Why is Animate Dead an Evil spell in most D&D editions (specifically 3.5/Pathfinder)?
As title, why does animate dead have the evil descriptor and why does animate object not have it?
I feel as though the magic behind the two is very similar.
As a scholar of necromancy, I can understand create undead having it. You're binding a soul to a body and giving it intelligence. Mindless undead? Just magic moving their limbs.
If anything I'd label it "Chaotic."
Messing with dead bodies is against tradition it seems, hence chaotic.
So, what are your guys thoughts?
I feel as though the magic behind the two is very similar.
As a scholar of necromancy, I can understand create undead having it. You're binding a soul to a body and giving it intelligence. Mindless undead? Just magic moving their limbs.
If anything I'd label it "Chaotic."
Messing with dead bodies is against tradition it seems, hence chaotic.
So, what are your guys thoughts?
2
Comments
There are two aspects in which those two spells (Animate Dead and Animate Objects) differ. The first aspect is duration: Animate Dead is permanent, while Animate Objects is only temporary (1 round per level). This suggests that Animate Dead isn't using magic to move limbs; it's using magic to imbue a corpse with some level of agency. By itself, it's closer to creating a golem than animating a broomstick. That, by itself, isn't necessarily evil.
The second aspect is school. Animate Objects is a Transmutation spell, as would be creating a golem, while Animate Dead is Necromancy. Necromancy deals with souls, life and death, and other effects that defy the natural order. Necromancy by itself isn't evil magic, necessarily. When you use necromancy to heal yourself, you're using the power of death to give yourself a semblance of life. It's actually an interesting "Law of Conservation" type of deal: in order to give something life, you have to pull that life from somewhere else. Conjuration works the same way. If anything, most Necromancy spells are law-leaning, because they require some form of sacrifice on the part of the caster or the caster's victim.
Where it becomes an act of evil is where the two elements collide. Animate Dead is a necromancy spell that gives a person's corpse a level of agency, and that agency is permanent. The resulting undead may be mindless, but if you don't tell it what to do it will follow its own paradigms of "Protect Myself" and "Slay My Attackers". Both of these paradigms suggest at least some amount of free will, at least as much as would be had by a spider or a fox. Forcing that agency into a corpse and asserting your control over it is an evil act, because it's either creating or conjuring a soul to inhabit a body that it presumably doesn't want, and forcing it to follow the orders of its master.
This also doesn't take into account the cultural implications of stealing somebody's corpse, which the local townspeople would probably object to even if it's not "evil" on a planar level. Even if you view the physical body as nothing more than a vessel, the act of forcing a soul to permanently inhabit that vessel and placing that soul inexorably under your command is absolutely an evil act.
That being said, Animate Dead isn't an evil spell in Fifth Edition, so the planar morality is arguably a bit fuzzier. Is it still evil if the spirit you conjure is willing to be called? At the same time, the control over the created creature in 5e is only temporary, meaning that unless you exert continued control over your created servant, they are no more under your command than the target of a Charm Person spell--and depending on your campaign world's handling of necromancy, that first day under your command might be a part of the undead creature's coping mechanism as they acclimate to their new surroundings. In that case, casting Animate Dead becomes a kind of parent/child arrangement, and what turns it into an evil act is dependent on what you do with your newly made skeleton or zombie while it is in your care.
I wonder if you could cast Animate Object on a dead body.
Holy crap
I love you.
This is the first post I've read when I discuss the implications of necromancy and whether it's evil or not that actually makes logical sense. Usually I just get, "ANIMATING BODIES AND STUFF IS EVIL SO ANIMATE DEAD IS EVIL" or some other lame answer.
Also, I can definitely see that.
I always thought animate dead as putting negative energy into a corpse to cause to move. Never thought of the idea that maybe the negative energy gained a sort of sentience or not.
Hmmm
very interesting take on it. Thank you!
I've played a fair few necromancers in my day; it's something I like to think about a lot.
I usually play them as CN, CG, or with the N alignment. I don't play evil Necromancers usually. I get in debates with a lot of people whether necromancy is inherently evil. Usually I can agree with create undead being evil with intelligent undead and all that but mindless undead I'm like ehh. . .
I suppose the best way to go about it is to just release the undead once I've finished using them if I'm playing a Good or Neutral necromancer.
Seems to be taking someone's free will away from them >_>
Though personally I would be inclined to say that anything above a certain spell level is morally suspect, unless it's being used in a truly dire circumstance. There are some powers that should not be abused, and doing so would put a spellcaster on the road to corruption, whether the spell is Finger of Death or True Resurrection.
Btw, as it seems you're a fellow necromancer player and such, what would you say is the most necromancy necromancer character in Baldur's Gate, a Mage (Necromancer), a Cleric, or a Cleric/Mage?
Also, I now look up to you as a mentor figure. No one I've met has answered my questions in a manner that made me go, "Oh, yeah. I totally agree with that one-hundred percent!"
And back to be on subject with my opening post, how do would you say intelligent undead work? Is the necromancer activating the creature's brain, putting it's soul back in its body under the caster's will, or something else entirely?
I think it might be all of the above, depending on how the caster uses the spell. Not sure though. . .
That being said, 5e somewhat shifts the concept of "mindless undead", so that now even Skeletons and Zombies have Intelligence scores, and they understand the languages they spoke in life even if they can't speak now. This suggests that any undead you create is built as a template on the creature you're creating it from. But this could still mean that the magic is fabricating a soul, rather than coopting the body's original one--just that the soul it creates is based on the creature that first inhabited that body.
As for who makes the best necromancer, I think that largely depends on what sort of necromancer you're building. If what you want is a character that commands the undead and takes them for their dark patron, then Cleric is the way to go; otherwise, a Mage with the Necromancer kit will certainly feel more like the devoted student of death. Cleric has darker implications for the character's moral compass, Mage is easier to justify with a Lawful Neutral or even Good alignment.
Thanks for answering my questions and such! It's super appreciative.
The Good alternative btw is Deathless, which are animated by Positive Energy.
If you start smashing a dead body with a baseball bat then you are likely to be asked some serious questions by the police and, at best, looked at strangely by the community. However if you take a baseball bat to your table and chairs, then people will think it's a bit unusual but won't really care much.
I'd see it as a similar distinction between animate dead and animate object.
My necromancer never thinks twice about it. Raising the dead is merely a means to an end, i.e. power. If someone else can die in his place? Great. If they are already dead? I don't have to pay them to do it.
Of course, radiant damage is typically dealt by good-aligned creatures, and necrotic typically by evil-aligned creatures. But it's a correlative, rather than causative, relationship.
How Death qualifies as an Element is even weirder. Sounds like from what Dee is saying 5th really clesred things up better.
I don't know where I got my ideas, but they are based on 2E, although I admit that they may have been house rules from my DM. Any subsequent rules updates, I can't speak to because I've only ever played 2E and before in PnP.
1) Undead use Negative Energy to be animated.
2) Negative Energy is designed to hurt life, like Positive Energy heals life.
3) Undead by nature of negative energy, want to destroy all life, so they are Evil, not Neutral.
4) You are desecrating the body of a person, to animate it with negative energy, without it's soul to destroy life.
That's Evil.
Also, I'm speaking for 2E, 3E. Don't know about 4E or 5E differences.
Always confused about what happens when you use an evil spell for a good action.
Why did the caster save the orphanage? For personal gain? For reputation? Because they have a personal stake in it? What was the motivation behind the act?
Also, remember that an alignment is a continuum. Good beings can, on occasion, do evil. Just as Evil beings will occasionally do good, or have good outcomes come out of their actions.
Alignments are terribly complicated (and overblown in my view).
Once the necromancer stops controlling it, of course, a skeleton or zombie is compelled (according to the Monster Manual description) to kill any living creature it encounters, due to the necromantic magic that created it. But, again, there's absolutely nothing stopping a DM from overriding that paradigm to say that an undead servant created by a good-aligned necromancer with the intent of doing good things might continue to do good things once out of that necromancer's control. A Skeleton NPC, for instance, would likely behave very differently from a bog-standard Skeleton.
Beyond that, I agree that a DM can and should have the freedom to effect and change a creature's alignment in whatever manner fulfills his narrative. That is the nature of a DM.
Like anything, I think it has more to do with whether or not a caster is abusing their magic. Batman using cell phones to stop the Joker is "wrong", but since he only does it once, it's arguably an acceptable act.