I'm reading this feat and it seems completely lack luster to me. The way I read it I could take Selective channeling and apply my Channel energy damage to all the creatures around. This would only be good in the corner case that there is only one undead (any living for channel neg energy) monster left and I can add weapon damage or full attack for some extra damage.
Also if your not spec'd for it (IE: average CHA) the save wont be very high. This will make the save an easy roll. Why would I do this and waste my channel for damage when it could be used for out of combat healing.
I'm really disappointed with this feat. I believe it shouldn't allow a save. I believe requiring you to HIT with your attack should be enough. This is the general rule of thumb most spells that done give saves use.
Has anyone used this feat? Have you found it effective? or did you find it was kind of lack luster? I like to hear people's experiences with it.
Couldn't a paladin use it after level 4 to enhance smite evil? They get to channel energy at clr lvl-3.
yes you could use it as a paladin. Im just looking to see who would. The use of LoH to heal myself as a swift action seems more beneficial.
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The negative energy channeling cleric of Pharasma in my group is quite happy with his Channel Smite feat, and he's only got a 10 Charisma. He's still doing anywhere from 2-30 points of extra damage whether the bad guy saves or not, and he doesn't have to endure the dirty looks of his companions for robbing them of precious hit points every time he goes all dark side on some creep.
The thing is, this cleric isn't built to be a bruiser. He actually only rarely engages in melee, and he's only got a Strength of 10 so he isn't hitting all that often. If anything, the character was built to be fun and that's why the player picked that feat. It looked fun and it gives him the ability to shock and amuse everyone when he suddenly shouts, "Look at what I can do!" and explodes a monster with his light mace. As luck would have it, he's used that feat to end several boss monster-type encounters.
I haven't taken it as a PC because I haven't played a character in pathfinder yet who has channel energy. But I did make up an NPC who took it in order to add some more oomph to his physical attacks. The thought was why do a piddling amount of damage to a handful of enemies (my PC's) when I could add a bit more damage to an already potent attack?
Plus, I wanted to try it out. I was pleased with how it worked out. Granted, it was only a single encounter.
The thing is, this cleric isn't built to be a bruiser. He actually only rarely engages in melee, and he's only got a Strength of 10 so he isn't hitting all that often.
Thing is on a miss you still expend the charge. Also if he is channeling negative energy then his channels can really only be used for damage. Your correct in this wouldnt be wasting valuable healing resources. I still think if you want to channel negative energy for damage then some small amount of CHA and selective channeling would be better.
@Psion-Psycho: after picking up the feat for Guided hand, have you used it?
@Dosgamer: It looks great for a BBEG to burn resources in one fight. I just cant see it being that helpful in game as a PC when its almost always better (assuming im positive energy) to heal allies out of combat when the whole grp can benefit from it.
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Channel Smite would be good for a cleric who is already based around being a melee fighter. Instead of having to spend a standard action to channel energy against everyone, he gets to make a full attack and use channel energy against a single target.
Out of combat healing is easily handled with wands of clw anyway, so you don't really need those channel uses for healing.
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I also have a friend with a negative energy channeling cleric who uses this. This way, she can channel against a bad guy without hitting her allies. As a bonus, she heals from negative energy (I think it's from a domain power, but I forget which one), and she came up with the idea of cutting herself with a dagger to channel smite herself for healing.
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Does anyone ever use Channel Smite?
No, Channel Smite is terrible and a waste of a feat unless you need it for a pre-requisite. Every time you Channel Smite, a puppy dies.
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Thing is on a miss you still expend the charge. Also if he is channeling negative energy then his channels can really only be used for damage. Your correct in this wouldnt be wasting valuable healing resources. I still think if you want to channel negative energy for damage then some small amount of CHA and selective channeling would be better.
The player knew all that when he took the feat and, sure, his cleric often misses and wastes a channel, but he's having fun. You're right about boosting Charisma to enhance the save DC, but this player is kind of uncommon in that he doesn't care at all about optimizing or building toward specialization.
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1. Action economy: Why spend a standard action to do some damage to a handful of creatures dying anyways when you can use that same standard action to hit the one thing that really needs it.
2. Friendly fire: even with selective channel, you may have more people in your party (or nearby friendly NPC's) than you are able to cut out of a channel attempt, doing untold harm to your groups' overall success.
3. Stackability: channeled energy is a unique type of damage that can make the one hit you land very nasty for the wrong opponent, it also makes the touch-attack based domain powers much more appealing.
4. Creativity: Need to be a double agent in an assassin's guild: faux assassinate your best friend. They see you plunge a dagger into their back, you see a net gain to your "victim's" hit points. This is just one example of the many uses that creativity allows you to get out of this feat.
Before Guided Hand I would have absolutely agreed with MPL and still do for the msot part.
However with guided hand and also alternate channeling you do give a Wis/CHA cleric a lot more leeway into becoming a rather formidable hammer for your group.
Like if lets say you had a N cleric of Sarenrae with Heroism and Light Domains you can make a pretty good battle cleric that even gets a bonus on its channel thanks to heroism.
It's all really just a question of just what you want to do with your cleric but at least from my perspective as long as you are getting it with a build meant to use Guided hand it's okay.
Laori Vaus in my game of Curse of the Crimson Throne combines a Spell-Storing Spiked Chain with "Inflict Serious Wounds" stored in it with the Channeled Smite ability and her innate Destruction Domain abilities. You can get some SICK levels of damage with that, even if it takes a round or so to reload.
She exploded a man's skull with it once. Did more damage than the poor bastard had hit points.
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my negative energy cleric, is an aasimar with an 18 wis and cha. at level 5 hes cleaning clocks when he spends his resources. extra channel, +2 to saves vrs channel, channel smite with guided hand. basically he, after buffing, hits as hard and as often as the 2 handed fighter in our group. the fighter is better over all, but my character can heal, buff, debuff, ect.. adds 2d6 + elnalrge person (and other crazy spells) to his greatsword and really kicks teeth in.
a great combo for a channel smite charater with negative energy is selective channel, quicker channel, and channel smite, you can hit a target for 6d6+ what ever modifiers you can add to that from spells and magic items.
now i will say that its more about flavor then optimization, because you could build a paladin that can beat a cleric in damage, but at the same time you gain a full clerics spell list to add to your functionality.
oh and you want to put conductive and spell storing on your weapon, knocks your damage through the roof.
I also have a friend with a negative energy channeling cleric who uses this. This way, she can channel against a bad guy without hitting her allies. As a bonus, she heals from negative energy (I think it's from a domain power, but I forget which one), and she came up with the idea of cutting herself with a dagger to channel smite herself for healing.
It's the Death Domain 8th level power, called Death's Embrace.
The only reason i picked up the feat was for Guided Hand on my cleric. Btw Guided Hand allows u to use ur wis modifier for to hit instead of dex or str.
This. It's a feat tax for my clerics...
Well a pally could use this to get single target big damage. Smite, channel and melee weapon.
This feat also lets you increase your damage output per round. Take quicken channel, channel smite, and your pally/cleric can now swift for smite, and then on a move action channel again for aoe, and then hard melee attack.
So say a negative cleric, with those two feats he just went from being able to do 1 damage ability (channel) to doing 3 damaging attacks (smite + melee + channel)
Personally i like the feat, though as mentioned there should be no save to reduce damage as you have to make an attack roll.
@OP
Not sure why you would compare this feat and healing as they are two different things. If you want more offensive ability, then this feat works towards that, but if you are concerned about losing healing, well then you should prolly not even look at this feat.
Also, healing is not always needed, especially at the beggining, so this feat lets you become more offensive in light of nothing else to amp up your melee.
I'm using it on a lvl 10 dwarf cleric right now: worships Gorum,
Relevant domain abilities:
Destructive smite - +5 on a single melee attack.
Rage - +4 STR and CONFeats: Channel Smite, Versatile Channel, Vital Strike, Furious Finish
Weapon: GreatswordDamage: 2d6 + 2d6 vital strike + 5 destructive smite + 7 strength and a half + 5d6 Channel negative energy.
Tip: Buff with divine power and righteous might first before raging, +2 str and con and +3 luck gives you another +4 on damage.
Tip2: If you don't think you can hit the enemy's AC, go for touch attacks by casting inflict critical and then channeling smite; 4d8 + 4 or 5d6 is still a pretty brutal 2 round combo, especially against an opponent built to not get hit instead of soak up damage.
I think its useful in a fight, but my group tends to fight things a lot higher CR than normal for party, so are tactics get different as a result.
This build interest me. I hope you don't mind me playing around with this idea.
The Inflict wounds+Channel smite idea is brilliant. I love it.
Also you might want to look into a spell called forceful strike. Its a swift spell that you cast when a strike lands (so no wasted spell on a miss as you can not cast it before hitting.) I might have missed something but it seems you don;t have huge need of your swift action so this can pepper in a fair amount more damage.
I do recall a dev at PaizoCon basically saying "I mean, who ever chooses channel smite?"
I do recall a dev at PaizoCon basically saying "I mean, who ever chooses channel smite?"
People that hate puppies. ;)
Quick Channel + Selective Channel is better in literally every way.
Plus, even at best (a max level Channeler with the full 10d6 channel), with the enemy failing it's save, you're only adding 35 average damage once.
Rogues add 10d6 to ~6 attacks every round at max level, and they're still considered underpowered.
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The problem with Quick Channel is that it takes two uses of your channeling ability. Also, if too many of your allies are nearby, then Selective Channeling might not be enough to exclude them all when negative channeling.
Basically, normal channeling is better for attacking multiple targets, but Channel Smite works when you really want to get the one big guy.
Yeah I think its getting more bad press then it deserves. Not a great feat but it can work if you build around it. Those are the kind of builds that I like. Things that take a lot more thinking to get mileage out of.
Though it certainly could be better. Making it unsaveable when channeled would be a good start. It also suffers in the same way plan channel energy does. Poor scaling and not enough support for it.
A feat that adds a dice to it or +1 flat out per caster level really should exist. The one item that helps really should not compete for the same slot as the mental stat item that a channel cleric does really need being a bit MAD if they want to make good use of channel energy.
One thing I thought about was: Would channel smite stack with a charged consacreted weapon?
I just picture a battle cleric bashing some undead with a consacrated battle aspergillum filled with holy water and using channel smite.
I do recall a dev at PaizoCon basically saying "I mean, who ever chooses channel smite?"People that hate puppies. ;)
Quick Channel + Selective Channel is better in literally every way.
Yeah, except for the fact that it costs you two feats instead of one and that Quick Channel burns through your daily uses of channel energy twice as fast. If you're playing a "battle" cleric, the kind of cleric that would be likely to use Channel Smite, chances are that you'll be quite feat-starved already. You also need a Charisma score of 16 or more to use Selective Channel effectively in a typical party of four. Using Channel Smite against opponents with low Will saves doesn't require as much investments in Charisma.
Plus, even at best (a max level Channeler with the full 10d6 channel), with the enemy failing it's save, you're only adding 35 average damage once.
Rogues add 10d6 to ~6 attacks every round at max level, and they're still considered underpowered.
Remember that, with variant channeling, you can give penalties to your target instead of extra pitiful damage on a failed saving throw.
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Channel Smite is a fine feat. Yeah, Quick Channel + Selective Channel is better in every way. For Positive Energy users.
Have you ever played a Negative Energy Channeler in a party of 6, with 1 cohort, and animal companion, and everyone is mounted? I have. And let me tell you, Channel Smite looks a hell of a lot more attractive than Quick+Selective in that case.
And sure, Rogues may be able to do 35 damage from sneak attack on a couple of attacks a round- but sneak attack is like 80% of a Rogue's damage. A buffed battle Cleric at the same level is probably getting comparable damage from two hand power attacking. And if the Cleric/Rogue would have to move, and thus only get 1 attack in the round, what is better? 35 damage (plus weapon damage) or 70 damage (plus weapon damage)?
However, I will say that having Channel Smite be a prereq for Guided Hand is just a stupid feat tax, because many of the builds that could have a use for Guided Hand will have absolutely no use for Channel Smite.