D&D 5E Animate Dead and Alignment Restrictions

Kobold Stew said:

Necromancy, as a class of spells, already is "neutral". The playtest pack has eighteen spells with the label "necromancy". One of these (only) is marked as evil when used in excess (Animate Dead).

For the class of spells, there is no necessarily evil association that so many are suggesting. Which should mean that one can specialize as a Necromancer (a specialist in spells from the necromancy school) without being evil.

The alternative is that all spells so labeled should be marked as non-good. But they aren't. (I'll admit that would be interesting, and comes close to the world suggested in Revenge of the Sith).

To single out one spell seems to me a needless complication. Even with that complication, however, there is no reason why a good mage might not specialize in the school (and possibly choose not to take the one spell that is causing problems).

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This is an issue with the sacred cow of calling that school of spells 'necromancy'. Because we are talking about two different issues here:

First, there is the subset of spells that deal with life and death energy-- innervation and degradation-- that were given the school identity of 'necromancy' way back when.

Second, there is the character concept of a 'Necromancer'-- someone who deals exclusively in the creation and the command of the Undead.

The problem here... is that life and death energy spells and the 'command of the Undead' are two separate things. And while the concept of a 'Necromancer' as we traditional know it (one who raises and commands the Undead) falls within the School of Necromancy (because those spells that animate and control the Undead are a small part of the circle of life and death energy spells)... one can use spells within the School of Necromancy and have nothing to do with dealing with the Undead.

By rights... the name of the school is wrong. The school should really be named something like Biomancy or Vitamancy... a name that evokes the feeling of life/death energy without tacking on the baggage of being a 'Necromancer'. If you are a Necromancer (as we all know it and identify it)... it's not that you just use a bunch of spells that fall within that school. It's that you deal with the Undead. So no... I don't think there's a need to catagorize all spells within the necromancy school as [evil]... because most of those spells have nothing to do with the power of the Necromancer.

I say we remove 'Necromancy' as the name of the school of spells... so that the name can be returned to the character concept of which we all identify. Because as many people rightly point out... clerics could/should/would be Necromancers too. So why pigeonhole it as purely a Wizardly thing?

DEFCON 1 said:

This is an issue with the sacred cow of calling that school of spells 'necromancy'. Because we are talking about two different issues here:

First, there is the subset of spells that deal with life and death energy-- innervation and degradation-- that were given the school identity of 'necromancy' way back when.

Second, there is the character concept of a 'Necromancer'-- someone who deals exclusively in the creation and the command of the Undead.

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I'd put this a little differently. The conflicting views are:

• Necromancy is about negative/death energy and positive/life energy, which are two sides of the same coin and can be manipulated in much the same ways.
• Necromancy is the magic of darkness and undeath, which is its own thing and does not work the same way as life and healing.

I've always found the first approach to be unsatisfying and rather bland. The second is more consistent with fictional depictions of necromancy. The undead are associated with darkness, fear, disease, and despair, and those who command undead often have access to other forms of dark magic as well. It's quite common for necromancers to be able to cast fear spells or spread plague. But they don't often go around healing people. If they do, it's usually a nasty corrupt form of healing that exacts a heavy price.

Dausuul said:

I'd put this a little differently. The conflicting views are:

• Necromancy is about negative/death energy and positive/life energy, which are two sides of the same coin and can be manipulated in much the same ways.
• Necromancy is the magic of darkness and undeath, which is its own thing and does not work the same way as life and healing.

I've always found the first approach to be unsatisfying and rather bland. The second is more consistent with fictional depictions of necromancy. The undead are associated with darkness, fear, disease, and despair, and those who command undead often have access to other forms of dark magic as well. It's quite common for necromancers to be able to cast fear spells or spread plague. But they don't often go around healing people. If they do, it's usually a nasty corrupt form of healing that exacts a heavy price.

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That's another very succinct way of putting it, and I agree.

And we've seen this issue be a thorn in the game's side before-- when all healing spells and Raise Dead / Resurrection were originally classified as 'necromancy' spells back in I think 2E (as that was the school name for spells dealing with life/death energy). But as that ran counter to everyone's idea of what necromancy spells were meant to be... in 3E they moved it to the Conjuration school. Even though the sphere of influence of what the necromancy school contained didn't change. And that was precisely because the name 'necromancy' was the wrong choice to use for this school. It did one thing but it implied another.

So I vote that we change the name of the school... and give the term 'necromancy' back to those practitioners who cast spells dealing specifically with the Undead and negative draining energy-- regardless of the school or class that the spells come from. Just like a Pyromancer deals exclusively in fire magic (and it doesn't matter whether they are Evocation fire spells or Conuration fire spells or whatever.)

DEFCON 1 said:

That's another very succinct way of putting it, and I agree.

And we've seen this issue be a thorn in the game's side before-- when all healing spells and Raise Dead / Resurrection were originally classified as 'necromancy' spells back in I think 2E (as that was the school name for spells dealing with life/death energy). But as that ran counter to everyone's idea of what necromancy spells were meant to be... in 3E they moved it to the Conjuration school.

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The idea of putting healing magic under necromancy was introduced in 2E and kept in 3E. The switch to conjuration happened in 3.5.

DEFCON 1 said:

So I vote that we change the name of the school... and give the term 'necromancy' back to those practitioners who cast spells dealing specifically with the Undead and negative draining energy-- regardless of the school or class that the spells come from. Just like a Pyromancer deals exclusively in fire magic (and it doesn't matter whether they are Evocation fire spells or Conuration fire spells or whatever.)

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Rather than create a separate school for "type 1 necromancy," I would take those spells and distribute them among the other schools. We're a good part of the way there already. Here's the list of necromancy spells in the playtest, and the schools I'd move them to:

• Animate Dead
• Astral Projection --> Divination
• Blight
• Chill Touch
• Circle of Death
• Clone --> Transmutation
• Destruction
• False Life
• Finger of Death
• Gentle Repose --> Abjuration
• Harm
• Inflict Wounds
• Raise Dead --> Conjuration*
• Ray of Enfeeblement
• Resurrection --> Conjuration
• Spare the Dying
• Speak with Dead
• True Resurrection --> Conjuration

[SIZE=-2]*If using the mechanics as written. I actually like the idea of keeping raise dead in the necromancy list, but adding a darker flavor and mechanics, where you come back slightly... wrong. Maybe you radiate evil, suffer penalties in sunlight, have to kill other creatures to sustain your own life, etc. Resurrection is Lazarus; raise dead is Pet Sematary.[/SIZE]

Dausuul said:

Rather than create a separate school for "type 1 necromancy," I would take those spells and distribute them among the other schools. We're a good part of the way there already.

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Certainly a possibility... although I do wonder at that point whether there are enough necromancy spells left over to warrant them being in their own school? If all you have left are undeath spells and life draining spells, that's a rather shallow pool of magic that warrants its own school. At least when it covers the entire circle of life-- birth, life, death, apre-death-- you have a bit of heft to it.

Me personally would rather the whole life/death cycle be a school of magic (with everything from cures, inflicts, raises, animates etc.) rather than shrink down to just [evil] necromancy spells specifically. That just seems too niche.

There's a conceptual thing going on here.

[MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION]'s comparison isn't a bad one, but I don't think it goes quite far enough.

On the one side, life and death are just energies like fire to be manipulated.

On the other side, life and death mean something. Life is to be encouraged, protected, enhanced, defended. Death is dark, scary, unpleasant, tragic. Life good, death evil. Those who support life are good, those who support death are bad.

D&D actually has this second view as something of the default -- it has ever since OD&D where Clerics of Chaos were a thing and they got Finger of Death instead of Raise Dead and they could rebuke undead instead of turning them.

Not that Wizards were really partial to this debate when they got the ability to make undead. Which might actually be something of a solution:

The most powerful abilities regarding life and death are for the Good and Evil Clerics, respectively. They are only bestowed by Good and Evil gods, respectively.

Wizards (and clerics adhering to more neutral gods) don't need to worry about who gives them their spells, so they can take some abilities that clerics only get by worshiping evil gods, and use them anyway, without real moral risk (since they're not asking permission to make a zombie, they're just like BOOM, ZOMBIES, DEAL WITH IT CLERICS OF GOODNESS).

So necromancer-wizards aren't quite as powerful at handing out death and decay as evil clerics. But they share a few spells and effects in common, and this makes good clerics freaked out. Because if the necromancer-wizards want to become powerful lords of death, their next step is naturally to worship one of those evil gods, and become an evil cleric, and marry their dalliances of soul-manipulation with true wickedness.

...I'm fond of that idea, as I turn it over in my head. Gives Good wizards the capacity to make Zombies if they frickin' want, lets the Good cleric freak out about that a little bit, and preserves the Evil Evilness of working with death and decay. It just doesn't make it so binary. Raise a zombie to help you carry your spellbooks, sure. Just be careful -- if you find yourself wondering what it would take to raise a zombie army, you might find yourself the target of some not-so-nice evangialists who ring your doorbell and ask, "Do you have a moment for our lord and savior Nerull?"

The problem I see here is another example of someone coming up with a character concept but needijg to have the game throw out a lot of it's flavourable identity in order for the concept to fit.

All a person with that vision in their head sees is how cool that concept will be. They are looking at it in a vacuum.

Falling Icicle said:

Negative energy isn't necessarily evil, nor is positive energy necessarily good. There are plenty of negative energy spells that aren't "[evil]." I also recall people dying if they went to the positive energy plane in older editions.

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In the early editions I believe negative energy stuff was viewed as evil. No doubt in more modern editions they've gotten away from this but a lot of people who play today played then so they have carried on their preferences in their campaign worlds even if the rules have abandoned them.

Kamikaze Midget said:

Wizards (and clerics adhering to more neutral gods) don't need to worry about who gives them their spells, so they can take some abilities that clerics only get by worshiping evil gods, and use them anyway, without real moral risk (since they're not asking permission to make a zombie, they're just like BOOM, ZOMBIES, DEAL WITH IT CLERICS OF GOODNESS).

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Except, the desire to wield power, without worry about the consequences, is kind of part and parcel to the definition of evil, now isn't it? "DEAL WITH IT!" is the battle cry of the sociopath.

Not that I'm against allowing for temptation in the game. You want to leave an attractive nuisance there for the wizards to step in? I'm okay with that....

Umbran said:

Except, the desire to wield power, without worry about the consequences, is kind of part and parcel to the definition of evil, now isn't it? "DEAL WITH IT!" is the battle cry of the sociopath.

Not that I'm against allowing for temptation in the game. You want to leave an attractive nuisance there for the wizards to step in? I'm okay with that....

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Well, I was being a bit flippant. I think the idea of certain spells being exclusive to only Evil Gods of Evil Death, and Necromancers, with Evil Gods of Evil Death being better at those kinds spells, is enough to make wielders of those powers suspect in the campaign at large, and to tempt the arcanists over to evil. Which is the kind of flavor I'd be going for. Tempting for the necromancers to increase their power, and enough of a fine distinction for good clerics and normal people to be rightly feared of what a necromancer might do, without making every zombie an act of debauched wickedness.