Query: are the unchained classes that much better? What are your experience with both the unchained and "chained" classes?
My experiences?
Rogue: Unchained is an upgrade in just about every way. There are very few rogue tricks that are just 'better' then their unchained counterparts, but it takes a very specific kind of build to make use of them.
Barbarian: About the same. Some people don't like the potential ability to die when you come out of a rage that a normal barbarian can experience and would rather opt for the bonuses the Unchained Barbarian gets.
Summoner: Unchained is a downgrade (or better balanced, if you really want to know) than the normal summoner. I like it though. Themes help narrows down the eidolon options and even opened up some options that I like (Agathion's ability to lay on hands, for example).
Unchained rogue is a hell of a lot better, it brings the rogue from a point where they are next to useless to the point where they are something that can be useful to have. Even the unchained rogue is a little on the weak class, but now can at least contribute to the game in a meaningful way.
The unchained monk is also much better. Now they can actually fight fairly well.
The unchained barbarian seems to have fixed the instant death when the barbarian is knocked out and appears to have cleaned up some rage power.
The unchained summoner from what I understand was mainly to fix some out of balance issues. I don’t really play summoners, so it is hard to say.
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They are better balanced, not necessarily stronger.
unSummoner provides a much needed nerf to the class, especially fixing the "full caster with reduced spells per day" casting. It's still strogner than any other 6/9 caster due to the Summon Monster SLA, but no longer by as wide a margin, and it doesn't outclass even fairly well buil martials with a mere class feature. It should be used exclusively, baring a decidedly very high powered campaign.
unBarb is a much better made class than cBarb, with a higher floor (i.e. better at low optimization levels) and lower ceiling (worse at high optimization levels). It removed the cheezy abuse or Ragecycling, has more rounded defenses, and makes the class play more organic. It's not without flaws (e.g. it no longer has in-class flight), but I would definitely use it and make my players use it, unless they have a really good reason why they want the core version.
unRogue is a much needed upgrade to what can only be described as an NPC class in the chlothes of a PC class. The few things cRogue has tha unRogue misses are negligible. It's still not a good class, nor a well designed class, with plenty of issues that makes it ill suited for beginner players or anyone without high system mastery, unless the game is low powered (in which case it's fine). The cRogue should not be allowed to be used.
unMonk is the one class that should co-exist with the core class. For a typical Monk build, i.e. melee damage focussed (be it armed or unarmed), unMonk is miles ahead of anything cMonk has to offer, providing highly needed fixes to a pretty much broken class. Anyone interested in such a character should definitely use the unchained class. However, tere are some cMonk archetypes that drastically alter the playstyle that retain their value as playable choices (Tetori, Zen Archer, Far Strike Monk, Sohei, Sensei), if a player wants to play such particular builds that the archetypes are made for (in order grappling, archery, thrown weapons, mounted combat, support focus), cMonk with those archetypes should remain aviable.
Thanks guys. All of you actually helped. :)
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The only change I would make to the unBarbarian is to keep the strength increase when raging instead of using it as a damage increase. The ability to rage to get exceptional strength for a few rounds sometime is useful.
A Berserker falling dead when he leaves the rage is part of their legend, but giving that mechanic to a playing class isn't a good idea, so the unBarbarian changes were very useful with that.
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unBarb is a much better made class than cBarb, with a higher floor (i.e. better at low optimization levels) and lower ceiling (worse at high optimization levels). It removed the cheezy abuse or Ragecycling, has more rounded defenses, and makes the class play more organic. It's not without flaws (e.g. it no longer has in-class flight), but I would definitely use it and make my players use it, unless they have a really good reason why they want the core version.
unBarb is a kick in the shins when the cBarb is already struggling with an identity crisis since the Skald and Bloodrager encroached on their turf.
The unBarb removes around 50 rage powers compared to the cBarb, changes a couple more, and among them are several powerful and fun options that could have been the cornerstone of your build. A deliberate choice to make the class overall weaker.
The creation of "stances" is a half-baked idea to make all the powerful rage powers incompatible with each other (and ruin the unBarb's action economy), but wasn't given much more thought than that. The only stance rage power that belongs to that category is "Taunting Stance", which is the equivalent of "Come and Get Me". The rest aren't powerful enough to warrant being exclusive.
A 'really good reason' why I'd use the core version is that you shouldn't base your unchained version on the idea of collective punishment. Some players ragecycle and now we must nerf the entire class?
Use the unBarb's rage as its more streamlined but keep the cBarb's rage powers as they are. Then you simply say that "once per rage" rage powers get replenished after a minute of not raging, just like the temp HP. The solution was there the entire time but they had to salt the earth.
The ability to rage to get exceptional strength for a few rounds sometime is useful.
Useful? Yes. But being angry doesn't make you better at swimming or climbing, I really don't mind unchained removing that.
The unBarb removes around 50 rage powers compared to the cBarb
More like 120, although half of those are from books released after unchained and really should be allowed for unBarb, even if the books don't explicitly say so.
The creation of "stances" is a half-baked idea to make all the powerful rage powers incompatible with each other (and ruin the unBarb's action economy), but wasn't given much more thought than that. The only stance rage power that belongs to that category is "Taunting Stance", which is the equivalent of "Come and Get Me". The rest aren't powerful enough to warrant being exclusive.
The stance rage powers make a lot of sense form a balancing and design viewpoint. Since all of the stances except for Taunting Stance are merely numerical benefits, letting players easily get multiple of those would make for a very boring character. I understand having to activate a rage power can sometimes feel frustrating, but it brings Barbarian more in line with party members if the group knows to expect a fight (i.e. the Barb is not the only party member that has no way to prebuff, something that can feel frustrating, too, and is problematic for inner-party balance). Reckless Abandon + pounce letting the Barbarian all but guaranteedly kill a target in the first round of combat, even in a surprise round, is not conductive to a healthy game. The same applies to Reckless Abandon allowing the Barb to ignore the penalty from Dazing Assault when using CaGM, that's not a good thing to have in the game.
unBarb's Accurate Stance compared to cBarb's Reckless Abandon is a perfect example of unBarb being more rounded and overall better designed. Making the game more rocket tag should not be desirable.
Some players ragecycle and now we must nerf the entire class?
It's not just rage cycling. Barb with Superstition is hard enough to hit with effects as it is, and barb in general is already easily one of the best martials, so even once per encounter Clear Mind and Eater of Magic are a case of "the rich getting richer". From a GM perspective I much prefer unchained's Clear Mind.
Unchained rogue: at its core this is a huge upgrade for rogue, free weapon finesse, dex to damage starting at 3rd, automatic debuffs when sneak attacking… the only downside to unchained rogue is its heavily restricted talent list. There are a few rogue talents that are a real shame to lose access to.
Unchained barbarian: largely a sidegrade to the standard barbarian. The Unchained Barbarian excels with multiple weapons, is statistically unchanged with natural weapons, and is weaker with two-handed weapons. This is because their rage applies a flat damage bonus and doesn’t care about the handedness of your weapons instead of a strength bonus. Where the Unchained barbarian truly shines though is in rage powers, while they do lose access to a few strong rage powers, they gain access to the rage power stances that are a MASSIVE improvement over many of the rage powers they replace.
Unchained monk: this is only a minor improvement over base monk, mixed with multiple veiled nerfs… for the most part though you wont see much difference outside of the added versatility that ki powers give them, which you can get with the Qigong Monk archetype on a normal monk anyways… the biggest drawback for unchained monk however is archetypes. Unlike all other unchained classes the Unchained Monk does NOT retain access to all archetypes of the original class. As a result, unchained variants of archetypes had to be created leaving the unchained monk severely limited in the archetype department and very few of the desirable monk archetypes made the transition.
Unchained summoner: unlike all other unchained classes, this one is a straight up nerf. The unchained summoner may not have too many differences from the standard summoner, but the changes it does have are ALL for the worse. Some call it more balanced, which in some aspects it might be, but as a whole it was over nerfed.
The stance rage powers make a lot of sense form a balancing and design viewpoint. Since all of the stances except for Taunting Stance are merely numerical benefits, letting players easily get multiple of those would make for a very boring character. I understand having to activate a rage power can sometimes feel frustrating, but it brings Barbarian more in line with party members if the group knows to expect a fight (i.e. the Barb is not the only party member that has no way to prebuff, something that can feel frustrating, too, and is problematic for inner-party balance).
The idea behind it is sound, but my criticism is that they've created an issue where there was none and then solved it. Taking both Accurate and Reckless at the same time would be too good, but Accurate didn't exist before they made that addition. So you're making a single choice that depends entirely on if you've got access to Inspire courage or not. The other stances, except CaGM, aren't actual contenders.
And stances doesn't lead to party cohesion through prebuffing as you must still activate a resource limited to rounds per day, making it very improbable that you do so before combat when the rest of the party applies minute/level buffs.
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Re: your grievances with Reckless Abandon, CaGM, and Superstition.
I feel like you're forgetting that all three of those abilities come with very real drawbacks. CaGM + Reckless Abandon (at lv 12) imposes effectively a -8 AC penalty which can turn any Barb into a pincushion real quick, or just get CMB'd down easily. They actively chose to lean into the rocket tag. And Superstition (excluding ragecycling) can be an absolute drag if your party actually want to cast anything on you.
I'm all in favor of once per encounter powers, like Eater of Magic, actually being strong enough to warrant being once per encounter. If you're investing resources into your defenses then you deserve to be tankier.
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For the most part, what everyone else said.
Everyone will have their own opinions, particularly those who see any reduction in player power as a negative. It's also worth noting that the class reworks were mostly concerned with combat, with smaller benefits for the social or skill aspects of the game.
Barbarian - Simplified bookkeeping, but mostly in the same power range. The differences are minor enough that it comes down to player preference.
Monk - Much more flexibility. Of all the Core Rulebook base classes, the monk had the least amount of customization possible without archetypes. Improved combat effectiveness, particularly at the lower levels. Player choice but use unchained unless you really like an archetype that doesn't work with Unchained.
Rogue - Definite (and deliberate) upgrade. Free Weapon Finesse, Debilitating Injury, and Rogue's Edge are straight additions to chained. Most PCs should use Unchained.
Summoner - Definite (and deliberate) downgrade. A player with a moderate amount of system mastery could build a chained eidolon at least as effective as any melee PC. As for the spells, they were always supposed to have been higher level than what was in the APG, Level 2 haste, for example, was an error. Jason Bulmahn even said so when Unchained was published. Use Unchained if you are playing the game "as the designers intended." Use Chained only if your entire group likes (and is cool with) the out of scale aspects.
The Unchained Barbarian excels with multiple weapons, is statistically unchanged with natural weapons, and is weaker with two-handed weapons.
This is so overrated it honestly doesn't even need to be mentioned. TWF gains one damage, 2H loses one damage, that's so incredibly minor it should not be the focus point of any comparison. Most importantly, with no bonus feats or ability to ignore dex-prereqs, unBarb certainly doesn't "excel with multiple weapons".
Unchained monk: this is only a minor improvement over base monk, mixed with multiple veiled nerfs… for the most part though you wont see much difference outside of the added versatility that ki powers give them
Nonsense, it's a huge buff for melee Monk. unMonk is lightyears ahead for weapon based builds, and for unarmed, it allows build variety. All that in combination with Ki Powers providing customizability and outfight contributabitily where cMonk had almost none.
Saying that ki powers are merely on par with Qinggong powers is simply laughable. Where is the Qinggong power that lets you fly, turn invisible, and move through walls at 4th level? Where is the Qinggong power that lets you reroll party member's saves? Where is the Qinggong power that lets you escape grapples, paralysis, Slow, etc.? Where is the Qinggong power that lets you breath only twice per day?
And stances doesn't lead to party cohesion through prebuffing as you must still activate a resource limited to rounds per day, making it very improbable that you do so before combat when the rest of the party applies minute/level buffs.
I'm not talking about buffing before you enter a dungeon, I'm talking about a buffing before you kick down the door, or when you see the enemies in the distance. And in those situations, stance rage powers bring the Barbarian more in line with other classes.
I feel like you're forgetting that all three of those abilities come with very real drawbacks.
Nope, I'm not forgetting anything. Superstition, Reckless Abandon, and CaGM are easily the most recommended rage powers apart from Greater Beast Totem, as their upsides way overshadow their downsides. Also, the downside of Superstition is "if you roll high on Init, you have to delay until after the guy who casts Haste". Oh no, what a nightmare!
That players "actively chose to lean into the rocket tag" doesn't make my job as a GM any easier when I want to challenge but not randomly kill the Barbarian, nor does it make the Barb's party members suffer from it any less.
If it's something undesirable (for the GM to have in the game, or for party members to have in their group), the option not being there in the first place is an improvement.
The Unchained Barbarian excels with multiple weapons, is statistically unchanged with natural weapons, and is weaker with two-handed weapons.This is so overrated it honestly doesn't even need to be mentioned. TWF gains one damage, 2H loses one damage, that's so incredibly minor it should not be the focus point of any comparison. Most importantly, with no bonus feats or ability to ignore dex-prereqs, unBarb certainly doesn't "excel with multiple weapons".
I believe the point of it is that it can be dex based. And once you are dex based, you can meet the twf prerequisites pretty easily. Not that those prerequisites are that hard to meet anyway.
Unchained...
Barbarian- is meh(in fact why didn't we get Fighter instead)
Monk-is awesome, so much better in almost every way...though you do loose good will save and poison immunity.
Rogue- is a complete upgrade, better in every way.
Summoner- for the most part weaker but has a few interesting ideas.
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Unchained barbarian is mostly just for easier math and to remove the chance of instantly dying when knocked to negative hitpoints. Other perks of the change were already discussed
And stances doesn't lead to party cohesion through prebuffing as you must still activate a resource limited to rounds per day, making it very improbable that you do so before combat when the rest of the party applies minute/level buffs.I'm not talking about buffing before you enter a dungeon, I'm talking about a buffing before you kick down the door, or when you see the enemies in the distance. And in those situations, stance rage powers bring the Barbarian more in line with other classes.
Fair enough, but the first one is foolhardy considering that a raging barb can't use stealth and will most likely alert the enemies on the other side of the door. And enemies in the distance is, if you're not undetected (in which case the stealth issue stands), at least in my experience when combat is already underway.
The subset of prebuffing that can be done with stances is so small that I don't think it's a worthwhile distinction to say it will occur outside of combat. And since it won't, it's a hit to your action economy in the large majority of cases. ...which isn't an entirely bad thing if the rage powers in that category deserved that treatment. CaGM does, though.
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Nope, I'm not forgetting anything. Superstition, Reckless Abandon, and CaGM are easily the most recommended rage powers apart from Greater Beast Totem, as their upsides way overshadow their downsides. Also, the downside of Superstition is "if you roll high on Init, you have to delay until after the guy who casts Haste". Oh no, what a nightmare!
You're a smart fellow. Do you suppose that there may be a correlation between the idea that the Barb is a glass cannon and that people keep recommending options that trade out defense for offense? The reason you're struggling to challenge but not randomly kill the barb is because their build is extremely volatile and poorly made. This is an issue with the sum of the player's choices, not the choices themselves. I wouldn't ban Risky Striker even though it leads to the same issue.
Re Superstition. You must delay, yes. But you're also swearing off all the flexibility of responding to the situation with ally spells. For example, an ally wants to cast Fly on you when the boss starts hovering above your reach. Or Liberating Command.
And an anecdote about Superstition. After a fight our Barb was barely standing and made some pointed comments about maybe needing a little healing. They just wouldn't stop making their saves. It took five entire rounds to heal them above the instant death range and it only worked because we had them unequip their Cloak of Resistance and demoralized them for the Shaken penalty.
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Also note that uSummoner is nerfed as far as the spell list is concerned. But it opens up a lot of interesting ways to build the eidolon that were not possible with cSummoner. So it ends up being a trade of power for versatility. They also didn't touch the biggest issue which was the Summon Monster ability, in fact they doubled down on it by giving other classes the same ability.
The eidolon was less nerfed and more just "shackled". Sure you get some new options from the old version, but also things get oddly locked out for no reason. Like, why can't I have an angel quadruped? A holy winged unicorn sounds amazaing and should have been an option. Also, evolutions were tied to subtype for no good reason or benefit, which led to later problems like the Shadow subtype was later published and had access to no natural attack evolutions, despite the subtype giving them base natural attacks. Ultimately, the eidolon subtypes should have just been archetypes, with the base eidolon having fewer relative evolution points than what could be granted by those archetypes.
I do find it funny that Summon Monster was left untouched. It's such an amazing ability. And since it can be used to summon multiples it can seriously clog up the game with multiple attacks multiplied by multiple monsters. If I were to limit this ability, I'd take away its ability to summon multiple creatures. The ability is still fairly strong if you are limited to summoning only 1 creature per use.
Monk is the really weird one to compare for me. It’s a clear upgrade over base core monk, but is locked out of a lot of archetypes, so without just ignoring that limitation as a house rule, the core monk can often be better at a lot of things with its archetypes.
I do like the unchained flurry a lot more than core flurry. It’s only a tiny bit stronger but both easier to run and more satisfying to use.