D&D 5E Animate Dead and Alignment Restrictions

[Emerikol]

I think for a lot of people the underlying power that drives zombies and skeletons is negative energy which the use of is generally viewed as evil.

I personally would consider the misuse of a corpse in this way if it were possible to be offensive and at least somewhat wrong.

It seems proper that Paladins can smite undead especially zombies and skeletons.

It's an easy houserule either way. Maybe majority rules. Many of us are having to houserule other alignment stuff back into the game so it's not like we aren't all affected by this need at one time or another.

 

[SkidAce]

I think for a lot of people the underlying power that drives zombies and skeletons is negative energy which the use of is generally viewed as evil.

I personally would consider the misuse of a corpse in this way if it were possible to be offensive and at least somewhat wrong.

It seems proper that Paladins can smite undead especially zombies and skeletons.

It's an easy houserule either way. Maybe majority rules. Many of us are having to houserule other alignment stuff back into the game so it's not like we aren't all affected by this need at one time or another.

I agree with this.

Also [MENTION=23484]Kobold Stew[/MENTION] , I don't look at a necromancer the same way I look at a healer. While you have valid points about the similarities, in my games (and there is some support in the rules) healing is positive energy, and necromancy is negative energy.

Just because they can accomplish some of the same effects, doesn't make them the same thing in my view.

YMMV.

 

[Warbringer]

But then, one of the BBEGs is an evil Voodoo practitioner trying to raise an army of zombies to complete a railroad to California...

Not that different from how if was actually built then

 

[Umbran]

While I'm with you on animating dead, I'd like the possibility of a good necromancer more actively supported -- all healing spells should be [necromancy]-tagged (that seems self-evident to me, but I can argue it if need be; the reason they aren't is because of default negative associations with necromancy).

It is my no means self-evident. I can surely see having necromantic healing spells, but "necromancy" in general is dealing with the dead and their spirits. Necromancers are known for generating a *semblance* of life - but their zombies are still walking around all stinky and rotten. Sure doesn't look to me like repair and maintenance of living tissue should be their forte. If we were going to have necromantic healing, I'd prefer it work somewhat differently from standard, for that reason.

But then, I don't have a problem with fantasy in which some forms of magic are simply morally reprehensible. It is okay for the good guys to have some things, and the bad guys to have others.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

And yet, when necromancy was part of the play test materials, the flavour text for an at-will power was to capture souls and use them up. It was SO evil (by any definition, I'd argue), and was presented without any nuance.

I really hope the new warlock ability that seems to do that (from the livestream) phrases it a bit differently. It's kind of problematic from a world perspective when it takes a ninth level spell to fully present resurrection, and the continued existence of souls after death is a major part of the cosmological assumptions...yet an ability warlocks can have at 1st or 2nd level can outright annihilate a soul?

I have no problem with them essentially siphoning away the excess life (or spirit/soul if they must) energy, but the actual soul needs to not be destroyable by such simple and low-level means.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Animate Dead implies desecration of dead bodies, which may have no soul, but are still the bodies of someone's beloved relatives that passed away. One could argue that it's not a crime against the soul that used to inhabit the corpse, but the act will certainly offend those that remained behind. While you can surely create a setting where this is not a hideous crime against all that common people deem fair, D&D should use resonance in its favor and leave "desecrating dead bodies is not evil" as an alternative for those who want it.

This is the reason why I like rules such as "paladins are always lawful good", "animate dead is evil" and "gem dragons are always neutral" to exist in the game. First, they're very easy to ignore. Second, If you ever change them, it's a conscious decision about the kind of setting and game you want to play in. I believe standing for the rules elements that you want, how you want, and the reasons why you want them that way makes for a better experience once the game starts.

Cheers!

 

[ExploderWizard]

It is my no means self-evident. I can surely see having necromantic healing spells, but "necromancy" in general is dealing with the dead and their spirits. Necromancers are known for generating a *semblance* of life - but their zombies are sill walking around all stinky and rotten. Sure doesn't look to me like repair and maintenance of living tissue should be their forte. If we were going to have necromantic healing, I'd prefer it work somewhat differently from standard, for that reason.

Yep. If there is any necromantic healing I would expect it to be powered by draining the life force of one being to restore it to another. Raw healing power that comes 'from elsewhere' such as clerical healing should not be necromantic in any way.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Fair points, all.

I still prefer the school of magic to be concerned with the manipulation of life energy generally (positive and negative; good and evil) and to shift healing away from the already overburdened (and in my mind artificially assigned) conjuration.

desecrating graves, capturing souls may be evil, but if manipulating life energy (by itself) should not be. IMO, O.

 

[ExploderWizard]

desecrating graves, capturing souls may be evil, but if manipulating life energy (by itself) should not be. IMO, O.

I think it would depend on HOW that life energy is being manipulated. A strong healthy person voluntarily giving up some of their life energy to heal an injured person wouldn't be evil but using the same magic to extract life force from an unwilling subject WOULD be IMHO.

 

[Celebrim]

There's a larger discourse on necromancy generally that just hasn't been part of the discussion.

While I'm with you on animating dead, I'd like the possibility of a good necromancer more actively supported -- all healing spells should be [necromancy]-tagged (that seems self-evident to me, but I can argue it if need be; the reason they aren't is because of default negative associations with necromancy).

And yet, when necromancy was part of the play test materials, the flavour text for an at-will power was to capture souls and use them up. It was SO evil (by any definition, I'd argue), and was presented without any nuance.

A necromancy specialist should be able to be of any alignment and be able to use all the spells. But it should also have a wider range than D&D has traditionally allowed.

In general, positively powered 'necromancy', that is to say 'life magic' or 'vitamancy', has been generally barred from arcane casters in D&D for balance reasons. All arcane necromancy is portrayed as being antithetical to life, harmful to life, or requiring theft of life. While it's possible to imagine a necromancer under these conditions that is non-evil, it's hard to imagine them as being good. A good aligned necromancer would have to foreswear using many of his abilities IMO, and perhaps using them solely as counterspells.

If arcane casters can manipulate positive energy as well as negative, then they can presumably do everything that clerics can do. That's the sort of power creep that D&D just doesn't need.

I disagree as well with one of the premises of the original poster. The Necromancer in Diablo II is not presented as a hero, but as an anti-hero. Indeed, the entire Diablo series is sufficiently dark that there aren't a lot of easily identifiable noble characters within it, and I don't think that there can be any assumption that all the potential protagonists are good as opposed to simply 'not evil' or at least 'in it for themselves' and its rare that a character isn't presented as ultimately throughly corrupted (including the celestials). It doesn't strike me as much as a war between good and evil, but as the two sides of the blood war squaring off with humanity in the middle.