AericAremanos's page

Drop is a free action.

Dropping an item may be a free action (and sub-optimal every time you want to cast a 3-action spell or channel), BUT getting your Holy Symbol into your hand certainly isn't. So in realistic play (with the loss of Emblazon Symbol) you are going to spend a round switching what is in one hand to cast or channel a 3-action Heal/Harm plus multiple spells (such as Invisibility, Darkness, Summon Monster, Circle of Protection and Blade Barrier to name a few) and many (especially advanced) domain powers.

Adding a #6 to my original list:

The loss of the "Emblazon Symbol" feat did not help, but hurt the Cleric further as the "NEW RULE—HANDS AND CASTING" meant to help Clerics and Druids use shields & two-handed items covered Somatic Only. This change reduces the Cleric's Channel ability even further as well as any spell having an optional or required Material casting component

While great for Druids who can wrap their "Holly & Mistletoe" around a hand as a Material component and still use an item in said hand, a Cleric requires the use of their Holy Symbol (a one-handed item). This completely negates the ability to use a 3-action Channel (or any 3-action Spell) while using a shield or two-handed weapon... further weakening Channel and negating a benefit "Emblazon Symbol" gave even with the feat-tax. Now we are either forced to stow shields or two-handed weapons the turn before us to use our Holy Symbol for a 3-action Channel/Spell or limit ourselves to only the 2-action/verbal, somatic varieties. At least the feat gave us a work around. Now the Cleric has none at all and having to tell a sometimes desperate party "sorry all but you're going to have to wait a turn." during combat is not often an acceptable option. This makes our reduced Channeling ability (and spell-casting) even weaker as our signature ability.

In short, the Cleric's Channel/Heal/Harm mechanic (and Spell-casting in general) is now even less versatile with "Emblazon Symbol" gone as the baked in replacement covers Somatic only.

In my opinion, Cleric is now an almost useless class because of the changes in 1.6. Reasons #1-5 were harsh enough without #6 being it's death knell during a combat encounter.
(Thank you for listening to another rant on the state of Clerics in 1.6))

The change to the cleric's channel energy ability of only your charisma bonus in my opinion really screws up the cleric.

First 22/32 cleric feats revolve around the channel/heal/harm mechanic and expanding the way it interacts. Channel is set up to do far more than heal or harm undead with feats and the cleric is losing one of their most versatile assets.

Secondly it turns Cha into a primary stat along with Wis (before a cleric build could focus on other stats or Cha based on your build concept of the cleric as they always had a base ability of at least 3 to channel their deity’s energy type. Now without the base 3 and the focus solely on Cha you may have literally no ability to even channel your given deity).

Third, it forces any heal/harm cleric or undead slayer/ control build to require a supplemental magical item to work (I thought the point was to make magic items less of a necessity) or they are going to lose depth in their ability to function in a more versatile way as they are forced to fill up already meager spell per day caps with heal/ harm spells to make up for the difference (I was already filling a heightened slot with a heal spell even with 3+Cha (even with a 16 Cha giving me 6 total channels per day (now 3) a party can blow through them during a dungeon crawl).

Fourth, this really hurts any party that does not have another heal class in their mix as the stated intent was to not make the cleric as good at healing so other classes would pick up the slack (that’s making a mighty big assumption you have other heal classes in the party or is going to force building parties that way, again taking out choices).

Fifth, the cleric lost ability but it wasn't given anything in its place or another solid route of feat focus like other classes have so they only became less viable as a class. (sorry for the rant)

Fun Fact: I now have a domain spell power that effects channel (undead's bane) that I can use more times than I can actually channel, lol