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Made in us
Deathwing Terminator with Assault Cannon






7th Ed brought to us a new phase called the psychic phase. Generally, it meant that if you had lot more psykers than your opponent, you gain that much free actions.

Psychic phase had its pros and cons, but never truly gave the opponent an advantage with perils and universal deny's etc. With the introduction of 8th ed psychic phase however, everything went out the window.

Powers are now distilled to ~3 best of the best abilities from the mess that was 7th ed psychic powers, and undeniably easier to cast them. You really don't have any means of protecting yourself from enemy psychic powers unless yourselves were stacked with powerful psykers (the old ML3 psykers).

This is all fun and dandy, but having a whole phase dedicated to it is unnecessary IMO. It would be much better to blend in the psychic phase like pre-7th ed into other phases. The following is a rough proposal that will attempt to maintain the current functionality of psychic phase while seamlessly integrating them into the old 3-phase system (now 4 since they split charge and fight into separate phases)

Step 1 - Bring back the 7th Ed psychic power types, namely: Witchfire, Malediction, and Blesssing
Step 2 - Introduce a new "to hit" mechanic for 'witchfire' type weapons by using the current warp charge system; introduce a new “to cast” system for malediction/blessing by using the current warp charge system
Step 3 - Turn Witchfire powers into a weapon entry, usable in shooting or fight phase - purifying flames = witchfire d6, always hits, warp lance = witchfire 1, so on and so forth *since a now model can fire/swing all of its weapons, it doesn’t matter whether offensive powers are activated in psychic phase or shooting/fighting phase
Step 4 - Turn Blessing powers into proactive, phase specific abilities, much like how IG orders function.
Step 5 - Turn Malediction powers into reactive abilities, used when a certain condition is met *i.e. death hex removes invul saves from a target. Revise the power to trigger when an eligible target attempts to make an invulnerable save. If manifested, the target unit cannot make any invulnerable saves until the end of the turn. If anyone is familiar with Yu-Gi-Oh card game, it’s similar to how a ‘trap card’ functions.

Step 4 & 5 will needs some more thinking done for powers that last until the next psychic phases and those that affect target characteristics, but this is the gist of the proposed revision to the psychic phase.

C&C please.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/11/16 21:16:30


 
   
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Norn Queen






In short. No.

1) Codexes give you 6 powers.

2) Anything trying to bring back ANY aspect of 7th edition psychic phase should be nuked from orbit immediately.
   
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Never Forget Isstvan!






I agree that psychic buffs should be more like abilities and shouldn't peril. They should just go off on a set dice roll (i.e. Catalyst is successfully manifested on a 3+).

Attacks and curses should still be similar to how they are now though.

standard grunts get smited or cursed, roll 2d6 and if you beat their cast roll by 3 you deny.

weak psycher has to beat it by 2 and can attempt to deny anything cast within 12".

strong psycher has to beat it by 1 and can attempt to deny anything cast within 18".

for every attempt to deny beyond the first you take a mortal wound.



Gives every army a chance to stop stuff but doesnt let you completely shut down opponent psychic phase.

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 BaconCatBug wrote:
In short. No.

1) Codexes give you 6 powers.

2) Anything trying to bring back ANY aspect of 7th edition psychic phase should be nuked from orbit immediately.


1) Of which 2 or 3 tops are good, and 3 are inferior to smite.
2) Anyone that thinks 8th edition Smitespam and autopick powers are just fine should be subject to Low Orbit Ion Cannon.

Two can play this game.

Anyway, on a more serious note, I state that 40k Psyker powers (both manifesting and denial) should move away from pass-fail and go to Degrees of Success. Ex: a modified Kings of War.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/16 22:55:57


 
   
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 BaconCatBug wrote:
2) Anything trying to bring back ANY aspect of 7th edition psychic phase should be nuked from orbit immediately.


This isn't to suggest it should go back to 7th ed psychic powers, but rather BEFORE the mess that 7th ed was.

I've started the game on 3rd ed, and went on hiatus till 6th ed. During those times, psychic powers were cast during one's shooting phase, in lieu of shooting with its ranged weapon. Force weapon was another phase based "blessing" type power, activated on one's fight phase.

Having a whole dedicated phase to psychic power in itself was a big mess of 7th ed.
   
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 skchsan wrote:
 BaconCatBug wrote:
2) Anything trying to bring back ANY aspect of 7th edition psychic phase should be nuked from orbit immediately.


This isn't to suggest it should go back to 7th ed psychic powers, but rather BEFORE the mess that 7th ed was.

I've started the game on 3rd ed, and went on hiatus till 6th ed. During those times, psychic powers were cast during one's shooting phase, in lieu of shooting with its ranged weapon. Force weapon was another phase based "blessing" type power, activated on one's fight phase.

Having a whole dedicated phase to psychic power in itself was a big mess of 7th ed.


Au contraire, the issue with the spreading out Psychic Powers throughout the turn was the fact that you had extremly asymmetric cases of "when to actually cast." Orks cast *all* their Psychic Powers in the Shooting Phase, Eldar cast *all* their powers "at the start of the turn" (arguably including their "Psychic Shooting Attacks," which were by default cast in the Shooting Phase), and Ward Grey Knights had its share of Psychic Powers that could be cast during the opponent's turn.

Having a single phase to get all Psychic stuff out of the way was only a sane decision to make.

Of course, getting rid of Phases altogether in favor of an ATB system would be an improvement, but GW gonna GW...
   
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 skchsan wrote:
7th Ed brought to us a new phase called the psychic phase. Generally, it meant that if you had lot more psykers than your opponent, you gain that much free actions.


Sort of. I mean, a librarian has never been a steal for his price if you don't factor in his psychic ability. How many points would you pay for a multi-wound tactical marine with a force staff? Take that price, subtract it from the librarian's actual price. That's how many points you're paying for "free actions" in the psychic phase.

 skchsan wrote:

Psychic phase had its pros and cons, but never truly gave the opponent an advantage with perils and universal deny's etc. [/...


Powers are now distilled to ~3 best of the best abilities from the mess that was 7th ed psychic powers, and undeniably easier to cast them. You really don't have any means of protecting yourself from enemy psychic powers unless yourselves were stacked with powerful psykers (the old ML3 psykers).


I've always found it odd that people seem to expect to have good odds of shutting down enemy powers. The majority of the average psyker's price tag librarian, farseer, sanctioned psyker, etc.) seems to be the cost of being able to do the psychic thing. Being able to reliably shut down a psychic ability is like being able to reliably ignore a devastator's dakka. And 7th edition made it easier to deny powers than any other edition unless you were trying to stop one of the super duper psyker formations. You just had to spend basically all of your dice to do so.
 skchsan wrote:

This is all fun and dandy, but having a whole phase dedicated to it is unnecessary IMO. It would be much better to blend in the psychic phase like pre-7th ed into other phases.


Eh. I like having a dedicated psychic phase. Having powers spread out across every phase of the turn made it really easy to forget to do a power. The powers that happened "at the start of your movement phase" raised confusion when you were trying to figure out whether or not they happened before other "start of the movement phase" rules like deepstriking, etc. I acknowledge the advantages of being able to wait to cast a power until after I know exactly what the board is looking like, but I think getting powers out of the way all at once mostly helps to streamline things.

 skchsan wrote:

The following is a rough proposal that will attempt to maintain the current functionality of psychic phase while seamlessly integrating them into the old 3-phase system (now 4 since they split charge and fight into separate phases)

Step 1 - Bring back the 7th Ed psychic power types, namely: Witchfire, Malediction, and Blesssing
Step 2 - Introduce a new "to hit" mechanic for 'witchfire' type weapons by using the current warp charge system; introduce a new “to cast” system for malediction/blessing by using the current warp charge system
Step 3 - Turn Witchfire powers into a weapon entry, usable in shooting or fight phase - purifying flames = witchfire d6, always hits, warp lance = witchfire 1, so on and so forth *since a now model can fire/swing all of its weapons, it doesn’t matter whether offensive powers are activated in psychic phase or shooting/fighting phase
Step 4 - Turn Blessing powers into proactive, phase specific abilities, much like how IG orders function.
Step 5 - Turn Malediction powers into reactive abilities, used when a certain condition is met *i.e. death hex removes invul saves from a target. Revise the power to trigger when an eligible target attempts to make an invulnerable save. If manifested, the target unit cannot make any invulnerable saves until the end of the turn. If anyone is familiar with Yu-Gi-Oh card game, it’s similar to how a ‘trap card’ functions.

Step 4 & 5 will needs some more thinking done for powers that last until the next psychic phases and those that affect target characteristics, but this is the gist of the proposed revision to the psychic phase. [

C&C please.


I like some of this, but I see a lot of problems you'd have to work around.
1. Bringing back the witchfire/blessing/malediction labels (possibly as "power keywords") is useful if you have a bunch of mechanics that allow you to easily explain how to interact with those keywords. Otherwise, they're probably unnecessary. For instance, if you want warp time to be a "blessing," and if you want a "blessing" to be a power that you activate during a phase of your own turn, you can generally just say, "Use this power during your X phase," or "Use this power when you Y." I could see this being useful for situations where you want to make Black Templars good at resisting powers that target them (witchfires and maledictions) but not so good at denying the blessings that enemies cast on themselves.
2. I'm not clear on what you mean here. As far as I'm aware, the current system does not use "warp charges." Are you saying that witchfires should hit automatically if you pass a psychic test rather than relying on ballistic skill?
3. I very much like the idea of handling witchfires as just another type of shooting attack, but I think this works best if you largely divorce them from psychic tests. See my personal pet methodology below for details.
4. I can mostly get behind this, though again, I feel like handling psychic powers in a single phase helps keep things simple. Also, some powers that intuitively seem like they should be blessings (like Protect or Fortune for eldar) aren't really tied to your own phases so much as they're tied to your opponent's. So if you tie Fortune (basically Feel No Pain) to a phase, do you make it only work in your own fight phase? Do you make it protective "malediction" that can be activated in your opponent's shooting and/or fight phase? Or do you just have a long list of exceptions to the "this ability is activated in X phase and has Y benefit" guideline?
5. Similarly, my Doom power (which lets me reroll failed to-wound rolls against a specific enemy target) feels like a "malediction" because it targets an enemy unit and makes bad things happen to them, yet it would mechanically be closer to what you describe as a blessing because it affects my own dice pool.

Overall, I guess I'm just not seeing a benefit to spreading powers out across multiple phases or to adding wonky restrictions to them. Is the idea to simplify the existing powers? Are the existing psychic powers complicated enough that we feel we need to simplify them by adding on general rules and categories?

MY PET PSYCHIC IDEAS:
*Treat psychic powers as wargear. Some units can purchase powers from a list. Others are stuck with the power(s) on their datasheet.

*Most powers have an "always on" version that does not require a psychic test to utilize. This version of a given power is generally weaker than powers we think of today or else has only targets the psyker. For instance, warp time's passive mode might give the psyker with that power +1 Attack and an extra 3" to their movement speed. Fortune might just be another brand of FNP that only benefits the farseer that knows it. Flickering Flames of Tzeentch (or whatever it's called now) would just be a shooting attack.

*Some powers would have more powerful and dramatic applications that require a psychic test. Warp Time might have its usual affect, but only if you perform a psychic test and thus risk perils. Ditto Fortune. Flickering Flames might go up in strength or number of shots or something if you pass your test. If you fail the test, you still have the passive version of the power. You just also have the option to "push" your psyker to get bigger, flashier effects.

*The dramatic effects of some powers might have more potent versions if you roll high enough on a psychic test. Much like how smite gets better if you roll high on a psychic test now. So the normal dramatic version of Flickering Flames might only up the strength of the shooting attack by 1, but succeeding with a 10 or more on the psychic test might bump the strength up even more or increase the number of shots in addition to upping the strength or whatever.

*When "pushing" to get a dramatic version of a power off, you have the option of increasing your result by up to X points, but you take X wounds for doing so. So if you really need to make sure Doom goes off this round or really need to get the better version of Flickering Flames off to wipe out the enemy, you can pretty much guarantee it will happen, but you might end up sacrificing a unit to do it.

*Abilities that completely shut down psychic abilities would be rare . You'd be much more likely to see effects that impose a mild (-1 or -2) penalty on psychic tests. As a result, you might have to inflict wounds on yourself and "push" to get powers off when under the effect of Shadows of the Warp, for instance, but you'd still usually be able to ensure that you get the power off.

The intended results of all this are...
*You can have psykers with "safe" powers again, much like grey knights, warlocks, and shadowseers used to have.

*You can ensure that your psykers will always benefit from their powers to some extent or another even on a failed psychic test, but you have to be a bit more risky to get off the more potent effects. So no more twiddling your thumbs while your librarian looks constipated and fails to do anything psychic at all.

*When you do suffer wounds for casting psychic powers (by pushing or by perils), you feel like your psyker was straining his abilities. No more, "Oops. I guess today is the day that my 8,000 year old warlock accidentally made his head explode." Yeah, your chaos sorcerer (almost) killed himself casting smite just now, but that's only because he was being a BAMF and conjuring as especially potent energy blast. Sorcerer Goku didn't poop himself while messing up an energy blast. He KO'd himself by putting all of his energy into a Spirit Bomb.

TLDR; Paying points for a psyker who fails to be psychic is lame. Ancient, super talented psykers randomly blowing their heads up while trying to cast powers is lame. Risking/draining your health to make a power more potent and flashy is cool.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/17 04:35:28



ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
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East Bay, Ca, US

The only change i'd make is:

1. Adjust the powers that are useless. I mean some really are. Just why? Why have them? It was a problem in 7th, it's a problem still here.

2. Delete smite entirely. Every discipline gains a primaris power, which can be cast multiple times. So Space Wolves would have a primaris power which is totally different from Dark Angels, which is totally different from Dark Hereticus discipline.

3. Renowned psykers which cost more points should be better at casting powers. It makes no sense that if Eldrad casts smite, a lowly 40 point primaris psyker can do the same thing. We don't need degrees of success, just higher likelihood to succeed.

7th edition psychic was just awful. I mean seriously awful.

 Galas wrote:
I remember when Marmatag was a nooby, all shiney and full of joy. How playing the unbalanced mess of Warhammer40k in a ultra-competitive meta has changed you

Bharring wrote:
He'll actually *change his mind* in the presence of sufficient/sufficiently defended information. Heretic.
 
   
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Wyldhunt wrote:
1. Bringing back the witchfire/blessing/malediction labels (possibly as "power keywords") is useful if you have a bunch of mechanics that allow you to easily explain how to interact with those keywords. Otherwise, they're probably unnecessary. For instance, if you want warp time to be a "blessing," and if you want a "blessing" to be a power that you activate during a phase of your own turn, you can generally just say, "Use this power during your X phase," or "Use this power when you Y." I could see this being useful for situations where you want to make Black Templars good at resisting powers that target them (witchfires and maledictions) but not so good at denying the blessings that enemies cast on themselves.
Right. The intent here is to categorize the psychic powers into those: 1. inflict damage, 2. modifies characteristics/phases, 3. modifies rolls. The function of this would be to provide keywords to the powers to govern psychic power interactions.

Wyldhunt wrote:
2. I'm not clear on what you mean here. As far as I'm aware, the current system does not use "warp charges." Are you saying that witchfires should hit automatically if you pass a psychic test rather than relying on ballistic skill?
Warp charge is the number you need to beat to successfully cast. Seems like 8th ed retained that phrase without carrying the mechanic over. This simply means that the roll to manifest remains the same as is, but when firing your "psychic weapon," you would roll 2d6 instead of consulting your BS. Eligible psykers will be able to attempt at denying as normal. This is to reflect that while psychic attacks will not be resistible by non-psyker units like how sufficient AP will negate armor saves, psyker units have a defensive mechanism in which to resist the psychic based damages.

Wyldhunt wrote:
3. I very much like the idea of handling witchfires as just another type of shooting attack, but I think this works best if you largely divorce them from psychic tests. See my personal pet methodology below for details.
I really like your idea of psyker wargear. This will once again allow us to distinguish from high-level psykers with run-of-the-mill primaris psykers.

Wyldhunt wrote:
4. I can mostly get behind this, though again, I feel like handling psychic powers in a single phase helps keep things simple. Also, some powers that intuitively seem like they should be blessings (like Protect or Fortune for eldar) aren't really tied to your own phases so much as they're tied to your opponent's. So if you tie Fortune (basically Feel No Pain) to a phase, do you make it only work in your own fight phase? Do you make it protective "malediction" that can be activated in your opponent's shooting and/or fight phase? Or do you just have a long list of exceptions to the "this ability is activated in X phase and has Y benefit" guideline?
5. Similarly, my Doom power (which lets me reroll failed to-wound rolls against a specific enemy target) feels like a "malediction" because it targets an enemy unit and makes bad things happen to them, yet it would mechanically be closer to what you describe as a blessing because it affects my own dice pool.
Right. This is where my proposed rule started to get muddy. I suppose the main thing I am discontent with the current psychic phase is that psychic powers that buff/debuff are just simply single target version of auras. The only thing that distinguishes psychic buff/debuffs are that they are temporary while aura abilities persist until the source is dead.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Overall, I guess I'm just not seeing a benefit to spreading powers out across multiple phases or to adding wonky restrictions to them. Is the idea to simplify the existing powers? Are the existing psychic powers complicated enough that we feel we need to simplify them by adding on general rules and categories?

The main issue that I see is that psyker based armies have a whole phase to play out while the other army just skips it entirely. Certain armies potentially has an extra phase to dish out MW's before start firing their ranged weapons. Take for example, Eldar/GK vs Tau. Core rule phases should be playable by all armies, not just select few.
   
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Probably work

 Marmatag wrote:
2. Delete smite entirely. Every discipline gains a primaris power, which can be cast multiple times. So Space Wolves would have a primaris power which is totally different from Dark Angels, which is totally different from Dark Hereticus discipline.


I weep for the inevitability of half the armies having horrible/unusable primaris powers, while the other half have decent, and then one inevitably has one so good they don't bother ever using any of their other powers, but I do really like your idea.

I think the uncomfortable reality is that there's just more armies than GW has the creativity to uniquely support in a balanced fashion, especially with basically reprinting the same army rules (plus or minus a handful of words here and there) and handing them out to army after army.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, yeah, never again the 7th edition psychic phase. That was half the reason I quit playing 40k to begin with.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/17 20:40:14


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 skchsan wrote:
The main issue that I see is that psyker based armies have a whole phase to play out while the other army just skips it entirely. Certain armies potentially has an extra phase to dish out MW's before start firing their ranged weapons. Take for example, Eldar/GK vs Tau. Core rule phases should be playable by all armies, not just select few.


Close combat Tau and Daemon gunlines when?

Or...switch to an ATB structure. Phases are antiquated.
   
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 MagicJuggler wrote:
Close combat Tau and Daemon gunlines when?

Or...switch to an ATB structure. Phases are antiquated.


You are right about Tau and fight phase issue. In regards to the latter, they just need to fix assault. Perhaps the new tau codex is going to bring us something to do in lieu of charging and fighting. Balancing shooting and fighting phase is a whole different can of worms you're opening here. Plus, why would you want a close combat tau? And a gunline daemons? C'mon. I'd accept a smitefest daemon list.

The TLDR is that psychic phase is currently provides undue advantages to armies that can spam psykers with amassed smites. Damage causing powers should be tied in with the current shooting and fighting phase systems.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/11/17 21:29:42


 
   
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Just nuke Psychic Focus. It unnecessarily gimps armies which would otherwise be able to rely on psychic powers to cover up their deficiencies.

Or change psychic focus to read,

Psychic Focus: Friendly models may not be affected by the same friendly psychic power more than once per turn.

IE: Once you successfully cast X power on a unit, they cannot gain the benefit of that same psychic power again that turn. No multiple movement schenangins. But you can attack enemies with the same power from multiple sources, or have two psykers with the same buff power cast it on two different units.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/18 02:06:13


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 Grey Templar wrote:
Just nuke Psychic Focus. It unnecessarily gimps armies which would otherwise be able to rely on psychic powers to cover up their deficiencies.

Or change psychic focus to read,

Psychic Focus: Friendly models may not be affected by the same friendly psychic power more than once per turn.

IE: Once you successfully cast X power on a unit, they cannot gain the benefit of that same psychic power again that turn. No multiple movement schenangins. But you can attack enemies with the same power from multiple sources, or have two psykers with the same buff power cast it on two different units.


Still leaves you with a pretty crap psychic system that can be IMMENSELY improved.

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 skchsan wrote:
 MagicJuggler wrote:
Close combat Tau and Daemon gunlines when?

Or...switch to an ATB structure. Phases are antiquated.


You are right about Tau and fight phase issue. In regards to the latter, they just need to fix assault. Perhaps the new tau codex is going to bring us something to do in lieu of charging and fighting. Balancing shooting and fighting phase is a whole different can of worms you're opening here. Plus, why would you want a close combat tau? And a gunline daemons? C'mon. I'd accept a smitefest daemon list.

The TLDR is that psychic phase is currently provides undue advantages to armies that can spam psykers with amassed smites. Damage causing powers should be tied in with the current shooting and fighting phase systems.


Not particularly. They are still doing the same damage no matter what. You could even argue that merging Psychic attacks and denial into the same phase will make Psykers better, since you can now shoot bubblewrappers before using Smite on the important stuff, or snipe enemy Psykers before they get to Deny...

...but sure, let's roll it into one phase.
   
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I'm not completely sure where I really want psychic powers in 40k to be; I've always had the same problem with magic in fantasy/Age of Sigmar as well, as GW seems to alternate between watered down to the point of being incredibly boring (which I'd say 8th is at right now) and either too powerful/too complex or too random.

I actually liked the basic idea behind the use of warp charge in 7th, but I didn't like them putting it all in its own phase.


I do think that psychic powers should go back to a pool of dice, but perhaps with a more meaningful bidding system than before. This is a system I've toyed with and tried in the past in various forms, though it's a bit rough for 8th edition:
  • Each player's dice pool for the game turn is two plus one for each mastery level in their army; for 8th as-is this would be equal to the number of powers that a psyker has on top of their default power (Smite or equivalent), plus their number of Deny the Witch attempts, so a psyker that knows Smite + 1 other power, and can make one Deny the Witch attempt per turn adds two dice to the pool. If the player's army is composed of different factions then the mastery level dice for each must be kept separate.
  • Powers can be used at the start of any phase, including an opponent's, but each power can only be used by a psyker once per turn.
  • To manifest, powers require a minimum amount of warp-charge; this requires some fudging, but I'd say a power requiring 5/6+ would be 1, 7/8+ would be 2, 9/10+ would be 3 and 11/12 would be 4 (are there any powers lower than 5?).
  • To manifest a power:
    • The manifesting player picks a power, and a target (if applicable) and bids any number of dice from their pool (excluding dice belonging to other factions).
    • Their opponent now bids any number of dice from their own pool(s) to Deny the Witch, but can't bid more than their opponent did that round. Unlike manifesting you may use dice from different faction pools, so long as they have at least one faction keyword in common.
    • Once both bids are in the players roll the declared dice. For the manifesting player each D6 roll of 4+ is a success (one warp charge generated) and for the denying player each roll of 5+ is a success (one warp charge negated).
    • If the resulting warp charge total isn't high enough then the power has not yet manifested, in this case the manifesting player may bid more dice (and their opponent the same), repeating as many times as they like until either the power is manifested, they run out of dice or choose to give up the attempt.
    • Perils of the Warp is rolled each time you roll a duplicate six, so if you roll a double in the first round you will make one Perils roll, if this doesn't interrupt the psyker's manifestation attempt (i.e- they die or lose the power) then they may roll further rounds, but each additional six will cause another Perils roll each time.

  • Deny the Witch rolls succeed on a 4+ if the denying player has a Psyker within 6" (or 9" with a psychic hood or similar wargear) of the enemy Psyker manifesting the power, or if one of their Psykers is the target. Units that are Psykers have the same effect but the range is reduced to 3".
  • Sisters of Battle/Silence etc. are treated as Psykers for the purposes of Denying the Witch only. Each of their units would generate one dice for their army's pool, but these can only be used to Deny the Witch, and cannot make their pool larger than their opponent's (so at best you can have the same number of dice).

I've play tested similar systems before and quite liked it, but never widely enough to see how well it works once an unscrupulous player gets a hold of it. The basic idea is that because you're "bidding" dice your aim is to drain an opponent's pool to prevent them using/denying powers for the rest of the turn; this is what encourages the rolling of more dice rather than always bidding one at a time, as your opponent's bid is limited to yours plus one so if they commit the full amount it drains them quicker, but if they're cautious then they may lose the ability to stop you. I also like it because it gives more of a "duelling" feel to the process, with a back and forth as a Psyker pushes more and more energy into an attempt even as you try to stop them.

The advantage of this system is that it allows more variety in powers again, since they can more meaningfully target higher warp charges, with players having to use strategy and risk to pull them off.

   
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Earth

Screw 7th psy phase, go back to 8th fantasy magic phase* rules

*NOT THE SPELLS!!!
   
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 Haravikk wrote:
I'm not completely sure where I really want psychic powers in 40k to be; I've always had the same problem with magic in fantasy/Age of Sigmar as well, as GW seems to alternate between watered down to the point of being incredibly boring (which I'd say 8th is at right now) and either too powerful/too complex or too random.

Spoiler:
I actually liked the basic idea behind the use of warp charge in 7th, but I didn't like them putting it all in its own phase.


I do think that psychic powers should go back to a pool of dice, but perhaps with a more meaningful bidding system than before. This is a system I've toyed with and tried in the past in various forms, though it's a bit rough for 8th edition:
  • Each player's dice pool for the game turn is two plus one for each mastery level in their army; for 8th as-is this would be equal to the number of powers that a psyker has on top of their default power (Smite or equivalent), plus their number of Deny the Witch attempts, so a psyker that knows Smite + 1 other power, and can make one Deny the Witch attempt per turn adds two dice to the pool. If the player's army is composed of different factions then the mastery level dice for each must be kept separate.
  • Powers can be used at the start of any phase, including an opponent's, but each power can only be used by a psyker once per turn.
  • To manifest, powers require a minimum amount of warp-charge; this requires some fudging, but I'd say a power requiring 5/6+ would be 1, 7/8+ would be 2, 9/10+ would be 3 and 11/12 would be 4 (are there any powers lower than 5?).
  • To manifest a power:
    • The manifesting player picks a power, and a target (if applicable) and bids any number of dice from their pool (excluding dice belonging to other factions).
    • Their opponent now bids any number of dice from their own pool(s) to Deny the Witch, but can't bid more than their opponent did that round. Unlike manifesting you may use dice from different faction pools, so long as they have at least one faction keyword in common.
    • Once both bids are in the players roll the declared dice. For the manifesting player each D6 roll of 4+ is a success (one warp charge generated) and for the denying player each roll of 5+ is a success (one warp charge negated).
    • If the resulting warp charge total isn't high enough then the power has not yet manifested, in this case the manifesting player may bid more dice (and their opponent the same), repeating as many times as they like until either the power is manifested, they run out of dice or choose to give up the attempt.
    • Perils of the Warp is rolled each time you roll a duplicate six, so if you roll a double in the first round you will make one Perils roll, if this doesn't interrupt the psyker's manifestation attempt (i.e- they die or lose the power) then they may roll further rounds, but each additional six will cause another Perils roll each time.

  • Deny the Witch rolls succeed on a 4+ if the denying player has a Psyker within 6" (or 9" with a psychic hood or similar wargear) of the enemy Psyker manifesting the power, or if one of their Psykers is the target. Units that are Psykers have the same effect but the range is reduced to 3".
  • Sisters of Battle/Silence etc. are treated as Psykers for the purposes of Denying the Witch only. Each of their units would generate one dice for their army's pool, but these can only be used to Deny the Witch, and cannot make their pool larger than their opponent's (so at best you can have the same number of dice).

I've play tested similar systems before and quite liked it, but never widely enough to see how well it works once an unscrupulous player gets a hold of it. The basic idea is that because you're "bidding" dice your aim is to drain an opponent's pool to prevent them using/denying powers for the rest of the turn; this is what encourages the rolling of more dice rather than always bidding one at a time, as your opponent's bid is limited to yours plus one so if they commit the full amount it drains them quicker, but if they're cautious then they may lose the ability to stop you.
I also like it because it gives more of a "duelling" feel to the process, with a back and forth as a Psyker pushes more and more energy into an attempt even as you try to stop them.

The advantage of this system is that it allows more variety in powers again, since they can more meaningfully target higher warp charges, with players having to use strategy and risk to pull them off.


This seems so much more like magic - exertion and competition. I would rather play it like this than almost anything else. There is a conflict that comes up is between this dramatic, lengthy system and a list built around casting smite (e.g.) four times every turn. In that case it would be better to give up the ability to spam stuff than the cool system.
   
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pelicaniforce wrote:
 Haravikk wrote:
I'm not completely sure where I really want psychic powers in 40k to be; I've always had the same problem with magic in fantasy/Age of Sigmar as well, as GW seems to alternate between watered down to the point of being incredibly boring (which I'd say 8th is at right now) and either too powerful/too complex or too random.

Spoiler:
I actually liked the basic idea behind the use of warp charge in 7th, but I didn't like them putting it all in its own phase.


I do think that psychic powers should go back to a pool of dice, but perhaps with a more meaningful bidding system than before. This is a system I've toyed with and tried in the past in various forms, though it's a bit rough for 8th edition:
  • Each player's dice pool for the game turn is two plus one for each mastery level in their army; for 8th as-is this would be equal to the number of powers that a psyker has on top of their default power (Smite or equivalent), plus their number of Deny the Witch attempts, so a psyker that knows Smite + 1 other power, and can make one Deny the Witch attempt per turn adds two dice to the pool. If the player's army is composed of different factions then the mastery level dice for each must be kept separate.
  • Powers can be used at the start of any phase, including an opponent's, but each power can only be used by a psyker once per turn.
  • To manifest, powers require a minimum amount of warp-charge; this requires some fudging, but I'd say a power requiring 5/6+ would be 1, 7/8+ would be 2, 9/10+ would be 3 and 11/12 would be 4 (are there any powers lower than 5?).
  • To manifest a power:
    • The manifesting player picks a power, and a target (if applicable) and bids any number of dice from their pool (excluding dice belonging to other factions).
    • Their opponent now bids any number of dice from their own pool(s) to Deny the Witch, but can't bid more than their opponent did that round. Unlike manifesting you may use dice from different faction pools, so long as they have at least one faction keyword in common.
    • Once both bids are in the players roll the declared dice. For the manifesting player each D6 roll of 4+ is a success (one warp charge generated) and for the denying player each roll of 5+ is a success (one warp charge negated).
    • If the resulting warp charge total isn't high enough then the power has not yet manifested, in this case the manifesting player may bid more dice (and their opponent the same), repeating as many times as they like until either the power is manifested, they run out of dice or choose to give up the attempt.
    • Perils of the Warp is rolled each time you roll a duplicate six, so if you roll a double in the first round you will make one Perils roll, if this doesn't interrupt the psyker's manifestation attempt (i.e- they die or lose the power) then they may roll further rounds, but each additional six will cause another Perils roll each time.

  • Deny the Witch rolls succeed on a 4+ if the denying player has a Psyker within 6" (or 9" with a psychic hood or similar wargear) of the enemy Psyker manifesting the power, or if one of their Psykers is the target. Units that are Psykers have the same effect but the range is reduced to 3".
  • Sisters of Battle/Silence etc. are treated as Psykers for the purposes of Denying the Witch only. Each of their units would generate one dice for their army's pool, but these can only be used to Deny the Witch, and cannot make their pool larger than their opponent's (so at best you can have the same number of dice).

I've play tested similar systems before and quite liked it, but never widely enough to see how well it works once an unscrupulous player gets a hold of it. The basic idea is that because you're "bidding" dice your aim is to drain an opponent's pool to prevent them using/denying powers for the rest of the turn; this is what encourages the rolling of more dice rather than always bidding one at a time, as your opponent's bid is limited to yours plus one so if they commit the full amount it drains them quicker, but if they're cautious then they may lose the ability to stop you.
I also like it because it gives more of a "duelling" feel to the process, with a back and forth as a Psyker pushes more and more energy into an attempt even as you try to stop them.

The advantage of this system is that it allows more variety in powers again, since they can more meaningfully target higher warp charges, with players having to use strategy and risk to pull them off.


This seems so much more like magic - exertion and competition. I would rather play it like this than almost anything else. There is a conflict that comes up is between this dramatic, lengthy system and a list built around casting smite (e.g.) four times every turn. In that case it would be better to give up the ability to spam stuff than the cool system.


Agreed. Make it an actual decision-making process, as opposed to the Psychic Phase mostly playing itself (since Smite doesn't even let you choose your target).

(Off-topic, the game I'm making uses a Magic-like stack for handling Interrupts as a whole).
   
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 Haravikk wrote:
I'm not completely sure where I really want psychic powers in 40k to be; I've always had the same problem with magic in fantasy/Age of Sigmar as well, as GW seems to alternate between watered down to the point of being incredibly boring (which I'd say 8th is at right now) and either too powerful/too complex or too random.

I actually liked the basic idea behind the use of warp charge in 7th, but I didn't like them putting it all in its own phase.


I do think that psychic powers should go back to a pool of dice, but perhaps with a more meaningful bidding system than before. This is a system I've toyed with and tried in the past in various forms, though it's a bit rough for 8th edition:
  • Each player's dice pool for the game turn is two plus one for each mastery level in their army; for 8th as-is this would be equal to the number of powers that a psyker has on top of their default power (Smite or equivalent), plus their number of Deny the Witch attempts, so a psyker that knows Smite + 1 other power, and can make one Deny the Witch attempt per turn adds two dice to the pool. If the player's army is composed of different factions then the mastery level dice for each must be kept separate.
  • Powers can be used at the start of any phase, including an opponent's, but each power can only be used by a psyker once per turn.
  • To manifest, powers require a minimum amount of warp-charge; this requires some fudging, but I'd say a power requiring 5/6+ would be 1, 7/8+ would be 2, 9/10+ would be 3 and 11/12 would be 4 (are there any powers lower than 5?).
  • To manifest a power:
    • The manifesting player picks a power, and a target (if applicable) and bids any number of dice from their pool (excluding dice belonging to other factions).
    • Their opponent now bids any number of dice from their own pool(s) to Deny the Witch, but can't bid more than their opponent did that round. Unlike manifesting you may use dice from different faction pools, so long as they have at least one faction keyword in common.
    • Once both bids are in the players roll the declared dice. For the manifesting player each D6 roll of 4+ is a success (one warp charge generated) and for the denying player each roll of 5+ is a success (one warp charge negated).
    • If the resulting warp charge total isn't high enough then the power has not yet manifested, in this case the manifesting player may bid more dice (and their opponent the same), repeating as many times as they like until either the power is manifested, they run out of dice or choose to give up the attempt.
    • Perils of the Warp is rolled each time you roll a duplicate six, so if you roll a double in the first round you will make one Perils roll, if this doesn't interrupt the psyker's manifestation attempt (i.e- they die or lose the power) then they may roll further rounds, but each additional six will cause another Perils roll each time.

  • Deny the Witch rolls succeed on a 4+ if the denying player has a Psyker within 6" (or 9" with a psychic hood or similar wargear) of the enemy Psyker manifesting the power, or if one of their Psykers is the target. Units that are Psykers have the same effect but the range is reduced to 3".
  • Sisters of Battle/Silence etc. are treated as Psykers for the purposes of Denying the Witch only. Each of their units would generate one dice for their army's pool, but these can only be used to Deny the Witch, and cannot make their pool larger than their opponent's (so at best you can have the same number of dice).

I've play tested similar systems before and quite liked it, but never widely enough to see how well it works once an unscrupulous player gets a hold of it. The basic idea is that because you're "bidding" dice your aim is to drain an opponent's pool to prevent them using/denying powers for the rest of the turn; this is what encourages the rolling of more dice rather than always bidding one at a time, as your opponent's bid is limited to yours plus one so if they commit the full amount it drains them quicker, but if they're cautious then they may lose the ability to stop you. I also like it because it gives more of a "duelling" feel to the process, with a back and forth as a Psyker pushes more and more energy into an attempt even as you try to stop them.

The advantage of this system is that it allows more variety in powers again, since they can more meaningfully target higher warp charges, with players having to use strategy and risk to pull them off.


Hmm. That's interesting, but I don't know if it would be my cup of tea. A couple of random thoughts:

*It seems like it would slow down psychic power resolution a fair bit. Some of the most frequent complaints I heard about 7th edition psychic resolution centered around how long it took to figure out which of your powers went off.

* Manifesters succeeding on a 4+ instead of a 5+ does give the player casting the power an edge, but only a small one. Assuming you can get roughly as many dice in your pool as I can, you're not that much less likely to roll well and shut down a power than I am to roll well and succeed at casting the power. Personally, I'm not a big fan of psykers sitting around failing to cast powers. Playing an Ulthwe-themed eldar list against sisters and watching them shut down half my powers just because magic makes them irritable seems annoying.

*I'm not a huge fan of having a lot of control over whether or not enemy psykers can get powers off from a fluff perspective. Sure, you have Templars and sister that occassionally "faith" the magic away, and you sometimes see librarians snapping their brothers out of magical effects, but these tend to be exceptions rather than the norm. Farseers seem to be pretty good at reading the immediate future. Ahriman seems to throw magic around without any fuss at all. Even normal librarians seem to be able to throw up kinetic shields and such in an instant without worrying about whether or not the barrier will manifest this time.

*


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
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 MagicJuggler wrote:
Agreed. Make it an actual decision-making process, as opposed to the Psychic Phase mostly playing itself (since Smite doesn't even let you choose your target).

(Off-topic, the game I'm making uses a Magic-like stack for handling Interrupts as a whole).


This was the direction that I was initially calling for - psychic powers, especially that buff/debuff should be done on a interrupting basis with limits to the number of casts that can be done, rather than assigning powers to units every turn.
   
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Wyldhunt wrote:
*It seems like it would slow down psychic power resolution a fair bit. Some of the most frequent complaints I heard about 7th edition psychic resolution centered around how long it took to figure out which of your powers went off.

Well, pretty much any system is going to be slower than the current rolling two dice and beating a score! Granted this one can involve more back and forth, but in a few test games (albeit under 7th, I haven't had a lot of time to experiment with 8th) the first roll off will usually decide whether your opponent keeps trying to block or lets you roll more to conserve their own dice. Personally I found it pretty quick once you're both happy with how it works, the difficulty is in deciding how much to roll, whether to try to draw out Deny the Witch dice for something bigger later in the turn etc.

Wyldhunt wrote:
* Manifesters succeeding on a 4+ instead of a 5+ does give the player casting the power an edge, but only a small one. Assuming you can get roughly as many dice in your pool as I can, you're not that much less likely to roll well and shut down a power than I am to roll well and succeed at casting the power. Personally, I'm not a big fan of psykers sitting around failing to cast powers. Playing an Ulthwe-themed eldar list against sisters and watching them shut down half my powers just because magic makes them irritable seems annoying.

There definitely might be some tweaking needed, part of the difficulty is the lack of granularity on a D6; if Deny the Witch is limited to 6's for example then there's almost no point even trying to resist powers as it's such an inefficient use of your dice (especially if you have psykers of your own). With 4+ vs. 5+ it should still be fairly easy to get single warp charge powers manifested, but powers that require more are harder if you're reasonable matched, which is kind of the idea, but getting it just right is tricky. The only other way to really balance it is to fiddle with the amount of dice people can add to their pools, as with more dice the advantage of the attacker becomes more pronounced.

Also, when you're talking two armies, each with psykers then I don't see a psyker having powers resisted as being wasted, because every power your opponent chooses to resist means fewer dice for them to use against you, so even if powers aren't flying, that is in itself a result for someone, that they've had to pay for.

Wyldhunt wrote:
*I'm not a huge fan of having a lot of control over whether or not enemy psykers can get powers off from a fluff perspective. Sure, you have Templars and sister that occassionally "faith" the magic away, and you sometimes see librarians snapping their brothers out of magical effects, but these tend to be exceptions rather than the norm. Farseers seem to be pretty good at reading the immediate future. Ahriman seems to throw magic around without any fuss at all. Even normal librarians seem to be able to throw up kinetic shields and such in an instant without worrying about whether or not the barrier will manifest this time.

Hmm, there's definitely room for certain types of powers to either bypass Deny the Witch, or make it harder (e.g- 6's to block buff type powers). It still works, because any unopposed roll means your opponent holds onto all of their dice, i.e- you either can't or it's harder to get them to burn dice trying to stop you.

Admittedly I haven't given much thought to special characters, I'd expect major characters like Ahriman would either manifest on 3+'s, or somehow limit the number of dice your opponent can roll against his powers; this would have a similar result to unopposed buffs, as if there's not much point trying to oppose Ahriman to begin with then it may be better throwing the dice at something else, so he either goes effectively unopposed all game, or requires more dice to stop him (i.e- multiple psykers working against him just to keep him at bay for a turn), which I think is still fairly fluffy.

In some of the Eisenhorn, or really more the Ravenor, books there is an element of psykers working against each other. Like I say, there's lots of tweaking likely to be done, for example one option would be to make Deny the Witch on 6's, but keep it a 4+ with a Psyker nearby, so the positioning element becomes far more important, and you're talking more about Psykers in proximity working to stop each other.

   
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I don't understand why having a "phase" you can act in is so much more powerful than having the same powers but in another phase? Surely a weapon that replicated the effects of Smite but was used in the shooting phase would be just as good? A psychic phase (in my opinion) is adding very little extra complexity and it is not a problem that some units (even factions) can't use it. (As has been pointed out some units don't utilise the shooting or Assault phases, and fortifications can't use the movement phase).

More on the main topic, I personally have never liked the "dispel dice" mechanics of Warhammer fantasy and especially don't like them in 40k. When I have guns and you do too we shoot each other and we both get to actually fire our guns. The dispel stuff means that if we both bring wizards (psychics) then neither of us actually get to use that much of our psychic stuff, which just seems dull. (Warp charge flys every which way, loads of dice are rolled, all for the two opposing psychics to cancel one another perfectly, so that nothing at all happens, is a terribly boring possibility).

This also makes psychics the answer to psychics, which seems odd.


I actually think the current system is pretty good, and would propose only minor alterations. This may be over-complicating stuff, but I would like to see a "Will" stat on units that determines how hard it is to target them with psychic powers. The only games-rule change would be something like "the player controlling the targeted unit may either add or subtract the units Will value from the casting threshold of the power". Then making aggressive powers have lower intrinsic casting thresholds, and buff-ing powers higher ones. This makes units with high Will more resistant to enemy smites (and similar) and more easy to power up with your own stuff.

Will would presumably go something like: Necrons (1), Tau/Orks/Kroot (2), Humans (3), Eldar/Marines/Sisters of Battle (4). (with appropriate points cost changes)
   
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Dast wrote:
I don't understand why having a "phase" you can act in is so much more powerful than having the same powers but in another phase? Surely a weapon that replicated the effects of Smite but was used in the shooting phase would be just as good? A psychic phase (in my opinion) is adding very little extra complexity and it is not a problem that some units (even factions) can't use it. (As has been pointed out some units don't utilise the shooting or Assault phases, and fortifications can't use the movement phase).

Different factions have different strengths, as such different factions/armies utilize shooting and assault phases to different degrees. Commonly, this is balanced out for the most part - Tau/AM are strong in shooting, but weak in fighting. Orks/Daemons are weak in shooting, but strong in fighting. Aeldari are strong in both aspects, but you need to learn to choose the right units to delegate shooting/fighting to. Space marines are average in both shooting and fighting. CSM's are like space marines, but with more specialized units that excel in certain aspects. And then, you have your armies in between.

The primary issue with psychic phase isn't that its OP or broken, but that it brings unnecessary "solo dice-off phase." There are already plenty of abilities mechanics that you roll off on to see if it takes place or not. As noted earlier, buff/debuff psychic powers are simply single target versions of aura abilities, while damage inflicting powers are simply ranged/melee weapons. Having the player attempting to trigger the power upon necessity is much smoother game flow than having a dedicated phase for buffing and debuffing and inflicting mortal wounds.


Dast wrote:
More on the main topic, I personally have never liked the "dispel dice" mechanics of Warhammer fantasy and especially don't like them in 40k. When I have guns and you do too we shoot each other and we both get to actually fire our guns. The dispel stuff means that if we both bring wizards (psychics) then neither of us actually get to use that much of our psychic stuff, which just seems dull. (Warp charge flys every which way, loads of dice are rolled, all for the two opposing psychics to cancel one another perfectly, so that nothing at all happens, is a terribly boring possibility).

This also makes psychics the answer to psychics, which seems odd.

I actually think the current system is pretty good, and would propose only minor alterations. This may be over-complicating stuff, but I would like to see a "Will" stat on units that determines how hard it is to target them with psychic powers. The only games-rule change would be something like "the player controlling the targeted unit may either add or subtract the units Will value from the casting threshold of the power". Then making aggressive powers have lower intrinsic casting thresholds, and buff-ing powers higher ones. This makes units with high Will more resistant to enemy smites (and similar) and more easy to power up with your own stuff.

Will would presumably go something like: Necrons (1), Tau/Orks/Kroot (2), Humans (3), Eldar/Marines/Sisters of Battle (4). (with appropriate points cost changes)
This will start to cause problems with uber-smite abilities like vortex of doom, where it essentially deals +d3 mortal wounds per round. There needs to be a 'to-hit' system (which is the current 2d6 warp charge test), and a save mechanism (the current deny roll).

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/11/21 16:17:47


 
   
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 skchsan wrote:

The primary issue with psychic phase isn't that its OP or broken, but that it brings unnecessary "solo dice-off phase." There are already plenty of abilities mechanics that you roll off on to see if it takes place or not. As noted earlier, buff/debuff psychic powers are simply single target versions of aura abilities, while damage inflicting powers are simply ranged/melee weapons. Having the player attempting to trigger the power upon necessity is much smoother game flow than having a dedicated phase for buffing and debuffing and inflicting mortal wounds.


See, I just don't agree with that last part. I don't think resolving different powers in different phases would be that problematic, but I don't think it would really make things smoother either. As in previous editions without a psychic phase, you'd sometimes forget to do a power at all because it triggered "at the start of the X phase," and you'd already moved or shot or whatever. Stopping the flow of the game to see if null zone or Fortune kick in in the shooting or assault phase seems less smooth than just rolling all your powers in a psychic phase. I liken it to whenever someone starts one of those, "Why don't we roll to save before rolling to wound 'cause that's more realistic," threads. You could do it. It would be fine. But you'll introduce that little hiccup where you have to pause for your opponent to pick up his dice, then count out your own dice again to do the final roll. Things run "smoother" in my mind when you can do them all at once back-to-back to get them out of the way.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Haravikk: Those are all solid points. I'm still not jumping to adopt your system, but I think it's a reasonable one that would work perfectly well.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/22 00:58:19



ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
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Wyldhunt wrote:
you'd sometimes forget to do a power at all
But we sometimes forget to apply aura abilities or elected abilities without psychic power too. This is the precise type of book keeping that should be required by the player when using psychic powers IMO.
   
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This is the precise type of book keeping that should be required by the player when using psychic powers IMO.


I don't think extra book keeping should be introduced it if is at all possible to avoid it.
   
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Dast wrote:
This is the precise type of book keeping that should be required by the player when using psychic powers IMO.


I don't think extra book keeping should be introduced it if is at all possible to avoid it.

But isn't keeping track of who got buffs and debuffs during the psychic phase even more book keeping than resolving it on case by case scenario?
   
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 skchsan wrote:
Dast wrote:
This is the precise type of book keeping that should be required by the player when using psychic powers IMO.


I don't think extra book keeping should be introduced it if is at all possible to avoid it.

But isn't keeping track of who got buffs and debuffs during the psychic phase even more book keeping than resolving it on case by case scenario?


It is more book keeping, kind of, but it also flows more smoothly than stopping to resolve a different subsystem before rolling armor saves or what have you. Especially when many people have psychic cards or tokens that they can set down next to the targeted unit. When I cast Doom, I usually just say, "I'm dooming those guys," roll two dice, then set a little index card that I wrote the details of doom on beside the unit I targeted.

So +1 Bookkeeping, -2 Resolution Time.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/23 00:09:31


 
   
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 skchsan wrote:
Dast wrote:
I don't understand why having a "phase" you can act in is so much more powerful than having the same powers but in another phase? Surely a weapon that replicated the effects of Smite but was used in the shooting phase would be just as good? A psychic phase (in my opinion) is adding very little extra complexity and it is not a problem that some units (even factions) can't use it. (As has been pointed out some units don't utilise the shooting or Assault phases, and fortifications can't use the movement phase).

Different factions have different strengths, as such different factions/armies utilize shooting and assault phases to different degrees. Commonly, this is balanced out for the most part - Tau/AM are strong in shooting, but weak in fighting. Orks/Daemons are weak in shooting, but strong in fighting. Aeldari are strong in both aspects, but you need to learn to choose the right units to delegate shooting/fighting to. Space marines are average in both shooting and fighting. CSM's are like space marines, but with more specialized units that excel in certain aspects. And then, you have your armies in between.

The primary issue with psychic phase isn't that its OP or broken, but that it brings unnecessary "solo dice-off phase." There are already plenty of abilities mechanics that you roll off on to see if it takes place or not. As noted earlier, buff/debuff psychic powers are simply single target versions of aura abilities, while damage inflicting powers are simply ranged/melee weapons. Having the player attempting to trigger the power upon necessity is much smoother game flow than having a dedicated phase for buffing and debuffing and inflicting mortal wounds.


The mechanical purpose of having the psychic phase be both a different phase and take place before shooting and melee is that it's also a cut off/refresher for buffs and debuffs. You enter the shooting phase knowing what buff and debuffs are in effect. You know before your next shooting that those effects will end. You don't shoot first, see how many models you can kill THEN decide if you want to debuff their leadership to impact their moral test. You have to debuff them before a single shot is fired.


These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
 
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