Turn Undead

Dan,

Do you mind if we take this to a new thread? I seem to have drifted a bit from what we started talking about here.

Sounds like a good idea.

Can you heal someone while maintaining your turn undead?  The devil could be in the details here and by details I mean wording.

I think not. You have to keep praying and channeling, which you also have to do while Cast a Spell, but it lets you clear the space and get to the person.

That's when the paladin steps in I guess.

Yeah. Or you get a strong hit and buy some time.

Well, in AD&D, for any given undead being you either have a chance of turning it (or no chance), you automatically turn it, or you outright destroy it. Just blast 'em to dust. Which is pretty metal, IMO.

I'm not sure when turning started to involve dealing damage (3rd ed., I guess?).

No doubt it's neat and, in another game system, I'd fully support going damage/destroy on Turn Undead. I just think it could be somewhat limited in practice from a storytelling perspective. It's likely that a cleric will be in the party because, well, someone always gets "stuck" being the cleric in a full group, right? As a result, more often than not, mindless undead would need not apply in the adventure. It'd be like an unnecessary speed bump in any given scenario. "Here are some zombies for you to destroy with your holy symbol before we move onto something else." It feels flat to me.

At that point, as a GM, I'd see no further reason to include those monsters in my game because likely nothing interesting would happen by doing so.

Yeah, but you're a fan of the players, so sometimes you throw them a bone (animated in this case) so they can be badass.

Yeah, but you're a fan of the players, so sometimes you throw them a bone (animated in this case) so they can be badass.

True, but the GM can both be a fan of the players AND work to keep things interesting. I'm definitely down with letting players blow stuff up. I do it all the time in this and other games. I just think from a design point of view, mindless undead blowing up on a Turn Undead will simply result in less mindless undead being used in the first place. In practice among many tables and groups, I mean. I'm not a game designer though so perhaps I'm wrong. It feels like there's no incentive to including them in a game very often if there's a cleric around. I'd rather put in a ghoul or vampire so at least the PCs can have a conversation with it if they so choose.

The thing with mindless undead is that they need to be present in overwhelming numbers.  I'm not talking about little groups, I'm talking clogging the streets and filling the darkness, I'm talking about an environmental effect.  You should be treating 'turn undead' into a lamp that keeps the grue at bay.  If the cleric stops praying for a moment you know you'll be defying danger or defending.  What?  The cleric can't stop praying to make camp, that -1 forward will suck.  What, the cleric has to defy danger to avoid falling asleep, oh no!  Those skeleton archers sure are going to wreak havoc on the cleric if there isn't someone to defend them.  And who defend the party while he heals the fighter that took 3 arrows for protecting him.  When it comes to mindless dead, go big.

I just think from a design point of view, mindless undead blowing up on a Turn Undead will simply result in less mindless undead being used in the first place. In practice among many tables and groups, I mean.

I see your point. I also really like the D&D trope of the cleric blowing up skeletons :) Mind you, that only happens at high levels, so perhaps something like "if the mindless undead have HP < ClericLevelx2, they are destroyed". But in proper English, not Maths ;)

You should be treating 'turn undead' into a lamp that keeps the grue at bay.

This was Adam's insight that made the move click for me.

Damaging undead, or flat out killing them, takes a different sort of move I think. I tried to sell Adam on a fictional trigger of "When you touch your holy symbol to an undead creature..." but that's a different move, not Turn Undead.

The issue with making Turn Undead too powerful against undead is that it makes undead fights very binary: you turn them or you don't. By keeping it a bit more dynamic there's room for interesting action.

Also keep in mind that we're not using monster levels anymore. This has lead to some great changes in the rules to my mind. In particular, a monster has to be fictionally threatening in some way, not just higher level. Likewise if you want to say what undead can be effected you have to use only traits that are clearly present in the fiction, not just level, which makes something like "destroy any undead with 2 fewer HD than you" a non-option.

The thing with mindless undead is that they need to be present in overwhelming numbers.  I'm not talking about little groups, I'm talking clogging the streets and filling the darkness, I'm talking about an environmental effect.  You should be treating 'turn undead' into a lamp that keeps the grue at bay.  If the cleric stops praying for a moment you know you'll be defying danger or defending.  What?  The cleric can't stop praying to make camp, that -1 forward will suck.  What, the cleric has to defy danger to avoid falling asleep, oh no!  Those skeleton archers sure are going to wreak havoc on the cleric if there isn't someone to defend them.  And who defend the party while he heals the fighter that took 3 arrows for protecting him.  When it comes to mindless dead, go big.

Pure awesome.