Hi all!

- This is my first post on the forum, I've read the rule and I think this is in the correct section but I might be wrong, if it is the case, please be kind with that big stick. Moreover, I've searched for a previous similar topic and haven't found any but my Search skill has always been poor so again, apologies if the answers to what I ask are already out there -

One member of our roleplaying group decided to be the G.M. of a D.H. table and we players decided upon our careers. I am psyker. However, I am not that well-versed in 40k lore and even less in D.H. rules. So here I am asking for your advices. What are the dos and don'ts at character creation for this path? Should I look ahead as choices made now will greatly affect the branching choices offered? As well, there will be combat involved quite a lot so I'll need to do my share of monster-bashing. Is a psyker any good at it? I haven't decided anything about the character so far, still thinking of different possible backgrounds but I thought I'd still ask for advice.

In essence, I get lost between the Skills, Talents and Powers. They all seem super-cool. Anyone cares for giving me pointers? Please? As I mentionned earlier, are there things I should do or avoid doing in-game to get into a certain path? What are the interesting paths if any are more interesting?

In even shorter, would someone help a newb draw a plan for an effective psyker, from scratch till a few ranks perspective?

Edit:

The G.M. allows for a certain liberty in determining initial characteristics in that we make the rolls but place the scores in the characteristic of our choice once all the rolls are made. I'll put the highest in WP for sure but what of others? I gather outside combat, Fellowship gets the job done, Toughness and Agility always help in combat but would W.S., B.S. and Strength be of use? Is there a Close-Quarter-Combat version of the Psyker? What of Intelligence? What are its main uses for a Psyker?

- I can't seem to find the Edit button -

- I have found the Edit button and integrated this post into the original one, can a Moderator please delete this post? -

Agénor said:

First thing I learned in DH is always buy all the ranks in Sound Constitution. Those additional wounds are required! The same goes for building up your Willpower. That is your primary stat, and should be raised up as high as possible to avoid the "oops!". Second. Think like a Jedi. To wit: Only use your abilities when no other alternative is available. Especially at the lower ranks. You don't need to have a psychic phenom occur in the middle of a bunch of scared, trigger-happy newb Acolytes! If you have too many problems, the team might just settle it for you by giving you a hot one to the brain pan. Develop those Fellowship-related skills. Deceive is a life-saver when used properly! Same with Awareness! Spotting the ambush before it pops is indispensible, and your team will love you for it.

As for building your character, I usually go with a concept first, then look at the final ranks and see what matches closely with my concept, then how I should go about getting there.

As far as I looked over the thing, you should read the pathes carefully and consider where you want to go.

Packing up social skills is one way, but since Fellowship is not among the three "cheapest" attributes to raise for your carrier, it will drain some xp...unless you start out with a rather high FEL-Score to begin with! (Hiveworld-Psykers, anyone?).

Indeed, I think it is most wise to take a view minutes to think about your "Origin"

Feral world makes for a rather strong psyker. One might wonder why the penalties (especially: INT) should be taken. The psyker-background has a rather notable close combat choices (special weapons; some hatred talents) which allow for good melee champion.. if one likes to play as such. I think they will make good "battle psykers" as well.

Void born is very popular for the WK-push... but the social malus with non-voiders leaves you with a figure that will have a hard time to take the social avenue...unless you spend XP for pushing FEL and choose psyker powers (minor and major) that make things easier with other people. I would tend to advise this background for the "scholastic" way

Hive born would be my choice if I would like to have "guile & chuzpe" type of psyker. Or if I would like to make use of all the tech skills offered (which make the most sense if your group lacks a MechPriest. Otherwise, stay clear of all Tech stuff!). As already mentioned, the career offers a good bunch of sozial skills and talents. Mostly on the "scholastic" path, as I remember.

Imperial is something I would normally tend to frown upon from a "game-mechanic point of view". But they give good RPG oppurtunities, since the psyker will come from a background where the imperial kult is strong which will have effected him in one way or the other. After all, the creed is not to friendly about pskyer (even as it is not openly hostile).

Talk with your other players who is going to fill up which "role" in the group. Nothing is more anyoning then to people doing the same thing..unless, it is combat and your GM makes sure their is enough enemy for each of you. Oh!... and find out if, why and under which circumstances the other players will make their pc attacking you.
Strangely, most players feel that it is totally justifyable to shoot a psyker as soon as the first warp phenomena occurs. If this is the case with your group... spare yourself some trouble and DO NOT PLAY A PSYKER AT ALL!

my two cents

#1 if you can speak with your squadmates and arrange that everyone get's his niche of skills and abilities

what can your psyker do that others can't? where can the group benefit most of your unique abilities?

get this healspell (dunno what it is called I don't play the psyker) healers are loved in every game and it stacks with medicae...

if playing with inquisitor's handbook you might also consider mindcleansed as a homeworld and the optional career path calixian templar (I hope I remember the name correctly) if you do raise int before becoming a templar and melee afterwards to save many xp

I've had two psykers in my games

1) He was gun-combat oriented. Primary attributes were BS and WP. At first his power choices were Unnatural aim and healer. Fear (the basic power that makes you terrifying) is also very effective, but he had to be careful not to scare his teammates! With unnatural aim and full burst he was really dangerous! Also, he represented a conservative psyker - used the powers not that often. Later on he chose Telepathy.

2) Our current psyker (played by my wife ) is a Templar (see IH), which means she's close-combat oriented. High WS, Agility, and Willpower. Her basic powers are healer, fear, spasm and distort vision. Later on she chose Biomancy and everyone loves her for Seal Wounds. However, she says 'what's the fun of being a psyker and not using the powers' - so she uses her powers a lot, it makes her a deadly combatant but triggers phenomena from time to time, which actually creates a lot of fun situations, though the group is getting corruption points fairly quickly .

edit

Ah, and now we've adapted the rules from Ascension that allow for fettered/normal/pushed use of powers. They're sensible, ask your GM to have a look at it.

Thank you all for the advices and pointers! Keep them coming, please.

Tell me about your experiences or those of your friends. Anything that could help the newbie that I am.

As well, if I understood correctly, at rank 4, three choices are offered in term of path. Could someone tell me about those aside from the succint description from the book, if each really fills its role, their relative power and effectiveness and if I have to plan for it. Skie and Sirion mentionned the Templar, no one mentionned the others, is the Templar above those two?

*goes back to reading*

Templar is an 'alternate' rank from 'Inquisitor Handbook'. Basically it's an ultimate close-combat psyker, a Jedi if you wish . Alternate ranks work like normal ranks, but you take them instead of a normal rank. In case of a templar it's rank 4 I believe.

All of our psykers ended up dead... Other players killed them for pulling perils. So one huge piece of advice, know who you're playing with, and what there view on psykers is.

OK, so you want to play a Psyker? Some thoughts, experiences and advice.

1) Discuss with your group about the implications . The Psyker is a special case among the Classes in that it generates a certain level of both IC and OC mistrust. The Psyker is capable of causing a Total Party Kill with a poor roll of Perils ( plus all sorts of additional non-lethal problems ). This usually leads to other PC;s being a bit trigger-happy towards the Psyker . Try to establish some basic understanding within the group on how to handle intra-party relations ( ie. don´t shoot the Psyker just because some chill wind blows in the room ).

2) Offer solutions . Pick Powers that are of general utility for the group. Being an additional medic is always a good way of improving morale. Picking "Healer" and "Staunch Bleeding" are always recommend. Things that can hurt your allies along with the enemies like "Fearfull Aura" are not. Oh, and do pick "Resist Possession". It might seem highly situational but your comrades will thank you on their knees if they avoid facing a Daemon because of this little trick.

3) Use Powers sensibly. Don´t use powers for every single situation that comes along. Be conservative. If your comrade is wounded but not in an immediate danger of dying ( or in the middle of a fight ), try conventional means first.

4) Talents to get. "Favoured by the Warp" ASAP. This is probably the single most important Talent for avoiding the worst Psychic nastiness. "Discipline Focus" and "Power Well" to boost the efficiency of your Powers.

5) Willpower, willpower, willpower . Goes without saying. Boost this Attribute to the edge.

6) Paths. Savant brach is the "military" ( wider selection of combat abilities ) and the Scholar the "sage" one ( more Lores ). Then there are the many possible alternate Careers:

-a) Templar Calixis ( IH pg. 80-81 ); a melee oriented fighter

-b) Legate Investigato r ( IH pg. 64-65 ); investigator for the Inquisitor

-c) I mperial Diviner ( RH pg. 48-49 ); specialist in divination

-d) Saboteur ( Salvation demand sacrifice Pdf ); just what it says

-e) Demagogue ( Salvation demand sacrifice Pd); a rabble rouser

-f) Infil-traitor ( Salvation demand sacrifice Pdf ); a double agent

-g) Tainted Psyker ( RH pg. 60-61 ); more power at the cost of taint

Been some solid advice so far, but a massively important talent that hasn't been covered yet is Armor of Contempt , it's very useful in it's own right but as a Psyker it is vital to get it as soon as possible, as a Perils of the Warp result on the Psychic Phenomena table (that's any roll of 76+) inflicts an automatic Corruption Point. Armor of Contempt will negate the Corruption point for rolling up Perils and reduce any Corruption gains that you roll up on the Perils table. Just remember it's -1 Corruption Point per instance of corruption, try not to let your GM try and scrooge you on this, it's poor form!

If you're keen on playing a melee-focused Psyker, the Templar Calix of the Scholastica Psykana career in the Inquisitor's Handbook supplement is a must, it changes the Savant Militant career path from un underpowered kick in the shorts to a competitive and playable melee character.

Bombernoy said:

Wow, really? If they keep doing that encourage them to actually learn a bit about the 40K universe. Reminding them that one sanctioned Psyker is worth more than all of their meat and souls combined, and that Inquisitors tend to "disappear" malcontents who murder their extremely rare and valuable property!

Azraiel said:

Had a nice long talk with Miles Gregarius Callidon Spector, our Imperial Guardsman (5th Plenary Guard, Sentinel), who was kind enough to quote chapter and verse to me directly from The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, referencing page 33, under the section listed as "Other Ranks, Specialists & Abhumans", and I quote:

" ...it is in everyone's best interests to watch these men! If they begin to behave strangely (outside of their usual strange habits) or you see them without a full guard compliment (ed. note: apparently psykers are not allowed to be without a minimum of three fully armed guards!!) it is your duty to shoot them down, as it is likely that they have succumbed to dark powers..."

I can see how some scared and trigger-happy Acolytes might err on the side of caution when dealing with some Psykers.

H was also quick to mention afterward that his Inquisitor (whom he would not name. AT. ALL.) tended to take a dim view of Acolytes who were "entirely too" trigger-happy. (Yes, he did do the air quotes thing too...an affectation he says he picked up from me.)

@Gregorius: I know Fel is a tough Characteristic to raise, however, raising the skills goverened by that stat are not nearly as expensive to raise. Given either path (and excluding anything in the IH, which is not in my possession atm) Blather and/or Deceive can be raised up to +20.

On a side note, I discovered that the nomenclature "Miles Gregarius" is not a name but rather a title. Interesting, the things you learn from a Shrine World Guardsman! (He was also quick to correct my pronunciation. I was always calling him Miles where actually it is apparently pronounced "Mill- ess")

Azraiel said:

Well, the cell is Ordo Hereticus with a strong hatred of anything warpy like(most of us actually have the talent), at this point it is now understood that being assigned to us and manifesting powers is usually a death sentence to get rid of psykers the Inquisitor doesn't want around. Further, when it comes to allowing a demon to get summoned or gravity to get warped in a key fight, its pretty understandable that we waste the psyker.

@Azraiel

Wow, really? If they keep doing that encourage them to actually learn a bit about the 40K universe. Reminding them that one sanctioned Psyker is worth more than all of their meat and souls combined, and that Inquisitors tend to "disappear" malcontents who murder their extremely rare and valuable property!

Psykers, like any other acolytes, are tools. When a tool becomes dangerous to its wielder, you dispose of it.

Considering the rather extreme effects that can result from a psyker going rogue or losing control, possibly including the permanent loss of a world, many Imperial forces subscribe to a "bullet to the brainpan first, wondering about consequences of not having a psyker later" mindset. I'd consider most Inquisitors that do more than reprimand acolytes for killing psykers manifesting perils to be deeply in the Radical faction.

Cifer said:

So long as the tool is salvageable and also of extreme rarity and cost, disposal is probably relatively low on the list of things to do.

A car's brakes failing may kill or seriously injury people, but that doesn't mean the car is immediately taken to the scrapyard, does it? To stretch this metaphor, the only such car that would be disposed of would be one whose frame was mangled, and/or whose cost to repair exceeded its cost to replace - that is, a car which would CONTINUE to be unsafe.

An Inquisitor, in this case, is a mechanic capable of assessing the salvageability of a psyker who has lost control/attracked improper attention of the warp. Most acolytes are most assuredly not qualified, and given the extreme rarity and cost involved in sanctioning psykers, its the equivalent of having a ferrari scrapped before even checking to see if it could be repaired.

Unusualsuspect said:

Then we get into qualifications of what counts as a metaphorical 120mph brake-less car downtown during prime shopping hours, and what counts as 20 mph with a steep hill nearby. Not all Perils of the Warp indicate a driver-dead-either-way nor an imminent danger to those around him (though they WILL probably require an extra few weeks being interrogated and tested for weakness/corruption after the mission)

Some Perils of the Warp qualify as the former, some as the latter. Saying "If it Perils, kill it" is an unreasonable approach - perhaps half of the results would reasonably give a fellow acolyte sufficient apparent reason to kill the psyker. Blood Rain, The SUrly Bonds of Earth, and Daemonhost are the only ones that strike me as somewhat reasonable immediate-kill results - Mass Possesion and Dark Summoning I'm on the fence on, and the rest are more equivalent to something that causes a car to pull over, not something that indicates the sort of chain reaction effect you're using to put las shots in the back of EXPENSIVE, RARE tools of the Inquisition.

I'm not saying that a bullet to the head is never the answer - I'm saying that there should be more to it than "Something odd happened when the psyker manipulated the fabric of reality - Melta to the face!" that incorporates the circumstances involved and greater complexity of understanding to a psyker's role and potential as a Vortex-grenade-equivalent than that found in, of all places, the Guardsman's Uplifting Primer. The Inquisition is more complex and subtle than that, and members of an acolyte squad containing a psyker, including former guardsmen, should represent that.

Unusualsuspect said:

Since absolutely every Inquisitor knows what using psychic abilities can do, I'd say it's fairly obvious that psykers should NOT be killed for every single instance of perils. Hell, most of them aren't readily recognizable as anything gone seriously wrong anyway. Some examples:

• Warp burn: Stunned for 1d5 rounds.
• Psychic mirror: power targets psyker instead.
• Chronological Incontinence (awesome name!): psyker disappears for 1d10 rounds.

Any Inquisitor putting together a cadre uses a decent amount of resources to do so. Having cadre members execute a psyker for rather small slights means...they would not put a psyker with such characters. It's simply not logical and a huge waste of resources.

Note, however, that Perils always deal out Corruption - which generally affects NPCs more severely than PCs...

Nihilius said:

Nihilius said:

Interesting that you chose only the least egregious of perils. Perhaps if you paid attention to the fact that said psyker can also have these perils:

• Warp Whispers: All within 4d10 meters make a Hard (-20) WP or suffer 1d10 corruption points
• Ethereal Storm: All within 1d100 meters takes 1d10 E (ignores armor) Damage
• Cataclysmic Blast: All within 2d10 meters suffers 1d10+5 E Damage
• Mass Possession: All within 1d100 meters make WP save or be helpless. Characters that fail their save also suffer 1d5 Corruption Points
• Surly Bonds of Earth: within 1d100 meters gravity is reversed for 2d10 rounds, all within ascend at a rate of 3m/rnd (max 30 meters) then fall, taking any applicable damage
• Daemonhost: Psyker makes a Very Hard (-30) WP save or become an unbound daemonhost

You keep arguing about "wasted resources" yet you continuously fail to understand that mishaping into the perils tables carries consequences beyond those of "oops, my bad!" And trying to categorize 3 pitiful examples as "most" is laughable. Or, to put it another way...for every one "not readily recognizable" peril, I could provide you with two examples that are extraordinarily recognizable and terrifying when actually encountered.

Furthermore, you do realize that these 'expensive and rare" tools are sacrificed in their TENS OF THOUSANDS on a daily basis, right? Face it. In DH, LIFE IS CHEAP. You (the character) CAN be replaced. You're character is not quite the special little snowflake you think he/she is. There are plenty of accounts where psykers lose total control of themselves and their powers and need to be summarily put down.

Also, for every 10 Corruption points your rare little snowflake inflicts on the party members, they have a chance to get themselves a nice little mutation, and once you get one, getting more becomes even easier.

Thought of the Day: The rewards of tolerance are treachery and betrayal.

Thought of the Day: The end always justifies the means

Thought of the Day: A good soldier obeys without question

Thought of the Day: Burn the heretic, kill the mutant, purge the unclean

Thought of the Day: Mercy is a sign of weakness

Do you see a trend here?

llithidelderbrain:

First, the results you just listed happen roughly 34/100 times you roll on the Perils table. Some of those could reasonably be considered indicators that bad stuff will continue to happen, and plugging the source with a bullet to the brain would be prudent (Daemonhost for sure), but others are harder to justify for that purpose.

I'm surprised you didn't mention one of the few other Perils I think most likely to lead to a mercy kill - Dark Summoning. Daemons popping into existence is a much, much more worrying phenomena than an explosive backfire or randomly firing bolts of warp energy.

The point we're trying to make is that the worries about a psyker leading to the death of a planet don't justify popping a plasma shot in the face of every psyker who perils. If you're an acolyte with a psyker in your cell, you're going to be briefed on what signs to look for that might actually be worrisome on more than a "that's a scary lightshow" level.

Second, I'm disappointed by your second argument on a sanctioned psyker's rarity and expense. Of the multi-kajillions of humans in the Imperium, there is an incredibly small percentage who are born with psychic talent. Of that small percentage, a percentage of those will die in the process of being who they are - giant neon signs in the warp saying "tasty soul here, good eatin'!". Of that small percentage who survive long enough to be taken by the black ships to Terra, only a very, very small percentage will be deemed worthy and capable of the near-inhuman willpower required to shape the very reality before them as required of them by the Imperium. Of that very small percentage, a small percentage survive the horrific process of sanctioning. Of that percentage, a small portion of the remainder are fit for the more complex duties involved with being an acolyte of the Inquisition.

Those thousands of psykers sacrificed daily to feed the Emperor? They're the dregs, the raw psychic talent whose containers lack the will to control it to greater purpose. They're rare enough that they have to be shipped to Terra from across the Imperium, and their rarity is a dime a dozen in comparison to an Inquisition-ready, sanctioned psyker. You're equating coal to diamonds.

The Thoughts of the Day you've provided are similarly entertaining. Twisted for the Inquisition's viewpoint, you have all the justification you need to ignore an occasional psychic backlash so long as you retain the tool you need to get the job done.

Unusualsuspect basically said what I would have said. Furthermore, even though life is cheap in DH, for each individual Inquisitor acolytes still represent a significant amount of resources.

And last but not least...I personally don't appreciate roleplaying groups where players kill each others' characters over relatively small slights. I believe in some leeway towards each other, especially since most of us put a lot of effort into our characters and prefer them to actually live through an entire campaign. In addition, player killing almost irrevocably leads to resentment.

Like others have said though, it could be a good idea to clear this with the other players in a group before making a psyker. If they're hell-bent on killing off any psyker that displays perils, well, there's a pretty huge risk in playing one since there's a decent chance it will happen sooner or later. I like playing doomed characters, but not ones that are doomed at the chance of a dice roll.

You should probably also look into a more mature tone when arguing.