In all seriousness, don't think about it too much.
The morality system in DnD was written in crayon and not the 64 color box either, more like the 9 color box.
It inherently doesn't withstand rational investigation. You just have to take it at face value.
Trying to deconstruct DnD morality will slowly drive you insane.
+1, evil and good is a fantasy concept and a matter of perspective, best thing to do is discriminate wildly and assume some things/creatures are just evil, assuming negative energy is infact evil energy works fine for me.
Remove disease and cause disease, I think taking this down to a bacterial level is just plain wrong in fantasy gaming. Remove disease heals thus is positive energy, cause disease destroys life thus is negative energy period.
I always assume positive and negative energy are infact spiritual energies rather than something more physical, anger is the darkside of the force and stuff like that, George Lucas is a genius =p
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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.
In 1st edition, Gygax wrote Mummies to be fueled off of positive energy for this very reason. They *created life* with their disease generating power (while most other undead destroyed / consumed and / or negated life, which was the purview of negative energy).
Later on, this was referred to as a 'mistake' because the new shiny paradigm was that negative energy was 'bad stuff' like fear and disease, even if fear was an enchantment effect and disease was living organisms, even if this was wildly contradictory to the very nature of negative and positive energy.
And so we have this nonsensical frankenstein mashup, where negative energy, through contagion, can *create life* and positive energy, through remove disease, is a terrible life-destroying force.
It made sense, once. That was unacceptable to those who demanded that users of neutral and potentially fatal positive energy be good and that users of neutral and potentially fatal negative energy be evil.
Ideally, negative energy wouldn't even be 'energy.' It would be an absence of positive energy, just as cold and darkness are the absence of heat and light, and not actual 'things' in and of themselves. There would be no such things as 'negative energy damage,' and an inflict light wounds would hurt you by sucking the positive energy / life-force out of you. Undead would steal life-energy / positive energy from living people, because 'negative energy' would not be some amazing free source of endless mechanical energy, but a hungering void that needs constant stolen energy from other sources to thrive, preferably the life-forces of living things.
And, since undead would have to drain positive energy / life-force to survive, that would mean that undead do have some shreds of positive energy within them, that they would, in extreme situations, even attack each other to steal away, destroying each other to free up the dregs of stolen life-force they need to survive. In the absence of living prey, a pack of shadows would turn on each other and tear each other to shreds, to buy themselves a few more days of existence, because 'negative energy' cannot sustain existence, only stolen positive energy / life-force...
But, that's a ship that sailed sometime during the transition from 2e to 3e, when the nature of positive and negative energy got hopelessly mixed up with good and evil, despite the Manual of the Planes coming out and reiterating that both were neutral... Grr.
I hate it when something is *working,* and someone comes along and 'fixes' it so that it no longer makes a lick of sense.
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I remember that the cosmverse was a giant battery with the positive and negative energy planes being much similar to the positive and negative poles of a battery. They were meant to be abstract places which gave power to the whole of reality. It wasn't possible to go to either one without destroying one's self. I remember them being beyond alignment.
However, this was a very long time ago and my memory isn't entirely reliable.
This sort of top-down design would be my ideal. We used it in Greyhawk, with the positive energy plane being the 'top' of the cosmology, the source of all light, life, warmth and energy, which trickled down into the upper planes, then into the elemental / transitive / material plane, then into the lower planes, and was finally sucked into the hungering void of light, life and warmth that was the negative plane, aka Oblivion.
Tharizdun, the dark spiral, was a nihilistic god who worshipped Oblivion, and wanted to feed all of creation into it, and the other gods finally got sick of his crap and said, 'Fine, you like Oblivion so much, *eat it!*' and pushed his ass in. He wasn't so much imprisoned as he was eated.
[Nerull has taken on a similar philosophy, and while most of the evil gods, demons, archdevils, etc. who huddle around the lower planes, bordering Oblivion itself, happily cast their nets before the big drain at the bottom of the bathtub and snag power spiralling down the drain for their own use, Nerull tastes each soul and then sends it spiralling into Oblivion, being a nihilist, like Tharizdun. The only reason the gods haven't pushed him in is that they discovered that pushing Tharizdun, a greater god, into the Void, only made the Void stronger... They wish to avoid repeating that mistake!]
Adapting this notion to Golarion, I'd have Rovagug be the 'Tharizdun,' and Asmodeus be the one who said to Sarenrae, 'Wait! Don't throw him in! It will only make the darkness stronger!' and presented a prison deep within Golarion to keep Rovagug chained, but not throw him into the Void and make it stronger. (Because Asmodeus is no dummy. He knows that if the Void expands, the people who will suffer first and most are those whose domains border Oblivion, namely the Hells, the Abyss, etc. If Oblivion expands, he loses territory! He's been 'skimming the take' of Oblivion, in his own way serving as a stop-gap to slow the expansion of Oblivion and the End of All Things, because he, like the other archdevils, demon lords, evil gods, etc. who ply the rough waters around the Void, is taking advantage of the 'top-down' current to capture the souls and power that the Void would otherwise be pulling into itself. Evil, yes, opportunistic, yes, and absolutely integral to slowing the eventual death of the cosmos, as he and the other evil powers steal power and souls before they spiral into the Void itself, slowing the End of All for their own selfish purposes.)
But, just Rovagug takes the role of Tharizdun (only being imprisoned instead of defenestrated), Zon-Kuthon has taken on the role of Nerull. He doesn't order gratuitous cullings of mortal life in Nidal to 'improve the species' or 'strengthen the people,' he does so because death frees up energy and souls to spiral into the Void, and Zon-Kuthon has been infected with a seed of self-loathing and entropy. He's not a complete nihilist, and occasionally attempts to cut the infection out of himself with shining blades and blood-soaked hands, but it's a slippery thing, entwined with his own soul, and while the pain of his struggles brings him clarity, in the end, he is a slave to the mindless frustrated hunger of Oblivion.
Pharasma's Boneyard is one big safety net, as she attempts to ensnare the souls of all who would go flying off into Oblivion, and so stave off the End, but Groetus is a living mindless manifestation of Oblivion, a vast pulsing unclean tongue, blindly trashing out from the maw of Oblivion, seeking power. As it's hungers grow stronger, she finds some souls and regretfully feeds it the barest amount necessary to keep it from growing restive and unquiet, keeping Oblivion itself 'on a diet,' so to speak. She can't starve it fully, or it may lash out and devour the Boneyard whole, in it's frustration. She can't feed it too much, or it may grow so strong that no control is possible. Pharasma dances a dangerous dance, in her own way, as dangerous as that of the devils, demons and evil gods who surf the very edges of the maelstrom, snaring in souls and power that would swirl down the gullet and boldly snatching these crumbs the very maw of the Apocalypse.
At the other end of the spectrum, the positive energy plane is the source of light, life and warmth. Portals within Golarion lead to this place, and we call them 'the sun' and 'the stars,' shining out their life-giving positive energy, that makes the plants to grow and the vampires to shy away in fear and pain. Huddled around it, as the lower planes huddle around the maw of Oblivion, are the upper planes of the angels, archons, azatas and gods of good aspect, basking in this endless source of power, smug that they don't have to trawl for crumbs in the 'sewers of creation' that are the lower planes. (For all their smugness, they are so terribly vastly outnumbered by the residents of these 'sewers' that they spend a lot of time talking up how awesome they are, since a real conflict with the lower planes would be devastating to them, and, worse, end up serving the purposes of Oblivion itself, as it would grow fat and strong on all the dead angels and demons, swell up to engulf the hells and the abyss, and leave the surviving demons and devils nowhere left to live but in the paradisial realms of the now-weakened and depleted good outsiders. Bad business all around, and hence the more subtle machinations on the material plane, through mortal proxies, instead of overt war in the heavens/hells. We fight them over there, so that we don't have to fight them here, saith the angels, justifying their use of mortals to fight their wars for them.)
Positive energy (aka 'life-force') pours out of the positive energy plane, empowering and enriching the upper planes, and, through the portals we call stars, empowering and enriching the 'material plane' of which Golarion is a part. While she doesn't like to brag, the importance of Desna in the establishment of this ancient process cannot be overstated, although newcomers (by her standards) like Sarenrae (someone Desna remembers as an angel who 'broke the glass ceiling' and became a god) or Iomedae also associate with the power of the sun, and, through that, with life and light and fire and healing.
Positive energy comes to rest in every living thing, starting with plant, and moving it's way up, as living things can devour each other to free up the positive energy for their own uses. A healthy living thing also has the unique ability to use positive energy to make *more* positive energy, which is why a 4th level Fighter who has taken a point of Strength damage and 10 hit points, can rest for a night and recover the ability damage and 4 of the hit points, as the positive energy within his body grows upon itself (aided by taking in new positive energy through food).
Undead lack this ability to sustain and grow the spark of life within themselves. They contain only the life-energy that they steal from the living, and it dwindles day by day, as they 'heal in reverse,' taking hit point damage equal to their HD each day, merely to exist. In the cases of shadows, wraiths, wights, spectres, etc. they take this life-energy through direct contact, sucking the warmth and life out of living creatures, and stealing for themselves another day of their cursed existence. They cannot heal otherwise, and they are playing a zero-sum game, losing every single day, and needing to steal life-force to survive. Vampires and Ghouls retain one of the 'powers' of living creatures, in that they can consume living tissue (blood, or flesh) and extract positive energy from that act to sustain their otherwise lifeless bodies. Ghouls go one step beyond, being able to subsist on the faded dregs of positive energy that remain barely perceptible to others even in the bodies of those that have died (although the flesh of the more recently dead is far richer in positive energy, and much preferred to ancient carrion).
Mummies and Liches 'cheat.' Liches have sidestepped the entire process, allowing their dead bodies to subsist on purely arcane (or divine) magical energy. Liches regard undead that still need to feed with contempt, as a result. The whole point of becoming a lich was to transcend mortal limitations, and the crude tyranny of the flesh, of eat or be eaten, feed or die, and so they consider undead that need to feed as lesser failed creatures, with the greatest contempt for those that need to feed physically, like vampires and ghouls. Mummies use a weaker form of magic, and are much more limited. Unlike a lich, a mummy *usually* isn't active for centuries, but merely awakens as part of some curse to protect a tomb or whatever. It's less of an 'undead,' and more of a 'trap,' powered by magic that animates the prepared body and sends it to kill defilers or steal back plundered relics. 'Greater Mummies' use a process similar to that which creates liches, and similarly subsist off of arcane (or divine) magical power that was cast possibly centuries ago, and, like liches, would require actual magic items (in the one case, a phylactery, in the other, canopic jars) as receptacles of dark power that serves as a 'battery' for the continued animation of the lich or mummy.
This paradigm, that all things need positive energy / life-force, even if they have to drink it from the necks of the living (or some way to cheat and use magical power instead, like a lich), would make skeletons and zombies something of a sticking point. If negative energy is an *absence* of energy, of life, of light, or warmth, etc. then it wouldn't work as a free unlimited source of mechanical energy.
*Something* has to power those skeletons and zombies, and the existence of bloody bones or 'hungry zombies' allows for one option, for a spellcaster to create skeletons or zombies that *do* consume life-energy (from the tissues of the living) to sustain their unnatural existence.
Otherwise, a non-flesh-eating zombie or bloody bones skeleton that lathers itself in the blood of it's victims would have a duration. Perhaps they only remain animate for 1 hour / level. Perhaps it's a blanket 24 hours. In any event, without a means to 'feed' them, negative energy alone cannot sustain them, because negative energy isn't a power source. It's the absence of power, a hunger for power, a void that devours light and life and warmth, not a battery.
[Using Craft feats, a permanant skeleton or zombie that doesn't need to feed could be manufactured, but it isn't just 'I cast animate dead,' it's more akin to the process to create a Golem or magical item, as the undead requires a permanant source of magical energy to sustain it, as negative energy is never a power source in and of itself.]
Negative energy, under this paradigm, doesn't give, it only takes.
That's where I would go with it.
Animate Dead becomes less useful, as least for creating permanant minions. All undead become either temporary constructs, or hungering desperate things that must destroy or devour or at least prey upon the living to sustain their own existences (or, like liches, 'cheat' and get around that with great and powerful magic, drawing upon permanant magic items instead of having to feed, like a fantastically extreme version of a wizard wearing a Ring of Sustenance).
Undead become capable of harming each other, as the energies that empower them are the stolen lives of flesh and blood creatures, and a pack of shadows could tear each other apart, desperate for the life-energy stored within each other, if no living things are around to stave off their endless dissolution, as they use that stolen energy to exist, and it is expended within them, leaving them ever weaker and more desperate...
'Negative Energy damage,' such as through negative energy channeling, becomes the dispersal or outright theft of positive energy and life-force, not some black substance leaking into your body. When an evil cleric blasts the living, he isn't pushing nasty icky black evil into them, he's tearing the positive energy / life-force out of them.
Similarly, when a shadow (wight, wraith, spectre, etc.) inflicts negative energy damage, it isn't *giving you something.* It's taking something from you, lessening the amount of positive energy / life-force within you.
Negative energy ceases to be a 'gift' or a deposit. It becomes a withdrawal, an act of theft.
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ok I read the better part of it, the post is a bit long to hold my attention span at this moment.
I can see how evil clerics tear positive energy from the living, how does it work when they heal undead though and likewise how do good clerics hurt them by giving them positive energy ?
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stuffok I read the better part of it, the post is a bit long to hold my attention span at this moment.
I can see how evil clerics tear positive energy from the living, how does it work when they heal undead though and likewise how do good clerics hurt them by giving them positive energy ?
That, like animate dead not being 'free endless power,' would require a rules change or an explanation for why it works the way it used to.
Option 1; Positive energy would heal, full stop. Negative energy would harm and deplete reserves of life-force / positive energy (and perhaps even light and heat, in some cases). Negative energy would never *add* to a creature, living or undead, because negative energy doesn't 'give.' It only takes. A cleric who channels negative energy would blast the life out of living creatures, and deplete the stolen life-energy that undead creatures need to exist. A cleric who channels positive energy would heal the living, and be sweet, sweet ambrosia to an undead creature, filling it with energy. This would be a serious mechanical change, and, more importantly, a *thematic* change, as the idea of clerics 'turning' undead by channeling positive energy has been around since 1st edition.
Option 2; Undead become incapable of directly absorbing positive energy, and can only devour it from a living creature that has 'metabolized it,' either by direct life-force theft (shadow, wight, etc.) or through the consumption of flesh or blood (ghoul, vampire). Yet another 'flaw in the design' of the undead, and this would explain why a vampire can't just stand out in the sunlight and bask in the raw life-energy beaming down from the sun, but has to steal it from the living creatures that can metabolism it directly (which isn't hugely different from a human, in that respect, as animals can't absorb life-energy from the sun directly, but have to steal it from plants that have already converted it).
Under this second option, the positive energy channeled by a good cleric is 'tuned' to be assimilable by living creatures (even if a wash of pure positive energy normally wouldn't heal or sustain a non-plant anymore than a wash of bright light would, as animals are built to take life-energy from other animals or plants, not from the sun directly), perhaps by the gods of good themselves, and, like fighting fire with fire, the rush of this 'undigestible' positive energy through undead creatures ends up not only being of no use to them, but also flushing them of the energy they've stolen, weakening and harming them.
But even under this second option, I wouldn't allow negative energy to heal undead. Positive energy can be used to damage someone (just as fire and light can be used to harm people), but negative energy flat out is never helpful or giving or nurturing, not even to ambulatory corpses. Negative energy is selfish, and 'adding' negative energy always subtracts from the recipient. Yes, it's 'not fair' to the poor undead, but nobody said being a life-devouring creature that has turned it's back on the fundemental processes of life itself is going to be easy. :)
Undead either have to find a work-around (becoming a lich and subsisting off of magical power) or prey upon the living, stealing sustenance and continued days of existence from them.
So, yeah, I'd make suck just a little bit to be an undead, and not the perpetual party that the current rules make it out to be, with free immortality and an endless battery of power that never runs out.
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@Set: I have to say that your interpretation not only makes sense, but actually makes positive and negative distinct whilst still being good opposites. I really wish I could play a game you as a DM sometime :)
BTW, with this interpretation channeling positive energy could be a way of commanding undead (subservient to the one who allows them to continue living) and channeling negative energy would turn undead (cause them to run in fear of the one who can steal what little they have to sustain them). This could also make non-evil undead possible (which I like).
Nobody's given the obvious answer?
Because it's thematic. 90% of everything in every edition of D&D is there because it's thematic.
Evil clerics channel DEATH ENERGY because, hey, evil cleric, death energy, those go together just fine. It's not neccisarily because of some deep lore reason or in depth mechanical pros vs cons. It's there because evil clerics use death energy.
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Option 1; Positive energy would heal, full stop. Negative energy would harm and deplete reserves of life-force / positive energy (and perhaps even light and heat, in some cases). Negative energy would never *add* to a creature, living or undead, because negative energy doesn't 'give.' It only takes. A cleric who channels negative energy would blast the life out of living creatures, and deplete the stolen life-energy that undead creatures need to exist. A cleric who channels positive energy would heal the living, and be sweet, sweet ambrosia to an undead creature, filling it with energy. This would be a serious mechanical change, and, more importantly, a *thematic* change, as the idea of clerics 'turning' undead by channeling positive energy has been around since 1st edition.
I don't see Option 1 as need a thematic or rules change; this is a pretty good summary of the current state of affairs.
You don't necessarily have to view the "vital essence" that gets drained by an Energy Drain attack as being the equivalent of positive energy (in fact, if it were, good clerics and paladins would be more attractive prey for energy-draining undead). You could view Energy Drain as being a side effect of a living creature coming into contact with a powerful negative energy creature such as a wight or a nightcrawler.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Another way of looking at negative energy bolstering undead in Set's paradigm, is that the opening of the void (channelling negative energy) doesn't make the undead 'stronger' it instead makes them burn brighter, faster. So you aren't 'healing' the undead, you're making their connection to the Void stronger. So the 'healed' hit points are actually the additional effort needed to break the connection between the Void and the Prime.
That is, if I'm understanding Set's paradigm correctly.
Set, would you allow undead to go into a stasis with a lack of food? It's a trope of vampires feeding on themselves and the like. I just have the image of a party going into a cave and finding bodies, but given time one or two are actually ghouls that 'awaken' from their stasis by the proximity of food. (Think the fallen angels in the last two Dr Who episodes.)
Actually evil DM thought:
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Someone mentioned the paladin's smite upthread, and I thought of that as the perfect image of positive energy as a weapon. The paladin channels so much positive energy that s/he deals extra energy damage to the person. Undead would be affected because the positive energy is disruptive to their negative energy animation.
a Gray Gate requires a balance of both Positive and Negative energy to open...
What happens when the Positive energy of the Smite equals the Negative undead? A gray Gate opens unleashing Dhwerg (the progenitor of Elf, Dwarf, Giant, Troll, Fairy, Banshee, Sidhe, etc.)
I wouldnt want to be anywhere near that bomb when it goes off. it would be like that moment at the end of Highlander after Connor MacCloud cleaves the head of the Kurgan.
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You could also go with undead being voids in the fabric of the material plain. IE they are mini-conduits to oblivion. Positive energy would disrupt the connection while negative energy strengthens it.
Since they are slaved to oblivion, it would also explain why undead feed on the living and not each other.
You could also add some lore that Oblivion blesses the undead that feed it, which would set up a system where undead must kill to remain alive.
It would also explain why all undead are evil, unless they can find a way to feed oblivion without killing.
I am still blaming George Lucas.
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I could see how that would suck. Interesting RP potential, though. But I would think that the paladin's level would have to be somewhere in the region of mid to late 40's. Smite is powerful. But not THAT powerful.Someone mentioned the paladin's smite upthread, and I thought of that as the perfect image of positive energy as a weapon. The paladin channels so much positive energy that s/he deals extra energy damage to the person. Undead would be affected because the positive energy is disruptive to their negative energy animation.a Gray Gate requires a balance of both Positive and Negative energy to open...
What happens when the Positive energy of the Smite equals the Negative undead? A gray Gate opens unleashing Dhwerg (the progenitor of Elf, Dwarf, Giant, Troll, Fairy, Banshee, Sidhe, etc.)
I wouldnt want to be anywhere near that bomb when it goes off. it would be like that moment at the end of Highlander after Connor MacCloud cleaves the head of the Kurgan.
It all comes down to scale.
Estebal the Paladin unleashs a low power smite against a skeleton - the collision of positive and negative energy thus opening a gray gate - and out comes a tiny little flittering fairy like creature which after the glamor wears off looks like a tiny deformed grey goblin with Bald Head and Pirana teeth, four hind legs that look like barbs, two clawed hands, and a 'its dinner time' smile on its face. After it's done scraping the face off the Paladin and the Barbarian has wet himself in fear...someone bothers to scream: "Oh god what is that thing?"
And that was just a little one...
I could see how that would suck. Interesting RP potential, though. But I would think that the paladin's level would have to be somewhere in the region of mid to late 40's. Smite is powerful. But not THAT powerful.Someone mentioned the paladin's smite upthread, and I thought of that as the perfect image of positive energy as a weapon. The paladin channels so much positive energy that s/he deals extra energy damage to the person. Undead would be affected because the positive energy is disruptive to their negative energy animation.a Gray Gate requires a balance of both Positive and Negative energy to open...
What happens when the Positive energy of the Smite equals the Negative undead? A gray Gate opens unleashing Dhwerg (the progenitor of Elf, Dwarf, Giant, Troll, Fairy, Banshee, Sidhe, etc.)
I wouldnt want to be anywhere near that bomb when it goes off. it would be like that moment at the end of Highlander after Connor MacCloud cleaves the head of the Kurgan.
It all comes down to scale.
Estebal the Paladin unleashs a low power smite against a skeleton - the collision of positive and negative energy thus opening a gray gate - and out comes a tiny little flittering fairy like creature which after the glamor wears off looks like a tiny deformed grey goblin with Bald Head and Pirana teeth, four hind legs that look like barbs, two clawed hands, and a 'its dinner time' smile on its face. After it's done scraping the face off the Paladin and the Barbarian has wet himself in fear...someone bothers to scream: "Oh god what is that thing?"
And that was just a little one...
It could be interesting for a campaign or horror sub type but I doubt players want to experience negative side effects for using class features.
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Set, would you allow undead to go into a stasis with a lack of food? It's a trope of vampires feeding on themselves and the like. I just have the image of a party going into a cave and finding bodies, but given time one or two are actually ghouls that 'awaken' from their stasis by the proximity of food. (Think the fallen angels in the last two Dr Who episodes.)
I was just thinking that this would be an acceptable position. If the undead isn't 'burning energy,' it could sink into a half-aware state of perpetual hunger, only waking up in the presence of life-force that it could use to thrive, heaving up with the last desperate dregs of hoarded energy to fight, and possibly keeling over inert if it doesn't kill something / feed within X number of rounds...
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Option 1; Positive energy would heal, full stop. Negative energy would harm and deplete reserves of life-force / positive energy (and perhaps even light and heat, in some cases). Negative energy would never *add* to a creature, living or undead, because negative energy doesn't 'give.' It only takes. A cleric who channels negative energy would blast the life out of living creatures, and deplete the stolen life-energy that undead creatures need to exist. A cleric who channels positive energy would heal the living, and be sweet, sweet ambrosia to an undead creature, filling it with energy. This would be a serious mechanical change, and, more importantly, a *thematic* change, as the idea of clerics 'turning' undead by channeling positive energy has been around since 1st edition.I don't see Option 1 as need a thematic or rules change; this is a pretty good summary of the current state of affairs.
In the current state of affairs, negative energy is an infinite power source of free mechanical energy, and channeled negative energy heals and repairs undead, which, under the paradigm I'm referring to, wouldn/'t happen, because negative energy would *never* create energy or add to something or heal a creature, living, dead or undead, it would only take and steal away energy.
So yeah, it would require a thematic and mechanical change. An evil cleric channeling negative energy would steal life-energy from living creatures and reduce the amount of stolen life-energy in undead creatures, leaving both types of creatures weaker and damaged. A good cleric would be blasting out a wave of positive energy, or raw pulsing life-force, that would heal and envigor both the living, and the undead, which feed off of life-force and would thank the good cleric for giving them yummy in their tummy.
(Constructs would likely be immune, unless explicitly powered by living spirits trapped within them, which, flavor text aside, is never treated as such mechanically, as the 'elemental spirits' used to empower golem creation appear to be immune to both positive and negative energy, unlike actual elemental creatures. Why this is so, I neither know nor care. It's never been terribly consistent that a cure light wounds or inflict light wounds can heal or harm an earth elemental, while a golem animated by 'elemental spirits' is apparently immune to both. It might be easier to side-step the whole issue, as well as the 'why is it evil to animate a corpse with mindless necromantic energy and morally neutral to enslave a living elemental creature in a stiched-together pile of rotting bodies for all eternity?' by just saying that Golem as animated by elemental *energy,* and not elemental *spirits*... That way we can operate under the assumption that permanantly enslaving a living spirit inside a pile of corpses (or lump of clay, or statue) is *at least* as naughty as animating a horses skeleton and riding it around, without actually making all Golem creation evil, as the elemental 'forces' bound into the Golem are defined as energy, not *creatures.*)
Extrapolating from Set's paradigm, this is what I come up with...
A good cleric, through divine grace, is able to tap more-or-less directly into the source of life, and "metabolize" it so that any living creature can directly benefit from it. However, when used to harm undead, this same life energy is essentially operating as a fire hose (much like Ironicdisaster details above). Too much of a good thing is, in fact, a bad thing.
Conversely, an evil cleric would essentially be drawing the ambient life energy into himself and making a "donation" or offering to the deity he serves (funneling that life force directly to his deity of choice in a sort of corrupt Thanksgiving... "Thank you, oh mighty Evilness, for the power you have granted your humble servant..."). When used to "heal" the undead, however, the way it works is as a perversion of what a good cleric does; the evil cleric steals and then "metabolizes" the life energy and immediately turns that same energy around and "feeds" it to his undead minions (or masters, whatever).
Looking at the abilities this way changes nothing mechanically, but completely alters the way we would view the game world.
How we run it:
There is 'The Dawn' which is the 99.9% akin to the positive material plane (..but is also faintly sentient).
Channeling The Dawn heals and warms the living.
Undead are essentially shadows, an absence of The Dawn's presence. being undead hurts - walking the lands of the living is a constant misery and source of pain. Life energy harms them - the presence of living creatures drives them into a rage, compelling them to attack, intent on destroying the source of the pain/aggrevation. The Dawn is a constant in the lands of the living, a constant pressure wearing down the undead.
When an evil cleric channels energy they are draining The Dawn's presence - an absence of The Dawn/removing it's presence results in harming living creatures. The reduced presence of The Dawn's energies grant a bried respite to undead creatures, healing them.
Channeling The Dawn/positive energy causes the Cleric/Paladin to generate a light effect akin to the spell of the same name, while draining The Dawn/channeling negative energy creates an effect akin to the Darkness spell.
(Side Note: There are no evil gods, just agents (Saints - akin to 2ed avatars) of The Dawn with conflicting agendas and a willingness to crush mortals if the situation demands it. There are no good gods either, just agents (Saints) of the Dawn who do good things.)
