Darth Smeg said:

Not really. It might force him to pause for a second while he considers how to kill him, but wouldn't really pose much of a challenge.

Without any of his Psychic powers? And whilst having to deal with the panic of suddenly loosing the senses you have become so reliant on?

Of course, your psyker had power armour, which is nice for him. But my experience with the application of Eviscerators on Psykers is that they don't like it when you part their legs from their body.

Darth Smeg said:

Which Untouchable rules are you using? Because yeah, in general even an untouchable isn't going to be much of a threat. They may be immune to the psyker's powers, but they aren't immune to the psyker using his powers to (for example) throw Leman Russ tanks at them. And the primaris can probably punch right through the psychic disruption without any difficulty.

Darth Smeg said:

The null stands absolutely no chance whatsoever.

Because him being a null does not stop the psyker from manifesting his powers, it's just a slight inconvinience, a tinkle in the fingertips as he manifests his godlike powers on the poor, impotent null.

The eviscerator will bounce harmlessly off of his barrier-powers (which are not affected by the fact that he is a null, since he has opted to attack with a weapon), or the psyker will simply manifest Float or wallwalk, and move to a safe height. If you threaten him with ranged weapons, he can use cameleon to impose a -30 penalty on any attack, and even if you should manage to hit, it will not do any damage, because you cannot hope to penetrate his defenses unless you're using shieldbreaker rounds.

Now how to deal with the null?

Sure you could shoot him dead, but thats not all that flashy, is it?

We could drop the ceiling on him, or take the floor away from under him. We could throw stuff at him with telekinesis, broken pipes, rubble or the storm of debris tossed about by Tempest, doesn't care for your inability to cast a shadow in the warp. Death by mailbox impalement is not exactly a dignified way to go, now is it?

We could also pop our cellular control, then proceed to shroud the area around us in flames (like that of a firestorm or somesuch), until the null falls to the ground, gasping for air, left for us to with as we please. How about simply ignoring all his hopeless attempts at killing us, and simply leave? yeah, fly, teleport or casually stroll away from him, maybe going to a phonebooth and ordering a hit on him, WHILE is is still there, trying frantically do something, ANYTHING to the psyker.

I don't know if it would work, but I'm assuming going full CQC on him and pummelling him with your bare, hairy fist could work, since your body should not be blocked by any of his barriers. Then of course there the problem of engaging someone in melee, whose weapon deal absurd amounts of damage and who can heal any damage you can toss out, 6 times in the same round. Then when he is annoyed enough with the null, he will kill him. Maybe with one of the powers mentioned above, maybe he will even buff himself with biomancy, and crush the little null into a bloody smear on the pavement. Now he doesn't cast a shadow outside of the warp either!

Soooo.....yeah....

Hmm, I stand corrected.

I thought these Untouchables prevented all Psychic powers to work in their vicinity, period. But I see now that this is not the case, and that their range of disruption is quite limited.

Darth Smeg said:

Keep in mind that the Untouchable talent, as written, is meant to show only the most basic manifestation of the gift/curse. They have, up to this point, not developed it any further.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Indeed, there are some nulls, especially those trained to use their abilities such as the Sisters of Silence, that can use their null ability much more aggressively - dampening entire areas and cutting them off from anything warp related. Daemons really hate nulls though...

To me a good rpg is a game you can paly RAW.

So, Ascension is not a good book.

The problem isn't with the Untouchable rules we have now, but with the Primaris. Normally a Null would be a real threat to a psyker, but Primaris are on a whole other power level. What is crippling for a normal pysker is a minor irritation for a Primaris.

Sebashaw said:

Here we have the issue in a nutshell.

Good RPG is the one where players don't have to know rules at all and still play their characters well and have good time.

My current Harlock Legacy capaing 3/6 players never played DH while other 3 played only barely Rogue Trader. All were veteran RPG players however. They do well, have good time and don't actually bother with rules other then bare minimum they need to play.

I did same with Call of Cthulhu, GMing "Masks of Nyerlathotep" to a group where only one player played CoC previously. And two players were actually feirly new to RPGs. They did well also.

Bad rules are excuise to lazy GMs and players more interested in "inflicting damage" then playing their characters.

bojan said:

Now that's a bold claim and insulting too. Mechanics differ from system to system, as does their importance. Making blanket statements like that misses the point of the issue. We are paying good money for the books in question, we are paying not only for the colored pages or the story, but we are also paying for a sound gaming mechanic we can use. It has exactly nothing to do with being lazy or combat oriented to be angry or bothered, if what we get is not working or working badly. Many of us do not have the time to tackle gross mechanical issues, some of us have to juggle professional lives, family responsibilities and other interests, we don't have the means to sit down and correct things we have paid for to work. You don't go to a watchmaker to buy a watch that is broken and you have to repair it yourself (while paying full price for it too). The major issue here is that we don't want to "vote with the wallet" by abandoning the publisher, because we can't really get W40K RPGs elsewhere.

Arag said:

Seems I'm not alone with my thoughts.

Kasatka said:

I've just finished the Eisenhorn trilogy and so I looked up untouchables, and it seems to me that they were way more effective in the books than in DH.

Zakalwe said:

Untouchables are a bit like psykers in that they vary in power. "Low end" untouchables will come across as a bit creepy but have few other effects. "High" end untouchables - Pariahs - cause psykers to go mad just through their very presence. Culexus assassins are examples of Pariahs.

The rules we've seen so far strike me as being more appropriate to low end untouchables. I'm sure in due course we'll see rukles which reflect the variety of power levels among untouchables.

Lightbringer said:

Thanks Lightbringer, that helps. Do you know if there is anything about 'Blunts' or should we just consider them low end untouhables?

The range of human psychic ability ranges greatly, and the Assingment is a scale to roughly gauge an individual's power.

Essentially the scale goes from Alpha to Omega using the High Gothic alphabet (cause of course it isn't greek!), so basically a rating from 1 to 24. An average human sits somewhere around Pi or Rho (so 16 or 17). As you descend down towards Alpha (1) you become more psychically active. Conversely as you ascend towards Omega (24) you become more of an anti-psychic presence in reality. There also exist Alpha+ (so 0) and Omega+ (so 25) ratings on the scale, these representing truly immensely powerful psykers (eldar farseer level or worse) and soul-crushingly blunt individuals (culexus assasins, necron pariah's before they broke.. sorry, updated their fluff)

It can all be found in this handy article over on lexicanum javascript:void(0);/*1328612935201*/

Ok, so i'm a bit curious still.

I agree that high level Psykers are a bit OP. Rightfully so however, as this is the warp we're talking about. At the same time a lot of your examples are WORST case, level 16 with 2042810938100 experience spent (that number may be an exaggeration). My biggest issues with your examples so far are two fold:

1. Psykers can only use ONE power per turn.

2. Sustaining/Activating new powers while sustaining imposes a -4 to the power check.

Yes, Psykers are made from a larger stock. Though here's a question: What kind of crap did they have to put up with to get to that point? While those Guardsmen were able to take 10 bullets and still be standing to fight, shooting and cutting through enemies. What was your psyker doing at Rank 1-4 before they got their first discipline powers? Healing themselves/others for D5 every 12 hours? Making someone forget them for a couple of minutes? OhOh, Making it harder shoot them! Oh right, taking one bullet and being put into critical damage. Can't forget that. Hell, not two missions ago my psyker took a single full-auto burst and even with 3 degress of success on my dodge still had to burn a fate point to not die. Not the best of examples since I've put my Psyker into a support role (Since I didn't want my GM to have to deal with another Biomancer/Telekentic).

There are two sides to every character, and while yes MECHANICALLY Psykers make seem a bit broken, Role-wise how great are they? How much respect will they actually get, how radical will they be viewed when all they do is burn everything?

I mean, there's also the question of the players who are doing this. Psykers like that are so focused on Destruction, how useful are they else where? Are they not a greater threat than benefit to the imperium at this point? There are actual ways to take down Psykers too. I mean hell, I know once I hit rank 11 I plan on going into Witches Bane, lets see how well a Psyker who relies ONLY on his powers does when he can't manifest any powers anymore?

Then there is anti-psyker weaponry. Power Stakes of Witch Hunter Rykehuss, +d10 damage per Psy Rating of the target. Shield Breaker rounds ignore Daemonic and ALL protection from Psy powers.

It comes down to the players to make or break a class, yes a well written class will be harder to break though it will always happen.

One power a turn isn't a limitation when the power you're casting does everything for you (Wave of Penance in Deathwatch is a good example of that).

And a -4 to the casting doesn't matter when the Threshold numbers are so low that you're casting everything by default anyway and the only reason you're rolling is for overbleed/perils.

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

Its -4 for the first sustained power, an additional -4 for the second, and an additional -8 for a third. Most of the time, when waxing poetic about an overpowered Psyker, there's almost ALWAYS at least 2 powers being sustained previously.

Again, these are more mid- or late-game Ascension issues, at least for Primaris Psykers.

Unless you have literally EVERY possible bonus to Willpower, including Divination and Sanctioning side effects, you're looking at a fully advanced willpower between a 70 and 95. I'm pretty sure the maximum, with Div and Sanctioning included, is 101. Depending on the tree, one can have a +1 or +2 bonus from Power Wells. If you're using Discipline powers, there's a chance for a +2 bonus from Discipline Focus.

Pre-rank 12 for a Primaris Psyker, Unnatural Willpower is not available. Depending on the tree one chose, they'll be safely manifesting using either 2-3 dice for their power rolls. If rolling 4 dice, the risk of Perils of the Warp end up being ~9% without Favored by the Warp, ~2% with. It's all fun and games until the psyker piles on dozens of points of Corruption on everyone in d100 meters. Or explodes in warp energy, leaving him naked (what power armor?). Or is just straight-up eaten by the warp. To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, something that happens 1 time out of a million will happen 9 times out of 10 when it really matters.

The setting also is unkind to even Psychic Phenomenon - less so mechanically, but part of the setting is the fluff, which I don't really think aught to be separated entirely from the issue of balance (though some are pretty bad - my rank 1 psyker was close to being executed on the spot when a Bainshee howl woke up half an IG regiment).

So, for a Pre-rank 12 Primaris Psyker, having a few powers up for defense (A previous example included both Static Barrier and TK Shield, if memory serves - a powerful all-round defense, for sure) means that his Firestorm is safely manifesting at ~8 WP (high end, but not requiring certain backgrounds) -8 sustained powers +2 Power Wells +2 Disciplined +3d10 Power rolls. If he went up the military tree rather than the scholar tree, take away 1d10 until rank 10.

On average, that's going to be a result of around 20 - enough to beat the threshold most of the time. To meet the Threshold of 16, the combined roll will need to be 12. The distribution will end up being roughly so:

Nothing: 16.5%

1d10+5E: 33.5%

2d10 +5E: 33.5%

3d10 +5E: 14.5%

4d10 +5E: 2%

If you've mastered Pyromancy, you're far more reliable. There's still a 2% chance of failure, and the stats above move appropriately (1d10 +5 14.5%, 2d10 +5 33.5%, etc.)

Hope there's no nulls nearby. An additional -10 will increase the chance of nothing happening to 83.5%.

Powerful defense, powerful offense as a baseline. Arguably more potent than most guns and abilities available to most other thrown agents, barring heavy weapons or xenotech. Unprepared, an opponent will likely be overwhelmed. Unless they manage to grapple the psyker. Then he's pretty much toast. Or there's a null nearby. Suddenly, he's either got a powerful defense OR offense, not both. Then there's that specialized anti-psyker gear. That pretty much hoses a psyker's defenses... defenses he'll likely still need to fend off the REST of the enemies of the Imperial, who have an annoying tendency to congregate and work together to further their damnable goals.

Fire Storm is actually a fairly low in threshold for a direct damage power, especially given its Area of Effect and the way it scales damage. Force Barrage, pre-rank 12, ends up being a good anti-infantry weapon with mixed-at-best anti-heavy results. ~6-8 1d10 +8 hits are nasty, but aren't quite as worrying if you've got an opponent in Power Armor (if the psyker is wearing it, fair game, no?), especially if there's hexagrammatic warding. Even Carapace with Hexagrammatic Warding and a reasonably high toughness (say, 4) means nothing but a 9 or 10 on damage rolls does nothing, and even those are bruising at best.

Of course, there's always heavy bruisers like Inferno and Tempest, yes? With thresholds of 32 and 30, respectively, they're pretty far beyond the safe margin for pre-rank 12 Primaris psykers. Even without sustaining other powers, our aforementioned psyker is getting, on average, a mere 26 on his power rolls. Manifesting Inferno alone succeeds a mere 16.5% of the time (and has no protections from the fatigue or self-immolation), with Tempest slightly more reliable at 28.3% success rate.

I should note that any character capable of wielding a heavy weapon has something far more scary in a Heavy Bolter or, dare I say it, Autocannon. That's been available since pre-ascension. It has its own setting-specific issues - hard to do undercover work, for example. Difficult to convince a Noble's Ball to let you in. The latter could easily be an issue for a psyker as well, though...

Then rank 12 hits, and several thousands xp later, all hell breaks loose.

Suddenly our psyker has +8 to his power roll, and is rolling 4d10 (unless you're in the military tree - you'll need to wait a few ranks to get that extra d10 safely). Failure manifesting Fire Storm, even with defenses up, is impossible. A vast majority of the time, damage for that power 3d10 +5 or higher. Now its starting to seriously compete with even Heavy Weapons. Force Barrage, as well, has gotten a significant boost to damage, and even Hexagrammatic Wards aren't always enough to stave off damage.

Are there still ways to take them down? Sure. Even rank 16 Primaris Psykers, unprepared, are still prone to Instant Normal Mode when grappled. They're also just as easy to pop with proper anti-psyker gear. They're certainly boosted significantly enough in power to call 'em Overpowered, though, and I'm not sure even the fluff-based pressures can compensate entirely for that power.

Note: This is not an argument that Ascension has high-quality mechanics. Ascension inherited difficult-to-balance mechanics from Dark Heresy, and the relative commonness of "Unnatural" Characteristics does not help. Ascension also doesn't hard-code enough elements of Influence mechanics for my taste, and doesn't even provide enough of a framework to make the extant Influence system useful without a great deal of experience.

Grappling a Psyker doesnt help you when you want to stop him from psykering. Almost all Psychic Powers need no gestures, or even talking. This is not D&D where every spell and their grandmother has somatic components that can be disrupted by being grappled.

Sorcerers can be hindered that way, as these guys do indeed flail their arms around and chant dark invocations. Psykers simply will effects into being.

Noctus said:

The rules clearly state what a character being grappled can do and using psychic powers isn't one of the actions. Same with being of fire, I guess that's why witch hunters like using them flame weapons.

A psyker encounter for my character pretty much goes like this. Resist psychic attack with help form wards, talents, berserker paragon talent, and resistances. Walk up to psyker and grab it by the neck. Squeeze till psyker isn't a problem any more (90 Str helps). Or the alternate easier solution is to just get within flamer range and hold down the trigger till success is achieved (dealing with a pyromancer proceed to using alternate method).

Why over complicate things?

niarBaD said:

Nope.

Primaris psykers are simply broken.

Can pyskers be extremely powerful in the fluff? Sure. Should they be in the game? Only if it doesn't break the game. Primaris pyskers break the game. And your low-rank psyker may have had some bad luck, but low rank psykers are 'knowsimply useful, balanced characters instead of ridiculously broken ones. How much respect will a primaris pysker get? Plenty. He's a high ranking member of the Imperial Inquisition, he should be getting all the respect. Plus, y'know, he has the ability to incinerate people - that tends to win respect. How useful is a primaris psyker? Very, very useful. You're assuming that these psykers are 'focused on Destruction' - they don't have to be. A primaris psyker will have loads of powers, he doesn't really need to spend all that many of them on combat abilities.

Are there ways that a primaris psyker can be taken down? Sure. If the GM wants to constantly throw anti-psyker opponents at you he can. That right there is an example of Very Bad Game Design (VBGD) - forcing a GM to tailor encounters and scenarios to present a challenge to one PC. It's extremely limiting for the GM and annoying for all concerned ("what, we're facing a crack team of psyker-hunting pariahs again? That's like the third time this week..."). The VA is another example of VBGD, for much the same reason (God forbid you should have both a VA and Primaris in your group, you'd have to tailor every encounter to deal with both).

Catachan said:

Holy hands-of-death batman, what sort of beast is your character? My DH character has rather low WP so generally just relies on killing the (rogue) psykers any way he can before they kill him.

@ Catachan, thanks for the heads up on flame weapons, my character hates psykers (for a LOT of very good in-game reasons). He is allowed a new gun, and I was thinking combi melta pistol but having read that maybe a combi flame pistol instead. (combi with Orthlak Mk IV, which he won't leave home without).

macd21 said:

I have yet to meet a GM that doesn't tailor their game to their players at least somewhat. If Psyker and Vindicator operating together become a problem, Insert Chaos cult's fallback option; As players storm lair cult leader (or better yet flunky while leader escapes via teleportarium!) pulls pin on Atomic device! Timer set at 5..4..3..2..1 <CONTACT LOST: NEW ACOLYTE CELL SENT TO INVESTIGATE RUINS OF HIVE SPIRE.>

No one is invincible!