Untouchables are in the Beta as an Elite Advance, but with curious effects.

Purchasing the Advance grants him the Soulless talent, which does nothing other than a nebulous "uncomfortable to be around, psykers withing WPb metres of the character feel pain." He can then spend xp to advance through a talent tree that reduces enemies' PR, gains bonuses to resisting psychic powers, and can increase this protection to those around him, but can never actually become a full-on Untouchable.

I am not a big fan of this interpretation. While the abilities are fine, Untouchables should (in my eyes) take a penalty to Fellowship, and have the ability to become immune to psychic powers, as they always have been.

Thoughts?

These Untouchables really feel watered down, even with the whole tree of Talents.

These Untouchables really feel watered down, even with the whole tree of Talents.

Agreed. I loved the old "immune to Psychic Powers, but either -20 or halve your Fellowship."

This is just "be good at resisting psykers at the cost of some xp and a vague narrative drawback."

There isn't precedent in the lore for individuals "becoming" untouchable either. It should be a part of character creation. Untouchables can be worn down (unlike pariahs) as seen in the Ravenor trilogy but not "developed".

<sup>And the advances are very expensive as well. They don't amount to a whole much. Needs some beefing up.

BYE</sup>

^{And the advances are very expensive as well. They don't amount to a whole much. Needs some beefing up.}

BEY

200xp for Resistance: Psychic Powers (+10 to resist) or 700xp (plus the cost of getting to 40 WP) for Psychic Null (+20 to resist). It isn't a good deal, and it's misleading; Nulls should be immune.

Just out of curiosity, anyone else feel the gun ranges are incredibly small?

Just out of curiosity, anyone else feel the gun ranges are incredibly small?

I read only a few chapters mind you, but I did not see any charts or text signaling range bonuses/penalties yet.

Just out of curiosity, anyone else feel the gun ranges are incredibly small?

I read only a few chapters mind you, but I did not see any charts or text signaling range bonuses/penalties yet.

Range on a gun profile is maximum range. There are no range penalties/bonuses. Autoguns can be fired roughly 1/4th the distance of an M16's effective range.

So they really removed the 4x listed range..at least that means no more +30 for point blank, or near automatic +10 for half range..I guess..

They need to work on that, the existing rules, in DH, are complex for calculating ranges.

Untouchables are in the Beta as an Elite Advance, but with curious effects.

Purchasing the Advance grants him the Soulless talent, which does nothing other than a nebulous "uncomfortable to be around, psykers withing WPb metres of the character feel pain." He can then spend xp to advance through a talent tree that reduces enemies' PR, gains bonuses to resisting psychic powers, and can increase this protection to those around him, but can never actually become a full-on Untouchable.

I am not a big fan of this interpretation. While the abilities are fine, Untouchables should (in my eyes) take a penalty to Fellowship, and have the ability to become immune to psychic powers, as they always have been.

Thoughts?

What? A mere 'bonus resistance' against Psychic Powers? This can't be serious. Whoever wrote this, did not know a thing about the untouchable concept in 40k. This is utter crap, sorry and needs to be fixed.

Untouchables sucking was my first negative impression upon starting to read through the book. Mind you, this was before I managed to comprehend the sheer scale of the changes, but I'm catching up now and the impression persists so far.

As it is now, there's little reason to ever bother with untouchables when a combo of Resistance (psychic powers) and a Null Rod is almost as good as a fully pimped out Untouchable.

Untouchables are in the Beta as an Elite Advance, but with curious effects.

Purchasing the Advance grants him the Soulless talent, which does nothing other than a nebulous "uncomfortable to be around, psykers withing WPb metres of the character feel pain." He can then spend xp to advance through a talent tree that reduces enemies' PR, gains bonuses to resisting psychic powers, and can increase this protection to those around him, but can never actually become a full-on Untouchable.

I am not a big fan of this interpretation. While the abilities are fine, Untouchables should (in my eyes) take a penalty to Fellowship, and have the ability to become immune to psychic powers, as they always have been.

Thoughts?

What? A mere 'bonus resistance' against Psychic Powers? This can't be serious. Whoever wrote this, did not know a thing about the untouchable concept in 40k. This is utter crap, sorry and needs to be fixed.

The Untouchable advance costs 300xp, and does nothing beyond opening up the talent tree.

400xp more gets him a +20 to resist psychic powers, which isn't going to do much against a Force Bolt.

The other talents either reduce psyker's PR when within range, which is a few metres, or allow his +20 to exist in a bubble ariund him, potentially helping allies.

He lacks the ability to ever be immune.

The other talents either reduce psyker's PR when within range, which is a few metres,

Not to mention that it costs 400 exp to reduce the PR by 1 and then 600 more for a whopping total of 1000 exp spent to reduce the PR by 2. The range of the effect is WP bonus in meters, which would be 5m for a minimum WP value needed to acquire the second Talent. You can then pay another 600 exp to double the range to a minimum of 10m.

Meanwhile, the Null Rod also reduces the PR by 2 in the range of 10m, and it doesn't stack with the Untouchable. I know what I'd rather acquire.

Gotto say, I tested out an Untouchable and they did nothing. Reducing the psy-rating on powers where psy-rating wasn't important didn't do a whole hell of a lot. The Untouchable thing was just wasted.

BYE

I don't understand why Untouchables would be in the Core at all. Per canon it's not exactly essential to the game, in that they're practically non-existent in the setting. From a playability standpoint, they're both hard to play, hard to play with, and hard to accommodate in the game - they're not a newbie friendly type of character, at all.

In fact, disregarding the fluff I totally understand and even agree with the ultra-nerf. But if we disregard the fluff we might as well play CoC. So...

Why not leave them out of the Core, but stick a proper fluff-friendly version in the eventual Adeptus Astra Telepathica sourcebook? That, to me, would seem to be where they'd belong.

I don't understand why Untouchables would be in the Core at all.

Eisenhorn.

The other talents either reduce psyker's PR when within range, which is a few metres,

Not to mention that it costs 400 exp to reduce the PR by 1 and then 600 more for a whopping total of 1000 exp spent to reduce the PR by 2. The range of the effect is WP bonus in meters, which would be 5m for a minimum WP value needed to acquire the second Talent. You can then pay another 600 exp to double the range to a minimum of 10m.

Meanwhile, the Null Rod also reduces the PR by 2 in the range of 10m, and it doesn't stack with the Untouchable. I know what I'd rather acquire.

Sprinting towards the Sorcerer to get into the range where you reduce his PR while he blasts you with Force Bolts that your bonus doesn't kick in against because you aren't "resisting" them.

All the Untouchable can do right now is have a bonus to not getting mind controlled and make psykers standing next to him want an aspirin.

I don't understand why Untouchables would be in the Core at all.

Eisenhorn.

Basically, yea. I still don't think they should be in the core, even with Eisenhorn, and I say this as someone who loves the Eisenhorn Trilogy.

I don't understand why Untouchables would be in the Core at all.

Eisenhorn.

Basically, yea. I still don't think they should be in the core, even with Eisenhorn, and I say this as someone who loves the Eisenhorn Trilogy.

Eisenhorn was written to drum up excitement for Inquisitor, and Inquisitor pretty much directly led to Dark Heresy.

If asked for an example of what Dark Heresy should look like, folks are pointed to Eisenhorn/Ravenor.

Who knows, the Askellon Sector might have its own branch of the Distaff?

^{And the advances are very expensive as well. They don't amount to a whole much. Needs some beefing up.}

BEY

200xp for Resistance: Psychic Powers (+10 to resist) or 700xp (plus the cost of getting to 40 WP) for Psychic Null (+20 to resist). It isn't a good deal, and it's misleading; Nulls should be immune.

Well... A true null should be immune to direct manipulation by psychic powers, and should disrupt their use near to them. However, they could be affected by some aspects of psychic powers. Someone trying to lift them up, or dominate them should just flat out fail. Someone using a telekinesis to throw a stone at them could still hit them and deal damage (though it probably deserves a penalty due to the disruption of their control as the object nears the target).

Attacks made of pure psychic force (such as force bolt)... technically probably shouldn't succeed.

However, true nulls should be ruddy rare.

^{And the advances are very expensive as well. They don't amount to a whole much. Needs some beefing up.}

BEY

200xp for Resistance: Psychic Powers (+10 to resist) or 700xp (plus the cost of getting to 40 WP) for Psychic Null (+20 to resist). It isn't a good deal, and it's misleading; Nulls should be immune.

Well... A true null should be immune to direct manipulation by psychic powers, and should disrupt their use near to them. However, they could be affected by some aspects of psychic powers. Someone trying to lift them up, or dominate them should just flat out fail. Someone using a telekinesis to throw a stone at them could still hit them and deal damage (though it probably deserves a penalty due to the disruption of their control as the object nears the target).

Attacks made of pure psychic force (such as force bolt)... technically probably shouldn't succeed.

However, true nulls should be ruddy rare.

That's how they've always been, mechanically.

In The Radical's Handbook it cost 400xp. You lost 10 Fel and suffered a -10 to all Interaction skill tests, but gained complete immunity "to Psychic Powers, psychic energy and forces directed against them." They also caused psykers within their Willpower Bonus in metres to suffer a -20 to what would now be Focus Power tests.

The example given is that a bolder thrown with telekinesis would still hurt him just fine.

These rules have always seemed fine to me. I don't get the fragmentation of their effects and the removal of immunity.

There is something that needs to be pointed out. The rules may suck (I have yet to see them), but by canon, Untouchables come in varying degrees of strengths with only the strongest being known as Pariahs and even they weren't totally immune to psychic powers. They are just strong enough to be effectively immune to any psychic ability they were likely to encounter .

Ravenor's Untouchable got burned out by a Mirror Psyker. Ravenor and another Inquisitor were able to brute force psychicly project Becquin's mind into a Chaos Titan in an attempt to down it and the backlash is what made it necessary to put her in medical stasis. There abilities were useful and powerful and that should be represented in the rules, but not unlimited.

Having said that, the stiff social penalties and the simple immunity in the old rules were easy to handle. Sure you didn't have to worry about taking a shot of warp fire to the face but you also weren't going to get healed by biomancy or have a kine shield stop those incoming bullets.

First off Ravenors Null got burned out by Zael who was copying (think wydow from X-men but psychically) the abilitys of a demon prince, a hugely powerful demonic sorcery wielding entity, that was possessing Carl, not a standard psyker.

Secondly, Ravenor and the other inquisitor formed a mind link with the chaos titan, and hoped when Bequin touched the channeling rod her untouchable force would affect it negatively, they did not do anything to Bequin with psychic power at all, it did nothing to it because it was a vast mechanical multi mind and the backlash of her nullifying the two psykers link with the titan catapulted her across the room and into the stone wall.

Thirdly, Untouchables have always been IMMUNE to psychic powers and have nullified the use of psychic powers around them, the only variable in any lore/fluff or cannon was the range in which they had this effect, IE: WP bonus defining range.