Master of Shrouds Question

[Giygas]

I recently began playing with a Cleric/Master of Shrouds and when I finally was able to use summon undead III(The MOS ability, not spell) something odd happened. Two of the undead summoned where loyal to me while the other two where hostile and started to attack the two I did summon. Is this supposed to happen or is it a glitch of some kind? If the latter, is there anything I can do to fix it?

[xwarren]

Those undead tend to get very angry when summoned outside of combat ;p

This behavior is intentional - when you summon your undead when not fighting anything, you need to pass Turn Undead test every round to check if you still have control over your undead. If you fail the undead will turn hostile.

[ThE LoSt BoY]

X,

"you need to pass Turn Undead test every round to check if you still have control over your undead."

Can you see if MoS & CL levels stack for that check? I jacked up Cha ~ +100 on score (+50 to check) and still lose ALL of mine when not in combat. Once I have waxed all opp's, I doubt Orcus himself or even Strat could make the check.

For a CL7 + MoS 28 (total L40), what is the turn DC for Und Summon IV?

[xwarren]

The script looks OK. Cleric levels and MoS levels stack for turn undead correctly. I'll add some debug messages and check in game.
It's not a usual turning so high charisma will only give you max +4 bonus on turning check.

[Siradein]

That would explain why 250 CHA fails the check on round one...

[xwarren]

Right, charisma bouns is only used for turning check (d20 + charisma mod) which returns numer from -4 to 4 (penalty/bonus to turning level). It's not very important here, but it also affects turning damage in 'real' turn undead (higher = better ).

The script works fine. At pre-epic levels the chance of maintaining controll is quite good:
with a build Cleric 10/MoS 10:
16-24(turning level -/+ turn check result) vs 18 (undead hd) = 75% if I calculated correctly (depands on charisma)

but at epic levels it becomes impossible
with cleric 10/MoS 30:
36-44 vs 49

I don't know why exactly. The undead shouldn't have 49 HD so they probably have some turn resistance or something. I'll try to fix this.
Edit: They have turn resistance on their hides :/. How to fix this? Remove that bonus or edit the script?
Edit2: I think I remove that bonus. They are very powerful and turn resistance makes them impossible to turn even by 40th lvl cleric.

[ThE LoSt BoY]

X,

You may consider adding a switch to use the Level Check Turn Undead variant
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/classFeatureVariants.htm
Uses d20 + Turn Level + Cha against 10 + HD + Turn Resist +Cha

The rationale was that a pure Level check +/-4 doesn't allow a L40 CL to turn what they have summoned (~ 40HD with more than 4 turn resist):

"The standard rules for turning undead allow a cleric to affect a relatively narrow band of undead (up to 4 HD greater than his cleric level). This makes many undead creatures "off limits" for this iconic power of the cleric. This variant changes the cleric's turning check into a battle of personality strength, representing it by a level check that also takes into account the opponents' Charisma scores"

Note that even the Cha based system, an L40 PC v. Epic Wraith (L36 skin) with TR 9 and Cha 12 still doesn't do very well:
d20 + 40 + Cha vs. 10 + 40 (HD)+ 9 (Turn Resist) + 1 (Cha) OR
d20 + Cha v. 20 which means a Cha of 30 is needed just for 50% chance.

No matter what method is used (pure level +/-4 or d20 + Lev + Cha), the Turn Resist should probably be capped to 4 or less. That could potentially be done with an if statement / formula or another switch rather than mod the MoS meat shield (Wraith, et. al.) skins manually. If Monster HD is not capped at 40, that may be something to consider as well.

Thanks for taking a look.

[xwarren]

Hmm... No turning checks in D&D 3.5ed?

Seems that summon undead is better in that editon (longer duration, full control). I haven't checked stats of those undead yet, but they shouldn't be weaker than in 3.0. And they are buffed with Augment Summoning and Improved Summoning feats...

(augment summoning is quite cool in 3.5ed btw)

Edit: converting this class to 3.5 rules will break compatibility with older PRC versions :/

[ThE LoSt BoY]

X,

I wouldn't ask for, or recommend, a mod that creates a compatibility issue.

You answered the "why my summoned legions beat my a$$" question. I will note in the build to make sure you have a ton of enemies before you summon.

Thanks for your time.

[ThE LoSt BoY]

X,

Different MoS question:

Manual MoS  @ L1: If you take Death domain: "Master of Shrouds can summon a Negative Plane Avatar dependent upon level"

Couldn't find that on radials. Is that in there?

[xwarren]

The description is outdated - 'old' bioware domain power summoned negative plane avatar. Now we have PnP version.

[DM Heatstroke]

Right, charisma bouns is only used for turning check (d20 + charisma mod) which returns numer from -4 to 4 (penalty/bonus to turning level). It's not very important here, but it also affects turning damage in 'real' turn undead (higher = better ).

The script works fine. At pre-epic levels the chance of maintaining controll is quite good:
with a build Cleric 10/MoS 10:
16-24(turning level -/+ turn check result) vs 18 (undead hd) = 75% if I calculated correctly (depands on charisma)

but at epic levels it becomes impossible
with cleric 10/MoS 30:
36-44 vs 49

I don't know why exactly. The undead shouldn't have 49 HD so they probably have some turn resistance or something. I'll try to fix this.
Edit: They have turn resistance on their hides :/. How to fix this? Remove that bonus or edit the script?
Edit2: I think I remove that bonus. They are very powerful and turn resistance makes them impossible to turn even by 40th lvl cleric.

This does seem weird, have you looked for errata on this?

[xwarren]

Errata for Turn Undead rules or Master of Shrouds?

Turn Undead works as described on SRD (was it different in D&D 3.0?)
In 3.5ed version of Master of Shrouds there are no turning checks, so the rules from 3.0 don't apply.