I would say that it is because that was the way it was in 3rd Edition, when that version of channel only controlled undead. (Sort of they don't care about desecrating the dead in any way and are willing to use all tools at their disposal.)
But it has been oft repeated that Pathfinder isn't in any way related to 3rd any more...
So I got nothing for you.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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The short answer is: because they're EVIL. (insert diabolical laughter here).
As for why neutral can choose either - it's because they aren't strongly aligned with either good or evil, which equates to positive or negative chanelling. It would be a cool alternate class ability for clerics of neutral deities to have some completely different channeling mechanic. I don't know what it would be - maybe something that let them channel energy from someone that's injured to someone who's not to "balance" things out? Maybe we'll see something for them in the Advanced Player's Guide next August.
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I always woundered why this was. I can understand why clerics of Zon-kuthon and other Gods residing in the Shadow Plane channel negative energy, but why do evil gods residing in the Outer Sphere, which appears to be closer connected to the Positive Energy Plane as apposed to the Negative Energy Plane. And considering both the Positive Energy Plane and the Negative Energy Plane are not considered to have no alignment. Why is it then all evil clerics channel negative energy and good clerics channel positive energy?
I had started a thread over 1 year ago about this and gained much support. I did a lot of research and here are the results.
Positive and negative energy are just 2 forms of the 6 types of energy. The damaging effects of negative energy are no more evil than the burning effects of fire.
Negative Planar Energy
- energy drawn from the Negative Energy Plane
- Negative Energy Plane:
- Described as: "A needy, greed plane, sucking the life out of anything that is vulnerable." ('Manual of the Planes')
- the above is the plane's "nature". Its nature to damage life is no more evil than the burning effects of fire. Its simply the plane's "nature".
- creatures residing here are neutral in alignment (consistent in both 'Manual of the Planes', and 'The Great Beyond').
- 'The Great Beyond' further clarifies this plane's "nature" by stating: "... neither it nor its destructive energies are evil."
Positive Planar Energy
- energy drawn from the Positive Energy Plane
- Positive Energy Plane:
- Described as: "A continual furnace of creation, a domain of brilliance beyond the ability of mortal eyes to comprehend." ('Manual of the Planes')
- the above is the plane's "nature". It should be noted that mortals that stay too long in this plane absorb so much positive energy that they immolate. This death from positive energy effects is no more "evil" than a death from negative energy effects.
- 'The Great Beyond' notes that this plane is "... one of the single most hostile planes in all of existence." Does this sound like a "good place?
- creatures residing here are neutral in alignment
To me, all the above is PROOF that there is no connection between good and evil and the ability to use negative or positive energy. These are just 2 of the 6 energy forms that can be magically harnessed.
Accordingly, I have prepared the following rules for use in the Golarion setting:
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Positive energy does have beneficial effects on the living and negative energy has detrimental effects on the living. It is acknowledged that some societies and religions may attribute that the use of negative energy to be inherently evil due to its detrimental effects on the living, and accordingly the roleplaying ramifications should be considered before a good aligned character chooses to channel negative energy. Deities like Gozreh (god of nature) do not provide access to negative energy, just as deities like Urgathoa (god of undeath) will not provide access to positive energy. Nethys allows his worshippers equal access to both types of energy.
With the exception of worshippers of Gozreh, Nethys and Urgathoa, players must decide at the time they gain this ability whether they can channel positive or negative energy. Gozreh, Deity of Nature, only imbues his followers with positive energy. Nethys, God of Magic, allows his worshippers to choose each day, at their time of prayer, whether they wish to channel positive or negative energy. Urgathoa, Goddess of Undeath, only provides her worshippers with negative energy.
Unfortunately, it's just one of those features of the game. However, you could easily create a feat whereby an evil or neutral cleric would give up two uses of his channel energy class feature to channel positive energy, but only to heal his living allies. The feat could be called something like Heal the Wicked and require the Selective Channeling feat as a prerequisite.
Because it's in their nature to harm, destroy, corrupt, and blight. Negative energy does all those things. Positive energy heals and protects -- so why on Earth would an evil god want to do things that are contrary to evil?
Based on the information I presented above, here's some random things to consider:
Because it's in their nature to harm, destroy, corrupt, and blight.
Negative energy's nature is only life draining in nature. When you mention corrupt and blight, you may be referring to necromancy effects, but not specifically negative energy effects.
Keep in mind, fire burns, scorches, melts, destroys. Why is the use of fire not evil? Surely one of the most evil spells then would be fire ball?
Taking damage, by the draining of life, is simply the "nature" of this form of energy.
Positive energy's nature heals life. This is just an "effect" of being exposed to positive energy. As long as you are a living being, you receive this effect, regardless of your alignment.
Mortals in the positive plane will eventually immolate due to too much exposure to positive energy, just as mortals in the negative plane will succumb to the life draining effects of negative energy.
Positive energy's nature heals life. This is just an "effect" of being exposed to positive energy. As long as you are a living being, you receive this effect, regardless of your alignment.
I believe that would include any bacteria, parasite, or virus.
Taken that way, consider:
Mortals in the positive plane will eventually immolate due to too much exposure to positive energy, just as mortals in the negative plane will succumb to the life draining effects of negative energy.
Given how many bateria normally live in the human body, I think a mortal on the Positive Plane would have more immediate problems then eventual immolation. :)
Negative energy itself isn't evil, it's a natural force in a typical D'n'D setting, just like fire or cold energy. That's the reason why spells such as "Inflict" don't have an [Evil] descriptor.
I suppose the reason why evil gods are more prone to using it however is for two reasons.
1. By unnaturally siphoning negative energy into the material realm, you can easily create a host of unnatural, but tough servents of unquestioning loyalty (I.E mindless undead).
2. Negative Energy, like fire, can act as a very powerful destructive force. Unlike fire, it is also easier to overcome energy resistance and immunities. Unless somthing is undead, it can be harmed by negative energy (mind you, there are still a few exceptions). It is far easier to become resistant to other natural forces (fire again as an example), in fact, some creatures are simply naturally immune to it, but negative energy is harder to block.
Negative energy may not be evil, but some might consider it so, since it's properties attract evil beings more than good. However, in a way, using any energy in an excessive manner could be considered evil as well, after all, send a bunch of humaniods to the positive energy plane for long enough and they might just explode.
Hello I am the Lawful Evil god of war.
Our sects favored Weapon is the bastard sword. I picked this as I needed a weapon that could be used either two handed, with a shield in rank or on horseback.
Our domains are:
Healing: Yes healing. Not letting your soldiers die is great for moral and saves you the need of replacing them. I'm the god of war, not the god of battles. I want to see my followers sweep away all that oppose them. Keeping trained troops alive is a good idea.
War: Naturally of course.
Fire: And I have decreed that there shalt be artillery.
Community: I believe greatly in the liberal use of Bless and Prayer on the battlefield (I am also quite fond of my clerics dropping bane on hostile armies).
Trickery: The god of battles can have Glory, Nobility and the like, I prefer my followers to win.
As for channeling I love mass heals by one of my clerics, so long as he has the ability to select friend from foe.
On undead I would prefer that, if they are used against my armies, that my clerics take control of them and make of them slaves to me cause.
My single biggest problem is not the enemy though. My problem is that no GM is going to allow a god
Favored Weapon: Bastard Sword
Domains: Healing, War, Fire, Community, Trickery
Channels Positive Energy but Controls Instead of Turns Undead
into his game.
Negative energy isn't evil itself. It's just energy. What you do with it is what is typically evil. Yes, fire destroys and burns and kills things. It also gives warmth, allows life to thrive and can be used to cook food and forge metal. It has many redeeming properties. Negative energy just drains life, heals undead and allows those that weild it to control undead. Hard to find a lot of reasons why any good god would have much interest in it.
As the last poster said, i think there's actually no real excuses why the good clerics channel positive and the evil negative energy besides the class function.
You know, I think it's strange for all the clerics to have this kind of relationship with the undead. In the 3e there were many gods who would have nothing to do with undead. I remember on the playtest someone saying that they would channel energy like that to still be able to harm or bolster the undead, but also because the cleric class is supposed to be very good at healing, and that without the need to convert every little spell to healing.
So, if you think from a design point, it's alright: Good clerics heal, evil clerics harm.
If you think with more verissimilitude in mind, actually gods from the different deities should do different things. Maybe you could make the "channel energy" cease to exist like this, being only a "divine battery", and give each cleric an ability based on his god. So cleric of the fire god would turn water creatures, of the war god would gain bonus to attack and such.
In some old dragon magazines there was an article about clerics who could trade turn undead for some other ability. This other ability had the same number of times per day and could be used to fuel divine feats. Atually, IMO, this is the way that someone who thinks that clerics should be closer to the deity portfolio than to healing, should totally go in their games.
After all, energyies aren't evil. Fire destroys you, but it isn't evil. And positive energy also destroys you, but isn't evil. Like, four elements, positive is the element of life, and negative the element of death. This makes me think why that mindless undead are evil, if they are just automatons that do what you say, and do nothing if you do nothing (not even defending themselves if not ordered to)?
I brought this discussion here last year, but most agreed that mindless undead should be evil because it's classic, and because it's desecration of the holy dead and etc, but that flesh golems shouldn't be evil, even being too desecration of the holy dead.
And about inteligent undead, most are evil and SHOULD be evil because they ACT evil and DECIDE to be evil (but there are good ghosts...). My problem is the same: Evil clerics with negative energy only and mindless evil undead.
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Positive energy's nature heals life. This is just an "effect" of being exposed to positive energy. As long as you are a living being, you receive this effect, regardless of your alignment.I believe that would include any bacteria, parasite, or virus.
Taken that way, consider:
The spell Cause Disease would actually be Positive Energy applied for a morally evil purpose.
Likewise, the spell Remove Disease could be considered Negative Energy (since it kills the infection) applied to a morally good purpose.
And in 1st edition, Gygax had Mummies derive their power from the Positive Material Plane, explaining their ability to *create life* with their touch (granted, the life they were creating was a terrible disease, but it was still creating life!). That idea was left behind in favor of a more simplistic and dualistic 'black icky negative energy is evil, shiny white positive energy is good' mindset. I blame George Lucas for that. :)
Negative energy has quite a few healing applications. Killing diseases and infections (bacterial, viral or fungal). Killing tumors, cancers or parasitic infestations (want that Spider-Eater egg or Rot Grub out of your body? ZOT!). Slowing biological processes to delay the effects of poison or disease, or allow injured parties to stabilize and stop bleeding to death, or survive for extended periods with minimal food, water or oxygen in state of suspension between life and death. Purifying / sterilizing areas or foodstuffs (circle of death will nicely take care of a rat infestation in the town grainery, but leave the grain, which is organic, but no longer alive, intact and edible, since circle of death doesn't destroy organic material, it just kills things).
Like fire, which can be used to murder and maim the living, or warm and comfort them, to forge tools and cook food and cleanse wounds and burn down houses and disfigure rivals, negative energy and positive energy are neutral primal forces that can be used for good or evil purposes, but have no will or intentions or desires, malevolent or benign, of their own.
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Heh, in my games, their are 3 planar spheres, there's the heavens, the hells, and the Prime material plane. The heavens are much like the Astral Sea described in 4th ed. A giant plane where the gods section off their own little realm. There aren't individual planes for each alignment rather souls without gods become a part of the plane itself. The positive energy plane is to the Heavens what the ethereal plane is to the Prime Material Plane and is basically a battery for the heavens. Then there's the Hells which comprise the nine layers of hell, and the abyss. For them Negative energy is what positive energy plane is to the heavens.
Negative energy is a corrupting force. And undead are a reflection of that corruption. A skeleton isn't just a mindless automaton like a golem. A golem left without orders does nothing. A skeleton left without orders will begin destroying any life in its vicinity, attempting first to kill animate living things, then inanimate living things. Areas of mindless undead are marked by barren lifeless environments that slowly become more and more corrupted by the negative energy until anything that dies will become undead and the area of undeath continues to grow and spread.
So for my games the theme of cleric channeling makes perfect sense. Also it clearly deliniates zombies and skeletons from flesh golems and also removes the presesnse of "good undead". I did however seperate ghosts as not created by negative energy and therefore ghosts are the only undead that can have varied alignments.
Not all of these ideas are original, a lot of it has developed from various sources. The tomes by Frank Trollman inspired the change to the flavor of undead to match my view of negative energy, the way the heavens and hells are Shadowed by the positive and negative energy planes are my original ideas, although I may not be the only person to ever think of it that way, at least I didn't borrow it from anyone that I know of.
And in 1st edition, Gygax had Mummies derive their power from the Positive Material Plane, explaining their ability to *create life* with their touch (granted, the life they were creating was a terrible disease, but it was still creating life!). That idea was left behind in favor of a more simplistic and dualistic 'black icky negative energy is evil, shiny white positive energy is good' mindset. I blame George Lucas for that. :)
I think that is the root of our problem here. The negative energy plan is not "the Dark Side" that the rules seem to imply.
Even the idea of "Shadow" is not wholy evil. We would be unable to even see without the contrasts created by the interplay light & shadow.
Yes, in "Sword & Sorcery" there is the idea of "evil forces" but those would come directly from Hell and the Abyss. Planes with energies that are most certainly not neutral.
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And in 1st edition, Gygax had Mummies derive their power from the Positive Material Plane, explaining their ability to *create life* with their touch (granted, the life they were creating was a terrible disease, but it was still creating life!). That idea was left behind in favor of a more simplistic and dualistic 'black icky negative energy is evil, shiny white positive energy is good' mindset. I blame George Lucas for that. :)I think that is the root of our problem here. The negative energy plan is not "the Dark Side" that the rules seem to imply.
Even the idea of "Shadow" is not wholy evil. We would be unable to even see without the contrasts created by the interplay light & shadow.
Yes, in "Sword & Sorcery" there is the idea of "evil forces" but those would come directly from Hell and the Abyss. Planes with energies that are most certainly not neutral.
Funnily enough that's exactly why I made Negative energy a subplane of the Hells and the Abyss.
The shadow plane in my games is completely seperate from the positive and negative energy planes, it's just a bridge or gateway from the PMP to the other two planar spheres. It's also where ghosts come from. which is why they aren't fueled by negative energy.
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Negative energy is a corrupting force. And undead are a reflection of that corruption. A skeleton isn't just a mindless automaton like a golem. A golem left without orders does nothing. A skeleton left without orders will begin destroying any life in its vicinity, attempting first to kill animate living things, then inanimate living things.
Yeah, that seems to be the 3.5 revision, but in 1st to 3.0 interpretations, mindless meant just that, mindless. A skeleton or zombie without orders was about as evil as a rock, as incapable of malice as it was of compassion or of appreciating the musical stylings of the J. Geils Band.
Meanwhile, a Golem, whether made from corpses or river clay, was an *enslaved* elemental spirit that went berserk and killed people, and yet was never considered 'evil,' despite the enslavement of living beings to make them and their destructive rampages when control slipped.
And now, as of 3.5 and the idea of malevolent entities with no mental faculties at all, incapable of actually *being* evil, but evil nonetheless, we've got these weird notions cropping up.
I'd be fine with a clear cut case of one or the other, but if negative energy is evil, why isn't positive energy good? Evil clerics *should not be able to cast healing spells* in a world where the energy planes are aligned. If they can't channel positive energy, then they shouldn't be able to cast Cure X Wounds, or Heal, any more than a good Cleric should be able to Animate Dead or use Death Knell.
All an inconsistent 'negative energy = evil, positive energy = neutral' approach does is nerf *good* Clerics by limiting their options.
Wholly embracing the 'negative = bad, positive = good' paradigm shift would require only removing positive energy spells (like Cure X Wounds) from the evil Clerics spell list and possibly creating some evil negative-energy using curative spells that drain life energy from foes to heal allies so that evil Clerics can still 'heal' via various life leech / siphon spells (that would be less effective than Cure X spells, since they are a Cure + Inflict sort of two-for-one deal!).
Alternately, one could just make both Cure and Inflict spells into Transmutations or Necromantic effects, and not involve the conjuration of positive or negative energy, so neither Cures nor Inflicts would 'bring positive / negative energy into the world' or have any sort of alignment descriptor. They'd just knit flesh or tear it open, respectively.
Well, one other change would be required. Evil requires volition. A Skeleton or Zombie would need to be bumped up to Int 3 (like a fiendish or celestial animal, as all Int 2 creatures appear to be neutral and not advanced enough intellectually to have an alignment) to represent the malignant life-hating sentience that has taken up residence in those old bones. Something incapable of making a decision, with no motives at all, can't be evil (or good, or kind, or cruel, or happy, or sad). Animated Objects, if assumed to be abimated by positive energy (as in the case of a Ravid's Animate Object SLA), might also have a playful, kind and good-natured spark of sentience as well, animated by the good-aligned forces of positive energy, in this sort of scenario, as it would only be a logical counterpart to making negative energy-animated items evil.
I play with the 1st-3.0 version, where positive and negative energy are mindless and neutral, but if I wanted a more dualistic game, I would absolutely make 'mindless' undead evil (and at least Int 3), negative energy evil, and positive energy good, with all the changes that this would entail (good animated objects with Int 3, singing of 'Be our Guest' optional), forbiddance of positive energy channeling Cure spells to evil Clerics, negative energy channeling Inflict spells to good Clerics, etc. I'd probably do away with the connection between undead Shadows and the Plane of Shadow, and have Shadows be entirely creatures of negative energy, while I might go back to 1st edition and have undead Mummies be positive energy animations, whose life-generating disease-producing ability is a feature of positive energy (since negative energy can't *create life*), and who are innately *good* animations, designed to protect tombs from robbers, not evil animations!
Purists would consider Contagion (a life-creating spell that uses positive energy to cause harm and suffering) and Remove Disease (a negative energy channeling spell that protects the living from microlife) to be perversions of the 'true purpose' of positive and negative energy, heretical in their use. More practical Clerics would shrug and cast them as needed, with even the kindest-hearted healer accepting with a heavy heart and some trepidation that he must channel the dangerous hateful forces of negative energy to purge a patient of the plague. He can only hope that his faith will shield him from corruption during this trying time (assuming that he's not completely forbidden from preparing it in the first place)!
And there's an interesting tweak. Allow any Cleric to prepare any spell. If he wants to meddle in dark forces, let him. If he wants to prepare spells overflowing with the sickly-sweet milk of human kindness, and reward his idiot minions for their incompetence by healing their wounds, let him.
Neutral Clerics would obviously be more easily able to rationalize this, but any Cleric, good or evil, would be able to delve into forbidden magics, and so risk their soul by channeling the corruptive (or purifying) powers of negative (or positive) energy. A good Cleric who goes too far down this route risks losing his ideals in the rush of power that comes with channeling dark forces.
An evil Cleric who spends too much time channeling inherently good-aligned positive energy to knit flesh *also* risks falling from grace, as his empathy continues to grow unwelcome within him, and he begins derive some pathetic sense of gratification from *helping people* like some weak-minded do-gooder!
In a world where good and evil have real meaning, and a Cleric is expected to hold himself to a higher standard, it's an absolute must to allow a good Cleric to cast evil spells, and an evil Cleric to cast good spells, and, in so doing, to risk their very souls. There's absolutely no story potential to forbidden a Cleric from ever doing anything that could cause him to lose his faith, after all.
Having a rule preventing good or evil Clerics from preparing spells that could get them into trouble with management would be like designing a Paladin with a punitive Code of Conduct and then including a line, 'But don't worry, if the Paladin tries to do something that would cause him to fall from grace, his god stops him with a force field or something.'
Given a choice between a game where my character might have to make some hard choices, or won't be given any choices that could affect him at all, I'll take the hard choices. That's where the stories are told. The fall from grace. The painful sacrifice. The bitter choice of cherished ideals over cold practicality. The hard roads to redemption. The unsuspected face heel turn in the 11th hour that changes everything.
You could tell some great stories with corruptive evil and transformative good, and an evil negative energy plane and a good positive energy plane would be a neat place to start.
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My single biggest problem is not the enemy though. My problem is that no GM is going to allow a god
Favored Weapon: Bastard Sword
Domains: Healing, War, Fire, Community, Trickery
Channels Positive Energy but Controls Instead of Turns Undeadinto his game.
You're right on that one. Especially on the last part as I've made the call that Controlling Undead is manipulation of negative energy, just like bolstering them.
For it to be allowed, the channeling would have to be negative, the weapon proficiency would have to be MARTIAL, so that means two handed use only, and only two handed use because that's how the God wields it.
As for the Domains, I'd allow War, Fire, and Strength, possibly Glory period. Choose two of them as usual. You don't seem to understand Domains are not the tools that Gods pick for their clerics, they represent what they EMBODY as dieties.
If your diety was admitted as you want it. It'd have to be known as the Munchkin God of War.
1) Not all gods that grant the War Domain needs to have martial weapons as thier favored weapons.
2) Agreed on the channeling.3) The Domains posted have a lot to do with war.
4) As you can still only pick 2 Domains, I see no Munchkinning
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My single biggest problem is not the enemy though. My problem is that no GM is going to allow a godFavored Weapon: Bastard Sword
Domains: Healing, War, Fire, Community, Trickery
Channels Positive Energy but Controls Instead of Turns Undeadinto his game.
The last is a deal-breaker, really. There are gods that have Favored Weapon Bastard Sword (or Spiked Chain, Whip, Sawtooth Sabre, etc. all Exotic Weapons). There are gods with much better Domain selections (Nethys and Urgathoa, from Golarion, Obad-Hai, from Core, etc.) and the game explicitly allows you to worship a principle and pick any two darn Domains that you want anyway.
If you want a Cleric that gets the advantage you want out of channeling positive energy and can control undead, figure out which one you want more, and find another way to get the other effect. If it's 3.5, just go Rebuke/Command. It does everything Turn does anyway. If it's Pathfinder, either Channel negative energy, and find another way to heal the group (wands of Cure Light Wounds are cheap) and there are various ways to access healing auras / powers, if you can use non-Pathfinder material, such as Dragon Shaman auras, Mass Lesser Vigor spells or Reserve Feats or whatever. Similarly, there are ways to command undead other than channeling negative energy. Find a Command Undead item, or, if needs be, dip into something that can do that, such as Dread Necromancer, and then try to catch up with a feat like Improved Turning (or, a custom version of one of the Swift Hunter style 'progress two class features at once' feats that allows you to progress both Channel Energy *and* Rebuke Undead, using Cleric or Dread Necro levels, call it 'Walker Between Worlds' or 'Master of Life and Death').
Heck, given the perfect diety choice (say, Nethys, associated with both protection *and* destruction, or Pharasma, associated with healing *and* death), you could easily rationalize a custom Feat that allows you to channel both negative *and* positive energy (chosen at the time of use, but drawn from the same pool of total uses). Again, call it 'Master of Life and Death' or something, and it would be very thematic, for a few very specific dieties.
I wouldn't allow it for just any concept, and a player who wanted to try to rationalize it for a Cleric of Calistria or Gorum or whomever would have to pull out all the stops to sell the concept to me, but if a player wanted to try it with a Cleric of Irori with a 'can balance or unbalance someone's ki thanks to his straddling of the harmonious line between warring primal universal forces' rationale, I might fall for that. :)
A feat like that should come with an additional drawback, say a penalty of one or two cleric levels for the purposes of deciding the effectiveness/damage etc. of channeling.Heck, given the perfect diety choice (say, Nethys, associated with both protection *and* destruction, or Pharasma, associated with healing *and* death), you could easily rationalize a custom Feat that allows you to channel both negative *and* positive energy (chosen at the time of use, but drawn from the same pool of total uses). Again, call it 'Master of Life and Death' or something, and it would be very thematic, for a few very specific dieties.
I'd say that you have to lean one way meaning the other way cost double. Two channels uses to do negative energy when you typically do positive. That with the cost of a feat would probably put it in the general ballpark of balanced at least.
And heres another way of looking at it, using a more modern analogy...
Negative Energy is like a bomb. Its main purpose, is to destroy and harm. Sure, that can be used for relatively benign purposes, but at its heart, its sole function is destructive.
Positive Energy is like a painkiller. Its main purpose is to help a person out, make them feel better. Sure, to much of it can be a bad thing, and kill you, and its subject to being abused in ways it wasn't created to be used for, but at its heart, it exists to try and make the world a better place.
And that, I think, is why Negative Energy gets equated to evil, and Positive Energy gets equated to good.
I don't neccessarily think that evil gods should be forced to use negative energy, or good gods positive energy, I think thats more a case by case thing, but I think as a general rule, it fits *shrug*
Yeah, that seems to be the 3.5 revision, but in 1st to 3.0 interpretations, mindless meant just that, mindless. A skeleton or zombie without orders was about as evil as a rock, as incapable of malice as it was of compassion or of appreciating the musical stylings of the J. Geils Band.
In my opinion, that was a horrible, nonsensical revision in 3.5. Nonintelligent undead should either be always neutral by default, or at most (and I'd need convincing) for purposes of game mechanics they should adopt the alignment of the person controlling them but otherwise be neutral.
That particular 3.5 revision strikes me as being there largely to allow paladins to smite zombies and skeletons, while being utterly nonsensical to the fact that they're automatons empowered by non-evil energy.
Another idea for folks:
Consider a good deity worshipped by intelligent undead who are either non-evil by default, or have managed to stave off their initial evil nature if they became undead without choice (vampire spawn, etc). This deity would provide his or her clerics with negative energy by default because that would be the energy which would heal his followers. Providing positive energy would -to them- be a purely destructive force, the use of which could fracture their society.
Granted, the situation between + and - energy on Golarion puts a unique circumstance on things at times, since 99% of things in the multiverse are empowered by + energy, with only undead and a very few creatures naturally "living" on negative energy like the scaeduinar. It's almost like matter and antimatter in a way, with hazy circumstances that could have led to a very different dynamic between the two and the current balance within the multiverse.
If you want a Cleric that gets the advantage you want out of channeling positive energy and can control undead, figure out which one you want more, and find another way to get the other effect. If it's 3.5, just go Rebuke/Command. It does everything Turn does anyway. If it's Pathfinder, either Channel negative energy, and find another way to heal the group (wands of Cure Light Wounds are cheap) and there are various ways to access healing auras / powers, if you can use non-Pathfinder material, such as Dragon Shaman auras, Mass Lesser Vigor spells or Reserve Feats or whatever. Similarly, there are ways to command undead other than channeling negative energy. Find a Command Undead item, or, if needs be, dip into something that can do that, such as Dread Necromancer, and then try to catch up with a feat like Improved Turning (or, a custom version of one of the Swift Hunter style 'progress two class features at once' feats that allows you to progress both Channel Energy *and* Rebuke Undead, using Cleric or Dread Necro levels, call it 'Walker Between Worlds' or 'Master of Life and Death').
Heck, given the perfect diety choice (say, Nethys, associated with both protection *and* destruction, or Pharasma, associated with healing *and* death), you could easily rationalize a custom Feat that allows you to channel both negative *and*...
Well said. I might need to 'borrow' this for my own use, thanks!
Many intersting points here. I came to the conclusion that it's the point of the Dungeon Master to decide what is the problem. Negative energy may be evil in the minds of some, or may be neutral in the minds of others. It is something that the DM must choose, and if his choice makes some abilities idiot (like positive or negative channeling etc). As the Lastknight pointed very well, he chose a side and used it in his game. And that's TOTALLY valid.
The big great point is that in the core D&D, and with that Pathfinder, negative energy isn't something evil. As set said, it's retarded that negative energy is evil but positive isn't good. Mindless beings being evil is like telling me that Vermin are evil (or good!). See, normal vermin are mindless, and they are living beings (powered by positive energy) but they are neutral, because, well, they are mindless! I could understand using smite evil to destroy a terrible Ghoul or something like that. But that skeleton right there is just an automaton.
Some say that the enslaving of elemental beings is evil. There is theories in both sides, but as Eberron puts to us, it is simply one method, like the pure elemental beings are just, well, elements, and not beings. I can understand that and live with that.
Now, using what Todd Stewart said:
since 99% of things in the multiverse are empowered by + energy, with only undead and a very few creatures naturally "living"
In my game worlds, negative energy is simply the energy of death. I could go on and start to mention Freud about the Eros and Tanathos, but this is useless at this point. The positive energy is the energy of life, renovation, etc, and the negative is of death and decay. So, or 1 - The spark of positive energy leaves us as we age, and finally ceases to keep us alive, or 2 - When we are born we are at full positive energy, and as we age we gradually lose some and get more negative energy. When the equation unbalances too much, we die. It could be like this, for some games.
What I know is that in my games the positive and negative energies are more clearly put as "elements", like fire and water (besides that I have two more elements, Wood and Force, but this doesn't matter here), so there's the Elemental Plane of Positive Energy (or simply Life), with full simple elementals of positive energy and even Genies of positive energy. All elements are neutral, and of course, probably inimical to the material life.
The other thing that I change on my games, mostly based on the Tomes by Frank and Keith, is that healing spells are Necromancy and not conjuration. This thing of just making necromancy evil is hard for me to accept: Necromancy is the art of life and death and the beyond. There's simply the [Healing] subschool of necromantic effect that deals with positive energy. I'll tell you all, so far this is unfelt by the players in the rules sense, but it just makes much more sense for everyone at the table.
With that I could free my clerics from being good at healing always, and being good at something that their god was supposed to be.
The big point is probably as Set pointed out: The DM gotta choose what he thinks about negative energy.
A) It IS evil. If you choose this, then give the mindless undead inteligence (basic inteligence is enough), and make the necessary revisions.
B) It IS NOT evil. Then mindless undead are neutral, and you're happy.
I really hope that the bestiary AT THE VERY LEAST solves the problem with the skeletons and zombies.
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Well, one other change would be required. Evil requires volition. A Skeleton or Zombie would need to be bumped up to Int 3 (like a fiendish or celestial animal, as all Int 2 creatures appear to be neutral and not advanced enough intellectually to have an alignment) to represent the malignant life-hating sentience that has taken up residence in those old bones. Something incapable of making a decision, with no motives at all, can't be evil (or good, or kind, or cruel, or happy, or sad).
I disagree here, I think there's a difference between something that isn't capable of abstract thought and therefor just functioning on survival instinct, and something that has no survival instinct and only functions to destroy. By your standard, you can't have evil magic items, unless they are intelligent am i correct?
Last knight, I'll respond the question because I think I think equal to the one you asked:
There can be magical items that are simply evil because they are made with evil spells. If you really follow the way you are leading, there aren't evil spells, just evil uses for spells. A magic item, if you think deeply, can't really be "evil". But it has a tainted aura, it was created with evil spells and (supposedly) with evil rites and such things.
In my way of thinking, a creature without inteligence can't be evil. But it's a creature. This extends only to creatures. it's not an exercise of applying this way of thinking to extremes. If it was, you couldn't even have evil rocks, evil doors and such things. This sounds really dumb, evil doors or rocks, but there could be. They're probably magical too. But I believe that the rock being evil (hehe) just means that it has an evil aura, no that the rock wants to kill babies...
For me, mindless creatures won't ever be evil. Creating an undead may be UNNACEPTABLE because this taints the sacred death and this kind of thing, but isn't to be something EVIL. A cleric could raise a dead ox to help the farmers with the harvest. They would look strange, and wouldn't trust it, but then, the ox isn't evil per se. It's a construct. A thing.
A magical evil item isn't a thing? It is. But it's evil because it was created with an evil spell.
There are many evil spells that don't use negative energy, and they should still be evil. There are some that destroy and kill but shouldn't be more evil than a fireball!
And in my opinion, a spell shouldn't be evil just because it uses negative energy.
My two cents.
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For me, mindless creatures won't ever be evil. Creating an undead may be UNNACEPTABLE because this taints the sacred death and this kind of thing, but isn't to be something EVIL. A cleric could raise a dead ox to help the farmers with the harvest. They would look strange, and wouldn't trust it, but then, the ox isn't evil per se. It's a construct. A thing.
right but he's talking about making the switch to negative energy as an evil source. And I've already posted how that changes undead in my world. In my world if you create an undead you have to give it orders or else it immeadiately starts killing things. Not to eat, it doesn't have to eat, not because they're a threat, a controlled skeleton will walk into a thresher if you command it to, it has no survival instinct, it simply kills because the thing it's killing is alive. That doesn't give the skeleton sentience, or rational. But what Set is saying is that it's not evil because it doesn't have an int of 3, and I'm saying there is a distinction between a living creature that doesn't understand good/evil and something that isn't living that merely exists to destroy, and as such no intelligence boost is required.
I was never talking about base DnD, in base DnD I actually agree that the set up for negative energy doesn't make any sense labeling it as evil, I wasn't talking about that, I was merely arguing that lack of intelligence doesn't necessarily invalidate having an evil monster. In fact I'm pretty sure mindless undead have - in int which is different from animals who actually have some int.
You use play with fire from Frank and Keith. That I could understand.
The point I did mention, however, is that being mindless can be an argument as to invalidate evil in a creature, like golems and vermin.
You really get into some problem when you think about some things like Demonflesh golem. But not being able to discern something, and having totally not any kind of instinct, self preservation or need to do something, seems to me some things that can make a thing being neutral.
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You use play with fire from Frank and Keith. That I could understand.
For the most part, I took the idea, I don't follow the rules they established, but the flavor of it fit what i was already doing with negative energy anyways.
The point I did mention, however, is that being mindless can be an argument as to invalidate evil in a creature, like golems and vermin.
You really get into some problem when you think about some things like Demonflesh golem. But not being able to discern something, and having totally not any kind of instinct, self preservation or need to do something, seems to me some things that can make a thing being neutral.
I completely agree, but the point I'm emphasizing is the bolded portion, that one doesn't apply to my arguements, I agree that if a creature lacks those three things that it is nuetral, but something can be laking instinct and self preservation but have built in needs to ruin/destroy. My arguement is that you don't have to give it a mind to give it imperatives, and if it's imperatives aren't fueled by survival and its imperatives ARE evil ones, then what you've created is evil. Now if you create the same thing without said needs (which is the way undead work in 3.5) I agree that its nuetral. However I just don't think you have to necessarily give something a mind to give it needs
I'm far too tired to read thru the entire thread right now (let alone to be phrasing my answer to the OP's question eloquently), but here goes...
The view I have always had of positive vs. negative energy is in part based on my (limited) knowledge of Hebrew mysticism...
1. The flow of positive energy into the cosmos is controlled by the Overdeity. Think of the Big Bang as a faucet getting turned on for a brief moment.
2. Evil beings are defined as such because either the OD has cast them from its presence, or because their own actions have severed that link.
3. Being severed from the OD, they quite simply do not have direct access to positive energy any longer. The reason for this is the same reason why there is an absolute zero, whereas there is not an "absolute hot": If the presence of the Overdeity is life and energy, the complete absence and withdrawl of the OD's grace equals a state of complete powerlessness.
4. Since the evil deities do not have direct access to positive energy, they must instead try to siphon off and corrupt what energy they can. The process of corruption is necessary because the OD has already said they can't use positive energy anymore, so they have to find a way around that restriction.
5. To make this happen, let's say that they configure the infernal planes to be huge voids bereft of positive energy. The spiritual "vacuum" that exists within these planes effectively forms the negative pole of the cosmos.
6. The infernal planes themselves act like an apparatus that converts the positive energy into a sort that they can use.
Given this sort of a setup, good deities cannot use negative energy because doing so would require falling from grace. The evil deities cannot use positive energy because they are not only cut-off from it, but could not use it directly anyway.
Enter the importance of corrupting mortal souls and redeeming sinners:
* Corruption leads to more power for the evil deities.
* Redemption reclaims and purifies some of the negative energy.
Of course, now that the multiverse has grown accustomed to having a recycling flow of spiritual energy not unlike a magnetic field, it would sort of mean the end of everything if either side was ever eliminated completely since the flow of energy would stop. Also you don't just want the OD opening the spigot again lest you blow the existing cosmos away in another Big Bang. But that's another matter entirely.
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I'm far too tired to read thru the entire thread right now (let alone to be phrasing my answer to the OP's question eloquently), but here goes...
The view I have always had of positive vs. negative energy is in part based on my (limited) knowledge of Hebrew mysticism...
We are definitely getting into a strange (but interesting) area here.
Part of the problem that people are having is that the cosmology and metaphysics of the D&D/Pathfinder canon (and here I'm talking about everything from paperback Greyhawk to Golarion) don't really demonstrate internal consistency when examined too deeply. This is a result of the cosmology and magic rules having been assembled piecemeal over decades with lots of different concepts and ideas being shoehorned in.
Questions like "What is positive energy? What is negative energy? How do these relate to the forces of cosmic Good and Evil in the Outer Planes?" don't really have answers within the game, so each GM ends up filling in the picture based on his own perceptions, education, and psychological baggage.
I've actually spent some time over the years trying to assemble a consistent cosmology and metaphysics for the game based on my research into medieval mysticism, and ended up giving it up as a bad job. Medieval cosmology and mysticism are far too esoteric to be applied to a game where knights smite oinodaemons with swords and wizards "shoot bolts of lightning from their arses".
One of the ideas I tried was to assemble the outer planes into a (kind of) sephiroth, with the "positive" (ie good) planes "above" the material and the "negative" planes (ie evil) "below". This is substantially different from the Hebrew sephiroth, where the "material plane" is the bottom -- the negative or qlippothic planes are "behind/under" the positive planes. [Moore, Alan; Promethea]
Currently I'm playing with a concentric crystal sphere configuration (Keplerian; similar to the Great Beyond) with the positive material "source" at the center (similar to a solar-centric system), surrounded by the "higher" or "good" planes, then the material planes, then the outer or "evil" planes, and finally the "negative energy" plane surrounding the entire system as Outer Darkness, or Void. (This outer void is a concept that comes up frequently in medieval cosmology.)
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I feel that the use of Channel Energy during a fight is the perfect illustration of why Evil gods use Negative Energy :
- Channel Negative Energy and you definitely hurt your living opponents. Maybe you also hurt some of your friends, but that's the price to be paid and does not matter so much.
- Channel Positive Energy and you definitely help your living friends. Maybe you also heal some of your opponents, but that's the price to be paid and does not matter so much.
For Evil gods, hurting your enemies is more important than helping your friends, thus Negative Energy is their choice.
For Good gods, it is the opposite.
For Neutral gods, there is not one energy absolutely better than the other with concern to the god's basic approach to life. Both are valid and thus it defaults to the cleric's outlook.
We are definitely getting into a strange (but interesting) area here.
[snip]
One of the ideas I tried was to assemble the outer planes into a (kind of) sephiroth, with the "positive" (ie good) planes "above" the material and the "negative" planes (ie evil) "below". This is substantially different from the Hebrew sephiroth, where the "material plane" is the bottom -- the negative or qlippothic planes are "behind/under" the positive planes. [Moore, Alan; Promethea]
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
The idea I arrived at sounds similar to one of yours with the prime material existing in the middle. In essence, it lies along the equatorial plane of the energy field which places the positive above, and the negative below.
With regards to the Sephiroth, I imagined that that the vast transmission of power used to create the prime material took place in an event like the big bang. From that standpoint, the positive energy mono-pole is still at the top, while the prime is at the bottom. Post-fall then, the evil deities create the qlippoth by imitating creation in inverse to form a negative pole.
Since the bulk of energy entered into the system at the very beginning, and "re-opening the spigot" to correct the problem would basically blow-away everything in another big bang, creation essentially becomes a closed system with a cycling flow of energy. Chalk it up as the limited understanding of a mortal, but depending upon the frame (or time) of reference, it seems like both models could be one and the same.
Anyway, I suppose this is all a bit esoteric for a phantasy world, but I enjoyed your post and the chance it provided to think on my own at greater length. I'd like to hear more about your concentric planes model if you don't mind sharing, though I suspect we might be getting a bit off-topic for the current thread. ^_^;;
If nothing else, much like how the Great Wheel is described in the Manual of the Planes, one of the great things about all this brainstorming is that different models can represent how different cultures in a game world have concluded how everything is put together — much like scientists and philosophers have in ours. After reading James' Jacob's fiendish codex books for 3.5, I'd be interested to hear what his thoughts on such matters are...
Because Negative Energy is made of Dead Puppies.
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That particular 3.5 revision strikes me as being there largely to allow paladins to smite zombies and skeletons, while being utterly nonsensical to the fact that they're automatons empowered by non-evil energy.
The thing is, I'm not automatically opposed to the idea.
Just make Skeletons and Zombies have an Int score of 3, same as a Fiendish creature, and retcon to say that the Negative Energy Plane is evil-aligned, just like the Abyss or the Nine Hells.
Boom. Retcon accomplished, undead are evil, always, negative energy is evil, always, and it's *completely consistent* with the rest of the game. Of course, channeling positive energy should always be good, in that case, and evil clerics will need some sort of healing options that don't involve positive energy (vampiric healing magic, for instance that sucks life from foes and gives it to himself or his allies), but that's easy enough. Add a few new spells for evil clerics to use to heal *or* turn Cure X and Inflict X spells into Transmutation magic that knits flesh and has nothing to do with positive or negative energy.
What bugs me is that it was a half-arsed inconsistent change that ends up flying in direct contradiction to other parts of the system. It just comes across as sloppy and unprofessional, which grates my cheese, since *I* can rationalize it and fix the rules holes / inconsistencies, but I wasn't the one paid cash money to do so.
I like some actual moral choices in the game, rather than simplisitically whitewashing and avoiding Role-Play of alignment issues by blanket forbidding Clerics from casting spells that could get them in trouble (adding a dash of Paladin to the Cleric, who, IMO, has always gotten a bit of a free pass anyway on the whole 'respect your ethos' thing), so the 'negative energy is always evil' thing isn't my *first choice,* but I (arrogantly) feel could have done it a heck of a lot better than the people who actually made that change...
Last knight, I'll respond the question because I think I think equal to the one you asked:
There can be magical items that are simply evil because they are made with evil spells. If you really follow the way you are leading, there aren't evil spells, just evil uses for spells. A magic item, if you think deeply, can't really be "evil". But it has a tainted aura, it was created with evil spells and (supposedly) with evil rites and such things.
In my way of thinking, a creature without inteligence can't be evil. But it's a creature. This extends only to creatures. it's not an exercise of applying this way of thinking to extremes. If it was, you couldn't even have evil rocks, evil doors and such things. This sounds really dumb, evil doors or rocks, but there could be. They're probably magical too. But I believe that the rock being evil (hehe) just means that it has an evil aura, no that the rock wants to kill babies...
For me, mindless creatures won't ever be evil. Creating an undead may be UNNACEPTABLE because this taints the sacred death and this kind of thing, but isn't to be something EVIL. A cleric could raise a dead ox to help the farmers with the harvest. They would look strange, and wouldn't trust it, but then, the ox isn't evil per se. It's a construct. A thing.
A magical evil item isn't a thing? It is. But it's evil because it was created with an evil spell.
There are many evil spells that don't use negative energy, and they should still be evil. There are some that destroy and kill but shouldn't be more evil than a fireball!
And in my opinion, a spell shouldn't be evil just because it uses negative energy.
My two cents.
You sir need to play my Ravenloft game, where evil is evil, for the sake of being evil and spells and items can be evil.
Come swim in the evil, it tastes like broken dreams and made of negative energy.
Did I mention the evil?
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1. The flow of positive energy into the cosmos is controlled by the Overdeity. Think of the Big Bang as a faucet getting turned on for a brief moment.
2. Evil beings are defined as such because either the OD has cast them from its presence, or because their own actions have severed that link.
3. Being severed from the OD, they quite simply do not have direct access to positive energy any longer. The reason for this is the same reason why there is an absolute zero, whereas there is not an "absolute hot": If the presence of the Overdeity is life and energy, the complete absence and withdrawl of the OD's grace equals a state of complete powerlessness.
4. Since the evil deities do not have direct access to positive energy, they must instead try to siphon off and corrupt what energy they can. The process of corruption is necessary because the OD has already said they can't use positive energy anymore, so they have to find a way around that restriction.
5. To make this happen, let's say that they configure the infernal planes to be huge voids bereft of positive energy. The spiritual "vacuum" that exists within these planes effectively forms the negative pole of the cosmos.
6. The infernal planes themselves act like an apparatus that converts the positive energy into a sort that they can use.
I love the thought that went into this, but as positive energy is the source of all life, and negative energy is inimical and antithetical to life, all lower planes creatures (demons, devils, daemons) would have to be undead, to thrive and exist in Lower Planes that are bereft of positive energy and filled with 'negative energy.'
A source of goodness and a source of evilness as actual planes is neat, but when you can't live without a connection to the 'good' plane, it means that all inherently evil creatures *must* be undead (or else they wouldn't be able to survive in the 'evil' planes). It would be very much like Monte Cooks Arcana Unearthed setting, in that nature.
Curing magic, coming from the positive 'good' plane, again, becomes limited to only good clerics and good dieties and good outsiders. Demons, devils, evil gods, if they get a boo-boo, *it's forever,* as any attempt to cure it with positive energy (the only energy that *can* cure) will only make it worse! And so, inevitably, all evil things become undead. An evil cult-leader (or even an evil *god*) can't heal his followers, and if one of them gets an infection, the only 'cure' is to turn them into an undead, which might take awhile, if the cult leader is 3rd level and doesn't have any 'make people undead' spells.
Because of this 'problem,' the positive and negative energy planes (and their residents, the xag-ya and xeg-yi) in D&D have always been neutral, not even *mildly* aligned towards good or evil.
Turning the energy planes into aligned planes is a big change, and requires one or more of the following big changes;
1) Cure and Inflict spells remain positive and negative energy, and become unavailable to evil and good Clerics, respectively.
1a) If Evil Clerics are intended to be able to heal, new non-positive energy using healing spells must be provided for them. Vampiric healing, etc.
1b) If Evil Clerics are *not* intended to be able to heal, undead becomes the only significant viable alternative for evil empires, as they would not be able to maintain armies of living soldiers in competition against nations that can heal their living soldiers.
2) Cure and Inflict spells become Transmutation or Necromancy spells that have nothing to do with positive and negative energy.
3) 'Mindless' undead become malevolent and life-hating, and if not commanded otherwise, will wander around killing things. This requires them to have an Intelligence score of at least 1 (and probably 3, same as a Fiendish Vermin requires to become Evil, or a Celestial Badger requires to become Good, as it's always best to follow the established rule precedents rather than make stuff up).
4) Class Options: So-called 'white necromancers' become an urban legend, and an entire School of Magic is thrown out for Organized Play, which forbids evil characters. Indeed, the entire Necromancy school can safely be moved into the DMG (or, like the 20 level Assassin base class, removed from the game entirely), as it's no longer suitable for player use. On the upside, as it will no longer be for PC use, the new Necromancy school can be fluffed up with spell options that would be overpowered or too easily abused in the hands of PCs, to make for more exciting encounters.
Negative Energy Channeling rules can be removed from the PHB and put into the DMG as well, since players in Organized Play / official games will no longer have it, and the core classes are generally weighted towards good-aligned play. Like the Assassin and Blackguard, you could even go a further step and turn the Evil Cleric into a Fallen Priest PrC, and go with the world assumption that, just as evil dieties and archdevils and whatever are 'fallen' gods and angels, so to are the priests who follow them 'fallen' from the faiths of the good gods, turning evil Clerics into a PrC that is only available to someone who goes through 5 levels as a good Cleric and then 'loses faith' and turns to dark powers, their positive channeling abilities lost and replaced by negative energy channeling powers.
Neutral Clerics are no longer viable under this system in any event, as channeling negative energy turns them evil and channeling positive energy turns them good. Any neutral diety that isn't already a nature diety should be modified to either be a nature diety (so that they can have Druids as priests) or adopt a leaning towards Good or Evil (so that Clerics can follow them). All Clerics must choose a Good or Evil alignment, appropriate for their diety, and channel the appropriate energy type.
It's a bit of work, but you could make a very neat dualistic system, creating a very black and white / good vs. evil D&D world.
You could even go a step further and have a plane of ultimate chaos and a plane of ultimate law, whose priests channel stasis (slow spell / hold person effect) or chaos (confusion effect) instead of healing / life-draining energies.
I love the thought that went into this, but as positive energy is the source of all life, and negative energy is inimical and antithetical to life, all lower planes creatures (demons, devils, daemons) would have to be undead, to thrive and exist in Lower Planes that are bereft of positive energy and filled with 'negative energy.'
I'm not so certain that negative energy would dictate that all lower planes creatures would have to be undead. Whether they are flexing the divinely morphic traits of their home plane to build a hellish palace, creating a gate to send troops to battle, or creating undead, negative energy is simply the energy source that evil outsiders have at their disposal to power whatever works they set out to accomplish. Undead are not necessarily a special case here, they are simply a "work" that was made to pervert life.
In the scenario/cosmology I briefly detailed, the reason for evil outsiders using negative energy is simply a matter of necessity. If the evil deities hadn't invested a portion of their innate, pre-fall powers into configuring the lower planes to siphon energy, they'd have had no energy at all to work with. That was the reason I went into the absolute zero analogy. Another analogy would be to relate it to the notion that the Christian "Hell" is that place which is devoid of God's Love.
On the undead issue again (and negative energy's propensity for decay), it may help to think of it more like anti-matter. On objects from a world comprised of positive energy, or normal matter, negative energy and anti-matter have adverse effects. Yet on a world comprised totally of anti-matter, introducing normal matter is what would be disastrous.
Thus, even though good outsiders control access to positive energy, and evil ones can grant access to negative energy, that doesn't necessarily mean that type of energy has an alignment of its own. My comment about good creatures having to fall from grace in order to use negative energy wasn't based on the intrinsic nature of negative energy so much as with WHOM they would have to sign a contract in order to tap into that energy.
Where neutral deities and positive energy are concerned, the operational frame of mind would be, "If you are not against us, you are with us." As such, I'd see all those neutral nature deities as having control over positive energy.
But what about the fact that the flow of positive and negative energy is cyclical?
Yes, this would mean that there would be both negative and positive energy coursing thru most of the planes in varying concentrations:
* By the time the cycling energy reaches the upper planes, it has been purified back into positive energy.
* By the time it reaches the lower planes, it has been corrupted back into negative energy.
* In between, a creature that can tap into such energy without having to go thru an outsider might theoretically be able to tap into either energy. This would be where Ur Priests and their ilk come in and why outsiders at both ends of the spectrum would revile them. No lip-service!
Anyway, I have to finish packing for DragonCon now, but hopefully this helps to clarify the cosmological ideas I was proposing earlier. Certainly there would be some amount of rules-massaging necessary, but I don't think it would necessarily be as drastic as you initially suspected.
BTW, I think the flavor of having evil clerics "heal" by way of vampiric powers is just great! You could even have it work in the same fashion as how magic worked in Dark Sun: breakdown life to gain energy. It would also give a good crunchy reason for why those evil empires are always to dismal looking. ;)
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4) Class Options: So-called 'white necromancers' become an urban legend, and an entire School of Magic is thrown out for Organized Play, which forbids evil characters. Indeed, the entire Necromancy school can safely be moved into the DMG (or, like the 20 level Assassin base class, removed from the game entirely), as it's no longer suitable for player use. On the upside, as it will no longer be for PC use, the new Necromancy school can be fluffed up with spell options that would be overpowered or too easily abused in the hands of PCs, to make for more exciting encounters.
Okay I think you started out from a decent place then took a couple of unecessary leaps in logic. The first is the idea that white necromancers can't exist, that's just nuts even if negative energy is evil. Remember, necromancy doesn't just involve spells that create undead. It includes distrupt undead, and a few spells that have nothing to do with negative energy and aren't evil like eyebite, blindness/deafness, death ward, etc. and even though there aren't that many nothing stops players from researching and creating their own necromancy spells so saying white necromancy can't exist is a leap that makes no sense, in fact you can be a white necromancer and be all about destroying undead with self researched spells like mass disrupt undead, greater disrupt undead, death to undeath etc. etc. etc. So why the heck does necromancy have to be removed from the game? and just because PFS doesn't support evil characters doesn't mean home games don't. Like I said started with a good idea then just made crazy leaps.
Negative Energy Channeling rules can be removed from the PHB and put into the DMG as well, since players in Organized Play / official games will no longer have it, and the core classes are generally weighted towards good-aligned play. Like the Assassin and Blackguard, you could even go a further step and turn the Evil Cleric into a Fallen Priest PrC, and go with the world assumption that, just as evil dieties and archdevils and whatever are 'fallen' gods and angels, so to are the priests who follow them 'fallen' from the faiths of the good gods, turning evil Clerics into a PrC that is only available to someone who goes through 5 levels as a good Cleric and then 'loses faith' and turns to dark powers, their positive channeling abilities lost and replaced by negative energy channeling powers.
um you do remember that a) there are no more PHB/DMG its all one book right? b) once again just because organized play doesn't support it doesn't mean anything in regards to the base book, it should be in there because playing evil characters IS allowed in home games. and while your PrC is an interesting concept, not required for the core book because the core book doesn't base itself off of organized play.
Neutral Clerics are no longer viable under this system in any event, as channeling negative energy turns them evil and channeling positive energy turns them good. Any neutral diety that isn't already a nature diety should be modified to either be a nature diety (so that they can have Druids as priests) or adopt a leaning towards Good or Evil (so that Clerics can follow them). All Clerics must choose a Good or Evil alignment, appropriate for their diety, and channel the appropriate energy type.
So does that mean that an Evil Rogue with UMD will change to good if he keeps a wand of cure light wounds in his pocket to heal himself? I just don't think that using something, even if it is evil or good in nature changes you in any way, it's how you use it. Granted continual use of it may have a corrupting or redeeming factor, but if you just have the ability to use something, and hold it in reserve for emergency situations even if it is evil or good, just because you have and occasionally use something doesn't mean that it's the final deciding factor in your alignment. This isn't a leap like your previous statements it's just a minor point we disagree on.
3) 'Mindless' undead become malevolent and life-hating, and if not commanded otherwise, will wander around killing things. This requires them to have an Intelligence score of at least 1 (and probably 3, same as a Fiendish Vermin requires to become Evil, or a Celestial Badger requires to become Good, as it's always best to follow the established rule precedents rather than make stuff up).
Who says they are malevolent or life hating? they destroy life, but they don't do it out of some kind of concious choice, they do it because thats what they have to do. In the same way that wind blows sand and dust around, this isn't a concious choice on the winds part, its a side effect of the winds existence. a skeleton doesn't destroy life out of some desire, it destroys life because that's what it *IS* because it was created by negative energy. Negative energy actually does the exact same thing, if you flush an area with negative energy it kills all life in that area, does this mean that the negative energy plane itself has to have an intelligence of 1?
Neutral Clerics and Undead
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Even if a cleric is neutral, channeling positive energy is a good act and channeling negative energy is evil.
I know this is from the 3.5 PHB and not pathfinder but I don't see how channeling negative energy as a cleric in the pathfinder setting wouldn't be an evil act in light of this ruling.
This ruling would also explain why evil gods would channel negative energy.