So, channel energy ... it's handled three different ways between three classes? Would it be possible to consolidate them all (hopefully to use spell points)? Also, given how central the mechanic is to Cleric, is it strange that the other two classes can gain it as a feat after their dedication feat is eventually added but multiclass clerics can never get it?
My personal opinion - and it's just an opinion! - is that choosing fighter and buying into cleric for channel energy and channel smite and then buying into cavalier for the companion traits would basically let people get the majority of the Paladin benefits without the alignment restrictions. That's something everyone wants, right?
They specifically gave channel energy its own recourse pool so clerics wouldn'tend up not using their domain powers just to have more healing. I completely agree with this.
Channel energy for a sorcerer should be more than once per day, though. A Divine Sorcerer will probably end up picking heal for one of his hightened spells every day and burn through his spell slots just for healing. Getting a single free heal per day won't change that much.
Note that paladin's get the weakest channel because their champion power level is rounded down instea of up like pretty much every other power.
They specifically gave channel energy its own recourse pool so clerics wouldn'tend up not using their domain powers just to have more healing. I completely agree with this.
Sure, and they could handle that either the way they did with Alchemists using resonance to do quick alchemy (by giving them a level-scaling pool of extra spell points) or like Paladins did (by adding additional points to the spell point pool). Either way would be consistent with how it was handled elsewhere in the book and would get away from a third type of resource tracking. I just don't like x/day mechanics *on top* of spell points. Those are the abilities spell points are already supposed to be representing while providing flexibility to the player.
Channel energy for a sorcerer should be more than once per day, though. A Divine Sorcerer will probably end up picking heal for one of his hightened spells every day and burn through his spell slots just for healing. Getting a single free heal per day won't change that much.
Totally agree. Making it spell points like Paladin would let them balance it against other abilities. Should work that way for all the 4th-level sorcerer evolutions. I also think Sorcerers should just have more spell points than they do, since they're supposed to be the most spontaneous/flexible caster.
Note that paladin's get the weakest channel because their champion power level is rounded down instea of up like pretty much every other power.
Except their spell point pool pulls off of their casting stat, so they're likely to have 3-4 points just from the stat plus 2 from buying heal plus 1 for each litany ... so they can have a pretty deep pool of lvl 8 heals by the time it's said and done.
Also, what do you think about the way this impacts multiclassing? Right now, if you class into cleric you *cannot* get channel energy (unless I'm missing something again; I totally missed soothe on the Bard list). But you can buy it as a single feat on Paladin or Sorcerer and, depending on whether you can get spell heightening as a multi sorcerer, it might even be *better* to buy it from Paladin.
Basically, the best class to multi into if you want to be an off-healer right now ... looks like Paladin, unless you want to invest a lot of feats into adding spell slots.