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 catbarf wrote:

I thought it was cool back in older editions when some powers had two profiles- one that you could use automatically, and one that required a psychic test. It both gave the player some choice rather than making it purely random whether you could use a psychic power this turn, and helped to differentiate psychic abilities from extra guns.

I feel like applying the current Thousand Sons ritual rules to psychic powers would be an okay way to go if you just shifted it from a fail-pass-better pass system to just a pass-better pass system. That is, remove the chance for psykers to just not get to use an ability at all and instead make it so that they either get a default version of the power or an improved version if they roll high enough, and then give them the option to roll a third die to improve their overall result but with the risk of suffering perils if they roll doubles.

That would reflect the idea of powers being dangerous to cast when the psyker pushes herself too hard, but it removes the awkward fizzle-fart moments that happen when a power simply doesn't go off at all.

In my mind the chief advantage to psychic abilities should be flexibility; all but the lowest level psykers should have access to at least a couple of abilities, even if there's a one-per-turn restriction. The unreliability is then the downside, but I'm also fine with making that something the player has a measure of control over.

Yeah. That would be a solid way to go.

Psychics have generally been high risk/high reward. They let you do some bonkers stuff, but with a chance of failure. Other characters could get you buffs and do stuff more reliably and safer, but not as good.

Which on a tangental note really pissed me off when they made chaplains have to activate their litanies. They might not have been as powerful as teleporting a squad across the table, or ripping away invuln saves, but their melee buff just always worked. Randomness was for librarians. They turned zeal into another psychic power, just with different trappings. Which, in hindsight mirrors issues with psychic powers being turned into just another buff/gun. And now we’re all the same in 10th...

I'm fairly happy with 10th. Some additional optionality might be good to justify bringing multiple copies of the same psyker datasheet.

In terms of rules and systems, I think it comes down to what you want to simulate. Part of the issues I think of the old psychic phases - much like the magic phases from WHFB - was that you wanted certain characters to be "the main character". An Eldrad or a Ahriman should be able to turn the battle on their own. Which was fine their for player - but kind of meant the non-psychic factions were just left twiddling their thumbs. It also felt very anticlamtic for these powerful psykers to roll a bit flat and nothing happen. Equally however you might want to simulate a wizard duel - which does occasionally appear in the fluff. I'm not sure mechanically it ever really worked though.

I think the idea of risk vs reward is always a bit suspect in 40k, because its often an illusion. So firing a plasma gun can kill you in a way firing another weapon can't. Does that mean the Plasma gun should be more effective (for the same points) than other guns? So in 85%~ of games its "just better" - and you can chalk up bad performance in the 15% of games to just bad luck? How is this satisfying? How is it really risk vs reward?

Its the same with the idea of having psykers gain stress points by casting multiple powers and potentially exploding. Is it really... interactive? Unless he's the last model contesting an objective, its probably always worth trying to do "something", because if he dies, oh well, he was probably going to get nuked next turn anyway.

 Hellebore wrote:
As much as I hate the BL cop out 'it's all valid, but not all true' it at least means people should be taking the novels as legendary stories, rather than objective descriptions of 40k reality. The only part of the setting where you get that, is the textbook style of the rulebooks.

I just want to point out how ridiculous your position has become when you have to declare third party rulebooks more valid than first party novels in order to have a leg to stand on.

You might as well declare Dawn of War 3 missions as canon


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 Wyldhunt wrote:
If you liked Eldritch Storm spinning tanks around, that was a rule that could have been applied to a non-psychic weapon just as easily. If you liked mortal wounds in 8th/9th, that was just GW deciding that the effect of that psychic power happened to be mortal wounds. They could just as easily have given 8th/9th edition powers Strength/AP/Damage stats.

You're letting the way the rules are presented confuse you.

I agree. Powers could just use psychic skill instead of BS/WS to hit for witchfires and forceweapons. Other powers could reuse the "overcharge" mechanic from 9th where certain powers got more powerful when you rolled high enough.

Yeah. Having Doom denied was huge because the army was basically balanced around the assumption that you'd have it. Without it, a lot of units (especially things like banshees) just didn't have the punch needed to trade well.

Of course, that was a bug rather than a feature. Eldar definitely should not have been balanced around the assumption that you'd always be taking a doom seer and that he'd consistently be getting the power off.

Ah, I meant doom/guide, not fortune. Essentially oath of omens, if you think about it. I highly doubt that eldar were balanced around doom at that time, or balanced at all. It was a Phil Kelly codex from a previous edition, after all.
5th eldar were nowhere near the obnoxious army they became in later editions, I kind of miss the feel of playing against them these days.
It still felt wildly unfair that marines had a way counter these things, while nearly everyone else had no way to mitigate opposing psykers at all.

Being able to push for the big powers or use risk free lesser effects may have been the intent GW for the minor powers in 3e, but they were badly done IMO.

 Jidmah wrote:
It still felt wildly unfair that marines had a way counter these things, while nearly everyone else had no way to mitigate opposing psykers at all.

The old Eldar runes of warding were the gold standard - combined the 3d6 leadership tests of shadow of the warp with automatic perils for anyone rolling 12+.

4e Perils were strength 6 so humans (guard/inquisition) would instantly die on every third attempt, give or take.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
As much as I hate the BL cop out 'it's all valid, but not all true' it at least means people should be taking the novels as legendary stories, rather than objective descriptions of 40k reality. The only part of the setting where you get that, is the textbook style of the rulebooks.

I just want to point out how ridiculous your position has become when you have to declare third party rulebooks more valid than first party novels in order to have a leg to stand on.

You might as well declare Dawn of War 3 missions as canon

Given its built off the canon way in which psychic powers are described in 2nd ed, it's absolutely valid. Nothing in any rulebook background since 2nd has retconned the manner in which psychic powers work.

By your argument every space marine should be performing on the battlefield the way they do in the novels, fulgrim should have a 'choke avatar to death' attack and so on.

It is absolutely fact, not opinion, that plot armour changes how characters work in the fiction and they are not representative of how a faction as a whole, or a psyker, works. By your argument if I wanted to model a New York Cops army, I must obviously make them all John McClanes. Obviously the asteroid destroying oil riggers from Armageddon are highly realistic examples of real oil drillers and should be used as the gold standard.

If you are someone thank thinks that the protagonists abilities in any fiction are representative of how a non protagonist works, then we've nothing to discuss because that's a high level of wilful delusion.


The farseers in Shadowpoint and Farseer were so powerful - obviously all farseers should get his powers then. The harlequins in The war of beast novels infiltrated earth and killed the custodes like it was nothing. Obviously I should get harlequins that can do exactly that. Please. There's no defence to use here. Plot armour overrides the rules of the universe.

The quote I gave from BL that you quoted literally supports this. Yet your problem is a '3rd party' rulebook? That book was created by the BL under its Black Industries imprint, so your argument invalidates your own position. I was one of the playtesters for it - they had the 40k design team behind it. And CS GOTO wrote DoW novels for BL, so again your argument is invalidated by your own examples. Prose has protagonists with plot armour, that's the issue.

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I'd like to point out that I'm not a huge fan of the 2nd ed rules and minigame, was too fiddly in a game with a lot of fiddle.

I didn't really like the 3-5 ed rules as they were a little too simple.

I actually think 9th ed psychics were better, although again I don't think it needs its own phase.


Psychic powers imo should have a unique gimmick that sets them apart from non psychic versions of the same kind of rule. ie guns vs psychic guns, orders vs psychic orders etc.

This gimmick might be that they are able to trigger these powers out of normal phase, or even in the enemy phase, to reflect their 'stealth' usage. No one knows when a psyker is casting (except another psyker).


I am a big fan of the dice pool magic system from 6th ed WFB. It created a duelling aspect. There were later 'overcharged' versions of the same power.

That's something I think that could work. We kind of have that for some ranged psychics where you get a hazardous version for more power. But again it's just mechanically a plasma pistol.

IMO psychic powers have a unique place in 40k and are under-served by being treated as non magic buffs.

I think that 10th is the best, but still has room for improvement.

The various Witchfire Attacks best represent Psychic Powers as generally presented in at least the Black Library lore. Psychers can use their powers regularly and expect to succeed, but if you push the strength or frequency of your attacks (Focused watchfire) you chance exhausting yourself or worst (Hazardous rule).

To make the system overall better, we need a little more flexibility in what psychers can do along with more opportunities to hurt yourself. Here are 2 or 3 abilities beyond your attack you can use. Each one you use has a chance of hurting you, some more than others. Maybe add a new type of Psychic test for each power where you roll a number of dice (Warp Charger) per the power and take 1 Mortal Wound per 1 rolled after resolving the power. You alway succeed, but how badly do you drain your resources.

The truly dangerous Perils of the Warp are so rare as to be unnecessary in the rules. Or, it could be a General Stratagem your opponent can use against you in the right circumstances (like The Psycher is reduced to 1 or 0 wounds by Psychic Test, or takes 2 or more Mortal Wounds from a Psychic Test).

This would open up flexibility to Psychers (more powers) while limiting their use and better simulating the dramatic written lore. We are dealing with professional psychers, not the random untrained psycher who manifest and explode into a warp rift on Day One.

Nevelon wrote:Psychics have generally been high risk/high reward. They let you do some bonkers stuff, but with a chance of failure. Other characters could get you buffs and do stuff more reliably and safer, but not as good.

See, I'd rather just charge a reasonable number of points for what the psyker does and then let them use those abilities reliably. A librarian putting up a force field or shooting an energy blast at the enemy shouldn't feel like you're gambling at the casino to see if your magic guy gets to do magic. And conversely, if a random chance of failure is meant to be a balancing factor for abilities that are otherwise too powerful for their points, then I'd argue that random failure chance is both a less than ideal balancing mechanic and an unfluffy one at that.

Which on a tangental note really pissed me off when they made chaplains have to activate their litanies. They might not have been as powerful as teleporting a squad across the table, or ripping away invuln saves, but their melee buff just always worked...

Highlighting this because it's an example we actually did get from GW of a power that seems like it should work reliably being given an X% chance of randomly not working. I want chaplains to be able to consistently give pep talks and hype up their squads, and I want librarians to consisently put up forcefields and shoot energy blasts.

Tyel wrote:Its the same with the idea of having psykers gain stress points by casting multiple powers and potentially exploding. Is it really... interactive? Unless he's the last model contesting an objective, its probably always worth trying to do "something", because if he dies, oh well, he was probably going to get nuked next turn anyway.

When I pitch the stress mechanic, I think of things like my farseers. Eldrad will probably consistently doom something every turn, but he might not opt to Mind War something on top of it. My farseer will usually want to Guide something, but is guaranteeing a bright lance shot from his guardian friends hits worth the extra stress? Is the eldritch storm worth it if it makes them that much more likely to clear the intercessors moving to kill them? I can see myself opting into or out of using those powers in different situations. Which means you'd (theoretically) end up with psykers psykering consistently, but weighing how much power they really need to use on a given turn.

I could also see it being used to create some interesting decisions regarding timing and maneuvering. Say my warlock conclave can power up their destructors by generating a bunch of extra stress. That can let them hit really hard at a key moment, but then potentially leave them unable to safely attack or buff themselves on the following turn, so you end up with this interesting set of decisions about when to use how much power.

@AlexTroy: I agree with the general thrust of what you're saying even if I might nitpick some of the specifics.


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Psychic powers imo should have a unique gimmick that sets them apart from non psychic versions of the same kind of rule. ie guns vs psychic guns, orders vs psychic orders etc.

I think you and I have discussed this before, but I don't entirely agree. While I do like it when *some* psychic "guns" have something gimmicky going on, I don't need that to be the case for every psychic gun ever. Eldritch Storm spinning tanks around was cute, but I don't *want* my Exalted Sorcerer's fire blasts to be some complicated thing; I just want them to be a decent fwooshy magic fire weapon. A bit of extra strength/ap/damage compared to a normal flamer is more than enough to convey that.

And if a psychic power is doing something that makes sense to model with a straight-forward mechanic, then the simple representation is often fine. Librarians putting up a forcefield can just be an invuln save or a reduction to the enemy's AP. Powers to make a unit hard to perceive can be represented by lone op ala Exalted Sorcerers on Disc or Shadowseers.

There is definitely something to be said for the "feel"/presentation of a given game mechanic, but I do sometimes think that needing every psychic effect to be a big, gimmicky affair is just kind of failing to remember how cool the "basic" thing the power is doing actually is. My sorcerer isn't "just" shooting flames at someone. He's shooting flames at someone! Out of thin air! Like a character from a superhero comic!

The harlequins in The war of beast novels infiltrated earth and killed the custodes like it was nothing. Obviously I should get harlequins that can do exactly that. Please.

At the risk of taking us off-topic, the complaints about this scene were always a bit weird to me. Maybe I'm misremembering that scene as I read it once back when the book first came out, but
A.) The way I remember it, the harlequins used a one-use trick from the sucker punch to come into the palace from an unexpected angle, then didn't straight up fight the custodes so much as they just kind of ran around in circles making a distraction with the exception of a single clown (a shadow seer?) who basically made a B-line straight for the golden throne and still failed to reach it.

B.) Not to overhype them too much, but harlequins are kind of the closest thing eldar have to something like custodes or Grey Knights. They're rare to the point that a lot of eldar never live to see one of their performances. They're soul-bonded with a god. They're some of the most martially-talented members of an alien species that possesses what is basically low-tier super speed. Being offended that they might actually manage to kill one or two custodes feels like silly amounts of imperium glazing. Like, if you don't think that custodes should be capable of being killed by harlequins of all things, then you should probably think that custodes have no business being represented on the tabletop at all.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
See, I'd rather just charge a reasonable number of points for what the psyker does and then let them use those abilities reliably. A librarian putting up a force field or shooting an energy blast at the enemy shouldn't feel like you're gambling at the casino to see if your magic guy gets to do magic.

A few years back when playing around with a simplehammer concept I was looking at the 3e-5e system with a fettered/push style of design (from playing a lot of FFG games).

The idea was that most powers could be used 'fettered' - no leadership roll, usually with a limited range or similar, or you could push them with the roll and risk of perils. Successful psychic hood uses and similar by and large would just knock these back down to fettered or make them riskier to use pushed, with only the more exotic powers like vortex of doom and teleport being push only gambling.