Fria Ligans forum

Hi
Some questions about "Berserker" talent
- does it work if the character is broken from push roll damage, and it's not even in combat at that moment?
- does the talent effect end when there is no enemy to fight with?

Some questions about "Berserker" talent
- does it work if the character is broken from push roll damage, and it's not even in combat at that moment?

It depends on what attribute. If you become broken by damage (i.e. strength) due to pushing a skill roll, then no, because you will get the non-typical critical injury which means you are unconscious. If you become broken in any of your other three attribute, then sure, but do remember that you still are forced to attack any opponents that you can see and and a GM can rule that a person that you lost a manipulation attempt against is an opponent if you become broken in Wits or Empathy. If there aren't any opponents within sight, then you will act in the same manner as those people that ragequit computer games, punch or kick a inanimate object (in lack of a keyboard to punch) and that's it.

- does the talent effect end when there is no enemy to fight with?

It ends when there is no opponents within sight (broken opponents doesn't count).

Well, not RAW:
"PUSHED DAMAGE: There is one case where you don’t risk any critical injury when Broken: when you push a roll so hard that you break yourself." (PHB, page 110).

But pushing yourself so that you break yourself enable a lot of game breaking loopholes (this is one, but also the Orc racial talent, or the Hunter or Rider talent that does the same), so I would advise on adding a penalty, for example you could gain an "critical injury - other" like Fenhorn said. (But that might be a bit too harsh if they are considered lethal?)

I house ruled that you gain other criticals, that is less severe, but at least hinders constant loophole abuse. Like "Strained muscles - you must spend 1 WP to push Strength based rolls", and for the other attributes: "Exhausted", "Stressed out" and "Disheartened". Then you can use it as before, but just not spamming it without consequence.

It was a couple of years ago since I played FbL and you're right, you don't get the non-typical crit. injury if you push yourself. This was how we did it in our campaign. I have a vague memory that we started to do it this way because of the exploits that some players used (regardless if it was planned or not). We chose non-typical crit. injury because it is severe enough so players try to avoid using the exploit, but not lethal since you die after d6 days. I would be amazed if no one succeeds fixing the crit. injury within that time frame.