Turn Devils & Demons

[Shadowlord]

By its very nature, Turn Undead reflects orienting your faith’s power to turn heretics, outisders & opponents of your church. Logically, you should be able to turn devils & demons, and rebuke celestials with this ability, not only undead. To go even a step further, a cleric could turn/rebuke an outright enemy of his church, no matter his type. This makes bonds between gods more interesting. Anyone agree?

 

[Celtavian]

re

More of a house rule question, but I do agree. I wish they would add more to the turning ability of clerics. I would love to see them able to turn or banish evil outsiders by turning.

 

[gfunk]

Planar turning is an epic feat in the ELH.

 

[hong]

Holy word. Learn it, use it, love it.

 

[Shadowlord]

Can someone explain why in the 7 hells undead are better suited at being banished by priests than devils & angels ?

Seems like it's one of those habits that stuck through older editions but doesn't make much sense anymore.

In that case, I could swap turn/rebuke undead for turn fiends (devils & demons) and rebuke celestials. Are there some querries I miss? What makes some undead have turn resistance? What fiends & celestials should have this resistance too?

 

[Stalker0]

Can someone explain why in the 7 hells undead are better suited at being banished by priests than devils & angels ?

Seems like it's one of those habits that stuck through older editions but doesn't make much sense anymore.

In that case, I could swap turn/rebuke undead for turn fiends (devils & demons) and rebuke celestials. Are there some querries I miss? What makes some undead have turn resistance? What fiends & celestials should have this resistance too?

The reason it works this way, is that undead are magically animated through negative energy. Their entire existance depends on it. So when a good cleric channels positive energy at them, it drives them back. Its not real as much a religion thing as it is an energy thing.

 

[Shadowlord]

Its not real as much a religion thing as it is an energy thing.

But turning/rebuking comes straight through religion so it's only logical that devils & angels wold play the major part in it.

The feat Planar Binding has a flaw. It reads "If you can rebuke undead, you can rebuke all evil outsiders and can rebuke all non-evil outsiders". One's definitively wrong.

Anyway, I'm not planning for this feat, I'd like to substitute Undead for Celestials, Devils & Demons.

What about this:
Good clerics rebuke celestials and turn devils (and demons?) instead of turning undead. Evil clerics turn celestials and rebuke devils (and demons?) instead of turning undead.

Clerics with a patron deity with a Death or Undead domain, turn/rebuke undead instead of outsiders (just like in the PHB).
I could expand this category even more, with Turning/Rebuking Animals, Plants, Lycanthrophes (Moon domain) but this is already done through the domains' powers. So some priests will both turn/rebuke an outsider and something else (plants, slimes...).

This has the odity that it doesn't take care of lawful & chaotic alignments, only good & evil. The system in the BovD is somewhat more complicated and it would turn out something like this:

Instead of turning/rebuking undead, a cleric turns any outsider with at least one alignment component equal to its own and rebukes any outisder that doesn't have any alignment component equal to the cleric.
Clecrics with a Death or Undead domain still turn/rebuke undead inbstead of outsiders.

What do you think?

 

[Gez]

Don't know about you, but a holy cleric forcing angels to cower in fear and awe don't strike me as being especially pertinent.

I'd say turn/banish evil outsiders, no effect on good outsiders, maybe rebuke neutrals.

Evil clerics would rebuke evil outsiders, and turn/banish neutral and good ones.

This would give a little edge to evil clerics, but given that spontaneous cures is a major edge, unless you use only undead and are undead yourself, this would balance it out -- and beside, who care for balance, evil clerics are villains !

 

[Li Shenron]

By its very nature, Turn Undead reflects orienting your faith’s power to turn heretics, outisders & opponents of your church. Logically, you should be able to turn devils & demons, and rebuke celestials with this ability, not only undead. To go even a step further, a cleric could turn/rebuke an outright enemy of his church, no matter his type. This makes bonds between gods more interesting. Anyone agree?

In D&D Clerics Turn/Rebuke Undead by default.

You can always ask your DM to agree and let you swap the ability for a Turn/Rebuke Fiends (I don't like the same idea with Celestials, but it's your game so you decide).

Then you can explain why your Cleric has that instead of Turn Undead as you see fit with your character or setting.

 

[Shadowlord]

Uhm... I'm the DM and I don't have to explain much as it makes more sense this way.
But which option to choose, how should it work exactly?

Turn fiends & Turn celestials and no rebuke?
Or turn fiends for good clr and rebuke fiends for evil clr ? This could work. OTOH, a fiend doesn't like being commanded by ANYONE, so turn celestial could work better than rebuke fiend. Then again, angels aren't the ones possessing unfortunates.