D&D 5E The Turn Undead conundrum

[The Crimson Binome]

What would you suggest as a houserule alternate design for Turn Undead that would not make undead encounters meaningless because of the win button, or unused because players don't want the undead to flee the battle scene? Does anyone want to suggest an interesting and flavorful turn undead power?

There's always "Rebuke Undead", which... I don't even know how you'd do it in 5E... maybe you get advantage on attacks against them, and they get disadvantage on attacks against you?

 

[JWO]

Ah, I remember playing Baldur's Gate II as my first RPG and wondering why one of my characters didn't turn into a skeleton when I used the "Turn Undead" skill

I think we've all been there!

I see turn undead as being a battlefield control ability. You turn X% of the undead you're facing, meaning there are X% fewer undead to deal with right now and X% fewer attacks against your party for the moment. You deal with the undead that weren't turned and then mop up the scaredy ones later...

 

[evilbob]

I can, of course, simply accept that they PCs have the win button vs undead, as you suggest. But this is not satisfactory to me. Not while I'm playing Return to Castle Ravenloft - revamped (pun intended) to 5E.

Ah. Well I have lots of experience with that adventure, actually, and my advice is: definitely don't worry about it. That may not sit well with you, but here's why I suggest it: first, the undead aren't the things that are going to kill you in that campaign. The traps are. There are also a few seriously crazy monsters here and there which are not undead and will get you. (Demons. Hags. A crazy guy with a scroll that is stupidly overpowered.) When I ran that game in a 3.5 setting we had a Knight of the Raven paly and a Lightbringer cleric (both from the back of the book) that specifically damaged undead instead of turning them and it worked just fine. We even used the magic items from the book that made turning undead better: not a problem. The traps are far, far more deadly (even with a rogue).

Now, there were some undead - like the thing in the basement of the church, or the thing that guards the hill in the daytime - that couldn't be turned no matter what you did, and in 5.0 there's a chance they can be. You may want to give both of those creatures Turning Defiance - see the Ghast in the MM - to preserve the fact that they were impossibly hard to turn before. The only other time turning becomes an issue is with the main villain, as a lucky turn roll can make those battles go wonky. But here's the thing: those battles are always super (disappointingly) binary anyway. He has tons of "save or die" abilities and so does the party, so it really comes down to who hits who first. I would suggest stepping away from the letter of the rules with him just to make things more dramatic (he did a lot of retreating when I ran it). Although, looking at the 5.0 vampires, they are no where NEAR as bad as the 3.5 ones. (The lack of at-will near-permanent dominate, for example. The lack of negative-level inducing slams, for example.) Also, legendary resistance means he will never lose a turning check. So it looks like those battles will be much more interesting instead of just decided in one round.

Second, you would pretty much be insane to NOT bring a cleric to that campaign (or a rogue, holy crap), so don't punish people for doing it. Turning should be amazing, because you are going to NEED to feel good about a few of those battles, since you are going to get your butts handed to you on so many others. And like I said, the undead battles honestly aren't the ones you should worry about.

In the end, if you're dead-set on houseruling, my suggestion would be to follow the Lightbringer example and just make turning do straight damage. It's easy, straightforward, and I can promise you it still won't even come close to derailing that campaign - in fact I am fairly sure they counted on you bringing a cleric to turn just to make some of the areas less horribly deadly than they already are. In fact, given that 3.5 clerics could turn 8+ times a day and 5.0 ones can only turn 2/short rest, turning may not even be strong enough given the sheer number of undead you'll face. Anyway, sorry to go on and on but I can talk shop about a Ravenloft campaign for as long as anyone wants to.

 

[Skyscraper]

When I ran that game in a 3.5 setting we had a Knight of the Raven paly and a Lightbringer cleric (both from the back of the book) that specifically damaged undead instead of turning them and it worked just fine.

So your cleric damaged instead of turning? Seems along the lines of what I'm looking for. I just went to read the Lightbringer cleric alternate Turn Undead in the module (I had not read it yet). What I like is that they leave the choice of either damaging the undead with the new Destroy Undead power (1d6 dam per cleric level) or to turn as regular, which means that when you feel overwhelmed, you can use the regular turn undead; but as they mention, the lightbringer doesn't like to have some undead flee, he prefers to destroy. (Like me ) So option 1 would be to add a Destroy Undead damaging power, and allow the cleric to choose between that and the regular turn undead. This is somewhat underwhelming for me, since I dislike the regular turn undead and my inclination is to replace it, so leaving it as an option goes against that goal.

Option 2 is to do a 4E-type of power, where the undead are damaged and pushed back as an instantaneous effect, but can thereafter act as they want. So kinda like option 1, but with a push-away effect added. This push-back could be considerable, say, 60 feet for example, providing plenty of options and some ranged attacks to the party as the undead will use an entire round to get back their initial position. If the push-back is too strong at 60 feet, perhaps then only 30 feet? I would probably not include the option of turning instead of using this effect, since the push-back has the flavor of the turning.

Option 3: I also like the idea provided in this thread of making turn undead become a sphere that is impassible by the undead for a certain amount of time - the cinematic effect of keeping a hoard of zombies at bay with the cleric's faith is really cool. Any undead initially in the sphere are pushed back. There are mechanical issues with this option however in my opinion. If a save or [ulteriorly damaged undead are unaffected condition] are allowed, it means that mindless undead trickle through the barrier and then you can kill them one or a few at a time, making this another win button. So I don't know that I'd allow a saving throw. One way to deal with this, could be that as long as no undead in the area is damaged or attacked, the barrier stands (no save). However, should the cleric or his allies damage or attack any undead, the barrier breaks. This would allow the cleric to effectively avoid an encounter altogether, but of course in such a case the undead might well return later. If it's a mindless hoard, I think it's kind of cool that the cleric would save the party from such a battle.

Thoughts? Additional ideas?

 

[miniaturehoarder]

Turn undead is a sometimes power. It no longer needs to make up for the rogue not being able to sneak attack. When you don't want the skeleton horde mass assisting it's boss, Turn away. But if you want to put down a few free roaming vaporous apparitions, turning isn't a good idea. The game doesn't need anti undead to be any stronger because undead on the whole are just another monster type. They don't beat the levels out of you anymore.

 

[SirAntoine]

I'm a long-time D&D player, and always Turn Undead was a power that was pretty much never used: do you wish for the undead to flee, knowing that they'll likely be back (with a vengeance, if they're sentient)? Or do you wish to finish them off and be rid of them? Almost always, the latter for us.

4E has an elegant solution IMO, where Turn Undead would damage undead creatures AND push the creatures away (a few squares only, but this has its importance in the tactical game that 4E is, while maintaining the flavor to some extent).

5E brought back the concept of the undead fleeing, for 1 minute, likely enough to get lost. In this weekend's game, the cleric was a cleric of light, so he had the choice of Turning undead, or using Channel Divinity to use another power instead, namely Radiance of Dawn that deals 2d10 + cleric level damage to all enemies in a 30-foot radius. The latter appears like a much better option in most circumstances against undead.

Really, as a player, when my PC fights creatures, I try hard to avoid some creatures from fleeing the battle scene. But, Turn Undead not only allows creatures to flee, it forces them to flee, and one of our allies needs to use an action to do so! This, really, appears counter-productive to me.

I understand that in the situation where your party is swarmed by undead, Turn Undead is probably a good way out. But, would DMs then need to design encounters normally, except where undead are concerned: you then need to include, say, 50% more creatures to compensate the undead that will flee? Are encounters including non-undead monsters to be designed one way, and those including undead monsters, another?

I understand also that clerics get other uses for their Channel Divinity resource, such as Radiance of Dawn. The point is not whether Channel Divinity is useful, it's whether Turn Undead is useful.

Don't you think that a power that forces the enemies to flee the battle scene (possibly/probably to return later), is counter-productive to what most PCs/players try to achieve in D&D, namely to kill the monsters (and take their loot)? Do you or your party cleric use Turn Undead? If so, how, when? Does it turn out being productive and efficient?

No, it's not counter-productive. It demonstrates the power the cleric wields better than just doing some damage. It should turn them or dispel them outright.

 

[Pickles JG]

I would just ditch it. Clerics have other uses for channels and it only exists as a sacred cow, not because it makes sense for 90% of clerics to have.

I might be persuaded to give some compensation, maybe one daily channel on top of their encounter ones (ie long rest not short).

Paladins remain a problem but, as I think they are slightly op, meh.

 

[Edwidget]

Turned undead can't willingly move into a space within 30 feet of you. That means that unless it was on the very edge of your range it can't move at all, because even moving away would require moving into a space within 30 feet of you. Almost any DM would say it doesn't work that way regardless of what the rules say, but it is what the rules say. Technically Turn Undead makes the ones at the very edge of range flee, the rest cower and take Dodge actions. Yes, I know that this is probably just poor writing. I assume the intent was to prevent them moving toward you. I'm just pointing out that, as written, they can't really go anywhere. I suppose that -could- be intended, but I doubt it.

 

[aramis erak]

Hmm...it appears that I'm the only one that read 'Turn Undead' as a use of Channel Divinity, and as such being limited at low levels at 1 shot per rest...

I was surprised to see how rarely it may be used in 5e. Especially since they get to save against it. On the other hand, it is ALL undead within 30', so it's not that weak.

As for the direction of flight - if they have int 6+, they're going to flee toward the exit, so unless you have them cut off already, you're not pinning them.

 

[DaveDash]

It's very useful as a crowd "control" spell when you're overwhelmed with Undead. However sometimes it can backfire. I've had fleeing undead pull other undead/minions from other rooms when this has been used carelessly in dungeons. Other times, I've seen it used very effectively.

I've only played a Light Cleric in a game with lots of undead, and since I'm constantly standing back I don't really use it that much.