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Psychic Powers

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Learning And Casting Psychic Powers

The different disciplines each require a different outlook on the nature of reality and unreality. Each discipline is represented by the character possessing the Psyker or Shaman ability multiple times.

The first time a PC gains the Psyker ability, he may, for example, choose Telepathy. In a later career, the PC expands on the range of his powers, and gains the Psyker – Biomancy ability. Thus, the psyker’s powers are drawn from both the Telepathy and Biomancy disciplines.

Characters who gain the Psyker or Shaman ability at initial generation possess one psychic power from each discipline that they have mastered, plus one for every full ten points of Willpower above 50, which may be taken from any other discipline.

For example, a character with Wp 62 and the Shaman – Telekinesis ability could take two powers from the Telekinesis discipline.

A more powerful character with Wp 84 and both Shaman – Telekinesis and Shaman – Pyromancy could take one Telekinesis power, one Pyromancy power and a total of three more powers from either discipline.

Psychic characters may develop new psychic powers over time, as a result of a regime of training, studying the writings of other psykers, or simply as the result of mental maturation. These are bought at a cost in Experience Points equal to the Difficulty rating of the power, multiplied by 20.

Difficulty 0 powers cost a flat 50 Experience Points, while those that have variable Difficulty ratings cost 500 Experience Points.

Gaining a psychic power is not automatic and takes place between adventures (or during long breaks in the action), at the same time as other advances (see the Experience and Advancement section). First of all, the character spends the Experience Points.

Then, he or she must take a Willpower test, modified by the Difficulty rating of the power. Powers with variable Difficulty ratings are assumed to have Difficulty 25 for the purposes of this test. Characters with the Psyker Training ability gain a +20 bonus.

If the test is successful, the character has learnt the power and can use it in future.

If the test is failed, the character has only partially worked out how to use the power. He or she may still use it, but Willpower is halved for the purpose of casting rolls.

Failed tests can be retaken at the end of each additional week of practice, until the power is successfully learnt.

Unless specified in the rules for the power in question, it costs a single action to cast a psychic power. This requires a Psychic test, using the casting character’s Willpower, to which a number of modifiers are applied.

Psychic powers do not normally require line of sight in order to cast. However, most powers do require the caster to be aware of the target’s location. This can be determined by sight, auspex or psychic means – merely hearing a voice on the other side of a door is not good enough.

However, the GM may allow certain powers to ignore this rule. It is perfectly possible to blast a flimsy door with an offensive power in the knowledge that the energy will pass through and strike whoever is on the other side.

Targeting psychic powers is a common sense matter, rather than one that can be ruled on specifically, and the final say is left up to the GM.

A character can spend a single action concentrating before casting a psychic power. This gives a +10 modifier to the Psychic test.

In most cases, it will be obvious that a concentrating character is summoning up psychic energy – bystanders feel their hair standing on end, there is a cold draught, the air becomes bitter with ozone, or sparks of electricity may leap from metal surfaces. The exceptions tend to be powers where there are no visible effects, such as most Astrotelepathy and Telepathy powers. Such powers do not impinge so severely into the material world that they can be detected by non-psykers.

All powers have a Difficulty rating – a negative modifier to Willpower representing how hard it is to summon, shape and discharge psychic energy in the desired manner. Most of the time, the Difficulty of a power is a fixed number, although many depend on the characteristics of the target.

Rituals

Many of the more difficult psychic powers come with ridiculously high Difficulty ratings, or have additional penalties depending on circumstances. This all but makes it impossible to cast the power, even after concentrating. However, a character can spend time turning the power into a ritual lasting several hours, or even days. With the aid of incense, candles, chanting, sacrifice and so on, the length of this ritual can be reduced significantly.

Every uninterrupted hour spent performing a ritual gives a +10 bonus to the Psychic test, which is taken at the end of the ritual. Should a ritual be interrupted, it will have to be started again from the beginning and the psyker loses D10 Willpower points from psychic overload.

A character performing a ritual cannot spend an action concentrating – instead he’s spending several hours doing just that.

Additional bonuses can be applied by the presence of certain ritual items. What these are depends on the beliefs of the character performing the ritual and the nature of the power being used. The GM should adjudicate on bonuses and what counts as an item, but here are some examples. These notes are for rituals carried out by Imperial servants – Chaos cults or alien psykers may require different items in their rituals. Multiple items of the same type provide cumulative bonuses.

It is possible, in a ritual, to have two or more psykers casting the same power together. In this case, all must be present for the entire ritual, dividing the effort between them.

This has the effect of applying a +20 bonus per additional psyker, although the Psychic test for the ritual must uses a mean average of the Willpower characteristics of all the psykers involved. All the psykers pooling their abilities must possess the psychic power being used in the ritual.

When multiple casters are being used, all must either use conventional psychic powers or sorcery (see below), but the two types cannot be mixed.

If the character does not manage to cast a power, the energy has to go somewhere… The psyker releases it and loses D10 Willpower for every ten points, or part, by which the test was failed.

Occasionally, there is some kind of perceptible effect of a psychic overload. Perhaps there is a flash of light centred on the psyker, or bystanders get a glimpse of warpspace. Maybe a wilted potted plant perks up, or a recently deceased corpse repeats its death rattle, shuddering slightly.

Using psychic powers is very dangerous, and even if the power is successfully cast, the denizens of the warp will cluster around the ‘bleed’ of warp energy gushing into real space through the mind of a psyker. If one of them manages to force its way through the bleed, it will attack the psyker, or even attempt possession.

A psyker who rolls a matched result, either a success or a failure, has attracted the attention of a warp entity and must immediately take a Willpower test. The power, if successfully cast, works as normal. If the psyker successfully cast the power, there is a +20 bonus to Willpower. If the psyker failed to cast the power, the effects of the psychic overload are determined before taking this test.

If the test is passed, the psyker escapes serious harm, but is stunned for one round.

If the test is failed, compare the margin of failure with the following table:

Nullification

Psykers are generally aware when another psyker is manipulating the energies of the warp, and can attempt to use their psychic abilities to thwart an enemy’s intention, although this is by no means risk-free.

Nullification is deemed to be a free action, and does not affect a nullifying psyker’s own actions in any way. The nullifying psyker takes a Willpower test. If the test is passed, the margin of success is an additional negative modifier to the casting psyker’s chance of successfully using the power.

Attempting to nullify a psychic power brings with it all the risks associated with casting a power (see Psychic Overloads and Perils Of The Warp, above).

Multiple psykers can attempt to nullify the same casting, and their margins of success are added together, making it increasingly more difficult for an outnumbered psyker to use his or her powers.

Touching Targets

Most powers can be cast at range, or confine their attacks to the caster, but for others to work, the caster must be touching the subject of the power. If the subject of the power is willing, this isn’t a problem. If the subject really doesn’t want to be touched, the psyker must combine the casting with an unarmed close combat attack. This isn’t an attempt to cause harm or grapple the subject, but merely to touch the subject as the psyker unleashes the prepared power. No damage is caused by a hit (except of course from the power’s effects).

Note that this attack does not cost any actions to perform, but it does count as being a combined action.

Psychic Bolts

These are psychic attacks that manifest close to the casting psyker (hands, eyes, mouth and so on) before streaking towards an intended target.

A successfully cast psychic bolt must then be fired at a target using the normal shooting rules (i.e. two dice rolls are made). Psychic Bolts are always assumed to be Pistol weapons. The long range of a psychic bolt is equal to the psyker’s Willpower characteristic. Short range is one third of the psyker’s Willpower, and medium range is two thirds.

Psychic bolts always require line of sight to the target.

Powers may continue having a direct effect on the mortal universe for several seconds, minutes or hours after they are cast. This is noted in the description of the power. Instantaneous powers are over as soon as they are cast. Other powers will continue having an effect until the power’s duration comes to an end, or until the casting psyker decides to end it (this does not take an action, and can happen at any time), whichever comes first.

If a psyker is knocked unconscious or killed, any of his or her persistent powers in effect immediately dissipate. If the psyker is stunned, he or she is allowed a Willpower test to avoid the power failing.

If attempting to nullify a persistent power as it is being cast, use the normal rules.

Otherwise, it takes one action and a Willpower test (modified negatively by the power’s Difficulty rating) for a psyker to nullify an ongoing persistent power cast by someone else. If the test is successful, the power immediately ceases to function.

Characters with the Wyrd ability can cast their associated psychic power as if they had the appropriate Psyker ability, but have the following differences:

- The character’s Willpower for the Psychic test is always assumed to be 100, regardless of what it says on the 

character sheet.

- Wyrds do not suffer Psychic Overloads when using their powers.

- The Perils Of The Warp only apply if the Psychic test is an automatic success (01-05) or an automatic failure (96-00).

- Powers cast using the Wyrd ability cannot be boosted by rituals or by concentration.

- Powers tied to the Wyrd ability cannot be cast using any other ability.

Wyrds often have imperfect control over their powers, and the GM should occasionally force the character to take Nerve tests during moments of high stress. If the test is failed, the character will attempt to cast the wyrd power. Where a target is required, the GM should select a random character, threat or other significant object in the immediate vicinity.

Don’t go overboard on Nerve tests. In the name of game balance, Wyrd should be as much of a blessing as a curse. Perhaps use the stimuli for causing Insanity point gain, and throw in other moments of sudden stress, such as being attacked, narrowly avoiding injury or death, and so on.

If a character later learns a psychic power already known through the Wyrd ability (via either the Shaman or Psyker abilities), he or she may no longer use the Wyrd version of the power, but nor will it go off randomly - it is assumed the character has finally learnt to consciously control the ability.

Characters with the Shaman ability learn and cast psychic powers in exactly the same manner as characters with the Psyker ability, except that the shaman’s emphasis on ritual has the following effects:

- The Difficulty of all psychic powers is multiplied by five. This means that most powers require at least a short ritual in order to be cast with a comfortable chance of success. Powers that would normally have a Difficulty rating of 0 increase to Difficulty 15, but are not subject to multiplication.

- Rituals grant a +10 bonus to the Psychic test every ten minutes, rather than every hour.

- Shamans are far more capable of merging minds, creating a gestalt far greater than the sum of its parts. If all the multiple casters involved in a ritual possess the Shaman ability, the highest Willpower characteristic is used for the Psychic test.

A shaman who also has the Psyker ability in the same discipline as the Shaman ability used to learn a power may opt to cast a power normally, rather than perform a shamanic ritual.

Sorcery, described above, is strictly illegal and the domain of the Chaos cultist. That doesn’t stop some radical Imperial servants from using it. Rogue Inquisitors have been burnt at the stake for it, and even some highly respected and incredibly successful Inquisitors (such as Hector Talnas of the Ordo Malleus, or Gregor Eisenhorn of the Ordo Xenos), were rumoured to have used sorcery on some occasions. An entire Space Marine Legion (the Thousand Sons) was declared hereticus for practicing sorcery.

In effect, any character with the Sorcerer ability can opt to cast a psychic power using sorcery, rather than the normal method (i.e. using the Psyker or Shaman abilities). The mechanics of casting, nullifying and so on remain, but with the following exceptions:

- The Difficulty of the power is halved.

- The Perils Of The Warp do not apply, since the character’s patron Daemon is protecting the sorcerer from other warp predators.

- Instead, the sorcerer gains one automatic Insanity point for a matched success on a sorcerous Psychic test. On a matched failure, the sorcerer develops one random Chaos Attribute (see the Chaos bestiary). A character gaining a Chaos Attribute has the usual chance of devolving into a Chaos Spawn (5% per attribute he or she possesses, including the one just gained).

Remember that a character capable of sorcery can always choose to cast a power as a psyker or shaman, should he or she not wish to take the risks involved in sorcery.

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