Yeah, the 10% risk for perils with unnatural aim seldom seems worth it (except maybe crucial sniping, but still...), while the versatility of being able to shut down an offensive before it kills the group (and let the group use it) is great. Just don't abuse it or risk the party techie getting a bit upset.

Which are the other final ones you are taking? With spent XP and such

three powers:

Precognition, Inspiring Aura, Weapon Jinx.

Don't all minor powers run the same risk for Warp Perils?? I wasn't aware unnatural aim had a higher chance.

What minor powers would you recommend or advise against having for early levels? basically, what have you had success with?

Stay away from Weaken Veil though, unless you're a crazy cultist

Yeah. I read that and I was like... "..why in the balls.."

IIRC, demons have a very different reaction to Perils of the Warp, so for them it's pure goodness.

Might be only in some of the later games though.

Don't all minor powers run the same risk for Warp Perils?? I wasn't aware unnatural aim had a higher chance.

Small hack:

You normally roll Nd10 and add WPB, where N is an integer number of your choice, which can be no larger than your Psy rating.

As a half-action, you can use the Invocation skill to add you WPB to the roll (again).

Now if I read the rules correctly - and I will happily support your GM if he rules differently, as long as he's consistent about it - this allows a cute little trick: Use Invocation, and choose N = 0.

Invocation is just a skill - it never causes Peril (though it does take a half-action). This means you can succeed at any powercheck less than 2*WPB without rolling any dice for Psy rating, meaning you'll have no risk of Perils.

Mind you, if the Overbleed is actually useful, you might want to chance it, but for things like Healer (another sometimes-very-nice-to-have minor power), it's not a bad trick.

Don't all minor powers run the same risk for Warp Perils?? I wasn't aware unnatural aim had a higher chance.

They do, yeah, but a power that affects the chance to hit for one single attack will probably be used often. Thus raising the chance for Phenomena.

As for casting with no dice, it isn't restricted by the RAW (it's not specifically allowed either), but TS Luikart, the author of these rules, commented once that is was supposed to be forbidden. Ie, you have to roll at least one die.

Without this, Psykers will become severely unbalanced. Minor powers are already very powerful, in the sense that they'll let you do what other specialists do, and usually better.

Absolutely. Psykers are very powerful and very flexible.

Yeah, not a big fan of the "no dice rolled" rule it seems against the spirit.

I would recommend taking resist possession to replace precognition. Inspiring Aura falls into a similar ground, where it is good situationally, but you don't want to need it. Healer is a fine choice too early on.

My view for psychic powers is you shouldn't take ones you will use every turn, because as others have said, that is testing for at least one 10% chance every round, the more you push it, the more likely it will happen.

No one mentioned Fearfull Aura. Its a powerfull power, even so at higher levels. You can even get as high as Fear 5 = -40 to willpower tests ensure that most of the enemies utn into gibberring wrecks.

Healing - Healer, Dull Pain

Space Slip - great for escaping, and getting to closed rooms.

Resist Possesion - a must have, can save your party.

Precognition is usefull close combat power, Spasm can also be usefull.

I would reccomend for starters: Resist Possesion, Healer and Distort Vision.

Careful with that Fearfull Aura. I have not seen an errata that excempted your own party from it. RAW would scare your own pals.

I was worried about that as well.

Thoughts?

Yeah, we use code-words with fearful aura. More or less a codephrase for "Don't look now, boys! **** is about to get scary!"

Call creatures is a fun psychic power and often highly underrated.

A few examples how it's effected my games as a Gm:

Case 1: Psyker and party is trying to get a drop on a cult hiding out in an abandoned manufactora. He calls creatures, resulting in three rats appearing. He plucks the rats up and the tech priest sets to work strapping some explosions on them. They then send the rats into the manufactora by scaring them with fire. The timer goes off and the rats explode, resulting in a nice distraction and the party sneaks in during the confusion.

Case 2: Party makes a horrendous misjudgement of character and get stranded as a result on a near barren world. Two days trying to find safety and completely unprepared foodwise, the psyker calls vermin to fetch food and proteins to survive on, so the party doesn't get hit with fatigue.

Case 3: In a hive world, the Acolytes need to get a cover identity to justify their poking around the lower hive. The psyker develops a plan to be rat-catchers, and by calling vermin the acolytes start to earn a little noteriety as being unusually efficient vermin catchers. They earn some wages, and after a few weeks of in game time most people just consider them as rat catchers (just as planned).

Only issue with this plan is the local Rat Catchers are quite upset by their competition and formulate a few 'accidents' to take care of them.

The final tally until I get some more XP is:

- Inspiring Aura . I kept this due to encountering a fear (2) creature in a sit down DH rpg some friends and I are doing. One of the PCs ran away and the other threw up and screamed for multiple rounds. I figure this cannot hurt.

- Resist Possession . I got rid of precognition and took the life saver minor power.

- Weapon Jinx . I am giddy as hell to start setting off enemy grenades and plasma weaponry.

?

Correct me if I am wrong, but with a Psy Rating of 1, I can only roll 1d10+WPB when using powers, right? This changed with your PR, yes?

Correct me if I am wrong, but with a Psy Rating of 1, I can only roll 1d10+WPB when using powers, right? This changed with your PR, yes?

This is correct... sort of. If you make a successful Invocation roll, it's 1d10+2xWPB.

As your Psy Rating goes up you may CHOOSE to roll additional dice when manifesting powers (so at Psy Rating 2, you can roll up to 2 dice, at Psy Rating 3, 3 dice, etc.).

Right, I knew about the choice, I just wasn't sure when it came into play.

I need to look into invocation more.

Invocation's pretty simple, honestly. You make a full-action Willpower test (if using Psy Focus you get +10 to this), and on a pass, you may increase your next Power roll by your willpower bonus (stacking on top of the normal one. So if you have a WPB of 5, you now get Xd10+10 for your attempt at passing the threshold, instead of Xd10+5.

OK, so definitely not worth it for any of the powers I have selected. But later on, when the PT is something like 14, that could be rather useful.

Aye, and then there's Corpus Conversion, for those times when you REALLY need something to work

I do know that this is a little late, but spasm is golden. Not only do you get people to fall flat on their asses, no you make them shoot their friends (if used properly) as well! That is one "free" attack and a half turn that the person have to use next round to get up, then adding the overbleed that makes it able to target multible at the same time and Bob are your oncle.

Do note that spasm is especially golden when fighting against people with flamers and other templates. Beside that, are there anything more satisfying that setting 10 mad priest aflame when they are running at you with hand flamers? I think not!

A little note and fixer to what all say about Weapon Jinx, sorry guys but it does not jam all weapons. Either can you cast it without a willpower chek (or a failed one) that will make all weapons "to cease to function for 1 round", or you can make your check and make a single weapon jam (or multible if you are lucky with your overbleed)

One forgotten pearl would after my opinion be Déjà vu, or was a pearl if it is allowed to be used after my old GMs interpertation. With that rule could you get people to run out of cover, them thinking that they have to run forward and then out of cover. Sure this is up for some interpatation and does not work each and every time, but a power with threshold 8 that can force people out into the open, ohh yes please!

That was for the good powers, one of the worst and least used one that I have ever had is wither... Seriously, there is next to no nature in 40K, and so **** few creatures that it can be used on. Sure it is good when you have to make a campsite in a jungle or something like that... but then could you also just search a bit around and find an open place.

Aye, and then there's Corpus Conversion, for those times when you REALLY need something to work

Sure it was like that in the good old days, but now with the errata is it not 2 temporery hitpoints you have to give away for the boost, but one permenet point of Toughness That is, if the group are playing with the errata

According to the errated version, there are TWO important parts you are not getting.

Any one weapon within range that is not in the primitive weapon category instantly jams

Overbleed: For every 5 points by which you exceed the Threshold, you extend the Range of this power by 10 metres, or you can affect an additional weapon.

It may be just me, but these two things combine to make it a pretty darn powerful power. While spasm is worth picking up, nothing can shut down an attack like a psyker using weapon jinx.

Spasm:

-Affects 1 target
-Requires a contested willpower test
-has a chance of friendly fire
-only requires them to make a stand (1/2 Action) to be back to normal

-has a limited rang

Weapon Jinx:

-Affects 1+ target
-Works if you pass
-Only friendly fire is being in an explosive blast radius
-requires a full action AND passing (on average) a 30% test or that weapon is not in use

-range can be increased if needed

The only advantage spasm has is for creatures that don't have "guns" and even then, it is limited.

I must admit that it is ages since I have used weapon jinx, and when I actually was able to use it was it in a RT setting where it was more worth to get the bad guys to shoot their mega weapons of doom at themselves and score some easy kills instead of taking their weapons out.

I can see that I still have a lot to lean from the errata and the new ways some of the psychic powers work, and that I properly shouldn´t fear taking all our weapons out for a single round if I fail my willpower check using this power. Both my old GM and I read it for some reason as if all weapons then jammed... but there is no other than myself to blame for misreading a rule.

So thanks for this little detailed explanation... and excuse me as I now have to write a new power up on my wishlist

No worries, if it was written as in the book, it wouldn't be a great power, messing up your gear and tech, then needing to roll WP to make sure it sticks.

The DH/IH Erratta is a must read, it changes a lot of game things.

My biggest issue with Weapon Jinx is that we always have a tech priest in our group
So if I use it, he shoots me in the head for tech heresy....
Knack and Lucky are absolutely amazing powers for just about everything, combined they allow a psyker 40 - 50% chance to pass any test with a free reroll, which can be rerolled again with fate. They are my favorite powers, as I find most groups go combat heavy already.
Anyways just my two cents

He can't shoot you if you Weapon Jinx his gun

Fun fact, in future expansions, no character is allowed to have any stat-line above 45 in character creation. Even with background packages. Of course you can always house rule things, (as I encourage players to bring up new ideas) but what I read of your stat line and build thus far is actually really exciting. If one of my players/friends came up to me with this, I would be elated. Because those background packages are heavily built for roleplay and creating enemies and just giving tools for the DM to kill, main, or sabotage the party and in particular the player.

But if this is your first time playing DH and first character, I would highly discourage it, because if you took the combinations, you've pretty much stamped a death sentence on your character. Psyker also do not make friendly new characters. Lots of rules, lots of exceptions, and a LOT of roleplaying of how others treat you. Usually with hostility.

That being said, I've run a couple games of DH and have all the expansions. I must say, a starting psyker with willpower 50, I wouldn't allow. The biggest reason, is I find power min-max characters to be often distracting and not fun to roleplay with. The user usually builds them to abuse the rules and makes things more difficult for the GM to try and balance out situations for the party. More specifically, I never use nerf bats on characters, even if it does screw things up. But I have found when it comes to psykers, the want becomes greater as the character progresses.

I deal with these characters is a truly fair fashion and I warn them; If you build your character like this, where you ignore the background packages and all the other options you took to give you these huge boosts. I will violently introduce them into the campaign.

Just a little heads up.