Good necromancer ideas

[Boondoggle]

Animate dead is an evil spell because even mindless undead are animated by their former spirits bound to their body (you can't ressurect someone who's been made into an undead until you free their spirit). That's the logic, as far as the game goes.

An unsual, but still viable option that will allow you to use animate dead with a CG alignment is the warlock. One of his lesser invocations works like animate dead, but better since it has no aligment restrictions and allow you to temporarily animate dead without spending the material component. Careful selection of other invocations can keep the necromancer-like feel, but it will be a far cry from the Dread Necromancer.

 

[satori01]

At best I think you could justify a NG Necromaster, though I would say a LN is a more truer alignment. You would probably need to get the individuals permission to animate their corpse, and probably only for a short duration.

Getting the permission of a say Dwarven Warrior to transform him into a guardian mummy, seems in line with neutral. It is not good, in of itself, but the motivation behind it might be true.

The methods are despicable. Culturally a society that venerates death, not in a gruesome fashion, but in a more Incan, the dead are all around us, and that is fine sort a way might be ok.

 

[Jubilee]

I play a good aligned Aerenal Necromancer (cleric/summoner) in an eberron game. We added summon undead to my spell list, and called the undead "positive energy creatures." i've just gotten to the level where I can summon ghasts, ghouls, allips, shadows, vampire spawn.. and we haven't quite figured out how that's going to work. We also took away the alignment descriptor from animate dead and my character manipulates the positive energy plain to animate rather than negative.

We haven't changed any of the stats on zombies and skeletons, except to say that evil clerics turn them and that cure spells heal them, so I'm not getting any kind of unfair advantage from it, I don't think.

I have yet to actually animate my own undead, though. I mostly rely on the summoning spells and my deathless cohort to get by. I'm entitled to about 10 1 HD skeletons or zombies as part of my leadership feat, but i haven't figured out what to do with them to make it worth the bother.. Except make dramatic entrances, I suppose..

/ali

 

[Tonguez]

Even heard of the Bhuddist Mummies? These are Holy Men who mummify themselves while they are still alive! and beleive that they will return to help the faithful

So use this as a basis of your Necromancer and of his minions. The Good Necromancer is a Holy Man empowerewd by Wee Jas. His duty is to preserve the bodies of the deceased so that they may be of benefit to their descendents and thus be enternally blessed. It is those dead corpses who can not be used that are hollow, as only the undead may do eternal service.
Good Necromancers do fight the hollow dead (ie other undead) as their sacred duty but their own minions are blessed undead (actually make that a template)

 

[Jedit]

I've seen several games where Necromancers had to be good (my last DM was influenced heavily by Diablo 2 where the backstory for Necros was because of their control they had to adhere to a strict rules and only used for good). Which makes sense that the organization is good with bad seeds that go and do the standerd villian thing. Our trade off though was that in most cities/towns we entered the citizens were hostile towards the necro and unfriendly to his companions. With that it adds abit of flavor to being Necro in a world that hates them regardless.

 

[Krafen]

Eberron has the Deathless Domain. You can't start creating them until you get 6th level spells, though.

 

[sirwmholder]

I seem to recall a "White Necro" in 2nd ed. that communed with the dead and received their permission before binding them to undeath. The benefit was the undead created in this manner retained their alignment and were able to carry out simple task more efficiently than standard undead (slight intelligence boost).

BTW, IDHTBIFOM but weren't Mummies good aligned undead at some point?

Thank you for your time,
William Holder

 

[phindar]

Mindless undead were Neutral in 2e, and they're Neutral Evil in 3e. I prefer NE, because they're powered by negative energy and that's a pretty good stand-in for Evil, at least for me. They aren't able to reason, but they do instinctually hate the living, they do seek to end life wherever they find it. Sometimes I refer to zombies as Neutral Hungry, but it's Neg Energy that powers theit batteries, and thats about as "evil" as you can get ("evil" in this sense referring to a universal force rather than say a specific moral outlook).

Good Necromancers making undead may be a step to far for most games, even in 2e when the creations could be unaligned. Usually, a GM would allow a Neutral necromancer to create undead for a good purpose, like protecting a village, figuring that the evil act of animation would be balanced by the goodly purpose or protecting innocent lives.

If you're playing a Good Dread Necromancer and you decide not to create undead yourself, you can still Rebuke undead to bring them under your control. That way, you're just taking the things evil people have created and using them as disposable agents of good.