Hi Guys.
I've recently converted from 3.5 to Pathfinder. My group are not power gamers and we rarely level past about level 10. We are loving the system so far, though we miss some of our favorite classes and feats. So, i'm toying with converting the Duskblade over to Pathfinder. I was just wondering how people who have done this themselves have handled the Arcane Channeling ability.
My main concern is that at 6th level a Duskblade could get the Vital Strike feat. If he was armed with a Greatsword, using a standard action and the Vital Strike feat would deal 4d6 damage average 14 before modifiers). If a Duskblade used that same action to use his Arcane Channeling and channeled Burning Hands he would deal 2d6 + 5d4 (average 17 before modifiers) Is that enough of a damage boost for expending some of his daily resources?
This was a powerful ability in 3.5 because of how action economy worked, it was a big improvement over what a fighter could do with a standard action. Should a Duskblade be able to use Vital Strike (or potentially other action economy feats such as cleave) while using Arcane Channeling?
I'd love to hear some comments from people who are more experienced with Pathfinder than I am.
Cheers