Variant Channeling

[Dunkelzahn]

A 7th level chaotic good cleric of Gorum selected variant channeling for the Battle aspect of Gorum's portfolio during character creation. Since he is good he is channeling positive energy and during an encounter he used it to harm undead creatures. What happens?

Variant channeling:

A variant channeling either modifies positive channeled energy when used to heal or modifies negative energy when used to harm. When using positive energy to heal, affected creatures gain only half the normal amount of healing but also receive a specific beneficial effect. When channeling negative energy to harm, affected creatures take only half the normal damage but take an additional penalty or harmful effect; a successful saving throw negates the additional penalty or effect but does not reduce the damage any further. Creatures that would normally ignore the effect of a particular channel (such as undead with respect to a positive energy channel used to heal) ignore the variant effect.

Battle/Wrath:

Heal—Creatures gain a channel bonus on weapon damage and critical hit confirmation rolls until the end of your next turn. Harm—Creatures take a channel penalty on weapon damage and critical hit confirmation rolls until the end of your next turn.

Is positive energy that is used to harm simply not covered, i.e. he would do 4d6 damage (Will for half)? Or, is the positive energy to heal comment fluff and he deals [4d6]/2 damage and the undead take a -2 penalty on weapon damage and crit confirmation (Will negates the penalty)?

Thanks for any insights!

[Ferious Thune]

I'm not positive, but I believe it's 4d6 save for half, since Variant Channeling has you select whether it affects Heal or Harm when you first choose it. So I think it only ever effects one or the other.

[Jeff Merola]

It's not a fluff comment. Variant channeling never affects Positive Energy to Harm or Negative Energy to Heal.

[Dunkelzahn]

Jeff Merola wrote:

It's not a fluff comment. Variant channeling never affects Positive Energy to Harm or Negative Energy to Heal.

What about this then?

Undeath
Heal—This works like a standard channel (not halved).
Harm—The healing effect is enhanced (see Variant Channeling above) for undead creatures and those with negative energy affinity.

It seems that variant would then be completely useless or am I missing something?

Even an interpretation that the initial Heal and Harm are just (poor) abbreviations for Positive Energy and Negative Energy, regardless of their use doesn't work. That would lead to the awkward situation where the cleric from the initial example would actually buff the undead.

I'm confused...

[Jeff Merola]

I'm guessing what happened was something was changed during the writing process and they forgot to fix everything to suit the change. The initial section describing Variant Channeling is pretty clear that it doesn't affect Positive to Harm or Negative to Heal.

I'd go with "unless it makes no sense otherwise, stick with what the initial paragraph says".

[C4M3R0N]

I stumbled upon a similar post to this the other day about variant channeling and it had the original author of variant channeling stating his intent behind the variant channeling and that it got altered from his original intent in editing I believe. I am unable to find it and link it at this time, but I'm sure if you Google it or search these boards a bit you could quite easily find it. But yeah, based on what he said, Jeff Merola would be correct, part was changed but they missed some things.

[Dunkelzahn]

C4M3R0N wrote:

I stumbled upon a similar post to this the other day about variant channeling and it had the original author of variant channeling stating his intent behind the variant channeling and that it got altered from his original intent in editing I believe. I am unable to find it and link it at this time, but I'm sure if you Google it or search these boards a bit you could quite easily find it. But yeah, based on what he said, Jeff Merola would be correct, part was changed but they missed some things.

Thank you, I found it: Post by Jason Nelson

So, writers intent was the second option but the design team went for the other option - and Undeath got messed up in the process. Good to know.