Idea for an ability

[Holiad]

Thinking over possibilities for new characters, I had a vague notion of a character that had an unusual Biomancy psychic power enabling him to temporarily boost his brain's computing power, leading to a dramatic increase in intelligence, and decided to consult the community.
So, I'm interested to hear any thoughts both on whether its plausible within 40K background(While I can't think of any precedent for such a psychic power, I also can't think of a reason why it would be impossible), and on how to implement it as part of the rules. I'm currently thinking it would grant a large temporary boost to the mental stat of choice, but I'm not sure how much of a boost is reasonable, whether it should be fixed or variable, or what sort of penalty might be appropiate.
Thoughts?

[Adlan]

Well, as you describe it, it should be an increase in Sg. There have been some interesting skills based on SG. Apart from using psychic powers to make himself smarter, any other concepts for the character?

[Cortez]

For a drawback to the power you could make it a persistent power and have it add one injury level to the characters head when it fails.

[biggreengribbly]

I'd imagine it would be walking a pretty fine line between 'increased brain power' and dipping into corrupting knowledge offered up by sneaky warp beasts

[Holiad]

Well, as you describe it, it should be an increase in Sg. There have been some interesting skills based on SG. Apart from using psychic powers to make himself smarter, any other concepts for the character?

Sg is the most obvious stat, but I'm inclined to think he could at least also boost his LD, which has a large element of self-discipline and overall awareness to it. Nv and Wp I agree would be pushing the point, and I don't really want to let him boost his Wp, then recast on the enhanced stat.
He's still at a very early stage as a character concept, which seems like a good time to check whether a certain idea is worth pursuing or not, but I'm favouring an ageing retainer passed between a few inquisitors since the usual abduction, assessment etc. by the black ships.
As far as daemonic influence goes, I don't see it as a particular problem. Since he isn't actually drawing knowledge from the warp, just enhancing his brain, I don't see him being more at risk than any other biomancer using psychic powers on their own body, and probably less than telepaths which focus on psychic communication. Also, a lot of warp entities prey on weak and feeble minds, and his mind is strongest when his powers are active/

[Cortez]

You could also potentially have the power boost the characters BS to represent his brain computing range, motion deflection etc. with more precision. Alternatively you could give the character the same rules as the Motion Tracker and/or Range Finder scopes whilst the power is active.

[jasdow77]

If your wanting to increase his brains computing speed instead of affecting a stat line that you have to keep up with and figure percentages why don't you increase the number of action dice rolled representing your characters ability to compute and make decisions faster.  I know you can only do so many actions per turn, but you would increase the likely-hood of completing all your actions creating the illusion of your character being able to do all the things people listed above: targeting, dodging, decision making and so on...

I've been out of the game for a while and just getting back in so if this is completely off-base let me know.

[Flinty]

Humm... nice idea, increasing Sg seems a neat forward if your'e just after a single stat boost, but I also like Jasdow 77's idea of giving a gaurenteed number of actions - or possibly roll as normal and then add D3 up to the max allowable. However, since there's no such thing as a free lunch, I think I'd quibble about this:

As far as daemonic influence goes, I don't see it as a particular problem. Since he isn't actually drawing knowledge from the warp, just enhancing his brain, I don't see him being more at risk than any other biomancer using psychic powers on their own body, and probably less than telepaths which focus on psychic communication. Also, a lot of warp entities prey on weak and feeble minds, and his mind is strongest when his powers are active/

If someone draws on the warp, there are countless (and obviously mostly unkown) gribblies that are looking for a free lunch/entry to the coproreal/a chance to be naughty; and someone who uses the empyrean in any form will shine that little bit brighter and draw attention to themselves. Regardless of your own smarts, theres always something sharper out there licking its teeth or tenatacles.

If you want to get away from psychic backlash, then adding an injury level on a fail - a la Cortez - looks good, or a  reduction of Wp perhaps - he may get smarter, but that might be just be a singlminded tunnel-vision like clarity which fails to consider the possible drawbacks.