Unsanctioned mystics could easily be sidebar material. Make them an optional rule for groups that want them.

The change allows a non sactioned psyker to have an AAT background! (Take AAT, Select any role other than Mystic, Purchase Psyker elite advance). I cannot beleive that an organization, whose sole purpose is to ensure there are not non-sactioned psykers would allows someone to go through their whole program and leave without being sanctioned. Sure perhaps they snuck out or broke out or whatever... but THAT should take an exception to the rules/story not be enabled by the standard.

But that is the exception to the rule. You can't just buy elite advances willy-nilly. It requires explicit GM approval. A non-Mystic psyker is the exception to the rule.

I also much prefer that the default is that all starting PC psykers are sanctioned, but you can just remove the sanctioning trait if you, for whatever reason, want to play an unsanctioned psyker and your GM is okay with that. Compared to the previous system where the rules was suggesting that the majority of psykers are unsanctioned.

I absolutely believe that the typical Imperial Psyker should default to being sanctioned. If you want to be the odd duck, talk to your GM.

I don't think that's right. How on Earth are you purchasing the Psyker Elite Advance? This can only be acquired via the Mystic role or through very special GM approval. Ergo, you can't get a non-sanctioned AAT psyker. Nor could you with this change anyway - Sanctioned is tied to the Psyker Advance now.

This is incorrect, any role can purchase the Psyker advance by buying it for 300xp (and meeting the other prereqs). The Mystic role simply makes it free and removes the Prereq need.

To quote the rules on acquiring Elite Advances:

"To obtain an elite advance, a character must have the permission of the GM, meet all of the prerequisites, and spend the specified amount of experience."

It's not something you just buy because you have the xp for it. Explicit GM approval is required.

Rather than sanctioning costing XP, which would imply that it's possible to sanction a character during the campaign, what about having anyone with the mystic role getting to choose if they are sanctioned or not ?

Add a big box explaining exactly what being unsanctioned means to the Imperium and how if the character is found out it means that the psyker will die or be taken by the black ships. Both of which mean a new character will be required.

Though there is another big problem with unsanctioned psyker mechanics. The only mechanical penalty is a one off shot of corruption points when their powers are revealed (the point they take the psyker advance). But most, if not all, sanctioned psykers would have been unsanctioned at the point they learned they were a psyker. Meaning that they should have also gained the same corruption points. Where did those corruption points go ?

This only gets worse when you consider the removing corruption section on page 255.

It might be best to remove unsanctioned psykers from the core rulebook and save them for a supplement where there is room for both fluff and mechanics to do them right. Mechanics that make unsanctioned psykers more dangerous to their allies than sanctioned ones.

Unsanctioned mystics could easily be sidebar material. Make them an optional rule for groups that want them.

Basically my approach. All it needs is a small Optional sidebar.

It might be best to remove unsanctioned psykers from the core rulebook and save them for a supplement where there is room for both fluff and mechanics to do them right. Mechanics that make unsanctioned psykers more dangerous to their allies than sanctioned ones.

That would also be good. I would imagine this would be a nice thing for the Radical's Handbook. Maybe a bit of a boost to their psychic powers to represent their untamedness.

Regarding the removal of Corruption however, I would think that visiting the Emperor's Palace on Holy Terra and spending a few weeks screaming your lungs out in psychic purging probably counts as "an extraordinary occurrence" as referenced in the book.

Really, all we need is one extra intermediary step. "How you joined the inquisition" perhaps.

And one of those would be "You got sanctioned", with sanctioned and another skill or talent or something.

Everyone loves having more origin path bitties to choose from anyways, correct?

I would love an additional step in the character creation.

Maybe even only a one-pager with a handfull options how the character joined the inquisition, also giving him a little bonus in some way.

And while I am at it - I still think the home worlds are lackluster compared to before...only 1 ability...

Would prefer at least 2 good and one "bad" ability to make them more special.

Well thank you for the AAT edit.

The Adeptus Astra Telepathica background now loses Sanctioning (which moves to the Mystic role) and instead gets a nice little ability to reduce the Perils of the Warp risk at the cost of a Fate Point.

Sanctioning is a very big deal in the fluff and in a lot of scenarios. Restricting it to AAT background was quite limiting if you ever wanted to run a non-default set-up game, e.g. not Inquisitorial Acolytes, or if you wanted a less radical Inquisitor as your mentor. It meant that either the GM had to gloss over the issue or you were strongly pushed toward AAT. Now AAT is the best background for psykers if you really want to be the most psyky of psykers, but it's now cool to make psykers with different backgrounds more easily. An Imperial Guard psyker for example, or whatever other backgrounds FFG care to release in the supplements (some of which I'm sure will suit psykers).

But do AAT actually loose Sanctioning?

I know they said to replace it with the Counter Peril Power as a Bonus, but there wasn't anything about replacing the Psyker Elite Advance blurb, "If characters who do not have the Adeptus Astra Telepathica background gain the Psyker elite advance, they are not sanctioned, and do not gain the Sanctioned trait."

I wonder because I've got a Void Born AAT Chirurgeon Psyker, and it'd be kind of odd if she DIDN'T have Sanctioning...

I still find the risk to psychic powers to be dangerously high. Certainly harkens back to the days of Dark Heresy, but generally makes using powers a bad idea. The chance is slightly lower than in DH1 for sure, but also jumps straight to Perils of the Warp. It also gets more, not less, dangerous the better you get at it - a beginner stands no chance of here-be-demons??? But a Primaris level guy is one doubles-roll away from exploding into a warp portal for TPK if he can't fate it down, and tends to be corruption-zoning anyways, for mutations everywhere in sessions? That's just **** near BACKWARDS.

Emphasis on the amount of corruption getting thrown about. There's nothing that's passed sanctioning if you could mistake a single combat for a fantasy session of "let's lick this glowing skaven rock and see what happens" once you tally up the costs. One corruption per person PER melee attack? You could go from 0 to chaos spawn in a single horde.

Indeed.

Psy powers tend to be kind of on the short range of things, and the value of the power sets right now varies greatly.

Biomancy: Heals, has the best currrent psyker attack [one with an actual RoF], Pyromancy USED to be interesting in Only War, with Sunburst, but now sunburst is just some PBAoE method of wasting your friends for the same effort you could just inferno off your enemies, fire shield's too weak to ever matter, molten beam's now just plain weak, and inferno seems to cost 4AP [3 + 1 for rate?]? The whole thing seems just uninspired.

I'd argue with you on Biomancy, but you are probably coming at this from the Mystic role...

In which case, yeah, Biomancy probably is broken looking if you can scoop up Influance, Smite, and Shape Flesh at character creation...

Honestly, as someone who was trying to make a "Medic" Psyker, I wouldn't mind Smite being moved up the tree, as long as Influance was replaced with some kind of Single Target Heal...

The change allows a non sactioned psyker to have an AAT background! (Take AAT, Select any role other than Mystic, Purchase Psyker elite advance). I cannot beleive that an organization, whose sole purpose is to ensure there are not non-sactioned psykers would allows someone to go through their whole program and leave without being sanctioned. Sure perhaps they snuck out or broke out or whatever... but THAT should take an exception to the rules/story not be enabled by the standard.

Indeed!

But heres the beauty of it, besides a few talents, and the Inquisitor elite advance, this system is modular enough to not have a requirement that PCs represent agents of the Inquisition.

We were locked into it in DH1, but no longer.

@Knasserll: If your players are that petty, then I got nothing for you.

I just see that if we want to have Sanctioned removed from AAT (since we do want non-psyker AAT characters), then our only "real" option is something outside of the role system.

I still strongly believe that social/organizational standing should not be tied to the role system. That is for backgrounds, homeworlds, and elite advances. Roles purely exist as these game constructs to tell us how we spend our XP.

But what if you want non-Mystic Psykers?

Plus the AAT have Witch Curse as their signature Malignancy...

Well thank you for the AAT edit.

The Adeptus Astra Telepathica background now loses Sanctioning (which moves to the Mystic role) and instead gets a nice little ability to reduce the Perils of the Warp risk at the cost of a Fate Point.

Sanctioning is a very big deal in the fluff and in a lot of scenarios. Restricting it to AAT background was quite limiting if you ever wanted to run a non-default set-up game, e.g. not Inquisitorial Acolytes, or if you wanted a less radical Inquisitor as your mentor. It meant that either the GM had to gloss over the issue or you were strongly pushed toward AAT. Now AAT is the best background for psykers if you really want to be the most psyky of psykers, but it's now cool to make psykers with different backgrounds more easily. An Imperial Guard psyker for example, or whatever other backgrounds FFG care to release in the supplements (some of which I'm sure will suit psykers).

But do AAT actually loose Sanctioning?

I know they said to replace it with the Counter Peril Power as a Bonus, but there wasn't anything about replacing the Psyker Elite Advance blurb, "If characters who do not have the Adeptus Astra Telepathica background gain the Psyker elite advance, they are not sanctioned, and do not gain the Sanctioned trait."

An AAT psyker will now get Sanctioning via their Mystic role.

I wonder because I've got a Void Born AAT Chirurgeon Psyker, and it'd be kind of odd if she DIDN'T have Sanctioning...

Well that is already a special GM ruling because by the book a Chirugeon cannot get Psyker. It is an Elite Advance and these are only permissible to buy with special GM approval or explicit allowance (such as under the Mystic role). If a GM has allowed the purchase of the Elite Advance, there's no reason they can't also allow the character to be sanctioned under the same GM special case.

But what if you want non-Mystic Psykers?

There are questions of balance. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Warrior-Psyker role appear in a supplement, but maybe just Warrior role with the ability to throw Psyker powers is just over-powered compared to, e.g. Warrior. You can still create it if the GM allows the purchase of the Elite Advance, but by default, probably someone who is a psyker should have to have a role that is costed to reflect that. You can still make any working character background - e.g. An Imperial Guard with a Mystic role is an Imperial Guard Psyker. But an Imperial Guard Psyker is going to advance, say BS, more slowly than an Imperial Guard Trooper just as they will advance, say, WP, more quickly. And that's probably fair.

A Warrior-Psyker Role?? What for? There is absolutely no need for that. Roles in my opinion are archetypes. They say how your character is approaching and overcoming obstacles. They are not career paths from DH1 and the rule book clearly states it. DH2 gives great freedom in char gen step. Let's not shut it. So if someone wants to be Warrior and a Psyker. Take Warrior role and pay for Psyker Elite Advance. They need to fulfil the prerequisite. Personally as a GM I can't understand why some GMs would say no to it.

Why would Warrior with Psyker talent be overpowered? They will have to spend their XPs on both paths and with Psy Powers now there comes a great danger. That's balancing out the combo in my opinion.

Mystics are people who are fascinated by Warp. Warriors are fascinated with combat. I don't see why a combat oriented character has to be sentenced to be a Mystic. The best example is the Telekine from Revenor's retinue. She is a Psyker but she doesn't care about the mysteries of the Warp. She is combat oriented and she's using her gift for combat most to the time.

I really, really don't get why FFG haven't just handled it like this:

All Psykers are Sanctioned. Sanctioning results in a minor negative trait, like it did in DH1e (probably rewrite them though, mechanical effects were kinda minimal). A sidebar includes rules for the odd player who wants to play an unsanctioned psyker. Essentially, they dodge the sanctioning side effects, but start with 2d10 corruption.

I can't see a better way to handle this, honestly. Witches are rare, especially in the Inquisition, they're definitely sidebar material. And adding back sanctioning side effects means there's negatives to being sanctioned, making the choice more meaningful from a mechanical standpoint.

I really, really don't get why FFG haven't just handled it like this:

All Psykers are Sanctioned. Sanctioning results in a minor negative trait, like it did in DH1e (probably rewrite them though, mechanical effects were kinda minimal). A sidebar includes rules for the odd player who wants to play an unsanctioned psyker. Essentially, they dodge the sanctioning side effects, but start with 2d10 corruption.

I can't see a better way to handle this, honestly. Witches are rare, especially in the Inquisition, they're definitely sidebar material. And adding back sanctioning side effects means there's negatives to being sanctioned, making the choice more meaningful from a mechanical standpoint.

Easy & good. You have my voice.

And it is really rare, that Tom Cruise and I agree on something

I really, really don't get why FFG haven't just handled it like this:

All Psykers are Sanctioned. Sanctioning results in a minor negative trait, like it did in DH1e (probably rewrite them though, mechanical effects were kinda minimal). A sidebar includes rules for the odd player who wants to play an unsanctioned psyker. Essentially, they dodge the sanctioning side effects, but start with 2d10 corruption.

I can't see a better way to handle this, honestly. Witches are rare, especially in the Inquisition, they're definitely sidebar material. And adding back sanctioning side effects means there's negatives to being sanctioned, making the choice more meaningful from a mechanical standpoint.

I don't have a problem, as per se', with PCs as unsanctioned psykers as long as the ramifications make sense. It seems to me that the Inquisition is probably one of the only Imperial institutions that you're going to find unsanctioned psykers being used - by radical Inquisitors, of course. Sounds fun as long as the campaign will support it (and I can see situations where perhaps it's just not workable with a given campaign).

But, in my mind, there needs to be two MAJOR ramifications for a wyrd PC Acolyte. First, there need be some major role-playing ramifications for a PC having a status that is persona non grata in the entire Imperium, including the Inquisition.

Second, which I haven't seen much mentioned in this thread, is the lack of control an untrained psyker would have. IMO, there has to be a MAJOR difference between a psyker trained for years by psyker experts in the best "school" in the Imperium - and a guy who basically just kind of figures it out as he goes! The latter can be powerful but lack control. Untrained psyker NPCs reflect this in my campaign and I'd have no problem telling a PC that his wyrd is going to have significantly more problems than very heavily trained sanctioned psykers that come out of ATT. Sometimes it's going to be a Perils Party and that's what he signed up for. The alternative is heading for a Black Ship.

One man's opinion

I was really disappointed to see that Mystics are now automatically sanctioned. This post sums up my position on it pretty well:

I agree that Sanctioned shouldn't be tied to Mystic but rather as a separate Elite Advance. As things stand now, I could create a wild shaman (Feral World, Outcast, Mystic) and somehow be sanctioned.

By separating Sanctioned from both Mystic and AAT, it would allow the full range of character options that people seem to want. Sure, give it some small xp cost, maybe AAT characters get it for a discount.

If you're going to have a penalty for taking it, the penalty for not taking it should be greater, too - even if it's just spelling out how bad it can be for unsanctioned (maybe you get Enemy (Witchhunters)?). An alternative penalty for unsanctioned psykers would be to invert the new AAT bonus - roll 2d10 and take the highest when rolling for Perils - although this would create problems for those rare unsanctioned AAT psykers.

Everyone posting about how unsanctioned psykers are bad for [lore reasons] are totally missing the point, and the people posting about player entitlement have wider issues. Automatically making Mystics sanctioned limits character creation options and that is a bad thing. Unsanctioned psykers should A Thing and I felt the implementation prior to this update was pretty awesome.

In my opinion, make Sanctioned an elite advance available to anyone but free or steeply discounted to AAT.

Sanctioning is not an easy thing, and can take (usually takes years).

At the risk of invoking a sensitive issue:

Most of the people tried by the Salem Witch Trials got off, it's more like the Holocaust. Label them, ban them, round them up, blame them, distrust them, fear them, put them to work, and kill them -- all as the rule, not the exception.

In general though I would like to see the maximum potential flexibility int he system for groups that have varying interpretations of what their campaign or 40k at large looks like and leave much of the consequences of being unsanctioned to the roleplaying since that is where I think it belongs.

I certainly see Psykers in the inquisition as being an exceptional lot, like all acolytes, and therefore expect that there might be more combat/infiltration oriented ones ala Patience from the Ravenor series or simply plenty of inquisitors with psychic talents who are not defined by being a Psyker such as Eisenhorn or a great many other psychic inquisitors in the fluff.

Those who prefer the Psyker as always physically weak and touched in the head can totally do that, but I would like to see the freedom built into the system for the rest of us to choose another path for our story. (Optional rules for sanctioning giving insanity and permanent mental traumas in a side bar would totally fit, for example.)