D&D 5E Animate Dead and Alignment Restrictions

[EnglishLanguage]

You need to reread your AD&D 1st Ed PHB. A good Cleric couldn't just Animate Undead on a whim. It wasn't considered just a neutral act. Sorry to rain on your parade sunshine.

He never said it wasn't. He just said skeletons and zombies themselves were neutral, so the act of summoning them being evil seems wierd.

 

[variant]

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.

It's not the act of bringing an evil creature in the world that necessitates it being evil. It is defiling a grave, creating an abomination, and bringing more negative energy into the prime material plane that makes animating the dead an evil act.

 

[steeldragons]

The whole "but skeletons and zombies were neutral" is not, in any way, a case for "Animate Dead shouldn't be an eeevilll act." They weren't neutral cuz they cared about a cosmic balance or self-interested or weren't concerned about whether Law or Chaos won the day. They were considered "neutral" because they were "mindless." Theydidn't have a conscience or the capacity to choose/decide on an ethos or mores. They just "were" until their master told them to do something. Like many constructs and/or animals [by default, mind. Individual DMs could make them as self-aware as they wanted]. They didn't have [a capacity to choose] an alignment. So the only way to show that in game/alignment terms was "neutral."