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HomePsionics Alternative Rules for “Wild” Psychic Powers
Alternative Rules for “Wild” Psychic Powers
Written by Adeptus Admin
Thursday, 02 October 2008
Some players
have a problem with the static “spell” lists of psychic powers in Dark
Heresy. They are of the opinion that psychic powers should be less
static and defined to simulate the erratic and spontaneous powers of
the human mind.
A nascent psyker can utilize his powers before
he is trained in any of the Psychic Disciplines. A nascent psyker
figures out gradually that he has psychic powers when he sees that he
can "improve" his abilities when he concentrates. After a while he sees
that he can manipulate reality in a supernatural way.
Most psykers
are born with an affinity for certain psychic powers. After a psyker
has passed the God-Emperor’s Trial on Terra the Scholastica Psykana
schools the psyker and turns him into a Sanctioned Psyker ready to
venture out in the world on his own.
To simulate the erratic,
flexible nature of psychic powers and the inborn affinity of psykers
you’ll find alternative rules for psychic powers below. What this
alternative method simulates is that psykers use the Warp as a kind of
energy source to "improve" themselves. The benefits of the method are
that the abilities of psykers are only limited by the imagination of
the players. And Psykers with a Psy Rating of 4 or 5 are truly
"Godlike" as they can get large bonusses to any rolls. But they take
more risks of killing themselves.
With these rules all
Disciplines and Powers from the Dark Heresy corebook are set aside.
Players can “create” pyshic powers on the spot. The list of psychic
abilities in the corebook can be used for inspiration by players of
psychic PCs, but it would be better if a player would let his
imagination run free. Psy Rating stays the same, but Psy Dice are
renamed into “Warp Dice” to better represent what they do.
The Basic Rules
Whenever
a psychic PC wants to do a supernatural action he chooses a relevant
Stat and Skill combination and "adds" Warps Dice to this roll. Each
Warp Die added gives a +10% bonus to a skill check. Whenever a "10" is
rolled on any of the Warp Dice a “Peril of the Warp” happens. If there
is no relevant skill just double the relevant Stat.
To do a
psychic action, the psyker must first make a Focus Power Action. Then
he makes the "Power Roll" by rolling the relevant Stat and Skill and
adding Warp Dice. Using a Psi-focus gives a psyker a “safe” +10% bonus.
Doing a succesfull Invocation roll before making the Power Roll lowers
he chance of a Peril of the Warp by “1” (see Going Beyond the Threshold below) .
Example:
A
Sanctioned Psyker (Psy Rating 2) wants to control another human being.
He rolls Willpower (32) + Command (+10) and adds two Warp Dice. He has
to roll 62 or lower (32+10+20) to take over the target.
Adding Warp Dice to a skill check *always* makes an action "supernatural"
Going Beyond the Threshold
An
untrained pysker must always roll a minimum amount of Warp Dice equal
to his Psy Rating. He can decide to add more Warp Dice. A Sanctioned
Psyker can control how many Warp Dice he uses (with a minimun of "1" to
make the action supernatural). If a psyker uses more Warp Dice than his
Psy Level the chance of a "Warp Peril" increases by +1 for each extra
die.
The amount of Warp Dice a Sanctioned Psyker can add is limited by his Grade.
Zeta Grade = 2
Epsilon Grade = 4
Delta Grade = 6
Gamma Grade = 8
Beta Grade = 10
Alpha Grade = unlimited
Example:
A
nascent psyker with Psy Rating 2 who wants to add 5 Warp Dice to a
Power Roll has a chance of 7+ (3 dice above his Psy Rating) on *any* of
the Warp Dice that a Peril of the Warp happens. He *must* use a minimum
of 2 Warp Dice.
If he was an Epsilon Grade Sanctioned Psyker he
could only add a total of 4 Warp Dice to the skill check with an 8+
chance on any of the Warp Dice that a Peril of the Warp happens. But he
could also decide to just add the minimum one Warp Die to his Power
Roll.
Internalising Warp Energies
Sanctioned
Psykers can “stop” psychic phenomenon from materializing by taking
Corruption Points. This represents the trained psyker internalising the
Warp energies bleeding through, rather than releasing them into the
Materium. For each Corruption Point he takes the chance of a Peril of
the Warp decreases by 1.
In the above example of the Epsilon Grade
Sanctioned Psyker, he could take “2” Corruption Points to decrease the
chance of a Warp Peril back to “10” (from 8+ to 10+). The GM can decide
if a psyker can negate the default “10” – and thus making the psyker
immune to the Perils of the Warp - by taking enough Corruption Points.
Psychic Affinity
Most
powers of psykers manifest in typical ways. This “affinity” determines
the Discipline a psyker gets trained in when the joins the Scholastica
Psykana.
Whenever a player decides for the first times which Stat +
Skill combination does a certain psychic power the power gets "locked"
or "frozen” to that particular Stat + Skill combination. A psyker can't
shoot fireballs one day and ice rocks the other. This means a player
has to think hard what "power" he wants to associate with what Stat +
Skill combination as the more powers his PC uses the less choice
remains. But at the same time the amount of different psychic powers
his PC can do is only limited by the combinations he can come up with.
Example 1:
When
a psyker uses for the first time Willpower + Command to control another
person, the "Willpower + Command" combo will forever “locked” to
control humans.
Example 2:
When a psyker wants to shoot a
psychic fireball for the first time at an opponent with the combination
Coordination + Ballistic Skill, then the psychic power “Fireball” will
always be done with a Coordination + Ballistic s skill check.
Attribute + Skill + Arcanum, sorry, Warp Dice, eh? Reminds me of Mage: The Awakening. Quite cool. However, it does need a bit of GM ruling in some cases (for instance, can the Wp + Command thing you mentioned above force people to suicide?) But besides that, it is probably the best spontaneous-magic system I've seen, as it's both simple and complete. I'll have to playtest it sometime!
Also, it needs some rule to counterbalance the fact that powers are purchased singly or by disciplines in this game, while here, it seems to be only the rating that matters. How about making the grade (zeta, epsilon etc.) purchasable as well?
To simulate the erratic,
flexible nature of psychic powers and the inborn affinity of psykers
you’ll find alternative rules for psychic powers below. What this
alternative method simulates is that psykers use the Warp as a kind of
energy source to "improve" themselves. The benefits of the method are
that the abilities of psykers are only limited by the imagination of
the players. And Psykers with a Psy Rating of 4 or 5 are truly
"Godlike" as they can get large bonusses to any rolls. But they take
more risks of killing themselves.
Reminds me of Mage: The Awakening. Quite cool. However, it does need a bit of GM ruling in some cases (for instance, can the Wp + Command thing you mentioned above force people to suicide?) But besides that, it is probably the best spontaneous-magic system I've seen, as it's both simple and complete. I'll have to playtest it sometime!