What's the general consensus on someone who's raging using a combat style.
I'm looking at crane (difficulty fighting defensively while raging?)
and/or snake (difficulty sense motive check).
I can't seem to find much that says you can't, but it sort of feels a little off.
Nothing in the Barbarian Rage rules forbids fighting defensively or making Sense Motive checks. There is no reason to forbid a Raging barbarian from using a combat style.
A raging barbarian is not a mindless drooling kill-whatever-is-in-front-of-you maniac with no tactical sense. You can still delay. You can ready actions. You can drink potions. You can flank. You can retreat.
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This, unfortunately common, misconception, of Rage being some sort of temporary mental retardation, is based solely in some random flavoring done by players and DMs alike.
It does not completely retard a PC's ability to perform tactical combat.
You can use styles, fight defensively, and even ready actions.
Just as Sneak Attack, has no requirement of one being "sneaky", Rage is just another ability misunderstood by many.
Rage prevents, what it says it prevents, and nothing more.
Well, there is the line about preventing anything that needs the use of concentration, but you can activate a style with a swift action and after that it is a nonaction to maintain...so go ahead. It is a short enough that it wouldn't interfere with you being in "the zone" so to speak.
While in rage, a barbarian gains a +4 morale bonus to her Strength and Constitution, as well as a +2 morale bonus on Will saves. In addition, she takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class. The increase to Constitution grants the barbarian 2 hit points per Hit Dice, but these disappear when the rage ends and are not lost first like temporary hit points. While in rage, a barbarian cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate, and Ride) or any ability that requires patience or concentration.
I just used concentration as a paraphrase term, but 'patience' is brought up here, and it does not serve as a game term. It is the common vernacular.
Typically, I would think that something that is a standard or full round action might be long enough to possibly require patience. Swift and free actions are short enough to not even bother asking about. How you decide to parse out specific actions into categories based upon whether they need 'patience' or not is up to you and your GM, typically (or random threads like these I suppose).
Also, as a side-note: could you please use seperate paragraphs for different ideas. It is hard to keep tract of the large block of text visually, and it is hard to follow your train of thought. This is important since a lot of that seemed to not be involved with barbarians at all.
There are some shorter actions that I would say require patience, but not many. Picking a lock is a full-round action, but I probably wouldn't allow it under rage.
But no, you don't turn into "DAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" whenever you rage--you can still make tactical decisions, use the feint maneuver, deal nonlethal damage with a lethal weapon, fight defensively/total defense, or use a combat style (even a defensive one).
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Kazaan, I think he was referencing how your response is hard to read. If your readers are lost or confused when they read your writing, it doesn't help your case at all. It's considered "bad writing".
While I won't judge how effective your method of emphasizing the concept of "One idea", it does make it very difficult to read, and I, for one, simply skipped it (I get headaches from reading things like that).
Just as helpful criticism :).
As for the discussion, using a combat style honestly doesn't take that much mind effort. With the amount of effort a character puts into learning the style, it becomes natural, instinctive. I've taken martial arts classes, and the times I've fought since I've never thought about where my hand goes, or what stance to be in. It's always been just do. So a barbarian should be able to use styles while raging.
As for the discussion, using a combat style honestly doesn't take that much mind effort. With the amount of effort a character puts into learning the style, it becomes natural, instinctive. I've taken martial arts classes, and the times I've fought since I've never thought about where my hand goes, or what stance to be in. It's always been just do. So a barbarian should be able to use styles while raging.
Of course, it all gets put into muscle memory, which lets you pull off techniques with minimal input. If I had to define it with relevant game terms, I would have to say that muscle memory was more of a wisdom based thing since it is based more on natural parts of the body (I mean, a dog could get muscle memory too, and wisdom tends to be the good stat for animals). This also works out well since styles tend to be a monk thing, and they rely a lot upon wisdom.
Your loss. Gaining knowledge takes effort; it won't always be handed to you on a silver platter. It's not the manner of writing that causes the headache... it's the new information breaking down preconceived notions. That's how you know it's working. I can read that style of writing just fine; both my own and when done by others. Thus, it's nothing inherent about the writing that's problematic but the attitude of the reader.
Kazaan, I am an English major, and I can tell you: you need to separate your threads a bit better. When you started going on about AC, unarmed strikes, and oracles using cha instead of dex, you took a sharp turn from your original point.
Think of it like this-Words are made up of three parts: the symbol (sound, letters, etc), the meaning, and the context. You've ever said a word so many times that it loses its meaning? That is because the context was removed and thus your brain decided to just label as random noises that you keep on repeating. By making more paragraphs, you can create an enclosed space with its own context. That allows the reader to better follow your flow of thoughts and come to understand how you came to your meaning.
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Arbitrarily applying undue restrictions on actions during Rage, is an issue with those unable to imagine anything but their strict visualization of Rage.
Basically, it's done by DMs who have a very rigid idea of what Rage is, and will force players to play it this way, in spite of RAW.
You may as well rule all boots in Pathfinder are yellow, simply because you can't imagine boots being any other color.
For what it's worth, Kirin Style is incompatible with rage, since it's based around Knowledge checks.
But in general (as everyone else said), there's nothing stopping you from using a style while raging.
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For what it's worth, Kirin Style is incompatible with rage, since it's based around Knowledge checks.
But in general (as everyone else said), there's nothing stopping you from using a style while raging.
That is true.
If a style feat usage involves something that cannot be done whilst in Rage, like knowledge checks, then that usage is of course, unusable.
Otherwise, all is good.
Comments with 100% more bold flavor.
Kazaan, I think he was referencing how your response is hard to read. If your readers are lost or confused when they read your writing, it doesn't help your case at all. It's considered "bad writing". Their loss. I wrote it for their benefit, not mine. If they're not going to put the effort into reading it, I've lost nothing and they've lost the benefit of knowledge. Creating several paragraphs where one suffices hurts the flow and produces the impression that it's several different topics. When that's warranted, it's done. But you don't do it just to "break it up". is the bad writing.
While I won't judge how effective your method of emphasizing the concept of "One idea", it does make it very difficult to read, and I, for one, simply skipped it (I get headaches from reading things like that).
Your loss. Gaining knowledge takes effort; it won't always be handed to you on a silver platter. It's not the manner of writing that causes the headache... it's the new information breaking down preconceived notions. That's how you know it's working. I can read that style of writing just fine; both my own and when done by others. Thus, it's nothing inherent about the writing that's problematic but the attitude of the reader.
Just to be clear, I had no problem at all with your writing. : )
I didn't know about the skill prohibition--that's good to know. (You can tell I haven't played a barbarian before.) I'd apply the same principle to a task requiring similar levels of patience and/or concentration even if no skill check was required, so my example isn't completely useless.