Turning Undead
RelSundan
Member Posts: 918
I am playing a Cleric/Mage in my current playthrough, witht the role as a support mage and a undead hunter (sort of). I've never used Turn undead (Well, yes I have sometimes enabled it for Viconia etc, but I've never looked into it.) so I wonder if there is anyone else, that hates undead just as much as I do, could answer a few questions for me.
At what rate do my Turn level increase? 1 once per level up as cleric, or twice per level?
Is it a reliable weapon? I am not only thinking chunking every single undead creature, but also use it to disable them and give my fighters a breather or at least a fewer amount of enemies at a time? It has been working for me, but yeah, I'm asking now anyways.
Is there anything that can boost my ability to turn undead in anyway? Points? Items?
For how many rounds are the enemies affected by fear? (I would figure it depends on my level) And is this ability one check per round, or can it affect enemies several times a round?
Thanks!
At what rate do my Turn level increase? 1 once per level up as cleric, or twice per level?
Is it a reliable weapon? I am not only thinking chunking every single undead creature, but also use it to disable them and give my fighters a breather or at least a fewer amount of enemies at a time? It has been working for me, but yeah, I'm asking now anyways.
Is there anything that can boost my ability to turn undead in anyway? Points? Items?
For how many rounds are the enemies affected by fear? (I would figure it depends on my level) And is this ability one check per round, or can it affect enemies several times a round?
Thanks!
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Comments
i personally find it to be handy in dispersing undead and love it when they finally die instantly. i think some monsters require a higher level to be impacted - skeletons compared to shadows or shades - and run in fear for a few turns but sometimes thats all you need. i have found that the monsters will sometimes run in fear and wont come back which can be handy
i find it can take some wrangling of the undead turner to get it right, for example: when the AI is on the cleric will not stay undead and i personally need to manage them by walking them around the monsters until theyre impacted which can be tedious
hope that info helps
I love this ability in BG2, it's the only reason i take Anomen with me. His level increases so fast that very soon every undead you see is dead in a second
In my experience, its a fickle ability starting out and the way it scatters undead can sometimes be more of a nuisance than a help depending on your party's makeup. If you're running a party of 6, it would probably just be better to let the undead crash against your tank's shield and kill them the old fashioned way. If you're running a very small party (if you were playing multiplayer with a friend, for example), it is extremely helpful. Making packs of undead scatter in fear so you can focus on the ones that weren't turned is key to winning many fights in a small party like that. Eventually you'll be able to gib or take control of undead depending if you're good/neutral or evil, making fights with undead a breeze, like the skeleton hordes of the Undercity before fighting Sarevok or the Coldhearth dungeon of SoD.
The Shield of Egons from Dragonspear increases your Turning level by 1, but Undead Hunter paladins and Priests of Lathander gain 2 Turning levels.
Turning occurs once per round when activated, but its timer is a bit weird and doesn't always occur immediately after you turn it on. Enemies are affected by the fear/domination effect for about 5 or 6 rounds (by my estimate), though you can keep Turning to maintain it. Just be careful, sometimes the AI of a turned undead glitches out and will attack a party member if they're too close. Similarly, if you try to dominate too many undead at once as an evil cleric, a few of the undead you dominated will be freed from your control upon giving them any command. Dominating them again will fix this temporarily.
p.s, the shield that adds to turn only works in sod... even if you shadow keeper it into bg1 or bg2 because the resource file is part of the sod dlc files and not in the main game
there you find the level needed to turn almost every undead.
A C/M in my experience, even in a less than 6 party, gain level too slow to have an useful turn undeads, My Aerie late game can do it even with strong vampires, but at that point there is no need for it, the party has power and items to cut trough them easily anyway. My Viconia often turns liches and demiliches in SoA, if in a party of 4-5.
A multi cleric /something, is a very good build, but to really use turn undeads single class or early duals into cleric (not past lev9) are the way to go. To turn a skeleton warrior lev16 is needed, 18 for a generic lich, 27 for the guardians of the Kangaxx body parts, a multy in a full party will take forever to reach those levels.
Nothing escapes after a while.
Bhodi would never have a real chance of taking him (if you are romancing).
I remember a playthrough some time back when I didn't understand how powerful it was, saw in the text there was a lich in the next room (throwing up protections), sent in Anomen, didn't catch the text saying Lich was dead. Spent ages searching through the dungeon looking for the Lich. Kept on looking over my shoulder expecting the Lich to materialise.
But it's such fun, how can I resist?
I would be very interested in seeing an accurate table of how the numbers work for the turn undead ability. There's got to be a roll involved, because sometimes part of a mob is turned while others aren't. Or if it isn't a roll, then there must be an AoE burst from it that is rather small.
I'm glad this topic got made, because I've never been able to find any reliable information about the details of how the ability works.
As for the usefulness of it, I've always found it extremely useful in IWD, but less so in BG. As for the BG2 vampires, I'm usually up against them before either Anomen or my character is high enough level for it to have any chance of working. I think you'd need a party with fewer than six, for the xp bonus, to get a cleric up that high by the time you face them, wouldn't you?
The same concept goes for Ghast and Gouls. (and latterly all undead enemies seen in both the first and the second Baldur's Gate)
And as far as testing goes, I do believe you are right about the roll each creature makes every round to resist the clerics influence. The table is pretty old and not really well documented other than giving us numbers. When you reach the level for let's say a level 7 skeleton, or go above him (You are level 9 for instance) you will have a guaranteed success affecting him with Turn undead. As I said, the table is poorly documented so we don't really know what they mean.
I think we can compare it to other standard RPG elements as level comparison between you and relic/none scaling enemies. Let's take a random demon at level 16 for instance. You are a level 13 fighter. You are underleveled, but you can still beat him, although you would have had a easier time doing so if you were let's say level 18, 19.
@BelgarathMTH I did never check the table, but the OP of that tread seems to me a compentent person, that often in those boards was giving interesting information. I am sure that he gave also the level needed for vampires and other undeads, but now I can not find it in the thread, I will check if is in an other topic and give the link if I find it.
About the skeletons turned at level 1 the topic was about bg2, so probably referred to the ones you find there, that can have a higher level.
Also I would like to find something more technical, but was never able to find it, I think that there is some randomnes, propably not only related to how wide is the AoE of the turn undead, as I find dthat my clerics sometimes fail to turn an undead and in the next round they destroy him successfully.
If I would try it, I would probably just end up killing myself. A big NO if you are going no-reload haha. Smart thinking though.
Probably the best way is to have your mage cast PI.
Then the PI uses the cursed scroll that give very low WIS (if is needed) and then move in a safe place with only the evil cleric, equipped with AoP. Then the PI cast the limited wish and, immediately after the vampires appear and the PI is dispelled, the cleric cast sanctuarium and then starts to turn undeads. He is protected against level drain and if is positioned in the right place should not even be hit before he go invisible. Then he have to remain invisible and continue to turn them being near to them while he send them in battle. Being invisible protects him from the enemies, the vampires, until he continue to turn them, are friendly. But even drinking an healing potion can stop the turning, that is why is better for him to remain invisible.
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