TEXT: The Power of the Mind
  Tactics and Design Tips for Psychic Abilities.
  By Robey Jenkins
  Background on psychic powers in the Inquisitor environment;
  Tactica Psykana; designing new psychic powers; some examples.
  Psychic powers sit at the very heart of the background of the
  Warhammer 40,000 universe and the Imperium of Man. They
  inspire fear and awe in equal measure, are Mankind's greatest
  weapon and most terrible threat. Without them the Imperium
  would collapse, but with them it threatens to tear itself apart.
  According to legend, even the Emperor struggled with how to
  properly employ psykers. He knew better than any the threat that
  uncontrolled psychic power represented to the nascent human
  empire, but without the psychic choir of the Astronomican his
  mighty starships could manage only short, dangerous hops
  through the Warp. And it was only by the use of the mental
  powers of the Astropaths that he could communicate with his
  commanders or coordinate events across the galaxy. It is said, in
  some privileged circles, that even his greatest creations, the
  Primarchs themselves, were mighty psykers second only to the
  Emperor in power.
  With such conflicts of priority, it should be no surprise that
  psychic powers are something of a grey area in the Inquisition.
  Many Inquisitors spend their lives in the hunt for dangerous
  witches and warlocks: rogue psykers who have reneged their
  duty to turn themselves in to the authorities and face their fate as
  pious citizens. The role of Witch Hunter needs a steel will for,
  often, the psyker has no malign intent and suffers from nothing
  more than fear and ignorance. But no risks can be taken with this
  dire threat and such creatures must be destroyed for the good of
  humanity. Nevertheless, many are the Inquisitors who have
  crossed over the line, driven by an unquenchable desire to purify
  and justify. Such men and women can become such passionate
  anti-psykers that every class of psyker is anathema: Sanctioned
  Psykers, Astropaths, Navigators, Grey Knights… All become
  targets for annihilation, regardless of the risks. Inquisitors on this
  path who do not succumb to the powers of their enemies must
  eventually succumb to madness and heresy as they turn,
  inexorably, upon the greatest psyker of all: the Emperor himself.
  On the other hand, many Inquisitors themselves possess psychic
  powers. And others see the human closeness to the Warp as a
  vital tool to protect the Imperium. And when the God-Emperor
  is a psyker, and the continuation of humanity's empire relies
  upon psykers, it easy to cross a different line. Beyond that, the
  pursuit of ultimate psychic power becomes an end in itself as the
  Inquisitor reaches deeply into the heart of the Warp. Such power
  can be awe-inspiring. It can confer death and life; transform the
  body and illuminate the mind. It can destroy ones enemies. It
  can make the whole of reality ones plaything. Yet, when one
  reaches too deeply into the Warp, one can never be certain what
  might reach back…
  SO, WHERE HAVE ALL THE PSYKERS GONE?
  In a game that positively glories in morally ambivalent situations
  and the clash of ideologies, a character's knowledge of and
  attitude towards psychic powers is of utmost importance in
  understanding his or her relationship with other characters. But
  despite this, one rarely finds psychic powers actually taking a
  prominent part in an Inquisitor game. Given the possibilities
  offered by the use of psychic and anti-psychic abilities, one
  would expect to see players playing a complex game of psychic
  and anti-psychic chess to gain the upper hand in the mental
  battle simultaneously with their struggle in the physical battle.
  And yet they don't.
  I've asked around and players tell me that psychic powers are too
  risky, too complicated and either the advantage offered is too
  great to make for good game-play or too small to be worth the
  trouble. And yet I routinely see characters with low stats and odd
  abilities or performing insanely dangerous acts because “it just
  might work”. So it occurs to me that something else is going on
  to stop players using psychic abilities much in their games. And I
  suspect that this is that psychic powers lack the “personality” of
  the Special Abilities.
  Veteran players will always tell you that designing the personality
  of their characters – that is, deciding why they act in the way that
  they do – is one of the most stimulating parts of the game, and
  Abilities play a large part in determining this aspect of a
  character. More often than not, a character's personality is
  reflected in his or her physical appearance and, again, Abilities
  play a large part in conveying a sense of someone's appearance.
  Abilities like Blademaster and Furious Assault summon up
  certain types of character. Add the two together and it's
  impossible not to have a certain image in one's mind of what the
  character will be like. Take any two abilities and see what image
  it conjures: Gunfighter and Fast Draw, Heroic and True Grit.
  Some Abilities don't give much on their own, but clever
  combinations will tell a story all on their own: Acrobatic, Scale
  Terrain.
  
  Psychic Abilities don't have quite the same effect for several
  reasons. First, because they're “all in the mind” and so don't have
  a physical appearance on the model, but also because their effect
  is often not seen when it's wanted, due to the Risky nature of
  using Psychic Abilities. A character with Quickload gets to halve
  his loading actions every time he needs to. But a character
  wanting to perform a Psi Track runs the risk of not being able to
  even attempt the action if he fails his Risky action roll, and even
  if he doesn't fail the roll, he still has to test against Willpower to
  get to use the ability. Result? Players spend the actions on
  something more certain, like hot lead.
  TACTICA PSYKANA
  The first message of this article is that psychic powers in
  Inquisitor are worth the trouble of learning how to use them
  effectively. I don't intend to tell you all my hard-won secrets, but
  here are some points for players and GMs to consider:
  Pick your moment carefully. If bullets are flying, it's too late to be
  thinking about psychic powers, which really form a part of what
  I think of as “the long game”. As such, a player should already
  have in mind when a certain power is going to be used and, for
  persistent powers, that time is invariably in the first two or three
  turns, when characters have mostly not yet spotted each other
  and probably won't be shooting. Of course, sometimes it's hard
  to justify the use of certain powers before one is even aware of a
  threat. But powers like Detection or Embolden are perfect for
  this period of cautious paranoia. There doesn't have to be a
  specific threat for an Inquisitor to be cautiously paranoid: it's
  part of the job description!
  Maximize your strengths. As Aiming is to shooting,
  Concentration is to psychic powers. So if you don't have a
  character with a Wp in the upper 90s, it's always worth planning
  at least one action of Concentration before any power. This is
  another respect in which planning out the psychic game is
  important. If you're planning to use a psychic ability in the next
  turn, declare an action concentrating as a last action this turn.
  You may not get as far as that Concentration action, but if you do
  then you're already one step ahead in the next turn.
  Minimize you weaknesses. The greatest threat on the battlefield
  to the psyker is other psykers, so you need to be aware of who
  and where they are and whether they will be “directly affected”
  by certain abilities. Some abilities have grey areas and it will be
  down to the GM as to whether a person is “directly” affected .
  Steer clear of these unless you know your GM's opinions (never
  be afraid to ask in advance) and focus on cut-and-dried
  situations. A psychic bolt can comfortably wipe out non-psykers,
  leaving nearby psykers helpless to nullify the power. And if the
  use of psychic abilities is vital to your mission plan then you may
  need to focus on eliminating these threats to your success by
  concentrating firepower or your close combat experts on
  dispatching your opponent's psykers.
  Never underestimate the power of the Warp! Those characters
  without psychic powers can become vulnerable to the assaults of
  psykers who play the tactical game. But non-psychic Inquisitors
  have their own defences! Hexagrammic wards are one defence,
  of course, and a very effective one at that. However, they won't
  protect an Inquisitor from indirect use of psychic powers that
  enhance your opponent's abilities, track your allies or fiendishly
  corrupt your equipment. So take a leaf from the Witch Hunter's
  book and consider the employment (or conscription) of a
  Penitent Psyker. Even if you restrict him from using his own
  powers, there are many ways a cunning Inquisitor can use such
  a character to protect him from the power of enemy witches, but
  I'll leave you to work those out for yourself…
  Make use of the battle rhythm. This is a tactically significant point
  that is often overlooked. If the action has ground to a halt and
  you're in the “firefight” stage of the game (most games have one),
  then your psyker has a fresh chance to use his powers to respond
  to unforeseen circumstances. Using Telepathy to exchange
  information on enemy positions, or Psi Track to check whether
  your opponents are performing a flanking action is both
  dramatic and proper.
  Keep a sense of the narrative flow. If, despite my sage advice, it
  still all goes horribly wrong and you end up with your psyker
  turning into a drooling vegetable after a devastating Nullify or
  tragic Risky Actions roll, remember that this, too, is a part of the
  story. The psychic battle is at least as exciting as the physical one
  and, given that the strategic planning starts with the design of
  characters and composition of the retinue, can be even moreso.
  Test the waters of the Aethyr. I've left this point until last because
  it does generate a lot of discussion and disagreement. However,
  if one is afraid of failing that critical Risky action roll, a pause for
  breath as a first Action can help mitigate the problem. Some have
  said that this constitutes “seeing into the future”. I prefer to think
  of it as the psyker reaching into the Warp to see whether the flow
  of the aethyr is suitable for his planned use. Of course, the
  possibility always exists that doing this – especially for slower
  characters – will leave the psyker with insufficient Actions to use
  his power: but that's the way the plague zombie crumbles.
  DESIGNING NEW PSYCHIC POWERS
  Having shown you how to make the best of the existing range of
  psychic powers, I could just stop here. But there's more!
  The wonderful thing about Inquisitor players is their willingness
  to build personality into their characters even at the expense of
  effectiveness. We've already touched upon how psychic powers
  as they exist fail to offer much in the way of depth to the
  character who wields them, but there's more than one way to
  burn a heretic. It's easy to design new psychic powers for your
  characters and many people have tried. But the hardest thing is
  to design powers that give your characters the personality you
  crave without confusing your opponents with lashings of House
  Rules. However, there are three basic areas within the existing
  core rules that can be mined for a rich seam of individualized
  psychic powers:
  1. Character statistics.
  2. Equipment.
  3. Special Abilities.
  The best examples of this that already exist in the canon of
  psychic powers are the much neglected Hammerhand and Warp
  Strength Biomancy powers. Hammerhand makes the wielder's
  hand count as an improvised weapon and doubles his strength;
  Warp Strength adds to the wielder's strength the amount by
  which the psychic test was passed. So we can see the use of both
  character stats and equipment in these powers - and there's no
  denying that these powers both have a certain amount of
  characterful appeal. Other combinations can have as much or
  even more added value.
  Here are some I've used myself:
  Warrior Telekine – (Telekinesis) Difficulty 15
  A Warrior Telekine can use his or her telekinesis to leap higher,
  hit harder and manipulate weapons more easily, as well as
  using telekinesis to wield small weapons like knives, rocks and
  sticks alongside the weapons at hand.
  This power is persistent and lasts for 1 turn for every 10% or
  part that the test was passed by, or until the Telekine takes
  damage after subtractions for armour.
  The Telekine's WS is increased by the amount the test was passed
  by and he gains the Acrobatic Special Ability.
  Warrior Telekine combines an enhancement to a stat with the
  gaining of a Special Ability. I hope that it summons to your mind,
  as it does to mine, a monkish figure – apparently harmless,
  perhaps even buffoonish – who nevertheless can become, after a
  moment's concentration, a whirling machine of death. Perhaps,
  to you, it says something else. But at the very least, I'm sure it
  says something.
  
  Phantom Weapons – (Telekinesis) Difficulty 15
  A powerful Telekine can use his or her powers to propel small
  objects at high velocity or, with extreme control, can turn air
  molecules into near-invisible but deadly-sharp blades.
  This power is persistent and lasts for 1 turn for every 10% or
  part that the test was passed by, or until the psyker takes
  damage after subtractions for armour.
  The psyker counts as being armed with either a pair of revolvers
  (which count as being silenced) or a pair of knives. If the psyker
  chooses knives, he also counts as having the ability
  Blademaster. These weapons cannot be dropped and do not
  preclude the psyker from holding and using other weapons.
  This is a favourite of mine and uses equipment as its source. I
  love the idea of the apparently unarmed agent who can “shoot”
  people with her fingers. The manipulation of molecules and
  particles with the mind is sometimes called “microtelekinesis”
  and this ability to form blades from the very air around a
  character is a perfect ability for the infiltrating assassin. No
  weapons detector will catch this deadly agent on her way to an
  assignment!
  Using melée weapons in this fashion is pretty easy. Ranged
  weapons become more complicated when one considers the
  mechanical issues of things like shots fired, reloading and using
  Risky weapons like plasma pistols. But apply a bit of imagination
  and common sense and it should be possible to get around this
  problem.
  Of course, it is possible to stretch such an idea past breaking
  point. Designing an ability that will allow you to summon a
  plasma gun with all of the benefits and none of the drawbacks
  will win you no friends. More significantly, it rejects the central
  premise of this article, which is to encourage you to use psychic
  abilities in a way that supports and enhances your character in a
  meaningful fashion. However, whilst we're on the subject of
  plasma weapons:
  Warp-plasma Blast – (Biomancy/Pyromancy) Difficulty 30
  At the very summits of psychic discipline, the lines between
  aptitudes begin to blur, but it is those who practice the arts of
  pyromancy and biomancy who are most often able to tap into
  the Warp in such a way as to summon the power of warp-
  plasma.
  A Warp-plasma blast is a psychic bolt with the same stats as a
  plasma pistol, except that it counts as single/semi (X), where X
  is 1 for every full 10% that the psychic test is passed by (so if the
  test is passed by 23, the shot is single/semi(2)).
  Warp-plasma is dangerous stuff. If the Risky action roll for using
  a psychic power is failed, roll another D6. On a 1-2 resolve a
  single hit against the character's dominant arm (or a random
  arm if Ambidextrous) just as if a plasma pistol had exploded.
  Psychic feedback is suffered as normal.
  This ability harks back to those early arcade beat-'em-ups and
  anime cartoons, with super-martial-artists firing mystic energy
  bolts at their opponents.
  It's not just weapons, of course, that a psychic ability can
  replicate. We already have the Psychic Ward and Psychic Shield
  abilities that replicate energy fields. But other forms of armour
  can also be made into psychic abilities, as well as almost any
  other piece of equipment you could choose to name:
  Aegis – A disc of psychic energy, wielded in one hand… in other
  words, it's a shield. Make it more or less powerful by varying the
  amount of armour it conveys and by adding special shield types,
  such as Mirror shield or Storm shield.
  Psychic Onslaught – The power of the Warp floods the psykers
  body, bringing power… but at what cost? The psyker counts as
  being affected by the combat stimm, 'Slaught.
  Summon Drone – The Warp is full of strange and temporary
  intelligences that can be moulded by the powerful mind to do its
  bidding for a short while. The character counts as being
  accompanied by a servo-skull of some sort.
  The possibilities, I'm sure you'll agree, are endless.
  Remember, though, that these abilities are intended to add to the
  personality of your characters, in the same way as abilities and
  equipment do. A character who can summon psychic weapons is
  unlikely to also be armed to the teeth: why would he bother to
  carry weapons when his mind is so finely-honed? Likewise, these
  recommendations are about enhancing your games, not for
  producing all-conquering superpowers. The abilities described
  above are all ones that I've come up with myself and they suit my
  characters, my games and my gaming group. They might suit
  yours, too, and, if so, then please be my guest. But at least as
  tempting as the power of the Warp in the mind of a psyker is the
  lure of the super-character in the mind of the player.
  PERCHANCE TO DREAM…
  This is the end of the article.
  It won't suit everyone, but perhaps that is for the best: after all,
  the Inquisition does not consist of a single mind-set or creed, so
  why should the community of those who play the Inquisitor
  game? But if you think that all I have done is to create an
  invitation to the fell Powers of the Warp to saturate our beloved
  Imperium with unbeatable psychic super-humans then perhaps
  you know what it is to be a Witch Hunter.
  So I commend you for your faith and urge you: go forth and meet
  the Witch on his own ground. Defeat him not only in his body,
  but in his mind and in his soul and, when you are done with him,
  burn him into ash, grind the ash beneath your righteous heel and
  then… think no more of him, for there will always be another
  Witch to burn.
  But if you are, in truth, a psyker in the Emperor's name, do not
  brag of your power or advertise your status: go quietly and be
  humble in your power; bring your wrath to bear only with the
  utmost care, lest you fall prey to the Powers of the Warp. And
  beware the Witch Hunter for, no matter your purity, your mere
  existence is sin in his eyes.
  Everything you have been told is a lie. Trust no one.
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Robey Jenkins is a regular contributor to Fanatic Online's Inquisitor articles. He is also a moderator at Exterminatus.net, runs the York
  Garrison Wargaming Club, will be giving demonstrations of Inquisitor at Games Day 2006 and is looking for a new job (hint, hint).
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Warhammer/40k/Inquisitor Skirmish/SG_site_files/FO83InqPsychic.pdf