Acting against your alignment.

[NecroDancer]

What if you were a necromancer (let's say a warforged dread necro with the unseelie fey template {link scrubbed} (with the always evil restriction lifted because DM world's lore reasons) and you animated the dead regularly. However your character was always nice and always tried to help people for the good of it. The reason your character was a necromancer was becuase he say dead bodies as nothing but resources (waste not want not) after all he is made of metal and people reforge metal all the time.

However the DM made you evil becuase of your constant use of animate dead, could you still act nice for the purpose of being nice (no hidden motive or reason).

This isn't an actually situation I'm in, I'm just wondering if you can act nice even if your DM made you evil for using animate dead

[Nifft]

It's impossible to act against your alignment, because your alignment is merely the tally of your actions.

You can totally be nice and still Evil, because you still keep performing Evil acts (perhaps even for nice reasons).

If you continue being nice and stop performing Evil acts, then at some point in the future you may not be Evil any more.

[Darth Ultron]

An evil person can ''be nice'' just fine. Acting nice is in no way acting ''against'' evil. Plenty of evil people are nice. Just take, for example Dexter, he is a very nice guy.

[WbtE]

You can, but check the DM's alignment interpretation first - and especially whether they apply any penalties for deviating from alignment.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Depends on what you mean by "nice."

If he would otherwise be a paragon of good but for the regular creation of undead, then he's probably neutral rather than evil.

Alignment is the net result of all of your aligned actions. If you're doing good and evil in roughly equal parts, you're neutral. The trick is in how the DM measures just how much good/evil any particular act represents. BoVD and BoED represent general guidelines for determining if an act is aligned and which way but by how much is entirely subjective.


To answer your question; you can act however you want and it's up to the DM to decide which alignment best represents that behavior. If he wants to value the evil of animating dead more than any amount of good deeds, that's kinda dumb but it's his call. If he says you're not acting in accordance with your alignment, remind him that he changed it once because of your actions and he's free to do so again.

[Lormador]

This is a gray area replete with RP possibilities. You really need the DM to be clear on what he feels evil spells mean and are. This is not the first time a "nice guy" has used undead, after all.

If the DM thinks that casting an evil spell is an inherently evil act that brings darkness into your soul, unbidden, then if you play along with this interpretation you should RP that darkness slowly, but surely, spreading into the rest of the character's psychology and eventually influencing his behavior.

This would ultimately rest on the premise that your Warforged character is tragically mistaken about the nature of dead bodies: they aren't just like metal, as he is. Reforging metal is not, in-game, an evil act; but raising undead is. His ignorance or denial of this truth will not protect him from the deleterious effects of regularly casting evil spells.

Doing otherwise good acts should, in my opinion, slow the shift and possibly push his transition to darkness outside of the timeframe for the campaign, but it should be inexorable.

[Red Fel]

This isn't an actually situation I'm in, I'm just wondering if you can act nice even if your DM made you evil

Have we met?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Have we met?

Having a humble moment, eh Red?

I'd hazard the answer is no, btw. :smallbiggrin:

[Strigon]

Yes. Emphatically, yes.
First off, because the player is yours, and yours alone. If the DM starts telling you how to play your character, he's overstepped his bounds in a big way.
Secondly, because being Evil in D&D has nothing to do with whether or not you're nice. It means you're associated with a particular "force" of the universe, and that force is called Evil. The most common reason for this is doing bad things, like killing or stealing, but using "Evil" spells works too. The main thing to remember, though, is that your actions dictate your alignment, not the other way around. You can be nice, you can even be a good person, you'll just have an aura of Evil. This will rarely truly make a difference.

[RedMage125]

I'l just leave this here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?335215-Character-Concepts-Non-Evil-Necromancer)

[Milo v3]

Alignment doesn't alter your actions, your actions alter your alignment. So acting "against" your alignment is perfectly allowed. I've even had super evil NPC's who count as Good because of them repeatedly casting protection from evil spells.

[Jay R]

Go watch an older Three Musketeers movie - one with Charlton Heston, Vincent Price, or Nigel Brulier as Cardinal Richelieu. He is clearly very often nice - urbane, charming, and courteous. He is also the villain.

Nice is how you do something. Evil is what you do.

[NecroDancer]

Thanks for the advice, basically what I'm getting from the replays is this: Actions = Alignent and NOT vice versa. (who knew a conversation about alignment could have a consensus). My DM told me that in his world lore animate dead is considered an evil spell because of what happens if the necromancer loses control of his minions (not because animate dead tortues the souls of those you cast it on) so I've decided to use this character idea as a backup.

Sylvok Jett: Machine of the Macabre Court.
Unseelie War-Forged
Bard 6/Dirgesinger 5/sublime chord X

Forged by an unknown inventor in the hopes to gain favor with a fey lord,Sylvok's upbringing was strange, not bad, but strange. The fey noticed when Sylvok seemed to grow more and more enraptured with music and that music seemed to increase his intellect to be on par with their own. Seeing Sylvok as a valuable resource Archfey Joan of Jett schooled him in the ways of a bard and a necromancer without bothering to tell him about most mortals fears of the dead and undead. Now in order to prove himself as a worthy minstrel and adopted scion of the Jett family Sylvok left the fey-wild and set out in the mortal plane to gain power, fame, followers, friends, knowledge. However another Archfey, Ozzie Ozbourne, seeks to stop Sylvok and ultimately slay Archfey Joan Jett.

(Yes the DM is totally on board with having the Archfey named after famous musicians).

(Sorry for any grammatical errors).

[Darth Ultron]

Sylvok Jett: Machine of the Macabre Court.
Unseelie War-Forged
Bard 6/Dirgesinger 5/sublime chord X


You might ask your DM if you can ''Animate Deathless'' (the good undead).

Or maybe ''Animate Constructs'' or even ''Animate Objects'' on a dead body. The idea is you'd make a dead body into a ''cyborg'' like creation...but not ''undead''. It does have a nice creepiness to it: a warorged re-animating dead bodies as constructs...

And if you can re-fluff animate undead....don't forget to add the line of ''Should control of this minion ever be lost, it will crease to function'' or such.

[NecroDancer]

You might ask your DM if you can ''Animate Deathless'' (the good undead).

Or maybe ''Animate Constructs'' or even ''Animate Objects'' on a dead body. The idea is you'd make a dead body into a ''cyborg'' like creation...but not ''undead''. It does have a nice creepiness to it: a warorged re-animating dead bodies as constructs...

And if you can re-fluff animate undead....don't forget to add the line of ''Should control of this minion ever be lost, it will crease to function'' or such.

Your idea of animate object on dead bodies seems really cool, maybe my DM can work a magic item into he campaign that would let me do that.

[Milo v3]

Your idea of animate object on dead bodies seems really cool, maybe my DM can work a magic item into he campaign that would let me do that.

You don't need an item for that, dead bodies are valid targets for animate object and for crafting animated objects.

[Telok]

Of course if your character is a good guy, you don't let your undead do evil things, and still end up 'Evil' for casting naughty spells you can probably fix it pretty easily. If you're 'Evil' because you cast bad guy spells you can throw around a bunch of Protection From Evil and other [Good] spells. If you're evil because of undead somehow add evilness to the world it can be countered by calling good aligned outsiders and letting them roam free. If it's something related to negative energy that's making you 'Evil' then you can call up Ravids to add positive energy. Just remember to box them up and ship them off somewhere out of the way, too much of those things can become a nuisance.

[MythrilShotgun]

"Nice is not the same as good." -Little Red Riding Hood (Into the Woods)

In fact, I'm embarking on a bard in 5e whose mid-term goal is to establish a new religion, (Working title being "Ourway") Seeing as how Clerics and those of the faith can simply channel positivity without a patron deity, and bards themselves can cast all the spells as a cleric without a belief in a god, well... she follows the line of logic to the conclusion that mortals do not need gods, gods need mortals. She doesn't deny the gods' existence, just their importance.

Her reasons are good. Her goals are with good intentions, but they'll likely lead to the destabilization of theology. She's got zero qualms about using all her bardic wiles to garner support, and drive the people against other churches. Her goals are evil, even as she acts charitable and altruistic to all in need, due to both convictions and as a means to garner further support.

I'm looking forward to how it'll play out, but she's Lawful Evil, and the nicest bringer of a possible apocalypse you might meet.

[Milo v3]

Just remember to box them up and ship them off somewhere out of the way, too much of those things can become a nuisance.
Wouldn't they just animate the boxes and ship themselves?

[Segev]

Play your character however you want to play him. Let the DM worry about assigning an alignment to him.