L&L Turning & Churning

[GM Dave]

Mike Mearls talking on his view of Clerics and Turning.

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Turning and Churning)

I'm not opposed to the PF cleric 'nuke' (though it did eliminate 18 of my ratling horde on Saturday night in one swoop though it did blast the players in the same go which is a trade off) though I don't find it really captures what I want out of an undead turning mechanic.

I always think of turning as being the holy channel of a deity and being like a beacon of divine providence.

I'd much rather have it either of two ways;

Way 1 > It is like a bless effect for your companions and a curse effect for your opponents. Each round that it is in effect and used gathers power to improve the combat for your companions and hinders the opponents (if you are against undead then they are the 'cursed' but if your deity was a Lord of Water then it might be Fire or what ever is opposite of your deity's spheres).


Way 2 > It is more integrated with the spheres of the deities. A cleric/priest of Storms 'turning' would summon a storm effect that causes effects in a radius around the cleric. A priest of death or plague causes damage to people in the area (spontaneous bleeding for death maybe and boils to appear and burst for plague). You could still have the 'classic' priest that affects undead with a barrier that each round causes an undead to make some sort of will test or retreat from the area (with additional rounds spent in the aura building escalating damage like being dipped in acid).

 

[RangerWickett]

To evoke the traditional "I hold up my cross and the undead hiss in anger but can come no closer," I'd, well, make the rules say that a cleric* can spend a standard action to hold up his holy symbol, and any undead creature within, say, 30 feet cannot attack the cleric or any of his allies within 10 ft., nor approach closer than it already is, as long as it's weak enough. However you want to determine that (ideally just by comparing numbers, instead of having to make an 'attack roll.'

But the effect ends the moment you or any of your allies attack them.

*more accurately, a cleric who takes the 'turn undead' option, since not all gods really care about undead.

As for the "glowing holy nuke," make it a separate power.

 

[Sunseeker]

Playing games that have by and large been undead-light I have always found "Turn Undead" to be one of those things I wish I could get rid of. Why exactly do all gods, particularly gods of the dead, death, and even evil ones, care about turning undead?

I dunno, turn undead is neat, but really one of those things I could live without.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I don't want Turn Undead to be treated as some completely unique mechanic that doesn't work like any other mechanics in the game. It should be just one more Cleric mechanic, working like any other Cleric mechanic. In that respect, I like how 4E treated it as one of many kinds of of Channel Divinity power, though those powers as a whole could have been more similar to each other in some way.

One approach that could be made for Turn Undead is to simply break its components into separate abilities. Have the "destroy undead in a dramatic way" ability be a powerful and costly spell, and have the "keep undead from approaching" ability be a more freely useable power. There is no reason both need to be part of the same "turn undead" mechanics after all.

A videogame I rather like took an interesting approach in which Clerics had two special abilities that made them useful against the undead. First, Clerics had an Exorcism spell. Undead could only be finished off completely by reducing them to zero HP (which makes them temporarily inert) and then purifying them with that spell. Second, Clerics created an aura around them that undead could not enter. I rather like this approach, partly because the idea of a Cleric's Exorcism ability working to undo some feature that makes undead hard to kill is rather evocative and effective for all kinds of reasons.

Finally, I have to say that I'd rather not see the "Turn Undead" name... It's iconic, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense, especially because it is rather confused between its concept as repulsing undead or destroying them. I can't be the only person to think it is a goof name, can I?

 

[Incenjucar]

Turn Undead is basically just the "Screw you Sir Fang" power.

Unless they want to build cleric powers around the presence or lack of a soul, which applies to more than undead, turn undead makes more sense to me as a weak, control-oriented radiant power which makes sense for deities of light and life, but much less sense for just about any other deity.

If you have to have a bunch of unique "turning" mechanics in undead, just give them radiant vulnerability that does something wacky, but applies to any radiant attack. Instead of Control Undead, why not have necrotic energy have a bolstering "leader" effect on undead? Temp HP, removing instant death on a crit for zombies, extra movement, negating radiant vulnerability, and so forth, works just as well, and makes groups of undead freaking scary, since some will likely have necrotic auras or area effects.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I try something om topic:

i like his approach. The downside is that it takes some space in the monster description... but turn resistance etc would also take space.
Also it will solidify the need for monster stats, that are more than just AC and attack bonus... It will make undead more flavourful.

I´d like a base version though. Like "mindless undead usually won´t approach you unless you attack them first."

The evil version could be: "you can force mindless undead creatures to attack specific persons. If they are turned, you make opposed charisma checks"

 

[FireLance]

Well, I happen to like Turn Undead and think that it's an iconic Divine ability.

I did like the proposal from the article that once a character's turn attempt fails against a specific undead creature, that creature can't be affected by a turning attempt from the same character for the next 24 hours.

I didn't like the proposal for turn DCs and effects to be embedded in the creatures' stat blocks. I'm not really keen to add one additional line to every undead creature's entry just to deal with a single class ability.

Instead, I would rather turn attempts work according to statistics and keywords already in the undead creature's description. Instead of a fixed DC based on the individual creature, have the roll be against Wisdom or Will or whatever the most appropriate defence is in 5e. If it's going to be used to resist spells and other powers anyway, it should be at the right level to determine the success or failure of a turn attempt.

As for the result of the turn attempt, maybe Incorporeal undead wink out of existence for a while. Mindless undead move away from the cleric (or other Divine character) until they no longer have line of sight to him. Corporeal, sentient undead must stay a certain distance away but can take other actions normally, and so on.

With this as a base, you could even have spells and abilities that allow the user to make a turning attempt in addition to other effects, such as dealing radiant damage.

 

[MortalPlague]

Am I the only one who thought Mike Mearls' idea was neat? I think it would be a great opportunity to flesh out different types of undead, and how positive energy affects them in different, yet powerful ways.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I see turn undead as one domain's "granted power" (perhaps the Life domain, which the default cleric, as a major healer, uses by default). Other domains might "turn" or control other classes of creatures (a Moon domain being able to affect lycanthropes; an Order domain affecting demons; a Freedom domain affecting devils; a Fire domain affecting cold-based creatures, etc.). Other domains might get other abilities instead of a "turn" option (a Light domain cleric might get a little mini-nuke of radiant light instead of a turn option).

Under this rubrick, you might see Turn Undead as something like a 4e-style encounter power that comes as a class feature. Something you can swap out for other options. I grok that's not exactly iconic, but as long as we can also have folks with the iconic cleric, that's cool.

So it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to hard-code my turn undead into a monster's stat block -- the party might not even HAVE a cleric, let alone one with a special interest in undead. It works in Mike's home campaign, and "it's a good house rule" in that he can then just make a rule for each undead creature he introduces. It wouldn't make a good general D&D rule, because making every undead creature have a niche special rule for a niche class that may or may not be in play is kind of an absurd amount of catering to this one fiddly little mechanic.

Given that I'd want turn undead to be one option among many, we need a power that contains its own rules and resolutions, rather than one with endless cascading effects throughout the entire system. It would be sort of like having every monster have a special reaction when it is hit with fire damage, or when it is hit with a hammer instead of with a sword. It's not a good option.

BUT, I do want the cleric to be able to have that "turning" effect, not just damage. I want the cleric to be able to disable an undead enemy, make them cower or flee. This doesn't have to mean my mastermind vampire needs to run away crying if the cleric hits a 20 on his turn roll. This brings us back to the "Save-or-Die" point again, though: the turn undead roll is something of a narrow Save Or Die effect. Like any of them, it is probably able to be compared more directly by translating "Die" into "enough damage to kill a creature."

So what do we have if we want a turn undead that actually turns, but doesn't suddenly make undead a non-issue? Well, if we use 4e as a launching point, we have the cleric using a standard action to make a close burst 2 or 3 zone centered on them that (a) rolls, say, 4*(level+3) for an HP threshold (this is half the amount needed to kill an enemy in one blow -- you could tweak it), (b) makes any undead in the area under that threshold flee out of it, and (c) deals that damage to any undead creature that violates the threshold. I would want it to be sustainable -- perhaps a minor or a move action to keep the zone up, protecting your allies.

This includes all of Mearls's main effects -- zombies and skeletons flee (out to the limit of the zone, anyway, and given that they're mindless...), ghouls outside the zone can still use their cunning to use ranged attacks (or roll boulders down onto them), and ghosts who are in the zone are pushed out -- but the people they are possessing are not. It also lets solo-level vampire masterminds and mummies and the like remain a threat -- they can choose to just TAKE the damage, and go after the cleric and his buddies anyway.

One weird thing about the turn attempt as Mearls presents it is that he makes it a cone...to me, the idea of an area around the cleric makes a lot more sense than a blast out from the cleric. Though maybe it is a cone by default in BEMCI?

 

[MortalPlague]

One weird thing about the turn attempt as Mearls presents it is that he makes it a cone...to me, the idea of an area around the cleric makes a lot more sense than a blast out from the cleric. Though maybe it is a cone by default in BEMCI?

Good point. In fact, out of the whole article, that part worried me. I was not sorry to see cones go away. I really liked the square area effects in 4e; it streamlined things incredibly. I really, really hope that doesn't go away.