Post/Author/DateTime	Post
FlameLover 04-25-06, 08:30 PM	I've only DMed D&D, never really played it as a player, and haven't had much experience with it. I finally got a group together from my new school to play and, as always, I was the DM. We decided to start our characters at level 5, but since 2 of the players hadn't played D&D before I said i'd make there characters for them. One said they wanted a Rogue, the other didn't care. Now one of the players who had played before said he'd make the character for the one who didn't care, and make it a cleric because we didn't have a healer otherwise. So once the characters were made we had the following: Sorceror 5 Sorceror 3/Fighter 1/SpellSword 1 Rogue 5 Cleric 5 Now the prepared adventure for the first session went reasnobly well (better than any session with my last group atleast). But 3 of the players wanted to keep going (the other one did as well but had to go home). So I winged an old, abandoned, undead-infested mine. Your classic kick-in-the-door style place (something the players said they wanted more of after the first session). I decided to fill a room with 5 CR5 Wraiths (the group being only 3 level 5s now) and I soon realized i'd made a mistake. What happened i think was I overcompensated for the first part of the session, where my Kobold Fighter 3/Rogue 3 bandits were getting slaughtered (the 2 experienced players had "lucky rolls" for abilities and all that) so I decided to bump up the difficulty a bit. Ofcourse losing the damage-dealing powerhouse meant they were in line for CR5 power now (getting 4d6 damage per attack with both at +6 attack is pretty nice at level 5) but i didn't really think it out. Now onto the topic of this post. I decided, in an attempt to give the players a shot, that the Cleric's turning ability would instead do 1d10+levels damage to all undead within 30ft with turn resistance counting as DR. Even with some bad rolls the player was dealing about 8 damage per turn to all 5 Wraiths. The group survived, and went on to face other over-powered challenges (3 Trolls anyone?) My question is this: was my houserule overpowered? Do I change it back to RAW next game or keep this? I know at high levels this is useless, but the RAW ability is generally too. I was considering 1d6/level-Monster's HD as well or something like that but I don't really know. So what do you think of my ruling? Too weak, too strong, or about right?
Archtyrant Terevoth 04-25-06, 10:28 PM	Your house rule is very bottom loaded. The turning aiblity will start out awesome. Being great against skeletons and ghouls, and end up getting significantly weaker at mid to high levels. Monsters are gaining an extra hit dice (d12- average of 6.5), versus the cleric doing an extra point of damage. Basically what you've done is make turning much weaker than it normally is. The glory of normal turning is that it's a divide and conquer ability. You turn half the wraiths and they're not attacking you anymore. Then you can focus fire on the remainder. You have halved the enemy's offensive output without so muhc as granting a single saving throw. And that's crazy good. Under your system turning is similar to just fireballing the undead. Which is kinda nice, but doesn't stop the undead from hurting you if they survive, and lets face it 1d10+level damage is pretty survivable by 5+ hit dice creatures. I don't think this particularly breaks the game however as clerics are already a very powerful class, so a nerf to turning hardly makes them unplayable. In fact, they're stil likely one of the most powerful classes out there.
FlameLover 04-25-06, 11:12 PM	Yeah, there is no way i'd keep it d10+level at higher levels. Something more like 1d6 per two cleric levels plus CHA mod minus turn resistance. An example: Level 6 Cleric with +3 Cha mod against Wraiths (2 turn resistance) d6(3+3-2) = 4d6 ~ average 14 damage Level 2 Cleric with +2 Cha mod against Skeletons (no turn resistance) d6(1+2-0) = 3d6 ~ average 10.5 damage Level 17 Cleric with +5 Cha mod against Vampire Spawn (2 turn resistance) d6(8+5-2) = 11d6 ~ average 38.5 damage You make a separate roll for each undead, etc. That to me looks like it'd make the ability usefull, but not great. Maybe just to avoid super-powerful at low levels though limit cha bonus to your cleric level. So the max you can do, before turn resistance, is 30d6 - although you'd need 50 Cha to get that much.
20102000 04-27-06, 08:06 AM	As already posted. 1d10 + level is ok to start with , but is weak at high levels. In another thread debate , i saw a good sugestion. 1d12 damage per level, with a will saving throw to negate. DC 10+level+cha modifier.
zlatko 05-03-06, 08:06 AM	Your rule was not needed. And could be very disruptive. The cleric could have easily turned 2-3 wraiths in his firs round, which would only leave 2 for the fight (20 rounds if the turned ones had somewhere to flee, 10 if they just cowered in a corner). Turning undead is countered by bolstering them. Even if your rule said that bolstering undead meant giving them the dmg equal in temporary hp, this would be nagated in one round. How would rebuking undead work? Then again, you're the DM. If you don't want to have BGs with undead minions (which I always do) then it's your call. And if you wanted something different, there is an optional rule in UA, I think, regarding dmg instead of regular turning.