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 alextroy wrote:
That was only true during 8th and 9th Editions. Back in the 3rd-7th Editions, you did make a Psychic Test to gain the ability to make a Shooting Attack with your psychic power.

Tyranid psykers didn't need to make a psychic test to make shooting attacks (in 3rd and 4th, we do not talk about 5th and 6th).

Psychic Powers in general have been screwy in the last edition.

They are more powerful then they've ever been.

In all previous editions, blanks have been immune to Psychic attacks.

Not anymore!

I'm a soulless psyker assassin... and my only defense against [psychic] is that I get a crummy Feel No Pain against the attacks im supposedly immune to.

Should Grey Knights have to make a test to stab people with their swords? They're all Psychic weapons, unless replaced with their gakky CCW.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Psychic Powers in general have been screwy in the last edition.

They are more powerful then they've ever been.

In all previous editions, blanks have been immune to Psychic attacks.

Not anymore!

I'm a soulless psyker assassin... and my only defense against [psychic] is that I get a crummy Feel No Pain against the attacks im supposedly immune to.

When a psyker tries to mess with your soul directly, a blank should be entirely immune.
When a psyker throws a boulder at you with their telekinesis, a blank should have no special protection.

Yeah agree, blanks should be immune to psychic abilities. But a psychic fire ball is still a fire ball if you take away the psychic part.

 Tyran wrote:
Yeah agree, blanks should be immune to psychic abilities. But a psychic fire ball is still a fire ball if you take away the psychic part.

So why don't we define precisely what the 'psychic' part is adding to the attack?

Then, to use your example, the psychic-immune model could disregard the psychic buff to the attack but could still potentially be affected by the non-psychic aspect of the fireball (or bullet or blade or whatever the psychic buff is being applied to).

 Tyran wrote:
Yeah agree, blanks should be immune to psychic abilities. But a psychic fire ball is still a fire ball if you take away the psychic part.

What if it's psychic "witch-fire" made up of the warp?

There's too many caveats.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Yeah agree, blanks should be immune to psychic abilities. But a psychic fire ball is still a fire ball if you take away the psychic part.

What if it's psychic "witch-fire" made up of the warp?

There's too many caveats.

Then it depends how strong the blank is.

A Culexus could, reasonably, suppress pure warpfire in an area around them, only getting a little toasty.
A weaker blank, without the gear of a Culexus, might not be touched directly by the fire but the heat would cause damage anyway.

And here's the thing-a Librarian has Smite as their psychic attack. Is it warp lightning? Fire started by psychic might, but otherwise normal? Hurling large rocks and debris?
We don't know. That's true for most psychic powers.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Yeah agree, blanks should be immune to psychic abilities. But a psychic fire ball is still a fire ball if you take away the psychic part.

What if it's psychic "witch-fire" made up of the warp?

There's too many caveats.

Yes, in which case you go for the most general and least restrictive one and don't try to make someone immune to a whole weapon class that has too many caveats.

 Tyran wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Yeah agree, blanks should be immune to psychic abilities. But a psychic fire ball is still a fire ball if you take away the psychic part.

What if it's psychic "witch-fire" made up of the warp?

There's too many caveats.

Yes, in which case you go for the most general and least restrictive one and don't try to make someone immune to a whole weapon class that has too many caveats.

And that's why you'll never see him take the field.

 Jidmah wrote:
I think they should stick with having different powers for different psykers.

I disagree, because...

 Jidmah wrote:

This allows multiple psykers in an army to fulfill different roles, even without bespoke army rules.

Letting EVERY army's psykers choose a power from a list does the same thing, AND it's YOUR DUDES.

See, the problem with assigned powers is this: Let's say I'm running a first company, all terminator army and I want three psykers... Guess what? They're all the same. I like the phobos psyker model and I want to run two... Why shouldn't one have access to a utility power while the other is on offense?

I’d like options to return for all models.
Not just psykers.

I think, if most all characters got a couple of ability options, letting Psykers choose at the start of the game instead in list building would be a nifty boost to give them.

 PenitentJake wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
I think they should stick with having different powers for different psykers.

I disagree, because...

 Jidmah wrote:

This allows multiple psykers in an army to fulfill different roles, even without bespoke army rules.

Letting EVERY army's psykers choose a power from a list does the same thing, AND it's YOUR DUDES.

See, the problem with assigned powers is this: Let's say I'm running a first company, all terminator army and I want three psykers... Guess what? They're all the same. I like the phobos psyker model and I want to run two... Why shouldn't one have access to a utility power while the other is on offense?

My suggesting is that each faction has a small list of powers (1 offense, 1 defense and 1 utility, and with a respective point cost) while individual datasheets have their current bespoke powers, and you have the option of exchanging the psyker's bespoke power with one from the list.

I like the idea that psykers have specialized roles, but I would like to also have the option for more flexibility while still retaining the option for specialized powers.

Maybe let the psykers change their chosen power with a strategem, so you are never stuck with a power that's no longer needed in a game.

 PenitentJake wrote:
See, the problem with assigned powers is this: Let's say I'm running a first company, all terminator army and I want three psykers... Guess what? They're all the same. I like the phobos psyker model and I want to run two... Why shouldn't one have access to a utility power while the other is on offense?

I guess I didn't properly explain myself. What I was saying is that termiantor librarians shouldn't have the same powers as phobos librarians. I'm not opposed to either having more than one set of powers to chose from.

Cherry picking automatically puts all librarians in direct competition for the most efficient way to get access to offensive, utility and debuffs powers, which is why global list of psychic powers are bad.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
My suggesting is that each faction has a small list of powers (1 offense, 1 defense and 1 utility, and with a respective point cost) while individual datasheets have their current bespoke powers, and you have the option of exchanging the psyker's bespoke power with one from the list.

If you charge points for those, they are essentially the same as enhancements. I don't think GW will be able to balance them properly though, as - just like enhancements, just like psychic disciplines in the past - 90% of them tend to either be auto-takes or a waste of space. There also always is the issue that the value of certain abilities varies widely depending on who is casting it. "this unit gains a 5+ FNP", for example, has a completely different value when cast by a neurotyrant, a norn emissary or a brood of zoantropes. Judging from how GW has handled this for enhancements, it will always way to expensive to put on anything other than psyker who has the most synergy with it - defeating the whole point of creating faction powers in the first place.

How about something like this for ALL magical armies/characters. All psykers of those factions come with a build in ability, the same they do now. Then the faction would have a set 3-6 , as long as it is not 2 it should be okey, powers that any psyker could use instead of their build in abilty. those basic 3-6 power would be just that, basic. But some models/units/factions would have an ability to empower the ability, but in order to do that you would have some limits. No same empowered ability twice per turn and to empower you would have to fullfill some sort of condition. The condition would/could be different on a per model per faction basic.
So , to not use GK, an ork Wierdboy could use the tellyporta to make an ork unit move faster, but then the orks he is with wouldn't be able to use their unit ability (unless the rules stricktly said it was so, for example for orks it could be that ork psychic powers do not cancle out the units special rule, if the caster and unit happen to be in melee. For eldar farseers it could be the reverse etc). Then the Wierdboy could try to cast the empowered tellyporta, but that would require him to have X number of wounds/orks withing Y" (or half the number at double the range for each ork in melee). Casting an empowered tellyporta would mean that other ork psykers of the faction would not be able to cast the same power. And of course there would be exeptions like some eldar "storm seer" special character being able to cast an eld.storm after it was already cast or empower it for free.

"psychic" weapons could be the same. They would have a regular mode or they could get empowered, when a specific set of conditions were fullfilled.

And if GW really wanted to go crazy and let us play with psychic reactions, like those in Horus Heresy.

Why would casting da jump affect a unit's ability at all?

I mean, the abilities affected here are sticky objective and bomb squigs...