Sorry a tad confused on this cleric feat. So does this 2 action feat only affect undead period(positive version)? If so it seems a total waste of a feat slot when its much easier to use a regular channel energy touch attack on an undead. I originally thought the feat caused the damage to a target affected by positive/good damage as well as additional damage again if target was undead.
I assume you're asking about the Playtest Channel Smite, yes? I don't believe we've seen any such feat revealed for the final release.
As written, the Playtest feat only has an effect if: (1) you hit the target; AND (2) the target is undead; AND (3) the target is harmed by positive energy. I agree that it would be much more useful if it could affect other creatures susceptible to Good damage.
Instead of casting harm or heal, you siphon the destructive
energies you channel through a melee attack and into your foe. Make a melee Strike. This Strike has one of the following additional effects on a success.
• If you channel positive energy and the target is undead, you deal extra positive damage equal to that of a single-target heal spell.
. . .
If your Strike fails or hits a creature that isn’t affected by that energy type, the spell is expended with no effect.
The perk is that you can land both a weapon strike and a heal (or harm if negative) on an undead (or fiend with holy castigation or living foe with negative) with a single attack roll at your highest bonus instead of swinging your weapon and casting heal/harm separately in which case you have to roll two separate attacks and one is at a -5 accuracy for multiple attack penalty.
Also I don't think Channel Smite provokes AoOs while melee touch heal/harm does.
^ This is a good description of why it's useful against undead, but I don't think you're correct that Holy Castigation + Channel Smite would let you use it against fiends.
It's not really worth expending the energy to precisely parse this out in forum posts, since this is just the Playtest rules and who needs those any more. But both feats are very specific, and incompatible.
Holy Castigation: "Heal spells you cast can damage fiends as though they were undead." Channel Smite: "If ... the target is undead, you deal extra positive damage equal to that of a single-target heal spell."
You can look at this two ways: (1) You do not "cast" an actual Heal spell with Channel Smite—you expend a casting to get a weapon attack that carries extra damage equivalent to a heal spell. Different things. (Indeed, if you cast heal as part of channel smite you'd have the AOO problem you mention.) So Holy Castigation wouldn't trigger. (2) Channel Smite only works if the target is undead, and Holy Castigation does nothing to change that.
Not saying I think this is the best way to have those feats work. It does feel needlessly limiting and I think yes, it would work better if they could get that synergy going. But strictly-as-written, they don't.
Pros:
-single strike means no -5 MAP
-relies on attack bonus rather than save DC, which means your proficiency and item bonus are used (and if you're a fighting cleric, this is good)
-Channel Negative works on fighters and paladins you might be GMing
Cons:
-single hit means a miss is a bigger waste
-weapon damage vs spell scaling means the feat is less good at high levels
That said, it's not gonna be in final, so it's not something I'd worry about.
Pros:
-single strike means no -5 MAP
-relies on attack bonus rather than save DC, which means your proficiency and item bonus are used (and if you're a fighting cleric, this is good)
-Channel Negative works on fighters and paladins you might be GMingCons:
-single hit means a miss is a bigger waste
-weapon damage vs spell scaling means the feat is less good at high levelsThat said, it's not gonna be in final, so it's not something I'd worry about.
Did you read the list of cleric feats and confirm it wasn't there?
Anyway, cleric of Gorum could rock this feat with true strike. If you multiclass to get magical striker even better.
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Pros:
-single strike means no -5 MAP
-relies on attack bonus rather than save DC, which means your proficiency and item bonus are used (and if you're a fighting cleric, this is good)
-Channel Negative works on fighters and paladins you might be GMingCons:
-single hit means a miss is a bigger waste
-weapon damage vs spell scaling means the feat is less good at high levelsThat said, it's not gonna be in final, so it's not something I'd worry about.
Did you read the list of cleric feats and confirm it wasn't there?
Anyway, cleric of Gorum could rock this feat with true strike. If you multiclass to get magical striker even better.
I examined the low level feats and confirmed that, while there is one unreadable lv2 one, it's too brief to include Channel Smite. It's more likely Turn Undead, which is missing from the list of lv1 selections. High level feats are missing, but due to the new scaling it's unlikely we'll get a high level Channel Smite.
We don't have Channel Smite in the CRB? Huh.
Well, more precisely, we don't know *yet* whether it will be in there. Or what the final wording would be if it is. Plenty of things have had and will have their wording altered between the playtest and the final. Hard to make guesses at this point.
We don't have Channel Smite in the CRB? Huh.Well, more precisely, we don't know *yet* whether it will be in there. Or what the final wording would be if it is. Plenty of things have had and will have their wording altered between the playtest and the final. Hard to make guesses at this point.
We know a lot of things, the book has been printed and they've shown pages. It's not guessing.
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We know a lot of things, the book has been printed and they've shown pages. It's not guessing.We don't have Channel Smite in the CRB? Huh.Well, more precisely, we don't know *yet* whether it will be in there. Or what the final wording would be if it is. Plenty of things have had and will have their wording altered between the playtest and the final. Hard to make guesses at this point.
Well we can say it’s a very educated guess at the moment. It’s possible Channel Smite is a higher level feat; though unlikely given no real basis to raise the level of the feat.
So we haven't seen cleric feats yet, that wasn't one of the revealed pages. Channel smite is still possible.