Pathfinder Necromancy - Not Evil...would you allow this? [Archive]

thematgreen

2014-12-22, 12:39 PM

My online DM says yes, the group says No, as necromancy is ALWAYS evil...

My necromancer is highly respectful of the dead and will do what he can to free the unwilling indead.

The group recently came into a small village that suffered from attacks by Orcs. There are few menfolk left to help the town get back on it's feet and my group is planning on moving on soon. We have defeated the orcs but that doesn't put food in the mouth of the remaining villagers, nor repair their walls and homes.

My Necromancer decided to help. First he went to the pile of dead bodies, and with the help of a local priest, spoke with all the dead and, after explaining the issue, obtained their agreement that something needs to be done. With their blessing I have been given permission to raise the dead to help rebuild the town and my plan was to do that, and then leave them all with the final command "Defend this town and it's people from harm, follow the commands of the clergy" or something similar.

He then went to the church and prayed for permission from the god they worship, some god of harvests. Because of the good intentions and agreement of the recently dead I got agreement and was offered magical assistance to create these specific undead since there will be so many of them.

The townsfolk, after almost burning me at the stake, and then almost hanging me, finally understand what I'm trying to do. Their men-folk will still be able to provide for them, even if they aren't there in spirit.

So we are at the point where the local priest and I are getting ready to cast the spell that will pop clean skeletons out of the pile of corpses and set them to work...

...the group has drawn weapons and is trying to disrupt the whole thing because "NECROMANCY IS EVIL!"

Now, I like good roleplaying, and I appreciate that the DM is allowing this to play out, but it's becoming annoying since none of them are Paladins.

Should I just give up, or what would you do?

(Un)Inspired

2014-12-22, 12:44 PM

Psyren

2014-12-22, 12:46 PM

Banjoman42

2014-12-22, 12:47 PM

frogglesmash

2014-12-22, 12:50 PM

D&D is pretty adamant about necromancy being evil so if you're using it wouldn't make sense for you to have anything beyond a neutral alignment. THat being said, using necromancy for good purposes is not by any stretch of the imagination, impossible. As for how the rest of the party is behaving you could use see if it's okay with them and your DM to use in game diplomacy checks to bring them around to your point of view in order to avoid
party conflict.

(Un)Inspired

2014-12-22, 12:53 PM

If you're asking how 3.5 or Pathfinder treat it, they see necromancy as always being evil - no ifs, ands or buts. But rule zero > all, so if you get the DM on board then it doesn't matter what the books say.

D&D is pretty adamant about necromancy being evil so if you're using it wouldn't make sense for you to have anything beyond a neutral alignment. THat being said, using necromancy for good purposes is not by any stretch of the imagination, impossible. As for how the rest of the party is behaving you could use see if it's okay with them and your DM to use in game diplomacy checks to bring them around to your point of view in order to avoid
party conflict.

What? If all necromancy is evil when why do only certain necromancy spells have the evil tag?

Psyren

2014-12-22, 12:57 PM

What? If all necromancy is evil when why do only certain necromancy spells have the evil tag?

Sorry for the confusion - when I said "necromancy" above, I specifically meant the use of it being questioned by the OP, i.e. reanimating or creating undead. I did not mean the shorter-duration debuff things like Waves of Exhaustion or Enervation.

(Un)Inspired

2014-12-22, 01:04 PM

Sorry for the confusion - when I said "necromancy" above, I specifically meant the use of it being questioned by the OP, i.e. reanimating or creating undead. I did not mean the shorter-duration debuff things like Waves of Exhaustion or Enervation.

Ah yes. That makes sense. Ya, that's specifically labeled as evil.

Well if the party doesn't want you to help the village just let the townsfolk know that you're being prevented from giving them aid. You wish you could help but it looks like a PC based lynch mob is gonna come after you if you do.

StoneCipher

2014-12-22, 01:09 PM

Rubik

2014-12-22, 01:10 PM

If you're asking how 3.5 or Pathfinder treat it, they see necromancy as always being evil - no ifs, ands or buts.Um... No? Emphatically no, in fact. Creating undead is usually Evil (there are exceptions), and there are Evil necromancy spells, but your statement is utterly false unless you can show me the [Evil] descriptors on Astral Projection, Bestow Curse, Blindness/Deafness, Cause Fear, Chill Touch, Circle of Death, Clone, Command Undead, Control Undead, Death Ward, Disrupt Undead, Doom, Energy Drain, Enervation, False Life, Fear, Finger of Death, Gentle Repose, Ghoul Touch, Halt Undead, Harm, Horrid Wilting, Inflict X Wounds, Magic Jar, Mark of Justice, Poison, Ray of Enfeeblement, Ray of Exhaustion, Scare, Slay Living, Soul Bind, Speak With Dead, Spectral Hand, Symbol of Death/Fear/Weakness, Touch of Fatigue, Undeath to Death, Vampiric Touch, Wail of the Banshee, Waves of Exhaustion, and Waves of Fatigue?

And that's just in Core.

Psyren

2014-12-22, 01:15 PM

Um... No? Emphatically no, in fact. Creating undead is usually Evil (there are exceptions), and there are Evil necromancy spells, but your statement is utterly false unless you can show me the [Evil] descriptors on Astral Projection, Bestow Curse, Blindness/Deafness, Cause Fear, Chill Touch, Circle of Death, Clone, Command Undead, Control Undead, Death Ward, Disrupt Undead, Doom, Energy Drain, Enervation, False Life, Fear, Finger of Death, Gentle Repose, Ghoul Touch, Halt Undead, Harm, Horrid Wilting, Inflict X Wounds, Magic Jar, Mark of Justice, Poison, Ray of Enfeeblement, Ray of Exhaustion, Scare, Slay Living, Soul Bind, Speak With Dead, Spectral Hand, Symbol of Death/Fear/Weakness, Touch of Fatigue, Undeath to Death, Vampiric Touch, Wail of the Banshee, Waves of Exhaustion, and Waves of Fatigue?

And that's just in Core.

I'm going to assume you just skipped over the rest of the posts below that one in your rush to hit the quote button.

(Un)Inspired

2014-12-22, 01:17 PM

Rubik

2014-12-22, 01:20 PM

I'm going to assume you just skipped over the rest of the posts below that one in your rush to hit the quote button.That's...pretty much it. Sorry about that. I read things afterwards, and it turns out you responded before I refreshed.

Anyway, any necromancy spells with the [Evil] tag are Evil. Other spells are not, though it depends on how they are used, of course. Hell, even some [Evil] spells aren't Evil. Just look at Deathwatch.

Honestly, no spell should ever have the [Evil] tag unless it deals with elemental-type evil -- channels it or summons or creates something involving Evil energy. Just having Evil uses doesn't mean a spell should have the [Evil] tag. Should a spell have the [Fire] tag if it protects the target from cold by boosting the creature's Con score but doesn't involve fire? Most likely not.

Red Fel

2014-12-22, 01:23 PM

Well, let's be clear on a few things - not every Necromancy spell involving the Undead actually involves animating them. By RAW, animating the Undead is a pretty Evil act, but I disagree with that point and will elaborate further in a moment.

There are other Necromancy spells that deal with the Undead (other than things like Enervation) that aren't inherently Evil. For example, Disrupt Undead (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/disrupt-undead) isn't Evil, and it deals explicitly with moving corpses. So let's be clear: By RAW, the only Necromancy that is explicitly Evil is the stuff that involves creating the Undead.

Now, why is that? Because arbitrariness. The Undead are a perversion of life and nature, blah blah, animated by Negative Energy which is-Evil-but-isn't-really, the opposite of life is Evil, blah blah blah. It's arbitrary and I'm not a fan.

Look, blacksmiths make swords. Swords, generally speaking, are used to kill things. Blacksmithing is not Evil. The crafting of swords specifically is not Evil. The crafting of Animated swords that can attack on their own is not Evil.

Really, what's the difference between making a sword that attacks on its own and making a skeleton that does so? Apart from the whole "desecration of human remains" thing. But let's be honest, nobody else was using them. And think of the good you could do with unintelligent undead - they're cheaper than constructs and more moral than slavery.

Oh, look. I forgot my purple ink.

Short version: My opinion, which is not supported by RAW, is that Necromancy - that is, the animating of corpses specifically - is not inherently Evil; it's what you do with it that counts.

Now go do something Evil.

thematgreen

2014-12-22, 01:23 PM

Well, I would personally say that it is evil, as it allows evil to seep into the world via necromancy, but there is a solution.
The BOED for 3.5 adds the deathless type, which are essentially the same as undead, but use positive energy. You could create spells like animate deathless that creates deathless instead, and it would actually be a good spell. However, these spells should probably be rare, or have higher material costs then their undead sister spells.

I like this solution. I have a Good Priest, myself a Neutral Necromancer*, and the backing of a god of good, to do this. I'll just ask if I can make Deathless instead.

* Yes, my character is a Necromancer, but he uses his power to put the undead to rest, take control of undead from evil characters and put those undead to rest, help restless dead settle whatever it is they need, help ghosts and such move on, etc.

Divayth Fyr

2014-12-22, 01:25 PM

Necromancy is evil because it makes unnatural abominations and tortures souls.
Negative energy powering them is about as natural as positive energy that powers the living. Combine that with some rather mundane reasons we can be given for their existance (like Ghost Brutes created from a "beloved pet of a child tragically killed or a murdered druid’s animal companion) and we have an unnatural abomination that came into existance from completely mundane and natural reasons ;)

There is no "good" reason to be raising corpses and defiling graves.
So, if I have a choice between sending 100 men to their deaths and sending 100 skeletons to "die", there isn't a good reason to animate the undead?

AmberVael

2014-12-22, 01:29 PM

* Yes, my character is a Necromancer, but he uses his power to put the undead to rest, take control of undead from evil characters and put those undead to rest, help restless dead settle whatever it is they need, help ghosts and such move on, etc.

Maybe your character should protest the term necromancer and insist on being called a medium. :smalltongue:

(Being half serious, half joking here- the term medium really does seem to have some good parallels with what you're talking about, and honestly, avoiding the rather negatively charged label of necromancer would make a lot of sense for someone who wants to make it clear that they're to help, not harm. Psychopomp also seems to fit with the idea of helping the dead move on.)

Psyren

2014-12-22, 01:29 PM

That's...pretty much it. Sorry about that. I read things afterwards, and it turns out you responded before I refreshed.

No worries!

Anyway, any necromancy spells with the [Evil] tag are Evil. Other spells are not, though it depends on how they are used, of course. Hell, even some [Evil] spells aren't Evil. Just look at Deathwatch.

Honestly, no spell should ever have the [Evil] tag unless it deals with elemental-type evil -- channels it or summons or creates something involving Evil energy. Just having Evil uses doesn't mean a spell should have the [Evil] tag. Should a spell have the [Fire] tag if it protects the target from cold by boosting the creature's Con score but doesn't involve fire? Most likely not.

Well, BoVD lists animating undead as an evil act whether it has the tag or not. Of course, it's a moot point for this thread's purposes, since AFAIK all the spells that do that, DO have the [Evil] tag.

StoneCipher

2014-12-22, 01:31 PM

So, if I have a choice between sending 100 men to their deaths and sending 100 skeletons to "die", there isn't a good reason to animate the undead?

When I say good, I mean alignment good. I was hoping my italics would convey that lol.

And no, that wouldn't be an alignment "good" reason to animate undead. It would be a neutral reason at best. 3.5 fluff and RAW makes it pretty clear that the good gods are hypocritical and only they get to decide when to reanimate a corpse. So, unless you got a warrant from Pelor to reanimate those babies, it's gonna be evil.

Komatik

2014-12-22, 01:32 PM

Look, blacksmiths make swords. Swords, generally speaking, are used to kill things. Blacksmithing is not Evil. The crafting of swords specifically is not Evil. The crafting of Animated swords that can attack on their own is not Evil.

Really, what's the difference between making a sword that attacks on its own and making a skeleton that does so? Apart from the whole "desecration of human remains" thing. But let's be honest, nobody else was using them. And think of the good you could do with unintelligent undead - they're cheaper than constructs and more moral than slavery.

More to the point: Making a mindless, soulless puppet that dances on strings of sorcery but is macabre and kinda gross? EVIL!

Enslaving a living creature inside a statue for all eternity to make it move? Sure, go ahead Mr. Goody Two Shoes.

Sense, there is none.

thematgreen

2014-12-22, 01:34 PM

When I say good, I mean alignment good. I was hoping my italics would convey that lol.

And no, that wouldn't be an alignment "good" reason to animate undead. It would be a neutral reason at best. 3.5 fluff and RAW makes it pretty clear that the good gods are hypocritical and only they get to decide when to reanimate a corpse. So, unless you got a warrant from Pelor to reanimate those babies, it's gonna be evil.

My idea came from a previous character I played. He was an epic level Barbarian Shaman (Flavored Necromancer) who appealed directly to Tempus to raise an army of skeletons to fight off a massive army of demons. He met tempus by dying in a 1v1 fight with a Pitfiend, he killed it, but he died.

What did Tempus grant? An army of skeletons, with the souls of the dead animating them, each covered in soulfire and equipped with heavenly armaments. It was an army of UBER skeletons vs an army of Demons and it was glorious.

thematgreen

2014-12-22, 01:36 PM

Maybe your character should protest the term necromancer and insist on being called a medium. :smalltongue:

(Being half serious, half joking here- the term medium really does seem to have some good parallels with what you're talking about, and honestly, avoiding the rather negatively charged label of necromancer would make a lot of sense for someone who wants to make it clear that they're to help, not harm. Psychopomp also seems to fit with the idea of helping the dead move on.)

True, but in character his father was a Necromancer, and his father before him. They were not so nice, and when his dad was slain he had to clean up the mess of undead left behind. He only knows "Necromancer" as a term for someone who works with the undead.

Necroticplague

2014-12-22, 01:37 PM

Well, BoVD lists animating undead as an evil act whether it has the tag or not. Of course, it's a moot point for this thread's purposes, since AFAIK all the spells that do that, DO have the [Evil] tag.

You can indirectly animate dead without an evil spells, if you start from a living thing. Drain them to death with negative levels, turn the resultant wight. I don't think Haunt Shift is evil, so you could animate an already dead body by doing the previous trick, the using haunt Shift to have the undead possess the corpse and get it moving again. Bam, animated corpses, no evil spells.

That said, caisting a spell with the [evil] tag is evil, but its a pretty minor evil. I don't know about pathfinder, but 3.5 had the fiendish codexes quantify evil. Casting an evil spell was about as evil as humiliating an underling or spending an hour threatening somebody. So its slightly evil, but the resultant good (which you went very far out of your way to assure) should be more than enough to overide that in terms of your total alignment.

Exegesis

2014-12-22, 01:37 PM

Necropolitan: 24 hours of squicky crucifixion to make someone IMMORTAL. The dark priest who administers crucimigration rituals is more Exalted than the paladin who harrows Hell.

But in most cases you have to remember that in D&D some form of soul typically exists, and that binding it into an undead body—mindless or not—is probably torturous. If you were in the real world then duh, no, necromancy would not be evil.

Necroticplague

2014-12-22, 01:47 PM

But in most cases you have to remember that in D&D some form of soul typically exists, and that binding it into an undead body—mindless or not—is probably torturous. If you were in the real world then duh, no, necromancy would not be evil.

Mindless undead don't have any type of soul. Intelligent undead do have souls (or are souls, for incorporeal undead), though. Since were talking about skeletons, we're discussing ones that don't have souls.

Deadline

2014-12-22, 01:47 PM

More to the point: Making a mindless, soulless puppet that dances on strings of sorcery but is macabre and kinda gross? EVIL!

Enslaving a living creature inside a statue for all eternity to make it move? Sure, go ahead Mr. Goody Two Shoes.

Sense, there is none.

Well, there is that minor quibble about not being able to raise a person from the dead if their remains have been turned into an undead creature. It used to be (and it seems that it still may be) that animating a dead creature also bound part of it's soul. That's why it's evil.

@OP - I'd suggest changing the deal to be "the animated dead will defend the village for a year, and then they will be destroyed and their remains laid to rest." Your party may still decide they won't stand for it, but at least then you'd be more internally consistent with your character. And I'll second the idea that if you've got a good deity's permission and assistance, I don't see any reason why said deity couldn't allow you to bring them back as Deathless (since that is a thing) instead of Undead.

Rubik

2014-12-22, 01:48 PM

You can indirectly animate dead without an evil spells, if you start from a living thing. Drain them to death with negative levels, turn the resultant wight. I don't think Haunt Shift is evil, so you could animate an already dead body by doing the previous trick, the using haunt Shift to have the undead possess the corpse and get it moving again. Bam, animated corpses, no evil spells.

That said, caisting a spell with the [evil] tag is evil, but its a pretty minor evil. I don't know about pathfinder, but 3.5 had the fiendish codexes quantify evil. Casting an evil spell was about as evil as humiliating an underling or spending an hour threatening somebody. So its slightly evil, but the resultant good (which you went very far out of your way to assure) should be more than enough to overide that in terms of your total alignment.Any form of negative levels without an [Evil] tag, yes, including Fell Drain and Fell Animate. Plenty of ways to do it without any [Evil].

Coidzor

2014-12-22, 01:52 PM

So your DM is houseruling it to be like playing with fire (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-general/threads/1059011) and your group are protesting this... for reasons other than general Paladin-stick-up-the-buttness.

Weird.

Psyren

2014-12-22, 01:55 PM

You can indirectly animate dead without an evil spells, if you start from a living thing. Drain them to death with negative levels, turn the resultant wight.

Any form of negative levels without an [Evil] tag, yes, including Fell Drain and Fell Animate. Plenty of ways to do it without any [Evil].

It's true that those methods would not inherently have the [Evil] tag. But that's why actions themselves can be evil and not just spells. If you relied only on a descriptor to tell you what was evil in this game and what wasn't, that would mean things like murder, torture and rape weren't evil either since they don't have a "tag."

Yora

2014-12-22, 01:58 PM

Even if it's Evil, what's the problem? It's not like there is any consequence from that.

StoneCipher

2014-12-22, 01:59 PM

Either way you can't out-RAW the DM on a clearly fluff argument. Evil and Good are very DM dependent. Animating the undead is by RAW evil. Other necromancy spells are touch and go. You also cannot prevent the players from acting out against you because it's what their PC perceives to be evil, regardless of it being evil or not.

Bottom line is, I'd make it a plot point to convince them you're doing the right thing and accept the persecution as a challenge. Commune with your deity often for guidance and support. Know that you will draw ire of staunchly anti-undead organizations regardless of your good or evil intent. You have chosen a path rife with controversy and I think it would be a flavorful experience to battle through it and rise above to prove those that you are indeed doing good and we need not be so fearful of necromancy.

Psyren

2014-12-22, 02:03 PM

Even if it's Evil, what's the problem? It's not like there is any consequence from that.

Not inherently, no - but it can invite undesired attention from those morally opposed to the concept, such as his party, or various organizations in the world.

Making a habit of it could also change his alignment, which can have implications for other spells and magic items he or his group might use.

thematgreen

2014-12-22, 02:03 PM

Good News!

Deathless was acceptable.

It went as such.

Since the group was being jerks, I had the priest try to raise the dead, but the spirits refused to come back for some reason, so I had the request changed from undead to Deathless and the god agreed and the group was fine with that since it wasn't EVILZ!

So the plan is this.

The 83 Deathless Skeletons (Which have been cleaned) have started repairs on the town under the direction of the clergy and myself. My final command to them is specifically "Defend the town and those who live here and those who come here peacefully. Follow the commands of the Clergy of Erastil as long as they bring no harm to hose that live here and come here peacefully".

Good times!

thematgreen

2014-12-22, 02:08 PM

... accept the persecution as a challenge. Commune with your deity often for guidance and support. Know that you will draw ire of staunchly anti-undead organizations regardless of your good or evil intent. You have chosen a path rife with controversy and I think it would be a flavorful experience to battle through it and rise above to prove those that you are indeed doing good and we need not be so fearful of necromancy.

He accepts the negative concequences and is at peace with it. Previously he was almost killed by a Paladin, until RP reassured said Paladin that my character was putting the Poultergeist to rest instead of drawing it's ire and destructive power against the family it was haunting. The Poultergeist was actually the spirit of the familys toddler who died due to sickness and didn't understand why mommy wouldn't see him or pay attention to him. She put him to "bed" when I created a doll for the spirit to inhabit and she took it to the grave of the child and kissed it goodnight.

Haunting = Over

Komatik

2014-12-22, 02:08 PM

Good News!

Deathless was acceptable.

It went as such.

Since the group was being jerks, I had the priest try to raise the dead, but the spirits refused to come back for some reason, so I had the request changed from undead to Deathless and the god agreed and the group was fine with that since it wasn't EVILZ!

I have to wonder how Undead are an abomination against the natural order and Deathless aren't. Or how hilarious it is that they're powered by an even more lethal power source than normal McSkellingtons. That's still just as neutral-aligned as the negative energy (and the plane that's made of it) is.

For fun, make golems next time. Just so you can snicker inwardly.

StoneCipher

2014-12-22, 02:12 PM

I have to wonder how Undead are an abomination against the natural order and Deathless aren't. Or how hilarious it is that they're powered by an even more lethal power source than normal McSkellingtons. That's still just as neutral-aligned as the negative energy (and the plane that's made of it) is.

For fun, make golems next time. Just so you can snicker inwardly.

Good gods are invariably more two faced and hypocritical than evil gods. At least Hextor is honest about wanting to enslave you.

Coidzor

2014-12-22, 02:24 PM

Necroticplague

2014-12-22, 02:26 PM

Good gods are invariably more two faced and hypocritical than evil gods. At least Hextor is honest about wanting to enslave you.

That's probably because of power. All the gods would appreciate keeping their own power, or amassing more of it, since they have goals power helps them with. For Good gods, this creates an issue, as it goes against the good ideals of charity, altruism, and similar. So they have to expect different things from their followers than themselves. Meanwhile, the philosophy of evil is power-hunger, pretty outright. So there is no conflict between their goal of amassing more power, and their philosophy of doing such.

Tommy2255

2014-12-22, 02:27 PM

Necromancy is evil because it makes unnatural abominations and tortures souls. There is no "good" reason to be raising corpses and defiling graves. If you want to make the argument it is a neutral act, then that might be a winnable argument. But more or less, the good aligned gods only allow reanimation if such person is needed for a great deed.

The argument that skeletons or zombies contain the soul of the former occupant of the body is complete rubbish and not supported by RAW. For one thing, that means any low level priest can pull souls directly out of some god's dominion without the permission of either the god or the soul, when even much higher level spells with more expensive materials still require the permission of the soul to bring it back. Secondly, that would mean that a Paladin's soul can be instantly and irretrievably corrupted by any amateur priest, because undead set off Detect Evil strongly and do not set off Detect Good even if the body's former occupant was Good. If the soul was in there, you should be able to detect it.

Creating skeletons is Evil in d&d, because it has the [Evil] descriptor, but killing people is Evil too and Paladins still do it from time to time. It isn't by any stretch unjustifiable, especially with permission slips from both the deceased and their god.

Ssalarn

2014-12-22, 02:39 PM

If your DM says yes, isn't the matter settled?

If you're asking how 3.5 or Pathfinder treat it, they see necromancy as always being evil - no ifs, ands or buts. But rule zero > all, so if you get the DM on board then it doesn't matter what the books say.

This. The default setting for Golarion and most of the D&D settings is "Necromancy & Undead = Evil", but if the GM says "not in my world" that should pretty much close the book on the subject.

Kristinn

2014-12-22, 02:42 PM

StoneCipher

2014-12-22, 02:48 PM

Ashtagon

2014-12-22, 02:51 PM

The argument that skeletons or zombies contain the soul of the former occupant of the body is complete rubbish and not supported by RAW. For one thing, that means any low level priest can pull souls directly out of some god's dominion without the permission of either the god or the soul, when even much higher level spells with more expensive materials still require the permission of the soul to bring it back. Secondly, that would mean that a Paladin's soul can be instantly and irretrievably corrupted by any amateur priest, because undead set off Detect Evil strongly and do not set off Detect Good even if the body's former occupant was Good. If the soul was in there, you should be able to detect it.

Creating skeletons is Evil in d&d, because it has the [Evil] descriptor, but killing people is Evil too and Paladins still do it from time to time. It isn't by any stretch unjustifiable, especially with permission slips from both the deceased and their god.

I think the point he was making wasn't that the soul of the body donor is bound inside the undead, as you are implying, but rather, that the soul of the body donor is tortured in the afterlife as long as their remains are being used as an undead creature.

Another alternate explanation for why creating undead is Always Evil might be that the act of creating undead is simultaneously a mystic ritual that creates a small amount of metaphysical energy that only evil deities can use.

Necroticplague

2014-12-22, 02:52 PM

However, even if disregarded, you run into the brick wall of undead always being evil. The nature of negative energy, as a force of life-draining, that a creature that is composed or animated completely by it can only be evil

Incorrect.Off the top of my head, ghosts can be any alignment,as can necroploitans, and ghost brutes are usually neutral. The Negative Energy Plane either has no alignment traits or is actually mildly neutral aligned (as a result of being an Inner Plane), depending on 3.0 vs. 3.5, and xeg-yi (outsiders native to the Negative Energy Plane, meaning they are 100% made of both the essence and energy of the plane) are True Neutral.

Rubik

2014-12-22, 02:54 PM

However, even if disregarded, you run into the brick wall of undead always being evil. The nature of negative energy, as a force of life-draining, that a creature that is composed or animated completely by it can only be evil.And this is another thing that's incorrect. Some are "Always Evil," but not all. Ghosts and necropolitans, for instance, have no restrictions on their alignments. They have the same as they had before they became...whatever it is that they've become. In fact, there's not even a hint that they tend toward "turning to the Dark Side," so a Lawful Good ghost is every bit as likely as a Chaotic Evil one -- it just depends on who it is.

thematgreen

2014-12-22, 02:56 PM

The issue also remains with an interesting situation. You can command undead through rebuking them or spells, however, is the DM allowing you to apply that to deathless? Also, there is a maximum HD you can command, so in theory, commanding 83 skeletons might be outside your bounds and then they may wander off to do their own things, like killing people or just staring at the sunset.

Generally my Necromancer can only handle a handful of undead. The 83 are being created as Deathless with the help of a group of good priests and the direct intervention of a god. The Deathless are specifically just "machines" rather than thinking beings, since no soul is being placed inside, just positive energy to animate them so they can accomplish my goal, helping the town.

RedMage125

2014-12-22, 02:59 PM

Well, by the rules, the Animation of undead is, in and of itself, an Evil act. That doesn't mean you can't do Good with those undead automatons once you have control over them. An Evil act done with Good intentions is still an Evil act. An Evil act committed to accomplish a Good end is overall probably a wash, because both the Evil and the Good you have accomplished reflect on you.

That doesn't mean that ALL Necromancy is Evil. It certainly isn't.

It also does not necessitate that all who engage in the animation of undead are exclusively Evil themselves or only do so for Evil means. Case in point. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?335215-Character-Concepts-Non-Evil-Necromancer)

sleepyphoenixx

2014-12-22, 03:12 PM

The RAW on undead is a big mess anyway, so i'd ask the DM to clarify how it works. Some stuff has been grandfathered in from earlier editions without the accompanying fluff, some rules are probably just "because the writers say so".

My POV is this:
The whole "it's unnatural" rant only works if you're a druid or similarly dedicated to the natural order, and in that case you'd better be consistent about your dedication to that concept. A wizard who screws around with time, binds elementals into constructs and similarly ignores the natural order shouting about the evils of undead creation is a little ridiculous.

Same with the inherent evil of undead creation - at best it's the POV of your religion and not an universal rule because negative energy is not inherently evil, despite often being associated with it by the uneducated.

Objectively creating undead is merely distasteful (and a good way to get a lynch mob or overzealous paladin after you).
Some of the RAW unfortunately looks as though it was written by an overzealous paladin (Deathsight), but that's what good DMs are for.

If your party still refuses after OOC confirmation that raising skeletons as a workforce is not inherently evil it's no longer RP, they're just being jerks.
And that is something that needs to be cleared up OOC.

Or maybe they're RPing as ignorant and superstitious, in which case you should ask yourself (IC) why you adventure with these fools.

StoneCipher

2014-12-22, 03:28 PM

Generally my Necromancer can only handle a handful of undead. The 83 are being created as Deathless with the help of a group of good priests and the direct intervention of a god. The Deathless are specifically just "machines" rather than thinking beings, since no soul is being placed inside, just positive energy to animate them so they can accomplish my goal, helping the town.

Ah, okay then. Also, as a side note, even mindless undead will go off and do mindless things. Just cause they can't think doesn't mean they will do absolutely nothing if uncommanded. They might wander straight off into the distance, never to be seen again unless someone corrals them in and asserts control over them.

Taveena

2014-12-22, 03:34 PM

The default setting for Golarion and most of the D&D settings is "Necromancy & Undead = Evil", but if the GM says "not in my world" that should pretty much close the book on the subject.

The exception, of course, is Eberron...

But Archliches and Baelnorns exist - powered by negative energy but /incapable/ of being evil.

Rubik

2014-12-22, 03:36 PM

Ah, okay then. Also, as a side note, even mindless undead will go off and do mindless things. Just cause they can't think doesn't mean they will do absolutely nothing if uncommanded. They might wander straight off into the distance, never to be seen again unless someone corrals them in and asserts control over them.Except skeletons. They are literally incapable of doing anything unless commanded, either mentally, physically, or metaphysically.

Which makes it rather more than stupid that they have a non-Neutral alignment at all. If they're animated by Evil in addition to negative energy, they should have the [Evil] tag but still have a True Neutral alignment, because they're just incapable of actually performing Evil except as mindless tools for others.

LudicSavant

2014-12-22, 04:29 PM

Necromancy is evil because it makes unnatural abominations

By that logic, it's Evil to breed dogs from wolves.

http://cl.jroo.me/z3/Q/E/E/d/a.aaa-An-adorable-dog.jpg
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?

More seriously, I feel the most relevant question to ask is "who cares if it's Evil or not?" Just because it's Evil doesn't necessarily mean that it's evil or even wrong. Indeed, this matches up with the fluff of many D&D settings, where angels carry out atrocities and "Good" gods occasionally support genocide or eternal suffering for no good reason (or even reasons that are outright lies).

The very fact that things like spells ping on the evil-dar and that, for instance, clerics have overwhelming auras based on whether they turn or rebuke, indicates that alignment in D&D has more to do with energy than ethics. The negative energy plane pings as EVIL even though it doesn't appear to be capable of making moral decisions. The positive energy plane pings as GOOD even though it pretty much does the exact same thing as negative energy (too much positive energy will just make you explode, regardless of how much you've done to end world hunger. It doesn't care).

This indicates to me that "Good" and "Evil" are cultural affectations, labels given to natural forces rooted in folklore. There is a great deal of precedence for this in real life; one need look no further than the history of ancient medicine, or even just look at a few "alternative medicine" options on the shelves. Who is to say that a person that pings as Good is actually making ethically optimized decisions? A Detect Good spell doesn't seem like it would have the capacity to perform such a calculation or even to contact a being hypothetically capable of doing so to ask them.

Perhaps alignment-detecting spells are like lie detectors: Lie detectors aren't actually able to evaluate a statement as true or false... they simply read things like heartrate or facial expressions or some other biological mechanism and draw conclusions from it. And that the culture doesn't like to admit that the system is imperfect. There's an adventure hook for you right there :smallwink:

In this case, skeletons would be Evil because they're animated by negative energy, not because they are thinking evil thoughts. Indeed, they are incapable of thinking evil thoughts. They're Evil (possessed of an abundance of negative energy), not evil (possessed of unethical personalities).

Of course, all this varies by setting. However, I've yet to encounter a D&D setting where it did not seem more plausible that alignments are being exploited as cultural labels for certain energies utilized by biology (positive and negative energy) rather than somehow knowing whether someone is ultimately ethical or not; that's just completely inconsistent with the lore of every published D&D setting I've yet encountered.

Coidzor

2014-12-22, 04:35 PM

I like this thread, because it has a lot in common with the OotS threads when Durkon corps was used to create a vampire. Back then a lot of people in that section thought it was possible that the newly created vampire was Durkon with a twist of bloodthirst, not recognizing how the undead work in Dungeons and Dragons.

Can you cite your sources on that? Because that's not in 3e or 3.5. Not for vampires anyway. Wraiths? Yeah. Ghouls? Yeah. Wights? Oh, hells to the yeah. Vampires? Liches? Ghosts? Not so much.

Going back to the original question. Creating undead from the dead townspeople means imbuing their corpses with negative energy that controls and animates them. First of all you are desecrating the dead, which is considered immoral in the Christian world (on which standard setting DnD is modeled). This could be disregarded though when there is a specific need (autopsy, organ donation, etc. in the real world, using their corpses as machines in the DnD world).

If it's done with consent due to a house-ruled Speak with Dead and the Gods Themselves give their blessing, you don't have much of a leg to stand on WRT desecrating the dead.

Also, you may want to be mindful of the rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?f=29&a=1) with regards to this topic.

However, even if disregarded, you run into the brick wall of undead always being evil. The nature of negative energy, as a force of life-draining, that a creature that is composed or animated completely by it can only be evil.

Entropy is not evil, it simply is. If negative energy is evil, then fungus is evil, then composting is evil and dings the alignment of farmers and gardeners. :smalltongue: Negative Energy is inimical to life the same way that the energies in a prismatic wall are inimical to life.

There are many undead which are hungry for life, yes, but there are several examples where this is not the case. Mummies, Necropolitans, and Ghosts stand out as the prime example.

So unless you go with the deathless (totally not undeadTM), using townfolk's bodies as vessels for negative energy cannot be compatible with any good alignment according to DnD 3.5 RAW.

We already covered that the houserules in play have addressed this. :smalltongue: Also, if undead are always evil then deathless should be always good and fighting their nature to be otherwise and living things should be predisposed to be good, both being powered by positive energy.

Which is problematical.

Whether the DM agrees that the undead should have a different nature to be compatible with your intentions is another matter, in which case you don't need us.

I think it's mostly a question of how best to deal with the stubborn stick in the mud fellow players who reject the houserule rather than the RAW of the matter.

Scipio_77

2014-12-22, 04:57 PM

Coidzor

2014-12-22, 05:06 PM

Taveena

2014-12-22, 05:12 PM

Incidentally, the Negative Energy Plane is actually Mildly Neutral Aligned - which is to say it penalizes both good AND evil. The Positive Energy Plane is much the same way.

Sure, the Positive Energy Plane is where souls come from, but souls aren't inherently good or evil, just inherently made of Positive Energy.

sleepyphoenixx

2014-12-22, 05:20 PM

Your issue seems to be with the group, not the game mechanic. The group should be free to have their own opinions, no?

I mean, a magic-hating barbarian might consider cure light wounds the work of evil spirits. It doesn't really matter what spell descriptors, we or the DM say.

Sure they can, but then they have to be consistent about it. The superstitious and magic-fearing barbarian isn't going to ask the party wizard for a haste spell.
The wizard who loudly complains about how creating undead is unnatural really shouldn't bind elementals into golems or magic items.

And as always, RP should take a backseat to fun. If you're going to RP a "problematic" character you should talk to your group OOC first to make sure you don't keep the others from having fun. Just because you, the players, want to play together doesn't mean their characters want those people in their party when they face regular life-or-death battles.
It's the same concept as the often-discussed kleptomaniac rogue that steals from the party - "It's what my character would do" is no excuse to antagonize the rest of the group.

Sith_Happens

2014-12-22, 05:25 PM

Animate Dead and its ilk have the [Evil] descriptor, so by RAW casting it is an Evil act. However, the way you've described your plan the animation itself is the only remotely Evil part of it, and "casting aligned spells" is generally considered to be as mild as aligned actions get by a considerable margin (though don't expect to be able to have the word "Good" on your character sheet if you do so regularly unless in all other respects you act in a way that would make a Paladin proud).

Just explain this to party, and get the townsfolk to vouch for you if you think it would help. Yes, you're technically doing some Evil. Some. In the process of doing a heck of a lot of Good.

Necroticplague

2014-12-22, 05:26 PM

B
More seriously, I feel the most relevant question to ask is "who cares if it's Evil or not?" Just because it's Evil doesn't necessarily mean that it's evil or even wrong. Indeed, this matches up with the fluff of many D&D settings, where angels carry out atrocities and "Good" gods occasionally support genocide or eternal suffering for no good reason (or even reasons that are outright lies).

The very fact that things like spells ping on the evil-dar and that, for instance, clerics have overwhelming auras based on whether they turn or rebuke, indicates that alignment in D&D has more to do with energy than ethics. The negative energy plane pings as EVIL even though it doesn't appear to be capable of making moral decisions. The positive energy plane pings as GOOD even though it pretty much does the exact same thing as negative energy (too much positive energy will just make you explode, regardless of how much you've done to end world hunger. It doesn't care).

In this case, skeletons would be Evil because they're animated by negative energy, not because they are thinking evil thoughts. Indeed, they are incapable of thinking evil thoughts. They're Evil (possessed of an abundance of negative energy), not evil (possessed of unethical personalities).

While I do agree with the most basic concept of this post (Good/[Good]=/=good/right), you seem to be missing some things: namely the outer planes. Good is not Positive Energy, and Evil is not Negative Energy. There are actual Good and Evil energies, derived from the relevant Outer Planes (and Lawful and Chaotic energies, for that matter). However, they are entirely unrelated to the Inner Planes, which the Negative and Positive are. If Negative was Evil and Positive was Good, Xeg-yi would be evil and Xag-ya would be good. Both are true neutral. In addition, there's a whole crapton of stuff that use negative energy and aren't [Evil] (most of Necromancery), and plenty of stuff that use Positive and aren't [Good] (all of the core healing spells). So negative and positive are unlinked to Good and Evil, unrelated to the problem of whether Good is good and Evil is evil.

Scipio_77

2014-12-22, 05:28 PM

They're free to agree or disagree with the DM houseruling that Necromancy isn't evil. They really shouldn't be free to go out of their way to protest this OOC decision by throwing down or having a hissy fit IC. That's just immature.

And that Barbarian's player would either be acting like a **** or very quickly no longer have a Barbarian character amongst the living. :smalltongue:

Well, I agree in the sense that the disagreement should be in-game and it should be played in a way that is enjoyable. Still, I think it is fair to play characters who view animate dead as too evil to forgive, but yes... it has to be done maturely of course.

Telok

2014-12-22, 05:29 PM

Consecrate spell metamagic from... Complete Divine? It is a +1 level adjustment to change a spell to [good].

Really the issue is the D&D schitzo approach to morality and the alignment system. The spell Waves of Grief makes people very sad for a few minutes, it is an evil spell. Vampritic Touch sucks out the victim's life force, not an evil spell. Using poison is evil but casting Poison is not. Animate Dead and Animate Deathless have the exact same result and opposite alignments. And remember, never cast Holy Word in a crowded area, the power of [good] will kill all the neutral children.

Fun bonus question: What happens when you cast both a Corrupt Spell Animate Deathless and a Consecrate Spell Animate Dead?

LudicSavant

2014-12-22, 05:42 PM

While I do agree with the most basic concept of this post (Good/[Good]=/=good/right), you seem to be missing some things: namely the outer planes. Good is not Positive Energy, and Evil is not Negative Energy. There are actual Good and Evil energies, derived from the relevant Outer Planes (and Lawful and Chaotic energies, for that matter). However, they are entirely unrelated to the Inner Planes, which the Negative and Positive are. If Negative was Evil and Positive was Good, Xeg-yi would be evil and Xag-ya would be good. Both are true neutral. In addition, there's a whole crapton of stuff that use negative energy and aren't [Evil] (most of Necromancery), and plenty of stuff that use Positive and aren't [Good] (all of the core healing spells). So negative and positive are unlinked to Good and Evil, unrelated to the problem of whether Good is good and Evil is evil.

There is a clear correlation between Good and positive energy and Evil and negative energy, even if this connection is not simple, absolute, or consistent throughout every obscure non-3.5e splatbook written by a dozen different writers with different opinions about how alignment works.

Also, the Outer Planes are different from setting to setting, and the Manual of Planes you're referencing isn't even 3.5e material.

Rubik

2014-12-22, 05:44 PM

Necroticplague

2014-12-22, 05:54 PM

There is a clear correlation between Good and positive energy and Evil and negative energy, even if this connection is not simple, absolute, or consistent throughout every obscure non-3.5e splatbook written by a dozen different writers with different opinions about how alignment works. If its not absolute or consistent, at can't really be said to be very good correlation, is it? Because the things that contradict is appear to vastly outnumber the ones the follow the correlation you claim.

Also, the Outer Planes are different from setting to setting, and the Manual of Planes you're referencing isn't even 3.5e material.

It's 3.0 that hasn't been reprinted, so barring errata or its material reprinted elsewhere, it still is a valid part of 3.5. Unless you can find some other place for the energon stats, they still hold. The energons are both neutral, and the planes they come from mildly neutrally aligned.

LudicSavant

2014-12-22, 05:57 PM

Yes, and that correlation is, "there is none." Otherwise, the positive energy plane, the creatures therefrom, and all positive energy spells would be [Good], and the negative energy plane, the creatures thereof, and all negative energy spells would be [Evil]. They aren't.

I don't agree with that line of reasoning. That would be the case if alignment was directly determined by any use of an energy type, rather than simply correlated to it. The rule seems to be that inherently Good things tend to use positive energy (and avoid negative energy) and inherently Evil things tend to use negative energy (and avoid positive energy), even though something that uses negative energy isn't necessarily Evil and something that uses positive energy isn't necessarily Good. The examples you've given do not contradict this rule. However, many things support it: Deathless, Undead, Detect rules, spells, celestials, fiends, and so on and so forth. For example, Bolt of Glory does nothing but channel a damaging bolt of energy from the positive energy plane. It has the [Good] tag.

Perhaps I'm mistaken; I don't usually play with the Great Wheel cosmology, and indeed I know the real answer as to why alignment is the mess that it is is "every bloody WotC author thought it meant something different, and many of these interpretations weren't internally consistent or even remotely sensible (sup, Book of Exalted Deeds)."

Anyways, I believe my original post's point would still hold, even if all mention of positive and negative energy is removed: alignment tags do not seem to correspond to ethics, but to actual natural forces interpreted as being related to ethics by whatever culture is calling them Good and Evil.

Detect Evil cannot be detecting "evil intent" or "a personality predisposed to doing evil things" or anything of that sort, since it pings for things that lack minds entirely (not just creatures, but spells, objects, and the like). It also pings for biological or magical traits more strongly than psychological ones. It also can't be detecting "a force or object which can only accomplish evil" or "a force or object which can only accomplish good" because Holy Word blows up infants and skeletons can be ordered to go about building children's hospitals. So it must be detecting something else... we just don't know what that is, except from the metagame standpoint of "it's detecting whether the DM thinks that label X applies to object X."

If its not absolute or consistent, at can't really be said to be very good correlation, is it? First off, that sounds like it's the Nirvana Fallacy. Second off, I don't think any of the official D&D statements about alignment are handled with absolute consistency. At least, I can't currently think of one that is. WotC has been very sloppy with the subject in general.

There does seem to be a correlation, though. In general, inherently Good things use positive energy and inherently Evil things use negative energy (and not vice versa), while Neutral things can use either. I can't think of any examples of Good spells that use negative energy or vice versa. To deny that any form of correlation exists, then, seems strange. If the above pattern holds true, it can simply be statistically demonstrated.

You can be Neutral and Rebuke, or you can be Evil and Rebuke, but you can't be Good and Rebuke. You can by Good and Turn, or be Neutral and Turn, but you can't be Evil and Turn.

Psyren

2014-12-22, 06:52 PM

If its not absolute or consistent, at can't really be said to be very good correlation, is it?

Nirvana Fallacy - a correlation doesn't have to be absolute (1.0) to be a correlation, and can even still be a good correlation without being absolute.

Beyond that, to steer the thread back toward RAW, the fact remains that animating undead is evil whether the specific means for doing so gets the [Evil] tag or not. Most ways for doing so directly do get that tag - but even if they didn't, it would still be an evil act by the rules of the game.

Necroticplague

2014-12-22, 07:23 PM

Nirvana Fallacy - a correlation doesn't have to be absolute (1.0) to be a correlation, and can even still be a good correlation without being absolute.
I never said it wasn't perfect, and ergo wrong, I said it wasn't very good. I know its unrealistic for any r^2 (or r) to be one. However, I don't think this one even gets to .25. I didn't say the correlation didn't exist (because the whole cleric turning and spontaneous casting thing at least acts as two data points, allowing for some correlation), I just said is it can't be good if its not consistent. And its definitely not consistent, just based on the amount of neutral negative energy using spells (enervate, various X of fatigue spells).

Beyond that, to steer the thread back toward RAW, the fact remains that animating undead is evil whether the specific means for doing so gets the [Evil] tag or not. Most ways for doing so directly do get that tag - but even if they didn't, it would still be an evil act by the rules of the game.

Mind citing this? I genuinely thought animating dead was evil because it involved evil spells, so methods that creatively work around it (consecrated spell someone mentioned earlier, my earlier method for getting undead, someone else mentioned Fell Animate) were o.k.

Milo v3

2014-12-22, 07:34 PM

Psyren

2014-12-22, 07:38 PM

Mind citing this? I genuinely thought animating dead was evil because it involved evil spells, so methods that creatively work around it (consecrated spell someone mentioned earlier, my earlier method for getting undead, someone else mentioned Fell Animate) were o.k.

Book of Vile Darkness pgs. 7-9, "Evil Acts" has is it in three places: "Casting Evil Spells" (this handles the ones with the tag), "Animating the Dead Or Creating Undead," and "Creating Evil Creatures." (Those two apply whether your method is tagged or not.) Depending on the type of undead you create, you might also run into "Damning or Harming Souls," because some forms of undead involve trapping the living creature's soul inside, which the Giant illustrated via OotS' vampires.

BoVD goes on to say that "Creating [undead] 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."

Sith_Happens

2014-12-22, 07:44 PM

Milo v3

2014-12-22, 07:58 PM

Wouldn't inevitables like mindless undead, since they equal the soul staying in the afterlife rather than going through the revolving door hundreds of times?

Scipio_77

2014-12-22, 08:18 PM

Sure they can, but then they have to be consistent about it. The superstitious and magic-fearing barbarian isn't going to ask the party wizard for a haste spell.
The wizard who loudly complains about how creating undead is unnatural really shouldn't bind elementals into golems or magic items.

And as always, RP should take a backseat to fun. If you're going to RP a "problematic" character you should talk to your group OOC first to make sure you don't keep the others from having fun. Just because you, the players, want to play together doesn't mean their characters want those people in their party when they face regular life-or-death battles.
It's the same concept as the often-discussed kleptomaniac rogue that steals from the party - "It's what my character would do" is no excuse to antagonize the rest of the group.

I agree with this to an extent (a character shouldn't roll over for his group either), but in the example of the OP it is really the necromancer who is at odds with the group.

Aotrs Commander

2014-12-22, 08:36 PM

Just a point of note - both the Dread Necromancer class and the Pale Master PrC - both pretty emphatically involving raising/controlling animated dead are restricted only to nongood , as opposed to evil, alignments. So, by RAW, you can be a neutral necromancer (and indeed I do have one of the latter).

Though in the end, it is the DM's decision, of course this is point to notice that the rules are not ENTIRELY in the "necromancy is Always Evil" camp.

LudicSavant

2014-12-22, 08:38 PM

I never said it wasn't perfect, and ergo wrong, I said it wasn't very good. I know its unrealistic for any r^2 (or r) to be one. However, I don't think this one even gets to .25. I didn't say the correlation didn't exist (because the whole cleric turning and spontaneous casting thing at least acts as two data points, allowing for some correlation), I just said is it can't be good if its not consistent. And its definitely not consistent, just based on the amount of neutral negative energy using spells (enervate, various X of fatigue spells). I didn't say that the apparent rule of thumb disallowed Neutral negative or positive energy spells/creatures. I said that inherently Good things tended to use positive energy and inherently Evil things tended to use negative energy, and not vice versa, while Neutral things could use either.

Bob of Mage

2014-12-22, 10:30 PM

As far as reasons for undead creation being Evil go, I think the way it interferes with resurrection is by far the most legitimate one. There is literally no spell or other ability in the entire game (even deific ones, I just checked) that can restore life to someone who's been raised as an undead creature without that undead creature first being destroyed. Which means that something very untoward is going on with either that person's soul or its connection to the planes.

Sith_Happens is highlighting part of the real reason making undead is evil. For undead to occur the soul must leave the afterlife. Most of the "natural" undead happen when a soul can't rest in peace. We've all heard of reatless dead who were murdered, had to tell someone that they loved them, or needed forgiveness. For all these types of undead the soul is clearly in the living world, and bound to whatever form the undead takes.

Now the spells that make undead would of course also need to bring the soul back from the afterlife and bind it to a body. If it didn't it would be making some kind of fleshy robot, since even golems are driven by some type of spirt. Now if most undead have to be unset in some way, and seem to dislike being undead, imagine how bad it would be to be dragged back just because some two-bit wizard in dark cloths is too cheap to pay for some hirelings. I for one would be pissed if that happened to me. It's clearly painful for the soul, and it's a form of slavery to boot.

Now what about good undead? Yes I do belive they can exist. Undead can be willing raised to preform certain tasks. The common example is to protect the living that they that they own something to. Family for example. The Elder Scrolls in fact does this as an example.

In Morrowind you go the the home of the Drak Elves. Now one of the things they do is ancestor worship. Part of this involes rasing the dead to protect things like tombs. They clearly do not hink of this as evil, and think being raised for such a task is an honour. Of course it does get a bit silly when certain town guard have the spells to summon undead (the guards in the wizard area do and it makes them annoying as hell since bonewalkers (zombie like undead) have a curse that lowers your strength until you vist a shrine).

I think the OP raise the dead in the form of deathless was the right call. Frankly since they were willing, and had been asked, I would think that you wouldn't be able to rasie them as normal undead in that context. Normal undead are implied to be unwilling, whereas deathless are willing.

JusticeZero

2014-12-22, 10:46 PM

My views on this are pretty well known.. Some people get annoyed at this interpretation, but it makes more internal sense.
What you are doing is morally fine and will be appreciated by the townsfolk and so on. It will also make you register as and be affected by spells as being Evil. There is nothing wrong with that and it won't have the slightest effect on your behavior.

Taveena

2014-12-22, 10:50 PM

BoVD goes on to say that "Creating [undead] 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."

And creating Deathless brings more positive energy into the world, which makes it a more blinding and explodey place. Summoning a fire elemental invariably brings fire into the world, which makes it a more burny and smokey place.

Negative Energy is not Evil (and is in fact Neutral aligned - not just unaligned, but slightly opposed to all alignments, INCLUDING EVIL), and plenty of other extraplanar energies have more immediate harmful effects.

FURTHERMORE, Archliches and Baelnorns are Any Non-Evil. In spite of... being powered by the supposedly evil Negative Energy. Sup with that?

Yes, you're entirely accurate on what the books say, but that doesn't stop the books being contradictory. Creating undead may always be an Evil act, but that's one of the first things to get tossed out the window in a lot of games I play in.

Also, undeath doesn't usually torture a soul (there are exceptions). Zombies and Skeletons have no connection to the soul, which is happily in the afterlife. Vampires are ambiguous, Necrocarnum is literally 'fueled by soul torture', Ghosts are literally souls trapped on the plane, etc, but the classic ones aren't remotely harmful to the former owner of the body.

Necroticplague

2014-12-22, 10:51 PM

Now the spells that make undead would of course also need to bring the soul back from the afterlife and bind it to a body. If it didn't it would be making some kind of fleshy robot, since even golems are driven by some type of spirt. Now if most undead have to be unset in some way, and seem to dislike being undead, imagine how bad it would be to be dragged back just because some two-bit wizard in dark cloths is too cheap to pay for some hirelings. I for one would be pissed if that happened to me. It's clearly painful for the soul, and it's a form of slavery to boot.

Except the soul doesn't have to come back. According to Magic Jar, unintelligent undead don't have any soul. Zombies and skeletons are, as you said, fleshy robots. Instead of electricity, they use negative energy. And instead of an elemental, they have a tiny rift to a NEP (which can grow bigger with time).

JusticeZero

2014-12-22, 11:10 PM

Necroticplague

2014-12-22, 11:37 PM

The issue is with a quirk of what the restrictions are.
Choke someone to death. Lop off their hand. Animate the hand as an unintelligent undead zombie thing. Put the zombie hand in a box and hide it. Hand the body over to a 20th level cleric. The victim can now not be brought back from the dead even by 9th level spells. SOMETHING is going on that isn't kosher with the soul.
Huh? You can bring undead back without destroying them. Simply cast the spell on the undead itself.
Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.
Plus, Resurrection specifically says
The condition of the remains is not a factor. Presumably, this covers "reanimated as an undead creature".

SiuiS

2014-12-22, 11:42 PM

The simples and most direct fix in a by the book D&D game is to animate them with the deathless type instead of undead. They come back for the joy of life and goodness, are animated by positive energy, and are obviously a blessing from the gods!

This is why the deathless type was made. If anyone gives you grief, ask the DM if maybe the priests together could have done some super secret ritual to cast a miracle, and that miracle turned your animation spells to deathless creating spells.

Taveena

2014-12-23, 12:30 AM

Honestly I'm not really sure what's up with the existence of undead preventing resurrection. I mean it makes sense that you can't resurrect someone into a body that's a Creature, not an Object, so... that's my best bet. Rules interactions. There's nothing saying zombies/crawling claws/skeletons do anything to the soul.

Auron3991

2014-12-23, 12:49 AM

Figure out your DM's reason for why raising undead isn't evil:

If he's saying the ends justify the means (within reason), then explain to the group why the good outweighs the bad.

If he's saying that mindless undead are more like animated objects (this is a DM specific thing), then explain that the soul is not being harmed (and is therefore not evil).

Thy Dungeonman

2014-12-23, 12:58 AM

I did a Planescape campaign with a neutral necromancer as the only PC. She had a little bro who was a slaymate (not her fault) and a friend who was cured of cystic fibrosis on the cheap as a teenager by being turned into a necropolitan.

Milo v3

2014-12-23, 01:02 AM

My assumption for why you cannot resurrect someone who is currently undead without casting it on someone who is undead would be that it would allow for someone to possess two bodies. Without that restriction you can do this:

Kill someone
Remove one finger.
Animate body as a vampire (that now lacks a finger).
Cast reincarnate or true resurrection on the finger.
Person now has a vampire body, plus a reincarnated/normal body.

I have had a player try this....

SaintNick

2014-12-23, 02:22 AM

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Perspectives Inc., for a new tomorrow.

Sith_Happens

2014-12-23, 02:40 AM

Huh? You can bring undead back without destroying them. Simply cast the spell on the undead itself.

...

*double-checks SRD*

CURSE YOU SHODDY RULES ORGANIZATION!!!

Coidzor

2014-12-23, 02:40 AM

I suppose if it continues to be an issue you could try running this homebrew PrC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=9994058&postcount=14) by your DM to placate the rest of the group's sensibilities. Sadly the table's a bit borked, but you don't actually need the table beyond confirming that it's the Will save which is good and that its BAB is poor.

Should be pretty easy to convert to PF as a 9/10 casting PrC which already has a d6 HD, 2+Int skill points, and 1/2 BAB. I think the only thing you'd have to do would be to convert the good Will save into a moderate Will save progression. Maybe give it a second moderate save, I can't recall the PF PrC rules that well offhand. Axe the Concentration class skill and convert Spot into Perception. Bam. The prerequisites are easily handled by reducing the 8 knowledge(religion) ranks to 5 and the 4 Sense Motive ranks to 1 or 2.

Heck, the 1st level ability Silver Redemption could be a feat on its own easily enough, perhaps as the start of a 3 feat chain that lead to Golden Redemption.

My assumption for why you cannot resurrect someone who is currently undead without casting it on someone who is undead would be that it would allow for someone to possess two bodies. Without that restriction you can do this:

Kill someone
Remove one finger.
Animate body as a vampire (that now lacks a finger).
Cast reincarnate or true resurrection on the finger.
Person now has a vampire body, plus a reincarnated/normal body.

I have had a player try this....

You don't wanna have people get around the conservation of XP by duping their characters, after all. Otherwise they'd just set up an assembly line of spell-traps to make an army of undead clones to further their aims. Or, worse, make an army of Dread Warriors out of the party Crusader.

Granted, you can get the same end result by bringing them back to life using a technique that leaves a corpse and then converting the corpse into an undead, which is ultimately less of a gamble for them, since it allows them to have things set up so that they can take control of their undead clone if necessary.

One other non-fluff reason that stands out for the restriction is to facilitate (side)quests like where Haley had to go deal with that Golem-maker in order to get Roy's body bad so he could be brought back to life.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 08:34 AM

And creating Deathless brings more positive energy into the world, which makes it a more blinding and explodey place. Summoning a fire elemental invariably brings fire into the world, which makes it a more burny and smokey place.

False equivalences abound.

First, positive energy explosion only happens on the PEP. You can heal someone for 10000d10 on the material and it will do nothing to them but make them feel better. It is not an inherent quality of positive energy.

Second, fire can cook food and keep people warm. It is neutral because it can harm or help life in equal measure, just like water or cold can.

Negative Energy is unique because it can only be harmful/deleterious to life. In addition, per Libris Mortis, the more NE you pump into the material, the thinner you make "the veil" and the more spontaneous/uncontrolled undead there will be. This dovetails directly with the BoVD citation.

You don't have to like it, but this is how they chose for it to work in their game. You're always free to houserule it away if you wish, but otherwise that's the way things are.

FURTHERMORE, Archliches and Baelnorns are Any Non-Evil. In spite of... being powered by the supposedly evil Negative Energy. Sup with that?

Their personal alignment and the alignment reading of their physical state don't have to be the same. If you cast detect evil on either creature, it will ping, because they are undead. Furthermore, they are RAW stated to be a very small minority.

Yes, you're entirely accurate on what the books say, but that doesn't stop the books being contradictory. Creating undead may always be an Evil act, but that's one of the first things to get tossed out the window in a lot of games I play in.

I never said you couldn't houserule this. I'm explaining the rationale/support behind the choices the designers made for their game.

Also, undeath doesn't usually torture a soul (there are exceptions).

This is exactly what I said? :smallconfused:

Zurvan

2014-12-23, 09:01 AM

You know that Necromancers are terrible necromancers, right?

Make a cleric they are better necromancers.

Also this is why necromancy can't be good:

http://v.cdn.nuklearpower.com/comics/8-bit-theater/050521.jpg

Even if the objective is good, you are Channeling forces of pain, suffering and death.
It can't be a pleasant way to exist. That is why undead moan all the time.

(...) and I are getting ready to cast the spell that will pop clean skeletons out of the pile of corpses and set them to work...

...the group has drawn weapons and is trying to disrupt the whole thing because "NECROMANCY IS EVIL!"

Imagine you looking at your beloved father/brother/uncle/wahtever, in a pile of of corpses(something already bad by itself) when some magical smartass wave his hands and make the corpse of myour beloved family member who died in a honorable battle against orcs to get up and rip off his skin until only a skeleton filled with negative energy is stating ready to do labor work like a slave.

That is not a pretty sight, it is nasty it is an abomination and horrible. You can rationalize as much as you want but necromancy is supposed to be evil.

Rubik

2014-12-23, 09:33 AM

Imagine you looking at your beloved father/brother/uncle/wahtever, in a pile of of corpseswhen some magical smartass wave his hands and make the corpse of my beloved family member who died in a honorable battle against orcs get up and rip off his skin until only a skeleton filled with negative energy is stating ready to do labor work like a slave.

That is not a pretty sight, it is nasty it is an abomination and horrible. You can rationalize as much as you want but necromancy is supposed to be evil.Or you can imagine that your name is Bella Cullen, and you see the love of your life, your soulmate, and he is a vampire. A sparkly vampire, but still. And you want to devote the rest of your existence to him, so you make it your goal to become as sparkly as he is.

OH GOD, YOU'RE RIGHT! IT'S EEEEEEVIL! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!

Sception

2014-12-23, 10:10 AM

Official, yes, animating dead is an 'evil act'. Why isn't exactly clear - since common undead are mindless and thus theoretically amoral, and wholly subserviant and as such no more or less dangerous than any other animate weapon. Sure they might attack the living if allowed to go uncontrolled, but the same could be said for golems, which can go berserk on their own, and their creation is neutral despite involving the enslavement of an intelligent living thing. Heck, D&D 3.5 necromancy rarely even involves desecrating graves, since humanoid skeletons are generally terrible and you're almost infinitely better off animating the remains of the monsters your party just murdered instead.

So a DM who wants to house rule necromancy (and I'm talking specifically the creation/summoning of undead, not the whole school of magic) as 'squicky but not EVIL', certainly has plenty of grounds to do so.

That said... it does, imo, steal a lot of the fun and flavor out of necromancy if you do that. Part of the fun of playing a necromancer is delving into forbidden lore no mortal was meant to pursue. Flirting with neutrality just doesn't have the same thrill as flirting with evil, you know? And it's not even necessary to allow for neutrally aligned necromancer characters, as using evil means to achieve good ends already clearly falls within the bounds of a 'neutral' character alignment.

So rather than just house ruling away necromancy's evil edge due to a lack of apparent fluff justification for it, as both a DM who loves necromancy and a Player who loves necromancers I would rather add in the fluff to support the evil designation that's already there, and if anyone is looking to do that, then one of the best places to go in 3.5 is Magic of Incarnum, specifically the idea of Necrocarnum.

In that book, Incarnum is the raw material of souls, not just of living things but of immortal creatures, inanimate objects, even entire worlds. Incarnum is existence itself in an unresolved shape. Incarnum wants to take physical form, wants to exist and to be. Incarnum users draw out incarnum and let it take form around them, creating personal effects similar to magic items. Necrocarnum is specifically a corrupted, perverted form of incarnum, created by torturing and traumatizing raw soul stuff into a twisted mass of hatred - a wound in reality itself that persists in the universe, tainting the wellspring of souls and potentially corrupting and sickening other souls nearby, even after the magical affect it was sustaining is released.

According to Magic of Incarnum, living creatures are animated by complex, persistent, subtly self aware souls of incarnum, while undead creatures are instead animated by mockeries of souls created from necrocarnum, whether that be the tortured and corrupted soul of the original creature poisoned by necrocarnum, as with those undead creatures that retain some fraction of their own soul, a new soul crafted from pure necrocarnum as with intelligent undead that none the less do not possess the original soul, or a minimal, artificial necrocarnum soul as in the case of mindless undead. In any event, the undead's mere existence, even in the case of 'spontaneous' or 'naturally forming' undead, is a wound in reality that has the potential to spread and taint and corrupt the souls around it - whether directly as with spawning undead or more subtle or limited ways - and that longs to do just that. And the wound persists even after the undead creature is destroyed - though in some cases a necrocarnum-tainted but not entirely corrupted soul might be freed.

Now, Magic of Incarnum isn't core rules or core fluff, it's its own sort of variant thing on the side, but again, if you're looking for a reason for creating undead creatures to be inherently evil in your game, if that's something you want, then the concept of Necrocarnum is a good way to go about it. Individual necromancers themselves, player characters included, don't even need to know that what their doing involves the torture of raw soul stuff or inflicts an unhealable, spreading wound on reality itself. Let that be a horrific revelation that they come to later in their career.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 10:30 AM

LM does a fine job of explaining why animating undead is evil even if you command your creations to do good things or nothing at all. It also fits perfectly with BoVD, HoH and the PHB.

Or you can imagine that your name is Bella Cullen, and you see the love of your life, your soulmate, and he is a vampire. A sparkly vampire, but still. And you want to devote the rest of your existence to him, so you make it your goal to become as sparkly as he is.

OH GOD, YOU'RE RIGHT! IT'S EEEEEEVIL! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!

I've headcanoned that Twilight "vampires" are essentially Medium-sized Seelie/Unseelie Fey :smalltongue:

Rubik

2014-12-23, 10:37 AM

LM does a fine job of explaining why animating undead is evil even if you command your creations to do good things or nothing at all. It also fits perfectly with BoVD, HoH and the PHB.Not really. Mindless undead still can't be anything but True Neutral, and they don't have souls or involve souls in any way. Plus, negative energy is still actively Neutral, and is just as natural (and not nearly as dangerous) as positive energy.

I maintain that you're still incorrect about that particular assertion.

I can see the specific spells that create mindless undead themselves channeling evil energy along with negative energy (and thus having the [Evil] tag and giving mindless undead the [Evil] subtype), but the undead themselves literally cannot be evil, their statblocks notwithstanding.

I've headcanoned that Twilight "vampires" are essentially Medium-sized Seelie/Unseelie Fey :smalltongue:That is an affront to fairies everywhere. The fae courts would be appalled.

And you really don't want to tick off the fae courts. They're nasty.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 10:46 AM

Not really. Mindless undead still can't be anything but True Neutral, and they don't have souls or involve souls in any way. Plus, negative energy is still actively Neutral, and is just as natural (and not nearly as dangerous) as positive energy.

Yes really. The alignment of the creatures themselves (even if they were neutral like you claim - which they're not, because specific trumps general) is irrelevant and therefore so is this counterargument. For instance, wyverns are neutral too but using their poison (Con poison) is an evil act.

That is an affront to fairies everywhere. The fae courts would be appalled.

And you really don't want to tick off the fae courts. They're nasty.

Come at me fae

Red Fel

2014-12-23, 10:49 AM

Yes really. The alignment of the creatures themselves (even if they were neutral like you claim - which they're not, because specific trumps general) is irrelevant and therefore so is this counterargument. For instance, wyverns are neutral too but using their poison (Con poison) is an evil act.

Now, just a moment. Let's dissect this one. I get that using poison (e.g. treating a weapon with it or slipping it into food) is an Evil act. But if a creature has a poisonous natural weapon, is that considered an Evil use of poison?

Come at me fae

Seriously, don't. Don't mess with the fae. I mean, Candlejack is a fae, and he wo

Psyren

2014-12-23, 10:58 AM

Now, just a moment. Let's dissect this one. I get that using poison (e.g. treating a weapon with it or slipping it into food) is an Evil act. But if a creature has a poisonous natural weapon, is that considered an Evil use of poison?

I would imagine that would depend on the intellect/intent of the creature involved. Wyverns are 6 Int, which... yeah it's more than "animal" but whether it's enough to really know right from wrong or the full extent of the harm that Con poison does, well your guess is as good as mine.

Seriously, don't. Don't mess with the fae. I mean, Candlejack is a fae, and he wo

Why should I be worried? If they come after me, I'll ju

Rubik

2014-12-23, 11:28 AM

Yes really. The alignment of the creatures themselves (even if they were neutral like you claim - which they're not, because specific trumps general) is irrelevant and therefore so is this counterargument. For instance, wyverns are neutral too but using their poison (Con poison) is an evil act.It's an evil act for something that isn't a wyvern, but not for wyverns themselves, just like thri-kreen using their poison isn't evil, but it is for non-thri-kreen.

Stupid, yes, but true. And stupid.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 11:31 AM

It's an evil act for something that isn't a wyvern, but not for wyverns themselves, just like thri-kreen using their poison isn't evil, but it is for non-thri-kreens.

Stupid, yes, but true. And stupid.

Exactly - just like a skeleton is evil for the non-skeleton guy animating it, whether the skeleton itself is or not.

Rubik

2014-12-23, 11:39 AM

Exactly - just like a skeleton is evil for the non-skeleton guy animating it, whether the skeleton itself is or not.Which is like creating an evil chainsaw out of regular steel.

Which, again, is stupid.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 11:56 AM

Which is like creating an evil chainsaw out of regular steel.

Which, again, is stupid.

How is an energy that is universally harmful to living things in any way comparable to "regular steel?"

Necroticplague

2014-12-23, 11:57 AM

Psyren

2014-12-23, 12:03 PM

A problem I have with all the 'bring more evil into the world' based arguments is the scale of the world. There are three different lower planes, each infinite in size, from which evil energy is derived, and 3 upper planes, also all infinite in size, from which good is derived. So any amount of evil you can bring into the world is like tossing a handfull of salt into the ocean. Except the ocean is infinitely big. And connected to two other infinitely big oceans. The amount of change in the balance you can have is incredibly infinitesimal.

You seem to be saying "the world" includes outer planes, which are not part of the world by definition - they are outside it. The fact that the Abyss exists and contains infinite evil does not matter to the Material unless you open a permanent Gate leading there. "The world" in this case means the Material Plane - not the entirety of the cosmology.

In short, negative energy is fine over there, on the NEP, where it belongs. Bringing it here, where it can start devouring life left and right - that's the evil part.

Divayth Fyr

2014-12-23, 12:04 PM

A problem I have with all the 'bring more evil into the world' based arguments is the scale of the world.
Another problem is that bringing a bit of negative energy (to power the undead) to the Prime is Evil, but binding a living ball of negative energy to stay there isn't.

roko10

2014-12-23, 12:15 PM

I would allow this, if only for the fact that D&D is hypocritical about this kind of thing. I mean, the creation of a golem involves the forcefully binding a rock elemental spirit to the golem itself, which essentially equals to slavery.

Compare that to your simple skeleton, which only influences the body itself, and not the soul. Yet the creation of a skeleton is pure evil for what amounts to the recycling of a (often) humanoid body, while the creation of golems isn't considered evil.

No excuse for undead beings like liches, though; liches actually are created by doing a string of very evil things, so becoming(and being) a lich should be evil.

Ashtagon

2014-12-23, 12:15 PM

The way i see it, a mindless under is no more evil than a Tesla car (those newfangled electricity-only cars) are polluting.

On the face of it, that undead has no mind with which to express a moral position. And that car produces literally no emissions when driven. But just as the act of creating that car requires a whole host of polluting industries behind it (maybe better than most car manufacturers, but certainly not a zero-sum situation), creating that undead skeleton in the first place did something metaphysical that isn't expressed in game terms that adds a measurable quantity of Evil(tm) to the universe.

Rubik

2014-12-23, 12:19 PM

How is an energy that is universally harmful to living things in any way comparable to "regular steel?"First of all, the energy you're talking about is needed by the cycle of life to keep going. If the Material Plane didn't have entropy (negative energy), nothing would die. Nothing would decay. Disease would run rampant because you couldn't fight off infections. You couldn't grow new plants because there just wouldn't be room. Plants couldn't derive nutrients from fertilizer, and they would wither and remain sickly. The cycle of life couldn't exist, because nobody would be able to eat, and everyone and everything would exist in the constant torment of eternal starvation. No food means no growth. No growth means no next generation. No next generation means constant stagnation and never-ending agony for everything that exists.

Nobody cries foul when babies are born, even though it's a potentially unbalancing introduction of (potentially extremely dangerous) energy. It's what leads to overpopulation, the destruction of natural resources, and eventual mass starvation. Negative energy is needed to counteract it in a delicate balance. It's why undead arise spontaneously in some places. It's to help balance the overabundance of life that would otherwise occur without them.

Negative energy is a tool to use like any other. It has its uses, which are necessary for the good of everything.

As for likening mindless undead to a chainsaw, they are produced by negative energy, which is actively Neutral, and are nothing but tools that do as their wielders bid. RAW, skeletons do absolutely nothing for all eternity unless commanded to, and they only ever do anything because they've received commands. They're basically chainsaws animated by magical servos and computer programming.

The Animate Dead spell may or may not actually tap the lower planes to bring Evil energy into the world, but Fell Animate and so on do not. So how does Neutral + Neutral = Evil? It doesn't, just like building a chainsaw out of purely inert substances like plastic and steel doesn't build an Evil chainsaw, because it makes no sense.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 12:35 PM

First of all, the energy you're talking about is needed by the cycle of life to keep going. If the Material Plane didn't have entropy (negative energy), nothing would die. Nothing would decay. Disease would run rampant because you couldn't fight off infections. You couldn't grow new plants because there just wouldn't be room. Plants couldn't derive nutrients from fertilizer, and they would wither and remain sickly. The cycle of life couldn't exist, because nobody would be able to eat, and everyone and everything would exist in the constant torment of eternal starvation. No food means no growth. No growth means no next generation. No next generation means constant stagnation and never-ending agony for everything that exists.

Exactly right again. Entropy, i.e. negative energy as you put it, already exists in the material. In fact, there is so much here that we need extra positive energy (healing magic, curing disease and poison, raising the dead etc.) just to fight what is already here. Without such magic - if everyone in D&D only had the Heal skill to rely on, adventurers would die out, followed by everyone else. And no matter how much positive we pour in, entropy wins anyway because mortals still die - the only way to stem the tide is to replace it with new life, many of which does not live long enough to reproduce.

So I ask you once again - how can unbalancing an already unbalanced system even further by adding more negative, be neutral, much less good?

The veil is already thin enough that uncontrolled undead spontaneously appear now, and the vast majority of those are evil. Thinning it further is irresponsible at best.

Rubik

2014-12-23, 12:41 PM

Exactly right again. Entropy, i.e. negative energy as you put it, already exists in the material. In fact, there is so much here that we need extra positive energy (healing magic, curing disease and poison, raising the dead etc.) just to fight what is already here. Without such magic - if everyone in D&D only had the Heal skill to rely on, adventurers would die out, followed by everyone else. And no matter how much positive we pour in, entropy wins anyway because mortals still die - the only way to stem the tide is to replace it with new life, many of which does not live long enough to reproduce.

So I ask you once again - how can unbalancing an already unbalanced system even further by adding more negative, be neutral, much less good?

The veil is already thin enough that uncontrolled undead spontaneously appear now, and the vast majority of those are evil. Thinning it further is irresponsible at best.Unless the balance is being kept by said fonts of negative energy. Some new negative energy must be added to keep the level of entropy in the world high enough to result in death; otherwise, nothing would die, even if they're torn to bits.

I think you should consider that perhaps the addition of undead isn't actually furthering unbalancing the system, but is the impetus of nature keeping life and death balanced. Otherwise, spontaneous undead wouldn't happen. They're the natural influx of entropy into the Material Plane. It's quite likely that without artificial undead being created, even more spontaneous undead would appear to compensate, because otherwise there'd just be too much positive energy to keep the cycle going as it should.

[edit] If the sun is constantly flooding the world with positive energy, there must be some influx of negative energy to balance it. That would be the advent of undead. And artificially bringing in controlled, weak undead is better than allowing the uncontrolled (and extremely powerful) undead that would inevitably appear and wreak havoc on the living.

So animating the dead is actually a good thing, especially if you're responsible about doing so.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 12:51 PM

Unless the balance is being kept by said fonts of negative energy. Some new negative energy must be added to keep the level of entropy in the world high enough to result in death; otherwise, nothing would die, even if they're torn to bits.

I think you should consider that perhaps the addition of undead (spontaneous or otherwise) isn't actually furthering unbalancing the system, but are the impetus of nature keeping life and death balanced. Otherwise, spontaneous undead wouldn't happen. They're the natural influx of entropy into the Material Plane. It's quite likely that without artificial undead being created, even more spontaneous undead would appear to compensate, because otherwise there'd just be too much positive energy to keep the cycle going as it should.

But every living thing already born on the material is mortal and dying anyway. So the argument that you "need to add new negative energy" makes no sense - entropy is a thing for all of them without you needing to add more necromancy to the mix or thin the veil further. Furthermore, no amount of positive energy you add can overcome this, because every new bit of life added already has entropy coded in, and no amount of healing will stop someone from dying of old age*. Thus I reject that argument utterly.

*The exception is reincarnate shenanigans, but there is already a mechanism in place for that (Inevitables) so you still don't need to animate the dead.

Red Fel

2014-12-23, 12:52 PM

I think you should consider that perhaps the addition of undead isn't actually furthering unbalancing the system, but is the impetus of nature keeping life and death balanced. Otherwise, spontaneous undead wouldn't happen. They're the natural influx of entropy into the Material Plane. It's quite likely that without artificial undead being created, even more spontaneous undead would appear to compensate, because otherwise there'd just be too much positive energy to keep the cycle going as it should.

This is a good point. Spontaneous Undead happen. Ghost Brutes are a perfect example. It might not be 100% natural (some might even say supernatural1) but they happen. Unless you're prepared to say that random coincidences are Evil, the fact that Undead have come into being is not, itself, an Evil thing. The question, therefore, is this: If an Undead coming into existence is not Evil, and the Undead itself behaves in a Neutral manner unless directed otherwise, why is the creation of an Undead by an intelligent being an Evil act?

Is it because a person, rather than a random coincidence, is actively introducing Negative Energy into the Material? Because that doesn't jive either. There are Negative Energy spells which are not [Evil]. There are Negative Energy creatures (such as Energons) which are not Evil. Negative Energy itself is not Evil. So why is bringing a particular manifestation of an otherwise Neutral and necessary force into the Material considered an Evil act, when other uses of that same force - or even beings composed entirely thereof - are not considered Evil?

1See what I did there?

Rubik

2014-12-23, 12:55 PM

But every living thing already born on the material is mortal and dying anyway. So the argument that you "need to add new negative energy" makes no sense - entropy is a thing for all of them without you needing to add more necromancy to the mix or thin the veil further. Furthermore, no amount of positive energy you add can overcome this, because every new bit of life added already has entropy coded in, and no amount of healing will stop someone from dying of old age*. Thus I reject that argument utterly.

*The exception is reincarnate shenanigans, but there is already a mechanism in place for that (Inevitables) so you still don't need to animate the dead.Except for the potential fact that without entropy added into the D&D world, death and aging and other forms of entropy wouldn't happen. The only reason that the entropy is there is because it's introduced. Negative energy is a thing. If it's not introduced from the negative energy plane, where does it come from? Are you saying that creatures made of positive energy which contain no negative energy themselves somehow produce negative energy?

That makes no sense whatsoever.

Also, see my edit above.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 01:05 PM

I'm saying there is already a constant amount of death inherent to life (i.e. natural causes) and the creation of undead (which kill through means other than natural causes) upsets that balance and is therefore evil.

So no, I don't buy the argument that if necromancers stopped animating skeletons then suddenly everyone would be immortal. It's nonsense.

Red Fel

2014-12-23, 01:08 PM

Rubik

2014-12-23, 01:20 PM

I'm saying there is already a constant amount of death inherent to life (i.e. natural causes) and the creation of undead (which kill through means other than natural causes) upsets that balance and is therefore evil.But if no negative energy is introduced from the Negative Energy Plane the way it is with fire, water, earth, air, and positive energy, would negative energy (and therefore death) exist in the Material Plane? After all, every other inner plane pumps their particular energy type into the Material Plane. If not from the Negative Energy Plane, where does negative energy come from?

Death and aging are caused by negative energy. No negative energy means no entropy which means no death or aging. And how does negative energy come to be on the Material Plane? Since you're adamant that it comes from undead, which occur spontaneously completely naturally, why are those undead, which contribute an incredibly important facet to the cycle of nature, bad?

So no, I don't buy the argument that if necromancers stopped animating skeletons then suddenly everyone would be immortal. It's nonsense.You might want to reread what I said. That's not what I said at all.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 01:20 PM

Wait. So are Undead Evil because they kill through means other than natural causes?

In Dungeons & Dragons, the uncontrolled ones do, yes. They are compelled to - LM, BoVD, HoH, even the Monster Manual entries make this clear. Creating the controlled ones is evil because they make it easier for more uncontrolled ones to infest the material just by being on this side.

Your other examples do not follow at all. Magically creating swords does not cause the spontaneous creation of swords which then go out and kill people, etc. It is textbook reductio ad absurdum.

I'm not trying to be difficult, but that reason doesn't fly. Murder is Evil, sure, but unintelligent Undead are incapable of murder, as they cannot think, let alone comprehend their actions. The alignment of killing generally is dependent upon context - self-defense, for example, isn't generally Evil. So saying that creating Undead is Evil because they kill is a disingenuous argument.

Whether they consider it murder, or even realize what they're doing, is irrelevant. The moral cost falls on the animator, not them -whether he is creating uncontrolled undead and letting them run amok, or creating controlled undead, which then result in more uncontrolled undead in random locations he is unaware of, the result is the same - more untimely death due to his/her actions.

But if no negative energy is introduced from the negative energy plane the way it is with fire, water, earth, air, and positive energy, would negative energy (and therefore death) exist in the Material Plane? After all, every other inner plane pumps their particular energy type into the Material Plane. If not from the Negative Energy Plane, where does negative energy come from?

I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm saying the existing "pump" doesn't need any necromancers to add to it. Just like a pyromancer creating permanent flames all over the material would eventually cause a wildfire.

You might want to reread what I said. That's not what I said at all.

You are saying that necromancers are necessary. So what are you proposing would happen if there weren't any?

Rubik

2014-12-23, 01:24 PM

In Dungeons & Dragons, the uncontrolled ones do, yes. They are compelled to - LM, BoVD, HoH, even the Monster Manual entries make this clear. Creating the controlled ones is evil because they make it easier for more uncontrolled ones to infest the material just by being on this side.

Your other examples do not follow at all. Magically creating swords does not cause the spontaneous creation of swords which then go out and kill people, etc. It is textbook reductio ad absurdum.According to the monster entries, skeletons in particular never ever ever ever ever do anything on their own except stand or lie there. Ever. Not even then. If a skeleton were created but not commanded during the very first round at the beginning of time, it would still be sitting there in the exact same position it started at when the universe is destroyed eons later. And yet somehow this is the epitome of Evil.

I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm saying the existing "pump" doesn't need any necromancers to add to it. Just like a pyromancer creating permanent flames all over the material would eventually cause a wildfire.

You are saying that necromancers are necessary. So what are you proposing would happen if there weren't any?What I'm saying is that negative energy comes from the Negative Energy Plane, and that the Material Plane pulls in negative energy to balance out the positive energy flooding in from the Positive Energy Plane, frequently in the form of spontaneous undead. If more artificial undead are created, less negative energy needs to be pulled in, and so fewer spontaneous undead appear. After all, the sun apparently floods the Material Plane with massive amounts of positive energy, which is why life flourishes from the energy of the sun. This must be balanced somehow. Hence, spontaneous undead.

Red Fel

2014-12-23, 01:29 PM

In Dungeons & Dragons, the uncontrolled ones do, yes. They are compelled to - LM, BoVD, HoH, even the Monster Manual entries make this clear. Creating the controlled ones is evil because they make it easier for more uncontrolled ones to infest the material just by being on this side.

But by that logic, if nobody actively created Undead, the spontaneous generation of Undead (e.g. Ghost Brutes) would nonetheless make it easier for Undead to manifest. So random happenstance is Evil?

Your other examples do not follow at all. Magically creating swords does not cause the spontaneous creation of swords which then go out and kill people, etc. It is textbook reductio ad absurdum.

Skeletons don't create more skeletons. Not all Undead generate more of their own. And one could very well argue that when you introduce weaponry into a given area, more of it will be required or requested - either for self-defense, or to keep up with the Joneses. Weapons do tend to propagate, if not in the traditional sense.

It's not reductio ad absurdum, it's an attempt at parallelism.

Whether they consider it murder, or even realize what they're doing, is irrelevant. The moral cost falls on the animator, not them -whether he is creating uncontrolled undead and letting them run amok, or creating controlled undead, which then result in more uncontrolled undead in random locations he is unaware of, the result is the same - more untimely death due to his/her actions.

But that's the thing. Lots of spells have a chance to go horribly wrong and out of control. Heck, a Fireball explicitly ignites a blaze; that can go out of control pretty quickly if not attended to, resulting in injury or death. But Fireball isn't tagged Evil.

As I understand it now, your argument appears to be that, if Undead are created, more, uncontrolled Undead may come into being, and they may cause havoc. You are, in essence, placing the moral burden on the creator of controlled Undead for the future spontaneous generation of uncontrolled Undead. Is that correct?

By that logic, a person becomes morally responsible for any circumstance, no matter how tenuously connected, which may ultimately result from his immediate actions. I'm not buying it.

Taveena

2014-12-23, 01:38 PM

False equivalences abound.

First, positive energy explosion only happens on the PEP. You can heal someone for 10000d10 on the material and it will do nothing to them but make them feel better. It is not an inherent quality of positive energy.

Second, fire can cook food and keep people warm. It is neutral because it can harm or help life in equal measure, just like water or cold can.

Negative Energy is unique because it can only be harmful/deleterious to life. In addition, per Libris Mortis, the more NE you pump into the material, the thinner you make "the veil" and the more spontaneous/uncontrolled undead there will be. This dovetails directly with the BoVD citation.

Strictly speaking... nnno. Ragnorra may have the confusing justification of 'corrupted positive energy', but her presence causes people to explode just as on the PEP. Second, fire kills harmful bacteria and neutralizes biological poisons THUS MAKING FOOD EDIBLE, but negative energy could ALSO do that - in theory, there aren't any rules for it, but if you blasted a microbe with Darkbolt then it'd be as dead as if you'd set it on fire. Warmth is good, sure, but that's more just 'keeping things at a survivable level', and if there WERE an overflow of positive energy - which there ain't - then you'd presumably want more negative energy to counteract it. Besides, for some people - lessay those living in polar areas - when would you WANT cold? All cold does is **** you over. Does that make Cold evil? You could use Negative Energy to, for example, create skeletons to harvest crops tirelessly. That's not harmful to life.

Now, one thing that /is/ unambiguous is that negative energy does not result in souls, but positive energy does.

BUT. There's no reason you need a soul to do good or a lack thereof to be evil - every Celestial, Fiend, and Rudimentary Intelligence Golem can prove that. Soulless, but free willed, and thus capable of good and evil.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 01:43 PM

According to the monster entries, skeletons in particular never ever ever ever ever do anything on their own except stand or lie there. Ever. Not even then. If a skeleton were created but but not commanded during the very first round at the beginning of time, it would still be sitting there in the exact same position it was when the universe is destroyed eons later. And yet somehow this is the epitome of Evil.

Great, so one undead out of the 18 in MM1 will do nothing on their own. Two if you include zombies. I guess running into them on an encounter table - such as, say, the 1d4 owlbear skeletons on DMG pg. 87 - means they won't do anything and you can simply walk by them for free XP since their creator isn't part of the encounter to give them any orders.

Well that's nice and all, but that still leaves 16 other undead that can and will hurt people. And the more skeletons your necromancer creates, the more likely that one of the other 16 will show up in the world somewhere that he might not even know about.

If more artificial undead are created, less negative energy needs to be pulled in, and so fewer spontaneous undead appear. After all, the sun apparently floods the Material Plane with massive amounts of positive energy, which is why life flourishes from the energy of the sun. This must be balanced somehow. Hence, spontaneous undead.

It is already balanced. It will not rebalance itself automatically due to the actions of magic users; thinking it will is absurd. If a mad wizard fills all his slots with Flaming Sphere and sets fire to a whole country, campfires and torches in a neighboring country will not randomly start going out to compensate for his actions - he will just be adding a whole lot more fire to a system that already had plenty of natural fire.

The solution to the imbalance there would be to stop or kill the mad wizard - just like it would be the solution to a necromancer who won't stomp pumping more negative energy into the system.

But by that logic, if nobody actively created Undead, the spontaneous generation of Undead (e.g. Ghost Brutes) would nonetheless make it easier for Undead to manifest. So random happenstance is Evil?

How does that follow? If spontaneous generation happens anyway, how does actively creating more somehow result in less? It makes no sense :smallconfused:

Skeletons don't create more skeletons. Not all Undead generate more of their own. And one could very well argue that when you introduce weaponry into a given area, more of it will be required or requested - either for self-defense, or to keep up with the Joneses. Weapons do tend to propagate, if not in the traditional sense.

Not on their own - that requires conscious action by threatened parties. It also requires knowledge by the second party that the first has more swords, whereas what LM describes does not require either of these things.

But that's the thing. Lots of spells have a chance to go horribly wrong and out of control. Heck, a Fireball explicitly ignites a blaze; that can go out of control pretty quickly if not attended to, resulting in injury or death. But Fireball isn't tagged Evil.

As I understand it now, your argument appears to be that, if Undead are created, more, uncontrolled Undead may come into being, and they may cause havoc. You are, in essence, placing the moral burden on the creator of controlled Undead for the future spontaneous generation of uncontrolled Undead. Is that correct?

By that logic, a person becomes morally responsible for any circumstance, no matter how tenuously connected, which may ultimately result from his immediate actions. I'm not buying it.

So if you're in charge of dumping toxic waste, and you don't particularly care where it comes out - if your pipe ultimately leads into a river, you aren't morally responsible for what happens to the fish, is that your argument? Just trying to understand where you're coming from here.

thematgreen

2014-12-23, 03:00 PM

Hi everyone!

Two things. My issue was resolved nicely and I appreciate the help I was given here to find a good solution. My Necromancer can go on his merry way putting the udead to rest.

Second, calm down about the nature of good and evil in a world where you can literally summon "The Devil" and angelic beings of pure good. PEP and NEP are both neutral, like a sword, waiting to be wielded. Intent is what makes them good or evil.

Also, don't mummies run on positive energy, and isn't mummy rot a positive energy disease and that's why it's so hard to cure? I remember that this is true, I could be wrong, but if that is the case, then positive energy is evil.

Necroticplague

2014-12-23, 03:20 PM

Also, don't mummies run on positive energy, and isn't mummy rot a positive energy disease and that's why it's so hard to cure? I remember that this is true, I could be wrong, but if that is the case, then positive energy is evil.
No. Mummies are normal undead, and mummy rot is actually a type of curse. That's spread by mummy punches. They take damage from positive energy, and are healed by negative (unless they have the Human heritage feat, which, in addition to tomb-tainted soul kinda throws a wrench in this type of things).

Telok

2014-12-23, 04:20 PM

No. Mummies are normal undead, and mummy rot is actually a type of curse. That's spread by mummy punches. They take damage from positive energy, and are healed by negative (unless they have the Human heritage feat, which, in addition to tomb-tainted soul kinda throws a wrench in this type of things).

Ah, well, in all previous editions of D&D mummies were positive energy undead and the disease was a magical positive energy curse. In those editions zombies and skeletons were also neutral because they only acted on orders. AD&D was slightly more rational about that sort of thing.

Also:
Not Evil (but necromancy using negative energy)

You point your finger and utter the incantation, releasing a black ray of crackling negative energy that suppresses the life force of any living creature it strikes...

You draw the soul from a newly dead body and imprison it in a black sapphire gem...

This spell evaporates moisture from the body of each subject living creature...

Evil (but not using negative energy)

You send a hideous and unsettling phantasmal vision to a specific creature that you name or otherwise specifically designate...

Using the foul sight granted by the powers of unlife, you can determine the condition of creatures near death within the spell’s range...

A malevolent darkness surrounds the subjects, protecting them from attacks, granting them resistance to spells cast by good creatures, and weakening good creatures when they strike the subjects...

This spell wards a creature from attacks by good creatures, from mental control, and from summoned creatures...

Spell alignment descriptors are screwed up. Especially since you can swap the descriptors with metamagic.

Coidzor

2014-12-23, 04:57 PM

Imagine you looking at your beloved father/brother/uncle/wahtever, in a pile of of corpses(something already bad by itself) when some magical smartass wave his hands and make the corpse of myour beloved family member who died in a honorable battle against orcs to get up and rip off his skin until only a skeleton filled with negative energy is stating ready to do labor work like a slave.

That is not a pretty sight, it is nasty it is an abomination and horrible. You can rationalize as much as you want but necromancy is supposed to be evil.

Nah, mindless undead aren't abominations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm). Abominations are outsiders for the most part, aside from Atropals which are decidedly *not* mindless, being aborted, misbegotten godlings.

Being unpleasant to witness doesn't make something evil. I mean, just because walking in on our parents having sex tends to traumatize most of us with the horrifying details of parental sexuality such that years of therapy are necessary doesn't make our parents automatically evil for doing each other. :smalltongue:

It's funny you should mention rationalization, though, as that's pretty much exactly what all that jumping through hoops that people do to argue that mindless undead should be as EVIL as they're labeled, just rationalization for poor design choices. :smallamused:

SiuiS

2014-12-23, 05:32 PM

Coidzor

2014-12-23, 05:37 PM

That said... it does, imo, steal a lot of the fun and flavor out of necromancy if you do that. Part of the fun of playing a necromancer is delving into forbidden lore no mortal was meant to pursue. Flirting with neutrality just doesn't have the same thrill as flirting with evil, you know? And it's not even necessary to allow for neutrally aligned necromancer characters, as using evil means to achieve good ends already clearly falls within the bounds of a 'neutral' character alignment.

Not with the interpretation that makes Mindless Undead and their animation neutral but generally socially unacceptable and their spontaneous natural generation more akin to a thunderstorm or wildfire, something to be feared and dealt with but not something that implies that Nature itself is Evil.

The more interesting undead would still be evil, being conscious but malevolently hungry and alien intelligences.

So rather than just house ruling away necromancy's evil edge due to a lack of apparent fluff justification for it, as both a DM who loves necromancy and a Player who loves necromancers I would rather add in the fluff to support the evil designation that's already there, and if anyone is looking to do that, then one of the best places to go in 3.5 is Magic of Incarnum, specifically the idea of Necrocarnum.

Those are really the only two real options I see here, and while it's not my personal choice most of the time, it's infinitely preferable to just shrugging and saying that the rules are perfectly good and clear on the matter and need no clarification or editing for consistency at all.

I have run with it, but generally only when the focus is on Entropy itself as a Big Bad, which I find tends to steal the thunder of the Lower Planes, unless you make them all about the Entropy like PF did for the NE Fiends, and it might just be the Planescape Torment talking, but I prefer the Lower Planes as the ultimate expressions of evil most of the time.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 05:37 PM

In Pathfinder, the devs will just tell you "animating undead is intended to be evil, houserule it differently at your table if you don't like it" and leave it at that. They actually dropped in with that quote (or one like it) when the Juju Zombie thing came up.

SiuiS

2014-12-23, 05:52 PM

You know that Necromancers are terrible necromancers, right?

Make a cleric they are better necromancers.

That depends on what you mean by necromancy. Necromancy is the magic of life, death and their processes and transmutations. Making the dead walk is a very small and frankly unimportant sliver of that greater dark science.

Even if the objective is good, you are Channeling forces of pain, suffering and death.
It can't be a pleasant way to exist. That is why undead moan all the time.

Undead don't moan. You're thinking movies about viruses.

Imagine you looking at your beloved father/brother/uncle/wahtever, in a pile of of corpses(something already bad by itself) when some magical smartass wave his hands and make the corpse of myour beloved family member who died in a honorable battle against orcs to get up and rip off his skin until only a skeleton filled with negative energy is stating ready to do labor work like a slave.

That is not a pretty sight, it is nasty it is an abomination and horrible. You can rationalize as much as you want but necromancy is supposed to be evil.

Why isn't it pretty? Why is it an abomination? Why is it horrible? You're assuming. The first person interred in a graveyard is, supposedly, going to become that graveyard's guardian. New cemeteries were opened based on when town elders died so that honored and respected people would become the ghostly guardians of the rest of the sleeping dead. Real life mythology and culture has being allowed to return to serve and protect your people as a great honor and something that many would envy. Why doesn't D&D?

I have a culture who does this, using scrimshaw to record a great Hero's deeds on his bones as part of the stewardship ritual. Enemies face skeletons intricately wrought with loving detail that empowers them, should they assault the villages. That's much neater than "ew evil!", and more accurate; the dislike of undeath is because the dead and the living are separate and that's how they should be. When wounded or old, the living die. When the sanctity of a place is defiled, the dead live to avenge it. As long as it's part of the natural pattern it is neither evil nor abominable.

Divayth Fyr

2014-12-23, 05:58 PM

How much of this holds true for pathfinder, though?
They fixed the poison thing, Holy Word still kills innocent, neutral babies, don't know about any deathless equivalents, and spells still can be weird (killing a creature and turning the remains into a bomb (Bloatbomb) isn't [Evil], draining the life of an enemy to boost yourself (Vampiric touch) isn't [Evil], getting boosts after killing an enemy (Deadly Juggernaut) isn't [Evil], but finishing off a dying creature in order to get a boost (Death Knell) or summon a creature (Death Candle) is [Evil] as all Hell). So... 50/50? Possibly less?

Taveena

2014-12-23, 06:16 PM

What this inevitably comes down to is that Necromancy isn't evil, Undead aren't evil, and Negative Energy isn't evil...

But for some arbitrary reason whatever being that sets the rules of the universe has declared Undead and the creation thereof to be Evil (even the Good ones), using Negative Energy is evil (except when it isn't), and certain spells to be [Evil] (unconnected to their applications or effects).

Basically, some being has slapped an arbitrary judgment of Evil on these abilities with no clear pattern. Maybe an Atropal said something mean about Ao's mother?

SiuiS

2014-12-23, 06:27 PM

How is an energy that is universally harmful to living things in any way comparable to "regular steel?"

You mean fire? They're both tools.

No. Mummies are normal undead, and mummy rot is actually a type of curse. That's spread by mummy punches. They take damage from positive energy, and are healed by negative (unless they have the Human heritage feat, which, in addition to tomb-tainted soul kinda throws a wrench in this type of things).

Mummies, liches, and I believe revenants started their careers as positive energy undead. Originally, healin spells didn't use positive energy either, they hurt undead because life and death were opposites. Over time, mummies and liches were generalized into being exactly like all other undead (despite both of them being exceptions as part of their concept...), and with the 3e change of healing is positive and hurting is negative, they got the complete rebrand to fit.

Anyway. The answer, broadly, is clear. The designation of necromancy as evil and negative energy as evil relies not on a valid scientific knowledge of the underpinnings of reality. It relies on an anthropocentric focus on the validity and primacy of the Prime. The material is most important, the lives of those on the material are most important, the beliefs of those on the material are most important. The natural cycles take life and souls and bodies away from the prime, and that barrier between life and death becomes sacred. Negative energy not only kills and harms, but actively mocks and make moot that sacred cycle. Undeath is evil because it challenges the underpinnings of the moral Rectitude of the superior races on their superior plane.

If you say, objectively, they aren't superior, of course everything falls apart under scrutiny. You borrowed a heuristic and removed the generating force.

Sith_Happens

2014-12-23, 06:48 PM

thematgreen

2014-12-23, 06:49 PM

If anyone is curious.

My character calls himself a Necromancer but is a Cleric - Undead Lord Archetype. I has his skeleton butler, vinnie, with him at all times, and the group has no problem with that, they just took exception to the fact I was going to raise the dead of a whole village, ignoring the following:

1 - Permission from the dead
2 - Permission from the clergy
3 - Permisison directly from the God they worship (LG)

They also ignored the fact that by knowingly leaving a village to die through the winter they were commiting evil, no matter how many times I pointed it out.

The spell took a week, but those 83 Deathless Skeletons appeared all nice and shiny and new and ready to work. Before we left the tireless undead had already repaired the wall, under the direction of the clergy, repaired most of the homes, had already been set up as guards, and were an accepted part of the city.

The Skeletons are mindless and do nothing except under direction of the clergy. There was already one issue where the scheming clergyman, Linden, tried to wrest control of the undead from everyone, since he was technically part of the clergy, and then lost his powers and was jailed, proving to the group that only those that are good and seeking to use the skeletons as tools of good can utilize those dead.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 06:56 PM

You mean fire? They're both tools.

You may need to look up the definition of "universally harmful." It tends to preclude things like cooking and warming.

Sith_Happens

2014-12-23, 07:00 PM

Deathless Skeletons

"Deathless" as in you were able to invert Animate Dead to make Deathless-type creatures, or "deathless" as in that one type of skeleton from Pathfinder that eventually heals back from 0 HP unless you get anti-undead magic involved?

Rubik

2014-12-23, 07:05 PM

You may need to look up the definition of "universally harmful." It tends to preclude things like cooking and warming.And just how, exactly, are Astral Projection, False Life, Death Watch, and Death Ward harmful? Ever? Please elaborate. I'm quite curious.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 07:15 PM

And just how, exactly, are Astral Projection, False Life, Death Watch, and Death Ward harmful? Ever? Please elaborate. I'm quite curious.

Weird, I don't see where negative energy is used in any of those. It's almost like they are completely irrelevant or something.

But I do see it in Enervation, Ghoul Touch, Chill Touch, Touch of Fatigue, and Harm. Funny how that works.

Necroticplague

2014-12-23, 07:23 PM

You may need to look up the definition of "universally harmful." It tends to preclude things like cooking and warming.

Good thing negative energy isn't universally harmful.Tomb tainted soul, the undead, construct are immune to most of it (ability damage or negative levels).

Rubik

2014-12-23, 07:24 PM

Psyren

2014-12-23, 07:31 PM

Good thing negative energy isn't universally harmful.Tomb tainted soul, the undead, construct are immune to most of it (ability damage or negative levels).

Constructs and undead don't count as they are not living creatures. TTS meanwhile perverts you such that negative energy heals you, but to do it, it has to make positive energy harmful, which is hardly a benign effect in and of itself.

See: necromancy spells. Y'know, the school that explicitly deals with negative energy.

All owls are birds but not all birds are owls. Just because all the negative energy spells are in that school, doesn't mean all the spells in that school channel negative energy. The spell's text tells you that.

Milo v3

2014-12-23, 07:44 PM

Weird, I don't see where negative energy is used in any of those. It's almost like they are completely irrelevant or something.

But I do see it in Enervation, Ghoul Touch, Chill Touch, Touch of Fatigue, and Harm. Funny how that works.

Deathwatch specifically uses the powers of unlife. Which is why it is "EVIL".

Also, positive energy is still more dangerous than negative energy because while negative energy harms most living creatures, positive energy harms most undead creatures and in rare circumstances can explode the living.

JusticeZero

2014-12-23, 07:44 PM

Still not sure why this is such a big point of debate. I just treat Animate Dead as MUSA ("Morally Unimportant, Shifts Alignment"), probably for the same reason that Evil clerics cannot spontaneously turn/heal and Good clerics cannot spontaneously rebuke/inflict.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 07:53 PM

Deathwatch specifically uses the powers of unlife. Which is why it is "EVIL".

Also, positive energy is still more dangerous than negative energy because while negative energy harms most living creatures, positive energy harms most undead creatures and in rare circumstances can explode the living.

As I correctly pointed out several pages ago, positive energy only does that on the positive energy plane. No matter how much healing you pump into someone on the Material, they won't explode.

As for Deathwatch, whether the designers categorized it properly or not is technically irrelevant - whatever "powers of unlife" it references may be negative energy or not, but all the ones that do actually mention negative energy are harmful to life.

Milo v3

2014-12-23, 07:55 PM

As I correctly pointed out several pages ago, positive energy only does that on the positive energy plane. No matter how much healing you pump into someone on the Material, they won't explode.

.... Yes. I know that.... Thus me saying rare circumstances.

But it is still something that happens. And doesn't happen on the negative energy plane with undead.

Necroticplague

2014-12-23, 07:57 PM

Constructs and undead don't count as they are not living creatures. TTS meanwhile perverts you such that negative energy heals you, but to do it, it has to make positive energy harmful, which is hardly a benign effect in and of itself.

So? It still proves negative energy isn't universally harmful. Just like fire, it hurts a lot of things, but some things are immune, and others are outright healed. heck, given how common undead are compared to some other creature types, I think that Negative Energy is less universally harmful than fire.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 08:01 PM

.... Yes. I know that.... Thus me saying rare circumstances.

But it is still something that happens. And doesn't happen on the negative energy plane with undead.

What it does or does not do to undead is irrelevant - they aren't alive. The NEP does actively kill living things, and zapping them with more negative energy while there only hastens the process.

(Sidenote: ironically, the PEP is technically even less harmful to undead than to the living, though this is undoubtedly unintended.)

So? It still proves negative energy isn't universally harmful. Just like fire, it hurts a lot of things, but some things are immune, and others are outright healed. heck, given how common undead are compared to some other creature types, I think that Negative Energy is less universally harmful than fire.

I already excluded nonliving creatures way back in post #89, if I have to repeat every post I've made in this topic it will get quite long indeed.

And just for a funny break from the bickering, here is one of those nonevil skeletons we've heard so much about:

http://i.imgur.com/gWpmgWy.jpg

Zurvan

2014-12-23, 08:33 PM

Nah, mindless undead aren't abominations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm). Abominations are outsiders for the most part, aside from Atropals which are decidedly *not* mindless, being aborted, misbegotten godlings.

Being unpleasant to witness doesn't make something evil. I mean, just because walking in on our parents having sex tends to traumatize most of us with the horrifying details of parental sexuality such that years of therapy are necessary doesn't make our parents automatically evil for doing each other. :smalltongue:

It's funny you should mention rationalization, though, as that's pretty much exactly what all that jumping through hoops that people do to argue that mindless undead should be as EVIL as they're labeled, just rationalization for poor design choices. :smallamused:

You got what I meant! :smalltongue:

I think that is hardly a fair comparison... Witnessing your parents having sex is much more traumatizing than seeing your beloved one turn intro a parody of his former self and a mindless slave.

It is funny how we are debating about the morality of things in a world of escapism, something that doesn't exist and never will?

That depends on what you mean by necromancy. Necromancy is the magic of life, death and their processes and transmutations. Making the dead walk is a very small and frankly unimportant sliver of that greater dark science.

Undead don't moan. You're thinking movies about viruses.

Why isn't it pretty? Why is it an abomination? Why is it horrible? You're assuming. The first person interred in a graveyard is, supposedly, going to become that graveyard's guardian. New cemeteries were opened based on when town elders died so that honored and respected people would become the ghostly guardians of the rest of the sleeping dead. Real life mythology and culture has being allowed to return to serve and protect your people as a great honor and something that many would envy. Why doesn't D&D?

I have a culture who does this, using scrimshaw to record a great Hero's deeds on his bones as part of the stewardship ritual. Enemies face skeletons intricately wrought with loving detail that empowers them, should they assault the villages. That's much neater than "ew evil!", and more accurate; the dislike of undeath is because the dead and the living are separate and that's how they should be. When wounded or old, the living die. When the sanctity of a place is defiled, the dead live to avenge it. As long as it's part of the natural pattern it is neither evil nor abominable.

The OP cleary uses necromancy in the "Raise an army of undead way" that is a lot more fun than negative and life energy spells way IMO.

They moan in my games! And in Skyrim! And in a ton of other medias. But I guess you're right. I don't think they moan in D&D.

I don't get how all that respectful rituals and spirits of protection talk has to do with creating a bunch of mindless labor works from the flesh and bones of a pile of corpses.

Are we talking about death or undeath here?

You mean fire? They're both tools.

I think it is more like Antimatter actually.

Necroticplague

2014-12-23, 08:38 PM

W(Sidenote: ironically, the PEP is technically even less harmful to undead than to the living, though this is undoubtedly unintended.)
Actually, it makes an odd kinda sense if you think about it? I mean, the PEP kills people by overloading them with Positive Energy, right? Well, since the undead have a link to the NEP in them, it kinda makes sense that they could avoid life-exploison by bleeding off positive energy to the negative, neutralizing it. Then, the only wierdness is no cap on the temp HP (their formerly living tissues should be able to get SOME benefit, but infinite is a bit much).

I already excluded nonliving creatures way back in post #89, if I have to repeat every post I've made in this topic it will get quite long indeed.

I wasn't replying to post 89, I was replying to your separate statement that negative energy is 'universally harmful', which is flat-out false. Even within your arbitrary line of 'living creatures', its still wrong, because warforged juggenauts (living, not healed by positive or harmed by negative, immune to typical effects of negative energy), and tomb-tainted soul (living, harmed by positive, healed by negative). Besides, what's so dang important about living beings on the Prime Material Plane (a small subset of an infinitesimal group) that what's good for them should be considered whats good overall?

Psyren

2014-12-23, 09:22 PM

I wasn't replying to post 89, I was replying to your separate statement that negative energy is 'universally harmful', which is flat-out false. Even within your arbitrary line of 'living creatures', its still wrong, because warforged juggenauts (living, not healed by positive or harmed by negative, immune to typical effects of negative energy), and tomb-tainted soul (living, harmed by positive, healed by negative). Besides, what's so dang important about living beings on the Prime Material Plane (a small subset of an infinitesimal group) that what's good for them should be considered whats good overall?

It's not "arbitrary" at all. If you'll recall the Player's Handbook:

“Good” implies altruism, respect for life,and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings.
...
“Evil” implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.

Morality of actions in D&D only matters with respect to living creatures. You can't disrespect, hurt, oppress, or kill something that isn't alive - not in D&D, anyway.

As for why it matters on the Prime, it's because the living things there are much more likely to be innocent and defenseless. You could try to animate a bunch of undead in Celestia, but that would very likely end badly for you in a hurry.

Milo v3

2014-12-23, 09:24 PM

It's not "arbitrary" at all. If you'll recall the Player's Handbook:

Morality of actions in D&D only matters with respect to living creatures. You can't disrespect, hurt, oppress, or kill something that isn't alive - not in D&D, anyway.

As for why it matters on the Prime, it's because the living things there are much more likely to be innocent and defenseless. You could try to animate a bunch of undead in Celestia, but that would very likely end badly for you in a hurry.

Umm... many undead are sentient beings.... :smallconfused:

Psyren

2014-12-23, 09:30 PM

Umm... many undead are sentient beings.... :smallconfused:

But they're not alive, and that makes a great deal of difference. Even BoED is fine with destroying undead; they don't belong here.

Again, this is how it was consciously chosen to be in the D&D game.

Milo v3

2014-12-23, 09:38 PM

But they're not alive, and that makes a great deal of difference. Even BoED is fine with destroying undead; they don't belong here.

Again, this is how it was consciously chosen to be in the D&D game.

Being alive wasn't the only thing mentioned in the section you quoted. Being a sentient being was as well.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 09:41 PM

Being alive wasn't the only thing mentioned in the section you quoted. Being a sentient being was as well.

Indeed it wasn't, but they still don't matter; they already failed the "respect for life" metric.

Rubik

2014-12-23, 09:46 PM

Indeed it wasn't, but they still don't matter; they already failed the "respect for life" metric.My LG ghede paladin would stringently disagree, as would my CG ghost psion.

Taveena

2014-12-23, 09:47 PM

Basically, Baelnorns, Archliches, and neutral Dry Liches get absolutely screwed over.

Milo v3

2014-12-23, 09:47 PM

Indeed it wasn't, but they still don't matter; they already failed the "respect for life" metric.

How. Someone else animated a vampire. They didn't respect the life. You haven't done any such thing.

zergling.exe

2014-12-23, 09:58 PM

How. Someone else animated a vampire. They didn't respect the life. You haven't done any such thing.

In fact, in order to be good you would have to respect the vampire's life unless it is doing evil. Otherwise you are not good yourself.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 10:22 PM

My LG ghede paladin would stringently disagree, as would my CG ghost psion.

Noted.

Basically, Baelnorns, Archliches, and neutral Dry Liches get absolutely screwed over.

They ping as evil to every Paladin in creation, so yeah, getting screwed is kinda part of the deal.

How. Someone else animated a vampire. They didn't respect the life. You haven't done any such thing.

The sooner I dust that vampire the sooner the soul inside it gets freed. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Milo v3

2014-12-23, 10:42 PM

Okay, after reading Libris Mortis again it appears undead do not have their previous souls at all, and that their souls are specifically still in the afterlife:

However, this being is not truly inhabited by the spirit of the original creature, which has left to seek its ultimate destiny in the Outer Planes. This amalgamation is something entirely new.

and that undead animated through magic and atrocities are instead animated by malicious spirits that are hungry (though... being eternally hungry probably shouldn't be classed as malicious IMO). So.... where does this tortured soul come into it that people keep claiming?

Telok

2014-12-23, 10:46 PM

Morality of actions in D&D only matters with respect to living creatures. You can't disrespect, hurt, oppress, or kill something that isn't alive - not in D&D, anyway.

Yee-Ha! Everything that isn't a living critter is completely off the moral radar! At a start elementals, oozes, constructs, undead, and possibly some or many outsiders can be used and abused in any way possible and it doesn't matter because it doesn't have moral implications.

Got a construct with fast healing? Use it as a hit point battery through constant pain sharing and vampritic touches. It's not alive and therefore you can't hurt it and can't do evil to it. The fact that it's screaming in agony, begging you to stop, and possibly even has levels in the Paladin class don't matter. It's not alive!

Morality of actions in D&D only matters with respect to living creatures. You can't disrespect, hurt, oppress, or kill something that isn't alive - not in D&D, anyway.

Really, just admit that the whole D&D alignment and morality thing is totally screwed up.

Rubik

2014-12-23, 11:31 PM

This is sounding suspiciously discriminatory against the differently-living...

Psyren

2014-12-23, 11:34 PM

Okay, after reading Libris Mortis again it appears undead do not have their previous souls at all, and that their souls are specifically still in the afterlife:

and that undead animated through magic and atrocities are instead animated by malicious spirits that are hungry (though... being eternally hungry probably shouldn't be classed as malicious IMO). So.... where does this tortured soul come into it that people keep claiming?

Complete Divine has the part you're looking for. First, page 125:

Some creature types don't have souls and simply cease to exist when they die. Constructs just fall apart, for example. Undead creatures likewise cease to exist, although destroying an undead creature sometimes frees a soul trapped within it (as described below).

(Note that constructs are confirmed as not having souls. Anyway:)

The "below" in that quote refers to these subsequent passages on 126:

The souls of characters who die in specific ways sometimes become undead. Those driven to suicide by madness become allips, while humanoids destroyed by absolute evil become hodaks. As with ghosts, the soul creates a new body, whether it's incorporeal such as an allip's or corporeal such as a hodak's. The soul is twisted toward evil if it wasn't already. The new undead creature retains some general memories of its former life, but doesn't necessarily have the same mental ability scores, skills, feats, or other abilities. Not every suicide victim becomes an allip, and not everyone destroyed by absolute evil becomes a hodak; as with ghosts, the exact nature of the transformation is unknown. Similarly, liches are characters who've voluntarily transformed themselves into undead, trapping their souls in skeletal bodies.
...
Some undead, such as vampires and wights, create spawn out of a character they kill, trapping the soul of the deceased in a body animated by negative energy and controlled by a malign intelligence. Sometimes the undead creature can access the memories of the deceased (vampires, spectres, ghouls, and ghasts can), and sometimes they can't (as with shadows, wights, and wraiths).

Note in particular how closely that second part relates to what is happening to Durkon in OotS.

@ Telok:

Yee-Ha! Everything that isn't a living critter is completely off the moral radar! At a start elementals, oozes, constructs, undead, and possibly some or many outsiders can be used and abused in any way possible and it doesn't matter because it doesn't have moral implications.

Er, Oozes and Elementals are living creatures, as they have Con scores. (Pretty substantial ones in many cases.) Or were you confusing nonliving with mindless? (That's Int, not Con.)

Got a construct with fast healing? Use it as a hit point battery through constant pain sharing and vampritic touches. It's not alive and therefore you can't hurt it and can't do evil to it. The fact that it's screaming in agony, begging you to stop, and possibly even has levels in the Paladin class don't matter. It's not alive!

Doesn't "agony" require being alive? What do homebrew creatures have to do with this discussion?
Even if a vampire or lich "begs you to stop" you have a moral obligation both to its future victims and the soul trapped inside to finish the job and destroy it. To quote Roy Greenhilt, "it's a thankless job, but some PC has to do it."

Really, just admit that the whole D&D alignment and morality thing is totally screwed up.

The books are pretty clear on how it works, and they all fit with one another. I don't see how it can be so confusing to some people, save perhaps out of some wish for "white magic necromancy" that I can't fathom.

Coidzor

2014-12-23, 11:39 PM

Oh. Would you look at that.

I guess that makes Strahd a lot less interesting since it's not even actually Strahd that's all pining after his lost love and tragic comeuppance. :smallconfused:

Unless it just means vampire spawn there as separate from vampires proper. :smallconfused:

If anyone is curious.

My character calls himself a Necromancer but is a Cleric - Undead Lord Archetype. I has his skeleton butler, vinnie, with him at all times, and the group has no problem with that, they just took exception to the fact I was going to raise the dead of a whole village, ignoring the following:

1 - Permission from the dead
2 - Permission from the clergy
3 - Permisison directly from the God they worship (LG)

They also ignored the fact that by knowingly leaving a village to die through the winter they were commiting evil, no matter how many times I pointed it out.

The spell took a week, but those 83 Deathless Skeletons appeared all nice and shiny and new and ready to work. Before we left the tireless undead had already repaired the wall, under the direction of the clergy, repaired most of the homes, had already been set up as guards, and were an accepted part of the city.

The Skeletons are mindless and do nothing except under direction of the clergy. There was already one issue where the scheming clergyman, Linden, tried to wrest control of the undead from everyone, since he was technically part of the clergy, and then lost his powers and was jailed, proving to the group that only those that are good and seeking to use the skeletons as tools of good can utilize those dead.

Hooray, the game didn't have to end or explode in a big ball of fire and recrimination! :smallbiggrin:

You got what I meant! :smalltongue:

I think that is hardly a fair comparison... Witnessing your parents having sex is much more traumatizing than seeing your beloved one turn intro a parody of his former self and a mindless slave.

Okay, ya got me. :smallamused:

It is funny how we are debating about the morality of things in a world of escapism, something that doesn't exist and never will?

Always. :xykon:

I think it is more like Antimatter actually.

But Antimatter is something we should harness to end all our energy woes! :elan:

Dr_S

2014-12-23, 11:46 PM

Really, just admit that the whole D&D alignment and morality thing is totally screwed up.

I was going to try and read through this thread, but I realized pretty quickly that this was the only sentiment that matters.

IRL our issues with undead are so seeped into our culture, and are mostly religious in nature, which means then that the only answers are those that are specific to the setting, and the religion itself because they wouldn't necessarily have the hang ups we do because they've never seen a romero film...

For this particular setting;
What is a soul?
Where is it after death? (What ties does it retain to it's actual body?)
What happens to any connection to the body if the body is raised in a mindless creature? (Could the soul be trapped inside? among other possibilities)
What happens if the body is raised into a corporeal sentient undead? (Is the mind and soul separate? Vampires and such are typically just sociopaths as the soul represents conscience in a lot of media; can the new dark nature of the creature warp or corrupt the original soul?)
What about incorporeal undead? (Is the soul in a state of torture? can it be corrupted this way? does it prevent true resurrection later? etc.)
Is there a way to contact the soul? (Determine it's feelings in the matter based on the info at hand)
Etc.

The only thing I feel should be pointed out, and maybe this was discussed somewhere, is this. You said you used "Speak with undead" to obtain permission; my understanding of that spell is that it does not contact the soul, but rather the body, that's why it's incapable of lying (or understanding subtlety etc) Therefore I believe that if you do a proper Seance, and discuss with the souls the potential consequences that you should be in ok territory because it is their choice to accept the risks/costs. I.e. If they'll never be able to be rezzed, you're taking that away from them, if there's a chance they'll be corrupted, that's not your decision to make, and if there's a chance they'll be trapped somewhere, how long is too long? etc.

Milo v3

2014-12-23, 11:49 PM

Complete Divine has the part you're looking for. First, page 125:

Nope, ignoring that since Libris Mortis is the book about undead and it was published after Complete Divine thus superseding it when there is a contradiction.

Necroticplague

2014-12-23, 11:49 PM

Doesn't "agony" require being alive? What do homebrew creatures have to do with this discussion?
Even if a vampire or lich "begs you to stop" you have a moral obligation both to its future victims and the soul trapped inside to finish the job and destroy it. To quote Roy Greenhilt, "it's a thankless job, but some PC has to do it."

No, just the ability to feel pain and think about it. Homebrew nothing, any construct under the effects of Vigor is a construct with fast healing.

Why destroy it? That pretty obviously disrespects its (un)life and its dignity as a sentient being. It seems it would be significantly more moral to resurrect it back to being living.

Psyren

2014-12-23, 11:56 PM

Nope, ignoring that since Libris Mortis is the book about undead and it was published after Complete Divine thus superseding it when there is a contradiction.

There is no contradiction. The passage you quoted from LM is titled, "Atrocity Calls to Unlife," and refers to spontaneously created undead - those are, as you rightly stated, formed when an intelligent undead spontaneously forms in an area where the "veil" is thin e.g. a ghoul popping up in a graveyard or on a battlefield. The original soul has indeed (generally) long passed on.

The Complete Divine passage meanwhile refers to undead intentionally created as spawn, e.g. a vampire creating another vampire from a living creature (and therefore, trapping its soul inside.)

See, it's only inconsistent if you willfully ignore what the passages actually say.

No, just the ability to feel pain and think about it. Homebrew nothing, any construct under the effects of Vigor is a construct with fast healing.

Why destroy it? That pretty obviously disrespects its (un)life and its dignity as a sentient being. It seems it would be significantly more moral to resurrect it back to being living.

The PHB says nothing about respecting unlife. In fact the MM specifically says they are not alive. I don't see "dignity" anywhere for undead either.

Resurrecting it is certainly an option, if you have a 13th-level cleric and the means to restrain the undead creature for 10 minutes. But failing that, destruction is not only permitted, it is actively encouraged by BoED.

Rubik

2014-12-23, 11:58 PM

Many incorporeal undead ARE the souls of the departed. Ghosts, for instance. Is torturing a human soul bad? Why? It's undead, innit? How about a Good-aligned child born with the undead type but with its original soul, like my aforementioned ghede? They are what they were born as. Their bodies are dead, but they've got their original soul. And what about warforged? Those are constructs. How about a sword inhabited by a human soul via various means? How about a psion Metamorphosis'd into a sandwich? It's a construct, and it doesn't even have a Con score. Would torturing any of those be bad? They pretty much all fall under what you're talking about. Casting Eternity of Torture on any of those is AOK, according to everything you've said so far.

Psyren

2014-12-24, 12:01 AM

BoED clearly states that undead and constructs are fair game. For example, under "Waging Peace":

Even characters who have sworn a vow of peace can and should receive XP for combat encounters that involve the destruction of constructs and undead. These unliving creatures are not covered by a vow of peace, and destroying them can be an appropriate goal for the most exalted character.

Ghosts are a special case, I'll agree; they are largely plot devices, because killing them does nothing to lay them to rest long-term if their "purpose" (decided by the DM) has not been fulfilled. This doesn't mean you are forbidden from disrupting them temporarily if they are in your way however.

Rubik

2014-12-24, 12:08 AM

Psyren

2014-12-24, 12:16 AM

How about a necropolitan PAO'd, Shapechanged, or Metamorphosis'd into a humanoid, or Aspect of the Wolf'd into an animal? Pre-shapeshift, ensuring it's tortured for eternity is just fine, but post-shapeshift, it's suddenly a (capital-E) Evil act? And of course, the opposite would be true for a celestial cursed into having the undead type. Sure, it's literally made of elemental Good and is a perfect being, but it's got the wrong type due to something it's stuck with that it can't help, so committing attrocities against it is fine. Or a lich with the Human Heritage feat. Those are fine, too, since they're not undead, I suppose.

There are a lot of gaping morality holes, here.

That is "I am deliberately trying to get the paladin to fall for smiting me!" levels of contortions :smallsmile: I hardly consider such a corner case to be a "gaping hole."

But since you bring up Necropolitans, there is an interesting tidbit in their entry:

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.

Sounds to me that even creating a Necropolitan requires committing an evil act, at least for the guy conducting the ritual.

Rubik

2014-12-24, 12:27 AM

That is "I am deliberately trying to get the paladin to fall for smiting me!" levels of contortions :smallsmile: I hardly consider such a corner case to be a "gaping hole."Those corner cases happen to be those particular characters' lives. But regardless, if even one example can be shown where an absolute is shown to be in error, there need to be exceptions.

But since you bring up Necropolitans, there is an interesting tidbit in their entry:

Sounds to me that even creating a Necropolitan requires committing an evil act, at least for the guy conducting the ritual.Those evil acts are on the conductor's head, not on the resulting necropolitan's.

Plus, what non-newborn creature has never committed even a small evil act? Very few, I'd imagine. Even celestials occasionally commit small ones, and they're literally MADE of Good.

I say that Neutral and Good intelligent undead and constructs should be given the benefit of the doubt, as with anyone else. After all, despite being animated by Evil Neutral energy, they've managed to overcome their Evil Neutral nature and become not-Evil Neutral anymore! Well, except the Neutral ones. But a person should be judged by their actions, not by a frankly racist dogma. Or catma, as the case may be.

It's all too easy to engineer a situation where you can enslave your enemies and commit unspeakable acts against them without committing Evil. Just change their creature type.

Psyren

2014-12-24, 12:49 AM

Those corner cases happen to be those particular characters' lives. But regardless, if even one example can be shown where an absolute is shown to be in error, there need to be exceptions.

Well hold on now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I didn't actually say that the Necropolitans deserve to exist. In a D&D context - and indeed, by LM's own rules specifically, which is the book they come from - regardless of their actual alignment, just by being around they are increasing the NE accumulating on this side of the veil.

At a minimum, good-aligned characters might be well within their rights to approach Nocturnus and say "hey, can you guys stop performing this Ritual of yours? It's making who knows how many Shadows and Wights pop up gods-know-where and we can't find them until after they've slaughtered a whole bunch of innocent people. In fact, if you could all move your city and go live on the Negative Energy Plane, since it clearly won't harm any of you to do it, we'd really appreciate that." And if they don't, well, then the acceptable courses of action crystallize somewhat.

Rubik

2014-12-24, 01:14 AM

Well hold on now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I didn't actually say that the Necropolitans deserve to exist. In a D&D context - and indeed, by LM's own rules specifically, which is the book they come from - regardless of their actual alignment, just by being around they are increasing the NE accumulating on this side of the veil.

At a minimum, good-aligned characters might be well within their rights to approach Nocturnus and say "hey, can you guys stop performing this Ritual of yours? It's making who knows how many Shadows and Wights pop up gods-know-where and we can't find them until after they've slaughtered a whole bunch of innocent people. In fact, if you could all move your city and go live on the Negative Energy Plane, since it clearly won't harm any of you to do it, we'd really appreciate that." And if they don't, well, then the acceptable courses of action crystallize somewhat.You realize that the "weakening of the veil" is one of several suggestions for the possibilities for undead in a campaign, right? Oh, of course you do. I've mentioned this fact several times in previous conversations. The fact that it's the only one you'll accept in any argument leads conversations with you to be rather suspect, at best.

Milo v3

2014-12-24, 01:14 AM

There is no contradiction. The passage you quoted from LM is titled, "Atrocity Calls to Unlife," and refers to spontaneously created undead - those are, as you rightly stated, formed when an intelligent undead spontaneously forms in an area where the "veil" is thin e.g. a ghoul popping up in a graveyard or on a battlefield. The original soul has indeed (generally) long passed on.

The Purposefully Reanimated section also mentioned undead being animated by evil spirits and has no mention of using the persons soul.

CIDE

2014-12-24, 01:49 AM

I do want to mention that ToB in reference to the Shadow Sun Monk also outright states the vampire's soul is no longer in its body after reanimation. While there are some key differences between that specific vampire and a normal one they are specific differences that are noted as such. The above tidbit is not among them.

I guess that technically means that we could theoretically have a resurrected mortal fighting his vampire counterpart, eh...? Even if it doesn't actually work the fact that there's only one soul between them still makes it theoretically possible from a fluff stand point. And it could make a fun plot twist that the BBEG (or a minion or whatever) could actually be a vampiric version of a party member.

Psyren

2014-12-24, 02:02 AM

You realize that the "weakening of the veil" is one of several suggestions for the possibilities for undead in a campaign, right? Oh, of course you do. I've mentioned this fact several times in previous conversations. The fact that it's the only one you'll accept in any argument leads conversations with you to be rather suspect, at best.

I accept it (and indeed, all the other theories on that page, all of which can work concurrently in fact) because they fit the RAW. They neatly explain why, for example, a skeleton might be evil even if commanded to do stand around doing nothing, why creating skeletons that do nothing is also evil, where skeletons on encounter tables come from, and why they are expected to be an obstacle to the PCs without a controller present. As a certain Salarian doctor might say: "theory fits evidence."

Your explanation seems to be "ignore the statblock of the majority of undead creatures, then ignore the descriptors of undead-animating spells, and let's collectively handwave something instead, all for the sake of our special snowflake white mage necromancers."

The Purposefully Reanimated section also mentioned undead being animated by evil spirits and has no mention of using the persons soul.

That section mentions casters turning themselves into liches and creating flesh golems, I don't see anything about evil spirits there.

Milo v3

2014-12-24, 02:09 AM

That section mentions casters turning themselves into liches and creating flesh golems, I don't see anything about evil spirits there.

In the section about how flesh golems aren't undead, it specifies:

Second, constructs are not animated by evil spirits, but rather by elemental spirits.
Implying, undead are animated by evil spirits, not the bodies souls.

Psyren

2014-12-24, 02:11 AM

In the section about how flesh golems aren't undead, it specifies:

Implying, undead are animated by evil spirits, not the bodies souls.

The evil spirit is the animating force/pilot, yes. This matches what is in Complete Divine: "controlled by a malign intelligence." That doesn't mean the body's soul is not trapped inside.

Again, this fits with what we see happening to Durkon - the High Priest of Hel is the pilot, and he an unwilling passenger.

Milo v3

2014-12-24, 02:17 AM

The evil spirit is the animating force/pilot, yes. This matches what is in Complete Divine: "controlled by a malign intelligence." That doesn't mean the body's soul is not trapped inside.

Again, this fits with what we see happening to Durkon - the High Priest of Hel is the pilot, and he an unwilling passenger.

Why do you keep mentioning Durkon.... OOTS has no validity over RAW, and the Giant has even stated that his vampires differ from 3.5e vampire for the sake of telling the story he wants to tell. Though, I appear to have misplaced the quote where he said that....

Psyren

2014-12-24, 02:52 AM

Why do you keep mentioning Durkon.... OOTS has no validity over RAW, and the Giant has even stated that his vampires differ from 3.5e vampire for the sake of telling the story he wants to tell. Though, I appear to have misplaced the quote where he said that....

I'm just using it as a handy illustration/visual aid of the concept being covered by CDiv and LM; evil spirit/animating force in the driver's seat, original soul trapped within.

Milo v3

2014-12-24, 02:55 AM

I'm just using it as a handy illustration/visual aid of the concept being covered by CDiv and LM; evil spirit/animating force in the driver's seat, original soul trapped within.

I'm pretty sure Libris Mortis never states that their is an orignal soul trapped within. The closest their is, is saying that good spirits (in the vein of the malicious spirits) can sometimes animate undead (though other spirits soon corrupt them into evil spirits).

Taveena

2014-12-24, 03:25 AM

Psyren

2014-12-24, 03:27 AM

I'm pretty sure Libris Mortis never states that their is an orignal soul trapped within. The closest their is, is saying that good spirits (in the vein of the malicious spirits) can sometimes animate undead (though other spirits soon corrupt them into evil spirits).

Assuming you mean pg. 7, actually what it says is that the original creature's good spirit ("their bodies") can sometimes be trapped in the corpse before it can move on, and the dark spirits that are drawn to this world by heinous acts/cracks in the veil can pervert them. It is not a good spirit that simply comes over from somewhere else as you seem to be implying; it is the soul of the original being that is being corrupted.

Though again, this is part of the spontaneously generated uncontrolled undead ("Atrocity calls to Unlife"), not to intentional spawn creation.

I always interpreted the LM passage you mentioned as applying ONLY to twisted-soul-undead - y'know, shades, allips, and ghosts, while mindless undead would have the soul doing its own thing.

I believe this too - the mindless undead don't (or shouldn't) contain the soul.

Though unfortunately, the resurrection spells imply that even a skeleton of a commoner can prevent him from being raised if you don't find and smash it.

Plus... a Dry Lich or Baelnorn or Archlich requires no evil in its creation, and the process is undergone willingly. So... why are they pinged as Evil? I mean, okay, yes, they're basically made of radioactive isotopes, but that just makes them deadly, not Evil.

Actually, the train of thought that antithetical to life = evil explains why BoED thinks poison is evil. But... you can use poison to save a life, and you can use negative energy to do the same.

My theory here is much the same as the Necropolitan - no matter how good their intentions or how willingly they underwent the process, even baelnorns are destabilizing this plane by being in it. It's not something those ancient elves would do lightly and this is a good reason why.

But the real reason is that they hadn't invented Deathless yet when baelnorns were a thing, otherwise they'd have used tbat.

Taveena

2014-12-24, 03:35 AM

Psyren

2014-12-24, 03:40 AM

That'd certainly resolve the internal contradiction, but I still feel if it was the intention that negative energy be evil - which is certainly IMPLIED by Deathwatch and the channel negative energy line - they should have made the plane MADE of negative energy evil, too. That's... that's confusing as hell.

I explained that too - it's not negative energy itself that is evil, it is anchoring it to the Material via undead that is. To use your own analogy - radioactive material or poison aren't evil, but chucking them into a lake or into the middle of a forest would be.

Plus the only example given of negative energy causing spontaneous generation given CRUNCH, as far as I know, is Atropus. But he's from the same book where Positive Energy shows up in such amounts people asplode. (Also, gives them cancer! And disease!)

Thing is, if you don't buy that explanation, then where are all these skeletons and zombies on the encounter tables coming from? And why would they attack the PCs if there is no necromancer around to make them do so? Their statblocks don't say anything about them having standing orders, yet they are expected to roll initiative and attack on their own.

Taveena

2014-12-24, 04:19 AM

A necromancer who creates more skeletons than the Animate Dead limit ends up with a bunch of free skeletons.

gooddragon1

2014-12-24, 05:24 AM

Now, I like good roleplaying, and I appreciate that the DM is allowing this to play out, but it's becoming annoying since none of them are Paladins.

Should I just give up, or what would you do?

Ask them to present a viable alternative within a short but reasonable time frame. I like to play exclusively neutral good characters and I find your story compelling. You could also present a compromise of offering to humanely de-animate the undead (probably destroying them) after they finish building the town. Also consider that this might be preferable considering that the undead could potentially be directed against the town with greater ease than living guards if an evil cleric came along or the clergy turned against the people for some reason.

Coidzor

2014-12-24, 05:28 AM

Thing is, if you don't buy that explanation, then where are all these skeletons and zombies on the encounter tables coming from? And why would they attack the PCs if there is no necromancer around to make them do so? Their statblocks don't say anything about them having standing orders, yet they are expected to roll initiative and attack on their own.

Well, that depends upon the DM too much to be answered in all cases, but most of the places where I've run into that in published adventures and the like has those undead stated to have been left there by some necromancer or another with standing orders that they're still operating under despite now being uncontrolled.

Roxxy

2014-12-24, 07:08 AM

I always interpreted the LM passage you mentioned as applying ONLY to twisted-soul-undead - y'know, shades, allips, and ghosts, while mindless undead would have the soul doing its own thing.

Plus... a Dry Lich or Baelnorn or Archlich requires no evil in its creation, and the process is undergone willingly. So... why are they pinged as Evil? I mean, okay, yes, they're basically made of radioactive isotopes, but that just makes them deadly, not Evil.

Actually, the train of thought that antithetical to life = evil explains why BoED thinks poison is evil. But... you can use poison to save a life, and you can use negative energy to do the same.I got around this by forcing would be liches to ritually sacrifice an innocent person full of promise (a child, basically) to a very cruel entity to gain their immortality. That right there makes them bad people. Vampire spawn aren't automatically evil, but also aren't actually vampires. They function kind of like dhampirs. To become a vampire, a spawn must completely drain several people of all their blood and perform the proper dark rituals. So, vampires are also always bad people. I gave vampires more power and less weaknesses, because I treat them kind of like how the base game treats evil dragons: the iconic antagonist of the setting, with power to show it. Vampires are the primal fear of my campaign setting. Like dragons, they are rare, but that is good. They are frightfully powerful, and nobody takes fighting one lightly. Zombies? Animate Dead nets more corpses that RAW, but is hard to control and requires blood unwillingly shed as a spell component. Granted, most zombies in my world spontaneously reanimated (happens all the time), rather than got raised by a necromancer. Souls aren't involved, because they haven't even been proven to exist (don't know what happens when people die, raise dead/reincarnate/resurrection bring back shattered wrecks on the rare occasions they work at all, talking to the dead is really weird).

Basically, undead are my absolute favorite monster type, and I like them evil. Don't use alignment at all anymore, though, so I had to think of logical reasons why these creatures are always bad.

Necroticplague

2014-12-24, 07:36 AM

I explained that too - it's not negative energy itself that is evil, it is anchoring it to the Material via undead that is.
What's so special about undead that make anchoring the negative energy in them evil? After all, bringing it into the world in the form of calling an xeg-yi is a neutral act, and that thing is 100% negative energy, undiluted by any flesh.

Taveena

2014-12-24, 09:44 AM

I got around this by forcing would be liches to ritually sacrifice an innocent person full of promise (a child, basically) to a very cruel entity to gain their immortality.

That's pretty much already a thing. Baelnorns, Archliches, and Dry Liches are explicitly different from the Standard lich, which requires a super evil act - the former two can NOT be evil, and the latter is Any Nongood, and in fact, the ritual for becoming a dry lich is described and it's really just mummifying yourself. IIRC the Dry Lich is Nongood because their abilities rather preclude helping people, but it might be Dread Necromancer style Good Actions balance [Evil] Means. (That is, being a radioactive zombie, not sacrificing innocents. You're harmful but you're not ACTIVELY harmful, like a normal ich.)

Komatik

2014-12-24, 06:01 PM

First of all, the energy you're talking about is needed by the cycle of life to keep going. If the Material Plane didn't have entropy (negative energy), nothing would die. Nothing would decay.

...

Negative energy is a tool to use like any other. It has its uses, which are necessary for the good of everything.

This whole post is beautiful. Makes me want a Golgari Shaman druid variant all the more.

Official, yes, animating dead is an 'evil act'.

...

That said... it does, imo, steal a lot of the fun and flavor out of necromancy if you do that. Part of the fun of playing a necromancer is delving into forbidden lore no mortal was meant to pursue. Flirting with neutrality just doesn't have the same thrill as flirting with evil, you know? And it's not even necessary to allow for neutrally aligned necromancer characters, as using evil means to achieve good ends already clearly falls within the bounds of a 'neutral' character alignment.

So rather than just house ruling away necromancy's evil edge due to a lack of apparent fluff justification for it, as both a DM who loves necromancy and a Player who loves necromancers I would rather add in the fluff to support the evil designation that's already there, and if anyone is looking to do that, then one of the best places to go in 3.5 is Magic of Incarnum, specifically the idea of Necrocarnum.

I really really love how Warhammer does it.

Almost all magic in the Warhammer World comes from giant planar rifts called the Chaos Gates that are located at the the North and South Poles. Magic emerges from the gates as a swirling, invisible wind of change that blows in a mix of eight different strands or colors, each drawn to different things, places and events. Using that wind of chaos as it is, as a random mess is called Dark Magic. That mixture can also condense and be crushed to become a single thing - this thing is Black Magic, or Dhar, and is drawn to places of death. Dhar is the thing that animates the undead, and can be condensed further into a highly mutating and corrupting solid substance known as Warpstone.

Using Dark Magic or Dhar will inevitably and without fail drive a living creature insane. For naturally magical Elves, this process is slow but still inescapable. Humans who are not made for magic, especially not for handling more than one Wind at a time, dark magic takes fast, especially if the mage is untrained. A demon-possessed sorcerer is probably reason enough for witch hunts.

The High Elves of AtlUlthuan (and the Slann who served the Old Ones in ages far past) have a method for separating the eight Winds, purifying them and then wielding them with strict concentration and structure. These strands can then be weaved together into the High Elves' signature High Magic, one of the, if not the greatest of magical arts in the world. The High Elven method is more or less safe for living beings - even mortal men can use the methods to purify, wield and master a single Wind, though even that tends to leave the human magister somewhat eccentric over time. But not bat**** insane and daemon-possessed, and that's all that matters. The Elves to my knowledge don't exhibit strange behaviors due to use of the Elven method.

So, it's not so much that necromancy is evil-just-because in the Warhammer World, per se, but a mortal man afraid to die risks his own sanity on the quest for immortality because he's toying with things his mind simply isn't built to take. Spreading Dhar around doesn't make the world a more sunny place in the short and sometimes long term, though, and you most certainly can drag tortured souls from the beyond or at least deny them their passage there to get all manner of horrible monsters.

Gives people a nice incentive to pursue vampirism, too, because vampires are pretty much the only creatures apart from Daemons that Dhar and Dark Magic do not inevitably drive insane because they're made of the stuff (which is not to imply that magic is ever completely safe in Warhammer, just that there's no extra risk). And that's just the tip of the iceberg of all the wonderful things they've done with Warhammer Vampires.

SiuiS

2014-12-24, 07:20 PM

You may need to look up the definition of "universally harmful." It tends to preclude things like cooking and warming.

Fire is more universally harmful. Fire causes chemical change that degrades all things in time. Negative energy does not. Fire damages inanimate things. Negative energy does not. Fire will utterly destroy your food. Negative energy will not. Fire will make your food carcinogenic. NE does not.

That warmth? That's the chemical death of billions of air molecules you're benefitting from. :P

The OP cleary uses necromancy in the "Raise an army of undead way" that is a lot more fun than negative and life energy spells way IMO.

They are not separate ways. One is a subset of the other. A narrow focus.

They moan in my games! And in Skyrim! And in a ton of other medias. But I guess you're right. I don't think they moan in D&D.

They also don't in plenty of media. Skeletons never do.

I don't get how all that respectful rituals and spirits of protection talk has to do with creating a bunch of mindless labor works from the flesh and bones of a pile of corpses.

If you don't get how a divinely sanctioned sacrifice that exalts the spirits of the fallen is a good thing, then I can't help you. Ican only point out that it means everything you said – it's traumatic for the family, it's bad for the soul, it's an abomination, it's wicked – are wrong.

The examples by the way are real world examples of how cultures which find undeath morally repugnant and evil still understand that it is in some cases both allowable and even holy.

I think it is more like Antimatter actually.

Harnessable in small amounts for the good of all the world? Yeah.

But they're not alive, and that makes a great deal of difference. Even BoED is fine with destroying undead; they don't belong here.

Again, this is how it was consciously chosen to be in the D&D game.

First paragraph is not important, you said universally harmful. It's not.

Second paragraph is good and probably more important. Should have been your default answer. :)

Basically, Baelnorns, Archliches, and neutral Dry Liches get absolutely screwed over.

Yes. Welcome to 3e!

In fact, in order to be good you would have to respect the vampire's life unless it is doing evil. Otherwise you are not good yourself.

No. The vampire has no life to respect.

Okay, after reading Libris Mortis again it appears undead do not have their previous souls at all, and that their souls are specifically still in the afterlife:

and that undead animated through magic and atrocities are instead animated by malicious spirits that are hungry (though... being eternally hungry probably shouldn't be classed as malicious IMO). So.... where does this tortured soul come into it that people keep claiming?

That's bollocks. I'm going to nix that bit, it's so unfun. Luckily, the game conflicts itself so I don't have to feel bad.

Oh. Would you look at that.

I guess that makes Strahd a lot less interesting since it's not even actually Strahd that's all pining after his lost love and tragic comeuppance. :smallconfused:

Yup! Welcome to having someone else's masterpiece kludged into another person's square-peg understanding of the games base issues.

Strahd was a product of an entirely different system with entirely different assumptions and conceits. Strahd is no more relevant to basic D&D than Thrawn or Martin the paranoid android.

Komatik

2014-12-24, 07:36 PM

That's bollocks. I'm going to nix that bit, it's so unfun. Luckily, the game conflicts itself so I don't have to feel bad.

The whole original soul not in control thing is just to make it really convenient to crush their skulls without a care. Compare friend imprisoned in his body controlled by a demon vs. actual friend that's... holy **** does he actually think that? But he's a...

Rubik

2014-12-24, 08:16 PM

SiuiS

2014-12-24, 08:58 PM

The whole original soul not in control thing is just to make it really convenient to crush their skulls without a care. Compare friend imprisoned in his body controlled by a demon vs. actual friend that's... holy **** does he actually think that? But he's a...

I don't think so, both because that doesn't fit the moral framework wherein they actively tried to make the game have morality over alignment by then, and because the prior same person warped by wicked energies was just as easy to bash in the skull of.

kellbyb

2014-12-24, 10:09 PM

Note that this explicitly contradicts Core and numerous monster writeups, which say intelligent undead can have (or be) souls. Ghosts are souls. Liches have souls (albeit in a separate container). Any non-mindless incorporeal undead that isn't basically a negative energy elemental is a soul.

IE, Libris Mortis is flat-out wrong on this point.

Another point that contradicts Libris Mortis is the fact that an undead spawned from a living creature can completely regain the abilities it had in life via the emancipated spawn PrC.

P.F.

2014-12-25, 02:26 PM

The books are pretty clear on how it works, and they all fit with one another. I don't see how it can be so confusing to some people, save perhaps out of some wish for "white magic necromancy" that I can't fathom.

We live in a culture of moral relativism, and this is a perennial debate in my gaming group. There is a latent desire, I think, to do something forbidden and have it be "for good." As undead need not do anything evil per se, they make an attractive object for this desire.

Nevertheless, animating corpses, in D&D, is explicitly evil, in and of itself. Evil in D&D isn't an abstract concept, it isn't a philosophical subject, it's a real thing that you can detect and undead are/have that thing; therefore, undead are evil. There's even an entry for it in the stat block: Always evil.

For me it is a matter of game balance. Necromancy, and especially animating the dead, is the quick-and-dirty path to power. It's the dark side. How much more expensive and time consuming would it be to create non-evil golems to serve you instead? How much more of a hassle would it be to hire and supervise workmen and mercenaries instead of animating them? How much more resource-intensive would it be to bring in a bunch of non-evil extra-planars to accomplish your goals?

The necromancer chooses the easier, cheaper, evil way to solve that problem. Obviously your DM is free to rule it however he or she sees fit. In this case, the amateur theatrics of speaking to the departed, divine dispensation, and so on may not even be necessary, if animating them for a good reason is enough. Maybe it's required for your DM to consider animating the dead a non-evil act. That's all houserules.

My online DM says yes, the group says No, as necromancy is ALWAYS evil...

Your group is a bunch of superstitious peasants who have their own backwards beliefs based on a literal reading of a book which they believe tells them right from wrong, and the book says what you're doing is evil. As in real life, your character is unlikely to talk someone into changing their deeply held beliefs about the nature of right and wrong.

Rubik

2014-12-25, 02:34 PM

If undead are innately Evil, despite not having the subtype or, in some cases, being Neutral or even Good (despite that making no sense whatsoever), I guess that's a good way to screw over a character required to be non-Evil, such as a paladin or an exalted character. Change their type to undead, even temporarily, and they permanently lose all of the benefits being not-Evil.

Again, despite the fact that undead have neither the Evil subtype nor actually being Evil in any tangible way.

...How much sense does that make, exactly?

Psyren

2014-12-25, 02:43 PM

Happy Holidays everyone! Lots of driving behind me and now I can respond to some points.

This whole post is beautiful. Makes me want a Golgari Shaman druid variant all the more.

Please keep in mind that I never said there should be no entropy in the material plane. I said that in D&D, necromancers who animate undead creatures are adding to what is already here and making it worse.

That warmth? That's the chemical death of billions of air molecules you're benefitting from. :P

"Chemical death?" Please tell me you're joking :smalltongue:

Second paragraph is good and probably more important. Should have been your default answer. :)

Fine, whatever stops the hair-splitting. *shrug*

Note that this explicitly contradicts Core and numerous monster writeups, which say intelligent undead can have (or be) souls. Ghosts are souls. Liches have souls (albeit in a separate container). Any non-mindless incorporeal undead that isn't basically a negative energy elemental is a soul.

IE, Libris Mortis is flat-out wrong on this point.

As I said before, it doesn't contradict anything. His passage, in addition to not referring to ghosts at all, is about one very specific way of creating undead (i.e. spontaneously due to atrocity.) It does not cover all cases.

Sith_Happens

2014-12-25, 02:57 PM

Yee-Ha! Everything that isn't a living critter is completely off the moral radar! At a start elementals, oozes, constructs, undead, and possibly some or many outsiders can be used and abused in any way possible and it doesn't matter because it doesn't have moral implications.

Um, living vs. non-living is defined solely by presence of absence of a Constitution score. Which makes for amusing corner cases when a Necropolitan reaches a type-change capstone (e.g.- Dragon Disciple).

I guess that makes Strahd a lot less interesting since it's not even actually Strahd that's all pining after his lost love and tragic comeuppance. :smallconfused:

I'm sure it's safe to say that Strahd specifically is still actually Strahd; the Dark Powers did it.:smallwink:

JusticeZero

2014-12-25, 03:13 PM

What's so special about undead that make anchoring the negative energy in them evil? After all, bringing it into the world in the form of calling an xeg-yi is a neutral act, and that thing is 100% negative energy, undiluted by any flesh.
All that really matters is whether the laws of Physics think that act is evil. What the peasants, church, et cetera think is evil is actually completely irrelevant in the face of that.

atemu1234

2014-12-25, 03:25 PM

I'm checking in after a couple days. Has this thread devolved into people shouting their views ad nauseam yet?

Komatik

2014-12-25, 04:20 PM

For me it is a matter of game balance. Necromancy, and especially animating the dead, is the quick-and-dirty path to power. It's the dark side. How much more expensive and time consuming would it be to create non-evil golems to serve you instead?

The necromancer chooses the easier, cheaper, evil way to solve that problem. Obviously your DM is free to rule it however he or she sees fit. In this case, the amateur theatrics of speaking to the departed, divine dispensation, and so on may not even be necessary, if animating them for a good reason is enough. Maybe it's required for your DM to consider animating the dead a non-evil act. That's all houserules.

Given that the standard golem manufacturing process involves enslavement and imprisonment of living sentient creatures inside thoughtless automata so you'd have to invent a whole new process for making golems? Very.

EDIT: Damn, misread the question, the resultant golem is still Neutral-aligned because yay enslavement chambers. So yes, might not be terribly more expensive after all if you don't care about being a complete monster.

Coidzor

2014-12-25, 04:31 PM

I'm checking in after a couple days. Has this thread devolved into people shouting their views ad nauseam yet?

I think so far I've managed to have been convinced that rather than just being bad writing, the designers deliberately made a convoluted mess so that DMs could pick and choose whatever they want and seem supported by RAW.

So that's a change from when I entered the thread. I still think DMs should pick one of the two interpretations of Negative Energy to go with on the whole, though, and have hiccups that go against it be deliberate hiccups in the nature of the universe going kerplotz.

I'm sure it's safe to say that Strahd specifically is still actually Strahd; the Dark Powers did it.:smallwink:

I'm not sure anyone else has ever said this before, but... HOORAY FOR THE DARK POWERS! :smallbiggrin:

Forrestfire

2014-12-25, 05:42 PM

I got around this by forcing would be liches to ritually sacrifice an innocent person full of promise (a child, basically) to a very cruel entity to gain their immortality. That right there makes them bad people.

Amusingly, that's actually pretty close to what the original 1e Lich ritual was like. One of the steps to becoming a lich is to kill a humanoid infant with wyvern venom, then puree it or something and put it into your evil potion. I like to think that that Baelnorns and Archliches use veal or something.

Divayth Fyr

2014-12-25, 05:56 PM

Amusingly, that's actually pretty close to what the original 1e Lich ritual was like. One of the steps to becoming a lich is to kill a humanoid infant with wyvern venom, then puree it or something and put it into your evil potion. I like to think that that Baelnorns and Archliches use veal or something.
I guess in 3E they could use an evil baby and some Ravages. Drow baby paste sounds delicious :smalltongue:

Taveena

2014-12-25, 06:08 PM

Nah, Drow babies are neutral. You'd need a baby Beholder or somethin' else with the racial memory schtick.

Sith_Happens

2014-12-25, 06:11 PM

I'm checking in after a couple days. Has this thread devolved into people shouting their views ad nauseam yet?

Many pages ago.

Vhaidara

2014-12-25, 06:28 PM

I'm checking in after a couple days. Has this thread devolved into people shouting their views ad nauseam yet?

Not really. Devolution implies starting somewhere else.

I for one generally call BS on most alignment tags. Good fighting evil with their own weapons is a classic trope, and one that I love emulating (Warlock is one of the best). I think the only ones I keep are on things like Holy Word. Even the Protection from Alignment spells lose them. What is more useful to be able to cast in the Blood War, Prot Good or Prot Evil?

As far as undead specific, Neutral but squick is my version (most negative stereotypes remain in place). I would actually be far more inclined to put making golems as an Evil act over making undead, since golems 100% are enslaving an intelligent, living, generally neutral being.

the_david

2014-12-25, 06:48 PM

I'm sure someone from the Paizo staff mentioned that undead are created by taking the soul of the deceased, torturing and mangling it for a bit and then trapping it in a state of unliving. So creating undead in Pathfinder is evil because you trap the souls of people who should move on to the afterlife.

In 4th edition D&D you'd use the animus of a person, but not the soul. (At least for mindless undead.)

I'm not sure how locking up your own soul in a phylactery is evil, though.

Coidzor

2014-12-25, 07:04 PM

I guess in 3E they could use an evil baby and some Ravages. Drow baby paste sounds delicious :smalltongue:

Unholy Scions, where knocking a woman unconscious and killing and eating her baby is doing her a favor.

Forrestfire

2014-12-25, 08:08 PM

If you use the Savage Species ritual to grant the [evil] subtype to them, you're in the clear! :smalltongue:

SiuiS

2014-12-25, 08:23 PM

"Chemical death?" Please tell me you're joking :smalltongue:

I couldn't be arsed to go get the right words for it~

Fine, whatever stops the hair-splitting. *shrug*

Stop splitting hares? Not a chance! This is a necromancy thread. RHETORICAL CONCEPT, RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!

More specifically, does pathfinder handle undeath identically to 3e? Keeping in mind 3e doesn't handle undeath identically to 3e...

I'm sure someone from the Paizo staff mentioned that undead are created by taking the soul of the deceased, torturing and mangling it for a bit and then trapping it in a state of unliving. So creating undead in Pathfinder is evil because you trap the souls of people who should move on to the afterlife.

Because this seems like it's a pathfinder specific bit that contradicts 3e bits.

Vhaidara

2014-12-25, 08:28 PM

Because this seems like it's a pathfinder specific bit that contradicts 3e bits.

Small nitpick: that isn't about PF. That is about Golarion, the default PF setting. Kind of like how the Player's Handbook presents the gods from Greyhawk without mentioning that they are the Greyhawk gods

Werephilosopher

2014-12-25, 09:48 PM

In short, negative energy is fine over there, on the NEP, where it belongs. Bringing it here, where it can start devouring life left and right - that's the evil part.

In the same vein, positive energy is fine over there, on the PEP, where it belongs. Bringing it here, where it can start devouring undeath left and right - that's the evil part.

Life and death are physical properties of the material world. There's nothing inherently good about life; goodness derives from the Outer Planes, not the Inner Planes. If it is good to honor and respect life, it only makes sense that it is good to honor and respect undeath in the same way. It's not evil to destroy a ghost that tries to kill you, any more than it's evil to kill a living person trying to kill you; but if it's evil to kill a living person who isn't doing anything wrong, it should be just as evil to destroy a vampire who isn't doing anything wrong.

JusticeZero

2014-12-25, 10:06 PM

Coidzor

2014-12-25, 10:52 PM

Whatever the gods that judge where to send souls think is what matters. If they think vampires deserve respect, they'll send the vampire respecters off to the Celestial realms. If they don't, they'll send them downstairs.

I guess it's a good thing Euthyphro is my favorite Socratic Dialogue if you want to start up a Euthyphro dilemma in here on top of everything else. :smallamused:

That said, having a specific god or gods whose job it is to define alignment isn't a given across all settings and it isn't even necessarily the case in Golarion, though it is a position that can be argued that Pharasma determines alignment, I suppose.

SiuiS

2014-12-25, 11:19 PM

Small nitpick: that isn't about PF. That is about Golarion, the default PF setting. Kind of like how the Player's Handbook presents the gods from Greyhawk without mentioning that they are the Greyhawk gods

The [PATHFINDER] tag says otherwise. If you can present why the nitpick is relevant I'll concede, the only actual caveat of this thread at all, as a given, is "not 3e D&D, use pathfinder stuff".

Psyren

2014-12-25, 11:58 PM

More specifically, does pathfinder handle undeath identically to 3e? Keeping in mind 3e doesn't handle undeath identically to 3e...

Because this seems like it's a pathfinder specific bit that contradicts 3e bits.

Pathfinder didn't really attempt to justify reanimation as evil beyond "because we say so." Simpler perhaps, but not as much fodder for discussion.

If they were to come up with something deeper though, it's most probable by my estimation they'd go for the "thinning the veil" rationale.

If it is good to honor and respect life, it only makes sense that it is good to honor and respect undeath in the same way.

On the contrary - it does not make sense at all, and in fact this is a pretty clear example of Moral Equivalence Fallacy. In the D&D game , even the benign undead are making the world "a darker and more evil place" (BoVD 8) just by existing in it, never mind the large proportion of who are or become uncontrolled and actively prey on the living.

In the same vein, positive energy is fine over there, on the PEP, where it belongs. Bringing it here, where it can start devouring undeath left and right - that's the evil part.

This presumes removing undeath is evil, which D&D disagrees with. In addition, bringing positive energy into the Material is fine because entropy is already winning. Call it the undead that are already here, call it plague and war, call it the Heat Death of the Universe if you like; however you choose to describe it, death is the dominant force, and thus bringing more positive energy in to combat it is not the evil.

Vhaidara

2014-12-26, 12:35 AM

The [PATHFINDER] tag says otherwise. If you can present why the nitpick is relevant I'll concede, the only actual caveat of this thread at all, as a given, is "not 3e D&D, use pathfinder stuff".

You misunderstand my nitpick. My nitpick wasn't about the thread, it was about the statement from Paizo. What Paizo rules is true for Golarion has no impact on any custom world the GM makes

Barbarian Horde

2014-12-26, 01:17 AM

Vhaidara

2014-12-26, 01:53 AM

reasons I allow all alignments as long as a player plans to roleplay it. I assign penalties when they break character super hard. I personally wouldn't have an issue with a Chaotic Neutral or even a chaotic good Necromancer. What about someone who actually seeks the consent of those bodies? Dwarfs that were betrayed and on the verge of death offer their bodies up to gain revenge against an evil Tyrant. I wouldn't think that necromancy was necessarily evil, but WOTC editors would have you believe otherwise.

Actually, one of my favorite necromancers is one who wants to make it a government institution. People basically sell their bodies before their deaths, and the terms of the contract determine what kind of undead they can be brought back as and what kind of work they will be made to do. Very much a LN, bureaucratic kind of character.

SiuiS

2014-12-26, 03:16 AM

You misunderstand my nitpick. My nitpick wasn't about the thread, it was about the statement from Paizo. What Paizo rules is true for Golarion has no impact on any custom world the GM makes

That's still not a valid nitpick. That's basically the oberoni fallacy: a DM can rule zero his own stuff in. We are talking about the default, like all RAW discussions. Pathfinder is Golarion and vice versa as far as this discussion is concerned and the ability of any GM to change that is an exception that proves the rule. It is the default they must change it from.

Pathfinder didn't really attempt to justify reanimation as evil beyond "because we say so." Simpler perhaps, but not as much fodder for discussion.

If they were to come up with something deeper though, it's most probable by my estimation they'd go for the "thinning the veil" rationale.

Huh. I thought they did more conprehensive world building than that.

On the contrary - it does not make sense at all, and in fact this is a pretty clear example of Moral Equivalence Fallacy.

Aye. Undeath is not just an alternate and equally acceptible path. It is specifically and canonically badwrongfun. There is no good in undeath as written. There is just human foibles and justification and hubris.

JusticeZero

2014-12-26, 03:41 AM

..having a specific god or gods whose job it is to define alignment isn't a given across all setting..
Well, the core issue is that we can MEASURE Good, Evil, Order, and Chaos OBJECTIVELY. There are physics constructs and considerations tied to them. The universe itself has some criteria for deciding which is which.

It absolutely does not matter what Bob Farmer, Sarah The Wizard, or Priest Larry think is good or evil. There is no possible argument on morality.

There is exactly one entity whose opinion matters - whichever entity created the sorting algorithm or criteria by which souls and actions are judged and distributed. If the Creator Of The Multiverse thought that roses are disgusting, then regardless how silly any other person in the universe might think that ruling is, that rose gardener is going to ping Evil, and Paladins will Fall for growing or wearing roses. The priests who cast the Atone spells for the Paladins for wearing the roses can roll their eyes all they want and EVERYONE in the order can agree that that restriction is moronic, but it does not matter. That stupid and inoffensive act was defined as Evil in the physics of the universe.

If they were objective and situational and variable, the actual laws of physics would break down. So yeah, you're going to have some headscratcher cases. They are literally the physics equivalent of the demo of dropping a bowling ball and a feather in a vacuum and watching them both fall at the same speed.

Milo v3

2014-12-26, 03:56 AM

That's still not a valid nitpick. That's basically the oberoni fallacy: a DM can rule zero his own stuff in. We are talking about the default, like all RAW discussions. Pathfinder is Golarion and vice versa as far as this discussion is concerned and the ability of any GM to change that is an exception that proves the rule. It is the default they must change it from.

That's not really correct, there is a reason why Paizo goes out of it's way to make sure the big rule books are setting neutral, and that the Golarion books are Golarion books.

Coidzor

2014-12-26, 04:16 AM

There is exactly one entity whose opinion matters - whichever entity created the sorting algorithm or criteria by which souls and actions are judged and distributed.

:smallconfused: Do you have any text to back up this statement that there is a guaranteed entity like that in-setting or do you just want to start deconstructing Jason Bulmahn? :smallamused:

Marigu.goke00

2014-12-26, 06:29 AM

This seems like a beaten horse, but I will add my two cents.

Perhaps your DM could work with the Necromancer, and instead have him raise Deathless. I realise this is Pathfinder, and Deathless are 3.5 (BoED), but from what I can tell, the two are backward compatible. Refluff it such that the dead are invited to inhabit their bodies temporarily in order to atone for their sins. This works especially well for a good necromancer.

I actually refluffed the Dread Necromancer from 3.5 with this in mind.

Annnnnywaaaaay. That is my two cents.

Rubik

2014-12-26, 06:39 AM

Marigu.goke00

2014-12-26, 06:42 AM

I actually don't think you could've beaten the horse any harder. That's exactly what happened. :smallwink:

Ah. Was that in the thread? I skipped everything after the first page. Or else I am a wizard with some serious divination.

Psyren

2014-12-26, 10:31 AM

Huh. I thought they did more conprehensive world building than that.

They don't have any books like Libris Mortis or Manual of the Planes that really dive into the metaphysics of the game/setting - not yet, anyway. Of course, the upside to that is that they don't have mixed-reception forays into absolute morality like BoED and BoVD yet either, if they ever do anything like that.

That's not really correct, there is a reason why Paizo goes out of it's way to make sure the big rule books are setting neutral, and that the Golarion books are Golarion books.

The separation is not as stark as you think - some Golarion fluff gets into the neutral books despite everything. For example, the ARG is setting-neutral, but it still describes conventions like Drow society being matriarchal and Hobgoblins being militaristic. And of course, the vast majority of undead in the Bestiaries are some flavor of evil.

killem2

2014-12-26, 04:55 PM

I'm going to assume you just skipped over the rest of the posts below that one in your rush to hit the quote button.

If we are talking about straight divine classes then yes, he's wrong. There are no ifs ands or buts about it.

If we're talking Arcane, then it doesn't matter, Lawful Good Necromancers can run around all day long.

This of course means not much at all if dealing with society because if they think you are evil, then you are evil. Even if the game mechanics have no bearing on a wizard being a necromancer and good.

JusticeZero

2014-12-26, 06:02 PM

:smallconfused: Do you have any text to back up this statement that there is a guaranteed entity like that in-setting or do you just want to start deconstructing Jason Bulmahn? :smallamused:
The existence of the Outer Planes period, the fact that souls are drawn to one or the other in whatever fashion, and the fact that spells interact with alignment. Why have the hells at all if people can always justify themselves?

Taveena

2014-12-26, 06:22 PM

In the same vein, positive energy is fine over there, on the PEP, where it belongs. Bringing it here, where it can start devouring undeath left and right - that's the evil part.

Life and death are physical properties of the material world. There's nothing inherently good about life; goodness derives from the Outer Planes, not the Inner Planes. If it is good to honor and respect life, it only makes sense that it is good to honor and respect undeath in the same way. It's not evil to destroy a ghost that tries to kill you, any more than it's evil to kill a living person trying to kill you; but if it's evil to kill a living person who isn't doing anything wrong, it should be just as evil to destroy a vampire who isn't doing anything wrong.

This also works with the idea of PEP being the origin of Souls (and by extension Incarnum).

Actually, here's something fun. The PEP actually penalizes you if you're Good aligned. Now, sure, NEP penalizing Evil characters doesn't necessarily say anything, evil can dislike evil, but why would an apparently benevolent, totally harmless force be ****ing people over?

Milo v3

2014-12-26, 06:23 PM

They don't have any books like Libris Mortis or Manual of the Planes that really dive into the metaphysics of the game/setting - not yet, anyway. Of course, the upside to that is that they don't have mixed-reception forays into absolute morality like BoED and BoVD yet either, if they ever do anything like that.
Closest they have for libris mortis is Revisted Undead (which is golarion specific, and iirc just as confused about whether undead are always evil as 3.5e despite giving less reason for it than 3.5e). But, they do have a manual of planes, The Great Beyond though it is rather basic.

The separation is not as stark as you think - some Golarion fluff gets into the neutral books despite everything. For example, the ARG is setting-neutral, but it still describes conventions like Drow society being matriarchal and Hobgoblins being militaristic. And of course, the vast majority of undead in the Bestiaries are some flavor of evil.
I don't consider that Golarion fluff since it doesn't have anything golarion specific like mentioning Sandpoint (also why some Adventure Path monsters such as the Sandpoint devil will never be in the bestiaries) or how some half-elves had the ability to change the colour of crystals. Though, despite that, they seem to have gotten much more blurry with the addition of things like stats for unique Empyreal Lords and Demon Lords and such, so I admit their is some blur.

Psyren

2014-12-26, 07:53 PM

If we're talking Arcane, then it doesn't matter, Lawful Good Necromancers can run around all day long.

As I said on the same post you also seem to have skipped, I was using the OP's definition of "necromancy" - i.e. reanimating undead. And Arcane casters alignment will shift for habitually committing evil acts just like anyone else in the game.

This also works with the idea of PEP being the origin of Souls (and by extension Incarnum).

Actually, here's something fun. The PEP actually penalizes you if you're Good aligned. Now, sure, NEP penalizing Evil characters doesn't necessarily say anything, evil can dislike evil, but why would an apparently benevolent, totally harmless force be ****ing people over?

Simple, because you're somewhere that humans aren't supposed to be. Humans need water to live too, that doesn't mean they can up and go live on the Plane of Water. (Not without insulating magic anyway.)

Closest they have for libris mortis is Revisted Undead (which is golarion specific, and iirc just as confused about whether undead are always evil as 3.5e despite giving less reason for it than 3.5e). But, they do have a manual of planes, The Great Beyond though it is rather basic.

Great Beyond is pre-Pathfinder (the game that is); i.e. it's a 3.5 book. So I don't really expect it to be really fleshed-out since back then, Golarion was just a third-party setting they were working on between their Dragon articles and other releases for WotC. Now that PF is a big deal in its own right, I expect they'll make a more current version one day, like they did with PCS -> ISWG.

Werephilosopher

2014-12-27, 02:00 AM

On the contrary - it does not make sense at all, and in fact this is a pretty clear example of Moral Equivalence Fallacy. In the D&D game , even the benign undead are making the world "a darker and more evil place" (BoVD 8) just by existing in it, never mind the large proportion of who are or become uncontrolled and actively prey on the living.

This presumes removing undeath is evil, which D&D disagrees with. In addition, bringing positive energy into the Material is fine because entropy is already winning. Call it the undead that are already here, call it plague and war, call it the Heat Death of the Universe if you like; however you choose to describe it, death is the dominant force, and thus bringing more positive energy in to combat it is not the evil.

...and this is why Were must read threads more carefully before responding to them. These are my own opinions; I did not mean to put them forth as canon. The canon about necromancy is something I dislike, obviously - I think it clashes with the cosmology - but that's been done to death on other threads.

Coidzor

2014-12-27, 02:09 AM

The existence of the Outer Planes period, the fact that souls are drawn to one or the other in whatever fashion, and the fact that spells interact with alignment. Why have the hells at all if people can always justify themselves?

:smallconfused: That does not follow.

Not having alignment determined by an entity in-setting would not in and of itself allow for people to always justify themselves, nor would it prevent spells from interacting with alignment or preclude the existence of the outer planes or have anything to do with the existence of souls and afterlives and how souls end up in afterlives.

It'd be like saying that gravity only exists because of Isaac Newton instead of what's actually the case here in our existence.

JusticeZero

2014-12-27, 02:46 AM

It need not be an active entity - that actually makes my point more stark. The point is that something does or did judge what constitutes a "good" act and an "evil" act when the universe was made, because good and evil are just as concrete as atomic weight, mass, velocity in a universe where there are planes linked to them which are real.

Necroticplague

2014-12-27, 08:50 AM

of course, if good and evil are just physical properties of the world, then it raises another question: who cares whats good or evil? Over the long run, you'll probably end up drifting towards your natural alignment anyway, so the little bumps of marginally evil acts isn't horrifically relevant to your life.

Loxagn

2014-12-27, 11:49 AM

In the end, it all comes down to worldbuilding. How does your DM want his world to be?

If the DM says that Negative Energy is capital 'E' Evil, then it doesn't matter what your character thinks is right. Undead are powered by Negative Energy, and thus every time you create an undead, you are inviting something foul and vile into the world. In this model, undead are anathema to the living. Left to their own devices, mindless undead such as zombies and skeletons will hunt down with extreme prejudice anything that lives and destroy it. Necromancy in this case is an abomination that tortures the souls of the departed with what their bodies are forced to do, and the undead if left unchecked will cover the Prime Material and kill it. By this same token, this means that Positive Energy is capital 'G' Good, the essence of life itself.

Alternately, if the DM says that it's not evil, then neither is positive energy good. They are, like fire and cold, forces in the universe. A mindless undead, without instructions, will stand there doing nothing until it rots into dust. In this model, creating an undead is no more evil than creating a golem*. Much less so, it could be argued, as creating such constructs requires binding and enslaving elementals. Personally, I'm more a fan of this world model, as it doesn't automatically paint everything in black and white. Casting Fireball can burn a village to the ground or it can torch the cultists summoning a Balor. Heal doesn't care whether it's being cast on a paladin or a pit fiend, so why should it matter if you animate a few corpses? Now ethically, some cities may have laws against disturbing the dead, and most people are unnerved by the undead, so you likely won't be winning any popularity contests. But it's not Evil.

*There are, of course, exceptions. Creating a Lich is explicitly an 'act of unspeakable evil', and there are many intelligent undead which do fit the 'anathema to life' description, such as wights.

Coidzor

2014-12-27, 12:36 PM

of course, if good and evil are just physical properties of the world, then it raises another question: who cares whats good or evil?

You don't need some entity proclaiming that sacrificing babies for power is bad and someone *coughYou,JoeThePaladincough* ought to go smite Terry the Cultist for sacrificing babies for power to be bad and making it OK for Joe the Paladin to smite Terry the Cultist for doing so.

Over the long run, you'll probably end up drifting towards your natural alignment anyway, so the little bumps of marginally evil acts isn't horrifically relevant to your life.

:smallconfused: Little bumps of marginally evil acts aren't horrifically relevant anyway unless you're playing with something like Fiendish Codex where a group of people did, in fact, come together to alter the nature of the universe with the Pact Primeval so that if you score enough points with the legalistic little imps, you end up going to Hell unless you're squirrely or sufficiently powerful.

Necroticplague

2014-12-27, 01:06 PM

P.F.

2014-12-28, 12:09 PM

You don't need some entity proclaiming that sacrificing babies for power is bad and someone *coughYou,JoeThePaladincough* ought to go smite Terry the Cultist for sacrificing babies for power to be bad and making it OK for Joe the Paladin to smite Terry the Cultist for doing so.

:smallconfused: Little bumps of marginally evil acts aren't horrifically relevant anyway unless you're playing with something like Fiendish Codex where a group of people did, in fact, come together to alter the nature of the universe with the Pact Primeval so that if you score enough points with the legalistic little imps, you end up going to Hell unless you're squirrely or sufficiently powerful.

My favourite part of this book was not the good vs evil, but corrupting borderline or already-evil party members to become lawful. That, and the absurdly long disclaimers, scribed in densely packed, bold Gothic miniscule, illuminated with delightful little diagrams reminiscent of the warning stickers on heavy equipment.

http://www.safetysign.com/images/catlog/product/medium/J5908.png

But in the end, most DM's probably won't turn your character evil just for raising one batch of skeletons or summoning a demon to interrogate. Only paladins have a prohibition against isolated acts of evil, the rest of us don't actually become evil until we convince ourselves that creating undead is okay, or decide that we don't care if it is evil.

Vhaidara

2014-12-28, 12:25 PM

the rest of us don't actually become evil until we convince ourselves that creating undead is okay, or decide that we don't care if it is evil.

...I think you just called me, and several other posters in this thread, Evil.

Thank you for noticing.

Telok

2014-12-28, 01:20 PM

goto124

2014-12-28, 01:33 PM

An interesting thought: Casting [good] spells is good and casting [evil] spells is evil. If you do one or the other then your alignment shifts that way barring other overriding factors. This is cannon.
So if you cast as many [good] spells as you do [evil] spells then your spellcasting is neutral and your actions define your alignment. If adding undead or demons to the world is [evil] then adding celestials to the world will be [good]. Ergo you can be a [good] necromancer who raises undead by casting more spells with the [good] tag and Plane Shifting archons to the Prime more often than you create undead.

Does that mean that you can be an evil [good] spellcaster, if you manage to use your [good] spells for evil purposes? Your [alignment] not aligning with your real personality? A person could be intentionally transferring Celestials in a manner that does more harm than good, yet be unaffected by Smite Evil? (This can also apply the other way.)

RP players may not really like this sort of thing, considering the arguments about how the subjectivity of morality makes alignment systems. It does rather sound interesting however. For example, Smite Evil working on a character means he's [evil], but not necessarily evil.

Does the consequences of the actions also affect alignment? What if you healed a monsters that are fighting the heroes? Does the [good] alignment effect from your spell cancel out the [evil] alignment affect of whatever you're causing?

You'll have to go out of your way to use [good] spells in an evil way, and vice versa. Probably hard and troublesome enough that all but the most dedicated would eventually not bother.

Feel free to disprove me... all ideas are welcome, and likely interesting.