Homebrew Cleric Feats...

[oregwath]

Hello everyone,
I am playing a cleric right now, and I got to thinking about where I want to take him. I finally settled on him being focused on his channeling, and I came up with two feats I would like to use. I know that the dm has the final say, but I was hoping the community here could look at them and let me know what you think before I bring the question up to him. Are they over powered, too weak, balance breaking, or not worth taking? Any help you could give me to polish or even completely redo these feats would be greatly appreciated.

Enlightened Channeling
Prerequisites: Channel Energy Class Feature
For the purposes of the Channel Energy save DC and number of uses per day, the character uses his Wisdom modifier in place of his Charisma modifier.

Natural Conduit
Prerequisites: Enlightened Channeling
The character now adds his Wisdom modifier to damage dealt or healed by his Channel Energy ability.

If they seem too much then I could see splitting the first feat into two, making one change the save dc while the other changes the number of uses. I can also see adding a limited number of times per day to Natural Conduit, I just don't know how many times if it does need it.

[Jiggy]

I like the Natural Conduit one. Personally, I'd make it entirely independent of your other one (drop the prereq and make it CHA-based). I'd also consider either adding a prereq of "Channel Energy 2d6 or more" or have the damage bonus capped at your Channel dice (i.e., max +1 for 1d6, max +2 at 2d6, etc). Otherwise, you'll have someone getting cheesy with a one-level dip into cleric; like a cleric 1/sorcerer 2 (or bard 2) who's channeling for 1d6+4, outpacing the mono-cleric who's channeling 2d6 at the same level.

As for your other one, I'm not sure it's a good idea. Normally, a cleric has to prioritize his stats a lot - WIS for casting, CHA for channeling, DEX for AC/rays, STR (or spending a feat on Weapon Finesse) if he wants to go into melee, etc. He has to either pick a specialty or spread out his stats to be mediocre but versatile. I'm not saying it's bad for a feat to allow someone to shore up their weaknesses or expand their versatility, but often something like that either costs you more than the feat itself (like Weapon Finesse letting a character be effective in melee without high STR, but with the drawback of still dealing less damage than a high-STR character), or has a prerequisite that requires you to suffer through a few levels of reduced effectiveness before you get there (like a fighter/wizard needing caster levels AND armor proficiencies before taking Arcane Armor Training/Mastery to finish the blend). With a no-prereq feat to let you use the same stat for two of your biggest functions, every cleric is always going to take that feat at first level (especially the human ones, which you'd start seeing lots more of). Now if it had a prereq of a certain cleric level or channel dice or something, so that you had to suffer through a bit first, it might be more balanced (though people would still be taking it in any campaign where they start at a higher level). Another option would be to tone it down: maybe instead of replacing CHA with WIS for your channeling, you have a WIS prereq and get a static +1. Then you could have it either stay static, or scale with level, or have a "greater" feat that would increase the bonus (and have a higher WIS prereq).

Sorry for the wall of text. Hopefully you can follow my ramblings. :P

[oregwath]

Those are some really good ideas. I like the changes to Natural Conduit, so that it ends up being more along the lines of the following:

Natural Conduit
Prerequisite: Channel Energy Class Feature
The character gains a bonus to damage dealt or healed by his Channel Energy ability of +1 per d6, up to a maximum of his Charisma Modifier.

For Enlightened Channeling feat, I did some thinking on it, and I think I am going to drop it completely. I realized that the feat basically gave you Improved Channel and Extra Channel, but it used only one feat slot and gave a higher bonus. I sometimes have to fight my munchkin nature.