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If that is true then please explain to me the purpose of that sentence if the numbers of spells do not in fact depend on the mastery level.


This is simple logic.

It is 1 power cast per ML.

Any mathematical relationship other than 1:1 would have been written down in the rulebook... but it is not.
That's just common sense

XC18 wrote:
It is 1 power cast per ML.

Any mathematical relationship other than 1:1 would have been written down in the rulebook... but it is not.
That's just common sense

Real World Common Sense/Real World Logic/How it works in the real world has no bearing on the 40k Ruleset.

It is not 1:1 it is Unknown.

They do not say it is 1:1 so we have no idea what they meant.

I mean common sense about understanding the sentence.

Okay, let say you want to stick by the written rule: can you accept 1:1+1, or 1:2?, no because the rule doesn't specifically allow you. Well, then there is not much other possibility.... Right?

Let's be clear on a few things this does not need an FAQ at all. This is not unclear in anyway, just some people want it to be unclear. There are lots of things about the Psychic Phase that actually are unclear why do people try to make things worse? I just don't get it. That sentence gives no more permission for a 1:1 relationship than it does for 1:1000 relationship. That is actual commonsense that anyone with a rudimentary understanding of maths, logic or English would grasp. The sentence is purely contextual and fluff it is no more rules than hatches being blown on Drop Pods as it has no in game definable effect.

What we know 100% is if a ML1 psyker who has cast a power has a power he has not yet cast and has warp charge remaining in the pool he has permission to attempt to cast another power. For him to be limited to 1 power you need denial of that permission. The sentence in question does not do that.

So given the above facts anyone trying to claim psykers are limited to casting 1 power per mastery is either:

a) Lying, by making up rules or adding their own rules.
b) Is making statements about the rules without having read them.

Oh I just meant that when I read THAT sentence the first thing I have in mind is 1:1. That's why I am talking about common sense.
Now with that said I am not a rule lawerer so if you think I am wrong I am a liar and I make up rules that s cool I am not going to argue about a game lol.

Hollismason wrote:
If that is true then please explain to me the purpose of that sentence if the numbers of spells do not in fact depend on the mastery level.


This is simple logic.

It does depend, just not solely. As ml influences the number of wc you generate, this IS a dependency.

XC18 wrote:
Oh I just meant that when I read THAT sentence the first thing I have in mind is 1:1. That's why I am talking about common sense.

That is not the first thing that comes to my mind.

I read that sentence and I think "How is it dependent" then it does not answer and I move on knowing that the number of powers cast are dependent on ML, but knowing there are no rules that actually tell me this relationship.

The answer could just as easily be ML +1 because a lot of Psykers have only one power and will have Psychic Focus. The answer could just as easily be ML +2 because a lot of Psykers have only one power and will have Psychic Focus, and have a Force Weapon.

We just do not know as it never tells us this relationship.

Now with that said I am not a rule lawerer so if you think I am wrong I am a liar and I make up rules that s cool I am not going to argue about a game lol.

You are "not going to argue about a game"? Why did you come in here then (Aka.then why did you post in YMDC)?

So I was all ready to jump on this thread and start talking about how absurd it was! Obviously the amount of physic powers a pysker can manifest is related to the ML, duh!!!

But I have gone back and re-read the rules, and a few things spring up immediately.

Firstly, as has already been discussed, the only mention of ML worth noting is on pg 22, the number of physic powers a player can use each turn, blah blah blah.

Now at first I thought that it was clearly made obvious, was common sense etc etc, but there is NO EXPLICIT rule that states powers per turn = ML.

Secondly if you switch to pg 24, at the bottom under Manifesting Psychic powers, it states : "If, after attempting to manifest a physic power, you still have warp charges left, you can attempt to manifest a different power with the same unit, or select another of your psyker units and attempt to manifest a power. Assuming you have enough warp charge points, you can alternate back and forth between the psyker units this way, but no unit may attempt to manifest the same power twice."

If it was GWs intention to limit the amount of powers per turn, then this would have been the place to put said rule. Instead they freely state that you can al;alternate between psykers until you have run out of charge points.

and lastly, also on pg 24 it clearly states "Unless you have 0 warp charge points remaining, select one of your pskers units...etc"

Again, no mention of ML, no mention of a limit of powers per turn EXCEPT that if you have no more warp charge points left, you cannot continue.

IMO, someone can cast AS MANY POWERS as they like - no where in the rules does it state otherwise, and the only mention of ML makes NO mention to the limit of powers per turn.

As a Grey Knight player - my games just got a WHOLE LOT MORE INTERESTING.

Ah, good old page 24, which details the other massive issue with the psychic phase, ie. what does or does not compose "a Psyker unit"

 Azreal13 wrote:
Ah, good old page 24, which details the other massive issue with the psychic phase, ie. what does or does not compose "a Psyker unit"

Pg 159 - USR Brotherhood of Psykers/sorcerers - "A unit containing at least one model with this special rule is a pysker unit"

It's actually dodgy on what is a psychic unit and when a unit stops being a psychic unit.For example, if you have 2 Farseers in the same squad and they both have guide can they both cast guide once?It's just unclear because once a Psyker joins a unit that isn't Psychic Brotherhood, then what the hell happens, because he becomes part of that unit for all rules purposes.This is why that part needs a FAQ, and also why NOVA, BAO and others had to weigh in on it in their FAQS because it really is unclear.The psychic rules while not a complete just trainwreck are messy.

My point and no one has answered it is if there is no relation to ML and the limit on how many you can cast, then that sentence literally has no purpose. It's a very simple sentence but people like to take the rules and twist them as much as possible as if this is some sort of contest.

You can make anything complex if you apply enough ignorance is what I am saying.

Well, not you clearly.

The specific issue happens when a Psyker IC joins a unit.

The rules (which, unsurprisingly, I have read) state when an IC joins a unit, he is part of that unit for all rules purposes.

As the Psyker USR does not give permission to confer, and the IC is no longer a separate unit, RAW, the IC stops generating WC and ceases to be able to cast.

Additionally, should a Psyker IC join a Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers which knows the same power, not an unusual situation in GK or Daemons, then if one part tries to cast the power, it prevents the other from attempting to do so.

RAI, it probably plays like it always has, but RAW it's a mess.

But I'd be fairly sure of your argument before you start throwing srslys around and quoting the rulebook at people. Just sayin.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Well, not you clearly.

The specific issue happens when a Psyker IC joins a unit.

The rules (which, unsurprisingly, I have read) state when an IC joins a unit, he is part of that unit for all rules purposes.

As the Psyker USR does not give permission to confer, and the IC is no longer a separate unit, RAW, the IC stops generating WC and ceases to be able to cast.

Additionally, should a Psyker IC join a Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers which knows the same power, not an unusual situation in GK or Daemons, then if one part tries to cast the power, it prevents the other from attempting to do so.

RAI, it probably plays like it always has, but RAW it's a mess.

But I'd be fairly sure of your argument before you start throwing srslys around and quoting the rulebook at people. Just sayin.

Yeah, no one plays it this way as it's dumb and it's obviously a mistake and needs clarification, it's why if you look at the Tournament Faqs and the ones people follow this has clarification, because of the whole "Whoops I stopped being a Psyker ".

If your group plays it that way fine, more power to you but you're hamstringing your game. Most tourney's go along with Adepticon, Nova, or a BAO faq in order to just have ease of use and some minor tweaking. My local goes along with it as well it's a easy neutral party reference to use and I always strongly recommend just using one of their FAQs as they've got some pretty smart guys running those tournaments who make really good FAQs.

My HIWPI (and how I have been) is that you simply ignore the word "unit" pretty much in every instance it's used in the Psychic phase.

We do have a guy at the local club who believes that the limitation should apply on the powers cast, but I've yet to hear him suggest an argument which allows for that restriction but doesn't make IC Psykers disappear when attached to another unit (which we all agree is silly.)

Yeah, that's the problem with that interpretation there's no way around the , "Whoops, Psyker disappears"

My point and no one has answered it is if there is no relation to MLand the limit on how many you can cast, then that sentence literally has no purpose. It's a very simple sentence but people like to take the rules and twist them as much as possible as if this is some sort of contest. 

The rules are littered with non-functional sentences that serve no purpose rules wise. Why can't this be one of those sentences?

Why it is there is probably just contextual to help a new player understand the abstract concept of Mastery Levels and how they relate to Psykers (higher ML allows you to have and therefore manifest more powers each turn). Is it a little misleading? Sure if you don't read the rules that follow or assume that the dependency is a 1:1 relationship for no reason.

 FlingitNow wrote:

My point and no one has answered it is if there is no relation to MLand the limit on how many you can cast, then that sentence literally has no purpose. It's a very simple sentence but people like to take the rules and twist them as much as possible as if this is some sort of contest. 

The rules are littered with non-functional sentences that serve no purpose rules wise. Why can't this be one of those sentences?

Why it is there is probably just contextual to help a new player understand the abstract concept of Mastery Levels and how they relate to Psykers (higher ML allows you to have and therefore manifest more powers each turn). Is it a little misleading? Sure if you don't read the rules that follow or assume that the dependency is a 1:1 relationship for no reason.

Again, it's not some sort of word play contest or some sort of thing where your going to write out the winning sentence and Jervis Johnson is going to show up to your house and say " AH HA you got me now I am your slave for 100 years".

It's just silly and dumb to make a statement like " Well obviously this was written to show the philosophy". The book and rules are not a Philosophical statement on the abstract nature of themselves.

Likewise it is silly to say that they wrote that rule expecting you to make up the dependency yourself... it is a rulebook it is not a guess the rules book as you claim.

 FlingitNow wrote:


The rules are littered with non-functional sentences that serve no purpose rules wise. Why can't this be one of those sentences?

Why it is there is probably just contextual to help a new player understand the abstract concept of Mastery Levels and how they relate to Psykers.

It might be, but that causes 2 problems.
1) It is 1 of only 3 sentences in the entire sub-section, and it is the only one that was written in Bold print. Normally that indicates importance, not something that is 'non-functional'.
2) Because according to you, there is only an indirect dependence between ML and power uses, the *real* dependence would be between ML and the number of powers *known*; but that is not what the rule says. It says there is a dependence on ML and how many powers you can *use*.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 FlingitNow wrote:
Likewise it is silly to say that they wrote that rule expecting you to make up the dependency yourself... it is a rulebook it is not a guess the rules book as you claim.

Yeah, because GW has never written a poor rule, or one that couldn't be clearly followed....

Regardless of how anyone plays this, it is a poorly written rule.

 Bausk wrote:
Given it is not wholly a maths issue but also a contextual issue it's correct. Under the circumstances given the most basic value is correct. It is a simple and straight forward rule yet you needlessly add complexity that doesn't exist and infer a lack of education in others.

In this particular case the usage of 'Dependent' is in relation to the varible value of the psykers mastery level while being the sole source of value for how many powers may be manifested. Understanding the rule in context and not attempting to propose a superfluous mathematical problem are key.

I think the problem here is that you're assuming when one thing is defined as dependent on another that it must have a slope of 1, but that's not true. The lines y=x, y=(1/2)x, and y=2x are all equations where y is dependent on x. That's flingit's point, that even if they are dependent they never say if you can cast one more than your mastery level or one spell per, both of which are dependent relationships. You're the one who is filling in specific values when there aren't any listed in the rules.

It would also seem weird to me that they carefully specify all the things you need to check to cast a spell but then never even mention that you must track how many spells the psyker has cast in a turn, too. They give a detailed sequence of what to do to cast a spell and mastery level is never mentioned nor is a requirement made of keeping track of that information while warp charges and los requirements are clearly specified. I suspect this is more a case of a line being accidentally left in from the previous edition as we have many examples of the same things happening in the new codices.

Agree that the subject of how ML effects Powers per turn is unclear. I feel that it is probably meant as a 1 to 1 relationship (as otherwise as defined by the BRB ML has no relationship to powers cast at all, because ML has no direct connection to powers known, infact it is the secondary means of determining powers known). Also saying it is warp charge dependent, that is not really true either because if say I have 30 Lv 1 psykers. with 4 powers each. Their ability to cast those powers to some extent is not dependent on their own master level.

That said GW left out any explanation of the relationship.

When I TO I rule it as 1 to 1. Mostly because GW frequently assumes that people have knowledge of how things have worked in the past, and in the past it was 1 to 1.

But again there are no rules to back this up, any more than the rules back up no relationship, or ML + 1 or any other relationship.

It could just have easilly been intended as a 1 to 1+1 or 1 to 1+2 relationship, because a ML1 psyker can know two powers thanks to Psychic focus or Chaos Psychic focus and will sometimes even have a force weapon and know force.

So if a psyker has 1 power, and Psychic focus and a force weapon, it could have been intended to allow that psyker to cast all of the powers he knows in a single turn.

We just do not know what the relationship is and how it is dependent.

Like I said certainly not clear, to me powers Known is a bad metric because the BRB states that powers know are first determined by the models profile, then if not default to mastery level.

So powers known by definition is independent of mastery level (See models such as Be'lakor, and Fateweaver etc.), so saying it could be 1 to 1+1 because a model might know more powers to me is a bad argument, because Known powers is not dependent on Mastery level. Whereas it says Powers per turn is dependent on ML.

I agree that it is undefined as a relationship, I personally go with 1 to 1 simply because it is the easiest relationship to argue for because of history, simplicity (it is the same for all models at that point) and clarity to players.

That said If GW came out and said "psykers can cast all powers they know." I would not be shocked. I would also not be Shocked if they said nothing. So HIWPI and how I rule it in events I run is 1 to 1, just so a ruling exists.

Breng77 wrote:
Like I said certainly not clear, to me powers Known is a bad metric because the BRB states that powers know are first determined by the models profile, then if not default to mastery level.

So powers known by definition is independent of mastery level (See models such as Be'lakor, and Fateweaver etc.), so saying it could be 1 to 1+1 because a model might know more powers to me is a bad argument, because Known powers is not dependent on Mastery level. Whereas it says Powers per turn is dependent on ML.

I agree that it is undefined as a relationship, I personally go with 1 to 1 simply because it is the easiest relationship to argue for because of history, simplicity (it is the same for all models at that point) and clarity to players.

That said If GW came out and said "psykers can cast all powers they know." I would not be shocked. I would also not be Shocked if they said nothing. So HIWPI and how I rule it in events I run is 1 to 1, just so a ruling exists.

A ruling already exists. If you run out of warp charges then you can't cast powers. That is much easier to keep track of rather than remembering how many powers an individual psyker has cast. Trying to turn a bolded text that doesn't state anything into a rule is adding rules and making the psychic phase more complicated than it should be.

But the Bolded text does state something....it states that somehow ML and power per turn are related (PPT is dependent on ML) it just doesn't tell you how. SO stating it is meaningless is adding a rule (or subtracting) as well, to make each psyker potentially more powerful. I.e. if one psyker rolls most of your good powers now he is more powerful if he is not limited in any way. It is not much more complicated (you already need to track which powers have been cast, so by default you track how many) and could very well be the way things work. I also lean toward conservative rulings incase GW actually makes a statement.

The only stipulations in the BRB are:
a. a unit cannot cast (or attempt to cast) the same power twice
b. you can keep casting until you run out of warp charge

IIRC, a previous edition (5th?) made the rule that you may cast as many powers as your level. But that edition did not have warp charges to worry about.

So, to me, it seems perfectly clear (both RAW and RAI) that you are allowed to cast as many powers as you know until you run out of warp charge.

Alright, well I guess you can play it as '1:1' as long as you're making it clear to your opponent that you choose to follow 'x' rule this way instead of that. It just bugs me that a TO might actually decide to rule it this way, especially since large tournaments like NOVA have opted to follow the RAW reading because it in no way makes psychers overpowered. In practice being able to cast all your powers hasn't really mattered except in a few select cases (Grey knights casting Hammerhand and Force). And in this case I believe it is intended for a Grey Knight to be able to cast both on the same turn.

It also comes into play when you consider the whole multiple psykers in a squad thing.

Zimko wrote:
Alright, well I guess you can play it as '1:1' as long as you're making it clear to your opponent that you choose to follow 'x' rule this way instead of that. It just bugs me that a TO might actually decide to rule it this way, especially since large tournaments like NOVA have opted to follow the RAW reading because it in no way makes psychers overpowered. In practice being able to cast all your powers hasn't really mattered except in a few select cases (Grey knights casting Hammerhand and Force). And in this case I believe it is intended for a Grey Knight to be able to cast both on the same turn.

Don't see a ruling in the NOVA FAQ about this at all. So I guess you can interpret that as ruling "RAW" if you want to. I'm just not sure RAW is clear. RAW states that Powers per turn is Dependent on ML, which if you say cast all you know means you ignore that statement entirely. You are probably right it rarely matters, as for most armies you will run out of dice before you cast tons of powers (and models with tons of powers often have bad powers.). The biggest difference is for units like horrors, you can generate more Warp Charges than their ML, and know 4 powers, so could cast 3 Daemonology powers and FF. It also plays into the psychic battery style where some units hide out and just generate WC for stronger units.

In general the whole phase is a horrible set of rules as written. I simply rule on what I feel the intent of the statement is...and how I think GW would rule if they were to rule.