So I've been playing around with the idea of a Cleric of Urgathoa who specializes in channeling negative energy combined with Shatter Resolve.
Everyone knows that clerics tend to perform poorly when they focus on channeling, but I feel like Shatter Resolve has the potential to sway things the other way. However while looking into this I've come across a number of potential options, as well as the allure of the (Un)holy Vindicator, and the question becomes, how much is enough?
So far for a preliminary feat set up we have
R Selective Channeling
1 Shatter Resolve
3 Extra Channel (or Improved)
5 Improved Channel (or Extra, or Quicken)
If we decide to go HV then lvl 7 needs to be Alignment/Elemental Channel. There is also the potential of the Channeling Force feats as well, or Channel Smite, or even Guided Hand.
The end result is a seemingly very fun character concept, but one which I'm feeling paralysis by the number of options I'm seeing, and the inability to choose many.
To top it all off, Undeath as a domain appears a no brainer, but what for a 2nd? Ferocity? And then would Undead Lord be a worthwhile archetype since I'm already going for Undeath, or would the loss of that 2nd domain hurt significantly? What of other archetypes?
Lots of questions regarding this build and I'm open to any thoughts on the matter.
Look at variant channeling. You can add sickened to your channels by giving up half your damage. -4 to hit is nothing to laugh at.
Look at variant channeling. You can add sickened to your channels by giving up half your damage. -4 to hit is nothing to laugh at.
Definitely an option, but I'm not sure how I feel about halving the damage.
The Sickened/Shaken wombo combo though is absolutely effective. Used to use that to great effect with my old investigator, and unleashing that in an AoE is very appetizing.
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As Richter just stated, I played a human support/debuff Cleric of Urgathoa who specialized in channeling negative energy with Shatter Resolve and Variant Channeling: Disease, and I had an absolute blast doing it (in PFS, by the way).
It more a less had the same Feats for the first five levels: lvl 1 Shatter Resolve - Selective Channel, lvl 3 Improved Channel and lvl 5 Quick Channel. Domain choises were Undeath and Divine (Magic Subdomain). This due to the supportive nature of the cleric, where simply casting Bless allowed for the activation of the domain power Divine Vessel. Others will love you for just being on the battlefield, just make sure that you have enough buddies to support.
I had contemplated a build which went for Channel Smite, but I realized that it spreads my stats too thin. I wanted a high channel DC, so that it would be very difficult to resist. That doesn't mean it is impossible, just requires a different kind of build (and possibly mindset).
But no matter which build you make, just remember: damage is the icing on the cake if they fail their saves against this suckwave(and if they make it, the damage is not further halved, the save is against rider effects). At level 10 a Contagion effect is added against one enemy, with favorites being Bubonic Plague and Mindfire vs animals. Dealing out so much debuffs at once is really satisfying.
Definitely liking what I'm hearing. I suppose I always tend towards more battle focused builds and seeing as I'll have a scythe, I'd like to enjoy it, haha, but I think you've sold me on the Disease variant. The Contagion bonus at level 10 also seems worth at the least going 10 Cleric before Holy Vindicator.
Did some further thinking and here are some current conclusions:
No archetype. Undead Lord has some potential, but the Corpse Companion seems pretty meh, and aside from the lvl 8 ability, rather lackluster.
This opens me up to the question of a 2nd domain. I've pretty much given up on the notion of dealing damage, and fallen back somewhat on the concept of the bad touch. As a result, Ferocity loses its appeal. This leaves me with Tactics, or Divine.
Due to Guided Hand I also now have to take Channel Smite as a tax, but this can be retrained once I get it free through HV. Spellstoring is likely to be important on my weapon as well, so the question becomes what would be advisable for its usage? Ghoul Touch seems to be the best option I'm seeing.
Variant Channeling: Disease is in.
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With channeling clerics, without access to a specific 3rd party feat you have to realize something: you will never be a good "spellcaster" cleric OR battle cleric, at least by default. Thing is, offensive channeling requires significant Cha-investment, which means you won't have the spell DCs to be a powerful enough offensive caster. Additionally, since you need wis, cha and likely want some con, you don't have enough points to boost Strength as well which makes you a poor battle cleric, though there is a way around this I'll get to later.
Even further, offensive channeling, unless you can get a daze effect through it, becomes obsolete in terms of damage at higher levels, and even with the daze against foes that are not undead and not able to be effected by channel, you'll feel the pain of being useless. Thus, when building a channeling cleric, it is impossible to build -just- for channeling and be good at all stages of the game: you will be powerful at low levels, but as you increase in level you will start to feel a lot weaker. Thus, all offensive negative channelers will need to be hybrid builds(unless you can get a specific 3rd party feat oked by your GM.) if they want to be good at higher levels
So, with that in mind, there are really only two ways you can go. As stated, the cha-focus means you can never be a DC-focused character, so being a channeling/offensive caster is out. So whats left? Well, normally battle cleric is out because of MAD, if you can somehow pick up channel smite, guided hand AND power attack your all good to go as far as being an effective battle cleric is concerned. If you really want to go this route, I'd actually consider a fighter dip. Why? Channel Smite is a combat feat. Take 1 fighter level and you get heavy armor, better weapon selection and a free combat feat, that feat being channel smite.If you take the dip at the level you get a feat normally, you can get guided hand the same level meaning you don't have to wait centuries for your melee-viability to come online. yes, losing a caster level is painful as hell, but waiting 2 levels after getting channel smite to even get your melee going is even worse depending on the game and there are traits that can make up the lost caster level. If you go this route, I'd highly suggest holy Vindicator as well as it boosts your melee AND channeling at the cost of some CLs, which, if your not going to be a DC-focused "caster" cleric is a good trade for you. While not the most "optimal" build you'll be a strong melee combatant after cleric buffs and will have a powerful offensive channel, so it's a win-win situation.
As for the other "hybrid" build? Well, whats the one kind of "offensive" spell that doesn't give a flying **** how high your DCs are? Summons...and clerics make fine summoners. Normally, to make a summoner/channeler leric is nigh impossible due to the massive feat demand, however, the herald caller archetype fixes that in a massive way. Over the course of the archetype, you save enough feats that you actually have feats to spare in your build...I should know because I play a herald caller of Lamashtu focused on the madness variant channeling in a small online PGFS group and when planning her build I had feats to spare at the high tiers of play thanks to the savings gained from the Hearld Caller Archetype. If your interested in the Negative Channeler/Summoner, I'd build your current character towards it as possible:
Abilities:
Max Cha as high as you possibly can. Then put wisdom at 14 and either con or dex at 14(and the other at 12) if you can manage it. Dump strength and leave int at 10(you get 4+ Int skills as a hearld caller anyway) or if you don't mind RPing a moron dump str AND int.
Archetypes:
herald caller, because you can't make the summoner/offensive channeler without it.
Feats:
1st: Selective Channeling
Bonus (Human): Command undead (If your dumping strength to boost wis/cha you'll need a way to fight undead ASAP. Besideds, urgathoa would approve)
3rd: Shatter Resolve
Bonus (Herald Caller): Augment Summoning (And Spell Focus (Conjuration) effectively for the prerequisites of summoning feats, so 2 feats saved right here for free, not bad at all.)
5th: Improved Channeling
7th: Summon Evil Creature
Bonus (Hearld Caller): Superior Summoning
9th: Quick Channeling
11th: Sacred Summons
13th: Evolved Summons
15th: Free Feat
17th: Free Feat
19th: Free Feat
you can change around the order of the feats here to fit your needs other than selective channel and command undead at 1st level. Either way herald caller allows you to be a good summoner AND focus on your offensive channeling, to the point your summons flat out dodge your disease variant channeling thanks to your archetype. You can also do a nice double whammy of tanking enemy saves with disease variant channel + shatter resolve only to have your summons lay down one of their nasty SLAs. You are an effective battlefield controller through your pets and effective debuffer through your channeling. Even further, with command undead at your disposal you can play around with necromancy(again, urgathoa would approve) and have your conjured fiends fight alongside some rotting minions as well. While you are not a dedicated necromancer, your undead are still potent and you can use them to do things like aid another to buff your allies and your summons.
All and all, it's a powerful build and far more "optimized" than the battle cleric version will ever be. So if you like the thought of being the ultimate pet master, consider the summoning/herald caller route.
NOW, on for the part you've likely been waiting for. IF, and this is a big IF, your GM allows 3rd party content, there is a feat that can let you have good spell DCs even as a channeler with a heavy cha-investment. It's called Divine Charisma, and it can be found on the following SRD page: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/4-winds-fantasy-gaming/genera l-feats/divine-charisma
If you take that feat, you can never boost Wis a single time with your leveling-tied boosts and instead dump everything into cha. By doing this you can effectively be a caster/channeler, using charisma for both your cleric spell DCs AND channeling DC. However, do remember that you can't dump wis entirely with that feat; you still need wis to cast your high level spells and for bonus spells, but you can boost wis through items instead of natural boosts from leveling as all you really need is 19 wis if you have that feat. With that feat, you can be a caster cleric who also debuffs and damages with negative channeling. It's a beautiful feat and it makes channeling clerics actually work well at all levels of play while not being broken (As you still need that wis for some things). Oh, and you don't have to take that feat at 1st level either, so you could easily squeeze it into your current feat roster and have potent spell Dcs and channeling....that is if your DM allows 3rd party. If this is for PFS you are sadly out of luck as I don't think Paizo has their own equivalent, sadly.
So, thats my two copper, take it for what you will.
The 3rd party feat is certainly something I'll keep in mind for later. Unfortunately, as appetizing as your build is, I'm currently running a summoning reach cleric, and while it's not a herald caller, I'd rather not do another summoning based cleric. This leaves me with going in a secondary battle cleric direction, or a bad touch direction. Unfortunately, neither is without its flaws.
Previously I'd settled on somewhat dumping STR for a bad touch build with Guided Hand to increase my to-hit. However, if I were to use this 3pp feat, then I'd never increase my WIS beyond 19, reducing somewhat the benefit of Guided Hand as I can't transfer it to CHA.
On the other hand, if I go battle cleric and pump STR, it's unlikely I'll get STR to a feasible level to deal considerable damage. Further, I'm still stuck with the reality that I'm going to need 19 WIS for 9th level casting. On the other hand... dat Scythe.
Regardless, I'm currently comparing builds with and without adding in a fighter level as well.
For reference, this character would likely be for an evil campaign sometime down the line, possibly starting around 14th level, thus why I'm kind of centering around there as my benchmark.