Firstly Roman, I would like to say that if I have come off as accusing you of not liking the Channel Energy ability, that was not my intent. Aside from frequently stating your enjoyment of it compared to previous mechanics, I doubt that you would spend this much time discussing this single class feature, and a desire to improve it otherwise.
Roman said:
Volaran, I have used the channel energy mechanic for some time before the above-mentioned side-quest and now also after the side-quest. When the party is not fighting undead, I find the current incarnation of Channel Energy to be just fine. When it comes to fighting undead alone, though, it is almost impossible to make a reasonable challenge for the PCs. A mixed group of undead and living enemies is somewhere in-between, depending on the mix.
Regarding the three NPC paladins: They were indeed a boost, but not as much as normal party members of the same type would have been and were sub-optimally played to keep the spotlight on the PCs. Furthermore, they were not there at all during the first part of the playtest [at which point, incidently, the party was still only at level 8] and only came in for the finale (since the PCs sought them out...). In the final fight, for example, they only fought some of the four minion mummies and fought them mostly using normal attacks (and were without magical gear and had 'not great' stats and so on), so that the PCs could fight the main villains (and ultimately it was mainly the PCs who killed even the minion mummies).
With respect to your question about the resources of the party, the party is somewhat underequiped for its level (and the NPC Paladins were even more so [for example, they used no magical gear whatsoever) and was even more underequiped during the playtest (the stuff found in the vault after King Ochran's chamber ameliorated their equipment shortages).
Some of the magical stuff they had was 'broken' and not repaired during the previous adventure, so between them the party members had only two functioning magical weapons (+1 and +2, respectively) and two functioning suits of magical armor (leather and chainmail [+2 and +1 respectively] as well as some other magical items, which were not, however, useful in combat). Their more interesting magical weapons and armors were non-functional during the adventure and were repaired only afterwards. They also had some healing potions, a bunch of other potion and also some scrolls, but they did not use any of them - I guess there was no need.
Since I didn't mention it before...that sounds like a pretty beefy side-quest. Hopefully the party enjoyed the effort you put into it. Even sub-optimally equipped, I can see the three paladins having potentially impressive effects in any combats they were involved in with these undead. You have mentioned that the paladins served more to bolster the PC's efforts, rather than take the spotlight away, and used mostly normal attacks, so I can see that this was mostly for flavour rather than a significant force.
On that subject, the Channel Energy feature seems more attractive for a paladin now. Rarely in 3.0 or 3.5 did I see a paladin use a turning attempt, jumping more into melee even after expending smites in preference to using Turning. In Pathfinder, even with the lower amount of Channeling attempts when compared with the cleric, a paladin will still be likely to have a high charisma, since many of their abilities feature it. They even use charisma for spellcasting. I think turning is a much more viable ability for the paladin class now, particularly in situations of being swarmed by undead. Their save DCs may be lower than a cleric of equivalent level, but whether or not they cause the undead to flee, area-effect damage is area-effect damage.
Since your game is currently a 3.5 hybrid with some Pathfinder rules, I don't know if all of this showed through for the protest, but given that even equipment-light paladins at this level could have given a significant Channeling boost in those fights, I assume they probably used most of their attempts (if at all) outside combat for healing purposes. Nothing wrong with that, and I would certainly agree that it makes the playtest results more viable to me than my initial impression.
Roman said:
As to the party composition, yes, the party is clearly well-prepared to fight undead. This, however, is pretty much exclusively due to the Cleric, as can be seen from the feat selection (the purpose of which was to enhance healing, with fighting the undead only an afterthought for the Cleric), with some credit going also to the Paladin. The overwhelming advantage of the party was the Channel Positive Energy ability, which ensured that the party devastated their undead opponents and escaped most fights unscathed or with minor injuries. Even the final battle resulted with the party leaving either with minor or moderate injuries hit point-wise, though two party members had mummy rot, abd many or all (I no longer remember precisely) suffered constitution damage from spells (as did the NPC paladins) and they did expend a lot of other resources (spells and channel positive energy uses). As to the power-level of the encounter, bear in mind that Ochran's soul alone was CR 17+, Ochran's body was CR 15+ and the four advisor mummies were CR 5 each (they fully occupied the NPC paladins, and even then, the PCs had to fight some of them), plus there were the environmental effects...
In regards to feat selection, I do feel the need to point out that the Quicken Turning feat was not SRD and has yet to have an equivalent version appear in the Pathfinder Alpha releases. The Turning ability in 3.5 was quite a bit weaker, which made feats like Quicken Turning ("Hey, my cleric can burn a turning attempt every round in case it works AND do something useful!") or the various Divine feats ("Wow! I can use turning attempts to bolster my magic, or attacks, or defense, or other feats instead of uselessly turning!") quite attractive. Metamagic feats have not yet changed for Pathfinder, and even as a finite resource, I would have trouble allowing an arcane caster to fireball every single round as well as cast another spell with no increase in cost other than "my spells get used up faster". In Pathfinder, Quicken Turning taken as is basically lets your cleric potentially heal the party, do area-effect damage, cause certain types of enemies to flee _and_ take a normal action. Of course, the fastest way I could think of to have the player request to have Quicken Turning removed would be a negative-energy-channeling cleric with a parallel build as a party antagonist. Granted, Pathfinder bills itself as mostly compatible with the 3.5 rules, but these are the decisions every DM is going to need to make when allowing feats, spells, etc. from older sources.
Were I to allow a version of the Quicken Turning feat for energy channeling, I would want to mitigate it in some way, Taking a queue from the Quicken Spell feat, where a spellcaster is going to have a quick effect, or a big bang, but not both, a potential Quicken Channeling feat could have a similar factor. Since Quicken Spell and Quicken Turning both have no prerequisites, we can look to Quicken Spell for other differences. Although a caster can take the feat very early on, since it costs an additional 4 levels, it doesn't become very useful until you can cast 5th level spells (barring a few specific powergaming combinations). Let's say our potential Quicken Channeling feat looked something like this:
Quicken Channeling
You can channel energy with a moment’s thought.
Prerequisite: Ability to channel positive or negative energy.
Benefit: You can turn or rebuke undead as a swift action. Your channeling damage and healing are reduced by 4d6 to a minimum of 1d6. You may still only Channel Energy once per round.
This would still allow the benefit of a quick burst of healing or damage to undead in addition to whatever else the cleric was doing, but at levels 3 or higher it forces a choice, since there would still be a legitimate benefit to a normal Channeling use over a quickened one. Use of Channel Energy with this feat would not begin to improve until level 11, but would still be useful for a quick bust of healing to keep that below-0hp ally from death's door while you are otherwise engaged, and you would still have a normal chance to cause undead to flee or fall under your command.
Edit: As I look at it again, even reducing healing/damage by 3d6 to allow Quicken Channeling to improve by 9th level doesn't strike me as too unreasonable.
Roman said:
The Channel Energy mechanic comes from and replaces the Turn Undead mechanic, which affected exclusively the Undead. As a replacement for Turn Undead, it is useful to playtest it against the same enemies that Turn Undead would have been used against: Undead. Yes, it now has additional uses as a form of healing in all types of combat and out of combat too, but these make it even more powerful than the original ability by extending its reach (although I did not find it to be overpowered in those situations - just some extra healing that PCs tend to use mostly out of combat). Nevertheless, since these extra uses of the ability are in addition to the original purpose of Turning Undead. Think of it this way - imagine if the old Turning Undead essentially became an "I win" ability. Just because it would be an "I win" ability only against the undead, we shouldn't say it would be overpowered? Of course, we should... and if it gained other uses in situations without the undead (such as healing out of combat) than that would not change its overpowered status.
This is certainly fair enough, and as the cleric in one of my own groups playtesting Pathfinder (I DM the other), it simply has not been my experience. My own uses of the curing function have also primarily been used in situations out of combat, though it has proven very useful to keeping party members alive and fighting, even when I have to make the hard decision to heal some foes as well. Our encounters with undead have intermittent and generally against more non-standard types. Even given this, since turn undead is an area-effect ability that allows a saving throw for half-damage, I have not found it more overpowering in an individual encounter with even groups of only undead than a fireball would be. However, our encounters with undead have also tended to be in fairly open areas, so even given situations where I have burned all eight of my Channeling uses in a single combat, I have rarely been able to affect our entire attacking group in a single round.
By the same token, I would imagine that a group attacking a negative-channeling cleric, even one not accompanied by undead, would not be as quick to use the standard D&D group dog-piling method of dealing with him. Particularly if he were encountered by appropriate minions. Consider how that final encounter would have gone if you have given King Ochran's Mummy and Specter cleric levels rather than sorceror. Two powerful undead capable of harming large swaths of the party while healing their minions every round...
I'm not convinced that the new channeling rules are an "I Win" ability in situations with the undead, but I am very sure that it requires a DM adjust their tactics. That said, at least if you are a frost giant tribe being menaced by fire-wielding sorcerors, you have other options to defend yourself other than hoping for decent saving throw rolls. Aside from a decent saving throw, there is no way to prepare for or defend against positive or negative energy damage. I do think that lack of a defense or counter is a flaw, and I have mentioned my solution to that earlier in the thread. In 3.5, where positive or negative energy hit point damage only really came in the form of cure/inflict or heal/harm spells, there was not as great a need to consider it in particular for a defense. Now, I'm more inclined to treat it along with the elemental energy types as something that Resist Energy or Protection from Energy applies to. I have suggested as much in the appropriate section of the Paizo boards.
Roman said:
Now it may seem that I dislike the Channel Energy ability. Nothing could be further from the truth. I would far prefer to keep even the current incarnation of Channel Positive/Negative Energy (and even against the undead) than to go back to the old mechanic, which was needlessly complicated and idiosyncratic and rarely if ever used and generally bad. I just think that the power of the Channel Positive/Negative Energy ability ought to be turned down somewhat. Cure ... Wounds spells provide a good baseline to look at. Consider that the Channel Positive/Negative Energy ability of a first level cleric is similar to the Mass Cure/Inflict Light Wounds spell, which is normally a 5th level spell that clerics gets at level 9. Now, he essentially gets a very similar ability fully 8 levels lower. I feel this is something to ponder. I love how Channel Energy works, but the damage/healing it does needs to be toned down to level-appropriate degrees so that balance is preserved.
I would have to disagree with this. Channeling is entirely decided by the luck of the dice, whereas the mass cure/inflict spells have that nice per-level modifier tacked on. As someone whose cleric has made some seriously poor rolls lately, and also plays in a non-Pathfinder campaign that includes a high level cleric, this distinction seems very clear to me. Mass Cure Light wounds also has a greater base range than Channeling, has a scaling range, and can be precision targeted without using a precious feat-slot for Selective Channeling.
I think that covers everything. I typed this out off and on over a few hours in between doing other things, so I hope I didn't miss anything important.
