I interpretted the Psyker's Gift Ascended Trait for Interrogators and Inquisitors as meaning you could purchase each of the listed items once (e.g. you may increase your Psy Level once, buy one Major Psychic Power, etc.).

Recently, in a Forum discussion, someone said they had queried this with an FFG staff member who said you could, in fact, purchase them multiple times.

Is it possible for someone (preferably staff, as I don't think my GM would take anyone else's word on the matter) to confirm the way the Trait was intended to work? Thank you in advance.

If you're trying to get an actual ruling from FFG, you'd be well advised to use the link at the bottom of the page "Rules Questions" to get an actual answer. As far as I know, they don't use these boards as a vehicle for answering rules questions (its assumed we answer them among ourselves).

That's about all I can say on this question though, I don't have Ascension with me, and well, I just plain don't remember the wording on the trait.

Ah, thank you. I was looking for something like that, but it was so tiny I didn't notice the link. I'll put the question to them that way, and post the answer here for other people's edification.

The description in Ascension does not say that you cannot purchase it more than once so I don't see why not.

Same here - since you already must be a psyker to take the trait anyway, there's no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to take more than one ascended power (if you can justify it fluff-wise, you might want to take a look at the fluff text for the Primaris Psyker (I think it was there, if not, it's in the intro text for the ascended psychic powers section)).

IMO The Psyker's Gift gives you one power (your choice of minor, major, or ascended) and one Psy Rating +1. Otherwise, an Interrogator or Inquisitor can gain more powers and Psy Rating than a Psyker overall and at Rank 9.

For example, a Primarious Psyker can over his career, purchase four Psy Rating +1, four Ascended Psychic Powers and zero Major Psichic Powers. If allowing multiple purchases of The Psyker's Gift, one could conceivable buy ten Psy Rating +1, all eight Ascended Powers and 25 Major Powers.

That doesn't sound like that what was intended.

After reading the description of Psyker's Gift again, I think that zorcon got it right.

I am not sure, though, if can only purchase only one power or one of each kind (minor, major, ascended). The wording there is not clear.

When I sent this exact question to the Rules Answering service, they stated (beyond the standard "only your GM can determine whats right for your campaign, etc., etc.") that it was designed with multiple purchases in mind and suggested that you limit such purchases to a maximum of once per rank for balance purposes.

Yes, this can provide an Inquisitor or interrogator with a greater Psy Rating than a Primaris Psyker. This seems balanced to me by the extreme costs associated with Inquisitor psychic purchases. Psy Rating increases and Ascended Psychic Powers through The Psyker's Gift are consistently more expensive, sometimes drastically (800 or 500 versus 2000 for the Psy Rating increases, 1000 or 1500 versus 2000 for the Ascended Psychic Powers), and thus take away a great deal from the versatility I consider necessary for an EFFECTIVE inquisitor to do his job. Granted, for Ascended Psychic Powers, one can sacrifice Major and Minor powers to equal the costs a Primaris pays, but you'll be sacrificing more powers to do so… again, reducing versatility that the Primaris won't.

A Primaris will also have one of the three possible ascended traits (the Primaris equivalents of The Psyker's Gift, which grants nothing but the option of Elite Advances), which is nothing to sneeze at. A Ghost in the Warp, for example, is constantly used when talking about OP psykers, is it not? And for good reason…

Ultimately, as a GM, if the Primaris Psyker complains about this disparity (wanting similar levels of power), I'd provide them as Elite Advances, probably at the same costs as The Psyker's Gift. Or, if I were worried about balance issues, i'd restrict The Psyker's Gift to every other rank, thus providing the same Psy Rating ceiling as a Primaris Psyker with a higher associated cost.

I would NOT restrict Inquisitors to a single Ascended Power. That seems unnecessarily restrictive, especially given the costs…

My answer from the Rules Answering Service, which is in line with my original understanding of the rule, is this:

I'd have to say just once on them. Otherwise you could wind up with an Inquisitor who was more powerful than a dedicated psyker, and that would just feel wrong. This should be an Inquisitor who has some psychic abilities, not a master psyker who carries a rosette.

As an alternative though, if the GM is ok with it then I'd allow the Inquisitor to take them multiple times but only during the "switch to Ascension" process. This would allow greater breadth, but still limit how powerful a psyker he could be.

If I had taken the Ascension package that makes you a psyker, I might consider going for multiple buys during the ascent process (just to have a little bit more of a repertoire). However, as the character I'm asking for started Ascension as a Rank 6 psyker, I'm quite happy to have bought one more Psy Level, possess one Ascended Power and be able to get one more Minor and Major power.

Allowing multiple buys seemed overpowered (psykers are more than strong enough already). I'm glad this was the response.