Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

From my blog: http://prometheusatwar.com/2012/08/the-problem-with-psychic-disciplines-and-rulebook-powers-in-6th-edition-40k-2

So everybody having fun with your new psychic powers out of the main 6th ed rulebook? They’re fun, right? You got them basically for free, and they’re shiny, new, interesting, and fun to try out. Fun is important. This is a game, and we play it for fun, so if that’s your only concern, this in’t really the article for you. If you’re the kind of player who plays orks because you get to roll on lots of tables, roll big handfuls of dice, and shout “waagh!!!!!!!!” at least once a game, then the basic rulebook powers are exactly what you’re looking for. The real problem is that from a competitive standpoint, they suck. They A) mostly aren’t very good (with the exception Divination) B) aren’t even vaguely balanced (as illustrated by everyone talking about Divination). I’m going to start with some facts, some stats, some major points of discussion, and then go into more depth from there. We”ll go into this in more detail later, but to start the conversation off, the main problems with the powers are:

Randomness, far more random than for spell lores in Warhammer Fantasy. Most 40K psykers only have 1 or 2 powers, while fantasy wizards can have anywhere from 1-4. Additionally, fantasy wizards get to choose whenever they roll the same power twice — 40k psykers just have to roll again. Games Workshop, as a company, clearly does not appreciate how un-fun randomness is for many players.

Multiple points of failure: First you have to roll to cast it, then often to hit, there’s a deny the witch roll, and often additional defenses beyond that (Grey Knights, Eldar, Space Wolves, and Tyranids. Necrons have a small defense you’re unlikely to see. SW can layer 3 different types of defenses, if you read the rules liberally! Great rules writing again, GW!)

.

Utter lack of balance. Some powers are great nearly all the time. Some are awful. Many are great, but only in specific situations. Which you have absolutely no chance to plan for, because you will at best only get the power you want 50% of the time! Disciplines that have a good Primaris Power (the only really good one is for Divination) are clearly favored over the others

.

Warp Charge and Psyker Mastery Levels. The vast majority of psykers in the game are Level 1. It’s all fine and good to formalize the process for determining how many powers (including force weapons) you can cast a turn, but Warp Charge 2 powers are distributed among the disciplines in a very haphazard way. There are four warp charge 2 powers (two of which suck) but two disciplines don’t get any and one gets two (and those are the only good ones). If you decided you needed a “second level” of powers, wouldn’t it make sense to make sure that each discipline got one each? They seem to have been randomly judged and assigned levels by completely different person after they were written.

Wild inconsistency in how you defend against spells. Is there anyone who thinks rune weapons remaining the same while psychic hoods were drastically nerfed wasn’t an oversight? I doubt many people begrudge Tyranids their Shadow of the Warp, but while it certainly makes sense for Eldar to have powerful and sophisticated anti-psyker methods, doesn’t everyone agree the “whole board” is a bit much?

Primaris Powers. Or rather, the fact that because selecting powers is random, and cannot be planned for, a discipline’s worth is primarily determined by how good the Primaris Power is.

Some basic stats that are important for a discussion of psykers and psychic powers in 40K:

From my blog: http://prometheusatwar.com/2012/08/the-problem-with-psychic-disciplines-in-6th-edition-40k/

A normal psyker has a 1/18th chance of suffering a perils of the warp. (1/36 of double 1′s, 1/36 of double 6′s =2/36=1/18) This is, just to give you a feeling, the same odds that a marine will kill himself with one shot of plasma. (1/6*1/3=1/18)

Chance of passing Leadership 10 (i.e., successfully casting your power, to start) is 91%. This is the leadership of basically all psykers that are worth talking about.

Chance to pass ld 9 is 82.7%. Aside from primaris psykers for IG, there are barely any psykers with ld 9. Grey Knight Justicars are (and the squads are often ld 8) but that’s a little outside this discussion. (Ooo! Dark Angel Librarians. Which are clearly a relic. Does anybody take those? Didn’t think so.)

Chance to pass Ld 8 is 71.7%. This really only comes up for weird things like henchmen psykers (which are stupid cheap for what they do, so few complain) and GK techmarin

e.

Chance to hit Ld 5 is 27.5%. Bonus pts for figuring out why that matters. (it’s what you need to pick the model you want with a focused witchfire) Basically we’re talking about double the normal chance of a precision shot, that’s it.

There are, just so you know, exactly three kinds of powers. No, not witchfire’s, blessings, novas, et al.. The three types of powers you need to worry about are Buffs, debuffs, and Damage.

continue reading » http://prometheusatwar.com/2012/08/the-problem-with-psychic-disciplines-and-rulebook-powers-in-6th-edition-40k-2

Please read the rest on my blog, not because this is a plug (well yes, that too) but because it's fairly long, and a pain to format correctly on Dakka.

I am not sure I am following the point of this post. To me it sounds like the issue is more like you are complaining about an overall lack of balance within the psyker rules while missing the over all picture of larger game balance and competitive edge.

For example:
Space Wolves have the greatest psyker defence bar none. They also have some really powerfull powers that come standard. I have yet to see a SW player go for the random powers. But they have no flyers.

Tyrnids are the predominent psyker army in all of 40K (sorry Eldar, its true). Nids also have the 3rd best defence with SitW. Nids can "gamble" on powers becasue at some point it becomes a statisticly likely out come. We have 2 FMCs, but they are not really that good against other flyers and they are more fragile than normal flyers. But they have no allies.

Necrons are the kings of metal right now. They have (arguably) the best flyers and the best tricks to do cool things (MSS, RP, Ectropic Strike). But they have no psykers and almost no defence.


I am a competitive Nid player (we do exist). It sounds like you want to take the main competitve edge away from my army becasue your army does not get it. I can spam psykers. GK can spam psycannons. Orc players can spam S4 T4 models.

I don't see any problems with that.

Did you read the rest of the post on my blog?

I'm sorry, I can't talk this seriously. In a game where everything is determined by dice, which are random unless you have some loaded ones or know some dice rolling tricks, complaining about the randomness of psy powers is just dumb.

Sure, I may run arhiman, a sorcerer and two aspiring sorcerers in my chaos army from time to time, and sure with all 8 of those rolls I may get screwed, but it's a game, you're supposed to have fun.

Sir_Prometheus wrote:Did you read the rest of the post on my blog?

I did read it. It had some good points.(I think Vortex is silly at Warp Charge 2 as well).

I guess I consider what disaplines an army has access to is part of the balance. And I don't expect each disapline to be internally balance for the same reason. Even if I had access to Pyromancy I would never roll on it.

My point still remains the same. Yes there are multiple points of failure with psykers. Its the same with shooting. A roll to hit, a roll to wound and an armor save and posibly a FNP roll.

To me the issue sounds like the issue that Nid players have with ML. We can only take 9 total in our army and we can only target 3 units per turn at best. We only hit 1/2 the time (yes I know we have 2 shots each), we roll to wound and then there are the saves. You don't notice the randomness becasue you have so many S8 weapons. Nid players can tell you exactly how hard it is to glance a land raider with an impaler cannon.

Not sure if I am making my point or not. Tyring to think of a good way to explain it.

juraigamer wrote:I'm sorry, I can't talk this seriously. In a game where everything is determined by dice, which are random unless you have some loaded ones or know some dice rolling tricks, complaining about the randomness of psy powers is just dumb.

Sure, I may run arhiman, a sorcerer and two aspiring sorcerers in my chaos army from time to time, and sure with all 8 of those rolls I may get screwed, but it's a game, you're supposed to have fun.

Congratulations! You sir, are.....

Sir_Prometheus wrote:If you’re the kind of player who plays orks because you get to roll on lots of tables, roll big handfuls of dice, and shout “waagh!!!!!!!!” at least once a game, then the basic rulebook powers are exactly what you’re looking for.

.....the article wasn't really meant for you.

I'm not though. I like to be able to plan things out. Yeah, it's a dice game. But if I roll 50 dice, ~25 are going to be 4+, and I can plan around that. Random Psychic powers isn't anything like that. I'm glad you're fine with it as it is, that's very nice for you.

I also like to be able to plan out my strategies. Which is why the random psychic powers aren't for me.

But I have to ask...why is this a problem? Just don't use them. If your opponents want to randomly generate powers, they deserve the high risk/high reward nature of them.

Complaining about them being bad doesn't make sense, because they're optional powers. It's more than we had before, so no harm no foul. Complaining about them being too good doesn't make sense either because: A) they're random and B) this is a game based off of dice; there's a level of variance to everything.

Mathhammer players may not be interested because they're super random. The same players that don't like Shock Attack Guns. But those same players shouldn't complain when the powers (or the SAG) do something broken, because of all the randomness/luck involved.

I guess to sum it up ...I don't see a problem at all.

SW and Eldar are the only 2 real problems that psykers have, and Eldar are a huge problem to low leadership psykers. Personally I suspect runes of warding will be nerfed at about the same time the Eldar flier comes out, and space wolf anti psyker abilities will all become deny the witch + a reduction in range when the space wolf flier comes out.

wtwlf123 wrote:I also like to be able to plan out my strategies. Which is why the random psychic powers aren't for me.

But I have to ask...why is this a problem? Just don't use them. If your opponents want to randomly generate powers, they deserve the high risk/high reward nature of them.

Complaining about them being bad doesn't make sense, because they're optional powers. It's more than we had before, so no harm no foul. Complaining about them being too good doesn't make sense either because: A) they're random and B) this is a game based off of dice; there's a level of variance to everything.

Mathhammer players may not be interested because they're super random. The same players that don't like Shock Attack Guns. But those same players shouldn't complain when the powers (or the SAG) do something broken, because of all the randomness/luck involved.

I guess to sum it up ...I don't see a problem at all.

Well, in the new books I imagine psykers will only get disciplines. So you will be forced to use random powers at some point.

I like how I am automatically a fluff player and not competitive because I disagree that psychic powers are crap. The fact that half of your post has the inclusion of 'except for this one' clauses doesn't give it much of a backbone.

The powers are only crap if you build an army that relies on ones you may not get, i.e. the powers aren't what are crap, it's the army that was built.

I think he makes a lot of good points. Psychic powers cost a lot of points to use, *and* there are multiple ways for them to fail, *and* you might not even get a power you want. So it is easy to spend a lot of points on a psyker and get little to no use out of it.

Noisy_Marine wrote:I think he makes a lot of good points. Psychic powers cost a lot of points to use, *and* there are multiple ways for them to fail, *and* you might not even get a power you want. So it is easy to spend a lot of points on a psyker and get little to no use out of it.

But if this is your attitude about them, don't take them.

@Sir_Prometheus

I am just wondering what fixes you would like? Twice as many powers as Mastery level (Like the Swarmlord)? Cheaper psyker options for more armys?

Or are you just worried that in the future they will start making every codex "Roll on these tables for your powers" and there will be no more standard powers and you will be forced to deal with the random? (And I think from reading your blog that is the case).

JotWW meet Warp Speed.

Yes it is a statistical gamble but it will help to balance the odds over the course of many games... Just like twin-linking helps balance the odds over many shots.

From a Nid perspective, I think they are great and really shape up well. They also help address the penalty of Allies. From a BA perspective, I've found I'm either taking stock powers or just not taking Psykers and going for more consistent abilities (Buffs/Debuffs/Damage).

I don't see it as a problem.
Most of the time you won't see too many psychic users on a table. They are just a model/unit that may or may not end up really lucky on the rolls.
They have always been around and I think most people would agree the new tables have a chance of making that model better than if you used the codex.

And as much as some powers are better than others most of them are good enough to help out and the big boys of the mind war world like eldrad or ahriman remain solid contenders.

I don't know the mathhammer but rolling on a table 4 times must make it darn good odds of getting that shiney power.

Sir_Prometheus wrote:A normal psyker has a 1/18th chance of suffering a perils of the warp. (1/36 of double 1′s, 1/36 of double 6′s =2/36=1/18) This is, just to give you a feeling, the same odds that a marine will kill himself with one shot of plasma. (1/6*1/3=1/18)

It's actually worse since you at least get a save vs Gets Hot. I'm enjoying the new disciplines although admittedly half of them are pretty useless. The buffs/debuffs are especially fun, moreso than the witchfire powers.

Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Sir_Prometheus wrote:A normal psyker has a 1/18th chance of suffering a perils of the warp. (1/36 of double 1′s, 1/36 of double 6′s =2/36=1/18) This is, just to give you a feeling, the same odds that a marine will kill himself with one shot of plasma. (1/6*1/3=1/18)

It's actually worse since you at least get a save vs Gets Hot. I'm enjoying the new disciplines although admittedly half of them are pretty useless. The buffs/debuffs are especially fun, moreso than the witchfire powers.

Math bro.

1/18 to lose a wound to perils
1/6 to overheat, and a 1/3 chance to fail your save for a 1/18 chance to lose a marine.

I'm in complete agreement with Sir_Prometheus. Random powers, that are typically inconsistent in usage isn't great. Winning games is about consistency, and there's very little consistency in the powers.

You basically have to play it game by game with the new powers and pick what will benefit you the most.

For space wolves for example...nothing beats a JotWW/Lightning priest and I have no idea how runic weapons exist in their current condition. No random power equals the ranged anti-tank power of lighting or straight MC raping power of jaws, but if you face a high initiative list with no vehicles or MCs (some manner of footdar or grey knight/vanilla/BA jumper or foot list) then it might be worthwhile to throw 2 rolls on the divination table and swap the worse of the 2 out for prescience.

For Blood Angels...I don't really know. Shield, unleashed rage and Lance are unbeatable. I suppose you could roll on the divination table if you had a solid use for prescience in a shooty list. I really hope they fix mephiston in the FaQ though, since only getting 2 power rolls means there's almost zero reason to give up his default 3 powers. That said, taking prescience on Meph and a roll on biomancy, and spamming prescience out 3 times a turn on 3 dev squads behind an ADL sounds kind of mean.

Vanilla marines start with gate/null zone/Avenger, and you aren't likely to roll better then those 3. If you are playing opponents with all terminator armor or no invul saves or you have nothing worth gating around then it might be worth a roll on the telepathy or TK table. I feel vanilla librarians are going to go out of style though.

Nids are debatable these days. I don't see any reason to ever swap out Zoan powers barring some really bizarre list on your opponent's end. Tervigons are dicey to swap out for biomancy, you might end up with improved catalyst, or hemo and leech, so it will depend if feel like shelling out the 15 points for the third power and wanna risk running without catalyst or not. A warp speed/crushing claw tervigon is one of the most power single creatures in the game, so watch out! Tyrants should almost always swap out for biomancy, and the swarmlord for telepathy (invisibility!) and biomancy if you get invis early. I don't think broodlords are really worth taking period, and that BS0 can really ruin your day, but a good roll on TK and/or biomancy can make him pretty scary, or entirely useless, not that you were losing much since his default powers are abysmal.

Carnage43 wrote:

Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Sir_Prometheus wrote:A normal psyker has a 1/18th chance of suffering a perils of the warp. (1/36 of double 1′s, 1/36 of double 6′s =2/36=1/18) This is, just to give you a feeling, the same odds that a marine will kill himself with one shot of plasma. (1/6*1/3=1/18)

It's actually worse since you at least get a save vs Gets Hot. I'm enjoying the new disciplines although admittedly half of them are pretty useless. The buffs/debuffs are especially fun, moreso than the witchfire powers.

Math bro.

1/18 to lose a wound to perils
1/6 to overheat, and a 1/3 chance to fail your save for a 1/18 chance to lose a marine.

Ah, my bad.

I find myself agreeing with everything the OP said. I don't hate the new powers, but couldn't see myself taking anything but Divination. Tyranids seem to be the one race that can actually have fun with them and that's only because they have a huge amount of rolls on the tables.

If you don't like inconsistancy, take your codex powers.
Off the top of my head, the guard have weaken resolve...they would never swap that for anything (primaris is rubbish, no matter what you give him). And vanilla marines get null zone, which is amazing. In fact it's verging on broken vs deamons.

Also isn't there a discipline that's default power is like Doom but a load better?

Testify wrote:Also isn't there a discipline that's default power is like Doom but a load better?

That would be telepathy. It still needs to roll to hit, and most psykers have a paltry BS of 3 or 4. Factor in the psychic test, deny the witch and other possible psy-defense (hood, aegis, runes, runic staves...etc) and you have an average of less then 1 wound per turn.

Carnage43 wrote:

Testify wrote:Also isn't there a discipline that's default power is like Doom but a load better?

That would be telepathy. It still needs to roll to hit, and most psykers have a paltry BS of 3 or 4. Factor in the psychic test, deny the witch and other possible psy-defense (hood, aegis, runes, runic staves...etc) and you have an average of less then 1 wound per turn.

Most pyschers have BS4, leadership ten. So that's 0.66*0.91= 60% chance. To re-roll all rolls to hit and to wound. That is fething amazing.

Testify wrote:

Carnage43 wrote:

Testify wrote:Also isn't there a discipline that's default power is like Doom but a load better?

That would be telepathy. It still needs to roll to hit, and most psykers have a paltry BS of 3 or 4. Factor in the psychic test, deny the witch and other possible psy-defense (hood, aegis, runes, runic staves...etc) and you have an average of less then 1 wound per turn.

Most pyschers have BS4, leadership ten. So that's 0.66*0.91= 60% chance. To re-roll all rolls to hit and to wound. That is fething amazing.

What? Rerolling what now? Aren't we talking about Psychic scream? The doom-esque power from the telepathy school?


Psychic scream is 91% chance to cast, 66% chance to hit, 16% chance to be blocked by the lowest form of psy defence for a 50% chance to even force the enemy to roll his 3D6 LD test. Significantly less if there's better psy defense in the mix. Even if it does work it will only average 0.5 wound per cast on LD10 troops. Average wounds per turn against LD10 troops is 0.25. A single krak missile twice that at 0.555.

Prescience. Unit can re-roll all "to hit" rolls.
Every pyscic unit in 40k just got one of eldar's best powers - for free.

Testify wrote:Prescience. Unit can re-roll all "to hit" rolls.
Every pyscic unit in 40k just got one of eldar's best powers - for free.

Yeah, I know that, but you're wrong on a few things. First off there aren't too many armies that can use both telepathy and divination, only BA, DA and Eldar off-hand. Hell, Divination is rare enough by itself. We know that DA have crappy LD9 psykers and Eldar will probably be using Doom/Guide, so that leaves BA really. Second, who's casting prescience on your psyker so he gets these re-rolls? A second psyker? Is he an overly and needlessly expensive level 2 caster?

I didn't mention telepathy, you did.

I was simply saying that one of the default powers - that you can get without rolling for - was considered in 5th to be a damn solid choice.

And it targets any friendly unit within 12".

Testify wrote:I didn't mention telepathy, you did.

I was simply saying that one of the default powers - that you can get without rolling for - was considered in 5th to be a damn solid choice.

And it targets any friendly unit within 12".

Okay, I misunderstood this....

Also isn't there a discipline that's default power is like Doom but a load better?

I thought you meant Doom of malantai, as telepathy's primary is very similar to his ability. You meant Eldar farseer Doom in comparison to Prescience.

Vanilla Marines and Imperial Guard didn't get Divination.

Telepathy for my marines, then!

(Really? Tigirius, who's entire shtick is the ability to predict Waaghs and hive fleets, doesn't get Divination? >.&gt

I think these powers are the best thing for nids since the 4th edition codex.

Carnage43 wrote:

Testify wrote:I didn't mention telepathy, you did.

I was simply saying that one of the default powers - that you can get without rolling for - was considered in 5th to be a damn solid choice.

And it targets any friendly unit within 12".

Okay, I misunderstood this....

Also isn't there a discipline that's default power is like Doom but a load better?

I thought you meant Doom of malantai, as telepathy's primary is very similar to his ability. You meant Eldar farseer Doom in comparison to Prescience.

And what he really meant was like the eldar power "guide", he did make it difficult for you there. I'm not really sure where he's going with it either. I don't think anyone has said that divination is not amazing. Actually, the OP comments that one reason for it being heads and tails above the rest is because it has an amazing primaris power.

I like the disiplines, but it is sad that they are so terribly balanced. As the OP says, the direct damage powers are close to useless. Pyromancy is a sad joke.

I am however happy that vortex of doom is warp charge 2, as it means I can't get that absolutely terrible power, making it more likely I will get a useful power.