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 Wyldhunt wrote:
Yeah. I'm trying not to go on my rants about old psychic phase rules as much, but JNA is right about perils being unfluffy for most psykers in the game.

And on top of that, I'd argue that the old psychic test/denial rules were unfluffy, uninteresting, and not even a very good representation of the themes they're trying to evoke.

Psykers basically never get denied in books outside of very rare moments where the author is showcasing an act of faith or something. And they certainly don't randomly fail to put up a forcefield or shoot lightning.

If you want a system that evokes those themes a bit better I'd suggest something more along the lines of either...

A.) Psykers Can Push Themselves
Under this system, powers have no chance of failing. However, a psyker can push himself to use an enhanced version of a power (provided that power has an enhanced version) or to use an extra psychic ability in the same turn. Pushing comes with a chance of suffering mortal wounds or some other nasty consequence.

So your librarian will never randomly fail to make lightning happen, but he might burn himself out by pushing for super lightning or by trying to juggle a bunch of psychic effects at once.

Anti-psychic effects like Culexus auras could do things like requiring psykers push to use their powers while near the assassin.

B.) Powers are Stressful
Under this system, psychic powers have a Stress stat. Powers go off automatically and can't be denied. However, psykers gain Stress equal to the Stress of the powers they cast. At the end of the turn, roll a d6 for each psyker, and take a mortal wounds equal to the difference between the result and their current Stress (if the die result is lower than their current stress.) Psykers remove X stress during their command phase.

This approach gives you some neat levers to pull like letting especially safe psykers lose more stress in the command phase, letting psykers up the Stress of their powers to do more dramatic effects, and potentially letting psykers cast more powers in a given turn but at the obvious cost of risking hurting themselves.

Reposted from another thread, to avoid getting off topic.

I like Wyldhunt's ideas, as per usual.

Aww shucks.

The biggest problem with the Psychic stuff in 40K being it's own Phase is that you've always got Tau and Necrons (and Sisters and Black Templars tbf) having no access to it. I know they managed to work that with Dwarves in Fantasy, but it was still a bit tough and Dwarves got the whole Rune thing built in to compensate.

The more awesome you make psychic stuff the harder it is going to be to balance it with the factions that don't have any access.

That said, I think an "effort" mechanic is totally in keeping with the fiction, and I think it can work very nicely.

Oh yeah I think both these suggestions are really cool. Could they somehow be linked to Mastery Level (or some such equivalent) stat which means less “masterful” psykers are more heavily affected by it? You could then also factor in e.g psychic hoods for SM Librarians, which would then allow for different levels of Librarian while still inuring them to the nasty consequences of psyker-ing compared to less well-kitted-out guys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:
The biggest problem with the Psychic stuff in 40K being it's own Phase is that you've always got Tau and Necrons (and Sisters and Black Templars tbf) having no access to it. I know they managed to work that with Dwarves in Fantasy, but it was still a bit tough and Dwarves got the whole Rune thing built in to compensate.

The more awesome you make psychic stuff the harder it is going to be to balance it with the factions that don't have any access.

That said, I think an "effort" mechanic is totally in keeping with the fiction, and I think it can work very nicely.

I think the mechanics of how psychic powers work and whether they’re a separate phase are kinda two separate conversations, which often seem to get rolled together in discussions on here. Personally I don’t think there’s any real necessity for them having their own dedicated phase – just have them happen in the most appropriate place, eg Smite in Shooting, but I totally get that nothing making them mechanically unique takes away from the fun of them a bit.

What I don't understand in this edition are why Souless Psyker Abominations like the Callidus Assassin are no longer immune to Psychic attacks, but are granted a feel no pain save.

I remember Inquisitors running around with null rods trying not to get obliterated by super powered Psychic attacks that could destroy armies.

Jaws of the World Wolf anyone?

I like both of these ideas.

My preference would probably be the 2nd option, as it would seem to offer more possible interactions. e.g.:
- Some powers could be more stressful to cast than others.
- Wargear and such that can reduce a caster's stress.
- Weapons that can increase an enemy caster's stress.
etc.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Yeah. I'm trying not to go on my rants about old psychic phase rules as much, but JNA is right about perils being unfluffy for most psykers in the game.

And on top of that, I'd argue that the old psychic test/denial rules were unfluffy, uninteresting, and not even a very good representation of the themes they're trying to evoke.

Psykers basically never get denied in books outside of very rare moments where the author is showcasing an act of faith or something. And they certainly don't randomly fail to put up a forcefield or shoot lightning.

If you want a system that evokes those themes a bit better I'd suggest something more along the lines of either...

A.) Psykers Can Push Themselves
Under this system, powers have no chance of failing. However, a psyker can push himself to use an enhanced version of a power (provided that power has an enhanced version) or to use an extra psychic ability in the same turn. Pushing comes with a chance of suffering mortal wounds or some other nasty consequence.

So your librarian will never randomly fail to make lightning happen, but he might burn himself out by pushing for super lightning or by trying to juggle a bunch of psychic effects at once.

Anti-psychic effects like Culexus auras could do things like requiring psykers push to use their powers while near the assassin.

B.) Powers are Stressful
Under this system, psychic powers have a Stress stat. Powers go off automatically and can't be denied. However, psykers gain Stress equal to the Stress of the powers they cast. At the end of the turn, roll a d6 for each psyker, and take a mortal wounds equal to the difference between the result and their current Stress (if the die result is lower than their current stress.) Psykers remove X stress during their command phase.

This approach gives you some neat levers to pull like letting especially safe psykers lose more stress in the command phase, letting psykers up the Stress of their powers to do more dramatic effects, and potentially letting psykers cast more powers in a given turn but at the obvious cost of risking hurting themselves.

Reposted from another thread, to avoid getting off topic.

I like Wyldhunt's ideas, as per usual.

The issue here isn't that perils and deny aren't fluffy- the issue is that BL Fiction isn't fluff- it's fanfic written by people who don't play the game.

Sisters have been denying he witch for as long as I can remember, and whether that's in a BL book or not has more to do with BL authors and less to do with whether or not it's a core part of the game upon which they base their fanfic.

We can have a better system for both perils and deny- no argument there. It should be near impossible for some psykers to peril, while it should be easier for others, and deny should be more about relative skill- so a master psyker is harder for the average unit to deny, but specifically trained counter-psykers may have an easier time. This could also, if designed properly, give more agency to non-psychic armies.

But these ARE core concepts of numerous editions. Whole factions exist to testify; if perils were not an issue, the SoS, the Hereticus and by extension SoB would not be necessary. Named Psykers and Chief Librarians should almost never peril, but regular librarians might every now and again while mortals might peril more often.

The simple-Psych crowd has managed to convince me that we don't necessarily need a dedicated phase to have good psychic rules- we just need psykers to have choices about their powers again, including utility powers that don't fall into the attack/ save dichotomy, and we need to have some system for perils and some system for deny.

Biggest question for me here is “what do we want Psykers to do”.

I’m currently pretty agnostic. Whilst I greatly enjoyed the One Man Mind Warrior Of Horrific Death we saw in 2nd Edition, I’m not against the modern day “they’re just fancy weapons and buffs” application.

But, the amount of power a Psyker wields should inform its drawbacks.

In 2nd Ed, you were at the mercy of the Warp Deck. If you rolled low, or just got a duff hand, you may not get many shenanigans off. But a high roll, and a hand of Power Cards topped off with Ultimate Force? You could pull off horrible combos. Add in you drew your powers randomly, there were, at least theoretically, checks and balances.

In the modern game, I guess the powers are best described as Useful, rather than Outright Deadly.

So, whilst I like Wyldhunt’s stress test? What am I getting for pushing Stress on my dudes? And would out outlaw the addition of powers and abilities which pile Stress on an enemy Psyker?

I think its worth taking a look at the Psykers in the game and see where they work and where they don't.

Like Weirdboyz are pretty perfect. They've got a mind bullet and the ability to send a unit flying to the other side of the battlefield. I'd argue the Wurrboy does a pretty good job as well, even if just being a big dumb gun with a weird debuff isn't worth taking on the unit that can take it (BSBz need a second attachment option). It still FEELS like a Psyker.

What doesn't work is the Librarians and being so front and center it makes these problems really stand out. The mind bullets are fine and having a hazardous option works well. It's really the abilities that fall flat. There aren't enough Psychic attacks for the Hood to matter so it comes down to the 3 powers.

Shrouding is honestly rather interesting. Lone Op is very powerful, its fluffy and it works pretty well. Fortress is a little less so, but gets the idea across. Sustained Hits is.... not an ability that feels Psychic at all, particularly when other officers give similar keywords. Tigurius similarly gives a very Captain-esque ability along with Stealth.

To a degree, I think the problem might be that GW actually made the Psykers more unique than other characters, but still locked them to specific units like Captains, which just attach to their flavor while having fairly interchangable rules. This seems like something you could solve by unlocking them a bit or by going back to letting them pick from a selection of powers.

Personally, what I'd prefer to see is each one have 2 powers to flip between in the command phase. Like if the basic Librarian had both Fortress and Veil, but only one could be active at a time, it would feel a lot more interesting.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Biggest question for me here is “what do we want Psykers to do”.

My thought is that taking the psyker out of 40K is like taking the magic out of Warhammer Old World/AoS

Can you do it and have a fun game at the end? YES yes you can

BUT

It's no longer Warhammer




Look back at the art, videos and lore of the setting - magical powers are rampant in the setting. They are featured all over the place as an integral part of the world and setting. You just cannot escape them. Whilst they don't necessarily have to have a whole "phase" to themselves, I do think that the current edition has watered them down considerably and it kind of makes them feel less special. Such powers SHOULD feel different and special compared to regular elements of the armies. That doesn't mean they have to be super powerful, they just have to feel like they bring something different to the table and adds to the various elements whilst having some of the cinematic element to their combat use. If a psy attack is just a regular bog standard attack that doesn't nothing what so ever different then it doesn't really stand out as anything.


As for the "some factions don't have it" argument - I consider that a red herring. Sister of Battle have Blessings/Prayers; Votaan have spirits in their machines of the ancients; Necrons have nanotech; Tau have a mix of nanotech and Etherials and allied races which can flat out have psy abilities; orks have waaagh energy and so on and so forth. Over the years every faction has a means to have magical powers unique to their faction and lore that basically work along similar guidelines as "psy" abilities in game.

No race need be left out, even if the nature of their abilities might be different.



Any faction that is left behind isn't left behind because of lore but because of choices in the rules and army design and yes perhaps there will be factions that rely on such abilities more so than others and those that rely on them far less. Eldar being able to field a psy heavy army should most certainly be a thing.






So yeah I think the choice to have a psy phase or not is moot because every faction CAN do something within it in various ways. It's more a design choice within the game; but I do feel that GW have lost too much of what made psy special



I would also argue psy isn't alone. I feel like Gw are on a big "make our games easier and easier" spree right now. The loss of psy; the loss of point equipment costs; the loss in AoS of varied close combat weapon profiles (heck look at the Tyranid Warrior in 40K as well - it went from a full kit with loads of choices to on single close combat profile). It's not just a psy issue its the whole design philosophy of the current editions of the games that GW is working with. I can't honestly tell if its because of user feedback that the games were too complex; feedback from those not getting into the hobby*; burnout on the staff because of the 3 year rules cycle which makes creating more detailed rules too time consuming whilst also ensuring all armies get updated every 3 years and so on.

*who it is important to be aware of but sometimes chasing can result in you creating something for a market who still won't be interested and will just shift the goalposts; whilst losing your original core market along the way

I think 10th edition would have been a lot better psychic if ksons weren't the only army who was given dedicated rules for it. Cabal points worked out well for them, but why did GKnights, Nids, and Eldar not get something similar?

Heck considering that Tyranids had 2 models released new that basically didn't stand out (the leader for the neutrogaunts and the pair of attachment units for the nurothrope) I feel like there were some big design shifts that happened during its design from its original inception to what we got at release.

Heck considering what they did with points and profiles I wonder if GW had worked on two versions - a light and a regular and then just gave us the light version.

StudentOfEtherium wrote:I think 10th edition would have been a lot better psychic if ksons weren't the only army who was given dedicated rules for it. Cabal points worked out well for them, but why did GKnights, Nids, and Eldar not get something similar?

I think going that route could work, but you'd have to be careful not to recreate the 6th/7th edition "psychic battery" situation where most of your psykers were just there to let one or two psykers be cool. Something like the current Sons approach of letting everyone be batteries for everyone else while *also* having their own psychic abilities could maybe work. There's also probably some concern of power creep there. Doing magic is THE thing Thousand Sons are known for. Right now, eldar have basically a second layer of pseudo-stratagems in the form of Battle Focus. So if you gave them a third layer of pseudo strat options in the form of Rituals, it might be hard for that to *not* kind of power creep the faction as a whole. We could easily land in a 9th-esque place where some factions just have an extra layer of rules compared to everyone else.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So, whilst I like Wyldhunt’s stress test? What am I getting for pushing Stress on my dudes? And would out outlaw the addition of powers and abilities which pile Stress on an enemy Psyker?

The way I pictured it, pushing would just be a simple improvement on the "safe" version of the power. So standard Doom does what it does now. Pushing Doom might let you choose one or more additional targets. Under the stress system, you could go so far as to add up to X targets for +X stress each. A witchfire probably looks a lot like a librarian's psychic attack now: a standard shooting profile with the option to use a more powerful profile if you push.

Piling stress onto a psyker seems like it might be an interesting/valid tactic. If you're surrounded by Sisters of Silence, maybe casting powers costs +X stress. So you'd still be able to use your powers, but there's an additional cost in the form of possibly failing your "stress test" at the end of the turn. Or maybe you can only cast powers *while* you have X+ stress to represent the psyker being in full swing/having a strong connection to the warp. That said, powers that specifically prevent cool things from happening should probably be sprinkled in sparingly. The same way that some attacks lowering movement/charge rolls is neat but would probably be oppressive if you could apply it army-wide.

Overread wrote:Whilst they don't necessarily have to have a whole "phase" to themselves, I do think that the current edition has watered them down considerably and it kind of makes them feel less special. Such powers SHOULD feel different and special compared to regular elements of the armies. That doesn't mean they have to be super powerful, they just have to feel like they bring something different to the table and adds to the various elements whilst having some of the cinematic element to their combat use. If a psy attack is just a regular bog standard attack that doesn't nothing what so ever different then it doesn't really stand out as anything.

Partially agree with you here. There is value in letting cool abilities feel cool/special. However, I feel like it's also easy to make the mistake of designing rules suboptimally just for the sake of being different. If a teleport beacon and a Gate of Infinity both let you pick up models and put them somewhere else on the table, we probably don't need to slap on a whole subsystem to one of those just so it feels exotic. If a psyker is using their powers to telekinetically toss rocks at the target, that can reasonably use similar rules to a normal shooting attack. Living Lightning and necron Tesla weapons having similar strength and AP in some editions felt like a fun sort of continuity/consistency rather than a problem to be solved.

As for the "some factions don't have it" argument - I consider that a red herring. Sister of Battle have Blessings/Prayers; Votaan have spirits in their machines of the ancients; Necrons have nanotech; Tau have a mix of nanotech and Etherials and allied races which can flat out have psy abilities; orks have waaagh energy and so on and so forth. Over the years every faction has a means to have magical powers unique to their faction and lore that basically work along similar guidelines as "psy" abilities in game.

No race need be left out, even if the nature of their abilities might be different.

People feeling entitled to participate in the psychic phase when they have no psykers always felt weird to me. It's like complaining that not every faction gets Reanimation Protocols or that your custodes don't have any sniper rifles. Having started in 5th when "deny the witch" was pretty much just limited to psychic hoods/wolf tail talismans, it feels like recent editions have kind of encouraged people to feel entitled to a chance to shut down psychic powers. 6th and 7th had Adamantine Will and the deny mechanic. 8th/9th had their own deny mechanic that every psyker just got to try out provided they were in the neighborhood. But it's not really a common thing in the lore/novels outside of specialist units like SoS.

So it's not super fluffy to have psykers constantly failing getting shut down, yet people feel like they're owed a chance to do so. Yet no one feels like they should be allowed to do the same thing to non-psychic abilities. If a character makes a unit +1 to-hit because he's good at yelling orders, that's fine, but if a psyker makes a unit +1 to-hit because they saw the future or whatever, well it's only good and proper that your opponent be given an X% chance to keep that rule from working!

 Wyldhunt wrote:

People feeling entitled to participate in the psychic phase when they have no psykers always felt weird to me. It's like complaining that not every faction gets Reanimation Protocols or that your custodes don't have any sniper rifles. Having started in 5th when "deny the witch" was pretty much just limited to psychic hoods/wolf tail talismans, it feels like recent editions have kind of encouraged people to feel entitled to a chance to shut down psychic powers. 6th and 7th had Adamantine Will and the deny mechanic. 8th/9th had their own deny mechanic that every psyker just got to try out provided they were in the neighborhood. But it's not really a common thing in the lore/novels outside of specialist units like SoS.

So it's not super fluffy to have psykers constantly failing getting shut down, yet people feel like they're owed a chance to do so. Yet no one feels like they should be allowed to do the same thing to non-psychic abilities. If a character makes a unit +1 to-hit because he's good at yelling orders, that's fine, but if a psyker makes a unit +1 to-hit because they saw the future or whatever, well it's only good and proper that your opponent be given an X% chance to keep that rule from working!

People deny non-psy abilities all the time. It's called your saves roll to try and deny your opponent shooting. In fact you might have two of them for some models and that's before we get to modifiers.
Things like no-snipers is often an army age thing honestly. Look at armies like Tyranids who for a long time had very few ranged options; even fewer if you removed models that had the option of taking a ranged attack but were inherently "jack of all trades" platforms (warriors/tyrant/carny). Yet today they've got a little bit of everything.


I think the key with psy phase and everyone wanting to be involved is that no one likes just sitting there whilst your opponent does cool things with impunity - esp in an IGYG game like 40K where you might be sitting there for 30mins in such a situation. If that psy phase lets them wipe out chunks of your army and you've nothing to comeback on or do the same in your own turn then it 100% feels unfair. As I noted you might call it different things, but each faction could basically take part in that phase in various ways.

These were baked into the various armies too over time so that each army could take part; counter and have their own offensive/buff/debuff options.


Now if a psy abilities just a +1 to attack then yes perhaps we need to revisit psy and regular abilities and consider if its really being different and if its worth being a psy ability or such. That leans more into the idea of what separates them from regular buffs and in ensuring that psy isn't just a buff/boon for a player with a constant negative that an opponent could counter them. A deep evolution of psy COULD be to separate buffs and debuffs into two groups and have psy (or psy-like-abilities) only able to perform certain kinds whilst other units offer other boons etc....

 Overread wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

People feeling entitled to participate in the psychic phase when they have no psykers always felt weird to me. It's like complaining that not every faction gets Reanimation Protocols or that your custodes don't have any sniper rifles. Having started in 5th when "deny the witch" was pretty much just limited to psychic hoods/wolf tail talismans, it feels like recent editions have kind of encouraged people to feel entitled to a chance to shut down psychic powers. 6th and 7th had Adamantine Will and the deny mechanic. 8th/9th had their own deny mechanic that every psyker just got to try out provided they were in the neighborhood. But it's not really a common thing in the lore/novels outside of specialist units like SoS.

So it's not super fluffy to have psykers constantly failing getting shut down, yet people feel like they're owed a chance to do so. Yet no one feels like they should be allowed to do the same thing to non-psychic abilities. If a character makes a unit +1 to-hit because he's good at yelling orders, that's fine, but if a psyker makes a unit +1 to-hit because they saw the future or whatever, well it's only good and proper that your opponent be given an X% chance to keep that rule from working!

People deny non-psy abilities all the time. It's called your saves roll to try and deny your opponent shooting. In fact you might have two of them for some models and that's before we get to modifiers.

I feel like that's a disingenuous comparison. If a librarian fails a hit roll or wound roll with his brain lightning, that's fair enough. But deny the witch is more like, "If you have a friendly gun within 24" of an enemy model, there's an X% chance that the enemy gun jams and can't be fired in the first place."

I think the key with psy phase and everyone wanting to be involved is that no one likes just sitting there whilst your opponent does cool things with impunity - esp in an IGYG game like 40K where you might be sitting there for 30mins in such a situation.

This part I do understand. I think the obvious solution here is to just not have a dedicated psy phase. Let powers activate when they reasonably/intuitively should. 10th does this pretty well.

If that psy phase lets them wipe out chunks of your army and you've nothing to comeback on or do the same in your own turn then it 100% feels unfair.

Except that every point you're not spending to do stuff in the psychic phase is a point spent to do stuff in the Shooting or Fight phase. If a marine player takes a squad of eradicators and a 'nid player takes a squad of zoanthropes, they're both just spending points on a multi-wound unit that wants to shoot at tanks. Getting your feathers ruffled because the zoanthropes might be doing it in a special phase is silly. I get that there's a psychological component here, but this really strikes me as mostly being a matter of people failing to think about what's actually happening.

Like, just resolve all your lascannons at the start of your shooting phase and call it your "Las Phase" if you need an equal attention cake, you know?

(Not taking shots at you, Overread. I just find a lot of common takes regarding psychic powers in 40k to be frustrating/the result of people not thinking about what they're saying.)

Aye and I did note earlier that you don't necessarily need a whole psy phase, but that the powers it grants should feel different to other elements of the game and that psy - or basically magical like abilities is something that each faction has access too and should be part of the core game experience.

Indeed allowing armies to have more or less of it in significant ways is a LOT easier if you don't have a dedicated phase and instead spread the abilities through the other phases. Of course then you have the fact that you've got got find a way to make them feel like they stand out. Not "better than" other things; but different in that cinematic way that makes you feel like they have their own unique impact on your army and the game.

 Overread wrote:
Aye and I did note earlier that you don't necessarily need a whole psy phase, but that the powers it grants should feel different to other elements of the game and that psy - or basically magical like abilities is something that each faction has access too and should be part of the core game experience.

Indeed allowing armies to have more or less of it in significant ways is a LOT easier if you don't have a dedicated phase and instead spread the abilities through the other phases. Of course then you have the fact that you've got got find a way to make them feel like they stand out. Not "better than" other things; but different in that cinematic way that makes you feel like they have their own unique impact on your army and the game.

Sure. Generally agree with you there. I just think there's some question of whether making some magical abilities "feel special" warrants making them more complicated. Kill Team has some nice, juicy rules for figuring out what parts of the battlefield are considered sufficiently shadowy for my mandrakes to shadow step into them. That's cool and all, but I don't know if I want that level of extra complexity/detail for my mandrakes in 40k, you know? And similarly, giving mandrakes' balefire a distinctive statline with the Dev Wounds rule makes it feel mildly "exotic." I don't particularly want to complicate their balefire by attaching it to a psychic test or what have you even though it *is* supernatural in nature.

I kind of like the idea of a stress mechanic - but think it might be a bit fiddly/gamey with factions or armies that have lots of psykers versus those that don't. Which has sort of always been the issue with psychic phase.

But I tend to agree that psychic powers should work the vast majority of time. Perils of the warp should be real - but it should be a probability that builds up, not something that occurs 1/6 of the time.

I think deny the witch should exist, but it should probably be datasheet specific. I can sort of imagine Eldrad and Ahriman having a magical duel of spell and counter-spell. I'm less sure on them running into some random guys, even Sisters/Grey Knights or whatever, and voila, there's a significant chance their respective mind bullets just don't work.

The participation thing is entirely a matter of the oddity of balancing an entire phase around random successes and then adding a second layer of random counter effects on top of that.

How often should this power work? Half the time? Do we account for the power being shut down a third of the time when it does work? We could make it a 75% success assuming a third of those get shut down, but then it works 3/4ths of the time against armies that "can't participate".

That's what creates the problem more than anything. Designing powers with enough upsides to be worth their high chance of failure, but having those upsides be properly compensated to faction that's cannot stop them without making that compensation overpowered when not facing those powers (or when they fail naturally) is just an awful mess of an ecosystem.

While I don’t think a whole separate phase for psykers is really necessary I do find the argument that if some armies don’t get a thing then nobody should quite a weird one. There seems to be a whole subset of 40K players who absolutely cannot stand the idea of things not going their way, or of any limitations on what a given army should be able to do. Whereas that was always part of the appeal for me – working with what you’ve got, and attempting to execute a plan even in the face of a variety of obstacles.

 Nazrak wrote:
While I don’t think a whole separate phase for psykers is really necessary I do find the argument that if some armies don’t get a thing then nobody should quite a weird one. There seems to be a whole subset of 40K players who absolutely cannot stand the idea of things not going their way, or of any limitations on what a given army should be able to do. Whereas that was always part of the appeal for me – working with what you’ve got, and attempting to execute a plan even in the face of a variety of obstacles.

I think it happens when someone goes against an army and gets half their own army destroyed by the other army doing something theirs's can't counter perfectly. Because of the turn system you literally spend a whole chunk of time watching your opponent "win" whilst you can do nothing to counter/stop or otherwise change the situation. When it gets to your turn your plans are in tatters along with your army. So suddenly you go from resolving the problem and challenge to "just take that away its clearly broken that their army can do that in the first place."

The misguided part is seeing the issue of the army having a mechanical function rather than either balance of that function and/or the inherent elements of the game turn sequence.

I'm not arguing at all that 'no one should get' psychic stuff. Just that you have to give thought to it and not create situations where some armies have game breaking abilities and then only part of the opposition gets any counterplay. Let psykers be cool!

I think perils is more appropriate maybe for a smaller scale game with rattier participants. Some underhive mutant roped into fighting cultists rather than the rigorously trained or naturally gifted psykers we see in the wargame.

My old Dark Elf army sacked off Magic entirely in favour of honking great monsters. And, whilst risky, I never found the odds overwhelming. So it was possible to fly without it. You just had to accept the risks, and plan to remove your opponents casters as quickly and efficiently as possible.

But again, it really boils down to “what do your psykers actually do”.

2nd Ed could see a rogue brain fart destroy a significant portion of the enemy army, or the Psyker souped up into a nigh unstoppable killing machine. Which meant people loaded their lists for that, if only to ensure you could have your turn at the madness.

3rd Ed? Psychics became largely pointless and uninteresting. So much so the only power I can think of is Smite.

There’s also the balance of making lower level Psykers (to use the old money) worth taking. An Eldar Warlock for instance typically brings defensive or offensive buffs, and frankly not a huge amount else to the party. So I’d question how Stress might impact them. If it doesn’t impact at all, as they’re only employing one power a turn, what purpose does Stress serve there? How about Psykers, such as Farseers, that are purely of Psychic application, compared to say, a Chief Librarian in Terminator Armour who’s also pretty handy in a punch up? How would that be balanced, where one has an alternative to accruing Stress?

The same of Zoanthropes and other “we only use our Brians and our bodies are crap” type units. If they shouldn’t (for game balance and unit appeal) experience Stress as a Hive Tyrant, with its ranged and combat attacks, how is that balanced?

I guess one immediately obvious solution might to be treat it like Overcharged Plasma. A notable uptick in the power’s potential, at the risk of self harm/destruction. That would then raise the issue of ensuring the non-overcharged version of the power is decent enough not to need the overcharge, with the overcharge adding a risky extra oomph.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

An Eldar Warlock for instance typically brings defensive or offensive buffs, and frankly not a huge amount else to the party. So I’d question how Stress might impact them. If it doesn’t impact at all, as they’re only employing one power a turn, what purpose does Stress serve there? How about Psykers, such as Farseers, that are purely of Psychic application, compared to say, a Chief Librarian in Terminator Armour who’s also pretty handy in a punch up? How would that be balanced, where one has an alternative to accruing Stress?

Well, it depends on how you want to handle power availability. Like, are we sticking with pretty much the power loadouts they have now, or are we giving most psykers a list of effects they can either choose from or have access to at all times? Heck, maybe you have them choose from a Discipline, but then you can Push to gain access to one of the unselected powers for a turn.

Regardless, let's say a warlock has comparable powers to what he does now: Destructor, Restrain, and a Singing Spear or Witchblade. Restrain is probably best left as-is, although I could certainly see the option to activate Quicken by pushing (either auto-advance 6" or free use of an agile maneuver). Destructor could easily have a more potent profile when you push, and similarly you could have witchblades/spears hit harder in melee ala the 8th/9th edition Witch Strike. So if you want a warlock to behave the way it does now, you'd just activate Restrain each turn and then lose the point of extra stress each command phase. But if you need the warlock to contribute more, he would have several ways of either speeding up his unit or boosting his own offense. So if you want to use his debuff, buff, shooting boost, and melee boost in the same turn, you could potentially be gaining 4 stress all at once. And you can do more or less the same with a farseer. Or give the farseer access to more powers (guide/fortune/doom/misfortune) and let him gain stress to either apply his buffs/debuffs to extra units or to use more than one power per turn. Lots of levers to pull. Adjust to taste.

The same of Zoanthropes and other “we only use our Brians and our bodies are crap” type units. If they shouldn’t (for game balance and unit appeal) experience Stress as a Hive Tyrant, with its ranged and combat attacks, how is that balanced?

I guess one immediately obvious solution might to be treat it like Overcharged Plasma. A notable uptick in the power’s potential, at the risk of self harm/destruction. That would then raise the issue of ensuring the non-overcharged version of the power is decent enough not to need the overcharge, with the overcharge adding a risky extra oomph.

Yeah. The obvious thing for Zoanthropes would be to just let them do an extra-killy psychic attack that stacks up enough stress to make it difficult to spam turn after turn. So maybe their blast profile is Stress 1 but their focused profile is Stress 3, and they lose 2 Stress each command phase. So going for the anti-tank shot each turn is going to start frying brains fast, but alternating profiles or just giving yourself a turn to cool off can keep you shooting more consistently. I feel like that's the type of minutia that actually creates interesting decisions while also lowering overall lethality in the game.

Perhaps some thought for highly psychic armies (Nids, Craftworld, Grey Knights) being able to share Stress?

For instance. Zoanthropes being able to siphon it of from a Malanthrope, allowing the Big Boy to do Big Boy things, with the Smaller Boys soaking up the stress, and only casting the standard charge Warp Blast? Or indeed a Brood of Neurogaunts acting as Psychic Fuses provided their Brainy Bug is still there as the conduit.

Grey Knights could potentially channel it into their Nemesis blade, giving someone the most amusingly hostile and forceful migraine.

Just spit balling here people, as I love a good propose change! Grotsnik Corp hasn’t necessarily thought any of this through.

Grotsnik Corp. We Never Said We Were Experts.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Perhaps some thought for highly psychic armies (Nids, Craftworld, Grey Knights) being able to share Stress?

For instance. Zoanthropes being able to siphon it of from a Malanthrope, allowing the Big Boy to do Big Boy things, with the Smaller Boys soaking up the stress, and only casting the standard charge Warp Blast? Or indeed a Brood of Neurogaunts acting as Psychic Fuses provided their Brainy Bug is still there as the conduit.

That'd give a good use for Neurogaunts.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I guess one immediately obvious solution might to be treat it like Overcharged Plasma. A notable uptick in the power’s potential, at the risk of self harm/destruction. That would then raise the issue of ensuring the non-overcharged version of the power is decent enough not to need the overcharge, with the overcharge adding a risky extra oomph.

This is how it works now, at least for the Librarians. Smite has a hazardous option just like Plasma. You just don't see people taking Librarians so it doesn't come up.

Maybe part of the issue there is having Psykers as unit attachments in general. They are competing with more direct commanders and pretty universally losing. Maybe they would feel better if they had more of the Tech Marine lone op design that could similarly hand their buff out to different units. Perhaps even something akin to the Taktikal Brigade orders where you can hand out the buff for free and then use it a second time with a hazardous check.

Option 1 for me - plus there's already a usr in place in the form of Hazardous to represent drawing more from the warp for stronger effects.

Option 2 sounds nice but more suited for rpg imo - the game needs less book keeping, not more.

If you wanted a solution that was flavorful but low-maintenance you could do something like this:

In order to use a psychic power you must take a Leadership check. On a failure you must either forfeit the power or take 1 mortal wound. If your target has the Deny the Witch rule then you must forfeit the power and take 1 mortal wound. If this kills your model then it explodes into daemons or something crazy.

Tyranids can take that wound on another psyker within synapse. Eldar can ignore it on a 4+. Tzeentch doesn't take damage from the daemon explosion. If you felt psykers needed an extra kick, maybe on a successful check they gain +1 to hit and wound; that makes them "feel" stronger then using normal guns (even if it's baked into their cost).

But I'm generally in agreement with Wyldhunt, I don't think full-stop negation is good outside of a handful of anti-psyker units and even then there should be a chance of success. Right now most psychic powers feel pretty lame, Sergeant Tacticus can use his Yell At My Guys ability to do the exact same thing and he doesn't get his whole squad blown up by an Inquisitor for doing it. It's all risk and no reward because nearly every psychic ability can be replicated by a special gun or just telling people to fight better.

From a strategic and tactical perspective, what if any is the difference between an offensive psychic power and any other heavy/special weapon an army might possess? Not in a background perspective, but in a 'how am I deploying my dudes to accomplish their mission' perspective?

Are they just character mounted lascannons/heavy flamers? Is there any action or behaviour that offensive psykers are used for that a similar heavy weapon wouldn't be? Or do they completely overlap. There are two mechanics that psykers seem to use currently - attacks or unit buff/debuff (treating as the same thing because of their method of action).

Go back 5 editions and buff/debuff abilities were usually ONLY found on psykers. There were no mundane buff abilities like them, giving psykers a utility function in the game that was not equivalent to anything else. The ranged and melee attacks overlapped but the buffs didn't. That's changed now and the difference between psyker and non psyker abilities has narrowed considerably.

In the current paradigm, there really is no difference between how a unit gets its rules, whether wargear, skill, psychic or abstract gamification. the outcome is the same.


So I supposed my position would be that psychic powers should be as unique or generic as the paradigm in which they're found. The current game has nothing about the uniqueness of a psychic power, as they overlap with every other mechanic. So any downsides are arbitrarily punitive in that system. So I would say they should be MORE genericised, removing baggage that has no point in the current rules.

The game would have to fundamentally change how psychic powers function and give them a unique position, before I'd consider any need for unique rules to govern them.