RAINING BLOOD
The Bloodrager’s Guide to Pleasing the Metal Gods
The Advanced Class Guide has been released, and with it comes ten new classes and more archetypes than I can be bothered to count. Among these new additions is what may be my new favorite class: the Bloodrager. The Bloodrager is a mix of the Barbarian and the Sorcerer, combining AM SMASH offensive potency with 4th level spontaneous arcane casting. Now, why should you play a Bloodrager?
But seriously, the Bloodrager is great. You have all of the crushing power of the Barbarian in addition to the versatility of spellcasting. The main draw is the bloodline abilities; almost all of them are ones you’d want to have, and the ones that are not you can just as easily swap out for base Barbarian goodies (we’ll get into that in the archetypes section).
We’ll be using the same ranking system as every other guide out there here:
RED is a bad option, one that I can never truly recommend taking. I usually won’t list these to begin with, the exceptions being Bloodrager class features and trap options that seem like they’d be good for the Bloodrager but really aren’t.
ORANGE is mediocre. It won’t kill you to get it but you’re really missing out on more important things.
GREEN is a good color for good options.
BLUE is among the best options available. You better have a very good reason not to take this.
I’d rank the ability scores as such:
STR > CON > CHA > DEX = WIS > INT
This is likely the most painful section of this guide; the Bloodrager’s biggest weakness is being extremely MAD, even more so than the Monk because the Bloodrager needs at least 14 charisma to cast all of their spells. Strength of course needs to be as high as you can get it, and constitution is just as important as it is for everyone else (a little bit more so, but you probably can’t afford more than 14 on point buy anyways). Something has to give, which is why dexterity and wisdom are unfortunately stats that will need to be left low. Try to get at least a 12 for wisdom and find as many ways to boost your will save as possible.
My point buy for a 20 point Bloodrager would be 16 STR, 12 DEX, 14 CON, 8 INT, 12 WIS, 13 CHA, with the racial modifier in strength.
Dwarf: While usually a solid option for Barbarians, Dwarves make bad Bloodragers. The -2 to charisma really hurts in point buy. The other racial abilities are nice, but there are just so many other options that can do the class much better.
Elf: Why would you do this to yourself? The positives go to two unimportant stats and the negative goes to an important one. This’ll be bumped up to yellow at least if they come out with an Urban Bloodrager of some sorts but until then if you want to have pointy ears just play a Half-Elf.
Gnome: -2 to strength really hurts, but the positive modifiers are to your two secondary stats and the other bonuses aren’t bad at all. If you’re really determined to play small and your GM won’t let you pick small size from the Tiefling table then Gnome is workable.
Half-Elf: Keen Senses and Low-Light Vision are always nice grabs, but the real charmer here is Dual-Minded; low wisdom is a lot less scary with this trait. However, as good as the Half-Elf is, it’s not quite as good as…
Half-Orc: My personal preference for a Bloodrager. Combined with Fate’s Favored, Sacred Tattoo represents a +2 bonus to ALL saves. You’re also getting Darkvision and a +2 to Intimidate (which you’ll be better at than all those barbarians that are dumping charisma to the pits).
Halfling: Competes with the Elf for the title of worst Bloodrager in the game. Don’t do this to yourself.
Human: Our only green pick among the core races is one that’s usually blue in these guides. While the bonus feat and skill point are as great as ever, the fact of the matter is that the Bloodrager really needs a good will save independent of their wisdom score, which the Human can’t provide. You can pick up Auspicious Tattoo, but then again so can the Half-Elf and Half-Orc. It won’t kill you to be a Human, but it might kill your teammates.
***Advanced Races coming soon!***
Bloodline: This is what you’re here for, right? The powers of each bloodline will be detailed further down, but suffice to say that for the most part they rock hard.
Bloodrage: Enhances everything you want. Required to use your bloodrage powers. This is the defining feature of the Barbarian half of the class and it shows.
Fast Movement: Always nice to have, this means you can move at full speed in medium armor without having to cash in for mithral.
Uncanny Dodge: Doesn’t mean much with a low dexterity. Don’t feel bad for swapping it out for an archetype ability if you do.
Blood Sanctuary: As a player, you’re never going to be in a situation where nuking yourself is going to be better than smashing an enemy with your choice of big stick. As a GM, a boss-type Bloodrager NPC that fights by moving in and nuking himself is awesome.
Blood Casting: Oh boy, spells. I don’t think I need to explain why having these is a good thing.
Eschew Materials: It’s convenient to have and you get it for free. Certainly won’t complain about it.
Improved Uncanny Dodge: The benefits of this are pretty easily replaced by good tactics. Ignore.
Damage Reduction: Untyped damage reduction is always a sweet deal. Shame there’s no Invulnerable Bloodrager archetype to really crank this up.
Greater Bloodrage: Your bloodrage is better and now you can cast any touch or personal spell as a free action when you start it up. Sweet just got sweeter.
Indomitable Will: It comes late, but it’s still a bonus to the most important type of will save that stacks with what you’re already getting.
Tireless Rage: It’s nice and all, but if you’re not already immune to fatigue by level 17 you did something terribly wrong.
Mighty Bloodrage: Now you’ve got 4th level spells as a free action. Nice.
Aberrant: I love how this is the first bloodline in the book, because it is one of the best. I’ll get into the abilities in a moment, but what makes this bloodline really awesome is that it grants access to the Aberrant Tumor feat. Now you’ve got a wand monkey who can carry around buffs for you without spending your precious few spell slots.
Bonus Feats: Improved Initiative and Iron Will are always good grabs. Combat Reflexes goes really well with the Aberrant class features.
Bonus Spells: Enlarge Person and Displacement are excellent spells to be picking up. See Invisibility is great to have as well; Black Tentacles isn’t going to do much for you with your low caster level but it definitely doesn’t bring down the three spells you get before it.
Staggering Strike: A little conflicted on this one; on one hand, staggered is a great condition after level 6 as it deprives the enemy of a full attack. On the other hand, it’s less appealing when you get it as you’re right next to the enemy and they’ll attack anyways, and once it does get useful monster fortitude saves will start to get out of reach.
Abnormal Reach: While it’s a great ability for anyone, this starts to get really, really stupid if you pick up a reach weapon and build around it. Your no-touchy zones will be bigger than the room.
Aberrant Fortitude: This is blue if you skipped Abnormal Reach for Primalist goodies and green if you didn’t. You have rage cycling in class now at the cost of an ioun stone. Pick up the “once per rage” power of your choice and go nuts.
Unusual Anatomy: This is really nice when it comes up but it suffers from one fatal flaw: the Primalist exists, and this is a 12th level power and therefore competes with Greater Beast Totem. Even if you aren’t playing a Primalist due to it being banned or whatnot it’s too circumstantial to really toot your horn about.
Aberrant Resistance: We’re getting to the point where we just don’t need to roll fortitude saves anymore.
Aberrant Form: Blindsight is a really nice ability to have, and you have it all the time. Not the most killer capstone but still a good one.
Abyssal: I might be too critical on this one, but not much in the Abyssal bloodline sticks out to me. It’s not terrible, but there are so many other good options for bloodlines it’s hard to recommend this one for anything. I can see a Tiefling using a natural weapon build going for this bloodline, at the least.
Bonus Feats: A really mediocre list all around. Intimidating Prowess and Toughness are good enough picks, but everything else is either not worth the investment or something you should have had way before 6th level.
Bonus Spells: Bull’s Strength is nice, at least… Ray of Enfeeblement is never going to be the best use of your action and Rage doesn’t stack with Bloodrage. You’ll get some use out of Stoneskin, when you finally get it at the end of your career.
Claws: Good if you’re going for natural weapons. Completely forgettable if you aren’t. Not much to say.
Demonic Bulk: Enlarge Person for Tieflings! If you’re a humanoid race and want to play large, then you’re much better off going Aberrant.
Demonic Resistances: Good, but not as good as what you could have by switching this out for rage powers.
Abyssal Bloodrage: If this wasn’t a 12th level power I’d be all excited about using it with Come and Get Me. As is, just swap it with Greater Beast Totem. Consider it green if you can’t be a Primalist.
Demonic Aura: Is this… really a 16th level ability?
Demonic Immunities: This is really lackluster for a capstone.
Arcane: The spell killer bloodrager. You’re getting some nice abilities to make the life of an enemy spellcaster hell and stacking them with some cool utility options when you rage. Remember to use a reach weapon and armor spikes so that enemies can’t step out of your threatened range!
Bonus Feats: You want everything on this list except Quick Draw and Power Attack.
Bonus Spells: Invisibility and Dimension Door are the real highlights here. Shame DDoor comes so late.
Disruptive Bloodrage: Casting defensively is going to be pretty difficult with you around.
Arcane Bloodrage: Free Blur when you rage? Yes please. As a note, I really love that Spider Climb is on this list. It gives the Bloodrager some nice utility with their rage outside of combat.
Greater Arcane Bloodrage: Yes, Displacement and Haste are good spells to get for free. In other news, the sky is blue and the blood of your enemies is everywhere.
Caster’s Scourge: Obviously intended to work with Spellbreaker. You can even pick them up at the same time. You probably don’t need this many AoO’s in a turn, though; if there’s anything on the Arcane list to replace with rage powers, it’s this.
True Arcane Bloodrage: Just like the earlier renditions of this ability, it is really good. A ton of options just got opened wide to you and many of them have really sweet utility tricks.
Caster’s Bane: A nice idea, but even with this ability getting a 9th level caster to do what you want them to do is going to be very difficult. Still, you’re slightly less at the mercy of the God Wizard than all the other martials…
Celestial: This bloodline is going to be better or worse depending on how much evil smashing you expect to do. That being said, there are some very neat abilities that’ll be universally useful.
Bonus Feats: Improved Initiative and Iron Will are as good as they always are. Everything else is decent at best. There are other bloodlines for playing mounted.
Bonus Spells: Eh… All of these spells are good when the divine caster you’re taking them from gets them. They’ve been thoroughly outpaced by the time you get them, though.
Angelic Attacks: Good if you expect the usual amount of evil enemies (there are a lot of them in Pathfinder), great if you’re playing Wrath of the Righteous and other “let’s go kill some fiends” adventures.
Celestial Resistances: Not a bad thing to have, certainly. Cold damage happens sometimes, and you’ll appreciate this ability when it does (especially if your GM likes Rime Spell).
Conviction: Reroll a failed save. ‘Nuff said.
Wings of Heaven: In-class flight is always a lovely thing for a martial to have. This is bumped down slightly from the hard blue it would be because Fly is already on your spell list and it’s competing with Greater Beast Totem. If you can’t be a Primalist, consider it VERY blue.
Angelic Protection: Really stacking up the defenses on this one. A solid ability all around.
Ascension: Immunities are not a bad thing to have by any means. Still, there are much worse things that can be thrown at you than damage by this level.
Destined: Another really good bloodline. Plays very well with the Steelblood archetype if you’re looking to tromp around in heavy armor.
Bonus Feats: I’m rating this under the assumption that your GM banned Leadership. Without it, the only feats you really want are Improved Initiative and maybe Intimidating Prowess… If you do have Leadership, this is blue.
Bonus Spells: You’ll get good use from everything on this list.
Destined Strike: Sometimes, you just really need for this one to hit. When those times come, Destined Strike is there for you.
Fated Bloodrager: If you aren’t playing a Half-Orc or just don’t think having a cool tattoo is appropriate for your Bloodrager (to which I say ??????), you should seriously consider Destined for just this one ability. This is seriously awesome, and if you’re Steelblood you can get some pretty wicked defenses.
Certain Strike: It’s good and all, but, you know. Beast Totem. And if you consider switching out Fated Bloodrager instead that is a bad idea and you should feel bad for having it.
Defy Death: See “Certain Strike” entry for details.
Unstoppable: It’ll feel great when it comes up, and it will come up.
Victory or Death: Some of the worst conditions in the game are on this list. Great immunities.
Draconic: A strong choice for natural attack builds. I don’t think this stacks properly with the Dragon Disciple, but if it does then you should consider it.
Bonus Feats: Improved Initiative, Blind-Fight, and Skill Focus (Fly) will be good pick-ups.
Bonus Spells: Fly is kind of redundant because by then you’re flying on your own anyways. It’s not a wasteful list but it doesn’t get you excited either.
Claws: I’m assuming you’re here for natural attacks, so here you go.
Draconic Resistance: A little better than the resistance abilities other bloodlines get because it comes with natural armor.
Breath Weapon: It’s a nice chunk of damage against crowds, but the usages per day is pretty meh. Skip it for rage powers if you can.
Dragon Wings: Same deal as the Celestial power. Skip it for pounce, or if you can’t feel free to love it tenderly.
Dragon Form: The natural attacks you get in this form are going to be much stronger than the ones you had on your own. You can still cast and the only expenditure to use it is rounds of rage.
Power of Wyrms: You get some cool immunities and blindsight. Nothing to complain about here.
Elemental (Air, Earth, Fire, Water): The main draw for this bloodline is the 8th level power. The rest ranges from decent to good, but that movement type…
Bonus Feats: You get Improved Initiative but nothing else to really call home about. You’ll probably take Dodge and Lightning Reflexes just because you have to pick something.
Bonus Spells: Ugh. All of these come to you after they’ve ceased being useful.
Elemental Strikes: It’s a nice boost to damage early on; the lack of scaling means that it will quickly become less useful, but when it does you have other goodies.
Elemental Resistance: While it can save your behind, it’s not better than two rage powers. No Primalist means this is green.
Elemental Movement (Air, Earth, Fire, Water): This is the reason you took the Elemental bloodline. Air is the bluest blue; not only do you get a fly speed, but you get a fly speed at 8th level. Meaning that you can trade your 4th and 12th level powers for flying-pouncing-primalist goodness. Many enemies won’t be able to do anything about your burrowing if you go earth; doubling your land speed as fire is great, if less interesting than the prior two. As for water… let’s just say you should never take the Water Elemental bloodline unless you expect to spend more time in the water than out of it in your campaign.
Power of the Elements: Well, now nothing renders your Elemental Strikes completely useless. Still paltry damage at this point, though. Just trade it out for Greater Beast Totem.
Elemental Form (Air, Earth, Fire, Water): I feel like they left this ability at once-per-day just to make the Elemental Body I on the bonus spell list feel less terrible. Still, it seems to last as long as your bloodrage and at this point one bloodrage can probably last you the full adventuring day. Earth has the best modifiers for what you’re trying to do as a Bloodrager.
Elemental Body: The list of immunities is pretty short and lackluster compared to some of the other bloodlines.
Fey: Blech. Lots of really mediocre abilities on this one. This isn’t quite as bad as the Water Elemental bloodline, but it is so far below all the others that it is hard not to consider it a trap option.
Bonus Feats: I do like this list. Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, and Intimidating Prowess are nice pickups.
Spells: Save or sucks on classes that want to keep their casting stat low always confuse me. Haste is the saving grace here… Except it is completely useless to you.
Confusing Critical: As an AoE spell, confusion is great and can ruin a crowd of mooks. As part of a single target hit that only lasts for one round it’s underwhelming.
Blurring Movement: Gives you some nice defensive bonuses on the first round of combat. Remember that the Arcane Bloodrager has been getting blur all the time for four levels now, though.
Quickling Bloodrage: Hey, now this is a nice ability! Sure, it’s only half of what the Arcane Bloodrager got four levels ago, but it’s still pretty nice. Essentially invalidates the one good bonus spell you get right before you get it, though.
One With Nature: Okay… How often do you fear aggression from animals or plants at this level? Tree stride is okay but I might be overrating it with orange.
Fury of the Fey: So the Inquisitor’s fifth level ability is the Fey Bloodrager’s capstone. Just let that sink in for a bit.
Infernal: Nothing really cries out as being terribly great, but the bloodline has a solid list of solid abilities.
Bonus Feats: Iron Will, Combat Reflexes, and Intimidating Prowess are still great picks. Blind-Fight isn’t half bad either.
Spells: A pretty poor list all around. Protection From Good would be nice in an evil campaign but is otherwise unlikely to come up.
Hellfire Strike: A strong boost to damage when you need it. One of the better 1st level powers, I think.
Infernal Resistances: Fire and poison tend to come up pretty often...
Diabolical Arrogance: ...And the worst will saves to fail are enchantments.
Dark Wings: As always, in-class flight is a great thing to have. Also as-always, in-class flight at 12th level interferes with picking up Greater Beast Totem…
Hellfire Charge: Meh, pretty mediocre. Should have just been part of the scaling of the first level ability.
Fiend of the Pit: Once again, fire is a very common element. You also never have to worry about darkness of any kind now, which is cool. Not sure if it’s 20th level cool, but it is cool.
Undead: The Undead bloodline seems to have a bit of an identity crisis… You have abilities that are designed to work specifically against the undead, and you have abilities that do not work against the undead at all. That being said, all of the abilities are solid and so into the green bin it goes.
Bonus Feats: A nice list with Intimidating Prowess, Iron Will, and Toughness. Shaman’s Apprentice Half-Orcs might want to consider looking into Diehard. But the real question is… why isn’t Dazzling Display on this list?
Spells: I really like False Life and Vampiric Touch on this list. Chill Touch and Enervation are good too.
Frightful Charger: A pretty strong way to start off a combat, I think. Goes well with Chill Touch.
Ghost Strike: The usefulness varies wildly depending on how many incorporeal undead you face, but at level four you’ll be the big damn hero when everyone else is dealing half damage at best and you go all AM BLOODRAGER on that ghost. Very nice ability to have.
Death’s Gift: One of the weaker resistance bonuses. Nonlethal isn’t going to come up very often.
Frightful Strikes: Ways to frighten enemies are pretty uncommon without using spells. Still, as with all 12th level abilities you’re competing with the most important rage power.
Incorporeal Bloodrager: I’m not 100% sure on how this works… It says “once per day”, but since it’s a bloodrage power it activates during your bloodrage. There’s no time limit given, so I’m guessing that as long as you stay in your rage you get to stay incorporeal? There’s zero reason for you to run out of rounds at this point in the game so. Yeah. Enjoy your half damage from anything corporeal.
One Foot in the Grave: Sure, I’ll take immunity to paralysis and sleep and almost as much damage reduction as the Invulnerable Rager.
Blood Conduit: The Blood Conduit seems like an archetype missing a few pieces. It wants you to use unarmed strikes, but you don’t get monk damage scaling. It wants you to use maneuvers, but you get no bonuses to CMB. Your best bet is to combine it with Primalist and pick up Strength Surge. You’ll want to use a bloodline with good touch spells like Undead.
Bloodrider: Anyone familiar with AM BARBARIAN should know where this is going. If you were truly desperate to find an archetype for the Fey bloodline this would be it; since you’re charging all the time you’ll get reasonable use out of Blurring Movement. Otherwise you’ll likely want to go with one of the standard “really good” bloodlines like Arcane or Destined; your enemies will be too dead for the effects from the Undead bloodline to take effect.
Crossblooded: Not as bad of an idea as you might think. You’re working at a -4 will compared to the regular Bloodrager, sure, but that’s easily salvageable thanks to the Destined bloodline. A Destined/Elemental (Air) Bloodrager will get flight without really giving anything up; a Destined/Aberrant Steelblood is an impressive tank.
Greenrager: The abilities you get aren’t fantastic, but you won’t really miss what you’re losing either. Extra bodies on the field do help.
Metamagic Rager: Not 100% sure where to put this at the moment. It’s certainly a cool ability, but the cost can get pretty hefty and the fact that you’re still casting these as a spontaneous caster really hurts. It would be cool for a self-detonating Fireball Bloodrager for all you GM’s out there.
Primalist: This archetype… probably shouldn’t exist, and in Pathfinder Society it does not. You get no trade offs, only options for taking it. You won’t have the rage powers necessary to replicate the One True Barbarian, but many archetypes have a couple lackluster powers to trade out for the Beast Totem line and Come and Get Me (Destined comes to mind).
Rageshaper: You won’t get much use out of the parts that modify polymorph spells, but Draconic and Abyssal Bloodragers should enjoy their 2d6 claw attacks.
Spelleater: Spell Eating seems like it would be a really nice use of a slot in an emergency, but ultimately I’d rather have the damage reduction and one of the other archetypes that swaps out uncanny dodge.
Steelblood: Now THIS is an archetype. Heavy armor is great for the Bloodrager, allowing you to have strong AC while still dropping dexterity. The bonuses against charging opponents will come up more often than you will remember to apply them. Armored Swiftness is a HUGE help to Full Plate wearers. You’d be surprised how much of a difference five feet can make. Blood Deflection is great because it comes after the attack roll has already been made; if you really need to burn a spell slot to make this attack miss you can, but there’s no fear that you’re going to waste the attempt.
Untouchable Rager: Okay so, in exchange for losing all of your self-applied buff spells, you get… the ability to resist the buff spells of your party members. And you can’t even turn this off like normal spell resistance. The idea of a spell-less Bloodrager is cool and all, but surely there’s a way to do it that isn’t so crippling…
***Builds coming soon!***
