[3.75] Fixing things: turning

[brehobit]

OK,
There are a bunch of rules that people think are needlessly complex or otherwise in need of change. So let's assume a 3.75 rule-set which fixes those. What changes should be made?

(I think this belongs in rules rather than house rules, but if the mods disagree, I understand.)

I've thought about turning for a bit, and I don't see any nice solutions. I think that turning should:
* Kill off relatively weak undead
* Keep at bay stronger undead
* Should have little, if any, chance of killing undead who generally have a CR at or over the cleric's level. (So powerful undead shouldn't die to a single attack).
* Have a fairly clean mechanic.

The old 1st edition turning rules did a nice job with this. One big table of craziness, one shot per encounter, but it really did seem to work nicely. Really weak undead died (sometimes in mass quantities), but powerful undead were very hard to turn at all (but you generally had a chance!). Demons and Devils hit the high end of what you could turn (which I liked).

3rd edition I don't mind so much, but people seem to want a cleaner mechanic. I've tried to come up with a few solutions, but any 'd20' based thing (without a table) hasn't worked for me.

I've gotten to something like

Undead makes a will save vs. cleric level+CHR+10. Failure means turned, and can turn up to your level+CHR*2 HD at once. Undead with HD less than half your level are destroyed.​

I don't like it, because the undead are doing the rolling, rather than the PC and the number of HD feals like it should be somewhat random. Plus, on a good roll, a skeliton will ignore a 12th level cleric. At at high levels, even powerful undead will likely fail the roll. Finally, a 12 HD zombie is more powerful here than a vampire. CR is one option, but I _hate_ mechanics that use CR.

Thoughts?

Mark

 

[Infiniti2000]

The main problem with turning at all, using any mechanic in any edition, is causing the undead to flee. Unless the undead is much stronger, most Good adventurers will want to destroy the undead, not make it run away and uncatchable. It basically makes turning detrimental to the heroes' goals. So, any turning mechanic that simulates that will always have a certain amount of suckage. Yeah, it's called "turn"-ing, but the name is irrelevant.

 

[brehobit]

The main problem with turning at all, using any mechanic in any edition, is causing the undead to flee. Unless the undead is much stronger, most Good adventurers will want to destroy the undead, not make it run away and uncatchable. It basically makes turning detrimental to the heroes' goals. So, any turning mechanic that simulates that will always have a certain amount of suckage. Yeah, it's called "turn"-ing, but the name is irrelevant.

I think that "keeping them at bay" might be handy and still be "turning". Plus getting rid of _some_ of the baddies is often good...

Mark

 

[starwed]

Maybe turning undead should rely on a skill check, either knowledge (religion) or a special "turn undead" skill. Probably the latter, since you'd want it to be a Cha based skill.

Against weak undead, you could allow clerics to take 10 on the check, thus making it pretty automatic.

 

[bestone]

I dont like the turning undead causing them to "flee" either, since when do skeletons smart enough to know they are scared of something and run away?

I (imho) just dont see them doing it, i can see a clerics holy power doing such to intelligent undead, or even halting a skeleton, but i just cant see it making it turn tail and run, or even avoid the cleric

i think it'd be better for unintelligent undead to just stand there, or simply unable to take a move action towards the cleric *to avoid the positive energy?, just huddle the party around the cleric and the undead wont approach* i dunno, i think the table might be best, im very interested to see what you come up with

 

[bestone]

Maybe turning undead should rely on a skill check, either knowledge (religion) or a special "turn undead" skill. Probably the latter, since you'd want it to be a Cha based skill.

Against weak undead, you could allow clerics to take 10 on the check, thus making it pretty automatic.

Perhaps a good idea, Make turning a cleric class skill? *or like you suggest, knowledge religion could be thier turn check*.... Then perhaps give undead some sorta opposed check? hrmmm.....

 

[starwed]

After thinking about this, I realized the proper way to do Turn Undead is to give each undead a Turn DC. Currently, it's based on HD, but many undead have a Turn Resistance which makes it harder to turn them.

Simply giving each type of undead a separate Turn DC is more elegant, and eliminates the problems with basing it on HD, Will saves, or anything else not explicitly designed to reflect how hard to turn an undead should be.

Make turning a cleric class skill? *or like you suggest, knowledge religion could be thier turn check*.... Then perhaps give undead some sorta opposed check?

Since clerics are a little skill starved, it should probably just be knowledge (religion), but modified by Cha instead of Int. In the interests of simplicity I'd shy away from an opposed roll, using a static Turn DC as mentioned above.

As mentioned on one of the other turn undead threads, you'd probably want to model the thing off bardic music.

 

[frankthedm]

So, any turning mechanic that simulates that will always have a certain amount of suckage. Yeah, it's called "turn"-ing, but the name is irrelevant.

It is not irrelevant, turning represents the vampire repulsed by the Crucifix, ghosts expelled from the house by Buddhist prayer beads and others examples of The Holy casting out The Unclean. It is called turning because it turns them away.

 

[frankthedm]

I’d like a mechanic where the undead ‘choses’ to stay and take damage or flee.

Cleric rolls 1d6 per level. Undead in 30’ with HP under that amount crumble. Those with more chose to flee or suffer that as damage.

 

[Wish]

The big problem with the existing mechanic is that it's based on HD, and non-classed undead advance in hit dice at 1CR/4HD. That means that it's easy, at level 2 to turn a zombie (2HD). It's impossible, at level 12, to turn a zombie-like undead of similar relative CR, since it will have something like 40 HD. On the other hand, if you're at all good at turning, it's incredibly easy to turn a vampire, even of significantly higher CR, since it's only got about as many HD as you do. It shouldn't be easier to turn a scary, legendary monster like a vampire than a pretty pedestrian critter like a zombie.

I think the solution, unfortunately, is to just add a new mechanic. Give every undead a "turn rating" and perhaps a "destroy rating." So a standard 2 HD zombie might have a "turn rating" of 2, and a "destroy rating" of 4. You could then adjust the turn and destroy ratings to tweak how you want certain undead to play. Maybe it's easy to keep a vampire at bay, so a CR 8 vampire might have a "turn rating" of only 9, but it's very difficult to destroy outright, so it would have a "destroy rating" of 20. A CR 8 zombie, however, might have a "turn rating" of 8, and a "destroy rating" of 10.