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Problem: Despite ostensibly being the very manifestations of Chaos, the footsoldiers of madness itself, infinite in form and variation, Daemons are actually very straightforward, predictable, and uncustomizable. Bloodletters are all Bloodletters, with the same traits, weapons, and abilities, and in a mono-god army they're all you've got.

Solution: Give daemons lots of optional, mutually exclusive abilities to choose from, representing the various mutations and alternate forms of Chaos entities. The Ruinstorm list in 30k does this, allowing each daemon unit to choose "wargear" in the form of Emanations, such as ranged attacks, rending attacks, or flight.

Problem: The current policy at Games Workshop is (with a few exceptions) not to provide wargear or upgrade or unit options that are not represented by existing models. This means that a wide range of such abilities is impossible to represent as "wargear" options, especially since the current range of daemon models do not include alternative weapons etc.

Solution: Represent the various powers of daemons in a way that doesn't call for modelling representation, such as Orders or Combat Drugs. The Psychic Powers system allows for a wide range of powers, is affected by things that should affect daemons, and allows for a separation of powers-per-unit and powers-used-per-turn. Therefore, make every daemon unit into psykers with a choice of one power, which acts as their "custom" ability.

Problem: Psychic powers are somewhat unreliable (a factor that already kills a lot of Chaos mechanics), are too powerful to be handed out to all units, suffer from Psychic Focus, and if every daemon unit is a psyker, they will start taking Perils of the Warp wounds.

Solution: Make Daemons into D6 psykers like Wyrdvanes to avoid Perils, rewrite the Disciplines available to Daemons so that the powers are all low Warp Charge for reliable casting, and suitable to being a per-turn ability for a unit. Add a fourth Discipline for Khorne-style powers, and a Brotherhood of Sorcerers-style Psychic Focus exemption.

Problem: This leaves "proper" daemon psykers out in the cold, stuck with low-grade powers meant to be reliably used by a 1D6 psyker.

Solution: Have the powers scale upward with the Psychic test result, the same way Smite does. This provides a "character-grade" version, and (if we're giving each daemon unit a boost to their casting roll for unit size) rewards large unit sizes.

Problem: The Ruinstorm uses subfactions and purely generic datasheets to communicate its wide range of daemonic entities - but existing daemon datasheets have specific abilities beyond their core utility of "anti-elite/anti-horde/tarpit/ranged", which complicates matters, and are specifically tied to one of the four Gods with no room for a "true" subfaction. This also ties into the existing problem of encouraging mono-god builds in an army not meant to accommodate them.

Solution: Strip basic daemons of special abilities, convert them into psychic powers or Subfaction abilities. Add <ALLEGIANCE> as a true Subfaction. Reduce KHORNE, NURGLE, etc, to regular Faction keywords with no immediate mechanical significance.

For example, Bloodletters look like this:
Bloodletters (Troops, Power Rating 4)

Bloodletter: M 6", WS 3+, BS 3+, S4, T3, W1, A1, Ld7, Sv6+
Bloodreaper: M 6", WS 3+, BS 3+, S4, T3, W1, A2, Ld7, Sv6+

This unit contains 1 Bloodreaper and 9 Bloodletters. It can include up to 10 additional Bloodletters (Power Rating +4) or up to 20 additional Bloodletters (Power Rating +8). Each model is armed with a hellblade.

Weapons

Hellblade: Range: Melee, Type: Melee, S: User, AP:-3, D:1, Abilities: Any attacks with a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon have a Damage characteristic of 2 instead of 1.

Wargear Options

One Bloodletter may take an Instrument of Chaos.

One Bloodletter may take a Daemonic Icon.

Abilities

Daemonic: Units with this ability have a 5+ invulnerable save.

Daemonic Emanations: Ignore psychic powers that a unit with this ability attempts to manifest for the purposes of the Psychic Focus rule. Each time you take a Psychic test or Deny the Witch test for a unit with this ability, roll 1D6 instead of 2D6. You can add 1 to these tests if the unit has 10 or more models, or 2 to tests if it has 20 or more models.

Daemonic Icon: If you roll a 1 when taking a Morale test for a unit with any Daemonic Icons, reality blinks and the daemonic horde is bolstered. No models flee and D6 slain models are instead added to the unit.

Instrument of Chaos: A unit that includes any Instruments of Chaos adds 1 to their Advance and charge rolls.

Murderous Tide: You can add 1 to hit rolls made for this unit whilst it contains 20 or more models.

Psyker
This unit can attempt to manifest one psychic power in each friendly Psychic phase, and attempt to deny one psychic power in each enemy Psychic phase. It knows one power from the Emanations of Chaos or the Emanations of Fury. When manifesting or denying a psychic power, first select a model in the unit – measure range, visibility etc. from this model.

Keywords

Faction: CHAOS, LEGIONES DAEMONICA, KHORNE, <ALLEGIANCE>

Keywords: INFANTRY, DAEMON, PSYKER, BLOODLETTERS

Then for its psychic power, you can choose a generic "daemon power" from the Emanations of Chaos, or a more Khorne-y one from the Emanations of Fury. Examples would be:


Then for its Allegiance, you choose BRAZEN HOST, and get the appropriate Allegiance Trait:

Brazen Host: Unstoppable Ferocity
The daemonic warriors of the Brazen Host are united under the banner of the Gore Lord, a mighty deathbringer who carves frenzied loyalty into the souls of each daemonic rival he casts down.
If a unit with this trait makes a charge move, is charged, or performs a Heroic Intervention, then until the end of the turn add 1 to the Attacks and Strength characteristics of all its models.

This isn't a terrible idea. I've always wanted an unaligned demon psychic power list. Maybe have a lesser warp entity power list that has one free slot for each god (+ true undivided) and can be used as at low power on a d6 but can be competitive with other disciplines on a 2d6.
e.g. A Khorne power might let a unit make heroic interventions as if it were a character on a WC of 3+, but on a WC of 6+ it can also absorb wounds (it take a mortal wound and another unit is unharmed) taken by friendly models within 3".

I'm just concerned that many of your powers are too strong in every way, and massive point hikes aren't the best solution. Lesser demons should not be able to DTW (except maybe Khrone). Add one or two WC to every power you listed, no powers should be guaranteed. Remove the "second ability" that a lot of them seem to have, e.g. just give a unit fly with no movement increase (except on high WC), don't give psychic powers a base range but make them entirely dependent on WC. Mortal wound causing powers could also give unsaved wounds instead of mortal wounds. For example, Warp Scream could cause unsaved wounds on a WC of 3+, but a WC of 5 gives AP -1, 6 gives AP -3, and 7+ causes a mortal wound instead.

Problem:[/b] The current policy at Games Workshop is (with a few exceptions) not to provide wargear or upgrade or unit options that are not represented by existing models. This means that a wide range of such abilities is impossible to represent as "wargear" options, especially since the current range of daemon models do not include alternative weapons etc.[/list][list]Solution: Represent the various powers of daemons in a way that doesn't call for modelling representation, such as Orders or Combat Drugs. The Psychic Powers system allows for a wide range of powers, is affected by things that should affect daemons, and allows for a separation of powers-per-unit and powers-used-per-turn. Therefore, make every daemon unit into psykers with a choice of one power, which acts as their "custom" ability.

With the exception of this point, couldn't you accomplish most of what you're trying to do here by simply making certain daemonic abilities purchasable with points again? Making everything a psychic power adds a bit of book keeping, rolling, and uncertainty to the abilities, plus it compels you to make all of the powers similarly useful to each other so that players don't just ignore the less powerful options.

If we just ignore GW's no-model-no-rules policy (not unreasonable for homebrew rules), or if we just fluff everything as some abstract warp weirdness that wouldn't be modeled anyway, then we can bring back a lot of variety of daemonic abilities without adding a bunch of extra dice rolling. You could just give khorne daemons wings for X points per model, give blood reapers a weapon or ability that does mortal wounds, etc.

I don't think the current model line-up is meant to represent undivided daemons, this is something they would have had to have started on 15 years ago for it to become a thing now. Making sword daemons that aren't just skull daemons, making horror daemons that aren't just magic daemons, making fat daemons that aren't just plague daemons, making femme daemons that aren't just sex daemons. I actually appreciate mono-god Detachments, I think it's quite fluffy.

I'd prefer to introduce a bunch of Stratagems instead, prefferably through Specialist Detachments to allow people to ignore them if they don't want a radical amount of randomness.

On a random note I'd change their faction keyword to Neverborn from Daemon and give them the Daemon keyword, that would make all the rules so much more clear, especially the Stratagems.

Rewriting Stratagems to be more universal would be my shot at making Daemons more versatile, scary and random to fight. You never know what sort of abilities your opponent might pull out. I'd change Frenetic Bloodlust, Magical Boon, Revolting Regeneration and Aura of Acquiescence to Death Incarnate, Dark Flame, Cursed Earth and Infernal Gaze and make them available to all Daemons. I'd also introduce dice-rolls that modify the magnitude of roughly half the Stratagems in the codex (roll D6 when this Stratagem is used on a 1 you get a -1 result, on a 2-5 you get a +1 result, on a 6 you get a +2 result).

Making Daemonic Incursion available against things other than Grey Knights (and making it cost reinforcement pts) might help increase unit diversity. More terrain would definitely help. Having 6-10 different terrain pieces you can summon depending on the game would really spice up games and make the game table feel more daemonically infested. More Daemon terrain is actually my biggest wish, make them cost reasonably low amount of pts so they are useful without being completely free. Having Heralds bringing in terrain would also just be cool as heck.

Infernal Wings would probably be a big problem on Plaguebearers, you would probably have to nerf their 20+ unit ability.

 Eipi10 wrote:
This isn't a terrible idea. I've always wanted an unaligned demon psychic power list. Maybe have a lesser warp entity power list that has one free slot for each god (+ true undivided) and can be used as at low power on a d6 but can be competitive with other disciplines on a 2d6.

That's definitely worth thinking about! Keep the existing Disciplines (or suitable analogues) as character-only lores, and reduce the "unit options" analogue to a single Discipline of six powers. That's much simpler to write and balance, albeit also narrower, as "equipment" goes...

Though I'd probably give each Allegiance its own unique power, much like Regimental Orders, rather than tying them to the gods specifically. You can still have an obvious Khorne/Tzeentch/Slaanesh/Nurgle power, but it opens the door for a Forge of Souls/Ruinstorm/Malice/Murderval power, too. That might just be my personal preference, though; I'd like to see Subfaction-specific psychic powers in general, plus things like Acts of Faith or Canticles or T'au Arts of War.

 Eipi10 wrote:
I'm just concerned that many of your powers are too strong in every way, and massive point hikes aren't the best solution. Lesser demons should not be able to DTW (except maybe Khrone). Add one or two WC to every power you listed, no powers should be guaranteed.

Essentially, these powers are meant to be equivalent to "unit options" in other armies, so they should be no less guaranteed than those; a unit of marines with jump packs doesn't have to roll to FLY, so a unit of daemons with infernal wings shouldn't have to, either. The "attack" powers can have higher WC values, precisely because they're meant to be "attacks" - analogues to flamers or meltas or other special weapons, which can fail to hit or wound. A power which gave the unit a new weapon (like the Space Wolves power Fury of the Wolf Spirits, example) wouldn't need a higher WC value, however, because its variability is baked in; you're literally buying the unit a weapon.

...actually, powers that provide new, "temporary weapons" might be more reasonable in general than powers that inflict mortal wounds like Warp Scream. Then again, you'd need a unit of 7 or more Marines or 18 or more Orks for Warp Scream to beat just two regular flamers, even without factoring in Overwatch, so it might be fine as a special weapons analogue.

***

These powers are more-or-less meant to be balanced against similar powers; for example, Infernal Wings gives you FLY and a 1D6-2D6" move on WC1. Wings of Sanguinius gives you FLY, a 12" move (with the option to Advance), and re-roll charges on WC5. The latter is clearly more powerful, and has an 83% chance of success on 2D6; the former is clearly less powerful, but has a 100% chance of success even on 1D6 (barring Sisters of Silence, etc - which is a feature, rather than a bug). You're effectively just "buying" a jump pack for your unit, and in the process giving them the FLY keyword and +D6 Move. This also makes psykers a good tool for combating daemons, appropriately enough, since they can Deny powers and almost certainly succeed (with twice as many dice).

Would it be less jarring if the power "results" were more strictly delineated? That is to say, at the moment there's a base effect that scales upward with the test result. Would it work better if there was a clean, Smite-style split? e.g. You get FLY as a WC1 outcome, and at WC5+ you also get a 6" move?

The thing I really like about your idea is the demons are psychic creature, and so their unique abilities should activate in the psychic phase. I wouldn't think of lesser daemon powers as real psykers but as something analogous to orders, even though they are treated as such for rules. Maybe all existing disciplines should be made multitiered, as you suggest at the end.

The problem with "buying" jump packs and special weapons in your plan is that I don't see the points coming from anywhere. Daemons aren't the most competitive army, but they don't need a straight buff. It's why I think that there should be no WC 1 powers.

And as much as I would love to play a Malice/Malal army, lesser gods would require some unique models. As vict says, this would require years to rework of the demon line in an appropriate way. A fifth unaligned psychic discipline could be added, with lesser daemons only using the discipline of the detachment's allegiance.

I like to imagine that the gods are daemons themselves, and each daemon is a collection of thoughts which can then be subdivided into a smaller collection of thoughts and hence a smaller daemon. Some chapter tactic like rules for the sub-gods might work then, but it would be a lot of work to make.

 Eipi10 wrote:
The thing I really like about your idea is the demons are psychic creature, and so their unique abilities should activate in the psychic phase. I wouldn't think of lesser daemon powers as real psykers but as something analogous to orders, even though they are treated as such for rules. Maybe all existing disciplines should be made multitiered, as you suggest at the end.

The problem with "buying" jump packs and special weapons in your plan is that I don't see the points coming from anywhere. Daemons aren't the most competitive army, but they don't need a straight buff. It's why I think that there should be no WC 1 powers.

This is true! And it's something I was aware of, but forgot to handle in the example used. The original idea was to remove the rules like Disgustingly Resilient or Ephemeral Form and turn them into psychic powers, thus keeping the overall power of each unit the same but offering more flexibility in terms of "build". So Plaguebearers wouldn't have Disgustingly Resilient. Instead, they'd have access to a set of powers that included:

Disgusting Resilience
Disgusting Resilience has a warp charge value of 1. If manifested, roll a dice each time the psyker loses a wound until start of your next turn; on a 5+, it does not lose that wound. If the result of the Psychic test was more than 5, the psyker also immediately regains D3 lost wounds (if the psyker is a unit of multiple models, only one model is healed; alternatively, you can return one slain model to the unit with 1 wound remaining).

The problem I ran into with this specific example was twofold:

It doesn't work unless you get the first turn; in fact, none of the "passive/defensive" abilities do. Unless you get the first turn, your Plaguebearers are left naked and unprotected from the harsh world outside!

It leaves basic Plaguebearers looking... perhaps a little too generic? Bloodletters, Horrors, and Daemonettes don't really need their "god" ability to clearly slot into a role (even if Bloodletters really appreciate it), but without their "god" ability, Plaguebearers are just... gakky Orks with a 5++ save. You'd need to jack them up to 3.5e levels of durability for them to stand out as "durable" without Disgustingly Resilient as a basic ability; Toughness 5 and/or two Wounds apiece, for example.

I'm gonna disagree with these for a multiple of reasons

First wargear. It's not needed, daemons don't need to have 3 or 4 different versions of melee weapons they are meant to be ffoder, the representation of all the mutations are just summed up in their normal attacks. Daemon armies already have enough going on with them they don't need wargear thrown into the mix which will only make things more annoying to deal with when you have to consider all of the buffs they give to one another.

Make all daemons paykers: no, this is what makes tzeentZch daemons unique is they are paykers plus with every cast of smite increasing the casing value, on a d6 you get 2 chances with daemons, not worth dealing with.

Daemons also do not need full smite, or casting in a 2d6 because this was the case during the start of 8th and resulted in brimstone/ blue horror spam.

I'll be honest most of these changes are not needed, daemons as is are in a fine spot the suggested changes with either do nothing to effect them or cause horrible effects.

The original idea was to remove the rules like Disgustingly Resilient or Ephemeral Form and turn them into psychic powers, thus keeping the overall power of each unit the same but offering more flexibility in terms of "build". So Plaguebearers wouldn't have Disgustingly Resilient. Instead, they'd have access to a set of powers that included:

Disgusting Resilience
Disgusting Resilience has a warp charge value of 1. If manifested, roll a dice each time the psyker loses a wound until start of your next turn; on a 5+, it does not lose that wound. If the result of the Psychic test was more than 5, the psyker also immediately regains D3 lost wounds (if the psyker is a unit of multiple models, only one model is healed; alternatively, you can return one slain model to the unit with 1 wound remaining).

The problem I ran into with this specific example was twofold:
It doesn't work unless you get the first turn; in fact, none of the "passive/defensive" abilities do. Unless you get the first turn, your Plaguebearers are left naked and unprotected from the harsh world outside!

I'm on board for customizable daemon powers/gear to make them more diverse and interesting. But again I ask, why not simply make these abilities purchasable, always-on wargear? Sort of like warlock "psychic" powers in 4th/5th edition? Making them actually use psychic power rules requires you to roll for each ability every turn, compels you to make all the powers similarly useful (to avoid having obvious best choices), and then requires you to bookkeep which powers did and did not go off/get denied.

So instead of all that, why not just treat all these powers as wargear? Let plague bearers choose between, for instance, Disgustingly Resilient for X points per model in the unit, Poison 2+ weapons for Y points per model in the unit, and daemonic wings for Z points per model in the unit? Heck, you don't necessarily even have to make those options mutually exclusive. Then give the squad leader access to a couple of neat weapons or something. Not all supernatural powers need to be psychic tests. Soporific Musk is probably more supernatural than biological (given that the laws of biology are rarely respected by daemons), but you don't have to roll a psychic test to use it. Ditto disgustingly resillient or even the standard 5+ invulnerable save. That save can represent bullets turning into snowflakes or grievous wounds flesh warping themselves back together, not exactly mundane, but no test is required.

By doing it that way, you can...
* Avoid rolling a ton of psychic tests.
* Make powers as weak or strong as you feel appropriate provided you give them a corresponding points cost.
* Have your defensive powers active at the start of the game because no test is needed to activate them.

If you really want to make all daemons count as psykers, you can give them the psyker keyword without also giving them actual psychic powers; I'd argue that the daemon keyword basically accomplishes this already, but the option is there.

It leaves basic Plaguebearers looking... perhaps a little too generic? Bloodletters, Horrors, and Daemonettes don't really need their "god" ability to clearly slot into a role (even if Bloodletters really appreciate it), but without their "god" ability, Plaguebearers are just... gakky Orks with a 5++ save. You'd need to jack them up to 3.5e levels of durability for them to stand out as "durable" without Disgustingly Resilient as a basic ability; Toughness 5 and/or two Wounds apiece, for example.

Well, conceptually, if you're making DR an either/or option, then plaguebearers would be changing their roles based on the ability you gave them. If they all took the "Buzzing Cloud" upgrade that gives them extra melee attacks, for instance, then their job is theoretically to clear out hordes of weak infantry rather than to tarpit. Although again, you could always let them take both DR and another power, especially if you don't make those abilities actual psychic powers.

RevlidRas wrote:
This is true! And it's something I was aware of, but forgot to handle in the example used. The original idea was to remove the rules like Disgustingly Resilient or Ephemeral Form and turn them into psychic powers, thus keeping the overall power of each unit the same but offering more flexibility in terms of "build". So Plaguebearers wouldn't have Disgustingly Resilient. Instead, they'd have access to a set of powers that included:

Disgusting Resilience
Disgusting Resilience has a warp charge value of 1. If manifested, roll a dice each time the psyker loses a wound until start of your next turn; on a 5+, it does not lose that wound. If the result of the Psychic test was more than 5, the psyker also immediately regains D3 lost wounds (if the psyker is a unit of multiple models, only one model is healed; alternatively, you can return one slain model to the unit with 1 wound remaining).

The problem I ran into with this specific example was twofold:

It doesn't work unless you get the first turn; in fact, none of the "passive/defensive" abilities do. Unless you get the first turn, your Plaguebearers are left naked and unprotected from the harsh world outside!

It leaves basic Plaguebearers looking... perhaps a little too generic? Bloodletters, Horrors, and Daemonettes don't really need their "god" ability to clearly slot into a role (even if Bloodletters really appreciate it), but without their "god" ability, Plaguebearers are just... gakky Orks with a 5++ save. You'd need to jack them up to 3.5e levels of durability for them to stand out as "durable" without Disgustingly Resilient as a basic ability; Toughness 5 and/or two Wounds apiece, for example.

Wyldhunt wrote:

The original idea was to remove the rules like Disgustingly Resilient or Ephemeral Form and turn them into psychic powers, thus keeping the overall power of each unit the same but offering more flexibility in terms of "build". So Plaguebearers wouldn't have Disgustingly Resilient. Instead, they'd have access to a set of powers that included:

Disgusting Resilience
Disgusting Resilience has a warp charge value of 1. If manifested, roll a dice each time the psyker loses a wound until start of your next turn; on a 5+, it does not lose that wound. If the result of the Psychic test was more than 5, the psyker also immediately regains D3 lost wounds (if the psyker is a unit of multiple models, only one model is healed; alternatively, you can return one slain model to the unit with 1 wound remaining).

The problem I ran into with this specific example was twofold:
It doesn't work unless you get the first turn; in fact, none of the "passive/defensive" abilities do. Unless you get the first turn, your Plaguebearers are left naked and unprotected from the harsh world outside!

I'm on board for customizable daemon powers/gear to make them more diverse and interesting. But again I ask, why not simply make these abilities purchasable, always-on wargear? Sort of like warlock "psychic" powers in 4th/5th edition? Making them actually use psychic power rules requires you to roll for each ability every turn, compels you to make all the powers similarly useful (to avoid having obvious best choices), and then requires you to bookkeep which powers did and did not go off/get denied.

So instead of all that, why not just treat all these powers as wargear? Let plague bearers choose between, for instance, Disgustingly Resilient for X points per model in the unit, Poison 2+ weapons for Y points per model in the unit, and daemonic wings for Z points per model in the unit? Heck, you don't necessarily even have to make those options mutually exclusive. Then give the squad leader access to a couple of neat weapons or something. Not all supernatural powers need to be psychic tests. Soporific Musk is probably more supernatural than biological (given that the laws of biology are rarely respected by daemons), but you don't have to roll a psychic test to use it. Ditto disgustingly resillient or even the standard 5+ invulnerable save. That save can represent bullets turning into snowflakes or grievous wounds flesh warping themselves back together, not exactly mundane, but no test is required.

By doing it that way, you can...
* Avoid rolling a ton of psychic tests.
* Make powers as weak or strong as you feel appropriate provided you give them a corresponding points cost.
* Have your defensive powers active at the start of the game because no test is needed to activate them.

If you really want to make all daemons count as psykers, you can give them the psyker keyword without also giving them actual psychic powers; I'd argue that the daemon keyword basically accomplishes this already, but the option is there.

It leaves basic Plaguebearers looking... perhaps a little too generic? Bloodletters, Horrors, and Daemonettes don't really need their "god" ability to clearly slot into a role (even if Bloodletters really appreciate it), but without their "god" ability, Plaguebearers are just... gakky Orks with a 5++ save. You'd need to jack them up to 3.5e levels of durability for them to stand out as "durable" without Disgustingly Resilient as a basic ability; Toughness 5 and/or two Wounds apiece, for example.

Well, conceptually, if you're making DR an either/or option, then plaguebearers would be changing their roles based on the ability you gave them. If they all took the "Buzzing Cloud" upgrade that gives them extra melee attacks, for instance, then their job is theoretically to clear out hordes of weak infantry rather than to tarpit. Although again, you could always let them take both DR and another power, especially if you don't make those abilities actual psychic powers.

Possible Solution:
Make an Undivided Choas Discipline and give it to all lesser daemons. It has 6 powers that are multitiered, as mentioned above. Lesser daemons can use it with their single d6, unaligned greater daemons (subservient only to themselves, to several of the gods, or to a lesser god) or truly psychic daemons can use it on a 2d6. Each god then has its unique power, also multitiered. There are the 4 obvious ones for the major gods (Disgustingly Resilient, Ephihriel Form, Quicksilver Swiftness, Unstoppable Fury) and new ones for lesser gods can easily be added. These god specific powers always trigger on a 1 (N.B. that shadow in the warp or something can make this not be the case) and the multitiered form takes place on a 7+. God specific powers are active from the beginning of the game before the battle begins in their basic form on all models that can manifest it, no roll is needed to activate it. This will not be the case as soon as the player has their first psychic phase of course. All lesser daemons will know their god power and one other from the list.

Greater daemons can be devoted to their god as normal or can be undivided and just partial to a certain god. They will always roll to manifest the basic god power each turn, there is no choice in the matter. But you may choose to manifest the power on a 1d6 instead of a 2d6, to avoid perils without the chance of the stronger power. Greater daemons devoted to a god will not have access to the Undivided discipline (but will have the god power) and must use their god’s discipline, except Khorne daemons who get +1 attack or something. This would mean that you could have an undivided Bloodthirster who partial to Slannesh. Chapter Approved may even have a build your own god rules set.

The other powers in the Undivided discipline activate on something greater than 1. If one of these powers is attempted and failed, the unit will have no bonus (e.g. it loses disgustingly resilient and becomes weak and sad).

The powers in this discipline can be repeated an infinite number of times without penalty, unlike other disciplines. However if the same power is manifested more than once, subsequent successful manifestations are treated as if there were done on the minimum WC needed to activate the power when no modifiers or denies are applied (i.e. they only receive the basic effect).

None of the lesser daemons know smite or can deny the witch. The exceptions being all lesser daemons that are currently psykers, they roll a 2d6 for WC and know powers from their own god set (or maybe undivided set), as well as knowing smite and denying the witch as normal. This is in addition to their 2 lesser daemon powers (one god and one chosen), of which one additional psychic power manifestation is set aside for. This extra power is manifested with a 1d6 roll, but you could try to manifest it on a 2d6 in place of a normal power.

Daemons engines and heretic Astartes do not get this ability. Nor should chaos spawn and other beasts imo. They all have their own things going for them.

Perhaps to better represent chaos, units that chose to roll for their power can add 1 to the result of their psychic tests. Maybe there will even be some god power that will allow the model to roll for it’s chosen undivided power again.

This will require rebalancing abilities that weaken psykers. I don’t think deny the witch will need to be changed since no one will waste a deny on a 1d6 power. I don’t know about the shield of faith 1d6 deny. It might cripple daemons or be nice and fluffy. Maybe give it a -1 against DAEMON units and it will be fine. What will need adjusting are negative aoe effects against psykers, like the Culuxus abomination rule. Maybe those could be changed to subtracting one from each dice used as part of a psychic test. This will make perils less likely, interestingly enough, but looks like an ok balance. Since the ability stacks for SoS, they can still be capped at a -4, even against lesser daemons (but you need 4 units nearby). After all, small daemons simply evaporate when they get too close to nulls, so it makes sense that they can suck the ferocity out of bloodletters or the speed out of daemonettes.

 Eipi10 wrote:

Possible Solution:
Make an Undivided Choas Discipline and give it to all lesser daemons. It has 6 powers that are multitiered, as mentioned above. Lesser daemons can use it with their single d6, unaligned greater daemons (subservient only to themselves, to several of the gods, or to a lesser god) or truly psychic daemons can use it on a 2d6. Each god then has its unique power, also multitiered. There are the 4 obvious ones for the major gods (Disgustingly Resilient, Ephihriel Form, Quicksilver Swiftness, Unstoppable Fury) and new ones for lesser gods can easily be added. These god specific powers always trigger on a 1 (N.B. that shadow in the warp or something can make this not be the case) and the multitiered form takes place on a 7+. God specific powers are active from the beginning of the game before the battle begins in their basic form on all models that can manifest it, no roll is needed to activate it. This will not be the case as soon as the player has their first psychic phase of course. All lesser daemons will know their god power and one other from the list.

Greater daemons can be devoted to their god as normal or can be undivided and just partial to a certain god. They will always roll to manifest the basic god power each turn, there is no choice in the matter. But you may choose to manifest the power on a 1d6 instead of a 2d6, to avoid perils without the chance of the stronger power. Greater daemons devoted to a god will not have access to the Undivided discipline (but will have the god power) and must use their god’s discipline, except Khorne daemons who get +1 attack or something. This would mean that you could have an undivided Bloodthirster who partial to Slannesh. Chapter Approved may even have a build your own god rules set.

The other powers in the Undivided discipline activate on something greater than 1. If one of these powers is attempted and failed, the unit will have no bonus (e.g. it loses disgustingly resilient and becomes weak and sad).

The powers in this discipline can be repeated an infinite number of times without penalty, unlike other disciplines. However if the same power is manifested more than once, subsequent successful manifestations are treated as if there were done on the minimum WC needed to activate the power when no modifiers or denies are applied (i.e. they only receive the basic effect).

None of the lesser daemons know smite or can deny the witch. The exceptions being all lesser daemons that are currently psykers, they roll a 2d6 for WC and know powers from their own god set (or maybe undivided set), as well as knowing smite and denying the witch as normal. This is in addition to their 2 lesser daemon powers (one god and one chosen), of which one additional psychic power manifestation is set aside for. This extra power is manifested with a 1d6 roll, but you could try to manifest it on a 2d6 in place of a normal power.

Daemons engines and heretic Astartes do not get this ability. Nor should chaos spawn and other beasts imo. They all have their own things going for them.

Perhaps to better represent chaos, units that chose to roll for their power can add 1 to the result of their psychic tests. Maybe there will even be some god power that will allow the model to roll for it’s chosen undivided power again.

This will require rebalancing abilities that weaken psykers. I don’t think deny the witch will need to be changed since no one will waste a deny on a 1d6 power. I don’t know about the shield of faith 1d6 deny. It might cripple daemons or be nice and fluffy. Maybe give it a -1 against DAEMON units and it will be fine. What will need adjusting are negative aoe effects against psykers, like the Culuxus abomination rule. Maybe those could be changed to subtracting one from each dice used as part of a psychic test. This will make perils less likely, interestingly enough, but looks like an ok balance. Since the ability stacks for SoS, they can still be capped at a -4, even against lesser daemons (but you need 4 units nearby). After all, small daemons simply evaporate when they get too close to nulls, so it makes sense that they can suck the ferocity out of bloodletters or the speed out of daemonettes.

That is a ton of new rules, rules exceptions, additional rolling, and added bookkeeping for the end result you seem to be going for. Count the number of individual rules and rule exceptions you'd have to write up and explain to convey that to someone using your rules. What I think you basically want is a set of 4th/5th edition Warlock powers. These never rolled a psychic test. They were always on. They augmented the abilities of a single unit (the warlock was basically a sergeant to a guardian squad). You could take the same power multiple times.

If you want to make daemons have more options for special abilities, just assign those abilities a points cost. Wings for instance. If you want bloodletters and daemonettes to be able to fly and boost their movement speed, let them buy wings for X points per model. The wings are just always on. You don't have to roll to see if the wings shrivel up or get disbelieved away every turn. You don't have to track whether or not the wings are still active. You don't have to move the unit a second time when you succesfully cast the wings power. You just have wings.

Then, if you want to have improved versions of those upgrades with a god-specific twist, just make those an additional points cost upgrade with an additional points cost. So a nurgle prince would pay X points for wings, and then, being a daemon of nurgle, he'd have the option to purchase "Buzzing Wings" that impose a -1 to hit penalty on shooting attacks from more than 12" away or whatever.

If you want to add a random chance that certain abilities are even more potent for big demons, you can make that a psychic power, but you probably don't want that mechanic on every single unit in your army, right?

Making things an actual psychic power requires:
* A psychic test.
* Possibly invites a deny the witch test
* Requires you keep track of whether or not the power went off if its effects aren't resolved immediately.
* Requires you to resolve any immediate effects, er, immediately.
* Introduces the possibility that the power doesn't go off at all.

Also...

I don’t think deny the witch will need to be changed since no one will waste a deny on a 1d6 power.

I will absolutely use one of my several deny the witch attempts to strip Disgustingly Resillient off of a squad of plague bearers. It's not uncommon for me to run 3 or 4 psykers with 5+ deny attempts between them.

Also, this touches upon a point (you?) made earlier about plaguebearers feeling pretty squishy without DR. If an ability is essential to a unit's identity/role, then maybe that ability should just be baked into the unit. If a unit is bad if it doesn't take the RIGHT option, then all of the WRONG options are traps rather than interesting options.

So before we go any further the issue is khorne dudes absolutely hate psykers and thus would never be them themselves.
The idea here would go some ways into making daemons a bit better competitively as currently they’re goddamn terrible.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
So before we go any further the issue is khorne dudes absolutely hate psykers and thus would never be them themselves.
The idea here would go some ways into making daemons a bit better competitively as currently they’re goddamn terrible.

No they're not. They do well competitively.

I knew I'd seen this idea before. Daemons used to be able to pool the psychic energy to manifest psychic powers. So the more daemons in a unit the more powerful the psychic power they could use. As you lost models they lost access to the more powerful spells. So, I went digging through must chaos books and yep. Chaos Codex 2nd Edition.



You'll notice that Khorne Daemons still didn't have access to Psychic abilities; but whatever give them "Blood Tithe" back as a "not" psychic abilities. I think the idea would be a fine way to boost the power of Mono-build Daemons. Just limit the abilities to require Mono-god detachments like the Daemonic Loci currently are, to limit their soup interactions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 ThePrimordial wrote:
So before we go any further the issue is khorne dudes absolutely hate psykers and thus would never be them themselves.
The idea here would go some ways into making daemons a bit better competitively as currently they’re goddamn terrible.

No they're not. They do well competitively.

Chaos Daemons are not fine. Certain builds are viable at tournaments but most of the models never see play. Also most tournament armies are chaos soup typically; so not even Chaos Daemons. It's entirely possible to boost the Mono-god factions while preventing any OP soup interactions. If that's the case then why wouldn't you support it?