I have wanted for a long time to play a good aligned necromancer and I am wondering a few things:
What should they act like. My first thought was Abby from NCIS. Alignment probably CG
2. Would a necromancer still be viable as a character without being able to make undead? I would think so since they still have things like Enervation and Finger Of Death.
I don't believe in good necromancers, necromancy spells are mostly harmful to others, when not inherently evil... I don't see a good person pursuing such a course, one that was somehow conned or forced into studying necromancy would likely turn neutral if they pursued such matters deeply rather than branching off into other endeavours.
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Well one could argue the same about evocation, considering almost all evocation spells hurt people or blow stuff up.
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but evocation does not suffer from direct association with evil.
Though, yes, I don't think a wizard who specialized in evocation because he likes to see things burn would be good either, there's a reason many wizards gravitater toward LN and N alignments.
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If you're not planning on raising undead, that's a good start, though even then, I've always been an advocate of such magic NOT being inherently evil - It's always been a matter of how you use it, just like a fireball or a knife (I've collapsed the kingdom's slave trade industry by supplying free labor via undead minions; I got written and informed consent from each person prior to their death; now, labor is cheaper and more efficient than ever, boosting the economy and infrastructure - how dastardly of me!). If your GM has a similar opinion to creating undead minions, you could try just asking him if your group can just remove the [Evil] descriptor from such spells.
If creating undead minions isn't what you had in mind, and/or your GM won't remove the [Evil] descriptor, you can certainly still play a Good Necromancer who perhaps has specialized in the school in order to better combat undead foes (I created a Dhampire Necromancer Wizard with a similar mold in mind; sort of a Wizard-version of Blade). You could also make a character sort of like Raven from Teen Titans, who's a Good person, but your powers stem from very evil origins. I know Raven isn't a Necromancer, but it's not a huge leap to make. A Sorcerer with the Undead Bloodline is the most obvious choice here, like Val'bryn2 said, but there's nothing stopping you from being a Cleric, Witch, WIzard, etc. if you prefer, and just flavoring it similarly to how a Sorcerer would have been.
You could take the Hallowed Necromancer Archetype which basically makes you anti-undead.
Alternatively, you could be a healer.
Devout Doctor(Wizard)
Key concepts: A wizard taught to heal by a divine patron
Alignment: Lawful Good
Race: Human
Key Race Traits: Focused Study
Traits: Precise Treatment and (Battlefield Surgeon or Scarred by War) and/or Blessed Touch
Class: Wizard (10th) / Pathfinder Savant (10th)
Arcane School: Necromancy (Life)
Arcane Bond: Familiar
Familiar Archetypes: Figment or Protector or Valet
Suggested Domains: Medicine, Healing, Community
Archetype: Pact Wizard [Haunted Heroes Handbook] (Mercy)
Curse: Covetous
Key Feats: Skill Focus [Heal] (1st), Believer’s Boon (1st), Magical Aptitude (3rd), Arcane Discovery[Faith Magic](5th), Believer’s Hands (7th), Skill Focus [Perception] (8th), Crafting Feat [any] (9th), Adept Channel(11th), Eldritch Heritage[Solar] (13th), Improved Eldritch Heritage[Cleansing Flame] (15th), Greater Eldritch Heritage [Healing Fire] (17th)
Key Features:
• Can Spontaneously cast Cure Light Wounds
• Can Lay on Hands like a paladin
• Can Channel energy like a cleric
• Has full access to all arcane spells
• May add healing spells to class list (12+)
Negative Energy itself is supposed to be pretty abhorrent. Pathfinder doesn't go into much detail as 3.5 did but they give a fairly similar description for the Negative Energy Plane - it's not a good place to draw energy from. I'd say "Good Aligned" and "Primary Focus: Hurtful Necromancy" don't line up very well.
Channeling your ancestors, like an Ancestor mystery Oracle is something that is thematically necromancy and probably fits the idea of a good-aligned necromancer a lot better. You could look to the Abzan from M:tG as inspiration.
I've collapsed the kingdom's slave trade industry by supplying free labor via undead minions; I got written and informed consent from each person prior to their death; now, labor is cheaper and more efficient than ever, boosting the economy and infrastructure - how dastardly of me!
There's spellcasting work needed to support undead labor. Every corpse would need a handler and regular Gentle Repose or Remove Disease casting to prevent the spread of disease (it's not really clear which, though I'd personally say Gentle Repose). To maintain it as a labor force, you need to train a not insignificant number of people in the slaver kingdom to become at least 5th level casters. A specific fairly powerful sect in charge of an entire kingdom's economy/labor force sounds risky and that's before we get into the effects of automated labor built on humanoid bodies in a society with little-to-no worker's rights. You got consent but I don't trust slavers to do the same and even if they did, what happens to all the former slaves in this economy with no jobs? If undead labor worked as a long term solution, it's probably because that society was already 95% of the way to treating the slaves as citizens and not because undead labor was brought into the equation.
For what it's worth, I don't think that the [Evil] descriptor on Animate Dead is there because of what is possible to do with undead, it's there because of existing taboos about messing with the dead. Moral opposition doesn't have to be based on efficiency. If you want to rebuild your setting to accommodate for undead labor, there's not anything wrong with that but it requires different views on death than what is considered standard.
As a GM, I never understood why creating zombies or skeletons was considered evil in this game. So, I changed the rule in my games, perhaps your DM would do the same if asked.
It's pretty simple reasoning. Zombie and skeleton undead are basically automatons, with no will of their own, and they don't attack anyone else unless ordered to do so. Since making a robot or golem isn't evil, why would zombie and skeleton creation be considered evil? Unlawful maybe, since there are lots of laws in human society about violating the dead. In the real world, there's a huge black market in dead bodies, because doctors need to be able to dissect people in order to learn anatomy. Hell, this has a huge historical precedent, that's what the novel Frankenstein was written about.
Similarly, I rule that Detect Evil doesn't work on unintelligent undead. How can you be evil aligned if you've got no brain to work with? Don't you have to make a conscious decision to hurt others to be evil?
However, the souls are quite gone in the game when a necromancer animates these two types of undead. That means the bodies are just shells, dead flesh. Since these undead don't reproduce, and won't attack anyone without orders to do so (or even do anything at all without orders), I typically rule they're okay in good/Evil terms, but I do consider it a Chaotic act as it usually defies human laws.
PS the messed up thing about necromancers in pathfinder is that they gotta have a high charisma as well as intelligence as a Wizard class. Charisma was typically NOT a favored attribute for Wizard necromancers ever since the late 70s when the game was invented. Indeed, they usually had pretty low scores. If you'd like lots of interesting ideas about having a necromancer, check out the old 2nd ed AD&D softcover supplement The Complete Book of Necromancers.
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A necromancer wizard is certainly viable without making undead. You'll need to up your save DCs as much as possible, because other than the handful of outliers (false life, enervation) your necromancy spells are all going to be save or suck. On top of that you'd still have your usual wizard spells.
As far as role play? The coroner who is a little too accepting about hanging around dead bodies all day is just fine for a good/neutral necromancer.
Zombie and skeleton undead are basically automatons, with no will of their own, and they don't attack anyone else unless ordered to do so.
Zombies tend to mill about in search of living creatures to slaughter and devour when left unattended. Skeletons don't have any such clause but raising zombies seems like it could be pretty dangerous if you don't constantly supervise them. Not quite the same as mindless automatons. Pretty easy to solve by just raising skeletons, though.
How can you be evil aligned if you've got no brain to work with? Don't you have to make a conscious decision to hurt others to be evil?
I recall earlier editions of D&D actually specifying that mindless undead were Neutral, so there's some precedent for this. It certainly fits pretty well.
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I don't believe in good necromancers, necromancy spells are mostly harmful to others, when not inherently evil... I don't see a good person pursuing such a course, one that was somehow conned or forced into studying necromancy would likely turn neutral if they pursued such matters deeply rather than branching off into other endeavours.
I don't think that stabbing people with swords is a particularly "good" thing to do either.
Necromancy debuffs can actually be good spells for subduing opponents, rather than outright killing them (though a lot of other Necromancy spells are good for killing). This is a game that is largely about the various strategies and tactics around how you kill your enemies. Covering a person's body in burns is one of the most incredibly painful things you can do to them (until their nerve endings are destroyed), so if we aren't going to have moral qualms about Scorching Ray and Fireball, unless a spell is obviously torturous (like drawing out their death for a minute or more), I don't think "causing harm" is a good metric.
As a GM, I never understood why creating zombies or skeletons was considered evil in this game. So, I changed the rule in my games, perhaps your DM would do the same if asked.
It has to do with cosmology. The Negative Energy Plane is the source of the energy that supports all unlife in the Pathfinder universe. This is not a benign energy. The NEP itself is unaligned, but it's a naturally destructive force that would destroy all life. The NEP doesn't just cause a thing to die, it destroys the very life force behind the living creature, because in Golarian the soul is a real thing.
To make an undead, you HAVE to harness the destroyed souls of living creatures.
Now, as GM, you can certainly change the cosmology. If you made Animate Dead a transmutation spell (like Animate Objects), then it wouldn't be using the power of destroyed souls to make a thing to do your dishes. You'd just be adding raw magical energy to make an object move, and this object would just happen to be the corpse of a former living person, but that person's soul (and anyone else's) would be unharmed.
Necromancy (Evil) spells tap directly into the NEP, and all the obliterated souls that power it.
All that said, I could see a case, even within Golarian's cosmology, for using such a spell to destroy the souls of particularly dangerous and evil people. Like a lich has already demonstrated that they're willing to destroy other people's souls for their own gains, and since they are such a powerful individual, even sending them to Hell is a risky proposition. Their soul could turn into a devil and be elevated to a rank of power over time. Better to just destroy their soul than send Hell a future soldier.
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As others have mentioned, I would check out the White Necromancer class. You can read the reviews by clicking the link :)
The most up to date version of the class (along with a brand-new archetype) can be found in the New Paths Compendium: Expanded Edition
If you go by the Bestiary entries, zombies really are nothing more than robots, and don't go around attacking (or even responding to) living beings unless ordered to.
Occasionally I read about zombies or skeletons that are unattended attacking others, but I note thats in prewritten adventures, and I personally blame Hollywood and confusing zombies with ghouls.
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From the bestiary entry for zombie "When left unattended, zombies tend to mill about in search of living creatures to slaughter and devour. Zombies attack until destroyed, having no regard for their own safety."
Creating something with those characteristics sounds evil to me. Or at least evil adjacent.
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A Specialist Necromancer Wizard that doesn't create undead is absolutely a viable character. First off, you a still a wizard. You still have a lot of slots that aren't going to be locked into just necromancy, and you can easily find a useful spell that you will happily have memorized for each level for your bonus slot. At the then of the day, a wizard is a wizard.
Alignment and Personality could be anything you wanted. You could have a LG Bubbly and Happy necromancer if you want to. If you don't cast spells with the evil descriptor, a necromancy spell has no more effect on your alignment than an evocation or a divination spell does (obviously, just as with the others, you can use any spell to DO evil, but the spells themselves don't come with pre-packaged evil.)
Certainly house rules can be more (all necromancy is bad) or less (raise dead isn't really that bad) than this, but those are house rules (or setting specific rules) and the above is the default rules as presented in the books.
Is it still evil to reanimate if this usage of the remains was deemed acceptable by the "person" while still alive? Or even creating mindful undead - "Hey Bob, if I bite it this trip, could you make me into a wraith? I've always wanted to walk through walls."
Per the rules, casting a spell with an evil descriptor is an evil act, regardless of anything else.
It sometimes might be an evil act that balanced out by a good act (I cast infernal healing to save the life of an innocent) or it sometimes might be an evil act that is exacerbated by evil intent (I cast animate dead [evil] and order my undead minions to attack the orphanage [more evil]).
Many people don't like the rule on alignment descriptors of spells and it is somewhat commonly house ruled away, but as it is, nothing else matters.
Is it still evil to reanimate if this usage of the remains was deemed acceptable by the "person" while still alive? Or even creating mindful undead - "Hey Bob, if I bite it this trip, could you make me into a wraith? I've always wanted to walk through walls."
Mechanically, the [Evil] descriptor overrides intent. Using Infernal Healing to save someone's life is evil, consensual animating is evil. Here's the relevant rules on casting [Evil] spells:
Casting an evil spell is an evil act, but for most characters simply casting such a spell once isn’t enough to change her alignment; this only occurs if the spell is used for a truly abhorrent act, or if the caster established a pattern of casting evil spells over a long period. A wizard who uses animate dead to create guardians for defenseless people won’t turn evil, but he will if he does it over and over again. The GM decides whether the character’s alignment changes, but typically casting two evil spells is enough to turn a good creature nongood, and three or more evils spells move the caster from nongood to evil. The greater the amount of time between castings, the less likely alignment will change. Some spells require sacrificing a sentient creature, a major evil act that makes the caster evil in almost every circumstance.
See Irontruth's post above for some info on why these spells might be inherently evil. You're free to house rule, of course - many people don't like the limitations of [alignment] descriptors.
EDIT: Ninja'd! Gotta remember to hit preview and check. I'm gonna leave it up for the rules citation. It's pretty clear consensual raising falls into the same camp as "guardians for defenseless people".
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The Necromancy School allows a player to choose Turn Undead and blast undead with positive energy, which is a "good necromancer" possibility right in the CRB. The Advanced Player Guide includes a Life Subschool for Necromancy, which is still farther from association with creating undead. Non-evil Necromancer is written right into the core of the game. As far as Necromancy school spells being inherently evil... no, they're not. Spells that are inherently evil have an (Evil) descriptor. Using a spell like Vampiric Touch or Slay Living isn't any more inherently evil than decapitating creatures with a greatsword.
What's really cool about the Necromancer is that they get Channel Energy, which opens up some crazy build possibilities with Guided Hand or Crusader's Flurry.
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I've collapsed the kingdom's slave trade industry by supplying free labor via undead minions; I got written and informed consent from each person prior to their death; now, labor is cheaper and more efficient than ever, boosting the economy and infrastructure - how dastardly of me!There's spellcasting work needed to support undead labor. Every corpse would need a handler and regular Gentle Repose or Remove Disease casting to prevent the spread of disease (it's not really clear which, though I'd personally say Gentle Repose). To maintain it as a labor force, you need to train a not insignificant number of people in the slaver kingdom to become at least 5th level casters. A specific fairly powerful sect in charge of an entire kingdom's economy/labor force sounds risky and that's before we get into the effects of automated labor built on humanoid bodies in a society with little-to-no worker's rights. You got consent but I don't trust slavers to do the same and even if they did, what happens to all the former slaves in this economy with no jobs? If undead labor worked as a long term solution, it's probably because that society was already 95% of the way to treating the slaves as citizens and not because undead labor was brought into the equation.
For what it's worth, I don't think that the [Evil] descriptor on Animate Dead is there because of what is possible to do with undead, it's there because of existing taboos about messing with the dead. Moral opposition doesn't have to be based on efficiency. If you want to rebuild your setting to accommodate for undead labor, there's not anything wrong with that but it requires different views on death than what is considered standard.
Yes, and blowing up the death star and killing Emperor Palpatine would have caused an unprecedented economic collapse, loss of infrastructure, and a galaxy-wide power vacuum inviting anarchy and civil unrest, negatively effecting trillions of lives that would have otherwise not been affected by their governing body. Instead of attacking the specific example I gave, I was hoping someone would have looked at the actual point I was making, which was that creating Undead is only inherently Evil because the Pathfinder system says it is. I'm not saying that it's asinine that Paizo made those spells evil; I'm saying that it's not a fundamental part of the system. If a group decided that animating a mass of bones and muscle and granting them autonomy was no more evil than doing so to a suit of armor, it wouldn't upset anything. Default undead encountered while out adventuring could still be evil, and there could certainly still be a taboo among society and certain religions in the act itself, but it would also not be something that the very fabric of the universe rioted against and condemned your soul to a lower plane for doing.
I mean, no one even talks about how Enchantment magic exercises your will over LIVING people, and it's somehow not even on the radar of Evil magic, while raising a skeleton doesn't even harm or effect the soul that used to inhabit it. I'm not saying Enchantment magic should be viewed as Evil; just pointing out that casting Animate Dead doesn't hurt anyone, but casting Dominate Person has massive moral and ethical implications. If in today's world, someone gave autonomy to a human skeleton, and someone else gained full autonomous control over another living person, and both acts were put under geopolitical spotlights, I'm not sure which one would be looked at as worse.
Back to the OP's question - did you have a certain class in mind for playing your Good-aligned Necromancer?
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I mean, no one even talks about how Enchantment magic exercises your will over LIVING people, and it's somehow not even on the radar of Evil magic, while raising a skeleton doesn't even harm or effect the soul that used to inhabit it. I'm not saying Enchantment magic should be viewed as Evil; just pointing out that casting Animate Dead doesn't hurt anyone, but casting Dominate Person has massive moral and ethical implications. If in today's world, someone gave autonomy to a human skeleton, and someone else gained full autonomous control over another living person, and both acts were put under geopolitical spotlights, I'm not sure which one would be looked at as worse.
actually animating a corpse does have a negative impact on the soul. They can't be resurrected.
You can revive someone killed by a death effect or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed.
heck, they can't even be reincarnated.
A creature that has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can’t be returned to life by this spell.
So, you must be doing something pretty terrible to someone's soul when not even the most powerful resurrection magic that ignores the condition of the body can bring the person back to life until said skeleton has been destroyed.
As for your other point. I absolutely agree, it's weird that spells like dominate aren't evil. Also constructs are animated via the souls of elementals and/or outsiders. It's why the classic golems have the berserk trait, the elemental spirit inside finally rages hard enough at being trapped that it makes the golem "go crazy". It makes no sense to me that trapping and enslaving an outsider or elemental to power a machine isn't also evil. Nor is just straight up enslaving an outsider via planar binding.
I don't believe in good necromancers, necromancy spells are mostly harmful to others, when not inherently evil... I don't see a good person pursuing such a course, one that was somehow conned or forced into studying necromancy would likely turn neutral if they pursued such matters deeply rather than branching off into other endeavours.I don't think that stabbing people with swords is a particularly "good" thing to do either.
Necromancy debuffs can actually be good spells for subduing opponents, rather than outright killing them (though a lot of other Necromancy spells are good for killing). This is a game that is largely about the various strategies and tactics around how you kill your enemies. Covering a person's body in burns is one of the most incredibly painful things you can do to them (until their nerve endings are destroyed), so if we aren't going to have moral qualms about Scorching Ray and Fireball, unless a spell is obviously torturous (like drawing out their death for a minute or more), I don't think "causing harm" is a good metric.
Let's put it that way, it's not the act, it's the tool... most magic, like the stabby pointy things of metal, is fairly neutral ande it all depends how and on what you use it, but Necromancy is working with the inherently destructive Negative Energy, many uses of which are by nature actually evil, so it's extra hard to remain Good while working mostly with such tools... (As for destructive nature, well, of course, a mage won't forge stuff with fireballs either, but using Fire as a tool can be used positively) .
BTW, beside ourtight healing spells, are there known uses for POsitive Energy?
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I mean, no one even talks about how Enchantment magic exercises your will over LIVING people, and it's somehow not even on the radar of Evil magic, while raising a skeleton doesn't even harm or effect the soul that used to inhabit it. I'm not saying Enchantment magic should be viewed as Evil; just pointing out that casting Animate Dead doesn't hurt anyone, but casting Dominate Person has massive moral and ethical implications. If in today's world, someone gave autonomy to a human skeleton, and someone else gained full autonomous control over another living person, and both acts were put under geopolitical spotlights, I'm not sure which one would be looked at as worse.actually animating a corpse does have a negative impact on the soul. They can't be resurrected.
You can revive someone killed by a death effect or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed.heck, they can't even be reincarnated.
A creature that has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can’t be returned to life by this spell.So, you must be doing something pretty terrible to someone's soul when not even the most powerful resurrection magic that ignores the condition of the body can bring the person back to life until said skeleton has been destroyed.
As for your other point. I absolutely agree, it's weird that spells like dominate aren't evil. Also constructs are animated via the souls of elementals and/or outsiders. It's why the classic golems have the berserk trait, the elemental spirit inside finally rages hard enough at being trapped that it makes the golem "go crazy". It makes no sense to me that trapping and enslaving an outsider or elemental to power a machine isn't also evil. Nor is just straight up enslaving an outsider via planar binding.
Planar binding is even stranger. If you bind an evil outsider you must first commit a good act (magic circle against evil) and vice versa.
By the rules, for some reason a wizard casting four protections from good on himself and his party becomes evil, but if he then casts four protections from evil he doesn't become good, and the law & chaos versions also do nothing. This is typically why I ignore alignment descriptors, and base everything off the character's actions.
Even if you ignore anything related to the soul and the alignment descriptor though, animating the undead is typically still going to be an evil act.
A lot of cultures are very picky about how their corpses are treated, and animating your enemies after killing them to get a bit more use out of them is almost definitely evil.
Buying a freshly slaughtered yak and animating it's skeleton as a pack mule? That's more ambiguous.
A necromancer is viable without using the evil description spells, and if you want to use those you'd have to talk to your GM, but you probably aren't a good aligned necromancer if you do.
I mean, no one even talks about how Enchantment magic exercises your will over LIVING people, and it's somehow not even on the radar of Evil magic, while raising a skeleton doesn't even harm or effect the soul that used to inhabit it. I'm not saying Enchantment magic should be viewed as Evil; just pointing out that casting Animate Dead doesn't hurt anyone, but casting Dominate Person has massive moral and ethical implications. If in today's world, someone gave autonomy to a human skeleton, and someone else gained full autonomous control over another living person, and both acts were put under geopolitical spotlights, I'm not sure which one would be looked at as worse.actually animating a corpse does have a negative impact on the soul. They can't be resurrected.
You can revive someone killed by a death effect or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed.heck, they can't even be reincarnated.
A creature that has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can’t be returned to life by this spell.So, you must be doing something pretty terrible to someone's soul when not even the most powerful resurrection magic that ignores the condition of the body can bring the person back to life until said skeleton has been destroyed.
You're misrepresenting the context of that sentence in True Resurrection.
Not at Risk of Death from massive damage, but is immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hp
Destroyed means that the original body is no longer intact. In any instance of being raised or reincarnated, you need the original body.
Target Dead creature touched
If the original body has since been animated into an undead creature, or if the body itself is destroyed, it's an invalid target of the spell. It has nothing to do with the person's soul. Even if you try to argue that the term "destroyed" only refers to whether of not the Undead creature itself is animated or not, the next line in Undead Traits says:
Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.
Resurrection bypasses the Target stipulation of the other spells in that you only need a piece of the body, so even if the body was destroyed, you can still use a piece of the destroyed body. True Resurrection simply doesn't need any part of the body; just for the caster to "unambiguously identify the deceased". So, as per the rules, the soul isn't affected in any way if its original body is animated, aside from not being able to be brought back to life (without some more powerful magic), and if they gave informed consent as in my example above, that's not an issue either. Animate Dead is starting to look pretty tame from a morals/ethics standpoint next to spells that alter memory and force un-consented actions, or that trap sentient outsiders inside prisons of clay and whatnot...
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You're misrepresenting the context of that sentence in True Resurrection.
Please enlighten me. I kill bob, and animate Bob as a skeleton. Until Sam kills Bob the skeleton any attempts to bring bob back to life will fail, even if you use a spell like true resurrection which states.
This spell can even bring back creatures whose bodies have been destroyed, provided that you unambiguously identify the deceased in some fashion (reciting the deceased’s time and place of birth or death is the most common method).
So, If I kill bob via disintegration and bury his ashes in some unmarked grave. Someone else on the other side of the planet can bring him back via True Resurrection provided they can properly identify that he's the one they're trying to bring back.
However, if I kill bob, animate him as a skeleton and bury said skeleton in the same unmarked grave the spell will fail.
Now, if you dig up the skeleton and kill the skeleton you still will not be able to bring them back to life using raise dead or normal resurrection as per the undead trait. However, you can now use true resurrection to bring them back, just not as an undead creature.
Scenario 3.
I kill bob and this time I cast animate objects on his body and bury him in an unmarked grave. He is not an undead creature so when the person on the other side of the plant casts true resurrection bob is restored to life even though his previous body is still an animated construct.
Scenario 4.
I kill bob and animate him via animated objects. Someone else kills this construct. I liked bob the construct and so I cast true resurrection to bring him back. In this case the spell fails because I can't bring bob the construct back to life using true resurrection, only bob the living creature.
I am always happy to advocate that this is a good idea; mostly because one of my favorite albums is about it: The Legend of the Bone Carver
If you want to do this within the rules without being evil; being Neutral is fine; and you can use your powers for good. In theory; using evil for good is a very Neutral thing to do. "Bring balance back to the whatever" and such.
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I don't believe in good necromancers, necromancy spells are mostly harmful to others, when not inherently evil... I don't see a good person pursuing such a course, one that was somehow conned or forced into studying necromancy would likely turn neutral if they pursued such matters deeply rather than branching off into other endeavours.I don't think that stabbing people with swords is a particularly "good" thing to do either.
Necromancy debuffs can actually be good spells for subduing opponents, rather than outright killing them (though a lot of other Necromancy spells are good for killing). This is a game that is largely about the various strategies and tactics around how you kill your enemies. Covering a person's body in burns is one of the most incredibly painful things you can do to them (until their nerve endings are destroyed), so if we aren't going to have moral qualms about Scorching Ray and Fireball, unless a spell is obviously torturous (like drawing out their death for a minute or more), I don't think "causing harm" is a good metric.
Let's put it that way, it's not the act, it's the tool... most magic, like the stabby pointy things of metal, is fairly neutral ande it all depends how and on what you use it, but Necromancy is working with the inherently destructive Negative Energy, many uses of which are by nature actually evil, so it's extra hard to remain Good while working mostly with such tools... (As for destructive nature, well, of course, a mage won't forge stuff with fireballs either, but using Fire as a tool can be used positively) .
BTW, beside ourtight healing spells, are there known uses for POsitive Energy?
Fire magic is inherently destructive.
I'm not trying to make the case that Necromancy shouldn't largely be considered Evil, because I think it should. I'm fine with the cosmology and various interactions of the Animate Dead spell (like how it interacts with Resurrection and Reincarnation), I think this is a coherent vision of how to add morality to magic.
What I'm suggesting is that if your argument against non-[Evil] spells, like say Enervation, or Ray of Enfeeblement, could just as easily be applied to Fireball, then maybe your line of reasoning is faulty.
I agree that most magic is just a tool. A few cases exist where that isn't true (Animate Dead), but those are a very small subset of the whole list of spells. If you want to make a broad claim or suggest a test to use to determine if a spell should have the [Evil] descriptor, my suggestion would be to apply that test to Fireball and see where it comes out. If your test implies that Fireball should become [Evil], it might not be a good test.
Some of this is really pushing into moral systems and philosophy territory. It's territory that I enjoy quite a bit, and things I think are really useful overall, but it's also a topic that you have to put some thought into, which most of us don't do on a daily basis. You can live most of your life without questioning the moral systems we live in. The morality of Animate Dead having the [Evil] tag isn't a random occurrence, and is actually the product of deliberate actions by the D&D and Pathfinder writers. Just because one (or more) Necromancy spells have the [Evil] tag, does not mean that all Necromancy spells should have the tag.
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If I understand correctly, spells with alignment descriptors actively draw on such powers to function, sort of the way a smartphone draws electricity from a battery. Keep in mind that the game usually takes place in a setting where concepts like good and evil are tangible, actual forces of reality - you can go visit them if you're high enough in level. Using an [Evil] spell is an evil act because you are actively drawing upon the literal power of evil and allowing it to have more of a presence in the world.
If you're trying to create a Magic Circle Against Good to trap an angel that's gone crazy and is hurting people, you're doing it for good reasons - but you're still drawing on the power of evil to do it. Just like you might be setting a controlled forest fire to try and stop a bigger, more dangerous wildfire. You've got good reasons for your actions, but you're still burning things. There are tangible effects on the world from what you're doing that are different, and separate from, your personal intentions.
...
...This is how I think it works in the game, anyway. XD I might be wrong.
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Please enlighten me.
I did enlighten you - I thought I was very descriptive and thorough in citing my sources, but I guess I'll try to break it down further.
Based on all my quotes in the above post, here are the facts:
In order to cast Raise Dead or Reincarnation, you must touch the dead creature you wish to bring back; the dead creature is the target of the spell. If the dead creature's body has been destroyed, or if it is no longer considered a "dead creature", whatever label you might otherwise give the physical remains ARE NOT a valid target of the spell. Now, the spell Animate Objects doesn't pointedly state that the subject of the spell counts as a Construct, but you're supposed to use the Animated Objects stats via the Bestiary, which are of the Construct type. Therefore, a dead creature currently under the effects of an Animated Objects spell would fall into the previous caveat, in that it's not a dead creature - it's a Construct, and is not a valid target for Raise Dead or Reincarnation.
Now, the difference in these two examples - and the reason why Animate Objects seems like the more innocuous spell - is that after the Animate Objects spell ends, the dead creature wouldn't be destroyed, and would again be a valid target of Raise Dead or Reincarnate. Unless, of course it was brought down to 0 hp before the spell ended; Constructs have the same "destroyed at 0 hp" rule as Undead. I imaging that Animate Objects isn't brought up in the True Resurrection spell description because it's a far less likely scenario, and maybe wasn't even considered at the time it was printed. Based on the same rules that would beget the Undead clause, though, the dead creature would be in the same boat if it was destroyed as an Animated Object as if it were destroyed as an Undead.
Resurrection and True Resurrection aren't limited by the "Target Dead Creature Touched" restriction. The line in both of these spells that say "You can resurrect someone killed by a death effect or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed." isn't there to mean that you CAN'T resurrect someone whose body is currently undead; the rules in the Undead Traits plainly state that you CAN. Instead, it's referring to the fact that Raise Dead and Reincarnation will NOT work on someone who was turned into an undead and then destroyed. This restriction doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that the person used to be Undead at all, though; it's really just playing off the same rules I listed earlier in this post, which is that they're not a valid target because the body was destroyed while it was Undead, merely because of how undead bodies interact with 0 hp. The reason this line exists at all is to correct anyone who might think "OK, I killed the zombie. Now, I can cast Raise Dead and bring him back to life". No, you can't, because the body was destroyed when you killed it as a Zombie.
OK, now I'll address each of your scenarios as clearly as I can.
So, If I kill bob via disintegration and bury his ashes in some unmarked grave. Someone else on the other side of the planet can bring him back via True Resurrection provided they can properly identify that he's the one they're trying to bring back.
Correct
However, if I kill bob, animate him as a skeleton and bury said skeleton in the same unmarked grave the spell will fail.
Incorrect. Well...actually, the wording of True Resurrection WOULD be a bit unclear here, but not in the way you might think. Raise Dead has a range of touch, and True Resurrection functions like Raise Dead, except for its listed exceptions. If there's NO BODY to target, it still works, even though you are violating the Range rule of the spell. In your example, the body DOES exist. Meanwhile, referring back to the Undead Traits, casting True Resurrection to bring back that specific person would turn that undead back into the original living person. So the question is if there IS a body to target, do you still need to obey the Range rule, and touch it, or is that rule out the window based on the fact that you don't need to touch ANYTHING in the event that there's no body. And, if it turns out that you DON'T need to touch them, would they appear within Touching range of the caster, or would they be raised in the Undead's current location, which would likely result in them suffocating and dying all over again? I'm pretty sure the spell's intended function would be that it works even as you say, from the other side of the planet, while the Undead is buried underground, and they would simply appear within Touching range of the caster, but damn, that's a quagmire of unknowns.
The important thing to take away is that in the event of using Resurrection or True Resurrection in a situational vacuum, the spells would work; "Resurrection and True Resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead."
I kill bob and this time I cast animate objects on his body and bury him in an unmarked grave. He is not an undead creature so when the person on the other side of the plant casts true resurrection bob is restored to life even though his previous body is still an animated construct.
This is actually false. While Undead Traits state that Resurrection and True Resurrection turn Undead "back into the living creatures they were before becoming Undead", Construct Traits have no such exit clause. Resurrection still requires you to have a piece of the dead creature, but they're no longer a "dead creature" - they're now a Construct. Again, True Resurrection doesn't NEED any part of the dead creature, so that would still work, but based on this, you could actually argue that the Animate Objects spell is the greater villain here, since Resurrection wouldn't work here, while it would still work vs. an Undead creature. If the Animate Objects spell was made permanent, you'd be unable to revive the person until you could cast 9th level spells, where an Undead creature can be saved and raised by a 7th level spell. Granted, short of making Animate Objects permanent, the remains would again be considered a "dead creature" and be a valid target for even Raise Dead and Reincarnate when the spell ended, but again, you'd be out of luck with those spells if the body was brought to 0 hp as an Animated Object.
I kill bob and animate him via animated objects. Someone else kills this construct. I liked bob the construct and so I cast true resurrection to bring him back. In this case the spell fails because I can't bring bob the construct back to life using true resurrection, only bob the living creature.
I'm unsure what point you're trying to make here, at least in regard to what we've been talking about, but I'll address it anyway, I guess. True Resurrection WOULD work here, and return Bob back to life. True Resurrection was never written or intended to work to bring Constructs, or any form of artificial life back from being destroyed.
The spell you are looking for to rez constructs is Memory of Function.
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I am assuming that the range and target lines don't apply to true res since I've generally seen this spell used when the body can't be retrieved. Sometimes the body exists, and in thoery someone could go and get it but it's far too dangerous to attempt and therefore un-retrievable. I've never seen a DM require that the party go to the exact spot where the character was killed in order to cast the spell. Or insist that because there is still technically a body it is required to cast the spell. It's entirely possible that the spell has been used incorrectly in this regard.
That being said, it looks like the point of disagreement is on the following line. listed under the undead type (curiously not listed under undead traits, but that's beside the point).
Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.
This is doing one of two things. Its either informing us of an effect that is specific when used against undefeated undead, or it's a poorly written reference that simply tries to re-iterates what these spells state.
The undead type says you can cast true res on an undead creature and it does a thing. While true res states that you can use it on an undead creature that's been destroyed. In both places it states the same thing happens.
Maybe the idea is supposed to be that, my friend got turned into a ghoul and I can strap the ghoul to a table, cast true res on them and they turn back into my friend. The problem is this makes the spell extremely OP, especially at the levels when the cleric can just memorize it as a daily spell.
If I'm facing down a lich why bother to kill it when I can just cast true res on it? From the safety of my own home even. There's no SR and it's considered a harmless spell. I suppose it could save against it. In which case you just keep trying until it rolls a 1. Sure, it's expensive but probably worth it.
This breaks down even more when you consider a creature like a necrocraft. It is an undead creature and there is nothing that states that it doesn't get everything that undead creatures get. However, it was never a living creature that had the form that it currently has. If I cast true res on it there is no living creature for it to turn into that existed prior to it becoming undead. Unless, you're suggesting that a single casting of true res brings back all 5-100 creatures that were used in it's manufacture.
If it does work this way, this is a substantially cheaper way to bring people back. I can spend 200 gp turning my 5 dead friends into a necrocraft and then spend 25k on true res to bring all 5 back instead of spending 125k to bring back each person individually. Better yet the village that was killed? I can spend 26k (25k+1k) to build an 18hd necrocraft and true res it instead of spending 2.5 million to true res all 100 people individually.
I'm working under the assumption that such abuse isn't possible because (as the spells themselves state) the undead creature has to be killed first before you can try to bring someone back to life.
I am assuming that the range and target lines don't apply to true res since I've generally seen this spell used when the body can't be retrieved. Sometimes the body exists, and in thoery someone could go and get it but it's far too dangerous to attempt and therefore un-retrievable. I've never seen a DM require that the party go to the exact spot where the character was killed in order to cast the spell. Or insist that because there is still technically a body it is required to cast the spell. It's entirely possible that the spell has been used incorrectly in this regard.
I agree with you that the spell works as most people (including you) usually use it; I was just trying to be a thorough as possible with my rules interpretation.
That being said, it looks like the point of disagreement is on the following line. listed under the undead type (curiously not listed under undead traits, but that's beside the point).
Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.This is doing one of two things. Its either informing us of an effect that is specific when used against undefeated undead, or it's a poorly written reference that simply tries to re-iterates what these spells state.
The undead type says you can cast true res on an undead creature and it does a thing. While true res states that you can use it on an undead creature that's been destroyed. In both places it states the same thing happens.
It's definitely a messy set of rules, made all the more messy by the fact that you need to reference two completely different locations in order to find everything you need. I think the wording in True Resurrection is there - as I said - simply to inform you of what the spell can do, as opposed to Raise Dead and Reincarnate -
Raise Dead and Reincarnate CANNOT revive a dead person who was made Undead and then destroyed, but Resurrection and True Resurrection CAN revive a dead person who was made Undead and then destroyed. Meanwhile, the text in the Undead Traits covers that Raise Dead and Reincarnate CANNOT revive a dead person who is currently Undead, but Resurrection and True Resurrection CAN revive a dead person who is currently Undead.
If I'm facing down a lich why bother to kill it when I can just cast true res on it? From the safety of my own home even. There's no SR and it's considered a harmless spell. I suppose it could save against it. In which case you just keep trying until it rolls a 1. Sure, it's expensive but probably worth it.
Fortunately, this isn't the case. Even True Resurrection must follow the same rule as Raise Dead, in that the soul must be free and willing to return. I doubt the Lich's soul would be willing to return.
This breaks down even more when you consider a creature like a necrocraft. It is an undead creature and there is nothing that states that it doesn't get everything that undead creatures get. However, it was never a living creature that had the form that it currently has. If I cast true res on it there is no living creature for it to turn into that existed prior to it becoming undead. Unless, you're suggesting that a single casting of true res brings back all 5-100 creatures that were used in it's manufacture.
If it does work this way, this is a substantially cheaper way to bring people back. I can spend 200 gp turning my 5 dead friends into a necrocraft and then spend 25k on true res to bring all 5 back instead of spending 125k to bring back each person individually. Better yet the village that was killed? I can spend 26k (25k+1k) to build an 18hd necrocraft and true res it instead of spending 2.5 million to true res all 100 people individually.
In this case, I'd consider each casting of Resurrection or True Resurrection to remove a single corpse-worth of HD from the Necrocraft, which would gradually reduce the Undead in size and potency with multiple castings - a VERY expensive way to kill a Necrocraft. I'm not finding any rules that would adjudicate this scenario, but that seems like the best interaction between those two elements to me.
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Instead of attacking the specific example I gave, I was hoping someone would have looked at the actual point I was making, which was that creating Undead is only inherently Evil because the Pathfinder system says it is.
For what it's worth, I don't think that the [Evil] descriptor on Animate Dead is there because of what is possible to do with undead, it's there because of existing taboos about messing with the dead. Moral opposition doesn't have to be based on efficiency.
To expand, this isn't an arbitrary taboo Pathfinder adds for no reason. It's based off real world stuff, of which there should be a certain amount to ground your stories in a relatable way. It's fine if you'd like to explore the implications of a world where raising undead minions is morally okay but that world is different enough from our own that certain base assumptions of interactions no longer function. I think Pathfinder can be a great medium to look into Tippyverse style worldbuilding but your average player wants to hit bad guys with a sword and not think about the implications of the Create Water cantrip.
I'm saying that it's not a fundamental part of the system.
It's a worldbuilding decision. Changing it majorly affects the setting and has the potential to negatively impact player immersion. It's not fundamental but changing the moral implications of messing with the dead changes the setting enough that your game will play differently.
I also think that "fundamental to the system" is pretty loose. It isn't uncommon to hear someone say that they handwave Carrying Capacity for example. It's not "fundamental" but it majorly affects how a 7 STR Wizard plays. [Alignment] subtypes and descriptors don't need to be a part of Pathfinder but removing them has an impact on the game. Alignment is only a minor aspect of the game if you choose for it to be a minor aspect. You could say social skills or trapfinding aren't fundamental because not everyone enjoys out-of-combat stuff.
Star Wars
Not the same thing. Destroying a military base and killing a political leader only means unprecedented economic collapse and a galaxy-wide power vacuum if the writers set it up to mean that. I think you're trying to say that massive societal change is going to be uncomfortable no matter what the cause but I don't think you're fully appreciating the implications of undead labor. It would be a very different kind of societal change - the likeliest result is slavers just killing all the slaves so they don't have to feed them or deal with disobedience. That's nowhere close to the same as "potential instability but the good guys are working to fix it".
Not a wizard, but I played a character for a short arc that I'm probably going to recycle at some point... a Cleric who focused on the Repose domain. She hated undead, but also mortals who had artificially lived too long. Routinely she gave something similar to last rights to all foes whenever possible. Was very interested to learn everyone's life story, because if they died while she was around, she wanted to be able to say something relevant about them.
She also had a custom I picked up from a 3PP, performing a funeral service for someone living, but who wanted to atone for their past sins and start a new life fixing what they had done. It wouldn't be for everyone, but they had to know the specific transgressions they had committed, and a plan of action on how they would make amends. It was all in an attempt to change their destination in the afterlife.
Lets go back on topic and just assume for now making undead is evil (according to canon at least). What would be some good (non evil) necromancy spells by level?
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I'm confused why I'm getting so much unnecessary push back. My stance is simply that creating Undead doesn't NEED to be an inherently evil part of the Pathfinder system. I'm not arguing that it SHOULDN'T be. If it were to ever come up in one of my games, I would most likely rule that the act itself (and the spells themselves) aren't inherently evil, but that's just my stance - I'm not here to tell everyone who would rule it as it's written that they're wrong, but it feels like my responses and arguments are being treated as if I am.
Instead of attacking the specific example I gave, I was hoping someone would have looked at the actual point I was making, which was that creating Undead is only inherently Evil because the Pathfinder system says it is.For what it's worth, I don't think that the [Evil] descriptor on Animate Dead is there because of what is possible to do with undead, it's there because of existing taboos about messing with the dead. Moral opposition doesn't have to be based on efficiency.To expand, this isn't an arbitrary taboo Pathfinder adds for no reason. It's based off real world stuff, of which there should be a certain amount to ground your stories in a relatable way. It's fine if you'd like to explore the implications of a world where raising undead minions is morally okay but that world is different enough from our own that certain base assumptions of interactions no longer function. I think Pathfinder can be a great medium to look into Tippyverse style worldbuilding but your average player wants to hit bad guys with a sword and not think about the implications of the Create Water cantrip.
I'm saying that it's not a fundamental part of the system.It's a worldbuilding decision. Changing it majorly affects the setting and has the potential to negatively impact player immersion. It's not fundamental but changing the moral implications of messing with the dead changes the setting enough that your game will play differently.
I also think that "fundamental to the system" is pretty loose. It isn't uncommon to hear someone say that they handwave Carrying Capacity for example. It's not "fundamental" but it majorly affects how a 7 STR Wizard plays. [Alignment] subtypes and descriptors don't need to be a part of Pathfinder but removing them has an impact on the game. Alignment is only a minor aspect of the game if you choose for it to be a minor aspect. You could say social skills or trapfinding aren't fundamental because not everyone enjoys out-of-combat stuff.
Star WarsNot the same thing. Destroying a military base and killing a political leader only means unprecedented economic collapse and a galaxy-wide power vacuum if the writers set it up to mean that. I think you're trying to say that massive societal change is going to be uncomfortable no matter what the cause but I don't think you're fully appreciating the implications of undead labor. It would be a very different kind of societal change - the likeliest result is slavers just killing all the slaves so they don't have to feed them or deal with disobedience. That's nowhere close to the same as "potential instability but the good guys are working to fix it".
Creating Undead isn't exactly an existing taboo, since it's not a real thing. Sure, some cultures consider it real, but let's be honest - in the modern world, creating undead isn't a taboo. REAL taboos, though, like incest, cannibalism, etc. are only taboos because of cultural context. Based on where you are in history and geographically, many things that are taboos in the modern world were common-place. Cannibalism is often associated with malicious jungle-dwelling tribes, but in many cases, it was simply a necessity, as food wasn't plentiful enough to NOT eat freshly dead humans. In ancient Egypt, royal siblings would often be married to one another and everyone was cool with that. Was ancient Egypt evil? No. Were specific people from Egypt evil? Yeah. Do cannibalism and incest have good reasons to be taboo nowadays? Absolutely, but that still doesn't make the practices themselves inherently evil; more than anything they're just poor health decisions.
Connecting this back to Necromancy (specifically the art of creating Undead) - I never claimed that society was cool with Necromancy in the event that it wasn't inherently evil. Society would be well justified to be disgusted with, and even reject the practice of Necromancy. I find it funny that you first quoted my request that my general point be scrutinized, and not the throw-away example I used to illustrate it, and then proceeded to evaluate my entire point as if in my games, every farm, construction site, and sailing ship was crawling with undead laborers. Yeah, that's a pretty bleak setting, indeed, when the only real goal in that hypothetical scenario was to show one example of how Necromancy (something normally associated with pure evil) could be used to solve a problem that's much broader, effects more people, and ironically, isn't inherently evil as far as Pathfinder is concerned, showcasing Necromancy as nothing more than a tool in a spellcaster's arsenal.
Creating Undead isn't exactly an existing taboo, since it's not a real thing. Sure, some cultures consider it real, but let's be honest - in the modern world, creating undead isn't a taboo.
There are two different things which would be classified as "creating undead" and both are sufficiently controversial that they could be considered taboo.
Lets start with RL zombies. If I give someone a sedative that puts them into a semi-catatonic state. Then I unbury them now that the sedative has worn off, but due to lack of oxygen they now have permanent brain damage. Lastly I "hire" them as my personal servants to have them do my gardening and house keeping. I'm pretty sure I would get arrested. Even if I proved written consent there would be a lot of people who are unhappy with me. The practice today is illegal in Jamaica where it seems to have originated.
Have you head about Body Worlds they skin humans and plasticize them into artwork. It's legal in that they have written permission from the people they've done this to, but a lot of people are pretty unhappy with it. Imagine if they included animatronics? It would garner even bigger protests then it already does. The main issue is that they use actual human corpses.
So, yes, I think it's safe to say that even IRL where undead are created via science instead of magic it is taboo. But only when it involves humans. Animals people are uncomfortable with but only a few groups will protest it. It becomes even less true when applied to insects.
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I'm confused why I'm getting so much unnecessary push back. My stance is simply that creating Undead doesn't NEED to be an inherently evil part of the Pathfinder system. I'm not arguing that it SHOULDN'T be.
I'm not trying to "push back", just offering a different viewpoint. For what it's worth, checks and balances against full casters gaining cheap, disposable, permanent duration minions probably should be part of the game. Is [Evil] the best implementation of that? Not really, but it's the one we have.
Focusing on the undead labor example.
You never brought up another reason as to why raising the dead isn't evil. You vaguely say that it can be used for good or at least isn't inherently evil but don't give much backing as to why. I'm of the opinion that, even beyond the specific "fix slavery" example where the most likely outcome of creating undead is actually bad, treating the dead as tools isn't good. It involves a fundamental disrespect for life and heavily focuses on the body as a vessel separate from the soul in a way that doesn't disallow the justification of bodily harm.
I never claimed that society was cool with Necromancy in the event that it wasn't inherently evil. Society would be well justified to be disgusted with, and even reject the practice of Necromancy.
I think that this is actually the disconnect we're at. Society decides what is good or evil. Inherent good or evil isn't real. Even within Pathfinder, where inherent good or evil is setting-real, the setting is decided by the DM (and the players to an extent).
Your example of cannibalism is fairly relevant here, because you're right that it doesn't NEED to be evil. Should it be evil? Well, yes, I think my point about verisimilitude holds true here: if the average player would have a gut reaction of cannibal=evil and try to stop or interfere with the practice, then you should leave it as evil in an average game. You risk players acting significantly out of character in a role playing game (why would the character think it evil? They have no knowledge of real world taboos). Should it always be evil? Well, no, I agree with you on that point. Games where players are challenged in their assumptions have value. Does this mean what currently is and isn't evil isn't a fundamental part of the game? I guess not but not being fundamental doesn't rob that stuff of its value as a way to immerse players.
Lets go back on topic and just assume for now making undead is evil (according to canon at least).
We should probably respect the OP and start a new thread if we want to continue discussing this.