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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6271375" data-attributes="member: 4937">In general, positively powered 'necromancy', that is to say 'life magic' or 'vitamancy', has been generally barred from arcane casters in D&amp;D for balance reasons.&nbsp;&nbsp; All arcane necromancy is portrayed as being antithetical to life, harmful to life, or requiring theft of life.&nbsp;&nbsp; While it's possible to imagine a necromancer under these conditions that is non-evil, it's hard to imagine them as being good.&nbsp;&nbsp; A good aligned necromancer would have to foreswear using many of his abilities IMO, and perhaps using them solely as counterspells.If arcane casters can manipulate positive energy as well as negative, then they can presumably do everything that clerics can do.&nbsp;&nbsp; That's the sort of power creep that D&amp;D just doesn't need.I disagree as well with one of the premises of the original poster.&nbsp;&nbsp; The Necromancer in Diablo II is not presented as a hero, but as an anti-hero.&nbsp; Indeed, the entire Diablo series is sufficiently dark that there aren't a lot of easily identifiable noble characters within it, and I don't think that there can be any assumption that all the potential protagonists are good as opposed to simply 'not evil' or at least 'in it for themselves' and its rare that a character isn't presented as ultimately throughly corrupted (including the celestials).&nbsp; It doesn't strike me as much as a war between good and evil, but as the two sides of the blood war squaring off with humanity in the middle.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6271375, member: 4937"] In general, positively powered 'necromancy', that is to say 'life magic' or 'vitamancy', has been generally barred from arcane casters in D&D for balance reasons. All arcane necromancy is portrayed as being antithetical to life, harmful to life, or requiring theft of life. While it's possible to imagine a necromancer under these conditions that is non-evil, it's hard to imagine them as being good. A good aligned necromancer would have to foreswear using many of his abilities IMO, and perhaps using them solely as counterspells. If arcane casters can manipulate positive energy as well as negative, then they can presumably do everything that clerics can do. That's the sort of power creep that D&D just doesn't need. I disagree as well with one of the premises of the original poster. The Necromancer in Diablo II is not presented as a hero, but as an anti-hero. Indeed, the entire Diablo series is sufficiently dark that there aren't a lot of easily identifiable noble characters within it, and I don't think that there can be any assumption that all the potential protagonists are good as opposed to simply 'not evil' or at least 'in it for themselves' and its rare that a character isn't presented as ultimately throughly corrupted (including the celestials). It doesn't strike me as much as a war between good and evil, but as the two sides of the blood war squaring off with humanity in the middle. [/QUOTE]

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