Why is Deathwatch Evil, and Seed of Undeath not?

[Kafkonia]

I noticed this whilst perusing my rulebooks the other night. Seed of Undeath, a spell that lets you plant something on someone so that if they die they become an undead creature under your control, is Necromancy. But Deathwatch is Necromancy [Evil].

So is it more evil to know someone is injured than it is to enslave their bodies after death?

 

[Nifft]

Yeah. It's very odd that deathwatch is [Evil].

-- N

 

[Kafkonia]

Yeah. It's very odd that deathwatch is [Evil].

-- N

I think it's even more odd that a spell that animates a person as dead is evil (animate dead) and another is not (seed of undeath.)

I guess it's not evil because they're not dead when you cast it, right? Right?

 

[Slaved]

It is about choice.

The person you cast the Seed of Undeath on chooses to die and become your undead minion that is what they decided, so of course it is not an evil act! It was their own fault for dieing or being killed, they should have chosen to not let someone kill them.

But animate dead does not give a choice, so obviously that is evil!

It is just like if you give someone the ability to explode and do 1000 damage when they die in a 1000' radius it is not your evil if they choose to die next to the orphanage.

Of course if you cast a spell which causes them to explode and do 1000 damage to an orphanage that spell would of course have the evil tags. Right?

See? Choice!

I recommend that all lawful overlords should cast this spell on all of their followers just in case one of them decides to betray them by dieing when they were specifically ordered not to. It is the lawful thing to do after all, swift justice for those who defied orders.

 

[Plane Sailing]

FWIW the deathwatch change was introduced in 3.5 IIRC. I don't know what persuaded the revisers to make that change though.

 

[RangerWickett]

Isn't there a spell called triagic sight or something, that lets you do the same thing as 'death sight' without "calling upon the powers of evil and unlife"?

 

[shilsen]

Deathwatch as [Evil] is one of the dumbest rules in 3.5. It's a purely flavor thing, but that's one thing I immediately house-ruled.

 

[Nifft]

I think it's even more odd that a spell that animates a person as dead is evil (animate dead) and another is not (seed of undeath.)

I guess it's not evil because they're not dead when you cast it, right? Right?

That one sounds like oversight. Deathwatch describes itself in an evil-sounding way, so I think it's more a matter of bad design than a simple omission.

-- N

 

[Whimsical]

It is a matter of bad design. It was added in 3.5 and it shouldn't have been. If a spell is labeled [Evil], then there should be no non-evil way of using that spell. Casting an [Evil] spell should always be an evil act. I'm using the absolute morality feature of D&D cosmology as the basis of my point.

 

[Trouvere]

It doesn't make any sense, since Deathwatch is a domain spell for the Repose domain which, to quote the SRD, "is similar to the Death domain, but is granted by good-aligned deities whose clerics are barred from casting evil spells."