[3.5] |What is Evil?

[Mari01]

Is the act of raising undead evil in and of itself? It was my understanding that, just like the elemental planes, the Positive and Negative energy planes weren't alignment based. There's a good wizard in the party who regularly raises enemies and uses them to help protect the party, but the LG cleric of Heironeous of the wants to attack her. Is she justified in this? We were going off the intent matters more and the undead are being raised to protect rather than to destroy, so that matters more than simply casting a spell with an [Evil} tag.

[Ballista]

Honestly, I believe the utilization of Negative Energy is almost akin to playing/experimenting with fire. If you're not careful, you'll burn someone or maybe set a town ablaze; alternatively a fire could be used to constructively to provide light, cook and to incinerate Illithids.
Alternatively, you are basically desecrating the corpse of someone (which in of itself seems to be far from any "Good" alignments).

Ultimately, it is up to your DM to choose the moral implications.

[hivedragon]

There is no one consistent answer to this problem. For example deathwatch is an evil spell and it's just a minor divination spell. In eberron they combined the grey wastes with the negative energy plane and called it Mabar. However Kaius the vampire king of Karrenth, though evil, cares the most about his people and ensuring peace.

The DM must decide whether making undead is a twisted mockery of life or is it just recycling.

[sonofzeal]

There is no one consistent answer to this problem. For example deathwatch is an evil spell and it's just a minor divination spell. In eberron they combined the grey wastes with the negative energy plane and called it Mabar. However Kaius the vampire king of Karrenth, though evil, cares the most about his people and ensuring peace.

The DM must decide whether making undead is a twisted mockery of life or is it just recycling.

...or if it's neither, but still shockingly rude. I mean, imagine if someone dug up your parents and starting fooling around with them!

Stealing is evil without having any cosmic significance; why can't necromancy be the same?

[Silva Stormrage]

...or if it's neither, but still shockingly rude. I mean, imagine if someone dug up your parents and starting fooling around with them!

Stealing is evil without having any cosmic significance; why can't necromancy be the same?

Because some necromancy, deathwatch for example, don't deserve it. And what about a country that legally transfer their "corpse rights" to a necromancer for a price. Saying it is always evil because it's stealing is kinda weird sentiment. The creature is dead, if you say it's corpse is in the creature's possession and stealing it is evil, then so would looting enemies. And I am sure every pc has looted numerous foes in their career.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Is the act of raising undead evil in and of itself? It was my understanding that, just like the elemental planes, the Positive and Negative energy planes weren't alignment based. There's a good wizard in the party who regularly raises enemies and uses them to help protect the party, but the LG cleric of Heironeous of the wants to attack her. Is she justified in this? We were going off the intent matters more and the undead are being raised to protect rather than to destroy, so that matters more than simply casting a spell with an [Evil} tag.

In 3e, all of the undead creation and summoning spells that I'm aware of have the [Evil] tag, so they technically count as an evil act. Personally, I houserule that away, because (A) as noted, negative energy is as alignment-neutral as positive energy and (B) mindless skeletons and zombies are no different from mindless constructs in terms of inherent evilness and intention in my view.

So, by RAW, is it evil in 3e? Yes. Should it be? Probably not. I'd say the LG cleric isn't justified in attacking a wizard using undead for good just because he's raising undead, unless he also attacks a wizard who uses Evard's black tentacles to ruthlessly crush the life out of people or flaming sphere to slowly burn people to death.

Stealing is evil without having any cosmic significance; why can't necromancy be the same?

Well, stealing, lying, and similar are more chaotic than evil, I'd say, as they're closer to indirectly-harmful acts that disrupt the social order rather than directly-harmful acts with no redeeming features, but I agree that necromancy doesn't really deserve the reputation as "the evil school of magic" that it has.

[Hirax]

I believe that necromancy not being evil is an entirely valid perspective - and I even agree! However, it's also equally valid that deities within the universe or authorities within a kingdom have decided that it is, and while you're welcome to disagree with them, that can have repercussions. So neither the cleric or wizard are right.

edit: I agree that stealing is chaotic, and not evil in all circumstances.

[sonofzeal]

Well, stealing, lying, and similar are more chaotic than evil, I'd say, as they're closer to indirectly-harmful acts that disrupt the social order rather than directly-harmful acts with no redeeming features, but I agree that necromancy doesn't really deserve the reputation as "the evil school of magic" that it has.

edit: I agree that stealing is chaotic, and not evil in all circumstances.

Perhaps the example was poorly chosen, but I think we can agree that at least some theft is evil. Say, purse-snatching from widows. And, more importantly, I think we can agree that the action is evil despite having no cosmic significance.

If so, then necromancy being evil is not predicated on it being cosmically significant vis a vis "twisted mockery of life" or "torturing souls" or whatnot. You're basically putzing around with the dead bodies of people's loved ones, and that can be a bad thing in and of itself without logical contradiction.

[DoughGuy]

My group tends to take the view that mindless undead are a tool just like a sword or shield. As long as they are not used for evil then raising them ia a nuetral act. However we generally raise from things like bandits, minions and the like who we have been forced to kill. I'd say as long as you dont go digging up peoples graves for corpses you should be fine. Stealing is more chaotic but desecrating a grave is very evil.

[Slipperychicken]

Is the act of raising undead evil in and of itself?

Is she justified in this?

These two questions highlight an important issue with the Alignment system in general. It hands players one extremely vague, contradictory interpretation of Right and Wrong, says it's the absolute morality of the universe, then keys all kinds of mechanics off that vagueness. All kinds of problems come from this, including, but not limited to: players/GMs viewing a character's moral outlook as a mechanical decision to be agonized over, forcing us play as though morality was absolute and unquestionable, and pretending morality has exactly three shades of gray, three shades of black and 3 shades of white.


Answer: Your characters ought to be deciding this sort of thing themselves, based on their values and experiences, rather than OOC looking up the absolute morality of the universe like it was the grapple rules. Mechanically, rule it's Unaligned, let opinions fall where they may, and use the conflict for storytelling.

[Gensh]

These two questions highlight an important issue with the Alignment system in general. It hands players one extremely vague, contradictory interpretation of Right and Wrong, says it's the absolute morality of the universe, then keys all kinds of mechanics off that vagueness. All kinds of problems come from this, including, but not limited to: players/GMs viewing a character's moral outlook as a mechanical decision to be agonized over, forcing us play as though morality was absolute and unquestionable, and pretending morality has exactly three shades of gray, three shades of black and 3 shades of white.

This. Though on that note, I resolve the problem by stating that it was most of the gods who got together around the dinner table and decided what actions were what alignment. That way, I don't have to change much of anything, and there aren't necessarily any moral issues because a lot of the gods in D&D settings aren't exactly the best people (remind me how the writers reasoned Corellon as being Good). Of course, this approach tends to lead to a decent number of atheist/misotheist characters regardless of (or especially because of) the beliefs of the players themselves. If you use the belief = divine power model, you can even have a god of atheism.

[Coidzor]

Ah, have you read Frank and K's thoughts on the matter?

[Alienist]

(remind me how the writers reasoned Corellon as being Good)

The default ethics in D&D is Moral Hollywoodism. The beautiful people are, by definition, the good guys and the ugly people are the villains.

Or a variant on that, Moral Tolkienism, which is why goblins and orcs are evil, because they used to be pretty (elves) but now they aren't, and pretty = good (etc). D&D doesn't subscribe to this directly, but it inherits that tradition, which is why (for instance) Red Cloak is evil, even though "all he wants is the best deal for his people who are oppressed", which some people with different (more complex) moral frameworks would consider that to be 'good' under their moral framework.

It is also why Elan is drawn "nice" but Nale is drawn "nasty", because (unlike the real world) appearances provide queues (sp? Maybe I should say clues or hints) to the moral state of the individual.

[Hyde]

All of these are great answers, because there is no right answer (other than whoever said "whatever your DM decides").

Under RAW, raising undead is pretty much evil, because the universe RAW operates in has an Absolute truth for everything.

However, these kinds of things aren't really set in stone, and are probably one of the bigger things left up to DMs.

The world we live in lacks gods (at least those that communicate with us in a meaningful way. Completely not having that conversation) to descend from on high and tell us what is right and what is not. Our world likewise lacks objective forces of good and evil, such as devas and devils, respectively.

The DnD world, on the other hand, has these things- to the point there are things that literally run on "good" energy. And so enters the argument of objective truth vs subjective truth.

The objective truth is the stock DnD setting, where actions are good or evil by their nature, and things like "intent" rarely matter. If your intent is to do good, then your actions should be good (but not necessarily lawful, mind). There are gods of good with tenants of goodness and their priests will only touch you if you ask them nicely and fork over a sum of diamonds.
Raising dead is evil because it spontaneously creates evil-aligned creatures (incidentally, if you're going to call the act of raising undead neutral, I'd consider likewise changing the alignment of undead. Not necessary, though, but think about it) who would love nothing more than to eat your face off, given half a chance. Therefore, your cleric of goodness is more than justified smiting some wizard heathens.

The subjective truth, however, entertains the "frame of reference" perspective, which is more or less how our world works. Eating babies is wrong because the general consensus deems it so, even if the felines of the world would disagree. What is "right" comes down to the individual, and his observers. If the world at large agrees that it's acceptable to burn down an orphanage as a fire break to stop a raging inferno from consuming the entire down, then burning down an orphanage just became an ultimately good act, because everyone agrees as such (this is where "the ends justify the means" comes in). Therefore, if your cleric and her church believe that raising dead for any reason is still evil, she's still justified in smiting some wizard heathens, albeit in a less global and unwavering fashion (for example, if the local government frowned on murder, even when the victim was raising dead, then she'd have some things to answer for, even while being completely in the right in her mind).

A lot of games run somewhere in the middle, and it is ultimately up to the DM. Personally, I find that if you're running a subjective morality game, it's often easier to throw out the alignment rules wholesale.

A pretty good look at things is the paladin, a class that loses its class abilities for committing evil or chaotic acts even in the name of Justice. ...and then there's the Grayguard PrC.

[MukkTB]

Dark magic (negative energy) tries to twist and corrupt you. Positive energy does the opposite. However by RAW the forces are so weak as to accomplish nothing against the free will of the character/player.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Dark magic (negative energy) tries to twist and corrupt you. Positive energy does the opposite. However by RAW the forces are so weak as to accomplish nothing against the free will of the character/player.

Negative energy is not "dark magic," any more than positive energy is holy magic. They're both unaligned forces, having to do with life and unlife or creation and destruction rather than good and evil. Evil creatures can heal other evil creatures with positive energy without either the healer or the target becoming redeemed or "un-corrupted," and a good creature can attack another evil creature with negative energy and not be corrupted any more than they would be if they attacked with fire or lightning.

Positive energy animates living creatures, negative energy animates undead, elemental spirits/forces animate golems, and shadow spirits/forces animate automata; no form of life is more inherently evil than any other. Positive and negative energy are really closer to order and entropy than anything else, really.

[mikau013]

In 3e, all of the undead creation and summoning spells that I'm aware of have the [Evil] tag, so they technically count as an evil act. Personally, I houserule that away, because (A) as noted, negative energy is as alignment-neutral as positive energy and (B) mindless skeletons and zombies are no different from mindless constructs in terms of inherent evilness and intention in my view.

Well by RAW Skeleton and Zombies are Neutral in 3e. But a spell like animate dead is still evil.
I don't really agree with the fact that it should be evil, but that is something for the DM and the players to discuss amongst themselves.

[ahenobarbi]

As already written: designers decided what is good and what is evil in game. Mostly to simplify things. So you can spend time kicking some evil (or good) ass, not than meditating what's good and what's evil.

With that in mind DM can change those rules (just as much as anything else). Just be aware that it makes good casters slightly more powerfull (now you can have perfectly obedient, cheap minions).

Also consequences depend mind your setting. If it's not popular for good-aligned to use undead character should expect trouble if people find out.

I think it should be evil. Because respecting bodies of deceased people is well... kind of very popular in real world (well probably if someone sold their corpse (while living) it would be ok).

On the other hand our world morals don't apply to d&d much. For example I wouldn't call act of mass slaughtering living beings good (there are means to capture them alive and give them opportunity to redeem in d&d). But in most games that's very good, noble and exalted.

[Pilo]

@mikau013 : False according to the srd.

Skeleton : always neutral evil.
Zombie: always neutral evil.

Animate dead is evil because you steal a body from a grave (or other place of eternal repose), and you go against the natural cycle of life then death.

Furthermore, when you die, the undeads you controlled are released from your control and they will try to kill living things.

[Telonius]

The rules never come out and say that casting a spell with the [Evil] descriptor is an Evil act, or that casting spells with the [Good] descriptor are a Good act. It just says that Clerics can't cast spells that are of an opposite alignment of their deity. Wizards of any alignment can cast [Good] or [Evil] spells.

For example, if one cabal of Evil wizards were fighting another cabal of Evil wizards, they could cast Magic Circle against Evil in preparation for the fight. Doing so would not be a Good act. Same way with a Good wizard going up against another Good foe; casting Magic Circle against Good, while it does have the Evil descriptor, wouldn't necessarily be an Evil act. Or to take another example, an Evil summoner who wants to make a deal with a succubus could use Magic Circle against Evil spell, focused inward, to contain the subject of his Planar Binding spell. In this way, casting a [Good] spell is part of a very Evil act.

From that, I think it's pretty clear that the spell descriptors are mainly there as Cleric guidelines, and not meant as hard-and-fast alignment rules. The subject of raising the dead, then, really depends on your interpretation of that specific action, not on whether or not the magics involved are good or evil.

[ahenobarbi]

The rules never come out and say that casting a spell with the [Evil] descriptor is an Evil act, or that casting spells with the [Good] descriptor are a Good act.

I don't know if rules say that, but one of features in Malconvoker PrC suggests that

Spoiler

Show

(...) regular use of conjuration spells with the evil
descriptor does not threaten to change your alignment.

[mikau013]

@mikau013 : False according to the srd.

Skeleton : always neutral evil.
Zombie: always neutral evil.

Animate dead is evil because you steal a body from a grave (or other place of eternal repose), and you go against the natural cycle of life then death.

Furthermore, when you die, the undeads you controlled are released from your control and they will try to kill living things.

Then your SRD is wrong.
The one I'm looking at clearly states that they are always Neutral. Just like the MM. Are you sure you aren't looking at the wrong thing?

- edit: Here you go a direct link: http://www.zombler.org/files/srd30a/monsters_z.html

[Telonius]

Then your SRD is wrong.
The one I'm looking at clearly states that they are always Neutral. Just like the MM. Are you sure you aren't looking at the wrong thing?

3.0 skeletons are always neutral. 3.5 skeletons are always neutral evil.

[Civil War Man]

Just looked up the 3.5 SRD, and it does list Zombies and Skeletons as Always Neutral Evil.

However, such a ruling is stupid, and contradicts the alignment rules in the same SRD.

Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral. Dogs may be obedient and cats free-spirited, but they do not have the moral capacity to be truly lawful or chaotic.

If dogs and cats are considered to be incapable of moral action, than mindless undead like zombies or skeletons are not even on the radar. It's like ruling that guns are always Neutral Evil.

[ahenobarbi]

If dogs and cats are considered to be incapable of moral action, than mindless undead like zombies or skeletons are not even on the radar. It's like ruling that guns are always Neutral Evil.

That's probably so Protection from Evil would work :P

[Civil War Man]

That's probably so Protection from Evil would work :P

It still assumes that undead are inherently evil, even if the undead are incapable of acting on their own accord.

Heck, Flesh Golems are Always Neutral according to the same SRD, even though there is functionally almost no difference between it and a large zombie.

[DoctorGlock]

I don't know if rules say that, but one of features in Malconvoker PrC suggests that

Spoiler

Show

(...) regular use of conjuration spells with the evil
descriptor does not threaten to change your alignment.

Huh, didn't one of the fiend folios have rules that essentially added up to casting 9 spells with the evil descriptor meant you went to the nine hells when you died because you were evil?

[ahenobarbi]

It still assumes that undead are inherently evil, even if the undead are incapable of acting on their own accord.

Heck, Flesh Golems are Always Neutral according to the same SRD, even though there is functionally almost no difference between it and a large zombie.

Let me reply by quoting meself.

As already written: designers decided what is good and what is evil in game. Mostly to simplify things. So you can spend time kicking some evil (or good) ass, not than meditating what's good and what's evil.

[hamishspence]

The rules never come out and say that casting a spell with the [Evil] descriptor is an Evil act, or that casting spells with the [Good] descriptor are a Good act. It just says that Clerics can't cast spells that are of an opposite alignment of their deity. Wizards of any alignment can cast [Good] or [Evil] spells.

Eberron Campaign Setting allows clerics to cast spells of an opposite alignment from their deity.

It also states that casting an evil spell is an evil act, and a good cleric's alignment may change if they repeatedly cast such spells.

BoVD states that "while casters may get away with casting a few evil spells, for a nonevil purpose- the path of evil magic leads to corruption"

And Fiendish Codex 2 lists it as a 1 pt corrupt act- still less evil than "stealing from the needy." Note that while a Lawful character who dies with a Corruption of 9 is "condemned to the Nine Hells" it is possible that the Hellbred rule, in the same book, can override that- a character who is genuinely repentant before they die, who'd normally go to the Nine Hells, becomes a Hellbred instead, with a second chance at achieving redemption.

Can a character keep casting undead-making spells and remain nonevil? The Dread Necromancer class, and the general description of antiheroes, in Heroes of Horror, imply that the answer is yes- it is possible for a neutral character to balance evil acts with good intentions and remain neutral.

Depending on the DM's interpretation, a LN Dread Necromancer might end up with a Corruption vastly in excess of 9- yet still be LN.

[Civil War Man]

Let me reply by quoting meself.

The reason I brought up Flesh Golems in response to the Protection from Evil comment is because it doesn't simplify things. Protection from Evil will protect you from this unthinking lumbering monstrosity that the evil wizard stitched together from a stolen corpse, but it won't protect you from this other unthinking lumbering monstrosity that the same evil wizard stitched together from several stolen corpses. Somehow adding more stolen corpses to the process made it not evil.