These are all useful defences against psychic attacks, but their wording suggests that they don’t protect against everything.

Example: The Psy-jammer has no effect vs powers that cause “direct physical Damage”, (note the capital D, specifying that this refers to the game mechanic Damage, and not just anything that might hurt) and the Wards specify that is must be a “direct psychic attack or manipulation”.

Resistance is the broadest, giving +10 “when making a test to resist or avoid the object of your resistance.”

So how would these work, if at all, vs the following effects?

Telekinetics “Fling”. You’re throwing rocks with your mind. The rocks aren’t psychic attack, and you’re not dealing direct physical damage with your psychic ability.

Telekinetics “Push”. This creates Kinetic Energy, which is then directed against your target. Your target is using his Strength to attempt to resist the Force acting upon him, but the Force is not a Psychic attack, it’s just like Gravity (just not pulling you down, but back).

Biomancy “Blood Boil”. This causes Fatigue, not physical Damage. It seems clear that the AP doubling from the Wards will not help, but is this still Damage? Will the Jammer work?

Biomancy “Constrict”. As with Blood Boil, it does not cause physical Damage.

Do they help with Powers that target the psyche himself, and cause effects that influence others? Like:

Pyromancy “Blinding Flash”. Turns you into a Flash-bang, requiring those who see you to test Agility or be blinded. The psychic effect here is just creating the fire. The fire itself is just fire, and the bright light is just light. Should psychic resistances help avoid the blinding effect?

I’m sure there are others too.

How would you rule on these?

Oh, and would they help against Possession attacks? The Jammer says it would, but the others? I'm not talking about the powers of Domination here, but the Trait "Posession" which is described on p 331 in the Core book and is used by Daemons and Spectres of the Warp.

The talent Resistance (Psychic) works on all these psychic powers, because in my opinion that is what the talent is ment to do and it isn't really breaking the game at all, or at least I think that it isn't.

Hexagramatic Wards work on direct psychic attacks and their manipulations

Psy-Jammers work on any Test to resist the effects of a Psychic Power.

I say for Telekinetics "Fling" a Hexagramatic Wards would not work but the Psy-Jammer would work because the rock being thrown is an effect of the psychic power Fling even though it is not a psychic attack in unto itself though. These feels really tricky and hard to answer, because of the wording of the psy-jammer makes it seem exactly like the Resistance (Psychic) talent except it's being granted to you through the use of a device and it's not's something that you know through experience or luck like the way with the Resistance (Psychic) talent grants you though. I'm still kinda of up in the air on this one. I say for Telekinetics "Push" the Hexagramatic Wards and Psy-Jammer would work. Push is a direct psychic attack and a psychic power.

I say for Biomancy “Blood Boil” the Hexagramatic Wards and Psy-Jammer would work. Blood Boil is a direct psychic attack and a psychic power. With the Hexagramatic Ward you would get the +20 bonus on tests but not the double AP because, if I'm correct, Blood Boil ignores armour and toughness.

I say for Biomancy “Constrict” the Hexagramatic Wards and Psy-Jammer would work. Constrict is a direct psychic attack and a psychic power. With the Hexagramatic Ward you would get the +20 bonus on tests but not the double AP because, if I'm correct, Constric ignores armour and you take damage from suffocation which ignores armour and toughness.

I say for Pyromancy “Blinding Flash” the Hexagramatic Wards would not work and Psy-Jammer would work though. Blinding Flash is not a direct psychic attack because it's an area of effect power but it is a psychic power.

Now for Possession attacks I feel that only the Psy-Jammer would work because it actually says that it gives a +10% bonus against those sorts of attacks. If you're talking about the psychic power Dominate then all three methods would work to protect you from the attack because it's a psychic power and not a actual possession attack in the sense of a Demon/Warp entities trying to possess you.

So what do you guys think? How does my explaination sound, do you agree or disagree?

I remember having read somewhere that none of these helped vs. Fling. An official ruling, in fact.

It makes sense, because if you're hit by A Really Large Rock, then it really doesn't matter HOW it was accelerated. You just feel the Impact of the Really Big Rock. And similarly, you could use Telekinetics to flips switches or open trapdoors, release rocks or Grand Pianos from the ceiling or floor above, etc etc etc. All these are Indirect attacks, and the target of the incoming pain is not the same as the target of the Psychic manipulation.

I'm also not sure if I agree with your reasoning on the Blinding Flash, as the description specifies that regular glare shielding protects against the effects. This suggest that the actual flash, though created by Psychic force, is itself normal in it's nature.

I think that in the interests of rules-simplicity and argument-avoidance, it's best to simply rule "They all apply", and skip the minutia of each individual power. Whether it's "fire" or "psychic bolts" that are hurled at a target, it's all just "psychic attacks" and they all do 1d10+wpb, so why differentiate?

Edit: The thing about Fling was in the description of Nulls, I believe. Those who are normally immune to psychihc effects, but still suffer normal effects of Really Big Rocks thrown at them by Psychic means from beyond their zone of nullifications. That implies that no psychic defence will apply to this (and similar) power.

"Note: It may still be possible to indirectly affect an untouchable with a Psychic Power—for example, a boulder telekinetically dropped from a great height on an untouchable will still flatten them. This is left entirely left to the discretion of the GM."

RH, p.38

Right, exactly. Thanks

So I'd rule that with Fling, none of those things will help.

However, one could read Resistance (Psychic Powers) to mean that you also get +10 to Dodge bolts and projectiles thrown your way. I think this is a too liberal interpretation of the wording, and doubt this is intended. The same argument also applies to Agility test to avoid cathcing fire if you were burned by a pyromancy power.

Re-reading rules…

1. Minor Power Flash Bang ("bright flash of light and a deafening bang") -> WP test or become stunned.

2. Stun Grenade ("thunderous noise and bright flash) -> T test or become stunned, photo-visors provide bonus.

3. Major Power Blinding Flash ("burst of searing bright light") -> Ag test or be blinded, "Those with appropriate glare shielding and beings that don’t have visual sensory organs are immune"

Very different effects.

I would rule: "1" create only psychic effect -> Resistance, Wards, Jammer works. "3" create only visual flash -> psychic protection does not apply.

P.S. My English is bad, sorry, not native language.

Darth Smeg said:

The only thing I can remember that might effect 'Fling' is the using of Psynisicience to reduce it effectiveness. But here's the rub. Using that only works if the defender is also a Psyker (required by RAW to get Psynicience in the first place, although there there is pre-requisite listing is missing from the Acension book, it still shows up as required by the core) and will work best if the player has the time to use it since Pynisicence is usually a full round action (except for those Psykers who opted to take the talents from RT that allows them to reduce it to half round then later free actions { I am sorry, but I forget which rule this is }.

In short, in most games, yeah, people are gonna get squashed by the **** rock. Or they might be able to hurredly erect a Telekinetic Shield?

Ok after giving a second read over for Psy-jammers and what they react to, I will say that they don’t defend against the Fling power. It’s the wording of how psy-jammer are described that is confusing me a little bit and yes I was also thinking how the rock works against an untouchable NPC or PC too. But I was also thinking that Untouchables and Psy-jammers are written up with two different rules sets and each have to be treated as per what is written for their individual rules.

Now with the Blinding Flash power I know I’m stretching it with the psy-jammer. The way I imagine it working is like how you have a filter on the window that can block UV light from the sun. So your eyes are the windows, the psy-jammer is the filter that blocks UV light and the Blinding Flash is the sun that produces UV light, except that UV light is actually warp radiation. You could also imagine that the psy-jammer is actually reacting to the hole in reality that is being opened up by the power and the psy-jammer flares up to create a partial filter from the light that way. I know it’s a stretch but I’m basing this reasoning off how I’m interpreting how the psy-jammer is described in the book. Now I could be interpreting it wrong but the way I see it the psy-jammer gives a +20 bonus to any test involved to resist the effects of a Psychic Power, the light coming from the Blinding Flash power is effect from the power so it would stand to reason from RAW that the psy-jammer would partially block some of the light that originated from BF and grant you a +20 bonus to your Agility Test.

Now I say that the talent Resistance (Psychic) is the only thing that you can say is blanketed among all these powers because of how it is described in the book. I imagine that the character that has that talent has come up against psykers before hand and they are used to dealing with the psykers powers and their effects. I think of Resistance (Psychic) is just having experience with the effects of psychic powers and knowing how to deal with them because of previous experiences.