Sick of Channel Divinity

I've never found much use for extra Channel Divinity feats. There are some nice powers amongst them but invariably I feel like it's a waste of a feat given that you can only use one CD an encounter.

I can see in some circumstances that having this extra option in combat can be useful, but on the whole, I find the entire mechanic a bit ill-conceived. Sacrificing Divine Guidance or Divine Mettle or Divine Strength or Healer's Mercy for some other power just isn't that enticing.

About the only class I can see it being useful for is the Invoker because their CD's already suck.

And yet we are inundated with CD options. I swear almost every single Dragon article has at least one CD feat in it. ENOUGH ALREADY!

It's got to be the most used and abused mechanic by the designers that has ever existed, even pre 4e. Am I wrong? Am I delusional? Have I succumb to some sort of fever dream where I'm imagining the world being flooded with CD feats?

Or are you over it as well?

I think your feelings on it are a little strong, but I can see where you are coming from.

Here is the thing - the original idea behind it was fantastic. Rather than have Turn Undead as its own feature, it would be part of a set of options, so that if you weren't fighting undead, you would have something useful to do with that feature. Adding more options to that list via feats was not a bad plan.

The problem was that too many generically useful default options came along. Why pick up a new option if you knew you could make good use of Divine Strength every fight? Healer's Mercy is the really horrendous mistake WotC made, given how powerful it is, as a replacement for the situational Turn Undead. The entire point was that you shouldn't need to swap out Turn Undead, since that was the very reason Channel Divinity was designed the way it was!

I don't think it is as hopeless a situation as you feel - many builds will make good use of more options, and many channel divinity options add new capabilities that are interesting without being overpowered. The problem is definitely that in order to compete over the default options, the CD feats need to be really strong - and if any get too strong (Righteous Wrath of Tempus), they suddenly force optimizers to worship that god to get access.

I think the original idea was a great one, but the implementation poor. I still like seeing new ones since they can help make a specific deity distinct, but they really have a very tricky line to walk for balance with this area, even more so than most other elements in 4E. Make it weaker than the default options, and it is never worth taking. Make it too strong, and it suddenly is overriding roleplaying choices by steering optimizers towards one deity. That's not a good situation any way you look at it.

All that said, the approach they took in this article - a slightly more powerful CD feat only available at Paragon - is not a bad one. And I very much like the design of it - it is strongest in certain situations (when dealing with immobilized/restrained/etc), but also has a generic boost that can always be handy (speed bonus). If more Channel Divinity options were designed like that - generic bonus that can always be used, plus a more significant effect for specific conditions - I think the system would be a lot less problematic than it is now.

I guess it would be better if Channel Divinity grants granted actually stronger powers than the base power. After all, you pay with a feat. It's basically the same as with multiclass power swap feats - except that you don't get the "kicker" feat that gives skill training + something else.

I agree, most of the Channel Divinity are too weak. They're especially weak for clerics and slightly less so for other divine classes. They'd definitely need some kind of 'kicker' to be worth considering. The domain feats work a lot better.

I tend to agree.

Channel Divinity options should be highly situation, and very powerful. That way you gain something of worth from adding more Channel Divinity choices, but you don't feel like you're losing something of equal worth in the process.

Cadfan said:

Channel Divinity options should be highly situation[al], and very powerful.

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Aren't they already, though?

Turn Undead and Rebuke Undead are very strong against their targets.

Divine Mettle is oustanding at what it does (and it's a minor!).

Divine Guidance lets everyone be an Avenger once per encounter.

There are a few duds in the Paragon Paths, but the base options seem pretty good to me.

Some are a start. Any Channel Divinity that kills undead is great. But far too many are way too general.

The key is that they must be either strong and situational, or general but weak. Divine Guidance is an example of one that isn't great design. Because its both powerful and generally useful, you have a problem choosing Channel Divinity feats. Anytime you use whatever power you pick up with a feat, you can't use Divine Guidance that encounter. So whatever you pick needs to be even more powerful than Divine Guidance. And unfortunately if its both more powerful and non-situational, then you'll probably never use Divine Guidance again. Which sort of defeats the point.

That's why these things should be powerful, and situational. The powerful aspect makes it worth spending a feat. The situational aspect means that they won't trade off with each other as much, making it more worthwhile to have more than the number you began with.

I'd rather they just offered us a bunch of channel divinity powers of varying level, and allowed characters/dms to customize.

You know, deities of a certain type give you the choice of these 4, this type another 4....feats would be for adding the more powerful choices.

Like, when we used to have divine characters that were themed by deity...

Joshua Randall said:

Divine Guidance lets everyone be an Avenger once per encounter.

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My understanding of the power, as read, is that if you are not already an Avenger it wouldn't work, as the Trigger requires an ally to attack your Oath of Enmity target...

Since only an Avenger has the Oath power, the power wouldn't ever be triggered by another divine class.

Unless there is some errata I am unaware of I will assume the CB is up to date.

I saw this as I was trying to find a Channel Divinity power for my Invokers Versatile Channeler feat... needless to say after perusing the options I chose a different feat.

Healer's Mercy was nice, but I wanted something a bit more controller-y.

So yes, I agree that the Ch Div powers are a bit lacking...I would prefer them to be as situationally powerful as Rebuke Undead, rather than situationally bleh OR always powerful.

Possible fixes:
1) No feat cost for the first one. Each Divine caster gets one bonus feat that can only be used for a CD feat tied to their deity.

2) semi-reliable. If you miss (all targets) with a CD power, you may use another CD power in this encounter. You may not use the same power you missed with. (Won't work for utility/ non-attack type CDs). This would encourage having more than one CD, especially if you are a bad roller and your CDs are single target.