I was wonder how exactly channeling works. I know you use it when you want to cast a spell to increase the likelihood of that spell succeeding, but by how much?
I've read somewhere that (let's take Occultism for an example) you can add command points up to the command of the caster to increase the likelihood of success.
Yet at another place (at the Occult Powers X ability entry), there's a table for channeling benefits.
How does it work? When I have a command 4 occultist who uses all of his command to channel, will he then gain +4 on the casting roll, or +0? Or is it even 5 (4 command plus the enhancement of 1)?
Similarly, if the spell still fails anyway, will he then lose all 4 command , or only 1 (because that's the enhancement bonus)?
The idea I got is that channeling is useful for lower level casters to still get a shot at pulling off spells, but it seems a bit hard for a lv1 biest caster to have both a good will and command, for example. Hence the question.
Your example would be you use your will power, for arguments sake lets say its a 2, then you add the the +1 using the occult powers table (command 4= +1) then you will get an additional subtraction for each unit with at least Occult 1 that is given an action to help power the the strength of the spell. So: Willpower 2 + Command Channel 1 - X for each Occultist given an action= 3 or less before the roll. The only place I can find where you would lose characteristics is when you channel the "arcane" which is wizardry and sorcery. Shamanism, Occult, and Innate powers seem to be fine. Occult requires at least a class 2 to be a caster. I would recommend, if you want low level casters, to take Shamanism instead. It's channel is based off terrain and you get to take a trait from whatever sphere you got in addition so your class 1's can essentially have 2 traits. Occult seems to work better if you are class 3 or higher and actually have cultists with you. My first spell I ever cast my Biest Occultist wizard had a willpower 4, Command 5 (so +2) and I rolled a 6....dead wizard. I'll need to add some cultists in with him to make his spells nice and mighty. Another neat way to make use of low level spell slingers is to take spells that are "imbued" because that requires no casting to use the spell (its basically an upgrade).