Any GM allowing a Moritat to take Nascent Psyker is just asking for it. Although, it makes for a very easy "off this character" fiat power.

Don't forget Ordo Sicarius, which can give both assassins (and techies) psy rating 1

True, but that brings up a question: if a non-Imperial Psyker character took the Ordo Sicarius alternative career and bought the Psy Rating 1 talent, would he be considered a rogue psyker?

Is a Nascent Psyker consider a  psyker by the rules, On page 160 of the core rule book under "Am I A Psyker?" it says your consider a psyker by having one of the psy rating talents but seeing as it continues on saying that you can get psychic powers by other ways but it says nothing about those other ways saying that you are considered being a psyker as well.

And in what book is Ordo Sicarius in?

 Ordo Sicarius Operative is in Demon Hunter.

jabberwoky said:

As long as the =][= likes you, you would not be considered a rogue psyker.

They have trained and unlocked your potential for their own gains. 

@Phi6891 - Yes a Nascent Psyker is a psyker, and would be treated as a rogue psyker if anyone found out. If you have the ability to use any psychic power you are a psyker or worse, and a threat.

jabberwoky said:

There's certainly no evidence that he's sanctioned, so yes.

Just musing here:

If this Moritat had some psychic ability, and used a force sword, wouldn't that spell his certain demise in a couple of ways?

1) The obvious:  Imperial Psykers/Inquisition/Ecclesiarchy become wise as to the manner of death: Rogue Psyker label is attached, and a good old-fashioned witch hunt ensues.

2) The scary:  Every single rogue psyker, witch, heretic, and sorcerer of considerable ability is going to hunt the inferior Moritat Psyker down to obtain the powerful prize of this weapon.  I mean, the Moritat isn't defenseless…  But entrusting a weak psyker with something that potent is ASKING for it to be taken from them by force, right?

Maybe I'm just overthinking it.

 No, you've got a point there. Force weapons are rare as hens' teeth and are often ancient relics from the Great Crusade, most psykers won't even see one. If they had a chance to get their hands on it, they'd take it.

Not to mention, a Moritat assassin would look very suspicious if he's carrying a force weapon. Force weapons are meant to be used by psykers, and he's not a psyker, is he?

Contrary to the other posters, I'll say that it is perfectly fine for a Moritat Assassin to be a psyker and use a force sword. For one, there are exactly zero sources of fluff that suggest the Moritat, or even Death Cults in general, hate psykers. When no members of a group can be psykers, the career rank says so – for example, with the Sister careers. The Moritat have no such restriction.

Furthermore, as to a force sword leading to fame and people hunting you – you're an assassin, and force swords don't look any different from any other kind of sword to people who aren't familiar with them. What people will see is that you stab people and they die, which while impressive is not altogether unusual. Thus you'll be no more famous or hunted than any other assassin.

In short, yes, you may be a psychic Moritat Assassin with a force sword. It isn't even worth vetoing on the grounds of power level, as its not that powerful a combo in the first place; you'll be just like a normal assassin but with a few risky tricks and a psy rating of 1 (there isn't any way for an assassin to get a psy rating of 2 before Ascention, at which point power levels cease to matter anyway, except for elite advances which are always GM's discretion).

The average Imperial citizen is taught to fear and hate the witch, and one of the Moritat Reaper's available talents is Hatred (Psykers). So Death Cultists are taught to hate psykers, and can and do take it to heart just like a zealous Redemptionist cleric or a Battle Sister. While Sisters can't gain psychic abilities (Denounced and Condemned notwithstanding), I'm fairly certain that a Cleric of any kind who manifests psychic powers is going to have a lot to answer for.

Killing someone with a sword is not that unusual, but it does become unusual when the sword suddenly glows blue or crackles with otherworldly energy just before the strike, especially without the tell-tale wires and conduits that a power sword has. And a sword covered in funny-looking runes is going to raise an eyebrow at the very least. Not to mention, force swords can generally only be obtained from the Holy Ordos, who will wonder just why a non-psyker would want one in the first place. "It's a gift for someone" isn't going to fly with them.

So as I said earlier, I'd let someone play a psyker Moritat, but they'd be expelled from the order and would not be allowed to become a Reaper. The only reason they're still alive is because the Inquisition thought they were too important to simply let die, otherwise their fellow Moritat would have either killed him or forced him to commit ritual suicide to cleanse him of his taint. Even if cast out, they could still hold onto the cult's tenets, even if they are no longer officially part of the cult; old habits die hard. So they would not lose the Bloody Edge unless they choose to abandon the cult's teachings as well.

Of course, there's also the added risk of losing control of your powers and becoming a daemonhost. And a daemonhost with a force weapon is a scary idea indeed.

Death Cults are FANATICAL, they take the Imperial Creed to the extreme. Look at Red Remdemptionists for an idea of extra-fanatical clerics, death cults are around there, if not a bit more. That said though, individual death cultists (in an acolyte cell), may not kill the "Witch" in the party on sight, but still would kill any unsanctioned psyker in sight (like any faith following member of the creed would/should). And while some careers have certain restrictions, a faithful imperial servant who follows the creed strictly might just off themselves if they are "tainted"

And on Force Swords, from Lexicanum:

Force weapons take the form of swords, spears or other close combat weapons. Within the structure of the weapon is interwoven a powerful psi-convector, formed into a precise serpentine shape which concentrates and directs psychic energy. This sometimes appears as a pattern on the blade. If a non-psyker takes up such a weapon it functions as a standard weapon.

They DO look different and someone who knows about such things would easily see the difference and even the folks that don't would see that they are not your normal weapon, ESPECIALLY if a psyker is using it.

On the other note, it may not be especially powerful for how hard it is to earn psy ratings as a non-psyker class (with the late game exception of adept). Wyrdling (Minor Mutation, Psy Rating 1) and Ordo Sicarius Operative (Psy Rating 1, Alt Rank), it seems almost pointless to try and do a low-powered fluff breaking move like that. Especially when there already exists a martial force sword wielding class (Templar Calix), which CAN use it

"Killing someone with a sword is not that unusual, but it does become unusual when the sword suddenly glows blue or crackles with otherworldly energy just before the strike, especially without the tell-tale wires and conduits that a power sword has. And a sword covered in funny-looking runes is going to raise an eyebrow at the very least. Not to mention, force swords can generally only be obtained from the Holy Ordos, who will wonder just why a non-psyker would want one in the first place."

First off, there is no indication in any piece of fluff that force weapons crackle with energy. Furthermore, if it is the wires and conduits that put people at ease, you can easily just place a few of them on as a cosmetic feature. along with a purity seal for good measure. Finally, a force weapon does not have any runes, it merely has a pattern on the blade (notably only sometimes, which suggests that other times there is no pattern at all) , which in itself is not unusual. A person who is familiar with force weapons might identify it, however, the very fact that they are unusual means that there are likely two groups that might identify them: your comrades in the Inquisition, who would already know this as you wouldn't be hiding from them, and your target, who is soon going to die. Its not like you're parading in an open square waving around your unsheathed weapon, which could look like a perfectly ordinary sword anyway.

Finally, a force weapon is not generally obtained from the Holy Ordos – each member of an order of psykers, the Templars Calix, all have force weapons of their own. It is indicated that they not only obtain them from others — they also construct them themselves. "It is a gift from someone" might not fly, but "I helped a guy make it for me" easily would, and would be commendable.

Also, "wonder why a non-psyker"? Who says they would hide it from their superiors? In fact, one of the ways to gain psychic power as an assassin is specifically by being trained by the Holy Ordos (see, for example, the Ordo Sicarius rank), and it would be a mite odd if they at that point would be ignorant of the psychic abilities they taught you to use themselves.

Finally, the very comparison to the Cult of the Red Redemption shows that the Moritat are not like them in rebuking psykers from their ranks. Both cults are from the same book. The Red Redemption specifically indicates that psykers are barred from entry, right on the second paragraph of page 89. The Moritat, on the other hand, have no such restriction. If the Moritat were as fanatically opposed to psykers as the Redemption, it would be mentioned, especially considering both cults were written into the game by the same author.

Death Cults are fanatical — however, this means many different things. What makes Death Cults fanatics is that they believe unusual things very strongly, and they kill people. Like all other branches of the Imperial Creed their actual teachings vary, and whether they refuse psykers from their ranks is one of them. That Hatred (Psykers) is on their advance list does not indicate that they refuse psykers, either — the Firebrands, Hereticus Retinue, and Sanction Wardens cell directives all have Hatred (Psykers) on their advance list, and yet psykers are often members of a Witch Hunter's retinue and you are specifically barred from forming a Sanction Warden cell unless there is at least one psyker in it.

All this goes to show that there is zero reason to believe the Moritat will revoke membership if a person is discovered a psyker except in your own imaginations, and that if a player wishes to play one there is no actual fluff being broken at all and refusing it would be 100% arbitrary, and in doing so you would essentially be refusing a good, canonically viable concept based on nothing but your own whim.

Elijah Vladimirovich said:

Wrong. The official Fluff states that force weapons function the same way as power weapons to some degree. Where the power Sword uses the power field created by its own generator as a "layer" above the weapon to cut through anything the force weapon uses the psychic power of its wielder to create a similar "layer" that has in terms of cutting power nearly the same effect though it allows the psycher to suck the live out of his opponent. (And here the moritat wont get his tearing because of the same reason he does not get it with he power weapon)

You ask where I get this from? Official rulebooks of the tabletop, the black library novels and officialy painted miniatures of GamesWorkshop that show force weapons.

First off, there is the fact that the officially painted miniatures with force weapons, such as http://tiny.cc/bqgliw or http://tiny.cc/lrgliw or http://tiny.cc/ssgliw or http://tiny.cc/ktgliw or http://tiny.cc/hugliw , don't have any energy field painted on to them, which is no surprise as that would be impossible. Second, the fact that the tabletop rules have force weapons and power weapons having the same mechanical effect means nothing — the Eviscerator uses the same mechanics as a power fist, yet clearly they have distinct effects and thus function differently in the RPGs, just like Power Weapons and Force Weapons function very differently in the RPGs also. Finally, as to Black Library novels, to make sure, I went and checked, and lo and behold they don't work like power weapons there either (with the examples I'm referring to being Eisenhorn's force sword and force rod, to be specific).

So, basically, everything you just said is false.

In addition to the fluff, Dark Heresy's mechanics suggest that it is, in fact, the sword and not the energy field that is doing the work. For example, consider this: a Power Weapon's damage and penetration replaces the swords, upgrading the sword's edge (through it being a Mono or Lathe weapon for example) does nothing while the power field is on, because it is indeed the power field and not the sword doing the work. With force weapons, however, the extra damage and penetration is added on to what the base weapon has in its natural, held-by-a-non-psyker state. Furthermore, a power field changes the damage type from Rending to Energy, while a Force Sword's damage is Rending whether a psyker is wielding it or not.