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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 3009238" data-attributes="member: 13966">A few points, since this thread caught my attention from the main forum page when I logged back in.....1) The 3.0 DMG's (not sure if it's the same in the 3.5 DMG) chapter where it describes Encounter Levels and such specifically mentions that the CR/EL system takes into account the supposition that the party consists of a fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard, and that the cleric uses his/her turning ability.  Undead CRs do factor in the expectation that parties will have a cleric who can turn or rebuke undead.  They are expected to have a decent chance of being weakened or stymied, and a small or tiny chance of being destroyed or commanded.2) Without the turn/rebuke mechanic, only high-level clerics, sorcerers, and wizards will be able to exert any degree of control over undead, and usually only over undead that they themselves have created or animated.  This drastically reduces the usefulness of necromancer archetypes, and evil clerics (who can't spontaneously heal, and thus have greater need for their undead-commanding capacity for minions), and makes the idea of a low-level necromancer controlling zombies and skeletons simply impossible (unless there's some very-low-level undead-controlling spell in a splatbook I don't know about).3) As others have said, priests turning or exorcising the undead, is a very common and classic element of folklore and mythology all over the place.  It seems stupid to just outright eliminate that element from D&D.  Who else but the village's preacher or the tribe's shaman would you turn to when a ghoul pack or a vampire attacked the village?  Who else SHOULD you turn to?  Nobody, that's who.  Undead are unnatural and antithetical to all other life, all true life.  The local holy man darned well OUGHT to be the go-to guy for saving the town from such unholy abominations and threats.  So what if he's just a 1st-level cleric?  He still should have some power over the undead.  Not just "I Cure Light Wounds and maim the zombie!  Wait!  Aagh!  It's still there!  He's eating my hand!!!  Ohhhh gods no!  Pelor save me!  AAAAGH-*gurgle*"4) The turning mechanic is also used by other domain powers, as folks have noted, such as the elemental domains.  If you eliminate turn/rebuke undead, you probably have to rewrite those domain powers too.  What good is a cleric of the fire god when he runs into rampaging fire elementals, if he can't rebuke them?5) Just because one group of D&Ders hardly ever uses or sees use of the Turn/Rebuke Undead ability, does not mean that other groups also experience the same lack of need for it.  If the DM isn't throwing at least an occasional horde of zombies at you, or an occasional angry ghost or scheming vampire, at least in some of his/her campaigns, then I'm not sure what's wrong with him/her, but he/she OUGHT to be.  What D&D game is complete without at least one undead blight?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />   The groups I've DMed have always faced at least one major undead-battle or at least an occasional necromancer or whatnot.  They've fought a group of shadows and ghosts once that really freaked them out and made the entire party worry about their doom until the very last spirit was dispatched.  They've been briefly haunted by the ghost of their dead comrade.  They've fought an ex-druid/blighter/some-other-class-I-forgot who controlled not only a group of rabid animals but also a group of animate animal skeletons.  They've fought a house full of zombies that used to be the family who lived there, children and all.  They've fought a band of intelligent, animate, pirate skeletons.  And those are just the encounters that come to mind right away.  C'mon!  Where's the undead in your games, man!?!?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" />   Even the games I've played in have usually had at least one significant encounter with the undead.6) Turning undead is a sacred cow of D&D and therefore shouldn't just be discarded lightly due to a mild annoyance at the current edition's mechanic for it.  Just simplify the mechanic if it's that bothersome.  Otherwise, it'd take several spells added to the cleric's list just to emulate the turning/rebuking and destroying/commanding and bolstering/dispelling turning.</blockquote>

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