"Good" Necromancy

[Kyros Pyralis]

Undead and undeath aren't alwys inherently evil, even in the D&D universe. Here's some food for thought, the Baelnorn or a good-aligned lich: Baelnorn lich - The Forgotten Realms Wiki - Books, races, classes, and more

 

[Jack Simth]

Undead and undeath aren't alwys inherently evil, even in the D&D universe. Here's some food for thought, the Baelnorn or a good-aligned lich: Baelnorn lich - The Forgotten Realms Wiki - Books, races, classes, and more

Undead aren't always inherently evil, no. For the Core one, see the Ghost, which has Alignment: Any (and is the only such in Core). However:

1) Animate Dead, Create Undead, and Create Greater Undead are [Evil]
2) Animate Dead, Create Undead, and Create Greater Undead produce creatures who are [Evil] (although some are intelligent, can and do change).
3) Of the core undead that can't be created by Core spells, the only one that's NOT listed as Evil is the Ghost.

Now, if you branch out of Core, and start looking at Baelnorms, the Deathless, and similar (including Ghosts, who are Core), what do you find?

"Ghosts are the spectral remnants of intelligent beings who, for one reason or another, cannot rest easily in their graves. " and "As a rule, the only way to get rid of a ghost for sure is to determine the reason for its existence and set right whatever prevents it from resting in peace. The exact means varies with each spirit and may require a good deal of research. " - with little in the way of exception, they're critters who volunteered to stay, or volunteered to come back. (Quotes pulled from the Ghost entry in the SRD). Baelnorns are "Eladrin who [chose] a path of Prime-bound duty beyond death" and are "defenders" who "unswervingly protect their clan and its holdings" - they're people who dedicated themselves to the defense of their clan, and elevated their oaths to ones that continued beyond death. (Note: This is from your link, Kyros Pyralis). The Deathless have related wording.

And if you determine that making undead is not inherently evil, you've got the question of explaining just why True Resurrection fails when you try to bring back the guy who's skeleton is walking around serving tea and crumpets at the Necromancer's ball....

 

[Thanael]

I humbly put forth a tried-and-true favorite: AD&D (yep, Second Edition) Complete Book of Necromancers. Admittedly, it's a completely different system;

Seconded. In fact [to the OP] check your pms. The Complete Necromancer Guide is a great resource on Necromancers. There's a whole chapter on the issue of White Necromancy and Black Necromancy.

Read the 2E Complete Book of Necromancers for great Necromancer fluff. Check out the New Necromancer Wizard Kits section for different roles/types of Necromancers.

As far as converting the kits over... the Anatomist is likely the most difficult one, particularly now that they've changed healing spells from being Necromancy sphere in AD&D to Conjuration (healing) in 3E / 3.5.

There are several prestige classes for this available on the net. For example in the Book of Sacrifices there's the Anatomist prestige class, who devotes himself to the scientific study of the secrets of life and healing. Their skills mingle medicine with mad obsession. As a practitioner of the healer’s art, the Anatomist is surpassed only by the most devout of priests. But an Anatomist cannot stop there; he is driven by more than the need to heal – the need to conquer death itself. Well it is a sort of Frankensteinian healer, but who says you need to take all levels of the prc...

And here's a 3.5 Chirurgeon PrC created by cure on the FoS boards.

The Deathslayer... I'd say Fighter / Wizard (Necromancer) / Eldritch Knight as the most likely bet; Hexblade / Dread Necromancer would be interesting thematically for showing how the obsession with fighting undead carries with it a terrible price, as the use of Necromancy affects the character (through the Dread Necromancer's gradual transformation into a lich).

Or how about Ranger/Wizard(necromancer)/Eldritch Knight. There's many ways to do this archetpye in 3E.

For the Philosopher... straight-class Archivist is far and away the most likely choice for following such a concept.

Yup, not too bad. Archivist is available online btw: Heroes of Horror Excerpt

Kazerabet is a great example of a Philosopher archetype necromancer. She's a Neutral aligned researcher. Read more about her in the Samru campaign chapter. (Kazerabet also features in at least one Al Qadim boxed set, Cities of Bone and/or Ruined Kingdoms. Needless to say her appearance in 3E happily disregarded almost all of her great 2E backstory)

 

[Thanael]

One thing that the core necromancer is lacking in 3E and Pathfinder is spells. You are going to have problems if you want to stick to White Necromancy. The 2E Complete Necromancer Guide introduced a few new necromantic spells and lists many necromantic spells from other sources that add nicely to the necromancer's repertoire.

So in 3E I guess you have to use a few more sources for spells if you want to pull of the Good Necromancer. But in the end walking the thin line between good and evil is sort if intrinsic to this char concept. So what if he casts an evil spell once or twice if it's in service of the greater good. A single evil deed does not an evil alignment make. Interesting times...


BTW taking the Arcane Disciple feat is an interesting choice to get access to clerical healing and/or necromancy spells. (In fact I have PC concept Undead Hunter/Militant Wizard necromancer from 2E that I'm converting to Ranger 1/Necromancer x/EldritchKnight y with the Arcane Disciple feat who is a disciple of Anubis having access to the Repose domain.)

Read the other thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-le...ancy-not-inferior-cleric-vs-death-master.html for much insight in to playng a Necromancer in 3E.

For general necromantic 3E advice check out Revised Necromancer Handbook - Wizards Community and the Tome of Necromancy thread.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Undead aren't always inherently evil, no. For the Core one, see the Ghost, which has Alignment: Any (and is the only such in Core). However:

1) Animate Dead, Create Undead, and Create Greater Undead are [Evil]
2) Animate Dead, Create Undead, and Create Greater Undead produce creatures who are [Evil] (although some are intelligent, can and do change).
3) Of the core undead that can't be created by Core spells, the only one that's NOT listed as Evil is the Ghost.

There is actually another one hiding in the Core: a Shadow called by a non-Evil Shadowdancer (PrCl from the DMG) will match its summoner's alignment.

 

[Kyros Pyralis]

And if you determine that making undead is not inherently evil, you've got the question of explaining just why True Resurrection fails when you try to bring back the guy who's skeleton is walking around serving tea and crumpets at the Necromancer's ball....

The spell's description requires something along the lines of "...the deceased's time and place of birth or death..." This indicates that there is some sort of connection between body and soul. Just because you don't need to cast the spell on the remains doesn't mean that they're not used. Perhaps a part of the spell's functionality is finding those remains, so while it is able to piece together the remnants of a creature that is hit by a Destruction spell (remember that matter cannot be created or destroyed, but can be converted into energy), it cannot return a soul to a body if that vessel is host to another animating force.

I have always wondered if True Res would work on a corpse that was burnt, had its ashes mixed into clay, then molded into a statue upon which someone casts the animate object spell followed by the awaken construct spell. This would result in a living, sentient creature made from a now dead creature's remains. Since True Res doesn't work on constructs does that mean that the creature's soul is trapped in the object? If so, why isn't animate object evil?

 

[krupintupple]

I humbly put forth a tried-and-true favorite: AD&D (yep, Second Edition) Complete Book of Necromancers. Admittedly, it's a completely different system; however, it has three kits that you both may want to look at. If nothing else, it'll give you some intriguing new ideas (and part of it, at least, can be converted in some form to 3.5):

not fair! i was actually getting spotlight to check out where i hid my notes on that when i realized that you'd already said it! haha. good call though.

 

[Jack Simth]

The spell's description requires something along the lines of "...the deceased's time and place of birth or death..." This indicates that there is some sort of connection between body and soul. Just because you don't need to cast the spell on the remains doesn't mean that they're not used. Perhaps a part of the spell's functionality is finding those remains, so while it is able to piece together the remnants of a creature that is hit by a Destruction spell (remember that matter cannot be created or destroyed, but can be converted into energy), it cannot return a soul to a body if that vessel is host to another animating force.

Counterargument:
Per the undead type:

Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead

That is, if you apply the spell directly to the active undead, the undead becomes a living critter again (per the Undead type). If you don't, the undead critter must first be destroyed (Per the Resurrection and True Resurrection spells).

While there's not particularly strong RAW support that Animating a corpse drags the soul back to be imprisoned in the walking corpse, it's a surprisingly good fit.

 

[jrs]

Every plane has an alignment. The material plane, which is the ”real” world, is neutral aligned. Necromantic spells draws powers from the negative energy plane, (evil aligned). When you cast a spell from the necromantic school, on the material plane, then you do evil on the world itself.


But the books of arcanis has good necromancers, try have a look at them

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm not sure that's true: as I recall, the Negative Energy Plane is inimical to life, but is not inherently evil, just as the Positive Energy Plane is not intrinsically good...and, FWIW, you can't live long there either.