Page 76: Turning (concl.) and Psionics

Let’s finish up turning, shall we?

A couple of important notes are given here about evil clerics (I wonder how that looks on a business card?) and their ability to turn paladins.  I guess you can’t always send a paladin to do a cleric’s job.  Also- I’d forgotten that clerics only affect 1d12 undead at a time.  It is unclear if this is of each class of undead (as I’d believe) or in toto.  The rules also seem to say that once you fail to turn some undead, you don’t get another bite at the (rotting) apple.

Also evil clerics can control undead rather than turning them, a sort of necromantic version of the pied piper, I suppose.  This does explain why evil clerics always have loads of undead minions- it is not just an aesthetic decision.   I’ve always preferred the Death Master personally.

As ever, Gygax warns not to tinker with the table, though he admits the progression of skill is uneven – to give lower-level clerics a chance against tough undead and then to make “the worst evil creature” harder to turn.  A little lee-way is offered to adjust thing but “do not otherwise alter the table as it could prove to be a serious factor in balance – weakening or strengthening clerics too greatly.”  Yep, you get sticks to snakes and slow poison and suddenly you can conquer the world…

IV.A Psionic VS. Psionic in Mental Combat

I guess it is confession time…

I’ve never really quite understood how psionics worked.  Sure, I ran (briefly) a psionicist in a short-lived 2nd. Ed. game, but I never even dabbled in the 1st Ed. rules.  Sure, I fought some mind flayers, and have an adventuring companion or two who mind blasted their way through life, but I never took the time to actually read and comprehend the system.

I blame the thought eater.  It looks like a zombie platypus and it eats your brain.  If I was to die in a dungeon, I’d much rather have it be at the hands (well, claws, talons, tentacle, or amorphous blob more likely) of something that didn’t look so ridiculous.  I know the flumph is widely mocked, and the modrons derided, but I personally could never take the thought eater seriously.

This is a "monster"

I will confess that, given what he was working with, Trampier did a reasonable job… but there are limits to what the artist can do.

So what do we have here then?  Well the X axis of this chart has various “defense modes” while the Y axis has “attack modes” grouped by the psionic  strength of the attacker (1 to 25, 26 to 50, etc.).  Since the psionic rules are in the PHB, I won’t go into them, but I will note that I always thought “Tower of Iron Will” sounded pretty cool.  Perhaps I should go read the rules and try to make sense of the table…

New words: Ego, Id, Insinuation