Question about [Feat: Alignment Channel]

[Halafax]

I'm rolling up a cleric, and I'm a little confused by this feat description. I checked for errata/faq input, but I may not be looking in the right places. I suspect some flavor text from the channel ability was pasted into the feat, but I could be mistaken.
"If you choose to heal or harm creatures of the chosen alignment subtype, your channel energy has no effect on other creatures. The amount of damage healed or dealt and the DC to halve the damage is otherwise unchanged."
So let's say my neutral cleric takes [Alignment Channel (evil)] in order to damage Evil aligned outsiders. By my reading of the feat, I can also use this feat to heal evil aligned outsiders? That seems a little odd to me. Or perhaps I have to identify whether the alignment channel can heal or hurt when I buy it?
The basic channel class ability has an opposed dualistic nature- it combats it's opposite energy type and revitalizes its own energy type. This feat is prolly just fine as it is written, but it seems odd that you would have to learn how to heal evil outsiders at the same time you learned how to hurt them.

Aside, I've never played a cleric before. Does anyone have any good advice for picking feats in pathfinder?

Thanks,
Halafax

[Dragonborn3]

When you take your first level, you can choose to Channel Positive Energy if you are Good or Neutral, or Channel Negative Energy if you are Evil or Neutral.

Channel Positive Energy heals.
Channel Negative Energy hurts.

Extra Channeling and Selective Channeling are the most common feat choices.

[Halafax]

Dragonborn3 wrote:

When you take your first level, you can choose to Channel Positive(heal) Energy if you are Good or Neutral, or Channel Negative(hurt) Energy if you are Evil or Neutral.

The description for channeling "A good cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships a good deity) channels positive energy and can choose to deal damage to undead creatures or to heal living creatures." seems to indicate you have to pick whether you want to heal living creatures or harm undead at the time of the individual channel. You just have to identify which side of the fence you are on at first level, if your alignment lets you make a choice.

In this example, the neutral cleric picks channel positive energy. But that doesn't really speak to how the [Alignment Channel] feat interacts with that choice. How would [Alignment Channel: Lawful Outsiders] work? Or better yet, [Elemental Channel: anything], which seems to have much the same wording?

Thanks,
Halafax

[Dragonborn3]

If you channel Positive Energy, you can heal Outsiders and Elementals.

If you are fighting with Lawful outsiders against Chaotic outsiders for example, you can choose for your Channel Energy to heal only the Lawful, instead of any Lawful and Chaotic outsiders in the area.

Same things if you are fighting with Air Elemental against Earth Elementals. You can choose for only the Air Elemental to recieve the healing.

[Marc Radle]

I too find the wording of Alignment Channel rather confusing and vague.

If I am, say, a good cleric and I choose Alignment Channel (evil) ... what does that mean? According to the feat, I can now choose to harm or heal evil creatures? Why would a good cleric heal an evil creature?

I can see how one might try to base this on the cleric's initial choice of channeling positive or negative energy but the feat does not actually say that the two things are in any way tied together. It seems like a fairly reasonable ruling, perhaps, but it certainly in not spelled out in the feat.

Things get more murky if a lawful cleric chooses Channel Alignment (chaotic). Now what? The cleric can harm or heal chaotic creatures?

To my mind, it might make more sense that a cleric taking Alignment Channel can harm the alignment chosen and heal the polar opposite (Alignment Channel (evil) harms evil creatures and heals good for example)

However, the reality is that the feat just doesn't clarify.

I think this is definitely something for an erata and / or the FAQ. Hopefully James or Jason will pop in and comment ...

[Twowlves]

Not all evil creatures, but creatures with the [Evil] subtype. They are specifically labeled as such in their stat write-ups.

[Marc Radle]

Twowlves wrote:

Not all evil creatures, but creatures with the [Evil] subtype. They are specifically labeled as such in their stat write-ups.

Correct ... Thanks for the clarification. The main questio(s) remain however and i'm still hoping a Paizoan will pop in and offer some comment

[psychicmachinery]

Marc Radle 81 wrote:

I too find the wording of Alignment Channel rather confusing and vague.

If I am, say, a good cleric and I choose Alignment Channel (evil) ... what does that mean? According to the feat, I can now choose to harm or heal evil creatures? Why would a good cleric heal an evil creature?

I can see how one might try to base this on the cleric's initial choice of channeling positive or negative energy but the feat does not actually say that the two things are in any way tied together. It seems like a fairly reasonable ruling, perhaps, but it certainly in not spelled out in the feat.

Things get more murky if a lawful cleric chooses Channel Alignment (chaotic). Now what? The cleric can harm or heal chaotic creatures?

To my mind, it might make more sense that a cleric taking Alignment Channel can harm the alignment chosen and heal the polar opposite (Alignment Channel (evil) harms evil creatures and heals good for example)

However, the reality is that the feat just doesn't clarify.

I think this is definitely something for an erata and / or the FAQ. Hopefully James or Jason will pop in and comment ...

I would hope for the polar opposite reading as well, because without it, this feat doesn't carry a lot of bang for the buck.

[wraithstrike]

psychicmachinery wrote:

Marc Radle 81 wrote:

I too find the wording of Alignment Channel rather confusing and vague.

If I am, say, a good cleric and I choose Alignment Channel (evil) ... what does that mean? According to the feat, I can now choose to harm or heal evil creatures? Why would a good cleric heal an evil creature?

I can see how one might try to base this on the cleric's initial choice of channeling positive or negative energy but the feat does not actually say that the two things are in any way tied together. It seems like a fairly reasonable ruling, perhaps, but it certainly in not spelled out in the feat.

Things get more murky if a lawful cleric chooses Channel Alignment (chaotic). Now what? The cleric can harm or heal chaotic creatures?

To my mind, it might make more sense that a cleric taking Alignment Channel can harm the alignment chosen and heal the polar opposite (Alignment Channel (evil) harms evil creatures and heals good for example)

However, the reality is that the feat just doesn't clarify.

I think this is definitely something for an erata and / or the FAQ. Hopefully James or Jason will pop in and comment ...

I would hope for the polar opposite reading as well, because without it, this feat doesn't carry a lot of bang for the buck.

The feats are for the bad guys too, and the cleric can just choose to heal the bad guys if they fit the specific alignment subtype he can affect. Now that I think about it, I might do this for a future encounter.

[Eyolf The Wild Commoner]

I read this

Quote:

Alignment Channel

Choose chaos, evil, good, or law. You can channel divine energy to affect outsiders that possess this subtype.

Prerequisites: Ability to channel energy.

Benefit: Instead of its normal effect, you can choose to have your ability to channel energy heal or harm outsiders of the chosen alignment subtype. You must make this choice each time you channel energy. If you choose to heal or harm creatures of the chosen alignment subtype, your channel energy has no effect on other creatures. The amount of damage healed or dealt and the DC to halve the damage is otherwise unchanged.

Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take this feat, it applies to a new alignment subtype. Whenever you channel energy, you must choose which type to effect.

As such.

If I took Positive Energy, I can now use my channel and the Alignment Channel Feat to do---

I can now choose for my positive energy to only damage EVIL aligned undead instead of all undead. This helps a lot if you have GOOD aligned undead on your team, no matter how unlikely such a scenario would be.

I could use it to heal only GOOD living creatures, instead of all creatures. Helps when fighting those pesky goblins or lizard peoples.

Thus, this means that if you channel Negative Energy and take this feat.

If you are attempting to harm all living creatures with the negative energy release. You can use the Alignment Channel feat to select that it only harms good creatures. Instead of your Evil Aligned buddies.

Make sense?

[angryscrub]

Eyolf The Wild Commoner wrote:

...snip...

If I took Positive Energy, I can now use my channel and the Alignment Channel Feat to do---

I can now choose for my positive energy to only damage EVIL aligned undead instead of all undead. This helps a lot if you have GOOD aligned undead on your team, no matter how unlikely such a scenario would be.

...snip...

only if they're undead outsiders. this feat only affects outsiders.

[Louis IX]

PRD wrote:

Choose chaos, evil, good, or law. You can channel divine energy to affect outsiders that possess this subtype.

Benefit: Instead of its normal effect, you can choose to have your ability to channel energy heal or harm outsiders of the chosen alignment subtype. You must make this choice each time you channel energy. If you choose to heal or harm creatures of the chosen alignment subtype, your channel energy has no effect on other creatures. The amount of damage healed or dealt and the DC to halve the damage is otherwise unchanged.

So... as a Good Cleric, I have to choose one of the following options each time I use the Channel Energy ability:

- Heal the living
- Harm the undead

After taking this feat and choosing Evil, I can now choose one option among these:
- Heal the living
- Harm the undead
- Harm outsiders of the Evil subtype
- Heal outsiders of the Evil subtype

It goes without saying that, even if I have the possibility, I will never use the last one. Personally, I'd have preferred Paizo to write "heal the chosen type and harm the opposite" which would have been more logical. But they didn't. If I want to heal the Good outsiders, I'd have to take the feat again, choosing Good.

For the record, the same cleric taking Elemental Channel (Fire) afterwards would have to choose between:
- Heal the living
- Harm the undead
- Harm outsiders of the Evil subtype
- Heal outsiders of the Evil subtype
- Harm outsiders of the Fire subtype
- Heal outsiders of the Fire subtype

Since I have to choose, there is no "triple effect" if I were to fight an undead outsider of the evil and fire subtypes...

EDIT: I just re-read all the "Channel" feats, and found something else: as per RAW, you can't mix Channel Smite or Command Undead with Alignment Channel or Elemental Channel (to add damage when smiting the affected creatures, or to command said creatures)... although you might want to houserule it :-)

[Marc Radle]

This is a good candidate for the FAQ button!

[Blake Duffey]

Louis IX wrote:

Personally, I'd have preferred Paizo to write "heal the chosen type and harm the opposite" which would have been more logical. But they didn't. If I want to heal the Good outsiders, I'd have to take the feat again, choosing Good.

+1

Louis IX wrote:

EDIT: I just re-read all the "Channel" feats, and found something else: as per RAW, you can't mix Channel Smite or Command Undead with Alignment Channel or Elemental Channel (to add damage when smiting the affected creatures, or to command said creatures)... although you might want to houserule it :-)

Can you point me in the direction of this rule? My comrades had suggested I try this channel / smite stack.

Thanks

[Sirmyself]

in my understanding, I have an evil cleric and choosing this feat would allow me to heal creatures with the evil subtype even if I normaly channel negative energy.