From the Berserk help file:

Its effects are not unlike the frenzy supplication -- a
huge surge of combat prowess, coupled with a disregard for personal safety.
Berserking characters are more resistant to the effects of spells, however
they suffer a penalty to the effectiveness of most of their own skills,
spells, supplications, and powers. Being berserk sheds the effects of
minor wounds, temporarily increases the maximum health of the adventurer,
and improves the rate of healing during combat.

...and...

It is slightly harder to convince oneself to flee when in a Berserk rage,
and the heightened emotions prevent voluntary sleep. Berserk fighters also
have some degree of resistance to being knocked unconscious by physical or
magical means.

My questions:

1. The added resistance to knockout: does that only apply to warriors and orcs, i.e. "berserk fighters", or does it also apply to other classes who may be berserk by way of an item?

2. The various benefits and drawbacks to berserk, i.e. knockout resistance, harder to flee, spell resistance, etc.: does "frenzy" also confer those same benefits and drawbacks? Or are they specific to the "berserk" skill?

From the "frenzy" help file:

This spell's affects are similar to the berserk skill -- a huge surge of
combat prowess, coupled with a disregard for personal safety.

>My questions:
>
>1. The added resistance to knockout: does that only apply to
>warriors and orcs, i.e. "berserk fighters", or does it
>also apply to other classes who may be berserk by way of an
>item?

if (get_skill(ch, gsn_berserk) <= 1)
  berserk_chance = 0; /* Screw you, sleeves guy. */

Thanks for checking. Though, that's annoyingly counterintuitive. Just going from the help file I'd expect berserk-from-sleeves to act just like berserk-from-skill.

Judging from that little snip, I'd guess that wearing the sleeves is similar to felar item frenzy, neither allows the person to sleep naturally, but do make the person more mentally vuln, don't give the anti-knockout help and don't give the hp boost. So, all the negatives but with only the damage boost as a positive.

Umiron, I summon thee!

I'm pretty sure Frenzy doesn't set the "Berserk bit" so my guess would be that some of the things that check for Berserk aren't necessarily affected by Frenzy unless the coder had the presence of mind to explicitly code it that way.

But off the top of my head, I dunno.

Why?

It's good to know how skills work, so we can use them properly and with maximum effectiveness.

Maybe the helpfile(s) aren't perfect, but at the end of the day one can't master a game from a book and some expectation of trial and error / experimentation isn't unreasonable.

There definitely are some aspects of CF's game mechanics that are perhaps too unintuitive but I wouldn't say this is one.

Yeah, I'm not really stressing about the inner workings of berserk either, just giving a reason why he'd want to know.

Frenzy is a pretty easy-to-obtain prep for classes that don't have berserk. If it conferred knockout resistance, for example, then I'd strongly consider using it before engaging someone who is highly likely to try and knock me out. Thieves, necromancers, bards, etc.

My personal experience with frenzy is that it doesn't SEEM to reduce your ability to flee. I could be totally wrong, as my experience is limited compared to the rest of the player base, but it seems much easier to flee when frenzied than it is to flee on a zerked warrior. Again, this is in my experience. Not sure about the other aspects of your question, I haven't really had a KO attempt while frenzied yet.