I searched for this, but there isn't an entry.

Psy Power d10 damage!

That's pretty brutal - and I say this in the context of the Mendacious Oracle that's the main villain of the first adventure! Even though the heretics will encounter an NPC group of Word Bearers, the book leaves them to deal with his guards (as if he wasn't enough!) and the heretics to confront him, and he's already pretty tough without this power (he has others and a forcefield that doesn't overload).

Ok, I get that it's a high level psy power and that people that acquire it are going to be the baddest of baddass! But at the very least the damage output is (iirc) 5d10! Comparing that to regular weaponry it seems to have no equivalent. WIth a penetration of 9 (!) it's pretty much a one shot kill. Now I guess it's intended to be used against really tough monsters like daemon princes and necron lords and what not, but there's nothing to stop it from being used against anything: there's no mana cost equivalent for psy powers. Yes it's a bolt, not a storm/barrage but it's just so good. It's not even classed as Corrupting (which I think it should be), and at the level the psyker will be to use this he's going to have a very easy time attacking with it.

Am I wrong? I daren't have him fight in my adventure (I'm currently running False Prophets and had to design an 'out' for the heretics when they face him). There's only two heretics and he'll tear them apart in a turn!

signoftheserpent said:

1. Lascannon is 5d10+10 Pen 10 Proven(3), and won't accidentally summon daemons or teleport you to a different planet.

2. Making a character who can use this power is much more expensive than making a character who's able to dodge it.

3. If you want to make it your combat mainstay, you'll be using it on Fettered most of the time or suffer the horrible consequences. Thus, only half PR most of the time unless you really hate your character.

Yes, it's powerful, but not unreasonably so. All blasts had comparable damage in DW and it didn't really stand out so much.

Copax is not that tough. He may have a lot of wounds, and a decent powerfield, but no armour, and low toughness. Concentrated fire should take him down in two-three rounds (depends on your luck on the force field). If you dont want to kill your players simply dont use bolt of change. He has many powers in his arsenal that make him potent opponent eg gholams curse.

Also for the power - its not that strong. Compare it to hellish blast (which kills a lot of people) or force storm which is totaly sick!

it deals 1d10+ 3xPR damage, pen 0. Ok so at psy raiting 7 (you can push easily), each bolt deals 1d10+21 damage. At 10 1d10+30.

So lets have a moderately powerfull psyker with PR 5 and WP 60. He's aligned to tzeentch and has corpus conversion, and blasphemous incantation, and psy focus.

he pushes so final PR will be 11 (5+5+1), which add +55 to WP +10 psy focus, -10 power diffucilty. Total WP 115. He rolls 55, which means he got 6 degree of success, which translates to 7 hits. He spends fate point to add 1d5 succeses, and uses corpus converion once. Total number of succeses = 11.

Damage 1d10+33. Great unclean one soaks 17 damage from psychic powers. Which means he is dealt 1d10+16 for every bolt, for a total 11d10 +176, or 236 damage. After one power he has 4 points of critical damage. More powerfull psyker or better roll kills him in one round.

You were sayin something about bolt of change being brutal?

I'm more and more convinced that Force Storm is a mistake. The damage should be much lower.

But players won't be facing Great Unclean Ones all the time. So anything else is just going to be wiped out of existence with a blink of the psyker's will. That's why I would say it should be somethign like a corruption power. That way it's only used when it's needed: you're calling on tremendous power and there will always be something.

Characters getting more powerful over time is fine, but if it means that the only thing you can throw at them are great big daemons then it's going to get silly. This is the problem with rpg systems that use these kinds of experience system. Their failing is that development = numbers getting bigger, and in time the game shuts down because what else can the players do when they can make planets explode with a thought?

That Sorcerer would eat a Lascannon shot and die well before he got in range to pull off his "planet destroying" power. Yes, it's good. No, it's not unstoppable. Isomeone is tossing this power off, they're either Unfettering/Pushing, or they're Top of the Line and Fettering. If they aren't fettering, they stand a decent chance of blowing themselves to kingdom come with it. Sure, it may not happen the first time it's used, or the tenth, but if they use it constantly, it will happen, then they get to play the "Make a New Character" game. Said Lascannon does not not make you play that game. Playing a psyker is playing Vostroyan Roulette. Sooner or later, the chamber isn't going to be empty, so you need to play smart. Pushing Bolt of Change constantly on a character with a lot of playtime is not what most people would call "smart"

Decent chance of blowing up was in dark heresy. With this power system its negligible. First you have only 10% chance of having psychic phenomena, and then only 25% for perils of the warp. This gives us overall 2,5% chance on peril, and then only those higher than 50 are really harmfull. Add to that Favored by the warp, and warp lock. With these psyker can cast unfettered at will, and push if pressed without much harm.

I got to tell that to my BC group. First session, two Pushed powers, two psykers possessed by Greater Daemons.

Thank you, Morangias, that's exactly my point!

It may be uncommon, but it certainly does happen!

**** happens, but not as often as in DH. The worst thing that happened to our psyker was: howling, light and he cound cast any powers for some time. He cast several powers per game session. Lucky bastard.

Ironically, when I ran DH no psyker ever did anything remotely threatening. The worst thing that happened is someone ate a point of Corruption.

Heck, I played a Librarian in DW, Pushed my first power EVER and TPKed the party.

When I played Imperial Psyker in DH i casted seal wounds and rolled mass possesion in about 60m inide of a populated building. Then on the same session i cast dull paint, and tadaaa - deamonhost. 2 Fate points burned in one game session.