Turn Undead Guide: 2023

[Firebreed]

According to the wiki, the Turning Check is calculated very differently though. Which is correct?

You say: 1d20 + Charisma Modifier + Turn Level Bonus + MaxHD Bonus
Wiki says: Effective Cleric Level + Turn Level Bonus + MaxHD Bonus

Your version seems a bit weird, because Turn Level Bonus stems from the (1d20 + CHA modifier) clauses, but they also appear to be included as is. Also, Effective Cleric Level doesn't appear to be part of the calculation in your version, meaning it would only be affecting Turning Damage.

How have we reached 20 posts and we still haven't figured out how half the abilty works 0.o

[karatemack]

You have Exalted Angel's Bane of Undeath in your build but it's missing from your table of possible bonus - "Rank 3: If you have the Improved Turning feat, +3 to Effective Level for Turn Undead, +3 to Maximum Hit Dice for Turn Undead, and +3 Hit Die for Turn Undead."

Good catch. I updated the OP to include this in the chart of available bonuses to Turn Undead. It doesn't change anything for the build I posted as I elected not to take the Improved Turning (Feat).

[karatemack]

Test 1 - No Gear or Spell Bonuses (CHA 67)

Bonus Type	Effective Level Bonus	MaxHD Bonus	Total HD Bonus
Improved Turning (Enhancement)	+3	-	+6
Past Life: Cleric	+6	-	-
Blessed Water	+3	+3	+3
Death Domain	+2	-	+2
Total Bonuses	+14	+3	+11

Turning Check = 1d20 + 20 + 14 + 4 + 3 (1d20 + 41) (Range 42 - 61)

Turning Damage = 2d6 + 20 + 14 + 11 + 28 (2d6 + 73) (Range 75 - 85)

From live:
(Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 16 : you hit foes up to 44 hit dice.
(Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 86 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

TURNING CHECK RESULT: Turning Check value is off by 13 on live vs our calculation. If we remove the roll from the live calculation (44 - 16 = 28) then our bonuses should equal 28. According the chart above our value before d20 should be 41.

TURNING DAMAGE RESULT: Turning Damage value is off by 3 on live vs our calculation. If we remove the 2d6 roll (86 - 10 = 76) then our bonuses should equal 76. According to the chart above our value before 2d6 should only be 73.



Test 2 - No Gear Bonuses (CHA 67) (Seek Eternal Rest)

Bonus Type	Effective Level Bonus	MaxHD Bonus	Total HD Bonus
Improved Turning (Enhancement)	+3	-	+6
Past Life: Cleric	+6	-	-
Seek Eternal Rest	+4	-	-
Blessed Water	+3	+3	+3
Death Domain	+2	-	+2
Total Bonuses	+18	+3	+11

Turning Check = 1d20 + 20 + 18 + 4 + 3 (1d20 + 45) (Range 46 - 65)

Turning Damage = 2d6 + 20 + 18 + 11 + 28 (2d6 + 77) (Range 79 - 89)

From live:
(Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 13 : you hit foes up to 48 hit dice.
(Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 4 : 83 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

TURNING CHECK RESULT: Turning Check value is off by 10 on live vs our calculation. If we remove the roll from the live calculation (48 - 13 = 35) then our bonuses should equal 35. According the chart above our value before d20 should be 45.

TURNING DAMAGE RESULT: Turning Damage value is off by 2 on live vs our calculation. If we remove the 2d6 roll (83 - 4 = 79) then our bonuses should equal 79. According to the chart above our value before 2d6 should be 77.


Because the values seemed odd to me... I decided to try a few more rolls with the same bonuses. Here are the results:

• Test 1
  
  • (Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 13 : you hit foes up to 48 hit dice. (48 - 13 = 35)
  • (Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 4 : 83 total hit dice of enemies can be turned.. (83 - 4 = 79)
  
  
• Test 2
  
  • (Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 2 : you hit foes up to 48 hit dice. (48 - 2 = 46)
  • (Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 8 : 87 total hit dice of enemies can be turned.. (87 - 8 = 79)
  
  
• Test 3
• 
  
  • (Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 1 : you hit foes up to 48 hit dice. (48 - 1 = 47)
  • (Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 6 : 86 total hit dice of enemies can be turned.. (86 - 7 = 79)
  
  
• Test 4
  
  • (Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 18 : you hit foes up to 48 hit dice. (48 - 18 = 30)
  • (Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 6 : 85 total hit dice of enemies can be turned.. (85- 6 = 79)

Conclusion
I think I found the "smoking gun" so to speak as to why we are getting confusing numbers. It appears as though the TURNING DAMAGE is correctly adding the 2d6 roll, however the TURNING CHECK is NOT adding the d20 roll to the result. This makes sense as to why without Seek Eternal Rest the Turning Check was 44, and when we added it in it increased by 4 (which is what we would expect). Our original unbuffed/ungeared values were 35 and 79. We would expect these to increase by 71 and 73 respectively once we're fully buffed and geared as per the chart below:

Bonus Type	Effective Level Bonus	MaxHD Bonus	Total HD Bonus
Hallowed	-	+14	-
Sacred	+14	-	-
Silver Flame	-	-	+6
Eternal Faith	+2	+2	+4
Insightful Faith	+2	+2	+4
TOD RS Set	+3	-	-
Improved Turning (Enhancement)	+3	-	+6
Past Life: Cleric	+6	-	-
Seek Eternal Rest	+4	-	-
Aureon's Instruction	+2	+4	+4
Filigree Bonuses	+16	+6	+6
Blessed Water	+3	+3	+3
Death Domain	+2	-	+2
Total Bonuses	+57	+31	+35

Keep our Charisma Modifier (34 - see first post) we can work through the formulas:

Turning Check = 1d20 + 20 + 57 + 4 + 31 (1d20 + 112) (Range 113 - 132)

Turning Damage = 2d6 + 20 + 57 + 35 + 34 (2d6 + 146) (Range 148 - 158)

However, here is what we get:(Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 20 : you hit foes up to 96 hit dice.
(Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 9 : 146 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

• The Turning Check increases from 35 to 96 and no need to subtract the d20 roll since we know it isn't adding so... (96 -35 = 61) when we expected a boost of 71... meaning that 10 of the bonus is not applying somewhere.
• The Turning Damage increases from 76 to 137 as we did subtract the 2d6 roll as this is correctly adding to the result... (137 - 76 = 61) when we expected a boost of 73... meaning that 12 of the bonus is not applying somewhere.

Further Testing

• Original Test - No Gear or Spell Bonuses (CHA 67)
  
  • (Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 16 : you hit foes up to 44 hit dice. (44)
  • (Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 86 total hit dice of enemies can be turned.. (86 - 10 = 76)
  
  
• No Gear Bonuses (CHA 67) (Seek Eternal Rest)
  
  • (Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 2 : you hit foes up to 48 hit dice. (48 - 44 = +4) WAI
  • (Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 8 : 87 total hit dice of enemies can be turned.. (87 - 8 = 79 - 76 = +3) Expected flat... +3 from where?
  
  
• Hallowed 14 / Sacred 14 (CHA 67) (Seek Eternal Rest)
  
  • (Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 18 : you hit foes up to 62 hit dice. (62 - 48 = +14) Expected +28... missing +14
  • (Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 4 : 98 total hit dice of enemies can be turned.. (98 - 4 = 94 - 79 = +15) Expected +14... extra +1 from where?
  
  
• Silver Flame / Eternal Faith / Hallowed 14 / Sacred 14 (CHA 67) (Seek Eternal Rest)
  
  • (Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 20 : you hit foes up to 66 hit dice. (66 - 62 = +4) WAI
  • (Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 7 : 103 total hit dice of enemies can be turned.. (103 - 7 = 96 - 94 = +2) Expected +12... missing +10
  
  
• TOD RS Set / Silver Flame / Eternal Faith / Hallowed 14 / Sacred 14 (CHA 67) (Seek Eternal Rest)
  
  • (Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 6 : you hit foes up to 69 hit dice. (69 - 66 = +3) WAI
  • (Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 7 : 106 total hit dice of enemies can be turned.. (106 - 7 = 99 - 96 = +3) WAI
  
  
• Fully Geared (CHA 72) - only missing Aureon's Instruction
  
  • (Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 12 : you hit foes up to 90 hit dice. (90 - 69 = +21) Expected +26... missing +5
  • (Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 7 : 138 total hit dice of enemies can be turned.. (138 - 7 = 131 - 99 = +32) Expected +28... +4 from where?
  
  
• Fully Geared and Fully Buffed from Chart Above (CHA 72)
  
  • (Combat): You roll to see how effective your tun undead: cleric is. You roll a 15 : you hit foes up to 96 hit dice. (96 - 90 = +6) WAI
  • (Combat): You roll for turning damage. You roll a 4 : 141 total hit dice of enemies can be turned.. (141 - 4 = 137 - 131 = +6) WAI

FINAL Conclusions

Gear effects and abilities that are confirmed WAI:

• Aureon's Instruction
• TOD RS Set

Gear effects and abilities that should be looked into:

• d20 roll seems to not be adding to the Turning Check
• Seek Eternal Rest- seems to be incorrectly adding +3 to total hit dice
• Sacred Bonus appears to only be adding to Turning Damage (with an extra +1?) and not to add to the Turning Check
• Silver Flame and Eternal Faith appear to not be adding their Total HD Bonus to Turning Damage
• Insightful Faith does not appear to be adding it's bonuses correctly (or does this not stack?)

Hopefully this helps get towards getting a better understanding of what's happening behind the scenes in the math.

[Zuldar]

I'd go animal domain instead. It'll be slightly weaker turns but animals compose a large variety of mobs in-game and being able turn them is very useful. Alternatively elementals pop up fairly regularly too though I think a bit less than animals.

[kmoustakas]

I'd go animal domain instead. It'll be slightly weaker turns but animals compose a large variety of mobs in-game and being able turn them is very useful. Alternatively elementals pop up fairly regularly too though I think a bit less than animals.

That's what I'm doing with a very very different build though. Dinosaurs are animals <3

[Cashiry]

Turn undead system is broken. You can easily turn hordes on heroics, 2-3 on epics, almost zero on legendary.

So for endgame just build some decent DPS and you will be able to "dissapear" undeads faster than that useless-in-every-other-case cleric
It's much easier to invest in necro DC and just cast undeath to death and still perform better than this.

what, tell that to my cleric she turns stuff in r10 legendary as long as they aren’t orange or red named. Stuns/cowers orange named. A turning cleric can be quite effective in any undead quest at any level of play.

[hit_fido]

I crafted a ML:1 Silver Flame of Eternal Faith trinket, the log claims they don't stack:

You have multiple effects granting an Enhancement bonus to Turn Undead Additional Hit Dice that do not stack. ( Silver Flame Trinket of Eternal Faith and Silver Flame Trinket of Eternal Faith )

I equipped a Celestial Beacon and although the item says Hallowed is an "Enhancement Bonus" to Maximum hit dice; the combat log doesn't complain about stacking and shows this:

Sacred modifier to Turn Undead Maximum Hit Dice: +5

With trinket and Beacon:

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 3 : you hit foes up to 33 hit dice.
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 51 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 3 : you hit foes up to 33 hit dice.
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 9 : 50 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..


With Beacon only:

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 4 : you hit foes up to 30 hit dice.
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 43 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 14 : you hit foes up to 33 hit dice.
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 4 : 37 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..


With trinket only:

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 12 : you hit foes up to 31 hit dice.
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 6 : 47 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 8 : you hit foes up to 30 hit dice.
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 51 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..


With neither item:

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 18 : you hit foes up to 29 hit dice.
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 43 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 2 : you hit foes up to 24 hit dice.
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 6 : 39 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..


Finally, with the trinket only , but also casting Seek Eternal Rest:

Sacred modifier to Turn Undead Level: +4

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 15 : you hit foes up to 36 hit dice.
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 2 : 47 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 8 : you hit foes up to 34 hit dice.
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 55 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..



Looks like Eternal Faith and Silver flame do not stack, but with both effects you still get a total of +2,/+2/+6; Hallowed and Seek Eternal Rest are stacking with those effects.

I bet SSG could get a little better scaling without redoing the entire system just by adjusting Seek Eternal Rest to upgrade with caster levels the same way many other spells do. +4 to start at level 3, with an additional +2 per cleric level over 3. That would give you +38 at level 20. Then maybe add a new epic feat to boost it even more...

[Mindos]

I crafted a ML:1 Silver Flame of Eternal Faith trinket, the log claims they don't stack:


Looks like Eternal Faith and Silver flame do not stack, but with both effects you still get a total of +2,/+2/+6; Hallowed and Seek Eternal Rest are stacking with those effects.

I bet SSG could get a little better scaling without redoing the entire system just by adjusting Seek Eternal Rest to upgrade with caster levels the same way many other spells do. +4 to start at level 3, with an additional +2 per cleric level over 3. That would give you +38 at level 20. Then maybe add a new epic feat to boost it even more...

https://ddowiki.com/page/Eternal_Faith
https://ddowiki.com/page/Silver_Flame
https://ddowiki.com/page/Seek_Eternal_Rest

Scaling is not a bad idea. But there's posts in this thread stating they are already effective at cap at R10? So is Seek Eternal Rest scaling really needed?

[hit_fido]

Scaling is not a bad idea. But there's posts in this thread stating they are already effective at cap at R10? So is Seek Eternal Rest scaling really needed?

Seems like mixed feedback, some people think turning is pretty bad. What's "effective", is that poster turning 2 mobs or several at a time in R10? What should be the expected outcome for a cleric who invests in turning at varying degrees. Some people might think 2 or 3 mobs per attempt is fine, it's like a weaker implosion for undead. Everyone will have a different opinion.

For every additional mob you destroy, you need to add somewhere between 1 to that mob's hit dice to your "total hd" roll in order to reach the "turning damage" necessary. The undead in Ghosts of Perdition range from 18 to 25 hit dice on elite; around 70 on epic elite. I think the OP has at least shown it's not trivial to acquire enough bonus to reach just one additional destroyed/cowering undead.

[karatemack]

I crafted a ML:1 Silver Flame of Eternal Faith trinket, the log claims they don't stack:



I equipped a Celestial Beacon and although the item says Hallowed is an "Enhancement Bonus" to Maximum hit dice; the combat log doesn't complain about stacking and shows this:
OR=#000000 !important]You have multiple effects granting an Enhancement bonus to Turn Undead Additional Hit Dice that do not stack. ( Silver Flame Trinket of Eternal Faith and Silver Flame Trinket of Eternal Faith )

This is a display bug with Trinkets at the moment. This will happen with multiple different effects in-game.

With Beacon only:

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 4 : you hit foes up to 30 hit dice. 30 - 4 = 26
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 43 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 14 : you hit foes up to 33 hit dice. 33 - 14 = 19 (You would have expected this to be 40... since you rolled 10 higher. I think you gave yourself an extra +3 in-between these rolls. When I tested my numbers were consistently the same for the Turning Check value when I had the same bonuses active.)
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 4 : 37 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

With trinket only:

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 12 : you hit foes up to 31 hit dice. 31 - 12 = 19
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 6 : 47 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 8 : you hit foes up to 30 hit dice. 30 - 8 = 22 (again, your individual bonus is +3 different. This isn't a coincidence. You're adding a buff to yourself somewhere.)
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 51 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..


With neither item:

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 18 : you hit foes up to 29 hit dice. 29 - 18 = 11
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 43 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 2 : you hit foes up to 24 hit dice. 24 - 2 = 22 ... this time it's a +5 spread between your numbers despite your roll being +16
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 6 : 39 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..


Finally, with the trinket only , but also casting Seek Eternal Rest:



You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 15 : you hit foes up to 36 hit dice. 36 - 15 = 21
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 2 : 47 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

You roll to see how effective your turn undead: cleric is. You roll a 8 : you hit foes up to 34 hit dice. 34 - 8 = 26 (rolled 7 lower... got a result that was 2 lower...)
You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 55 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

Your numbers are ALL over the place! (Check out my notes above in red.) Are you certain that your Charisma score was the same as you were swapping gear? Also... was your Charisma score high enough to guarantee the +4 Turn Level Bonus (the range is -4 to +4 which could account for all of your variances above)? If not, we don't see the d20 roll for the Turn Level Bonus, the changes to your Charisma score and inconsistent Turn Level Bonus could account for these outliers in results.

Looks like Eternal Faith and Silver flame do not stack,

Based on my testing, I don't think this is correct. In fact, these were some of the only bonuses that consistently produced exactly the result I expected.

[karatemack]

Seems like mixed feedback, some people think turning is pretty bad. What's "effective", is that poster turning 2 mobs or several at a time in R10? What should be the expected outcome for a cleric who invests in turning at varying degrees. Some people might think 2 or 3 mobs per attempt is fine, it's like a weaker implosion for undead. Everyone will have a different opinion.

For every additional mob you destroy, you need to add somewhere between 1 to that mob's hit dice to your "total hd" roll in order to reach the "turning damage" necessary. The undead in Ghosts of Perdition range from 18 to 25 hit dice on elite; around 70 on epic elite. I think the OP has at least shown it's not trivial to acquire enough bonus to reach just one additional destroyed/cowering undead.

Here's how I would answer the question "what's effective"? The ability to destroy non-warded mobs in R10 quests/raids and the ability to cower warded mobs in R10 quests/raids for a length of time that makes it a desirable form of CC against the undead.

The good news? We are MOST of the way there. You can destory 3-5 non-warded undead per turn in R10 quests. The biggest issues for me are:

• 5s cower in R10 (should be 30s IMO)
• mobs with blanket immunity that can't be stripped

Also worth noting- the context of this thread is the signature class ability for Clerics/Paladins to destroy/cower undead. There are multiple valid uses for Turn Undead in the game today outside of these. (IE: Healing Aura, Stacking H Amp Bonus, SP restoration, Domain party buffs (melee power/prr-mrr/etc.) With these in mind, I don't think any major sweeping overhaul of the ability is in order... but it would be nice if some small tweaks were made to help the ability add value to the party throughout the entire range of gameplay experience.

Also also - Turn Undead is very awesome in heroics/epics. Catacombs, Necro 1-4, Deleras, Ravenloft, etc... there is plenty of great undead content that you can quickly run through with a build that knows how to use this ability today. The issues really present themselves most evidently in high-skull reaper at endgame.

[hit_fido]

Your numbers are ALL over the place! (Check out my notes above in red.) Are you certain that your Charisma score was the same as you were swapping gear?

I stripped everything except for the trinket and the Beacon and tested in Elite Graverobbers. Nothing else changed between tests other than whether one, both, or neither Trinket and Beacon were equipped and whether Seek Eternal Rest was active. Each pair of turn attempts was made within seconds of one another. Sun Domain, no destinies with turn effects, no enhancements with any advertised turning benefits other than number of turns from Dark Apostate.

You did account for the Celestial Beacon's Hallowed effect, right? That should add +5 to the Maximum Hit Dice.

Based on my testing, I don't think this is correct. In fact, these were some of the only bonuses that consistently produced exactly the result I expected.

Trinket only: You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 51 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..
Naked: You roll for turning damage. You roll a 10 : 43 total hit dice of enemies can be turned..

If Eternal Faith and Silver Flame stacked then I would have expected to see a 12 point difference in Turning Damage with versus without them; if they stacked, +2/+2/+4 Eternal Faith and +0/+0/+6 Silver Flame = combined +2/+2/+10. Instead I saw an 8 point difference which makes sense if only the highest number counted, i.e. combined bonus of +2/+2/+6. At least if I understand the formula correctly: the +2 effective level increase adds with the +6 bonus to Total Hit Dice, right?

Destroying 3-5 undead mobs per turn at top end difficulty seems completely fine to me. I didn't invest into it (other than having 3 cleric past lives) and during heroics I usually saw anywhere from 2-4 mobs destroyed over the 1-20 run. The range is pretty decent too, it extends quite a bit outside the flashy circular effect aura.

[thegreatcthulhu]

This is a great post. And sorta off topic since I know this is more about clerics: there needs to be other channel divinity abilities for Paladins besides Divine Righteousness.

[karatemack]

snip

I think you're missing me. Can you advise what your Charisma was?

Behind the scenes... whenever you make a Turn Undead check the game makes a d20 roll and adds your Charisma Modifier to it. The result of that "check" is a "bonus" which ranges from -4 to +4 as seen on the chart below:

Turning Check Result	Highest Hit Dice Turned
Up to 0	Turning Value -4
1 - 3	Turning Value -3
4 - 6	Turning Value -2
7 - 9	Turning Value -1
10 - 12	Turning Value +0
13 - 15	Turning Value +1
16 - 18	Turning Value +2
19 - 21	Turning Value +3
22+	Turning Value +4

The ONLY way you are getting a value of +4 each time is if your Charisma Modifier is 21+. That means you would need a Charisma of 52. If your Charisma is less than 52 during your testing... then all of your results will have a potential variance of 9 that you aren't accounting for (-4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4). That is why I listed my Charisma score for each of my tests, so that it would be known that this "bonus" is not causing any unexpected variances.

What is your Charisma score when you are testing?

[hit_fido]

Standing naked my CHA would have been 20. But isn't this Turning Check thing for the purpose of determining the max Hit Dice of any single affected undead? My last post was more about the Total Hit Dice result and observing that for that calculation, it looks to me like Eternal Faith and Silver Flame do not stack wrt the Total Hit Dice bonus.

[SpartanKiller13]

I ran an 18/2 Paladin/Cleric Cha-max build for testing reasons, looking to see if I could have Tactics, Spell DC's, and Turn Undead viable in mid-Reaper endgame on a melee DPS toon. Turns out you can, but costs you a bunch of weird choices esp for stuff like filigree unless you have a lot more investment than I do (like 60 PL's and solid gear). I'll talk about the Turning part here; I went T2 RS for Mighty Turning, picked the +turning stuff from there, T4 KotC, and T2 EA. I used heroic/epic/legendary Chainmail Coif as my only turning item, which worked great. I have 2 Cleric PL's which help a bit, and took Improved Turning as well as Aureon (which I never remembered to use).

I went Water Domain, and found that turning elementals was worth a lot more to me than Death Domain's +2. I could instakill at least one elemental and usually 3-4 undead per Turn and it's very spammable. As a Cha-max toon I had like 50 uses per rest so there was no issue wasting uses for anything, and I greatly enjoyed it across the whole leveling process as well as at endgame.

I'd recommend trying it for anyone who enjoys Cha-Paladin, it's not a lot of investment and pretty high reward

[karatemack]

Standing naked my CHA would have been 20. But isn't this Turning Check thing for the purpose of determining the max Hit Dice of any single affected undead? My last post was more about the Total Hit Dice result and observing that for that calculation, it looks to me like Eternal Faith and Silver Flame do not stack wrt the Total Hit Dice bonus.

Ah, my mistake if I misread. Yes, my experience was the same as yours on Total Hit Dice with Eternal Faith and Silver Flame. The fact they DO stack on the Turning Check is what makes it all odd.

[thegreatcthulhu]

I ran an 18/2 Paladin/Cleric Cha-max build for testing reasons, looking to see if I could have Tactics, Spell DC's, and Turn Undead viable in mid-Reaper endgame on a melee DPS toon. Turns out you can, but costs you a bunch of weird choices esp for stuff like filigree unless you have a lot more investment than I do (like 60 PL's and solid gear). I'll talk about the Turning part here; I went T2 RS for Mighty Turning, picked the +turning stuff from there, T4 KotC, and T2 EA. I used heroic/epic/legendary Chainmail Coif as my only turning item, which worked great. I have 2 Cleric PL's which help a bit, and took Improved Turning as well as Aureon (which I never remembered to use).

I went Water Domain, and found that turning elementals was worth a lot more to me than Death Domain's +2. I could instakill at least one elemental and usually 3-4 undead per Turn and it's very spammable. As a Cha-max toon I had like 50 uses per rest so there was no issue wasting uses for anything, and I greatly enjoyed it across the whole leveling process as well as at endgame.

I'd recommend trying it for anyone who enjoys Cha-Paladin, it's not a lot of investment and pretty high reward

I may have to give this a try out on my next racial reincarnation... pretty well satisfied with my THF stuff right now, so it may be a cool break from the norm for a Pally PL. Thanks for bringing this one up.

[SpartanKiller13]

I may have to give this a try out on my next racial reincarnation... pretty well satisfied with my THF stuff right now, so it may be a cool break from the norm for a Pally PL. Thanks for bringing this one up.

I'd highly recommend a Chainmail Coif, you really need a Turn Item and that one sorta just works as a one-stop shop. Otherwise pretty straightforward

Have fun!

[Firebreed]

Alright, I carefully read the whole thread. Here's some *very* important notes:

1) First and foremost: Turning Check 100% doesn't (and isn't supposed to) include a +1d20 in it. The 1d20 only exists to formulate what the OP calls "Turn Level Bonus" that ranges from -4 to +4 based on a chart. So let there be no doubt, the Turning Check formula is as follows:

Turning Check: Effective Cleric Level (20 if pure cleric + bonuses) + Turn Level Bonus (-4 to +4, based on a 1d20 roll and your CHA modifier) + MaxHD bonuses.

This is also results in the Turning Check having a CONSISTENT result (always the same number in the combat log) if your CHA modifier is high enough (21+) for the 1d20 roll to not matter, as you always get a +4 result as your Turn Level Bonus. This also explains Karatemack why in your tests your Turning Check was a constant number (you had a CHA mod of 34 or so) whereas Hit_Fido was getting different results (as his CHA mod wasn't high enough, and as such his Turning Checks had a range of -4 to +4 based on the Turn Level Bonus he ended up with each time).

2) We have NOT convicingly proven either of the following:
a) Does Eternal Faith stack with Hallowed/Sacred/Silver Flame?
b) Does Seek Eternal Rest stack with Sacred?
These checks are made hard due to i) some buffs like Hallowed being typed differently in game (enhancement bonus) as opposed to the combat log (sacred bonus), and ii) because there's rolling involved. Ideally you want to check your resulting numbers (with different items/effects applied depending on what you're testing) when you've made the EXACT same dice roll. Simply reducting the dice roll from the resulting number you see in the combat log isn't the correct way to do it, because as mentioned above, in the case of the Turning Check the dice roll is NOT added as is.

3) Wiki says that Bane of Undeath is granting +3 to Effective Cleric Level AND MaxHD AND Total HD. Your post only shows it granting bonuses to MaxHD and Total HD. Need to check what the in game description shows, or if that was simply a typo you made. I also suspect that Bane of Undeath is actually granting some/all of its rank 3 bonuses despite you not having the Improved Turning feat. Maybe the Improved Turning enhancement counts? Maybe the prerequisite isn't functioning at all? Maybe my suspicion is wrong? Who knows.

4) Wiki says Bane of the Restless is granting +6 to Effective Cleric Level and Total HD ONLY, not to MaxHD. Your post shows it granting a bonus to all three aspects. Need to check what the in game description shows, or if that was simply a typo you made. Make sure the following part of the ability's description is clear: "You also count as 2/4/6 levels higher when turning undead. This increases the maximum level of creature you can turn and also increases the total number of hit dice you can turn." This doesn't mean that the ability increases MaxHD & Total HD (although the ability does increase Total HD, mentioned separately); it merely reminds you that Effective Cleric Level affects both MaxHD and Total HD.

5) I remain unsure if Blessed Water adds +3 to Effective Cleric Level on top of MaxHD & Total HD. It likely does, but the description isn't clear.

Wish I could help y'all test, but I don't have a Cleric. And besides, this level of testing is something people out there get *paid* to do, let alone the fact that even if we confirmed certain bugs exist, the devs wouldn't care to fix them.