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I haven't really gone into deep thought on this so please highlight the absurdity of it if you believe it absurd. It was really just a quick thought that popped into my head.
Many people complain about the random rolls for psychic powers, so here are a few ideas to help that out.

-Can pick psychic powers (obviously 2/3 will rarely be seen)
-Dispell rolls become 5+ rather than 6+ to counteract this.
-Invisibility either becomes WC 3 or it reduces bs to 1 after all other modifiers. Therefore allowing all templates and blasts to target but not benefitting marker lights.
-Tigurius, Loth and Be'lakor (and any other characters with a full range of auto/select powers) become 20pts cheaper.

Reasonable?

I have no problems personally with the psychic phase but I understand others frustration with their master psyker forgetting his powers overnight only to remember powers that just make his mates a little more scary.

Denying on 5+ will make it even more difficult to cast something against a WC spam list.

Anywayz, if you want to make powers fixed, you got to make psychers pay for them like in earlier editions. This way you can't swap to whatever you want when you allready know what the enemy's bringing. So, here's my suggestion:

For every purchased ML, the psycher must also purchase one psy power.

This way, if you want to get access to something in particular and still generate enough WC, you got to pay for other powers too. Will make weaker powers attractive as fillers.

For example, you want invisibility. You get a psycher and buy Invisibility for, say, 50 pts. If you want to get ML2, you got to pay for an upgrade from ML1 to ML2 (25 pts? or how much does it cost in your book) and also pay for a second power. If you want, say, gate of infinity, pay another 50 pts as it's a very powerful thing. Or if you don't want to spend so much pts, get something like Haemorrhage that'd cost 5 pts.

This way you can get whatever powers you need to create your cheezy deathstars but you pay for it. And if you want to farm WC, you have to get psychers with cheapo less effective powers. In the end, you get whatever you want but pay for it appropriately.

That would be a better idea. Although I would say the weakest powers should be free rather than paying extra since you are already paying for the ML upgrade.
You would have to list the points of each power and deal with the powers of the pick/auto powers characters seperately as their chance to pick/auto gain is already included in their cost.
The downside of that route would be it give a slight advantage to lower ML psykers in comparison to now, as currently if you have a ML3 psyker, you have a pretty solid chance of getting at least 1 decent power off most tables, whilst with a ML1 psyker you don't. If you can pick powers then this advantage is taken away. Therefore I would suggest a 5pt decrease on ML upgrades if implementing that idea.

The idea is that you still need a lot of ML to fuel your casts. There's no use in just having invisibility. You also need to invest enough WC to cast it.

And yep, you got to cost all the psy-powers appropriately...somehow.

Or perhaps just make Invis equivalent to reverse-blind (but not blind, so things aren't immune). That seems worth WC2, but not broken. Perhaps also add reroll-direct-hit-scatters too.

Honestly, I would rework psy powers altogether (especially since if it isn't Invisibility, then it would be Fortune/Sanctuary seerstars...)

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Honestly, I would rework psy powers altogether (especially since if it isn't Invisibility, then it would be Fortune/Sanctuary seerstars...)

I would simply throw the current Psychic Phase rules into the garbage bin, and re-work it to mimic the Magic Phase in Fantasy;

- Capped Power & Dispel dice pools, but make them scale properly for higher pots games.
- All powers have a specific 'Casting Cost' that must be reached by throwing between 1-6 dice + adding your Mastery Lv.
- Rules for 'Broken Concentration' should a psyker fail to reach the casting cost or beat the opponent's casting cost total when dispelling.
- Powers are still random, but no more duplicate powers outside of the Primaris powers. (hence you can basically guarantee you get a specific power, but you only get it once - no more spamming of Invis or Forewarning or MC's with Iron Arm, etc...)
- Brotherhood of Psyker units never generate their own powers, but instead simply have 1 or more powers they always know. (and these powers don't count against the 'No Duplicate' rule)

Psychic powers should be able to be picked and thus paid for like old, they should just cap them into different mastery level lists though. SO ML1 is all your basics like smite etc, whilst ML4 is where you can buy invisibility and the like. Restricts how many psykers can get the super powerful powers, but also makes them pay through the roof for them.

It would limit certain death stars straight away if it's costing 300pt just for that one model with invisibility.... Think of what ammo your opposition can bring for 300pts to nuke the psyker.

I much prefer purchased powers to random ones. Having to keep track of a randomly generated thing requires bookkeeping without really enhancing the experience, plus it makes it harder to theme psykers. For instance, if I could guarantee Iron Arm on a librarian, I could give him fluff about how he calls upon the warp to become a monster of metal flesh. As it is, there's no guarantee he won't instead be the weirdo who noms wounds with lifeleech.

Requiring a psyker have a mastery level equal to or greater than the WC of a power they want to choose seems like a solid limiting factor. Want a vortex of doom? Cool. That'll be an extra 50 points for the two additional mastery levels plus the cost of the power (which, to be fair, might be a bit lower than you'd think considering the investment in ML it requires).

That said, while we're reworking the psychic system, let's just rework invisibility from the ground up. Personally, I think the mind foggy power from Phantasmancy is a good way to handle it, but seemly making it be "BS1" instead of snapshots and/or making it less potent/nonfunctional in melee would help tone it down. ML3 alone doesn't seem like a great balancing factor as there are plenty of high ML psykers out there that people are bringing anyway (farseers or Ahriman for example). Upping the cost of invisibility probably doesn't help. Either you price it low enough that people are willing to build their list around it and wreck house (probably with a deathstar), or else you price it so ridiculously high that it never gets taken. I think nerfs are preferable here. It's really the only power that outright ruins the fun of some games. :T

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Psychic powers should be able to be picked and thus paid for like old, they should just cap them into different mastery level lists though. SO ML1 is all your basics like smite etc, whilst ML4 is where you can buy invisibility and the like. Restricts how many psykers can get the super powerful powers, but also makes them pay through the roof for them.

It would limit certain death stars straight away if it's costing 300pt just for that one model with invisibility.... Think of what ammo your opposition can bring for 300pts to nuke the psyker.

Ooh this.

-For each mastery level, a psyker must purchase a power from that mastery level before raising to another level. (So a ml 3 psyker would know a level 1,2 and 3 power. You don't learn top level spells by skipping the basics!)

-psychic focus: If a psyker chooses all his powers from one discipline, he knows the Primaris power for free in addition to all other powers as long as his mastery level is at least equal to the level of the spell.

Those two, plus:

-in the psychic phase, when adding up mastery levels to determine total casting dice, if two psykers or psychic units are within 12" of each other, only the higher level one adds to the warp charge pool.

Maybe that will force high psychic armies to space out units and not benefit from psychic deathstars as much such as draigo/loth/librarian if they want to keep their 80,000 warp charge dice. Also high level enemy psykers could lower your dice by being near your green level 1's.

And no matter how you slice it, invis is broken and can't be allowed to stay in its current form.

niv-mizzet wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Psychic powers should be able to be picked and thus paid for like old, they should just cap them into different mastery level lists though. SO ML1 is all your basics like smite etc, whilst ML4 is where you can buy invisibility and the like. Restricts how many psykers can get the super powerful powers, but also makes them pay through the roof for them.

It would limit certain death stars straight away if it's costing 300pt just for that one model with invisibility.... Think of what ammo your opposition can bring for 300pts to nuke the psyker.

Ooh this.

-For each mastery level, a psyker must purchase a power from that mastery level before raising to another level. (So a ml 3 psyker would know a level 1,2 and 3 power. You don't learn top level spells by skipping the basics!)

-psychic focus: If a psyker chooses all his powers from one discipline, he knows the Primaris power for free in addition to all other powers as long as his mastery level is at least equal to the level of the spell.

Those two, plus:

-in the psychic phase, when adding up mastery levels to determine total casting dice, if two psykers or psychic units are within 12" of each other, only the higher level one adds to the warp charge pool.

Maybe that will force high psychic armies to space out units and not benefit from psychic deathstars as much such as draigo/loth/librarian if they want to keep their 80,000 warp charge dice. Also high level enemy psykers could lower your dice by being near your green level 1's.

And no matter how you slice it, invis is broken and can't be allowed to stay in its current form.

Oh no man, that's far too complicated.

I just mean a ML 1 psyker can only purchase from the ML1 list, and then only 1 power, and they would all be 10pts

This then works it way up to level 4, where you can purchase 4 powers and you have access to the ML4 powers. You can choose to purchase all 4 from ML4 if you want, but they will cost 40pts each, or a combination of any from all 4 lists you have access too.

No more free primaris psychic powers, but no more forgetting powers either as that would suck if you only had one power anyway. At this point, the psychic list can be vastly reduced to just sling away a load of the rubbish powers, and then codex's can have their own ML1,2,3 & 4 powers added to add flavour, but wouldn't require a full list of them.

I would think anyone having ever played any rpg or level-up system ever could instinctively understand the guy getting the appropriate level power at each level.

I don't think it's complicated at all.

I like the first 2 bullet points but not the last 1. That is a serious nerf to the psychic phase.
Yeh we all agree on invis then!

I see where you guys are coming from but paying 50+ just on ML to get powers will just make psykers go extinct, and appear only in seerstar/draigostar. That will only make the situation worse for the psychic phase. Also, although fantasy's magic system is good, they need to stay separate to give variation to the games.

Also invis is the most OP gak ever pls nerf

What I meant was complicated and messy, the idea that a there are ML level caps & different psychic disciplines.

There would just be ML 1,2,3,4 not ML 1,2,3,4 & categories within that, no primaries powers, you want a power you pay for it.

The first bullet point would be cool though, so a ML4 can only have 1 ML4 power and would be required to purchase a 1,2 & 3 power to unlock the 4 powers.


Lastly, I got a little bit confused reading it the first time, I thought you were suggesting any psyker can purchase their way up to whatever level they wanted. Screw the idea of multiple inquisitors and librarians and all sorts all ML4. Only models that should be ML 4 will be the alpha, or close to alpha level psykers in the fluff, so Eldrad, Ahriman etc.

Personally would rather rework the psy system all together.

Something that uses command range (like 24" of a pysker)

And all spells have to be fought between the two where mastery levels make a damn difference.

Thinking fantasy style where too cast you need to reach a number + mastery level. where the warp gives you a random amount of dice to use.