Touchstone?

[GutterFace]

So i've heard about Planar Touchstone (feats) before. but i don't have the book and from the bits ive read i don't fully grasp the concept or the benefit of having this feat.

can someone break it down for me?

[andromax]

You just have to own a piece of material from the plane in question, worth 250 gp and take the feat.

One of the most notorious benefits of having the feat, is choosing one of the catalogues of enlightenment to get a domain granted power.. such as Sun Domain's and then qualifying for things that require Turn Undead.

[Psyren]

This feat is from Planar Handbook. In a nutshell:

A Planar Touchstone is a mystically significant place in the multiverse. By carrying a special object linked to that place (a focus) and possessing the Planar Touchstone feat, you can draw upon the power of that location without physically being there. Typically these locations provide you with two powers: a Base Ability (you gain this effect, usually passive, just by having the focus and feat), and a Higher Order ability (this is typically an active power with a cooldown and limited uses.) Once you run out of uses of the HO ability, you must journey to the Touchstone location and accomplish some sort of task related to its theme - for instance, a planar touchstone that was a tall mountain, might require you to climb to the top without flying or teleporting to recharge your HO ability.

What's important about this feat is that the base ability of a touchstone doesn't ever require you to visit the site - only to have an item linked to it (minimum 250 gp value) and take the feat. One of the sites is the Catalogues of Enlightenment, a library in Mechanus that contains vast amounts of knowledge - its base ability allows you access to the granted power of any domain in the game. As mentioned above, this lets you cheat certain abilities, such as gaining Greater Turning from Sun and using it to qualify for things that require TU.

[GutterFace]

ahhhh now it all makes sense. there are different places you can connect to. i see. very awesome guys thanks!

the werewolf one is nonsense crazy.

[Darrin]

See this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9236967&postcount=3) for my notes on Planar Touchstones.

Note that the Touchstone feat in Sandstorm works a little differently (because the sites are presumably on the prime material and thus don't require planar travel to get to them), although neither version is entirely clear on whether you sacrifice the 250 GP touchstone item or have to keep it on you.

[Story]

There are lots of other useful domains - Dragon Below for prereq free Augment Summoning, War for weapon proficiencies, Cat or Luck for more rerolls etc.

There are also a few non CoE touchstones that could be useful. Most of them only give you resist 5 on one energy type or stuff like that, but there's one that lets you make an extra attack on flatfooted opponents.

[Cruiser1]

get a domain granted power.. such as Sun Domain's and then qualifying for things that require Turn Undead.

Sun Domain
Granted Power
Once per day, you can perform a greater turning against undead in place of a regular turning. The greater turning is like a normal turning except that the undead creatures that would be turned are destroyed instead.

If you don't already have the ability to turn undead, the Sun Domain power to upgrade one of your standard turnings into a greater turning doesn't add any benefit. Merely having the Sun Domain granted power on its own doesn't give the ability to turn undead.

[Kuulvheysoon]

If you don't already have the ability to turn undead, the Sun Domain power to upgrade one of your standard turnings into a greater turning doesn't add any benefit. Merely having the Sun Domain granted power on its own doesn't give the ability to turn undead.

They may be referring to the DCLS Sun domain, which explicitly grants Turn Undead (as there are no clerics in that setting).

[GutterFace]

The Sandstorm Touchstones are wild as well. how did i never know to look into these before. madness i say!

[Psyren]

If you don't already have the ability to turn undead, the Sun Domain power to upgrade one of your standard turnings into a greater turning doesn't add any benefit. Merely having the Sun Domain granted power on its own doesn't give the ability to turn undead.

True - the elemental domains might do the trick though.

[Story]

Technically, that's not turning undead though.

[ButtSoup]

Hmmmm.... Any DMs I've played with have allowed substituting Turn Elemental for things that require Turn Undead (assuming its not explicitly tied to undead). Like using Turn Water Elementals attempts to fuel Divine Metamagic. Is that the norm? Or do most DMs hold to 'it says Turn UNDEAD, so only that works'?

[Darrin]

Sun domain (SRD) only specifies "regular turning", not turn undead. So long as your DM agrees that that "turn elemental" is a regular turning, Sun domain can convert it into a greater turn undead.