Alright, BoM, p. 89, Holy Hatred, plus Heresy Begets Retribution, p. 7. Heroine of the Order.

Do these stack? I would accept that they do, as Holy Hatred effectively reads that they do have the hatred talent against "any target that is not a true servent of the Imperium of Mankind (GM's discretion)," and Heroine of the Order just requires the hatred talent to provide sanctified, proving(3), and auto confirm righteous fury.

Obviously, being ascension level, its certainly legitimate for a PC to really crack open the difficulty curve if they play their hands right, and such talents do make it difficult to perform an investigation in secrecy.

Just that there is a feeling in my mind that this is pretty heavy munchkining. How do others classify "true servants"? Is this humans only, or can warp entities/xenos be included as not being "true servants"? Obviously this can get out of hand real quickly (other ascension level classes force to pick out mutants/heretics/daemons, so allowing one to pick hatred(anything I don't like) is a bit extreme). I'm thinking they must be at least human for this to count, but can certainly be broader than "heretics," and mean any individual who is not as faithful as a SoB (basically anyone without Pure Faith, at least in my book).

Anyway, given the access to other hatred talents, its not like the Celestian's actually are the problem with how cray Palatine's can become, but it seems like an easy way to justify never taking hatred talents, getting Holy Hatred, and using that to allow Heroine of the Order to get crazy.

Note that I am coming at this as a GM, with a player who is possibly interested, not even committed to playing a SoB (and the game would start at rank 4, so its not like this is even immediately an issue)

To me, reading it that you might have a hatred of psykers but that isn't going to work against a sanctioned psyker unless they are a traitor. Hating everything it'self isn't nescesarily unbalancing, having Hatred (Heresy, Xenos, Deamons) pretty much covers it but is it unbalancing to confirm rightous fury against them, (proving is a bit useful, santified is **** useful against some foes), I don't know. I imagine by that point confirming RF is pretty common anyway and the santified is their stock in trade but I don't know about how that balances with the other Assenscion classes.

You could say however, that while they can Hate everthing for other purposes but only their original specific hatred counts for this power, possible.

I didn't get the impression that santified or proven(3) were really that overpowering. I don't see a reason to disallow it.

The hatred of everything may be by itself a little powerful in that they don't have to buy a bunch of separate hatreds, but that's all I see. Still not that powerful as only one hatred bonus stacks, I believe, and SoB aren't really known as melee power houses, much more ranged type character build.

One way to solve it, since Blood of Martyrs came out after Ascension, might be to lump them together into an "Ascended Talent" of some sort, simular to gunfighter saint or unassailable grace.

You have to at least pick up 2 Hatreds to qualify for the Celestian alternate rank anyway so its not as if you can justify them not having any at all.

andrewm9 said:

Problem is that you can pick it up as a Repentia as well, without having the 2 Hatred talents. Then again, in that situation it isn't as much of a problem since RP wise it makes it impossible to become a Palatine.