Hi everyone habitual lurker first time poster, part time GM here. I dont want start of complaining but I want to try and get a handle on the Imperial Psyker class and see what others do in my situation. My group consists of two RPG vets who are knew to DH, and two who have played before (one is also my wife) the party turns out to be two gaurdsmen, one psyker and a Metalican Gunslinger scum. We are playing the Tattered Fates mod, my friend who played the Psyker is a bit of a power gamer but always gets points for roleplaying his character well. So everyone makes it through the beginning ok, but when they get gear and the drugs wear off, my psker player really seems leaps and bounds ahead of the others. He is rank 4 and I watched his roles, he ended up with 55 WP I believe, a 42 Toughness and I had given all the players roughly 700 thrones so he had full gaurd flak armor.

His character only had 9 wounds but using the opponents just out of the book it was fairly difficult to harm, this would not have been an issue though. The issue stems from I was able to put 13 opponents up against the group at once, using the killer template, and just by using the minor power Fear Aura was able to fear most all of them (actually when he rolled he should have had a fear rating 5, but I capped him at 4) and incapacitated most of the enemy. In addition to that, every enemy we come against he is able to first jam their weapon, then uses blood boil on them to subdue the biggest threat. Now part of this may be my fault for letting him take the Templar Elite Advance.

Now I know the Warp Pehnomona should help balance this out, and I stopped letting the player use fate points on his focus power test just to try and tone him down a bit, but I find that the Phenom table and even the Perils table do not keep him from frequently using his power.

What gets me is that low level powers like Weapon Jinx can effect multiple bad guys with no save for them, so they lose their weapons, but when its so easy for the pskyer to use fear aura and pump 3 or 4 dice into it so that they have a fear of 4 they can subdue entire rooms, and using battle cants they are able to warn the others ahead of time.

So one of my questions would in battles do I add more enemies, do I give them resist fear, or psykers, do I use GM magic to make them pass tests?

If I more bad guys how do I balance it out for the regular gun toting Joes in the group.

Two side notes also, does anyone feel with SP weapons getting the fire selecter and most getting full auto that besides reliable they really are better weapons than the Las weapons? and secondly when starting at say 4 or 5 how do you handle the characters wealth?

Thanks for any and all help One good note is at the end of tattered fates my players all have a healthy respect for their lack of Lores and Skills, several preparing to run adepts, clerics and techpriests in our next game.

ragnro2004 said:

Well, for the Weapon Jinx trouble, you might want to look to the Errata. It has been worked on a bit and isn't quite as powerful as the book would make it out to be now.

As for the Fearful Aura, are you having the PCs role to resist the fear as well as the NPC's? After all, it doesn't discriminate friend from enemy. When he pops that power, everyone in range has to roll fear, not just the guys he doesn't like. Beyond that, given the name of the power (aura) I'd even go as far as saying looking away won't help much. After all, you could still feel the aura to help with those "hey guys, don't look at me while I do this thing" moments. He radiates terror and both the enemy and his teammates will get caught in it for better or for worse.

Yeah, part of your job as a GM is knowing EXACTLY what all those little psy-powers do, because essentially he got a bit of a freebie there with the Fear aura. Sometimes that happens, moving on. If he's going to start pooping out the big powers soon, it is literally only reasonable that you send an inordinate amount back and have to tactically plan for that.

If he's quiet about it and not lashing out the powers, then accord them the same NPC threat level as any other dunce standing around, if he starts getting buck wild, drill a hole in him with a long-las or hunting rifle, or any of the rifles really all have much longer range than the average damaging psy power from a nice distance away (vs awareness test factoring in range, cover and hiding skill)

Well I always try to give my players a fairly straight up game, so if its in the book I try and abide by it for the session at least until the next time I can make a ruling and everyone can know how the game will go, Fearful Aura might sound like an aura but is so only in name, in the powers description it is all who look upon you, giving you a fear rating of 2, and since the power does not have a range its hard to say your feared even if you do not see the caster. And while weapon jinx can still effect multiple weapons so this can be quite a pain.

I guess i'm looking for other creative ways to bring his powers in line with the rest of the party without making every other bad guy a blank.

I have to agree about the Aura: not looking in the direction of the psyker sounds easy, but in combat, it certainly isn't, especially if you're trying to dodge stuff. A human being has a field of vision of about 180 degrees - focusing on anything that's within 90° of the psyker is right out if you don't want to make the fear check.

By the way, how many dice does he manifest with? 4 dice already kind of scream "Phenomena!" to me...

Also note that most enemies will realise psykers are really bad news as soon as he starts pulling out his tarot instead of his gun.

Hi Ragno,

1) The Fear
Remember that a failed fear test does not automatically say "they run away scared". Look at the table for failed fear test. In many cases it will be "lose a haflf action" and "do not approach". This does not keep you from shooting with a half action. Guns ARE for cowards! I made the same mistake to begin with and my psyker scared off the enemy while the other pc where warned and looked down. In all fairness, I warned about my "mistake" that he should not believe that it will be always that easy.

To keep yourself from bogging down the game, role in groups for the npc.

2) Weapon Jam
Arm some of the guys with thrown weapons or primitive weapons or make them charge. But as graver said, the errata regulated things a bit.

3) The art of creating a better gone
I you have a whole bunch of gones (10 or more) and something would wipe them out in one fell swoop (lack of appropiate armour, fear) decide on the spot that ONE of them is special and has something that stops it from being a total wipe. Perhaps he is the one goon who wears a bad quality mesh vest under the other closes (AP: 3) or he is insane enough to be fearless. Sometimes, making one out of ten special "on the spot" is a better chocie then trying to prepare a whole bunch for one event. Some players and GM will argue that this is cheating. I say it is not more "cheating" then specially preparing a bunch of npc for the group. It is all intended for some resitance, since no resistance means no fun. If the last thing is not true, let the pc mow down some

My 2 cents

TBH if he's making the rolls for it, then its all fair in love and war. Throw the party against a wytch or two, and use them pictures against him etc.

Also, Fearful Aura followed by Blood Boil is just good tactics. Why penalise him for something thats working to the groups advantage and is a well used tactic.

Normally in the game where i play my psyker i'll use one of three tactics:

1: use Fearful Aura and then either Psy Barrage on the biggest goon/Boss

2: Spasm the biggest guy then use a single shot to the (hopefully) prone target

3: full auto on the auto pistol and then run for cover.

I dont toss powers left right and center, i've only managed 9 points of corruption too, not bad for just hitting 5th rank (6 of those were from a critter and not from 9's).

If you do want to nerf the psyker then use the powers against him, or toss about a grenade or two (grenades go through the Bullet Barrier ability, as do las weapons...)

But hey, the system isnt designed to be fair, Every one can do something Really well that others cannot do, psyers get called the twink class because they can use nifty abilities that will boost other (lesser skills) to rival other classes. But other classes will be able to kill the psyker pretty fast due to initiative and far more weapon talents that allow for extra attacks or dodges.

And never forget the 9's. the more powerful he gets the more chance he has of rolling them. throwing powers around WILL lead to his quick death, and may in some very bad situations result in a TPK, but thats the risk a group has for letting psyker go haywire.

Tech Priests are apparently every bit as overpowered as psykers, but i dont see it in either class, they're just good at what they do.

I'm no expert, but I ran the Edge of Darkness campaign with my group yesterday, with my players being a Psyker, TechPriest, Arbitrator and another Psyker, respectively. The Psychic Pehnomena only came up once or twice the whole session, and even then nothing terrible happened other than they wilted some flowers, so for the next session, I'm modifying the rules a bit so that if a Psyker rolls and 8 or a 9 he activates Psychic Phenomena. It's seems balanced on paper and in theory, but in practice... well, I can't really say yet, but it's worth a shot.

EDIT: also, is there ANY point at all to the Minor Psychic Power that lets you kill plant life? I don't see any reason anyone would ever pick that skill, ever.

will you be raising the chance of gun misfire/jams from 90+ to 80+ in accordance then i wonder?

if a gun mis fires it takes a while to sort it (unless you've got Technical Knock) but if a psyker misfires then its from a cold breeze to possessed with tpk.

Give the psyker a little more lattitude i say, after all When they go Fubar it's worse than simply throwing a gun away and drawing another one, its a stain on their sanity and soul.

If your psyker is great at neutralising sane opponents with guns, try crazy people with no guns!

In all seriousness, If the PC's are abnormally good against particular foes, then use different antogonists. a horde of frenzied mutants with improvised weapons is actually pretty dangerous.

ragnro2004 said:

You are making the assumption that ammunition for the autogun (including the specialty rounds) will always be readily available and easily obtained. Try dropping the group into the middle of nowhere and facing constant combat (like a death world with lots of hostile fauna) and with strictly limited ammunition supplies. Suddenly, those lasguns with their solar rechargeable power packs don't look so bad any more.

Also note that specialty rounds are significantly more expensive than their regular counterparts. Take manstopper rounds, for example. In my group, we had to provide for ourselves using our salaries only, especially early on. Manstopper rounds costing as much as they do made it highly impractical to load them in substantial quantity, and as a result, the only weapons that typically got loaded with them were the handcannons.

As far as resources for higher-ranked starting characters goes, check the sidebar "It's a Hard Life" on page 29 of the core rulebook. It is advisable to be flexible on the issue as the widely varying salaries of different types of characters may cause problems.

-Kirov

Syzygy said:

If a little off-topic is tolerated : I do not see players picking it up neither, but there is use for it. If you groups make tours through the wilderness, that is!
It is great to "clean" the surrounding of your camp site from underbrush (which would give xeno predators or attackers a chance to sneak up). It helps to remove cover if your are seeking something as well. There are not many official adventures around (yet) where this would make a difference. But as their is a dramatical increase of GM´s discussing symbiont or chaos cult adventures centering on agri-culture villages in the middle of cornfields... well, let´s say it might have it´s uses once you are not inside a city, a starship/-base or a dungeon.

Back2Topic:
I would not rise the "9" to "8 or 9" per se. But having some areas where the "veil is weakend" can help. Ritual sites, temples to the dark gods or certain places on certain worlds (dusk, again). Could be "10 and 9" or even "10, 9 and 8" like mentioned in "weakend veil" minor psychic power. But be sure you do not overdue is. "Being a psyker" is the only thing special in playing a psyker. If it stops being useful, one can throw away the character all-togehter and play an assassine.

Well if your psyker is of sufficient level, scaring away scores of minions and low-level opponents should be acceptable ... make sure there are enough adversaries with higher Willpower or traits such as Resistance (Fear), Jaded, Frenzy etc which makes them less susceptible to the horror.

Well if your psyker is of sufficient level, scaring away scores of minions and low-level opponents should be acceptable ... make sure there are enough adversaries with higher Willpower or traits such as Resistance (Fear), Jaded, Frenzy etc which makes them less susceptible to the horror.

While Jaded doesn't do anything, one can easily make even low-level mooks immune to the power - combat drugs inducing Frenzy are your friend.

...and in some cases, it´s the rule of 9 which kicks back in.

Yesterday, I run my second group through the finals of "Rejoice" which I altered to make the hide out a printing facility which was the cover for you-know-what. While sneaking in at night, they where ambushed by a highly augmented killer in a large room with 3x3 big printing machines.

Early in the adventure, the psyker was able to dispatch a killer of same format with his mind blade power. This he got shot first and then..things started to get out of hand:

The with the first phenomena, he took out the machines and ranged weapons. This meant "lights out" and "you are now in a pitch-black room with a metal-body-assasine. You see next to nothing, but here the sound of blades coming out". Oh, and all this killed their night vision devices as well. Next thing the psyker tried got him into "perils" and gravity failed with 500m.

While he never had much problems with "9", this time he screwed thing royaly.

Keep in mind that one of the biggest balances for psykers is.. The psyker themselves. They are bloody powerful, yes, but they are also something that is at best going to be loosely accepted. In a more social heavy campaign, your dealing with the stigmata of psykers being witches and tainted - and this is going to close a lot of doors (or get a lot of heat focused on them) if this comes out. Some places are going to be more accepting, some places are going to be less accepting.

Infiltrating something? Keep in mind, psykers stand out as glowing beacons to other psykers (or to anyone with sufficent wealth to afford technology that can respond to them). This can make it very awkward for infiltration of a place, especially well guarded targets and areas.

Or in the case of dealing with a combat heavy campaign as you seem to be... Well, first of all, I'll give the advice given earlier : you need to know the ins and outs of psyker capabilities, because it makes them easier to deal with and stops them from taking advantage of you. The same with knowing the combat system well, it makes it far safer to deal with. For example, your speaking of a psyker that is showing up, and using four abilities to great effect : weapon jinx, spasm, fearful aura, and blood boil. You can only manifest one of those per round, and since half action manifests count as standard attacks, he cant make any further attack motions. This means the first round of combat he will be dedicated to the initial manifestation. Fearful Aura is the one that sounded most stand out - as others have pointed out, this does not exclude allies, they are just as likely to be caught in it. Its GM fiat really on how they get caught - you can treat it as the Lidless Stare from Rogue Trader (WP test to avoid looking at it, just because you have to try so bloody hard to *not* accidentally see him), if the psyker is in relative range, or anything like that.

As for hard mechanical ways to balance/negate psykers:

1) Have the opponents/area have some sort of Weaken Veil effect. Suddenly they pheno on 8, 9 or 10. This means all the more likely for something to go horribly wrong. There is many phenos that aren't all that bad, and there is many that are absolutely horrible to hit.

2) Have opponents engage in grappling. Okay, great, the psyker has high Toughness and Willpower.. But its unlikely he has high Strength as well. Have a brutish type just grab hold of him in a grapple - the psyker cant manifest anything because they are forced to take Grapple as a full action every round. Manifestations already up wont be discounted.

3) Surprise rounds. Player cant do anything. Free shots on the character. This can be completely terrifying if there is simply an assassin out of the way of his powers with a high powered rifle - or hell, even a long-las or hunting rifle. Up to possibly 3d10 damage with decent pen?

4) Untouchables, mindless automatons, anything of the sort. I am just putting these up as blanket "these dudes are unlikely to be affected much". Untouchables are not able to be affected by anything unless its very indirect, and mindless creatures will have resistance/immunity to some abilities (like fearful aura).

5) ...Throw a psyker at them as well. Hell, combine this and 3) - psykers draw attention, have the more he uses his powers draw more attention to him. Its not dickery if its used properly, because it makes perfect sense. Your after heretics? Congratulations, if any of them have even the faintest psychic ability a psyker doing damned near anything invokes a free psyniscience test. Never mind that many phenomenons that might be otherwise harmless, or ingame wise not a huge issue, would create massive issues for the faithful of the Cult.

6) In regards to use phenos to your advantage.. Hell, if they are hunting heretics or a ritual is involved anywhere, treat the area as the "Blood Rain" peril effect - its an appropriately chaosy thing, and causes manifestations to auto peril. The trade off is a psyker is a psyker, if you take away his ability entirely your taking away his class specialty in some ways.

Anyways, some random ideas. Psykers are powerful, and sorry to say, you only make it harder for yourself by giving them enough thrones (or the accessibility) to just up and grab some of the stronger armor sets. With good TB and high AP, your going to create characters that are immune to much of the smaller arms. However, throw some weapons with PEN at them, eat through the armor and force him to soak it directly.

Syzygy said:

As for the 8-9 Psychic Phenomenon wait til the psyker rolls 4 - 9's on one 5 dice roll....

and if I remeber right ... Orks are a PLANT based Lifeform... not killable outright from the minor power but could be used to stop the Spread of them. And for that matter also... Tyranids are plant-based some what also..

Honesty I let a couple of things balance psykers in my games.

First off, is that each PC pysker has a party member assigned to them as their "handler", who is responsible for taking care of things if they seem to be getting out of control. It has almost killed PC psykers on a couple of occasions, as the player sanctioners tend to be very careful about risking warp corruption.

Secondly, their is a serious social stygma and fear of psykers in my campaigns. Commoners are superstitious and fearful, upper ranking members of society are wary at best, and of course there is always the diehard monodominants to keep their heads down.

Finally, its all about target selection. No matter how big the gun is that the guardsman has, a known psyker is always target number one.

Pyskers are very powerful, insanely powerful when they are Templars, but there are enough downsides to balance them in my opinion. They can be sniffed out by other psykers, including wyrds and corrupted psykers; they are carefully monitored by their peers and their inquisitor; they are a necessary evil, but in the eyes of the vast majority of the Imperium an evil nonetheless. The generally do not have the same freedom of movement as non psychic characters, and certainly if they are ever captured(a when not if in my games) they are in a much more difficult position then their peers.

Ungodly powerful? Yes. Worse then the sniper at long range? Not really. Worse then the tweaked out gunslinger or other combat monkey? Nope. Just more options and different toys to use is all.

Redemptionists.

Redemptionists with Frenzon and lots of nonmechanical weapons.

It's not just a case of GM-Fiat; any reasonable adversary is going to take into account the knowledge of "That guy who scares the crap out of our mooks", and adjust his/her/their plans accordingly if they can. If they can't, then, it's only appropriate thematically that the psyker curbstomps them.

Just start playing your antagonists with every dirty trick they're likely to actually use, and you should find it much easier

I just finished running the second half of Edge of Darkness tonight and the group Psyker got Perils of the Warp when sneaking into the Alms House. She used Sense Presence a lot to evade sentinels (which in itself was a good idea). She finally rolled a 9 and things went to hell. Psychic Phenomenons : 78. She used her last Fate Point to re-roll : 86. Perils of the Warp, yay. She accidentally invoked a Lesser Daemon, which nearly killed her (it must be said I boosted damage as, when running things by the book, it feels like everybody is using BB guns abd rubber blades). I'm pretty sure she will be more careful when deciding wether to use her powers of not from now on.

The probability for disaster to strike when using psychic powers may be small but there is always a (very funny) possibility.

Kyorou said:

Was she not sustaining the power? If not, shame on her. If so, may I direct you to page 164 of Dark Heresy , Sustaining Psychic Abilities . The last sentence of the paragraph on the topic states:

• " Unlike a normal Power Roll, this is a Free Action performed at the beginning of the Psyker's turn and cannot invoke either Psychic Phenomena or the Perils of the Warp. "

While there is always a chance for something untowards to occur with the manifesting of psychic powers, sustainable powers tend to be "safer" to utilize for this very reason.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

She wasn't. She was using the power every now and then to get a peek at what was around. I didn't want to give tactical advice to my players during game so, next session, I will explain her that she could have safely sustained the power instead. Live and learn...

Kyorou said:

Or, more aptly worded might be "barely live and learn." A lesson learned is an advantage gained. I have to agree with not reminding players of things their characters are capable of; though, for a new player, I'll try to be helpful for a few sessions. Helps me to remember things as well.

-=Brother Praetus=-

I have been running Tattered Fates as well and one of my players has just rerolled as a Pyromancer. He does tons more damage than anyone else but I am balancing that out with the problems of being a Sanctioned psyker. I made him have the sanctioning brand on his face so it was visible. That meant as soon as they left the Red Cages he couldn't get an answer out of anyone. He looked like a runaway with his ragged blood smeared clothes so no one wanted to talk to him. Eventually they got clothes and he got a mask to cover his brand and was able to fit in with the carnival.

I then made a slight modification and gave Bliss the psynisiance skill. Actually in general I modified the whole Papa Grist bit as he felt really out of place considering the description of the Promenade of Arenas. I had Bliss screen people as they came in and point out the psyker so that he couldn't get close to Papa Grist.

Keep in mind this when dealing with players as psykers. Criminals in the Imperium are aware of the authorities use of psykers to root out people like them. The are also aware that their enemies can make use of unsanctioned psykers. This means that where possible they have their own ways to try and deal with them. You dont need to assume that their enemies wouldn't be able to deal with psykers.

Also making use of psykers puts you in a difficult position when dealing with some of the more hardline elements of the Imperium like the Soroitas or the Ecclesiarchy. It wont take much for those elements to turn on a psyker or use him as a scapegoat.

While you shouldn't punish a psyker mechnically (except Seal Wounds which is OP) you should remember the social implications and use them vigorously.

Kaihlik

Kaihlik said:

Oh, I don't know, I think the threshold of 20 is plenty balancing for Seal Wounds ; last entry on page 9 of the v.3.0 Errata.

-=Brother Praetus=-