Hey everybody,

Well, in a peculiar scenario, my acolytes have currently fought pretty much everything from Daemons to Genestealers, Heretics and Psykers, Mutants and Hybrids-

They are now at one of the final "bosses", the cult magos- who is not only a psyker, but a heretic, a xenos, and for all intents and purposes a possessed mutant.

The Sororitas has three hatred talents (mutants, Psyker and heretic), all of which this guy for all intents and purposes is. So he gets a nice +30 bonus to hit him with a sword (In this case an eviscirator).

I don't feel that these talents should stack- and in all honesty, the hatred (heretics) talent is a pain enough by itself [in 40k, EVERYBODY who doesn't agree with the sister becomes a heretic ]

He however, feels that they do- well, because it doesn't say they don't.

Anybody know the official ruling on this?

While I in no way have an official ruling, i can say with a reasonable degree of certainty the rules not saying you can't do something is not the same as them saying you can.

A rule of thumb with rpg rules: they state what you CAN do, not what you CAN'T. If the argument that "the rules don't explicitly state that I can't do something therefor i can" were true, then in Dark Heresy you could by Lighting Attack 23 times and have 69 attacks per round (the rules don't say you can't do that), you could survive a 5 megaton nuclear explosion (it doesn't explicitly state anywhere in the rules that a 5 megaton nuclear explosion would kill your character), and a character can preform 2,000 full action aims on the same target to get a +40,000 to their BS test (as, again, it doesn't explicitly state that you can't stack the bonuses for aiming at the same target for 2,000 rounds). Just because the rules don't say you can't do something is not a good argument that you can.

My own two cents. The hatred talents are a bit vague as to the exact groups they cover. This is to make sure you can hate a lot of different folks with the glorious possibility of hating everybody. If they were meant to stack, however, a bit more thought and restrictions would have been placed on exactly who is covered by what (and they would have mentioned that they stack like everything else that stacks). In the end, Hating something, while commendable in the Imperium, will only take you so far. It'll give you an edge, but it won't win the battle. You still have to have the skills and strength to fallow through on your hatred in the end.

It's not official, but then again, official rulings don't really matter all that much. if it were my player I'd just tell him I don't care what the book says or doesn't say; in my game, this is how things work, period. Players tend to only have their character's and their own interests at heart while the GM must have the consider the entirety of the game, it's future, and the group -his or her say wins out over a single players.

As usually, I agree with Graver.

@OP

I don't feel that these talents should stack- and in all honesty, the hatred (heretics) talent is a pain enough by itself [in 40k, EVERYBODY who doesn't agree with the sister becomes a heretic ]
I assume that this is intentional - only the Sister, the Reaper and the Redemptionist (read: The three most mental characters of the game) get Hatred (Heretics). Though you might require the enemies to be actual heretics - that is, their practices have to be branded as heresy specifically or in general by the Ecclesiarchy.

Cifer said:

First off, in terms of stacking, agreed, on everything said so far.

The problem with this idea is that, unlike the GM, the characters do not know everything. They don't always know for certain if someone is a heretic or not. The talents represent character perceptions, which is one of the few areas the GM does not have complete control over.

I nearly always argue in favor of the GM, by virtue of being the GM. In this instance, though, if a player can come up with a reasonable, in-character justification for applying an individual to their hatred talent, then I think the GM would be making a mistake not to allow the talent to apply.

The problem with this idea is that, unlike the GM, the characters do not know everything. They don't always know for certain if someone is a heretic or not. The talents represent character perceptions, which is one of the few areas the GM does not have complete control over.

Depends on what Hatred actually means... if it's just "You hate that guy and that's why you hit him better", you're right. If it's "You hate that kind of guys and have studied how they fight, which is why you hit them better", they'd have to actually fit into the category. In general, though, Hatred Heretics will likely fit about 90% of the enemies your common non-Ordo-xeno acolyte cell will encounter.

Cifer said:

Which really isn't that big of a problem. +10's are the candy of combat. It's not too hard to get them and, while they are delicious, they don't have much in the way of fortifying vitamins. So having a +10 apply to most any enemy you face is about the same as having a bq melee weapon, etc. It's a nice edge that comes at a price (if you hate them that much, you'll have a hard time dealing with them in any way that isn't immediately detrimental to their health... strictly an rp price, but one that should be enforced) so i don't see much of a problem with it's umbrella of inclusion. It would only be a problem if they stacked...

Cifer said:

Agreed. I never actually considered that interpretation of the talent. It makes sense, I suppose. (Although if that is what the talent represented, I would give them a somewhat more substantial bonus than +10 WS) I could see it going either way.

In my first DH campaign, this question came up. I decided to let Hatred talents stack and allowed Hatred (Heretics) as an elite advance late in the campaign (rank six-seven I think). The character in question was a melee monster in any case, the stacking of talents just made it more so. That and the question of "who counts for which hatred talents?". In future, I think I'll cap it at a maximum of +10%.