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

[Chaosmancer]

I want to throw something else up as well.

I read a webnovel called "The Wandering Inn". It is incredible, you should read it. In it, there is a necromancer by the name of Pisces. There is a lot of moral ambiguity about him, but that is because of his past and his decision to take any route to power to protect his friends.

There was a scene I remember where one of the other characters had their arm shattered, bone shards shredding all of their muscles. They would have had to give up adventuring, essentially being made into a shell of themselves with no skills and forced to return to their family in shame. Pisces was able to "cure" them. It wasn't a perfect fix, but as a Necromancer, he knows how to use magic to control bone. So, he was able to locate the shards, rearrange them, fuse them, build on them to make a lattice that supported her muscles and allowed her to heal.

Necromancy is considered evil in this setting, but it was used to heal. Because the power itself is nothing more than a tool.

Autopsies performed on the dead were considered the worse form of evil. They gave us modern medicine, which has saved millions if not billions of lives.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I want to throw something else up as well.

I read a webnovel called "The Wandering Inn". It is incredible, you should read it. In it, there is a necromancer by the name of Pisces. There is a lot of moral ambiguity about him, but that is because of his past and his decision to take any route to power to protect his friends.

There was a scene I remember where one of the other characters had their arm shattered, bone shards shredding all of their muscles. They would have had to give up adventuring, essentially being made into a shell of themselves with no skills and forced to return to their family in shame. Pisces was able to "cure" them. It wasn't a perfect fix, but as a Necromancer, he knows how to use magic to control bone. So, he was able to locate the shards, rearrange them, fuse them, build on them to make a lattice that supported her muscles and allowed her to heal.

Necromancy is considered evil in this setting, but it was used to heal. Because the power itself is nothing more than a tool.

Autopsies performed on the dead were considered the worse form of evil. They gave us modern medicine, which has saved millions if not billions of lives.

Note that there is a distinction being made between simply using necromancy to manipulate the body to cure or talk to the dead, and using necromancy to animate people's corpses with evil spirits.

 

[Bitbrain]

Speaking personally, I see spells like Charm Person and Dominate Person as far more evil than Animate Undead or Create Undead. The first two basically rob their victims of free will, in my opinion.

I get the sense - and hopefully I'm right - that many of you have never experienced up close and personal loss and don't understand the significance of a grave. It's bad enough dealing with the fact that the once cherished, warm and familiar body of your loved one has been subjected to the violation and indignity of an autopsy. So no, treating her like an attack marionette but putting her back after is not ok.

I lost my grandmother about 10 years ago. If someone were to come along and create a badass zombie out of her corpse and use it to fight against the forces of evil, I would think it was totally awesome

 

[Chaosmancer]

Note that there is a distinction being made between simply using necromancy to manipulate the body to cure or talk to the dead, and using necromancy to animate people's corpses with evil spirits.

A fair point, but it just leads into the moral morass.

Necromancy isn't evil, Raise Dead isn't evil, dealing with the dead isn't evil.

The only thing that seems to be evil is creating murder machines, but ignoring the part of Animate Dead that states "foul mimcry of life" Animate Dead does not say that the zombie or skeleton you create automatically attacks any living thing around when you lose control of it.

"The Creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you have given it." is the exact wording. And the spell also tells us what the undead you create do when you give them no orders, specifically "If you issue no commands, the creature only defends itself against hostile creatures."

So, why then must we assume the naturally occurring zombies presented in the Monster Manual are the type of zombie you create? If you as a player have no access to the Monster Manual, then it is perfectly reasonable to assume that if you lose control of your zombie minion then it simply stands in place, defending itself against any agressors. Nothing in the spell itself tells you that the zombie becomes agressive, unlike Summon Elemental, which does specifically state that the elemental you summon goes berserk and attacks anyone nearby if you lose concentration.

But, the moral implications of Elemental summoning and putting people at risk are never raised.


Edit: So, why is a Necromancer required to have read the Monster Manual and a single line of text in the back of the PHB to know that they are evil, when nothing else tells them such?

 

[Stilvan]

You have absolutely no business telling other people they haven't experienced personal loss of a loved one. It's probably the most offensive thing I've seen on these forums in a long time and that's saying alot...

I have all the business in the world suggesting it seems to me like they haven't experienced personal loss. Are you ok?

 

[Flamestrike]

Athas says Hi.

And while I didn't quote the rest of your post, consider that you might be drawing arguments down on yourself because people are responding to the "I can't be wrong" tone conveyed with your choice of words.

I argue with conviction. I'm often wrong!

 

[Flamestrike]

Would it bother me to see her body brought back and used to kill some random stranger. Yes.

Did you have to think on that?

Dude, even if I got a phone call from the morgue and they told me that my brothers grave had been dug up and his corpse was missing it would do more than just 'bother' me.

Watching his corpse (animated by what the game describes as unholy foul black magic) murder someone..? I wouldn't 'bothered'. I would be horrified beyond words.

Necromancers (who animate the dead) are responsible for that. That's what they do. They go out of their way to study and learn the 'dark unholy magic' that animates the dead into evil monsters. Thats bad enough, but the guys that then actually use such black magic frequently, with no regard to the fact this would horrify ('bother') others screams to me 'not a morally good person at all'.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Did you have to think on that?

Dude, even if I got a phone call from the morgue and they told me that my brothers grave had been dug up and his corpse was missing it would do more than just 'bother' me.

Watching his corpse (animated by what the game describes as unholy foul black magic) murder someone..? I wouldn't 'bothered'. I would be horrified beyond words.

Necromancers (who animate the dead) are responsible for that. That's what they do. They go out of their way to study and learn the 'dark unholy magic' that animates the dead into evil monsters. Thats bad enough, but the guys that then actually use such black magic frequently, with no regard to the fact this would horrify ('bother') others screams to me 'not a morally good person at all'.

Could you point to the section in the school of necromancy that calls it "dark unholy magic"? It actually says:
"Necromancy spells manipulate the energies of life and death. Such spells can grant an extra reserve of life force, drain the life energy from another creature, create the undead, or even bring the dead back to life."

And lest we forget, Raise Dead, Ressurrection, both are Necromancy spells. Neither are "unholy" considering they are cleric spells.

Sure, it says:
"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."

But that is a single line against a lot of other evidence, such as all the places where they go out of their way to specify that Necromancers are not inherently evil.

 

[Stilvan]

Could you point to the section in the school of necromancy that calls it "dark unholy magic"? It actually says:
"Necromancy spells manipulate the energies of life and death. Such spells can grant an extra reserve of life force, drain the life energy from another creature, create the undead, or even bring the dead back to life."

And lest we forget, Raise Dead, Ressurrection, both are Necromancy spells. Neither are "unholy" considering they are cleric spells.

Sure, it says:
"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."

But that is a single line against a lot of other evidence, such as all the places where they go out of their way to specify that Necromancers are not inherently evil.

Casting spells with the Necromancy attribute is not evil - I think we all agree on that. You and Flamestrike are arguing from different perspectives. On the one hand you have the lived experiences of those who are victims of the repellent kind of Necromancy, specifically animating the dead - and surely we can agree when the OP created a necromancer they didn't create one to Raise Dead and Heal. On the other hand there are the rules which may or may not define Necromancy explicitly as evil for whatever reason. I'd argue that the victim interpretation is the most important for deep roleplay but is also irrelevant if your table doesn't need or want to go there.

 

[Lanefan]

@Lanefan

Notice the tone of the comment. Taking a setting specific rule and applying it to a character in another game without taking note if there was a difference in setting.

Except that I agree with @Flamestrike in saying that it's not setting-specific. Just like everything else in the PH, the very fact that it's in there makes it the baseline default; open to variance by each DM as s/he sees fit of course, but absent such variance it's the ruling in the PH.

(probably worth noting here that when I read the PH of any edition I assume what's in it to be universal to the game, and not in any way tied to a single setting unless an example is specifically called out as such in the text; as far as I can tell this ruling is not called out in the PH as a setting-specific example though I'd be happy to be proven wrong)