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Undeath:
Heal - This works like a standard channel (not halved).
Harm - The healing effect is enhanced for undead creatures and those with negative energy affinity.
I am confused as to how this errata works when you channel negative energy... The original wording in my book makes more sense.
OK, so if I'm reading this right the "heal" option is used when channeling positive energy and the "harm" option is used when channeling negative energy.
If this is indeed the case, when using this variant a character that channels positive energy has no changes made to their channel energy ability.
A character channeling negative energy, however, would normally only channel 1/2 as much, unless they were channeling it to heal undead or other creatures with negative energy affinity. In this case that 1/2 channel would be increased by 50%, to a final tally of 75% of a normal channel for negative energy, but only for the purposes of healing undead.
Overall, if interpreted as above, positive energy is unaffected, but negative energy takes a hit with no added effect, becoming a much weaker option.
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The only other interpretation I could think of is, since negative energy effectively heals undead, the "harm" option (which is specifically for negative energy) normally deals 1/2 dmg, but when used against undead (essentially as a "heal" option) it is not only channeled at normal power, it is boosted by 50% (for a total of 150% channel to heal undead).
This actually makes more sense to me, as variant channeling was designed to add utility to channel energy, not reduce it.
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Normally positive energy is channeled to heal the living, or harm undead.
Negative energy is channeled to harm the living, or heal undead.
As a variant for positive energy channeling, the healing aspect remains unchanged, and the harm aspect, which would normally damage undead, now heals them, so a positive energy cleric could now heal either living or undead, effectively, and not harm anything. I can see applications where that might be useful, such as an Undead Lord cleric leading a mixed army of undead and living mercenaries against his opponent.
It's the negative energy channeling variant that now confuses me. The healing aspect, which would normally heal undead, still works the same, but now instead of harming living you are now healing undead +50%. Why would you ever want to heal with this, now, when harming is the better option? This errata effectively removes half the utility of an ability that worked beautifully until said errata.
Or am I still just missing something?
You are indeed healing undead to a greater extent (150%, if I'm interpreting things correctly), but in exchange, your ability to harm the living is hindered, only dealing 50% dmg. The benefit to this is really only there if you have a lot of undead under your influence through feats like command undead and spells like animate dead and control undead.
In this specialized case, you can slightly harm your enemies while completely re-invigorating your undead hoards or minions. Think of it as playing the mastermind behind the undead Apocalypse instead of the harbinger of said event. The first stands back and let's his minions do the dirty work, the other wades in corpse-deep.
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You are indeed healing undead to a greater extent (150%, if I'm interpreting things correctly), but in exchange, your ability to harm the living is hindered, only dealing 50% dmg. The benefit to this is really only there if you have a lot of undead under your influence through feats like command undead and spells like animate dead and control undead.
In this specialized case, you can slightly harm your enemies while completely re-invigorating your undead hoards or minions. Think of it as playing the mastermind behind the undead Apocalypse instead of the harbinger of said event. The first stands back and let's his minions do the dirty work, the other wades in corpse-deep.
That's not what it does at all. I'd be happy if it did, but the errata, as written, completely removes any ability to harm. You only get healing.
Unless whoever is in charge of errata reads this post.