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Normally the TL;DR is at the end of the post, but since this review is long I put it up front:

If you like Pathfinder, you've been playing it for a while and you enjoy tinkering with the system, buy this book! It has a wealth of options, optional systems and alternate takes on just about anything in the game, including a complete rewrite of the action system, three different revised skill systems, a simplified magic system, a streamlined create-your-own monster system, and a great many other tidbits. Unchained is absolutely worth the price!

When I first started to write this review, I wanted to go through each chapter and write a few sentences about each subsystem, to give you an idea of how they work and how I feel about them. That idea crashed and burned when I was halfway through chapter 2, and ran face first into Paizo’s (generous) word limit for reviews. That left two and a half chapter which I couldn't fit in a single word for. Suffice to say that there is a lot of material to dig through here! I also found that I was trying to digest and summarize way too much material at once, which led to me making more mistakes than I'm comfortable with. Since that approach failed miserably, I figured I’d instead give a very brief overhead of what each chapter contains, and describe in more detail the systems my party is going to be using in an upcoming adventure path since those are the ones I've spent the most time studying.

One other thing I should mention before starting the in-depth review. For those concerned after the ACG debacle, I’m happy to say that I’ve found very few mistakes in this book, and the few I found were extremely minor - from what I can tell this book has been well edited. They got the cover right too!

Chapter 1: Classes
There are four new takes on existing pathfinder classes: Barbarian, Monk, Rogue, and Summoner. There’s also a Fractional Base Bonus system, and Staggered Advancement. The latter breaks each level into several mini-levels, which makes “gaining a level” feel less abrupt.

We’ll be using all the new classes, but we’ll still allow the old barbarian (but with the new temporary HP mechanic) and monks in play. The new barbarian is an improvement over the old one in many ways, but I kind of miss barbarians gaining strength from rage instead of an attack & damage bonus. The old monk is still allowed simply because the new monk is quite different, and there are a number of monk archetypes that aren't compatible with it. The new rogue is a straight upgrade from the old one, an addition I am very happy to see. We never used the old summoner, so that was never really an issue. I’m curious to see if the new summoner will prove problematic though!

We’ll be using fractional base bonuses, which help multiclassed characters better balance out their base attack and base save bonuses.

Chapter 2:Skills and Options
There are three new subsystems to handle skills. Background skills, consolidated skills (more compact skill list, combines many skills), and grouped skills (pick skill groups instead of investing in individual skills). There’s also an alternate crafting and profession rules (with a business subsystem for enterprising characters!), and a new version of multiclassing.

We’ll be using Background skills, which grants each character 2 extra skill points that must be used in “background” skills. These are a very minor boost to character power, but adds tons of character flavor. Finally you can put ranks in Profession: Sailor in a desert campaign without feeling like you’re punishing yourself!

We’ll also be using Skill Unlocks, a new system that allows you to gain new ways to use skills as you put more ranks in them - for example being able to use acrobatics at full speed by increasing the DC by 5 rather than 10. These are overall fairly small changes, but they’re interesting and they reward characters and classes who invest heavily in skills.

Finally, we’ll be using variant multiclassing! In this system you give up half your feats to multiclass with another class. Every other feat you’d normally earn, you instead get a class feature from that class! This opens up a massive amount of new character concepts and class combinations, and is much more friendly to spellcaster multiclassing - who traditionally frown on anything that means they lose caster levels or spell slots. The Oradin can now be built single-class!

Chapter 3:Gameplay
This chapter has a wealth of options that we did not use this time around, simply because we didn't have time to get familiar with them and we didn't want to introduce a massive system change without playtesting it just before starting a six-month AP. New subsystems here include options to change or remove alignment from the game, a revised action economy model that completely restructures how combat flows, an option for combining iterative attacks into a single roll, stamina and combat tricks, wound thresholds, and a new disease and poison system.

Though no one is currently playing a fighter, we’ll be implementing the stamina system. It gives the fighter (and possibly other martial classes if they invest a feat and the GM greenlights it) a Stamina pool, and he gains a new option with every combat feat he learns. He spends stamina to do a combat trick, with tricks written for (from what I can tell), every combat feat found in the CRB, APG, UM, UC, ARG, and the ACG. Examples include passive bonuses such as being able to take Combat Expertise without meeting the INT 13 requirement and active bonuses such as being able to benefit from Mounted Combat twice in a round, or use Spring Attack as a standard action.

We’ll also be using Wound Thresholds, which gives creatures escalating penalties to attacks, saving throws, skill checks, ability checks, as well as armor class and caster level as they take damage and lose HP. This helps avoid the “238 HP lost and I’m at peak efficiency, 241 HP lost and I’m unconscious” paradox, which can at times break immersion rather badly.

Finally, we'll be using a revised system for handling diseases and poisons. At the request of the GM I haven’t read these very closely, so all I really know is that it makes diseases more virulent, and most diseases have become more lethal. I’m more than a little nervous about what he has in store for us, the diabolical laughter from the other side of the GM screen does not bode well.

Chapter 4:Magic
This system has a lot of interesting material (notice a theme here?) specifically dealing with how magic functions and alters the game. There is a lot to take in here. Simplified Spellcasting changes spellcasting by making all low level spells (relative to your caster level) cast out of a pool, easing the homework of high level spellcasters quite a bit. Spell Alterations has four mix-and-match spell variants. These are Limited Magic (a kick in the nuts to primary spellcasters if ever I saw one), Wild Magic (always popular!), and Active Spellcasting, which makes spellcasting more interactive and engaging by allowing you to overclock spells, use spell attack rolls (you roll attacks instead of making the opponent roll saves), and critical hits and spell fumbles. Esoteric Material Components (multiple systems completely changing how material spell components work), Automatic Bonus Progression and Innate Item Bonuses (two different approaches to fixing the Big 6 problem where players always use the same generic magic items), scaling items (items that level up in power with the character!) and finally Dynamic Magic Item creation, which makes creating magic items less of a one-man pursuit and more of a party task that everyone can try to help out with. Out of these we’ll be using Wild Magic (because it’s Wild Magic!), and Automatic bonus Progression.

Wild Magic events are triggered whenever a caster fails a concentration check, whenever a spell effect is dispelled or counterspelled, or a really desperate spellcaster can trigger one intentionally. There is of course a D100 table with a list of wild magic effects, ranging from “the spell takes effect at a random location” to “a shatter spell affects a 5-foot radius around each target of the spell” to “an instrument appears adjacent to each target as if casting Summon Instrument”. Ever since I first played a wild mage in AD&D I’ve always loved the idea of wild magic, so this was a welcome addition. The only thing I miss here are some “wilder” effects - most of the entries are a little on the tame side compared to the truly bizarre things that could happen in previous editions. That said, I hope and expect the community will homebrew their own lists soon!

The Automatic Bonus Progression takes the bonuses granted by the big 6 (magic armor, magic weapon, cloak of resistance, amulet of natural armor, headband of mental stat, belt of physical stat), removes the items that grant these bonuses from the game, and give out the bonuses automatically as characters level up. Surprisingly, this is the system I am looking forward to using more than anything else in Unchained, because it loosens the stranglehold certain items had on specific gear slots. When was the last time you saw anyone using the Shawl of the Crone in their shoulder slot, or the Belt of Dwarvenkind? Being able to pick up a cool magical cloak without worrying that you now can’t wear a cloak of resistance, or strap on the phylactery of channeling without getting annoyed that you can’t progress your spellcasting stat is a great improvement!

Chapter 5:Monsters
The entire fifth chapter, 59 pages, is dedicated to an impressively comprehensive yet streamlined system taking you through the steps to make your own monsters from the ground up. I’ll be dead honest here: We probably won’t use this. The average age in my group is late 20s to early 30s, with jobs, girlfriends, vacation homes, and all that that entails. The time we have available to play games is limited, and time spent homebrewing tends to cut into that, so we usually play in Golarion and run APs. Truth be told, we’re lucky we get to game as much as we do. Therefore this section is of limited interest to us. With that said, I think this system has the potential to be a great boon for the homebrew community and players who have the time to tweak and brew the way we once used to!

Conclusion

I’d like to think that Unchained has something for everyone. There's a myriad of options ranging from small minor quality of life subsystem changes (background skills) to major system changes that will effect every aspect of the game (Limited Magic, the Revised Combat system). If you combine the right subsystems with the mythic rules set you’re 80% of the way to a genuine superhero game. If you use automatic progression combined with Limited Magic, you have a fairly good starting point for the ever elusive successful Low Magic campaign. It’s obvious that a lot of care and attention to detail has gone into making this book.

I think Pathfinder: Unchained is well worth picking up, and have my fingers crossed for Pathfinder Unshackled in the future!