Turning Paradox

[Kaelik]

Y'know, I've never understood deities with levels like this. With the same number of levels and a few prestige classes, you could make a deity which is effectively level 20 each in Wizard, Cleric, and Psion, plus nine levels of Sorcerer. Even sticking purely to core, you could still go Wiz 10/Clr 10/MT 10, leaving ten levels for rogue or barbarian or whatever. Yeah, there's some min/maxing there, but how do you think Vecna became a god?

You have to remember that Deities and Demi-Gods was designed for the express purpose of having Gods you could kill. They don't actually want them to be too powerful (Except Boccob, he auto rolls 20s for everything. I don't even know why they bothered calculating his base saves.) Plus it makes sense to take 21 levels of Wizard, and then go somewhere Cleric, it's better then getting there with Theurge. (Although, you'd think God's would be able to reorder their levels after then ascend.)

Disclaimer: I don't know what to do in with Epic levels because I never read the rules more then was needed to realize that all spells were quickened and Epic Spellcasting is even more broken then regular, so I don't actually know what's optimal, I was just saying that pre epic straight Wizard makes sense.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

How so?

A significant number of feats and all domains are all chosen with the express intention of boost turning ability. Even the more general purpose abilities the class levels grant are primarily geared for undead fighting. They just happen to be able catch a number of other things as well. Kinda like how a Ghostbuster's proton back is good for destroying just about anything but it's primary purpose is fighting ghosts.

As to normal turning and destroying undead...unless you have greater turnings, you have almost no chance to destroy undead that are worth turning.

It would be overpowered to really put undead that are worth turning in the destroyable range. The concept of destroying undead with turning is really just about clearing the battle field of undead whose only function is to form a moving wall. Y'know, so your fighter has a clear path to charge. It's for horde fighting.

Y'know, I've never understood deities with levels like this. With the same number of levels and a few prestige classes, you could make a deity which is effectively level 20 each in Wizard, Cleric, and Psion, plus nine levels of Sorcerer.

Well, I think the goal was to get folks to focus on the purely divine stuff. They didn't want to distract readers with complex builds using (RAW optional) prestige classes or mesty Epic progressions.

By all rights Vecna would probably be better modelled Wizard/various wizard Prestige Classes.

Yeah, there's some min/maxing there, but how do you think Vecna became a god?

He died and then a bunch of people started worshipping him, which caused his spirit to gain godhood status....

Oh. It was rhetorical.

This has exactly the same problem as the standard turning system.

Right. Once again, the mindless minions have far more hit dice and, therefore, hit points, than the master undead. Attacking the hit points solves nothing where the paradox is concerned.

You have to remember that Deities and Demi-Gods was designed for the express purpose of having Gods you could kill.

Nah. If PCs were actually meant to go up against deities, the gods would have been given Challenge Ratings.

It's more of a tool to figure out exactly how the gods can affect the world. And to players a chance to say "My patron deity can beat up your patron deity" and then back it up with proof.

They don't actually want them to be too powerful (Except Boccob, he auto rolls 20s for everything. I don't even know why they bothered calculating his base saves.)

Auto 20s are for every greater deity.

And it's an auto result of 20. Not an auto natural 20. So if Boccob had a +60 Fort save, he'd automatically succeed on any DC 80 or lower Fort save but would still have to roll for that nat 20 on DC 81 or higher.

[Jasdoif]

Right. Once again, the mindless minions have far more hit dice and, therefore, hit points, than the master undead. Attacking the hit points solves nothing where the paradox is concerned.

Well...HD-heavy undead would be affected instead of being untouchable, and CR-heavy undead would have a chance at surviving instead of being routinely one-shotted. It's the same "problem", yes, but the effects are less extreme...and it doesn't rely on those clunky mechanics either. It's an improvement on some level, at the very least.


But I apparently didn't catch your real problem earlier, and I have to question the rationale of your intent. 20HD zombies are supposed to be tough, that's why they have 20 hit dice. And their lich masters aren't as resilient, that's probably why they have zombie minions in the first place.

I find it incongruous to expect that a hulking 20HD zombie (CR 6) would be as susceptible to turning as a ghoul wizard 4 (CR 4 and +2 turn resistance). If you believe otherwise, perhaps the problem lies elsewhere in the system.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

20HD zombies are supposed to be tough, that's why they have 20 hit dice.

But they aren't supposed to be as tough as a 16th level lich wizard. So why should it take as much power to turn one as it does the other?

And their lich masters aren't as resilient, that's probably why they have zombie minions in the first place.

Actually, their lich masters are more resilient in general (i.e. in every way except turning), but it's due to spells and special abilities than just excess meat. That's why the lich that animated the CR 6 zombie has a CR of at least 12.

I find it incongruous to expect that a hulking 20HD zombie (CR 6) would be as susceptible to turning as a ghoul wizard 4 (CR 4 and +2 turn resistance). If you believe otherwise, perhaps the problem lies elsewhere in the system.

The hulking zombie's just a bunch of rotting meat. That's all its hit dice represent in the ways of toughness. Nothing special about it.

The ghoul is cunning and intelligent and likely has an even stronger connection to the Negative Energy Plane in this way.

[tyckspoon]

But I apparently didn't catch your real problem earlier, and I have to question the rationale of your intent. 20HD zombies are supposed to be tough, that's why they have 20 hit dice. And their lich masters aren't as resilient, that's probably why they have zombie minions in the first place.

I find it incongruous to expect that a hulking 20HD zombie (CR 6) would be as susceptible to turning as a ghoul wizard 4 (CR 4 and +2 turn resistance). If you believe otherwise, perhaps the problem lies elsewhere in the system.

A level 6 cleric should be able to use his anti-undead class feature to achieve something useful against a CR 6 undead. Doing 6d6 damage against 20d12 HD is only marginally more useful than doing nothing at all with a normal turning check. Both are less useful than what the cleric could achieve by ignoring Turn Undead completely and casting a spell instead (or perhaps using a Divine feat to turn one of those borkened Turn uses into something useful.)

[Jasdoif]

But they aren't supposed to be as tough as a 16th level lich wizard. So why should it take as much power to turn one as it does the other?

Actually, their lich masters are more resilient in general (i.e. in every way except turning), but it's due to spells and special abilities than just excess meat. That's why the lich that animated the CR 6 zombie has a CR of at least 12.

...at this point I think we're divided on what "tough" means, in this particular instance. I guess it also depends on how you envision turning is supposed to work...but now that I remember turning is more akin to mental coercion then flooding undead with positive energy, I guess physical toughness is irrelevant. OK, that marks against plain ol' HD comparisons....

My main concern, I guess, is...well, how CR is typically used, and your prior mention of turning being meant for "field control". If a 6th cleric can handle a CR 6 undead creature reliably, what happens when there's 2 CR 4? Or 4 CR 2? Now, a CR 2 zombie has 6 HD, so a level 6 cleric with standard turning would have a good shot at turning them, perhaps even three of them with a single attempt if the dice (and Cha mod) are right. Same with a 4th level cleric vs 4 CR 1 (4-HD) zombies...hmm. Now I can't help but wonder if this is coincidence, or if group-of-4-zombies was the measuring stick for turning or zombie CR.

I agree with your statement in the OP about how using CR to influence the in-game is inelegant at best. It also (speaking of what I've been able to determine about Truenaming) feels like a forced attempt to accommodate the disparity between CR and HD. HD plays a part in the most basic defenses: hit points and save bonuses. CR...does not. Using CR as a mechanic effectively puts the entire "fair" playing field onto one single term, or lower in the case of multiple creatures in an encounter. It cuts down on needing to select a variety of approaches, as something that's routinely above your attempts either has special resistance to your ability or you were going to die anyway.

You're right, turning needs an overhaul of some sort, but while your proposal has some merit I don't think it's quite it. Of course, I don't have any genuinely better ideas....

[Shhalahr Windrider]

A level 6 cleric should be able to use his anti-undead class feature to achieve something useful against a CR 6 undead.

Y'know, it's so simple, yet I had such trouble with coming up with such direct phrasing. This is the mechanical issue I've been talking about.

Thanks for putting it so succinctly, tyckspoon.

[Jasdoif]

Thinking over this some more...I realize that I don't really see turn undead as being a primary class feature. I think it's more of a "flavorful" mechanic, like a druid's Resist Nature's Lure or a paladin's Remove Disease. Simply put, a cleric is a full caster with effectively free access to an expansive spell list; Turn Undead is simply some situational icing on the cake. Serving primarily as a convenience mechanism against large numbers of weaker undead that would otherwise be more time-and-resource-consuming then they're actually worth.

Looks like that's all been long buried, though....Now turn attempts can power far more effective things, rogues have ways to get sneak attack vs undead, and so on. It's no wonder DMM is popular, it turns a flavory class feature into a superboost for a primary class feature.

[Keld Denar]

The problem with turning-as-damage, is that you could concievably hire out an entire church of Pelor's contingent of 1st and 2nd acolytes, take em too a dungeon, and have them all use their greater turning attemt to deal 6*#clerics to all bad guys. 20 clerics would net you 120 damage, with the numbers only getting sillier from there. And thats if they all rolled average and got cleric level +0. If they all had at least a 14 cha, then that damage pretty much doubles.

Turning-as-CR seems like a pretty decent work around some of the time though. It'll be interesting to see what happens to turn undead in 4e. I doubt they'll nix the concept, its been something that has been around since the start. Maybe all undead will be assigned an "effective turn DC" that is arbitrarily assigned based on their resilliance, rather than a function of HD or CR. The cleric would roll vs that number, with bonus effects if they exceeded that number by X.

[Kaelik]

The problem with turning-as-damage, is that you could concievably hire out an entire church of Pelor's contingent of 1st and 2nd acolytes, take em too a dungeon, and have them all use their greater turning attemt to deal 6*#clerics to all bad guys. 20 clerics would net you 120 damage, with the numbers only getting sillier from there. And thats if they all rolled average and got cleric level +0. If they all had at least a 14 cha, then that damage pretty much doubles.

There is not "getting Cleric level +0" and Charisma doesn't increase the amount of damage dealt under that variant. Read the rules, they do Xd6 where X is Cleric level. Period.