Hey there folks, I've been kicking around the idea of Singing Spear rules in Dark Heresy. Let me know what you think.

Singing Spears are a rare weapon employed by Eldar Farseers. They attune themselves to their wielder, forming a conduit and amplifier for his psychic might. These long-hafted wraithbone constructs hum audibly when held by a powerful psyker, giving the weapon its name. The haft is studded with gems that gently pulse with energy, and the blade is inscribed with glowing runes in spidery Xenos script. They never willingly part with such a weapon, and the few that have made their way into Imperial hands are almost universally taken as spoils of war or objects of study.

Singing Spear 1d10+3 Pen 2 Weight: 3kg Rarity: Near Unique [This weapon requires two hands to wield]

Qualities:

Force: Adds the wielder's Psy-Rating to damage and penetration. After striking an opponent, the wielder can send a burst of psychic force and killing will into the blade. As a Free Action, the wielder may make Manifest Power roll at Threshold 6 after dealing damage to an opponent. The wielder and victim make an Opposed Willpower test. For every degree of success, the victim suffers another 1d10 wounds ignoring Armor and Toughness. When attacking an inanimate object, instead make a Challenging (+0) Willpower Test for 1d10 damage per degree of success, ignoring armor. Singing Spears have been known to cleave oven even tank armor in the hands of a suitably skilled wielder.

Special: Singing Spears are renowned for their use as thrown weapons, and can carry devastating psychic payloads even at a distance. The wielder of a Singing Spear may utilize it as a thrown weapon, with a range increment of 10m. By charging the weapon before releasing it, the character may benefit from the normal Force qualities of the weapon even at a distance, including using a Manifest Power roll to gain additional damage upon an Opposed Willpower test. Once the weapon has been thrown, it tunnels mysteriously through the warp, returning to its owner's hands at the start of their next turn

A Singing Spear functions as a Psy-Focus and a Greater Divination Focus (See pg. 151 of Dark Heresy Core Rulebook, pg. 48 of the Radical's Handbook). This weapon must be attuned to its wielder before making use of the Force or Special qualities, a process requiring at least 24 hours of meditation spent in physical contact with the weapon, and the Singing Spear may only be attuned to one wielder at a time. Singing spears are immune to destruction by the effect of a Power Weapon's field. This weapon is always crafted at the Best level, which has already been included in the listed damage.

Looks good, I could definatly see that as a war trophy on the wall of some Ordos Xenos Inquisitor.

Looks good. Too good though. I would propose some additions to make things harder for PCs if they want to actually use it.

This is, after all, a Eldar Force Weapon. As they are generally considerably more powerful than average human psykers, their force weaponry should be similarly advanced and difficult for the human mind to comprehend (they are aliens after all). There should be a fairly hard attunement test required for someone to actually use it. Think of it as trying to force out the imprint of its old master, and usurp their place. Forbidden Lore (xenos) should help in the roll as well. You could even make the test required over a longer period of time, for the human to become accustomed to the alien weapon. Or maybe you could play it out as a psychic duel between the human and the remenants of the Farseer. If you have the Rogue Trader: Lure of the Expanse book, they have a Farseer adversary (as well as some Warlocks) that could be used stat wise. You could have the duel play out using WP as a WS equivalent, then the psy rating of each side as their number of attacks. Int could become the toughness stat, and any psychic related talent could be incorporated into the duel as well?

Failure to properly attune should result in some kind of stunning. -20 WP for d10 hours would be pretty good. During that time, all psychic benefits as a forceweapon are unable to be used, leaving a Mono-Best Quality Spear in its place. Or you could be really nasty and use the "Mind War" power from Lure of the Expanse as the effect that occurs on either a critical fail or regular fail (opposed WP test between farseer's WP, if the player fails, they suffer 1d10 explosive damage, plus an additional 1d10 for every degree of success the farseer had over that player. WP bonus used in lieu of toughness, ignores armour, and any critical damage done is always to the head).

If the weapon is just going to sit behind some inquisitor's desk, you wont need any of that. But if it is going to be used out in the field? There needs to be some serious cons to go with the Pros you've set out. While not 100% sure on this, i would imagine farseers and/or warlocks would be able to track a Singing Spear and want to reclaim it pretty bad. And just a FYI if you didn't already know this, again in the Lure of the Expanse book, they have rules for Witchblades. Rules for Witchblades state that in the hands of non-eldar, the weapon is nothing more than an unusual power weapon, so technically, a similar effect would occur for a Singing Spear. But that isnt really fun, thus i suggested the extreme measures in tuning the weapon to a player's will.

Thanks for the insight. Too powerful, though? It's basically just a Force Sword with two extra damage and minus the Balanced. I was trying really hard not to break anything with the concept, and the fact that it takes two hands to wield helps ameliorate any overpoweredness in my mind. I was very much torn between wanting to make a god weapon and one that could see the light of day. The throwing ability, and ability to shear inanimate objects, helped make it fluff-tastic for me without breaking too much.

Regardless, your commends on the difficulties of becoming attuned are very interesting, especially if the weapon were wielded for a very long time by some powerful Farseer. The concept of lingering psychic presence are too cool not to use. If I were to introduce it in my game, I would almost certainly include something like that, if only to really give the player a sense of accomplishment. It would also help impress upon them just how rare and mighty such weapons were, because of the trial they had to go through to wield it.

Your comment in regards to the Eldar trying to return such a weapon to the rightful owners is what I had in mind, I just didn't want to necessarily state it in the "rules" for the weapon. That seems a little too intrusive, as in my mind a GM can decide perfectly well how their NPCs will. It also presumes a bit much of the Eldar... who I see as fairly long-term planners, and quite intelligent, not willing to risk many lives brashly assaulting an Inquisitorial team just to ****** back a spear. As a target of opportunity, absolutely. But again that's something for GMs to decide and doesn't really belong, imo, in the rule set.

That is fair. I guess my biggest concern was the "killing blow" ability, especially as a free action. That certainly would be a god-weapon. The other abilities seemed fair enough, but being able to inflict that much potential overkill damage with every damaging strike seems like quite a boon to grant a player. Maybe a cap for the overbleed damage could work? Maybe no more than +3d10 extra damage? As well as making the 'manifest' ability a half-action to further balance it out? (i will admit my group never was able to get a psyker high enough in rank to be able to use a force weapon, so i am quite rusty on the basic rules for them.) This way, a psyker with multiple attacks couldn't end up doing 300+ damage in a single combat round. The killer stroke would then be limited to a SINGLE killing stroke, which should cause the player to use that ability carefully instead of wading in and destroying everything, every time.

I also didn't intend for the Eldar hunting the acolyte down to retrieve the spear to be a specific rule for the weapon, rather more of an obligatory plot device to provide further challenges for a character who has stumbled across an incredibly powerful xeno weapon. But now that you mention it...a Rival (Eldar) talent would go rather well with it, especially if the acolytes are forced to work with them or come in contact with them over the course of their career. Granted they wouldn't send out an entire Eldar battle group to hunt for a missing spear, but a Pathfinder squad would be dangerous enough and capable enough of performing such a task in just about any environ, as they can technically be anywhere, and do so without notice. The directing mind could be anything from the spouse of the fallen Farseer, or to a loyal student or former bodyguard. From the various Dawn of War games out there, a Farseer having witnessed a vision/telling of the weapon falling into alien hands, upsetting balance, etc, etc, is easy and plausibly done...albeit tacky and cliche.

Regardless, though, the singing spear will make a game mighty interesting.

You might want to take a look at Lure of the Expanse for Rogue Trader, which has rules for Eldar Force weapons in it.

@Asgard, the Killing Blow special ability is slightly unbalanced and I agree. It is, however, standard to all Force weaponry in Dark Heresy (see Inquisitor's Handbook). Additionally, remember than you cannot perform two of the same action in a round. This means that the Free Action Manifest may only be used once.

@MILLANDSON, I would look them up in that book but it is a pre-written adventure, is it not? I believe my GM intends to run it at some point, we just started a RT campaign after playing DH for quite a while. I wouldn't want to ruin any suspense.

You might take a look at the mechanics they used for the Witchblades in one of the Rogue Trader adventurers, Lure of the Expanse. Similar, but different. If you were to use the witchblade as a basis, I'd just suggest allowing it as a thrown weapon with the witchblade's normal tripling of SB and enhanced penetration, even when thrown or used against inanimate objects.