Hi all,

We just started a campaign at Ascension, and I play a Psyker.

One point in the rules is not clear and launched a long discussion between my GM and me.

=> What happens when a psyker manifests a power and pushes it?

=> the rules say: Automatically invokes Psychic Phenomena, a +5 to the roll for every 9.

=> My understanding: if I roll 4, 5, 6, 9 , 8, 4, 9 , 2, 9 = I must roll a psychic phenomena with +15 on the roll .

=> My GM's understanding: I must roll a psychic phenomena with +15 on the roll , and 3 psychic phenomena non-modified (one for every 9). He justifies it saying that you apply the Unfettered consequences + the Push consequences. Else, the Push would be too easy for the psyker if he rolls only 1 psychic phenomena while being unfettered, he would roll several psychic phenomenas.

Is there an errata about this? Which one is the right understanding of this rule?

Thx in advance for your answers,

Gaetan

There's nothing in the errata about Ascension. It's not made explicit in the rules, but I would side with your understanding of it. In my opinion, if the push option was supposed to include the unfettered option, it would be made explicit (since that's not something one can infer with any degree of certainty). Pushing gives you +3 dice, making it more likely for you to roll 9s. Risky, but possibly worth it. If you had to also roll additional phenomena for each 9, I can't see anyone ever using it. Seems too punishing. Each 9 effectively lowers the threshold for invoking Perils, which are pretty punishing in their own right.

Thx for the answer CPS.

My GM seems to think psykers unbalance the game, killing the bad guys too easily. But in fact, psykers pay the price for their powers: risk of rolling 9s, low social skills making the psyker not so effective for the longer part of the adventure/investigation, low WS or BS, obvious target but low Wounds, no extra dodge talents, unnatural WP that would boost him is at rank 14 only, not much Sound Constitution, etc. While fighting guys likeStorm Troopers or Assassins do as much damage to big vilains. And in many situations the psyker just supports the fighters by jamming opponent's weapons or healing people.

Currently, our group (freshly created for Ascension) has my psyker, a death cult assassin, a sage and an interrogator. We just played the 1st adventure ("Red something", I don't know the English title - we're French speaking and play in French - but it's the adventure with the Cal, in a church, to elect a clergy member at the head of the Church, etc.) and, for the final scene, ended up facing 9 daemons that were immaterial and couldn't be armed by anyone else than my psyker (no one in the group has any relic or holy ammo). After I killed 2 of them in the 1st round (with Soul Killer, making my GM complain about that power), I became the target of the other daemons that each shot 2 dark fire bolts at me looping over the crowd (they could seem me well enough to target me even with a crowd between us) and ignoring armor as it was warp powers... End of 1st round: my psyker was already critically hit! And our GM didn't want us to take healing powers for Ascension, being tired of seeing the group escaping a big fight all bloody and hurt, then healed by the psyker and going for the next fight, to end it up all hurt again and so on... but without it, it seems hard to survive the 2nd or 3rd fight in an adventure. In fact, no major healing powers, not too much pyrokinesic powers, no divinatory powers that screw an investigation too fast, but telepathic powers are OK (knowing that we play Ordo Maleus, and that most daemons can resist that kind of powers or corrupt the Telepath delving into their corrupted minds).

So it raises a few more questions (sorry, not related about the initial topic, but about game balance).

- Are really psykers unbalancing the game? Are they more powerfull than a death cult assassin? More usefull in an investigation than the Interrogator or the Sage?

- Can a group really survive official adventures without healing powers?

- Is the psyker systematically the target of daemons and warp entities (and not the innocent bystanders just next to the daemons) after using a power or getting a psychic phenomena? If yes, psykers must be short lived, no?

- Is our group well balanced enough for the official campaign?

Thx for your time reading this. Eager to read you back :-)

"Are really psykers unbalancing the game? Are they more powerfull than a death cult assassin?"

Primaris psykers are absurdly unbalancing. They can kill greater daemons in one hit.

Ascension is totally screwed up, balance wise. If you're looking for a balanced game you're playing the wrong game. I wouldn't even bother trying to balance it out.

Psykers can be particularly unbalancing given a creative player. In general, Seal Wounds is usually banned for rendering combat completely without consequence. The minor healing powers are a bit better, but generally speaking healing in DH takes way too long without magical assistance.

The daemons attacking solely the psyker sounds more like the DM trying to punish the player for ruining his game.

So it raises a few more questions (sorry, not related about the initial topic, but about game balance).

- Are really psykers unbalancing the game? Are they more powerfull than a death cult assassin? More usefull in an investigation than the Interrogator or the Sage?

- Can a group really survive official adventures without healing powers?

- Is the psyker systematically the target of daemons and warp entities (and not the innocent bystanders just next to the daemons) after using a power or getting a psychic phenomena? If yes, psykers must be short lived, no?

- Is our group well balanced enough for the official campaign?

Thx for your time reading this. Eager to read you back :-)

.... Well, not to go on a tangent or anything, but omitting stuff all togethor from a game doesn't sound that enjoyable to me. As long as it's to everyone's agreement, and everyone is having fun, then it's okay. If not, a discussion about how to fix it could be done.

Anyhoot, as for your questions. Per Ascension, Psykers (and certain other classes) are highly unbalanced. As CPS stated, a PC with good creativity could hurt your game, but that is the point. If they are being creative, and not munchkin it, it should be rewarded.

Healing a powers are not required to survive a game, but they are highly useful. Medkits do help. Some.

Psykers that kill people in a single sweep, an Assassin dual wielding power blades and mowing down adversaries, a Guardsman wielding an auto cannon, etc etc, are all targets that any intelligent opponent would gang up on and take down first. Would you go after the army of Gretchins, or the Orc leading them? The enemy shouldn't be as dumb as a bag of rocks either.

Don't know your campaign so no idea. But..... If no one in your party but you can really hurt the daemons/adversaries through the entire adventure, then something is wrong here. Especially for Ascension level characters. Maybe you and your party were supposed to run to fight them later, with holy weapons and blessed ammo? Maybe one at a time too, instead of all togethor. Can't truly speculate though, because I have no idea what you GM has in mins for you.

In final, trust is what is needed here. Trust in your GM to not let the game be derailed due to misguided mechanics in DH, that he/she is trying to fix. Trust in the players to not munchkin the game, and make it unplayable for everyone. And trust in the game, to see the reason why it brought you all togethor to have fun. If no one is having fun, then it's not being played right.

Thx guys for your replies.

So much frustrations after last game session that I realize I just asked such innocent questions with obvious answers (beside the one about the understanding of Push rule).

The table is all experienced players. Sitting altogether and discussing it will fix all this stuff. Getting common agreement on the direction we follow.

"While fighting guys likeStorm Troopers or Assassins do as much damage to big vilains."

"and, for the final scene, ended up facing 9 daemons that were immaterial and couldn't be armed by anyone else than my psyker (no one in the group has any relic or holy ammo). After I killed 2 of them in the 1st round (with Soul Killer, making my GM complain about that power), I became the target of the other daemons that each shot 2 dark fire bolts at me looping over the crowd (they could seem me well enough to target me even with a crowd between us) and ignoring armor as it was warp powers... End of 1st round: my psyker was already critically hit!"
Ahem. If I get this right, your psyker killed 2 invulnerable daemons in 1 round, nobody else can even scratch them, he survives counterattack (yes, yes, he is critical wounded, but alive), and you asked isn't he unbalacing the game? Yup?

@Aenno: So your Psyker did exactly what he should do. He dealt with the daemons because no one else could. Why did your GM complain?

Psykers are the most powerful class if the gamer knows what he is doing and if the GM does not know how to keep him in check.

First of all, remember that a Psyker is still a tolerated Mutant.

Anything he does that endangers the (more important parts of a planets) population, upsets the Warp, the Church and such gets him on someones black list.Hell, even minor Psychic Phenomena can get him into trouble (Bloody Tears the most obvious). And sooner or later he will make it to the top.

Then there is Gear to keep him in check. I don't mean an Explosive Collar, no. There are Null Boxes, Wards, Psy-Jammers, Psy-Trackers, mines and traps. Hell, one Chaos Space Marine in a Warded Armor challenges everything the Psyker throws at him up until level 16 and Unnat. WP (x3). If you are really mean then their enemy is another Inquisitor with a few Psycannon Bolt Rounds and/or a Witch Lance.

And then there is the living opposition. At the Ascension level you deal with Professionals. They operate with drop points, dead mail boxes, independent cells so mind scans don't work so well. A Pict-Fly and an Auto-Injector on your target means that it can be killed remotly from a safe distance. Certain social circles don't even let you into their building.

I dunno, but it seems to me very odd that the GM puts the group up against forces that only one player in the group has a chance of defeating, then holds it against you when you do just that.

As a Gm myself, when dealing with Psykers, remember that there's always a bigger brain out there somewhere... ergo a witch, daemon etc.. that can make things difficult for the group, that the Psyker can't handle solo.

The other thing to remember, that seems to be missing from this thread... Ascension characters really are meant to be larger than life. If the group can't go out and run over things at that level, then the GM is missing that point. It's like D&D and epic level characters... by the time Ascension level toons have hit level 13 they're equivalent to a D&D epic, and it would be good of the group and the GM to remember that. At least that's been my experience with just about every campaign I've either heard about or played in.

@Aenno: So your Psyker did exactly what he should do. He dealt with the daemons because no one else could. Why did your GM complain?

Psykers are the most powerful class if the gamer knows what he is doing and if the GM does not know how to keep him in check.

First of all, remember that a Psyker is still a tolerated Mutant.

Anything he does that endangers the (more important parts of a planets) population, upsets the Warp, the Church and such gets him on someones black list.Hell, even minor Psychic Phenomena can get him into trouble (Bloody Tears the most obvious). And sooner or later he will make it to the top.

Then there is Gear to keep him in check. I don't mean an Explosive Collar, no. There are Null Boxes, Wards, Psy-Jammers, Psy-Trackers, mines and traps. Hell, one Chaos Space Marine in a Warded Armor challenges everything the Psyker throws at him up until level 16 and Unnat. WP (x3). If you are really mean then their enemy is another Inquisitor with a few Psycannon Bolt Rounds and/or a Witch Lance.

And then there is the living opposition. At the Ascension level you deal with Professionals. They operate with drop points, dead mail boxes, independent cells so mind scans don't work so well. A Pict-Fly and an Auto-Injector on your target means that it can be killed remotly from a safe distance. Certain social circles don't even let you into their building.

Well, it's not so easy.

First - psykers aren't supposed to solve daemon problem, by fluff. They caused it. Daemons should be defeated by clerics, with help of adepts. Well, they're not supposed to be defeated in plain combat at all, you need to clever outwit him and find a way to unsummon him to Warp.

Second - psykers aren't tolerated Mutants, they're tolerated Witches. And... you know, every sanctioned psyker was on Holy Terra and saw God-Emperor on his own Golden Throne by his own sight (well, some psykers can't see anything after that). And it means something in Imperium.

I did not mean that it is easy, just that it is possible to keep them in check when necessary (and well prepared).

First: If your GM does not give the Cleric (and other ones) access to the needed techniques and/or equipment to deal with daemons than the only one who can deal with them (even Fluff-wise) is the Psyker, that is one of the reasons several 'warrior psyker' schools exist in the Imperium. So, again, it is your GMs mistake and not the players.

Second: Well, according to my old and trusted Uplifting Primer Psykers are still often called Mutants, and soooo trusted that in the IG they are usually accompanied by 4 armed guards. Should the Psyker be seen without them he is to be shot on sight. And those also saw Terra and stood before the Golden Throne. Tolerated at best.

Of course the fluff is not that consistent, so we can happily disagree about a few details ;-)

Psyker powers greatly outweigh their risks, and most of the "drawbacks" listed upthread are pretty meaningless with Minor Powers in play.

"Are really psykers unbalancing the game? Are they more powerfull than a death cult assassin? More usefull in an investigation than the Interrogator or the Sage?" Yes. Yes. Yes.

And you need some form of healing. Maybe not psychic. Nothing really beats a Sister Hospitaller with Unnatural Intelligence for healing in DH.

Basically your GM has clued in that you can't challenge an Ascension group with a psyker without killing everyone else. This is on top of the fact that Ascension's rules are already terrible. It's too bad he realized this AFTER you rolled a psyker. I'm sure Ascension could be somewhat fun if no psyker characters were allowed in the game.

Yeah, we can disagree.

Calixian Templars exists just because they can deal... well... a lot of damage with force sword with a hit, and, as I counted, munchkined (a little) Ascended Templar just kill Karnifex in a round, in the melee. Slicing him as a piece of pork. Psyker Battle Squad can, by fluff, flatten a battle tank.

They are suspected, and they are mistrusted, but they are vital, and citizens of Imperium usually know it just well. It's not just "tolerated".

By fluff, if you encounter mighty Daemon without heavy artillery, true faither or something like this (a squad of His Own Angels of Death is good too), and you haven't any way to unsummon it by your wits, you better run. Ouch, well... you better be ready to die. Or OVERCOME with a lot of dramatic actions.

Grey Knights were created by some reason, with their highly specialized equipment, training and even their own satellite, stolen from Mars. Daemons are scary!

The fact of the matter is, you can start at a negative place with Imperial citizens and use minor powers to boost up one Fel-based skill and then improve their opinion of you.

Personal opinion would be the opposite: I would say you do need to roll multiple phenomena, given that one of the Grey Knight's talents (which you logically can't have)explicitely lets you only roll once, no matter how many 9's you roll. Unfettered is "normal rules" - therefore I assume them to apply unless it specifically says they don't.

Currently, our group (freshly created for Ascension) has my psyker, a death cult assassin, a sage and an interrogator. We just played the 1st adventure ("Red something", I don't know the English title - we're French speaking and play in French - but it's the adventure with the Cal, in a church, to elect a clergy member at the head of the Church, etc.) and, for the final scene, ended up facing 9 daemons that were immaterial and couldn't be armed by anyone else than my psyker (no one in the group has any relic or holy ammo). After I killed 2 of them in the 1st round (with Soul Killer, making my GM complain about that power), I became the target of the other daemons that each shot 2 dark fire bolts at me looping over the crowd (they could seem me well enough to target me even with a crowd between us) and ignoring armor as it was warp powers... End of 1st round: my psyker was already critically hit! And our GM didn't want us to take healing powers for Ascension, being tired of seeing the group escaping a big fight all bloody and hurt, then healed by the psyker and going for the next fight, to end it up all hurt again and so on... but without it, it seems hard to survive the 2nd or 3rd fight in an adventure. In fact, no major healing powers, not too much pyrokinesic powers, no divinatory powers that screw an investigation too fast, but telepathic powers are OK (knowing that we play Ordo Maleus, and that most daemons can resist that kind of powers or corrupt the Telepath delving into their corrupted minds).

So it raises a few more questions (sorry, not related about the initial topic, but about game balance).

- Are really psykers unbalancing the game? Are they more powerfull than a death cult assassin? More usefull in an investigation than the Interrogator or the Sage?

- Can a group really survive official adventures without healing powers?

- Is the psyker systematically the target of daemons and warp entities (and not the innocent bystanders just next to the daemons) after using a power or getting a psychic phenomena? If yes, psykers must be short lived, no?

- Is our group well balanced enough for the official campaign?

It depends on the powers they have. A wide spread of abilities can make them broken, because multiple different disciplines can easily become a 'crutch' for everything they're bad at (fragile? Kine Shields. Low stats? Biomancy. Low Fel? Telepathy. etc, etc).

I'm fine with psykers but the primaris tends to get too many toys and (thanks to fettered power) uses them with too little risk. Provided you've been sensible in your choice of powers and don't abuse fettered power/unnatural willpower, though, it should be fine.

As to the party; you should be fine. A death cultist, sage, interrogator and psyker has most of the bases covered - ninja sneakiness, killing power, investigations and influence/politics. Yes, a sage and interrogator aren't exactly combat badasses, but this is where one uses the influence score and secures well-armed mooks to hide behind! A deathcultist is a real killing machine one (s)he gets going - you strike before just about everybody and very few mundane opponents can survive two power swords to the vital organs. And no, no-one needs "healing powers". I've never really been a fan of them, and coming out of a battle with serious injuries feels far more appropriate for 40k. You can always patch and make do with augmetics...

I know the scene you mean - it's called "the Last Dance" and it comes at the end of the Red Wake. To be honest, the situation you describe yourself as being in is somewhat inevitable; the daemons can turn intangible but they're not very tough, so flinging any kind of psy attack should kill them fairly easily.

Saying that the rest of the party could do nothing is a bit of a failure of imagination, in my view, though.

• The daemon-dancers are intangible. The main bad guy is not. Ventilate the bugger and the problem partly solves itself.
• "No-one has any blessed or sanctified weapons". So....The Venerable Cal, cardinal-astral of the Malfian Subsector, is in no way capable of blessing a weapon? Also, Cal's chair is fitted with a freaking psycannon.
• Even if he's not, you have sororitas sisters with you. Vespasia is a Sister Palatine - about three notches short of 'living saint' - and her guns would most definitely be loaded with blessed ammunition, just on general principle. Aside from being able to fight them herself, she could be persuaded to issue a sidearm or blade to an otherwise helpless combatant.
• If worst comes to worst, improvise . It's a cathedral - half the solid objects within reach are probably sanctified or blessed in some way.

I can see the daemons attacking you if you proved the only person capable of hurting them, but you really weren't. It's not a case of 'systematically a target' but whilst they're there for the slaughter, you've proved you can hurt them and no-one else can. Expecting them not to attack you is a bit optimistic.

I agree with your GM, if you push, follow the new rules, but for every 9 you roll, you roll again, with the new penalties applying to each additional nine. The stacking would be very detrimental and I assume that is intentional, as Pushing is literally the pskyer going "FRAK IT DO OR DIE!".

I would say a better argument would be, if you are worried about summoning perils or phenomenon, and its not an emergency you shouldn't be pushing. Its a last ditch and very risky effort. Seems fairly straightforward to me.