Homebrew Talent: Berserker!

[AeonThePhoenix]

A Hero with this Talent is able to release powerful but unpredictable battle lusts during combat. The berserker state is either triggered by rolling a double during Combat or by the Hero spending a round working themselves up into a Berserker Rage.

While in a Berserker state, for Combat Rounds equal to the Hero's SKILL the Hero may add their current Weapon Special Skill points to their Damage Roll. During this state, the Hero may not leave the battle or change opponents unless the current opponent is killed or flees the battle faster than the Berserker can keep up.

Once the Berserker state is over, the Hero loses their Weapon Special Skill bonus for the rest of the Combat, and must subtract their Weapon Special Skill from all Armor rolls to indicate their exhaustion. If the Combat ends before the Berserker Rage is burnt out, the Berserker must continue attacking, even if the only available targets are allies.

So, what do you think and what would I need to change or alter to make this Talent more balanced? Any suggestions and/or constructive criticism are welcome.

[parkusuk]

I think i personally would deduct weapon skill points from armour during the beserk rage rather than after. Otherwise what will happen is that the beserker will kill all or most of his opponents in the beserk rage, and the armour penalty will have little effect much of the time.

By having it as a +- situation during the rage, the beserker does lots more damage, but is much more vulnerable

[AeonThePhoenix]

Is losing the Weapon Special Skill bonus then enough of a drawback for the remainder of the combat?

Perhaps after the berserk moment the Hero should also suffer a negative penalty to SKILL and also be unable to rage again for a set/variable duration?

As a rolled double would potentially extend the rage further, how about a cumulative -1 to SKILL for every rage (incomplete or otherwise) and it slowly restores at the rate of +1 SKILL per hour?

That would potentially make a berserker with no regard for anything but killing all in sight regardless of their own survival, crazed enough to attack their own comrades and potentially capable of losing themselves to the rage and dying as a result, which to me describes a berserker perfectly.

[Slloyd14]

Skill penalties are a tricky area as then the beserker may find the combat impossible if they get a -3 penalty or more against opponents whose skill matches their skill + weapon skill. This talent is very similar to the Feint combat option on page 64 where if the hero decides to do this both he and his opponent gets to add 1 to their damage rolls.

There is an all out attack option where for every -2 the hero takes to their attack strength, they can increase the amount of damage they deal by 1.

How about the beserker talent reduces the penalty from the all out attack strategy to -1 to attack strength for every increase in damage by 1 point? A -1 penalty is not too bad and if the beserker faces an opponent with a much lower skill, they can choose to take a bigger penalty.