A final blast at psykers...

[Kage2020]

I'm going to have to reply to this on the fly since I'm at work at the moment and should be writing about American Civil War cultural resources.  Forgive any brevity, but I might be able to expand upon it at a later time with sufficient interest.

Could you post exactly how you calculate power cost and tap requirements (if such a system exists yet)... in other words what are the limitations/enhancements used for the abilities (as well as limitation resulting in taint/corruption, if any). Also, how do you calculate the cost of tap and threshold in terms of GURPS advantages?? I'm a gear-head by nature, and so if I can take a look at the cold-hard numbers, I'll then try to contribute.

It's rather simple, to be fair.  Grade determines your Tap, Threshold and Recovery, the latter two of which can be upgraded in play with CP--Tap cannot be altered (except when it can, but that's another subject).  Individual powers are built as per GURPS Powers and, yes, drawing inspiration from GURPS Psionic Powers where possible and appropriate.  Thus, you build with whatever enhancements and limitations you want.  (Standard -10% Psi modifier present; no additional modifier for the operation of the Resource Pool [Threshold] since you can continue to use your powers when it runs dry, and none for the Tap mechanic either.)

Tap is simply calculated as one tenth of the CP cost.  Thus, vanilla Possession would be ([100*0.9]/10] or 9.  And, yes, this is a part of the reason that I was concerned about scaling Tap and Threshold.  High-grade psykers are "frighteningly" powerful.

Abilities can be enhanced in game as "extra effort."  Limitations can, of course, be freely taken to reduce Tap.

It's simple but fairly robust.

however we would want to keep the concept of tap-and-threshold in place, especially in regards to taint/corruption.

If Dark Heresy is anything to go by, sorcery is merely just gross psyker abiities.  Thankfully Dark Heresy is one of the reasons that I felt that another system of looking at psykers was needed (I just need to find the time to get all this down on paper, or rather In-Design).

As to how it should be modelled herein?  To be honest I haven't taken a look at it in a while.  I considered Path/Book magic ala GURPS Thaumatology, but that didn't seem to have the right feeling to it.  Standard or variant ritual magic was another possibility, but again it didn't have the right feel to it.

The Tap system as it pertains to cobbling together a Power seems to work as is, but a zero-Threshold and auto-Taint just seems wrong. 

Nyargle.  Need to think about it more.  My brain has been primarily working on a GURPS variant of Earthdawn and a look at Shadowrun magic so that they can be brought together and utilised in a single game for my oft-spoken-about-but-never-run campaign, The Swords of Wayland.  Thus all this 40k stuff is, at the moment, making me go... "Erm, now what was I actually thinking a couple of months ago?"

incidentally, has anyone looked at GURPS Psionic Powers yet?? It has some pretty neat ideas, and is food for though; my favourite feature are the perks individualized for each power group.

I have it but haven't particularly digested it yet, though the perks thing initially had me worried.  Not sure now, though.  Initial impressions can sometimes be misleading.

Okaaay... Feeling slightly more motivated about RPG in the 40k universe, despite also wanting to create some GURPS-fied approaches to Earthdawn adepts (Modular Ability for spell matrices, making other adepts a bit more "Physad" and then bringing this in line to a slightly more Covenant-esque approach to magic in Shadowrun).  It's amazing, but apparently without realising it, hanging out on a Dark Heresy forum actually de-motivated me about RP! 

Bad Kage!  Back to GURPS Rogue Trader and the Servants of the Imperium supplement.  And, before that, the psionics system has to be in place, at least to RC1.0 status.

Thanks, Heimdallr!

Kage

[Heimdallr]

Cool! thanks for the info!

Also what would be the base cost(s) for the different grades?? Is it akin to different levels of Magery? I'm assuming that not just any bloke can "tap" into the Warp (at least not consciously), hence the different levels of psyker grades; however, once you are a psyker you can exceed your Tap and Threshold to achieve greater power (along with the gain of taint/corruption of course). This makes me think of a sort of "unlimited-mana" campaign, with the caveat of grave danger if you exceed your limits. I'm also assuming that once you have the "psyker" Advantage you can now "learn" powers with the -10% Psionic limitation.

In essence anybody who taps into the Warp will be susceptible to taint/corruption, and this includes sorcerers and company. However some types of "sorcery" would not have this sort of "unlimited-mana" that psykers enjoy, and therefore do not carry the same risks of gaining taint (maybe only on critical failures); in fact, no "tap" or "threshold" characteristics might be present at-all, and the sorcerers would be limited to his own supply of Fatigue Points. The Nature and Spirit limitations spring to mind here for primitive sorcerers. As the initiate gets closer and closer to the source of his power (the Warp) he could then acquire less restrictive abilities (with a Pact of Required Disadvantage limitations); in any case, insanities and mutations would eventually be earned, but in a less automatic way as with the psykers.

More "advanced" types of sorcery will naturally be a derivative of the Psyker to some degree, and would be less stable forms of the sanctioned kind; for the same "tap" level (psyker-grade) a lower threshold and/or recovery (as was already mentioned previously I'm sure  ). Finally you will have those powerful individuals who have (successfully) struck a deal with the Chaos Gods directly; these will be high-level psykers with already a natural resistance to taint/corruption, but that have none-the-less succumbed to the corruption of chaos (at least in their viewpoints). Such individuals will be rewarded with an even greater resistance to the corrupting effects of chaos, something akin to the Inured to Chaos talent from WFRP (in other words high levels of Threshold and Recovery), but at a high cost (a Duty to a Chaos God is not walk in the park  ).

...with that said maybe I'll try to whip-up some "basic/standardized" psyker powers...

[Kage2020]

Also what would be the base cost(s) for the different grades?? Is it akin to different levels of Magery?

My working assumption is 5 points/Tap (which gets crazily expensive) with a 2.7 points/Threshold.  The Threshold works well, but the Tap is a bit too expensive, so I'll probably just give it an attendant point cost that is arbitrarily assigned.

I'm assuming that not just any bloke can "tap" into the Warp (at least not consciously), hence the different levels of psyker grades...

You need to be a psyker to be able to Tap the warp, pure and simple.  Of course, that doesn't mean that you cannot be a Sorcerer and use ritual to tap the warp, or a Chaos Sorcerer and enter into a Pact.

however, once you are a psyker you can exceed your Tap and Threshold to achieve greater power (along with the gain of taint/corruption of course)...

Tap is the cap on the cost of abilities that you can use.  Essentially, for each level of Tap you're restricted to around 10 points of advantages (enhancements/limitations).  Low-grade psykers aren't particularly powerful, and lower grade psykers--if that was an avenue that someone wanted to pursue--would probably be restricted to things like Danger Sense, Luck, Empathy and that type of thing (probably with an Unreliable limitation).

Psykers only really become effective when they've got a Tap of 3-5 (Eta-Zeta) that allows them to engage in active Telepathy, be able to lift more substantial weights, use clairsentience, etc.  Once you get beyond those levels, it's more finessing in powerful abilities, cracking planets in half... that kind of thing.

If you do want to build past your cap, then it's Extra Effort and moderated by the same rules, i.e. fatigue cost and skill modifier per 5% of the ability cost.  This also works for modding a power on the fly.

As far as I can tell, pretty much how it works in the 'fluff' is how it works in the system, which was the goal of the thing in the first place.  (It's also why I appreciated the input of folks and am getting remotivated to have it "finalised" into a release candidate for publication/playtesting.  As far as I can tell, that would probably take the form of a DimDim moderated PbIM between select people here, and people from Dark Reign.)

This makes me think of a sort of "unlimited-mana" campaign, with the caveat of grave danger if you exceed your limits.

Unlimited Mana or Threshold-limited Mana was indeed the inspiration since it seemed to set the general feel of psykers in the 40k universe with the feeling of "magic mind powers."  With that said, the nature of the Psyker Grade meant that it was inappropriate for someone to be able to draw too deeply on the warp in one go, otherwise there would have been little functional difference between a Theta Grade psyker and an Alpha Grade psyker while still maintaining maximum flexibility.

I'm also assuming that once you have the "psyker" Advantage you can now "learn" powers with the -10% Psionic limitation.

Nyargle.  One thing that I'm considered, but have not decided upon, is to have an "Unusual Background" for psykers with more than one, perhaps two, disciplines.  Flexibility seems to come with a price, and also means that you're balancing the cost of your psyker grade with the number of disciplines that you want...

Nyargle.  Now that I think about it, probably not.  So, yes, you could probably learn any psyker power from any Discipline if you have a suitable tutor.

In essence anybody who taps into the Warp will be susceptible to taint/corruption, and this includes sorcerers and company.

The basic premise is that psykers have a "safe" zone that they use up until they go into the red, as it were, and Tap from the warp itself, thereby "illuminating their soul."  This engenders Taint.

If you don't have a Threshold, then you automatically get Taint, yes.  With regards to Sorcery, one direction that I'm thinking of heading is having the different trappings of ritual--place, sacrifice, participation, etc., etc.--build a form of "pseudo-Threshold" so that not everyone involved starts going crazy, gaining mutations, or whatever.  It's any approach that I think has some traction and can be independent of a "Chaos Sorcerer" that enters into a Pact (-10%) with a daemonic entity and acquires psyker-esque powers, which on my behalf I see as coming with the whole "Unlimited Mana" thing--it's just going to be more dangerous since the Sorcerer is now walking the line between becoming a powerful daemon prince or going the other route and becoming Chaos spawn.  (You're acquiring the Taint because you're drawing more deeply than the Power wants you to...)

In fact, the more that I think about it, appropriate construction of a pseudo-Threshold through ritualisation is the way to go for all types of Sorcery.  Much of the work has already been done with some of the earlier 3e articles on "Psionic Wizardry."

More "advanced" types of sorcery will naturally be a derivative of the Psyker to some degree, and would be less stable forms of the sanctioned kind; for the same "tap" level (psyker-grade) a lower threshold and/or recovery (as was already mentioned previously I'm sure  ).

That is certainly something to ponder, yes.

Finally you will have those powerful individuals who have (successfully) struck a deal with the Chaos Gods directly; these will be high-level psykers with already a natural resistance to taint/corruption...

Higher level psykers don't have a greater resistance to Taint, but Primary Class psykers do.

Again, though, I'm just throwing ideas out for you to throw right back at me.

...with that said maybe I'll try to whip-up some "basic/standardized" psyker powers...

The good thing about GURPS Psionic Powers, along with some of the power write ups in GURPS Powers itself, is that they already are a good basis for many of the abilities in the 40k universe.  Telepathy, for example, works better as than what we would acquire from, say, Dark Heresy or Inquisitor.  I would, however, certainly be interested to see what you come up with.


Of course, the one problem of getting back into some stuff on a quiet forum is that you come back and end up checking for responses... Argh!  There wasn't one.

Kage

[Heimdallr]

The good thing about GURPS Psionic Powers, along with some of the power write ups in GURPS Powers itself, is that they already are a good basis for many of the abilities in the 40k universe.  Telepathy, for example, works better as than what we would acquire from, say, Dark Heresy or Inquisitor.  I would, however, certainly be interested to see what you come up with.

Agreed... GURPS Psionic Powers is pretty extensive; I was just going to scan through any GW material that includes psyker powers, such as the olde Rogue Trader, Space Hulk, and Inquisitor (just to name a few), and see if I can find something unusual and/or worthy of conversion; WFRP or even WEG Star Wars could have some pertaining forty-k-esk powers... some of the Sith powers definitely seem to fit.

[Kage2020]

I would be interesting to see what you came up with.  One of the things that I was trying to get people over on Dark Reign to do was "loan" me their characters for conversion into GURPS so that: (1) I didn't have to think of it myself, and (2) so that they could at some point be pulled away from Dark Heresy.  Okay, the second of those isn't that likely--it's already established itself in terms of a loyal fan base.

Incidentally, what did you think about the "pseudo-Threshold" concept?

Kage

[Heimdallr]

Incidentally, what did you think about the "pseudo-Threshold" concept?

I like it  I don't have my Basic Set on me right now, but I imagine you'd apply a limitation on the Threshold Advantage, such as a conditional event/object (mass-ritual/blood/brains/etc...). This would create different types of sorceries and wouldn't be power-specific though; would there be a way of tying Threshold to a specific power, such as an enhancement??

[Dragon Lord]

Just a brief thought that occured to me regarding the generation of some sort of pseudo-threshold for sorcerers.  If you were to set it up such that the amount of ritualised offerings, etc. required increases exponentially (or at least rapidly in some form) with the amount of threshold the sorcerer is trying to generate this should help to counter-balance the possibility for sorcerers generating unspeakably high amounts of threshold and being immune to all taint while still allowing them to use low level powers relatively safely.
So something along the lines of:
Threshold 1 - sacrifice a grox
Threshold 2 - sacrifice a person
Threshold 3 - sacrifice 10 people
Threshold 4 - sacrifice a city...

Obviously that is not the exact progression to use but it's an example of what I mean.

[Kage2020]

I like it...

Just thought that I would check.

I don't have my Basic Set on me right now, but I imagine you'd apply a limitation on the Threshold Advantage, such as a conditional event/object (mass-ritual/blood/brains/etc...). This would create different types of sorceries and wouldn't be power-specific though; would there be a way of tying Threshold to a specific power, such as an enhancement??

This, I'm afraid, is one of those points where my desire to make things consistent with GURPS falls by the wayside of my ultimate desire of making it evocative of the universe.  In short, I don't really want to number crunch. 

In terms of the game mechanics, though, Threshold is just a Power Reservoir (2.7 points/dedicated fatigue point) but is fairly useless without Tap.  In this case, I think that I was using the wrong term when I mentioned "pseudo-Threshold."  More correctly, I guess, it is "pseudo-Tap," or the ability to generate effects rather than safely engender them.  Thus in this case, Dragon Lords' suggestion is more in keeping with my thoughts...

you were to set it up such that the amount of ritualised offerings, etc. required increases exponentially (or at least rapidly in some form) with the amount of threshold the sorcerer is trying to generate this should help to counter-balance the possibility for sorcerers generating unspeakably high amounts of threshold and being immune to all taint while still allowing them to use low level powers relatively safely.

As above, this is exactly in keeping with what I had in mind.  I just need to generate a quick list and post here for comments to see if it reflects on what other people would see as "appropriate" for the setting.

Obviously that is not the exact progression to use but it's an example of what I mean.

Well, it's not too far off, to be honest.  Summoning of greater daemons would seem to require cataclysmic events when not handled by a Chaos Sorcerer (read, psyker-sorcerer in a Pact), so having to reduce an entire subsector to war and causing the death of millions or even billions wouldn't be out of the range of a high-Tap event.  Of course, most Cults (or whatever) would not engender in "sacrifice" as a singular means of generating the energy, since this would require a hek of a lot of careful coordination.  Tempering with a Time-Tap, Taint-Tap, Environment-Tap, Materials-Tap, or whatever, can all be added carefully into the mix.  And since each Tap-level is exponential, it just seems to work... conceptually at least. 

I need to put together that table for you guys to look over...

Kage

[Kage2020]

Double posting for the heck of it, but as I was reading through this I was reminded of how much the current version of this document is different from what I have argued for and presented above.  Such is the way of "maturing" in the subject matter in question. 

Some quick notes on changes that spring to mind:

• Grade is now defined primarily by Threshold.  The whole Tap thing was a nightmarish cludge.
• Character generation for psyker PCs has been streamlined, while the number of options increased significantly.
• Taint and Calamity are now modeled on Reality Disrupting Magic from Thaumatology, with Taint occurring on a daily basis (rather than per use), and Taint Flaws being mostly temporary. 
  
• Altered the Taint scale, removing the restrictive 'fluff' on the possession scale.  Now Taint is capped by a "Daemonic Vessel" lens, which only means that you acquire a daemonic patron who is simultaneously your enemy and can provide you with nifty daemonic powers... at the cost of your soul.  Effects of having Taint are now temporary Quirks that are more annoying than anything else.
• Enuncia has been introduced quickly and easy with "Power Words" from Thaumatology.
  
• Sorcery now works along the rather excellent Path/Book magic from Thaumatology, something that required almost no change to bring it up to speed.  This includes both the Left-hand and Right-hand path of Sorcery referred to in official supplements (Disciples of the Dark Gods and the Radical's Handbook, though is far more flavoursome than those drab representations).
  
  

The document has snow-balled beyond my original intent (it would have been so much easier to represent psykers as mages and just go with Threshold Limited magic!), but is beginning to "truly" reflect psykers in the 40k setting without going down the Dark Heresy "head popping" avenue.

Completed (to first draft release candidate status) sections include the Introduction, core concepts, game mechanics, character generation, sorcery, building psyker powers (including daemonic powers), and most of the background on psykers in the Imperium.  To do for the first release is to get the basic "lenses" on Imperial psykers (Astropaths, Sanctioned Psykers, Primaris Psykers) written and then it will be ready for that "first release."

As mentioned elsehwere, though, it's not a complete document in a number of ways:

• All of the rules cannot be printed without infringing Steve Jackson Games' copyright.  Thus you're going to need the GURPS books in questions to use them in your own games.
  
• It only includes information on Imperial psykers.  Rules for alien races are part of the second (and beyond) releases.

Anyway, just thought that I would say since I'm having fun writing this document (at last) and putting thoughts down on to paper.  I'm also very excited about having it "finished," and then being able to move on to the Servants of the Imperium document which relies so heavily on the materials that have been presented at various points in Anargo's (project) history, e.g. CELS' document on the structure of the Imperium (needs to be rewritten, tweaked, and given some "anthropological" structure, but otherwise thoroughly inspirational!).

Kage