I'm reading through Ascension, and started wondering if the Ascended trait "The Psyker's Gift" (page 95 for the Inquisitor) is a bit more powerful than I first thought. In the description it states "You may also increase your current Psy Rating by +1 as an Elite Advance for 1,500 xp".

Originally I interpreted this as gaining Psy Rating +1 and nothing more. That is, if your psy rating was 3 already, you increased your psy rating to 4.

However, an argument can be made (as a friend of mine did) that Psy Rating +1 is equal to gaining the talents in the DH core book. This would include the powers that cames along with the talent description (Minor Powers equal to your WP bonus etc).

I still suspect my original interpretation is the correct one - anyone care to correct me or add their view?

It could be argued that it is similar to gaining the talent, but I doesn't say that you are buying the Psy Rating talent so I would have to say it is a no go. A valiant effort to be moar powerful

Yeah, I'd have to say that the "+1 Psy Rating" Advance doesn't provide any new powers or such.

The Psy Rating 1-6 Talents in the DH core rulebook are specific examples which allow you to gain powers as you increase in rank, which works well because you're new to the Psychic game and quite frankly need the powers naturally as you go along.

However, the +1 Psy Rating advance is no such Talent and doesn't state anywhere that you'll gain consummate powers whilst taking this. Essentially all this advance is for is to increase Psy-Rating dependent effects, and to allow you to roll more dice whilst manifesting.

Thanks guys, I figured as much. At least I won't have an xp sink for my Inquisitor now and can concentrate on Influence stuff

I, contrary to the others, would actually say.. Its treated the exact same as the others - I see no reason for it not to be, really. If they are not a Psyker themselves its unlikely that they have a Psy Rating above 6 (therefore the cap of the DH Core book), so if they take that (or the Minds Eye Opens advance) and go up their Psy Rating.. Are you going to deny them receiving the benefits of the Psy Rating Talents despite them effectively buying, lets say figuratively, Psy Rating 4 and Psy Rating 5?

Likewise I would question exactly how people would expect that to be worded otherwise. It says you are buying the Psy Rating +1 as an Elite Advance, therefore you are buying it as a Talent... But since everyone is likely to be at different Psy Ratings and its an intrinsic Trait of the Inquisitor instead of part of the advance scheme, you cant say directly "You buy Psy Rating X".

Out of all the things that can become obscenely powerful in Ascension, I wouldn't worry that letting them have another Psy Rating advance is going to become too rough; the whole being able to automatically roll 01 on opposed WP/WP tests for Psykery is far more dangerous.

As far as RAW goes, I can't find anywhere that suggests that the Psy Rating +1 advance gives additional powers. If it does not say that it grants additional powers, we are forced to assume it does not. Until they release a clarification or something for it then I feel we have to go with the rules as they are presented.

On a personal note as a GM, as far as a weak-ish psyker just beginning, especially in the case of someone who had just gained "The Mind's Eye Opens" I wouldn't be opposed to allowing the character to be effectively purchasing the Talents Psy Rating 1-6. In other words the first few times they gained the advance it would count just like the Psy Rating talents from DH. Especially since with the rules as written this is the only way they could in fact gain new disciplines.

What I absolutely wouldn't allow is for purchasing +1 Psy Rating beyond that to allow a gain of free powers. Psy Rating 7 and upwards should provide no such benefit.

And consider this: you'll either have to disallow Unnatural Willpower affecting this, or prepare for an Inquisitor to be swinging around like 60 Minor Powers and 36 Discipline Powers or something dumb like that.

Personally, I would not be opposed to an Inquisitor (who came from being a Psyker to have reached that height) swinging around huge numbers of minor powers and discipline powers - they are a psyker, its what their core class focus is, and for them to have reached this far means they are likely to be well versed in their field. Ascension assumes that people will have a massive surplus of such things by allowing them to sell off attained abilities to receive discounts on Ascended powers.

Either way its going to end up coming down to GM fiat - personally I would have no problem with this, Psy Rating 1-6 is as far as one can attain within the DH spectrum and they are all treated identically (barring the change when discipline powers come in at 3, in which case they become treated identically *after* the fact). With the way advancements are laid out already, I see no reason to change that for going beyond the power level in Ascension. However, you are correct - if we go by RAW despite the fact that Primaris Psyker and Inquisitors can get Psy Rating +1, they are not told that they intrinsically gain powers - nor are they told otherwise, Psy Rating +1 is left out of the ascended talent listing and we don't currently have an errata to work with.

I am simply however establishing that *I* have no problem with extending the power gain into the later abilities.

I think your personal opinion is well-thought-out, and is indeed logical. I even agree with it to a large degree.

Like I said, as a personal opinion, I wouldn't necessarily have a problem either, but there are a few things that give me pause... but I'm currently playing a Psyker approaching Inquisitor levels. My Willpower is currently 70. It will be 90 fairly soon after I hit Inquisitor, with Unnatural Willpower. If Psy Rating +1 provides new powers in the same manner as Psy Rating 1-6, I'll be gaining 18 new Minor Powers and 9 new Discipline Powers per Psy Rating +1 bought, which would be... sick. I feel like if this were the case they might as well not have put a price tag on buying Major and Minor Powers as Elite Advances.

I'd never have to pay more than a handful of XP for an Ascended power and I'd probably have every power in all the books within 2 or 3 ranks. Admittedly, buying Ranks 2&3 of Ascended powers would still be costly. Although playing a Psyker is a choice of specialization, and Inquisitors are meant to be beastly powerful, this seems nuts to me. I can't imagine Devs would have intended this.

If I were GMing a game, my personal (non-canon) ruling would be Psy Ratings 1-6 provide new powers exactly as in DH and every Psy Rating +1 beyond that does nothing but increase your dice pool etc.

I do however agree that the rules are poorly written on this subject, and leave questions and doubts. But if something isn't specifically granted by an advance, then it isn't given. Reading beyond the rules, however much sense it makes, is the province of your GM and your gaming group.

Well personally I'm playing a Cleric who will advance into the Inquisitor class. With the "The Mind's Eye Opens" transition package only, I wouldn't exactly be a powerhouse, even with unnatural willpower...first psy rating would yield 6 minor powers, second the same + 1 major power.

Come to think of it this is such a major xp sink I'm not sure I'd do it anyway, plus giving an Inquisitor even more abilities sounds like a bad way to steal the limelight further from the rest of the group.

Anyway I agree that granting the additional powers isn't too powerful for psy rating 1-6. The only background I can see that would unfairly gain from this might be the Adept from the right branch, who already potentially has psy rating 3 and as such would gain a _lot_ of extra major powers.

The Psy Rating +1 feature does not, nor does it even imply to, replicate the effects of the Psy Rating X talents with one exception. If you have no Psy Rating; as would be the case for a nascent psyker , you gain Psy Rating 1 . This I presume to mean the talent by the same name. If the Rules Question link wasn't still giving me an error, I'd asked for an official ruling; especially since the Psy Rating +1 talent is entirely lacking any further definition within Ascension as far as I can find.

-=Brother Praetus=-

E-mail [email protected] if you want to ask a rules question. I did, seeing as the utility is down, and he said it was fine.

I would send the question in myself but I don't want to seem pestering.

I can't see how these could possibly include any major or minor powers due to the power trade in that can be used. Even if you limited it to something like 1 major and 1/2 WPB minor (or even one of those), you are basically giving the character an instant 500 (or more) XP discount on his next (possibly several) Ascended level power purchase. Doesn't really seem to make sense that he ends up GAINING experience by buying a +1 Psy Rating.

Lets go with a couple examples of a fairly typical high end Psyker with 60-69 WP (no, not going to argue the WP...just go with it...):

If using the Psy Rating 3-6 as a template, they gained 3 new major powers and 6 new minor powers. The Psyker now decides he wants to but an Ascended level power. If he takes a bunch of powers he doesn't care about, he can trade them in for 2100 XP of discount on his future Ascended powers (to a minimum of 500 to buy a new power). So he just paid 1500 for that +1 Psy Rating buy gained 2100 XP of credit on new powers. That math definitely doesn't add up.

Now lets take a look at limiting it to 1 major and 3 minor (1/2 WPB) powers. That would still give an 800 XP discount on Ascended level powers, over half of the cost of purchasing the the +1 Psy Rating. This does bring the cost in line with a lot of other Ascended level XP spend, but I really don't think that's the intention.

So all-in-all, I can't see how the +1 Psy rating would include additional powers.

Redeucer said:

Over all, I agree here. I shot a short email off to get some official clarification on the matter a few minutes ago. We'll see what we get back eventually.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

And not quite 30 minutes later we have the following from Mack in my email:

Greetings Mr. Martin,

Several of us have been discussing just what exactly is provided by the Psy Rating +1 talent, as it is not clearly defined within the pages of Ascension. There simply is no write up for the talent at all except for what is provided within the transition package of "The Mind's Eye Opens" on page 48. Even then, it is unclear if this was intended to be the write up for the Talent available to the Primaris Psyker, as well as to the Interrogator and Inquisitor careers that take the "Psyker's Gift" trait.

Any enlightenment you can provide on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
[My name was here]

Hi [My name was here],

The intent is that you increase your Psy Rating by +1 and nothing else. You simply gain additional Psy Rating for the purposes of harnessing your abilities. This does not stop you from later gaining Psy Rating that comes with additional psychic powers.

For instance: Inquisitor Vilane has a Psy Rating of 3 and an advance granting him +1 to his Psy Rating. He treats his Psy Rating as 4 for all purposes. Later he purchases the Psy Rating 4 Talent and would gain the appropriate number of Psychic Powers as described in the Dark Heresy Rulebook for that talent. He would add his +1 from the Psy rating +1 advance on top of the new rating, giving him an effective psy rating of 5 for the purpose of using powers.

Mack Martin
Associate RPG Producer

I've generally been rather impressed with turn around on these things, but that was faster than I could have hoped for. Now if only I could stay focused when writing post in here.

-=Brother Praetus=-

This suggests then that the only method of gaining new Powers is to purchase them as Elite Advances as described in the various packages of Ascension, or to request your GM to allow you to purchase the Psy Rating 1-6 Talents from the Dark Heresy book and thereby gain new powers and or domains.

Pretty much exactly what I had expected. Interestingly, this means that the only way to gain access to Discipline Powers if you are a new psyker is to request to purchase the Psy Rating 1-6 talents as Elite Advances. This also means that, barring GM intervention, you may have access to no more than 4 of the 5 Disciplines in your career.

At Last Forgot said:

Well, except that in "The Mind's Eye Opens" it states that if you had a Psy Rating of 0 ( Nascent Psykers ) that you get Psy Rating 1. Mentioned seperately is that you pick one major (presumably meaning discipline ) power and two minor. So, at least as far as that transition package goes, you seem to get acess to a single discipline.

-=Brother Praetus=-

On a related note. I was planning out my psykers rise to throne agent and I noticed that with Minds Eye Opens, and the Interrogator and Inquisitor, you have set that you can advance with as much psy rating and powers as you want to burn xp for. With the Primaris Psyker, you can only gain 4 ascended psy powers and psy rating boosts, and no more minor or major powers that what you could take pre-ascension. Am I missing something in the book or do Primaris sacriface uncapped raises for a lower cost of the raises.

Moonshine Fox

The Primaris does, in fact, trade higher xp cost for maximums in the number of powers and psy rating increases. It also gets Unnatural Willpower, one of the most potent abilities a Psyker can attain, later than an Inquisitor could.

The question you might ask is: Do I really want to buy more than 4 Ascended powers, especially given the extra points it takes to master each one? Do I really want to up Psy Rating to the maximum attainable immediately, or is XP better spent elsewhere?

Then you should notice that Inquisitors can get Unnatural Willpower at rank 9, consider how many thousands of XP you want to wait to double your Willpower Bonus, and realize that "immediately" is the only answer you should give for the question "How soon should I be able to take Unnatural Willpower?"