powers without risking everything around them if they are careful, while still being limited by something, in this case fatigue.

Really depends on what kind of campaign you wanna play with your group, if its broader in scope with more powerful enemies you could also just adapt the Rogue Trader/Ascension rules for Psykers as N0-1_H3r3 suggested.

linearblade said:

Thanks for putting this up. I'm likely to use 3-6 in a future Ascension game.

As for 1 and 2, I agree with the notion that a psyker needs training or at least experience with their powers in order to control them with any safety. The fluff has numerous mentions of nascent pskers being potential threats to worlds unless they're scooped up by the black ships or frogmarched to pyres.

linearblade said:

I like these, though i would be tempted to change Fettered/ Push to purchasable as an Elite Advance but free if you've Mastered a Discipline.

1. Replace all melee Psyker power attacks that use Willpower to Weapon skill tests. (just cuz you are iron willed, doesnt make you the dread pirate roberts)
2. Replace all Ranged Psyker power attacks that use willpwer to Ballistic skill tests. (flinging Force missiles with your mind seems remarkably similar to pointing at someone with a gun 'using your mind' to line up the target and puller a tiny trigger)

In regards to Ballistic Skill tests, this just say's to me you've never fired a gun yourself. There is a significant difference between identifying a target as a threat and wanting him dead, to identifying, wanting them dead, bringing a weapon to bear to kill them. While there are experts in the world with firearms that make the weapons appear to be extension of their own bodies, they are just that, experts. I can see a case for willpower to work like that, but i'm not convinced.

How about modifyingy WPB according to the power level. Use your powers fettered and you only get half your WPB for effects and bonus to the power roll. Push and you get +3 to your WPB for effects and bonus. That way some of the more broken powers (I'm looking at you force barrage) become less so fettered.