Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Vector Strike wrote:
All they had to do was to put an example paragraph...

Unfortunately, they did not and so we just don't know what they meant.

chanceafs wrote:

Naw wrote:
Are you sure the rules are in contradiction?

Also you did not answer my question.

I never claimed the rules were in contradiction, and I have in fact shown how they are logically related. ML determines how many warp charges you have, and how many powers you know... and how many warp charges you have + how many powers you know in turn determines how many powers you can cast.... therefore, how much you can cast is determined by your mastery level. (as the first rule states). What you have yet to do is show a single rule quote that disproves this chain of connection, or that proves "dependent on" = 1:1 ratio.

I didn't answer your question, because I don't see how it's relevant to the question at hand.

I can argue that since the IC is part of the unit by all rules purposes and the unit does not have brotherhood of psykers, the unit knows no powers and therefore cannot cast anything. Ie. the attached IC lacks the permission to cast more powers. Certainly that is not what they mean by that rule?

 Vector Strike wrote:
All they had to do was to put an example paragraph...

Dan is trying to cast a Protect power with one of his Eldar Warlocks. He picks up two dice (to have more chances to successfully cast it, even needing only 1 die) and rolls. He rolls a 6 and a 2, obtaining a success! Robin has no Warp Charge dice remaining, so cannot attempt to Deny the Witch against Dan's casting.
After resolving the psychic power, Dan would like to cast Conceal; his Warlock has access to this psychic power because of the Psychic Focus rule - so the Warlock knows 2 psychic powers even having only 1 Mastery Level (he could roll only once in a table the Warlock have access). Since the warp presence on this planet is strong (you rolled a 6 for your d6 when determining how many dice you have for the phase), the Warlock is going to attempt to cast another power, despite only being able to generate 1 warp charge on other planets where the thread between reality and the immaterial is stronger.

Forging that narrative!

chanceafs wrote:
And the problem with your logic is that the only justification for it is "that's how it worked in 6th ed" When, psychic powers are the thing that has changed the most since 6th ed, that is a very weak stance to take. The quote you are holding on to isn't specific enough to justify either interpretation, and therefor you have to go further into the chapter to find the meaning... which is exactly what I have done.

Alright, let's play this game. By your interpretation of the rules, the Scrolls of Magnus are now the most powerful Chaos upgrade in the game, capable of granting it's wielder the potential to cast most of the psyker powers in the game EVERY TURN. This was an item that in the edition it was created simply added more powers to your knowledge base to choose from, but screw rules as intended! We can now spam all those powers at will.

I believe (someone check this) that there is no reference to mastery level under the "Manifesting a Power" section. It simply states pick a psyker and a power until you have no dice left in the pool.

I have Mastery level 1 with a Force weapon.

I can cast 3 powers: Rolled for in my discipline, Discipline Primaris, and Force.

 Admiral General Aladeen wrote:
People like you guys that cant figure this simple thing out, where it actually TELLS YOU HOW MANY POWERS YOU CAN CAST (EQUAL TO YOUR MASTERY LEVEL) are the problem with this game, and part of the reason GW is the way they are.

Get out of your own asses, it is so obvious and you are just making yourselves look dumb trying to convince everyone that you can keep casting powers just cause you have warp charge.

Im done with this conversation, and I will be laughing at anyone that tries to play it that way, which likely, will be nobody but the 5-6 people in this thread arguing for it that way.

Wow, not really an open mind here.

I really hope they FAQ this soon, because I would really like to add Ahriman and the Scroll of Magnus to my army if it works as I think it does

 loreweaver wrote:
I believe (someone check this) that there is no reference to mastery level under the "Manifesting a Power" section. It simply states pick a psyker and a power until you have no dice left in the pool.

There wouldn't need to be. Manifesting a power is a single action. By the same logic, the very same Manifesting block doesn't state you move on to the next power, it ends at Resolving the power. What's being discussed is the number of powers you can manifest, or the number of times you can "repeat steps 1 through 5".

Kyutaru wrote:

chanceafs wrote:
And the problem with your logic is that the only justification for it is "that's how it worked in 6th ed" When, psychic powers are the thing that has changed the most since 6th ed, that is a very weak stance to take. The quote you are holding on to isn't specific enough to justify either interpretation, and therefor you have to go further into the chapter to find the meaning... which is exactly what I have done.

Alright, let's play this game. By your interpretation of the rules, the Scrolls of Magnus are now the most powerful Chaos upgrade in the game, capable of granting it's wielder the potential to cast most of the psyker powers in the game EVERY TURN. This was an item that in the edition it was created simply added more powers to your knowledge base to choose from, but screw rules as intended! We can now spam all those powers at will.

Adding more powers to your knowledge base won't let you spam powers, because you run out of warp charges just as quickly as before, and you can do it a maximum of 7 times in the game. Indeed all it does is expand your knowledge base of spells.

People like you guys that cant figure this simple thing out, where it actually TELLS YOU HOW MANY POWERS YOU CAN CAST (EQUAL TO YOUR MASTERY LEVEL) are the problem with this game, and part of the reason GW is the way they are.

The words 'equal to' do not appear.

Get out of your own asses, it is so obvious and you are just making yourselves look dumb trying to convince everyone that you can keep casting powers just cause you have warp charge.

That is what the rules for the psychic phase say to do. Keep selecting psykers and casting powers until you have 0 warp charges left. It doesn't have a step to say 'and make sure the psyker hasn't reached his casting limit'.

Kyutaru wrote:
, but screw rules as intended! We can now spam all those powers at will.

Acting like you know how rules were intended, rather than written, is a certain way to make it to everyone's ignore list on this forum.

The only people who know how many powers a psyker can cast are those that wrote the rules. Until we hear from them, there is no answer. The book does not cover it no matter how much you jump up and down and scream about "rules as intended".

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Kyutaru wrote:
, but screw rules as intended! We can now spam all those powers at will.

Acting like you know how rules were intended, rather than written, is a certain way to make it to everyone's ignore list on this forum.

The only people who know how many powers a psyker can cast are those that wrote the rules. Until we hear from them, there is no answer. The book does not cover it no matter how much you jump up and down and scream about "rules as intended".

The same logic applies to those claiming you can cast an infinite number of these powers so long as you know them all. It makes characters like Be'lakor and Fateweaver even better since they begin with more powers than anyone. Using a few heralds to generate enough charge for them to become your main spellslinger is cake. The rules do indicate that spell mastery is the dependency for how many powers you can cast per turn, yet these characters and characters with the Scroll of Magnus break that rule. This is the same warped logic that caused people to disbelieve pink horrors were capable of casting summons when it was clear as day that either everyone could or no one could, and which do you think was intended? Those logicians were smited by the FAQ and these will be the same, it's just semantics at this point.

As for rules as intended, there is no evidence to support a change in the fundamental formula for calculating powers per turn, yet plenty of evidence supporting that it hasn't changed from past editions, those past editions being the strongest with that "vague" allusion being another... so yes, I'll take the high road on this one. If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, and quacks like a duck, why the hell would you wait for the DNA test to see if it's a swan? If the choices are between Same As Every Other Edition and Something Radically New, which sounds like the safer bet to you? If you have any other answer than the one that's obvious, be my guest and speculate all you'd like. It'll be a lot quicker though if you just email the FAQers because this topic is going in circles and arriving at no consensus.

If you have 3 empty glasses and you tell the waitress you need beer based on your glasses, would your waitress bring you 4 beer? Or would she use common sense and bring you 3 beer?

If she did bring you 3 beer, would you then complain and say that you really wanted 4 beer?

You guys tryin to make gak up because you have one good psyker and you want to funnel warp charges from cheap units into him, its obvious what you're trying to do, and its obvious that it wont work. Get over it, get on with your warhammer lives and order a damn beer!

 Admiral General Aladeen wrote:
If you have 3 empty glasses and you tell the waitress you need beer based on your glasses, would your waitress bring you 4 beer? Or would she use common sense and bring you 3 beer?

If she did bring you 3 beer, would you then complain and say that you really wanted 4 beer?

You guys tryin to make gak up because you have one good psyker and you want to funnel warp charges from cheap units into him, its obvious what you're trying to do, and its obvious that it wont work. Get over it, get on with your warhammer lives and order a damn beer!

The waitress would look at you like you are special needs and ask you to clarify.

Also the waitress would probably bring you 1 beer of the same brand that you have been drinking and clear your table(or if you have been ordering 3 beers all night she would simply bring you your standard order).

What I am trying to say is that your real world example is flawed.

 Admiral General Aladeen wrote:
If you have 3 empty glasses and you tell the waitress you need beer based on your glasses, would your waitress bring you 4 beer? Or would she use common sense and bring you 3 beer?

If she did bring you 3 beer, would you then complain and say that you really wanted 4 beer?

You guys tryin to make gak up because you have one good psyker and you want to funnel warp charges from cheap units into him, its obvious what you're trying to do, and its obvious that it wont work. Get over it, get on with your warhammer lives and order a damn beer!

I like analogies! How about this one...

You have 6 different model rockets you can launch... but only 3 model rocket engines. Your friends all have model rockets too but they each only have 1 rocket and 1 engine. 3 of your friends give you their engines so that you can launch all 6 of your rockets!!

Replace rockets with generated powers and engines with mastery levels giving you dice.

Yes, but where does it say you are allowed to launch 6 rockets at the park that you all met at! the park has a 3 rocket limit..

Id like to point out that by your logic, fateweaver should be able to cast 6 spells per turn (4 change + 2 book powers) and if you wanted to go to the extreme of what you are trying to say, he should be able to cast 12 powers. I know I said I was done with this convo a while ago, but it is just REALLY bothering me because I actually have no idea how people could be this stupid. It is flabbergasting, but then again... 'Murica.....

There was a time I remember when people would intentionally take the less abusive interpretation of a rule when it wasnt 100% clear.

That time is long gone. Now the popular thing to do is to Easter egg hunt the rules and argue the absolute most abusive interpretations as though they have equal merit to actual sensible solutions.

I play CSM and demons, and I will be limiting my psykers to 1 power per mastery level each of my turns. (Providing I have the warp charges to do so)

 Admiral General Aladeen wrote:
Yes, but where does it say you are allowed to launch 6 rockets at the park that you all met at! the park has a 3 rocket limit..

"If, After attempting to manifest a psychic power, you still have Warp Charge points left, you can attempt to manifest another psychic power with the same unit... but no unit can attempt to manifest the same psychic power more than once per Psychic Phase."

As long as I still have powers and warp charge points, i can keep casting until I run out of one or the other. The only restriction is that I can't cast the same power twice from the same source. (or if you like the analogy... the park allows me to launch until I run out of engines, but I can't launch the same rocket twice and I can't give my friends my other rockets)

Zimko wrote:
(or if you like the analogy... the park allows me to launch until I run out of engines, but I can't launch the same rocket twice and I can't give my friends my other rockets)

And the smelly awkward kid in the bushes gets to shoot at your rockets with his BB gun.

 BarBoBot wrote:
There was a time I remember when people would intentionally take the less abusive interpretation of a rule when it wasnt 100% clear.

That time is long gone. Now the popular thing to do is to Easter egg hunt the rules and argue the absolute most abusive interpretations as though they have equal merit to actual sensible solutions.

I play CSM and demons, and I will be limiting my psykers to 1 power per mastery level each of my turns. (Providing I have the warp charges to do so)

I honestly don't think it is that abusive. In fact in the case of Grey Knights it actually nerfs them from 6th. I can't use Hammerhand on my turn and a force weapon on my opponent's turn like I used to. Now I can only cast 1 or the other for an entire game turn. You're still limited by your warp charge count. It only gets abused if you decide to take a bunch of weak psykers for the sole purpose of cranking up your warp charge count and channeling the powers thru 1 guy who has 7 powers.

Do forget the limit which says nr of powers one can cast depends on the mastery level.

Btw, this one rule saying a psyker in a unit is a unit by itself is interesting. There are a couple of threads that should be pointed towards that rule.

Until FAQed otherwise, HIWPI is ML=number of spells cast. While both sides have valid points, ML=number of spells cast is the only one that provides a level of consistency from psyker to psyker.

For example, two librarians in opposing armies, both ML2, both same points cost. One librarian split up his powers, so he has 2 powers (and can thus only cast 2 powers max). The other went all telepathy and has 3 powers. Now, if using the number of powers taken as the basis for # of powers cast per turn, the telepathy librarian is 50% more potent for free. Or worse, a ML1 psyker will always have 2 powers, making it effectively a ML2 unfocused psyker for free (minus one warp charge of course). It gets even worse with Chaos since they get the god primaris automatically for free, and then can generate all of their powers from another discipline and get the focus primaris too (if my understanding of that is accurate). Just doesn't exactly seem right in my mind.

Naw wrote:
Do forget the limit which says nr of powers one can cast depends on the mastery level.

Btw, this one rule saying a psyker in a unit is a unit by itself is interesting. There are a couple of threads that should be pointed towards that rule.

Yeah, it implies that a unit with 10 individual psykers can only cast a witchfire ONCE as a whole. Even if they all have that witchfire. At least that is how I read it.

 BarBoBot wrote:
There was a time I remember when people would intentionally take the less abusive interpretation of a rule when it wasnt 100% clear.

That time is long gone. Now the popular thing to do is to Easter egg hunt the rules and argue the absolute most abusive interpretations as though they have equal merit to actual sensible solutions.

I play CSM and demons, and I will be limiting my psykers to 1 power per mastery level each of my turns. (Providing I have the warp charges to do so)

I think very few people have posted their HIWPI interpretation. You should not assume that someone's RAW interpretation matches how they will play on the tabletop.

As I posted before, I believe it to be ambiguous RAW, with a good case for casting more powers than you have PMLs. But I will be limiting my Psykers to casting only as many powers as they have PMLs, because I believe that was what's intended; I know GW has a poor track record in regards to proper rules-wording, and I assume this has occurred again here.

And OF COURSE the popular thing to do is Easter Egging! It's fun to pry apart the rules!
Also, TOs should always engage in this activity. Why? So that they have a carefully-thought-out house-rule to answer the TFG at a tournament who tries to pull a fast one. This sort of thread is very helpful to TOs.

Zimko wrote:

 Admiral General Aladeen wrote:
Yes, but where does it say you are allowed to launch 6 rockets at the park that you all met at! the park has a 3 rocket limit..

"If, After attempting to manifest a psychic power, you still have Warp Charge points left, you can attempt to manifest another psychic power with the same unit... but no unit can attempt to manifest the same psychic power more than once per Psychic Phase."

As long as I still have powers and warp charge points, i can keep casting until I run out of one or the other. The only restriction is that I can't cast the same power twice from the same source. (or if you like the analogy... the park allows me to launch until I run out of engines, but I can't launch the same rocket twice and I can't give my friends my other rockets)

It says that AFTER telling you you can cast a number of spells based on your ML

BarBoBot wrote:
There was a time I remember when people would intentionally take the less abusive interpretation of a rule when it wasnt 100% clear.

That time is long gone. Now the popular thing to do is to Easter egg hunt the rules and argue the absolute most abusive interpretations as though they have equal merit to actual sensible solutions.

I play CSM and demons, and I will be limiting my psykers to 1 power per mastery level each of my turns. (Providing I have the warp charges to do so)

Yeah, I totally agree.. Player base has changed from reasonable people to 5 year old children who want their candy right fething now!!!

This argument is far more convoluted that it should be...thank god they fixed the "cant shoot without eyes" debacle! you guys would probably be all over that one as well!

While it is not an entirely grammatically clear piece, It is pretty easy to see what the intent of this rule was. Pretty much everyone I know would laugh you out of the FLGS for attempting something like this, just as they would have in 6th edition if you were to try and claim my Wraithguard couldn't shoot.

If the number of powers you can cast is in any way related to whether or not you gain Psychic Focus, or are equiped with a Force weapon, then why did the rules not mention this? Simple answer: The number of powers a Psyker can cast is NOT dependent on Psychic Focus or Force weapons. In fact, the rules never say, or even indicate that viewpoint at all.

 Admiral General Aladeen wrote:

Yeah, I totally agree.. Player base has changed from reasonable people to 5 year old children who want their candy right fething now!!!

Read the last sentence of my previous post.
Also, it's just a game. If you can't discuss rules without resorting to cursing and name-calling, then get out of YMDC.

 extremefreak17 wrote:
This argument is far more convoluted that it should be...thank god they fixed the "cant shoot without eyes" debacle! you guys would probably be all over that one as well!

While it is not an entirely grammatically clear piece, It is pretty easy to see what the intent of this rule was. Pretty much everyone I know would laugh you out of the FLGS for attempting something like this, just as they would have in 6th edition if you were to try and claim my Wraithguard couldn't shoot.

If the number of powers you can cast is in any way related to whether or not you gain Psychic Focus, or are equiped with a Force weapon, then why did the rules not mention this? Simple answer: The number of powers a Psyker can cast is NOT dependent on Psychic Focus or Force weapons. In fact, the rules never say, or even indicate that viewpoint at all.

The number of powers you can cast is not related to Psychic Focus or Force weapons... it is directly related to your mastery level because that determines how many warp charges you get.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would like to point out, that the mastery level of a psyker in 6e DID NOT determine how many powers that psyker could cast. It only determined how many warp charges it recieved which indirectly determined how many powers he could cast.

Eldrad had the ability to regenerate warp charges and was able to cast MORE than 4 powers a turn because of this, despite having a mastery level of 4. The mastery level has always represented the amount of charges available.

Now in 7e psykers can share their warp charges with each other, and the ambiguous rule you've quoted is only referring to the fact that mastery level still limits the number of warp charges available to your psykers, and therefore indirectly limits the number of powers a psyker can cast. But is not, and never was, 1:1.

 Admiral General Aladeen wrote:
If you have 3 empty glasses and you tell the waitress you need beer based on your glasses, would your waitress bring you 4 beer? Or would she use common sense and bring you 3 beer?

A good waitress would ask what you meant - because your statement wasn't clear and making any assumptions based on an unclear statement is a bad idea.

There's another statement later on that gives more information - does it mention Mastery Level at all? Oh - it doesn't? Hmm.

 extremefreak17 wrote:
While it is not an entirely grammatically clear piece, It is pretty easy to see what the intent of this rule was.

It really isn't. It is completely impossible to see what the intent was. For all we know, there was supposed to be a table in the Psychic Powers section akin to the Close Combat WS-comparison table or the hit table for shooting, where you reference the model's Mastery Level against some other figure to determine the number of powers they can cast. (It wouldn't be the first time they have left something critical out of the rulebook... they 'accidentally' left out a large chunk of the vehicle rules once...)

All we have is a statement that the Mastery Level determines how many powers you can cast. And that, by itself, is a meaningless statement. The number of legs I have determines how fast I can run. But if that's all the information I give you, you have absolutely no way of actually determining how fast I can run, and no way of knowing how I intended you to determine it.



Those arguing that you should be able to cast as many powers as you know aren't making a statement of intent. They're presenting an alternate way of determining the number of powers that may be cast from the information provided. It's not being presented as the 'right' way... just as another way that is just as valid, with the information we have, as assuming that it's just a number equal to your Mastery Level, or your Mastery Level cross-referenced on a table that was left out of the book against the number of the current turn, or checking your Mastery Level against the number of bottles of beer stacked on the side of the table, or subtracting your Mastery Level from 9, or comparing your Mastery Level against the highest Mastery Level in your opponent's army, or adding the Mastery Levels of all of your psykers and dividing by 7 and a half and then adding your waist measurement in inches and dividing by your shoe-size.

Any of those methods could be what was intended. Again, I'm inclined to think it was most likely supposed to be a straight 1:1 comparison... but there is no way to say unequivocally that this was the intention, or that it is the way that it will be played (which isn't always what was originally intended when the book was written, so the writer's intention isn't always relevant anyway).

 insaniak wrote:

 extremefreak17 wrote:
While it is not an entirely grammatically clear piece, It is pretty easy to see what the intent of this rule was.

It really isn't. It is completely impossible to see what the intent was. For all we know, there was supposed to be a table in the Psychic Powers section akin to the Close Combat WS-comparison table or the hit table for shooting, where you reference the model's Mastery Level against some other figure to determine the number of powers they can cast. (It wouldn't be the first time they have left something critical out of the rulebook... they 'accidentally' left out a large chunk of the vehicle rules once...)

All we have is a statement that the Mastery Level determines how many powers you can cast. And that, by itself, is a meaningless statement. The number of legs I have determines how fast I can run. But if that's all the information I give you, you have absolutely no way of actually determining how fast I can run, and no way of knowing how I intended you to determine it.



Those arguing that you should be able to cast as many powers as you know aren't making a statement of intent. They're presenting an alternate way of determining the number of powers that may be cast from the information provided. It's not being presented as the 'right' way... just as another way that is just as valid, with the information we have, as assuming that it's just a number equal to your Mastery Level, or your Mastery Level cross-referenced on a table that was left out of the book against the number of the current turn, or checking your Mastery Level against the number of bottles of beer stacked on the side of the table, or subtracting your Mastery Level from 9, or comparing your Mastery Level against the highest Mastery Level in your opponent's army, or adding the Mastery Levels of all of your psykers and dividing by 7 and a half and then adding your waist measurement in inches and dividing by your shoe-size.

Any of those methods could be what was intended. Again, I'm inclined to think it was most likely supposed to be a straight 1:1 comparison... but there is no way to say unequivocally that this was the intention, or that it is the way that it will be played (which isn't always what was originally intended when the book was written, so the writer's intention isn't always relevant anyway).

I understand your point here, but as you have already pointed out earlier, we have no formula for converting Mastery Levels into a number of powers that can be cast by one unit. Given this, any further RAW discussions are pretty pointless, unless something new is brought to light. This is why i have moved on to the subject of intent. My argument here is that the rule in question would most likely either have referenced Psychic Focus and Force Weapons, or not been written at all if it were meant to play a different way. For example, using the "cast as many as you have" theory, If i have a ML2 Psyker who rolls once one Divination and once on Telepathy, he can cast 2 powers a turn. Psyker #2 is also ML2, but has a force weapon and rolls both of his powers on Divination. He can manifest 4 powers. So if Psyker #1 and #2 are both ML2, but have different limits on the number of powers they can cast, how exactly does the rule in question make any sense if Masterly Level really isn't determining anything? Furthermore, if you are of the belief that there is no limit on the amount of powers that can be cast by one unit, why was the rule even written in the first place?

This is the thought process I am using to make an interpretation of RAW to give me, what I think is, a pretty solid RAI. "Mastery Level = Max powers a unit can cast per turn," seems like the most likely and simplest option here, much as the "Assume the eyes of my Wraithguard are somewhere on the head solution," was.