Nullification

[Aqwe]

Hi fellow Inquisitors

Today I wish to take about the rules for nullification.
(This decision is also intended to influence or inspire INQ2, of course) 

I personally have never been so found of the rules for nullification, both the original take and the revised.

The original rules simply stopped psychic powers all together. The use of psychic powers was all to dangerous if there was any opposing psyker on the table.

In the revised rules, on the other hand, have too many limitations. There is to many situations where powers cannot be nullified.

If your friend is taken with the puppet master power, and starts to massacre the persons around him, the pore psyker next to him cannot save his buddy with a simple nullification.


So my suggestion is to give all psykers a nullification radius, e.g. 10% of there WP, in yards.
Anypsychic power there is either cast or any persistent power there is being maintained* within that area is with in the psykers reach of nullification.

*If either psyker maintaining the power or the target of the power is within the area, the power is possible to nullify.

This rule change is natural inspired by the change in 40K where there is a limitation to the reach of SM librarians nullification abilities.

With that change, psykers can now be affected by powers that originates outside there own nullification reach and can cancel powers that do not target them specific, if they are withind the psykers area of nullification.

A other change that also will be approved, will be to remove the reroll property of the psychic hood and instead give it the property of increasing the nullification reach of the psyker. E.g. to 15% or 20% of the psykers WP.



But, anyway, what do you thing?



:::---Thought of the day---:::
Bless the ignorance
Contempt the enlightened

[MarcoSkoll]

I believe INQ2 is going in that kind of direction anyway, giving psykers a nullification zone.

While I can see the case for, I also feel I have to speak up against as well. Giving psykers the ability to nullify large areas with relative ease can still blunt the use of psychic powers.

It's much the same reason why I find the in-game ubiquity of Pariahs so annoying. It's not just about the fact that these guys are supposed to be rarer than rocking horse manure, but because they make trying to use psychic powers like iceskating uphill.
By my count, in my games at WHW, I've been screwed over by a Pariah in a third of the games where I tried to use psychic powers.

Giving psykers the easy ability to nullify powers within several yards will do the same thing - make psychic powers pretty unusable, and they're not exactly popular as it is. Something like Puppet Master is a waste of time if all it takes is a psyker to do some jazz hands and solve it. Such a power should be a nightmare to deal with.

One problem with over-effective nullifications, for me at least, is that I do write characters who solely specialise in psychic powers. While many psychic characters can also pull out a stubber or sword and start making a mess that way, these characters are not multi-talented jack-of-all-trades. They have no other effective recourse but their psychic powers.
Adding in mass Pariahs, large area nullifications or Hexagrammic Wards for most of your warband is not merely like having a psychic equivalent to power armour - it's power armour where I pulp my character's brains when I fail to get through it.

When I have about a one in three of failing my risky action, seem to run into Pariahs* in a third of games, Hexagrammic wards seem to be rather more frequent than "Exotic", I already have to cope with nullifications if I target a psyker* directly, and any of these dramatically increase my expected WP loss (and thus chance of failing future powers for even more WP loss), explain to me why my psykers deserve to be even more penalised?

*And often, neither of these are obvious, so I don't find out until "You're in range of a Pariah, so that's a -50%" or "I'm going to nullify that". As if the presence of a Pariah in the area wouldn't be bleedingly obvious to a Zeta level psyker.

I think I'd only be happy with nullifications starting to have an area of effect if psykers took a heavy penalty to nullify powers not directly at them, and in the case of multiple nullifying psykers, it only counted the most successful nullification (a "solution" I'm surprised they didn't introduce in the first place).

[GAZKUL]

on topic, i am in favor of allowing non-psykers to resist psychic attack as any sentient creature is going to at least put up some kind of resistance to an attack on their mind, particularly more strong willed characters arn't just going to sit there idly and watch but put up some kind of struggle to block it out, rather like trying to not do something stupid while drunk.

possibly wp/10, can attempt to resist by rolling under that number. this way there is a small possibility that Bob the Ganger can stop Harold the Psyker forcing him to jump off a cliff but not such a large chance that it renders psykic powers obsolete.

[MarcoSkoll]

any sentient creature is going to at least put up some kind of resistance to an attack on their mind

Already heavily built into the Telepathy rules. Many of the powers allow Wp or Nv tests to resist (depending on whether it's higher level control or low level emotional manipulation), or have a difficulty based on the target's Wp.

I perhaps think some should be represented differently (I personally demand an opposed Wp test for a psyker to get any in-depth information from a Mind Scan, although I see the Dodge/Parry part as reading from a subconscious and less protected part of the mind), but I think it's fair enough to say that innate resistance is reasonably represented in the Difficulty modifier.

[Dolnikan]

Perhaps nullification zones could be worked in with the chance of nullification decreasing with the distance, after all, it would seem strange that a psyker can nullify something five yards away easily but is completely incapable of doing anything if his friend takes a single step away.

It might be better to use a system where there is a simple linear decrease in the willpower a psyker can use with distance, for instance: Effective Willpower= WP-(constant factor*distance) Where the constant factor could depend on the psyker's willpower or just be a simple constant.

[Aqwe]

So basic what you are suggesting is to make nullification a "range" power.
That is not a half bad solution. Other factors are needed to adjust the maximum range, but I am a fan of using terminology that already exists.     

[Inquisitor Goldeneye]

In my little gaming group we had a house rule which somewhat took the edge off the danger of having psychic powers nullified; we treated willpower lost in this way in a similar manner to the injury total of the character.

By which I mean that during the recovery phase a Psyker who had lost willpower through psychic feedback (e.g. through failling a psychic test, nullification or no) could take a willpower test at his current willpower, if he passed then he recovered D3 willpower (plus 1 for every full 10 points of current willpower over 50).

Our thinking behind this was that the willpower loss represented the pain and temporary disorientation of psychic feedback (or overload or whatever the techincal nomenclature may be) rather than some form of perminant brain damage or irreversable loss of mental power, and as such, the Psyker would simply need a little while to pull himself together again.




Also, we agreed that a Psyker could attempt to nullify a psychic power if he could see either the caster or the target/ target area (or if he himself were targeted or fell within the target area, of course).

The other house rule we had was that nullification attempts were subject to a similar rule to parrying, so that the first attempt to nullify in a turn was made at full willpower, but if the same Psyker wished to try and nullify a second power in the same turn then he would have to try and do so at half willpower, a third attempt would be at a quarter willpower and so on.

[Kaled]

The other house rule we had was that nullification attempts were subject to a similar rule to parrying, so that the first attempt to nullify in a turn was made at full willpower, but if the same Psyker wished to try and nullify a second power in the same turn then he would have to try and do so at half willpower, a third attempt would be at a quarter willpower and so on.

I like that idea as it means a psyker who attempts to nullify more than one psychic power in a turn is in serious danger of suffering a psychic overload so he'd have to think twice before attempting it.

I also wonder if the chance of nullifying a psychic power should be modified depending on how much the casters psychic test was passed by - that would also make nullifying powers more risky.

[Dolnikan]

That seems like a good solution to the effects of overloading, I think we could implement it in my group. I also like the effect of multiple nullifications although it doesn't solve the range issue, to do that something else would be needed.

[MarcoSkoll]

I also wonder if the chance of nullifying a psychic power should be modified depending on how much the casters psychic test was passed by - that would also make nullifying powers more risky.

I have considered this previously, actually. You'd have to change the order of casting (as nullification tests are usually done before the psychic test they relate to), but if you make it so that the dispeller has to pass a test with a penalty equal to the amount by which the caster passed, then it means that the caster doesn't suddenly get a nasty feedback surprise.

And in some ways, it feels more appropriate. In my mind, the caster was focused and their mind ready, and it's the dispeller who's suddenly and unexpectedly tasked with dissipating the warp energies being shaped, so it should really be them taking the test penalty.

~~~~~

And I may well implement psychic recovery myself...

[Kaled]

Or perhaps the chance of nullification should be modifed by the difficulty of the power - so something simple to cast is fairly simple to nullify, but nullifying a more difficult power is much harder. Or maybe concentrating beforehand should make a power more difficult to nullify as well as easier to cast...

Not really thought these through, just ideas off the top of my head.

[Molotov]

Toying with both Sorcerors and Psykers, I really like the "psychic recovery" rules from Goldeneye.

I have myself wondered if we could convert a "psychic phenomena" table like the Dark Heresy one for Inquisitor - not to make psychic powers more "dangerous" (I think they're already too dangerous for the user in Inquisitor) but to make them more bizarre!

[Kaled]

I have myself wondered if we could convert a "psychic phenomena" table like the Dark Heresy one for Inquisitor - not to make psychic powers more "dangerous" (I think they're already too dangerous for the user in Inquisitor) but to make them more bizarre!

Could and should in my opinion - far more interesting that just losing Wp.

[SpanielBear]

I second the idea for a psychic mishaps table. Willpower drain is a bad side-effect, but mainly just ends up with a psyker wandering miserably around the table not using his powers for fear of brain dribbelage. The warp (I believe) is a scary nightmarish hellscape, and drawing upon it as an energy source should justifiably have more risks than just a mild headache.

In the last game I played, the inquisitor kept falling foul of the presence of a daemon in the area whenever he attempted to use his powers. The GM ruled that, rather than keep losing willpower, the inquisitor actually started taking damage as the gargantuan warp presence made itself more apparent. This encouraged the inquisitor towards caution, but didn't stop him from trying to use his powers in desperate situations (although the way the dice rolls went, that might not have been the wisest course of action...).

As for nullification itself, I haven't experienced enough psyker vs. psyker combat to make an educated contribution. But I guess something along the lines of a psyker first having to test whether or not he is aware of the attack might be appropriate. Also, maybe having to use SG to determine the nature of the psychic assault, with bonuses and penalties for success and failure?

[Molotov]

The idea of using recovery rules for willpower/psychic damage is really quite ingenious, when you think about it.

Our thinking behind this was that the willpower loss represented the pain and temporary disorientation of psychic feedback (or overload or whatever the techincal nomenclature may be) rather than some form of perminant brain damage or irreversable loss of mental power, and as such, the Psyker would simply need a little while to pull himself together again.

If you imagine that it takes time to "pull yourself together", you can recover D3 Wp every turn naturally, or spend actions chanting litanies/clearing your mind - which has the effect of doing a recovery action.

It also means it's not actually that bad to lose a lot of Wp in one go - because you can recover from it.

---------------

With regards to phenomena and such - the Dark Heresy rules suggest that every time you roll a 9, a psychic phenomena is triggered - you roll a D100 and consult the relevant table before applying the result,which could be anything from the air suddenly smelling of something unusual all the way to unseen hands throwing everybody in the vicinity about. A result of 75+ on the PP table subjects the psyker to the Perils of the Warp: a second D100 table which is far more severe. This could be anything from a rainstorm of blood, a daemon possessing the psyker or the warp entirely swallowing him up.

Something like this could help make psychic powers far more interesting. But whilst it's one thing in Dark Heresy to say "All the food within five metres has spoiled," we have to think in Inquisitor how it can affect the game mechanics.