Now, why would anyone take Short-Range Telepathy, ever?

At first I thought that the first was a prereq. for the other, but there is no such requirement. While Long-Range Telepathy costs 250xp more (a pittance, considering that either would be a permanent investment), it comes with a near-crazy increase in range, as well as being able to be freely used without Psychic Phenomenas or Perils of the Warp, as long as you don't push it.

Oh, and Long-Range Telepathy requires 40 WP. But seriously speaking though, why would any Librarian have less than 40 WP?

Because you can get it for free.

bogi_khaosa said:

That doesn't make it better. That makes it *worse*. "Free" is still an invested net worth of 500xp.

Consider that you want to make a Telepathy-centered Librarian. You will obviously want to pick Short-Range Telepathy as your "free" pick, but once you look into the Telepathy powers, there's a power, for a mere 250xp more, that not only invalidates your starting pick, but completely and massively blows it out of the water.

I'd house rule it as a prequisite for long range telepathy. It is a strange oversight.

Lets not forget how long range telepathy actually works in WH40K.

You aren't having a conversation and mentioning how cute brother lobo from the rainbow warriors looks in his tutu. You are forming a message through visual and audio cues intermingled with your emotional state, then hurtling it through the ever-changing and tumultuous warp-realm where it is twisted, shredded, burried and lost for 3 months, then re-found, and finally jumbled back together where "hopefully" the person you aimed it at picks it up.

Sending anything through the warp more than a few miles is going to mess with the message, the farther the worse. Strange warp currents could also send these messages all throughout time, or to a whole different location. Theres also the fact the traitor legions are actually in colusion with vast entities who actually live in the warp and could easily pick up a message like, "hey brother lobo, we are gonna go and beat up those Alpha legion jerks in 5 days, here's our plans," and whisper it to a chaos sorceror, which is why long range telepathy is usually encripted and requires a lot of work just to interpret the message.

herichimo said:

Long range telepathy is an "astropath" power. As said before it is not like talking to someone… And can't really be used to talk to your neighbor. You send a concept of a message that will need to be decipher if even recive by the good people.

Short range telepathy is made to work as a network with direct exchange and can be used to not be detected by technological means in the kill team.

The two power are quite not the same.

Each of them have a real aim in the game and use long range as short range telepathy is possible but really out of the game background.

Do as you want as GM and players but really it is not meant to be use like it.

Fgdsfg said:

Which, as we're talking about an RPG, has everything to do about the topic.

The OP wanted to know why the two powers might be different from one another. Which was provided. An RPG isn't tabletop where common sense (rules in the game specifically state the GM should use it) and background can be ignored.

Long Range Telepathy in 40k isn't like a phone call or radio. Its difficult, its complicated, and it isn't terribly reliable. If you play an RPG in the 40k universe and use long rage telepathy you'd **** well better consider its problems and issues, cause thats what you do in an RPG.

You seem to mistaken Herichimo, Astrotelepathy is a separate entry to Long Range Telepathy, which with it's range of 50km x PR isn't going to go far in stellar distances.

But LRT itself is a direct upgrade of SRT. Certainly if you are buying them exp it's almost certainly worth paying the extra for the longer range.

However, if you only intend to use it for your squad then saving the exp or getting it as one of your starting powers is probably all that you are ever going to need. Likewise, if you are intending to be a specialised telepath you might want to start with SRT just because you can start with it even if you intend to get LRT later.

If LRT was a half action to use that would have made the choice. Otherwise perhaps you could rule that SRT is detectable over a much shorter distance than LRT.

Maybe the bit at the end of SRT about being maintained as a Free Action isn't meant to apply to LRT. Aren't there equivalent powers in Rogue Trader? How do they work?

herichimo said:

Thebigjul said:

bogi_khaosa said: