Master of Radiance

[Herzog]

I've been looking for a prestige class that would give me Turn Undead without requiring me to be of a Good alignment.

I ran into the Master of Radiance from Libris Mortis in several listings, but always accompanied by 'unclear whether it grants turn undead'.
I have been unable to find any FAQ or errata on the subject (which seems odd, since I am clearly not the only one who finds the text confusing)

So, I took a closer look at the class ability again. I will list the text from the wotc website exerpt here:

Master of radiance class levels stack with levels of all other classes that grant the ability to turn undead for the purpose of determining the character's effective cleric level for turning.

(emphasis mine)

This leads me to two conclusions:
1. Master of Radiance does indeed grant turn undead (otherwise the word 'other' would be superfluous)
2. Master of Radiance levels do not actually stack with classes that do NOT grant turn undead (such as most prestige classes that continue turn undead but do not grant it)

conclusion 1 makes me happy.
conclusion 2 makes me confused:
If class A stacks with class B for Turn Undead, but class B does not stack with class A for turn undead, do the classes stack for turn undead?

For reference, I am currently considering Archivist/Master of Radiance/Paragnostic Apostle.

What do you think of my conclusions?
If you disagree with conclusion 1, please provide a reasoning.
If you disagree or have a solution to conclusion 2, you would be most welcome (as I would like to stop being confused.... )

 

[Grogg of the North]

The way I've always read that is that Master of Radiance count as levels in cleric, paladin or whatever other class (sacred exorcist?) gives you Turn Undead. So a druid / MoR wouldn't gain the ability to turn undead. The example given in the text is that a cleric 7/ MoR 5 turns a 12th level cleric.

Sacred Exorcist specifically states that it grants turn undead and stacks with other classes that turn undead so I would use that as my baseline.

 

[Herzog]

I have two arguments against that:

Other prc's that do not grant turn undead and do not require turn undead as a prerequisite speciffically state they do not grant turn undead

The class fluff states it is designed for druids.

That both the example and the example npc use cleric as a base class is frustrating as it doesn't help in determining whether it grants or not.

And i restate my previous reasoning: if the class doesn't grant turn undead, how do you explain the word 'other' in the quoted text?

 

[Grogg of the North]

It stacks with other turn undead classes. It stacks with Cleric, Paladin, and whatever other class, such as sacred exorcists, you may have that turns undead. I imagine they used "Other" because they didn't want to limit it to just clerics or something in case you had paladins taking the class. I don't know if I'm doing a good job at expressing my thoughts on this. Have you asked the DM yet?

 

[Herzog]

But they don't mention cleric (except for the example). My other remarks still stand.

I haven't asked my DM yet because I would like to discuss it here first. Also, I'm not 100% sure about my prc choices, so I'd like to avoid starting a pointless debate with him.

For me, discussing it here isn't pointless because I might use it in some other build later.

 

[N'raac]

Master of radiance class levels stack with levels of all other classes that grant the ability to turn undead for the purpose of determining the character's effective cleric level for turning.

My first thought as I read the above was "if you have no levels of other classes that grant the ability to turn undead, then there is nothing to stack with". However, "Radiant aura 1/day, turn undead" in L1 Special in the chart suggests that they receive Turn Undead at 1st level, just as the Cleric does, and the Paladin later does. If they did not gain this as a separate ability, I do not believe it would be in the chart.

I also think that it's pretty weak sauce for a Druid - by the time he gets all levels of MoR, he'll be at least 10th level with L5 Turning, and that's as good as it will ever get. That doesn't seem unbalanced (wll, not overpowered, anyway) to me.