Hello all,

I have a question regarding the rules stated about using the new "alternate" rules of Rogue Trader and transitioning a Dark Heresey psyker to those rules. Perhaps it's because I was reading the giant block of text at midnight... regardless, I was not able to comprehend "all the lingo" that was being thrown around.

In Dark Heresey a psyker has a Psychic Rating which determines the number of dice that can be rolled to meet a target threshold number to beat. If this number is overcome, then the power works. Should the number be overcome AND have additional rules for Overbleed... those will happen. Also, should the player roll a 9 at all, a perils of the warp attack happens. A psyker can chose to use their Focus skill to enhance their roll by a number equal to their Willpower bonus, should they pass their skill check.

According to the new rules, there are tiers of power (lesser, normal, greater). These tiers determine how much of the warp you are drawing on and whether or not you may experience a perils of the warp attack. Also, the powers no longer have a threshold number to be overcome, but rather a Psychic rating to overcome? Did I read that correctly?

Also, are dice no longer rolled to determine the effect of the power? I want to make sure that I read that section correctly to confirm that dice are no longer rolled to determine if a threshold number is overcome. From what I remember reading, a psykers psy-rating (the number that used to determine the amount of dice you were allowed to roll) now is a baseline on the tiers. This baseline number is used to determine whether you manifest a power or not, it also determines how powerful that power is (the higher the baseline, the more powerful the ability). You then have to make a roll to Focus the power, unlike before, this roll is a percentage roll and not just your Psychic Rating in D10's.

OK... saying all of the above is correct... how does all of this translate into a Dark Heresey character using powers from Dark Heresey in the new Rogue Trader fashion?

Once they started mentioning the math behind it, they lost me. Something about for every 4 points of (insert something here) it would only count as 1 point for (insert something here).

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

It's kinda of complex, and you'd need to convert any powers (pyro, and lesser) that don't have direct conversion. You have the basics right. Each power has a roll for it often, but not always a will roll. You get bonus due to your effective psi score, and invocation. Your effective psy score is based on how you activated the power. (Which determines what risk you are taking.) Thus the average astropath has a 45-60% chance of pulling off a power without risk. Once your psi score hits 3-4 unfetered use becomes more interesting. It's a +10-15 bonus and with the advantages of being soul bound it's not that risky. It's not etirely clear exactly how to convert DH psykers. I'm hoping there will be a player's hand book that has a couple pages detailing a conversion. If I ever have time I may write a conversion myself.

One thing to consider is the Astropath class can be used for non astropath. Just replace the soul bound trait with the sanctioned talent (maybe the wrong one I check tonight) and let the psyker take another discipline with a bonus power instead of telepathy and astrotelepathy.

PS- For non-Astropaths using the Astropath class. I'm actually giving them both the telepathy, and another disipline as they as giving up a lot. Sure it seems nice to have 2 disiplines, but the nice power require you to go several powers in. It just seems odd to have a psyker who can't do telepathy....