As the title reads, I was wondering if there is a way to make Channel Energy simultaneously heal living characters and harm undead creatures, or simultaneously harm living creatures and heal undead creatures?
Edit: Quick update to clarify what I'm looking for. I'm not talking about Channeling positive and negative energy at the same time, but rather to have a positive energy channel affect both living and undead creatures at the same time. :)
A good cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships a good deity) channels positive energy and can choose to deal damage to undead creatures or to heal living creatures.
I'm wondering if there's any way to change the bolded 'or' into an 'and'?
Feats, magical items and class features are all of interest. :)
Great example! With the option I'm asking for in the OP I'd be able to destroy that unholy abomination of a movie and heal the scarred minds of all those who had to suffer through it at the same time. :)
What if... What if a cleric is actually channeling both positive AND negative energy at all times, but you just don't notice because it's healing and hurting everyone by the same amount?
To actually answer your question, though, there's versatile channeler, but it doesn't let you channel both at the same time.
Related, there's also the master channeler prestige class. I do believe that does what you're looking for, though it's a steep investment.
Master Channeler is close, but not quite what I'm looking for. I think I might be explaining this badly, let me try this again.
A good cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships a good deity) channels positive energy and can choose to deal damage to undead creatures or to heal living creatures.
I'm wondering if there's any way to change that 'or' into an 'and'?
Edit: Added clarification to the original post. :)
Ah, I think that's included under the "light and dark" special ability. "At 7th level, a master channeler may, as a full-round action, affect all eligible creatures within her channel energy radius, both healing creatures and harming the opposite kind of creature."
So she can channel positive, heal living and harm undead, or she can channel negative, heal undead and harm living.
Ah, I think that's included under the "light and dark" special ability. "At 7th level, a master channeler may, as a full-round action, affect all eligible creatures within her channel energy radius, both healing creatures and harming the opposite kind of creature."
So she can channel positive, heal living and harm undead, or she can channel negative, heal undead and harm living.
Doh! Can't believe I missed that after you pointed me at the Master Channeler. Thanks!
Edit: Aand I just realized the Master Channeler is a homebrew class? That probably won't fly with my GM. :-/
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I'm not aware of any 'official' way to do this.
That said, 'Variant Channeling' from Ultimate Magic has many "example" options which halve the amount of healing/damage done in exchange for some other effect. It would seem perfectly reasonable to have one where the 'other effect' is to apply half the dice to the other channeling type (i.e. half to healing and half to harm).
Ah, I think that's included under the "light and dark" special ability. "At 7th level, a master channeler may, as a full-round action, affect all eligible creatures within her channel energy radius, both healing creatures and harming the opposite kind of creature."
So she can channel positive, heal living and harm undead, or she can channel negative, heal undead and harm living.
Doh! Can't believe I missed that after you pointed me at the Master Channeler. Thanks!
Edit: Aand I just realized the Master Channeler is a homebrew class? That probably won't fly with my GM. :-/
My turn to D'oh!
Google search led me straight to it. Whoopsie.
My turn to D'oh!
Google search led me straight to it. Whoopsie.
Yeah, I assumed D20SRD had renamed the Envoy of Balance until I realized something didn't really add up. Really easy mistake to make.
Looks like Quick Channel is the best RAW option, I'll talk to my GM about the variant channeling. Thanks guys! :)
Your group could do what ours does ... we chucked the RAW channel for the PF Beta channel which does exactly what your OP asks. We figure that a pulse of [typed] energy is a pulse of [typed] energy. Given that it is a very limited resource often considered 'suboptimal' ... ;)
My understanding is that they changed it in the beta because it was crazy powerful. Just be wary if your GM allows something like that. Should take some significant investment.
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I don't think so but I never understood it based on what's going on with Channel Energy. If positive energy hits both the zombie and the human, the zombie should be harmed and the human should be healed, not one or the other.
Which why we didn't change it from beta. It isn't that powerful in our play experience. What would make it over the top is if there is/becomes a way to boost damage per die. So far as my group is aware, there isn't any.
They decided that doing both at once was too powerful so they made it an either or
:) I understand the reasoning. Our play experience disagrees is all. Since it's good for both heroes and villains, it's been a wash in the end.
Which why we didn't change it from beta. It isn't that powerful in our play experience. What would make it over the top is if there is/becomes a way to boost damage per die. So far as my group is aware, there isn't any.All you can do is boost healing per die for yourself, via Fey Foundling.
Precious feat to gain that, so yeah, no biggie. If the entire group of characters invested their 1st level feat in that, it would be a pretty nifty "fey themed" group methinks. Me likey.
There was something in Way of the Wicked they also did that. I think it healed if you proclaimed Asmodeus as you lord when they channeled. Not sure if it harmed those who didn't.
The big buff in doing so comes from an evil cleric who can heal his undead thralls and hurt his enemies at the same time.
Then again I've never thought of channel as underpowered. I've seen it prevent TPKs many times.
The Envoy of Balance can almost do this. You can heal your allies and harm your enemies at the same time... but allies and enemies have to all be alive or all be undead, not a mix.
I like the burst of energy = burst of energy idea... Channel is a burst of either positive or negative energy, or void energy for creepy Clerics... it shouldn't matter why you are releasing a burst of energy (to harm or heal or oit of boredom or accident), that type of energy is going to affect everything it touches (withoit feat investment to be more selective)...
Positive energy heals the living and harms the dead... at the same time... every time.
Negative energy heals the undead and harms the living... at the same time... every time.
Honestly, it seems like it should take feats to have a choice to only heal or only harm... otherwise you are just releasing a burst of positive or negative energy all willy-nilly.
And other people seem to treat it this way, too... the Dhampir at my table always stands "over there" when the Warpriest Channels to heal everyone. It's apparently NOT assumed that positive energy ONLY heals when healing is happening.
Envoy of balance PRC has that ability
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Envoy of balance PRC has that ability
As mentioned above, the Twinned Channeling ability of the Envoy of Balance doesn’t quite do what the original poster (from 5 years ago) wants. With Twinned Channeling you still have to choose either “living” or “undead” for the channel to affect. The OP wants to heal living AND harm undead with the same channel.
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There's been a lot of necromancers active on these boards lately.
A lucrative time indeed.
For once the thread necromancy is on topic and potentially useful. You have to be a warpriest 10 of Pharasma and would be best with a focus on wisdom, but it is possible to channel to heal the living and harm undead simultaneously.
Kudaku hasn't been seen in a year or so but might, possibly, see this.
I never did 3rd or 3.5 D&D, after a long hiatus, I went from 2ndEd into PF. A friend I started playing PF with did the same, but his stomping grounds was 2ndEd Dark Sun and Spelljammer.
It really made us rethink the PF cleric to find the core rules had an "either/or" with channeling... and then we promptly got rid of that rule (similar to Turin & his group.)
We've never looked back.
A Fiendish Vessel archetype cleric can channel Evil, simultaneously healing evil creatures and hurting good creatures, provided they fail their save.
we've always played with the "energy is energy" setup and it's never been a problem. Lets a healbot shine every once in awhile. Can't be pouncing barbarians all the time.
we've always played with the "energy is energy" setup and it's never been a problem. Lets a healbot shine every once in awhile. Can't be pouncing barbarians all the time.
If player isn't able to make a prepared full caster with one of the strongest spell lists in the game "shine" compared to a martial, the last thing that does the player good is giving them more reason not to learn to use their spells...
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As Meirril said, the problem isn't so much about players channeling positive. It's with undead channeling negative. Imagine if you will an encounter with a bunch of undead clerics. They all spam aoe negative energy, every round, healing themselves, and hurting all the players. It would make for kind of a bs encounter.
As Meirril said, the problem isn't so much about players channeling positive. It's with undead channeling negative. Imagine if you will an encounter with a bunch of undead clerics. They all spam aoe negative energy, every round, healing themselves, and hurting all the players. It would make for kind of a bs encounter.
It would be no less BS if the party was spamming positive energy fighting Undead.
These are problem players/bad GM's... that has nothing to do with game balance and there aren't enough pens or pages to write down enough rules to fix $#!+ people.
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As Meirril said, the problem isn't so much about players channeling positive. It's with undead channeling negative. Imagine if you will an encounter with a bunch of undead clerics. They all spam aoe negative energy, every round, healing themselves, and hurting all the players. It would make for kind of a bs encounter.
Imagine, if you will, an encounter with a bunch of living Envoys of Balance. They all spam AoE to affect living creatures, every round, healing themselves, and hurting all the players.
The potential is already there. You can always make an encounter that is extremely tilted against the players if you really want to.
we've always played with the "energy is energy" setup and it's never been a problem. Lets a healbot shine every once in awhile. Can't be pouncing barbarians all the time.If player isn't able to make a prepared full caster with one of the strongest spell lists in the game "shine" compared to a martial, the last thing that does the player good is giving them more reason not to learn to use their spells...
rarely is your cleric going to shine in a combat encounter save in a support role, they are rarely the one to actually get to roll the dice to kill the bad guys, which is fun. This lets them actually do that every once in awhile.
I've rarely seen an instance in an actual game where the cleric taking an offensive action is more beneficial to the party than keeping the main frontliners or others up and running.
John Stockton is cool, Karl Malone is cooler kind of thing...also, shaddup, those are the sports people I know!
I've rarely seen an instance in an actual game where the cleric taking an offensive action is more beneficial to the party than keeping the main frontliners or others up and running.
Really? Cause herald caller cleric is a THING.
Really? Cause herald caller cleric is a THING.
I've rarely seen an instance in an actual game where the cleric taking an offensive action is more beneficial to the party than keeping the main frontliners or others up and running.
yeah really. Never seen one at a table or even know what it is. The vast majority of clerics are support, through buffs or healing and rarely are they the ones who actually get to kill something themselves, though they certainly aid in the endeavor. Again, letting them damage and heal at the same time just gives them the fun of throwing that fireball while not also keeping their allies alive from the horde of zombies. And since the cleric is not typically the "star" of any given combat, I think that's just fine and dandy.
As Meirril said, the problem isn't so much about players channeling positive. It's with undead channeling negative. Imagine if you will an encounter with a bunch of undead clerics. They all spam aoe negative energy, every round, healing themselves, and hurting all the players. It would make for kind of a bs encounter.Imagine, if you will, an encounter with a bunch of living Envoys of Balance. They all spam AoE to affect living creatures, every round, healing themselves, and hurting all the players.
The potential is already there. You can always make an encounter that is extremely tilted against the players if you really want to.
Imagine, if you will, an encounter with a caster spamming Battering Blast, or a Kineticist, or a Dragon, or archers... nobody likes it when anything is being spammed/abused... GM's don't like munchkin madness players, players don't like it when the enemies spam something effective, either.
It has nothing to do with balance or over-powered anything, it has everything to do with $#!+ people doing $#!+ things... ruining it for everyone.
As a GM, if a Cleric could heal the party and harm enemies at the same time, and that's all they did. I would call the encounter, probably end the session, too. I would politely tell them they won Pathfinder, hope it was fun. If they did it again the next session, I would do the exact same thing, and end the session. You win, again... hope it was as fun for you as it was for me. The session after that, I would TPK the party with a bleeding/dazing Channel necromancer and a bunch of Undead minions. See, I can be petty and lame too, yay.
As a player, if the party Cleric started to trivialize encounters by Channeling that healed me and hurt the enemies at the same time, I would tell them to stop. And if they didn't stop doin that BS, I would stop playing at that lame @$$ table. It ceases to be fun...
I don't see how it is fun for the spam-artist, either... Slumber, CdG... Slumber, CdG... Slumber, CdG... Slumber, me sleeping at the table because this freaking sucks...
There's plenty of ways of making non-healbot clerics. It's also very possible to fall into the healbot trap, which tends to be less effective than their players desire.
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Stumbled upon it by coincidence:
Stoic Caregiver (Cleric Archetype)
(...)
Three-Aspect Channel (Su): At 6th level, a stoic caregiver can channel positive energy to heal and harm simultaneously. When she does so, she restores only 1/2 the usual amount of hit points and deals only 1/2 the usual number of points of damage (or 1/4 on a successful saving throw).