Hi all,

I'm a long time GW/black library fan, but totally new to Dark Heresy...

I've just started to construct some characters for myself but I'm having trouble figuring out how to assign Talents and skills.

I know my character starts with 400 xp and I can "buy" the skills I want, but

1> Can I ONLY buy skills that are allocated to my career path?

2> I can't see anywhere that explains how to "buy" the talents

Anyway, I'd appreciate a hand. I think I've got the hang of pretty much everything else regarding character creation (I hope!)

Thanks in advance

1. You can only buy what is offered by the CRB, Elite Advances notwithstanding.

2. Page 40 of the Core Rulebook is where the Career paths start. Find your career, and current rank. All the skills and talents listed under your current rank (plus any ranks you have previously taken) can be bought at the start or end of the session by paying the list XP cost.

Thanks for the clarification, however one of the problems I'm having with the Talents is that I cannot find any xp cost for them, only their descriptions.

As I said, have you checked the page I indicated? There's a giant section on Character Advancement on Page 40, as well as each career's full rank listing and the appropriate advances (Talents and Skills both).

Each career will have different costs for talents and skills (for example Guardsmen and Arbitrators get Sound Constitution cheaper than Psykers or Adepts do).

Let me give you an example. Let's say I'm playing an Arbitrator. I am rank 3 (so Regulator). To find out what skills and talents I have available, I go to the page in the CRB that has the Arbitrator's career path, find the Regulator rank and pick from there (or either of the previous two ranks).

Each possible advance, barring characteristic advances will be laid out as such:

Name of Skill of Talent Cost Type (whether it is a Skill (S) or Talent (T) Prerequisites.

Ahh, so that's what the S and T stand for. Yeah, I see it. Thanks

I've got used to creating "normal" human characters now, but I'm still a bit confused as to how to assign psychic powers to psykers...

A starting character Psyker starts at Psy Rating 1, but does (s)he start with any minor powers or do they all need to be purchased using his 400 starting XP from the Sanctionite rank table?

Psy Ratings take a little getting used to, and it doesn't help that there's a typo on Psy Rating 2, that got corrected in the errata.

Essentially, whenever your Psyker gets a new Psy Rating they gain additional Psychic Powers.

At Psy Rating 1 and 2 they gain up to half their Willpower bonus in Minor Psychic Powers.

At Psy Rating 3, in addition to gaining half their Willpower bonus in Minor Psychic Powers, they may also select a Psychic Discipline (Biomancy, Pyromancy, Divination, Telekinesis or Telepathy) and choose a single power from it.

At every subsequent Psy Rating a Psyker will continue to gain minor powers equal to half their willpower bonus, but they may also choose to gain either Psychic Powers equal to half their Willpower Bonus from a discipline they have previously chosen, or they may choose a new Discipline and may choose one new Psychic Power from that.

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If it helps, I'm playing a Psyker in my own campaign so I can use him as an example.

Psy Rating 1: His willpower was 35, so I selected two minor psychic powers for him at the start of the game.

Psy Rating 2: His willpower was 40, so I selected an additional two minor psychic powers for him when I took this advance.

Psy Rating 3: His willpower was still 40, so I selected an additional two minor psychic powers. In addition, I chose Biomancy as his Psychic Discipline and gave him the Biomancy Power: Bio Lightning.

Psy Rating 4: His willpower was 50, so I gave him three minor psychic powers, and chose telekinesis as a new discipline for him, and then gave him the Telekinesis Power: Push.

At this point when my Psyker takes Psy Rating Five (with a willpower of 55), he will gain an additional three minor psychic powers, and I will be able to get an additional three regular Psychic Powers, chosen from either Biomancy or Telekinesis.

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In addition to this, Psykers can also gain new powers by taking the "Psychic Power" or "Minor Psychic Power" advance whenever it is offered.

Many thanks for your swift reply

Hello all, I hope you are still around.

I am new to this forum but I have a question that builds off of this post. I have recently begun playing dark heresy and we were required to randomly roll our characters. During creation I received the mutation divination and rolled Wyrdling as my mutation. I am a Feral Assassin.

My question is how does this relate to my ability to take talents and psy powers as I gain experience? Am I able to purchase Psy rating 2 since I meet the prerequisites even though it's not on my career path? What about the skill Psyniscience? Is there anything else that this lets me do/get?

Thanks,

Lord Visceral

Hello all, I hope you are still around.

I am new to this forum but I have a question that builds off of this post. I have recently begun playing dark heresy and we were required to randomly roll our characters. During creation I received the mutation divination and rolled Wyrdling as my mutation. I am a Feral Assassin.

My question is how does this relate to my ability to take talents and psy powers as I gain experience? Am I able to purchase Psy rating 2 since I meet the prerequisites even though it's not on my career path? What about the skill Psyniscience? Is there anything else that this lets me do/get?

Thanks,

Lord Visceral

Talk with your GM. Generally speaking if it's not on your career path, you cannot take it as RAW-- this is one of the weaknesses of the original DH. With that said, talk to your GM about taking it as an Elite Advance if you want it. Elite Advances are basically exactly that-- GM offered advances that are outside the career path.

Hello all, I hope you are still around.

I am new to this forum but I have a question that builds off of this post. I have recently begun playing dark heresy and we were required to randomly roll our characters. During creation I received the mutation divination and rolled Wyrdling as my mutation. I am a Feral Assassin.

My question is how does this relate to my ability to take talents and psy powers as I gain experience? Am I able to purchase Psy rating 2 since I meet the prerequisites even though it's not on my career path? What about the skill Psyniscience? Is there anything else that this lets me do/get?

Thanks,

Lord Visceral

Generally not. Although the game doesn't go in to too much detail about it, advancing in psychic strength takes months of rigorous exercise and support from trainers. Attempting to push your psychic strength without this regime risks psychic backlash, possession, damnation and death (not necessarily in that order). In addition many psykers wouldn't even know where to begin or even really understand that they are psychic (as opposed to just lucky).

The mutation wyrdling represents the myriad unsanctioned psykers that exist between the cracks in the Imperium. While it is possible your character could train as a psyker currently if he expanded his strength he risks detection and being carted off to the Black Ships