THE TOLL OF PSYKING

Psychic powers are incredibly potent. At high levels there are few class abilities belonging to non-psykers that a psyker can’y replicate through one of his psychic powers. Psyking (the act of casting psychic powers) is an ability that assures you are never without weapon – and never without a weapon the equivalent of an orbital bombardment at high levels with psychic powers like ‘Meteor Shower’. In the Dungeons & Dragons game arcane psykers (or arcane spellcasters) are balanced because they cannot wear armour and because they have lower hit points and skill points than many other classes. Because power-armoured Librarians (or indeed armoured librarians in general) are a staple of the Warhammer 40,000 game psykers are allowed to wear armour. Indeed at low levels the smart and charismatic classes especially don’t even have that many fewer hit points and certainly don’t have fewer skill points. So how is a psyker fairly balanced with a warrior?

These rules provide that balance to the game. Though melee psykers (powerful melee psykers easily as powerful as non-psyker martial heroes) exist in the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop battlegame this is one of those circumstances where the need for balance outweighs the need to reflect an army-based, point-buy based game. You have to pick in d20-40k whether you want to be a powerful psyker or a powerful warrior or to be a little bit of both. For this reason in d20-40k psychic powers take a considerable physical toll on the casters. According to their psychic level casters suffer penalties to their physical characterestics.

At 6th level and for every 3 psychic levels after 6th the character must subtract 1 point from a physical ability score (Strength, Dexterity or Constitution). Starting at 12th level however the psyker is considered extremely potent and starts to take -2 penalties to physical ability scores. The penalties never get any more pejorative than -2 but they do continue to accrue every 3 caster levels. The -2 penalty cannot be divided across two ability scores to lessen the impact. The chart below summarizes when psykers lose ability scores.