Post/Author/DateTime	Post
malignor 01-29-07, 05:43 PM	Hello. This thread is ironic. Especially since this subject has been beaten to death, and here I am animating it. :D However, I think this situation has a touch of a unique twist. The characters Doriatt (me) - CG Elven Sorcerer/Ranger Moss - LG Human VoP Monk Goram - NG Human Cleric of Tempus (War & Strength Domains) Nalfein - NG Half-Drow Druid/Fighter Notice we're all good guys. The situation - We have recently taken a pirate ship and use it for our own. Hired a crew and such. - Doriatt (as in my character) bought a scroll of Animate Dead. I figure the next evil guys we slay, I'll animate as skeletons. then I'll dress em up in padded armor so they don't look so scary, and use them as unskilled laborers to help with the ship's duties. The opinions - Doriatt (my character) figures if he animates the dead of evil guys anyway, and using the skeletons to help further the goals of good guys (the group & crew), it's okay. Sure, he's performing an evil act by casting the actual spell, but what's wrong with using the tools of evil for good means to a good end? Besides, we've killed alot of things, took their stuff and left them to rot, which is not very altruistic at all. Animating dead for benevolent reasons seems more decent an act that the disrespect we've shown for our enemies in the past. - Moss (the VoP monk of Ilmater) argues that some of his abilities are especially made for fighting undead, therefore he must be against all undead. - Goram (the NG priest of war & strength) thinks it's pretty cool that I'm giving fallen warriors a chance to once again prove themselves in battle. - Nalfein (the NG druid/fighter) said he'll destroy any undead I make, because they're unnatural, and letting them exist is failing to revere nature, which would take away his druidic power. - The DM agrees that I'd be asking for trouble, and stepping on my comrades' toes by animating some skeletons. Even though I'm only animating evil beings we've already killed and would normally leave to rot. He thinks they would be justified in trying to stop me, or in destroying my skeletons (even though they're no threat to anyone). Arguments - I know casting Animate Dead is an evil act. But one evil act (especially for genuinely altruistic purposes) does not make me evil. I will not lose alignment... even the DM agrees with that. - If the druid can not suffer to let unnatural things exist, he should be trying to wipe out the city we're in right now. Yet here he (begrudgingly) walks the streets, taking no action against the metropolis. If he can let a city stand, untouched by his hand, he can let a few skeletons help out on a ship (which is also technically unnatural). - The VoP monk's exalted abilities do indeed work great on undead. But I'm a ranger with Preferred Enemy - Elf (I hunt drow for taking my family away). My abilities are geared toward overcoming elves. So does that mean I must be against all elves, never being selective? I even have to destroy all Elves who are acting for a better future? Obviously not. That's like saying all soldiers, who are trained to kill people, must therefore hate & kill all people, everywhere. Absurd. What do you folks think? Who is right? What are we missing? Is there anything RAW that says Druids are unconditionally against the existence of undead? How about Ilmater? Tempus? Nobody can provide sources, and nobody can provide logical arguments. But I'm outnumbered here, so maybe there's something they can't quite get across, or something they know that I don't. Discuss.
Sildatorak 01-29-07, 06:21 PM	- I know casting Animate Dead is an evil act. But one evil act (especially for genuinely altruistic purposes) does not make me evil. I will not lose alignment... even the DM agrees with that. Heck, you even have to stretch to show that casting [evil] spells is evil. Casting [fire] spells doesn't make you any more fiery. As far as the other players, neither should be in danger of losing their powers based on suffering undead to live (unlive?). It is reasonably in character for them to be opposed to the creation and continued existance of these skellies. They don't need to appeal to game rules to justify their characters' opposition to this course of action. Not every druid or exalted character would be necessarily be opposed to a skeleton crew, but there are almost assuredly some who are.
Shaftiel 01-29-07, 06:42 PM	As written, it's evil, and for good reason... a creature that has been animated (even as a skeleton or zombie) can't be raised or resurrected. You are binding their souls to their decaying corpses, delaying their journey to the afterlife so they can carry your luggage. And depending on how things turn out, their souls could be stuck in those corpses for centuries. Or even longer. IMO, this is FAR more evil than simply killing someone, as you are indefinitely delaying their eternal punishment/redemption/reward. But hey, someone needs to carry your stuff. :D Evil evil evil. No question about it. -Shaftiel
Vegepygmy 01-29-07, 06:50 PM	Sure, he's performing an evil act by casting the actual spell, but what's wrong with using the tools of evil for good means to a good end?What's wrong with it is that you're still doing something evil. How evil it is is another question. Is it wrong to kill 50 innocent babies (i.e., "use the tools of evil") for a good end (say, to extend one old man's life another year)? How about to enslave the souls of a dozen not-so-innocent people so a group of presumably selfless heroes can more easily do their good deeds? More importantly, though, several members of your group seem to be pretty adamantly opposed to the idea, so why bother? Destroying your animated dead will be child's play for them to accomplish, and (unless you are quite mad) you're not going to do what it would take to stop them. I know casting Animate Dead is an evil act. But one evil act (especially for genuinely altruistic purposes) does not make me evil. I will not lose alignment... even the DM agrees with that.That's quite true. But it's a pretty wicked thing to do, IMO, and if I were the DM I'd watch you very closely from that point on. It wouldn't take much more for me to shift your alignment. If the druid can not suffer to let unnatural things exist, he should be trying to wipe out the city we're in right now.Revering nature and despising civilization are not the same thing. The walking dead are much, much more of an affront to nature than urban sprawl. What do you folks think? Who is right?This is not a "right or wrong" issue. It's a "good vs. evil" issue. You claim your character is Good, yet he is quite willing to do Evil when it suits him. That his goal is Good is ultimately not as significant as that fact. It is a common fantasy trope that the BBEG started off with good intentions, but took "the easy way" a few too many times and wound up Evil. Your comrades want to stick a little closer to the light, is all. Is there anything RAW that says Druids are unconditionally against the existence of undead?Unconditionally? No, not exactly. There's just this (from the class description): "While druids accept that which is horrific or cruel in nature, they hate that which is unnatural, including aberrations (such as beholders and carrion crawlers) and undead (such as zombies and vampires)."
malignor 01-29-07, 06:59 PM	As written, it's evil, and for good reason... a creature that has been animated (even as a skeleton or zombie) can't be raised or resurrected. You are binding their souls to their decaying corpses, delaying their journey to the afterlife so they can carry your luggage. And depending on how things turn out, their souls could be stuck in those corpses for centuries. Or even longer.Where does it say that the souls are bound to the undead shells? I've heard it before but I need a reference. Aside from that, if I'm delaying evil souls from going to the lower plains, am I not therefore hindering evil from the cosmic perspective?IMO, this is FAR more evil than simply killing someone, as you are indefinitely delaying their eternal punishment/redemption/reward. But hey, someone needs to carry your stuff. :DOr help our worthy crew of the Lucky Mermaid to keep the ship safe and in fair waters, in my case. Anyway, "darn right!" :DEvil evil evil. No question about it.Yup. Evil. Says so in the spell description, and I accept it.This is not a "right or wrong" issue. It's a "good vs. evil" issue. You claim your character is Good, yet he is quite willing to do Evil when it suits him.I'm actually doing it so my ship's crew can (after getting accustomed to having skeletons on the ship) work more efficiently with a bunch of skeletal helpers to do the grunt work. They're a loyal lot and deserve the benefits of tireless and unquestioning assistants. Skeletons can never replace thinking, skilled sailors. But they can certainly help them do their job better and safer. Plus, when we're in port, I bet having a bunch of skeletons on the ship will deter many a stowaway or thief. = = = = = I guess one thing I should add is that I would totally be cool if their opinions were just that - opinions. But they claim that the rules back them up, which I just don't see. If they just said "don't do it because I don't like it. I don't need a written reason to like it, I just don't" then that's fine. I think my biggest gripe is that they were right there with me when I bought the scroll and didn't say anything until after the transaction. So to comply with their wishes means I wasted 1000gp (out of my 2000) because they decided to go along until it was too late. If they don't want me to do it, then buy the scroll off me and dispose of it yourself. I won't throw away my money just because they want to throw a badly-timed complaint at me. :P
Salla 01-29-07, 07:19 PM	Actually, as a good cleric, I don't think you *can* use that scroll. Since (via PHB rules) you can't cast Evil spells, effectively that spell is not on your list ... thus, without UMD, you can't use it. I could be wrong on this, but that's what my brain is telling me.
malignor 01-29-07, 07:26 PM	Actually, as a good cleric, I don't think you *can* use that scroll. Since (via PHB rules) you can't cast Evil spells, effectively that spell is not on your list ... thus, without UMD, you can't use it. I could be wrong on this, but that's what my brain is telling me.I'm doing it (the Sorcerer) because the Cleric can't (as a good guy). Arcane casters, even good ones, can cast evil spells to their hearts' content. Though it may be the case that they run the risk of turning evil, as casting en evil spell is an evil act.
HellflameArcanite 01-29-07, 07:44 PM	Actually, I think that your cleric's opinion is incorrect. You are not giving the fallen warriors a chance to prove themselves in battle; you are making them marionettes with magic for strings. Even if they were not, you have said that they will merely be a skeleton crew for your ship. As for your druid, his kind does abbhor undead and abberations and the like, but the city and the ship are just about as unnatural as an ivory carving. Nowhere does it say that druids are all for returning the world to what it was, before humans and the common races could even form full thoughts. Also, I believe that the souls of the reanimated bodies are not bound into them once more; the reason they can't be ressurrected is probably because the body is already occupied by your magical force.
Tavatanuse 01-29-07, 07:51 PM	[QUOTE=Salla;11327126]Actually, as a good cleric, I don't think you *can* use that scroll. QUOTE] Except hes not a cleric, hes the Sorceranger. Three things strike me about this. 1) You’re a ranger. Wouldn’t they lean a little more toward the preservation of natural order? Unless of course you’re more the avenging ranger, less the natural type. 2) You are justified in wanting to use the scroll here. I could see saying animating them for a while is manual labor, a penalty for their crimes...assuming you plan on letting them go at some point. The druid however, is justified in wanting to stop you. Just because he isn’t launching a hopeless attack on a city doesn’t mean stopping an evil that’s within his power to stop makes him a hypocrite 3) Being good at killing something doesnt mean you should go ahead and kill it. Perhaps if you worked out a time frame for the undead to serve?
Ventilatory_Threshold 01-29-07, 08:03 PM	Explain to the guy that Undead are not unnatural except in his opinion and that he (the character) has no right to force his own ethics on you. BTW, casting Animate Dead is not an Evil act, and unless your DM specifically says so, the existence of an Undead does not prevent its soul from carrying on.
Lafing Cat 01-29-07, 08:06 PM	Where does it say that the souls are bound to the undead shells? I've heard it before but I need a reference. You can resurrect someone killed by a death effect or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed. You cannot resurrect someone who has died of old age. Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can’t be resurrected. Since they can't be resurrected while undead, but can be after the undead has been destroyed, obviously being undead prevents the normal movement of your soul. Which is by the rules, and in my opinon, is a very evil act.
Ventilatory_Threshold 01-29-07, 08:08 PM	Since they can't be resurrected while undead, but can be after the undead has been destroyed, obviously being undead prevents the normal movement of your soul. It could be construed as the creature can't be resurrected because there is already a soul inhabiting the body. Undead can also be raised via True Resurrection. Which is by the rules, and in my opinon, is a very evil act. Not by the rules, actually.
NerdNumber1 01-29-07, 08:12 PM	Since they can't be resurrected while undead, but can be after the undead has been destroyed, obviously being undead prevents the normal movement of your soul. Which is by the rules, and in my opinon, is a very evil act. Not nessasarily. If so then death effects and dieing of old age would mess with the movement of your soul. Also, for extremely evil enemies, preventing their resurrection might save innocent lives.
megeddo 01-29-07, 08:13 PM	The DM here: I think the druid argument was perfectly valid. Undead are an abhorrently unnatural force. Good and even neutral druids will be extremely opposed to it. I will look for the supplemental source that supports this, but I don't need rules to throw this argument at you. It's just plain common sense. Then your counter argument was, what if someone gets caught up in something in the middle of the forest, like getting trapped in a mire, they die and then become an undead. What then? Answer: Undead cannot be created by any natural means. If there is something in the middle of the forest that turns dead things into undead things, then it is most likely an evil, unnatural force that has settled in the area as a result of something that happened years ago. Good and neutral druids, when discovering this phenomona, would try everything in their power to dispel it, or to find the source of it and destroy it. IMO, Nalfein was incredibly justified. He er... just went about it the wrong way, methinks. Oh and here are some other things I scratched up in the 10 minutes I have to dedicate to this reply. BoVD pg 8: Unliving corpses -- corrupt mockeries of life and purity -- are inherently evil. Creating them is one of the most heinous crimes against the world that a character can commit. Even if they are commanded to do something good, undead invariably bring negative energy into the world which makes it a more darker and evil place. Trapping the soul of a creature when animating its corpse is seomthing I remember reading in the source somewhere, as well as in many fantasy novels I have read based on DnD... For now I won't throw that at you, until I find the source eventually, but Malignor... about messing with the souls of evil beings, here's a source to put a damper on that stance: BoVD pg 8: While harming one's enemies physically is not inherently villainous, harming their souls is ALWAYS evil. Only the foulest of villains would want to cause pain to someone's eternal aspect. ......... then it goes on to say that good characters dispatch their enemies quickly, thinking that sending their souls to the justice of the afterlife is enough. Some more reasons why it is bad, mmmkay? These reasons are based on roleplay and common sense. All of the good dieties of Faerun are against undeath. Dieties are primal forces, and their alignments are their bread and butter. A chaotic good diety, is chaotic and good with little to no compromise. If all good dieties abhor undeath, and Kelemvor who is the good god of death has clergy that tirelessly hunt down undead to destroy them, then it must be unacceptable behavior to raise them. The common man, such as the sailors on your ship, are incredibly fearful of the undeath. Every Faerunian fears that they will be stolen from their graves after they die to be raised as an undead. Animating the dead is something the drow relish in. You animate dead to serve your own purposes, whether they are of good intent or bad intent, you become more and more like your hated enemy. A bunch of mindless skeletons will only serve to scare away your crew, or get in their way should they decide to remain on board. You also insult your crew by hiring mindless skeletons to "help" them do the job you pay THEM to do. A bunch of mindless skeletons will scare away the thieves, but it will attract other adventurers who have been hired to put you and your undead to rest. etc, etc... 1) You’re a ranger. Wouldn’t they lean a little more toward the preservation of natural order? Unless of course you’re more the avenging ranger, less the natural type. Oh and he is an AVENGING ranger, so natural order is not something he has made a priority.
Lafing Cat 01-29-07, 08:18 PM	Undead can also be raised via True Resurrection. Incorrect! You can revive someone killed by a death effect or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed. This spell can also resurrect elementals or outsiders, but it can’t resurrect constructs or undead creatures. As for it being an evil act by the rules, the PHB says that [tags] interact with alignment, and both the BOVD and Complete Scoundrel have said casting an [Alignment] spell is an Alignment act. Sorry.
robertliguori 01-29-07, 08:19 PM	You've already out-argued Moss. To continue, point out that if soul energy is involved in mindless-undead, you are weakening the fiendish planes (which is good), or if it's not, you're commiting a victimless crime. He can disapprove (and probably will as an Exalted), but destruction of undead is not inherently Good. Once the deed is done, he's under no ethical obligation to kill your skeletons. Retaliate that the preservation of nature is an aesthetic you already oppose. Point out all the wonderful things animals do to each other. Ask him if he reveres the way some wasps lay eggs inside catterpillers so that the catterpillers are devoured from the inside out by the wasp larvae, or the fact that adult lions will kill cubs unrelated to them to bring them back into heat. Also, bring up planar mechanics; spontaneously-generated undead happen all the time. If he wants to claim that undead have no place in the local ecosystem, point him at the city and ask him to compute the relative environmental damage of undead (which do not interfere with the ecosystem at all) versus the city. Finally, conclude that you don't give two toots about what a load of archons or gods say; you know every single effect that animating dead can produce, you know that no harm will result of you doing this, and you know that you will help people by doing this. If Good disagrees with this, then Good can go jump in a lake; you're here to help people, not uphold meaningless cosmic principles.
Lafing Cat 01-29-07, 08:20 PM	Not nessasarily. If so then death effects and dieing of old age would mess with the movement of your soul. Also, for extremely evil enemies, preventing their resurrection might save innocent lives. Death effects don't stop you from being Ressurected. Also, for extremely evil enemies, killing them in their sleep might also save innocent lives, but killing a defenseless target is still an evil act. This isn't a question of whether the ends justify the means, its a question of what kind of act the means are.
Cold Napalm 01-29-07, 08:25 PM	BTW, casting Animate Dead is not an Evil act, and unless your DM specifically says so, the existence of an Undead does not prevent its soul from carrying on. No actually it very much is by RAW. Casting spells with the evil descriptor by raw is an evil act and casting a spell with a good descriptor is a good act. The druid can be as anti-undead as he wants. He needs no rules to back it up. Hell any character can be I WILL destroy undead on sight if they want. The main thing about the rules is the exalted character. You are doings an EVIL act. Remember that exalted characters make the paladin looks like a chain smoking, whiskey drinkin scum bag. They can not abide by ANY evil act and your definately doing one, so by the rules, I think the exalted character very much has an issue with you casting that spell. Either he correctes your behavior so you never do that again, or he's no longer exalted. Now I mean since this is a RP restriction, it is untilmately up to your DM but in my game, if your exalted and you do nothing while a party member casts an evil spell, your no longer exalted.
megeddo 01-29-07, 08:28 PM	You've already out-argued Moss. To continue, point out that if soul energy is involved in mindless-undead, you are weakening the fiendish planes (which is good), or if it's not, you're commiting a victimless crime. He can disapprove (and probably will as an Exalted), but destruction of undead is not inherently Good. Once the deed is done, he's under no ethical obligation to kill your skeletons. Ilmater obligates him to this. Retaliate that the preservation of nature is an aesthetic you already oppose. Point out all the wonderful things animals do to each other. Ask him if he reveres the way some wasps lay eggs inside catterpillers so that the catterpillers are devoured from the inside out by the wasp larvae, or the fact that adult lions will kill cubs unrelated to them to bring them back into heat. Also, bring up planar mechanics; spontaneously-generated undead happen all the time. If he wants to claim that undead have no place in the local ecosystem, point him at the city and ask him to compute the relative environmental damage of undead (which do not interfere with the ecosystem at all) versus the city. A pointless argument. No offense. There is a food chain hierarchy. Predators eat meat to survive in the wild. Herbivores eat plants to survive. The difficulty of the hunt, and other factors such as injury, and other predators curb the predators. Predators curb the herbivore population, who in turn curb the plant growth. Druids would like nothing more than wipe cities away from their world, but they are not stupid enough to actually act on that wish. Finally, conclude that you don't give two toots about what a load of archons or gods say; you know every single effect that animating dead can produce, you know that no harm will result of you doing this, and you know that you will help people by doing this. If Good disagrees with this, then Good can go jump in a lake; you're here to help people, not uphold meaningless cosmic principles. Sure you can do this. This effectively makes you evil though. Sorry mate, but in a game world where evil is a tangible substance, to simply state that you don't give a toot what the gods thinks, while committing an evil act... to help man a ship no less... , results in the damnation of your soul. Also I am sure Dorriatt wants to keep his friends and his reputation intact.
Ventilatory_Threshold 01-29-07, 08:34 PM	Answer: Undead cannot be created by any natural means. If there is something in the middle of the forest that turns dead things into undead things, then it is most likely an evil, unnatural force that has settled in the area as a result of something that happened years ago. Good and neutral druids, when discovering this phenomona, would try everything in their power to dispel it, or to find the source of it and destroy it. It's called Negative Energy. It is a natural part of the multiverse. However, this is your campaign and if you rule it that way, do it. I'm pointing out things as they stand. All of the good dieties of Faerun are against undeath. Dieties are primal forces, and their alignments are their bread and butter. A chaotic good diety, is chaotic and good with little to no compromise. If all good dieties abhor undeath, and Kelemvor who is the good god of death has clergy that tirelessly hunt down undead to destroy them, then it must be unacceptable behavior to raise them. Wrong. This is a logical fallacy. The fact that every Good-aligned deity hates Undead has no bearing on their inherent alignment (in this case: Neutral, unless you rule otherwise). Animating the dead is something the drow relish in. You animate dead to serve your own purposes, whether they are of good intent or bad intent, you become more and more like your hated enemy. This is the slippery slope argument. In this case it doesn't seem valid. Incorrect! Hmmm... I guess I remembered it incorrectly. No matter. It does not affect my argument. As for it being an evil act by the rules, the PHB says that [tags] interact with alignment The alignment of who? All of the other listed items apply to the target, so this one does, too. and both the BOVD and Complete Scoundrel have said casting an [Alignment] spell is an Alignment act. Sorry. And neither has specifically stated that it overrules Core material (vital for it to be admissible to a rules argument). Also, for extremely evil enemies, killing them in their sleep might also save innocent lives, but killing a defenseless target is still an evil act. Wrong. It is a dishonorable act, not an Evil one.
robertliguori 01-29-07, 08:42 PM	The DM here: I think the druid argument was perfectly valid. Undead are an abhorrently unnatural force. Good and even neutral druids will be extremely opposed to it. I will look for the supplemental source that supports this, but I don't need rules to throw this argument at you. It's just plain common sense. Humanity is an abhorrently unnatural force. If the druid isn't compelled to murder farmers, then he isn't compelled to kill undead. Heck, farmers make more farmers, perpetuating the problem; mindless undead just do what is ordered. Then your counter argument was, what if someone gets caught up in something in the middle of the forest, like getting trapped in a mire, they die and then become an undead. What then? Answer: Undead cannot be created by any natural means. If there is something in the middle of the forest that turns dead things into undead things, then it is most likely an evil, unnatural force that has settled in the area as a result of something that happened years ago. Good and neutral druids, when discovering this phenomona, would try everything in their power to dispel it, or to find the source of it and destroy it. Not sure about Faerunian planar traits, but by the book, you can dump someone on the Negative Energy Plane and have them become undead naturally. Oh and here are some other things I scratched up in the 10 minutes I have to dedicate to this reply. Trapping the soul of a creature when animating its corpse is seomthing I remember reading in the source somewhere, as well as in many fantasy novels I have read based on DnD... For now I won't throw that at you, until I find the source eventually, but Malignor... about messing with the souls of evil beings, here's a source to put a damper on that stance: This has been debated ad infinitum. There is nothing stating that being made into an undead noticably effects your soul. While your body is undead, your soul cannot conventionally return from its resting place, but this isn't because your soul is being affected, it's because your body isn't available for you to be ressurected into. All of the good dieties of Faerun are against undeath. Dieties are primal forces, and their alignments are their bread and butter. A chaotic good diety, is chaotic and good with little to no compromise. If all good dieties abhor undeath, and Kelemvor who is the good god of death has clergy that tirelessly hunt down undead to destroy them, then it must be unacceptable behavior to raise them. So it's Evil. That doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. The common man, such as the sailors on your ship, are incredibly fearful of the undeath. Every Faerunian fears that they will be stolen from their graves after they die to be raised as an undead. Then you can educate your crew, and explain and demonstrate that without being controlled with rebuking or other magic, your undead are demonstratably less likely to harm them than any other crew. A human can decide to murder the crew in their sleep, because it would be fun. A skeleton never will. Plus, with enough dedicated undead doing stuff, you won't need a crew. You just need to get enough undead to actuate every moving part on the ship, and set up a control system such that when you say "Hard to starboard!" one skeleton turns the rudder, another adjusts the sails, a third hauls on some rope, and so on and so forth. Animating the dead is something the drow relish in. You animate dead to serve your own purposes, whether they are of good intent or bad intent, you become more and more like your hated enemy. The drow also relish sex, and booze. These are not meaningful reasons to abstain from hence. Come to that, the fiends have been locked in an eons-long multiplanar war over abstracts of alignment. The PC doesn't want to act fiendish, so he should judge situations on whether or not they help people, rather than whether or not they ping an alignment detector. A bunch of mindless skeletons will only serve to scare away your crew, or get in their way should they decide to remain on board. You also insult your crew by hiring mindless skeletons to "help" them do the job you pay THEM to do. These are engineering and HR problems, respectively. All that is necessary is to find sufficently open-minded sailing assistants, and to position the undead where their talents will be useful (hauling rope, lifting things, and so on) and their deficencies will not be crippling (don't have an undead cook.) A bunch of mindless skeletons will scare away the thieves, but it will attract other adventurers who have been hired to put you and your undead to rest. Now we get to proper pragmatic reasons. Undead attract attention; there are no two ways about it. Moreover, a squadron of hit-paladins will probably cause half of your party to stand aside and invite them on board. Ultimately, the best thing to do with this is to treat Undead as a "Summon Holy Thugs" effect. When the divine hitmen show up, volunteer to destroy the undead yourself at the end of your current mission, if the paladins assist you in killing the Evil of the Week. DM, for the record: if you don't want him animating dead, the proper response is to say "I don't want you to be animating the dead. Here's a scroll of my custom spell Lesser Animate Objects and Permanency instead." Don't just try to make it difficult to do so and gain reward; PCs are people who overcome difficulties and gain rewards thereby. Also, you can juggle the rules a bit. If uncontrolled undead do go off on mindless killing sprees, and there is a chance that the undead could become uncontrolled if not used for generic evil purpouses, then it becomes perfectly reasonable not to use undead. But as the rules stand, calling the animation of the dead evil just means that a particular planar energy type akin to Fire or Earth opposes them, and another supports them.
tyrecian 01-29-07, 08:43 PM	I play a wizard, and we recently had this discussion when a Pally enterred our party. Basically, i was allowed to cast [evil] descriptor spells, but there was a reason that they had the evil descriptor, and since it was in core, that reason is not a houserule. Essentially the Pally (and the RSoP in the party as healer) have argued that if i am going to (as a NG char) summon a demon, then they would have to turn agianst me, for coersion is neither good, nor would it be good to use an evil slave for good, since 2 wrongs do not make a right. Heck, they even went so far as to suggest that me using Lesser Planar Binding to get any other planar creature would be against the pally if i was to use magic circles and dim anchors, because it would be against the will of the creature. Although that is a houserule, you can see how clearly we as a party generally define our boundaries. As for undead, we dont bother. The only necros we have ever had play have either been evil, or neutral with evil concept (i.e. the chaotic Neut who plays with the pally, whose creator knows he wants to play a high end BGuard). I think that the argument must end in the fact that the descriptor is evil, and while you are not necessarily turning evil to cast it (as you said you and your GM discussed) you also admit that it is an evil act, and dont dispute this at all. Therefore whether your alignment changes or not, the character of your PC has changed. Like the LG paladin who hates his enemy so much he tortures his captured leutenants to learn of his whereabouts, or the CGood Barb who rages and kills all the bystanders in a blodo frenzy because his priest and party member has been killed by the rogue who was known to the villagers as an evil person. These characters are over the top, and perhaps somewhat justified by their actions. The GM might not change their alignments but that would not mean that their actions would then be simply ignored. Oh no, renegades are made in such ways. Whether or not your party eventually agreed, and whether your GM declares you not to need an alignment readjust, i wouldnt expect such an action to be forgotten. Using undead to man a ship is an act of evil. It is a disgrace. It can be justified in mind, but not in deed. It is the very personification of evil slavery. A ship of good characters would probably make more than the average oarsmen and swabber, and have time off at night to listen to the bard besides. Still if you are looking for an easy way out for your characters to get labor, then you simply need to look at the leadership feat. The "followers" are a much better route for a good party to go than through undeath. while i can see the rules lawyerring that you are attempting to go through to justify the purchase of an incredibly expensive scroll, i would implore you to remember that such things should be applied to the common sense rule first. That being said, do what you like, but dont be suprised when your concept of "good" by the rules (i.e. my GM says i wont change alignment, but what does your PC think....? Do you roleplay? or are you trying to get by without paying more hirelings? They arent hard to find...) meets some incredibly stiff opposition from the "good" that others in your party have definitions of. for my 2cp when i asked about having a demon for the fight, my paladin told me that such action would lead to a problem. A problem because he would have to fight my summon first, and then because he would probably have to take me into some kind of temple where the law was pretty clear about summoning forth evil creatures. I could do it, but i would have to be prepared for what such outlandish behavior might create behaviorwise in the other members of my party. Then again, i can see your point, although i tend to go with your more flabbergasted party members. I would suggest that you speak with your GM about getting another spell. perhaps if you are off core, maybe a few casting of mass unseen servant. I guess with alignment issues it is always a question of PC's thoughts. For instance a CGood character might sell someone some marijuana, and see nothing wrong with it... Meanwhile a LGood character and a LEvil magistrate might work together to see him incarcerated for breaking the law. Depends on the campaign. I have been privy also to campaigns where Paladins worked for Devils against Demons in the service of greater good.
Ventilatory_Threshold 01-29-07, 08:50 PM	In addition to Negative Energy being a natural energy in the multiverse (to keep everything from exploding from Positive Energy overload), the term 'natural order' means nothing to anyone except Druids (and maybe a few other people).
robertliguori 01-29-07, 09:00 PM	Ilmater obligates him to this. And reason and empathy obliges the ranger to increase his capacity to help people. One of these two is going to have to abandon their principles. In-game, I'd argue for the monk, just because Exalted benefits are greater than that provided by the undead. However, I'd also argue that an exalted character that, if told that something would help people, hurt no-one, but was not Good, would reply "**** Good, then." A pointless argument. No offense. There is a food chain hierarchy. Predators eat meat to survive in the wild. Herbivores eat plants to survive. The difficulty of the hunt, and other factors such as injury, and other predators curb the predators. Predators curb the herbivore population, who in turn curb the plant growth. Druids would like nothing more than wipe cities away from their world, but they are not stupid enough to actually act on that wish. *shrug* The natural world provides no benefits that sufficently advanced magic cannot replicate. The natural world provides a great deal of disadvantages over a world run by mages with continual-use Create Food and Water / bottles of air. Why, ethically speaking, should the druid's desire to have the natural world around trump an opposing desire to stop, say, the weak from being culled by plague? "Because I'm a druid and you're a multiclassed primary caster, so I can beat you up." is a valid reason in-game, but it's not much of a moral argument. Sure you can do this. This effectively makes you evil though. Sorry mate, but in a game world where evil is a tangible substance, to simply state that you don't give a toot what the gods thinks, while committing an evil act... to help man a ship no less... , results in the damnation of your soul. Also I am sure Dorriatt wants to keep his friends and his reputation intact. "OK, so I'm evil. My behavior changes in no way, shape, or form. And as for damnation, well, if the good gods care more about animating the dead than they do about actually ****ing doing something about all of the ****ed-up **** in the world, then **** them." And you now run into the problem that has plagued moral absolutists from the beginning. The ability to declare an action arbitrarily Good or Evil without considering how the action will affect actual, real people just means that Good and Evil are not meaningful moral labels.
Edge_of_Oblivion 01-29-07, 09:40 PM	And reason and empathy obliges the ranger to increase his capacity to help people. One of these two is going to have to abandon their principles. In-game, I'd argue for the monk, just because Exalted benefits are greater than that provided by the undead. However, I'd also argue that an exalted character that, if told that something would help people, hurt no-one, but was not Good, would reply "**** Good, then." This is entirely metagame thinking, simply supporting one side for the power involved and not the roleplay. Way to go. (And no, the Stormwind Fallacy does not apply here.)
journeyman777 01-29-07, 10:05 PM	Humanity is an abhorrently unnatural force.That are more likely to become druids than any core race besides elves? There is nothing unnatural about your typical human, even less so for the typical farmer who knows and respects natures cycles. but by the book, you can dump someone on the Negative Energy Plane and have them become undead naturally.and there they stay. No offence, but the typical druid neither knows nor cares what happens on other planes. "Natural" is relative to the druid's native plain, not the entire cosmology. So it's Evil. That doesn't mean that it's a bad idea.It does if your alignment is good (even more so if exalted). "The ends justify the means" is a neutral philosophy (good intent+evil act=neutral) at best. Wrong. It is a dishonorable act, not an Evil one.I'd like to see a quote to that effect, because every source I've seen defines killing helpless people as EVIL (no mention of it being chaotic anywhere). And you now run into the problem that has plagued moral absolutists from the beginning. The ability to declare an action arbitrarily Good or Evil without considering how the action will affect actual, real people just means that Good and Evil are not meaningful moral labels.And you now run into the problem that has plagued mortal philosophers from the beginning. You lack of the knowledge, senses, and experience that comes with being a god. Your character is no more equipped to accurately evalute their judgements as "arbitrary" or not than an elementary school child is to evaluate the accuracy of a paper on nuclear physics. The gods know far better than you do "how the action will affect actual, real people". Since the gods are npcs and the DM has already confirmed that Ilmater will not tolerate his follower passively accepting the use of evil creatures, there isn't even room for a special case argument. The rest of the party needs to just buy the scroll off of him.
robertliguori 01-29-07, 11:02 PM	That are more likely to become druids than any core race besides elves? There is nothing unnatural about your typical human, even less so for the typical farmer who knows and respects natures cycles. The 'typical farmer' will have cleared acres of natural growth to raise a thoroughly-unnatural monoculture of plants. If this is natural, then 'natural' is meaningless. Plus, the killoren's smite ability affects "aberrations, constructs, humanoids, oozes, outsiders, and undead." If any of the above are unnatural, so are humanity, by the book. and there they stay. No offence, but the typical druid neither knows nor cares what happens on other planes. "Natural" is relative to the druid's native plain, not the entire cosmology. Planar handbook does not appear to back you up on this. E'en so, the point remains that undead can come about without the intervention of others. "What the world does without our interaction" is a generally-accepted definition of natural; if you have another, I'd like to hear it. It does if your alignment is good (even more so if exalted). "The ends justify the means" is a neutral philosophy (good intent+evil act=neutral) at best. Yes. My point is that either you surrender your entire moral intuition to your pereception of Good, or you need to embrace neutrality. I mean, what would you do if a universal bit flipped, and oppressing others and causing suffering was now Good? If convinced that the planar force of Good would bring about results you consider evil (as opposed to Evil), do you support it just because it's your declared side? If so, what makes you any better than a supporter of Evil, or of Fire or Air? And you now run into the problem that has plagued mortal philosophers from the beginning. You lack of the knowledge, senses, and experience that comes with being a god. Your character is no more equipped to accurately evalute their judgements as "arbitrary" or not than an elementary school child is to evaluate the accuracy of a paper on nuclear physics. The gods know far better than you do "how the action will affect actual, real people". Since the gods are npcs and the DM has already confirmed that Ilmater will not tolerate his follower passively accepting the use of evil creatures, there isn't even room for a special case argument. The rest of the party needs to just buy the scroll off of him. Ilmater is welcome to manifest Himself and explain his case. If Ilmater can demonstrate that animation of the dead causes harm or doesn't help to protect innocents, then his case can be considered. The problem is that by the book, this isn't the case. Animating dead has a series of effects, none of which necessarily cause harm. If there are unavoidable side effects to the production of animated dead which cause harm to folk, than things are different. Barring a rules change which adds these effects, the gods got nuthin'. An elementary schoolchild that reads a paper on nuclear physics that claims that the detonation of nuclear bombs will burn off Earth's atmosphere is quite competent to call BS. This is because the child can examine Earth's atmosphere, can note that nuclear bombs have been detonated, and that the conclusions of the paper are invalid. DvR do not make you logically correct. Again, this has become a moral argument, not a what-should-he-do argument.
malignor 01-30-07, 12:10 AM	Whoah. Busy while I was formatting my HDD, were we? So far, the biggest arguments here I want to address are: It's got an "Evil" descriptor for a reason. It messes with the ability to be resurrected It's casting an evil spell for convenience, so it's evil behavior I'm insulting the sailors It's a very Drow-like activityOkay, great. On to the coming to the senses. On an arbitrarily cosmic level, the spell is "evil." I have never disputed this, especially since I'm literate. However, there is no logical evidence suggesting that it's any more cruel or terrible than, say, fire, in that it is easily mishandled with destructive consequences, but can be carefully used for benevolent ones. As such I see the "evil" label as no more than some whim of a writer who didn't think things through. But the fact remains the label is there, so I'll suffer through the casting of an "evil" spell for results benefitting the good, and not harming or detracting from any innocent beings in the process. Woe is me. Good! I intend to use this spell on murderers, assassins, and servants of dark gods. The last thing we want is a bunch of them getting raised to cause more suffering in the world. Plus, I think we're detracting more from someone's ability to be rezzed just by killing them in the middle of nowhere and leaving them to decompose. The body will never be found, so it likely won't be raised either. People don't randomly waste thousands of gold pieces casting True Resurrection on missing villans... do they? I don't want the sailors to have to do thing that are demeaning, dangerous or humiliating. Cleaning up vomit, scraping barnacles off the hull, holding something steady for hours on end... there's alot of pitiful labour involved in running a ship! I'd rather have a sailor guiding a mindless, uncaring, tireless skeleton through the task than doing it himself. Less diseases, more work done with less energy. Yes, it's convenience; convenience for them. Skeletons will never replace sailors, who actually have skills, reactions and judgement. I'd never think to replace any one of our stalwart crew. In fact, by using skeletons for this sort of business, I'll be sparing them disease and danger, because all they're doing is guiding the real expendables, the undead. I see the skeletons as being sort of squires or extra pairs of hands for the sailors ("Hold this rope." "Pull!" "Lift that barrel." etc.) I personally don't gain anything except a darker reputation from outsiders, admiration from those who accept what I offer, and the peace of mind of having more help on the ship that doesn't require payment, food, rest or concern. That storm was a real eye opener. If there were skeletons on deck to do some of the non-skilled labour, good men wouldn't have been at risk. Drow do alot of things. But they don't do them exclusively. Humans, dwarves, gnomes, illithids, elves, dragons... all have done necromancy. Judge an action on its own merits, not by who does it.There is no logic behind the decision. Only feelings and opinion. If it's acknowledged that this is true, then I'll happily accept that victory, while accepting the defeat of what I see as a creative idea.
journeyman777 01-30-07, 12:42 AM	Again, this has become a moral argument, not a what-should-he-do argument.Agreed, I shall return to the OPs main points. I don't want the sailors to have to do thing that are demeaning, dangerous or humiliating. Cleaning up vomit, scraping barnacles off the hull, holding something steady for hours on end... there's alot of pitiful labour involved in running a ship! I'd rather have a sailor guiding a mindless, uncaring, tireless skeleton through the task than doing it himself. Less diseases, more work done with less energy. Yes, it's convenience; convenience for them.You are forcing them to work and operate in close quarters with the living dead (dangerous for several reasons). The undead completely lack skills or memory, so the crew will have to give precise instructions for every little task (it's like talking a 5yr old through chores, you could do most of them much easier and faster yourself). Spending your entire day walking an idiot through simple tasks is pretty demeaning too (or so my friend in tech support tells me). Skeletons will never replace sailors, who actually have skills, reactions and judgement. I'd never think to replace any one of our stalwart crew.Then why bother with them at all? Constructs are less troublesome and can actually have skill bonuses. An unseen servant swarm can also be used for the tasks you've described. I'll be sparing them disease and danger, because all they're doing is guiding the real expendables, the undead.Maybe it's just me, but most of the blue collor types I know would much rather do their job than be stuck managing a bunch of incompetents (living or dead ;) ) Besides, hanging around corpses isn't considered a good way to avoid disease. Even more, a human sailer can make will saves to resist a charm or dominate and even then a good sense motive can detect the problem. A skeleton receives no such save against rebuke/command or control undead. A single evil cleric can all but automatically subvert your skeleton crew with as little as a swift action and you would have no way to know (particularly dangerous if you have them replacing human crewmen on deck in a crisis). If there were skeletons on deck to do some of the non-skilled labour, good men wouldn't have been at risk.Really? They still need constant orders to behave in a reasonably intelligent manner. In short, you haven't reduced the number of people needed to handle a crisis, you just put the people who can respond quickly and intelligently farther from the places they need to be. An individual sailor may be at greater risk uot on the deck, but his not being there may endanger the entire ship.
NobodyRemembersThis 01-30-07, 01:08 AM	Found the rules that make this illegal!! Most of these descriptors have no game effect by themselves, but they govern how the spell interacts with other spells, with special abilities, with unusual creatures, with alignment, and so on. Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions. A ranger prepares and casts spells the way a cleric does, though he cannot lose a prepared spell to cast a cure spell in its place. A multiclass character gets all the class features of all his or her classes but must also suffer the consequences of the special restrictions of all his or her classes. See how that all works out? Here is the summary: 1.) Clerics cannot cast spells against their alignment. 2.) Rangers have all of the same spellcasting restrictions as a Cleric 3.) A multiclass sorcerer/ranger has all of the casting restrictions of his ranger class 4.) Create Undead has the [EVIL] descriptor 5.) Good Clerics/rangers/paladins cannot cast spells of opposite alignment 6.) the Neutral Good Sorcerer/Ranger cannot cast Create Undead with his current alignment. I do believe this ends the arguement.
Salla 01-30-07, 01:31 AM	I'm doing it (the Sorcerer) because the Cleric can't (as a good guy). Arcane casters, even good ones, can cast evil spells to their hearts' content. Though it may be the case that they run the risk of turning evil, as casting en evil spell is an evil act. Whoops, misread the post. My bad.
NobodyRemembersThis 01-30-07, 01:35 AM	Actually, you were right you just named the wrong caster ;)
Vegepygmy 01-30-07, 01:38 AM	1.) Clerics cannot cast spells against their alignment.Right. 2.) Rangers have all of the same spellcasting restrictions as a ClericWrong. 3.) A multiclass sorcerer/ranger has all of the casting restrictions of his ranger classWrong. 4.) Create Undead has the [EVIL] descriptorRight. 5.) Good Clerics/rangers/paladins cannot cast spells of opposite alignmentRight/wrong/right, but not for the reason you think. 6.) the Neutral Good Sorcerer/Ranger cannot cast Create Undead with his current alignment.Wrong. I do believe this ends the arguement.Wrong.
NobodyRemembersThis 01-30-07, 01:41 AM	Prove I am wrong. I quoted everything I needed as proof right out of the SRD. It is RAW, and not arguable. Disprove my quotes please. Otherwise, my progression (1-6) is 100% Irrefutable Oh, and HERE (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35) is the SRD so you can try (and fail) to disprove my arguement.
Vegepygmy 01-30-07, 01:50 AM	I'm not sufficiently interested in the topic to bother disproving you. Suffice it to say that you are reading (much) more into the text than is actually there.
NobodyRemembersThis 01-30-07, 01:55 AM	No I am not. A multiclass spellcaster has ALL of his spellcasting restricted by the constraints of any class that has. Rangers cast spells as Clerics, and are bound to the same rules as clerics because of this. Clerics cannot cast spells that violate their alignment. Thus, a multiclass Ranger/Sorcerer cannot cast spells that violate his/her alignment. An admittedly good ranger/sorcerer is unable to cast spells with the evil descriptor. It is all there in the rules. And the poster DID ask if it was proveably in the rules that he would not be allowed to cast the spell. I just happened to find it.
journeyman777 01-30-07, 02:06 AM	A multiclass character gets all the class features of all his or her classes but must also suffer the consequences of the special restrictions of all his or her classes.Consequences are something that happens after you take an action, not the actual restriction itself. Thus this is irrelevant to your point. (either because he can't cast the spell in the first place or because there is no consequences for a good sorc casting an evil spell) You need to prove the point one way or the other without that quote. An admittedly good ranger/sorcerer is unable to cast spells with the evil descriptor.You need to establish that this applies to him using a scroll of a spell that is on his class list. I'm not trying to disprove you, I just want you to make sure your logic chain doesn't have a weak link.
Decinious 01-30-07, 02:28 AM	If their chars were there with you and didn't object to you buying the scroll, then belatedly wanted to stop you from using it, I'd at least let you rewind and do something different with the gold(1000 gp is way to much for 1 mindless skeleton). Personally, I think druids and the like are way to racist. I believe undead are people too. If an undead is minding their own business and not harming anyone let them live. Let's say a crafter is killed in an accident, and the family/village is to poor to raise dead him. Now, what is the moral thing to do, A. let his family starve, B. Drain the village resources caring for the deceased's family, or C. Create undead the crafter into an intelligent undead, that doesn't need to feed on humanity to live. Personally, I have always liked the Idea of immortal taxpayers.
Cold Napalm 01-30-07, 03:39 AM	Okay to the OP, The main issue isn't the other players who aren't exalted. They can use rules as an excuse if they want but they don't even need that to be anti your idea if they wanna be and there is NOTHING you can do about it. The rules DO however support the exalted character losing power if he lets you commit an evil act that he is capable of preventing or repairing afterwards because he is EXALTED. They're RP restrictions are even more severe then a paladins. Now it is a RP restriction so very much up to the DM, but he is exalted. So many VoP build players ignore this little fact. So I would say doing this idea with a paladin in the party is a bad idea...with an exalted character your just itching for player conflicts. Oh and its a HORRIBLE idea. unseen servents and constructs can't be turned against you and those poor poor sailors by the evil cleric BBEG. If the players don't smack you down, I as a DM sure as hell would be cackling with glee over the screwage you soooo deserved by doing something so dumb. multiple CDG for everyone in their sleep!:plotting:
Ventilatory_Threshold 01-30-07, 04:04 AM	I'd like to see a quote to that effect, because every source I've seen defines killing helpless people as EVIL (no mention of it being chaotic anywhere). It is the very definition of dishonorable. I haven't seen it anywhere in Core that killing a helpless opponent is Evil. Furthermore, a Paladin is allowed to do a coup de grace (let me bring the quote when I find it). That makes it not Evil (though the dishonorable thing clashes with his CoC, yet it doesn't, for some reason).
JulesCARV 01-30-07, 04:17 AM	So... how does Jozan cast Symbol of Pain in the PHB?
robertliguori 01-30-07, 08:19 AM	You are forcing them to work and operate in close quarters with the living dead (dangerous for several reasons). The undead completely lack skills or memory, so the crew will have to give precise instructions for every little task (it's like talking a 5yr old through chores, you could do most of them much easier and faster yourself). Spending your entire day walking an idiot through simple tasks is pretty demeaning too (or so my friend in tech support tells me). How, exactly, is proximity to mindless undead dangerous? Again, humanoids can always decide to kill you. Barring rules-change or magical intervention, it is flatly impossible for a mindless undead to do the same. Also, speaking as a programmer, I would (and do, through the proxy of my company) pay a great deal of money for the chance to tell a mindless construct how to do my job, and have them do it. Again, the idea here is to supplement the crew's expertise; put the skeletons only on tasks that they can't mess up, or are actively hazardous to the crew (scrubbing barnacles off of the hull, etc.) Then why bother with them at all? Constructs are less troublesome and can actually have skill bonuses. An unseen servant swarm can also be used for the tasks you've described. Undead are cheaper; you can get a whole lot more bang for your buck in the hauling, shoving, and carrying departments with undead than you will with animated objects or unseen servant swarms. You can also use them to defend the ship in a pinch. Maybe it's just me, but most of the blue collor types I know would much rather do their job than be stuck managing a bunch of incompetents (living or dead ;) ) Besides, hanging around corpses isn't considered a good way to avoid disease. Even more, a human sailer can make will saves to resist a charm or dominate and even then a good sense motive can detect the problem. A skeleton receives no such save against rebuke/command or control undead. A single evil cleric can all but automatically subvert your skeleton crew with as little as a swift action and you would have no way to know (particularly dangerous if you have them replacing human crewmen on deck in a crisis). And here we see our disconnect. Undead aren't incompetents who need to be managed; they're tools. The idea isn't that you micromanage the skeleton to have it do everything, it's that when you need 4 sailors hauling on a line to move a sail, instead you tell 4 skeletons "Haul on this line." B: Skeletons can be rendered and kept much cleaner than humanoids. Heck, you can simply dunk each skeleton in the ocean every day if grime build-up is a concern. C: As I said, barring magical intervention, they're perfectly safe. Moreover, NPC experts are not known for their sterling saves. Plus, if it's a concern, you can pre-Command Undead the skeletons, so that you have two methods of control, or increase their turning resistance through any number of methods. Besides, a cleric powerful enough to rebuke that many undead at once or close enough to get within range could well be tossing other deadly magical effects. There's no actual vulnerability specific to undead here. Really? They still need constant orders to behave in a reasonably intelligent manner. In short, you haven't reduced the number of people needed to handle a crisis, you just put the people who can respond quickly and intelligently farther from the places they need to be. An individual sailor may be at greater risk uot on the deck, but his not being there may endanger the entire ship. It all depends on what orders they are given. As you say, the ability of your undead crew to rapidly and intelligently respond to changing circumstances is nonexistent. The ability of the block and tackle systems on the ship to do the same is simililarly limited. This does not invalidate that a ship with blocks and tackle is a more effective ship than one without.
Derren S. 01-30-07, 08:27 AM	How, exactly, is proximity to mindless undead dangerous? Again, humanoids can always decide to kill you. Barring rules-change or magical intervention, it is flatly impossible for a mindless undead to do the same. Also, speaking as a programmer, I would (and do, through the proxy of my company) pay a great deal of money for the chance to tell a mindless construct how to do my job, and have them do it. Again, the idea here is to supplement the crew's expertise; put the skeletons only on tasks that they can't mess up, or are actively hazardous to the crew (scrubbing barnacles off of the hull, etc.) You know, there is also a reason why mindless undead have an evil alignment. When uncommanded its possible that they kill every living thing they come accross. And as a programmer you should know how hard it is to make something with no intelligence to do what you want it to do and here we don't have programming languages. And here we see our disconnect. Undead aren't incompetents who need to be managed; they're tools. The idea isn't that you micromanage the skeleton to have it do everything, it's that when you need 4 sailors hauling on a line to move a sail, instead you tell 4 skeletons "Haul on this line." And you have to tell the skeletons when they should stop hauling on this line. You also have to somehow coordinate what the skeletons do as everyone of those skeeletons will haul in its own pace and will not work together with the other skeletons. Also with animate dead your controll over undead is not that big. They can either follow you or attack. The spell says nothing about foring them to work. For that you need a cleric who can command undead. Also only you can controll the undead, not the sailors. So unless you are every 24/7 and relay the commands from your sailors to the undead, as they require constant supervising, they can't be used for working on the ship.
Templetroll 01-30-07, 08:56 AM	My understanding is that only a Dread Necromancer can make skeletons and zombies do work. Animate Dead provides an animated creature that can attack, stand and wait, attack or not attack certain types of creatures or follow the caster. It is not Unseen Servant, which has delineated what types of work it can do. If the caster wants extra labor, he should get a scroll of Unseen Servant.
KurenaiYami 01-30-07, 09:04 AM	It creates an undead that will follow the master's commands to the best of it's abilities. I'd say "life this" or "push this over there" is within the abilities of a skeleton, but that's just me.
Derren S. 01-30-07, 09:08 AM	This spell turns the bones or bodies of dead creatures into undead skeletons or zombies that follow your spoken commands. The undead can follow you, or they can remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place. See the 2nd paragraph. Nothing about lifting etc. Only "follow" or "attack"
KurenaiYami 01-30-07, 09:13 AM	See the 2nd paragraph. Nothing about lifting etc. Only "follow" or "attack" Put soft pillows over their arms and have them attack boxes. The boxes won't be damaged, they'll just slide along. Tell them to stop when the box is where you want it. Somebody else will have to think of a way to make lifting work. Though I suppose them only being able to attack helps explain the evil descriptor somewhat.
NobodyRemembersThis 01-30-07, 10:52 AM	Let's try this again. Most of these descriptors have no game effect by themselves, but they govern how the spell interacts with other spells, with special abilities, with unusual creatures, with alignment, and so on. Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions. A ranger prepares and casts spells the way a cleric does, though he cannot lose a prepared spell to cast a cure spell in its place. A multiclass character gets all the class features of all his or her classes but must also suffer the consequences of the special restrictions of all his or her classes. Using a scroll is basically like casting a spell. A spell successfully activated from a scroll works exactly like a spell prepared and cast the normal way. See how that all works out? Here is the summary: 1.) Clerics cannot cast spells against their alignment. 2.) Rangers have all of the same spellcasting restrictions as a Cleric 3.) A multiclass sorcerer/ranger has all of the casting restrictions of his ranger class 4.) Create Undead has the [EVIL] descriptor 5.) Good Clerics/rangers/paladins cannot cast spells of opposite alignment 6.) the Neutral Good Sorcerer/Ranger cannot cast Create Undead with his current alignment. 7.) Scrolls follow the same rules/restrictions as spells (see quotes) Again, this is all a moot point, as the charcter is, by the rules, incapable of casting the spell with his Neutral Good Alignment.
Ventilatory_Threshold 01-30-07, 11:00 AM	Put soft pillows over their arms and have them attack boxes. The boxes won't be damaged, they'll just slide along. Tell them to stop when the box is where you want it. Excellent idea.
Shaftiel 01-30-07, 12:13 PM	Holy cow, it's still going. First, thanks to NobodyRemembersThis. I like your arguement and am going to use it in my own games. Makes a lot of sense even if someone does eventually manage to knock it down by RAW. But more importantly - y'all are missing the feeling for 3.5 D&D skeletons. They aren't Disneyfied machines animated by a magical subroutine. They are corpses into which the souls of their former owners have been condemned for an eternity. That's why skeletons are evil, animate dead is evil, and the individuals in question can't be raised until the skellies are destroyed - even by True Rez, which creates a whole new body. If nothing else, it's evil because your character is pulling the soul out of whatever the regular cosmological progression for dead things is and sticking it in a corpse so it can carry your luggage. I mean, sure you may prevent a mass-murderer from getting raised, but you are also preventing his eternal torment or redemption or whatever normally happens. IMO saying that you know what's better for a soul than the gods who normally handle that stuff is pride and arrogance to such a degree that it's absolutely evil. -Shaftiel
Ventilatory_Threshold 01-30-07, 12:34 PM	Who says the soul is locked inside the body? If it were, preventing souls from passing on still isn't Evil.
Zombayz1 01-30-07, 01:00 PM	*PUNT* That felt good. Now that you face is bleeding: HE'S A SORCERER! HE CAN CAST WHATEVER THE **** HE LIKES AND SUFFER NO CHANGE IN ALIGNMENT! Seriously, [evil] tags only mean that a good cleric cannot cast it. Also, a rangers divine magic makes no difference when YOU ARE CASTING A SORCERER SPELL. Another good point:he prepares his RANGER spells AS a cleric. Not that he has the same RESTRICTIONS as a cleric.Please, get some logic in your arguement. As for the OP: go for it. You'll decrese the workload on the sailors making them less likely to mutiny and kill you monks exalted ass. If the action is evil at all, you'll easily make up fo it with the good you intend to do. BTW, Nobodyremembersthis, if you need to quote four incomplete passsages just to prove your point, then you must be ignoring the rest of the passage. If not you're ignoring any logic at all in favour of the RAW which is subjective to each persons opinion, making it as accurate as George Bush is at knowing when wars end.
Derren S. 01-30-07, 01:05 PM	*PUNT* That felt good. Now that you face is bleeding: HE'S A SORCERER! HE CAN CAST WHATEVER THE **** HE LIKES AND SUFFER NO CHANGE IN ALIGNMENT! proof? As for the OP: go for it. You'll decrese the workload on the sailors making them less likely to mutiny and kill you monks exalted ass. If the action is evil at all, you'll easily make up fo it with the good you intend to do. Actually the sailors are more likely to start a mutiny as nobody (non evil) wants to work together with undead BTW, Nobodyremembersthis, if you need to quote four incomplete passsages just to prove your point, then you must be ignoring the rest of the passage. If not you're ignoring any logic at all in favour of the RAW which is subjective to each persons opinion, making it as accurate as George Bush is at knowing when wars end. So how about you posting the complete passages and proof him wrong? So far you are only yelling nonsense.
Ventilatory_Threshold 01-30-07, 01:29 PM	proof? By RAW only divine spellcasters are restricted by their alignment when it comes to spellcasting. The character has arcane spells, is thus an arcane spellcaster and is therefore not restricted in casting when it comes to his arcane spells. The character is also a divine spellcaster. His divine spells are therefore restricted by his alignment.
journeyman777 01-30-07, 02:21 PM	How, exactly, is proximity to mindless undead dangerous? Again, humanoids can always decide to kill you. Barring rules-change or magical intervention, it is flatly impossible for a mindless undead to do the same.Magical intevention is very likely where D&D parties are concerned. You have enemies, your enemies have magic, and your crew knows this. Any arcanist with second lv spells can send one of the skeletons to kill you all in your sleep. A second lv evil cleric can do the same. Heck, a rogue can spend less money than you did for a scroll of command undead and turn one against your crew. This is both easier to do and harder to detect than subverting a normal member of the crew. Similarly, working with the undead makes unnecessary enemies. Good aligned people and cultures will be disinclined to assist you and may actively work against you. Also, speaking as a programmer, I would (and do, through the proxy of my company) pay a great deal of money for the chance to tell a mindless construct how to do my job, and have them do it. Again, the idea here is to supplement the crew's expertise; put the skeletons only on tasks that they can't mess up, or are actively hazardous to the crew (scrubbing barnacles off of the hull, etc.)Your crew doesn't have ranks in programming and the skeletons effectively have no hard drive (I doubt you would enjoy your job much if you had extremely low memory to work with, no libraries of functions, and didn't have years of training to prepare you). Besides, there isn't much they can't mess up. They have a +0 on profession (sailor) checks. Figure they take ten to minimise the potential for screwing up and they can only handle DC 10 or lower tasks. In adverse conditions (-2 circumstance penalty) they couldn't even handle DC 10 reliably. Just think of the problems that can happen from their lack of common sense and judgement. A sailor can tell the skeleton to scrape the hull until it's clean, but the skeleton doesn't have a definition of "clean". It will keep scraping until it makes a hole in the ship unless you catch the mistake and change its orders. Undead are cheaper; you can get a whole lot more bang for your buck in the hauling, shoving, and carrying departments with undead than you will with animated objects or unseen servant swarms. You can also use them to defend the ship in a pinch.Constructs can do the same, are immune to subversion tactics, and don't cause alignment issuses in their use. Is your character really willing to sell out his morals over a few hundred gold? (BTW: who said anything about animated objects? Effigies are cheaper and automatons can have skill bonuses) C: As I said, barring magical intervention, they're perfectly safe. Moreover, NPC experts are not known for their sterling saves.They at least get saves (often multiple save if you have a loyal crew and the enemy tries to use charm person). Dominated crewmen can be detected with a sense motive check low enough for even characters without ranks to notice. (not to mention that domination requires a higher lv spell and non-humaniod crew require yet higher lv spells) Plus, if it's a concern, you can pre-Command Undead the skeletons, so that you have two methods of control, or increase their turning resistance through any number of methods.All of which takes more resources, they aren't so cheap if you are having to go buy more items to make them safe. Your arguement for them being cheaper than constructs is getting even weaker. Besides, a cleric powerful enough to rebuke that many undead at once or close enough to get within range could well be tossing other deadly magical effects. There's no actual vulnerability specific to undead here.Range? He can do this from the dock without even getting on the ship, he can do it with minimal risk to himself, and can do it as low as 2nd lv. You are making yourself and your crew vulnerable to even very low lv opposition. A higher lv cleric with quicken turning can command them all with a swift action while tossing a deadly magical effect. You would have a hard time demonstrating a quickened spell that can wreak that much havok on your ship's operation with garanteed success. It all depends on what orders they are given. As you say, the ability of your undead crew to rapidly and intelligently respond to changing circumstances is nonexistent. The ability of the block and tackle systems on the ship to do the same is simililarly limited. This does not invalidate that a ship with blocks and tackle is a more effective ship than one without.A block and tackle can't be sent to murder you in your sleep by a lv 2 character. Besides, you wouldn't skimp on buying a good reliable tackle system, you shouldn't skimp on buying a good reliable crew. So far, the only argument you seem to have left against using constructs instead is: 1: They cost more. (turning to evil because it's cheaper is pretty odd for a good party, especially when it isn't all that great of a discount.) 2. You already bought the scroll. (As I said, they need to buy it off of you. If they agree that mindless minions would be a great asset to the ship, but just don't like undead, you can probably even talk them into paying the extra for constructs themselves.)
chucky 01-30-07, 02:45 PM	Simply let the caster cast the spell and have them deal with the consequences afterwards. When the "good" caster casts the spell tell him/her/it that they feel cold when casting it but it goes away after you complete the casting (aka your soul is screaming but your turning evil so it wont matter much longer anyway) The sailors, unless evil and stupid, wont spend any time working on the ship full of rotting corpses. The char's dont know about diseases so dont bother to explain it to them :) If they somehow got the ship near any non evil city, with their undead crew, the navy would take them for necromancers and have them all put to death without trial on the spot no questions asked. So let them try to justify their evil actions all they want. They will be slowly go evil and will be dealt with by those who do recognize them for their evil ways. P.S. most people dont go evil on one big event. Its many small steps that they keep justifying to themselves that get them there.
journeyman777 01-30-07, 03:03 PM	The sailors, unless evil and stupid, wont spend any time working on the ship full of rotting corpses. The char's dont know about diseases so dont bother to explain it to themYou may be surprised by what neutral characters will put up with. He's going for skeletons (so they aren't rotting) and will take reasonable measures to prevent disease (convincing the crew that those measures are sufficient may be another matter entirely). If they somehow got the ship near any non evil city, with their undead crew, the navy would take them for necromancers and have them all put to death without trial on the spot no questions asked.Maybe, maybe not. Non-good cities don't care quite as much about undead and lawful good ones give trials whenever possible (though he would undoubtably be convicted, death isn't the likeliest punishment in LG communities). LN, LG, and CG societies would be the most likely to deny harbor and possibly attack.
robertliguori 01-30-07, 03:28 PM	You know, there is also a reason why mindless undead have an evil alignment. When uncommanded its possible that they kill every living thing they come accross. No, it isn't. A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do. It can draw no conclusions of its own and takes no initiative. And as a programmer you should know how hard it is to make something with no intelligence to do what you want it to do and here we don't have programming languages. Yes, he does; natural language. Mind you, natural language is an extremely sucky programming language, but if you are very, very careful with your word and grammar choice, you can make unambiguous statements that can be exectued like programs. And you have to tell the skeletons when they should stop hauling on this line. You also have to somehow coordinate what the skeletons do as everyone of those skeletons will haul in its own pace and will not work together with the other skeletons. These are engineering problems. The simplest (if slightly expensive) way to solve them is to have dedicated line-pullers, order them to "When I give this command, haul on this line in this specific fashion." If detailing this specific fashion each time is a problem, create your own language. Also with animate dead your controll over undead is not that big. They can either follow you or attack. The spell says nothing about foring them to work. For that you need a cleric who can command undead. Also only you can controll the undead, not the sailors. So unless you are every 24/7 and relay the commands from your sailors to the undead, as they require constant supervising, they can't be used for working on the ship. This spell turns the bones or bodies of dead creatures into undead skeletons or zombies that follow your spoken commands. The spell then lists a few examples of things the undead can do. There is no reason why you can't order the skeletons to obey the sailors, if this is a problem.
robertliguori 01-30-07, 03:40 PM	Holy cow, it's still going. First, thanks to NobodyRemembersThis. I like your arguement and am going to use it in my own games. Makes a lot of sense even if someone does eventually manage to knock it down by RAW. But more importantly - y'all are missing the feeling for 3.5 D&D skeletons. They aren't Disneyfied machines animated by a magical subroutine. They are corpses into which the souls of their former owners have been condemned for an eternity. That's why skeletons are evil, animate dead is evil, and the individuals in question can't be raised until the skellies are destroyed - even by True Rez, which creates a whole new body. I agree totally. I'd love it if there was a core ruling explaining all of the hideous effects that animating the dead had. But there isn't. By the actual rules, animated dead are Disneyfied machines. There is no core ruling saying anything about what animate dead does to souls. There is no core ruling saying that you can't animate a corpse whose soul has been destroyed. If nothing else, it's evil because your character is pulling the soul out of whatever the regular cosmological progression for dead things is and sticking it in a corpse so it can carry your luggage. I mean, sure you may prevent a mass-murderer from getting raised, but you are also preventing his eternal torment or redemption or whatever normally happens. IMO saying that you know what's better for a soul than the gods who normally handle that stuff is pride and arrogance to such a degree that it's absolutely evil. Again, there is nothing stating that animate dead effects souls in any way. Moreover, even if it did, so what? Divinity does not equal wisdom or even correctness. The actual ressurection spells have no alignment descriptors, and they do exactly what you say shouldn't be done.
Derren S. 01-30-07, 03:49 PM	Yes, he does; natural language. Mind you, natural language is an extremely sucky programming language, but if you are very, very careful with your word and grammar choice, you can make unambiguous statements that can be exectued like programs. These are engineering problems. The simplest (if slightly expensive) way to solve them is to have dedicated line-pullers, order them to "When I give this command, haul on this line in this specific fashion." If detailing this specific fashion each time is a problem, create your own language. Skeletons have no memory. You can't give them "When I do X, do Y, orders but only "Do Y". So every time when they should pull on a rope you have to tell them exactly that. The spell then lists a few examples of things the undead can do. There is no reason why you can't order the skeletons to obey the sailors, if this is a problem. And I see no reason why you should be able to order the skeletons to do something other those things which are listed. Especially as there are no indications that those are only examples.
malignor 01-30-07, 04:05 PM	The skeletons are tools, not crew. As such, when coming into harbor, the tools should be put away to prevent misunderstanding. Lock the skeletons up in their racks along the walls of the cargo hold and have them wait. As for the appearance, they won't even look like skeletons. Wrap them in cheap fabric, put on some veils and now they're just mysterious veiled figures. Make sure the bones are thoroughly cleaned and there's no sanitation problem. If sailors don't want to use them, they don't have to. But if there's anything they could use a subservient, unskilled hand in doing on the ship (simple labor: "gently place this on that table." "scrub the white things off this boat." "pull this rope.") they have the skeletal option. I'm not a dictator; I won't force anything on them, only give them the tools and show them how to use these tools safely. I was thinking of giving them vests or something, and the skeletons are to obey those with the vests as if they were me. I'm honestly at the point where I probably won't even do it. The DM already spoke ominously that he won't argue about it anymore, and I have a good idea what that means. But again, the situation under which I bought the scroll really chaps my hide. As far as I knew, I was alone with the merchant. But after the conversation, suddenly the other PCs got involved as if they were there with me, then, after I already made the purchase (right in front of them, taking my time) they started filing complaints.
robertliguori 01-30-07, 04:09 PM	Magical intevention is very likely where D&D parties are concerned. You have enemies, your enemies have magic, and your crew knows this. Any arcanist with second lv spells can send one of the skeletons to kill you all in your sleep. Yes. The second-level spell in question being Extended Summon Undead I, perhaps? If facing magical assault, then having skeletons or not having skeletons is not an issue of primacy; it's just as easy to bring up a temporary one as it is to take control of one of yours. A second lv evil cleric can do the same. Heck, a rogue can spend less money than you did for a scroll of command undead and turn one against your crew. This is both easier to do and harder to detect than subverting a normal member of the crew. Similarly, working with the undead makes unnecessary enemies. Good aligned people and cultures will be disinclined to assist you and may actively work against you. One basic precaution against this sort of thing would be items of detect magic, and of Command Undead. Regularly sweep your skeletons for foreign necromantic auras, and if you're really afraid of a late-night attack, lock your skeletons up in boxes at night. Your crew doesn't have ranks in programming and the skeletons effectively have no hard drive (I doubt you would enjoy your job much if you had extremely low memory to work with, no libraries or functions, and didn't have years of training to prepare you). Interestingly enough, programming a series of simple hardware devices (like the bits on a ship that sailors would be using) can be doen with extremely little memory. I wouldn't want to have to do long division on a necromantic ALU, but working out "Put Object 1 in State A on command." does not strike me as impossible, even for those who aren't trained programmers. Besides, there isn't much they can't mess up. They have a +0 on profession (sailor) checks. Figure they take ten to minimise the potential for screwing up and they can only handle DC 10 or lower tasks. In adverse conditions (-2 circumstance penalty) they couldn't even handle DC 10 reliably. Just think of the problems that can happen from their lack of common sense and judgement. A sailor can tell the skeleton to scrape the hull until it's clean, but the skeleton doesn't have a definition of "clean". It will keep scraping until it makes a hole in the ship unless you catch the mistake and change its orders. Remember, a DC 10 task is one that an average person will mess up half the time in the course of doing. Swabbing the deck I would say is a classic example of a DC 5 or lower task, and it's exactly these kind of monotonous tasks that skeletons excel at. Likewise, "Perform this brush motion across each patch of deck with barnacles." is self-terminating; the imperative to brush goes away when the barnacles have been removed. Constructs can do the same, are immune to subversion tactics, and don't cause alignment issuses in their use. Is your character really willing to sell out his morals over a few hundred gold? (BTW: who said anything about animated objects? Effigies are cheaper and automatons can have skill bonuses) Effigies are a generally good idea. The one issue is replacibility. You lose crew on sea voyages. Undead crew can be trivially replaced; constructs less so. Also, once you have the support structure in place, you can expand your undead crew for much less than it costs to have effigies in place, if you start sailing on a warship or some such. They at least get saves (often multiple save if you have a loyal crew and the enemy tries to use charm person). Dominated crewmen can be detected with a sense motive check low enough for even characters without ranks to notice. (not to mention that domination requires a higher lv spell and non-humaniod crew require yet higher lv spells) This is certainly the case. A few minimal precautions do limit the harm that a suborned undead can cause, however. All of which takes more resources, they aren't so cheap if you are having to go buy more items to make them safe. Your arguement for them being cheaper than constructs is getting even weaker. *shrug* For what numbers? A single 1-HD medium effigy will run you to 4000 GP. That will get you the scroll (even with the onyx cost), and start to offset the cost of wooden boxes to keep the undead in when not in use, the item of detect magic to sweep the undead for auras. Four effigies gives you enough cost savings to have a detector, an item of unlimited-use Command Undead of your own, and Bagpipes of the Damned. At the 4-creatue mark, it is cheaper to go with undead, and the numbers only get better as you add more undead. Range? He can do this from the dock without even getting on the ship, he can do it with minimal risk to himself, and can do it as low as 2nd lv. You are making yourself and your crew vulnerable to even very low lv opposition. A higher lv cleric with quicken turning can command them all with a swift action while tossing a deadly magical effect. You would have a hard time demonstrating a quickened spell that can wreak that much havok on your ship's operation with garanteed success. A higher-level cleric can sink your boat. All things considered, I'd be happy that one was wasting actions on my easily-replacable undead, especially since I'd probably have gloved my skeletons previously. Plus, we can keep the skeletons belowdecks if this is truly a concern. Skeletons can still haul on pre-measured ropes even if they can't see what they are doing. A block and tackle can't be sent to murder you in your sleep by a lv 2 character. Besides, you wouldn't skimp on buying a good reliable tackle system, you shouldn't skimp on buying a good reliable crew. Again, if this is a concern, keeping the undead boxed when not in use will solve this, as will redundant methods of control. So far, the only argument you seem to have left against using constructs instead is: 1: They cost more. (turning to evil because it's cheaper is pretty odd for a good party, especially when it isn't all that great of a discount.) 2. You already bought the scroll. (As I said, they need to buy it off of you. If they agree that mindless minions would be a great asset to the ship, but just don't like undead, you can probably even talk them into paying the extra for constructs themselves.) The cost savings is significant for undead; I would wager that most parties cannot go out and buy effigies casually. (Plus, this opens up all of the same concerns if the effigy creator decides to casually sink your boat one day.) I also agree that given the make-up and feeling of the party, a concession that "This is an effective idea, but we cannot ethically make use of it. Let's find another way to do the same thing!" is the best all-around response.
robertliguori 01-30-07, 04:22 PM	Skeletons have no memory. You can't give them "When I do X, do Y, orders but only "Do Y". So every time when they should pull on a rope you have to tell them exactly that. Can you cite that? In d20 Modern, an example is given of a zombie that has orders to, when people enter a certain room, to dial a number on a phone, and then attack. Moreover, zombies naturally parse the idea of conditions; they can distinguish between various types of creatures to attack or not attack. And I see no reason why you should be able to order the skeletons to do something other those things which are listed. Especially as there are no indications that those are only examples. Just for the record, why do you think this? Are you claiming that there are no core examples of undead being ordered to move out of their default location, and then attack? Are you claiming that "follows your spoken commands" and "does only what it is ordered to do." were misprints? I am rather unable to see how a strict logical parsing can turn "You can order your undead to do X or Y." can mean "You can only order your undead to do X or Y."
Derren S. 01-30-07, 04:33 PM	I was thinking of giving them vests or something, and the skeletons are to obey those with the vests as if they were me. That wouldn't work. Even if we consider that you can command the skeletons to do something else then to follow you or to fight (which you can't), you are the only one who can command them. Even if you tell them to obey others the skeletons would not react as the order of "obey others" would be overridden by whatever the sailor tells them to do. So I hope your character (who has very neutral to evil tendencies) has enogh time and skill to overwatch all skelletons on the ship all the time. So, the Pros using skeletons: - The work of the sailors will get a tiny bit easier - You can animate skeletons on the fly after a battle - YOu need less food (only when you manage to replace some sailors with skeletons) Cons: - Skeletons need constant attention from you. - Animating them is evil. - They will likely damage the ship at some time due to their mindless work. - They make the ship less efficient as more work is required to controll them - In dangerous situations they are more of a hindrance. - Diseases - Security issues if they get controlled - The crew is likely to revolt - You would not be welcomed in most ports. - You will be the target of good characters/undead hunters. Can you cite that? In d20 Modern, an example is given of a zombie that has orders to, when people enter a certain room, to dial a number on a phone, and then attack. Moreover, zombies naturally parse the idea of conditions; they can distinguish between various types of creatures to attack or not attack. That is D20 Modern, not D&D. And maybe a cleric has a greater ability to command undead but the animate dead spell is very specific what the undead can do. They can follow and they can attack living creatures in the area. That is all.
journeyman777 01-30-07, 05:01 PM	I also agree that given the make-up and feeling of the party, a concession that "This is an effective idea, but we cannot ethically make use of it. Let's find another way to do the same thing!" is the best all-around response.Yeah, it really is situational. I've prepared to do this with a DN in a pirate campaign before. Mostly it's a matter of proper preparation and a neutral party. You've worked it out even better than I did. Still, there are ways to minimize the cash problems if you have the right contacts.
malignor 01-30-07, 05:03 PM	Cons: - Skeletons need constant attention from you. - Animating them is evil. - They will likely damage the ship at some time due to their mindless work. - They make the ship less efficient as more work is required to controll them - In dangerous situations they are more of a hindrance. - Diseases - Security issues if they get controlled - The crew is likely to revolt - You would not be welcomed in most ports. - You will be the target of good characters/undead hunters.I don't recall you being my DM. Constant attention, ship damage, reduced efficiency, hindrance during danger, disease, security, revolt from the crew, unwelcomed by having them, targetted by undead-slayers... all these are blatantly untrue, unless you are my DM and make it happen that way. Purely DM fiat, none of it RAW. They're things that may or may not happen, depending on whether the DM is out to get me, or if the normal order of in-game, legitimate cause & effect cause these things to happen. My DM is a good one, so he wouldn't invent some lame consequence based on metagame information magically appearing in an arbitrary NPC's head, even if he hated the idea. The only thing that is true is "Animating them is evil" and only on a technicality, despite the genuine altruism for decent folk at the expense of the evil creatures I animate.
Vegepygmy 01-30-07, 05:04 PM	That is D20 Modern, not D&D. And maybe a cleric has a greater ability to command undead but the animate dead spell is very specific what the undead can do. They can follow and they can attack living creatures in the area. That is all.Bollocks. There are some truly preposterous interpretations of the RAW floating around in this thread... :looloo:
robertliguori 01-30-07, 05:09 PM	That wouldn't work. Even if we consider that you can command the skeletons to do something else then to follow you or to fight (which you can't), you are the only one who can command them. Even if you tell them to obey others the skeletons would not react as the order of "obey others" would be overridden by whatever the sailor tells them to do. "Perform the task assigned to you by anyone in a vest." That way the order isn't being replaced, it's being modified. - Skeletons need constant attention from you. - Animating them is evil. - They will likely damage the ship at some time due to their mindless work. - They make the ship less efficient as more work is required to controll them - In dangerous situations they are more of a hindrance. - Diseases - Security issues if they get controlled - The crew is likely to revolt - You would not be welcomed in most ports. - You will be the target of good characters/undead hunters. - Incorrect. Has been repeatedly demonstrated not to be true. Hells; here's one concrete example. Pumping the bilges on a mediveal ship is a nasty job. If the ship springs a leak far from shore, as the result of an attack in which a lot of crew are slain, then having undead that can tirelessly pump out the water will save the ship. These undead will not need their orders to be updated beyond turning them on and off. -Correct. Likewise, casting Magic Missile is Force-y. This does not strike me as a pressing argument for or against the use of Magic Missile. -Incorrect. If the skeletons are carefully given orders, then damage won't happen. Heck, at 1d4+1, a by-the-book skeleton can't damage wood. -Eighteen different kinds of incorrect. A skeleton, once given proper orders, does not require supervision. This means that tasks on the ship that previously required crew are no longer requiring crew. This means more efficency. -Possibly-correct. You will want to make extremely sure that there are no cases in which skeletons blindly performing their given orders will cause additional damage. If an order is given at an incorrect time, it is possible for poorly-programmed skeletons to apply too much force to a rope and break a pully, tear sails, or similar. This is not an argument against the use of undead, however; it's an argument to make very sure that the undead are doing jobs they can't mess up. -Incorrect; skeletons don't noticably decompose, and can be washed regularly. -Correct but non-issue; if precautions are taken, then magic of the level useful to take over the skeletons can instead sink the boat. (See previous comments about regular sweeps for necromantic magic, and the aforementioned bagpipies.) -Possible. Easily-solvable by hiring new crew, or use of magic. Or heck, just demonstrate that the use of the undead means that the crew don't need to swab the deck or pump the bilges. Historically speaking, when morals run into convenience for most people, convenience wins. -Possible. Solvable most easily by keeping the undead very wrapped-up. -Possible. Also solvable by just keeping the undead shielded as much as possible, and wrapped-up. Also can be solved by killing the undead hunters. That is D20 Modern, not D&D. And maybe a cleric has a greater ability to command undead but the animate dead spell is very specific what the undead can do. They can follow and they can attack living creatures in the area. That is all. A: The verbiage for mindlessness in d20 Modern appears identical to that in D&D. You can, if you like, claim that the designers meant something different with the exact same words in the exact same context, of course. B: I'd love to see some sort of citation for this statement. "X can do Y." does not mean "X can only do Y." There are loads of core examples of mindless undead being ordered to do something other than either A) follow their animator or B) remain in place and attack. The easiest one I can think of off the top of my head is in Heroes of Battle, with Pelarch's Unliving Legion. The rules do not say what you claim they say. The examples provided do not say what you think they say. Again, from whence this strange conclusion?
Derren S. 01-30-07, 05:13 PM	The rules do not say what you claim they say. They do, you just don't want to accept it. Lets turn it around. Please show me where the Animate Dead spell says that you can use the undead as cheap labor. Or at least show me any indication that what the animate dead spell says you can do is only an example. I can already tell you that you won't find anything. You are vastly overestimating the mental capacity of skeletons. They do not have a memory at all. They can't remember something. The only thing they can do are very simple tesks and sailing a ship is not very simple. And you can't tell them to listen to others, that is already to complex for them (they have to listen to others and do what the others say. Two orders are simply too much). And I doubt that any nonevil crew will tolerate undead sailors just for a little pseudo convenience.
megeddo 01-30-07, 05:36 PM	DM, for the record: if you don't want him animating dead, the proper response is to say "I don't want you to be animating the dead. Here's a scroll of my custom spell Lesser Animate Objects and Permanency instead." Don't just try to make it difficult to do so and gain reward; PCs are people who overcome difficulties and gain rewards thereby. Also, you can juggle the rules a bit. If uncontrolled undead do go off on mindless killing sprees, and there is a chance that the undead could become uncontrolled if not used for generic evil purpouses, then it becomes perfectly reasonable not to use undead. But as the rules stand, calling the animation of the dead evil just means that a particular planar energy type akin to Fire or Earth opposes them, and another supports them. Your replies were very pragmatic as well. And don't think for a second that I am making it difficult for Dorriatt to animate dead. If he animates undead then I will seriously consider the most plausible reactions from the people he surrounds himself with. I am merely acting as Dorriatt's conscience, not as a “If you do this, then I will **** you over” ultimatum. He has to consider the moral implications he will be placing his friends and his crew in. As a DM I would also like to state that in my universe, the definition of natural is everything on a plane that is native to that plane. Undead are NOT native to the material plane. They are unnatural(See below for more explanation). Demons, devils, angels, etc are also unnatural, or more appropriately supernatural, creatures. Negative and Positive energy is one of those real grey areas for me, as are the elemental planes and the ethereal plane. Which kinda goes against my argument, because negative energy is what creates undead, and ghosts and spectres live on the ethereal plane. But I also know that there is a balance that the druids of Faerun strive to maintain. Which is why Faerun is not a burning desert with spewing volcanoes, or a world covered with an endless ocean, or a world where evil people pop like zits because too much positive energy. So my supporting the druid's actions stem from this very simple view on the fantasy world I run. "OK, so I'm evil. My behavior changes in no way, shape, or form. And as for damnation, well, if the good gods care more about animating the dead than they do about actually ****ing doing something about all of the ****ed-up **** in the world, then **** them." And you now run into the problem that has plagued moral absolutists from the beginning. The ability to declare an action arbitrarily Good or Evil without considering how the action will affect actual, real people just means that Good and Evil are not meaningful moral labels. I never once said that Dorriatt would lose his alignment over this. In fact he even stated that. But what you described is something that one would lose his alignment over. I rethought how I would do this if I had someone with such a LN view. He would go from CG to CN. N in that you don't give a **** about what the gods think: you sometimes use profane methods to acheive your good objectives, and that you are heroic with good intentions. Would you become CE. Hell no. Because you are using evil against itself with the intent to do good. That's fine. So fine, you changed my stance, albeit only slightly. Ilmater is welcome to manifest Himself and explain his case. If Ilmater can demonstrate that animation of the dead causes harm or doesn't help to protect innocents, then his case can be considered. Oh don't worry. He will if he doesn't think his clergy can handle it for him. Undead are fueled by negative energy. Just as an overbalance of positive energy can have disastrous effects on creatures not native to the positive plane, so too can an overabundance of negative energy. The material plane is a delicate balance between positive and negative energy. You pull more negative energy into the material plane you run the risk of effecting that balance. In Faerun, that means that more undead appear in the area, helping to cultivate more negative energy, and the world itself changes in that immediate area. Plant life dies. Animals and plants that do survive become corrupted. To a good or neutral druid, who strives to maintain balance on his native plane, this is an abomination. Now in saying that, does this affect my judgement on Dorriatt's actions when it comes to an alignment change issue. NO. But I will not protect him from the rest of the party should they wish to act on their own personal moral convictions. And I will seriously consider the reactions of the crew, the captain, etc.
robertliguori 01-30-07, 06:15 PM	They do, you just don't want to accept it. Lets turn it around. Please show me where the Animate Dead spell says that you can use the undead as cheap labor. Or at least show me any indication that what the animate dead spell says you can do is only an example. I can already tell you that you won't find anything. You are vastly overestimating the mental capacity of skeletons. They do not have a memory at all. They can't remember something. The only thing they can do are very simple tesks and sailing a ship is not very simple. And you can't tell them to listen to others, that is already to complex for them (they have to listen to others and do what the others say. Two orders are simply too much). This spell turns the bones or bodies of dead creatures into undead skeletons or zombies that follow your spoken commands. A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do. It can draw no conclusions of its own and takes no initiative. Because of this limitation, its instructions must always be simple. You can't order skeletons to "Crew this ship!" and get a meaningful response from them. But "Pull on this rope in this manner when this stimulus is given." is a simple, spoken order. Even if one individual skeleton can't remember much, the system of skeletons can remember a great deal indeed, especially if you encode the difficult information in the system, and don't have to say it directly. You'll still need a lot of expertise and intelligence, but there is no reason you can't have an autopilot based on skeletons signalling other skeletons when certain conditions happen. You really don't want to get into a debate about the mental capacities of skeletons. Skeletons can pathfind, move their limbs, and identify targets based on arbitrary criteria. They're low-end Asimovian robots, without the 1st and 3rd laws. Claiming that a skeleton can understand "When I see what I recognize as a person with a set of very specific characteristics (which I can distinguish from other, similar but not identical characteristics), I am to move into a position such that I can attack them, and then attack them, and continue to attack them until I recognize that they have died, then attack anyone else fitting my target profile until they have died.", but not "Pull on this rope this hard when ordered to." strikes me as mildly specious. Skeletons know how to recognize when something is a particular type of creatue, and when things are dead vs. alive, and a great deal of kinesthetic range. There is nothing that I see stating that only one order can be given to a skeleton, or that you can't make the order arbitrarily long. And I doubt that any nonevil crew will tolerate undead sailors just for a little pseudo convenience. *shrug* Well, Hypnotism, diplomacy checks, knowledge checks from a trusted expert, or even not having to swab the decks would all help.
Derren S. 01-30-07, 06:20 PM	You still haven't shown why the limitation of following and attacking the animate dead spell mentions does suddenly not apply anymore. And you will need more then an expert to make some, normally rather superstitious, sailors believe that having evil undead which represent the antithesis of live are ok to have around. Especially as someone has to do the whole cleaning and dressing for the undead. And as soon as anything bad happens the undeads will be blamed and then you will have a mutiny.
malignor 01-30-07, 06:27 PM	Or, in my case, being one of their employers who pays them well and has risked my own life saving some of them that fell overboard last week in a storm... and defeated demonic stowaways before their very eyes... and have a reputation in the Moonsea as a world class Drow slayer and the scourge of Cyric (we've obliterated two of their hidden temples and slew the high priests). Bards praise us in towns we've never been, and the church of Cyric has a huge bounty on my head (and the same with my fellow party members). We rescued these men from unemployment and they are now captained by a legendary figure who we've liberated from disgrace. All that considered, and considering if they leave now they'll be stuck in the most sinister of cities (Mulmaster, if I recall the name correctly), I doubt I have much to worry about in regard to an uprising, especially if I handle it properly. With my Sorceror's charisma, I doubt I'll have much of an issue. We're not some nobody saying "mwaahaha! Work with these skeletons, my pets!" I intend to have them properly sanitized and cloth-bound before even introducing them to the crew. Then I'll lock up all but one, which I will use as a demonstration piece, referring to it as an "automaton". Once the demo is finished, I'll reveal its true nature. If the crew is adamantly against them after all this, I'll have to think of a different way to use them, or dispose of them and chalk it up to the ignorance of the non-gifted.
journeyman777 01-30-07, 06:32 PM	Even if one individual skeleton can't remember much, the system of skeletons can remember a great deal indeed, especially if you encode the difficult information in the system, and don't have to say it directly. You'll still need a lot of expertise and intelligence, but there is no reason you can't have an autopilot based on skeletons signalling other skeletons when certain conditions happen. There is nothing that I see stating that only one order can be given to a skeleton, or that you can't make the order arbitrarily long. Congratulations. I'm pretty sure you just established the theoretical basis of undead computation. Add in the spellstitched template or permanent spells to give them a wider range of input (detect magic, good, ect) if needed and you have input capabilities superior to modern robotics. Output is slow and somewhat limited though (crude motions, writing?). I wonder what kind of processing speed you can get out of animate dead? BTW: Would you call this MS DOS? (Mass Skeletal Dead Operating System)
Derren S. 01-30-07, 06:33 PM	Bards praise us in towns we've never been, and the church of Cyric has a huge bounty on my head (and the same with my fellow party members). We rescued these men from unemployment and they are now captained by a legendary figure who we've liberated from disgrace. That all will soon change when you start using undead. You simply keep forgetting that undead are no tools but evil abdominations and are viewed as such. And I still say that undead from animate dead can't be used for labor as the spell says very clearly what those undead can do. And even if, the effort needed for onitoring the undead is bigger than the effor of doing those things normally. The only real use the undead would have is pumping and as oarsmen on a galley). Everything else requires too much understanding as that mindless undead could do them correctly. Just think about it logically instead closing your eyes and pretending that all is well. Having mindless undead which can't react to situation changes will reduce the efficency of the ship as it takes time to give the undead new orders. Mindless undead will likely damage the ship when not supervised because they don't know when to stop etc. PS: You are sliding more and more into neutral/evil territory. Giving the sailors the choice of putting up with you casting evil spells or being again moneyless in a bad city is far from good.
robertliguori 01-30-07, 06:38 PM	Your replies were very pragmatic as well. And don't think for a second that I am making it difficult for Dorriatt to animate dead. If he animates undead then I will seriously consider the most plausible reactions from the people he surrounds himself with. I am merely acting as Dorriatt's conscience, not as a “If you do this, then I will **** you over” ultimatum. He has to consider the moral implications he will be placing his friends and his crew in. As a DM I would also like to state that in my universe, the definition of natural is everything on a plane that is native to that plane. Undead are NOT native to the material plane. They are unnatural(See below for more explanation). Demons, devils, angels, etc are also unnatural, or more appropriately supernatural, creatures. Negative and Positive energy is one of those real grey areas for me, as are the elemental planes and the ethereal plane. Which kinda goes against my argument, because negative energy is what creates undead, and ghosts and spectres live on the ethereal plane. But I also know that there is a balance that the druids of Faerun strive to maintain. Which is why Faerun is not a burning desert with spewing volcanoes, or a world covered with an endless ocean, or a world where evil people pop like zits because too much positive energy. So my supporting the druid's actions stem from this very simple view on the fantasy world I run. Question: do other kinds of magical effects have long-term consequences? I think that a campaign world where, for instance, a city in a frozen tundra uses wide-scale fire magics to endure the heat and ends up inadvertently calling up a volcano on itself from the long-term use of Fire energy would be amazingly cool, and would go a long way towards keeping magic less tamable. I never once said that Dorriatt would lose his alignment over this. In fact he even stated that. But what you described is something that one would lose his alignment over. I rethought how I would do this if I had someone with such a LN view. He would go from CG to CN. N in that you don't give a **** about what the gods think: you sometimes use profane methods to acheive your good objectives, and that you are heroic with good intentions. Would you become CE. Hell no. Because you are using evil against itself with the intent to do good. That's fine. So fine, you changed my stance, albeit only slightly. Y, and the D&D books (Heroes of Horror, at least) do support you on that. I have a personal grudge against DMs who declare certain actions to be Good or Evil ex cathedra, as you may have noticed. Oh don't worry. He will if he doesn't think his clergy can handle it for him. Undead are fueled by negative energy. Just as an overbalance of positive energy can have disastrous effects on creatures not native to the positive plane, so too can an overabundance of negative energy. The material plane is a delicate balance between positive and negative energy. You pull more negative energy into the material plane you run the risk of effecting that balance. In Faerun, that means that more undead appear in the area, helping to cultivate more negative energy, and the world itself changes in that immediate area. Plant life dies. Animals and plants that do survive become corrupted. To a good or neutral druid, who strives to maintain balance on his native plane, this is an abomination. Huh. Can this effect be exploited? Would it be conceivable to send tiny undead (bats, say) to dwell in a nation's crops, and thereby cripple the nation agriculturally? Yes, this would almost certainly be a flatly Evil act. But can it be done? Has it been done? Are there easy counters for this build-up? Now in saying that, does this affect my judgement on Dorriatt's actions when it comes to an alignment change issue. NO. But I will not protect him from the rest of the party should they wish to act on their own personal moral convictions. And I will seriously consider the reactions of the crew, the captain, etc. Hmm. While you have overall demonstrated great reason and forethought in your posts so far, I don't think that the DMs should give the players free reign to act on their own moral convictions when such actions would damage party cohesion. Most DMs avoid campaigns with evil PCs, because evil PCs kill each other a lot. Sadly, this can happen just as much with Good PCs that don't agree, but think that being right is more important than getting along with the party. You know, another possible suggestion: would it be permissible for the other players to allow the use of undead, with the proviso that the other player will voluntarily abandon the use of undead if the side effects start getting out of control? If the corruption process is slow and gradual, then the lesson (and associated inconvenience of having to hide and maintain the undead) may well convince the other character that no, undead don't work as cheap labor, in a way that simply declaring "My god / the gestalt consciousness of the land says that this is a bad idea." Of course, if undeath irrevocably scars the land, then this isn't a very good option.
Cold Napalm 01-30-07, 06:44 PM	I don't recall you being my DM. Constant attention, ship damage, reduced efficiency, hindrance during danger, disease, security, revolt from the crew, unwelcomed by having them, targetted by undead-slayers... all these are blatantly untrue, unless you are my DM and make it happen that way. Purely DM fiat, none of it RAW. They're things that may or may not happen, depending on whether the DM is out to get me, or if the normal order of in-game, legitimate cause & effect cause these things to happen. My DM is a good one, so he wouldn't invent some lame consequence based on metagame information magically appearing in an arbitrary NPC's head, even if he hated the idea. The only thing that is true is "Animating them is evil" and only on a technicality, despite the genuine altruism for decent folk at the expense of the evil creatures I animate. IF your gonna rule out DM fiat and RP restrictions...well then you can a lot of whatever you damn well please now can't you. A GOOD DM wont have good socities accept a ship full of undeads, even on racks with open arms. A GOOD DM WILL have the evil cleric use this fact against you because his NPC aren't DUMB. A GOOD DM will not have the common man easily and readily accept undeads into their mists. And if your so hell bent on RAW, then fine, animate dead isn't techinically evil, it's evil PERIOD. There is no technically about it. Casting the spell is evil no and if or buts without a DM's houserule. And by the RAW, if I had an exalted character and you did this in a game I was playing, I'd be ****** at you OOC as you are doing something has a pretty good chance to screw my character over. When you didn't pipe in when he made an exalted character at party formation means you MUST play in a way that is compatable with a exalted character or you can be a jerk and mess with the exalted character. As for the other players metagaming...well they can let you know OOC how much this action will displease their characters but if you DM is as good as you say, their characters will have no idea to even stop you until you do it. Then the party can kill you and if I was your DM I would cheer them on from the rather cherry picking metod you have used in your arguements here (I can only imagine what all the arguments HE had to sit through if your arguments on this post is any idication). By RAW, your idea doesn't even work, by DM fiat, your screwed...it's a BAD idea, especially with the exalted monk. You can do anything you want with your character...that even means casting this spell. You can think it's not evil all you want, but YOU have no say in what the other characters do to you afterwards, and at least they were nice enough to let you know what will happen.
malignor 01-30-07, 06:45 PM	:P If anything it will just make me look kinda scary. I've already amazed these guys with my power. Seeing this and knowing I did it for them will scare them away at worst. Seeing as there is no complete list of commands for undead, you toss about a wild assumption that the only examples listed comprise that list. Well that's a very bizarre interpretation, especially since the exact words "and so on" are used, yet you completely disregard them. When something obeys my commands (as per RAW), and an unbounded list of examples is provided (as per "and so on" in the RAW), it's up to the DM to make a ruling as to what the mindless undead can and cannot be commanded to do beyond the examples provided. It's not your decision to make. You are sliding more and more into neutral/evil territory. Giving the sailors the choice of putting up with you casting evil spells or being again moneyless in a bad city is far from good.I'm not casting evil spells on the ship. Heck, I'll probably not even use the scroll for a long time (not unless I have enough corpses of genuinely evil creatures, as an after-effect of a combat, to max out the HD-effectiveness). I plan to be very discreet about it because I know what it looks like; I'm not a moron.IF your gonna rule out DM fiat and RP restrictions... [snip]... I'd be ****** at you OOC...[snip]...the party can kill you and if I was your DM I would cheer them on from the rather cherry picking metod you have used... [snip] ...YOU have no say in what the other characters do to you afterwards, and at least they were nice enough to let you know what will happen.Let's keep this decent, please. If you get upset by what I'm typing, you need not read the thread. If they don't like it, that's fine by me. I'll find some other use for the skeletons or dispose of them myself. If they start throwing around opinions and false assumptions as "facts", like some of the arguments in this thread, then I have an issue. I don't abide people claiming to be authoritative from a throne made out of proverbial HorseFeathers. If you're going to have an opinion, say it like an opinion and I'll be much more inclined to accommodate. If you have facts, I'll thank you for proving me wrong to my satisfaction and abide by what I've learned. If you don't even know what you're saying, have no sources, and base your "logic" around false assumptions, heresay and opinion, I'll be only too happy to drag out the discussion until frustration or understanding forces it to end.
Vharuck 01-30-07, 06:47 PM	You as the player may not see a problem with casting Animate Dead. Technically, one act of evil will not shift your character's alignment. But then again, your character's alignment is not a formulaic result from comparing good versus evil. It's your character. A good character would shudder and not really even come close to the evil ritual magicks necessary to raise the dead.
robertliguori 01-30-07, 07:00 PM	You still haven't shown why the limitation of following and attacking the animate dead spell mentions does suddenly not apply anymore. And you will need more then an expert to make some, normally rather superstitious, sailors believe that having evil undead which represent the antithesis of live are ok to have around. Especially as someone has to do the whole cleaning and dressing for the undead. And as soon as anything bad happens the undeads will be blamed and then you will have a mutiny. A: The statement "You can do X! You can do X-1, or X-2." does not mean that you cannot do X-3, X-4, and X-5. "You can do X!" means that, barring statements like "You can do X but not X-8.", you can do all of X. This is basic syntax. There are no limitations "The undead can only follow you, or you can only have them remain..." Mind you, if you'd like to interpret spells this way, then you can only give contradictory, suicidal orders to Dominated folk. B: Again, this is not a complicated task. Plus, there are a lot of sailors out there; finding some who are willing to try out the undead should not be impossible, especially the way Malignor proposed. C: In a word, no. If you are terrified of the eldrich necromantic energies that someone commands, the proper response is not to attack him. There is no way that this can have gone well in the past enough for the idea of low-level NPCs versus casters to have entered the group consciousness. Sailors freaking out and escaping in the night? Possible, especially if you're not delicate with how you reveal the undead. Sailors attempting to attack you? Not gunna happen, not if sailors have heard anything about what casters can actually do. That all will soon change when you start using undead. You simply keep forgetting that undead are no tools but evil abdominations and are viewed as such. And I still say that undead from animate dead can't be used for labor as the spell says very clearly what those undead can do. Yes. It says that they will obey spoken orders, and that these orders need to be simple. "Swab the deck." is at least as simple as the example orders given, in terms of total data processing involved. The spell Animate Dead does not say or even imply that these are the only two options available to casters. Other core materials confirm that other orders are possible. Do you have any defense for this statement other than repetition? And even if, the effort needed for onitoring the undead is bigger than the effor of doing those things normally. The only real use the undead would have is pumping and as oarsmen on a galley). Everything else requires too much understanding as that mindless undead could do them correctly. Just think about it logically instead closing your eyes and pretending that all is well. Having mindless undead which can't react to situation changes will reduce the efficency of the ship as it takes time to give the undead new orders. Mindless undead will likely damage the ship when not supervised because they don't know when to stop etc. All this is a matter of giving the correct orders, as has been said. Plus, if you are sufficently clever with your orders, then you can acheive just as efficent response in certain limited tasks as you would a human crew, which frees the human crew to react to other problems. PS: You are sliding more and more into neutral/evil territory. Giving the sailors the choice of putting up with you casting evil spells or being again moneyless in a bad city is far from good. ...You know what? I'm not even going to bring economic and political philosophy into an alignment debate.
robertliguori 01-30-07, 07:12 PM	Congratulations. I'm pretty sure you just established the theoretical basis of undead computation. Add in the spellstitched template or permanent spells to give them a wider range of input (detect magic, good, ect) if needed and you have input capabilities superior to modern robotics. Output is slow and somewhat limited though (crude motions, writing?). I wonder what kind of processing speed you can get out of animate dead? BTW: Would you call this MS DOS? (Mass Skeletal Dead Operating System) I've actually done this before, with a Pale Master. I'd animate a bat skeleton, then order the bat to twitch its tail under certain circumstances (like having a tail twitching in both of its right and left wingpaws, or one of its wingpaws, or if no twitching was happening, or so forth. With diminutive primitive logic gates, I'd put together simple computational machines. With readied actions, you get 1/6 runs of the system per second, which is sub-optimal. But still, necrocomputation is possible. Also, another trick is to use sentient items of Command Undead 1/day. Schlepp the item into the undead of your choice (I used enchanted adamantine-coated onyx gems), and have the item make an Ego check. Then have it use Command Undead on the undead it's riding. You now have an intelligent, totally-loyal minion, that can carry around two backup bodies and whose actual brain has hardness 20. I also did write up a simple imperative undead programming language, to make sure that I wasn't giving any one command that was overly complex. (moveto(location in view), attack(creature or object), manipulate(method, object, force), stand, kneel, lie down, get up, etc. ) It was NS-SOS: Necromantic Systems Skeletal Operating System. No, my DM didn't actually let me play that character for very long, but it was fun while he did.
robertliguori 01-30-07, 07:23 PM	If they start throwing around opinions and false assumptions as "facts", like some of the arguments in this thread, then I have an issue. I don't abide people claiming to be authoritative from a throne made out of proverbial HorseFeathers. Save the pegasi! Horsefeathers are murder! This message brought to you by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Magical Beasts.
journeyman777 01-30-07, 07:40 PM	Please PM me the library for NS-SOS. Myself and one of my players both have some programming skills and I want to use this and see if they can figure it out well enough to hack a BBEG's necrocomp.
Cold Napalm 01-30-07, 07:51 PM	If they start throwing around opinions and false assumptions as "facts", like some of the arguments in this thread, then I have an issue. I don't abide people claiming to be authoritative from a throne made out of proverbial HorseFeathers. If you're going to have an opinion, say it like an opinion and I'll be much more inclined to accommodate. If you have facts, I'll thank you for proving me wrong to my satisfaction and abide by what I've learned. If you don't even know what you're saying, have no sources, and base your "logic" around false assumptions, heresay and opinion, I'll be only too happy to drag out the discussion until frustration or understanding forces it to end. No really, that makes me even more sorry for your DM. I'm sorry but when one of my players wont let an arguement die until I and other players become frustrated, that is a pretty good sign to kick that player out. In your arguments you keep throwing out but the RAW says so and well that's only because of DM fiat and in the very next post you say well it don't matter that the RAW says skeletons can only attack or follow because the extra commands that can be given is based on DM fiat. You can't have it both ways...especially since as you pointed out, we are not your DM...but then again neither are YOU. Since you will not abide by a strick RAW interpretation all we can do is give examples of what we or our DM would do. Now honestly you would have a better idea of what your DM would do and if you said to any points with 100% certainity that your DM would not do that or youir DM would allows what you want, that's one thing, but you have not said that either. But hey, your group, your game...do what you want, I never said otherwise...just don't come crying when you get kicked out or get killed.
Vegepygmy 01-30-07, 07:59 PM	You still haven't shown why the limitation of following and attacking the animate dead spell mentions does suddenly not apply anymore.You still haven't shown that it's a limitation, and not just a tautology.
Irving 01-30-07, 08:06 PM	Yes. The second-level spell in question being Extended Summon Undead I, perhaps? Remember, a DC 10 task is one that an average person will mess up half the time in the course of doing. Swabbing the deck I would say is a classic example of a DC 5 or lower task, and it's exactly these kind of monotonous tasks that skeletons excel at. ...you've never watched the original Fantasia, have you? Sorceror's Apprentice, anyone?
Reversefigure4 01-30-07, 08:15 PM	Has nobody else noticed the OP is travelling with an Exalted character? That's Exalted. Just to repeat, Exalted. As in, so good he makes a Paladin look like a shifty crack dealer. As in, a living embodiment of all things good, a saint amongst men. There's no WAY he should be partnering up with someone who's quite happy to animate a bunch of dead bodies and have them crew his ship. If there's even the slightest bit of moral dubiousness about it - and there clearly is, as evidenced by the very existance of the thread - Exalted characters shouldn't be putting up with it.
Cold Napalm 01-30-07, 08:18 PM	Umm I already pointed out the exalted issue...
malignor 01-30-07, 08:42 PM	just don't come crying when you get kicked out or get killed.Never have, never will. We're all aged 24-35, and RP veterans. We've had some inner-PC conflict, but it's always handled maturely. RAW: The problem with the certain kind of sophistry used in the "irrefutable: good rangers can't cast evil spells" argument is that it requires one to suspend the basics of grade school English, in how it pertains to paragraphs and context. Looking for ways to take incomplete segments of the RAW, disposing of the semantic created by surrounding text and biasing the abused words to your taste is not the best way to come up with an "irrefutable argument". It's a very narrow-minded and absurd argument. By RAW, I am casting an evil spell. By RAW, I'm performing an evil act by using an evil spell. If D&D had evil points, I'm sure I'd be earning some by doing this. I accept, acknowledge and even embrace this. My character is already reputable as a rather brooding, deceptive and anti-hero-like shapeshifting drow-slayer covered in spikes and wielding a nasty looking glaive... so I'd wager that this dabbling of necromancy wouldn't really surprise many folks, including the sailors (some of which owe me their lives, which would earn something to my favor). Fits my character concept quite well. *Just don't assume that I'm not good. I've gone out of my way to help people, risk my lives for others, protect the innocent and battled evil since the get-go, and I'm not stopping anytime soon. I even prefer to take evil people alive if possible, and hand them over to whatever authorities are convenient. DM Fiat: The only DM fiat I'll consider as "how it is" is that of my own DM, or of other DMs who run games in my group (including myself and the guy playing the Monk). For a public forum, it's one thing to say "If I were DM, and X and Y and Z, then A and B and C". That's reasonable and worth listening to (though with a grain of salt, due to the lack of other information the person has when posting). Even better is the response of "If I were DM, and X,Y,Z, assuming that L,M,N are true, then A,B,C." which actually includes the assumptions they're making. But trying to "tell me how it is" like you're my DM, not even mentioning what assumptions you're throwing in the mess, saying "A,B,C. I'm right, so there!" is just bad form. Myself: I reserve the right to try and convince people of what I'm doing... sort of "OOC diplomacy". I am right to presume myself worthy of pointing out problems with people's stances, especially when the foundation under that stance is questionable. I am not the DM of this game, and I don't have control of other PCs, but I am in control of my PC who has a high charisma, high bluff, has earned the respect of his comrades and is a generally good guy. I also have the power to (in character) defend myself verbally and physically. Opinion versus Fact: In-game, only the rules and the setting information are factual. If people are going to presume that they are being logical or factual or saying "how it is", then they better back it up with verifiable facts. Saying "I read it somewhere" or "I (mis)interpret it this way" doesn't cut it. If you have an opinion, follow it up, or abandon the rationality of it. If the Druid said "I don't want you to make undead. I hate undead. I just do." and (in-game) I respected him at all, then I'd honestly try to accommodate his feelings. But when he makes half-baked references, flaky interpretations based on other flaky assumptions and says he'll lose his touch with nature, that's a load of absurdity and I'll argue the point. If the Monk said "Ilmater despises the undead, and therefore I must destroy all undead without exception" he better show me the passage where all followers of Ilmater must blindly destroy all (even undead used for good purposes) to retain his favor. If not, his reason is absurd. Instead he should simply say "I don't like undead, because to me they symbolize evil and suffering. I won't be near them." then he's got something I just can't argue against and will definitely try to harmonize with, especially since the Monk is a tried and true friend.
robertliguori 01-30-07, 08:42 PM	Please PM me the library for NS-SOS. Myself and one of my players both have some programming skills and I want to use this and see if they can figure it out well enough to hack a BBEG's necrocomp. My intial search of my hard drive turned up nothing; I think I kept the copies on my previous computer, and didn't port them over. I'll keep looking.
robertliguori 01-30-07, 08:46 PM	...you've never watched the original Fantasia, have you? Sorceror's Apprentice, anyone? Hey, it's not my fault that Mickey can't code worth a darn. Every true necromancer always knows to make sure that your loops terminate, and to triple-check your boundary conditions. Real necromancers also know when to intone "Ctrl-C!" Scenarios like the one in Sorceror's Apprentice can't happen with total control over your creation and a moderate bit of foresight.
Cold Napalm 01-30-07, 09:14 PM	If the Druid said "I don't want you to make undead. I hate undead. I just do." and (in-game) I respected him at all, then I'd honestly try to accommodate his feelings. But when he makes half-baked references, flaky interpretations based on other flaky assumptions and says he'll lose his touch with nature, that's a load of absurdity and I'll argue the point. If the Monk said "Ilmater despises the undead, and therefore I must destroy all undead without exception" he better show me the passage where all followers of Ilmater must blindly destroy all (even undead used for good purposes) to retain his favor. If not, his reason is absurd. Instead he should simply say "I don't like undead, because to me they symbolize evil and suffering. I won't be near them." then he's got something I just can't argue against and will definitely try to harmonize with, especially since the Monk is a tried and true friend. You know what if your being obstanent and going to disrupt the game because of how they worded their displeasure at your plan then...well, lets just say that you would not be welcomed at my gaming table...but then again that means less then squat to you I'm sure. FACT is the monk is EXALTED. Please stop ignoring this rather important FACT. If the monk was not exalted I honestly wouldn't have much against you animating the dead other then the other players don't want you to, but hey your character do what you want and the group can do what they want type deal...BUT with an exalted character already in the group, what you are doing is exatly the same as making an evil character in a party that has a paladin or a thief (not rogue but actually thief) in the same party. You KNOW there is an exalted party member, why in the name of all the is good and holy is your character trying to antagonize somebody your character like as a friend?!? But hey if your group likes you being an antagonist go for it. But once again, that behavior is not acceptable at my table (very much FACT). As for RAW, I NEVER supported the rather silly ranger cast as divine nonsense...by RAW the skeletons can attack and follow. EVERYTHING else they can do is DM fiat. So your plan depends on DM fiat. Which means that all those nasty ideas of DM fiats can happen. Not that your DM will, but it can since we are in DM fiat land here, not RAW anymore.
Mecha_Pope 01-30-07, 09:42 PM	Ok, a few things. First of all, the you cant solve this problem rules-wise without refering to splat-books, in fact, the whole purpose of splat books is to include new material and to clarify issues wich were left out or forgotten in the core rules. such as this issue, why are skeletons and zombies inherently evil? And maybe, just maybe, these things are left unresolved in the PHB are left that way on purpose, so that the rules can be adapted and fit into any campaign setting, or that, god forbid, the DM should come up with thier own reasons, giving his campain a unique flavor. EXAMPLES In my campain, turning someone's corpse into an undead monster is a crime on par with rape, in fact, it is the ultimate violation of another being. Creatures that have become undead cannot be raised because the laws of existence do not allow two copies of the same being to exist on the same plane, even if one is innanimate. Undead that are left uncontrolled mostly mill about harmlessly, unless something living gets too close, then they try to exterminate it. Placing negativly charged undead in the material plane is a bad thing, as it draws more negative energy into the plane. All druids, regardless of alignment, are anti-undead. The mechanics of the negative and positive energy plane work thus. If one cesed to exist, or was hedged out of the world enough, (such as by destroying all undead) the prime material would become a minor BLANK aligned plane. Druids actually seek to make the prime become minorly positive aligned, as this would cause the natural to flourish, and the unnatural to whither away, with no bad side effect twords nature, thus, undead, and the negative energy plane, infect the prime and prevent it from becoming as it is truly intended to be by the Gods, all Good, all Neutral, and Evil nature-oriented gods. If there were too many undead, the world would become minor negative enery plane, and all living things would die and rise as undead, turning the world into a vast necropolois. And what makes this bad? Being undead is constant torture, as the negative energy slowly stips away all feeling but hate, remorse, and self loathing, turning all it touches into horrid mockeries of their former selves. But thats just me, you have to find your own flavour!
Edge_of_Oblivion 01-30-07, 09:48 PM	I wholeheartedly support Mecha-Pope's explaination, and will be stealing it for my campaigns in the future.
Mecha_Pope 01-30-07, 09:56 PM	You will not be stealing my ideas, because I give them too you freely. So take that. I'm happy to help people! I'll bet that makes you mad!
malignor 01-30-07, 10:10 PM	As for RAW, I NEVER supported the rather silly ranger cast as divine nonsense...by RAW the skeletons can attack and follow. EVERYTHING else they can do is DM fiat. So your plan depends on DM fiat. Which means that all those nasty ideas of DM fiats can happen. Not that your DM will, but it can since we are in DM fiat land here, not RAW anymore.Now that is a sensible thing to say, and a valid contribution to the discussion. I do have to depend on the DM's ruling on the open-ended (and uncertain) list of commands applicable to animated dead. If DM ruling is not in my favor in this regard, then I guess I "failed my spellcraft check" for my plans, eh?
megeddo 01-30-07, 10:16 PM	I like Mecha's explanation as well. It pretty much sums up what I have been trying to say all along. Also the monk in the group has not actually said anything. He reacts to things as they happen, and he doesn't quite know that Dorriatt bought the scroll. In other words, he does not meta-game. It will be interesting to see how this exalted character deals with it. The druid was the only one who was vocal about it. He just went about it the wrong way, assuming he would lose his powers if he let Dorriatt animate the dead, which was Malignor's prime beef, and which is the issue I have been trying to address to him. Thanks again Mecha. Napalm, Malignor is not disrupting our group. He is an experienced DM, in fact our most frequent DM, and we all love him. Don't we... Don't we MAL?! He likes to push the envelope with his character especially when it comes to morality, and I give my players the freedom to do that. Derrin was giving us an example of what makes a good DM. Well I have to disagree with pretty much all of your points. As a player myself, a person makes a good DM if he allows me to explore my character with moderate restriction. Provides me with immersive adventure where the results of the adventure are about more than just the treasure and the levels, and runs an open world that isn't just a world full of DMs, with each of them having the DM's views, opinions and moral direction. And quite truthfully, Dorriatt has just lost his best friend as well. He is hurt, and is hell bent on vengeance. Very dark thoughts, even for a good character, lead to dark acts, if the character is not careful. This to me, is the next logical step in Dorriatt's character evolution. A DM who railroads his players because of his interpretation of the alignment system is a game-killer. The players are vets, they know the limitations of their alignment. It's insulting their intelligence when you remind them what CG is all about, and that animate dead has the [evil] descriptor so you cannot cast it or you become evil, and it's ruining their fun when you restrict them to those alignments. Not every character is a paladin, or an exalted monk. As the DM of this game I continually challenge my players with moral dilemmas. It's tough for them sometimes, and most of our night is spent in discussion of potential repercussions of actions. Thankfully the players keep IC with it, and they have fun with it as well. As the DM I am happy has a pig in mud that Dorriatt is providing the group with yet another moral dilemma. Also he does not beat us to death with arguments until he either wins or is proven wrong. He only beats you guys to death instead. He is good at giving into the DM, but he makes his objection known. So please keep this discussion on topic, and don't assume we are either going to kill him or kick him out.
Cold Napalm 01-30-07, 10:47 PM	Well Meg your the DM and it's your game...but how are you going to deal with the fact that mal's character is doing an evil act within a group that has an exalted character? I mean you could be very lax with the exalted RP restriction but in my games, that is the ONLY think that is keeping any semblance of balance with VoP druids and I'm not letting that up (My players are very rules oriented power gamers...well most anyways). I'm all for the pushing the envelope of moral delima, but thats enough of a booby trap with a paladin involved and pretty much asking for it with an exalted character if your gonna hold the RP restrictions. I mean RP wise, why would an exalted character stick around a sorcerer that is raising an army of undead (an evil act...unless you houserule it otherwise). Me as a player would be very frustrated if another player did this to me which pretty much will end up in my exalted character either losing his powers or having to retire said character. Like I said it's like going well we have a paladin...I'm gonna be an assassin!!! As for the kicking him out, that is based on his posts in this thread. If he isn't like that at the table, well he's welcome at my table too, but if acts like his posts...then no. God knows some posts I have done certainly don't resemble at all like how I act in real life, but until otherwise pointed out, you are judged by your posts, and his came out very confrontational, obtuse and for a lack of a better term, he cherry picks his arguments between RAW and it makes sense.
Shaftiel 01-30-07, 11:07 PM	I agree totally. I'd love it if there was a core ruling explaining all of the hideous effects that animating the dead had.... but there isn't. By the actual rules, animated dead are Disneyfied machines. There is no core ruling saying anything about what animate dead does to souls. There is no core ruling saying that you can't animate a corpse whose soul has been destroyed. Doh. You're right - you can animate the corpse of someone who's been turned into a ghost or other incorporeal undead creature with no problems whatsoever. Heck, if you have a bit of them, you can bring back someone who's been "permanently" destroyed by a barghest as a sentient, self-aware undead creature... Weird. Seems like a hole in the rules but by RAW it's perfectly fine. Yet it prevents raise dead... so does animation create a weird negative energy doppleganger soul that displaces/suppresses/prevents your soul from participating in the multiverse? Anyway, Malignor, it seems obvious that you have thought this out and are aware of the up and downsides, and that your DM is a reasonable person who applies the rules as they would best move the game along in an enjoyable manner. If he says you can cast the spell and not instantly turn neutral/evil, and your party members go along with it for whatever reason, I vote you do it. AND I would vote for meggedo to let them function as reasonably effective sailors, at least with a lot of supervision and careful instructions. A skeletal crew is hard to beat for coolness - and at the end of the day, a lot of D&D is about encountering cool stuff and making cool characters. :D -Shaftiel
NobodyRemembersThis 01-30-07, 11:24 PM	BTW, Nobodyremembersthis, if you need to quote four incomplete passsages just to prove your point, then you must be ignoring the rest of the passage. If not you're ignoring any logic at all in favour of the RAW which is subjective to each persons opinion, making it as accurate as George Bush is at knowing when wars end.Oh really? I was just quoting what was relevant to this discussion. However, if you think that the rest of the text around my quotes disproves my arguement, I dare you to post it. And when you cannot disprove my arguement (and you can't), please stop the flamebaiting. I don't care that you don't like what I posted. I am right in this instance. According to RAW, a good spellcaster that is multiclassed a divine spellcasting class CANNOT cast [EVIL] spells.
NobodyRemembersThis 01-30-07, 11:36 PM	RAW: The problem with the certain kind of sophistry used in the "irrefutable: good rangers can't cast evil spells" argument is that it requires one to suspend the basics of grade school English, in how it pertains to paragraphs and context. Looking for ways to take incomplete segments of the RAW, disposing of the semantic created by surrounding text and biasing the abused words to your taste is not the best way to come up with an "irrefutable argument". It's a very narrow-minded and absurd argument.Only because it proves you wrong. I COULD have quoted the entire text, but the rest of the text neither contributes nor contradicts what I have quoted. By RAW, I am casting an evil spell. By RAW, I'm performing an evil act by using an evil spell. This is correct, According to the RAW.If D&D had evil points, I'm sure I'd be earning some by doing this. I accept, acknowledge and even embrace this. My character is already reputable as a rather brooding, deceptive and anti-hero-like shapeshifting drow-slayer covered in spikes and wielding a nasty looking glaive... so I'd wager that this dabbling of necromancy wouldn't really surprise many folks, including the sailors (some of which owe me their lives, which would earn something to my favor). Fits my character concept quite well.Character motivations are all well and good. But they don't matter. As I have proved, your character is incapable of casting an Evil spell because he is a good character. End of story. The mechanics of the system do not in any way support what you want to do. Your original post stated that you could not find where it was against the rules in the RAW. I have provided you proof that you can't do what you want Unless the DM says otherwise. Your DM has not said otherwise. Until your DM says otherwise, you cannot say that the rules allow you to create the undead for your idea. They do not.
malignor 01-31-07, 12:24 AM	Only because it proves you wrong. I COULD have quoted the entire text, but the rest of the text neither contributes nor contradicts what I have quoted. This is correct, According to the RAW.Character motivations are all well and good. But they don't matter. As I have proved, your character is incapable of casting an Evil spell because he is a good character. End of story. The mechanics of the system do not in any way support what you want to do. Your original post stated that you could not find where it was against the rules in the RAW. I have provided you proof that you can't do what you want Unless the DM says otherwise. Your DM has not said otherwise. Until your DM says otherwise, you cannot say that the rules allow you to create the undead for your idea. They do not.Hey, when in doubt, ask the official source, right? http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/944/rangnotclerub3.th.jpg (http://img256.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rangnotclerub3.jpg) That's pretty sexy.
megeddo 01-31-07, 12:35 AM	Hey, when in doubt, ask the official source, right? http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/944/rangnotclerub3.th.jpg (http://img256.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rangnotclerub3.jpg) That's pretty sexy. Oh LOLZAH! Well Meg your the DM and it's your game...but how are you going to deal with the fact that mal's character is doing an evil act within a group that has an exalted character? I mean you could be very lax with the exalted RP restriction but in my games, that is the ONLY think that is keeping any semblance of balance with VoP druids and I'm not letting that up (My players are very rules oriented power gamers...well most anyways). I'm all for the pushing the envelope of moral delima, but thats enough of a booby trap with a paladin involved and pretty much asking for it with an exalted character if your gonna hold the RP restrictions. I mean RP wise, why would an exalted character stick around a sorcerer that is raising an army of undead (an evil act...unless you houserule it otherwise). Me as a player would be very frustrated if another player did this to me which pretty much will end up in my exalted character either losing his powers or having to retire said character. Like I said it's like going well we have a paladin...I'm gonna be an assassin!!! As for the kicking him out, that is based on his posts in this thread. If he isn't like that at the table, well he's welcome at my table too, but if acts like his posts...then no. God knows some posts I have done certainly don't resemble at all like how I act in real life, but until otherwise pointed out, you are judged by your posts, and his came out very confrontational, obtuse and for a lack of a better term, he cherry picks his arguments between RAW and it makes sense. I understand your stance quite well. But there is a flipside to this coin. If you create an "Exalted" character, with rules coming from a supplementary no less, are you not booby trapping the other players' chance to roleplay their character how they want. Let me clarify that. My players were specifically instructed that they create what they want, so long as they are of good alignment and are heroic. One of my player's decided to create this exalted character for many reasons, most prevalent of which was because his character would have a particularly gooney progression chart. I am not going to restrict the other characters because of one character's choice. The guy who plays Moss, knew that his character choice would cause some difficulty later on. What has this resulted in? Moss the monk has frequently been the one to set the party right when it came to moral direction. He is the party's moral compass. The party has seldom done questionable things, but it hsa always been a compromise between Moss and someone else. If you cannot compromise, dont join an adventuring group. It's because of this that the leadership of the group shifts between Dorriatt and Moss. I can think of a number of plausible ways that Moss would react to this. And none of them involve killing Dorriatt or leaving the group. Since I know Moss reads these boards I am gonna leave it at that.
NobodyRemembersThis 01-31-07, 12:39 AM	And how, pray tell, does that disprove the RAW? All it proves is that Sam can't read - it is also not Errata. Try again, wih some real proof.
malignor 01-31-07, 12:53 AM	Why do I have to prove that you were abusing the English language to misinterpret the RAW? It's readily apparent to enough people, so I can really just disregard your "proof" out of hand. I'd have to crack some books, get some sources and then I would have to prove that the staffing at WotC is not incompetent enough to hire an author with feeble writing skills and a team of sloppy editors. No thanks. I have work, play and not enough time to enjoy both. You know how it is.
NobodyRemembersThis 01-31-07, 01:07 AM	Interesting cop out - and straw man arguements. I really like the "abusing the english language" arguement. :bored: It is so nice to see arguemets that attack the poster and not the post - especially when the post itself is FACT and cannot be disputed. I have already in the thread provided a link to the SRD. Go ahead and spend a few minutes looking it over - It took me all of 5 minutes to put my arguement together. YOU asked for Proof. I have provided it. And, I have given quotes and the link to the SRD backing up my statements. You incorrectly claim that my arguement is wrong. Prove it. I have the FACTS necessary to prove my points. If you cannot find proof to disprove my arguements, then we are done here. Whether you like it or not Malignor, you are in the wrong - your attempts to justify what you want to do are not supported by the rules. Tough Luck.
Vegepygmy 01-31-07, 01:30 AM	It took me all of 5 minutes to put my arguement together.Yep. That sounds about right. Maybe your argument would benefit from another 5 minutes of thought?
Derren S. 01-31-07, 01:36 AM	Maybe your argument would benefit from another 5 minutes of thought? Why? So far no one found anything to disprove his argument. Have you? Then post it please.
Vegepygmy 01-31-07, 01:49 AM	His argument is erroneous on its face. I have better things to do than argue with someone who tries to tell me dogs are cats.
Derren S. 01-31-07, 01:55 AM	His argument is erroneous on its face. I have better things to do than argue with someone who tries to tell me dogs are cats. And why is it erroneous? Because he uses the rules as written? So you are basically just shouting "He's wong, he's wrong" unwilling to back up your words with any proof.
robertliguori 01-31-07, 08:26 AM	Only because it proves you wrong. I COULD have quoted the entire text, but the rest of the text neither contributes nor contradicts what I have quoted. This is correct, According to the RAW.Character motivations are all well and good. But they don't matter. As I have proved, your character is incapable of casting an Evil spell because he is a good character. End of story. The mechanics of the system do not in any way support what you want to do. Your original post stated that you could not find where it was against the rules in the RAW. I have provided you proof that you can't do what you want Unless the DM says otherwise. Your DM has not said otherwise. Until your DM says otherwise, you cannot say that the rules allow you to create the undead for your idea. They do not. A: Your 'cunning argument' argument would be much more convincing if the character in question was actually casting Animate Dead himself. As it stands, all you have 'proven' is that the character should have used oil of animate dead instead of a potion. B: It is transparently obvious that attempting to apply restrictions on one set of spellcasting classes to another is moronic. By your ruling, wizard/sorcerors would need to both prepare their spells ahead of time and cast them spontaneously, and because fighters cannot cast spells, neither can fighter/bards. There are zip, zero, nada and no indicators that the alignment restriction on clerical spellcasting applies to anything but clerical spellcasting; attempting to shoehorn your interpretation contradicts every spellcasting multiclass NPC ever written. You will pardon us for disregarding your rather tortured logic in this matter, the same way we ignore people who cast Aid on their dead companions and expect them to start walking around again.
Derren S. 01-31-07, 08:31 AM	You will pardon us for disregarding your rather tortured logic in this matter, the same way we ignore people who cast Aid on their dead companions and expect them to start walking around again. And you will hopefully pardon me to ignore your nonsense rabling. Are fighters restricted to not cast spells? No, they just don't have that class ability. And neither is preparing spells a restriction. So in your case I would spend some time learning the difference between "restriction" and "not having". After that read the OP again so you can see that we are indeed talking about casting Animate Dead (from a scroll).
malignor 01-31-07, 10:17 AM	*sigh* well what the heck. I'll disprove it later today, simply because I'll enjoy the outcome. All I have to do is prove that... - The SRD and core rulebooks are intended to be written such that they comply with the English standards of high school or better. If you're willing to accept this part out of hand, you'll save me the trouble. - The structure of the texts in question (spell sections of the Ranger and Cleric) do not suggest the same set of spell-alignment restrictions through the referential inheritance. This is the big one. Once these are proven or accepted, the conclusion can be either... A) You are reading it wrong. Therefore your "proof" is bunk. B) They wrote it wrong (which looks bad on the writers & editors), and you magically know more about the rules than the staff of WotC does. A conclusion I'm sure we're all willing to accept.
Mecha_Pope 01-31-07, 10:37 AM	From a purly objective point, it looks like the rules in question may and thats a may work in the way he indicated. IF the ranger has the spell casting restrictions of the cleric, and the multiclass section states that all spellcasting restrictions from all classes you possess apply, then I'm afraid that the ranger can't cast animate dead. However, the rules are too vaugly written to prove it either way, so you two will just have to agree to dissagree, and rule as you see fit WHEN YOU'RE THE DM. Now, from a fluff perspective, this all makes perfect sense. How would you feel if you were a god, and your follower (divine caster) was running about, multiclassing, and then casting spells explicitly forbidden to them. Good ole' divine wrath kicks in and BAM! No more cleric/paladin/ranger goodies. It seems alitle weasaly to accept the benifits and restrictions of your god, and then go around his back to eliminate the restrictions. I can definatly see you loosing favor (and ranger spells, supernatural abilities, animal companion) with your god. Arguing this just kinda makes you seem like a whiny baby, upset because he isn't getting what they want. This is all fluff though, and up to the DM once again.
Mecha_Pope 01-31-07, 10:42 AM	Not arguing this either way, but are you suggesting that if you have a ranger and a cleric, of the same god, that god would allow the ranger to run about raising the undead, but NOT the cleric? That seems alittle fishy. They are both divine casters, thus thier dieties determine what they can and cannot cast. A good diety is not going to allow a ranger to use an evil spell.
malignor 01-31-07, 11:44 AM	A good way of looking at it, but consider this: Generally rangers don't get their powers from gods. If anything, their powers come from being attuned to nature. However, the SRD is silent on what would qualify as something that would rob a Ranger of his abilities. In my case I worship Shevarash (http://www.nwncityofarabel.com/gods/SHEVARASH.htm) and Fenmarel Mestarine (http://www.nwncityofarabel.com/gods/Fenmarel.htm). Looking at their profiles, I have some doubt as to whether they care about what methods I employ. I could be evil as all heck and still fit their dogma. But I'm not... I'm a good guy who just happens to occasionally take a few steps on the darker path for altruistic reasons.
Derren S. 01-31-07, 12:25 PM	In FR everyone needs to worship a god for divine spells. As both gods are neutral you should have no problem casting the spell if you become neutral. When you stay good you can't cast the spell. Shevarash might have a problem with undead as that are the methods of drow and not real elves.
Lafing Cat 01-31-07, 01:55 PM	Heck, if you have a bit of them, you can bring back someone who's been "permanently" destroyed by a barghest as a sentient, self-aware undead creature... Actually, I beg to differ. Animate Dead, as well as (Greater) Create Undead both require a corpse. a *bit* of a corpse, such as someone's hand, is not a corpse, and as such its not a valid target for any of those spells. If there *is* a spell that works to create an undead that doesn't have Target: One Corpse (or Corpse Touched, or whatever) I'm unaware of it. As for making undead out of people that are ghosts, it may be possible, but you *still* can't raise the original person while an undead exists.
chucky 01-31-07, 02:01 PM	I have a quick question. How much exp is the sorcerer worth to the monk when he kills him for committing this vile and evil act? Because you can come up with excuses all day long for doing it but its the monk who has to decide how man punches to the head it will take to kill you for doing it.
megeddo 01-31-07, 02:01 PM	In FR everyone needs to worship a god for divine spells. As both gods are neutral you should have no problem casting the spell if you become neutral. When you stay good you can't cast the spell. Shevarash might have a problem with undead as that are the methods of drow and not real elves. That's true. Divine Spellcasters channel their magic through their god, even though all magic still comes from the same place: The Weave. I get what you mean Derrin, but forget that I am the DM for a moment when I say that Shevarash doesn't give a toss about undead. His sole purpose is to wipe drow off of the face of the planet. Dorriatt is one of his more approachable followers hehe. Vegepygmy: "Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions." Notice in the above quote, it specifically says CLERIC. It does not say DIVINE SPELLCASTER. I then went and checked the ranger class, and found no such restriction. In fact the only spell related material is this. Beginning at 4th level, a ranger gains the ability to cast a small number of divine spells, which are drawn from the ranger spell list. A ranger must choose and prepare his spells in advance (see below). To prepare or cast a spell, a ranger must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a ranger’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the ranger’s Wisdom modifier. Like other spellcasters, a ranger can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: The Ranger. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Wisdom score. When Table: The Ranger indicates that the ranger gets 0 spells per day of a given spell level, he gains only the bonus spells he would be entitled to based on his Wisdom score for that spell level. The ranger does not have access to any domain spells or granted powers, as a cleric does. A ranger prepares and casts spells the way a cleric does, though he cannot lose a prepared spell to cast a cure spell in its place. A ranger may prepare and cast any spell on the ranger spell list, provided that he can cast spells of that level, but he must choose which spells to prepare during his daily meditation. Through 3rd level, a ranger has no caster level. At 4th level and higher, his caster level is one-half his ranger level. Sorry for the massive quote, but since you have displayed a far superior intellect to me, in that you can see things in the rules that just escape me, I decided to post the entire paragraph so that we can analyze it together. Now let's start with the question, "Why does the cleric's spell ability have that very plain and obvious restriction, when the ranger class description does not?" Notice in the ranger quote it says the following: "A ranger prepares and casts spells the way a cleric does, though he cannot lose a prepared spell to cast a cure spell in its place." This is as close as you can get to comparing a ranger to a cleric, that and they both cast divine spells. They both spend one hour praying for spells from their class's spell list. Unless it specifically states it in RAW,(Beginning to really hate that term) no lesson in english comprehension from you is going to convince me otherwise.
megeddo 01-31-07, 02:05 PM	I have a quick question. How much exp is the sorcerer worth to the monk when he kills him for committing this vile and evil act? Because you can come up with excuses all day long for doing it but its the monk who has to decide how man punches to the head it will take to kill you for doing it. Thankfully the monk is played by a player who is mature enough to use this as an opportunity to roleplay it out. We use to play with a guy who was a RAW junkie and would throw his loyalties and his companions to the wind to try and kill you if you overstepped his strictly enforced bounds. The player was a lot like his character. Fortunately he no longer plays with us.
chucky 01-31-07, 02:09 PM	For a cleric or ranger to prepare their spells they MUST do their prayers at the correct time of day and in the correct way for their faith or they dont get their spells. AKA if your god demands you pray for them at sun rise, and you didnt do it at sun rise, no spells for you. Also they ask for what spells they can cast. They do NOT demand to get what they want if they want to be a spell caster for long. (See dragon lance to see what happens when priests get uppity) If the gm wants they can decide what spells you get for the day. So your ranger decides to wake up one day and prays to its god and asks for animate dead. What do you think the answer will be if the ranger was good before? There is a class based solely on stealing the magic being granted to other priests to power their spell castiing.
Derren S. 01-31-07, 02:25 PM	A ranger prepares and casts spells the way a cleric does There you have it. A ranger casts spells the way a cleric does and that way inclued not beeing able to cast alignment opposed spells.
megeddo 01-31-07, 02:47 PM	There you have it. A ranger casts spells the way a cleric does and that way inclued not beeing able to cast alignment opposed spells. Dude seriously. I bake bread the same way my friend does, by mixing flour with eggs and yeast and other stuff, and then we put it in the oven. But he is restricted by his diet to a certain type of flour and I am not. I barbeque and eat meat the same way a devout jew or muslim does. But I am not restricted in my choices of meat because my religion is not as restrictive. I can cook and eat pork and they cannot, but it was still prepared the same way as theirs. Back to DnD: I am a ranger, I pray to nature or my god for spells the same way a cleric does, but I am not restricted by my alignment like a cleric is. I am also not restricted to the time of day I can pray for spells like a cleric is. But we still get our spells by the same method: Prayer and meditation. We both need to rest for eight hours, and we both can eschew spell books. Granted actually getting the animate dead spell from a good god if you are a ranger is, even in my world, impossible. Rangers do not have it on their spell list. But Dorriatt is not praying for this spell. He has it on a scroll. He can cast this spell from the scroll if he wishes because he is not restricted by alignment. Also this spell he has is arcane, not divine. Because he is a sorceror he can cast it. If he were a good cleric/sorc instead, then yes, he would not even be able to cast arcane spells with the evil descriptor, but that is not the case. He is a ranger/sorc This is not world specific, this is DnD specific. Nowhere in the rules does it restrict a cross dressing... er I mean cross classing ranger in his arcane spell selection. NO WHERE. You are deriving the wrong context from the rules you read, you are completely off topic or just didn't read the OP properly. I wouldn't be surprised since you can't even read the rules properly, and even WoTC disagrees with you. You lose.
malignor 01-31-07, 03:00 PM	*cracks knuckels* ooooh yeah baby. This is my bread and buttah. Let the battle of wits begin! I will not provide a technical proof, blindly (ab)using RAW simply because there is not one. Instead, consider the highly probable likelihood that the RAW was written by professionals who are competent enough to know how to write. Based on this and this alone, I'm about to blow away the foundation of this "Alignment-restricted Ranger" lie of erroneous sophism. We'll start with a basic analysis. Beginning at 4th level, a ranger gains the ability to cast a small number of divine spells, which are drawn from the ranger spell list. A ranger must choose and prepare his spells in advance (see below). To prepare or cast a spell, a ranger must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a ranger’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the ranger’s Wisdom modifier. Like other spellcasters, a ranger can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: The Ranger. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Wisdom score. When Table: The Ranger indicates that the ranger gets 0 spells per day of a given spell level, he gains only the bonus spells he would be entitled to based on his Wisdom score for that spell level. The ranger does not have access to any domain spells or granted powers, as a cleric does. A ranger prepares and casts spells the way a cleric does, though he cannot lose a prepared spell to cast a cure spell in its place. A ranger may prepare and cast any spell on the ranger spell list, provided that he can cast spells of that level, but he must choose which spells to prepare during his daily meditation. Through 3rd level, a ranger has no caster level. At 4th level and higher, his caster level is one-half his ranger level.Now let's see what the central concept of each paragraph is. General introduction of the spells (divine, Ranger list, in advance) and references to other sections Relationship to the Wisdom score Spells/day, spells available Methods of casting and preparation Caster levelNow #4 is the paragraph in question. It says "A ranger prepares and casts spells the way a cleric does, though he cannot lose a prepared spell to cast a cure spell in its place." It's talking about methods by which a Ranger prepares and casts spells. This is important because it refers to Cleric only in "the way" he preps and casts spells. So let's look at the Cleric.A cleric casts divine spells, which are drawn from the cleric spell list. However, his alignment may restrict him from casting certain spells opposed to his moral or ethical beliefs; see Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells, below. A cleric must choose and prepare his spells in advance (see below). To prepare or cast a spell, a cleric must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a cleric’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the cleric’s Wisdom modifier. Like other spellcasters, a cleric can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: The Cleric. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Wisdom score. A cleric also gets one domain spell of each spell level he can cast, starting at 1st level. When a cleric prepares a spell in a domain spell slot, it must come from one of his two domains (see Deities, Domains, and Domain Spells, below). Clerics meditate or pray for their spells. Each cleric must choose a time at which he must spend 1 hour each day in quiet contemplation or supplication to regain his daily allotment of spells. Time spent resting has no effect on whether a cleric can prepare spells. A cleric may prepare and cast any spell on the cleric spell list, provided that he can cast spells of that level, but he must choose which spells to prepare during his daily meditation. Deity, Domains, and Domain Spells A cleric’s deity influences his alignment, what magic he can perform, his values, and how others see him. A cleric chooses two domains from among those belonging to his deity. A cleric can select an alignment domain (Chaos, Evil, Good, or Law) only if his alignment matches that domain. If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. The restriction on alignment domains still applies. Each domain gives the cleric access to a domain spell at each spell level he can cast, from 1st on up, as well as a granted power. The cleric gets the granted powers of both the domains selected. With access to two domain spells at a given spell level, a cleric prepares one or the other each day in his domain spell slot. If a domain spell is not on the cleric spell list, a cleric can prepare it only in his domain spell slot. Spontaneous Casting A good cleric (or a neutral cleric of a good deity) can channel stored spell energy into healing spells that the cleric did not prepare ahead of time. The cleric can "lose" any prepared spell that is not a domain spell in order to cast any cure spell of the same spell level or lower (a cure spell is any spell with "cure" in its name). An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric of an evil deity), can’t convert prepared spells to cure spells but can convert them to inflict spells (an inflict spell is one with "inflict" in its name). A cleric who is neither good nor evil and whose deity is neither good nor evil can convert spells to either cure spells or inflict spells (player’s choice). Once the player makes this choice, it cannot be reversed. This choice also determines whether the cleric turns or commands undead. Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions. General The nature of the spells, the spell list and some reference to other sections The relationship between Wisdom and spells Spells per day, spells available and domains The methods that clerics use to prepare and cast spells D, D and DS The cleric's alignment & effects domain spells & powers domain slots Spontaneous Casting - This has nothing relevant so I'll skip it Alignmented Spells A cleric's restrictions on spells, based on the spell's alignment.Here, the two points are underlined. Section A, paragraph 4 is the methods of preparation and casting - the part which is implicitly referenced by the corresponding Ranger section in Ranger-paragraph #4. However, section D, paragraph 1 says nothing about methods of preparation or casting. To further illustrate my point, the Ranger description outright lists numberous things which are already well detailed in the Cleric spells section. Things such as the relationship to the Wisdom score. Why bother? It would therefore be misleading to write the Ranger spells section in a "complete" way without outwardly addressing a very important restriction. Especially since this game is meant to be understandable by a young crowd (teens and young adults who are a significant portion of the audience). Other restrictions have been addressed handily - no spontaneous casting, no domains, no spells beyond what your wisdom score allows. I find that your view of the RAW in this regard requires an assumption which is an insult to the intelligence of WotC staff as a whole. They do not write in such a way that a reader has to read multiple base classes just to understand one base class. The reference is merely to show the similarity between divine casters in their methods of preparing and casting spells. You are selectively ignoring the basics (http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/enggrade4.asp) of English (http://internet4classrooms.com/skills_6th_lang.htm) as taught in grade schools in a country with an alarmingly low literacy rate (http://www.shashitharoor.com/articles/newsweek/illiterate.php), to satisfy an erroneous argument. You proof is self-defeating, unless you intend for us all to agree with the highly improbable assumptions that support it. I have literary comprehension, and I also have a member of the official staff supporting my interpretation. EDIT: I'd like to point out that I'm willing to entertain any reasonable dispute on the central subjects of any paragraphs I've addressed.
Mecha_Pope 01-31-07, 03:11 PM	I still think that for flavour reasons, it tastes yucky. It's gotta be evil for a reason (a reason that is of course up to the dm) and I just can't see a good person doing it, if they know the reason's why it's wrong. If they dont, I can envision someone who does "educationg" them on it. (Weather or not that education is literal or not, as in a cleric explaining them as to why it's wrong, rather than an undead hunting ranger tearing thier ship apart) Mostly these problems we're all having is a lack of clear rules, rules left that way by WOTC to be filled in by dm's in order to add his own flavor to a campaign, or to integrate it with other campaign settings. People are taking these lack of rules to mean that they can do what they want, and frankly, they can, if the DM doesn't set his own rules to the situation.
robertliguori 01-31-07, 04:41 PM	I still think that for flavour reasons, it tastes yucky. It's gotta be evil for a reason (a reason that is of course up to the dm) and I just can't see a good person doing it, if they know the reason's why it's wrong. If they dont, I can envision someone who does "educationg" them on it. (Weather or not that education is literal or not, as in a cleric explaining them as to why it's wrong, rather than an undead hunting ranger tearing thier ship apart) Mostly these problems we're all having is a lack of clear rules, rules left that way by WOTC to be filled in by dm's in order to add his own flavor to a campaign, or to integrate it with other campaign settings. People are taking these lack of rules to mean that they can do what they want, and frankly, they can, if the DM doesn't set his own rules to the situation. Well, one possible problem with this line of thinking is that consequensial rules (like the ones you mentioned previously) can be averted. If animating the dead is evil because it produces magical pollution, then taking steps to reduce or contain the pollution (or doing so only when more pollution would result from not animating the dead) should make the act less evil, eventually reaching a threshold of evil that should be generally acceptable. Also, you are describing the actions of a person who kills people and breaks things for a living. There are certain highly-limited circumstances in which killing people is not only accepted, but lauded as the correct response to the situation. I am skeptical that the nature of animating the dead is so much worse than the act of bringing them to that state in the first place that there is no good that can be done with it.
nameneeded 01-31-07, 04:50 PM	k, I play Moss in this game. As a player I think its a great idea to command undead to do menial tasks like sweeping and opening doors for guests or handing out towels in the mansion bathrooms etc…. My preferred system is Rolemaster Standard. For those unaware, it does not follow good evil per se. It has life and unlife.... Murderers rapist are considered evil/ bad people, are tried and such but unlife worshipers are hunted down by entire towns.....kinda like witchcraft in puritan times. They are the "EVIL" like we have in DnD. In RM there are a few classes that can summon forth things of evil, demons, devils, but doesn't make the caster evil. That is determined by deed. What effects if you should do it is how people feel being around dead and evil things even though they are under control. So with that kinda thinking I would have no probs at all. But this isn't RM. This is Faerun. Things are different here. Now I can go into the whole good vs evil thing but its been beaten to death so lets move past that. Now as for if he can even cast the spell........ I see no reason why not. he is a Sorcerer after all. Mid you I see no reason why a Good Cleric can't cast harm on an enemy either. Its just another form of damage even if its an "evil" spell. Let his God decide on if he'll grant it or punish the follower for doing it (via scroll, item etc.). What about Natural vs Unnatural? Are undead unnatural things? Well maybe not on the Negative energy plane but here on the prime material plane they are. Nothing on this plane just turns undead without some outside help. No "circle of life" type event ends with "Well now I become a zombie!" people don't climb out of thier graves and rush home cause the left the stove on. So it’s unnatural. How do people respond to the unnatural in the world we live in? Some are scared, some fearful, some excited....... the whole gambit. But I would bet a years pay that the average person (not gamer!) does not want a dead body in their living room. Even if it is doing the vacuuming. So since the Druid is all against the unnatural then I would not be surprised if he destroys them. ( I may assist just a little :rolleyes: ) Now Ilmater wants to end suffering, as does Moss. So do undead suffer? I can't buy into the whole "trapping the soul so it can't move on" thing. I mean when does a soul leave its body to start its quest? I would say at -10 since after that you need a resurrection spell. Healing won't cut it. And what about bodies that have beed dead for years and years? So no I don't think their soul is suffering suffering. And with no intelligence I don't consider them sentient. I mean put up a wall of fire and they keep coming. Now some undead have intelligence and thus are sentient. but I still would rather glow (nimbus) and start breaking limbs. Do they feel pain? Not in anything I have read or seen. So, no suffering is to be had. Does Ilmater want all undead destroyed? Well in what I have read there is no single line that says he does. But there is no line like that (that I have read) for any God. So by that am I to assume that the Gods are OK with some undead? I mean sure it comments they are opposed to undead but I’m opposed to the color puce yet I don’t go tearing the shirts off people (even though they have bad fashion sense and prob deserve it) who wear it. But my wife knows I’m not a fan and thus doesn’t wear it. So as such I will prob decide to follow my Patrons example and not want a bunch of undead running around the ship. Should Doriat decide to use the scroll in combat then have at her…..as long as we destroy them before returning to the our home/ ship.:D On a side note one person wrote how being exhaulted is "Gooder" than a paladin. We Moss has interations with evil people. He has spared them, offer to bury them, heal them had business dealings with them. I follow Ilmater who wants to end suffering. He doesn't care if they are good or evil. If I can help ease their pain then I do. If I have to kill some slavers to save some victims I will. Being Exhaulted or a Paladin doesn't suddenly make you a zealot or a moron. (Though to many play them that way.) It means your are devote in your faith. That you go that extra mile to appease you God. And in an Exhaulted's case you are getting rewarded for following your path even when it gets rougher than most. But thats just my view. And like most may be worth nothing at all.
Mecha_Pope 01-31-07, 05:14 PM	But that puts you into a bit of a bind there moss, because by deffinition, evil causes suffering, thus you must, as a follower of Ilmatar, you must oppose evil whenever possible. (Weather this means smooshing thier heads in or converting them, that depends on the situation) As for rice-er-oni or robertliguori or whatever up there, that is still purly my oppinion, and my campain. This is how I explain why undead are inherently evil when the MM gives us none. Everyone has to find a method that they like. (In my campaigns, frequent association with negative energy begins to warp an individuals mind and body. You start to become emaciated and pale, basicly looking like a "classic" Necromancer. So hanging out with undead is bad. And no, there would be no way to lessen the negative energy polution, as thats what powers the undead in the first place. The only way to stop it would be to find some other way to animate them, at which point they stop being undead, rendering the point moot.) As for the moral implications of raising the dead, that depends solely, like I've said, on the DM's or the campain settings idea of how it all works. I tend to see it as a fundamental debasement of the human being, much like rape, but on a greater scale, in wich the entire body is literally wreanched away, taken by one who has no right or permission to do so, and them animated by forign energies. In addition to that, by animating the corpse, you are doing a highly unnateral act. It's not just that corpses aren't meant to walk about, wich they're not, but you are removing it entirly from the biological cycle, preventing it from returning to the natural cycle of growth, death, decomposition, and birth. That's why a druid would seek to destroy the undead, but not a city. The druid knows that the city, and everyone in it, is still a part of this natural cycle, and will re-join it in time. Those animate corpses may remain in that state indefinatly, upsetting the natural order. And to a druid, that's one of the greatest crimes one can commit.
journeyman777 01-31-07, 05:14 PM	Also, you are describing the actions of a person who kills people and breaks things for a living. There are certain highly-limited circumstances in which killing people is not only accepted, but lauded as the correct response to the situation. I am skeptical that the nature of animating the dead is so much worse than the act of bringing them to that state in the first place that there is no good that can be done with it.I don't want to derail this into another alignment thread, so I'll try to keep this on a basis of logic. Your argument (as best I percieve it) Supposition 1. Some acts are EVIL, while some acts are merely evil. Supposition 2. Some (goals+situations) limit a character's options such that he must choose one or the other. Supposition 3. A character is not morally responsible for actions they take if none of their options are in accord with their morals. Conclusion: A character that acts outside his morals do to a lack of options is not morally responsible so long as he chose the option least against his morals. Supposition 1 seems to be confirmed both by inherent sense and logical inferences from several rules. Supposition 2 is purely hypothetical and generally requires judging the morallity of an act primarily on intent. This approach is contradicted by those rules which specify certain acts as being of a particular morality with no mention or exception made for intent or circumstance. Thus, Supposition 2 is demonstratably false. Supposition 3 is dependant on supposition 2 and therefore is invalidated as well. I say that an act is judged solely on its own merits, first by the action, then by intent, and finally by chance of success. This is not confirmed by the rules, but it isn't contradicted either, so it serves well enough.
nameneeded 01-31-07, 05:27 PM	But that puts you into a bit of a bind there moss, because by deffinition, evil causes suffering, thus you must, as a follower of Ilmatar, you must oppose evil whenever possible. (Weather this means smooshing thier heads in or converting them, that depends on the situation) Good people cause suffering as well...so by your deffinition I have a pile of smooshing to do! :confused: Dam....I'm gonna need a bigger stick...... Evil as a whole causes suffering yes, and as such I am opposed to it...but evil also can end suffering.....a Lawful evil goverment can still keep a society protected and safe....so should I stop them? Thats why Ilmater and I avoid the evil bias when determining who to help. At least thats how I view it.
robertliguori 01-31-07, 05:35 PM	But that puts you into a bit of a bind there moss, because by deffinition, evil causes suffering, thus you must, as a follower of Ilmatar, you must oppose evil whenever possible. (Weather this means smooshing thier heads in or converting them, that depends on the situation) I am highly skeptical that casting Protection from Good off in a demiplane somewhere noticably causes suffering. As for rice-er-oni or robertliguori or whatever up there, that is still purly my oppinion, and my campain. This is how I explain why undead are inherently evil when the MM gives us none. Everyone has to find a method that they like. (In my campaigns, frequent association with negative energy begins to warp an individuals mind and body. You start to become emaciated and pale, basicly looking like a "classic" Necromancer. So hanging out with undead is bad. And no, there would be no way to lessen the negative energy polution, as thats what powers the undead in the first place. The only way to stop it would be to find some other way to animate them, at which point they stop being undead, rendering the point moot.) The pollution itself powers the undead? You say that the warping of the world is what actually fuels unlife? That is an interesting wrinkle. Does this mean that undead cannot exist in ancient, forbidding crypts, where there is no life to corrupt? As for the moral implications of raising the dead, that depends solely, like I've said, on the DM's or the campain settings idea of how it all works. I tend to see it as a fundamental debasement of the human being, much like rape, but on a greater scale, in wich the entire body is literally wreanched away, taken by one who has no right or permission to do so, and them animated by forign energies. An interesting metaphor. Does this imply that it is permissible to raise mindless undead from the bodies of those who so willed? In addition to that, by animating the corpse, you are doing a highly unnateral act. It's not just that corpses aren't meant to walk about, wich they're not, but you are removing it entirly from the biological cycle, preventing it from returning to the natural cycle of growth, death, decomposition, and birth. That's why a druid would seek to destroy the undead, but not a city. The druid knows that the city, and everyone in it, is still a part of this natural cycle, and will re-join it in time. Those animate corpses may remain in that state indefinatly, upsetting the natural order. And to a druid, that's one of the greatest crimes one can commit. A: Unnatural is a nigh-meaningless term in a magical world. Sentient lumps of the elemental planes are not meant to walk around here on the Prime, but when druids hit level 5, they tend to do just that. If nature includes what people can do with magic, then undead are as natural as the Druid class, and if it doesn't, then the Druid class is thoroughly unnatural. Now, if druids are just as down on constructs, called elementals, and called outsiders as they are undead, then this is perfectly consistent. B: So does disentegrate, or even burial in a sterile area. Neither of these acts tend to invoke druid hit squads. C: Undead die eventually. Everything that can be killed or destroyed dies eventually. You don't see druids attacking fey, do you?
NobodyRemembersThis 01-31-07, 05:42 PM	Malignor, you just proved my point. Again. :bored: Dissregarding all of your pointless lessons on structure - which you cannot prove without knowing which structure was used as a basis for the book - , the sections I quoted sum it up. Preperation and CASTING. A ragner explicitly (with your own quote) prepares and casts spells [b]as a cleric. Since it does not, anywhere, contradict the restriction imprted on clerics in regard to alignment, the alignment restriction falls under "casts spells as a cleric". It's right in the text - you are disengenuously attempting to misread it. Your entire arguement i based on what you assume the writers intended. I hope you do not seriously think you know what they were thinking. Let me sum this up. Your arguement against my proof is essentially "That's not the way the writers intended it." And that is a valid opinion to have. However, it is just that, an opinion. The text does not agree with you. Regardless of what you assume to be behind what is written (and, I note, that you only support that they think exactly like you :nonono: ), the simple truth of the matter is that they DID write the text that the rules, as written do not favor you. So sorry. The fact of the matter is this: 1.) Clerics cannot cast spells against their alignment (FACT) 2.) Rangers prepare and cast spells like a cleric. (FACT) 3.) Multiclass characters must apply the restrictions of each of their clases to all of their classes (exception: Illiteracy). (FACT) It is disenguous of you to attempt to draw a different conlusion then the one I have proven in my posts. Rail against the facts all you want, but your ephemeral "That's not what they intended" doesn't change what is.
robertliguori 01-31-07, 05:44 PM	I don't want to derail this into another alignment thread, so I'll try to keep this on a basis of logic. Your argument (as best I percieve it) Supposition 1. Some acts are EVIL, while some acts are merely evil. Supposition 2. Some (goals+situations) limit a character's options such that he must choose one or the other. Supposition 3. A character is not morally responsible for actions they take if none of their options are in accord with their morals. Conclusion: A character that acts outside his morals do to a lack of options is not morally responsible so long as he chose the option least against his morals. Supposition 1 seems to be confirmed both by inherent sense and logical inferences from several rules. Supposition 2 is purely hypothetical and generally requires judging the morallity of an act primarily on intent. This approach is contradicted by those rules which specify certain acts as being of a particular morality with no mention or exception made for intent or circumstance. Thus, Supposition 2 is demonstratably false. Supposition 3 is dependant on supposition 2 and therefore is invalidated as well. I say that an act is judged solely on its own merits, first by the action, then by intent, and finally by chance of success. This is not confirmed by the rules, but it isn't contradicted either, so it serves well enough. I believe that you have misunderstood me. I have not made any claims about Good or Evil. The canonical example is that of the paladin that needs to slay a baby, or great evil (including the slaying of many other babies) will inevitably result, and that the slaying of this baby will definitively prevent said evil, and there exists no other method in the paladin's power to prevent definitive evil. In this situation, killing the baby is Evil, and a true-to-type paladin will not do so. Good will therefore lead to suffering and badness, where Evil would have led to less suffering and smaller badness. Ergo, Good and Evil are not connected to morality in any meaningful way, and are no more good indicators of behavior than the elemental energies.
Sildatorak 01-31-07, 06:03 PM	I believe it was brought up once before in the thread in terms of supporting the reasoning that even scrolls of [evil] spells are off limits, but here it comes in the other direction. A scroll is a spell (or collection of spells) that has been stored in written form. A spell on a scroll can be used only once. The writing vanishes from the scroll when the spell is activated. Using a scroll is basically like casting a spell. A scroll is basically like casting a spell. That is to say that even though it has many similarities to casting a spell it is not in fact a true spell casting. Also note earlier that the spell takes effect when the scroll is activated. Regardless of the stance on whether rangers are restricted about casting [evil] spells, they can use scrolls with [evil] spells since it isn't a casting. In this case, since the alignment problem isn't a god/spell conflict but a ranger/spell conflict, I fail to see the problem even if he is bypassing a restriction on his casting. What is he going to do, take away his own casting ability? I personally don't think the restriction is intended to apply to rangers, but I'm not going to delve into that argument beyond weighing in with my opinion since the RAW are clearly against it.
nameneeded 01-31-07, 06:04 PM	I'm sorry I can't side with you on this NBRT... If Doriat was a Cleric or a Ranger I could and prob would. But he is also a Sorcerer as as such gets to follow those rules as well. Heck the last lvl he took was a sorcerer lvl. And as it is a Sorcerer ability he is using (arcane) I do not see the rules supporting you in this. He does NOT prepare his spells as a cleric as they are not divine. he prepares them as a Sorcerer. Now when he gets some divine spells on the go I agree that he will have to follow cleric rules with regards to them. But till then ........cast away!
robertliguori 01-31-07, 06:09 PM	Malignor, you just proved my point. Again. :bored: Dissregarding all of your pointless lessons on structure - which you cannot prove without knowing which structure was used as a basis for the book - , the sections I quoted sum it up. Preperation and CASTING. A ragner explicitly (with your own quote) prepares and casts spells [b]as a cleric. Since it does not, anywhere, contradict the restriction imprted on clerics in regard to alignment, the alignment restriction falls under "casts spells as a cleric". It's right in the text - you are disengenuously attempting to misread it. Your entire arguement i based on what you assume the writers intended. I hope you do not seriously think you know what they were thinking. Let me sum this up. Your arguement against my proof is essentially "That's not the way the writers intended it." And that is a valid opinion to have. However, it is just that, an opinion. The text does not agree with you. Regardless of what you assume to be behind what is written (and, I note, that you only support that they think exactly like you :nonono: ), the simple truth of the matter is that they DID write the text that the rules, as written do not favor you. So sorry. The fact of the matter is this: 1.) Clerics cannot cast spells against their alignment (FACT) 2.) Rangers prepare and cast spells like a cleric. (FACT) 3.) Multiclass characters must apply the restrictions of each of their clases to all of their classes (exception: Illiteracy). (FACT) It is disenguous of you to attempt to draw a different conlusion then the one I have proven in my posts. Rail against the facts all you want, but your ephemeral "That's not what they intended" doesn't change what is. Sigh. Premise: The RAW can be interpreted strictly literally, and there is no need to consider the non-game, English definitions of the words and grammar structures therein. Fact: A creature can be dead, if it has -10 HP. (See the Dead condition). Fact: Creatues are a valid target for the spell Greater Heroism. Fact: Greater Heroism can add 11 or more temporary hit points to a character's hit point total. Supposition: The character now has a positive hit point total. This character may now resume adventuring, provided they don't fall unconscious. There is nothing stopping a dead character from taking actions other than the fact that they generally have hit point totals lower than their current nonlethal damage total. I could go further with the sale prices of various goods vs. their composition and weight, but you cannot seriously state that you can parse individual sentences of the rules without context, interpretation, or common-sense. Plus, as I said before, this line of argument is also contingent on assuming that there are some statements about class features (like "Cannot cast spells") that are not restrictions, and others that are (like "Cannot cast evil spells"), and that just the true restrictions are ported over when multiclassing.
megeddo 01-31-07, 06:25 PM	NBRT: Dorriatt has WoTC on his side. He also has a very valid point in that the base class description does not mention anything about being restricted in alignment when it comes to spells. You are the one who has no proof. You don't have WoTC on your side. And your english comprehension stinks.
Edwind 01-31-07, 06:27 PM	So... how does Jozan cast Symbol of Pain in the PHB? :Random Comment: You can't take that at face value. In another book Jozan is also a vampire.
malignor 01-31-07, 06:34 PM	It's been mentioned a few times now that things from other planes (such as the negative material and positive material) are to be labelled as unnatural, and therefore worth being scared of or destroying in the name of balance. I pose this information to you who subscribe to this: In the default cosmology, there are the following inner planes... - Air - Earth - Ethereal - Fire - Prime Material - Positive - Negative Material - Water An argument that proclaims something from an inner plane showing up on the prime as unnatural, and therefore "Bad", "Scary" or "Evil" must consider the Druid... the one advocate who is so much a representative of nature that he is given special powers from it. Look at two of the most defining abilities of the Druid... spontaneous Nature Summons, and Wild Shape. Both of these abilities involve summoning or transformations into beings from other planes of existence - Wild shape into a fire elemental or summon a Djinn, and you have 2 very strong examples of extraplanar meddling, from the icon of nature itself. I know, I know... there are no Druidic powers of positive or negative energy. No undead or animated objects. But consider what the SRD and every planar book says about Positive and Negative energy, and the associated planes: Positive energy is life, healing and regeneration. Negative energy is death and decay. Both are part of what compose the natural order of things. Think of the phrase "that which lives must also die", or "what goes up must come down" or "what goes around, comes around". Positive material is the first part (that which lives... what goes up... what goes around) and the Negative is the balancing second part (... must also die ...must come down ...comes around). Thus positive and negative energy are deeply integrated into the very concept of nature, the food chain and so on. Claiming that negative energy isn't a natural thing is not an accurate thing to do. So what about undead being an unbalance, and THAT's what makes them unnatural and evil? Sorry, untrue. Think again about the Druid turning into a Fire elemental for hours at a time, using Flame Strikes and summoning Thoqquas. Here we have an example of unbalancing a natural element, being performed by the ultimate advocate for nature. If he burned down the forest and wiped out acres of the landscape, that's one thing. But so long as the natural "unbalance" is on a personal scale and not a widespread one, it's perfectly okay. So as long as I'm not turning mountains of corpses into undead, the "natural unbalance" is no worse than a Druid using his own elemental powers. So the question comes: Why is Animate Dead evil? Theories abound, but real answers are severely lacking. Suffice it to say, I see many theories which refer to premises which are flat out disproved by the RAW itself. Souls are not "bound" to the undead. Resurrection is delayed, not stopped, and even so the act of delaying resurrection is only as bad as the circumstances dictate (delaying a Ted Bundy or Hitler would be a good thing, delaying someone who is enjoying the afterlife and doesn't want to come back is ethically exempt, etc.). In fact, just to be sure, Doriatt is only animating the dead of evil monsters and assassins. Yet it's still evil. Why? I have my own theory. And it's intertwined with the same reason why mindless undead can have an evil alignment. When binding negative material to a corpse for the purpose of making unlife, you are using a certain form of cosmic alchemy that "overinflates" a body with it by using Pure Evil Energy. Whoever invented the spell Animate Dead found that the most efficient way to do it was with this pure evil energy as the spiritual glue. Maybe only the negative energy that's close to the realm of Orcus is suitable for animation. Maybe the essence of the River Styx gets in there. But suffice it to say, some amount of pure evil energy is in the mixture - it must be in the mixture because that's just how the spell works.
journeyman777 01-31-07, 06:48 PM	I believe that you have misunderstood me. I have not made any claims about Good or Evil.Then please clarify yourself. You seem to be saying there can always be an extenuating circumstance that would cause such an act to not be the alignment specified for that act. The rules do not support this. The canonical example is that of the paladin that needs to slay a baby, or great evil (including the slaying of many other babies) will inevitably result, and that the slaying of this baby will definitively prevent said evil, and there exists no other method in the paladin's power to prevent definitive evil. That example can be disproven on no less than three points. 1. This assumes an infallible knowledge of the future. No such method exists to the best of my knowledge. (If such a method exists within the rules I would be very much interested in knowing about it) 2. It ceases to consider the results of the action at an arbitrary point. For example, the slaughter the child "inevitably" causes may be the tragedy that wakes the culture to the danger of evil in their midst and thereby inspires them to create a LG society (thereby drastically reducing both evil and death in the world by an even greater amount). Short of an infallible knowledge of the consequences throughout all time, the future good or evil that will result from killing/not killing the child cannot be judged. Therefore predicted future events have no relevence to the morality of the paladin's current choice. 3. It assumes a 0% chance of success by any other method. Even if this were true (which is fairly impossible given the existance of deities, miracles, and natural 1/20s) there is no way within the rules for the paladin to possess such knowledge. Ergo, Good and Evil are not connected to morality in any meaningful way, and are no more good indicators of behavior than the elemental energies.The above example is not correct or even possible within the rules. Ergo, any disconnect between the alignments as written and material added by the DM is the DM's responsibility, not the player's. In short, good/evil as defined in RAW only cease to be relevant if the DM fundamentally alters the nature of morality and the cosmos from the way it is defined in the books.
Lafing Cat 01-31-07, 07:32 PM	Sigh. Premise: The RAW can be interpreted strictly literally, and there is no need to consider the non-game, English definitions of the words and grammar structures therein. Fact: A creature can be dead, if it has -10 HP. (See the Dead condition). Fact: Creatues are a valid target for the spell Greater Heroism. Fact: Greater Heroism can add 11 or more temporary hit points to a character's hit point total. Supposition: The character now has a positive hit point total. This character may now resume adventuring, provided they don't fall unconscious. There is nothing stopping a dead character from taking actions other than the fact that they generally have hit point totals lower than their current nonlethal damage total. I could go further with the sale prices of various goods vs. their composition and weight, but you cannot seriously state that you can parse individual sentences of the rules without context, interpretation, or common-sense. Plus, as I said before, this line of argument is also contingent on assuming that there are some statements about class features (like "Cannot cast spells") that are not restrictions, and others that are (like "Cannot cast evil spells"), and that just the true restrictions are ported over when multiclassing. Actually, a dead creature is an object (specifically a corpse), not a creature, and as such is not a valid target for Greater Heroism. you'd have to find some other way to gain the temporary hit points, like a contingent False Life or something. (apropos name, eh?)
robertliguori 01-31-07, 07:36 PM	Actually, a dead creature is an object (specifically a corpse), not a creature, and as such is not a valid target for Greater Heroism. you'd have to find some other way to gain the temporary hit points, like a contingent False Life or something. (apropos name, eh?) You'd think that, but dead is a property that can be specifically possessed by creatues, by the RAW. While your corpse is indeed an object, it's also a creatue (you), who happens to be dead (and usually unconscious, by virtue of your current HP total). If you die while immune to the effects of subdual damage, there is literally no effect on you (other than the gradual decomposition of your body).
robertliguori 01-31-07, 07:48 PM	Then please clarify yourself. You seem to be saying there can always be an extenuating circumstance that would cause such an act to not be the alignment specified for that act. The rules do not support this. If I did, I mistyped. By and large, I don't give a drat whether or not actions are Good or Evil. Good or Evil are not terms about morality in D&D. They are planar energies; no more, and no less. Performing Evil acts can help people, and performing Good acts can hurt them, just like Firey and Mind-Affecting acts. That example can be disproven on no less than three points. 1. This assumes an infallible knowledge of the future. No such method exists to the best of my knowledge. (If such a method exists within the rules I would be very much interested in knowing about it) 2. It ceases to consider the results of the action at an arbitrary point. For example, the slaughter the child "inevitably" causes may be the tragedy that wakes the culture to the danger of evil in their midst and thereby inspires them to create a LG society (thereby drastically reducing both evil and death in the world by an even greater amount). Short of an infallible knowledge of the consequences throughout all time, the future good or evil that will result from killing/not killing the child cannot be judged. Therefore predicted future events have no relevence to the morality of the paladin's current choice. 3. It assumes a 0% chance of success by any other method. Even if this were true (which is fairly impossible given the existance of deities, miracles, and natural 1/20s) there is no way within the rules for the paladin to possess such knowledge. The above example is not correct or even possible within the rules. Ergo, any disconnect between the alignments as written and material added by the DM is the DM's responsibility, not the player's. In short, good/evil as defined in RAW only cease to be relevant if the DM fundamentally alters the nature of morality and the cosmos from the way it is defined in the books. *shrugs* OK, Pun-Pun did it. Pun-Pun is the one making the statement to the player, and Pun-Pun is the one that will be enforcing its conditions, via Portfolio Sense and the like. That was an easy way to make it rules-legal. Would you like to address the actual content of the thought-experiment now?
Mecha_Pope 01-31-07, 09:04 PM	I know, I know... there are no Druidic powers of positive or negative energy. Actually, there are druidic powers of positive energy, but none of negative energy. When a druid wildshapes, he takes on a primal aspect of the world, like the wind, volcanoes, or the earth itself, and when a druid summon's an extraplaner creature, it is of one of the fundamental elements, and only for a few minutes, while created undead may last for centuries. And no, I did not say that the undead are fed by leaching off surrounding life and what have you, that is just a side effect of being near to a direct conduet of negative energy. It's bad for you. See also, if the Prime were to be infused with positive energy and become minor posative dominant, all that would happen would be a prospering of everything living on the world, perhaps increased life expectancy, and the circle of life would contunue on. The world would just be nicer for everyone. (But undead) If the world would become negativly dominant, everything would die (unless it had high enough regeneration) and the world would become a ruined wasteland of the undead. nameneeded In order for a scocioty to be lawful evil, there has to be some serious stuff going on, stuff which definatly overrides whatever good they are doing. Slavery, oppresion of the poor/uninfluential, overtaxation which leads to starvation, all of these things are charicteristic of Lawful Evil. Without at least some of these options (or others that I dont have the time or desire to mention) this civilization is not LE, they are LN, thus erasing the problem almost entirly. Now, as a follower of Ilmatar, helping the victoms is more important than punishing the transgressers, but it still has to be done sometime, or else their suffering will only continue the second that you are gone. What good is the stability of a government when you can't feed your family? Or a slave, unable to live your own life? robertliguori It is not the pollution which powers the undead in my explination, but the force that powers the undead which creates the pollution in the first place. A) Such summonings are only temporary, rather than creating a conduit to the negative energy plane which could last indefinatly. In addition, negative energy is not one of the primal elemental forces which allows this world to exist. B) Disintegrate breaks down a creature into it's base componets, returning them do the environment. Even burial in a steril environment cannot prevent decay forever, and anyway, it happens far too infrequently to become a problem. C) Fey ARE nature. As long as there is nature, there will be fey, and as long as there are fey, there will be nature. Destroying either is not a task to be undertaken lightly, or at all.
Lafing Cat 01-31-07, 09:24 PM	You'd think that, but dead is a property that can be specifically possessed by creatues, by the RAW. While your corpse is indeed an object, it's also a creatue (you), who happens to be dead (and usually unconscious, by virtue of your current HP total). If you die while immune to the effects of subdual damage, there is literally no effect on you (other than the gradual decomposition of your body). If thats the case, then just strap con-boosting items on you until your HP rise into the positive, or polymorph it into a form with a higher con. Then you're alive for *real*.
Vedic Cold 01-31-07, 09:43 PM	The intent of this post is simply to add consensus to the notion that a Ranger's spellcasting bears no alignment restrictions. I see the text of their spellcasting ability which refers back to Cleric spellcasting merely as a reference to the method by which spells are prepared and cast. This phrase refers to the method by which rangers and clerics prepare and cast spells which they are capable of casting. The text which spells out the sorts of spells a Cleric is not capable of casting is included in an entirely seperate entry from the Cleric's spellcasting class feature. No such independent reference appears in the description of the Ranger's class features, thus it is (at best) a stretch of logic and reading comprehension to assume that a Ranger's spellcasting includes alignment restrictions.
megeddo 01-31-07, 10:18 PM	An argument that proclaims something from an inner plane showing up on the prime as unnatural, and therefore "Bad", "Scary" or "Evil" must consider the Druid... the one advocate who is so much a representative of nature that he is given special powers from it. Look at two of the most defining abilities of the Druid... spontaneous Nature Summons, and Wild Shape. Both of these abilities involve summoning or transformations into beings from other planes of existence - Wild shape into a fire elemental or summon a Djinn, and you have 2 very strong examples of extraplanar meddling, from the icon of nature itself. Fire helped shape the world. Water sustains the living, and is also home to a wide variety natural animals. Air is the most important element, since most creatures need to breathe. Earth... yah earth. Don't forget that for many of these fantasy worlds, the gods used the planes of air, fire, water, earth, positive energy and negative energy, to create the world. If you go down into the lower dark you will most likely find portals to the plane of earth. Some vortexes in the oceans lead to the plane of water. Some volcanoes lead to the plane of fire. As such these are natural elements on the prime material. It's the balance between these elements that the druids protect, and yes by turning into an elemental or summoning a djinn they run the risk of upsetting the balance, but sometimes it is necessary to protect the balance against those who don't give a ****. If someone summons a colossal fire elemental, a powerful druid needs to be able to combat that, by turning himself into a colossal water elemental or similar creature. Back on topic, to a druid, negative energy represents death and decay, but to use this energy to animate the dead is an abominable act. The energy of death should be used as such, it should not be twisted to create undeath, ever. When binding negative material to a corpse for the purpose of making unlife, you are using a certain form of cosmic alchemy that "overinflates" a body with it by using Pure Evil Energy. Whoever invented the spell Animate Dead found that the most efficient way to do it was with this pure evil energy as the spiritual glue. Maybe only the negative energy that's close to the realm of Orcus is suitable for animation. Maybe the essence of the River Styx gets in there. But suffice it to say, some amount of pure evil energy is in the mixture - it must be in the mixture because that's just how the spell works. YOu have answered this post with your own theory. One that I like. I can pretty much summarize your entire post, in that this is all up to the DM in the long run, and I think that is why there are no specific rules on what powers the undead. The DM can come up with whatever he wants.
nameneeded 01-31-07, 10:33 PM	and I think that is why there are no specific rules on what powers the undead. The DM can come up with whatever he wants. Everyone knows that undead are powered by moldy cookies. :P By the by I don't think it was ever a question as to if a Sorc/ Ranger could cast the spell. Our DM didn't seem to be preventing that. The problem was if the fellow party members are justified in being against it as per errata.
journeyman777 02-01-07, 01:48 AM	If I did, I mistyped. By and large, I don't give a drat whether or not actions are Good or Evil. Good or Evil are not terms about morality in D&D. They are planar energies; no more, and no less. Performing Evil acts can help people, and performing Good acts can hurt them, just like Firey and Mind-Affecting acts.WTF? Last I checked elemental and outsider were two different types, classes didn't have prereqs like firey evil, and spells didn't deal law damage. Maybe you somehow got in a 4.0 beta, cause one of us doesn't seem to be playing 3.5 *shrugs* OK, Pun-Pun did it. Pun-Pun is the one making the statement to the player, and Pun-Pun is the one that will be enforcing its conditions, via Portfolio Sense and the like. That was an easy way to make it rules-legal. Would you like to address the actual content of the thought-experiment now?Pun-pun? Here I thought you were going to be serious about this. 1. Pun-pun doesn't exist within the rules. 2. Even if he did, the thought experiment would be invalidated because Pun-pun's existence requires the setting be Faerun, his control over the experiment requires destroying the other gods, and the paladin has no power (or code) in the absence of dieties. 3. The paladin still doesn't kill the child because he is not responsible for the evil Pun-pun commits (Pun-pun guaranteeing the child kills babies), he is still only responsible for his own actions. (You have no responsibility for occurances you cannot prevent).
Edge_of_Oblivion 02-01-07, 01:53 AM	If I did, I mistyped. By and large, I don't give a drat whether or not actions are Good or Evil. Good or Evil are not terms about morality in D&D. They are planar energies; no more, and no less. Performing Evil acts can help people, and performing Good acts can hurt them, just like Firey and Mind-Affecting acts. I suggest you re-read the books then... after all, if Good and Evil were no more than planar energies, why would there be entire chapters on alignment, effects that alter character alignment, and penalties for crossing certain alignment boundaries that place you out of synch with the specified alignment of certain organizations and/or outsiders? If alignments are no more than planar energies, then WotC just killed a good chunk of trees for absolutely nothing. So where is my Firey PrC that prevents me from casting spells with the [Water] or [Cold] descriptors? Where's my Paladin of Limbo? Or my Paladin of Force, for that matter? And when can my alignment become Astral Shadow? Ya know, just because it's cool. (Hey, if you can go into the absolutely ridiculous, no reason the rest of us can't follow.) Go to... Ludicrous Speed!!
Derren S. 02-01-07, 01:59 AM	So where is my Firey PrC that prevents me from casting spells with the [Water] or [Cold] descriptors?[/b][/i] Elemental Savant (fire) But that PRC prevents you from using any energy except fire.
journeyman777 02-01-07, 02:01 AM	Elemental savant doesn't prevent you from casting [water] spells. It also doesn't prevent you from using energy admixture to add [cold] to your spells. Nor does it take away your class features if you do so. Try again.
robertliguori 02-01-07, 08:00 AM	WTF? Last I checked elemental and outsider were two different types, classes didn't have prereqs like firey evil, and spells didn't deal law damage. Maybe you somehow got in a 4.0 beta, cause one of us doesn't seem to be playing 3.5 They are, at least one race is aligned with an elemental power (Raptorans), and no, Law is not a damage type. I apologize; I am not seeing where you are going with these statements. Pun-pun? Here I thought you were going to be serious about this. 1. Pun-pun doesn't exist within the rules. 2. Even if he did, the thought experiment would be invalidated because Pun-pun's existence requires the setting be Faerun, his control over the experiment requires destroying the other gods, and the paladin has no power (or code) in the absence of dieties. 3. The paladin still doesn't kill the child because he is not responsible for the evil Pun-pun commits (Pun-pun guaranteeing the child kills babies), he is still only responsible for his own actions. (You have no responsibility for occurances you cannot prevent). 1: I am swayed by your mastery of rhetoric and logic, as well as your utter command of the minutia of Pun-Puns legitimacy. I will retaliate with the only counterargument that might possibly serve to counter your sublime proof; Yes he does. 2: Pun-Pun is assumed to have the highest DvR of any god in Faerun. It is not required for Pun-Pun to kill the other deities, although he can of course can if he so chooses. This does not invalidate the experiment. 3: I agree. However, at the end of the day, there will still be a great deal more suffering and death than there would have been if the paladin had acted, and that is my point.
robertliguori 02-01-07, 08:07 AM	I suggest you re-read the books then... after all, if Good and Evil were no more than planar energies, why would there be entire chapters on alignment, effects that alter character alignment, and penalties for crossing certain alignment boundaries that place you out of synch with the specified alignment of certain organizations and/or outsiders? They are very important, very powerful planar energies. They are, in fact, the four fundamental planar energies that make up most of the multiverse. But importance or power does not mean that you get to dictate morality. If alignments are no more than planar energies, then WotC just killed a good chunk of trees for absolutely nothing. They do this from time to time. Check out the ELH or the BoXDs. So where is my Firey PrC that prevents me from casting spells with the [Water] or [Cold] descriptors? Where's my Paladin of Limbo? Or my Paladin of Force, for that matter? And when can my alignment become Astral Shadow? Ya know, just because it's cool. (Hey, if you can go into the absolutely ridiculous, no reason the rest of us can't follow.) Go to... Ludicrous Speed!! *rolleyes* You appear to be arguing that because Fire and Water are both planar energies, and fire can set something aflame, water should as well. Being a planar energy does not automatically make you sponsor Paladins, for instance. As for your first question, I believe you are referring to the Skypledged prestige class in RoW. The skypledged receive much of their power from a conduit to the Elemental Plane of Air. In exchange for this gift, every skypledged must be an exemplar of loyalty to his or her elemental patrons. Upon joining the skypledged, you vow to aid air elementals in their struggles against other primal forces of the universe (such as the other elements). As part of this vow, you voluntarily forego casting any spell with the fire, water, or earth descriptors. If you choose to cast a prohibited spell, it functions normally, but you are considered a pledgebreaker (described below) until you pay for your transgression (often with an atonement spell).
KurenaiYami 02-01-07, 08:25 AM	1.) Clerics cannot cast spells against their alignment (FACT) 2.) Rangers prepare and cast spells like a cleric. (FACT) 3.) Multiclass characters must apply the restrictions of each of their clases to all of their classes (exception: Illiteracy). (FACT) Just to back this up a bit (and I'm inerested as to how this can be torn apart.) Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions. A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity's. It doesn't say he can't cast Cleric spells of an opposed alignment, it says he can't cast spells of an opposed alignment. As being a Ranger does not make you not a Cleric, the restriction would apply to those spells as well, as he is still a Cleric, and they are still spells of an opposed alignment. Can't wait to see how this one is torn apart.
Vedic Cold 02-01-07, 08:54 AM	A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity's. It doesn't say he can't cast Cleric spells of an opposed alignment, it says he can't cast spells of an opposed alignment. As being a Ranger does not make you not a Cleric, the restriction would apply to those spells as well, as he is still a Cleric, and they are still spells of an opposed alignment. The crux of the on-going argument does not involve a character who is actually a cleric. The character in question is a Ranger/Sorcerer. He has no cleric levels, and if he did then it would be (and has been) accepted that he would be incapable of casting Evil spells as a Sorcerer or as a Cleric while retaining a Good alignment. However, it is being argued that Rangers have the same alignment restriction on their spellcasting as a cleric simply because the method by which they prepare and cast spells is the same. From my perspective, alignment restrictions are a class feature in and of themselves, unique to the cleric. Stating that the Ranger's method of preparing and casting spells is functionally the same as a cleric's does not build a convincing logical bridge to concluding that a Ranger also must abide by alignment restrictions unless the character also has cleric levels.
KurenaiYami 02-01-07, 08:59 AM	The crux of the on-going argument does not involve a character who is actually a cleric. The character in question is a Ranger/Sorcerer. He has no cleric levels, and if he did then it would be (and has been) accepted that he would be incapable of casting Evil spells as a Sorcerer or as a Cleric while retaining a Good alignment. However, it is being argued that Rangers have the same alignment restriction on their spellcasting as a cleric simply because the method by which they prepare and cast spells is the same. From my perspective, alignment restrictions are a class feature in and of themselves, unique to the cleric. Stating that the Ranger's method of preparing and casting spells is functionally the same as a cleric's does not build a convincing logical bridge to concluding that a Ranger also must abide by alignment restrictions unless the character also has cleric levels. Heh, wonder where I got lost. I thought it was a Cleric/Ranger, and the sorcerer was a different character altogether. In that case, I withdraw my support, as what the argument seems to be is not one I agree with.
malignor 02-01-07, 11:11 AM	It is all there in the rules. And the poster DID ask if it was proveably in the rules that he would not be allowed to cast the spell. I just happened to find it.When did I ever ask that? Quote, please. Else I believe that you have been answering the wrong question all along, which does not bode well for your claims of reading comprehension (glad I asked this after we got 6 pages to rifle through).
NobodyRemembersThis 02-01-07, 05:15 PM	What do you folks think? Who is right? What are we missing?You asked what we were missing. By the RAW, you were missing that your character is prohibited from casting in the first place. In all seriousness, since your PC can't cast the spell, the DM should arguably let you pick out a different spell of the same cost you can legally cast.
malignor 02-01-07, 06:00 PM	Odd. The only ones who see it your way are you and (possibly) Derrin. If you can convince some WotC staff otherwise, I might consider your argument. But as it stands, you seem to think you know the rules better than the very people who are required, professionally, to understand them. Maybe you should apply for a job at WotC, as customer support. Then you might have some official credibility, but until then I have an officially validated answer which acknowledges my own (and the majority's) interpretation as the correct one. Nothing you say or do will be convincing. Moving on. So far, 3 out of the 5 players involved in this campaign have spoken: Malignor (myself), NameNeeded (the Exhalted Monk) and Megeddo (the DM). All 3 agree that there are certain considerations which have to be addressed in regard to how the undead are made, handled, introduced and portrayed. All 3 of us agree that there are certain repercussions which will come to pass, depending on the considerations that are upheld. All 3 of us are also willing to reserve judgement based on the events themselves, instead of jumping on the first chance to be 2-dimensional and intolerant. I've learned what things to consider and what precautions to make so my actions are not misconstrued. This is pretty much a reasonable outcome for me.
Cold Napalm 02-01-07, 07:43 PM	On a side note one person wrote how being exhaulted is "Gooder" than a paladin. We Moss has interations with evil people. He has spared them, offer to bury them, heal them had business dealings with them. I follow Ilmater who wants to end suffering. He doesn't care if they are good or evil. If I can help ease their pain then I do. If I have to kill some slavers to save some victims I will. Being Exhaulted or a Paladin doesn't suddenly make you a zealot or a moron. (Though to many play them that way.) It means your are devote in your faith. That you go that extra mile to appease you God. And in an Exhaulted's case you are getting rewarded for following your path even when it gets rougher than most. But thats just my view. And like most may be worth nothing at all. Well thats the thing...if you read BoED, exalted doesn't mean squat about faith. You can technically worship shar (not as a clergy mind you) and still be exalted (did that once...and yes it was all sorts of f'ed up). Exalted means your GOOD with a huge big shiny capital G. The act of even casting that spells is evil and as such has rather big reprecutions when interacted with such shiny beacon of goodness. Now your right, you don't have to lawful stupid or a zealot (which usually ends up with you evil in my games), but you are a shiny beacon of hope, life and all that is good in the world as an exalted character. Yes I know, the alignment system in D&D is kinda stupid (a lot actually) and the whole RP restriction really REALLY does depend on what meggado wants to do with it(which is why I HATE using the well the RP restriction make it balanced argument)...but as written exalted is all about being good person, not a faithful one.
Cold Napalm 02-01-07, 07:58 PM	Jeeze are we STILL going on about the ranger restricting a sorcerer from casting evil spells?!? Okay...what is described by RAW can work if the DM so chooses...BUT in the SRD about multi-classing... The character gains spells from all of his or her spellcasting classes and keeps a separate spell list for each class. If a spell’s effect is based on the class level of the caster, the player must keep track of which class’s spell list the character is casting the spell from. That word right there also allows by RAW for the sorcerer cast the animate dead spell. You wanna know something else? by RAW a good cleric can cast evil spells from wands, scrolls or staffs as it is still on the spell list. Those spells aren't removed from their spelllist...they just can't cast then. So even if the Dm did accept the rather convoluted argument, it still has no bearing on casting from a scroll. Yeah yeah RAW is a funny thing in D&D. Oh and finally since the DM who runs the game specifically said he is not ruling it that way...who cares what the RAW said, the DM trumps all.
megeddo 02-01-07, 08:06 PM	~puffs out his chest, and nods~
nameneeded 02-01-07, 09:11 PM	*pokes megeddo causing his chest to rupture sending him across the forum like a balloon* :P K, as it was said I now ask the question to NBRT........ Should I have a Wizard/ Ranger do I need to memorize my spells anymore? Or carry spell books anymore? I ask because based on your "proof" as a Ranger I must prepare and cast my spells as per a cleric. Oh and follow thier limitations yada yada yada..... That means meditation and no spell books. It means that at the same time everyday I do my little "song and dance" and whammo!! Hello fireball, goodbye spell components! So do I? Cause if you say no then I am so making as my next character a Ranger1/ Wizard 10+ Provided my deflated DM alows me to follow your idea of how the rules are meant to be understood. Cold Napalm...... I agree that GOOD is the core of being Exhaulted. I very much agree with that. But what I am saying is that it doesn't mean you are limited to stopping every single evil act purpotrated in the world cause its evil. If that was the case then we need to toss the book away as I have yet to meet any party that has no "darkness" within it or a PC powerful enough to handle the repercusions of trying to follow that. Also it would be hard to follow most of the good Gods' "mantras" as they themselves are not perfectly good. Like I commented with regards to Ilmater...... good and evil are less of an issue than easment of suffering. Yet based on my deeds I am a good guy. A very good guy. I have sacrificed everything (member I'm a VOP) to serve him. I take my share and donate it, have groups set up shelters, buy food for homeless, give money to families of those who have fallen with us or we couldn't save. And for the record I have gotten more than my fair share as I tend to get the proceeds of items we can't use. As for the power trade off.....it would have been better in a magic poor world be we are in a magic rich world and as such the party is not hurting for items at all. I have never asked asked for anything for myself.....ever. But like I said I do agree that Good is an important part of being Exhaulted. I just believe it is tempered by Faith, Loyaty, Honor ands Selflessness. Now as I and Malignor have asked...can we get back to the original question at hand? Does anyone in the group have a "RAW" way of being against Doriat's idea of undead or are we all down to personal preferance? Are anyof us at risk of losing our abilities by letting him do this?
Mecha_Pope 02-01-07, 10:39 PM	If your good charicter creates undead I'll cry and you'll feel bad???:weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: There's nothing RAW (for sure) preventing you from doing it (unless you use book of ________ Deeds, which state that it is an enormous no-no for anyone who's good, and since your using exalted, I'm fairly sure you are) But the flavor's so bad it's likley to make me vomit. Good people raising the dead; the great fantasy writers of the century are rolling in thier graves. (Unless their not dead, then it just killed them! I hope you feel guilty!) BTW, this is kewl! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbn9d9j7UrI
ElyasRavenwood 02-01-07, 11:34 PM	Well this thread has turned up some interesting discussion. “Arguments - I know casting Animate Dead is an evil act. But one evil act (especially for genuinely altruistic purposes) does not make me evil. I will not lose alignment... even the DM agrees with that. - If the druid cannot suffer to let unnatural things exist, he should be trying to wipe out the city we're in right now. Yet here he (begrudgingly) walks the streets, taking no action against the metropolis. If he can let a city stand, untouched by his hand, he can let a few skeletons help out on a ship (which is also technically unnatural). - The VoP monk's exalted abilities do indeed work great on undead. But I'm a ranger with Preferred Enemy - Elf (I hunt drow for taking my family away). My abilities are geared toward overcoming elves. So does that mean I must be against all elves, never being selective? I even have to destroy all Elves who are acting for a better future? Obviously not. That's like saying all soldiers, who are trained to kill people, must therefore hate & kill all people, everywhere. Absurd.” I understand this counter argument: “As written, it's evil, and for good reason... a creature that has been animated (even as a skeleton or zombie) can't be raised or resurrected. You are binding their souls to their decaying corpses, delaying their journey to the afterlife so they can carry your luggage. And depending on how things turn out, their souls could be stuck in those corpses for centuries. Or even longer. IMO, this is FAR more evil than simply killing someone, as you are indefinitely delaying their eternal punishment/redemption/reward. But hey, someone needs to carry your stuff. Evil evil evil. No question about it. -Shaftiel” I happen to agree with what Shaftiel has to say about animate dead. However Animate dead has been with us for a while. I have a 1st edition player’s handbook- (6th printing 1980) The text there reads as follows: 3rd level cleric spell (I was directed here from the 5th level wizard spell description P. 47 “ Explanation/ Description: This spell creates the lowest of the undead monsters, skeletons or zombies, from the bones or bodies of dead humans. The effect is to cause these remains to become animated and obey the commands of the Cleric casting the spell. The skeletons or zombies will follow, remain in an area and attack and attack any creature (or just a specific type of creature), entering the place, etc. The spell will animate the monsters until they are destroyed or until the magic is dispelled. (See dispel magic spell). The cleric is able to animate 1 skeleton or 1 zombie for each level of experience he or she has attained. Thus a 2nd level cleric can animate 2 of these monsters, a 3rd level 3 etc. The act of animating dead is not basically a good one, and it must be used with careful consideration and good reason by clerics of good alignment. It requires a drop of blood, a piece of human flesh, and a pinch of bone powder or a bone shard to complete this spell. “ Ah the days of brief spell descriptions. The 2nd edition description is a little longer I have the 11 printing 1994. “This spell creates the lowest of the undead monsters- skeletons or zombies- usually from the bones or bodies of dead humans, demihumans, or humanoids. The spell causes existing remains to become animated and obey the simple verbal commands of the caster. The skeletons or zombies can follow the caster, remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific type of creature) entering the place, etc. the undead remain animated until they are destroyed in combat or are turned; the magic cannot be dispelled. The following types of dead creatures can be animated: A) Humans, Demihumand, and Humanoids with 1 hit die. The wizard can animate one skeleton for each experience level he has attained, or one zombie for every tow levels. The experience levels, if any of the slain are ignored; the body of a newly dead 9 level fighter is animated as a zombie with 2 hit dice, without special class or racial abilities. B) Creatures with more than 1 hit die. The number of undead animated is determined by the monster hit dice (the total hit dice cannot exceed the wizard’s level). Skeletal forms have the hit dice of the original creature, while zombie forms have one more hit die. Thus a 12 level wizard could animate four zombie gnolls (4x[2+1 hit dice]=12), or s single fire giant skeleton. Such undead have none of the special abilities they had in life. C) Creatures with less than 1 hit die. The caster can animate two skeletons per level or one zombie per level. The creatures have their normal hit dice as skeletons and an additional hit die as zombies. Clerics receive a +1 bonus when trying to turn these. This spell assumes that the bodies or bones are available and are reasonably intact (those of skeletons and zombies destroyed in combat wont be) It requires a drop of blood and a pinch of bone powder or a bone shard to complete the spell. The casting of this spell is not a good act and only evil wizards use it frequently.” I decided to turn to the Complete Necromancer’s handbook for further clarification about the Animate Dead spell. I understand what it does, I am curious to find out how. I am also looking for text which backs up Shaftiel mentioning that animate dead “a creature that has been animated (even as a skeleton or zombie) can't be raised or resurrected. You are binding their souls to their decaying corpses, delaying their journey to the afterlife so they can carry your luggage” So far I have found nothing Interestingly in the Complete Necromancer’s handbook on page 46 and 47 the text refers to criminal or black necromancy, Grey or Neutral Necromancy, and Benign white Necromancy. Interestingly Animate dead is placed in Grey necromancy. “ Take Animate dead for instance, raising up a zombie to carry one’s luggage is not an evil act but animating the dead for the purpose of attacking a merchant caravan is another matter entirely” I noticed the luggage connection. I do disagree with this text. And now lets take a look at the text of the 3.5 spell. (I know there is a 3.0 version, but I am too lazy to type it out) “Necromancy [evil] This spell turns the bones or bodes of dead creatures into undead skeletons or zombies that follow your spoken commands. The undead can follow you, or they can remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place. They remain animated until they are destroyed. (A destroyed skeleton or zombie can’t be animated again). Regardless of the kind of undead you create with this spell, you can’t create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead. (The desecrate spell doubles this limit. See page 128) The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. (You choose which creatures are released). If you are a cleric, any undead you command by virtue of your power to command or rebuke undead do not count toward the limit. Skeletons: a skeleton can be created only from a mostly intact corpse or skeleton. The corpse must have bones, co creating a skeleton from a purple worm, for example, is not possible. If a skeleton is made from a corps its flesh falls off the bones. Zombies: a zombie can be created only from a mostly intact corpse. The corpse must be that of a creature with a true anatomy, so a dead gelatinous cube, for example cannot be animated as a zombie. Materiel components: you must place a black onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per hit die of the undead into the mouth or eye socket of each corpse you intend to animate. The magic of the spell turns these gems into worthless burned out shells. “ P198 player’s handbook I have not found any information pertaining to the how and with what the skeletons are animated with. Just that the spell is “evil” Page 174 of the player’s handbook “ Necromancy- Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife and the life force. Spells involving undead creatures make up a large part of this school. Representative spells include, cause fear, and animate dead and finger of death. “ Page 317 of the monster manual states that “ the undead type: undead are once living creatures animated by spiritual and supernatural forces”. This begins to hint at what animated the undead, the how. On page 7 of Liber Mortis it states, “ where does the energy for animation come from? Negative Energy” Well that is all I have found. I am sure there is more stuff under my nose, and I have failed to see it. The only evidence I have found that Animate dead is evil is the spell description- it states that the spell is evil. I like the idea of souls being bound to their corpses after death, however I have found no text coo berating this. Well that is all I can think of now
megeddo 02-02-07, 12:28 AM	Off topic... yah, next time I run a campaign with a different set of chars, that is going to be the case. Especially in Faerun. The soul of the person is used to power the undead automoton. That way when you destroy the undead you are effectively putting that soul to rest. Now I read in one of the myriad of forgotten realms novels out there that the soul is trapped inside the undead shell, and is used to power the undead creature. (Dont ask for a source, you're not gonna get one.) As such you are delaying, sometimes permanantly, that soul's journey to the afterlife. This future ruling has nothing to do with the RAW, it is purely setting based.
NobodyRemembersThis 02-02-07, 12:28 AM	@Nameneeded:A multiclass character gets all the class features of all his or her classes but must also suffer the consequences of the special restrictions of all his or her classes. They must abide by the special restrictions of each class. In regards to Rangers and clerics (and druids and Paladins, for that matter, they all sasy cast spells as cleric), the SRD on multiclass and spells Only clarifies that caster level and spell lists be kept seperate. There is no exception made for the interaction of alignment on spells. Consequently, Ranger/Cleric/Druid/Paladin Multiclass must still abide by the no spells against alignment rule. @Malignor: As far as I noticed, only you, vegipigmy, DerrinS, and NameNeeded hve even addressed my arguement - and none of you have been able to disprove the facts presented.
Vedic Cold 02-02-07, 12:42 AM	@Malignor: As far as I noticed, only you, vegipigmy, DerrinS, and NameNeeded hve even addressed my arguement - and none of you have been able to disprove the facts presented. No one is attempting to disprove the facts you are presenting because we disagree with the conclusions you are drawing from the facts as you read them. I, for example, reject your conclusion that the text describing ranger spell preparation/casting as being the same as a cleric's also means that a ranger must abide by the alignment restrictions imposed on a cleric. Alignment restrictions are not listed as an aspect of a cleric's spellcasting class feature. They are listed as a seperate and independent class feature of their own. A reference to a cleric's spellcasting class feature should not be assumed to include another, distinct class feature. I hold no delusion that this inerpretation of mine will alter your opinion in any way, but I am attempting to outline for you exactly why it is that I (and others) do not accept your arguments as fact.
NobodyRemembersThis 02-02-07, 12:54 AM	Yes they are. A cleric casts divine spells, which are drawn from the cleric spell list. However, his alignment may restrict him from casting certain spells opposed to his moral or ethical beliefs; see Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells, below. A cleric must choose and prepare his spells in advance (see below).Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions. And again: A ranger prepares and casts spells the way a cleric does, though he cannot lose a prepared spell to cast a cure spell in its place. So yes, it is very cut and dry in the SRD and in the rules - Rangers (just like clerics) cannot cas spells against their alignment. "Reject" it in your campaign or opinion if you want - I don't ask that you agree wih it. It is, however a FACT written into the 3.5e rules.
Cold Napalm 02-02-07, 01:13 AM	So yes, it is very cut and dry in the SRD and in the rules - Rangers (just like clerics) cannot cas spells against their alignment. "Reject" it in your campaign or opinion if you want - I don't ask that you agree wih it. It is, however a FACT written into the 3.5e rules. And so is ruling otherwise as I have already pointed out...and I didn't even have to string together a bunch of rules to do it either. Since BOTH rulings is supported by RAW, it's one of those it's the DM's call...and even if it wasn't since the DM has set the rules for this discussion, this is no longer very relavent now is it?
Vedic Cold 02-02-07, 01:17 AM	The only fact you have presented is that a cleric cannot cast spells opposed to his or her alignment. That restriction is clearly laid out as a distinct class feature of the cleric. Your justification for applying this restriction to a ranger's spells is based on a textual reference in the ranger's spellcasting class feature that describes the method for preparing and casting spells as being like that of a cleric's spellcasting class feature. This would be acceptable agrumentation if the text for the cleric's spellcasting class feature included the text that pertains to alignment restrictions. It does not. It contains a reference to the class feature restricting alignment, which, as you say, appears further down in its own distinct heading. Presuming that the designers intended for rangers to share a cleric's alignment-based spellcasting restrictions based on this sort of extended cross-referencing is too much of a stretch to be credible when it would have been far simpler to state such a restriction explicitly in the ranger's spellcasting description. It has even been shown that official representatives of the company which published the source material disagree with your position. You are welcome to your conviction that your interpretation is fact. You remain, however, both incorrect and unconvincing.
Templetroll 02-02-07, 01:32 AM	Put soft pillows over their arms and have them attack boxes. The boxes won't be damaged, they'll just slide along. Tell them to stop when the box is where you want it. Somebody else will have to think of a way to make lifting work. Though I suppose them only being able to attack helps explain the evil descriptor somewhat. Funny idea, but silly. Hitting a box on the ground doesn't make it move. Your thought about "...only being able to attack helps explain the evil descriptor somewhat." is correct. For the OP, the sorcerer can cast animate dead. He can use the skeleton or zombie to do the specific things the spell allows - attack or guard this place and attack a specific type of creature or attack everything that enters. Skeletons and zombies do not understand complex orders so there is a limit. The limit is attack a specific type of creature or attack everything that enters. That is really limited! I had an LG cleric once use Animate Dead to create a zombie from a fallen monster to guard the party in a dungeon since we were all within a couple hit points of TPK and the cleric needed to rest also. The party survived the night, the undead was destroyed and the remains buried with a blessing. The Cleric had to do an atonement. I do not have the book Dread Necro came from so I cannot copy it out but that is the only class I understand can get zombies and skeletons to do work that is different from attacking or guarding a place. If you want to use magic to get mundane labor done use Unseen Servant. In most cases that will suffice.
journeyman777 02-02-07, 03:28 AM	Dread Necromancer is from Heroes of Horror. They get rebuke undead and higher caps on the HD of hit dice they can control, but no specific class feature alters the way they use and control undead beyond that.
KurenaiYami 02-02-07, 03:30 AM	Funny idea, but silly. Hitting a box on the ground doesn't make it move. Momentum from the fists move to the box, causing the box to move. It just depends from what angle you're hitting it. For this to work, you'd need either large boxes or small zombies. But yes, hitting a box on the ground will make it move.
Templetroll 02-02-07, 11:39 AM	Momentum from the fists move to the box, causing the box to move. It just depends from what angle you're hitting it. For this to work, you'd need either large boxes or small zombies. But yes, hitting a box on the ground will make it move. Put a box ( since this is a medieval society, likely made of wood) on the ground and fill it, then hit it with boxing gloves on (the equivilent to your pillows) and see how well you move the box. Note the damage that will begin to accrue to the box if you do hit it hard enough to move; see how quickly the box is damaged too much for it to protect what is inside from the punches of the undead. Note the the times it tips over instead of 'moving' spilling your stuff all over the ground or causing it to be damaged inside the box. Re: Dread Necro - if it does not have the ability to make an undead do work then no one canm that I know of. Just hire some more damn sailors. ;)
nameneeded 02-02-07, 12:42 PM	@Nameneeded: They must abide by the special restrictions of each class. In regards to Rangers and clerics (and druids and Paladins, for that matter, they all sasy cast spells as cleric), the SRD on multiclass and spells Only clarifies that caster level and spell lists be kept seperate. There is no exception made for the interaction of alignment on spells. Consequently, Ranger/Cleric/Druid/Paladin Multiclass must still abide by the no spells against alignment rule. @Malignor: As far as I noticed, only you, vegipigmy, DerrinS, and NameNeeded hve even addressed my arguement - and none of you have been able to disprove the facts presented. Just to push this further, even though there is no real need..... SO then based totally on what you are saying a Wizard/ Ranger has to follow the restrictions of all the classes. So 1) My Wiz now has the restriction of praying/ meditating whatever at a certain time each day to gain spells as per how Clerics gain thier spells. To me this is a restriction. 2) Needs to use a Holy Symbol to cast his spells as I cast as per Cleric not Wizard. This ties up one of my hands. But whatever. This is a restriction as if I am forced to use a focus of some kind then I can't cast spells that require somatic components because unless I have the feat I must follow my Wizards restriction of having both my hands free to cast. Myself I think you are reading to much into these passages. None of the classes say they follow the spell casting restrictions as per Cleric. That is the jump you are making. I think that you would be correct, am I'm sure others would agree, if we were talking about a Ranger/ Cleric or Sorc/Cleric or any /Cleric but we are not. Also I quote; Originally Posted by SRD, Cleric Spells (further down) Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions. So it then depends on what god they follow. IF THEY HAVE ONE. So I guess as a Cleric or a Ranger you don't need a God? Hmm...interesting. Also it says; "A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own..." It does not say Ranger or Druid. So I guess you are assuming that they meant to say "clerics and rangers and druids..." So why didn't they just say "all divine spell casters."? Oh wait its prob cuz they meant Clerics only. Not all Divine casters. Now I can understand if you can't let this go due to the amount of time invested, personal ego whatever. So how about this.....you write to WOTC and see if you get a different response than Malignor got. And escalate it to a more senior rep if you feel the need. After all they are the authority on this are they not? But back to the question at hand. Will the Exhaulted Monk or the Druid (who is being replaced) or the Cleric of Tempus be at any risk of losing their abilities if we let this happen and go along with it? While the spell is evil the actions are good. Mind you this does presume we can actually control them as opposed to fight and guard commands only.
malignor 02-02-07, 04:52 PM	Will the Exhaulted Monk or the Druid (who is being replaced) or the Cleric of Tempus be at any risk of losing their abilities if we let this happen and go along with it? While the spell is evil the actions are good.I agree. This has yet to be answered definitively by RAW. So far, the only consistent answer is that it's up to DM fiat. That being the case, I'm satisfied. If one guy is laying down the way it is, and setting those rulings down with consistency, I'm a happy guy because I know where we all stand.Mind you this does presume we can actually control them as opposed to fight and guard commands only.This is, to me, a question of reading comprehension and interpretation. The biggest list: The spell Control Undead lists some commands and includes "and so on", leaving an open-ended set of options. The smallest list: The class ability to rebuke/command undead has absolutely no list of available commands. So, if the logic of "only the listed commands are applicable" suggests that the Evil/Neutral Cleric's ability to Command undead is purely hollow, having no actual commands that are valid. Absurd. It is blatantly obvious to me (as it likely is to many, but not all) that the notion of "obeying spoken commands" between two creatures results in an unbounded list of available commands unless an explicitly restricted command set is provided; a finite set of commands, companioned with dialogue stating that these are the only commands available. Since the statements explaining the boundaries of the available commands is not provided, the list of available commands for Animate Dead must be as unbounded as that in the more verbose Command Undead and in the non-specific class ability of Command/Rebuke Undead.
Psionx 02-02-07, 05:16 PM	Heck, you even have to stretch to show that casting [evil] spells is evil. Casting [fire] spells doesn't make you any more fiery. As far as the other players, neither should be in danger of losing their powers based on suffering undead to live (unlive?). It is reasonably in character for them to be opposed to the creation and continued existance of these skellies. They don't need to appeal to game rules to justify their characters' opposition to this course of action. Not every druid or exalted character would be necessarily be opposed to a skeleton crew, but there are almost assuredly some who are. Dammit, I really was hoping to become a fire elemental, or at least give my cat familiar the fire subtype.
Mecha_Pope 02-02-07, 06:46 PM	Casting fire spells DOES however cause the target to become more firey, IE, burnt. Perhaps casting an evil animate dead spell on a corpse make the corpse more... evily.:P
nameneeded 02-02-07, 07:07 PM	Casting fire spells DOES however cause the target to become more firey, IE, burnt. Perhaps casting an evil animate dead spell on a corpse make the corpse more... evily.:P Yes the will laugh like this MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! as opposed to Mwahahahaha!!! and they get capes! long black capes! :D
Sildatorak 02-02-07, 07:40 PM	Yes the will laugh like this MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! as opposed to Mwahahahaha!!! and they get capes! long black capes! :D Unless the [evil] spell you cast was wrack. Or as I like to call it rack. Then they get the capes, but they won't be laughing.
Cold Napalm 02-02-07, 07:41 PM	But back to the question at hand. Will the Exhaulted Monk or the Druid (who is being replaced) or the Cleric of Tempus be at any risk of losing their abilities if we let this happen and go along with it? While the spell is evil the actions are good. Mind you this does presume we can actually control them as opposed to fight and guard commands only. Okay, if I was DM, this would be my call. Well the cleric of tempus is fine since there is the god of war could care less about undeads. The druid while having the revere nature aspect of it, it takes a very restrictive DM to punish a druid for something somebody else in the party does...but it is possible if the druid start to USE the undeads himself. You mr exalted monk on the other hand is on very thin ice...and if you could convice him this is a one time deal and he will never ever do such an evil act AND you don't use the undead for anything, then I'd probably let you keep your powers for now(depending on RP), but if he casts ANY evil spell again, I mean basically your done. As for the undead control...well by RAW you can have them attack or follow...Anything else they can do is entirely 100% up to the DM. I'm mean about that BTW hehe (think fantasia muahahahaha).
Templetroll 02-06-07, 04:02 PM	I agree. This has yet to be answered definitively by RAW. So far, the only consistent answer is that it's up to DM fiat. That being the case, I'm satisfied. If one guy is laying down the way it is, and setting those rulings down with consistency, I'm a happy guy because I know where we all stand.This is, to me, a question of reading comprehension and interpretation. The biggest list: The spell Control Undead lists some commands and includes "and so on", leaving an open-ended set of options. The smallest list: The class ability to rebuke/command undead has absolutely no list of available commands. So, if the logic of "only the listed commands are applicable" suggests that the Evil/Neutral Cleric's ability to Command undead is purely hollow, having no actual commands that are valid. Absurd. It is blatantly obvious to me (as it likely is to many, but not all) that the notion of "obeying spoken commands" between two creatures results in an unbounded list of available commands unless an explicitly restricted command set is provided; a finite set of commands, companioned with dialogue stating that these are the only commands available. Since the statements explaining the boundaries of the available commands is not provided, the list of available commands for Animate Dead must be as unbounded as that in the more verbose Command Undead and in the non-specific class ability of Command/Rebuke Undead. I looked in the SRD and My 3.5 PHB for Control Undead and saw no verbose list. Where is this found?
megeddo 02-06-07, 05:28 PM	Okay, if I was DM, this would be my call. Well the cleric of tempus is fine since there is the god of war could care less about undeads. The druid while having the revere nature aspect of it, it takes a very restrictive DM to punish a druid for something somebody else in the party does...but it is possible if the druid start to USE the undeads himself. You mr exalted monk on the other hand is on very thin ice...and if you could convice him this is a one time deal and he will never ever do such an evil act AND you don't use the undead for anything, then I'd probably let you keep your powers for now(depending on RP), but if he casts ANY evil spell again, I mean basically your done. As for the undead control...well by RAW you can have them attack or follow...Anything else they can do is entirely 100% up to the DM. I'm mean about that BTW hehe (think fantasia muahahahaha). Fair enough. The way I look at it, Doriatt and Moss' relationship is one of trust. They have been through a lot together, and so it is only reasonable that Moss trust Doriatt after failing to convince Doriatt not to cast animate dead. If Moss wholeheartedly supports this casting animate dead business, then yes, he will have a very hard time with the boss, but if he actively voices his opinion, which I am sure he is going to do, and he makes sure Doriatt knows that what he is doing is grossly undermining their friendship, and that he wants Doriatt to know that he really objects to this action, then he is in no danger of losing anything. :D It is when Doriatt begins to do even more questionable things, especially with the undead he created that he will step up and start spanking. Nothing like some good old fashioned violence to knock some sense into a lost friend.
FrinkiacVII 02-07-07, 05:01 PM	Sure, he's performing an evil act by casting the actual spell, but what's wrong with using the tools of evil for good means to a good end? I forget who it was that said this, but the quote is: "The road to perdition is paved with good intentions." I'm DMing a group of level 4 right now, and one of the things I told people going into the campaign was that they'd not be allowed to animate the dead at all, ever, even if their characters weren't actually of good alignment.
Derren S. 02-07-07, 05:16 PM	Is this still going on? It is clear by now that the player and the DM want this to work and will twist and bend everything which gets in their way. So what are we actually discussing here?
nameneeded 02-11-07, 01:59 PM	Is this still going on? It is clear by now that the player and the DM want this to work and will twist and bend everything which gets in their way. So what are we actually discussing here? Well the point of the question was primairly if any of the other characters would be at risk of losing abilities by letting it happen according to RAW. That has now been kinda answered. The whole thing about if he could even cast it was a huge step away from the real question but it was more fun to debate that away. :D smiles