our psyker took down a hammerhead witha couple of smite vollys, from 100 meters away pushing it. It took a couple of turns but it came down. with that rite of sanctioning thing, psychic stuff didnt happen unless he rolled perils (which he uses a fate point to reroll). This seems a little ridiculous, Thoughts?

Tunnelhckrat said:

If your psyker has managed to do "a couple" of smites without beating eaten by the warp (Rite of S is not that powerful as most Psychic Phenomena are just show effects and not really harmful) nor getting hit by a Railgun AP round, he deserves the kill.

Normally the Hammerhead will pull out of range asap (or move behind cover), turn its front facing towards the enemy and let loose with the railgun. End of Librarian. Also remember that you can do only one smite per turn, so that should give the Hammerhead ample time to eliminate attackers.

Oh, I just see that Smite must be targeted at a single creature. So it doesn't even work except against Nid "tanks."

Alex

Tunnelhckrat said:

Not really too outrageous. Librarians are amongst the most powerful psykers available to the IoM. As to why take a multi-melta? Because they are much more common in the game world than Librarians. A Chapter may have 100 multi-meltas (most of which will not all be fielded at one time), but likely only about 1/10 that number of Librarians. And while every multi-melta placed in the field is dedicated to blasting things, the same can not be said for every Librarian. While this rarity is hard to enforce in Deathwatch (PCs are always special and tend to ignore how 'uncommon' their character type might be), I'd suggest that most NPC Kill-Teams shouldn't have any Librarians, and I'd think hard before allowing more than one Librarian into a PC Kill-Team.

it took about 4 turns, railgun either missed or bounced off his storm shield, rather climatic really. So smite technically cant target a tank?

One really nasty combo is a forge master with a firestorm multi-melta, you supress the recharge and can get 2 5d10+5 pen 15 shots at 100m and use weapon tech to boost the dmg and pen by 5.

"Smite must be targeted at a single creature." I assume hordes do count as a single creature. But then again maybe not.

This actually asks for clarification. Somebody ask FFG. [Edit: you can of course target a single creature that is part of a horde and then the other horde members will be affected. So no need to ask FFG after all.]

Anyway tanks are out unless they are a single living entity, discounting the perspective of Mars here.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Then you would get one player who says that he is targeting one of the crew inside the tank. If it succeeds and does enough (but not too much) damage, he will then try to argue that even if the tank survived the blast, the crew inside didn't as the Tau don't know enough about the warp to add psy-shielding.

After the battle, one of the players will then try to steal it. At which point you would be best to say that the smite damaged something, starting a fire, which now causes the tank to explode just at the potential thief has figured out how to open the hatch.

I think that it would be best to treat vehicles and completely inorganic drones as creatures for the purpose of targeting weapons.

can I use the railgun from it? Rolling for tech use.

I would allow Smite to target a vehicle or bunker, or anything really. I would just demand that it have a target point that is specified on a target rather than being able to "airburst" it at optimal points between targets.

I agree with Happy Daze let it target a tank but don't let it bounce to other targets.

ok one you can't reroll the psychic phenomena roll with a fate point, its not a skill check

two with regards to psychic damage to hordes it says on page 360 of the core rules that any psychic power of any type does the psy rating of the attack in hits +1d10 if its an area of effect attack. and it says on page 359 "A Horde should be treated by the Games Master as a single vast creature"

three I think not allowing smite to target a vehicle is being a little bit overly pedantic, I would allow it as a GM

Narkasis Broon said:

Going by the rules I would say that smite doesn't affect objects of any kind. That's not pedantry, that is a question of what the nature of the psy power is. The description is very specific on it: target is a living creature, any creatures nearby can be affected. That is unambiguous, everything else is a house rule.

And you can target the crew of the tank, yes. If you can see one of them.

So I don't think it's too effective against tanks at all. Use Pushed Avenger to target the vulnerable rear of tanks instead.

Alex

Just to throw this out there, melta weapon damage is incredibly low for what its supposed to do, so its not surprising that a librarian would out damage a multimelta

Now a multimelta with a few extra d10s of damage.....

ak-73 said:

The nature of the psy power is it's a group of lightning bolts. Lightning bolts are about 25000 kelvin and move at speeds of 200000 km/hour. to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if that CAN hit harder than a lascannon, and there is no reason why it would leave inorganic objects untouched other than the book says creatures, and given that the book contains no rules for vehicles I'm not convinced that isn't just an oversight on behalf of the writers. No offence to them, I love them for producing this game system but it would not be the first thing written in this book that just wasn't right

Why/how was he using a Fate Point to re-roll? You can't do that.

Narkasis Broon said:

But it cannot hit harder than a Lascannon if we go by the TT rules, sorry. To me it sounds like cherry-picking: it does have the increased ability to hurt armoured vehicles due to the Damage and Pen of the DW version but it does not have the restriction of targeting only creatures just like the 40K version doesn't.

Guys, why don't you accept limitations on Smite? Do you want to have a universal kick-a** power?

Alex

well fair enough, I suppose it is open to interpretation, but just to clear something up I have never PC'd this game, I only ever GM. I find the bad guys of the 40k universe much more interesting than the superhero knights, and I love coming up with evil schemes so honestly, I'm not power gaming, I just believe it would work that way.

So the answer to why take a multi melta rather than a psyker are

1. The RoB multimelta

2. There is an argument that you cannot smite vehicles (which I don't believe you can in Dawn of War, but I dont really class that as hard and fast true)

3. You cannot fate psychic phenomena or perils of the warp as they are not skill checks. Pushing psychic powers is supposed to be very dangerous

4. Librarians 'cost' xp to build. Multi-meltas merely cost requisition.

5. Multi-meltas are cooler (YMMV, but the point is that lots of people prefer the idea of firing a big gun to being a space-wizard).

I kinda back the 'no vehicles as targets for Smite' idea, too btw.

Siranui said:

Aye, you can't use Fate Points to reroll results on the Psychic Phenomena or Perils of the Warp tables. You can only use Fate Points for Tests, and rolling on that table isn't a test.

He's been getting an easy ride because you've not been following the rules properly, it's entirely possible he should be dead now (due to Perils).

For what it's worth:

A long while back, a Dark Heresy GM was having issue with the PC group's Psyker (that is, said Psyker was too powerful). The thread is titled "Overwhelmed by the party's Psyker" . The discussion that followed pointed out that the GM was likely not enforcing all the rules they needed to be enforcing, and gave suggestions for additional measures should strict enforcement of Psychic Phenomena/Perils of the Warp prove to be not enough.

It should be noted that the rules set used in Dark Heresy for psychic powers is somewhat different from that used in Deathwatch and Rogue Trader. This does not invalidate the need for harsh enforcement of Psychic Phenomena/Perils of the Warp or all the other excellent suggestions that followed, however.

-Kirov

About Smite,all of my opinions in this statment are from the table-top version of this psychic power, is this;

Smite from the Deathwatch book reads like the Eldritch Storm pyschic power from Codex: Eldar. In that comparision, yes vehicles can be hit but suffer different effects (i.e., you chage the facing of the vehicle, but you would never bring down a Hammerhead while facing the front of that vehicle.

Smite from Codex: Space Marines is intended to hit non-vehicle models, the strength of the attack isn't very high (compared to what's stated in the book)it's meant to have the potential to mess up units before engaging them in melee.

Conclusion: As there is no clear definition of what a creature is, in the Deathwatch Core Rulebook,the Omnisah Machine Cult believe vehicles to be living creatures (there are plenty of booksfluff to support this statement), then Smite would be able to hit vehicles. As a GM, if you think this power to be more deadly of OP, raise the XP required to get the power. As a GM you have the final say in these situations. I may not have been playing Deathwatch long but I do have a lot of experience as a GM,all GM's know that PC's will find something not intended to be used for somethingbreak the systemthe mechanics of how it is supposed to work based off the wording for said actionnot having anything to state otherwise. If you PC's want to argue the XP increse to aquire the power then tell them it won't affect vehicles,that it will affect vehicles in a different wayhere's how/why. Don't be afraid to use your GM status. I'm not saying abuse the GM status, just be sure to explain to the players why the change is being madehow it affect them, by doing so.

Example; Inform your psyker that the power can target vehicles but it won't do damage but rather jam a system from working. I.e., your psyker targets the main gun of said vehicledisrupts the system so it can't shoot this turn. Said psyker targets the exposed enginesnow the vehicle can't move (for a number of turns secretely determined by the GM).

The main thing here, PC's are Epic individuals in the game world. They'll want/expect to do epic things. You dont' need to take it all away from them, just modify OP things.

Correction; I just noticed that Machine Curse does what I stated, about impeeding vehicle movementshooting. Maybe allow Smite to deal half damage to vehicles?

In the games I GM smite will not have an effect of vehicles. I do not see any real reason why I should consider a Tank to be a creature in any way, shape or form. Ever walk past an M1A1 Abrams muttering to yourself "that's one **** big creature..." ....and you never will =)

Creatures are organic (at least partly) and so I'm on the "no anti-tank Smiting" -team

Bring a Devastator with a missilelauncher next time =)

Narkasis Broon said:

As Smite is basically a group of lightning bolts, per what you just said, the Empire State Building should not be standing... And neither should most if not all airplanes... Inorganic objects get struck by lightning all the time and suffer little to no ill effects from it. Lightning vs metal object, especially, it just goes around the outside, does not enter the crew compartment...

ak-73 said:

p.s.

I play a S[ace Wolf Rune Priest, and H*** Y*** I want a universal kick-a** power... But after using it once just to say I did it, I will also help my GM figure out how to de-munchkin the power, as well...