If you’re like me, you feel that psykers at the Ascension level can quickly become too powerful. If you’re like me, you also cry into your pillow at night about it. But the first one is more important.

With the array of abilities and access to Unnatural Willpower in particular, they quickly outstrip almost all other characters in terms of versatility and combat potential. This rule set is an attempt to rebalance those Powers which become sickeningly mighty in such hands, without wildly altering the RAW or most powers.

The crux of these changes lies in the introduction of EPR, which substitutes for Willpower Bonus in all instances which refer to WP bonus. The addition of Mastered Disciples was also intended to add certain incentives to a Psyker’s selection of powers. A few details of other powers were also changed deliberately, such as Holocaust. The specifics of Psyker’s Gift were altered slightly to ensure that Interrogator/Inquisitor are not able to outstrip Primaris Psyker in power. Additionally, for the purpose of Discipline Focus and mastered disciplines, Ascended powers were classified. Note that many powers are not mentioned here, or portions of them are not listed. These are intended to be unchanged, except for the substitution of EPR for WP bonus.

I would love comments or opinions on the soundness of my proposed system.

I also have an itemized list of every single power which had its wording changed by this new rule set, and will post it if desired.

New Mechanic:

Effective Psy Rating (EPR)
A number of powers make reference to a psyker’s Effective Psy Rating (EPR) when discussing the power’s effects. A psyker’s EPR for a particular manifestation is equal to the number of dice he rolled to manifest the power, plus any miscellaneous modifiers.

Altered Talents:

Discipline Focus
Talent Groups: Biomancy, Divination, Pyromancy, Telekinesis, Telepathy
Prerequisites: Psy Rating 3
You devote a great deal of time and effort into increasing your control of a Discipline. Choose one of your Disciplines. You gain a +2 to Power Rolls made to manifest any powers of this discipline. In addition, your Effective Psy Rating increases by one for the purpose of powers within this Discipline.

Altered Traits:

Unnatural Willpower
This trait multiplies a character’s Willpower Bonus by an amount equal to the number in parentheses. If this trait is gained more than once, increase the multiplier by one (For example, Unnatural Willpower (x2) becomes Unnatural Willpower (x3)). When performing Opposed Willpower tests, the character counts as achieving the number in parenthesis as additional Degrees of Success. In addition, if the character is a psyker, for each level of Unnatural Willpower he possesses, his Effective Psy Rating is increased by one.
Example: A psyker with Psy Rating 8 and Unnatural Willpower (x2) who chooses to manifest at the Unfettered level and roll all 8 dice would have an EPR of 9 for that power.

Manifesting Powers
Psykers at the Ascension level (in game terms, this means any Psyker of Rank 9 or above with a Psy Rating of at least 6) may manifest powers at the fettered, unfettered, or push level. When manifesting a power, the psyker first performs a Focus Power action. He then rolls a number of d10s related to their Psy Rating and adds his Willpower Bonus, with the goal of the final result equaling or beating the power’s Psychic Threshold. If he does so, the power is manifested.

Fettered
When manifesting, the psyker may roll a number of power dice up to their Psy-Rating divided by 2, rounded up. However, they do not invoke Perils of the Warp no matter how many 9’s are rolled. In addition, due to the restriction of their power, any Overbleed effects cost twice as much per level
Example: The power Force Barrage has an Overbleed of 5. While manifesting Fettered, a psyker would need to exceed the power’s Threshold by 10 per level of Overbleed.

Unfettered
When manifesting, the psyker may roll a number of dice up to their Psy-Rating. Psychic Phenomena occur exactly as mentioned in the Dark Heresy Core Rulebook, with each 9 rolled forcing the psyker to roll once on Table 6-2: Psychic Phenomena.

Push
When manifesting, the psyker may roll a number of power dice up to their Psy-Rating plus 3. However, Psychic Phenomena occur automatically. For each 9 rolled while manifesting, the psyker adds +5 to the result rolled on the Psychic Phenomena table. If Perils of the Warp occur, do not increase the result by +5 per 9 rolled.

Discipline Mastery
Once a psyker has learned 8 powers within a Discipline and also possesses the assosciated Discipline Focus Talent, he is considered to have mastered that Discipline. When manifesting a power within that Discipline at the Fettered level, he increases the number of dice he may roll by 1.
Example: A psyker with Psy-Rating 7 manifests a power of a discipline which he has mastered at the Fettered level. Ordinarily, he would be able to roll up to 3 dice (7/2 rounded up). However, since he has mastered this discipline, he may roll up to 4 dice, and chooses to do so. His Effective Psy Rating for this manifestation would be 5 (4 dice rolled +1 for Discipline Focus).

Altered Ascended Traits:

The Psyker’s Gift
Add the following advances to the character’s advance scheme, available once per Rank at the costs indicated: Minor Psychic Power Talent for 500xp, Major Psychic Power Talent for 750xp and Ascended Psychic Power Talent for 2000xp. The cost of the Ascended Psychic Power Talent may be reduced in the normal fashion. In addition, the character may also increase their current Psy Rating by +1 for 1500xp every odd-numbered rank (Ranks 9, 11, 13, 15)

Ascended Psychic Powers
For the purposes of Discipline Focus and Mastering Disciplines, Ascended Psychic powers have the following distinctions. Each Rank of an Ascended Power counts as a single Power within that discipline for the purposes of Mastering Disciplines.
Certain Ascended Powers do not fit into any one Discipline, and as such cannot benefit from Discipline Focus or count towards/benefit from Mastered Disciplines.
Example: A psyker who had learned the Flameshroud and Conflagration Ranks of Burning Apocalypse would consider himself as knowing two additional Pyromancy powers. This power could benefit from Discipline Focus (Pyromancy) and Mastered Discipline (Pyromancy).

Maelstrom of Destruction: Biomancy
Burning Apocalypse: Pyromancy
Will Unleashed: Telepathy
Psychokinesis: Telekinesis
Temporal Manipulation: Divination

Altered Psychic Powers:

Holocaust

A legendary power that few pyrokinetics are strong enough to wield, let alone control. The flames of a Holocaust burn across dimensions, affecting the entities of the immaterium as well as material beings, but the cost is high as the psyker risks losing his own spirit to the fury of the conflagration.
The fires of a Holocaust always burn outward from you, dealing 1d10 Energy Damage per point of your EPR to all creatures and objects in the area. This damage bypasses Toughness Bonus and possesses the Warp Weapon quality, so it bypasses most Armor as well. Hexagrammatically Warded armor, or similar defenses, may reduce the damage by their Armor bonus but do not double the Bonus for the purposes of ignoring damage. You take 1d10+1 Energy Damage (ignoring Toughness Bonus and Armor) each Round that you sustain this power. The damage caused by Holocaust may not be healed psychically. Those slain by Holocaust are killed forever.

One thing to consider is if you are going to do this, you might also consider adjusting Faith and Sorcery abilities as well.

To be honest I don't really know much about the Faith talents, I haven't played with anyone who picked them up.

As for Sorcery, you're right. I would apply the same restrictions and substitutions.

At Last Forgot said:

All your suggestions are great but this one is the most important change. Unnatural Willpower in kind of the source of the hideous strength psykers possess, this modification still makes UN good but not gamebreakingly good.

@Nimon

I assume that you speak of the faith talents in BoM? Since the ones in IH requires a fate point to be either spent or brunt to activate. I´d say that is quite a high cost already.

<sigh> ... there's one every month who seems to think Psykers are OP...

Show me someone who thinks Psy powers are OP in Ascension (or pre-Ascension for that matter), and I'll show you a GM who doesn't know how to handle Psykers and hasn't looked at other OP classes in Ascension.

It's always the Psykers who get shat upon.

Have you even looked at the Vindicare? Here's an Assassin who can dodge upwards of 15 times a round with a 90 or in that range.

Have you looked at a Storm Trooper? Cheap WS, BS, Strength, and low cost Tough, Agil, & Perc. By the time a Psyker gets to the level of skill to use any of the Ascension powers, a good storm trooper can usually carve them up.

While you're on the subject of nerfing OP classes, please take away the Death Cult Assassin's Unnatural Agility (x4).

I could go on, but I think the point is there already... all the classes are OP...so they're all balanced.

Next time you go off crying about a Psyker, try playing one.

Psykers... those poor huddles masses of humanity, nobody likes 'em, everyone wants to kill the witch! Even your own teammates. Remember when adjucating a Psyker in your group, when anyone not in the group (i.e. npcs) see the Psyker do some crazy s..t, please remember that the common man is more afraid of that, that the guys your group is fighting. If you as a GM aren't having every Psyker looking over their shoulders for that crazed mob... then you're missing the point as a GM. Do that correctly, and you find it more balancing than nerfing the Ascension rules.

One last thing... there are plenty of posts on the forums about Psykers and their being OP... go find some of them for how to deal with Psykers in your group, before trying to re-invent the wheel.

Denmar1701 said:

You don´t need to be high level to be death incarnate as a psyker, just take holocaust and destroy absolutely everything in range regardless of dodges or armor. Last i checked you can´t dodge soul killer. Psychic shreek, BAM! 6+ fatigue. See me not grants combat immunity to anything not specifically made to counter it.

That´s just a few examples. Being able to dodge is only good if the attack allows you to dodge. Sure, the other careers can be effective, but not on the same scale as the psyker.

As for reinventing the wheel. I certainly haven´t seen any thread discussing this alternative modification and it deserves its own thread. If you don´t like it or have a need to be rude you could just not post a reply.

I know you're Captain Defends-Psykers, Denmar, thus won't take your rudeness personally. It is poor form however, so consider that this is a forum which generally promotes politeness.

In the interest of full disclosure, I play a psyker, and am about to Ascend. I'm proposing this rule set to our GM so that I, and our other psyker PC, do not outshine the others. So yeah, all your vaguely insulting suggestions that I don't know how to GM a psyker are kind of moot. I've read most of the threads debating psykers, and have heard the suggestions and advice about them. However, this is a comprehensive rules alteration, not a cobbled-together experiential glossing of dozens of posts. Seeing as how this is in the House Rules section I would say its just fine.

On the issue of Vindicare, yeah they're broken as all hell. Unnatural Agility (x4) for DC Assassin comes at the final rank, after wading through thousands of points of advances which don't improve their core character abilities, so I don't really have a problem with it being overpowered. The thought that a Storm Trooper could beat an Ascension level psyker in "even combat" is laughable. But this thread was about my proposed rules, not about fixing the entirety of Ascension. We may not even allow the Vindicare career in our game.

I'd like to keep us on subject of the post. The rules are intended to primarily eliminate the Fettered-strength Godmode that Ascension level psykers can effortlessly attain. I don't have a problem with a psyker killing a Daemonhost in a single turn, so much as I have a problem with them killing a Daemonhost in a single turn casually, with no chance of Perils. Unfettered and Push levels become more or less obsolete when all you're trying to do is Manifest a power in order to gain the full effect of the power, and generally have a bonus ranging from +18 to +24 to do so.

I think my rules end up being more cinematic as well, making the choice between the different levels of casting have a bit more legitimacy and weight, since the different levels that you cast at will influence the effect of the power as well as its likelihood of succeeding. This seems to fit the impression that the fluff gives psychic powers.

Perhaps you disagree with the intent, or execution, of my rules. That is a legitimate position. But don't bring your oft-suffering, woe-is-me, bullied psyker nonsense in without at least paying lip service to my actual writing. You don't need to protest in order to protect yourself from a nerf bat, my suggestions won't impact your game.

At Last Forgot said:

Best. Nickname. Ever!

Graspar said:

LOL.

Sorry...wasn't trying to be rude. But it seems every month or so we get someone on the forums who's talking about OP Psykers and then they come up with some rule for nerfing them.

FYI one thing my group did...too much of... increasing the rate of perils. Often for no good reason that I could see, other than the Psyker was OP. Or first shot (in any ambush on the party) almost always goes at the Psyker (sometimes it's the Tech-Priest).

OK...I'll tell you what...I take a serious look at your rules proposal. But on face value, it seemed more complicated than the old system.

Honestly, I would hate playing in that system. A lot of rewording the rules to try to make changes, the worst of which being overbleeds twice as much on a fettered roll to get them.

So the main reason for getting to Ascension, to get fettered rules, goes out the window if the Psyker still wishes to be effective, in your system.

LOL.

Sorry...wasn't trying to be rude. But it seems every month or so we get someone on the forums who's talking about OP Psykers and then they come up with some rule for nerfing them.

For good reason, Psykers are (or can be if played by a powergamer) horribly overpowered beyond what other classes are capable of.

FYI one thing my group did...too much of... increasing the rate of perils. Often for no good reason that I could see, other than the Psyker was OP. Or first shot (in any ambush on the party) almost always goes at the Psyker (sometimes it's the Tech-Priest).

Sounds like your GM agrees that psykers are overpowered and tride to remedy the situation with somewhat more of a sledgehammer than a scalpel. If that's the source of your rants about how horrible it's to play psykers I understand. But please understand in turn that most psykers don't get that. Most psykers get the standard one in ten per power die chance of phenomena and only get prioritized target status once people know they're the psyker. Which, you know, isn't a good thing to tell the enemy.

OK...I'll tell you what...I take a serious look at your rules proposal. But on face value, it seemed more complicated than the old system.

On face value it's almost exactly the same system that is used in RT and DW. That is, this is how fettered/unfettered/push was intended when thought out. They did a horrible job with converting it to DH and these rules are what ought to have been done to keep the spirit of the rules intact.

The thing is, Denmar, that psykers can still be effective with less overbleed and an effective WPB of 1/2 their psy rating. All these rules alterations do is make fettered/unfettered/push actually matter in more ways than "do I want to summon daemons or not". Surely there needs to be some tradeoff between safety and power in order for the unfettered and push options to be viable at all?

And really, that tounge in cheek "Captain Defends Psykers" is spot on my observations about you. You play a psyker whom you like very much and any issue about the mechanics behind psykers you're bound to be there, championing more power for the most powerful class in the game, to the point of even working out an entire new "hybrid" class which, tbh, was some of the most blantant munchkinism I've ever seen. So it's sort of hard for me to take your usual cry of "but this makes psykers useless" at face value without some actual examples.

Could you perhaps provide some specific example of how you feel that psykers are underpowered with these rules? From what I can tell they're still useful, just not instant win useful unless they're prepared to take risks, which feels quite right. Or is that the underpowered part? That psykers no longer get to one shot 3.6 greater daemons per round without taking risks.

It does penalize Fettered casting pretty heavily, that's true. The double-cost Overbleed is something I was debating whether to do or not, so your input on that point is appreciated. It might be overdoing the leveling-off of power that I intended, but it probably merits some playtesting before I propose the rules to my GM.

A psychic Inquisitor at Rank 9 could be getting a Fettered EPR of 7 still, fairly easily (Psy Rating 7/2 is 4, +1 for Discipline Focus, +1 for Discipline Mastery, +1 for Unnatural Willpower). That works out in the pre-Ascension DH rules to a Willpower in the 70s, and it just goes up. Still plenty to get the job done in almost all cases. The upshot of my version of Fettered is that you can still manifest easily (really, how can you fail to meet Thresholds at this point) but the effect will be diminished. Which also ties into my mental concept of Fettered: the Psyker has such great control that they can carefully modulate their power, lowering it to safe and manageable levels.

But there should be a trade-off to a certain degree, especially since Phenomena/Perils are one of the inherent limiting factors on Psychic power. In the core rules, Fettered/Unfettered/Push is essentially a trivial choice. Fettered in RAW is such an overwhelmingly better option that you would never choose otherwise, and obviates virtually all of the dangers of playing a psyker.

The same Psyker could Push all the way to 12, which is pretty darn powerful. They'd just have to take their chances on the Phenomena chart. I don't think Ascension should, for all intents and purposes, completely exempt a Psyker from the dangers of their powers. Make it so they don't turn into a Daemonhost by lighting a candle? Sure. But not when they've just lit a square kilometer on fire.

At Last Forgot said:

The thing is... most people tend to forget about using Psyniscience in defense to lower the effect of Psy powers. So with OB effects dropping, how would you handle that?

My suggestion here is under a Fettered roll, Psyniscience rolls should be at a -20 or perhaps a -30, so while the Psykers OB is small, so would the response to it in defense would be. Perhaps an additional house rule to have all Fettered rolls give a -20 or Psyniscience rolls, since they're harder to pick up on.

As for a Psyker Inquisitor... that assumes that you're going to get the Inquisition to promote a Psyker to that rank. Good luck with that. That aside...

Non-Primaris Psykers don't get the failsafes... the major controls for a Psyker without going Primaris. In the game I was in, Fettered/Push is not allowable EXCEPT with Primaris characters as well.

Please check page 124 of the Ascension book, the second paragraph under MANIFESTING PSYCHIC POWERS. "If a psyker survives long enough to be elevated to the rank of Primaris, he learns how to mask his presence from the warp". That paragraph goes on to explain Fettered/Unfettered/Push from that point, implying that ONLY Primaris Psykers can use these abilities for DH.

Ergo your example doesn't make much sense to me since you couldn't have a Psyker Inquisitor at rank 9 using the abilities as stated.

You could have an Inquisitor rank 9, who was an Imperial Psyker, who then could not use Fettered/Push abilities. Or you could have a Primaris Psyker who may be planning to take Interrogator/Inquisitor later in their career (p. 49 for information on how to elite advance into those careers from any other class).

Eventually you may end up having both, but probably not until rank 11 or so, as other abilities will probably take precedence.

First of all, the interpretation that only primaris gets fettered is a point of contention and there's no official word from FFG on the matter, the part you quote is part of the fluff text describing the ability, not the actual rules segment.

But the main thing is, what difference does it make if the example uses Primaris or Inquisitor? The rules mechanics work out the same, I guess inquisitors might get unnatural willpower earlier (dont have the books at hand at the moment) but so what? Primaris still gets it and it's only one point of EPR anyway. And for the "no psyker inquisitor" comments, have you read Eisenhorn and Ravenor? It might not be the norm but it certainly happens, and there are rules for allowing such an inquisitor to continue developing their power.

And how come you think that having defence against fettered powers being easier is a problem? It seems entierly appropriate that when you hold back to not over-extend yourself and accidentally the whole hive you're also less effective than in no holds barred die motherf*cker mode.

As for fettered powers being easier to conceal I would agree, but then again I'd probably require more DoS for detecting a manifest roll with one power die than detecting a power roll with thirteen regardless of fettered/unfettered/push so that would sort of already be included.

All that being said, I had missed the double overbleed thing, I'd have to agree with Denmar that it might be excessive. Psykers using fettered casting would get less overbleed anyway due to having less dice on their manifest roll.

Graspar said:

The 2 GMs from the group I was in interpret it that way, as do I for that matter. The main point of it I guess is simply this: you're trying to come up with a way to balance Psykers in Ascension, and the easiest way I see to do that is to ONLY allow Primaris to use the Fettered/Push option. Any other option is unbalanced from the word go, requiring massive rules modifications to make it balanced.

Graspar said:

I have read Eisenhorn. 3 books of dreadful writing was enough for me to not to want to read anymore of anything 40k.

As for Psyker Inquisitors... poetic license of the writers in question. After all, how many drow rangers running around in the realms were there prior to Drizzt Do'Urden? Writers will go outside the box for effect. If he wrote about the norm, people would be bored after 3 chapters and put the **** thing down.

But then once someone sees that in a book, then everyone wants to play one... no matter how terribly unbalancing it may be.

The 2 GMs from the group I was in interpret it that way, as do I for that matter. The main point of it I guess is simply this: you're trying to come up with a way to balance Psykers in Ascension, and the easiest way I see to do that is to ONLY allow Primaris to use the Fettered/Push option. Any other option is unbalanced from the word go, requiring massive rules modifications to make it balanced.

If I may quote the dude:

Well, you know, that just like your opinion man.

The primaris isn't balanced using the RAW fettered/unfettered/push rules. Shortly after ascension was released there was a mathhammer thread wherein it was demonstrated that a late game primaris psyker would kill 3.6 greater daemons (the toughest enemies statted in any of the books) per combat round, and this would be only slightly hampered by fettering the power. Granted, this isn't so much a problem with fettering as it is with unnatural willpower, but these house rules adress that too.

Simply put, fettering as per ascension RAW is horribly overpowered. It takes all the game mechanical risks out of playing a psyker, not some of it, all of it and doesn't even slightly hamper the psykers ability to pull of crazy overpowered stuff.

Let me outline the problem since you're obviously suffering from don't-nerf-my-beloved-character-blindness. The psychic powers in DH, unlike in RT for which the fettering rules were designed, does not have the same correlation between power level and psy rating used. The instances where the power gets better as the psyker gets better is mostly handled by WPB. You get 1d10+WPB damage and WPB penetration in DH while you get 1d10+EPR damage and EPR pen in RT. This helps make the unfettered and push options viable compared to fettered. These "house rules" do exactly that in pretty much exactly the same way as is done in RT.

"But overbleed" I hear you say, using my powers of divination. Well, yeah, overbleed is a slight link between how good a power is and how much psy rating you use, but it's much to tenuous to be of any real significance. Besides, by the time you're a primaris you'll have power well, WPB ejecting from every orifice, discipline mastery etc. etc. etc. that'll pretty much enable you to get some overbleed even while fettering. And many powers dont even have overbleed.

So the problem isn't inquisitors fettering per se, it's fettering, period.

I have read Eisenhorn. 3 books of dreadful writing was enough for me to not to want to read anymore of anything 40k.

As for Psyker Inquisitors... poetic license of the writers in question. After all, how many drow rangers running around in the realms were there prior to Drizzt Do'Urden? Writers will go outside the box for effect. If he wrote about the norm, people would be bored after 3 chapters and put the **** thing down.

But then once someone sees that in a book, then everyone wants to play one... no matter how terribly unbalancing it may be.

Right, if you're not getting the idea that psykers wouldn't be allowed to become inquisitors from the background stories, and seeing as how the ascension rules specifically makes provisions for a psyker inquisitor you're not getting it from the rulebooks either. So where does this assertion that the -=I=- wouldn't allow a psyker inquisitor come from?

Also, I noticed that you didn't respond to my argument that defending against fettered powers should be easier, should I just take that as agreement?

But Denmar, lets bottom line this and not hijack this thread for a general psyker balance discussion. Do you agree or disagree that it's reasonable for fettered manifestation to result in a less potent psychic power than the same power manifested unfettered or with push?

I make the claim, and feel I have backed this claim up in this and previous posts in this thread, that this is simply not the case in any significant way using ascension RAW and that these house rules are a good way to adress this problem. If you disagree I'd like to know on what point and most of all, why. You know, some justification for your stance instead of your usual thinly veiled "but I want my psyker to be as powerful as possible" argument.