Why are undead inherently evil?

[Tovec]

Why is creating undead evil? Why is creating deathless good?

Why are devils evil even though angels are good?

Why should I be unfairly penalized for wanting to play a heroic necromancer or lich?

Because both of those archetypes are not meant to be a good guy. Becoming a lich is like willfully becoming a vampire. You want to lose your soul and everything that makes you you, by cutting out your soul and stuffing into a box. A good person doesn't do this. A sick one does. A good necromancer might work, but even then its the same general problem though less severe as lich.

It doesn't. The spell says an undead creature that was destroyed can be resurrected as the person it used to be; that line is meant to explain whether a given corpse can be resurrected or not. When the spells says undead can't be resurrected, it means they can't be resurrected as undead. It doesn't say anywhere that an undead has to be destroyed first to be resurrected, or that being undead prevents resurrection. That's a misinterpretation of the text that many people seem to believe, but isn't actually supported by the text no matter how you parse the grammar.

"Undead can't be resurrected." Meaning just that. They can't be resurrected. They can be resurrected IF they are destroyed - as the previous sentence describes. Ergo, destroy the undead and then you can resurrect them (presumably as a non-undead) but Don't destroy them and you can't. That is the literal reading of those sentences. What grammar am I not parsing? Aka. How can I ignore the rules to get some other variation that lets me abuse the system to make this not evil?

You can, by the RAW, use true resurrection to create a new body even if the person's first corpse is walking around somewhere as an undead.

This is true though, you don't need the body. Though presumably the specific of the description of "destroy them first" still needs to apply regardless of having the body. Just like.. if they are killed by disintegrate you can still still resurrect them without the dust. But presumably you can't resurrect the same person over and over, even if you have the body/parts, if they are already alive.
Or do I need to do more parsing to get that interpretation?

 

[VelvetViolet]

Why are devils evil even though angels are good?

Because people believe they should.

Because both of those archetypes are not meant to be a good guy. Becoming a lich is like willfully becoming a vampire. You want to lose your soul and everything that makes you you, by cutting out your soul and stuffing into a box. A good person doesn't do this. A sick one does. A good necromancer might work, but even then its the same general problem though less severe as lich.

Yeah, that rings hollow when games like Vampire and Mage and Wraith focus around playing heroic vampires and necromancers and ghosts and other traditionally villain roles. D&D is supposed to cater to every playstyle, that's why it contradicts itself.

"Undead can't be resurrected." Meaning just that. They can't be resurrected. They can be resurrected IF they are destroyed - as the previous sentence describes. Ergo, destroy the undead and then you can resurrect them (presumably as a non-undead) but Don't destroy them and you can't. That is the literal reading of those sentences. What grammar am I not parsing? Aka. How can I ignore the rules to get some other variation that lets me abuse the system to make this not evil?

Incorrect. Casting resurrection on an undead turns it back into its living self. This is stated in the description of the undead type. Destroying them is optional. This isn't ignoring the rules, it's correcting everyone's mistaken impression.

This is true though, you don't need the body. Though presumably the specific of the description of "destroy them first" still needs to apply regardless of having the body. Just like.. if they are killed by disintegrate you can still still resurrect them without the dust. But presumably you can't resurrect the same person over and over, even if you have the body/parts, if they are already alive.
Or do I need to do more parsing to get that interpretation?

The spell only works if cast on someone who is dead. You can't cast it on a living person. True resurrection does not need the original body, regardless of whether it became undead or not. Nowhere in that spell it is stated that undeath prevents resurrection of the original living person.

 

[Mistwell]

If anything, those actually support my point of view.

Only because you failed to read, or ignored, the sections I posted from the book. You know, all the stuff that explains why it's evil? That stuff?

 

[pemerton]

any chance someone could cover me for XP?

Done.

The RAW is pretty incoherent on the subject of undeath and evil, which is why threads like this exist. I think any attempt at a cohesive explanation is going to have to go beyond what's stated in the books.

It seems like precisely the sort of thing that the GM is meant to take some responsibility for!

 

[VelvetViolet]

Only because you failed to read, or ignored, the sections I posted from the book. You know, all the stuff that explains why it's evil? That stuff?

They're explicitly stated to lack a moral compass and be animalistic. Being evil generally requires you to, well, know the difference between good and evil. Since negative energy is not evil, and since undead often spontaneously arise on the plane itself, then undead are not inherently evil, even if some of them are evil. Psychologically, children are literally sociopaths, but the D&D rules don't say that all children are evil. Formians regularly genocide whole planets in the name of imperialism, and no one calls them evil. Slaad lay eggs inside living people, and they aren't evil.

And it turns out that there are official WotC-published D&D novels where people who were subject to true resurrection had to fight their previous bodies that had become undead, and in one case a woman had to fight her original corpse which had developed a mind of its own and wanted to kill her because it believed she stole its soul. Can someone give me a citation on this? I don't know which book it was.

 

[Mistwell]

They're explicitly stated to lack a moral compass and be animalistic.

It would have been so much better had you just said, "No, I didn't read them, I just skimmed it a bit until I found something that supported my argument". How about you read the third quote, which starts with the title "Tainted Minds".

 

[Hussar]

/snip

That is very good reasoning for why undead would be inherently evil. Sadly it's not supported by the RAW.

Doesn't have to be actually. RAW flat out states that creating undead and undead themselves are evil. The reasoning is secondary. You have nothing to show that undead shouldn't be evil and, trying to pull a RAW argument otherwise is contrary to RAW itself. RAW states undead are evil. End of story, at least as far as trying to use RAW to argue either way.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Incorrect. Casting resurrection on an undead turns it back into its living self. This is stated in the description of the undead type. Destroying them is optional. This isn't ignoring the rules, it's correcting everyone's mistaken impression.

The rules themselves seem to be confused on this issue. The undead type description does indeed say that resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures and that those spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were.

But according to the Core Rulebook, those spells can be cast on someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed. Additionally, an (undestroyed) undead creature is (technically) not a valid Target of either resurrection or true resurrection, both of which refer back to raise dead and its Target: "dead creature touched."

It is possible to reconcile the conflict by interpreting the undead type description as implicitly saying: "(Unlike raise dead and reincarnate) resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures (that have been destroyed). These spells turn undead creatures (that have been destroyed) back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead."

The conflict cannot be reconciled the other way around without deleting explicit text ("and then destroyed") from the spell descriptions (and disregarding the Target line).

 

[VelvetViolet]

Only because you failed to read, or ignored, the sections I posted from the book. You know, all the stuff that explains why it's evil? That stuff?

None of that really sounds specifically evil. So they lose the ability to care about other people. Does that cause them to decide that it's in their best interests to start burning down villages for fun? It sounds neutral or lawful neutral to me.

The rules themselves seem to be confused on this issue. The undead type description does indeed say that resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures and that those spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were.

But according to the Core Rulebook, those spells can be cast on someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed. Additionally, an (undestroyed) undead creature is (technically) not a valid Target of either resurrection or true resurrection, both of which refer back to raise dead and its Target: "dead creature touched."

It is possible to reconcile the conflict by interpreting the undead type description as implicitly saying: "(Unlike raise dead and reincarnate) resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures (that have been destroyed). These spells turn undead creatures (that have been destroyed) back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead."

The conflict cannot be reconciled the other way around without deleting explicit text ("and then destroyed") from the spell descriptions (and disregarding the Target line).

Then you're misinterpreting those lines. What it is supposed to mean is that an undead creature or the corpse of an undead creature can be resurrected, but it can only be resurrected as the living creature it was and not the undead it became (if dead). The "and then destroyed" line doesn't mean that the undead has to be destroyed first, it simply means that an undead creature that was destroyed can be resurrected. According to the official D&D novels, you can resurrect someone even when their undead corpse is walking around somewhere, and one novel even revolved around a woman's previous corpse developing a mind of its own and trying to kill her because it believed she stole its soul. Being undead doesn't prevent resurrection or true resurrection.

Doesn't have to be actually. RAW flat out states that creating undead and undead themselves are evil. The reasoning is secondary. You have nothing to show that undead shouldn't be evil and, trying to pull a RAW argument otherwise is contrary to RAW itself. RAW states undead are evil. End of story, at least as far as trying to use RAW to argue either way.

That's not what I'm saying. The rules basically say that undead are evil solely because the gods say so, and those same gods also say that lots of things that would otherwise be considered evil are good (see the BOED). The reasoning given in that post said undead were evil because they were unnatural, and that deathless are also evil because they're unnatural (despite the rules stating that deathless are automatically good because they are powered by positive energy). Aside from "because the gods said so," there isn't any self-evident reason for all undead to be specifically evil any more than, say, the Tyranids are supposed to be evil. Many of the books give the implication that a given type of undead can be neutral or good.

Here's a quote from another discussion:

Sorry but no, explaining why it isn't inherently evil is not proof that it is. By that logic your efforts to prove it inherently evil actually proves it not to be. It's inherently fallacious logic based on the notion that your position (and that's a generic use of that) is beyond reproach and needs no defense and anyone saying otherwise must be wrong and proves you right. No position is inherently beyond reproach, every position requires someone on its side to defend it (or try to) if someone decides to question it.

You've also clearly not read the Xanth novels by Piers Anthony, there's a character whose sole power is Zombie Animation. Not only is he not evil but he's actually a good guy who's just misunderstood and at least once used his powers to raise up a zombie army to help fight off a murderous horde that was invading the land.

No matter how much you rationalize and insist it to be inherently evil it just isn't. Insisting that breaking taboos means you're evil is also just silly. Were all those mixed race couples in the 50s and 60s evil then? By your statement they were evil because they broke social taboos against the races mixing (unless the minority was a rape victim, rape was just fine). Obviously that's just silly to make such a claim.

You're also a bit off there regarding social taboos regarding corpses as we consider it acceptable to harvest them for materials to help living people as I already pointed out. During WWII a corpse was dressed up, packed with fake documents regarding the war effort, and tossed into the ocean so it would be found by the Germans and help derail their war effort (it worked too). Obviously it was considered acceptable to use his corpse picked at random in order to help save lives and there's no difference between that and animating a corpse to test for land mines or draw enemy fire while civilians evacuate.

EDIT:
Left off Dominic Deegan, the webcomic makes it clear that there are good Necromancers. The mage who came up with the field of Necromancy is shown being someone who loves life (although the weight of centuries has left him unable to show it much anymore) and spends his time in part preventing the abuse of Necromancy by evil Necromancers and preserving life not taking it. He's clearly using Necromancy for the good of the living, because 'Dark is not Evil'. Necromancy is most often depicted that way because of humanity's fear of death and it makes for an easy strawman villain showing the evil mage raising up zombies to harm the living rather than showing an heroic Necromancer going around bravely defending the living.

 

[Cyclone_Joker]

That's not what I'm saying. The rules basically say that undead are evil solely because the gods say so, and those same gods also say that lots of things that would otherwise be considered evil are good (see the BOED).

Yes. Good and Evil are completely objective.

The reasoning given in that post said undead were evil because they were unnatural, and that deathless are also evil because they're unnatural (despite the rules stating that deathless are automatically good because they are powered by positive energy). Aside from "because the gods said so," there isn't any self-evident reason for all undead to be specifically evil any more than, say, the Tyranids are supposed to be evil.

Using something from a series without completely objective morality to support your case for one with objective morality won't work.

Many of the books give the implication that a given type of undead can be neutral or good.

Sure. They're just irrelevant to D&D.

Here's a quote from another discussion:

That "reasoning" is terrible for two reasons. One, it is, in fact, inherently evil because the rules say it is. Dead stop, the end. Second, trying to support the argument with crap that does not matter, whether it's from real life or a crappy book series, doesn't matter, because in D&D, morality is completely objective. Those series do not matter whatsoever. In D&D, raising a corpse is always Evil simply because it is. Nothing else, it's just inherently Evil.