Channel Divinity Feats

Mengu · Jul 7, 2008

I don't think some of these feats are as bad as people make them out to be (ok, maybe a couple are), but I do think they could use a bit of tweaking to be more desirable.

No change needed:

Harmony of Erathis - there are no allies who will say no to a +2 attack bonus once per encounter.

Kord's Favor - every 4 rounds of combat you and your allies should generate 1 critical. At least couple times a day there will be a good time to trigger that extra healing surge.

Melora's Tide - whenever you have an unconscious person at the end of a combat, this is a fantastic way to heal them up, saving two surges.

Moradin's Resolve - not the best at 1st level, but after 4th, I'd grab this feat in a heartbeat to get encounter and daily powers to work more reliably, while pounding on large opponents.

Raven Queen's Blessing - kill minion, heal ally, yes please.

Proposed tweaks:

Armor of Bahamut - target takes half damage from the critical hit (just so you don't feel like you wasted a power when the DM rolls max damage anyway).

Avandra's Rescue - change to immediate reaction that triggers when an enemy moves adjacent to the ally.

Corellon's Grace - Effect: ... and gain +1 to all defenses until the end of your next turn.

Ioun's Poise - change to immediate reaction that triggers when an enemy attacks you.

Needs re-write:

Pelor's Radiance - This is a sad excuse for an upgrade of Turn Undead. Maybe it could be sufficiently different if it was a ranged power sort of like a Force Orb that worked against undead.

Sehanine's Reversal - I don't even know if this one can be fixed. I'd just write up a new feat like Sehanine's Luck, +2 to a saving throw, or some such.

generalhenry · Jul 7, 2008

Pelor's Radiance - This is a sad excuse for an upgrade of Turn Undead. Maybe it could be sufficiently different if it was a ranged power sort of like a Force Orb that worked against undead.

sure, pretty lame for a cleric

but for a paladin...

Mengu · Jul 7, 2008

generalhenry said:
sure, pretty lame for a cleric

but for a paladin...

Hmm, true. I'll have to rethink that one.

Keenath · Jul 7, 2008

Mengu said:
Armor of Bahamut - target takes half damage from the critical hit (just so you don't feel like you wasted a power when the DM rolls max damage anyway).

Eghhh... I wouldn't. I mean, there's a certain point in that PC crits and monster crits are kind of different (because PCs usually have lots of adders on a crit, like magic weapons and the high-crit weapon property, while monsters don't), but on the other hand, it's not very long before monsters are rolling three and four dice on their attack. This power lets you cancel some special abilities that trigger on a crit, and with even two dice, the chances of them rolling maximum are very small. (Remember, rolling two 10s on 2d10 is a 1% chance!)

This is just one of those abilities that gets exponentially better as you level up, and works best against the strongest enemies. I just don't think it's weak enough to justify as major a power boost as you're proposing.

That said -- I could totally see it granting Resist 5 against that one attack in addition to negating the crit. -5 damage is a lot more reasonable than half.

Avandra's Rescue - change to immediate reaction that triggers when an enemy moves adjacent to the ally.

Um... why? The power seems fine to me. It's a shift that also shifts a friend. It doesn't seem unbalanced to me...

Corellon's Grace - Effect: ... and gain +1 to all defenses until the end of your next turn.

Why? What do you have against a free move action?

Ioun's Poise - change to immediate reaction that triggers when an enemy attacks you.

Ahh... NO. That makes it better than virtually any other enounter-based defensive power in the game, including Shield. You should be better at buffs than the Fighter, but your proposal is strictly better than the level 16 Interposing Shield power, and you can easily get it at 1st level.

Needs re-write:

Pelor's Radiance - This is a sad excuse for an upgrade of Turn Undead. Maybe it could be sufficiently different if it was a ranged power sort of like a Force Orb that worked against undead.

I'm not totally against it simply because it replaces the moderately-useful Immobilize with the awesome Stun. But yeah, this seems like more of a bone thrown to the Paladin who wants to be able to turn undead and not so much intended as a Cleric power. It's too bad; I kind of liked the one from the playtest that let the user deal extra radiant damage as a free action against one target they just dealt radiant damage to.

Sehanine's Reversal - I don't even know if this one can be fixed. I'd just write up a new feat like Sehanine's Luck, +2 to a saving throw, or some such.

Now here we agree. It's just too rare to roll a 20 on a save. I'd probably make it just work whenever you save against a condition; at least that's likely to come up every couple of battles. (A lot of condition effects are one round rather than save-ends, which means you can't even use this power with them... and you may well have conditions that don't even work on the current enemies, like ongoing fire versus fire creatures, or poison versus undead.)

Something that works when you roll a crit probably shows up once per 2-3 battles (once per 20 attack rolls), which isn't awful if it's a daily, but is kind of lame for an encounter power. Assuming you spend half your turns under a save-ends effect, something that works when you roll 20 on a save comes up like once per 4 battles, which awful for an encounter power -- and that's me being generous with the rounds-under-a-condition, which is probably going to be much less than 5 rounds per battle.

Mengu · Jul 7, 2008

Keenath said:
That said -- I could totally see it granting Resist 5 against that one attack in addition to negating the crit. -5 damage is a lot more reasonable than half.

I kind of like this approach too actually.

Keenath said:
Um... why? The power seems fine to me. It's a shift that also shifts a friend. It doesn't seem unbalanced to me...

IMO, it's a little weak compared to many other feats which give flat out bonuses to things. To make it more useful in the intended fashion (for protecting someone), I though it should be a reactive power.

Keenath said:
Why? What do you have against a free move action?

Nothing really, I like this power as is, I was just trying to make it more appealing. I could just as easily move this to the no change list.

Keenath said:
Ahh... NO. That makes it better than virtually any other enounter-based defensive power in the game, including Shield. You should be better at buffs than the Fighter, but your proposal is strictly better than the level 16 Interposing Shield power, and you can easily get it at 1st level.

Except it's only against Will saves, but the +5 does seem a bit much for a reactive power. However, without making it an interrupt, I really don't see how often you are going to guess something might attack your will defense with their next action, so you know to use this power. It seems like extremely limited use, compared to most other encounter powers.

Keenath said:
It's too bad; I kind of liked the one from the playtest that let the user deal extra radiant damage as a free action against one target they just dealt radiant damage to.

That sounds interesting, and more useful against all targets instead of just undead.

Keenath said:
I'd probably make it just work whenever you save against a condition; at least that's likely to come up every couple of battles.

I considered that option, but thought it might come up a bit too often, compared to some of the milder feats. And some conditions like Dominated, can be rather potent.

Cadfan · Jul 7, 2008

What about making Sehanine's Reversal work whenever any ally within 5 rolls a natural 20 on a save? Its still unlikely, but some conditions are incredibly powerful. And its much, much more likely than the cleric alone getting a 20.

Keenath · Jul 7, 2008

Mengu said:
IMO, it's a little weak compared to many other feats which give flat out bonuses to things. To make it more useful in the intended fashion (for protecting someone), I though it should be a reactive power.

Well, my point of view would be that this is supposed to be used when somebody drops or is at very low HP, so you can use the power to take their place, getting them out of danger while simultaneously taking a guard position. You could also be more clever by pushing a friend into a flanking position or some such thing.

It's situational, to be sure, but I don't really think it's situational enough to mess with. Nice for a cleric who wants a little more warlord-style tactical control. I always figure a situational encounter power should be useful in at least every other combat, and Channel powers actually get a little bit of a pass if they're not quite that good because you can always Turn or something instead.

What would you think about increasing the range from adjacent to, say, two or three squares?

Except it's only against Will saves, but the +5 does seem a bit much for a reactive power. However, without making it an interrupt, I really don't see how often you are going to guess something might attack your will defense with their next action, so you know to use this power. It seems like extremely limited use, compared to most other encounter powers.

That's a good point, I suppose; it does seem odd to give a bonus specifically to will when that means you'd almost need metagame knowledge to reliably use it. I mean, yeah, okay, it's obvious to use it when you're up against a mind flayer or a green dragon, but a kobold cleric? A gnoll huntmaster? You'd either need to remember what the MM says (metagaming), get hit by the will attack and then defend against it for next time (annoying), or go off a suspicion that a particular enemy might have will-targetting powers (also metagamey).

What would you think about making it immediate but reducing the bonus to +2 or +3?

That sounds interesting, and more useful against all targets instead of just undead.

Yeah. Um.... "Power of Amaunator", I think it was called. He's a FR sun god, so that feat will probably show up in the upcoming FR player's guide. I feel no shame whatsoever for yoinking it and giving it to Pelor.

I considered that option, but thought it might come up a bit too often, compared to some of the milder feats. And some conditions like Dominated, can be rather potent.

Well, Reversal is going to have a widely variable effect based on what sort of status effect you're under. Allowing you to use it any time you throw off a condition at least lets the player have a modicum of control over when he gets to use it. Rolling a 20 is so rare that you'd be well served to use the power at every opportunity, and then you're just at the dice god's whim as far as what condition you happened be be under when it happened. It could be Dominate just as easily as Slow.

Still, though, Dominate isn't THAT much better than Stun since you're automatically dazed while you're Dominated, and what with the Elite/Solo save bonuses, most of them aren't going to be under the effect for long anyway.

James McMurray · Jul 7, 2008

Mengu said:
Pelor's Radiance - This is a sad excuse for an upgrade of Turn Undead. Maybe it could be sufficiently different if it was a ranged power sort of like a Force Orb that worked against undead.

I thought this at first, too. But after seeing it in action in our paragon level campaign, Pelor's Radiance is sweet. You do quite a bit more damage, and stunning them instead of just immobilizing them means that artillery and other undead capable of ranged attacks can't use them. It also gives the party +2 to hit and the rogue a bunch of extra damage. The only times when turning has been better for our party is if I've already hit the undead with a Blood Pulse and the push will deal and extra (5+)d6 + x damage (x being how much I took from Bolstering Blood).

The range on it is pretty weak, especially when it's just Burst 1, but other than that it's a pretty beefy undead slayer.

Terwox · Jul 7, 2008

For Sehahine's Reversal, you could have this function if the cleric rolls between a 16-20 on their save.

Or any other arbitrary number that seems appropriate. Condition reflection is rather great, especially when most conditions will be reflected at controller monsters... who are exactly the people you want conditions on most of the time.

At the very least, this should function on a 19 or a 20 to be passable.

Mengu · Jul 7, 2008

Keenath said:
What would you think about increasing the range from adjacent to, say, two or three squares?

That may be a bit odd if there are intervening models.

Keenath said:
What would you think about making it immediate but reducing the bonus to +2 or +3?

+2 may make people wrinkle their nose at it still. I think a +3 would be reasonable.

Keenath said:
Yeah. Um.... "Power of Amaunator", I think it was called. He's a FR sun god, so that feat will probably show up in the upcoming FR player's guide. I feel no shame whatsoever for yoinking it and giving it to Pelor.

I'll have to wait and see that one, but it sounds like a good plan.