Turn Undead queries

[electric mayhem]

I've been testing turn undead with my turner.
I'm a little worried about its performance.
Here's some images from today's encounter in Fields of the Dead.

At the NE ruined crypt on surface, the 2 skels and 1 vamp spawn encounter.
1st Turn attempt.


2nd Turn attempt: At this point, only the Vampire remained.(Note Vampire's rebuked status had finished by now).

In this second image, not only did the Vampire not get destroyed, nor rebuked, it didn't even appear to undergo a Turn roll...

I'm concerned either Turn Undead ability is not performing to it's max ability?
Or.
The spawns are somehow unrealistically resistant/immune/notgetting checked properly to Turn Undead.

Can someone with better understanding of the mechanics and dice rolls of all this check on this? Was this an outlier? Did this perform to plan? Is there any bugs possibly with the process?

---


Update: Mummies appear to be turning fine inside the Crypt.
Zombies turn and fall easily.
Vampires seem to be ALOT harder to destroy/turn outright. Haven't been able to destroy one yet on a turn.
Encountered 3 summoned vampire companions during the run through the easier of the two Fields crypts. The ones spawned from shadow priests. Turns would roll a check, and rebuke successfully. But not destroy.
All checks were done with similar dice rolls to what is shown above, sometimes the HD max was up to 82.

Updated summary: Much happier knowing that all skells, mummies and zombies get destroyed outright in the initial Turn.
Bit worried about the lesser vampires not. And the failed dice roll to even check against the Vampire. Yes, rebuke had expired on it, i stood around long enough. Curious as to what makes these so special, in comparison to other undead.

Also want to reiterate the bug that with a Summoned Vamp by an enemy, if you Turn, and it successfully rebukes. If you proceed to go and attack its master, it will move to you and attack. The minute you stop attacking its companion, it stops attacking you.

[Tsidkenu]

Those logs reveal the story. Vamp has 18 HD. You were only rolling 33 or 34 on your turning check. You need a minimum of 36 to destroy a vampire (if the check is at least 2x HD, they are destroyed) also assuming they dont also have turn resistance. Sentient undead like mummies, liches and vampires usually have 1 to 4 turn resistance.

[electric mayhem]

Well... that blows chunks. Kind of.
Really takes the sting out of being a turner.
Especially into the epics if the best you can hope for is a stun, then a slow slow bash fest after.
Oh well, thems the tools to play with.

Thanks for explaining that well Tsid, cause I completely missed that in the multiple times that I read the Turn Undead pages on the wiki. But have now found it.

If you have twice as many cleric levels (or more) as the creature has Hit Dice, you destroy (supernaturally kill) the creature instead.

Re the turn resistance, that may explain why I was seeing unexplainable dcs of 33, when otherwise it was 34.

Still, the companion vamp bug is frustrating in the crypts.

[Blackman D]

what is your build?

the 33 is not a DC its your max HD roll, so you can turn up to a 33 HD undead however turning affects the lowest (weakest) undead first then goes up

the ones below is your damage roll

so your
highest level of creature affected 33 - max HD
maximum hit dice of creatures turned 78 - total damage in HD

then your second was 34 max HD, 78 damage again

so if you were surrounded by a 14, 14, 16, 20, 25, 25, 30 and 35HD undead; your first turn would (assuming your are a level 30 turner) destroy the two 14s (x2 = 28 < 30) but not the 16 (x2 = 32 > 30), it would turn the 16 and 20 but not affect the rest because your damage is expended (64 - 78 = 14)

now any turned creature is ignored for future attempts, so now you only deal with 20, 25, 25, 30 and 35HD undead; a second turn would turn 20, 25, 25HD (70 - 78 = 8) leaving the 30 and 35

a third turn would only affect the 30 because the 35 exceeds your max HD of 33

only a 30 cleric (30 cleric, 20 cleric/10 ML, 20 cleric/any full turn progression prc) can have a chance to turn a 35HD undead

[electric mayhem]

Cheers BMD,

That's pretty much how it figured out and agreed with what Tsid posted. The 2x level was the missing link of known logic.
Build is the 10/10/10 C/H/ML turner. With appropriate feats.

[Blackman D]

cool, if you were wanting to know why your max HD fluxes here is how the rolls are calculated

Subject: Turn undead -1 hitdice

here is how turning works, two checks, one for max HD and one for total HD

max HD check is 1d20 + CHA mod + any other bonuses (sun domain gets extra 1d6, improved turning gets +1 level)

if result is 0 or lower max HD equals cleric level minus 4
if result is 1-3 max HD equals cleric level minus 3
if result is 4-6 max HD equals cleric level minus 2
if result is 7-9 max HD equals cleric level minus 1
if result is 10-12 max HD equals cleric level
if result is 13-15 max HD equals cleric level plus 1
if result is 16-18 max HD equals cleric level plus 2
if result is 19-21 max HD equals cleric level plus 3
if result is 22 or higher max HD equals cleric level plus 4

total HD check is 2d6 + cleric level + CHA mod + any other bonuses (sun domain gets extra 1d4, empower turning multiples by 1.5 after)

then if your turning class level is x2 of the HD of undead and you successfully rebuke them they are utterly destroyed

so with my cleric lynn, she has a +4 CHA buffed and gets all the extra bonuses, so shes rolls 5 + d20 + d6 for max HD, so on average she'd be rolling an 18 and gets her level +2 for a 29 HD undead as her max currently

damage would be 2d6 + 27 + 4 + d4 then x1.5, on average would be about 58 total HD, she actually rolls more like 65 tho because she always turns at least three undead in the vault who are all (all being the normal guys) 20-24HD

MLs are awesome

the thread is way old and deleted in one of the clean ups, but it was a frequent question so i saved my response

[electric mayhem]

Good idea on the save of it!. Thanks for sharing BMD!

[Tsidkenu]

A 10 Cl/ 10 Hie/ 10 ML with 36 (+13) CHA will get

1d20 +13 + 4 (Master of Energy) = Min 18 (+2 HD) to max 37 (+4 HD)

Now add to that Sun Domain (Exceptional Turning - +1d6 HD) and Improved Turning (Morning Lord level 2 - +1 HD) and your 1 on a d20 roll single HD turned creature is 34 HD (30 +2 +1 +1). Max (20 roll) is 41 HD (30 +4 +6 +1).

Clerics with lower CHA will see a variation depending on their actual CHA scores and resulting rolls on the d20, in addition to the 1d6 roll for Exceptional Turning.

I'm not sure if the CHA table continues past +4 for general turning or whether it only applies to Advanced Divine Spell Power rolls; if so, the theoretical maximum for said 36 CHA turner cleric would be HD 46 (30 +9 +6 +1).

[electric mayhem]

Yep, that's pretty much the build. Except Cha is sitting at 31 (+10) buffed at the moment.
Oh, and pardon, he's 29 (10/10/9) at the mo.
I'm not seeing anywhere near those 40s+ Max Lvl in the rolls.
Been seeing a Max of 34, and lowest of 31.

I'm guessing these hidden Turn Resistance (no documentation anywhere?) is getting applied to the dice rolls and I'm seeing only the net result? Actually, no, that's silly. That shouldn't affect the Max Level dice roll check. Only the Turned Hit Dice result against the enemy? Yeh?

[Tsidkenu]

Might not be adding the 1d6 for Exceptional Turning.

[electric mayhem]

That could be possible Tsid.
The Sun Domain Powers 'feat' appears in the Feat list. But no Exceptional Turning feat. As to whether an individual feat is meant to be there or not, I'm not sure.
Improved Turning, Empower Turning, Master of Energy are present.

[Blackman D]

-4 and +4 are the max level bonuses and penalties