Is a lich necessarily evil?

[Glodart]

So, I have this Level 19 Blaster sorcerer that is now of Venerable age. It is a solo campaign. He is Chaotic Neutral.
I want to know if it is REALLY Evil to turn myself into a lich.
Honestly, it might be a chaotic act to get around the Life-Death Cycle, but I don't really see why it would be Evil. My DM is hesitant to let me become a lich to prolong my life.
So, is it really Evil?
And if yes, Why?

[Gildedragon]

Depends on how you Fluff undead
if they are fluffed evil there are archliches which are deathless and thus good

[atemu1234]

In short, yes. They become evil, as explained in the entry of Monster Manual. It basically directly tells you the act of becoming a lich is an invariably and unequivocally evil act, and that doing it makes you evil.

However, in the broader sense, as with all evil things, there can and will be times in which good characters must become liches for good reasons, and this should be weighed by the DM.

For a nonevil lich, I believe it was Faerun that had something like that. I'll see what I can find for you.

[Gildedragon]

There is also the option of going Necropolitan; cheaper, if easier to destroy... but you can find some necromancer to help you out you can get out a lot of goodies

[Red Fel]

Per the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lich.htm):

The process of becoming a lich is unspeakably evil and can be undertaken only by a willing character.
So, you have to do something "unspeakably evil" to become a Lich. Generally speaking, I'd read that as causing an alignment shift. Which makes sense - no Good person would be willing to commit an "unspeakably evil" act just to become an immortal wizard. Neutral persons, possible but also unlikely. Being willing to commit an "unspeakably evil" act is generally the hallmark of Evil characters.

That said, does a Lich have to stay Evil? Nope. Can't see that requirement anywhere. A Lich is like any other intelligent creature (aside from Outsiders); it can make moral choices, including choosing to be Good.

Bit of a slog for the Lich, though, seeing as it started its career in undeath by committing an "unspeakably evil" act.

[Gemini476]

Alignment: Any evil.

LICH CHARACTERS
The process of becoming a lich is unspeakably evil and can be
undertaken only by a willing character. A lich retains all class abilities it had in life.

I do believe that that explains most of it.

[Glodart]

So, I found the information in Monsters of Faerun about good liches. It is indeed possible to make good liches, so I'm gonna assume that it is also possible to make a neutral one

[Arbane]

ISTR making a phylactery requires rather more baby blood than is contained in one baby. :smalleek: Presumably the other rites involved are just as unpleasant.

[Hobbo Jim]

Actually, no, they don't. I believe it's in magic of faerun (or one of the faerun books) there is a "good" lich, and I think a very similar arch-lich. Typically these are liches that have such an affinity to guard something that their soul detaches allowing them to guard it eternally. There is also something called a "dry lich" from sandstorm, which does not require you to be evil because it does not require an evil act. There is a class (walker in the wastes) within it that eventually turns you into it, and it also has a variant in which your organs are the phylacteries (you get seven!) and you're more focused on turning things into desert opposed to things like corruption, so you could be like chaotic neutral instead or something.

[Xathrax]

I think Faerun has balnorns that are elf liches. They are focused on teaching and guarding sacred places. So doesn't sound too evil.

[Glodart]

I've looked up the Dry Lich. It sounds interesting, but it doesn't fit with my character, who prefers destruction to degradation. Also, 10 levels of Prestige class would be long to get.
Also, what is this Archlich and where is it?

[moneyman11]

Becoming a lich should be really though out. Mainly your character cant die so there may be a balance issue. Also since your character cant die, if you get bored of him you may end up being stuck with a character that just doesn't interest you anymore but could be hard to get rid of.

[atemu1234]

I've looked up the Dry Lich. It sounds interesting, but it doesn't fit with my character, who prefers destruction to degradation. Also, 10 levels of Prestige class would be long to get.
Also, what is this Archlich and where is it?

I believe it is found in Book of Exalted Deeds.

[Gildedragon]

also Monsters of Faerun

In Libris Mortis there is a Good Lich

[Larsen]

If the goal is to become immortal, there is also the "Rite of Transition" to become an undying on Eberron. It is based on good energy.

[Cikomyr]

Rule-wise, yes. A lich is necessarily evil.

Obviously, you can disregard that rule if you want.


But I think, fluff-wise, it is important that the process and the STATE of being a Lich would drive you toward evil. I mean, you are basically shredding your soul away from your body, and you lock it up in one little box. there's a reason you did so; and that reason may slowly drive you to obsession, and then paranoia, and then madness.

Just because you are "evil" doesn't mean you cannot do good if you think it's not against your character's core obsession. But never forget that you basically defied the order of things for a reason, and that reason will take its psychological toll with time. I've thought of plenty of character archetypes of people becoming lich without necessarily becoming the power-crazy "I WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD AND EAT PUPPIES".


It's just that you become.. detached. Amoral. The basic moral aspect of being alive no longer apply to you, and thus you may grow into scales of morality like Dr. Manhattan; "A living body is composed of as many components as a dead one. what's the big fuss over me killing these villagers?". You are maybe not doing evil on purpose (I hate characters who are LOLZ EVILZ), but you are still doing evil out of being reckless.

[Shining Wrath]

I think that you can become a CN lich if your DM agrees. It's a house rule, and not the most dramatic one around.

What I would have to do is research a "spell" (ritual?) that makes you a lich but skips the unspeakably evil part(s). It might cost lots more money than the unspeakably evil version. The other question your DM must answer is whether or not the desire for unnatural immortality is in and of itself intrinsically evil. That's pretty philosophical and I can't think of a rule per se that touches on it.

[OldTrees1]

In several obscure locations, D&D 3.0/3.5 clairifies that "Always Evil" means "Almost Always Evil".

Furthermore, Savage Species specifically reminds DMs that PCs are exceptions and can be any alignment regardless of race/templates.

[VoxRationis]

Well of course it says that; no one would buy the book if it didn't, because it would make it that much harder to be a monster PC.

As it currently stands, becoming a lich is really, really evil, no argument possible. The rules don't state that a lich cannot change alignment while undead, and I've thought about lich characters, hypothetically, who become tired of the whole "plot for centuries in a tomb somewhere" thing and decide to end it all, or decide to change their ways because they don't see any point in cartoonish evil anymore. But an existing PC is not going to be able to become a right-from-the-book lich without being evil.

[elonin]

Do you have your heart set on the lich? Necropolitan costs a level instead of everything that becoming a lich does. There are a few prc's that give template adding capstones.

[Spore]

Several pointers to prolong life:

1) You could move your mind to a higher/different life form. Become a warforged, some form of immortal creature (maybe an axomiatic/anarchic template or the classic half celestial template?).

2) This could possibly not fit your fluff - due to the fact that you're a sorcerer - but: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateMagic/spellcastingClassOptions/wizard.html#_immortality

3) Since you're 19th level maybe asking your DM about becoming a half-god and aquiring divine ranks (I am sure the fluff suggests divinity equals immortality as long as you have followers).

4) Ask your DM that your PC really wants to become immortal and find ways for that. Lichdom is NOT the only choice.

[shadow_archmagi]

Pick up the Wedded to History feat and become immortal. Done.

[Gemini476]

In several obscure locations, D&D 3.0/3.5 clairifies that "Always Evil" means "Almost Always Evil".

Furthermore, Savage Species specifically reminds DMs that PCs are exceptions and can be any alignment regardless of race/templates.

That's for races, not templates. Templates make you good/evil/whatever when you take them, although most of the time you could change to another alignment later on. I say "most of the time" since some involve getting mind-controlled or becoming mindless or otherwise becoming incapable of changing alignment.

[otakumick]

Here's the Immortality handbook
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5996.0

[Raven777]

Why not become the Giant's very own Scirelich (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/HOO32fmmwPwtHNPTXS2.html)?

[OldTrees1]

That's for races, not templates. Templates make you good/evil/whatever when you take them, although most of the time you could change to another alignment later on. I say "most of the time" since some involve getting mind-controlled or becoming mindless or otherwise becoming incapable of changing alignment.

Citation please? Where does it say that templates have different alignment rules?

PS: The Savage Species piece was for Monstrous Characters not "non templated characters".

[Millennium]

Honestly, this is setting-dependent. The stock 3.5e rules do require a lich to turn evil: a byproduct of the process of turning into a lich, if nothing else. But many settings, even some official settings, discard this rule.

The Archlich is a Forgotten Realms thing. I remember seeing it in Monsters of Faerun, but I don't know where (or if) it was updated for 3.5.

[Zanos]

Remember that alignment isn't a straitjacket. Your lich would be Evil, yeah, but that one act that turned him into a lich could be the only blemish on his otherwise Neutral record. You'll ping as Evil, but nothing about the Lich template or other fluff says that the subjects personality actually changes. The personality changes just come with living for centuries.

I personally think sticking with the "it's an Evil thing to do" path lends to more interesting roleplaying of what the character is willing to do to continue living, and why it's so important to them. I've had a character in the past who was very Lawful Neutral who became a Lich. His companions, largely Good and Neutral, were not pleased with him, but his outlook towards them hadn't changed at all.

[VoxRationis]

I'm not sure the best alignment advice comes from the person whose portrait says "No sense of right and wrong."
I don't think the alignment system works like that. It's not just a single tally mark on the Evil side versus a bunch of them on the delicate line that is Neutral and maybe a few on the Good side. It's a really, really "heavy" weight on the heart as it is weighed by Thoth against the feather of truth, so to speak. You can speak about a lot of evil; therefore, "unspeakably evil" is really, really bad, and even seriously entertaining the notion of doing such a thing would weigh against you heavily.

Really, I'm not sure where Redcloak got the opportunity to do anything unspeakably evil in that cave in Start of Darkness.

[Gemini476]

Citation please? Where does it say that templates have different alignment rules?

PS: The Savage Species piece was for Monstrous Characters not "non templated characters".


Reading A Template
A template’s description provides a set of instructions for altering an existing creature, known as the base creature. The changes that a template might cause to each line of a creature’s statistics block are discussed below. Generally, if a template does not cause a change to a certain statistic, that entry is missing from the template description. For clarity, the entry for a statistic or attribute that is not changed is sometimes given as "Same as the base creature."

[...]

Alignment
Usually the same as the base creature, unless the template is associated with a certain alignment.
Taking a template with Alignment: any Evil makes your alignment any Evil. Most of the time you can change it afterwards, but yeah. Oh, and if you're starting play with a template that changes your alignment then you can always have it changed in your backstory. Redemption/falling/whatever the Chaotic/Lawful equivalent is. The thing with taking it in play is that you actually turn into that alignment and presumably have to spend quite some time roleplaying yourself back to Neutral or whatever.

You could also be in a campaign that doesn't care about alignment at all in which case have a good time with that.

But yeah, you're probably after the Good LichLM p.156. Although it changes your alignment to a good one rather than an evil one, which might also be a problem.
You get Turn Undead and immunity to being turned by good or neutral clerics. It's pretty great.

Although do note that your DM might make you take the Lich template class (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031212a)rather than straight-up giving you LA in excess of level 20.

[OldTrees1]

Taking a template with Alignment: any Evil makes your alignment any Evil. Most of the time you can change it afterwards, but yeah. Oh, and if you're starting play with a template that changes your alignment then you can always have it changed in your backstory. Redemption/falling/whatever the Chaotic/Lawful equivalent is. The thing with taking it in play is that you actually turn into that alignment and presumably have to spend quite some time roleplaying yourself back to Neutral or whatever.

So, where are you disagreeing with the "always evil" = almost always evil? If you are not disagreeing then please make that clear.

[JusticeZero]

In the campaigns i've been in and run, All Liches (and other undead) are Evil. They detect as Evil, Holy words clobber them, et cetera. Their actual behavior is merely that of a psychopath with depression and flat affect - they don't care about people and they get nothing out of committing good (or evil) acts. They can choose to behave however they want, though. The gods don't mind if you just kill them all and let them sort it all out. In essence, "Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive" mixed with "However, YOUR alignment is written on your sheet in permanent marker."

[Brookshw]

Why not become the Giant's very own Scirelich (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/HOO32fmmwPwtHNPTXS2.html)?

Disclaimer: not actually written by Rich Burlew

[Gemini476]

So, where are you disagreeing with the "always evil" = almost always evil? If you are not disagreeing then please make that clear.

For races in general, "Always X Alignment" means "Almost Always X Alignment". The most famous example is Drizz't, of course.

For templates, the way the rules work means that no matter what your alignment was before taking the template you become the listed alignment once you take it - although in most cases this is "as base creature", there are cases where it isn't so. While not all Drow are Chaotic Evil, all Liches are Evil unless they have since been redeemed. (Or are a variant lich, like a baelnorn or Good Lich.)

Not to mention that while that's AFAIK the RAW of it the RAI in regards to Liches is rather similar - the very idea of a good Lich is, as Libris Mortis put it:

Though conceptually an oxymoron, the idea of a good-aligned creature who chooses undead immortality over a normal lifespan is a compelling one.

Do note that the Lich is very much BBEG materiel - the fear aura incapacitates 95% of commoners instantly, for instance, and cannot be turned off by the standard Lich. (It can be turned off by the Good Lich variant, but yeah.)
Also the "Unspeakably Evil Act" required to create the phylactery. Becoming a Lich means that you put yourself over others to such a degree that you see your immortality as worth a few horribly evil things happening, which is pretty much textbook Evil right there. Like, literally. Creating undead is already [Evil], but the Book of Vile Darkness also has "using others for personal gain" as one of the examples of evil acts.

[tadkins]

I think it should depend on the world your campaign takes place in. A DM can easily say that becoming a Lich isn't an evil act, and can describe the process a different way so that it's less evil and just squicky.

I have such a character in my storyline, a necromancer who willingly volunteered to become a lich so that she could eternally guard the legacies of her fellow wizards in the covenant she belonged to. The ritual merely involved calling upon the proper magic to transfer the soul and imbue the body with negative energy over many hours. Nothing about having to kill a baby or anything.

D&D as written says that liches are evil, but there's no reason you can't change things to suit a story.

[OldTrees1]

For races in general, "Always X Alignment" means "Almost Always X Alignment". The most famous example is Drizz't, of course.

For templates, the way the rules work means that no matter what your alignment was before taking the template you become the listed alignment once you take it - although in most cases this is "as base creature", there are cases where it isn't so. While not all Drow are Chaotic Evil, all Liches are Evil unless they have since been redeemed. (Or are a variant lich, like a baelnorn or Good Lich.)

Not to mention that while that's AFAIK the RAW of it the RAI in regards to Liches is rather similar - the very idea of a good Lich is, as Libris Mortis put it:

Ah, so you are agreeing with regard to Lich stat blocks (aka post template) just not to the Lich template. I can see that.

[RustyArmor]

I know in 2nd ed there was a list of stuff you had to do. Some of the components were pretty much evil, getting them and using them. But since then, they added happy joyful good lich (think they HAD to be elf though) and so forth. And it carried over to 3rd and beyond that lich = evil.

But as always it depends on the DM, I had a character that was wasting away due to some uncurable magical disease and in a last ditch effort she became a lich to finish an important task set upon her. The DM was cool with me finding a ritual that was far less evil but slightly more expensive.

[PraxisVetli]

A few people have mentioned Necropolitian, and if you can get the right Necro to do it (ideally with all the Corpsecrafter feats, its cheap and easy.
Also, noone's mentioned Spellstitched, and lets face it, Spellstitched Necropolitian is really the poor man's Lich.

[Gildedragon]

Thing is you can be a Spellstitch-Lich as well. And it is 40% cooler because it rhymes

[John Longarrow]

GloDart,

As alignment has been brought up in this thread, your character may not live long enough to have a good answer from here. While you wait on an outcome, I would suggest getting a one shot item that casts True Reincarnate when placed on a dead body. Have your sorcerer relax on a nice comfortable bed, put the item on, and drink a potion that kills you without causing a lot of pain. Wait 10 minutes then go cloths shopping for your new form.

Depending on what race you roll, you may have to do this more than once to live long enough for this thread to finish.

[Gildedragon]

GloDart,

As alignment has been brought up in this thread, your character may not live long enough to have a good answer from here. While you wait on an outcome, I would suggest getting a one shot item that casts True Reincarnate when placed on a dead body. Have your sorcerer relax on a nice comfortable bed, put the item on, and drink a potion that kills you without causing a lot of pain. Wait 10 minutes then go cloths shopping for your new form.

Depending on what race you roll, you may have to do this more than once to live long enough for this thread to finish.

You mean Last Breath? Cause True Reinc's benefit is that you can last 10 years dead...

Anyway: go Good Lich (you can pick the flavor) and then return to your neutral ways.
Or you could also turn into a ghost (haunt a flying intelligent riverine item)

Or turn yourself into a construct. That might be handy (though the specifics elude me)

Mummy isn't bad. You just need to find the dread priests to perform the unspeakable rites. My bet is that it hurts, so some nippleclamps might be a good idea

[John Longarrow]

You mean Last Breath? Cause True Reinc's benefit is that you can last 10 years dead...

Nope. True Reincarnate. No level loss, new young body, and (iirc) it take 10 minutes for your new body to form up. So you die, wait 10 minutes for the new body to bake, then go get you some new duds that fit! :haley:

[Gildedragon]

Nope. True Reincarnate. No level loss, new young body, and (iirc) it take 10 minutes for your new body to form up. So you die, wait 10 minutes for the new body to bake, then go get you some new duds that fit! :haley:
Last breath also has no level loss and is lower level, and instantaneous

[Shining Wrath]

Remember that alignment isn't a straitjacket. Your lich would be Evil, yeah, but that one act that turned him into a lich could be the only blemish on his otherwise Neutral record. You'll ping as Evil, but nothing about the Lich template or other fluff says that the subjects personality actually changes. The personality changes just come with living for centuries.

I personally think sticking with the "it's an Evil thing to do" path lends to more interesting roleplaying of what the character is willing to do to continue living, and why it's so important to them. I've had a character in the past who was very Lawful Neutral who became a Lich. His companions, largely Good and Neutral, were not pleased with him, but his outlook towards them hadn't changed at all.

I take the opposite view - your actions affect your outlook. I'd say that probably every lich finds their own unspeakably evil path to lichdom, but for an example, suppose your path involves hurting kittens.

Many, many kittens.

A very great amount of hurt per kitten.

For hours and days on end you do really bad things to kittens.

At the end of this, you are an undead thing whose soul lives in a phylactery. In addition, you have the memory of having done all that kitten hurting. Saying "Yeah, but my PC isn't changed at all by that" is your privilege - he's your PC - but I call weak role playing on your part. What are we but the sum of our experiences? You just went through something that no one who witnesses it will willingly describe, and it's water off a duck's back?

[atemu1234]

Pick up the Wedded to History feat and become immortal. Done.

Where's that from?

[Gildedragon]

Dragon magazine. Number eludes me: to the dragondex!

Dr354 pg 54

[Red Fel]

I take the opposite view - your actions affect your outlook. I'd say that probably every lich finds their own unspeakably evil path to lichdom, but for an example, suppose your path involves hurting kittens.

Many, many kittens.

A very great amount of hurt per kitten.

For hours and days on end you do really bad things to kittens.

At the end of this, you are an undead thing whose soul lives in a phylactery. In addition, you have the memory of having done all that kitten hurting. Saying "Yeah, but my PC isn't changed at all by that" is your privilege - he's your PC - but I call weak role playing on your part. What are we but the sum of our experiences? You just went through something that no one who witnesses it will willingly describe, and it's water off a duck's back?

This is also my position.

Alignment shifts don't happen spontaneously. They happen because we justify. We rationalize.

The first time your Good character kills a kitten, it's upsetting, but he does it because something great will come of it. He loses some sleep, or feels a bit guilty, but it's justified, in his mind.

The second time is just a little bit easier. By the tenth dead kitten, he has become comfortable with the excuse. He has become a person who is okay with killing kittens. He has ceased to be Good.

That is the alignment shift. It happens when you take a person who is not okay with doing a bad thing, and make them into a person who is okay with doing a bad thing, for whatever reason.

A Lich must perform an act (or possibly more acts, depending on how you play it out) of "unspeakable evil" in order to succeed in becoming a Lich. That means he must not only perform the act, but become a person who is okay with performing an act of unspeakable evil. That's not a Good person.

Can he come back later? Absolutely. It would be beautiful and tragic. Remembering a time when he could feel the sun on his skin. Remembering a time when he loved, and laughed, and pursued things other than immortality and endless knowledge.

And the poor, poor kittens. Can a Lich cry? I'd like to find out.

[atemu1234]

This is also my position.

Alignment shifts don't happen spontaneously. They happen because we justify. We rationalize.

The first time your Good character kills a kitten, it's upsetting, but he does it because something great will come of it. He loses some sleep, or feels a bit guilty, but it's justified, in his mind.

The second time is just a little bit easier. By the tenth dead kitten, he has become comfortable with the excuse. He has become a person who is okay with killing kittens. He has ceased to be Good.

That is the alignment shift. It happens when you take a person who is not okay with doing a bad thing, and make them into a person who is okay with doing a bad thing, for whatever reason.

A Lich must perform an act (or possibly more acts, depending on how you play it out) of "unspeakable evil" in order to succeed in becoming a Lich. That means he must not only perform the act, but become a person who is okay with performing an act of unspeakable evil. That's not a Good person.

Can he come back later? Absolutely. It would be beautiful and tragic. Remembering a time when he could feel the sun on his skin. Remembering a time when he loved, and laughed, and pursued things other than immortality and endless knowledge.

And the poor, poor kittens. Can a Lich cry? I'd like to find out.

Mind if I sig this?

[Red Fel]

Mind if I sig this?

Go right ahead.

[Shining Wrath]

Mind if I sig this?

I must warn you, though; the first time you sig Rel Fel's writings you may feel you have good and sufficient reason. But the second time it comes easier. And by the tenth or the twentieth time, you are a person who sigs Red Fel.

It's a tragic tale, told more than once.

[John Longarrow]

Shining Wrath

That is why I just say NO to sigs. Siging Red Fel is a gateway Sig.

[Red Fel]

I must warn you, though; the first time you sig Rel Fel's writings you may feel you have good and sufficient reason. But the second time it comes easier. And by the tenth or the twentieth time, you are a person who sigs Red Fel.

It's a tragic tale, told more than once.

Sweetest thing anybody's said about me all day.


That is why I just say NO to sigs. Siging Red Fel is a gateway Sig.

I take it back. This is.

[RedMage125]

Actually, no, they don't. I believe it's in magic of faerun (or one of the faerun books) there is a "good" lich, and I think a very similar arch-lich. Typically these are liches that have such an affinity to guard something that their soul detaches allowing them to guard it eternally. There is also something called a "dry lich" from sandstorm, which does not require you to be evil because it does not require an evil act. There is a class (walker in the wastes) within it that eventually turns you into it, and it also has a variant in which your organs are the phylacteries (you get seven!) and you're more focused on turning things into desert opposed to things like corruption, so you could be like chaotic neutral instead or something.
I did not know about this "dry lich", I'm not familiar with Sandstorm. I've got a non-evil necromancer concept, and I'm using him as a LN Dread Necromancer from a culture very similar to ancient Egypt, and he's been re-fluffing his gradual "lich transformation" as a transformation into a unique kiind of mummy, with canopic jars as his phylactery. And here I thought I was original.


If the goal is to become immortal, there is also the "Rite of Transition" to become an undying on Eberron. It is based on good energy.
Won't work. That requires a powerful Manifest Zone to Irian. Even in Eberron, deathless do not last forever like undead will. But Aerenal is built on a manifest zone and the deathless are all constantly being re-invigorated by positive energy.

Think of deathless like a battery, when charge runs out, they die. Aerenal is like a battery charger.

Do you have your heart set on the lich? Necropolitan costs a level instead of everything that becoming a lich does. There are a few prc's that give template adding capstones.
Necropolitan doesn't grant:
+2 to INT, WIS and CHA
+4 turn resistance
Immunity to cold, electricity and polymorph
Paralyzing Touch (duration of paralyss: permanent)
Fear Aura
DR 15/magic and bludgeoning
Phylactery, which, if properly hidden, results in effective immortality.

So, I found the information in Monsters of Faerun about good liches. It is indeed possible to make good liches, so I'm gonna assume that it is also possible to make a neutral one
Those are in Forgotten Realms, and they're all elves, and they unceasingly and selflessly devote themselves to the good of the even people.

Rule-wise, yes. A lich is necessarily evil.



Honestly, this is setting-dependent. The stock 3.5e rules do require a lich to turn evil: a byproduct of the process of turning into a lich, if nothing else. But many settings, even some official settings, discard this rule.No, RAW-wise the process of becoming a lich is evil.

Really, I don't know where you all get this "rules-wise, you are evil".


Remember that alignment isn't a straitjacket. Your lich would be Evil, yeah, but that one act that turned him into a lich could be the only blemish on his otherwise Neutral record. You'll ping as Evil, but nothing about the Lich template or other fluff says that the subjects personality actually changes. The personality changes just come with living for centuries.

I personally think sticking with the "it's an Evil thing to do" path lends to more interesting roleplaying of what the character is willing to do to continue living, and why it's so important to them. I've had a character in the past who was very Lawful Neutral who became a Lich. His companions, largely Good and Neutral, were not pleased with him, but his outlook towards them hadn't changed at all.
I agree with everything you've said, except the part in bold.* Becoming a lich is an evil act, but so is making any undead creature. Look at any spells from any 3.5e sources that create undead, they all have the Evil descriptor. Read the Book of Vile Darkness chapter on Defining Evil, it says that creating mockeries of life and purity is an evil act. Ergo, turning yourself into an undead creature is an evil act.

Interestingly, by a strictly RAW reading, an undead creature, regardless of its own alignment, pings on a detect evil spell as evil. Just like a Lawful Good succubus (because she's still an outsider with the Evil subtype). Undead have their own line on the detection chart, and they radiate evil.



I don't think the alignment system works like that. It's not just a single tally mark on the Evil side versus a bunch of them on the delicate line that is Neutral and maybe a few on the Good side. It's a really, really "heavy" weight on the heart as it is weighed by Thoth against the feather of truth, so to speak. You can speak about a lot of evil; therefore, "unspeakably evil" is really, really bad, and even seriously entertaining the notion of doing such a thing would weigh against you heavily.

Really, I'm not sure where Redcloak got the opportunity to do anything unspeakably evil in that cave in Start of Darkness.
See above regarding "making any undead is evil by RAW"

So where does that leave us?

Becoming a lich is an evil act, yes. So it is unlikely that a Good person would undergo the ritual. But the OP's character is Chaotic Neutral.

The question, Glodart is: "Would your character consider the evil act of turning yourself into a perversion of nature, and a mockery of life a worthwhile stain on his soul in order to become immortal?" That is, where does your character normally stand on Good/Evil? A strictly utilitarian view should be okay with it, since it's a "victimless crime".

You asked in your OP why becoming a lich is evil, and your answer lies in the Book of Vile Darkness, page 8.

Basically, it's evil in the same mindset of why summoning an imp with Summon Monster and just talking with it would be evil. You are allowing evil energies into the world with the summoning spell. Well, with undead, you are violating the Life-Death cycle, as you mentioned in your OP, and the BoVD also says that "undead invariably bring more negative energy into the world, making it a darker and more evil place".

This all may be moot, since your DM may not allow it. By the way, in the same vein of how low-LAs aren't worth as much at high levels, I would really call into question if lich is worth a +4 LA. +2, maybe. Or +3 if your DM's being really harsh. Oh, and that phylactery is EXPENSIVE.

*personal anecdote related to the topic:
I had an NPC my party encountered, who was a TN lich. He was a human Diviner named Bernard, and he was a huge history nut. Deciding his human lifespan was too short, in his venerable age, he made the leap and became a lich. He knows full well it was an evil act, but he tries to avoid committing any other acts of violence (let alone evil), and hopes that the overall Good of his deeds will wash away the stain on his soul. He prefers to hang out in a haunted ruin which is full of undead (who all ignore him), and he scries all over the world, and records history, becoming the ultimate dispassionate observer of history. When he complies his work into volumes, he makes copies and donates them to libraries around the world. If adventurers come upon his sanctuary, he tries to reason with them. He will defend himself if attacked (usually by paladins who won't negotiate), and he has been forced to kill in self-defense, but he feels really bad about it. He still goes by the name Bernard, and he's totally RAW-legal.

Oh, and the last time I had a group of players encounter him, they were skulking around said haunted ruin, and they see an ogre zombie standing at the base of a tower in poor repair. The ogre zombie is not moving at all, and he was dressed in a doublet which, although filthy and moth-eaten, looks like it was once very nice. If anyone approaches within 100' of the tower (or attacks him), the ogre zombie reaches up, and grabs a bellpull, and sounds a gong. Bernard pokes his head out of the window of the tower above. If the party is attacking the zombie, he asks them to leave Wellington alone. That's right, the ogre zombie's name is Wellington, and he's Bernard's "butler". Really all he does is pull the rope.

[Gildedragon]

Won't work. That requires a powerful Manifest Zone to Irian. Even in Eberron, deathless do not last forever like undead will. But Aerenal is built on a manifest zone and the deathless are all constantly being re-invigorated by positive energy. Think of deathless like a battery, when charge runs out, they die. Aerenal is like a battery charger.
Deathless actually first appear in BoED and it says nothing of the such. Maybe in Eberron they lose their charge, but Eberron is fairly sui generis in the D&D settings.


Necropolitan doesn't grant:
+2 to INT, WIS and CHA
+4 turn resistance
Immunity to cold, electricity and polymorph
Paralyzing Touch (duration of paralyss: permanent)
Fear Aura
DR 15/magic and bludgeoning
Phylactery, which, if properly hidden, results in effective immortality.

True, but you can get Turn Resist 6, +4 to str, +2 nat armor, +4 hp per hd, +10' to speed, +4 to initiative if you find the right necromancer to transform you.*
Not half bad for LA 0.

*most of these can also be tacked onto the lich but... the LA is less on the necropolitan so the cost of finding a suitable necromancer is bound to be less onerous.



Those are in Forgotten Realms, and they're all elves, and they unceasingly and selflessly devote themselves to the good of the even people.
Baelnorns are, archliches don't need to be elves, and there are the good liches in LM which get turning immunity.

[VoxRationis]

Really, I don't know where you all get this "rules-wise, you are evil".


See above regarding "making any undead is evil by RAW"

So where does that leave us?

Becoming a lich is an evil act, yes. So it is unlikely that a Good person would undergo the ritual. But the OP's character is Chaotic Neutral.

The question, Glodart is: "Would your character consider the evil act of turning yourself into a perversion of nature, and a mockery of life a worthwhile stain on his soul in order to become immortal?" That is, where does your character normally stand on Good/Evil? A strictly utilitarian view should be okay with it, since it's a "victimless crime".


I doubt that the act of becoming a lich is inherently [Evil] just because, in the fashion of deathwatch the EVIL cardiogram. A victimless crime is not described as "unspeakably evil" in the explicit rules. It's not just that you're turning yourself into a "mockery of life," but you are doing something really, really evil as part of the ritual to do that, the nature of which the writers did not specify in order to remain within the grounds of good taste. You probably have to go Mass Effect's Collectors on a few villages or something like that.

[Zanos]

They didn't mention it because the evilness of it is unspeakable.

[RedMage125]

Deathless actually first appear in BoED and it says nothing of the such. Maybe in Eberron they lose their charge, but Eberron is fairly sui generis in the D&D settings.
BoED says nothing of the sort?


Deathless is a new creature type, describing creatures that have
died but returned to a kind of spiritual life. They are similar in
many ways to both living creatures and undead. However,
while undead represent a mockery of life and a violation of the
natural order of life and death, the deathless merely stave off
the inevitability of death for a short time in order to accomplish
a righteous purpose. While undead draw their power
from the Negative Energy plane, the deathless are strongly tied
to the Positive Energy plane, the birthplace of all souls. In fact,
the deathless are little more than disincarnate souls, sometimes
wrapped in material flesh, often incorporeal and hardly
more substantial than a soul in its purest state.
The two deathless mentioned in the book both are not "permanent" creatures. The Crypt Warden only animates as a deathless (explicitly leaving their rest on a higher plane) when their warded crypt is invaded. Sacred Watchers continue to guard their charge "until someone else can assume the responsibility".

Eberron's deathless that hang around for eons IS the exception that makes the unique, and it is accomplished by the manifest zone to Irian. Read some of Keith baker's Dragonshards on the subject.


True, but you can get Turn Resist 6, +4 to str, +2 nat armor, +4 hp per hd, +10' to speed, +4 to initiative if you find the right necromancer to transform you.*
Not half bad for LA 0.

*most of these can also be tacked onto the lich but... the LA is less on the necropolitan so the cost of finding a suitable necromancer is bound to be less onerous.
Assuming said necromancer can be trusted. Oh, and I forgot liches get +5 natural armor. None of the lich special qualities are dependent upon "finding the right NPC"


Baelnorns are, archliches don't need to be elves, and there are the good liches in LM which get turning immunity.
I know archliches are mentioned in FR novels. Which 3e game book can rules for them be found in?

I doubt that the act of becoming a lich is inherently [Evil] just because, in the fashion of deathwatch the EVIL cardiogram. A victimless crime is not described as "unspeakably evil" in the explicit rules. It's not just that you're turning yourself into a "mockery of life," but you are doing something really, really evil as part of the ritual to do that, the nature of which the writers did not specify in order to remain within the grounds of good taste. You probably have to go Mass Effect's Collectors on a few villages or something like that.

Ok, once again, the act of making ANY undead creature is an evil act. The mockery of life and purity that is created is a violation of nature. Hence why I put "victimless crime" in quotes, because nature herself is the one being violated, and the universe cries out against it. The act is explicitly and objectively Evil. Also most undead created against their will has some effect on the soul of the body's previous inhabitant, as evidenced by the way resurrection magic works with undead (there's also some interesting points to that in the Channel Divinity article on Wee Jas in Dragon #350).

It is especially "unspeakably evil" because you are not just creating an undead automaton, you are allowing a powerful spellcaster (who clearly has no problem with evil acts) to become a self-aware and more powerful walking blasphemy that will likely endure for centuries.

[VoxRationis]

Yes, the creation of any undead is listed as an evil act. But none of them are described as "unspeakably" evil—they're evil in the same "tsk-tsk" way deathwatch the evil cardiogram is. And the end product of lich creation isn't that much worse than any of the other kinds of undead you can create—as you said, a victimless crime, since it can only be done on a willing participant, and the creature itself isn't a tortured soul in the fashion of an allip or a cannibalistic monstrosity in the fashion of a ghoul. Furthermore, a wight or even a lowly skeleton can last for centuries or millennia under the right conditions, so it isn't a matter of potential longevity there. Consequently, the issue must be in the means required to attain lichdom.

[Gildedragon]

BoED says nothing of the sort?

The two deathless mentioned in the book both are not "permanent" creatures. The Crypt Warden only animates as a deathless (explicitly leaving their rest on a higher plane) when their warded crypt is invaded. Sacred Watchers continue to guard their charge "until someone else can assume the responsibility".

For a time can mean... well... an indefinitely ling time. you gotta take care of the bones, lest you demilich your deathless. gentle repose and very many curing, healing, and fixing-upping spells.



Assuming said necromancer can be trusted. Oh, and I forgot liches get +5 natural armor. None of the lich special qualities are dependent upon "finding the right NPC" Fair enough. Illegal necromancers can be pretty skeevy. That is why one goes to true-certified Jazidim. Sure it means that you'll be on scribal duty for a century or two, but you will have gotten quality work done. And fair enough, liches are more powerful out of the box, and with the right NPC a lichifying PC can get those same bonuses. but... well the LA is lower, so extra caster levels.



I know archliches are mentioned in FR novels. Which 3e game book can rules for them be found in?

Monsters of Faerun, under Good Liches
Essentially: as liches but with a couple different things
LM Good Liches (great naming) are a bit better, but the CR is one higher than a normal Evil lich

[Segev]

The short version is that the rules specify that the process of becoming a lich requires willingly committing at least one "unspeakably" evil act.

The rules leave what that is up to the fluff-writing of the DM and the players, but I believe older editions at least hinted that the sacrifice of more than one truly innocent (often short-handed to "baby's") life is amongst the least of the sins required.

So, you, the player, to put this in perspective for yourself, should come up with something you think is unspeakably - possibly unforgivably - evil under any circumstances. Then, consider that to be an inescapable part of the process of becoming a lich. Whether it's raping a thousand cows or sacrificing babies or uttering the 13 most racist jokes ever written or wearing white leisure suits after the last labor day in the '70s, it's something any lich must have done in order to become a lich.

No matter how good and noble he is, no matter how much he wishes he hadn't done it, he did. Maybe he's repented, maybe this rare good lich is truly a paragon of virtue...now. But he committed some heinously atrocious act to preserve his own existence in unlife, so if he's to be forgiven, he must have atoned for that sin. And it's a lot harder to atone for a sin one commits knowingly and willingly, especially if one pretends to oneself that they intend to atone for it and that that will make it somehow okay.

[Raven777]

Becoming a Lich would likely make your Sorcerer evil, but there's this question nobody asked: so what?

[RedMage125]

I don't even think it would make his sorcerer evil.

under the rules in the DMG page 134, one act does not change one's alignment. Alignment change must be gradual. So as long as you were CN when you underwent the lich transformation ritual, and that ritual was not the latest in a string of evil deeds committed recently, the ritual will NOT change your alignment, as per the RAW.

Now, if you go on AFTER the ritual, and commit MORE evil deeds, that will change your alignment.

But like I pointed out, by a strict reading of the RAW, an undead creature radiates an Evil aura (as per the detect Evil spell), no matter what. So, even if you remain CN in alignment, you may ping on a paladin's radar, by virtue of being undead.

[squiggit]

Well Archliches and Baelnorns exist, so clearly not.

The default lich ritual is vaguely described as unspeakably evil though and the lich template has an alignment attached to it. Nothing says the lich has to retain that alignment though.

Alignment change must be gradual. So as long as you were CN when you underwent the lich transformation ritual, and that ritual was not the latest in a string of evil deeds committed recently, the ritual will NOT change your alignment, as per the RAW.
Wouldn't that be overridden by the (more specific) entry that gaining the lich template makes you evil? Similar to how becoming a vampire forces an alignment change on the player. Or wearing that stupid hat.

[Malroth]

step 1 buy the stupid hat (aka the helm of opposite alignment)
step 2 rig a trap to drop it on your head once you finish your puppy killing ritual of evil
step 3 You are now a Lawful good aligned Liche

[RedMage125]

Wouldn't that be overridden by the (more specific) entry that gaining the lich template makes you evil? Similar to how becoming a vampire forces an alignment change on the player. Or wearing that stupid hat.

Difficult to say. The vampire entry, in the template description, under alignment says "Always Evil (any)".

The lich just says "any evil".

The "always" is conspicuously missing.

[Gildedragon]

But like I pointed out, by a strict reading of the RAW, an undead creature radiates an Evil aura (as per the detect Evil spell), no matter what. So, even if you remain CN in alignment, you may ping on a paladin's radar, by virtue of being undead.

no no no no
The spell might have the [evil] subtype
but the creatures themselves don't, nor do they have the "aura of evil" (as cleric) special ability. Those are the two things that trigger the EVDAR without the creature espousing that particular alignment. A necropolitan can be a cleric of pelor (with the sun domain even) albeit they risk destruction every time they turn undead (as they are the undead closest to themselves)

[Segev]

under the rules in the DMG page 134, one act does not change one's alignment. Alignment change must be gradual. So as long as you were CN when you underwent the lich transformation ritual, and that ritual was not the latest in a string of evil deeds committed recently, the ritual will NOT change your alignment, as per the RAW.

The DMG is giving a guideline for how to adjudicate relatively minor acts of good or evil that are aberrations in an otherwise clear record of the other alignment.

If you spend your days doing good and helping others and being generally Rezo the Red Priest to the people of the world, then you decide to sell the world out to a great destroyer in exchange for eyesight, so grand an act of evil definitely twists your alignment to Evil. Undergoing the ritual to become a Lich is a similar-scale act of evil.

You wouldn't give Mother Theresa (even if she is every bit what her PR says she was) a pass and call her "good" or "neutral" if she, instead of dying, decided to one day invite a bunch of innocent youths in to her boudoir to slaughter them slowly and painfully while bathing in their blood in order to preserve her life, even if she justified it by saying she would save so many more people with her eternity of unlife thereafter, would you?

Such an act would make her unequivocally Evil; it would take not just continuing as she had before, but actively coming to regret what she'd done and seeking to atone for it to even START to swing her alignment back towards Good.

It's not that she one day decided to buy herself a Ferrari instead of opening another clinic with money donated for the latter purpose - such an act would tarnish her Good alignment, but wouldn't make her automatically Neutral, let alone Evil - but so magnificent an act of monumental malevolence as the Lichdom ritual WOULD shift her alignment sharply into the Evil region.



Yes, alignment shifts should be gradual. One could argue that M.T. being able to perform so heinous an act might indicate that her "goodness" was a facade over an already evil soul, because a good woman such as she portrayed would never be ABLE to make those decisions. So her "gradual" shift happened behind the scenes as she convinced herself to go through with it, or maybe she would only be convinced to do it after having slid repeatedly on other things into that alignment.

But if you're able to perform the act of becoming a Lich, you ARE evil. Whether because that one act shifts your alignment so hard, or because in order to bring yourself to perform it, you had to already be there (and this is just the bookkeeping of the game mechanics catching up with where you really are).

[hamishspence]

no no no no
The spell might have the [evil] subtype
but the creatures themselves don't, nor do they have the "aura of evil" (as cleric) special ability. Those are the two things that trigger the EVDAR without the creature espousing that particular alignment.

The table has a row saying "Undead" not "Evil undead"

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectEvil.htm

[Gildedragon]

The table has a row saying "Undead" not "Evil undead"

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectEvil.htm

I am wrong, comment retracted

[Shining Wrath]

step 1 buy the stupid hat (aka the helm of opposite alignment)
step 2 rig a trap to drop it on your head once you finish your puppy killing ritual of evil
step 3 You are now a Lawful good aligned Liche

As a super-intelligent, CE lich, you'd remember the trap, and duck / teleport / contingency spell. You're a 19th level sorcerer and something is going to drop on your head when you no longer want it to?

[LordBlades]

Let's sau you're a generally goid/neutral guy with one caveat: you're so afraid to die that you'd do anything to live forever including selling off everyone else to an Elder Evil if you have to(or become a Lich). Until now you've done nothing of sorts because you didn't have the chance, not because you wouldn't. If alignment is a consequence of actions you're neutral/good.Finally you reach level 12 and become a Lich. You now become Evil per RAW but why would you behave different now? You've had no life-changing experience as you've done nothing you wouldn't have done earlier if you could.

[Red Fel]

Let's sau you're a generally goid/neutral guy with one caveat: you're so afraid to die that you'd do anything to live forever including selling off everyone else to an Elder Evil if you have to(or become a Lich). Until now you've done nothing of sorts because you didn't have the chance, not because you wouldn't. If alignment is a consequence of actions you're neutral/good.Finally you reach level 12 and become a Lich. You now become Evil per RAW but why would you behave different now? You've had no life-changing experience as you've done nothing you wouldn't have done earlier if you could.

Note the bolded language. "You'd do anything" is a non-Good hallmark. Why? Because Good has limits. As the noted scholar Meatloaf opined on the nature of Good, "I would do anything for love - but I won't do that." And that's the point. Good has limits it will not cross, crimes it will not commit, even in the name of the greater good. That's what makes it Good.

As soon as you say you'd do anything, even the "that" to which Meatloaf referred, you have left the Good-zone.

All that said, an alignment shift doesn't mean you "behave different now." It means you see things differently. You have different priorities. If I was a CG Barbarian, a pillar of strength and justice who loved his dog Fido, and I donned a Helm of Opposite Alignment, I wouldn't stop being a big strong guy with a great dog. I'd still love that dog. Only now I would realize that all those people I was defending? They'll never stop needing me unless they learn to defend themselves. Perhaps they need a little motivation. After all, it's for their own good. And they'll be strong, like me. Or dead. And then we can feed them to Fido. But outwardly? Same guy. Loves his dog, helps his friends, represents the weak. It's just that now he has found new ways to "help" them.

And that's the Helm of Opposite Alignment. The classic dramatic-and-sudden shift. Most alignment shifts are (or should be) far more gradual. But being a person who would "do anything" means you're already on that slope.

[Shining Wrath]

Note the bolded language. "You'd do anything" is a non-Good hallmark. Why? Because Good has limits. As the noted scholar Meatloaf opined on the nature of Good, "I would do anything for love - but I won't do that." And that's the point. Good has limits it will not cross, crimes it will not commit, even in the name of the greater good. That's what makes it Good.

As soon as you say you'd do anything, even the "that" to which Meatloaf referred, you have left the Good-zone.

All that said, an alignment shift doesn't mean you "behave different now." It means you see things differently. You have different priorities. If I was a CG Barbarian, a pillar of strength and justice who loved his dog Fido, and I donned a Helm of Opposite Alignment, I wouldn't stop being a big strong guy with a great dog. I'd still love that dog. Only now I would realize that all those people I was defending? They'll never stop needing me unless they learn to defend themselves. Perhaps they need a little motivation. After all, it's for their own good. And they'll be strong, like me. Or dead. And then we can feed them to Fido. But outwardly? Same guy. Loves his dog, helps his friends, represents the weak. It's just that now he has found new ways to "help" them.

And that's the Helm of Opposite Alignment. The classic dramatic-and-sudden shift. Most alignment shifts are (or should be) far more gradual. But being a person who would "do anything" means you're already on that slope.

And thereby hangs many a tale of classic literature - the man with one weakness that Evil found a way to exploit and thereby claim his soul. In fact, it's close to the definition of "tragedy" in Greek theater. In a D&D world where you've got actual Evil deities and Demogorgon and Asmodeus scheming to get as many souls into their realms as they can manage, if you've got a tremendous overwhelming fear of death, and you have the kind of power a high-level caster wields (which are the only people capable of turning themselves into liches), Someone Bad is going to notice your flaw, and they are going to try to use it to make you do Bad Things, and lich will be the culmination of that long journey.

It is bad role playing, IMNHO, to play your PC as a normal character, living life on the edge and adventuring into situations where you are facing things like dragons and beholders, putting yourself over and over again into situations where your life hangs by a thread comprised of your skill and the skill of your party - and then, after 18 levels of this, discover a fear of death.

[Alex12]

Heroes of Horror specifically says Dread Necromancers aren't always evil (just that they cannot be good). It also says that, at level 20, they become liches. Regardless of if they actually get the template or are just undead spellcasters that are called liches and have a phylactery, the class feature does say they're called liches.
So yeah, it's possible.

[atemu1234]

Heroes of Horror specifically says Dread Necromancers aren't always evil (just that they cannot be good). It also says that, at level 20, they become liches. Regardless of if they actually get the template or are just undead spellcasters that are called liches and have a phylactery, the class feature does say they're called liches.
So yeah, it's possible.

That's different. It's the class that transforms them, not the ritual. The ritual is performed by non-dreads (IE the sorcerer in question) to become a lich is irrevocably evil. I'd even argue that it may make Dread Necromancers evil, because they're still quote/unquote mockeries of life. They're more of the exception than the rule.

[RedMage125]

The DMG is giving a guideline for how to adjudicate relatively minor acts of good or evil that are aberrations in an otherwise clear record of the other alignment.
The DMG is quite clear.


Alignment Change Is Gradual: Changes in alignment should
not be drastic. Usually, a character changes alignment only one
step at a time—from lawful evil to lawful neutral, for example,
and not directly to neutral good. A character on her way to adopting
another alignment might have other alignments during the
transition to the final alignment.
Time Requirements: Changing alignment usually takes time.
Changes of heart are rarely sudden (although they can be). What
you want to avoid is a player changing her character’s alignment to
evil to use an evil artifact properly and then changing it right back
when she’s done. Alignments aren’t garments you can take off and
put on casually. Require an interval of at least a week of game time
between alignment changes.
Indecisiveness Indicates Neutrality: Wishy-washy characters
should just be neutral. If a character changes alignment over
and over again during a campaign, what’s really happened is that
the character hasn’t made a choice, and thus she is neutral.
That's prettty cut and dried. However, you perhaps refer to the next paragraph:


Exceptions: There are exceptions to all of the above. For instance,
it’s possible (although unlikely) that the most horrible neutral
evil villain has a sudden and dramatic change of heart and immediately
becomes neutral good.
You will, however, note that that is explicitly an exception to the rule. It's even covered uner the heading "exceptions". And involves a sudden "change of heart". You'd be hard pressed to present a factual case that whatever the lich ritual is, it's so heinous that it drastically alters the way you think forever.


If you spend your days doing good and helping others and being generally Rezo the Red Priest to the people of the world, then you decide to sell the world out to a great destroyer in exchange for eyesight, so grand an act of evil definitely twists your alignment to Evil. Undergoing the ritual to become a Lich is a similar-scale act of evil.
Your proof of this? All you have is the text "an unspeakable act of evil". Well, Mind Flayers are also considered "unspeakably evil" because they are alien and bizarre. And when you boil down to it, they usually just want slaves for labor in their cities, or food, because they unfortunately have a biological imperative to feat on the gray matter of intelligent beings. I can think of things humans do for sport that's a lot more "unspeakable".


You wouldn't give Mother Theresa (even if she is every bit what her PR says she was) a pass and call her "good" or "neutral" if she, instead of dying, decided to one day invite a bunch of innocent youths in to her boudoir to slaughter them slowly and painfully while bathing in their blood in order to preserve her life, even if she justified it by saying she would save so many more people with her eternity of unlife thereafter, would you?

Such an act would make her unequivocally Evil; it would take not just continuing as she had before, but actively coming to regret what she'd done and seeking to atone for it to even START to swing her alignment back towards Good.

It's not that she one day decided to buy herself a Ferrari instead of opening another clinic with money donated for the latter purpose - such an act would tarnish her Good alignment, but wouldn't make her automatically Neutral, let alone Evil - but so magnificent an act of monumental malevolence as the Lichdom ritual WOULD shift her alignment sharply into the Evil region.
Again, you have no RAW proof to back up your claim that the lich transformation ritual is equivalent to slaughtering a bunch of innocents.

I'll give you credit where it's due, though. Your arguments are sound-in and of themselves. If your founding premise (the magnitude of Evil of the lich transformation ritual) was a proven fact, I would be on your side. But a well-reasoned argument built on a non-factual premise cannot ever be accepted as 100% factual. It's kind of like building a house on a foundation that may or may not be perfectly level. Even if the rest of the house is 100% perfectly flush and square with the foundation, if the foundation was not level, the house will not be.


Yes, alignment shifts should be gradual. One could argue that M.T. being able to perform so heinous an act might indicate that her "goodness" was a facade over an already evil soul, because a good woman such as she portrayed would never be ABLE to make those decisions. So her "gradual" shift happened behind the scenes as she convinced herself to go through with it, or maybe she would only be convinced to do it after having slid repeatedly on other things into that alignment.

But if you're able to perform the act of becoming a Lich, you ARE evil. Whether because that one act shifts your alignment so hard, or because in order to bring yourself to perform it, you had to already be there (and this is just the bookkeeping of the game mechanics catching up with where you really are).
If the player agrees to that with the DM that such narrative occurred "off-screen", then fine. But the DM does NOT reserve the right to dictate what the Player's character did "off-screen" on the magnitude to require an alignment change

Note the bolded language. "You'd do anything" is a non-Good hallmark. Why? Because Good has limits. As the noted scholar Meatloaf opined on the nature of Good, "I would do anything for love - but I won't do that." And that's the point. Good has limits it will not cross, crimes it will not commit, even in the name of the greater good. That's what makes it Good.To be fair, he did say good/neutral. not "Neutral Good" as in a specific alignment, but a "generally good or neutral guy".


As soon as you say you'd do anything, even the "that" to which Meatloaf referred, you have left the Good-zone.That's a bit extreme. The PHB tells us that even Lawful good types may be prone to short tempers or have a greedy streak that occasionally tempts them to take things that are not theirs. A single flaw does not preclude a Good alignment. I'm sorry, Red Fel, but by RAW, this statement is incorrect.


All that said, an alignment shift doesn't mean you "behave different now." It means you see things differently. You have different priorities. If I was a CG Barbarian, a pillar of strength and justice who loved his dog Fido, and I donned a Helm of Opposite Alignment, I wouldn't stop being a big strong guy with a great dog. I'd still love that dog. Only now I would realize that all those people I was defending? They'll never stop needing me unless they learn to defend themselves. Perhaps they need a little motivation. After all, it's for their own good. And they'll be strong, like me. Or dead. And then we can feed them to Fido. But outwardly? Same guy. Loves his dog, helps his friends, represents the weak. It's just that now he has found new ways to "help" them.

And that's the Helm of Opposite Alignment. The classic dramatic-and-sudden shift. Most alignment shifts are (or should be) far more gradual. But being a person who would "do anything" means you're already on that slope.
And this, however, is very nice. It's a very well-reasoned way on how someone handles a sudden and "forced" alignment change. The effects on their personality should be subtle. However, unless used very sparingly, using magic items to change someone's alignment is usually bad form as a DM.

I say "usually", because sometimes, players do it to themselves:I was running the Age of Worms Adventure Path. And the party eventually comes across one of the tombs of the Wandering Dukes, one of the Wind Dukes of Aaqa (the creators of the Rod of Seven Parts, AKA The Rod of Law). Now, by this point, the players had been exposed to quite a bit of the lore regarding the Wind Dukes and the Rod. On top of that, the party wizard could speak/read/write in Auran, and was translating all the murals as they progressed through the tomb. The tomb was full of traps for the non-lawful (and only one member of the party was lawful, lol). After all of this, they found the sarcophagus, were blessed by the spirit of the fallen Duke, and acquired a piece of the Rod. Now, at first they were careful, and only let the (Lawful Good) cleric touch it, since he'd been able to bypass most of the other stuff. I even told him "you can feel the weight of order and authority (i.e. law) in this artifact". Well, they determined that all this piece did was cast Heal once per day, command word activated. The melee types decided that it would be best to have someone other than the cleric hold onto it, as a panic button. The TN Rogue is like "I'll take it", and tells me he grabs the Rod fragment. After staring at him for a moment, I carefully asked the whole group, "is that what everyone is good with? Te Rogue takes the Rod?" After everyone, including the Rogue, agreed, I told him to make a Will save. Since this was the only piece they had, it was only a DC 17, should be no problem for a level 11 Rogue, right? He rolled a 2 or a 3. I took him aside and informed him that he was now Lawful Neutral, and although it wasn't going to be a drastic shift, I expected more disciplined behavior from his character now. Not necessarily law-abiding, but more methodical.
As a DM, I usually abhor just changing someone's alignment because "magic did it". But in this case, the players were well informed both in character and out, that the object was a powerful artifact of law. On multiple occasions, they had heard reference to the Rod of Law and its powers. And then one of them just decided to be careless. Given all that, there was still the possibility of a saving throw, and sometimes, the dice are just not kind. I kind of feel like he did it to himself, got a last chance to prevent it, and the dice said "no"

[VoxRationis]

"A single flaw" does not reasonably include something described as "unspeakably evil." A "flaw" might be something like not flagging down someone who left their purse behind so you can rifle through it for loose change, or your paladin snapping at the umpteenth damsel in distress who bugs you looking for you to do something incredibly dangerous on her behalf.
Pointing out mind flayers doesn't work, because as you mentioned, mind flayers are that way by necessity (although you might argue the dominated slaves are unnecessary). Becoming a lich is explicitly a matter of choice, and given the material prerequisites, a well-thought-out choice at that.

[Red Fel]

I'll give you credit where it's due, though. Your arguments are sound-in and of themselves. If your founding premise (the magnitude of Evil of the lich transformation ritual) was a proven fact, I would be on your side. But a well-reasoned argument built on a non-factual premise cannot ever be accepted as 100% factual. It's kind of like building a house on a foundation that may or may not be perfectly level. Even if the rest of the house is 100% perfectly flush and square with the foundation, if the foundation was not level, the house will not be.

I'd like to examine this, because you make a good point - the text isn't clear as to what exactly defines an "unspeakably evil" act. It's an ambiguous point. And I find it unlikely that it's something cartoonishly over-the-top like "go out and burn a bunch of villages to the ground, kick some babies and eat a puppy, then steal a kid's ice cream." There is a spectrum of evil acts, and as you correctly indicate, a very minor act of naughtiness (like stealing a kid's ice cream) isn't likely to impact alignment.

However, the text does specifically say "unspeakably evil." While it doesn't say what that means in terms of specific conduct, the qualifier itself is pretty clear - this is the stuff of serious misconduct. The CG party Rogue, for instance, may decide to pilfer a few silver off the town guard. We wag our fingers at him. "Rogue," we say, "did you steal those?" He smiles and responds, "He wasn't using them!" And a laugh track plays.

If the Rogue did something we could categorize as "unspeakably evil," there would be no laugh track. No sitcom-esque snickering and jokes. I can't think of an "unspeakably evil" act that I could look at and say, "Sure, that won't cost you your morality." It's in the name. Unspeakably evil. It shouldn't have to be explained that doing something "unspeakably evil" is the act of an extremely Evil character. It's a truism.


That's a bit extreme. The PHB tells us that even Lawful good types may be prone to short tempers or have a greedy streak that occasionally tempts them to take things that are not theirs. A single flaw does not preclude a Good alignment. I'm sorry, Red Fel, but by RAW, this statement is incorrect.

The limits I speak of are usually major principles. I'm not talking about social niceties or being even-tempered saints. Of course the Paladin can have a temper. The guy wears his alignment so tight it's giving him a wedgie. I'd be ornery too.

But the statement - Good is defined by its limits, by its refusal to cross certain lines - is, in my mind, an accurate one. As soon as you acknowledge that there is something that would justify you crossing those lines, you are leaving Good behind. I'll acknowledge Neutral as a possibility.

Again, I'm not talking about little things, like "I will not lose my temper," or "The contents of other people's wallets stay in their wallets." I'm talking about major core tenets, like "Never slay the innocent," "No women, no children," "No fighting on hallowed ground," or "Never put raspberry sauce on a chocolate cake."

Seriously. Raspberry? Why?

When you have a major principle like that - these are Good principles, not just Lawful, and even a CG character can have a few of those - you don't compromise it for any reason. Again, even a CG character has lines he will not cross. Robin Hood, the (oft-debated) archetype of CG, never stole from the poor. (They had nothing to steal.)

I'm not saying all Good characters have the same limits. But they are defined as Good by their morality, which must essentially tell a character "Thou shalt not" at some point. Even a concept of morality as broad as "An it harm none, do what ye will" has the qualifier harm none. That's what Good is. And when you lift those restrictions, you swim into the deeper side of the alignment pool.


And this, however, is very nice. It's a very well-reasoned way on how someone handles a sudden and "forced" alignment change. The effects on their personality should be subtle. However, unless used very sparingly, using magic items to change someone's alignment is usually bad form as a DM.

Thanks! I think one of the key takeaways from this, apart from the usual "alignment is not a straightjacket" lesson, is that alignment is not just a way of acting, but a way of thinking. A Good or Evil character may act in a Good or Evil way, not because the actions themselves are prescribed by alignment, but because in that character's mind, based upon their alignment-influenced views, these actions are "right." And that may mean that an alignment-shifted character acts much the same as he did before. Certainly, he shouldn't change radically - he shouldn't suddenly shun friends and start wearing black, for example. Alignment change is (or should be) like weight gain, deteriorating vision, or hair loss - a gradual process. When you look in the mirror from one day to the next, you shouldn't see a difference, and neither should anyone else. It's a slow acceptance of new truths about reality, a gradual change in your perspective and priorities. It is insidious and subtle.

Also, if you play alignment shift as suddenly going axe crazy, you're a horrible person and I'm unfriending you.

[Shining Wrath]

I'd like to examine this, because you make a good point - the text isn't clear as to what exactly defines an "unspeakably evil" act. It's an ambiguous point. And I find it unlikely that it's something cartoonishly over-the-top like "go out and burn a bunch of villages to the ground, kick some babies and eat a puppy, then steal a kid's ice cream." There is a spectrum of evil acts, and as you correctly indicate, a very minor act of naughtiness (like stealing a kid's ice cream) isn't likely to impact alignment.

However, the text does specifically say "unspeakably evil." While it doesn't say what that means in terms of specific conduct, the qualifier itself is pretty clear - this is the stuff of serious misconduct. The CG party Rogue, for instance, may decide to pilfer a few silver off the town guard. We wag our fingers at him. "Rogue," we say, "did you steal those?" He smiles and responds, "He wasn't using them!" And a laugh track plays.

If the Rogue did something we could categorize as "unspeakably evil," there would be no laugh track. No sitcom-esque snickering and jokes. I can't think of an "unspeakably evil" act that I could look at and say, "Sure, that won't cost you your morality." It's in the name. Unspeakably evil. It shouldn't have to be explained that doing something "unspeakably evil" is the act of an extremely Evil character. It's a truism.



The limits I speak of are usually major principles. I'm not talking about social niceties or being even-tempered saints. Of course the Paladin can have a temper. The guy wears his alignment so tight it's giving him a wedgie. I'd be ornery too.

But the statement - Good is defined by its limits, by its refusal to cross certain lines - is, in my mind, an accurate one. As soon as you acknowledge that there is something that would justify you crossing those lines, you are leaving Good behind. I'll acknowledge Neutral as a possibility.

Again, I'm not talking about little things, like "I will not lose my temper," or "The contents of other people's wallets stay in their wallets." I'm talking about major core tenets, like "Never slay the innocent," "No women, no children," "No fighting on hallowed ground," or "Never put raspberry sauce on a chocolate cake."

Seriously. Raspberry? Why?

When you have a major principle like that - these are Good principles, not just Lawful, and even a CG character can have a few of those - you don't compromise it for any reason. Again, even a CG character has lines he will not cross. Robin Hood, the (oft-debated) archetype of CG, never stole from the poor. (They had nothing to steal.)

I'm not saying all Good characters have the same limits. But they are defined as Good by their morality, which must essentially tell a character "Thou shalt not" at some point. Even a concept of morality as broad as "An it harm none, do what ye will" has the qualifier harm none. That's what Good is. And when you lift those restrictions, you swim into the deeper side of the alignment pool.



Thanks! I think one of the key takeaways from this, apart from the usual "alignment is not a straightjacket" lesson, is that alignment is not just a way of acting, but a way of thinking. A Good or Evil character may act in a Good or Evil way, not because the actions themselves are prescribed by alignment, but because in that character's mind, based upon their alignment-influenced views, these actions are "right." And that may mean that an alignment-shifted character acts much the same as he did before. Certainly, he shouldn't change radically - he shouldn't suddenly shun friends and start wearing black, for example. Alignment change is (or should be) like weight gain, deteriorating vision, or hair loss - a gradual process. When you look in the mirror from one day to the next, you shouldn't see a difference, and neither should anyone else. It's a slow acceptance of new truths about reality, a gradual change in your perspective and priorities. It is insidious and subtle.

Also, if you play alignment shift as suddenly going axe crazy, you're a horrible person and I'm unfriending you.

What this means is that if alignment changes, thoughts should change, and then deeds. It should not be possible to change alignment and not have any effect on how you think, and therefore act. The converse holds: if your voluntary deeds have changed your alignment, your thoughts changed first to allow your alignment to change.

[Red Fel]

What this means is that if alignment changes, thoughts should change, and then deeds. It should not be possible to change alignment and not have any effect on how you think, and therefore act. The converse holds: if your voluntary deeds have changed your alignment, your thoughts changed first to allow your alignment to change.

Thank you. That - specifically the bolded part, but generally the whole thing - is something I've been (somewhat verbosely) trying to express. You've put it succinctly. If your actions change your alignment, gradually or suddenly, it's because your thoughts changed to allow you to take those actions. The alignment shift in your mind preceded the alignment-shifting actions.

[RedMage125]

"A single flaw" does not reasonably include something described as "unspeakably evil." A "flaw" might be something like not flagging down someone who left their purse behind so you can rifle through it for loose change, or your paladin snapping at the umpteenth damsel in distress who bugs you looking for you to do something incredibly dangerous on her behalf.
Pointing out mind flayers doesn't work, because as you mentioned, mind flayers are that way by necessity (although you might argue the dominated slaves are unnecessary). Becoming a lich is explicitly a matter of choice, and given the material prerequisites, a well-thought-out choice at that.


I'd like to examine this, because you make a good point - the text isn't clear as to what exactly defines an "unspeakably evil" act. It's an ambiguous point. And I find it unlikely that it's something cartoonishly over-the-top like "go out and burn a bunch of villages to the ground, kick some babies and eat a puppy, then steal a kid's ice cream." There is a spectrum of evil acts, and as you correctly indicate, a very minor act of naughtiness (like stealing a kid's ice cream) isn't likely to impact alignment.
My reply to both of these is this:

I think ripping out one's own soul, placing it in a box, and transforming yourself into an undead mockery of life and purity is "unspeakably evil" enough. I don't understand why everyone seems insistent on adding something else to that, like the murder of innocents, in order to make it "unspeakably evil". Why isn't what the ritual actually achieves "evil enough" for some people? By the rules, making ANY undead creature is an evil act. Also by the rules, damaging the soul is an evil act. Willingly ripping out one's own soul in the process of becoming an undead creature (and thus "creating" one out o your own body), is pretty derned Evil.


Thanks! I think one of the key takeaways from this, apart from the usual "alignment is not a straightjacket" lesson, is that alignment is not just a way of acting, but a way of thinking. A Good or Evil character may act in a Good or Evil way, not because the actions themselves are prescribed by alignment, but because in that character's mind, based upon their alignment-influenced views, these actions are "right." And that may mean that an alignment-shifted character acts much the same as he did before. Certainly, he shouldn't change radically - he shouldn't suddenly shun friends and start wearing black, for example. Alignment change is (or should be) like weight gain, deteriorating vision, or hair loss - a gradual process. When you look in the mirror from one day to the next, you shouldn't see a difference, and neither should anyone else. It's a slow acceptance of new truths about reality, a gradual change in your perspective and priorities. It is insidious and subtle.

Also, if you play alignment shift as suddenly going axe crazy, you're a horrible person and I'm unfriending you.

+1

[hamishspence]

My reply to both of these is this:

I think ripping out one's own soul, placing it in a box, and transforming yourself into an undead mockery of life and purity is "unspeakably evil" enough.

According to Complete Divine - the lich's soul is not trapped in the box, but in its own body.

The box is there for the soul to retreat to when the body is destroyed, I think. Certainly OOTS Start of Darkness portrays it that way.

[RedMage125]

According to Complete Divine - the lich's soul is not trapped in the box, but in its own body.

The box is there for the soul to retreat to when the body is destroyed, I think. Certainly OOTS Start of Darkness portrays it that way.

Now that's interesting, because a phylactery is not a special quality of a lich. Check the template yourself. Nowhere in the template description is "phylactery" even mentioned. The ability to act as a hiding place for the soul is property of the phylactery, not of liches. Which means, in theory, an undead spellcaster (such as a necropolitan) with craft Wonderous Item and enough money could, in theory, make a phylactery, yes?

After all, That's what a level 20 Dread Necromancer does (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?348610-Dread-Necro-and-Necropolitan).

[VoxRationis]

My reply to both of these is this:

I think ripping out one's own soul, placing it in a box, and transforming yourself into an undead mockery of life and purity is "unspeakably evil" enough. I don't understand why everyone seems insistent on adding something else to that, like the murder of innocents, in order to make it "unspeakably evil". Why isn't what the ritual actually achieves "evil enough" for some people? By the rules, making ANY undead creature is an evil act. Also by the rules, damaging the soul is an evil act. Willingly ripping out one's own soul in the process of becoming an undead creature (and thus "creating" one out o your own body), is pretty derned Evil.


It's obviously not, because there's an entire camp of people who explain how you can be a perfectly good person, doing nice things, while being undead. If you are a good person, you can't willingly and deliberately do something that's "unspeakably" evil. The end result of the ritual is a creature with a back-up drive for its existence and a couple of incapacitating but nonlethal attacks. The end result of the ritual only affects the performer of the ritual or another fully willing participant. Self-harm is rarely considered to be really, really evil. Suicide may send you to Hell in certain real-world theologies, but that's only, to the best of my knowledge, because you can't repent before you can be judged if you kill yourself, in the same way you could potentially repent after killing somebody else. And those theologies are not applicable to D&D in any case, since nowhere is suicide listed as a sin in the core rules (maybe in the Book of Exalted Deeds; I haven't read it), not even in the paladin's code.
And yes, supposedly creating undead is an "evil" act. But as has been pointed out before, there's a difference between just evil and "so evil the authors of the Monster Manual were afraid to put it in writing" evil.

[Segev]

I think ripping out one's own soul, placing it in a box, and transforming yourself into an undead mockery of life and purity is "unspeakably evil" enough. I don't understand why everyone seems insistent on adding something else to that, like the murder of innocents, in order to make it "unspeakably evil". Why isn't what the ritual actually achieves "evil enough" for some people? By the rules, making ANY undead creature is an evil act. Also by the rules, damaging the soul is an evil act. Willingly ripping out one's own soul in the process of becoming an undead creature (and thus "creating" one out o your own body), is pretty derned Evil.

You may think that, but it is not necessarily something with which all - even many you'd consider good people IRL - would agree. "It's my soul, and I can do what I like with it. I'm not hurting anybody else, and I'm not changing who I am," is a rational line of thought. Sure, it's a line of thought many who have self-destructive habits which DO impact their friends and loved ones cling to, but it's not always an inaccurate one.

The consequences of "ripping out your own soul and shoving it in a box" are not spelled out as anything that would inherently harm anybody: you become undead, you get some spiffy undead-themed powers that may not be roses and puppy-dogs (but can still be used for just as much good as a Paladin's Holy Sword), and you can come back from being destroyed. None of this is inherently going to ruin your (un)life nor that of your friends and loved ones. Nothing in the description of the state of being a lich suggests you change in outlook, personality, goals, or abilities (beyond the increased ability scores or the loss of Con as an ability score) which would make you inherently unable to keep being with your friends and loved ones. Arguments about longevity skewing your perspective won't kick in until many decades later, especially if you hang out with elves or dragons, and are, like suggestions that separating your soul from your body should make you be twisted and evil and change how you role-play, merely that: suggestions. They are not in the rules.

It is, however, stated in the RAW that the process is "unspeakably evil," which means some heinous, moral-event-horizon-crossing act is required.


In response to the well-thought-out reply to my own prior post:

I would like to re-iterate the business about how being willing to take such an extremely evil action is an indication that you already are that evil, and that this is just the metrics catching up with you. Think of the most evil, heinous thing you can. Something you would find utterly repugnant, such that any person who did it would be anathema to you. Something you'd have a hard time forgiving even if this person showed that he had severe regrets and was doing his best to atone.

Now, imagine yourself doing it.

The point of this mental exercise is that, in order to get to a point where you could bring yourself to do it, you'd have to already have worked yourself away from the moral stance of its utter repugnance.

An "unspeakably evil" act is not one that your good, moral, upstanding person can one day say, "you know, I think I'll do this on a lark." His conscience wouldn't let him. If he's to the point his conscience WILL let him, it means he was already sliding that way.

I'm not saying that the DM needs to retro-actively declare your proto-lich to have been turning evil for a long while. I'm saying that he's completely justified in saying that one act has made your character Evil. Not because the one aberration in his record is enough on its own, but because the ability to perform the act indicates that the character is, in fact, Evil.


It wasn't that Hannibal Lector gained "evil points" every time he ate a person; no, by the time he was eating people, he had already worked his mind and conscience around to deeming the act acceptable. He was already evil; this act just proved it. The reason game mechanics operate on acts is that they're objective, whereas thoughts and feelings are subjective. A player can talk to his DM about why his character should or should not be a particular alignment based on his thoughts and wishes, but it's the actions which will betray whether he's really feeling and thinking those things or just "mouthing" them mentally as justifications.


Either way you look at it, the act is either so heinous, itself, that it makes you Evil all by itself, or no character who was not already Evil could bring himself to perform it. That's why anybody who becomes a Lich is an evil person...at least when they become said lich.

Notably, the Helm of Opposite Alignment "trap" idea somebody suggested would thus make the person who set it up refuse to go through with the process of becoming a lich if he were to have it spring early on accident: by engaging in the ritual, he was already showing that he's that Evil; the Helm would thus make him have the alignment he THINKS he does. Only those who are grossly self-deceptive of their true alignment would ever willingly don a Helm of Opposite Alignment; the idea of becoming so morally repulsive to who they are now would otherwise disgust them too much to be willing to do it. That's the underlying reason why the Helm itself says that you wo'nt willingly allow yourself to have your alignment switched back: your old self is morally unacceptable to who you are now.

[Gildedragon]

Just tossing this out there, but what if the evil is unspeakable because it is so infinitesimally small it cannot be meaningfully talked about.
Just saying: still evil, still unspeakable, but with 90% less dread and artificial sweeteners.

[VoxRationis]

Cute, but if the evil were infinitesimally small, I don't think it would even get mentioned. An infinitesimally small amount of evil approaches Neutral.

[Segev]

Infinitessimally small evil is "not worth mentioning," not "unspeakable." ^_~

[Wardog]

An "unspeakably evil" act is not one that your good, moral, upstanding person can one day say, "you know, I think I'll do this on a lark." His conscience wouldn't let him. If he's to the point his conscience WILL let him, it means he was already sliding that way.


Also, AFAIK, the process of becoming a lich is aprocess. So even if a good, moral, upstanding person did one day say, "you know, I think I'll do this on a lark", he then has to work out all the details of how to turn himself into a lich, make all the preparations, gather all the necessary ingredients, [commit a load of specifically defined evil acts, if using 2nd Ed rules], conduct the rituals and cast the spells, etc, all without ever deciding "I don't like the way this is going - I think I'll stop".

[RedMage125]

It's obviously not, because there's an entire camp of people who explain how you can be a perfectly good person, doing nice things, while being undead. If you are a good person, you can't willingly and deliberately do something that's "unspeakably" evil.
Fallacy. Facts not in evidence. To wit, the above bolded statement is actually completely false as per the RAW.

Alignment is not prescriptive of actions. It is descriptive.


The end result of the ritual is a creature with a back-up drive for its existence and a couple of incapacitating but nonlethal attacks. The end result of the ritual only affects the performer of the ritual or another fully willing participant. Self-harm is rarely considered to be really, really evil. Suicide may send you to Hell in certain real-world theologies, but that's only, to the best of my knowledge, because you can't repent before you can be judged if you kill yourself, in the same way you could potentially repent after killing somebody else. And those theologies are not applicable to D&D in any case, since nowhere is suicide listed as a sin in the core rules (maybe in the Book of Exalted Deeds; I haven't read it), not even in the paladin's code.
And yes, supposedly creating undead is an "evil" act. But as has been pointed out before, there's a difference between just evil and "so evil the authors of the Monster Manual were afraid to put it in writing" evil.
It doesn't matter if you THINK you're the only one affected. In D&D morality and ethics are not subjective like that. Good and Evil are cosmic forces to which even gods are beholden. And they do not care about your justifications for who you THINK you aren't hurting.

I said "victimless crime" in quotes before because, according to the RAW, it is not. Sure, no individual is harmed, but the crime is against Nature, the universe, and Life Itself. Saying that becoming a lich is a "victimless crime" is justification on the part of the person who is considering it. Basically "yeah, I know that it's evil, but who am I hurting?". None of that matters within the objective and absolute moral/ethical framework of D&D alignment, which is a dispassionate judge of one's actions. Whether or not you THINK it's evil does not change the nature of the act.

You may think that, but it is not necessarily something with which all - even many you'd consider good people IRL - would agree. "It's my soul, and I can do what I like with it. I'm not hurting anybody else, and I'm not changing who I am," is a rational line of thought. Sure, it's a line of thought many who have self-destructive habits which DO impact their friends and loved ones cling to, but it's not always an inaccurate one.
Real-world morality, with its subjective nature, self-justification, cultural mores, and slavish imitation of what is "popular", bears no relevance to a system like D&D, where Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are very real, completely objective, and absolute.


The consequences of "ripping out your own soul and shoving it in a box" are not spelled out as anything that would inherently harm anybody: you become undead, you get some spiffy undead-themed powers that may not be roses and puppy-dogs (but can still be used for just as much good as a Paladin's Holy Sword), and you can come back from being destroyed. None of this is inherently going to ruin your (un)life nor that of your friends and loved ones. Nothing in the description of the state of being a lich suggests you change in outlook, personality, goals, or abilities (beyond the increased ability scores or the loss of Con as an ability score) which would make you inherently unable to keep being with your friends and loved ones. Arguments about longevity skewing your perspective won't kick in until many decades later, especially if you hang out with elves or dragons, and are, like suggestions that separating your soul from your body should make you be twisted and evil and change how you role-play, merely that: suggestions. They are not in the rules.
However, creation of undead being Evil, as well as damaging the soul, ARE both in the rules.


It is, however, stated in the RAW that the process is "unspeakably evil," which means some heinous, moral-event-horizon-crossing act is required.Agreed. My point is that the transformation itself is an act of "unspeakable evil".



In response to the well-thought-out reply to my own prior post:

I would like to re-iterate the business about how being willing to take such an extremely evil action is an indication that you already are that evil, and that this is just the metrics catching up with you. Think of the most evil, heinous thing you can. Something you would find utterly repugnant, such that any person who did it would be anathema to you. Something you'd have a hard time forgiving even if this person showed that he had severe regrets and was doing his best to atone.

Now, imagine yourself doing it.

The point of this mental exercise is that, in order to get to a point where you could bring yourself to do it, you'd have to already have worked yourself away from the moral stance of its utter repugnance.

An "unspeakably evil" act is not one that your good, moral, upstanding person can one day say, "you know, I think I'll do this on a lark." His conscience wouldn't let him. If he's to the point his conscience WILL let him, it means he was already sliding that way.

I'm not saying that the DM needs to retro-actively declare your proto-lich to have been turning evil for a long while. I'm saying that he's completely justified in saying that one act has made your character Evil. Not because the one aberration in his record is enough on its own, but because the ability to perform the act indicates that the character is, in fact, Evil.
Again, alignment is DEscriptive of action, not PREscriptive. You need not be Evil to commit, or even be willing to commit, an Evil act. if that were the case, it would not be possible for paladins to fall, because, as Good people, they could not ever bring themselves to "willingly commit an evil act". Paladins do not fall for committing morally Neutral acts, nor do they fall for committing Chaotic ones.

This means that your thesis, here, is flawed. A character who is Neutral on the moral axis (Good/Evil) may well consider an Evil act (i.e. becoming a lich) morally acceptable because of the benefits (immortality of a sort). Chaotic Neutral, especially (such as the OP's character), are generally a bit selfish, strong willed, and independant. If he decides "hey, I want to live forever. And one option of doing so is kind of dealing with darker powers, but I'm confident that I'm not going to let that lead me down a dark path into total evil and depravity", then who's to say he would not consider such a course of action acceptable? I would say that it sounds very acceptable to such a character. The act is still an Evil one, yes. That's in the rules. His own moral justification for it do not lessen the impact of the action. However, one evil act does not sway one's alignment.



It wasn't that Hannibal Lector gained "evil points" every time he ate a person; no, by the time he was eating people, he had already worked his mind and conscience around to deeming the act acceptable. He was already evil; this act just proved it. The reason game mechanics operate on acts is that they're objective, whereas thoughts and feelings are subjective. A player can talk to his DM about why his character should or should not be a particular alignment based on his thoughts and wishes, but it's the actions which will betray whether he's really feeling and thinking those things or just "mouthing" them mentally as justifications.
Hannibal Lecter was always a sociopath, so I think you're not making a great point for yourself here.

And attempted justification is fine. It works great for finding a reason for your character to commit a certain act. But it does not "justify" the act in the sense of making it "less evil".

For example, killing a paladin (a force of Good) would generally be an evil act. Now, let's say said paladin attacked you because you happened to be wearing a crown you had taken as a trophy off a lich you just killed, and she detected a powerful evil aura on you, and so thought she was in the right by killing you. Now you are defending yourself, get in a crit while fighting her, and drop her to -10 hp and dead. Now have you committed an evil act? No. You killed in self defense. Would a "more Good" option to have been to try and defend yourself non-lethally? Yes. But defending yourself with lethal means when you are attacked with lethal means is morally acceptable in the D&D framework. That would be "justified" in the "no longer an evil act" sense.



Either way you look at it, the act is either so heinous, itself, that it makes you Evil all by itself, or no character who was not already Evil could bring himself to perform it. That's why anybody who becomes a Lich is an evil person...at least when they become said lich.
Again, since alignment is not prescriptive of action and no one evil act changes your alignment to evil, this is incorrect.

[VoxRationis]

This "no one act brings your alignment to Evil" idea you have is ridiculous. Sure, generally alignment changes are gradual, but there are lots of acts that are capable of doing this. Butchering a sleepy town full of halflings for fun, or because you're trying to make a robe of Small rib bones, or something like that is easily enough to send you to Evil by itself.

[icefractal]

My reply to both of these is this:

I think ripping out one's own soul, placing it in a box, and transforming yourself into an undead mockery of life and purity is "unspeakably evil" enough. I don't understand why everyone seems insistent on adding something else to that, like the murder of innocents, in order to make it "unspeakably evil". Why isn't what the ritual actually achieves "evil enough" for some people? By the rules, making ANY undead creature is an evil act. Also by the rules, damaging the soul is an evil act. Willingly ripping out one's own soul in the process of becoming an undead creature (and thus "creating" one out o your own body), is pretty derned Evil.I don't think that really works. I mean, the rules can say that damaging the soul is an evil act, but the actual players are going to have different feelings about that, and a fair number of people would be inclined to say "It's your own soul, you can do what you like with it." When the rules are asserting a moral opinion contrary to the players', it's just not going to be that solid a sell. For example, if the rules said that wearing red clothing was a heinously evil act, and had adventures where you had to go slay the BBEG for a horrible crime of wearing red, then most people just couldn't take that seriously.

And re: life - eh, life includes ebola and stonefish and those wasps that lay their eggs inside living spiders. It seems more like a "neutral" phenomenon, overall (supported in D&D by Druid and animal alignment). And "purity" - what does that even mean? It's a more contentious subject that souls, possible, and "upholding purity" can leave a bad taste in some people's mouths.


However - the ritual is undefined, and is specifically called out as being "unspeakably evil". So instead of trying to claim that "unspeakably evil" doesn't actually mean bad, why not flesh out something appropriate? For example ...

Lich Process:
1) Rip apart your soul and weave it into a chain, which you will use to anchor your mind to your phylactery. This could be considered a non-evil act, as it harms no-one else, but it tend to shift people toward evil by removing certain feelings such as empathy.
2) Now it's time to die. But if you just died, you would fall too quickly, and your soul chain wouldn't be strong enough to keep you anchored. Note that all mention of "falling", "up", and "down" is metaphorical in these instructions.
3) Therefore, gather a number of people, preferably similar to yourself (same species at the least) and do the soul-chain thing to them as well, leaving one end anchored to their body and the other end tied to yourself. Put them all in a half-dead state.
4) Now you can die - the many chains holding you up will be strong enough for you to "climb" back into the world of the living and reanimate your own body. The anchoring people will die in the process, pulled down by your use of them as a ladder.
5) Now rip apart their souls - quickly, or the "weight" of them falling will drag you back into death.
6) If you used good people for this, it's obviously pretty damn evil. But what if you used evil bastards that you would have slain anyway? Well, here's the catch-22 - when their souls are tied to you as an anchor, their personality and alignment is going to rub off on you. So if you used horrible villains for this, you inherit their vileness. And if you used innocents ... you've just killed and soul-shredded a bunch of innocent people. And would be wracked with guilt about it, except that the mangled state of your own soul makes it easy to disregard such feelings.

Just one possible way it could work. But I'm inclined to say it should be something as bad as this. When a ritual is called out as "unspeakably evil", then a lack of details doesn't really justify reversing that. Of course, you could house-rule something different, no problem there - I just find evil liches more interesting than "everyone who can eventually becomes a lich because why not?"

[squiggit]

Arguments like this make me prefer 4e liches. The ritual to become a lich is essentially making a deal with Orcus (sometimes Vecna or Bane or something) for immortality and power... and it's his taint who corrupts said soul and makes you evil. An archlich by contrast is a mage strong enough to do create a phylactery and bind his soul on his own, without tainted dark influence, so no alignment restriction.

It certainly has less mystique to it but it feels less cheap to me than the "super dupe evil guys trust me" explanation.

Also makes that stuff about good liches seem more viable if you aren't an elf.

[RedMage125]

This "no one act brings your alignment to Evil" idea you have is ridiculous. Sure, generally alignment changes are gradual, but there are lots of acts that are capable of doing this. Butchering a sleepy town full of halflings for fun, or because you're trying to make a robe of Small rib bones, or something like that is easily enough to send you to Evil by itself.
Well, each halfling murdered is an evil act, is it not?

Answer: Yes.

Also: It's not "my idea" that no one act brings your alignment to evil. It's RAW. DMG, page 134. I believe I quoted the entire relevant section earlier in the thread.


I don't think that really works. I mean, the rules can say that damaging the soul is an evil act, but the actual players are going to have different feelings about that, and a fair number of people would be inclined to say "It's your own soul, you can do what you like with it." When the rules are asserting a moral opinion contrary to the players', it's just not going to be that solid a sell. For example, if the rules said that wearing red clothing was a heinously evil act, and had adventures where you had to go slay the BBEG for a horrible crime of wearing red, then most people just couldn't take that seriously.
Fortunately for my side of the debate, D&D is a construct of FANTASY, and real-world concepts of morality and ethics do not need to be adhered to. The designers say "In the default setting of D&D x is evil", then that is a FACT of RAW. And since there is no way to possibly account for all permutations of houserules when discussing what is and is not FACT in D&D, only RAW is viable.

So what those people say regarding how they, personally, feel regarding what an individual does with his own soul, since RAW covers it, their opinion means squat.

My opinion, too, for that matter, and yours. What matters as far as FACTS is what the RAW says.


And re: life - eh, life includes ebola and stonefish and those wasps that lay their eggs inside living spiders. It seems more like a "neutral" phenomenon, overall (supported in D&D by Druid and animal alignment). And "purity" - what does that even mean? It's a more contentious subject that souls, possible, and "upholding purity" can leave a bad taste in some people's mouths.
Again, RAW says one thing. Opinions regarding that have no bearing on the factual status of the RAW for the purposes of a D&D discussion.


However - the ritual is undefined, and is specifically called out as being "unspeakably evil". So instead of trying to claim that "unspeakably evil" doesn't actually mean bad, why not flesh out something appropriate? For example ...

Lich Process:
*snip*
You, sir, are creative and ingenuitive.

And probably Evil yourself :smallwink:

Seriously, though, did you just come up with that on the spot? It's pretty cool.


Just one possible way it could work. But I'm inclined to say it should be something as bad as this. When a ritual is called out as "unspeakably evil", then a lack of details doesn't really justify reversing that. Of course, you could house-rule something different, no problem there - I just find evil liches more interesting than "everyone who can eventually becomes a lich because why not?"
And personally, I agree. That may surprise some people whom I have been debating with. I like my liches evil, and I think the ritual to become one is something that should be a hard thing to find in and of itself, especially given how many moral and upright people would destroy a copy of it if they found it. I made a TN lich in my world to be an exception, something to make my players look at a "monster" in a whole new light. check out this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?352095-Absolutely-Horrifying-Encounters), post #29. It is where I first introduced "Bernard the Lich"
But generally, I prefer my liches to be dark masters of magic who are depraved and sinister (and those are their good qualities).

But I haven't been arguing my personal opinions. I've been arguing FACTS.

And I'm sorry for all those who disagree, but the FACT is that the OP's CN Sorcerer (assuming he has the Craft Wonderous Item feat, and has obtained the necessary ritual) can, in fact, become a lich. The transformation is an Evil act. That does not make him evil.

Sorry about your luck, all those of you who disagree, but them's the rules.

[Socratov]

You know, I swear I read a Wizards web article about a good person who by accident (ritual gone wrong) became a lich... But for the life of me I can't find it. My google skills must be insufficient...

[Segev]

If you hold to the claim that alignment is 100% descriptive, and utterly ignore what it is intended to represent, then by the RAW, yes, the act of becoming a lich requires an act so evil it ensures an Evil alignment. Because the Template says you're evil when you become a lich. It requires some extensive effort to change your alignment to something else in order to make that "good" lich. And since it is often subjectively up to the DM just how much you have to do to change your alignment, it is within his rights to make it take as long and as much as he says it should to atone for the great evil you've committed.


As for "the rules of D&D say it's a crime against nature," that's not necessarily Evil. Nature is neutral, as evidenced by all things most closely tied to it being in some way tied to neutrality (animals are always neutral, druids must have neutral in their alignment, etc.).

More to the point, however, yes, by the rules, nobody is arguing that cutting out your soul and becoming undead isn't listed as "evil" by proscription. However, I'm not even arguing subjective morality and justification when I say real world people might reasonably object to a definition of "evil" that is based solely on "um, the writers said so." It tends to raise questions precisely because it doesn't jive with anything in our experience, and without something to spell out why this is "evil," it tends to come off as "Capitalism is evil because Comrade Stalin said Capitalism is evil." Or insert whatever you consider a backwards and foolish "evil" by some moral standard that can only be "evil" because somebody decided they didn't like it.

Nothing in the rules, other than the statement, "Creating undead is evil," really spells out why it's evil. Vampires? Sure, because they have to feed on the living, perhaps. But Liches? Without something in the process of becoming one that makes them evil, they really do seem harmless if they choose to behave in a good fashion. Even the argument, "it's damaging to life itself" is a bit weak, since life itself would seem to be undiminished by it in any real sense, and perhaps is even recovering faster than the harm done. It's HARD to write a metaphysical evil that is purely metaphysical, because evil - true evil - is centered around genuine harm to others for one's own gain.

[Angelalex242]

Well, I dunno. Take vampires instead.

Over there in the Buffyverse, Angel is essentially what happens when you stick a Helm of Opposite Alignment on a Vile Feat approved Chaotic Evil Vampire (Angelus). Moreover, Angel is essentially cursed to be Lawful Good, as making him feel remorse is the whole reason the gypsies cursed him.

And they also threw in that lovely escape clause of 'If you ever experience one moment of true happiness, the soul we returned to you will be removed, and you'll be a Vile Feat approved CE monster once again!' Short of that true happiness, however, he cannot change alignment if he wanted to. Being forced to grieve for all the monstrosities his CE self did is the point, let it not be forgotten.

Yeah, those gypsies. One wonders what alignment THEY were. "It is not justice we serve, but vengeance!" Anyways, if something similar happened in the D&D 3.5 verse, what would happen to 'Angel' in this universe? We'll figure that the gypsy curse, in this case, is a Ravenloft style curse of vengeance executed by the Vistani rather then something any idiot with a bestow curse can make and any idiot with remove curse or break enchantment or even heal can remove.

[RedMage125]

If you hold to the claim that alignment is 100% descriptive, and utterly ignore what it is intended to represent, then by the RAW, yes, the act of becoming a lich requires an act so evil it ensures an Evil alignment.And what, pray tell, was alignment "intended to represent"? Since you seem to think you have the answers to an issue that has divided D&D gamers for years.

If you are at all insinuating that alignment is MEANT to dictate action (and therefore be a straitjacket to player choice), then that would be incorrect.


Because the Template says you're evil when you become a lich.
This is the one valid point you've made this whole time.

Yes, the template says "Any evil". Remarkably lacking a frequency denotation, like the vampire's "always evil (any)". Which makes us call into question how hard of a rule that is. After all, evil alignment is NOT a prerequisite to becoming a lich. The prerequisite of which is "must be able to make a phylactery", and that is further denoted as "11th level caster, Craft Wonderous Item".


It requires some extensive effort to change your alignment to something else in order to make that "good" lich. And since it is often subjectively up to the DM just how much you have to do to change your alignment, it is within his rights to make it take as long and as much as he says it should to atone for the great evil you've committed.
I haven't been arguing in favor a "good" lich, have I?

(looks back at earlier posts)

Nope, not once.

But the OP has a CN Sorcerer...


As for "the rules of D&D say it's a crime against nature," that's not necessarily Evil. Nature is neutral, as evidenced by all things most closely tied to it being in some way tied to neutrality (animals are always neutral, druids must have neutral in their alignment, etc.).
I may have paraphrased. I believe the exact wording is "mockery of life".


More to the point, however, yes, by the rules, nobody is arguing that cutting out your soul and becoming undead isn't listed as "evil" by proscription. However, I'm not even arguing subjective morality and justification when I say real world people might reasonably object to a definition of "evil" that is based solely on "um, the writers said so." It tends to raise questions precisely because it doesn't jive with anything in our experience, and without something to spell out why this is "evil," it tends to come off as "Capitalism is evil because Comrade Stalin said Capitalism is evil." Or insert whatever you consider a backwards and foolish "evil" by some moral standard that can only be "evil" because somebody decided they didn't like it.
Well, then anyone who uses a definition of "evil" other than what the writers prescribe is deviating from RAW, and such input is not relevant to this discussion, is it?

That was easy to do.


Nothing in the rules, other than the statement, "Creating undead is evil," really spells out why it's evil. Vampires? Sure, because they have to feed on the living, perhaps. But Liches? Without something in the process of becoming one that makes them evil, they really do seem harmless if they choose to behave in a good fashion. Even the argument, "it's damaging to life itself" is a bit weak, since life itself would seem to be undiminished by it in any real sense, and perhaps is even recovering faster than the harm done. It's HARD to write a metaphysical evil that is purely metaphysical, because evil - true evil - is centered around genuine harm to others for one's own gain.
Sigh...


Unliving corpses—corrupt mockeries of life and purity—
are inherently evil. Creating them is one of the most
heinous crimes against the world that a character can
commit. Even if they are commanded to do something
good, undead invariably bring negative energy into the
world, which makes it a darker and more evil place.
Many communities keep their graveyards behind high
walls or even post guards to keep grave robbers out. Graverobbing
is often a lucrative practice, since necromancers pay
good coin for raw materials. Of course, battlefields are also
popular places for grave-robbers—or for necromancers
themselves—to seek corpses.
That's why.

And despite any objection that you (or any hypothetical person who might dislike "because the writers say so") can muster, I will remind you that D&D is a construct of FANTASY. And as a construct of FANTASY, real world bias, values, and mores mean squat with regard to what is and is not FACT for that FANTASY world.

From a completely and objective logical standpoint, "because the writers said so" is actually good enough. BECAUSE it's fantasy. The writers have that right.

[atemu1234]

I'm just going to quote Dante's Inferno (the book/poem, not the video game) and say this, "It is impossible to be penitent and have foreknowledge."

[Alex12]

You know, I swear I read a Wizards web article about a good person who by accident (ritual gone wrong) became a lich... But for the life of me I can't find it. My google skills must be insufficient...
https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cc/20020401a

And despite any objection that you (or any hypothetical person who might dislike "because the writers say so") can muster, I will remind you that D&D is a construct of FANTASY. And as a construct of FANTASY, real world bias, values, and mores mean squat with regard to what is and is not FACT for that FANTASY world.

From a completely and objective logical standpoint, "because the writers said so" is actually good enough. BECAUSE it's fantasy. The writers have that right.

The problem is that the moral standards of the writers are clearly wonky in a number of ways. You know what spells don't have the Evil tag? The entire Inflict line, despite the fact that those are bringing negative energy into the world. You know what spell does have the Evil tag? Deathwatch. FFS, it's on the Healer list! They literally put a spell on the list of a class that cannot cast that spell without violating the alignment requirements that all members of that class have. For that matter, becoming a Necropolitan isn't an evil act, and in fact the sample Necropolitan is True Neutral. This is despite the fact that the ritual of crucimigration involves calling forth "the names of evil powers and gods to forge a link with the Negative Energy Plane."

[137beth]

Arguments like this make me prefer 4e liches. The ritual to become a lich is essentially making a deal with Orcus (sometimes Vecna or Bane or something) for immortality and power... and it's his taint who corrupts said soul and makes you evil. An archlich by contrast is a mage strong enough to do create a phylactery and bind his soul on his own, without tainted dark influence, so no alignment restriction.

It certainly has less mystique to it but it feels less cheap to me than the "super dupe evil guys trust me" explanation.

Also makes that stuff about good liches seem more viable if you aren't an elf.

That...actually makes sense. Wow:smalleek:

[Angelalex242]

...no comments on the cursed undead? Oh well.

[Segev]

And what, pray tell, was alignment "intended to represent"? Since you seem to think you have the answers to an issue that has divided D&D gamers for years.

If you are at all insinuating that alignment is MEANT to dictate action (and therefore be a straitjacket to player choice), then that would be incorrect.Well, I've apparently failed to be clear, if you think that's my position.

No. I don't think alignment dictates action. Alignment is a mechanical representation of truths about your character's personality. It represents his general mind-set and approach to problems, as well as his feelings and philosophies - in a broad sense - regarding other sentient creatures and himself.

Alignment REPRESENTS your predilections, your morals and your ethics, your conscience and compassion and ruthlessness.

It represents how nice/noble of a guy you are, and how much you play by the rules (whatever set of rules that might be).

It reflects who you are.

Therefore, if you are the sort of person who is capable of committing an "unspeakably evil" act, your alignment reflects this by shifting to Evil. If you are considering the truth underlying the mechanics, you probably WERE pretty evil going in, since you were the sort who could bring himself to do this. Acting that way just sealed the deal by proving to everybody - including yourself - that you really WILL do unspeakably evil things.

If you do not wish to consider what it represents, then it's simply that "unspeakably evil" acts all but certainly fall into the category of exceptional behaviors which, on their own, can shift your alignment. The representation and the mechanics match past the point at which you actually perform such an act; before hand, they might not, if your character was the sort to do that but you'd not acted on it because it wasn't worth it yet.

Or you might be able to justify to yourself a character so internally inconsistent that he is a bright and shining hero of good and virtue who would never ever do horribly evil things...and then he does all of a sudden with no shift in personality. One might call such a character "insane," however. And the "good" thing still seems like it was more act than reality at that point. Even if the mechanics played with until then were saying it was genuine. But yes, mechanically, you can tell your DM your character is one way and play him that way for a while to get the mechanics of that alignment...then act 100% against it all of a sudden for no apparent reason. You still just violated your (old) alignment so hard that your DM is 100% within his rights to declare you've shifted.


Yes, the template says "Any evil". Remarkably lacking a frequency denotation, like the vampire's "always evil (any)". Which makes us call into question how hard of a rule that is. After all, evil alignment is NOT a prerequisite to becoming a lich. The prerequisite of which is "must be able to make a phylactery", and that is further denoted as "11th level caster, Craft Wonderous Item".And yet, it is the process of making a phylactery which is, I believe, the part that is "unspeakably evil." Since being able to make a phylactery, then, requires one to be evil, it would seem being evil is a requirement to being a lich after all.


I haven't been arguing in favor a "good" lich, have I?

(looks back at earlier posts)

Nope, not once.

But the OP has a CN Sorcerer...Your snark does not serve to make your points more valid. Nor to hide that you're trying to perform the ninja log-swapping technique to avoid addressing the argument.

My point in the bit you quoted was that yes, you could play a lich of a non-evil alignment...but only if he worked AWAY from the evil alignment he'd earned in the process of becoming a lich. "Good" is irrelevant; perhaps I should have said "non-evil," but anybody actually reading what I wrote rather than looking for a reason to argue would grasp that I was discussing shifting away from evil more than anything else. A "good lich" is an example of a "non-evil" one, and a more extreme one than about any other, which made it a good example to bring up.


I may have paraphrased. I believe the exact wording is "mockery of life".

Well, then anyone who uses a definition of "evil" other than what the writers prescribe is deviating from RAW, and such input is not relevant to this discussion, is it?

That was easy to do.

Sigh...Sure. If you wish to argue from pure RAW, then "mockery of life" == "definition of evil." It unfortunately is only going to spawn more arguments as to why you can have a perfectly heroic "evil" character, though, since all the informed-evil activities that make him evil don't actually require him to go out and do things which make him villainous by the standards of the audience - the players and anybody else paying attention.

I tend to argue against these sorts of "evil because, um, we said so" even when they're RAW because they're not useful and actively encourage the kind of alignment arguments that are so infamous. I don't particularly like seeing a declared-evil character who, by any standard I could take seriously, is acting like a noble incarnation of a good and just hero. Maybe with a "creepy" aesthetic, but that's not enough to be evil in any serious book.

But, since you want to argue from pure RAW, then you need to stop trying to pretend that the fact that it says a lich is "any evil" means that the exceptions to that can start at the moment one becomes a lich. The very notion is laughable, since, by your lights, lichdom doesn't require any evil acts that mean anything regarding your alignment. (And if you claim you didn't say that, reconsider what it means when you claim that "one act" can't change your alignment, so the "one act" of becoming a lich doesn't change your alignment.) If it worked as you say it does, the "any evil" in the template is just a lie, not even a suggestion. Anybody who didn't want to die and had the requisite magical skills could become a lich, since there's nothing evil about it and therefore nothing to stop a neutral or good person from doing it. And since nothing about it makes you evil, and alignment doesn't dictate your actions anyway, it'd be silly that even a proportion of them relative to the population would be evil.

Of course, you seem to be trying to have your cake and eat it, too, here: On the one hand, you say alignment is descriptive; on the other, you say that acts cannot shift it by themselves. Since you're trying to argue from strict RAW, I will point you once again to the quotes from the DMG earlier: extreme examples can be exceptions. Just as the example of a sudden repentance and major act of atonement can turn an evil man good, so, too, can a sudden act of depravity when somebody somehow snaps and loses their morals cause him to turn evil.

Lichdom's process contains such an act, an act so depraved that, if you weren't evil before, you are once you do it.

[LordBlades]

Alignment REPRESENTS your predilections, your morals and your ethics, your conscience and compassion and ruthlessness.

It represents how nice/noble of a guy you are, and how much you play by the rules (whatever set of rules that might be).

It reflects who you are.



I don't think that's a position supported by the rules,as they almost always talk about 'good/evil deeds or 'good/evil acts' without any discussion of intent, which leads me to think that, at least in the authors' vision, a deed is objectively good/evil regardless of the reasons behind it and therefore alignment is a measure of how the sum of your deeds falls on an objective moral scale. For example, the act of becoming a lich is 'unspeakable Evil' and changes your alignment to Evil. You became a lich because it was the only way to prevent the destruction of the whole multiverse? Nope. Still Evil.

[Gildedragon]

I don't think that's a position supported by the rules,as they almost always talk about 'good/evil deeds or 'good/evil acts' without any discussion of intent, which leads me to think that, at least in the authors' vision, a deed is objectively good/evil regardless of the reasons behind it and therefore alignment is a measure of how the sum of your deeds falls on an objective moral scale. For example, the act of becoming a lich is 'unspeakable Evil' and changes your alignment to Evil. You became a lich because it was the only way to prevent the destruction of the whole multiverse? Nope. Still Evil.

In that case I figure you'd become some flavor of Good-lich (as opposed to a lich that is merely good) that or if the process of saving the whole enchilada turns you into a lich, it would be a fairly sui generis lichification, falling entirely in the storytellers idiosyncrasies

[Angelalex242]

If you're good and need to live forever, that's what the Deathless Type is for. Sacred Watcher will do the job for you just fine. Or Crypt Warden, whichever.

[RedMage125]

If you're good and need to live forever, that's what the Deathless Type is for. Sacred Watcher will do the job for you just fine. Or Crypt Warden, whichever.
Maybe this was covered in another thread, but I thought it was this one.
Deathless do not last forever. Sacred Watchers move on once their duty to protect their ward is taken up by someone else. crypt Earden explicitly enjoy their afterlife like any other dead person, only returning when they must act to defend the crypt.

I don't think that's a position supported by the rules,as they almost always talk about 'good/evil deeds or 'good/evil acts' without any discussion of intent, which leads me to think that, at least in the authors' vision, a deed is objectively good/evil regardless of the reasons behind it and therefore alignment is a measure of how the sum of your deeds falls on an objective moral scale. For example, the act of becoming a lich is 'unspeakable Evil' and changes your alignment to Evil. You became a lich because it was the only way to prevent the destruction of the whole multiverse? Nope. Still Evil.
Well, Intent can enter into the equation. I suggest reading the Book of Vile Darkness, page 6, there's a whole section on Action vs Intent. Now, granted, it's mostly about a potentially accidental (or grossly negligent) deed with an evil result, but the core ruling applies.

Committing a grossly Evil act to accomplish a Good end is both, by the rules. The Evil act is still Evil, and the Good achieved is still Good. The Book of Exalted Deeds has similar treatises on Good, and how "the ends justify the means" is a dangerous path, but the core of that book's argument is that characters who are "exalted good" need to hold themselves above such justifications. Now for a non-exalted Good or Neutral character, commiting a grossly evil act to achieve a Good one is morally, a wash. But that's the sum total. That does not abrogate the character from the Evil of the misdeed, but nor does that Evil diminish the Good of the Good Deed.


Well, I've apparently failed to be clear, if you think that's my position.I distinctly asked for clarification. I was not trying to strawman your points by saying that such was what you were saying. I said "if that is what you were saying..." because that was my perception of it.


No. I don't think alignment dictates action. Alignment is a mechanical representation of truths about your character's personality. It represents his general mind-set and approach to problems, as well as his feelings and philosophies - in a broad sense - regarding other sentient creatures and himself.

Alignment REPRESENTS your predilections, your morals and your ethics, your conscience and compassion and ruthlessness.

It represents how nice/noble of a guy you are, and how much you play by the rules (whatever set of rules that might be).

It reflects who you are.
On the money so far...


Therefore, if you are the sort of person who is capable of committing an "unspeakably evil" act, your alignment reflects this by shifting to Evil. If you are considering the truth underlying the mechanics, you probably WERE pretty evil going in, since you were the sort who could bring himself to do this. Acting that way just sealed the deal by proving to everybody - including yourself - that you really WILL do unspeakably evil things.
However, you neglect those who are morally Neutral. Those who are not "Good", but not truly selfish/depraved enough to be considered "Evil". Those who might commit an act of Evil if it meant a positive goal from them, and didn't hurt anyone they cared about, and-in the specific case of the lich transformation-wasn't really hurting any innocents, either. To such a person, the "mockery of life and purity", the dealing with dark powers for a short term to enact the transformation, these are worthwhile towards the goal, which would be immortality. Obviously, no one who genuinely deserves a "Good" tag in their personal alignment (and has been playing their character that way) should consider this process acceptable. It is, by definition, a callous and selfish act. My point is that a morally Neutral person could, in fact, consider it an acceptable course of action to commit such an Evil deed, by their own self-justification. Such a transformation would not necessarily alter their own outlooks, beliefs or actions even following the transformation. And if outlooks, beliefs, and actions (or, to use your own words, their predilections, morals and ethics, compassion and ruthlessness) are the same as when they were Neutral, how can it be said that they are no longer Neutral?

A lot of my point hinges on the fact that the lich transformation ritual has not been specified. It the "unspeakably evil" act is merely the transformation itself (i.e. creating an undead creature and binding its soul to a box), then a Neutral person could certainly consider it acceptable. As the result is the only thing we have to go by, it is a perfectly legitimate use of RAW to rule this as such. That the "unspeakable evil" is no more than the same kind of "crime against life and purity" of any creation of undead, with the added horror of affixing a spiritual tether to one's soul into a box/gem/whatever.

If, on the other hand, the transformation ritual required something along the lines of sacrificing the lives of others, or swearing fealty to Orcus or something, then your argument would bear more merit. There are things that even justification of "it doesn't hurt anybody and it helps me" won't hold water against. or perhaps even the creation of the phylactery itself, or the tethering of one's soul requires some kind of evil act. If they specified that one must commit murder in order to bind one's soul into a horcrux...I mean, phylactery...then you would also be correct.

I am merely playing Devil's Advocate with the RAW. As they are not specific, it is a perfectly valid within RAW to rule that one simply makes a box, and turns oneself into an undead creature, tying one's soul to the box. Even though that is, by the RAW, an evil act, a Neutral person could certainly consider it an acceptable course of action, without having to have had some kind of pre-existing trend towards evil.

Pathfinder Note: Pathfinder answers this question well. I just recently started reading Pathfinder books, and one of them "UNdead Revisited" says this:

It is not merely force of will that propels one to lichdom,
nor is it the simple desire to avoid death, though these
are certainly factors in the mindset of the would-be lich.
Instead, those who would follow the path of the undying
mind must seek out tomes of forbidden magic and lost
lore. Though the initiates might not be evil when they
begin, the process under which they become liches drives
them slowly into the arms of corruption—the focus they
must develop drives out all other concerns, including the
civilized needs of friendship and love.
That's just fantastic. It also sets this argument to rest as far as Pathfinder is concerned. I never gave PF a chance when it came out, I moved on to 4e, occasionally playing 3.5e. But the more I read, the more I like.


If you do not wish to consider what it represents, then it's simply that "unspeakably evil" acts all but certainly fall into the category of exceptional behaviors which, on their own, can shift your alignment. The representation and the mechanics match past the point at which you actually perform such an act; before hand, they might not, if your character was the sort to do that but you'd not acted on it because it wasn't worth it yet.

Or you might be able to justify to yourself a character so internally inconsistent that he is a bright and shining hero of good and virtue who would never ever do horribly evil things...and then he does all of a sudden with no shift in personality. One might call such a character "insane," however. And the "good" thing still seems like it was more act than reality at that point. Even if the mechanics played with until then were saying it was genuine. But yes, mechanically, you can tell your DM your character is one way and play him that way for a while to get the mechanics of that alignment...then act 100% against it all of a sudden for no apparent reason. You still just violated your (old) alignment so hard that your DM is 100% within his rights to declare you've shifted.
I don't know about "100% within his rights", at least not if we're assuming a DM who runs by RAW. With the exception of the "rare instances" (which I am going to address further, below), alignment change takes TIME. Whch is, by RAW, to be of a time period to be no less than one week of in-game time of continued demonstration of behavior more fitting another alignment. Furthermore, if the character continues to do both Good and Evil things, the DMG says "Indecisiveness Indicates Neutrality", and that wishy-washy characters should be Neutral.


And yet, it is the process of making a phylactery which is, I believe, the part that is "unspeakably evil." Since being able to make a phylactery, then, requires one to be evil, it would seem being evil is a requirement to being a lich after all.
Afraid you don't have proof on that one. The "unspeakably evil" part is mentioned under the heading of "Lich Characters", and the Phylactery is under a separate heading. Nothing in the MM says making a phylactery requires one to be evil. It simply requires CL 11, Craft Wonderous Item, 120,000 gp and 4,800 XP.

Now, I will say this: First of all 4,800 is 1/25 of 120,000, not 1/25 of 240,000. Which makes no sense. If the cost to create the phylactery is 120,000, then it's gp worth as a magic item (with a singular purpose) is 240,000. Therefore the XP cost should be 9,600. However, if the XP cost is correct, then the lich should only have to spend 60,000 gp to make the phylactery, which as a completed magic item should be worth 120,000gp. Either way, this process takes a long time, either 120 days or 240 by RAW (assuming the normal rules for item creation).

The Second thing of my "I will say this" is that IF AND ONLY IF you could somehow prove that the creation of the phylactery is the "unspeakably evil" act, then all liches would be of evil alignment by the time of completion. Devoting 4-8 months to doing nothing but an "unspeakably evil" thing pretty much cements one to an evil alignment, by ANY stretch of RAW.

But that hinges on the "if and only if". Interestingly enough, that seems to be exactly what is implied by Pathfinder's input on the matter.


Your snark does not serve to make your points more valid. Nor to hide that you're trying to perform the ninja log-swapping technique to avoid addressing the argument.

My point in the bit you quoted was that yes, you could play a lich of a non-evil alignment...but only if he worked AWAY from the evil alignment he'd earned in the process of becoming a lich. "Good" is irrelevant; perhaps I should have said "non-evil," but anybody actually reading what I wrote rather than looking for a reason to argue would grasp that I was discussing shifting away from evil more than anything else. A "good lich" is an example of a "non-evil" one, and a more extreme one than about any other, which made it a good example to bring up.
And my point was that a CN person could, in fact, deem the transformation an "acceptable course of action" without having been required to be Evil to even consider it. Mind you, again, this is going off my strict-RAW point regarding how the lich ritual is not spelled out, and that the only "unspeakable evil" is the transformation itself.


Sure. If you wish to argue from pure RAW, then "mockery of life" == "definition of evil." It unfortunately is only going to spawn more arguments as to why you can have a perfectly heroic "evil" character, though, since all the informed-evil activities that make him evil don't actually require him to go out and do things which make him villainous by the standards of the audience - the players and anybody else paying attention.
I don't know what you mean. You mean an antihero? Those are usually Neutral on the Good/Evil scale. Sometimes Evil (like Riddick). Or do you mean a "non-evil" undead? Just because the creation of undead is an evil act, does not preclude an undead character. Or, in fact, a non-evil necromancer. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?335215-Character-Concepts-Non-Evil-Necromancer) You will note, btw that the OP in that linked thread is me. I certainly do not preclude the idea of a character who does "good", but finds "evil" means acceptable. It's the entire premise behind the malconvoker, after all.


I tend to argue against these sorts of "evil because, um, we said so" even when they're RAW because they're not useful and actively encourage the kind of alignment arguments that are so infamous. I don't particularly like seeing a declared-evil character who, by any standard I could take seriously, is acting like a noble incarnation of a good and just hero. Maybe with a "creepy" aesthetic, but that's not enough to be evil in any serious book.
And, to the contrary, I do enjoy a RAW view of alignment because, when done right, they can create so much more roleplaying opportunities, dramatic tension, and character complexity. A character who is inherently evil by nature, but struggles against it to try and be Good, can be a fascinating character. In a discussion I once had regarding the [Evil] tag on undead creation, someone brought up Good vampires, using characters like Angel from BtVS as an example of an archetype a player may wish to emulate. My whole reasoning is this: If there were a bunch of "vampires-with-a-conscience" running around in the Buffyverse, would we, the viewers, have give a dire rat's *** about Angel? No. The fact that he was an exception to the soulless bloodsucking monsters out there made him unique. His struggle with his past and darker nature made him compelling. I will remind you that, once upon a time, Driz'zt was a compelling and intriguing character, too.

But as for a declared-Xalignment character, regardless of the value of X, I, too dislike it. but that's a problem with that player, and not a fault in the mechanics that they are attempting to sidestep/misuse/abuse. I do not blame the system, but rather, the people involved.


But, since you want to argue from pure RAW, then you need to stop trying to pretend that the fact that it says a lich is "any evil" means that the exceptions to that can start at the moment one becomes a lich. The very notion is laughable, since, by your lights, lichdom doesn't require any evil acts that mean anything regarding your alignment. (And if you claim you didn't say that, reconsider what it means when you claim that "one act" can't change your alignment, so the "one act" of becoming a lich doesn't change your alignment.) If it worked as you say it does, the "any evil" in the template is just a lie, not even a suggestion. Anybody who didn't want to die and had the requisite magical skills could become a lich, since there's nothing evil about it and therefore nothing to stop a neutral or good person from doing it. And since nothing about it makes you evil, and alignment doesn't dictate your actions anyway, it'd be silly that even a proportion of them relative to the population would be evil.
I certainly concede your point regarding the alignment entry. That's an extremely valid point.

However, as a counterpoint, I ask this: If you are going to enforce that, do you also enforce that a half-dragon must be of the same alignment as the dragon "parent"? Because that's in the template, too. Which means that any Dragon Disciple changes alignment upon reaching level 10 in that PrC, because the class specifies that they become a half-dragon, and half dragons-according to the template in the MM-are of the same alignment as dragon type, even if they were raised among non-dragon parents. Or are they free-willed? A vampire, one can argue, must feed off of other livings things to sustain itself (although actual rules regarding this are notably absent from the MM), and as such, is likely committing a sufficient amount of Evil acts to sway its alignment to Evil. But a lich (or a half-dragon) needs do no such thing to survive, as carries the same presence of mind, willpower, and free-will and determination as any other humanoid.

I realize that this argument goes well with your "you become evil, and then may return to your previous alignment" mindset. It was just a counter-point.


Of course, you seem to be trying to have your cake and eat it, too, here: On the one hand, you say alignment is descriptive; on the other, you say that acts cannot shift it by themselves. Since you're trying to argue from strict RAW, I will point you once again to the quotes from the DMG earlier: extreme examples can be exceptions. Just as the example of a sudden repentance and major act of atonement can turn an evil man good, so, too, can a sudden act of depravity when somebody somehow snaps and loses their morals cause him to turn evil.
The rules say it is possible (although unlikely) that someone could have a drastic change of heart that causes a drastic alignment shift. If, as I postulate, the lich transformation is as simple as 1)Make box 2)Cut a hole in that boxPut your soul in that box 3)Profit; then what has happened to the character to "force" a change of heart on the character? Alignment change may e in the hands of the DM, but a change of heart is a drastic change in outlook and personality, and that is 100% in the purview of the player (assuming no outside agency, such as helm of alignment, or grabbing a powerful alignment-charged artifact).

The kind of thing that denotes one of these "extreme examples" should be on a Darth-Vader-at-the-end-of-Return-of-the-Jedi kind of scope and magnitude.

I don't think making a magic item, or even a one-shot defiling of life and purity, is quite enough magnitude.


Lichdom's process contains such an act, an act so depraved that, if you weren't evil before, you are once you do it.
I quite agree that it should be thus.

But as the rules stand, they are vague enough to argue that while the process is evil, it's vague enough that it might not be as irredeemably evil as you claim.

[Angelalex242]

Well, a Sacred Watcher could also be doing the Lord Soon thing in Order of the Stick. His self appointed job is to be a Sacred Watcher of his gate...and oh, by the way, make every Paladin in the Sapphire Guard a Sacred Watcher under his command...for the sole purpose of protecting his Gate from evil. "Arise, my Children. Only the Honor of a Paladin is unbreakable, even by death itself. Ghost Martyrs of the Sapphire Guard, ATTACK!" (Like, say, Xykon and Redcloak.) It would've worked, too. Soon was winning until some insane ex paladin or other shattered Soon's Gate, which freed him and all his Ghost Martyrs/Sacred Watchers from their Oaths, all of whom were immediately taken to Mt. Celestia upon its destruction.

Had Ms. Miyazaki not interfered, Lord Soon would've endured forever, as would the rest of the Sapphire Guard, endlessly guarding the gate against anything that threatened it.

Sacred Watchers in action:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0449.html

[DeadMech]

I personally have no issue with a non-evil lich. Heck we have paladin succubi running around, right? Though as a DM I wouldn't make it easy or the defacto default by making the process of becoming one easily brushed aside. And since the evil act require isn't specified as a DM I'd feel entirely in my right to impose whatever requirement I wanted.

You're planning to become a creature powered by entropy itself. Not only are you going to have to kill people. You are probably obliterating their souls. Probably slowly. Definitely painfully. Probably tying off what's left of them to your own soul after you're done dipping them into the negative energy plane. You know, in whatever controlled fashion doesn't blow up in your face by unleashing a pack of wraiths on you. Probably going to continue to hear their screaming inside of your head for the rest of forever as they anchor your soul in your soul hidey box. Even if you and it get destroyed there isn't going to be enough left of them without divine intervention for them to even go to an afterlife. You might even be required to occasionally drain someone to keep the connection fresh or else risk microbes eating away what's left of you. I don't imagine Demi-liches can steal and eat eight souls a day simply because they can and have nothing better to do.

But hey. Maybe you're the only thing standing between the world and some cosmic horror that ordinarily could just out-wait your lifespan. Maybe you have some other reason to require the power and immortality for the greater good. Or maybe you're just being pragmatic. There could be a Cthulhu out there that you don't even know about yet.

It's probably even possible to find willing volunteer souls. Some folk are capable of great acts of self sacrifice given the right reasons. Even if you are going to have to torture them for the better part of something between a year and eternity, depending on how liberal we are with defining them as still being them.

[Socratov]

https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cc/20020401a



yes, thank you

[RedMage125]

Well, a Sacred Watcher could also be doing the Lord Soon thing in Order of the Stick. His self appointed job is to be a Sacred Watcher of his gate...and oh, by the way, make every Paladin in the Sapphire Guard a Sacred Watcher under his command...for the sole purpose of protecting his Gate from evil. "Arise, my Children. Only the Honor of a Paladin is unbreakable, even by death itself. Ghost Martyrs of the Sapphire Guard, ATTACK!" (Like, say, Xykon and Redcloak.) It would've worked, too. Soon was winning until some insane ex paladin or other shattered Soon's Gate, which freed him and all his Ghost Martyrs/Sacred Watchers from their Oaths, all of whom were immediately taken to Mt. Celestia upon its destruction.

Had Ms. Miyazaki not interfered, Lord Soon would've endured forever, as would the rest of the Sapphire Guard, endlessly guarding the gate against anything that threatened it.

Sacred Watchers in action:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0449.html
A Strong point...if we were discussing the world of OotS.

As Ghost Martyrs do not exist in D&D 3.5e RAW, we cannot say one way or the other. For all we know, the Ghost Martyrs are like Crypt Wardens, and get to rest in the afterlife until their warded area is threatened, at which point they return.

All of this, deathless and all was, if you recall, to your point of saying that a Good character could achieve immortality by becoming deathless instead. Deathless do not stick around forever, so that would be a poor choice if eternal consciousness in this plane (like a lich has) was the goal. That was my point. And your examples of Sacred Watcher, Crypt Warden and even Ghost Martyr (the last due to insufficient data...and them not being RAW), do not contest that point.

[Sception]

Is this an alignment argument? Yes, it's an alignment argument. And therefore dumb.

Anyway, short answer: ask your DM.

Although, personally, I think allowing non-evil liches kind of cheapens the concept. Besides, there's nothing says an evil character can't continue to contribute to good goals, maintain relationships with good comrades, or be part of a good party. I mean, Belkar, right?

But whatev's. That's just me.

[ChocoSuisse]

Guys, have a look at this : this is a really good way to explain the process and how it's evil.

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Horcrux

[Alex12]

Guys, have a look at this : this is a really good way to explain the process and how it's evil.

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Horcrux

Problems with that.
First off, killing is something that adventurers do all the time. A third-level paladin probably has dozens of kills under his belt, and he's still a paladin.

Second, horcruxes are strictly cut-rate knockoff versions of phylacteries. Phylacteries don't hold chunks of your soul, they anchor your whole soul when you die. If the lich is still around when you destroy the phylactery, he'll still be around (and probably furious at you). The lich's soul is still in his body, it only goes to the phylactery when the body gets destroyed.

[ChocoSuisse]

Problems with that.
First off, killing is something that adventurers do all the time. A third-level paladin probably has dozens of kills under his belt, and he's still a paladin.

Second, horcruxes are strictly cut-rate knockoff versions of phylacteries. Phylacteries don't hold chunks of your soul, they anchor your whole soul when you die. If the lich is still around when you destroy the phylactery, he'll still be around (and probably furious at you). The lich's soul is still in his body, it only goes to the phylactery when the body gets destroyed.
It's not only killing, but as with the lich's description, the exact nature of an associated evil act is unspoken

J. K. Rowling knows exactly what the process for the creation of a Horcrux is, but is not telling — yet. The information will be included in the Harry Potter Encyclopedia. She has told her editor what the process is and revealed that the editor felt like vomiting afterwards. All she will say is that a spell is involved, and a horrific act is performed.

Regarding your second point, it's a variation, but the idea is the same : your soul goes through a highly unnatural process and what remains in the end is very different to what it was at the start.

[atemu1234]

I think I'll summarize the points of this thread so far:

Alignment issues are largely up to the DM. There is no reason to assume a creature is evil based on its race or creature type. This is probably as it should be, as nobody likes a radar paladin.
People will still argue this point until the end of days, and this is also good. Different DMs and different opinions is what makes this game work, nearly as much as hit points and the D20 system.
Even though we are divided, the game itself can still be fun.
Never forget what the RAW is, but remember to ignore the ridiculous bit.


This is why I love this game. You get so much opinion and such a broken RAW system, that you can largely find something to back up any opinion. Is the standard lich always evil? Can an undead be redeemed? Can a player who seeks eternal life at any cost be truly "good"? We may never know. All I can say is, ask your DM, and if he says OK, good. If he says no, well... there are other options.

Moral of the story: No one likes a rules lawyer.

[Morty]

I'm going to add a fifth point: inflexible rules about alignment are awful and do nothing but cause arguments, therefore they should be ignored as much as possible.

[RedMage125]

I'm going to add a fifth point: inflexible rules about alignment are awful and do nothing but cause arguments, therefore they should be ignored as much as possible.

That's not at all a good addendum to what he was saying. You're just trying to throw your own anti-alignment rhetoric in there. His advice was a lot more along the lines of "remember to have fun, even if it means ignoring rules that get in your way". Not "rules about X are bad", calling out any particular game element.

[Segev]

However, you neglect those who are morally Neutral. Those who are not "Good", but not truly selfish/depraved enough to be considered "Evil". Those who might commit an act of Evil if it meant a positive goal from them, and didn't hurt anyone they cared about, and-in the specific case of the lich transformation-wasn't really hurting any innocents, either. To such a person, the "mockery of life and purity", the dealing with dark powers for a short term to enact the transformation, these are worthwhile towards the goal, which would be immortality. Obviously, no one who genuinely deserves a "Good" tag in their personal alignment (and has been playing their character that way) should consider this process acceptable. It is, by definition, a callous and selfish act. My point is that a morally Neutral person could, in fact, consider it an acceptable course of action to commit such an Evil deed, by their own self-justification. Such a transformation would not necessarily alter their own outlooks, beliefs or actions even following the transformation. And if outlooks, beliefs, and actions (or, to use your own words, their predilections, morals and ethics, compassion and ruthlessness) are the same as when they were Neutral, how can it be said that they are no longer Neutral?Actually, while I think a lot of our disagreement is semantic at this point, I think there are some key points that are off-base, here.

I am not neglecting those who are Neutral, first off: if you are Neutral, it would (by the RAW) be easier to slip to Evil than if you were Good, simply because you have a shorter "distance" to go. So again, if the process of becoming a lich is "unspeakably evil," you're even more likely to be evil if you started neutral before hand, since the "unspeakable" number of "evil alignment points" it hypothetically represents would shove you that much further south on the morality axis. (Yes, I know the rules don't use a strict points system in D&D or PF; I am simply choosing a convenient metaphor here.)

More pointedly, if one doesn't consider "mockery of life and purity" to be a problem, but is otherwise noble and good and kind to all creatures and a defender of the innocent, the "neutral" alignment tag starts to wear awfully thin, at least to my mind. "Mockery of life and purity" is one of those "informed attributes" that makes somebody's "evil" come across as less-than-genuine, to me. Far from being a justification when one says, "it doesn't hurt anybody else," it's an observation that there's something fundamentally wrong with the definitions being used. It makes Evil not...necessarily...a bad thing. Despite the typical expectation that it would be so by definition. That's where I start to have problems with things that are evil-only-because-the-author-says-so. "Evil" then stops meaning what it does in the lingua franca, and instead means something else. At which point it becomes less meaningful as a descriptor.




A lot of my point hinges on the fact that the lich transformation ritual has not been specified. It the "unspeakably evil" act is merely the transformation itself (i.e. creating an undead creature and binding its soul to a box), then a Neutral person could certainly consider it acceptable. As the result is the only thing we have to go by, it is a perfectly legitimate use of RAW to rule this as such. That the "unspeakable evil" is no more than the same kind of "crime against life and purity" of any creation of undead, with the added horror of affixing a spiritual tether to one's soul into a box/gem/whatever.

If, on the other hand, the transformation ritual required something along the lines of sacrificing the lives of others, or swearing fealty to Orcus or something, then your argument would bear more merit. There are things that even justification of "it doesn't hurt anybody and it helps me" won't hold water against. or perhaps even the creation of the phylactery itself, or the tethering of one's soul requires some kind of evil act. If they specified that one must commit murder in order to bind one's soul into a horcrux...I mean, phylactery...then you would also be correct.I think - and I could be wrong here, as I'm not a mind-reader - that the reason the transformation ritual is ill-specified is twofold:

1) They wanted to allow players and DMs to fashion the horrific evil in their own heads in a way that might be stronger to them than anything the writers could think up, and
2) They didn't want to spell it out because it might squick people, and they'd rather leave that to individual gaming groups.

I think they took the care to specify that it is "unspeakably evil" specifically to ensure that nobody could reasonably make the argument that you're not evil - and willingly so - if you become a lich.

Now, you can, as with any vague rule where something is left to the imagination of the DM and players, interpret the RAW to mean "not really all that evil after all," but that is very clearly, given everything surrounding the rules about becoming a lich and being a lich and such, not what is intended. It may be dangerous to read "intent" into rules, usually, but sometimes it's glaringly, painfully obvious. I think, if nothing else, the declaration in the template that a lich's alignment is "any evil" makes the intent pretty clear: only evil people become liches. (Lichen? Why does my brain always want to make "lichen" the plural of "lich?")



I am merely playing Devil's Advocate with the RAW. As they are not specific, it is a perfectly valid within RAW to rule that one simply makes a box, and turns oneself into an undead creature, tying one's soul to the box. Even though that is, by the RAW, an evil act, a Neutral person could certainly consider it an acceptable course of action, without having to have had some kind of pre-existing trend towards evil.This is true, and I would even argue that, under such a re-defined version of what "good" and "evil" mean, you could have a heroic evil character. Not an anti-hero, but a genuine by-our-standards-good guy.

Consider a paladin who upholds every ideal of paladinhood when it comes to anything. Then change it so that he is a wizard, but still upholds everything an LG paragon of virtue should. Now have him undergo a process whose only "evil" is that it involves being "a mockery of life." It doesn't hurt anybody else, it doesn't force him to act in any way different than he did before, it doesn't give him "unholy hungers" or anything like that. It just makes him stronger, more long-lasting, and almost impossible to kill. He goes out and continues to do good and heroic things. He had no personal qualms about it because he's not been able to find any actual justification for "a mockery of life" being inherently evil, any more than he has found evidence that being "an elf" makes one inherently good (despite what elven scholars might say, particularly when preaching for war against the dwarves). Notably, it doesn't even, by the rules we are provided, actually harm him in any way. He isn't altered in a way that impacts his ability to be the kind of person he was before, and we have no mechanics nor rules that indicate that doing this has denied him greater happiness, kindness, or even power (unless you count the LA, in which case any template which applies one is equally vile an act to take on).

This is why I tend to dislike "informed evil," which is to say, re-definition of "evil" to mean something more than a measure of how much you care about others and their happiness and well-being. Without spelling out how being a "mockery of life" actually means you're causing unmitigated harm to the unwilling, how you're doing damage to others without giving them a right to refuse nor anything in return, or how you're causing REAL harm to yourself, even, that is not commensurate to the benefit you gain... I don't find this to make more "nuanced" characters, but rather to dilute the meaning of the moral axis. "Is it right to punish him just because he's a lich?" shouldn't be a moral quandary. Fantastic Racism doesn't make for interesting alignment discussions. "Evil" and "Good" have meanings in English, and changing the definitions while trying to pretend that you haven't doesn't make things interesting, it just makes them confusing and starts opening doors to justifying real evil by the same logic used to justify evil-because-we-said-it-is. After all, if it's evil-but-okay once, why can't this other evil thing also be "okay?"




However, as a counterpoint, I ask this: If you are going to enforce that, do you also enforce that a half-dragon must be of the same alignment as the dragon "parent"? Because that's in the template, too. Which means that any Dragon Disciple changes alignment upon reaching level 10 in that PrC, because the class specifies that they become a half-dragon, and half dragons-according to the template in the MM-are of the same alignment as dragon type, even if they were raised among non-dragon parents. Or are they free-willed? A vampire, one can argue, must feed off of other livings things to sustain itself (although actual rules regarding this are notably absent from the MM), and as such, is likely committing a sufficient amount of Evil acts to sway its alignment to Evil. But a lich (or a half-dragon) needs do no such thing to survive, as carries the same presence of mind, willpower, and free-will and determination as any other humanoid.

I realize that this argument goes well with your "you become evil, and then may return to your previous alignment" mindset. It was just a counter-point.That's actually an interesting question. I, personally, would probably house-rule it. In fact, it may require a DM call anyway, since, unlike the ritual to become a lich, there's no "ritual" involved, here. It just is...natural development. There's no voluntary act, IC, that is "aligned" with your draconic heritage. That makes it harder to justify, to my mind. One certainly could make the RAW argument either way. Maybe, fluff-wise, it's like when Jade was the Queen of the Shadowkhan in Jackie Chan Adventures: embracing that power of your dragon's blood is letting it influence and take over your will, much the same way as doing drugs might alter your priorities. The "beast inside" is getting stronger, having more influence over you. Alternatively, the simple physical alteration is increasingly influencing you on an instinctive level such that your drives are more aligned with your heritage. It takes more and more effort to force yourself to retool your self-control so you alter your alignment back.

I'm not sure I like that explanation, but it could work with a RAW interpretation that becoming half-dragon alters your alignment inherently.


The rules say it is possible (although unlikely) that someone could have a drastic change of heart that causes a drastic alignment shift. If, as I postulate, the lich transformation is as simple as 1)Make box 2)Cut a hole in that boxPut your soul in that box 3)Profit; then what has happened to the character to "force" a change of heart on the character? Alignment change may e in the hands of the DM, but a change of heart is a drastic change in outlook and personality, and that is 100% in the purview of the player (assuming no outside agency, such as helm of alignment, or grabbing a powerful alignment-charged artifact).

The kind of thing that denotes one of these "extreme examples" should be on a Darth-Vader-at-the-end-of-Return-of-the-Jedi kind of scope and magnitude.

I don't think making a magic item, or even a one-shot defiling of life and purity, is quite enough magnitude.

I quite agree that it should be thus.

But as the rules stand, they are vague enough to argue that while the process is evil, it's vague enough that it might not be as irredeemably evil as you claim.

Well, if you're going to hold that the only evil thing is "being a mockery of life," you might be right. I obviously would disagree with the interpretation should somebody try to hold it, but hey, in their game, do what they will. That doesn't mean, if they (as the OP has done) ask for opinions and advice, I won't advise them to consider that the act of becoming a lich should include "unspeakable evil" by whatever definition he, the player, may have of that phrase, and thus SHOULD automatically make anybody willing to undergo the process an evil person.

I think it loses a lot if you try to dilute 'evil' to be merely an informed attribute, and that liches are far less interesting if no "real" evil is required in becoming one. I also think it flies in the face of obvious intent.

Really, being a Necropolitan is better fluff-wise if you want the whole "willing but not evil undead" transformation.

[Gildedragon]

I think it loses a lot if you try to dilute 'evil' to be merely an informed attribute, and that liches are far less interesting if no "real" evil is required in becoming one. I also think it flies in the face of obvious intent.

Really, being a Necropolitan is better fluff-wise if you want the whole "willing but not evil undead" transformation.

Or the pelor-blasted Good Lichen (i am using that now) one of which is actually called "Good Lich" (libris mortis 156) which is identical to a Lich... except it is good. Still undead, still has the aura of fear, has one-higher CR than your average lich...
One presumes the ritual involves an act of Unspeakable Good.
For a neutral lich: perform said act of good without actually meaning it. Or have both rituals going on simultaneously (gets you a phylactery and anti-phylactery?)

[RedMage125]

Actually, while I think a lot of our disagreement is semantic at this point, I think there are some key points that are off-base, here.
It certainly is, but I enjoy a good debate.

Fact is, as far as preference, I agree with you. But the semantics-lawyer inside me says that technically the RAW allow for other ways to go about it that are 100% RAW-legal.


I am not neglecting those who are Neutral, first off: if you are Neutral, it would (by the RAW) be easier to slip to Evil than if you were Good, simply because you have a shorter "distance" to go. So again, if the process of becoming a lich is "unspeakably evil," you're even more likely to be evil if you started neutral before hand, since the "unspeakable" number of "evil alignment points" it hypothetically represents would shove you that much further south on the morality axis. (Yes, I know the rules don't use a strict points system in D&D or PF; I am simply choosing a convenient metaphor here.)

More pointedly, if one doesn't consider "mockery of life and purity" to be a problem, but is otherwise noble and good and kind to all creatures and a defender of the innocent, the "neutral" alignment tag starts to wear awfully thin, at least to my mind. "Mockery of life and purity" is one of those "informed attributes" that makes somebody's "evil" come across as less-than-genuine, to me. Far from being a justification when one says, "it doesn't hurt anybody else," it's an observation that there's something fundamentally wrong with the definitions being used. It makes Evil not...necessarily...a bad thing. Despite the typical expectation that it would be so by definition. That's where I start to have problems with things that are evil-only-because-the-author-says-so. "Evil" then stops meaning what it does in the lingua franca, and instead means something else. At which point it becomes less meaningful as a descriptor.
I know it's a shorter trip from Neutral to Evil, but it also means that a Neutral person is more likely to accept a "evil deed done for a good cause" than a Good person.

And really, as far as not hurting anyone...liches paralyze whoever they touch, and are constantly surrounded by an aura of fear and dread that will send most commoners running.



I think - and I could be wrong here, as I'm not a mind-reader - that the reason the transformation ritual is ill-specified is twofold:

1) They wanted to allow players and DMs to fashion the horrific evil in their own heads in a way that might be stronger to them than anything the writers could think up, and
2) They didn't want to spell it out because it might squick people, and they'd rather leave that to individual gaming groups.

I think they took the care to specify that it is "unspeakably evil" specifically to ensure that nobody could reasonably make the argument that you're not evil - and willingly so - if you become a lich.
I think you are quite right as far as author intent. But that's also an opinion.


Now, you can, as with any vague rule where something is left to the imagination of the DM and players, interpret the RAW to mean "not really all that evil after all," but that is very clearly, given everything surrounding the rules about becoming a lich and being a lich and such, not what is intended. It may be dangerous to read "intent" into rules, usually, but sometimes it's glaringly, painfully obvious. I think, if nothing else, the declaration in the template that a lich's alignment is "any evil" makes the intent pretty clear: only evil people become liches. (Lichen? Why does my brain always want to make "lichen" the plural of "lich?")
I think intent was clear when they said that the ritual is "unspeakably evil" and "must be undertaken willingly" as well. I think intent is 100% clear. I've been playing Devil's Advocate with semantics regarding the RAW.



This is why I tend to dislike "informed evil," which is to say, re-definition of "evil" to mean something more than a measure of how much you care about others and their happiness and well-being. Without spelling out how being a "mockery of life" actually means you're causing unmitigated harm to the unwilling, how you're doing damage to others without giving them a right to refuse nor anything in return, or how you're causing REAL harm to yourself, even, that is not commensurate to the benefit you gain... I don't find this to make more "nuanced" characters, but rather to dilute the meaning of the moral axis. "Is it right to punish him just because he's a lich?" shouldn't be a moral quandary. Fantastic Racism doesn't make for interesting alignment discussions. "Evil" and "Good" have meanings in English, and changing the definitions while trying to pretend that you haven't doesn't make things interesting, it just makes them confusing and starts opening doors to justifying real evil by the same logic used to justify evil-because-we-said-it-is. After all, if it's evil-but-okay once, why can't this other evil thing also be "okay?"
In a world where Evil is a very real cosmic force, and the evil in the hearts of mortals is a microcosm of that same force, I don't generally approve of that kind of view (for my game, anyway).
I use alignments, but I also like more complex values. For example, a paladin who serves a LN "judge of the dead" kind of god, who seeks to stamp out undead everywhere, would still have a problem with a non-evil lich, even a Good one. Motivation like that, to me, is better than a simple "Evil=bad guys; Good=allies" dichotomy. I wouldn't have such a paladin fall for killing a LG lich, because he was furthering the cause of his ethos, and was still eliminating an undead creature. However, I do occasionally like to completely break the aforementioned dichotomoy an have Evil-aligned NPCs who seek to work as "allies" to the PCs (because they have intersecting goals), and even Good-aligned antagonists. I had a story I was running just a few months ago (before I moved) that was building towards a paladin of Bahamut being an antagonist.



That's actually an interesting question. I, personally, would probably house-rule it. In fact, it may require a DM call anyway, since, unlike the ritual to become a lich, there's no "ritual" involved, here. It just is...natural development. There's no voluntary act, IC, that is "aligned" with your draconic heritage. That makes it harder to justify, to my mind. One certainly could make the RAW argument either way. Maybe, fluff-wise, it's like when Jade was the Queen of the Shadowkhan in Jackie Chan Adventures: embracing that power of your dragon's blood is letting it influence and take over your will, much the same way as doing drugs might alter your priorities. The "beast inside" is getting stronger, having more influence over you. Alternatively, the simple physical alteration is increasingly influencing you on an instinctive level such that your drives are more aligned with your heritage. It takes more and more effort to force yourself to retool your self-control so you alter your alignment back.

I'm not sure I like that explanation, but it could work with a RAW interpretation that becoming half-dragon alters your alignment inherently.
That's a fair answer. It boils down to the question of free will and the taint of the soul.
If we knew more about the lich transformation process (or even if it was the making of the phylacery that was "unspeakably evil"), then we'd have more to go on. Just specifying that it is the creation of the phylactery that is "unspeakably evil" makes all liches evil by RAW. Because it takes 4-8 months to make. Spending 8 hours a day (minimum), every day, engaged in an "unspeakably evil" activity invariably turns one to Evil.


Well, if you're going to hold that the only evil thing is "being a mockery of life," you might be right. I obviously would disagree with the interpretation should somebody try to hold it, but hey, in their game, do what they will. That doesn't mean, if they (as the OP has done) ask for opinions and advice, I won't advise them to consider that the act of becoming a lich should include "unspeakable evil" by whatever definition he, the player, may have of that phrase, and thus SHOULD automatically make anybody willing to undergo the process an evil person.
It's up to the DM. And personally, I wouldn't let it slide if I was running a game. Like I said, it hinges on a technicality and word semantics, using the vague and unspecified nature of the ritual as proof.


I think it loses a lot if you try to dilute 'evil' to be merely an informed attribute, and that liches are far less interesting if no "real" evil is required in becoming one. I also think it flies in the face of obvious intent.
I quite agree


Really, being a Necropolitan is better fluff-wise if you want the whole "willing but not evil undead" transformation.

Using your own logic for liches against you, for a moment, you would be hard-pressed to prove this, given that:


The ceremony that lasts for 24 hours - the usual time it takes for the petitioner to perish. During this period, two or three zombie servitors keep up a chant initiated by the ritual leader when the petitioner is first placed into position. Upon hearing the petitioner's last breath, the ritual leader calls forth the names of evil powers and gods to forge a link with the Negative Energy Plane, and then impales the petitioner. Dying, the petitioner is reborn as a necropolitan, dead but animate.
Necropolitans are created with evil rituals, too.

[Alex12]

Using your own logic for liches against you, for a moment, you would be hard-pressed to prove this, given that:

Necropolitans are created with evil rituals, too.

I'll note, though, that the sample Necropolitan is in fact True Neutral. And nowhere does it actually say that performing the ritual turns you evil or anything of the sort.

[squiggit]

I'd put that dilution less on the players trying to interpret it and more the game itself creating objective acts of Good and Evil that are irrespective of whether the act is good or evil.

Worse in that the game does a really bad job quantifying why those acts are good or evil. A spell is evil because it has the evil tag and it has the evil tag because it's evil.

Stuff like that makes the conflict feel less about good and evil and more about what jersey you're wearing.

[Segev]

Using your own logic for liches against you, for a moment, you would be hard-pressed to prove this, given that:

Necropolitans are created with evil rituals, too.It comes down to whether "calling upon" these entities is more than a formality. Are they just reveling in your pain and suffering and granting your boon because of it? Are they not really involved other than as names by which to conjure? I can see ways to rule it easily working; I can also see the contrary arguments. Because of the relatively obvious intent, again, I would be inclined to heed arguments that seem to go with the intent more than against it, though, again.

Still, yes, one could make the case.

Mechanically, of course, we've still got the RAW saying "unspeakable evil" about lichdom and nothing of the sort (i.e., nothing calling it out as an extraordinary act which might qualify as alignment-changing). So combine that with the lack of a requirement in the template that necropolitans be evil...


I'd put that dilution less on the players trying to interpret it and more the game itself creating objective acts of Good and Evil that are irrespective of whether the act is good or evil.

Worse in that the game does a really bad job quantifying why those acts are good or evil. A spell is evil because it has the evil tag and it has the evil tag because it's evil.

Stuff like that makes the conflict feel less about good and evil and more about what jersey you're wearing.
Indeed. I was not trying to say it's the players' fault, but that I dislike it when the system and its authors try to create acts of informed evil. "It's evil because, um, metaphysics that have no tangible consequences."

[RSSwizard]

Yes they are.
But.

The way you handle your evil-ness is entirely up to you, and the ones on the receiving end of it is also up to you.

Just because a character becomes evil doesnt mean he starts serving asmodeus or tiamat, or starts hatching plans to take over the world.

They also dont become stupid either (especially wizard liches). If they had a good thing going before, if they know that there is a purpose for things to be the way they are in the world (good kingdoms and whatever) that doesnt mean they turn against that.

Remember evil guys can always wage war with other evil guys. Maybe he reasons that the people in the world who are good are less troublesome than the ones who are bad, and thus are less likely to get in their way.

Evil characters are almost always selfish though, so you're going to have to play that. Chaotic Evil ones dont care about contracts or making deals either, if they can raep and pillage someone they will do it. But like I explained before . . . the ones they do it to could very well be the orcs or the goblins or whatever.


If there are goodie-goodie two shoes characters around like Paladins it doesnt necessarily mean you become their enemy. Especially if you still want to work with them to further their goals. If they are roleplaying it correctly. But no matter what they will not trust you and will see you as a potential looming threat on the horizon, there will have to be a mediator in the group that interfaces between your character and the goodie-goods.

[VoxRationis]

Actually, it will mean you become the paladin's enemy, since their code is pretty strict about this sort of thing. The reverse doesn't necessarily apply, though.

[RedMage125]

It comes down to whether "calling upon" these entities is more than a formality. Are they just reveling in your pain and suffering and granting your boon because of it? Are they not really involved other than as names by which to conjure? I can see ways to rule it easily working; I can also see the contrary arguments. Because of the relatively obvious intent, again, I would be inclined to heed arguments that seem to go with the intent more than against it, though, again.

Still, yes, one could make the case.

Mechanically, of course, we've still got the RAW saying "unspeakable evil" about lichdom and nothing of the sort (i.e., nothing calling it out as an extraordinary act which might qualify as alignment-changing). So combine that with the lack of a requirement in the template that necropolitans be evil...
Right, you just now owe a favor to someone who is capable of and comfortable with calling on evil powers...



I'd put that dilution less on the players trying to interpret it and more the game itself creating objective acts of Good and Evil that are irrespective of whether the act is good or evil.

Worse in that the game does a really bad job quantifying why those acts are good or evil. A spell is evil because it has the evil tag and it has the evil tag because it's evil.

Stuff like that makes the conflict feel less about good and evil and more about what jersey you're wearing.
With the exception of Deathwatch (which seems arbitrary), those spells with Evil tags are quite well explained. Evil Summoning spells bring contact from a plane where Evil is present tangibly to your current plane.

Undead has been explained multiple times in this thread. The creation of an undead creature is an Evil act.

It's really not this circular logic that you claim "evil b/c it has the evil tag, has the evil tag b/c it's evil, ad nauseum".

That kind of argument smack of the kind of closed-minded alignment detractor who refuses to see the evidence and logic presented to explain and justify those mechanics, because he is more interested in spouting his own vitriolic anti-alignment rhetoric than he is in actually trying to figure out why those mechanics work the way they do.



Indeed. I was not trying to say it's the players' fault, but that I dislike it when the system and its authors try to create acts of informed evil. "It's evil because, um, metaphysics that have no tangible consequences."
No tangible consequences? You mean, like an alignment change? Which, given the real, objective nature of Evil as a COSMIC FORCE means that there is a tiny bit of the same energy that makes up a demon inside your own body?

Evil characters take more damage from Holy Smite, and Holy weapons. Those are tangible, mechanical effects. And if you have become evil as result of committing many evil acts, I'd bloody well call that a consequence.

[LordBlades]

.

Undead has been explained multiple times in this thread. The creation of an undead creature is an Evil act.

It's really not this circular logic that you claim "evil b/c it has the evil tag, has the evil tag b/c it's evil, ad nauseum".

Actually undead creation is a very clear example of' 'it's Evil because it's Evil'. Undead are:
-Powered by negative energy, which is not inherently evil (Negative Energy plane and Inflict spells, which bring raw negative energy into the world are not Evil)
-Trap the souls of the body's former owner (preventing resurrection and presumably any kind of afterlife) The fact that preventing the resurrection of somebody might actually be a Good act (if said somebody is a being of great Evil) and even denying them afterlife might also be a Good act (see Wall of the Faithless in FR, not a fate to look forward to) aside, trapping the soul (and body) of somebody is not an Evil act, according to the missing [Evil] tag on Trap the Soul.
-Unnatural, which is also not Evil. Aberrations aren't all 'always Evil',neither are constructs (many of which also trap unwilling elemental spirits inside them) nor does Craft Construct require or make you to be Evil.

And yet, Undead, even the mindless ones (which are nothing more than extensions of their creators will, lacking the conscious though process to actually be Evil or Good or whatever else. A skeleton ordered to strangle babies will strangle babies. A skeleton ordered to help old ladies cross the street will help old ladies cross the street just as well) are Evil, presumably because the authors saw Necromancy as a villain tool and wanted to discourage heroes using Undead (after all, any Good vs Evil war would have plenty of Evil bodies laying around for Good to make undead out of).


That kind of argument smack of the kind of closed-minded alignment detractor who refuses to see the evidence and logic presented to explain and justify those mechanics, because he is more interested in spouting his own vitriolic anti-alignment rhetoric than he is in actually trying to figure out why those mechanics work the way they do.



The problem is that, by the book, Lich makes you Evil, in the sense that you know ping on Detect Evil and are affected by spells that affect Evil creatures and just that. As far as 3.5 ruleset is concerned, your personality and outlook on life is altered in no way (Lich entry lacks any form of provisions similar to the Helm of Opposite Alignment for example about your morals changing and/or you enjoying your new alignment), you're still the same guy you were before (and as such, in a descriptive alignment system you will return to your old alignment rather quickly). Many people (me included) find that rather stupid.

[Segev]

No tangible consequences? You mean, like an alignment change? Which, given the real, objective nature of Evil as a COSMIC FORCE means that there is a tiny bit of the same energy that makes up a demon inside your own body?Ah, but for that to actually be a consequence that results in more recognizable bad stuff happening to people who neither deserve nor agreed to it, you have to have that alignment shift enforce behavior, which you yourself argued against. Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive, of behavior, as you yourself have said earlier in this thread.

Therefore, allowing this "demon stuff" into your body and soul doesn't seem to have any real effect on how you treat others. It doesn't force you to take any actions you wouldn't take if you hadn't cast this [evil] spell. If you wouldn't have allowed your new undead minions to feast on the living without it being an [evil] spell, then you won't now. Unless you choose to, in which case it is you choosing to act like a more evil person rather than your use of that spell making you one.


Evil characters take more damage from Holy Smite, and Holy weapons. Those are tangible, mechanical effects. And if you have become evil as result of committing many evil acts, I'd bloody well call that a consequence.
Sure, but you could call it "Profane" instead of "Evil" and have the same mechanical consequences. Profanity has a negative connotation, but it is easily possible to imagine a profane person being a good man. Just "icky" to social niceties. Divorce profanity from morality, and you have no conflict wherein an "evil" person is acting like a hero in every sense other than social niceties (and socially acceptable spellcasting).

By #defining acts as "evil" which have no consequence other than "your alignment numbers shift evilward" dilutes the actual RP of the alignments. It is an attempt to redefine words that mean something, under the guise of explaining and representing what those words mean in plain English. This leads to a lot of "but I can do evil for good ends!" arguments. Because yes, you can do #defined [evil] deeds for English-language-common-meaning "good" ends, since the definition of "evil" has been changed and expanded to include things which are neither good nor evil on their own in real world terms.

I find such arguments to be distasteful, because they lead to a defense of genuinely evil acts as also being acceptable, since obviously if one evil act for the greater good is okay, so is another. It doesn't increase RP opportunities; it only gives ammo to the strained arguments of true villains. I prefer there not to be an author-constructed excuse that hard-codes them as being right when they try a Hannibal Lecture. I don't mind it being something they try. I don't mind there being societal, in-game connotations and associations of undead with evil, such that our hypothetical heroic necromancer is confronted by an evil demon-summoner who tells him he's no better. I do mind that the game mechanics try to claim one's no better than the other, and to equate each casting of the heroic necromancer's spells with the demon-summoner chaining another small child up to his train of "entertainment" for his torture-demons.

If you want the [evil] spell to actually ring true as evil, to make it so that a heroic, noble, good person couldn't cast it with a clean conscience, it has to actually do something evil, not something that is metaphysically-excused-as-and-called "evil." Perhaps improperly laid-to-rest corpses are not allowed into the afterlife, and are cursed to wander limbo. Using the mindless undead in this fashion would obviously then be evil, as it denies their spirits their rewards. (Of course, it begs the question as to whether it's okay to do it to evil people, then; are they being mercifully spared a worse afterlife by being stuck in limbo? Are they escaping just punishment for their life of sin?) You can make similar arguments about creating sentient undead, particularly if you enslave them: you're ripping the soul back into this world, and enslaving a sentient being. This wears a bit thin if the creature has nothing in common with its prior living self, though: wights and wraiths and shadows are all #defined Evil-aligned, and don't seem to have any loyalty or care for anything in their past living existence. They may not be the same person, so you could just be creating a new thing. True, they have abilities and predilections which are evil, but if you're enslaving the beasts, you can keep them from acting on the predilections and guide the destructive powers much as you would those of a golem. (Back to the "enslaving" question, though.)

But without something deeper than "we say it's metaphysically evil, okay?" the mindless undead, at the least, are hard to make out to be genuinely evil. Add in all the necromancy spells that are [evil] but have no effect other than to be, well, harmful, and one wonders why Fireball isn't [evil].

[Angelalex242]

Fireball isn't evil for the same reason swords aren't evil. Evocations like fireball are just weapons. It's up to the wizard casting it whether to point it at orcish raiders or human farmers, and that determines his alignment.

Undead, however, are inherently evil and perverted, so evil, in fact, every good and neutral cleric has the ability to get rid of them with turning. And there's no legit reason to ever use undead, even zombies.

[squiggit]

Undead has been explained multiple times in this thread. The creation of an undead creature is an Evil act.

It's really not this circular logic that you claim "evil b/c it has the evil tag, has the evil tag b/c it's evil, ad nauseum".

That kind of argument smack of the kind of closed-minded alignment detractor who refuses to see the evidence and logic presented to explain and justify those mechanics, because he is more interested in spouting his own vitriolic anti-alignment rhetoric than he is in actually trying to figure out why those mechanics work the way they do.
I have absolutely no idea why you're getting so angry here. Nor do I see why I'm suddenly an "alignment detractor" simply because I don't like one mechanic. I like the alignment system. I just don't like spells that abstractly "bring evil into the world", because I feel it cheapens the concept by making your alignment as much about abstract concepts as it is concrete actions.

The idea that a dread necromancer who fights for the weak, slays evil, donates to charity, saves puppies, rescues the princess, etc. etc. can never be more than neutral because his spells are abstractly evil just seems silly and really handwavey to me and, again, I feel like it cheapens the concept of the struggle between good and evil because it becomes as much about what tag your spells have as it does what deeds you do.

Would you still find it acceptable with the situation reversed (a character maintaining a neutral alignment despite inflicting horrible atrocities because he does them with [Good] spells)?



No tangible consequences? You mean, like an alignment change? Which, given the real, objective nature of Evil as a COSMIC FORCE means that there is a tiny bit of the same energy that makes up a demon inside your own body?
The alignment change needs something more significant than casting a spell with the right descriptor though. Simply casting Deathwatch has no tangible negative consequences for the character casting it, you need to do more to actually get an alignment change. It's just evil... because...

Basically: I don't like how these rules allow me to have a character who's good without being Good. It makes the system feel... off to me. That's not hatred. That's not mindless vitriol. That's just me offering my opinion on the mechanic.

[LordBlades]

Undead, however, are inherently evil and perverted, so evil, in fact, every good and neutral cleric has the ability to get rid of them with turning. And there's no legit reason to ever use undead, even zombies.

Why? What exactly of what undead are or do is so Evil by D&D standards?

As for no legit reason? It's one of the easiest ways to prevent people from being resurrected when you're low/mid level. Raise the villain as a skeleton, and order it to drag a lead-lined box to the bottom of a lake and shut itself inside.

Also, some good (among other alignments) clerics can destroy for example earth creatures (from Air domain). Does that make earth elementals 'inherently evil and perverted'?

[otakumick]

Fireball isn't evil for the same reason swords aren't evil. Evocations like fireball are just weapons. It's up to the wizard casting it whether to point it at orcish raiders or human farmers, and that determines his alignment.

Undead, however, are inherently evil and perverted, so evil, in fact, every good and neutral cleric has the ability to get rid of them with turning. And there's no legit reason to ever use undead, even zombies.

not every neutral cleric can turn undead, some rebuke undead instead.

[Alex12]

Undead, however, are inherently evil and perverted, so evil, in fact, every good and neutral cleric has the ability to get rid of them with turning. And there's no legit reason to ever use undead, even zombies.

Really? So you couldn't have farmers using zombies to do the farming and thus living much easier lives? Or have skeletons cleaning out the sewers because they're immune to the poisons, diseases, stenches, and general filth common in sewers? Or allowing the militia to practice sword techniques on zombies instead of, say, each other, because you can have the dread necromancer off on the sidelines to effortlessly heal the zombies.

For that matter, the sample Necropolitan is TN, which kind of shoots a hole in your "inherently evil" claim. And didn't WotC release a thing about a succubus paladin? I'm pretty sure succubi are for worse than the average mindless undead, who is definitionally incapable of making moral choices.

[RedMage125]

A lot to respond to here, so I'm kind of grouping it together.

Undead, despite LordBlades' assertation, are absolutely NOT an example of circular logic. You know why? Because, as I have said before, D&D is a construct of FANTASY. And the writers, therefore, have complete liberty to say what and how everything works. Undead are invariably animated by Evil magicks. Therefore, Evil is an inherent part of their very makeup, as the energies that keep them ambulatory are Evil. A CG Vampire still pings on a Detect Evil spell. Don't believe me? Look at the spell, there's a separate line for "undead", not "evil undead". In that respect, they can be categorized in a manner similar to fiends, beings who a literally made of Evil.




And yet, Undead, even the mindless ones (which are nothing more than extensions of their creators will, lacking the conscious though process to actually be Evil or Good or whatever else. A skeleton ordered to strangle babies will strangle babies. A skeleton ordered to help old ladies cross the street will help old ladies cross the street just as well) are Evil, presumably because the authors saw Necromancy as a villain tool and wanted to discourage heroes using Undead (after all, any Good vs Evil war would have plenty of Evil bodies laying around for Good to make undead out of).
Skeletons are uniquely called out as automatons that will only do what they are ordered to, even if no longer controlled, they will follow their last order. If a necromancer drops control of a zombie, it will attack any living creature that comes near it.

2e had some interesting fluff on this, and it basically boiled down to: undead are all conduits to the negative energy plane (some more than others, like wights), and the very presence of living creatures is an anathema to them. Granted, that is not RAW for 3e, because it's never been put down in writing in a 3e book. But 3e really was an attempt to capture 2e's feel, with some better mechanics (no THAC0, negative AC, etc.). A great deal of 3e's design choices (like the Great Wheel being ported over almost ver-batim) were heavily informed by 2e. It wasn't until 4e that WotC really broke from the past and made a "new" game.



The problem is that, by the book, Lich makes you Evil, in the sense that you know ping on Detect Evil and are affected by spells that affect Evil creatures and just that. As far as 3.5 ruleset is concerned, your personality and outlook on life is altered in no way (Lich entry lacks any form of provisions similar to the Helm of Opposite Alignment for example about your morals changing and/or you enjoying your new alignment), you're still the same guy you were before (and as such, in a descriptive alignment system you will return to your old alignment rather quickly). Many people (me included) find that rather stupid.[/QUOTE]


Ah, but for that to actually be a consequence that results in more recognizable bad stuff happening to people who neither deserve nor agreed to it, you have to have that alignment shift enforce behavior, which you yourself argued against. Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive, of behavior, as you yourself have said earlier in this thread.

Therefore, allowing this "demon stuff" into your body and soul doesn't seem to have any real effect on how you treat others. It doesn't force you to take any actions you wouldn't take if you hadn't cast this [evil] spell. If you wouldn't have allowed your new undead minions to feast on the living without it being an [evil] spell, then you won't now. Unless you choose to, in which case it is you choosing to act like a more evil person rather than your use of that spell making you one.
Only if you think enforcing "karma" is a good DM choice. As a DM, I will warn people when they are getting close to an alignment change. If it becomes Evil anyway, they'd suffer in-game consequences for their in-game actions. They may face someone seeking vengeance for whatever Evil deeds they did, or perhaps come across a Miko Miyazaki style of paladin. But if they've been genuinely roleplaying a downward trend in alignment, I expect them to continue roleplaying their character. Alignment is descriptive, yes, but bad roleplaying is bad roleplaing, no matter what's written on your sheet.



By #defining acts as "evil" which have no consequence other than "your alignment numbers shift evilward" dilutes the actual RP of the alignments. It is an attempt to redefine words that mean something, under the guise of explaining and representing what those words mean in plain English. This leads to a lot of "but I can do evil for good ends!" arguments. Because yes, you can do #defined [evil] deeds for English-language-common-meaning "good" ends, since the definition of "evil" has been changed and expanded to include things which are neither good nor evil on their own in real world terms.
I refer you to the DMG, page 134: "Indecisiveness Indicates Neutrality" and "wishy-washy characters should be Neutral"


I find such arguments to be distasteful, because they lead to a defense of genuinely evil acts as also being acceptable, since obviously if one evil act for the greater good is okay, so is another. It doesn't increase RP opportunities; it only gives ammo to the strained arguments of true villains. I prefer there not to be an author-constructed excuse that hard-codes them as being right when they try a Hannibal Lecture. I don't mind it being something they try. I don't mind there being societal, in-game connotations and associations of undead with evil, such that our hypothetical heroic necromancer is confronted by an evil demon-summoner who tells him he's no better. I do mind that the game mechanics try to claim one's no better than the other, and to equate each casting of the heroic necromancer's spells with the demon-summoner chaining another small child up to his train of "entertainment" for his torture-demons.
Did you check out the non-evil necromancer thread I linked? Because the character there would not tolerate said devil summoner, wouldn't even be fazed by such an argument, and would likely deliver swift and immediate justice to the diabolist, animate him as a ghoul, and seal his mouth up with lead so that he couldn't feed.


If you want the [evil] spell to actually ring true as evil, to make it so that a heroic, noble, good person couldn't cast it with a clean conscience, it has to actually do something evil, not something that is metaphysically-excused-as-and-called "evil." Perhaps improperly laid-to-rest corpses are not allowed into the afterlife, and are cursed to wander limbo. Using the mindless undead in this fashion would obviously then be evil, as it denies their spirits their rewards. (Of course, it begs the question as to whether it's okay to do it to evil people, then; are they being mercifully spared a worse afterlife by being stuck in limbo? Are they escaping just punishment for their life of sin?) You can make similar arguments about creating sentient undead, particularly if you enslave them: you're ripping the soul back into this world, and enslaving a sentient being. This wears a bit thin if the creature has nothing in common with its prior living self, though: wights and wraiths and shadows are all #defined Evil-aligned, and don't seem to have any loyalty or care for anything in their past living existence. They may not be the same person, so you could just be creating a new thing. True, they have abilities and predilections which are evil, but if you're enslaving the beasts, you can keep them from acting on the predilections and guide the destructive powers much as you would those of a golem. (Back to the "enslaving" question, though.)

But without something deeper than "we say it's metaphysically evil, okay?" the mindless undead, at the least, are hard to make out to be genuinely evil. Add in all the necromancy spells that are [evil] but have no effect other than to be, well, harmful, and one wonders why Fireball isn't [evil].[/quote]
There's quite a bit of the lore regarding undead that seem to indicate that the original person's soul is trapped in the flesh (although that same lore says that it's possible to animate a corpse with a different soul, but that the default calls the original person's soul). That's pretty Evil, damning someone to be trapped in their own rotting flesh. Even in the case of mindless undead, where the soul is helpless to do anything to control their former body, but must be subjected to the experiences of the undead creature, unable to do will anything to change.

That's pretty Evil.



Would you still find it acceptable with the situation reversed (a character maintaining a neutral alignment despite inflicting horrible atrocities because he does them with [Good] spells)?
By RAW? Yes, such a character could be Neutral. But if he's a cleric, then he's going to have to be very careful with that line, because if he ever does cross over into Evil, he won't be able to cast those spells.


The alignment change needs something more significant than casting a spell with the right descriptor though. Simply casting Deathwatch has no tangible negative consequences for the character casting it, you need to do more to actually get an alignment change. It's just evil... because...

Basically: I don't like how these rules allow me to have a character who's good without being Good. It makes the system feel... off to me. That's not hatred. That's not mindless vitriol. That's just me offering my opinion on the mechanic.
I'll agree that the Deathwatch spell has not been adequately explained, and that the Evil descriptor on that spell makes no sense.

And I'm sorry I got so angry. But every single time I see someone make the complaint regarding alignment-tagged spells and use the "evil because it has the evil tag, which is has because it's evil" claim of circular logic, it's the exact same people who just hate alignment, and think that they're forming a cogent argument built on fact, to "prove" that alignment mechanics are terrible and should be removed from the game. Such people do not listen to any facts presented to them regarding refutation of their points, and will usually ignore such presented arguments, and repeat their own statements later, pretending that no rebuttal was made, even claiming that "no one can disprove this point". I really can't stand those people, and I said that your argument "smacks of that kind of person". I'm glad you are not, and I apologize if I have offended.



Alex12, Angelalex242, squiggit, and Segev, if you have not, I invite you to read this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?335215-Character-Concepts-Non-Evil-Necromancer/page5). At least read the OP (including the spolier blocked bit at the end, which is kind of long, but very detailed). You will see that I am not nearly so closed-minded regarding the possibility of a necromancer who is not Evil. Furthermore, the character presented is ENTIRELY legal by RAW, if the DM simply permits that this nation of his exists in the DM's world. Even to that character, animating undead is an Evil act, but his rigidly prescribed criteria of when it is and when it is not acceptable to animate a corpse. He's even well within the tenets of a Core deity, especially using the Core Beliefs article on her in Dragon #350.

And if you like what you read, feel free to poach whatever you like from the thread.

[otakumick]

I'm just curious as to why being linked to the Negative Energy Plane(which is neutral) is one of the reasons that undead are Evil...

[Angelalex242]

I could explain this over and over again, but I feel that the bunch of you need to read the Book of Vile Darkness, read the Book of Exalted Deeds, and realize people with a great deal more authority on the matter then you have declared undead are evil. You're free to Rule 0 as you wish in your campaign, but that's on you.

The bottom line is, they are evil, and you can't wiggle your way out of it with anything short of Rule 0.

Which is not to say I've never had a good undead running around in my campaigns before, mostly because I was inspired by Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the time, and decided a cursed to be a good vampire would be a fun idea. Still, that particular vampire was merely an exception that proved the rule, and even that exception was only one moment of true happiness away from devolving back into a hideous monster like every other vampire.

I never liked the idea of succubus paladins or evil angels in my campaigns, however, so I rule 0 what I consider nonsense out. That doesn't mean they aren't canon, because a higher authority then me said they are, but generally, my players don't care.

[Shieldbunny]

From the srd

Lich Characters

The process of becoming a lich is unspeakably evil and can be undertaken only by a willing character. A lich retains all class abilities it had in life.

The Lich’s Phylactery

An integral part of becoming a lich is creating a magic phylactery in which the character stores its life force.....

The process is unspeakably evil, and creating a phylactery is an integral part said process. Seems to me that you do indeed spend 4-8 months doing unspeakable evil.

[squiggit]

I'll agree that the Deathwatch spell has not been adequately explained, and that the Evil descriptor on that spell makes no sense.

And I'm sorry I got so angry. But every single time I see someone make the complaint regarding alignment-tagged spells and use the "evil because it has the evil tag, which is has because it's evil" claim of circular logic, it's the exact same people who just hate alignment, and think that they're forming a cogent argument built on fact, to "prove" that alignment mechanics are terrible and should be removed from the game. Such people do not listen to any facts presented to them regarding refutation of their points, and will usually ignore such presented arguments, and repeat their own statements later, pretending that no rebuttal was made, even claiming that "no one can disprove this point". I really can't stand those people, and I said that your argument "smacks of that kind of person". I'm glad you are not, and I apologize if I have offended.
None taken. I do understand the frustration.

And ultimately I'm not trying to "prove" anything, because I can't. D&D is a fantastical construct and the rules of the writers are absolute. I'm merely saying I don't much care for the fluff of these actions being fundamentally good or evil because it does strange things to the way I see alignment in my head. Admittedly part of that is because I sorta like nonstandard heroes and villains like a heroic necromancer or a corrupted solar and those get especially muddied by things like this.

And yeah. I have read that thread, it's pretty good even if it gets a bit angry at times.


Here's a weird, mostly irrelevant quirk: In Pathfinder animating the dead is an evil act just like it is in 3.5... except for one instance: Skeleton Crew converts a bunch of corpses into skeletons and gives those skeletons ranks in profession(sailor). Just odd.

It's also a touch spell with multiple targets so you have to play twister while casting it.

[LordBlades]

I could explain this over and over again, but I feel that the bunch of you need to read the Book of Vile Darkness, read the Book of Exalted Deeds, and realize people with a great deal more authority on the matter then you have declared undead are evil. You're free to Rule 0 as you wish in your campaign, but that's on you.

Just because 3.5 authors put something in a book, it does make it RAW (I give you that), but it doesn't make it logical. I'm not arguing 'undead aren't evil by RAW' but 'undead being evil in the context of other relatively similar things not being evil'.

A lot to respond to here, so I'm kind of grouping it together.

Undead, despite LordBlades' assertation, are absolutely NOT an example of circular logic. You know why? Because, as I have said before, D&D is a construct of FANTASY. And the writers, therefore, have complete liberty to say what and how everything works. Undead are invariably animated by Evil magicks. Therefore, Evil is an inherent part of their very makeup, as the energies that keep them ambulatory are Evil. A CG Vampire still pings on a Detect Evil spell. Don't believe me? Look at the spell, there's a separate line for "undead", not "evil undead". In that respect, they can be categorized in a manner similar to fiends, beings who a literally made of Evil.

As I said above, my issue is that they define undead as evil, when most stuff that make up an undead (unnatural, traps a being's soul, animated by negative energy, etc.) are not called out as Evil in any other context in the game. I'd have no problem with undead creation being evil if stuff that make up undead creation would be classified as evil in all context.




Skeletons are uniquely called out as automatons that will only do what they are ordered to, even if no longer controlled, they will follow their last order. If a necromancer drops control of a zombie, it will attack any living creature that comes near it.

Except by the rules, a zombie can't really ID a living creatures. By PHB, identifying a monster is a check with a DC of 10+HD. Identifying a human (min 1 HD) is DC 11 Knowledge (local). Identifying a human zombie (min 2 HD) is DC 12 Knowledge (religion). Since a zombie has no skill ranks, he can make checks of max DC 10, and as such he can't really be an anathema to living things since he can't really tell if things in front of him are living or not.







Only if you think enforcing "karma" is a good DM choice. As a DM, I will warn people when they are getting close to an alignment change. If it becomes Evil anyway, they'd suffer in-game consequences for their in-game actions. They may face someone seeking vengeance for whatever Evil deeds they did, or perhaps come across a Miko Miyazaki style of paladin. But if they've been genuinely roleplaying a downward trend in alignment, I expect them to continue roleplaying their character. Alignment is descriptive, yes, but bad roleplaying is bad roleplaing, no matter what's written on your sheet.

I agree, the problem is when a person becomes evil as a result of evil deeds which he doesn't see as evil and which doesn't change his outlook on life. To give you a very extreme example: a healer (Good/Neutral cleric of a Neutral deity) which accompanies an army and scours battlefields after the fighting ended using Deathwatch to quickly identify friendly troops that aren't dead yet (and as such can still be saved). By the rules, if he does that for long enough (since Deathwatch is an [Evil] spell, so using it is an Evil deed) he can very well drop from Good to Evil, while suffering no experience that would change his outlook on life.






There's quite a bit of the lore regarding undead that seem to indicate that the original person's soul is trapped in the flesh (although that same lore says that it's possible to animate a corpse with a different soul, but that the default calls the original person's soul). That's pretty Evil, damning someone to be trapped in their own rotting flesh. Even in the case of mindless undead, where the soul is helpless to do anything to control their former body, but must be subjected to the experiences of the undead creature, unable to do will anything to change.

That's pretty Evil.

Why are golems and golem creation not Evil then? They explicitly trap unwilling elemental spirits inside construct bodies.

[Alex12]

I keep seeing the "creating mindless undead traps the soul in the undead" thing mentioned, but I haven't seen any reference to it. Where is that from?

[RedMage125]

I never liked the idea of succubus paladins or evil angels in my campaigns, however, so I rule 0 what I consider nonsense out. That doesn't mean they aren't canon, because a higher authority then me said they are, but generally, my players don't care.
You do realize a succubus paladin is still made of Evil, right? As a succubus, she registers powerfully under a Detect Evil or Detect Chaos. As a Paladin, she also radiates powerfully under a Detect Good spell. If she is killed, the energies which make up her body return to the Abyss and make a new succubus, who is likely Chaotic Evil.

Unless she goes through great lengths, and undergoes one of those rituals in Savage Species, which can alter a creature's subtypes. If she get the Evil subtype removed, she no longer detects as Evil. If she gets the Good subtype added, then when she is killed, her life energies return to an Upper Plane, and for a celestial.


From the srd

Lich Characters

The process of becoming a lich is unspeakably evil and can be undertaken only by a willing character. A lich retains all class abilities it had in life.

The Lich’s Phylactery

An integral part of becoming a lich is creating a magic phylactery in which the character stores its life force.....

The process is unspeakably evil, and creating a phylactery is an integral part said process. Seems to me that you do indeed spend 4-8 months doing unspeakable evil.
*sigh*
You appear to miss the point we've been making about this. We have not been discussing what you can infer from the rules, but what the rules say. An entirely valid interpretation, according to what they say, couls be that you spend 4-8 months making the phylactery, and then undergo a ritual that takes an unspecified amount of time (who knows, maybe it's a swift action), that requires you to have a completed phylactery, and the ritual is "unspeakably evil".

Also a valid interpretation from the text of the RAW. That is the point. The text does not say that creating the phylactery is an evil act.


None taken. I do understand the frustration.

And ultimately I'm not trying to "prove" anything, because I can't. D&D is a fantastical construct and the rules of the writers are absolute. I'm merely saying I don't much care for the fluff of these actions being fundamentally good or evil because it does strange things to the way I see alignment in my head. Admittedly part of that is because I sorta like nonstandard heroes and villains like a heroic necromancer or a corrupted solar and those get especially muddied by things like this.
I even better prefer the villain who's a paladin, and still LG.
And since you've read the thread, you can probably tell my opinion on "heroic necromancers". Although to be honest, the concept initially started as a challenge to even come up with a valid concept of a guy who animates the dead (which is still an evil act) but is not, himself, evil


And yeah. I have read that thread, it's pretty good even if it gets a bit angry at times.
I know.:smallfrown: I should have not let the discussion get so sidetracked.


Here's a weird, mostly irrelevant quirk: In Pathfinder animating the dead is an evil act just like it is in 3.5... except for one instance: Skeleton Crew converts a bunch of corpses into skeletons and gives those skeletons ranks in profession(sailor). Just odd.

It's also a touch spell with multiple targets so you have to play twister while casting it.
Kraken Necromancer?
Necrokraken?
Ooh! Necrosquidious!

Just because 3.5 authors put something in a book, it does make it RAW (I give you that), but it doesn't make it logical. I'm not arguing 'undead aren't evil by RAW' but 'undead being evil in the context of other relatively similar things not being evil'.


As I said above, my issue is that they define undead as evil, when most stuff that make up an undead (unnatural, traps a being's soul, animated by negative energy, etc.) are not called out as Evil in any other context in the game. I'd have no problem with undead creation being evil if stuff that make up undead creation would be classified as evil in all context.
Ok, but how about the fact that undead, unlike all of those other things, are basically all of them rolled into one, with the added perversion of creating a creature that is a mockery of all life. Does that help make more sense? I had a guy in another thread who insisted that zombies and skeletons being NE was nonsensical because mindless creatures lack the agency to be anything but neutral. If you're interested, it's in the thread I linked in my last post. It's only 4 or 5 pages long, and at one point, I answered that issue quite thoroughly. TL;DR version is that specific overrides general and the specifics regarding the inherent evil in the magicks that animate a mindless undead supersede the general rule about "mindless creatures cannot have alignments".


Except by the rules, a zombie can't really ID a living creatures. By PHB, identifying a monster is a check with a DC of 10+HD. Identifying a human (min 1 HD) is DC 11 Knowledge (local). Identifying a human zombie (min 2 HD) is DC 12 Knowledge (religion). Since a zombie has no skill ranks, he can make checks of max DC 10, and as such he can't really be an anathema to living things since he can't really tell if things in front of him are living or not.

I'm sorry if I was unclear. The "living things are an anethma" was from 2e, and has not been reprinted into 3e. However, zombies CAN perceive creatures around them, as evidenced by their ability to attack them, and not just swing at nothing all the time. Furthermore, it is EXPLICITLY covered that mindless undead will ignore other undead creatures, unless specifically ordered not to. So a lich can stroll right through a swarm of uncommanded zombies. So yes, it IS in the rules, that a zombie can distinguish a living foe from an undead one.
Also, Skeletons explicitly say that they "will take no actions unless commanded to do so". Zombies do not say that in their entry. So an uncommanded zombie is a wandering, Neutral Evil creature.


I agree, the problem is when a person becomes evil as a result of evil deeds which he doesn't see as evil and which doesn't change his outlook on life. To give you a very extreme example: a healer (Good/Neutral cleric of a Neutral deity) which accompanies an army and scours battlefields after the fighting ended using Deathwatch to quickly identify friendly troops that aren't dead yet (and as such can still be saved). By the rules, if he does that for long enough (since Deathwatch is an [Evil] spell, so using it is an Evil deed) he can very well drop from Good to Evil, while suffering no experience that would change his outlook on life.
1-Your Neutral Good cleric cannot cast Deathwatch
From the PHB:
"Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can’t cast spells
of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). For
example, a good cleric (or a neutral cleric of a good deity) cannot cast
evil spells. Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated
by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell
descriptions (see Chapter 11: Spells)."

2-Even if he could, alignment changes take time, to be no less that one week of in game time, during which the PC either consistently or repeatedly performs actions more in keeping to an alignment other than his own (DMG, page 134).

3-I've already acknowledged that I agree with you that Deathwatch's [Evil] tag, from a purely mechanical standpoint, is spurious. But the fluff text is that one calls upon "the foul sight granted by the powers of unlife". Which, btw, also lends support to the idea that undead creatures can sense living ones. Just saying.



Why are golems and golem creation not Evil then? They explicitly trap unwilling elemental spirits inside construct bodies.
Because Elementals are barely sentient beings without souls. Like an outsider, an elemental is composed of energies given physical substance. If you kill an elemental, a new elemental gets formed in its home plane. Unlike a living creature, it does not have a proper "soul" per se.

Incidentally, it's also not an evil act to bind an elemental or an outsider into a Khyber dragonshard.

Oh, but Flesh Golem creation is evil. It requires Animate Dead as one of the spells to be used.

I keep seeing the "creating mindless undead traps the soul in the undead" thing mentioned, but I haven't seen any reference to it. Where is that from?
It's referenced obliquely in the core rules. In that not even True Resurrection, Miracle, or Wish can restore you to life if you've been turned into an undead creature, without destroying it first.
Which means that if an epic level wizard disintegrates you, scatters your ashes all over the world, and is then killed, taking the knowledge of where your ashes are to his grave, you can be brought back with true Resurrection, provided the caster unambiguously identifies you. But if you are animated as a skeleton by a level 5 cleric, who then has his high-level wizard buddy put you in a steel box, cast dimensional anchor and permanency on the box, and has the box dropped into the ocean, NOTHING (short of physically retrieving the box from the bottom of ocean and destroying the skeleton) can bring you back to life
It's also mentioned directly in a few other oddball sources. I'm too tired to remember them all right now, but I remember that the Channel Divinity article on Wee Jas (from Dragon Magazine...I want to say #350) mentions that, as a steward of all Suel souls, she dislikes when Suel corpses are used to make undead without her permission, because the soul is taken from her realm. It goes on to say that animate dead can be modified as it is cast to have a soul other than the original body's used to animate it, with no additional casting effort. Meaning that the default is to trap the soul of the original person. Incidentally, it also says that Wee Jas is so jealous about souls, that her clergy are required to use Commune to ask permission to use Raise Dead, even to bring a Suel person back to life.
Give me some time, I might remember some other sources of that information.

[LordBlades]

Ok, but how about the fact that undead, unlike all of those other things, are basically all of them rolled into one, with the added perversion of creating a creature that is a mockery of all life. Does that help make more sense? I had a guy in another thread who insisted that zombies and skeletons being NE was nonsensical because mindless creatures lack the agency to be anything but neutral. If you're interested, it's in the thread I linked in my last post. It's only 4 or 5 pages long, and at one point, I answered that issue quite thoroughly. TL;DR version is that specific overrides general and the specifics regarding the inherent evil in the magicks that animate a mindless undead supersede the general rule about "mindless creatures cannot have alignments".

So a bunch of non-evil stuff rolled into one (if 'a mockery of all life' was an Evil act, then all aberrations and constructs would be evil wouldn't they?) is somehow supposed to be evil? Still doesn't make sense.


I'm sorry if I was unclear. The "living things are an anethma" was from 2e, and has not been reprinted into 3e. However, zombies CAN perceive creatures around them, as evidenced by their ability to attack them, and not just swing at nothing all the time. Furthermore, it is EXPLICITLY covered that mindless undead will ignore other undead creatures, unless specifically ordered not to. So a lich can stroll right through a swarm of uncommanded zombies. So yes, it IS in the rules, that a zombie can distinguish a living foe from an undead one.
Also, Skeletons explicitly say that they "will take no actions unless commanded to do so". Zombies do not say that in their entry. So an uncommanded zombie is a wandering, Neutral Evil creature.

They can perceive creatures, just can't tell them apart. While you're right about them being able to identify undead, they still can't tell a living creature (let's say a dragon) from a non-living creature (let's say a dragon-shaped golem or animated object).
Also, from the SRD:



A creature with no Intelligence score is mindless, an automaton operating on simple instincts or programmed instructions.
Is there anything anywhere overriding it for zombies?


1-Your Neutral Good cleric cannot cast Deathwatch
From the PHB:
"Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can’t cast spells
of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). For
example, a good cleric (or a neutral cleric of a good deity) cannot cast
evil spells. Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated
by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell
descriptions (see Chapter 11: Spells)."

2-Even if he could, alignment changes take time, to be no less that one week of in game time, during which the PC either consistently or repeatedly performs actions more in keeping to an alignment other than his own (DMG, page 134).

3-I've already acknowledged that I agree with you that Deathwatch's [Evil] tag, from a purely mechanical standpoint, is spurious. But the fluff text is that one calls upon "the foul sight granted by the powers of unlife". Which, btw, also lends support to the idea that undead creatures can sense living ones. Just saying.



Neutral/good was meant to say 'neutral or good'. Make the cleric neutral and argument still stands. A neutral guy casting Evil spells will eventually turn Evil by RAW even if said spells do nothing to alter his outlook on life.


Because Elementals are barely sentient beings without souls. Like an outsider, an elemental is composed of energies given physical substance. If you kill an elemental, a new elemental gets formed in its home plane. Unlike a living creature, it does not have a proper "soul" per se.

Incidentally, it's also not an evil act to bind an elemental or an outsider into a Khyber dragonshard.

MM1 elementals have following mental stats: Int 4 to 10, Wis 11 and Cha 11. I'd hardly call that 'barely sentient' (a Greater or Elder elemental is certainly more self-aware and sentient than your average orc for example).

Even if they don't have souls per se, why is imprisoning the life force of one creature non-evil but imprisoning the life force (soul) of another evil?

[atemu1234]

Why are golems and golem creation not Evil then? They explicitly trap unwilling elemental spirits inside construct bodies.

I would guess that it's because not all elementals are sentient creatures; therefore being unwilling doesn't necessarily make trapping them evil. Apart from that I would go with the "they're not people" defense. In RAW, making undead is evil. Golems aren't. Creating a Golem, while reprehensible, doesn't stop someone from going to the afterlife they deserve, be it going to the seven heavens or the nine hells. An elemental can be trapped, have its golem killed, and go on its merry way. Plus, most of them aren't even sentient. Is putting a dog in a cage so morally reprehensible it would turn you evil? Versus sacrificing that dog and turning it into an enemy of all things good and pure is slightly more... so.

[Pan151]

Is putting a dog in a cage so morally reprehensible it would turn you evil? Versus sacrificing that dog and turning it into an enemy of all things good and pure is slightly more... so.

So taking a creature and applying to it a template that not only removes any and all capacity to be good or evil but also explicitly removes any and all subtypes related to alignment suddenly makes that creature "an enemy of all things good and pure"?

While doing the exact same thing, with the exception that you're drawing energy from a different equally aligned, equally harmful to life Plane of existance produces creatures that are considered "good"

Do you not see the arbitrary nature of this?

[LordBlades]

I would guess that it's because not all elementals are sentient creatures;
What non-sentient elementals were there at the time of MM1, which published the rules for golems?


An elemental soul can be trapped, have its golem skeleton killed, and go on its merry way toward afterlife. How is this any different? also, if denying somebody 'the afterlife they deserve' is an evil thing, why aren't all resurrection spells evil(even if the subject has to agree, you're still interfering with the normal life/death cycle and bringing him back from the afterlife he deserves)?

[Mikeavelli]

What non-sentient elementals were there at the time of MM1, which published the rules for golems?


An elemental soul can be trapped, have its golem skeleton killed, and go on its merry way toward afterlife. How is this any different? also, if denying somebody 'the afterlife they deserve' is an evil thing, why aren't all resurrection spells evil(even if the subject has to agree, you're still interfering with the normal life/death cycle and bringing him back from the afterlife he deserves)?

Non-sentient or pseudo-sentient elementals animating golems were originally a 2E thing, and as well supported as anything else in the lore at that time. It's considered morally the same as if you had a bunch of farm animals powering the thing.

Someone up earlier in the thread made the comment that D&D alignments is really more about what Jersey you're wearing, and doesn't like it, but that really is the best way to make sense of the metaphysical parts of D&D alignments. In the D&D world, what is good or evil is decided by real, physical entities that you can walk up to and have a chat with. They have decided, arbitrarily at times (Deathwatch) that certain things are good, and certain things are evil.

----------

The argument made above for arguing that a Necropolitan can be non-evil is an excellent demonstration of why the Lich ritual is simply left at being unspeakably evil. Anything, even directly calling upon the powers of evil deities, can be rationalized away as nonevil by a sufficiently determined PC. I could make the ritual involve eating babies of your own species, and some PC would claim that the baby was being kind of a **** (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/12/03) or something to justify it as non-evil.

With the way the passage is worded, becoming a Lich is an evil act. No wiggle room, no rationalization, no exceptions.

[otakumick]

No exceptions... except possibly Baelnorns, Archliches and Good Liches... of course I don't believe their transformations get even as concrete as the vague unspeakably evil ritual.

[LordBlades]

With the way the passage is worded, becoming a Lich is an evil act. No wiggle room, no rationalization, no exceptions.

I'm not arguing against that. What I'm arguing is:

-Should this 'unspeakably Evil' act change your alignment to Evil regardless of circumstances? For example: you work for 8 hours at the 'unspeakably evil' act of creating your phylactery, sleep for 8 hours and spend the remaining 8 hours doing 'unspeakably good' acts of equal or greater magnitude (like saving the world).
-Lich makes you Evil, but in no way alters your mindset and perception of reality. So, you're either going to go back to your old alignment in about 1 week (thus making all the 'you become Evil' thing useless) or you're just going to ping as Evil for <insert deep metaphysical justification here> despite you consistently behaving like another alignment , which I consider silly because in the long run alignment becomes more or less meaningless (it no longer reflects what kind of being you generally are, but rather just an arbitrary measure of how/if certain spells/abilities affect you)

[Mikeavelli]

I'm not arguing against that. What I'm arguing is:

-Should this 'unspeakably Evil' act change your alignment to Evil regardless of circumstances? For example: you work for 8 hours at the 'unspeakably evil' act of creating your phylactery, sleep for 8 hours and spend the remaining 8 hours doing 'unspeakably good' acts of equal or greater magnitude (like saving the world).
-Lich makes you Evil, but in no way alters your mindset and perception of reality. So, you're either going to go back to your old alignment in about 1 week (thus making all the 'you become Evil' thing useless) or you're just going to ping as Evil for <insert deep metaphysical justification here> despite you consistently behaving like another alignment , which I consider silly because in the long run alignment becomes more or less meaningless (it no longer reflects what kind of being you generally are, but rather just an arbitrary measure of how/if certain spells/abilities affect you)

- Yes, this will change your alignment. Your first paragraph is the reason 'the path to hell is paved with good intentions' is a saying. As pointed out, there are many, *many* ways to achieve everything being a Lich would let you achieve, most of which aren't evil, or are somewhat lesser evil. You have options, and have *chosen* to commit unspeakably evil acts, even for the purpose of saving the world or whatever other rationalization you've come up with.

- I would argue that anyone who would even consider becoming a Lich was evil long before they went through with the ritual. It's merely the capstone moment where you officially step off the deep end. Changing "back" to good is a misnomer. You were already evil, and starting to behave good again would be a wildly different moral trajectory.

This idea of a good person who steps out of character for a few months of unspeakable evilness, and then goes right back to being a crusader for good is a caricature. It's a thought experiment. It's no more appropriate in a game or story than Pun-Pun would be.

[Pan151]

This idea of a good person who steps out of character for a few months of unspeakable evilness, and then goes right back to being a crusader for good is a caricature.

No less of a caricature than a process that is evil for no reason other than "we said so"...

Player: I want to become a lich.
DM: The process is unspeakably evil. You will turn evil.
Player: What kind of evil is that?
DM: Can't tell you. Unspeakable.
Player: Well, there is an unspeakably good reason why I could become a lich without changing alignment.
DM: What kind of good is that?
Player: Can't tell you. Unspeakable...

[Mikeavelli]

That is because every time you define exactly what it is, someone will try to weasel out of it being 'evil.' For some reason, people just don't want to accept that they're doing evil things, making them evil people.

It happened with the Assassin. You have to murder an innocent person in order to be inducted into the Assassin order. That is a pre-requisite to take the class. That is why it's evil only. You would think that would be enough to convince people that yes, the evil-only alignment is required. But no, people will still argue very passionately that it's neutral, or somehow good people will do something like that.

[Pan151]

That is because every time you define exactly what it is, someone will try to weasel out of it being 'evil.' For some reason, people just don't want to accept that they're doing evil things, making them evil people.

And every time you refuse to define something, even vaguely, people will call you out for being too lazy to come up with a good reason.

"It's evil because X, Y and Z" is a valid reason, regardless of each individual's personal view of good and evil, as long as the definitions of good and evil remain internally consistent (which is the problem with undead/deathless in general, as the general definitions of good and evil set in BoED and BoVD do not seem to apply to anything regarding them, or negative/positive energy). After all, good and evil in DnD do not mean the same as they do irl, so each individual's personal view of good/evil is irrelevant.

"It's evil because it's evil" (not to be confused with "it's evil because it's [evil]" -again, same things about internal consistency apply) is not a valid reason. Don't expect anyone to take it seriously.

[LordBlades]

This idea of a good person who steps out of character for a few months of unspeakable evilness, and then goes right back to being a crusader for good is a caricature. It's a thought experiment. It's no more appropriate in a game or story than Pun-Pun would be.

Except when the person is generally good, and either doesn't see the deeds he's doing as Evil or he believes doing some Evil is entirely justified or is the only way to achieve his, ultimately good, goal. Both these are pretty good (and common) character concepts.

[atemu1234]

I never liked the idea of succubus paladins or evil angels in my campaigns

I tend to stick tightly to alignment rules, but that doesn't mean that you can't wind up accidentally in league with an evil being or working together to stop a bigger threat, nor does it mean that a Lawful Good celestial doesn't make an awesome antagonist. But the difference is that good can justify its actions, evil is out to save its own skin. A half-fiend human that's evil may save a village, but it's more or less by accident. Versus a Lawful Good angel who would destroy a village, justifying it as "collateral damage". It may feel some guilt, but at its core it knows that they are getting their just rewards in the afterlife, be it good or evil. But it's still killing innocents. I once made an insane angel who wanted to end the prime material plane just so that all things be they good or evil would be in their place, be they in heaven or hell. It was an interesting campaign, just not a good idea to use all the time.

[Segev]

RedMage, while I respect the desire to play devil's advocate, I can't help but feel like you're jumping sides of the argument rather than actually playing advocate for a side. Your last response seems to be an agreement with what I was saying phrased in such a way as to illicit argument anyway; am I missing something?

Sure, you can fluff up reasons why it's evil. There aren't actually RAW that spell that out as definite. If you're going to fall back on, "the RAW say the spells are evil," then so, too, do the RAW say the process of becoming a lich is one. Fluff both however you wish to make it seem evil enough to you.

If, indeed, animating the dead traps the soul of the person in the corpse (which begs the question why a skeleton or zombie is less sentient than a ghoul or a vampire, but that's a different discussion), then sure, you can make the point that a good and noble person would NOT, in fact, be okay with creating the undead as his minions to enact his heroic goals.

While you can say the "non-evil necromancer" would reject the diabolist's arguments out of hand, you have a more interesting story when you don't have the non-evil necromancer flying in the face of the technical declaration that what he does IS evil on par with the torture through which the diabolist puts the children in question. It isn't "interesting" to have to say, "well, this evil act isn't REALLY evil so is okay for a good-hearted person to do in the name of greater good, but this OTHER evil act is REALLY evil and thus is never okay." The interesting bit comes when one can really analyze it as to WHY it is evil or good.

As-is, the diabolist is "technically" right, because the rules say both acts are equally evil. As long as the diabolist helps as many orphans as he tortures, he's no more evil than the necromancer who helps an equal number of orphans but animates corpses to do so. Without the fluff that really says that animating those corpses is actually doing harm on par with the torture through which the diabolist puts his victims, it rings rather hollow.

[Mikeavelli]

And every time you refuse to define something, even vaguely, people will call you out for being too lazy to come up with a good reason.



You want a good reason? Fine, here's an example of what I would expect "Unspeakably evil" to actual mean if I were to speak about it. This isn't from a book, this is what I would tell a player if he wanted to be a Lich, and demanded I came up with an explanation of what is so evil about the ritual.

You have to get people with an emotional connection to yourself. Start with your children, your parents, the rest of your family, your closest friends. If you run out, you can move on to random people from your same species. You need to torture these people to death, 8 hours a day, for months. It has to be people you care about in some way. People you love, people you like, if you don't get enough of them with a strong enough emotional connection, the ritual won't work.

Once they're dead, they're also trapped inside the Phylactery, creating a 'soul cage' that keeps your soul bound inside of it. All of those people are conscious inside the phylactery, and constantly suffering. This is not a surprise to you, it's spelled out in the ritual once someone deigns to speak of it, you are fully aware that these people you have betrayed are suffering horribly each and every minute you're alive.

Worse, the magic drains them dry, and binds them forever to the Phylactery. When it's destroyed, they're gone, wiped out. No afterlife, no reward, no reprieve, no Resurrection, nothing can bring them back or give them a break. They are erased from existing, because something was so important that you had to become a lich.


Except when the person is generally good, and either doesn't see the deeds he's doing as Evil or he believes doing some Evil is entirely justified or is the only way to achieve his, ultimately good, goal. Both these are pretty good (and common) character concepts.

The thing is, he's still evil. He believes he's good, but he'd ping evil on the Evil-dar, and he'd still feel the burn from Holy Smite. His internal justification is just him lying to himself, not a representation of the very tangible good and evil dynamic that exists in D&D.

[Pan151]

You want a good reason? Fine, here's an example of what I would expect "Unspeakably evil" to actual mean if I were to speak about it. This isn't from a book, this is what I would tell a player if he wanted to be a Lich, and demanded I came up with an explanation of what is so evil about the ritual.

You have to get people with an emotional connection to yourself. Start with your children, your parents, the rest of your family, your closest friends. If you run out, you can move on to random people from your same species. You need to torture these people to death, 8 hours a day, for months. It has to be people you care about in some way. People you love, people you like, if you don't get enough of them with a strong enough emotional connection, the ritual won't work.

Once they're dead, they're also trapped inside the Phylactery, creating a 'soul cage' that keeps your soul bound inside of it. All of those people are conscious inside the phylactery, and constantly suffering. This is not a surprise to you, it's spelled out in the ritual once someone deigns to speak of it, you are fully aware that these people you have betrayed are suffering horribly each and every minute you're alive.

Worse, the magic drains them dry, and binds them forever to the Phylactery. When it's destroyed, they're gone, wiped out. No afterlife, no reward, no reprieve, no Resurrection, nothing can bring them back or give them a break. They are erased from existing, because something was so important that you had to become a lich.


Cool story. But it isn't what happens.

Whatever "unspeakable evil" you have to perform as part of your lichdom ritual, it has clearly no mechanical implications besides the whole being "unspeakably evil" thingie. If there were, like if other people had to be involved, then that would be mentioned as a special prerequisite, as always happens with any other template or class that requires outside "aid" to acquire. As it stands, the existance of other people is unnecessary for the completion of the ritual.

So, unless you can find me what "unspeakable evil" can be performed without involving anyone but the lich itself, then I stand by my opinion.



The thing is, he's still evil. He believes he's good, but he'd ping evil on the Evil-dar, and he'd still feel the burn from Holy Smite. His internal justification is just him lying to himself, not a representation of the very tangible good and evil dynamic that exists in D&D.

He pings because he's undead, not because he's evil. An exalted undead would ping evil just as much.

As to whether he even becomes evil for becoming a Lich, that is entirely up to the DM to decide.

[LordBlades]

You want a good reason? Fine, here's an example of what I would expect "Unspeakably evil" to actual mean if I were to speak about it. This isn't from a book, this is what I would tell a player if he wanted to be a Lich, and demanded I came up with an explanation of what is so evil about the ritual.

You have to get people with an emotional connection to yourself. Start with your children, your parents, the rest of your family, your closest friends. If you run out, you can move on to random people from your same species. You need to torture these people to death, 8 hours a day, for months. It has to be people you care about in some way. People you love, people you like, if you don't get enough of them with a strong enough emotional connection, the ritual won't work.

Once they're dead, they're also trapped inside the Phylactery, creating a 'soul cage' that keeps your soul bound inside of it. All of those people are conscious inside the phylactery, and constantly suffering. This is not a surprise to you, it's spelled out in the ritual once someone deigns to speak of it, you are fully aware that these people you have betrayed are suffering horribly each and every minute you're alive.

Worse, the magic drains them dry, and binds them forever to the Phylactery. When it's destroyed, they're gone, wiped out. No afterlife, no reward, no reprieve, no Resurrection, nothing can bring them back or give them a break. They are erased from existing, because something was so important that you had to become a lich.

You are from an evil society (like let's say orc or drow) and you've had some sort of enlightenment that made you turn away from their ways. The emotional connection you have with your family/friends/species is strong, but it's pure hate and spite. Becoming a lich and torturing them for all eternity is certainly a win-win, not to mention thinning some numbers on an evil species.




The thing is, he's still evil. He believes he's good, but he'd ping evil on the Evil-dar, and he'd still feel the burn from Holy Smite. His internal justification is just him lying to himself, not a representation of the very tangible good and evil dynamic that exists in D&D.

Thing is, with the said tangible dynamic if you do more good than evil you are good. So if you do enough 'unspeakable good' you will be Good even if you do some 'unspeakable Evil' at some point in your career.

[Mikeavelli]

Whatever "unspeakable evil" you have to perform as part of your lichdom ritual, it has clearly no mechanical implications


No, that's not clearly the case.


You are from an evil society (like let's say orc or drow) and you've had some sort of enlightenment that made you turn away from their ways. The emotional connection you have with your family/friends/species is strong, but it's pure hate and spite. Becoming a lich and torturing them for all eternity is certainly a win-win, not to mention thinning some numbers on an evil species.

That's why I specified you have to love them, or at least like them. That clause is there specifically to prevent sticking people you hate in there.

Besides that, you're acting like torturing anyone purely for selfish gain isn't an evil act. It doesn't really matter if they "deserve" it or not. The whole point of the enlightement bit is you've decided that all that torturing and murder they do is bad.

---------

While it's certainly possible to tally up all the good points and evil points to balance yourself out at the end of the day, that's a matter of actively seeking redemption, not expecting it to pop back into place the next week.

[Raven777]

I think Pan151 has a point. If the ritual required eating babies, then babies would be included in the ritual's requirement.

[LordBlades]

That's why I specified you have to love them, or at least like them. That clause is there specifically to prevent sticking people you hate in there.

So what happens if you have no family/friends and you hate your race and/or are the only one of your race?




While it's certainly possible to tally up all the good points and evil points to balance yourself out at the end of the day, that's a matter of actively seeking redemption, not expecting it to pop back into place the next week.

Assuming you consider what you did evil. It's entirely possible to have a character that does a series of good or neutral deeds>finds a perfectly justified (for him) reason to become a Lich>becomes a Lich>during and after the process keeps doing the same kind of good or neutral deeds.

[Pan151]

No, that's not clearly the case.

Please, by all means. Point me out to where those mechanical implications are. Because, as I read it, you create your phylactery the same way you'd create any other wondrous magic item, you perform the ritual yourself and then you become a lich. There's no mention of any kittens or assorted cute animals being harmed in the process, or any reason why anybody besides yourself has to even give a damn. Just that it's "Eeeeeeeviiiiiiil!!!" because... well... uhmm... I guess you're defying the circle of life and death and mutilating your soul and... stuff?

[Alex12]

I think Pan151 has a point. If the ritual required eating babies, then babies would be included in the ritual's requirement.

I have to agree with this. The Necropolitan transformation specifies what it needs and basically how it's done, spells with material components tell you what those material components do (even though nobody actually cares that this means you've got an infinite supply of live spiders in your spell component pouch), and so on.

[Red Fel]

Please, by all means. Point me out to where those mechanical implications are. Because, as I read it, you create your phylactery the same way you'd create any other wondrous magic item, you perform the ritual yourself and then you become a lich. There's no mention of any kittens or assorted cute animals being harmed in the process, or any reason why anybody besides yourself has to even give a damn. Just that it's "Eeeeeeeviiiiiiil!!!" because... well... uhmm... I guess you're defying the circle of life and death and mutilating your soul and... stuff?

Does it matter why the process is Evil? It's explicit - the process of becoming a Lich is "unspeakably evil." Are the details so important, the justification so important? Even if we knew the specifics, could look at it and say, "Oh, that's really not so bad," the text explicitly calls it out as evil. The text says it is evil, therefore it is evil, no matter what justification we may offer.

Yes. That is stupid and circular logic. It's also how RAW works. When the text explicitly calls something out, that is Cosmic Law, whether we want it to be or not, barring DM fiat and houseruling.

Gravity is an attractive force between two bodies. (Actually, between all bodies to varying degrees, but not relevant here.) We can ask why gravity functions, and how, but we can't simply disagree and claim that gravity is not an attractive force, based on the idea that we don't like the underlying causes of gravity. Gravity is a rule of the universe. (With certain exceptions we needn't address.) The process of becoming a Lich being "unspeakably evil" is another rule of the universe. It simply is; as circular and tautological as that would seem, it is what it is, the end.

Now, what remains to be addressed (and has been) is what impact a single "unspeakably evil" act has on alignment, and whether that alignment shift - if any - is recoverable. As I've mentioned, it's my opinion that the act of becoming a Lich is a substantial Evil act that causes an alignment shift, but that a Lich - like any intelligent Undead - is capable of adjusting its alignment subsequently.

[Mikeavelli]

Please, by all means. Point me out to where those mechanical implications are. Because, as I read it, you create your phylactery the same way you'd create any other wondrous magic item, you perform the ritual yourself and then you become a lich. There's no mention of any kittens or assorted cute animals being harmed in the process, or any reason why anybody besides yourself has to even give a damn. Just that it's "Eeeeeeeviiiiiiil!!!" because... well... uhmm... I guess you're defying the circle of life and death and mutilating your soul and... stuff?

There's no mention of Anything beyond it being unspeakably evil, which leaves the door open to the ritual being anything at all, so long as it's unspeakably evil.

You asked for specifics, and I gave you an example. You can't go back and say, "that's not specified." Of course it's not specified, that was what you were complaining about, that's why I invented specifics.

You've filled in the blank with something sufficiently whitewashed that you can tell yourself it's not really evil, which defeats the whole point. I've filled in the blanks with a pretty tame version of what I would consider unspeakably evil.

If you insist that it cannot involve or affect anyone or anything except the caster (even though that isn't specified either) - then it's quite easy to assume it's not really all that evil. But then, it wouldn't be unspeakably evil, so you can't really argue that that's the case...



So what happens if you have no family/friends and you hate your race and/or are the only one of your race?


Same thing that happens for any magical ritual that calls for components you don't have access to; you can't complete it.

[Pan151]

Does it matter why the process is Evil?

Yes. Very much so. If you describe something that has no logical reason to be evil as being evil, then I'm expecting some reasoning on it, otherwise I'm gonna assume you're just being lazy. I care not if it's RAW, this is a roleplaying game not a law book. If something makes no sense then it has no right to exist. If you think that this is not a problem, then that's great - that's one less problem in your game.

Besides, this isn't even RAW. It's just fluff.


There's no mention of Anything beyond it being unspeakably evil, which leaves the door open to the ritual being anything at all, so long as it's unspeakably evil.

There's no mention of Anything beyond it being unspeakably evil, which means that nobody else but the caster himself is involved in the process. Which means that whatever that "unspeakably evil" thing is, the only one who could possibly be the victim of it is the evildoer himself. Which is a logical error.



Same thing that happens for any magical ritual that calls for components you don't have access to; you can't complete it.

Note that the lichdom ritual calls for no components in particular.

[Mikeavelli]

Yes. Very much so. If you describe something that has no logical reason to be evil as being evil, then I'm expecting some reasoning on it, otherwise I'm gonna assume you're just being lazy. I care not if it's RAW, this is a roleplaying game not a law book. If something makes no sense then it has no right to exist. If you think that this is not a problem, then that's great - that's one less problem in your game.

Besides, this isn't even RAW. It's just fluff.


So RAW doesn't matter, and we should look into the spirit of the words for an explaination


There's no mention of Anything beyond it being unspeakably evil, which means that nobody else but the caster himself is involved in the process. Which means that whatever that "unspeakably evil" thing is, the only one who could possibly be the victim of it is the evildoer himself. Which is a logical error.


so RAW does matter, and we should get hung up on the letter of the rules.

I'm done here.

[Pan151]

So RAW doesn't matter, and we should look into the spirit of the words for an explaination


so RAW does matter, and we should get hung up on the letter of the rules.

I'm done here.

RAW matters until we encounter logical errors. When we do encounter logical errors, we don't go by RAW.

Simple, really.

[LordBlades]

Same thing that happens for any magical ritual that calls for components you don't have access to; you can't complete it.

Which means that you have just houseruled an additional prerequisite (a rule which has a tangible mechanical effect) to the Lich ritual beyond what's in the book, rather than just fill in the fluff blanks of 'unspeakably Evil'.

[atemu1234]

I don't think I'm being unfair here when I say that I should answer the question in the title rather than going off on a tangential argument on the nature of evil. So here goes. No, a lich is not necessarily evil. There are good variants of liches for the nonevil-inclined, so if you want to be a good lich without major backstory-fu, stick to one of those templates. What everyone else is asking borders on unanswerable, so I recommend asking your DM.

[Raven777]

Anyway, can't we just balance something unspeakably evil by doing something hyperspeakably good? Ultimately, it seems that by these maths, the end does justify the mean.

[Alex12]

Anyway, can't we just balance something unspeakably evil by doing something hyperspeakably good? Ultimately, it seems that by these maths, the end does justify the mean.

Or even just by being overall a pretty good (or even very good) for a long period of time. I mean, you're a lich now. If you're reasonably competent, it's unlikely that anything except a specific and determined effort to kill you will be able to take you down, so you've got the time for good works. Plus, imagine the look on some paladin's face when he investigates the orphanages you set up, expecting some nefarious plot, only to find out that no, you just established the orphanages because no child should have to grow up on the streets. The food banks and whatnot are completely safe, and dedicated solely to helping those less fortunate. You're just doing it out of the kindness of your figurative heart (because your literal anatomical heart decayed into dust decades ago)

[RedMage125]

Except when the person is generally good, and either doesn't see the deeds he's doing as Evil or he believes doing some Evil is entirely justified or is the only way to achieve his, ultimately good, goal. Both these are pretty good (and common) character concepts.

True, but because of the objective nature of the forces of Good and Evil in D&D cosmology, those acts are still Evil acts.

Also, a few things:
1-Mikeavelli, I like the cut of your jib. That is a fantastic layer of fluff on the lich ritual. I see what Pan is trying to argue, and from a purely RAW standpoint he is right when he says the ritual is "make a phylactery like any other magic item, and undergo the ritual to transform, which is an evil act". That's playing directly to-the-words of the RAW. I do not, however, agree with his assertion that RAW should be ignored if one does not agree with/make sense of them.

RedMage, while I respect the desire to play devil's advocate, I can't help but feel like you're jumping sides of the argument rather than actually playing advocate for a side. Your last response seems to be an agreement with what I was saying phrased in such a way as to illicit argument anyway; am I missing something?
No, you're pretty much right on target:smalltongue:.
Look, my personal opinion lines up with a lot of what you say, especially regarding the lich ritual. I believ something is lost and diluted if it's not abhorrent and despicably evil.
That said, not everyone thinks the way I do, or agrees with my opinion. And, at their core, the RAW can be exploited to get away with some stuff that makes me shake my head. Playing Devil's Advocate in the lich debate has been just that, highlighting what the rules DO say, and what they DO NOT say, and cogent arguments regarding that. Even though I personally would not let half the stuff I'm advocating for the OP fly if I were his DM. I'm arguing about the hard facts of RAW, in spite of my own preference.
Sometimes I just like a good debate.

Now, as for the points in my last response to you, yes, I do disagree with some of the things you were saying, but I also get the impression that you, too, were trying to use my own logic against me, in spite of how you run things. That's just the feeling I got from it. I do believe that a character who genuinely performs morally questionable deeds for genuinely Good ends (and no word semantics or weaseling on a PC's part, the character is honestly and genuinely doing the work of Good) could be Neutral. And in fact, should not be Good.

Given that, if a PC honestly does slip into an Evil alignment for their actions, there will likely be consequences. But I don't just sack down the DM Hammer of Judgement. You killed an innocent? His brother's a Paladin, or worse, a Wizard. Your a divine character who violated the ethos of your deity? Your own church is going to hunt you down.

I do not believe in shoving my own ideas of morality down players' throats, that just my professional ethics as a DM. But I will enforce alignment, adjudicating alignment as per RAW. I'm one of the many DMs out there who is fully capable of divorcing my own ideas of what is Good/Evil/LawfulChaotic from what the RAW says when I step behind the screen. I'm rather proud of that.


Sure, you can fluff up reasons why it's evil. There aren't actually RAW that spell that out as definite. If you're going to fall back on, "the RAW say the spells are evil," then so, too, do the RAW say the process of becoming a lich is one. Fluff both however you wish to make it seem evil enough to you.
I quite agree, personally. But that's an opinion. Which, regrettably, has no bearing on what the bare bones of the facts are.

To be completely honest, I really enjoy some of the fluff people have come up with on this thread. The recent one by Mikeavelli being my favorite so far. Truly "unspeakable" in its evil. Not the least of which because the heroes who destroy the lich's phylactery ultimately have to destroy those souls. Which wouldn't be an evil act on their part, after all, once the lich puts the in their, it's either oblivion or eternity of torture for those souls, but it's a wonderful layer of roleplaying guilt and anguish for a Good character who does it.


If, indeed, animating the dead traps the soul of the person in the corpse (which begs the question why a skeleton or zombie is less sentient than a ghoul or a vampire, but that's a different discussion), then sure, you can make the point that a good and noble person would NOT, in fact, be okay with creating the undead as his minions to enact his heroic goals.
And I do make that point. Frequently. I think the animation of undead is a gruesome, grisly, and just plain unpleasant. It is my opinion that it takes someone with a certain level of detachment and lack of empathy to even consider such a course of action acceptable for any ends.

Which is why Sibuna (the non-evil necromancer) is Lawful Neutral. He's almost a caricature of Lawful Neutral, that "judge/inquisitor" type who is not burdened by scruples regarding the manner. He values what is "just" over what is "right". And while he seeks to stamp out "evil" and "wickedness", it is only through cultural idiosyncrasies and a rigid adherence to a set of prescribed circumstances that he even is okay with casting the undead-animating spells.


While you can say the "non-evil necromancer" would reject the diabolist's arguments out of hand, you have a more interesting story when you don't have the non-evil necromancer flying in the face of the technical declaration that what he does IS evil on par with the torture through which the diabolist puts the children in question. It isn't "interesting" to have to say, "well, this evil act isn't REALLY evil so is okay for a good-hearted person to do in the name of greater good, but this OTHER evil act is REALLY evil and thus is never okay." The interesting bit comes when one can really analyze it as to WHY it is evil or good.
See above regarding Sibuna and his rigid doctrine of when undead animation is and is not acceptable. Keep in mind, the only reason the character works is that he has been trained as a magus of his country and he is "authorized" to pass judgement on "the wicked". Sibuna does not animate the dead of innocents, even if their corpses are handy. Sibuna does not seek an army of the undead for personal benefit. His rigid doctrine dictates that that specific set of evil acts (the animation of undead) is acceptable when performed on "the wicked". And even the body of the most foul diabolist who died as was lain to rest in a tomb (assuming the diabolist is actually dead and not a lich), is off-limits to Sibuna.
You're right about making a great story. Sibuna has ranks in knowledge (arcana) and (religion). He knows full-well that the spells are Evil acts. He is willing to cast them on those that deserve their punishment, but apart from that, he abstains from other Evil spells. By RAW and his character concept, he would not cast deathwatch. I would not take Arcane Disciple for the Deathbound domain, even though those spells are AWESOME for a Dread Necro, because so many have the [Evil] descriptor. I would take Arcane Disciple for the Inquisition domain (which Wee Jas grants), because that fits well for him. And that has some decent spells on it. That character was specifically designed to be very fun to play, and I would really only want to play him in a game that was fairly RP-heavy as well as combat, because of how much he brings to the table.
Someone in that thread pointed out that apparently the Complete Divine has something in it that says if a member of the faithful of a deity commits an act in keeping with the ethos of their deity, that it would be considered an act of the deity's alignment. If that's the case (I haven't looked it up), then when Sibuna does animate undead as punishment, it would be both an Evil act and a Lawful Neutral one. But I can't claim that such is RAW until I see that in the book for myself.


As-is, the diabolist is "technically" right, because the rules say both acts are equally evil. As long as the diabolist helps as many orphans as he tortures, he's no more evil than the necromancer who helps an equal number of orphans but animates corpses to do so. Without the fluff that really says that animating those corpses is actually doing harm on par with the torture through which the diabolist puts his victims, it rings rather hollow.
......
I suppose, on a technicality...
But can you make such a character that's not disingenuous? I put a lot of thought and effort into Sibuna, and made a character that is not only RAW legal, but is cohesive, and playable.
Could you make such a diabolist (story in this case being more important than mechanics)? Either as a PC or an NPC? A person who engages in everything you've said about this hypothetical diabolist (helping children and torturing them) and make it consistent and cohesive? As an intellectual exercise, I'd love to see it. I know why you're claiming what you do, but I think you came up with that and have just arbitrarily said "this guy also helps orphans, too" in order to make your point about balancing Good and Evil. However, if you cannot make such a character, then I'd ask you to cede your point on this one, because I can-and have-shown that the non-evil necromancer can work as a character who isn't a bundle of arbitrary contradictions tacked on in order to avoid an alignment change. If you can make such a character, I will certainly applaud you for it.

Btw, this is a side note, but: in such an encounter, Sibuna would still be unswayed and kill the diabolist. Namely because Trafficking With Fiends is a serious crime where he comes from, and his training as a magus has indoctrinated him to understand that those that traffic with fiends need to be executed. So regardless of what else the diabolist does or what his alignment is, Sibuna would still try and kill him, because he DOES still traffic with devils. It's in the big spoiler blocked thing on the first page of that thread, when I laid out all the details of his nation.

[LordBlades]

True, but because of the objective nature of the forces of Good and Evil in D&D cosmology, those acts are still Evil acts.


I never argued they weren't. I argued that it's perfectly possible (and not unheard of in fantasy literature) for a person to be generally good, and yet still commit some evil (even the occasional unspeakable one) because he rationalizes it as 'non-evil' or 'the lesser evil' to himself, regardless of what the objective forces of good and evil feel about it. It is possible for such a character to not be Evil IMO as he, in the grand scheme of things has done significantly more Good acts than Evil ones.

[atemu1234]

I never argued they weren't. I argued that it's perfectly possible (and not unheard of in fantasy literature) for a person to be generally good, and yet still commit some evil (even the occasional unspeakable one) because he rationalizes it as 'non-evil' or 'the lesser evil' to himself, regardless of what the objective forces of good and evil feel about it. It is possible for such a character to not be Evil IMO as he, in the grand scheme of things has done significantly more Good acts than Evil ones.

Yes, it's possible. But tell me, would a knowingly good creature commit these acts strictly to extend his (already long) life? He's venerable, he's had his time, and if he commits this evil simply to live longer, he's evil.

[Angelalex242]

It's easier to justify putting a Helm of Opposite Alignment on the Lich then it is to justify him never turning evil at all. Seriously, if you want a good lich, just have one of those things handy.

Beware of Angelus->Angel syndrome, however, where you then brood for all eternity about the evils you've done.

[LordBlades]

Yes, it's possible. But tell me, would a knowingly good creature commit these acts strictly to extend his (already long) life? He's venerable, he's had his time, and if he commits this evil simply to live longer, he's evil.

Maybe because he feels his death would bring about more Evil into the world, in virtue of him not being there to stop it?

[Angelalex242]

That is the definition of big ego. Hence, Evil.

[LordBlades]

That is the definition of big ego. Hence, Evil.

So now having a big ego (justified by past times where said person did save the world) is now Evil? Alignment is based on actions, and having a big ego is not an action.

Consider the following hypothetical situation: one high level-wizard, settled in a community of small-to-mid level humanoids, in an area surrounded by a lot of evil creatures (everything from bandits and orcs to evil wizards dragons) and having defended said community many times. If he dies of old age, the whole settlement is going to be way less secure (that's a fact, not ego, and an int 20-30 creature will certainly realize it) and a whole lot of innocents(maybe all of them) are going to die (or worse) fighting threats he could have easily brushed aside. It's entirely reasonable IMO for said Good wizard to view inflicting 'unspeakable Evil' unto himself (by RAW becoming a Lich affects nothing and nobody else) as the lesser evil, doubly so if he cares more about helping and protecting innocent people around him rather than how his alignment sits on an abstract scale.

EDIT: I'd expect the degree to which people care about how a deed is Good and Evil (in the abstract, objective, alignment sense) to vary from setting to setting.In a setting like FR, where gods are very much real and worshipers are actually judged by their own deities and not worshiping anyone leads to utter ruin I'd expect people to care a lot about how higher powers view their actions(regardless on how they feel about them/justify them). At the opposite pole, in a setting like Eberron, where deities might or might not exist and the forces of Good and Evil rarely, if ever, mingle with the humanoids of the setting, I'd expect people to care a whole lot more about how they or their peers/society views a deed rather than what a distant, maybe not even real as far as they can tell, entity or objective morals system feels about it.

[Angelalex242]

Having such a lack of humility to think that life cannot go on without you, so you must do unspeakably evil things in order to continue your existence as an abomination?

Yeah, evil. The proper response is 'Life can get along just fine without me. I'm not THAT important in the great scheme of things. The circle of life will eventually raise someone else up to take my spot.'

[LordBlades]

Having such a lack of humility to think that life cannot go on without you, so you must do unspeakably evil things in order to continue your existence as an abomination?

Yeah, evil. The proper response is 'Life can get along just fine without me. I'm not THAT important in the great scheme of things. The circle of life will eventually raise someone else up to take my spot.'

That is your opinion, and it's entirely fine to have it. Personally, I consider that, under the right circumstances, choosing to inflict 'unspeakable Evil' to yourself rather than choose the easy way out can be a Good act. And some people are THAT important. Even if the circle of life would 'eventually' rise somebody in your place, 'eventually' might be too late for the things you're trying to protect.

Regardless, by RAW, alignment is determined by actions, simply feeling a certain way about a situation has 0 impact, unless you act on that feeling.

[Angelalex242]

You're free to feel that, of course, but do remember you can't enforce that without Rule 0. Anybody with a book can rub it under your nose and point out where it says in black and white that it's evil.

[hewhosaysfish]

Let me try my brand of logic here:

1) The process of becoming a lich requires performing some "unspeakably" evil act (as this is stated in the MM)
2) The process of becoming a lich does not require being able to have any form of contact with any other being (as this is not mentionwd in the MM)
3) There are no unspeakably evil acts that can be performed without interacting with another being (because we, the collective Playhround, can't think of one)
4) Liches exist (in DnD, not IRL)

These 4 statements, when taken together, give rise to a contradiction.

Therefore at least on of these statements must be false.

Some of us seem to be in favour of negating #1 and stating that one can become a lich without evil. This is contrary to the MM but so is pretty much the entire Eberron campaign setting.

Some of us seem to favour negating #3 and stating that just because we can't brainstorm up a solo unspeakable evil, that doesn't mean that a lich-in-the-making doesn't do one.

We could also negate #2 and state the the lich-to-be must do this evil to someone else. Perhaps the writers of the MM assumed that any aspiring lich could get his hands on other people if he needed them and wasn't trapped in a hermetically sealed demiplane.

Negating #4, and stating that there are no liches in DnD is probably not helpful to this discussion.

However, while we can be certain that at least one of these 4 statements is false we cannot deduce from these 4 alone which one that should be.

[Raven777]

Negating #3 is the easiest solution, as #3 is the only subjective parameter. By its very definition, one cannot come up with an example for something unspeakable. For all we know, the writer's definition of "unspeakable" might also be tamer - or worse - than our own. It might just be that stuffing one's soul in a jar is considered "unspeakably evil" by the Powers That Be.

I also feel that disagreeing with taboos and considering oneself first and the natural order second is a hallmark of Chaos, not Evil.

[Mikeavelli]

one high level-wizard, settled in a community of small-to-mid level humanoids, in an area surrounded by a lot of evil creatures (everything from bandits and orcs to evil wizards dragons) and having defended said community many times. If he dies of old age, the whole settlement is going to be way less secure (that's a fact, not ego, and an int 20-30 creature will certainly realize it) and a whole lot of innocents(maybe all of them) are going to die (or worse) fighting threats he could have easily brushed aside. It's entirely reasonable IMO for said Good wizard to view inflicting 'unspeakable Evil' unto himself (by RAW becoming a Lich affects nothing and nobody else) as the lesser evil, doubly so if he cares more about helping and protecting innocent people around him rather than how his alignment sits on an abstract scale.



The reason becoming a Lich in this case is evil is because the wizard has other options. There are plenty of routes to extended life or immortality (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0652.html) that aren't explicitly defined as unspeakably evil. Alternatively, he could train an apprentice, he could develop the town into a community capable of defending itself without him, he could create an array of magical defenses that will persist beyond his death.

There are options, and he chooses the evil one. That tells me he hasn't just suddenly arrived at this point, he's probably made moral compromises in the past, picking a convenient evil option over a more difficult or uncertain good option. The fact that he lacks the ability to work with his community, develop lasting institutions, or trust other people makes me certain he will continue to slide further into evil, despite telling himself he's doing this for the good of the community.


Let me try my brand of logic here:

1) The process of becoming a lich requires performing some "unspeakably" evil act (as this is stated in the MM)
2) The process of becoming a lich does not require being able to have any form of contact with any other being (as this is not mentionwd in the MM)
3) There are no unspeakably evil acts that can be performed without interacting with another being (because we, the collective Playhround, can't think of one)
4) Liches exist (in DnD, not IRL)

These 4 statements, when taken together, give rise to a contradiction.

Therefore at least on of these statements must be false.

Some of us seem to be in favour of negating #1 and stating that one can become a lich without evil. This is contrary to the MM but so is pretty much the entire Eberron campaign setting.

Some of us seem to favour negating #3 and stating that just because we can't brainstorm up a solo unspeakable evil, that doesn't mean that a lich-in-the-making doesn't do one.

We could also negate #2 and state the the lich-to-be must do this evil to someone else. Perhaps the writers of the MM assumed that any aspiring lich could get his hands on other people if he needed them and wasn't trapped in a hermetically sealed demiplane.

Negating #4, and stating that there are no liches in DnD is probably not helpful to this discussion.

However, while we can be certain that at least one of these 4 statements is false we cannot deduce from these 4 alone which one that should be.

I lied, I'm back, and you understand it. I can't imagine how people could simultaneously argue that #1 should be negated, but #2 can't possibly be the case because it contradicts the MM. It's the same argument both ways.

#3 only needs to be negated because no-one has tried to think up something. We just assume he's sitting around humming the evil version of Kumbaya for 8 hours a day. There are plenty of options:

- Exposure to the negative material plane frequently results in the exposed developing an intrinsic hate of all positive energy (normal) life. The constant spiritual pain causes the Lich to dislike living creatures, and act against their best interests, even if he went into it thinking he'd still love them. It's similar to how a lasting injury in an extremity will cause people to want to amputate their own limbs rather than continue enduring the pain.

- The ritual taints the caster's soul, darkening their perceptions. Permanent damage to the soul doesn't necessarily affect the caster in this "lifetime," but that soul is ruined for all possible afterlives or reincarnations. He'll never advance as a spiritual being in the afterlife; and any reincarnations will be pale, sickly, and predisposed towards evil.


etc.

If people are going to insist the Lich can't affect anyone else, it might be more productive to brainstorm options about what exactly is so evil about the ritual rather than just assume the MM is wrong about it being Unspeakably Evil.

[LordBlades]

The reason becoming a Lich in this case is evil is because the wizard has other options. There are plenty of routes to extended life or immortality (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0652.html) that aren't explicitly defined as unspeakably evil. Alternatively, he could train an apprentice, he could develop the town into a community capable of defending itself without him, he could create an array of magical defenses that will persist beyond his death.

There are options, and he chooses the evil one. That tells me he hasn't just suddenly arrived at this point, he's probably made moral compromises in the past, picking a convenient evil option over a more difficult or uncertain good option. The fact that he lacks the ability to work with his community, develop lasting institutions, or trust other people makes me certain he will continue to slide further into evil, despite telling himself he's doing this for the good of the community.



What if game is core only? Where are the 'other options' now?


You're free to feel that, of course, but do remember you can't enforce that without Rule 0. Anybody with a book can rub it under your nose and point out where it says in black and white that it's evil.

Enforce what? My point is that a good guy can become a lich(RAW), and even though the lich template forces his alignment to evil(RAW), it doesn't force him to behave any different than before (again RAW), so he'll be back to good pretty soon(also RAW).

[Starmage21]

This thread is long, and I havent read all of it. I hope you all wont feel like I'm throwing oil on the fire and running when I reference AD&D 2nd Edition material:


The whole process for becoming a lich was explained back then, and not been covered in such detail since. But basically, to become a lich, the first thing you had to do was brew this nasty poison and drink it, and if it didnt kill you, then you just needed to make your phylactery and die once. Then you'd come back as a lich.

Potion had in it:
2 drops arsenic
1 drop belladonna
1 quart yearling unicorn blood (slain by wyvern venom)
1 quart demihuman blood (slain by phase spider)
1 quart vampire blood
1 humanoid heart (slain by arsenic and belladonna)
Reproductive glands from 7 giant moths
1 pint phase spider venom
1 pint wyvern venom

I bring this up because some of this stuff you just cant get without somehow committing evil.

[Red Fel]

Enforce what? My point is that a good guy can become a lich(RAW), and even though the lich template forces his alignment to evil(RAW), it doesn't force him to behave any different than before (again RAW), so he'll be back to good pretty soon(also RAW).

In concept, I agree with you. Because a Lich is an intelligent undead, it has the capacity to make moral choices, and to shift its alignment; even if the process of becoming a Lich renders it Evil, it can go back to being Good later.

But that's mechanical. Let's look for a moment at the fluff. The act of becoming a Lich is "unspeakably evil." If you accept that such an act makes you Evil for having performed it, then you need consider why. The fact is, alignment shift doesn't react to your actions, it defines them. For example, you don't become Evil when you've murdered a threshold number of babies; you become Evil when you have become the type of person who murders babies. The specific number isn't a checklist, fill in the box and hop into the deep end of the alignment pool; it's a mental state reflected by your actions.

By the same token, you don't become Evil because you performed the Evil act of becoming a Lich. You become Evil because only an Evil person would be willing to perform an "unspeakably evil" act in order to become a Lich. If that weren't true, you wouldn't become Evil. If a Good person could perform an "unspeakably evil" act in order to become a Lich, it wouldn't make you Evil to do it. You're not Evil because you do the act; you do the act because you're Evil enough to do it.

Which leads us to redemption. Is it possible? Absolutely. But it's not just a case of "I did one bad thing, but now I want to make up for it." That happens when people make mistakes, when they make a single poor choice and realize it was wrong. In order to become a Lich, you have to be convinced that doing whatever it takes, even something Evil, to become a Lich, was the right thing to do. As a result of that perspective, your alignment shifts. Your view of right and wrong shifts. Good is still Good and Evil is still Evil, but now it's okay to do a little bit of Evil here and there. You don't have to act or behave differently, but you will think differently. Evil isn't just a mark on your character sheet; it's a way of seeing the world.

It's much harder to come back from that level of rationalization and justification. It's one thing to say, "When I was young, I took a man's life. I was desperate and stupid. I will never do so again." It's another thing to say, "I committed an unspeakable act of Evil to ensure my own immortality, because I knew it was something I had to do. But then I got better."

True Evil doesn't leave scars because it's traumatic. It leaves scars because, in order to commit it, a part of you has to be willing and able to justify it. That's what makes redemption harder than simply getting slapped with an Atonement spell and whistling your way back home.

[Mikeavelli]

What if game is core only? Where are the 'other options' now?






Alternatively, he could train an apprentice, he could develop the town into a community capable of defending itself without him, he could create an array of magical defenses that will persist beyond his death.



I'm not sure what your point is. Core only limits your options for immortality, but it doesn't limit your options for ensuring a community is protected after your death.

[Segev]

"I must balance right and wrong for the freedom of the majority." So saith the hypothetical CN diabolist.

Of course, he and your LN necromancer might loathe each other; one is an epitome of law and the other of chaos, in their own minds, at least.

But our diabolist values freedom so much that he questions the right of anybody to intervene even when another is causing harm to somebody else's freedom. That's their right and responsibility to defend themselves, neither your right nor your responsibility to stop their oppressors.

Help the innocent orphans because it lets them gain the strength to become great and self-reliant. Spare them the slavery imposed by circumstances.

Allow the innocent children to be tortured because it will enable you to gain more power to help more innocents than you harm. It's simple arithmetic: for every orphan you torment, you can help 2 or 3 more with the demonic forces you bind in the contracts. Perhaps you even allow the orphans to choose who amongst them becomes the sacrifice for the others. It's democratic, but also a trial of strength - of will, of personality, of character, of sheer determination and force.

It may be sad that some must suffer for more to benefit, but our diabolist is willing to make that hard choice.



Personally, I'd consider this man CE with a lot of heavy justifications. But if we're simply measuring the "evil points" against the "good points" one earns by torturing children vs. casting "evil" spells (which have no notable victims), vs. helping the innocent by protecting them with one's bound demons or animated dead, one could certainly arrange the math so that both the diabolist and the necromancer are Neutral on the morality axis.

Honestly, without fluff on par with "animating even a zombie locks a soul into slavery," and lacking fluff about Deathwatch explaining why it has that [evil] tag, I'd personally count your LN necromancer, if she performs nothing but good with her actual DEEDS, as potentially LG. Without the fluff you use to spell out why zombies are evil to animate, all we have is the "declared evil" in the spell description. Similarly, we have the mechanical truth that sufficient good acts counterbalance evil ones - the same truth used for your necromancer to be LN - so that torturing N children is balanced out by providing sufficient help to M*N other children and innocents (where M is whatever it takes to make the numbers work out).



Really, all I'm arguing is that alignment is descriptive. If there is no fluff explaining what makes an act evil, then either the act's mechanical declaration of evil needs to be questioned and possibly house-ruled, or the act needs to have fluff created to spell out how it truly is evil. So if you wish to make liches not have to be evil, remove the rule about "unspeakable evil" being part of making oneself into one. IF you wish to have them be as the mechanics say they are, fluff it however you must, but acknowledge that the actions are evil, not misguided or "evil-in-name-only" and certainly not "victimless."



As for the RAW-based argument that it doesn't say it involves anybody else? Poppycock. The ingredients of any number of magical item constructions are not specified. Largely, this leaves you free to fluff them however you like, but if it calls out that something is "unspeakably evil," you can bet one of those unnamed ingredients or ritual actions is going to involve hurting somebody else, if not a great many somebody elses. Evil really can't be performed in a vacuum, unless you want to get into "evil-in-name-only" as an acceptable definition. Which, as I've said, leads to logical self-contradictions.

[LordBlades]

You become Evil because only an Evil person would be willing to perform an "unspeakably evil" act in order to become a Lich. If that weren't true, you wouldn't become Evil. If a Good person could perform an "unspeakably evil" act in order to become a Lich, it wouldn't make you Evil to do it. You're not Evil because you do the act; you do the act because you're Evil enough to do it.

If that were the case, the Lich template would include the requirement that it can only be applied to somebody of Evil alignment (So you'd need to be Evil in the first place as you claim). As it stands, you can be Good (hell, even Exalted) and still perform the ritual (and end up Evil as per RAW).

[Mikeavelli]

If that were the case, the Lich template would include the requirement that it can only be applied to somebody of Evil alignment (So you'd need to be Evil in the first place as you claim). As it stands, you can be Good (hell, even Exalted) and still perform the ritual (and end up Evil as per RAW).

The alignment on the template is indeed listed as "Any Evil."

[Red Fel]

If that were the case, the Lich template would include the requirement that it can only be applied to somebody of Evil alignment (So you'd need to be Evil in the first place as you claim). As it stands, you can be Good (hell, even Exalted) and still perform the ritual (and end up Evil as per RAW).

Well... It's not quite that simple. It's an oddly circular thing.

A Good character can become Evil, and vice-versa, but it's not simply because they performed actions. It's because they had a mindset that indicated a willingness to perform those actions. The alignment shift doesn't occur because you acted, but rather you act because your alignment has shifted.

In essence, it means that you're right; a creature becomes Evil before it becomes a Lich, not after. In practice, however, the two are simultaneous, because if you're willing to perform the act but you don't, although it should indicate an alignment shift, none has occurred.

Like I said, it's circular and sketchy. But basically, yes, you become Evil prior-to-but-also-simultaneously-with performing the act.

Crazy, I know.

[LordBlades]

The alignment on the template is indeed listed as "Any Evil."

Which means 'any creature with this template becomes Evil' not 'you must be Evil to select this template'.

It's perfectly possible for one good or neutral creature to be entirely willing to commit one or more Evil acts that (unless houseruled) hurt nobody else than itself (become a Lich, cast [Evil] spells etc.) while not be willing to commit evil acts that would hurt other sentient creatures and/or act mainly with Good alignment toward others.

[Raven777]

Which means 'any creature with this template becomes Evil' not 'you must be Evil to select this template'.

It's perfectly possible for one good or neutral creature to be entirely willing to commit one or more Evil acts that (unless houseruled) hurt nobody else than itself (become a Lich, cast [Evil] spells etc.) while not be willing to commit evil acts that would hurt other sentient creatures and/or act mainly with Good alignment toward others.

It's like there were these degrees to people's behavior, instead of them being easily slotted into nine broad categories. Crazy!

[Zweisteine]

Note: I didn't read much past the first page before I noticed this.

A Dread Necromancer is not necessarily evil, I think, and they become Lichs through what appears to be a non-standard process. Could they be neutral?

[RedMage125]

Segev, minor nitpick on language here, but in D&D terms a "diabolist" deals with devils, not demons.

"I must balance right and wrong for the freedom of the majority." So saith the hypothetical CN diabolist.

Of course, he and your LN necromancer might loathe each other; one is an epitome of law and the other of chaos, in their own minds, at least.

But our diabolist values freedom so much that he questions the right of anybody to intervene even when another is causing harm to somebody else's freedom. That's their right and responsibility to defend themselves, neither your right nor your responsibility to stop their oppressors.

Help the innocent orphans because it lets them gain the strength to become great and self-reliant. Spare them the slavery imposed by circumstances.

Allow the innocent children to be tortured because it will enable you to gain more power to help more innocents than you harm. It's simple arithmetic: for every orphan you torment, you can help 2 or 3 more with the demonic forces you bind in the contracts. Perhaps you even allow the orphans to choose who amongst them becomes the sacrifice for the others. It's democratic, but also a trial of strength - of will, of personality, of character, of sheer determination and force.

It may be sad that some must suffer for more to benefit, but our diabolist is willing to make that hard choice.


Personally, I'd consider this man CE with a lot of heavy justifications. But if we're simply measuring the "evil points" against the "good points" one earns by torturing children vs. casting "evil" spells (which have no notable victims), vs. helping the innocent by protecting them with one's bound demons or animated dead, one could certainly arrange the math so that both the diabolist and the necromancer are Neutral on the morality axis.

Yeah, that's pretty straight CE, with an oddly benevolent streak towards those that have "earned" the right to live. Especially since he pits the orphans against each other to make the cut. He views what he's doing as "helping make them stronger", but he's creating well-trained sociopaths.

I think you might want to try that one again. What you've got is a sick individual who seems to think he's "strengthening" these orphans by weeding out the weak in an incredibly cruel fashion, trying to make them as cruel as he is.



Honestly, without fluff on par with "animating even a zombie locks a soul into slavery," and lacking fluff about Deathwatch explaining why it has that [evil] tag, I'd personally count your LN necromancer, if she performs nothing but good with her actual DEEDS, as potentially LG. Without the fluff you use to spell out why zombies are evil to animate, all we have is the "declared evil" in the spell description. Similarly, we have the mechanical truth that sufficient good acts counterbalance evil ones - the same truth used for your necromancer to be LN - so that torturing N children is balanced out by providing sufficient help to M*N other children and innocents (where M is whatever it takes to make the numbers work out).
Deathwatch has fluff. It's a necromancer spell, not a divination, and one is "calling on the foul sight granted by the powers of unlife", which basically allows you to see living auras and their strength (dying creatures obviously having weaker "life auras". Now granted, given what it does from a purely mechanical point of view, I think the spell should be a Divination and not evil (but then it kind of overlaps with the Status spell, maybe they should fold the effects of Deathwatch into that). But that's opinion and conjecture on my part. As it stands, Deathwatch is calling on powers of unlife, which is why it's [Evil], just like Veil of Undeath is [Evil].
And Sibuna (he's a male, btw. The name is "Anubis" backwards) is not LG. He lacks a lot of the characteristics that the PHB defines as "Good". He has no "concern for the dignity of sentient beings", he comes from a culture which tolerates slavery, for crying out loud (which would be hilarious in a D&D game, as Sibuna would not be in favor of freeing any slaves, but would consider them part of the loot). All of his "selflessness" is more out of devotion to duty than a devotion to the well-being of others. And while he makes personal sacrifices to his ethos in the course of his duties, he does not "make personal sacrifices to help others" out of any sense of empathy. He is certainly a fierce foe of Evil, though. But being opposed to Evil is not enough to make one Good.



Really, all I'm arguing is that alignment is descriptive. If there is no fluff explaining what makes an act evil, then either the act's mechanical declaration of evil needs to be questioned and possibly house-ruled, or the act needs to have fluff created to spell out how it truly is evil. So if you wish to make liches not have to be evil, remove the rule about "unspeakable evil" being part of making oneself into one. IF you wish to have them be as the mechanics say they are, fluff it however you must, but acknowledge that the actions are evil, not misguided or "evil-in-name-only" and certainly not "victimless."
Again, I've always had "victimless" in quotes because while an individual might see it that way, nature/the cosmos/the universe is still the "victim" because of the "mockery of life and purity that one is creating. At a minimum.

I like my liches to be sinister and evil. Having a one-in-a-million who is not makes that one interesting, and is not meant to set a precedent that would dilute the archetype. My True Neutral NPC lich Bernard, for example. He's amusing because he's a historian. He's actually quite loath to engage in violence at all if it can be avoided.I actually has planned a "Castlevania" style of adventure once. The locale was going to be in an ancient fort now swarmed over with undead and nominally ruled by a powerful vampire. Bernard was going to be the "shopkeeper" role for the adventure. He's powerful enough that he and the vampire lord leave each other alone, Bernard was there first, and doesn't care about the rest of the castle, he just likes the isolation. In exchange for some recent news of the outside world, he grants the party sanctuary in his study (i.e. safe place to rest). He does require payment for his magic item creation services "you don't appreciate what you don't pay for, and I have my own costs to consider". I like Bernard, but having him be more or less unique (in my world)makes him continue to be interesting.


As for the RAW-based argument that it doesn't say it involves anybody else? Poppycock. The ingredients of any number of magical item constructions are not specified. Largely, this leaves you free to fluff them however you like, but if it calls out that something is "unspeakably evil," you can bet one of those unnamed ingredients or ritual actions is going to involve hurting somebody else, if not a great many somebody elses. Evil really can't be performed in a vacuum, unless you want to get into "evil-in-name-only" as an acceptable definition. Which, as I've said, leads to logical self-contradictions.
I see what you're leading to, but there ARE evil things that can be done without affecting anyone else but yourself. Summoning a devil and selling your soul to it for selfish gain is the big one that comes to mind.

Note: I didn't read much past the first page before I noticed this.

A Dread Necromancer is not necessarily evil, I think, and they become Lichs through what appears to be a non-standard process. Could they be neutral?
DN's can be Neutral. But they don't necessarily take on the lich template (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?348610-Dread-Necro-and-Necropolitan). So...apples and, well...fruit that closely resembles apples but isn't apples.

[Wardog]

Having such a lack of humility to think that life cannot go on without you, so you must do unspeakably evil things in order to continue your existence as an abomination?

Yeah, evil. The proper response is 'Life can get along just fine without me. I'm not THAT important in the great scheme of things. The circle of life will eventually raise someone else up to take my spot.'

The problem there is that - lichification ritual aside - none of that is intrinsicly evil (or [Evil]). Otherwise all the Good gods (and the Good alternatives to becoming a lich) would also be Evil.

And as has been discussed, the process of becoming a lich, by RAW, is only unspeekably evil because RAW says it is. It doesn't even give any indication of whether this is because it involves doing things that would be obviously evil in any other context (as in did in previous editions), or if it is purely a case of "that's the way the cosmos is".

Which in turn means there is no RAW answer to the question of "what happens to the personality of a good person who becomes a lich?" They could end up like the succubus paladin (good in personality, good in motivation, good in deed, pings as Evil on the Evildar). Or they could become contaminated by Evil energy, which gradually magically corrupts their personalty until they are Evil in thought and deed. Or it could simply be that they have to do a load of evil things, the willingness to go through with proves that they have become Evil.

By RAW any of those are possible, because none are specified. But whichever the DM decides will determine how the formerly-Good lich behaves, and if and how they can become Good again.

[atemu1234]

I would say that a good creature cannot willingly commit an evil act with a justification of anything other than specifically good for people other than myself. If you assume the world cannot go on without you, you're evil, even if the ritual fails because you don't commit the intrinsically evil act. If you as a PC want it, the PC is evil. If you as the player want it, your DM and yourself may be able to come up with something. But an evil act is still an evil act; you, as a reasonably roleplaying PC, should be incapable of doing it.

[RedMage125]

I would say that a good creature cannot willingly commit an evil act with a justification of anything other than specifically good for people other than myself. If you assume the world cannot go on without you, you're evil, even if the ritual fails because you don't commit the intrinsically evil act. If you as a PC want it, the PC is evil. If you as the player want it, your DM and yourself may be able to come up with something. But an evil act is still an evil act; you, as a reasonably roleplaying PC, should be incapable of doing it.

So...in your book, there's no degree of self-interest that qualifies as "Neutral"?

That's what I'm getting from you. This kind of outlook puts a sharp divide between Good and Evil that promotes a binary view on the matter. This is not RAW, where Good and Evil are separate forces, and Neutrality, a wide gulf that is the absence of either, separating them.

Downplaying the separation between Good and Evil dilutes both of them. Good characters can commit acts that are morally Neutral, and are less likely to commit Evil ones. Neutral characters, on the other hand, may consider Evil means acceptable, depending on the circumstance, if the outcome is favorable to them and those they care about.

While I am not contesting that the lich ritual is Evil (because RAW says it is), your polarized view of Good vs Evil isn't right, either.

[Glodart]

So, I forgot that thread for a few days and see how much people are trying to help. Thanks guys!
Anyways, I showed the Good Lich to my DM and took it as proof that not all liches are evil, so allowed me to make a CN one.

I saw it somewhere that it was bad RP that suddenly, after 18 levels, he grows an extreme fear of death, well I'll tell you the whole story. He was recently level 20, he had a contingency tailored to teleport him to his hometown's temple should he be reduced under 50 HP. Unfortunately, the blow that did it did over 50 damage. Fortitude Save, Critical failure, Death. My contingency took my dead body to the temple, where the priests, knowing that they had many debts with me, resurrected me. Now, level 19, he is faced with his own mortality and becomes paranoid and does not want to leave the safety of his tower until he has found a way to protect himself, that this does not happen again.
Yeah, that's his story
I don't see anymore reason to post on this thread, so please abstain from doing so.

[Brookshw]

That is your opinion, and it's entirely fine to have it. Personally, I consider that, under the right circumstances, choosing to inflict 'unspeakable Evil' to yourself How do you know it's only on yourself?


And some people are THAT important. Really? Who?


Which means 'any creature with this template becomes Evil' not 'you must be Evil to select this template'.
Ah, so you DO believe that becoming a lich makes you evil. Gotcha.

[Segev]

Segev, minor nitpick on language here, but in D&D terms a "diabolist" deals with devils, not demons.

Yeah, that's pretty straight CE, with an oddly benevolent streak towards those that have "earned" the right to live. Especially since he pits the orphans against each other to make the cut. He views what he's doing as "helping make them stronger", but he's creating well-trained sociopaths.

I think you might want to try that one again. What you've got is a sick individual who seems to think he's "strengthening" these orphans by weeding out the weak in an incredibly cruel fashion, trying to make them as cruel as he is.Oh, I agree. But he's not enjoying the suffering of the victims. He simply...understands...that not everyone can be a winner in life's lottery. I suppose we could tweak it such that he doesn't generally permit the torture of true innocents, and views it in a karmic sort of light. Maybe he even keeps a tight rein on the "torture" of the innocent, treating it more like a trial by fire to train them to be stronger.

But by the RAW, his wacko divide between benevolence and cruelty - even by proxy - would plant him firmly CN, if one measures "good points" vs "evil points."

By fluff, and in a game I ran, he'd all but certainly be CE. But I'd be inclined to lean my reading of your LN guy towards LG, despite your comments as to how it's "just" a devotion to duty that leads him to those instances of kindness. I suppose, again, I could tweak our CN Fiendbinder (to choose a more accurate phrase) to actually feel sorrow for those innocents' suffering, but view it as a necessary crucible out of which heroes are born. Maybe he strives, again, to protect them from losing more than they gain in strength from it...but obviously he's imperfect, and crucibles are NOT pleasant. Devotion to his goal of making people strong enough to stand on their own drives him more than compassion or cruelty.



Deathwatch has fluff. It's a necromancer spell, not a divination, and one is "calling on the foul sight granted by the powers of unlife", which basically allows you to see living auras and their strength (dying creatures obviously having weaker "life auras". Now granted, given what it does from a purely mechanical point of view, I think the spell should be a Divination and not evil (but then it kind of overlaps with the Status spell, maybe they should fold the effects of Deathwatch into that). But that's opinion and conjecture on my part. As it stands, Deathwatch is calling on powers of unlife, which is why it's [Evil], just like Veil of Undeath is [Evil].Fair enough. Research "Lifewatch" which calls upon the warden nature of the powers of preservation to warn of dangerous loss of its energies from the living, or something, I suppose. I think it silly to fluff it that way, but hey. RAW are RAW.


Again, I've always had "victimless" in quotes because while an individual might see it that way, nature/the cosmos/the universe is still the "victim" because of the "mockery of life and purity that one is creating. At a minimum.Without some way of spelling out how this "harm to the cosmos" is actually hurting something real, I still find it a silly fiat decision. While I'm for stewardship of one's environment (and the cosmos is definitely one's environment!), I fail to find things that do "harm" to its current state but yield greater results to the one doing the "harm" (and possibly others) to be innately evil. It would take a lot to demonstrate that the "mockery of life" is somehow causing irreparable damage that doesn't heal with time and is inherently ruining things for everybody else down the line.

Without actual harm to sentient beings, I simply can't see something as evil. It rings false. Like somebody trying to dictate my actions for his own purposes, rather than an actual moral law.


I see what you're leading to, but there ARE evil things that can be done without affecting anyone else but yourself. Summoning a devil and selling your soul to it for selfish gain is the big one that comes to mind.

DN's can be Neutral. But they don't necessarily take on the lich template (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?348610-Dread-Necro-and-Necropolitan). So...apples and, well...fruit that closely resembles apples but isn't apples.
Well, a) the idea there is that it isn't a fair trade; the power you get is never commensurate with the value of your soul, and b) you're empowering an entity who WILL use that power to do greater harm to others who are innocent, and c) with your soul, he'll make you do that harm, too. You're basically signing a contract saying "I'll do evil stuff!" and enabling the fiend to enforce it.

It's kind-of like saying, "I'm not doing anything wrong by buying from the SlaveMart that sells cheap goods made by abused sweat shop workers! Sure, I can see them laboring under the cracking whip of the overseers just down on the production floor over there, but I'm not cracking the whip, even though I'm paying the store for the goods they make to support them keeping those whips cracking! I'm totally doing victimless evil, here."

OR like saying, "Sure, buying from the TerrorMart is a victimless evil. They're the ones who spend money to fund suicide bomings. I just was buying school supplies from them!"

[atemu1234]

Well, a) the idea there is that it isn't a fair trade; the power you get is never commensurate with the value of your soul, and b) you're empowering an entity who WILL use that power to do greater harm to others who are innocent, and c) with your soul, he'll make you do that harm, too. You're basically signing a contract saying "I'll do evil stuff!" and enabling the fiend to enforce it.

It's kind-of like saying, "I'm not doing anything wrong by buying from the SlaveMart that sells cheap goods made by abused sweat shop workers! Sure, I can see them laboring under the cracking whip of the overseers just down on the production floor over there, but I'm not cracking the whip, even though I'm paying the store for the goods they make to support them keeping those whips cracking! I'm totally doing victimless evil, here."

OR like saying, "Sure, buying from the TerrorMart is a victimless evil. They're the ones who spend money to fund suicide bomings. I just was buying school supplies from them!"

You aren't selling your soul. You're invoking incredibly evil powers, true, but you aren't selling your soul. But if my players tried what half these people seem to be saying, I'd quote Dante at him/her: "There cannot be penance if the act was committed with foreknowledge." This means that if a paladin commits an evil act going, "Well, I can just atone for it later," then we have a real problem. There shouldn't be such a dichotomy between player and character actions. The player can't commit an evil act with the intention of doing an evil act and expect the universe to just accept his apology, especially if he wants to keep the results. It's like robbing a bank and, after serving your jail time, expect to keep the money. If that were true, everyone would be robbing banks. Just like how if you could take the template, you're evil. There are good alternatives to it, but the core template is evil. You're not going to get around that with anything near a reasonable DM.

[LordBlades]

Just like how if you could take the template, you're evil. There are good alternatives to it, but the core template is evil. You're not going to get around that with anything near a reasonable DM.

The way D&D alignment works if you do more good than evil you are good, even if you did evil fully aware of the implications. So a Lich doing more good than evil should turn neutral and then good after some time.

I do agree that there should be some manner of in character justification about why your neutral or good character would be ok with becoming a Lich but, depending on how (or whether, not everyone has the inclination for graphical evilness in their games) 'unsoeakable Evil' is defined that might not be very hard.

[atemu1234]

The way D&D alignment works if you do more good than evil you are good, even if you did evil fully aware of the implications. So a Lich doing more good than evil should turn neutral and then good after some time.

I do agree that there should be some manner of in character justification about why your neutral or good character would be ok with becoming a Lich but, depending on how (or whether, not everyone has the inclination for graphical evilness in their games) 'unspeakable Evil' is defined that might not be very hard.

I'd probably disagree with you. "Evil to Good ratio" is not a defense. You cannot change alignment completely without atoning for your actions, you cannot atone without feeling guilt, and if you feel what you did was justified, you're no better than Miko. You cannot atone without guilt, and you cannot feel guilt if you weighed the options beforehand. Nothing can force you to become a Lich: no power in heaven or hell can make you do that unspeakably evil thing, the same as nothing can make you speak Dark Speech (see Book of Vile Darkness). You cannot justify it by saying you will do more good than harm; you're well-intentioned, but you're still evil.

[LordBlades]

I'd probably disagree with you. "Evil to Good ratio" is not a defense. You cannot change alignment completely without atoning for your actions, you cannot atone without feeling guilt, and if you feel what you did was justified, you're no better than Miko. You cannot atone without guilt, and you cannot feel guilt if you weighed the options beforehand. Nothing can force you to become a Lich: no power in heaven or hell can make you do that unspeakably evil thing, the same as nothing can make you speak Dark Speech (see Book of Vile Darkness). You cannot justify it by saying you will do more good than harm; you're well-intentioned, but you're still evil.

So by your thoughts a creature that does tons of good, including many 'unspeakably good' acts and a single 'unspeakably evil' act is Evil?

[Red Fel]

So by your thoughts a creature that does tons of good, including many 'unspeakably good' acts and a single 'unspeakably evil' act is Evil?

Potentially, yes.

As previously stated, Good is defined as having Lines It Will Not Cross. Certain things are so wrongful that Good simply cannot do them and remain Good.

When a person is willing to do such an Evil act, for any justification, he is abandoning the limitations and definition of Good. He may not slip into total Evil, but he cannot remain Good if he is willing to actively perform Evil.

So, yeah. A person who commits a truly obscene, wicked act, but otherwise does Good, is non-Good.

[Pan151]

The alignment on the template is indeed listed as "Any Evil."

But it can be applied to "any humanoid creature". Being evil is not a requirement to become a lich anymore than it is to become, say, a vampire.


As previously stated, Good is defined as having Lines It Will Not Cross.

That seems much more like the definition of Lawful rather than the definition of Good.

[Alex12]

You aren't selling your soul. You're invoking incredibly evil powers, true, but you aren't selling your soul. But if my players tried what half these people seem to be saying, I'd quote Dante at him/her: "There cannot be penance if the act was committed with foreknowledge." This means that if a paladin commits an evil act going, "Well, I can just atone for it later," then we have a real problem. There shouldn't be such a dichotomy between player and character actions. The player can't commit an evil act with the intention of doing an evil act and expect the universe to just accept his apology, especially if he wants to keep the results. It's like robbing a bank and, after serving your jail time, expect to keep the money. If that were true, everyone would be robbing banks. Just like how if you could take the template, you're evil. There are good alternatives to it, but the core template is evil. You're not going to get around that with anything near a reasonable DM.
Actually, atonement, at least in terms of an atonement spell, is for class features. If a Sorcerer or Wizard were to go lich, and then go on to dedicate their unlife to doing good deeds using their awesome magical power, there's absolutely no mechanical reason they can't. Sure, they might ping on Detect Evil because they're undead, but they could still do good deeds.
As an example of such a dramatic change, look at Darth Vader. If you tell Darth Vader didn't do anything "unspeakably evil" during his literal decades as the right-hand man of a galactic-scale dark lord, I will laugh in your face. And he was able to atone.


I'd probably disagree with you. "Evil to Good ratio" is not a defense. You cannot change alignment completely without atoning for your actions, you cannot atone without feeling guilt, and if you feel what you did was justified, you're no better than Miko. You cannot atone without guilt, and you cannot feel guilt if you weighed the options beforehand. Nothing can force you to become a Lich: no power in heaven or hell can make you do that unspeakably evil thing, the same as nothing can make you speak Dark Speech (see Book of Vile Darkness). You cannot justify it by saying you will do more good than harm; you're well-intentioned, but you're still evil.
Actually, you totally can feel guilt even if you weighed the options beforehand. I know this from personal experience, and I'm pretty sure most everyone else has too. You kick yourself for not finding a better way, but you didn't know back then what you know now.
Suppose you actually are irreplaceable in the world, or if not actually irreplaceable, your death would have worse consequences. Suppose you're a level 17 Wizard in an E6 world. You are, by a comfortable margin, the most powerful humanoid on the planet. Further suppose that the world is under threat by Creatures From Outside Time, ranging from CR12 to CR 15 or so, and they want to consume reality, which they could actually do if they weren't stopped. You're literally the only person in the world that can stop them. They won't stop attacking just because you're gone, and your lifespan is growing short. Besides, they only need to get lucky once. Are you really saying that, in that case, lichdom is a bad thing? Now, I'll admit this is kind of an extreme case, but I think it gets the point across.

Potentially, yes.

As previously stated, Good is defined as having Lines It Will Not Cross. Certain things are so wrongful that Good simply cannot do them and remain Good.

When a person is willing to do such an Evil act, for any justification, he is abandoning the limitations and definition of Good. He may not slip into total Evil, but he cannot remain Good if he is willing to actively perform Evil.

So, yeah. A person who commits a truly obscene, wicked act, but otherwise does Good, is non-Good.
I think you may be confusing Exalted and Good here. Besides, Book of Exalted Deeds explicitly says that redemption is definitely possible. The example character it gives? An Illithid. A Mind Flayer. A creature that literally eats brains to survive.
"Even done for the wrong reasons, good deeds improve the person doing them, and eventually she began doing them for their own sake, finally becoming among the most virtuous of heroes."

[Red Fel]

I think you may be confusing Exalted and Good here. Besides, Book of Exalted Deeds explicitly says that redemption is definitely possible. The example character it gives? An Illithid. A Mind Flayer. A creature that literally eats brains to survive.
"Even done for the wrong reasons, good deeds improve the person doing them, and eventually she began doing them for their own sake, finally becoming among the most virtuous of heroes."

Regarding Exalted vs. Good: You are correct that Exalted is "Good+." However, both have limits; Exalted simply has more of them. A Good character may decide that a certain amount of killing is okay; an Exalted character might potentially swear off of killing altogether (Undead and Constructs excluded). A Good character might still steal things, such as sneaking into the lair of the Evil Necromancer and absconding with the Ritual Crystal of Darkness to prevent him from opening a portal to the Negative Energy Plane; an Exalted character might find any act of thievery, even one so totally justified, abhorrent. But even though Exalted has more limitations than Good does, Good still has limits. That's why it's Good and not Neutral.

A person who commits a mildly naughty act could remain Good, even if it meant they wouldn't be Exalted. A person who commits a true atrocity could not remain Good.

And that doesn't mean it doesn't go the other way; it does. A Good character who does acts of Evil will gradually become non-Good; an Evil character who does acts of Good may gradually become non-Evil. The door swings both ways, as you and your illithid correctly demonstrate.

That said, Evil becoming Good is a more nuanced area, because of intentions. With Good, action is everything - you perform an Evil act, you become less Good, irrespective of intentions. With Evil, it's all about justification, so you could potentially perform a Good act for Evil reasons and remain Evil. For instance, you open an orphanage that feeds and cares for abandoned children, providing them with comfort and medical care. How noble of you. You do this because your vampire minions love the taste of innocent flesh. You monster. Good act + Evil intention = Evil. Fine.

This doesn't go in reverse, however. You kill murderous Kobolds to protect the village, good for you. Then you go into their warren to slaughter them, to prevent them from growing in strength to attack the village. Questionable, but justifiable. Then you go into their hatcheries and smash their unborn Kobold eggs. (Are Kobolds born from eggs? Let's assume so.) That's monstrous. You've destroyed innocent unborn children, based on the justification that they might someday grow to threaten the village. That's Evil, regardless of your goals. Evil act + Good intention = Evil. Or at least non-Good.

It comes back to what I've said previously. Your alignment doesn't shift because you performed an Evil act. It shifts because you became a person who is willing to perform Evil acts. The Evil act in question was merely a demonstration of your new-found skill at rationalizing your actions alignment. A Good character who is willing to commit an atrocity is no longer Good; the fact that he continues to perform Good deeds may indicate that he isn't Evil, but nobody willing to commit atrocities is wholly Good, either.

[rexreg]

No, a lich is not necessarily Evil.

The 2nd ed. MC Ravenloft Appendix II details Andres Duvall, a Bard who became a lich through extraordinary circumstances, who has maintained his Neutral Good alignment.

[atemu1234]

Actually, you totally can feel guilt even if you weighed the options beforehand. I know this from personal experience, and I'm pretty sure most everyone else has too. You kick yourself for not finding a better way, but you didn't know back then what you know now.
Suppose you actually are irreplaceable in the world, or if not actually irreplaceable, your death would have worse consequences. Suppose you're a level 17 Wizard in an E6 world. You are, by a comfortable margin, the most powerful humanoid on the planet. Further suppose that the world is under threat by Creatures From Outside Time, ranging from CR12 to CR 15 or so, and they want to consume reality, which they could actually do if they weren't stopped. You're literally the only person in the world that can stop them. They won't stop attacking just because you're gone, and your lifespan is growing short. Besides, they only need to get lucky once. Are you really saying that, in that case, lichdom is a bad thing? Now, I'll admit this is kind of an extreme case, but I think it gets the point across.

Let's review what you said: you seem to be not considering what the word FOREKNOWLEDGE means. That doesn't mean that you went through, knew what was going to happen, and a Fiend or something cheated you. It means you KNEW EXACTLY WHAT YOU WERE DOING. Committing an unspeakably evil act to ensure that the end of the universe doesn't happen is still, to repeat, AN UNSPEAKABLY EVIL ACT, as previously stated. Lichdom is a bad thing because you are in effect becoming an unspeakably evil affront to nature. And they are to. He who fights monsters, and all that. The road to the nine hells is paved with good intentions, and let's face it, you aren't the first. And if you are the most powerful being in the plane, you should be spending your limited time teaching others instead of hording your knowledge of the arcane and waging single-person war. That's like saying "Please kill me so humanity is defenseless". Also, the fact remains that your example depends on the rule that you are singly the sole hero of the multiverse. In reality, there's always someone to take your place. Be he a fresh-faced young wizard or an old colleague, there will be someone to help. The multiverse doesn't revolve around you.

[LordBlades]

Also, the fact remains that your example depends on the rule that you are singly the sole hero of the multiverse. In reality, there's always someone to take your place. Be he a fresh-faced young wizard or an old colleague, there will be someone to help. The multiverse doesn't revolve around you.

You can of course replace 'multiverse' with anything smaller, up to 'local community' and the point still stands. Fact is, there are circumstances where dying of old age can be more Evil (or at least bring more suffering to people you care about) than becoming a Lich. That doesn't mean becoming a Lich is not Evil though, just more justifiable.

And sometimes the multiverse DOES revolve around you, especially when you are high level.

[Raven777]

Of course one can justify becoming a Lich to safeguard one's clan or community over generations, or other comparable tasks. And these are very reasonable justifications. But the template (RAW) still forces you to ping as Evil once you succeed at the ritual. About that, I think I like Red Fel's way of putting it best : you had to become someone who's ok with "eating babies". In doing so, the objective cosmic forces of Good™ have decided to kick you out of their little club. Which brings me to my earlier inquiry : so what?

Screw Good! I am a firm believer that Evil can be heroic (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheEpicOFGilgamesh). Evil can be charitable (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AffablyEvil). Evil can be selfless (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NecessarilyEvil). You are the master of your fate, the captain of your soul. No cosmic force will take that away, ever. Unless you get horribly mind wiped, but I digress.

[Alex12]

Personally, I just figure undead always detect as evil regardless of what their actual alignment is. So yeah, the lich might ping as evil and get hurt by Smite Evil, but there's no reason they can't be just as selfless, just, and good as Hero McGoodguy, the Exalted Paladin.

Admittedly, I'm also of the opinion that the Detect [Alignment] spells really just tell you which set of gods think you have cooties at the moment.

[Angelalex242]

Re:Vader.

He was arguably forgiven a little too easily. Although, I suppose throwing Palpy down the shaft qualified as an 'atonement by heroic sacrifice' as far as the Force was concerned. Enough for him to claw his way back to the Light Side, at least. Anyways, Vader was ruled above all else by his passions. They lead him into darkness, and when his son was dying before his eyes, he was led back to the light, but I'm not totally convinced he changed. He just made the same choice twice. Betraying his master to serve someone he cared about more.

Anyways, D&D alignments are much stricter then the Force. Take Vader and put him in D&D, he'd be going to Baator, absolutely.

But the point is, a D&D character couldn't get away with all the stuff Vader does (He's essentially a Blackguard!) and suddenly get to Mt. Celestia at the last minute just because he saved his son.

Likewise a lich, no matter how many supposedly nice things he does, cannot get out of his destination in the lower planes just by doing a few nice things. Instead, a 'good' character trying to become a Lich is more analogous to 'What would've happened to Gandalf if he'd tried to use the One Ring?' Answer from Tolkien: Gandalf+One Ring=Worse then Sauron ever was. Likewise, Elrond or Galadriel+One Ring=Worse then Sauron. The process of becoming a Lich is the process of claiming the One Ring as your own, and all that goes with it.

Also analogous is Strahd von Zarovich's 'Pact with Death' that turned him into a Vampire. You can't run around making Pacts with Death to bang your brother's wife and expect to stay Good. (Though I've seen the 2E Roots of Evil campaign. Strahd, before he became a vampire, was actually Lawful Good. Didn't stick, clearly.)

Re:Andres Duvall, Bardic Lich:That dude never committed unspeakable acts of evil. He ended up a lich by magical accident. So it was possible for him to stay good.

[RedMage125]

Personally, I just figure undead always detect as evil regardless of what their actual alignment is. So yeah, the lich might ping as evil and get hurt by Smite Evil, but there's no reason they can't be just as selfless, just, and good as Hero McGoodguy, the Exalted Paladin.

Actually, by RAW, a Neutral Good lich may detect as evil, as per the spell, he will not be subject to the extra damage from Smite Evil.

Detect Evil has a separate line for undead creatures, meaning they radiate evil no matter what.

Smite Evil explicitly does not work on a creature that is not evil.

Funny how that works out, huh?

Of course, houserule what you like, just thought I 'd point out the RAW.

[LordBlades]

Likewise a lich, no matter how many supposedly nice things he does, cannot get out of his destination in the lower planes just by doing a few nice things.

I at least am talking about more than 'a few nice things', mire along the lines of several acts of 'unspeakable good', like saving the world several times and leading a whole eternity of mostly good deeds.

[Segev]

Screw Good! I am a firm believer that Evil can be heroic (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheEpicOFGilgamesh). Evil can be charitable (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AffablyEvil). Evil can be selfless (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NecessarilyEvil). You are the master of your fate, the captain of your soul. No cosmic force will take that away, ever. Unless you get horribly mind wiped, but I digress.

Er, no. You're misinterpreting those tropes. Well, all but the first one, potentially, but you're using "heroic" in the ancient sense rather than the modern one, and that confuses things. To the ancients, "heroic" simply meant that you went out and achieved things. The more epic, the better. Adolf Hitler would have been actively more heroic than Joan d'Arc to the ancients simply because he accomplished more (though both would have been tragic heroes, due to their demises; particularly Hitler's hubris-fueled one).

"Affable evil" is not about being charitable. It's about being polite and friendly and likable even when you're engaged in horrible cruelty. Affably evil characters don't seem to delight in the suffering of others, and take a "nothing personal" attitude towards doing awful things to people who get in their way. They'll cheerfully have tea with you until your pain, suffering, death, or other inconvenience would be to their advantage, and then they'll equally cheerfully (but with no obvious malicious glee) cause you and your loved ones as much harm as they need to to get their way. Being "charitable" is fine; it gets them friends when it costs them nothing about which they care. But they're not genuinely so.

"Necessarily Evil" is just plain a misnomer, often created by false systems of morality which conflate some rules of what is "moral" that are pure inventions - that is, informed evil actions - and thus falsely making it seem like some evil must be done for the greater good. The assignment of the [evil] tag to spells such as Animate Dead and Deathwatch is an example; if animating the dead is (for some contrived reason) the only way to save an orphanage from destruction and Deathwatch is (for equally contrived reasons) the only way to make sure that you don't lose any of those orphans during the fight, using both could be considered "good" in a framework that didn't assign [evil] as a tag. Neither spell has spelled out consequences that inherently harm innocents. Only one even has fluff that spells out why it has the [evil] tag, and that's a stretch. It's more informed-evil "dark powers of undeath." Which are not, in fact, empowered or helped to cause harm to others by its casting in any way spelled out in the mechanics.

These are informed evil because the authors decided they're evil because, um, they say so. Now, we've had some excellent additional mechanics that spell out ways to make Animate Dead truly evil to use suggested in this thread, but those mechanics don't exist in the RAW. Animating a zombie does not, in fact, specifically require locking the soul of the once-living into the corpse. (Weirdly, the rules for making golems spell out that elemental spirits are locked into them, and yet that process is NOT considered evil. Maybe said spirits are not sentient even to the level of animals.) You can craft "necessarily evil" scenarios here, but only as long as you keep the "necessary" evil to an informed-only level. The moment you make it actually fit the bill based on its consequences, it stops being necessary. It simply becomes evil, because you're willing to cause harm to others to get what you want. Even if "what you want" is ostensibly good (for others), you're now picking and choosing who is more important than whom and who it's okay to actively harm to spare or help others. And that's evil, not "necessary."

[otakumick]

Actually, by RAW, a Neutral Good lich may detect as evil, as per the spell, he will not be subject to the extra damage from Smite Evil.

Detect Evil has a separate line for undead creatures, meaning they radiate evil no matter what.

Smite Evil explicitly does not work on a creature that is not evil.

Funny how that works out, huh?

Of course, houserule what you like, just thought I 'd point out the RAW.

unless said good aligned creature has the evil subtype... then they are kind of screwed... they get detected by detect good and detect evil, and they get smited by smite good and smite evil... what would be even funner would be a neutral character that managed to acquire every alignment based subtype(not impossible just a lot trickier than picking up one or two unopposed subtypes) said neutral guy would get detected as everything and smited as everything... while being none of them.

[Sir Grave]

The general rule of thumb with templates is not only do you change as far as statistics, your character's personality, moral center and behavior changes. It's quite literally a character transformation. So what is a lich? A creature who's soul was tainted and bottled up into a phylactery, emptying any concept of empathy for life, and fueled by the drive for power. Your character would not be your character anymore, but something evil.

[LordBlades]

The general rule of thumb with templates is not only do you change as far as statistics, your character's personality, moral center and behavior changes. It's quite literally a character transformation. So what is a lich? A creature who's soul was tainted and bottled up into a phylactery, emptying any concept of empathy for life, and fueled by the drive for power. Your character would not be your character anymore, but something evil.

Got a reference to back that up? As far as I can remember, things that alter your personality say so explicitly (like Helm of Opposite Alignment or IIRC Shadow Sun Ninja if you die due to negative levels inflicted).

[Sir Grave]

Got a reference to back that up? As far as I can remember, things that alter your personality say so explicitly (like Helm of Opposite Alignment or IIRC Shadow Sun Ninja if you die due to negative levels inflicted).

Nothing substantial, other than the template's alignment change. And keep in mind: alignment says a lot about a characters personality, though not all of it.

That said, there is something to consider: If the alignment system were something like Eberron's, evil can be a very gray area. Take King Kaius III for example. His alignment is clearly Lawful Evil, but he's not going out of his way to make life miserable for the entire material plane: He does what he does for his country. Even further, things that are evil in say Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms aren't necessarily evil in eberron. "You could be a Lawful Good Vampire or a Chaotic Evil Silver Dragon," as quoted from Eberron the Campaign Setting. So perhaps, depending on the circumstances of transforming oneself into a lich, it's alignment could be anything.

[Angelalex242]

Eberron is also moral ambiguity central, and its rules should not be used in other campaign settings. In every campaign BUT Eberron, Silver Dragons are Lawful Good 99.99999% of the time, and Vampires are Chaotic Evil 99.999999% of the time. Liches, likewise, are evil 99.9999999% of the time.

With Succubi, they're evil 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 999999999999% of the time. (Stupid Paladin, that I usually houserule out of existence)

[RedMage125]

Eberron merely highlights a truism of alignment in D&D, that being:

Alignment is NOT an absolute barometer of action nor affiliation.

Just because someone is Evil, doesn't mean they're not on your side. Queen Aurala is NG and wants to start the Last War back up, because she believes she could lead a unified Galifar into a new Golden Age. While LE Kaius has given up on the dream of a unified Galifar, and just wants what's best for his people.

LE Cardinal Krozen is power-hungry and selfish. But any quests he gives to a party that's working for the CotSF are likely going to serve the LG goals of that church. He could very well act as a patron for a paladin of the Silver Flame.

Just as Evil is not monolithic, something that's been pointed out in D&D or years, neither is Good. Sometimes, two LG people may find themselves on opposing sides of a conflict, with neither of them in violation of their alignment tenets. Paladins fought and killed each other in the Last War.

[Raven777]

Er, no. You're misinterpreting those tropes. Well, all but the first one, potentially, but you're using "heroic" in the ancient sense rather than the modern one, and that confuses things. To the ancients, "heroic" simply meant that you went out and achieved things. The more epic, the better. Adolf Hitler would have been actively more heroic than Joan d'Arc to the ancients simply because he accomplished more (though both would have been tragic heroes, due to their demises; particularly Hitler's hubris-fueled one).

"Affable evil" is not about being charitable. It's about being polite and friendly and likable even when you're engaged in horrible cruelty. Affably evil characters don't seem to delight in the suffering of others, and take a "nothing personal" attitude towards doing awful things to people who get in their way. They'll cheerfully have tea with you until your pain, suffering, death, or other inconvenience would be to their advantage, and then they'll equally cheerfully (but with no obvious malicious glee) cause you and your loved ones as much harm as they need to to get their way. Being "charitable" is fine; it gets them friends when it costs them nothing about which they care. But they're not genuinely so.

"Necessarily Evil" is just plain a misnomer, often created by false systems of morality which conflate some rules of what is "moral" that are pure inventions - that is, informed evil actions - and thus falsely making it seem like some evil must be done for the greater good. The assignment of the [evil] tag to spells such as Animate Dead and Deathwatch is an example; if animating the dead is (for some contrived reason) the only way to save an orphanage from destruction and Deathwatch is (for equally contrived reasons) the only way to make sure that you don't lose any of those orphans during the fight, using both could be considered "good" in a framework that didn't assign [evil] as a tag. Neither spell has spelled out consequences that inherently harm innocents. Only one even has fluff that spells out why it has the [evil] tag, and that's a stretch. It's more informed-evil "dark powers of undeath." Which are not, in fact, empowered or helped to cause harm to others by its casting in any way spelled out in the mechanics.

These are informed evil because the authors decided they're evil because, um, they say so. Now, we've had some excellent additional mechanics that spell out ways to make Animate Dead truly evil to use suggested in this thread, but those mechanics don't exist in the RAW. Animating a zombie does not, in fact, specifically require locking the soul of the once-living into the corpse. (Weirdly, the rules for making golems spell out that elemental spirits are locked into them, and yet that process is NOT considered evil. Maybe said spirits are not sentient even to the level of animals.) You can craft "necessarily evil" scenarios here, but only as long as you keep the "necessary" evil to an informed-only level. The moment you make it actually fit the bill based on its consequences, it stops being necessary. It simply becomes evil, because you're willing to cause harm to others to get what you want. Even if "what you want" is ostensibly good (for others), you're now picking and choosing who is more important than whom and who it's okay to actively harm to spare or help others. And that's evil, not "necessary."

I never said any of these traits made a character any less Evil. I reckon that was actually my entire point. That one can be Evil and still function within society or a party.

I also think this thread ignores the vast swath of Neutral between Good and Evil. For example, when you say "even if 'what you want' is ostensibly good (for others), you're now picking and choosing who is more important than whom and who it's okay to actively harm to spare or help others. And that's evil, not 'necessary'", that strike me a lot like the druidic interpretation of Neutral where the example Druid would help a community cull Gnolls, then turn on the very same community once the Gnolls numbers were becoming too thin. This is choosing who gets to live or die, and by the books this is construed as Neutral behavior.

[Sir Grave]

Eberron merely highlights a truism of alignment in D&D, that being:

Alignment is NOT an absolute barometer of action nor affiliation.

Just because someone is Evil, doesn't mean they're not on your side. Queen Aurala is NG and wants to start the Last War back up, because she believes she could lead a unified Galifar into a new Golden Age. While LE Kaius has given up on the dream of a unified Galifar, and just wants what's best for his people.

LE Cardinal Krozen is power-hungry and selfish. But any quests he gives to a party that's working for the CotSF are likely going to serve the LG goals of that church. He could very well act as a patron for a paladin of the Silver Flame.

Just as Evil is not monolithic, something that's been pointed out in D&D or years, neither is Good. Sometimes, two LG people may find themselves on opposing sides of a conflict, with neither of them in violation of their alignment tenets. Paladins fought and killed each other in the Last War.

And that is exactly why Eberron will always be my favorite campaign setting!

[RedMage125]

And that is exactly why Eberron will always be my favorite campaign setting!

The point is that those things are true of ALL D&D settings. Eberron just points it out explicitly, something that not a lot of D&D settings do.

The one thing Eberron does differently regarding alignment is that the "always x alignment" of any given creature is less so. A Red Dragon is just as likely to be LG as CE, for example.

But the way alignment is handled in regards to action and affiliation...that's Core.

[LordBlades]

Nothing substantial, other than the template's alignment change. And keep in mind: alignment says a lot about a characters personality, though not all of it.



Alignment, as defined in D&D is a consequence of your deeds, not necessarily of your reasons or morality. If we assume killing a defenseless creature is an Evil deed, the executioner of a LG city/state will be LE. This doesn't mean he's any more likely to sell his soul to Asmodeus than the next guy (who's probably LG) and can't be a pretty nice guy outside his job.

The way I understand D&D alignment as written(and I consider this a very big flaw(, it's possible for people with exactly the same moral outlook to be entirely different alignment, depending on the situations they get to face in life.

Let's consider Average Joe, a human supremacist. To humans, Joe is the quintessential knight in shining armor: he donates most of what he earns to the needy, he helps old ladies cross the street, he slays monsters that threaten human communities etc.
There is a darker side to Joe however: he considers any non-human no better than a monster, an aberration that needs to be put down swiftly.

Now, if Joe lives in an exclusively human (or mostly human) society, he'd be LG, a pillar and defender of the community (even the occasional non-human killing if any would be a drop of Evil in an ocean of Good).

However, if Joe lives in a mostly non-human or mixed society, he'd probably be CE (or CN, depending on human to non-human ratio), with lots of random murders and refusing to help non-humans in need, and only doing deeds that further his goal (human supremacy).

[atemu1234]

Time to summarize again: Becoming a lich is always evil, and liches are always evil, barring archliches and other good variants of the template, despite the fact his reasons for doing so are good. And to respond to the comment about the world revolving around you at high levels, remember the old story, "fifty bards can kill a tarasque".

[Angelalex242]

LordBlades, as soon as the supremacist kills an elf or a dwarf just for being an elf or a dwarf, he blips evil on the Paladin's Radar and is fully smitable. The rest of his deeds mean nothing.

That is how absolutely alignment works.

[Pan151]

Time to summarize again: Becoming a lich is always evil, and liches are always evil, barring archliches and other good variants of the template, despite the fact his reasons for doing so are good.

Becoming a lich is always evil, and liches are predisposed towards evil, but not necessarily evil themselves.

Because that's what "always evil" means.

[atemu1234]

Becoming a lich is always evil, and liches are predisposed towards evil, but not necessarily evil themselves.

Because that's what "always evil" means.

Actually, the template makes them always evil in the literal sense of the word. As is listed, on the template, unless I am mistaken.

[Pan151]

Actually, the template makes them always evil in the literal sense of the word. As is listed, on the template, unless I am mistaken.

Well, unless there a specific part in the rules that says that template alignments mean different things than base creature alignments (as per MMI), "any evil" and "always evil" mean "the creature gains that alignment upon being born/gaining the template, but can rarely (that is, at a frequency significantly lower than 50% but also not negligible) change its alignment.

[atemu1234]

Well, unless there a specific part in the rules that says that template alignments mean different things than base creature alignments (as per MMI), "any evil" and "always evil" mean "the creature gains that alignment upon being born/gaining the template, but can rarely (that is, at a frequency significantly lower than 50% but also not negligible) change its alignment.

You and I have significantly different definitions of rarely, unless that's RAW.

[Angelalex242]

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Including the good intentions of wizards who think they'll continue to be good upon becoming liches. Like Gandalf using the One Ring for his own ends, never works out that way.

And Always Evil means exactly that. Always Evil. The only ways to beat always evil is Sanctify the Wicked, out of the Book of Exalted Deeds, which will convert any creature to a good aligned version of itself, or the Helm of Opposite Alignment. Even a Red Dragon can be so converted, but Evil Outsiders are immune.

[Raven777]

Gonna quote the Pathfinder Bestiaries (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/introduction.html) on this, though I assume 3.5 got roughly the same text somewhere :


While a monster's size and type remain constant (unless changed by the application of templates or other unusual modifiers), alignment is far more fluid. The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters—they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign. Only in the case of relatively unintelligent monsters (creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or lower are almost never anything other than neutral) and planar monsters (outsiders with alignments other than those listed are unusual and typically outcasts from their kind) is the listed alignment relatively unchangeable.

Is a Lich mindless? Nope.
Is a Lich outsiders with alignment subtypes? Nope.
Ergo, a Lich's alignment can change.

[Sir Grave]

Alignment, as defined in D&D is a consequence of your deeds, not necessarily of your reasons or morality. If we assume killing a defenseless creature is an Evil deed, the executioner of a LG city/state will be LE. This doesn't mean he's any more likely to sell his soul to Asmodeus than the next guy (who's probably LG) and can't be a pretty nice guy outside his job.

The way I understand D&D alignment as written(and I consider this a very big flaw(, it's possible for people with exactly the same moral outlook to be entirely different alignment, depending on the situations they get to face in life.

Let's consider Average Joe, a human supremacist. To humans, Joe is the quintessential knight in shining armor: he donates most of what he earns to the needy, he helps old ladies cross the street, he slays monsters that threaten human communities etc.
There is a darker side to Joe however: he considers any non-human no better than a monster, an aberration that needs to be put down swiftly.

Now, if Joe lives in an exclusively human (or mostly human) society, he'd be LG, a pillar and defender of the community (even the occasional non-human killing if any would be a drop of Evil in an ocean of Good).

However, if Joe lives in a mostly non-human or mixed society, he'd probably be CE (or CN, depending on human to non-human ratio), with lots of random murders and refusing to help non-humans in need, and only doing deeds that further his goal (human supremacy).

Those are very good points.:cool:

[Pan151]

You and I have significantly different definitions of rarely, unless that's RAW.

There are 3 different frequencies when it comes to alignment

a) Often (40-50%)

b) Usually (>50%)

c) Always (exceptions are rare)

From then on, it depends on what you define as rare. Some people here seem to believe that 99.999999999999% is a reasonable number (which makes little sense, because there probably haven't been enough of those creatures in the whole history of the setting to justify all those decimals).
I, on the other hand, being a Pharmacy student, have been taught to treat variations of 5% and, in certain circumstances, upwards to 25%, as insignificant.



And Always Evil means exactly that. Always Evil.

You are entirely wrong on that one. You should probably read the Monster Manual and see for yourself.

[Angelalex242]

You've got your percentages off.

Often Evil is 51% or better (otherwise, it'd say often neutral)

Usually Evil is 80% or better.

Always Evil is 99.999999999999999999999999999% evil. These creatures are evil barring 9th level spells or helms of opposite alignment.

A non evil lich is no more likely then a non evil chromatic dragon.

[LordBlades]

LordBlades, as soon as the supremacist kills an elf or a dwarf just for being an elf or a dwarf, he blips evil on the Paladin's Radar and is fully smitable. The rest of his deeds mean nothing.

That is how absolutely alignment works.

Not according to the DMG. It's clearly spelled on page 134 that alignment changes are gradual and should take at least a week. It's also clearly spelled that a character that's indecisive (sometimes good, sometimes evil) is neutral. So under DMG rules, Average Joe living among humans would at worst fall to Neutral.

Regarding Always Evil:
-DMG pag 134 states 'PCs have free will, and their action often dictate a change in alignment'.
-Lich entry states liches are 'always Evil'. However, going to the Alignment section the MM1 glossary the 'always' section contains 'It is possible for such individuals to change alignment, but such individuals are either unique or rare exceptions'.

Now, given that DMG is (moslt likely) the primary source for adjudicating PC alignment and that there is nothing in MM1 (the primary source for templates) to directly contradict the DMG statements, I don't see how it can be argued (by RAW) that an 'always evil' PC doesn't have free agency to change his alignment.

[Angelalex242]

Alright, how about this?

You wouldn't get away with it in my campaign. You're free to do what you want in yours.

[Pan151]

You've got your percentages off.

Often Evil is 51% or better (otherwise, it'd say often neutral)

Usually Evil is 80% or better.

Always Evil is 99.999999999999999999999999999% evil. These creatures are evil barring 9th level spells or helms of opposite alignment.

A non evil lich is no more likely then a non evil chromatic dragon.

Rather than intentionally making up false numbers, you should read the Monster Manual I, page 305, and admit that you're wrong.

Also, if, statistically speaking, 99.999999999999999999999999999% of all liches are evil, that means that there have been at least 100000000000000000000000000000 (one hundred quadrillion quintillions, if my counting is right) liches in the history of the setting of your campaign.

Frankly, at that point whether or not a Lich can be good or not is irrelevant from a practical perspective - you've got much bigger problems to solve.


Alright, how about this?

You wouldn't get away with it in my campaign. You're free to do what you want in yours.

You're free to do what you want in your campaign. Just don't bring in your houserules in the discussion as if they were the actual rules. They're not.

[RedMage125]

LordBlades, as soon as the supremacist kills an elf or a dwarf just for being an elf or a dwarf, he blips evil on the Paladin's Radar and is fully smitable. The rest of his deeds mean nothing.

That is how absolutely alignment works.

That is absolutely incorrect.

One deed does not completely change one's alignment. Killing an innocent dwarf or elf out of racist hate would be an evil act, certainly. And if Joe Supremacist had been a paladin, he would fall. But he would fall for willfully committing an evil act, not for changing alignments. As per the DMG, page 134 "alignment change is gradual".

To wit: Miko Miyazaki was NEVER anything but Lawful Good in OotS. She was flawed, yes, and shortsighted. She butchered her unarmed, 80-year old liege to whom she had sworn fealty, out of a misplaced and delusional sense of what was righteous. That is: she thought what she was doing was Lawful and Good. Clearly she was mistaken. As she lay dying, she asked Soon's spirit if she got to be a paladin again (which she would still need to be LG for), and he told her no, not because she didn't qualify, but because she didn't atone. And she asked if she would see Windstriker again, and he told her yes. As a celestial mount of a paladin, Windstriker was summoned from the plane of Law and Good (i.e. the mountain that Roy went to). In order to see Windstriker in her afterlife, she would have to be headed for that plane, and no other.

One Evil act does not make an otherwise Good person Evil. It doesn't even automatically make them "non-Good". A continued trend of Evil acts (let's say a murder spree on the part of the human supremacist) would constitute an alignment shift, as muder became more and more acceptable, and indeed, desirable to him in outlook.

[hamishspence]

Keep in mind that the DMG also says "there are exceptions to all the above" and gives as an example, an instant alignment change from Evil to Good.

The reverse seems just as plausible if not more so.


As to Miko's alignment at the moment of her death - that's a question better reserved for the OOTS section of the site, where it has been discussed on and off for years.

[Raven777]

Always Evil is 99.999999999999999999999999999% evil. These creatures are evil barring 9th level spells or helms of opposite alignment.

A non evil lich is no more likely then a non evil chromatic dragon.

You are wrong. To quote myself and the PF Bestiary (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/introduction.html) :




While a monster's size and type remain constant (unless changed by the application of templates or other unusual modifiers), alignment is far more fluid. The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters—they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign. Only in the case of relatively unintelligent monsters (creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or lower are almost never anything other than neutral) and planar monsters (outsiders with alignments other than those listed are unusual and typically outcasts from their kind) is the listed alignment relatively unchangeable.

Is a Lich mindless? Nope.
Is a Lich outsiders with alignment subtypes? Nope.
Ergo, a Lich's alignment can change.

Second,


Alright, how about this?

You wouldn't get away with it in my campaign. You're free to do what you want in yours.

House rules and DM fiat in no way resolve the discussion. We're trying to objectively determine if a Lich can be Good according to the books, not according to anyone's arbitrary table rules.

[Alex12]

House rules and DM fiat in no way resolve the discussion. We're trying to objectively determine if a Lich can be Good according to the books, not according to anyone's arbitrary table rules.

Per the books, an illithid can be Good. Given the way illithid reproduction works (they put a larva on the head of a humanoid, and it burrows into their brain, causing tremendous pain, and over the course of a week essentially takes over the body, killing the person who was originally there, and turns it into an illithid) and the fact that their entire society and way of life revolves around eating brains and mind-controlling people, with a side order of mad science, I find the idea of a non-evil illithid (barring one who was captured during ceremorphosis and raised by LG types or something like that) to be far less likely than someone who voluntarily did something that only affected themselves.

[Sir Grave]

Frankly, I've never heard of a "good" or "neutral" lich (except Neutral Evil). I'm not necessarily saying that they don't exist, just that every example of one that I see is trying destroy all life, dominate all life, serve some evil god, grow in arcane and/or divine power by any means necessary, or any or all of the above. Xykon. The Lich from Adventure Time. Voldemort (could be a lich? I don't know.) Freaking SAURON. Whatever their intentions they had to becoming liches, for good or for ill, they all turned to the dark side and never went back. Like I say, I'm not saying it's not possible: it's just not heard of.