Does Psychic Shriek roll to Hit? If so, how many rolls?

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**DeathReaper**

insaniak wrote:
...[A]s Nos pointed out, failing your to-hit roll makes no difference to a power that isn't rolling to wound... So in this particular case, you have a rule that requires you to roll to hit (with an unspecified number of dice) but the result of that roll has absolutely no impact on whether or not the power resolves, and so the to-hit roll can safely be ignored with no impact on the resolution of the power.

This is correct 100%

**KingCorpus**

I assumed, that when the power says roll 3d6 and subtract the targets LD, that, THAT is the way to hit with this power. And whatever is over are the wounds obviously. Reading all these replies, its sort of hard to follow what people are getting at..

**col_impact**

Charistoph wrote:
col_impact wrote:
[Psychic Shriek is witchfire per the rules.

Spoiler:

a witchfire power must roll To Hit

That you have to roll To Hit and roll To Wound is indisputable. The rules break when you try to resolve the To Wound roll. So everyone is in house rule land when it comes to Psychic Shriek. There is no RAW way of resolving the power.

You can play Psychic Shriek in such a way that it acts like a witchfire shooting attack [approach A].

Or you can play Psychic Shriek in such a way that it acts like a custom attack , e.g. Gaze of Death. [approach B]

An advantage of approach A is it retains rules for what we know is certain and established, i.e. that Psychic Shriek is witchfire

An advantage of approach B is that it clear-cuts away all the broken rules down to what you can resolve.

A disadvantage of approach B however is that Psychic Shriek becomes very OP as an auto-hit 1 Warp Charge attack that rivals D weapons in potency.

It's up to your play environment how Psychic Shriek gets house-ruled. ITC and Adepticon use approach A but of course your play group is free to do what they want. Following approach B grants a power buff to some Nid units which can be desirable.

There is also Option C. It has to Roll To Hit, but it has a different Wounding method as defined in its rules.

PS's problem is that while it addresses its lack of a Weapon profile for Wounding, it does not define a volume To Hit with. Is it just one? Is it automatic? This is not defined. It should be just one or automatic, but that is just assumed, either way.

Your option C is my option A.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

DeathReaper wrote:
insaniak wrote:
...[A]s Nos pointed out, failing your to-hit roll makes no difference to a power that isn't rolling to wound... So in this particular case, you have a rule that requires you to roll to hit (with an unspecified number of dice) but the result of that roll has absolutely no impact on whether or not the power resolves, and so the to-hit roll can safely be ignored with no impact on the resolution of the power.

This is correct 100%

Incorrect. The To Hit roll leads to a To Wound roll which determines if the hit actually wounds the target. However, you don't have what you need to complete the To Wound roll and the game halts. You are in house rule land.

**JimOnMars**

As other have suggested...

Roll to hit.

Then ignore the roll and do something else.

**col_impact**

JimOnMars wrote:
As other have suggested...

Roll to hit.

Then ignore the roll and do something else.

What do you about the requisite To Wound roll that you cannot ignore?

**Charistoph**

col_impact wrote:
JimOnMars wrote:
As other have suggested...

Roll to hit.

Then ignore the roll and do something else.

What do you about the requisite To Wound roll that you cannot ignore?

The rules for the Power already cover this. Have you read it?

**col_impact**

Charistoph wrote:
col_impact wrote:
JimOnMars wrote:
As other have suggested...

Roll to hit.

Then ignore the roll and do something else.

What do you about the requisite To Wound roll that you cannot ignore?

The rules for the Power already cover this. Have you read it?

The power makes no mention of a To Wound roll.

Spoiler:

You are required to make To Wound rolls in the Shooting Sequence for successful To Hit rolls. The To Wound roll determines if you wound the target.

Spoiler:

You can go ahead and treat the roll mentioned in the text as a To Wound roll or in place of a To Wound roll, but that is either guessing or house ruling. The rules as written do not actually designate the 3d6 roll as a To Wound roll which is a very specific roll in the game. However, house ruling it as a replacement for the To Wound roll is probably the most elegant house rule.

Basically, RAW is broken. We are in house rule land. Requiring a roll To Hit and using the text as a custom To Wound roll is an elegant house rule for the broken psychic shriek rules.

**Charistoph**

col_impact wrote:
The power makes no mention of a To Wound roll.

Spoiler:

Psychic Shriek is a witchfire power with a range of 18". Roll 3D6 and subtract the
target’s Leadership – the target unit suffers a number of Wounds equal to the result.
Armour and cover saves cannot be taken against Wounds caused by Psychic Shriek.

You are required to make To Wound rolls in the Shooting Sequence for successful To Hit rolls. The To Wound roll determines if you wound the target.

Spoiler:

Roll To Wound. For each shot that hit, roll again to see if it wounds the target.

You can go ahead and treat the roll mentioned in the text as a To Wound roll or in place of a To Wound roll, but that is either guessing or house ruling. The rules as written do not actually designate the 3d6 roll as a To Wound roll which is a very specific roll in the game. However, house ruling it as a replacement for the To Wound roll is probably the most elegant house rule.

Basically, RAW is broken. We are in house rule land. Requiring a roll To Hit and using the text as a custom To Wound roll is an elegant house rule for the broken psychic shriek rules.

Yes, it is in place of To-Wound roll because that is following how the rule is written. To ignore this is to ignore the rule. This is not guessing or house ruling, it is processing the rule as it is written. Remember how when something Advanced comes along and conflicts with something Basic? Here you go.

Go ahead and try and prove this incorrect.

**col_impact**

Charistoph wrote:
col_impact wrote:
The power makes no mention of a To Wound roll.

Spoiler:

Psychic Shriek is a witchfire power with a range of 18". Roll 3D6 and subtract the
target’s Leadership – the target unit suffers a number of Wounds equal to the result.
Armour and cover saves cannot be taken against Wounds caused by Psychic Shriek.

You are required to make To Wound rolls in the Shooting Sequence for successful To Hit rolls. The To Wound roll determines if you wound the target.

Spoiler:

Roll To Wound. For each shot that hit, roll again to see if it wounds the target.

You can go ahead and treat the roll mentioned in the text as a To Wound roll or in place of a To Wound roll, but that is either guessing or house ruling. The rules as written do not actually designate the 3d6 roll as a To Wound roll which is a very specific roll in the game. However, house ruling it as a replacement for the To Wound roll is probably the most elegant house rule.

Basically, RAW is broken. We are in house rule land. Requiring a roll To Hit and using the text as a custom To Wound roll is an elegant house rule for the broken psychic shriek rules.

Yes, it is in place of To-Wound roll because that is following how the rule is written. To ignore this is to ignore the rule. This is not guessing or house ruling, it is processing the rule as it is written. Remember how when something Advanced comes along and conflicts with something Basic? Here you go.

Go ahead and try and prove this incorrect.

In order for Advanced to replace something Basic it needs to be clear what the advanced rule is replacing or it won't replace the basic rule that is there.

For example

Spoiler:

The Psychic Shriek text needs to specify that the roll is "in place of" or "instead of" the To Wound roll or that the blurb is a specific redefining of the To Wound roll.

As it is now there is no other way to read it except that Psychic Shriek requires a To Wound roll AND the roll in the blurb on Psychic Shriek. In order to hammer replace the basic with the advanced the rule needs to redefine the named To Wound roll or indicate that a new roll is 'instead of' the To Wound roll.

At least that is how the RAW goes. A minor bit of guesswork connects the dots and makes the blurb a Wound roll in place of the To Wound roll. But that is house ruling as it is not written explicitly in the rule. Strictly read there are TWO rolls having to do with wounds to be made.

**Charistoph**

col_impact wrote:
In order for Advanced to replace something Basic it needs to be clear what the advanced rule is replacing or it won't replace the basic rule that is there.

Incorrect, there needs to be a conflict. A specific note of replacement need not be clear. For example, no Str for a Shooting Attack, but a way to determine the number of Wounds from an Attack.

Spoiler:

Psychic Shriek has a way to determine the Wounds it generates against a unit. What Psychic Shriek does not have or contradict normal rules is how to hit with it.

**col_impact**

Charistoph wrote:
col_impact wrote:
In order for Advanced to replace something Basic it needs to be clear what the advanced rule is replacing or it won't replace the basic rule that is there.

Incorrect, there needs to be a conflict. A specific note of replacement need not be clear. For example, no Str for a Shooting Attack, but a way to determine the number of Wounds from an Attack.

Spoiler:

Where advanced rules apply to a specific model, they always override any contradicting basic rules. For example, the basic rules state that a model must take a Morale check under certain situations. If, however, that model has a special rule that makes it immune to Morale checks, then it does not take such checks – the advanced rule takes precedence. On rare occasions, a conflict will arise between a rule in this rulebook, and one printed in a codex. Where this occurs, the rule printed in the codex or Army List Entry always takes precedence.

Psychic Shriek has a way to determine the Wounds it generates against a unit. What Psychic Shriek does not have or contradict normal rules is how to hit with it.

There really isn't a conflict however. There is nothing preventing the two rolls from coexisting unless one is specified as replacing the other or is specified as a redefinition of the other.

RAW, you have two rolls.

**insaniak**

Either way, I don't think there's anything productive to be gained by continuing here.

To summarise - Yes, by strict RAW, Psychic Shriek needs to roll to hit.

But the general opinion is that we should just assume that the to hit roll can be ignored as it, depending on viewpoint, either (a)is irrelevant to resolving the power anyway, or (b)breaks the game.