Pathfinder Unchained is out for subscribers and on the way for people that ordered and it is a big book of house rules. But I noticed that a lot of things that appear in Pathfinder Unchained are similar to third party products that I've bought and slightly step on the toes of some of the products I've bought as a solution to problems I've perceived in the game. So lets have a thread where we discuss what PF Unchained deals with and how owners of similar third party products can consolidate the new rules into the rules they've bought.
I'll start with classes.
Barbarian and Summoner problems have been dealt with in 3pp by either ignoring it but Monks and Rogues have a lot of 'fix' products
I've been 'fixing' my Rogues with Rogue Glory and The Talented Rogue. Using both proved to be too much but one or the other have already eliminated Rogue problems at my table. Using them alongside Unchained Rogue is likely easy. Just let the option of playing a
Talented Rogue, Unchained Rogue, or Glory Rogue (functionally a core Rogue with two extra abilities) and things shouldn't be too different, especially if I allow abilities selectable as rogue talents to cross over anywhere that gains rogue talents.
Monks are trickier. I've seen Monk Unfettered, The Talented Monk, Monk Reborn and use Way of Ki. Each one alone solves a lot of problems but with the exception of Way of Ki they are hard to use at the same time effectively generating 4 separate monk classes if you don't want to do all the fiddling to force the three new monks to work with all the archetypes you want to introduce. There's already grumbling that Unchained Monk is still weak but a lot of cool abilities got described so I have 5 monk classes, probably reduced to 2 or three because honestly Talented Classes have lost a lot of appeal as they don't interact well with third party archetypes and I haven't used Talented Monk since Way of Ki was bought. I'm likely to end up with Unchained Monk and Core Monk for the time being, with Talented Monk Talents as monk bonus feats.
There is a new stamina system that is very similar to Martial Actions. I was worried at first but while martial actions function much like Path of War maneuvers in feat form the stamina pool interacts with existing combat feats. Also the Stamina (BAB+CON) is close enough to Martial Pools (BAB+4) that I feel that I could make them equate each other and everything will be fine. The real problem is any other combat feat product is potentially inferior at this point and less acceptable because Unchained came out of Paizo. My personal solution is to continue with the consolidated Combat Feats from New Paths Compendium and allow fighters to get the stamina pool for free while everyone else gets taxed. From my point of view the Feat starved martials and 3/4 BAB classes will still not be able to benefit enough from the stamina pool and be incensed to delve into other sources of combat feats, especially if they can gain the primary play style feats quickly.
Another aspect of Pathfinder Unchained and third party product is the opportunity for more third party products. Since more details were announced there have been questions about whether or not these systems will be supported in the future. Paizo has nothing in the horizon and honestly they probably shouldn't since some of the new alt rules contradict each other or their core counterpart, so they will most likely go the way of Mythic and Wordcasting. but Mythic and Wordcasting have gotten a ton of support from third parties. What do you think 3pp could benefit from supporting from Pathfinder Unchained? More of these new monk powers? Stamina tricks for third party combat feats? New ways to use stamina? More skill unlocks? More new rule poisons? Consolidated Skill list uses?
I've been hoping for this topic to be created!
Here are the Paizo blog posts about Unchained, for those of us who won't see this thing before the 29th:
Time to Break Your Chains!
[...] detailing alternate versions of the barbarian, monk, rogue, and summoner. So to kick off our previews, I've asked designer Mark Seifter to give you some of the juiciest tidbits about the Unchained variant classes [...]
Unchained Skills and Feats
[...] In Chapters 2 and 3 of Pathfinder Unchained, there are not only several daring subsystems that play with feats, there so many different options for restructuring skills that it's easy to lose yourself in all the possibilities. [...]
The Stamina System seems to be the biggest change, with its maneuvers-ish style, replenishing between combats. Here's hoping the PoW crowd has some ideas about it.