Howdy y'all, been a bit since I last poked around. Loved "Running your first AD&D campaign" Anthony.
Moving forward, ran session last night, and the party faced a ghost. Things went poorly for them. After a fiasco involving the magic jar possession and a chase into a graveyard, the party faced the ghost itself. No fatalities, but every single party member failed the initial save and fled while aging 10 years, except for the immune 6th lvl cleric who tried to Turn the undead. He rolled a 17, but needed a 20.
The party was rescued by the city watch, who's numbers made the ghost decide to leave in case a priest with some power was among their number, (long story here, the city is on high alert for a different reason,) but I did have to consider something novel; would a successful Turn negate the fear effect of seeing the ghost (and likewise other undead that have "on sight" things, such as mummy paralysis?)
I'm currently leaning towards a no, but I was curious what you all thought?
I don't think there should be a hard fast rule with this. Do what seems right? Odds are good that the on-sight mechanics are going to trigger prior to the cleric attempting to turn anyway. Once the creature is turned however I think offering reprieve is potentially appropriate.
I did check the DMG, which doesn't mention anything about this on either pgs 65-66 or 75-76. A simple Google search couldn't locate any sage advice from any of the various magazines related to it (at least not for AD&D.) I'm hoping Allen might know with that nigh photographic memory of his :)