There are a number of threads on this topic which largely devolve from well-constructed reasons into arguments, so I'd like a more official ruling. I would love a FFG member to respond but I understand if that is impossible.

I didn't know anything about not being able to manifest dual versions of most powers, simply because most powers are common sense that two of the same do nothing. HOWEVER: my campaign friend, himself an experienced GM casually raised the possibility of dual wielding two psychic blades. However, we disagreed that one would need dual weapon wielder to accomplish this; and ambidexterous to offset the penalties.

Here is what I'd like a ruling on, in flow chart order since a 'no' at the top ends the whole discussion:

1. Can you dual wield Psychic Blade, understandably suffering the increased thresholds and penalties for sustaining two psychic powers?

(if yes)

2. Does one need Dual Weapon Wielder to use two PB simultaneously? Would a 20/20 penalty apply to this use unless one had Ambideterity?

3. Do melee talents which increase, improve, or modify attacks apply to the use of a PB? Ex: Swift/Lightning Attack, etc.

Vermaxx said:

Official FFG responses take nothing more than scrolling down to the bottom of this forum and clicking the "Rules Question" link and filling out the resulting e-form.

Often, in true RPG "no right way" style, FFG will preface their answers with statements about how the GM controls the game and has ultimate say in how any rules interpretation works. Still, barring an updated FAQ/Eratta (yeeeeeeah, unlikely), the Rules Question link is definitely your best bet if what you want is an "official" interpretation.

LOL, I can't believe this popped up again.

Sorry, I thought this forum topic WAS the response tool.

It is a community response tool. The community correspond and develop a shared understanding of various aspects of the game. While FFG folk do sometimes post in the forums, this is not their usual medium for answering questions. Surprise, surprise, that medium is the Rules Questions link.

That said, when you do get a response, please do post here again with his reponse. Part of being a community reponse tool involves sharing "official" rules interpretations if you end up getting any!

I read your questions and looked it up in the book as well as against the errata files ( looking up the basic psy ability of psyblade and ambidexterity / two weapon wielder and dual -swift-lightning strike along with the errata adjustments for them all) What i found out ( and ive been a GM for several years now as well so take it as you wish BUT..taking what i percieve the flavor of the rules to be for it all ) Is this...to answer your questions..in order

1) Yes

2) This one is very sketchy...according to the DH mainbook description psychic blade does NOT require a free hand to use ( its based entirely on thought/willlpower of the psyker ) so it could go either way...Also with the errata v3.0 on pg 10 the addendum to psyblade makes it unworthy/potentially PK capable ( player killable ) with ONE bad roll...here is the exact quote from the errata on the psyblade addendum

Psychic Blade on page 177 should include the addition: “When
rolling a 95-00 while attacking with a Psychic Blade, a stray
thought causes the psyker to attack and automatically strike the
nearest being within melee range. If there are several targets, the
psyker strikes the one that is most signifi cant to his emotional
state. If there is no one in range, he automatically strikes himself.”

Now IF you were allowed to use TWO psy blades at same time...id increase that penalty to 91-94 ( 1 blade strays ) and 95-00 ( BOTH blades stray )..making it seriousl potentially lethal to your party as well as your on character to attempt it.

Personally id say that if you had the 2-weapon wielder talent and ambidexterity AND the actual talent to wield primative melee ( in essense what a blade is ) then i would mitigate the increased penalty/drawback but replace it instead with an instant perils check AND/OR loss of one ( or both ) blades due to a lack of focus for whatever reason instead of allowing them to mame or kill a party member or yourself...

3) ID have to say No here...This is a Psychic ability NOT anything you can stack like talents etc so it would have to follow the rules for psy abilities vs attacks with them. ( letting you dual wield a psyblade is enough stacking i think..lol )

Cobramax76 said:

Referring to the same sources, and this discussion , I have to disagree. I am not going to repeat all the points made back and forth in that thread, but my reading of the rules has led me to conclude that you can only have one Psychic Blade active at any time, because:

Manifesting the same power twice will not give you two effects, with the exception of those few powers that explicitly state differently (Shape flesh, for example). You do not get an additional Aura from 2 manifestations of Fearful (or Inspiring) Aura, you do not get another Psychic Blade if you manifest it twice.

You can Focus the power twice, but they won't do anything, as the effects do not stack. You won't get 2 blades, the second manifestation will just replace the first.

As for the whole Two-Weapon Wielder and other Melee talent discussion, it is a moot point. You're not using hands, so none of those talents or restrictions apply. You are using your Mind to wield this "blade" (which is just focused psionic force, not a real blade). Even if you could focus this power to manifest several blades, you would need multiple minds to wield them. Not hands.

Good point Darh Smeg i forgot about that specific psy rule there....i was caught up looking up the other rules and the general idea. I concur with your thoughts having read the psy rules closer than before and being reminded of that particular psy manifest rule. I do however try to always work with my players so if he was one and wanted to try it id let him do it..but id impose serious penalties and potential complications if he botched the rolls ( likely PC death at the edge of his own minds blade(s) ) Im of the old school idea that GMs should try to avoid saying no outright to any idea thats "outside the box" and either work with the player to mold it into something more workable or simply agree to it BUT heap on some serious penalties/consequences for attempting it...in an effort to not stifle players creativity with roleplaying ( some of the ideas my groups have come up with have been mind bendingly hilarious to downright quizziicle ) but to still retain the overall balance through judicious use of higher/more severe penalties/complications etc..not just for the PC but also for the group as well ( EG Yes ill let you manifest those psy abilities all at same time with upkeep IF you understand that you WILL incur AUTOMATIC perils checks EVERY round WITH a penalty of +10% PER extra psy ability upkept per round ) That kind of deal is a devils bargain since it allows the player to try their idea IF they are willing ( and the other players are willing to allow it..lol ) to pay the guaranteed heavy price ( GM rolls perils check for the player so the GM can PICK ( dice roll is just for scare tactic..lol ) which efffect he wants to scare or slam the psyker ( and or group members ) with as a lesson to not stray too far "outside the box" with their ideas..or to simply have the group to have sort of a last ditch effort for a save kind of thing..used ONLY in a SERIOUS pinch and not capriciously ( the more dire the situation before the player opts for their stunt idea...the less likely the GM is to kill him off with perils..but a good shake up to make the event more memorable to all is highly useful and fun..adds an air of suspense potentially that everyone loves )

Right, the Rule of Cool.

I agree with you in principle, and also try to say "Yes, but..." rather than "No".

But some things still need to be smacked down.

Psykers for example

Wanting to dual-wield Psychic blade isn't so much about creative solutions as unrestrained Munchkinism. It's akin to wanting to mount twin-linked lascannons on both shoulders of your tech-priest. Or owning 1 of every Very Rare piece of equipment in the book. And carrying it all around with you because page 215 says cou can carry 70Kg without becoming encumbered. Or just getting the weapon with best stats for your Arbiter, and "forgetting" that the Angulus requires illegally smuggled ammo and just possessing one is a crime punishable by death.

As for Psychic Blade it is already incredibly powerful, and does not need another boost like for example doubling it
In addition to doing silly damage with massive penetration it is completely unavoidable and undetectable. The only clue someone might have that there is a psyker lose with this power is when peoples limbs and heads start flying around.

If you WERE to go along with it (shame on you!) you should at the very least say that by dividing your mental force between 2 areas of focus, they are each only half as powerful.

I say you could pull it off and I explain it in my post that Darth Smeg linked in his post but there are some draw backs to this though.

First off it would take too many turns to pull it off in a combat, unless you did prep time before the combat to pull it off. I would take 2 turns to manifest them and that's if you successfully manifest them, hell it might even take you 4 turns if you have to use Invocation to help you.

Then on either the 3rd or 5th turn you are starting your combat so unless you are in cover or out of sight you may be targeted by enemy gun fire or melee combat, and because your spending all these turns doing this you could be leaving your team short a man for a long time.

Plus the Threshold is going to be 19 then 23 because sustaining tacks on 4 point for each sustaining power. And like my group by the time you even manifest those two blades, and I'm talking in two turns, everyone may be dead by that time because of your party assassin, so making the whole thing a huge waste of time.

If you can just dual wield force weapons, you'll get more damage in the long run with them, and with the right talents you can be ready in less of a turn.

I have a question, where does it say that you can't dodge or parry the PB? Is it not treated like a sword?

Phi6891 said:

This comes, I believe, from the same article on Psykers and their powers others have mentioned, posted on Dark Reign (amongst other places, no doubt) allegedly from one of the creators of the original Dark Heresy game (I personally haven't researched this at all). The author speaks with confidence about how a molecule-thin blade would be invisible and, if memory serves, that one of his games had a serial killer who would lop off random limbs of passerbys, everyone else completely unaware of the blade.

An invisible blade wielded by no visible limb would be an attack no one but a warp-sensing psyker would be aware of, and thus such attacks would disallow Dodging and Parrying. Personally, I find that absurd, as even a molecule-thick line of Warp energy, to me, would distort the area around it enough to be visible enough for awareness. It also helps balance the power, which is nice.

My thoughts on using various melee talents with Psychic Blade: By the rules, I don't see where you'd be restricted.

Breaking down the power, it is thus:

Treat the PB as a sword wielded by the character. No hands required to wield. Cannot Parry. For attack tests, use Willpower instead of Weapon Skill. Damage is 1d10 +2x, Pen 2x, where x=WPB. It is a weapon. It is only usable in melee.

The question that seems to be the most contentious for some seems to be whether substituting the Willpower characteristic for the Weapon Skill characteristic changes the nature of the way this unique melee weapon is wielded. I don't think there is an explicitly right or wrong answer here.

I personally envision a Psychic Blade being wielded utilizing all those hard-earned reflexes stored so laborously in the brain matter for a similarly-shaped object with potentially the same balance (I don't see how the particular balance of the psychic blade wouldn't be at the whim of the psyker), simply utilized to the very limit of the psyker's will (itself not limited in the same way his physioligical capabilities might). That said, I can perfectly understand why one might interpret the Willpower control as being non-compliant with skills using weapons wielded with something other than hands and with weight and balance impossible for a physical sword.

What I would suggest, to those that follow the latter interpretation, is that though the PB is certainly unique in many ways, I'm not sure there should be hard limits on how much "skill" and talents can contribute to PB's efficacy. All I'd suggest would be to offer some way to become physical-weapon-talent proficient with the PB in some manner or another.

That could easily come in the form of a 50xp boosted cost for melee combat talents (if applicable at all) to apply to PB. Alternatively, offer a one-time payment of Exotic Weapon Training (Psychic Blade) that allows limited special abilities and common-sense house rules regarding using a PB with/for special melee talents.

That way, combined with a Psychic Warp Blades Can Be Seen policy, the Psychic Blade takes its place as a parallel to the Executioner chainblade, heavy hitting but potentially suicidal or acolyticidal. It loses its Assassination Wet Dream edge, but gains more dexterity in usage.

Psykers trained in melee combat are also then given means to be more capable wielding their Psychic Blade than one not trained in combat at all. Even if you don't believe much of physical weapon training gets transferred over to wielding the blade with Willpower by dint of the power itself, I don't think it unfair to say that enough training with a Psychic Blade should at least allow such specialized melee skills to transfer over.

I presonally favor the idea of rewriting the entire setup for the psy blade as the current one is woefully unrestrained and overpowered to be sure. It leaves entirely too much room for open interpretation. I dont think it should be invisible..and i dont agree with the idea of it being weilded without hands...The changes i would give in an effort to conform it to more established psyblade styles and demunchkinize it are as follows

1) It IS a blade you can see ( the exact form and coloration depends on the weilders personal tastes ) in the form of a shimmering coalesced power ( much as it is in ALL other game systems ) This unique and very visual aspect of the blade allows everyone to see it and thus be able to try to parry and dodge it if its levelled at them serving to level the playing field

2) It IS held in your hand NOT free floating and is used and treated AS a actual blade ( id treat it with same rules as the Sollex Aegis blade for parrys etc due to the psyblades inherent Energy nature ) AS well as changing the damage it deals to Energy instead of rending ( its made from psychic ENERGY not solid matter so it should NOT have the Rending type )

Because of the change to energy base and requiring a hand free in order to weild it...That changes the dynamics of what talents etc can affect it. as follows: A ) To weild it dual you MUST have BOTH Two weapon wielder:Melee AND Ambidextrous ( thought is to be able to coordinate yourself to be able to effectively use both hands and blades simultaneously ) However you still MUST pay the cumulative sustain costs each round B ) Due to its new properties of being manifested physically as mentioned above it CAN be used to parry ( same rules as a sollex aegis energy blade ) but any appropriate weapon / ability talents that would affect a normal blade will work on the psyblade as well ( EXCEPT for anything that increases damage..the damage will ONLY be the 1d10+2/WP bonus ) This will allow you to use the swift and lightning strikes etc..etc..to grant better ability to use it

3) As a result of the new properties and benefits the drawback is this. It does NOT get 2x your WP bonus to Pen ( when an ascended character with unnatural WP uses the blade your talking about a blade capable of hotknifing a lemans russ tank or a baneblade...I DONT think so ) The Pen of the psyblade IS your WP bonus ( if you gain the unnatural WP talent then the Pen is adjusted accordingly I.E. a WP bonus of 5 with UWPx2 creates a psyblade with a Pen of 10 NOT 20 ( Not unless your an Alpha baby..lol )

4) Yes you can dual wield the psyblade with new rules as long as you understand that you still run the risk of that random stray thought ( on rolls of 96-00 a stray thought misdirects the blade to miss the target and he looses the blade ( discorporates and the psyker must refocus and redo the blade again ) ( This is done to save any allies from suffering potentially lethal damage from a psyker because of a bad roll ) OR It could be on a roll of 96-00 the blade randomly strikes anyone in melee range of the psyker ( or automatically strikes themselves if no one else is in range ) Dealing FULL damage without benefit of armour or toughness bonuses for reduction in damage.

What do my fellow gamers think of this idea of the psyblade rules?

No, Cobra; I don't agree with your take. While I HAVE decided AGAINST the dual wield, I don't agree that the power (or psykers) need nerfing.

I think the base idea for the power was manifesting your psychic energy to produce extremely precise cuts in another person, kind of like the 'ghost scratches' phenomenon seen in so many paranormal movies and shows. The PB is a sustained psychic POWER, not a literal weapon. As it is a power with no exception listed in its text, there is nothing to suggest one could have two sustained rather than overwriting the last. The power is less summoning an 'invisible sword' to fight with, and more focusing your psy into a directed attack to cause physical damage. The power can be sustained because the psyker is not shooting Warp at another person for the duration. It was also probably intended to give a 'gun' telekine the means to defend himself in melee without having any strength or melee skill.

For mechanics reasons they say 'use sword rules' which is probably to keep the etremely R.A.W. people from claiming it has unlimited range, does not require LOS, and can hit from any angle. But I don't think the intent was that you constantly have a Warp sword floating at your side or above your head - sustaining the power simply prepares your mind to hurt people in a physical manner. Until you 'think' the attack, there is nothing about your person but the glow of psychic activity.

Everything points to this - it's invisible, does not require a hand, cannot be used to parry, and it counts as rending (because its not DELIVERING energy Cobra, unlike las or a lightning bolt).

I don't think psykers need power limiters or throttle chokes at all. Having played DH long term with two psykers who became unplayable due to "deals" and seeing how easy it is to roll bad on the psyker table firsthand, I see psykers are not overpowered. Psykers get a lot of up-front awesome because they probably aren't going to finish the campaign with everyone else, EVEN when the campaign is structured to let characters survive if they find the right path. I think most RPG players get attached to characters, and having your guy die is never fun to begin with.

"Psykers are OP because they can kill all my guards before they can seriously hurt the team." So can assassins, or a scum with all the dual wield talents and two bolt pistols, or a guardsman with a melta, etc. A GM's goal should NOT be to kill players; besides the mechanics make that simple enough anyway. You want to kill a psyker? It's a lot like killing everyone else: EVERY NPC in the room shoots HIM after he cuts down one guard and has to run to the next. The minor power of Distort Vision was erratta'd down to only a -30 to hit instead of requiring a Psyniscience test. -30 on full auto with a good gun skill is not impossible. Generally speaking no one has double toughness in DH; and 3-4 armor isn't going to save them from several successful hits.

In my opinion, the power SHOULD NOT be duplicated: that simplifies things immensely. CAN it be duplicated? FFG will probably never answer. If YOU the player want to run it x2, you have to decide on a whole slew of things that weren't specifically commented on and create a complicated house rule for something you can totally ignore. My friend made a good point: since you can only use one attack action per round anyway, you use the PB for people in tough armor, and a force weapon for Warp entities. If you want to dual wield physical weapons, go right ahead. All the rules are already in the book.

Also some comments about your points:

1, 2) I don't think it was intended to be a physical weapon, so why rewrite it thusly? You can't see it because there's nothing there - the attack is a mental action which produces physical injury. Its like Crush but with cutting. One could make an argument that an enemy psyker could make an opposed roll to dispell the power or block its use, but you can't "parry" a thought. Also bear in mind this is ONE attack per round. A well built melee character with god-ending power swords of doom can hit up to 3 or 4 times in a round and they probably both have armor pen 5. They also have powers to hit twice but apply to toughness and armor once. You trade one "big" hit for several smaller but potentially more damaging hits. PB is guaranteed damage against most humanoid targets with reasonable armor. Considering the psyker often has to sink points into a ton of stats and skills, this is not OP because they usually have a crap melee and gun skill. Certainly they are not going to be on par with the gun scum who was built to gun with his gun.

3) The tank armor values weren't explained in the base book. The "Apocrypha Vehicles" book then whomped down a Rhino starting at 21. Rites of Battle then changed it to 31. Granted that was for space marines, but either way a Baneblade would have 30 armor or higher. In DH, the max Psi Rating is 6, and whatever else in Ascension. Six indicates the highest one can achieve as an acolyte, which is worlds above anything the average person is going to achieve without being picked up by the ships or executed. As such you are already an exception, and potentially able to mind-sword a tank, although given armor values there is little a person can do against a tank.

I don't see the power as being overpowered, when you understand that everything a psyker does has the potential to kill him and unleash a group ending demon (which we did more than once, grossly screwing a number of investigations and kill the group once) and most of the time psykers are weird, twitchy, unlikeable freaks with little to no combat potential in a game system where even common street guns are extremely lethal.

Well argued, Sir! I find myself in complete agreement with everyting in your post.

Adressing the suggestions from Cobra, I will simply add that there is already a way for martially minded psykers to dual wield blades in their hands that cause silly damage, and that is Force Swords.

The Psychic Blade is the non-martial Psykers friend precisely because it uses the Psykers mind (WP) to strike, and not his Weapon Skill.

This also argues against the "held in his hand" thing. If it is hand held, go with WS. All your hand-to-eye coordination and weapon handling Skills and Talents apply. If it does not require the use of hands, WS and melee talents do not apply.

Militant melee psykers want their force swords. The puny little witches will stick to their Psy Blades

Cross-posting/thread necroing for purposes of later Googlers trying to resolve this issue in their games:

I sent a rules question about this to FFG, and they replied thusly:

Rule Question:
Do combat talents like Two Weapon Wielder, Swift Attack and the like affect Psychic Blade?

Can you dual-wield a normal melee weapon and a Psychic Blade, and attack with them both in a single round?

Can you manifest and sustain 2 Psychic Blades simultaneously, and dual-wield them?

Thank you

Tim Huckelbery [email protected] replied:

Yep! For most intents and purposes, it is wielded just like a regular sword.
Yes, you could do two but the penalties for sustaining powers might make it tough to keep going. You would have to manifest one, then sustain it and manifest another blade.

Also be sure to note the Errata addition making it rather dangerous to the user and his friends as well though!

Hope this helps and thanks for playing!

So there you have it. I am surprised by this, and am not quite sure I will play like this in my campaign, but to those über munchkins out there, go nuts!

Darth Smeg said: