The Problem Rune Spells (and a quick-fix for most)

[Dragon]

On 2/13/2020 at 10:17 AM, lordabdul said:

They don't. Here's the full text (emphasis mine):

A victim of Befuddle may not attack, cast an offensive spell, sound the alarm, and so on. However, if attacked, they may parry and defend at full value. Beginning the next melee round, the affected victim assumes that who- or whatever attacked them is their enemy, and will extend that to the caster’s obvious allies.

So if you get attacked, you assume those people are your enemy. But when you get attacked, you can only parry and defend anyway... I think the second sentence is meant to say: "However, if attacked, then may fight back at full value" ?

I always figured this was why you have an Eurmal in your party to cast a Illusory sight of the enemy and pretend to attack the befuddled enemies. (pretend meaning it has no Illusory Substance). With a couple Befuddled enemies getting attacked by the illusion, you quickly have all the e.g scorpion men attacking each other. Or maybe red-cloaked Lunar soldiers.

And yes, in my Glorantha, the Befuddled get their full Skill to attack in those second, and later, rounds.

[Dragon]

Never discount the Babeester Gor. She has Axe Trance, could have a dagger-axe (3d6), with Slash added; or she could have a battle axe (d8+2), Axe Trance, Slash (lets say three to ensure spirits die fast), and a shield with Earth Shield to absorb everything that can hit her after the massive skill decrease. A Babeester Gor can match a Humakti pretty evenly. Though she doesn't get Morale. She does get Heal Body from Ernalda. YGMV, but I tend to go with Heal Body as preferred. Might take a little more RPs for Slash vs Truesword, but the high end is much higher.

Note: It seems to me that many posters are suggesting that a Humakti/BG with skill of 200% after X Trance will decrease the skill of every combatant by 100%. When I read the rules, I believe it means the one combatant they are concentrating upon. From page 201 "the opposing skill is reduced by the amount that the adventurer's skill is above 100%'. Next bullet on p202: 'If both combatants have combat skills...'. So if you send your Tranced Humakti/BG or Berserk BG/Uroxi with skills around 200% against 5 opponents with skills around 75%, the other 4 opponents are going to have full skills, and presumably some will take positions behind the adventurer so he cannot parry (yep affects the Earth Shield too). The Berserk isn't going to be parrying anyway.

That does considerably reduce the overwhelming power of X Trance and Berserk. Don't leave them without backup. That Babeester Gor with Earth Shield doesn't want any enemies behind her. Unfortunately, her shield skill isn't boosted by the Axe Trance, where it would be wielding the dagger-axe.

I also make it an option. That is, the player with skill of 140% fighting another with 100%, may choose to keep his 140 skill for the 7% crit and 28% special rather than 5/20. As he will be parrying at the same levels (assuming 2H), he can probably parry the opponent. And if the Chaos beast is sporting +16 chaotic skin, full iron plate, and 4 points of Shield, he may just want that critical! He has increased his critical chance 40%. I know my main character in RQ2 (with 215% bastard sword after her first 4 years) chose that option against certain enemies.

Yes, in my examples I tend to use 200% after Trance, because we rarely had more than a round to prepare or launch missiles. YGMV. The Allied Spirit casts the Earth Shield/Vigor and then Slash/Strength, from the Axe Sister's RPs and stored MPs. Then prepares to cast Heal Body on SR 12 of every future round, cancelling it if not needed. But you could rule that the Allied Spirit is also affected by Axe Trance, and thus cannot cast Strength (The Earth Shield/Vigor goes off before the Axe Trance takes effect - well Vigor may be close) or use Heal Body.

Fun times!

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, Dragon said:

Never discount the Babeester Gor. She has Axe Trance, could have a dagger-axe (3d6), with Slash added; or she could have a battle axe (d8+2), Axe Trance, Slash (lets say three to ensure spirits die fast), and a shield with Earth Shield to absorb everything that can hit her after the massive skill decrease.

RAW, she won't be using a shield while the Axe Trance is up. That's part of the point of the trance.

2 hours ago, Dragon said:

But you could rule that the Allied Spirit is also affected by Axe Trance, and thus cannot cast Strength (The Earth Shield/Vigor goes off before the Axe Trance takes effect - well Vigor may be close) or use Heal Body.

I see no reason why the Allied Spirit would be affected. Sure they're connected, but not to that extent. There'd be FAAARRRRR too much munchkinnery if you allowed that!

[Kloster]

6 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

RAW, she won't be using a shield while the Axe Trance is up. That's part of the point of the trance.

Just cast Shield before you cast Axe Trance.

[Akhôrahil]

9 hours ago, Dragon said:

Note: It seems to me that many posters are suggesting that a Humakti/BG with skill of 200% after X Trance will decrease the skill of every combatant by 100%. When I read the rules, I believe it means the one combatant they are concentrating upon. From page 201 "the opposing skill is reduced by the amount that the adventurer's skill is above 100%'. Next bullet on p202: 'If both combatants have combat skills...'. So if you send your Tranced Humakti/BG or Berserk BG/Uroxi with skills around 200% against 5 opponents with skills around 75%, the other 4 opponents are going to have full skills, and presumably some will take positions behind the adventurer so he cannot parry (yep affects the Earth Shield too). The Berserk isn't going to be parrying anyway.

This isn't quite it. Anyone you attack will have their parry/dodge reduced. Anyone who attacks you will have their attack reduced (but with less and less as the -20% penalty kicks in). You're still ungodly tank if you can suck opponents into engaging with you while the others support with spells (this is one of the best tactics in the game even without Sword Trance, because of how outside of melee, you're likely to get two actions per turn, but only one per turn while in melee, so anyone staying out of it can support with two spells per turn as long as they're not too big).

[Akhôrahil]

6 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

RAW, she won't be using a shield while the Axe Trance is up.

This isn't in the rules. It's possible it might get into the rules later.

[Shiningbrow]

39 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

This isn't in the rules. It's possible it might get into the rules later.

The guy who actually writes up the rules has,already stated quite clearly that it will be the official ruling, and that the next version of all weapon Trance spells will be a trance, copying (almost verbatim - just change the weapons) the  Arrow Trance from Bestiary:

Arrow Trance

1 Point

Self, Temporal, Nonstackable

This allows the user to merge their consciousness with their bow, doubling their bow skill rating. The user enters a trance in which the only things that exist are bow and targets. The user moves only to get a clear shot or find another target. The user can use no other weapon and cannot parry nor use the bow as a club. Even if engaged in melee, the user will fire an arrow at their opponent. While entranced, the user may cast only bow-related magic (Multimissile, Speedart, etc.) to the exclusion of all other magic, including healing (except that the user can heal their elf bow if it is damaged). If the battle ends before the spell expires, the user will stand at rest and wait for new targets. This is not a Berserker spell; the user knows who their friends and enemies are.

 

So, Earth Shield is of no use here (until you Heroquest and get a pass on that).

 Alternatively, get a Shield Trance spell, or Earth Sword/Axe spell

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

The guy who actually writes up the rules has,already stated quite clearly that it will be the official ruling

Quite so. And that hasn't happened yet. It absolutely isn't RAW at this point. By definition, rules as written have to be actually written, which they aren't.

Edited February 21, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[GAZZA]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

The guy who actually writes up the rules has,already stated quite clearly that it will be the official ruling, and that the next version of all weapon Trance spells will be a trance, copying (almost verbatim - just change the weapons) the  Arrow Trance from Bestiary:

Almost verbatim, you say? So you won't be able to parry?

If that's really the intention, I don't honestly see the point of Sword Trance/Axe Trance at all. Might as well just give them Berserk, perhaps with Humakt getting double against undead instead of Chaos. Note that Berserker RAW does not have any "will attack friends" or "cannot distinguish friend from foe" requirements, so that part of Arrow Trance is actually begging the question.

If you don't mean that they won't be able to parry with Sword Trance... then perhaps we'd better wait until that errata actually exists before we start celebrating, because it is not as clear as you imply in that case.

[French Desperate WindChild]

2 hours ago, GAZZA said:

Almost verbatim, you say? So you won't be able to parry?

as a bow trance, you have to use your bow for its main purpose (shoot arrow)

as an axe / sword / club trance, you have to  use your weapon for its main purpose (so attack and parry ) but not use a shield, for example.

 

It is only my view, what I feel about a weapon transe, you are focus on / one with your weapon, that s all

[Austin]

2 hours ago, GAZZA said:

If you don't mean that they won't be able to parry with Sword Trance... then perhaps we'd better wait until that errata actually exists before we start celebrating, because it is not as clear as you imply in that case.

You can parry with Sword Trance if you dual-wield swords!

And an enchanted iron broadsword has more hit points than a large shield, anyhow...

[Dragon]

Yes, RAW do not state you cannot use a shield, the shield just doesn't get the added skill. Firing missiles from a two handed bow not meant to parry is not a good analogy to how sword/shield or sword will be written in the new Sword Trance. Nor Axe Trance. Still a BG Axe Sister using dagger-axe under Axe Trance would be egregious munchkinery under the current and expected future rules. I just don't see it as quite as ridiculous munchkinery as some others in this forum.

Clarification to  Akhôrahil:

"Anyone you attack will have their parry/dodge reduced." At 200%, this will clearly be one opponent. Because if you attack two, you split, attack two opponents at 100%, and thus take nothing away from their parry skills (Fine, you could split 150/50 and take 50% from the first opponent). If you X Trance much higher, sure you could reduce multiple opponents parry/dodge - but never the full amount to every opponent.

"Anyone who attacks you will have their attack reduced (but with less and less as the -20% penalty kicks in)." Still don't see that in RAW. If you parry the first opponent, you reduce HIS parry/dodge by the amount over 100%, which reduces your remaining parry by that amount. You then get to parry the remaining opponents at 100% minus 20% for each additional parry. From RAW: "If both combatants have combat skills of greater than 100%, the combat skills of each is reduced by the amount the highest skill is above 100%. Thus, if a Sword Lord of Humakt with a 150% broadsword skill fights a Wind Lord with a 130% medium shield skill, the Sword Lord attacks at 100% and the Wind Lord parries at 80%." Thus the Sword Lord is at 100% for the rest of that round. I don't see why that doesn't carry over to the previous bullet example of the troll being reduced to 55%, and so the adventurer is reduced to 100%. Meaning, they don't still have skill over 100 to affect others in the same melee. I agree that RAW for that specific bullet (1st bullet point under Combat with Skills Above 100% to be specific), is vague. But the 2nd bullet clarifies it well. After the first reduction of an opponent's skill, you are no longer over 100. With the proviso that I would let the highly skilled choose how to allocate their <100 to each of their opponents, e.g. Axe Sister facing 5 trollkin with spears has 350 skill with Trance using a dagger-axe, and decides to reduce each trollkin attack by 50, getting her to 100. That way she reduces their chance to critical, and nothing else is getting through her armor, even if she misses the 40% or 20% parry.

I am suggesting you GMs use this clarification to reduce the OP affects.

 

[Dragon]

1 hour ago, Crel said:

You can parry with Sword Trance if you dual-wield swords!

And an enchanted iron broadsword has more hit points than a large shield, anyhow...

You don't even need to dual-wield. If you have broadsword and large shield before you entered Sword Trance, you can still parry with the one handed sword. See Jeff's reply somewhere about being able to parry even with a one handed weapon, so dual-wielding you can attack twice (without splitting) and still parry with either one of them.

Yes, the iron broadsword has more hit points than a large shield. But not more than any shield with Earth Shield cast upon it, by a wide margin. 🙂

[Dragon]

4 hours ago, GAZZA said:

Note that Berserker RAW does not have any "will attack friends" or "cannot distinguish friend from foe" requirements...

So, you don't think RAW "Personal safety and all but the strongest loyalties are forgotten in the rage to destroy" means you will attack friends. Maybe not the strongest loyalty friend, but the rest seem fair game. As GM, I would have the Berserk attack friends until he rolls under some Passion, e.g. Loyalty(Kheldon), Devotion. By Eurmal's lopsided balls, you know he is Berserk, cast Dispel Magic 4 with 2 boosted magic points! Or maybe Dismiss Magic 2 + 2 MP (SR 2 rather than SR6+DXSR).

Sure, he knows the enemies are his first priority, but that is about it.

[Akhôrahil]

30 minutes ago, Dragon said:

 

Clarification to  Akhôrahil:

"Anyone you attack will have their parry/dodge reduced." At 200%, this will clearly be one opponent. Because if you attack two, you split, attack two opponents at 100%, and thus take nothing away from their parry skills (Fine, you could split 150/50 and take 50% from the first opponent). If you X Trance much higher, sure you could reduce multiple opponents parry/dodge - but never the full amount to every opponent.

Also, Two-Weapon fighting, which is probably the more immediate case. But yes, once you hit several hundred percent, splittring also works.

30 minutes ago, Dragon said:

"Anyone who attacks you will have their attack reduced (but with less and less as the -20% penalty kicks in)." Still don't see that in RAW. If you parry the first opponent, you reduce HIS parry/dodge by the amount over 100%, which reduces your remaining parry by that amount. You then get to parry the remaining opponents at 100% minus 20% for each additional parry. From RAW: "If both combatants have combat skills of greater than 100%, the combat skills of each is reduced by the amount the highest skill is above 100%. Thus, if a Sword Lord of Humakt with a 150% broadsword skill fights a Wind Lord with a 130% medium shield skill, the Sword Lord attacks at 100% and the Wind Lord parries at 80%." Thus the Sword Lord is at 100% for the rest of that round. I don't see why that doesn't carry over to the previous bullet example of the troll being reduced to 55%, and so the adventurer is reduced to 100%. Meaning, they don't still have skill over 100 to affect others in the same melee. I agree that RAW for that specific bullet (1st bullet point under Combat with Skills Above 100% to be specific), is vague. But the 2nd bullet clarifies it well. After the first reduction of an opponent's skill, you are no longer over 100. With the proviso that I would let the highly skilled choose how to allocate their <100 to each of their opponents, e.g. Axe Sister facing 5 trollkin with spears has 350 skill with Trance using a dagger-axe, and decides to reduce each trollkin attack by 50, getting her to 100. That way she reduces their chance to critical, and nothing else is getting through her armor, even if she misses the 40% or 20% parry.

I don’t agree with this reasoning - the modification is per individual exchange only by my reading, and nothing indicates that it carries over for the rest of the round. If it did, all kinds of abuses open up.

Example: Humakti with 200% attacks Wind Lord with 100%. By your interpretation, after the attack, the Wind Lord is down to 0% parry and can’t to anything against a bunch of lesser skilled attackers. That doesn’t seem right.

[Dragon]

10 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Also, Two-Weapon fighting, which is probably the more immediate case. But yes, once you hit several hundred percent, splittring also works.

I don’t agree with this reasoning - the modification is per individual exchange only by my reading, and nothing indicates that it carries over for the rest of the round. If it did, all kinds of abuses open up.

Example: Humakti with 200% attacks Wind Lord with 100%. By your interpretation, after the attack, the Wind Lord is down to 0% parry and can’t to anything against a bunch of lesser skilled attackers. That doesn’t seem right.

My point in mentioning the splitting is that you can ATTACK only one person with one weapon at that skill. So you could only reduce the aprry skill of one, not multiple opponents, without splitting. And the splitting reduces your attack skill. So you could not reduce the parry chance of more than one opponent per weapon, in most cases. And in those cases, it wouldn't ever be by your original skill over 100. Hence the parry part of the equation is where the true abuse is found.

IMHO it does seem right. The Humakti's vastly better sword skill mesmerizes the Wind Lord and makes him ignore other attackers in the vain chance to protect himself against this obviously deadly weapon master, the Wind Lord still gets 5% parry against everyone. It seems less of an abuse than letting the Humakti parry e.g. eight 100 skill attackers, reducing each attack by 100, 80, 60, 40, 20, 0, 0, 0, and able to parry at 200 to 60%. Which keeps him alive to take out one of those 8 every round. Okay, eight is every direction around him in, so some would be attacking from behind without him being able to parry. YGMV.

[Lordabdul]

29 minutes ago, Dragon said:

My point in mentioning the splitting is that you can ATTACK only one person with one weapon at that skill. So you could only reduce the aprry skill of one, not multiple opponents, without splitting. And the splitting reduces your attack skill. So you could not reduce the parry chance of more than one opponent per weapon, in most cases. And in those cases, it wouldn't ever be by your original skill over 100. Hence the parry part of the equation is where the true abuse is found.

I agree with @Akhôrahil's interpretation here -- the handling of >100% skills is per-opposed roll. If you have 4 different rolls to make in a round, each 4 rolls will have their own individual >100% normalization, based on the skills of both contestants. It doesn't carry over because, first, it does indeed open up to various abuses and weird situations and, second, it's just more tedious and annoying to run because (1) you need to remember what the previous rolls did, which means keeping more notes as you run the combat, and (2) players will start arguing at the table about the best order of attack to make sure they take advantage of this "cumulative" resolution mechanic, which slows down an already slow combat system. But hey, whatever works at your table.

Either way, you should take this discussion over to the 100+ in combat skill thread, where a lot of this was already argued back and forth.

Last, remember that splitting attacks is only possible if the natural skill (i.e. skill score before any magic boosting) is above 100%. Someone with a skill of 90% can't split attacks even with Weapon Trance or whatever.

14 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

RAW, she won't be using a shield while the Axe Trance is up. That's part of the point of the trance.

I'm not totally sure yet what the revised Weapon Trance rules will look like, actually. For Arrow Trance, it makes sense that the character uses their bow to shoot and shoot and shoot. For Axe/Sword Trance, however, it feels OK that they can parry with their weapon because that's part of the natural fighting activity with that weapon. I'm not sure what the rules will say about using a shield. It also feels natural to me for a fighter to use a shield if they have a shield equipped on their arm already. Dropping the shield and going "attack only" feels too close to Berserking to me -- I would allow parrying and blocking at my table.

[PhilHibbs]

10 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Quite so. And that hasn't happened yet. It absolutely isn't RAW at this point. By definition, rules as written have to be actually written, which they aren't.

So you're saying that the spell is over-powered and needs to be fixed, the designers have said they are going to fix it, but still you say that it is broken and needs to be fixed. Er.... yeah, that's happening. Take the fix and use it, what's wrong with that?

[Akhôrahil]

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I’m not totally sure yet what the revised Weapon Trance rules will look like, actually. For Arrow Trance, it makes sense that the character uses their bow to shoot and shoot and shoot. For Axe/Sword Trance, however, it feels OK that they can parry with their weapon because that's part of the natural fighting activity with that weapon. I'm not sure what the rules will say about using a shield. It also feels natural to me for a fighter to use a shield if they have a shield equipped on their arm already. Dropping the shield and going "attack only" feels too close to Berserking to me -- I would allow parrying and blocking at my table.

What I expect is that it will be sword only, but not attack only. 

Depending on exactly how it’s phrased, you may or may not be able to hold your Shield up against missiles, stand in a shield wall, and other passive shield uses.

[Akhôrahil]

3 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

So you're saying that the spell is over-powered and needs to be fixed, the designers have said they are going to fix it, but still you say that it is broken and needs to be fixed. Er.... yeah, that's happening. Take the fix and use it, what's wrong with that?

Because there is no actual fix yet, only a vague intention that leaves a lot of questions open? Obviously I could house-rule, but what else is new?

Besides, it will be a pretty marginal fix. You will still easily get absurd percentages with your sword. It won’t help much.

[Dragon]

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I agree with @Akhôrahil's interpretation here -- the handling of >100% skills is per-opposed roll. If you have 4 different rolls to make in a round, each 4 rolls will have their own individual >100% normalization, based on the skills of both contestants. It doesn't carry over because, first, it does indeed open up to various abuses and weird situations and, second, it's just more tedious and annoying to run because (1) you need to remember what the previous rolls did, which means keeping more notes as you run the combat, and (2) players will start arguing at the table about the best order of attack to make sure they take advantage of this "cumulative" resolution mechanic, which slows down an already slow combat system. But hey, whatever works at your table.

Either way, you should take this discussion over to the 100+ in combat skill thread, where a lot of this was already argued back and forth.

Last, remember that splitting attacks is only possible if the natural skill (i.e. skill score before any magic boosting) is above 100%. Someone with a skill of 90% can't split attacks even with Weapon Trance or whatever.

I'm not totally sure yet what the revised Weapon Trance rules will look like, actually. For Arrow Trance, it makes sense that the character uses their bow to shoot and shoot and shoot. For Axe/Sword Trance, however, it feels OK that they can parry with their weapon because that's part of the natural fighting activity with that weapon. I'm not sure what the rules will say about using a shield. It also feels natural to me for a fighter to use a shield if they have a shield equipped on their arm already. Dropping the shield and going "attack only" feels too close to Berserking to me -- I would allow parrying and blocking at my table.

"the handling of >100% skills is per-opposed rolls." contradicts p142 Roleplaying in Glorantha "Opposed rolls are not used to resolve melee combat." 

I was using an example where the Tranced person was 100% in natural skill and +100 skill due to magic, so they could split (though my 150/50 split would be unthinkable). And that splitting caused them to be unable in most cases to reduce the opponents skill much. My intent was specifically to demonstrate that the Attack portion was not where the true abuse lies, as the Axe Sister/Sword Lord could only nerf one or two opponents, not 3+. Parry is where the abuse lies.

Don't even suggest that the Weapon Trance applies the addition AFTER splitting in this thread to each attack, as it makes this 'problem spell' even more of a problem.

This thread is about the 'problem rune spells', which is what we are still discussing. I suggested a minor fix which is that the skill over 100 only affects one opponent rather than every opponent (or you can divide it a bit) per round. Which is well within the RAW, with interpretation as I pointed out. I kept saying "YGMV". If you don't want my fix, don't use it. @Akhorhil (sorry, my copy/paste keeps making an entire URL. What are the keystrokes to linking a poster reference in this forum?) can keep complaining about how Weapon Trance is a problem. Note: you said 'whatever works at your table' so you are saying the same thing I am saying in this paragraph and have said since I entered this discussion. 

I would love to see the revised Weapon Trance rules. At the moment all I really got from Jeff's implication is that it it some kind of Trance (e.g. you don't want to Extension your Weapon Trance because you will die of thirst) and that you are somehow fixated on using that weapon. I figure maybe, just maybe, Jeff and company are reviewing these discussions to decide how to describe the rules in more detail.

Oh, and I will keep my opinion that Babeester Gor is likely the best 'pure' fighter cult. Resurrect possible, egregious munchkinery, Heal Body, etc.. Humakti are a close second, with maybe Gifts/Geases giving them as much of a lift as being able to be resurrected does to the BG.

[French Desperate WindChild]

30 minutes ago, Dragon said:

"the handling of >100% skills is per-opposed rolls." contradicts p142 Roleplaying in Glorantha "Opposed rolls are not used to resolve melee combat."

I think the "opposed" word was not about the "opposed rolls rules" but more :

A (150%) and B (60%) attack C

 so C's parade is reduced only to block A's attack. The C's parade against B's attack is not reduced (except -20% depending who is paried first)

[Lordabdul]

13 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I think the "opposed" word was not about the "opposed rolls rules" but more [...]

Yes, exactly, thanks. And, conversely, if A (130%) gets attacked by B, C, and D (all 80%), then BA is 50% vs 100%, CA is 70% vs 100%, and DA is 80% vs 90% (as 130 becomes 110 becomes 90 with subsequent parries). I was under the impression that @Dragon was arguing for (respectively) 50% vs 100%, 80% vs 80%, 80% vs 60% (but I might have misunderstood it). Anyway, like I said, this has all been discussed in that thread I linked, so we can take it there -- discussions on >100% combat skills tend to get very long, and we don't want to hijack this thread.

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, Dragon said:

Don't even suggest that the Weapon Trance applies the addition AFTER splitting in this thread to each attack, as it makes this 'problem spell' even more of a problem.

I don't think anyone could conclude that, pretty sure it's been clarified that it is before.

[GAZZA]

10 hours ago, Dragon said:

So, you don't think RAW "Personal safety and all but the strongest loyalties are forgotten in the rage to destroy" means you will attack friends.

Correct, it doesn't say that you will attack friends, for two reasons:

1. That's fluff text. It is descriptive. It is not mechanical.
2. If one wishes to interpret it as mechanical, then it would seem that if my friends are "my strongest loyalties" then they are not "forgotten in the rage to destroy". Especially in RQG where the other PCs are quite possibly in the same clan or tribe.

A RAW "you will attack friends" should look something like, "If the Berserker has no opponents in melee range, he will move towards the nearest foe. If there are no foes nearby, he will move towards the nearest friend and attack them instead." It doesn't say that, nor (IMO) anything that could reasonably interpreted as that.