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Psychic Powers come in three varieties within one power: Rote, Minor, and Major. (Some powers may not have Rote variations.)

Rote powers are cast automatically and cannot be denied, but are the weakest.

Minor powers are cast with a relatively low Warp Charge value, and are middle of the road in power.

Major powers are cast with a relatively high Warp Charge value, and are the strongest.

You must declare before casting a power whether it will be Rote, Minor, or Major. If you cast a Minor power, but roll high enough to succeed on the Major power, you may choose to have it cast as the Major power, but automatically suffer Perils of the Warp. (If you would normally suffer Perils, such as by rolling boxcars, you suffer it twice in a row.)

Example powers:

Smite
Rote-The nearest visible enemy unit within 18" suffers 3 automatic S4 AP-1 D1 hits.
Minor-Warp Charge 5-The nearest enemy unit within 18" suffers 3 automatic S6 AP-2 D1 hits.
Major-Warp Charge 9-The nearest enemy unit within 18" suffers 3 automatic S8 AP-3 D2 hits.

Infernal Gaze
Rote-Select a single visible enemy unit within 18". Roll one die-on a 4+, the unit suffers a mortal wound.
Minor-Warp Charge 5-Select a single visible enemy unit within 18". Roll two dice-on each 4+, the unit suffers a mortal wound.
Major-Warp Charge 9-Select a single visible enemy unit within 18". Roll four dice-on each 4+, the unit suffers a mortal wound.

Death Hex
Minor-Warp Charge 6-Select a visible enemy unit within 12". It suffers a -1 penalty to all Invulnerable saves it makes till the start of your next psychic phase.
Major-Warp Charge 10-Select a visible enemy unit within 12". It cannot take invulnerable saves until the start of your next psychic phase.

Gift Of Chaos
Rote-Select a single visible enemy unit within 6". It suffers a mortal wound.
Minor-Warp Charge 6-Select a single visible enemy unit within 6". It suffers d3 mortal wounds. If a character is slain by this power, you may add a Chaos Spawn to your army within 1" of where they died.
Major-Warp Charge 11-Select a single visible enemy unit within 6". It suffers d6 mortal wounds. If a character is slain by this power, you may add a Chaos Spawn to your army within 1" of where they died.

Prescience
Rote-Select a Heretic Astartes unit within 18". They may reroll one hit roll of 1 till the start of your next psychic phase.
Minor-Warp Charge 4-Select a Heretic Astartes unit within 18". They may reroll hit rolls of 1 till the start of your next psychic phase.
Major-Warp Charge 8-Select a Heretic Astartes unit within 18". They may add 1 to all hit rolls made for that unit until the start of your next psychic phase.

Diabolic Strength
Rote-Select a Heretic Astartes model within 12". They add 1 to their Attacks characteristic until the start of your next psychic phase.
Minor-Warp Charge 6-Select a Heretic Astartes model within 12". They add 2 to their Strength and 1 to their Attacks until the start of your next psychic phase.
Major-Warp Charge 10-Select a Heretic Astartes unit within 12". They add 2 to their Strength and 1 to their Attacks until the start of your next psychic phase.

Warptime
Rote-Select a Heretic Astartes unit within 3". They may immediately move up to half their movement value, and count as having Advanced.
Minor-Warp Charge 5-Select a Heretic Astartes unit within 3". They may immediately move up to half their movement value. They may not advance during this move.
Major-Warp Charge 9-Select a Heretic Astartes unit within 3". They may immediately move as if it were the movement phase.

Weaver of Fates
Rote-Select a visible Tzeentch Heretic Astartes unit within 18". They may reroll a single failed invulnerable save until the start of your next psychic phase.
Minor-Warp Charge 5-Select a visible Tzeentch Heretic Astartes unit within 18". They may reroll failed invulnerable saving throw rolls of 1, or gain a 6+ invulnerable save if they do not already have one.
Major-Warp Charge 9-Select a visible Tzeentch Heretic Astartes unit within 18" . They add 1 to all invulnerable saving throws, or gain a 5+ invulnerable save if they do not already have one.

Miasma Of Pestilence
Rote-Select a visible Nurgle Heretic Astartes unit within 18". Enemies may not spend a command point to reroll any misses against that unit the start of your next psychic phase.
Minor-Warp Charge 7-Select a visible Nurgle Heretic Astartes unit within 18". Until the start of your next psychic phase, opponents must subtract 1 from hit rolls against that unit.
Major-Warp Charge 11-Select a visible Nurgle Heretic Astartes unit within 18". Until the start of your next psychic phase, opponents must subtract 1 from hit rolls against that unit, and cannot reroll any misses.

Delightful Agonies
Rote-Select a visible Slaanesh Heretic Astartes unit within 18". Until the start of your next psychic phase, you may roll a single d6 against one wound taken by that unit. On a 5+, that wound is ignored.
Minor-Warp Charge 6-Select a visible Slaanesh Heretic Astartes unit within 18". Until the start of your next psychic phase, roll a d6 each time a model in that unit loses a wound. On a 5+, it does not lose that wound.
Major-Warp Charge 10-Select a visible Slaanesh Heretic Astartes unit within 18". Until the start of your next psychic phase, roll a d6 each time a model in that unit loses a wound. On a 4+, it does not lose that wound.

So... I designed the perfect system, absolutely no flaws, and everyone's too busy using it to critique it?

In all seriousness, I would really enjoy some feedback on this.

Feels like this would just be more paperwork.

Also. I would mean that every power would have to be changed for this...... that is alot of rules and descriptions you have to remember and/or write down and look up. Eating up time

mchammadad wrote:
Feels like this would just be more paperwork.

Also. I would mean that every power would have to be changed for this...... that is alot of rules and descriptions you have to remember and/or write down and look up. Eating up time

Is it that much harder? Smite is resolved instantly, as is Infernal Gaze, Gift of Chaos, and Warptime. As for the rest, is it any harder to remember than, say, what order was issued for Guard? Or currently, what power(s) is active on someone?

In addition, is it TOO hard? Because I"m fine adding a little complexity. I don't to make the game unwieldy, but I don't feel this does.

I love the concept. Having a "safe" application of a power matches the lore much better than having a 1/18th chance of frying your brains every time you try to use a power, and it pleases my 5th edition warlock nostalgia.

That said, I could see this potentially becoming just a bit of a bookkeeping pain. Assuming all powers had a rote, minor, and major application (Hello, fellow Mage player), the craftworld codex alone would require 54 different "versions" of various powers. (3 tables with 6 powers, each having 3 different versions.) I know you don't have to include a major or rote version for each power, but even doing it for half of them would quickly become a lot to manage. Especially if you happen to be running shadowseers and voiddreamers (assuming those still exist) on top of it.

I think the official version of smite is a good guideline for this sort of thing. Rote smite is like warlock smite or Grey knight smite. Minor is d3 mortal wounds to the closest thing. Major is d6 mortal wounds to the closest thing. Super easy to remember, and super quick to resolve and then forget about.

If I take a single farseer and assume that Guide and Doom both have 3 versions, then I have to keep track of which 2 of the 6 different versions I have active over the course of a game round.

So with that in mind, maybe it would be helpful to focus on giving most/all powers a rote form but leave major forms only to those powers that have a cool, intuitive "better" version. Some examples:

Quicken
-Rote; As is, but only move 6".
-Minor: As is.

Doom
-Rote: Per the normal version, but only reroll to-wound rolls of 1.
-Minor: As is.

Executioner
-Rote: Do d3 mortal wounds to the closest enemy unit. The end.
-Minor: As is.
-Major (WC11+): As is, but deal +1 mortal wound for every 5 models (rounding up) in the unit.

So the rote and major versions are intuitively similar to the minor version, and you only create a major version for powers where it makes sense and is easy to pull off/remember. No need to have 3 versions of Doom that you have to juggle, for instance.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I love the concept. Having a "safe" application of a power matches the lore much better than having a 1/18th chance of frying your brains every time you try to use a power, and it pleases my 5th edition warlock nostalgia.

That said, I could see this potentially becoming just a bit of a bookkeeping pain. Assuming all powers had a rote, minor, and major application (Hello, fellow Mage player), the craftworld codex alone would require 54 different "versions" of various powers. (3 tables with 6 powers, each having 3 different versions.) I know you don't have to include a major or rote version for each power, but even doing it for half of them would quickly become a lot to manage. Especially if you happen to be running shadowseers and voiddreamers (assuming those still exist) on top of it.

I think the official version of smite is a good guideline for this sort of thing. Rote smite is like warlock smite or Grey knight smite. Minor is d3 mortal wounds to the closest thing. Major is d6 mortal wounds to the closest thing. Super easy to remember, and super quick to resolve and then forget about.

If I take a single farseer and assume that Guide and Doom both have 3 versions, then I have to keep track of which 2 of the 6 different versions I have active over the course of a game round.

So with that in mind, maybe it would be helpful to focus on giving most/all powers a rote form but leave major forms only to those powers that have a cool, intuitive "better" version. Some examples:

Quicken
-Rote; As is, but only move 6".
-Minor: As is.

Doom
-Rote: Per the normal version, but only reroll to-wound rolls of 1.
-Minor: As is.

Executioner
-Rote: Do d3 mortal wounds to the closest enemy unit. The end.
-Minor: As is.
-Major (WC11+): As is, but deal +1 mortal wound for every 5 models (rounding up) in the unit.

So the rote and major versions are intuitively similar to the minor version, and you only create a major version for powers where it makes sense and is easy to pull off/remember. No need to have 3 versions of Doom that you have to juggle, for instance.

Well, you may have noticed I significantly nerfed Smite with this too. I feel that mortal wound spam is a little too much.

In addition, your suggestions are quite too strong. Quicken lets you all but guarantee a deep strike charge, with no chance of failure.

Doom's Rote is too good as well, in my opinion.

And Executioner is guaranteed d3 mortal wounds.

 JNAProductions wrote:


Well, you may have noticed I significantly nerfed Smite with this too. I feel that mortal wound spam is a little too much.

In addition, your suggestions are quite too strong. Quicken lets you all but guarantee a deep strike charge, with no chance of failure.

Doom's Rote is too good as well, in my opinion.

And Executioner is guaranteed d3 mortal wounds.

All fair points, but the point of my post wasn't really to suggest specific rules so much as it was to illustrate the general concept of making the different levels of the powers easy to remember beside one another. I wasn't trying to comment on the efficacy of smite so much as I meant to point out that it's really easy to remember how the different versions of smite work.

So the versions of Quicken I suggested might be too good, but it's pretty easy to remember, "Rote lets me move 6". Minor lets me move/advance as normal." The powers you pitched in your opening post do a good job of this, but I could see it being a challenge to keep things so streamlined across every power in the game.


EDIT: For instance, can you pitch me an easy to remember rote and minor (and bonus points for major) version of Quicken/Restrain, Enhance/Drain, and Conceal/Reveal?

Quicken-same as Warptime.

Restrain
Rote-Decrease one enemy unit's move within 18" by 1".
Minor-Warp Charge 6-Halve one enemy unit's move within 18".
Major-Warp Charge 10-Select one enemy unit within 18". They cannot move until your next psychic phase.

Enhance
Rote-Reroll hit rolls of 1 in the fight phase only.
Minor-Warp Charge 6-Reroll all hit rolls in the fight phase only.
Major-Warp Charge 9-+1 to hit rolls in the fight phase.

Drain
Minor-Warp Charge 5-The enemy may not reroll failed hits in the fight phase.
Major-Warp Charge 10-The enemy suffers a -1 hit penalty in the fight phase and may not reroll failed hits.

Conceal
Rote-Target unit gains cover.
Minor-Warp Charge 4-Enemy units treat themselves as being 6" further away for ranged weapon ranged.
Major-Warp Charge 9-Enemy units suffer a -1 to-hit this unit.

Reveal
Minor-Warp Charge 4-Enemy unit cannot benefit from cover.
Major-Warp Charge 11-Enemy unit cannot benefit from cover, and all friendly units gain +1 to hit.

I think it would be a very fun rule for a small local meta but it does add a fair bit of complexity to the game. I do like the idea of psychic powers having different effects. I think it could be simplified by including all three effects in 1 power and the roll you get determines the level of power. Similar to how smite is currently with an 11 or 12 causing D6 mortals instead of D3. Would require a good deal of modification and house ruling psychic powers.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Quicken-same as Warptime.

Restrain
Rote-Decrease one enemy unit's move within 18" by 1".
Minor-Warp Charge 6-Halve one enemy unit's move within 18".
Major-Warp Charge 10-Select one enemy unit within 18". They cannot move until your next psychic phase.

Enhance
Rote-Reroll hit rolls of 1 in the fight phase only.
Minor-Warp Charge 6-Reroll all hit rolls in the fight phase only.
Major-Warp Charge 9-+1 to hit rolls in the fight phase.

Drain
Minor-Warp Charge 5-The enemy may not reroll failed hits in the fight phase.
Major-Warp Charge 10-The enemy suffers a -1 hit penalty in the fight phase and may not reroll failed hits.

Conceal
Rote-Target unit gains cover.
Minor-Warp Charge 4-Enemy units treat themselves as being 6" further away for ranged weapon ranged.
Major-Warp Charge 9-Enemy units suffer a -1 to-hit this unit.

Reveal
Minor-Warp Charge 4-Enemy unit cannot benefit from cover.
Major-Warp Charge 11-Enemy unit cannot benefit from cover, and all friendly units gain +1 to hit.

Hmm. Yeah. I'd totally give those a whirl. Adds a little complexity, but also provides interesting, meaningful choices to psykers.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.