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If your character wasn't geared for the fighter half, all you could do with your spells in many parties was heal everyone. So the change to turn undead let clerics keep a few spells handy so they could buff, support, or otherwise do something beyond "I heal the fighter" every round.
Unfortunately Channelling didn't solve the action issue completely - if you spend the Standard Action to channel and heal everyone, although you still have a spell available you still can't use it.
Only if you were planning to cast Cure spells on multiple actions does Channelling overcome the action issue (as with a single Standard action you can heal multiple allies rather than having to do so over several rounds).
No, it is actually pretty accurate. In 3.5, since the undead didn't get any bonus HP, they just added more Hit Dice. For example, a CR 6 (SIX!) zombie has 20 hit dice. Your cleric has absolutely no chance of beating that, because even if you get higher than a 21, you can still only turn a maximum of 10 HD, assuming CR equal. Same with the CR 3 ogre zombie. No chance to turn something you're meant to be able to face without spending extremely valuable feat resources just to have a small chance.
Sure, ghouls are much better than zombies, as they're generally within one HD of their CR. But skeletons have the same problem.
Which is really just inherent in the way 3.5 handled Undead. They added hit dice to give more HP. That's just what they did. It's bad design to base an ability that specifically deals with a creature type off of the HD of that creature type when it's a core design belief to just add more HD to give them more HP. It makes Turn Undead mostly useless at higher levels. Even as high as 4, which as we all know is super duper high level.
There's a reason there were so many things you could use Turn Undead attempts for. It's because it was a horrendous ability.
Good riddance.
Hmmm, on 3.5 zombies seem more like turning blockers now that I look at it. If the zombie of 20 hit die is there, and there are lesser undead, you can effect them, just can't get the big one. Zombies are fodder for melee, but can slow them down while they chop the cheddar. In a way the zombie is a counter to the turn cleric (most curious), but others can be turned with far less hassle. Vamp spawn, 4 hit die, Cr 4. Vamps too can have terrible hit die compared to their CR, because their abilities buff their cr so much, and hit die isn't their strength (unlike the zombie). Ghouls, cr 1, 2 hit die, ghasts 4 hit die for cr 3.
Reality check - in-combat healing in D&D/PF makes no sense apart from heal. Channelling positive is for spending less money on happysticks.
Hmm... at low levels, I even used channeling as a means of mass stabilize once or twice.
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To chime in: Why Undead In 3.5 Had High HD
Back during the initial 3.5 design, Skip Williams thought that undead immunities (sneak attacks, criticals, mind-affecting effects, poison, etc.) should be balanced by lower HP amount. Hence no stat bonus on HP.
Turns out, all those snazzy undead traits don't matter much if somebody is hacking you down with a greatsword. Undead became somewhat brittle, which was particularly bad news for melee-oriented ones.
Various designers handled the problem in different ways - some were smart enough to add Cha bonus to HP (O HAI DRAGOTHA), but most writers just inflated HD like there was no tomorrow. Nobody really cared about what that does to Turn Undead...
...and when it became obvious that Turn Undead became useless, feats that swap out turn uses for something fun came along, among them Divine Metamagic. By the time Clerics were able to DM Persist Spell holy trifecta themselves every day and night, certain 3.5 Classes became redundant, starting with Fighter and Paladin.
A classic domino of design mistakes, one birthing another.
Vamps too can have terrible hit die compared to their CR, because their abilities buff their cr so much, and hit die isn't their strength (unlike the zombie).
Then again, Vampires tend to come with Turn Resistance.
3.5's problem at higher levels was, that if you add HD to a creature to enhance CR, you get a certain amount of HD per CR. IIRC, this was a whopping 4 HD per additional CR for Undead without Class levels (mostly due to their craptastic BAB progression, +0 bonus to hp/HD and lousy saves).
Now, adding 4HD for 1CR, while the cleric's power only increases by 1HD per level will quickly lead into the ability becoming meaningless.
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Reality check - in-combat healing in D&D/PF makes no sense apart from heal.
In the reality of the 3.5 and PF games I have played in, in-combat healing does happen (and not just for Heal). Maybe I am not playing with the most optimised characters or players who aren't tactically great, but in combats I have witnessed if the in-combat healing didn't happen PCs would have died!
I remember in my first PF campaign (started during the beta rules) when I was playing the cleric, the fighter PC ran in gung-ho to a fight and got soundly whacked to near death. All the other PCs then started hammering the monster but I felt obliged to heal the fighter (rather than run the risk of him being targeted again and most likely killed, so I did) and so didn't get to act against the monster that round.
Next round fighter gets up and along with all the other PCs killed the monster before I could act again. A rather boring combat for my cleric :(
I guess my experiences may be the minority, but I can't imagine they are unique.
Channelling positive is for spending less money on happysticks.
Happysticks - something else I really hate. If the game's design is going to expect PCs to heal up to full HP each night, or even up after each battle, just have a blanket rule that says that rather than rely on spamming Wands of Cure Light Wounds or Clerical Channelling.
4e did this and whilst I hated the rule (I call it the Hit Point Yo-yo) it did at least spare me the imagery of "happysticks" and could also occur with a completely non-magical party should players choose.
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To chime in: Why Undead In 3.5 Had High HD
That is interesting, thanks for the insight, its always cool to hear why certain rules are the way they are (for good or bad).
Its sort of like the Rules Mastery mini-game being the reason for the Toughness feat in 3.5, its a deliberately bad choice for anything other than a 1st level one shot game. The realisation of this is meant to reward those players who know the system well enough to identify bad choices.
If your character wasn't geared for the fighter half, all you could do with your spells in many parties was heal everyone. So the change to turn undead let clerics keep a few spells handy so they could buff, support, or otherwise do something beyond "I heal the fighter" every round.Unfortunately Channelling didn't solve the action issue completely - if you spend the Standard Action to channel and heal everyone, although you still have a spell available you still can't use it.
Only if you were planning to cast Cure spells on multiple actions does Channelling overcome the action issue (as with a single Standard action you can heal multiple allies rather than having to do so over several rounds).
There is a feat that lets you use your Channel Energy ability as a swift action I believe.
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Article: 3.5 Turning is Weird
Article: A Problem With High-Level Challenges in D&D (which relates to turning undead)
Wraithstrike:
And thats why I HATED 3.X Turn Undead. All or nothing, either you can or you cannot mechanics suck. Especially when HD is so high compared to the player's. The moment I saw the splatbook version of it that did damage instead of all or nothing I immediately switched my table to that style.At least in the case of a spell like Sleep (which is also extremely outclassed in a hurry) it is just a single spell rather than a major class feature.
- Gauss
Edit: Complete Divine p87: Variant Turning Rules: Destruction of the Undead. 30' radius, 1d6/cleric level damage. Will save DC 10+1/2cleric level+charisma modifier for half. Hmmmm, oh wait...except for being half that amount of damage and the healing option, isnt that PF Channel Energy?
I tried to get my group to switch to that, but they just ignored it.
If they are routing, they are not attacking you. Chasing a lich ain't hard, they don't have the best speed. Simply pursue and wipe them out, use barbs or monks, go for grapple if you wish against vulnerable undead. Or, use the turn rout as a means of escape if your party is in real trouble.
Turning saves lives, it isn't a doom spell cast on your party.
What do you mean they don't have the best speed? Lich don't have speed assigned to them at all. It is based upon their race, and I think they have "flee" not run away meaning teleport was an option. I might have to check the srd to validate that though.
Turning might save lives depending on how tactical your GM is.
You know, if you're really worried about 3.5 Turning being too difficult (both in and out of game), just get rid of the table and make it a DC of 10 + CR + turn resistance/2. That way a Trog zombie is DC 11, a vampire is minimum DC 14. The turning damage is probably fine as is.
That does not change the fact that the written version sucks.
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Personally, I much much prefere the 3.5 Turning/Rebuking that PF's Channel Energy, and also really hate PF's Turn/Command Undead abilities. They are nerfed and a lot less fun, but also, in my opinion, go against the Cleric concept from all other versions of the game.
In higher level play, both become less important, though in my experience, 3.5 Turning held out longer and also was still sometimes extremely useful, while PF Channeling grows more useless (and boring) much quicker and has much few options to expand it (through Feats or abilities) to either boost it or add some new variaty. It simply quickly becomes a tertiary excuse to get healing between combats, ("I'm going to burn 4 Channels, everyone gets back 12 HP while we are collecting our treasure, lets move on to interesting stuff now"), and honestly just feels like a party resource for any group that has a Cleric (or member that can channel) in it, rather than a Class feature.
It is not useless, but it is not better than 3E Turning at all.
Turning/Rebuking/Destroying/Commanding in 3E was sort of like a super Critical hit, when it happened, and PF really failed with Channel as it does not have that same effect. It is just yet another area affect, that yet again typically targets a highest save.
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Dont mean to hijack but...an undead that is dropped into negatives (say -3 hp), can it be healed back to positives with channel negative energy?
no, once a undead hits 0 it's light's out, I believe those are the rules.
Anyway back on topic, channeling energy is far better than turning for many reasons as everyone has expressed. The problem is turning was that it was only useful when fighting undead, if there are rarely any undead in your campaign then you have this ability that you'll never use the majority of the time.
The healing from channel is something that can always be used, especialy with feats to either turn or damage outsiders if you wish. If anything you get far more from the channelling rarther than turning.
I'll just throw this out there: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateMagic/spellcastingClassOptions/c leric.html
Personally, I much much prefere the 3.5 Turning/Rebuking that PF's Channel Energy, and also really hate PF's Turn/Command Undead abilities. They are nerfed and a lot less fun, but also, in my opinion, go against the Cleric concept from all other versions of the game.
In higher level play, both become less important, though in my experience, 3.5 Turning held out longer and also was still sometimes extremely useful, while PF Channeling grows more useless (and boring) much quicker and has much few options to expand it (through Feats or abilities) to either boost it or add some new variaty. It simply quickly becomes a tertiary excuse to get healing between combats, ("I'm going to burn 4 Channels, everyone gets back 12 HP while we are collecting our treasure, lets move on to interesting stuff now"), and honestly just feels like a party resource for any group that has a Cleric (or member that can channel) in it, rather than a Class feature.
It is not useless, but it is not better than 3E Turning at all.
Turning/Rebuking/Destroying/Commanding in 3E was sort of like a super Critical hit, when it happened, and PF really failed with Channel as it does not have that same effect. It is just yet another area affect, that yet again typically targets a highest save.
How is turning better? If the GM goes out of his way to avoid zombies and other undead then 3.5 turning works, but a GM can make a lot of things work, if he caters to them.
Channeling just works, and it saves the cleric spells which can allow him to do other things. The GM also does not have to go out of his way to make it useful.
How is the turn undead weaker than the 3.5 mechanic of turning undead? They both make monster's run away, and with Pathfinder you can expect to work against any CR equivalent opponent.
Dont mean to hijack but...an undead that is dropped into negatives (say -3 hp), can it be healed back to positives with channel negative energy?
no, once a undead hits 0 it's light's out, I believe those are the rules.
Anyway back on topic, channeling energy is far better than turning for many reasons as everyone has expressed. The problem is turning was that it was only useful when fighting undead, if there are rarely any undead in your campaign then you have this ability that you'll never use the majority of the time.
The healing from channel is something that can always be used, especialy with feats to either turn or damage outsiders if you wish. If anything you get far more from the channelling rarther than turning.
+1 This also. Channel is useful in any game, and at all levels.
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How is turning better? If the GM goes out of his way to avoid zombies and other undead then 3.5 turning works, but a GM can make a lot of things work, if he caters to them.Channeling just works, and it saves the cleric spells which can allow him to do other things. The GM also does not have to go out of his way to make it useful.
How is the turn undead weaker than the 3.5 mechanic of turning undead? They both make monster's run away, and with Pathfinder you can expect to work against any CR equivalent opponent.
Patially because in 3E it was all on the Character's roll. It was nice not having to deal with Saves and felt like an attack roll, and felt like it could crit, in a sense. But with PF's focus on party healing, it might as well just be a party feature that offers fast healing or something. Used in combat as an attack tends to be close to minimum damage, (most target have both a high save and also some sort of resistance).
It would certainly help Channel Energy to be both more useful and a lot more fun if it both healed and hurt, and also balanced, but Paizo has already stated over and over this will not be happening.
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3.5 Turn Undead was useless, Channel Energy isn't, end of story.
That sounds like a personal problem to me.
Being a Lawful Good Cleric of Pelor with the Sun domain, using Greater Turning, equaled a lot of crispy undead to me. Don't know where you were having trouble.
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3.5 Turn Undead was useless, Channel Energy isn't, end of story.That sounds like a personal problem to me.
Being a Lawful Good Cleric of Pelor with the Sun domain, using Greater Turning, equaled a lot of crispy undead to me. Don't know where you were having trouble.
I know you aren't referring to me because Domains and domain abilities are part of the class and so are feats. 3.5 Turn Undead is great on it's own but Exalted Turning makes it even better.
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Article: A Problem With High-Level Challenges in D&D (which relates to turning undead)
Myself and my group found the 3.5 Turning to be spot on and easy. Not really sure how weird comes into the picture.
In other words "I completely and utterly disagree".
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How is turning better?Personally, I much much prefere the 3.5 Turning/Rebuking that PF's Channel Energy, and also really hate PF's Turn/Command Undead abilities. They are nerfed and a lot less fun, but also, in my opinion, go against the Cleric concept from all other versions of the game.
In higher level play, both become less important, though in my experience, 3.5 Turning held out longer and also was still sometimes extremely useful, while PF Channeling grows more useless (and boring) much quicker and has much few options to expand it (through Feats or abilities) to either boost it or add some new variaty. It simply quickly becomes a tertiary excuse to get healing between combats, ("I'm going to burn 4 Channels, everyone gets back 12 HP while we are collecting our treasure, lets move on to interesting stuff now"), and honestly just feels like a party resource for any group that has a Cleric (or member that can channel) in it, rather than a Class feature.
It is not useless, but it is not better than 3E Turning at all.
Turning/Rebuking/Destroying/Commanding in 3E was sort of like a super Critical hit, when it happened, and PF really failed with Channel as it does not have that same effect. It is just yet another area affect, that yet again typically targets a highest save.
Because it worked better for their group.
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Personally, I think both versions could use improving. "Old" turing was great when it worked and sucked rocks when it didn't. "New" turning feels more like 4E's Healing Surges (which I don't like) than actual turning.
On a side note, in 3.x, my players feared undead. In PF, they're just monster subtype #31.
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Personally, I think both versions could use improving. "Old" turing was great when it worked and sucked rocks when it didn't. "New" turning feels more like 4E's Healing Surges (which I don't like) than actual turning.
On a side note, in 3.x, my players feared undead. In PF, they're just monster subtype #31.
I absolutely agree here. All of it, perfect.
The other thing is that the PF method for Channeling is probably the worst method for handling it I've seen. It is not a new thing at all. Unearthed Arcana (3.5) and Exp to Castle Ravenloft both had versions like this, but I still think they where both better options for what they actually did, and much more fun.
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Maybe you should take your time and read those articles instead of simply refuting the title of one of them with a childish "nuh-uh"? I mean, if that doesn't interfere with your double and triple posting activities too much.Myself and my group found the 3.5 Turning to be spot on and easy. Not really sure how weird comes into the picture.
In other words "I completely and utterly disagree".
I did read them and I still stand by what I said.
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You know, if you're really worried about 3.5 Turning being too difficult (both in and out of game), just get rid of the table and make it a DC of 10 + CR + turn resistance/2. That way a Trog zombie is DC 11, a vampire is minimum DC 14. The turning damage is probably fine as is.That does not change the fact that the written version sucks.
Short of time-travel, nothing will. ;)
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3.5 Turn Undead was useless, Channel Energy isn't, end of story.That sounds like a personal problem to me.
Being a Lawful Good Cleric of Pelor with the Sun domain, using Greater Turning, equaled a lot of crispy undead to me. Don't know where you were having trouble.
Seems like my trouble was playing non-LG non-Pelor Clerics without Sun domain and dumpster-dived feats from splatbooks AND expecting a class ability to be useful. Silly me.
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I did read them and I still stand by what I said.
So now you're disagreeing with... math?
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I did read them and I still stand by what I said.So now you're disagreeing with... math?
You have already stated in the article that you are using the bare minimum score with turning which is a 10. If any cleric wants to be better at actual turning then they would increase their Charisma.
Also at 3rd level a cleric would have access to Eagle's Splendor which would give the cleric an extra +4 to Charisma, not to mention the fact that you can take the Improved Turning feat.
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Also at 3rd level a cleric would have access to Eagle's Splendor which would give the cleric an extra +4 to Charisma, not to mention the fact that you can take the Improved Turning feat.
1) I actually address this here:
2) And what you are ignoring is this:
It doesn't matter if the cleric has a +0 or a +100, at some point you're going to start encountering undead that can't be turned at all, no matter how good your roll, because the mechanic is limited to HD of your level +4.
That rule is in there to prevent a bunch of 1st-level clerics from repelling high-level vampires, but it also means that once undead HD outpace their CR, turning becomes a useless ability after being pretty strong for most of your career. That can happen as early as CR 2 (Large zombie, 6 HD), pops up again at CR 8, mohrg, 14 HD), and occurs more and more as your character level improves.
(Yes, Improved Turning pushes that off by one level, so it's an essential feat for a turning-focused D&D cleric, just as Improved Channel is for a turning-focused PF cleric.)
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Turning had a lot more options to boost it though, and many of them where not restricted to certain alignments races, or out of reach for a character who wanted to focus on it. Various spells affected turning, some adding Effectve levels.
In the 3E, Turning was a Cha based check, not a DC, so Breastplate of Command and Circlet of Persuasion worked really nice, both because they did apply to Turning and also because the did not use slots the Clerics and Paladins normally needed for something better anyway. You could arguably get a Masterwork Holy Symbol (NOT a silver one) for a +2, and Synergy from Know Religion, was a no brainer. Various books had options.
Channel Energy on the other hand, has very few, and most are concidered a Feat Tax. Having to pick between wasting a between the battle resource and dealing a few, (and I mean a few) points of damage.
In 3E, Turning was mainly an option to clear a room of minor threats so the party could tackle the BBEG without wasting time. Channel is the exact opposite, making the DM have to calculate and roll saves for a lot of minor creatures. The math doesnt matter so much if you realise that it's mainly circumstantial and needs context, which it doesn't have.
In PF, if the Turn Undead Feat did an automatic half damage, (or rather all Undead automatically make the Save) AND also cause them to possibly flee, it might be ok, but as is, is a very weak option. As is, it's right back to the all or nothing, which is honestly the only downside to 3E Turning, but once again, rather than being based on the character's roll, it targets a generally strongest Save AND most things have a special Resistance. Basically it sounds ok on paper, but realy is only on paper that it's ok.
8 out of the 21 undead presented only fail a saving throw against a cleric not focused on channeling on a natural 1. 3.5 had monsters that couldn't be turned, PF might as well have. Granted at least you get that 5% chance, but considering that you need a feat and intelligent undead get a new saving throw every round, it likely won't stick long anyway.
I love channel for out of combat healing, but it feels ineffective when used against undead, unless you focus at least a bit of resources toward it (much like 3.5).
I'm not sure how you derived that last column, are you factoring in the % chance of turning? Because for the human zombie you say "1.75 of 12," which sounds like you're talking about a 2d6 channel, which averages 7 points on a failed save or 3.5 on a successful save.
Anyway, the point of channel in PF is "not every cleric has to be good at dealing with undead." Whereas the default option for D&D clerics is "I'm good at dealing with undead, even if my deity and character concept have nothing to do with undead."
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The other major thing for 3E Turning was that it was a very tactial ability, allowing the party to work around it and have fun. Channel Energy is not. I keep stressing fun for a reason. It isn't. It's basically a free Eternal Wand of CLW, sort of.
In PF, Undead take damage, but that does absolutely nothing to alter the combat, and actually destroying (or taking command of them and turning them on the enemy) is not at all common, even at low level.
I was using 1d6 (avg. 3.5 divided by 2 for a successful save) for a CR 1/2 creature. I had assumed each creature would make its saving throw since the best chance of failure is still only 35% in the above scenario. Each creature is assumed to be set against a cleric with a level equal to the monster's CR in that table.