I know that casting spells in general will not be like Oblivion or even Morrowind, so some of my assumptions/arguments may be questionable. Here's my question:


For a brief sum up:


I think that Turn Undead needs a makeover. Anyone agree?


Why? Why use it?

1) This is assuming one decides to even deign pursue the spell via a birthsign or leveling the skill
2) Is it worth equipping compared to other options, like Paralysis, a damaging spell, or a weapon/shield? Mana efficiency alone likely won't cut it if it's limited and doesn't serve other purposes, which leads to:
3) The effect itself, causing undead to flee, is questionable in some aspects. It's Demoralize, only more prone to target limitations. It sounds like its only reason to exist is to appease some concept of lore for certain magic users, like Paladins or Priests.


My solution?

Playing Daggerfall, I saw the spells Banish Daedra/Undead and was awestruck. The concept today is overpowered (I run exactly the same kind of mod on Oblivion), but I believe that there can be a balance.

- Banish Undead has several effects depending on how the spell is cast:
-As an AoE spell, it simply causes the Undead run in fear
-A ranged cast with proper stats/luck acts more like a paralyze/stun, but also weakens the target in some way
-Two hands // Overwhelming stats // Touch // means instant death for the Undead target.

- Banish Daedra comes back but is different for sake of gameplay:
- AoE weakens all Daedra in range
- Ranged Cast (X) Variables: Chance to increase all damage taken and slows the target
- Two hands // Good Stats // Touch : Daedra is frozen, HP reduced to 1, a kill recharges a portion of your HP/Magicka/Stamina/Enchantment

I think Turn Undead needs to have the level scaling upgraded. By a certain level, it cannot even scare a basic ghost. Having a mod that removed such silly restriction made it soooo much more useful, especially when there were lots of undead and only 1 of me.

I agree with all idea's so far.

The idea of a AoE turn undead is most attractive though.

Edit: With no restrictions, that is.

Now that sounds cool.

I agree with this. Not quite sure about the specifics mentioned so far, I need to mull it over some, but I definitely think you're on the right track.

All command and demoralize spells needs a different system or a reboot in stats to make them useful but not overpowered.

To be honest I have yet to use this spell. Ever. Making it worth my time would be a start.

I never got how one could SCARE the Dead, made no sense, I expected them to be banished on varying levels, from returning to their vessel like a Spriggan, onto being completely banished

turn undead definitely needs a makeover... i dont know about the banish daedra but i never played much of daggerfall... though it does make sense... but i think it should be a different skill set than turn undead and should probably be put into conjuration

This thread gives me bad memories of the "Exorcism" spell in Warcraft II. For a spell so pure and holy, it sure is evil.

Anyway, that sounds right. I think that liches should be immune to fear, since they have pretty much given up everything human, but they can still be hurt by the spell (Just not killed by it, unless used multiple times).

This. I've never ever used the spell, yeah on my custom summoned skeleton for extra conjuration experience, but that's it.

i dont think that the undead should be frighten of a spell, or maybe they should but it should be some kind of light spell, when you cast it you summon a bright light, so therefore they should also be frighten by a torche, by fire, maybe they have a weakness to fire.

My two cents:

Why use a "flee" spell when you can use a "damage" spell? Do you get something worthing from fleeing undeads? In games like BG, a fleeing undead is something worthy, because that means they aren't kicking you ass, and you can focus on them one by one, but here, where the damage depends mostly on your weapon, most of the time it's way better to "hit first", if you know what I mean.

That said, I'd like to see "Turn undead" back in Skyrim, but working slighty different:

- Since the magic is completly new, make it only AoE effect.
- If casted one-handed, it will freeze undead in place AND make them panic; that way they won't stryke back, neither will spread among the dungeon. If casted two-handed, it will do a lot of holy damage (maybe killing "minor" undeads in sight, and by "minor" I mean specific undeads, not "low level" ones), freeze them and make them panic too. Of course, the spell effectiveness would depend on your skill and undead level.

Another option could well be, if not freezing, just making them panic but keeping the "massive" initial damage, wich in addition of hurting, will "scare the hell out of them", making sense on panic effect.

The concept is taken straight from D&D gameplay. Paladins could cast Turn Undead and force them to flee, which was likely useful in that game. That's why it is what it is today.



On another note, it seems like I'm getting a decent amount of agreement here. I think there's potential for this spell. The idea of a Banish/Exorcism is what I think is both correct lorewise for TES ANNNNND actually useful.

All Bethesda has to do is take a look at how the spell evolved:

-Daggerfall: Could wipe out a whole room of wraiths with a single cast. Yes please!

-Morrowind: Reverted to LoLFear, and it doesn't even work

-Oblivion: Well, at least it works, but I'd rather cast something else



I'm not asking for Daggerfall power here though, at least not without huge investment. I think the selling point is between LoLFear and LoLOverpowered

The whole reason why Turn Undead even exists is because in D&D you usually had to fight 3-4 undeads at a time maybe (or more) and they were dangerous if you didn't control them. So, when you can just focus on that single undead in Oblivion and just hack it down with a blade, the need for Turn Undead becomes rather void.

Would be cool if Undead could be a little more powerful/numerous and whenever you Turned them, they wouldn't necessarily flee but just bow down, unable to fight you or something. A stronger Turn Undead could have a chance at making them attack eachother and the strongest Turnings could cause undead to be damage and even instantly destroyed.

If you're gonna have a spell in a game, don't just add it because the name is popular (Turn Undead isn't popular because it's named "Turn Undead", it's popular because of how it's used in those games that it is popular in lol). Add it because it has a specific and highly applicable effect for THAT game in particular.

Good ideas, and perfectly feasible given that Skyrim's magic system allows spells to be modified at casting time.

And while I'm not a fan of D&D's ruleset (least of all its heavy-handed alignment-related effects, like Turn Undead), there's something satisfying about wading into a large group of undead and sending them all scurrying for cover with the light [of magicka] in your hero's gauntled fist.

Balance-wise, I think it can be made relatively powerful without becoming too silly, simply because it only affects a specific kind of monster (albeit a fairly common one). I mean, an undead- or daedra-affecting spell effect is a lot less useful than one of equivalent power that works against any creature.

Bonus idea: maybe it lessens, suppresses or destroys the animating force of undead temporarily, lore-wise, resulting in effects ranging from "slowed" to "stopped" to destroyed.

Well said, some things that come to my mind:

- I agree with the alignment part, this IS Elder Scrolls after all, most spells should be free of alignment. I think there's a way to implement Turn Undead so that its nearly free of it, but I don't think its possible to completely move it out of "Good".

- Agree with the balance part. I'd definitely keep an eye on where the power is distributed though. Only experts/masters should have the ability to banish/kill in my opinion

How about as the name sugests you fire the spell at the corpse and it turns "undead".

I always found it useful. Maybe I don't min-max my mages enough or something but the undead hit hard and if I was cornered my spells would not bring them down damage wise fast enough. Getting them to flee when you can take free shots on them was really useful to me. This isn't to say it couldn't be improved, but it did save me magicka which I liked since I needed those saving plenty of times. I wasn't in armor so I couldn't take heavy hits, I wasn't powerful enough to have permanently enchanted defenses gear, the shield spells I could handle were not powerful enough etc. Sure I could have built broken spell #5 and handled things, but that wasn't how I rolled. I preferred this to going invisible then repositioning for another barrage of fireballs. Still since it is based on D&D stuff and I am not opposed to improving it, why not follow it a bit further. In D&D depending on your comparative power it had different results. So for example if spell is at power 10 and monster is 10 it just turns them, if monster is at power 9 they might take a small bit of damage as well, if at 5 the damage is significant, if at lets say 3 so the power of the spell triples them it obliterates the undead.

Same. The only time it's ever useful is if there are a lot of undead overwhelming you, but that rarely happens and when it does it's usually only a problem if you have the difficulty slider all the way up, even then it might not be terribly difficult. Making it aoe would add more use to it, though that would also require there being instances where there were actually a lot of undead attacking you and not just two or three like it has been in past games.

I agree though, I've just never seen any actual point in this spell. I've never been in a situation where there were enough undead around that scaring one away for a little while was more effective than throwing a fireball or two at them or just hacking at them with my axe. It just always seemed useless to me. I think the OP had some good ideas to make it more useful, definitely on the right track at least.

Turn undead was fine for me. Used it for RPing. Just because there's a better way to take care of the dead, doesnt mean that thats what my character would use. What if hes passive for example? Turning the conjured undead kept a caster from conjuring up more. A very useful tactic. Turning undead could also be lethal depending on if you could gt them to run into a trap or off a cliff. Turning undead in a huge group of zombies and skeletons is extremely useful and cheaper than other options. so yeah, turn undead was never useless, or underpowered.