I do understand that barbarians can only choose one totem, but what if we allowed the barbarian to instead have one totem in effect during a period of rage? Basically letting them choose multiple totem rage powers but only letting one totem take effect during a rage. IMO, I don't think that would break theme or game balance and giving a non-caster more utility this way would make the character decent at something that isn't just battle. Thoughts?
Honestly, I wouldn't even consider it an issue if you went all the way and let them just have multiple totems.
Thematically, anything can be made to fit. Someone takes Celestial and Beast? Sounds like their totem is Agathions. Fiend and Chaos? That is just a Demon Totem. A flavor can be made to fit, and in fact opening up totems likewise opens up ways to express specific flavors.
Mechanically there are a couple of nice combinations (Lesser Fiend + Beast for a Natural Attack build, for example), but none that really break the game. The totems tend to do wildly different things, so stacking them is no more advantageous than stacking other, unrelated powers. There may have been some intention at some point of making Totems stronger than other powers and using exclusivity as a balancing mechanism, but if so I frankly can't discern it from the strength of the available totems.
So basically my vote is to go nuts. There is no reason to keep restrictions if they only reason for them is their very existence, and if one is breaking through that by allowing totem switching one might as well go all the one and just toss the rule out the window.
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Let me add my voice to those saying that removing the restrictions doesn't break anything. Honestly, it makes barbarians more interesting, since they don't have to choose to between being yet another beast totem barbarian and not having pounce.