Improving Turn Resistance

[Destil]

Get thyself an evil cleric, and have him cover the villains' entire lair with unhallow spells. (Give him lots of lead time, it takes 24 hours to cast.) Once the heroes show up, have him use his turning attempts to bolster the undead against turning.

Negitive energy can also be used to bolster undead to help them resist turning.

 

[Pax]

Need a few ways to increase an undead's turn resistance or have total resistance to turning. I just want to add it to some of my more powerful or more special undead. Can't let that dastardedly Cleric of Lathander destroy the big bads too easily.

The feat "Turn Resistance", from either Savage Species or Ghostwalk Campaign Option, gives +4 to any existing turn resistance (or a resistance of +4 if none was present already).

The spell Desecrate produces a penalty to turning checks. IIRc, so does unhallow, and a desecrate can be TIED to an unhallow.

An evil cleric could expend a turn/rebuke attempt to "bolster" the undead, raising their effective HD. You've never seen a PC cleric sweat until they fail to turn simple skeletons, despite being 8th level, and getting a "cleric's level +4" result for maximum hit dice effected (12, in this case) -- just before the PC's entered the room, the undead were Bolstered by the Cleric(10) BBEG, who ALSO rolled fortuitously-well ... fortuitously in the GM's eyes,anyway, heh. Anyway, the skeletons all counted as having 13HD ... not bad, for ONE turning attempt, eh? Shame Bolstering only lasts 10 rounds ...

 

[reanjr]

Need a few ways to increase an undead's turn resistance or have total resistance to turning. I just want to add it to some of my more powerful or more special undead. Can't let that dastardedly Cleric of Lathander destroy the big bads too easily.

Ravenloft has what's known as Sinkholes of Evil. In these vile places, all undead get turn resistance. The undead's lair could be a sinkhole of evil, granting a +3 to +5 turn resistance. It's only when he's at home, but oftentimes that's the only place the PCs are going to encounter him.

There's nothing in particular that would cause a sinkhole of evil (it's not like you cast a spell to do it), so you can place one just about anywhere. certain spells might be diminished or enhanced in these places as well. If you start altering spells, though, you might want to up the EL by 1, though.

 

[Pax]

It's your campaign and I'm not trying to second-guess you, but as food for thought: if a major villain is easy to turn, then sure that will be boring, but it can be rewarding to leave that small chance of turning intact for all but a campaign-ending Big Bad.

One of my fondest memories of a previous year-long campaign was when I managed to turn a lich. Even though that particular encounter proved to be easy, it was still a lot of fun and very rewarding.

Heh.

I managed to pull an "indiana Jones" in the last, campaign-ending encounter in a Ravenloftgame. With a Turn Undead attempt. To add insult to injury, I had the Sun domain, and it was a GREATER turning. *poof*, no more BBEG, mwa ha ha ha.

The party had been tormented all along by this nasty, vile, persistent bugaboo (which was fast developing into a nascent new Darklord, mind - due inno small part toOUR ever-increasing paranoia ...). He was a ghost-thingie-whatsit of some sort, who went by the name of "Billy Boo" - we defeated him in our first adventure, but ... er ... he kinda got ... "attached", I guess is the best (only?) way to explain it.

Well there we are, in the final battle of the campaign, and I'm about to chuck (another) Searing Light at him, when I suddenly stop, say "Wait a minute! What theheck am I thnking? Desert, never mind that spell ... Stefan justholds forth his holy symbol, and declares 'In the name of hope eternal, by the power of the Morninglord, I say to you ... GET THEE DOWN, unclean creature! Return forevermore unto the darkness which spawned thee!' ... and my action will be a Greater Turnign attempt (god I love the Sun Domain)" (I was waxing a bit poetic at the time, sue me).

Well, I rolled, I got a natural 20, and had a pretty good charisma (16, IIRC). He was only two or three HD ahead of Stefan's level (including turn resistance), so ... *POOF*, with an absolutely dumbfounded look on his (and the GM's) face ... Billy Boo disappeared, along with the uber-nightmare circus-from-hell hallucination it had sucked us all into.

End of fight ... end of story ... end of campaign. And what an end it was; obviously, the event has burned itself into my memory rather well. ^_^ Thankfully, even the GM, Desert, had to agree - sinc hte campaign was ending anyway, it was a GREAT way for Bily Boo to go out ... with more of a whimper than a bang, but a very dramatically-imposed whimper. Hee! ^_^

I *still* get a stupid grin on my face whenever I think of that night, and it's been ... lord, I think two or three years since then.

^_^

 

[Darklone]

Consecrate with an altar or so gives a -6 to turn attempts. Get a special unholy symbol with that spell cast on it

 

[MerakSpielman]

Here's a sneaky trick. Have the whole lair be full of nasty little undead creepy-crawlies. Centepedes, spiders, beetles, etc... Harmless, they don't bother attacking the characters, but they make great atmosphere - especially when the PCs can't move without crunching a few dozen of them (a la that scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).

Thing is, after a while the players will just disregard them. But then they'll try to turn some undead... and realize that only the closest undead are turned. The turn attempt will be absorbed by the nearest hundred or so undead bugs, which will probably vaporize. It would take a truley Herculean effort to get rid of enough bugs so the turning attempt will affect the BBEG.

 

[Pax]

Hey, that's actually a decent trick to pull ... once, anyway. ^_^ Good idea, Merak!