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I'm looking to make a character focused on Channel Force for PFS.
Prerequisites: Aasimar, channel energy 2d6.
Benefit: When you channel energy to deal damage, you may choose to affect only a single target within 30 feet. In addition to dealing damage, if that single target fails its saving throw, you may pull or push the target up to 5 feet for every 2d6 points of channel energy damage you are capable of dealing.
So, aasimar character with lots of charisma. Tricky bit: most baddies in PFS are living humans. So I'll want to channel negative. But, there's also some undead, so channeling positive is nice. And this year, there's supposed to be a lot of demons, so alignment channel is also a thing.
The Holy Vindicator class was recommended to me, as it's got some nice stuff for channeling. Specificially, the bit about
Other things I've looked at: Paladins can channel positive. Oracles of life can channel positive. Something called a necromancer can channel negative, but only to control undead, so that doesn't really fit. So it's mainly about clerics.
Aasimar favored class (oracle) can make boost your revelations, and thus your channeling for positive.
There's also the versatile channel feat, yes. But you have to be a cleric that chooses if they're channeling positive or negative - thus, a neutral cleric of a neutral god.
So, tell me if this works:
Oracle (of life) 3 / Cleric (of evil) 3 / holy vindicator (the rest)
As I take it, for holy vindicator I have to pick which class continues spell progression, but the channeling progresses in both classes. So by level, say 10, I'm at Oracle 3/cleric 3/vindicator 4, and casting as oracle 3/cleric 6, but channeling as oracle 7/cleric 7.
Is that correct?
Would I be better off as a cleric of say, Gorum, and just picking channel negative, and then taking versatile channel?
Is there a better way to do this?
Also, I'm a bit confused on how alignment channel is supposed to work. Can someone explain it a bit?
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As I take it, for holy vindicator I have to pick which class continues spell progression, but the channeling progresses in both classes. So by level, say 10, I'm at Oracle 3/cleric 3/vindicator 4, and casting as oracle 3/cleric 6, but channeling as oracle 7/cleric 7.
This is correct. However not something that will be effective at high levels of play. Due to using two stats you will need Cha for channel and Wis for saves. You would be much better of with going oracle as your casting due to stat usage. That puts all your spells, and channel relying on one ability score.
On concept I say it's really good. On play ability past level mid levels low.
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Any thing past level 7 when you will be playing 7-11 scenarios. This is when players will start being very picky about who there at the table with. Due to much higher chances of death if some one has a weak character.
There is no way I know of for a oracle to channel negative energy.
Over all you would be better off as a oracle yes. Mainly due to the ability to channel will be so much higher. The only down side is you will not be able to use your channel vs. some encounters. With that you still have full divine caster list to pick spells from. With Cha as both your casting, and channel stat.
Example: With the right divine combat spells.
1: If you can harm the enemy with channel. You will use spells for healing.
2: If you can't harm the emeny with channel. You will use your spells for combat. and save channel for healing.
So in both scenarios you can heal, and be effective in combat.
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Ok, I've messed around with options a bit. I will leave the "I have 25 positive channels per day at level 10" character aside for now, and focus on a negative energy channeler. He'll start as cleric, take a dip into oracle, then continue along as cleric. Looking at a couple different styles.
The Oracle dip has the Black-Blooded archetype. This lets him heal whenever he channels negative energy, similar to the death domain. He'll go with oracle of life though. Since his positive energy channel will only ever have one level, he'll take up variant channeling. Probably in Disease, so his positive channels also heal ability damage. Might go for a different variant. Ideas?
Mainline - cleric. Considering Urgathoa, Gorum, Pharasma, or Hanspur.
Urgathoa allows the shatter resolve feat, which goes well with the build... but I have a much more stoic image in my head for the character. Any ideas on how to do a stoic, non-evil, cleric of Urgathoa?
Cleric archetypes. Two options here.
Mendevian Priest gives me heavy armor and some bonus feats, but less spells and only one domain.
Seperatist lets me swap out one domain for another - in this case, Whimsey. Yes, the crazy one about adding or subtracting dice from my channels. Unfortunately, I'd have to be Chaotic Neutral, which isn't compatible with the NE Urgathoa, otherwise it would be a perfect fit for a stoic Urgathoan.
A reach weapon of some kind. So that when I channel force them away, I can take an AoO as they come back in.
I could skip the oracle dip, but then I have to wait until 8 before I heal myself from my channels.
Any advice?
Channel isn't enough to build a character around. Its a limited resource and the damage by itself is lack luster. The push and pull is a neat trick, but hardly worth the investment if that is all you are trying to do.
IMHO the best way to do this build is a cleric of Gorum with negative energy. Use force pull to get them into attack range.
Don't bother with versatile channel. Undead while common are going to be squishy to a battle clerics normal melee attacks. Especially if you make use of the proper domains. Neg energy healing while a neat trick just uses up valuable levels that could go towards the main build. And healing with channel is going to put too much stress on a very limited class ability. Use your 2PA wands of CLW to heal, and don't heal in combat cause that is just bad 90 percent of the time.
Suggested domains: Rage and tactics. Rage gets you rage at level 8 and destructive smite at level 1. Tactics gets you an nifty initiative trick, and a nice feat grabbing ability at 8th.
Holy vindicator isn't needed or wanted till you get your 8th level of cleric, after that the main build is done so you can do what you want.
I'll run it through hero lab to see what I can come up with.
I'm trying to wrap my head around the final build of this and its is eluding me. It is a pretty powerful ability once you are 2-3 feats in, but 2-3 feat investment is HUGE for a cleric. Also to reach weapon or not reach weapon. I'm thinking this is a hard build to nail down because of all of what is happening.
I'm still in favor of a martially oriented negative energy available god choice, but unsure which combination of domains to use, and if its ok to give up on that sweet level 8 domain ability for some holy vindicator action.
I don't think you have to give up on damage for this build to work, but its going to be a very MAD build so some damage loss is probably inevitable.
I think I got a build up in my mind. Crusader archetype. Growth domain. Angel blooded (+str+cha). Neg energy.
16
14
12
7
15
16
Level one choose a channel feat to your preference (alignment channel if you are set on vindicator), and a bonus crusader feat that works for you.
Level 3 choose channel force.
level 4 put a point into wisdom
level 5 another crusader feat + quick channel
level 7 improved channel force.
Traits should be observant(grand lodge) and exalted of the society (+1 channel).
Get your headband for +wisdom if possible before 7th so you can actually get your spells for that level lol.
Being Large as a swift action + enlarged strength of 18 isn't terrible even if you can only do a few times a day. That with the normal clerical buffs you should be able to do some effective damage. The fact that you can move action pull into your reach and still have attacks to make is pretty cool as well (not to mention the expensive option of the double pull).
I'd consider Versatile channel for a cleric going to Holy Vindicator. While the +x profane + x-2 sacred bonus to AC is a bit of a paradox, it is going to boost your AC significantly.
Regarding the push and pulls of channel force, remember to use readied actions whenever appropriate.
I had some nice uses of pulling an enemy into melee range of the party, readying an action to push them away after my allies have taken their full attacks.
I'd give up on being a martial negative channeler. You can choose to do one thing well usually, and more than that, you're giving up way too much.
To be a negative channeler, you've got to be able to exclude your allies, and in PFS, thats routinely going to be 3-5 PCs, and people often have pets, which gives you what your Cha mod must be WITH a feat invested.
If you primarily use channel smite and/or channel force you don't have to worry about allies. Its also not too hard to avoid friendlies with the improved version because cones and lines are easy to aim compared to centered bursts.
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Hmm. Mendevian Priest seems to be strictly better than Crusader. But I'm not really looking for a melee/martial cleric. Just aren't enough attributes to go around.
I agree on not taking the versatile channel for this one. Let someone else handle the undead.
Hmm. Maybe I'll put the oracle dip into something besides life. I only need it for Black Blood... in fact with the new retraining rules, once I hit 8th cleric I could trade it out.
Advice on deity?
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Negative channeling isn't that hard if you
Advise the other PC's first. (and they cooperate.)
Move 40 (a poor man uses halfling & riding dog.)
Have selective channel
Have phylactery
Have quick channel
Consider command undead as your main blind spot.
And if you can get it desecrate is just added joy.
The hardest encounter for me was a party refusing to cooperate. I would move 40 into prime position and 3-4 chars would follow me to the same side of the foe. Forcing a double move on my part with an enlightened reposition by same persons. Channel blocking is so unfulfilling.
Hmm. Mendevian Priest seems to be strictly better than Crusader. But I'm not really looking for a melee/martial cleric. Just aren't enough attributes to go around.
I agree on not taking the versatile channel for this one. Let someone else handle the undead.
Hmm. Maybe I'll put the oracle dip into something besides life. I only need it for Black Blood... in fact with the new retraining rules, once I hit 8th cleric I could trade it out.
Advice on deity?
Well Mendevian Priest is pretty good for this, but if you have an intention of going vindicator then you get very little from that prestige class, since about half of what you actually want is armor and weapon prof.
The thing is the build I posted is a good enough caster, strong channeler, and a very competent melee combatant. I am not seeing where the attributes are spread to thin at all. Are you talking about the INT? INT matters nearly not at all to a cleric. All they need are is their faith, their god granted power, and a strong arm.
Why are you so hung up on oracle dips and healing with black blood? Black blood is a disadvantage not a benefit. Sure you can self heal with your channels and spontaneous, but who actually thinks that is a good idea when everybody else's healing does the opposite? An oracle dip lowers your casting level, gives you another +0 BAB level to work through, and give you a curse that will take a long time to work off. And you are getting out of it some dubious benefits that are a handicap unless you are actually using your combat abilities to heal yourself (when you can just spend 2PA on a wand...)
Also if you don't want to at least be a competent melee combatant what is the point of the "get over here" side of this class? Are you wanting to use this build move around people for what purpose? Why holy vindicator if you aren't going for a battle build? Its a waste of that classes abilities.
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Ah. The Holy vindicator part was in there from before I decided to concentrate on negative energy. As it counts as levels for each of your channels, it worked for the multi-class build. I might try it some other time with a positive focused character. Going with paladin 1, oracle 4, cleric 2, vindicator 3 and channeling all for positive, I tracked it to 7d6, 8/d, dc19; 5d6, 9/d, dc21; & 4d6, 8/d, dc16 - for a total of 25 channels per day at 10th level.
The negative channeler, however, is not going into vindicator. As you say, he wouldn't get much from it.
I was looking at:
str 11, dex 12, con 13, int 8, wis 15, cha 19 so I could get the most out of the channels.
Isn't the black blood the same as the 8th level death domain? Whenever you channel negative to hurt the baddies, it heals you as well? That way I never need worry about my hp, I just blast some more and it heals me in the process.
The moving people was more for my allies benefit than my own, but forcing the target away from me so that it has to run up again was part of the idea. Especially if I can find a way to get them staggered too.
No, black blood is NOT the same thing. Black blood makes you undead for purposes of positive and negative energy. You get hurt by positive energy which makes cures and positive channel hurt you. Death domain makes you heal from negative energy but says nothing about taking damage from positive.
i'm generally a huge fan of melee clerics (and i think the idea of using channel force to make things engage me toe-to-toe is pretty cool), but i actually have a completely different suggestion for this... what if you focused on control?
(base) Aasimar, cleric [Calistria]
str 10; dex 12; con 12; int 7; wis 16+2race; cha 16+2race
domains: charm, trickery
traits: sacred conduit, outlander[missionary] (spells depend on starting level and anticipated ending level)
feats: 1- spell focus [enchantment]; 3- channel force; 5- quick channel
weapon- longspear
at 5th level you'll periodically get some AoOs (because who doesn't like free attacks, even if they're not very effective), you can use your standard action to cast some kind of control spell like hold person or charitable impulse or (if you want to deal damge and/or reposition someone) force channel someone; in a pinch you can do both by quick channeling with your move action (though if you're going to do much of that you'll want to pick up extra channel for sure).
is this the most optimized build? no, but it will be fairly unique (and potentially pretty fun to play), and should (if played well) be useful enough that nobody will feel like you're an anchor.
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Nate, I think that's more in line with my intent. What is outlander from? I'm not familiar with it.
Yes, that was my reading from black blood as well. It's not as good as death domain, but it comes on at 1st level, instead of way out at 8th. It leaves my healing entirely up to me and I'll need other clerics to select me out, but most have selective channel anyways.
Hmm. As we have these new re-training rules, might as well plan them in. By 8th, I'd be a cleric 7, oracle 1. Then I spend 5 prestige and 400 gold to turn into a cleric 8 and have the death domain kick in.
outlander is a campaign trait; its in the APG, but i'm not sure how it works in society play (i haven't played any actual society games).
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Ah, I seem to have found a solution. The other part of Undead Domain lets me get the benefit of the negative for few rounds. Can't help myself with it until level 4 (3?) as it has rounds = 1/2 my level, but lets me drop oracle sooner. And I can give the benefit to other party members too!
I've still got my earlier question though.
Cleric of Urgathoa, Gorum, Pharasma, or Hanspur?
Urgathoa allows the shatter resolve feat, which goes well with the build... but I have a much more stoic image in my head for the character. Any ideas on how to do a stoic, non-evil, cleric of Urgathoa?
Gorum fits the image better, but doesn't offer the undead domain.
Pharasma or Hanspur could both fit.
Cleric archetypes. Two options here.
Mendevian Priest gives me heavy armor and some bonus feats, but only one domain.
Seperatist lets me swap out one domain for another - in this case, Whimsey. Yes, the crazy one about adding or subtracting dice from my channels. Unfortunately, I'd have to be Chaotic Neutral, which isn't compatible with the NE Urgathoa, otherwise it would be a perfect fit for a stoic Urgathoan.