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From the campaign guide write-up it doesn't sound like Geb has much of an export business since every other nation wants to see them obliterated.
From the Campaign Setting, fifth paragraph, page 76.
Geb even trades zombie-harvested food to Nex in exchange for rare components and luxury goods.
In the seventh paragraph it goes on to mention that they have 'good relations' with the three other countries near them, and don't have any regional enemies (although they are roundly despised by some people on the northern continent...).
I'm not sure if you are referencing the Gazetteer, which may not include this level of detail, but the actual Campaign Setting has them exporting food to their nearest neighbor, who, about 4000 years ago, was at war with them.
Still going... nothing stops this argument. I could say how this is very campaign specific, and in some worlds Animate Dead probably wouldn't be evil, and if the DM was running such a world they'd change it. But that's been said a million times....
I could also point out that the issue of players sneaking into graveyards to dig up grandma is a total straw man, since humanoids, as a rule, make terrible skeletons and zombies, and what the necromancer is going to want to animate is that marauding ogre or dragon that his party just slew. While the villagers may still riot if they find out about it, nobody's going to be coming after PCs on blood vendettas over reanimated family members. Of course, this has also been said a million times...
Instead I'll say this: What's wrong with necromancy being evil? The whole reason I like it as a player is that it is a dark and forbidden road, and I like to role play the wizard who is in over his head, learning dark secrets no mortal should know, channeling dark magics only barely within his control, using his knowledge as much as he can for good in an attempt to justify his obsessions to himself.
That's a fun character, and it can work just fine in anything but the most lawful good of parties - so long as there's no paladin about. The neutral character who uses evil methods to achieve good ends is a common enough hero whether magical or otherwise.
Yes, this means accepting that the character will have to hide what he is from NPCs, and even from his own party members before they come to know and rely upon him, but that's part of the fun of this character type. Playing a necromancer in a regular campaign is the same type of fun you get from playing an arcanist in Dark Sun.
All that said, it can be disruptive, shouldn't be done if there's a paladin in the party, and is something you should go over with the DM and other players out of character before the game starts.
For me, making necromancy neutral, or even good, would undo a lot of the charm of playing a necromancer in the first place. It's for this reason that I always hated the 'deathless'. I mean, they're so pointless - there are already creatures animated by positive energy. They're called everybody who isn't undead. And why did Eberron of all settings need 'good' undead? Part of the premise of Eberron is that any creature can be any alignment - the default monster manual alignments aren't locked in stone. If they wanted good liches and death knights for the Aerenal elves, they could have just said so. Even Forgotten Realms has good elven liches.
Further, alignment doesn't necessarily indicate whether you're a "good guy" or a "bad guy" - just look at the Halfling in OotS. This goes doubly for Eberron, and explicitly so. As an example, The King of Kharnath is an *spoiler alert* evil vampire. Evil in the sense that he'll advance his nation in any way he can, not balking at assassination, dark magic, or outright war, even enjoying those things. But he still fights against the evil Emerald Claw, and still is protective of his people. All together, despite his alignment, he's more likely to be a patron of the PCs then the Big Bad of a given Eberron campaign.
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Instead I'll say this: What's wrong with necromancy being evil? The whole reason I like it as a player is that it is a dark and forbidden road, and I like to role play the wizard who is in over his head, learning dark secrets no mortal should know, channeling dark magics only barely within his control, using his knowledge as much as he can for good in an attempt to justify his obsessions to himself.
I wanted to hit this point.
Nothing is 'wrong' with Necromancy being [evil] in someone's campaign. The issue here is that Necromancy isn't evil. Sucking someone's life force away (vampiric touch) isn't evil, killing 17+ people in one shot (wail of the banshee) isn't evil. Hells leaving random squigles around that kill any innocent who look at them funny isn't evil. Even slay living isn't evil. only animate dead, the necromantic staple is.
And for no good reason excpet the 'rules say so'
And for no good reason excpet the 'rules say so'
That, and it's a classic fantasy staple that undead creatures are inherently evil and the magic creating them is likewise. It's not the only way of doing things, just a high fantasy tradition that is the default in Pathfinder. If in your game an animated skeleton is no different then any other animated object, then Animate Dead should be house ruled to no longer have the [evil] subtype, yes.
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From the campaign guide write-up it doesn't sound like Geb has much of an export business since every other nation wants to see them obliterated.From the Campaign Setting, fifth paragraph, page 76.
Geb even trades zombie-harvested food to Nex in exchange for rare components and luxury goods.
I stand corrected. You are right Set.
Should have been self-sustaining, would have made more sense.Incredibly sh$# bad design which sacrificed intelligence for to make a faux Egyptian "cool" undead land IMO.
And Iobaria is the land with frequent plagues?
Really? ...incredibly stupid.
More sadness from Pathfinder. Ugh
I stand corrected. You are right Set.
Should have been self-sustaining, would have made more sense.
If the existence of a nation that tolerates the undead is acceptable, then why is the existence of a nation that tolerates a nation that tolerates the undead unacceptable?
Wizards are inherently geeky magesBut unlike thier third millenium Earth counterparts, they're not nearly as social. Wizards make discoveries but they tend to keep them to themselves as they see other wizards as covetous competition. They may occasionaly band together in a guild, but one of the first bylaws you'll see in any wizard's guild are the commandments that respect the privacy of a magus and his research.
In reality, this only applies to NPC wizards, and for the most part only in matters of personal spell research. When you get two PC wizards in a party, unless there are other reasons set up for them to hate each other, they act like little kids trading lunches in the cafeteria, especially since there's a mechanical advantage for Bob to take spells W and X at next level and Sue to take Y and Z and then share their new spell research with each other rather than having to go buy scrolls to waste copying the spells into their spellbooks.
This has been a problem going back to 1st edition. I still remember going to the NPC wizard and explaining to him the basic math where if he loaned me his traveling spellbook under supervision to copy the spells that I had just found on scrolls we could then both sell the scrolls and split the gold pieces 50/50, and following this logic, maybe he could sell me the right to copy a few other spells for half the cost of their value as scrolls and save himself the trouble of writing them for them to be wasted. And if he didn't want to worry about me peeking at other spells in the book, he might want to pen a set of loaner copies with only one spell in each book. Kind of hard to peek at spells that aren't in a book, isn't it?
Though this is an aside from the given topic, and should likely be used for a separate thread.
From the campaign guide write-up it doesn't sound like Geb has much of an export business since every other nation wants to see them obliterated.From the Campaign Setting, fifth paragraph, page 76.
Geb even trades zombie-harvested food to Nex in exchange for rare components and luxury goods.I stand corrected. You are right Set.
Should have been self-sustaining, would have made more sense.Incredibly sh$# bad design which sacrificed intelligence for to make a faux Egyptian "cool" undead land IMO.
And Iobaria is the land with frequent plagues?
Really? ...incredibly stupid.More sadness from Pathfinder. Ugh
I don't know. If it was me I would use the more dexterous bleach-able skeletons to do the picking and the stronger slower zombies to do the heavy lifting.
If the existence of a nation that tolerates the undead is acceptable, then why is the existence of a nation that tolerates a nation that tolerates the undead unacceptable?
His problem is he thinks that having lots of undead should have lots of plagues.
He doesn't like that they don't if I understand him.
If the existence of a nation that tolerates the undead is acceptable, then why is the existence of a nation that tolerates a nation that tolerates the undead unacceptable?
His problem is he thinks that having lots of undead should have lots of plagues.
He doesn't like that they don't if I understand him.
Then he should pick a disease that doesn't require warm blood and living creatures as a reservoir.
Anthrax would be a good candidate. One of the more famous strains was carried by a bunch of tainted sheep bones imported for soap making. If you wanted to taint your skeletons and zombies with anthrax, you could have a lovely disaster in the making, but honestly it would spread well beyond Geb in very short order.
It should also be noted that any cleric who uses Turn Undead to explode the skeletons into bone dust would aerosolize any contagion on the bones which would be far worse of an idea than having an evil or neutral cleric simply command the skeletons to step into a handy incinerator, such as a Flaming Sphere spell.
His problem is he thinks that having lots of undead should have lots of plagues.
He doesn't like that they don't if I understand him.
Oh, ok, that makes more sense. Though, in response, I would then say that any nation wealthy enough in magical and monetary resources to expend 3rd to 4th level spell slots and 25gp per hd on terrible farmers* can probably afford to pass their exports through a station with low level adepts spamming 'purify food & drink' for a living. Frankly, such is probably a good idea anyway. Corpses may be known to carry diseases, but so is the dung used to fertilize the crops even in non-undead lands.
* skeletons and zombies in pathfinder would make terrible farmers. With a 10 wisdom and no skill ranks, they're rolling flat d20's on their profession: farmer checks, and where other professions like miner or builder or guard might benefit from workers capable of carrying on without food or rest indefinitely, farming is still limited by how fast the produce grows, so while I don't believe plagues are a necessary result of undead farmers**, it still doesn't sound like an efficient business practice.
** Unless we're talking about Plague Zombies, but a nation that uses plague zombies to grow their food has no right to complain when their food is riddled with zombie plague.
They probably have someone on staff with the old Pale Master prestige class that lets you create zombies without lobbing GP at the corpse. Or a magic item that does the same thing, a big black cauldron or a magic coffin or something.
However, you're not supposed to squint very hard at fantasy economics.
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Then he should pick a disease that doesn't require warm blood and living creatures as a reservoir.
If only those skeletons and zombies were animated by negative energy, which is inimical and antithetical to all life, and, logically, *would be constantly sterilized by the presence of life-nullifying energy coursing through it.*
If that were the case, skeletons and zombies would be cleaner fruit-pickers than living humans, as they would be fundementally incapable of supporting biological micro-organisms, 'cause of the icky negative energy.
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Then he should pick a disease that doesn't require warm blood and living creatures as a reservoir.If only those skeletons and zombies were animated by negative energy, which is inimical and antithetical to all life, and, logically, *would be constantly sterilized by the presence of life-nullifying energy coursing through it.*
If that were the case, skeletons and zombies would be cleaner fruit-pickers than living humans, as they would be fundementally incapable of supporting biological micro-organisms, 'cause of the icky negative energy.
Pathfinder is mythology, not science. Disease isn't caused by micro-organisms, it's caused by a creepy lady with bony legs.
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Then he should pick a disease that doesn't require warm blood and living creatures as a reservoir.If only those skeletons and zombies were animated by negative energy, which is inimical and antithetical to all life, and, logically, *would be constantly sterilized by the presence of life-nullifying energy coursing through it.*
If that were the case, skeletons and zombies would be cleaner fruit-pickers than living humans, as they would be fundementally incapable of supporting biological micro-organisms, 'cause of the icky negative energy.
Set, did you read my little IC theorm upthread?
Aside in the (otherwise annoying) Kevin J Anderson Jedi Academy trillogy, Kyp uses a little darkside energy constantly going to keep the bugs away from him.
Hmm, maybe Necromancy needs a rewrite to be tapping both negative and positive energy...
Pathfinder is mythology, not science. Disease isn't caused by micro-organisms, it's caused by a creepy lady with bony legs.Then he should pick a disease that doesn't require warm blood and living creatures as a reservoir.If only those skeletons and zombies were animated by negative energy, which is inimical and antithetical to all life, and, logically, *would be constantly sterilized by the presence of life-nullifying energy coursing through it.*
If that were the case, skeletons and zombies would be cleaner fruit-pickers than living humans, as they would be fundementally incapable of supporting biological micro-organisms, 'cause of the icky negative energy.
This should likely be stressed.
The modern germ theory of disease, apart from being correct, isn't something people really understood in the middle ages, apart from the plague doctors who did wear what's basically the predecessor of a hazmat suit and gas mask.
But if we're going to go with other theories of disease, we might as well go whole hog. I believe they include the visitation by evil spirits (who could be classified as undead though outsiders are another possibility), fairies dancing on cakes or sniping people with elf shot (not an undead thing), witches casting spells, the exhalations of basilisks and occasionally toads making nests out of people's hair.
And I should also point out that the merchants of Geb will mention all of these possible causes when they are told concerns about their baskets of peaches and apricots possibly harboring contagion. Undead are a powerful to deterrent to fairies so Geb's produce contains no pestilential fey cooties, toads are not tolerated except as wizards or witches familiars, and Geb is at the forefront of modern basilisk eradication methods, usually taking care of the matter by sending wraiths or other incorporeal undead to drain the life out of the deadly lizards.
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Then agian we have the death and water connection of pharasma.....This thread is a good case study for psyops on the subject of auto-hypnosis.
Urgathoa's portfolios are Undeath and Disease, I wonder if those two things are connected?
Carry on.
Looks like designers threw that in as fill in domain addition to her portfolio just to satisfy covering the water domain. No mention is made in her heading or description whereas disease is center to both function, description and background of Urgathoa.
Urgathoa - Goddess of gluttony, disease, and undeath
Pharasma - Goddess of fate, death, prophecy, and birth
Nice try with the comparison though.
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More than just "Goddess of X", you have actual lore to back this up.
Urgathoa escaped the boneyard, came back to the material world as the very first Undead thing in the entire Great Beyond, and in doing so brought disease to the world.
That said, I don't think having undead pick your produce is too big a deal. After all, purify food and drink is a 0-level spell, just hire an adept to process all your imports and exports and you shouldn't have any problems.
That said, I don't think having undead pick your produce is too big a deal. After all, purify food and drink is a 0-level spell, just hire an adept to process all your imports and exports and you shouldn't have any problems.
Seriously, the idea that skeletons can't harvest fruit due to the risk of spreading disease is ridiculous in light of Purify Food and Drink's existence. Any society that has mid level casters with nothing better to do with their time then make undead farmers certainly can spare a few low level casters to clean the food before shipping it.
On topic, most undead in core pathfinder are evil, yes. Undeath itself is a 'bad thing' and deliberately creating undead is also a 'bad thing'. All that said, neutral characters can and do sometimes do 'bad things' for neutral or even good reasons, and there's no reason that a PC party couldn't accept a necromancer in their ranks, provided they don't have any paladins in their ranks.
It does, of course, depend on the party. A given party might object to using poisons, while another might find it no more inherently objectionable then other means of slaying monsters. One party might kill monstrous humanoids on sight, while another insists that attempts at peaceful resolutions should be sought. One party might prefer stealthy actions, while another finds such methods cowardly.
True, necromancy will be more objectionable more of the time, even in a setting where undead aren't inherently evil and thus neither is creating them. Even so, it's a player, party, DM, and campaign style issue.
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After all, purify food and drink is a 0-level spell, just hire an adept to process all your imports and exports and you shouldn't have any problems.
Adepts don't get unlimited cantrips, but a 1st level Cleric or Druid at the border / trading-market could handle such matters easily enough.
Nexian clerics of Abadar are likely fairly mercenary, and would probably be willing to assign some 1st level acolyte to sit in the border market, purifying grain that comes into the country for small coin. A Nethyn acolyte could be assigned a similar duty, as Nex has a fairly utilitarian view of magic, seeing it as a tool, and while it is not as cut and dried to a Nethyn, it suits their long-term goals for the people to see both magic in general and Nethyns in specific serving the Nexian people.
Pharasmans are very much not fans of undead, so there would likely be a presence in the border market preaching against the wickedness of profiting by and literally feeding off of the Gebbite practices and their 'harvests of death,' 'paid in blood-coin.' By purchasing the product of undead-mongers, the Nexian merchants and middlemen are, in their eyes, encouraging and perpetuating the Gebbite atrocity. They stand on their boxes and crates, preaching, while wagons of undead-harvested grain pass them on all sides, attempting to educate the people as to the horror that they are perpetuating.
To the average grain-merchant, Pharasman street-preachers are about as welcome as PETA protestors are outside of an animal-testing laboratory...
Clerics of other local churches, those of Irori, Lamashtu and Norgorber, have other concerns, most likely, and neither profit from nor rail against the Geb/Nex trade.
Gebbite Clerics may have formerly purified the grain on the way out, but is any Nexian really going to be encouraged by the thought that their grain was 'cleansed of taint' by a Cleric of the goddess of disease and undeath? (The fact that Urgathoa is also a goddess of hunger and gluttony and feasting, and likes purifying food of taint or contagion so much that she allows her Clerics to cast it spontaneously, escapes the superstitious peasants of Nex.) As a result, the Gebbites no longer waste their energies. It's just going to get purified again by the Nexians anyway, so why go through the trouble? Food only gets purified if a shipment is about to go to waste because of rat droppings or mold from moisture that leaked into the grain or whatever.
While there are also strong Nethyn and Zon-Kuthonite clerical presences in Geb, the average Nexian peasant probably doesn't know or care about such quibbly minutiae, and is happy to judge everyone by the same metric.
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After all, purify food and drink is a 0-level spell, just hire an adept to process all your imports and exports and you shouldn't have any problems.Adepts don't get unlimited cantrips, but a 1st level Cleric or Druid at the border / trading-market could handle such matters easily enough...
I hadn't caught that they were lacking the "Cantrips" entry. Good to know.
If having non-evil PCs use animate dead really fits the theme of your campaign I'd suggest house ruling the rules for creating and controlling undead along with the alignment related rules. A PC with a huge army of undead can be flat out disruptive to many (probably most) campaigns in various ways. I guess if you limited the number of undead commanded it might not be so bad.
The situation reminds me of the playtest Summoner. He was able to get too much stuff on the board, so he got nerfed a little, and now it is not quite so bad. Maybe something similar could be done for PC necromancers. Of course people might cry foul if the NPC necromancers were able to keep using big undead armies, and maybe that PC vs NPC "fairness" issue is one reason why these sorts of debates are so popular. The bad guys have undead armies, so the PCs want them too? Just an idea there...
Anyhow, I think there's another question out there. If Animate Dead is Evil then why isn't the very powerful Command Undead spell Evil too? Granted, you're not actually creating undead, but you're still using the spell to control Evil energies though. Mechanically, Command Undead is even more troublesome than Animate Dead since it doesn't have a gold piece cost and you can get more powerful undead pets much earlier than you can by creating them.
Regardless of all that, I'm not sure if there's anything in the Pathfinder rules which says that casting an "Evil" spell is an evil act. There was a big debate in one of my 3.5 gaming groups since there was a guy playing a non-evil arcane caster who got access to Deathknell. I said that using the spell (which he used every fight) could slowly turn him evil and that at the very least he'd be subject to the Taint rules from Heroes of Horror (which we were using). We couldn't find anywhere in the Core rules where it said that casting spells with the Evil descriptor was an evil act though. There was some text in BoVD or the Fiendish Codices, but we weren't using those books, and some players dismissed it as "just flavor text" anyhow.
If using a spell with the Evil descriptor is not an evil act then I suppose a neutral or even good wizard could cast Evil spells all day long without any risk of alignment change. If that's the case then there's relatively less reason for this debate since anybody besides good clerics would be free to cast Animate Dead all day long without any alignment problems. It doesn't ring true to me since the word "Evil" is next to the spell's name, but if there's no rule then folks will surely disagree. Heck, even if there IS a rule folks will disagree (this thread proves that!)
My general approach in 3.5 was to take advantage of subtypes. The magic spell Animate Dead has the evil descriptor. Skeletons and Zombies are inherently mindless automatons, so they're incapable of the moral and ethical choices necessary for an alignment. So they should be neutral. If you really want to represent the [Evil] tag of the spell and let 3.5 paladins smite them, the solution is that skeletons and zombies get the [Evil] tag, too. It's possible to have a creature with an alignment different from their subtype, but this still allows them to detect as evil and be smitable from the gamist perspective of the paladin. This solves the dichotomy and works the same mechanically.
What's frustrating about this argument for me is that people are now bandying about the "zombies and skeletons rampage whenever they're on their 15 minute break" argument as if it's been fact for more than the time it's been since the Bestiary was released. It hasn't been. It was made up to justify the Evil alignment that these undead were given in 3.5 by the guys writing PF who didn't want to go against backwards compatibility by changing the alignment back to its pre-3.5 status. It's an odd decision that at least makes sense within certain contexts, but people are right in pointing out that it is inconsistent with a large amount of the game's assumptions.
Frankly, I'll be ignoring it and going with subtypes, if I don't decide to remove the alignment tag from Animate Dead as well.
Oddly enough, though - Devilkiller's right that there is no in-game rule about what an alignment descriptor spell does, aside from make it off-limits to a divine caster. An Evil arcanist can use Summon Monster to summon a Couatl (giving the spell the Good descriptor), but that doesn't mean he's doing good. Especially if he orders the Couatl to slaughter an orphanage just for kicks (and, as a summoned monster, the Couatl pretty much has to do it, muwahahaha). Just because you've cast a spell with an alignment, there's no actual repercussions to doing so unless you're a cleric/druid, in which case you just can't by default.
My general approach in 3.5 was to take advantage of subtypes. The magic spell Animate Dead has the evil descriptor. Skeletons and Zombies are inherently mindless automatons, so they're incapable of the moral and ethical choices necessary for an alignment. So they should be neutral. If you really want to represent the [Evil] tag of the spell and let 3.5 paladins smite them, the solution is that skeletons and zombies get the [Evil] tag, too. It's possible to have a creature with an alignment different from their subtype, but this still allows them to detect as evil and be smitable from the gamist perspective of the paladin. This solves the dichotomy and works the same mechanically.
What's frustrating about this argument for me is that people are now bandying about the "zombies and skeletons rampage whenever they're on their 15 minute break" argument as if it's been fact for more than the time it's been since the Bestiary was released. It hasn't been. It was made up to justify the Evil alignment that these undead were given in 3.5 by the guys writing PF who didn't want to go against backwards compatibility by changing the alignment back to its pre-3.5 status. It's an odd decision that at least makes sense within certain contexts, but people are right in pointing out that it is inconsistent with a large amount of the game's assumptions.
Frankly, I'll be ignoring it and going with subtypes, if I don't decide to remove the alignment tag from Animate Dead as well.
Oddly enough, though - Devilkiller's right that there is no in-game rule about what an alignment descriptor spell does, aside from make it off-limits to a divine caster. An Evil arcanist can use Summon Monster to summon a Couatl (giving the spell the Good descriptor), but that doesn't mean he's doing good. Especially if he orders the Couatl to slaughter an orphanage just for kicks (and, as a summoned monster, the Couatl pretty much has to do it, muwahahaha). Just because you've cast a spell with an alignment, there's no actual...
Only problem with that is since 3.0/3.5 and now Pathfinder, mindless undead like Skeletons and Zombies are Neutral Evil alignment, and Zombies in their own entry are explained to wander aimlessly when uncontrolled (causing them to kill any living thing they encounter or get destroyed in the process).
Mindless undead lack any self-preservation skills, they wont flee if they are being killed, its kill or be killed.
Necromancy like Demonology are some of the blackest forms of magic, they've been portrayed that way in many mediums (Conan, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, etc) and have been this way in 3.0/3.5 and even since 1st and 2nd Edition D&D.
If you want a zombie or skeleton to be NEUTRAL, then find a way of using ANIMATE OBJECT instead on the remains, for animated objects are neutral as is the spell.
Not to mention that by creating Undead your bringing negative energy into a positive dominant enviroment. Due to the duality of Negative/Positive energy's innate relationship of destroying and disrupting one another, it only makes sense that mindless undead act under the simplest instincts (much like a insects since they too have the "Mindless" traits...otherwise they too would do nothing and thus go extinct) but are driven to kill sources of positive energy that are of a certain concentration that 'registers' to them (thusly why you dont see undead killing fleas or potted plants).
To solidify that fact, the Libra Mortis explains how undead physiology works, and there it explains that even mindless undead while their behaviors differ, when faced with significant sources of positive energy they try to extinguish it.
Only problem with that is since 3.0/3.5 and now Pathfinder, mindless undead like Skeletons and Zombies are Neutral Evil alignment, and Zombies in their own entry are explained to wander aimlessly when uncontrolled (causing them to kill any living thing they encounter or get destroyed in the process).
Mindless undead lack any self-preservation skills, they wont flee if they are being killed, its kill or be killed.
Necromancy like Demonology are some of the blackest forms of magic, they've been portrayed that way in many mediums (Conan, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, etc) and have been this way in 3.0/3.5 and even since 1st and 2nd Edition D&D.
Or play 3.5 and argue since 3.5 entry doesn't have zombies/Skeletons wandering aimlessly when uncontrolled.
Assumingly, that was PF's way of trying to explain away why they are evil.
And Conan was restored to life by Necromancy (1st movie). He certainly didn't protray them as that bad (only dangerous as they had to fight the spirits to restore him to lfe).
Only problem with that is since 3.0/3.5 and now Pathfinder, mindless undead like Skeletons and Zombies are Neutral Evil alignment, and Zombies in their own entry are explained to wander aimlessly when uncontrolled (causing them to kill any living thing they encounter or get destroyed in the process).
Mindless undead lack any self-preservation skills, they wont flee if they are being killed, its kill or be killed.
Necromancy like Demonology are some of the blackest forms of magic, they've been portrayed that way in many mediums (Conan, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, etc) and have been this way in 3.0/3.5 and even since 1st and 2nd Edition D&D.
Or play 3.5 and argue since 3.5 entry doesn't have zombies/Skeletons wandering aimlessly when uncontrolled.
Assumingly, that was PF's way of trying to explain away why they are evil.
And Conan was restored to life by Necromancy (1st movie). He certainly didn't protray them as that bad (only dangerous as they had to fight the spirits to restore him to lfe).
Actually, there are many published adventures that feature wandering, uncontrolled groups of Zombies or Skeletons as random encounters. No controller by your logic should have them stand around like hat stands for adventurers to push over and hang their hats on.
Actually, if you play 3.0/3.5, read Libra Mortis, it supercedes anything in the Monster Manual with regards to undead behaviours and mindless undead DO wander if their controller is slain (not when hes asleep, only when the controller is actually dead).
In Pathfinder, mindless undead are Neutral Evil, they may not have a conscience or think of anything in particular, but they act with slight malice due to their evil nature. Vermin on the other hand are neutral and act as NATURAL LAWS dictate they should, Undead on the other hand obey a SUPERNATURAL set of laws that see them not needing to eat, drink, sleep or breathe. They are mindless shells fuelled with malignant negative energy that drives them to quench sources of positive energy they encounter such as living beings.
Not to mention the fact that in Conan, magic of that sort is highly dangerous...what was the cost of his life returned to him?, Valeria pledged her life to the spirits and that is why the fates chose her to die in the movie. She gave her life through supernatural, sinister means (the spirits were not kind or benevolent - they tried to attack and steal him away) to see her love returned to her.
I'm curious... are the folks in this thread who are so vehement that the spell (and negative energy in general) shouldn't be flagged as (evil) trying to get Paizo to change it officially? Or is the goal just to change the minds of the opposing "faction" in this matter? Maybe just to attempt to sway the casual forum reader? I keep seeing the same points (on both sides) being raised again and again.
I'm curious... are the folks in this thread who are so vehement that the spell (and negative energy in general) shouldn't be flagged as (evil) trying to get Paizo to change it officially? Or is the goal just to change the minds of the opposing "faction" in this matter? Maybe just to attempt to sway the casual forum reader? I keep seeing the same points (on both sides) being raised again and again.
Yeah, it's a circular argument. RAW skeletons and zombies are evil, and Animate Dead is evil, though not all spells that channel negative energy are evil, which is a peculiarity. Also, I can find nowhere that says negative energy in PF is inherently evil. Energy types are neutral, even if their uses are not.
I'm curious... are the folks in this thread who are so vehement that the spell (and negative energy in general) shouldn't be flagged as (evil) trying to get Paizo to change it officially? Or is the goal just to change the minds of the opposing "faction" in this matter? Maybe just to attempt to sway the casual forum reader? I keep seeing the same points (on both sides) being raised again and again.
You might think that folks who are so vehement that necromancy is not evil are just evil folks wanting to get away with doing evil things. You might very well think so; I couldn't possibly comment.
I'm curious... are the folks in this thread who are so vehement that the spell (and negative energy in general) shouldn't be flagged as (evil) trying to get Paizo to change it officially? Or is the goal just to change the minds of the opposing "faction" in this matter? Maybe just to attempt to sway the casual forum reader? I keep seeing the same points (on both sides) being raised again and again.
Maybe we are philosophers that wish you would speak out of the cave and see that the light to your left isn't a torch but the sun. (ala Plato)
One should examine life not accept when it make no sense.
Whispers: EVIL philosophers, that is...
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You might think that folks who are so vehement that necromancy is not evil are just evil folks wanting to get away with doing evil things. You might very well think so; I couldn't possibly comment.
I also am fond of the notion that anyone who disagrees with me about the inconsistency of a game mechanic must be morally suspect.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I'm curious... are the folks in this thread who are so vehement that the spell (and negative energy in general) shouldn't be flagged as (evil) trying to get Paizo to change it officially? Or is the goal just to change the minds of the opposing "faction" in this matter? Maybe just to attempt to sway the casual forum reader? I keep seeing the same points (on both sides) being raised again and again.
I've just been enjoying coming up with theories why, fluff wise, this ONE application of negative energy produces something eeeeeevvvvillll and no other application.
Of course I'm hurt that so few people comment on them.
The Libra Mortis cites several examples of mindless undead acting under a base volition/instinct.
An example adventure hook PG 134, 'Several Zombies left over from an evil clerics army of undead have wandered too close to a village of innocents'
- This explains that the undead are uncontrolled, have wandered by happenstance close to the aforementioned 'town' and are going to attack the village if they wander close enough to it.
And for Tactics for mindless undead such as Skeletons and Zombies, on Page 137.
"As an unintelligent creature, a skeleton doesnt have any faculty to plan or use strategy. It doesnt try to flank opponents, or move past armored fighters to attack unarmored wizards. It merely follows the simple command given it by its master (typically along the lines of 'kill anyone who enters this room') until destroyed or its targets disappear from view. A skeleton ignores foes it cant see, and has no ability to discern between vulnerable foes and ones resistant to its attacks.
ROUND 1 = Charge toward the nearest foe, attacking if within reach.
ROUND 2+ = Attack the nearest foe
"Like the Skeleton, the Zombie doesnt employ much in the way of tactics. Assuming their master hasnt given them some other command, most zombies simply attack any visible foe. Zombies ignore invisible creatures and lack the intelligence to recognise when their attacks are useless. A zombie fighting an enemy with displacement or damage reduction, for instance, just keeps flailing away even when if its attacks fail to injure the target. If its target drops or dissapears, it moves on to the next available foe."
ROUND 1 = Charge toward the nearest foe, attacking if within reach.
ROUND 2+ = Attack the nearest foe.
Both entries strongly suggest mindless undead attack anything they view as an enemy on sight, and dont give up until they or their target is slain. Since Zombies and Skeletons are very similar in mindset and strategy they would respond to stimuli the same way.
Also, in 3.0/3.5 Skeletons and Zombies are still Neutral Evil alignment, and the book goes on to explain on Page 12 onward the following...
"SENTIENCE
The ability to think is a quality the vast bulk of undead do not possess. Mindless undead merely respond to preset commands OR STIMULI, driven by nothing other than the energy that animates them. These undead have no outlook, they are robbed of thought. They are nearly mechanical in their actions, and often those actions are as easy to anticipate as the revolution of a water wheel.
On the other hand, sometimes intelligent undead are agents of an intelligent master, wether undead or merely malign. Thus even mindless undead may proove to be surprising foes, if their positions and responses to a given situation are properly cocordinated and prepared. Only sentient undead have the luxury of possessing an outlook and a comprehensible psycological state"
And on the subject of why most undead regardless of their nature are "Evil", Page 12.
"Those creatures fanatical enough to actually seek undeath strive to escape the bonds of mortality and thereby gain a term of existance far beyond their natural life spans. Such mortals often presume that this gift of extended life comes without a price. They hope that by having no temporal limits on their life spans, they will be able to accomplish all their dreams and visions.
The living spend their time living life and gathering experience, thereby shaping their personalities and adjusting to the world as it changes around them. In contrast, the undead mind sees the passage of time very differently. Undead exist and do not life. Life means change, and while undead endure over time and learn new facts, they rarely change of appreciate new paradigms. Aside from a rare few exceptions, and undead's outlook remains stagnant over the decades, or centuries, of its existance, despite new experiences and new situations they encounter.
This inflexible mental nature is the reason why many undead seem insane. In fact, they merely be operating with goals and aspirations that are slightly out of step with the present world. Unfortunately, like any ambition that cannot be swayed by reason or tempered by changing cirumstances, the goals of the stubborn immortal undead become a cankerous evil that can only be exised. While a living creature may accept compramise when life hands it a new challenge, undead can rarely do anything other than what they have always done"
This explains that even while a good character can be turned undead, what practices and behaviours they did when living/freshly turned can be considered inhuman and alien many years later, and their acts be 'evil' though they think what theyre doing is perfectly logical or acceptable.
You might think that folks who are so vehement that necromancy is not evil are just evil folks wanting to get away with doing evil things. You might very well think so; I couldn't possibly comment.I also am fond of the notion that anyone who disagrees with me about the inconsistency of a game mechanic must be morally suspect.
We both win!
An example adventure hook PG 134, 'Several Zombies left over from an evil clerics army of undead have wandered too close to a village of innocents'
- This explains that the undead are uncontrolled, have wandered by happenstance close to the aforementioned 'town' and are going to attack the village if they wander close enough to it.
Nope, they aren't uncontrolled: they were commanded and never told to stop (they still following last order).
And for Tactics for mindless undead such as Skeletons and Zombies, on Page 137.
"As an unintelligent creature, a skeleton doesnt have any faculty to plan or use strategy. It doesnt try to flank opponents, or move past armored fighters to attack unarmored wizards. It merely follows the simple command given it by its master (typically along the lines of 'kill anyone who enters this room') until destroyed or its targets disappear from view. A skeleton ignores foes it cant see, and has no ability to discern between vulnerable foes and ones resistant to its attacks.
ROUND 1 = Charge toward the nearest foe, attacking if within reach.
ROUND 2+ = Attack the nearest foeBoth entries strongly suggest mindless undead attack anything they view as an enemy on sight, and dont give up until they or their target is slain. Since Zombies and Skeletons are very similar in mindset and...
"Like the Skeleton, the Zombie doesnt employ much in the way of tactics. Assuming their master hasnt given them some other command, most zombies simply attack any visible foe. Zombies ignore invisible creatures and lack the intelligence to recognise when their attacks are useless. A zombie fighting an enemy with displacement or damage reduction, for instance, just keeps flailing away even when if its attacks fail to injure the target. If its target drops or dissapears, it moves on to the next available foe."
ROUND 1 = Charge toward the nearest foe, attacking if within reach.
ROUND 2+ = Attack the nearest foe.
Um, nope. You notice the entries aren't copy+paste, right?
Look:
1) Skeleton:
It merely follows the simple command given it by its master (typically along the lines of 'kill anyone who enters this room') until destroyed or its targets disappear from view.
2) Zombie:
Assuming their master hasnt given them some other command, most zombies simply attack any visible foe.
You only proved Skeletons only follow orders, but Zombies attack things if not ordered otherwise.
2) Zombie:
Assuming their master hasnt given them some other command, most zombies simply attack any visible foe.You only proved Skeletons only follow orders, but Zombies attack things if not ordered otherwise.
Actually, that's a general supposition. It's entirely possible that what the passage is saying is that they haven't been given orders as to which foe to attack. If they're running on the standing order of "attack" they'll just go after whatever is most visible. The passage doesn't directly say anything about them attacking on their own initiative.
And, as has been said time and again, in 3.0 zombies and skeletons are Neutral, not Neutral Evil. It was only in the 3.5 revision that they were shifted to Neutral Evil, and that was only to make them smiteable by clerics. Libris Mortis doesn't emphatically establish that mindless undead mercilessly slaughter every living thing in sight, and neither does any other general flavor text. Paizo has already gone on record in this thread that there were some staff that argued to return them to a Neutral alignment, but instead decided to stick with the 3.5 alignment for backwards compatibility sake, and thus they added the general flavor about zombies randomly attacking people because they wanted to have some form of justification for the alignment.
This explains that even while a good character can be turned undead, what practices and behaviours they did when living/freshly turned can be considered inhuman and alien many years later, and their acts be 'evil' though they think what theyre doing is perfectly logical or acceptable.
The trouble is, if you don't bother to specify what acts are actually evil, and what acts are merely unfashionable, this makes undead just seem like a bunch of cranky "You damn kids get off my lawn!" senior citizens.
And honestly, it doesn't ring true.
Let's say you've got a lich who's been around for the past five hundred or so years. Despite being able to learn new magic, new skills, and basically everything that goes with being able to go up levels, his fashion sense, his taste, and his morality are locked to the moment of his death five hundred years ago.
Meanwhile, a paladin who was stuck in a Temporal Stasis spell on the same day as the lich died pops out out of his broom closet and is immediately able to divine the new sense of "good," even if that "good" consists of whipping your goblin slave boys to pedal their unicycles faster as they race through the streets carrying your palanquin made of virgin's bones. I mean, the palanquin is a holy relic made from the bones of blessed nuns who wished their mortal remains to be used for a portable shrine and the goblins were converted to the faith of Iomedae two centuries ago and are now holy flagellants who ride unicycles in honor of the goddess. That's totally good, right?
I also wonder what happens with that logic in the case of a lich who in life was a trendy, always into the latest thing or latest fad, whether it was summoning demons this week or becoming a lich the next. If he's supposed to remain unchanging but normal for him is a constant state of flux or at least diversion by the latest new an shiny toy, what then?
I don't care if it was in print. I don't buy it.
The trouble is, if you don't bother to specify what acts are actually evil, and what acts are merely unfashionable, this makes undead just seem like a bunch of cranky "You damn kids get off my lawn!" senior citizens.
And honestly, it doesn't ring true.
Let's say you've got a lich who's been around for the past five hundred or so years. Despite being able to learn new magic, new skills, and basically everything that goes with being able to go up levels, his fashion sense, his taste, and his morality are locked to the moment of his death five hundred years ago.
Meanwhile, a paladin who was stuck in a Temporal Stasis spell on the same day as the lich died pops out out of his broom closet and is immediately able to divine the new sense of "good," even if that "good" consists of whipping your goblin slave boys to pedal their unicycles faster as they race through the streets carrying your palanquin made of virgin's bones. I mean, the palanquin is a holy relic made from the bones of blessed nuns who wished their mortal remains to be used for a portable shrine and the goblins were converted to the faith of Iomedae two centuries ago and are now holy flagellants who ride unicycles in honor of the goddess. That's totally good, right?
I also wonder what happens with that logic in the case of a lich who in life was a trendy, always into the latest thing or latest fad, whether it was summoning demons this week or becoming a lich the next. If he's supposed to remain unchanging but normal for him is a constant state of flux or at least diversion by the latest new an shiny toy, what then?
I don't care if it was in print. I don't buy it.
You don't have to "buy it". The idea is that living beings, stasis or not, are, relatively, flexible and adaptable. Immortal undead are not. A seperation between the undeads unchanging beliefs about the world and what is real leads to a psychological issue. The living paladin will learn and, hopefully, adapt. It's a reasonable idea. Ymmv. The idea, further, is that there is a drift to evil inherent in being a long lived undead. A difference in values, lifestyle and attitudes. That it is inevitable. Again, ymmv.
The Lich, imho, is pursuing his obsession. That's not really being all that flexible. New spells / skills are just extentions of his obsession.
Flagellent behavior is not necessarily "good" just because it is religious. The view of the Catholic Church changed over time on that. Eventually it was banned. I don't know about Iomedae's cult / temple. My homebrew Lawful church has flagellents. Lawful, yes. Good, no. Obsessed, gloomy, introspective. Neutral at best. And terribly poor company. The alignment of a worshipper can vary from that of the deity in any event.
Ideas of "evil" are cultural. In the standard D&D / PF rules settings undead (mostly) and the spells that create them are "evil". It is, apparently an absolute, unlike the real world. It's RAW and RAI. If your setting or ideas as DM run counter to that, well Rule 0 is there for a reason. No big deal. I've always had raising the undead and it's associated bits evil in my game. I can see how that could differ in a different setting. I'm not sure why this subject can create the kind of reactions it does. But it *is* fun discussing it :)
Honestly, I'm less torn up about the spell being [Evil] than about the mindless automatons it creates being Evil. Just because you're evil doesn't mean that your tools are evil, and that's what skeletons and zombies have always been. Heck, even Gygax didn't make them evil, and he's a guy who was all about doing stuff like that.
The idea that creatures that are less then sentient (and thus incapable of making moral decisions at all) are capable of having an alignment just goes against the rest of the rules assumptions, and it's an inconsistency. It's one that was generated in 3.5 but wasn't in its predecessors.
Oh, and for the record - Paizo removed the [Evil] tag from Deathwatch. I don't see why they felt that was less disruptive to backwards compatibility, but it does establish that they were willing to change alignments even in face of 3.5 silliness.
Honestly, I'm less torn up about the spell being [Evil] than about the mindless automatons it creates being Evil. Just because you're evil doesn't mean that your tools are evil, and that's what skeletons and zombies have always been. Heck, even Gygax didn't make them evil, and he's a guy who was all about doing stuff like that.
The idea that creatures that are less then sentient (and thus incapable of making moral decisions at all) are capable of having an alignment just goes against the rest of the rules assumptions, and it's an inconsistency. It's one that was generated in 3.5 but wasn't in its predecessors.
Oh, and for the record - Paizo removed the [Evil] tag from Deathwatch. I don't see why they felt that was less disruptive to backwards compatibility, but it does establish that they were willing to change alignments even in face of 3.5 silliness.
Well deathwatch already had precedent in 3.5 being granted as spell-like ability to good creatures and such.. or granting non-evil versions of the spell. So not sure it messes anything up in backwards compatibility than 3.5 already did.
I do not really have a huge problem with evil mindless undead, basically the shell of a human with some dim memories of a previous life, capable of rational thought.. prolly not, capable of hatred.. possibly, tortured by it's existence as an uncomplete being.. possibly.
In most cases just giving them the [evil]tag might have been better, but yea.. does it really matter if they are for all intents and purposes evil ?