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What exactly does Moment of Clarity prevent you from doing when you use it?
Moment of Clarity (Ex): The barbarian does not gain any benefits or take any of the penalties from rage for 1 round. Activating this power is a swift action. This includes the penalty to Armor Class and the restriction on what actions can be performed. This round still counts against her total number of rounds of rage per day. This power can only be used once per rage.
Is the ability to use Rage Powers a benefit of Rage? Or does it mean simply the direct mechanical effects of Rage itself? Since you are still spending a Rage Round, it seems like you count as Raging for that Round for purposes besides ´the benefits and penalties from rage´, so can you still use Rage Powers? If you can´t use Rage Powers, this isn´t a Rage Power I would really ever take unless required since you can pursue Fatigue immunity strategies with the same Rage Power, allowing you to ´Rage Cycle´ for the same effect (casting spells, then re-entering Rage). If you CAN use Rage Powers, then it´s pretty good. Thoughts? Hitting the FAQ button is always helpful, of course.
You can cast spells. It's basically necessary for the Rage Prophet, or any other combination of barbarian multiclassing that involves spells.
That doesn´t answer my question :-)
I´m aware that it is a literal Pre-Req for Rage Prophet, and other Caster Multi-Classed characters may prefer it to the limitations and drawbacks of Rage cycling strategies. I just want to know what the Power actually means in regards to Rage Power usage. I´ve always assumed you couldn´t use Rage Powers, but it recently occured to me that perhaps that isn´t the intent... it certainly isn´t 100% clear.
EDIT: The Rage ability nowhere mentions the ability to use Rage Powers. Rage Powers are a separate ability that simply require that you are Raging (they apply during a Rage spell even if you don´t have Rage Rounds, I believe). I don´t know how that effects whether using Rage Powers is a ´benefit of Rage´ for purposes of Moment of Clarity... They certainly seem like a rather INDIRECT benefit if they are one.
I don´t know what analogy is most apt... If an ability said that you don´t suffer the benefits and penalties of being Prone, I would still assume you count as being Prone, thus you could stand up if you wanted to, and likely special abilities that only work when you are Prone (Grapple bonuses, let´s say) should still work also...??? Otherwise, it would have been simpler and clearer to say that you don´t count as Raging for one Round...?
Under "Rage powers" in the core rule book: "A barbarian gains the Benefits of rage powers only while raging,..."
In addition to the other benefits of rage you also get these penalties:
-2 to AC and more importantly (save for Acrobatics, fly, intimidate or ride) the barbarian cannot use any Dex, Cha, or Int based skills or any ability that requires patience or concentration.
So when you spend the swift action to activate MoC., (see the errata) you stop getting all the benefits of rage as well as no longer suffer the penalties.
When I first read the moment of clarity power I thought to myself that there was no way I would ever want it...
I mean why would you want to spend one of your precious rounds of rage in the middle a battle and not get the benefits of it.
When I thought about it though, there are plenty of situations when I might want to avoid the penalties (as a swift action) without having to end rage and become fatigued.
The superstition RP comes to mind... if i have this power and desperately need healing, my cleric friend cant heal me..., but if i use MOC i can now be healed.
Again, I´m not asking about pros/cons of using Moment Clarity in different scenarios,
nor the pros/cons of MoC vs. ending/immediately re-entering Rage via Fatigue-immunity or removal.
Being able to turn off Superstition with MoC may be a a convenient use of it, if MoC in fact turns off Rage Powers. If MoC DOESN´T turn off Rage Powers, that doesn´t work, but other Rage Powers are available.
I´d like to get clarification on that fundamental issue...
In this context I believe moment of clarity was originally designed to work with superstition. When moment of clarity kicks in superstition turns off and you can then grab that much needed heal and chug a potion. That is the only rage power I could see wanting to turn off for a round.
There is some other stuff that turning off rage would let you do but as a barbarian you would be much more interested in smashing face than doing those things.
Is the ability to use Rage Powers a benefit of Rage?
This question can be broken into 2 parts:
1.Are they a benefit?2.Are they "of" Rage?
Lets start with the second:
The first thing I quoted was "A barbarian gains the benefits of rage powers only while raging..."
When I see this I infer "RAW" that rage powers can only be benefited from when you rage.
-> This would mean that "RAGE" powers exist "within" the RAGE ability, as you do not benefit from them when you are not raging...
ergo Rage powers are a subset of (and therefore "of") rage.
This leads us to the first part: "are they a benefit?"
In terms of MoC this part of the question is irrelevant as MoC gets rid of any and all benefits OR penalties of rage. (though I would say they are beneficial)
The spell rage would then put you into a magical rage (minus the fatigue at the end) for a number of additional rounds equal to its duration.
This is probably the closest you will get to clarification, from paizo or otherwise...