First, your circumstance of a party with zero healing capability is uncommon. Fix that problem or you will die. Consider yourself warned.
Second, you have the right of it in a general sense. Upon hitting -1 HP in Rage, you drop out of Rage and lose all your "Rage HP".
Your mistake is believing you would end up at -5.
You'd be at -21. Dead as a doornail with 18 Con. Rage HP is not temporary HP, it is an actual addition to your HP total. There is no distinction between "Rage HP" and your normal HP.
So, what Raging Vitality does is let you Rage while unconscious.
So, instead of dropping to -21, you hold steady at -1 until all your Rage rounds run out.
It also raises the Con bonus you get by 2, so an extra HP per level...which is reason enough to take it all by itself, really.
Do you WANT to risk going to negative HP while Raging? No.
Is having a slim chance of surviving instead of immediate death good? Yes.
Also, you seem to be a bit confused as to what the HP totals are like at level 20.
At level 20 you have d12 plus Con plus Favored Class bonus (usually). A minimum with 18 Con, if you roll a 1 every level, of 131.
Your 80 Rage HP bumps that up to 221.
So you're not in danger of falling unconscious until you lose 132 HP (dropping out of Rage puts you at -1 in that case).
You're not in danger of dying until you lose 150 HP.
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Raging vitality has bailed me out more than a few times. It's been worth it.
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Raging vitality is way over on the other side of this river, FAAAARRR away from being useless. The selection of that one feat pretty much pumped my PFS barbarian's already impossibly high HP into "I am literally completely unkillable by anything but death effects, and even those won't work unless I get a 1 on my save" territory. It is just as useful, if not far more so, to characters in home games. PFS is, after all, way easier than it should be. Having a character as broken as my barbarian in it was a terrible idea on my part. In any case, the fact that it'll let you continue to rage after you drop unconscious is effectively adding significantly more to your HP pool than you already would've had. Couple this with any of the numerous ways for a barbarian to continue fighting unhindered while at negative HP and you get a real monster. Or, y'know, use the time to chug a potion of cure mod to get out of "oh hell" territory.
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I think I didn't write it clearly. If I have a total hp of 80. 60 of that is normal hp and 20 is the bonus rage hp. What happens if I go out of rage after I lose 65 hp?
Second, you have the right of it in a general sense. Upon hitting -1 HP in Rage, you drop out of Rage and lose all your "Rage HP".Your mistake is believing you would end up at -5.
You'd be at -21. Dead as a doornail with 18 Con. Rage HP is not temporary HP, it is an actual addition to your HP total. There is no distinction between "Rage HP" and your normal HP.
You hit -5.
You gain 20 extra HP from Rage.
So, you lose 65 HP.
80-65 = 15.
Now, drop out of Rage.
You lose another 20.
So, -5.
Raging HP values are very simple, really. They add when you Rage, subtract when you don't Rage.
The only time you will die of coming out of Rage is if you wer ealready dead without Rage HP.
So, you have 20 Rage HP, and 60 HP normally.
Losing 60 HP puts you at 0 without Rage (20 with it).
So you're dead if take damage equal to Non-Rage HP+Con, in this case 18.
If you take 78 HP damage while Raging, you're dead when you stop Raging.
However, if you are knocked unconscious while raging, you drop out of Rage without Raging Vitality.
So, monster deals 81 damage to you. You are knocked unconscious, immediately stop Raging, and are now at -21 HP. Dead.
With Raging Vitality, you are knocked unconscious, but MAY STILL RAGE. So you are dealt 81 HP damage, and are at -1. Not dead.
If there is no healing then the feat is not that great. But i there is it is amazing.
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Just grab the barbarian self-healing + fast healing schtick if you've got no healer. That combined with raging vitality will keep you going for a good while. Might also want to consider setting yourself up to be able to rage cycle even at low levels. Will make a lot of your rage stuff a lot more reliable.
Ok, I get it.
I can see the benefit of having raging vitality, but is it useful without a healer? Would renewed vigor be enough to help with this?
Not really, but as we've established with no healing (seriously you don't even have a guy with a wand, or some potions, or anything?) you'll TPK sooner or later so it's not really a good footing to make a value judgement from.
In the campaign that I am in there are no healers just to let you know. Also lets say this character has 18 CON.
I want to make sure I have the rage hp figured out. Lets say I have 20 rage hp. I lose 5 of that after losing whatever normal hp I had. My rages run out and this makes me then drop to 0 then I have to subtract that 5 rage hp that I had lost bringing me to -5 hp. Right?
What would be point be of even having raging vitality? If I got anywhere near 0 hp, upon going out of rage I would automatically lose more than my CON score. So why would I even risk going to negative hp while raging without a way to effectively heal myself?
I get that renewed vigor can help some, but even at 5D8 +con modifier healing I would get nowhere near enough if I have 80 rage hp at level 20.
Why does everyone say that raging vitality is good?
Also, even with 80 rage hp, just losing 18 of that, then going out of rage, that would make me dead right? What is the point of all that extra hp?
You have it right. And yeah, it doesn't help a whole lot if you don't have any way of healing. Best it can do it hold death off for a short bit of time.
Most every group has 'some' way to heal. So for most barbarians it is an amazing feat.
raging vitity is also good with the rage power that turns neg hp damage to non lethal. at the point of unconciousness it effectively dubles your hp and makes you very hard to kilk without a cdg.