Can an evil Blight Druid with the Death domain legally create undead?

[Zhentarim]

I would like to know if this would break their commitment to nature or not?

[Vaz]

Dead things being given new life is arguably more natural than using magic to create temprorary copies of magical creatures. In a world where magic and gods exists, Undead are as natural as unicorns and elementals.

[Inevitability]

When you say 'Blight Druid' do you mean Blighter? I'm pretty sure those don't have a code of conduct anymore.

[avr]

That's the Pathfinder druid archetype, right? Some of them 'feed the creeping rot and decay that brings an end to all things', and they all nauseate any plants, animals or fey next to them from 5th level so yeah, I think they've broken their covenant with nature already.

I've seldom seen a character option which screams NPC so loudly though.

[TheBrassDuke]

Transmutation is a natural force, brought on by the Transmuter, or God. Necromancy is a form of transmutation. You're coming full circle with nature, albeit in a darker fashion. Bending it to your will and creating undead. I wouldn't say you're breaking the code. You're preserving in your own way. Your own, creepy way.

Edit: transmutation, evolution. Unnatural, but natural. Too tired to make any real point.

[Aldrakan]

As a general rule for sensible play, with no external factors, assume that you're allowed to use the abilities a class offers you.

In this case: the Blight Druid lets you pick from 3 cleric domains, one of them is Death, the Death domain lets you create undead, you're allowed to create undead.
It's not like there's such a long list of domains they could have excusably forgotten undeath spells were on one of the options, and it's thematically appropriate - you even have the ability to make undead animals like you!

"Revering nature" is such a vague term, and the archetype description gives their own spin on it - if deciding to promote decay isn't a violation, creating undead in service to that shouldn't be a stretch. After all is animating corpses really any less natural than animating trees? At least corpses are doing something they used to do naturally.

[DrMotives]

Although they may follow a god, druids don't have to follow one given god or church. Unlike older editions, 3.x druids don't all belong to a single organization that can apply rules to the whole class. So there is tons of room for rival druid organizations that may think of other sects as heretics for being undead-friendly, while your blight druid maybe sees necromancy & life as yin yang parts of a greater whole. So the blight druid won't loose their powers, but still will have some of their most determined enemies being other druids calling them heretics anyway.

[Peat]

Instead of getting more animals killed, they recycle the already dead. What could be more nature-friendly than that?

[Spore]

If you view it from a cyclical point of view, the blight druid is the one who promotes rot and decay. Sick animals get killed and decomposed to not spread their diseases. The blight druid reveres the most important but most disgusting part of nature: Think maggots clearing necrotic flesh, think heaps of insects devouring the otherwise water poisoning corpses.

Undead are legal but I feel that their use should be restricted and cautiously used.

[Ashtagon]

Instead of getting more animals killed, they recycle the already dead. What could be more nature-friendly than that?

Counterpoint: They lock those dead bodies into undead form, removing them from the circle of life. What could be more nature-unfriendly than that?

[Psyren]

Assuming this is for PF, Blight Druid states:

"The devoted servants of nature corrupted, ruined, and destroyed, blight druids are the caretakers of lands ravaged by natural disaster. While some are devoted to reforming and reclaiming lands despoiled by the ravages of civilization, others seek out the more rapacious violence inherent in nature and feed the creeping rot and decay that brings an end to all things."

It specifically says they are still devoted servants of nature, so using the powers granted by the archetype won't inherently cause them to fall. (Obviously, misusing them somehow could do that, but that's true of any druid.)

[Inevitability]

Counterpoint: They lock those dead bodies into undead form, removing them from the circle of life. What could be more nature-unfriendly than that?

It isn't exactly 'locking' them, though. If you create zombies, the bodies continue to rot. If you create skeletons, the flesh falls off the bones (and rots naturally) while the bones aren't magically prevented from decaying either.

Now if you start using Gentle Repose or things like that to prevent the decay, then something is wrong.

[Psyren]

Furthermore, one could argue that locking the undead creation stuff behind your domain is itself a safeguard against abuse. If a blight druid can only use her domain slots to prepare this kind of magic, it would serve as a limitation that keeps her from littering the landscape hither and yon with revenants. Without Channel, her control pool would be fairly small as well, further discouraging overuse as she would be endangering herself by animating too many or too powerful a creature.

[Zhentarim]

This has helped a lot guys