Rebuking/Commanding creatures

[Dalebert]

I have a cleric that worships nature and the elements rather than a specific deity and have been mainly going the route of domains that involve extra turning abilities. I have Scalykind and Healing right now (Healing is actually pushing it for a nature worshiper, but the DM has been lenient.) I'm thinking of retraining Healing to Fire next level which is actually more appropriate. I love the idea of having creatures under my control.

The books don't go into much detail about how commanding works other than it's just like an evil cleric with undead. As far as I can tell, you can continually have under your control a number of hit dice equal to your caster level. You can send them mental commands as a standard action. So far, I have a constrictor snake (3 hd) and a tiny viper (1 hd) as a 4th lvl cleric.

Am I understanding it correctly? If you successfully command something, it stays under your control indefinitely until you release it? Seems kind of powerful. It's like having animal followers. I look forward to having some fire subtype creatures as well if I can ever cross paths with any.

[Dalebert]

Has anyone else taken a domain with these extra command abilities and put it to good use?

[Tulya]

As you've stated, you get to command up to your hit dice of the appropriate creatures until you release them.
Like Turn Undead, the maximum HD of creatures you can command increases at half your Cleric level while the HD of creatures you encounter increases faster than your Cleric level. You'll eventually stop encountering creatures you can command entirely unless you deliberately seek them out, and end up unable to disable more than 1 creature with a Turn/Rebuke action due to poorly scaling Turning Damage.

But, that's not to say they become useless. Even if their direct damage abilities lose relevance, you can always find creatures with other useful abilities both in and out of combat.

A note just in case: The Turning Check only increases the maximum HD of creature that can be affected by your turning at all. You still have to have twice the turning level to Command/Destroy. There are feats and items that can increase your actual turning level, but without them, a 4th level cleric would normally be unable to Command a 3 HD creature.

[Fouredged Sword]

Elemental can be Called with planer ally. This is a cheep and easy way to replace them anywhere.

Planer touchstone (catalogs of enlightenment) can fill in a second or third elemental type.

I like air and earth. Fire elementals are not very special. A medium air elemental is a great mount for a small character, and a earth elemental has earth glide.

Substitute Domain - a spell - from complete champion. This will allow you to change the type of elemental you want to command that day. See if you stay in control after the domain switches back.

That said, elementals will not be great weapons. They have bad CR/HD ratios for being useful as controlled creatures.

[Dalebert]

There are feats and items that can increase your actual turning level, but without them, a 4th level cleric would normally be unable to Command a 3 HD creature.

It's actually not that hard with a couple of attempts. You just have to roll high on your turn attempt. You can get as high as lvl + 4 with a high roll and Charisma bonus is added to that roll. That won't scale as well at higher levels, of course. I currently have the +1 lvl for turning feat but I will probably eventually retrain it. It's not that great.

You can command any creature with the element subtype so it's many more things than just elementals.

[Dalebert]

Oh, I just reread it and I misunderstood. I thought your turning check roll needed to be twice the level of the undead to destroy or command them. That's based strictly on your class level. Now I understand. I apparently have a snake under my control that I shouldn't have. Doh! I will fess up the next game and give up my snake.

[Tulya]

You can command any creature with the element subtype so it's many more things than just elementals.

Indeed, and it opens up a great variety of abilities you can use well into the end-game, particularly with creatures that also cast spells as class.

Example: A 6th level Cleric with the Air Domain can snag a Sylph (Monster Manual II), a 3 HD Outsider with the Air subtype who casts spells as a 7th level sorcerer, is permanently invisible as Greater Invisibility, and can cast Summon Monster VI 1/day for an air elemental.

Of course, you don't really want to grab creatures like that outside of high optimization games. At least not until your minion won't outshine half the party by itself.

[Dalebert]

Oh, wow. That's pretty awesome. A big reason why I'm picking fire right now is for the spell selection. I don't want to pick it solely based on the creatures I can command because I get the feeling it will be very hard to find them in this game.

Yeah, my 3 HD snake wandered off in the middle of the night. Took me a while to find that.

I assume it rounds against your character and not in his favor, yes? So at 5th, you can still only control a 2 HD creature and not a 3 HD.

[TuggyNE]

I assume it rounds against your character and not in his favor, yes? So at 5th, you can still only control a 2 HD creature and not a 3 HD.

Yeah, unless otherwise mentioned D&D rounding is always down (truncation).

[Santra]

Oh, wow. That's pretty awesome. A big reason why I'm picking fire right now is for the spell selection. I don't want to pick it solely based on the creatures I can command because I get the feeling it will be very hard to find them in this game.

Yeah, my 3 HD snake wandered off in the middle of the night. Took me a while to find that.

I assume it rounds against your character and not in his favor, yes? So at 5th, you can still only control a 2 HD creature and not a 3 HD.

There is a feat in the Ghostwalk book that treats you as two levels higher for rebuke/destroy attempts. It's called Divine energy focus (pg. 30). It is for undead but you can ask your DM if you can use it for others as well.