I was one of those who really liked the change of Turning Undead rules into Channel (Positive/Negative) Energy in the Pathfinder RPG. Having used the rules in my game for a while now, I still prefer the new rules to the old rules, but I do have some new reservations - chiefly that the mechanic is very overpowered when the party is fighting Undead.
The party in the campaign in question, currently consists of the following classes, all of which are at level 9:
1 x Wizard
1 x Fighter/Barbarian
1 x Cleric
1 x Paladin
1 x Rogue
The Cleric has taken feats that improve turning undead, notably: Quicken Turning, Improved Turning and Extra Turning
It is a mostly 3.5E game, but I am gradually introducing more and more Pathfinder RPG elements with an eye towards a full conversion after Alpha 3 is released. The campaign world is my own as are the adventures.
I will not bore you with the details of the story, but suffice it to say that the party, although dealing with other pressing issues, had decided to take on a sidequest and embark on an expedition to investigate an ancient tomb dating back to the Karminian civilization in the desert they were visiting.
Having made their treck and dealt with the traps they, needless to say began encountering numerous undead. The undead threats were varied, ranging from numerous weak undead (even as lowly as zombies or improved skeletons) to ghasts, ghost, wights and mummies. None of these encounters posed any problems to the party - it was not even close.
Eventually, they found out that undeath was the Karminian version of the afterlife and found some undead with their souls sundered from their bodies and so on and so on jumping over the story... basically they became unsure whether slaughtering them is a good idea and left the tomb. They eventually returned, however, their numbers further augmented by 3 8th level paladins.
Again jumping over the story to the combats:
- a fight against numerous heavily upgraded skeletons teamed up with 2 mummies: not a problem for the party at all
- a fight against 4 bodaks: not a problem for the party at all
- a fight against 4 wights and 4 ghosts (2 ghosts and 2 wights had 7 class levels each - a wizard and a rogue among both)
- a fight against a Mummy Lord (CR15): not a problem for the party at all
The finnal battle was preceded by an encounter with two rust monsters, after which the party did not have any time to rest.
The setup was that the party then entered the burial chamber of King Ochran where it fought him, as well as his 4 advisors. The room was made of metal and was very cold - the floor was made of ice. Beneath the ice was a natural cavern and some way down in that cavern was a pool of lava with a path winding through it. The lava was melting the ice, but it was refreezing almost immediately, due to the magic of a Black Sun that adorned the ceiling and exuded dark energy (providing +2 to resistance against Channel Positive Energy) and cold. Nevertheless there were cracks in the ice that were moving along the floor (ice was cracking and then always refreezing a round later) that a character could fall through.
The chamber contained the sarcofagi of king's 4 advisors (4 mummies). On top of that, however, the party also had to simultaneously face King Ochran, whose body was represented by a mummy with upgraded stats and 10 levels of sorceror and whose soul (sundered from the body) was represented by a spectre with upgraded stats and also 10 levels of sorcerer. Both the body of Ochran and the soul of Ochran also received bonus hit points and additional +2 to their turn resistance.
Suffice it to say, that the party still slaughtered this entourage wholesale and I did not pull my punches (Cloudkills... Fireballs to hurt them and melt the ice temporarily to make them fall through and so on - though I deliberately did not give the sorcerers Dominate as I did think that would have been an overkill - perhaps I was wrong), yet at the end of the day, the party was not terribly ruined and did not pull through by just the nick of their teeth. OK, the party was not in the best of shapes after it was all over, but it was still disturbingly combat capable.
As such, I do think that the current incarnation of Channel Positive Energy is overpowered when the party is dealing with undead, though I still prefer it to the old 3.5 Turning Undead mechanic.
Perhaps the way to balance the Channel Energy ability would be to look at spells for inspiration.
Suppose that instead of the current healing/damage mechanic, we would instead take cue from cure ... wounds and cause ... wounds spells, which after all, are supposed to rely on positive and negative energy respectively.
Channel energy would be a touch effect to begin with. In its positive energy version, it would cure hit points to the tune of 1d8, plus an additional 1d8 hit points every two levels thereafter (hence 2d8 at third level, 3d8 at fourth level, etcetera). Of course, the ability would also do equivalent damage to the undead upon a succesful touch attack. The Channel Negative Energy ability would, naturaly, work in the opposite manner.
The actual turning and commanding mechanics would remain the same as they are in the current Channel Energy desciptions, with the will save determining whether the undead in question flee/are commanded.
It is possible to have this work only on the undead creature targeted by the damaging effect of this ability, but to better evoke the origin of this ability in the turn undead mechanic, it is also feasible to say that all undead within 30 feet of the cleric have to make the saving throw, as the proximity of the negative/positive energy is enough to turn/command them even when they are not damaged/healed. This would also retain the probable design aim of enabling the cleric to heal while doing other actions - he is healing (or damaging) only one individual (or undead creature), but still turning/commanding surrounding undead.
At 9th level, clerics gain 5th level spells and Cure Light Wounds, Mass (or Cause Light Wounds, Mass) is among them. At this stage, it is therefore feasible and balanced to give the cleric the option to also use an area of effect (30' burst centered around the cleric) use of the Channel Energy ability, but using the area of effect ability would only cure/cause damage per creature that uses 4 less d8 dice than the targeted single-creature ability. Hence, it would cure 1d8 hit points at level 9, 2d8 hit points at level 11 and so on. The turning/commanding effects would remain the same for both the targeted and the area of effect versions of Channel Energy.
Note 1: This mechanic is based on the cure/cause ... wounds spells. Because it combines healing/wounding with the turning/comanding mechanic, I thought it prudent to eliminate the +1hp per level cured/caused, which if kept would have made the ability even more overpowered at higher levels than it was before. It may also be desirable to tone down the dice to d6s, but the latter may not be necessary at all given the area of effect nerf it receives compared to the previous Channel Energy mechanic. I have not playtested this version, so that is as of yet unclear.
Note 2: Given this kind of transparency between cure/cause spells and the Channel Energy ability, it could be an interesting experiment to permit Clerics to drop their spells of the appropriate level to fuel additional Channel Energy uses instead of spontaneously casting cure/cause spells.
I'm sorry, but you did boost the 9th level party with three 8th level characters. I'm not sure the comparison holds.
I'm sorry, but you did boost the 9th level party with three 8th level characters. I'm not sure the comparison holds.
Yes, I did boost them with three 8th level temporary player characters, but not initially. At first they were in the tomb alone and they had no problems whatsoever with the undead that should have posed a challenge. During the second stage, when they were boosted with the three 8th level Paladins, they faced what should have been incredibly deadly stuff for a 9th level party. There were several such encounters, but the final encounter in particular should have been overwhelming...
As I said, I still like the Channel Positive/Negative Energy ability and certainly far prefer it to the old Turning mechanics, but I would not mind it being toned down slightly - perhaps by taking inspiration from spells of the appropriate level.
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I think that another thing involved here, besides the extra players(the more numbers you add on one side, the more rapidly the threat of the other side decreases simply because your side gets that many more actions. Their attack might be devastating, but if your side is getting 15 attacks between them, then they are going to drop much more quickly.) is the fact that these turning rules are more powerful, since they were improving on an ability that was generally pretty worthless unless your cleric used all their feats to make it powerful.
And in this instance, your cleric has the better version of the turning ability -and- all the feats from various splat books to make it that much more powerful. Not to mention that all those who were added to the group were also turners and generally anti-undead types. This was a very potent group for battling undead, enough so that non-undead creatures may have posed more of a problem for them. That cleric can heal a great deal but when that much healing is going towards enemies in combat too it makes it that much more of a decision if its worth using, and thus he may essentially be ignoring all those feats he took that battle. Your party was built to rock against undead and they should, the balance comes when they are fighting other things.
-Tarlane
Don't get me wrong - I realize that my party was not entirely typical - the cleric was rather min-maxed for turning (my fault actually - the player didn't know what feats to take, so I suggested concentrating on turning feats, since clerics don't really need feats anyway) and there also was, as you mentioned, a later addition of a bunch of paladins who could also turn (though they were notably worse at turning than the cleric)... and it was a sidequest steeped in undead. I guess it was pushing the limit of the Channel Energy ability. When they were not fighting undead (that means: before they embarked on the sidequest), the ability was fine even at that level of min-maxing.
Still, I think the experience is worth sharing - extreme situations can sometimes shed light on the mechanics and the positives/negatives thereof. And yes, I hasten to repeat, that I found the Channel Energy mechanic in its current incarnation, even in the situation described, greatly preferable to the old Turning mechanic, which was almost never used and whenever it happened to be used involved much looking up in the rules and held up the game.
Here's the real question/concern:
So what happens if a Neutral cleric takes Negative energy damage and does this against every living creature he faces?
Imagine the same scenario, only replacing "undead" with "any living creature".
I think making Turning affect the living (positively or negatively) opened a can of worms. The repercussions are a bit larger than possibly intended.
Although I don't have such experience with my party, I wouldn't imagine it to be game-breaking. Consider that by using negative energy against living beings, the Cleric is also hurting his own party members...
Yeah, except:
Selective Channeling
You can choose whom to affect when you channel energy.
Prerequisite: Cha 13, ability to channel energy.
Benefit: When you channel energy, you can choose
a number of targets in the area up to your Charisma
modifier. These targets are not affected by your
channeled energy.
Normal: All targets in a 30-foot burst are affected when
you channel energy. You can only choose whether or not
you are affected.
A first level cleric planning on taking negative energy would simply take this. With a 16 Cha, he can decide not to affect the standard 3 friends he'd likely have (if they are even all in the area).
Since he doesn't have to spend feats on the outsider and elemental ones (unless he feels like healing them), he only needs to pick up Extra Turning to be fully effective. Combine with 3.5e feats such as Quicken Turning, etc..
Not to mention, what if his friends are undead? It's not out of the question for some campaigns, and now he's healing his friends while hurting 90% of the stuff he's fighting.
This is definitely changing the scope of the ability to a drastic level. If this was their intention, okay then.. but it's not nearly the same ability anymore.
Good catch with the feat. Still, it is not quite the same, hurting enemies and not hurting your own as this would accomplish versus hurting enemies and healing friends simultaneously as is the case with Channel Positive Energy versus undead. An undead party would be another matter, but that would likely be extremely rare. Still, I can see the issue you have with it. The solution I proposed: Toning down channel energy along the lines of spells of appropriate level, however, would mitigate both issues.
A first level cleric planning on taking negative energy would simply take this. With a 16 Cha, he can decide not to affect the standard 3 friends he'd likely have (if they are even all in the area).
He needs Cha 16 for this trick. Using up points / good rolls on Charisma hurts in other areas (i. e. casting, carrying heavy armor, hit points, skill points etc.).
With Cha 15 or less, the cleric cannot exclude the whole standard 4-person-party, and will injure, possibly even kill one of his comrades, which makes the ability not entirely useless, but... problematic.
Also: Beware of Familiars and Animal Companions... or even innocent bystanders.
How many of the party are going to be within 30' of the cleric when he's in melee with creatures? The squishies should be hanging back anyways.
And at higher levels, the Cleric should be pumping his Charisma anyways, since Turning is so good, and it affects how many times per day he can use it.
Now granted, it doesn't heal the party. However if an undead encounter is a pushover because of the damage output from the cleric using positive energy, I'd hate to see playtests with a cleric fighting anything else using negative energy.
How many of the party are going to be within 30' of the cleric when he's in melee with creatures? The squishies should be hanging back anyways.
Most fights begin with the party standing together. In an outdoor setting, the wizard might put some distance between him an the party, though it might even take a full move or two half-moves. In an indoor setting, there'll probably not be enough space to get 30 ft. away.
I don't say channeling is useless. But it's usefulness has strict limits, as you're always in danger to hurt/kill allies/neutrals. And even that needs a feat (Selective Channeling), as without that, I think a PC cleric will hardly - if ever - use channeling.
Negative Energy Channeling:
=> ability to convert spells into inflict spells (crap)
=> mediocre AoE-attack
=> -1 Feat (must have: Selective Channeling)
Positive Energy Channeling:
=> ability to convert spells into cure spells (nice)
=> medium power AoE-heal
From a balancing/optimization standpoint, IMO this clearly says:
Positive Channeling is just plain better than Negative Channeling.
And at higher levels, the Cleric should be pumping his Charisma anyways, since Turning is so good, and it affects how many times per day he can use it.
The problem remains the same. The reliance on a non-primary attribute limits the power of channeling.
Not if +1 bonus from higher Wisdom gives maybe a spell in the lower levels, as opposed to an additinal 10d6 damage per day against a group of creatures from Charisma.
The process of making Turning more useful may have made it "too" useful so to speak. I guess playtesting will have to let us know.
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Oh, and in the games I'm playing in lately, the Wizard is in the back of the party, floating up near the ceiling, away from everything he can be. Most spells being greater than 30' range after a few levels into the game (even the short range spells, other than touch), mean that they aren't going to be anywhere near the battle cleric who is wading into the thick of it.
Archers having their minimum increment being in the 100' or so range means you leave them out as well.
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Yes, if you have a group of 11 people, with a ton of summoned creatures or pets/followers, etc, it'll be nasty. Beware the standard group though. And summoned creatures can be covered with those Outsider/Elemental feats as well, healing them in combat.
In my experience, if you hand a player a way to do buckets of d6s damage, they will find a way to use it to full effect. In the game of 4-5 players, a cleric will have to invest little to do this, even at the early game.