In the errata it states;

Corpus Conversion on page 114 should read: “You can
siphon the health of your phyical 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.”

I think that is rather harsh. As written in the rulebook, you sacrifice wounds, which might very well cause you to get a crit in combat and end up having to burn a fate point in order to survive. I thought that was harsh, but acceptable, since I feel that making a "blood sacrifice" to fuel your power very well fits onto the grim feeling of the setting.

If one is to use Corpus Conversion as it is written in the errata, it is far much harsher in my opinion. You gan a temporary boost for something that very effectively permanenty decrease your characters change to be part of a long campaign. Its too easy to burn permanent Toughness, to drop your Toughness bonus, which will cause you to loose more wounds in every combat encounter, and in the end burn through your fate points even faster.

Psykers tend to be short lived as it is. Their powers come with enough setbacks to make their worth questionable (from a pure gaming perspective) at best. Too often you end up with unwanted phenonema that may cause severe disadvantages or ruin the attempts to complete an investgation the group of acolytes is trying to perform. Meaning you have to be careful in using them at all. Which means their worth is further diminished.

As I see it, Psykers are effectively in a - from a game perspective - situation almost as bad as the Wizard was in DnD 3 (and older) where he fire off his limtited selection of spells, only to then be reduced to the role of providing support with a crossbow. The only difference here is that a psyker is not limited in the number of times he can use a power, but that the powers carry to great a risk to cause unwanted havock. And in this grim setting that is all the disadvantage I think a psyker need (not even considered yet that daemons like to target them first, their social stigma, etc.).

A few advantages there is that a psyker can get;

Power Well - Can be taken time and again to add +2 to the Power Roll. Helps to actually manage to activate the powers at all, and allows you to roll fewer dice for the easier ones. Firebolt, Biolightning, for example are not much better off than a bolter pistol against most enemies, and carries far greater drawbacks. So any bonus to make them easier ot succeed with is deseperately needed.

Invocation - As a half action this is a pretty powerful boost to the power roll that carries few drawbacks. IMHO, it is the most balanced ot the "booster" abilities available to a psyker.

Corpus Conversion - Sacrifice your life to boost your psychic powers. As it was written in the rulebook, you took 2 Wounds to gain your Willpower Bonus again to the Power Roll. Something that increased your chance to succeed in using the powers, but in the end probably might cause your character to die and have to burn a fate point. The important thing here is _might_ cause.

As I see it, from the Errata 2.0. Corpus conversion _will_ cause your character to die faster. No doubt about it. Toughness Bonus is the most vital characteristic to survive combat, as it allows you to ignore lots of damage. Add to this that you have spent a big load of XP gaining the Talent to do this, and you have spent XP to increase your Toughness bonus, which for a psyker is medium in the range of being expensive.

Why do I post this you might wonder. I just wanted to ask how many of you are running it as written in the rulebook, and how many is using the errata version. And generally discuss the disadvantages and benefits between the two versions. I have given my opinion. And now I very much would like to hear yours.

Arioch said:

It's meant to be.

As it stands in the rulebook it is open to abuse. Psykers can heal their wounds to make the penalty barely felt. As it stands in the errata, corpus conversion it is, in my opinion much better, you truely are siphoning a part of your self to fuel the power. I've found it is used where success means everything even at the sacrifice of your own self. The motto of any God-Emperor fearing acolyte

Firstly, the psyker is everything but weak, especially after getting Favoured of the Warp which drastically reduces the chance of harmful phenomena.

Secondly, the problem with Corpus Conversion was that the damage was easily reversible - Regenerate can heal it as it occurs and even if you don't have that, Seal Wounds can be used in only one half action.

Finally, you can gain 10 power dice out of a single point of toughness bonus. You're not supposed to use Corpus Conversion in every fight - it exists so you can put everything you've got into that one vital power that absolutely must work. A fire Storm with five levels of Overbleed will kill stuff reliably. Depending on what you've rolled for toughness, you can even get up to nine uses of the talent that don't harm you at all, apart from reducing your chance to succeed in toughness tests by one percent.

Summa summarum: The errata-ed version is fine as it is.

I like the errata version, but now that I think of it I might also be amenable to something that allowed a psyker to gain bonuses on psychic power roles in exchange for Corruption Points instead of Toughness.

I usually run it so that the psyker gains 1d10 power, at the cost of 1d10 wounds and if the dice come up 9 you loose a point in toughness.

and the amount of times you use this most be stated before damage is rolled.

Somewhat related, the only combat drugs that really make a significant difference also cause permanent damage to characteristics.

Check out Slam (IH p 130) for example.

I think the Erratad version is better than the original, but I'd like to see both these combat drugs and CC made more usable. The reason being they're fun, but as things stand are never used.

Personally not a fan of the Errata Corpus Conversion. The problem with it is that most psykers now will not at all even bother considering the power seeing as how it's a permanent decrease to your stats. It's a lot like the combat drug Slam - It's extremely good, the problem is that with how harsh the penalties are (Permanent) people will not use it at all.

Slam should have penalties like Ghost Fire Pollen (which I've seen quite a few people use to very good effect) and Corpus Conversion should have to it temporary toughness decrease (i.e. Have it last for an hour or so) as opposed to a permanent decrease. That way people will use them more and the like. Though, truth be known, Slam's higher permanent penalties don't bother me so much as the Corpus Conversion just because of the fact that there's always that small subset of drugs which *WILL* cause permanent damage even when used without addiction (Plus 2x Strength Bonus and Toughness Bonus on a Feral Worlder can boost both of said bonuses up to 10, making them invincible for all intents and purposes, while Corpus Conversion may help you kill, but it isn't going to help you survive if what you shot at doesn't die).

By the way Cfier I think that Lupinroc was talking about a Psyker's ability to sustain damage as opposed to the Warp Phenomena. If you drop to 20-29 Toughness, well... that two damage reduction isn't going to help you much at all, plus if you're hit with anything that forces you to make a Toughness test, you're most likely going to be burning Faith Points like mad. And, should you be attacked in close combat... need I say more?

By the way Cfier I think that Lupinroc was talking about a Psyker's ability to sustain damage as opposed to the Warp Phenomena.

He also lamented that psykers had only a few "advantages", of which he forgot the most important one.

If you drop to 20-29 Toughness, well... that two damage reduction isn't going to help you much at all, plus if you're hit with anything that forces you to make a Toughness test, you're most likely going to be burning Faith Points like mad. And, should you be attacked in close combat... need I say more?

If you drop to 20-29 Toughness, that is (and let's not forget there is a good chance you start there anyway - 20+2D10 has a little less than even chances of stranding you in the 2x zone). On the other hand, if you start with, say, 34 toughness and buy one advance, that are 9 power dice to be used somewhere in your life that don't do you any good apart from toughness tests.

(Plus 2x Strength Bonus and Toughness Bonus on a Feral Worlder can boost both of said bonuses up to 10, making them invincible for all intents and purposes, while Corpus Conversion may help you kill, but it isn't going to help you survive if what you shot at doesn't die).

If the thing you used Corpus Conversion on isn't dead, you've made a mistake somewhere - the extreme case would be around five extra dice, which, assuming good old fire storm, each deal 1D10 extra damage on average. Something that isn't killed by 6D10+5 damage isn't meant to be killed.

Ah, he did forget Favored by the Warp and was talking about strengths overall, fair enough.

The point is though, why bother getting an ability you're rarely going to use, that's going to make your character easier to kill, when you could spend those hard-earned experience points on something else? It was an emergency "break glass" talent to start with before the errata and at least with the taking of wounds as opposed to toughness damage you could use it with a degree of frequency.

Now that you're doing permanent toughness damage to yourself, it's become less of an emergency switch and more of a kamakazi tactic. Instead of being hurt badly, but at least being able to recover, you're now putting yourself inches closer to death's doorstep with each use. If somebody actually takes the ability, then that creates a whole psychological effect of whether or not to use. Obviously the choice is if you're group is getting overwhelmed, but there's the wee issue of how much being overwhelmed qualifies for its use. For example, if you use it, take away a bit of your toughness, then suddenly one of your group in the next combat or series of test starts rolling a whole bunch of 10s... you're going to be feeling pretty stupid .

Not only that , but the reward isn't as good as you'd think. There's always a chance, however low, that you'll roll all 1's with that 6D10 + 5 damage. Suddenly, your grand firestorm becomes more of a trickle of pain. Keep in mind too that you're adding it to the power roll. Therefore there's a very good chance that you'll be rolling a few 9's and triggering all sorts of unpleasant Warp Phenomena.

Summing all this up: We have a talent you can buy in place of other skills/talents, which is going to reduce your toughness characteristic permanently, there's a chance that you'll be rolling 1's or other low numbers which will make you seriously regret using the ability and then there's a chance if you roll a really good number (9) that some sort of great calamity is going to occur. Unless you feel like creating a "throw-away" character or RPing a masochist, I don't really see any good reason at all to take Corpus Conversion, much less for it to exist in its current form. And as for your argument about raising Toughness... I don't have my Rulebook in front of me right now, but I believe that that's 500 experience points for just the firs advance. I really don't think that 500 experience points are worth 5 one-use power dice.

So, what was the biggest problem with the original version? It could be negated by being healed/regeneration powers.

The simplest solution to that is to prevent any kind of healing from removing them, requiring actual rest. Although I have no problem with the removal of toughness, for those who wanted the talent to be a more common use rather than a rare use that is about the easiest to do it.

By siphoning off your essence no amount of fiddling will fix it until you've had continuous rest. So if you've decided to sacrifice 3 wounds, you will be 3 wounds down until you receive rest.

Hellebore

I allow psykers to use it either way, however wounds incurred from the talent's use can not be healed by any means but medical attention and time (no first aid either, it has to be actual long-term healing).

This can be laid at my door, sort of.

The damage caused by using Corpus Conversion was never intended to be healed normally - Hellebore's post two back covers it nicely.

While playing around with alternatives, I started using CC more or less as the errata states; however, I made it a trait that all psykers automatically have - which I suppose, you could just call a "free talent" really.

I handle it by just making the Psyker lose a couple health point but with a twist. Following the use of the Corpus ability, the player suffers 2+ damage for every psykic ability he uses during a 24 period. I justify this by saying that the character used a portion of his health to fuel his power and the process cannot be fully reversed instantly.

I have to admit, I actually far prefer the Errata'd version, although I don't run it straight from the box. I've ruled that the toughness can be regained in the same manner as burning off Corruption Points- the rationale being that CC feeds your psychic abilities by subliming away your body and soul, so something that can restore your soul should also restore the damage somewhat.

I wouldn't allow psykers to clear both CP and CC damage at once though, they have to choose before going into the action segue of cleansing/whatever.

I do apologise if that wasn't particularly clear, I'm up around 10 hours after my bedtime...

Cifer said:

It would appear you are confusing me with Arioch, the original poster.

I like the errata version, if I played a psyker instead of GMing I would take it. You never know when it will come in handy.

Sometimes you don't need to pull something off, you need to pull it off amazingly well, as I said earlier and Cifer expanded on.

On the note of needing to succeed amazingly well, I say that adding +1d10 to the powerroll is worse of than the original version of the talent. Adding your +WP Bonus again to the roll, is much more likely to make that "amazing" success than adding another dice that further increase the risk of psychic phenomena.

And I have to agree, that in the original version, that you should only be able to restore those Wounds with natural healing (medicae treatment too). I have GMed DH since it came out. And since we decided to use all the modifications of the errate. No-one in my group has ever used that talent again. It was harsh enough to begin with. Granted, they never used regenerate or seal wounds to restore the damage. They fired of their powers and then retreated from combat after being seriously injured.

But then my players are pretty hesitant to use psychic powers that require them to roll more than 1 dice at all. Basically because of their bad luck of having at one time all their equippment destroyed by a Peril of the Warp, and suffering a Daemonhost shortly there after due to Perils of the Warp. Now the remaining psyker in the group finally has Favored by the Warp. And that helps abit. But the psychic phenomena is still severe enough at times to seriously alert people to the presence of the psyker. So using his telepathic abilities to gater information covertly is something that is made more "dangerous" (meaning greater chance of failure) than just using; charm, deceive, inquiry, or interrogation to get the information you need. And as my players have discovered, a gun muzzle to the head is a great persuader to people telling you things (not necessarily true things).

As for psykers in combat. Anything with a TB5 and a few points of armour, will mostly ignore the "common" attack powers (most dealing something like 1d10+ 2 to 4 points, or adding WP bonus). Making the increased risks of rolling 9s a great factor to use a bigger gun instead.

Yes, psykers are invaluable still in combat. They are the equivalent to a "demolition charge" that you have in the group.Holocaust is a guaranteed way to kill most things (including the psyker). But most often, unless you face daemons in most encounters, they are better off carrying the biggest most damage dealing gun they can. Which is why I compared them to the crossbow firing wizard of dnd 3.

A more reasonable version of the errata Corpus Conversion would be temporary Toughness damage (maybe recover 1 point per day of rest). That still hurts a character really bad. But is not a character "breaker" in that hard earned advances will terminate the character before a 2 to 3 year long campaign is over. And it allows the players to actually use this particular talent a bit more.

Thank you for your replies. It provided some good food for thought. And will allow me to house rule this talent a bit better once I have decided what route to take with it.

Why do so many people think psykers are that powerful? Granted Holocaust and Fire Storm are pretty good but the rest of the damage dealing powers loose to a heavy stubber and a Bolt Pistol by the way is a lot better. You also have to keep in mind that a normal weapon doen't carry the risk of phenomena, so if a psyker power does less damage than a the normal weapons the player group can get, its utterly pointless to use.

Yes a psyker can potentially have a lot of usefull minor powers, but each carrys the risk of phenomena and that tends to be pretty bad in an investigation, because it more often then not means shout out Inquisition and flash badges or be killed. Beeing a known psyker is the same as beeing an arabic looking guy the day after 9/11. So while the powers sound awesome most of the time it's to risky to actually use them

Also given the fact that each use of a power can result in a TPK a Psyker can only use his powers when he has a fate point left or it's a do or die situation. The analogy of the wizard with the crossbow is a good one, because just like the wizard ha psyker has cool powers, which he doesn't use most of the time. And that is even with favored by the warp (which you don't get that fast by the way).

Patrick said:

Really? Not having any Fate Points left didn't slow my groups psyker down any. Heck, it wasn't until after she had burned her last Fate Point to avoid being a daemon's puppet that she got Favored by the Warp (mostly on account of almost becoming a daemons new suit). Once she got that, rolling a 9 was like Christmas morning to her (she likes choosing the phenomena that would best the spookiness of her psyker). And she was all kinds of sick powerful.

It wasn't attack powers that made her crazy powerful either, it was healing powers. She was a biomancer with all the healing powers. Combat with her usually involved the rest of the group attacking the enemy with her healing them up every round if anyone so much as got a paper cut. Towards the end, barring special circumstances that mucked with her connection to the warp or the veil, the group simply could not be injured. If a character was not out right killed in one shot, they would be, for the most part, healed back up to full the next round. Since she had been an original character from when we first starting playing DH (and had started out of the gate with healer) the group had learned to play the game without ever experiencing natural healing. The first fight they were in after she had died was a cold shower indeed for them but I can finally have stories with bloody battered heroes. I'm just glad CC never caught her eye... she might still be alive. Granted, I loved the character, but having a group where threats can be a bit more varied as opposed to threats that will either be completely owned by the group or ones that will completely own the group (which were the only two kinds of threats that could exist while the psyker was around) is quite a nice change of pace.

As for Corpus Conversion, for those that think the Errata is too harsh but the main book is too light, you can always house rule a good mid-ground. For instance, CC could simply do 1d10E damage that bypasses armour and toughness for a WPB increase to the power roll. That way it dose non-permanent damage that doesn't require extra book keeping but is a bit more dangerous (and thematically as unpredictable as most other psyker related things). I also like the suggestion by someone else way up thread about having CC give out some corruption points along with a few wounds. While the wounds snow the psyker using their body and health to fuel a power, the corruption points would show them burning their soul out and drawing on more power then they should, power that can **** them if they are not careful. At first, they would probably toss it around like it was nothing, but as the corruption begins to build, they will start to seriously think about using it the talent and reserve it for emergencies. Even in such situations, however, the player may be a bit more likely to take and use the power as a few more corruption points usually don't make a character unplayable (a character becoming unplayable due to corruption seems a bit harder to achieve then one made unplayable due to mortality).

@Patrick

On the other hand side, a psyker has his weapons available, period. No amount of inconspicious investigating or upper-class ballrooms will make him leave his brain at the door (although I've sometimes got my suspicions about players doing just that when there's more to an investigation than just going in and cracking heretic skulls).

Also, damage dealing is just one aspect of psyker powers - as Graver explained, the instant healing is extremely potent and Divination and Telepathy powers are not to be sneezed at either. Psykers are definitely not suffering from being underpowered and the risk of Phenomena is pretty much the only thing keeping them in check.

@Cifer: Ok yes a optimized Psyker with Firestorm and or Seal Wound is not underpowered, but thats mostly because those powers are a bit unbalanced especially Seal Wounds. Such a psyker will do fine in a combat, assuming phenomena don't matter, but if you don't take at least one of those powers and try a more subtle approach you will have a hard time. Telepathy powers sound great in theory, but they are extremly risky to actually use. Diviniation is good, yes, most notably the investigative powers, but the psyker has to get something for the risks his powers have.

My problem with the psykers is, that the insanly high chance for phenomena makes it extremly difficult, bordering on impossible, to remain subtle and actually use your powers. Also the powers are not balanced against each other, a few a very good others are rather pointless. I mean when you read post discussing the overpowerdness of the psyker you only see a very small selection of powers mentioned over and over again.