I'm not going to post a fully made build or anything, but I plan on making a channel-based character eventually.
Assuming I ever get to run Hell's Vengeance, I'll be playing an inflict and channel based Fiendish Vessel
While it does decrease their channel dice to 1d4, I think it works pretty great. The ability to damage good and heal evil is really nice for all-evil parties. Also, possibly sickening every enemy in a 30ft radius burst is nice too.
Luckily, when using Channel Smite, its treated as just normal negative energy so you don't miss out on the Channel Smite + Inlfict (X) combo against non-good foes.
I think its a pretty nice archetype. It lets you play as a negative energy cleric that doesn't have to worry about blasting his friends as often (assuming they're evil) or losing out on Quick Channel (for emergency party healing)
Later, I plan to go into Holy Vindicator to get even more channeling damage and stuff.
Bloodfire (Su): At 5th level, while a vindicator's stigmata are bleeding, his blood runs down his weapons like sacred or profane liquid energy; when he uses Channel Smite, the damage increases by 1d6, and if the target fails its save, it is sickened and takes 1d6 points of bleed damage each round on its turn. The target can attempt a new save every round to end the sickened and bleed effects.
Channel Smite: At 5th level, a vindicator gains Channel Smite as a bonus feat.
Versatile Channel (Su): At 6th level, a vindicator's channel energy can instead affect a 30-foot cone or a 120-foot line.
Bloodrain (Su): At 9th level, while his stigmata are bleeding, the vindicator's harmful channeled energy is accompanied by a burst of sacred or profane liquid energy, increasing the damage by 1d6. Creatures failing their saves against the channeled energy become sickened and take 1d6 points of bleed damage each round. Affected creatures can attempt a new save every round to end the sickened and bleed effects.
EDIT: Fixed Fiendish Vessel link
Wouldn't Alignment channel work as you want? (would need to take it twice admittedly, for good/evil)
also, take a look at this prestige class Diabolist
have fun channeling hellfire!
Alignment Channel would work, but the sickened condition (on a failed save) and one more feat slot definitely makes up for the decrease in 1 damage per die (on average). At least in my opinion!
Diabolist wouldn't work.
Channel Hellfire
At 2nd level, a diabolist can alter spells that deal energy damage to instead deal hellfire damage. She can do this as a free action a number of times per day equal to her Charisma modifier (minimum 1). Spells altered to use hellfire gain the lawful and evil descriptors.
This ability only works on spells. Channel is an Supernatural Ability.
Pretty sure you can only take Extra Channel once. Also the go to negative channeling build is the Shatter Resolve build with Variant Channeling: Disease. Of course there is also the Rulership using Hangover Cleric as mentioned but well, this one is less cheesy.
Your goal here is less on damage, and more on debuffing. With Shatter Resolve you'll be making enemies shaken, and with the Variant you'll also inflict sicken if they fail their save. Shaken + Sicken is a dangerous combo when used on a single target, but in a 30 ft aoe burst it is simply amazing.
Shatter Resolve requires worshiping Urgathoa but besides that you're pretty free to build as you like.
Holy vindicator helps add damage to channeling.
It does increase its damage a little bit though. It adds a flat 1d6 (when Stigmata is activated) and 1d6 bleed per turn (on a failed save) until it passes a save.
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Have you looked at Envoy of Balance prestige Class? It is in Champions of Balance. It has interested options for Channeling.
If you really want to be a channeler then:
a) Select Variant Channeling
b) Take Channeling Variance
But just so you know channeling does suck pretty bad.... ;))
I'm just starting up a character for PFS that is positive channel based. I also love the channel abilities for their flavor :D
I went human because the feat was too much for me to not grab. If I had an Aasimar boon though, that would sway me. Bonus damage to undead AND evil outsiders is really nice.
My advice to you for the positive cleric is to have secondary functions. Since you have already come to terms with channeling being sub-par, make sure you are bringing other things to the table. Fortunately, clerics get full casting progression so you are still very versatile and have tons of options. Buffs and utility are easy to pick up with spells and you can always convert spells into healing, so you should have plenty of options.
For the negative cleric, playing a "hangover cleric" is the way to go. 1d6/2 levels is some crap damage (and there aren't as many ways to boost it like positive against undead), so cranking up the DC asap and putting debuffs on it via variant channel is the way to go IMO.
Fun fact: clerics can always choose to not include themselves in their channel, even without selective channel.
If you would like, I can post my positive cleric build.
Look at the feat channeled revival btw, that's a pretty nice feat!
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As the OP is mainly going for channel damage output, I'll start with some useful tidbits before stating my own experience. There are some items that are very handy for channel focused PC's. First, there is the Ring of Protected Life that increases the channel radius with 5ft. The Malleable Symbol allows one to alter the channels form. And the Recondite Holy Symbol makes sure your holy symbol is peculiar enough that regular townsfolk cannot identify it (handy if you are worshipping a deity that is not allowed/attracts trouble in certain regions).
Gummy Bear mentioned it already, a secondary function is very important. For negative channelers, undead and construct opponents are a thing. Positive channelers will also combat other things than undead and evil outsiders. As a Cleric you have an amazing list of buffing spells, and access to the Summon Monster line. I would not go for the spells which rely on saving throws, as your Wisdom is not high enough for it to work most of the time (wasted turns are the worst turns).
Then, the chosen feats. There are some things that must be mentioned (not important if you are allowed to houserule it away, but needs to be known anyway). As mentioned above, the Extra Channel feat may only be chosen once. Clarifying Channel, Protective Channel, Siphon Channel, and Channel Discord all require you to worship a specific deity (Shelyn, Iomedea, Ghlaunder, and a Demon Lord respectively). Also, I would put Quick Channel earlier in your career, mainly because it is amazing action economy.
As for my own experience, I have played a variant channel-focused human cleric to lvl 12 in PFS and I had a blast. It was a support/debuff Cleric of Urgathoa with the Undeath and Divine Subdomains. I used variant channeling Disease (as it is in her portfolio) combined with Shatter Resolve to inflict the Sicken/Shaken combination on all my opponents (and Contagion on one opponent starting lvl 10). The amount of debuffs the Cleric spreaded was amazing, and on turns that the channel was not necessary, I buffed my party. When in a pickle, I used Quick Channel to channel twice during the same turn to inflict all enemies with the shaken condition twice (make note that the Shatter Resolve feat is missing the sentance that states it does not add up towards frightened, like many other easy ways of inflicting mass shaken do have). For combats that involved creatures immune to my channel, I reverted to my secondary functions: Buffing my party with wide ranged buffs like Bless, Prayer and Blessings of Fervor (activating the Divine Vessel ability of the Divine Subdomain) or dispelling the opponent's/surrounding's magic (I had Dispel Focus and Greater Dispel Focus). The Cleric was always a welcome addition to the party, even if the local Paladins raised an eyebrow at the evil aura it was drenched in.
Mr. Bonkers:
Paladins can always make saves against your buffs if they don't want the aid of a cleric worshiping an evil deity ;)
OP:
I also forgot to note that for your positive cleric, I'd personally go for the Heroism subdomain rather than the Glory domain by itself.
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Gummy Bear:
She was always considered/declared to be a "lesser" evil, which they would have to work with. Always had food with her, shared the food with everyone that wanted (distractions in villages through a sudden banquet always work). Wasn't really interessted in curing diseases (why would she, if your strong enough you'll survive), unless it was detrimental to the mission. And her take on undead was that mindless undead were tools, and intelligent undead had the same rights as the living (meaning that if they assaulted her, they would get the same treatment as the living, if you know what I mean).
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Mr. bonkers, Pathfinder has loosened the requirements on the deity of worship for the channel feats-
its not "specific" deities, just "Specific domain/portfolios"
Umm... no? The SRD is vague because they can't deliberately state the deity name for the feats. You still need the specific deity for them to work in practice.
When it says "worship a god of battle" it means "Gorum" but it can't say "Gorum".
Look at Archives of Nethys for the actual text of each feat.
no, its not a monster feat. its a feat found in the bestiary because it more commonly applies to monsters than PCs. its fully available to PCs and there's been FAQ stating the same, I believe.
Would you mind posting that faq here please? I'd love to take that feat but in my experience it is a commonly held belief that it is a monster feat :(
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Ability focus is a monster only feat. That is why it's in the beastiary.
Monster Feats
Most of the following feats apply specifically to monsters, although some player characters might qualify for them (particularly Craft Construct).
Ability Focus
The problem is players don't have special attacks. So you can't take Ability Focus. You can take Improved Channel.
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Not sure why that is, I feel like if they have wiki's on all their deities with listed domains/portfolio etc they could just use the wording they wanted.
Neither d20pfsrd or Archives of Nethys has an individual license from Paizo. Normally that means they wouldn't legally be able to use Paizo-owned material (the Golarion lore parts of Pathfinder). However Paizo has set out a Community Use Policy. The Community Use Policy allows non-commercial entities to use the Paizo-specific names legally for no charge.
Archives of Nethys is a non-commercial entity. However since it runs its own store d20pfsrd is considered a commercial entity and can't use those specific names.
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Mr. Bonkers has some good advice in there. I've made a brother/sister pair of channeling aasimars in pfs who are levels 10 and 11 now.
The negative channeler is mostly cleric with a level of oracle. The reason for this was his original build, which is no longer legal in society play (I got to fix some of it, but was stuck with the rest). If your GM will allow it, it's great.
Separatist Cleric of Hanspur, taking Death domain normally and using separatist to get the original version of the Whimsy domain (Must follow someone chaotic to get it). The Whimsy domain allows that when you channel, first roll a d6. On a one you will subtract, on a 5 or 6, you will add. Then roll another d6 to see how many dice you are adding or subtracting to the amount of dice you channel with. So if you are level 1 and roll a 5 then a 5, you are channeling for 6d6. Some will argue against the ability working this way. Eventually a completely different whimsy domain came out, which is useless but became the only one allowed in PFS, and I switched over to travel domain.
The way this interacts with the level of oracle: If you have the legalistic curse, once per day you get to add +4 to any roll. Not any d20 roll, any roll. So, when I roll to see how many more dice I'm channeling, I can turn that 5 from above into a 9. And roll 10d6 at level 1 (well, level 2, as you need the oracle level). As the rest of the level was not particularly relevant (Life oracle doesn't help negative) I went with Lore Oracle and picked up Sidestep Secret to get my CHA to AC and Reflex and kept neutral dex.
So, now he's just a cleric with an off level. As he's an aasimar, I put him into the Channel Force feat chain. This lets him move people around the field, and also gives him single-target channel if he needs it. Ring of protected life gives him a bit more radius and Vestments of War give him an extra channel per day. And heavyload belt to deal with carrying things on a str 11. Unfortunately the Phylactery uses the headband slot, so unless we get custom magic items we have to use a Pink and Green Ioun stone to up our charaisma.
So, the reason to follow Hanspur. While Urgathoa has some nifty things to offer her followers, Hanspur is amazing for a negative channeler. Chaotic Neutral, with Death and Travel as domains. The first is pretty much required, the second is just awesome. But where it really comes together is the desecrate spell. Now, desecrate adds 3 to the DC of your channel, but it goes up to +6 if you cast it on a permanent altar to your god. But altars are big heavy things in temples that you can't really bring with you, right? Wrong. Hanspur is the god of river travel. His shrines and altars are built onto traveler's rafts. So you cast desecrate on your raft-altar, and float down the river with an amazing DC. But you're not on a river? No problem! Pick up the raft and put it in a cart! Drive the cart around! Now if you're indoors or in narrow areas, yes, you have to leave it behind. But otherwise... it's amazing.
Gear to consider. Consecrated is a mod for 150gp that you can put on any weapon, even non-magic ones if you like. If you've got a coordinated permanent party, make sure every weapon in the party has it. You charge it up with your channels, and the first hit the weapon makes after that adds your channel damage halved. It holds a charge for 24 hours, so at the end of every day you blow any leftover channels into charging these up for a good hit in the morning. You can consecrate shields too for a bit more AC, but that doesn't last long.
Also, Channel Foci. There's a few of these that give various bonuses when you charge them up. The ones I used for this character: Winged Fetish gives you a bonus vs undead and Spiked Focus Ward lets you make landmines. Also, I'm an aasimar, so ambrosia is cool.
Spells. Used the oracle level to pick up pro evil, obscuring mist, and stabilize, as they don't care about level and having them spontaneous is nice. The rest are claric. Desecrate is your main spell, but it lasts most of the day, so you're fine there. Don't forget that it's 50gp a pop though. Undead are something you can't really deal with, so you might look into spells for them, or general cleric spells.
I just got my 5th level spells, and... none of them were that great. This isn't really about channeling so feel free to skip if you like. So, what I went with is Spellcasting Contract, Lesser. It's meant for Asmodeans but isn't restricted in PFS. Basically, you reserve a first level slot and a 2nd level slot, and the 5th level slot used for this spell. You make a contract between you and a party member (Asmodeans make this complicated, mine is pretty simple) that grants him the use of the reserved slots for spells you write into the contract. This seams like a penalty (you're loosing spells) but it's actually an action economy boost (you get someone else in the party to cast the buff). In exchange you get a +2 profane bonus to all attacks, saves and checks for as long as you keep the contract going.
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Now for the positive channeler. She's also the product of two different builds.
She was originally a level of cleric and mostly Life Oracle, taking advantage of the aasimar favored class bonus. Then that got taken away and she got completely rebuilt to be mostly cleric with one level of life oracle. In both cases, the one-level dip was to pick up a number of extra (weaker) channels per day.
Phylactery of positive channeling boosts both channels, so my weaker channel would still be 3d6. But I made it a variant channel instead, and tagged Self Perfection on it. So I can channel to let my allies ignore a condition of their choice per turn. I also took Lucky Number as my one oracle spell. Cast 5 of it just before bed, and it lasts 24 hours.
Then a bunch of cleric. I took the mendevian priest archetype so I only get one domain, but get heavy armor proficiency. Sun domain is best for channeling versus undead, so that's what we got. I also eventually got to pick up Alignment Channel as a bonus feat, cool. Consecrate is the only particularly relevant spell, though every cleric should take Unbreakable Heart, no matter their build.
I also dipped one level into Soul Warden. This prestige class doesn't interrupt your spellcasting, and gives you more quasi-channels vs undead. You can not use them to heal, but it stacks with your cleric levels to determine how much damage you can harm with them. Can you use them with alignment channel? Debatable, but I've been told yes. And hey, 9 extra channels a day, even if only to harm, is nice.
For traits I went with Sacred Conduit to raise my DC by 1, and Cleansing Light which lets me re-roll 1's when I channel vs undead. I took the standard channel feats of Selective / Extra / Quick channel, then took the Bless Equipment feat chain. Basically, if I'm not using my channels vs undead, I can touch a weapon and use some channels to give it Bane or ghost touch, or with the 2nd feat, Holy (and some other options). Alignment channel (evil) lets me smack demons with channel as if they were undead.
Blessed Keepsake is a good neck slot item. I can put a piece of outsider in it to get alignment channel against that type as well (after waiting 24 hours). So at the moment I also have Alignment channel (Chaos). Phylactery of Positive Channel takes the headband slot, so again I've got the pink and green ioun stone for a charisma boost. Ring of protected life gives me more radius or in a pinch, a swift action channel. On a really bad turn this means I can channel (standard), channel 2 (move, costs 2), and channel 3 (swift) but then the ring's done for the day. Ring of the grasping grave seems useful too, but I don't have it yet.
Gear. Again the Winged Fetish and the Spiked Focus Ward are nice, and I also picked up a Just Scale, which lets me do diplomacy checks as a swift action instead of a full minute. The most important though is the exorcism kit. At 44 pounds it's a bit much to carry around, but doable. It's got some stuff in it but mostly it's about the box. Which is explicitly called out as acting as an altar for the consecrate spell, letting you carry around your zone of +6 to the DC of your channels.
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For the original poster:
I've been playing an Envoy of Balance and it's actually a very fun archetype if you don't mind playing a "reactive" type of character. By which I mean that you simply don't have the resources to use full power every round and need to make sure that you hold enough in reserve for trouble.
If you start with 20 Charisma, get a +6 Cha headband, take Extra Channel, and put all your level bumps into Cha, that means from level 8 to 16 or so (whenever you can afford a tome) you get 14 channels a day. That's it. If you channel and quick channel every round, you won't last 5 rounds.
So you have to be willing to sit back and let the rest of your party take the lead. You can channel to harm once a round when you still have the majority left but you will need to start conserving fairly quickly.