And if you get Perils of the Warp, you can always roll to avoid the consequences of your actions.

Do you mean use a Fate Point? You actually can't. Fate Points may only be used to reroll tests. You could use a Fate Point to reroll a Power Threshold test that you rolled a 9 on, but if you choose to accept the 9 and roll on Psychic Phenomena, you cannot use a Fate Point to reroll the Psychic Phenomena (or Perils of the Warp) roll. Those aren't tests. Best you can do is burn a Fate Point if you get a result that would kill you.

Yes.

ColArana: There is a Talent that lets the Psyker roll twice on the Perils table and choose which one kicks in.

ColArana: There is a Talent that lets the Psyker roll twice on the Perils table and choose which one kicks in.

I'm aware of Favoured by the Warp, though Psykers don't exactly get that one until late, and if a Psyker hasn't killed himself with Perils by Rank 6 (or 8 if they're a Savant), they deserve it.

Besides FbtW only reduces the chance of Perils not eliminates it entirely.

Not that Psykers aren't incredibly overpowered in Dark Heresy, but Perils is always a very real risk, even with FbtW unless you start playing Ascension (because someone needs to be fired over the Fettering rules).

Favored can be bought earlier as an Elite Advancement if the GM allows it.

Away from books: Maybe there is an alternate rank somewhere that allows it too.

Yes it is worth playing a psyker. You get great powers and RP opportunities. But with great risk at times. Psykers should always keep a fate or two in reserve in case of phenomena. You can also get a trait which lets you roll twice on the phenomena table and pick the most favourable result. This combined with fate and smart use of power dice in manifesting powers makes the risks very manageable. And as others have said. There are tons of utility skills psykers can use as well to supplement their abilities. I would say yes go for it. Just don't be silly and throw all your power dice every time you roll a power. You have to balance the need for the skill to go off against the risk for phenomena. This is the bread and butter of the psyker. Risk management. Because you have a certain number of power dice. It doesn't mean you should always roll all of them. With invocation and conservative dice usage. You can stand a good chance of getting all but the most difficult powers to manifest.

Fate Points do not allow you to reroll psychic phenomena.

Fate Points do not allow you to reroll psychic phenomena.

Unless your GM says they do.

He didn't say "if your GM decides to change the rules and allow you to use fate points to reroll psychic phenomena, then you should try to keep fate points in reserve."

Fate Points do not allow you to reroll psychic phenomena.

Unless your GM says they do.

He really, really shouldn't say that, though. That being said, the GM can say absolutely anything. If we want to have a fruitful discussion on anything, we have to share the basic assumptions. In this case, those basic assumptions are RAW, unless specifically pointed out not to be RAW.

If someone says "You can do A" and someone clarifies that "No, you can't do A, it is not RAW", saying that "Rules may not apply" is not an argument. Any changes to the basic assumptions (RAW) needs to be clarified to not be part of said assumptions.

Favored can be bought earlier as an Elite Advancement if the GM allows it.

And he really, really shouldn't. Things like that are meant to be powerful, high level abilities, and so should therefore only be accessible at higher ranks. Otherwise you get the problem where a player was complaining "Daemons are rubbish", and it became clear that he had given the entire party Fearless at a very low level (ok, Fearless has it's downside, but much of a Daemon's threat comes from the fact that half your party will probably be catatonic with fear while they beat you to death).

This is something that is lost from the new Rankless system. They have to try and balance abilities which were never meant to be balanced because they were meant to be capstone (or near-capstone) abilities reserved for those higher level characters who should be able to rival characters like Eisenhorn in their abilities.

ColArana: There is a Talent that lets the Psyker roll twice on the Perils table and choose which one kicks in.

To nitpick a little, it let's you roll twice on the Phenomena Table, NOT Perils.

So it drops the chance of rolling perils, but if you roll 75+ twice on the Phenomena Table, then you're stuck with whatever your single roll on the Perils Table says.

Psykers are very fun to play since you are the only who can sense the presence of the warp, and use it to your own gain in terms of psychic powers, but be careful about the usage of your powers.

Possession and corruption are greater threats to psykers, when both the source of their powers and their worst enemies can be found in the warp. Still worth the risk in my opinion, just look at the crazy stuff psykers can pull of with their abilities, and no other than them in the group will truly comprehend the frail line between real space and the warp ;P

Totally Worth it in my opinion.

This is arguably one of the most versatile role both in combat and inquiry situations.

I am currently playing a lieutenant-savant specialized in Divination, and it has been so much fun so far.

I had a lot of luck on my Balistic Skill roll and eventually, i decided to built a combat oriented psyker, using divination skills to boost my BS and dodge abilities. Distort vision is also one of the best escape skill and will allow you to retreat safely if the fight turns bad.

With dual wielding two bolt pistols and the +20 BS (with the bonus, my BS amounts to 66) bonus from precognitive strike, i am one of the most, if not the most efficient warrior in the team. Depending on the situation, i also use a bolter to Divine shot targets from 180 meters with 100% accuracy. So powerful. I have also taken other useful combat skills, like Hip shooting, which combined with distort vision or Deja Vu, makes me look like Neo from the Matrix. Until you trigger a peril of the warp

Otherwise, i am using a mixture of Glimpse, Luck, and Psychometry when it comes to information gathering, plot searching, or problem solving.

But no pain no gain. I have many times toyed dangerously with the Warp. Always keep your fate points. Its your warranty that will allow you to avoid a lot of trouble.

While everyone is jumping on the Psykers are great bandwagon I'm going to urge caution as a GM. The issue I have with Dark Heresy Psykers is that they are far too worth it. They basically have powers for every situation and fairly quickly reach the point where they are safely casting and completely devastating. I once had a psyker kill or incapacitate the 12 or so guards that were meant to deter a fight before they got to even act and this was in a scenario where the players had little of their gear. It can make other players resentful when the psyker basically gets to do everything in the party, he healed better, he killed much quicker and had the most knowledges and it just became a note of friction in the party who felt that one player was hogging all the spotlight.

Early ranks they can do things like cause fear that can incapacitate large groups of enemies before a fight even stars and have loads of other easy to cast utility. At rank 4 psykers just begin to outstrip everyone else and by about 2.5k experience you are probably looking at psy rating 3, a willpower bonus of 5, invocation +10 (+20 for psy focus) and a power well. This means that if he takes the turn to invoke (very easy if they are initiating a combat or are in a non combat situation) their static bonus becomes 11 and can roll between 1 and 3 d10s. If they take Fire Storm for example then they can throw 2 dice at it and it its very likely to cast and on average overbleeds by 1 level meaning that it does 2d10+5 damage in a 6m blast which is a lot more damage than anyone else is going to be doing at that point in the game, it will also set everyone on fire which due to how horrific fire is means that most of the enemies caught in the blast will be incapacitated. They get alot more powerful as the game goes on. A psyker in my game at rank 5 used that power to cause 60 damage to a group with some good rolls. Also remember that at that level even 1 dice at fearful aura can cause fear 3 and 2 dice makes fear 4 not out that unlikely.

So I urge that you think about psykers carefully because they have the potential to take over especially if the other players aren't going to reign them in.