Monster of the Week #24

This week we change pace and get out the Warhammer 40K: Wrath and Glory RPG!

Our favourite for the week is the Rogue Psyker.

For those who know W40K, you'll know the hard brutality of the grim dark universe, and these enemies are no different when your players go up against a group of them.

These enemies can handle a decent amount of damage (7 Wounds and 7 Shock), so they can deal some persistent damage from a distance and sponge anything that comes their way - assuming the players don't gang up on them!

In addition, these enemies have a 4 defence which is harder than the PCs we have been playing with recently. It's not hard to hit things in Wrath and Glory, so although 4 is higher than usual, players may be hitting this foe most of the time. There is a big weakness to the psyker - it's resilience, which is 4. For those who don't know, once a player has rolled all their damage, you minus a target's resilience against it and any leftover damage is converted to wounds (or shock). This means that when players hit, a psyker will definitely be taking a chunk of damage.

So, how about their offensive capabilities?

As an action, the Rogue Psyker can use a las pistol, or Malefacrum abilities. Laspistol being a standard ranged attack, and Malefacrum allowing the psyker to uses either the Malefacrum or Smite abilities. Smite, if it hits, can deal 1d3 mortal wounds directly to players, so can be really crippling to any injured players. Inc are you don't know, any Mortal Wounds cannot be converted to Shock and directly reduce the player's hit points - so really damaging. Malefacrum is mostly Chaos related abilities which can cripple player's shock, force Corruption tests or deal extra mortal wounds. Really good for chipping away at player Wounds while reducing how often hey can convert wounds to Shock.

Lastly, the Psyker can use 1 Ruin to activate Psychic Storm - allowing the Psyker to attempt to Deny the Witch - potentially countering any Psyker's on the players side (Ruin is the currency a GM can use to do things against players).

A couple of extra bonuses the Psyker has, is that it has the Champion bonus, meaning it can use Ruin actions and has 2 personal Ruin, potentially topping up the GMs Ruin for a fight. This can be really handy in combat and give the GM much more flexibility to respond to the players actions (we won't go into how it can be used! There's a lot!). In addition, the Psyker has the Warp Touched bonus which gives them bonus Wrath dice equal to the Tier of the game, a simple way to scale the Psyler depending on your player level.

So in practice, a mix of psykers and melee specialists to fight your PCs can make things very challenging in your Wrath and Glory games. Smite when hit guantertees Wounds which is great, but being able to force Corruption tests or increasing player Shock can really put the pressure on players (and one Shock is high enough, make their DN tests harder!). In the handful of games I've done, a Rogue Psyker or two has put the fear of the Warp on my players. Especially as many of them like to go tanky characters - it's good to send in a Psyker to cut through my their resilience.

So that's the pick for this week, what do you think about the Rogue Psyker? IF you've played W40K Wrath and Glory and have a suggestion (or a preferred baddie), drop us a comment!

Thanks again for reading and until next time, good gaming!

-KJ