Weird necromancer

[Werdnam]

Re: product plug

I personally don't see why animating coporeal, unintelligent undead is different from creating golems, or how it is somehow more unethical to make a pile of bones walk around, but not say, to bind free willed elemental beings for perpetual slavery and servitude. Then again, I think necromancers usually get the short end of the stick.

Recently, one of my players asked to play a necromancer, so I looked into these matters myself. At first, I felt as you did -- that animating skeletons and zombies should be a neutral act. The problem is that once you animate a corpse, that person can no longer be raised (you need at least a resurrection at that point). In a campaign in which raise deads are available, this makes animating a corpse as evil as deliberately destroying a body so that it can't be raised. (And I can see that in some situations, this latter would not be an evil act.)

Then, of course, there's the [evil] descriptor on the spell ...

 

[josh rotten]

well, what if the bodies are baried or other wise shown to not be coming back any time soon....i guess i'm just getting a little off topic, this thread started asking how one would make a PC who'se a necromancer not evil lets keep it that way

 

[Deadguy]

Necromancy -What is It?

Well, it must be said that 3E has given Necromancers a rough time. By deliberately contracting the definition of Necromancy to be dealing in the forces of death alone, it basically forces Necromancers into the Evil role. I really wish that things had been left as it being the powers of Life and Death, thus naturally encompassing Undeath rather than applying it as an adjunct. Let's face it, don't you find it fairly ridiculous that they've had to create a Sub-school of Conjuration to encompass Healing magics?!! To me that sits really, really badly (and was one of the first things Rule Zeroed in my own Shattered World campaign).

 

[abri]

Re: Necromancy -What is It?

Well, it must be said that 3E has given Necromancers a rough time. By deliberately contracting the definition of Necromancy to be dealing in the forces of death alone, it basically forces Necromancers into the Evil role. I really wish that things had been left as it being the powers of Life and Death, thus naturally encompassing Undeath rather than applying it as an adjunct. Let's face it, don't you find it fairly ridiculous that they've had to create a Sub-school of Conjuration to encompass Healing magics?!! To me that sits really, really badly (and was one of the first things Rule Zeroed in my own Shattered World campaign).

Totally agree: IMC healing magic is part of necromancy, and the godess of necromancy is also worshipped as the godess of healing.
In 2E I always saw necromancy as the mastery over life and death, and even went as far as putting the raise dead spell in the necromancer spell-list: the concept of the Frankenstein monster is to instill a corpse with life, not animate the corpse, with more mastery over life and death, I can perfectly imagine a necromancer, bringing back someone back to life.
PS: never liked how they treated the flesh golem, shouldn't be a golem in the first place. It's ALIVE!

 

[Darklance]

I have been thinking of creating a system where permanent undead can be created like magic items. It costs money for the equipment/supplies and experience for the lifeforce that you put into animating such creatures. This would explain why you typical dungeon as skeletons walking around in it.