animating undead - mechanics

[Sindol]

provided a skilled player is behind them.

I think that is the nail on the head. The strongest characters (something that btw doesn't, or at least shouldn't, mean shit on Avlis) are the ones with the best players behind them and not those of a certain class or race.

But that is not what this discussion was about...

Summoning undead: Evil of not, that is the question?

*Cues Thorgrim (meaning it's not a DM posting anymore from here on)*

Uf course et is net evil, tha souls uf the unded have long since passed into peaceful slumber in Dagath's arms and their bodies are merely fertilizer fer tha soil, thet shall bring forth tha food thet shall feed them, when they become reborn and relics fer those thet remained behind to remember them by.
So an act like that es net evil in itself, et is wut yer do with et thet counts. So do net condemn one as evil fer summoning aid frum tha only source he might know, but judge him by his intentiuns an actiuns, an thus see wut kind o man he es.

Thorgrim Ironjaw
Cleric of Dagath
Order of Rebirth

[Scurvy_Platypus]

I think this is important to clarify, because many other players are starting to state that healing is necromatic as well..

As far as this is concerned, be sure you understand one thing. D&D, and AD&D always said the spell school of Necromancy was concerned with life/death. Yes, all the healing spells were classed as Necromancy. This may have changed in 3rd Ed....but this is where folks are getting the necromancy bit.

To Jorio: I think part of Jadeia's point is base your argument/discussion on what you know in the game, _and_ the world. You don't need a 3E book to look at what the spell is/does, you can get the description from a scroll in-game (because the manual is worthless). Now on the other hand, I'm pretty sure that Call Lightning in 3E says something about only being useable outdoors....NWN doesn't give two hoots. And then there's Parry, and Sneak. And sure, people say, "Well that's broken and not the way it's supposed to work." Perhaps true, but it still means most people don't take Parry, and Rogues can be really freaking dangerous. 3E was the _basis_ for NWN. And just like some movies based off a book are closer than others, sometimes NWN went it's own way. Page 80 of the manual by the way says that Parry isn't even a part of 3E. Like it or not, there are differences.

[FunkOdyssey]

As far as this is concerned, be sure you understand one thing. D&D, and AD&D always said the spell school of Necromancy was concerned with life/death. Yes, all the healing spells were classed as Necromancy. This may have changed in 3rd Ed....but this is where folks are getting the necromancy bit.

I remember that healing used to be Necromancy in older versions of D&D as well. However, we must remember (as people are recently so fond of saying) that NWN dictates the rules of our world, and in NWN all healing spells including Heal, Raise Dead, Resurrection, etc. are Conjuration spells.

This is makes it easy for people to classify Necromancy as exclusively evil magic.

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Thank you for posting the clarification. Hopefully it will clear up some confusion about that.

Now people can start arguing intent,alignment,and Necromancy.

[Jorio Alerian]

To Jorio: I think part of Jadeia's point is base your argument/discussion on what you know in the game, _and_ the world. You don't need a 3E book to look at what the spell is/does, you can get the description from a scroll in-game (because the manual is worthless). Now on the other hand, I'm pretty sure that Call Lightning in 3E says something about only being useable outdoors....NWN doesn't give two hoots. And then there's Parry, and Sneak. And sure, people say, "Well that's broken and not the way it's supposed to work." Perhaps true, but it still means most people don't take Parry, and Rogues can be really freaking dangerous. 3E was the _basis_ for NWN. And just like some movies based off a book are closer than others, sometimes NWN went it's own way. Page 80 of the manual by the way says that Parry isn't even a part of 3E. Like it or not, there are differences.

I agree.

However, the manual only goes so far into describing what certain things are; and, if you depended solely on what's listed in the manual, there would be such loose interpretation on many important matters. Thus, NWN clearly states it uses 3E as its foundation- giving players and DM's a ruleset or guide to work from.

I also understand Avlis is Avlis, and whether it is NWN or D&D 3E they both play back seat to what Orl and the team think is right for the world. My idea was to start digging deeper, scratch that next layer, that really delves into the "why" behind our characters and what are the governing forces working around them.

NWN won't give you that, and since Avlis was a PnP initially, 3E seems like a logical place to START building a logic behind things. Then, Orl and the team can provide guidance when there are conflicts.

[Jordicus]

And all the sources I have looked at have been 3E related, which also say healing is Conjuration. So part of the dilema for people is the changes from 2E to 3E as well...

[Scurvy_Platypus]

BTW- my idea is not to make things hard for mages (like they have it hard now), but to better understand and be intouch with the forces around my character so he pleases his god even more.

Jorio

I think it's important to bring this back to the point...Jordicus seemed to be looking for a bit of a background rules clarification, and Jorio seems to be looking to help develop his character's attitudes better.

I think Jordicus's questions were answered...maybe not. For Jorio...I think you're going to have to bite the bullet and make a decision. Many people in our world make decisions based on incomplete or wrong information. Others simply disagree (look at some of the different religions, and their stances on issues like homosexuality, divorce, etc).I think the team is going to tread fairly lightly past a certain point, just because the more rulings they make, the more chance for people to start citing the rules to justify their actions.

It seems to me that the decision has already been made. Play through it the way you seem to feel. Regardless of whether or not it matches exactly with "reality" (as defined by the team, in regards to how Avlis works), it's the most honest thing to do with your character.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I just don't want this to devolve into some random discussion about NWN vs 3E, where it went wrong, what it was _supposed_ to do, what it _meant_ to do, and so forth.

[Jordicus]

And please remember, I am not looking to force someone to do anything specific according to rules that can't be implemented or anything.

The ideas about more background on the summons and rituals and stuff was more to help stimulate people ideas of how to RP out the spells and things they are doing. Sort of like how lots of people, including myself, emote certain situations such as being overburdened by things we carry, or gestures as part of our conversations, etc...

And, I would never say that someone not RPing those things is doing something wrong. But, someone who does take the effort to RP out the little things will definitely be someone I would want to have more interaction with and would have my vote towards RPer of the month.




The only other thing that has come up here that I feel is important is the clarification that as of 3E as well as in NWN, healing spells are now considered Conjuration, not Necromancy.

[Strangg]

And necromancy is not evil.

Everytime a do gooder casts HEAL he is using necromancy, so pft again

I never said necromancy was evil. Anmate undead is, the spell itself falls under the domains of evil AND necromancy. Yes the "Heal" spell is necromancy, just like harm. Normal cures however are conjuration.


And i'll say it again, animating undead is EVIL, like it or not. It's not evil because it uses necromancy it is evil because it is an affront to the natural order of things, not only that it falls under the evil spell domain (one of the FEW spells that do so i might add) if anyone needs proof that it is an evil spell in game terms. There are very few situations where a good aligned PC would even think of using the spell, and even if they did it would be very uncomfortable fo rthem to do it. Most of the situations i can think of are really on possible in a PnP game, not a NWN game. But i'm sure someone can come up with something.



~S

[FunkOdyssey]

I never said necromancy was evil. Anmate undead is, the spell itself falls under the domains of evil AND necromancy. Yes the "Heal" spell is necromancy, just like harm. Normal cures however are conjuration.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would like to state again that all healing spells are Conjuration spells. The Heal spell is in the Conjuration school. So is Raise Dead and Resurrection. If you don't believe me, I invite you to load up a character that can cast the spell and check the description.

[WrathOG777]

Nothing wrong with evil. Evil is perfectly acceptable in mikona. Anyone persecuteing based solely on something being evil is an affront to everything that Mikona stands for.

If you realy want to look at spells lines for how much IC good vs bad comes of them...

Evocation is by far the worse. Evocation is focused solely on doing damage and lots of it is calateral. Fireball has got to be the leading cause of commoner death second only to starvation in mikona.

Necromancy has some very effective spells that help people, offer protection, and disable enemys in a non-violent manner. It also offers a caster painless death spells that put down enemys in a very humane way. It is far worse to be burnt to death then to just have a stroke.

[Liartes]

Heh good twist. Down with evocation!

[Jordicus]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would like to state again that all healing spells are Conjuration spells. The Heal spell is in the Conjuration school. So is Raise Dead and Resurrection. If you don't believe me, I invite you to load up a character that can cast the spell and check the description.

@FunkOdyssey ? They just don't seem to want to listen to it...

C'mon people....!!!! FunkOdyssey and myself have been saying this over and over...!!! According to 3E (and NWN) all healing spells, including Heal and Raise Dead and Resurrection are all CONJURATION spells. Check your 3E D&D player handbook page 190 for Cure XX Wounds and page 213 for Heal, and then look at this copy of the NWN in-game description http://www.gamebanshee.com/neverwintern ... s/heal.jpg

[jadeia]

Jad:

Took this from the Official NWN website.

How do you differentiate between NWN and 3E rules knowing this?

Regards,

Jorio

Neverwinter Nights will be using the new 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons ruleset developed by Wizards of the Coast. The initial release of Neverwinter Nights will be based on the rules from the core rule books (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual) and will not include prestige classes, feats or additional material in supplemental source books (i.e. Song and Silence). A popular and long-standing pen-and-paper role-playing game in its own right, Dungeons & Dragons also has an extensive pedigree on the computer. It made its first appearance in the 'gold box' titles of the 1980s and now lies at the heart of some of the most popular and critically acclaimed computer role-playing games of the past few years: Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, Planescape: Torment, and Icewind Dale. Building on that success, the new 3rd Edition rules provide a much greater degree of flexibility in creating and developing your character, increase the level of player interaction with the gameworld, and enhance the overall playability and enjoyment of the game. The changes to the pen-and-paper game have been very well received and we're very excited to be bringing the 3rd Edition to a hard drive near you

.

Remember we play NWN, not 3e.

Unless the team puts a "hak" into place, to simulate in NWN something in 3e, then don't use your 3e books as the bible.

This is not critism, just that I can see a potential for debate on a subject that shouldnt be.

Debate it as something you'd like to see in NWN, for sure.

Dont debate it as something you wont to enforce in NWN, that would be cheesy.

And yes Lanessa has a soul, so bite me

Jorio.

My answer is they simply screwed their translation up on a WHOLE lotta things. We all know this.

[jadeia]

Holy Cow Shit.

When did Heal change to Conjuration? WTF?

Man if that's true, then I retract my statements about Heal being necromantic, but it always was in the old days, and must have been changed.

I think Scurvy understands what I was trying to point out.

Dont let your 3e knowledge override what your Avlis knowledge is, because Avlis (NWN) is not a proper, true or even accurate translation of 3e rules.. Its close, its BASED on 3e, but we all know how different movies are that are BASED on something...

Fuck all resemblance to the truth.

[Spell Singer]

I just want to say a few things here since as I have no access to the cleric board otherwise this would have come up there a long time ago.

Why is necormancy evil?

All necromantic spells except (raise dead&ressurection (if these are still necromantic) and death ward) draw on the negative material plane energy to do what they do. Contact with that energy is soul destroying or dehibilitating in a way that is clearly unnatural. When you create an undead creature the thing is sustained by drawing negative material plane energy. Depending on the amount of energy infused into it the creature gains intellegence of a sort...a better description would be cunning actually and a desire to kill all living things. So creation of such a creature is not an act that a "good" person is going to agree with. You are bringing a force of evil into existance. All undead are evil (except revenents it seems) so creating evil is bound to get you into trouble with the forces of good.

Contact with negative plane energy destroys your soul. That is why spectres and so on drain you of levels. Destruction of the soul is evil. In many ways it is the ultimate of evils. And using negative planer energy as a weapon is advocating the destruction of a soul even if that soul is your enemy.


A cleric which uses a negative engery based prayer is in far less danger than a mage. The cleric only serves as a channel for his or hers dieties power. A mage draws the power for the spell and stores it within his or her body until the spell is cast or if you will serves as an unbuffered conduit of this energy. You can not walk through a sewer without some shit sticking to your feet I am afraid.

Now the debate IC is always a bit amusing to me as it always is the same. Kaelyn sees someone cast a necromantic spell and cautions them that this act is dangerous as it is putting their soul at risk. Mage looks at him and says "My soul is safe, I like the power of the spell." So you can see that the spells are even "evil" in the sense they offer great power, with a penelty down the line...pretty much as any other evil does. But mages for the most part do not care...the spell is powerful let me use it, power today and damn the consiquences.

[FunkOdyssey]

All necromantic spells except (raise dead&ressurection (if these are still necromantic) and death ward

Raise Dead and Resurrection are Conjuration.

Kaelyn sees someone cast a necromantic spell and cautions them that this act is dangerous as it is putting their soul at risk. Mage looks at him and says "My soul is safe, I like the power of the spell." So you can see that the spells are even "evil" in the sense they offer great power, with a penelty down the line...pretty much as any other evil does. But mages for the most part do not care...the spell is powerful let me use it, power today and damn the consiquences.

I would be so bold as to suggest the regular use of necromancy spells become a factor in alignment shifting.

[Vanor]

Necromancy spells are not inherently evil. The ones that are, are marked as such in the spell description.

A list of neco spells, that I think you would have trouble proving are inherently evil. Not all of these exist in NWN.

Disrupt Undead
Gentle Repose
Astral Projection
Halt Undead
Clone
Death Ward
Deathwatch
Destruction (It has a holy version as well as a unholy version based on the alignment of the cleric)
Speak with dead
Spectral Hand

Necromancy simply means dealing with death, it is not in any way inherently evil. In fact it could be argued that a clerics turn undead ablity is by it's nature necromatic.

[Titanium Dragon]

I hope this discussion isn't too far dead, and I thought that I might want to throw my own two cents in.

I'd say that all necromantic spells pretty much call on negative energy. Depending on the mage, this may or may not corrupt them, long-term.

But what I WOULD say is that it is a lot like summoning, say, a balor. They are calling on something dark and evil. Though they may be using this dark and evil power for the purpose of good, they are still using evil means to achieve a good end. I am not going to be very favorably inclined towards them if I have a character who believes the means are important; likewise, a character who believes the ends are all-important probably wouldn't care about the means.

Also, think about this from the IC point of view: many undead that attack people were created by wizards. So what makes the undead YOU summon any different? Control. But if most undead in the world are hostile, that means most PEOPLE who summon undead likely aren't very nice people. How do they know, IC, that you aren't one of those people? Likewise with balors; Thad (my character) has been ATTACKED by a summoned balor, and thus is unlikely to be very favorably inclined towards someone who summons them, especially given that he has no clue who summoned the thing in the first place. He might not attack you (he knows better than to get himself killed; he only survived the above encounter due to many near-legendary heroes being present), but he certainly isn't going to like you, and will definitely be at least a little suspicious. Most anyone would be, I would think.

In short, I don't think necromantic magic users are evil, but I would think the means they use (negative energy) are. After all, they are using evil power, even if they are using it for good.

And as for the corpse thing: that is a wonderful idea. *chuckles* I must remember that if I ever make a necromancer. Spells do deserve at least some ceremony, especially powerful summoning spells (like balor summoning or undead raising).

In a low magic world, the most powerful classes are those who have magic. I'd say clerics and druids are probably the most "powerful" classes (and clerics over druids, if I had to choose), but mages are awfully powerful. Non-magic (or weak magic, such as rangers, paladins, and possibly bards) have to be a lot more cautious about groups of enemies. A mage can fireball that group of 5 rogues, but a fighter will be much harder pressed, and a ranger will be in even worse shape. Anyone with area-affect attacks is much more powerful than those without unless they are going one-on-one with something. Mages aren't getting the shaft; think of us poor rangers (and the poor barbarians, and the monks), with low AC and best in close combat. I'd say a few restrictions for better roleplaying aren't going to hurt them much. Besides, its not as if you can't summon OTHER stuff instead of undead.

And, of course, "That is going to steal your soul" is a great warning, and is made all the better by the mage (obviously already being corrupted by his foul magicks;)) saying "No its not. And besides, this is a powerful spell!"

[fyrmin]

Also, think about this from the IC point of view: many undead that attack people were created by wizards.

I didn't think that at all. I was under the impression, both IC and OOC, that the majority of the undead were just unhappy souls rising from their graves. If someone HAD to cause this plague of undead, I would suspect clerics rather than wizards. *shrugs* Does anyone know where they came from, or by that I mean does anybody know where the undead in the graveyard and the mikona crypts come from?

[Titanium Dragon]

Indeed I do not. I was actually speculating... oops.

But I'm sure at least some undead that are hostile are summoned... and then there are the balors, but that's another discussion entirely

[Pharik]

Well its been said previously and it may be screwed up game mechanic's but the skeleton my character summons is CG NOT evil.

Also being neutral means my character has a different stance on negative energy, and on evil for that matter. Its all a matter of perspective and I think this is being handled well in game.

Unfortunately given that Know Alignment has been left out of the templates the paladin class has been truly shafted. Perhaps there is a way we can get around this in-game?

For any players who have paladins in Avlis feel free to ask me in a tell what my character's (Kari Tal' Rathe) alignment is - that goes for her summons too. I will be happy to play out the fact that as a paladin you will know this innately.

Um..dependant upon Dev/DM appoval ofcourse

[Strangg]

Well its been said previously and it may be screwed up game mechanic's but the skeleton my character summons is CG NOT evil.

No offense, but i don't care how powerful your character is (or thinks he is), there is no way the "skeleton" your character animates is CG, and you will probably have a damn difficult time trying to convince someone it is.

Skeletons are mindless animations and are neutral in their individual alignment. The only time you will find undead with an alignment other than neutral is when dealing with those that still retain their past intelligence, and mostof those are going to be evil of some type. The only type of undead i can recall offhand with a "good" alignment is the ~extremely~ rare Arch Lich.


As for negative energy(and necromancy for that matter) it is no more "evil" than fire, sonic, or electrical types of energy. It's the use and application of such spells that determine how "evil" it may be. You are no more or less evil by using a negative energy burst to kill innocents than you are if you use a fireball or a lightening bolt.

There are however spells that fall under the "evil" domain, it just so happens that some of these are of the negative energy and necromancy line of spells, but it should also be known that other spells that are "evil" fall under schools such as abjuration, in the case of the "Protection from Good" spell. There really aren't that many spells that are truely evil(in the core books or NWN for that matter), i am pretty sure there are less than a dozen probably less than a score.



~S

[Spell Singer]

Skeletons and zombies are mindless and their alignment is neutral.

All other undead are intellegent and they are all evil (baring the baelnorn and the archlich(?)...demi-liches being the embodiement of evil) at least from what I could see looking through the current monster manual and certainly from my memory of the orginal monster manual. They all draw their existance from the negative material plane.

The negative material plane is totally anti-life, contact with negative energy destroys both the body and the soul. The action of destroying the soul is something anyone of a good alignment would consider "evil" it is most certainly something that a good aligned church would consider "evil". The fact that getting hit by a negative energy ray drains the targets bodies vitality like it does should be enough for most good aligned people to avoid using it. It is differnt than just hitting them with a fireball, in the same way killing someone by a single clear thrust through the heart is different than killing them by a thousand cuts...most people would define cripling and then killing someone as "evil" and that is what negative energy spells do in a sense.

Any cleric whose turn destroys undead in a PnP setting should never even consider raising them. You diety has granted you the power to destroy the undead the same diety is not going to give your the power to raise them. Remember you are bringing evil into the world when you make the creature or else you are perverting the natural order and tampering with a dead body.

A good aligned wizard or sorceror should at the least think a long time before they start memorizing this sort of spell, but they are inherently under no limitation.

[Umbrata Velvet]

BTW: Mummies are animated by the positive material plane.