[Unchained] Unchained Barbarian - More Trouble Than it's Worth?


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I understand the idea of the Unchained Barbarian sorta "streamlining" the whole Rage process.

It doesn't actually CHANGE anything about how the Barbarian's Rage functions (except in how temp hit points are calculated, which could have simply been a rules patch, honestly, saying "temp hit points gained by Con boosts are added like normal Temp Hit Points"), it just changes the routes as to how the Barbarian arrives at the same destination.

But, unlike the Rogue - who seems to be creating very few interaction snarls - there seems to be no ends of issues with how the Unchained Barbarian interacts with everything OUTSIDE of the Unchained Barbarian's entry.

In other words, the Unchained Barbarian functions pretty well in a bubble, but once you start trying to combine it with other options outside of itself, it creates major interactivity snarls.

Raging Vitality comes to mind, as does the Urban Barbarian.

Then I see questions involving Rage combined with Alchemist Bombs, whether the Unchained Rage should be applied to Bloodrager's Rage or the Raging Song of the Skald or whether it now stacks with either of those abilities, etc.

Then there's the whole philosophical question of, "why change the Barbarian's Rage, when the Alchemists' Mutagen is the same thing, yet didn't get addressed?"

What it all boils down to is: some people felt Rage was too complicated, and wanted a "fix", but if the "fix" causes so many rules interaction nightmares for both the Players and the DM that never existed before, what's the point?


I kind of see it as a barbarian with training wheels. It does some good things:

Temporary HP solves the spike in mortality rate of non-orc barbarians. Great change!

Less emphasis on 1/rage rage powers means that Rage Cycling is much less of an issue, so people won't scour the rules books for ways to become immune to fatigue. If only from a flavor perspective I think this is a good change, since going "I'm angry!" "wait, I'm OK" "wait, I'm angry!" "wait, I'm OK" always struck me as a peculiar way to portray the "raging berserker".

Straight bonuses to hit and damage means that half your character sheet doesn't need to be updated whenever you go into rage. Not really a big deal for players who are used to how strength and constitution interacts with the rest of your character, but a lot of modifiers to stay on top of for new players. It also makes a TWF barbarian slightly better, since she gains a straight bonus on both main and off-hand attacks.

Many awful rage powers have been improved, which means that among others Raging Climber, Raging Swimmer and Raging Leaper are more interesting now.

With that said, I'm not a huge fan of the unchained barbarian. Some of the most iconic rage powers were 1/rage, and are now conspicuous in their absence - for example Spell Sunder went from being a fantastic "this Wall of Force/Symbol of Insanity/Antimagic zone needs to end now" rage power to a circumstantial "I sure hope I roll a critical hit so I might be able to suppress off one of his buffs"-effect baked into Witch Hunter. Nowhere near as good, and nowhere near as satisfying to use. Losing the strength bonus but keeping the AC penalty means that a barbarian now becomes easier to grapple when she's raging, which just feels wrong. Barbarian archers were already quite rare, but with the new Rage not interacting with non-thrown ranged weapons they're more or less extinct. Finally, I have to say I would have preferred to see a rewrite of the rage mechanics that was class-agnostic, so it could be implemented on the Bloodrager, Skald, and all the various archetypes that gain rage as well.

Mostly I'm just not quite sure if the barbarian needed a rewrite more than some other classes. When Unchained was announced I was very happy that they were revisiting the monk and the rogue, but the barbarian came out of left-field for me. The class may be clunky, but it works. I still hold hope that they'll unshackle the fighter in a later release.


You do realize that Nothing says you can't still use the old barbarian right? Even PFS says you can still make a CRB style Barbarian next to the new Unchained one, and the Unchained Version was for a player's streamlining... If you don't want to streamline why bother?


Where does it say Spell Sunder is gone? Cause I don't see it. The way I read that side bar is that you can't use Rage powers from UC that have the same name, so Spell Sunder is still legal.


Insain Dragoon wrote:
Where does it say Spell Sunder is gone? Cause I don't see it.

Because it doesn't say it was retained, it only is retained as a rage power if it says so.


I find it hard to believe that no Rage Powers from the ACG are legal for the Unchained Barbarian because they didn't say they were retained.

It makes way more sense to read that Unmodified Rage Powers are still there.

Nothing in that sidebar says that the Unchained Barb is restricted.


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Hmm... looking again, it only mentions "Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player’s Guide and Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Combat". So I'll agree with your interpretation that ACG's rage powers are retained.


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

For PFS purposes, only the rage powers listed in Unchained are legal, so I take it that is the intent. Some powers might not even interact well with the new class version.


Zaister wrote:
For PFS purposes, only the rage powers listed in Unchained are legal, so I take it that is the intent. Some powers might not even interact well with the new class version.

PFS decisions don't reflect intent of the RPG dev's.

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