Kyamsil
First Post
Am I the only one who thinks undead are too fragile these times?
Yes, they have d12 hit dice, but having no Con score means they will have lot less hp than other d12 monsters like dragons. I know because I had toyed with the idea of making some enemies of the PCs animate the body of a dragon they had defeated... but I thrashed the idea when I saw the ridiculous amount of hp the animated dragon had when removing its CON 20+ bonus hp.
But the lack of hp isn't the issue I am trying to solve in this thread. Also not their bad save bonuses or anything like that.
The issue here is that turning undead can ruin lots of encounters. IMC there are:
A cleric of Lathander/Morninglord that has the Sun and Glory domains and who has some turning related feats: Improved Turning, Extra Turning,... and knowing that player he will be more than happy to add some of the new related feats from Complete Divine.
Another cleric of Lathander/Radiant Servant of Lathander(Pelor) with Sun and Strength domains. I have made some changes to the class, like putting their Greater Turning ability more in line with the one that the Morninglord has. Instead of making it give 3+Cha bonus Greater Turnings per day it adds 1 extra greater turning at 1st level and another one at each 4 levels thereafter.
There is also a Paladin of Torm/Templar, but its turning uses are more used to power Divine Power divine feat and sometimes use the Aid Another action to aid the other clerics in the "actual turning".
Needless to say, those 2 characters can ruin any encounter with undead unless they are of a sufficient high level/HD as to be completely unaffected by their turning attempts. This makes for either pointless encounters with anecdotic undead and undead NPCs that are blasted to ashes in a single round of turning, or me preparing unfair encounters with undead of too high a CR and Improved Turn Resistance as a neccesary feat and a base Turn Resistance of +2 or higher for them to avoid entirely a class ability that at least the first of the characters is investing a lot of effort to improve.
So what to do? Undead are not pivotal for the campaign as it is not entirely based on them, but they usually play a central role (specially vampires, and shadowy/incorporeal types because the main villain is the church of Shar, the goddess of Darkness).
I have been wondering what to do for some time and searching for alternative ways of handling turn undead and greater turning. The variant presented in Unearthed Arcana is even worse as it is WAY too powerful. The variant presented on Complete Divine (based on turning dealing damage to undead in a burst area around the turning cleric) is not bad but removes some of the uniqueness of abilities like the radiant servant Positive Energy Burst. It is also a bit overpowered at 1d6/effective turning level and removes the utility of some feats regarding bonuses to the turn undead roll.
I am thinking on making a variant of the Complete Divine method (deal damage) but having both the turn undead roll to know how much damage you can get to deal and affecting a max number of hit dice determined by the standard turn undead damage roll.
I am still working out the details so I will post it later... can you aid by telling me how you are dealing with this issue in your campaigns?thanks.
Yes, they have d12 hit dice, but having no Con score means they will have lot less hp than other d12 monsters like dragons. I know because I had toyed with the idea of making some enemies of the PCs animate the body of a dragon they had defeated... but I thrashed the idea when I saw the ridiculous amount of hp the animated dragon had when removing its CON 20+ bonus hp.
But the lack of hp isn't the issue I am trying to solve in this thread. Also not their bad save bonuses or anything like that.
The issue here is that turning undead can ruin lots of encounters. IMC there are:
A cleric of Lathander/Morninglord that has the Sun and Glory domains and who has some turning related feats: Improved Turning, Extra Turning,... and knowing that player he will be more than happy to add some of the new related feats from Complete Divine.
Another cleric of Lathander/Radiant Servant of Lathander(Pelor) with Sun and Strength domains. I have made some changes to the class, like putting their Greater Turning ability more in line with the one that the Morninglord has. Instead of making it give 3+Cha bonus Greater Turnings per day it adds 1 extra greater turning at 1st level and another one at each 4 levels thereafter.
There is also a Paladin of Torm/Templar, but its turning uses are more used to power Divine Power divine feat and sometimes use the Aid Another action to aid the other clerics in the "actual turning".
Needless to say, those 2 characters can ruin any encounter with undead unless they are of a sufficient high level/HD as to be completely unaffected by their turning attempts. This makes for either pointless encounters with anecdotic undead and undead NPCs that are blasted to ashes in a single round of turning, or me preparing unfair encounters with undead of too high a CR and Improved Turn Resistance as a neccesary feat and a base Turn Resistance of +2 or higher for them to avoid entirely a class ability that at least the first of the characters is investing a lot of effort to improve.
So what to do? Undead are not pivotal for the campaign as it is not entirely based on them, but they usually play a central role (specially vampires, and shadowy/incorporeal types because the main villain is the church of Shar, the goddess of Darkness).
I have been wondering what to do for some time and searching for alternative ways of handling turn undead and greater turning. The variant presented in Unearthed Arcana is even worse as it is WAY too powerful. The variant presented on Complete Divine (based on turning dealing damage to undead in a burst area around the turning cleric) is not bad but removes some of the uniqueness of abilities like the radiant servant Positive Energy Burst. It is also a bit overpowered at 1d6/effective turning level and removes the utility of some feats regarding bonuses to the turn undead roll.
I am thinking on making a variant of the Complete Divine method (deal damage) but having both the turn undead roll to know how much damage you can get to deal and affecting a max number of hit dice determined by the standard turn undead damage roll.
I am still working out the details so I will post it later... can you aid by telling me how you are dealing with this issue in your campaigns?thanks.
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