Hi,

The psyker of our group wants to take the powers Labyrinthine Conundrum and Force storm.

He has the pre-requisites for this.

Yet, i'm hesitating to allow him to get these powers as they are described in the books. To me, they are overpowered and would ruin the balance between characters (not that the balance is that much important, but i don't want one player to get all the glory and spotlights while the others are just powerless spectators).

So, i'd like to mitigate the power of those 2 powers to a more decent level. And i'd like your opinion about the how-to.

Force Storm has been debated in this topic . Someone suggested to have a damage multiplicater at 2 x Psy rating instead of 3 times. I think it's the way to go, but was considering reducing it at 1.5 time the Psy Rating. What do you think?

For the Conundrum, i don't have any idea so far. I don't like it because a stunned character is basically dead. And the save againt death is pretty hard: Intelligence (or Logic) Test with a penalty in function of the number of success achieved on the Focus Power test. That means that for the vast majority of opponents, that will be a 10 or 20% chance of saving... or die. That's way to powerful to my opinion. If i want a big bad (nice?) evil (good?) guy to be able to withstand this, i'll have to boost his Intelligence and buy levels in Logic. That might not seem very realistic, but then, if i don't, the opponent is stunned and executed in the blink of an eye.

What can i do to mitigate the power?

I considered making it a sustained power needed a half action to sustain.

I also considered suppressing the penalty to Intelligence/Logic tests.

But those solutions seems unsatisfying to me.

Any idea?

Thanks for your comments.

Not familiar on force storm enough but spent ages a while ago looking at the tome of fate to add my two thrones. Take it or leave it, should make sense...I think. These are possible ideas if you are concerned over the high power of the Labyrinth.

Looking at target validity should be important. I would say it doesn't work on machines for a start. Necron minds for example perhaps far too intelligent or incomprehensible for this to work or any sort of logic spun by a human is likely insignificant or irrelevant to the mind of a steely metallic death bringer who in no way shape or form is based off some **** Egyptian warriors who had dynasties. They are evil metal skeletons who kill everything, not build empires! Sidetracked, my fault. </rant>
Neither would I perhaps allow it against daemonic life (at your discretion) for the same reason above. Daemons, why would they care about some petty logical conundrum devised by an inferior mortal? You give a Khornate daemon a logic puzzle board and likely it'll ram the board down your throat. Some Xenos are probably also immune, Orks due to stupidity because it isnt about shootey, Tyranid purely because they have no concept of puzzles and such. Your only main target bracket should really be humanoid really.

Next the attack itself. I would surely allow any level of opposed Willpower to negate it here. Any power which affects the mind like this should surely be eligible to a WP check to shrug it off entirely before the haze kicks in as the victim holds their focus and doesn't let themselves be drawn into it. Since it is a mind affecting power then there are also a few benefits I believe which can shrug off mental attacks. This is your second defence if the target is valid, let them shrug it off first.

If you force it to be a sustained action this means the Librarian has to focus entirely on maintaining this, making for good balance and their attention has to be on this, making them unable to react to other enemies coming in to break their focus. This could allow you to throw something big and nasty at them to cause them to change their mind on it. Alternatively I would consider allowing the use of a "Snap out of it" style roll or someone else simply slapping some sense into them. You can't really focus on a logical paradox and have your focus on that when one of your colleagues is slapping you senseless. In many cases such as a lot of mind controlling powers or mind disabling, the victim gets a WP test when they are going to perform a fatal action as the survival instinct kicks in. You could perhaps enforce the same and should the victim take damage, allow them a WP or a bonus to their tests to break free as the body tries to put the continued existence above some trivial matter.

You could also keep it all and rather than disable them fully, change it from a stunning to just getting a half action as they are not fully paying attention to what is going on around them. That way they can still be somewhat effective but not able to unleash hellish rounds of fire.

These are all just examples though.

Force Storm scaling reduced to 2 x PR should be the way to go for a quick fix, though it might still prove powerful (especially when used with higher PR) — though that's to be expected with high PR characters.

You could start it out at 3 x PR or something (I don't know what PR the psyker has, if it's lower then it could be alright), but tell the player that you reserve the right to reduce it to 2 x PR if you feel it overshadows the other members of the warband (though if none of them has built a character that can dish out plenty of damage, like most khornates can, it's not his fault for overshadowing them).

As for the second power, it can prove a bit powerful. I'm personally a bit ambivalent regarding its power. First of all, it's single target. It doesn't kill outright (though it stuns and gives someone the opportunity to do so), nor does it actually do damage. It also takes a few rounds to 'finish' (that being make someone unconscious, only 0 Toughness kills someone). Comparatively, there exists other psychic powers that stuns multiple people, not just single targets, or that deals much damage quickly. If the warband end up fighting a single dangerous foe, the power will be very good. But if they're in combat with several, it's suddenly not as overpowered. Compel can "disable" someone every turn, as can other single target powers, for example. A lightning attacking khornate can kill someone in a single turn. You shouldn't be so worried, I think, as long as you don't just hand them the BBEG on a platter without support.

Daemons and machines aren't affected by mental powers at all, no?

Daemons and machines aren't affected by mental powers at all, no?

Remembering correctly wording is Mind-influencing powers. So yes, they are immune to Labyrinthian Conundrum, like old D&D Minotaur was immune to Maze-spell.

Changer of the Ways might "play" along, that its been stunned only to turn it's head smiling and saying "Not"

Hmmm, this gives me an idea

Changer of the Ways might "play" along, that its been stunned only to turn it's head smiling and saying "Not"

Hmmm, this gives me an idea

You are a very very evil man...I like it!

Thank you for your suggestions.

I'll go with the power as described, but it cannot affect enemies immunes to mental powers (which is very normal). Also, targets will be able to test their willpower if they are attacked, damaged (in which case they receive a bonus to the willpower test equal to the damages they received) and if someone shake them vigorously or slap them.

Over-nerfing it, it sounds like to me. Consider that just a Shocking stun effect would most likely be more effective than that during a shorter duration skirmish (most only survive a few rounds at most in combat).

No need for a Willpower roll for Labyrinthine Conundrum. Still plenty of things immune to it since it is essentially a mind-affecting power. Khornates might have great resistances for example, enemies with the Machine or From Beyond traits are straight immune - which actually makes some daemons susceptible, but most are immune.

Enemy psykers may also have fat resistances and other anti-psyker gear like Psychic Hoods.

Force Storm on the other hand is very powerful as written. Did at as 1d10+2(+2/Psy Rating) with Force Bolts knockdown effect in my group. Still powerful but does not scale in quite as a ridiculous manner.

What I suggest though is, play with it all as written for a few games then change it up if it proves to be to powerful. Or just ask your psyker to not be such a one-trick pony