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I really like the new channel energy / turning mechanic. Now that my Cleric has reached 3rd level, I'm considering the Turning Smite feat, but I have a question and I'd love to hear how the rest of you are handling this. I'd also LOVE to hear from Jason and Co with an official ruling ...
The feat says that it allows you to physically attack undead with your weapon and do damage and at the same time channel your turn attempt through that weapon, additionally doing your standard channel effect.
So far so good - a very cool feat.
My question is, does the positive energy channel still cause the 30' burst? In other words, you hit the undead, do physical damage to it plus your turn damage. Do you also still do your normal turn damage to any other undead within 30' as well as heal any living creatures withing that same 30' radius?
The feat does not really say either way, but I think it SHOULD work this way. You still have to use up one of your limited turns per day, so it seems like the burst should still occur.
Thoughts? Official clarifications?
Thanks!
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I really like the new channel energy / turning mechanic. Now that my Cleric has reached 3rd level, I'm considering the Turning Smite feat, but I have a question and I'd love to hear how the rest of you are handling this. I'd also LOVE to hear from Jason and Co with an official ruling ...
The feat says that it allows you to physically attack undead with your weapon and do damage and at the same time channel your turn attempt through that weapon, additionally doing your standard channel effect.
So far so good - a very cool feat.
My question is, does the positive energy channel still cause the 30' burst? In other words, you hit the undead, do physical damage to it plus your turn damage. Do you also still do your normal turn damage to any other undead within 30' as well as heal any living creatures withing that same 30' radius?
The feat does not really say either way, but I think it SHOULD work this way. You still have to use up one of your limited turns per day, so it seems like the burst should still occur.
Thoughts? Official clarifications?
Thanks!
I do not believe it works this way - nor intended to. The feat states taht it allows you to apply normal damage from the weapon to a creature - and you can activate a channeling use to apply that as well to that creature - essentially allowing an attack and a channeling in the same attack but only against that one creature.
Robert
I'm not the official response you're looking for, but I'll take a stab at this from my perspective.
Benefit: Before you make your attack roll, spend a use of your channel energy ability as a swift action. If you hit, your target takes normal damage and suffers the effect of the channeled energy if applicable, including healing or taking additional damage. Your target can make a Will save as normal to resist your channeled energy. You can make all of the choices normally associated with your channel energy ability (such as applying it to elementals or outsiders if you have that ability). If you miss, the channel energy ability is still expended with no effect.
First, note that it says "If you hit, your target takes normal damage and suffers the effect of the channeled energy if applicable".
It doesn't say "your targets" (plural). This should be pretty clear that the feat only hits the target.
Interesting note: then it says "including healing or taking additional damage." - who would smash someone with a mace to heal them?
OK, so apparently the wording is fairly definite. This seems to be a single-target application.
That being said, lets look at this logically.
You won't use this ability if you're fighting orcs because they're immune to it (unless they're undead orcs).
So I'll assume you're fighting undead.
It's the third round of battle. You have been injured, and so has the fighter and rogue. There are a dozen skeletons closing in about to inflict more wounding.
Option 1: You don't ues Turning Smite. You simply channel your energy and turn them. Effect: a dozen skeletons take damage and maybe run away while you, the fighter, and the rogue receive a little healing.
Option 2: You use your Turning Smite feat and smack one skeleton who takes extra damage and might run away if it's not destroyed outright, but the other 11 skeletons keep attacking and nobody gets any healing. And if you miss, you still blew one use of your channel energy for the day with no effect.
Which option do you take?
Now, before you answer, remember, you spent one of your precious few feats to get the ability to use Turning Smite, and you have to use your swift action this round to activate the feat, so you can't designate a target to dodge, etc.
Even better, imagine if you're fighting shadows, wraiths, ghosts, spectres, or some other form of incoporeal undead. Now you have a 50% miss chance to make it even more likely that you'll simply waste a channel energy and get no effect at all.
Losing a use of channel energy if you miss is a HUGE penalty:
1. Channel energy is a new benefit to clerics in Pathfinder that allows them to be more useful as healers, extending the length of time your party can adventure before resting.
2. Many undead encounters are designed in advance to assume the cleric will be turning them. This means more undead. This means failing to turn them can be very dangerous since the PCs are greatly outnumbered when this happens.
3. Standing around in combat doing nothing is fatal. It's bad enough when a fighter misses or a mage has his spell resisted. But it's worse when the party is accumulating damage and the cleric is standing around doing nothing when he could very well be healing his allies.
For those reasons, losing the use of the channel energy on a miss is a HUGE penalty.
Strangely enough, almost all magical effects in 3.x and Pathfinder that require an attack roll do NOT allow saving throws. Usually, there is only one roll to affect your target, either an attack roll (Scorching Ray) or a saving throw (Fireball) but not both. This feat says "Your target can make a Will save as normal to resist your channeled energy" which is totally conter-intuitive to the way attack rolls and saving throws are handled throughout the rest of the magic system.
In my opinion, using this feat as written is very much broken. It would be a waste of a useful feat slot to take this instead of the many useful feats available in the game.
At the very least, the saving throw should be removed. If you can hit your target's AC, go ahead and apply the full effects with no save. At least this way, this feat might be useful against single powerful undead (vampires, liches, etc.) that have mediocre AC and high WILL saves. It would be a niche feat, only practical in some situations and useless in others (like those dozen skeletons above), but that might be OK, since many feats are niche feats.
But me, I simply interpret this feat to mean you channel your energy as a 30' burst centered on the target you strike with your weapon.
Further, I ignore the part that lets your target get a save, but all the other targets in the burst get their normal saves. This is balanced against the HUGE penalty that you will get no effect at all and lose your use of the channel energy if you miss.
Given my interpretation, this feat becomes useful again.
You gain the ability to do what you are going to do anyway, damage and maybe turn all the undead within 30', but now you can do so and still make one melee attack this round.
Further, you gain the benefit that the one target you actually strike gets no save against your channel energy.
Two decent benefits for one feat. It would be overpowered except for the fact that you also gain a HUGE risk of wasting a valuable resource if you miss your attack. That balances it.
An alternative housruling would be to ignore the loss of the channel energy on a miss, but then don't ignore the fact that the target gets his save. Then you lose all the risk, but all you gain is one melee attack during a round in which you also channel energy - which puts it on par with Cleave giving you one melee attack.
Interesting note: then it says "including healing or taking additional damage." - who would smash someone with a mace to heal them?
I can think of at least one instance where this would be useful: The cleric uses a whip attack (15 ft reach) to heal an ally in combat with other living creatures. Another would be a cleric that channels negative energy using this feat to do extra damage to living foes without endangering any living allies. A normal channel energy doesn't discriminate between living allies and living foes (and Selective Channeling only lets you choose targets up to your Cha bonus that are not affected)...
Interesting note: then it says "including healing or taking additional damage." - who would smash someone with a mace to heal them?I can think of at least one instance where this would be useful: The cleric uses a whip attack (15 ft reach) to heal an ally in combat with other living creatures. Another would be a cleric that channels negative energy using this feat to do extra damage to living foes without endangering any living allies. A normal channel energy doesn't discriminate between living allies and living foes (and Selective Channeling only lets you choose targets up to your Cha bonus that are not affected)...
True. Our cleric of Wee Jas in Savage Tide has this feat, as well as Selective Channeling. Unless she's at the fringes of a battle, however, her negative energy burst is going to hurt some of us (even if she can exclude 2 people). The Turning Smite allows her to use her crossbow to good effect, for two reasons: (i) she can put the extra negative energy damage onto one foe without worrying about harming her party (very useful when fighting only one foe), and (ii) she can affect people with it that are further away than her normal turning radius.
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....But me, I simply interpret this feat to mean you channel your energy as a 30' burst centered on the target you strike with your weapon.
Further, I ignore the part that lets your target get a save, but all the other targets in the burst get their normal saves. This is balanced against the HUGE penalty that you will get no effect at all and lose your use of the channel energy if you miss.
Given my interpretation, this feat becomes useful again.
You gain the ability to do what you are going to do anyway, damage and maybe turn all the undead within 30', but now you can do so and still make one melee attack this round.
Further, you gain the benefit that the one target you actually strike gets no save against your channel energy.
Two decent benefits for one feat. It would be overpowered except for the fact that you also gain a HUGE risk of wasting a valuable resource if you miss your attack. That balances it.
This makes a LOT of sense to me. It's pretty much how I feel in fact. A Cleric only gets a very limited number of Turns/Channels per day. Interpreting the feat as DM_Blake has would not be at all unbalanced and in fact would allow a Cleric an occasional, but cool, moment to shine.
I'm still really hoping to hear from Jason or another Paizoian on this. I think the final RPG book is now in editing and layout - I'd be curious to hear if this feat is still worded the same as it is in the beta or if it was reworded to be clearer (hopefully so it works as suggested above!)
Calling Jason .... :)
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Quick update ... we played on Sunday and my DM decided that, for the time being at least, he wanted to stick with the feat not doing the 30' healing burst in addition to the smite. He DID, however, agree that it is not fair to lose the turn/channel attempt if you miss. So we are treating it as a turn channeled only through the weapon that only expends that turning/channel IF you hit.
A pretty good, fair compromise I'd say.
By the way, we are playing Crown of the Kolbold King and, without giving away any spoilers, this feat was VERY handy for a certain encounter ...
That battle was just ... wow ...
I think the OP's confusion over the benefits of this feat is primarily that of timing.
At low levels, Channel Energy is a fantastic ability in any battle against primarily undead foes - damages them significantly, makes some run, and heals you.
The primary benefit to this feat at low level is (as Dragonchess Player noted) for healing allies w/out healing enemies, or for negative channelers to hurt enemies w/out harming allies. It's also useful against mixed groups of undead/living enemies.
At higher levels, the primary benefit of this feat is to take a Full Attack action on a strong opponent, and blast him extra with channeling in the middle of it. Particularly for Paladins who may be smiting evil as well. And particularly at those times where you wouldn't "waste" an action using Channel Energy.
On the saving throw issue - I'll point out that using a Spell Storing weapon still gives a saving throw (although you don't activate that until after hitting). However a saving throw *must* be allowed - simply hitting an undead with Turning Smite can't make it automatically run away.
Also:
Even better, imagine if you're fighting shadows, wraiths, ghosts, spectres, or some other form of incoporeal undead. Now you have a 50% miss chance to make it even more likely that you'll simply waste a channel energy and get no effect at all.
Although I see where you're coming from on this, I don't think channel energy should be affected by the 50% failure chance on incorporeal undead. Turn Undead was not previously (to my knowledge). It should be clarified, either way.
Also:Even better, imagine if you're fighting shadows, wraiths, ghosts, spectres, or some other form of incoporeal undead. Now you have a 50% miss chance to make it even more likely that you'll simply waste a channel energy and get no effect at all.Although I see where you're coming from on this, I don't think channel energy should be affected by the 50% failure chance on incorporeal undead. Turn Undead was not previously (to my knowledge). It should be clarified, either way.
I wasn't trying to indicate that channeling energy has a 50% miss rate on incorporeal undead.
What I meant here, regarding Turning Smite, is that you must hit with your weapon. If you try this feat on a wraith, and you miss with your melee attack due to the incorporeal 50% miss chance, you've still missed, and you've still fired off one of your Channel Energy uses for the day.
It would be a very unwise or desperate act to attempt Turning Smite on incorporeal undead, knowing full well that half of your daily uses of Channel Energy will be wasted on that 50% miss chance. Unless, of course, you plan ahead with ghost touch weapons, or spells that negate that 50% miss chance for incorporeal creatures.
Just to be clear, using this feat means that the channel effect only targets the creature hit by the smite. All other creatures are unaffected.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Ouch, Jason.
I was hoping you would rule it differently, because this ruling makes it very weak, unless you're fighting an undead solo BBEG and your companions are managing not to get hurt much, in which case, situationally speaking, the feat is good in rare situations and weak in common situations.
The net effect is an overall loss of effectiveness, or a rarely used feat, either of which is a high price to pay when deciding which feats to take.
The net effect is an overall loss of effectiveness, or a rarely used feat, either of which is a high price to pay when deciding which feats to take.
Well, a Cleric who Channels Negative Energy would take this feat, however (especially if he has a low Charisma, and so Selective Channeling doesn't help him not to hurt his friends).
A high-level Paladin would take this*, as well (I speak of a high level Paladin because both Smite Evil and Turning Smite are activated by a swift action, but at high levels a Smite Evil lasts more rounds). First round, Smite Evil on the Undead; second round, while Smite Evil is still active, Turning Smite (expending two Lay on Hands attempts)... the Undead becomes dead meat (...). Consider this: if your Smite Evil lasts another round, would you still use a regular Channel Energy (wasting the round of Smite Evil), or would you combine the two ?
*A Good Cleric can take this as well, obviously, but the Paladin combo is more effective. The Cleric is more effective on using the Channel Energy feature.
Another (not very uncommon) situation is when Undead are mixed with living creatures. If you use Channel Energy, you end hurting the Undead, but healing the enemy Cleric and his living bodyguards ! Not every Cleric takes Selective Channeling - take a melee Cleric of a God of War; he needs Str and Con more than Cha, so Selective Channeling is not an optimal choice for him...
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Interesting note: then it says "including healing or taking additional damage." - who would smash someone with a mace to heal them?
Well, strictly speaking, you don't have to 'smash someone with your mace'.
You could just slap them for 1hp, though this might make you unpopular. (Or would they feel it, if it's simultaneous with the healing? Hmmm.)
Here's a thought; could this be worded that you do the full Channeling healing/damage, plus weapon damage, if you hit the target's full AC.
And still do Channeling healing/damage (but without the weapon damage), if you miss full AC, but roll high enough to beat Touch AC?
This would allow the feat to be used to selectively heal/damage single targets out of a mixed group of enemies and allies, without having to violently attack your friends, or have such a high risk of wasting the Channeling against a high-AC, but low touch-AC opponent.
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Ouch, Jason.I was hoping you would rule it differently, because this ruling makes it very weak, unless you're fighting an undead solo BBEG and your companions are managing not to get hurt much, in which case, situationally speaking, the feat is good in rare situations and weak in common situations.
The net effect is an overall loss of effectiveness, or a rarely used feat, either of which is a high price to pay when deciding which feats to take.
Yup. I interpreted it that way, and have yet to be in a situation where I would want to use the feat. I pretty much do my best to steer my players away from it, it's pretty useless.