I was hoping to get some opinions on the Milani specific feat :
https://aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Beacon%20of%20Hope
Now to me this seems incredibly powerful because it adds a mass heroism on top of the healing effect of a channel. All as one standard action that doesn’t provoke
Used a intervals basically means this lasts the battle as most pathfinder maps don’t tend to spread groups more than 30ft apart
Was the intention perhaps to only be that someone could only benefit once per day? Or does this nerf this to uselessness ?
What should I be aligning this to in my mind when considering power levels? Spells like heroism? Or something more like bardic performance ?
It does seem rather strong...
Definitely an incredibly powerful feat, but there are a lot of subtle catches that hold it in check. Milani offers a mediocre selection of domains and an uninspired favored weapon, you probably want to activate this at the start of battle when everyone is uninjured anyways, morale bonuses often run into stacking issues, and you need quite a bit of charisma investment to get a reasonable duration. Careful planning and usage is necessary to get the most out of this feat, and that does count for a lot when considering how strong it can be, but at the cost of a single feat it's just too easy to slap this on any old build and just live with those inconveniences and that leads me to think it is indeed a bit too much.
Now, I do think that it's mostly an issue at 5th level when it first becomes available. The heroism spell, which you rightly compare against, is a 3rd level spell with 10 minutes/level duration. While it's too expensive to just spam it on everyone as a prebuff when you first get it, that quickly becomes a serious option as you get more spell slots at the 3+ level range. This feat is still excellent at higher levels as a cheap way to bring out that buff on demand, but just expending spell slots on a prebuff is a competitive alternative so the feat looks less problematic. If you are going to nerf the feat, I'd suggest raising its prerequisites so it appears a few levels later.
Definitely an incredibly powerful feat, but there are a lot of subtle catches that hold it in check. Milani offers a mediocre selection of domains and an uninspired favored weapon, you probably want to activate this at the start of battle when everyone is uninjured anyways, morale bonuses often run into stacking issues, and you need quite a bit of charisma investment to get a reasonable duration.
I agree. I have a PFS cleric who is built around this feat and Combat Advice, and whilst he can be extremely effective as a party buffer, BUT (a) the fact that no one recognises the feat when I use it suggests it isn’t an automatic ‘win’ option, (b) it doesn’t stack with Bless, which is every cleric’s cheap morale option, and (c) If you don’t have selective channeling the benefits also apply to your opponents, so it’s a 2 feat ability on a class that is feat and skill starved. Overall, good but not overpowered.
Well I didn’t realise that enemies also get the bonuses
However there are rarely more than 3 injured enemies in my games it would seem
However I have been running it as only working when someone has actually healed hit points from the channel. So full HP means no bonuses
That said - in practice regular channels have meant they are permanent bonuses for the combats
Well I didn’t realise that enemies also get the bonuses
Presumably you'd have Selective Channeling if you're using it in combat situations.
So full HP means no bonuses
Actually that's unclear, now that you point it out. On the one hand (my initial interpretation) they're still affected by the healing effect, they just can't go over their maximum hit points. On the other hand they're not actually being healed since they were already at maximum.
This would be great on the cleric archetype that gives inspire courage.
Now I want to build this character.