The way my campaign setting lore is set up means that channel positive energy and turn undead are not things that should have any effect against the undead. Positive and negative energy aren't things, and the gods are dead, so a holy symbol isn't going to do a damn thing. Clerics and Paladins have spirit friends (or slaves), not dieties. The way undead are flavored, being afraid or damaged by some sort of divine power wouldn't make sense. Undead are more an instrument of what divine powers are left than the living are. So, Clerics and Paladins can't hurt them with positive energy or take the Turn Undead feat. They should of course get something to compensate, but first I need to figure out how powerful the ability to harm undead actually is, so I can figure out what is fair payment. Any ideas?
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I have never seen anybody pick up the feat turn undead since we switched to pathfinder but then again, Paladin can already deal with undead easily with smite evil, the charisma damage make short work of them.
Cleric have spells to kill undead even if they don't have access to specific undead killing spells heh cleric have no troubles killing any creature by summoning creatures to beat up on them, channel energy is really a minor ability and at most used for healing. Currently playing a level 16 cleric, one more level for miracle...woohoo, never used an undead specific killing spells, just kill them with my regular spells.
Rot Remains is a Cleric/Druid spell that turns undead into dirt. If you serve the earth mother, your god cannot be locked out. 3rd? 2nd? What kind of save for just damage?
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Yeah, Smite Evil still allows a paladin to unleash his inner MurderHobo on the undead, and cleric channel energy is already limited in use.
Maybe a +1 to saves against the undead? Even then, it sounds pretty darn useful in comparison. Maybe if it was a 1+Charisma Modifier/day bonus to a saving throw against undead?
Turn Undead is an insanely useful feat—basically a no-brainer in a campaign with lots of undead, since it gives you a roughly 6/day Scare spell-like ability that can affect dozens of targets and lasts ten times as long. Admittedly, it does give another save every round, but losing even one round's worth of actions really sucks. I'm running Age of Worms right now, and let me tell you, it has now neutered two major encounters. And one of the encounters involved Turn Resistance!
That said, it's an optional feat, so it's not quite so relevant. Taking away the ability to harm undead with Channel is a bit annoying, but nothing huge. You might consider letting the ability hurt something else, like elementals or outsiders, but I don't think it'll make too big a difference.
Replace it with a free Variant Channel ability of their choice?
What do you have against positive energy? You could remove the positive and negative energy thing and simply have it heal or harm without regard to how it happens.
And in most settings, positive and negative energy isn't derived from the gods. They come from their relavent planes.
Why do Paladins even exist in your world? There general conceit is that the forces of Law and Good are the backbone for their powers, and if those don't exist, there's no reason for the class to exist.
I think of it as having such a massive devotion to their ideals that they can access the same source of inner power as a Monk. Add in a spirit ally, and you have the Paladin.
In the same vein your clerics should all be replaced with Spirit Shamen.
The difference between Cleric and Shaman is that a Cleric's spirit friends are part of their body.
At any one point in time, the number of Clerics and Paladins in a nation of 60 million could be counted on one's fingers and toes. They are not at all common. Then again, warriors like the players only number around a thousand active duty at any one time in this same nation (For handy comparison, the US Navy currently has about 2,500 active duty SEALs), so the rarity isn't a massive eyebrow raiser for a player character.
(For handy comparison, the US Navy currently has about 2,500 active duty SEALs), so the rarity isn't a massive eyebrow raiser for a player character.
To be more accurate you have to include all of the other special forces soldiers in the other branches and realize that it is not just potential that keeps the number from being higher, but the fact that only so many are allowed to join. In fantasy land there is no force saying "Bob you have fighter talent, but there is no more room. Wait for recruitment to open up next year". There is also the fact that many guys don't join because they have families, and the wife would not be happy about it. Yes, as a former soldier I am aware that some of the SF(special forces) guys are married.
TLDR: There are a lot of reasons other than ability and even desire as to why that 2500 number does not stand up.
(For handy comparison, the US Navy currently has about 2,500 active duty SEALs), so the rarity isn't a massive eyebrow raiser for a player character.To be more accurate you have to include all of the other special forces soldiers in the other branches and realize that it is not just potential that keeps the number from being higher, but the fact that only so many are allowed to join. In fantasy land there is no force saying "Bob you have fighter talent, but there is no more room. Wait for recruitment to open up next year". There is also the fact that many guys don't join because they have families, and the wife would not be happy about it. Yes, as a former soldier I am aware that some of the SF(special forces) guys are married.
TLDR: There are a lot of reasons other than ability and even desire as to why that 2500 number does not stand up.
The exact same is the case in my setting. Warriors like the players aren't adventurers, they work for the government, which maintains about a thousand of them at a time to deal with rogue mages, handle monsters too powerful or numerous for municipal or provincial police or the coast guard to handle, and patrol the boundaries of enchanted forests to make sure that really bad things don't come out. Just like the SEALs, people do get refused entrance because there aren't enough slots, and people do decide not to join for whatever reason (though it is easier for a player character to be married here than in most settings, since government work comes with slightly more stability than adventuring).
What I was saying is that the players themselves are special, uncommon people within the setting, because the government only has so many of them at one time. When the players are special troops, belonging to an incredibly rare character class isn't too outlandish, because it makes some degree of sense that the hyper-rare Paladin might join a small special tasks group. I was quoting the SEAL number to accentuate that this is a special unit, not a mainstream fighting force.
You have Paladins and Clerics in name only. There is enough else in this topic to keep me from hiding it.