Turning Undead (Class Ability)

Source: House rules, based on 3.5 spell casting mechanics and incorporating ideas from The Complete Divine, page 87.

Instead of making undead run and cower, turn attempts deal positive energy damage to undead close to the cleric.

Turning undead is a standard action that deals 1d6 damage/cleric level to all undead within a 30 ft. sphere of the cleric. If he chooses to limit his focus to whatever is in front of him, the range increases to a 60 ft hemisphere in the direction he is facing. Undead directly above, below or to the side have a 50% chance of being included.

When using this ability against incorporeal creatures, you do not have to roll a 50% miss chance; turning hits them automatically.

The turning process does not provoke attacks of opportunity (PHB page 159), and is immune to disruption. There are no complicated gestures, since the cleric is just saying "Begone, spawn of evil, in the name of my god".

Evil clerics (any cleric that can swap out spells for inflict spells) can instead heal undead within 30 ft. for 1d6/cleric level. Evil characters have taken the time to do additional rituals to give them long term control of undead.

The Greater Turning feat doubles the relevant damage and healing effects on the affected creatures.

These effects also work in the same way for clerics with elemental domains and creatures of the same and opposed elements (Fire vs Water, Earth vs Air). Therefore a cleric with the Fire domain can heal Fire creatures and damage Water creatures in the same way using pure elemental matter instead.

Currently this is limited to elementals and other creatures native to an elemental plane. For example, tritons (adapted to the Prime Material plane, whatever their original plane), merfolk and red dragons are immune, but djinni, efreeti, xorns and tojanidas are not.

I leave open to discussion whether other creatures are affected. Making a red dragon vulnerable to this effect would probably weaken it far too much.

Paladins work just as you would expect, turning undead as a cleric 3 levels lower.

Undead in the area of effect with more HD than double the turner's level (a 4th level paladin is turner level 1) are immune. Evil turners are similarly limited.

The rest of the undead get a Turn check, which works as follows:

1. The turner attempts to turn the undead by rolling a d20 and adding his turner level and CHA bonus. In the case of a 6th-level cleric with CHA of 14, this would be d20 + 6 + 2.
   
   The DC of the turning attempt is 10 + the undead’s HD + its Turn Resistance (if any). With a 6-HD vampire (TR 4), this would be 10 + 6 + 4 = 20.
2. If the cleric rolled 10, this would give a total of 10 + 6 + 2 = 18.
   This fails to beat the vampire's TR and so the vampire is merely shaken for a round, taking a -2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks and ability checks.
3. If the cleric had rolled 13, giving a total of 13 + 6 + 2 = 21, beating the vampire's TR, the vampire then attempts a Will save for half damage.
   The DC of this Will save is 10 + Cleric's highest spell level + cleric's CHA bonus. In this case it would be 10 + 3 + 2 = 15.
4. If the vampire fails this Will save it takes the full 6d6 of damage.
   Otherwise the damage is halved.

Darkness or physical obstructions

• I am using the “line of effect” rules. Like a lightning bolt, which doesn’t care about visibility, undead can feel the holiness, so darkness or mist are irrelevant. However, like magic, holiness is blocked by an inch of common metal (more than armour thickness), a foot of stone, or 3 feet of dirt or wood. So you can’t, for example, turn undead around corners (unless some parts of their bodies are exposed. Maybe we could use some form of the rules for cover, when relevant.
• Turning can penetrate cloth, so an undead can't hide behind a veil or hood. However, a cleric whose holy symbol is hidden, e.g. under a disguise or in a bag will be considered by the deity to have fumbled the attempt, since they did not clearly present it to the undead. Therefore, nothing happens.

1. Nothing happens. Either the cleric made an obvious blunder (such as not clearly presenting the holy symbol), the undead has too many HD to notice you ( run away!), or it’s not an undead at all (e.g. a golem, doppelganger, etc)
2. The undead is not damaged, but just a bit shaken, (it made its Turn Resistance check). Not much, but still some help for the good guys.
3. The undead is damaged, but less than expected, because it made its Will save
4. The undead takes full damage.

Although this sounds a bit complicated, it’s still a 2-step process like the core rules and its mechanics are in line with the spirit of spells in 3.5.

-- PeterShea - 16 Jan 2011