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

[Dausuul]

Except for the part about casting it a lot making you evil. That's a mechanic.

No, it's not. A mechanic lays out a process for applying it. "Frequently" is not a mechanic.

What we have now is as if you took all of the rules for long and short rests out of the book and replaced them with "Sometimes, you regain your expended abilities and spell slots." That wouldn't be a mechanic either.

 

[Maxperson]

How is it "homebrew" if it exists as part of the official D&D multiverse? I don't think that you are using the term "homebrew" in the conventional sense.

Sure. If you want to be pedantic about it, we can call it wizardsbrew then. It's still a departure from the default.

 

[Maxperson]

No, it's not. A mechanic lays out a process for applying it. "Frequently" is not a mechanic.

A forced alignment change for using the magic too frequently is both a process and a mechanic. The process here is unclear, but it is a process. Use too frequently and you are forced to change alignment, assuming not evil to begin with.

What we have now is as if you took all of the rules for long and short rests out of the book and replaced them with "Sometimes, you regain your expended abilities and spell slots." That wouldn't be a mechanic either.

Sure it would. Processes don't have to be written clearly to be processes. God knows how many employee handbooks and company processes I've seen that have had screwed up language and weren't entirely clear.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Are we being trolled?

Unfortunately, trolls regenerate.

 

[Maxperson]

More Souls for Heaven. Less Souls for Hell. Both of which exist in (default) 5E.

My turn to be pedantic!

More souls for Mount Celestia, Bytopia, Elysium, The Beastlands, Arborea, Ysgard, Limbo, Mechanus and Arcadia, depending on alignment switched to and practices. Less souls for the Abyss, Pandemonium and Carceri, the CE planes.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Death domain clerics get the animate dead because the domain was originally associated with evil deities only. Getting it as a good or neutral cleric is simply an oversight. Do not go further down this path of reasoning. This means that good and neutral deities will allow its use only as a last resort or simply ban it from use.

I am not sure I would call the PHB specifically calling out good aligned clerics using the Death domain from the DMG (pg 298 of the PHB) as "an oversight"

They specifically list the death domain an non-evil gods who could utilize it.

As for stat block saying: "not all members of a statblock must be evil" Do not fall into that pit trap too. Base game assumes "X" then "X" applies to all save the exceptions that the DM deems necessary to further a story. Nothing else is implied. An exception is not the rule. But the rule does tolerate an exception. Note here the singular on "exception". Homebrew it as you like, but do not pretend that it would be canon.

A singular exception? I'll note it and ask, do you mean to say one individual? So a singular orc? So a tribe, like I said, would default to being evil?

As for the last question in the bloc above. It is evil because the things it creates are evil to the core. If left unchecked, the created undead will kill every living thing they will encounter. Be it a knight in armor, a soldier, a mother or a child. It will do so without remorse or hesitations. It will kill. Not to eat, not for pleasure but simply to kill. If that is not evil for you, nothing is. The fact that there are possible exceptions to the rule does not invalidate the rule itself. You make a good zombie for your story? Fine, but all the other zombies are evil. One exception is not the rule.

And as I've discussed, that is what the fluff and lore of the monster manual says. It isn't in the spell. A lot of what people are claiming isn't in the spell.

Without the monster manual to tell you that they kill any living thing they encounter, you would have no leg to stand on to claim that they are created evil. And, as I have said repeatedly, there are disconnects between the mechanics and lore of the monster manual and the mechanics of the spell.

You are assuming they are equivalent, but I can show that they are not fully equivalent. And if they are not, then why must we assume that the zombies are murder machines and therefore evil and therefore the person who casts the spell is evil?

If, from up above, you disagree that there can only ever be a single good orc in existance, then why must there be only a single good zombie?

IF you change the default then it is homebrew. Homebrew is homebrew. If you want to assume the base game then you take what the stat bloc says and nothing more. Skeletons and zombies are evil. Stop right there. Do not go to anything else. Nothing you will say will change the fact that without homebrewing they were, are and will be evil.

Again there is nothing wrong with homebrewing. It is your game. But do not try to impose your view/homebrew as the base game. It is not. I made skeletons with veterans stats. They're not base game but they are though as hell. But they are homebrew. No where in the MM will you see skeleton veteran. No where in the rules do you see Skeleton alignment: Lawful Good. Yet, with homebrew, you can. But it won't be the base creature. The base creature is evil.

But I'm not arguing from homebrew. Arguing from homebrew is simple and irrefutable.

I homebrewed it.

See, that is easy and finished. I literally do it all the time.

What I am doing is pointing out that I don't need to homebrew it. That the only reason you are saying I need to homebrew it is because you are assuming facets that are not technically RAW.

Edit:

All true.

Of course, in my game at least, anything resembling a Death Cleric is going to be at best somewhere south of Neutral regardless of pantheon or deity*, as Death is commonly seen as unpleasant or undesirable for a whole bunch of different reasons.

* - put another way, no Good deity would support a Death Cleric.

See, this is homebrew. I'm fine with it, people can do whatever they want, but it specifically contradicts the PHB.

 

[Flamestrike]

I am not sure I would call the PHB specifically calling out good aligned clerics using the Death domain from the DMG (pg 298 of the PHB) as "an oversight"

They specifically list the death domain an non-evil gods who could utilize it.

Osiris Clerics gets the Grave domain, not the Death domain. Says so in Xanathars:

'Deities of the grave include Kelemvor, Wee Jas, the ancestral spirits of the Undying Court, Hades, Anubis, and Osiris.'

Whereas the Death domain says this (DMG):

The Death Domain is an additional domain choice for evil clerics.'

I suppose there is nothing stopping an Evil Cleric of Osiris from having the Death domain (delving into forbidden lore, or a darker arm of the Church etc), although it does appear as if XgTE was removing the Death domain from non Evil deities of Death, however it isnt clear. It's clearly meant as a non evil alternative for good clerics of good (or neutral) death gods though.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You dont have to wait till someone shoots at you first, to shoot back in order for it to be self defence!

If you're on the battlefield, its safe to assume that the enemy soldiers are trying to kill you and the guys on your side standing next to you. Ambushing them, bombing them from the sky or whatever is not morally evil (nor is it morally good). Its an act of self defence, or the defence of others, when no other option reasonably presents itself to you.

Should your enemy surrender in good faith, you accept that surrender. Should you capture prisoners of war, you treat them with dignity and respect. At all times you seek to minimise collateral damage, and look for ways to end the conflict peacefully

So, if I see a patrol of orcs in the woods, and I am a human (and therefore part of the races that orcs have declared war upon since the time of the gods) then attacking them from ambush and killing all of them before they have time to draw their weapons is morally neutral.

Because it is self defense, and being outnumbered and not knowing how many other orc patrols are in the area to raise an alarm if they saw me running away, then it is a reasonable precaution to save my life.

So, killing orcs on sight, is morally neutral.

Their culture (and religion) is 'rape, murder, enslave'

Yes. Putting a stop to that raping, murdering and enslaving (without resorting to genocide) and converting those rapist, murdering slavers to good people in worship of the Gods of good, is a good act.

More Souls for Heaven. Less Souls for Hell. Both of which exist in (default) 5E.

And the Conquistadors agreed with you. And just about every other European explorer during the age of exploration. "We must stop them from doing evil and force them to do good. It is the only morally just thing to do."

I provided both, but you're being obtuse and resorting to circular arguments and intellectual dishonesty (ignoring what I am saying and forcing me to say it several times) in order to 'win' an argument on the internet.

Modrons, as constructs cant be affected by healing magic (which doesnt affect contructs or undead).

Warforged WHICH ARE NOT CONSTRUCTS, are affected by healing magic, expressly are called out as 'living' by 3.5 and 4E DnD, and are heavily implied (including in 5E Unearthed Arcana) to have souls:

Do warforged have souls?

My initial point was that Constructs and Undead are not alive. As Warforged ARE NOT CONSTRUCTS, you're arguing a strawman trying to argue that they are (or are not) alive. They're Humanoids; they're not Constructs or Undead.

Like even if you were to somehow prove they are not alive (despite being expressly called out as being living for over 10 years now through multiple editions of the game), they're not Constructs, so you prove nothing. It would have no bearing on my statement that Constructs and Undead are not alive, and ergo they cant be killed.

But why are constructs not alive? That is the point you haven't been able to give any support for.

Because they are inorganic? So are Warforged. Warforged were just specifically designed to utilize healing magic and healing potions because that made them easier to heal in the war effort.

Constructs can learn, grow mentally, which is a good indicator for life.

You posted a thing about souls? Who says other constructs don't have souls? Modrons live in an outer plane, the place souls go. When they die, another modron is promoted to take their place, and at the base level, a new Monodrone is constructed. Since they are Eusocial this means that effectively, the Modron was brought back to life, their soul instantly recycled and repurposed by Primus.

Also, Raise Dead could theoretically work on a construct, it's only limit is that is cannot be used on an undead. However, it can be used on a dead undead, showing that it is likely just the necromantic magic interfering with the process of the spell.

You are just putting out a statement "these things aren't alive" but you can't prove it, because the measurement of what constitutes "alive" is broad enough that undead and constructs can both be considered "alive".

Osiris Clerics gets the Grave domain, not the Death domain. Says so in Xanathars:

'Deities of the grave include Kelemvor, Wee Jas, the ancestral spirits of the Undying Court, Hades, Anubis, and Osiris.'

Whereas the Death domain says this (DMG):

The Death Domain is an additional domain choice for evil clerics.'

I suppose there is nothing stopping an Evil Cleric of Osiris from having the Death domain (delving into forbidden lore, or a darker arm of the Church etc), although it does appear as if XgTE was removing the Death domain from non Evil deities of Death, however it isnt clear. It's clearly meant as a non evil alternative for good clerics of good (or neutral) death gods though.

The quote even provides the page number. PHB 298

 

[Flamestrike]

So, if I see a patrol of orcs in the woods, and I am a human (and therefore part of the races that orcs have declared war upon since the time of the gods) then attacking them from ambush and killing all of them before they have time to draw their weapons is morally neutral.

Not at all. You'd be well within your rights to be wary of the Orcs, but not all Orcs are walking around trying to kill things.

Plenty of Orcs are just hunters, villagers, civilians, Good or Neutral aligned and wanting nothing to do with bloodshed or the war. They could be civilians or healers, and even in war you cant intentionally gun down civilians or medics (unless they pose you a threat of some kind of course).

Nazi soldiers are fair game. German civilians are not.

And the Conquistadors agreed with you. And just about every other European explorer during the age of exploration. "We must stop them from doing evil and force them to do good. It is the only morally just thing to do."

Great, but we're not talking about Aztecs here. We're talking about Orcs. Unless you're comparing real world non European civilisations to that of fantasy Orcs, in which case I find that quite xenophobic and ethnocentric.

But hypothetically if there were a civilisation that predicated itself on rape, murder and enslavement as a way of life (enshrined in its religion), doing away with the aspects of that culture (humanely) that advocated for rape, murder and enslavement is a Good thing.

Remember - you're the one that set the terms here. If we dont help steer them away from murder, rape and enslavement, we have to kill them all. Redemption is clearly the better option.

But why are constructs not alive?

For the same reason rocks and computers are not alive, or circles are not squares.

Because they are inorganic? So are Warforged. Warforged were just specifically designed to utilize healing magic and healing potions because that made them easier to heal in the war effort.

No, wrong. Warforged are expressly part organic and part machine. Read the desription of them.

Also, Raise Dead could theoretically work on a construct, it's only limit is that is cannot be used on an undead.

Dead undead is a misnomer. If its dead its dead (and it ceases being undead). You cant have a dead undead anymore than you can have a living dead.

The quote even provides the page number. PHB 298

I dont care. I provided you with sources. Go pick up XGTE and see for yourself. Osiris clerics get the Grave domain (and its heavily implied that this is supposed to replace the Death domain for Good and Neutral clerics of Death gods). Once you're done with that pick up your DMG and note where it says ONLY evil clerics have access to the Death domain.

So even if Osiris grants the Death domain (doubtful) then only his Evil clerics have access to it. Everyone else gets the Grave domain.

 

[Greenfield]

...You dont have to wait till someone shoots at you first, to shoot back in order for it to be self defence!

How exactly does one "shoot back" at someone who hasn't shot at you? Just asking.