Speaking for myself, I have quite enjoyed this thread and all of the thought provoking arguments and theories. Very well done on all your parts.
I personally am not in favour of any alignment based spell descriptors. Nor am I in favour of 'base' skeletons & zombies being evil. I do fully support evil variant skeletons and zombies made through different processes.
I house rule this of course.
I still think it would be interesting to have a Necromancy spell that dealt with creating 'Deathless' servants, provided the Necromancer bargained fairly with the spirit of the deceased and used ashes from the body to make clay talismans or something similar so the body was technically 'left alone' but the spirit of the deceased could be summoned into a psuedo-body to aid the party.
Of course that opens a lot of problems with Evil Clerics able to 'Turn' these Positive-Energy Deathless and the Necromancer being neck deep in s!#+ if the Spirit in question gets snagged by something that covets such things, like Demons, Devils and Devourers (D3 alert?)
Undead as Evil ... tolerable but then again if Undead became neutral at best do we all honestly believe that munchkins wouldn't start calling up hordes of the blighters and still trying to justify a perfect Lawful Good alignment?
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Undead as Evil ... tolerable but then again if Undead became neutral at best do we all honestly believe that munchkins wouldn't start calling up hordes of the blighters and still trying to justify a perfect Lawful Good alignment?
Do we honestly believe they wouldn't regardless of the rules? That's a personality issue, not a mechanics issue.
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.
Well, what you're talking here is a question of immortality, not undeadness. I mean, compare the world view of a 400-year-old lich vs. a 1000-year-old elf--Who's going to be in better touch with the modern age? What about an unaging immortal alchemist who's only been around for 70 years?
IMHO the lich obsessed with finding new spells and new research is at his heart a geeky wizard and is really not all that into his lichdom. It's just a means to an end and he'd happily trade it for some superior option like being an immortal alchemist if the opportunity presents itself.
It's just that in the D&D cosmology, death means going to an afterlife to give foot massages to your divinity of choice, and that's a vision of hell to any independent-minded thinker. Becoming undead and retaining your free will is a far more attractive option from the slate of unattractive options, and having religious fanatics tell you that you will love massaging the tootsies of your favored divinity once you go to the afterlife makes it sound even less attractive.
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven? Screw both options. When the reaper comes, just tell him you're not leaving and you've made other plans.
Well, what you're talking here is a question of immortality, not undeadness. I mean, compare the world view of a 400-year-old lich vs. a 1000-year-old elf--Who's going to be in better touch with the modern age? What about an unaging immortal alchemist who's only been around for 70 years?
IMHO the lich obsessed with finding new spells and new research is at his heart a geeky wizard and is really not all that into his lichdom. It's just a means to an end and he'd happily trade it for some superior option like being an immortal alchemist if the opportunity presents itself.
It's just that in the D&D cosmology, death means going to an afterlife to give foot massages to your divinity of choice, and that's a vision of hell to any independent-minded thinker. Becoming undead and retaining your free will is a far more attractive option from the slate of unattractive options, and having religious fanatics tell you that you will love massaging the tootsies of your favored divinity once you go to the afterlife makes it sound even less attractive.
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven? Screw both options. When the reaper comes, just tell him you're not leaving and you've made other plans.
I see your point. I think "their" point is that an undead being (say a Lich) is not as adaptable / capable of changing as a living being (i.e. an Elf).
As for the attitudes of Elves -- mine are all screwed up :) In my campaign the ancient elves were originally immortal and gave up the power that implied. Ended up, accidentally, giving up the lifespan too. The result; a handful of new gods (who already exceeded the limits) and a lot of neurotic modern elves (high, sea and drow) who know they are not as great as their ancestors but who still outlive other mortal races. Human freinds just keep "dropping dead" everytime they take their eyes off them... the older an elf gets the more reclusive and likely to withdraw from humans they are. Then they spend a lot of time morosely looking at the remnants of the ancient elves greatness. They are a bitter lot, my elves (especially the drow -- losers of the Kinstrife). Well, except for the wood elfs. But a lot of that has to do with a lack of historical knowledge. And they drink a lot :D
I started my campaign in 1974, patterned my elves on Tolkein (naturally). As my game advanced with different editions of the game (and during major breaks in the campaign) I've changed things. I updated it fully to 1st edition AD&D (about 1981 before I went "all in" iirc) and came up with a mythic background for the changes in the elves. Also allowed me to re-create my world / make major alterations. Changes have been more incremental since then.
*edit* as for heaven, not so much foot massage in mine :) More likely to be an idealized continuance of normal life. Varies by religion of course.
You can be a necromancer as a PC, but it's best to be discrete.
This is pretty much how I ran my 3.5 games. There was a strong (and generally justified) prejudice against 'the dark arts', and laws forbidding its use.
'Dark Arts' always included All Necromancy Spells, Illusion spells of the shadow subschool, Enchantment spells of the charm subschool, and Conjuration spells that summoned or called evil outsiders. However, because the laws were generally written by those who were not magic users, they were frequently imprecise, and players were well advised to avoid public use of any illusion, conjuration, or enchantment spells, and any area effect spells that might cause collateral harm. In general, any spellcaster accused of committing any crime with the aid of magic could count on an additional 'dark arts' charge, consigning them to a mage's prison if not outright execution.
Partly to compensate for the added restrictions, I allowed bluff or spellcraft checks, opposed by the observers sense motive or spellcraft, to disguise the nature of a spell.
In one game, the laws in some nations against the Dark Arts were simultaneously particularly harsh and particularly vague, and in this case such laws were promoted by a number of regal advisers and arcane experts who were in fact spies planted by a powerful necromancer. This necromancer promoted such laws in order to drive magic users underground, and into the waiting arms of his hidden academy - simultaneously boosting the ranks of his organization and stealing promising candidates from rival legitimate institutions that had rejected him long ago.
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.
Well, what you're talking here is a question of immortality, not undeadness. I mean, compare the world view of a 400-year-old lich vs. a 1000-year-old elf--Who's going to be in better touch with the modern age? What about an unaging immortal alchemist who's only been around for 70 years?
IMHO the lich obsessed with finding new spells and new research is at his heart a geeky wizard and is really not all that into his lichdom. It's just a means to an end and he'd happily trade it for some superior option like being an immortal alchemist if the opportunity presents itself.
It's just that in the D&D cosmology, death means going to an afterlife to give foot massages to your divinity of choice, and that's a vision of hell to any independent-minded thinker. Becoming undead and retaining your free will is a far more attractive option from the slate of unattractive options, and having religious fanatics tell you that you will love massaging the tootsies of your favored divinity once you go to the afterlife makes it sound even less attractive.
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven? Screw both options. When the reaper comes, just tell him you're not leaving and you've made other plans.
I always thought the issue with lich is the isolation + immortality + lack of need/ability to eat, drink, sleep, etc. This can lead to literally years of them just lost in their research, memories or imagination.
And yes the "you forget everything and become a petitioner" is disturbingly similar to "mind wipe + brain washing".
Well in defense of the mindwipe and brainwash.. it is not exactly tailored to modern believes.. no major religion is really.
Modern people more or less consider the mind to be the core of our excistence while religion assumes a soul to be your core being, aside from that very very few people know what is in the afterlife for them, or at least the specifics. At some point your time is up and you leave behind your mortal burdens and most of your memories, beats oblivion I suppose xD.
I remember planning on playing a wizard in Eberron who wanted nothing more than to become a Lich and avoid what happens to souls after death in that world. Seriously, dying, and then sitting there in a bleak wasteland waiting for your existence to completely disappear is so terribly unappealing, I can easily see characters committing heinous atrocities to avoid it.
But, in my campaign world, the lawful neutral theocracy dedicated to the god of honorable combat fields skeletons and zombies animated from criminals and soldiers who volunteered to continue serving their nation after death. So the idea that they just, all of a sudden (now that I'm using Pathfinder rather than 3.5) wander off and kill everything in sight really rubs me the wrong way. Naturally, I'll be ignoring that change.
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But, in my campaign world, the lawful neutral theocracy dedicated to the god of honorable combat fields skeletons and zombies animated from criminals and soldiers who volunteered to continue serving their nation after death. So the idea that they just, all of a sudden (now that I'm using Pathfinder rather than 3.5) wander off and kill everything in sight really rubs me the wrong way. Naturally, I'll be ignoring that change.
Note that only Zombies in the PF Bestiary have that text, so you there's nothing official that requires Skeletons to behave in that manner.
Once the meat falls off, they stop being all hungry and life-hating, I guess. Remember people, meat is murder! :)
didn't bother to read all 10 pages BUT in eberron book is an undead skeleton and zombie called " deathless " created using positive energy, and basically what your looking for, a good create undead spell. Tend to be smarter and more dangerous then normal undead but i think also more expensive and can say " no " but not sure i don't wanna dig my eberron book out off hand.
I think we long agreed in this thread the spell is open to much interpretation, fact that it is tagged as [evil] will find some opposition by people and probably at least as many people would opposed to it being a non-evil spell.
Paizo could go either way, but chose for an [evil] descriptor, I am not going to argue another so called truth just putting forth some viable theory as to why undead and magic creating them tends to be evil.
I am inclined to believe that positive and negative energy are a spiritual energy rather than something more physical (like elemental energy), positive energy being power of life, growth and positive emotions. Where as Negative energy is energy of death, decay and negative emotions, by this thinking it stands to reason that any creature animated by negative energy is inherently a hateful, tortured being.
I think this theory goes rather well with the spiritual nature of clerics and why positive and negative energy are so closely linked to good and evil deities.
Even then it is the question wether a skeleton or zombie should be truly evil, because they are not truly capable of rational thought and act upon their hateful emotions, it certainly would explain why the spell is evil though and why good clerics / deities look upon them as abominations to be destroyed.
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positive energy being power of life, growth and positive emotions. Where as Negative energy is energy of death, decay and negative emotions,
Tangent totally unrelated to undead,
Love is good, except when it leads to obsession, stalking, sexual assault and murder.
Hate is bad, except if you hate Nazis, child-abusers and people whose political or religious views don't mesh with your own.
Fear is bad, except when it's the completely utterly appropriate response, and saves not just your life, but the lives of others.
Hope is good, except when it's the kind of hope that prompts a seventy year old to give all of her money to some shady con-artist or to blow his social security check on scratch tickets.
Yet another apostasy to throw on the pile, but I don't think that emotions can be 'negative' or 'positive,' only 'not enough', 'just right' or 'too much.'
But it seems like my generation grew up with Yoda as a moral compass.
Some things *should* make you scared. Some things *should* make you angry. There are things that you *should* hate. These feelings aren't evil, even if people in the grip of them might do terrible things, just as someone in the grip of love can do terrible things.
We teach our kids that being angry is bad and that being scared is a sign of weakness. The only 'weakness' is not learning to control those feelings, not learning to listen to them, when they have important messages to convey, like, 'pack your bags and get the hell out of this situation' or 'stand up and fight.'
'Jedi morality,' in which there are 'good' emotions and 'bad' emotions, is a huge pet peeve of mine
Don't forget there are many other Force traditiond than Jedi + Sith.
The movie only show those two.
Jensaarai (armor wearing Jedi) are the grey side of the force (much more balanced than Jedi.
Their armor protected themn from lightsaber attacks (they have more importance on armor construction than saber construction).
As mentioned earlier, I think the only really significant thing the [Evil] tag does by Pathfinder RAW is prevent clerics of good deities from casting the spell. Maybe good deities (especially in Golarion?) just DON'T LIKE Animate Dead. Who gets to make the call on what is Good and what is Evil? Even if there is some unalterable truth to the Multiverse which deities can't affect they could punish or reward mortals as they see fit.
Certainly good deities give Clerics the ability to channel positive energy and cast spontaneous Cures. Those things seem pretty antithetical to the welfare of undead. It makes me think that maybe for some reason good deities really hate undead. Maybe it is because undead are mysteriously Evil, or maybe it is because undead infringe on the world of souls who worship the deities in life and later go massage their feet. Just why the good deities hate undead so much doesn't matter as much as the fact that they do, and they ban their Clerics from casting the spell.
What's more, there's a chance (depending on the DM) that the good deities (oppressors of necromancy that they are) judge anybody who makes or uses a bunch of undead as Evil. Maybe the deities are afraid that if everybody achieves a utopian state of undead intellectualism then they won't need deities, or maybe they just think that making undead sounds really Evil. if you can't sway the opinions of some folks on a message board how can you sway the opinion of the deities? Heck, maybe the Evil deities are in on it too because they want something to be rebels against.
Either that or mindless undead could be Evil because they're animated by evil forces, enslave somebody's soul, once offended a WotC designer with a witty insult (witty for a mindless undead at least), or like to eat babies. I guess mostly they're evil in Pathfinder because that's what the book says.
Kevin Andrew Murphy - Liches are pretty skeletal looking. I figure their sex lives might be...uninteresting at best. It might be better to turn into a vampire and live in the Underdark with some drow babes.
'Jedi morality,' in which there are 'good' emotions and 'bad' emotions, is a huge pet peeve of mine.
Love is good, except when it leads to obsession, stalking, sexual assault and murder.
Hate is bad, except if you hate Nazis, child-abusers and people whose political or religious views don't mesh with your own.
Fear is bad, except when it's the completely utterly appropriate response, and saves not just your life, but the lives of others.
Hope is good, except when it's the kind of hope that prompts a seventy year old to give all of her money to some shady con-artist or to blow his social security check on scratch tickets.
Yet another apostasy to throw on the pile, but I don't think that emotions can be 'negative' or 'positive,' only 'not enough', 'just right' or 'too much.'
But it seems like my generation grew up with Yoda as a moral compass.
Some things *should* make you scared. Some things *should* make you angry. There are things that you *should* hate. These feelings aren't evil, even if people in the grip of them might do terrible things, just as someone in the grip of love can do terrible things.
We teach our kids that being angry is bad and that being scared is a sign of weakness. The only 'weakness' is not learning to control those feelings, not learning to listen to them, when they have important messages to convey, like, 'pack your bags and get the hell out of this situation' or 'stand up and fight.'
/slowclap
Seriously guy, that is 100% my feelings on the situation. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Kevin Andrew Murphy - Liches are pretty skeletal looking. I figure their sex lives might be...uninteresting at best. It might be better to turn into a vampire and...
Liches are generally wizards and have easy access to Alter Self and Polymorph Any Object, which is what they'd use if the still wanted to have vanilla mortal sex. Assuming they don't want to go a little more kinky. Would you do it with an ooze?/Squishy, sloshing up your shoes?
Of course, there are those of us who think the BoVD didn't go far enough. That had the "Lich Loved" as a feat for those degenerates who willingly have sex with a lich.
In my game, in the course of an invisible pixie using ventriloquism on a withered corpse one of the characters was cutting down from a gallows tree:
CORPSE: Don't touch me there! You're a pervert!
GAMERS: (laughing at player in question) Wow, taking "lich loved" to a whole new level there. Now you qualify for the "lich molester" feat!
positive energy being power of life, growth and positive emotions. Where as Negative energy is energy of death, decay and negative emotions,Tangent totally unrelated to undead,
** spoiler omitted **
yea heck I am an atheist and I am not much into spiritual stuff either, even though you hate it it is the general idea. Ofcourse comparing it to the real world is useless much like you said much earlier in the thread.
Fear isn't bad except when you are being ruled by it blabla, same with obsession, despair, hate.. but yea.. it is those things that lead people to 'D&D evil'.
The idea of a cleric channeling spiritual energy seems much more fitting than the idea it is just another kind of energy that handled properly and distilated can make machines run, not saying positive or negative energy is good / evil, but they feed emotions that leads to evil / good.