On Turn Undead

[Vish]

Turn Undead

Disclaimer.
Turn Undead now does the following:

DC is 10 + Charisma Modifier + Cleric Level + Paladin Level + Turning Bonus

If saving throw is failed, 1d4+4 Positive Energy Damage per Cleric + Paladin level and the undead are stunned for 10 seconds.
If saving throw is made, half damage and no stun.

There is no longer a hit die limitations. The various feats and enhancements that boost Turn Undead would be modified to work with either the DC or the damage aspect of this version of Turn Undead.


So, the questions are,
What counts as a turning bonus, and
What dc is saved against.

Eternal faith level+2, max+2, total+2
Hallowed max+2
Sacred level+2
Silver flame total+6
Insightful faith level+2, max+2, total+4

So we have bonuses that affect level, those would be dc based primarily, but would also affect the base damage. The most powerful modifier is for level. Which affects stun and destruction.

Then we have bonuses for max and total. Since this is now dropped, they would have to be modifiers to damage.
I suggest max be base die.
0= 1d4
+2= 1d6
+4= 1d8
+6= 1d10
+8= 1d12
+10= 2d8
Etc.
I would suggest total be like a deadly modifier.
+2=+2
+4=+4
+12=+12
Modified as say 1d4+4 (+total)
So 1d4+8 per level, for a +4 total mod.

So the formula would become
(Max + total) x level

So if you had a 20th level cleric, 50 cha, with eternal faith, sacred, and silver flame,
Your dc would be
10 + 20 + 25 + 4 = 59 (70cha = 69)

And your damage would be
(1d6 + 12) x 29

Your charisma does not affect your damage. Just dc. Unless changed. Or perhaps wisdom. Alternatives.

let's look at other sources

Spell Seek Eternal Rest, adds stacking +4 sacred to level
So +6 with a sacred item as well.

Enhancement improved turning, adds up to +3 to level

Feat improved turning, adds +1 to level

Feat aureaons instruction, adds level+4, max+4, total+4

So if a 20th cleric with one each of the above
Level 20 +5epic +2ef +2sa + 2if + 4er +3it +1it +4ai = 43
Plus (70 charisma)+35 plus base+10
= 88 dc

Now, add domain
Death Domain
Level 2: You gain +1 to the DC of your Necromancy spells. This increases by +1 at 6th, 12th, and 18th level Cleric.
Your Turn Undead does twice the normal amount of damage. Undead that fail their saving throw are destroyed (unless they are immune to effects that cause instant death).
Level 5: You gain Death Ward as an SLA
Level 9: You gain Necrotic Ray as an SLA
Level 14: You gain Destruction as an SLA

So all this does is make the dc binary, save or die, and double damage. Quite impressive.

Now take the maxx cleric from above. Running at level 43.
All maxxed out, the damage would be

(2d8 + 14) x 43 = 688-1290
Now to adjust for 1000 positive sp or x11
X(1000sp)+11 = 7568-14190
And for double damage
X2 = 15136-28380
Or 15k-28k

Tops for a super twink cleric.
If the dc doesn't kill em, the turn damage will.
So for a necro, and most clerics, it's about the level and the dc.
But the damage is enough to wipe out those 100k beasts in 5 turns.
Five.
For a 100k dps
So a 70 cha cleric prob has about 40 turns. And they regen.
So that's a pretty decent dpser at max.

So let's look at a real cleric, like my vish build.
13 cleric. Has improved turning3.a silver flame priest, not aureon. No items of note for turn undead, but has a epic seraphim. Can cast seek rest.?*So that would be +3 +4.
Level 13 +5epic +3 +4 = 25
Dc = 10 +14(38cha) +25lvl = 49
Pretty low even to make will saves
Now what would damage look like? No max or total mods, so
Vish has 817 pos sp. so x9 multiplier
(1d4+4)x18x9 = 810-1296
1k damage per turn.
Minuscule compared to 100k hp skelly.
And I wouldn't spec death domain, I would spec enchant. For the paralyzer.
So I would in no way use turning against undead. Pretty much as it is now. But a fully decked battle cruiser could do some damage, if not outright destroy.

This is my initial understanding.
But all the gain now will come in how these cleric items are Rescripted.
Since that is where the gains come from.
Power on.

[JOTMON]

The issue I have here is..
to do this you would sacrifice the clerics primary stat (WIS) and all the DC's associated to Cleric spells.
like.. undeath to death, implosion, that can instantly kill these mobs regardless of their HP..
besides not every mob in the game is undead...

where is the break point that draw players from being effective with all mob content by building a max WIS base DC cleric
to Focussing on CHA to be effective undead focussed walking destroyer of undead (while sacrificing WIS DC's and weakening themselves to all other content).


from my point of view without the destruction aspect.. what is the niche draw to give that strength to a focus on a CHA based turning cleric while sacrificing WIS DC's.
it is lost..
the proposed damage is not enough to justify the heavy CHA focus just to be able to eventually kill undead using 5 turns..
without the destruction aspect of Turn Undead you may as well just be a aura/burst Radiant servant cleric or blast/burst warlock.

Turn Undead needs to be impressive for those that are invested.
you are specializing the focus of your build after all to deal with an small portion of the overall mob population.

[SirValentine]

Turn Undead now does the following:

DC is 10 + Charisma Modifier + Cleric Level + Paladin Level + Turning Bonus


Just to be clear, this is not "Turn Undead now". This is merely an early look at a potential proposal that hopefully never goes live.

Turn Undead now has no save, and isn't just another way to do DPS.

[Vish]

"Your charisma does not affect your damage. Just dc. Unless changed. Or perhaps wisdom. Alternatives."

So I presented a max case, scaled high, and a min case, my own cleric.
Realize the max was inflated, to give some semblance of where balance lies.
The real numbers for a 25 cleric, with say 40 cha, 10+25+15+3=53 dc, and (2-8)x25xsay8= 400-1600.
That is sad panda.
But that begs, where's the save?
Wis? Fort? Dex? Assume wis?...

I'm sure this conversation is being had.
And what placeholders do item effects make? And if new system, rearrange enhancement trees to reflect changes?
The issue is how things stack and where they're gonna put em.
I hear that it takes a lot to build for turn spec. Probably not really justified in a target poor environment, but that may change with ravenloft. Getting the clerics on deck and letting them be needed again, in more than reaper.
Or perhaps looking long term at wisdom conversion. Perhaps that may factor into turn undead. Maybe an option to use wisdom for dc. Never know, I would suggest it, but devs always seem to come at things from a different angle.

And about turns in general, destruction is only if over twice hit die. So like if you were going through a graveyard, it would keep all the lesser spirits off you. But for the heavy undead, maybe only a few would get destroyed, and the others stunned. If your a bad ass.

And as for captain not-obvious, I copied and pasted the tu description from whatever post had it. I mean, I put a disclaimer on it. And too, the now is coming soon.

[nazgul748]

My biggest question is: What about Positive Energy Burst? This change will reduce it to a cheap, weak heal.

[Niminae]

My biggest question is: What about Positive Energy Burst? This change will reduce it to a cheap, weak heal.

I haven't seen any mention of a change to Positive Energy Burst. How does a change to the TU mechanic 'reduce' Positive Energy Burst?

[nazgul748]

I haven't seen any mention of a change to Positive Energy Burst. How does a change to the TU mechanic 'reduce' Positive Energy Burst?

It deceases it´s usefulness. If TU does the same thing better for the same cost, then the damage aspect of PEB is redundant. Why would you waste a turn using it to heal when you can get the same effect by burning a few sp?

[cpw_acc]

Just to be clear, this is not "Turn Undead now". This is merely an early look at a potential proposal that hopefully never goes live.

Turn Undead now has no save, and isn't just another way to do DPS.

You and others keep repeating this "current way = no save, new way = save, therefore its a nerf" declaration.

But this is not really true, although the terminology and way of looking at it has kind of reversed.

Currently:

YOU make a dice roll (D20 + char mod; effectively a charisma check) and have to beat a number based on a enemy HD (effectively a DC).

So effectively YOU are making a 'saving throw' (ish) which must succeed. A binary success or failure. And even if you do succeed you only affect a certain HD of undead based on Char and level.

New proposal:

The ENEMY makes the saving throw with a DC based on your charisma. Still a binary success/failure from the point of view of each individual enemy, but from your point of view you are going to affect a semi-random number of enemies (based on your Char and enemy saving throw ability). Success means full damage (failure half damage? can't remember what the proposal said now).


So it really just "reverses" the system.

From the numerous complaints on the forums previously, it seems that the current system simply doesn't scale into higher and epic levels. This is because HD rises so much faster than stats and other bonuses that could possibly affect the Turn Undead mechanism.

The new way puts Turning back in line with the standard process of spell/ability/save system and, although D&D rules still struggle with balancing at higher level, this at least puts it in line with other work to scale the spell system up to these levels and go some or all of the way to solving the original complaint.

Does this mean your average cleric is going to have a harder time killing undead? That is obviously going to depend on the damage and average hp of undead. My guess is that in general the damage will be enough to kill or almost kill undead at lower levels and probably be just as effective as before, but this will obviously need to wait for play-testing.

At higher levels the previous complaint was that Turn Undead generally just stopped working and so was simply not worth even attempting. With the new system you will always at least do damage, even if not enough to kill outright, but this isn't much different to an average fighter swinging a sword (at lower levels, in my experience, my characters pretty much one-shot everything whereas at epics I have to hack away a bit!)

Maybe this means the cleric-undead-DPS rating will just "spread" through the levels a bit more evenly now, rather than being front-loaded to low-level and nothing at high/epic level?

[dunklezhan]

You and others keep repeating this "current way = no save, new way = save, therefore its a nerf" declaration.

But this is not really true, although the terminology and way of looking at it has kind of reversed.

Currently:

YOU make a dice roll (D20 + char mod; effectively a charisma check) and have to beat a number based on a enemy HD (effectively a DC).

So effectively YOU are making a 'saving throw' (ish) which must succeed. A binary success or failure. And even if you do succeed you only affect a certain HD of undead based on Char and level.



Yes, its like a spell pen check vs undead. With the new formula I don't really know why they don't just make it +Wis OR +Cha, rather than a single stat thing.

You watch, next it'll be spell resistance being turned into a boost to MRR instead of an all or nothing job.

[Vish]

It deceases it´s usefulness. If TU does the same thing better for the same cost, then the damage aspect of PEB is redundant. Why would you waste a turn using it to heal when you can get the same effect by burning a few sp?

Positive Energy Burst: You gain +1% Positive Energy Spell Critical Chance.
Channel Divinity: A wave of positive energy that expands from the caster, healing 1d8 plus 1 per Cleric level to all nearby allies, as well as removing 1d4 negative levels and 1d6 points of ability damage. Undead are instead damaged by the energy, taking 1d8 points of damage per Cleric level - a successful Will save reduces the damage by half. (Metamagic: Empower, Empower Heal, Maximize, Quicken. Spell Resistance: Yes)

Burst is about same as turn undead damage wise.
Turn is higher average.
But they have different uses. Burst is mostly for a spot heal and neg removal.
Turn is for... Well, not used. Or for undead, but mostly if you have a good dc.
Then it can be somewhat effective. Now we get damage on a save, stun or destroy on a fail.

Now the question in the trade off is which is better.
I use my bursts for healing, not for killing undead, tho you can. Now it's more efficient to instead do a turn, if you have DCs. But otherwise, you get a heal and damage to undead. So I would always choose the heal.

Now look at how many turns you get. I get 24 on my dump stat cleric.he has 38 char, and rs tree, so improved turning. He also has regen turns. It lasts for two min, for an aura, which uses turns, and it regens in two minutes. So basically I can run aura all the time for free. So that gives me 23 turns left for burst or undead. So far only use for emergency spot heal as bursts. Turn simply don't work on my cleric, even tho he has 3 cleric past lives.

So perhaps by changing the weighting of how the damage is determined, ie by items, such as sacred or hallowed, the damage will increase further to where turn undead is a goto button for undead. But you're still better served by doing some damage and getting a heal from a burst. That's my general conclusion.

So with the 24 turns, a 70 cha cleric will have about 40, that is a lot of turning. In the above example, even some crazy jacked numbers will still take 5 tu to take down a 100k skelly. It would prob take all your turns as described now. So this system leaves a lot to be desired yet.

The only hope is in getting your dc up to max and going necro for the destroy option. Then you got a kill per turn, or better.

You know, and on second though, burst is the nobrainer.
Because metamagics.
You can meta them, so that will,crank the damage.
You can't meta turn undead. Unless that changes.
Already the point was, does turn undead damage scale with positive sp?
It hopefully must, since that what a healer cleric specs,for.
So, as it stands, burst is hands down better than turn for doing damage.

[SirValentine]

...it really just "reverses" the system.


No, it doesn't. It's more complicated than that. There's multiple factors, but I'll give you the most obvious (though not necessarily most significant): auto-save on 20. That's simply not in the D&D system we have now in DDO. If a Level 20 Cleric with a 50 Charisma walks into Heyton's Rest on Casual, and Turns Undead, he Turns those Undead. Period. Not, well, 19 times out of 20, anyway.



From the numerous complaints on the forums previously, it seems that the current system simply doesn't scale into higher and epic levels. This is because HD rises so much faster than stats and other bonuses that could possibly affect the Turn Undead mechanism.


It's true it doesn't scale well into Epics. People, including me, have been pointing that out for years. And suggesting solutions. Including solutions that don't require removing D&D's Turn Undead from the game and inventing SSG Turn Undead. Solutions that don't nerf what people have right now. Solutions that don't just homogenize everything in the game into DPS. If you didn't see it, I'll include what I posted in another thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/486972-Against-the-new-cleric-turning?p=5979512&viewfull=1#post5979512):



- Keep current mechanics & flavor.
- Address the problem only where it actually is a problem. Mainly in Epics, and to a lesser extent in upper Heroics.

- Epic Destinies:
- Every ED that gives Cleric caster levels should already automatically give Turn Undead levels. Why wasn't this done years ago? Make it so.
- At least one ED should include an option to give additional bonuses to Turning

- Epic Feats:
- Add a Turn-boosting feat along the same lines as the "Master of" feat line
- Add or modify at least one Legendary feat to boost Turns

- Gear:
- Implement scaling.
- Right now, you can use Sacred items at very low level, and get nothing better at all until very high level. Consider all the inflation that's been done on other things, why not Turn? At very low level, I can currently get +2 to level (Sacred) and an extra +6 to damage on top of that (Silver Flame). What if there's a whole scale of bonuses by level, the way most other things work? Maybe a power-level-40 lootgen gives +20 to Turn Level and +40 to Turn Damage. Maybe crafted power 34 give +17 and +34. Numbers subject to tweaking as needed, of course, as maybe that's too high, or too low. Game out the numbers, do some play-testing, and roll it out.

- Problem solved.

[Vish]

Ok,
Nothing has changed with turn undead
Just that damage has been added

Mighty turning is 10 in radiant
That tier2, by 3 a cleric has the ap
To destroy undead
That is paramount

Just because death domain adds it for free,
It does not change the fact that for 10 ap,
It is basically a class function.


The other point.
Cleric levels.
Max 25. By ED

There was a thread on this
Since EDs are based on level 25,
They need to be expanded to 30,
The full range of epic

I would like to see this for the expansion
Devs, take note,
Incorporate this.

That boosts DCs by 5.

[cpw_acc]

No, it doesn't. It's more complicated than that. There's multiple factors, but I'll give you the most obvious (though not necessarily most significant): auto-save on 20. That's simply not in the D&D system we have now in DDO. If a Level 20 Cleric with a 50 Charisma walks into Heyton's Rest on Casual, and Turns Undead, he Turns those Undead. Period. Not, well, 19 times out of 20, anyway.


True, but with each individual undead having to make their own saving throw I'm not sure this will alter the statistics enough to make that much of a difference.

It would be interesting if someone could run the numbers for low/mid/high heroics/epics to determine the average number of undead in a CR range would get affected (ignoring the turn/instant death/damage changes for the moment). Though with such a change in the system it may be hard to compare (and probability was always my mathematical weak point!)


It's true it doesn't scale well into Epics. People, including me, have been pointing that out for years. And suggesting solutions. Including solutions that don't require removing D&D's Turn Undead from the game and inventing SSG Turn Undead. Solutions that don't nerf what people have right now. Solutions that don't just homogenize everything in the game into DPS. If you didn't see it, I'll include what I posted in another thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/486972-Against-the-new-cleric-turning?p=5979512&viewfull=1#post5979512):

I still haven't really seen any proof about this being a "nerf", although it is a very popular word that gets thrown around when there's even a hint of something getting *shock horror* changed.

[Niminae]

I still haven't really seen any proof about this being a "nerf", although it is a very popular word that gets thrown around when there's even a hint of something getting *shock horror* changed.

If by "this" you mean the changes to Turn Undead specifically and by themselves, here is the proof:


Destroying undead: If you have twice or more as many effective cleric levels (Turning value) as the undead have hit dice, you destroy any that you would normally turn. The Mighty Turning enhancement allows you to destroy any undead that has less or equal hit dice to the turning check result.

Before: Clerics can destroy Undead using the Turn Undead ability alone. After: They cannot. That is a nerf by any objective evaluation.

For the first sentence of that wiki citation I do not care. If a Cleric has enough levels to destroy Undead without Mighty Turning then they will be doing fairly significant damage to them under the new system and can most likely easily kill them via other means anyway. I don't see any reason to balance an ability for players who are smashing content well over level. It is still objectively a nerf, but as I said my "I care" threshold is not passed by that situation.

For the second sentence, the one referring to Mighty Turning, then we have an "it depends" situation. Along with the teaser for Turn Undead changes and Domains, Cordovan also mentioned that a Divine enhancement tree pass is planned as well as a third tree for FvS. (No love for a Druid third tree is planned, or at least none was mentioned) If Mighty Turning is removed from the RS tree during this pass, then that is a nerf as well. If it is, as I have seen several players suggest on these forums, moved up to Tier 4 or 5 of that tree, it is a nerf. Either change would mean that a player who wants the ability to destroy Undead would either be forced to select one specific Domain, or they would have to spend more AP to pick up the same capability they had before. And although I haven't seen anything from the devs regarding Mighty Turning, just the fact that they have included a Mighty Turning-like capability in one of the Domains suggests that they might be thinking of removing it from the RS enhancement tree.

These are objective evaluations of the before and after state of Turn Undead based on what has been presented for Turn Undead so far and what could happen during the Divine enhancement tree passes.

[Vish]

Jammin

It's like the undead our jamming our frequency
Like how warlocks have taken over the game
The smell of evil...

So, hoopla
Seems we need a DEV clarification
Or are they so scared to say?

I mean, if the whole turn dead fiasco
Came out As misconception...
That they did away with mighty turning and put it in death domain
I mean, really?
Everybody gets carried away,
When it should be obvious that for 10 ap
Any cleric can destroy.
Did they take that away by introducing domains?

I admit, I have to run a pure
And do the turn undead thing
But my experience has been, it doesn't work
And I've got cleric past lives
I mean, really?
They don't know the state of their own game??

I will run a pure and provide feedback
Man,
Jammin

[Sunnie]

You and others keep repeating this "current way = no save, new way = save, therefore its a nerf" declaration.

But this is not really true, although the terminology and way of looking at it has kind of reversed.

Currently:

YOU make a dice roll (D20 + char mod; effectively a charisma check) and have to beat a number based on a enemy HD (effectively a DC).

So effectively YOU are making a 'saving throw' (ish) which must succeed. A binary success or failure. And even if you do succeed you only affect a certain HD of undead based on Char and level.

New proposal:

The ENEMY makes the saving throw with a DC based on your charisma. Still a binary success/failure from the point of view of each individual enemy, but from your point of view you are going to affect a semi-random number of enemies (based on your Char and enemy saving throw ability). Success means full damage (failure half damage? can't remember what the proposal said now).


So it really just "reverses" the system.
Sorry, but you're wrong.
Yes, currently clerics and paladin roll a d20 and add charisma to it, but the result of that roll influences their effective level for the purposes of turning undead. That is in no way like a DC at all. It is somewhat similar to a spell penetration check, but even that comparison is flawed. For DCs and spell pen the number on the d20 is always relevant. For TU it's possible to always get the best result of that first roll even on a 1 if your bonuses to that roll are high enough (i.e. +21), if you get to that point adding more bonuses no longer increases your effective level for turning. Which, again, is quite unlike DC casting where every further +1 can count for something.

This is what makes TU far more accessible than DC casting is. With a moderate investment you can ensure that you always get good results, it would've been up to the devs to design content so that those results remained useful, but... CR and HD bloat of mobs happened instead. The fix for TU is not to make it require as great an investment as DC casting (in which case people will just be DC casters instead, or bludgeon things (back) to death), the fix is to keep TU accessible for all clerics regardless of build and make it so it's useful in all content with a moderate investment that does not require gimping oneself.

[mr420247]

Considering that the Spell resistance spell buff is completely outdated

and hard capped and does not scale into epics any change would be better for it

You can get double to triple spell resistance off new items ran gen

[cpw_acc]

If by "this" you mean the changes to Turn Undead specifically and by themselves, here is the proof:



Before: Clerics can destroy Undead using the Turn Undead ability alone. After: They cannot. That is a nerf by any objective evaluation.

For the first sentence of that wiki citation I do not care. If a Cleric has enough levels to destroy Undead without Mighty Turning then they will be doing fairly significant damage to them under the new system and can most likely easily kill them via other means anyway. I don't see any reason to balance an ability for players who are smashing content well over level. It is still objectively a nerf, but as I said my "I care" threshold is not passed by that situation.

For the second sentence, the one referring to Mighty Turning, then we have an "it depends" situation. Along with the teaser for Turn Undead changes and Domains, Cordovan also mentioned that a Divine enhancement tree pass is planned as well as a third tree for FvS. (No love for a Druid third tree is planned, or at least none was mentioned) If Mighty Turning is removed from the RS tree during this pass, then that is a nerf as well. If it is, as I have seen several players suggest on these forums, moved up to Tier 4 or 5 of that tree, it is a nerf. Either change would mean that a player who wants the ability to destroy Undead would either be forced to select one specific Domain, or they would have to spend more AP to pick up the same capability they had before. And although I haven't seen anything from the devs regarding Mighty Turning, just the fact that they have included a Mighty Turning-like capability in one of the Domains suggests that they might be thinking of removing it from the RS enhancement tree.

These are objective evaluations of the before and after state of Turn Undead based on what has been presented for Turn Undead so far and what could happen during the Divine enhancement tree passes.

Depends on the average amount of damage the new Turn mechanism does compared to the average hit points of the undead you are likely to be facing at the various quest levels and difficulties.
You either have an effect that instakills an undead or does nothing (leaving them at full HP for them to pound on you), or an effect that does more damage than their HP and so still instakills them anyway or at least does damage (meaning they can be killed quicker and not have so long to pound on you).

You also have to consider the fact that currently a Turn may only affect 1 or 2 undead out of a mob, and that the rest of that mob then become immune to further Turn attempts.

[Cantor]

You also have to consider the fact that currently a Turn may only affect 1 or 2 undead out of a mob, and that the rest of that mob then become immune to further Turn attempts.

I made this point in a different thread. I think a lot of people haven't considered this.

[Vish]

if you get to that point adding more bonuses no longer increases your effective level for turning.
.

How is this not always the case?

Turn undead is the same as a dc.
And the more bonuses the higher it goes
If you possess the dc to turn double the level,
Yes that would always be a success.

This would be easily be seen in a pack of low cr mobs,
But in a mixed pack of larger cr mobs,
The higher mobs determine if any are turned...
If it goes to a dc, and maybe a separate check,
Then those lower cr mobs will always be turned,
And maybe destroyed,
And the higher ones will just be stunned,
Or if you got great dc, then destroyed.
I would think in all cases having a higher number
Allows instakill at low level,
And keeps you in the ballpark for high level

[Chai]

Sorry, but you're wrong.
Yes, currently clerics and paladin roll a d20 and add charisma to it, but the result of that roll influences their effective level for the purposes of turning undead. That is in no way like a DC at all. It is somewhat similar to a spell penetration check, but even that comparison is flawed. For DCs and spell pen the number on the d20 is always relevant. For TU it's possible to always get the best result of that first roll even on a 1 if your bonuses to that roll are high enough (i.e. +21), if you get to that point adding more bonuses no longer increases your effective level for turning. Which, again, is quite unlike DC casting where every further +1 can count for something.

This is what makes TU far more accessible than DC casting is. With a moderate investment you can ensure that you always get good results, it would've been up to the devs to design content so that those results remained useful, but... CR and HD bloat of mobs happened instead. The fix for TU is not to make it require as great an investment as DC casting (in which case people will just be DC casters instead, or bludgeon things (back) to death), the fix is to keep TU accessible for all clerics regardless of build and make it so it's useful in all content with a moderate investment that does not require gimping oneself.

I can do this similarly in heroics with DC as I can with TU. I can have a "moderate" investment in DC and it will still be useful in heroics now days as well. This is in large part due to the power creep that has occurred between the time most heroics were designed and now. Higher tomes, higher stat items, more easily accessible insightful gear for stats and insightful gear period for DC ensures that even if I am not invested in maxing the stat I can still use DC effectively to right around the same point TU can be used effectively. When the HD bloat occurs, the stat bloat and saves bloat also occur. Its at that point where the cleric dumps TU and the non maxed caster stops using their DC abilities.

My max wis cleric succeeds on TU in the same content as...
A max dex bard succeeds on dancing ball with, and...
A max con warlock succeeded on hurl + evaards in, and...
A max dex tempest trip attacks still work in, and...
A max con shiradi zombie CCs and instakills in. (yes I still had to play this through heroics, heh)


The problem of course, with making it "useful with moderate investment" is in a game where min maxers tweak builds for every +1, that will equate to better than moderate investment approaching no fail. If it approaches no fail and doesnt need a max stat investment, then clerics can still go max wis, be a DC caster anyhow, and still have TU to spam between implosions etc. Will there ever be another reason to build any other way? Or will there be one and only one optimal cleric build because everyone is running around playing the same thing (similar to the 41/38/1 human barbarian builds after their revamp).

[Niminae]

Depends on the average amount of damage the new Turn mechanism does compared to the average hit points of the undead you are likely to be facing at the various quest levels and difficulties.
You either have an effect that instakills an undead or does nothing (leaving them at full HP for them to pound on you), or an effect that does more damage than their HP and so still instakills them anyway or at least does damage (meaning they can be killed quicker and not have so long to pound on you).

You also have to consider the fact that currently a Turn may only affect 1 or 2 undead out of a mob, and that the rest of that mob then become immune to further Turn attempts.

You say the above as if these things are completely unknown until the now abandoned changes are (not) implemented. They are not unknown.

The damage cited in the original reveal was 1d4+4 (4-8) damage per Cleric or Paladin level.

If anyone thinks, using the example of a L10 Cleric, that 40-80 damage (average of 65) is going to kill an undead in a L10 Elite quest (so L8 base level, just to be clear), they are wildly out of touch. I've recently run a few L10 elites recently, the lowest HP on an undead was ~150, and they went up to ~450 in the same quests. So ~65 damage isn't going to replicate destroying anything on elite.

[cpw_acc]

You say the above as if these things are completely unknown until the now abandoned changes are (not) implemented. They are not unknown.

The damage cited in the original reveal was 1d4+4 (4-8) damage per Cleric or Paladin level.

If anyone thinks, using the example of a L10 Cleric, that 40-80 damage (average of 65) is going to kill an undead in a L10 Elite quest (so L8 base level, just to be clear), they are wildly out of touch. I've recently run a few L10 elites recently, the lowest HP on an undead was ~150, and they went up to ~450 in the same quests. So ~65 damage isn't going to replicate destroying anything on elite.

True (but did it scale with spell power?). This is the sort of thing though that could have been adjusted easily after a bit of playtesting (and remember, only Might Turning guaranteed destroying an affected Undead, otherwise only undead of much lower level were destroyed; the new system had a stunning effect in addition to damage)

Of course, thanks to the Screamers, it seems the entire concept has been scrapped anyway. So now nobody gets a chance to even try it out.

[Niminae]

True (but did it scale with spell power?).


No words from the devs about scaling with spell power. I guess that would be positive spell power? Given the lack of comments I'd say that it was not intended to scale. Which is a shame, since 1d4+4 per level is fairly lame damage. But since the devs have run screaming from changing TU I guess this is a moot point.

[Cosmicdog0]

I would like to suggest that cleric hirelings should be able to attempt to turn undead. They are able to do all the wonderful things that player clerics can do; heal, raise dead, resurrect, etc-etc. How about adding Turn Undead.

[Vish]

I think? There are hires that turn

And this is a way dead subject

[K_9]

Turn Undead

Disclaimer.
Turn Undead now does the following:

DC is 10 + Charisma Modifier + Cleric Level + Paladin Level + Turning Bonus



I would be happy for this part to be implemented but however change the Charisma to Wisdom for Clerics and keep Charisma only for Paladins. Paladins are more likely to want more Charisma than Wisdom anyway.

I'm currently playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker and like how they have built their version of turn unread with two versions:

One does positive damage to undead and the other does positive healing to players/summons only. What I would like to tie on the end though is a stun/fear/blind through cleric enhancements with Paladin getting fear only. Destroy undead (insta kill) should be tied into death domain. Having these various tie ons ensure it's not an all or nothing and even if saves vs death does have some combat utility.