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Peregrine
2007-03-02, 12:09 AM
Everybody's favourite can of worms. :smalltongue: (And a bit on conjuration (healing) is thrown into the bargain!)

I'm going to address the following questions:
Is creating undead evil?
Are mindless undead evil?
Is negative energy evil?

Now, it's my belief that these questions are entirely down to your own campaign. However, so often, those who disagree with them claim to do so with the Absolute Force of Reason. Which is not in itself a bad thing, because with certain assumptions, it is entirely reasonable to disagree. With certain other assumptions, the rules as written are the entirely reasonable ones; but Wizards of the Coast love to mess with these assumptions, and they never actually stated them outright in the first place to support the rules.

In other words, the problem with these rules is not that they don't make sense, but that they lack a consistent context and reasoning for why they exist. I believe that such a consistent framework is possible, and I shall attempt to lay one out.

Is creating undead evil?
Yes. Turning a creature into undead is a torment to its soul/spirit. Even if the creature gave you permission in its last will and testament, going through with it would be like torturing or killing a masochist who asked for it. Still evil. See also the next question, "Are mindless undead evil?"

But what if you're using skeletons for good purposes, like tilling fields or defending innocents?
What if you enslave and beat orphans to get them to till the fields instead? Still evil, whatever end you make of it.

Are mindless undead evil?
Yes. The objection to this is usually that they don't have the capacity to make moral decisions. However, anyone who says this should also object to the existence of "Always" alignment descriptions. (They probably do.) The fact that "Always" exists in the game, even for intelligent creatures, suggests that alignment is not always about the moral capacity to choose something. If a creature is Always Evil, it lacks the capacity to be anything else. But that means it can't be Evil, because it can't choose!

The fact is, it is Evil, because whether or not it chooses to do so, such a creature acts with consistently malicious intent. So with evil undead, even the mindless ones. The nature of their undeadification means they are driven to do harm, destroy life, and probably to replicate the torment that their souls are in. (The creation of such malicious creatures is further explanation for why creating undead is evil; see previous question.) This applies to both intelligent and mindless undead. (I do however agree that even in such a context as I'm presenting here, it is reasonable that intelligent undead may be able to turn from Evil, so you could have Good vampires and whatnot.)

What about ghosts?
Ghosts are the exception. Ghosts are not created by spells; they rise of their own accord. They are not (necessarily) brought about through a violent death or some other soul-warping effect, like suicide creating allips. They just stick around because they are 'restless', because they are unwilling to move on. Therefore, they make their own prison, and are not (necessarily) driven to malice against the living -- they just want to finish something. Even so, I imagine few of them are really benevolent and Good; most ghosts are probably Neutral or Evil.

Is negative energy evil?
No. It is generally hostile to living creatures, and is very conducive to the kind of magic that creates undead, but its use is not itself evil. The creation of undead is evil because you're doing evil things to the creatures, not because you're using evil energy to do it.

A vaguely related note on necromancy and conjuration (healing)
Many people want to put healing (back) into necromancy and have that be the school of creating and destroying life, working with positive and negative energy. I don't. To me, necromancy is the art of pulling a soul away from a body. Taken to the extreme, it can cause a kind of 'anti-soul': an undead creature.

Therefore, I say healing is not necromancy. But where to put it? I'm content to leave it as a conjuration, because I am comfortable with the idea that while any mortal can harm or destroy life, only gods can bestow it; therefore, a divine caster must conjure (call from another place) a kind of manifestation of a deity to perform magical healing.

Contrast with mundane healing, which simply encourages and supports a living being's own self-repair. Note that I do like the idea of arcane healing, being transmutation, that performs 'mundane'-style healing with magical power. Bind wounds, set bones, that sort of thing.

Bards getting healing spells requires a bit of setting-specific trickery on my part; or else, an alternate explanation. Try the following: Whenever a creature is injured, a small part of its life force departs for the next world. Recalling some of this life force is much more effective than merely bolstering what remains; this sort of magic is conjuration since it calls back a creature's own life from beyond. It is much easier to justify bards having this power, than it is to say that they can manifest a god's presence like clerics can.

Have I missed anything? :smallsmile:

oriong
2007-03-02, 12:17 AM
Now, it's my belief that these questions are entirely down to your own campaign. However, so often, those who disagree with them claim to do so with the Absolute Force of Reason. Which is not in itself a bad thing, because with certain assumptions, it is entirely reasonable to disagree. With certain other assumptions, the rules as written are the entirely reasonable ones; but Wizards of the Coast love to mess with these assumptions, and they never actually stated them outright in the first place to support the rules.


Yes they did. All undead creations spells have the [Evil] Descriptor, and every single mindless undead in the book is listed as 'Always neutral evil'. Only the third point is not stated as being the case, in fact I believe it's stated explicitly somewhere that negative energy is not inherently evil (this has nothing to do with the question of undead however).

That's about all I care to address, this question has been mulled over so many times that there really is nothing new to add, and most people's arguement's on the topic are pretty much irrelevant. The rules state what they state, and there's plenty of room for a DM to say otherwisse should they want their campaign to go that way.

EDIT: One point to keep in mind is that most undead creation spells (especially animate dead) are created with the 'evil necromancer overlord' slant in mind. I.e. that undead are socially unacceptable and evil. If a DM chooses to allow 'undead as potential good' or 'undead as socially acceptable' then he should probably increase the level these spells are available at, since they become much more useful to the standard PC spellcaster.

Peregrine
2007-03-02, 12:22 AM
Yes they did. All undead creations spells have the [Evil] Descriptor, and every single mindless undead in the book is listed as 'Always neutral evil'.

*blink* But that's not stating assumptions to support the rules. That's just stating the rules.


Only the third point is not stated as being the case, in fact I believe it's stated explicitly somewhere that negative energy is not inherently evil (this has nothing to do with the question of undead however).

It has a lot to do with it, because a lot of people defend the undead/evil pair by saying, 'It uses negative energy, and that's evil.'


That's about all I care to address, this question has been mulled over so many times that there really is nothing new to add, and most people's arguement's on the topic are pretty much irrelevant.

*shrug* There's nothing new under the sun. I feel like discussing this; I haven't discussed it enough in the past to satisfy myself; anyone who is more than satisfied, even tired of this subject, is under no compulsion to join in. :smallsmile:

Jack Mann
2007-03-02, 12:23 AM
Actually, the Seed of Undeath spells (from Complete Mage) lack the [Evil] descriptor. I suspect it's an oversight, but I thought I'd throw that out there.

Peregrine
2007-03-02, 12:25 AM
Actually, the Seed of Undeath spells (from Complete Mage) lack the [Evil] descriptor. I suspect it's an oversight, but I thought I'd throw that out there.

Or it could be an example of what I said about WotC messing with their own framework. :smallwink: I don't have access to that book; could you give us a general rundown of what 'Seed of Undeath' is about?

Fax Celestis
2007-03-02, 12:45 AM
A vaguely related note on necromancy and conjuration (healing)
Many people want to put healing (back) into necromancy and have that be the school of creating and destroying life, working with positive and negative energy. I don't. To me, necromancy is the art of pulling a soul away from a body. Taken to the extreme, it can cause a kind of 'anti-soul': an undead creature.

Therefore, I say healing is not necromancy. But where to put it? I'm content to leave it as a conjuration, because I am comfortable with the idea that while any mortal can harm or destroy life, only gods can bestow it; therefore, a divine caster must conjure (call from another place) a kind of manifestation of a deity to perform magical healing.

I personally don't agree with this either. I'd like to make healing spells Evocation, and Resurective spells Conjuration (Calling).

The justification for the first: you are creating positive energy, just as fireball, an evocation spell, creates "fire energy".

The justification for the second: you are calling the spirit of the slain creature back to it's physical self; hence, calling.

SeeKay
2007-03-02, 12:51 AM
Evil and Undead are somewhat linked. The use of a spell to create undead is an "Evil" act even if it makes a mindless undead. Making a Skeleton (or Zombie) to defend people or other "Good" means might be the mindset of some CN cleric, but it's still using "Evil" things for good.
The true question comes when a cleric that uses negitive energy commands already created undead. The cleric isn't the one that created them, so the evil act isn't part of the equation. Is it evil to use undead that has already been created? The LN clerics of Wee Jas want to know. That's one thing WotC needs to answer.

Lemur
2007-03-02, 01:16 AM
What about ghosts?
Ghosts are the exception. Ghosts are not created by spells; they rise of their own accord. They are not (necessarily) brought about through a violent death or some other soul-warping effect, like suicide creating allips. They just stick around because they are 'restless', because they are unwilling to move on. Therefore, they make their own prison, and are not (necessarily) driven to malice against the living -- they just want to finish something. Even so, I imagine few of them are really benevolent and Good; most ghosts are probably Neutral or Evil.

I think ghosts are sort of a moot point in the argument, since the question is on "mindless undead". Of the creature types that can become ghosts, I think plants are the only ones that are ever non-intelligent. Most ghosts are sentient to some degree, and therefore don't qualify as mindless undead, like zombies do. Also, the ghost template seems to make it clear that a ghost can be any alignment.

As far as which spells go into what school, I imagine the DM has some leeway in switching spells to different schools based on how magic works in his campaign. The spell schools as they are now, I believe, are meant to reflect the standard D&D universe canon, but that said canon doesn't have to be absolute for every different world.

For example, a DM could decide that instead of summoning postive energy from another plane, he calls it into existence out of thin air, making it an evocation spell, as Fax has suggested.

Perhaps positive and negative energy don't exist in the campaign setting, and curing and harming are both done with necromancy, the school that deals with life and death.

The DM could even decide that wound curing in his universe is done by shapeshifting the wound shut, making it a transmutation spell.

Peregrine
2007-03-02, 02:44 AM
The justification for the first: you are creating positive energy, just as fireball, an evocation spell, creates "fire energy".

That's good; the downside is that it makes it hard to explain why arcane casters shouldn't be able to heal. You can of course change that; but I guess my main aim here is to provide a context supporting the rules as written.

Not that it's impossible to defend evocation healing being divine-only (...and bards). :smallsmile: This is a slight tweak on my own perspective on positive energy: Positive energy is generally conducive to life, but if applied carelessly it tends to make a creature's cells overactive, thus actually being detrimental to the whole health of the creature. (In the worst case, it could cause tumours through overstimulating the growth of cells.) A true healing spell approaches the creature as a whole rather than just artlessly chucking positive energy at it.

(You'd still need to do some setting-appropriate fluff on why clerics have this training or power, and wizards don't. And of course, artlessly chucking positive energy at undead is probably fine, so you could give arcane casters positive-energy spells for that purpose.)

Oh, and by the way... my houserule: disrupt undead uses a bolt of negative energy, not positive energy. (Just like positive energy can harm the living, negative energy can harm the undead. Think of disrupt undead as pushing extra electricity into sensitive electronics.)


Is it evil to use undead that has already been created? The LN clerics of Wee Jas want to know. That's one thing WotC needs to answer.

I wouldn't think so. It depends what you command them to do, really. Ultimately it's Good to lay them to rest and Evil to keep them around, but in the short term there are plenty of reasons why you'd want to command undead you didn't create.


I think ghosts are sort of a moot point in the argument, since the question is on "mindless undead".

The question is on mindless undead, but my answer ranged into intelligent undead as well. :smallsmile:


As far as which spells go into what school, I imagine the DM has some leeway in switching spells to different schools based on how magic works in his campaign. The spell schools as they are now, I believe, are meant to reflect the standard D&D universe canon, but that said canon doesn't have to be absolute for every different world.

Of course not; the problem is, that 'default world' is kind of missing a few answers to the question, 'Why?' I'm trying to provide some.

Krill
2007-03-02, 07:21 AM
This is a bit of a cop-out, but couldn't it also be a societal thing?

Especially when you slap on an undead varient of the 'named summoning' option - you could be bringing back the same soul(s) over and over again to animate lifeless bodies.

That could be Evil: 'Please leave my soul alone'

Lawful: 'This soul was bound to my family in contract...'

Good: 'This soul is a willing guardian spirit and/or my dad'

Chaotic: 'I don't really care....'

Rigeld2
2007-03-02, 07:29 AM
Is creating undead evil?
Yes. Turning a creature into undead is a torment to its soul/spirit. Even if the creature gave you permission in its last will and testament, going through with it would be like torturing or killing a masochist who asked for it. Still evil.
Cite something that says that, BoED and BoVD notwithstanding (I'm not sure if they go into it, but I'd rather leave the extreme viewpoints out of the discussion). Every. Single. Person. that has argued that creating undead is evil has come up with a variation of this statement, with no support.


What if you enslave and beat orphans to get them to till the fields instead? Still evil, whatever end you make of it.So killing the orc raiders that have been harassing the town is evil? They havnt threatened you at all, the town just hired you to get rid of them.
Murder is evil, youre killing someone (for money even) thats not self defense...)


So with evil undead, even the mindless ones. The nature of their undeadification means they are driven to do harm, destroy life, and probably to replicate the torment that their souls are in. (The creation of such malicious creatures is further explanation for why creating undead is evil; see previous question.) This applies to both intelligent and mindless undead. (I do however agree that even in such a context as I'm presenting here, it is reasonable that intelligent undead may be able to turn from Evil, so you could have Good vampires and whatnot.)Again, cite the "nature of thier undeadification" driving them to do harm?
From the Skeleton description - "A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do. It can draw no conclusions of its own and takes no initiative." It cant choose to do malicious things.


No. It is generally hostile to living creatures, and is very conducive to the kind of magic that creates undead, but its use is not itself evil. The creation of undead is evil because you're doing evil things to the creatures, not because you're using evil energy to do it.Agreed.

edit: quoting those bold lines really doesnt work well.

Indon
2007-03-02, 10:21 AM
I agree with the OP's conclusions, but disagree with his reasoning.



Is creating undead evil?
Yes. Turning a creature into undead is a torment to its soul/spirit. Even if the creature gave you permission in its last will and testament, going through with it would be like torturing or killing a masochist who asked for it. Still evil. See also the next question, "Are mindless undead evil?"


I disagree that creating an undead involves the old creatures' soul. This is because no magic, not even True Ressurection, a much higher-level spell than Animate Dead, can call an unwilling soul back into its' body. Only if Animated creatures had the choice _not_ to animate would I believe it to involve the original creatures' soul.

As it is, I feel that mindless undead are simply a form of construct; corpse golems, if you will. The evil act would be a result of channeling negative energy in order to animate the undead.





Are mindless undead evil?
Yes. The objection to this is usually that they don't have the capacity to make moral decisions. However, anyone who says this should also object to the existence of "Always" alignment descriptions. (They probably do.) The fact that "Always" exists in the game, even for intelligent creatures, suggests that alignment is not always about the moral capacity to choose something. If a creature is Always Evil, it lacks the capacity to be anything else. But that means it can't be Evil, because it can't choose!

The fact is, it is Evil, because whether or not it chooses to do so, such a creature acts with consistently malicious intent. So with evil undead, even the mindless ones. The nature of their undeadification means they are driven to do harm, destroy life, and probably to replicate the torment that their souls are in. (The creation of such malicious creatures is further explanation for why creating undead is evil; see previous question.) This applies to both intelligent and mindless undead. (I do however agree that even in such a context as I'm presenting here, it is reasonable that intelligent undead may be able to turn from Evil, so you could have Good vampires and whatnot.)

In my view, mindless undead are evil because they are animated by spells that are evil. That's like asking, "Are water elementals wet?"

And it is in keeping with the fact that that even non-evil intelligent undead still have an evil aura.



Is negative energy evil?
No. It is generally hostile to living creatures, and is very conducive to the kind of magic that creates undead, but its use is not itself evil. The creation of undead is evil because you're doing evil things to the creatures, not because you're using evil energy to do it.

Many uses of negative energy, including creating _and rebuking_ undead, are explicitly evil. Some are not, however (such as the Inflict spells), so again, I agree, negative energy is not innately evil... but I think it's very, very close to being innately evil. For instance, evil clerics naturally manipulate negative energy, for instance, granting them the ability to spontaneously cast Inflict spells, even if those inflict spells are not themselves innately evil.

In the end, I'd say that the creation and command of undead is evil not because you're being a meany to that poor zombie or skeleton, but because the existence alone of undead is an abomination to the cosmos.

Peregrine
2007-03-02, 11:02 AM
Cite something that says that, BoED and BoVD notwithstanding (I'm not sure if they go into it, but I'd rather leave the extreme viewpoints out of the discussion). Every. Single. Person. that has argued that creating undead is evil has come up with a variation of this statement, with no support.

I think you're missing my point. I'm not saying, 'This is the way it is, and must be.' I'm saying, 'This is how it might be, in order for the rules to make sense.'

Many people say the rules don't make sense, because of this or that assumption. I'm presenting statements that describe a setting where the rules as written do make sense. In this world, creating undead torments their departed souls; therefore, the rule that creating undead is evil makes sense.

This is not to say that there is no support for my statements in the rules (besides of course that they are consistent with each other). In particular, notice that no resurrection spell can raise a creature that has been turned into undead. Even resurrection, which requires only a part of the body (a part which might never have been attached to the undead creature), or true resurrection, which creates a whole new body, cannot do it if the creature is still up and about in undead form. You have to destroy the undead creature first. Therefore, I reason that creating undead binds, limits or traps the departed soul in some way.


So killing the orc raiders that have been harassing the town is evil? They havnt threatened you at all, the town just hired you to get rid of them.
Murder is evil, youre killing someone (for money even) thats not self defense...)

My point was that it doesn't matter what you do with the undead. The act of creating them was evil. If you use them for good, well, it's like enslaving orphans and forcing them to do good deeds. Or sacrificing a hundred innocent babes in a ritual that will destroy that invading orc army. Evil is evil.


I disagree that creating an undead involves the old creatures' soul. This is because no magic, not even True Ressurection, a much higher-level spell than Animate Dead, can call an unwilling soul back into its' body. Only if Animated creatures had the choice _not_ to animate would I believe it to involve the original creatures' soul.

I didn't say it calls the departed soul back in any way. I imagine it as causing the soul some kind of spiritual equivalent of terrible pain, wherever it is presently residing.


As it is, I feel that mindless undead are simply a form of construct; corpse golems, if you will.

I've pondered ideas on this theme for a setting I hope to get into usable form some day, which would use my ideas on undead. In this setting, if you want a corpse golem, you make a corpse golem, not an undead creature. Flesh golems are the most obvious sort (since they're already in the game). Note that to make a flesh golem, you need parts from six different corpses; I've given a reason for this: through experimentation, golem makers found that making a flesh golem with too much material from one corpse caused it to become an undead creature rather than a golem (note that the spells it uses include animate dead).


The evil act would be a result of channeling negative energy in order to animate the undead.

Ahh, you see? You're from the 'negative energy is evil' camp. I'm not, which is why I made a point of it.


In my view, mindless undead are evil because they are animated by spells that are evil. That's like asking, "Are water elementals wet?"

I disagree. Water elementals are wet because wetness is defined as a property of water. Evil is not defined as a property of undead. Evil is defined in many ways, but most of them are something along the lines of 'wishing and causing harm to other beings' (though of course it is much more involved than that, there is the matter of why you're causing harm, and so on...) Therefore, to justify a spell or creature being evil, it must in some way have a purpose or effect that falls under the definition of evil.


I agree, negative energy is not innately evil... but I think it's very, very close to being innately evil. For instance, evil clerics naturally manipulate negative energy, for instance, granting them the ability to spontaneously cast Inflict spells, even if those inflict spells are not themselves innately evil.

I justify that as being because negative energy is conducive to various things which are evil. Generally, in settings where evil is considered a palpable force, being in contact with evil things tends to corrupt you. In a setting where negative energy is evil, channelling it will corrupt you over time, if you weren't evil to start with. However, in the sort of setting I described, negative energy is a bit like a disease. Having the flu doesn't make you evil. Experimenting with it in a laboratory isn't evil, and it might help you do good things like create a vaccine. Deliberately infecting people (think biological weapons), however, is evil. Thus, diseases are conducive to evil acts, but not themselves evil.

(Before anyone draws a parallel between 'experimenting with a virus in the lab' and 'ordering skeletons to defend the innocent', consider using the undead for good to be like experimenting on people infected with the virus, rather than the virus alone. Evil evil evil.)


In the end, I'd say that the creation and command of undead is evil not because you're being a meany to that poor zombie or skeleton, but because the existence alone of undead is an abomination to the cosmos.

Fair enough, although I tend to feel that calling it an 'abomination' in this way suggests Chaotic (violating traditions and notions of good behaviour) rather than Evil.

But that could be an interesting variant. :smallsmile: A world where undead are Chaotic, not Evil... heeeeey... that could work really well with that other idea of mine... :smallbiggrin:

Closet_Skeleton
2007-03-02, 11:19 AM
Negative Energy is evil. Remember that anyone slain by Negative Levels rises as a Wight. A Wight is a hateful being of destruction. Use of it is evil since all its uses create pain. Negative Energy is pure undilute hurt.

Not all Necromancy is evil just as not all Necromancy involves negative energy or creating undead.

I personally think that Ghosts should have the Deathless type. They're not undead, they're dead.

Fax Celestis
2007-03-02, 11:24 AM
Negative Energy is evil. Remember that anyone slain by Negative Levels rises as a Wight. A Wight is a hateful being of destruction.

Not all Necromancy is evil just as not all Necromancy involves negative energy or creating undead.

I personally think that Ghosts should have the Deathless type. They're not undead, they're dead.

Er, no, negative energy is about as evil as magnetic south. Being slain by negative levels is not being killed by negative energy, it's being slain by having your soul sucked out of your body.

Woot Spitum
2007-03-02, 11:33 AM
Negative Energy is evil. Remember that anyone slain by Negative Levels rises as a Wight. A Wight is a hateful being of destruction. Use of it is evil since all its uses create pain. Negative Energy is pure undilute hurt.

Only those slain by wights rise as wights. Those that are slain by negative energy from other sources don't become wights.

Fax Celestis
2007-03-02, 11:37 AM
Only those slain by wights rise as wights. Those that are slain by negative energy from other sources don't become wights.

I was about to say, "No, you're wrong," but then I went to quote the SRD, and guess what? You're kinda right:


A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight.

Which begs the question: wights are LE humanoids. What happens if you kill a dragon with negative levels? Does it rise as a wight, somehow transfiguring to humanoid?

Woot Spitum
2007-03-02, 11:47 AM
At least they put the word "may" instead of "will." Otherwise, a character slain by negative levels from a human cleric's spell would rise the next night as a human. Which, while hilarious, would wreak havoc with the fluff, not to mention the horror of being slain by negative levels.

SeeKay
2007-03-02, 02:07 PM
On page 293 of the DMG 3.5 it states that: "A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight." Clearly, if pure negitive energy is used to kill something, that something becomes an evil thing. But is negitive energy evil? No, but it isn't nice to use on someone.

Putting too much positive energy into someone will cause them to explode as their form can't contain the energy. Likewise, too much negitive energy is also fatal. One just leaves a corpse while the othe does not.

It's the "act", not the energy, that is the evil source. Negitive energy is the power that evil people enjoy using. The energy isn't evil, it's just so useful to evil uses. Just like positive energy isn't good, it's just useful for a lot of "good" uses. An evil cleric can still get and use healing spells just like a good cleric can get and use inflict spells, it's just harder for them to use the enegy that they aren't used to using (they have to memorize and pray for the spells instead of just using an empty spell-slot). Therefore, negitive energy isn't evil by itself, but is just easy to use for evil ends.

Peregrine
2007-03-02, 02:34 PM
One problem. You're talking about negative levels. Negative levels are not negative energy, any more than undead are negative energy. Negative energy is used to cause both. That's all. I've seen nothing to say that level-draining attacks are 'pure negative energy'; they're merely an application of it.

Well, almost nothing. Yes, I know, the Negative Energy Plane, and any plane with the major negative-dominant type, also causes level drain. It just doesn't sit right with me to say that that's because that's what 'pure negative energy' does; probably because its counterpart, the positive-dominant plane type, causes healing, which flies in the face of everything I'm trying to do to justify the status quo of wizards not getting cure spells, because healing is more than just flinging positive energy at it.

So here's my explanation: The Positive and Negative Energy Planes cause healing and level drain, respectively, purely through absolute immersion. It is impractical for a caster to cast a spell that employs that much positive or negative energy. Therefore, to replicate these effects in spell form, they have to draw on these energies in specific, crafted, skillful ways. A cleric conjures the presence of the deity in a burst of positive energy, to heal; a wizard shoots a specially crafted bolt of negative energy at a foe, to drain levels.

kamikasei
2007-03-02, 02:40 PM
This is not to say that there is no support for my statements in the rules (besides of course that they are consistent with each other). In particular, notice that no resurrection spell can raise a creature that has been turned into undead. Even resurrection, which requires only a part of the body (a part which might never have been attached to the undead creature), or true resurrection, which creates a whole new body, cannot do it if the creature is still up and about in undead form. You have to destroy the undead creature first. Therefore, I reason that creating undead binds, limits or traps the departed soul in some way.

Actually, resurrection and true resurrection can be used on an undead to turn it back into the living creature from which it was created. You can't true resurrect someone into a new body while their old one is still walking around, which sort of makes sense. The fact that you can destroy the undead, and then use resurrection to raise the original being despite having destroyed the body, is a little odd; I'd treat it as requiring a part from the destroyed body, but the wording ("you can resurrect someone killed by a death effect (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#deathAttacks) or someone who has been turned into an undead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#undeadType) creature and then destroyed") is exactly the same for both spells, which is strange.

I was giving some thought to how to explain undead and souls in a setting I'm tinkering with, and perhaps the idea could be useful here. If someone dies, their spirit goes wherever spirits go. If their body is raised as an undead, some part of their spirit - the "somatic" part that controls the body at a low level - is bound to the undead to make it able to use its limbs, etc; this doesn't effect the soul in any important way since it no longer has a body anyway. If you want to resurrect, though, you need to free up that somatic soul by destroying the body - or resurrect the body directly, porting the mind-soul back into it.

I view this as being like taking the data off a computer's hard drive and running its software, etc. on a virtual machine somewhere. The hardwired stuff on the processor, the low-level controls in the BIOS, etc. remain in the computer, but the programs no longer need them as they're running on a virtual interface somewhere. Those low-level parts can then be used by a smaller, simpler program, such as might drive an animated skeleton...

This runs into problems with Reincarnate, then, though.


My point was that it doesn't matter what you do with the undead. The act of creating them was evil. If you use them for good, well, it's like enslaving orphans and forcing them to do good deeds. Or sacrificing a hundred innocent babes in a ritual that will destroy that invading orc army. Evil is evil.

I think you're missing the point; the act of creating an undead may be evil, but coming along and finding an already-created undead, and putting it to a good use, does not commit that same evil act. Putting enslaved orphans to work requires keeping them enslaved, but you don't have to re-cast the evil animation spells every day in order to keep a skeleton animated. Thus, if it would be evil for - say - adventurers to take the undead servants of a necromancer they've defeated, and put them to work guarding a village or tilling fields - it would be for some reason independent of the "the spell is evil" explanation.

It could, perhaps, be explained that it's evil for the same reason that the spell is evil - whatever it is about undead that makes creating them evil, makes it evil to keep them around rather than destroy them.

Weasel of Doom
2007-03-02, 02:43 PM
I fail to see any justificaion for animate dead causing terrible pain to the creatures soul this is mentioned nowhere. i dsilike this part of the alignment system and if a city wants to use an army of undead to do the dangerous mining work or rowing so be it, depending on how they get the bodies for the undead i feel this could easily be a good act.

Peregrine
2007-03-02, 02:51 PM
Actually, resurrection and true resurrection can be used on an undead to turn it back into the living creature from which it was created.

No, they can't. You have to destroy the undead creature first; you can't use the spell 'on an undead'.


You can't true resurrect someone into a new body while their old one is still walking around, which sort of makes sense.

How so? True resurrection can create a whole new body from nothing but an unambiguous identification of the creature you're after. A time and place of birth or death is the example given.


The fact that you can destroy the undead, and then use resurrection to raise the original being despite having destroyed the body, is a little odd; I'd treat it as requiring a part from the destroyed body, but the wording ("you can resurrect someone killed by a death effect (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#deathAttacks) or someone who has been turned into an undead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#undeadType) creature and then destroyed") is exactly the same for both spells, which is strange.

Not at all. True resurrection, as already noted, make a whole new body from nothing. Resurrection needs any little scrap of the body whatsoever. It might be a finger that was severed after death, but before animation, thus never becoming part of the undead. Or more practically, it could be hacked zombie bits. :smalleek:


I think you're missing the point; the act of creating an undead may be evil, but coming along and finding an already-created undead, and putting it to a good use, does not commit that same evil act.

If you want to rule that it's only the animation alone that is evil, feel free. I'd like to see some support for that, though (i.e. explain how such a setting works, that animation is evil, but keeping the animated undead around is not). :smallsmile:

As it stands, with the kind of setting I've described, keeping them around is evil. You've inherited a thing that causes ongoing torment to an immortal soul. The decent thing to do would be to destroy it at once and end the soul's agony.


It could, perhaps, be explained that it's evil for the same reason that the spell is evil - whatever it is about undead that makes creating them evil, makes it evil to keep them around rather than destroy them.

Yes, exactly. And in contrast, your suggested 'only the act of animation is evil' idea would benefit from explaining how the animation is evil (and making sure it's something that isn't ongoing as long as the undead creature exists).

Edited to add:

I fail to see any justificaion for animate dead causing terrible pain to the creatures soul this is mentioned nowhere.

Sure it is. It's mentioned in my post! :smalltongue:

Seriously, why are people so insistent on producing a Wizards book that says what I've said? I'm not stating that this is a necessary result of the official rules, therefore also official, and therefore something that ought to be supported in a published book. I'm saying this is my interpretation, of how to define a setting where the core rules do make sense: where animating undead is always evil, where most undead are also evil, and so on.

(Note that I do believe I've provided justification: the resurrection problem is my key example. If you can't resurrect a creature that's been made undead, even with a spell that gives them a whole new body, then their soul must be being limited somehow.)


i dsilike this part of the alignment system and if a city wants to use an army of undead to do the dangerous mining work or rowing so be it, depending on how they get the bodies for the undead i feel this could easily be a good act.

It's interesting that people who say 'prove it, from a published source' also tend to be the ones who say 'I don't like the rules you're defending'. I'm not sure what to make of it, I'm just saying it's interesting. :smallsmile:

Anyway, that is your decision, and if that works for your games, more power to you. Again, I'm not saying, 'This is how it must work, bow before me'; I'm saying, 'This is how it can work, so you can't say "it does not (cannot) make sense".'

Maerok
2007-03-02, 03:17 PM
See: The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless (Popular Culture and Philosophy) (http://www.amazon.com/Undead-Philosophy-Chicken-Soulless-Popular/dp/0812696018/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-9213310-2631134?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1172866526&sr=8-1)

Its a really cool book. The first few chapters are on the inherent badness (or lack thereof) of undeath. Specifically, it is about zombies and vampires. IIRC, one author says that undeath in and of itself is not an evil though the processes might be. If I tell my undead minion to hold a door open for people, it is not being evil. When I tell it to cut a man in half, it is being evil, but only because I told it to do so. And perhaps the actual processes of necromancy aren't torturous to the soul. It is entirely possible for the soul to be left to roam while the body itself is manipulated through the flow of negative energy like a puppet, and the caster guides that negative energy. You can still true resurrect an undead creature (e.g., the Necropolitan trick), and without a soul I'm sure that wouldn't work.

I'll probably be back later in this thread, or work on another wide-scale project for the advancement of the Dark Arts. :smallbiggrin:

Peregrine
2007-03-02, 03:26 PM
You can still true resurrect an undead creature (e.g., the Necropolitan trick), and without a soul I'm sure that wouldn't work.

See! See! I have no idea what trick you're talking about that makes such a thing possible, but whatever it is, I'm sure it's Wizards of the Coast messing with their own system! Here I am, trying to wring consistency and sense from the rules, and it seems like they make it harder with every new supplement they release. *sigh*

Jabberwocky
2007-03-02, 04:13 PM
Simple - use positive energy for animating dead bodies. Problem solved :-)

Closet_Skeleton
2007-03-02, 05:17 PM
I think you're missing the point; the act of creating an undead may be evil, but coming along and finding an already-created undead, and putting it to a good use, does not commit that same evil act. Putting enslaved orphans to work requires keeping them enslaved, but you don't have to re-cast the evil animation spells every day in order to keep a skeleton animated. Thus, if it would be evil for - say - adventurers to take the undead servants of a necromancer they've defeated, and put them to work guarding a village or tilling fields - it would be for some reason independent of the "the spell is evil" explanation.

It's the same thing. Putting an existing undead to use is like buying slaves. Just because you didn't go around capturing innocent villagers doesn't mean you can work people to death against their will.

If you find an undead your duty is to kill it. Just because it can't talk back doesn't mean it isn't suffering. If animating undead is only evil in the exact moment of animating it sort of defeats the point.

brian c
2007-03-02, 05:25 PM
I wouldn't think so. It depends what you command them to do, really. Ultimately it's Good to lay them to rest and Evil to keep them around, but in the short term there are plenty of reasons why you'd want to command undead you didn't create.

Hence the spells "Command Undead" and "Control Undead" do not have the [Evil] descriptor.

kamikasei
2007-03-02, 06:12 PM
No, they can't. You have to destroy the undead creature first; you can't use the spell 'on an undead'.

Yes, you can (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#undeadType):


Not affected by raise dead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/raiseDead.htm) and reincarnate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/reincarnate.htm) spells or abilities. Resurrection (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/resurrection.htm) and true resurrection (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/trueResurrection.htm) can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.

Will respond to the other stuff later, that one didn't require me to think :)

averagejoe
2007-03-02, 07:08 PM
My point was that it doesn't matter what you do with the undead. The act of creating them was evil. If you use them for good, well, it's like enslaving orphans and forcing them to do good deeds. Or sacrificing a hundred innocent babes in a ritual that will destroy that invading orc army. Evil is evil.

I had no real problem with this, I'm just wondering what kind of babies you've come across that made you feel the need to put in that "innocent" descriptor. :smallbiggrin:

Actually I like this. If you can't tell, I'm a fan of the "evil undead," and this is a much more satisfying explaination than the whole negative energy thing.

On healing: it seems like healing spells should just be universal, simply because there is no one clear fit for them, and there are good arguments to support many different schools.

Jack Mann
2007-03-02, 08:13 PM
Yes, you can (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#undeadType):



Will respond to the other stuff later, that one didn't require me to think :)
'
Read the specific spell effects. Resurrection can't affect undead. True Resurrection only affects undead who have already been destroyed. In this case, the spell is the primary source, and overrides the undead entry.

kamikasei
2007-03-03, 02:30 AM
Read the specific spell effects. Resurrection can't affect undead. True Resurrection only affects undead who have already been destroyed. In this case, the spell is the primary source, and overrides the undead entry.

The specific text of the spells doesn't say they can't effect undead. They say that undead creatures can't be resurrected. Which is consistent with the statement in the undead type: if you cast resurrection on an undead creature, you don't resurrect it. You resurrect the creature from which it was created.

Peregrine
2007-03-03, 10:27 AM
The specific text of the spells doesn't say they can't effect undead. They say that undead creatures can't be resurrected. Which is consistent with the statement in the undead type: if you cast resurrection on an undead creature, you don't resurrect it. You resurrect the creature from which it was created.

I... think you're engaging in word games, albeit unintentionally (I think). Your reading is so close to reconciling what appear to be difficult and contradictory rules, but I think you twist them too much to do so, and ultimately ignore one salient point.

If you read only the spell descriptions, it seems (to me) absolutely clear that these spells cannot affect a creature who has died, turned undead, and is still out and about in that state. Their undead form must be destroyed before they can be resurrected:

You can revive someone killed by a death effect or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed. (Emphasis mine.)

I do agree that the other part ("undead creatures can’t be resurrected") could refer to the fact that you can't "resurrect" an undead creature that was destroyed, i.e. return it from death to undeath using resurrection. But the above-quoted bit is pretty damning. You can't resurrect a creature until its undead form has been destroyed.

Taking this as definitive and then looking at the Undead type description, two possible meanings come to mind:
1) It means you can cast these spells directly on an up-and-about undead creature. This flatly contradicts the above reading of the spell text, and also contradicts their stat blocks' Target lines, which say they target a dead creature. The game terms are fairly clear, dead is not undead.
2) It means you can cast these spells on an undead creature which has been destroyed. The game terms are not so clear here that a destroyed undead is now back in the 'dead' category, but undeath to death is at least circumstantial evidence.

In other words, there is a consistent reading of these rules: Creatures can be living, dead, or undead. Slain living creatures move to dead, and are valid resurrection targets. Animated dead creatures are undead, and are not valid resurrection targets. Destroyed undead creatures move back to dead, and are valid resurrection targets again; but the spell moves them back to living, never back to undead.

My reading says that the Undead description is unclear and misleading, but not actually correct. I think your reading requires that the spell description be flat-out wrong, about the need to destroy undead before resurrecting. Thus, I prefer mine.

Nahal
2007-03-03, 11:24 AM
Aww, I like the idea of pinning down a vampire or lich and using a resurrection spell to make it mortal. Could be good fun fixing a PC who's been turned into a vampire or vampire spawn.

Also, I am somewhat in the minority in here in that I think healing was just fine in the necromancy school. After all, you're manipulating the life essence of your target whether you're pumping them full of Heal or Harm. Plus it helps keep necromancy a more philosophically neutral school; as it stands necromancy is pretty much an evil discipline (based on how many of its spells have the [Evil] descriptor) and I'm not a fan of a given school of magic being biased one way or another in terms of alignment.

Duke Malagigi
2007-03-03, 03:05 PM
Also, I am somewhat in the minority in here in that I think healing was just fine in the necromancy school. After all, you're manipulating the life essence of your target whether you're pumping them full of Heal or Harm. Plus it helps keep necromancy a more philosophically neutral school; as it stands necromancy is pretty much an evil discipline (based on how many of its spells have the [Evil] descriptor) and I'm not a fan of a given school of magic being biased one way or another in terms of alignment.

Hurrah, a kindred spirit. I also believe that arcane spellcasters should be able heal, but they would either take one point damage per healed hit point (no self heals) or would require material components ranging from herbs, milk and honey to dragon flesh, bone or blood. Also, which necromancer variant would you be? Would you be an anatomist (arcane doctor), deathslayer (hunter of the undead) or witch (read as "bookish medium").

Nahal
2007-03-03, 03:57 PM
Giving arcanists healing magic would put them firmly beyond cleric or druid power levels, as even without healing their spell list gives them more utility as casters.

That said, since I like playing wizards, I'd be quite happy to have access to healing magic; yet another way for me to keep the party alive when someone does something stupid. But for flavour and balance reasons, us bookworms don't get to play with the white glowy light of anti-boo-boo.

NullAshton
2007-03-03, 04:22 PM
Arcane casters do get healing spells. It's called using polymorph into self.

Duke Malagigi
2007-03-03, 07:06 PM
Also if you want there is an online version of The Complete Book of Necromancers (http://gctm.free.fr/add/necromant/index.html#Table%20of%20Contents), which can explain what the anatomist, deathslayer and witch are.

Nahal
2007-03-03, 07:41 PM
Meh. I like generalist wizards. Sure you have fewer spell/day, but you're more batman.

TheOOB
2007-03-03, 07:47 PM
The Tome of Necromancy on the wizards board(link below) is a great and well written guide that discusses the alignment issues with necromancy. The guide also works to fix many of the (percieved) problums with necromancy and has ideas on how to improve necromancies role in your campaign. I strongly suggest you give it a read.

Tome of Necromancy (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=632562)

EDIT: I personally make all spells of the healing subschool part of necromancy in my campaign, but then again I also make animate dead a neutral spell, as I don't like that necromancy is inheriently good or evil. You can make an equally strong argument for healing spells being evocation, but theres no strong argument for your cure spell to be conjuration.

Callix
2007-07-07, 04:26 AM
On the Negative Energy/Negative Levels conflation: Does a creature killed by an Inflict Critical Wounds rise as a wight? No. Thus applications of negative energy are unassociated with the creation of undead or the Evil descriptor. These aspects are not evil. Thus negative energy is not inherently evil. Otherwise, why would St. Cuthbert allow the Destruction domain, with its array of Inflict effects, but not allow evil or undead-rebuking clerics?

Starsinger
2007-07-07, 05:14 AM
Are mindless undead evil?

Are mindless undead evil?
Yes. The objection to this is usually that they don't have the capacity to make moral decisions. However, anyone who says this should also object to the existence of "Always" alignment descriptions. (They probably do.) The fact that "Always" exists in the game, even for intelligent creatures, suggests that alignment is not always about the moral capacity to choose something. If a creature is Always Evil, it lacks the capacity to be anything else. But that means it can't be Evil, because it can't choose!

The fact is, it is Evil, because whether or not it chooses to do so, such a creature acts with consistently malicious intent. So with evil undead, even the mindless ones. The nature of their undeadification means they are driven to do harm, destroy life, and probably to replicate the torment that their souls are in. (The creation of such malicious creatures is further explanation for why creating undead is evil; see previous question.) This applies to both intelligent and mindless undead. (I do however agree that even in such a context as I'm presenting here, it is reasonable that intelligent undead may be able to turn from Evil, so you could have Good vampires and whatnot.)

Have I missed anything? :smallsmile:

The fact is, mindless undead are evil because of... that. http://llbbl.com/data/RPG-motivational/target23.html
No, not the poster itself, but Paladins, Smite Evil, and Detect Evil. Whether or not creating mindless undead is or should be evil, being a mindless undead makes you no more evil than being lava, which also harms things and destroys life. Mindless undead are just that, mindless.

Let's look into that phrase, mindless. Mind- being english for a center of cognitive activity, synonymous with brain. -Less being english for without, as in the words Brainless, Careless, Faithless, Doubtless, and Shoe less. Without a Mind how can something possibly be evil? A steak is mindless, but it was created from a cow, in a no doubt painful process, that possibly put the cow's soul into jeopardy. That doesn't mean Steak is evil. (Vegetarian ideals aside)

Peregrine
2007-07-07, 05:51 AM
Without a Mind how can something possibly be evil? A steak is mindless, but it was created from a cow, in a no doubt painful process, that possibly put the cow's soul into jeopardy. That doesn't mean Steak is evil. (Vegetarian ideals aside)

It depends entirely on two things: one, your definition of evil; two, your definition of mindless.

I don't think we need to quibble too much about the meaning of evil, not right off the bat anyway. (If I don't convince you to accept my position as tenable -- if not correct at all times and for all campaigns :smalltongue: -- then we might have to come back to it.) So let's go onto the definition of mindless.

You mention lava and steak as examples of other mindless things. But these are not just mindless, they are inert. In game terms, they are objects. 'Mindless' means only lacking an Intelligence score; objects also lack Charisma and Wisdom, the ability scores necessary to say 'this is me' and 'this is not me'.

A mindless thing cannot think, reason, or learn. It can still act, and so it must still have some motivation to act. With undead, there are two possible motivations. Either they're just automatons that take orders and do nothing else, or they're malicious creatures that will go around destroying life unless made to do otherwise.

Scroll up to TheOOB's post, where he links to the "Tome of Necromancy" on the Wizards forums. I don't agree with all the reasoning there, but it makes the same point I do about this, only more eloquently. :smallsmile: As it says there, mindless undead are evil if they act under the latter motivation. It's for that exact reason that my post, which is intended to describe a setting where the core rules make sense, ascribed that 'mindless malice' to undead.

(The Tome also concludes that negative energy must also be inherently evil in such a setting. That's the part I don't agree with. Again, negative energy is just the tool by which this evil thing is done.)

Jimmy Discordia
2007-07-07, 07:17 AM
Aww, I like the idea of pinning down a vampire or lich and using a resurrection spell to make it mortal. Could be good fun fixing a PC who's been turned into a vampire or vampire spawn.

Also, I am somewhat in the minority in here in that I think healing was just fine in the necromancy school. After all, you're manipulating the life essence of your target whether you're pumping them full of Heal or Harm. Plus it helps keep necromancy a more philosophically neutral school; as it stands necromancy is pretty much an evil discipline (based on how many of its spells have the [Evil] descriptor) and I'm not a fan of a given school of magic being biased one way or another in terms of alignment.

Hear, hear. Although I'm not so sure about all healing spells being Necromancy; a basic cure wounds type spell is basically just pumping positive energy into the target, the way that inflict wounds pumps negative energy into it. I would certainly agree that any spell that actually raises the dead is pure Necromancy, though.

The original, real-world definition of necromancy is simply "divination by talking to the dead," something that (as far as I know) would make only the speak with dead spell true Necromancy. But we're working in a fantasy-game environment, in which necromancy is more broadly defined as "magic that messes with death." I'd say that bringing someone back from the dead, whether they want to come or not (that is, creating undead or returning the dead to life) is messing with death whichever way you want to slice it.

Then again, I'm an advocate of Necromancy and negative energy in general being morally Neutral; it's what you do with it that counts. It's easier to do bad things with Necromancy and negative energy, but it's possible to do good things with them as well. If the enemy you're fighting is Evil anyway, why is inflict wounds or energy drain any more Evil than simply hitting it with an axe?

I like the idea of mindless undead being Chaotic rather than Evil, as it seems the worst thing about creating a mindless undead being is that it's against the natural order of things. By the same reasoning, though, making anything that's dead alive again might be an inherently Chaotic act. I say "might be" because in a standard D&D world, the gods give any cleric of a high enough level the ability to raise the dead, suggesting death may not be "meant" to be so permanent. And then there's the whole "holding the soul in torment" argument from the first post for why making mindless undead should be Evil; if we can agree that's really what happens (and apparently we can't), then creating mindless undead should certainly be Evil.

So I guess my post is more a bunch of considerations about world-building rather than a real point about the rules. In standard D&D, making undead is Evil Necromancy, mindless undead are Evil, using negative energy is at best very dark gray, and raise dead and its variants aren't Necromancy. It's that way because the rules say it is, and I think the first post in this thread has some good thoughts about the assumptions behind making it this way. If you want to use different assumptions for your own world or your own games, feel free.

Personally, I've been mulling around some ideas about making spells that raise the dead more "dark gray," but nothing concrete has really formed yet. I'm writing this before really reading the Tome of Necromancy link from earlier in the thread; maybe that will give me some good ideas to work with.

calebcom
2007-07-07, 01:12 PM
I believe Eberron gave a good way for Good characters to mess with the dead in their "Deathless" a "Good Undead" creature.

tobian
2007-07-07, 05:57 PM
Time to beat the dead horse even more! (just kidding)


Everybody's favourite can of worms. :smalltongue: (And a bit on conjuration (healing) is thrown into the bargain!)

I'm going to address the following questions:
Is creating undead evil?
Are mindless undead evil?
Is negative energy evil?



I had a post typed out earlier but I ended up reconsidering many aspects of it. Consequently, I realized that the rules as written contradict the way I actually was interpreting them; Jimmy Discordia put it best-




So I guess my post is more a bunch of considerations about world-building rather than a real point about the rules. In standard D&D, making undead is Evil Necromancy, mindless undead are Evil, using negative energy is at best very dark gray, and raise dead and its variants aren't Necromancy. It's that way because the rules say it is, and I think the first post in this thread has some good thoughts about the assumptions behind making it this way. If you want to use different assumptions for your own world or your own games, feel free.


Problem I had earlier was that I was thinking how I would build a DnD world, not how the rules state "evilness" in a default campaign. Its true, (focusing on undead here) that they are completely evil in a default setting. Despite that mindless undead have no mind to speak of and thus they have no ability to choose their disposition on the good/evil axis, they are considered evil. This is because the magic utilized to create them was completely evil; there is nothing redeeming about creating an undead abberation in standard DnD. The whole resurrection thing, the soul being trapped, blah blah blah.

However, this interested me as to I had never thought of it before:


Is it evil to use undead that has already been created? The LN clerics of Wee Jas want to know. That's one thing WotC needs to answer.

The act of creating undead is evil under standard conditions. However, as mentioned before, some controlling spells lack evil descriptors, and those poor LN clerics of Wee Jas are left scratching their heads. I thought of two ways to think about this:


Mindless undead have no minds at all. They exist only to obey the concerns of their master/controller. In this case, one is essentially controlling a construct; last time I checked, that was not an evil act.
As mentioned earlier, undead still retain a wisdom/charisma score. That means that they are self aware in a sense; the lack of an Int score just means that they cannot learn or plan anything. They fact are still self aware could explain the evil taint that can be detected around them. They can have malicious urges because the magic used to create them was evil, and due to the lack of an Int score they do not know that there are alternatives to evilness. So, you are essentially controlling an evil creature, whether it wants to be evil or not. But even this may not necessarily be bad-charm/dominate the BBEG. Suddenly, you are controlling an evil creature. Is that an evil act?



Now it is time for the monkey wrench!
Awaken Undead.
I believe its the spell compendium. Basically, the undead gets an int score, as well as any feats and what else it had in life that it lost upon becoming animated and mindless. The spell has the evil descriptor.

Now, mindless undead can gain an Int score, and thus have scores in all three mental stats, making them no longer mindless. When an undead is awakened, is he automatically evil? Or does it get a choice, which could be influenced by the environment so that while it could still be evil (likely), it could also turn neutral in some circumstances, or in extreme cases, even good? I guess the question becomes, is the original soul woken up to an extent (and thus possibly the original alignment to an extent) or does the Int score just sort of pop up, with the undead's always evil alignment in effect. The spell does have an evil descriptor after all. But, the fact that the abilities it had before death come back suggest (imo) that the soul is once again "self-aware", or at least the mind was imprinted to a point that maybe the alignment was imprinted in the same place with all the skills it had in life. When this happens though, what alignment is adopted on the good/evil axis?

Heck, which part would it be on the law/chaos alignment axis when awakened? :smalleek:

As for negative energy, per the standard campaign, not evil. You can still have "death by awsome" by positive energy, negative energy is just the opposite of it. Think of it as a balance, for without it, everyone dies by an influx of positive energy. Also, the inflict spells are not evil, and they channel negative energy.

Callix
2007-07-07, 06:08 PM
Awaken Undead [Evil] is one of those decisions that WotC made on a whim. If you cast Awaken Undead on the animated corpse of your paladin buddy, they should be an undead paladin, Lawful Good. If their abilities come back, their mind comes back. If their mind is back, their alignment comes back. Any control effect is no worse than Dominate Person: morally dubious but not inherently evil. Thus, Awaken Undead should not be [Evil]. Maybe it shouldn't really be Necromancy either. It seems a bit Enchantment or Conjuration to me, at least by the logic of Raise Dead.