Hello fellow sentients,

I'm new to 40k rpg and cannot seem to find anything to solve my problem. Im a psycher that seems to like perils of the warp . Ive killed entire market squares of civillians, caused 50+ corruption points to my party members etc. my question is:

Is there anything i can do to try and safeguard myself against perils?

by that i mean talents, skills, gear etc to try and reduce the chances of me murdering everyone within 5 square miles by just trying to use spectral hands?

I remember that when i played the black crusade demo advneture, my psycher has a "psy grounding unit" that looked like a big circular rack that she wore on her back. what is that thing? can i get it or something kind like it for my dark heresy character?

thanks for the help

lordharadris said:

There are rules for 'pushing' and 'fettering' psykic powers making them either more powerful or safer. I THINK they are in Ascension, but I may be wrong, and if so, you may need to ask you GM nicely to let you use them.

The real problem though, is that you are playing a dirty WITCH! Yep, that's the problem; "BURN THE HERETIC, PURGE THE UNCLEAN!", ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! (ah just kidding... ....sort of, don't get me started about my character's experiences with psykers. Hatred: Psykers, oh yessiree)

(And the Librarian sneaks in with "Fear not the Psyker".)

Yeah, Psykers can be fun, but also very bothersome. Your best bet would be to get a hold of Ascension and request using their psychic rules. Without typing the whole segment, you can practically be rid of Perils if you Fetter your power by rolling only half your Psy rating, or less, when trying to manifest powers. When Fettered, you CAN'T cause Psychic Phenomena, so no Perils (Ascension, p.125). Granted, if we assume you aren't playing Ascension, and your Psy rating is only a 2 or 3, this could seem less appealing, but it's an option that exists. Snag Power Well with it, and you can boost your manifest checks, while still being able to Fetter them a bit more often. Corpus Conversion hurts, but it can temp boost your manifest checks, by repeatedly adding your Willpower bonus to that check, again, still while letting you Fetter more often (sort of like how Unnatural Willpower will eventually do, if you can get that far). Discipline Focus gives a nice little boost to specific checks, too, if you specifically like one group of powers.

Now, all of the above assumes you CAN use the Ascension rules. Assuming you can't get Ascension, and/or your GM won't allow the use of their rules, you are sadly much more limited. The only other thought you might like, if you could somehow swing it, would be to work in a trip to Terra, to become Soul-Bound to the Emperor. While this is no small thing, in game, and gaining the trait can hurt like a..., it does give you some slack regarding Perils (Dark Heresy, p. 332). Favored by the Warp (DH, p.115) is also a good option, and guaranteed more available than standing in front of Him on Terra. Sadly, the game isn't always forgiving of those that can tap the Warp, and Perils is their annoying payoff for being cheesy. If your GM is willing to dig a Psy Grounding unit out of the Conclave's storage (I have not gotten Black Crusade, so I do not have access to this item), and it helps, then very good. My best suggestion, however, would be to try for Ascension's psychic rules, which many people I have read of seemed to like much more, and supplement them with Talents like the above mentioned, to enhance your Fettered uses, paying for it, so that it seems fair.

Keeping withing the frames of the rules (not trying to sneak access to Ascended powers before your time, etc), what you can, and should, do is to:

- Only use Psychic powers when you really have to (They are dangerous, fickle things that can (and will) go boom)

- Limit the danger by using Invocation and as few power dice as you need for the power you are trying to focus.

If you always fire on maximum effect, and as often as possible, you WILL end up as a corrupted, insane heretic, wanted by everyone for crimes against humanity.

On a more constructive note, get Favoured by the Warp as soon as possible. It will let you roll 2 phenomena, and choose which you prefer. This will drastically reduce the hurt, and make Perils happen very rarely.

While on the topic, TS Luikart (the designer of the Dark Heresy Psychic power rules) suggests changing the effect of this talent to a slightly less game-changing version by letting the Psycher discard a single 9 from his power roll. This 9 then does not contribute to manifesting the power, nor does it cause a phenomena.

lordharadris said:

You might not like this option very much, but there is also the Sanction Wardens cell directive from the Blood of Martyrs book. Essentially, if the psyker being watched causes Perils of the Warp, just before rolling on that table, other members of the cell may immediately make an attack against the psyker as a reaction. Should at least one Wound be inflicted on the offending psyker, the psychic power fails, but the Perils of the Warp doesn't happen. On the plus side, I daresay a GM would be more willing to allow this option than they would using the fettered/unfettered/push rules pre-Ascension or letting your character take Favored By the Warp as an Elite Advance.

-Kirov

alternativly, the soul bound trait, where you can reroll the actuall perils itself, then choose the nicer result, after all this sounds like quite a problem, my condolenses,

BURN THE WITCH! seems a viable option though, or simply don't roll as many dice for manifesting

Perils is what keeps psykers balanced. Just don't use your powers much; you're not supposed to.

Darth Smeg said:

There's also the talent Psychic Supremacy from Disciples of the Dark Gods ; page 26. It kind of falls out of usefulness somewhat if the Fettered/Push rules are being used though without some modifications.

-=Brother Praetus=-

As a GM, I really, really wouldn't want to use the Fettered/Unfettered rules in DH. It works in RT and DW because the number of psychic powers is sharply limited, and in the former because they're not really combat-oriented for the most part and in the second because they are Space Marine librarians and supposed to be badass as hell. I do not not not want a DH psyker to be Spasming people left and right and tossing off fire bolts like magic missiles. Or Knack or Lucky or Precognition! "OK I now have a +10% to every roll and can reroll failed ones."

Not to mention that, in those rules, Manifesting is a Willpower Test and therefore you can use Fate Points to reroll them. The horror. *shudders*

Be warned, much of this might not seem relevant to the topic of the thread. If so, sorry.

Brother Praetus said:

Yeah, I look at that, surprised that I never noticed it in my book, and kind of like it. In a game with no Ascended template powers, it could prove very useful, if you can get that high in Psy Rating before the Perils, or the villains, kill you. Once you do hit Ascension, however, which shouldn't be too long after getting this Talent, it does sort of fall off. Maybe house rule a Talent that prereqs this one, that lets you get up to your full (maybe 3/4) dice, and still ignore the first 1. It's two Talents, with one being costly, but it could make the other Talent not a complete waste of points 4 sessions later.

bogi_khaosa said:

While I see your point, I kind of like the idea. As an uneducated person of parts of this system (I have yet to get to play it, and hope I grasp most of it better than I might), I often think of Dark Heresy as 40K on sedatives. Space Marines are Space Marines, so I get why they are so much more powerful, but Rogue Trader's only excuse for being 2 levels higher, comparatively, is that you were someone before that game, even if the build might not well reflect who that must have been to earn a Warrant. By Rank 3 their Tech Priests can get Machine, but a comparable Dark Heresy character has to hit Ascension, and Rank 9, just to get the same benefit. Every other system has a setup to get rare stuff easilyish, but these guys pay with money (I like it better, sometimes, but still). I don't know if the psykers in Rogue Trader should seem that much more powerful, just because they are Rogue Trader. Please note, this isn't me trying to be challenging, or even just whining (I hope), but sharing my opinion.

Yeah, Dark Heresy really did do a good job of trying to make playing a Psyker hard, which can be a good thing, done right; you can often get a very Call of Cthulhu feel to it when you know that the thing you do will slowly erode your character (nowhere near as fast, but one bad Perils check can end you, or your friends, regardless of how good you are), and often, your comrades feel uncomfortable having you around, almost like you are a character type players weren't meant to be, especially if you find it difficult to be good at anything else. It's rather different, in my mind, to playing Jedi in Star Wars, or Wizards in D&D, both classes most players of their games want to play, and neither having much in the way of punishing you for your earth-shattering power. Meanwhile, in 40K, they attach the whole "ahhh, the Warp is tainted, andso corrupt in all of itself that nothing you do with it can be totally free of taint, so use this power at your own risk" mechanic, so you try to hold off using it, against enemies who have no such limits (I question any GM has run a game where their NPC psyker boss has Periled, and had an event occur that defeated him; they are either firmly Chaos, and unaffected by Perils, or nothing happens, because that would cheapen the players' victory). Still, the power output you have is staggering, even if you don't get the Ascension boost to the system, so we tolerate it. 4th ed D&D ruined wizards as a class, because they were so powerful before that edition, so a bit of this and that from pure Dark Heresy is a fair tradeoff.

venkelos said:

I think the idea with RT is that they are not just sanctioned psykers, but Astropaths, and so soul-bound -- not only that, they are the most important astropaths on a ship with several. (Then there is the metagame reason that DH, at least as originally intended, is at bottom a horror game, whereas Rogue Trader is supposed to be more swashbuckling and classically "adventurous.") EDIT: and RT psykers aren't really more powerful than DH psykers, I would say they are less so -- their range of abilities is paltry by comparison. No Pyromancy, no dread Biomancers healing the entire party. They are more reliable, not more powerful.

I will note that the published DH adventures that I've seen don't actually have much in the way of bosses you have to defeat in combat. There is usually a trick around them, some mechanism you;re supposed to figure out.

DH I think was originally conceived as more-or-less ordinary people way over their heads (which I like), at least at low levels, and the system is designed around that. I think there has been a move toward a more 'heroic" style of play at least since Blood of Martyrs (probably for market research reasons) but it sticks in my craw.

bogi_khaosa said:

I know that I'll get flak for saying this, but I'm glad that this system has some flexibility.

A GM can really amp up the hopeless grim dark setting, or make it more pulp-ish and heroic if the players want it.

I see room for both types of games, I guess. Most players that I've had games with really like the mood and setting, but don't necessarily want to play PC killing meat-grinder stories. They tend to grow attached to their characters even if warned that they are going to be expendable **** and will die horribly.

'Cause in REAL life we're pretty expendable and un-heroic, I guess.

Are the psyker rules in DH (i know they are different in the other games) really that bad? Ok it's a 10% chance per die rolled, but you can choose to roll fewer dice. Can't a fate point be allowed to counter a 9 when rolled?

Psy powers are meant to be dangerous and even then a 9 is no guarantee of an unpleasant demise.

signoftheserpent said:

Nope. Fate Points can only be used to reroll Tests.

Which is good in my opinion.

And the GM can decide otherwise, problem solved.

My GM is kind and gracious in a few ways.

First, he allowed me to take an elite advance I found on Dark Reign somewhere, modified to provide an actual drawback towards safe manifesting in Dark Heresy:

Psychic Restraint
The character may choose not to roll any dice when using making a power roll. The result of this power roll will be equal to the sum of his willpower bonus, half (round down) of his current Psy Rating, and any other relevant modifiers (such as the +2 to Discipline Focus or the +1 per Power Well). This also doubles the Focus Time of the power, or increases the Focus Time to a half action if used for a power with a Focus Time of a free action. This option may not be used for powers with a Focus Time of Reaction.
Prerequisite: Psy Rating 2, Willpower 50
XP Cost: 200

Force Bolt, Biolightning, and Fire Ball all become full-round actions, alongside a basically minimized version of fettered manifesting (as if you'd rolled a 1 on ever 10, using no more than half your Psy Rating's dice! Yay, consistency!)

The character has mastered Telekinesis, so he can just about Manifest a Force Bolt as a full-round action without risking becoming a Daemonhost. Powerful, no doubt. Then again, for a vast majority of players, an accurate basic weapon (especially with Red Dot Laser Sights, but really any will do) can do far more than that on a good shot, with as good or better accuracy. I wouldn't be surprised if there were weapons with side effects less dangerous than psychic phenonenon, capable of Force Bolt equivalent damage with a half action...

He also allows me to spend Fate Points to reroll Psychic Phenomenon. This has been a boon just once to prevent a Perils roll (which likely would have cost me otherwise, at minimum, a fate point, and likely my character's life at the hands of his fellow acoylytes), as I very rarely use the powers I can't manifest safely(I'm deathly scared of dice. Statistics are Murphy's Playground...). That won't be an issue soon, as Favoured of the Warp is soon to be available.

I believe I've manifested "unsafely" more in the last mission, as the foes have started warranting "unfettered" warpcraft.

signoftheserpent said:

You can do that, but I think you run the risk of seriously unbalancing the game. Psykers are very very powerful, much more powerful than any other character type. The threat of perils is what keeps them from running roughshod over everybody else.

That's right! Psykers don't need a break, they need all the hurt that's coming to them! They need all the hate the others send their way, and all the evil tricks the GM can come up with to ruin their day

I haven't played a psyker in any system but DH. Honestly, I don't know if I would like a psyker that is that safe. I had more fun with my psyker due to the dread and fear of activating powers than almost any other time of the game. That inevitable doom was always lurking, even with a minor power. That is what I love about the DH psyker system.

As was mentioned, invocation with a psy focus is your best friend as a DH psyker. With enough luck and focus you can end up with the ability to activate the majority of your powers after a succesful invocation and a single die roll.

Psykers should always be afraid of what their powers can do and what the witch hunters will do to them.

And then there are "sacred scrolls" (iirc) from the Deamon Hunter SB.

They allow one reroll on the phenomena table at which point the scroll expires.

I had to think of a psyker clad in an overcoat of seals (as can be seen on so many illustrations) which start to crumble under the pressure of the raw warp powers working around them. Still, it's rather expensive