OotS 449

[Gez]

says you, he wasn't evil!

Personally, I dislike the "undead are evil, so good or neutral undead have to be a new creature type" approach that led to the Eberron deathless. (The BOED deathless are slightly different conceptually.)

 

[Slife]

Personally, I dislike the "undead are evil, so good or neutral undead have to be a new creature type" approach that led to the Eberron deathless. (The BOED deathless are slightly different conceptually.)

Especially since ghosts don't even have to be evil.

 

[Ripzerai]

Especially since ghosts don't even have to be evil.

There are a lot of undead types that aren't required to be evil. The necropolitan from Libris Mortis, the archlich from Monsters of Faerun, and a number of others - I had a list once, but I don't feel like compiling it now.

There are a number of non-evil ways to use negative energy, and neither the Negative Energy Plane nor many of its natives are evil. There's no reason undead should be always evil - and the game says they aren't.

 

[Slife]

There are a number of non-evil ways to use negative energy, and neither the Negative Energy Plane nor many of its natives are evil. There's no reason undead should be always evil - and the game says they aren't.

Unless you're trying to detect evil in game. Undead, even good aligned undead, still detect as evil.

More of a problem with detect evil itself, really. Personally, I think it should just show who/what the paladin's deity wants smitten.

 

[shilsen]

Unless you're trying to detect evil in game. Undead, even good aligned undead, still detect as evil.

More of a problem with detect evil itself, really. Personally, I think it should just show who/what the paladin's deity wants smitten.

Personally, I think of that as a feature rather than a bug. The ambiguity of Detect Evil (and there's a lot more uncertainty written into the spell than the undead issue) is one of the things that prevents Detect + Smite being a valid tactic.