D&D 5E Observations on the Monsters in the Starter Set.

[mach1.9pants]

Undead also hate life and unless something controlling them tells them not to they will kill any living creature they detect.

Can you point me to where it says that? AFAIK a uncontrolled created skeleton will just do nothing.

 

[GX.Sigma]

AFAIK a uncontrolled created skeleton will just do nothing.

Then what's the deal with all these skeletons standing around in dungeon rooms who attack adventurers on sight?

 

[mach1.9pants]

That was their order, guard this place. Or they are spontaneous skeletons, some places just create them due to being nasty icky evil places.

 

[trentonjoe]

There a few instances:


Oddly enough, Zombies have a Saving Throw bonus of Wisdom +0 (their actual Wis gives a -2 penalty)

Yeah, the zombie gets it but the wraith and the skeletons don't.

I am wondering how undead ever pass a turn undead check. The DC will be around 13 at 1st level and 15 at 5th level. If undead monsters don't get proficiency in those saves their going to be toast for clerics.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've never even heard of a game played by anyone where skeletons, zombies, necromancy, and animating corpses wasn't unarguably pure evil. Are you telling me people actually argue that it's not?

The 2E Necromancer's Handbook explicitly states that it is not. In general in 2E products, there's a lot of back-and-forth as to whether it's evil, usually hinging on the mechanism of animation. Specifically, if Skeletons and Zombies are essentially "Magical Puppets", animated by a magical force created by the caster, not drawing from the soul of the dead or whatever, they're not explicitly evil. Whereas if they are somehow binding or recalling the soul of the dead person in order to animate the Skeleton or Zombie, it is evil.

Higher undead pretty much all involve the soul, so creating those tends to be evil.

I think it's a pretty easy case to make once you get past people being all "EW DEAD BODIES ICK!" and so on.

The whole notion that it was definitely, always capital-e Evil is a post-3E revision.

Tuxgeo - And I disagree with you that "invasion of privacy" is an act of evil on any level.

I think it's pretty easy to argue that using magic to force/coerce information out of people (especially when you don't know the quality of the information, or whether it's really relevant, which is often the situation with Speak with Dead) is very easy to argue as a step on the road to Evil, because you're saying "My desire for this information is more important than your choice in the matter!". Speak with Dead doesn't force truthful answers but it does force answers, so it's kind of an edge-case.

If you don't think invading people's privacy can ever be a clearly malicious and selfish act in and of itself, well, I respectfully suggest that you need to think about it a bit harder. There are imo obviously times when it is, and when it isn't.

 

[Olfan]

The 2E Necromancer's Handbook explicitly states that it is not. In general in 2E products, there's a lot of back-and-forth as to whether it's evil, usually hinging on the mechanism of animation. Specifically, if Skeletons and Zombies are essentially "Magical Puppets", animated by a magical force created by the caster, not drawing from the soul of the dead or whatever, they're not explicitly evil. Whereas if they are somehow binding or recalling the soul of the dead person in order to animate the Skeleton or Zombie, it is evil.

Higher undead pretty much all involve the soul, so creating those tends to be evil.

I think it's a pretty easy case to make once you get past people being all "EW DEAD BODIES ICK!" and so on.

The whole notion that it was definitely, always capital-e Evil is a post-3E revision.

Magic puppets or not that skeleton, body, or remains belongs to someone. Necromancy is a clear violation of the dead's physical remains, that's just common sense, regardless of what a book says. The soul doesn't have to be involved, disturbing the bodies of the dead is on it's own a taboo, and to reanimate them against their owner's consent is a violation. It is evil. Ask any ancient culture in the world.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Magic puppets or not that skeleton, body, or remains belongs to someone. Necromancy is a clear violation of the dead's physical remains, that's just common sense, regardless of what a book says. The soul doesn't have to be involved, disturbing the bodies of the dead is on it's own a taboo, and to reanimate them against their owner's consent is a violation. It is evil. Ask any ancient culture in the world.

Tons of stuff that happens in D&D is taboo in "any ancient culture in the world". The very definitions of Good and Evil in most editions are directly at odds with the notions of right and wrong in many ancient cultures. Some "ancient cultures" even ate their dead!

So that's not a very compelling argument, even without getting into evolutionary psychology stuff about the main reason for that taboo being disease.

I'm not saying I agree, anyway, so I'm not very invested here, but that is a truly weak "argument" you're presenting.

EDIT - Also, what if you DO have consent?

 

[tuxgeo]

Now, after a long rest (I was tired last night), I finally remember the association with Vecna, evil god of secrets.

I don't know whether Vecna is still the evil god of secrets in 5E, and will probably have to wait for the release of the PHB to find out -- or maybe the MM, or even the DMG -- but his clergy are/were expected to root out secrets wherever they could find them, and gather them together in safe locations where they could be protected from promulgation. They would use Speak with Dead as a regular tool of their evil service; and anyone else who casts that spell is potentially saving the clergy of Vecna the trouble of casting it there.

 

[Thaumaturge]

EDIT - Also, what if you DO have consent?

This was what I was going to add. I think it would be interesting to have a culture that saw being animated as the last thing they could do in this world--they're giving their remains to become laborers and protectors of their family. A society like this would see cremation and burial as evil, because they're wasteful.

But the core assumption of most campaign settings seems to be that remains are viewed as sacred. If remains are sacred, then animating them is evil.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Klaus]

This was what I was going to add. I think it would be interesting to have a culture that saw being animated as the last thing they could do in this world--they're giving their remains to become laborers and protectors of their family. A society like this would see cremation and burial as evil, because they're wasteful.

But the core assumption of most campaign settings seems to be that remains are viewed as sacred. If remains are sacred, then animating them is evil.

Thaumaturge.

This is basically Karrnath, in Eberron, where you enlist in the army for life... and beyond.