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Turn Undead is one of the Cleric’s iconic abilities inDungeons & Dragons. Hunters have favoured enemies, Paladins smite people and Wizards have spells named after Gygax-era characters. The Cleric’s is frustratingly given a bit less love than many of the iconic powers carried forth from olde D&D.
Many class features have been generalised in ways that encourage players not to feel disempowered against enemies that historically countered them. Rogues can now Sneak Attack against gelatinous cubes, while paladins can smite non-evil enemies. The exception, Turn Undead continues to work only against the undead. Here’s how to make this underloved feature shine.
Best Ways To Use Turn Undead
Turn Undead operates under the same logic asfear and charm-based spells: Ittakes enemies out of the fightuntil the duration expires or they take damage. This functionallybreaks an encounter into two smaller encounters,divided between those who passed and failed their saving throws.
The best time to use Turn Undead isat the start of a fight. Against a group of several undead, you’re liable to have one or more fail their saves and leave you to deal with a smaller initial group. You have a one-minute maximum duration, which gives youten rounds of combat before they rejoin the fight.
If you finish the first group quickly,attack the remainder one at a time: the turning effect is tracked per enemy, so attacking one will not break the fear of others. You can also use this time to heal, set up buffs or manipulate the arena with wall spells.
There are also several factors to consider before activating your Turn Undead.
While stronger enemies are liable to pass their save, Turn Undead is still useful. You cansplit powerful undead off from their zombie minionsor vampire thralls, allowing your entire team to focus attacks against a single enemy.
Best Ways To Use Destroy Undead
At fifth level, Turn Undead gains an additional power toinstantly defeat enemies who fail their save. It requires them to beabout one-tenth of your levelmost of the time but eventually grows to about a quarter. The tragic result is that you’ll never be able to defeat Strahd in a single action, but the feature still carries weight.
Where the feature shines is against large numbers of weak enemies. The power scaling of Dungeons & Dragons makes it easy to neglect weaker enemies, butcertain foes can pose an issue at any leveldue to their unique abilities. This is when abilities which specifically target low CR enemies outperform.
1/2
Can inflict ability damage, reducing strength
Their ability to inflict ability-drain means thateven a high-level party will be intimidatedto face these creatures. Strength characters risk getting much weaker when hit, while casters can be killed instantly if their strength is reduced to zero.
Shadows rarely appear alone and are good at hiding. Acleric does not need to see their targetsto Turn Undead, meaning any hidden shadows who hear will also be turned or destroyed.
Undead Cockatrice / Petrifying Death’s Head
Can petrify a target for either ten minutes or an entire day
Greater restoration, which cures petrification,requires a level nine cleric and can be done once per dayfor 100 gp. Destroying them first is easier.
1
Has paralysing claws
Paralysis is easier to cure than petrify butcauses all other attacks to deal critical damage. If your necromancer bossfight has a couple of Lacedon minions consider killing them first.
2
Permanently invisible
A poltergeist’s ranged attack does not reveal its location but has a 30ft range.Destroy Undead has a 30ft range.
Ghost
4
Can possess people, taking control of them and becoming immune to damage
Possession requires a charisma save, which somebody in the party is going to be weak at. Turning them either before or after they possess somebody stops them from causing too much harm.
Other Uses For Channel Divinity
Turn Undead uses charges of the same ability that domains need to activate their unique features. This means the value of Turn Undead needs to be weighed against the alternatives, depending on your subclass.
The tempest cleric can use destructive wrath to functionallydouble the damage of most spells. Applying that to an area spell like destructive wrath can destroy large numbers of living or undead enemies, at a higher challenge rating than the equivalent undead they can destroy. Most such spells also deal half-damage on a successful save, still killing weak enemies outright.
Harness Divine Power is an optional rule that gives ageneral purpose use for Channel Divinity charges,independent of subclass. It can convert one use of channel divinity into a spell slot equal to half your proficiency bonus (no more than a third-level slot, even at maximum level).Clerics rarely need an extra spell slot this badly, but it means you always have at least one use for Channel Divinity even if not fighting undead and not meeting the conditions for their domain-specific uses.
Turn undead is easy to see as an underwhelming ability in the majority of campaigns. Allthe nastiest undead like Allips have been heavily defangedcompared to previous editions where undead could drain levels, inflict deadly diseases, and cause permanent stat reductions. A DM can create opportunities for Cleric players to feel especially powerful by designing an encounter around their ability to turn undead.
Notes
Skeleton Army
Fill a small room with anarbitrarily large number of CR 1/4 skeletons. Stay short of triple digits but be generous.
For an added challenge,use Shadows.
Have the skeletons follow swarm rules so the initiative doesn’t grind to a halt: They act as a single unit, having modifiers, HP and damage of a larger creature. Treat their resistance to Turn Undead as if they were still the lower CR creatures andgive them a vulnerability to other area spells.
Allow for a not-quite-combat solution: Perhaps the players can use their Turn Undead topass through the swarm without fighting.
Unintelligent Enemies
Enemiesuse exploitable strategies that allow the players to show off. Undead dash into 30ft range but don’t have enough speed remaining to attack.
Each table has its ruling on whether the monsters are allowed to use strategy. Undead shouldn’t be an exception, but remember that most undead are simple-minded.
Enemies Can Retreat
Turnedenemies can flee from combat entirely, removing themselves from the fight.
For fairness,apply the same rule to other fear effects.
Going too far in enabling Turn Undead causes other issues: In a campaign where your players are already fighting plenty of undead, there are ways to weaken the ability as well:
The Other Shadows
Use the Detached Shadow (a fey creature with the same abilities and stats) instead of the Shadow.
It would be very mean to alternate between undead and fey shadows withoutgiving a way to tell them apart.
Intelligent Enemies
Undead use countermeasures against commonly used strategies and spells. Skeletal archers are too far away to be Turned. Melee undead can attack in waves rather than all at once.
Have anintelligent undead or necromancer visibly giving commands. This gives your players something to target.
Turn Resistance/Immunity
Some enemies have advantage on their saving throws (the CR 21 lich) while others are immune (the CR 0 crawling claw).
Check your worldbuilding notes for whether the undead follow Darwinian or Lamarckian evolution: Both cases mean thatturn resistance will become more common the more Turn Undead is used.
Use Non-Undead
Use a greater variety of enemies without the undead trait.
Even in an undead-centered campaign, there is room formercenaries, beasts and mystical creaturesto appear regularly.
