I really like the new channeling rules. There's a couple items that I'd like to talk about, though.
1. Selective Channeling = feat tax. You pretty much have to take it if you'll be channeling in combat. Most spells, except for direct damage, "magically" know to benefit friends and not enemies. If channeling needs a little nerf, I don't think this is the way to do it. (I don't think it does, but ymmv. Try a d4 round cooldown like a breath weapon instead.)
2. Negative channeling = hell on wheels! I don't mind evil clerics having a bad ass power, that's fun. However, a problem is that positive and negative energy are not treated like the other energy types. With no way for a low level party to resist channeling damage it's going to be easy for a smart evil cleric to get TPKs. You have to use a fourth level spell, Death Ward, to get any resistance to negative energy. And Selective Channeling doesn't dissuade them much - a) they often have undead instead of living around and b) even if they don't, theyre evil and don't mind killing their ogre bodyguards or whatnot.
If positive/negative energy will be very common, I think that Resist Energy etc. should also apply to them. Or at worst some L3 cleric-only "resist planar shenanigans" spell. But I think it's poor form to have no way to avoid channeled damage until level 7. (I know you can save for half, I'm just saying that there are spells to mitigate all other energy types at lower levels.)
3. Action economy. As mentioned in other threads, the lame part about clerics healing is both spell economy and action economy. Channeling helps with the spell economy but not actions, and especially in high level play it's often a case of "what can you whip out in 3 rounds!" Now, Complete Divine has Quicken Turning which makes turning a swift action. Some think that's too overpowering since channeling >> turning. But I suggest a Quicken Turning (actually, call it Quicken Channeling to avoid copyright problems) that makes turning a move action.
I really like the new channeling rules. There's a couple items that I'd like to talk about, though.
1. Selective Channeling = feat tax. You pretty much have to take it if you'll be channeling in combat. Most spells, except for direct damage, "magically" know to benefit friends and not enemies. If channeling needs a little nerf, I don't think this is the way to do it. (I don't think it does, but ymmv. Try a d4 round cooldown like a breath weapon instead.)
2. Negative channeling = hell on wheels! I don't mind evil clerics having a bad ass power, that's fun. However, a problem is that positive and negative energy are not treated like the other energy types. With no way for a low level party to resist channeling damage it's going to be easy for a smart evil cleric to get TPKs. You have to use a fourth level spell, Death Ward, to get any resistance to negative energy. And Selective Channeling doesn't dissuade them much - a) they often have undead instead of living around and b) even if they don't, theyre evil and don't mind killing their ogre bodyguards or whatnot.
If positive/negative energy will be very common, I think that Resist Energy etc. should also apply to them. Or at worst some L3 cleric-only "resist planar shenanigans" spell. But I think it's poor form to have no way to avoid channeled damage until level 7. (I know you can save for half, I'm just saying that there are spells to mitigate all other energy types at lower levels.)3. Action economy. As mentioned in other threads, the lame part about clerics healing is both spell economy and action economy. Channeling helps with the spell economy but not actions, and especially in high level play it's often a case of "what can you whip out in 3 rounds!" Now, Complete Divine has Quicken Turning which makes turning a swift action. Some think that's too overpowering since channeling >> turning. But I suggest a Quicken Turning (actually, call it Quicken Channeling to avoid copyright problems) that makes turning a move action.
I would like to respond to heading 3. of your post - Channel Energy indeed does create action economy - and more.
Healing for a 3.5 cleric - a) Fighter suffers horrific damage. b) Cleric uses a MOVE ACTION to get into touch range of the fighter. c) Cleric either sheaths his weapon, using another MOVE ACTION, and waits till next round to Cast Defensively a healing spell, or drops his weapon (requiring that he pick it up later) and Casts Defensively this round; or draws his wand and either casts this round if he had no weapon out or dropped it, or waits till next round to draw his wand and cast.
Healing for a PathfinderRPG cleric - a) Fighter suffers horrific damage. b) Cleric sheathes his weapon, grasps his holy symbol and Channels Energy.
I have been playing a Fire/Sun Cleric with Extra Turning since the release of Alpha 1, and I have to say that in practice, the cleric in no way suffers from a lack of relevant actions. I have had plenty of ability to heal without feeling like a heal-bot, and plenty of opportunity to use devastating Fire Domain spell-like abilities offensively in combat between heals. Add on top of that the Turn Fire and Turn Evil Outsider feats, and suddenly many of my channel energy uses not only heal the whole party, but deal devastating damage to my foes. If that is not economy of action, I do not know what is.
A good point - although usually it's just a move action then a standard to heal with a spell, I have yet to see anyone micromanage sheathing weapons to cast a heal... The difficulty is usually the moving into threatened range. Also, since you can heal multiple folks at once (like mass cure light but better) you can say it gives action economy.
I think feats for increased action economy are still a good idea.
There's already (at least one) thread about whether selective channeling should be a feat, so I won't repeat myself.
Letting positive & negative energy be resisted is a good idea, but that opens up two cans of worms:
1) What about the will save to flee, for positive energy? I say that if the undead creature takes any damage, it has to make the safe.
2) What about protection from energy? That would slurp up enough damage that evil clerics could essentially make one particular undead turn-proof. I'm not sure how cleric players will feel about that.
I personally am quite content with the way channelling heals the entire area. It does make sense after all (I'm almost considering going so far as to advocate removing the feat option entirely)
To be honest though, I think it makes the turning ability a bit 'too easy'. I'll be doing a homegame ruling which uses the turning check from 3.5 but using the result (-4 to +4) as a modifier to the undead will save against the channelling effect. Otherwise, I'll be using the Pathfinder method.