So, yeah, I'm pretty bummed out.

My tech priest character has been played all along as a guy that does not believe in corruption, either of the flesh or much less of a machine. He tried not to touch anything that seems heretic-like, does not commit barbarous acts and pretty much goes around just looking for cool technology he might requisition back to the mechanicum.

For a few months now, and keeping into account that our GM has so far never allowed us to remove corruption points, I've maintained him at 2, yes TWO, corruption points and only 2 insanity points. He has had luck in willpower saves, and doesn't go out of his way to loot heretics, lest one item be possesed or corrupted. He even had to dispose of dark eldar bodies by reprogramming a servitor to load them up in a blast door in our ship, and flushing their corpses out into space, servitor and all (after blessing the machine spirits of the servitor with sacred machine oil).

Today, our psyker used a silly power, I think it was just a standard heal. He used 4 d10s, and one was a 9. He rolled on psychic phenomena and got 75+. He rolled again and got 84.

Perils of the warp table says that's Mass Possesion.

For 16 turns, yes, SIXTEEN turns, pretty much the entire settlement we were in, NPCs and all, had to save willpower each turn. When we lost the roll, we rolled again next turn, if that one was lost, 1d5 of corruption was acquired.

I think you all can see where this is going. I lost the last 6 rolls in a row, meaning 6d5 for corruption. I got a grand total of 23, plus my previous 2, that's 25.

In one session, I went from being the single most pure character, a thing I was **** proud to be, to having a quarter of the maximum corruption allowed in the game.

My first malignancy was saved. Second one, not so much. I got Poor Health. My wounds will never seem to heal fully, my body is ridden with pain (to add to those my weak flesh feels in rejection of the holy body of the dragon).

And I rolled a 10 on toughness loss. A TEN. Ten. That's still resounding in my mind. Ten. It haunts me. Ten, and twenty five, It's driving me nuts.

How is it that for casting the stupidest of all spells, my character is maimed like that? I feel so powerless and angry right now. It's a good thing my character was unconscious when this all happened, else I would have killed the psyker for invoking corruption upon the blessed metal the omnisiah has given me.

What can I do, to at least get rid of that corruption? if get 5 more, I get my first major mutation, which pretty much ends my character as the mental anguish from being corrupt by the very thing he hates so much would be unbearable. And I like this character, a lot.

Just the fact that corruption is so easily spread around in this game is silly. How do they expect me to get to level 8 or 9, or even ascension, if by level 5 I'm already at one fourth the maximum allowed by the game, before my character automatically dies?

Seriously, I'm pissed. Oh, btw, my character was supposed to be tanky, so I was trying to stack toughness. That just adds insult to injury.

I think that you can reduce corruption be repenting, praying, fasting and so on. I can´t seem to remember where it says so but I´m fairly sure it´s either in the core book or Inquisitor´s handbook.

But then again, there is a perfectly good reason why psykers are loathed in the setting. This is precisely the thing the imperial creed warns of when dealing with psykers. The responsible thing to do is to immediatly execute the psyker, he has obviously lost control of his powers and is now a danger to the Imperium.

DH has a schizo design philosophy as far as I can tell. It seemed originally designed as a horror game with lots of player death a la Call of Cthulhu. In that context asking a question of how you're supposed to make it to high ranks is beside the point, because it's unlikely that will ever happen and you go into things knowing you're probably going to be killed or go mad or turn into a mutant at some point, which is part of the fun. Now it has stuff like Ascension and seems more pulp-action oriented (which personally I don't like but that's just me). I'm not sure the two visions go together well.

You can't get rid of corruption points in RAW except by hitting Ascension level.

(How can a tech-priest not believe in corruption? The belief in its existence is at the core of the Imperial and Mechanicus cults.)

@Storhamster: I think you're mxing up insanity and corruption points. IPs can be reduced; CPs can't.

Well for removing corruption you're pretty much S.O.L. However to prevent further instances like these from occurring, you might want to suggest to the psyker that they take Favored by the warp. Roll twice and then take the more favorable outcome when rolling on psychic phenomena. So if you roll perils on the first go around, you have a chance to make it something (possibly) less catastrophic.

P.S.: I truly feel sorry for you man... I also play a Tech Priest who's made it to rank 4 so far with just one insanity point (and that one was unavoidable as it came from my background package) and no CP's.... This is truly a horror story. May The Omnisiah go with you in your future.

First to answer your question:

A way to remove corruption? Not until ascension.

A way to prevent perils? Not until ascension.

Of course, it's actually a lot more complicated than that. There are a number of little ways to help deal with these things. I'll lead off with that, then offer some thoughts on your situation. While I'll list everything I can think of, I'm sure there are some things I'm going to forget, too.

Corruption is a bum wrap, it really is. There is no way I know of, other than through transition packages in ascension to flatly remove CPs. However, there are a ton of ways to reduce it or prevent it.

If you were still at character creation, you can make an untouchable character, if your GM lets you, to effectively become immune to corruption. (At least in my games, it's a matter of interpretation, but let's not start a debate) Talents like dark soul and armor of contempt mitigate corruption or help you with malignancies. I believe there is a ritual or something in Blood of Martyrs that can help prevent corruption gain to a limited extent. Becoming Exorcised will render you immune to warp shock, if I remember correctly. If you're willing to take the corruption, entering into a dark pact will reduce further corruption you take.

Additionally, if you're really worried about mutation, consider asking the DM to allow you to use the alternate corruption path from the Radical's Handbook. It's less overt, but no less deadly.

As for Perils, your options are more limited. It's mostly going to be up to the Psyker's player to handle his powers responsibly and minimize the risks. Once you, again, get to ascension, he can fetter to eliminate his chance of perils, your GM MAY want to house rule in those rules, but its up to him. I didn't in my games.

To that end, he should look for ways to maximize his power rolls without using more dice. Increasing his willpower, picking up discipline focus and some levels of power well, using invocation, and going for discipline mastery should all be on his to-do list. Rolling less dice and risking failure should be practiced, especially in less critical circumstances. Unless you're healing dozens of wounds or multiple characters, I can't think of why you would need to roll four dice for a seal wounds.

For your part, there's not much you can do, besides reinforce certain behaviors as best you can. The one thing I can think of is an ecclesiarchial (sp?) cell directive that lets you shoot a psyker whenever he invokes phenomena (or perils, I can't remember). Lastly, there's an obscure talent in Disciples of the Dark Gods with some hefty prerequisites that is only available as an elite advance with the GM's permission that allows the psyker to ignore his first nine under certain circumstances.

So there are your options. Question answered, allow me to comment just real quick on your situation.

You have my sympathy. From what I can tell, this is the first time you've experienced PC maimage and/or death. We've all been there, and its rough the first time it happens. But these things do happen. We've all been there. Dark Heresy is, as was mentioned, a horror/pulp mix of nasty ways to die where if the enemy doesn't kill you, your friends just might.

If you keep playing it will, eventually happen again. The first couple times it happened to me, I was crushed. Now, I love it, because it's an opportunity in disguise. Character deaths are easily some of the most intense and memorable points in campaigns. When a PCgets totally brutalized, it can make for some great character development.

In your situation, I would imagine your character feels pretty strongly now about Psykers. He might have developed a blind, fanatical hatred of them, or a grim resolute understanding of the true extent of their danger. If his flesh is failing, that's great, exactly what a tech-priest needs to further his devotion to the machine god. Definitely take the flesh is weak as your insanity, when you get there. If you roleplay it well, and your GM is the generous type, consider asking to be allowed to take the flesh is weak talent as an elite advance.

In regards to playability, I wouldn't be too concerned. In my experience corruption points and, to a far greater extent, insanity points, tend to level off as you reach the higher levels. You hit 25 a lot faster than you hit 50. In regards to Toughness, losing ten is harsh, but it can be made up, especially since you're a tech-priest. Go Secutor and pick up machinator array, plus a mining augmetic if you don't mind the extra arm, for additional toughness boost. Also remember, no matter how good or optimized your character is in DH, there will always be things that can squash you like a bug.

As a closing thought: If you're feeling powerless and angry, well, that just means you're playing the game right!

The Things said above are right.

The Psyker ( at the Moment my one is Rank 6) has to understand that the Manipulation of the Imateria is dangerous. The only Way to prevent some kind of heavy Perrils of the Warp is to gain acces to the Talent "Favoured by the Warp" and to pray to the Emperor himself.

Our psiker thinks that just because he's a psiker he can go around casting things willy nilly. For gods sake, he casts Lucky with 9 dice (Psi Rating 4) just to get a stupid +10 boost on his next roll!

We've pretty much seen all psychic phenomena and a few perils of the warp. Can't tell you many times our party has been frozen, thrown around in a storm, thrown up then down again, lost gravity, lost our rations to rotting...

And what do you mean by throwing less dice? Far as our GM and the psiker are doing it, he must throw dice as high as his Psi Rating is, no matter the sillyness of the power... I haven't read the psiker section, but I always thought it was stupid that we're rising demonic posession every time he feels like lightning a room Harry Potter "lumos" style...

Also, what is this about the flesh is weak? I had thought of having my character remove most of what was left of his flesh in an attempt to get rid of this corruption. The fact that flesh can be so easily corrupted and tainted by chaos drives him to the most logical conclusion. Get rid of it and replace it with the purity of metal.

When using a Psychic ability, you don't HAVE to use all of your dice....but you must at least use one.

How is it your Psyker is rolling 9 dice at Psy 4? Your Psy Rating is how many dice you have available to use.

Sorry, he casts everything with 4 dice. I guess I'm just paranoid about the 9's now. Everytime he announces "I'll cast <X>" the rest of the party (irl) slowly backs away and cringes in fear, and our GM gets an evil look on his face...

I fear the 9's man! Last session before the one my character got 25 corruption points at once, he got two 9's in a single power roll. We were all knocked up to the roof, some feel unconscious, then we all got knocked towards the walls and took damage...

Seriously, if he keeps casting crap and not being able to control his power, he's gonna eat Great Omnissian Axe to the face... with SB of 5 and swift attack...

Mormoran said:

Then shoot him. That's what you're supposed to do. He's dangerous. If that had gone off in the middle of a crowded hive he could have killed thousands of people.

I had a psyker reverse gravity in the middle of an Arbites precinct building. All the people and expensive vehicles outside flew up into the sky and came down with crashing thuds, killing dozens of Arbitrators and wrecking all their Chimeras, doing untold damage to law enforcement. These people are dangerous and need to be put in their place.

Great thoughts have already been posted as to your plight. I'd just like to add a few thoughts of my own.

First, when you hit 30 cp, mutation is not a definite. In fact, the first check is unlikely to result in mutation. It's the latter checks that will hit you hard. When you test for mutation at 30 cps, you chose any two Characteristics and test against them. Most folks will chose their two highest because, well, why chose your two lowest? While, granted, you have to succeed on both tests, you should be testing against your two strongest characteristics and, since it is a test, you get to spend Fate Points to make a re-roll if you need to. So, mutation in your immediate future isn't that big of a concern.

With that said, I would recommend that you don't focus on what your character will end up being. Don't try to see the end of the road, just focus on the journey, what is happening in the here-and-now; you'll have a lot more fun. It's really not about what your character will become so much as what happens to them along the way. If you just focus on that, then nothing bad could ever happen (unless it results in your character's removal from the game) because no matter what happens to the character, the most anything will do is change the course of your character and surprise you by suddenly placing you on another unexpected road altogether. Some of the most interesting and fondly remembered characters from my 20-odd years of playing various games are the ones that ended up completely different from what anyone would have ever thought.

So, as suggested above, don't think of your character's concept as being strained, ruined, or unplayable now that he has a heaping helping of corruption. Instead, think about interesting ways this changes the character and who you thought that character was. Perhaps he becomes more zealous or more focused on the removal of weak and corruptible flesh. If or when a mutation finally infects his flesh, think about how such a thing would affect him and skew for interesting and fun. Perhaps now he sees that mortal flesh truly can be corrupted, but not machine, no! A new door has opened for your character, one that you had never envisioned being there in the first place. Think about what interesting and fun-to-play places it can take you that you'd never thought you'd see with him and then sit back, strap in, forget about the future and just enjoy the ride. After all, this character won't last forever. If he isn't killed off in the game, eventually you'll stop playing him or the game for other reasons and all you'll have is the memories of the time you spent in his skin -make them interesting and don't sweat anything else.

Remember this: just as a GM's plot will never survive first contact with the players' PCs, a player's PC concept will never survive first contact with a GM's plot. It's a two way street and no-one involved will ever know where the hell it will end up once the choices start being made and the dice starts rolling. After all, role-playing is communal story-telling with randomness inserted and that's what makes it fun and unique. If it weren't that, it'd be a lot easer to just read a book as opposed to playing the game ;-)

Oh, and the psyker most definitely can and should limit the number of dice he uses for minor powers or major for that matter. The rules for the number of dice used are found in DH pg 161: "[they] make a Power Roll by rolling a number of dice up to their Psy Rating (typically 1–6) and adding their Willpower Bonus." (emphasis mine). You really should bring that to your psyker and GM's attention. The Flesh is Weak can be found in its insanity form in DH pg 235 and in its talent form in Ascension pg 122. As for carving out Corruption, at this level there's no way -it's a stain on your soul ;-) However, you can care off offensive mutations though your genetics will still be altered in such a way that even with the offending mutation cut off, a purity screening will still reveal your corruption. If that ever happens, just try not to undergo a screening ;-)

With that said, I have to now go on a long exhausting ramble...

I have to mirror above sentiments. What happened to your character because of the psyker is exactly why they are feared, hated, and loathed no matter how nice or wonderful they are. Any moment, if they aren't careful, they can open a conduit to the warp and screw everybody over. Ideally, psykers should be played by the most responsible player of the group. Of all the types of characters, their actions and choices have the greatest impact on the group. They aren't like spell-slingers from other games. They can't just go around whipping their powers out willy-nilly. If they do that, this happens. They have to be very careful, use their powers only when necessary, and be cautious of the amount of dice they use. As someone else mentioned, if failure is an acceptable outcome from a power roll, then the psyker should opt to use as few dice as possible -just enough to have a chance (not a guaranteed one) of success. If the psyker routinely rolls his max psi rating for "the stupidest of all spells" then you are travelling with a corruption magnate and a foolish player in which case, if that psyker continues down such a wanton path, this will happen again... or worse.

If you or your group had misconceptions about the terrible responsibility/curse that being a psyker was, your gm should have educated you earlier about what horrors a psyker was capable of. I did this to my group earlier on. Their fourth mission was cleaning up after a psyker from another cell screwed up and got "warp whispers". It was up to the PC's to head up investigations into who had been in the area at the time and to help the kill-squad track them down. They didn't ever go in with them for the kill wanting to keep their hands clean of the blood of women and children but they still got to see what happened to innocent citizens who were just suspected of being in the wrong place at the wrong time: wrong place being any where near a psyker and wrong time being any time the psyker gets it in their head to use their powers.

Having to point a kill-squad at women, children, screaming men, and everything in-between, seemed to do the trick and help the psykers player understand her responsibility. She still ended up getting Mass Possession once for something pointless though... in a hive no less... at least it was a section used for storage more then anything, but it still had an impact.

While she was the only PC present and managed to get out of the zone of corruption after only 2 rounds by going down really fast, I still didn't want such a breach to end as a "lol, what a close one" moment. Their PC's next mission: clean up a possible warp incursion at the location the psyker messed up. Due to a web of favours owed and the needs of the cells Inquisitor, their Interrogator knew what/who had caused the incursion but destroyed that evidence. He still needed all other parties that were in the area "censored" and he couldn't use any official channel to do such, otherwise it could come back that the psyker was involved and that would only make their on-going sticky situation even stickier. End result: the team had to hunt down 22 civilians who had been identified as being in the region of the psyker's mishap and murder (censor) them... and I made sure it was absolutely brutal.

The team helped the psyker identify and track down each citizen that had been in the area, but that is where they stopped, in the other room. They knew who's fault this was and she was going to have to clean up her own mess. There were a good few pathetic combatants and would-be serial killers thanks to the daemons in their thoughts but their were also a handful of incredibly "hard" murders scattered throughout. A priest who they found in his chambers whipping pustulous flesh from his back sobbing sobbing out prayers of penance. He just told the psyker he knew why she had come and thanked her for finally arriving. He turned his back and began praying waiting for her to deliver the Emperors Mercy. That one's sad state got to her as she realized she was most definitely the one who did that to him and the reason he had to die now. The other "hard ones" weren't so easy. There was a lone mother of 4 children who would probably die without her, two children that I thought would be the end-all-be-all of painfully hard to kill, but it turned out that a 14 year-old girl was the one that hit the psyker the hardest -she also turned out being the most brutal of the murders... er "censorships".

The girl had ran from her hab terrified of what things she had begun to see and think since that strange indecent and ended up running to her illegal love, a young apprentice-technomat greaser who's work-gang preformed sacred maintenance-rites on macrohaulers that passed through their district (he was a gas station attendant in other words ;-) ). Together, they had hatched a plan to stow away on a macrohauler and leave that dark hive behind for one of the miraculous and exotic "other-places on the out-and-out" that he had heard tails of from the crews of the macrohaulers.

The team eventually caught up to the girl the night before she would be departing and, while the rest distracted her boyfriend's work-gang, she snuck in to where the two love-birds were sleeping. While cloaked in darkness and chameleon, began using Constrict on the girl so as not to alert the entire technomat compound... at least limited the number of dice she rolled. I think that's what ended up making it so bloody brutal though as the girl kept making her Toughness checks after a round or two leaving the psyker to just constrict her again, and again, and again. She eventually choked the girl to death, but not before she had stumbled half way across the room, then flopped and twitched almost the rest of the way to a weird mechanical shrine to the God-Emperor, her face turning a purplish hue, strange ready croaks and quacks coming from her throat past froth coated lips as she clawed at her own neck to try and breath. The few respites she was granted before the psyker applied constrict again were filled with her pleads and prayers for help all the while the technomat tried to help her, to force air into her throat, prayed to the Emperor for help, screamed for the Emperor to help, threw things at the assumed spirits assailing his girl, tried to attack those spirits with his las-cutter, all to no avail -he never did spot the psyker cloaked and hiding. Once the girl had stopped twitching and thrashing for a good few minutes and the technomat was laying across her sobbing, she quietly slipped out of the room and rejoined the rest of the team who had been busy keeping the rest of the work-gang distracted.

After the rather drawn-out and brutal choking of the girl, the player looked at me hallow eyed and said that she couldn't believe no one had stopped her character from doing that, that she actually just strangled that girl to death. She felt quite dirty after that and did state that it was almost too intense and would have been if it hadn't been for the lighter more comedic interludes and other scenes I broke the more vicious murders up with. However, her psyker didn't use a single power for 2 sessions after that and the first thing she bought when she hit rank 6 was Favoured by the Warp. A few sessions after that, her character was still unceremoniously eaten by a giant conglomeration of worms, but that's the breaks in Dark Heresy.

My point to this long-winded ramble: psykers are a powerful tool, but their power comes at a very high price, a price others usually have to end up paying. While a psyker brings some amazing tools for a group (such as spam heals) they come at a great risk, one that is greatly increased through careless play. Every group should be made aware of the risks as well as the rewards before allowing a psyker in and whether someone plays a psyker or not really should be a group decision as, of any character, they can do the most inadvertent harm to the other pcs.

Quick question: how many corruption points is he at? Chances are, he'll hit 100 CP before you will. Then you won't have to deal with him!

Unless the player then makes an EXACT copy of the character. Which would then tend to suggest that he's a complete and utter noob, having no sense of teamplay.

It's either that, or tell him to use his powers with the fewest dice possible to ensure success, varying when the situation is dire.

Or even, next time he rolls perils, pray to the emperor that a) he turns into a daemonhost and b) the party is powerful enough to take him down. That would be the only way to justify PK, because PK is bad, even in DH and involving a psyker.

Finally, relax. I don't know about everyone else, but personally I think that getting incredibly emotional over a character is a bit excessive, it is only a game after all. Sure, it can be incredibly fustrating when a character you're proud of gets totally messed up, but hey, you can turn that into fun by making him go totally wacky. That is one of the prices for serving the inquisition after all - your mind.

Oh, and what Graver said.

Arcaia said:

That's one of the things that bugs me the most about all this. He's got less corruption than most of the party, because of his high willpower. He has no malignancies and no mutations.

And he saved all his Willpower rolls from the mass posession peril of the warp he invoked. He got no corruption, or penalties at all, and I got 25 corruption and -10 toughness. Guh, it irks me.

Btw, the psiker player is my brother and first time playing a role playing game of any kind. And this is our first campaign ever playing DH and first time our GM is a GM, I think.

I'll make sure to bring the dice thing up with the GM, we're all gettin a bit tired of having corruption slapped on us, going unconscious, taking damage or being near possesed because the psiker used Distort Vision to make himself safe from enemy fire... lol

Another thing which you guys might have over looked:

DH pg 163 "In addition to any other effects, whenever a Psyker invokes the Perils of the Warp he gains 1 Corruption Point." As it says, any time the psyker rolls a 9, then rolls a 75+ on the Psychic Phenomena table he gets a corruption point. So the a-fore-mentioned noobie psyker (dear god, new players to 40k shouldn't be psykers much less players new to role-playing altogether! A ice Scum works well in such situations, something to cut their teeth on and blossom without blowing everybody and suspension of disbelief sky-high) should have come out of the Possession incident with at least +1 cp.

You have my sympathy, but it sounds like you're suffering from inexperienced players and GM.

DH can certainly be played like a sci-fi CoC setting, but if that's the intention of the GM he should be quite up front about it so none of you get too attached to your characters. In this case, RAW is acceptable.

For any game involving Battle Sisters or other Faith or purity obsessed characters, the RAW really doesn't work. In the updated faith rules in Blood of Martyrs, the Faith talents generally don't have Corruption restrictions the way the Inquisitor's Handbook does. If you go by the RAW in the IH, it meant that Faith based characters would lose their uniqueness VERY quickly in certain types of games.

My advice would be to go to your GM and talk to him about just how unhappy this has made you. Point out the pains you've taken and the sacrifices you've made in the campaign so far to avoid corruption. Perhaps you and he can work out a deal or a variation of the Faith Talents. My suggestion would be something along the lines of:

-Penitent Disciple of the Omnissiah: (Variable XP cost, or perhaps story reward)

This character is a true follower of the Omnissiah, as proven by word, deed and continued devotion. Due to this fanatic devotion and willingness to remake his own body in the image of the God-Machine, the character may be allowed to reduce his corruption.

Whenever XP is rewarded for a session (The standard 4-5 hours or so of gameplay mentioned in the book), the GM and the player review the game session. If the character stayed true to his devotions, as well as avoiding any other corruption gain, the GM may allow him to remove one corruption point. If this reduces the character below the amount of corruption for a malignancy gained during play, that malignancy becomes suppressed. However, the malignancy remains on the character sheet and if the character ever regains his corruption, the full effects of the malignancy immediately return.

This really won't let you get rid of corruption quickly, but it will at least be a way to offer you and perhaps more importantly...your character...some hope in overcoming this traumatic event.

With all of that said though, the real cause of your problem is your group's ignorance of the lore and too much RP-tolerance for a fellow player. Clearly neither you nor your group were fully aware of the rules for psykers, and you are all suffering because of it. Just as bad, the group itself is allowing this psyker character to get completely out of hand. You should have put an axe through his face far sooner then this to avoid something like this happening.

Anytime a psyker is forced to use his power, it should only be raw necessity forcing his hand. The ONLY way Perils of the Warp can ever be forgiven is if the Psyker causing it can honestly say that something far more terrible would have happened if he stayed his hand. And even then, he still has a really serious risk of execution, just on general principles.

So as others have said: You guys are doing it wrong. If you don't enforce the setting consequences for Perils, you're basically giving psykers the green light to use their powers at will which can seriously break your game balance. In addition to ignoring the setting lore, you're turning Perils of the Warp into a "funny, sometimes lethal" side effect to "doing that magic thing", rather then the incredibly terrifying and dangerous event it really is. If you look away from teh mechanics and neat little tables describing everything, keep in mind just how frightening and dangerous something like mass possession must be. Everyone affected (including the psyker) would be overcome by terror as the warp spasms and they're exposed to daemonic power, even if its just for a few seconds. The fact that your brother is willing to risk this kind of thing on trivial abilities is really very poor roleplaying or at the very least poor setting knowledge, which is also the fault of your GM.

So yeah, I think there's quite a few things your group needs to consider, if you want to play the game as the lore and the rules are written.

Of course, if you don't then that's quite fine as well.

shotguns with inferno shells, frag grenades, fire bombs.

the emperors gift to taking out retarded psykers!

Mormoran said:

You're a tech priest.

Invent the Psykana Mercy Melta bomb harness.... he wigs out again, pop the motherf***er

Bladehate said:

That's why they have Pure Faith. They can eliminate corruption increase through fate point expenditure.

bogi_khaosa said:

Yes...and that's in Blood of Martyrs.

If you went by the original faith rules in the Inquisitors Handbook it was far more difficult to avoid losing your faith powers (since you lost them at corruption 10+). That meant faith based characters were pretty much impossible in a large number of game types.

Bladehate said:

That's in the Inquisitor's Handbook as well. They've always been able to do that,

Could you not adapt the rules for getting rid of Insanity Points?

Well, our GM has always let us get rid of insanity points, at a slowish rate, but it's there. In between sessions, we need to declare our characters as going to a church, praying for forgiveness or w/e, anything that fits with the character.

I was curious for something like that for corruption, but it seems I'm S.O.L. I'll manage, heh...

Has anyone mentioned the Sanctioned Wardens cell Directive?

Yes, everyone but the psyker has to pay 250 xp for it, and everyone in the group has to agree to take it...

But consider the mechanics, people. The mechanic for preventing the idiot psyker from causing Perils is smacking the idiot so hard with a melee weapon that they take on at least a wound. Satisfying, and more Safe. What else do you want?

If I get Resistance (Psychic Powers), does that help with Willpower saves on perils of the warp and psychic phenomena caused by a failed psychic power? Or it doesn't classify as a psychic power because it comes from the warp?

Well there's a lot of posts here already, all I can add is that corruption mitigation is permitted, but no mechanics are offered for this, this is one aspect of the game that GM's have an irritating tendency to forget about. So really it's up to the group to address pre-Ascension corruption issues as there are no hard and fast rules and the purpose of the game is to entertain and enjoy the experience. 40K is a thrilling and horrible world to live in, but 40K games should without doubt take into account the rule of cool.

Roleplaying whole character sessions around treatment of the body and soul through spiritual retreats, further research, etc can make interesting non-combat sessions, giving non-combat characters some quality screen time (or even a chance for some for the thug to roll that non-combat skill he never gets to use), with the highly desirable reward of shaving off even just a couple of corruption points at the end. You should also talk to your GM about burning fate points to defend against worse-than-death scenarios like these. My group likes to stick to the rules as closely as possible, only bending them when logic or the rule of cool demands, but we appreciate that the character is often very important to their player, especially a Dark Heresy character who's grown and survived against the odds, so we tend to work long term options for dealing with potentially game ruining-events like these into the story for the characters to pursue in-character.

For example our Scum lost a huge amount of Fellowship to critical damage (a lasblast to the face, if I recall), which was especially crippling as he was not a big fighter and focused on skills. The GM wisely allowed him to reclaim some of the lost fellowship through reconstructive surgery by the Master Chirurgeon in the group. He didn't get all of it back, of course, but enough to allow him to continue to perform his role effectively and tide him over until the Psyker gains the necessary expertise to completely repair the damage (specifically using My Will, Obeyed and Regeneration ). This was a good compromise as the PC didn't want to have to retire his beloved character due to suddenly becoming completely incompetent at his niche through no fault of his own and reconstructive surgery is a totally reasonable option, yet it has no mechanics ingame. While repairing damage to the soul is harder, the GM should not enslave him or her self to the rulebook for no good reason! There are perfectly good reasons and methods in-lore to deal wit corruption and mitigate or burn away it's foul influence, you just need to agree on how it should be done.

Anyway, you have my sympathies mate. Don't kill the Psyker, he cost more than the whole party did!