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I'm looking at the possibilities of a Dhampir Cleric using negative energy to simultaneously heal his party and nuke the opposition.
Some relevant rules:
Negative Energy Affinity (Ex) The creature alive, but reacts to positive and negative energy as if it were undead—positive energy harms it, negative energy heals it.
Undead Subdomain
Associated Domain: Death.
Replacement Power: The following granted power replaces the bleeding touch power of the Death domain.
Death's Kiss (Su): You can cause a creature to take on some of the traits of the undead with a melee touch attack. Touched creatures are treated as undead for the purposes of effects that heal or cause damage based on positive and negative energy. This effect lasts for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 your cleric level (minimum 1). It does not apply to the Turn Undead or Command Undead feats. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
Separatist (Archetype)
A radical cleric, unsatisfied with the orthodoxy of her deity's teachings, forges her own path of defiant divine expression. Though most members of her faith would call her a separatist or heretic, she continues to receive spells from her deity. Charismatic separatists may develop a large following of like-minded believers and eventually found a splinter church of their deity—and they are just as likely to be the cause of a holy civil war as the branches of the religion fight to determine which is the true faith.
A cleric who does not serve a deity cannot take the separatist archetype. A separatist has the following class features.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Separatists do not gain proficiency in their deity's favored weapon (though they are not prohibited from using it or learning its use).
Forbidden Rites: A separatist selects one domain from her deity's domain list, and a second domain that is not on her deity's domain list. This second domain cannot be an alignment domain that doesn't match the cleric's or her deity's alignment. For example, a lawful good separatist cleric of a neutral good deity cannot choose the Chaos or Evil domain with this ability, but can select the Lawful domain even though her deity isn't lawful.
Granted powers from the cleric's second domain function as if the cleric's level, Wisdom, and Charisma were 2 lower than normal (minimum level 1) in terms of effect, DC, and uses per day. This also means the separatist doesn't gain the domain's higher-level ability until 2 levels later than normal. If the second domain grants additional class skills, the separatist gains these as normal. In all other respects, this ability works like and replaces the standard cleric's domain ability.
So, with a decent charisma bonus and the Selective Channel feat, you can prevent harm coming to your party during your Negative Energy spammage. You can also use the Undead SubDomain touch to even let one (or more, at higher levels) partymates be HEALED by the nuke spam.
Is it too one-dimensional to be of viable use? Even with this setup, is a negative energy cleric just not a decent healer?
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Channeling can only heal OR harm, while channeling to harm everything you won't be healing
I'm not sure that I follow. Channeling only targets living OR undead. If one channels negative energy, and targets living.. then everyone living will take damage, except those who have negative energy affinity (the dhampir himself, who will instead be healed) and those under the effect of the Death's Kiss Undeath domain ability (same deal)
Aside from not being able to target undead and living at the same time, what's the restriction against healing and harming in the same channel?
"and can choose to deal damage to living creatures or to heal undead creatures" this leaves little (but some) room to interpretation.
So when you create your character you choose to channel good or bad, but then every channeling you still have to decide to possibly heal or to possibly damage something.
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Well when channeling negative energy, w/o other rules coming in to play choosing to target living means the same thing as choosing to harm living. And choosing to target undead means the same thing as choosing to heal them.
But there's enough 'reversies' out there that its not really the case. (Dhampir Racial, Death Domain 8th level ability, Oracle of Bones Resist Life ability, etc)
Channel never says you have to choose whether to heal or harm, it very specifically only says you choose to target undead or living.
If what y'all are saying is true, a Dhampir (or etc) would never be affected by channeled energy, which is clearly not the intention?
Negative Energy Example: A hostile evil cleric channels negative energy and targets living creatures, 'pointlessly' choosing to harm living, since that's his only choice anyway. The Dhampir (or etc) is not harmed by the negative channel, since they have the reversi going on.
Negative Energy Example 2: A hostile evil cleric channels negative energy and targets undead, 'pointlessly' choosing to heal undead since that's his only choice anyway. Since the Dhampir (or etc) are not undead, they're not affected regardless since they're not even targetted.
Positive Energy Example3: A friendly, other cleric channels positive energy and targets living creatures, choosing to heal them since again he cannot choose to harm them. Dhampirs and other 'reversies' are unaffected, since they can only be harmed by positive energy and the cleric didn't choose 'harm'.
Positive Energy Example4: A friendly, other cleric channels positive energy and targets undead, choosing to harm them since thats his only choice. Dhampir (and etc) are not even targetted, so cannot be affected.
All these examples must be how it does NOT work...
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Negative Energy Affinity (Ex) The creature alive, but reacts to positive and negative energy as if it were undead—positive energy harms it, negative energy heals it.
example 1 and 3 are correct, 2 and 4 the Dhampir is affected by the channeling
the rules clearly state that you choose heal/harm living or heal/harm undead
Channel never says you have to choose whether to heal or harm, it very specifically only says you choose to target undead or living.
Sorry, but you are wrong:
An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships an evil deity) channels negative energy and can choose to deal damage to living creatures or to heal undead creatures.
Emphasis mine.
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Interesting. I see where we're not seeing eye to eye. Y'all are saying that the nature of the 'reversies' is that it reverses WHEN you're effected, not how you're effected.
if evil cleric targets undead for a heal, the living 'reversie' catches a free heal along with the undead despite being not targetted.
I didn't read it that way, but it seems that it is a valid way to look at it.
I was looking at it in the nature of:
"If 'reversied' target is affected by a channel (ie, is living and living was target) the effect of the energy is reversed (harm becomes heal, heal becomes harm)"
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It would seem the wording does support the argument against.
Negative Energy Affinity:
Negative Energy Affinity (Ex) The creature alive, but reacts to positive and negative energy as if it were undead—positive energy harms it, negative energy heals it.
Channel:
An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships an evil deity) channels negative energy and can choose to deal damage to living creatures or to heal undead creatures.
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if evil cleric targets undead for a heal, the living 'reversie' catches a free heal along with the undead despite being not targetted.
pretty much
well technically the 'reversie' was a target because for positive/negative energy they are treated as undead
anyway being able to channel to harm everything and heal yourself is way to powerful, so much that if it were the case it would have been fixed pretty bloody quickly.
I still don't see the support for the argument, as channel does not target, does the "check" for undead is only made once the "damage" gets done.
So in Negative Energy Example 2 the Damphir gets healed. (same for positive energy example 4)
okay, after a few minutes of thinking I can see the problem:
your argument says that:
- damphir react to X as if Y
- but cleric can't act with X on the damphir as if Y.
This doesn't make much sense as the "acting person" isn't always clear.
all this is of course my opinion and I may be wrong.
anyway being able to channel to harm everything and heal yourself is way to powerful, so much that if it were the case it would have been fixed pretty bloody quickly.
Hmm... why would it be 'way too powerful?' It's nothing a 'mass inflict' spell couldn't do.
This being said, my vote is on the channeling choice of 'heal' vs 'harm' (as this is in line to all the alternate effects of channeling), rather than 'living' vs. 'undead'. Thus, a cleric who channeled negative energy to heal undead would heal the Dhampir as well, while one who channeled to harm the living would not affect the Dhampir at all (no valid target for harming).
okay, after a few minutes of thinking I can see the problem:
your argument says that:
- damphir react to X as if Y
- but cleric can't act with X on the damphir as if Y.This doesn't make much sense as the "acting person" isn't always clear.
all this is of course my opinion and I may be wrong.
Acting person is irrelevant.
Evil cleric does not act on dhampir, he acts on area, he produces a wave of negative energy that has one of two modes possible: harming living or healing Undead. Except for himself* he does not choose to affect some instead of all Undeads unless he has Selective Channeling or some other ability that alters Channel Energy ability.
So if evil cleric chooses to heal Undead he heals all Undead creatures within 30 feet. And negative energy affinity makes dhampir Undead for purpose of being affected by positive/negative energy.
If the cleric would choose to harm living he would not affect dhampir because he is not considered living creature when interacting with positive/negative energy.