greater turning for destroy undead

[evilbob]

Ok, so having glanced through a couple year's worth of archives...

Pretty much everyone who has dealt with this or used this variant rule has increased the turn resistance damage reduction. The most common answer was 2.5 per level, or 5 per 2 levels. Many have also increased the will save by a 1:1 ratio.

Not many people have dealt with the greater turning issue, although treating it like "empowered" (1.5x damage) was the most common solution.


I will say that increasing the turn resistance by 5/2 levels is a good idea. I was thinking of actually taking it slightly further: again, the base by which you are removing a single "level" of effectiveness of the cleric turning the undead is 1 to the save and 3.5 to the damage. I was thinking of using 3 damage (instead of 2.5) only because it's a whole number and closer to 3.5. Also, while 3 < 3.5, consistent > random, so I think it's pretty well as fair as you can get. The big drawback to any system like this is that utrn resistance doesn't = immunity like it once did; but it's much closer to reducing a cleric's effective level of turning, which seems fair.

So: turn resistance adds 1 to the save against the turn and subtracts 3 from any turning damage per level of resistance.


Greater turning is still sticky. The main issue is that it's still WAAAAAY better than normal greater turning, even if you say "only on a failed save." Multiplying the damage by 1.5 instead of 2 is a pretty decent way to go, but it also makes it less effective against low level undead and doesn't really solve the problem at high levels, either. I also thought about making it lower the DC by 2 when you use it (so fewer undead are affected) but that doesn't really help the numbers much, either. (-10% to a save that's still over 50% ...not helping enough.) Someone else suggested in an old thread to change it to all undead with HD equal to or lower than the cleric are destroyed (in addition to the normal turn damage effect), which is somewhat ok but means it's useless once you get to high levels because all undead will have more HD than you at that point. (Then again, traditional turning is also useless at that point as well.)

Hmmm...

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

evilbob... I think I need to trade HR ideas with you more often.. I tend to go with what feels right instead of the indepth analysis you are showing here

Speaking of what feels right, how about these additions/changes to the above:

combine:
1D6 damage per caster level
Greater turning adds CHR mod to the effective caster level for both damage and DC
A critical {either Nat 1 on a save or a Nat 20 on a 4eish attack roll} results in maximized damage
TR = +1 to save and +3 DR to the attack

with:
Turning attempts can only be used against a particular undead once per encounter. However, the cleric can spend a move action 'building power', before the standard action of releasing the turning energy, by expending a turn usage per day. This is an activity that draws an AoO. If not interupted, the eventual turn attempt deals a higher die of damage for each usage added to the attempt. {using the damage progression for larger creatures}

This would result in either a single daily blast of 'kill em all' power or tactical rationing when faced with a series of undead encounters.


{ooh.. nasty twist thought, what if TR removed one die from the damage pool for each point? So a nightshade simply couldn't be affected by anything less than a 5th level cleric?? Of course, that could be seriously annoying to roll a bunch of 6's and have them 'stolen' by the BBEG's TR....}

 

[Corbert]

Thats similar to my homebrew turning. Undead with turn resistance may roll that number as 6-sided dice and take the result off after applying the result of their saving throw.

 

[evilbob]

Primitive Screwhead: Thanks. I usually don't go so far into this kind of depth, but this one is really stumping me. You should see my old thread on magic points. (Long story short: spell level = points spent cannot ever work!)

The only issue I see with your tactical turning is that it would be a bit annoying to keep up with. The GM would have to track which undead had been hit and which had not, and I believe a good requirement for any house rule is to keep it as simple as possible. (Adding extra complexity just means no one is really going to use your rule.)

You did have a good train of thought on another idea for greater turning... Perhaps adding Cha to the damage somehow... Although raising the DC is probably not a good idea: the traditional greater turn didn't help you turn any better, it just made the turns more effective.


Corbert: Yes, several people use your TR = -(TR)d6 from damage idea. Personally, I think that -3 damage is just faster and easier. The more you roll, the more effort has to go into it. So we make it a static number that's pretty much functionally equivalent to 1d6.


So, another few thoughts I had about greater turning and why it's hard to adjudicate: first, because the regular damage-based turning is really already too good. It's hard to decide how to make it even better when it already blows away the old style of turning. (Which possibly means we need to just leave behind the old style and focus on "the new way.") Second, anything less than "1.5 x damage" is effectively worse than the feat you can take to do the same. This possibly means that feat is just too powerful given the new style of turning, but either way that should be addressed.

So we're stuck: it has to be better than regular turns, but it can't be much better or else it's just way too good. But it has to be at least as good as 1.5 x damage, or else the Sun domain is really getting gipped. Here's another example, still using our level 6 pimped-out-for-killing-undead cleric:
18 HD undead, 13 will save, ~150 HP. Traditional: yeah, right. Destroyer: 55% chance to do 1/3rd its HP each turn. Say we make greater turns do double damage? That's a 55% chance to do 2/3rds of this undead's HP in damage - to a creature a traditional cleric couldn't even dream about for 6 more levels. 1.5 x damage? Still 55% chance to do 50% damage. Two greater turns - using averages - will do it.


I hate to say it, but making the will save use 1/2 the cleric's level is one of the only ways to get the numbers to balance out at high levels. Ignoring the "empower turning" problem (which, honestly, my "un-optimized cleric" numbers tell me is really not even a big part of the problem since neither of them use that feat), that makes our level 6 cleric have a 15% less chance to effect anything. That makes the numbers less good at low levels, but much more fair at high levels. It also gives us more wiggle room to make greater turning really powerful. And it also means that the higher up the cleric gets in level, the less effective he's going to be overall at turning - much like traditional turning. It's not the best situation, but then again it does seem to solve most of the problems. The only other similar solution I can think of is to use 1/2 cleric's level against the undead's Fort save + Cha, but I've already done one huge chart and I think I'd like to skip the Fort save + Cha one for today.

 

[evilbob]

Two more ideas on nullifying the tremendous synergy between empower turning and greater turning:

- Make empower turning not be a multiplier. For example, you could change it to be: Add 1d6 to your turn damage rolls per 2 effective cleric levels. That's alllmost as good as 1.5 x damage, but it doesn't actually use a multiplier. Additionally, you could qualify greater turning to only double (or whatever) the turning damage from the original turn (and specifically leave out empower turning), but that's pretty complex and also hard to even explain.

- Make greater turning add a static number that isn't effected by empower turning. And make empower turning work more like empowering spells: only variable, numeric effects are affected. For example: Greater turning adds your Cha modifier to each 1d6 roll (for example, if your Cha mod is +3, each turning damage roll does 1d6 + 3 damage per cleric level).

The first one isn't bad and I kind of like it anyway; but it -is- one more change to remember that sort of doesn't help much more than this one situation.

The second one isn't really as practical because it opens itself up for abuse so easily. Our optimized cleric above could quaff a quick potion of eagle's splendor (or, quite frankly, just cast it on himself) and all of a sudden his greater turns do +45 damage. Not too shabby (and curiously close to doubling all damage anyway).

 

[evilbob]

Ack! I just realized I messed up the turning check rolls for traditional clerics above; those are fixed now.

And here's a chart showing 1/2 cleric level for saves. It uses unoptimized level 6 clerics against undead with +2 wisdom modifiers.

4 HD undead:
- Traditional has 100% chance to turn up to 3 of them (max 5)
- Destroy has 50% chance of doing 70% damage; 50% chance of 30% damage
(traditional has clear advantage in almost any situation)

6 HD:
- Traditional has 70% chance to turn up to 2 of them (max 3)
- Destroy has 45% chance of doing 50% damage; 55% chance of 25% damage
(traditional still leads, but a large number of undead evens the odds)

8 HD:
- Traditional has 40% chance to turn up to 1 of them (max 2)
- Destroy has 40% chance of doing 40% damage; 60% chance of 20% damage
(close to fair, especially against multiple opponents)

10 HD:
- Traditional has 15% chance to turn up to 1 of them (max 1)
- Destroy has 35% chance of doing 30% damage; 65% chance of 15% damage
(destroy edges ahead, thanks to a chance to do at least something)

12 HD:
- Traditional has 0% chance to turn
- Destroy has 30% chance of doing 25% damage; 70% chance of 12% damage
(much better - nearly a 1/3rd chance to do decent damage vs. 100% zero)


The problem is that against low level undead, you're much worse off - and this problem only gets worse the higher your cleric level. Granted, you can at least do -something- against very high level undead, but it's a high price to pay. Something tells me these were the numbers they were looking at when they decided to make it cleric level instead of 1/2 level...

And optimized level 6 clerics:

4 HD undead:
- Traditional has 100% chance to turn up 8 of them (max 10)
- Destroy has 75% chance of doing 100% damage; 25% chance of 80% damage
(traditional still has an edge, but it's close only because destroy does so much damage it doesn't matter if they save)

6 HD:
- Traditional has 100% chance to turn 5 of them (max 7)
- Destroy has 70% chance of doing 100% damage; 30% chance of 50% damage
(again, fairly even with destroy only close because of the high damage)

8 HD:
- Traditional has 85% chance to turn up to 4 of them (max 5)
- Destroy has 65% chance of doing 85% damage; 35% chance of 40% damage
(traditional still leads pretty easily)

10 HD:
- Traditional has 65% chance to turn up to 3 of them (max 4)
- Destroy has 60% chance of doing 70% damage; 40% chance of 30% damage
(destroy edges ahead, thanks to a pretty even chance to do at least something; multiple targets helps it take the lead)

12 HD:
- Traditional has 25% chance to turn up to 2 of them (max 3)
- Destroy has 55% chance of doing 60% damage; 45% chance of 30% damage
(destroy surges -way- ahead)

14 HD:
- Traditional has 0% chance to turn
- Destroy has 50% chance of doing 50% damage; 50% chance of 25% damage
(no comparison)


Optimizing your cleric helps fix the low-level problem with massive damage, but at high levels you're still way too powerful. And the poor unoptimized cleric is out in the cold.

 

[evilbob]

Another idea (keep throwing them out and something's bound to work, right?):

I dislike rules that introduce charts, and I also dislike the idea of tying this ability back to HD again, but I am having a hard time finding alternatives.

Destroy undead: Undead with 1/2 as many HD as the turning cleric has levels get no saving throw against the damage. Undead with twice as many HD as the turning cleric has levels take no damage on a successful save.

The good thing is that this shores up the damage against very low level undead, evening it up with traditional turning, and it keeps to the spirit of traditional's "1/2 my levels = burn" idea. It also limits the upper levels slightly, although our optimized cleric still has a greater than 50% chance to do 1/2 damage to something with 14 HD (and technically, 1/2 that on a failed save, since his effective turning level is 8). And it means some high-level turns do nothing, which moves away from the spirit of "at least my turns do something now." AND it's one more rule to remember. (AND you'd have to adjust turn resistance to include levels and all that jazz just to keep it fair.) Bleh.

I thought about making it more like improved evasion instead of evasion - i.e. undead that save still take 1/2 damage and on a successful save take no damage - but you really need to have the evasion-equivalent before you have the improved evasion-equivalent, and I couldn't find a place to put that in... I mean, you could have "no damage on save" start with HD = level, but then you're just back to "my turns are all or nothing" again.



Edit: Or, we could just do the reverse of that... As much as I also dislike introducing a NEW house rule to fix an OLD house rule:

New Feats:

Resist Turning (or some such name)
Prereq: undead type, intelligence score
Benefit: You take no damage from positive energy turns on a successful save.

Improved Resist Turning
Prereq: Resist Turning
Benefit: You only take 1/2 damage from positive energy turns on a failed save.

 

[GlassJaw]

Another idea (keep throwing them out and something's bound to work, right?):

Or you could just try the method I listed, which Wulf and I playtested. We did a lot of the math you are doing and we were both very satisfied with our result. The biggest difficulty was turn resistance obviously.

Couple of other things:

Greater Turning ability: lets you maximize damage
Empower Turning feat: 1.5 x damage
Improved Turning: I think we just left this as-is, +1 turn level
Knowledge (religion) 5 ranks: +2 damage roll, not super-powerful but we felt that the destroy undead ability was better than the normal turn undead so we didn't see a pressing need to grant a big bonus. Almost all clerics are still going to take this anyway. Still might revisit though.

 

[evilbob]

I guess there are a couple of things I think just don't quite suit me with your system. It seems to balance out the low levels with additional damage, but then you're depending on extremely high turn resistance to rebalance high levels. I think I'd rather have something more even, overall.

For example, the 6th level optimized cleric above will still have a 60% chance to do 60% damage to a 14 HD undead using your rule - that's even more damage, and the only thing that can really mitigate that is your turn resistance. Your system seems to depend on all 12+ HD undead having turn resistance. While that's not a bad fix, and probably no worse than what I'm thinking of with the additional feats, it's just not something I think suits me.

I do think you've got a good idea for greater turning, though: maximized damage is better and MUCH simpler than 1.5x damage but not as good as 2x damage (on average).


Edit: Actually, I think you've got another really good idea there in the Knowledge(Religion) adding +2 to damage idea... Here's the train of thought: where does destroy undead suck? At very low levels. What would adding +2 to the TOTAL damage done do? NOTHING at high levels, but really help out at low levels (1d6+2 would really make a huge difference and actually put CR 1/3 skeletons into 50% chance to kill range...). What else would this change do? Put a flat -10% to all saves. Hmm...


Edit again: Crap! Just remembered that level 1 clerics are still out in the cold: 5 ranks is only possible by level 2. Hmm...

 

[GlassJaw]

I guess there are a couple of things I think just don't quite suit me with your system. It seems to balance out the low levels with additional damage, but then you're depending on extremely high turn resistance to rebalance high levels. I think I'd rather have something more even, overall.

But turn resistance as it stands now is an extremely powerful ability for an undead creature. When we were looking at the math, a creature with turn resistance made it virtually unturnable, and it's all or nothing.

With the destroy undead variant, you at least can do something to the creature, which we felt was a suitable compromise in determining the overall usefulness of the ability. At the same time, with our implementation of turn resistance, there is still a chance that the undead creature will take no damage, and therefore maintain the "power" that turn resistance should have.

Edit: Actually, I think you've got another really good idea there in the Knowledge(Religion) adding +2 to damage idea... Here's the train of thought: where does destroy undead suck? At very low levels. What would adding +2 to the TOTAL damage done do? NOTHING at high levels, but really help out at low levels

This is also why we made the base damage 1d6+1.