Hello guys,

I am curious to hear your oppinion.

The next update hopefully will arrive very soon.

What do you think will be adressed in it ?

This is not about what you hope, but what you realistically think.

Hopefully they'll roll back the Mystic getting Sanctioned change and move Sanctioned to its own elite advance.

The carry weight table needs to be reworked and seems fairly straightforward to address.

Do we need Sorcery? It comes up in the fiction. And its creepy. Also some stuff about demonhosts and the like

I guess they will tweak some stuff in the weapons table - plasma probably will be adressed and get a slightly lesser pen.

I also think the psyker issue might be changed too - it is a topic which is well adressable and was discussed a lot.

Sorcery will almost definitely be in the DH2 equivalent of Radical's Handbook. It's not a core thing.

What's the Psycher issue? BTW

The psyker-issue is the placement of sanctioning in the psyker concept.

At first it was at AAT background - at the moment it is shifted to the Mystic role - lets see where it ends up after the next update

What's the Psycher issue? BTW

Everything.

-Costs are out of wack (requiring purchasing of powers + stat + psy rating for anything to happen)

-Psy Rating itself is a huge xp tax (more than the cost of getting stat increases) to implement a scaling system that ranges from meaningless to insanely high values (like a power that can reduce the target's strength and toughness by 50 each)

-Powers are massively weak a lot of the time for how much xp you need to pump into them or massively overpowered to the point of breaking the game

-Pushing is useless as its a huge risk with very little reward

-Powers lack variety and offer very little for the small scale stuff

-A psyker is forced to take mystic for sanctioning which makes the required stats for many of the power trees to be hugely expensive meaning you must play an unsanctioned psyker if you want to play a pyromancer/telepath/biomancer without paying a huge xp tax

That pretty much sums it up.

I guess they adress EVERYTHING we mentioned as it takes so long and they dont even have time for a short notice - so very very busy.

;D

Dont take it too seriously - thats just my way to say:

IMPROVE THE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Since it's taking them so much time:

- weapons table - plasma, bolters

- weights

- psykers

- talent trees

- scalling to bigger stuff

- extra step in char gen

I know the last two won't probably make it to this update if ever. But since it's such a long time I expect some heavy changes.

One can dream.

Hopefully they keep Sanctioning exactly where it is as it was moved for good reason and Sanctioned should definitely be the Go-To expectation for PCs. A sidebar could add the option of removing the trait if the player and GM wish.

Anything else is going to cause conflicts where the GM tries to run the setting as-is and players feel hard done by because they're being punished for taking an option the book offers them.

Being sanctioned is a very big deal since one of the core parts of the setting and one of the roles of the Inquisition itself, is to hunt down and kill unsanctioned psykers. Even the sanctioned ones are distrusted and feared. An unsanctioned one will commonly find themself herded onto a ship where they'll be tested (read: tortured) and most likely end up being consumed. Those are the lucky ones. The rest will find themselves burned on a pyre as a witch. Sanctioning is the special dispensation that says: "this one is allowed to live". It's important. The fact that some of the more Radical inquisitors may occasionally grant an unsanctioned psyker the right to live in their service, doesn't change this fact for any other game.

The problem I have with moving Sanctioned to Mystic is that it violates the separation of what Roles and Backgrounds are, as defined in the rulebook:

"Roles illuminate an Acolyte’s essence. Where a home world establishes where an Acolyte came from, and a background indicates his prior experiences, a role helps reveal who he really is underneath his clothing, armour, and cybernetics. It is an internal quality, a product of both a lifetime of training and his natural talents, and combines a great many things to help define him and how he fits into life in the 41st Millennium."

Sanctioning is most definitely not an internal thing - it is done by the AAT, and having the Mystic start Sanctioned assumes a lot about a character. You couldn't have a Feral world shaman who was grew up as a psyker in a primitive society under the rules from the update - they assume you were caught up by the black ships as a child. Unsanctioned psykers are not possible under the current rules without GM permission (allowing the Psyker elite advance).

In my view, Sanctioning should be an elite advance (like psyker), available to anyone but free/discounted for AAT backgrounds.

Maybe it is not too bad at all at the Mystic role.

It shows, that everyone, who has specialized in the arts of the warp (Mystic) is a sanctioned one - this could show the training they got and the discipline they possess.

If you want a battle-mage from the guard - this would ussually be an Imperial Guard Mystic - and NOT an Imperial Guard Warrior with the Psyker Elite Package (which would instead be a soldier who developed unsanctioned powers later on).

And just to say t again - of course, all Mystics were sanctioned at the AAT, but that doesnt mean that this is their background (the background is only the most influencing part of the characters life, not the ONLY part).

If you want a battle-mage from the guard - this would ussually be an Imperial Guard Mystic - and NOT an Imperial Guard Warrior with the Psyker Elite Package (which would instead be a soldier who developed unsanctioned powers later on).

I think this kind of goes against the definition of Roles, though, like cps was saying. Roles shouldn't assume anything about a character's profession, they're far more abstract than that. Ergo, an Imperial Guard Warrior with the Psyker elite package could easily represent a sancionate. Just one that prefers to lead with the sword, augmenting their martial prowess with psychic powers. Not too far-fetched at all.

Honestly, with how rare witches will be in the Inquisition, I think ultimately Sanctioning should just be the default at character generation. I'd be all for making it an elite advance, but that creates the idea that being unsanctioned is the 'standard' for PCs, which is a dangerous assertion to make. Instead. having a small sidebar about playing unsanctioned characters and the implications that has would serve fine. GM permission can and should be sought for this sort of thing, after all.

Well I get what people are saying.

It shouldn't go back to being part of the AAT background. Yes, all sanctioned psykers will have gone through the AAT, but I think it's clear from reading the AAT background that it represents people who are primarily members of the AAT and that other backgrounds might be more appropriate for other psyker characters. As GauntZero says, it's good to be able to have Imperial Guard with the Mystic role and for other backgrounds too - creates greater freedom of choice. But it needs to the default for PCs as Tom Cruise and myself have said. Doing otherwise will lead to conflicts and problems.

So if it shouldn't go in the Background but people don't like it in the Mystic role, then it seems the obvious place to put it is in the Pskyer Elite Advance itself. Obviously you need to be able to deal with Unsanctioned Psykers. What I would do is amend the Psyker Elite Advance to read something like the following:

Characters who begin the game with this Advance automatically get the Sanctioned Trait free. Players who acquire this advance during play, do not get this trait automatically. See sidebar: "Unsanctioned?". A player may choose with GM approval, not to be sanctioned if they wish.

Acceptable? I'm trying to find something that wont cause problems but which people don't find restrictive.

Seems perfectly fine to me, yeah.

So if it shouldn't go in the Background but people don't like it in the Mystic role, then it seems the obvious place to put it is in the Pskyer Elite Advance itself. Obviously you need to be able to deal with Unsanctioned Psykers. What I would do is amend the Psyker Elite Advance to read something like the following:

Characters who begin the game with this Advance automatically get the Sanctioned Trait free. Players who acquire this advance during play, do not get this trait automatically. See sidebar: "Unsanctioned?". A player may choose with GM approval, not to be sanctioned if they wish.

Acceptable? I'm trying to find something that wont cause problems but which people don't find restrictive.

Exactly. I was about to suggest the same.

I did not have my eyes blasted from my skull by the holy light of the Emperor so that i could did ditches!

I think, IF aquired this way, it should have some downside, like the DH1 sanctioning side effects.

As mystic, you maybe should be freed from this side effects as an incentive.

I did not have my eyes blasted from my skull by the holy light of the Emperor so that i could did ditches!

That's only astropaths btw.

I think, IF aquired this way, it should have some downside, like the DH1 sanctioning side effects.

As mystic, you maybe should be freed from this side effects as an incentive.

If it has a downside, there needs to be an upside, too; otherwise the only reason to take it would be for pure RP reasons (assuming it's chosen to be unsanctioned at chargen). Maybe a bonus when Pushing (which is also broken and needs to be fixed).

Agreed - it would be nice to have both an upside and a downside.

This would help to differ it more.

I did not have my eyes blasted from my skull by the holy light of the Emperor so that i could did ditches!

That's only astropaths btw.

That's what I said. I did NOT have my eyes blasted from my skull. :-)