I have a dwarven cleric in my group with a low charisma, and I'm worried that this is going to hamper him as the AoW progresses by reducing the effectiveness of his turning. Can anyone suggest a way of overcoming this handicap, perhaps through feat selection or an alternative class feature? Thanks!
How low is 'low'?
A nymph's cloak will boost the stat itself and is easy to slip into a treasure heap. There are various feats to enhance turning in the Libris Mortis: Empower Turning/Heighten Turning/Energize Spell. Manzorian could reward the cleric with the Tome of +Cha (How to Make Friends and Influence People, or whatever it's called).
He'll be fine. The Cleric in my Age of Worms game doesn't even have Turn Undead (he's a slight variant Cleric, but essentially he's just a cleric) and he's still been the most effective party member so far. He focuses mainly on buffs, so he's actually become the biggest powerhouse in the group.
Not to mention the fact that Turning, after the first couple levels, isn't worth using anyway. It's nice at low levels when you're facing zombies and skeletons and such, but at higher levels, undead have so many hit dice (and turn resistance), not to mention half of the areas are unhallowed, that the only time it's a viable option the mooks are so weak that a fighter with great cleave could do the same thing, if not better.
Thanks for the responses. The difficulty with charisma-enhancing items is that the sorcerer in my group will feel he has a better claim on them!
The consensus seems to be that I don't need to worry - that turning is not effective at higher levels, anyway. (If this is true, though, then surely it's even more worthwhile trying to find something else to do with that unhelpful turning ability?)
The group I am running lacks a cleric completely, They have an archivist/savant instead. So far, her knowledge skills and summoning/buff spells have proven the most useful.
Besides, as a few have mentioned, Charisma items are not that expensive. Additionally a few divine feats are useful no matter the Charisma modifier, especially at later levels. If you have access to Complete Divine, the Glorious Weapon and Sacred Boost feats can be useful. There is also Divine Justice, Divine Ward, Sacred Healing, Sacred Purification, and Sacred Radiance from the Player's Handbook II.
Thanks for the responses. The difficulty with charisma-enhancing items is that the sorcerer in my group will feel he has a better claim on them!
How about Charisma-boosting magic armor or weapons that the sorcerer can't use?
Thanks for the responses. The difficulty with charisma-enhancing items is that the sorcerer in my group will feel he has a better claim on them!How about Charisma-boosting magic armor or weapons that the sorcerer can't use?
Call it glorious armor. Also, relics of the faith work well.
Also, there's a whole series of feats (Divine Feats IIRC) in the complete divine that allow you to do other things with your turn attempts. This is really worth checking out for all clerics, especially if you take the extra turning feat and you can be a positive energy channeling machine! (Ooh, I'm sounding munchkinesque, I know, but cleric is about my favorite class to play, next to bard.)
(If this is true, though, then surely it's even more worthwhile trying to find something else to do with that unhelpful turning ability?)
Not at all. The Cleric is already the most powerful D&D class- just because he's not getting use out of one of his lesser-used abilities doesn't mean you need to make up for it. Besides, it's HIS fault he's not getting much use out of it, after all. If a Sorcerer decides to wear Full Plate, you don't give him an added benefit, do you?
The Cleric is already the most powerful D&D class- just because he's not getting use out of one of his lesser-used abilities doesn't mean you need to make up for it. Besides, it's HIS fault he's not getting much use out of it, after all.
Well, not really. His decision to play a dwarf cleric with low charisma was a role-playing one, not a min/maxing one. In addition, I use the organic method of rolling characters, so the players don't have complete control of how they arrange their stats. So it's my fault, really, and I don't want the whole group to be penalised for that.
Thanks for all the tips. I think I will suggest that he takes one of those divine feats at 6th level.
My party didn't have a cleric to start with, and so the player who started with a wizard decided to multiclass as wizard/cleric/mystic theurge. The mystic theurge levels don't count towards his turning abilities, so he is still a pretty low level when it comes to turning.
The one thing that I did that helped was to use the alternate turning rules in Complete Divine. That has really helped out in some situations.