Turn or Rebuke Undead

Turn Undead: Good clerics and paladins and some neutral clerics can channel positive energy, which can halt, drive off, rout, or destroy undead.

Rebuke Undead: Evil clerics and some neutral clerics can channel negative energy, which can halt, awe, rebuke, control, command, or bolster undead. When attempting to exercise their divine control over these creatures, characters make checks.

Turning Checks

Turning undead is a supernatural ability that a character can perform as a standard action. It does not provoke attacks of opportunity. You must present your holy symbol to turn undead. Turning is

considered an attack.

Times per Day: A character may attempt to turn undead a number of times per day equal to 3 + Charisma modifier. A character can increase this number by taking feats.

Range: A character turns the closest turnable undead first, and they can’t turn undead that are more than 60 feet away or that have total cover relative to the character. Characters don’t need line of sight to a target, but they do need line of effect.

Turning Check: The first thing done is roll a turning check to see how powerful an undead creature A character can turn. This is a Charisma check 1d20 + Charisma modifier. Turning Undead gives the character the Hit Dice of the most powerful undead they can affect, relative to characters level. On a given turning attempt, one can turn no undead creature whose Hit Dice exceed the result using the table below.

Turning Check Most Powerful Undead Affected

Result (Maximum Hit Dice)

0 or lower Cleric’s level – 4

1–3 Cleric’s level – 3

4–6 Cleric’s level – 2

7–9 Cleric’s level – 1

10–12 Cleric’s level

13–15 Cleric’s level + 1

16–18 Cleric’s level + 2

19–21 Cleric’s level + 3

22 or higher Cleric’s level + 4

Turning Damage: If a roll using the Table above is high enough to let a character turn at least some of the undead within 60 feet, roll 2d6 + cleric level + Charisma modifier for turning damage. That’s how many total Hit Dice of undead they can turn.

If a Charisma score is average or low, it’s possible to roll fewer Hit Dice of undead turned than indicated on Table above Turning Undead.

A character may skip over already turned undead that are still within range, so that you do not waste your turning capacity on them.

Effect and Duration of Turning: Turned undead flee from the character by the best and fastest means available to them. They flee for 10 rounds. If they cannot flee, they cower, giving any attack rolls against them a +2 bonus. If you approach within 10 feet of them, however, they overcome being turned and act normally. The character can stand within 10 feet without breaking the turning effect - just can’t approach them. A character can attack them with ranged attacks from at least 10 feet away, and others can attack them in any fashion, without breaking the turning effect.

Destroying Undead: If the character has twice as many levels or more as the undead have Hit Dice, the character destroys any that they would normally turn.

Rebuked Undead

Evil clerics channel negative energy to rebuke, awe or command, control undead rather than channeling positive energy to turn or destroy them. An evil cleric makes the equivalent of a turning check. Undead that would be turned are rebuked instead, and those that would be destroyed are commanded.

Rebuked: A rebuked undead creature cowers as if in awe attack rolls against the creature get a +2 bonus. The effect lasts 10 rounds.

Commanded: A commanded undead creature is under the mental control of the evil cleric. The cleric must take a standard action to give mental orders to a commanded undead. At any one time, the cleric may command any number of undead whose total Hit Dice do not exceed his level. He may voluntarily relinquish command on any commanded undead creature or creatures in order to command new ones.

Dispelling Turning: An evil cleric may channel negative energy to dispel a good cleric’s turning effect. The evil cleric makes a turning check as if attempting to rebuke the undead. If the turning check result is equal to or greater than the turning check result that the good cleric scored when turning the undead, then the undead are no longer turned. The evil cleric rolls turning damage of 2d6 + cleric level + Charisma modifier to see how many Hit Dice worth of undead he can affect in this way (as if he were rebuking them).

Bolstering Undead: An evil cleric may also bolster undead creatures against turning in advance. He makes a turning check as if attempting to rebuke the undead, but the Hit Dice result on the Table above becomes the undead creatures’ effective Hit Dice as far as turning is concerned (provided the result is higher than the creatures’ actual Hit Dice). The bolstering lasts 10 rounds. An evil undead cleric can bolster himself in this manner.

Neutral Clerics with Turning or Rebuke

A cleric of neutral alignment can either turn undead but not rebuke them, or rebuke undead but not turn them. Even if a cleric is neutral, channeling positive energy is a good act and channeling negative energy is evil.

VARIANT TURNING RULES

Destruction of the Undead

Instead of the turning undead rules above players might decide to use these turning undead rules. Instead of making undead run and cower, turn attempts deal positive energy damage to all undead within 30 ft. of the cleric.

Turning undead is a standard action that deals 1d6 damage/cleric level to all undead within 30’ of the cleric. The affected undead get a Will save (DC 10+ cleric level + Charisma modifier) for half damage.

Undead with turn resistance may subtract that number from the damage that they take from each turn attempt.

When using this ability against incorporeal creatures, you do not have to roll a 50% miss chance; turning hits them automatically.