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Unless I'm mistaken, a bloodrager with the primalist archetype gets everything a barbarian gets, except the following -
D10 HD instead of a D12, coming to an average of 1 HP less per level
Trap Sense and upgrades
2 additional rage powers (The primalist allowing him to swap out his bloodline powers for 2 rage powers, putting him at 8 potential rage powers instead of 10)
Now, being that some of the bloodline abilities are vastly better than any rage power, this allows the primalist bloodrager to pick the best of the bloodlines and the best of the rage powers, while retaining every other benefit the barbarian had.
I have this feeling that I'm completely missing something, what is it?
Mostly just that you're getting the rage powers every 4 levels instead of every 2. So typically you're 2 levels behind the barbarian for rage power progression (oooooooh noooooo, right?). I've been tinkering with the class and it's pretty brutal. When reading through the class for the first time on getting the ACG I was under the assumption for some reason that Rage and Bloodrage were different things, and the bloodrager wouldn't get to use various things barbarians get like furious weapons or raging vitality. I'm not sure why I thought this, but when I did all the cool stuff the bloodrager gets made much more sense, but now outside of a bigger HD and fast rage power progression (and, of course, character concepts) the bloodrager does feel like it's just an improved version of the barbarian...
Especially because you sacrifice literally nothing to take the Primalist archetype. So every bloodrager can be that on creation and decide at 4, 8, etc. whether they want the bloodline power or rage powers. It's a frustrating archetype that makes me kind of sad.
The only thing you dont get is access to extra rage power feat and the barbarian FCB.
Oh. Those are pretty big points. You essentially have half rage powers.
I just realized: Bloodrager has no alignment restrictions. Weird it didn't get the non-lawful from Barbarian.
Worth noting that the Bloodrager doesn't get access to the Human Barb FCB, and will have weaker defenses than the optimized Superstitious Pouncing Come and Get Me Barbarian.
I think the Bloodrager is strictly better on all fronts in games that don't take advantage of that, though.
whats FCB?
Favored Class Bonus.
I dunno, I feel like the class would've been fine without the ability to take rage powers. A lot of bloodlines grant some kind of minor energy resistance at 4th or 8th, and if you're like me and don't afraid of taking 5 more points of cold or acid damage or whatever swapping that out for a rage power seems like my go-to plan unless my campaign would really have me getting some use out of it. Two abilities that I can use all the time, or less damage every tenth encounter or so?
Superstitious is just a good ability in general, though. I'd take that almost every time I decide to sacrifice a bloodline ability with the Primalist, unless I'm pushing a build that needs a totem or something. Even if you're missing out on the human FCB you're still able to pitch resistance every so often for better saves all the frikkin' time, and there are times you might want to play another race anyways =P
I'm thinking for my own games I'm going to have to keep the primalist as a "nope" just to prevent the bloodrager from being the barbarian, only better. I was sure I was missing something though. Hard to believe that it hit publishing in that state. I get replacing the rogue with the slayer, the rouge was in a horrible position on its own. I get the cleric largely ending up with a backsteat to the warpriest and shaman, the cleric also wasn't in a good place all on it's own. But the barbarian?
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You also can't go Unbreakable.
Unless going Untouchable (which has its own issues) you also need to invest in Charisma.
So, in total, as a Bloodrager instead of a Barbarian:
You usually need to invest in Charisma, wind up with 1 less HP per level, can't get Extra Rage Power (which hurts, many Barbarian builds grab that several times), are delayed two levels in getting many Rage Powers, and are prohibited from the Barbarian Favored Class bonuses and the Unbreakable Archetype (both of which are some of Barbarians' best options).
In exchange:
You get 4 level casting (with Blood Sanctuary and Blood Casting), a few Bonus Feats from a specific list, a 1st level power (most of which are okay, but no more), and can spend two Rage Powers for a Bloodline Power (but only at certain levels...ie: you can't grab the 8th level power at 16th, even if you're rather have it than the 16th level one).
And, for the record, a normal Barbarian can actually duplicate those last two (albeit at a slightly higher level and occasionally not quite as well) with Rage Powers (and it costs him less...3 Rage Powers for the 1st level power and two Bloodline abilities, something that effectively costs the Bloodrager 4 Rage Powers), though you can't get the Arcane, Aberrant, or Destined Bloodlines and Abyssal is weakened, protecting some of the Bloodrager's best options from being stolen by the Barbarian in a neat bit of symmetry with the Unbreakable/FC stuff above.
That...looks pretty much like a fair set of tradeoffs, to be honest.
I'm not sure what you're referencing there, Deadmanwalking, when you talk about Unbreakable. Do you mean the fighter archetype Unbreakable? Or do you mean the Invulnerable Rager archetype? Or is this just parlance I'm unfamiliar with?
Note that bloodragers have access to an archetype that allows them to burn rounds of rage for metamagic. In exchange for uncanny dodge, they can burn double the adjusted spell level rounds of rage to add a metamagic feat, and they can take metamagic feats instead of normal bloodline bonus feats. So a 10th-level bloodragers can open with a dazing fireball for 12 rounds of rage. Which is hefty, but if it ends the encounter in one shot while enemies are still grouped together, why not? Not to mention utility stuff like toppling magic missile for 4 rounds of rage, or, unless I'm wrong, if the bloodrager has enough rage they could even dump it all into a heightened spell (though I think they'd still need to be able to cast that spell slot, I think; the wording on Metamagic Rager says that the feat is applied without increasing the spell's level, so not totally sure about this...).
Saying that getting somewhere with rage powers costs the barbarian 3 but the bloodrager 4 just because the bloodrager gets 4 rage powers is kind of a non-argument.Sure, the bloodrager might have only needed 3 rage powers; good thing a lot of them are really useful. At 12th-level the bloodrager can have a full totem progression--2 levels later--by giving up the 8th- and 12th-level bloodline abilities plus superstition. People who want to optimize will still be able to optimize, and it's only at specific levels where it doesn't seem like a Primalist bloodrager is outstripping the barbarian.
They're largely comparable, but the bloodrager does seem to be edging out the barbarian in a lot of situations.
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I just realized: Bloodrager has no alignment restrictions. Weird it didn't get the non-lawful from Barbarian.
I think I remember reading some time ago that the design team didn't particularly like alignment restrictions on classes and just inherited them from 3.5.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Barbarian in Pathfinder Unchained didn't have that restriction either.
Is one Rage Power REALLY going to break your CAGM build?
I'm not 100% familiar with there being a single CAGM barbarian build, but you can take extra rage power more than once. But sure. The barbarian is a bit better than the bloodrager at using his own rage powers. But instead of having all the rage powers, he gets spells instead. Black Tentacles is a nice one, haste is aight, and I guess fly is ok too...
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I'm not sure what you're referencing there, Deadmanwalking, when you talk about Unbreakable. Do you mean the fighter archetype Unbreakable? Or do you mean the Invulnerable Rager archetype? Or is this just parlance I'm unfamiliar with?
S$++. Yeah, I meant Invulnerable Rager. My bad.
Note that bloodragers have access to an archetype that allows them to burn rounds of rage for metamagic. In exchange for uncanny dodge, they can burn double the adjusted spell level rounds of rage to add a metamagic feat, and they can take metamagic feats instead of normal bloodline bonus feats. So a 10th-level bloodragers can open with a dazing fireball for 12 rounds of rage. Which is hefty, but if it ends the encounter in one shot while enemies are still grouped together, why not? Not to mention utility stuff like toppling magic missile for 4 rounds of rage, or, unless I'm wrong, if the bloodrager has enough rage they could even dump it all into a heightened spell (though I think they'd still need to be able to cast that spell slot, I think; the wording on Metamagic Rager says that the feat is applied without increasing the spell's level, so not totally sure about this...).
That's really pricey in Rage rounds. 12 rounds of Rage plus a 3rd level spell slot to end an encounter is actually a pretty high price. Oh, and very unlikely to work unless you jack Charisma (an 18 or 20 won't be enough...that's only DC 17-18, which isn't sufficient to do much to most CR 8s, never mind anything higher).
Saying that getting somewhere with rage powers costs the barbarian 3 but the bloodrager 4 just because the bloodrager gets 4 rage powers is kind of a non-argument.Sure, the bloodrager might have only needed 3 rage powers; good thing a lot of them are really useful. At 12th-level the bloodrager can have a full totem progression--2 levels later--by giving up the 8th- and 12th-level bloodline abilities plus superstition. People who want to optimize will still be able to optimize, and it's only at specific levels where it doesn't seem like a Primalist bloodrager is outstripping the barbarian.
But...a Barbarian can have those 4 Rage Powers and burn two on Bloodline stuff and have exactly the same abilities at the same level. Better if he burns Feats on them. The Bloodrager will have spells and Bloodline Feats, but the Barbarian has advantages too. Like DR 6/-, for example.
They're largely comparable, but the bloodrager does seem to be edging out the barbarian in a lot of situations.
Eh. Depends on what you're looking for.