This came up in discussion in my game last night (but didn't have to be decided b/c the guy w/ Hard Target wasn't being shot at)

Taking the full action Run results in -20 BS to attacks trying to hit the runner, +20 WS to attacks trying to hit the runner. No penalties that I know of to any of the runners rolls. (As such my players response was "why ever do a full move instead of a run?")

The talent Hard Target states that BS attacks against the person against the talent are at -20 BS when the person with the talent is Running or Charging.

The issue we had was how do these two interact?

One (the player with Hard Target's interpretation) way would be to just add them like any other bonus to get a total of -40 to BS attacks against running hard target. This makes sense with the rest of the game's usual system of stacking bonuses...

...but on the other hand -40 seems like a pretty high modifier for this.

If you interpret that it doesn't stack then Hard Target doesn't do much (only helps when charging if it doesn't stack with running)

So in the end, even thought the total -40 seems a bit high, I think I'm going to go with Hard Target stacks with Run, b/c that seems most consistent with the rest of the system, and makes the talent worthwhile.

...but boy are my players going to cry when they have to fight genestealers. (Run move of 72, Hard Target, Claws with pen 7, yay)

DocIII said:

Cause you might like to not fall over due to the Agility test you must take to remain on yer feet if running in "difficult" terrain, where "difficult" means anything else than perfectly smooth floor in optimal lighting.

Good point,

which again demonstrates how for the system to flow correctly you must take all applicable rules and apply their effects. At the time of the discussion we weren't taking into consideration the difficult terrain rules. (Which I need to remember to use more often, must put a post it on my gm screen to remind me).

Besides, +20 WS for opponents are sometimes less than optimal!

As fot the original question, I've taken it to mean that it doesen't stack. -20 when charging is pretty good by itself. -40 when running is insane. Does the errata say something about this?

I disagree: combined with a short range Full Auto Burst this results in a net -10.

If they don't stack the Talent is much less useful, and nets the owner no benefit to a regular cannon fodder Adept when running away from danger.

They've always stacked in my game

Hmm, as I read it, the base difficulty of hitting a running character is Hard (-20), and Hard Target adds an additional -20 penalty. That's pretty rough, but consider that the enemy probably has +10-+20 from (Semi)-Automatic Fire and will have +10 from Close Range as the character moves closer. If they Aim first, they get another +10-20 to hit, which increases to +20-30 with an Accurate weapon. On single shots, you can give them a red-dot on top of this to help hit a player if you're still having a hard time. Add the penalties (-40) and the range of bonuses (+10 to +60) and you get a potential range of +20 to -30 to hit a highly agile (40 agility) and specially trained moving target.

That seems fair to me. Moving targets are hard to hit even when they're not trying to be. It would actually be a little weird if were easy to hit a highly skilled moving target with a single shot without even aiming.

Er, I forgot to mention that GMs have a very powerful tool to counter any player who takes their ability to rush into combat with -40 for granted: pinning. Overwatch and Surpressing Fire both force -20 pinning tests, which force the player to duck behind a rock and quietly sob if failed. Note that this is not a fear test, and effects which resist fear only apply to pinning if they state specifically that they do so. To my knowledge, only Frenzy, Fearless, and the effects of talented or psychic leadership effects allow a player to entirely negate pinning. If I remember correctly, The largest bonus to resist punning one can get through talents (short of negating it at the costs of the drawbacks of Frenzy and Fearless) is a chance to reroll a failed test.

Also note that there's no reason you need to have only one enemy laying down surpressing fire. If you really don't want players to charge into melee, have a few there laying down fire. And maybe a small minefield if they're fans of Frenzy.

I have Hard Target and Running stack for the -40 penalty to hit. If you go with the other option then Hard Target is only useful when charging and someone has a readied shot/Overwatch waiting for you, which seems like a big of a shoddy payoff for the Talent.

Oh, and Flamers also do not use a WS test at all...

Hmm didn't know Adepts got Hard Target, though it was mostly for melee goons. Maybe -40 ain't so bad.

I don't think they do, which was why I compared our Van Damme (The original Hard Target) with the Cannon-fodder Adept without the talent in my post.

My whole point was that unless the effects stack, it would be just as easy to hit a slow-moving, crippled Adept with a move of 2 as to hit Ninja-Master Van Damme with move 5 and Hard Target. Both are running, ie a -20 to BS. Which does not make sense, and is not fair to the guy who spends all his XP on being Ninja Master Van Damme.

DocIII said:

The modifiers stack, so it is -40. And it is not too high either. Remember that when shooting you rarely use the PC's base Ballistic Skill, often they take half-actions to aim, or use semi-automatic or full automatic bursts which increase the ballistic skill. Then there's the fact that many weapons have a pretty long effective range (except pistols perhaps) which also gives additional bonuses to hit. So when you add these bonuses to the equation, the running and hard Target combo won't seem so overpowered. Sure, someone using it will be harder to hit, but not game-balance-breaking-hard to hit.

When contemplating game balance in Dark Heresy, remember to include ALL modifiers in relation to the situation in question.