Turn Elemental & Outsider Feats Lacking

[sysane]

These feats appear to be underpowered IMO. I understand not allowing the feat to cause outsiders or elementals to become Frightened or commanded as with undead, but just taking straight up damage isn't enough.

How about along with taking full damage on a failed save the undead or elemental were also treated a shaken for 1d4 rds + Chr modifier?

[-Anvil-]

I agree they feel underpowered. I don't like having to choose 1 type of elemental or one alignment of Outsider to turn. Very limiting. A character could go ten sessions before this feat is useful even once vs. feats that are usefull every session.

The Shaken idea isn't bad but I would limit it to a duration equal to Charisma modifier.

[Dario Nardi]

At the Paizocon Meetup this past weekend, I DM'd a Pathfinder group with a cleric. These were pregen PCs; I knew they were going to encounter some demons, so I stat-ed the cleric with Turn Outsider(evil).

The general consensus at the table was that the feat was flirting with being brokenly powerful.

The cleric player came up with some interesting uses, such as using it to detect evil outsiders. This was an urban adventure. The cleric could determine which folks were disguised demons (incubus / succubus) and which were not by using this feat. And he damaged them at the same time, before combat even commenced! There was also a question of whether it would reveal / harm evil tieflings (they are outsiders, after all). My ruling was no (because their subtype is "native" not "evil"). Also consider, the feat can be used to harm demons and such possessing characters or objects. And it can do automatic damage against invisible, displaced, flying, and ethereal foes as well! And did I mention that the feat bypasses spell resistance? All this suggested to us the potent havoc these feats might present in the hands of attentive players. It grants 4 or 5 abilities in one against foes traditionally considered hard to overcome.

Now, how often will someone use this feat, as many adventures don't involve evil outsiders? This is a fair question.

My impression is that Pathfinder RPG negates the need for many prestige classes. Why spend a level detouring to Exorcist of the Silver Flame when I can continue as a cleric and take Turn Outsider (evil) instead? Personally, I really like these feats. If the world or campaign heavily involves outsiders when a PC will know to take the feat. Or if the PC decides to be a demon fighter / exorcist type in a campaign with some outsiders here and there, then he (or she) gets a nice flavor and power boost in those situations. Finally, the PC will not take the feat if the campaign demonstrates no reason to take it (it doesn't seem like a feat to take at 1st level, and by 5th level a cleric will have a good idea of the campaign's focus and typical foes).

Anyway, that is my play-test impression of the Turn Outsider (evil) feat. It is slightly on the powerful side, but not broken. Yet. If others have had a similar or different experience, please post!

[Evil_Wizards]

The uses you describe are not unsimiliar to Holy Smite. Of course, you also damage non-outsiders with Holy Smite, but that can even be seen as an advantage.

Also, Detect Magic and a myriad of other spells can detect disguised demons.

I don't really see the overpowerdness in that, I must say.

[sysane]

Evil_Wizards wrote:

The uses you describe are not unsimiliar to Holy Smite. Of course, you also damage non-outsiders with Holy Smite, but that can even be seen as an advantage.

Also, Detect Magic and a myriad of other spells can detect disguised demons.

I don't really see the overpowerdness in that, I must say.

I have to agree. Thats just a clever use of the feat not a broken or overpowered loophole.

[Lord Tataraus]

I think the Turn Outsider is very balanced, it can be very powerful in the right campaigns, but its overall effectiveness is directly in the control of the DM. The DM needs to be sure that enough of the targeted outsiders (or elementals for the other feat) come up that it is useful, but not too many to make the feat broken. It's the same with the turn undead ability of the cleric. I ran a playtest encounter sequence with a cleric with Turn Outsider (evil) and it worked out great, two of the 4 encounters where evil outsiders, but the cleric still used the burst for healing in the other combats, overall I'm fairly impressed by how the cleric turned out.

[Pneumonica]

The language of these Feats needs clearing up, but specialized-use Feats are about as common as general-use Feats, and a lot of class abilities are pretty specialized as well. However, the ability to channel to damage an Efreet or heal one's own summoned creatures is fairly nice.

[Dario Nardi]

sysane wrote:

Evil_Wizards wrote:

The uses you describe are not unsimiliar to Holy Smite. Of course, you also damage non-outsiders with Holy Smite, but that can even be seen as an advantage.

Also, Detect Magic and a myriad of other spells can detect disguised demons.

I don't really see the overpowerdness in that, I must say.

I have to agree. Thats just a clever use of the feat not a broken or overpowered loophole.

Yep. This is why I ended my play-test post by saying the feat is not broken. I'd keep it as-is. :-)