What should I take instead of Turn Undead?

[Hedgemage]

Could you please post this errata ?

download here: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/CompDiv_Errata09102004.zip

From Complete Divine Errata
Page 80: Divine Metamagic feat
The boldface text needs to be added to the Benefit
paragraph of the feat description:
When you take this feat, choose a metamagic feat that
you have. This feat applies only to that metamagic feat.
As a free action, you can take the energy from turning
or rebuking undead and use it to apply a metamagic feat
to divine spells that you know. . . .

 

[Yair]

Alright. I'm the DM.

I don't have a problem with a cleric having some other power instead of turning undead. Keep in mind it will make you weaker when facing undead. You will be facing undead, to some degree, in the campaign.

Approved replacements:
* Planar Banishment. The alignment you can banish (e.g. evil outsiders) must somehow relate to your deity. It may be possible to banish other extraplanar creatures, e.g. summoned creatures, [Fire] creatures, or so on instead of outsiders of a certain alignment.
* Smite evil and aura of courage as paladin of equal level.
* Favored enemy as a ranger of level - 2.
* A bonus [Divine] feat, in return for not being able to use your turn/day for actually turning undead.
* Activate domain abilities

Not sure how well balanced all those are, but hey.

Have fun with your character

 

[Aus_Snow]

I once had an NPC Cleric with Favoured Enemy in its place. That worked fine, at least IMO.

Note: not a single-classed Cleric, mind you.

 

[Yair]

I once had an NPC Cleric with Favoured Enemy in its place. That worked fine, at least IMO.

Note: not a single-classed Cleric, mind you.

Sure, nice idea. I'll impose a -2 penalty to level though, I think it's a bit of a strong class ability.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Sure, nice idea. I'll impose a -2 penalty to level though, I think it's a bit of a strong class ability.

Hm. It might've been, had it been a single-classer. You're probably right though.

 

[Darklone]

Thanks, hedgemage!

 

[satori01]

Expedition to Ravenloft has a variant class ability called Destroy Undead. The cleric does 1d6 damage/cleric level to all undead w/in 30'. Undead get a Will save for half damage, with the DC being 10+cleric level + Cha modifier.

Turn Resistance is subtracted from total damage, though personally I would subtract Turn Resistance from each die.

I like this variant better, as it allows Paladins or multi class Clerics to still have some effect against High Level or High Turn Resistance enemies.

It also scales better with the Hit Point system. Now instead of one player either having no effect or derailing an encounter as the undead run in fear, the person is dealing an undead killing fireball.

 

[Kafkonia]

Expedition to Ravenloft has a variant class ability called Destroy Undead. The cleric does 1d6 damage/cleric level to all undead w/in 30'. Undead get a Will save for half damage, with the DC being 10+cleric level + Cha modifier.

I believe this is also presented in Complete Divine. I think it works well for turning, not as well for rebuking (simply because healing the undead is not the same as taking control of them) so I might allow destroying, rebuking, and healing as three options were it to come up.

 

[Yair]

Expedition to Ravenloft has a variant class ability called Destroy Undead. The cleric does 1d6 damage/cleric level to all undead w/in 30'. Undead get a Will save for half damage, with the DC being 10+cleric level + Cha modifier.

Turn Resistance is subtracted from total damage, though personally I would subtract Turn Resistance from each die.

I like this variant better, as it allows Paladins or multi class Clerics to still have some effect against High Level or High Turn Resistance enemies.

It also scales better with the Hit Point system. Now instead of one player either having no effect or derailing an encounter as the undead run in fear, the person is dealing an undead killing fireball.

I like the idea of simplifying and streamlining turning, I don't like the mehcanics much (especially for the rebuking option). Another version along these liens is presented in Unearthed Arcana.

At any rate, I assume these kind of things aren't what Strahd is looking for. He wants to replace turning with something substantially different, not to change the mechanics.