I don't imagine this can be new. So, if there's an answer to this already, please, just point me in that direction.
From Cleric Channel Energy:
A good cleric (or one who worships a good deity) channels positive energy and can choose to deal damage to undead creatures or to heal living creatures. An evil cleric (or one who worships an evil deity) channels negative energy and can choose to deal damage to living creatures or to heal undead creatures.
Pretty standard stuff so far. Undead, creatures, yada yada.
From Variant Channeling:
Creatures that would normally ignore the effect of a particular channel (such as undead with respect to a positive energy channel used to heal) ignore the variant effect of that channel.
So, this is cool. The same restrictions are in place with respect to living creatures and undead, right? Well then what's up with a bunch of the variant channeling effects?
Harm—Unattended objects take full channel damage (not half).
Since when can channels affect objects? Now we're no longer talking about creature types.
Harm—The damage effect is enhanced for plant creatures. Creatures are fatigued, as if experiencing starvation.
Since when can channel energy harm plant creatures? That was restricted to undead who are also immune to fatigue.
The wordings of several other variants seem to imply abilities that don't quite make sense such as potentially making undead nauseous. Are these also silently slipping in other clauses or meant just for negative energy channelers? Why are all those folks who would care to channel energy within the farming variant channeling negative energy so therefore neutral or evil? I knew that devout farmer Jim had a hateful look in his eye... It feels like I missed something along the way as to how these are intended to work.
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For understanding Variant Channeling, there is something that is very important:
A variant channeling either modifies positive channeled energy when used to heal or modifies negative energy when used to harm. When using positive energy to heal, affected creatures gain only half the normal amount of healing but also receive a specific beneficial effect. When channeling negative energy to harm, affected creatures take only half the normal damage but take an additional penalty or harmful effect; a successful saving throw negates the additional penalty or effect but does not reduce the damage any further. Creatures that would normally ignore the effect of a particular channel (such as undead with respect to a positive energy channel used to heal) ignore the variant effect of that channel.
Bolding is mine. This means that the variant channel Heal section only refers to channeling Positive Energy to heal (usually the living), and the Harm section only when using Negative Energy to harm (usually the living). If you want to use both, you need to be able to channel both types of energy. The last sentance of the quote that you too have quoted, is there to show that even if a creature is in the channel radius, if it was not affected by the channel, it can also not benefit/suffer from the rider effect.
The other two quoted lines you gave, actually have something to do with the following paragraph:
Some variant channeling abilities are enhanced when used on particular creature types. Such channeling increases the normal healing or damage from channeled energy by 50% for that creature type, rather than the default half healing or damage for the alternative channeling. For example, a 7th-level cleric normally heals 4d6 points of damage with channeled positive energy; with the Nature alternative channeling, that cleric instead heals only half that amount (2d6) when channeling, but heals animals and fey an additional +50% over the unhalved value (4d6 + 50%).
What the Destruction Variant to Harm actually does, is damaging unattended objects, even though they normally do not take damage from negative channeling. The part between parathesis is placed there, because variant channeling always halves the healing/damage done. So in the case of destruction variant channeling to harm, it deals half damage to living creatures, and full damage to unattended object in the same radius.
As for the Farming Variant to Harm, that one does three things. First it deals half damage to living creatures. Second, if that living creature happened to be a plant type creature (as they also count as living creatures), then instead of dealing half damage, you deal 1.5x damage (so regular +50%, save for half). Third, any living creature that fails the will save against the channel, also becomes fatigued as if starving (so they need to eat to get rid of it, sleeping it away is impossible).
I hope that this clarifies the varient channeling a bit for you.
Yeah, only channel positive variants apply when using channel to heal and only channel negative variants apply when channeling to harm.
I think that should clear some things up for you. Not to say there aren't still a lot of problems with variant channeling.
Please see here, here, and here for discussion on some of the problems.
Thanks, both of you