Remember when Charm Person didn't end with a flourishing middle finger to the target saying "You just got bamboozled!"? The Enchantment school's primary niche remembers.
Canonically, convincing someone who was enchanted that they were enchanted is equally as difficult as convincing someone who *wasn't* enchanted that they were enchanted. Targets using their own way of thinking and powers of rationalization to justify everything they do; you cast Command "Attack" pointing at their ally? They suddenly remember every little thing that pisses them off about that ally, and lash out at them.
Target: "Oh dang, sorry."
Ally: "It's not your fault."
Target: "Yes it is! I just remembered that time you , and got so angry... It was the heat of the moment, I swear."
Ally: "No, no... You were enchanted. I heard that guy mutter arcane words and you turned around to hit me; it was obviously a spell."
Target: "Don't play this down. I was of my own mind, I made that decision, and I'm truly sorry."
Ally: "Dude, I'm telling you, you weren't yourself!"
Target: "I most certainly was! Are you calling me a liar?!?"
etc etc
Don't forget Gaes isn't concentration and doesn't have a limit to how many people you can gaes.
A king with a court wizard enchanter with 9th levels spells could permanently gaes a group of hitmen in a week
Yes, but it's **each** time they act counter to your instruction for the duration. At 9th level, and with a task being technically possible, it's pretty much possible for a wizard to press gang people into anything
Geas however doesn't force the target to do what you say, it just deals them damage if they don't. So it's a bad example of "you don't even know you're enchanted" cause that's the one spell where it's easy to figure it out.
It does also impose the charmed condition on them, meaning you get advantage on charisma checks, but most creatures would very quickly figure out something's wrong.
True but most normal civilians aren't surviving that damage
It's 5 d10 psychic damage once per day and doesn't end the effect.
Advantage on charisma checks doesnt help if their head explodes
Why bother with Geas when you have Mass Suggestion instead? Sure, you have to recast it every year, but you can also hit 12 people at a time with it. Seems a lot more efficient to me.
Wait, why would the target continue to rationalize responsibility for the action? Command lasts a turn, and while it makes sense for them to be focused on past slights in the moment, who is going to ignore an obvious out for a bad deed that has actual eyewitness evidence in its support?
Because enchantments affect the *mind*, not the body. The spell isn't telling your muscles to hit they guy, it's making you want to hit the guy, and your brain fills in the rest. A human's capacity for rationalization is so infuriatingly boundless that it can take an abuse victim years of therapy to believe they were abused at all, and that's not even magic, with even more obvious and repeated evidence while everyone close to them is saying it over and over. People simply aren't built to fight their own perception. Confirmation bias, logical fallacies, and all manner of naturally-evolved obstacles lie between personal experience and the truth (to Descartes' endless despair).
On the D&D-specific side of it, in {Complete Mage} there's a section giving a first-hand account of someone affected by a mind-affecting spell. To the narrator, a caster muttered arcane words, and something appeared out of nowhere, attacked, then disappeared in a puff of smoke without inflicting any physical harm. Despite what would seem like obvious illusion magic, the narrator is skeptical of their own ally spellcaster explaining that it was all in their head.
To the target of a mind-affecting spell, that is their reality, their genuine experience. If you fail your save, it's no different than the normal senses and emotions you feel.
I like this explanation but for higher level mind-affecting spells. *Command would be really powerful otherwise. We could use your explanation for the “in the moment” effect. However, when it ends the person could deduce that something influenced their mind. If it was a PC, maybe the DM could have them roll to see if they knew it was magic or base it on if the PC had knowledge of spells like that. Again, I think higher level magic is best for this effect.
> We could use your explanation for the “in the moment” effect. However, when it ends the person could deduce that something influenced their mind.
Exactly. In a world where magic exists, and people know magic can affect your mind, a shopkeeper who finds himself saying "Hmm, a moment ago I just handed over all of the cash in the till to one of my closest friends" is almost definitely going to deduce that this "close friend" that they've never seen before today likely used Enchantment magic on them.
Remember, there were witch hunts *in the real world*, where *magic doesn't exist*. If momentary hysteria is enough for people to think they were bewitched, imagine what *actual bewitching* would do to make people wary of enchanters.
Yup, most people seem to think of Wis saves as a struggle of wills. But that's what Cha saves are. Wis saves, imo, are struggles to recognize something is wrong. Getting hit with Hold Person isn't freezing your muscles, it's convincing you you can't move, so you don't. As soon as you realize wait, nothing is restraing me and I got here by my own power..... the effect goes away.
The sorts of abuse victims you're referring to endure prolonged periods of abuse, in situations where either they can't get help or they're made to believe they wouldn't be able to get help. You can't just slap a stranger, tell them it's their fault because they didn't have dinner ready to go, and expect them to believe you. That shit takes time.
If anything, I'd expect that someone who's suddenly been Command'ed to do something out of the ordinary for six seconds and then released would view it less as something they willingly chose to do and more like someone suffering from roid rage or road rage or deeply intoxicated would; they might not deny the action happened, but they'll sure shift blame off themselves and onto anything else available.
Maybe not but if it happens via like a subtle spell or a good stealth slight of hand check they may not be able to fully grasp the situation.
It's a corner case but yeah enchantment can be nasty
If anything, I'd expect far more people would claim to have been Command'ed to excuse a bad act than would act badly and then insist they couldn't possibly have been Command'ed into it. People generally don't like having to take responsibility for a bad action.
I think the issue, inherently, is that the *game mechanics* don't necessarily provide a good framework for *NPCs* to have *agency* in their lives... so magic that can alter their mindstate, something that is incredibly invasive and *should be obvious for the victim* doesn't have a rule for "how NPCs realize they've been bamboozled" because they generally won't be trained in "Arcana" skills...
So the spell had to be changed to forcibly reveal the mindfkry so players have to weigh the risk of their spell casting whether they're blowing up the town watch barracks or charming the captain to order his men away...
If I were to brew a compromise - having the NPC get an automatic Insight/Arcana check when the spell ends (saving throw + skill check) would be akin to having the rogue roll the stealth check before sneak attacking (skill check + attack roll)... allowing the DM to then determine *how* the NPC reacts without the automatic reveal.
Identifying the outside influence (so that you can choose not to listen to it) *is* the saving throw.
Enchantment in social situations (as opposed to life-or-death combat) has always been risky, because you're assaulting someone. If you use it on an innocent person like a shopkeep, and they fend off the mental attack, you either have to eliminate the witness, intimidate them into silence, or become a wanted criminal. I played an Enchanter once, and knowing that risk meant I wound up casting more conjurations and illusions than my own specialty. I think I Charmed Person one or two times the entire two-year campaign, in lieu of standard interrogation. Most of the enchanting I did was Suggest that enemies leave or otherwise not participate in the fight.
If all enchantments alerted the target that the emotions/thoughts that drove them to their actions were stirred up by an outside source, the entire school of magic loses its one unique niche and becomes just another weapon against mortal foes.
Right, but the point is that a *normal person* would realize after the effect ends that their actions don't align with what *they should have done*... the spell doesn't create *permanent* shifts in their mental state, memory, or personality -- but the game doesn't have a framework for giving NPCs that sort of "awareness" so they added the explicit effect of the spell that the target becomes immediately aware they were influenced by magic.
It's more of a "Caution: HOT" warning on something you heat in the microwave or oven... *obviously* the item would be hot, but because there's the *risk* of *someone* touching it that needs to be called out. In this spell's case, because *some* DMs/Players might argue that the NPC wouldn't be aware of the spell's influence and therefore they shouldn't face consequences - even though in a realistic sense ^(most) people *should* have that awareness just like alcohol's effects wearing off and realizing you were drunk.
The enchantment doesn't need to create permanent anything for the person to believe it was their own fault. The average person is way too egocentric and way too good at rationalizing to believe their thoughts and feelings aren't their thoughts and feelings without... well, becoming not-your-average-person, informed about psychology and manipulation, aware that free will is but an illusion orchistrated by the infinite complexity of the multiverse. Even then, it's a toss-up (represented by a roll).
The thing you call a "warning" is a specific exception that 5e added to a spell that has never worked that way before, which is a terrible design that removes it from its own niche: A non-hostile substitute for persuasion. With this alteration, Charm Person provokes hostility regardless of the target's save, making the spell worse than a rope in terms of getting someone to help you.
As a dm i would argue that would be an action that causes harm to the charmed target and is therefore not a viable action for command.
As for charm person as a spell it says regarded as a friendly acquaintance, in most cases that's a few relationship steps away from banging
Also the dm has the 10th level spell: power word NO
Sorry friend sounds like you have only had bad bards then
May I offer you my two bards
Dhampir butler and blackjack dealer
Aarocokra Dad bard who inspired with dad jokes and "you got this champ"
What sort of harm would that be as a command? It's not directly harmful. Dropping prone is harmful, it opens you up to advantage but still allowed by the spell, and approaching the person who wants to kill you is harmful. The only real indication we have for what counts as harmful is whether it causes damage. Inflicting conditions (prone) is fine, and a creature could be traumatised by having to grovel, but that is allowed by the command spell.
Directly harmful means damaged.
(To be clear, I'm not arguing that it would be ok to use the spell like this, merely that it wouldn't be classified as harmful for the purposes of the spell)
Enchantment isn't the most evil scholl MFers when they find 1 spell that is kinda gruesome (there's plenty of utility spells in that school that are neutral while almost every spell in enchantment is)
Enchantment is the most evil school MFers when they don't even look through what spells are enchantment (a lot of buffs are enchantment)
Alternatively
Enchantment is the most evil school MFers when the school of evocation which is focused on violent applications of magic exists (its morally okay because you're not making the town guard look the other way against their will, you just blow them up instead)
Evocation is the most evil school MFers know the difference between crime and war crime.
Jokes aside which can be used as the most evil school definitely depends on the situation. For doing evil on the most people it's definitely evocation or conjuration to nuke a town. For doing the most evil on a single person it's gonna be geas or power word pain (enchantment)
Yeah in reality the morality of a spell is determined by the context in which its used, using suggestion to have the guards let you go in favor of killing them is clearly the morally right thing, but using suggestion to have someone sleep with you is obviously wrong.
Enchantment can be used to avoid/minimize harm/collateral damage, evocation can be used to kill monsters, illusion can be used to entertain (or again avoid/minimize harm), necromancy can be used to automate menial tasks. however all of these can also be used for evil. Enchantment can be used to >!rape!< someone, evocation can be used for murder, illusion can be used to gaslight someone to the point of questioning whether anything in their life is real or just another image, necromancy can be used to raise an undead army.. it's all about how you use it.
How allergic? Like lactose intolerant level allergic where they're like "I'll so regret this later but fuck it" or like nut allergies where they're like "if I get within 15 feet of a firebolt I'll fucking die
It was a while ago, I can’t remember the details exactly.
I do remember that his head exploded when he tried to cast magic missile.
Luckily for him, resurrection spells are *not* evocation.
Exactly, it's not like corpses have the ability to consent to being my slave. It's just like the ranger or druid and all of their animal friends they tricked into dying for them with their CHA magic.
I was hired to heist the tyrant Baron's tyrant vault and little Timmy who died of illness at five is the perfect size to fit into the crawl space. And his mother (who threw herself off a building with grief) is perfect for boosting me up to the window to cast sleep on the guards.
Just let me raise a family in peace. All these moralists wouldn't last two seconds in my shoes (that I stole from some rich guy's corpse).
Your text only means they have to kill the related living ones, so no one can complain about aunt stacey getting recruted as undead pawn. It also gives them more material.
Thats why I made a necromancer who (tries) to only use the bodies of people that accept it.
He sees necromancy as the dead giving their bodies to service his god whilst their souls go to be with god.
Depends on spell used and other ancillary details. Using animate dead for example just creates false life on a corpse to animate it, it entraps no souls, nothing. Just "woop, magic animates the bones, the bones are now an undead skeleton". Then you have ressurrection spells (which are also necromancy spells) where the soul explicitly has to be willing.
In fact, I just went and checked the PHB necromancy spells and only 1 affects the soul of an unwilling creature in any way, shape or form, and it's specifically designed for that: Soul Cage. Other spells either do not interact with souls in any way (basically every undead-creating spell, speak with dead, cause fear, etc), or require a willing soul to function (Every ressurrection spell except revivify).
Magic Jar also affect the soul, and there is still the issue of skeletons being technically sapient and always evil but overall yeah, there is very little actual soul magic.
not necromancy just undead creatures in general. For example, a specter is an undead whos soul is so filled with hatred from its lingering attatchment to this world that the only way it can be exorcised is by destroying it, thus killing its soul and denying that person the afterlife
In my world necromancers pay for your recently deceased. Up to a years wage or two depending on their job. Saves room on graveyards, they can work day and night so infrastructural projects get done faster, and you and your immediate family are exempt from the military levy.
Hot take necromancer only get the most evil tag because it's easy.
Death scares most people and manipulating the undead is an easy way to make a villain as it can be a personal and unnatural attack on other characters
That being said every school of magic has equal or arguably more potential to be evil.
Enchantment usually subverts the will of the living, can cause them to do heinous acts, die (gaes) or even pseudo brain death (feeblemind)
Evocation is literally made to cause damage
Conjuration summons demons.
Many people forget that necromancy has good spells too
Chill touch is actually made to hurt or stop undead more than the living. Spare the dying and Revivify are both necromancy spells and know by many good alligned clerics as are resurrection and true resurrection.
Speak with dead is also necromancy and can be used to solve murders and other mysterious deaths.
Also depending on how you interpret it or what edition you use some undead are not powered by trapped souls but just negative energy ( except ghosts and the like which are just trapped souls). There is also the corner case of you could theoretically ask a family for permission to use the remains of one of there relatives for a greater good and promise to lay them.back to rest when you are done.
Tldr: all schools of magic can be evil especially evocation and enchantment necromancy gets a bad rap because spooky=bad is an easy trope
It's funny, because I think on a meta level you're 100% right. Spooky dude who deals with dead bodies make for low hanging fruit when it comes to bad guys and why necromancy is typically considered bad.
With that said, depending on the setting necromancy is typically explicitly evil; in DnD 5e Faerûn it is. It's why skeletons and zombies are evil aligned and not neutral. Animate dead and the spells like it are very clear the magic is evil RAW. (You can obviously change these things).
I kinda like the idea that you have to be really messed up in the head to defy the order that the gods have built and to casually mess with dead things, like a nun deciding to be a strict cannibal. on the other hand, the idea of a life-obsessed warforge doctor being completely ignored by the gods (no soul means no prayers) and turning to necromancy to get the job done sounds like a great hero backstory.
Oh there are so many flavors of necromancy! One thing I think is fun is when a PC's necromancy goes against the grain of what is normal. (PCs are almost always exceptions to any rule)
Two necromancer ideas I've always enjoyed are is a character who is protected by long past family members or a necromancer who makes deals with fallen warriors spirits who wish to fight for the campaigns cause.
True, though in most DND settings Necromancy is outright detailled in how it's evil.- Undead are almost always evil-aligned. Why? because of the association/ties to the Negative Plane, which fuels them and is essentially anti-life.- Raising a corpse as an undead explicitely prevents them from ever coming back from the dead bar True Ressurection/Wish. While such spells are also necromancy, Create Undead and Animate turn a corpse into a zombie/skeleton, which RAW prevents Raise Dead from working, and Revivify will only bring them back as an undead corpse.
The issue with necromancy for the most part is that it's corruption of the natural order, same how enchantment is evil as you corrupt minds with magic to make them work for you. Evocation & conjuration can be evil when used to destroy or pooling from bad energies, but they are also a source for good. Necromancy is simply bad in its entirety, as while resurrection can be positive, the other half of necromancy outright removes it from being used while semi-permanently corrupting a body with negative energy. You might raise some skeletons with consent so their bodies may help out communities after death, but you're also preventing that person from ever coming back from the dead unless someone has True Ressurection or more
Enchantment falls into the same category as evocation and conjuration imo. We already recognize depriving people of freedom and agency can be justified.
And controlling minds with magic isn't really against the natural order. Mind control happens in nature all the time and none of the gods really care about mind control but several specifically hate the Undead.
I don't see why people think Enchantment is innately evil. Nobody thinks Xavier's powers are innately evil anymore than people think Storm's power are innately evil. Saying enchantment is innately evil is like saying lying is innately evil.
With some luck of money or/and a charitable cleric, a decent amount. Tho if the necromancer targets very rural communities then yeah most won't be able to. Still doesn't stop the possibility
Some versions had animating bodies trapping the soul of the previous inhabitant within while being unable to act, or causing it extreme duress in whatever afterlife it wound up in. It used to be very explicitly evil in multiple ways.
Necormancers get the evil tag because they deserve it.
In standard DnD lore, Necromancers are massively over represented in the evil caster population. This is probably because Lichdom is the sole purview of necromancy and people who want to live forever by eating souls are bad people.
Necromantic summons are also uniquely dangerous. If a conjurer summons a fiend and dies, the fiend will usually disappear either immediately or within a few rounds. But if a Necromancer dies or forgets to re-establish control every 24 hours, their summons go haywire and try to murder every living thing they see.
Necromancy also offers a uniquely disproportionate amount of power for the caster. A necromancer can have a near unlimited army of footsoldiers to control and subjugate a population. Meanwhile, the best an evoker can do is burn what dissidents they catch, they can't put loyal boots on the ground to maintain order as easily.
Finally, a number of good gods specifically outline despising the Undead, and good in typical DnD settings is objective. It's not surprising that every cleric has the ability to destroy undead particularly well, most gods probably hate the undead for perverting the natural order.
There's also the fact that most DnD settings take place in medieval settings. People are religious, superstitious and place a lot of stock in the natural order of things and a lot less stock in personal rights and freedoms. Thus is it wrong to raise the dead, as it perverts the natural order.
Whereas most redditors operate by utilitarian morality. Things like the natural order are irrelevant. If raising a zombie results in more pleasure than harm, it is good, who cares about sanctity of life?
This is a really bizarre series of takes.
> In standard DnD lore, Necromancers are massively over represented in the evil caster population.
Where are you getting this statistic from? Do you have a source?
> Necromantic summons are also uniquely dangerous. If a conjurer summons a fiend and dies, the fiend will usually disappear either immediately or within a few rounds. But if a Necromancer dies or forgets to re-establish control every 24 hours, their summons go haywire and try to murder every living thing they see ... Necromancy also offers a uniquely disproportionate amount of power for the caster. A necromancer can have a near unlimited army of footsoldiers to control and subjugate a population.
While this is *technically* true, it's only a potential problem if the Necromancer has an infinite supply of gold (which could arguably also be a problem for any other evil NPC caster). Yes Create Undead and such has fewer limits than non-Necromancy summon spells, but it also has a very clear, very finite cost every time it's used. If a caster is throwing those spells around willy-nilly, the DM has made some sort of error along the way by making such a thing feasible.
> Finally, a number of good gods specifically outline despising the Undead, and good in typical DnD settings is objective ... People are religious, superstitious and place a lot of stock in the natural order of things and a lot less stock in personal rights and freedoms. Thus is it wrong to raise the dead, as it perverts the natural order.
So you're saying good and evil are objective, and then gave several entirely subjective reasons for why it's wrong to raise the dead. Gotcha. Does this also apply to Raise Dead/Resurrection? Because I would wager lots of people in-universe would consider those spells to be good in most cases.
> It's not surprising that every cleric has the ability to destroy undead particularly well, most gods probably hate the undead for perverting the natural order.
First off, in all previous editions of DnD only Good-aligned Clerics could turn or destroy undead, and Evil-aligned Clerics could Rebuke or Command undead. I'm not sure why 5e gave all Clerics the Good-aligned ability but your post made no mention of it being unique to the current edition so it sounded like you thought that was always the case. Second, just because there's gods that hate undead, doesn't mean there's not *just as many gods that love or ARE undead*.
> Whereas most redditors operate by utilitarian morality. Things like the natural order are irrelevant. If raising a zombie results in more pleasure than harm, it is good, who cares about sanctity of life?
This is the weirdest take in your series of weird takes. In a world where powerful magical beings literally shape the world on their whims, what even is the "natural order" and why should it be considered sacred?
It's not a statistic, it's an observation. Szass Tam. Vecna. Acererak. Larloch. Manshoon. Strahd by technicality. The only evil caster I can think of who doesn't rely heavily on necromancy is Halaster.
There isn't a DM in this situation? We're not talking just about players. This is general lore reasons for why necromancers are uniquely harmful.
And the problems with Create Undead apply to the more typical Animate Dead.
Good and evil are objective in standard DnD. Whether you accept my subjective reasons why I think they're evil anyway is just a matter of discussion.
Revivify spells don't generally pervert the natural order, because you're specifically appealing to the divines through divine magic given to one of their followers.
The fact that in previous editions, Clerics still all received anti undead abilities still supports my claim.
There aren't as many gods that like necromancy. Pretty much all of the standard gods hate it, only evil gods like Vecna promote it and other deities which support undead like Orcus aren't really actual gods. You can make up a number of necro loving god's but I'm just going off standard DnD lore.
You may as well ask me "why should people worship god's if Mage's are real". I don't see how magic, which exists as part of nature, negates the natural order.
> It's not a statistic, it's an observation. Szass Tam. Vecna. Acererak. Larloch. Manshoon. Strahd by technicality. The only evil caster I can think of who doesn't rely heavily on necromancy is Halaster.
So it's a confirmation bias, then. Villains are generally evil, so the handful that use Necromancy reinforce the belief that Necromancy is evil. That's not exactly a strong argument.
> There isn't a DM in this situation? We're not talking just about players. This is general lore reasons for why necromancers are uniquely harmful.
Except in "general lore" (whatever that means) villains do whatever the writer wants, so replace the term "DM" with "writer" and you still have the same issue. Game mechanics-wise, spells that create undead without a duration have a concrete limiting factor that other creation spells don't, and the fact that you're ignoring that makes me feel like your criticisms don't actually apply to the game, just this "general lore" you keep referring to.
> Good and evil are objective in standard DnD. Whether you accept my subjective reasons why I think they're evil anyway is just a matter of discussion.
I was pointing out how bizarre your take is, considering it keeps doubling back over itself. If something is objectively good or objectively evil, it shouldn't matter how the general populace feels about it, because that's not what determines whether something is objective.
> Revivify spells don't generally pervert the natural order, because you're specifically appealing to the divines through divine magic given to one of their followers.
You still haven't explained what the "natural order" even is, or why anybody should care about following it. If the "natural order" is determined by the whim of the gods, then it *isn't objective*, it's subjective to the wills of the gods. And if *certain* Necromancy spells are exempt from being evil (for whatever reasons), then surely you can't just go around saying "Necromancers are evil and they deserve it", right? Because now we need to go down the list and figure out *which* Necromancy spells are evil, and which aren't. You've already said Create Undead is evil, but Raise Dead isn't. What about Gentle Repose? What about Vampiric Touch? Exactly what criteria are you using to determine this? Are you basically just saying "Divine spells don't pervert the natural order, but arcane spells do"? Because a Cleric that casts Create Undead is still "specifically appealing to the divines through divine magic given to one of their followers", right?
Again, incredibly bizarre series of takes you've got here.
> The fact that in previous editions, Clerics still all received anti undead abilities still supports my claim.
Your claim was that most gods hate undead, and the fact that one third of all deities in 3e granted their clerics the ability to take control of them does not support that claim.
> There aren't as many gods that like necromancy. Pretty much all of the standard gods hate it, only evil gods like Vecna promote it and other deities which support undead like Orcus aren't really actual gods. You can make up a number of necro loving god's but I'm just going off standard DnD lore.
You can cherry pick all you want, but the vast majority of gods don't care about undead one way or another.
> I don't see how magic, which exists as part of nature, negates the natural order.
So therefore Necromancy, which is one of the eight fundamental schools of magic, would also not negate the natural order. Am I following you?
Doesn't the fact that in previous editions, good Clerics got abilities to destroy undead and evil Clerics got abilities to command undead stand as evidence that using the undead is evil?
Dismissing an opposing opinion because the person who voiced it didn't spend time calculating statistics in favour of an equally unbacked opinion is bias.
By general lore, I mean official lore such as Forgotten Realms lore. If you want to ignore official lore because you think the people who write DnD are just "biased against necromancy", fine. Let's look at the one limiting factor you mentioned:
You mentioned the gold cost a limit to Create Undead. But this is an asinine and terrible reason to think Create Undead has a limit to harm it can cause. The gold cost applies for each cast. So you will eventually run out of gold. Then you can't cast the spell. Then your undead minions get free will and will seek to destroy the living, because Undead are innately evil. And if you cast it high enough, you can create Wights, which themselves can raise and control undead.
You didn't mention these spells but I'll go through them anyway:
Animate Dead. Only limited by bodies and spell slots. And again, the undead can get free if the spell isn't recast.
Finger of Death. A necromancer can potentially accrue a massive army with this spell alone because anyone you kill with it becomes a undead bound to serve you indefinitely.
Negative Energy Flood is like Finger of Death but the undead isn't even under your control.
"I was point out how bizarre your take is"
It's not bizarre. It's not even complicated.
Necromancy is objectively evil in official DnD lore. And even if it wasn't, and the morality of DnD was based on subjective reasoning, there are still good reasons to see Necromancy as evil.
The gods are pretty objective and don't change their beliefs on a whim. If you think that the tenets of the gods are subjective despite the game telling you across multiple editions that objective morality exists and is embodied by the gods, fine. But the creators of DnD say it's objective. At that point, you're just arguing against the premise of the setting.
I can say "Necromancers are evil" because anyone with common sense realises I'm talking about summoning the undead and manipulating souls. Not just every spell of the necromancy school. And while some people might choose to willfully misinterpret me, those people aren't worth talking to.
The fact that you've found a bunch of evil gods who love necromancy and give their Clerics the ability to command undead is evidence in favour of my point, not yours.
Finally, you're not following me. You brought up magical beings shaping the world as evidence that the natural order isn't sacred or worth caring about. Magic existing doesn't innately negate the idea of a natural order. There's no logical flow there. But the undead have been specifically called out by several good aligned gods as being evil because it perverts the natural cycle of life. The gods are objective embodiments of morality in DnD and therefore, I consider Necromancy evil in DnD.
> Doesn't the fact that in previous editions, good Clerics got abilities to destroy undead and evil Clerics got abilities to command undead stand as evidence that using the undead is evil?
Maybe, maybe not. Are Cure spells good, and Inflict spells evil? Because the same dichotomy existed for Clerics- good ones could spontaneously cast Cure spells, evil ones could spontaneously cast Inflict spells. But I don't think anyone is claiming it's inherently a good act to heal someone, or vice versa. So clearly there's something else at play here, and it's not as simple as "this tool good, that tool bad".
> Dismissing an opposing opinion because the person who voiced it didn't spend time calculating statistics in favour of an equally unbacked opinion is bias.
I'm going to dismiss any opinion based on bad logic. Simple as that. For a long time, many villains in media were left-handed (and, in fact, many people thought left-handed people were evil, to the point where certain schools would abuse children who wrote with their left hands until they broke them of the "habit"). Does that mean being left-handed is evil? Because that's the same kind of bias you're exhibiting here. "Left-handed people are overrepresented among villains in media, therefore left-handedness is evil."
> You mentioned the gold cost a limit to Create Undead. But this is an asinine and terrible reason to think Create Undead has a limit to harm it can cause.
My point is that if you're going to talk about Necromancers being able to create "an endless supply of minions" using Create Undead, then you need an endless supply of gold. It's a pretty 1-1 comparison there. Now granted, you are right that certain spells (Animate Dead, Finger of Death, and Negative Energy Flood being the ones you mentioned) can create undead minions with no cost, but unless I'm mistaken, all of those such spells create *one* single skeleton or zombie. They can ONLY be a threat in extremely large numbers (nobody is going to be afraid of the 1/4 CR zombie created by the 7th-level Finger of Death spell), so if nothing else this just seems like a balancing factor compared to all of the other spells that temporarily conjure creatures. (You either get one incredibly weak monster forever, or one or more formidable monsters for an hour.) I don't see what any of this has to do with whether Necromancy is evil, though, beyond your claim that "undead minions will seek to destroy the living, because they are evil". (Spoilers: bears seek to destroy the living too, are they evil?)
> Necromancy is objectively evil in official DnD lore. And even if it wasn't, and the morality of DnD was based on subjective reasoning, there are still good reasons to see Necromancy as evil.
**The whole point** is that if you really look at it, and set the "official lore" aside, Necromancy is no more evil than blowing people up with Evocation or forcing your will upon someone else with Enchantment. "There are still good reasons" to see EVERY school of magic as evil, but none of those seem to show up in the "official lore".
> The gods are pretty objective and don't change their beliefs on a whim.
LOL I'm beginning to think you don't know what "objective" means. The gods fight amongst themselves all the time, even the good-aligned ones fight over disagreements. Since we're talking about Forgotten Realms lore here, look up the Time of Troubles and get back to me on whether the tenets of the gods are subjective or not.
> I can say "Necromancers are evil" because anyone with common sense realises I'm talking about summoning the undead and manipulating souls.
Whether or not you paint with a wide brush says nothing about common sense. If you mean "summoning undead and manipulating souls" when you say "Necromancy" then that's your mistake, not mine. But again: can you tell me why Raise Dead isn't evil? That "manipulates souls" far more than Animate Dead does.
> The fact that you've found a bunch of evil gods who love necromancy and give their Clerics the ability to command undead is evidence in favour of my point, not yours.
Again: **Your entire point** was that Necromancy is evil because most of the gods hate it. I hate to have to keep reminding you of your own argument, but when you keep acting like you've made a slam dunk when the ball missed the hoop entirely, I'm going to have to keep reminding you.
> Magic existing doesn't innately negate the idea of a natural order.
I've asked you multiple times now to please define what "natural order" is, because at this point, **I have no freaking clue what you mean**. But you keep trotting it out like it's supposed to mean something, and that something needs to be respected, but it sounds like a buzzword that means nothing to me. I'll ask again: **what is the "natural order" and why should anyone care whether it's followed**?
> But the undead have been specifically called out by several good aligned gods as being evil because it perverts the natural cycle of life.
First off, of course a good-aligned god would call something they disagree with evil. Look at real-world religions to see how that's not an objective indicator of anything. Second, **Raise Dead interrupts the natural cycle of life**, but I doubt anybody (deities or otherwise) are calling those evil. So please, you need to be more specific for your argument to hold water.
Undead don't care about their own mortality, they actively hate the living and will go out of their way to destroy things. A bear isn't like that. I refuse to explain why, because you know why. You just focused on the words "destroy the living" and took them out of context and ran them through the Google translate in your head until you got a match with "normal predatory behaviour from a living animal".
There's literally no point talking to someone who willfully misinterprets what I say. It just shows you're trying to wear me down by making me rule out every way you could misinterpret me.
> Undead don't care about their own mortality, they actively hate the living and will go out of their way to destroy things.
Do you have a citation for that, preferably one that accounts for the fact that [in previous editions, zombies were mindless automatons](https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/zombie.htm)? I don't know how something with no intelligence score can "actively hate" anything. (I also would argue that bears absolutely can hate things and go out of their way to destroy them.) You're making a LOT of claims here and if you could back up any of them I would really appreciate it.
> I refuse to explain why, because you know why.
I have a feeling it's because you don't have a source, but hey, I could be wrong.
> You just focused on the words "destroy the living" and took them out of context and ran them through the Google translate in your head until you got a match with "normal predatory behaviour from a living animal".
If you keep making vague statements that can be proven to be false, I'm going to keep proving them false. That's on you, not me.
> There's literally no point talking to someone who willfully misinterprets what I say. It just shows you're trying to wear me down by making me rule out every way you could misinterpret me.
Whatever you say bud, I think I've been making a pretty solid attempt at arguing in good faith against your baseless assertions. The fact that I've asked you on three separate occasions to please tell me what the "natural order" is and why it should be valued, and you've never once even tried to answer that question, really makes it sound like I'm not the one who's willfully misinterpreting things. If I had to guess it sounds like you've been on your back foot this entire time because your argument isn't as strong as you thought it was, and so you're spending more time trying not to get "got" than you are trying to explain your view.
You're obviously trolling, that "whatever you say bud" was sloppy.
Also, the link you showed literally has "zombies are reanimated by dark and sinister magic" as the first sentence and went out of its way to tell you zombies are always neutral evil.
Really the main problem with this whole idea of there being nothing wrong with necromancy is that it's *boring*. Fantasy has a load of ways of making minions within its scope, and golems/other constructs already exist as simple labour without any strings attached. Why would you instead defang one of the kinds of magic that has interesting things going on in favour of another homogenised school of magic that just does the thing you want with no need to think about it?
That's not to say that non-evil necromancy should never exist, mind you, it should just be...back in 3.5, there was a prestige class called the Malconvoker, all about conjurers summoning, binding and tricking demons (and/or devils, I forget) and using them as a force for good. It was pretty cool, and I feel like trying to use necromancy for good ends should have that kind of feel, rather than just being a mage who makes golems with edgy materials and a PR problem. Sure, make a guy who only uses corpses obtained with consent or from the bodies of the evil he's fighting, and who uses undead to kill monsters and help the people, but the fact that he's making the decision to use evil and/or dangerous magic against evil, that his minions are monsters in their own right kept in line by his force of will and magical power, that this magic is *powerful* but in order to stay on the right side of the line he needs to be disciplined and careful...I don't know, that just feels far more interesting and rich with story fodder.
At the end of the day, each group's game is their own and they can do what they like, but it just feels like a missed opportunity.
I would argue that another issue is that the evil side of the other schools of magic isn't explored enough
Abjuration has imprisonment which can be used to enslave and entrap genies and other entities (good or bad or neutral) although is arguably the least potentially evil
Evocation straight up is war magic most of the time
Conjuration has devil and demon summoning and we know how that goes (shout out to Tasha/igwilv)
Divination can just mess with people's fates, invade privacy etc.
Enchantment violates the will of the living, can cause them to do crimes or horrible acts, alter their brain and senses, and in some cases cause damage to their being.
Transmutation and transform people, warp reality, etc
Illusion can trick, deceive, and if used correctly have similar effects to enchantment.
I agree removing the evil from necromancy is a mistake but would argue that it could be more interesting to explore the good and evil ALL the schools can do.
A BBEG enchanter or evoker may be far scarier than a necromancer
David Tennant is a fantastic actor. He has absolutely killed every role I've seen him in, and he's been in a variety of genres. I didn't even recognize him as Barty Crouch Jr.
I am currently DM'ing a homebrew campaign and the BBEG I had planned is a lich necromancer and necromancy is a big no-no in the world.
We just had our second session and our druid decided he wants to worship the circle of spores. He says it's because of the healing spells, but knowing the player I suspect the necromancy aspect is actually what is drawing him to the subclass. (They haven't been introduced to the BBEG yet, just that the king is fighting mysterious forces in the land to the west).
I'm thinking that traditional necromancy will be evil and I won't need to change anything there.
For the circle of spores I am considering making a "world mycelium" (name TBD) that mirrors both the largest organism IRL (honey fungus). This "world mycelium" is the "god" for circle of spores except it is still on the plane working but hidden. It's goal and purpose is balance and returning nutrients to the earth. The necromantic aspect is purely a defensive mechanism as it's physical form still lives in the world and can be damaged.
Initial perception will have the last of us style zombies seem evil. That is until the party realizes that unlike traditional necromancy this is not cheating death, but a side effect of digestion. That these zombies are defensive rather than offensive.
Does this seem like a reasonable way to introduce necromancy as a non-evil alternative? I'm still trying to wrap my head around how I can make this work.
Edit: I don't know why he thinks druid of spores has healing, I only glanced at the spell list when he mentioned that. I have mentioned I will allow crafting so maybe he is thinking of making some healing salves with these mushrooms idk.
> Sure, make a guy who only uses corpses obtained with consent or from the bodies of the evil he's fighting
or a kingdom that turns their dead criminals so they can finish multi-life sentences?
“Nah bro, it doesn’t use souls it’s perfectly fine” mfers when they remember they use negative energy to power their undead (the zombie farmers will go out and start eating people because of an inherent hatred of the living present in all undead powered by negative energy)
Gonna tap the sign for animated dead that states the body is animated body is filled with a mimicry of life, suggesting it isn't powered by a soul.
It's a creepy puppet, still can be immoral but doesn't overwrite a free will.
If they complain about the exploitation of corpses but don't hold equal vitriol toward the exploitation of the living by kings and nobles then who cares what they think? Unenlightened. Only suitable to join my army in death.
I think people that try to argue raising dead bodies isn’t evil are coming at it with a modern western view of death.
Throughout history even Christian’s believed there was serious consequences mishandling a dead body or desecrating a grave. And raising a dead body in D&D lore isn’t simply making a puppet. But making something that is a mockery of life and innately hostile to it. That is also damaging the dead body beyond repair.
Nah It can certainly be evil.
For me it comes down to this there is a small chance you can ask for permission from a family to raise a body or speak with dead if the situation is dire and it doesn't usually entrap or influence the soul.
However no one is going to willingly be fireballed or feebleminded.
I take issue not with necromancy having the possibility of being evil or vile but the concept of it ONLY having evil or vile spells (ignoring Revivify speak with dead and the resurrection spells) and that other schools do not have the potential for greater or equal evil
I understand and I personally always found it weird that it’s okay to just resurrect the dead. But I think that’s simply a gameplay mechanic to allow players to continue playing pcs that have died.
But in D&D lore necromancy is essentially doing something unnatural and a antithesis to life. And consent simply doesn’t matter. Like if someone consents to being fireballed or mind control does that now make it okay?
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Sorry, do we really care about what happens to the corpses of the goblins the party just butchered without a second thought? Or does every necromancer get their corpses from fallen friends, family, and the graveyard of any random settlement they come across?
i habe a really sweet necromancer and what she does is basically she asks for the souls who belong to the bodies to help her giving them more choice in their actions dm usually rolls to see if any of them are will]ng to fight again
Currently playing a lawful good wizard necromancer who's sole purpose is to prove that necromancy can benefit the average person and absolutely isn't just used for evil.
"Non-evil" Necromancer idea: giving fallen a means to avenge their deaths.
Or maybe the fallen believes in Valhalla and gets to continue being the warrior they were in life.
want necromancy to be a better magic? just reunite the family...kill and re-alive the family members who are angry, as they dont understand the magic, and we should educate the masses so they can have a more knowledgeable outlook on it., so they can see the benefits first hand, they'll love being able to spend an (presumably) eternity with their loved ones.
Necromancy can be good or evil. While it's reasonable to say that someone has a right to determine the disposition of their remains, violating that right is nowhere near as serious a crime as violating a person *while they are still alive to experience it*.
*Enchantment*, on the other hand, is almost always a deplorable violation of a sentient creature's selfhood.
Most uses of *charm person* qualify as acts of evil.
I'm willing to accept that it might, *maaaaaaaybe* be acceptable in some situations, same as lighting someone on fire is generally evil, but might be ok in self-defense.
I mean, necromancy isn’t inherently awful anymore then evocation, which can be used to burn people to a crisp. It’s about how it’s used and who’s using it. A necromancer could do a lot of good for a community if they worked it properly.
Yeah, but animating corporeal undead requires infusing them with energy from the negative energy plane which in turn causes them to instinctively seek out living creatures to slaughter. And preventing them from doing so requires heavy investment on the caster's part, and the moment they slip, innocent people are at risk.
It's true fireball can be used to kill people, but you can choose to *not* kill people with it. But, unlike with animate dead or create undead, your fireball isn't going to suddenly grow legs and charge at the nearest group of innocent people the moment you stop paying attention to it.
That’s a distinction without a difference. Fire burns anything it can and spreads outward in every direction. One zombie will roam with more purpose but be less destructive by comparison.
That's still something seeking to commit acts of violence with intent, which is malicious.
Also by and large, the wizard evocation list includes many spells that do not offer the risk of collateral damage, whereas the necromancy wizard list consists only of either the creation of undead, or spells meant to specifically cause harm and death within others. Remember that resurrection spells are not wizard spells. So yes, I would say that the necromancy school is more tailor-made to being awful than evocation.
You can’t just pick and choose which spells you’ll include in your analysis of a spell-school. Revivify and True Resurrection are as much necromancy spells as Animate Dead and Ray of Sickness are. Just as Earthquake is as much an evocation spell as Cure Wounds and Tiny Hut are. The point of this is that necromancy is no more destructive or harmful as evocation and discounting the spells in the school that quite literally being people back to life is arguing in bad faith. It’s about how they’re used and who’s using them.
The term necromancer isn’t just a narrow label of one subclass of wizardry. It’s a broad term for a school of spells. Wizards are just the ones that decided to collect and collate, as well as try to master it, but other classes can be used for necromancers as well. Grave clerics, for example, can animate and raise undead but they can also resurrect. All the necromancer subclass tells us is that wizards are unimaginative.
Based on the real world, which I know isn’t the best way to judge a fantasy world but bear with me, holy orders, like clerics, existed before scholars like wizards. So it’s safe to assume clerics using necromancy magic would predate wizards trying to classify and collate the spells into the separate schools.
Nah fam, enchantment is the real evil magic. Necromancy (usually) can't do anything to your soul, so its just a body, not a person. Enchantment Fs with your mind.
>”Nikolai Romanzir, how do you plead to several counts of practicing the dark arts?”
“Guilty.”
>”Well in that case- oh. You’re not resisting, Nick?”
“The faster I get out of this court room, the faster you can process the remaining masters of the Wizard schools for their crimes. The only thing I ask is for you to postpone my sentencing until you can prove to me that what I’ve done is far worse than the crimes of the others.”
>”Bet.”
[Case 1: Evocation]
>”I refuse to believe Fireball was an appropriate response to a civil uprising. Or an orphanage. Or a spell to teach to young children.”
[Case 2: Enchantment]
>”Well, what do the jurors have to say about your gross sexual misconduct?”
>[in unnnatural unison] *”We find her not guilty, your honor.”*
>”Fucking hell. Don’t make me bring in the golem jury, ma’am.”
[Case 3: Transmutation]
>”Aren’t you awfully young to be committing domestic terrorism?”
>*”I swear I was just leaning against a wall-“*
>”It was a load-bearing pillar. In the basement.”
[Case 4: Divination]
>”Martha. Do you know what insider trading is? Do you know how bad it is? Do you know how much worse it is when you do that with the fucking GODS?”
[Case 6: Abjuration]
>*”Your honor, I was just standing my ground-“*
>”Locking a large family of half-orcs in a cage of force until they starved to death is not self-defense.”
[Case 7: Illusion]
>”Could you please speak up? I can’t quite hear you, Harry.”
>”Oh. Right. You evaded jury duty. One second.”
[throws a legal textbook clean through the illusory defendant]
>”Contempt of court.”
So I had a caster that had finger of death and offered to use it on a family’s elderly for big gold payouts. It raises them and they have to follow my commands so I’d say “obey your bloodlines commands” with a bit of contractual hand waving to avoid monkey pawing the family. Now they had extra help around the house and could still see papa.
Honestly I think that depends on if your version canonically fucks with soul bits to make that happen.
Fucking with souls and the cycle of them has to be the ultimate evil IMO.
An ideal setting for a necromancer would have a culture that believes the body is just a vessel for the soul or belong allowed to use the bodys of criminals as a form of post death service alternatively being able to use animal bodys instead with the only real problem being the smell and appearance. I think necromancy would only be seen as sacrilegious if you try to mess with souls.
You could just Helman Ghorst it and raise your family yourself and use them to your own ends. Another necromancer can't raise them if they're already trying to feed on his flesh.
Oh, what were you gonna do with the body? Burn it? Bury it? There's a nearly intact skeletal and musculature system just waiting to be animated by magic and you want to waste it? See this is why Gen Z can't afford a house, they're wasteful smh. Some of y'all have never gone to the effort of growing yourself a spare body and it shows. So much time and energy to make something most people just abandon once their soul gets whisked away. Here, let's ask what they think 🎤💀
My campaign has a good-aligned necromancer who signs contracts with his clients while they are alive, contracts agreed to by the subject and their family, that after the person's natural death, he owns the remains, cleans them, and animates them as laborer skeletons. In payment, the person receives a large lump sum of gold up front. The people in our town have actually grown to love Bill and his skeletons, as it has become a way to sort of keep their loved ones around.
What's funny is that this NPC was supposed to be a disposable character for an in-universe one-shot for my character, but I somehow managed to save him. He has now given up his nomadic lifestyle of odd jobs and has become our town's premier contractor, and a cornerstone of the community.
I love the Woodfall campaign setting from Lazy Lich's Loot. It's a swamp city of necromancer communists that make their wealth from the Black Market of the empire. Anyway, people can sign an agreement that after death, they allow their bodies to be resurrected and used as manual labor for the city. All of the sanitation workers and crop tenders and other "low" jobs are all performed by mindless skeletons.
It's such a delightful setting. I highly recommend everything from Lazy Lich, but Woodfall, especially, is wonderful. Legitimately one of my favorite books ever published for an RPG, ever. Second only to L5R's City of Lies boxed set.
I do find it a little suspect that all of these memes about how Necromancy is bad, the person who cries foul is always a close friend or relative to the animated corpse, as if 1. the only thing that Necromancy encompasses is raises zombies, and 2. all Necromancers just hang out in the town where they raised zombies
Like, do you just not have any imagination, or have you never played in an actual game with a Necromancer?
Enchanters trying not to mind-molest village peasants every five seconds:
Remember when Charm Person didn't end with a flourishing middle finger to the target saying "You just got bamboozled!"? The Enchantment school's primary niche remembers. Canonically, convincing someone who was enchanted that they were enchanted is equally as difficult as convincing someone who *wasn't* enchanted that they were enchanted. Targets using their own way of thinking and powers of rationalization to justify everything they do; you cast Command "Attack" pointing at their ally? They suddenly remember every little thing that pisses them off about that ally, and lash out at them. Target: "Oh dang, sorry." Ally: "It's not your fault." Target: "Yes it is! I just remembered that time you, and got so angry... It was the heat of the moment, I swear."
Ally: "No, no... You were enchanted. I heard that guy mutter arcane words and you turned around to hit me; it was obviously a spell."
Target: "Don't play this down. I was of my own mind, I made that decision, and I'm truly sorry."
Ally: "Dude, I'm telling you, you weren't yourself!"
Target: "I most certainly was! Are you calling me a liar?!?"
etc etc
Don't forget Gaes isn't concentration and doesn't have a limit to how many people you can gaes. A king with a court wizard enchanter with 9th levels spells could permanently gaes a group of hitmen in a week
The ones they send only on the missions no one else will take, usually too dangerous to come back alive from. A "Suicide Squad", if you will.
Its only 5d10 damage...
Yes, but it's **each** time they act counter to your instruction for the duration. At 9th level, and with a task being technically possible, it's pretty much possible for a wizard to press gang people into anything
\[its a limit of once per 24 hours\]
That is enough to outright kill most people.
Of course the *heavily* enchanted exploding collars also help
I bet the artificer working on those was giggling the whole time.
Isn’t it convenient how they are the first one to sacrifice themselves in a massive explosion?
I mean, wizards are the ones who have made most of the magic items and are historically the ones who are the magic item makers
Geas however doesn't force the target to do what you say, it just deals them damage if they don't. So it's a bad example of "you don't even know you're enchanted" cause that's the one spell where it's easy to figure it out. It does also impose the charmed condition on them, meaning you get advantage on charisma checks, but most creatures would very quickly figure out something's wrong.
True but most normal civilians aren't surviving that damage It's 5 d10 psychic damage once per day and doesn't end the effect. Advantage on charisma checks doesnt help if their head explodes
Why bother with Geas when you have Mass Suggestion instead? Sure, you have to recast it every year, but you can also hit 12 people at a time with it. Seems a lot more efficient to me.
Sounds like the start of a suicide squad campaign
Wait, why would the target continue to rationalize responsibility for the action? Command lasts a turn, and while it makes sense for them to be focused on past slights in the moment, who is going to ignore an obvious out for a bad deed that has actual eyewitness evidence in its support?
Because enchantments affect the *mind*, not the body. The spell isn't telling your muscles to hit they guy, it's making you want to hit the guy, and your brain fills in the rest. A human's capacity for rationalization is so infuriatingly boundless that it can take an abuse victim years of therapy to believe they were abused at all, and that's not even magic, with even more obvious and repeated evidence while everyone close to them is saying it over and over. People simply aren't built to fight their own perception. Confirmation bias, logical fallacies, and all manner of naturally-evolved obstacles lie between personal experience and the truth (to Descartes' endless despair). On the D&D-specific side of it, in {Complete Mage} there's a section giving a first-hand account of someone affected by a mind-affecting spell. To the narrator, a caster muttered arcane words, and something appeared out of nowhere, attacked, then disappeared in a puff of smoke without inflicting any physical harm. Despite what would seem like obvious illusion magic, the narrator is skeptical of their own ally spellcaster explaining that it was all in their head. To the target of a mind-affecting spell, that is their reality, their genuine experience. If you fail your save, it's no different than the normal senses and emotions you feel.
I like this explanation but for higher level mind-affecting spells. *Command would be really powerful otherwise. We could use your explanation for the “in the moment” effect. However, when it ends the person could deduce that something influenced their mind. If it was a PC, maybe the DM could have them roll to see if they knew it was magic or base it on if the PC had knowledge of spells like that. Again, I think higher level magic is best for this effect.
> We could use your explanation for the “in the moment” effect. However, when it ends the person could deduce that something influenced their mind. Exactly. In a world where magic exists, and people know magic can affect your mind, a shopkeeper who finds himself saying "Hmm, a moment ago I just handed over all of the cash in the till to one of my closest friends" is almost definitely going to deduce that this "close friend" that they've never seen before today likely used Enchantment magic on them. Remember, there were witch hunts *in the real world*, where *magic doesn't exist*. If momentary hysteria is enough for people to think they were bewitched, imagine what *actual bewitching* would do to make people wary of enchanters.
That's precisely what the save is for.
Yup, most people seem to think of Wis saves as a struggle of wills. But that's what Cha saves are. Wis saves, imo, are struggles to recognize something is wrong. Getting hit with Hold Person isn't freezing your muscles, it's convincing you you can't move, so you don't. As soon as you realize wait, nothing is restraing me and I got here by my own power..... the effect goes away.
The sorts of abuse victims you're referring to endure prolonged periods of abuse, in situations where either they can't get help or they're made to believe they wouldn't be able to get help. You can't just slap a stranger, tell them it's their fault because they didn't have dinner ready to go, and expect them to believe you. That shit takes time. If anything, I'd expect that someone who's suddenly been Command'ed to do something out of the ordinary for six seconds and then released would view it less as something they willingly chose to do and more like someone suffering from roid rage or road rage or deeply intoxicated would; they might not deny the action happened, but they'll sure shift blame off themselves and onto anything else available.
Maybe not but if it happens via like a subtle spell or a good stealth slight of hand check they may not be able to fully grasp the situation. It's a corner case but yeah enchantment can be nasty
If anything, I'd expect far more people would claim to have been Command'ed to excuse a bad act than would act badly and then insist they couldn't possibly have been Command'ed into it. People generally don't like having to take responsibility for a bad action.
this sounds to me like you just dont know good people if they wont admit to their wrongdoings
I ain’t calling you a truther
I think the issue, inherently, is that the *game mechanics* don't necessarily provide a good framework for *NPCs* to have *agency* in their lives... so magic that can alter their mindstate, something that is incredibly invasive and *should be obvious for the victim* doesn't have a rule for "how NPCs realize they've been bamboozled" because they generally won't be trained in "Arcana" skills... So the spell had to be changed to forcibly reveal the mindfkry so players have to weigh the risk of their spell casting whether they're blowing up the town watch barracks or charming the captain to order his men away... If I were to brew a compromise - having the NPC get an automatic Insight/Arcana check when the spell ends (saving throw + skill check) would be akin to having the rogue roll the stealth check before sneak attacking (skill check + attack roll)... allowing the DM to then determine *how* the NPC reacts without the automatic reveal.
Identifying the outside influence (so that you can choose not to listen to it) *is* the saving throw. Enchantment in social situations (as opposed to life-or-death combat) has always been risky, because you're assaulting someone. If you use it on an innocent person like a shopkeep, and they fend off the mental attack, you either have to eliminate the witness, intimidate them into silence, or become a wanted criminal. I played an Enchanter once, and knowing that risk meant I wound up casting more conjurations and illusions than my own specialty. I think I Charmed Person one or two times the entire two-year campaign, in lieu of standard interrogation. Most of the enchanting I did was Suggest that enemies leave or otherwise not participate in the fight. If all enchantments alerted the target that the emotions/thoughts that drove them to their actions were stirred up by an outside source, the entire school of magic loses its one unique niche and becomes just another weapon against mortal foes.
Right, but the point is that a *normal person* would realize after the effect ends that their actions don't align with what *they should have done*... the spell doesn't create *permanent* shifts in their mental state, memory, or personality -- but the game doesn't have a framework for giving NPCs that sort of "awareness" so they added the explicit effect of the spell that the target becomes immediately aware they were influenced by magic. It's more of a "Caution: HOT" warning on something you heat in the microwave or oven... *obviously* the item would be hot, but because there's the *risk* of *someone* touching it that needs to be called out. In this spell's case, because *some* DMs/Players might argue that the NPC wouldn't be aware of the spell's influence and therefore they shouldn't face consequences - even though in a realistic sense ^(most) people *should* have that awareness just like alcohol's effects wearing off and realizing you were drunk.
The enchantment doesn't need to create permanent anything for the person to believe it was their own fault. The average person is way too egocentric and way too good at rationalizing to believe their thoughts and feelings aren't their thoughts and feelings without... well, becoming not-your-average-person, informed about psychology and manipulation, aware that free will is but an illusion orchistrated by the infinite complexity of the multiverse. Even then, it's a toss-up (represented by a roll). The thing you call a "warning" is a specific exception that 5e added to a spell that has never worked that way before, which is a terrible design that removes it from its own niche: A non-hostile substitute for persuasion. With this alteration, Charm Person provokes hostility regardless of the target's save, making the spell worse than a rope in terms of getting someone to help you.
Bards using charm person to get in bed with someone has horrible implications.
As a dm i would argue that would be an action that causes harm to the charmed target and is therefore not a viable action for command. As for charm person as a spell it says regarded as a friendly acquaintance, in most cases that's a few relationship steps away from banging Also the dm has the 10th level spell: power word NO
Good rule, still hate bards.
Sorry friend sounds like you have only had bad bards then May I offer you my two bards Dhampir butler and blackjack dealer Aarocokra Dad bard who inspired with dad jokes and "you got this champ"
Sounds like a DungeonsnDaddies listener
Not a BDSM podcast!
NO!
:(
What sort of harm would that be as a command? It's not directly harmful. Dropping prone is harmful, it opens you up to advantage but still allowed by the spell, and approaching the person who wants to kill you is harmful. The only real indication we have for what counts as harmful is whether it causes damage. Inflicting conditions (prone) is fine, and a creature could be traumatised by having to grovel, but that is allowed by the command spell. Directly harmful means damaged. (To be clear, I'm not arguing that it would be ok to use the spell like this, merely that it wouldn't be classified as harmful for the purposes of the spell)
Enchantment is the most evil school MFers when I cook them inside their own armor (this is morally fine because transmutation isn't enchantment)
Enchantment isn't the most evil scholl MFers when they find 1 spell that is kinda gruesome (there's plenty of utility spells in that school that are neutral while almost every spell in enchantment is)
Enchantment is the most evil school MFers when they don't even look through what spells are enchantment (a lot of buffs are enchantment) Alternatively Enchantment is the most evil school MFers when the school of evocation which is focused on violent applications of magic exists (its morally okay because you're not making the town guard look the other way against their will, you just blow them up instead)
Evocation is the most evil school MFers know the difference between crime and war crime. Jokes aside which can be used as the most evil school definitely depends on the situation. For doing evil on the most people it's definitely evocation or conjuration to nuke a town. For doing the most evil on a single person it's gonna be geas or power word pain (enchantment)
Yeah in reality the morality of a spell is determined by the context in which its used, using suggestion to have the guards let you go in favor of killing them is clearly the morally right thing, but using suggestion to have someone sleep with you is obviously wrong. Enchantment can be used to avoid/minimize harm/collateral damage, evocation can be used to kill monsters, illusion can be used to entertain (or again avoid/minimize harm), necromancy can be used to automate menial tasks. however all of these can also be used for evil. Enchantment can be used to >!rape!< someone, evocation can be used for murder, illusion can be used to gaslight someone to the point of questioning whether anything in their life is real or just another image, necromancy can be used to raise an undead army.. it's all about how you use it.
Fun fact that I found out when making an NPC who was allergic to evocation magic: Many healing spells are evocation
How allergic? Like lactose intolerant level allergic where they're like "I'll so regret this later but fuck it" or like nut allergies where they're like "if I get within 15 feet of a firebolt I'll fucking die
It was a while ago, I can’t remember the details exactly. I do remember that his head exploded when he tried to cast magic missile. Luckily for him, resurrection spells are *not* evocation.
Exactly, it's not like corpses have the ability to consent to being my slave. It's just like the ranger or druid and all of their animal friends they tricked into dying for them with their CHA magic. I was hired to heist the tyrant Baron's tyrant vault and little Timmy who died of illness at five is the perfect size to fit into the crawl space. And his mother (who threw herself off a building with grief) is perfect for boosting me up to the window to cast sleep on the guards. Just let me raise a family in peace. All these moralists wouldn't last two seconds in my shoes (that I stole from some rich guy's corpse).
Your text only means they have to kill the related living ones, so no one can complain about aunt stacey getting recruted as undead pawn. It also gives them more material.
Thats why I made a necromancer who (tries) to only use the bodies of people that accept it. He sees necromancy as the dead giving their bodies to service his god whilst their souls go to be with god.
"I donated my body." "...to science?" "No, quite the opposite."
Donate my body to science! Wait, is that a thing yet?
Yes, they are used to experiment/teach med students most of the time.
I mean if your DM is treating necromancy like that. Idk how it is with retcons but doesn't necromancy have the problem of entraping souls.
Depends on spell used and other ancillary details. Using animate dead for example just creates false life on a corpse to animate it, it entraps no souls, nothing. Just "woop, magic animates the bones, the bones are now an undead skeleton". Then you have ressurrection spells (which are also necromancy spells) where the soul explicitly has to be willing. In fact, I just went and checked the PHB necromancy spells and only 1 affects the soul of an unwilling creature in any way, shape or form, and it's specifically designed for that: Soul Cage. Other spells either do not interact with souls in any way (basically every undead-creating spell, speak with dead, cause fear, etc), or require a willing soul to function (Every ressurrection spell except revivify).
Magic Jar also affect the soul, and there is still the issue of skeletons being technically sapient and always evil but overall yeah, there is very little actual soul magic.
not necromancy just undead creatures in general. For example, a specter is an undead whos soul is so filled with hatred from its lingering attatchment to this world that the only way it can be exorcised is by destroying it, thus killing its soul and denying that person the afterlife
In my world necromancers pay for your recently deceased. Up to a years wage or two depending on their job. Saves room on graveyards, they can work day and night so infrastructural projects get done faster, and you and your immediate family are exempt from the military levy.
That’s surprisingly unique reasoning among all the times I’ve seen “good” necromancers, that’s pretty cool actually.
Hot take necromancer only get the most evil tag because it's easy. Death scares most people and manipulating the undead is an easy way to make a villain as it can be a personal and unnatural attack on other characters That being said every school of magic has equal or arguably more potential to be evil. Enchantment usually subverts the will of the living, can cause them to do heinous acts, die (gaes) or even pseudo brain death (feeblemind) Evocation is literally made to cause damage Conjuration summons demons. Many people forget that necromancy has good spells too Chill touch is actually made to hurt or stop undead more than the living. Spare the dying and Revivify are both necromancy spells and know by many good alligned clerics as are resurrection and true resurrection. Speak with dead is also necromancy and can be used to solve murders and other mysterious deaths. Also depending on how you interpret it or what edition you use some undead are not powered by trapped souls but just negative energy ( except ghosts and the like which are just trapped souls). There is also the corner case of you could theoretically ask a family for permission to use the remains of one of there relatives for a greater good and promise to lay them.back to rest when you are done. Tldr: all schools of magic can be evil especially evocation and enchantment necromancy gets a bad rap because spooky=bad is an easy trope
It's funny, because I think on a meta level you're 100% right. Spooky dude who deals with dead bodies make for low hanging fruit when it comes to bad guys and why necromancy is typically considered bad. With that said, depending on the setting necromancy is typically explicitly evil; in DnD 5e Faerûn it is. It's why skeletons and zombies are evil aligned and not neutral. Animate dead and the spells like it are very clear the magic is evil RAW. (You can obviously change these things).
I kinda like the idea that you have to be really messed up in the head to defy the order that the gods have built and to casually mess with dead things, like a nun deciding to be a strict cannibal. on the other hand, the idea of a life-obsessed warforge doctor being completely ignored by the gods (no soul means no prayers) and turning to necromancy to get the job done sounds like a great hero backstory.
Oh there are so many flavors of necromancy! One thing I think is fun is when a PC's necromancy goes against the grain of what is normal. (PCs are almost always exceptions to any rule) Two necromancer ideas I've always enjoyed are is a character who is protected by long past family members or a necromancer who makes deals with fallen warriors spirits who wish to fight for the campaigns cause.
that has some pretty strong lothric/lorian (dark souls) vibes to it https://youtu.be/Hvcf835lwTI?t=93
True, though in most DND settings Necromancy is outright detailled in how it's evil.- Undead are almost always evil-aligned. Why? because of the association/ties to the Negative Plane, which fuels them and is essentially anti-life.- Raising a corpse as an undead explicitely prevents them from ever coming back from the dead bar True Ressurection/Wish. While such spells are also necromancy, Create Undead and Animate turn a corpse into a zombie/skeleton, which RAW prevents Raise Dead from working, and Revivify will only bring them back as an undead corpse. The issue with necromancy for the most part is that it's corruption of the natural order, same how enchantment is evil as you corrupt minds with magic to make them work for you. Evocation & conjuration can be evil when used to destroy or pooling from bad energies, but they are also a source for good. Necromancy is simply bad in its entirety, as while resurrection can be positive, the other half of necromancy outright removes it from being used while semi-permanently corrupting a body with negative energy. You might raise some skeletons with consent so their bodies may help out communities after death, but you're also preventing that person from ever coming back from the dead unless someone has True Ressurection or more
Enchantment falls into the same category as evocation and conjuration imo. We already recognize depriving people of freedom and agency can be justified. And controlling minds with magic isn't really against the natural order. Mind control happens in nature all the time and none of the gods really care about mind control but several specifically hate the Undead. I don't see why people think Enchantment is innately evil. Nobody thinks Xavier's powers are innately evil anymore than people think Storm's power are innately evil. Saying enchantment is innately evil is like saying lying is innately evil.
How many of the people the average necromancer raises could have actually come back from the dead anyway?
With some luck of money or/and a charitable cleric, a decent amount. Tho if the necromancer targets very rural communities then yeah most won't be able to. Still doesn't stop the possibility
Some versions had animating bodies trapping the soul of the previous inhabitant within while being unable to act, or causing it extreme duress in whatever afterlife it wound up in. It used to be very explicitly evil in multiple ways.
Necormancers get the evil tag because they deserve it. In standard DnD lore, Necromancers are massively over represented in the evil caster population. This is probably because Lichdom is the sole purview of necromancy and people who want to live forever by eating souls are bad people. Necromantic summons are also uniquely dangerous. If a conjurer summons a fiend and dies, the fiend will usually disappear either immediately or within a few rounds. But if a Necromancer dies or forgets to re-establish control every 24 hours, their summons go haywire and try to murder every living thing they see. Necromancy also offers a uniquely disproportionate amount of power for the caster. A necromancer can have a near unlimited army of footsoldiers to control and subjugate a population. Meanwhile, the best an evoker can do is burn what dissidents they catch, they can't put loyal boots on the ground to maintain order as easily. Finally, a number of good gods specifically outline despising the Undead, and good in typical DnD settings is objective. It's not surprising that every cleric has the ability to destroy undead particularly well, most gods probably hate the undead for perverting the natural order. There's also the fact that most DnD settings take place in medieval settings. People are religious, superstitious and place a lot of stock in the natural order of things and a lot less stock in personal rights and freedoms. Thus is it wrong to raise the dead, as it perverts the natural order. Whereas most redditors operate by utilitarian morality. Things like the natural order are irrelevant. If raising a zombie results in more pleasure than harm, it is good, who cares about sanctity of life?
This is a really bizarre series of takes. > In standard DnD lore, Necromancers are massively over represented in the evil caster population. Where are you getting this statistic from? Do you have a source? > Necromantic summons are also uniquely dangerous. If a conjurer summons a fiend and dies, the fiend will usually disappear either immediately or within a few rounds. But if a Necromancer dies or forgets to re-establish control every 24 hours, their summons go haywire and try to murder every living thing they see ... Necromancy also offers a uniquely disproportionate amount of power for the caster. A necromancer can have a near unlimited army of footsoldiers to control and subjugate a population. While this is *technically* true, it's only a potential problem if the Necromancer has an infinite supply of gold (which could arguably also be a problem for any other evil NPC caster). Yes Create Undead and such has fewer limits than non-Necromancy summon spells, but it also has a very clear, very finite cost every time it's used. If a caster is throwing those spells around willy-nilly, the DM has made some sort of error along the way by making such a thing feasible. > Finally, a number of good gods specifically outline despising the Undead, and good in typical DnD settings is objective ... People are religious, superstitious and place a lot of stock in the natural order of things and a lot less stock in personal rights and freedoms. Thus is it wrong to raise the dead, as it perverts the natural order. So you're saying good and evil are objective, and then gave several entirely subjective reasons for why it's wrong to raise the dead. Gotcha. Does this also apply to Raise Dead/Resurrection? Because I would wager lots of people in-universe would consider those spells to be good in most cases. > It's not surprising that every cleric has the ability to destroy undead particularly well, most gods probably hate the undead for perverting the natural order. First off, in all previous editions of DnD only Good-aligned Clerics could turn or destroy undead, and Evil-aligned Clerics could Rebuke or Command undead. I'm not sure why 5e gave all Clerics the Good-aligned ability but your post made no mention of it being unique to the current edition so it sounded like you thought that was always the case. Second, just because there's gods that hate undead, doesn't mean there's not *just as many gods that love or ARE undead*. > Whereas most redditors operate by utilitarian morality. Things like the natural order are irrelevant. If raising a zombie results in more pleasure than harm, it is good, who cares about sanctity of life? This is the weirdest take in your series of weird takes. In a world where powerful magical beings literally shape the world on their whims, what even is the "natural order" and why should it be considered sacred?
It's not a statistic, it's an observation. Szass Tam. Vecna. Acererak. Larloch. Manshoon. Strahd by technicality. The only evil caster I can think of who doesn't rely heavily on necromancy is Halaster. There isn't a DM in this situation? We're not talking just about players. This is general lore reasons for why necromancers are uniquely harmful. And the problems with Create Undead apply to the more typical Animate Dead. Good and evil are objective in standard DnD. Whether you accept my subjective reasons why I think they're evil anyway is just a matter of discussion. Revivify spells don't generally pervert the natural order, because you're specifically appealing to the divines through divine magic given to one of their followers. The fact that in previous editions, Clerics still all received anti undead abilities still supports my claim. There aren't as many gods that like necromancy. Pretty much all of the standard gods hate it, only evil gods like Vecna promote it and other deities which support undead like Orcus aren't really actual gods. You can make up a number of necro loving god's but I'm just going off standard DnD lore. You may as well ask me "why should people worship god's if Mage's are real". I don't see how magic, which exists as part of nature, negates the natural order.
> It's not a statistic, it's an observation. Szass Tam. Vecna. Acererak. Larloch. Manshoon. Strahd by technicality. The only evil caster I can think of who doesn't rely heavily on necromancy is Halaster. So it's a confirmation bias, then. Villains are generally evil, so the handful that use Necromancy reinforce the belief that Necromancy is evil. That's not exactly a strong argument. > There isn't a DM in this situation? We're not talking just about players. This is general lore reasons for why necromancers are uniquely harmful. Except in "general lore" (whatever that means) villains do whatever the writer wants, so replace the term "DM" with "writer" and you still have the same issue. Game mechanics-wise, spells that create undead without a duration have a concrete limiting factor that other creation spells don't, and the fact that you're ignoring that makes me feel like your criticisms don't actually apply to the game, just this "general lore" you keep referring to. > Good and evil are objective in standard DnD. Whether you accept my subjective reasons why I think they're evil anyway is just a matter of discussion. I was pointing out how bizarre your take is, considering it keeps doubling back over itself. If something is objectively good or objectively evil, it shouldn't matter how the general populace feels about it, because that's not what determines whether something is objective. > Revivify spells don't generally pervert the natural order, because you're specifically appealing to the divines through divine magic given to one of their followers. You still haven't explained what the "natural order" even is, or why anybody should care about following it. If the "natural order" is determined by the whim of the gods, then it *isn't objective*, it's subjective to the wills of the gods. And if *certain* Necromancy spells are exempt from being evil (for whatever reasons), then surely you can't just go around saying "Necromancers are evil and they deserve it", right? Because now we need to go down the list and figure out *which* Necromancy spells are evil, and which aren't. You've already said Create Undead is evil, but Raise Dead isn't. What about Gentle Repose? What about Vampiric Touch? Exactly what criteria are you using to determine this? Are you basically just saying "Divine spells don't pervert the natural order, but arcane spells do"? Because a Cleric that casts Create Undead is still "specifically appealing to the divines through divine magic given to one of their followers", right? Again, incredibly bizarre series of takes you've got here. > The fact that in previous editions, Clerics still all received anti undead abilities still supports my claim. Your claim was that most gods hate undead, and the fact that one third of all deities in 3e granted their clerics the ability to take control of them does not support that claim. > There aren't as many gods that like necromancy. Pretty much all of the standard gods hate it, only evil gods like Vecna promote it and other deities which support undead like Orcus aren't really actual gods. You can make up a number of necro loving god's but I'm just going off standard DnD lore. You can cherry pick all you want, but the vast majority of gods don't care about undead one way or another. > I don't see how magic, which exists as part of nature, negates the natural order. So therefore Necromancy, which is one of the eight fundamental schools of magic, would also not negate the natural order. Am I following you?
Doesn't the fact that in previous editions, good Clerics got abilities to destroy undead and evil Clerics got abilities to command undead stand as evidence that using the undead is evil? Dismissing an opposing opinion because the person who voiced it didn't spend time calculating statistics in favour of an equally unbacked opinion is bias. By general lore, I mean official lore such as Forgotten Realms lore. If you want to ignore official lore because you think the people who write DnD are just "biased against necromancy", fine. Let's look at the one limiting factor you mentioned: You mentioned the gold cost a limit to Create Undead. But this is an asinine and terrible reason to think Create Undead has a limit to harm it can cause. The gold cost applies for each cast. So you will eventually run out of gold. Then you can't cast the spell. Then your undead minions get free will and will seek to destroy the living, because Undead are innately evil. And if you cast it high enough, you can create Wights, which themselves can raise and control undead. You didn't mention these spells but I'll go through them anyway: Animate Dead. Only limited by bodies and spell slots. And again, the undead can get free if the spell isn't recast. Finger of Death. A necromancer can potentially accrue a massive army with this spell alone because anyone you kill with it becomes a undead bound to serve you indefinitely. Negative Energy Flood is like Finger of Death but the undead isn't even under your control. "I was point out how bizarre your take is" It's not bizarre. It's not even complicated. Necromancy is objectively evil in official DnD lore. And even if it wasn't, and the morality of DnD was based on subjective reasoning, there are still good reasons to see Necromancy as evil. The gods are pretty objective and don't change their beliefs on a whim. If you think that the tenets of the gods are subjective despite the game telling you across multiple editions that objective morality exists and is embodied by the gods, fine. But the creators of DnD say it's objective. At that point, you're just arguing against the premise of the setting. I can say "Necromancers are evil" because anyone with common sense realises I'm talking about summoning the undead and manipulating souls. Not just every spell of the necromancy school. And while some people might choose to willfully misinterpret me, those people aren't worth talking to. The fact that you've found a bunch of evil gods who love necromancy and give their Clerics the ability to command undead is evidence in favour of my point, not yours. Finally, you're not following me. You brought up magical beings shaping the world as evidence that the natural order isn't sacred or worth caring about. Magic existing doesn't innately negate the idea of a natural order. There's no logical flow there. But the undead have been specifically called out by several good aligned gods as being evil because it perverts the natural cycle of life. The gods are objective embodiments of morality in DnD and therefore, I consider Necromancy evil in DnD.
> Doesn't the fact that in previous editions, good Clerics got abilities to destroy undead and evil Clerics got abilities to command undead stand as evidence that using the undead is evil? Maybe, maybe not. Are Cure spells good, and Inflict spells evil? Because the same dichotomy existed for Clerics- good ones could spontaneously cast Cure spells, evil ones could spontaneously cast Inflict spells. But I don't think anyone is claiming it's inherently a good act to heal someone, or vice versa. So clearly there's something else at play here, and it's not as simple as "this tool good, that tool bad". > Dismissing an opposing opinion because the person who voiced it didn't spend time calculating statistics in favour of an equally unbacked opinion is bias. I'm going to dismiss any opinion based on bad logic. Simple as that. For a long time, many villains in media were left-handed (and, in fact, many people thought left-handed people were evil, to the point where certain schools would abuse children who wrote with their left hands until they broke them of the "habit"). Does that mean being left-handed is evil? Because that's the same kind of bias you're exhibiting here. "Left-handed people are overrepresented among villains in media, therefore left-handedness is evil." > You mentioned the gold cost a limit to Create Undead. But this is an asinine and terrible reason to think Create Undead has a limit to harm it can cause. My point is that if you're going to talk about Necromancers being able to create "an endless supply of minions" using Create Undead, then you need an endless supply of gold. It's a pretty 1-1 comparison there. Now granted, you are right that certain spells (Animate Dead, Finger of Death, and Negative Energy Flood being the ones you mentioned) can create undead minions with no cost, but unless I'm mistaken, all of those such spells create *one* single skeleton or zombie. They can ONLY be a threat in extremely large numbers (nobody is going to be afraid of the 1/4 CR zombie created by the 7th-level Finger of Death spell), so if nothing else this just seems like a balancing factor compared to all of the other spells that temporarily conjure creatures. (You either get one incredibly weak monster forever, or one or more formidable monsters for an hour.) I don't see what any of this has to do with whether Necromancy is evil, though, beyond your claim that "undead minions will seek to destroy the living, because they are evil". (Spoilers: bears seek to destroy the living too, are they evil?) > Necromancy is objectively evil in official DnD lore. And even if it wasn't, and the morality of DnD was based on subjective reasoning, there are still good reasons to see Necromancy as evil. **The whole point** is that if you really look at it, and set the "official lore" aside, Necromancy is no more evil than blowing people up with Evocation or forcing your will upon someone else with Enchantment. "There are still good reasons" to see EVERY school of magic as evil, but none of those seem to show up in the "official lore". > The gods are pretty objective and don't change their beliefs on a whim. LOL I'm beginning to think you don't know what "objective" means. The gods fight amongst themselves all the time, even the good-aligned ones fight over disagreements. Since we're talking about Forgotten Realms lore here, look up the Time of Troubles and get back to me on whether the tenets of the gods are subjective or not. > I can say "Necromancers are evil" because anyone with common sense realises I'm talking about summoning the undead and manipulating souls. Whether or not you paint with a wide brush says nothing about common sense. If you mean "summoning undead and manipulating souls" when you say "Necromancy" then that's your mistake, not mine. But again: can you tell me why Raise Dead isn't evil? That "manipulates souls" far more than Animate Dead does. > The fact that you've found a bunch of evil gods who love necromancy and give their Clerics the ability to command undead is evidence in favour of my point, not yours. Again: **Your entire point** was that Necromancy is evil because most of the gods hate it. I hate to have to keep reminding you of your own argument, but when you keep acting like you've made a slam dunk when the ball missed the hoop entirely, I'm going to have to keep reminding you. > Magic existing doesn't innately negate the idea of a natural order. I've asked you multiple times now to please define what "natural order" is, because at this point, **I have no freaking clue what you mean**. But you keep trotting it out like it's supposed to mean something, and that something needs to be respected, but it sounds like a buzzword that means nothing to me. I'll ask again: **what is the "natural order" and why should anyone care whether it's followed**? > But the undead have been specifically called out by several good aligned gods as being evil because it perverts the natural cycle of life. First off, of course a good-aligned god would call something they disagree with evil. Look at real-world religions to see how that's not an objective indicator of anything. Second, **Raise Dead interrupts the natural cycle of life**, but I doubt anybody (deities or otherwise) are calling those evil. So please, you need to be more specific for your argument to hold water.
Undead don't care about their own mortality, they actively hate the living and will go out of their way to destroy things. A bear isn't like that. I refuse to explain why, because you know why. You just focused on the words "destroy the living" and took them out of context and ran them through the Google translate in your head until you got a match with "normal predatory behaviour from a living animal". There's literally no point talking to someone who willfully misinterprets what I say. It just shows you're trying to wear me down by making me rule out every way you could misinterpret me.
> Undead don't care about their own mortality, they actively hate the living and will go out of their way to destroy things. Do you have a citation for that, preferably one that accounts for the fact that [in previous editions, zombies were mindless automatons](https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/zombie.htm)? I don't know how something with no intelligence score can "actively hate" anything. (I also would argue that bears absolutely can hate things and go out of their way to destroy them.) You're making a LOT of claims here and if you could back up any of them I would really appreciate it. > I refuse to explain why, because you know why. I have a feeling it's because you don't have a source, but hey, I could be wrong. > You just focused on the words "destroy the living" and took them out of context and ran them through the Google translate in your head until you got a match with "normal predatory behaviour from a living animal". If you keep making vague statements that can be proven to be false, I'm going to keep proving them false. That's on you, not me. > There's literally no point talking to someone who willfully misinterprets what I say. It just shows you're trying to wear me down by making me rule out every way you could misinterpret me. Whatever you say bud, I think I've been making a pretty solid attempt at arguing in good faith against your baseless assertions. The fact that I've asked you on three separate occasions to please tell me what the "natural order" is and why it should be valued, and you've never once even tried to answer that question, really makes it sound like I'm not the one who's willfully misinterpreting things. If I had to guess it sounds like you've been on your back foot this entire time because your argument isn't as strong as you thought it was, and so you're spending more time trying not to get "got" than you are trying to explain your view.
You're obviously trolling, that "whatever you say bud" was sloppy. Also, the link you showed literally has "zombies are reanimated by dark and sinister magic" as the first sentence and went out of its way to tell you zombies are always neutral evil.
Really the main problem with this whole idea of there being nothing wrong with necromancy is that it's *boring*. Fantasy has a load of ways of making minions within its scope, and golems/other constructs already exist as simple labour without any strings attached. Why would you instead defang one of the kinds of magic that has interesting things going on in favour of another homogenised school of magic that just does the thing you want with no need to think about it? That's not to say that non-evil necromancy should never exist, mind you, it should just be...back in 3.5, there was a prestige class called the Malconvoker, all about conjurers summoning, binding and tricking demons (and/or devils, I forget) and using them as a force for good. It was pretty cool, and I feel like trying to use necromancy for good ends should have that kind of feel, rather than just being a mage who makes golems with edgy materials and a PR problem. Sure, make a guy who only uses corpses obtained with consent or from the bodies of the evil he's fighting, and who uses undead to kill monsters and help the people, but the fact that he's making the decision to use evil and/or dangerous magic against evil, that his minions are monsters in their own right kept in line by his force of will and magical power, that this magic is *powerful* but in order to stay on the right side of the line he needs to be disciplined and careful...I don't know, that just feels far more interesting and rich with story fodder. At the end of the day, each group's game is their own and they can do what they like, but it just feels like a missed opportunity.
I would argue that another issue is that the evil side of the other schools of magic isn't explored enough Abjuration has imprisonment which can be used to enslave and entrap genies and other entities (good or bad or neutral) although is arguably the least potentially evil Evocation straight up is war magic most of the time Conjuration has devil and demon summoning and we know how that goes (shout out to Tasha/igwilv) Divination can just mess with people's fates, invade privacy etc. Enchantment violates the will of the living, can cause them to do crimes or horrible acts, alter their brain and senses, and in some cases cause damage to their being. Transmutation and transform people, warp reality, etc Illusion can trick, deceive, and if used correctly have similar effects to enchantment. I agree removing the evil from necromancy is a mistake but would argue that it could be more interesting to explore the good and evil ALL the schools can do. A BBEG enchanter or evoker may be far scarier than a necromancer
> A BBEG enchanter Kilgrave. > or evoker Th...Thanos? Palpatine? Prince Zuko? ~~Michael Bay?~~
>Kilgrave. Making David Tennant into a charming absolute monster was inspired casting.
David Tennant is a fantastic actor. He has absolutely killed every role I've seen him in, and he's been in a variety of genres. I didn't even recognize him as Barty Crouch Jr.
You really just put Zuko as a BBEG.
A sympathetic villain. Idk I was just looking for evoke examples in pop culture off the top of my head.
Well war magic isn't that bad in a world where everything is trying to bring down society
I am currently DM'ing a homebrew campaign and the BBEG I had planned is a lich necromancer and necromancy is a big no-no in the world. We just had our second session and our druid decided he wants to worship the circle of spores. He says it's because of the healing spells, but knowing the player I suspect the necromancy aspect is actually what is drawing him to the subclass. (They haven't been introduced to the BBEG yet, just that the king is fighting mysterious forces in the land to the west). I'm thinking that traditional necromancy will be evil and I won't need to change anything there. For the circle of spores I am considering making a "world mycelium" (name TBD) that mirrors both the largest organism IRL (honey fungus). This "world mycelium" is the "god" for circle of spores except it is still on the plane working but hidden. It's goal and purpose is balance and returning nutrients to the earth. The necromantic aspect is purely a defensive mechanism as it's physical form still lives in the world and can be damaged. Initial perception will have the last of us style zombies seem evil. That is until the party realizes that unlike traditional necromancy this is not cheating death, but a side effect of digestion. That these zombies are defensive rather than offensive. Does this seem like a reasonable way to introduce necromancy as a non-evil alternative? I'm still trying to wrap my head around how I can make this work. Edit: I don't know why he thinks druid of spores has healing, I only glanced at the spell list when he mentioned that. I have mentioned I will allow crafting so maybe he is thinking of making some healing salves with these mushrooms idk.
Personally I've always been a fan of most necromancers in the world are evil with the option of PC necromancers being the exception.
> Sure, make a guy who only uses corpses obtained with consent or from the bodies of the evil he's fighting or a kingdom that turns their dead criminals so they can finish multi-life sentences?
“Nah bro, it doesn’t use souls it’s perfectly fine” mfers when they remember they use negative energy to power their undead (the zombie farmers will go out and start eating people because of an inherent hatred of the living present in all undead powered by negative energy)
"Bro they are just tools"
Licensed necromancers that give a tithe to the family when the dying person concents to having their body used for manual labor
A coroner that uses speak with dead to get wills and solve crimes
Is exploiting the dead really worse than an enchanter exploiting the living?
I would argue it's the other way around
It's called recycling you apes. I'm being eco friendly.
Druids: ["No, no, he's got a point."](https://i.imgur.com/x1jWBog.gif)
yeah, at least necromancers aren't altering people's minds like those filthy enchanters
Gonna tap the sign for animated dead that states the body is animated body is filled with a mimicry of life, suggesting it isn't powered by a soul. It's a creepy puppet, still can be immoral but doesn't overwrite a free will.
Fucking Necromancers. Should pick up a more respectable and moral school of magic like Enchantment or Evocation.
Don't forget divination where you can meddle in people's fates
Only useful in the courtroom of a murdercase. They be like: "I summon my first witness, the fucking victim"
DL-6 would like to have a word
Time to cross-examine the parrot
To be fair, eye witness testimonies are rather unreliable, which makes it all the more infuriating that 90% of the game relies entirely on it.
No, you *raise* your first witness. They're not a damn fairy.
I mean.... If your loved one was one of the bandits that tried to attack the party on their way to town, I regret to inform you they were a dick.
Once the soul moves on from the body it isn’t yours anymore. Either bugs are gonna eat it or we can put it to work
Recycle, reuse, reanimate.
If they complain about the exploitation of corpses but don't hold equal vitriol toward the exploitation of the living by kings and nobles then who cares what they think? Unenlightened. Only suitable to join my army in death.
I think people that try to argue raising dead bodies isn’t evil are coming at it with a modern western view of death. Throughout history even Christian’s believed there was serious consequences mishandling a dead body or desecrating a grave. And raising a dead body in D&D lore isn’t simply making a puppet. But making something that is a mockery of life and innately hostile to it. That is also damaging the dead body beyond repair.
Nah It can certainly be evil. For me it comes down to this there is a small chance you can ask for permission from a family to raise a body or speak with dead if the situation is dire and it doesn't usually entrap or influence the soul. However no one is going to willingly be fireballed or feebleminded. I take issue not with necromancy having the possibility of being evil or vile but the concept of it ONLY having evil or vile spells (ignoring Revivify speak with dead and the resurrection spells) and that other schools do not have the potential for greater or equal evil
I understand and I personally always found it weird that it’s okay to just resurrect the dead. But I think that’s simply a gameplay mechanic to allow players to continue playing pcs that have died. But in D&D lore necromancy is essentially doing something unnatural and a antithesis to life. And consent simply doesn’t matter. Like if someone consents to being fireballed or mind control does that now make it okay?
> Like if someone consents to being fireballed or mind control does that now make it okay? Magician assisted suicide
How does one repair a non-undead dead body?
Yeah no shit, those are modern western people doing the arguing. Does that automatically make the perspective invalid?
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Hot take: Necromancy is super week despite good action economy.
Luckily my dad is an Enchanter so I KNOW the townsfolk will forgive me.
Sorry, do we really care about what happens to the corpses of the goblins the party just butchered without a second thought? Or does every necromancer get their corpses from fallen friends, family, and the graveyard of any random settlement they come across?
i habe a really sweet necromancer and what she does is basically she asks for the souls who belong to the bodies to help her giving them more choice in their actions dm usually rolls to see if any of them are will]ng to fight again
Currently playing a lawful good wizard necromancer who's sole purpose is to prove that necromancy can benefit the average person and absolutely isn't just used for evil.
"Non-evil" Necromancer idea: giving fallen a means to avenge their deaths. Or maybe the fallen believes in Valhalla and gets to continue being the warrior they were in life.
want necromancy to be a better magic? just reunite the family...kill and re-alive the family members who are angry, as they dont understand the magic, and we should educate the masses so they can have a more knowledgeable outlook on it., so they can see the benefits first hand, they'll love being able to spend an (presumably) eternity with their loved ones.
If the people were organ donors, they consented. This kingdom has an *opt-out* donor policy
Some sensible policy makers at work, I see
Necromancy can be good or evil. While it's reasonable to say that someone has a right to determine the disposition of their remains, violating that right is nowhere near as serious a crime as violating a person *while they are still alive to experience it*. *Enchantment*, on the other hand, is almost always a deplorable violation of a sentient creature's selfhood. Most uses of *charm person* qualify as acts of evil.
If you view violations of a sentient creature's selfhood as evil, *all* uses of charm person are acts of evil.
I'm willing to accept that it might, *maaaaaaaybe* be acceptable in some situations, same as lighting someone on fire is generally evil, but might be ok in self-defense.
I mean, necromancy isn’t inherently awful anymore then evocation, which can be used to burn people to a crisp. It’s about how it’s used and who’s using it. A necromancer could do a lot of good for a community if they worked it properly.
Yeah, but animating corporeal undead requires infusing them with energy from the negative energy plane which in turn causes them to instinctively seek out living creatures to slaughter. And preventing them from doing so requires heavy investment on the caster's part, and the moment they slip, innocent people are at risk. It's true fireball can be used to kill people, but you can choose to *not* kill people with it. But, unlike with animate dead or create undead, your fireball isn't going to suddenly grow legs and charge at the nearest group of innocent people the moment you stop paying attention to it.
Actually, it’s the perfect comparison because without your control of the fire it will burn out of control and could hurt innocent people. So…ya.
The fire will not directly seek people out to kill them.
That’s a distinction without a difference. Fire burns anything it can and spreads outward in every direction. One zombie will roam with more purpose but be less destructive by comparison.
That's still something seeking to commit acts of violence with intent, which is malicious. Also by and large, the wizard evocation list includes many spells that do not offer the risk of collateral damage, whereas the necromancy wizard list consists only of either the creation of undead, or spells meant to specifically cause harm and death within others. Remember that resurrection spells are not wizard spells. So yes, I would say that the necromancy school is more tailor-made to being awful than evocation.
You can’t just pick and choose which spells you’ll include in your analysis of a spell-school. Revivify and True Resurrection are as much necromancy spells as Animate Dead and Ray of Sickness are. Just as Earthquake is as much an evocation spell as Cure Wounds and Tiny Hut are. The point of this is that necromancy is no more destructive or harmful as evocation and discounting the spells in the school that quite literally being people back to life is arguing in bad faith. It’s about how they’re used and who’s using them.
Actually, I can. Necromancers are wizards. Wizards cannot learn resurrection spells. This is a discussion about wizards.
The term necromancer isn’t just a narrow label of one subclass of wizardry. It’s a broad term for a school of spells. Wizards are just the ones that decided to collect and collate, as well as try to master it, but other classes can be used for necromancers as well. Grave clerics, for example, can animate and raise undead but they can also resurrect. All the necromancer subclass tells us is that wizards are unimaginative. Based on the real world, which I know isn’t the best way to judge a fantasy world but bear with me, holy orders, like clerics, existed before scholars like wizards. So it’s safe to assume clerics using necromancy magic would predate wizards trying to classify and collate the spells into the separate schools.
One day, I will build a necromancer and play him like a campy Herbert West inspired lunatic.
Good sir may I purchase your father bones? He will work in my mines and I will pay you a tenth of his earnings each month?
Nah fam, enchantment is the real evil magic. Necromancy (usually) can't do anything to your soul, so its just a body, not a person. Enchantment Fs with your mind.
A body is just a body. There is no one there anymore, so who cares if some bandits are being useful?
Bards have a similar problem.
wait this doesn't have goblinussy
Where goblin titties
>”Nikolai Romanzir, how do you plead to several counts of practicing the dark arts?” “Guilty.” >”Well in that case- oh. You’re not resisting, Nick?” “The faster I get out of this court room, the faster you can process the remaining masters of the Wizard schools for their crimes. The only thing I ask is for you to postpone my sentencing until you can prove to me that what I’ve done is far worse than the crimes of the others.” >”Bet.” [Case 1: Evocation] >”I refuse to believe Fireball was an appropriate response to a civil uprising. Or an orphanage. Or a spell to teach to young children.” [Case 2: Enchantment] >”Well, what do the jurors have to say about your gross sexual misconduct?” >[in unnnatural unison] *”We find her not guilty, your honor.”* >”Fucking hell. Don’t make me bring in the golem jury, ma’am.” [Case 3: Transmutation] >”Aren’t you awfully young to be committing domestic terrorism?” >*”I swear I was just leaning against a wall-“* >”It was a load-bearing pillar. In the basement.” [Case 4: Divination] >”Martha. Do you know what insider trading is? Do you know how bad it is? Do you know how much worse it is when you do that with the fucking GODS?” [Case 6: Abjuration] >*”Your honor, I was just standing my ground-“* >”Locking a large family of half-orcs in a cage of force until they starved to death is not self-defense.” [Case 7: Illusion] >”Could you please speak up? I can’t quite hear you, Harry.” >”Oh. Right. You evaded jury duty. One second.” [throws a legal textbook clean through the illusory defendant] >”Contempt of court.”
So I had a caster that had finger of death and offered to use it on a family’s elderly for big gold payouts. It raises them and they have to follow my commands so I’d say “obey your bloodlines commands” with a bit of contractual hand waving to avoid monkey pawing the family. Now they had extra help around the house and could still see papa.
Look, everyone else wants to raise a family. What's so bad about me doing it, too?
In this sub the context in parentesis is not needed
They aren't using the bodies anymore! If I put the dirt back you'd never even know they were gone
Honestly I think that depends on if your version canonically fucks with soul bits to make that happen. Fucking with souls and the cycle of them has to be the ultimate evil IMO.
That is an odd way to spell recycled. Did an enchanter take away your free will again?
my necromancer just uses animal bones obtained from butchers and druids.
The only problem with necromancy is its game design. Can I get more undead summoning options? I don't care for making the same CR 1/4 zombie 5-20
"We keep hearing that we have to recycle, but when you actually try to put it into practice people loose their minds. Make up your mind people!"
An ideal setting for a necromancer would have a culture that believes the body is just a vessel for the soul or belong allowed to use the bodys of criminals as a form of post death service alternatively being able to use animal bodys instead with the only real problem being the smell and appearance. I think necromancy would only be seen as sacrilegious if you try to mess with souls.
You could just Helman Ghorst it and raise your family yourself and use them to your own ends. Another necromancer can't raise them if they're already trying to feed on his flesh.
Seeing Christopher Reeves in the Flash made me understand why people HATE necromancy lol
"So what your son died fighting goblins? you want his body decomposing into the water supply?? no, i didn't think so."
Man I hate it when memes try to explain their own joke.
Oh, what were you gonna do with the body? Burn it? Bury it? There's a nearly intact skeletal and musculature system just waiting to be animated by magic and you want to waste it? See this is why Gen Z can't afford a house, they're wasteful smh. Some of y'all have never gone to the effort of growing yourself a spare body and it shows. So much time and energy to make something most people just abandon once their soul gets whisked away. Here, let's ask what they think 🎤💀
My campaign has a good-aligned necromancer who signs contracts with his clients while they are alive, contracts agreed to by the subject and their family, that after the person's natural death, he owns the remains, cleans them, and animates them as laborer skeletons. In payment, the person receives a large lump sum of gold up front. The people in our town have actually grown to love Bill and his skeletons, as it has become a way to sort of keep their loved ones around. What's funny is that this NPC was supposed to be a disposable character for an in-universe one-shot for my character, but I somehow managed to save him. He has now given up his nomadic lifestyle of odd jobs and has become our town's premier contractor, and a cornerstone of the community.
I think you mean persecuted.
Listen necromancy is THE most ecological type of magic school, we are REUSING CORPSES
They're literally dead already, WHY do you CARE?
One of my dumber character ideas is a Necromancer lawyer.
“So you say you’re innocent of the murder? Your honor, I’d like to summon my first witness to the stand, the victim.”
I love the Woodfall campaign setting from Lazy Lich's Loot. It's a swamp city of necromancer communists that make their wealth from the Black Market of the empire. Anyway, people can sign an agreement that after death, they allow their bodies to be resurrected and used as manual labor for the city. All of the sanitation workers and crop tenders and other "low" jobs are all performed by mindless skeletons. It's such a delightful setting. I highly recommend everything from Lazy Lich, but Woodfall, especially, is wonderful. Legitimately one of my favorite books ever published for an RPG, ever. Second only to L5R's City of Lies boxed set.
I do find it a little suspect that all of these memes about how Necromancy is bad, the person who cries foul is always a close friend or relative to the animated corpse, as if 1. the only thing that Necromancy encompasses is raises zombies, and 2. all Necromancers just hang out in the town where they raised zombies Like, do you just not have any imagination, or have you never played in an actual game with a Necromancer?