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So, the Unchained Barbarian was made so that the player doesn't have to constantly change his strength and constitution scores back and forth. Handy if you like the hulking out flavor but aren't fond of continually changing hp maximums.
However, it looks to me like the Unchained Barbarian rage rules could easily also apply to the Bloodrager's Bloodrage feature and Skald's Raging Song. Bloodrage (and its Greater and Mighty variants) grant the same buffs that Barbarian Rage does, just with spellcasting tacked on at higher levels. A simple substitution to use the Unchained modifiers in place of the regular Bloodrage modifiers.
The Inspired Rage Raging Song would have to be tweaked a little bit, but not that much. Instead of a +2 bonus to Strength and Constitution, the recipient of an Inspired Rage gets a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls and 1 temporary hit point per hit die as long as the song lasts (they also wouldn't replenish if the Inspired Rage ended and was started again within 1 minute, as per Unchained Barbarian Rage rules). These scale up to a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls along with 2 temporary hit points per hit die at level 8, and a +3 to attack and damage with 3 temporary hit points per hit die at level 16. The Inspired Rage will save bonus would remain unchanged, along with its -1 penalty to AC.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on "Unchaining" two of the Advanced Class Guide classes.
Incidentally, I have a bloodrager and a skald in my current Reign of Winter campaign. I did just this, except that Inspired Rage only gives the bonuses to melee and thrown attacks; it serves a different purpose than Inspire Courage from a Bard, especially since Rage Powers are tacked on eventually. It's worked out fine, and it's been easier to keep track of for the party. Still has issues of stacking, but that's a different problem...
The official ruling is that nothing is unchained except for what is in the book. But you're invited to get with the unchained spirit and unchain other instances of rage.
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I was just looking at the Bloodrager and had the same question. I agree this sounds right, but is there an official ruling anywhere? Can you substitute the unchained rage feature for the regular version in existing classes?
For PFS this is not allowed.
For home games...nothing in Unchained is official, and you can thus mix and match as you see fit.
slightly off topic but
something i just realized why unchained rage is actually much worse than regular rage
without the bump to Con you don't get the boost to fort saves
or did i miss that?
You are correct that it doesn't boost fort saves. It also doesn't work with courageous weapons. But there's other things that make it worthwhile. you will saves are higher now that the rage save stacks with the superstition bonus. There are quite a few threads talking about the difference between the barbs.
Contributor
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For me, the fact that rage now grants lost-first temporary hit points is huge. I can handle the loss of the Fort bump and x1.5 Strength. In fact, part of me likes losing the latter, as I don't feel like I'm leaving value on the table by not going two-handed.
Just my feelings, though. ^_^
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Contributor
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That said, I don't like the new rage FAQ. Another bright side of the Unchained barbarian was that barbarians and skalds now had actual synergy.
As a result of the FAQ, though, we're back to barbarians preferring bards over skalds, since the "civilized" bard fully benefits them where their skaldic brother only partially does.
considering that unchained barbarians are just an unofficial optional rule, there is nothing to say the barbie's rage cannot stack with the skald's.
Even if you rule that the skald's inspired rage works like the unchained barbarian's. The bonuses from rage are untyped so they would stack.