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I would personally never by above a 16 in point buy, and even a 16 I'm hesitant about as a 15 is much cheaper and can easily get bumped up at level 4. I would get the 12 cha.
Anyway, when people say channeling is bad, they mean it tends to be bad for in combat use; it really doesn't do a whole lot of healing to an individual target (certainly not enough to out pace enemy damage most times), it burns action economy, it heals enemies unless you take a feat. Channel is super good for out of combat healing though, as it doesn't cut into your spells.
Uh, Id probably go with the 17 and the 12 instead of the 19 and the 7.
Having a 7 charisma cleric in a party of martial characters is going to have a lot of negative effects beyond being bad at channeling.
Channeling with a 12 charisma isn't all that useful as in combat healing, but it can be really good against undead and it saves the party money on out of combat healing.
Channeling with a 12 charisma isn't all that useful as in combat healing, but it can be really good against undead and it saves the party money on out of combat healing.
I wouldn't call Channel good for damaging undead (beyond lots of baby ones if you are higher level), especially with low charisma. Channel get Will save for half and undead have good will saves. With low charisma all but the lowliest undead (some of the time anyway) will never fail your save.
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Negative channelers, sad to say, get much nicer toys to play with than those who channel positive.
If you can get a rulership portfolio cleric like Ra or Horus, you can do a dazing channel that will stop everything in sight. For that you want charisma as high as you can go.
This is my negative channeling Cleric of Horus with an animal companion. She's scary in combat.
My advice if you are planning to be a positive channeler is to buy charisma only up to 13 or 14 -- enough so that you can pick up the feat "Selective Channel." And spend all your other feats on combat feats and be a reach cleric who uses a spear and attacks of opportunity so that you can do other things in combat besides healing.
It is nice to have but I would not invest in it. At most I might get selective channel, and I would not put more than a 14 in charisma for the purpose of channel. The last time I had a cleric I had an 8 or 9 in charisma. When things went bad I still kept the party in the fight.
I wouldn't call Channel good for damaging undead (beyond lots of baby ones if you are higher level), especially with low charisma. Channel get Will save for half and undead have good will saves. With low charisma all but the lowliest undead (some of the time anyway) will never fail your save.Channeling with a 12 charisma isn't all that useful as in combat healing, but it can be really good against undead and it saves the party money on out of combat healing.
It sure isn't the best solution, but at 3rd level if your friends all use piercing weapons and a horde of skeletons or zombies shows up it will get the job done.
Seen quite a few hard to kill undead that needed to be nickled and dimed to death, even if they make the save 2d6 is about 3 damage/round to every opponent.
In an optimized party it won't be necessary but in a group of beginners it can help keep them alive to benefit from the learning curve.
If you tank your Charisma, I would actually take an archetype that trades out channel (or take negative channeling and Channel Smite).
Selective Channel selects out targets equal to your Charisma modifier. If you're only selecting out 1 target, you don't want to channel in combat.
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My question is: would it be worth it to lose 2 points in STR to gain 5 points in CHA and get 3 more channels a day, or just take the 2 points in STR to deal more, consistent damage. Thanks for reading!
After level 5 channeling to heal can not keep up with the damage dealt. Their is no trick to this. The amount you heal vs. the damage dealt changes making the difference larger and larger as you level up. That's not to say channeling is not useful, or that it can't be effective at times. That is to say over all the usefulness of channel is mitigated to the lower levels of play and tapers off as you level up.
I fully support dumping Cha. To the point there are some good archetypes that drop it all together, and you might want to look at one of them. When you do drop your Cha down. As it stands being a combat cleric takes a lot of stats and you have a limited number of points. That means you need to prioritize what you want from your cleric.
My suggestions for you.
Give a good look at the following archetypes.
Divine Strategist, and Evangelist (Makes one of the best support/battle clerics.)
For reach cleric you might want to look at the following feat's.
Phalanx Formation (Combat)Benefit: When you wield a reach weapon with which you are proficient, allies don’t provide soft cover to opponents you attack with reach.
Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Fauchard 1d10 18-20/x2 reach, trip
Healing is something done after combat. It's a great way to save yourself from buying a wand right off with 100% of your resources. Just channel a few times and be happy.
Even after 3 sessions it's going to save you hundreds. All for the cost of one less to hit and damage? Worth it. Spend your cash on enchanting your weapon and then have channel with no downside.
Save hundreds.... so you can spend thousands on weapon enchant to make up the difference?
I'd assume that the cost of CLW wands would be coming from the party's cash overall, not the just cleric's. Everyone has a vested interest in readily available healing. That said, I'm still a proponent of not having 7 charisma on a cleric as Channel has its benefits over heal sticks and it really doesn't cost you much build wise to have it just in case.
Channel vs CLW wand = Why not both?
There's Channel Ray. One problem with Selective is needing to tune out all the enemies when you get mobbed. Channel Ray reverses the problem, gives range, and increases DC.
Alternatively, the Herald Caller Archetype (from the new monster summoner's handbook) lets you have better healing on your summons. Summons are awesome, and increasing the bodies in combat help you multiply the effect of channels.
A cleric of Undeath can render allies 'temporarily undead'. That can be a neat way of going negative and still being able to heal the party.
I do agree if you're going to optimise for channel, you have to REALLY optimise for channel. Otherwise it's just out of combat healing and very occasionally good for undead killing.
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A negative energy channeling neutral Cleric with the Chaos domain and Variant Channeling: Freedom strolls up to a target and slaps them with Chaos Touch, invoking Channel Smite in the process. The target is not only afflicted with both the touch effect and a dose of negative energy, but they must now make two successful will saves or be hit by Slow...
Another variant on Badbird's post above is madness domain and madness variet channel. Slap em in the face for Level/2 reduction to saves and then they try to save against confusion effect. Not as good on its own but still good and both options can combo more stuff.
I'm more a fan of the Ale variant. Save or nauseated on top of other b#*#$+&* from feats? Oh my god yes.
If the Cleric wasnt feat starved it would be OK (just).....but as class abilities go it is fairly crap.
Another variant on Badbird's post above is madness domain and madness variet channel. Slap em in the face for Level/2 reduction to saves and then they try to save against confusion effect. Not as good on its own but still good and both options can combo more stuff.I'm more a fan of the Ale variant. Save or nauseated on top of other b@!%*!!! from feats? Oh my god yes.
Problem is there aren't any Golarion deities that give Ale/Wine other than Cayden Cailean, and you can't channel negative at all if you follow him.
Channel positive can kill shadows, which your party has no other way of killing, unless you happened to memorize magic weapon. A shadow can effortlessly chase down and wipe a 3rd level party.
In general, 14 STR and 18 STR are break points, due to Power Attack mechanics on THF.
With that said, my party's evangelist rulership cleric is the deepest caster I've ever seen. She has more "cast" depth than my master summoner.
Selective Channel for positive energy can save lives. It doesn't open you to an AoO and does more than Stabilize to all in an area. It does require a Charisma of 13 though. If you are willing to combine this with Quick Channel (from Ultimate Magic) it can give good action economy but means you save the channels for in combat use and want reasonable scores in multiple attributes (MAD).
Keeping a 10 in Charisma gives you some free out of combat healing. Who doesn't like that?
It really depends on what you see your character's main and secondary function being.
I have a Cleric in Society play that I love to bits. Everyone's convinced that damage output is more important during combat than healing, and I totally agree, but sometimes it's necessary. My Cleric barely does any damage, so he's all buffing and keeping everyone alive. We recently mostly survived a boss fight with an Oracle that liked to spam Flame Strike. My channels didn't completely negate it, but at least they managed to survive while they wailed on the boss. It's not a guarantee, but keeping everyone on their feet for just another round can be vital.
Bottom line: it sucks, but it's necessary sometimes. Don't focus on it (unless you have cool tricks, like variant channeling), but don't neglect it, either.
How use full? I made it to level 4 with my life shaman and channeling have been used 3 times all in all and only one was in combat where i saved a few civilians that was with me when a drake hit me with its breath weapon. Channel and move away to draw fire, kinda thing. It is potentially great but i ditent really need it. I did have the healing hex a very high AC magus and a archer in the gang so that May have helped.
And yes i am very happy my character have other functions than healing in battle:)
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Channeling in combat changes the math. It allows that fighter to survive one more full round and kill the BBEG. With Channel Revival, it saves the party the cost of a raise dead. It reverses the effects of the fireball that just landed on you. I think it's worth it, if you're gonna invest in the phylactery of positive channeling. You get the ioun stones for wisdom and charisma and the phylactery for channeling, and you can really make a difference. I know in high level play, there's some stuff that's just unbeatable without a cleric or life oracle along to change the math in your favor.
I've seen many tables use wands to heal instead of channel energies. I thought it was the strangest thing, but they didn't want to use it to heal unless it was the very end of the day.
There are cases where channeling energy is extremely useful - enemy who you're not in a position to hurt is inflicting area damage on the entire group, lots of low level undead attacking you, etc. Using up your channels on routine healing could get you killed. The odds are against it, but some people are cautious that way.
We found Channel to be very useful, all the way to 15th level, we had a Life oracle. Great vs area attacks, and can cure at a distance. You do need Selective Channel however.
if you can afford the feat chain, getting the feat which makes it a Move action is very nice.
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You want to stop some one from death in combat. Make sure you can do one of two things.
1: Deal enough damage to kill them.
2: Stop them from actions
Healing will save them that one round. Healing dose not scale with damage. Damage increases two to three times faster then healing. The only exception to this is the heal spell. Yes some times healing in combat is needed. However you should think of ways to stop it from getting to that point. At lower levels of play healing in combat is common and needed. Healing at higher levels of play. It is death by attrition to the one doing the healing.
The best way I have found to heal in combat as a battle cleric. Reach Metamagic feat combined with spontaneous cure. Reach Cure light Wounds cast as a level 2 has a range of 25ft +5ft per two levels. Reach Cure Light Wounds cast as a level 3 spell has a range of 100ft +10ft per level of caster. I can cast them with out needing to pull fully out of combat, or try to position my self close to the one that needs healing. I do use a spell to do this. However channel is more expensive then I care to pay. It requires you to spend ability scores, and feat's to make it worth doing. Spending one feat to heal any where on the battle field I find expectable.
Building cleric is a difficult task. As the first thing you need to do is decide what kind of cleric your going to make. Examples of stats are on a 20 point buy before race adjustments. I will say that any of the many divine casters can do the same job as the cleric. Some of them do a much better job in the battle cleric role. To name a few that can fill the same role. Druid, Hunter, Oracle, Paladin, Inquisitor, and Warpriest. My personal top divine melee characters Hunter, and Oracle: Mystery: Battle.
Healing Cleric (The worst kind you can make.)
Wis>Cha>Con>Str=Dex=Int
example: Str7 Dex12 Con12 Int10 Wis16 Cha16
Casting Cleric (This can work you just have to except the fact. Arcane casters are better then you. It's just something you should know before building one. Knowing this I still built one for PFSP.)
Wis>>>Con>Cha>Dex>Str=Int
example: Str7 Dex10 Con14 Int10 Wis18 Cha12
Battle Cleric (Your main job is to think like a fighter until some one needs healing.)
Str>Con>Wis>Dex>Cha=Int
example: Str16 Dex12 Con14 Int10 Wis14 Cha8
We found Channel to be very useful, all the way to 15th level, we had a Life oracle. Great vs area attacks, and can cure at a distance. You do need Selective Channel however.
if you can afford the feat chain, getting the feat which makes it a Move action is very nice.
Okay, but the Life Oracle is basically Paizo's (successful!) attempt at making healing be your "thing" a viable combat role. What works for a Life Oracle does not necessarily work for general use.
Its a good class feature, but rarely worth it during combat unless you can hit 2-3 characters with it at once. Even then the feats required to make it not heal your opponents as well make it a little tough.
Most clerics I know either use it out of combat or learn selective channel at some convenient level.
Healing 2 characters at once isn't so rare. If you are playing healer, you probably have shield other up on your alpha sponge. So after the sponge takes an alpha, you just channel back both of your hp.
Selective channel is pretty much required though, if you want to channel in combat.