I had a discussion in another thread and decided I ought to separate it to its own thread. Then the discussion was removed as an unrelated side topic, but that was after I copied it.
I'm afraid to ask what they did to Rage now.Multiple forms of rage don't stack.
Therefore, a skald and barbarian have worse synergy than a bard and barbarian. This makes for less thematic pairings - fighters want skalds, while barbarians want bards.
I didn't know that. My party's skald will be disappointed that the bloodrager NPC in the party no longer always accepts her Ragesong. We already had to find reasons for the magus PC to sometimes accept her song; now the other spellcaster joins the sometimes group. She has a bloodline power that she likes.
Of course, I am the GM and can override the errata. But I would like to know the reasoning behind it, to better inform my decision.
Wow, the PDT can make sensible changes(mechanically, anyway, I do agree that Barbarians should want Skalds).The current discussion here is why the developers don't explain their errata, so I will ask Azten instead. Why does that make sense to you?
I thought the developers were using the usual rules for bonuses to control possible problems about rage stacking. The skald's Inspired Rage ragesong gives fellow party members a morale bonus to Str, Con, and Will saves, a penalty to AC, shares rage powers, and prevents concentration, spellcasting, and certain skill checks. A barbarian's Rage gives the barbarian a morale bonus to Str, Con, and Will saves, a penalty to AC, enables his own rage powers, and prevents concentration, spellcasting, and the same skill checks. A bloodrager's Bloodrage give the bloodrager a morale bonus to Str, Con, and Will saves, a penalty to AC, enables her own bloodline powers, and prevents concentration, spellcasting, and the same skill checks except for the bloodrager's own Bloodrage Casting. The best parts are morale bonuses that don't stack anyway. The penalties would stack, including the ragesong stopping the bloodrager from casting bloodrager spells. All the errata prevents is combining the rage powers and bloodline powers.
Wait, the errata prevents one other thing. Based on initiative rolls, my bloodrager would start her own bloodrage if the skald had not started her ragesong before the bloodrager's attack. The skald's Inspired Rage was superior, since my bloodrager traded away her 1st-level bloodline power for a familiar. Thus, she would run both rages at once to gain the rage powers while she spent more rounds of her own rage merely to prevent fatigue. With the errata, she would be penalized with fatigue for switching to the ragesong.
Except, none of that is new with the FAQ. The Skald text always said;
"Inspired rage does not allow an ally to activate abilities dependent on other rage class abilities, such as rage powers, blood casting, or bloodrager bloodlines; the ally must activate her own rage class ability in order to use these features."
My bloodrager used to do that, using her own rounds of bloodrage while also accepting the skald's ragesong. The problem is that the FAQ adds the clause that the barbarian and bloodrager cannot use their own rage class ability while accepting Inspired Rage. I had erroneously interpreted the sentence CBDunkerson quoted as meaning that my bloodrager could accept both forms of rage together.
1ST EDIT: I found part of the reason for the FAQ errata. In the Unchained barbarian the bonuses to melee attack rolls, melee damage rolls, thrown weapon damage rolls, and Will saving throws are typeless, so they would stack. And they don't affect Str and Con directly, so would stack even if they were morale bonuses.
2ND EDIT: On second thought, the Inspired Rage clause that the barbarian uses his own bonuses during Inspired Rage could be generalized to prevent stacking by the same-source rule. That would be a more elegant solution.
Ah. I hadn't ever thought/heard of that interpretation. I always thought of it as switching from one to the other, but your reading was also plausible. So that alone explains the need for this FAQ... to clarify which of differing interpretations was intended.
Thus, I learned that overlapping Inspired Rage raging song and Bloodrage was not possible. Instead, unless I ignore the FAQ, my bloodrager has to either abandon her skald friend's contribution entirely or switch between the two kinds of rage. Switching would make sense in roleplaying, since the two rages offer different rage powers and bloodline powers.
The topic of this thread is I would like good ideas how to handle rage switching for a bloodrager who hopes to switch between the skald's Inspired Rage and her own Bloodrage during the same combat.
The main problem with switching is the fatigue caused by ending bloodrage. It does not prevent accepting the Inspired Rage, but fatigue still penalizes. Of course, if I use a rage-cycling trick to prevent fatigue, my bloodrager can switch without problem. I usually avoid such grandstanding measures on an NPC, but if it keeps other player happy, I am game.