Suggestions for a first time Dark Heresy Psyker

[Snownine]

I have recently started playing Dark Heresy for the first time and I chose to go with the psyker class as it sounded like it would make for interesting gameplay. I am getting close to where I can get psy rating 3 and start getting my discipline powers and I have a few questions about them. Firstly, is it a good idea to master a discipline to get the threshold bonus or should I go for more versatility and take powers from different disciplines? We are mostly newbies so I am not looking for optimization or getting things absolutely perfect, I just want a competent psyker that is fun to play. Secondly, What are your guy's thoughts on the different disciplines? Which ones are your favorites, or are the most useful?

Thanks for anything you guys have to share.

[Hylas]

I have a telekinetic psyker that I play in a rogue trader game so I was able to start off with 5000xp. I'm almost to 7000xp at this point. In my experience I get more use out of the minor powers than the big telekinesis ones, and those are usually limited to having to blast a tank apart because the party decided to get into a gambling scenario that escalated poorly. If you have a decent willpower bonus you should get plenty of minor powers. I recommend wall walk and the one that lets you appear to be somewhere else.

For the disciplines I picked telekinesis. Our group gets into a lot of trouble so being able to block bullets and do a lot of damage to many targets is good. Being able to move and use stuff at range is always useful as well. The other two disciplines I was considering was divination and biomancy. Divination has plenty of uses, but a lot of tables. Biomancy has a wide variety of abilities, from healing, to lightning, to buffs, to debuffs. It doesn't seem to be the best at doing any one thing, but it has a lot of things to do.

Pyromancy is neat, but has the single trick of burning stuff. When you have a limited selection, you don't need 5 different abilities to hurt people with. Though I'm sure with a little creativity you can get plenty of miles out of it.

Telepathy is kinda eh to me. Reading minds can be incredibly useful but you'll usually end up getting corrupted and insane if the GM is getting tired of your abilities (as anyone you try to read the mind of with more corruption or insanity than you will mess you up). As a psyker you're already risking plenty of corruption and insanity without your abilities causing more.

As for focus VS diversity I say it mostly depends on your willpower bonus. If you have a Willpower bonus of 5 or more by psy rating 4, then you'll get a lot more abilities by focusing as your choice is either 3 minor + 3 discipline or 1 new discipline and power. Is it worth getting all 10 discipline powers for the bonus? Probably not. There's probably 5 or so powers that you really like, so you'll want to branch out at some point. When I can get Psy Rating 5, I'll be picking up divination to help supplement the crew. Right now I'm the only person in the group with Tech Use, so might as well make everyone think I'm completely indispensable by predicting the future. ;)

[king.com]

I have recently started playing Dark Heresy for the first time and I chose to go with the psyker class as it sounded like it would make for interesting gameplay. I am getting close to where I can get psy rating 3 and start getting my discipline powers and I have a few questions about them. Firstly, is it a good idea to master a discipline to get the threshold bonus or should I go for more versatility and take powers from different disciplines? We are mostly newbies so I am not looking for optimization or getting things absolutely perfect, I just want a competent psyker that is fun to play. Secondly, What are your guy's thoughts on the different disciplines? Which ones are your favorites, or are the most useful?

Thanks for anything you guys have to share.

First time? Pick whatever you think sounds cool. Seriously, the game isnt about optimization or combat etc. First time just experiment.

My favourite is Telepathy because its a lot of fun doing the mind-control show or ripping information from someones minds.

Diversity is if you want to be the D&D wizard and solve all the problems all the time. Again just pick whatever, you'll probably still have fun.

[Asmodai]

Everything is good for a Psyker. It's not like you're likely to live all that long as one anyway ;)