Well seeing things are worked out, I was going to consider using Only War version of Smite.

Manyfist said:

Sounds like an interesting idea. I don't have Only War yet, how is it different?

For my game, that I'm ruling the librarians take psychic powers from black crusade(barring chaos ones of course).

Naviward said:

It's a Psychic Barrage which is like semi auto fire, +1 hit/2 DoS, D10+Psy Rating Pen 4 range of 20m X Psy Rating.

Smite is indeed a powerfull power but it is made as a range attack and can be modiifed by a lot of parameters. Use them as GM, your NPC aren't PC stupid bots. And once a smite had been done theywill know that they have to be out of line of sight… or dodge.

Now if you want to fix smite make your player play in a fog witch use could them have from smite if they do not see their target.

Manyfist said:

That sounds fantastic and balanced, nice.

Thebigjul said:

It's a nice idea, but in practice is it realistic to have every fight in a situation where the enemy can attack from out of light of sight (and what would the rest of the team do in this situation, not like it's any easier for them when they can't see the enemy)? And dodging is fine until the higher levels of smite, when the blast becomes so large that only enemies with agility bonus 10+ will be able to dodge it.

It's fair, as you say, that there is always something the GM can do to neuter any ability, but I found that every combat ended up with either the Librarian killing everything, or it was designed specifically to stop the Librarian, neither of which was particularly fun, so we decided to try and sort out the root of the problem, rather than the effects.

Just a question…

Do you use Psyker NPC against your team. Because one funnyè thing is the "counterspell".

You can balanced your psyker this way making him lose some power.

And what about psy null?

Off course highj level smite is a great damage dealer.

But the real problem is player who go unfettered every time not seing that they are going to be distrust by all the SM around with warp phenomena all time.

As a Devastor would be rebucked because using full charge plasma for killing mice.

Thebigjul said:

I'm well aware of Psychic Hoods, Nulls, Shadow of the Warp, e.t.c which can be used to limit or nullify a psyker. My problem wasn't how to do it, it was more the limitation it placed on the game. Why play the game limiting each fight to a small set of possible enemies in the hope of balancing the psyker, when you can just limit the psykers ability and then use any of the full range of enemies available.

I did have some of the NPCs question the psykers actions, but for the most part they didn't see it first hand, so couldn't comment as they hadn't seen it, and the rest of the PCs didn't comment because it was effective or they didn't want to limit another players fun. I think this aspect comes down more to the playstyle of the group, whether they're more prepared to have party conflict or not.

Ultimately it comes down to a simple situation for me, I don't have to do anything special to balance for the other classes, so why should the psyker be any different?

Thebigjul said:

I don't know, if I had a plasma gun I'd start using it for everything….probably why I shouldn't be a devastator though.

Manyfist said:

This is nice because it is helping guide where we are going. However, this would be too weak of a Smite for librarians because it would be weaker than the FAQed bolter until they reach Rank 5. That's not how it should be. We tried out Smite in our group again last Thursday and it had some issues.

I am still thinking the two options below are the best…

D10 + 2PR, Pen PR, max bolts WP bonus

or

D10 + PR, Pen 2PR, max bolts WP bonus

Any thoughts on these?

afterimagedan said:

Personally I again don't see that as a problem. Compared to a bolter, this version of smite:-

* Is easier to hit with, as you get PRx5 to the hit value that you don't get for the bolter.

* Can be used while holding something else, so your options are greater.

* Can hit with more bolts as the cap on hits is higher, so is better at point blank.

So it's good that it's worse for straight damage but has more options, this really should be the way all psychic power are, rather than just straight up better than weapons (after all, why would you want to be anything else. This isn't D&D, the Librarian gets to use the same armour and weapons as everyone else).

afterimagedan said:

I think I posted earlier the problem with D10+2PR because of the way it scales to better than a lascannon in the mid to late game, so I'd avoid that. 2xPR Pen seems the better way if you want to give it more punch, as it makes it better at the lower levels, but becomes less important as it becomes greater than most characters armour, the extra PR is wasted.

The only thing to watch for with 2xPR Pen is in the late game when the psyker could be doing multiple Pen 20-26 attacks, which makes smite effectively a melta weapon against tanks (at long range).

Just as a mini-introduction: I'm the librarian in AfterimageDan's party. We've been discussing smite back and forth and I like the rules you put forth, for sure.

My only issue is that there aren't many damage options available for librarians. Avenger is the only alternative and it's a flamer. Not that librarians should be able to do any type of situation, but I think the spell options should be there so they can specialize with their spell choices like others do with weapon choices.

Are there any spell you know of that can do armor heavy target damage? There might be a few tucked away in some Chapter spells, but none that I know of that are readily available to librarians; Just utility spells and uncontrollable spells like Vortex of Doom.

Naviward said:

Naviward said:

I think you are totally right. We have been forgetting the PRx5 bonus each game and that will result in more bolts. Also, having a Force Sword in hand at all times will allow for much better close combat abilities, especially parry. Point blank will definitely boost the bolts.

Leviathan1753 said:

Nice to meet you, glad to hear the new smite is working for you. I won't have the books in front of my till tonight, so I'll take a look at things then, but just so I know what I'm looking at, what chapter are you playing and what rank are you?

Another option would be to make smite more like the table top version and give it warp weapon instead of a Pen value, that way it won't matter how armoured the target is (without it becoming too powerful against tanks).

He's a Rank 2 Raven Guard Librarian.

I've work out an other form for smite with:

1/2 PR d10 Pen PR

Less would make the smite power too weak in my point of view and the trials I put in the pass of my KT.

An other House rules I've done is also to not count any psy rating above 10 for the power damage, still count on the psychic activation roll.

Thebigjul said:

Sounds like an interesting idea, I like the PR 10 cap, as it's often the higher levels of the power where it gets silly.

I'm always slightly weary of any power that adds d10 as the psy rating goes up (see my earlier posts about the maths of how they quickly become more powerful than any of the other weapons in the game), but 1/2 PR with the 10 cap at least stops it over powering lascannons and the like at high levels which is good.

Do you keep the blast value at PR or have you house ruled that too?

Sorry, yes in fact balst radius is also 1/2 PR. That way it put some rest to ennemy hordes…

Btw the PR is rounded up so with PR 3

+15 to the activation roll, then 2d10 dmg Pen 3 Blast 2

With PR 10 and pushing

+65 to the activation roll, then 5d10 Pen 10 Blast 5

afterimagedan said:

Thanks for the update. Raven Guard are really good at dealing with armoured targets actually, they have there own 1d10 x PR power (Unkindness of Deliverance), although I don't know if you are also house ruling this power. Curse of the Raven is also good as it gives everyone extra Pen, so at Rank 2 getting 4 extra Pen onto everyone's attacks would take down most armoured targets.

It only actual occurs to me now that I might be mis-reading the situation, when you say armour heavy targets, is this single creatures (at which point anything above Pen 10 will be enough, so Curse of the Raven with a bolter for example) or are you more looking at dealing with vehicles?

The Smite power is defeated by something as humble as a van. Smite has no effect on non living targets. Without the ability to penetrate people inside a Rhino or the above van, its easy for them to duck back inside with a Challenging Dodge test. Facign an armored vehicle is not outside the realm of possibility for a deathwatch kill-team. Besides it might encourage people to actually use a melta-gun or missile launcher in a game.

Indeed and i'mashamed not to have think about it myself…

I will go to the chapel and confess my sin of ignorance to the chaplain, then I will beat the weakness out of my flesh and mind….

But to be pure enough I need one more answer, if smite work only on living things do it works against NPC or PC with machine trait?

Thebigjul said:

While I'm hardly a rules authority, I would say it depends. For something that is totally robotic like a Necron I woudl say no, but for something like a Tech Marine or your 'average' tech priest, I would say yes.

andrewm9 said:

It's a good point, and certainly a fun way to have the NPC's out think the party, it does still suffer from the fact that the once the Rhino has been popped, the smite is going to nuke those that are left quickly enough if the book version is used (plus it'll be a bit boring to have to have a vehicle in every fight to balance smite).

And technically, a large smite, even if they are standing by the door way, the opponents aren't going to have a high enough agility bonus to get back out of the way of the blast (it'll just going into the back of the rhino after all).

I've read that the whole smite doesn't effect vehicles thing is still open to debate too, what with smite being written before rites of battle, I can certainly see arguments in either direction. Was there every official word on it?

Regardless if it works against vehicles or not, the problem that keeps coming up is how encounters are made. So what? Every encounter is going to feature a Rhino because every bad guy in the world is afraid of the Librarian? While Rhino Hunter Safari might make a great encounter I wouldn't want to make it a must-have feature.

I like the way Smite has been tweaked, I think personally it'll boil down to using the 1d10+PR Pen PR Warp Wep. Psychic Barrage or using Smite as found in Only War.

The term "creature" is nowhere defined in the rules, and in fact in English "living thing" is only one of its meanings. The primary meaning of the word historically until very recently has been "thing."

I don't believe that RAI are that it work only against living beings. (and not daemons? servitors?)