More creative psychic powers

[Hextus]

I've always been slightly dissapointed with the psychic powers available to characters in the 40k universe who are supposedly the most powerful warriors of the galaxy; the psykers. I think some of the most exciting example of a pyschic power is the Sanctuary power that is available to DH inquisitors. It creates game play situations that would never occur outside of the psychic realm by "pushing" daemons out of close combat and therefore allowing the rest of the squad to unload with shooting attacks the following turn. Also, the space wolf rune priest hero dude being able to teleport is seriously dope.

It would be cool to have a veteran upgrades for psykers for each army list that allows them to take some different powers that have more interesting implications. Here's a few examples of what I am thinking:

Space Marines: "TerraForm" Librarians may take a psychic power that uses a flame template to effectively clear any terrain in front of them.

Eldar: "Bone Song" Farseers can take a power that enables a squad within 6" to gain the jump pack ability as they will levitate until the end of next turn.

I haven't thought of many more, but I'd like to hear what others think. Are these powers too drastic?

[Imperialis_Dominatus]

I agree. Some of the powers avaliable to psykers are fairly tame. Take the Sanctioned Psyker. He does'nt have much that interests me more than the two Guardsmen with lasguns he costs, and his powers are random anyway. Plus, you have to decide what unit he is in before you roll for powers, limiting his effectiveness even more. Add a force weapon, and you've got the least worthy points sink in the Guard. Period. He isn't supposed to be uber powerful, I admit, but he is not worth much either. He is the epitome of the toned-downed psyker.

[Hextus]

Yeah I think the only thing a sanctioned psyker is good for is if you are playing a huge battle and you for wanted an extremely tough HQ. Give him Honorifica Imperialis, crimson medalion and then that force weapon looks a lot better! But his psychic powers have almost NEVER come in useful for me.

[JOHIRA]

I wouldn't mind carefully beefing up some psychic powers. But there's two problems:

1) Your powers so far don't seem very fluffy. Space Marines clearing terrain and Eldar psychokinetically throwing each other around? Doesn't seem right to me.

2) The other problem is, you're beefing up powers for units and complaining about the weakness of units you aren't beefing up. So suppose we start at the bottom and make Sanctioned Psychers more powerful. Then we've gotta make the Librarians more powerful than the new Sanctioned Psychers. Then we've gotta make the Eldar more powerful than the Librarians. Then we've gotta make the Tzeentch Sorcerors more powerful than the Eldar. ...

...and pretty sure the game is all about which tooled up psycher army gets first turn, kinda like back in second edition.

[Warrior47]

I think a usefull and fluffy power for psykers would be this:

1. Telepathy cover- The psyker can raise ground in a colum to create temporary cover for troops. This cover is the size of the small blast template, is impassible and cannot be seen over or through. Your psyker may use this power during you shooting phase and it requires a psykic test. The temporary terrain lasts until your next shooting phase and ends at the beginning of that phase. If the psyker is killed while the terrain is being cast it lasts till the end of the phase and then disappears. While casting, your psyker can't move, shoot, or assault.

2. Future Sense- Your psyker can sense the dangers of the future and can act accordingly. At the beginning of every opponents shooting phase roll a dice for every psyker that has this ability. On a roll of a 5+, the psyker who's dice was rolled is able to move 3" towards the nearest cover, towards your table edge or towards your command squad. If your psyker moves this way, he will always count as moving on your next turn for purposes of shooting. On a roll of a 4, the psyker has a 5+ invunerable save for the rest of the turn, brought about by the supreme clarity and awareness of the world around him.

[Intrepid]

I agree that psychic powers haven't been exploited as much as they could be yet. I think this is going to be implemented in the 4th Edition revisions. The Space Marines have a good set of powers given their whole lives are combat. Tyranids are also well done. I predict that the coming codexes will continue the trend.

For those who are interested, here is a thread I made concerning Night Lord powers:
http://www.librarium-online.com/foru...ic-powers.html

Or just skip down a little in Rules Development.

[Imperialis_Dominatus]

2) The other problem is, you're beefing up powers for units and complaining about the weakness of units you aren't beefing up. So suppose we start at the bottom and make Sanctioned Psychers more powerful. Then we've gotta make the Librarians more powerful than the new Sanctioned Psychers. Then we've gotta make the Eldar more powerful than the Librarians. Then we've gotta make the Tzeentch Sorcerors more powerful than the Eldar. ...

...and pretty sure the game is all about which tooled up psycher army gets first turn, kinda like back in second edition.

I see your point, but I never said we should turn a sanctioned into a librarian. I just think we need to bring his abilities up to par... besides, all their powers are random, which really hampers their effectiveness, as I said. If they could choose slightly beefed up powers from the Armory, they'd be a lot more interesting. Not to mention if they could use the CA dice tables...

[JOHIRA]

I just think we need to bring his abilities up to par...

Does he need to be? He's not a daemon-powered warlock, he's not an immortal alien who's dedicated his life to studying the warp, he's not a superhuman ubermensch who's dedicated his unnaturally-extended life to mastering the powers of the mind. He's a dude, like you or me. He's got some powers, and he's probably spent most of his training keeping those powers tightly controlled to keep from being posessed by daemons that he barely understands because if he ever tried to learn anything more, the Inquisition would probably kill him. Rather than unleashing doombolts and eldritch storms all over the battle field, he probably spends a lot of his time training to become an Astropath or a Navigator's assistant. If he's really lucky, he might eventually get sacrificed to feed the Emperor's Beacon on Holy Terra.

If you want him to have different powers, feel free to propose them. But keep in mind that the purpose of the Imperial Guard army is to depend on numbers of guys. An IG army that depends too much on a single (non-special) character just doesn't seem right to me. So if you want to give him some different powers, what powers would you give him to fit his role, both in the background and in the army list?

[smallelflaughing]

I would give him some slightly worse versions of the eldar warlock's powers, maybe give his squad a 6+ cover save? boost their combat effectiveness (statswise)? give him one-use powers from the armory (the inquisition lets him read such-and-such?).

[Imperialis_Dominatus]

Does he need to be? He's not a daemon-powered warlock, he's not an immortal alien who's dedicated his life to studying the warp, he's not a superhuman ubermensch who's dedicated his unnaturally-extended life to mastering the powers of the mind. He's a dude, like you or me. He's got some powers, and he's probably spent most of his training keeping those powers tightly controlled to keep from being posessed by daemons that he barely understands because if he ever tried to learn anything more, the Inquisition would probably kill him. Rather than unleashing doombolts and eldritch storms all over the battle field, he probably spends a lot of his time training to become an Astropath or a Navigator's assistant. If he's really lucky, he might eventually get sacrificed to feed the Emperor's Beacon on Holy Terra.

If you want him to have different powers, feel free to propose them. But keep in mind that the purpose of the Imperial Guard army is to depend on numbers of guys. An IG army that depends too much on a single (non-special) character just doesn't seem right to me. So if you want to give him some different powers, what powers would you give him to fit his role, both in the background and in the army list?

Right now I have to say he is between far sub-par and OK. If he simply kept his powers as they are now but could take them from the Armory like most psykers, I'd be happy to pay the points for him. I agree he is not a masterful psyker in the fluff, but he's not picked to accompany a commander because General Ysernov or whoever wants a night light warp flame to read the Tactica by. He is picked because he has psychic powers the officer or higher command thinks will be useful. It just strikes me that two lasguns could potentially be more useful than a psychic advisor.