Plushy said:

Lionus said:

Nail on the head, mate, with a Thunder Hammer!

The Rogue Trader psychic revisions made sense… For Rogue Trader. They represent a much less powerful category of psyker when compared to the top-of-the-line Primary Psykers represented in DH, Psykers who were too weak to serve without having their souls bound to the Emperor become Astropaths, and the Astropaths presented in Rogue Trader are the exceptional examples of their kind, their powers are safer because of the overkill measures used to armour them against the Warp, and they pay for that in both power and narrow specialisation.

Next take Deathwatch, Librarians having a still more stable, but even narrower range of powers than Astropaths made sense also, their reduced width and breadth of power when compared to Primary Psykers is a direct result of the extreme levels of control and restriction that they bind to their formidable minds and souls, for one of their key duties is to reliably predict the future as accurately and safely as possible on behalf of the Chapter Master and the Captaincy. Librarians work quite well in the game without being *too* weaksauce psychically, but they still rely heavily on their wargear and their Brothers, as they should. Considering Deathwatch is the first and only game in the line so far that set out to make each PC class balanced, that's a good indication of the success of the Deathwatch psychic rules *for Deathwatch*.

Black Crusade is where you really start to see the "improvements" fall flat, they sit at a level that is both safer and more powerful than anything previous, despite being servants of the Dark Gods, you expect power unto that of the Primary Psykers and more horrifying and potentially devastating powers and techniques, but also even greater peril. Being confident that you will be completely fine while Pushing high end powers, before you've even picked up the dice, is a strong indication of going too far in the opposite direction.

From the earliest lore to the present, those few human beings strong enough and talented enough to serve the Imperium as Imperial Psykers have burned the brightest, and payed the heaviest price for their gift-curse. Each to their own, but post DH Psychic rules undeniably lack soul and elan. If I wanted to play a warp energy accountant, I'd play Black Crusade: Administratum edition.

Azraiel said:

Were they? And if they were, they utterly, utterly failed.

borithan said:

I've read a few different horror stories about Librarians who could not roll Perils of the Warp. Assault Marines also got shafted.

Assault Marines shafted? Personally I would hold them to be the most broken after Librarians, and they don't even have special powers to jusify it.

Deathwatch is the kind of game where almost every class is broken in some respect or another.

Devastators? See Heavy Bolter.

Tac Marines? See Storm Bolter.

Assault? See everything related to melee.

And so on. The only one that isn't obviously OP is the Apothecary.

They are the emperors finest, they are his tool to conquer the galaxy. They were build to be OP. And if everything is OP… isnt that some kind of Balance too?

Just to briefly return to the "Is Dark Heresy dead" debate, I suspect that the forthcoming release of "Pariah" will tempt a lot of people back to the game. The Eisenhorn and Ravenor series embody what a good DH campaign should feel like for many, and the release of the first volume of the third trilogy will contain lots of interesting new material for GMs and players alike.

FieserMoep said:

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Deathwatch has been broken in almost every aspect from the very beginning. See DJSunhammer's post. I've always thought Librarians were top among the most broken things in any 40K game so far. Still, this is supposed to be a thread about Dark Heresy. I have been thinking about this a little lately, and I don't think that it's over, but there are so many other games now, that the customer pool is much diluted. FFG is focused on the other 4 games and expanding them more than DH right now. Plus, if I had taken a schillacking like they have over the ridiculous inconsistancy of power level in Lathes Worlds, I might want to take some time to step back and look at how I would want to proceed.

All this being said, going back to what brought me into this conversation, I still like the DH psyker system. It does get powerful, but at the level of Primaris Psyker, they should be roughly equivilant to a starting Librarian. See above. Plus, the thresholds and rolling tons of dice increasing the chances of perils of the warp bring the mechanics in line with the fluff. The system from RT on do not.

DJSunhammer said:

Lightbringer said:

I'm not sure how I feel about Eisenhorn being a bad guy. The Eisenhorn and Ravenor books are the only 40K books I have read. I really enjoyed both and I don't like the idea of them being enemies. I'm not even sure if I'll read it or not.

DJSunhammer said:

Being important is not the same as being broken. As someone said, the Apothecary is very important. However, I don't think anyone could claim they're broken. They don't totally outshine other classes, and don't cause problems for balancing things for other players. Even the devastator doesn't (it is his gun that was the problem, not the career itself). Only really Librarians (with their broken, broken powers) can do that like Assault Marines. OK, possibly Tech-Marines as they get absurd amounts of Damage Reduction as they get very high level, but it is such a passive thing, combined with the otherwise uninsiring list of abilities they get, it certainly doesn't feel like it is overwhelming to the game.