Recently a psyker in my group activated the Sense Presence power and sustained it for a long time. You have to roll every 10 rounds to see if you can keep it up, but the Treshold is 7 and with a Willpower bonus of 5 and 2 dice to roll (and no chance for warp mishaps or psychic phenomena), you are automatically succesfull, which led the player to remark that you can thus keep up the power pretty much indefinitely, when you are not activating other powers. Somehow that didn't feel right, as sustaining a power for days on end should be physically as well as psychically taxing.

What do you think of this ?

He has to sleep some time, and when he does he will be unable to maintain any powers.

The Laughing God said:

There's a reason the sustaining penalty starts at -4, not 0.

If you're sustaining a psychic power, all power rolls, including those to sustain powers , suffer a -4 penalty. If you're sustaining two powers, the penalty becomes -8, and if you're sustaining 3 powers, the penalty becomes -16.

So if you're sustaining a power with a Threshold of 7, and have a WP bonus of 5... you need a 6+ to sustain it, because of the -4 penalty. It's still easy, but not automatic.

Why is there no chance for psychic phenomena?

No chance for psychic phenomena as they will not occur if a 9 comes up on the sustain roll.

Thanks for the replies!

The Laughing God said:

It is as feasible as a guardsman connecting his lasgun to a power outlet and firing non-stop 24/7.

-K

kjakan said:

That would actually be really awesome

kjakan said:

Hehe, if you swap the word "Guardsman" with "Tech-Priest". And said Tech-Priest have the talents Luminen Charge and Energy Cache, and a decent toughness value. He could pretty much fire the same lasgun 24/7. If you toss in the talent Electrical Succour and a power outlet, the Tech-Priest wouldnt need to sleep either.

But then again, whats the point in firing a puny lasgun 24/7? MP Lacannons on the other hand... >