Good necromancers? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Good necromancers? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Banatine
10-22-06, 03:31 PM at the moment i am trying to play a good necromancer, but i am finding it really difficult to think of a way to make necromancy good. i know that there was an article in dragon magazine (called "shades of death", i think) about this stuff, but i dont have it. has anyone else played a good necromancer here, and if so, how did it work out?
Lord of the Ninth
10-22-06, 05:07 PM There are a few things to consider and to ask your DM about.

First: Are nonintelligent undead evil? I know in the MM it says that they are, but frequently DMs will overrule this one and either make them neutral, like all other nonintelligent things in D&D, or he will have their alignment determined by the will of their creator.

Secondl: Is the creation of nonintelligent undead an evil act? If the creation of nonintelligent undead somehow stops the person's spirit from moving on or the like, then the act would be inherently evil, but if the animation of the undead isn't inherently evil, one has a lot more leeway.

Also, much of necromancy involves things other than the creation of undead, many spells such as Halt Undead, Chill Touch etc. are no more evil than Hold Person or Fireball. You can misuse them, but they are not evil by nature.

Mostly if your DM is ok with the concept of a good necromancer then it ought to work very nicely, if not it will be very difficult and you may be forced to avoid some of the more classical elements of necromancy.
Lyinginbedmon
10-22-06, 07:47 PM Necromancy being evil is really a point of view. In the mainstream, it's the use of the dead bodies of people's loved ones to further your own personal schemes, without any regard or recompense to the families or to the person who's body you're animating.

However, in an island nation in my campaign world (New Cairo), all of the settlements are walled because the inhabitants all fear everything outside of them, a landscape tainted quite richly with incarnum, not to mention the residents of the other nearby islands. However, they still need to gather supplies, like firewood and timber, as well as farming resources and they need to communicate with the other settlements. In order to do this, they use necromancy, and thus was born the Dead Walks groups.

The Dead Walks use necromancy to create servants that are immune to the effects of incarnum, and they use them to perform tasks that they would otherwise be in harm's way to do. In New Cairo being animated for use by the Dead Walks is a great honour and no-one sees necromancy as evil, it's a fact of life for them. But the rest of the world sees it as derivably evil
Cherubaddon
10-22-06, 07:58 PM There are a few things to consider and to ask your DM about.

First: Are nonintelligent undead evil? I know in the MM it says that they are, but frequently DMs will overrule this one and either make them neutral, like all other nonintelligent things in D&D, or he will have their alignment determined by the will of their creator.

Secondl: Is the creation of nonintelligent undead an evil act? If the creation of nonintelligent undead somehow stops the person's spirit from moving on or the like, then the act would be inherently evil, but if the animation of the undead isn't inherently evil, one has a lot more leeway.

Also, much of necromancy involves things other than the creation of undead, many spells such as Halt Undead, Chill Touch etc. are no more evil than Hold Person or Fireball. You can misuse them, but they are not evil by nature.

Mostly if your DM is ok with the concept of a good necromancer then it ought to work very nicely, if not it will be very difficult and you may be forced to avoid some of the more classical elements of necromancy.

"Yes! Somebody understands it! Indeed, Necromancy is not evil! Not more so than Fireball! All those paladins simply don't get it! No matter, though, they'll make great undead..." That's about how my friend Morgwath (my current PC) would see things. Unfortunately, this is not exactly correct: Channeling negative energy is an evil act, because it unleashes the force of death upon the world. Ray of Enfeeblement, for instance, sucks at your life force, making you weaker and weaker... It's not so much the effect that makes it different from Fireball, but the way how it is accomplished: Blasting your foe with the power of undeath is evil. Period. It may be done for good ends, but definitely is an evil mean: That's what we call neutrality. A neutral necromancer might be as altruistic as a Pelorite and as valorous as a paladin but, fact is, he still uses evil means, by incapacitating enemies in unnecessarily painful ways and raising an unholy army, even if it's done for the greater good.

It's kind of a complicated topic, so I hope I made myself clear. Ah, and welcome to the secret circle of misunderstood necromancers:D !
JulesCARV
10-22-06, 09:38 PM What kind of necromancer are you creating? A cleric? A wizard? A dread necromancer?

If you're using the "spells with the evil descriptor are evil" rule, then if you want to be a wizard necromancer (i.e., a wizard with necromancy as her specialist school), just avoid the following six spells:

animate dead
contagion
create undead
create greater undead
eyebite
symbol of pain

That's it. It's really no more complicated than a good abjurer avoiding magic circle against good and protection from good.

If, on the other hand, your DM views the [evil] descriptor as just being a designation that affects how the spell interacts with certain types of spell resistance, which clerics can receive it when praying, and such, then all of them are okay, unless you're a cleric necromancer, in which case, once again, you'll be limited to necromancy spells without the [evil] descriptor.

Necromancy is just another school of magic. Some of it's evil, as is some abjuration, some evocation, some conjuration, etc.

Sorry if I'm coming off as a bit snappish or jaded: you seem to be fairly new, Banatine, so you probably haven't seen this topic before, but it comes up a lot, and had a tendency to turn into a rather predictable and repetitive flame war. I hope it doesn't this time.
Banatine
10-23-06, 05:12 AM i'm playing this in a 2nd ed campeign, so i am in essense a wizard. sorry for not mentioning that earlier, but its not that important is it?

one thing my character hates is people using undead as 'puppets', or indeed anything as puppets. you dont need to use undead as slaves. thats what unseen servant is for. basically its a problem with people who abuse necromancy, but then its hard to think of a right way to use it either.
Fithero
10-23-06, 07:32 AM Basically i view the undead as tools, their mindless and have no souls... so basically they are just objects which were *once* sentinent, yet not more.

In this, i view the undead as not evil themselves (nor the act of raising them) but what you do with them can be evil or good.

If you raise 50 zombies (with the concent of the corpses family members or their own) and get them to build the defences of a town, then help defend it themselves.... id take that as a good act.

If you go into a town, make dash for the graveyard and raise everycorpse you see then set them apon the towns folk... thats pretty evil.

So yeah, for me the moral choice comes down to what you do with the undead.

Anyway thats my opinion on the matter, dont flame me for it.

Peace
Lord of the Ninth
10-23-06, 11:31 AM I'm not too familiar with 2E necro spells, but if you can find a way to talk to dead people that's always useful and potentially nonevil (although my group always finds it too tempting to "shoot first and ask questions later"). Also, creating undead "friends" instead of minions might do the trick. Friends aren't as good for suicide missions or slave labor, but they can come in handy.
urial angel of death
10-23-06, 01:22 PM A way to implament undead friends would be to awaken them if said spell is in 2ed (I don't remember), to take one as a familiar, or even to free a the spawn of an evil undead and teach them to be good and live in a normal society.
camirblu
10-23-06, 11:35 PM An alternate method would be to view necromancy as simply the manipulation of life energy for specific purposes.

So you could actually be a self-sacrificing necromancer who manipulates his or her own soul for specific ends. Or the energies of a willing person.

The kicker there is you'd have to respect free will. And still, what you do can harm others but well.

So can fireball. >.>
extraordinarilyAverageJoe
10-24-06, 04:28 PM I'd like to hear from someone who knows more about it than I do, but I wonder if, for spells like animate dead, one could create an equivilent spell that creates deathless, from Eberron, instead of undead. I don't know much about deathless at all, but I think they're a sort of "good undead" because they're animated with positive instead of negative energy. Just a thought in reguards to the undead creation spells.
shaynajassan
10-24-06, 07:53 PM I am the only person who thinks that Deathless are silly?
Cherubaddon
10-24-06, 08:52 PM I am the only person who thinks that Deathless are silly?

No offense to anyone, but I second that vote.
shaynajassan
10-24-06, 09:01 PM My only objection (aside from the BED trying to a make "good" verison of everything) is being animated by postive energy should make you alive.
Cherubaddon
10-24-06, 10:00 PM My only objection (aside from the BED trying to a make "good" verison of everything) is being animated by postive energy should make you alive.

That's actually a very good point. My problem was rather the first one: The BoED simply makes a good version of everythin, even if this makes no sense whatsoever.
Banatine
10-25-06, 05:15 AM i still dont see why undead are all evil, even zombies. zombies are no more evil than golems, who follows their masters orders blindly.

anyway, i think i can close this now. my necromancer was killed last night by a skeleton! (but to be fair, it was a dragon's.)
Lyinginbedmon
10-25-06, 05:39 AM Keep in mind, this is D&D, where dead men actually do tell tales ;)
mkill
10-25-06, 07:41 AM In Eberron, alignments are more a matter of perspective, and you can play a good aligned character that uses necromancy for good deeds. His means will be evil (sometimes), but in the end, he still has morals.

In standard D&D, it's more complicated. I guess the best thing you can do is accept that your character will not have a good alignment. He can at best be neutral. He might be a good-spirited, nice person, but he still uses necromancy and if he was really good he just wouldn't do it.

So, what you need is a good explanation why a good-natured character would want to raise undead and play with necromancy. "He felt like it", "he was trained to do it" doesn't suffice.

Since I was planning to try out the Dread Necromancer the next time I get the chance to play a new character, I thought about that. I came up with a really good natured guy who fell in love with a beautiful young lady... just that this lady happened to be a witch and she was burned at the stake by a paladin.

Now, what did he do? He preserved her skull and he started to study necromancy to one day resurrect her when he is powerful enough. He has no hopes on any church helping him, as it was a paladin that killed her in the first place...

So what you have is a really nice, good-hearted, almost innocent and innocent guy who happened to be wronged by the world and his only hope was the dark arts... and he keeps freaking his fellow companions out by talking to a frickin' skull...

What would be his alignment? You be the judge.
shaynajassan
10-25-06, 12:42 PM Zombies are only evil in a system where negative enegry is evil unto itself (like Greyhawk). In Forgotten Realms postive enegry is not inherently good and negative enegry is not inherently evil, so good or neutral undead exist (such as the good elf liches).
Aufenshauft
10-26-06, 03:06 PM [QUOTE=camirblu]
The kicker there is you'd have to respect free will. And still, what you do can harm others but well.
[QUOTE]

That comment hits it on the head. Respect for the dead.

I could see a good necromancer going from town to town in the outlands and offering to animate animal skeletons as emergency troops to defend the town. Even animating the bodies of the townspeople if they would be willing to defend the town after death.

This would take a lot of diplomacy, but it is possible that if you prove yourself and make a point of becoming more than a necromancer in their eyes, you can make life better for others while truly respecting the dead even after their souls are gone. It's just hard to get that kind of repuation.
furor
10-27-06, 05:19 PM necromancy actually describes divination with the dead, it was the art of "psychics" in ancient greece. It was not considered evil at all, consider even using animate dead, but make the distinction that your necromancer actually converses with the souls ahead of time, and possibly uses the souls of their ancestors to possess these undead.
Empirate
11-05-06, 04:27 PM One should probably get clear about negative energy. Is negative energy inherently evil, or are negative and positive energy just two sides of the whole universe, and both needed for the world to function correctly?
If the former, forget the good necromancer. There is no negative spell descriptor as such, but it can safely be assumed that most Necromancy spells make use of negative energy.
If the latter, it would be a bit like using antimatter instead of matter for a (science fiction) physicist. No big deal, as long as you watch the consequences of what you're doing. You might easily destroy more than you reckoned with. Also, you must of course not cast anything that has the evil spell descriptor. Magic Jar should also be banned, IMO, as well as Enervation and Energy Drain. Oh, and don't try and command intelligent undead for anything other than keeping them out of a fight. They should have free will, after all. But this is much like a discussion on Dominate Person being evil or not.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Banatine 10-22-06, 03:31 PM	at the moment i am trying to play a good necromancer, but i am finding it really difficult to think of a way to make necromancy good. i know that there was an article in dragon magazine (called "shades of death", i think) about this stuff, but i dont have it. has anyone else played a good necromancer here, and if so, how did it work out?
Lord of the Ninth 10-22-06, 05:07 PM	There are a few things to consider and to ask your DM about. First: Are nonintelligent undead evil? I know in the MM it says that they are, but frequently DMs will overrule this one and either make them neutral, like all other nonintelligent things in D&D, or he will have their alignment determined by the will of their creator. Secondl: Is the creation of nonintelligent undead an evil act? If the creation of nonintelligent undead somehow stops the person's spirit from moving on or the like, then the act would be inherently evil, but if the animation of the undead isn't inherently evil, one has a lot more leeway. Also, much of necromancy involves things other than the creation of undead, many spells such as Halt Undead, Chill Touch etc. are no more evil than Hold Person or Fireball. You can misuse them, but they are not evil by nature. Mostly if your DM is ok with the concept of a good necromancer then it ought to work very nicely, if not it will be very difficult and you may be forced to avoid some of the more classical elements of necromancy.
Lyinginbedmon 10-22-06, 07:47 PM	Necromancy being evil is really a point of view. In the mainstream, it's the use of the dead bodies of people's loved ones to further your own personal schemes, without any regard or recompense to the families or to the person who's body you're animating. However, in an island nation in my campaign world (New Cairo), all of the settlements are walled because the inhabitants all fear everything outside of them, a landscape tainted quite richly with incarnum, not to mention the residents of the other nearby islands. However, they still need to gather supplies, like firewood and timber, as well as farming resources and they need to communicate with the other settlements. In order to do this, they use necromancy, and thus was born the Dead Walks groups. The Dead Walks use necromancy to create servants that are immune to the effects of incarnum, and they use them to perform tasks that they would otherwise be in harm's way to do. In New Cairo being animated for use by the Dead Walks is a great honour and no-one sees necromancy as evil, it's a fact of life for them. But the rest of the world sees it as derivably evil
Cherubaddon 10-22-06, 07:58 PM	There are a few things to consider and to ask your DM about. First: Are nonintelligent undead evil? I know in the MM it says that they are, but frequently DMs will overrule this one and either make them neutral, like all other nonintelligent things in D&D, or he will have their alignment determined by the will of their creator. Secondl: Is the creation of nonintelligent undead an evil act? If the creation of nonintelligent undead somehow stops the person's spirit from moving on or the like, then the act would be inherently evil, but if the animation of the undead isn't inherently evil, one has a lot more leeway. Also, much of necromancy involves things other than the creation of undead, many spells such as Halt Undead, Chill Touch etc. are no more evil than Hold Person or Fireball. You can misuse them, but they are not evil by nature. Mostly if your DM is ok with the concept of a good necromancer then it ought to work very nicely, if not it will be very difficult and you may be forced to avoid some of the more classical elements of necromancy. "Yes! Somebody understands it! Indeed, Necromancy is not evil! Not more so than Fireball! All those paladins simply don't get it! No matter, though, they'll make great undead..." That's about how my friend Morgwath (my current PC) would see things. Unfortunately, this is not exactly correct: Channeling negative energy is an evil act, because it unleashes the force of death upon the world. Ray of Enfeeblement, for instance, sucks at your life force, making you weaker and weaker... It's not so much the effect that makes it different from Fireball, but the way how it is accomplished: Blasting your foe with the power of undeath is evil. Period. It may be done for good ends, but definitely is an evil mean: That's what we call neutrality. A neutral necromancer might be as altruistic as a Pelorite and as valorous as a paladin but, fact is, he still uses evil means, by incapacitating enemies in unnecessarily painful ways and raising an unholy army, even if it's done for the greater good. It's kind of a complicated topic, so I hope I made myself clear. Ah, and welcome to the secret circle of misunderstood necromancers:D !
JulesCARV 10-22-06, 09:38 PM	What kind of necromancer are you creating? A cleric? A wizard? A dread necromancer? If you're using the "spells with the evil descriptor are evil" rule, then if you want to be a wizard necromancer (i.e., a wizard with necromancy as her specialist school), just avoid the following six spells: animate dead contagion create undead create greater undead eyebite symbol of pain That's it. It's really no more complicated than a good abjurer avoiding magic circle against good and protection from good. If, on the other hand, your DM views the [evil] descriptor as just being a designation that affects how the spell interacts with certain types of spell resistance, which clerics can receive it when praying, and such, then all of them are okay, unless you're a cleric necromancer, in which case, once again, you'll be limited to necromancy spells without the [evil] descriptor. Necromancy is just another school of magic. Some of it's evil, as is some abjuration, some evocation, some conjuration, etc. Sorry if I'm coming off as a bit snappish or jaded: you seem to be fairly new, Banatine, so you probably haven't seen this topic before, but it comes up a lot, and had a tendency to turn into a rather predictable and repetitive flame war. I hope it doesn't this time.
Banatine 10-23-06, 05:12 AM	i'm playing this in a 2nd ed campeign, so i am in essense a wizard. sorry for not mentioning that earlier, but its not that important is it? one thing my character hates is people using undead as 'puppets', or indeed anything as puppets. you dont need to use undead as slaves. thats what unseen servant is for. basically its a problem with people who abuse necromancy, but then its hard to think of a right way to use it either.
Fithero 10-23-06, 07:32 AM	Basically i view the undead as tools, their mindless and have no souls... so basically they are just objects which were once sentinent, yet not more. In this, i view the undead as not evil themselves (nor the act of raising them) but what you do with them can be evil or good. If you raise 50 zombies (with the concent of the corpses family members or their own) and get them to build the defences of a town, then help defend it themselves.... id take that as a good act. If you go into a town, make dash for the graveyard and raise everycorpse you see then set them apon the towns folk... thats pretty evil. So yeah, for me the moral choice comes down to what you do with the undead. Anyway thats my opinion on the matter, dont flame me for it. Peace
Lord of the Ninth 10-23-06, 11:31 AM	I'm not too familiar with 2E necro spells, but if you can find a way to talk to dead people that's always useful and potentially nonevil (although my group always finds it too tempting to "shoot first and ask questions later"). Also, creating undead "friends" instead of minions might do the trick. Friends aren't as good for suicide missions or slave labor, but they can come in handy.
urial angel of death 10-23-06, 01:22 PM	A way to implament undead friends would be to awaken them if said spell is in 2ed (I don't remember), to take one as a familiar, or even to free a the spawn of an evil undead and teach them to be good and live in a normal society.
camirblu 10-23-06, 11:35 PM	An alternate method would be to view necromancy as simply the manipulation of life energy for specific purposes. So you could actually be a self-sacrificing necromancer who manipulates his or her own soul for specific ends. Or the energies of a willing person. The kicker there is you'd have to respect free will. And still, what you do can harm others but well. So can fireball. >.>
extraordinarilyAverageJoe 10-24-06, 04:28 PM	I'd like to hear from someone who knows more about it than I do, but I wonder if, for spells like animate dead, one could create an equivilent spell that creates deathless, from Eberron, instead of undead. I don't know much about deathless at all, but I think they're a sort of "good undead" because they're animated with positive instead of negative energy. Just a thought in reguards to the undead creation spells.
shaynajassan 10-24-06, 07:53 PM	I am the only person who thinks that Deathless are silly?
Cherubaddon 10-24-06, 08:52 PM	I am the only person who thinks that Deathless are silly? No offense to anyone, but I second that vote.
shaynajassan 10-24-06, 09:01 PM	My only objection (aside from the BED trying to a make "good" verison of everything) is being animated by postive energy should make you alive.
Cherubaddon 10-24-06, 10:00 PM	My only objection (aside from the BED trying to a make "good" verison of everything) is being animated by postive energy should make you alive. That's actually a very good point. My problem was rather the first one: The BoED simply makes a good version of everythin, even if this makes no sense whatsoever.
Banatine 10-25-06, 05:15 AM	i still dont see why undead are all evil, even zombies. zombies are no more evil than golems, who follows their masters orders blindly. anyway, i think i can close this now. my necromancer was killed last night by a skeleton! (but to be fair, it was a dragon's.)
Lyinginbedmon 10-25-06, 05:39 AM	Keep in mind, this is D&D, where dead men actually do tell tales ;)
mkill 10-25-06, 07:41 AM	In Eberron, alignments are more a matter of perspective, and you can play a good aligned character that uses necromancy for good deeds. His means will be evil (sometimes), but in the end, he still has morals. In standard D&D, it's more complicated. I guess the best thing you can do is accept that your character will not have a good alignment. He can at best be neutral. He might be a good-spirited, nice person, but he still uses necromancy and if he was really good he just wouldn't do it. So, what you need is a good explanation why a good-natured character would want to raise undead and play with necromancy. "He felt like it", "he was trained to do it" doesn't suffice. Since I was planning to try out the Dread Necromancer the next time I get the chance to play a new character, I thought about that. I came up with a really good natured guy who fell in love with a beautiful young lady... just that this lady happened to be a witch and she was burned at the stake by a paladin. Now, what did he do? He preserved her skull and he started to study necromancy to one day resurrect her when he is powerful enough. He has no hopes on any church helping him, as it was a paladin that killed her in the first place... So what you have is a really nice, good-hearted, almost innocent and innocent guy who happened to be wronged by the world and his only hope was the dark arts... and he keeps freaking his fellow companions out by talking to a frickin' skull... What would be his alignment? You be the judge.
shaynajassan 10-25-06, 12:42 PM	Zombies are only evil in a system where negative enegry is evil unto itself (like Greyhawk). In Forgotten Realms postive enegry is not inherently good and negative enegry is not inherently evil, so good or neutral undead exist (such as the good elf liches).
Aufenshauft 10-26-06, 03:06 PM	[QUOTE=camirblu] The kicker there is you'd have to respect free will. And still, what you do can harm others but well. [QUOTE] That comment hits it on the head. Respect for the dead. I could see a good necromancer going from town to town in the outlands and offering to animate animal skeletons as emergency troops to defend the town. Even animating the bodies of the townspeople if they would be willing to defend the town after death. This would take a lot of diplomacy, but it is possible that if you prove yourself and make a point of becoming more than a necromancer in their eyes, you can make life better for others while truly respecting the dead even after their souls are gone. It's just hard to get that kind of repuation.
furor 10-27-06, 05:19 PM	necromancy actually describes divination with the dead, it was the art of "psychics" in ancient greece. It was not considered evil at all, consider even using animate dead, but make the distinction that your necromancer actually converses with the souls ahead of time, and possibly uses the souls of their ancestors to possess these undead.
Empirate 11-05-06, 04:27 PM	One should probably get clear about negative energy. Is negative energy inherently evil, or are negative and positive energy just two sides of the whole universe, and both needed for the world to function correctly? If the former, forget the good necromancer. There is no negative spell descriptor as such, but it can safely be assumed that most Necromancy spells make use of negative energy. If the latter, it would be a bit like using antimatter instead of matter for a (science fiction) physicist. No big deal, as long as you watch the consequences of what you're doing. You might easily destroy more than you reckoned with. Also, you must of course not cast anything that has the evil spell descriptor. Magic Jar should also be banned, IMO, as well as Enervation and Energy Drain. Oh, and don't try and command intelligent undead for anything other than keeping them out of a fight. They should have free will, after all. But this is much like a discussion on Dominate Person being evil or not.