Why all the hate for Turn Undead?

[Li Shenron]

I guess and hope that Turn Undead is far from final...

The latest playtest update eliminated the option for using channel divinity to use Turn Undead, making it less frequently castable, and introduced a limit of 25 max HP, which apparently means that any undead bigger than that simply cannot be turned.

I don't think it will remain like this, they probably just put the issue of TU to the background for now, but then why these two changes?

And why so many gamers want to see Turn Undead disappear from the game? What is your problem with it?

Or if you prefer, what would you like TU to be, and why?

I wish it stays in the game at least for the sake of tradition, and wish for the final 5e version of Turn Undead to have the following features:

- be available to at least some Clerics (better if other Clerics can opt out of it, or choose a variant to turn some other creatures)
- allow to dispatch (not necessarily destroy) a large multitude of lesser undead at once
- allow to keep at bay one single undead creature without a limit on its power(although exceptions i.e. unturnable undead may exist)

Those features can definitely be tied on level in some way, so when I say "without a limit" I just mean that there shouldn't be any built-in limit such as HP or HD beyond which TU simply doesn't work, but then of course for an individual Cleric might be very much possible that at his current level he can turn ghouls but not vampires. The number of undead affected can also be progressive. But I would like both scenarios covered: (a) the Cleric which protects a party or a whole village from a small army of undead by keeping them at bay or dispersing them, and (b) the Cleric who can at least try to prevent one powerful undead to harm the party when other means to deal with it (i.e. fighting it or destroying it somehow) are unsuccessful or inconvenient.

Then if they want to make TU a spell, although I am skeptic that this would be a good idea, I can accept that, it's not that important to me what mechanics they use...

 

[Raith5]

I dont mind it as a spell. But channel divinity seems more than a little boring and vanilla now. My guess is that they will have higher level versions of turn undead with higher hp thresholds (if they keep hp thresholds which I dont think is certain) and higher effects such as destroying lesser undead.

 

[Mattachine]

I am glad to see turn undead go this way. Just as some clerics would never memorise bestow curse or flame strike, some would never bother turning undead.

 

[Yora]

I don't like the concept of clerics to begin with. A heavily armored undead hunter. Even the spell lists seem to be all about fighting undead and as an afterthought demons.
For a generic priest class, that just doesn't seem a good concept.

And so, no matter how that turn undead stuff turns out, I probably won't be dealing with the class anyway.

 

[Kavon]

I never liked that every Cleric had to have Turn Undead, just like every deity had the things they represented.. + undead!

Hence, I'm happy that not every Cleric has to have it, since it's a spell and you can choose to never put it on your list.

Now I can see a Cleric of a deity which has a big beef with undead being given the ability to use their Channel Divinity with Turn Undead somehow..

 

[Someone]

Turn undead seems to be one of these concepts that big IPs love to overextend until they become absurd - all undead are the same and can be turned, so that turning must be some quality that's harmful to them. Let's call it positive energy, so they are powered by negative energy, which in turn leads us to positive energy powered healing spells and negatively energy harm spells. If you don't stop in time you end with the positive and negative energy planes and fluffastic crunch that's only valid to run D&D derivatives and unnecesarily difficult to develop your own distinct settings. What if I want zombies to be the result of a plague, skeletons to be animated by arcane energy and vampires that are demonic posessions? It's difficult to do that without basically negating one of the clerics class abilities.

What I'd like is to have turning that's creature specific, not belonging to a class. Vampires may be turned by garlic and holy symbols; some fey by cold iron or bells, etc.

 

[TerraDave]

Hate is a strong word...but I am not loving the HP cap in general, and agree that the current channel divinity is a little blah.

 

[wedgeski]

I love Turn Undead as a concept, and the picture in my head of the LG priest rebuking the filthy night-walker is iconic. It's just too situational to be a class feature, though.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I love Turn Undead as a concept, and the picture in my head of the LG priest rebuking the filthy night-walker is iconic. It's just too situational to be a class feature, though.

Yup. As it stands right now, Clerics have a set amount of Spells to use per day and a set amount of Channel Divinity to use per day on top of that. The question for CD then becomes... what does the Cleric use most frequently that would necessitate an additional amount of uses over and above the amount that they would otherwise get via Spells? What ability is so needed that they end up not getting to use their other cool Cleric spells, because all the slots go to X use?

Does Turn Undead get used with such frequency that you need to separate them out from the spell list because otherwise Clerics just never get to use their other spells? I believe the answer that most of us would give to this question is "No." Does HEALING get used with such frequency that often a Cleric's entire suite of spells gets used up with Cures? I think of all the spells a Cleric has... THIS is what would most likely garner a "Yes."

So taking basic healing out of the spell rotation and giving it its own amount separate from the spell list (like they did with Healing Word in 4E)... is a good idea. This then allows those Clerics who don't want to be nothing but Healbots more of an opportunity to do so. And it doesn't leave many Clerics with a complete suite of unused Channel Divinity abilities for the day because they just never had to use Turn Undead.

 

[1Mac]

There's nothing wrong with the idea of turning, but it doesn't need its own wonky mechanic when whatever magic system the cleric winds up using would work just as well. I do like the idea of a channelling-only cleric, though.