This question is actually more about the meaning of "close combat damage rating."


A Beorning with a giant slaying spear and a body of 6 stabs a "giant":

Normal sucess is 9(weapon)+4 (giant slaying spear) endurance damage, right?


Is a great success 9+4+6 (body bonus) or (9+4)+(6+4)?


It's the first one (19 damage), isn't it?

Hehe. I have always taken the Damage rating cell in the character sheet as the bonus to add to melee attacks when getting a Great Success (it has usually the Body score). And double that in case of an Extraordinary Sucess.
So according to that it would be:
Normal: 9
Great: 9+(6+4) = 19
Extraordinary: 9+(6+4)x2 = 29

EDIT:
Quote from the Adventurer Book, page 23

EDIT again!:
The quote from page 79:

I have bolded the key part. It says "your". So I guess it means the Character's Damage rating, not the Weapon.

But how knows... Now I am confused.

I would agree with this. The character's damage rating would be body + 4 instead of just body.

So it only gives the bonus on a great/extraordinary success?

I'd say so. Unless it's an errata in the Reward description and that "your" means "the weapon's".

So an extraordinary success is:

9+(6+4)+(6+4)?

Hmmm. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

And the spear does nothing special in regard to piercing strikes, right?

And having great spear as a favored skill does not let you use favored body on a great/extraordinary success for damage, right?

I go the other way; I'd rule that this is just a case of casual language, not to be interpreted so literally.
(So I guess in my interpretation the "your" is referring to your attack in general, rather than specifically to distinguish your personal damage bonus from the damage of the weapon.)

This Reward item already does nothing special in the majority of fights -- against normal-sized wolves, orcs, evil men or what-not that are not large. If its advantage only applied to special successes against large targets, that would just come up too rarely to be worthwhile. IMHO.

Cheers,
--Os.

I agree, it seems really underwhelming. But I also think the rules are being followed correctly. So it's just not a good reward, especially when compared to some of those available to others (which is sad, because it's the one I just took ).

Francesco, are we doing the giant slaying spear right? Is this what you intended?

I'd agree with this interpretation, and apply the damage bonus to the attack as a whole.
So, using the example from above (9 weapon damage, 6 damage bonus):

Normal: 9+4 = 13
Great: 9+4+6 = 19
Extraordinary: 9+4+6+6 = 25