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OK, you are mentioning lvl 2 and have completely maxed your caster for this. Not many will do this. This is not a standard evil cleric unless you are saying for the evil cleric to be effective with negative channel energy he has to do something as crazy as this?Question to Archangel and everyone else. Should the default evil cleric now be a channeler first and spell-caster second? Isn't the primary goal of the evil NPC cleric just supposed to be the one that tries to weaken or kill the PCs? Do as much damage as possible?
Am I really crazy for specializing in channeling negative energy? I know the damage doesn't scale as well as fireball or cone of cold but there are so many other advantages that channeling has over these other spells. I just saw the new ability, thought it looked cool and ran with it. Hopefully my guy doesn't totally suck at higher levels. The offensive spells on the cleric's list aren't really that great anyway and I don't really mind being the master of spam damage. Makes it really easy for those melee guys up front to take the bad guys down quickly.
Not really, I mean I had a cleric that specialized in Darkness magic. Any magic that was themed around darkness and shadows I took. It was rough, especially being a closet Zon-Kuthainite, but it worked out well for me and is one of my more memorable characters.
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I take issue with the presumption that an evil cleric would even have a party instead of a drove of undead. The game rules have been explicit that PCs are meant to be non-evil since first edition. ("Quoth the Gygax: "Evil sucks.")
And if you want a House Rule of 'no evil PCs,' go for it. It's actually kind of a standard assumption, with 'evil games' being an exception.
But that's irrelevant to the discussion, unless you *also* have a House Rule forbidding neutral Clerics of neutral dieties from channeling negative energy.
A revenge-obsessed Chaotic Neutral cleric of Calistria, goddess of Revenge, or a pitiless mercenary-Cleric of the Neutral Gorum, gore-soaked mail-fisted god of bloodlust and battle, or an evocation-loving firegazing Neutral Cleric of Nethys, in his aspect of patron of destructive magics of all sorts, would be completely in character to choose to channel negative energy, instead of positive energy, and the rules explicitly allow them to do so.
If you do have such a House Rule, forbidding the neutral Cleric from channeling negative energy, it would be a logical (in fact, the only logical!) conclusion that neutral Clerics are *also* forbidden from channeling positive energy. If that is the case, do the neutral dieties have any Clerics at all, or are they entirely served by Druids and Adepts, as clergy? Or have you come up with some alternate class ability, to replace Channel Energy, since you seem to forbid neutral Clerics to channel negative (or, presuming that you are being fair, positive) energy? I'd be interested in hearing what sort of ability you've come up with for Neutral Clerics, if this is the case. I always love new options, and if you've created new options for your players, instead of just taking them away, that's totally awesome.
And no, that's not sarcasm. If you've even-handedly House Ruled a third option for Neutral Clerics, instead of positive or negative energy channeling, I'd like to see what you've come up with.
@Frogboy: You misunderstood most of my points (or I was not clear enough).
Most encounters the PCs will run into won't have positive energy channeling clerics unless they are playing an evil campaign. You're only going to see this a handful of times throughout the length of the campaign. In these cases, you can use your actions to pretty much cancel out theirs but the rest of your party will still be hammering away on them.
This was an example where the enemy is evil cleric not the other way around.
Maybe this should be the standard evil cleric. I'd fear him more than what you consider the standard especially if my cleric was just some schmuck with a 12 or 14 CHA who casts bull's strength on himself and charges up into melee on the first round. He will quickly outpace him on the channeled energy once he's bone dry.
Looks like it needs to be, except in my campaigns where channel ability will be changed. I think I will like my evil clerics more if they cast disables or buff and go melee.
How many will save a WILL DC of 19 at second level? 25-27 at 10th level? 35 at 20th level?
As I told you already, you completely needed to change the standard cleric to make him good with this. Imagine creating a Greatsword wielding fighter with most important stat Dex. Compared to what is usually done that guy is not going to do as much damage or have as great to hit. But lets say he got a new ability with pathfinder and suddenly he needs really good Dex to be good with a greatsword. This is how this cleric feels. And all you said just confirms my worries and point of view. I do not want to see the cleric as we know it from 3.5e go away completely (nerfed a bit yes, but not this radically changed).
Maybe what you consider the standard negative energy channeling cleric but not me. I will out do him as the rest of my group dismantles the front lines.
Look, your targets get a save for half, his don't. So he will always outdo you. It is as simple as that. Ignoring this fact does not help you at all.
Taking out enemies faster means less need for healing. Wands of cure light are cheap.
But you are not taking them out faster if there is a good cleric on the other side as he will always outdo you. As I said, this ability is only useful if no good/neutral clerics are on the other side.
In a campaign with one player being that cleric, evil NPCs clerics he will come upon on occasion have no business using negative channel energy as it will do little. Only in situations where it can finish the PC (which is not the point of those encounters) it will matter. Even if it brings the PC to -x but does not kill him his buddy good cleric will just heal him back up.Silence will not stop mine or any other negative energy channel. Clerics are the hardest to take out with disabling effects since they have a good FOR and REF. They'll likely go after the Wizard first.
It is not supposed to as your power comes from your buffs/debuffs and disables. If you go Channel negative energy the good cleric will laugh at you and already mark another win on his sheet.
I never said anything about a head to head fight. Last week, my lowly level 2 cleric made a suicidal charge into the middle of a room with 30 goblins in it: 15 up front to engage in melee and 15 in the back shooting crossbows. I blasted all 30 of them once for 4 damage each (5% save chance). In the second round, the back 15 turned and ran because there was a 33% chance (9 HP each) that I would wipe out all but a few of the little critters. My second channel only hit the 13 or 14 left up front and I rolled another 4 (so close). After being swarmed by goblins for two rounds I did end up getting taken down but not before doing...ready for this?...164 HP worth of damage! Let's see your Fighter do that in two rounds! In real life PC encounters, negative energy channeling is balanced. For someone who specializes, it might even be broken. I'll let you know as I continue to level up.
This was one situation that played to your strength. This was also a situation where the DM probably done the encounter the old (3.5e) way. I know I would. I would expect the party to behave the way they did before. And they all will except for the new cleric (both good and evil side). And I do not like it, and that is the main reason why I am changing it. I do no want to need to change the encounter logic because of what I feel is a really bad change to turn undead mechanics.
By the way if you didn't have this ability (and no other class has anything similar at this level) this encounter would probably kill your party. 30 goblins against 4 lvl 2 players is not a balanced encounter, not even close.
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channeling is 1d6, 2d6, 3d6... even if both are random positive channeling is only a bit more useful because it covers area... otherwise check your math it heals a lot less...
and it DOES proveoque AoO
Um, channeling doesn't provoke AoO, its a Supernatural Ability. If it did that would defeat its purpose as it is meant to be for the cleric to use while in the middle of battle, unlike cure spells which DO provoke AoO's.
I don't see channeling as broken, if it seems broken then it's probably not being played correctly. As mentioned it scales similiar to a fireball but every two levels instead of every so that at 19th level the cleric is doing what a 10th level wizard could do for damage. The save is based off of Cha which is either going to be the second or third best stat for the cleric. You get a set number of uses per day that has to be balanced against all possible battles the party might face in a given day.
Concerning the mention of stat enhancing items. Temporary stat enhancing items no longer confer bonuses toward spells known and such, they only grant access to spells you already have the levels to cast but lack the ability, you could then cast what you should already know. By this I mean if you could cast 9th level spells but only have an 18 Wis, a +2 bonus putting you to 20 Wis would give you access to the spells you're suppose to be able to cast. The item doesn't give you the bonus spells for having a 20 Wis. I would rule it the same when looking at the increase in the number of channels per day. Most items that could confer a permanent bonus require the item to be worn for more than 24 hours. With the new distribution of stat enhancing items I doubt you'll see a lot of them as you do under 3.x since you only have certain item slots that can now hold them.
Oh jesus. Another person that only compares d6s and uses Fireball as an example. Please people stop. That is like comparing a two-weapon fighting power attacking guy against a single weapon guy and saying two-weapon guy does more damage without ever mentioning that two-weapon guy has penalties to attack same as power attack giving penalties.
Fireball has counters against it, most common being A Reflex Save and Spell Resistance. There are numerous others.
CPE has almost none. Things that counter CPE counter about everything else (stun, paralyze and such). There is also antimagic zone which counters almost all spells, but how often is this going to occur?
Maybe this should be the standard evil cleric. I'd fear him more than what you consider the standard especially if my cleric was just some schmuck with a 12 or 14 CHA who casts bull's strength on himself and charges up into melee on the first round. He will quickly outpace him on the channeled energy once he's bone dry.Looks like it needs to be, except in my campaigns where channel ability will be changed. I think I will like my evil clerics more if they cast disables or buff and go melee.
Well, my main point is that you can't be expected to be good at something if you don't ever do anything to make it better. My character will likely never be good at melee because of his build. Your default cleric will never be good at channeling. It was always just easy in 3.5 to ignore Turn/Rebuke Undead because it wasn't a very good ability. It was easy to give up.
I have an idea for you that could possibly bring this balance that you are seeking.
If a character (PC or otherwise) is subject to a negative energy effect (i.e channel mostly), it also has the additional effect of making healing more difficult. For the next round, anyone healed must make a WIL save against the DC of the negative energy effect or only receive half of the effect.
You could tweek this any number of ways but what it would do is make it so that getting hit with an evil clerics channel means that when the good cleric channels to heal everyone back up, they have to make that same save in order to get the full benefit. This should also work in reverse when attacking and healing undead. This seems like a nice clean fix unless you just really want to get rid of channeling all together.
By the way if you didn't have this ability (and no other class has anything similar at this level) this encounter would probably kill your party. 30 goblins against 4 lvl 2 players is not a balanced encounter, not even close.
We had a party of six actually and the back rows of goblins were actually the next encounter. We made too much noise getting through the door so all of the enemies forces were waiting there for us. I'm fairly certain that they were only going to hang out for a two or three rounds until we're about to break through the front lines and then dip. My unpredictable tactic just chased them off earlier but also took all of them down to almost half HP for the next encounter.
That and our DM is notorious for throwing very difficult challenges at us. We like it that way, though. It keeps us on our toes.
Personally dont see the problem evil vs good.
If good heals without selective channelling everyone gets healed including the evil clerics living buddies. If evil channels, everyone gets hurt, even the evil clerics living buddies...
Whats the issue of balance in that regard? And whilst yes the good cleric can boost healing with spontaneous casts, great..thats your cleric turned into a healing battery and healing one person a round to prevent healing the bad guys (without selective channel) will most likely not keep pace with the evil cleric and his party damaging you. I would be disappointed however if tactics in fights purely came down to channelling.
In fact seeing as parties very rarely travel with undead the Evil cleric has a big advantage when travelling round with an undead retinue.
Doesnt need altering and in cleric vs cleric battles who insist on using all their channels (we are more than a healing battery folks, my Cleric of Sarenrae is pretty evil in close combat and has a fair amount of good spells too) it will obviously turn into a "who runs out of channels first".
I think I am right in thinking that whilst the evil cleric cant spontaneously cast cures he/she can still prepare some. There arent evil armies around without healers after all.
It seems to me it all comes down to tactics.
When an evil cleric is channeling negative energy his targets get a will save for half effect, but a good cleric healing them afterwards gets to do it without a save for half.
Another way of looking at it.
So in two living parties, one with evil and one with good cleric...on a negative channel even the baddies will get a will save...one for the evil side...
When the good cleric channels...the evil guys dont need a will save...they just get healed..
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Oh jesus. Another person that only compares d6s and uses Fireball as an example. Please people stop. That is like comparing a two-weapon fighting power attacking guy against a single weapon guy and saying two-weapon guy does more damage without ever mentioning that two-weapon guy has penalties to attack same as power attack giving penalties.
Fireball has counters against it, most common being A Reflex Save and Spell Resistance. There are numerous others.
CPE has almost none. Things that counter CPE counter about everything else (stun, paralyze and such). There is also antimagic zone which counters almost all spells, but how often is this going to occur?
I was going to give a long rebuttal but have concluded it probably won't matter. You've made up your mind and are determined that everyone else who doesn't find fault in it is wrong. That's your decision and your right.
As an observation I'd recommend taking a look at the Ghoul and Shadow in the new preview. They're show casing Channel Resist which seems to be a pretty good counter to CPE.
Oh jesus. Another person that only compares d6s and uses Fireball as an example. Please people stop. That is like comparing a two-weapon fighting power attacking guy against a single weapon guy and saying two-weapon guy does more damage without ever mentioning that two-weapon guy has penalties to attack same as power attack giving penalties.
Fireball has counters against it, most common being A Reflex Save and Spell Resistance. There are numerous others.
CPE has almost none. Things that counter CPE counter about everything else (stun, paralyze and such). There is also antimagic zone which counters almost all spells, but how often is this going to occur?
I was going to give a long rebuttal but have concluded it probably won't matter. You've made up your mind and are determined that everyone else who doesn't find fault in it is wrong. That's your decision and your right.
As an observation I'd recommend taking a look at the Ghoul and Shadow in the new preview. They're show casing Channel Resist which seems to be a pretty good counter to CPE.
Well my last version of the house rule only affects using channel to heal living or damage living (1 minute to use). Channel Energy will still work the same for undead (standard action to use). So those undead will get to use that resistance.
When an evil cleric is channeling negative energy his targets get a will save for half effect, but a good cleric healing them afterwards gets to do it without a save for half.Another way of looking at it.
So in two living parties, one with evil and one with good cleric...on a negative channel even the baddies will get a will save...one for the evil side...
When the good cleric channels...the evil guys dont need a will save...they just get healed..
This only works if you did not take selective channeling, but as I said any good cleric not taking Selective Channeling so he can heal the party in combat unmolested is shooting himself and his party in the foot.
The ability it too good to not use it in combat. That is why I am nerfing it as I am.
Could always go the other direction, buff negative instead of nerfing positive. Give it no save. Change Improved Channel to +1 damage per die or suchlike. (Then it's good for healing too.)
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When an evil cleric is channeling negative energy his targets get a will save for half effect, but a good cleric healing them afterwards gets to do it without a save for half.Another way of looking at it.
So in two living parties, one with evil and one with good cleric...on a negative channel even the baddies will get a will save...one for the evil side...
When the good cleric channels...the evil guys dont need a will save...they just get healed..
This only works if you did not take selective channeling, but as I said any good cleric not taking Selective Channeling so he can heal the party in combat unmolested is shooting himself and his party in the foot.
The ability it too good to not use it in combat. That is why I am nerfing it as I am.
SO wait, to damage the living you need to take a minute out?
That sounds a bit off, I mean don't get me wrong, I get what your complaint is...but I think you're going a bit over the top. If the point is to buff CNE then making it take a minute is just doing the opposite. Its taking something that could be good, and making it not worth the effort at all.
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Could always go the other direction, buff negative instead of nerfing positive. Give it no save. Change Improved Channel to +1 damage per die or suchlike. (Then it's good for healing too.)
I do like the idea of an Improved Channel feat that boosts damage (or curing).
I've been thinking of instituting a Masterwork Holy Symbol that gives a flat +2 to Channel Energy uses when it's presented. (So a 1st level good Cleric would heal 1d6+2 and a 9th level evil Cleric would inflict 5d6+2, using the appropriate MW holy symbol of their faith.)
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Could always go the other direction, buff negative instead of nerfing positive. Give it no save. Change Improved Channel to +1 damage per die or suchlike. (Then it's good for healing too.)I do like the idea of an Improved Channel feat that boosts damage (or curing).
I've been thinking of instituting a Masterwork Holy Symbol that gives a flat +2 to Channel Energy uses when it's presented. (So a 1st level good Cleric would heal 1d6+2 and a 9th level evil Cleric would inflict 5d6+2, using the appropriate MW holy symbol of their faith.)
Or perhaps create balance to the Sun domain by giving negative energy similar power. Call it the moon domain or something...
Sun Domain
Granted Powers: You see truth in the pure and burning light of the sun, and can call upon its blessing or wrath to work great deeds.
Sun's Blessing (Su): Whenever you channel positive energy to harm undead creatures, add your cleric level to the damage dealt. Undead do not add their channel resistance to their saves when you channel positive energy.
Nimbus of Light (Su): At 8th level, you can emit a 30-foot nimbus of light for a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. This acts as a daylight spell. In addition, undead within this radius take an amount of damage equal to your cleric level each round that they remain inside the nimbus. Spells and spell-like abilities with the darkness descriptor are automatically dispelled if brought inside this nimbus. These rounds do not need to be consecutive.
Could always go the other direction, buff negative instead of nerfing positive. Give it no save. Change Improved Channel to +1 damage per die or suchlike. (Then it's good for healing too.)I do like the idea of an Improved Channel feat that boosts damage (or curing).
I've been thinking of instituting a Masterwork Holy Symbol that gives a flat +2 to Channel Energy uses when it's presented. (So a 1st level good Cleric would heal 1d6+2 and a 9th level evil Cleric would inflict 5d6+2, using the appropriate MW holy symbol of their faith.)
Or perhaps create balance to the Sun domain by giving negative energy similar power. Call it the moon domain or something...
Sun Domain
Granted Powers: You see truth in the pure and burning light of the sun, and can call upon its blessing or wrath to work great deeds.
Sun's Blessing (Su): Whenever you channel positive energy to harm undead creatures, add your cleric level to the damage dealt. Undead do not add their channel resistance to their saves when you channel positive energy.
Nimbus of Light (Su): At 8th level, you can emit a 30-foot nimbus of light for a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. This acts as a daylight spell. In addition, undead within this radius take an amount of damage equal to your cleric level each round that they remain inside the nimbus. Spells and spell-like abilities with the darkness descriptor are automatically dispelled if brought inside this nimbus. These rounds do not need to be consecutive.
I would love to see this...probably not moon domain (doesn't really sound evil to me)...I'd have given it to the death domain instead of the bleed touch attack, after all the whole point of the sun domain is to kill undead (it seems), it'd make sense for the point of the death domain to kill living. Maybe darkness if you wanted it to be the "opposite" of the sun domain.
The game rules have been explicit that PCs are meant to be non-evil since first edition. ("Quoth the Gygax: "Evil sucks.")
I am really getting fed up of this prescriptive attitude. Yes most people don't play evil characters but some do. Please can those that don't stop telling those that do that this is not what D&D is meant to be, or the wrong way of playing etc. We all make the game what we want. A good chunk of the rules are for combat - this does not mean that players with games centred around political intrigue are wrong either.
Apologies if this has turned into a rant but I have read this sentiment on many pathfinder/3E threads now and deplore its use in 4E and this was just the starw that broke the camels back.
Rant over :)