D&D General Inherently Evil?

[nevin]

Well, 5e is a simpler game after all, and in terms of lore and logic, the argument can go both ways, evil or not evil for mindless undeads, depending on whether you consider the mindlessness or using negative energy, the spirit, the soul or both, etc.

Actually in 3e. Intent was also a factor. If you raised any undead to cause harm it was an evil act.

 

[Maxperson]

Clerical animate object spell can be used to take someone's loved ones remains and animate them to walk around killing people. The spell and body do not register as supernatural evil.

Bodies I don't think counted as objects in 3e. Objects were, well, objects. Lamps, locks, doors, rocks, etc. You could animate the urn the loved one's ashes were in, though. Animate Dead was how you animated bodies.

Edit: Yep. Corpses aren't a material.

"An animated object can be of any nonmagical material—wood, metal, stone, fabric, leather, ceramic, glass, or the like.."

 

[Vaalingrade]

Bodies I don't think counted as objects in 3e. Objects were, well, objects. Lamps, locks, doors, rocks, etc. You could animate the urn the loved one's ashes were in, though. Animate Dead was how you animated bodies.

3.5 actually specifically noted that a corpse is an object. Which I'm pretty sure was because of a very long, very dumb thread pointing out that a wooden door is a tree corpse. (3e's simulationism as constantly eating itself)

Also Flesh golems, which require multiple violated corpses and an enslaved elemental are neutral and neutral to create.

Then again, D&D has so many freaking slaver species and ex-slaves that it's a cultural norm.

 

[Voadam]

Should be noted that in 3e, Animate dead created Skeletons and Zombies which were Neutral in the MM because anything Mindless is neutral per the 3e MM.

That is until some goober (yo.) roasted someone who turned out to be a designer for arguing that animating dead should be an evil act because it created evil creatures because it actually didn't create evil creatures. So 3.5 magically had skels and zombs be Always Evil despite not removing their mindlessness or the Mindless = Neutral rule in the MM.

So I naturally roasted the same guy for breaking the rules to win an internet argument. They also said ALL undead were evil, so I changed my avatar to the Ghost for month.

In 1e to 3.0 skeletons and zombies were neutral and basically corpse robots only doing their commands.

However you also separately had mindless wandering monster skeletons through lots of D&D that actively tried to kill anything alive they encountered instead of just being animate but doing nothing without commands or following old commands. There were also various ways that skeletons could be created besides the standard animate dead.

I thought that 3.5 making them evil for naturally going after all life was a good representation of that latter baseline. They could be commanded by their animator under animate dead to do specific things, but without specific commands, and if the animator lost control of them, they reverted to their base of being actively life-destroying hostile monsters.

Tapping into Supernatural cosmic [EVIL] as a power source for D&D undead and their creation made sense to me and was consistent with detect evil detecting all undead as evil even though 3e ghosts could be any alignment.

Similar to the alignment subtype issue, undead were powered by [EVIL]. My house rule was to make all undead actually subtype [Evil] so that this was explicit and not just implicit.

 

[Maxperson]

3.5 actually specifically noted that a corpse is an object. Which I'm pretty sure was because of a very long, very dumb thread pointing out that a wooden door is a tree corpse.

Even so, animate objects would not work on it. The spell was for materials and listed the types.

Also Flesh golems, which require multiple violated corpses and an enslaved elemental are neutral and neutral to create.

I'd have ruled that to be evil as well. Desecration is desecration. But yes, RAW was inconsistent and didn't list that one as evil. Probably because it didn't involve using the negative energy plane to create the Flesh Golem.

 

[Maxperson]

In 1e to 3.0 skeletons and zombies were neutral and basically corpse robots only doing their commands.

Actually in 3e they were Always NE.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Tapping into Supernatural cosmic [EVIL] as a power source for D&D undead and their creation made sense to me and was consistent with detect evil detecting all undead as evil even though 3e ghosts could be any alignment.

This would have been the logical way to do it.

Instead, they spent 5 years trying to explain that using Negative energy was evil unless you're using it to specifically Inflict Wounds on people or heal the scary evil undead.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Actually in 3e they were Always NE, as were zombies.

Nope. That's 3.5 they were Neutral in 3e nd didn't have the weird 'attacks the living when uncontrolled' thing.

 

[Maxperson]

Nope. That's 3.5 they were Neutral in 3e nd didn't have the weird 'attacks the living when uncontrolled' thing.

I'll take your word for it as I no longer have the 3e MM. I like the 3.5 version better then. Negative energy should make the things that are created with it, evil.

 

[Oofta]

People were arguing that it was an official rule that casting a [Tag] spell was a Tag act, not recognizing the actual rule then houseruling otherwise.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry.

But again, it's a specific implementation of a specific rule and what sounds like a specific ruling that has nothing to do with the concept of alignment. It definitely has nothing to do with the current edition.