This puzzles me. I know in the fluff at least Blood Angel Librarian Dreadnoughts exist, and the Deathwatch Dreadnought entry states they keep psy rating, favored by the warp, etc... yet it notes Librarians can't become Dreads. So why do they list such powers? Is there a SEKRIT way to gain psy powers as a deathwatch char other than being a librarian?

It's been discussed before on the forum and is worth a search.

There are a couple of logical approaches that you could take to it, such as Librarians 'need' their body in order to properly work as psykers somehow (Somehow the Blood Angels have figured a way around these) or that Librarians go horribly insane [cv Ed209] if entombed in a Dread (and somehow the Blood angels have a way around this). You could also take the stance that there are no Librarian Dreads because it somehow doesn't work, and that the Blood Angel Codex was written by a complete moron who should never be allowed to write any canon EVER, and anything he writes should be ignored.

You could also just stick to the purely gamist approach which is 'There are no Librarian Dreads because they would be obscenely imbalanced munchkin-machines that would make the rest of the players look like Imperial Guard'.

Or just take the 'it was a mistake' route, delete the note that forbids Libbys from becoming Dreads, and play with standard Libby Dreads. Honestly, there are bigger problems with the vehicle rules than whether one of them can cast Smite or not.

BYE

If you do ignore the restrictions and allow it, I can a number of issues, what constitutes the Psyker for any power that can be cast on themselves.

Probably a good enough reason alone to not allow it all.

Siranui said:

You could also take the stance that there are no Librarian Dreads because it somehow doesn't work, and that the Blood Angel Codex was written by a complete moron who should never be allowed to write any canon EVER, and anything he writes should be ignored.

This.

Siranui said:

And that.

Siranui said:

Considering dreadnoughts are, as far as I can tell, rather weak vehicles (statwise) that you pay 5000 xp for and a loss of ever being able to get non-dreadnought advances, while vehicles carry no requisition cost whatsoever, I don't see how a dreadnought librarian is more broken than a librarian in a land raider.

I did search the forums first before posting this and didn't find a repeat, but later today I did a general websearch and found the answer had been covered before. Oh well.

The rules about what constitutes the psyker's body are probably the best reason to disallow it, I agree on that. Though for me to be angered by that certain author's allowance of Blood Angels to be Librarian Dreadnoughts, there would be first some fluff reason why it would be impossible, before I could be upset... as far as I can tell, I expect the only rationale to be "psykers are viewed with contempt and aren't allowed usage of such a fancy relic."

I think the most convincing in fluff reason for it I have ever read was a fan proposed idea that a librarians mind has to be constantly on guard or daemons/enslavers will consume it and everything nearby. and Dreadnoughts (because they live thousands of years) either go into a coma between battles or go horribly insane (like chaos dreadnoughts).

so what happens to the Librarian when he is insane or in a coma?

answer: horrible daemonic death for him and everyone nearby

also yes dreadnoughts could be concieved of as rather weak vehicles, but they are rather insanely powerful PC's. and the GM is not going to give the players a land raider every mission. the box in the bottom right of page 171 (RoB) says you can requisition a vehicle if "the GM agrees it is appropriate to the mission". Basically a Land Raider is only going to be appropriate if the party is trying to break a siege, or if they have to cover large distances under severe enemy fire, and in those cases the party will generally be both outnumbered and outgunned even in a land raider

The explanation as to Dreadnoughts makes sense... though wait, daemons can get psykers when they're sleeping?

The Land Raider was a bit of an exaggeration, but what I mainly mean is that there aren't too many scenarios in which a dreadnought would logically be used but no vehicles would be.

On the other hand, psychologically, the dreadnought does have a huge advantage -- the GM feels like he's being generous if he lets the PCs use a vehicle, but he would likely feel dickish if he won't let the dreadnought PC use... himself.

Um maybe you bought a psy rating and some powers as elite advances as a "latent" psyker? Lets not get into how expensive that should be.

That is a bad idea all the way around. Nascent. Psyker. Astartes. Not cool. Imagine what would happen. Mortals are hard enough to contain. Space Marines..? I shudder. I suppose it might make an interesting story. Of course, anyone who knows 40k knows could predict the outcome. Please keep that suggestion quiet before a fanboy reads it and it makes the web in fanfic or something.

Nascent Psyker Dreadnought? That sounds...

*dons Psyocculum*

Perilous.