Some crunch from Rich Baker

[Rechan]

I wonder how easy it would be to turn this around, so that by default all clerics get their deity specific power, but they can spend a feat on it to turn undead?

That sounds rather appealing to me.

On the same vein, I wonder if it would break anything if you just said "Every cleric can turn something". So a cleric of this god over here can't turn undead, but they CAN turn "Insert monster type here".

Would that be too powerful, if you could turn a different sort of monster your god finds abhorrent?

 

[Lacyon]

All clerics turning undead actually works really well for my first 4E campaign. All the (known) gods are pretty vehemently anti-undead. Anyone depraved enough to seek out hidden dark powers that don't hate undead will probably get represented as some other class anyway IMC.

 

[DreamChaser]

Anyone depraved enough to seek out hidden dark powers that don't hate undead will probably get represented as some other class anyway IMC.

This!

Undeath is a corruption of nature by the Shadowfell (in the default at least) so all of the gods would likely oppose it. Vecna might be a little hard to understand (being undead) but when you think about it, he is the god of secrets and is unlikely to be a big fan of sharing his undead power with anyone. Plus, what better way to prep your clerics with the ability to rule over undead then to give them the power to destroy them?

DC

 

[frankthedm]

I know I'd much rather have Power of the Sun (Amaunator, for those who do like setting specific fluff spoon-fed to them), than turn undead, unless the campaign was designed to be undead heavy.

Thats part of the balance. Turn undead is tacked on and only helps in a small portion of encounters. A god based power will likely be used far more often, thus it is more valuable and so it costs a feat.

Kinda like how every burger gets pickles for free, but if you want a slice of cheese, thats $0.30 more

 

[FadedC]

I suppose everyone's experience on this will be different, but I find undead to be one of the most popular monsters used in adventures. So this does tend to be a pretty powerful ability.

From a fluff perspective, it does seem that every cleric has the ability to manipulate radiant energy, and that radiant energy itself is not innately good....only divine. Every undead seems to have some form of weakness to radiant energy so it's clear that they can't abide divine power. So it doesn't seem unreasonable that any cleric able to channel divine power would have some form of power over them.

 

[Voss]

Thats part of the balance. Turn undead is tacked on and only helps in a small portion of encounters. A god based power will likely be used far more often, thus it is more valuable and so it costs a feat.

Kinda like how every burger gets pickles for free, but if you want a slice of cheese, thats $0.30 more

Not balance, bad design. Just as it was in 3rd edition with turn undead, and the cleric with favored enemy. If the DM (essentially) decides when you can use your class features it easily turns into something that over or under valued (or compensated for), even if by accident. Other class features aren't useless because of the adventure design, why should this be?

 

[Incenjucar]

BAH

Never liked clerics anyways, so the tradition goes on. All hail Warlords. Bring on the Speciality Priests again.

But seriously, BAH.

 

[Lacyon]

Not balance, bad design. Just as it was in 3rd edition with turn undead, and the cleric with favored enemy. If the DM (essentially) decides when you can use your class features it easily turns into something that over or under valued (or compensated for), even if by accident. Other class features aren't useless because of the adventure design, why should this be?

Without spending any feats at all, the pregen cleric had a universally useful alternaive to Turn Undead (Divine Fortune).

I wouldn't call that bad design.

 

[Scribble]

Thats part of the balance. Turn undead is tacked on and only helps in a small portion of encounters. A god based power will likely be used far more often, thus it is more valuable and so it costs a feat.

Kinda like how every burger gets pickles for free, but if you want a slice of cheese, thats $0.30 more

dude pickles are so easy to house rule out.

 

[Sir Brennen]

This!

Undeath is a corruption of nature by the Shadowfell (in the default at least) so all of the gods would likely oppose it. Vecna might be a little hard to understand (being undead) but when you think about it, he is the god of secrets and is unlikely to be a big fan of sharing his undead power with anyone. Plus, what better way to prep your clerics with the ability to rule over undead then to give them the power to destroy them?

Not This!

Not all campaigns will use the default cosmology and/or gods.

Using the deity specific powers instead of Turn Undead will likely be the default in my own campaign (though I expect some deities will have Turn Undead as their option.)

Thats part of the balance. Turn undead is tacked on and only helps in a small portion of encounters. A god based power will likely be used far more often, thus it is more valuable and so it costs a feat.e

I agree with the previous poster who stated that situational abilities beyond the control of the player are not a good thing, like the ranger's favored enemy. Look how many ways the designers started coming up with to let clerics and paladins burn their Turn attempts in 3.x when they aren't fighting undead, and it looks to me like they recognized the problem as well.

From a fluff perspective, it does seem that every cleric has the ability to manipulate radiant energy, and that radiant energy itself is not innately good....only divine. Every undead seems to have some form of weakness to radiant energy so it's clear that they can't abide divine power. So it doesn't seem unreasonable that any cleric able to channel divine power would have some form of power over them.

They do - because they have abilities which deal radiant damage. Adding Turning Undead is just a bonus.