Hallo there,
in our games we have used psykers very sparingly so far. Though now I’m preparing a psyker as a future party’s opponent and on the handbook met a couple of talents whose descriptions I can’t understand: could you help me?

«Corpus Conversion» talent
The handbook says that «for every two points of damage you take, you may add your WP bonus to your power roll» (pag. 114). Yet, in order to make a power roll, don’t you already have to roll «a number of dice up to your psy rating and add your WP bonus» (pag. 161)?
Or does it mean that the «Corpus Conversion» talent allows a psyker to add twice his WP bonus by taking two damages, thrice his WP by taking four and so on?
Still, isn't it a duplicate of the «Invocation» skill?

«Power Well» talent
I’m unsure about the description. As I understood it, the +1 to Manifesting rolls this talent gives isn’t added to the Power Roll: yet, should the Power Threshold be beaten and the «spell» be cast, then the «Power Well» talent comes into play to determine the overbleed, am I right? Or how does it work?

Thank you for your help.

I believe that Manifesting Roll, and Power Roll are synonymous. Welcome to the wording of a GW product.

No book to refresh my memory of Power Wells, but the errata covers Corpus Conversion :

Corpus Conversion on page 114 should read: “You
can siphon the health of your physical body to fuel your
powers. The Psyker may suffer the loss of one permanent
point of Toughness in order to gain a bonus 1d10 on his
next Power roll. A Psyker may sacrifice up to his Willpower
Bonus in Toughness points in this manner in a single
round, gaining an additional 1d10 to the Power Roll for
each point of Toughness sacrificed.”

Brolthemighty said:

It gives a +1 to the roll then? If it's like this, it's much more useful! Thank you!

ItsUncertainWho said:

Oh, yeah, the Errata. I always forget about the Errata. Thank you for pointing it out: now the talent makes sense.

Yeah, Power Well is definitely cool. Especially if you want to play the "careful" psyker who wants to avoid Phenomenas

I have to say I just can't see why any psyker would bother with Corpus Conversion in the errataed form. Yes, it could easily be argued that the old version was too powerful, but if you use Corpus Conversion to any regular degree you are going to seriously gimp yourself later on. Now, I believe the creator of the psyker rules was the one who came up with the errataed form, but that in their idea it became a talent all Psykers started with. In this case I can see a psyker using it in a situation where they really need that successful psychic power at some dramatic point in a campaign. However, as you still officially need to buy it why are you going to waste xp on something that you are barely ever going to use, and that harms you while doing it (again, unless you serious want to gimp your character)?

borithan said:

I think the idea is more that you can guarantee a power is manifested at the cost of some of your "soul" leaving you weaker. You might have a threshold 30 power that you absolutely have to get off to kill a daemon before it wipes out your acolyte cell, but there's a chance you won't roll high enough on the power die, so you choose to put your all into it, slaying the daemon and rescuing the party from the jaws of defeat. That's the kind of awesome cinematic moment that makes Dark Heresy great, and in my group would earn you some bonus XP from being fricking awesome!

Oh, I can see Corpus Conversion being used in exactly the kind of situation you described, but the fact that it is so totally gimping in the long run means it will be reserved for those few times when you really need to get that power off or you and the party will die. However, as it will be used so rarely (and has a big negative cost to it) I would struggle to see why a player would bother wasting their xp on it.

If it came for free, then I could see a player using it VERY occasionally.

Unerratat it was too powerful. With the errata it is an NSC ability. I know no player who would spend XP to buy that long-term harmful Talent.

If it were free i could see that some might get tempted in some dire situations, but not if they have to spend their hard earned XP first to get an option with such a dire consequence.

Speaking as a long time player, whose main character is now a 35k Psyker, I never had, and never will use Corpus Conversion. It would make being a Templar much more difficult. I much prefer keeping my 70 toughness, ty.

OTH, as a GM I have used the talent with NPC Psykers & Sorcerors, especially of nihilistic cults, who just like seeing the world blow up.

Ergo, from my vantage point, it's in the game for GMs to use as a dirty trick, that most real SANE people would never contemplate. Of course, whoever said Psykers are sane. Mine went through a mind-cleanse mid game at one time. Which proves the point I think.

We just houseruled corpus conversion. As everybody pointed out, the version in the DH book was too powerful, the version in the errata was VERY costly to use - moreso than we wanted it to be. (though the desperation scenario is exactly what you want this Talent for.)

I don't have the exact rule we wrote out for the resident psyker but if I remember correctly, we rewrote the power along the following lines:

Coprus Converson: "You siphon the health of your physical body to fuel your powers. The psyker may choose to take damage up to his Willpower bonus. S/he gets a bonus to their next Power Roll equal to the amount of damage voluntarily sacrificed. This damage cannot be healed through the use of Medicae or psychic powers, but must be healed naturally. This is a free action."

I'm trying to remember if we imposed a limit of WB on the amount of Wounds you could sacrifice, but I'm not sure anymore. We may have had a different ration as well (1 wound = +2 Power roll, with a max of WB).