Good-Flavored Evil?

[Tonguez]

Firstly Deathless suck - they do not exist in my reality

Now
The concept of Good Undead is kewl and has some literary background especially as it relates to Mummy. A Mummy Truenamer sounds like an awesome concept and having a Paladin forced to work alongside him and learning that despie its nature the Mummy is actually a wonderful person can give some roleplaying depth to a game.

I think that a Paladin who smites indescriminately simply because he can is the product of a bad player and deserves to be smacked down by having his god strip him of paladinhood.

(Does anyone remember the issue old Dr Strange (I think?) in which he meets a group of Buddhist Vampires who's discipline and focus have allowed them to subdue their bloodlust and continue as 'good')

 

[FireLance]

Because "deathless" is a silly cop out to avoid interesting situations like these?

Well, one group's interesting situation is another group's source of acrimonious, fun-destroying intra-party conflict. And going by the OP's description of the paladin as "Mr. Wonderful McShiney Epic Paladin of ultimate Goddie-two-shoeiness", I'm guessing it's going to be the latter rather than the former.

Think of "deathless" as a tool to avoid a bad situation instead of a silly cop-out.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Because, of all undead (Not counting Deathless) Mummies are most likly to be good-aligned,

For the record, Ghosts can be of any alignment, as can the Shadows summoned by Shadowdancer PrCl.

There may be others.

Because "deathless" is a silly cop out

I agree 100%. If it shambles like undead and it quacks like undead, its undead.

Hey, that's in my sig already!

 

[jasin]

It's worth pointing out that if the mummy is good aligned, it's not evil. This isn't like Outsiders, who personify alignments and thus have alignment subtypes. A demon or devil can adopt a good alignment and still show up as being evil because their very substance is evil, regardless of their actions or choices.

Undead don't have that problem.

Oh, but they do! Undead detect as Evil just for being undead, regardless of their alignment, just like demons (only with a weaker aura). Which can be an annoyance when you're travelling with a paladin who'll have reason to have second thoughts about you whenever he detects evil, no matter how Good you are.

However...

The paladin might be dubious at first, but I think a truly good paladin would at least give you a chance to prove yourself.

... I definitely agree with this.

 

[humble minion]

Could the paladin be the mummy's confessor? Since you're pregenerating PCs, you can come up with character backgrounds to suit yourself. Perhaps the mummy wishes to be redeemed in some way, and the paladin has been assigned by his church/deity/sense of honour to be both the instrument of this, and the insurance policy in case of backsliding. If the paladin was a paladin of Osiris (LG god of mummification...) it might be particularly apt.

Redeeming a supposedly irredeemable undead seems to be a reasonable task to set before an epic-level paladin, doesn't it?

 

[IceFractal]

Well, since you are the ones pregenerating the characters for it, why are you making one of those characters a "Paladin of ultimate Goddie-two-shoeiness" if you think that will cause problems with another of the characters? How about a Shadowbane Stalker or Greyguard instead? Or a Paladin of Wee Jas - should have no problem with undead, seeing as how some Clerics of that god make them. Really, any Paladin except a follower of Pelor or some other undead-hating god would at least check if a mummy was evil before trying to smite it.

But ok, let's say that there has to be a stereotypical Paladin, and there has a to be a mummy. Simple enough - the Paladin detects evil on the mummy, finds none, still doesn't trust him but agrees to make the final decision in the morning. Prays for guidance, recieves a vision during the night that the mummy is righteous despite its undead state, and he should accompany it on the quest. And this all happens before the game starts.

If the mummy is really going to be good aligned, and act that way, then there should be no problem. If the mummy is actually evil, then either don't use it or switch the Paladin to a Greyguard or Crusader.


And most important, tell the players to make it work. Don't accept "My character would have to do that" as an excuse. Who controls the character? The player, pure and simple. This is a game for the benefit of players and DM, not for the benefit of the characters, so if it seems like a character "has to" wreck that because of their personality, change their personality.

 

[Gez]

The fun thing with Good Undead is that they ping on both Detect Evil ('cause undeath is evil) and Detect Good ('cause they are).

And as for the Deathless, I prefer them in their original favor (normal corpse in which the soul goes back and animate it temporarily if needed) rather than in their Eberron flavor (where they are exactly like all other undead, except good 'cause they're elves and there's no need to derail this thread further with an anti-elf rant). That is to say, a Deathless Mummy wouldn't be an adventurer.

 

[Rvdvelden]

Do paladins have to Smite Evil at every opportunity, or is it feasible for them to work with Evil characters, providing they don't to anything nasty?

One word pops up in my head immediately: SIGIL. If every paladin would SE at every opportunity, I don't think paladins could ever enter Sigil, with all the demons and devils wandering around there. Now, a smart paladin will admit that detecting an evil alignment is not necessarily a reason to go in a killing frenzy. It's the ACT of committing an evil deed that a creature shows it's true colours and will have the paladin swinging his sword at said creature. So as long as your mummy doesn't act evil, there shouldn't be any problem, unless the PLAYER is adamant in his belief that a paladin should always try to kill everything that radiates evil. But then you have a whole different problem, imho.

 

[IceFractal]

Actually, most undead, not possessing the (Evil) subtype, or any subtype, do not register as any alignment except their own. If one is good aligned, it would register only as good.

Whether creating undead is evil is somewhat debatable, but primarily is a campaign setting element - it depends on how the spells function in your world. However, it is a fact that negative energy is not in itself evil, and that not all undead are evil - Ghosts, for example. And I agree, that Deathless are a cop-out - is it so hard to accept that alignment can be more complex than "one alignment per creature type"?

 

[jasin]

Well, one group's interesting situation is another group's source of acrimonious, fun-destroying intra-party conflict. And going by the OP's description of the paladin as "Mr. Wonderful McShiney Epic Paladin of ultimate Goddie-two-shoeiness", I'm guessing it's going to be the latter rather than the former.

Think of "deathless" as a tool to avoid a bad situation instead of a silly cop-out.

Different strokes and all. If it works for a given group, great.

But I don't like it. Overall, I think the kind of thinking that gave us deathless is at the root of the problems we're talking about here. If it's undead, smite it! If it's deathless, be bestest friends with it! And what's the difference between undead and deathless? Why, the fact that you smite it if it's undead and be bestest friends with it if it's deathless! Poisoning people is abominable. But stealthily slipping "ravages" in their drink so their eyes burn out and they choke on their tongues is just fine, because it's a ravage and not a poison. And what's the essential difference that makes using ravages fine for Good characters, and using poison questionable? Why, the definition that using poison is questionable, while using ravages is fine! It's like Good and Evil aren't about what you do or think, but about what tag you have attached.

BoED really annoyed me.