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Hey, I am going to be in a dark heresy game in about 3 weeks and I wanted to know whether psykers are "required" or not. I can see them as incredibly useful but having never played a game of DH yet I can't tell if you would really need one in order to have a chance of survival. I mainly ask because I am looking at playing either a cleric(first choice) or a psyker. If we need a psyker then I have no problem playing one since it would be a fun role playing oppertunity.

I wouldn't say they're essential in DH at all.

In fact in many situations your survivability may well be enhanced by their absence. They do have their uses however.

IMO the techpriest is the only guy who is pretty much essential/needed.

Im not sure if I would say any class is REQUIRED to play in a Dark Heresy Campaign. A Techpriest is invaluable however a Scum can fill that slot up to a degree. Not saying its equal substitution. It should be more up for the DM to craft the story about the players he has.

Its not like D&D where you will most certainly require a Healer. Our team got by before we added the Tech Priest & Psyker just to try them out.

Thanks for the help guys.

Someone with the ability to heal is always useful though.

I can tell you from experience that pyskers can be detrimental to your characters survival.

There are a few schools of thought regarding this.

The first fundamental is that no class is technically required to play dark heresy. This is true on many levels, but certain skills are required to play dark heresy (the character skills, such as medicae)

The second is that normally people understand that cover is their friend, thus take far less damage. If your party is just jumping out from a DnD style game, I would suggest someone have a heal for a while until they realize this or they realize by having characters die.

The third is about psychers, they are technically spellcasters with infinite usage of all their powers, but with a 10% chance for crazy to occur. Sometimes, a party will want a psycher because it adds to the game experience, other times they will curse him for all the nonsense.

It's all up to what you want to play, if the party already has quite a few players with a focus on melee, you might wanna roll the psycher just to be different.

Also, telekenisis is pretty much the best all around disipline, with either pyromancy for moar damage or biomancy for better survival rates. Though, that one power divine shot makes using a rocket launcher probably the most enjoyable thing in the whole game. Use power, instant hit, regardless of other circumstances. Use on the faces of bosses for laughs.