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.)

 

[Lanefan]

Is "Only A does B" equivalent to "B implies A"?

"Only A does B" is equivalent to "doing B will lead to you being externally defined/flagged as A regardless what you yourself might think".

 

[Vaalingrade]

Only a Sith believes in absolutes.

 

[Lanefan]

In 5e it is not in the spell write up. It is only in an aside on describing the school of necromancy generally in the sidebar on the schools of magic.

The most descriptive the spell gets is to say "Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature."

Interestingly the sidebar also starts off by saying "The schools of magic help describe spells; they have no rules of their own, although some rules refer to the schools." So one could take that as the necromancy school description that "Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act, and only evil casters use such spells frequently." is simply narrative and not actually a rule. Or you could interpret schools not having their own rules as meaning something different.

It is not the tightest of technical writing.

Yeah, the more I read this thread the more I think 5e could really have done with some tighter wording around all this. Either that, or flat-out state in that sidebar that it's up to the DM to determine consequences, if any, for Good characters who cast certain Necromantic spells.

 

[Charlaquin]

Right. The rules says that regularly animating the dead -> evil character. But...

Is the rule on picking alignment a more general rule than the specific rule on alignment and animating the dead? Does specific beat general?

This isn’t really a case of specific conflicting with general. Let’s say I’m playing in a game you’re DMing (and assume you are using alignment in this game). I decide to play a neutral good wizard, and I take Animate Dead as one of my spells. Taking Animate Dead doesn’t constitute using it frequently, so I’m sure we can at least agree that wouldn’t make my character evil. Now suppose, during the course of play, a situation comes up where I think it’s necessary and appropriate for my character to cast Animate Dead. Again, I’m not exactly doing it frequently, it was just the once, so my character is allowed to stay Neutral Good, right? Now let’s suppose this happens several more times. Perhaps to the point where it can reasonably be said that my character casts it frequently. What actually happens as a result? Does my character’s alignment change? At what point does the change happen? How does this change of alignment actually impact my character and gameplay? The rules are entirely silent on this matter. At this point, my Neutral Good character can be said to have cast Animate Dead frequently, so it can’t really be true that in all cases, characters who frequently cast Animate Dead are evil.

We can do a similar thought experiment on a druid character who ends up in a situation where they feel it’s necessary and appropriate to wear metal armor. And in that case, we actually have precedent in Sage Advice for what happens: nothing, really. Someone makes a joke about the character exploding, and there are no actual consequences, short of the DM making a house rule to cover the situation.

Does it judge whether the player is honestly attempting to follow the rules in this one particular case?

It shouldn’t matter. Any rule that relies on being able to correctly guess a violator’s intentions is a poor rule, since that’s impossible to do with certainty.

This doesn't seem to me like the player arguing the morality of A with the DM or another player. In this case isn't it the actual rules that say "A=regularly animating the dead" is "B=only done by evil characters"? Once the judgement is made, it doesn't require any action on the part of the player or the DM. But neither do many (most?) other judgements in social circumstances.

It does require action on the part of the DM though. See my above thought experiment. If we take the statement that only evil characters cast spells like animate dead frequently as a prohibition against non-evil characters doing so, the only way to enforce it is for the DM to make a judgment call about what constitutes casting it frequently, and make up a house rule about what the consequence is for doing so.

There is, for example, a thread where some have said they don't care if players fudge die rolls or bonuses (in character creation or combat or other areas of play). Is there anything in the rules that requires the DM to act, or specifically empowers them to demand a reroll of the dice or a retabulation? (Does the DMG do anything beyond suggesting DMs ask players who scoop the dice before anyone else sees them to be less secretive?).

I don’t think there is, but the rules do say how the dice rolling procedure is supposed to work, and fudging or re-doing rolls isn’t part of it. Of course, groups are free to set their own social contracts and table rules.

Correct, the rules don't say casting necromancy spells is evil.

Right, which is the subject under discussion here. Are necromancy spells inherently evil? Not according to the rules of D&D 5e.

It says regularly animating the dead is only done by those who are evil.

Right, which is a statement players are literally capable of contradicting, and the rules provide no guidance for such a contingency. In the other case of such a weirdly worded “rule,” Sage Advice says, it doesn’t actually matter if you follow this “rule,” it’s basically flavor text, but feel free to set any house rules about it you want to.

There is a rule in this case though that objectively measures things. It says that only an evil character would regularly animate the dead. The rules are judging the character in this particular circumstance regardless of what the character has on their sheet.

The “rule,” if you interpret it as such is the opposite of objective. It requires DM judgment to even determine if a violation has occurred, and then a home-brewed consequence for such a violation.

And, in 5e it really doesn't matter I guess as far as the play. (Unless you're playing the Goodman B2 module and run into the clerics of chaos and the medallions they have... in which case it actually helps to not be good).

Right, it doesn’t matter at all, except in a handful of edge cases, all of which are either conversions or reimaginings of classic modules written for an edition where it did matter.

 

[Charlaquin]

Also to inform the players. If it was only to inform the DM it'd be in the DMG, not in the spell write-up.

And here is where the DMG is clearly lacking, as info/rules/guidelines on what happens in these cases should be in there for the DM to use as she sees fit.

An obvious example for Druids: wearing metal armour denies spellcasting ability unti the armour is removed.

Right, so that is one valid way to resolve this issue. Give some actual rules that say what happens when a character does a thing only even characters do. Alternatively, jettison the whole concept if you’re not going to properly support it.

 

[Lanefan]

Except the actual think people are doing here is going, "I'll say neener neener, your character is evil! And they'll be sad and I'll be smug and it'll be great!"

Some might be, particularly those DMs who don't allow Evil PCs.

For me, though, while I have no restrictions what alignment players choose to play their PCS as, they're well aware that a) alignment sometimes does have teeth in my game and b) that the long-term actions of their PCs will be the primary determinant of their alignment, overriding if necessary whatever's written on the character sheet.

 

[Charlaquin]

"Only A does B" is equivalent to "doing B will lead to you being externally defined/flagged as A regardless what you yourself might think".

It is not equivalent to that at all.

“Only birds fly.” Do insects now become birds if they fly?

 

[Cadence]

It is not equivalent to that at all.

“Only birds fly.” Do insects now become birds if they fly?

They do if "Only birds fly" is a true statement, don't they?

 

[Charlaquin]

They do if "Only birds fly" is a true statement, don't they?

Right, and it is a demonstrably untrue statement, since insects exist, are not birds, and can fly. Likewise, “only evil characters cast Animate Dead frequently” is a demonstrably untrue statement, since good and neutral characters exist, are not evil, and can cast whatever spells they want whenever they want (within the limits of their spell slots and known/prepared spells, of course). It is, at best, flavor text which informs the implied setting, and might lead some DMs to homebrew rules for what might happen if a non-evil character does frequently cast such spells. Exactly like the druid armor thing.

 

[Lanefan]

This isn’t really a case of specific conflicting with general. Let’s say I’m playing in a game you’re DMing (and assume you are using alignment in this game). I decide to play a neutral good wizard, and I take Animate Dead as one of my spells. Taking Animate Dead doesn’t constitute using it frequently, so I’m sure we can at least agree that wouldn’t make my character evil. Now suppose, during the course of play, a situation comes up where I think it’s necessary and appropriate for my character to cast Animate Dead. Again, I’m not exactly doing it frequently, it was just the once, so my character is allowed to stay Neutral Good, right? Now let’s suppose this happens several more times. Perhaps to the point where it can reasonably be said that my character casts it frequently. What actually happens as a result? Does my character’s alignment change? At what point does the change happen?

At no one specific point, but slowly as an ongoing process of alignment drift as the pattern of evil spell use develops and continues.

How does this change of alignment actually impact my character and gameplay? The rules are entirely silent on this matter.

This is a problem with the 5e rules in that this "silence" is in fact a rather big hole in those rules; and not one a DM is likely to think to fill in session 0 or by houserule until-unless it comes up in play, at which point it's already too late.

In your example above, certainly if the DM is running any modules that feature aligned places or items etc. then your character (or others) might notice those things are reacting to your PC (or vice-versa) differently than they once might have.

We can do a similar thought experiment on a druid character who ends up in a situation where they feel it’s necessary and appropriate to wear metal armor. And in that case, we actually have precedent in Sage Advice for what happens: nothing, really. Someone makes a joke about the character exploding, and there are no actual consequences, short of the DM making a house rule to cover the situation.

Why have the rule/guideline at all if it's not to be enforced? Seems that Sage Advice, once again, isn't.

It shouldn’t matter. Any rule that relies on being able to correctly guess a violator’s intentions is a poor rule, since that’s impossible to do with certainty.

I disagree: knowing the violator's intention (or whether there's intent at all) is often the most important thing when it comes to how to or even if to enforce a rule.