Evangelist Hangover Cleric feats at level 5 & 7

[Gevaudan]

Hey all,

I need some opinions on feat value. Our Rappan Athuk party's 4th level cleric approached me for feat advice for when she hits level 5. She currently has:
1-lingering performance
3-selective channeling

She is a LN evangelist of Ra and using Rulership to daze targets (currently only living targets). She is fully committed to Charisma boosting (wis 16/cha 19). She is looking to retrain lingering performance at 5th.

Her next several desired feats include:

Divine Protection
Versatile Channeler
Quick Channel
Improved Channel
Divine Interference later on

Questions:
1.) Which two of those feats make the strongest pairing at level 5?
2.) How would you guys assign value to Divine Protection. It's seems really strong but in this case slows down the offensive power of channel feats.

My personal take is that Versatile Channeler is pretty clearly a pick at 5 (we are weak against undead). However, I'm not sure what I think the best second feat is. DP seems strong defensively, IC makes any particular daze attempt significantly stronger and QC allows for smoother turn efficiency and best chances to stun on a nova/two channel turn.

[Just a Mort]

Strongest 2 feats - improved channel and versatile channel/command undead. I think in rappan you have many encounters per day so nova playstyle not encouraged. Might be interesting to use command undead to build your own undead army. After those 2 feats I would probably go for extra channels, then divine protection. Also she may need some init boosting feats as she is a battlefirld controller and early bard buffs goes for good whacking.

[Renegadeshepherd]

in a vacuum improved channel is the best as it increased the odds of utterly devastating everything but undead. Versatile channel on an evangelist is rough but when they have a variant channel on top of that its almost useless. A cap of 10D6 gets halved for variant channel and then gets further watered down because of being an evangelist.

Command undead in a vacuum is not worth it as it allows a chance, not a guarantee, of controlling some undead that may or may not be in the entire session. furthermore, for all my bashing of versatile channeling when you start channeling positive energy you can now daze lock the undead.

Divine protection is AWESOME!!! your talking about a +4 to all saves and it will get bigger. if your going to retrain lingering performance, and I cringe at that, then this is the time to do it to make sure that you don't get into a deep hole. think of it like this, you just became a paladin in terms of saves :)

Finally, quick channel will be essential at some point but when is a matter of debate. channeling twice in a single turn with rulership can easily shut down an encounter. in my opinion its more a matter of when you think you have enough channels to be able to sacrifice 3 more than anything. as such I wait till I have a charisma of 24 (with equipment) before I go for it (10+channels per day).

[Magda Luckbender]

How about Quick Channel at 5th level, then Versatile channel at 7th or 9th level. She might also consider buying a Phylactery of Positive Channeling, if she can spare the head slot.

Quick Channel allows her to channel AND cast a spell, or to channel twice per round. At 5th level Versatile Channel only gets her a 1D6 channel, which is not worth it. Quick Channel is often the preferred feat at 5th level for any channel specialist. Quick Channel is almost the equivalent of Quicken Metamagic, and you can get it at 5th level.

Versatile Channel at 9th level gets her a 3D6 positive channel. Combined with the Phylactery she'll channel for 5D6, same as a default positive-channel support cleric at 9th level. She probably has very high CHA, thus many uses per day, so it's totally worth pumping. Perhaps get Versatile Channel just before the Phylactery of Positive Channeling. Most clerics are better off with a WIS or CHA headband, but she'll get much greater than normal benefit from the + Phylactery.

This combination will allow her to Channel Negative as a Move Action to daze the enemy, then also channel positive as a Standard Action to heal allies. Alternately, if the enemy made too many saving throws, channel negative a 2nd time for a thorough lockdown.

[Just a Mort]

It'd work normally, but Rappan is...different. It's the opposite of a 15 min workday. Once an evangelist reaches 7 move actions are used to start performance. The idea was not to do damage per channel but to lockdown and inflict the dazed condition. The problem with versatile channel is you lose 1 point of channel dc, which is why I suggested command undead instead.

Quick channels burns 2 uses at once. At 19 cha, we are looking at only 7 channels per day. Things in rappan are tougher then most pfs stuff. Takes at least 1 more round then pfs to kill, some things you need to run away from(not level appropriate). You'll easily be doing things more like bonekeep style. Like 9 rooms to clear before next break.Thats why I'm not advocating quick channel.

[Renegadeshepherd]

One could argue that versatile channel and quick channel are mutually exclusive unless you play an envoy of balance. The reason is because when faced with pumping one of your two channel types( positive and negative) vs getting more charisma from a headband it's hard to go either route without making the other seem like dead weight. A headband of charisma equates to a +1-3 channels per day increase on top of increasing their DC. A phylacterry with rulership is minimal IMO when you have an evangelist.

[Gevaudan]

A few thoughts, looking for response:

The goal of Versatile Channel is to gain the ability to daze undead via rulership, not to add heals. This cleric is a battlefield controller, not a channel healer. The rationale behind this is: positive and negative channeling each give two options (heal and harm respective targets) and rulership triggers off all 4, giving options to buff charisma or daze any target, living or undead (cl -2). Am I misunderstanding this?

Command undead has a very low control limit (cleric level of HD). We've faced a Black Skeleton already and it was 7hd. Command undead wouldn't even work until level 7. I want her to be able to daze all the targets while the barbarian and paladin get to work on them. Animate Undead seems to be the pathway to controlling undead hordes.

Lingering Performance has been effective, but the cleric has never come even close to using up performance rounds per day. My thinking process was to add it back later and attempt to maximize the daze mechanic as soon as possible. Lingering performance is immune to later silencing, but doesn't offer additional action economy, as maintaining performance is a free action.

[Renegadeshepherd]

Gevaudan wrote:

Lingering Performance has been effective, but the cleric has never come even close to using up performance rounds per day. My thinking process was to add it back later and attempt to maximize the daze mechanic as soon as possible. Lingering performance is immune to later silencing, but doesn't offer additional action economy, as maintaining performance is a free action.

Is that because of lingering performance? With a 19 charisma you got 7x3=21 rounds of performance. Without it you have 7. Given an average of 3 rounds of use per encounter (a reasonable amount) you would be able to perform effectively for two encounters and maybe a third if your lucky. I think it would also be fair to say that most sessions have four encounters of one kind or another, so your falling short of your bread and butter being used at will. Instead your forced to pick and choose based on guesswork of the relative strength of your foes and percieved number of conflicts yet to come, risky.

About versatile channeling, you are correct on it being an undead counter. If that is your goal that's the best counter to them for the least amount of effort with a side perk of being a psuedo healer. This means that a phylacterry is now near useless because if that's all you want is to screw over undead the dice amount is pointless.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

In Rappan Athuk, I have to think that Commanding undead is nearly impossible. Let it go. A necromancer in a temple of Orcus, dedicated and consecrated to the God of the Undead will beat you.

I'd grab Divine Protection. That's an adventure where missed saves can kill you.

Plus, you're the cleric. The one person who can help others recover from failed saves. You need to be standing.

I'd also keep Lingering Performance. Save places to rest aren't guaranteed.

[Just a Mort]

Tis ok then, never went into Rappan deep enough to see their higher level undead. I think versatile channel and improved channel then. I hope your cleric has sun domain or channel resistance will bite you really hard. Divine protection at 7. Usually its the front lines that have to make saves more...

a lv 4 evangelist gets 6(from lvs) +4(at start) +4 cha mod. 14 rounds without lingering performance. That is 42, with. More then enough for anything.