Wise Turner

[Aleolus]

How does this sound as a feat for Clerics without much Charisma?

Wise Turner
You understand that you possess far more strength of will than you do force of personality. As such, you have learned to use your mind in place of your personality.
Prerequisites: Wis 15+, Turn/Rebuke Undead
Benefit: When turning undead, you may apply your Wisdom modifier to your turn/rebuke check, instead of your Charisma. As a side benefit, you may also choose to use your Wisdom modifier for Gather Information checks, instead of your Charisma.

 

[Blackmage]

This is probably a bad idea, since this just nerfs charisma further.

 

[Arkhandus]

Ditto.

Making feats to replace one ability modifier with another is sometimes justifiable, but not so much when it's replacing a much weaker, rarely useful stat with a class' primary stat.

 

[Kisanji Arael]

What about this:

Wise Turner
You understand that you possess far more strength of will than you do force of personality. As such, you have learned to use your mind to affect undead creatures.
Prerequisites: Charisma 9-, Wis 17+, Turn/Rebuke Undead
Benefit: When using turning undead, you may apply your Wisdom modifier to your turn/rebuke check, averaged with your Charisma; if your charisma ever rises above 9, either permanently or as a temporary effect, you lose the benefits of this feat until your charisma falls to nine or below. As a side benefit, you no longer suffer a negative penalty for having a low charisma when using gather information or diplomacy.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I think it's perfectly fine; it's not overpowered and the cleric has to waste a feat on it. The only thing I would remove is the max Cha; I haven't seen max ability scores since 2e and I like it that way.

 

[Dagredhel]

Requiring a low Charisma is unnecessary and redundant. The feat would/should only be of mechanical advantage to a character with a low(ish) Charisma and high(ish) Wisdom, right?

Requiring Wisdom 17+ is also a bad idea, IMHO. It translates into, "you can only get a bonus if it is a big bonus." A cleric doesn't need any extra incentive to pump Wisdom... it's their primary characteristic, for crying out loud.

Other than that, I think it'd be fine, except for the "side benefit". Allowing a Wisdom bonus on Diplomacy and Gather Information checks has nothing at all to do with undead--- nothing to do with the feat description:

You understand that you possess far more strength of will than you do force of personality. As such, you have learned to use your mind to affect undead creatures.

Changing the "fluff" to include mention of these skills wouldn't help; they'd still be extras "tacked on" without any genuine thematic connection. And the ability to use Wisdom on key skill checks would be more of a feat in its own right, not a side benefit of a feat that grants a perfectly good "primary" benefit anyways.

On the other hand, it might be cool to allow the Wisdom bonus (in place of the normal stat bonus) on skill checks related to undead. So, a character with the feat could use Wisdom to Bluff, Intimidate, or attempt Diplomacy when dealing with Intelligent undead (if he could get them to stop trying to kill him long enough to chat,) or when Gather-ing Information about undead.

Note that a very important point should be made explicit. As written, the feat wouldn't grant extra turn attempts from a high Wisdom. Nor should it, IMHO. It'd be overkill to allow a single feat to completely replace Charisma with Wisdom for turning. Nearly every cleric would take it. It would fail the "too good" test.

 

[Aleolus]

How's it look now? Dropped the Wisdom prereq to 15, got rid of the Charisma one, and modified the text and benefit somewhat.

 

[cougent]

First and best advice: Whatever makes your games better, go with it and ignore anything posted here that runs contrary to that. If it makes your play better / more fun than by all means use it. I would even bump the WIS minimum to 16. This should be something that only very wise and willful clerics figure out how to do, not something that just any cleric can learn.

More opinionated advice: Don't like it at all. It just further waters down what few distinctions that exist now. What's next letting fighters use CON as an attack bonus? If your cleric has low CHA, then he better devise another option than turning. Not everyone can do everything, that *should* be part of the fun / challenge of playing the character is overcoming his weaknesses... but some people do enjoy "beating" video games in god mode, never saw the point myself. [/opinion]