D&D 5E Animate Dead and Alignment Restrictions

[Falling Icicle]

They've done a good thing by answering the will of the vast majority of players and getting rid of alignment restrictions in classes. They've also done a good thing by changing things such as detect evil and smite. Only only last vestige of alignment restriction nonsense remains, and that's the animate dead spell. I'm making this thread to petition them to remove the "evil" tag from this spell as well.

In every single edition of D&D, with the sole exception of 3.5, skeletons and zombies have been neutral, not evil. The only reason they made them "evil" in 3.5 was so that Paladins could smite them. Casting animate dead should not be considered an "evil" act. We're not talking about creating horrible monstrosities by enslaving tormented souls here. We're talking about creating mindless automatons from a corpse. The person's soul has passed on to the afterlife and animating their corpse does not affect their spirit in any way. If anything, I'd say that this is a far more benign act than creating a golem, which involves enslaving an innocent elemental soul. Yet creating golems has never been labeled as "evil." So why is animate dead? It doesn't harm anyone. It doesn't enslave anyone. Sure, the things it creates can cause harm, but then so can fireball. Sure, zombies sometimes want to eat people, but so do wild animals. Should rangers and druids be "evil" if they have pets that they use for combat?

Like any other spell, animate dead can be cast for good and noble reasons. Skeletons can be conjured to defend an otherwise helpless town from invading monsters. Zombie miners can perform dangerous labor so that living people don't have to risk their lives doing such work. As with things like fireball or dominate person, it's how you use it that should determine whether or not it's "evil." If anything, I'd say dominating someone, stripping them of their free will, is a far more "evil" and abhorrant act than animating the dead. Animating the dead is merely creepy. It doesn't deserve to be officially labeled as "evil" in the core rules.

I want to be able to play a heroic necromancer, like the one in Diablo 2. But that's difficult when the game goes out of its way to stigmatize people for using this spell and encouraging the DM to push their alignment toward evil. Many DMs see the "evil" tag and just ban the spell outright for that reason alone. It's time for the last vestige of alignment restrictions to go. Determing the morality of certain spells and actions should be left entirely up to the individual DM and players in question.

 

[pemerton]

It seems to me that it's characterised as "not a good act" because it involves desecration of the dead, and D&D takes the default position that desecration of the dead is evil. I think this is the same reason why undead are, by default, detected by spells that Detect Evil.

For those who want to play "heroic necromancers", it's seems the simplest of houserules to disregard that sentence. (And, perhaps, change the material component to a drop of the caster's blood.) How many GMs are going to stop you doing that simply because WotC has told them that it contradicts the default? Or, conversely, are those GMs who find desecration of the dead non-heroic, and hence don't want to have PCs in their game who do that, going to change their minds just because WotC deletes that sentence?

 

[Ichneumon]

If wizards want to make someone's dead dad shuffle around, people shouldn't judge 'em, man...

 

[DEFCON 1]

At least in my opinion... some flavor and description has to be added to the game. You can't have an entire game where every single concept in the book is written as "Do what you want!". To have a base game which people can see has a cohesive flavor to it is only a good thing. It saves time, it saves space and it saves page count. Then at the front of each book you insert that requisite tag that says "Anything in here can be changed by the DM and/or the players to fulfill the specific needs of your campaign.)

It's the same reason why I've always disagreed with the idea of including three to five different stories per monster in the Monster Manual (all in an effort to not "dictate" to the players a so-called default.) Sure... the MM could gives three paragraphs of description on how orcs behave five different times in five different potential worlds like Faerun, Eberron, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, and some other random invented setting. But speaking personally... I'd MUCH rather they save those 12 extra paragraphs and give me one set of three paragraphs for a generic fantasy orc, and then use all that additional page count for another monster in the book. And by the same token, I have no problem with the game telling me that in a potential basic generic fantasy setting, the desecration of the dead is a bad thing. It adds flavor to the game. And is also so completely easy to ignore for those who don't want it.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The spell was based on the (probably) fictitious Voodoo zombie creation ritual, where the victim was dosed up with drugs and turned into a temporary, nearly mindless slave. Evil.

The spell has numerous problems. The minions are weak, they take up a lot of time in the game to roll their attacks and space on a battlefield, etc. It's really a fiat explanation for why the NPC necromancer has loads of zombies.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm making this thread to petition them to remove the "evil" tag from this spell as well... It's time for the last vestige of alignment restrictions to go. Determing the morality of certain spells and actions should be left entirely up to the individual DM and players in question.

The rules are done, and have been sent to the printers or are close to that point (because we know they requested an ISBN number). You're not going to get any rules changes through a thread at EnWorld at this point, if that ever was a route to get a rules change (which I doubt it ever was).

If you want any hope of it - just Tweet Mearls. At least that's a direct communication with someone who can do something about it.

Now if instead you just want to vent at EnWorlders, or get aid in developing a house rule, or just talk about a topic that interests you in a "what if we could have changed this rule, should we have changed it?" sort of way, well then more power to you, and I think there is some cool stuff to talk about here.

 

[Celebrim]

While it's really up to the individual DM, I prefer to keep all undead evil. It fits better with my conception of undead and the fantasy cosmos generally.

My reasonings are probably better fully explained in a previous thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?343285-Alignment-violations-and-how-to-deal-with-them/page2&p=6189789&viewfull=1#post6189789

 

[ExploderWizard]

Most civilized places will have laws restricting such: [Picture a town marshal]

" Now hold on a second, listen to me!"

" No one is sayin you can't raise a zombie. No one is sayin you can't command a zombie. All I'm sayin is that you can't command a zombie IN TOWN!"

" Thats not so bad is it?"


Not to mention the right to work crowd complaining that zombies are taking all the jobs. " What,do I have to be DEAD to earn a living wage around here!"

 

[Kobold Stew]

There's a larger discourse on necromancy generally that just hasn't been part of the discussion.

While I'm with you on animating dead, I'd like the possibility of a good necromancer more actively supported -- all healing spells should be [necromancy]-tagged (that seems self-evident to me, but I can argue it if need be; the reason they aren't is because of default negative associations with necromancy).

And yet, when necromancy was part of the play test materials, the flavour text for an at-will power was to capture souls and use them up. It was SO evil (by any definition, I'd argue), and was presented without any nuance.

A necromancy specialist should be able to be of any alignment and be able to use all the spells. But it should also have a wider range than D&D has traditionally allowed.

 

[Umbran]

Most civilized places will have laws restricting such: [Picture a town marshal]

" Now hold on a second, listen to me!"

" No one is sayin you can't raise a zombie. No one is sayin you can't command a zombie. All I'm sayin is that you can't command a zombie IN TOWN!"

This would be a reasonable conversation in my Deadlands game.

But then, one of the BBEGs is an evil Voodoo practitioner trying to raise an army of zombies to complete a railroad to California...