D&D 5E Why is animate dead considered inherently evil?

[Tolerable Tyrant]

I'm having a troublesome time understanding why the animate dead spell is considered evil. When I read the manual it states that the spall imbues the targeted corpse with a foul mimicry of life, implying that the soul is not a sentient being who is trapped in a decaying corpse. Rather, the spell does exactly what its title suggests, it only animates the corps. Now of course one could use the spell to create zombies that would hunt and kill humans, but by that same coin, they could create a labor force that needs no form of sustenance (other than for the spell to be recast of course). There have also been those who have said "the spell is associated with the negative realm which is evil", however when you ask someone why the negative realm is bad that will say "because it is used for necromancy", I'm sure you can see the fallacy in this argument.

However, I must take into account that I have only looked into the DnD magic system since yesterday so there are likely large gaps in my knowledge. PS(Apon further reflection I've decided that the animate dead spell doesn't fall into the school of necromancy, as life is not truly given to the corps, instead I believe this would most likely fall into the school of transmutation.) PPS(I apologize for my sloppy writing, I've decided I'm feeling too lazy to correct it.)

 

[Oofta]

The teeth of the alignment system can often be part of the social contract of the game table. No evil or CN is a relatively common expectation set out in gaming groups. Social contract teeth bite far harder than any game mechanic would.

Yeah, I have a no evil policy in my games. CN? Don't play chaotic insane or claim CN and then actually play CE.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I see the value in that, yes (although talking about "the Church" doesn't make much sense in a typical polytheistic D&D setting).

Sure, Mystara though still has churches

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah, so some form of divine command theory: It's "good" because the gods say so. Notably, this can be a pragmatic "rule of thumb" even or especially if there are no moral facts or "objective morality." This is more of a "transactional" approach to alignment in D&D settings: If you want to go to the Good Place, do Good Stuff.

"Act rightly and let God decide."

 

[Voadam]

I guess I don't know what a "profound sense of dissonance" actually means. My CG character didn't care for Avernus because it was full of appalling stuff, but maybe he should have also been taking psychic damage every round?

I feel like everything you're saying could be true (because it's in the book) and still be impossible to verify or falsify for a person in the universe. Like, the authors can write "it is the plane of goodness" all they want, but what does that actually mean? Is there some way my character can measure its "goodness"? If I had the means, could I appropriate some of its volume of goodness and "ethoform" planes with less natural reserves of goodness?

FYI 5e DMG page 58:

The planes with an element of good in their nature are called the Upper Planes, while those with an element of evil are the Lower Planes. A plane's alignment is its essence, and a character whose alignment doesn't match the plane's alignment experiences a sense of dissonance there. When a good creature visits Elysium, for example, it feels in tune with the plane, but an evil creature feels out of tune and more than a little uncomfortable.

From page 59:

Also for Avernus on Hell 5e DMG page 64 another optional rule that can actually change a PC's alignment.

 

[nevin]

Great, so you as DM make the setting decision that Animate Dead is “inherently evil.” But what does that actually mean in practice? What happens if my Lawful Good character goes around casting Animate Dead all the time?

Then your good god will cut you off and you'll have to find an evil one if you want to keep casting cleric spells.

 

[Bedrockgames]

What class abilities? Paladins lose their abilities based on oaths, not alignment and that's the only class I can think of that has any class ability loss involved with it. What spells? Other than the necromancy school strongly implying that casting undead creation spells is evil, I don't know of a 5e spell that interacts with alignment. There are a couple of artifacts/magic items that interact with alignment, yes.

As for Ravenloft, I'm discussing the game defaults. Settings can and do often change things. I haven't seen the 5e Ravenloft setting since they changed too much for my tastes. I'm going to stick with the 2e stuff I have.

I was trying to support your point. I am not addressing 5E. I don't play 5E. But in most earlier editions of the game, plenty of spells were impacted by alignment (Detect Evil for one). And in most campaigns I was in, clerics and paladins would lose powers if they displeased their deities. I don't even think you really need a rule stating that clearly, since it is implied by the fact that those are god granted powers.

I stick to Ravenloft 2E as well

My point was alignment traditionally did have teeth. I've seen arguments that it didn't going all the way back to earlier editions, and while I can't speak for 5E, when it comes to the older editions, alignment certainly seemed to matter a good deal mechanically (which is why I brought up stuff like powers checks)

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Much of the "evilness" of necromancy has to do with the history of necromancy in fantasy literature and myth as well as the history of D&D. Raising a horde of undead to do his bidding is standard fantasy villain stuff. For many people it's more a matter of tradition than anything intrinsic to the 5e version of the spell.

But there is a big reason even in the morally laissez-faire, go-ahead-and-be-an-evil-paladin-or-whatever world of 5e, where the mechanics don't generally enforce alignments and such very much at all, why we should still consider animate dead an inherently evil spell, and that is that it permanently creates a number of evil creatures while only giving temporary control of them to the creator. It's easy to forget, because they so rarely last more than a few days in actual games, but the evil undead created by Animate Dead theoretically continue on forever, menacing the living until they are put down.

Casting Animate Dead is the fantasy equivalent of laying landmines; whatever the creator's intention, whatever their cause, they have introduced a thing into the world that if they for any reason fail to defuse it will inherently go from being a neutral tool, and endure on as an evil menacing anyone who happens upon it.

Note that I don't call them "evil undead" because of something is says in the statblock, I call them evil undead because at every table I've ever played at they attack the living on sight, and I have a pro-living creature bias. If you have a table that doesn't play undead this way, or if you have houserules that make responsible handling of the animated dead less problematic things might be different. In my most recent game with a necromancer character the DM let him just end their unlife with a thought whenever he was done with them. I objected a little bit that this undermined the lore of the spell, but it was pretty straightforwardly a metagame decision to streamline his resource management so I didn't complain too hard.

 

[Maxperson]

I was trying to support your point. I am not addressing 5E. I don't play 5E. But in most earlier editions of the game, plenty of spells were impacted by alignment (Detect Evil for one). And in most campaigns I was in, clerics and paladins would lose powers if they displeased their deities. I don't even think you really need a rule stating that clearly, since it is implied by the fact that those are god granted powers.

I stick to Ravenloft 2E as well

My point was alignment traditionally did have teeth. I've seen arguments that it didn't going all the way back to earlier editions, and while I can't speak for 5E, when it comes to the older editions, alignment certainly seemed to matter a good deal mechanically (which is why I brought up stuff like powers checks)

Yes. Alignment traditionally had teeth for sure. Leveling penalties and DM enforced changes if violated enough, loss of class abilities or entire classes, and more.

Those penalties are non-existent in 5e, though. Only a few magic items have alignment restrictions and that's about it.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

The people have no reason to agree with the gods' or universe's definition of 'evil'. And in this case the gods are simply punishing innocent people who refuse to worship them and thus empower the unjust system. But you indeed have managed to demonstrate the alignment on its worst. Things are arbitrarily degreed 'evil' thus making torturing and killing them 'good.' And that's monstrous.

Personally as a DM I rarely declare something good or evil unless I think it's something I think nearly everyone agrees upon. There's just too much variance in what people believe is good or evil IRL.

To use violence as an example, I've seen all these different claims espoused in real life:

• Violence committed in war is justified.
• Violence is only justified for self-defense or protecting another person.
• Violence is only justified to protect another person and not the self.
• Violence is never justified in any circumstance, even if it means allowing yourself or others to die.

There are also disagreements over what evil even is. Some religious people believe that evil is defined as disobedience to divine authority, meaning that even acts that seemingly cause no harm can be evil to perform if they have been forbidden.

In the context of D&D 5E, undeath is apparently a big enough concern that all Clerics get Turn Undead no matter what their god's primary domains are. This implies that undeath is a big enough threat that the majority of gods oppose it.

Maybe there's some kind of global necromantic threshold where if you go too far new souls can't enter the world and all creatures become undead when they die. Also Orcus/Atropus/whoever else show up to eliminate all remaining life.

 

[lingual]

Give the corrupting artefact Ring of Power to an undead evil killing machine and send it off into the heart of the Necromancer's land where his power is greatest?

Don't give it to the determined pure of heart halfling to resist the ring's pull at the end, but to a +0 wisdom saving throw undead?

That is the plan?

Actually I can think of multiple groups I DM'd that might try it.

I figured the zombie was "under the control" of the caster.. like a drone. So caster doesn't have to worry about the corruption?