Can a good character cast Animate Dead without issue?

[zergling.exe]

The only time this becomes an issue is when you're a cleric and the way you get around that is by being a cleric of a neutral deity that supports good and evil clerics such as Wee Jas.

This doesn't help you actually. A cleric can't cast spells opposed to their deity's or their own alignment:

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). For example, a good cleric (or a neutral cleric of a good deity) cannot cast evil spells. Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions (see Chapter 11: Spells).

[darkela5]

Or you could be a hellbred and completely ignore all of the alignment nonsense as an Ex ability ''Evil Exception (Ex): A hellbred does not act against its alignment by employing spells with the Evil descriptor, and is treated as Evil for the sake of using Evil magic items, irregardless of its actual alignment.''

[AnimeTheCat]

This doesn't help you actually. A cleric can't cast spells opposed to their deity's or their own alignment:

Ok, counterpoint, be a neutral cleric of a neutral deity. Cast your good and your evil and channel according to which way your neutral deity swings.

[Karl Aegis]

So what's the problem with the idea a cleric devoted to evil, taking the Evil Domain, is able to animate more corpses with a casting of Animate Dead than an equal level cleric that is not devoted to evil, without the Evil Domain? Is this somehow problematic from a mechanics perspective?

[Jack_Simth]

I know it is a 2nd level mage spell. Is there a clerical equivalent?

No, but yes. In 3.5, Evil Clerics (or neutral clerics of an evil deity, or neutral clerics of a neutral deity who pick that option) get Rebuke Undead which has the Command option. In Pathfinder, it's a feat.

However that wasn't the intended point of my post. When working with Animate Dead (both in Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons 3.5), the created undead stay under your control until other circumstances change that (the three most common in no particular order: you hit your control limit, someone else gains control of them via spell or class feature, they're destroyed). You'd said a cleric needs to keep using negative energy to give them more commands. That's untrue. Both the 3.5 and Pathfinder version have the same clause: "The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely." Once an undead you created via Animate Dead finishes it's first order, you can just tell it to do more stuff, no additional negative energy required (at least, not from you).

[Esquire]

All alignment-based content is massively dependent on setting specifics and/or DM rulings. Therefore, the most correct answer to 'can a Good character cast animate dead without issue?' is: maybe.

[Zanos]

And second off, why is negative energy evil? Sure, it hurts living people, but so does fire. "But," I hear you say, "Fire is useful! It keeps people warm and cooks food!"

To which I respond, negative energy lets you till fields better, through undead servants, harvest crops better, fight against invaders without losing actual people's lives... Yeah, negative energy is useful too.

Negative energy is antithetical to life. So you're bringing more...entropy or whatever into the material plane. I also think creating mindless servants from people's corpses is generally frowned upon, and making yourself immortal to escape the flow of souls to the outer planes that keeps the planes turning is also probably bad. Not that it would stop me.

Besides that, I think there's some goofy text in either BoED or LM about how negative energy subtly makes the world worse in some abstract undefined way.

As for negative energy being evil. It is considered anything that focuses on death which is an enemy of life. Would be evil second anything that causes crushing despair as negative energy does is evil

I don't disagree that there's logic that supports undead being Evil, but V creating an undead head isn't evidence of how undead creation works in the 3.5 ruleset(there's no application of create greater undead that works like that), and V creating that head is probably the least Evil thing that happens in that arc.

[Necroticplague]

Negative energy is antithetical to life. So you're bringing more...entropy or whatever into the material plane.

If that was the reason, Calling Xeg-Yi (or Xeg-Ya. Whichever Energon is the negative one) would also be Evil. As would the vast majority of the Necromancy school debuffs, like Touch of Fatigue, since those spells explicitly work by bringing in negative energies.

I also think creating mindless servants from people's corpses is generally frowned upon,

Simply being frowned upon generally doesn't make anything Evil.

Besides that, I think there's some goofy text in either BoED or LM about how negative energy subtly makes the world worse in some abstract undefined way.

I believe those two have it in some abstract way, but BoVD has this explicit in a more concrete way. The prescence of enough undead, or powerful enough dead, counts for Lingering Evil, which has deleterious affects on the area. So a Lich simply being in an area for a while will begin to plague it with nightmares and blight the land. Therefore, it's very existence is intrinsically harming others.

[Venger]

If that was the reason, Calling Xeg-Yi (or Xeg-Ya. Whichever Energon is the negative one) would also be Evil. As would the vast majority of the Necromancy school debuffs, like Touch of Fatigue, since those spells explicitly work by bringing in negative energies.

Simply being frowned upon generally doesn't make anything Evil.

I believe those two have it in some abstract way, but BoVD has this explicit in a more concrete way. The prescence of enough undead, or powerful enough dead, counts for Lingering Evil, which has deleterious affects on the area. So a Lich simply being in an area for a while will begin to plague it with nightmares and blight the land. Therefore, it's very existence is intrinsically harming others.

xeg-yi are indeed the negative ones. xag-ya are positive.

[Zanos]

Aren't those both Eberron creatures, though?

[hamishspence]

Nope. Planar Handbook creatures.

The Negative Energy plane itself seems to be Neutral - but whatever process allows clerics to draw from the Negative Energy Plane, seems somehow connected to Evil.

[Florian]

The Negative Energy plane itself seems to be Neutral - but whatever process allows clerics to draw from the Negative Energy Plane, seems somehow connected to Evil.

It´s actually worthwhile to take a closer look at how PF/Golarion has revamped the Great Wheel cosmology and then revisit the 3E/D&D version of it, because they did a better job at explaining the fundamental connections and workings than, say, Planescape or Manual of the Planes did.

[Venger]

Aren't those both Eberron creatures, though?

no? I'm curious what monster you're thinking of now. let me know if you figure it out. nothing springs to mind for me.

[Mordaedil]

Ok, counterpoint, be a neutral cleric of a neutral deity. Cast your good and your evil and channel according to which way your neutral deity swings.

Pretty sure that's a druid, not a cleric.

[hamishspence]

Yup - Neutral clerics have to choose:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/cleric.htm

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.

[Necroticplague]

Pretty sure that's a druid, not a cleric.

?

A neutral cleric of a neutral deity must choose whether his turning ability functions as that of a good cleric or an evil cleric. Once this choice is made, it cannot be reversed. This decision also determines whether the cleric can cast spontaneous cure or inflict 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.

I don't see any reason a neutral cleric of a neutral god couldn't cast [evil] and [good] both, and Control or Turn as they desire when being created.

[hamishspence]

Cast Evil and Good spells, yes.

Control or Turn, they have to pick one when created and cannot change that, unless they change alignment.

[Necroticplague]

Cast Evil and Good spells, yes.

Control or Turn, they have to pick one when created and cannot change that, unless they change alignment.

Thus the 'when being created'.

[Mordaedil]

?

I guess the joke is a bit lost here.

The idea is that if you want to commit to an extreme alignment you chose to be a cleric and if you wish to be more wishy-washy, you play a druid, with how the rules are written. It was funnier 15 years ago.