Does anyone have any experience with this power in game?

it seems to me, that is the equivalent of 'death spell' for a low low cost of 13 PT.

if you win a Willpower test opposed by opponents strength, you knock them to the ground , PLUS deal 1 level of fatigue per success.

Overbleed, for every 5 pts you exceed the threashold, you get +10 to your WP test and 10m extra range.

I'm guessing most players and npc dont have more than 4TB , and most have a 3 in toughness, not to mention that most npc (daemons and orcs aside) dont have a signifigant strength score , 3 on average 4 on the upper end.

So this spell seems like a wrecking ball of a power, perhaps even more so than force bolt potentially, even without augmentation, because the psyker gets to test his BEST attribute against most other players WORST attribute.

Some easy numbers to consider:

if you had a +10 bonus to your power roll, (via 5-7WP bonus, 2-3 power well bonus, and +2 discipline focus) and a Psi 5

you are assured of success in casting the spell, and have a 78% chance to cast a spell with a 90+% chance of success on your willpower check. depending if your WP is only 5 (90% chance of success), or 100% chance on our willpower check if you have discipline mastery

Here is a program I made to calculate success on casting, showing the dice combinations with failures:

traffictrader.net/warhammer/chance2cast.cgi

you can fiddle with the numbers however you want, but it seems to me this program is a wrecking ball even for Adepts, who only get Psi 3, and none of the power well bonus or Dispipline bonus, and pack a measly willpower bonus of 5

I see some problems with your assumption... first of all it doesnt mention causing damage, second of all psykers are meant to be quite good like that.

Now down to the nitty gritty.

You mention that most PC's and enemies have scores for toughness and Strength in the 3-4 bunus range, this becomes in acurate as the various combat classes (the ones you want to knock prone) soon get nifty Power armour that raises thier base strength by 20. ontop of this they can increase either T or S by a total or 20 more points over the course fo the game giving a modest 35S 35T character about... 55 in each or even 55T 75S.

Now add onto the plate that Psykers are also the most easily nerfed oponent in the game...

Null Rod's (for ascension)

Untouchables Hexo-Pentagramic warding

various mind protecting talents etc

make any 'OP' move from a psyker much less powerful.

What do u think?

Kas said:

I would never cast this spell to knock people down. I would cast it to knock them unconscious and remove them from combat. Who cares about knocking them down.

With regards to Null rods , untouchables, and hex wards... ALL are rare. and ALL are expensive. further, FEW will have them to counter your psyker. If they do. Your psyker will start wondering why you tailor all the adventures to deal with just him.

Mind protecting talents dont help against push, or most of the powers..

EVen with all this in mind... It hardly makes your psyker any less powerful. He just stops targeting you directly, and throws rocks at you with his mind, or dominates your friend who isnt protected, etc.

so yea, he is still just as totally OP as before. Its like some adventures involve lots of close quarters fighting, which makes your sniper or ranged attacker less effective, only more rare b/c the adventures where your psyker is (only slightly) inconvenienced by +10 bonuses and such, involves extremely rare untouchables and extremely expensive high end equipment, that maybe only the king pin of an organization might have access to.

So the question isnt really about the push power, its about whether Psykers are overpowered.

Yes they are, its inherent in the setting and the system, I wish it wasnt as blatantly obvious as it is (apparently the perils of the warp is designed to counter balance psykers but it does almost nothing to that effect) but its just the way the system works.

If you as a GM dont like it then nerf psykers, if you as a player dont like it then mention it to the GM and the other players and maybe you can take a look at it together.

Crate said:

Nope, there are plenty of powers that are just fine. This one in particular seems like it belongs on the watch list however, as the math indicates it is...

I don't see how this can be an issue save for on "bosses". Sure, if 10 crazed cultists are charging you through a corridor you might be able to knock one of them out of the fight with one try, but your Guardsman-friend who is doing a short range auto-burst will probably do the same.

On important characters it might be more of a bother, but they are also more likely to have high WP or protection.

The problem is not the ability. It is fatigue.

Fatigue sucks.

I realised this when I saw how a guy with a knife has almost no chance of injuring someone in armour. He is better off putting the knife down and punching him instead because after 4 or 5 punches the guy in flak armour goes down with fatigue.

It doesn't seem to matter how weedy you are or how heavily armoured the opposition is. Each successful hit on an unarmed attack inflicts a level of fatigue. I guess people don't box in the 41st Millenium because no boxing match would get out of the first round.

My advice is to ignore fatigue completely. If you players are crossing a desert or something, then use it. Otherwise forget about it.

DavidJones said:

I am pretty sure it is not just a successful hit, but the punch has to do damage for it to inflict fatigue. I don't have the book in front of me to check though

well we do have serious truble with fatigue tooo ... psychic phenomena 3 fatigue to everyone in 20m.... uh hey look our techpriest is still up the rest is down...

grappling does damage + fatigue on a success, stun does stu+ 1 fatigue on a success, and a normal unnarmed attack does the same damage+ fatigue as grappling just without the grappling

if your enemy has a decent helmet it is nearly impossible (twice AP from helmet against 1d5-3 damage?) to get a successfull move from the above category

unless you're a hammerfisting psyker...

but yes every psychic power that does fatigue is rather good against low T opponents

we're using drugs in combat to negate/ignore fatigue... works like a charm

It's only over-powered against underpowered opponants.

Any merc/fighter/hard-case of the week worth being such will have a few doses of stim on them, it's not going to knock out a frothing nutter in a frenzy no matter if that frenzy was brought on by crazy-faith or combat drugs, servitors won't care and will just keep shooting, daemons really won't care, good luck knocking that ork over... etc. So, low-rent gangers, sure. That guy over there, ya. Just some dude, oh ya, it'll mess up his day, but that's about it really. That tactic will really only be effective against things that a good gun-shot would also bring down, perhaps sooner or a quick swipe with a shock-maul, or a quick use of Take Down...

@Graver

Funnily enough, you'd need something else than Stim because for some reasons, Stim doesn't do anything about fatigue (though I'd personally houserule that).

Cifer said:

Doh! I keep forgetting that's a house rule I made because, well, common sense and all that ;-) Oh well, poor merc's and hard-casses then... I'll pour one (foddie o' coffie) for all the hommies who just couldn't get outa bed no matter how coked up or spun out on meth they were...

Edit: although, if one were a touch liberal with word interpretation, etc, ignoring the effects of Fatigue would fall under stimm. After all, a character under it's influence "ignores any negative effects to their Characteristics from Damage or Critical Damage and cannot be Stunned." Since most all combat related fatigue comes in from damaging attacks, such an outlook could be finessed in. Hell, I've seen people arguing stranger word/rule interpretations on this forum... though that leaves non-combat related fatigue gain wide open. Force marched for 16 hours then had to stay awake for 36 hours strait? Thinking about dossing up? Ya, you'll feel no pain, your heart will be racing, and you'll be ready to take on the Emperors foes... right after you pass the hell out...

Khorne-ucopia said:

Well, the book says a successful hit. Doesn't say you have to cause damage. Easily cleared up with a house rule I guess, though the house rule I would prefer is no fatigue. Or, the alternative damage and healing system I am using myself.

A lot of house rules needed with DH. Sometimes I wonder how much it was playtested, and whether the playtesters were asleep. Fear was an early biggie for me. Just replaced the whole thing because it lacks gradation and is so arbitrary.

The setting and concept is the best thing about DH IMO.

DavidJones said:

The errata fixes the issue:

The Unarmed Combat section on page 197 should have the line “In addition, a successful hit also causes one level of Fatigue” changed to: “In addition, a successful hit that causes damage equal to or greater than the target’s Toughness Bonus also causes one level of Fatigue.”

uuuh I missed the errata.... but still fatigue rules are of even greater concern when you go ascencion... unnatural T... TB of 10+ oh uh I get unconscious for 0 minutes? fine by me.... what ? -4 minutes? yeah whatever....

@Sirion

So? People that tough just don't have that pesky "unconsciousness"-business anymore.

@Graver

Edit: although, if one were a touch liberal with word interpretation, etc, ignoring the effects of Fatigue would fall under stimm. After all, a character under it's influence "ignores any negative effects to their Characteristics from Damage or Critical Damage and cannot be Stunned." Since most all combat related fatigue comes in from damaging attacks, such an outlook could be finessed in. Hell, I've seen people arguing stranger word/rule interpretations on this forum... though that leaves non-combat related fatigue gain wide open. Force marched for 16 hours then had to stay awake for 36 hours strait? Thinking about dossing up? Ya, you'll feel no pain, your heart will be racing, and you'll be ready to take on the Emperors foes... right after you pass the hell out...

The "falling unconscious"-part would be hard to categorize as a negative effect to your characteristics. Hmm... what's your Perception and Intelligence when you're unconscious? Are they lower?

What's more interesting is that stim is also a short-term plastic surgery: That friendly E7-Crit burning your face off and reducing your fellowship to 1d10? That's a negative effect to a characteristic from Critical Damage right there!

well the magos is unconscious-immune and the adept-sage? uh... he still suffers 6 minutes

and it takes away one of the gm friendly game mechanics ...

well the magos is unconscious-immune and the adept-sage? uh... he still suffers 6 minutes

Well the Sage can do requisitioning with one quill tied behind his back while the stormtrooper still needs help with the longer words on the form. So?

and it takes away one of the gm friendly game mechanics ...

I guess making the characters harder to incapacitate is a point of buying talents, yes.

I'm not trying to argue about overpowered or nerfing or whatever and yes there are rare occurences in the rules where abilities are explicitly taken away from characters (machinator array/swimming) I'm just saying it is impossible for a gm to knock out a character with a TB of 10+ and therefore takes away a mechanic and a possibility to do a nonlethal capture of a player character

the adept-sage dosn't get immune to Intimidate or Charm or something else

Sirion said:

That's not really a problem. If something has a TB of 10+, then they rightly should be immune to getting knocked out due to a few good hits to the head... they're a freaking unnatural tank and knocking one out with a choke-hold would be akin to knocking out a rhinoceros with an uppercut to the jaw. But if the story has a bounty-hunter/assassin/arbiter/what-ever that is after the PCs with the intent on taking them alive, then said NPC would need to be operating at the PCs level or be, story-wise, placed in the story with the expectation of failure. If one of the PCs is wandering around with a TB of 10+, then they're fairly high level which means the fella and his men that are looking to do a live capture should be some fairly competent individuals, the kind that would be proficient in the use of inelegant tactics and ambushes, lots of stealth and Morphia V (not a guarantee, but worth a shot anyway), and, when all else fails, good ol' fashioned Webbers just for starters, though a good and long study of the target and more creative methods of taking them (like capturing any comrads who are easy targets out and away from the tough target then using them as bait or barganing chips to force compliance etc). For those times when it wasn't the NPCs plan to live-capture the PCs, the GM still has the option to have one or more taken alive... when they burn a Fate point to survive getting massacred.

uh so my fat tech-priest with (tb *2 40 toughness and machinator array (+10) or just regular 50 T without amchinator to start at rank 1 into the madness) 10TB can stack up on fatigue like hell not needing energy cache at all stacking hundreds of fatigue levels on charging power cells to get some money and is somewhat immune to gas attacks causing fatigue and... sleeping? what if I don't? fatigue? oh yeah... that's another one

granted he get's -10 but with logis implant that's partially negated (for combat... yes he does loose 1 reaction every other round) but he ******* ignores... 5 fatigue... 10 fatigue... 20 fatigue... 100 fatigue...

and of course there are other mechanics but I'm just saying.... making a class very resistant to xy... ok .... make him immune? maybe we should reconsider...

I'm just saying it can be abused from rank 1 (right from the beginning of gameplay) and if you're locking towards boxers... if the take enough hits to the head with enough force everyone of them get's down....

but hey... if I'm gm I can work around or house rule ... if I am player I can take the advantage... it doesn't do that much harm

uh so my fat tech-priest with (tb *2 40 toughness and machinator array (+10) or just regular 50 T without amchinator to start at rank 1 into the madness) 10TB can stack up on fatigue like hell not needing energy cache at all stacking hundreds of fatigue levels on charging power cells to get some money and is somewhat immune to gas attacks causing fatigue and... sleeping? what if I don't? fatigue? oh yeah... that's another one

Are we getting back to using an already broken character to show that certain mechanics become problematic when pushed to ridiculous levels? Because I for one really can't see how anything requiring a mutation to work could cause a character to be overpowered.

and of course there are other mechanics but I'm just saying.... making a class very resistant to xy... ok .... make him immune? maybe we should reconsider...

You might want to take a look at Blanks, then.

I'm just saying it can be abused from rank 1 (right from the beginning of gameplay) and if you're locking towards boxers... if the take enough hits to the head with enough force everyone of them get's down....

Then perhaps it's time for some guy who is about 75% metal (or gene-engineered supersoldier, for that purpose) to enter a boxing ring. I'll be interested to see what "professional" boxers do - apart from shaking their heads and quitting.
Which reminds me: We'll probably see how TB beyond 10 interacts with Fatigue soon enough. Deathwatch will likely have to deal with that often enough.

there are people who professionally destroy stuff with their body... like I dunno several (10+) concrete bricks... they could seriously damage a metal construct...

too far fetched?

a muay thai fighter hitting with his knee into your chest does about the same impact damage as a 50 km/h car crash... a car that crashes at 50km/h gets seriously deformed... should be enough to damage a terminator style guy (speaking of terminator 1)

biggest problem with a half metall guy? he is larger in mass...

and it works with ascencion too not just with mutations (and space marines have that unnatural strength*2 and toughness*2 too for that matter)
mutation is just a quick path making it available at character creation (through divination or hive mutant)

furthermore I havent read about blank as a character option unless you use it equivalent to untouchable (which I read somewhere is not quite the same) and untouchables do not per definition make immune to psychic powers per se

also I confess there are some mechanics making immune to certain effects (I think from beyond blocks posession) but it is mainly npc traits

there are people who professionally destroy stuff with their body... like I dunno several (10+) concrete bricks... they could seriously damage a metal construct...

too far fetched?

a muay thai fighter hitting with his knee into your chest does about the same impact damage as a 50 km/h car crash... a car that crashes at 50km/h gets seriously deformed... should be enough to damage a terminator style guy (speaking of terminator 1)

Of course you can damage them - everything inflicting more than ten (plus armour) points of damage will wound a TB 10 character. The question was whether it was possible to knock them out, to inflict sufficient fatigue to make them give up without destroying massive parts of their bodies.

and it works with ascencion too not just with mutations (and space marines have that unnatural strength*2 and toughness*2 too for that matter)
mutation is just a quick path making it available at character creation (through divination or hive mutant)

Yes, and both Ascension characters and Space Marines are supposed to be this hard. Mutants are getting enough drawbacks in that deal to make it fine as well.

furthermore I havent read about blank as a character option unless you use it equivalent to untouchable (which I read somewhere is not quite the same) and untouchables do not per definition make immune to psychic powers per se

Um... yes, that's exactly what they are. No psychic power can directly affect an Untouchable, full stop.

also I confess there are some mechanics making immune to certain effects (I think from beyond blocks posession) but it is mainly npc traits

By now, several of those traits can be gained by PCs in various ways (and usually with a lot of effort, insanity and corruption to go).

Sirion, I think you're mistaking the concepts of energy, "damage", force and all those things.

"Impact damage", which is something of a non-technical term, is energy imparted during impact since energy acts in this case as the "currency of changing things" (in this case, damaging them".

A car travelling 50km/hr has about 400,000 joules of kinetic energy. That's quite a bit. If you were hit by this car even presuming that it did not impart all of it's energy to you, and had a fairly minor impulse... well you'd likely have your legs broken and be thrown up and over the windshield to suffer more lacerations.

If you want a more intuitive grasp of what this would mean, ask yourself: could a fighter hit a car SO HARD it accelerated to 50km/hr? No Muay Thai fighter, no human being, could punch an engine block and damage it in any way. That's basically what you'd be doing if you punched a Magos or Tech-Priest who was that amped up. On a side note, cars are designed to deform when impacted.

I think somewhere you heard that phrase and hung onto it, television is notoriously sensational and misleading with comparisons like that. Maybe it does about as much damage to you as if you were IN a car travelling 50km/hr when it hit something, or some derivative. Drive a car into a building at 50km/hr and have someone knee it. Guarantee you that the car will do quite a bit more than a knee.

Sorry if that seemed like a nerd-flame.