And, as I said upthread, it's not *evil* to 'defy the natural order' or 'flout Pharasma's law.' It's *chaotic.*
In the case of fulfilling a promise, or animating as part of an oath beyond death, it's not even Chaotic.
Now for the sake of this discussion, animating corpses of sentient humanoids is evil. you wouldn't want someone digging up your dead grandmother and turning her into a killing machine, its just poor form.
Why is this considered bad form? That's because of a cultural more. When you look at this from a logical perspective, and keep any type of feelings away from it, what you come up with in the end is just another tool to be used. It is a tool that is easy to come by, which also increases the value of said spell. I think it all stems from intent. If I decide to use this for a "good" or "evil" deed is what makes it good or evil. It would be no more evil than a fireball. In general most spells aren't evil even if they have an evil descriptor. Again it is intent.
I think the EVIL comes from the perversion of a sentient creature into a mindless slave. esp since free will is such a big part of sentient culture.
Again this "perversion" stems from a society telling you that it is perverse and the corpse you are animating is nothing but a shell. It doesn't matter what it was in life because it is dead and non sentient. This doesn't mean that everyone is going to meet eye to eye with you. It is the difference between making a moral or ethical decision.
But would a paladin really go out of their way to cut your head off for animating a dead rat?
This depends on what god a pally serves, what culture he is from or what code he decides to follow.
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I've come to the conclusion that a lot of gamers are quite in fact, latent sociopaths.
Ah, but is it also antisocial behavior to publically speculate about the mental health / pathology of anyone that disagrees with you about something that philosophers of many cultures have argued about for millenia?
Or just tacky?
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Why is this considered bad form? That's because of a cultural more. When you look at this from a logical perspective, and keep any type of feelings away from it, what you come up with in the end is just another tool to be used. It is a tool that is easy to come by, which also increases the value of said spell. I think it all stems from intent. If I decide to use this for a "good" or "evil" deed is what makes it good or evil. It would be no more evil than a fireball. In general most spells aren't evil even if they have an evil descriptor. Again it is intent.
I've come to the conclusion that a lot of gamers are quite in fact, latent sociopaths. Dismissing feelings, emotions, as irrelevant, are pretty much the hallmark of a sociopath who feels no investment, no connection to society.
Pure logic might be healthy to the inhabitants of the Planet Vulcan, but on this world, it tends to spawn the purest evil of all.... indifference.
>:( MISSING THE POINT.
But so is reducing any pro-non-evil-necromancy to "digging up grandma". People keep reducing it to a ridiculous caricature, while ignoring all the potential for new imaginitive stories, cultures, and settings that could spin out of these ideas.
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I'm sorry but these threads haven't been that particularly diverse since they've all been about the bloody same topic, mainly trying to sell animating the dead as a sociable acceptable activity nothing more noteworthy than buying a used donkey from the livery.
Even if they have (which they have not), hot does that justify you popping off and suggestion that they are latent sociopaths?
Never mind the discussion about how such practices would affect cultural development and individual outlooks on mortality. Or developments like guardsmen swearing eternal oaths to protect their homeland beyond death. Or paladins willingly letting themselves be mummified to guard a necropolis against defilement. Or people having to make the grim decision on using the remains of their dead help bolster their labor forces after decimation by plague. Or anything else.
If it squicks you out, fine. That's natural, and that values disonnance is another thing that makes for great setting/story fuel. But to declare than anyone interested in it is wrong in the head is, well...wrongheaded.
Interesting statistic; an estimated one percent of the U.S. population are affected by some form of psychopathy.
Pleasant dreams.
And more then a few of them are the CEO's of big corporations.
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It's the dismissal of cultural mores as having no value and elevating Reason to some insanely high pillar that essentially is a founding block of sociopathy.
The cornerstone of sociopathy is the absense of empathy.
And what cultural mores are being rejected in these fantasy settings filled with fantasy cultures being discussed?
Quick question: do you consider the writers of Jakandor to be latent sociopaths? Or the people that liked taht setting? Or the culture in the setting itself?
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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This is just my own personal putterings on the subject, nothing RAW or RAI or anything like that, but I like to think of it this way:
Negative energy isn't Evil, but Evil attracts negative energy. That's why Evil gods and clerics channel negative energy, because its the power source that flows most easily to them. That's also why people who died as a result of an evil act, or who committed many evil acts, are more likely to come back as an undead creature.
The spell animate dead is Evil because you need a lot of negative energy to animate a corpse, and the easiest way to draw it up is by committing a truly heinous, blasphemous ritual. You also need a way to keep the negative energy in place, otherwise it disperses over time and the critter deanimates, and so you incorporate an unhallowed object of some kind (like a piece of onyx) into the corpse to act as a sort of evil battery.
Of course you could animate a corpse without going through all that rigmarole, but it would be harder. If a player wanted to research a non-evil animate dead spell, I might make it be a level higher (since you're conjuring all that negative energy into the world by force, rather than luring it in), and it might have a more expensive material component (since your forced to work with less efficient energy storage methods).
That's how I run it in my game anyway.
This is just my own personal putterings on the subject, nothing RAW or RAI or anything like that, but I like to think of it this way:
Negative energy isn't Evil, but Evil attracts negative energy. That's why Evil gods and clerics channel negative energy, because its the power source that flows most easily to them. That's also why people who died as a result of an evil act, or who committed many evil acts, are more likely to come back as an undead creature.
The spell animate dead is Evil because you need a lot of negative energy to animate a corpse, and the easiest way to draw it up is by committing a truly heinous, blasphemous ritual. You also need a way to keep the negative energy in place, otherwise it disperses over time and the critter deanimates, and so you incorporate an unhallowed object of some kind (like a piece of onyx) into the corpse to act as a sort of evil battery.
Of course you could animate a corpse without going through all that rigmarole, but it would be harder. If a player wanted to research a non-evil animate dead spell, I might make it be a level higher (since you're conjuring all that negative energy into the world by force, rather than luring it in), and it might have a more expensive material component (since your forced to work with less efficient energy storage methods).
That's how I run it in my game anyway.
I like how you think.
It would also explain things like Desecrate in which you essentially saturate an area with negative energy making that energy flow easier. The onyx also helps forma connection between the animator adn animated allowing control. Create Undead is much more difficult as it pulls the soul itself back from Pharasma's to animate the body or spirit. However since a soul still has free will a necromancer cant have automatic control even through the use of such conduits.
I think it's the other way around; Evil likes using negative energy as a tool. The fact that negative energy is the power of death, and that evil beings are harmful ones who enjoy the death, loss, and suffering of others, makes them a fine fit.
The often overlooked thing is that too much of anything can be evil. Even positive energy - imagine using positive energy to effectively make thriving parasites, viruses and plague-bearers, while also keeping all the victims alive to suffer eternally: positive energy as evil.
Negative energy is just the base, primal, knee-jerk tool for many evil beings - to kill/destroy. But death allows all living things to eat. It lets horrible parasites or evil creatures be purged from the world. It lets us overcome many forms of disease or infection. Death is very much a force of good as well. But the whole morbidity and fear of death is what keeps us continually reacting on impulse to mislabel it "bad" and thus "evil", even though it's very not evil.
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I think it's the other way around; Evil likes using negative energy as a tool. The fact that negative energy is the power of death, and that evil beings are harmful ones who enjoy the death, loss, and suffering of others, makes them a fine fit.
The often overlooked thing is that too much of anything can be evil. Even positive energy - imagine using positive energy to effectively make thriving parasites, viruses and plague-bearers, while also keeping all the victims alive to suffer eternally: positive energy as evil.
Negative energy is just the base, primal, knee-jerk tool for many evil beings - to kill/destroy. But death allows all living things to eat. It lets horrible parasites or evil creatures be purged from the world. It lets us overcome many forms of disease or infection. Death is very much a force of good as well. But the whole morbidity and fear of death is what keeps us continually reacting on impulse to mislabel it "bad" and thus "evil", even though it's very not evil.
This is a lot closer to how I roll. My favorite entry from the Elder Evils book was actually all about the horrific effects of positive energy gone bad. Body horror all over the place...
Though TarkXT's take on it is still functional too and doesn't lock out non-evil necromancy and undead.
So, why can't it be the same for negative energy?
Because a flame thrower is [fire] and not [evil]
Its just the nature of the beast. Its like asking why demons are evil.
You're complaining about the inconsistency in the system and focusing on minutia.
You think that because negative energy isn't evil itself, that it should be considered on the merits of what you're doing it rather than the source.
You think the solution is to remove the [evil] descriptor from animating undead. And heck, while we're at it, all the spells that suck someone's soul out of their body and fill it with a demon. I mean, you MIGHT have a good reason for doing that after all.
Either the system keeps its inconsistency (in which case raising undead is unambiguously evil], or just slapping the evil descriptor on the negative energy plane (the place described as the source of evil) becomes an option thats just if not more valid than taking the evil descriptors off the spells.
I've explained all this to you before.
I'm still making that claim.
I'm still making it for the same reasons i said above.
The game designers give a plane thats the source of all evil, powers evil undead, powers corruption, powers disease, is involved in what, 90% of [evil] spells (previously evil, or non good) and literally sucks your soul out of you, but then its not evil because..... ?
A Good cleric of a neutral god can't channel negative energy like his neutral or evil brother can... why?
Or are these, somehow, not facts? You ignore inconvenient facts and any argument i make that doesn't agree with you.
The poster is asking WHY. I'm trying to explain WHY. Its not my fault the system is inconsistent. Add something to the convo or find a nicer way of complaining.
If i explain that it is you ask why. If i explain why you ask about what it is. Pick one.
You think the solution is to remove the [evil] descriptor from animating undead. And heck, while we're at it, all the spells that suck someone's soul out of their body and fill it with a demon. I mean, you MIGHT have a good reason for doing that after all.
Slippery Slope fallacy, as well as equivocation.
You're making an assumption here which is very arguable- that is, if animating undead does in fact enslave a spirit during the creation process.
If it does, then your point has merit, but if it does not then animating an undead creature is no more evil than crafting a construct.
As I mentioned earlier, the rules do not choose sides on this issue. It could be either (whatever suits your story best).
TOZ is saying that Negative Energy is not evil, which is RAW, and thus, Animate Dead should also be NOT evil.
You are saying that because of the nature of what Negative Energy is, that it *should* be evil, which justifies both the Evil descriptor on Animate Dead, and the alignment of the undead created by it.
Both can be correct. That choice has to be made by each GM.
As far as the official stance goes, there isn't one. That means we play as though Negative Energy isn't evil, but it's effects generally are, and move on.
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Actually, the point I'm making is, BNW seems to be saying that we should ignore the fact that negative energy is neutral, because of the evidence he puts forth.
What we should actually be doing is determining how such spells can be [Evil] when negative energy is not Evil. Which I've commented on earlier in the thread.
You don't dismiss a fact because it doesn't agree with your conclusion, you change your conclusion to match the facts.
Then either accept
-"the man's" holy proclimation that raising undead is evil (the narrow minded lifeist twits) and its evil because "the man" says it is and puts the [evil] in the title
or
- That the universe is a random and inconsistent place
or
- the blatantly obvious conclusion that the plane that keeps powering soul sucking abominations and unholy mockeries of life is as "neutral" as the *cough* "chaotic neutral" character who runs around hacking at peasants with a vorpal sword so he can use their heads to play quidditch but objects when a paladin smites him because it says CN on his character sheet.
You don't dismiss a fact because it doesn't agree with your conclusion, you change your conclusion to match the facts.
In real life? Sure. In fiction? No. Writers and directors screw up all the time. Trying to assume a mythology or work of fiction is completely consistent is how you wind up with some inane ideas.(just look at any star wars fansite for example)
You're making an assumption here which is very arguable- that is, if animating undead does in fact enslave a spirit during the creation process.
.... what on EARTH prompted you to conclude? this ?
If it does, then your point has merit, but if it does not then animating an undead creature is no more evil than crafting a construct.
Create undead has the [evil] descriptor.
Create construct does not.
TOZ is saying that Negative Energy is not evil, which is RAW, and thus, Animate Dead should also be NOT evil.
While simultaneously ridiculing me for saying that
Animate dead is evil (which is raw), therefore Negative energy should be.
Or that the spell itself is an evil act. Not because of the energy used, but because of the ritual that employs the energy.
And how, pray tell, can the ritual, mere words and motions, be evil without the energy its drawing on? The material component is gems, not the heart of a forsaken child.
Dark Speech, blasphemies against the gods, offensive gestures.
So if you swear enough and badly (well?) enough, paladins can smite you?
No wonder the mule wagon driver's union local 108 was getting slaughtered left and right...
If something is used in a ritual, it's evil?
So virgins are evil?
Blood is evil?
Knives are evil?
Tables are evil?
Chains are evil?
Praying is evil?
Also, when did Onyx become evil?
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Dark Speech, blasphemies against the gods, offensive gestures.So if you swear enough and badly (well?) enough, paladins can smite you?
No wonder the mule wagon driver's union local 108 was getting slaughtered left and right...
Yep!
Hell, if you swear badly enough, you can flat out kill people.
Of course, you've got to be a high level cleric before they teach you the really bad words.
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Hell, if you swear badly enough, you can flat out kill people.
Okay, I laughed. :D
Speak purely enough and people die as well. Even Neutral people.
Anyway, I'd like to point out that you either accept that alignment is objective or not. I really hate it when people say that D&D alignment is objective and then try to support their arguments with real world wishy-washy alignment.
Animate Dead is evil because it has [evil] descriptor; that's the only reason and there's nothing to connect the [evil] descriptor to negative energy other than pure conjecture which doesn't hold up to the fact that there are plenty of necromancy spells which use negative energy that don't have the [evil] descriptor. Simple as that. That's why alignment is objective. To be simple.
tldr;
Is animating dead evil? yes
Is negative energy evil? no
Is necromancy evil? no
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Hell, if you swear badly enough, you can flat out kill people.
Okay, I laughed. :D
Speak purely enough and people die as well. Even Neutral people.
Hey man, you can call yourself 'Neutral" all you want, but if ya aint pure, ya aint pure. :D
<argument>
If negative energy were evil, then good aligned priests wouldn't be able to cast negative energy spells (cause wounds) do to alignment restrictions.
QED.
<argument>If negative energy were evil, then good aligned priests wouldn't be able to cast negative energy spells (cause wounds) do to alignment restrictions.
QED.
Putting QED at the end of a statement doesn't make everything i said irrelevant.
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I don't see how having real good and evil in a game setting automatically means there can be no non-evil undead or necromancy.
Then again some people insist that if you don't use inherently evil races and you think genocide is always evil then apparently you can only run a gray vs gray game with no real good guys or bad guys. wut
Cart before the horse, people. Animate Dead is an [Evil] spell because it creates evil undead, not because it employs negative energy. For the same reason Summon Monster is [Evil] when you use it to summon demons. Creating/summoning evil thing is an inherently evil act.
Most other necromancy spells are not labeled as [Evil], not even death effects. The ones that are labelled as [Evil] are generally have you acting like undead (Death Knell - snuff out an enemy that is not a threat to gain power seems pretty evil). This seems to indicate that negative energy is no more evil than fire or lightning. It's how you use it.
So why do evil clerics use negative energy channeling? Simple; it's more selfish and destructive. These are hallmarks of evil behavior (selfishness and destructiveness), so evil gods will encourage their use over 'selfless and merciful' things like positive channeling.