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How is a druid better with spells, other than battle field control?
Druids have a lot more options out of the box, and usually around twice as many options in splat books. Druid's spells are often unique, allowing for various uncommon bonuses like Natural Armor, while Cleric's tend to get the same thing over and over and over (Resistance, Deflection). Druids have all kinds of variaty in spells, powerful buffs, heals, removing afflictions, damage spells, crowd control, debuffs. Fewer Druid spells become useless as the level up, while most Cleric spells cap out quickly.
With a few exceptions, Clerics do not get anything all the unique, practically sharing their spell list with Wizards, Bards, and Druids, but not so much the other way around. I think it is more an issue wit the Wizard having way too much overlap than the Druid. It's kind of a different topic though.
Honestly, I'd just as soon get rid of the ability to damage undead from channeling positive (keeping channel itself to lengthen the adventure day) and create a spell or series of spells to turn undead (to go along with undeath to death, but, you know, less suck). Such turn undead, lesser which hits so many skeletons/zombies up to X HD, turn undead which hits a variety of undead, including intelligent undead, up to a higher HD total, and then a turn undead, greater which hits all or most undead. Have it be save-based (at least for intelligent undead). Make if like cure spells that can be spontaneously cast or something. It'd take some looking into as far as the number of HD of undead in the bestiaries are concerned, though.
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Also, Sean seems to contradict himself in that little rant of his. He says not to get mad because they took away a "powerful" class feature, and then in the next breath, his article is supposed to show how inferior and weak the ability is.You're the one who thinks turning is much more powerful than channel energy. And your complaint appeared to be* (before you started talking about how the problem is actually in the CR system and not turning) that the cleric was weakened by the change from turning to channel energy. And my response means, "the cleric was the best class in the game, its power has been reduced, sorry that it meant changing something you felt was useful into something you think is useless, but the class's power level needed to be lowered."
And I never said turning was weak, I said it was weird. In fact, "weird" is in the name of the article, an article which calls turning "great," "average," and "average-to-poor" depending on what level the cleric is. It never refers to turning as "weak." The only times the word "weak" appears in that article is when it refers to "weak creatures" and "weakest creatures." Please stop putting words in my mouth.
* At least, that's what I remember of your complaint two days later. At this point it's not really worth my time to go back and try to figure out what you meant at the time, partly because you've changed your focus and partly because you're not going to convince us to change channel energy back to the 3.5 turning mechanic.
First of all, I never said anything about changing Turn Undead weakened the cleric in any way. Again, you are trying to move the focus away from the two abilities in question to the class. It's "not" about the class, it's about the two abilities.
Second, I'm not trying to get you to change your mind about anything, you changed Turn Undead to Channeling so that was your mistake, in my opinion, and not mine.
Third, nobody is trying to put words in your mouth. Some of us are going by your article and what it shows is the fact that you gimped the ability by giving it no stat bonus, no feats, no skills, or anything else that is relevant. You present the ability as weak with a slim slim chance of working against most undead. Why would a player not invest in Turn Undead if he planned on using it to it's full advantage? That could be said about any class ability really. I mean, let's set up a chart for Channeling with no feats and a 10 charisma and see how far it gets. So how is Turn Undead powerful when, according to you, it rarely works and is pretty much useless at high levels?
Both abilities do need stat and feat investment so I don't understand the problem here.
I'm going to give you reasons why Turn Undead is better.
1: Quickly end encounters.
2: Clear the battle so PC's can run if need be.
3: Be used to power up other effects such as certain feats.
4: Can take several feats to boost and give other effects to the ability.
5: Just plain better in combat.
Channeling has some good points but becomes rather pointless early on in the game. It doesn't scale well so the healing and the damage pretty much become a drop in the bucket. You run into the problem of healing and stabilizing the enemy if you don't have the right feat and the right stat investment.
So I ask this. Did you change Turn Undead because it's too powerful and you wanted to tone down the cleric, or is it, when looking at your chart, more of a change because you found the ability lacking?
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Man, must suck to vigorously try to get Jason to re-add XP costs and fail, and then also fail to get Turn Undead back after vigorously arguing that.
It's a curious thing when one is so adamant about his incorrect takes on rules to the point of only listening to the devs, but when the devs clarify and it inevitably turns out he was wrong, this person argues with them so forcefully.
I didn't fail at anything. Might want to get your facts straight. I'm not trying to get anyone to change their minds. I'm just stating the reasons why one is better than the other.
Must suck for you to never bring anything constructive to an argument.
Pity.
...let's set up a chart for Channeling with no feats and a 10 charisma and see how far it gets...
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For the standard Pathfinder channel, I just stick with the Beta version that both damaged and healed at the same time. The choose either version is just weird again, like choosing if a fireball will burn flesh or wood.
For the 3.5 version, I'm thinking of using a mechanic I've used in other contexts - when the cleric turns, any undead take a -1 penalty on all attacks, skill checks, and ability checks while within 60 feet of the cleric as long as the holy symbol remains presented. Undead with turn resistance are immune to this effect. At 7th, 13th, and 19th level the penalty should probably increase by 1.
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...let's set up a chart for Channeling with no feats and a 10 charisma and see how far it gets...Got that covered a couple of pages ago, actually.
Fantastic job on that. Just confirmed what I thought.
For the 3.5 version, I'm thinking of using a mechanic I've used in other contexts - when the cleric turns, any undead take a -1 penalty on all attacks, skill checks, and ability checks while within 60 feet of the cleric as long as the holy symbol remains presented. Undead with turn resistance are immune to this effect. At 7th, 13th, and 19th level the penalty should probably increase by 1.
Now see...I like this (combined with TOZ's addition).
Is that what that image is? I thought he was just standing there.
Oh, of course TOZ, pictures don't just move; those are called films. :)
That is not correct. The truth is that if you really focus and you have an undead campaign you get something a little better. I can't really call it meaningful when zombies(the minion undead) are laughing at your turn attempts, unless of course you are advocating stepping outside of core, which is not a point in your favor since that just shows how bad the ability is.Zombies laugh just as hard at channeling positive energy to harm them as they would at 3.5's turn undead, because the damage you will deal (even on the very off chance that they fail their save and take full damage) is negligible. The point is that you can actually affect some things with 3.5's turn undead (even instantly destroy a few enemies), unlike PF's channel positive energy, which doesn't even match up to a rogue's sneak attack damage. Not only do you have to expend your ability to heal in PF, but you gain nothing for doing so (in many cases less than 10% of a monster's total HP). The ability to hurt undead with channel positive energy is a waste of space and an appeal to flavor; PF effectively removed the cleric's class feature of being able to deal with undead with a method other than spells.
I have yet to see an argument as to why something as limited as turn undead is better than something that stays useful all the time. I am not saying channel is great, but it is at least mediocre.To be clear: I'm advocating keeping channel positive energy for healing, but divorcing it from dealing with undead, and having a separate ability to turn or damage undead- one that at least functions some of the time with an increase in usability if you put some resources toward it (preferably one that doesn't diminish your ability to contribute via healing). PF has no such ability. 3.5's turn undead was better for dealing with undead than PF's channel positive energy, because you could at least use it to good effect occasionally. Without investing your entire character's resources into buffing...
Yep. Make em pop. Good ol' 3.5 turning. Not a little bit of damage, explode.
The complaints against the zombies are raised again, but as you are pointing out, zombies have been resistant to turning and channel across editions. Zombies are not minions that are vulnerable to channel, other undead are (skeletons, wights, vamp spawn, even wraiths only count as hit die 7 at CR 5 WITH turning resistance). Zombies are turning/channel blockers. A good benefit when they can't move around much by default (before you make them fast or whatnot).
How is a druid better with spells, other than battle field control?Druids have a lot more options out of the box, and usually around twice as many options in splat books. Druid's spells are often unique, allowing for various uncommon bonuses like Natural Armor, while Cleric's tend to get the same thing over and over and over (Resistance, Deflection). Druids have all kinds of variaty in spells, powerful buffs, heals, removing afflictions, damage spells, crowd control, debuffs. Fewer Druid spells become useless as the level up, while most Cleric spells cap out quickly.
With a few exceptions, Clerics do not get anything all the unique, practically sharing their spell list with Wizards, Bards, and Druids, but not so much the other way around. I think it is more an issue wit the Wizard having way too much overlap than the Druid. It's kind of a different topic though.
Do you have specific examples?
Of what, everything? That is a pretty huge topic, and the Bard is as bad a culprit as the Wixzard or Druid, and like I said, kind of off topic with this. If you want, when I have some time, I'l go into it, though.
This: "Fewer Druid spells become useless as the level up, while most Cleric spells cap out quickly. "
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First of all, I never said anything about changing Turn Undead weakened the cleric in any way.
Like I said, "At this point it's not really worth my time to go back and try to figure out what you meant at the time..."
Second, I'm not trying to get you to change your mind about anything, you changed Turn Undead to Channeling so that was your mistake, in my opinion, and not mine.
So if you're not trying to get me to change my mind about channel energy, why are you arguing about it? :p
Third, nobody is trying to put words in your mouth. Some of us are going by your article and what it shows is the fact that you gimped the ability by giving it no stat bonus, no feats, no skills, or anything else that is relevant.
... because it's important to look at how powerful the ability is when it is at its worst.
I'm going to give you reasons why Turn Undead is better.
You're still trying to convince me of this even though I don't care and you're not trying to change my mind. Strange.
1: Quickly end encounters.
Only if you destroy the undead. Making them run away can make an encounter take longer or even add to its difficulty.
3: Be used to power up other effects such as certain feats.
... which became the default use of turn undead because the unmodified ability wasn't that useful. And of course adding options to an ability is going to make it more powerful, just like saying "bards can expend rounds of bardic performance to heal" makes bardic performance more powerful.
4: Can take several feats to boost and give other effects to the ability.
So your argument for this is "turn undead is better because you can take feats to make it better"?
5: Just plain better in combat.
This is not an argument.
@Sean K Reynolds: Channeling can be fixed by some new feat at some new items.
Like an amulet of channeling. One lesser (1d6)( and the ordinare (2d6)
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First of all, I never said anything about changing Turn Undead weakened the cleric in any way.Like I said, "At this point it's not really worth my time to go back and try to figure out what you meant at the time..."
Second, I'm not trying to get you to change your mind about anything, you changed Turn Undead to Channeling so that was your mistake, in my opinion, and not mine.So if you're not trying to get me to change my mind about channel energy, why are you arguing about it? :p
Third, nobody is trying to put words in your mouth. Some of us are going by your article and what it shows is the fact that you gimped the ability by giving it no stat bonus, no feats, no skills, or anything else that is relevant.... because it's important to look at how powerful the ability is when it is at its worst.
I'm going to give you reasons why Turn Undead is better.You're still trying to convince me of this even though I don't care and you're not trying to change my mind. Strange.
1: Quickly end encounters.Only if you destroy the undead. Making them run away can make an encounter take longer or even add to its difficulty.
3: Be used to power up other effects such as certain feats.... which became the default use of turn undead because the unmodified ability wasn't that useful. And of course adding options to an ability is going to make it more powerful, just like saying "bards can expend rounds of bardic performance to heal" makes bardic performance more powerful.
4: Can take several feats to boost and give other effects to the ability.So your argument for this is "turn undead is better because you can take feats to make it better"?
5: Just plain better in combat.This is not an argument.
Reynolds, you are being dismissive.
This is on turning in 3.5 and pathfinder's changes, but you are refusing to recognise shallowsoul's discussion of turning and its merits even as an argument. Poor form.
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You speak your mind, so do I. In that, we are the same. If we can't do that when what is happening is clear...
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First of all, I never said anything about changing Turn Undead weakened the cleric in any way.Like I said, "At this point it's not really worth my time to go back and try to figure out what you meant at the time..."
Second, I'm not trying to get you to change your mind about anything, you changed Turn Undead to Channeling so that was your mistake, in my opinion, and not mine.So if you're not trying to get me to change my mind about channel energy, why are you arguing about it? :p
Third, nobody is trying to put words in your mouth. Some of us are going by your article and what it shows is the fact that you gimped the ability by giving it no stat bonus, no feats, no skills, or anything else that is relevant.... because it's important to look at how powerful the ability is when it is at its worst.
I'm going to give you reasons why Turn Undead is better.You're still trying to convince me of this even though I don't care and you're not trying to change my mind. Strange.
1: Quickly end encounters.Only if you destroy the undead. Making them run away can make an encounter take longer or even add to its difficulty.
3: Be used to power up other effects such as certain feats.... which became the default use of turn undead because the unmodified ability wasn't that useful. And of course adding options to an ability is going to make it more powerful, just like saying "bards can expend rounds of bardic performance to heal" makes bardic performance more powerful.
4: Can take several feats to boost and give other effects to the ability.So your argument for this is "turn undead is better because you can take feats to make it better"?
5: Just plain better in combat.This is not an argument.
1: I've already saved you the trouble and told you what I meant.
2: Because this is a discussion board and there is nothing wrong with discussion how Turn Undead is better than Channeling.
3: Hello Sean! You're not the only one who comes to these boards, it's not all about you. It's already clear which one you think is better but the way you go about it, it actually conflicts with each other. Again, going back to your chart and then about it being powerful in your comment. I'm not trying to convince you, once again. Just presenting evidence why I thought your article had problems and why I think Turn Undead was a better ability.
4: So the best way to look at an ability is to look at it at it's worst? Not very good logic there I'm afraid. How about we go and look at how well the fighter hits and how well he does damage but we will be using a 10 Strength, not feats, no items, and not class abilities? What you basically did was present an argument on how inferior you think Turn Undead was but you gimped the ability in order to make your argument seem logical. In short, you adjusted the playing field to suit your argument.
5: The part about destroying the undead to end encounters work with most anything else so I'm not sure where you are going. You have a better chance of ending encounters with Turn Undead than you do Channeling. Also, just like with Channeling, Turn Undead would depend on how you use it, at times with regards to actually make them run away. Turn Undead could also be used as a fantastic means of escape, especially if you were surrounded by lots of undead. Incorporeal undead are nasty when they get the jump on you and surround you.
6: Can't you take feats to boost damage, to hit, CMB, CMD, etc? Turn Undead became very versatile because not only did it allow you boost the ability, it also allowed you to use the Turn attempts for other things in case you weren't interesting in the turning aspect of the ability.
7: It's the best argument because it's been proven many times.
The bottom line here is I'm not trying to start any trouble or be an A-hole but my arguments can't be dismissed away and I will defend them.
2nd edition was as Volkspanzer stated (turn undead was line of sight and in front of the cleric only).
I actually can't find anything validating this. I never played it, but just checked the 2nd edition PHB and DMG (reprint versions), and neither make any reference of range or direction.
It would be unreasonable to call that an infinite range burst, but it's ill-defined at best. Same as it was in 1st edition (which I did play) - I think I limited it to 120' as a house rule.
So the OP: per the rules, it's never been a cone or line in front. Push for it as a houserule if you like :) A 60' cone covers the same area (or about 45' for the same volume on the ground).
Here's why Turn Undead is inferior to Channel Energy: overall usefulness. Turn Undead only mattered if you were dealing with undead (and even then it was not assured to be useful). Channel Energy is always useful to the character whether or not there are undead and even when you are fighting undead you are assured to do something, even if it's really minor.
Overall, Turn Undead was not a well implemented feature in 3.5. It took too much to make relevant and even then, if you poured your efforts into in, the GM could make your resources irrelevant simply by not putting undead in the current adventure. Just like you could make a rogue irrelevant by putting undead in the adventure. In a game where the general expectations include a cleric and a rogue, having those two classes in the adventure shouldn't be at odds with each other.
I don't think anyone is arguing that you couldn't make a bad feature usable. I think people are arguing that you shouldn't have had to work at it in the first place.
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Here's why Turn Undead is inferior to Channel Energy: overall usefulness. Turn Undead only mattered if you were dealing with undead (and even then it was not assured to be useful). Channel Energy is always useful to the character whether or not there are undead and even when you are fighting undead you are assured to do something, even if it's really minor.
Overall, Turn Undead was not a well implemented feature in 3.5. It took too much to make relevant and even then, if you poured your efforts into in, the GM could make your resources irrelevant simply by not putting undead in the current adventure. Just like you could make a rogue irrelevant by putting undead in the adventure. In a game where the general expectations include a cleric and a rogue, having those two classes in the adventure shouldn't be at odds with each other.
I don't think anyone is arguing that you couldn't make a bad feature usable. I think people are arguing that you shouldn't have had to work at it in the first place.
Well the ability was called "Turn Undead" and there were options that allowed you to turn other things such as fiends.
The same is said of the Channeling ability. You have to invest stats, feats, and items just to make it mediocre at best.
Here's why Turn Undead is inferior to Channel Energy: overall usefulness. Turn Undead only mattered if you were dealing with undead (and even then it was not assured to be useful). Channel Energy is always useful to the character whether or not there are undead and even when you are fighting undead you are assured to do something, even if it's really minor.
Overall, Turn Undead was not a well implemented feature in 3.5. It took too much to make relevant and even then, if you poured your efforts into in, the GM could make your resources irrelevant simply by not putting undead in the current adventure. Just like you could make a rogue irrelevant by putting undead in the adventure. In a game where the general expectations include a cleric and a rogue, having those two classes in the adventure shouldn't be at odds with each other.
I don't think anyone is arguing that you couldn't make a bad feature usable. I think people are arguing that you shouldn't have had to work at it in the first place.
Well the ability was called "Turn Undead" and there were options that allowed you to turn other things such as fiends.
The same is said of the Channeling ability. You have to invest stats, feats, and items just to make it mediocre at best.
The ways to make Turn Undead useful were basically to not use the ability to Turn Undead. With the more limited number of feats in 3.5, it would be too much of an investment to make it more flexible unless you were trying to just burn uses to power other abilities not even related to Turning Undead.
As for Channel Energy, it has already been explained over and over how it doesn't take anything extra to remain useful so I won't reiterate. What I will say is that Channel Energy isn't the same thing as Turn Undead so if you ignore what else it does you will find it mediocre at best. If you take into account just what it can do in the CRB, you will see that it isn't mediocre. It's a solid ability that doesn't tie up spell slots if used for healing, increases the healing capability of the party, can always hurt undead even if it's only a little, and it is far easier to use (I really hated having to look up turning tables and then make multiple rolls).
You, personally, may really like Turn Undead but for many people (including those who wrote the Pathfinder rules), it did not deliver.
The ways to make Turn Undead useful were basically to not use the ability to Turn Undead. With the more limited number of feats in 3.5, it would be too much of an investment to make it more flexible unless you were trying to just burn uses to power other abilities not even related to Turning Undead.
As for Channel Energy, it has already been explained over and over how it doesn't take anything extra to remain useful so I won't reiterate. What I will say is that Channel Energy isn't the same thing as Turn Undead so if you ignore what else it does you will find it mediocre at best. If you take into account just what it can do in the CRB, you will see that it isn't mediocre. It's a solid ability that doesn't tie up spell slots if used for healing, increases the healing capability of the party, can always hurt undead even if it's only a little, and it is far easier to use (I really hated having to look up turning tables and then make multiple rolls).
You, personally, may really like Turn Undead but for many people (including those who wrote the Pathfinder rules), it did not deliver.
You only get 3 more feats in PF over the course of 20 levels; many feats have been spit into trees. Turning undead requires a feat.
Dice can be rolled together to save time; channel positive energy requires as many rolls, or more, than turning undead (damage dice and saving throws instead of turning check and turning damage) and involves more dice (1d6/2 levels + 1d20/undead).
The turn undead tables weren't complicated and were small enough to easily be copied onto the margin of a character sheet or fit onto a small corner of a DM screen.
The ability to harm undead with channel positive energy is a trap option. To use it you must forego a valuable healing resource to gain little to no effect.
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Jal, wouldn't it be better for turn resistance to lessen the penalty by that amount rather than grant immunity? So a high level cleric could still have an effect on a creature with turn resistance 2, the penalty would merely be lessened by 2.
Yeah, that's good. Partial change is always better, and it avoids a terminology conflict.
It wasn't clear, but I was thinking this would be in addition to the normal turning rules - a way to circumvent the wasted action effect.
Stop feeding the troll
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:(
2nd edition was as Volkspanzer stated (turn undead was line of sight and in front of the cleric only).I actually can't find anything validating this. I never played it, but just checked the 2nd edition PHB and DMG (reprint versions), and neither make any reference of range or direction.
It would be unreasonable to call that an infinite range burst, but it's ill-defined at best. Same as it was in 1st edition (which I did play) - I think I limited it to 120' as a house rule.
So the OP: per the rules, it's never been a cone or line in front. Push for it as a houserule if you like :) A 60' cone covers the same area (or about 45' for the same volume on the ground).
Second edition used facing rules. If you were facing a given direction your powers worked in that direction. Regarding distance you found no limits. Both are what Volkspanzer stated.
- Gauss
What about a cleric using a standard action to present his holy symbol and keep undead from entering a 30 ft radius around him. Kind of like Anti-Life Shell.
Or they get a Will save to enter but if they do then they take 1d6 positive energy damage per round they are in it.
So what if they are skeletons with bows or other ranged undead.
The ways to make Turn Undead useful were basically to not use the ability to Turn Undead. With the more limited number of feats in 3.5, it would be too much of an investment to make it more flexible unless you were trying to just burn uses to power other abilities not even related to Turning Undead.
As for Channel Energy, it has already been explained over and over how it doesn't take anything extra to remain useful so I won't reiterate. What I will say is that Channel Energy isn't the same thing as Turn Undead so if you ignore what else it does you will find it mediocre at best. If you take into account just what it can do in the CRB, you will see that it isn't mediocre. It's a solid ability that doesn't tie up spell slots if used for healing, increases the healing capability of the party, can always hurt undead even if it's only a little, and it is far easier to use (I really hated having to look up turning tables and then make multiple rolls).
You, personally, may really like Turn Undead but for many people (including those who wrote the Pathfinder rules), it did not deliver.
You only get 3 more feats in PF over the course of 20 levels; many feats have been spit into trees. Turning undead requires a feat.
Dice can be rolled together to save time; channel positive energy requires as many rolls, or more, than turning undead (damage dice and saving throws instead of turning check and turning damage) and involves more dice (1d6/2 levels + 1d20/undead).
The turn undead tables weren't complicated and were small enough to easily be copied onto the margin of a character sheet or fit onto a small corner of a DM screen.
The ability to harm undead with channel positive energy is a trap option. To use it you must forego a valuable healing resource to gain little to no effect.
Having three more feats is better than not having those feats. There's not really much of an argument there.
I thought I mentioned that Channel Energy isn't the same as Turn Undead.
Turning Undead, or any other ability that requires a constant look up of tables and requiring multiple rolls, is more complex than not require them. It's even worse when you won't really need that ability much and you are taking up space with something that could just be used for a better ability.
I notice that you didn't address the problem of how much of an investment the cleric would need to make turning useful and if the GM had put undead in the game, how he made rogues useless.
I kind of like this change myself.
Are you trying to say that even WotC acknowledged that turning undead allowed "a cleric to affect a relatively narrow band of undead (up to 4 HD greater than his cleric level). This makes many undead creatures 'off limits' for this iconic power of the cleric." Hmmm...
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4: So the best way to look at an ability is to look at it at it's worst? Not very good logic there I'm afraid.
Who said it was the *best* way to look at the ability? It's not. Who said that was the *only* way to look at an ability? It's not. But looking at its worst effect is still important for the purpose of evaluating all aspects of the ability. We have to know how effective it is in the hands of the crappiest cleric as well as the minmaxed cleric.
How about we go and look at how well the fighter hits and how well he does damage but we will be using a 10 Strength, not feats, no items, and not class abilities?
You mean like how we assumed that an unarmored peasant is AC 10 and looked at how easy characters of each class can hit that AC at 1st level?
5: The part about destroying the undead to end encounters work with most anything else so I'm not sure where you are going.
You can't say "turn undead is better because it quickly ends encounters" as if that were a universal truth ("turn undead always ends encounters quickly"). It's not.
You have a better chance of ending encounters with Turn Undead than you do Channeling.
Ah, now THAT is a useful, non-absolute statement.
6: Can't you take feats to boost damage, to hit, CMB, CMD, etc? Turn Undead became very versatile because not only did it allow you boost the ability, it also allowed you to use the Turn attempts for other things in case you weren't interesting in the turning aspect of the ability.
My point still stands: your argument is "turn undead is better [than channel energy] because you can take feats to make it better" (which implies that you can't take feats to make channel energy better, which is false).
7: It's the best argument because it's been proven many times."X is just plain better" is not an argument, it's an opinion, no matter how many times it's be "proven."
Anyway, have a good Sunday, folks, I'm out! :)
Having three more feats is better than not having those feats. There's not really much of an argument there.
Yes, having 3 more feats is better, but everybody, including who you are opposing, will have more feats, so there is no comparative gain over foes. Many things that were a single feat in D&D v.3.5 are now multiple feats. And to even turn undead in PF, you need to spend one of those feat.
I thought I mentioned that Channel Energy isn't the same as Turn Undead.
I've been pretty open about liking channel positive energy and aknowledging that it is different from turn undead. It's extra healing for the whole party and aids with a longer adventure day; I think that's just great. My entire position in this thread is that the PF cleric class's ability to harm/hinder undead is too terrible to use effectively, even with significant investment, and that, while far from perfect, D&D's turning mechanic actually worked on occasion.
Turning Undead, or any other ability that requires a constant look up of tables and requiring multiple rolls, is more complex than not require them. It's even worse when you won't really need that ability much and you are taking up space with something that could just be used for a better ability.
Using PF's channel positive energy to harm undead uses as many or more rolls than D&D's turn undead did, and certainly involves more dice. If you used the turning chart often, it wasn't hard to remember. If you didn't, and had to look it up (didn't have a quick reference on your character sheet/screen), it shouldn't have taken more than a moment. Certainly not the 6 hours most seem to make it out to be and probably no longer than a PF cleric player counting up his d6s. PF has shown there is plenty of room for multiple abilities, even those that are not used every encounter. Would a cleric player really be frazzled by have 2 class abilities that didn't stem from domains; one for healling (channel) and one that actually bothered undead (since channel doesn't)?
I notice that you didn't address the problem of how much of an investment the cleric would need to make turning useful and if the GM had put undead in the game, how he made rogues useless.
I've talked about resource investments at length earlier in the thread (even drew up some quick charts on the matter). Channeling energy is just as useless without heavy investment (and never really surpasses: "okay at best" with it). If anything, turn undead required less investment to have a notable game effect in D&D than channeling positive energy does to harm undead in PF even if it was only on occasion. This is the 1st rogues have been brought up to my knowledge here, so I don't know why I would've adressed it...? Undead were common enough in many pre-made adventures, and if a rogue can't find a way to aid in combat that seems to be a problem with the player/character, not the encounter. That is like saying "if a GM puts a golem in an adventure he makes wizards useless." Which is of course incorrect; he just has a smaller number of class features/spells to use in that situation. Bringing up rogues is deflecting from the debate.
Not all class features have to be applicable in all situations.
Are you trying to say that even WotC acknowledged that turning undead allowed "a cleric to affect a relatively narrow band of undead (up to 4 HD greater than his cleric level). This makes many undead creatures 'off limits' for this iconic power of the cleric." Hmmm...
As opposed to removing an iconic power of the cleric, or rather turning it into a feat that will rarely, if ever, function when the occassioal chance to use it comes up, effectively making ALL undead creatures off-limits to the afore-mentioned iconic special abilities of clerics? I suppose you could always do 1/30th of their hit points in damage by expending a resource that would normally be reserved to heal the entire party.
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Even Canneling to heal the party is not always a great thing. Some DM's and parties like the concept of not having magical healing being so prevailent, and easy, and death being a more relivant risk. It's a mixed bag, just a differnt mixed bag.
The arguement that for Turning Undead (3E) many deities don't care about Undead, well, many PF deities do not care about healing either, or hurting Undead.
Turning, (3E) had a lot more options, even in Core. Channeling has a handful, and honestly most are traps. Channeling to heal doesn't really help as much to save on spells as people think/imply it does, as the Cleric lost spell slots in PF, not a net gain. All it does is force the class to be a healer even more. Even the Variant Channeling options, sound good, but as they only last a round or a few rounds, typically are a tra option that require a wasting of the ability for a tiny bonus when you don't actually need the healing. The Harm options can be ok, if your goal is to spam negative energy bombs early in a fight.
Selective Channeling is basically a Feat Tax, Alignment Channeling and Channel Smite are not as effective as they sound, (either allowing you to heal something you aready could but NOT healing anything else like your party or adding you damage to a single attack when you could instead target everything, which may be occasionally useful, but not worth a Feat). Smite is better in other classes hands than the Cleric, who it was likely designed for. Extra and Imroved Channeling both are Feats that can only be taken once (for Clerics anyway), (whereas in 3E you could take Extra Turning multiple times), and seperate variations on the powers sometimes had their own pools rather than all using the same one.
A lot of the issues with PF's Channeling is that they all provide Either/Or options rather than building upon, which significantly reduces their effectiveness and ability to use when needed. Out of Core, there are a possible 7 of 8 Feat options, each offering seperate options. There are also 1 of 2 items, (not both).
As for the Rogue thing, the Cleric also loses almost all class features against a Golem, who are usually less common but a much greater threat over all. Add to that all the other things that affect/negate magic, and the Rogue (in 3E) had it easy with Undead being immune to Sneak Attack. Rogues that couldn't contribute to an Undead encounter (without Sneak Attack) where failures as a player, not as a Class. Having a type of monster that a class was less effective against encouraged party adversity and cohesion, and like I said, there where more things that other classes had this issue with than the Rogue. Rogues where the ONLY ones that could "beat" a trap, no other classes had the option. So it was the same deal if the DM "tailored" Undead around having a Cleric or having a "useless poor" Rogue, they also had to tailor it around Traps, Antimagic, Diseling/Counter Magic, Spell Resistance, and all kinds of things. Roges came out far ahead.
Go back and read what I said. I never said that it was better at dealing with undead only. I said that it handles more situations and is therefore more useful. Unless you think that healing is never a good idea, in or out of combat, or if you think that having a chance to deal some damage to undead (maybe they are incorporeal and you don't have magic items) is useless.
Keep in mind that I am comparing the usefulness of Turn Undead in a 3.5 environment to Channel Energy in a Pathfinder environment. It is far easier to use Channel Energy in Pathfinder and still have some use than it was to use Turn Undead in 3.5 and still have some use. Without feats, Turn Undead could only be used for a single purpose. Channel Energy does not have that limitation. In addition, it can do multiple things at a time. While Turn Undead only affected undead, Channel lets you deal damage to the enemy while doing some healing to the party. This is of course assuming you are dealing with creature harmed by the channel, but at least your round isn't completely wasted if you don't destroy the undead.
Channel Energy works better for both the players and the GM. Rolling more dice isn't the same as having to consult tables and roll more dice and make more calculations. For some people, that's not a problem. I have gamed with people that have a hard time with adding their skill modifiers consistently. The fewer tables and calculations they have to do the better.
I am not comparing Pathfinder's Turn Undead with 3.5's Turn Undead. That's a different discussion.
@ Bob_Loblaw: This entire thread I have been specifically debating the merits of D&D's turn undead versus PF's channel positive energy (and related feats) for dealing with undead. I've advocated divorcing channeling positive energy to heal from channeling positive energy to harm undead. The former works well enough, and should definitely stay, but the effects on undead are simply too minor and a waste of resources to bother with. We are debating different (albeit related) things.
Here's why Turn Undead is inferior to Channel Energy: overall usefulness. Turn Undead only mattered if you were dealing with undead (and even then it was not assured to be useful). Channel Energy is always useful to the character whether or not there are undead and even when you are fighting undead you are assured to do something, even if it's really minor.
Overall, Turn Undead was not a well implemented feature in 3.5. It took too much to make relevant and even then, if you poured your efforts into in, the GM could make your resources irrelevant simply by not putting undead in the current adventure. Just like you could make a rogue irrelevant by putting undead in the adventure. In a game where the general expectations include a cleric and a rogue, having those two classes in the adventure shouldn't be at odds with each other.
I don't think anyone is arguing that you couldn't make a bad feature usable. I think people are arguing that you shouldn't have had to work at it in the first place.
I have been saying that since this thing started. I guess some believe niche is better than generally useful.
Turning, (3E) had a lot more options, even in Core.
Such as..?
I am asking about that bolded area specifically.
Channeling has a handful, and honestly most are traps. Channeling to heal doesn't really help as much to save on spells as people think/imply it does, as the Cleric lost spell slots in PF, not a net gain.
This depends on how much a party gets into trouble aka need healing. I think the that even if it only saves me 3 spells a day then it is useful. That could lead to one or 2 more fights which extends the adventuring day.
Selective Channeling is basically a Feat Tax, Alignment Channeling and Channel Smite are not as effective as they sound, (either allowing you to heal something you aready could but NOT healing anything else like your party or adding you damage to a single attack when you could instead target everything, which may be occasionally useful, but not worth a Feat). Smite is better in other classes hands than the Cleric, who it was likely designed for. Extra and Imroved Channeling both are Feats that can only be taken once (for Clerics anyway), (whereas in 3E you could take Extra Turning multiple times), and seperate variations on the powers sometimes had their own pools rather than all using the same one.
Selective Channel is a tax feat to me also. I won't argue with that, and I have never seen the other two get any praise. Having to take multiple feats is just more points against Turn Undead especially when turn undead is used for things other than what it was made for. It is like if using an ipad as a door stop. Yeah it might make a good door stop, but it still sucks as an ipad. That is what I think when I see Turn Undead used to do everything except turn undead.
Cleric could buff and beat up golems. Casting spells directly on the golem was not a great idea, but to say the spells(a class feature) could not be used against them is false. Summoning and calling outsiders was also an option.
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Turning, (3E) had a lot more options, even in Core.
Such as..?
I am asking about that bolded area specifically.
The Elemental Domains offered the ability to Turn/Rebuke various elementals, which allows you to either negate or even steal Summoned creatures or to have a minion that isn't Undead. The Sun Domain allowed you to have a great 1/day effect to utilize Turning. Extra Turning could be taken multiple times, and Improved Turning actually made you effectively a level higher, (for everything) not just added to a single function of the ability. When I say a lot more options, I do not mean the number of possibly Feats, but rather the ability to do multiple different things and develope different concepts and builds, but at the same time, are not really must have for all Clerics regardless of their actualy faith and concept.
Cleric could buff and beat up golems. Casting spells directly on the golem was not a great idea, but to say the spells(a class feature) could not be used against them is false. Summoning and calling outsiders was also an option.
They can, and I'm not meaning to say that all their Class features are useless, but and ctually thatis the point, like a 3E Rogue, they had to switch up their normal means to deal with it. Many Domain abilities are usless against Golems, and any spell that allows Spell Resistance does not affect the Golem. Spells like Spiritual Weapon, not only do not affect them, but it actually negates the spell for any other use. Summons will likely not be able to affect a Golem, (DR) and basically are just another target and may offer Flanking. Again, I'm not saying that's useless, just that it is something that the Cleric (or whatever class) has to work around. A minor difference in 3E, though was that it tened to have a few better options for Summon Monster monsters, and a Rogue is not going to heal/buff the Golem with each Sneak Attack, either. . .
Yeah, you get three more feats in Pathfinder, but two of them are spent trying to catch up to the v3.5 cleric (via Armor Proficiency: Heavy and Turn Undead).
I love playing Clerics. One of my favorite D&D characters I've ever played was a Cleric. I hated Turn Undead and quickly learned to never use it, unless I knew I was guaranteed to destroy things.
In our campaign world, there was region that had been blighted with undead. The event happened in the course of play. An army was invading and in desperation to stop their advance, the king turned to a powerful necromancer to stop them. There was a bottle neck, a small plain maybe... 100 miles across between high mountains and the ocean. We had already deprived the invaders of ships and the mountains were very rugged and had a few easily defensible passes. So the necromancer essentially created a blight on that plain to create an endless horde of undead. He didn't control them, it was just a no man's land.
Later in the campaign, we had to cross this plain several times. As a cleric, I knew I couldn't turn, because if something failed the save and fled, it would flee for 10 rounds (I was 10th level) and certain undead can be pretty quick, like shadows and ghouls. That means those things go screaming across the plain and other undead get perception checks to notice them and come check out what all the fuss was about.
So yeah, the place with the most undead was a No Turning zone as well.
I never liked that undead would flee in general either. It doesn't actually solve the problem, you don't get to decide which ones run and which don't. If you're already prepped for battle, you might be wasting precious time on buff spells. If you're in a hurry, waiting isn't an option and now they'll just come back when you're fighting something else. If time and reinforcements aren't an issue, it can be okay, because maybe a couple flee, so you can finish the others more easily and do the rest when they come back.
I like Channel Energy better. If the Wizard drops a fireball on the horde, I can jump in and help finish the job off, heck I like putting up Resist Energy Fire on characters, so he can keep fireballing while I'm in there. Does mine do less damage? Sure, but it gets them focused on me and perhaps keeps them clumped together.
As for the Phylactery of Positive Channeling, most DM's I've played with are fine with allowing it to be enchanted with a Wisdom bonus as well (normal +50% cost for the additional effect).
I liked the 3.5 Turning feats, but if you like them too... they're completely compatible, you just spend a Channel Energy to power them, that seems like such a no brainer to me, that it isn't even worth bringing up as a difference between them. Paizo couldn't copy those feats, because they weren't included in the OGL.
Turning, (3E) had a lot more options, even in Core.
Such as..?
I am asking about that bolded area specifically.The Elemental Domains offered the ability to Turn/Rebuke various elementals, which allows you to either negate or even steal Summoned creatures or to have a minion that isn't Undead. The Sun Domain allowed you to have a great 1/day effect to utilize Turning. Extra Turning could be taken multiple times, and Improved Turning actually made you effectively a level higher, (for everything) not just added to a single function of the ability. When I say a lot more options, I do not mean the number of possibly Feats, but rather the ability to do multiple different things and develope different concepts and builds, but at the same time, are not really must have for all Clerics regardless of their actualy faith and concept.
Cleric could buff and beat up golems. Casting spells directly on the golem was not a great idea, but to say the spells(a class feature) could not be used against them is false. Summoning and calling outsiders was also an option.They can, and I'm not meaning to say that all their Class features are useless, but and ctually thatis the point, like a 3E Rogue, they had to switch up their normal means to deal with it. Many Domain abilities are usless against Golems, and any spell that allows Spell Resistance does not affect the Golem. Spells like Spiritual Weapon, not only do not affect them, but it actually negates the spell for any other use. Summons will likely not be able to affect a Golem, (DR) and basically are just another target and may offer Flanking. Again, I'm not saying that's useless, just that it is something that the Cleric (or whatever class) has to work around. A minor difference in 3E, though was that it tened to have a few better options for Summon Monster monsters, and a Rogue is not going to heal/buff the Golem with each Sneak Attack, either. . .
Turning elementals was actually easier than turning undead. I think the idea of turning undead was good, but the mechanics of it in 3.5 failed. That is like Smite Evil being better at Smiting some other alignment than actually smiting evil creatures.
Extra Turning was mostly used to power variant uses of turn undead and Improved Turning only boosted you by 1. If something was outside of the +4 range it is probably outside of the +5 range also.
Given the choice between 3.5 turning in an undead or normal campaign vs channel I am still taking channel. Earlier I mentioned that vampires and liches could be turned, but they had turn resistance so that was highly unlikey also.
You are not turning zombies most of the time. The bosses are more than likely not to be turned if they are liches or vampires. Morghs are not being turned either. Wraiths yes, but dread wraiths no. Both shadow types could be turned. Mummies are possible, but not likely. Skeleton can be turned. I am assuming ghouls and ghast would be turned. If you look into the other monster manuals the charnel hound which I mentioned a while back is not being turned either. It seems to me that unless I am using Turn Undead to do something beside Turn Undead then it is not that good. If that is the case then the alternate uses of Turn Undead should be features of their own.