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This question popped into my head as I'm preparing for my players to assault Scarwall. How should the turning immunity of things like Skeleton Warriors and Chained spirits interact with the Channel Energy rules?
I can see three options:
1) It doesn't. They are immune to Turning, not Channel Energy so they take normal damage.
2) Full Immunity. Channel energy doesn't hurt them at all.
3) Partial immunity. They are always considered to have made their saving through, so suffer half channel damage.
I'm leaning towards option 3 at the moment, as 1 seems too weak and 2 is very powerful. Does anyone have any suggestions?
You could give them Mettle against channelled energy meaning that if they make their save, they take no damage. Maybe even Improved Mettle (even though such a thing doesn't really exist) which would mean that they take half damage from channelled energy on a failed save and none on a successful one.
I have a feeling that the Beastiary will have some new mechanic for these monsters which will work similar to energy resistance. Not sure, that's just a guess but if that's the case then they may have full immunity. Maybe someone from Piazo can answer this question.
From a rules perspective, I would say Immunity = Immunity.
But being immune to channeled energy is much better then being immune to turning. In my experience, turning was rarely used, and often more annoying then useful as the undead scatter into the other areas, and alert everyone.
Perhaps sending this question over to the CotCT area of the message boards would get answers from DM's who have direct experience with Scarwall.
I don't like absolute game effects (such as immunities) as creatures abilities; in most cases they're a cheesy, weak way of making a monster more of a threat than its stats would otherwise indicate. Better to give a turning-immune creature something like +6 turn resistance so the PCs actually have a chance of it working than just to flat-out negate it.
But to your question, PF's channel energy is the inheritor of 3e's turning rules. Bonuses or penalties to turning translate exactly to bonuses or penalties to channel energy.