The real answer is "DnD says Animating the dead is Evil, so it is Evil".

No ifs ands or buts. It's evil in DnD because DnD says so.

_________________
Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

I a merely stating the rules - summoning an undead is an evil act. Using that to save a village from slaughter is "Ends justify the means". The act of summoning/calling/creating undead is inherently evil - it states it, as Tormak quite nicely points out:



The action itself is inherently evil, who you are and for what purpose you use it are irrelevant. Casting it does not make you evil, but the act itself is.




Individuals are allowed to draw their own conclusions as much as they like (paladins are lawful as well as good, for example), but there are higher powers that simply don't give a damn and will judge in absolutes. Being brought up to believe that something which is evil is other than this does not make it any less evil.


As far as I am aware they aren't actually colours - that's why you can have different shades and tints of the same colour.



This is another example of the ends justifying the means - would you commit an evil deed by turning yourself into an undead to save a city full of people? Even though you are committing an evil deed you are still a good person (although can't be an exalted person) for your reasons. Would you murder one person to save ten thousand?

Casting an evil spell is not a be-all and end-all "You are evil". But the fact does remain that the spell itself is inherently evil in absolute terms, because therules don't deal with moral relativism.

_________________
2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

Yerp, I never said "you are evil" or "It makes you evil" simply that the act itself is classed in DnD as "Evil".

_________________
Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Necromancy, evil or not?

The only thing you should be thinking about is how your own character perceives it. It's a question that they need to look at from their perspective, rather than just knowing OOCly that raising Undead is evil.

The majority of my characters will go beserk if they see Undead/Necromancers about. But then again, I have a very kind-hearted and nice character who practices and studies Necromancy. He views it as a nessecary part of the Arcane.

It's up to each character to work it out.

_________________
Aravain, Champion of Song.
Anar, a dark elf.
Giovanni, Blood Knight.

Ever seen a picture of a zombie? The animate dead spell will make the body undead, and in that process, they are like a walking corpse. Its not like a 'Twilight' thing where people retain their beauty.


There is a base code for what is evil, and what is not evil in Forgotten Realms and things like that. It is clearly defined through the Deities. It is a perfect balance that is maintained because each God has their own different portfolios.




Animate dead isn't really a 'Godly' spell. Its only level three and it creates fodder for you to throw at your enemy, which there is not a whole lot of honor in that.

_________________

Lets put it that way I heard it.

Whe raising an undead creature do you tear their soul out from the afterlife and doom them to eternal servitude and after that damnation, no matter if they were good or not.

That is evil by definition, nuff said, and all that is really needed to know in my opinion.

_________________
"Most assume that all the followers of Lathander are great morning people. They're very wrong."
"I think we are the only group where AD&D stands for Attention Deficit Disorder."

There's still the difference between the complete action which includes an evil tool, and the tool itself. A spell is not an action. A spell may be Evil, but "casting spell A" does not equal "spell A." Just like "Giving birth to Person X" does not equal "Person X." Even if spell A is evil, the logical, necessary conclusion simply is not that casting spell A is also evil. And I'm not saying it isn't. Usually, it probably is. But unless you can come up with better proof, I'd leave it open for doubt and DM interpretion.

I know these are semantics, but I assume that's what you want to get into if you want to find out what exactly the rules mean. In practice, it means very little, because in actual RP the letter of the rules flies out of the window and the game proceeds in a way that feels right for those involved.


Any attempts to explain why undeath is evil by using examples are doomed to fail. I'm sorry to tell you this, HellScourge and Moridan, but your arguments just aren't believable. Saying things like "that is evil by definition" places upon you a huge burden to prove it. We don't have to take your word for it, you have to present the irrefutable proof. Like Tormak said, the real answer is "It's evil because D&D says it's evil", and that only applies to the spells themselves. If you try to prove that all kinds of undead are evil, or that all necromancers are evil, you'll simply fail in light of opposite evidence. HellScourge is also mistaken about the nature of undead, but it's fairly irrelevant to the topic at hand. Also, deities don't judge absolutely, they're very human-like and have limited perspective, as well. Absolute Good and Evil are independent of any deities or mortals, dictated by Ao or simply existing in and of themselves. In the end, the purest ideals of Good, Evil, Chaos and Law have very little effect on the lives of mortals, because gods can't comprehend them, and humans can't even comprehend the already diluted, twisted views that their gods give them. The Law that a Tyrran revers is not the Law that Tyr comprehends, and that's not the Law which is an independent, metaphysical concept.


Marauth's point is exactly the one I tried to make, too. You simply don't need to know what's evil and what's good. No good can come of it. The only thing it'll lead to is metagaming. You're supposed to play characters, mortals with limited understanding, not metaphysical alignments.


And there's a good reason why we don't want to pin down the exact details of Good and Evil in Amia: we've had and will have dozens of different DMs and thousands of players. Everyone will have their own opinions. There have bee hundreds of people much smarter than us, in history, trying to define the truth of Good and Evil, and none of them have succeeded so far. So even if we accept the existance of objective Good and Evil in the campaign, I don't think any of us is so presumptious as to assume they can dictate the definitions for all of the current and future DMs and players. For there to be any sense to DMing, the individual DM has to have the freedom to decide when his players have crossed the line between evil and good without having to refer to a Manual of Alignments.

_________________

Finally someone really replies to anything I write, yay.

Ahem, secondly, this is the way I interpreted after having it being explained to me IC, which will of course differ from the regular rules/ruleset.


Also, to add another grain of sand here, perhaps it is not the necromancy that is evil but what people could do with it?
You would distruts someone who could kill your family and then make them dance for your amusement too.
And this eventually turned to hate and labeling it as evil. But alas, as iron said, its not fully decided so people can Rp around it and what not.

_________________
"Most assume that all the followers of Lathander are great morning people. They're very wrong."
"I think we are the only group where AD&D stands for Attention Deficit Disorder."

Necromancy is not evil - it is merely another school of magic. There are just individual spells within the school (in the case of this school a lot of them) which are evil.
Of course, as Iron and I think Marauth were saying, your char doesn't need to believe that they are evil. They'll still be persecuted for it, though.

_________________
2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

Necromancy is not evil, simply put. There are evil spells in the school, but the school it self is not evil. Just like Evocation isn't evil just because "Blasphemy" and "Desecrate" are spells within the school. And for that matter, Abjuration having "Dispel Evil" as a spell doesn't make it good either because guess what? It also has "Dispel Good" in the same school.

Sure, Necromancy has the most evil spells, but still. And yes, raising undead and casting blasphemy and other noted evil spells doesn't make the person evil. People can rationalize things in their head with their own twisted crazy ways of thinking and honestly believe that what they're doing is not evil, hence why neutral is an option also.

The person casting such spells doesn't have to be evil, but the action is, with out a doubt.

_________________
My Characters:
Yuilith Kethil Menaiivan Garadeth

Nonononono, I have been shouting yay for good aligned GHOSTS for forever, but my point with Arch Liches , Baelnorn and other shoehorned lore is how they make the world go:

"Well, if you become a lich you will lose your humanity, twist yourself to pure Evil no matter how noble motivation led you to the transformation or what you want to be and will become forever unable to change your ways, and in return you get incredible dark powers and grim coolness factor of ten... But if you add a fancy elven tag to your Lichdom you can be just fine and still screw undead-hunting good characters over although you will be as uncool as a hamster with butter on it."

Proper Lich lore, as you may notice, does also make the whole "I did it with good intentions" thing to protect something much more interesting, considering the infinitely high price the foolish mage will end up paying for it. Thus I find the whole concept of non-evil liches quite boring and definitely uninteresting, when compared to proper evil overlords or tragic antagonist vampires and liches.

_________________
Gagis Silvarna, the Robocop with wings who shoots lasers from his fingertips
Lily Havthorn, the Waukeenar
Silwe, the elf

Amen.

_________________

UCE THIS, YOU COW.

I just want to add that I think a good aligned palemaster should require a DM's approval to play...just my opinion.

_________________
Night is just another day without light.

There is no such thing as a Good aligned Palemaster. Only Evil and Neutral.

_________________
My Characters:
Yuilith Kethil Menaiivan Garadeth

They change their alignments via rp oh which would be dm approved anyway, nvm ty roses

I retractith my previous statement. *hides*

_________________
Night is just another day without light.