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Why not make it so an enemy psykers can attempt to deny if the powers target is within 12 inches of the enemy psyker model. This allows for strategic placement of psykers to act as psychic bulwarks to protect other units.

IMO anything that boosts strategic choices is a bonus to the game.

That anti psyker orb the necrons can bring would basically allow that model to act as a psyker for the purpose of being able to deny.

pm713 wrote:

Spoiler:

 IllumiNini wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I wouldn't know about 5th edition.

Just give them psychic trees like they have now and let them pick from there.

The only problem with picking powers is it will lead to the spam of the particularly powerful powers.

@OP: I think the only way you can practically simplify the Psykic Phase without doing a complete overhaul is to simplify the Perils table.

I agree you would have to nerf and buff some powers. But I'd rather that than no choice for my psykers powers. But these aren't my rules are they.

Fair enough. Maybe 'balancing' powers and combining that with a (small) points cost for picking powers might be a good system. I would honestly prefer that to random powers chosen from the current ones.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
You're right. It's hard enough to get powers to work. So how about this for the rule set:

Some models are noted as being a psyker on their dataslate. You can use a psyker to manifest powers in the hero phase. The type and number of powers a psyker can attempt to manifest each turn is detailed on its dataslate.

A psyker can only attempt to manifest each power once per turn.

Every power has a manifestation value. Roll 2D6. If this is equal to or greater than the manifestation value, the power is successfully manifested, even if the psyker suffers from the perils of the warp (see below).

If a psyker rolls a double one or a double six when attempting to manifest a power, they suffer from the perils of the warp. The psyker must take a leadership test. If the test is failed, they suffer D6 mortal wounds.

And that's it. No denying. But, some units can have a sort of attempt to deny. For example, when trying to cast a power against Grey Knights, vehicles with relic plating etc, you suffer a -1 penalty to your manifestation attempt. Meanwhile, models with psychic hoods can try to stop enemy powers being cast in the style of unbinding magic from AoS.

How should we address powers? Should they be on the dataslate only or should there be a common table of powers?

Assuming this is now the current iteration of the 'simplification' process:

With Deny the Witch, you'd have to sit down and redefine exactly who can and can't cause this negative modifier on the casting 2D6. To my mind, you'd have to use Chapter Tactics an/or other relatively generic Special Rules to say exactly who gets it. For example, you could say that everyone with Adamantium Will Special Rule causes this negative modifier, but that doesn't cover everyone that should cause said negative modifier, so you'll have to think about who else would cause it. If you can't have a simple blanket solution, then you haven't really simplified this aspect of the Psykic Phase - you've just replaced certain complexities with others (which should only ever be done if it helps simplify it overall).

Deny the Witch is a big part of a number of armies (as a Black Templar player, I can't stress this enough), so you still have to think carefully about how Deny the Witch can not only stay in the game with this new system, but also make sure that factions like the Black Templars still have a bonus of sorts. Simple, generic rules are key to this.

And what about ML? Are we now assuming that ML no longer has an effect on a psyker's ability to cast their powers (their current 7th Ed. effect being additional WC's) in the name of simplicity?

Also, D6 Mortal Wounds is too much. Leave it at either of the following when they Peril:

(1) Roll a D6. If a 6 (or a 1 - dealer's choice) is rolled, then the caster suffers a single (1) Mortal Wound.
-- OR --
(2) Make a Ld Check. If it's failed, take a single (1) Mortal Wound. [This is my preference.]

 Lance845 wrote:
Why not make it so an enemy psykers can attempt to deny if the powers target is within 12 inches of the enemy psyker model. This allows for strategic placement of psykers to act as psychic bulwarks to protect other units.

IMO anything that boosts strategic choices is a bonus to the game.

That anti psyker orb the necrons can bring would basically allow that model to act as a psyker for the purpose of being able to deny.

On the one hand, I think that's a good generic rule. On the other hand, the aim (as the thread's title would suggest) is to simplify the Psykic Phase, which the implementation of this rule wouldn't do.

I think if you pay points for powers you should reduce the cost of psykers a little. At the moment the price of a mastery level is including the powers. If you pay the points for a mastery level AND a power the base price should probably go down.

Why do you need a separate psychic phase in the first place?

Lanrak wrote:
Why do you need a separate psychic phase in the first place?

I find it a lot easier than 6th where some was movement and some was shooting. I like having a phase for the psychic powers.

pm713 wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
Why do you need a separate psychic phase in the first place?

I find it a lot easier than 6th where some was movement and some was shooting. I like having a phase for the psychic powers.

Some movement some shooting is perfect. The Movement Phase should just be renamed the Main Phase as every other action takes place there. It makes sense for Blessings and Maledictions to take place there, along wuth comjurations. Then just leave Witchfires, or as they were once known, Psychic Shooting Attacks, to the shooting phase with every other ranged attack.

 Deadshot wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
Why do you need a separate psychic phase in the first place?

I find it a lot easier than 6th where some was movement and some was shooting. I like having a phase for the psychic powers.

Some movement some shooting is perfect. The Movement Phase should just be renamed the Main Phase as every other action takes place there. It makes sense for Blessings and Maledictions to take place there, along wuth comjurations. Then just leave Witchfires, or as they were once known, Psychic Shooting Attacks, to the shooting phase with every other ranged attack.

It was completely ridiculous. Forgetting when to do your powers happened all the time and teaching a new person you do these powers then and these powers then is a lot more complicated than just saying "This is the Psychic Phase. This is when you cast psychic powers."
All that happens in the movement phase is movement. It's so much easier having movement phase = moving, psychic phase = psychic powers, shooting phase = shooting and asssault phase = close combat.

pm713 wrote:

All that happens in the movement phase is movement. It's so much easier having movement phase = moving, psychic phase = psychic powers, shooting phase = shooting and asssault phase = close combat.

So no additional movement in the shooting and assualt phase, no shooting in the movement or psychic phase?

 kodos wrote:

pm713 wrote:

All that happens in the movement phase is movement. It's so much easier having movement phase = moving, psychic phase = psychic powers, shooting phase = shooting and asssault phase = close combat.

So no additional movement in the shooting and assualt phase, no shooting in the movement or psychic phase?

Witchfires are psychic powers are they not?

Run moves you can do either way considering it's a replacement for shooting and assault movements don't really work in movement considering they're to allow you to move after firing.

I'd prefer to have a separate psychic phase myself. My preferred turn system would go:

Hero Phase (psychic powers go here)
Tactical Phase (reserves and the like)
Movement Phase
Shooting Phase
Assault Phase
Combat Phase

And what if we just made it so that certain units can stop powers? Priests, chaplains, librarians with their hoods etc?

Also, someone mentioned the one page rules? That is too simplistic, but 4-6 pages might be enough.

That seems like now as reserves and such are at the start of movement and combat is in the second half of the assault phase. The only change I see is psychic powers happening before moving.

pm713 wrote:
That seems like now as reserves and such are at the start of movement and combat is in the second half of the assault phase. The only change I see is psychic powers happening before moving.

It is similar, but what I would change is how shooting and combat is resolved. It would be 'I go you go' at the unit level, not the game level. Like the way combat is resolved in AoS. That hopefully makes the game more tactical and fixes overwatch.

I really want to keep things as simple as possible though. I'm tempted to throw masterly levels out the window and just use leadership as the skill set to measure by.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

pm713 wrote:
That seems like now as reserves and such are at the start of movement and combat is in the second half of the assault phase. The only change I see is psychic powers happening before moving.

It is similar, but what I would change is how shooting and combat is resolved. It would be 'I go you go' at the unit level, not the game level. Like the way combat is resolved in AoS. That hopefully makes the game more tactical and fixes overwatch.

I really want to keep things as simple as possible though. I'm tempted to throw masterly levels out the window and just use leadership as the skill set to measure by.

It's an interesting idea certainly.

pm713 wrote:

Run moves you can do either way considering it's a replacement for shooting and assault movements don't really work in movement considering they're to allow you to move after firing.

So for you it is ridiculous and was a problem to remember that shooting powers are in the shooting phase and movement powers happen in the movement phase, but it is not a problem to have everything else in antoher phase.
of course it is hard to understand for a new player why a psychic power movement happens in the movement phase while normal movement happens in the shooting phase

But the argument is invalid if everything can be in any phase, except psionics because this is misleading

 Future War Cultist wrote:

Also, someone mentioned the one page rules? That is too simplistic, but 4-6 pages might be enough.

they are actually more pages because only the very core fit on one page.
but it an already very simple 40k, while a more complex but still simple rulesystem would be warpath

I just think that another simple rulesystem is not needed (on the other hand, unification of all those small attempts to rewrite 40k does not work either)

 Future War Cultist wrote:


It is similar, but what I would change is how shooting and combat is resolved. It would be 'I go you go' at the unit level, not the game level. Like the way combat is resolved in AoS. That hopefully makes the game more tactical and fixes overwatch.

If you go per unit activation or IGYG on unit level it would be best to skip phases at all.
otherwise the system will get to complicated without adding complexity or tactic

 Future War Cultist wrote:

I really want to keep things as simple as possible though. I'm tempted to throw masterly levels out the window and just use leadership as the skill set to measure by.

This would be an argument to keep mastery levels
In a simple ruleset, a skill value is only used for one skill and nothing more. Using the same skill value for different traits and special rules will get the system complicated without having an advantage.
This sounds strange, but one thing that makes 40k so complicated and complex is the missing of a movement value and to fill this gab a lot of special rules and unit types are needed

So if you want to make the current 40k more simple while adding more tactical options you need to increase the number of profile values and not remove some

PS:
The easiest way to fix Overwatch would be to make it a true reaction which is resolved after the active unit performed their action and not before

There are reasons for non movement phase movements. I can explain that you run OR shoot and I can explain that some units gain extra movement at the end of your turn to JSJ. I can't explain these powers happen at the end of movement and these during shooting for some reason.

pm713 wrote:
There are reasons for non movement phase movements. I can explain that you run OR shoot and I can explain that some units gain extra movement at the end of your turn to JSJ. I can't explain these powers happen at the end of movement and these during shooting for some reason.

No, there is no good reason as long as there are restricted phases. If it would Main Phase - Combat Phase - Main Phase, I agree, but as long as there is a specific movement phase there is no good reason for movement outside this phase except poor game design

So movement is in the movement phase, there is no reason why movement which is done instead of shooting is not performed in the movement phase.
Most players already to this to speed up game play because touching their units twice is unnecessary.

Same for specific powers. There is no reason why a power that let a unit move twice is cast outside the movement phase.

It is neither a design argument (except everything else would be also restricted to its phase, which means no movement outside the movement phase) nor a fluff argument (brother scriptor, please cast the power to let our troops advance faster , no brother captain I have to wait until the psionic phase starts. just start moving I catch up later)

Makes it easy to remember Move OR Shoot but I'll agree that that could have been done originally. Not so much now as it makes a mess of battle focus.

is that actually a power?

With design you have the fact that running is originally bad design and is now hard to go back on. Assault moves you can make an exception for because it allows for a unique form of movement in some powers.

Well in fluff they don't have the phases and they'd happen simultaneously..... The psyker casts his powers while assault marines swing swords while devastators fire lascannons.

The point of multiple phases is to establish a proper order of operations. It's not bad game design. It's just a style of game design.

multiple phases is not bad game design but having very specific phases while units can do everything in every phase is bad design (and because not all units can do this is one reason why the balancing is that bad)

pm713 wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
Why do you need a separate psychic phase in the first place?

I find it a lot easier than 6th where some was movement and some was shooting. I like having a phase for the psychic powers.

Some movement some shooting is perfect. The Movement Phase should just be renamed the Main Phase as every other action takes place there. It makes sense for Blessings and Maledictions to take place there, along wuth comjurations. Then just leave Witchfires, or as they were once known, Psychic Shooting Attacks, to the shooting phase with every other ranged attack.

It was completely ridiculous. Forgetting when to do your powers happened all the time and teaching a new person you do these powers then and these powers then is a lot more complicated than just saying "This is the Psychic Phase. This is when you cast psychic powers."
All that happens in the movement phase is movement. It's so much easier having movement phase = moving, psychic phase = psychic powers, shooting phase = shooting and asssault phase = close combat.

Along with reserves, rolling this dice and that to check ongoing effects, in game effects like a meteor dropping (if the game is that type of game), generate tactical objectives.
And are you saying that doesn't happen now? Every unit in the game has a effect that is declared at X time, and many times have these effects been forgotten, such as X unit has Fearless due to a Psychic Power, or this unit has to take a leadership test not. Just yesterday my brother kept forgetting to declare what facing his IK's Ion Shield was protecting because I didn't shoot at it first. New players can do what all new players have to do and just learn the rules for their stuff, or like everyone, open the book to Psychic powers to check because there's about 100 different powers now.

At least he doesn't have to check when to use the power.

pm713 wrote:
At least he doesn't have to check when to use the power.

It's very simple. Is it a Witchfire? Yes -> Shooting phase. No -> Movement. Done.

Know what's simpler? Is it a psychic power? Yes - Psychic phase. No - Not doing it yet.

I agree with Kodos.
IF ..
All movement happened in the movement phase.(Including psychic powers that effect movement.)
All shooting happened in the Shooting phase.(Including psychic powers that effected shooting)
ALL close combat was resolved in the assault phase.(Including all psychic powers that effect close combat.)

It would be still good game design , if you decided to move the psychic powers to their own phase.IF the majority of units could use psychic powers.

However, The majority of units can move and shoot and fight in close combat in 40k. VERY FEW units have psychic abilities in comparison.

That is why I asked, why do we need to have a separate psychic phase?

Lanrak wrote:
I agree with Kodos.
IF ..
All movement happened in the movement phase.(Including psychic powers that effect movement.)
All shooting happened in the Shooting phase.(Including psychic powers that effected shooting)
ALL close combat was resolved in the assault phase.(Including all psychic powers that effect close combat.)

It would be still good game design , if you decided to move the psychic powers to their own phase.IF the majority of units could use psychic powers.

However, The majority of units can move and shoot and fight in close combat in 40k. VERY FEW units have psychic abilities in comparison.

That is why I asked, why do we need to have a separate psychic phase?

Speaking as someone who started playing in 5th, it's easier to forget psychic powers than you might think. Back in 5th, I recall there being a lot of talk of the "unofficial pre-movement psychic phase" AKA the time at which many psychic powers were meant to be performed and often forgotten about. On paper, it really shouldn't be hard to remember to cast your psychic powers, but it happened a lot in practice. I'd be fine with not having a dedicated psychic phase (assuming the rules for casting powers were simplified), but I'm also not opposed to having one.

I agree that there should be something at the beginning of a turn were powers are cast that fit not in a specific phase.

But a "start" phase is needed anyway to get all the pre-movment stuff done.
A lot of people not only forget the psionics, but also to roll for reserve, moral tests etc

And instead of having now a rerve phase, a moral phase and a psy phase, a single start phase for all those things should be enough.

Again, it's about timing. If you shoot witchfires in the shooting phase it changes when and what powers you select. Do you try to manifest before or after your other guns? Based on the outcome of those rolls what powers do you select?

The entire current dynamic shifts when you clump the powers in with other phases, especially when you start to adjust powers based on previous phases.

You ask whats the point of the psykic phase? Establishing an order of operations that unifies those rules and cuts out potential shenanigans.

Why are we trying to re-work 40K to be like one of the worst gaming systems ever devised (AOS)?

The Psychic phase is already way too simple. It needs depth and balance. Get rid of this warp charge crap. It's too one sided.

Make the Psychic phase like Fantasy 8th edition just tweak it a bit to scale properly for larger games rather than be simply capped at 12 dice.

of course, remove player decisions and add a random table instead

in the current 40k system another phase fits quite well, thats why also a flyer phase was added.
Everyone who can do thing outside the specific phase has an advantage an need it to win
thats how the current rules work

but if you want a simpler system you neeed to decide if you want to go back to specific phases (than all those shenanigans of doing stuff outside the phase need to be removed) or you get generic phases and everyone can do everything in any phase.

The mix is not a good idea, especially if only a few factions can mix but not all


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

Make the Psychic phase like Fantasy 8th edition just tweak it a bit to scale properly for larger games rather than be simply capped at 12 dice.

So that every army which had no maximum level wizard/psyker lose instantly.
the magic of 8th fantasy was one of the worst incarnation of magic ever. Completely random, way too strong and playing without magic was no option

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Why are we trying to re-work 40K to be like one of the worst gaming systems ever devised (AOS)?

AoS itself is not the worst system, it would need less changes on rules to actually work than 40k does (no, the new handbook and the faq do not address them)
just look at the one-page rules, they are simple (and similar) as AoS but actually work.

So that every army which had no maximum level wizard/psyker lose instantly.
the magic of 8th fantasy was one of the worst incarnation of magic ever. Completely random, way too strong and playing without magic was no option

First, 8th edition magic worked extremely well. The only problem was the brutal number 6 spells that destroyed entire units. But you know, I could count on one hand how many times that ever lost me a game. And on the other hand 7th edition had spells that completely destroyed entire units as well. On top of that you had no cap on power dice so you had some armies with up to 24 power dice in their pool while you were stuck with 2. But we aren't dealing with the same brutal spells as fantasy because 40K has it's own disciplines.

Secondly, magic levels are in general lower in 40K. Many armies have no access to psychic powers at all (which apart from dwarfs wasn't the case in fantasy). This means that some armies (Grey Knights, Eldar) already dominate the psychic phase while the opponent stands around doing nothing. Never seen a tau player claim not bringing a psyker is an auto-lose. Therefore your first point about no max level wizards = instant lose can't possibly be true. Since the domination of the magic phase is already a thing and doesn't equate to an auto-lose situation.

Third, 40K by it's nature favours MSU which makes large spells less powerful than they were in a game like fantasy where seeing a unit of 40 men was common.

Fourth, My point about 8th ed. Fantasy magic would at least balance things more in 40K because it provides a hard cap on power dice for the caster and allow the defender to do more than just throw all his dice at one spell and hope for 6's.