I havnt gotten DotDG yet so forgive my ignorance with this question.

Is there a way to improve your fellowship with party members and groups that you spend alot of time around? If i remember correctly Eisenhorn disliked Bequin at first, but over the years of serving together he grew to love her with his entire being. Because he was a psyker any act of physical contact would cause him physical pain, that put the dream of their love to rest. But he still loved her, and trusted her. So can people grow to trust and even love an untouchable after a significant amount of time? And do they get bonuses for dealing with other untouchables?

 The rules don't seem to go into that level of detail. Although I too don't have DotDG I have thumbed through it a couple of times at a Local Shop.  Intra party interactions should always be a matter of roleplaying, I would very rarely to never have players make tests against Fel with oneanother. So the dynamic regarding Blanks and their cell mates should be one that's explored in game, although I would just make it clear even for non-psykers that there is just some ineffable quality about this person that puts them ill at ease or kind of repulses them. Eveyone's met someone that they just didn't like from the get go despite tehre being nothing really wrong with them (hate at first site if you will.) It should be a complete naritive affair left to the players themselves and with little dice or mechanics involved.

Halving Fel seems pretty fair to me, what I´m curius about is dependance of "blankness" to the Willpower. I don´t think it´s so problematic fluff-wise, IIRC Inquisition  backround book mention, that there are various levels of pariahs strenght (other fiction justify it too, there is diference between Jurgen and Culexus assasin which tries to devour Ephrael Stern). What troubles me are rules. Psykers could vary from weak to monstrous, but effect of blanks to psykers should be from "strong" to "far too monstrous" ...

Don´t have DotDG yet, but looking forward to the future:)

I understand the fellowship decrease as well, blanks give everyone around them the creepy crawlies. I also understand there needing to be an attribute linked to the 'power' itself, otherwise it could get out of hand roleplay wise. Glad they are included one way or the other.

For inter-party relations yes, that should be purly rollplay. But what about a group an untouchable has spent alot of time around, and do they get along with other untouchables like normal humans would interact with other norms?

Im even more dissappointed now that I realize/notice (put 2 and 2 together) the the Null rules are a slight expansion of what the Slaugth were presented with as a special ability in teh GMs kit. Boooo.

All they did was expand a little more on what the null/untouchable "affected" and added the WP bonus in meters aspect.

Poor show.

 Fel really only comes into play when Testing for specific interactions. It's not like someone with say a 25 Fel score gets Grox dung flung on them in the street while an individual with a 50 Fel has thrones and men/women falling at their feet whereve they go. Fel should only come into play when an indidvual is making a Test, using a Skill or otherwise attempting some kind of social interactio to which there is already inhereint difficulty of oposition.

If you look at the primary examples we have as untouchables lke Lizbeth and the Distaff you can see that they seemed to have fairly normal social intercourse, Lizbeth was able to make her living in a profession where I would say having a 'good' Fel is really key. There seemed to be no open hostility from the everyday individuals Lizbeth or other Distaffers interacted with both in a professinal or simply social capacity.

The off putting quality of an untouchable is in my estemation more af a general malise or uncomfortibilty that might crop up, realitive on the level of disruption to the immaterium an untouchable generates. Perhaps a better mechanic might be or have been to tie the Fel penalty to the potency of the untouchable quality, and since it seems they've tied the ability to WP then maybe a penalty to Fel equal to the WP Bonus x5 might be one way to reprsent this. I've not read the rules mind you, just speculating.

This way a blank with a high Fel say 45 and a low WP say 27 wouldn't be as 'offputting' as would a more disrupting blank with say a very high WP like in the 40's or 50's (causing a -20 or -25 penalty). It also would adress the concerns some have with just halving the Fel score which does seem to be a bit punitive to those who may have had a higher Fel score to begin with. Just some ideas. Once I get the book, I may change my mind, or better informed may pick up on some nuance of the mechanic I might be missing from my cursory glance and hearsay.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Why, exactly? It's internal consistency - two different degrees of psychic blankness working in broadly the same manner. No doubt, if they worked completely differently from eachother, someone would be complaining about that...

 I think the dsapointment isn't in the consitentscy but more asciated with the expectation. One of the draws for some regarding DotDG was the inclusion of 'Blank/ Null Rules'. I think some were expecting more than the two black boxes I saw when flipping through DotDG I thought there were more than just those but it seems if I am understanding correctly that was it. Furthermore from peacekeepr_b is saying it seems as if the rules are little more than those we already saw in the GMs Kit. I think the sentiment is more one of disapointment in a lack of content or 'expanding' content, than one of the ceontent itself.

Wu Ming said:

How much more can you really write about Untouchables, before you start having to pull extra information out of thin air, though? Certainly, when I wrote up mine in Something Other Than Human (which predate, but are very similar to, those in DotDG), there was a finite amount of information I could put down without adding huge chunks of unfounded speculation (which wasn't the intent of that supplement), and the section ended up being unsatisfyingly short - this is part of my confusion: I got virtually nothing but praise from the community for the material in SOTH, yet virtually identical rules are placed in an official supplement, only to recieve a response of "meh" or "could have done better". The official one manages to pack more information into less space, so I consider it superior to my attempt.

Is there such a gap between the expectations placed upon amateur writers compared to professional ones (even when dealing with an industry where the latter have normally come from amongst the former) that my work receives praise while an IMO superior one in an official supplement receives nothing more than curious indifference? Because if so, then quite frankly, my efforts feel cheapened, because with everything I write, I'm putting out the best work I can, and if I'm not being held to a particularly high standard... well, it means that any praise I've gotten means less than I had hoped.

Which is disappointing.

Back to the topic at hand: the inclusion of Untouchable rules here has always seemed to be a case of "this is as good a place as any to put them" as anything else - they weren't going to get their own section (even in the rulebook, Untouchables are only referred to in the Psychic Powers chapter), so this was really all I was ever expecting in the first place. Again, I have to ask... what was expected to merit such an indifferent response... I'm genuinely curious here.

Simply put.... the null rules in GMs kit is roughly 20 words away from being the same as presented in DotDG.

On several occassions, namely those PodCasts, one of the sellin gpoints for DotDG was "Nulls, its in there!"

As you said, its as if they were just waiting for a place to shove it into the game. It would fit more in the Inquisitor's Handbook, where I get several repeat weapons (sorry FFG, a lasgun is a lasgun is a lasgun, unless it is truly different, nit just has the hord Volg in front of it with the same statline. Thats a generalism, so dont look to deeply in it).

Truthfully it could have fit on page 35 of IHB, over the picture they put there.

So it isnt a disatisfaction with the rule itself (which I do think is a bit iffy, escpecially being focused on WP) or even whether or not it is better then existing fan based rules (Patriot's or Yours), cause as they are at the moment Im sure the DotDG (or should I say GMs kit version 2.0) rules look like they will work, whether they way I imagined or not. Part of the fun of getting a new book is to see how they would do something that I was thinking of or had house ruled already.

The emo level angst comes from the fact that the rule was already buried in a book that most of us already ahd and just left at the bottom of the pile of DH material for lack of real use during games. Unless you are running Maggots in the Meat or are using the poison rules that is, as I assume any new xenos were created prior to playing.

Overall, your rules are better then the DotDG ones (the fatigue aspect given to contacting psykers, brilliant, the FEL penalty only being with psykers and not hindering the entire character, the WP bonus.... well not that point LOL).

Im going to give on the WP bonus ranges, mainly because it is a in game device to "rate" that power.

What would I have done differently? Dedicated one or two whole pages to the thing, given an example, perhaps made the rating based off starting Fate Points instead of current WP bonus and created a few "talents" to go with the damn thing to show how it may grow or be "used" by the null character to his or her full benefit. Now they wouldnt actually be altering thier null power, but they would have some tricks and treats on how to take advantage of it.

And why is it that other people can have issues with the game or a rule and they dont get questioned over and over again. I paind $40 for this book, I expected better, instead I got "meh" on one of their selling points.

Fortunately I got Tranch stuff to balance it out, and a Ogryn. Which only makes you ogryn rules look more accurate.

Having re-read the DothDG rules, as well as Mr. Dowdell's Sometthing Other than Human fan supplement (which is one of my most used fan supps), I think I've decided with what I am going to go with as far as Untouchables.

I am going to use the official rules from DothDG with one slight change.  Currently a Null halves his Fel score in general, then gets just a hair worse (extra -10) when dealing with psykers.  This seems a little backwards to me.  Yes normal people find a null offputting, but it seems weird that normal folks have the huge step, but psykers just barely notice it more. 

So how I will handle it (if/when it comes up) is: -10 from Fel score in general, then 1/2 of this adjusted score when dealing with psykers.  This way everyone finds nulls somewhat off, but the psychically active (including nearly all of majorly psychic races such as the Eldar) see a big difference.   This just makes more sense to me.

DocIII said:

The halving really bugs me as well, not because it is a FEL modifier but because the only other time anything is halved in the game is primitive armour versus non primitive attacks. A straight penalty fits more in line with existing rules. Halving a characteristic is unprecedented.

How does that affect future increases, does +5 become +2 or +3, or does that depend on what the characteristic becomes after purchased? Why would the character ever purchase FEL again? Or any skills to go with it? As the rule stands now it is just there to be abused by Guardsmen who want immunity against psykers.

A straight interaction penalty makes more sense to me.

But I digress, go team.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Looking back on the original contents of Disciples, there is a feeling in places (such as the inclusion of Orks, Genestealers and the Ambull) that a few things were included because nobody was sure if there were going to be any more supplements after Disciples at that point. It doesn't, IMO, detract from the overall quality of the book - the things included were well-placed, regardless of the reasons for their inclusion - but the appearance of that intent does inform a few things.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Viewed as a range, yes... but The Inquisitor's Handbook was written much earlier (playtest manuscript came in October 2007, Disciples manuscript didn't arrive until 3 months later). Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't help those people actually working on the products at the time.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Again, they're not that different. The official ones cover the effects on daemons, and influence psychic-related skill tests as well (both of which I never got round to including in my own version), while mine did include a penalty to the character's basic Fel (the cost of the package was -5 Fel and a Fate Point; in hindsight, I feel that this cost is too low for the ability given), but skewed the penalty-vs-psykers differently (lower basic penalty against everyone, big penalty against psykers, as opposed to big penalty against everyone, small additional penalty vs psykers).

Still, I feel that mine were quite rushed - I rewrote them after getting the GM's Kit to specifically include the mechanic used there, with the intent being consistency with established mechanics.

Peacekeeper_b said:

I was rather pleased with that as well, actually... it's nice to have theories validated...

Peacekeeper_b said:

Personally, I've worked on the premise that (as an ability that can only be purchased at character creation using the character's full 400xp "starting value") the penalty applies to the character's basic Fel only - so you essentially roll (2d10+20)/2 for an Untouchable's starting Fellowship (assuming an Imperial or similar origin), and can then increase it as normal after that.

Regardless of how you do it, though, the package will always be more attractive to characters with no intention of engaging in extensive complex social interaction - no character intended to be a group's "face" would ever consider buying the Untouchable package, regardless of the actual penalty. This was a problem pointed out to me regarding my rules about 9 months ago - that a guardsman or similar really had nothing to lose by being an untouchable, while a fast-mouthed scummer or firebrand preacher or any other character intended to talk to people in any meaningful manner would suffer more for the psychic immunity. Unfortunately, it's one of the drawbacks of the archetype, and not one that can be easily overcome.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I really like these ideas. Question, as I do not have nor did I really read the rules you can only purchase the Null package at the start and at the full cost of 400xp? Is this the DotDG RAW or is this your inovation, regardless of the origin that I think is pretty good, as being a null halved Fel or not is still a serious benifit, far more attractive and possibly 'unballancing' than any psykers especially if taking your interuptation regarding the realitive safty from the large ammount of Warp Spawned creatures and their baleful effects.

Given that, I like the idea of also having it cost a Fate Point as well, and agin if that was not in the RAW then kuddos to you Nathan I think that's a solid idea, as is your concept regarding the hit to Fel being an initial one. Its funny that while its only a few sidebars worth of rules its the number one reason I am current regretting not buying the copy I looked at when it was avalible. (Which is mostly peacekeeper)b's fault as I was intending to wait until after his contest.)