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Rutskarn
2010-08-14, 01:00 AM
Most campaigns rule that necromancy, at least as it pertains to raising undead, is kinda evil. While there doesn't actually seem to be a reason for that, the fact is that you never see a puppy-raising proud father of two who works a soup kitchen on Thursdays and raises zombies on Fridays. Question is: is that a stereotype, is that an imposed moral judgment, or is that just how morality works?

If that third one's the case, it means that necromancers are evil because raising the dead, in D&D, is evil. If you're running a black-and-white sort of campaign, you can probably get away with this sort of thing--you don't necessarily have to have a reason behind it, you can just sort of shrug and say, "That's how it works. Fiat morality, biznatch." This is not an incorrect solution, especially in a hack-and-slash or shiny-fuzzy hero quest sort of campaign.

If it's an imposed moral judgment, there does have to be a reason it's bad. "It deals with corpses and that's icky," is not a good reason. "They're robbing graves," is better, but that's not always true, really. Hell, adventurers go around murdering people left and right; it's not like the traveling necromancer's going to want for materials. "They're disrupting the natural balance of nature," is pretty shaky--a.) that doesn't really mean anything, which means it's basically just fiat morality all over again, and b.) resurrection seems to be A-OK, and that's arguably worse. It does use negative energy, I guess, but is that really evil? I don't think you have to be evil to cast negative energy spells. It's just a nasty raw material, not necessarily a tool of evil.

Now, if you want to make it evil and have it make sense, you could always come up with an explanation like, "it deprives the corpse's soul of peace," which would also give paladins and good clerics good reason to seek out zombies and put them back in the ground. This would be a great hook for a zombie slaying campaign, although you'd also have to work out what the deal with intelligent undead is.

If it's the first one--evil is just a stereotype, not a rule--then you've got some interesting tools to work with. I did just run a campaign with a neutral necromancer who wasn't immoral, macabre, or sinister--he had a calling in life, and that calling was centered around experimenting with human tissue post-mortification. He was a little like a medical examiner, creepy only because of how casual he was around the cadavers the PCs brought to him. His personality was chipper and easygoing, and he did have a bit of a warped sense of humor--he'd give the zombies names, for example, and would teach them to do tricks beyond the usual kill-guard programming. Beyond that, he was almost scientific in his pursuit of magical knowledge. Keep in mind also that this is a campaign without resurrection, so it's not like there was an alternative field of study for him to pursue.

So, which of these three approaches appeals most to you, as a DM or a player?

Desril
2010-08-14, 01:05 AM
I'm of the opinion that "Dark is not Evil", and my players understand that when I'm DMing. I do however make most NPCs think of it as evil and horrid, because that's the stereotype that most people seem to believe.


In other words, it's not evil, but the npcs don't like it.

WinWin
2010-08-14, 01:14 AM
Depends. Graverobbing could be construed as malevolent if that is how a Necromancer gains raw materials.

Non evil methods of obtaining raw materials could be:

People donating their body to the Nerco for research/science.
Using corpses of enemies/animals (probably more acceptable during war or emergency)
People volounteering to become undead guardians after they die.

This thread has some interesting information about the morality of animating the dead.

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19527634/Tome_of_Necromancy

CakeTown
2010-08-14, 01:20 AM
How is Resurrection worse than necromancy? From what I understand, Raising someone from the dead requires them to be willing. Raising a corpse as a zombie doesn't need any consent from the corpse, and basically makes them a slave.

From my perspective, necromancy is evil. It's a violation of a dead person's body. I certainly wouldn't like it if some guy dug up my relative's grave just so he could bring them back as a mindless slave.

Archdeacon GX
2010-08-14, 01:23 AM
Personally I view all such things like this: Nothing is inherently good or evil. It is the use to which it is put and the intentions behind it that make it good or evil.

For example: Most people say that Resurrecting people is good. What if you Resurrect an evil person who wants to take over the world? That's not so Good, unless you're unaware of the person's alignment and intentions.

The "disrupting the natural order" argument could be brought to bear against Resurrection as well, and even Healing spells, as TECHNICALLY they are Necromantic spells, at least from a certain understanding of things (seriously, Conjuration for healing spells? What are you conjuring?)

I view them as Necromantic spells that use Positive Energy instead of Negative Energy. Why? Because Necromancy is defined by the D&D 3.5 rules as "manipulating the power of death, unlife, and the life force". The key part here being "and the life force". If you are resurrecting someone, you are manipulating both the power of Death and the Life Force to return life to the body and call their spirit back to it. In that sense, at least, even healing and resurrecting people is 'against the natural order' because people don't 'naturally' regenerate their wounds near-instantaneously (except for creatures such as Trolls), or come back to life after being killed.

The Grim Reaper, Death Itself, (or Nerull, or Cyric, etc.) are also viewed as evil because they are symbolic or hold power over Death. Why is this evil? People are supposed to die, and sure it may cause the living grief, but it's part of the cycle of life. If nobody ever died the world/material plane/etc. would become overpopulated and we'd have serious space issues. Not to mention the Final Battle Vs. The BBEG would become very anticlimactic.

So in short, I don't think Necromancy in and of itself is evil. It is considered evil because it deals with the social -- and often religious -- taboo of undeath. It also doesn't help that 90% of Necromancers that make themselves at all known are actually evil in some fashion.

EDIT: In response to the above post (which was made as I was typing this :smalltongue: ) I'd like to reiterate the point of Use and Intent. Necromancy isn't even always creating Zombies or Skeletons, it's also stuff like Finger of Death and Energy Drain and Ray of Enfeeblement. So you can technically be a Necromancer without ever creating Undead Slaves.

And besides, who says all Necromancers use the undead they create as slaves? As the post before the above one said, what if they were willing body-donors for experimentation or Undead Guardianship?

Rutskarn
2010-08-14, 01:25 AM
How is Resurrection worse than necromancy? From what I understand, Raising someone from the dead requires them to be willing. Raising a corpse as a zombie doesn't need any consent from the corpse, and basically makes them a slave.


The spells that make homonculi are not evil, though, and those are also making slaves from inanimate objects. Do you really own your body after you're dead?

Zaydos
2010-08-14, 01:28 AM
Now, if you want to make it evil and have it make sense, you could always come up with an explanation like, "it deprives the corpse's soul of peace," which would also give paladins and good clerics good reason to seek out zombies and put them back in the ground. This would be a great hook for a zombie slaying campaign, although you'd also have to work out what the deal with intelligent undead is.

This is my typical answer (although I've gone the evil is a stereotype once or twice before). As for intelligent undead it depends upon whether they are created by a spell (a la Create Undead)/create spawn ability, or spontaneously.

If created by a spell or create spawn ability then you are depriving the soul of peace and twisting it into a horrid mockery of itself. The connection to negative energy warps and twists the spirit as well leading to some mental instability going up to full blown psychosis.

If spontaneously spawned undead, then it is usually they refused to die for selfish reasons or out of desire for revenge/hatred/greed/etc. In strong spirited cases this can cause an (usually evil) entity to return from the grave. Sometimes this happens with good aligned creatures but they are typically either 1) willing to wait to be revived in a less twisted fashion, or 2) simply wish to finish a certain task and willing to request the aid of a higher power to do so. In which case a god can grant them temporary life as a deathless.

I will admit I use some of the "it's against nature" route, focusing more on how tying their lifeforce to negative energy twists nature around them and brings more death into the world; they exist as a continuous conduit of negative energy (as opposed to the one off blast from Energy Drain or Enervation). It's not so much you are disrupting the natural balance by bringing them back, it is that you are creating a being of anti-life that damages the life force of the entire prime ever so slightly with its presence. Although casual resurrection is usually frowned upon by the gods as well and usually only given to those who've "earned it". I actually have a rule where after enough deaths you can no longer be revived because the magic starts to fail when used on you. Direct divine intervention can bring you back one or two more times, but beyond that even the gods cannot interfere. In practice this is more to say if your character has died 3 times in a row then you should probably roll up a new character that's a little less death prone (I've only had one character die on me more than once and he was a woefully badly built would-be tank; I go too easy on my players).

As a final note I keep my Death gods and Necromancy gods separate (although normally related as father and son), and the god of Death gets quite upset with resurrection spells and necromancy.

Gorgondantess
2010-08-14, 01:28 AM
I understand it's distasteful to dig up poor Uncle Larry and have his rotting corpse do your bidding, but it's just that- his corpse. His soul is still in whatever afterlife he deserves, unharmed- no sentient beings are done any disservice, really. And necromancy is considered evil.

Meanwhile, in the creation of a golem a mage tricks a free willed, sentient being- an elemental- who is, by definition, not evil- and traps it in a golem, fusing its spirit to it. The elemental ceases to be sentient, merely powering the golem for whatever the mage desires, and doesn't even have the mercy of rejoining its home plane, instead being in a comatose sort of limbo. A fate worse than death. And an exalted paladin character can make a golem.

All this goes to show is that the D&D morality system is messed up. This has been proven on a number of occasions, with a number of different examples. This isn't news. Doesn't make it not fun to talk about, though.
As a DM, I've always just ruled necromancy as distasteful, but not necessarily evil. You can have good undead and all that.

Archdeacon GX
2010-08-14, 01:39 AM
There are also a special kind of Elven Lich that are Good, I believe. Guardians of ancient secrets, I think, I forgot what they're called. Baelnorns? Yes, that's it.

Ajadea
2010-08-14, 01:53 AM
The way I view it is (when playing at home):
-Making Golems is Evil with a capital E, for the reasons Gorgontandess stated.

-Making Sentient Undead is Evil, because it requires yanking back the soul (willing or not) into a corpse and enslaving it.

-Resurrection, while not exactly evil, is morally grey at best. Screwing with life, death, and the balance between the two is not exactly the most good-ish thing to do.

-Death gods are mostly LN, and I have occasionally made gods who have birth, life, and death all in their portfolio. You're dead, everyone dies sooner or later, now shut up and stop whining. Death gods hate, hate, hate, necromancers and anyone who starts messing with souls. Leave the souls alone, and the dead stay dead, understood?

-Necromancy isn't bad, but messing with corpses looks bad on a resume most of the time.

-Cure X Wounds, Heal, Raise Dead, and other things along those lines, are Transmutation or Conjuration/Necromancy dual-school spells, depending. You speed up natural healing/remove rigor mortis and rot/replace rotted-off flesh and channel a ton of positive energy into the body simultaneously.

Gensh
2010-08-14, 08:55 AM
I'm of the opinion that "Dark is not Evil", and my players understand that when I'm DMing. I do however make most NPCs think of it as evil and horrid, because that's the stereotype that most people seem to believe.


In other words, it's not evil, but the npcs don't like it.

This. My players don't share my viewpoint, being more of the "kill everything in sight; let the gods sort it out" sort of philosophy, but any given use of negative energy is not inherently evil. Sure, it may be inimical to life, but life is pretty cheap and easily replenished. Use a death ray once and there may be some residue, but it'll fade out pretty quickly; undead keep it on the material plane indefinitely, but it's self-contained and harmless. In fact, there's always the secret lurking in the backs of my games that if the population continues growing, the material will become minor positive-dominant, though it hasn't been discovered yet.

Shademan
2010-08-14, 08:59 AM
well, you use negative energy. which is evil energy.
In my view, every evil act commited fuels the furnace of the negative energy plane, and thus when you use that energy you are using evil energy.
or maybe when you animate a skeleton you bind the unwilling soul of whoever that skeleton belonged to into the bones. there, the soul screams in confusion, pain, fear and suffering. until some adventurers destroy it.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-14, 09:05 AM
well, you use negative energy. which is evil energy. Negative energy is not evil. Just like positive energy isn't good.

Shademan
2010-08-14, 09:06 AM
isnt the negative energy plane evil aligned?
my mistake

hamishspence
2010-08-14, 09:07 AM
problem is, in DMG, the negative energy plane does not have the Evil subtype (so good beings are not penalized when they go there, like they would be if they went to a plane like Hades).

Similarly, there's nothing to suggest that an animated skeleton is fuelled by the soul of what living being it was.

However, some sources (like Libris Mortis) do suggest that a malevolent spirit inhabits the body of a skeleton or zombie.

If "Good and evil are the forces that define the cosmos" as is said in PHB, and if, each time you commit an evil act, you shift the entire cosmic balance slightly toward evil, it does make sense that some good characters might be wary of "doing evil deeds toward good ends"

It's worth remembering that classes like the Dread Necromancer do not have to be evil- they can be Neutral, heroic, balance their rare evil deeds (animating the dead) with lots of Good ones, and still maintain a Neutral alignment.

EDIT: Ninjaed on negative energy.

Interesting, in PHB, it does state "channelling negative energy is an evil act" when referring to turn/rebuke, but other spells based on negative energy, like the Inflict line of spells, and possibly Enervation and Energy Drain, aren't evil to cast.

Shademan
2010-08-14, 09:09 AM
to clarify, I was not suggesting that by core, souls inhabit skeletons, but rather I was suggesting it as a reason why necromancy(which is a stupid name for animatig corpses anyways) could be evil in a campaign world

hamishspence
2010-08-14, 09:13 AM
it's one way of handling it. I like Libris Mortis's "spirits" concept- especially when combined with "Atrocity Calls to Unlife"- if terrible deeds are done in an area, malevolent spirits seep into the world, and corpses spontaneously animate.

Zeofar
2010-08-14, 09:14 AM
Explanation, not stereotype. Necromancers themselves can be good, but using necromancy to raise mindless corpses is evil because it violates the natural law to control of one's own body and a peaceful death. In a society where those rights aren't recognized, it wouldn't be seen as evil, but it would still be an evil-aligned act because it violates rights.

On the other hand, if someone truly wanted to be made a skeleton or a zombie, it wouldn't necessarily be evil.

Shademan
2010-08-14, 09:15 AM
it's one way of handling it. I like Libris Mortis's "spirits" concept- especially when combined with "Atrocity Calls to Unlife"- if terrible deeds are done in an area, malevolent spirits seep into the world, and corpses spontaneously animate.

This I agree to

Xefas
2010-08-14, 09:16 AM
If it's an imposed moral judgment, there does have to be a reason it's bad. "It deals with corpses and that's icky," is not a good reason. "They're robbing graves," is better, but that's not always true, really. Hell, adventurers go around murdering people left and right; it's not like the traveling necromancer's going to want for materials. "They're disrupting the natural balance of nature," is pretty shaky--a.) that doesn't really mean anything, which means it's basically just fiat morality all over again, and b.) resurrection seems to be A-OK, and that's arguably worse. It does use negative energy, I guess, but is that really evil? I don't think you have to be evil to cast negative energy spells. It's just a nasty raw material, not necessarily a tool of evil.

I find this paragraph has a few holes because of the assumptions you make. "It deals with corpses and that's icky" is a perfectly fine reason depending on what your setting is. Basing your morality on a real-world ancient society that believes dealing with the dead is unclean is just as arbitrary as basing your morality on modern 1st-world countries' definition of it.

"They're disrupting the natural balance of nature" is also perfectly fine, depending on the setting. In a world where Druids can just call up nature and say "Hey, is this against your balance?" and Nature can just say "Yeah", then yes, that's perfectly reasonable to assume it's evil.

You also seem to assume that "go[ing] around murdering people left and right" is just fine, regardless of setting, whereas in a setting with more contemporary ideals like 'corpses are just objects we don't own anymore' (and heck, a lot of people still don't believe that), killing at all is probably seen as evil as well, and your standard Greyhawk adventurer would be as evil as they come.


Now, if you want to make it evil and have it make sense, you could always come up with an explanation like, "it deprives the corpse's soul of peace," which would also give paladins and good clerics good reason to seek out zombies and put them back in the ground. This would be a great hook for a zombie slaying campaign, although you'd also have to work out what the deal with intelligent undead is.

If I'm playing in a setting where Undead are Evil (which I don't always), this is the explanation I give. Intelligent dead still have their soul, but it's warped into excruciating pain by the negative energy animating it. I mean, I assume everyone is a bit more irritable when they, say, have a migraine or a stubbed toe or something. And then you imagine being constantly wracked with horrible pain, but the pain isn't inflicted on your physical body (so it doesn't inhibit your motor skills or anything). Your very being feels empty, lonely, desperate, and hurt 24/7. At the same time, your survival instinct is as strong as ever, so you're not going to off yourself - you're just going to make yourself feel better. Generally by preying on hapless commoners.


So, which of these three approaches appeals most to you, as a DM or a player?

I've used all of them, and all of them function just as well as any of the others. You just have to tailor it to the setting you're looking for.

Jarrick
2010-08-14, 09:50 AM
Geez, such long paragraphs. I'm not reading all this.

In my campaigns, undead are evil because even the mindless ones, when left to their own devices, will go out of their way to attack and hurt people when the opportunity arises. You're literally creating a monster when you animate something. Its also highly disrespectful to the dead person and his family. In my japan-based setting, animating the dead is punishable by death because it defiles the ancestors.

That being said, my namesake necromancer character (evil campaign) started out as a medical researcher, just like the example earlier, but he came to the conclusion that undeath was a superior state of being, and so set out to create a world dominated by the unliving, rather than the living. When I last left him, he had just hit epic levels and had built a city with the aid of his restless followers in a remote location where the undead could live in the open in peace, and he rules as king and is worshipped as a god. The manifest zone to the negative energy plane there that prevents them from having to feed (epic spell) makes undead from around the world flock to the city, which grows daily... He's well on his way to being a god, i'd say. lol

Emmerask
2010-08-14, 09:58 AM
Most campaigns rule that necromancy, at least as it pertains to raising undead, is kinda evil. While there doesn't actually seem to be a reason for that


Create Undead
Necromancy [Evil]

Itīs not a campaign houserule it is RAW :smallwink:

Snake-Aes
2010-08-14, 10:00 AM
Create Undead
Necromancy [Evil]

Itīs not a campaign houserule it is RAW :smallwink:

And there's still no real reason for that other than the fact it's written there.

Face it, most of what gets the evil tag in necromancy is so because our society has a taboo with the dead. As said in previous threads of similar nature, it can be incredibly interesting to experiment with the removal of said taboo in the game table.

Emmerask
2010-08-14, 10:03 AM
And there's still no real reason for that other than the fact it's written there.

Face it, most of what gets the evil tag in necromancy is so because our society has a taboo with the dead. As said in previous threads of similar nature, it can be incredibly interesting to experiment with the removal of said taboo in the game table.

Iīm not denying that in some campaigns it makes sense to be not evil, his post only made it sound as if itīs some houserule everyone has agreed upon instead of being raw ^^

Peregrine
2010-08-14, 10:22 AM
Now, if you want to make it evil and have it make sense, you could always come up with an explanation like, "it deprives the corpse's soul of peace," which would also give paladins and good clerics good reason to seek out zombies and put them back in the ground. This would be a great hook for a zombie slaying campaign, although you'd also have to work out what the deal with intelligent undead is.

This is my approach. I'm quite happy to keep the raising of undead as evil, but I fully agree that there needs to be an explanation for this that makes reference to what "evil" actually means -- not "because undead/negative energy/messing with corpses is evil", that always seems to be either unsupported, or "supported" by circular reasoning. (And it's not "undead are evil the same way water elementals are wet", as someone once posted. Wetness is a property of water. Evilness is not a property of undead, so the undead must possess some other defining element of evil.)

I make the following assumptions, backed up by RAW (though not, of course, the only way to interpret it): Raising undead causes ongoing torment to the soul of the creature you've raised. (RAW support: You cannot resurrect a creature while its body is ambulatory, even with true resurrection, which doesn't need that body at all. So undeadification has some kind of power to limit or affect the soul in its afterlife.) Non-intelligent undead are evil, because they have an innate drive to spread death and pain. If you leave a skeleton standing around without instructions, it will trample grass and mutilate earthworms, or the like. Intelligent undead are almost always caused by traumatic events or their own evil, which warps and torments the soul, giving it a similar drive to spread death and pain. Ghosts are the only (core) exception; they stick around because of a sense of "unfinished business" and a simple unwillingness to move on. Even among ghosts, though, I image more are Evil or Neutral than Good.

The only good objection I know of to the RAW support behind my first point is that you could give someone a true resurrection and then animate their old body. So for this reason I simply say that you can't make undead out of any body that doesn't "belong" to a soul. (Not a "former body" pre-raising, not a clone nor simulacrum.)

AmberVael
2010-08-14, 10:23 AM
From my perspective, necromancy is evil. It's a violation of a dead person's body. I certainly wouldn't like it if some guy dug up my relative's grave just so he could bring them back as a mindless slave.


Its also highly disrespectful to the dead person and his family. In my japan-based setting, animating the dead is punishable by death because it defiles the ancestors.

There was something WinWin pointed out earlier which I want to bring up again, because I find it is a very crucial point:

What if someone donated their body to this cause? Wouldn't that mean it wasn't disrespectful or theft? Doesn't that render the argument null?

My point here is that this point is pointing at something that is not inherent to necromancy. You don't have to animate things you don't have permission to animate, and if you DO have permission to animate someone, it makes it a very different situation (even if people do find it really strange and creepy anyway).
It basically works on the same ethics as organ donars. If someone doesn't mind someone using their body after they die, then they can choose that, no?


I personally like the theme of necromancy being dark and feared, but not evil. The reason I think it is feared is because it is so much easier for a necromancer to abuse their power than use it correctly. Anyone can abuse power, but necromancy is inherently tied to a great number of moral and ethical issues, and it can be really tempting for a necromancer to take the easy route to power by stomping all over them. Being a necromancer who takes all the ethical issues into account is way harder, and probably far less rewarding. And even if you do succeed, people probably don't like you much anyway.

Lysander
2010-08-14, 10:26 AM
I came up with this theory a few months ago: A New Reason Why Negative Energy Is [Evil] (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151033)

The theory is that negative energy doesn't actually exist. There's only positive energy. The same way cold is merely a lack of heat, "negative energy" is just a lack of life energy. Necromancy is evil because it interferes with the function of life energy on your entire plane.

Rutskarn
2010-08-14, 10:58 AM
At best, then, you could argue for neutral necromancy. Bringing negative energy in isn't a great thing, no, but if it's only done in the service of (for example) world-saving campaign shenanigans, one could argue that the ends justify the means.

JBento
2010-08-14, 01:17 PM
In answer to your question:

D&D alignment system: WTH?

On a more explanatory note:

Necromancy alignment manages to make as much sense as Evocation and Conjuration purposes/abilities, i.e., less than actual 0.

Negative energy can't be Evil - Inflict spells very explictly channel it, and aren't Evil.
Undead aren't necessary Evil - ghosts are Alignment: Any, and revenants are Lawful Neutral.
Skellies and zombies ARE Evil (only in 3.5 - they weren't in 3.0) - the MM tells us so. However, they don't go around doing any more evil stuff than a golem does, so there's no actual reason for them to be Evil other than exactly that - the MM tells us so.
Creating them is Evil - the spells are clearly marked as such. There's no explanation for that anywhere in RAW. Interestingly, creating a golem (which is neutral) isn't Evil, despite it involving beating an elemental spirit into submission to animate it.

Basically, you have two options:

1) ignore it

2) go mad. MAD!!!!!

hamishspence
2010-08-14, 01:26 PM
Negative energy can't be Evil - Inflict spells very explictly channel it, and aren't Evil.

Oddly, rebuke/command attempts are descibed as both "channelling negative energy" and "an evil act" in the PHB.

Unusual.

Frosty
2010-08-14, 01:32 PM
There are no inalienable rights. People only have as much rights as they or their government can enforce. Just because some people find certain practices distateful doesn't mean the practice is evil. Some people would look at a society of gender equality to be completely distateful. Why, isn't it man's god-given rights to lord it over women? They might call those gender-equal society "evil" as well, but are they right?

A corpse is just decaying organic matter. The PERSON is gone. Raising a corpse without permission is distateful and mean, yes, but not inherently EVIL. It's no more evil than creating a servant out of clay, or rocks, or lava, or whatever materials. Just because the material *used* to be your uncle doesn'tmean the act of raising undead is evil.

Xefas
2010-08-14, 01:46 PM
There are no inalienable rights. People only have as much rights as they or their government can enforce. Just because some people find certain practices distateful doesn't mean the practice is evil. Some people would look at a society of gender equality to be completely distateful. Why, isn't it man's god-given rights to lord it over women? They might call those gender-equal society "evil" as well, but are they right?

A corpse is just decaying organic matter. The PERSON is gone. Raising a corpse without permission is distateful and mean, yes, but not inherently EVIL. It's no more evil than creating a servant out of clay, or rocks, or lava, or whatever materials. Just because the material *used* to be your uncle doesn't mean the act of raising undead is evil.

And that's great if you're playing in a setting where the universe has completely pragmatic, contemporary values with no fantasy elements whatsoever and functions by the same laws and boundaries of physics that our own does.

But, if, for instance, part of the setting is that if you raise a corpse as undead, it sucks the soul of the dead person back into their corpse and tortures it, then the corpse *isn't* just decaying organic matter.

Or, if, for instance, your setting has planes of existence devoted to completely illogical moralities that define, by virtue of their very existence, what is or isn't evil, and one of the things it defines as evil is "raising things as undead". I mean, if for every zombie you raise, Asmodeus gets another 100d6s to throw at the celestials in the coming apocalypse to decide the fate of all mens' souls, then making zombies is probably evil.

Coidzor
2010-08-14, 01:53 PM
But, if, for instance, part of the setting is that if you raise a corpse as undead, it sucks the soul of the dead person back into their corpse and tortures it, then the corpse *isn't* just decaying organic matter.

Or, if, for instance, your setting has planes of existence devoted to completely illogical moralities that define, by virtue of their very existence, what is or isn't evil, and one of the things it defines as evil is "raising things as undead". I mean, if for every zombie you raise, Asmodeus gets another 100d6s to throw at the celestials in the coming apocalypse to decide the fate of all mens' souls, then making zombies is probably evil.

Well, yes, but who plays with settings like that? Do you play with settings like that?

Why doesn't the game provide any explanation or justification by RAW? So, uh, yeah, what was your point?

Xefas
2010-08-14, 01:58 PM
Well, yes, but who plays with settings like that? Do you play with settings like that?

Why doesn't the game provide any explanation or justification by RAW? So, uh, yeah, what was your point?

My point was that you can't make a blanket generalization about a myriad of fantasy worlds, all of which have varying degrees of elements different from our own world.

And, yes, I *used* to play with settings like that, when I actually played D&D. But then I started playing games where the mechanics and fluff were actually remotely related, and the roleplaying was actually a part of the system.

Coidzor
2010-08-14, 02:12 PM
^: That does seem the logical progression, doesn't it?

Well, I think the assumption is that without the setting saying otherwise, if you're playing 3.5 with it, the default assumptions of 3.5 are in play.

Since we seem to be talking about 3.5 or at least D&D despite the OP not really putting it in the title.

Peregrine
2010-08-14, 02:13 PM
Why doesn't the game provide any explanation or justification by RAW? So, uh, yeah, what was your point?

It doesn't need to. RAW tells us this: You can make an automaton out of corpses and it's not evil*. It's called a flesh golem. Making undead is evil, as are the undead created.

From this we can conclude that in any RAW setting, there is something about undead, divorced from cultural norms and "messing with corpses", that is inherently evil.

What that is, is up for discussion in any given setting**. But I find it interesting that given the choice between: "RAW doesn't justify animating undead being evil, so I'll add a little fluff that does it", and "RAW doesn't justify animating undead being evil, so it's not", so very many people choose the latter.

* Yes, it does take one [Evil] spell, but the resulting creature isn't evil and that one spell isn't the whole process; it doesn't even have its normal effect.
** "Tormenting immortal souls" is, I think we can agree, a plausible and decidedly evil consequence.

Xefas
2010-08-14, 02:16 PM
^: That does seem the logical progression, doesn't it?

Well, I think the assumption is that without the setting saying otherwise, if you're playing 3.5 with it, the default assumptions of 3.5 are in play.

Since we seem to be talking about 3.5 or at least D&D despite the OP not really putting it in the title.

Well, the default assumption of D&D *is* that undead are evil. By "RAW", making undead is evil. This is fact, and has been established. The OP's specific purpose was to explore other takes on the concept, other than the RAW generic D&D setting.

Although, slight tangent, even within D&D, though, you have a myriad of settings. Eberron is D&D. Planescape is D&D. Forgotten Realms is D&D. "D&D" isn't all that generic anymore unless you specifically want it to be.

Hell, I still like and use the Planescape setting, even though I now utilize different systems to explore it with.

Bucky
2010-08-14, 02:34 PM
There was something WinWin pointed out earlier which I want to bring up again, because I find it is a very crucial point:

What if someone donated their body to this cause? Wouldn't that mean it wasn't disrespectful or theft? Doesn't that render the argument null?


I have played a good-aligned (non-D&D) necromancy user under this premise. Basically, the paladins of his god and were expected to continue their service after death, and certain others opted to. My character was one of the church necromancers.

The support of a good-aligned diety goes a long way towards legitimizing almost anything.

Jarrick
2010-08-14, 09:29 PM
I have played a good-aligned (non-D&D) necromancy user under this premise. Basically, the paladins of his god and were expected to continue their service after death, and certain others opted to. My character was one of the church necromancers.

The support of a good-aligned diety goes a long way towards legitimizing almost anything.

I likes the cut of your jib here. Must steal this at some point...

Frosty
2010-08-15, 12:34 AM
But, if, for instance, part of the setting is that if you raise a corpse as undead, it sucks the soul of the dead person back into their corpse and tortures it, then the corpse *isn't* just decaying organic matter.

Or, if, for instance, your setting has planes of existence devoted to completely illogical moralities that define, by virtue of their very existence, what is or isn't evil, and one of the things it defines as evil is "raising things as undead". I mean, if for every zombie you raise, Asmodeus gets another 100d6s to throw at the celestials in the coming apocalypse to decide the fate of all mens' souls, then making zombies is probably evil.
My PHB doesn't state that the default setting has these things happen, so I won't assume it in a standard answer.

Mystic Muse
2010-08-15, 12:48 AM
Explanation, not stereotype. Necromancers themselves can be good, but using necromancy to raise mindless corpses is evil because it violates the natural law to control of one's own body and a peaceful death. In a society where those rights aren't recognized, it wouldn't be seen as evil, but it would still be an evil-aligned act because it violates rights.
.

Except that there are plenty of spells that violate the natural law to control one's own body and they don't have the evil descriptor.

Peregrine
2010-08-15, 12:48 AM
My PHB doesn't state that the default setting has these things happen, so I won't assume it in a standard answer.

But it does say that creating undead is evil, so it must do something that is morally (not just culturally) wrong. "Tortures the soul" is a reasonable answer as to what that might be. Other options might include:
Increases the quantitative amount of evil in the world (people start being just that little bit nastier to their neighbours). Causes stillbirths, in a 1:1 ratio of created undead and stillborn babies (unlife prevents the start of new life). Weakens laws of nature that were put in place to prevent some Ancient Evil from entering the world (though this one's just a little too indirect for my tastes; by the same token, digging deep for mithril in Moria was "evil".)

Again, I wonder why most people (on these forums, anyway) are more willing to totally throw out the rules' "creating undead is evil", than accept something not stated in the rules to justify it?

That's not directly addressed to you, Frosty; you just said you won't "assume it in a standard answer", not that you won't accept it as a theory. But then, I would say that the standard answer ought to say "creating undead does something horrible and despicable", without saying what.

tyckspoon
2010-08-15, 12:54 AM
Again, I wonder why most people (on these forums, anyway) are more willing to totally throw out the rules' "creating undead is evil", than accept something not stated in the rules to justify it?


Because there's really no obvious reason a non-intelligent undead creature should be Always Evil (other than because, traditionally, they're the tools of Evil Wizards) and because WotC's writers were a little slapdash with that [Evil] tag (heyo inexplicably evil Deathwatch), which tends to lead one down the road of wondering exactly what is so [Evil] about other spells too. IMO.

Tetsubo 57
2010-08-15, 02:46 AM
How is Resurrection worse than necromancy? From what I understand, Raising someone from the dead requires them to be willing. Raising a corpse as a zombie doesn't need any consent from the corpse, and basically makes them a slave.

From my perspective, necromancy is evil. It's a violation of a dead person's body. I certainly wouldn't like it if some guy dug up my relative's grave just so he could bring them back as a mindless slave.

A corpse is a thing. It is no longer a person. You can not enslave a thing.

Now, a corpse can be a thing that holds great emotional weight to someone. But it is still just a thing. Using magic to make it move around isn't evil. It's just magic.

Rutskarn
2010-08-15, 02:51 AM
Sorry, but since the term's used here so often, I just thought I'd point something out:

Every time somebody refers to the RAW, I hear it being said the same way Sylvester Stallone says, "law," in Judge Dredd. This means absolutely nothing except that I'm insane.

"I! AM! THE RAW!"

"YOU BETRAYED THE RAW!"

"The RAW doesn't make mistakes!"

Tetsubo 57
2010-08-15, 02:55 AM
Animating non-sentient undead is not an evil act in my games. Never has been. It is no different than animating a chair. It's just that a corpse is a much more convenient shape than a chair. The zombie or skeleton is no more evil than a hammer or a saw. How it is used by it's creator matters, not the object itself.

I would personally rule that even sentient undead isn't evil. Their actions matter. If they never commit an evil act, can they even be considered evil? Because they 'ping' on a Detect Evil spell?

I like how Dragonstar handled this. It didn't matter if a spell detected you were evil or not. What mattered was what you *did*. Never committed an evil act? It didn't matter if you were the most evil being in the universe. I like that.

Of course, I don't personally consider cannibalism an evil act either. A corpse is just another dead animal to me. Though I do not want to watch either be butchered.

JBento
2010-08-15, 05:33 AM
Neither is it in mine - but discussions have to refer to RAW, because that's the only thing everyone has access to.

A note on cannibalism - it has high disease-inducing potential.


Except that there are plenty of spells that violate the natural law to control one's own body and they don't have the evil descriptor.

And one of them is the stupidest Exalted thing there ever was - Sanctify the Wicked: the EXALTED Mind Rape :smallconfused:


Again, I wonder why most people (on these forums, anyway) are more willing to totally throw out the rules' "creating undead is evil", than accept something not stated in the rules to justify it?

Because the RAW is utterly idiotic in some places? Look! Buckets of Healing! Sometimes, even when it's RAI? Look! Diplomacy!

Peregrine
2010-08-15, 07:13 AM
Because the RAW is utterly idiotic in some places? Look! Buckets of Healing! Sometimes, even when it's RAI? Look! Diplomacy!

Okay, but I liked tyckspoon's example better: deathwatch being [Evil] really does cast doubt on the competent application of that descriptor elsewhere.

But even then, what I seem to observe in myself and others, is a tendency to take the side that most fits with our opinions or the sort of setting we want to run. Me, I'm more than happy with the idea of undead being evil, thirsting after the lifeforce of the living with a mindless hunger that can never be sated. So I accept the [Evil] descriptor and Always Evil alignments and make assumptions or setting decisions to justify them.

On the other side of the fence, well, Tetsubo put himself forward as a good example. His approach to dealing with the dead, through animation or cannibalism, is highly pragmatic. And so he files off the Evil labels and runs games where it's not evil.

willpell
2010-08-15, 07:22 AM
I buy that Necromancy can be, if not Good, at least morally Neutral; D&D has a non-Evil goddess of death and magic, Wee Jas, whose clerics always rebuke undead but don't need to be Evil, and in fact can't be Neutral or Chaotic Evil without losing her favor since she's a Lawful goddess. I had a PC once who was an "almost good" cleric of her, and I found it a fascinating concept. There's also the fluff relating to the Necromancer character in Diablo II, who's portrayed as a member of an order that protects the natural balance by "repurposing" the remains of the dead.

In general, necromancy sort of "leans" evil for a number of reasons: even if you don't bind the souls of the dead and prevent them from going on to their earned Heaven or their deserved Hell, you at the very least are destroying their remains and thus preventing them from being resurrected (with lower-level spells that require a body, but those would be much more attainable, and so the small chance that a random peasant could be Raised by his town cleric gets even smaller if the cleric needs to go out and gain ten levels first - ooh hey, that's a good origin story!). And if you parade a rotting legion through town with no thought for the villagers' nausea, then you're certainly being at least slightly evil (and a jerk). But there are workarounds that can make it more or less okay, especially if you use a non-Western theosophical basis for your campaign. The Egyptians certainly wouldn't have thought necromancy was automatically evil - they thought they were practicing it! Ditto for various Indian and Oriental cultures that had well-rounded views on death.

Shatteredtower
2010-08-15, 08:18 AM
A nation once decided that most its menial tasks should be handled by the skeletons of their ancestors and the beasts of the field, freeing the citizenry for more enlightened pursuits. Many could not afford this liberty at first, but conditions improved in time.

All was well, until a cult of Nerull moved into the capitol. Over time, they secretly subverted many of this new serving class. These were instructed to keep following their original commands or directors, so that none would realise what had been done. From time to time, this secret army would be directed to commit some easily overlooked act of mayhem: sabotaging construction, tainting food supplies, committing murder when convenient. The cult also took the opportunity to plant additional skeletons within the city, hidden away until the time was right to strike.

That's an extreme example, but every skeleton is an easily aquired sleeper agent for evil. At least charms can be detected with divinations and Sense Motive.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-15, 08:29 AM
A nation once decided that most its menial tasks should be handled by the skeletons of their ancestors and the beasts of the field, freeing the citizenry for more enlightened pursuits. Many could not afford this liberty at first, but conditions improved in time.

All was well, until a cult of Nerull moved into the capitol. Over time, they secretly subverted many of this new serving class. These were instructed to keep following their original commands or directors, so that none would realise what had been done. From time to time, this secret army would be directed to commit some easily overlooked act of mayhem: sabotaging construction, tainting food supplies, committing murder when convenient. The cult also took the opportunity to plant additional skeletons within the city, hidden away until the time was right to strike.

That's an extreme example, but every skeleton is an easily aquired sleeper agent for evil. At least charms can be detected with divinations and Sense Motive.
The very same can be done with diplomacy checks for intelligent humanoids.
Or charms whose order is the same (wait till this then do).
The same can be done with golems.
Undead are no less controllable than any other being. They just traded a few immunities of the sort for being susceptible to a cleric's command undead.
Nothing stops people from noticing the skeleton is under someone else's control either.

Tetsubo 57
2010-08-15, 11:13 AM
Neither is it in mine - but discussions have to refer to RAW, because that's the only thing everyone has access to.

A note on cannibalism - it has high disease-inducing potential.



And one of them is the stupidest Exalted thing there ever was - Sanctify the Wicked: the EXALTED Mind Rape :smallconfused:



Because the RAW is utterly idiotic in some places? Look! Buckets of Healing! Sometimes, even when it's RAI? Look! Diplomacy!

Well, eating poorly prepared pork does as well...

WinWin
2010-08-15, 11:37 AM
A weapon such as a sword is essentially a tool. A tool that is used to hurt or kill people. Hurting and killing people is not a nice thing to do, but sometimes it is justifiable. Regardless of how a sword is used, the implement itself is not really accountable...Most of the time (sentient weapons are an exeption, for example)

Necromancy is a tool. One that can kill. It causes terror, subverts the life force of living beings and can turn dead beings into shambling puppets. It is not a very nice tool. The people that use it may not be very nice either, even if their cause is just. Necromancy in and of itself is not evil, though some necromantic spells are...

Some magic is so reprehensible that its very use is a morally questionable act. Regardless of intent. Corrupt spells for example. Summoning evil outsiders is another. Many necromantic spells fall into this category. Sometimes the reason is unexplained (Deathwatch for example), other times the reason is obvious (Chain of Sorrow).

I personally think the rules are a little silly. Burning someone to death with a Fireball is far more malevolent than casting Protection from Good. Having said that, aligned spells really only effect the preparation choices of divine casters. Evil and the supernatural tools of evil can be given as much, or as little attention in your game as you like. Give it some thought though, make an effort to make it consistent in your campaign, otherwise ignore it entirely.

hamishspence
2010-08-15, 12:00 PM
Deathwatch makes even less sense when you realise it didn't have [Evil] tag in 3.0, and the first 3.5 books, despite it having the Evil tag, made it available to classes and PRCs required to be of Good alignment- the Slayer of Domiel (BoED) and the Healer (Miniatures Handbook).

CockroachTeaParty
2010-08-15, 12:54 PM
Please, necromancy isn't evil. Enchantment is evil. Easily the most evil school of magic.

MickJay
2010-08-15, 12:57 PM
Well, what the Egyptians thought they were doing was ensuring that part of the person remained linked to the world, and thus would not be completely lost. The mummified body served as an anchor for one of the person's souls, allowing them to have a form of life after death. Of course, that's just one of the versions of what was happening, considering how many different myths and stories ended up shaping the Egyptian mythology.

Now, necromancy, in its original (Greek mythology) form, was basically "speak with dead", and that was it. A spirit was called forward (and it would rush happily to whomever called it, since the afterlife sucked so badly), and would answer questions in return for being allowed to drink some animal blood, which temporarily restored some of its vitality and sharpened its senses, dulled by death. It wasn't considered evil, as such, but rather risky and dangerous, and was not undertaken lightly.

Zaydos
2010-08-15, 02:37 PM
It's the "can't be resurrected even by true resurrection" clause that animate dead has. You're forcing them into a state where even the gods can't revive said person and also doing something to their soul to stop it (as true resurrection creates a new body whole cloth). None of the answers saying it's not evil have taken this into account. The it's evil because it somehow binds/traps the soul and tortures it takes this into account and then adds tortures it. Even without the torture, though, you still have the "can't be resurrected" bit indicating something happens to the soul. Also Sanctify the Wicked is evil in any game I run. Mindrape is never a good thing.

Now if you said: if you wave the rule about resurrection and undeath, then creating undead isn't necessarily evil. I might listen, but until an argument clears up the problem with undeath and resurrection I'm waiting.

JBento
2010-08-15, 02:51 PM
It's the "can't be resurrected even by true resurrection" clause that animate dead has. You're forcing them into a state where even the gods can't revive said person and also doing something to their soul to stop it (as true resurrection creates a new body whole cloth). None of the answers saying it's not evil have taken this into account. The it's evil because it somehow binds/traps the soul and tortures it takes this into account and then adds tortures it. Even without the torture, though, you still have the "can't be resurrected" bit indicating something happens to the soul. Also Sanctify the Wicked is evil in any game I run. Mindrape is never a good thing.

Now if you said: if you wave the rule about resurrection and undeath, then creating undead isn't necessarily evil. I might listen, but until an argument clears up the problem with undeath and resurrection I'm waiting.

I've just consulted my PHB and I can find no mention of that clause on the spell description. Source?

Zaydos
2010-08-15, 02:52 PM
Might be thinking about 2nd edition then... I'll have to check.


True Resurrection
Conjuration (Healing)
Level: Clr 9
Casting Time: 10 minutes
This spell functions like raise dead, except
that you can resurrect a creature that has
been dead for as long as 10 years per caster
level. This spell can even bring back creatures
whose bodies have been destroyed,
provided that you unambiguously identify
the deceased in some fashion (reciting the
deceased’s time and place of birth or death
is the most common method).
Upon completion of the spell, the creature
is immediately restored to full hit
points, vigor, and health, with no loss of
level (or Constitution points) or prepared
spells.
You can revive someone killed by a
death effect or someone who has been
turned into an undead creature and then
destroyed. This spell can also resurrect elementals
or outsiders, but it can’t resurrect
constructs or undead creatures.True Resurrection
Conjuration (Healing)
Level: Clr 9
Casting Time: 10 minutes
This spell functions like raise dead, except
that you can resurrect a creature that has
been dead for as long as 10 years per caster
level. This spell can even bring back creatures
whose bodies have been destroyed,
provided that you unambiguously identify
the deceased in some fashion (reciting the
deceased’s time and place of birth or death
is the most common method).
Upon completion of the spell, the creature
is immediately restored to full hit
points, vigor, and health, with no loss of
level (or Constitution points) or prepared
spells.
You can revive someone killed by a
death effect or someone who has been
turned into an undead creature and then
destroyed. This spell can also resurrect elementals
or outsiders, but it can’t resurrect
constructs or undead creatures.

See bolded section. Can only revive someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed.

Rutskarn
2010-08-15, 02:54 PM
Please, necromancy isn't evil. Enchantment is evil. Easily the most evil school of magic.

I would probably rather be Charmed than Fireballed.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-15, 02:57 PM
I would probably rather be Charmed than Fireballed.

mindrape vs physical rape. Both break you down hard.

Lord Raziere
2010-08-15, 03:15 PM
"They're disrupting the natural balance of nature" is also perfectly fine, depending on the setting. In a world where Druids can just call up nature and say "Hey, is this against your balance?" and Nature can just say "Yeah", then yes, that's perfectly reasonable to assume it's evil.


There is a flaw in your reasoning. You are assuming that Nature itself isn't evil.

Morithias
2010-08-15, 03:33 PM
Not all necromancy is evil, it varies from spell to spell. I reference the BOED spell "sanctify the wicked".

However I do note one thing, when I showed and explained this spell to my group, the one of us that plays necromancers the most and most dedicated to them, went "There are two problems with that spell, one: It's Good, two: It's Good".

It seems to me that most card carrying necromancers WANT to evil, and/or jerks.

Necromancy is evil in dnd, for the same reason any devil is. It doesn't matter if you're a Pit Fiend that somehow got hit with a helm of alignment, the fact you're a Pit Fiend means every paladin within a 500 mile radius is going to come looking to 'smite you back to the underworld'.

hamishspence
2010-08-15, 03:54 PM
Necromancy is evil in dnd, for the same reason any devil is. It doesn't matter if you're a Pit Fiend that somehow got hit with a helm of alignment, the fact you're a Pit Fiend means every paladin within a 500 mile radius is going to come looking to 'smite you back to the underworld'.

WoTC has done this sort of character before- the famous Succubus Paladin, for example, and the fiend does have the problem with Detecting as Evil despite being good. However, this doesn't mean it's "right" to kill the redeemed fiend.

JBento
2010-08-15, 03:55 PM
@Zaydos: Ah, I checked the other spell, namely Animate Dead. :smallsmile:

Anyway, though it is a fun fact to know (I didn't remember it) it does not influence the Evilness of it - you can't Raise/Ressurect someone who's been hit by Trap the Soul, and that spell isn't Evil.

@Raziere: Nature isn't Evil - it's an amoral force and thus, Neutral - just like animals.

@Morithias: I have another, more glaring problem wiht the spell. It's Mindrape. Being a jerk isn't Evil, btw, though it's a good enough reason for a serious talking-to with the player.

hamishspence
2010-08-15, 04:02 PM
@Morithias: I have another, more glaring problem wiht the spell. It's Mindrape. Being a jerk isn't Evil, btw, though it's a good enough reason for a serious talking-to with the player.

It's not actually that much like Mindrape.

Mindrape gives you access to the target's memories- which can be edited. This doesn't. Mindrape allows you to pick and choose the personality traits you want to implant in the victim- this doesn't. Mindrape can leave the target insane if you choose- this can't.

Not to mention that the spell Programmed Amnesia (Spell Compendium) can do almost everything Mindrape can- and isn't Evil.

So why is the spell Sanctify the Wicked, which is far less like Mindrape than Programmed Amnesia is, constantly being compared to it?

Snake-Aes
2010-08-15, 04:08 PM
It's not actually that much like Mindrape.

Mindrape gives you access to the target's memories- which can be edited. This doesn't. Mindrape allows you to pick and choose the personality traits you want to implant in the victim- this doesn't. Mindrape can leave the target insane if you choose- this can't.

Not to mention that the spell Programmed Amnesia (Spell Compendium) can do almost everything Mindrape can- and isn't Evil.

So why is the spell Sanctify the Wicked, which is far less like Mindrape than Programmed Amnesia is, constantly being compared to it?

Because it's still you wresting the choice out of the target. It's still tampering with his personality and forcing him to be something he doesn't have to want to be.
This spell falls under the same jurisdiction that grey guards do. You are willing to "dirty" yourself to ensure Good is done.

hamishspence
2010-08-15, 04:14 PM
True- it should probably have no alignment descriptor- and be treated as one of those things that are "morally dubious except in times of necessity"

A bit like killing in that respect- if you kill someone for no good reason, when it's not necessary, it's an Evil act.

Mind you- some [Good] spells can kill innocents- a Holy Word spell used in a crowd of 1st level commoners is likely to kill them- and that's generally Evil regardless of the [Good] descriptor.

BoED suggests that overriding someone's free will with a spell like Charm person or Dominate person, is dangerous, but not necessarily Evil as long as the person is treated properly- as if they were a helpless prisoner.

What's more annoying is that it changes the target's alignment to match the caster- if, as suggested in the actual spell description, it's the target discovering the Good in themselves, and it growing until it dominates their personality, then their alignment on the Law-Chaos axis ought to remain the same.

Lord Raziere
2010-08-15, 04:24 PM
@Raziere: Nature isn't Evil - it's an amoral force and thus, Neutral - just like animals.



tell that to Darwinism.

"oh hey your traits don't match your environment, help you? yea about that, DIE BITCH! I don't help you, environment too hard for you? then die, those guys over there with different traits they live cause they were born with them? they live cause I say so, you die, because I also say so! hahahaha, nature ain't so good now eh? 90% of all you living creatures can just die out, the ones that LIVE? they already have the traits needed to live and uh...you don't, so screw you! hahahahaha!"

Snake-Aes
2010-08-15, 04:28 PM
Amoral != Immoral

hamishspence
2010-08-15, 04:33 PM
Except for The Giant's comment in Paladin Blues:

"Belkar isn't committed to Evil as a force any particular way- he's simply completely amoral, doing whatever he wants whenever he wants it. It just so happens that in the alignment system, amoral = Evil"

However- given that Belkar gets angry at "being forced to commit a quasi-Good act"- this may have changed.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-15, 04:35 PM
Except for The Giant's comment in Paladin Blues:

"Belkar isn't committed to Evil as a force any particular way- he's simply completely amoral, doing whatever he wants whenever he wants it. It just so happens that in the alignment system, amoral = Evil"

However- given that Belkar gets angry at "being forced to commit a quasi-Good act"- this may have changed.

Well, this enters a battle of semantics. Amorality is being neither moral nor immoral; not believing in or caring for morality and immorality. Animals are that, unless you want to create a fourth viewpoint to put characters incapable of moral choices.

Lord Raziere
2010-08-15, 04:36 PM
Amoral != Immoral

just because you keep saying its amoral, doesn't mean its not immoral to me.

hamishspence
2010-08-15, 04:40 PM
Animals are that, unless you want to create a fourth viewpoint to put characters incapable of moral choices.

Could be. "Incapable of moral choice" works best for animals, "Amoral" might work better for more intelligent beings.

One of the archetypes in Champions of Ruin was "Evil Choice" and one of the variants of that was a character who could be:

"a sociopath capable of acts of extreme good or extreme evil, neither of which move him emotionally or spiritually in any way, and in which he is incapable of seeing any contradiction"

Such an evil character might fit the way the Giant was using the term "amoral".

JBento
2010-08-15, 04:45 PM
just because you keep saying its amoral, doesn't mean its not immoral to me.

And you can think whatever you like - *I* don't cast Mindr, er, Sanctify the Wicked. Nevertheless, D&D RAW has its own take on the subject, and it disagrees with you.

hamishspence
2010-08-15, 05:03 PM
The fact that casters automatically lose one level when they cast it does constrain its use somewhat.

Still, it's a little too much like the Mind Seed psionic power- which is [Evil]- only it's just the alignment that now matches yours, rather than the entire personality as with Mind Seed.

dromer
2010-08-15, 06:22 PM
I assume most NPCs know that Necromancy spells use negative energy.

Other negative energy spells are painful.

So Necromancy = Negative Energy = Painful spells

It's considered evil by association.

Zaydos
2010-08-15, 06:30 PM
Sanctify the Wicked has a Good alignment because it can only change them good. Note that casting Good spells is not an explicitly good act, unlike casting Evil spells which is an explicitly evil act. This is because evil powers corrupt. Using good powers does not purify yourself, but instead requires you to already be pure.

Also I just defended Sanctify the Wicked, I think I need an Atonement spell.

Shatteredtower
2010-08-15, 08:16 PM
The very same can be done with diplomacy checks for intelligent humanoids.

As with every single answer you gave, nowhere near as easily, and nowhere near impossible to detect. Sense Motive won't reveal the threat, nor any divination. I can make 820 skeletons for the cost of one flesh golem and instruct them to wait until x, then go find and kill living creatures. You could bury them for years, a trick few monsters will tolerate, and they'd be ready to join subverted forces at any time.

Too easy. It also makes life a pain for paladins, who get complacent from detecting evil every time they meet a ditch digging crew.

A good person can subvert other people for a good purpose, but undead are far more easily put to evil use than good. The Command Undead is far too limited in comparison to the abilities of an evil cleric of the same level.

But please, continue to base your arguments on broken uses of Diplomacy rules.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-15, 08:20 PM
As with every single answer you gave, nowhere near as easily, and nowhere near impossible to detect. Sense Motive won't reveal the threat, nor any divination. I can make 820 skeletons for the cost of one flesh golem and instruct them to wait until x, then go find and kill living creatures. You could bury them for years, a trick few monsters will tolerate, and they'd be ready to join subverted forces at any time.

Too easy. It also makes life a pain for paladins, who get complacent from detecting evil every time they meet a ditch digging crew.

A good person can subvert other people for a good purpose, but undead are far more easily put to evil use than good. The Command Undead is far too limited in comparison to the abilities of an evil cleric of the same level.

But please, continue to base your arguments on broken uses of Diplomacy rules.

Problem is, what you are calling "zomg they are meant to be evil" is just "zomg they are easy to control". It's like calling a gun evil because someone can use it to kill.



I assume most NPCs know that Necromancy spells use negative energy.

Other negative energy spells are painful.

So Necromancy = Negative Energy = Painful spells

It's considered evil by association.

And magic missiles, fireballs and meteor swarms to the face are what, tender cuddling?

Boci
2010-08-15, 08:25 PM
Problem is, what you are calling "zomg they are meant to be evil" is just "zomg they are easy to control". It's like calling a gun evil because someone can use it to kill.

Except for the fact that a gun cannot be used for 24 hour labour to help feed the empoverished.

Shatteredtower
2010-08-15, 08:38 PM
Problem is, what you are calling "zomg they are meant to be evil" is just "zomg they are easy to control". It's like calling a gun evil because someone can use it to kill.

No, the point is they are more easily put to evil use than good, and readily subverted from neutral use to evil with minimum effort. The gun argument is not an accurate comparison.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-15, 08:41 PM
You have yet to point out why they are "more easily subverted to evil" when, in fact, they are "more easily subverted to anything". "Anything", might I add, includes "good", "neutral", "lucrative", "funny to children", "scary to children", "job taker", "job giver", and "whatever else any sort of technological advance has ever brought to society through history, both real and fictional".

dromer
2010-08-15, 08:42 PM
And magic missiles, fireballs and meteor swarms to the face are what, tender cuddling?

Would you rather be incinerated instantly or die a slow and painful death having the life force ripped from your body?

Boci
2010-08-15, 08:45 PM
Would you rather be incinerated instantly or die a slow and painful death having the life force ripped from your body?

Fireball doesn't incinerate instantly. There is a chance it will leave you alieve, and most likely in a lot of pain.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-15, 08:45 PM
Would you rather be incinerated instantly or die a slow and painful death having the life force ripped from your body?

Aren't the actual negative energy damage spells just as quick? If you want to go by suffering, make sure to add the whole enchantment school into the evil tag. And summons too, probably, as you interrupt the life of another creature to put it to play meatshield for you.

AmberVael
2010-08-15, 08:47 PM
Would you rather be incinerated instantly or die a slow and painful death having the life force ripped from your body?

Would you rather have you life force snuffed out painlessly, or slowly die of lethal burns, watching your skin melt away- well, assuming your eyes didn't boil out of your skull?

We're not told negative energy is painful. At least, anymore painful than being burned alive. Also, painful death isn't considered evil in DnD anyways (see Power Word, Pain).

dromer
2010-08-15, 08:48 PM
Aren't the actual negative energy damage spells just as quick? If you want to go by suffering, make sure to add the whole enchantment school into the evil tag. And summons too, probably, as you interrupt the life of another creature to put it to play meatshield for you.

Aren't summon monster skills contractual?

The point I was trying to make is that most negative energy spells are a lot more 'visible', would you be more concerned if a town was razed and burned, or if a town was consumed and assimilated into an undead army. To the average peasant, dying and being used for someone's agenda is much scarier than just being incinerated.



Also, painful death isn't considered evil in DnD anyways (see Power Word, Pain).

But the point I'm trying to make is that the most painful spells are considered evil to the majority of people out of fear.

AmberVael
2010-08-15, 08:54 PM
But the point I'm trying to make is that the most painful spells are considered evil to the majority of people out of fear.

We don't care about what the commoners think. We care about what the designers think, as they (not the commoners) are the ones who put the Evil tag on these spells.

It seems reasonable to assume that they did not put the tag on because it could cause a horrible, painful death, because there are many spells (especially the aforementioned Power Word Pain), that can do the same thing, or worse, and don't have the Evil tag.

Boci
2010-08-15, 09:01 PM
But the point I'm trying to make is that the most painful spells are considered evil to the majority of people out of fear.

IIRC binder's are considered evil by the commoners, but they do not have to actually be evil.

golentan
2010-08-15, 10:33 PM
I was given to understand the difference between an undead minion and a construct in terms of utility and evilness was that an uncontrolled construct will do nothing except carry out any final orders, whereas an uncontrolled zombie or skeleton would begin a rampage of death and killing among any local living creatures. So unless your necromancer has some way of guaranteeing that he will die after and only after he has disposed of all of his tools, keeping them around is a constant danger to innocent life and hence evil.

Which is why you can have neutral necromancers but the act of animating the dead is evil: An undead work crew which maintains the village and feeds the populace is a good act, balancing the evil of using the undead and thus recklessly endangering the people you're trying to help.

Just my 2 cp. Personally, I think that that can and should be mitigable, and I've never assumed necromancy is evil by default any more than any weapon is. Which is to say it is dangerous and lends itself more easily to evil than good, but it can be a powerful tool in the good arsenal.

Zombieboots
2010-08-15, 10:35 PM
Necromancy it self is not evil, no. Heck healing spells back in the day use to be necromancy.

In 3.0 and the beginning of 3.5 (and 2ed, So-I-heard.) the fluff for raising Undead, which is what I assume what you mean, usually involved taking the soul of the person (whoever died) warpping it, torturing it, and sticking it inside their undead self from which it can't escape. So long as eternal torture was considered evil, so were undead.

This was represented in the rules by all those snip-its about how you can't bring anyone back to life who is currently undead. This tortured-undead-soul-thingy wasn't removed per-say so much as simply stopped being mentioned, and probably forgotten.

I still play with this rule in my game. That doesn't make the Necromancy school evil, it makes raising undead evil. When I explain this to my players the argument of Undead/good/evil doesn't come up again, and even makes my player think undead need to be destroyed Just-Because. Yep so take that snip-it of info as you will and play the game however you want.

Secondly any undead-raising-character I DO want to make, I make sure their Gods are form the Aztec pantheon (Dragon Mags), where raising undead is consider a Neutral (or good) act- having their forefathers protecting their children etc,etc. Read the articles =D

Shatteredtower
2010-08-15, 11:20 PM
You have yet to point out why they are "more easily subverted to evil" when, in fact, they are "more easily subverted to anything".

I have. You can't show me the good cleric that can convert a marauding unit of skeletons to dam builders. I've already shown how easy the reverse is for a death cult. The best good people can do is destroy 'community property', which still hurts.

You claimed that subverted undead could easily be detected, after I showed you couldn't, and you've yet to concede your error or show evidence supporting your position. Instead, you keep spouting claims that have no connection to the subject.

If you create undead for benign purposes and I have malign intentions, you've spent resources I can easily use against you. If I create undead for malign goals, it's unlikely you'll be able to use them against me or my goals.

Argue against that or concede. No more nonsensical rants.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-08-15, 11:34 PM
Why are skeletons and zombies evil? because they are created by evil magic and have no will of their own to override their evil existence. A lemure is a mindless type of devil but its still lawful evil because its made from evil, zombies and skeletons are no different.

As already stated creating an undead prevents the creature that was from being raised or resurrected until the undead entity is destroyed this gives evidence that it somehow causes harm to the person even though their dead.

If the person's soul was just fine, then how come having your corpse walk around as a zombie prevents a true resurrection?

You can give 1001 good uses for animate dead, but that doesn't mean your not doing evil to accomplish those ends. If you plan to use the undead to destroy the village of haven your methods and goals are evil. If your plan is to use the undead to save the village of haven then your goal is good but your method are evil. This could mean you are in-fact neutral.

JBento
2010-08-16, 06:51 AM
Summon Monster was brought up: I would like to point out it has no bearing on the subject, as a summon spell does didlly squat to the original creature. It merely brings a simulacrum of the creature, not the creature itself. You MAY be thinking of Gate or other [Calling] spells when thinking of the contractual part.

As an aside note, I don't think you can give "wait X time and then do X" orders to skeletons (or zombies for that matter). Being non-intelligent, that might be a bit more complex than they can deal with.

Again, the fact than an evil cleric can turn zombie/skellies to hurting people speaks nothing of it - ANYONE can take a sword and stab the whole commoner population, and swords don't ping on the evil-o-meter.

On an aside note, a sufficently high-level good cleric CAN control undead (it's called, yep, Control Undead) - DMM'ing into persistent can make it last all day, every day.

I would also like to point out that it's just as easy for a turning cleric to destroy the undead as it is for a rerebuking one to control them, so it's not like, both sides being equal, they'd become a "ZOMG unstoppable army."

I was under the impression that uncontrolled mindless undead stood and did nothing. Is there a source for uncontrolled=rampage?

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 06:56 AM
I have. You can't show me the good cleric that can convert a marauding unit of skeletons to dam builders. I've already shown how easy the reverse is for a death cult. The best good people can do is destroy 'community property', which still hurts.

You claimed that subverted undead could easily be detected, after I showed you couldn't, and you've yet to concede your error or show evidence supporting your position. Instead, you keep spouting claims that have no connection to the subject.

If you create undead for benign purposes and I have malign intentions, you've spent resources I can easily use against you. If I create undead for malign goals, it's unlikely you'll be able to use them against me or my goals.

Argue against that or concede. No more nonsensical rants.
You're still the one with the nonsensical rants. You still haven't shown how undead default to evil "because they are easy to control".

Boci
2010-08-16, 07:29 AM
You're still the one with the nonsensical rants. You still haven't shown how undead default to evil "because they are easy to control".

Paladin: "Sorry half-orc commoners, you are too vulnerable to mind control magic. I will need to kill you all"

potatocubed
2010-08-16, 07:44 AM
Again, I wonder why most people (on these forums, anyway) are more willing to totally throw out the rules' "creating undead is evil", than accept something not stated in the rules to justify it?

Speaking only for myself, the primary reason I see necromancy as a tool rather than as a blight is because the All Evil, All The Time element is new with 3.5. In 3.0 and AD&D mindless undead were TN and cure spells were necromancy, so it's the change towards Evil that I see as arbitrary and unnecessary.

Rutskarn
2010-08-16, 11:21 AM
Why are skeletons and zombies evil? because they are created by evil magic and have no will of their own to override their evil existence. A lemure is a mindless type of devil but its still lawful evil because its made from evil, zombies and skeletons are no different.


That's just for the purposes of detection. If the creature has no will, how can it actually be evil?


As already stated creating an undead prevents the creature that was from being raised or resurrected until the undead entity is destroyed this gives evidence that it somehow causes harm to the person even though their dead.

If the person's soul was just fine, then how come having your corpse walk around as a zombie prevents a true resurrection?

This is, at least partially, a myth. You can resurrect any undead creature who has been "destroyed," i.e., who is no longer reanimated. Otherwise, you can't put their soul back in because you filled that spot with negative energy--same reason you can't put the engine of a car back in if you put in a different one.


You can give 1001 good uses for animate dead, but that doesn't mean your not doing evil to accomplish those ends. If you plan to use the undead to destroy the village of haven your methods and goals are evil. If your plan is to use the undead to save the village of haven then your goal is good but your method are evil. This could mean you are in-fact neutral.

What I'm saying is, as long as the body wasn't going to be resurrected anyway (how likely do you think it is that Joe Bandit, who you just finished giving a magic missile massage, is going to be raised by a high-level cleric), it's not evil at all. Roy uses Belkar, and I guarantee you that whatever you think about zombies, Belkar's way, way more evil than that. Roy is a good character, why can't a necromancer be?

JBento
2010-08-16, 01:31 PM
Another note that has just ocurred to me:

If you're animating someone you just killed, so what if they can't be brought back? You just killed them! If they didn't deserve to be dead, why did you just went to the trouble of killing them?

If you're a Good character, keeping them dead is just continuing the good work of actually killing them. If you're not, then you already don't care.

hamishspence
2010-08-16, 01:40 PM
Another note that has just ocurred to me:

If you're animating someone you just killed, so what if they can't be brought back? You just killed them! If they didn't deserve to be dead, why did you just went to the trouble of killing them?

In the case of a dominated victim of a monster or wizard, who attacked you, it may have been a choice between killing and dying. This doesn't mean that the victim "deserved" to die- but nor does it mean that killing them was evil.

JBento
2010-08-16, 02:24 PM
Dispel magic tends to be way more effective at winning such battles than going to the trouble of whittling down its hp :smallsmile:

dsmiles
2010-08-16, 02:28 PM
Necromancy may be evil, but hordes of undead = win!

hamishspence
2010-08-16, 02:32 PM
Dispel magic tends to be way more effective at winning such battles than going to the trouble of whittling down its hp :smallsmile:

Unless you've already used such spells earlier and are now out of them.

JadedDM
2010-08-16, 02:41 PM
The funny thing is that in 2E...you know, the edition where they edited out words like 'demon' or 'devil'? In that edition, necromancy is not evil. Lesser undead like skeletons and zombies are classified as True Neutral. All healing magic is necromancy (Cure Light Wounds, Raise Dead, etc.).

In fact, the Complete Wizard's Handbook even proposes the idea of a good aligned necromancer. Rare, but possible, it says.

I have no idea why they decided to change that in 3E.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 02:45 PM
I have no idea why they decided to change that in 3E.

My guess is publicity. Soccer Moms were appeased by "removing the demons" from that book. Then the new ones actively promote "necromancy?" omg!

Thiyr
2010-08-16, 03:38 PM
Why are skeletons and zombies evil? because they are created by evil magic and have no will of their own to override their evil existence. A lemure is a mindless type of devil but its still lawful evil because its made from evil, zombies and skeletons are no different.

The difference here to me is relatively simple. Undead are corspes animated through the use of negative energy. They are made of stuff from the material plane, and animated through magic (specifically negative energy, which I have always seen described as being alignmentless). Lemures, on the other hand, are mindless outsiders. They are made of the stuff of their respective plane, even if only through association. This is why, for instance, the oft-quoted paladin succubus is both lawful good and has the evil subtype.


If the person's soul was just fine, then how come having your corpse walk around as a zombie prevents a true resurrection?

Because the energy of the animation prevents the soul from being placed within the body. The "space" the soul would reside in is instead filled with negative energy. This allows the body to be animated and functioning, but as negative energy is just being manipulated to move the body, it is mindless.

As for the ease of subversion thing, I will pose a series of situations, as well as my answer to them.

Is artillery evil? No, as while it can be used for evil, that is an act based solely on the user of the artillery. It is neutral.

Is a gun evil? No. As the above, it can be used for evil, but it is based on the user of the gun.

Is a sword evil? No. As the above. It is more difficult to kill a person with, and may cause more suffering, but it is not evil.

Is a golem evil? No. They are mindless constructs being controlled by an outside force. The outside controlling force, then, is the same as the one for the above. Golems are essentially giant swords that don't need to be held to be used.

Is a bulldozer evil? No. It can, like the above, be used for evil (in terms of the potential for this, I give you the Killdozer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer)). Once again, though, not every bulldozer is evil.

Is a skeleton evil? Following this train of logic, it would not be. To apply the logic that it is easily subverted doesn't quite work. To say a cleric just rolls in, say "Oh hello there your workforce is my army now" is the same as an organization to break into a military base and steal their weaponry, or stealing a city's bulldozers and attempting to level buildings. It implies that there was no protection against doing that, or that the protection was overcome/subverted. Taking this, we can apply it to the skeletal workforce, and have said workforce have an increased turn resistance, nearby clerics with control undead and/or a means of rapidly de-animating them, or simply preventing unregistered people from getting close enough to affect them. To say that it is the ease of gaining command of undead in such a situation is to imply that they are evil because their good creators were foolish enough to not protect their assets. It would be the same as assuming artilery is evil because the military left it sitting on their front lawn, loaded, unlocked, and unattended.

Edit for grammar.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-08-16, 03:47 PM
This is, at least partially, a myth. You can resurrect any undead creature who has been "destroyed," i.e., who is no longer reanimated. Otherwise, you can't put their soul back in because you filled that spot with negative energy--same reason you can't put the engine of a car back in if you put in a different one.


True Resurrection requires no body, no remains, just the soul be free
If your body is utterly annihilated you can be brought back by true resurrection because the spell makes you a whole new body. However if your body is reanimated as a skeleton somehow you can't be brought back to life by true resurrection. Why? it shouldn't matter what your old body is filled with True Resurrection makes you a new one. So how does your corpse being filled with negative energy stop true resurrection from making a new body as it normally would.

Even if there is zero chance of the subject being brought back that doesn't erase the probability that their spirit is somehow harmed by their body being undead.

That's just for the purposes of detection. If the creature has no will, how can it actually be evil?

So your basically saying it makes perfect sense a mindless zombie/skeleton show up as evil on detect evil but not that it actually be evil?

Your assuming that alignment always requires a choice, it doesn't, demons, devils and many other outsiders are always xxxx alignment. They don't have a choice to be anything else[with a very rare exception], so if a sentient creature can't choose not to be evil. Why can't a mindless creature be treated as evil. Choice and morality is largely the dominion of mortals to me it make more sense that a mindless creature must always be evil then a sentient one.


The difference here to me is relatively simple. Undead are corpses animated through the use of negative energy. They are made of stuff from the material plane, and animated through magic (specifically negative energy, which I have always seen described as being alignmentless). Lemures, on the other hand, are mindless outsiders. They are made of the stuff of their respective plane, even if only through association. This is why, for instance, the oft-quoted paladin succubus is both lawful good and has the evil subtype.
I already stated above how True Resurrection requires no body so the vessel being occupied argument is invalid so lets move on.

If we take look at Librtus mortis and its comments on purposeful reanimation, it mentions the difference between a zombie and a flesh golem. One is animated by an elemental spirit the other is animated by an evil spirit and powered by negative energy.
Skeletons and zombies are already created with an evil spell which gives evidence to them being made of evil just like a lemure, the fact Librtus mortis states that a zombie is animated by an evil spirit when explaining how its different then a flesh golem is further evidence.

Now Rutskarn
Did I say a necromancer can't be good, no I simply said that someone who uses evil for the purposes of good may be neutral. I did not say would have to be neutral. One does not need to perfectly match their alignment,
"It is not a straitjacket" that is stated in the PHB and SRD yet so many people treat it as such and talk like it is. I'm simply saying that good purposes for your evil methods don't erase the evil from the methods.

Roy justifies Belkar fairly well first off they need him to save the world, and secondly as long as Belkar as with the order they can keep his evil to a minimum.

In the end D&D is a game of sword and sorcery and in sword and sorcery fiction the holy weapons and relics destroy the undead even if they are mindless.

AmberVael
2010-08-16, 04:08 PM
So your basically saying it makes perfect sense a mindless zombie/skeleton show up as evil on detect evil but not that it actually be evil?

Well, there is precedent within the D&D system. Anything with the Evil subtype is detected as Evil, regardless of whether it is actually of Evil alignment.

So... yeah, it would make sense.

On the other hand, it specifically states they have evil alignment, not the Evil Subtype. Personally, I just think it's completely stupid (it's mindless. Mindless entities do not have morals or moral allegiances- it's like calling an automated turret evil), but hey, that's the way it is in the system.

I recognize that my preferences and interpretations clash with the system though, just to clarify. But that's because I think the system is kind of silly in a number of ways. By RAW? Yes, skeletons are morally reprehensible. Somehow. Inexplicably. :smallsigh:

Lord Vukodlak
2010-08-16, 04:11 PM
Well, there is precedent within the D&D system. Anything with the Evil subtype is detected as Evil, regardless of whether it is actually of Evil alignment.

So... yeah, it would make sense.

On the other hand, it specifically states they have evil alignment, not the Evil Subtype. Personally, I just think it's completely stupid (it's mindless. Mindless entities do not have morals or moral allegiances- it's like calling an automated turret evil), but hey, that's the way it is in the system.

I recognize that my preferences and interpretations clash with the system though, just to clarify. But that's because I think the system is kind of silly in a number of ways. By RAW? Yes, skeletons are morally reprehensible. Somehow. Inexplicably. :smallsigh:

Being created by evil magic and animated by evil spirits isn't enough of an explanation?
See my above post for the mention of them being animated by evil spirits.

JBento
2010-08-16, 04:32 PM
There are at least two golems who are animated by evil spirits of the Shadow plane, and they're neutral.

I'm still waiting to hear why, if "you can't be rezzed" is a reason for Evilness, Traps the Soul doesn't have the Evil tag.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-08-16, 04:34 PM
There are at least two golems who are animated by evil spirits of the Shadow plane, and they're neutral.

I'm still waiting to hear why, if "you can't be rezzed" is a reason for Evilness, Traps the Soul doesn't have the Evil tag.

That could easily be a mistake in the golems and that they should have the evil alignment[or at the very least count as evil for spell purposes], I'd like you to name them please.
Can't be the shadesteel golem as it makes to mention of evil spirits from the plane of shadow, mentions metal mined on the plane of shadow though.

The reason for the evilness is the assumption that making you into an undead harms the soul, possibly because its forced back into the body.
Obviously if you become a specter, wraith, shadow or other spiritual undead. That undead is your spirit. Why should we assume a mindless zombie or skeleton doesn't somehow retain the victims spirit?

Trap the soul also technically imprisons the entire creature including the material body. So its use of the word soul is a bit inaccurate.

A more important question,
Why should a creature animated by evil, powered by death not take extra damage from holy weapons and other spell effects that deal extra damage to evil creatures?

JBento
2010-08-16, 05:29 PM
Slight correction on my part: they're not golems, but constructs - the two Automata from MM II. The point still stands.

Harming the soul can't be true: Ghosts are just as Undead as zombies and skeletons, and they have alignment: Any.

Why should we assume it does? In fact, I can prove to you it doesn't, while at the same time responding to your Trap the Soul note: check Soul Bind.

Soul Bind is a non-Evil spell that traps a dead creature's soul before it departs - it, too, makes it impossible for the creature to be brought back, and it's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility for a necromancer to want to Animate/Undead-Create the corpse of someone he just Soul-Bound.



A more important question,
Why should a creature animated by evil, powered by death not take extra damage from holy weapons and other spell effects that deal extra damage to evil creatures?

Maybe it should - in fact, it would make sense (except that they're powered by negative energy, not death, and, according to the point being debated here, animated by non-Evil negative energy).

But that could be achieved just as well by maintaining zombie/skeletons Neutral (as they were in 3.0) while giving them the [Evil] subtype, which is something I would fully agree with.

EDIT: I'm off to bed, but I look forward to continuing this discussion tomorrow - kudos to everyone for maintaining this civil :smallsmile:

hamishspence
2010-08-16, 05:36 PM
Soul Bind is a non-Evil spell that traps a dead creature's soul before it departs - it, too, makes it impossible for the creature to be brought back, and it's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility for a necromancer to want to Animate/Undead-Create the corpse of someone he just Soul-Bound.



The Imprison Soul spell in Heroes of Horror does have the Evil descriptor- maybe because it pulls the soul from the body entirely, and the body starts dying. It's 9th level.

Morithias
2010-08-16, 05:45 PM
Just to spice things up again, how about another nice necromancy based spell to debate over? The Necrotic spells, a level 7 spell that gives you permanent control over the person's mind via a large tumor, and a level 9 spell that doesn't purify the soul, but rather ERASES IT FROM existence. Keep in mind that while the spells are evil, the feat itself actually doesn't require an evil alignment, so it's 100% possible for my radiant servent of pelor to have just destroyed your soul and still be good "RAW".

Shatteredtower
2010-08-16, 06:37 PM
RBento, when only non-good (and a limited set of non-evil) clerics can take control of undead, the results can't be compared to sword use. A 1st lvl commoner can use a sword, badly. A cleric of Pelor can't command skeletons at all, barring the use of Miracle to duplicate a 7th lvl wizard spell, to accomplish what a 9th lvl evil cleric could do in two rounds and surpass in three. The average 2nd lvl cleric can even approximate the effect in less than a week, and they're a lot more common than the 17th lvl variety.

"Wait until x, then y," commands are easy, thanks to weighted mechanisms.


You're still the one with the nonsensical rants. You still haven't shown how undead default to evil "because they are easy to control".

The fact that you keep leaving "for clerics of a non-good alignment serving a deity/cause that isn't good aligned either" out of my argument is telling. Stop leaving off the detail that is irrelevant to your position, or you've no argument.

Shatteredtower
2010-08-16, 06:49 PM
Yes, skeletons are morally reprehensible. Somehow. Inexplicably. :smallsigh:

I can do anything I want with your body, and you can't ever resist, as you could with domination spells. Sanctify the Wicked doesn't grant such control, not that goodness must necessarily value free will above all.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 07:47 PM
The fact that you keep leaving "for clerics of a non-good alignment serving a deity/cause that isn't good aligned either" out of my argument is telling. Stop leaving off the detail that is irrelevant to your position, or you've no argument.

I keep leaving "nongood clerics" because it is irrelevant. It still doesn't make mindless undead inherently evil.

onthetown
2010-08-16, 07:52 PM
Depends strongly on the setting and especially the character, I would say.

Look at Garth Nix's Sabriel. Yes, most necromancers are evil, but Sabriel herself is a necromancer that puts the dead to rest and only raises them as servants to help her.

Then you could have another setting where almost all necromancers do their work putting spirits to rest and only raising servants to help them do so, with one or two bad eggs.

And you could have another with entirely good.

And another with entirely evil.

I guess it depends on intent, as well as belief.

Shatteredtower
2010-08-16, 08:28 PM
I keep leaving "nongood clerics" because it is irrelevant. It still doesn't make mindless undead inherently evil.

No, you keep leaving it off because it invalidates your argument. A tool that registers as evil, is vulnerable to holy items, and is far more easily controlled by the wicked than the saintly, is evil, even if mindless. We're not discussing multipurpose tools here. You'd expect the worst if you saw them rise spontaneously from their graves, in game or out of it.

Now, if you're going to address the post, show your work for once.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 08:43 PM
No, you keep leaving it off because it invalidates your argument. A tool that registers as evil, is vulnerable to holy items, and is far more easily controlled by the wicked than the saintly, is evil, even if mindless. We're not discussing multipurpose tools here. You'd expect the worst if you saw them rise spontaneously from their graves, in game or out of it.

Now, if you're going to address the post, show your work for once.

The ability to think is a quality the vast bulk of undead do not possess. Mindless undead merely respond to preset commands or stimuli, driven by nothing other than the energy that animates them. These undead have no outlook; they are robbed of thought. They are nearly mechanical in their actions, and often those actions are as easy to anticipate as the revolution of a water wheel.
Mindless creatures are incapable of having alignments. In the light of the thread's questioning of the evil of necromancy, any mindless undead being labeled as "evil" is done so arbitrarily just like many of the conflicting [Evil] spells.

AmberVael
2010-08-16, 08:46 PM
Being created by evil magic and animated by evil spirits isn't enough of an explanation?
See my above post for the mention of them being animated by evil spirits.

No, it isn't. Firstly, creation through something evil does not make something morally aligned. Secondly, while 'animated by evil spirits' is a possible explanation, it is never stated as such. You are making that assumption, but it is not a true rule.

It is mindless. It could be corrupted by evil, it could be tainted with evil, steeped in the worst and most vile things imaginable, and it would not be evil itself, anymore than an automated turret. It is not sentient. It has no mind. It cannot be evil, only a tool used towards evil.
The same can be said of a sword.
Is even an Unholy sword evil? No, it has no alignment. Because it isn't really an entity in the first place.


I can do anything I want with your body, and you can't ever resist, as you could with domination spells. Sanctify the Wicked doesn't grant such control, not that goodness must necessarily value free will above all.

Out of context. I was not talking about the creation of skeletons being evil, but the skeletons themselves being evil. Even if the person who raises the body is a despicable little man, that doesn't make the body itself evil.

But, I even disagree with the argument you're making. I could easily consent to let someone use my body that way, and it would be fine (especially given that I'm not in it anymore). Now, if they were to take it without asking- yeah, sure, that's evil. But that's not an evil spell, that's an evil act utilizing a spell.

Hawriel
2010-08-16, 08:47 PM
I hate these threads. It only shows how depraved peaple are. I would like to dig up all of your grandparents and do what ever I want with them. i will show them off as oddities. I will experement with their flesh. I will insert steel frames and turn them into puppets, not unlike your would find at disney land or chucky cheese.

Then I will go after your mothers and fathers. I will not wait till they are barried. I'll come to the funeral and take their corpses. I will show up at the hospital and take them from their rooms. They are dead what do you care. They are dead flesh with out a soul. They can not object, for they are gone, as if they never have existed. Just a lump of rotting flesh.

Do any of you have children? I think I'd rather use them. After all they are alot smaller and easyer to manage.

Really, the peaple who post on this board amaze me at their indiference and imoral out look some times. Necromancy, not the original form of speaking with the dead, but the twisting of flesh with no regard or understanding of how peaple would find that offencive.

Oh wait the most wished for power on the boards is mind rape. Why should I supprised at any thing.

AmberVael
2010-08-16, 08:50 PM
I hate these threads. It only shows how depraved peaple are. I would like to dig up all of your grandparents and do what ever I want with them. i will show them off as oddities. I will experement with their flesh. I will insert steel frames and turn them into puppets, not unlike your would find at disney land or chucky cheese.

Then I will go after your mothers and fathers. I will not wait till they are barried. I'll come to the funeral and take their corpses. I will show up at the hospital and take them from their rooms. They are dead what do you care. They are dead flesh with out a soul. They can not object, for they are gone, as if they never have existed. Just a lump of rotting flesh.

Do any of you have children? I think I'd rather use them. After all they are alot smaller and easyer to manage.

Really, the peaple who post on this board amaze me at their indiference and imoral out look some times. Necromancy, not the original form of speaking with the dead, but the twisting of flesh with no regard or understanding of how peaple would find that offencive.

Oh wait the most wished for power on the boards is mind rape. Why should I supprised at any thing.

I don't think anyone is really arguing what you so despise. Personally, I would view it the same way as I would view organ donation- it's your choice what happens to your body after you die. You wanna give it to a necromancer? Fine. If not, they better keep their hands off of it. If someone thinks its disgusting? Well, that's their deal, and they don't have to assist or give up their body if they don't want to.

I think that's the common way of looking at it.

Boci
2010-08-16, 08:50 PM
I hate these threads. It only shows how depraved peaple are. I would like to dig up all of your grandparents and do what ever I want with them. i will show them off as oddities. I will experement with their flesh. I will insert steel frames and turn them into puppets, not unlike your would find at disney land or chucky cheese.

Then I will go after your mothers and fathers. I will not wait till they are barried. I'll come to the funeral and take their corpses. I will show up at the hospital and take them from their rooms. They are dead what do you care. They are dead flesh with out a soul. They can not object, for they are gone, as if they never have existed. Just a lump of rotting flesh.

Do any of you have children? I think I'd rather use them. After all they are alot smaller and easyer to manage.

Really, the peaple who post on this board amaze me at their indiference and imoral out look some times. Necromancy, not the original form of speaking with the dead, but the twisting of flesh with no regard or understanding of how peaple would find that offencive.

We all accept necromancery can be used in an evil way, just like burning someone to death with fireball right in front of their children is evil.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 08:53 PM
I hate these threads. It only shows how depraved peaple are. I would like to dig up all of your grandparents and do what ever I want with them. i will show them off as oddities. I will experement with their flesh. I will insert steel frames and turn them into puppets, not unlike your would find at disney land or chucky cheese.

Then I will go after your mothers and fathers. I will not wait till they are barried. I'll come to the funeral and take their corpses. I will show up at the hospital and take them from their rooms. They are dead what do you care. They are dead flesh with out a soul. They can not object, for they are gone, as if they never have existed. Just a lump of rotting flesh.

Do any of you have children? I think I'd rather use them. After all they are alot smaller and easyer to manage.

Really, the peaple who post on this board amaze me at their indiference and imoral out look some times. Necromancy, not the original form of speaking with the dead, but the twisting of flesh with no regard or understanding of how peaple would find that offencive.


Not imoral, amoral. This is actually a thought exercise. Think about something you "know" to be right or wrong, and imagine what logical purpose it has that doesn't involve anyone other than yourself. Like, for example, wearing pants. There's absolutely no biological reason to wear pants in a tropical land, but people still do so because they were taught to do so.

Now imagine there never was a taboo about corpses. People saw it as little more than an object. Suddenly it doesn't seem "evil" to tamper with corpses now, does it? What we do when we are put to question the alignments is exactly that: to remove the social teachings we had IRL and see how it would apply to the game world.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-08-16, 08:53 PM
Slight correction on my part: they're not golems, but constructs - the two Automata from MM II. The point still stands.

The MMII was 3.0 before skeletons and zombies were listed as neutral evil. So I'm not sure the point still stands under those circumstances.


Harming the soul can't be true: Ghosts are just as Undead as zombies and skeletons, and they have alignment: Any.

There is the evil innate in the creature and the evil innate in the creation.
By harming the soul I'm talking but the act of creating an undead is evil. Even in 3.0 when skeletons/zombies had an alignment of neutral the spell animate dead was still an evil spell.

Ghosts aren't created by a spell-caster but are manifestations of a spirit that can't find its rest it has unfinished business that must be resolved to insure it finds piece in the grave. By willfully creating undead you are keeping the dead from their rest, which can be viewed as an evil act.



Maybe it should - in fact, it would make sense (except that they're powered by negative energy, not death, and, according to the point being debated here, animated by non-Evil negative energy).

But that could be achieved just as well by maintaining zombie/skeletons Neutral (as they were in 3.0) while giving them the [Evil] subtype, which is something I would fully agree with.

EDIT: I'm off to bed, but I look forward to continuing this discussion tomorrow - kudos to everyone for maintaining this civil :smallsmile:

According to Librus Mortis simple undead like zombies are in fact animated by evil spirits and powered by negative energy, they say this when describing the difference between a zombie or a flesh golem.
Negative energy is death, just as positive energy is life, on their own they have to alignment but when perverted... well that's another matter.
.
The trouble with giving them the evil subtype and switching the alignment to neutral the only effective mechanical change is their attacks count as evil for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction, now that's probably a minor change but given that mindless creatures are incapable of change its just simpler to slap the evil alignment on it and call it a day.

I would also say there is probably a difference between trapping a soul and turning the dead into undead.


No, it isn't. Firstly, creation through something evil does not make something morally aligned. Secondly, while 'animated by evil spirits' is a possible explanation, it is never stated as such. You are making that assumption, but it is not a true rule.
Libris Mortis[D&D's book of undead] states that a zombie IS in fact animated by evil spirits and powered by negative energy. So it is in fact stated as such.
They do so when discussion how a zombie is different then a flesh golem.



It is mindless. It could be corrupted by evil, it could be tainted with evil, steeped in the worst and most vile things imaginable, and it would not be evil itself, anymore than an automated turret. It is not sentient. It has no mind. It cannot be evil, only a tool used towards evil.

Your making assumptions that alignment requires a moral choice. Its not stated anywhere that sentience or sapience if required for an alignment.
An unholy weapon is actually evil, "evil magic items" show up on the detect evil spell. So obviously items can have alignments.

If the creature is all those things you described should not a holy weapon deal extra damage? should spells that deal extra damage to evil things effective them as if they were evil? Isn't it easier to simply list their alignment as evil then say its neutral but treated as evil for spell effects.

onthetown
2010-08-16, 08:54 PM
I hate these threads. It only shows how depraved peaple are. I would like to dig up all of your grandparents and do what ever I want with them. i will show them off as oddities. I will experement with their flesh. I will insert steel frames and turn them into puppets, not unlike your would find at disney land or chucky cheese.

Then I will go after your mothers and fathers. I will not wait till they are barried. I'll come to the funeral and take their corpses. I will show up at the hospital and take them from their rooms. They are dead what do you care. They are dead flesh with out a soul. They can not object, for they are gone, as if they never have existed. Just a lump of rotting flesh.

Do any of you have children? I think I'd rather use them. After all they are alot smaller and easyer to manage.

Really, the peaple who post on this board amaze me at their indiference and imoral out look some times. Necromancy, not the original form of speaking with the dead, but the twisting of flesh with no regard or understanding of how peaple would find that offencive.

Oh wait the most wished for power on the boards is mind rape. Why should I supprised at any thing.

The difference is that we're talking about a game, not about actually going out and digging up bodies and doing whatever we want with them. Sometimes we get a little carried away and forget that it is just a game.

We also like debating things. Morality is a fascinating subject.

Thiyr
2010-08-16, 09:06 PM
I hate these threads. It only shows how depraved peaple are. I would like to dig up all of your grandparents and do what ever I want with them. i will show them off as oddities. I will experement with their flesh. I will insert steel frames and turn them into puppets, not unlike your would find at disney land or chucky cheese.

Then I will go after your mothers and fathers. I will not wait till they are barried. I'll come to the funeral and take their corpses. I will show up at the hospital and take them from their rooms. They are dead what do you care. They are dead flesh with out a soul. They can not object, for they are gone, as if they never have existed. Just a lump of rotting flesh.

Do any of you have children? I think I'd rather use them. After all they are alot smaller and easyer to manage.

Really, the peaple who post on this board amaze me at their indiference and imoral out look some times. Necromancy, not the original form of speaking with the dead, but the twisting of flesh with no regard or understanding of how peaple would find that offencive.

Oh wait the most wished for power on the boards is mind rape. Why should I supprised at any thing.

I was going to post what the above said, saying that we're largely attempting to take a philisophical viewpoint and discussing the nature of the subject, through posing ideas which may or may not actually be the ones we agree with. Seeing as none of us can actually raise the dead, we are more easily detatched from the subject, making it easier to look at this from eyes other than the ones we were raised to look through. If you find it offensive even in the context of a game, then there's little purpose in attempting to get us to envision our families being turned into the undead. Beyond that, the imagery you used goes far beyond what we've been discussing.

Would it be as offensive if, presuming a real-world style infrastructure existed, when you signed up for your driver's liscence, you could donate your corpse for use in necromantic-based labor? You die in an accident, and when you die, your body is used for public services. If you haven't volunteered, you won't be subject to it. What if that's been the way your society has been for years, instead of it being a sudden change? If necromancy was discovered alongside fire and the wheel, would it be offensive?

Personally, in that context, I see no reason why necromancy would be at all problematic. It would be just the same as being an organ donor. In fact, you used the very argument for why I am an organ donor. "They are dead what do you care. They are dead flesh with out a soul. They can not object, for they are gone, as if they never have existed. Just a lump of rotting flesh." I won't care, I'm not using it anymore, why shouldn't I make other people's lives better if I'm not gonna be around?

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 09:08 PM
Would it be as offensive if, presuming a real-world style infrastructure existed, when you signed up for your driver's liscence, you could donate your corpse for use in necromantic-based labor? You die in an accident, and when you die, your body is used for public services. If you haven't volunteered, you won't be subject to it. What if that's been the way your society has been for years, instead of it being a sudden change? If necromancy was discovered alongside fire and the wheel, would it be offensive?


It happens for a while now, actually (http://www.ehow.com/how_110893_donate-body-science.html).

Shatteredtower
2010-08-16, 09:14 PM
Mindless creatures are incapable of having alignments.

First, thank you.

Mindless creatures include those whose responses are determined by their programming. If their programming naturally (or supernaturally) inclines to evil, they're evil.

Vael, if I give consent to have my corpse used as the engine for a mill and a later ruler brings it out to quash lawful dissent, I'm not going to be pleased any more than if I'd agreed to join an undead in death and was 'retired' to be used as a chew toy for ferrets. I have no way to enforce the post life contract, especially once those that knew me pass on.

What makes it evil, though, is the inclination others can exploit.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 09:16 PM
First, thank you.

Mindless creatures include those whose responses are determined by their programming. If their programming naturally (or supernaturally) inclines to evil, they're evil.


No, they're neutral. Objects don't turn evil by being used for evil. Animals don't turn evil by being manipulated by evil druids. Golems aren't evil because they are made for evil purposes. Mindless creatures are incapable of having an alignment other than neutral.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-08-16, 09:18 PM
First, thank you.

Mindless creatures include those whose responses are determined by their programming. If their programming naturally (or supernaturally) inclines to evil, they're evil.

According to Libris Mortis a non-sentient undead is simply driven by external stimuli and the forces that animate it. Well if your powered by negative energy and animated by an evil spirit what are you going to do with out a master to order you around?
*once again Libris Mortis states animated by evil spirits for your basic undead*

Where is it stated mindless creatures can't have an alignment other then neutral.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 09:19 PM
No, they're neutral. Objects don't turn evil by being used for evil. Animals don't turn evil by being manipulated by evil druids. Golems aren't evil because they are made for evil purposes. Mindless creatures are incapable of having an alignment other than neutral.

Even if, when left to their own devices, they follow their innate inclination to seek out and harm innocent people for literally no reason other than "That's what they do" ?

If you walk in to a room full of skeletons with no master and no orders, what do you suppose they would do? I dont think they would stare at you mindlessly... well, they might, but after that, they'd more than likely try to rip you to pieces.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 09:22 PM
Even if, when left to their own devices, they follow their innate inclination to seek out and harm innocent people for literally no reason other than "That's what they do" ?
Alignments are explicitly inherent to creatures capable of moral decision, which mindless creatures aren't.
Even if their default reaction when left unattended is "bbrbrrrrainzz", the mindless ones still don't qualify to be called evil.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 09:24 PM
Alignments are explicitly inherent to creatures capable of moral decision, which mindless creatures aren't.
Even if their default reaction when left unattended is "bbrbrrrrainzz", the mindless ones still don't qualify to be called evil.

An inclination to eat the brains of the innocent isnt evil? Huh... I wonder what the pelorians would think about that?

AmberVael
2010-08-16, 09:25 PM
An inclination to eat the brains of the innocent isnt evil? Huh... I wonder what the pelorians would think about that?

If I program a turret to shoot anyone who passes near it, is the turret evil?

I'd probably be evil, or maybe an idiot, but what about the turret?

Lord Vukodlak
2010-08-16, 09:32 PM
Alignments are explicitly inherent to creatures capable of moral decision, which mindless creatures aren't.
Even if their default reaction when left unattended is "bbrbrrrrainzz", the mindless ones still don't qualify to be called evil.

Says who? demons and devils are incapable of more decision. They don't have a choice to be anything but evil. Their made from the essence of it. They can make choices but their moral decision is locked. And of course as said a dozen times Lemurs are mindless yet lawful evil. Why can't the same be said of skeletons and zombies?


If I program a turret to shoot anyone who passes near it, is the turret evil?

I'd probably be evil, or maybe an idiot, but what about the turret?

If I create a creature powered by negative energy and animated by an evil spirit.[and according to Librus Mortis they are in fact animated by evil spirits and powered by negative energy].

Magic items can be evil, this is evident by "evil magic item" showing up on the detect evil list. If an item created by evil magic can be evil. Then it makes perfect sense a mindless creature created by evil magic is also evil.

So saying choice is required to have an alignment [aside from neutral] doesn't hold water.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 09:32 PM
If I program a turret to shoot anyone who passes near it, is the turret evil?

I'd probably be evil, or maybe an idiot, but what about the turret?

What if you didnt program the turret, and it shot anyone who came near it anyways? We could blame it on a design flaw, but what if all turrets ever made everywhere were like that?

I think the problem here is that skeletons and zombies shouldnt be considered mindless in the rules. Int 1 maybe, but anything that decides to do anything on its own should have that ability represented by the rules... Now, if your skeletons and zombies in your campaign do just stand idle when no one tells them otherwise, then sure, they arent evil because they're mindless. But when they decide to go out and slaughter people of their own accord, then maybe they arent as mindless as we might think. The same applies to vermin, I dont think they should be mindless either, since they've been known to flee a losing battle, for example.

AmberVael
2010-08-16, 09:38 PM
What if you didnt program the turret, and it shot anyone who came near it anyways? We could blame it on a design flaw, but what if all turrets ever made everywhere were like that?
Then they'd be dangerous mindless things. That wouldn't make them evil though, anymore than terrible natural disasters and such are evil. That they'd specifically target people would be kind of weird, but no more indicative of a moral state.


I think the problem here is that skeletons and zombies shouldnt be considered mindless in the rules. Int 1 maybe, but anything that decides to do anything on its own should have that ability represented by the rules... Reactions, tendencies, and other such things can be accomplished without thought. You could program a robot to do what the zombie does, and they would be mindless. Capable of reaction, but having no true capacity for thought or reasoning.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 09:41 PM
Says who? demons and devils are incapable of more decision. They don't have a choice to be anything but evil. Their made from the essence of it. They can make choices but their moral decision is locked. And of course as said a dozen times Lemurs are mindless yet lawful evil. Why can't the same be said of skeletons and zombies?

The PHB and SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm)says it, actually.
Creatures incapable of moral action are neutral.
Fiends are always evil because they are capable of understanding that what they are doing is evil.


What if you didnt program the turret, and it shot anyone who came near it anyways? We could blame it on a design flaw, but what if all turrets ever made everywhere were like that?

That's like calling fire evil because it burns. Both are forces in the universe in which they exist.





Magic items can be evil, this is evident by "evil magic item" showing up on the detect evil list. If an item created by evil magic can be evil. Then it makes perfect sense a mindless creature created by evil magic is also evil.

So saying choice is required to have an alignment [aside from neutral] doesn't hold water.

You'll see that magic items ping evil for two reasons
1) Created by evil magic
2) Intelligent and evil

Items under #1 don't qualify to have an alignment, even though they ping evil. It's no different than aura vestiges(Xykon's crown, anyone?).

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 09:48 PM
Besides, what fun is necromancy if it isnt considered evil? Isnt the funnest part of walking down the street with an army of skeletal laborers to rebuild the orphenage the shocked reactions of the people around you? Isnt part of the reason we raise the dead because it isnt widely accepted? Isnt the dark unnatural, dangerous, bringing-death-and-darkness-into-the-world-iness part of the allure? If it was something people did all the time, would it still be special? I think not. The world needs necromancy to be evil. The walking dead arent just one more magical automaton, they're someone's relatives, someone's unused, discarded corpse. They fill a niche, not share one with golems. Even if they volunteered to be that way, isnt the threat of disease and filth from rotting flesh enough to invoke hatred from the massess? I say to you this, forumgoers: When the dead walk the earth, it is the living who shall fill their tombs!

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 09:50 PM
[URL="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm"]
That's like calling fire evil because it burns. Both are forces in the universe in which they exist.


How do you know fire isnt evil? Have you ever asked a fire its motivations?

Shatteredtower
2010-08-16, 09:52 PM
Mindless doesn't mean unaligned, though that's the instinctive default for most creatures. The problem with equating them was that it denied any sort of Night of the Living Dead option where no conscious director was involved. Why create a new monster for what already works as a zombie or skeleton?

Mindless malevolence is not a foreign concept to fantasy. The 3.5 rules just acknowledged it could apply to corporeal creatures as well, even as it acknowledged choice and essence could be at odds with each other. No choice, however, does not dictate no alignment.

AmberVael
2010-08-16, 09:53 PM
If I create a creature powered by negative energy and animated by an evil spirit.[and according to Librus Mortis they are in fact animated by evil spirits and powered by negative energy].

Libris Mortis gives this as one of many explanations, and prefaces those explanations as a number of theories which may contradict one another and may or may not be true.

This is stated on the last paragraph of page 5.


If you're finding it more definitely stated somewhere else, then you may have a point. However, I am not aware of any such text.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 09:57 PM
Mindless doesn't mean unaligned, though that's the instinctive default for most creatures. The problem with equating them was that it denied any sort of Night of the Living Dead option where no conscious director was involved. Why create a new monster for what already works as a zombie or skeleton?

Mindless malevolence is not a foreign concept to fantasy. The 3.5 rules just acknowledged it could apply to corporeal creatures as well, even as it acknowledged choice and essence could be at odds with each other. No choice, however, does not dictate no alignment.

Exactly. If somthing does evil things on its own, even without thinking about it, it's probably evil.

And before fire gets back into this, fire does good things of its own accord too, like clense dead matter from the woods and cook our food, so its neutral. What mindless undead goes out and helps people in any way? :smalltongue:

No comments on my inspiring speech?

AmberVael
2010-08-16, 10:01 PM
Mindless doesn't mean unaligned...

Yes it does.

Mindless means incapable of comprehending or making moral choices, due to a lack of any comprehension at all. This is even more undeniable than animals, and the SRD specifically says:

"Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral rather than good or evil. Even deadly vipers and tigers that eat people are neutral because they lack the capacity for morally right or wrong behavior."

Mindless creatures definitely fall under this category. Therefore, they should be neutral.

Mystic Muse
2010-08-16, 10:06 PM
How do you know fire isnt evil? Have you ever asked a fire its motivations?

I'm fairly certain fire isn't sentient and therefore incapable of having a motivation.

And yes, Fiends can be good. WOTC released a Succubus Paladin.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 10:09 PM
Yes it does.

Mindless means incapable of comprehending or making moral choices, due to a lack of any comprehension at all. This is even more undeniable than animals, and the SRD specifically says:

"Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral rather than good or evil. Even deadly vipers and tigers that eat people are neutral because they lack the capacity for morally right or wrong behavior."

Mindless creatures definitely fall under this category. Therefore, they should be neutral.

Except for the part where mindless undead ARE capaple of morally wrong behavior. They can make immoral choices despite lack of comprehension, just like lemures, or whichever one of those fiends is mindless. It's just what they do. Tigers and snakes dont care. They eat or bite because they're hungry or defending themselves, but why would a mindless undead go out and kill things if not because it's evil?

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 10:11 PM
I'm fairly certain fire isn't sentient and therefore incapable of having a motivation.

That's called a joke, lol. Wait, are there people actually taking this debate seriously?:smalleek:

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 10:12 PM
Except for the part where mindless undead ARE capaple of morally wrong behavior. They can make immoral choices despite lack of comprehension, just like lemures, or whichever one of those fiends is mindless. It's just what they do. Tigers and snakes dont care. They eat or bite because they're hungry or defending themselves, but why would a mindless undead go out and kill things if not because it's evil?

The mindlessness is exactly what disqualifies it from being able to understand morality. They don't even have a mind so they "not care" more than an animal would.

You are confusing deeds with actors, though. You don't have to be evil to commit evil deeds. You don't have to be good to commit good deeds.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 10:14 PM
The mindlessness is exactly what disqualifies it from being able to understand morality. They don't even have a mind so they "not care" more than an animal would.

You are confusing deeds with actors, though. You don't have to be evil to commit evil deeds. You don't have to be good to commit good deeds.

Lets turn it around then. Is something mindless that tends to do good when left to its own devices good aligned?

Thiyr
2010-08-16, 10:15 PM
Except for the part where mindless undead ARE capaple of morally wrong behavior. They can make immoral choices despite lack of comprehension, just like lemures, or whichever one of those fiends is mindless. It's just what they do. Tigers and snakes dont care. They eat or bite because they're hungry or defending themselves, but why would a mindless undead go out and kill things if not because it's evil?

Because they don't think about what they are told to do, they simply do it? They lack the capability to make choices, not just a lack of comprehension. A lion can choose to eat or run away. A lemure can choose to fight or flee. A skeleton -can't choose anything-. They are incapable of choosing anything, moral or otherwise.

Edit: Something that does good things but is mindless is similarly not good. You don't say that an airbag is morally good becuase it saves lives at its own expense. same with a doctor's scalpel. or a robot that puts out fires and builds orphanages.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 10:15 PM
Lets turn it around then. Is something mindless that tends to do good when left to its own devices good aligned?

Nope. It's neutral.

AmberVael
2010-08-16, 10:16 PM
Lets turn it around then. Is something mindless that tends to do good when left to its own devices good aligned?

Of course not. If a coffee pot automatically brews coffee every morning with amazing flavor that cures cancer, that's totally awesome, but it doesn't make the coffee pot moral.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 10:17 PM
Because they don't think about what they are told to do, they simply do it? They lack the capability to make choices, not just a lack of comprehension. A lion can choose to eat or run away. A lemure can choose to fight or flee. A skeleton -can't choose anything-. They are incapable of choosing anything, moral or otherwise.

Right, they just DO. And what they DO is evil, and solely evil, at least in a typical setting. Isnt that worth being evil aligned?

Mystic Muse
2010-08-16, 10:17 PM
Lets turn it around then. Is something mindless that tends to do good when left to its own devices good aligned?


Once again, no.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 10:18 PM
Of course not. If a coffee pot automatically brews coffee every morning with amazing flavor that cures cancer, that's totally awesome, but it doesn't make the coffee pot moral.

But it does make it a good thing. Holy coffee pots are good, mindless killing machines are evil.

And once again, we're back to the subject of programming. If that coffee pot did it of its own accord mysteriously the way skeles and zoms do, what then?

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 10:20 PM
Right, they just DO. And what they DO is evil, and solely evil, at least in a typical setting. Isnt that worth being evil aligned?

Detach deeds from creature. The creature's alignment resides in its capability of moral choice. If the creature has no such capability, it cannot have an alignment. What the creature DOES is disconnected.

AmberVael
2010-08-16, 10:25 PM
And once again, we're back to the subject of programming. If that coffee pot did it of its own accord mysteriously the way skeles and zoms do, what then?

I was already assuming this. But just for restating-

If a coffee pot mysteriously appeared in my house, neither made or programmed by anyone, or even touched, but just as mysteriously dispensed good flavored, cancer curing coffee to cancer suffering patients- as long as it had no mind of its own, it still would have no alignment.

Mindless = No alignment (well, neutral- in the eyes of D&D, they're the same thing). No matter how you cut it, that's what I'm standing by.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-08-16, 10:26 PM
Libris Mortis gives this as one of many explanations, and prefaces those explanations as a number of theories which may contradict one another and may or may not be true.

This is stated on the last paragraph of page 5.

If you're finding it more definitely stated somewhere else, then you may have a point. However, I am not aware of any such text.

I think its fairly definite given its discussing the difference between a golem and a zombie under purposeful reanimation. It doesn't conflict with any other theories. Purposeful animation really isn't a theory its a confirmed origin for undead. Given that skeletons/zombies are already evil we can guess that ;

But lets look at the theories, they all imply evil as an origin of undead.
Atrocity calls to unlife makes extensive mention of evil spirits animating bodies
Negative energy as a supportive also mentions dark spirits in the dead that feed off the negative energy.
Negative energy as a draining force, gives that even the weakest undead drains life from the material plane into the negative to power its self. Sucking the life out of the material sounds evil to me.

Pick a theory to undead origins in that back they all drift back to evil, either a good spirit is forced to be undead, an evil spirit inhabitants a corpse, or the contagion of undeath corrupts the soul to evil.

The book appears to imply that an undead IS evil unless its capable of the moral choice to be otherwise.

Thiyr
2010-08-16, 10:28 PM
Right, they just DO. And what they DO is evil, and solely evil, at least in a typical setting. Isnt that worth being evil aligned?

Once again, by that logic, animals should be aligned (as they choose to kill things and desecrate the corpse for entirely selfish reasons.) Golems should be aligned based on their orders as well. Animals, however, are neutral specifically because they are inapable of thinking "Hey, maybe killing some thinking being is wrong.". Golems as well. Mindless undead are just as incapable (if not more incapable than the animals) of such thoughts, as they, by definition, cannot have thoughts (being mindless). There isn't a malicious bone in a skeleton's body.

edit: looking at the negative energy theories in LM tells me that the author made the incorrect conclusion that negative energy is evil. In "negative energy as supporting force", it brings up the typical link between negative energy and evil individuals, but never mentions evil spirits. Additionally, under "Purposeful Reanimation", they mention said evil spirits, but they make a mistake. If negative energy powers undead, then negative energy is imbued into them via animate dead, correct? Then flesh golems are in part powered by negative energy, as animate dead is a spell needed to make them.

Further evidence to undead neutrality is Undeath as Contagion. Diseases are not good or evil, they are neutral (similarly to animals). if undeath is simply a disease, then the cause of undeath is neutral, meaning that an argument of undead evilness based on the source of undeath doesn't work.

Rutskarn
2010-08-16, 10:32 PM
Really, the peaple who post on this board amaze me at their indiference and imoral out look some times. Necromancy, not the original form of speaking with the dead, but the twisting of flesh with no regard or understanding of how peaple would find that offencive.

Offensive? Who says it's not offensive? It's icky, and gross, and disrespectful towards corpses, but that by no means makes it evil.

Fire can do horrifying things to a person. If I cast a spell on somebody that burned them to death, their eyes would burst, their hair would combust, their skin would peel, and their bones would char within their body. It would be grisly. It would be Grisly Adams. Yet a fireball is by no means exclusively a tool of evil.

All adventurers specialize in killing things, often in extremely non-pretty ways. Doing something with corpses seems no worse than creating them in the first place.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 10:35 PM
Detach deeds from creature. The creature's alignment resides in its capability of moral choice. If the creature has no such capability, it cannot have an alignment. What the creature DOES is disconnected.

Something must be driving it to commit these deeds though. Maybe undead are like lemures, who, despite being mindless, know that if they can make themselves stand out amongst the other lemures, they stand a chance at being promoted. This is why I dont like the idea of things that act on their own without being told being mindless. Without a mind, they should just stand there. Something evil within them is making them do evil things, it's inherent.

Then again, maybe they cant decide because its the only thing they know, and cant comprehend anything alse. There is a spell that awakens undead, and at that point, they can choose whether they care or not. Before that, there is no choice, no regret, no knowing that what they are doing is evil. All they know is killing. It is their choice to kill because there is no other choice that they can comprehend. So I can see how they might be considered neutral in that regard.

What it boils down to in the end is how you want to run them in your campaign. I like my zombies evil, because their very existance is a detriment unto the world. If it suits your roleplaying needs to have them be pityable neutral victims or selfless heroic martyrs (For Karrnath! Bad example, but relavent.) then those are perfectly valid veiwpoints as well.

AmberVael
2010-08-16, 10:37 PM
All adventurers specialize in killing things...

I would argue that some adventurers specialize in getting killed, or simply running around in a state in which they are extraordinarily likely to be killed, or specialize in being in a constant state of being beaten in humiliating ways.

Poor Cahmel. :smalltongue:

Thiyr
2010-08-16, 10:42 PM
Something must be driving it to commit these deeds though. Maybe undead are like lemures, who, despite being mindless, know that if they can make themselves stand out amongst the other lemures, they stand a chance at being promoted. This is why I dont like the idea of things that act on their own without being told being mindless. Without a mind, they should just stand there. Something evil within them is making them do evil things, it's inherent.

Lemures aren't actually mindless, I'd like to note. They have an int score. They can't reason, but they have a mind. Skeletons/zombies have an int of dash. They would just stand there without orders. Therefore, mindless.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 10:48 PM
Lemures aren't actually mindless, I'd like to note. They have an int score. They can't reason, but they have a mind. Skeletons/zombies have an int of dash. They would just stand there without orders. Therefore, mindless.

Oh, they are? Someone said they were mindless, and I thought I remembered them being that way?

::looks it up::

They are mindless. Check your monster manual, since the SRD site lists them as Int: 0. I'm not trying to be a smart arse, btw, just relating what I did/found.

Edit: their entry says "Lemures crave revenge against the universe that has made them
what they are. They surge toward anything they meet and try to
claw it apart. Only a telepathic command from other devils or the
complete destruction of the lemures can make them stop."

I'm about to go look up skeles and zoms too, hang on...

Thiyr
2010-08-16, 10:50 PM
Right you are. I apparently misread. Oh well, it happens.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 10:58 PM
Quoth the MM:


Skeletons are the animated
bones of the dead, mindless
automatons that obey the
orders of their evil masters.
~
A skeleton does only what it
is ordered to do. It can draw no
conclusions of its own and takes no
initiative. Because of this limitation,
its instructions must always be
simple, such as “Kill anyone
who enters this chamber.”
A skeleton attacks
until destroyed, for
that is what it
was created to
do.

By that description, skeles certainly do sound neutral. Lets look at zombies...


Zombies are corpses reanimated through dark and sinister magic.
These mindless automatons shamble about, doing their creator’s
bidding without fear or hesitation.

Also seems to tend toward neutrality. Hmm... As presented in the MM, mindless undead dont really seem all that bad. I dont know if I really care for that interpretation, however, but that's just me. It seems that if you use them like they're written in the book rather than like they are in most fantasy things, that they're really more neutral.

So now there needs to be discussion about how can a mindless dretch Lemure (oops) be evil if a mindless skeleton cant? :smalltongue:

Thiyr
2010-08-16, 11:06 PM
So now there needs to be discussion about how can a mindless dretch be evil if a mindless skeleton cant? :smalltongue:

Personally, I'd argue that dretches and lemures are evil due to the alignment subtypes they have, due to being outsides coming from an aligned plane.

Jarrick
2010-08-16, 11:13 PM
Personally, I'd argue that dretches and lemures are evil due to the alignment subtypes they have, due to being outsides coming from an aligned plane.

(That was supposed to be lemures, btw, dretches have int:5, my bad, not yours)

Thats definately a good reason. But what about them craving revenge? They have an evil motive, so one would think they'd have intellegence...? I dont want to get involved in that debate though, I just thought I'd get you all thinking again before I go to bed. It's been fun. I dont do this sort of thing usually, I'll have to do this more often. :smallbiggrin: Peace out!

Tetsubo 57
2010-08-17, 06:37 AM
I would probably rather be Charmed than Fireballed.

But at least the Fireball isn't usurping your will.

hamishspence
2010-08-17, 06:40 AM
That's the thing though- what does it feel like to have "your will usurped" via something like Dominate?

Remember that Charm doesn't exactly usurp the will, it simply implants one extra belief- that the caster is a close friend.

JBento
2010-08-17, 07:11 AM
Damn - I sleep for 10hours and two pages of replies pop up :smalleek:

I think most points have already been answered to by other people - except the one "it can be more easily done by the bad dudes." At which point I submit to you the Flesh Golem - who too cannot be created by Good clerics (or clerics of Good deities) due to the fact that it requires Animate Dead as well.

If there are unanswered points, please answer them back to me.

Note 1: It's icky and disrespectful=/=Evil. On the other hand, I certainly don't think it's icky or disrespectful to be used as an organ donor. YMMV.

Note 2: Though zombie "braiiiinnnnssss" movies can be good and entertaining, please refrain from pulling them into a D&D RAW discussion :smallsmile:

Boci
2010-08-17, 07:18 AM
But at least the Fireball isn't usurping your will.

So between being hideously burnt or getting drunk, you'd choose the former?

Peregrine
2010-08-17, 10:18 AM
Of course not. If a coffee pot automatically brews coffee every morning with amazing flavor that cures cancer, that's totally awesome, but it doesn't make the coffee pot moral.

I would disagree. If the coffee pot has awareness (the definition of a "creature" in D&D), then I'd say it is Good.

But of course I would. I like the alignment system and support its use (with house rules and refluffing where necessary). :smallsmile:

So to me, animals aren't just neutral because they can't make moral choices, but because there is no moral component to their actions at all; they never kill or injure for any reason that is not linked by their instinctive minds to sheer survival. They don't harm or help for any reason except to benefit "me and mine" (which, in my interpretation, is a part of the very definition of neutrality). Mindless undead, also in my interpretation, have an innate urge to kill, destroy, harm, torment, and so on; evil actions undertaken for no reason other than that they want to. Aligned outsiders are not perfect exemplars of their alignments -- that's the gods -- and so they are able to change alignment, in very rare cases. But most of them don't, not because they can't (although it is very hard for them), but because acting their alignment feels good (part of why it's so hard to change).

Mystic Muse
2010-08-17, 10:28 AM
I would disagree. If the coffee pot has awareness (the definition of a "creature" in D&D), then I'd say it is Good. Except it doesn't as it is a coffee pot.



So to me, animals aren't just neutral because they can't make moral choices, but because there is no moral component to their actions at all; they never kill or injure for any reason that is not linked by their instinctive minds to sheer survival. They don't harm or help for any reason except to benefit "me and mine" (which, in my interpretation, is a part of the very definition of neutrality).
Actually, Dolphins will have their way with other dolphins and humans for gits and shiggles. I Doubt most people here don't think that's an evil act.


Mindless undead, also in my interpretation, have an innate urge to kill, destroy, harm, torment, and so on; evil actions undertaken for no reason other than that they want to. I don't think Unintelligent undead are capable of wanting anything. If that's the way it works in your game world that's fine. However, by RAW, I'm fairly certain undead don't go on zombie apocolypses unless they're intelligent or they're commanded to.

dsmiles
2010-08-17, 10:37 AM
@Peregrine: According to your definition, mindless undead do things without orders, while the MM says that they have to have orders to do anything. An uncontrolled, mindless undead should be listed as neutral. I'm a mindless undead. Without orders, I just kind of stand here looking gross. Does that make me inherently evil? If so, I present to you the blobfish:

http://www.bountyfishing.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/oceana-ecard_blobfish.jpg

It just swims around all day, eating, and looking far more disturbing than a corpse. Thus, it's inherently evil.

hamishspence
2010-08-17, 10:38 AM
Aligned outsiders are not perfect exemplars of their alignments -- that's the gods -- and so they are able to change alignment, in very rare cases.

Even the gods, in many cases, are capable of behaving in a fashion contrary to their alignment- I think either Manual of the Planes or FRCS points out that the alignments given to the gods are generalizations- they represent the way the god will behave most of the time- but occasionally Good gods will do cruel things, or Evil gods kindly things.

dsmiles
2010-08-17, 10:39 AM
However, by RAW, I'm fairly certain undead don't go on zombie apocolypses unless they're intelligent or they're commanded to.

By RAW, those movies would be more like "Ghoul Apocalypse" (or "Ghast Apocalypse" if they smelled bad).

Peregrine
2010-08-17, 10:52 AM
Except it doesn't as it is a coffee pot.

In which case it has no business being compared with a skeleton, which is a creature. (It has awareness -- Wis and Cha, scanty though the latter may be -- even though it has no capacity for reason, or Int.)


Actually, Dolphins will have their way with other dolphins and humans for gits and shiggles. I Doubt most people here don't think that's an evil act.

Nobody's yet figured out just how intelligent real-world animals are, and it's probably a moot point as we keep realising just how flawed all our measurements of "intelligence" are.

D&D doesn't have this problem. Its intelligence is a single measurement and its animals are incapable of acting malicious.


I don't think Unintelligent undead are capable of wanting anything. If that's the way it works in your game world that's fine. However, by RAW, I'm fairly certain undead don't go on zombie apocolypses unless they're intelligent or they're commanded to.

I fully agree that I am overruling RAW by saying that mindless undead will do anything without orders. I believe that this is an oversight, something that should have been changed in the 3.5 update, since that's when they were redefined from Neutral to Evil. (This is also in answer to you, dsmiles. Leave the poor endangered blobfish out of this. :smallwink:)

As for not wanting anything, well, I use the term loosely. Say rather that all creatures have some form of "motivation", and skeletons are motivated by the snuffing out of life.


Even the gods, in many cases, are capable of behaving in a fashion contrary to their alignment- I think either Manual of the Planes or FRCS points out that the alignments given to the gods are generalizations- they represent the way the god will behave most of the time- but occasionally Good gods will do cruel things, or Evil gods kindly things.

Which is dumb, and while I can't say I don't play in the Forgotten Realms nor use MotP for this reason, it's certainly not endearing them to me. :smalltongue:

Rutskarn
2010-08-17, 10:54 AM
But at least the Fireball isn't usurping your will.

It's usurping my dermis.

hamishspence
2010-08-17, 10:54 AM
Which is dumb, and while I can't say I don't play in the Forgotten Realms nor use MotP for this reason, it's certainly not endearing them to me. :smalltongue:

Quite a few of them were mortal once- might be a part of it.

Really, D&D doesn't have much in the way of "entities of pure evil/good" since even the gods have a certain flexibility.

Maybe taint elementals?

dsmiles
2010-08-17, 10:55 AM
It's usurping my dermis.

Pshaw! who needs a dermis when you have "OHGODTHEBURNING!!!!!!!" :smallbiggrin:

Mystic Muse
2010-08-17, 11:23 AM
In which case it has no business being compared with a skeleton, which is a creature. (It has awareness -- Wis and Cha, scanty though the latter may be -- even though it has no capacity for reason, or Int.)



Nobody's yet figured out just how intelligent real-world animals are, and it's probably a moot point as we keep realising just how flawed all our measurements of "intelligence" are.

D&D doesn't have this problem. Its intelligence is a single measurement and its animals are incapable of acting malicious.

okay, lets use an ape for this example. It has better intelligence, the same wisdom and better charisma than unintelligent undead.

If unintelligent undead are capable of acting malicious then so are animals.





I fully agree that I am overruling RAW by saying that mindless undead will do anything without orders.
Then why are you trying to argue with us? We're coming from completely different standpoints. I (and several others) are arguing the rules as written and you're arguing "Rules as I think they should work".



As for not wanting anything, well, I use the term loosely. Say rather that all creatures have some form of "motivation", and skeletons are motivated by the snuffing out of life. In your world, maybe. By RAW they're motivated by whatever their creator tells them to do and that's what I'm arguing.

hamishspence
2010-08-17, 11:35 AM
Which is dumb, and while I can't say I don't play in the Forgotten Realms nor use MotP for this reason, it's certainly not endearing them to me. :smalltongue:

I've checked- it's FRCS, on page 233, in the Deity Format section:


Alignment
The deity's alignment is the most common alignment evidenced by the deity. Just as evil deities can act beneignly to advance their cause, good deities sometimes need to be cruel to save something of importance, and so a deity's alignment is just a guideline.

Personally I think it makes deities interesting, and less like cardboard characters utterly incapable of doing something Good if they're Evil, or Evil, if they're Good. They may be outsiders with alignment subtypes, often, but they're flexible.

Nanoblack
2010-08-17, 12:27 PM
It's usurping my dermis.

I hope you don't mind me sigging this. Now on to business...

I have seen more than a dozen posts on this thread of people suggesting that when left to their own devices, these mindless undead go on puppy kicking sprees. Please, for the love of Heironius, point me to where this is explicitly stated.

hamishspence
2010-08-17, 12:47 PM
I have seen more than a dozen posts on this thread of people suggesting that when left to their own devices, these mindless undead go on puppy kicking sprees. Please, for the love of Heironius, point me to where this is explicitly stated.

The Animate Dead spell:

This spell turns the bones or bodies of dead creatures into undead skeletons that follow your spoken commands. The undead can follow you, or they can remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place.

It doesn't say that you can order the undead to remain where they are and not attack anyone, though.

Libris Mortis suggests that "the malicious spirits animating most of the mindless dead" ar "nodes of unquenchable hunger, seeking only to feed"

You are right in that it is not explicitly stated that an uncontrolled mindless undead will attack anything that comes near it though. This tends to be more an extrapolation, than based on anything specific.

FelixG
2010-08-17, 01:22 PM
I fully agree that I am overruling RAW by saying that mindless undead will do anything without orders. I believe that this is an oversight, something that should have been changed in the 3.5 update, since that's when they were redefined from Neutral to Evil. (This is also in answer to you, dsmiles. Leave the poor endangered blobfish out of this. :smallwink:)



Undead are "Evil" in 3.5 IIRC to give paladins more things to smite. As undead were a common "evil wizard" minion the powers that be wanted paladins to be able to use their smitage more often thus made them Evil. It was a stupid arbitrary decision.

Also its a little odd to have something with no free will go "RWAR I EAT BRAINZ" when it gets no orders...its a bit like expecting my car to go start running people down because i dont have the key in the ignition, or my xbox hoping on live to insult people because i dont have the controller in hand.

In truth though creating a golem is more damaging to nature and evil than creating a little undead automaton.

Also for those arguing that a "good" cleric cant do things with undead, unless i missed something, they can cast animate dead just as easily without repercussion as an evil cleric.

Heck for that matter a cleric of a good god who has the death domain could animate dead with the BLESSING of their chosen god!

EDIT IN SO I DONT DOUBLE POST:



I have seen more than a dozen posts on this thread of people suggesting that when left to their own devices, these mindless undead go on puppy kicking sprees. Please, for the love of Heironius, point me to where this is explicitly stated.

Mostly its people that, I assume, dont bother to read up on the subject and just want to chime in with their own opinions without researching the material first.

If you want something to directly refute their flaunted illiteracy: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/skeleton.htm :P



A skeleton is seldom garbed in anything more than the rotting remnants of any clothing or armor it was wearing when slain. A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do. It can draw no conclusions of its own and takes no initiative.


Meaning if you tell a skeleton to stand there then release it from control, it wont go on a rampage "just because its undead lulz!" it will just stand there. Actively going on a rampage would fall under the "taking its own initiative" portion, and is thus faulty

hamishspence
2010-08-17, 01:26 PM
No Good deity has the Death domain, currently, and few Neutral Deities do (Wee Jas is one).

And as far as I can tell, no Good cleric can cast [Evil] spells anyway- so LG clerics of Wee Jas, unlike LN or LE ones, simply cannot cast Animate Dead.

The writers of Draconomicon seem to have agreed that mindless undead being Evil, is stupid- unlike normal skeletons and zombies in 3.5, the Skeletal Dragon and Zombie Dragon templates are Neutral-aligned.

dsmiles
2010-08-17, 02:09 PM
No Good deity has the Death domain, currently, and few Neutral Deities do (Wee Jas is one).

And as far as I can tell, no Good cleric can cast [Evil] spells anyway- so LG clerics of Wee Jas, unlike LN or LE ones, simply cannot cast Animate Dead.

The writers of Draconomicon seem to have agreed that mindless undead being Evil, is stupid- unlike normal skeletons and zombies in 3.5, the Skeletal Dragon and Zombie Dragon templates are Neutral-aligned.

Kelemvor (LN)? Maybe he just has the repose domain. AFB so not sure.

hamishspence
2010-08-17, 02:16 PM
In FRCS he had the Death domain, in the later Faiths and Pantheons, it was replaced with the Repose domain. I think the same applied to all neutral "death deities" in Faerun.

Velsharoon, interestingly, has both the Death and Undeath domains, and despite being an NE deity, allows CN and LN clerics, as written in Faiths & Pantheons.

Peregrine
2010-08-18, 04:14 AM
okay, lets use an ape for this example. It has better intelligence, the same wisdom and better charisma than unintelligent undead.

If unintelligent undead are capable of acting malicious then so are animals.

Not sure I follow the logic there. Is it, "If X is capable of something, and Y is smarter than X, then Y is capable of it too"?

I disagree. D&D gives us three simple numbers to quantitatively measure a mind, but that doesn't mean that everything thinks the same, qualitatively. Just like how the alignment system doesn't capture everything about a person or mean that two creatures of the same alignment will act the same way.

A skeleton's sub-sentient consciousness can be capable of motivations that are alien to an animal's instinctual mind.


Then why are you trying to argue with us? We're coming from completely different standpoints. I (and several others) are arguing the rules as written and you're arguing "Rules as I think they should work".

Because what you call "arguing the rules as written" looks to me like "arguing that the rules as written suck". :smalltongue: I agree that RAW doesn't make sense on this point. But I don't agree that RAW can't make sense; that is, I don't think mindless undead being Evil is stupid or senseless. One simple change to the fluff, no modifications to the mechanics, and I have a system that (to my mind) works fine with evil skeletons.


I have seen more than a dozen posts on this thread of people suggesting that when left to their own devices, these mindless undead go on puppy kicking sprees. Please, for the love of Heironius, point me to where this is explicitly stated.

It doesn't, anywhere. I don't know about anyone else, but as one of the people who've said that several times in this thread, I hope I've made it clear each time that I'm making my own rationalising edit to try and bring harmony to the rules, peace to the world, and so on.

Would it really help if an official Wizards of the Coast book stated it, though? Would it have prevented this argument from happening?

FelixG
2010-08-18, 04:48 AM
It doesn't, anywhere. I don't know about anyone else, but as one of the people who've said that several times in this thread, I hope I've made it clear each time that I'm making my own rationalising edit to try and bring harmony to the rules, peace to the world, and so on.

Would it really help if an official Wizards of the Coast book stated it, though? Would it have prevented this argument from happening?

Why yes, it would. Because then the people who say "OMG KILLING SPREEZ" would be supported by some peice of material, instead of as is the current standard (not in your case as you know the rules and homebrew otherwise) of saying something that is in direct conflict with how the monster entry is written.

The entry itself says they cant go off and do something on their own, be it build a dam, raise a kitten back to health, brutaly tear apart farm hands or what have you. Unless they are told to do something ( By RAW, no homebrew rules) they will just stand there and give the 1,000 yard stare, because they are tools, not sentient beings.

Peregrine
2010-08-18, 04:59 AM
Why yes, it would. Because then the people who say "OMG KILLING SPREEZ" would be supported by some peice of material

Yes, but would that make any real difference to this debate? I think the only differences would be: We could no longer say the official rules (on this particular count) are inconsistent with each other. Pro-neutrality arguers couldn't take one of those inconsistent rules and use it to declare the other is wrong. But I don't think either of these would actually change the substance of the debate. The people who think mindless undead should have stayed Neutral would, I reckon, still think that. Instead of saying "it's just a mindless automaton", they could make a reasonable argument that "it has no control over its actions".

To put it another way: if the inconsistent rules were the only thing keeping people from accepting evil, mindless undead into their games, then they ought to have thrown up their hands and shouted "Hallelujah!" when a method of reconciling the rules (namely "OMG KILLING SPREEZ") was proposed. :smallwink:

JBento
2010-08-18, 06:31 AM
"Going in a killing spree when uncontrolled" is hardly a fluff change, much less a minor one. Yes, it makes stuff consistent - as does changing the alignment to NEutral, as they were in 3.0. Your point?

Peregrine
2010-08-18, 06:50 AM
"Going in a killing spree when uncontrolled" is hardly a fluff change, much less a minor one. Yes, it makes stuff consistent - as does changing the alignment to NEutral, as they were in 3.0. Your point?

That both are equally valid, and that neither are RAW, therefore proposing one in this thread is as justified as the other. And since "mindless undead should be Neutral" is exactly what many people are arguing...

Also, "killing spree" wasn't my choice of words. I said that a skeleton without orders will stand around trampling grass into mud and mutilating earthworms (or something like that). It specifically won't go anywhere. But it will attack any living creatures that come past unless ordered not to -- which is in perfect accord with RAW.


The [freshly animated skeletons or zombies] can follow you, or they can remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place.

In fact you could use that bit of description to justify my "will kill small animals that happen by", albeit in the face of the skeleton's description as a monster ("A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do").

JBento
2010-08-18, 06:57 AM
"A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do" happens to be crunch, despite the fact that it has no numbers in it.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any actual game changes that would come from making them Neutral and giving them the [Evil] subtype - since this is what I do in my games, if someone knows some dituation here it will, do please point it out to me, lest I be caught unprepared by my players :smallredface:

hamishspence
2010-08-18, 07:28 AM
One problem with that, would be that if you leave a skeleton on "no orders" mode, then by that logic, such a skeleton could be attacked and not fight back, since it has no specific orders to fight back.

The same would apply if you exceed the number of skeletons you can control, and some become "uncontrolled".

dsmiles
2010-08-18, 07:34 AM
One problem with that, would be that if you leave a skeleton on "no orders" mode, then by that logic, such a skeleton could be attacked and not fight back, since it has no specific orders to fight back.

The same would apply if you exceed the number of skeletons you can control, and some become "uncontrolled".

This is actually the way I DM undead.

Peregrine
2010-08-18, 08:10 AM
"A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do" happens to be crunch, despite the fact that it has no numbers in it.

Yes, but it's arguably at odds with what animate dead says. And more to the point, minor, non-PC related things like crushing earthworms are of dubious mechanical consequence.


Off the top of my head, I can't think of any actual game changes that would come from making them Neutral and giving them the [Evil] subtype - since this is what I do in my games, if someone knows some dituation here it will, do please point it out to me, lest I be caught unprepared by my players :smallredface:

Hey, that's actually pretty good. :smallsmile: It would no doubt make for a fascinating discussion on what it means and why, but mechanically it gets around my best retort to your "that's actually crunch": namely, so is changing their alignment back to Neutral, only that's more dramatic.

The only mechanical difference I can think of is that the [Evil] subtype grants evil-aligned attacks for overcoming DR.

EDIT: Heh, "pretty good"... pun totally not intended.

hamishspence
2010-08-18, 08:13 AM
The closest thing for precedent for changing their alignment back to Neutral, is the fact that Draconomicon skeletal dragons and zombie dragons are Neutral.

Which may result in:

"How come a dragon zombie is Neutral Evil, but a zombie dragon is Neutral?"

Snake-Aes
2010-08-18, 08:24 AM
The closest thing for precedent for changing their alignment back to Neutral, is the fact that Draconomicon skeletal dragons and zombie dragons are Neutral.

Which may result in:

"How come a dragon zombie is Neutral Evil, but a zombie dragon is Neutral?"It serves to point that they don't have a clear cut reason to call them evil. People default them to evil because they're the stereotypical monster.

Tetsubo 57
2010-08-18, 08:45 AM
It serves to point that they don't have a clear cut reason to call them evil. People default them to evil because they're the stereotypical monster.

My issue with the whole thing is that it seems to be completely arbitrary. Someone at WotC just decided, 'Animating the dead is evil.' Without any actual *reason* behind it. So long as the undead in question are mindless they will always be neutral in alignment and a neutral act in creating them in my campaigns. They are a thing. An icky, disgusting thing but just a thing.

hamishspence
2010-08-18, 08:49 AM
My issue with the whole thing is that it seems to be completely arbitrary. Someone at WotC just decided, 'Animating the dead is evil.' Without any actual *reason* behind it.

It goes back to TSR, where "not a good act" tended to be used for "acts that will eventually lead to an evil alignment"

casting Animate Dead was "not a good act, and only evil casters cast it regularly".

CoffeeIncluded
2010-08-18, 08:50 AM
In Aequar, the constructed world in my comic, Necromancy is...It's kinda like nuclear energy. Powerful yet destructive, it can be used for a higher good or the most depraved evil. The Necromancy Lab in one of the magic academies is used to study necromancy and negative energy, as well as possible applications. Good wizards and sorcerers can and do use necromantic spells, with the exception of the Create Undead spells and Trap The Soul/Soul Bind spells. Those are evil.

However, some people have donated their bodies to the Necromancy Lab after they died, so that the wizards/sorcerers/archmages can study the effects of necromancy better. These bodies are created into mindless undead for further study. This is not considered evil, as the subjects willingly donated their bodies for this purpose. Also, since the undead are mindless, their souls are unharmed. After the experiments, their bodies are returned to normal and given an honorable burial. This is pretty much the only time Create Undead is considered acceptable, if a bit squicky.

Tetsubo 57
2010-08-18, 08:51 AM
It goes back to TSR, where "not a good act" tended to be used for "acts that will eventually lead to an evil alignment"

casting Animate Dead was "not a good act, and only evil casters cast it regularly".

Which is equally arbitrary. If the undead in question has no mind and no alignment, how can it lead to an evil alignment for the caster? And didn't they have an actual neutral alignment back in those days?

hamishspence
2010-08-18, 08:53 AM
They did- but I think TSR may have been a bit shy about saying "This is an evil act"

It was similar with hiring an assassin in DMG "Hiring an assassin to murder somebody, is not a good act"

Snake-Aes
2010-08-18, 08:53 AM
My issue with the whole thing is that it seems to be completely arbitrary. Someone at WotC just decided, 'Animating the dead is evil.' Without any actual *reason* behind it. So long as the undead in question are mindless they will always be neutral in alignment and a neutral act in creating them in my campaigns. They are a thing. An icky, disgusting thing but just a thing.

Yup. It's been the center of the "is necromancy evil or not?" discussion. It goes all the way to negative energy itself and the obscurity of the undead creation process and behavior .

AmberVael
2010-08-18, 08:55 AM
Really, the whole thing may stem back to stereotypes.

Even if someone designing the system had thought about it, they might have gone with necromancy and skeletons being evil anyway, given public opinion of D&D. A book arguing that necromancy was just peachy might have only reinforced negative opinions.

Tetsubo 57
2010-08-18, 08:56 AM
They did- but I think TSR may have been a bit shy about saying "This is an evil act"

It was similar with hiring an assassin in DMG "Hiring an assassin to murder somebody, is not a good act"

But that has nothing to do at all with animating a corpse. Is making a sword an evil act? If not, than making a skeleton isn't either. They are both things.

Ichneumon
2010-08-18, 08:57 AM
In my campaigns necromancy is evil, because it is DARK magic and dark=evil.:smallwink:

Tetsubo 57
2010-08-18, 08:57 AM
Really, the whole thing may stem back to stereotypes.

Even if someone designing the system had thought about it, they might have gone with necromancy and skeletons being evil anyway, given public opinion of D&D. A book arguing that necromancy was just peachy might have only reinforced negative opinions.

I'm 45. I'll make those sort of calls for myself.

hamishspence
2010-08-18, 08:57 AM
A vermin is mindless too- and it's not a "thing"

Skeletons are, as written, creatures and not "objects". Even animated objects are creatures, technically.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-18, 08:58 AM
But that has nothing to do at all with animating a corpse. Is making a sword an evil act? If not, than making a skeleton isn't either. They are both things.

Rather, both creations are disconnected from an inherent alignment. The intent of the creator may be aligned, like making a skeleton to steal candy and making a sword to poke poodles.

AmberVael
2010-08-18, 08:59 AM
I'm 45. I'll make those sort of calls for myself.

Just because you say that doesn't mean other people will. *shrug*

Snake-Aes
2010-08-18, 09:00 AM
I'm 45. I'll make those sort of calls for myself.
The company can't rely on that, though. They have a broad market (basically anyone that is currently 15-25 and anyone that was that old when their previous materials were published), and that can cause a major ruckus with soccer moms and other similar stereotypes. Poking taboos is always controversial and as such they'll usually avoid it.

dsmiles
2010-08-18, 09:05 AM
Rather, both creations are disconnected from an inherent alignment. The intent of the creator may be aligned, like making a skeleton to steal candy and making a sword to poke poodles.

Poodle Poking =/= evil. It is simply putting those horrifying creatures out of my misery.
Stealing candy is pretty evil, though.

I still don't think that Necromancy as a school of magic is inherently evil.
Is Conjuration evil? When you summon an evil creature...oh heck...

When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type.
Does this make Conjuration evil when considered in the same context as Necromancy? Spells with the evil descriptor do not make an entire school evil. Or is this solely about animating/creating undead?

JBento
2010-08-18, 09:13 AM
A vermin is mindless too- and it's not a "thing"

Skeletons are, as written, creatures and not "objects". Even animated objects are creatures, technically.

Interestingly, this means that if mindless undead DO go around attacking stuff when they have no standing orders, they'd attack each other :smallconfused:

Or they would, unless you're actually following Libris Mortis (the Book of Bad Latin) ruling on organ-less undead's senses (pg.11, Lifesense) that means that if there are no living creatures nearby (and non-creature plants don0t cound as creatures in D&D) they can't see each other... or themselves... or walls... or the floor. :smallyuk:

It also means when the powerful lich necromancer orders his skellie and zombie minions to follow him and wreak havoc... they actually don't. :smallannoyed:

Hadn't though of the DR/Evil bypassing... I don't think that'll have any impact, but it's good to be prepared - thanks :smallsmile:

Lysander
2010-08-18, 09:27 AM
I'd like to make a point about "mindless" creatures. A mindless creature is only devoid of an INT stat. However it still has the other mental attributes, wisdom and charisma. What do those give it?

Wisdom - "willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition"
Charisma -"force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness"

Without an int stat it only lacks the ability to "think, learn, or remember". So it lacks reasoning skills. It can't weigh options. It can't learn. It acts on basic instinct or instructions. But it can still feel emotions and pain. It can still like some things and dislike others. And it can rely on common sense to solve obvious problems, for example it can enter a house by breaking through a window instead of beating futilely on a brick wall.

Whether an undead creature is good or evil is another question, but just because they're mindless does not mean that they're machines without any sort of sense of self whatsoever.

dsmiles
2010-08-18, 09:32 AM
Charisma -"force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness"

Sir, that is one SMEXY skeleton you've got, there.
http://www.ytcsummit.com/images/7005s.jpg

Lysander
2010-08-18, 09:35 AM
Sir, that is one SMEXY skeleton you've got, there.
http://www.ytcsummit.com/images/7005s.jpg

Yes, they usually have a charisma score of 1 but that's still very different than a nonability. If it were intelligent enough to speak it could still make diplomacy rolls, just at a -5 penalty.

hamishspence
2010-08-18, 09:36 AM
It also means when the powerful lich necromancer orders his skellie and zombie minions to follow him and wreak havoc... they actually don't. :smallannoyed:

They can be ordered to "move that direction and attack anything you "see"- blind creatures can still move.

JBento
2010-08-18, 11:48 AM
Except that they wouldn't know which direction was *that*, and even if they did, god forbid there should be a closed door in their way... or a chasm. Skeleton lemmings, aren't they fun?
Anyway, that only applies if you use the aforementioned "lifesense" option, which I heartily recommend against.

@Lysander: I don't know if they can - I remember reading (though i can't for the life of me remember where, but it was D&D) that mindless undead will, for instance, keep hitting something they can't damage - like a normal skellie with DR 15.
They will, however, flank - so the argument can go both ways, really :smallsmile:
On the other hand, I'm not sure if mindless creatures will know that glass is more breakable than stone (or wood, or whatever the house is made of).

hamishspence
2010-08-19, 12:15 PM
When theorizing why evil acts (regardless of who they're being committed against) normally change a character's alignment to evil if done regularly:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9176444&postcount=112

I expanded it to cover the issue of undead and negative energy.

Why do all undead, even Neutral and Good aligned ones, detect as evil?
Why is "channelling negative energy" (Rebuke Undead) evil when several negative energy spells (Inflict X Wounds) aren't, and the Negative Energy Plane is not mildly or strongly Evil-aligned?
Why do all undead-creating spells have the [Evil] descriptor?
Why do some spells, which basically just manipulate negative energy (like Desecrate) have the [Evil] descriptor?

My answer is as follows- while some negative energy uses are not evil, and the plane is not evil itself, it is tied to evil- so spells that make a more fundemental use of it, open a conduit to the Force of Evil.

Hence, when Rebuke Undead is used, evil energy seeps from the Force of Evil (since, according to the PHB, Good and Evil are two of the forces that define the cosmos) and just slightly corrupts the user's mind.

In the same way, undead are Made Of Evil- so to speak- evil energy has to be drawn on to, with the help of negative energy, bring their bodies to life. And in the process, it corrupts the mind of the caster toward evil, just a little.

This is why all undead, even good-aligned ones, detect as evil.

Nonevil undead, may have a Good-aligned mind, and a Good-aligned soul, but their body is still Made Of Evil.

Spells like Desecrate, work in a similar way- using negative energy on this level opens up a channel for the Force of Evil.

Only the most "shallow" of negative energy spells, don't do this (the Inflict line) and thus have no effect on the caster.

In a similar way, committing evil acts on a big enough scale, can open a conduit to the negative energy plane and the Force of Evil, and cause the undead to spontaneously rise. This is "Atrocity Calls to Unlife" from Libris Mortis.

JBento
2010-08-19, 01:45 PM
I don't get your reasoning - the Negative Energy Plane is, per definition, the bigger, largest, most concentrated body of negative energy there is. If negative energy was at all "tied to Evil", as you claim, then surely the plane would have to be as well.

Unless you're claiming that uses of negative energy actually involve more negative energy than there actually is in the INFINITE plane made entirely of the stuff, but that would just be silly. :smallconfused:

Funnily enough, intrusions of the NEP on the Shadow transitive plane are Evil areas - ah, will the lack of internal consistency never cease? :smallbiggrin:

Also, Inflict Critical Wounds is nothing BUT channeling negative energy and is still one level higher than Animate Dead - logically, it channels a greater amount of neg energy.

As an aside, Desecration is one of the [Evil] spells on which the tag actually makes sense - just like the Create (Greater) Undead - it is generally used to dedicate a site to an Evil force.

hamishspence
2010-08-19, 01:57 PM
i was thinking along the lines of "it's not the level, or the amount of negative energy, that matters, it's how "deep" the spell reaches- reach deeply enough into the plane, even with a low-level spell, and Evil is contacted.

The plane is not evil- but it's a route to the Force of Evil, if the spell is the right spell.

Animate Dead, Create Undead, etc do it, Harm, Energy Drain, and so on, don't.

It's not that good a theory- but it's an attempt.

Maybe, when something's killed by certain unusual uses of negative energy (energy drain) even though the spell itself is not [Evil] the energy remains in the corpse, acting as a conduit for the Force of Evil to enter, and animate it as a wight.

And if the creature is killed by the Negative Energy Plane itself, the same conduit animates the creature as a wraith.

Starbuck_II
2010-08-19, 02:08 PM
Spells like Desecrate, work in a similar way- using negative energy on this level opens up a channel for the Force of Evil.

Desecrate is a special case: it ends a god's connection (any god).

hamishspence
2010-08-19, 02:20 PM
Desecrate is a special case: it ends a god's connection (any god).

It can be used to do so- but only if there's an altar, shrine, etc to the relevant deity, to sever the connection of.

And if used this way, it doesn't also have the negative energy effects.

Balain
2010-08-19, 02:46 PM
I didn't read all the posts, so maybe this was already said. This is my take on necromancy though. It is considered evil because most people considered it evil. It is true not everything that is considered necromancy is in itself evil. Lots of things involved with necromancy is though. I am pretty sure I can't find a good necromancy spell.

Astral projection is a necromantic spell it is not evil at all. Not really good either, so it's a neutral spell, just depends how it is used.

Animate Dead, I can go with the spell is not evil. But it's also not good. Most people don't want their bodies being animated you some spellcasters purpose. Most people have beliefs on what happens when they die and don't want their bodies disrespected.

Blight, curse circle of death not pleasant sounding spells, people tend to think evil.

The other problem Imagine you live in a world where there are all these evil necromancers and they tend to turn themselves into undead so they can live longer to continue their evil ways. And this happens all the time. All the other sentient undead you know are vampires and such that are evil and try to suck your blood or kill you just cause, etc. People are going to thing necromancy is evil

hamishspence
2010-08-19, 02:54 PM
BoED has plenty, even discounting the notorious Sanctify the Wicked.

Healing Touch, Righteous Glare, and Last Judgement are three.

Some spells are good for protecting others from undead for a bit- Halt Undead, Command Undead, Control Undead.

In Complete Arcane, it suggests quite a few necromancers are good aligned and use their powers against the undead.

golem1972
2010-08-19, 05:33 PM
Just tossing in this little thought for the icky = evil crowd. If defiling corpses is disrespectful and evil, would it be evil to use Animate Objects on corpses?

Mystic Muse
2010-08-20, 02:54 AM
Not sure I follow the logic there. Is it, "If X is capable of something, and Y is smarter than X, then Y is capable of it too"?

I disagree. D&D gives us three simple numbers to quantitatively measure a mind, but that doesn't mean that everything thinks the same, qualitatively. Just like how the alignment system doesn't capture everything about a person or mean that two creatures of the same alignment will act the same way. I'm not saying they think the same. I'm saying that if one has better mental faculties they should either be capable of thinking the same, or, if the one with better mental faculties is incapable of malice, the one with worse shouldn't be capable of malice either.



A skeleton's sub-sentient consciousness can be capable of motivations that are alien to an animal's instinctual mind. How? If the animal's mental faculties are better than the undead in every why, why shouldn't the animal be just as capable of malice (Or whatever makes the undead evil) as the undead?




Because what you call "arguing the rules as written" looks to me like "arguing that the rules as written suck". :smalltongue: In a lot of cases, at least in my personal opinion, they do. My campaigns are usually pretty homebrew heavy.
I agree that RAW doesn't make sense on this point. But I don't agree that RAW can't make sense; that is, I don't think mindless undead being Evil is stupid or senseless. One simple change to the fluff, no modifications to the mechanics, and I have a system that (to my mind) works fine with evil skeletons.
And conversely, one small change to the mechanics and I have a system that I think makes perfect sense.

Peregrine
2010-08-21, 02:02 AM
I'm not saying they think the same. I'm saying that if one has better mental faculties they should either be capable of thinking the same, or, if the one with better mental faculties is incapable of malice, the one with worse shouldn't be capable of malice either.

How? If the animal's mental faculties are better than the undead in every why, why shouldn't the animal be just as capable of malice (Or whatever makes the undead evil) as the undead?

Because they're not "better in every way". They're better by a quantitative yardstick called Intelligence, but that doesn't cover every variation in "ability to think", just as Charisma doesn't mean you possess every variation of "force of personality". (One high-Charisma person is extremely attractive, talkative and likeable. Another is ugly, sullen, and incredibly scary.)

The quality I call "malice" is actually quite different in humans (and other sapient beings) and in mindless undead. The similarity is that both kinds of malice give a creature some sort of satisfaction from doing acts that are Evil. But the skeleton is trying to fill an insatiable hunger to harm, kill and destroy. And both types are alien to an animal, who is also trying to satisfy a hunger, but it's a drive to survive rather than to destroy.

The mindless and the barely sentient are similar in that neither is capable of thinking about their motivations and rejecting them. Though an animal at least has the power to prioritise its motivations or change its approach (or be trained to).

As an aside, I must thank you: I'm making up most of this as I go, because you're making me clarify my opinions about this and set it down in words. It is, I hope, making me a better DM. :smallsmile:


In a lot of cases, at least in my personal opinion, they do. My campaigns are usually pretty homebrew heavy.
And conversely, one small change to the mechanics and I have a system that I think makes perfect sense.

Right. Which is all perfectly valid. I'm just saying that my disagreement with, and fix to, the RAW is no less valid than yours, and that we're both quite on topic when doing so in this thread. Thus answering your question, "why are you trying to argue with us?"

JBento
2010-08-21, 07:20 AM
(One high-Charisma person is extremely attractive, talkative and likeable. Another is ugly, sullen, and incredibly scary.)

This isn't true - a high-Charisma person is just as talkative and likeable as he/she is incredibly scary, which is why the ability gives the same bonus to Diplomacy and Intimidate.

Again, rules as written suck - the small gnome bard is actually scarier than the barrel-chested, battle-scarred half-orc barbarian, unless the latter actually trains more (spends more feats/puts more skill ranks).

He/she is also, per definition, attractive (though not necessarily beautiful, which is what I guess you were going for, he/she still has some quality that makes them... well, attractive, which is WHY they have high Charisma).

Jarrick
2010-08-21, 09:29 AM
Just tossing in this little thought for the icky = evil crowd. If defiling corpses is disrespectful and evil, would it be evil to use Animate Objects on corpses?

Dead people puppets.

Disrespectful? Definately. Evil? Probably. Funny as heck? Definately.

Peregrine
2010-08-21, 10:39 AM
He/she is also, per definition, attractive (though not necessarily beautiful, which is what I guess you were going for, he/she still has some quality that makes them... well, attractive, which is WHY they have high Charisma).

Problems with Intimidate aside (on which I largely agree with you), this really isn't how Charisma works. Balors (Cha 26), ghosts (+4 Cha from template), or even kraken (Cha 20) are not "attractive" or "likeable". They are scary. The PHB may say that "physical attractiveness" is among the things Charisma measures, but the bulk of the rules give the lie to the idea that a high Charisma always means being beautiful and beloved. Fundamentally it means you have presence and confidence; whether for good or ill, or both, varies by creature and by individual.

(You could argue that balors look cool, and are therefore "attractive", but that's (a) very subjective, whereas Charisma is explicitly an innate, not social, quality, and (b) also the case for many animals and other creatures with awesome looks and poor Cha scores. Ultimately, good looks and force of personality are related only in that they build up or tear down one another.)

JBento
2010-08-21, 10:51 AM
Besides Balors, I also propose kraken as attractive - mmmmm, calamari :smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2010-08-25, 08:50 AM
On the subject of refluffing mindless dead so that, left unattended, they attack the living- this is exactly what Pathfinder does:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/zombie


Zombies are unthinking automatons, and can do little more than follow orders. When left unattended, zombies tend to mill about in search of living creatures to slaughter and devour.

(It also removes the [Evil] tag on the Deathwatch spell.)

Snake-Aes
2010-08-25, 08:56 AM
And they're even more guaranteed to be neutral, although with the same dissonance in the alignment description.

hamishspence
2010-08-25, 08:58 AM
yes- zombies and skeletons still have the "Always Neutral Evil" tag, although the proficiency skeletons have with weapons is described as an "evil cunning".

Snake-Aes
2010-08-25, 09:01 AM
yes- zombies and skeletons still have the "Always Neutral Evil" tag, although the proficiency skeletons have with weapons is described as an "evil cunning".

Hmmhmm, just like my evil incarnate has evil cooties. And the cookies she bake are evil. And she has evil intercourse with wenches.

hamishspence
2010-08-25, 09:04 AM
Pathfinder doesn't really fix much in the way of alignment issues.

The only class that has lost an alignment restriction is the Bard (now Alignment Any, instead of Alignment Neutral).

That, and Detect Evil doesn't work on low-level monsters (that aren't undead or outsiders). It does say "Aligned undead" rather than just "undead" now- so creatures like Baelnorns won't ping on it anymore.

JBento
2010-08-25, 09:23 AM
I would like to point out two things:

1) mindless undead attacking when left unattended is not "refluffing." It's "recrunching" - just because it doesn't have numbers doesn't make it fluff.

2) hamishpence appears to be my alignment discussion-opposite: I look forward to the no-doubt inumerous sparring we shall emprehend :smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2010-08-25, 09:26 AM
1) mindless undead attacking when left unattended is not "refluffing." It's "recrunching" - just because it doesn't have numbers doesn't make it fluff.

Good point.


2) hamishpence appears to be my alignment discussion-opposite: I look forward to the no-doubt inumerous sparring we shall emprehend :smallbiggrin:

My views on alignment are heavily based on the splatbooks more than the PHB. Especially those that promote a more nuanced approach than simply "it's evil therefore it must be killed".

I like Heroes of Horror because it suggests you can do minor evil things (like animating the dead) and not be Evil- but Neutral, if you're an otherwise heroic and Good-ish character. Which is what it suggests in its discussion of "antiheroes" and of the Dread Necromancer.

JBento
2010-08-25, 12:06 PM
I like Heroes of Horror because it suggests you can do minor evil things (like animating the dead) and not be Evil- but Neutral, if you're an otherwise heroic and Good-ish character. Which is what it suggests in its discussion of "antiheroes" and of the Dread Necromancer.

And now I'm forced to agree with my opposite - how quantumly disturbing.

Except I don't have Heroes of Horror.

You can also do minor evil things and be Good - as long as they're minor Evil stuff, it all depends on the weights of the scales' plates.

hamishspence
2010-08-25, 12:13 PM
May depend how minor.

Champions of Ruin lists the acts in BoVD and says:

"even good and neutral characters may be driven to these from time to time. But the repeated, deliberate use of many of these is the mark of an evil character"

This is tricky when combined with classes that are expected to regularly cast evil spells, like the Dread Necromancer, but I figure that some acts (casting evil spells, rebuking undead) won't result in an evil alignment on their own- if the character is generally good in other respects.

So, if you're playing an LN cleric of Wee Jas, and you rebuke undead routinely (so you can kill them) or cast minor [Evil] spells routinely (in a good cause) you'll still stay LN and never slip to evil.

Tetsubo 57
2010-08-25, 03:19 PM
To throw something new into the mix... Malhavoc Publishing has a psionic adventure/tool kit called If Thoughts Could Kill. It introduces a psionic power that allows you to raise the dead as zombie-like beings. So, no use of the negative plane, negative energy or divine powers at all. BTW, it's quite good. I will be doing a review probably this weekend.

BobSutan
2010-08-25, 03:30 PM
I don't see it as inherently evil. In fact I'm playing my Necromancer chick as a sort of hippy. Instead of summoning animals and stuff, which feel pain and suffer, she went with undead since she sees it as "No harm, no foul. They're already dead so nobody is really being hurt."

Gensh
2010-08-25, 04:40 PM
To throw something new into the mix... Malhavoc Publishing has a psionic adventure/tool kit called If Thoughts Could Kill. It introduces a psionic power that allows you to raise the dead as zombie-like beings. So, no use of the negative plane, negative energy or divine powers at all. BTW, it's quite good. I will be doing a review probably this weekend.

If you're talking about psianimate dead, then the latest version is in Hyperconscious and has the [evil] tag. The reasoning for it is kind of vague and so is the crunch. What I'm getting from it is that you bring back whatever with the same HD/BAB/whatever but with no class abilities or racial Su abilities. In any case, it does state that they keep their mental ability scores but doesn't say how they've changed or how they look. On the other hand, that same book (Hyperconscious, if not If Thoughts Could Kill) also has the {blank} of isolation series of powers that explicitly allow you to do certain evil things with no consequences with no explanation as to how they work, so using psianimate dead as an example might be a little iffy.