Turning Undead variant for comment

[jeffh]

Just kind of off the top of my head:


All Undead creatures get a new statistic, Vigour Mortis (VM), representing their resistance to turning attempts. Undead creatures have VM equal to their Hit Dice plus any Turn Resistance they might have. Non-Undead creatures do not have this statistic.

When a Cleric makes a turning attempt, he rolls for Turning Damage (no preliminary Charisma check is needed). Turning damage is 2d4 + the cleric's level + his or her Charisma modifier. This may be divided up among any Undead creatures present however the Cleric sees fit, so long as the Cleric has line of sight to all of them, and all are within 60 feet of the Cleric and 30 feet of each other. Non-Mindless Undead get a Will save (DC=10 + half Cleric's level + Cleric's Charisma modifier) to halve the turning damage assigned to them.

The effects of turning damage are as follows. Note that, though Undead are immune to Fear effects per se, Turning usually has the same effects on Undead as Fear effects would on mortals.

Turning Damage Effect
< 1/2 VM None
At least 1/2 VM Fights and otherwise performs actions as though Shaken
Exactly equal to VM Flees as though Frightened
Greater than VM Flees as though Panicked
Greater than 2xVM Destroyed if VM < Cleric's level/2, otherwise as above

Turning damage is slowly removed from Undead by the passage of time; periodically, such a creature gets a saving throw to remove 1d2 turning damage it has taken. The DC is calculated as above, and the Undead gets an unnamed bonus on this save equal to the number of previous saves it has made since it most recently received turning damage. An Undead with turning damage greater than or equal to its VM gets one save per minute. An undead with turning damage less than its VM gets one save each round at the beginning of its turn in combat.

Cure spells may be used to add, and Inflict spells to remove, one point of turning damage per spell level instead of their normal effect, at the choice of the caster.

Rebuking undead inflicts rebuking damage rather than turning damage. Rebuking damage has the same effects as turning damage, except that the rebuking Cleric may order (pseudo-)Frightened or Panicked undead to remain where they are rather than fleeing, and the rebuking cleric controls undead that a turning cleric would destroy.

If an Undead creature has both turning and rebuking damage, the two do not stack for any purpose; in fact, they cancel out. For example, if an undead with 6 turning damage would receive 4 rebuking damage, this simply cancels out 4 points of turning damage; it ends up with 2 turning damage and no rebuking damage at all.

(EDIT: Can anyone tell me how to do a simple table? The Help for VBcode doesn't tell me. Not only is there no command I can see for that, but the posting software won't even respect the spacing I included. That's why the chart of the effects is so ugly.)

 

[Thondor]

I really like the premises the shaken undead, - making it more gradual. I also like the potential stacking of turning attempts. ( I'm going to admit right here that at the moment I really can't remeber how turning generally works very well)

But doesn't a skeleton have 1 HD and no turn resistance therefore VM = 1 ? The lowest a 1st level cleric can role (assuming no cha bonus/penalty) is 3, highest 9. A first level cleric could potentialy frighten 9 skeletons with one turn attempt.

i'm not sure how to fix this. You could add 10 to every VM . It would be easy to render equal level undead shaken, but it would require multiple attemps to frighten or destroy them. but that makes turning a little weak (I think, I'm not really sure what the normal success rate for turning is,). Adding 5 might be more appropriate or even 4.

The Rebuking is - Turning is + and they cancel each other is really cool. Make for some interesting Clerical Fights with evil cleric backed undead. If an evil caster has gained control of an undead by rebuking it - does he lose control of of it when Rebuke damage hits 0, that is to say VM is at max? (from a good cleric turning it)
What if two evil clerics are fighting over control of an undead?

Finally I would suggest having undead regain VM at a rate similar to resting characters. So every 8 hours (no matter how vigourously "physical" a undead has been) an undead regains 1 VM per HD. This also solves the problem of how long rebuked undead stays under the evil clerics control - the only question is when does he lose control of it? At full VM?


Just some thoughts.

 

[jeffh]

I really like the premises the shaken undead, - making it more gradual. I also like the potential stacking of turning attempts. ( I'm going to admit right here that at the moment I really can't remeber how turning generally works very well)

But doesn't a skeleton have 1 HD and no turn resistance therefore VM = 1 ? The lowest a 1st level cleric can role (assuming no cha bonus/penalty) is 3, highest 9. A first level cleric could potentialy frighten 9 skeletons with one turn attempt.

That's no worse than under the normal rules. In fact it's toned down a bit (2d4 rather than 2d6). If you think turning at very low levels is overpowered under the normal rules, it's possible you're correct (one of the things I'm trying to fix is the way it goes from very powerful to nearly useless as levels go by), I'm just saying my suggestion isn't much worse. (It is more reliable because I ditched the preliminary Cha check, but that won't fail that often against equal levels. And under my scheme the skeletons each individually get a save, so you're unlikely to get all of them if you only assign 1 damage to each.)

The Rebuking is - Turning is + and they cancel each other is really cool. Make for some interesting Clerical Fights with evil cleric backed undead. If an evil caster has gained control of an undead by rebuking it - does he lose control of of it when Rebuke damage hits 0, that is to say VM is at max? (from a good cleric turning it)
What if two evil clerics are fighting over control of an undead?

Finally I would suggest having undead regain VM at a rate similar to resting characters. So every 8 hours (no matter how vigourously "physical" a undead has been) an undead regains 1 VM per HD. This also solves the problem of how long rebuked undead stays under the evil clerics control - the only question is when does he lose control of it? At full VM?


Just some thoughts.

As soon as an Undead creature's rebuking damage is less than 2xVM, it no longer meets the condition for being controlled. So control would often only last a minute or so barring further turning attempts (to pile on more turning damage). This may be a problem; I would rather evil clerics were a bit scarier than that.

I hadn't thought of the scenario with two evil clerics fighting for control. I'm not sure what to do about that.