"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;"
This makes it sound like you roll the channel healing/damage as normal and only apply half of the result.
However, the enhanced channel effect gives the example:
"For example, a 7th-level cleric normally heals 4d6 points of damage with channeled positive energy; with the Nature alternative channeling, that cleric instead heals only half that amount (2d6) when channeling, but heals animals and fey an additional +50% over the unhalved value (4d6 + 50%)."
This makes it sound like you only roll half the number of dice to determine the healing/damage effect of a channel (unless it is an enhanced channel).
If you roll half as many dice, then at 1st and 2nd level do you get 1 die or none? A lot of times, Paizo will default half of 1 to 1, but a lot of times they specify minimum 1 when they tell you to halve an effect based on level.
If it defaults to 1 then variant channeling is actually a more powerful means of channeling for low level clerics. If it rounds down to 0 then would 1st or 2nd level cleric channel the additional benefit of the channel but not the healing/damage (unless the channel is enhanced)?
