Reverend mort said: We do not see eye to eye on this, and I doubt we will. I can agree to disagree, and if you can't that is your problem, because I am done with this discussion.

Cryhavok said:

 

The issue is that your viewpoint is explicitly 'The books are wrong.'  Which would be fine, if you had good evidence for the books being wrong.  As it stands, butting into another person's thread and being all 'yeah you did that but even though the books say you can your GM is too lenient for letting you do so' is just worthless.

I'm wondering how it got to the point where you could bind that daemon though. A Lord of Change would be rather unlikely not to know, or quickly figure out what's going on.

Daemonic Presence for -20WP and Fear 4 certainly make an angry hostile Lord of Change annoying to try and deal with, but more importantly, if you rolled a 01 so that you'd actually GET your int bonus' worth and then some out of the skill, why didn't he make you reroll with Weaver of Fates?

Also I'm wondering if Strong-minded and psychic resistance shouldn't be applying, in this case, to attempts to bind them: even if using int base on the ritual, you're performing sorcery. That's some serious chances to resist, and they get plenty of DoS as well.

 

One thing though: -80 isn't possible. Tests are always -60 to +60. It can add up to -80 for purposes of  trying to get bonuses to cancel all that out, but the test will always just be at -60 at worst. That Lord of Change will be rolling mastery against 21, not 01. He probably loses the ability to force you to spend infamy and reroll at that point however though. You will fail it at some point, and when that happens the results should prove spectacular.

… for the audience. Please do tell us ALL about it when he finally snaps out.

 

Says your GM: "Just as planned"?

Kiton said:

Presumably, the daemonic mastery tests prevent it from acting against you. And IIRC they never state how long it takes to actually bind a daemon into a daemon weapon in the first place, so quite possibly they appear and get bound within less than a single round. The -20 could also be sidestepped by being 20+ meters from it, which may not be impossible either.

As for the "you rolled 01" well, he can't be forced to reroll. Even assuming that using skill mastery for an automatic success is considered a roll in the first place, you can only spend infamy to reroll failed tests, and he didn't fail it. Ergo, the Daemon can't make him spend infamy to reroll it.

As for Strong-minded and Psychic resistance, I wouldn't apply them. Daemons being boundable is something that's inherent to their nature and existence, and I don't think them being able to shrug off doombolts and dominate should go towards being able to ignore one of the fundamental risks of their existance.

EDIT: Oh, and for the modifier thing, do you have a pg reference for that? I know the Difficulty table lists actions from +60 to -60, but that's for difficulty, not modifiers.

While its a risk, I see little reason why the Daemon, if it wishes to not be weaponized, would not use its abilities to its fullest. Notably, Resist Psy and Strong-minded are not found on a Great Unclean one or most other daemons. The Daemonic mastery test is certainly psy/sorcery in nature, as you get to add +5 x psy rating to the mastery test, and Page 229 notes that the ritual IS modified by the target's Daemonic Presence "and other pertinent factors".

Its true that skill mastery lets you "not roll", but opposed tests go by how many DoS/DoF you have over the other, so at least we should be verifying the LoC's own, for purposes of the difference between the two. This is where strong-minded and their effective Psy Rating 9[so +45] would come in handy.

Tables aside, which in the case of summoning/binding, 201 and 229 state at the top of the tables that their maximums are +/- 60 outright rather than only implying, there's 241.

Page 241, though in the combat chapter, states: "If a situation calls for two or more bonuses or penalties, simply combine all modifiers together and apply the total to the appropriate Characteristic. The maximum total bonus that can be applied to a test is +60. Conversely, the maximum total penalty that can be applied to a test is –60. When adjudicating difficulty, common sense should prevail. Regardless of the usual limits on test penalties, some actions are simply impossible"

 

Personally, I'm just trying to figure out if everything went fubar for the daemon's rolls[very unlikely but certainly possible; anyone can roll a 100 sometimes, even two despite dumping infamy on there], or if the player was just led to believe that was the case.

Kiton said:

The Daemonic mastery test might be sorcerous in nature, but it is not a psychic power, so Resistance (psychic powers) is questionable. it is most assuredly not a mind-affecting power, so Strong minded does not apply.

In addition, the fact that Daemonic mastery tests can be performed by anyone and is a pure willpower on willpower test further casts the notion that it's in any way psychic in origin into doubt. After all, this is the very same test everyone, from a Tzeentch Socerer to a Khorne Berserker, make as soon as they pick up a Daemonic weapon.

Furthermore, the text on pg 229 says "If the summoner is a psyker, he may add a +5 bonus to his test for every point of Psy Rating he has." This would imply the Daemon does not. So that +45 is out the window for the Daemon.

So let's do the math. Assume the psyker is a decent psyker of psy rating 5 and a willpower of 50. He's now up to 75. He's also Aligned to and has the Mark of Tzeentch. That's +20 and +30 respectively. 125. Assuming he has an appropriate sacrifice, he's now up to 135 vs the Daemon's 90. A strong advantage, even without him spending infamy etc for the test.

Assuming he's not 20 meters away from the Daemon (not that hard to achieve) He's brought down to 115. Give the Daemon resistance and he's now down to 105. He's got 15 on the Daemon. A less surefire bet, but even in this daemon benefiting situation, he's got a small advantage on the Daemon. If he's spent some of his (cheap) advances on willpower or has a higher psy rating (With the Mark of Tzeentch and being human, he's bought 1 level of psy rating so far) then his lead increases further.

And this is without the sorcerer doing anything in his favor. For one, if he's gonna be that close to the Daemon, why not throw up Host of Fiends, one of the cheapest powers in the game? Now he just increased his lead by 10 points, assuming he's not pushing or boon of Tzeentching it. And hey, he's Tzeentch aligned, so why not drag some useless slaves into the room and psyphon them (another cheap power). Hurl that around once or twice, and assuming average damage rolls, he gets unnatural willpower +4, for another 2 DoS of success guaranteed. That would lower the Host of Fiends a bit, unless he pushed or booned it.

So now it's 105+2 DoS versus 80. And that's with a pretty average psyker, tbh. You could reasonably achieve this within 8 or 9 sessions, tbh. Bring up a real psychic powerhouse, and this stops even being a contest.

Then we get into the actual Forbidden Lore (Daemonology) test to bind the daemon. This is not an opposed test. This is where he spent the infamy and used skill mastery. The Daemon got it's chance to oppose him in the Daemonic Mastery. Now, the best it's attempt to resist him can do is give him -30 on the test he's already stacking so many positive modifiers on it's not even funny.

As for the +60 to -60 modifier, those are listed on specific tables. So once the weapon is built, the user would use the table on 229 table to pick the proper modifiers, up to +60 or -60. And THEN apply the binding strength and psy rating. If not, a binding strength beyond 2 would be useless on a weapon wielded by anyone with the proper mark, which strikes me as improbable. And a high powered psyker would get no benefit from the mark, which is equally odd.

So, yeah, it still seems quite plausible that a Greater Daemon could be bound by a competent psyker. Now, the Master of Plotters power could throw a wrench into things. That said, I don't see how a plan could apply to a contest of wills like that, but whatever. Even then, the Heretic could hurl 2 or more infamy points into 1d5 extra DoS per point to counter that.

And this is with a pretty middling psyker. So yeah, doable. Not super easy, but the psyker in general has an advantage.

Isn't everyone not a null considered to have some level, even if far too low to be usable, of psychic potential? We're dealing with controlling the Immaterium here, and the fact that Psykers can use their rating certainly does more to imply its psychic in nature than the fact that anyone willing to give themselves to the Dark Gods can do the ritual [mark of tzeench makes you a psyker if you weren't one, even].

A bigger question is why the Daemon doesn't get to add it, but chances are that was either left out because most daemons aren't psykers and they forgot you can summon more than nurglings while writing, OR because that would make some of them impossible for those not specifically dedicated to the act.

I'm not involved in that game, but what does interest me is the rules here. I'm not denying that the psyker didn't have the advantage; that would be like trying to wonder how the sniper's got his accuracy so high.

 

The limitation on tests I'm seeing is "final". You add up all that stuff together: Psy rating, marks, etc, and the final mod is "stat +/- 60". It makes sense that you wouldn't need a high binding if you're marked by the god: That's as friendly as things get, and there's little they can do if you know its true name. Of course in ideal conditions you've got an easy time dealing with it. Non-Tzeench aligned folks don't have it quite as cheap or easy, but if you know a daemon's true name and you're good buddies with its God, you've kind of got an 'in'. The mark helps greatly if you're otherwise weaker; like not a psyker or dealing with daemons of great infamy, as any Greater oughta have really, as its the final total that's +/- 60. "Would be useless" aside, just as problematic is the idea that the most willful and powerful of daemons are stuck in there permanently. At least without consistently spending an infamy point every time you might fail if the LoC has 21 to test against… though it ain't bloody likely if you're the one who put it in there in the first place, obviously.

 

What I do think, though, is that just like there's nothing telling us what "a single standard type of ammunition is" despite it being perfectly possible for grenade and missile launchers to be the weapon in question, no one thought to see how much they could break the mastery tests [which when you look at it are obviously intended to be nothing but "Daemon  WP -5*binding strength" once in the weapon, though obviously this is not the end result by having said 'daemonic mastery test'] by letting every aspect of the original summoning get used instead.

 

Perhaps a quick rewording of the rules to better account for all the variables would be needed?

Isn't everyone not a null considered to have some level, even if far too low to be usable, of psychic potential? We're dealing with controlling the Immaterium here, and the fact that Psykers can use their rating certainly does more to imply its psychic in nature than the fact that anyone willing to give themselves to the Dark Gods can do the ritual [mark of tzeench makes you a psyker if you weren't one, even].

By that logic, should a character be allowed to apply Strong-minded to resisting persuasion tests, because someone with some smidgeon of psychic potential is trying to influence their mind? And, furthermore, if this is is so psychic in nature as to count as a psychic power, why can Khorne-aligned people do it? You know, the guys who by the rules lose ALL psychic powers and potential when they align to Khorne? If a Daemonic Mastery test counted as a psychic power for the purpose of the rules, Khorne-aligned characters would not be able to do them. No, trying to finagle resistance and strong-minded into applying to Daemonic mastery tests seems to stretch it far too much for me. You'd reason that if they were meant to make it harder to command those Daemons, it would be explicitly mentioned somewhere.

A bigger question is why the Daemon doesn't get to add it, but chances are that was either left out because most daemons aren't psykers and they forgot you can summon more than nurglings while writing, OR because that would make some of them impossible for those not specifically dedicated to the act.

Or maybe because they didn't want Daemons to add their psy rating to the test. We can guess the motivations of the developers all we want, but at the end of the day you don't, by the rules of the book. Furthermore, it wouldn't benefit the Lord of Change even if you did. He doesn't actually have a psy rating. He has a special ability that lets him use psychic powers with an effective psy rating of 9, but he lacks the psy rating talent and an actual psy rating.

The limitation on tests I'm seeing is "final". You add up all that stuff together: Psy rating, marks, etc, and the final mod is "stat +/- 60". It makes sense that you wouldn't need a high binding if you're marked by the god: That's as friendly as things get, and there's little they can do if you know its true name. Of course in ideal conditions you've got an easy time dealing with it. Non-Tzeench aligned folks don't have it quite as cheap or easy, but if you know a daemon's true name and you're good buddies with its God, you've kind of got an 'in'. The mark helps greatly if you're otherwise weaker; like not a psyker or dealing with daemons of great infamy, as any Greater oughta have really, as its the final total that's +/- 60. "Would be useless" aside, just as problematic is the idea that the most willful and powerful of daemons are stuck in there permanently. At least without consistently spending an infamy point every time you might fail if the LoC has 21 to test against… though it ain't bloody likely if you're the one who put it in there in the first place, obviously.

Yet on that table listing the modifiers there is mentioned neither psy rating nor binding strength. And with no overarching rule capping modifiers to 60, you're conjecturing here. And it makes just as much sense that a master psyker with immense experience dealing with daemons, the favor of Tzeentch and unrivaled sorcerous potential would be far more capable of binding a daemon than a middling psyker with passing experience in dealing with daemons, even if they both have the mark of Tzeentch.

As an aside, you don't apply the Daemon's infamy on Daemonic tests either, just the test to create a daemon weapon. The one that isn't opposed.

What I do think, though, is that just like there's nothing telling us what "a single standard type of ammunition is" despite it being perfectly possible for grenade and missile launchers to be the weapon in question, no one thought to see how much they could break the mastery tests [which when you look at it are obviously intended to be nothing but "Daemon  WP -5*binding strength" once in the weapon, though obviously this is not the end result by having said 'daemonic mastery test'] by letting every aspect of the original summoning get used instead.

Perhaps a quick rewording of the rules to better account for all the variables would be needed?

I don't think these tests are that broken. So yeah, a decently competent psyker built to deal with the warp and with the mark of Tzeentch can bind greater daemons of Tzeentch into Daemon weapons. It still costs him 2d5 corruption points, two lengthy rituals, a couple of human sacrifices etc and at the end of the day he gets a scary gun or killstick. Fair trade I say.

Now, if you wanna break daemon weapons, the key there is getting far less binding strength so you get to lather on qualities, and then just sustain Protean form all day and put it all in unnatural Willpower. You become just as impossible to beat in the mastery test, but you got a blade oozing with psychic death and all manner of bling. Or, you know, you could just skip that whole daemon weapon thing and hit someone with a regular force weapon for 10d10 or more points worth of no soak damage.

Regarding Strong-Minded, I'd say that as soon as a Psyker uses their psy rating in the test, they're definitely trying to crush the daemon's will with a manifestation of psychic power - so that certainly works.

 

So, yeah, it still seems quite plausible that a Greater Daemon could be bound by a competent psyker. Now, the Master of Plotters power could throw a wrench into things. That said, I don't see how a plan could apply to a contest of wills like that, but whatever.

Simply don't let it come to a fair contest - the daemon subverts one or two of the psyker's aides beforehand who go on to sabotage the ritual. It leaves fake True Names lying around for clueless mortals to find. It locates the prospective ritual sacrifices and corrupts them into unsuitability. It sends out a Rogue Trader to buy up all the blue and gold paint he can find.
There are lots of ways to change the outcome of that ritual and its aftermath - and the Lord can see most of them.

 

Even then, the Heretic could hurl 2 or more infamy points into 1d5 extra DoS per point to counter that.

Apart from me being rather suspicious about the possibility of using multiple Infamy points on the same benefit for the same test: So could the Lord of Change. It's got 5 Infamy Points and presumably nothing better to do with them…

 

Also, if the psyker is going into the whole thing with several powers sustained, there's little reason to think the Daemon wouldn't do the same - after all, it never rolls its powers anyway, so why wouldn't it have a permanently active Psyphon, Protean Form, Host of Fiends and the like?

By that logic, should a character be allowed to apply Strong-minded to resisting persuasion tests, because someone with some smidgeon of psychic potential is trying to influence their mind? And, furthermore, if this is is so psychic in nature as to count as a psychic power, why can Khorne-aligned people do it?

No. Someone trying to convince you of something, unless actively using a power to do it, isn't affecting you with psychic powers. You're grasping at straws there. The Daemonic Mastery test is an entirely different matter. Its a sorcerous ritual, in the psychic powers chapters, affected by Psy Rating. Even Khornites are allowed to do rituals and use warp-infused powers and abilities, just not "be a sorceror/psyker". Its hypocritical, but that's how he is. A Khornite just wouldn't be allowed to use his full psychic force, but they aren't blanks: would those even be able to perform it when their mere proximity can screw with the warp?

Or maybe because they didn't want Daemons to add their psy rating to the test. We can guess the motivations of the developers all we want, but at the end of the day you don't, by the rules of the book

Little choice but to try to guess at the motivations when asking whether or not such a thing was intended or forgotten. We already know its not as such in the book. The "effective" psy rating is a good point though, its possible that it wouldn't be allowed as a result. If errata or changes [next game or whatever] happened to allow daemons their PSY, that would definitely need to be answered as a result.

Yet on that table listing the modifiers there is mentioned neither psy rating nor binding strength. And with no overarching rule capping modifiers to 60, you're conjecturing here

Despite its placement, Page 241 seems to be pretty definite. "If a situation calls for two or more bonuses or penalties, simply combine all modifiers together and apply the total to the appropriate Characteristic. The maximum total bonus that can be applied to a test is +60. Conversely, the maximum total penalty that can be applied to a test is –60." Also in Broken Chains page 10: "The maximum modifier that can be applied to a Skill Test or Characteristic Test is +60 or –60."

This ain't conjecture. Its ONE test, with the +/- 60 limit, to which -seperately from the standard summoning because weapons are what have a binding strength to them [and daemonhosts, I know, but they're not in the book]- is added the weapon's binding as an extra penalty. 5-22 is also summoning modifiers there for the purpose of that specific ritual.

You're probably supposed to use those, not the standard mastery test, but the wording has once again been too weak and makes it look like you add both together, making the capturer's +60 more or less guaranteed. The Daemon's not getting binding strength against his will till he's bound in the weapon though. Binding only exists in a completed daemon weapon's attempts to take over.

 

edit: I'd made a gigantic quote block. That's no good.

Well, this escalated quickly!

Let me do a quick outline of all the stuff I did to convert the demon into a glorified butter-knife. 

Prior to the session I did quit a lot of research into what I could do to tip the odds in my favor, going as far as emailing FFG about  traits and talents that help with daemonic mastery. I soon decided that getting the mastery talent was the best bet, so I went forward trying to increase the degrees of success I'd get from it.

My chars stats were something in the region of 41 willpower and 40 int, with unnatural intelligence (2) and unnatural willpower (1), gained from best quality cranial implant (or whatever it is in this game) and the Mark of Tzeentch.

So, first come the summoning modifiers, which are ALSO used for the mastery test.

+30 True Name known, gained from a book wrested from some Adeptus fools. Got a bunch of corruption reading the book

+30 Mark of Tzeentch - Because, we love to mess with our "friends"

+20 Devoted to Tzeentch

+10 Rules of Sympathy ("Some lit candles" being mentioned as a hallmark of Tzeentchian rituals. I think he/she/it prefers lavender scented ones)

+5 For psy rating of 1

So that comes out as +95 total, which, for the summoning bit, gets capped at 60. 

Then comes the actual binding ritual, which comes directly with a -60 penalty, so before factoring in the nastie we're binding, I had a +35 modifier to the test, as it was also modified by the summoning ritual modifiers. 

The binding ritual is further modified by the stuff listed in table 5-22:

-25 Infamy of the Lord of Change

+10 Best quality weapon

So the total modifier for this is +15, which with a intelligence score of 40 and a skill level of +50 means I'm eligible to use the mastery talent, which results with a base int bonus number of DoS. Then we begin figure out how we can get the binding level as high as possible:

6 Base number of successes

1 from Unnatural Intelligence

2 from my pals assisting in the ritual

So that's a 9 and after rolling a few additional DoS I ended up at my goal level 16.

Now, this binding level of 16 might be considered a bit of an overkill, since I'll be using the summoning ritual modifiers (let's call it +60), I'll be rolling against a total skill of ~100, whereas the demon is pretty much out of luck.

The final result of the binding is a Demonic best quality force sword with sorcerous force-power: 1D10+21 Pen 16, including my Psy rating of 4 and SB when I stomp around in my power armor. Factoring in the sorcerous force, which gives the force weapon effect using the demon's WP (80), we can pretty much assume that if I hit something, it's gonna have a bad time.

As to the GM letting me off easy - that could be. The demon didn't use it's vast array of powers to resist me, in fact we only heard a disembodied voice crying "Just as plaaaanneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed" as the demon was sucked in to the force sword. The demon has also been strangely quiet, possibly pouting.

A few sessions later I've yet to use the sword in any meaningful manner, apart from trying to intimidate some people by chopping their friend in two. As I said the campaign is more about plotting and scheming than action.

M

Reverend mort said:

Hmm, Unnatural willpower(20) sounds interesting. How do you figure that out? The psyphon-power is pretty much capped at +4, if you inflict the maximum 20 points of willpower damage. Any other powers?

 

M

+30 Mark of Tzeentch - Because, we love to mess with our "friends"

+20 Devoted to Tzeentch

I'd assume the bonus of the mark includes the devotion bonus - just like you wouldn't say that in ranged combat in the dark (-30) your enemy would also be in shadow (-20 -> -50), those bonuses would likely overlap.

 

Hmm, Unnatural willpower(20) sounds interesting. How do you figure that out? The psyphon-power is pretty much capped at +4, if you inflict the maximum 20 points of willpower damage. Any other powers?

Presumably, you combine Boon of Tzeentch and Protean Form (Pushing Protean Form is really, really not advisable). Note, however, that you lose the latter power should you be stunned by the Boon (can't spend the free action to sustain it).

Cifer said:

Sounds plausible, but since it hasn't been covered in errata etc. I took it as written. To my benefit.

Too bad Protean Form is beyond my reach, my willpower will max out at 46. My character is a renegade sorcerer.

M

 

Kbobsky said:

 

You only had a starting willpower of 26?!