Righteous Turning and high Wisdom Clerics (etc.)

Righteous Turning allows the Cleric (or Bladedancer, etc.) to add their Wisdom bonus to their turning rolls. If the Cleric in question has an 18 Wisdom, their bonus is +3. The Turning Undead table on page 22 of the main book also goes up by +3 for each level and or Undead type. This basically raises the question “Does a 18 WIS Cleric with Righteous Turning turn undead as one level higher than they really are.”

Say Father Leslie is an 18 WIS Cleric with the Righteous Turning Proficiency.

  1. At first level, does Father Leslie have the potency to turn a wraith if the physical die roll for the potency is 19 or 20 (making it 22 or 23 with his Bonus), just as a second level cleric could?

  2. At 5th level, would Father Leslie have to roll the potency check to turn a Ghoul? His +3 bonus would make even a roll of 1 be a 4, which is the minimum target number.

  3. At 5th level Father Leslie is confronted by skeletons. Per the chart, the “T” means he doesn’t need to roll the potency, but because of the +3 from his WIS bonus, would the skeletons (up to the number of HD) be destroyed (as what would happen with a 6th level cleric) or “merely” turned?

I would say no, since the proficiency does not claim to do that. You might have the rolls of a cleric one level higher than yourself, and 3 more hit die of turning, but you don’t have that 10% chance to take down that one higher class of monster. Sometimes exuberance and talent is no match for experience. Take solace in the fact that you are marginally better at turning anything but the highest level undead that your +1 level counterpart can turn.

Still, it won’t really break the game either way, so, as a judge, I might bend the rules if the situation was suitably cinematic (claiming one-off divine influence).

I’m still not entirely sure why Righteous Turning is based on Wisdom rather than being a flat +2. I guess it’s probably so that high-wisdom clerics are actually more useful than low-wisdom clerics, but I’ve been thinking about changing it to a flat modifier for consistency’s sake.

That’s what weirded me out too. After a full chapter of skills that weren’t modified by ability score as in the “d20 parent”, it stuck out a lot.

shrug I just want an answer before it comes up in play.