Revised Psychic Rules (prototype)

[LukeG]

Psychic Levels;
For each Level you have access to a Force Dice and must purchase an appropraite Power for each level at additional cost.

Buying Powers (yet to be Senoir vetted);
Force Level 1: 10 points
Force Level 2: 20 points
Force Level 3: 30 points
The following modifiers apply to certain powers;
Exceptionally Poor Power: -5 points
Exceptionally Good Power: +10 points
The Best Power in the Discipline: +10 points
probable e.g.s;
Scan: 5 points (Poor Force 1)
Prescience: 10 points (Force 1)
Hellfire: 20 points (Force 2)
Da Krunch: 30 points (Force 3)
Smite: 40 points (Best Force 3)
Vortex: 50 points (Best and Good Force 3)

Casting Psychic Powers;
In the Psychic Phase the Powers are cast with Force Dice against Difficulty ratings detirmined by the Force rating of a card and several other factors.
Casting of Powers are alternated between forces, starting with the highest Level Psyker of the side with priority.
As many Force Dice as gathered by the army may be used to attempt a Power before you pass over to the next player until either the Power is cast, you choose to stop attempting the Power, all Force Dice are used up, or you suffer Daemonic attack. Each Psykers Power can only be attempted once, you cannot nominate it twice. If you fail to cast it then it cannot be attempted again until the next Psychic Phase.
Rolling a 1 when attempting to cast results in Daemonic attack. That Psyker may cast no more Powers this Psychic phase and suffers an as yet undetirmind penalty.

Difficulty Ratings
Force Level 1: 3+
Force Level 2: 4+
Force Level 3: 5+
The following modifiers apply to certain powers;
Exceptionally Poor Power: Additional +1 to cast
Exceptionally Good Power: Additional -1 to cast
probable e.g.s;
Scan: 2+ (Poor Force 1)
Prescience: 3+ (Force 1)
Hellfire: 4+ (Force 2)
Da Krunch: 5+ (Force 3)
Vortex: 6+ (Good Force 3)

Force Dice
They can be stored in Force weapons like Force Cards where. As a small recap and clarification;
Codicier Librarian: Level 2
2 Force Dice
2 Powers: Scan
Salamander
In the Psychic Phase, they attempt to cast Salamander;
-They roll a Force Dice, getting a score of a 3. Salamander needs a score of 4 (Force 2 power)
-They may now opt to either expend another Force dice or pass the Psychic Phase over.
-Attempting again, they roll a 1, resulting in Daemonic Attack...

Remains in Play Powers;
These can only be retracted at the very beginning of a Psychic Phase before seeing what effect it would result (in this way it can go badly out of control).
Nullifies may also be attempted before resolving the continued effect. Either using Force Dice to make the score as if you where casting the Power in question (this way high level Powers are difficult to effect but are almost unstoppable once they are cast, but utility Powers such as Psychic Sheild are quite tempermental) OR using special Nullify Dice which can ONLY be used in this special Nullify step.
Energy Drain: As soon as a second 1 is rolled for Nullifying, the Psychic Phase ends immediatly. All Powers in play are cancelled. All Force Dice (stored and generated this Psychic Phase) are removed.
Post Nullify Step, but before the Cast Step, a player may attempt to effect an Energy Drain, NOMINATING (instead of one by one like normal) as many Force and Nullify Dice they wish to add to this action, then rolling them all to see if they can make two 1's, or the second if a 1 was rolled previously this Psychic Phase.
Psychic Hoods generate 2 Nullify Dice per Psychic Phase (these cannot be stored in Force weapons, only Force Dice)
Armies with no Psykers automatically generate 2 Nullify Dice every Psychic Phase, to represent the diffusion of Warp energy in the same way a concentration of Psykers generates more power to tap.

The Order of the Revised Psychic Phase;
-Retract Step: Cancel Powers you no longer wish to use.
-Nullify Step: Any player may attempt to nullify a power in the same way it would be cast.
-Attempt Energy Drain Step: Any spare Nullify Dice/nominated Force Dice are rolled now.
-Cast step: Beginning with the highest Level Psyker of the player whose turn it is, the Phase is passed backwards and forwards until all players have either declared to end or used up their Force Dice.
-Store step: Remaining Force Dice may be stored where rules allow.
-End step: All remaining Force and Nullify Dice are removed and the next player turn begins.


Feedback/Questions?

[Simon]

As a thought, perhaps making it so that you decide how many dice you want to use before attempting the power might work better...

I think that the system will work and give armies with no psykers a bit of a boost. The only thing is the buying of the powers. 'Nids already have to do this, but it factors in to the points cost of the hive tyrant, making it a little cheaper than it should be, and if we did this to all armies, we'd need to reconsider the points cost for the psykers...We could keep it as a random thing and just draw up a table for the psychic discipline with the new casting values on...

Also, for nullifying, would you have to beat the score that the enemy psyker got when casting the power or just beat the casting roll?

[LukeG]

Just the casting roll. It looks at the Power, not the Psyker who cast it.
Over pricing the Psyker's is the price of choosing your Powers. You get exactly what you want but you gamble with it. We could easily go back to a random system and ignore the additional charges. But if an Epistalry Librarian can pick Lightning Arc, Smite and Vortex then there has to be a drawback!
If the system proved too good anyway (and I'm thinking of Imperial Librarians here) we might have to limit them to Primary Disceplines only. Seeing as they're bought and not from a limited card pool you don't have to worry about running out of Powers.
Ork's need an additional bonus to represent their relentless casting they have in the 2ndE system. How about testing;
"While they are only wounded on a 6 from Daemonic Attack, should the roll contitute passing a test against their level they may continue casting this Psychic Phase"?
It can always be adjusted further. I already have some feedback from Adam, and he isn't happy...

[Simon]

If the Orks generated an extra dice for casting with, say in the same way as in warhammer, for every 10 orks within a set distance of the psyker (but I think that they need to be in combat) or every 20 gretchin, then that might give them a similar edge to before. That, or their powers are easier to cast etc. (not sure whether this would work, or whether the nids should get a bonus aswell, due to the nature of the powers that they are using and the added bonus of the hive mind etc. as this does not exist in the current system, but does not need to exist )

I think we could say that you have to buy all of your powers from one discipline per psyker, same as choosing your Lore of Magic in Warhammer. If you also make the points of the powers and the roll to cast them comparitive to all powers in all of the disciplines, then that might also give a bit of balance.

I like the idea of having lower points 'defensive' psykers that you can do with this, eg. taking a level 2 librarian without any powers for the extra nullifies (assuming that you would be allowed to do that)

[LukeG]

Nullify would only come into effect for remains in play powers, and for 25 points you could just plonk a psychic hood on a psyker anyway. A Lexicanian with scan + psychic hood would acheive that for +30 points all told.

[Charly]

i know how much work you have put into your revised psychic rules, but it seems most players are happy with the ogc rules as they are. i agree ur prototype rules should be tested by several ogc members, and then perhaps we can have a poll on the message board to establish which rules to use in general games.

[bot]

we stick to using 2 force decks and each player draws D6 + total mastery level of his psykers.

eg. if you have two level4 psykers, you get 8+d6 force cards. if you don't have any psykers you draw d6 cards.

[El Capitan]

Arrghhh all this positivew discussion and im not around to respond. I really want to comment on this stuff but wont be able to for a few weeks. My posting now is just from taking a chance. Im back in the UK on the 20th so ill follow eveything up then. And its excvellent to see other 2nd ed playters with their own ideas
We arent dead yet GW!
I look forward to reading all this stuff when i return.

Cheers,

Mike

[LukeG]

Hey bot! One of my beefs is how the phase favours one player (who always seems to hog the special cards). You've balanced that off fine.
I'm gunning for a all in one rule book not needing additional cards (even if it is Mike doing all the hard work) to spread 2nd edition around so I'm still trying to work these out. Any idle playtesting and feedback would be welcome.

[Simon]

It's actually quite rare that the psychic phase favours one player overall throughout a battle, most of the time things go ok for both sides. I've seen daemonic attack come up 3 times once, 1 time for me, and 2 for my opponent, and it didn't kill anything... The rules as they stand are very well balanced, but if we had new rules that worked well, and kept the tactics in the psychic phase then I'd go for it...

[LukeG]

I don't remember the last balanced psychic phase. The last battle, when I wasn't using a psyker, I got 1 nullify the entire game. It didn't work. I can't remember the last time I drew Ultimate Force or Daemonic Attack. I think I drew Ultimate force against Brown in tournament 2000 and that's it.

[bot]

if you don't like using psychic cards (many of 2ed fans do) the rules you typed seem to take the matter in the right direction.

what i really don't like is that you pay for the powers extra therefore making the psykers more expensive without increasing their effectiveness. some powers work on 6 only. so if i have 4 power dice and want to roll that force 3 power i'd better use all 4 dice i have (just to be sure). i won't be able to cast anything else. am i correct?

another thing is that if you get to choose powers, some powers will never be chosen. scan is the good example or salamander and dozen of others.

i like to use psykers a lot and so does everyone else here. the tweak i mentioned is the only one we introduced in our psychic phase. i actually enjoy unpredictability of dealing the cards. yeah, i remember getting only nullies and having lost many 4 level psyers due to daemonic attacks. part of da game i guess.

something unclear - you must use power die to make nullify attempt right?

[LukeG]

We weren't sure about pay or dice rolls (like Warhammer). Dice rolls seem to be preferable. Nullifies were a seperate concern. Two attempts per army to remove a remains in play power (an additional 2 (4 total) using a Psychic Hood). Force Dice may also be sacrificed to do this, so a low level Psyker can exclusively be
This isn't very clear, there are several pssibilities that we still have no idea which works best. One is you roll as many dice as you choose in an attempt to cast. If you wanted to guarantee a Force 3 power you would reasonably expect 3 Force Dice to cover it, but if you fail you can't attempt again with that power.
Another is you expend dice one by one until either the power is cast, you run out of dice, roll a 1 and get eaten, or pass the phase over in a huff.
There are others as well. I'm just not sure which would work best, and by best I mean closest to the spirit of the old Psychic phase while creating a balanced phase that complements the conventional forces in the army instead of overshadowing them like in Warhammer.
And back to buying powers, Scan would be quite common as someone wants the extra dice of a higher level psyker but not the cost.
My head hurts now. I'll post a third alternative tomorrow (I'll have to hunt it off my PC) that puts the psyker into a far less dominant role.

[bot]

as regards this topic: robbie buckshot la funk, a eff member, came up with a set of rules that looks damn solid. they overwrite the dark millenium completely and are more close to original 2ed rulebook rules.
www.xhrit.com/Naisoft/images//uploads/Psionics.doc
check this out. you can leave your feedback here or put some on eff forum (author of the rules doesn't hang here i guess).

[LukeG]

That looks almost Rouge Trader in it's complete custom factor. It certainly looks fun and interesting, the problem is all the powers and warp deck items it drops. I wouldn't mind playing with them for a while.