Match each alignment with each school of magic (and other talk about the schools of magic).

Lateralus

For example:

Lawful Good - Abjurer
Neutral Good - Transmuter
Chaotic Good - Illusionist
Lawful Neutral - Invoker
True Neutral - Diviner
Chaotic Neutral - Wild Magic
Lawful Evil - Conjurer
Neutral Evil - Enchanter
Chaotic Neutral - Necromancer

CrevsDaak

Forum Chaotic - Thread-necromancy

Lateralus

Should the opposite school for illusion really be necromancy? The school that exists to discover and dispel illusions is actually divination. Meanwhile conjuration is about creativity and even in many cases, creating life (summoning things, find familiar, etc.), and it's opposite school is divination, when it should be necromancy (the study of death). They should be flip flopped.

JuliusBorisov

I dare say that a mage, no matter what type of magic school he has chosen, can be nearly of any alignment.

For e.g., I can see a necromancer as a neutral evil for obvious reasons ("the necromancery is a bad, bad thing") and as a neutral good (he tries to bring back those who went away too young).

Maybe the only type of wizards I can more or less guess the alignment is a wild mage. He just has to be chaotic neutral because everything can happen, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

Lateralus

bengoshi said:

For e.g., I can see a necromancer as a neutral evil for obvious reasons ("the necromancery is a bad, bad thing") and as a neutral good (he tries to bring back those who went away too young).

I think this is a poor example, but I agree with your principal. "Bringing back" those who died to young is clerics work, all a necromancer does is basically defile their remains and march cadavers around like meat puppets. Nothing good about that, no matter how he tries to convince himself.

Lemernis

Hmm, never really thought of it this way. It's an association versus a literal thing, obviously. But interesting to contemplate. I would be more inclined to associate Necromancy with NE, I think. At least with respect to reanimating and controlling the dead. Something a bit selfish about that, right?

As for playing specialists in-game, I use a self-imposed rule that at least half the spell slots must be filled with the specialization school's spells.

And I once enjoyed running a custom party comprised mostly of specialist mages that used only their own school's spells. Actually it was Conjurer, Enchanter, Illusionist, and Necromancer. And rounding the party out was a Mage/Thief and a Cleric who used only spells, no martial weapons. Very difficult early on, as one can imagine. But they became surprisingly powerful by chapter 4--in fact so much so that I actually lost interest.

TheArtisan

Lawful Good - Divination
Neutral Good - Generalist
Chaotic Good - Conjuration
Lawful Neutral - Abjuration
True Neutral - Necromancy
Chaotic Neutral - Illusion/Wild Magic
Lawful Evil - Enchantment
Neutral Evil - Alteration
Chaotic Evil - Invocation

Had to think hard about this, but this is how I would personally put it. An interesting perspective considering Dynaheir and Edwin are complete opposites to how I've put the schools.

ShadowHunter

I think a necromancer can be of any alignment, the most ones we know tend to be bad 'cause tbh raising skeletons and zombies isn't what most people assosciate with "good". But I think a necromancer CAN be good, raising dead to protect the innocent and sucking the life out of the bad guys. It may not sound to honorous or "good" and hell I can see the Torm and Tyr fanatics preparing their stakes and torches because necromancy is "evil" without even considering what the intention of the necromancer is.

I agree most of them are evil and it isn't a school of magic that people assosciate with "good" but hey, don't forget this is BG and D&D everything is possible

TheArtisan

Imo, necromancy isn't innately any more 'evil' than any other school when used appropriately. Evocation can cause cataclysms. Conjuration can summon fiends from the hells. Enchantment and Illusion can permanently break your mind. Alteration can turn you to stone or erase you. Abjuration is the worst imo, trapping you in suspended animation for the rest of time.

Afaik, when a necromancer raises the dead it's only their physical remains which are animated - their souls remain where they belong. I think maybe the most powerful necromancers will take souls as prisoners, but refer to above for what the other schools can do respectively.

This isn't the TES universe where the slain are trapped in black soul gems and sent to an abyss of tormented souls once the necromancer is done with them.

the_spyder

I think the reason that Necromancy is associated with evil is in the usage of negative energy akin to what vampires and other 'evil' undead use. Quite what this says as the USE of the energy is actually being faulted based on the origin.

For me, Magic is energy, pure and simple. It isn't 'necessarily' tied to any alignment or ethos. Divination can be used to find out someone's secrets and blackmail them. Necromancy actually has various healing spells in it's sphere.

Abi_Dalzim

the_spyder said:

For me, Magic is energy, pure and simple. It isn't 'necessarily' tied to any alignment or ethos. Divination can be used to find out someone's secrets and blackmail them. Necromancy actually has various healing spells in it's sphere.

Think almost ALL healing spells are necromancy. Except for, like Regeneration and one or two other things.

Lateralus

If you HAD to match each one, how would you? I changed my mind about invokers, they are pretty much all about destruction, CE for them.

TheArtisan

Invocation isn't destruction - it's energy. It's no more evil in-universe than nuclear power is in real life.

However, if I were given a specialist wizard of each type and asked to give them an alignment - the above would be my choice.

Lateralus

Matching labels is fun.

Nimran

Lateralus said:

bengoshi said:

For e.g., I can see a necromancer as a neutral evil for obvious reasons ("the necromancery is a bad, bad thing") and as a neutral good (he tries to bring back those who went away too young).

I think this is a poor example, but I agree with your principal. "Bringing back" those who died to young is clerics work, all a necromancer does is basically defile their remains and march cadavers around like meat puppets. Nothing good about that, no matter how he tries to convince himself.

Oh, brother Thurm, care to regale us with a ripping tale of the old days?

Lateralus

Nimran said:

Lateralus said:

bengoshi said:

For e.g., I can see a necromancer as a neutral evil for obvious reasons ("the necromancery is a bad, bad thing") and as a neutral good (he tries to bring back those who went away too young).

I think this is a poor example, but I agree with your principal. "Bringing back" those who died to young is clerics work, all a necromancer does is basically defile their remains and march cadavers around like meat puppets. Nothing good about that, no matter how he tries to convince himself.

Oh, brother Thurm, care to regale us with a ripping tale of the old days?

You there! What is the meaning of this?

meagloth

I don't think this works. Most of these are subjective at best, and I think inherently neutral, though necromancy sticks out like a sore thumb. Also, wild magic is really not a school. Reckless dewomer is invocation and and the chaos shields are abjuration.

OlvynChuru

I really liked how the healing spells in 2nd edition were necromancy since it made that school feel more morally ambivalent.

Lateralus

if anything, alignment dictates the use of each school of magic, it's never the other way around. But alignment is simply a guideline that isn't really intended to be followed ALL the time. It's all very subjective.

Off topic but somewhat relevant: I tried documenting my initial reactions to situations to see what alignment I lean towards. An example: Somebody cut me off and my initial reaction was surprise at how dumb and irresponsible that person is. I throw my hands up in the air after honking the horn a couple times, and then go on my way. I wasn't overly stressed out, or particularly happy that day. Other days I might have leaned on the horn and cursed, or I might have just rolled my eyes. You see where this is going, right? People are very complicated and how you physically see somebody in a moment is never who they ARE all the time. If I cursed and flipped them the bird it might have been because I wanted to make sure they understood their mistake, so as not to harm my less experienced loved ones who will be on the road soon. People who take the high road and just smile and ignore the situation, may in fact be doing more harm than good. But, I guess I would like to be chaotic neutral simply because I really love my freedom, and cherish time to myself. And I'm just way to busy trying to survive to really dedicate time to helping others. I mean subtract the taxes from your salary and everything else you pay taxes on and what are you left with? Like HALF of what you really earn? That's more than enough charity, I'm not giving up my winter beach getaway to feed kids across the world. They can use my tax money for that! So yeah, CN.