D&D General A paladin just joined the group. I'm a necromancer.

[Stilvan]

The point I've been trying to make is that if you choose to redefine Necromancy or anything else nominally identified as evil as good, which is totally within your right - and say that the culture of your world supports it, then if and only if you are roleplaying focused or perhaps writing a work of fiction, make sure the rest of the world is consistent with this viewpoint.

Don't just take a Western culture civilization with its crypts, graveyards, tombstones, barrows or sky burials - all meant to ensure safe permanent passage to the afterlife - and say - oh yeah there's all that stuff but really the peoples are ok with their loved ones being used as puppets after they die, oh and the good clerics can still turn undead. And I say this because when you are roleplaying immersively - especially involving the kind of moral conflicts suggested in the OP - the little details matter. 500' up, do whatever you like.

Real world comparisons are unfortunate but apt because they are by definition consistent. I can easily roleplay a lawful good necromancer if there is a consistent morally unambiguous reason for raise dead to be a good deed, for example - "The great soul shell in the sky gives paradise to the souls of the dead and the earthly bodies are left to you to defend the righteous". In this culture corpses are no longer buried with markers but are instead shipped to the frontier, armored up and frozen or stripped of their flesh. Instead of a graveyard there's a menhir of remembrance with many names scratched on it. And clerics get the reverse undead power based on alignment. I'd be fine with this.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In my game both deities would be LE.

Well, Flamestrike wants RAW, and RAW they are LN and LG respectively.

The problem with these two passages, as has been brought up by others here, is that for some reason they only tell part of the story. One has to dig elsewhere for the rest.

Well, that's messy if it's true.

That seems to imply there's two different versions of these creatures. Whaddya wanna bet they intentionally toned down the PC-created versions to avoid the spectre of Evil PCs rearing its ugly head?

Same problem as above: two versions of the same thing.

Really dumb, if this is in fact what they did.

Perhaps, but it makes sense. DMs reading the monster manual are looking for villains, so the monsters were written as villains. But, some of these options are not villains, so they have non-villainous versions as well.

In part I see it as an attempt to find a mirror evil class for the goody-two-shoes Paladin. It used to be Assassin, but they seem to have fallen out of vogue these days with everyone wanting to cast spells, and Necro's have taken their place.

Eh, I don't see the need for it. Frankly, I don't see the need for Goody-Goody Paladins either.

Any person can be a Paragon or a Tyrant. You could have a barbarian who is the moral center of the party and a monk who is the most evil stain upon the world. You don't need to put classes in boxes, you need motivations from a character perspective.

How does saying Necromancy (or anything else for that matter, like genocide or torture or whatever) is evil, remove nuance?

Like; the character can think he's doing good. Genuinely believe it in fact. Heck; most people who engage in truly abhorrent and evil things honestly believe they're good people or doing it for a good reason (which makes them good).

They're not good. They're evil.

There is nothing wrong with a Necromancer PC who studies the dark arts and animates the dead frequently from genuinely thinking he is morally Good. He isnt of course (and will go to the Nine Hells or wherever on death), but he doesnt know that.

Nuance is preserved.

"He may be the kingdom's greatest protector and have down more for the Golden Age of Light than any living soul, but he is going straight to the Nine Hells because his actions were irredeemably evil and he is damned."

Yeah, lots of nuance, lots of different ways to interpret the way things work.

Is the Paladin who murdered and Slaughtered his way through his adventures also going to the Nine Hells? Or does it matter who he murdered?

In the MM it expressly states they go around killing everything that moves if control is lost. Because they're animated by murderous fundamentally (metaphysically) evil spirits that the Necromancer has willingly forced into the body using his extensive knowledge of 'sinister' and 'dark' magic, in an act (animating the dead with necromancy magic) that is not Good, and that only Evil people do with any frequency.

Im not going to let you move the goal posts here, or (as you're trying to do) ignore express text in the Core rulebooks. You might not like that text, but I dont really care if you do. It's there.

In your own games you run you can ignore it as much as you want. In this discussion you cant.

And yet, we have already established that the Monster Manual is not completely accurate. You want to point to one version of the monster and say "this version is definitive" but if we look wider, we know that is not the case.

Heck, if we look across the published settings in DnD 5e, three of them (Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Ravinica) have non-evil undead. Considering that we only have about 4 or 5 published settings, this seems like a pretty big deal.

Because it says you summon evil spirits. Thats how Necromancy works.

In your games you can rule that a Neromancer can summon benevolent spirits if you want. I dont really care what you do in your games. In 5E DnD, by the rules, you cant.

Except that isn't how Necromancy works. New UA has a Necromancy spell that calls up Good Spirits of the Dead. Raise Dead is a Necromancy spell, doesn't call up evil spirits. Cause Fear, Vampiric Touch, False Life, Gentle Repose, Life Transferance.

In fact, I think there are far more Necromancy spells that do not summon evil spirits than those that do. So, by RAW, The School of Necromancy does not always require the summoning of Evil Spirits.

Yeah. Like I said, Good PCs can (rarely) use the animate dead spell. They're not barred from casting it, it's just that doing so is not a Good act and only Evil creatures do so frequently.

If you're running a game in Ancient Egypt feel free to rule one can create Good undead.

If you're running a game 'by the book', you cant, and only Evil creatures do so regularly.

So, moving Goalposts?

I have given you a Lawful Good diety, who has granted his Lawful Good cleric a spell, that you insist is unrepentantly evil. Set in the Forgotten Realms even, because I do know that the Egyptian Pantheon is canonical to that area.

So, how do you explain with absolute morality, the definitive source of that morality (an LG diety) allowing an LG cleric daily access to a spell that is evil to use?

My answer is, it must not be evil. We have good undead, canonically, within the settings of DnD, so it is perfectly reasonable that there is a way to create undead that is not evil, backed up by the dieites of this pantheon, who are good, allowing such an act to occur. And, all of this backed up by the Core Rulebooks and one of the largest settings in 5e.

Nah. The second thing is as evil as the first. Motive and intent doesnt matter. In the latter case, youre just commiting an act of evil to achieve a good end.

Like (say) if you were to brutally torture a person (even an evil person) to get the information needed to save the lives of a bunch of innocents. You're evil. Your motive doesnt matter. Ditto if you committed genocide on an entire race of evil people (say... Drow) in order to end their menace and save countless innocents. You're still evil.

Intent does matter, because in the second instance the Hero wants to be brought back as an undead. How could it possibly be evil to summon a good spirit, with the express permission and desire of a good individual to act in a good manner?

No torture, no murder, all you did is get permission to bring a soul back from beyond the veil of death to fulfill it's own wishes.

Bringing back the dead isn't evil. Following the wishes of an individual in regards to their own body after death can't be evil. You are adding evil to the equation by saying that there is no good way to accomplish the stated goals.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I would assume setting-specific rules like changes to the animate dead spell, the alignment or behaviour of undead, or the existence of rituals that allow control to be maintained over them for longer than a day.

In your setting, Osiris may well appropriate the real-life mythology of the Egyptian god. But he wasn't created by any spell that a PC necromancer could cast, so I'm assuming the DM invoked special rules.

I'm simply extrapolating his existence from the listing in the PHB and his real life mythology. Considering it is not out of line to put forth that Artemis (famous for her virinity and hatred of men) is not married to a male god and that Tyr lost his hand to Fenrir (those cementing his role as a God of Courage) then I consider it equally fair to consider Osiris, whose entire mythological existence is to be the First Mummy, to be a Mummy.

Outside of that, note that whatever the alignment of the person beforehand, the standard mummy created by the standard spell is Lawful Evil. It exists only to punish the transgressors of what it was set in place to do, and will happily perform evil acts to do so.
Again, its the landmine analogy. Using dark funerary rituals to create an eternal guardian for your king's tomb is Right and Just, since only criminals would profane it, and everyone knows the punishment.
Fast forward a couple of centuries after the fall of your Eternal empire, someone wonders whats with the weird ruins, and next thing you know, a hideous death machine has murdered the entire village.

Animating the bodies of some already-dead people to create tomb guardians that will be sealed away from the general populace is still messing with dark magic and bringing evil into the world,. But it is probably regarded as a responsible and state- or religion-sanctioned use of evil and a good example of a potential use by a non-evil person.

See, this only sort of works, because of what you put here.

The statblocks in the back of the PHB do not contain any information about the behaviour of any of the creatures there. - Just the mechanical stats.

The existence of one method of creating an undead does not preclude other methods.

One way to create undead does not preclude other methods. The mechanical statblock of a zombie or skeleton does not require the the text in the Monster Manual which claims they are omnicidal and will kill any living thing if they are uncontrolled by the spell.

So, looking at the spell, which does not say that losing control leads to the undead attacking all living things without mercy... is it not logical that it is therefore possible that they do not? That there is a different method from creating undead than what is listed in the Monster Manual?

Alternatives exist.

Some of the posters I am debating with disagree with you, they claim that the rules of the core books preclude all alternatives. Despite the core books granting those very same alternatives.

1) Setting-specific fluff can override general default fluff.
2) I'm pretty sure D&D Osiris doesn't use any of the statistics for the mummy in the MM. Or even the mummy lord.
3) The aforementioned "responsible" use of evil powers.

Again, I must believe that unless they wrote differently, Osiris is left in a recognizable form. His entire purpose in the mythology is to be killed and brought back as an undead, removing that would be like making Zeus chaste or Thor a trickster.

And, since the act of mummification was blessed by good dieties, and the first mummy is himself an LG deity, that stretches things to call the creation of undead "use of evil powers" since every power involved is in fact Good.

And while setting fluff can override general, Flamestrike wanted me to use only the corebooks, using setting material is far easier since good undead exist in at least 3 of the 5 settings I'm aware of being published for 5e. The majority of settings, as it turns out.

 

[Chaosmancer]

To add to this, another source from the DMG, The Horn of Valhalla.

The Horn of Valhalla summons spirits from Ysgard. Valhalla being the resting place for the souls of the warrior dead, Ysgard being where the Norse gods dwell, these are clearly the spirits of the dead being summoned to fight for you.

They are not evil, the horn is not evil, this is not called out as an evil act.

So, again, it is completely possible to summon good spirits of the dead to fight and it be a good act.

 

[Weiley31]

To add to this, another source from the DMG, The Horn of Valhalla.

The Horn of Valhalla summons spirits from Ysgard. Valhalla being the resting place for the souls of the warrior dead, Ysgard being where the Norse gods dwell, these are clearly the spirits of the dead being summoned to fight for you.

They are not evil, the horn is not evil, this is not called out as an evil act.

So, again, it is completely possible to summon good spirits of the dead to fight and it be a good act.

Don't forget the Valkyrie, Chooser of The Slain, who summons the Noble Einherjars to fight on her behalf.

 

[Flamestrike]

To add to this, another source from the DMG, The Horn of Valhalla.

The Horn of Valhalla summons spirits from Ysgard. Valhalla being the resting place for the souls of the warrior dead, Ysgard being where the Norse gods dwell, these are clearly the spirits of the dead being summoned to fight for you.

They are not evil, the horn is not evil, this is not called out as an evil act.

So, again, it is completely possible to summon good spirits of the dead to fight and it be a good act.

Of course its possible to do so!

Its just not possible (RAW) with animate dead. The spirit you summon is evil, the magic is 'dark and sinister', it creates an evil monster, doing so is not a good act, and only evil casters do so frequently.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Of course its possible to do so!

Its just not possible (RAW) with animate dead. The spirit you summon is evil, the magic is 'dark and sinister', it creates an evil monster, doing so is not a good act, and only evil casters do so frequently.

So the only thing standing between necromancers and "not being evil" is summoning a good or neutral spirit with Animate Dead instead of an Evil one.

Which seems like it should be trivial to do.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

So the only thing standing between necromancers and "not being evil" is summoning a good or neutral spirit with Animate Dead instead of an Evil one.

Which seems like it should be trivial to do.

Ask your DM to tweak the spell and/or the monster stats.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I think you should make it one of those odd-couple rom-coms. Like "The Sure Thing." You know, you're stuck together, and on the surface you're unalike in every way, but you end up falling in love anyway.

 

[Lanefan]

Perhaps, but it makes sense. DMs reading the monster manual are looking for villains, so the monsters were written as villains. But, some of these options are not villains, so they have non-villainous versions as well.

Problem there is that players get one take in the PH while DMs get another take in the MM, leading to confusion all round. DM says "They're all evil!", player says "Wait a minute, no they're not!" and - amazingly - both can pull out legitimate RAW to defend their positions.

Which strikes me as rather dumb design and little more than a breeding ground for arguments.

Eh, I don't see the need for it. Frankly, I don't see the need for Goody-Goody Paladins either.

By and large neither do I, but the trope is out there and probably at this point can't be reeled back in. (I redesigned Pallies as extremists at the four corners of the alignment square, thus they now come in LG, CG, LE and CE versions; and each version has a specific class it will not adventure with - for LG it's Necromancer*, for CG it's Assassin, for LE it's Illusionist and for CE it's Monk)

* - for many of the same reasons that have come up in this thread!

And yet, we have already established that the Monster Manual is not completely accurate. You want to point to one version of the monster and say "this version is definitive" but if we look wider, we know that is not the case.

Which to me is a really poor piece of design, from the perspective of setting a baseline default.

Heck, if we look across the published settings in DnD 5e, three of them (Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Ravinica) have non-evil undead. Considering that we only have about 4 or 5 published settings, this seems like a pretty big deal.

Are the non-evil undead the same in each setting? For example, if Skeletons are non-evil in all three then a case is putting itself together to maybe make them non-evil by default; but if it's Skeletons in one setting and Zombies in another and Vampires in a third those all fall under setting-specific exceptions.

So, moving Goalposts?

I have given you a Lawful Good diety, who has granted his Lawful Good cleric a spell, that you insist is unrepentantly evil. Set in the Forgotten Realms even, because I do know that the Egyptian Pantheon is canonical to that area.

So, how do you explain with absolute morality, the definitive source of that morality (an LG diety) allowing an LG cleric daily access to a spell that is evil to use?

Easy. It's a test of morals.

The deity grants the spell daily to determine if the Cleric's morals are strong enough to resist the temptation to actually cast it. If the Cleric passes the test by not casting it, s/he gets her spells again tomorrow. If s/he fails? Well...