CTP's Guide to the Bloodrager

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CTP's Guide to the Bloodrager

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A Bloodrager... from the future.

The Bloodrager is one of the new hybrid classes introduced in Pathfinder's Advanced Class Guide. A fusion of barbarian and sorcerer, the bloodrager brings a new flavor of 'gish in a can' to the Pathfinder lineup.

It's best to think of the Bloodrager as an alternate class for Barbarian, similar to the relationship between Samurai and Cavaliers or Ninjas and Rogues. The Bloodrager is a decidedly combat-focused class, more along the lines of the Paladin or Ranger in terms of casting ability.

This guide adds to the wealth of knowledge accumulated in solid guides that came before it. If you find any concepts or terminology foreign to you, I suggest looking at barbarian or sorcerer guides; this guide also assumes you're familiar with concepts such as 'gishes,' 'melee control,' 'action economy,' etc.

Color Rating System

Throughout the guide various options will be rated based on a color-key:
Blue denotes excellent choices. These are highly recommended, and often beat other options by a wide margin. You can't go wrong with these.
Green denotes good choices. A step above the average, these options will perform well, though not as spectacularly as blue choices.
Black denotes average choices. These are the standard by which others are based; functional, if not terribly exciting.
Purple denotes situational or confusing choices. These could be useful on certain builds or in certain situations, or else they need clarification. Often times you're better off going blue or green.
Red denotes bad choices. These are decidedly weaker than other choices, or else wind up actively hurting your character's effectiveness.

What's up with the Bloodrager?

The Bloodrager is essentially a barbarian variant, more thorough than a simple archetype. The main chassis of the barbarian is largely intact: full BAB, good Fortitude saves, DR, uncanny dodge, and of course, RAGE (or in this case, BLOODRAGE)! If you enjoy playing barbarians, chances are good you'll enjoy playing a bloodrager. Let's put them side by side and see what is lost, and what is gained.

Things that are altered or lost from Barbarian:

HD: The Bloodrager sports a d10 hit dice like most other full BAB classes, down slightly from barbarian's d12.

Skills: You replace Knowledge (nature) with Knowledge (arcana), and gain Spellcraft. Same number of skill points. Looks like a net gain for a bloodrager, for the most part, as both of those skills are important for anyone who wants to know about magic. Of course, a bloodrager can certainly get away with not putting ranks in such things. INT remains a relatively easy stat to dump.

Trap Sense: Trap sense is lost. Oh no! Considering this is one of the more popular barbarian class features to swap out for an archetype, the bloodrager probably won't miss these minor bonuses.

Rage Powers: This is one of the main ways bloodragers differ from standard barbarians. A vanilla bloodrager doesn't have rage powers, which can be bad. However, there is a simple archetype that costs a bloodrager basically nothing, called the Primalist, that lets you grab a few rage powers. You will never have as many rage powers as a barbarian, but you'll certainly be supplementing them with bloodline powers and spells. Overall, this barely effects bloodragers, especially considering they can cherry pick good rage powers to replace crappy bloodline powers.

Things that are gained beyond normal Barbarians...

Blood Sanctuary: A circumstantial minor bonus is lost with the absence of Trap Sense, but regained with Blood Sanctuary! You gain a minor bonus to saves vs. your own and allied spells. It doesn't hurt you, I guess, but your friends should be trying not to hit you with spells regardless, and only an idiot gets harmed by their own spells.

Eschew Materials + Bonus Bloodline Feats: Everybody likes bonus feats. Bloodragers get Eschew Materials when their spellcasting comes online, a nice nod from their sorcerer parent class. The value of the bonus feats depends largely on your choice of bloodline (and the Metamagic Rager archetype can take metamagic feats as well, which is nice).

Bloodline Powers: The bloodrager's main replacement for rage powers, these are all based on your bloodline. Some of them are excellent, comparable to the best rage powers (or better), while others are less potent. Your choice of bloodline is thus extremely important! Crappy ones can be swapped out and replaced with rage powers via the Primalist archetype, which is highly recommended. You only get 6 of these puppies over the course of your career, so you won't have as many rage powers as a regular barbarian, but many bloodline powers function when you're not (blood)raging, which is nice. You'll never be able to swap out your bloodline power at 1st level; at best, you don't care, and at worst, you'll have to tolerate a crappy ability. In general, the 4th or 8th level bloodline ability is a likely candidate for swapping out, as they often consist of energy resistance of some flavor.

Spellcasting: Perhaps the main element separating bloodragers from their barbarian cousins is their ability to spontaneously cast a limited number of spells. Their casting abilities are similar in scope to a paladin's or ranger's; while they never have '0' spells per day, by level 20 they only have 2 4th level slots, one less than the paladin or ranger's 3 per day. That said, a bloodrager has a better caster level than a paladin or ranger, equal to their class level rather than their level -3. Their spells are drawn from a very limited list, mostly composed of buffs and direct-damage spells.

Aside from these elements, a bloodrager is basically the same thing as a barbarian; their rage progressions, DR, uncanny dodge, etc., are all gained at the same level and have exactly the same mechanics, save for one key difference...

Bloodrage & Bloodcasting Bloodragers receive Bloodcasting at the same time their spells come online, and it allows them to cast spells unhindered by their rage; this is all well and good. Bloodrage is almost exactly the same as normal rage, with all its benefits and drawbacks. The key feature that separates bloodrage from a normal rage is gained at 11th level, when a bloodrager can cast a personal or touch range spell while entering a bloodrage, which is a free action. This combines the melee goodness of Rage with built-in action-economy-saving spell goodness. Sadly, you have to wait quite a while for this special perk, but it gets even better later in your career.

How to Play a Bloodrager

With the above differences in mind, a bloodrager will play very similar to a barbarian. You want to grab a big weapon, rage, and start smashing people. While a barbarian relies on their rage powers to give them unique options, a bloodrager is a bit more self-reliant; he doesn't require his allies to buff him up quite as much, since he has his own slew of spells.

As far as ability score distribution is concerned, you have the same needs as a barbarian, with the added burden of needing to care about Charisma. You could start as low as an 11 and put ability score boosts into it and be okay; you only need a 14 to cast your most powerful spells. The truth is that bloodragers are slightly more MAD than a barbarian; you'll probably have to take a hit somewhere to have a better CHA, likely making INT your primary dump stat.

One very key difference between a bloodrager and a normal barbarian is the issue of rage-cycling. Barbarians love to rage-cycle, but a bloodrager must approach the concept differently. Once greater bloodrage comes online, the duration of the spell you cast when entering your bloodrage is based on the duration of the bloodrage itself, rather than the spell's normal duration. Thus, a rage-cycling bloodrager can wind up wasting spell slots, and you have precious few of those to begin with. Therefore, you want to avoid 1/rage powers and abilities if possible, especially if you would normally be seeking to rage-cycle.

There are a few ways to approach the bloodrager, and while any given build will likely have some overlap, the distribution of resources (feats, spell selection, etc.) will depend largely on this choice.

Buffrager
This build is relatively simple: you focus your resources on being a melee beast, and supplement your abilities with buff spells. Early in your career, you're better off picking longer duration spells and casting them out of combat. From level 11 onwards, you can cast shorter duration buffs when you begin a bloodrage, which is when this strategy really begins to shine. The nice thing about this strategy is you don't have to worry about spell save DC's as much, so you don't require a very high CHA.

Blastrager
While your main focus is melee, this build moonlights as a blaster. It basically gives bloodragers some ranged crowd-control options. You get in there and start slicing people up, but when you need to you toss a fireball or similar AoE spell into the mix. You'll struggle to keep your spell save DC's up (there are ways to mollify this, but they come with their own special price), and blasting is largely considered sub-optimal in general. It gives you a bit of ranged flexibility, but you might wind up spreading your resources too thin. Note also that someone with a Globe of Invulnerability up will shut you down hard.

Touchrager
Greater bloodrage and its improvements allow you to cast a touch-range spell as part of entering a bloodrage, which opens up some interesting strategies. The bloodrager spell list sports a few decent touch spells, including debuffs and direct damage. Without a good way to deliver said spells, though, this tactic is hard to pull off. You'll never be a true magus in this regard, although the Blood Conduit archetype offers some options. Again, spell save DC issues and a lack of casting endurance hurts this strategy.

Controlrager
Bloodragers get a small selection of battlefield control spells, such as Glitterdust and Black Tentacles. While these are a good addition to your utility belt, trying to focus on these spells will cost you resources better spent elsewhere (FIGHTING!). Again, your spell save DC's will trail behind your fellows, and by the time you get access to things like Black Tentacles full casters are tossing around 7th+ level spells. These sorts of spells also fail to take advantage of greater bloodrage and its improvements.

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"I am be dangerous now. Not me hurt when stairs fell down. Me pushed by you, me hit head. Me bones broke; soon you be dead."
~Dethklok

Bloodlines

Perhaps your most important choice, the bloodline you select determines what you'll be good at. Some favor buffing, others blasting, and some even favor certain fighting styles. The current list of bloodlines mirrors the original sorcerer bloodlines in the PHB; no nanite or maestro bloodragers yet. I'll be rating bloodlines on their overall effectiveness, and also breakdown their powers and the bonus feats and spells they give you access to.

Aberrant

Bonus Feats: Combat Reflexes, Great Fortitude, Improved Disarm, Improved Grapple, Improved Initiative, Improved Unarmed Strike, Iron Will

Bonus Spells: Enlarge Person (7th), See Invisibility (10th), Displacement (13th), Black Tentacles (16th)

Bloodline Powers:

Staggering Strike: Nothing to write home about, but nice when it works.

Abnormal Reach: For melee control, reach is king.

Aberrant Fortitude: Immunity to one of the worst conditions. Solid.

Unusual Anatomy: Saves you money on fortification armor.

Aberrant Resistance: You get tireless rage one level early, with some bonus immunities tossed in.

Aberrant Form: Your capstone is a solid defensive boost.

The Aberrant bloodline is a defensive, control-oriented one. If you're looking to tank or do a melee control lock-down build, this is an excellent choice, but it will benefit just about any type of character. If you know you're going to hit level 20, you could probably replace Unusual Anatomy with two rage powers, but just about every bloodline power here is useful. The bonus spells are solid, although you might want to take Enlarge Person earlier, retraining when you hit level 7. The star here is Displacement, which isn't on the bloodrager list normally; it's an excellent defensive spell, although by the time you get it you might be facing enemies with True Seeing. The bonus feats are probably the weakest part of the package, but there are at least a few decent choices. If you want to play around with touch-range spells, this is probably your best choice of bloodline for the reach increases.


Abyssal

Bonus Feats: Cleave, Great Fortitude, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Sunder, Intimidating Prowess, Power Attack, Toughness

Bonus Spells: Ray of Enfeeblement (7th), Bull's Strength (10th), Rage (13th), Stoneskin (16th)

Bloodline Powers:

Claws: Natural weapons while bloodraging that get slightly better with age. Pretty standard.

Demonic Bulk: Nice! Enlarge Person whenever you bloodrage, saving you time and resources while making you that much more formidable.

Demon Resistances: Some energy resistances. You can safely swap these out for rage powers and rely on buffs/magic items.

Abyssal Bloodrage: More STR at the cost of AC. In the long run, AC is a sucker's game, but pumping your STR up as high as it can go is always a good idea. +14 STR while bloodraging by level 20 will make any other rager jealous.

Demonic Aura: A small burst that deals minor fire damage when entering a bloodrage, by the time you get this it's pretty pathetic. Swap it for rage powers and don't look back.

Demonic Immunities: A pair of okay immunities. This is a pretty tame capstone, but it has to compensate for Abyssal Bloodrage above. Don't feel bad about swapping this for rage powers.

The Abyssal bloodline is all about pumping up your STR and inflicting maximum damage. The bonus feats are decent, but you'll probably spring for Power Attack and even Toughness earlier in your career; you can always retrain them for new toys. The bonus spells are likewise uninspiring, although Stoneskin is a nice addition. The main draw here is Demonic Bulk and Abyssal Bloodrage; get huge, get reach, get STR, and tank your AC into the garbage. This is a classic 'Hulk Smash' bloodline, but with the right feats you can do some decent battlefield control thanks to your improved reach and CMB/CMD from Demonic Bulk.


Arcane

Bonus Feats: Combat Reflexes, Disruptive, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Power Attack, Quick Draw, Spellbreaker

Bonus Spells:Magic Missile (7th), Invisibility (10th), Lightning Bolt (13th), Dimension Door (16th)

Bloodline Powers:

Disruptive Bloodrage: If you're going for the whole anti-caster thing, this certainly doesn't hurt.

Arcane Bloodrage: Automatic buffs when you rage are always appreciated; the list you can pick from are also higher level spells than you can initially cast, which is great. The spells themselves are decent, and mostly defensive.

Greater Arcane Bloodrage: Two more excellent spells are added to your list of auto-cast buffs, both of them strong choices. Most bloodragers need to wait until 11th level to do what you've been doing since level 4, and it will cost them spell slots to boot. It doesn't get much better than auto-Haste.

Caster's Scourge: Bonus AoO's vs. casters dumb enough to try and cast within your reach. Couples well with the Spellbreaker feat. If you're not going for the anti-caster thing, though, this is a safe ability to swap for rage powers.

True Arcane Bloodrage: Another improvement to your best power, you can now auto-cast spells of a higher level than bloodragers can typically have. Ignore Transformation; Beast Shape IV and Form of the Dragon I are the only ones worth using. While both of these are excellent spells, and you certainly have the chassis to make good use of them, they potentially disrupt reliance on good weapons, armor, and other items. It's a late game acquisition, but if you're already going for natural weapons or polymorphing, this is an excellent addition. Otherwise, it might be worth swapping out for some late-career rage powers.

Caster's Bane More anti-caster stuff... a single orange spindle ioun stone will make 20th level casters immune to this, though. Real threats aren't going to be lower level than you at this point. I wouldn't feel bad about swapping this for more rage powers.

The arcane bloodline is rock-solid, with great bonus feats and spells. Invisiblity and Dimension Door aren't on the bloodrager spell list, so they give you some excellent utility. The general gist of this bloodline is a caster-hunter, and while you can do an admirable job at this, don't let it pigeon-hole you. The real draw here is the Arcane Bloodrage ability. Free buffs whenever you enter a bloodrage is phenomenal, and you can add your own spells to the mix when you hit level 11 and higher. A metamagic rager could toss a quickened spell into the mix: by level 16 you could effectively give yourself five buffs in a single round, and still be able to move and attack. This is an excellent bloodline for buffragers, but it's versatile enough to fulfill just about any role or build.


Celestial

Bonus Feats: Dodge, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Mobility, Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, Weapon Focus

Bonus Spells: Bless (7th), Resist Energy (10th), Heroism (13th), Holy Smite (16th)

Bloodline Powers:

Angelic Attacks: For a 1st level power, this is actually pretty decent. It lets you overcome a difficult type of DR to bypass at low levels, and stays useful throughout your career.

Celestial Resistances: Some fiddly energy resistances. Feel free to swap for rage powers.

Conviction: This is okay, but because bloodragers are disinclined to rage-cycle this ability is pretty lackluster.

Wings of Heaven: You can save on a spell known with this, although you won't be doing much long-distance travel. Flight is always useful regardless.

Angelic Protection: A double-strength Protection from Evil that can't be dispelled. It's okay, especially if you're fighting lots of evil things. By the time you get this, though, you should have magic items that give you better bonuses.

Ascension: A pretty boring capstone. Yay energy immunities.

The celestial bloodline is pretty lacking for bloodragers. There's just not a lot going for it. This seems to be 'pretend to be a paladin' bloodrager in terms of flavor, but it just winds up kind of all over the place. Most of its abilities are defensive, and they're not even that great. Unless you like the fluff, I would skip this bloodline.


Destined

Bonus Feats: Diehard, Endurance, Improved Initiative, Intimidating Prowess, Leadership, Lightning Reflexes, Weapon Focus

Bonus Spells: Shield (7th), Blur (10th), Protection from Energy (13th), Freedom of Movement (16th)

Bloodline Powers:

Destined Strike: This is a rare bonus type that gets better with age. Good to combine with Power Attack to keep your accuracy up.

Fated Bloodrager: Another rare bonus type, this is a solid defensive ability, helping to offset the penalty from raging.

Certain Strike: Due to the rage-cycling issue, this ability isn't phenomenal. You could safely replace it with rage powers.

Defy Death: It's only 1/day, but it could potentially save your bacon. Replace with rage powers if you are looking for something more active.

Unstoppable: Excellent for crit fishers. Grab a nice keen falchion and go to town.

Victory or Death: A solid defensive capstone, protecting you from some of the crappier conditions out there.

The Destined bloodline is well-balanced and generally solid. Nothing too flashy: just a selection of quality abilities. This is a good choice if you want to play a less overtly magical bloodrager; you could simulate an extremely lucky barbarian favored by destiny with this. The bonus spell list is perhaps the least exciting thing about it; Freedom of Movement is great, but you get it so late that you're probably already relying on items or allied buffs.


Draconic

Bonus Feats: Blind-Fight, Cleave, Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Fly), Toughness

Bonus Spells:Shield (7th), Resist Energy, (10th), Fly (13th), Fear (16th)

Bloodline Powers

Claws: Your standard-issue claw power. These get kind of boring to me after a while, but it's here if you want to to the whole natural attack thing; these are easily obsolete by level 16.

Draconic Resistance: Another pretty standard defense power. You could easily replicate the benefits here with items; this isn't bad rage power swap fodder.

Breath Weapon: This ability is pretty decent for a limited-use blast, considering the save DC is based on CON. You'll get a nice boost to this while raging, making this an attractive substitute for blast spells if you want to occasionally do some AoE damage.

Dragon Wings: Flight is always useful. Notice that you get this before you learn Fly from your bonus spell list... I suppose Fly will be longer duration, but for combat purposes it's basically redundant. I suppose you could swap this for rage powers and cast Fly instead, but why waste resources on something that's free while bloodraging?

Dragon Form: Form of the Dragon II isn't on the bloodrager's normal spell list, and I'm always a fan of the free buffs when entering a bloodrage. This is a late-game acquisition, sadly, but it's flavorful and relatively potent.

Power of Wyrms: Some minor immunities. The blindsense is nice, but this isn't terribly exciting.

Draconic is a very middle-of-the-road bloodline. It's abilities are functional, but not terribly exciting or even creative. It's worth noting this is the bloodline of choice for combining with Dragon Disciple if you want to get fancy; more on that later. If you like the flavor you won't be hurting yourself, but there are definitely better options elsewhere.


Elemental

Bonus Feats: Cleave, Dodge, Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack, Weapon Focus

Bonus Spells: Burning Hands (7th), Scorching Ray (10th), Protection from Energy (13th), Elemental Body I (16th)

Bloodline Powers

Elemental Strikes: While this ability is useful at low levels, eventually it starts eating into your swift actions for piddly damage.

Elemental Resistance: Note that most other bloodlines grant you multiple resistances, or an energy resistance and an AC bonus at this level. You're getting shortchanged.

Elemental Movement (Air, Earth, Fire, Water): These abilities are all useful. Water is probably the weakest, unless you're in a nautical campaign, in which case it's great.

Power of the Elements: Remember that we're talking about 1d6 extra damage here.

Elemental Form: Elemental Body IV is a pretty legit spell, but for some reason Elemental bloodline bloodragers get hosed with a 1/day limitation. Notice this is also the same level you learn Elemental Body I as a bonus spell. Yay!

Elemental Body: Some immunities are the final reward for making it this far. Congratulations, I guess?

Yikes. The Elemental bloodline is atrocious. You're pigeon-holed into a single type of element, half your bonus spells are blasts (that haven't aged well!), and your bloodline powers are rife with inconveniences and limitations in exchange for very little actual power. About the only thing to look forward to is Elemental Movement (early access for a flying speed), but is that really worth the price of admission?


Fey

Bonus Feats: Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility, Step Up, Intimidating Prowess

Bonus Spells:Entangle (7th), Hideous Laughter (10th), Haste (13th), Confusion (16th)

Bloodline Powers

Confusing Critical: Nice when it works, but you can't really rely on this.

Leaping Charger: If you can find a way to get Pounce or something similar, this ability is stellar. Otherwise, it's a nice thing to have, at least until you get a reliable form of flight.

Blurring Movement: It's a nice benefit; if you're going for the whole skirmishing, mobile-fighter vibe of this bloodline, you'll enjoy this more than someone who wants to full attack.

Quickling Bloodrage: I won't say no to free Haste during a bloodrage. Note that you get this one level before you learn Haste as a bonus spell...

One with Nature: An interesting defensive/utility ability, this is somewhat dependent on the kind of campaign you're in.

Fury of the Fey: It's nice, but compared to the power of other capstones, this isn't that great. Inquisitors were doing this more than ten levels ago...

I want to like the Fey bloodline. It wants you to be a mobile, skirmisher kind of bloodrager. It gives you some of the tools needed to do this, but not what you really need. It just winds up unfocused and a bit scattered. The bonus spells are pretty terrible, especially considering the level at which you learn them. Sadly, not even auto-Haste during a bloodrage really saves this one for me. The Arcane bloodline was doing it four levels earlier...


Infernal

Bonus Feats: Blind-Fight, Combat Reflexes, Deceitful, Improved Disarm, Improved Sunder,[color] Intimidating Prowess, Iron Will

Bonus Spells: Protection from Good (7th), Scorching Ray (10th), Suggestion (13th), Fire Shield (16th)

Bloodline Powers

Hellfire Strike: It's a good thing this costs a swift action to use, otherwise it would surely be unbalanced! (that was sarcasm) We're off to a great start here with something comparable to the illustrious Elemental bloodline...

Infernal Resistance: I'll give this a black rating since I gave the Elemental offering red, but only because it gives you some poison resistance... a boost to your best save! Yay!

Diabolical Arrogance: More save boosts. At least this is a decent bonus against some potentially crippling effects.

Dark Wings: Starting to see a formula emerge? Flight is good, I'll give you that. Might need some editing though; what happens at level 20?

Hellfire Charge: You've waited until level 16 for this. This is 1d6 (or slightly more) fire damage on a charge, people. Laughable.

Fiend of the Pit: A boring capstone to an atrocious bloodline overall. See in darkness is about the only thing noteworthy here.

This might be my least favorite bloodline. It's certainly competing with the Elemental bloodline for sheer crappiness. Every single one of its bonus spells is nearly worthless by the time you get it, although I may be being a bit harsh on Scorching Ray and Fire Shield.


Undead

Bonus Feats: Diehard, Dodge, Endurance, Intimidating Prowess, Iron Will, Mobility, Toughness

Bonus Spells: Chill Touch (7th), False Life (10th), Vampiric Touch (13th), Enervation (16th)

Bloodline Powers

Frightful Charger: This is a good set-up ability for fear stacking that remains useful throughout your career.

Ghost Strike: If you rarely fight undead, this ability might end up being a waste. You get it fairly early in your career, so it'll help when you fight your first allip or shadow, certainly. I think it's cool, but you can safely swap this for rage powers and rely on equipment like everyone else.

Death's Gift: This is obsoleted by your capstone, but even if you don't get that far, it's about on par with many other bloodlines' 4th level power. How often do you take nonlethal damage?

Frightful Strikes: It's a shame this is only once per bloodrage. This is excellent for Intimidation builds.

Incorporeal Bloodrager: The once per day limitaiton here really hurts, but it's a very potent defensive and utility tool. Save it for the Bad Times.

One Foot in the Grave: A nice goody-bag of various defenses, but nothing world-shattering.

The Undead bloodline is designed for debuffer bloodragers, and meshes particularly well with an Intimidation build. However, for most other kinds of bloodragers, this bloodline is too limited.

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All verbal components for bloodrager spells are screams fury.

Feat Selection

A bloodrager has similar feat requirements to the barbarian. Power Attack is a must, of course, as is Raging Vitality. Everything else is relatively open; your bonus bloodline feats help you a bit, but many bloodragers will likely feel a bit feat starved, particularly if they want to improve their magic.

Note that all but 3 bloodlines have Improved Initiative as a bonus feat (Abyssal, Infernal and Undead), and most include other staples such as Toughness and Power Attack. Try to plan ahead when selecting feats.

If you're going for Primalist (recommended), note that your rage powers do not let you qualify for rage power related feats that require the rage power class feature as a prerequisite.

Metamagic ragers can pick up metamagic feats instead of their bloodline feats. Unless you're using said archetype, bloodragers should avoid metamagic feats (but be sure to grab some metamagic rods). If you're interested in metamagic rager, you might consider taking Extra Rage a time or two; you get a significant number of extra rage rounds, which translates into more metamagic.

As a side note, the metamagic rager's mechanic technically gives you earlier access to certain strange metamagic combinations. Consider the Ascendant Spell feat: burn 12 rounds of rage, and you could cast Ascendant (read: Mythic) Enlarge Person, going Huge as early as level 5.

In general, your spellcasting is so limited that feats such as Spell Penetration or Spell Focus will be somewhat wasted.

There are a few feats introduced in the ACG that concern bloodragers; let's take a look at them:

Blasting Charge: This competes with other swift actions for a mild energy damage effect on a charge. I would skip this for something more useful.

Rage Casting: Bloodragers trail behind proper casters in the save DC department, because they only get 4th level spells, and often their CHA isn't as high as a full caster of the same level. This feat helps them close the gap, but it comes at a price: a swift action, and self-inflicted damage. +4 to the save DC of a 4th level spell for 4d6 damage doesn't seem like that big of a deal for a high CON character; you'll be approximating the save DC of an 8th level spell in this case. If you're simply casting buffs on yourself, you can easily skip this. Bloodragers looking to debuff or do AoE damage might consider this, but you won't be able to quicken a spell in the same round you do this, which sucks. That swift action clause really holds this feat back.

Raging Absorption: Hopefully you won't be so starved for rage rounds that you'll need this feat. Even then, it will rarely ever actually work unless you grab a Ring of Evasion or something.

Raging Concentration: If you're casting most of your spells while raging, this feat is strictly superior to Combat Casting.

Blooded Arcane Strike: Arcane Strike is a decent choice for a lower level bloodrager before your swift action becomes more valuable. If you take it, this feat is a good investment, mostly because it saves your swift action. Compare to feats like Weapon Specialization; it's a pretty decent investment for the damage boost. If you like the Vital Strike line, you get even more goodies.

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Archetypes

You can further tweak the bloodrager you want to play with archetypes, a few of which are quite choice. Note that most archetypes replace improved uncanny dodge with something, so very few of them combine with each other.

Blood Conduit

This is an archetype for bloodragers interested in utilizing touch spells. It combines well with grappling-focused builds, at the cost of considerable defense. Remember that the CMB/CMD arms race is largely a sucker's game; bloodrage helps a bit, and hopefully you're walking around Enlarged most of the time.

Bloodrider

For the Dothraki fans out there. This is the 'mounted bloodrager' in a can. You won't mind the loss of fast movement if you plan on being mounted; this is an interesting option for ambitious small-sized bloodragers. If you're in a campaign friendly to mounts, this could be fun; otherwise skip it.

Crossblooded Rager:

The main draw for Sorcerers going crossblooded is the combination of bloodline arcana. Bloodragers don't have bloodline arcana; all this archetype does is widen your selection for various abilities at the cost of your Will save. Few bloodlines sport things worth cherry-picking for the price; Primalist should afford you the flexibility you desire.

Greenrager:

Summoning is great, but bloodragers are not summoners; this archetype does not help. Would you rather have a single tiger with +8 STR & CON at level 20, or 1d4+1 T-Rexes? Regardless, a bloodrager shouldn't be standing there summoning bison; he should be charging forward in a blood frenzy!

Metamagic Rager:

Now we're talking. Give up improved uncanny dodge for the awesome Meta-Rage ability. You basically tank rounds of bloodrage for metamagic goodness. It's costly, but at high levels gives you some great options; it's best used when you need to Nova. You can also swap sub par bloodline feats with metamagic feats, so it won't hamper your feat selection too much. Even if you only plan on taking one or two metamagic feats, you might as well take this archetype; improved uncanny dodge isn't really that great unless you're fighting a lot of rogues.

Primalist:

This archetype might as well be the standard bloodrager; there's no reason not to take it, it costs you nothing, and gets you more flexibility and options. The ability to lose crappy bloodline powers for a pair of rage powers is a fantastic deal. You could even salvage atrocious bloodlines like Infernal, and mimic a regular barbarian by replacing all 4th level and higher powers. In short, you're taking this archetype.

Rageshaper:

Designed for bloodragers who want to use polymorphing spells, you don't get much out of this archetype. Some piddly natural weapon buffs, a speed bonus that is outclassed by spells such as Haste, and a difficult-to-use Extend spell ability that prevents you from taking metamagic rager; just go with the better archetype and tank a few rounds of rage if you really want to extend spells (and you won't be limited to self-only polymorph effects).

Spelleater:

This archetype sacrifices defenses for two healing abilities. Blood of Life is okay... but it only works while bloodraging, so it won't save you if you're knocked unconscious. Spell Eating isn't worth the cost, and it takes a swift action to boot.

Steelblood:

If you want to wear heavy armor, this archetype makes that a thing. You lose most of your traditional defenses, however, and you'll still be taking a penalty to AC for raging. In the long run, you're looking at getting +3 to AC or so. Just grab a mithral breastplate and call it a day.

Untouchable Rager:

While it's certainly less bookkeeping, I don't think SR is worth replacing spells. Remember that you can cast spells outside of combat; Raging Resistance only applies when you're raging. You lose much of your utility in exchange for a single kind of defense, and it's not like SR is 100% foolproof.

__________________________________________________ __________

Spell Selection

The bloodrager spell list is a relatively small one; I'm not going to go over every single spell, however. I'm going to point out the more important or interesting options, and leave the rest to your judgement. In general, look for spells that enhance your fighting abilities or defenses; everything else should be considered secondary. If you're considering blasting, battlefield control, or debuffing, look for spells that don't allow a save, or else have an effect even on a successful save.

In general, bloodragers get late access to spells everyone else has been casting several levels earlier. This isn't necessarily a bad thing: you just have to keep an eye out for spells that remain useful regardless of level.

1st Level Spells

Enlarge Person: A staple spell for most of your career, this enhances your reach and damage output, at the cost of defense. Casting time is an issue; you should consider Extending this via a lesser metamagic rod (or otherwise) when you're exploring a dangerous area or before a good scrap. Greater bloodrage helps mollify this considerably.

Long Arm: More reach is always good! An enlarged Aberrant bloodline bloodrager with this spell up can get some crazy-long reach going.

Shield: This frees up a shield hand, further encouraging you to use the biggest, smashiest two-hander you can find.

2nd Level Spells

Bear's Endurance, Cat's Grace, Eagle's Splendor: By the time you get these spells, you'll probably have some magic items. Your main focus is likely to be STR, so these spells help enhance your secondary abilities until you can get even better permanent magic items.

Brow Gasher: This is a pretty nasty melee spell that remains useful for a decent lifespan.

Ghoul Touch: It requires a save, but if you can land it you can follow it up with a coup-de-grace.

Glitterdust: Even with a low save DC, this spell is still useful.

Mirror Image: Until True Seeing becomes a regular occurrence, this is your single most potent defensive spell.

Resist Energy: This spell saves lives. It also gives you even more incentive to replace the common energy resistance bloodline powers with more useful rage powers.


3rd Level Spells

Countless Eyes: If you replaced Improved Uncanny Dodge for an archetype (likely metamagic rager), you can simply replace it with this spell. Great duration.

Fireball: With metamagic, you can get this spell to do some pretty respectable destruction. Considering your limited resources, this will likely be a side-hobby, but you should compare any direct-damage spell against this one to gauge whether it's worth taking.

Fly: Several bloodlines give you access to a fly speed of some kind, but if they don't, this is a must-have. Most of the bloodline flying powers last only as long as you're raging, so if you need longer duration flight this is also a good solution; otherwise, rely on allies or magic items.

Haste: One of the best buffs in the game. You can be 'in charge' of Haste, saving spell slots for your friends.

Heroism: A great long-duration buff. Don't take this if there's a bard in the party, as morale bonuses are their responsibility.

Greater Magic Weapon: Another long-duration, fire-and-forget buff. Saves you money on baseline weapon enhancements, letting you grab more special abilities.

Paragon Surge: The main reason to play a half-elf bloodrager. Not as broken in your hands as a sorcerer's, this spell is still excellent for expanding your combat options.

Phantom Steed: This is your best transportation spell; it's a bit fragile, but it could serve as a super-speed mount in a pinch.

4th Level Spells

Absorbing Inhalation: This gives you an interesting form of battlefield control.

Black Tentacles: One of the better battlefield control spells, enemies are probably starting to resist this spell with ease by the time you gain access to it.

Enervation: A great debuff, you could potentially do some interesting things with metamagic rager, but it would be costly indeed.

Greater False Life: It's not fancy, but this is a solid long-duration buff.

Monstrous Physique II: Now we're talking! This might just be the best spell in your arsenal. Why? So you can turn into a Tikbalang, of course. These horse-headed freaks from Bestiary 4 sport the awesome Pounce ability. The main advantage this spell has over Beast Shape II (which you also can learn at this point) is that you can still use your equipment, weapons and armor, as well as cast spells. There are a few other choice monstrous humanoid forms out there, including doppelganger for the ability to use basically any magic item.


__________________________________________________ _____________

Equipment Considerations

Your equipment needs are nearly the same as a normal barbarian's, but you'll want to consider a few extra things:

Headband of Alluring Charisma: You'll want to invest in a solid CHA boosting item, primarily to boost your bonus spells; these can also help alleviate the MAD strain, giving you access to your most powerful spells without having to put too many points into CHA. If you care about your save DC's, this is even more important.

Glove of Storing: This is a great item for metamagic rod juggling; your favorite rod is just a free action away from use.

Metamagic Rods: Metamagic rager requires feat investment and expending lots of rage rounds. If you don't want to bother with it, these rods are your best solution, and even metamagic ragers can benefit from having these puppies around. A lesser rod of Extend is cheap, and will work on all but your most powerful spells. Indeed, you might just want to stick to lesser rods, since you'll be losing some of the value of regular rods due to your lack of 5th and 6th level spells. Extend and Quicken are fantastic, but it's nice to have Empower or Maximize if you're into blasting.

Spell Storing Weapon: This is a great option for touch-spell fans. Stick your own spells in it, or ask a friend to contribute. A well-placed Ghoul Touch can win encounters.

Wands: Every spell on your list is technically wand-able. More importantly, you can often afford wands of your higher level spells before you are even capable of casting them under your own power. Ideally, you want longer duration buffs in wand form; make friendly with a craft-happy party member if you can. Anything that helps alleviate the strain on your limited daily spell slots is welcome.

Scrolls: By the same token as wands, having a few good scrolls up your sleeve is a solid decision. A scroll of Monstrous Physique II is only 700 gp, great if you know you're going into a nasty situation. You shouldn't have much trouble casting higher level spells from scrolls, since the highest they go is level 4, and you'll usually be grabbing them at a lower caster level anyway.

[CockroachTeaParty]

A note on Dragon Disciple

Many people consider bloodrager an excellent chassis to go into the Dragon Disciple prestige class.

There are a few minor inconsistencies and bits of confusion that emerge if you go this route, so talk to your GM. The confusions stems from the language of Dragon Disciple's advancing your bloodline abilities; it assumes you're a sorcerer, but the bloodrager's bloodline abilities differ in a few ways, primarily by only functioning if you're raging. It's pretty simple to assume so RAI, and overall such a character will function fine.

The question is, should you do so?

After comparing what is gained and what is lost by going into Dragon Disciple, I've determined that it's largely a wash.

First, don't take all 10 levels of the prestige class. If you do, you're losing out on Greater Bloodrage and the ability to auto-cast your spells when entering a bloodrage. Nothing Dragon Disciple offers is worth losing that; you might even want to wait until level 11 before you take the PrC, just so you don't delay the acquisition of that ability.

You'll also lose rage rounds, barring feats like Extra Rage to help make up the difference.

You'll never gain the maximum benefits of raging, but the inherent ability boosts of Dragon Disciple combined with the improved HD makes it mostly a wash. You'll lose some BAB and CL, but your casting is already limited enough that it won't effect you that much, and you won't lose an iterative attack.

If you're interested in taking Dragon Disciple, I suggest taking it to level 6 or 7, before you get the largely useless INT bump; none of its higher level abilities are much better than what you'd be gaining from Bloodrager itself, and you've already gimped yourself almost 2 minutes of rage a day.

Side by side, a Dragon Disciple Bloodrager will have slightly better stats when not raging, and sport a slightly better AC thanks to the natural armor increase. However, your BAB and CL will lag, which frankly makes it an unattractive option in my eyes.

[deuxhero]

First picture doesn't really scream bloodrager to me, but a minor problem.

A note on spellcraft and knowledge (arcana): Bloodragers are one of the few casters without Dispel Magic or Detect Magic and the ONLY caster without Read Magic. This greatly reduces the value of these skills.

[Psyren]

Even just looking at the interesting spells, there are a lot of really good suggestions missing from this guide. I'll try to help:

1st level: True strike pretty much means "I succeed at that combat maneuver." It also works with Bloodcasting so you get it for free just by raging. Protection from X lets you avoid the barbarian's big problem of getting dominated and mincemeating the party. Stone shield and Windy Escape deserve mentions by letting you use your immediate action right away. Finally, blade lash is a 20-foot trip that uses your weapon (and thus, all its modifiers and bonuses), plus a +10 untyped bonus on top of that.

2nd level: Bullet shield lasts a long time and gives you a hefty AC bonus vs. ranged (which, despite the name, also applies to things like rays) and so deserves a mention. False life is never bad for melee. See invisibility is still relevant at this level, though you may be better off with a wand. Delay pain is a situational but long-lasting buff.

3rd level: Twilight Knife gives you an indestructible flanking buddy with sneak attack. Wind Wall protects you from arrows if needed. Greater Thunderstomp gives you an AoE trip, which you can again use your strength, feats and items with. (It says that you can use your Charisma, not that you have to.)

4th level: Shocking image, fire shield and vitriolic shield all let you do extra damage for being where you will be anyway, i.e. melee. Ghost wolf is a phantom steed that can flank/fight. Also, you mentioned the doppelganger's ability to use all magic items, but you forgot that they are also proficient with every exotic weapon and shield in the game. Hellmouth lash gives you 15ft. touch attacks to AoO or full-attack with. Calcific Touch is a (slow-acting) no-save-just-suck debuff that you can throw into your attack routine.


First picture doesn't really scream bloodrager to me, but a minor problem.

One of Grunt's catchphrases/combat barks is "FEEL THE BLOODRAGE!" which he will use whenever he does his Krogan tackle move. It's notable because if you're in an area clogged with husks (like the derelict reaper or Horizon) it will trigger repeatedly and you might hear it several times in a firefight.



A note on spellcraft and knowledge (arcana): Bloodragers are one of the few casters without Dispel Magic or Detect Magic and the ONLY caster without Read Magic. This greatly reduces the value of these skills.

You need it for items though like scrolls, so it's still handy. Don't want to have to UMD everything :smalltongue:

[CockroachTeaParty]

One of Grunt's catchphrases/combat barks is "FEEL THE BLOODRAGE!" which he will use whenever he does his Krogan tackle move. It's notable because if you're in an area clogged with husks (like the derelict reaper or Horizon) it will trigger repeatedly and you might hear it several times in a firefight.


I'm glad somebody gets it.

Your spell suggestions are solid, Psyren; I'm still trying to gauge the value of certain spells considering your limited slots per day. True Strike was silly to skip; I think I told myself to include it and mention it's a good late-career choice, but forgot to add it.

The thing I don't like about Ghost Wolf is that as soon as you start to fight with it, it disappears after a few rounds as opposed to hours. That's why I didn't mention it over vanilla Phantom Steed.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I'd agree on the picture; Wrex actually had biotic abilities, he might be better.

I like to compare the Bloodrager to the Magus, in that the magus is a mix of the 'learned' wizard and fighter, as opposed to the more 'primal' mix of sorcerer and barbarian. It looks like the Magus retains a bit more flexibility, while the Bloodrager is king at self-buffing.

[deuxhero]

One Blood Conduit oddity I've seen mentioned is that Spell Conduit triggers if he "succeeds at a combat maneuver check to bull rush, grapple, pin, reposition, or trip an opponent" he can "cast a touch spell on the creature that he affected", overwriting any range restrictions. Reach weapon is obvious, but Bloodrager's list is FULL of spells that let you make ranged combat manuvers.

[stack]

Blood conduits can also use unarmed strikes to channel spells. Easier than a combat maneuver in many cases since it works with a full attack. Combos with dragon style too. You don't have enough slots to really make it great though.

Note that blood conduits don't lose medium armor proficiency, they just can't use their conduit abilities wearing it. Mithral breastplates work fine.

[Novawurmson]

Looks awesome! Throwing this on the ol' guide to the guides if there's no objection.

[grarrrg]

So far so good.

2 little quibbles though.

HD: The Bloodrager sports a d10 hit dice like most other full BAB classes, down slightly from barbarian's d12.

I get that you're doing a straight comparison to Barbarian, but why is the HD red?
It's still a d10 which is still 2nd best, and it's not like you can change it anyway.


Gloves of Storing:Ideally you want two of these bad boys. Why? Metamagic rod juggling. Keep your two favorite rods in safe storage, only a free action away from your hand.

You can only use 1 Glove of Storing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/e-g/glove-of-storing) at a time (unless you somehow have 4 or more hands I guess...).
"The wearer may not use another item (even another glove of storing) that also uses the hands slot."

[CockroachTeaParty]

You can only use 1 Glove of Storing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/e-g/glove-of-storing) at a time (unless you somehow have 4 or more hands I guess...).
"The wearer may not use another item (even another glove of storing) that also uses the hands slot."

Huh, good catch. I'd probably house-rule against it in my own game, though.

[grarrrg]

Huh, good catch. I'd probably house-rule against it in my own game, though.

I'm very aware of the Gloves of Storing, as they _almost_ let you TWF with Firearms...almost.

[ghanjrho]

Note that Blooded Arcane Strike changes the initiation action to a free while in bloodrage, making it effectively always on.

[Amphetryon]

Nice guide; I admit the very first thing I went looking for is comments/advice on an Undead Bloodline Touchrager Blood Conduit.