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  1. - Top - End - #61
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Oh, I wouldn't dream of removing psykers from the setting. They would become the thing to fear. A single psyker at the cell's rank could make for an incredibly dangerous antagonist.

    We've had a few threads about minimizing the psyker's power, and no, there's nothing you can do that will make a psyker remotely balanced, short of houseruling the hell out of the class. I won't extrapolate on that in here, since the threads are probably still on page 1.
    Last edited by Ranos; 2011-04-14 at 05:59 AM.

  2. - Top - End - #62
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    NecromancerGuy

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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ceridan View Post
    Sure they can, at higher levels find ways and talents to diminish that to a degree, but still one bad roll can kill the psyker, or at least soak up their Fate pool.
    Speaking of which, we recently had a discussion on the forum about how Fate points can only be used to reroll tests; things like rolling for Phenomena, Perils, Malignancy tests, rolling on mutation table - they're not tests, so can't be rerolled.
    LGBTitP

  3. - Top - End - #63
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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Weve made some fairly large leaps and bounds in terms of the houseruling.
    http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=191717
    The "overpowering psyker" Stems from lack of wording in some key powers, with several easy balances they end up just really versatile party members (there purpose) of the party.

  4. - Top - End - #64
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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    I personally, even using the psykers to their fullest degree dont see them as being anything too powerful beyond other characters. Sisters of Battle, combined with their serious free gear AND faith powers put them to shame along with the Scum class being easily the most useful (you make it a Noble scum and they kinda humiliate the rest of the party).
    Many thanks to Z-axis for the great avatar.

    Quote Originally Posted by Saldre View Post
    you know whats worse than a regular Daemon-host? A Daemon-host with a Plasma Cannon.
    Quote Originally Posted by RandomLunatic
    "Eh. I do to 'Mechs what Simon does to American Idol contestants."

  5. - Top - End - #65
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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Truth be told, my favorite class is the Adept. Cripplingly squishy, but I just enjoy being a walking library and playing a key role in the investigation aspect of the game. Plus, I can become a Psyker later on if I so choose, and without that nasty Sanctioning process.
    Anemoia: Nostalgia for a time you've never known.

  6. - Top - End - #66
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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    I hear people saying the Ascension supplement should be avoided at all costs. Why exactly? I like the idea of the characters eventually growing beyond the position of Acolyte and becoming Inquisitors and the like, but I take it this isn't handled very well in Ascension?

  7. - Top - End - #67
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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Herman View Post
    I hear people saying the Ascension supplement should be avoided at all costs. Why exactly? I like the idea of the characters eventually growing beyond the position of Acolyte and becoming Inquisitors and the like, but I take it this isn't handled very well in Ascension?
    Many of the powers are broken. Fairly weak Adeptus Arbites learns to be so commanding and awesome that everyone has to obey their orders, and they can pick a talent which makes heretics even more susceptible to those orders than loyal citizens already are. An assassin can dodge pretty much anything short of a nuclear blast multiple times per turn (and some would argue that yes, he can dodge anything, including nuclear blasts). Psykers can more or less think people out of existence with their powers (and this is a very small exagerration).
    LGBTitP

  8. - Top - End - #68
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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Quote Originally Posted by MickJay View Post
    Many of the powers are broken. Fairly weak Adeptus Arbites learns to be so commanding and awesome that everyone has to obey their orders, and they can pick a talent which makes heretics even more susceptible to those orders than loyal citizens already are. An assassin can dodge pretty much anything short of a nuclear blast multiple times per turn (and some would argue that yes, he can dodge anything, including nuclear blasts). Psykers can more or less think people out of existence with their powers (and this is a very small exagerration).
    Some people say that but I disagree to avoiding it (a GM should always have this thing out and refer to it in sesssion simply as a freak out tool ). The idea is, that you have hit a level where it is no longer a battle of individuals and it has become a battle of resources. Take a look at the skill lists for these Ascension classes. They are mostly reputation and relationship based, this is basiclly how you acquire openings to gain more allies as your opposition probably has many. I found classes like the Vindicare, Storm Trooper, and combat focused psykers particularly weak. They have little to no way of actually interacting with organisations outside of their comfort zone. Classes like the Sage, Magos, Interrogator however get to build some fairly strong alliances which can be used as their weapons.

    Take the scenario of your players going up against a radical inquisitor going over the line into heresy. Hes likely to be able to draw upon groups like the Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy in order to impede your path while your own players will need to pull similiar contacts in order to keep up. Stopping someone with this kind of resources is going to be very difficult if he knows your coming, meaning its less about finding him, and more about cutting his resources down until he cant stop hiding anymore. A demonic cult he rules over? You use your Oath Bonded to the Angels of Death talent to clean out before it requires the players themselves to actually physically deal with. Imperial Navy Admiral pulling forces to the Jericho reach leaving a sub-sector exposed for the radical Inquisitor to get in and out without report? Counter without your alliances with the Navis-Nobilite house who can help enforce that these ships remain in orbit for a time, giving your players that small opportunity to actually intercept the radical or atleast stop him getting what he was after here in the first place.

    Thats how I've always seen Ascension to be run.
    Many thanks to Z-axis for the great avatar.

    Quote Originally Posted by Saldre View Post
    you know whats worse than a regular Daemon-host? A Daemon-host with a Plasma Cannon.
    Quote Originally Posted by RandomLunatic
    "Eh. I do to 'Mechs what Simon does to American Idol contestants."

  9. - Top - End - #69
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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Quote Originally Posted by king.com View Post
    Some people say that but I disagree to avoiding it (a GM should always have this thing out and refer to it in sesssion simply as a freak out tool ). The idea is, that you have hit a level where it is no longer a battle of individuals and it has become a battle of resources. Take a look at the skill lists for these Ascension classes. They are mostly reputation and relationship based, this is basiclly how you acquire openings to gain more allies as your opposition probably has many. I found classes like the Vindicare, Storm Trooper, and combat focused psykers particularly weak. They have little to no way of actually interacting with organisations outside of their comfort zone. Classes like the Sage, Magos, Interrogator however get to build some fairly strong alliances which can be used as their weapons.

    Clipped

    Thats how I've always seen Ascension to be run.
    The problem with Magos is that you have to have 50 fellowship to get most of those alliance things.

    Now I don't know about my fellow tech priests, but MY tech priest will probably never be able to get up that far.

  10. - Top - End - #70
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    Quote Originally Posted by WitchSlayer View Post
    The problem with Magos is that you have to have 50 fellowship to get most of those alliance things.

    Now I don't know about my fellow tech priests, but MY tech priest will probably never be able to get up that far.
    I'm not sure it's even possible at all.

  11. - Top - End - #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by king.com View Post
    I personally, even using the psykers to their fullest degree dont see them as being anything too powerful beyond other characters. Sisters of Battle, combined with their serious free gear AND faith powers put them to shame along with the Scum class being easily the most useful (you make it a Noble scum and they kinda humiliate the rest of the party).
    At Psi 4 + Favoured of the Warp and beyond this is simply and grossly untrue.

    Quote Originally Posted by king.com View Post
    Some people say that but I disagree to avoiding it (a GM should always have this thing out and refer to it in sesssion simply as a freak out tool ). The idea is, that you have hit a level where it is no longer a battle of individuals and it has become a battle of resources. Take a look at the skill lists for these Ascension classes. They are mostly reputation and relationship based, this is basiclly how you acquire openings to gain more allies as your opposition probably has many. I found classes like the Vindicare, Storm Trooper, and combat focused psykers particularly weak. They have little to no way of actually interacting with organisations outside of their comfort zone. Classes like the Sage, Magos, Interrogator however get to build some fairly strong alliances which can be used as their weapons.
    It's trivial to build a 'batman' Psyker that is overwhelmingly good at just about everything and therefore completely broken.

  12. - Top - End - #72
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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistik View Post
    At Psi 4 + Favoured of the Warp and beyond this is simply and grossly untrue.

    It's trivial to build a 'batman' Psyker that is overwhelmingly good at just about everything and therefore completely broken.
    Your requirements for doing this are:
    Getting a good willpower (you roll them down the list so your depended on one good roll or one reroll to get the stat you need). Means your most likely to start with something like 11 (average of 2 d10s) + origin, so either void born for + 5, +5 for Living Nightmare (which is a fantastic way to completely screw with the character as a GM). Leaving you with something like 41 Wp Average. Maxing it out to a bonus of 6.

    Then the amount of xp you need to spend to achieve psi-rating 4 + FotW

    Sanctionite - 500
    Neonate - 500
    Aspirant - 1000
    Scholar Materium - 1000
    Scholar Medicae - 2000
    Scholar Arcanum - 200 (for FotW)

    Thats a long way from starting character. So lets go complete fastest way there ok? Tell me if im doing it wrong.

    Priority is getting Wp bonus highest as possible first for the Psy Rating number of powers.
    Then buying as many necssary powers as possible.

    Spoiler
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    Sanctionite + Neonate + Aspirant (2000 XP)
    Wp Advance 1st - 100
    Wp Advance 2nd - 250
    Wp Advance 3rd - 500
    Wp Advance 4th - 750
    Psy Rating 2 - 200
    Dodge - 100
    Minor Psychic Power - 100

    Scholar Materium (1000 XP)
    Psy Rating 3 - 200
    Psychic Power - 200
    Power Well - 200
    Psyniscience + 10 - 100
    Inovcation + 10 - 100
    Awareness - 100
    Awareness + 10 - 100

    Scholar Medicae - (2000 XP)
    Psy Rating 4 - 200
    Discipline Focus - 200
    Psychic Power - 100
    Psychic Power - 100
    Jaded - 100

    Heres the point you get some spending, things like dropping 500xp into agility if your bonus can go up, 300 xp for medicae + 10 and master Chirugen, getting your intelligence or perception to +15. Something up to personal tastes/stats in that last 1300xp

    Then you get Favoured by the warp when you hit 6200 XP.


    Your result is 12 Minor Powers (you can easily get more but I think 12 is the right number to get everything you really want).
    Either 2 Displices and 5 Powers or 1 Discipline and 8 powers.

    So apparently this makes him stupidly broken.

    Lets go with the assumption you want to make him a batman psyker so we split the disciplines into Telepathy and Telekinesis .

    Minor Powers chosen- Call Item (anti-get captured power), Distort Vision, Healer, Precognition (with only basicy dodge and likely bad agility you really need this up), Lucky, Knack (for the +10 and reroll combo), Sense Presence, Unnatural Aim (since your likely to suck at shooting), Weapon Jinx, Flash Bang, Fearful Aura, Inspiring Aura (the last 3 are my personal but require the party to either run or be aware you can help it out since with fear tests, your likely to be one of the few people stading)

    Telepathy -Mind Scan, Dominate, Telepathy
    Telekinetics - Force Barrage, Catch Projectiles

    So lets see how this works for combat
    -Psyker with 60 Wp using Force Barrage (say the Discipline focus for the Telekinetics)
    Meaning he needs a 12 (6 wp bonus + 1 power well + 2 discipline focus) for it to go off. You want to invocate to get that bonus up to 12, that means the enemy is going first or he can take the test flat.

    Hes probably got an Ag Bonus of 3 so hes getting a 4-13 intiative, probably equal to the average opponent at lower levels but given this is a mid levle game its likely atleast something against the party is going on Ag Bonus 4 or even outpacing the party's assassin. A couple of arco flagellants could do this no problem.

    So the psyker goes first (good intiative roll) not wanting to invocate because the 2 arco flagellants are barreling down on them. He needs a 12, a success will result in 6, 1d10+6 bolts. He might want to really kill them so he pops 3 dice into that power roll, still a potential fail but statisticlly a pass. Lets say he gets it, no overbleed.
    6 1d10+6 right.
    I used the dnd roller and got these as the dice rolls: 5,4,10,8,7,4 Definitely a nice roll.

    So hes doing 11, 10, 16, 14, 13, 10 damage base.
    Against the Flagellant -armour(3) and toughness(8) he did: 0, 0, 5, 3, 2, 0 Damage.

    He then does, 14, 3, 2 Damage (10 total).

    Next turn (party magically kills one of them lets pretend for simplicities sake)
    Arco-flagellant charges the psyker and with its 4 attacks, is going to hit 2.

    Psyker going to have like a 30% chance to dodge, lets pretend he makes it.
    Psyker takes 1d10+14 Tearing damage (Chain Axe), given he probably has a TB of 3, maybe mesh armour given his income if hes lucky.
    So he reduces 5 damage, meaning he has to take 1d10+9 wounds. Minimum damage is going to put him on low, probably the crit table. Either way hes not in great shape.

    This is simply the example that jumped into my head after my party of the same xp went up against. Lets just have a look at the points of failure.

    The power doesn't go off. -Can be easily migitated by putting another dice in but it then makes the next point a higher probability
    The power rolls result in a 9. - Migitated by Favoured by the warp but still potential damage to be caused.
    The damage is low. - As seen above, again, requires more dice and more overbleed.
    The psyker fails to dodge. - Statistically the psyker fails dodging since he never gets +20 dodge.

    Similiar take some completely unoptimized characters doing something similiar.

    Assassing + Autogun + Man-stopper rounds + Full Auto being able to:

    47 BS (still only has bought 2 advances) + 10 (range) + 20 (Full Auto)
    Brings him up to 77 BS (or if he optimized) 87 BS.
    He rolls a 37 or < and he gets as many hits as the psyker going for Force Barrage doing only 2 points of reduced raw damage but with AP 3.
    So his damage (using same dice +2 Mighty Strike) becomes: 11, 10, 16, 14, 13, 10
    Doing 3, 2, 8, 6, 5, 2 Damage (not including righteous fury)
    Totalling 26 damage. The things on the crit table

    Arco flagellant charges, same 2 attacks hit, assassin has 53 Ag, with +20 dodge and Step aside. So he can dodge both attacks with a 73% chance to do so.

    Points of Failure:
    Loses to a 87% chance to hit as statistically even against this powerful target 1 bullet can do damage
    Fails to dodge to 73% chance over 2 tests.
    Has more money so can likely afford a better armour, xeno-mesh, maybe even carapace.

    Will get to the non-combat in a bit. This is my rough look at it. The arbitrator with a hunting rifle and man-stopper gets a similiar effect except ends up doing loads of damage as -8 toughness bonus is only taken once meaning 3d10-4 can do some nasty damage.
    Many thanks to Z-axis for the great avatar.

    Quote Originally Posted by Saldre View Post
    you know whats worse than a regular Daemon-host? A Daemon-host with a Plasma Cannon.
    Quote Originally Posted by RandomLunatic
    "Eh. I do to 'Mechs what Simon does to American Idol contestants."

  13. - Top - End - #73
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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Quote Originally Posted by WitchSlayer View Post
    The problem with Magos is that you have to have 50 fellowship to get most of those alliance things.

    Now I don't know about my fellow tech priests, but MY tech priest will probably never be able to get up that far.
    Ah my mistake, ive forgotten one of the few houserules I go with. Tech priests interacting with techpriests use intelligence as the base stat. Also, Oath Bonded to the Angels of Death, no requirement for that.
    Many thanks to Z-axis for the great avatar.

    Quote Originally Posted by Saldre View Post
    you know whats worse than a regular Daemon-host? A Daemon-host with a Plasma Cannon.
    Quote Originally Posted by RandomLunatic
    "Eh. I do to 'Mechs what Simon does to American Idol contestants."

  14. - Top - End - #74
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    Quote Originally Posted by king.com View Post
    Ah my mistake, ive forgotten one of the few houserules I go with. Tech priests interacting with techpriests use intelligence as the base stat.
    I'm surprised this was not made official, really. Hard to figure out how Mechanicus could even function otherwise.
    LGBTitP

  15. - Top - End - #75
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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Given you have an optional reroll assuming a worse than average stat for any one roll, WP can be expected to be higher than 11; 12-15 is probably a more fair assumption.

    Of course, this is assuming pure RAW; most DMs permit point buy or at least allow players to assign their rolls, so odds are you get something in the 15-20 range for WP. Point buy is a straight 20, but either way is fine.

    Darkholder for an effective +10, Living Nightmare for +5.

    31 to 40 + 10 + 5 = 46 to 55 WP
    31 + 5 Toughness = 36 T

    XP Buy: 7,000 XP (Half way through Scholar Arcanum)
    Spoiler
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    Sanctionite (1-499 XP):

    • Living Nightmare: 300 XP
    • +5 WP: 100 XP
    • Awareness: 100 XP


    Neonate (500-999 XP):

    • +10 WP: 250 XP
    • +15 WP: 500 XP


    Aspirant (1,000-1,999):

    • +20 WP: 750 XP (66-75 WP)

    Scholar Materium (2,000-2,999):

    • Psi Rating 2: 200 XP (3-4 Lesser Psychic Powers; LPPs)
    • Psi Rating 3: 200 XP (Force Barrage, 3-4 LPPs)
    • Psychic Power: 200 XP (Precision Telekinesis)
    • Dodge: 100 XP
    • Paranoia: 100 XP
    • Power Well: 200 XP


    Scholar Medicae (3,000-5,999):

    • Tech-Use: 100 (41 Tech-Use)
    • Awareness +10: 100
    • Awareness +20: 200 (61 Awareness)
    • Discipline Focus (Telekinesis): 200 XP
    • Psi Rating 4: 200 XP (Divine Shot, 3-4 LPPs)
    • Psychic Power 2x: 200 XP (Push, Preternatural Awareness)
    • Agility +5: 500
    • Agility +10: 750 (41 Ag)
    • Toughness +5: 250 (41 T)
    • Perception +5: 100
    • Perception +10: 250 (41 P)
    • Intelligence +5: 100
    • Intelligence +10: 250 (41 Int)


    Scholar Arcanum (6,000-7,999):

    • Logic: 100 XP (41 Logic)
    • Dodge +10: 100 XP (51 Dodge)
    • Medicae: 100 XP (41 Medicae)
    • Interrogation: 100 XP (66-75 Interrogation)
    • Discipline Focus (Divination): 200 XP
    • Psychic Power 2x: 200 XP (Utility Divination Power, Glimpse)
    • Power Well: 200 XP


    Divination Powers:
    Spoiler
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    • Divine Shot
    • Glimpse
    • Preternatural Awareness
    • Far Sight/Soul Sight/Dowsing, etc.. (whatever is most useful for your campaign)



    Telekinesis Powers:
    Spoiler
    Show

    • Precision Telekinesis
    • Force Barrage
    • Push



    Choice LSPs (assuming 10 with WP 66; 15 with WP 70 or better; several of these will vary depending on the campaign. Pick from the following list as needed):
    Spoiler
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    • Endure Flames (Fire immunity, heavy Plasma/Melta resistance),
    • Fearful Aura (broken LSP),
    • Chameleon (obvious use)
    • Call Item (get a crucial weapon/item past security with ease, rearm yourself with say a Force Weapon if necessary, etc)
    • Spasm (obviously useful)
    • Weapon Jinx (ridiculously useful, even with its nerf),
    • Sense Presence (obviously useful)
    • Space Slip (move through walls/doors with impunity),
    • Mutable Features (shape shifting with ridiculous Overbleed is obviously useful) 22+12+2 = 36 - 8 / 5 = 5.6 Overbleed = -50 penalty to the WP roll; most will autofail.
    • Truthseeker (effectively force the target to tell the truth or remain silent; see Mutable Features overbleed. Given that you have 66 Interrogation with a +30 bonus from Glimpse, he's talking)
    • Haywire (obviously useful; works without fail on completely mechanical/electronic targets)
    • Trusting Aura (effective +20 to all interaction skills; can be subbed out if you have Glimpse as the bonus doesn't stack)
    • Distortion (anonymity for you and your allies)
    • Without A Trace (obviously useful)
    • Float (obviously useful, invulnerability to most meleers including Arcoflaggants)
    • Healer (great interim power until you get Seal Wounds; still beats the hell out of natural healing with Medicae)
    • Dull Pain (Instantaneous Fatigue removal on demand is surprisingly useful, especially if you abuse Precision Telekinesis to increase carrying capacity)
    • Distort Vision (a classic; spam it while you kill something conventionally with Precision Telekinesis)




    Killing the Arcoflaggant:

    Spoiler
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    First, we have Preternatural Awareness to auto-win initiative:

    6 (WP) + 6 (Invocation) + 22 (Psi 4) + 2 (Power Well) + 2 (Discipline Focus) = 38 - 9 / 10 = 2.9 Average Overbleed; round up for +24 Initiative, round down for +18 Initiative, +4 Ag Bonus. Going first is guaranteed either way. Dismiss Preternatural Awareness on your turn before manifesting, as it has served its purpose.

    Versus the Arcoflaggant, a monster you very obviously cherry picked due to its immunities and relatively high armor/toughness, we use Divine Shot + MP Lascannon, or any other similar heavy weapon: 5.5 * 10 = 55 + 10 = 60 ignoring 10 points of Armor. Alternately use a Multi-Melta or any other heavy weapons with comparable damage for an undodgable instant kill. Dead Arco-flaggant. Precision Telekinesis aimed Autocannons and other super-heavy weapons also do the trick.

    And/or you can just use the Lesser Power Float (5 meters off the ground is handily out of their reach) or simply go the Biomancy route in place of Divination and use Shape Flesh to give yourself Flier so you can pick them off at your leisure with Force Barrage spam, or WP aimed gunfire using Precision Telekinesis to substitute for BS Tests. This has the happy side effect of making these attacks completely undodgable and not subject to BS modifiers (including cover) by the RAW as it is no longer features a BS Test and is therefore not classified as a Ranged Attack.


    Miscellany/Summary:

    Your Force Barrage math is completely off by the way (also you never 'random roll' you use the average). First off, the Overbleed:

    6 (WP Bonus) + 22 (Psi 4) + 2 (Focus) + 2 (Power Well) = (32 - 21) / 5 = 2.2
    (essentially the same for a WP Bonus 7)

    Force Barrage Damage vs Arcoflaggant:

    WP 66: (5.5 [1d10] + 6 [WP] + 0.31 [Righteous Fury] - 7 [3 Body AP + 4 TB]) * 0.66 * 8 = 25.3968 average damage
    WP 70: (5.5 [1d10] + 6 [WP] + 0.31 [Righteous Fury] - 7 [3 Body AP + 4 TB]) * 0.7 * 9 = 30.303 average damage
    WP 75: (5.5 [1d10] + 6 [WP] + 0.31 [Righteous Fury] - 7 [3 Body AP + 4 TB]) * 0.75 * 9 = 32.4675 average damage

    As of the 3.0 Errata, Psychic Powers count as attacks, and therefore benefit from Righteous Fury (which is not specific to Melee/Ranged Attacks). Righteous Fury is calculated as 0.1 (chance of a natural 10) * 0.31 (by RAW you must use BS/WS, though you can substitute with WP using Precision Telekinesis for a .66-.75 multiplier) * 10 (difference between max and average damage on 1 dice + average damage on the bonus dice: 4.5 + 5.5) = 0.31 or .66-.75 if Precision Telekinesis is active. I'm only assuming the possibility of 1 RF per roll.


    While Push is useless against Arcoflaggants, it's definitely worth looking at in general, given that most enemies aren't flat out immune to Fatigue (not even Daemons or Servitors) and it enables you to capture targets alive (or kill them) with ease:

    6 (WP Bonus) + 22 (Psi 4) + 2 (Focus) + 2 (Power Well) = (32 - 13) / 5 = 3.8
    so essentially 3-4 Overbleed, which effectively translates into 3-4 additional points of Fatigue:

    66 - 50 (average roll) vs 50 - 50 (though average strength for most monsters is probably well below that) = 16 vs 0 so 1 degree of success + 3-4 additional degrees from Overbleed for 4-5 points of Fatigue, and the target is also knocked prone. Obviously this means an instant KO against the vast majority of enemies. With WP 70-75, increase the average # of Fatigue points by 1.

    Further, odds of a Perils of the Warp with all Psi 4 assuming Favoured of the Warp: 6.67%. The odds of something 'really bad' happening (as in instant death or severe injury) is considerably less; approximately 30% of that = ~2%.

    In the meanwhile, you are incredibly accomplished at a wide breadth of extremely useful skills, any of which you can get a +30 to at will via Glimpse (or reroll with Lucky if you took it) using only 1-2 Psi Dice, and can use WP by the RAW to substitute for any Characteristic in a Characteristic Test, from BS to Int. You also have access to a powerful utility Divination. Also note that Power Well and the Discipline Focuses aren't necessary; you can comfortably swap them out to further bolster your skills or acquire more if necessary or beneficial given the nature of the campaign.

    By the time you hit Psi 5, and have Divination, Biomancy, _and_ Telekinetics, you have essentially achieved godhood; everything beyond just compounds your phenomenal cosmic power.

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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Versus the Arcoflaggant [...] we use Divine Shot + MP Lascannon, or any other similar heavy weapon: 5.5 * 10 = 55 + 10 = 60 ignoring 10 points of Armor. Alternately use a Multi-Melta or any other heavy weapons with comparable damage for an undodgable instant kill. Dead Arco-flaggant. Precision Telekinesis aimed Autocannons and other super-heavy weapons also do the trick.
    Emphases mine. What the hell kind of psyker is toting that kind of hardware around? His income is Supine class - even starting at the full income for his advancement scheme in your post (rather than having built up his wealth over the course of his gaming career through the lower ranks), buying a man-portable Lascannon would require him to hoard his income for almost four years. Unless his Inquisitor is covering his ammo tab, that's a long time for him to stretch the three bullets in his starting revolver/the one charge pack in his starting laspistol.

    A direct hit from a lascannon or multimelta will slag 99% of adversaries in the game, and an autocannon is almost as lethal. As an habitual DH GM, the only circumstances in which I can see the PCs getting hold of one are

    1) If it is built into the environment, because they are about to fight an opponent that requires such weaponry in order to be able to damage it at all (e.g. a frickin' tank), or

    2) If it has been requisitioned by special Inquisitorial privilege for a specific mission - in which case, it should be in the hands of the strongest, highest-BS member of the party, likely a guardsman if there is one. You can argue that your psychic powers make you a better fit for the position of heavy weapons dude, but that's certainly not how the Imperium think in the game world - tell me how many psykers you can see in this picture. For one thing, it would be inefficient - letting opponents try to dodge the heavy weapon's shots is a small price to pay if it leaves the psyker free to use his powers more imaginatively while the heavy weapon is still firing.

    Using heavy weapons in your example to reduce the opponent to pulp only proves that heavy weapons are... heavy weapons.

    EDIT: And double-checking the weapon stats, a man-portable Lascannon weighs 55kg. To even carry it without herniating himself, the psyker would have to meet the criterion TB + SB = 8, which, unless you rolled a fair few 20s at character creation, the psyker you've posted would not have.
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    Quote Originally Posted by LCP View Post
    Emphases mine. What the hell kind of psyker is toting that kind of hardware around? His income is Supine class - even starting at the full income for his advancement scheme in your post (rather than having built up his wealth over the course of his gaming career through the lower ranks), buying a man-portable Lascannon would require him to hoard his income for almost four years. Unless his Inquisitor is covering his ammo tab, that's a long time for him to stretch the three bullets in his starting revolver/the one charge pack in his starting laspistol.
    Are you really under the impression that the Inquisitor is literally going to make his acolytes pay for their own weaponry and equipment? Any sensible Inquisitor will give his acolytes the gear they can use best and be trusted with. By the time you reach Scholar Arcanum, you have likely proven worthy of heavy weapon clearance.

    2) If it has been requisitioned by special Inquisitorial privilege for a specific mission - in which case, it should be in the hands of the strongest, highest-BS member of the party, likely a guardsman if there is one. You can argue that your psychic powers make you a better fit for the position of heavy weapons dude, but that's certainly not how the Imperium think in the game world - tell me how many psykers you can see in this picture. For one thing, it would be inefficient - letting opponents try to dodge the heavy weapon's shots is a small price to pay if it leaves the psyker free to use his powers more imaginatively while the heavy weapon is still firing.
    The Guardsman is your personal mule, nothing more; why do you need to use your powers creatively in battle when you can use them to instantly level your opponent instead?

    Further what does that even prove? That Divine Shot doesn't exist in tabletop?

    Using heavy weapons in your example to reduce the opponent to pulp only proves that heavy weapons are... heavy weapons.
    No, it proves that you can uniquely one shot virtually any DH enemy without any possibility of missing, dodging or evasion because you're a Psyker using Divine Shot.

    EDIT: And double-checking the weapon stats, a man-portable Lascannon weighs 55kg. To even carry it without herniating himself, the psyker would have to meet the criterion TB + SB = 8, which, unless you rolled a fair few 20s at character creation, the psyker you've posted would not have.
    Not at all; boosting your TB + SB total to 8 by Scholar Arcanum (assuming average 31 scores in each) is extremely doable. Second, you can use Precision Telekinesis to Test WP in order to temporarily increase your effective carrying capacity.

    Finally, as stated, you can use a mere Lesser Power to hover out of reach of the Arco-flaggants (they can't deal with this; they're literally raging retards with chainaxes) and kill them at your leisure with more 'palpable' weaponry if you like.

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    I'm not going to get involved in the crunch debate, been there done that, but what makes you think there aren't any psykers in the picture ?

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    Are you really under the impression that the Inquisitor is literally going to make his acolytes pay for their own weaponry and equipment? Any sensible Inquisitor will give his acolytes the gear they can use best and be trusted with.
    I run my games by a mixture of direct purchase and requisition - but I definitely use the listed incomes as a benchmark of the kind of resources the Acolytes should have available to them.

    By the time you reach Scholar Arcanum, you have likely proven worthy of heavy weapon clearance.
    Again, look to the background. In the tabletop game, you can field Primaris Psykers, and they don't have heavy weapons options. Psykers are not expected to lug heavy weapons about, and a psyker asking for a heavy weapon of that calibre would raise the Inquisitor's eyebrows right off his face. Lascannons in particular, and other weapons of that stripe, are precious technological gems in the 40K setting: they should be issued only to heavy weapons specialists who are taking on the kinds of target that require them, not as personal sidearms for psykers working as sleuths for the Inquisition. This is confirmed in the crunch by their Very Rare availability.

    As a DH GM, I certainly would not consider access to a man-portable lascannon - or in fact any heavy weapon, barring a heavy stubber - a given for a psyker at rank 7. In fact I would think it was pretty implausible. You may disagree, but I don't think my view is too peculiar among DH GMs.

    The Guardsman is your personal mule, nothing more; why do you need to use your powers creatively in battle when you can use them to instantly level your opponent instead?
    Because that is not the viewpoint from which these assessments are made. From the point of view of anyone who is not a melee specialist, it makes sense for them to carry the group's only lascannon if they want to maximise their individual killing power, but that is not the same as maximising the group's combat potential, which is what the Inquisitor is concerned with.

    On top of that, the Inquisitor is played by the GM, and any GM who regards the Guardsman as "the psyker's personal mule" is ruining the game for the Guardsman player and thus a pretty poor GM.

    No, it proves that you can uniquely one shot virtually any DH enemy without any possibility of missing, dodging or evasion because you're a Psyker using Divine Shot.
    This is a blind assertion that simply means nothing without the context of the improbable appearance of a high-powered heavy weapon.

    You are in a 10 by 10 metre room with a genestealer. You have a stub pistol, and Divine Shot. One shot him.

    Not at all; boosting your TB + SB total to 8 by Scholar Arcanum (assuming average 31 scores in each) is extremely doable. Second, you can use Precision Telekinesis to Test WP in order to temporarily increase your effective carrying capacity.
    But I looked at the sheet you put up above and you hadn't done so, meaning you'd have to trade off some of those other goodies to get it (not to mention Specialist Weapon Training - Heavy (Las), which isn't even on your advance scheme).

    Telekinesis-ing the weapon around is a good solution, sure, but it does require the constant sustaining of a psychic power. I know that sustaining powers is fairly low-risk but if you're having to use it for something as mundane as carrying your equipment then it is something of a vulnerability. Not to mention the fact that presumably you are carrying things besides the lascannon, upping the weight even further.

    Finally, as stated, you can use a mere Lesser Power to hover out of reach of the Arco-flaggants (they can't deal with this; they're literally raging retards with chainaxes) and kill them at your leisure.
    I'm not contesting that: the rest of your argument I don't necessarily disagree with, it's just the egregious image of a psyker heavy weapons specialist that rubs me up the wrong way.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistik View Post
    Are you really under the impression that the Inquisitor is literally going to make his acolytes pay for their own weaponry and equipment? Any sensible Inquisitor will give his acolytes the gear they can use best and be trusted with. By the time you reach Scholar Arcanum, you have likely proven worthy of heavy weapon clearance.
    There are several things wrong with this statement.

    1) You are free to play your game however you want, but the default rules are that the players have to buy their own gear.

    2) What Inquisitor has the time to micromanage his acolytes? That's the whole point of the Salary rules. The Inquisitor gives you money based on your level of importance, which you are trusted to spend at the Inquisitor's best interests.

    3) Until Ascension level, the default assumption is that you're not trusted acolytes who get whatever they ask the Inquisitor for. You're the Inquisitor's mooks, who do the work that isn't important enough for him to personally pay attention to. It's not a relationship where you get to ask pretty please for nice things, it's a relationship where he tells you to do something, and you do it with whatever he is nice enough to give to you.

    Also, if you're running around spamming psychic powers like you suggest here, one of two things is going to happen.

    1) You are going to get burnt at the stake by the heretic-fearing populace at worst, and at best you're going to announce your presence to the entire planet you're on.

    2) You're going to roll badly, trigger Perils of the Warp, and kill off your entire party and yourself. The chances of this happening increase as you gain levels.
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    Quote Originally Posted by LCP View Post
    I run my games by a mixture of direct purchase and requisition - but I definitely use the listed incomes as a benchmark of the kind of resources the Acolytes should have available to them.
    Income is best thought of as spending money, not an woefully inadequate allowance for the equipment you need to do your job.

    Again, look to the background. In the tabletop game, you can field Primaris Psykers, and they don't have heavy weapons options. Psykers are not expected to lug heavy weapons about, and a psyker asking for a heavy weapon of that calibre would raise the Inquisitor's eyebrows right off his face. Lascannons in particular, and other weapons of that stripe, are precious technological gems in the 40K setting: they should be issued only to heavy weapons specialists who are taking on the kinds of target that require them, not as personal sidearms for psykers working as sleuths for the Inquisition. This is confirmed in the crunch by their Very Rare availability.

    As a DH GM, I certainly would not consider access to a man-portable lascannon - or in fact any heavy weapon, barring a heavy stubber - a given for a psyker at rank 7. In fact I would think it was pretty implausible. You may disagree, but I don't think my view is too peculiar among DH GMs.
    Any Inquisitor worthy of the title who knows his Psyker agent is capable of one shotting anything without fail is going to give him the firepower he needs to do his job at an optimal level if the need is foreseen.

    Because that is not the viewpoint from which these assessments are made. From the point of view of anyone who is not a melee specialist, it makes sense for them to carry the group's only lascannon if they want to maximise their individual killing power, but that is not the same as maximising the group's combat potential, which is what the Inquisitor is concerned with.
    Want to maximize the group's killing power? Facing heavily armoured opponents? Give the Divine Shot Psyker his gun.

    On top of that, the Inquisitor is played by the GM, and any GM who regards the Guardsman as "the psyker's personal mule" is ruining the game for the Guardsman player and thus a pretty poor GM.
    Well that's what he is effectively; a heavy weapons caddy. I don't like it either; the Guardsman is one of the most underpowered if not the most underpowered career in the game overall.

    This is a blind assertion that simply means nothing without the context of the improbable appearance of a high-powered heavy weapon.
    If you can use Divine Shot to OHKO virtually anything, and your Inquisitor knows this, it's not improbable as a rank 7 Psyker.

    You are in a 10 by 10 metre room with a genestealer. You have a stub pistol, and Divine Shot. One shot him.
    Okay, I drop the useless stub pistol as a Free Action and Force Barrage him; or Push him, etc...

    But I looked at the sheet you put up above and you hadn't done so, meaning you'd have to trade off some of those other goodies to get it (not to mention Specialist Weapon Training - Heavy (Las), which isn't even on your advance scheme).
    Sure, swap out some Agil, or the more disposable stuff like Power Well. Done.

    Telekinesis-ing the weapon around is a good solution, sure, but it does require the constant sustaining of a psychic power. I know that sustaining powers is fairly low-risk but if you're having to use it for something as mundane as carrying your equipment then it is something of a vulnerability. Not to mention the fact that presumably you are carrying things besides the lascannon, upping the weight even further.
    You do realize that Precision Telekinesis is one of those powers you _want_ to sustain virtually all the time right? It's one of the best in the game.


    Quote Originally Posted by Mr.Bookworm View Post
    1) You are free to play your game however you want, but the default rules are that the players have to buy their own gear.
    Nope. There is _nothing_ in the RAW that explicitly says that the acolytes _have_ to buy their own gear; you're given salaries and prices, that's it.

    2) What Inquisitor has the time to micromanage his acolytes? That's the whole point of the Salary rules. The Inquisitor gives you money based on your level of importance, which you are trusted to spend at the Inquisitor's best interests.
    The Inquisitor isn't paying you; the rulebook explicitly says that's money you're making in your spare time: DH Core Rulebook, Pg 124

    3) Until Ascension level, the default assumption is that you're not trusted acolytes who get whatever they ask the Inquisitor for. You're the Inquisitor's mooks, who do the work that isn't important enough for him to personally pay attention to. It's not a relationship where you get to ask pretty please for nice things, it's a relationship where he tells you to do something, and you do it with whatever he is nice enough to give to you.
    Proof? Reference?

    Also, if you're running around spamming psychic powers like you suggest here, one of two things is going to happen.

    1) You are going to get burnt at the stake by the heretic-fearing populace at worst, and at best you're going to announce your presence to the entire planet you're on.

    2) You're going to roll badly, trigger Perils of the Warp, and kill off your entire party and yourself. The chances of this happening increase as you gain levels.
    I just spelled out how thoroughly unlikely a truly bad Perils actually is with Favoured of the Warp. Further, you only need to resort to that level of power in truly desperate encounters; for the most part, just use a Melta Gun or whatever with Psi 2 Divine Shot, or Precision Telekinesis.

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    Mr Bookworm said it above:

    Until Ascension level, the default assumption is that you're not trusted acolytes who get whatever they ask the Inquisitor for. You're the Inquisitor's mooks, who do the work that isn't important enough for him to personally pay attention to. It's not a relationship where you get to ask pretty please for nice things, it's a relationship where he tells you to do something, and you do it with whatever he is nice enough to give to you.
    I don't think I can put it better. (I see in your edit you ask for 'proof' or a reference... I'm pretty sure that the position of Acolytes is spelt out along those lines under the fluff section in the DH core book, explaining how the circles of the Inquisition work. Near the big Venn Diagram type thing). It's always going to vary a bit on interpretation, but you are pointing out a problem and we are pointing out a background-consistent, zero-house-rules solution.

    When you say these things:

    Any Inquisitor worthy of the title who knows his Psyker agent is capable of one shotting anything without fail is going to give him the firepower he needs to do his job at an optimal level if the need is foreseen.
    If you can use Divine Shot to OHKO virtually anything, and your Inquisitor knows this, it's not improbable as a rank 7 Psyker.
    you seem to me to be telling the GM, from a player's standpoint, what the Inquisitor should be doing.

    As Acolytes, you are not a tooled-up kill-team - if there's a target that the Inquisitor just wants made extremely dead, then he can call in an orbital strike, or the Guard (with as many heavy weapons as he likes), or even the Deathwatch, if you want to make a game out of it. Not his Acolytes. You're contacts, you're investigators, and you're expendable. He may give you the weaponry you need to survive, but he's not going to shower you with riches, and that's undeniably what a Very Rare, 5,000 throne man-portable lascannon represents.

    On top of all this, if by some chance that very rare lascannon should come along, then as you've acknowledged with the Genestealer example, the psyker has a plethora of extremely useful things he can do without using Divine Shot, which are not accessible to a blunt gunner. Therefore, if you have the gunner and the psyker on the same team, it only makes sense to give the gunner the lascannon, so that you can have the lascannon firing and the psyker psyking... at the same time. Considering a single target, they can then either dodge the psyker's attack, or the heavy weapon (assuming the heavy weapon is single-shot), but can't dodge both, meaning your baseline is still on a par with what you'd be doing with the psyker making the heavy weapon undodgeable. And your upper limit is much, much higher, because they could well just fail to dodge at all and take both hits full to the face. Not to mention the fact that oft times a clever violation of the laws of physics by the party psyker can be infinitely more valuable than direct damage, and he's not free to do that if he's the lascannon gunner.

    The argument

    Want to maximize the group's killing power? Facing heavily armoured opponents? Give the Divine Shot Psyker his gun.
    only makes sense if you assume unlimited resources: by that logic you may as well say "want to maximise the group's killing power? Facing heavily armoured opponents? Give everyone power armour, a power fist, and their own personal Land Raider".


    This is all about GMing style, so I can see that if you wanted to, you could GM exactly the kind of game you are talking about, where the psyker totes a lascannon and effortlessly blows away 99% of the opposition. There's no explicit forbiddance of that in the rules. All that I'm trying to point out here is that it doesn't take any kind of contortion of the GM's remit to prevent that from happening by adhering to some sensible IC limitations on the PCs' resources, and enforcing the idea that specialist weapons will only be given to people who specialise in them. As I said above, Psykers don't have the option for SWT (Heavy - Las) and as GM I don't think I'd be inclined to give it to a player who asked for it as an Elite advance: there's absolutely no IC reasoning behind it.

    I run my own games this way, and my players are mostly pretty positive about the experience. You can read them for yourself, if you want - they're linked in my sig, and they do include a psyker (although he's a fair way below rank 7 at the moment).


    Regarding my Genestealer test:

    Okay, I drop the useless stub pistol as a Free Action and Force Barrage him; or Push him, etc...
    Thus proving that your assertion was false: Divine Shot was the icing on the heavy weapons cake, and without a heavy weapon, it does not allow you to "uniquely one-shot anything" at all.

    Not that it's a serious test in anything but that respect. The Genestealer's got an initiative bonus of 24, you will be psyker fillets before you can say the words "Force Barrage".
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    Okay a few mistakes you've made there Surrealistik.

    Firstly, acro-flagellants have unnatural strength and toughness, meaning damage reducing is 11 points (3 armour + 8 for toughness) and the float power being only 5 feet off the ground? For a strength bonus of 8, thats a piece of cake to jump and swing at.

    Secondly you've suggested that if the psyker can have a MP Lascannon AND be able to carry it along with all his other gear, oh so subtlely, the comely unoptimized assassin would atleast have a heavy bolter by now.

    Given that hes still outperforming the psyker on raw damage. Given his bonus +2 damage and the heavy bolter on default outdamaging each force bolt, hell if he wanted to he could get in a little closer and get a +30, meaning garunteed hit.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistik View Post
    Income is best thought of as spending money, not an woefully inadequate allowance for the equipment you need to do your job.
    No, its your income, you know as the word implies.


    Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistik View Post
    Any Inquisitor worthy of the title who knows his Psyker agent is capable of one shotting anything without fail is going to give him the firepower he needs to do his job at an optimal level if the need is foreseen.
    Why would he provide a lascannon to an investigation team? I mean if hes some hypo monodominant nutjob, he might provide everyone a flamer or heavy flamer but a lascannon or a multi-melta? Thats pretty silly.

    Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistik View Post
    Want to maximize the group's killing power? Facing heavily armoured opponents? Give the Divine Shot Psyker his gun.
    Or he gives it to the guy who can use it as effectively if not more so and doesn't have to depend on a power working. Also while the assassin can actually do HIS thing, the psyker can do HIS thing to help.

    Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistik View Post
    Nope. There is _nothing_ in the RAW that explicitly says that the acolytes _have_ to buy their own gear; you're given salaries and prices, that's it.
    Ok how about page 125 of Core rules under the heading 'Acolyte Stipend'
    "As Acolytes prove their worth by successfully accomplishing missions and assignments, their Inquisitor may decide to provide further support. For example this could include increasing an Acolte's monthly income by a further 10-50 thrones or furnishing with regular ammo supplies. Ultimately this will be decided by the GM..."

    This implies to me that it is the exception not the norm that an Inquisitor provides additional resources to his acolytes and it is up to the GM to decide what players get beyond income.

    Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistik View Post
    The Inquisitor isn't paying you; the rulebook explicitly says that's money you're making in your spare time: DH Core Rulebook, Pg 124
    Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistik View Post
    Proof? Reference?
    Page 276-277

    Rank 7-8 are Trusted Acolytes to quote "Those that remain are considered capable. Some may even gain the trust of their master."

    Seems to me that this implies that this is the point where the Inquisitor would consider directly supporting them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistik View Post
    I just spelled out how thoroughly unlikely a truly bad Perils actually is with Favoured of the Warp. Further, you only need to resort to that level of power in truly desperate encounters; for the most part, just use a Melta Gun or whatever with Psi 2 Divine Shot, or Precision Telekinesis.
    And your making a massive assumption you can get a Melta Gun. Simple ruling a GM made with Divine Shot, it works by seeing the potential shots of the gun of the near-infinite shots for the one that hits. If you are not trained in that weapon, (or Arms Master), your near-infinite shots are misses.


    Also on the topic of Guardsman, they were the weakest, until Blood of Martyrs anyway. You take the background package that lets them take Faith Powers, they immediately become the definitive Jack of All Trades. Hell if you want to be really silly, take the wyrd package. He can literally do a bit of everything.




    I am immediately regret getting involved in this discussion. Internet discussions never ever settle anything and its even worse when peoepl are arguing when having an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT BASIC STRUCTURE for how the game is run. This is silly and pointless, I paly where acoltyes are scavenging for resources, where subtlety and investigation is the aim. You obviously play it where these people are giving the best equipment they could possibly get.

    My party im running at the moment are around the 5000-6000 Xp mark. There best weapons at this point consist of: a hunting rifle (good quality + attachments), a combat shotgun, an autogun (lots of attachments) and a force weapon (who one of the psykers got from taking Templar Calix).

    The force weapon is the outlier but beyond that people have been getting their own gear. They are self-sufficient, and their Inquisitor would definitely prefer his agents to no be dependent on handouts but thats just him.

    The thing about a table top roleplaying game is that rules, universe, people and even logic to a degree are determined by the GM. All I want to say is that people who have never played Dark Heresy before, should definitely try it, despite what Surrealistik suggests, the game is not a broken mess, not even for psykers. The GM has a hundred an one different tools at his disposal to even them out both in rules and in the WH40K universe. Get the game, play it, enjoy it and if YOU and YOUR GROUP decide there is a problem, go ahead and make changes.
    Last edited by king.com; 2011-04-16 at 09:06 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saldre View Post
    you know whats worse than a regular Daemon-host? A Daemon-host with a Plasma Cannon.
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    Quote Originally Posted by king.com View Post
    Okay a few mistakes you've made there Surrealistik.
    No I didn't.

    Firstly, acro-flagellants have unnatural strength and toughness, meaning damage reducing is 11 points (3 armour + 8 for toughness) and the float power being only 5 feet off the ground? For a strength bonus of 8, thats a piece of cake to jump and swing at.
    Incorrect; it's not 5 feet, it's 5 meters. Second, by the RAW, it's not possible to leap and attack at the same time unless you have a trait that allows you to do so specifically as that's a Full Action.

    It does not have Unnatural Toughness.



    Secondly you've suggested that if the psyker can have a MP Lascannon AND be able to carry it along with all his other gear, oh so subtlely, the comely unoptimized assassin would atleast have a heavy bolter by now.

    Given that hes still outperforming the psyker on raw damage. Given his bonus +2 damage and the heavy bolter on default outdamaging each force bolt, hell if he wanted to he could get in a little closer and get a +30, meaning garunteed hit.
    Nope; in terms of raw damage, Force Barrage beats out the Heavy Bolter (impossible to dodge), as does his no miss, perfect accuracy, impossible to dodge Lascannon.

    Your Heavy Bolter also does not guarantee hits due to Dodge and adverse modifiers/conditions.


    No, its your income, you know as the word implies.
    Yes, income that you earn in your spare time as the RAW explicitly says.

    Why would he provide a lascannon to an investigation team? I mean if hes some hypo monodominant nutjob, he might provide everyone a flamer or heavy flamer but a lascannon or a multi-melta? Thats pretty silly.
    He wouldn't; so use Hover or Shape Flesh. Otherwise, it's instagib time.

    Or he gives it to the guy who can use it as effectively if not more so and doesn't have to depend on a power working. Also while the assassin can actually do HIS thing, the psyker can do HIS thing to help.
    Except he can't, and the Psyker can do combat better, while also excelling at his own 'thing' (hence part of the reason the class is broken).

    Ok how about page 125 of Core rules under the heading 'Acolyte Stipend'
    "As Acolytes prove their worth by successfully accomplishing missions and assignments, their Inquisitor may decide to provide further support. For example this could include increasing an Acolte's monthly income by a further 10-50 thrones or furnishing with regular ammo supplies. Ultimately this will be decided by the GM..."

    This implies to me that it is the exception not the norm that an Inquisitor provides additional resources to his acolytes and it is up to the GM to decide what players get beyond income.
    To me this implies that it is the norm for the Inquisitor to provide additional resources to his acolytes as they succeed and advance in rank. A rank 7 Acolyte is quite advanced indeed.

    Page 276-277

    Rank 7-8 are Trusted Acolytes to quote "Those that remain are considered capable. Some may even gain the trust of their master."

    Seems to me that this implies that this is the point where the Inquisitor would consider directly supporting them.
    So yes, they are likely to be provided with the hardware they need.

    And your making a massive assumption you can get a Melta Gun. Simple ruling a GM made with Divine Shot, it works by seeing the potential shots of the gun of the near-infinite shots for the one that hits. If you are not trained in that weapon, (or Arms Master), your near-infinite shots are misses.
    I don't think it's at all a massive assumption you have access to Melta Guns and the like at rank 7 and blatant houserules are irrelevant. Heavy Flamers also work, and are relatively cheap.


    As Acolytes, you are not a tooled-up kill-team - if there's a target that the Inquisitor just wants made extremely dead, then he can call in an orbital strike, or the Guard (with as many heavy weapons as he likes), or even the Deathwatch, if you want to make a game out of it. Not his Acolytes. You're contacts, you're investigators, and you're expendable. He may give you the weaponry you need to survive, but he's not going to shower you with riches, and that's undeniably what a Very Rare, 5,000 throne man-portable lascannon represents.
    You're still valuable assets worth his time, trust and support, especially by the time you hit Rank 7, and approach Ascension status. Man-portable Lascannons are standard military ordinance; to assert that they constitute 'riches' for an Inquisitor is silly. If you're going into a hotzone, and discretion is paramount, getting equipped with an optimal weapon is not a stretch.



    Quote Originally Posted by LCP View Post
    I don't think I can put it better. (I see in your edit you ask for 'proof' or a reference... I'm pretty sure that the position of Acolytes is spelt out along those lines under the fluff section in the DH core book, explaining how the circles of the Inquisition work. Near the big Venn Diagram type thing). It's always going to vary a bit on interpretation, but you are pointing out a problem and we are pointing out a background-consistent, zero-house-rules solution.
    Where is the proof that states that senior acolytes (let's face it; rank 7 is up there) are expected to purchase their own gear, and don't even have the right to requisition items they need?

    only makes sense if you assume unlimited resources: by that logic you may as well say "want to maximise the group's killing power? Facing heavily armoured opponents? Give everyone power armour, a power fist, and their own personal Land Raider".
    Holy hyperbole Batman; not even remotely comparable. You're simply giving an experienced, accomplished acolyte a single tool that plays to his strengths.

    Thus proving that your assertion was false: Divine Shot was the icing on the heavy weapons cake, and without a heavy weapon, it does not allow you to "uniquely one-shot anything" at all.
    Except it doesn't. Divine Shot isn't merely 'icing', it's something that makes the Lascannon exponentially more deadly. It makes it perfectly accurate and precludes any possibility of missing; these are huge and material benefits, and it is a huge advantage unique and exclusive to the Psyker.

    Not that it's a serious test in anything but that respect. The Genestealer's got an initiative bonus of 24, you will be psyker fillets before you can say the words "Force Barrage".
    Except there's Preternatural Awareness, so the Psyker's initiative is at least competitive if not superior to the Genestealer's; nice try though.

  26. - Top - End - #86
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    Quote Originally Posted by king.com View Post
    Ah my mistake, ive forgotten one of the few houserules I go with. Tech priests interacting with techpriests use intelligence as the base stat. Also, Oath Bonded to the Angels of Death, no requirement for that.
    I... am going to bring this up to my DM!

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    Why cant force bolts be dodged? They are attacks aren't they?

    Also, why wouldnt you use the running leap rules in combination with a charge action?

    huh, interesting about unnatural toughness, regardless unnatural toughness was used in both scenario and game session.

    Since your obviously better at maths than me, can you do a couple of calculations for me?

    Assassin BS 65 with Mighty Shot, Dual Shot, TWF(Ballistics), Ambidextrous, Gunslinger. Firing two Autopistols at full auto with Man-Stopper rounds, recoil gloves . Point Blank.

    And the Same with Autoguns, full auto, recoil gloves and pistol grips.
    Last edited by king.com; 2011-04-17 at 05:46 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saldre View Post
    you know whats worse than a regular Daemon-host? A Daemon-host with a Plasma Cannon.
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    Surrealistik: I don’t know why you’re citing the fluff passages of the book as if they give a definitive answer. You said it yourself: “to me, this implies [...]”

    There is no hard-and-fast ruling you can adhere to, there’s just a setting you can interpret. Yes, a Psyker with Divine Shot and a lascannon will destroy things, no-one’s denying that. All that I’m pointing out is that it’s perfectly possible for the GM to say “no lascannons for the psyker” and stay within the bounds of reasonable IC behaviour. It’s not even a quirk of my own style: it’s how the Imperium behaves in a lot of the background and in the tabletop game.

    Sure, you can say that by rank 7 your psyker should be trusted with some kit. I’d actually agree, but I’d disagree on scale. A rank 7 psyker in my opinion would be OK asking his Inquisitor for a nice bolt pistol, or maybe a force sword. Stuff appropriate to his vocation. The Imperium is a very rigidly stratified society, and just because someone can do something well doesn’t mean they get given the kit to do it, any more than a medieval serf who was an excellent horse-rider got admitted to the joust. To me, giving an Acolyte a lascannon is like giving an MI5 agent or a plain-clothes police officer a field gun: it might be very killy but it just doesn't make sense.

    There’s a sliding scale between “buy everything with your salary” and “the Inquisitor will give you anything you want” that is entirely the GM’s remit to decide. Your first claim in the thread was that psykers are game-breakingly overpowered: I am merely pointing out that at the GM’s discretion, this one instance of overpowered behaviour isn’t actually a problem – and that without the assumed availability of heavy weapons, Divine Shot is perfectly balanced. It seems to me that you are putting things forward with a funny perspective: first you say that psykers are game-breaking, but then you adamantly refuse any suggestion that moderates the excesses you point out, even when it patently breaks no rules. Are you invested in playing the game as a fun group, or in just showing everyone how awesome your psyker is? Because I don’t think that’d be terribly fun for the blunts in the party.

    The OP is asking for opinions on how Dark Heresy is as a system, so I think that’s all I have to say on this matter. I run my group this way, and they seem to have a lot of fun. They’re currently at Rank 4, and so far I have observed little of what you’ve said to be true: the Guardsman is actually one of their most competent combatants, and the psyker has not broken the game but rather been very enjoyable to have around due to the way his powers throw GM assumptions for a spin (i.e. using Wall Walk when threatened with a suddenly-appearing precipice). Perhaps as they get more powerful I’ll see more of what you were talking about: whatever happens, though, I’m certain that I won’t be giving them personal lascannons, and I’m fairly sure they aren’t expecting them either.

    Except there's Preternatural Awareness, so the Psyker's initiative is at least competitive if not superior to the Genestealer's; nice try though.
    Preternatural Awareness is a half action to manifest. Taking actions requires initiative to have been rolled. The Genestealer has filleted you already. This is what I meant by it being a silly test: the 10x10m room concept strips all context. It even invalidates my original point of saying "go on, Divine Shot him to death" - I really only said it for comedic effect.

    Of course, if you want to construct a more sensible test, then yes, maybe the psyker walked into the room with Preternatural Awareness sustained. The psyker you’ve statted out, if I read him rightly, can cast PA at an average roll of 6 + 22 + 2 = 30, giving 2 levels of overbleed and a total bonus of +18 to his Initiative roll - he needs to add 9 to his casting roll to get another +6, which is moving towards the very slim end of the bell curve. It gives him a chance (as opposed to the previous certainty that the Genestealer would win initiative), but unless his AB is 6 or higher, the Genestealer still has the higher bonus.

    And of course, if we are constructing a more true-to-game test... then the Genestealer too ought to have abilities that it would be using prior to an encounter in play. Like stealth. Of course, you can say that you want Detect Life or some such power sustained as well... and that’s when as GM I’d have to ask why, because IC you don’t know he’s there. And then we get into the issue of whether the psyker is walking around with Detect Life sustained because he’s paranoid about this particular environment, and before you know it we need to create an entire actual game with a plotline and everything in order to fully specify all the parameters. This entirely loses the point of the original thought experiment, but it does illustrate one thing: your psyker can have a Batman Defence, where he tries to be maximally prepared, but the GM doesn’t need to bother with that kind of planning. He can see exactly what you’re doing, and plan accordingly (Schroedinger’s GM?).

    I’d offer to run you through some kind of PBP gauntlet to prove or disprove some of these points, but I suspect you wouldn’t really be interested. I think I’m done.
    Last edited by LCP; 2011-04-17 at 05:56 AM.
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    Right, yeah. As much as I agree that psykers are broken, them getting a lascannon is a pretty damn long shot. Not that they really need the lascannon for anything, but yeah.

    Also on the topic of Guardsman, they were the weakest, until Blood of Martyrs anyway. You take the background package that lets them take Faith Powers, they immediately become the definitive Jack of All Trades. Hell if you want to be really silly, take the wyrd package. He can literally do a bit of everything.
    I think guardsmen only get Pure Faith, actually. No actual faith powers beyond that. And since you only have 500XP to spend on background packages, you've gotta choose between that and Wyrd.
    The ones that really were boosted were the cleric and the assassin.


    Edit : On the subject of money, Trade skills can be pretty damn useful to boost that up to Trading Class. Since psykers automatically get one at rank 1, as long as they can maintain their cover and work in their off time, they're really never Supine.
    Last edited by Ranos; 2011-04-17 at 05:46 AM.

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    Default Re: Who's played Dark Heresy?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ranos View Post
    I think guardsmen only get Pure Faith, actually. No actual faith powers beyond that. And since you only have 500XP to spend on background packages, you've gotta choose between that and Wyrd.
    The ones that really were boosted were the cleric and the assassin.
    If a guardsman wants to take both I would absolutely let him, would give him an interesting shot. Also Pure Faith is what allows you to purchace faith powers. Its like getting the Psyker trait. You cant buy it, only get it. Considering how little a guardsman would really have worth purchasing without branching out too much, 500xp isnt a crazy price, get a couple in a single tree and your set anyway. Personally i think the Adept gets some great advances too from the Sister of Battle alternate rank 1s.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ranos View Post
    Edit : On the subject of money, Trade skills can be pretty damn useful to boost that up to Trading Class. Since psykers automatically get one at rank 1, as long as they can maintain their cover and work in their off time, they're really never Supine.
    Absolutely, again thats up to the GM on how much free time these characters get or if its treated as a "your income ties with your trade" or even if everyone gets a collective lump sum bonus.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saldre View Post
    you know whats worse than a regular Daemon-host? A Daemon-host with a Plasma Cannon.
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