Brother Adonai said:

I disagree. I think that non-Librarian marines might notice when weird stuff happens, but won't really be in a position to gauge severity under most circumstances. And, having been exposed to Chapter Librarians and the like, "lesser" pheonomena might just be overlooked as a cost of doing business.

Kshatriya said:

They might, but a veteran space marine is likely to have seen a great deal and variety of psykers on the battlefield and may well have noticed a difference in the amount and power of psychic activity. The reckless followers of Chaos generally push more often so any battles involving them will surge with phenomenon. The mortal Imperial Guard battle psykers are all given "bodyguards" which says little for their durability and resistance to psy. Now chapter librarians, they are rarely going to give off massive amounts of phenomenon because the majority of them do not push and likely many use even unfettered with care. Librarian training from what I've seen in background constantly emphasises *control*. Pushing is the antithesis of control, hence my reckoning on how often normal Librarians push.

So battle brothers, who have surely fought with at least their own Librarians in the field over years may well notice a drastic change when dealing with this new Librarian.

The problem is (as it always is) between "fluff" and "power gamers."

Every game I have been involved in, its always the same no matter who the player is. The Librarian always pushes. It doesn't matter if they role play out their "hubris" or not. I guarantee my BT assault marine would definitely be in the face of that marine right after it happened the second time. I'd give him the benefit of doubt on the first mishap. His station among his own chapter and within the watch station allows that, but multiple mishaps are a sign of a weak will and corruption.

If other players "characters" are not willing to call out the character in the game then I would suggest that the "players" do not mind, because real marines would. (Real marines being a subjective term.) There are exceptions to this rule of course, but I would bet that most players don't want other players to have a bad time so they won't say anything.

Lucrosium Malice said:

Interesting. I can barely get the Librarian PC in my game to use psychic powers in combat at all. He usually just uses his bolter.

I think this is changing since he bought Machine Curse and is now on an mission vs Tau.

Not so much Librarians but there is a split between psyker characters in 40k campaigns I've been in/familiar with. Characters who tend to push all the time and characters who rarely leave fettered. Not many used unfettered as their "normal" level for psy powers.

One Rogue Trader campaign had an astropath character who constantly pushed. In and out of character, our regret was that we hadn't gunned him down sooner considering the horrors he unleashed upon the party. My current thinking is that if a player wants to take a psyker character, they should be fully aware of and accept a potential in-universe backlash for visible abuse of their powers. The majority of 40k characters are taught to fear and hate the witch and this should be roleplayed out and not ignored so one person can break with background and common sense to get a few extra points of damage.

Decessor said:

There are some around. The Thousand Sons Sorcerer in my Black Crusade campaign typically uses powers Unfettered, relying on Pushed powers when he really needs to achieve something, or falling back to Fettered powers when out-and-out potency isn't required. Then again, he's Psy Rating 6, so he doesn't lack for potency when Unfettered anyway...

The Space Wolves Rune Priest in my DW game typically relies on Unfettered Powers. The player would rather not have her character gobbled up by the Warp, so she very rarely has him push, but she plays the Priest as not wanting to fetter either. Sees it as a waste of potential. Given, her luck with Focus rolls sees her more using her bolter than her mind bullets, soooo... Just so we're clear- the player is female, the character is male. I realize pronouns can be a clusterf**k when dealing with opposite gender player/character pairings.

I will say I do like some of the incentives of using different manifesting levels presented by FF. When Pushing makes the power manifest quicker/with less of an action, or has a greater effect aside from just increasing PR when Pushed, it creates a great high risk/high reward system.

I had a librarian in our gaming group who continually pushed his psychic powers. He had a combo of "rite of sanctioning" (same psychic phenomena for every power) and "Oath of Knowledge" (re-roll the psychic phenomena table) so he used every power at "Push". On the one hand it limited the KT's squad abilities for each mission because they took the same Oath each time but it meant he overloaded every psychic power. I had to house rule it that because he was pushing the power the Rite of Sanctioning would not apply on the re-roll of the psychic phenomena table just to give some sort of penalty or danger for pushing.

So the players and characters were fine with the Librarian being leader all the time?

Have you considered that pushing powers is really taxing on a librarian. Consider dishing fatigue levels even if they do not fail. Also, its not in the character of Libbys to push their powers. They need to understand that they are marines first and psykers second. Or like in other threads, impose higher penalties on focus power rolls to manifest their powers. Or after taking fatigue, it becomes harder to make focus power maybe impose -10 to the roll or more.

As DW GM I consider the rite of sanctionning as a re-roll, and no other re-rolls can be use.

The player has the choice to use his talent or the re-roll give by the oath but not both.

Other fact that can become a hindrance for the kill team is the effect of pushed power, in my game, a librarian pushing is easier to percieve and can be use as a beacon by ennemy psy sensitive.

There are two librarians in the Kill Team so they would swap leader duties. The other players didn't seem to mind as the group plays well enough together that they quickly reach decisions by consensus. The team leader position is seen by the players as an 'intermediary' role that interacts or speaks for the team in contact with the Inquisition or other npcs rather than a position of authority over the other players.

I like the idea of a fatigue cost for pushing the powers, it reinforces the idea that the librarian is straining to overload the psychic ability. I think I'll couple that with the librarian having to choose to use either the OoK or RoS with his power but not both. Thanks for all the suggestions!

My Librarian player tends to push a fair bit, although granted he usually only pushes against big bads, rather than against Hordes, where he wants to take them down quickly.

Of course, after all this Pushing power use, when the kill team teleported back to their Strike Cruiser, the traces of the Warp that still lingered followed the Librarian and ripped a hole through into the Teleportarium. A Daemon Prince may or may not have came through and dragged off an NPC into the Warp...

That alone made the players pause for a moment about the use of Psychic Push Power uses.

Hey, whoever said Teleportarium's and Teleport Homers were safe? I fully intend to use them to spawn Daemons and the like if I get the chance.

Thebigjul said:

I'm pretty sure "rerolls can never be rerolled" is a RAW rule. ?

I feel as though space marines won't always just accept the "it was an accident" defense, especially if it has serious ramifications.

For example, my player group's librarian summoned a daemon prince with his first psychic check. If not for the presence of a few lash-whip/bonesword Tyranid warriors, it would have been a party wipe. Needless to say, the other PCs were not amused, and the Black Templar had to be restrained.

The librarian had to undergo several stringent purity trials overseen by the chaplains and senior librarians, and was expressly forbidden from employing his powers until he "learned necessary restraint."

Rites of Sanctioning is a replacement of the result not a re-roll, for one its not allowed to replace a Perils of the Warps result.

Also needs to be remembered any result on the table is an indication of the Librarian losing control of his powers, putting himself and his team at risk. ( Some of the effects might look minor but can attract attention by its nature.)

Pushing for the sake of Pushing is just asking for an investigation.

So, what I'm hearing (as a player AND a GM) is that if a player creates his character using the rules as they are presented in the books (or errata), and the other players and GM don't like what that player does with that character then the easiest "fix" is for those same rules to be tweaked, or special penalties should be dished out to just that one player? I call shenanigans.

What if I were playing an assault character that never got to do anything because the Devastator always killed the beasties before I had a chance to swing? What if that same assault character was tired of working his ass off for five or six rounds to kill some horrid beastie but has his thunder sucked from under him by the Dev who killed it with the first of 6 hits from his heavy bolter? Is it then acceptable for me to ask the GM to have Dev, Talent and weapon rules tweaked in my favor? Is it fair play to ask for the Dev player/PC to be punished for glory hounding my every kill? No, and no.

I say if the rules were allowed to be used to make the character what he is without tweaking beforehand, the rules should stand after character creation is over and the games have already begun. Deal with them, folks, and make notes to change them in the future for FUTURE characters.

So you argue that rules should not be changed under any circumstances while a campaign is underway► I can see your argument, but some combinations of rules and character design only become apparent during play, even to the player in question. Frankly, I''m willing to tweak rules mid-campaign (with all players'' consent) if I believe it will make for a better game.

That said, I have done little or nothing about psychic powers in Deathwatch. Why► Because I find that strictly enforcing the psychic power rules as written is sufficient. No fate points to reroll psychic phenomenon (though yes to rerolling the focus test), etc.

Oh and an example for the discussion. The session before last, the killteam were facing off against a bridge full of combatants, led by a slaught infilitrator who was sniping away aided by two bounty hunters. The flesh tearer librarian decides the most expedient method to clear the bridge and ensure the success of the mission is to start hammering at the unshuttered panes of armoured glass in the ceiling. I statted these up as Armour 40, Structure 40 so they took quite a battering before cracking. He pushed smite four times in a row and kept getting appalling luck with his phenomenon and perils rolls. Multiple character-dooming results if fate points hadn''t been burned. Oh and one of the other killteam members had psyiscience as a trained skill from his chapter so he had an inkling that the warp was buckling under the strain. And *then* on the last smite, which finally cracks through and devastates their opponents (the slaughth isn''t much of an immediate threat tumbling towards the void), a daemon prince appears.

The last session began with a brutal combat involving the frenzied librarian and daemon prince hammering into each other with the rest of the killteam joining in. In the aftermath, the librarian calms down and laters explain in blunt detail that he used excessive amounts of power and his reasons why. No attempt to gloss over his actions. The killteam''s superiors are mostly half a sector away so a direct meeting won''t be possible for a while (read a few sessions). But both IC and OOC the librarian expects some sort of response for the arguable over-use of his powers. Plot hooks ahoy!

Alekzanter said:

You shouldn't have to wait until a campaign is over to fix a broken rule. In our campaign the Librarian players weren't aware of the oaths during character generation. For the first couple of sessions they used the 'push' power level sparingly and usually in desperate situations as they were aware of the dangers involved. But before one session as the group picked the mission oath the librarian players realised the combo of Oath of Knowledge + Rite of Sanctioning. They selected it purely as a powergaming tactic and then started spamming psychic powers at push level pretty much risk-free.

Psychic powers in 40k should be powerful but dangerous to the user. The psyker is opening their mind to the Warp not throwing around fireballs like a D&D wizard. I house-ruled that the librarians could not combine the OoK & RoS on the same roll in order to give the psychic powers some (small) amount of risk.

Alekzanter said:

So if I or others see problems with rule interactions (common especially with DW since the core rules are based on a system that was designed for characters with13,000 XP less than a starting DW Astarte), I should just grin and bear it until the game ends and a new one starts, despite people not having fun or feeling useless, or one person effortlessly one-shotting a master-tier Tyranid enemy? That's just nuts to me. I tweaked my rules heavily after the first mission or two really showed me some glaring issues on both the too-powerful and two-weak ends of the spectrum. The changes happened to be a nerf to bolters and autofire, and the Devastator wasn't happy but the rest didn't have an issue. The next session for a variety of reasons the unhappy player was even more unhappy, mostly due to really bad rolls. But I'm not going to switch back because one guy wasn't happy, because there are situations where he'll be fine and eventually get over it, and he'll have to get more diligent at thinking tactically rather than just relying on tons of easily-obtained modifiers to do his job for him.

Your specific example is flawed as the pre-errata heavy bolter was too powerful given the DH-ported rules, especially given Righteous Fury and the high RoF that was trivially easy to hit in a number of circumstances. Where that happens, yes, in-game adjustment is appropriate, and I like to think that most gamers can be adult enough not to throw a fit when a rules change comes down against them in some way. And if their build is suddenly super nonviable (which I question, it may not be optimal but it's probably still viable), there's always the option of a free re-spec to reallocate XP if the changes are that significant.