After reading through the psychic powers section of the game, I have some serious concerns over the Divination psychic power path. While the Divination power section specifically states it's up to the GM how much information they give the Librarian using the power, most powers do give an expectation of the type of information you will get depending on your PR when casting each power.

My thought is Augury, Divination, Lifting the Veil and Psychometry will tend to give the players so much information that they won't need to do any roleplaying to get vital information pertinent to the adventure. If I as the GM, start messing with the information I give the players and use the "Warp is fickle" excuse they give in the book, I can see that it could cause resentment from a Librarian player. What good is taking a power path if the GM is going to nerf it using the warp as an excuse all the time?

I'm not even sure what psychic powers my group's librarian (Rune Priest) will even take, but if it were me, I'd be sure to select a few Divination powers for my character.

Has anyone given thought as to how they'll deal with this issue?

Let me get this right: you have concerns that it's abusive, but you'd personally be sure to take advantage of it?

HappyDaze said:

Sure as heck, I'd take advantage of these powers as a player... I didn't say I was stupid.

After reading through the Librarian Powers section, I'd consider it foolhardy if a Librarian player passed over the Divination powers this game provides and didn't at least consider taking one or two of them. If I, as a player, invest in a power and while trying to use it, my GM started nerfing it because it's too powerful, I'd be ticked off. As a GM, I know these powers are available and they are a very powerful option within the game. I don't want to tell my players they can't take them, but when they do, I also don't want to nerf the powers to the point where they are useless either.

My question really is how are GMs planning on dealing with these possible "instant win buttons" in game? Are GM's planning on allowing the powers "as is"? Are they going to nerf them as suggested in the book using the "Warp is Fickle" option? Are GMs going to dis-allow players from taking the more potent game breakers?

Are there other ways to overcome these abilities when writing an adventure so that the game can't be broken too badly?

divination doesn't do kaboom kill explode Xenos, and I think it's fair to say many PCs would probably skip over it, however the powers are only as powerful as the GM decides.

If GM has key information he wants to give, then he can use this as a method, it's how much you can wangle out of your gm.

FatPob said:

On first glance, I would tend to agree with you FATPOB. The "bang, bang" powers are pretty appealing. Those are the powers you see used in the T.T. game and initially, I think most librarians will be drawn to them.

Any power gamer worth his salt in your game though will review each and every power and use the most potent ones they can find. And we all know that power gamers aren't going to be drawn to any game containing space marines, right ? To me, the power gamer route seems to be with the Divination powers.

While most Librarians may opt for Codex and Chapter powers for their "bang, bang" effects... a librarian is still pretty potent even without these powers. Force Weapons, for one can make them combat monsters fairly quickly. Weapon requisition points can easily be spent on potent ranged weapons as well. So why take a lot of your psychic power points and put them into powers that can be duplicated to some degree with some weapons already out there. In fact, one of the psychic powers I read duplicates the effects of a flamer (albeit with possibly a better penetration.)

I'm pretty sure anyone that can game a system will see that Divination is a powerful tool that is difficult to duplicate without some serious points invested into a lot of skills, skill upgrades and relevent ability increases. At the xp cost some of these divination powers come in at, they seem to be the more efficient way to go.... imho.

LeBlanc13 said:

Yes. A player who doesn't get that his Divination power won't yield any results if that would mean it would by-pass the scenario (like in Extraction from the core rulebook - but in that scenario you luckily can claim the tyranids' shadow in the warp) hasn't been thinking enough. Their Divination power might be good to give them some extra hints or sometimes cut some ways short but they cannot be allowed to be game breaking.

As a Rifts GM with a Mind Melter player I have plenty of experience in dealing with that, trust me. The Rifts Mind Melter can do even more.

Alex

Divanation powers have always been in the class of abilities that piss off the GM by making the game easier. There's really nothing new here. Of course, as stated earlier, players will probably overlook divination abilities to focus on blowing up the enemy abilities.

KommissarK said:

One can only hope.

I can honestly say, I'm not one of the power gamers in my group and even I saw how the Divination powers had immense potential. I've got to assume that others in the group will see that as well. Since the player in my group choosing the Librarian path is going to be a Rune Priest, I'm hoping he chooses more from his chapter powers instead.

My concern is not really with the player... per se. I'm more concerned with knowing how people have dealt with the power level of the Divination powers themselves.

So, are there any GMs out there that have experienced issues with Divination powers yet? How did you handle it? Was it really even an issue for you?

I did everything I could to convince our Librarian player that Augury was more useful than Reading, but he was insistent that Reading was the better choice... so at least my group doesn't have to worry about a Librarian who is able to foresee ambushes, predict disaster, assess opposition sight unseen, or make other potentially life-saving prognostications.

ak-73 said:

So Alex, how did you deal with the Mind Melter's abilities? Do you think any of those solutions could help in this situation?

From a purely gamist standpoint, I have always hated the diviniation-cluster of powers in any game to reveal objective information in the format

PC (obsequious): I scry - what is behind that door ?

GM (ticked off): **** - an Orc

PC (triumphantly): you heard the man !

-

Instead, I have the player make an honest effort to roleplay the **** thing and then they may make things up themselves. The more vague they are, or the less it is about a main thing in the game, the more likely it is going to happen. Usually, I don't really care that much, and so in essence, the player can, by using the divination cluster, simply determine what will happen - and it will. I also feel that this is much more true to the idea of divination. Also, players with this power can roleplay being plagued by visions of possibility in exchange for "plot point" change allowances. It works better than it sounds.

PC (using divination) - I can see a feral opposition on the other side of the door (looking at the GM for approval, rolling well) - a wild man with an implement in his hand, perhaps.......

Obviously, this requires mature players more interested in the mood than in the loot. Fortunately, after many many years, maturity is what we have an excess of by now, so no prob there...

LeBlanc13 said:

Lol, I once ran a whodunnit scenario and the Mind Melter wasn't invited (I also had a too large pool of players to choose from so this was easy for the player to understand).

But that's not the kind of solution you're looking for, I take it. Take any player with divination powers aside, preferrably during character creation. Tell them that the purpose of these powers isn't game-breaking and that you will not allow this (warp storms, etc). These powers are meant to give vague hints/prophecies which are more often right than wrong (but not entirely reliable, there's the chance foe error) which at best help to avoid dangerous encounters or help to make an otherwise dangerous encounter easy. That's the purpose of the powers (as well as providing the GM an excuse to influence the atmosphere through dark foreboding, etc but you don't need to reveal that).

Ask the players in question what they expect from such a power. If they think they can show off how clever they are for having chosen a game-breaking power, their understanding of rpging has to be questioned. Part of the GM's job in pen&paper rpgs is to ensure that no player uses cheats, gaining inifinite health and jumping to the boss fight right away. If any player tries to do that, they aren't clever, they are spoil-sports for everyone else.

Alex

Ariolan said:

Divination powers have to have some appeal to players or else they won't choose them. So they should be able to give players (with a medium level of reliability) an information edge over a group who doesn't have access to such powers.

Alex

Frankly, I use them RAW.

There is nothing wrong with a Librarian that <gasp> wants to be more of a Librarian (think Thousand Sons). I welcome any psyker (not just a Librarian) to seriously consider the Divination powers.

Those powers have MASSIVE role-playing potential. It allows the psyker to REALLY feel unique. Yes, there are other characters that can deal massive amounts of damage and yes, you could be one of those players. But why do that? You could make such a more interesting character by being able to do those cool things that you would think a psyker should be able to do.

I'll never forget the one Ascension game I ran where the Inquisitor (player) was trying to interrogate a heretic.

Inquisitor (player): "You know something.. if you don't start talking, I'll have to use drastic measures...and you don't want that..."

Heretic (NPC): "Do your worst".

Inquisitor (player): "Fine... Mr. Havelock?!"

Divination / Telepathy Psyker (player): "Yes master?"

Inquisitor (player): "Tear his mind open, I want to know everything he does.. do you understand me?! EVERYTHING HE KNOWS!"

Divination / Telepathy Psyker (player): "So be it..."

After they were done with the Heretic, not only did they discover EVERYTHING about the man (which allows me as a GM to incorporate copious amounts of plot hooks for future adventure ideas), but they also got the information they need... which advanced the plot of the story. Oh, and he was reprogrammed during the process to be a caddy for the Inquisitor and carry his luggage.

If you just realize that the person in your groups has access to those abilities, just be ready to provide some juicy details. That's it.

I personally LOVE the Divination abilities as being the coolest role-playing abilities in any system that I have had the pleasure of GM'ing for (too many to count at this point).

The powers should not be viewed with fear or trepidation, but as a creative challenge for the GM. It gives you the ability to flesh out something that you perhaps hadn't considered before, which in my book, keeps the creativity of the GM sharp.

I don't know how much of a problem these really should be.

First, Augury seems very vague, except at the highest PRs.

Second, and more importantly, wouldn't the Deathwatch deliberately assign Librarians with potent prognosticating powers to missions where that would be useful? I mean, there's more than a few Deathwatch Marines in the Reaches, right? Why NOT assign the psychics to missions where their talents would be useful. Hopefully you'd send a Tech-marine if you were going to interact with the Adeptus Mechanicus and explore xenos tech, right?

I just don't know how they would be "short-circuiting" an adventure when their PURPOSE was to resolve it quickly. It is like complaining that lockpicks circumvent locks. Of course they do. That's why thieves buy them!

Of course, there are novice GMs out there, so (as a guy who has been running RPGs since 1983 or so), let me give a simple piece of advice:

Adventures can often be divided into two parts:

What do we need to do?

Let's go do what we need to do!

Either or both parts can be really, really long, but neither has to be (though if both parts are short, it will be a short adventure). There is nothing wrong with a short adventure (see Extraction).

If you have a guy who can see the future, or read minds, or otherwise do cool divinations, the first part might be really short. If no one in your group can (especially if no one in your group is good at social skills, investigation, or just thinking), the first part can be really long.

It doesn't matter if people know EXACTLY what they need to do. It can be hard to do that.

"All we have to do to stop the Tyranid invasion is destroy the Broodlord. I know just where he is. He's over there, way across town, through all these roving gangs of cultists and genestealers, holed up in a highly defensible nest, protected by even more cultists and genestealers."

"Dude, your guy just solved the whole adventure, once we defeat hundreds of cultists and dozens of genestealers, and kill the Broodlord, I mean."

Brother-Sergeant Cloten said:

No. Divination for example takes away a lot of the fun of the Extraction mission from the core rulebook. You get dropped, you know where the magos is, you go to him, skipping the rest of map, you go for extraction. I don't see this use of Divination making the scenario more fun. Therefore I am going to rule that under the Hive Shadow the Librarians in my group will not be able to locate the magos. In fact I am not sure if any of their powers are going to work as usual planetside.

Alex

Brother-Sergeant Cloten said:

Actually, I'm not new to GMing. I've been playing and DM/GMing since 1983, as well (D&D Pink/purple box.)

AK-73 makes my point a bit better than I initially did, I suppose.

What these Divination powers do is circumvent the investigation and/or social interactions in the game. For me, that's a problem. This is supposed to be a role-playing game. If a Librarian can basically circumvent all of the social interactions using his psychic abilities, then the game just comes down to the combats leading up to the grand finale fight. That is my major concern with playing divination psychic powers RAW.

I thought this game was supposed to involve role-playing. If the role-playing aspects just come down to Space Marines arguing over their Chapters' differences with each other, then this just becomes a TT tactical game with some additional rules to add the illusion of roleplaying.... Oh, that and you get to level your characters rather than keeping them with flat statistics.

I'm hoping to add levels of complexity to social interactions that will get the players thinking, in addition to the massed combats. I really want this to be a well-rounded game for my players. If the Librarian can circumvent all social interations by using psychic powers, what's the point of designing them to begin with?

DM - "You walk into the great hall of the Imperial Palace on world X. The governor walks up to your group in greeting. (asks players to roll perception check. They are successful.) You notice he seems to be a bit nervous."

Librarian - I invoke my Reading Power on the governor to determine if he's lying. (rolls. It's successful)

DM - Okay, you note that he is fearful and distrustful of you. He you also sense his intense hatred as well.

Librarian - Next I want to cast augury to find out who my greatest negative opposition is. I'm going to push it this time. (rolls another success)

DM - Okay, you can see your most negative opposition is very close. In fact, it's directed towards the man standing directly in front of you.

Librarian - I level my force weapon at the governor and tell him "Spill your guts, or I will do it for you.

Others - We draw our bolters and prepare to fight.

Am I wrong here?

LeBlanc13 said:

In this situation I guess we have to agree to disagree.

Those psyker powers only enhance the situation. Let me reiterate what I mentioned above in a different fashion:

How would your players come across the information if the psyker was not there?

What would a psyker with divination powers reveal with his abilities that the players would not have seen otherwise?

Do you see the difference in what I proposed? In one situation, the players still have to come by the information the "old fashioned way". In the other instance, the psyker just revealed more details that would have otherwise been glossed over / not necessary for the success of the mission.

Try not to think of this as the D&D Bluff skill where you could Bluff a man that he didn't truly know his own first name and that man would have to believe you. The Warp IS fickle. Even the Thousand Sons could not foresee the future very clearly despite their best efforts (from the novel A Thousand Sons). What information is gathered from the Divinations can be crystal clear (at higher ranks) or a little fuzzy (when they are just starting out at lower ranks).

Or, you could just take the powers RAW, like I would. It adds depth to the mission, to any mission. Not only does it show that a Librarian can be more than just a combat monkey that most are going to build them as, but instead as a strong role-playing force.

Also keep in mind, most people that you're going to interact with that are not other space marines would not appreciate a psyker probing their mind. It won't earn your Librarian much respect if he mind probes every single person the squad meets. In fact, he might be met with open hostility about it. This would then lead to the question, does a person know that there is someone else rooting around in their thoughts? Yes, they do know. An alien conscious inside your mind (in this case alien means a mind not your own) is something that feels very disconcerting. Only the best Diviners and Telepaths can probe someone else without them even realizing it.

My ultimate point is this:

These powers add to the role-playing experience. Find new and inventive ways of revealing just enough information to keep the game moving in the right direction.

Great, he sees where the contact is for Extraction missions. Oh ****, we have to travel through WHERE to get there?! Well, who is going to be waiting for us there? Cultists, heavy weapons teams, aliens, chaos, earthquakes, volcanoes and a partridge in a pear tree? I suppose it's a good thing that we know who we're fighting... wait... did I just say a partridge? No... scratch that last bit... the Warp is messing with me.

LeBlanc13 said:

DM - The governor looks shocked and appalled that you would draw your weapons on him. He kneels before you and spouts out, "Please, my lords, what have I done to vex thee so? I know that I've screwed up in the past, but I'm sure that we can discuss your motives for being here?"

If your players answer to this is to "Open Fire" then perhaps they aren't much in a role-playing mood. You see what I did there? Yeah, that's what he read... but wait a tick... did he get the correct impression? Or did the Warp misdirect him? Did he really roll well enough to active that power despite any penalties that you, of course, DIDN'T tell him about?

It causes doubt. It causes the player to wonder, "Huh... that's what the Warp showed me... perhaps there is some truth behind what it said.. but it wasn't the whole truth."

I just created a new and interesting role-playing opportunity by using your Librarians doubt in the truth the Warp showed him. Was he right? Sure, perhaps he was 100% correct. Is he going to trust his powers enough to use them AGAIN to see if the governor is lying this time? Maybe... but I'm willing to bet not.

SpawnoChaos said:

So what incentive is there for other players in the group to take any sort of social skills if the Librarian can get enough hints to put them in the right direction all the time?

I understand the warp IS fickle, but to use that as an excuse in every situation where the Librarian uses his powers just nerfs the Librarian. It WILL make the Librarian Player angry because his powers are always being ****'d with. I've seen it in the current group that I'm playing DH with. The only difference there is every players abilities are nerfed all the time for the sake of the story. It's frustrating and causes people to want to leave the game when they experience that all the time.

Once in a while, "The warp is fickle" works. It can't be used ALL the time though or it just becomes a massive nerfing of abilities.

Spawn, I think we will probably continue to disagree, but that's okay. It just comes down to differing GMing styles. I like my players to work toward their end goal rather than having things handed to them because of a single ability. Yes, they may still have to fight through to the end of the adventure, but if they don't have to work to get the information they need, it turns the game into a series of fights rather than a good mix of role playing situations followed by some fights leading to the end.

As far as someone not allowing the Librarian to read his mind... or telling the Librarian he can't do it... You try telling a 3 meter tall Psychic Monk with a force weapon and the backing of the Inquisition that he can't do something.

I'm okay with disagreeing on this. This is, after all, just my interpretation.

I was hoping to get some insight though from others as to how they were going to deal with this that may be outside nerfing the abilities of the Librarian or just outright disallowing the powers usage.

SpawnoChaos said:

Spoken like a prodigy. The question it boils down to is playing style. If you have a long-standing history of opposition with your players, and are sold on the idea of winning the game (I actually hated my best buddy, not a roleplayer, to ask me "who won" after sessions) or whether they will enjoy themselves even more when you throw this kind of twist at them. The art of the roleplayer in this situation lies in the fact that the player knows the truth, but maybe the character isn't so sure. Moreover, it is not what you know - it is what you can prove. Killing a planetary governor because you divined he was the evil one might not, even in 40K, make a good cause for execution unless you are an inquisitor. And even then, for a planetary governor, a little extra dirt would help to prevent extensive searches for justification. It helps also to see the world in less absolute terms - sure the character knows, but what a fuss it will generate. Sometimes it will just make them look in the right direction. I'd say, if you let these powers destroy the game than this is like, in other games or this, let the letters of someone's combat abilities destroy the major combat encounter you pondered over at first strike. Sure, that's all in the book and the way it should be - but come on, we have all given the dragon those few (or less) hitpoints to make the fight just a little bit more interesting - why shouldn't you with powers like that.

Expecting mechanical consequence from a human gamemaster will leave you wanting, a computer-aided game will alleviate that problem - and you can see this leads to "respawn" instead of truly dying, because it's friggin' boring to die from shrapnel in a game.....

once again, well solved SpawnOchaos...

LeBlanc13 said:

I think we are misunderstanding each other here due to the interwebz not being the best medium for conversation.

I actually would use the rules RAW, without nerfing the powers at all. I would tell them the truth... and some other things that may not be the truth. That's just how the warp works. It's the players job of deciphering what is the truth.

Even astropaths have to "decode" a message sent to them. The message will be sent in whatever form the sending astropath prefers, whether that is a series of numbers, symbols, animals, colors, smells, etc. The receiving astropath has to decipher what the sending astropath was trying to tell him like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. If they put it together incorrectly, they will get the information... but perhaps backwards. They may even misconstrue the entire message.

My point is that it's not just that the "Warp is Fickle"... it's just how the warp IS. Nothing is clear. It's not really an excuse to give the players the truth (if they make the roll) AND some other junk that isn't the truth, it's just the setting of and fluff of 40K. Maybe some of the stuff that they "throw away" as not being the truth and not related to the story, actually comes up later and what they really saw was some kind of prophetic vision. Could be interesting, eh?

I also do not like to just "hand" players info and get to the fighting. I am a role-player and not a roll-player. I find the fights to be suitably epic when necessary. Otherwise, my players are role-playing their whole way through each session. In the last session I ran, in 5 hours of playing there was only 1 fight that lasted 20 minutes.

What I meant in regards to "not letting a psyker read your mind" is not meant in the literal sense. If you try and probe someone elses mind and they know it, they may become violent towards you and attack you. If they do that and you kill them... well.. there goes the information you were trying to gather.

Despite our differeing GM styles, I too would like to see if this was cleared up some between us. You may find that we are of the same GM'ing style, just that we interpret this situation differently.

Ariolan said:

Solved for some, but not for others. Any other ideas about the powers would be a welcome look.

No one ever said that the system was a perfect one. Perhaps there are better ways of wording or ruling on the powers that a houserule could cover.

SpawnoChaos said:

Something you mentioned earlier got me to thinking about how there is doubt when using divination and the warp. What if the GM simply asks for the skill check number the Psyker has and then rolls behind the GM screen. With other skills, the result is obvious - fail/succeed, hit/miss, etc. But with divination, the results are supposed to leave room for doubt.

The hidden roll provides that doubt?

Definitely hide the roll, and use flowery/vague language to try and hide the actual meaning, get clearer as the roll increases, but always try to inject some falsehood/unclear details into what you tell them. Don't use names, describe things vaguely.

Once again though, divination abilities have always been one of the GMs greatest foes for the purpose of keeping the game interesting.