Cleric Turn Undead

Started by Tala, November 08, 2020, 11:06:22 AM

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Tala

Howdy.

I have a bit of free time coming up, and I figured I'll invest some of it into tackling Turn Undead again. Worth saying I've tried touching it on and off a few times since the chapter started but lost interest, but I'll carefully say that I have enough motivation to finish -something- this time.

While in the end, it will be mainly up to the DM team to decide what to do, I'd like to ask if there are any thoughts on the changes to Turn Undead starting from v5.

For example:
* Does it suck and it would be better to revert?
* Should we add effects to the secondary domains as well?
* Are there any major issues with the system it would be good to take a look at?
etc...

Random_White_Guy

Honestly, i'd say if things are getting shaken up then it'd be cool to consider getting rid of the"Random" and make it more like Rogue Perks + Wildshape/Bardsong.

There's three. 4, level 6, and level 8 the Cleric gets increasingly powerful Turn Undead skills based on their primary domain.

And then at Level 8 can use Turn Undead charges to select which of the three they'd like to utilized for the next time Turn Undead is used.

Example using Air Domain's already existing perks:

Cleric Level 1 perk Tailwind: Nearby allies in a colossal radius receive +25% movement speed for 5 + 3*CHA rounds.

Cleric Level 4 perk:  Enveloping Gale: Nearby allies in a colossal radius have +1 dodge AC for 3 + 1*CHA turns.

Cleric Level 8 perk Flurry: Nearby enemies in a huge radius roll a fortitude save VS DC 10 + 2*CHA or are knocked over for 1d4 rounds.

Party collapsing or encounter too strong at low level? super run away Things getting intense on the tanking? Enveloping Gale Ambush? Flurry.

They have their pool of Turn Undeads to throw around the juice like Wildshape/Bardsong does until it's depleted.

This still encourages Multiclassing for Primary Domain Clerics for people who want the flavor or the perks to play around with a cool multiclass build but gives some more oomph to the level 8 "Pure" cleric beyond just 1 Loot Relic they receive.

Also idk, pure 8 perks can be made stronger, more VFX flashy to show godly power, etc.
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TheShadow

A long time ago it was suggested to make Sun domain into a primary domain including turn undead, and even howlando agreed. Please, make it so number one!

As far as "how does turn undead feel", i have mixed feelings.the randomness makes it frustrating to actually use. Say i have water domain, and i want to get the extra breathing / movement penalty debuff removed. Even though it's 33% chance to activate, i have to spam it out and often it never fires off the one i want. This is awkward when you can just run faster if you were naked rather than wasting 5+ rounds spamming turn undead.

Forever in the Shadows, yearning for the Light.

Jubek

The randomness can definitely be a turn-off, EVEN MORE if some of your abilities are bittersweet. For example, fire domain has "Cleansing Fire", that "purifies" allies from debilitating debuffs, by cleansing them with Combust spell. This can (A) come at a very bad moment, like hurting your "badly wounded" ally instead of setting enemies on fire. (B) Be quite useless when it's the only effect coming out and obviously nobody's poisoned.

While the perk idea can be interesting, personally I like it the way it is. It adds variety on the spot, and while there's a part of the server that's good at reach high levels, there's another part that either doesn't make this their priority, or aren't as good for the moment. It's already gruesome to lose spell levels when a spellcaster dies...let's not make it even more. We're many to share that feeling.

Let's make something clear : A lot of content is FOIG. Oaths, bard songs, monk stances, etc. Let's not orient too much the server that way, because that's really cutting roleplaying options for newcomers. Or people who are not into mechanics or exploration. Make some of it FOIG, but not too much. Or else we'll finish with half the classes' content being FOIG. That's already the case with 1\3 of them, isn't it?

To end on a positive note, it is a quite unique system that really gives a particular feeling to clerics when used. It's a great idea you've implemented there, and I personally enjoyed a lot how it personnalized my character. Thanks.

putrid_plum

If you could select the default function or the new abilities, and if so you can select which turn you want.  That would be very nice.  The randomness is a pain.  Being able to select one that aligns with your clerical idea would be nice.

SunrypeSlim

I'd like being able to choose 1 of three turn undead abilities, which might make clerics of the same domains much different. Sun and Reptilian domains both make sense as Primaries. But most if not all of the abilities are cool and worth having available. It was a very cool change and still is.
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VanillaPudding

I'd actually just suggest that it's not made RANDOM anymore and the time is invested into making all of the domains have useful spells and effects. Possibly add a couple of more primary domains and remove the dated relic system to help improve / alter these turning effects in positive ways for good clerics. There is no reason for them to be gated behind relics anymore. they have raise dead which is disabled, and battletide which was far outshined by the introduction of a custom efu spell of a lower level






Electrohydra

I will agree that it would be really nice if the randomness was removed. I understand that it was put this way for power reasons, but the gameplay it leads to is kind of bad.  It makes many domains not even worth using Turn Undead because of the risk of hurting your allies/helping your enemies it too great, nevermind just wasting a round doing something that's useless in your current situation. Custom Turns for each domains is really cool, and I don't want to lose that. But the randomness just makes all but a few domains unusable in terms of Turn Undead. So what are the solutions?

1 - Let Clerics choose their Turn Undead at will. The easiest to implement, but also the one that most increases the power level of the already strong class. They would get a chat command like /c turn_undead 1/2/3 and their Turn Undead would give that result until they used the command again.

2 - Clerics set their Turn Undead at character creation. This is probably my preferred solution, it's a smaller buff in power and also very easy to implement. It also lets clerics with the same domains differentiate themselves a little bit more. A Pyromanic cleric and a Purifier cleric might both have Fire domain, but they would select different Turn Undeads.

3 - Turn Undeads are no tied to Domains, but to Relics. Each Relic has a set Turn Undead effect (that can be shared with other relics). Probably not going to happen because it would be a whole lot of work, but figured I'd throw the idea out there.

Egon the Monkey

The biggest problem is that some Turn Undead results can wipe your party. Imagine triggering Cleansing Flame from the Fire perk just after your team ate a Negative Energy Burst and now everyone is on fire. Or mis-aiming the Evil domain power and half the enemies got a big buff too. It's not just the chance of burning a round to do nothing, it's that it could make your situation worse! Compared to that, the death domain effect which lowers saves vs spells you might not be using isn't that bad.

Either all the Turn results need to be good to have mid-combat, or you need a /c command to let you select which one you use. There's little point in having situationally useful powers that you have little chance of triggering in the situation where you want them. I think this would be a preferred option as if you had to pick one at chargen, people would never pick the situational ones. The command could be on a 10 minute cooldown to stop people doing stuff like buffing with all 3 in succession.

Tala

Appreciate the input guys!

Implemented some of the suggested adjustments and changes.