Kenji wrote: ↑Sun Jul 25, 2021 12:24 pm
Hi guys,
With the recent update to Turn Undead (Or just Turning in general), I'm looking for feedbacks pertaining to its functions and general usefulness.
Something like "PCs are getting turned too often, Turn Undead is too powerful" or "NPCs aren't getting turned enough, I feel like the improved turning feat isn't doing much" with various details such as "the target creature has Spell Resistance that makes it harder to turn" can be helpful in tuning Turn Undead ability.
I played around with this a bunch and I have some feedback for you; though the playing around was in the PGCC.
Neutral Good character has 32 charisma and 27 cleric levels.
Turn Undead in general: It seems quite strong, I was able to fear balor lords and even the CR 30 black slaad. Of course, I can only really turn one high level critter at a time, so that felt rather balanced. Of course, I had plenty of uses so if it was a dungeon I could probably snag 20-25 monsters depending on how fast we walked, or more if we rested during. No idea how powerful this would be against players; against summons Word of Faith would still probably work better, against shapeshifted druids it might be very powerful (but it was before).
Biggest issue I ran into was the number of mind immune vermin that entirely ignored the turn undead (sword spider, stag bettle, etc).
Command turning: This one was more bleh. It was supposed to allow control of animals but only ever seemed to work if I was twice their CR. I had to be level 18 just to take a Malar Panther, and even with the above (32 charisma, 27 cleric levels) I was never able to Command a Dire Tiger. Quite disappointing. I was hoping for something more akin to the ranger ability to animal empathy things with a high investment of charisma and a feat. With an elemental domain I was never able to command even a huge elemental.
It was also rather inconsistent/buggy. If I spawned 6 badgers (easy to command), 2 would get commanded, 2 would get neutralized, 2 would die. It makes sense I wouldn't get 6 henchmen, but strange that two just died. Sometimes if I spawned 2 badgers they would get commanded but keep attacking me. Sometimes when I dismissed the badgers they'd go attack people for a round or more.
Rebuke vs Fear: This seemed rather inconsistent as well, sometimes I would Fear them and sometimes I would Rebuke the same monster on subsequent uses. No idea why, or how what I roll affects what happens here. Practically, other than fear making them easier to hit and run away there is no huge difference between the two.
I think it would make more sense if Fear applied just the debuff (running away foes are annoying anyways), and the Fear and Rebuke could hit at the same time so that it's stunned for a few rounds but feared for a longer period. As it is, it just seems like one makes them hide in the corner the other doesn't.
Improved Turning: Like a better version of Sun Domain, which is rather cool to disentangle it from a domain. The first half is great, adding 1d6 to the turning roll. I would expect that with 32 charisma and 27 cleric levels I would be able to get a turning roll of 13-37, or affect HD from 28-35. I can still really only affect one target at a time in epics, but it means I've a good chance of doing something.
The total hit dice of all affected creatures is limited to 2d6 plus the turner's charisma modifier and level. This is increased by another d6 if the caster has the sun domain.
I think that the bonus to total hit dice could us a buff, 1d6 is tiny compared to your level + charisma modifier. In my case I could turn 40-50 or 41-56 if I have improved turning, not really much of a buff. Maybe it could change to 1/3 of your level or your charisma modifier instead?
Neutralize This text on the wiki doesn't make sense. Does that mean if you're not neutral but an animal/plant cleric then you'll just destroy them? Like Command it isn't clear when this happens, and as noted above half the time they'd be neutralized and half the time they'd be killed.
Conclusion I think the biggest feedback I have is the desire for more feedback. The system doesn't tell you anything; you click the button and hope for the best. It would be nice to know:
1) What you did to each affected enemy, did you rebuke, command, fear, destroy? It was hard to tell what I affected when I was in the PGCC, no matter if I was in the heat of a big party battle.
2) Why didn't it work, was your level too low? Did it have turn resistance? Mind immunity?
3) If it
could work if you keep trying; was your turning roll low? If you tried again do you have a chance to succeed?
Overall a nice and welcome expansion to the system! It was always a little gimmicky to ever specialize in turning; since the best you could do was a few Vermin, Elementals, Outsiders and Undead; but the greater list definitely makes it more interesting. The ability to command or neutralize is very cool as well.
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Besides all of that, quite loving the domain overhaul across the board. It really feels like you can play a cleric of a particular god.
Two suggestions:
Maybe Favoured Soul could get one domain that just gives them those spells? It's a bit unfortunate that clerics are better at casting their god's magic than favoured souls who are supposed to get it naturally. While many of the spells are already in their spell list; a favoured soul of talos for example would be rather lacking in lightning spells.
Harper Priest has some really nice abilities for turning (+3 to turning! Free Planar Turning! A PRC that gets bonuses to turning!) could that class finally be made available without a token (or some variant of it)? Or the +3 to turning turned into a feat (maybe maxing at 30)?
As things stand the only two other classes you can really take are paladin/BG since at least you only lose 2 turning power, and if you're not near 30 cleric then from my testing you're not going to make much use of it at all even with high charisma.