Cleric and undead

[Cornflower]

driller posted in another topic that he didn't like stuff that made an entire class of clerics useless. That's a good thought, so, I restarted the levelling of my cleric with some enthusiasm. Now, here's a somewhat unverified (with like, numbers and stuff) conclusion:

The undead are perhaps a bit too un-affected by the cleric's "Turn Undead". Also, spells like Sunburst or Undeath to Death also feel a bit, well, frankly totally useless. I haven't done the research to find out what is what, but my cleric is specially designed to get maximum DC, so if she can't kill undead except with her hammer, that's not right. This is a trend I've observed from lvl 14 or so until today at lvl 30ish.

My, somewhat unspecified, suggestion is: Can we make the clerics more efficient undead-killers somehow? Lower the SR or Fort Save of the undead or boost the anti-undead spells?

[Yunim]

I've never tried Turn Undead or Sunburst, but Undeath To Death is very effective even in high end dungeons. Have you looked over the HD restrictions of the spell? You will need to cast maximized or empowered versions of the spell for it to work reliably.

Also, as a cleric you already have access to two undead slaying spells, Heal and Mass Heal. Both of those will let you kill most undead mobs in two shots.

[Cornflower]

I've never tried Turn Undead or Sunburst, but Undeath To Death is very effective even in high end dungeons. Have you looked over the HD restrictions of the spell? You will need to cast maximized or empowered versions of the spell for it to work reliably.

Also, as a cleric you already have access to two undead slaying spells, Heal and Mass Heal. Both of those will let you kill most undead mobs in two shots.

Undeath to death is not very effective in Oasis dungeons below level 30, no.
I didn't know that the HD restriction was bugged, but still, it feels a bit cheezy to use a bug to gain traction?
I know I can use Heal, but that also feels a bit cheezy. I want to use the proper spells. Especially Turn Undead.

[Yunim]

Undeath to death is not very effective in Oasis dungeons below level 30, no.
I didn't know that the HD restriction was bugged, but still, it feels a bit cheezy to use a bug to gain traction?
I know I can use Heal, but that also feels a bit cheezy. I want to use the proper spells. Especially Turn Undead.

I wasn't referring to the bug, just the restriction itself. 20d4 vs (I'm assuming around) 30HD undead means that you will only kill 1 or 2 undead per spell. Even then it's only guaranteed to kill 1 undead if you cast it empowered or maximized.

As for Turn Undead, it isn't really useful against high level undead. Even a CHA based Cleric 40 wouldn't be able to destroy a 21HD undead due to the HD restriction.

[Kane0]

I don't think its a guarantee either, isn't there a save?

[The Flying Rodent]

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3437

If you mean this post, it was referring to how items like the Ring of Nine Lives were 'negating clerics', at least in their capacity to be a Healer in parties. I personally think Cleric is probably the most overloaded class in NWN [they can be tanks, casters, sneakers, support, anything really] but they did admittedly struggle to have an identity at the high end of PvM on Blackstone with the old Ring. Since it has been adjusted, they most definitely are useful as Healers in parties.

https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Turn_undead

As for Turn Undead: In NWN it has always been pretty lackluster at all but very low levels, where having lots of Cleric can sometimes mean obliterating packs of level 1-2 Undead. Beyond this though, a 'successful' turning usually amounts to 1 or 2 enemies fleeing off the screen for the player to go and chase after for several minutes.

Charisma only effects the 'maximum' number of HD turned, but the highest available for a single creature is purely limited by cleric levels. So the best 'turn build' in the game is just a plain level 40 cleric, regardless of their stats. Add to this that most of the 'Domain turning' capabilities [e.g. Outsider Turning with Good or Evil Domain] only adds 1/2 of Cleric level to turned Hit Die instead of the full amount of cleric levels, and the ability basically becomes reserved only for Charisma builds who can use the turn charges for Divine Might or Divine Shield.

https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Undeath_to_death

Undeath to Death, however, has a pretty reasonable HD value attached, especially for empowered and maximised versions of the spell. The spell is however in the Necromancy school and does come attached with a Will save, which can be an issue for Clerics as they typically do not focus in Necromancy [that's more of a Wizard thing]. Undead typically have crap saves however, so one might get lucky with this spell.

In saying all this though: Clerics with all of their spells available [i.e. 20+] are pretty efficient Undead killers with Heal and Mass Heal. Yes, Turn Undead is almost useless beyond lower levels, and Undeath to Death isn't a guaranteed killing spell, but they can both serve as 'bridging' Undead killer abilities before one has a nice supply of Heals to nuke undead with. I think they're fine in this department.

Maybe Turn Undead could use some love, but I'm guessing this is one of the many hard-coded things in NWN that's tricky to do anything about....

[Beezlebub]

this maybe true but you can just lower HD on undead levels and raise them with figher/wm/barb/BG/assasins to make them more harder to kill but effective to die with TU roll dice with max wisdom= HD of undead Cha= HD per effect as clearly stated if someone did'nt know how to turn undead feat works. ive played a post 40 which levels were mainly base after level effects bonus towards your charcter were strickly math levels. and we could effectively kill undead with TU if you had the right ammounts of stats. if not enough level in CLeric/paladin.BG. with that being said its more of a creature HD level or undead level im not 100% what the math was but it was one or the other its all about tweeking. we killed about hundreds of thousands of undead,outsiders,vermin,elementals, anything from there domains as clerics/BG/paladins. its possible but only with knowing how it works with monster creations can you figure it out. No clue what Nwn EE done to balance out these issue if any. they just fix graphical bugs lighting effects 32-64 bit codes i assume?. so windows 98-vista vs windows 7+ and beyond.

[sergeil]

IMHO, clerics turn undead ability is so weak, that even is not worth attention.

I removed it from the hotkey as soon as I tried it in one of the oasis tombs.

Good blade with positive energy enhancement and dark fire on weapon is best way to turn undead.

[SkyBlues87]

The best thing to do is when you kill and bury them make sure they are face down so if they do try dig their way out they end up in China ... As it costs too many stat points in CHA to be really effective at high levels when you really want to spend them in WIS and STR same goes for a pally too ...