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Let's clear the air a bit before we start this guide for the Skald. This is a pure discussion here about the theoretical and practical uses of a class and it's features. There will be some opinions, and I plan to debunk a few myths going about about the class. As such, there will not be a link to any kind of Google Drive or cloud saved document. No graphics to entice. This is bare bones. And now that that is out of the way ...
Welcome to the Skald! We need to discuss what the Skald isn't before we get to what it is. It is neither a bard nor a barbarian. That seems odd, considering that these two classes are what were made to create the class. The Skald may have abilities akin to both of the parent classes, but it is more than the sum of those parts. That's something that people are forgetting when it comes to making Skalds. They are thinking that it's just a Bard that makes parties have Barbarian rage.
Now, onto the qualities of the Skald.
Skills: Skalds have access to the vast majority of the combined skills of the bard and barbarian, with one important caveat. Skalds, as of the recent FAQ update, have only five Perform skills available to them. Oratory, Percussion, Sing, String, and (now) Wind Instruments. However, that large list has one drawback. The Skald has only 4 + Int Mod skill ranks per level, instead of the Bard's 6 + Int Mod skill ranks. This makes choosing skills a very meticulous endeavor. The Skald will not necessarily be the knowledge monkey that the Bard can be, and Perform skills will oddly be at a premium. We will get to this later.
Hit Points: The Skald uses d8 hit dice, which does put it at Bard HP. You'll have powers and perhaps feats help you get around these limitations, but you will not be the tankiest guy who ever lived. I'd have been happier with d10 hit dice, as it would represent the warrior poet angle the Skald was meant for a little better. But we take what we can get.
Base Attack Bonus: We're looking at a 3/4 BAB class here, like the Bard. Unlike the Hit Points, this is something that fits a bit better with the class design. You are reasonably certain that you can hit on average, especially in melee. This is fairly important, in that the Skald was seemingly designed to be in melee combat.
Saves: Skalds have excellent Fort and Will saves, and one of their class features make them both exceedingly better than most anything. That is incredibly important to know. At higher levels, a Skald at full tilt will reasonably be expected to resist most save-or-suck spells. Reflex is naturally the weakest save as a result, but Skalds can work around this limitation.
Weapons and Armor: Skalds are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, which gives them a diverse selection of ways to beat faces in. They also have proficiency with light and medium armors, as well as any shield that isn't the tower variety. That's a very nice selection of armor, as it does allow you to be a bit more flexible in your stat allocation.
Spellcasting: Skalds have practical access to all Bard spells, and are a 6 level spellcasting class. A class ability gives them theoretical access to nearly every 6th level or lower spell in the game, but this will be expanded upon later. They are also capable of casting in medium armor starting at 1st level without penalty. That is a very important thing to note for what is essentially an arcane caster. Even the Magus can't cast in medium armor at 1st level without failure chance. They do have the bardic limitation of a verbal component in all spells.
Class abilities:
Skalds will need to rely more on Bardic Knowledge for most of their knowledge checks than the Bard. This is entirely due to the drop in skill ranks compared to the Bard. You might want to have a few knowledge skills trained anyway, as the bonus is a nice boost.
This is the big one. The beginning of the major differences between the Bard and the Skald. Raging Song does act a lot like Bardic Performance, with the same scaling activation cost and interaction with feats that require Bardic Performance. Raging Song is a purely audible power, so deaf Skalds have failure chances and deaf characters are totally immune to it. However, the Skald has only 5 songs compared to the much larger number of Bardic Performances. Also, all allies that would be affected by Raging Song can choose whether or not to accept the benefits. That is a vast difference from the Bardic Performance, and allows the party to dynamically adapt to changing battlefield conditions.
Hey, a bonus feat at 1st is nothing to sneeze at. Just remember that in PFS, this changes instead to Extra Performance. That means 6 extra rounds of Raging Song at 1st level.
This works mechanically just like the Bard's Versatile Performance, but it only works with the Perform skills the Skald has available to it. Also, you only get to choose at 2nd level and every 5 levels afterward. The optimal approach to this seems to be to pick one social skill to have actual max ranks in and to pick two Perform skills to cover the others. The amount of overlap makes focusing on more than two Perform skills a bit of a hassle.
At 2nd level, the Skald gains the same resistance to sonic effects that a Bard tends to get. +4 to saves vs. Bardic Performance and all sonic or language-dependent effects. Not a major power, and easy to replace with certain archetypes.
This one is going to take a bit of explanation. At 3rd level and every 3 levels afterward, a Skald can gain barbarian rage powers. These rage powers can only be used with Inspired Rage, which means they can affect the whole party.
Rage powers that require "spending a standard action" or costing rounds of rage to activate cannot be chosen. At all. So Terrifying Howl can't be picked up (as it costs a standard action to use), but Knockback (which is made in place of a melee attack) can be chosen. Skalds cannot, unless otherwise stated, take the same rage power more than once.
In contrast, a Skald with levels in Barbarian or Bloodrager can apply his Skald rage powers to the Barbarian Rage or Bloodrage. As they would only affect himself in that instance, it is allowed.
This is self-explanatory here. Works the same as for Barbarians, and scales the same as the Rogue. Solid ability to keep the Skald from being in some bad situations.
This is the ability that at 5th level gives the Skald a truly unique situation. Starting at once per day, the Skald can take one of his spell slots and cast any appropriate level spell from the Bard, Cleric, or Sorc/Wiz spell lists. As I said in the spell section, the Skald has theoretical access to near every 6th level or lower spell in the game. At 11th and 17th level, you gain an additional use of this power. There is a catch though for this unprecedented spell access. No matter what the spell cast by this ability will be, you have a minimum cast time of one round to cast it. That's been seen as a major failing, but is largely irrelevant in certain circumstances. Any spells that already have one round or longer cast times are unaffected by this drawback.
This is the same ability that Bards get, but only scaled back to being two levels behind the Bard. So that means you get it at 7th level, and it improves at 13th level and 19th level.
The Skald first gains DR 1/- at 9th level, and it increases by one at 14th and 19th levels. This can be further improved with the Improved Damage Reduction rage power, but only during an Inspired Rage.
The official capstone of the Skald, Master Skald does a lot at 20th level when using Inspired Rage. AC Penalty is completely removed, even though it was at that point a negligible thing. Barbarians and Bloodragers can gain the full benefit of their raging if they choose to use the Inspired Rage as the source. So Dragonic Bloodragers will turn into dragons, and they can cast their spells while under the Inspired Rage. Finally, all players under the effects of Inspired Rage can make one extra attack while full attacking as if under the effect of haste. Not too bad, as far as level 20 capstones go.
In development: Races, Archetypes, Builds, Traits, Feats, and Assorted Things. Right now, I had to get the pertinent information dealt with and dispel a myth. Took a while to write everything while reviewing my references. It's important to first get things that are known out and remove doubt as to other things.