To quote directly from the errata PDF

"Psychic Blade on page 177 should include the addition: “When
rolling a 95-00 while attacking with a Psychic Blade, a stray
thought causes the psyker to attack and automatically strike the
nearest being within melee range. If there are several targets, the
psyker strikes the one that is most signifi cant to his emotional
state. If there is no one in range, he automatically strikes himself.'

I have several problems with this errata

1. "the nearest being" seems to assume that you might be initiating attacks against something that isn't in melee range.
2. "most significant to his emotional state" is vague.
3. "if there is no one in range" -- again -- seems to assume that you might be making attacks when there is no one in melee with you.

I've read and re-read the psychic power description and it seems cut and dry that the Psychic Blade can ONLY be used in melee combat (as a fancy sword). The second point (re: emotional state) is silly -- if I'm fighting one-on-one with a foe and I roll a Jam result, I automatically hit my opponent? And, really, if I'm fighting with a fellow against a villain (2v1), wouldn't my emotional state be influenced the most by the person trying to do me and my fellows harm (most likely kill me/defile the glorious works of my God Emperor)?

The point of this errata seems to be to give the Psychic Blade a drawback... but the wording is poor and seems to only make the power more... powerful. I tried a forum search to see if this had been covered before but I can't find any discussion on the errata for this particular power.

I agree with you here, the errata only makes this psychic blade stronger.

Considering we are talking about the wielders current emotional state, if we have a psyker under some form of mind control roll a 95-00 with the blade, does that mean that it might hit the thing that mind controlled him instead of the thing the controller wants the psyker to attack ?

I believe the entire errata would make more sense if you took it to mean:

"automatically strike the nearest being OTHER THAN THE INTENDED TARGET in melee range"

This would mean that in a one-on-one fight, the psyker automatically strikes himself. Admittedly, the "most significant to his emotional state" is still rather vague, but I think definitely puts the choice in the hands of the GM.

The Boy Named Crow said:

Yeah, I would agree.

I see it as being on a "jam" a careless thought from the psyker puts the blade in exactly the opposite of what was intended. So in a 1-on-1 they stab themselves and in a combat with their best mate Assassin-A, in desperatley trying to help they end up stabbing them in the face.

The first and foremost thing to keep in mind is this entire chain of events is initiated by one very clear fact: The psyker has just initiated a FAILED melee attack. They have already FAILED to hit their intended target. Should the failure be particularly bad (the 95-100 roll) then the invisible massless "blade" of pure force has briefly "slipped" or otherwise gone wild. Physical weapons have mass and momentum behind them, making even wild swings somewhat predictable... Something made of intangible nothingness powered and shaped by raw will that loses control is something else entirely: It is either subject to stray thought patterns or truely random! So if you are fighting in a group melee then you are either going to strike the nearest combatant (other than the intended target!) or the fighter that the attacking character has the most emotional turmoil about. For example, if the person fighting next to the psyker is known to be a "purge them all just to be sure" sort of Wytch-hunter then a raw spike of emotion is more likely to send the blade in this person's direction! Or you are attempting to strike the person attacking your character's lover when suddenly you can't help but think about how beautiful her eyes are.... This is BAD! Short of roleplay-appropriate angst, then the blade hits the nearest fighter. If there are no other targets in reach (such as fighting one-on-one or the others are out of your reach) then the psyker does the "amateur Jedi" thing and puts their sharp and pointy thought right through something near and dear to themself: Namely themself!

ZillaPrime said:

I have to agree with Zilla here (god I hate to do that!), as that's shown pretty clearly in the rule, as the 'blade' doesn't even add a character's strength bonus on the attack, it adds willpower instead. So if the Psyker missed, yeah, their mind must have seemed to wandered off somewhere.

Glad I bought Blademaster for my Psyker! Although my character uses a Force Blade, not a Psychic blade. If the Gm says that the talent won't work on the ability, then just spend a fate point, or prepare to lose an arm.