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Tastiness question

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Hi, I have a rules question regarding the Zorak Zorani Berserker's tastiness feature.

Quoth the rule book:

"Tasty targets: The crit range of your melee attacks against tasty targets expands by 2 (usually to a natural 18+).
Non-tasty targets: Your attacks against non-tasty targets deal only half damage."

My question has to do with various spill-over effects that the Berserker can do (that aren't the direct consequence of an attack), and whether or not they are penalized against non-tasty subjects.

For example, the spell Touch of the Ol' Ratslaff is designed to be cast on one turn (but do nothing immediately), and then discharged as an interrupt action on a subsequent turn.  So let's say you cast it during a controlled turn, then next turn go berserk, then a non-tasty enemy triggers the spell.  Does the enemy take the full damage, or the half damage?

Another (simpler) example: Amanstan's Master: "Twice per day, when you miss with a melee attack, deal half the melee attack’s damage as fire damage to a random nearby enemy as a free action."  If the target of the fire damage is non-tasty, is the damage halved again?  (Meaning: deals one-quarter damage?)

Finally, let's look at Blood Frenzy: "While you are out of control, when you make a melee attack against an enemy, hit or miss, you also deal half damage to one of your allies engaged with that enemy."  Allies are never tasty.  So are they receiving one-quarter damage here?


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We had a long argument about the delimiters of "basic attacks" on the 13th Age Google Plus group recently https://plus.google.com/100723868528171387105/posts/T47cb512y4p

What I took from that discussion is that the designers expect the rules to be applied with more of a common-sense than a legalistic approach.  The important thing is to hammer out what you as a group (led by the GM) think is a reasonable interpretation of the rules and use that.  We're not aiming at Magic-the-Gathering levels of precision in terms of how rules interact.

I mention that because rather than try and get into a discussion about what does and does not constitute "an attack" I'm just going to give you my off-the-cuff rulings.  If they're in alignment with your responses to how you think the power should work then so much the better.  If not ... no sweat, just go with what you think and you're probably good.

  • In the Ratslaff case I would not halve the damage.  The damage was set up fairly when non-berserk and then triggered like a trap by the opponent.  Let them have the whole lot.
  • In the Amanstan's Master case I would not halve the damage.  The randomness of selecting the enemy makes it clear that this is a side effect not a targeted one therefore issues of tastiness should have no part in it.
  • In the Blood Frenzy case I would not halve the damage.  As the previous case, the extra damage is a side effect of the attack rather than the primary effect of the attack.
  • In general, I would apply the tastiness modifier only to an attack roll made directly by the berserker on his or her turn against a deliberately selected target.  That sounds restrictive, but it should still cover about 80% of cases.

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