Against the new cleric turning

[Iriale]

I don't want to get too pedantic, but as someone who's been playing clerics in D&D since the early 1980's I have to disagree with the statement "Turning is insta-killing" in AD&D. While not an official source, the SRD here pretty clearly states the reality of Turn Undead in 3.5:

Effect and Duration of Turning

Turned undead flee from you by the best and fastest means available to them. They flee for 10 rounds (1 minute). If they cannot flee, they cower (giving any attack rolls against them a +2 bonus). If you approach within 10 feet of them, however, they overcome being turned and act normally. (You can stand within 10 feet without breaking the turning effect—you just can’t approach them.) You can attack them with ranged attacks (from at least 10 feet away), and others can attack them in any fashion, without breaking the turning effect.
Destroying Undead

If you have twice as many levels (or more) as the undead have Hit Dice, you destroy any that you would normally turn.

So, by definition, if an undead is destroyed it is NOT Turned. Turning is when the undead cower, flee, or are commanded. Flee/cower/command is the core of Turn Undead in almost every edition, with the min/max bonus of destruction for those exceptionally powerful compared to the enemies they face. It's not meant to be the "default" in any pen and paper session I've been a part of.

While there is plenty of room to argue about the stun effect, it does tend to mimic the intention of Turn Undead, in effect if not duration. Historically, DDO players have not considered Turned undead to be a successful tactic, opting instead for a simplification to "destroyed=worked". This is fine, but destroying undead will remain a part of Turn Undead. It's just that the intention of these changes is to have Turning get far more usage and effectiveness across the level spectrum rather than a binary "worked/didn't", which can be a challenge to maintain across the spectrum of level 1-30 and beyond (in terms of dungeon CR).

Cordovan, if you read his post, he was talking about AD&D (2nd edition) As I said before, DDO is based in 3rd edition, although this team of devs had forgotten that a lot in the last years. But you would to be surprised how many of your players have played AD&D or 3.X, and a lot yet play in these editions.

Thanks for mentioning this. My understanding is that the destruction part of Turn Undead will be far more successful under these changes than previous, assuming a desire to do that part (by taking the proper Domain.) Can you help me understand what mechanically makes destruction less effective under these changes?

As I said before, your new turn undead as base feature is more closer to pnp (well, TU as instantkill in death domain is an aberration! It should be a feature of sun domain), but you have forgotten that TU as instankilling have been in DDO since beginning. Players don't like that devs break their builds nor do devs take away something that has been in the game years. I can say this for experience lol You have lose me as paying customer for this.

The problem is that you (devs) have converted the domains in no sense pieces of powercreep instead to be a personalization tool. Fran, for example wants a warpriest cleric who can turn undead very well. In pnp he can to do it. As sovereign host cleric, he can choose sun and war domain, and to do an effective build. With your proposal, he can't choose war domain and retain the good TU. If he doesn't choose the sun domain, he would yet choose the feat that allows destroy undead with TU…

My advice is: tone down the powercreep of the domains (and you will need give insane upgrades to fvs and the other spellcasting classes if you don’t change the domains!) and convert them in something closer to pnp: two domains, with minor boosts on power, but which allow more customization of clerics. And, for the love of all D&D gods, give some lore to the clerics and domains. Tie the domains to sovereign hosts and dark six pantheons at least!

Although you would have saved problems if you had left the original TU that has worked in DDO since its inception, and instead you had introduced improvements to solve its bad scaling in high levels, which has always been the problem of TU (bloated hit dice of your mobs ... dispel magic and similar spells don't work for a similar problem of scaling)

[Lynnabel]

Just as a note on this spicy thread, remember, what Cordo and I talked about is in a very early stage of planning. Those numbers might change! If you enjoy giving actionable and awesome feedback, keeping it in the broad strokes without focusing on the numbers is a great direction to head in

[Zzevel]

I find it interesting myself as well. if some are having success with turning undead than they should be posting their build, PMing their build or posting videos to show their success under the current system. I would think this would be crucial feedback for the devs to look into and figure the solution out from there. turning undead is not something you see mostly anymore across most levels, especially the higher levels.

I have noticed for the past couple years too, that when players say something works when generally its considered not working or not working well, players point to specific content rather than the broad parts of the game. same goes for the opposite side too.

5% of the people are effective and of them we have 3 of them here on the forum that like to talk. ERGO they seem to be dominating the conversation and the move to change going forward for all cleric users. 95% of users usually try to use turn undead without pumping everything into DC's, those who are casual users figure they are doing it wrong or don't know what they are doing so they do not say anything here on the forum so they do not look stupid.

lI see turn undead this way

Finger of Death works once in a while without pumping the DC's, if you pump the DC's to the MAX it's pretty awesome.

Turn Undead NEVER works without pumping the DC's, if you pump the DC's to the MAX it' works OK. (and these 3 people are here talking). It is all or nothing where other things are all or something.

[mr420247]

Any chance that you guys will put

Sacred, hallowed, silver flame items back in the loot tables

Don't think ive seen any since the Great Ghost baning

Not sure if the CC stuff even works

[FestusHood]

What "better DC"? The current system doesn't have a DC.

And bringing our missing domains or these proposed "domains" into it misses the point.

Imagine if Wizards had simply not had their bonus Feat slots all these years, and then you finally implemented that missing basic class feature, but simultaneously giving them -1 to all DCs and +3 to Spell Pen. Yes, you could tell them "Spend your 'new' feats on Spell Focus and Spell Pen, and you'll better off under the new system". And it would still be a nerf.

Compare old Turn to new Turn, period. The so-called Domains are not relevant to that discussion.

- Removing insta-kill: nerf
- Adding a save: nerf
- Turning it into simply DPS: more homogenization and more all-DPS-all-the-time approach. You realize not everyone wants to play a DPS character? That's why tank/support/buff/heal/CC/instakill/etc builds exist?
- Removing D&D: bad on principle

It isn't a nerf if the dc version is more effective in practice than the no save version. Since everyone acknowledges that it takes quite a bit of investment to successfully turn undead, choosing the death domain would be a natural choice for that course. For uninvested people, they aren't turning undead anyway, so they likely won't notice the difference, or they might actually use it for damage rather than not at all.

Yes, the vast majority of complaints about turn undead have been that it hits a wall where it doesn't work any more, where the numbers simply can't be reached. Anything that makes it possible to work past that wall is an improvement, provided it doesn't necessarily lower it's effectiveness where it already worked.

I kind of like the general idea of using domains to allow people to pick which of the top complaints about clerics you have issue with, and fix that. Think clerics should have earthquake? Here is one for you. Need more melee juice? One for you. More dc's another. I'm usually in favor of choices that lead to more specialization as opposed to too much generality.

[FranOhmsford]

I don't want to get too pedantic, but as someone who's been playing clerics in D&D since the early 1980's I have to disagree with the statement "Turning is insta-killing" in AD&D. While not an official source, the SRD here pretty clearly states the reality of Turn Undead in 3.5:

Effect and Duration of Turning

Turned undead flee from you by the best and fastest means available to them. They flee for 10 rounds (1 minute). If they cannot flee, they cower (giving any attack rolls against them a +2 bonus). If you approach within 10 feet of them, however, they overcome being turned and act normally. (You can stand within 10 feet without breaking the turning effect—you just can’t approach them.) You can attack them with ranged attacks (from at least 10 feet away), and others can attack them in any fashion, without breaking the turning effect.
Destroying Undead

If you have twice as many levels (or more) as the undead have Hit Dice, you destroy any that you would normally turn.

So, by definition, if an undead is destroyed it is NOT Turned. Turning is when the undead cower, flee, or are commanded. Flee/cower/command is the core of Turn Undead in almost every edition, with the min/max bonus of destruction for those exceptionally powerful compared to the enemies they face. It's not meant to be the "default" in any pen and paper session I've been a part of.

While there is plenty of room to argue about the stun effect, it does tend to mimic the intention of Turn Undead, in effect if not duration. Historically, DDO players have not considered Turned undead to be a successful tactic, opting instead for a simplification to "destroyed=worked". This is fine, but destroying undead will remain a part of Turn Undead. It's just that the intention of these changes is to have Turning get far more usage and effectiveness across the level spectrum rather than a binary "worked/didn't", which can be a challenge to maintain across the spectrum of level 1-30 and beyond (in terms of dungeon CR).

1) Fear effects in DDO are just plain annoying unless you're playing a Ranged toon.
And even then DDO is played at such short distances that the undead simply cannot flee for 10 minutes {which would mean running a good 2 miles for the faster undead and probably at least a mile at a Zombies top pace}.

So in effect that Fear effect in PnP is EQUIVALENT to an instakill in DDO!

2) In many places in DDO we HAVE TO KILL the mobs! We cannot just stun them and move on!

So taking away the Instakill is heavily nerfing Clerics - Have you spent any time beating on skelly archers that you've turned but not destroyed? We don't all have Uber DPS and as Clerics most of us don't have anything close to even viable Melee DPS!
And let's not talk about when the Skelly Archer is on a ledge and you have to break out your bow that you have no feats for!



3) 2nd Ed. TU mechanics are totally different to the ones in DDO - There's no comparison - The effects though are broadly the same, A Decent Cleric DESTROYS Undead so long as the DM isn't throwing Vampires at you at Lvl 5 or you're not running Necro III at Lvl 7! - You're taking that away!

AT LEVEL!
I just want it to work AT LEVEL!
I'm not asking to go into Orchard Elites at Lvl 10 and annihilate all the Undead with my TU - I do want to be doing that at Lvl 16 though!

And remember - There's very few places in DDO where the ONLY mobs you face are Undead! A Warlock can annihilate everything on E-BB at Lvl! So can a Sorc! A Cleric should be able to at least annihilate Undead on E-BB at Lvl! {That is the point of TU after all!}.






P.S. I really do think that we should get to choose 2 Domains rather than being tied to just one.

[FranOhmsford]

The problem is that you (devs) have converted the domains in no sense pieces of powercreep instead to be a personalization tool. Fran, for example wants a warpriest cleric who can turn undead very well. In pnp he can to do it. As sovereign host cleric, he can choose sun and war domain, and to do an effective build. With your proposal, he can't choose war domain and retain the good TU. If he doesn't choose the sun domain, he would yet choose the feat that allows destroy undead with TU…

Thank You!

And also in DDO even with being able to take 2 domains I'd have to take Death not Sun because the Devs have put the TU bonuses in Death.

So Death and War or possibly Death and Destruction {Hey there's a guild by that name somewhere?}.



I really do think we need to be able to take 2 Domains.

[zehnvhex]

I don't want to get too pedantic, but as someone who's been playing clerics in D&D since the early 1980's I have to disagree with the statement "Turning is insta-killing" in AD&D. While not an official source, the SRD here pretty clearly states the reality of Turn Undead in 3.5:

Many of us (if not most) have been playing as long as you have. I still have my first edition books signed by Gary sitting on the shelf behind me. That being said...

Part of it is a problem with encounter design. When you think back to PnP where this stuff is rooted, turning an undead mob ~was~ basically an insta-kill since it was now a helpless enemy, especially if you had a DM who followed vairous coup de grace mechanics. Not only that but most dungeons weren't filled with max HD for at level encounters. It wasn't uncommon for our DM to throw 20+ low level undead at us amidst a large fight so you would very much outright destroy large amounts of undead with turning.

You don't really have that in DDO. There's a smattering of exceptions but at no point in clearing Slavers do I walk into a room full of 2 HD kobolds. They're all 30+ HD or whatever.

[Iriale]

Thank You!

And also in DDO even with being able to take 2 domains I'd have to take Death not Sun because the Devs have put the TU bonuses in Death.

So Death and War or possibly Death and Destruction {Hey there's a guild by that name somewhere?}.



I really do think we need to be able to take 2 Domains.

yeah death domain (should to be sun, but… the lore of devs…) and war domain.

Yes, 2 domains with minor boost on power. As is in pnp

[Impaqt]

I have not read every response to this thread line by line, but my once over is seeing many people claiming that "Turn undead no longer destroys"

if a Skeleton has, lets say, 58 hit points.....(Low level content here)

and the Cleric hits "Turn Undead"

And the Burst damage does 60 points of damage...

Is that Skeleton not "Destroyed"?

nobody seems to be taking the time to calculate what the burst damage is compared to the average undead mob..... maybe because we dont actually know yet.... Maybe we should concentrate on making sure the burst damage can scale so that undead mobs are indeed effectively level appropriately "Destroyed"

This is still prelim stuff and has the potential to be FAR more useful to LOTS more players that turn undead currently is.

[Selvera]

From the perspective of a munchkin; if a class has an ability removed and gets a free option to add it back or take a different feature; it is a buff. This is because the worst possible option (for the munchkin) is that none of the new options are better then the old ability; so they take the old ability and end up at the same power level as before. If any of the new options happens to be better then the old option; they take a new one and their character ends up more powerful then before. Nerf implies that a character ends up weaker; this is impossible for the munchkin in this scenario; they always end up the same power as before or stronger; therefore it is a buff.

From the prospective of Lore; I agree with what was posted above. Death domain is not the correct domain to get destroy undead on turn. That feature makes more sense in the Sun domain.

1) Death domain is and has always been about creating, controlling and commanding undead. From this perspective a turn effect that either charms undead or bolsters allied undead would make more sense. One ability I think would be cool as a replacement is one which makes allied undead (not PM's... although that would be cool if it was!) gain 100% movespeed and attackspeed buff for 20 seconds. But... the clerics I like to make are not death-domain type clerics; I prefer healers and/or warpriests; so it's better to let those who like death domain say what they would like to see there.

2) I happen to really like the proposed sun-domain ability of casting a free flamestrike whenever you turn undead. But... this doesn't really strike me as something which has to be in the sun domain. Instead; I would propose giving it to the fire domain (even if it does do light damage as well; it is called "flame" strike!); perhaps let this version scale completely off fire spellpower instead of fire/light. I'm not super thrilled with fire-domain's current up-to-40 fire resist on turn; and they could easily lose that effect.

[mr420247]

The problem with that is epic legendary content

The ability will not scale with meta magics

So on a 50-100k undead skele will the damage even matter

And also if or how the reaper skull levels will nerf the dps portion of the ability

[zehnvhex]

I have not read every response to this thread line by line, but my once over is seeing many people claiming that "Turn undead no longer destroys"

Given the numbers they've posted we're looking at (at max level with end game gear) around 4k on a high roll crit. And that's before reaper mode kicks in so you're looking at having to blow 10~20 + TU charges to kill an undead mob in mid/high reaper.

[MonadRebelion]

Given the numbers they've posted we're looking at (at max level with end game gear) around 4k on a high roll crit. And that's before reaper mode kicks in so you're looking at having to blow 10~20 + TU charges to kill an undead mob in mid/high reaper.

High tier reaper is the one place where TU will ending up winning on this design (assuming you don't take the death domain). This is because getting one-shot is so easy. Here you will turn for the stun, then you can safely implode or wait for your party to kill.

[Jetrule]

I have not read every response to this thread line by line, but my once over is seeing many people claiming that "Turn undead no longer destroys"

if a Skeleton has, lets say, 58 hit points.....(Low level content here)

and the Cleric hits "Turn Undead"

And the Burst damage does 60 points of damage...

Is that Skeleton not "Destroyed"?

nobody seems to be taking the time to calculate what the burst damage is compared to the average undead mob..... maybe because we dont actually know yet.... Maybe we should concentrate on making sure the burst damage can scale so that undead mobs are indeed effectively level appropriately "Destroyed"

This is still prelim stuff and has the potential to be FAR more useful to LOTS more players that turn undead currently is.

Exactly the point I raised earlier in the thread but the hyperbolic hysterics dont seem to be able to see this..

[Jetrule]

Given the numbers they've posted we're looking at (at max level with end game gear) around 4k on a high roll crit. And that's before reaper mode kicks in so you're looking at having to blow 10~20 + TU charges to kill an undead mob in mid/high reaper.

As opposed to the current situation where it does exactly nothing. And undead in some end game like slavers or toee have much less than 10 k hitpoints.

[Jetrule]

The problem with that is epic legendary content

The ability will not scale with meta magics

So on a 50-100k undead skele will the damage even matter

And also if or how the reaper skull levels will nerf the dps portion of the ability

I imagine the stun will matter. The damage will still be better than it currently is. Unless you are talking the dragon raid. Right now the people destroying those undead are turn specialized clerics. A turn specalized cleric will still destroy them a non specialized cleric will atleast have some free aoe dps/party buff at their disposal if they want it. compared to right now thats a buff.

[Faltout]

So, even though the solution to turn undead was fairly simple (in some way provide +10 to +20 turning levels in epic levels), we are getting a MAJOR nerf to average TU usefulness?

@Cordovan: Obviously the overwhelming feedback saying TU is utterly useless were exaggerating... (like that never happens). I've always provided accurate numbers about turn undead after having played turning clerics.
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5647943

And by viable you should mean able to turn 2 to 3 undead per turn on EE. Half the spawns in a room with 20 undead is not an option.

As for the numbers needed, we need about 20-30 more turning levels for epic necro. Maybe start by providing an epic item enhancement that increases the turning level by another 10? (or in raid gear with min level 26) And then also provide some more turning levels in divine crusader?

Also, increase the feat to provide at least +2 to the turning level. It's lame that a paid specialized feat provides half the level boost that the cleric past life does. How about an epic feat for another +4 to turning levels?

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5648651

MAXIMUM HIT DICE
18 turn level
31 bonus to turn level
4 bonus to maximum hit dice
2 - 4 bonus from maximum hit dice roll
=
55 - 57 maximum Hit Dice
...
TOTAL HIT DICE
18 turn level
31 bonus to turn level
30 bonus to total hit dice
2 - 12 from roll
CHA modifier
=
81 - 91 + CHA modifier
...
If the devs decide to add about 20 extra turn levels, then a total HD of 126 will be enough to turn 2 CR60 monsters (which is pretty good).

And now we get:
damage with the turn: (1d4+4)*20 = 100~160 damage.
Even if it did 1000~2000 damage, it would still fall short. First of all, Turn Undead is a unique cleric ability. Why does it need to do damage just like a bunch of "Wall of Fire"s would do? Second, the damage is negligible. Did you know that paladins have an enhancement called "Divine Light" that does 6d18=6~108 damage (*200% melee power) with the turn that NOBODY takes at TIER 1? Because this kind of damage is useless even in low levels.

stun with the turn: 10 second stun? Even the AD&D rules that you just quoted aren't that harsh. The dead flee for 10 rounds, which means it will take them another 10 rounds to come back. Dead aren't even helpless when stunned by turn undead (in the current implementation).

monster save instead of hit dice: But monster saves are through the roof, especially in reaper content.

death domain to keep the destruction ability: But that is only a single domain. And if the DC for turn undead works in more content than it does now, then everyone will play death domain clerics... Not to mention that they also get destruction (like one of the 2 spells that DC clerics use to kill stuff - other is implosion)

Turn undead works on animals/elementals? It gives buffs to party? It makes coffee? So, why keep the name? Just rename Turn Undead to "Cleric/paladin thingie. Use it when you feel like it". It's like a wanna be sorcerer...

Overall, this damage will make turn undead much less useful (to the point where you don't care to use it) in heroics and early epics, while in quests that it didn't work at all, it will gain some utility, but not enough to consider using it. Another "meh" ability.

@Lynnabel You said in the stream "I've played a turning cleric and they are OP. I did only 40 damage from levels 1-20. Rest was Turn Undead". I hope that's not the reason it is getting nerfed, because that statement is flawed in so many ways:

1. Compared to sorcerers that do more damage, more often, to almost all types of monsters, more times? Just translate those turns that you did in damage and compare it to what a sorcerer does from 1-20 with Fireball. I think you'll find that a sorcerer will have done more damage by an order of magnitude.
2. How many undead quests are there? And how many turns did you have to do what you claim? I can't imagine that you went into Tomb of the Shadow King and just Turned everything... even the phasing spiders or the named monsters. Or that you went into Tomb of the Wizard King and turned everything... Maybe you piked the rest of the leveling way? That's not really OP...
3. Did you by any chance heal the party through many other quests? What exactly is OP in that?
4. Compared to instakilling warlocks (aura + hurl through hell + bunch of other stuff) that also have unlimited damage, how did you feel with your 40 turns when suddenly you saw that the devs had changed turning to damage and you only damaged 10-20% of the monster's health while buffing the already buffed warlock that could already do the quest without you and hasn't even noticed the buff?

[zehnvhex]

As opposed to the current situation where it does exactly nothing.

And will still do exactly nothing. A pittance of damage is not enough to suddenly make clerics viable. That's the crux of the issue.

Death Domain will make TU nice, but the rest of the kit still blows.

War Domain will make melee clerics appreciable but I'd still rather have a monk with 40% dodge doing 2x the damage if I have a spot for melee in my group. TU not worth the button press here.

Earthquake Domain will make CC clerics okay for DC CC. TU not worth the button press here.

The rest of the domains are not really worth even thinking about. TU not even worth talking about because other then a HE flavor build, you wont' be bothering with these domains.

If they made TU baseline 'decent' then you could at least consider some of the less useful domains. As it stands...meh?

[mr420247]

Just makes 1 domain to rule them all

Why stun when u can just insta kill them all

I was looking at water domain and if they made some

fixes to tsunami and bogw has some ok cc potential

along with lgs freezing ice