Dungeons & Dragons 3.t, turning rules streamlined

For a while now, I've been mulling over what I would do to make D&D 3.5 play faster, like 4th edition promised.  Of course, the joke is that 4th edition can be even slower than 3.5, due to all the new movement rules.  But I don't have to worry about that.  I just want to take the best elements, and graft them onto the 3.5 rules with a minimum of fuss.

I'm calling my revisions 3.t, as in 3.tony, because I'm the one to blame if the revisions suck or work well.  The criteria for "sucks" would be if a rule change requires large rewrites, or breaks lots of other rules.  The criteria for "works well" would be if a rule change speeds up gameplay but has little effect otherwise.  So if a typical combat takes 90 minutes to resolve normally, with my rules I hope that you can resolve combat in an hour or less.

Turning

First up for revision is the cleric system for turning undead.  We merely drop the turn check roll, and replace it with cleric level + charisma bonus + knowledge religion synergy (if the character has it).  The turn damage roll would remain.  So the steps are as follows:

Let's consider the example of a 2nd level cleric with 14 charisma and no points in the knowledge religion skill.  If the cleric rolled a 4, he'd have an 8 for step 1 (4 + 2 for level, +2 for charisma).  Then for step 2 the cap would be set at 2 + 2 + 0 (no synergy bonus), or 4 total.  Therefore, the cleric could turn two 4 HD undead (8 total, capped at 4 HD).  But he/she could not turn one 8 HD undead, due to the per-monster cap.

This is almost exactly the same as turn undead following RAW, but removes one roll and replaces it with a reasonably fair, typically unchanging number.  Should be easier for players to follow and execute quickly.

I'll group all my articles about rules revision under the 3.t tag, should you wish to see what else I have for it.