Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kerrick" data-source="post: 2595306" data-attributes="member: 4722">Oops. I think I was looking at the wrong column when I wrote that. No, I changed the rule after I wrote the example (I was pretty much writing this on the fly, from half-formed notes in my head). It should be 1d6. You're right. I looked at the table in the 1E DMG, and I saw that (generally) a cleric can turn an undead of equal level on a 13 (we'll assume the zombie listed is CR 1, and the skeleton CR 1/2, since the skeleton is first). If you go with DC 13, you can turn 3 CRs higher, maybe 4 if you're really good or have heavy benefits on your side. Sounds about right, eh? The question is: how much higher than a target undead should a cleric be to automatically turn/destroy it (automatic, in this case, meaning without a roll)? Your comment about the number of undead turned made me think... maybe it is a bit much. I still don't like using HD of undead simply because of the stupidity of the example in the PHB (Jozan can turn the two zombies, but the remaining 3 HD of turning aren't enough to turn the wight - WTF is that?). So, 1d6+Cha undead? Sounds reasonable, especially if you can double it on a natural 20, or increase it with feats and/or abilities. You might even rule that a hallowed area allows clerics to turn x more undead (1d4, 1d6, or +1/3 caster levels of the person who placed the spell), and an unhallowed area (sink of evil) does the reverse (if the cleric successfully makes an undead's DC to turn it, but somehow got a 0 on the roll, the unholy energy of the place is enough to make it stand its ground. Or somesuch thing. Yeah, this isn't much better than the example I used, but at least it's an all or nothing thing.). Straight opposed Will saves. It could work. The only problem I can see with this is that there's no limiting factor - if a Clr 1 makes a turn check against a Wiz 24 lich and the lich rolls a natural 1, he's turned. Logic insists that this shouldn't happen, and yet by the rules, it could. Granted, the vast majority of players (as demonstrated by the poll in GD) use common sense, but some don't - I'd like to make a system that works on all levels.You'd have to give them extra skill points to dump into this skill - they don't get that many to begin with. Yeah, I didn't quite agree with 60 feet like the PHB says. 60 feet, if you've got a lot of undead around you, is wasted space. If the only undead are that far away, it just defies logic that a cleric would be able to turn them. And if they're behind him, where he can't see them it's even more absurd to think that he would be able to turn them. They should have made it line of sight, not line of effect - you can't target an invisible creature with a spell unless you can see it; the same should be true for turning.I actually did that - grant undead TR based on HD; I did 1/3, though. I wish I had saved that worksheet; this was when I was doing opposed Will save vs. 1d20+Clr level+Cha, and when I discovered that it wouldn't work, I scrapped the whole thing. Although I don't fancy the skill idea, granting TR might work for my system. BTW, if you look closely, most of the undead with TR are low-level; I think they gave those creatures TR so they could last a little bit longer against clerics, instead of being a cakewalk. I hadn't even thought of that. We do have a PrC in Crimson Contracts (which I co-wrote) called the Hunter of the Damned. Basically, it's a paladin who hunts down possessing entities and destroys them - he can force them out of their hosts, strike at them while still possessing the host (without harming said host), etc. I really like the idea of being able to turn possessed entities. I think they'd get hefty bonuses to the roll, since they're clothed in living flesh, but it should still be possible by higher level clerics. And with this rule, I think a "D" result would mean that the entity is forced out of the body, not destroyed (it has to be in its natural form to be destroyed like that), so a powerful cleric could force a possessing entity out with just his holy symbol and his faith. It should work the same against all creatures - opposed Will save, or whatever. I don't know what the Glory domain does, but Sun seems to be pretty simple - once per day, turned creatures are destroyed.</blockquote>

Verification