Why all the hate for Turn Undead?

[triqui]

Why does the god of the sun or the moon care about healing?

Because they care about their followers being alive?

For the same reasons, one could think all gods care about their clerics being able to survive a fight, or being prepared to defeat the religion's enemies. So all the gods might give their followers a serie of spells that are combat focused: Flame Strike, for example. The cleric of Roads and Merchants give it to their clerics, so the clerics can smite bandits with them, while Corellon Larethian give it to their clerics so they can defeat Gruumsh's followers. And Heronious and Hextor give it to their followers for opposite reasons.

Hey, even those clerics can use that Flame Strike to blast away the abomination that a vampire is!.

However, each god might also give their clerics some *special* powers or spells which are focused in things that *do matter* the god's portfolio. Elhona might give their followers a Control Weather spell, while Pelor gives them Turn Undead.

 

[Rhenny]

I don't even understand what it the real purpose of Channel Divinity at the moment.

In the previous iteration it seemed that it was meant as a generalization of Turn Undead, in fact it allowed (a) turn undead and (b) healing allies, and it was a few times per day, which is a good extension to your other magic powers (spells at 1st level were less per day than channeling).

But now it only allows (b) and it's only 1/day IIRC... What does it add to the game? Nearly nothing, it's almost redundant. Because of this, I am quite sure that channel divinity is far from its final form... it will certainly be revised and expanded later on.

Making it domain-dependent sounds like a good idea to me, it helps once more differentiating clerics of different deities. However it could be deity-based instead (if deities are supposed to have more than 1 domain for the cleric to choose from), so that all clerics of a deity have always at least something in common.

Good idea. The name "Channel Divinity" suggests that the power comes directly from your god. It would be better if these were the powers that changed depending on domain rather than changing spells. I could see different Channel Divinity powers manifesting as the cleric gains in level. The choice of which one to use would add to the strategy and the power of the PC.

 

[Shadeydm]

Because they care about their followers being alive?

For the same reasons, one could think all gods care about their clerics being able to survive a fight, or being prepared to defeat the religion's enemies. So all the gods might give their followers a serie of spells that are combat focused: Flame Strike, for example. The cleric of Roads and Merchants give it to their clerics, so the clerics can smite bandits with them, while Corellon Larethian give it to their clerics so they can defeat Gruumsh's followers. And Heronious and Hextor give it to their followers for opposite reasons.

Hey, even those clerics can use that Flame Strike to blast away the abomination that a vampire is!.

However, each god might also give their clerics some *special* powers or spells which are focused in things that *do matter* the god's portfolio. Elhona might give their followers a Control Weather spell, while Pelor gives them Turn Undead.

It feels like you are applying the logic about what the god does or doesn't allow very selectively for a utility like turning undead but giving a free pass for healing for example. If the goddess of fire is so controlling about what she does or doesn't grant, like no turning undead because its not important to her why is she granting cure light wounds or create water or windwalk etc etc. If you accept that cure light wounds isn't really coming from the god but just a manipulation of the power of faith itself then you can go there for turn undead too.

 

[triqui]

It feels like you are applying the logic about what the god does or doesn't allow very selectively for a utility like turning undead but giving a free pass for healing for example. If the goddess of fire is so controlling about what she does or doesn't grant, like no turning undead because its not important to her why is she granting cure light wounds or create water or windwalk etc etc. If you accept that cure light wounds isn't really coming from the god but just a manipulation of the power of faith itself then you can go there for turn undead too.

It feels it's you who is applying the logic very selectively. If it's the power of faith itself wht turn the undead, why not the power of the faith itself turn demons? Or Rakshashas? Or Basilisks?

The god of fire isn't controlling. He gives his follower *broad* spells to make them survive, as he *wants* his clerics to survive and his enemies to die. So he gives them "divine power" and "spiritual weapon" and what not. What he is not involved, though, is in giving them a specialty power that works against a very narrow subset of possible enemies. He *does* care about his cleric being in danger. He doesn't care *more* about the danger being a vampire than a golem or chimera, though. *IF* he would give his follower a very narrow specialty weapon which is laser-focused against a certain subset of enemies, it would be against water elementals or cold creatures, not against zombies and ghouls. Zombies and ghouls are regular enemies for him, no different from orcs and werewolves. His follower can use "blade Barrier" and "spiritual weapon" fine enough against them.

 

[The Shadow]

ShadeyDM raises an interesting point. If one thinks of Turn Undead as more of a vulnerability of undead to divine power than an actual granted ability, then it could make sense for all deities. It could even make sense as a Channel Divinity rather than a spell.

One gets the idea of undead being 'accursed by the gods' or something. But in that case, why do evil clerics command them instead of turning them?

(Of course, that raises the whole can of worms of 'evil gods' in the first place. While not wholly unknown in real-life myth, they are much less common than in D&D. When you do get something like a 'god of murder', most often you find it's a cult worshipping an aspect of a more palatable deity.)

If one thinks of gods as upholding the natural order, then undead could be seen as offensive to all of them. And if fiends - especially devils - really are rebels against the gods, even evil gods might not want anything to do with them. Or at most, to use them as tools.

EDIT: Thinking about this some more, I think even granted the above it's enough for the Turn Undead spell to be available to all clerics.

 

[Shadeydm]

It feels it's you who is applying the logic very selectively. If it's the power of faith itself wht turn the undead, why not the power of the faith itself turn demons? Or Rakshashas? Or Basilisks?

The god of fire isn't controlling. He gives his follower *broad* spells to make them survive, as he *wants* his clerics to survive and his enemies to die. So he gives them "divine power" and "spiritual weapon" and what not. What he is not involved, though, is in giving them a specialty power that works against a very narrow subset of possible enemies. He *does* care about his cleric being in danger. He doesn't care *more* about the danger being a vampire than a golem or chimera, though. *IF* he would give his follower a very narrow specialty weapon which is laser-focused against a certain subset of enemies, it would be against water elementals or cold creatures, not against zombies and ghouls. Zombies and ghouls are regular enemies for him, no different from orcs and werewolves. His follower can use "blade Barrier" and "spiritual weapon" fine enough against them.

One might think that Nerull would not really worry about providing healing spells to his followers or the god of assasins either for that matter. I guess at this point its obvious we can nitpick each others position on this to death but whats the point in continuing down that path? You have a problem with turn undead thats cool I view it as more of a manifestation of the power of faith regardless of whom the faith is in so i am not bothered by the specifics of which god you have faith in when you decide to try and turn undead.

 

[triqui]

One might think that Nerull would not really worry about providing healing spells to his followers or the god of assasins either for that matter. I guess at this point its obvious we can nitpick each others position on this to death but whats the point in continuing down that path? You have a problem with turn undead thats cool I view it as more of a manifestation of the power of faith regardless of whom the faith is in so i am not bothered by the specifics of which god you have faith in when you decide to try and turn undead.

One might think that Nerull doesn't want his cleric to be healing people all around, but he *does* worry about his mighty pope of the Nerull religion, who is his pawn and is going to fulfill his will in the earth, can heal *himself* so he can survive and, well, actully fulfill his will in the earth.

I understand your position about it being a manifestation of the power of faith. I just can't understand why such manifestation of the power of faith can turn zombies, but not demons. Or elementals. Or dragons. Which are also enemies of the faith, in some cases even more (chromatic dragons for a Bahamut's cleric or water elemental's for the Lord of Fire) If you are going to make it generic to all clerics, then I'll like much more the 4e style: it's a radiant burst that do damage to all the enemies of the cleric's faith (including elementals, demons, dragons, and orcs). It happens to be radiant, so the creatures naturally vulnerable to radiant (holy) damage, such as undead (but also some demons) get extra damage, or become tangible, become powerless, or are scared, depending on the creature.

 

[Shadeydm]

One might think that Nerull doesn't want his cleric to be healing people all around, but he *does* worry about his mighty pope of the Nerull religion, who is his pawn and is going to fulfill his will in the earth, can heal *himself* so he can survive and, well, actully fulfill his will in the earth.

I understand your position about it being a manifestation of the power of faith. I just can't understand why such manifestation of the power of faith can turn zombies, but not demons. Or elementals. Or dragons. Which are also enemies of the faith, in some cases even more (chromatic dragons for a Bahamut's cleric or water elemental's for the Lord of Fire) If you are going to make it generic to all clerics, then I'll like much more the 4e style: it's a radiant burst that do damage to all the enemies of the cleric's faith (including elementals, demons, dragons, and orcs). It happens to be radiant, so the creatures naturally vulnerable to radiant (holy) damage, such as undead (but also some demons) get extra damage, or become tangible, become powerless, or are scared, depending on the creature.

I believe some editions did support the ability to turn stuff above and beyond undead like demons and devils for example and that doesn't bother me either.

 

[The Shadow]

I believe some editions did support the ability to turn stuff above and beyond undead like demons and devils for example and that doesn't bother me either.

You are correct. 1e and 2e allowed high level clerics to turn fiends.

And both 2e and 3e allowed clerics of certain domains to turn and command things other than undead. But they all had turn (or command) undead.

 

[triqui]

I believe some editions did support the ability to turn stuff above and beyond undead like demons and devils for example and that doesn't bother me either.

AFAIK, 2e did for paladins (and I house ruled it for clerics too). I think Dark Sun priests (who are elemental-based) were able to turn elementals of the opposite element, and rebuke his own element too.

Imho, it makes much more sense than turning undeads, even for good-aligned "judeo-christian like" general clerics with no deity specialty that populated the original D&D. Exorcism of demons make more sense than turning undeads, tradition wise, and demons seem to be a broader "this guys irk me a lot" in D&D than zombies and skeletons. Demons want to destroy the world, both the seas of Poseidon and the woods of Elhonna. Vampires are traditionally turned away, but not only by faith, sometimes they are turned by crosses, garlic, sun, fire, mirrors... they are a bunch of scary people. It's something related to the *creature*, not the priest. Now they even sparkle, so they are even pussier . However, other undeads aren't scared or turned away in traditional stories -zombies , for example-. Turn undead isn't a common trope out of european judeo-christian tradition, either. It's not common to see "Van Helsing-like" stuff in mythology about undeads in Japan, or China, or India, or the Aztechs.