Should Turn Undead destroy your own skeletons (for good clerics)?

[Jarno Mikkola]

A divine caster with a good aligned god cannot.

In BG it means what Demi allready said.

Yeah sure, but make sure you read the fine print ... as it's not that simple, as you can have a god who doesn't care about the alignments. Say like Oghma, that's even a good canon for the Bhall Spawns god if it were a cleric, as there's even a shrine of Oghma in Candlekeep.

The second game doesn't have such kit, but maybe someone just forgot, didn't think etc.

 

Those who worshiped Oghma included artists, bards, cartographers, inventors, loremasters, sages, scholars, scribes and wizards—archivists, a generalist cleric prestige class, might pray to him as well. They could be of any alignment, unlike most neutral gods. They often wore Oghma's symbol, a silver scroll on a chain, as a necklace[5].

[toxin]

Temple of Elemental Evil PC game was using 3.5 ed., not as good a game as BG in my opinion

 

Oh, hell no! Nothing is better than BG

I was merely suggesting it was a more faithful PnP adaptation.

[Shaitan]

Jarno Oghma is True Neutral in my world.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Jarno Oghma is True Neutral in my world.

And can a Lawful Good cleric worship Oghma ? And thus, can a Lawful Good cleric summon undead from his deity ? Shouldn't be a problem.

[Shaitan]

True neutral means Oghma isn't good aligned he's neutral. No matter what alignment his worshippers are.

[Jarno Mikkola]

So it means that lawful good aligned cleric should be able to cast Summon Undead. It's omited from this statement:

If an SR player wish to have an undead army he doesn't need an evil cleric, a neutral one will do. Morninglords will not have it, but in exchange they get shiny sun-related spells.

It's not said if they can, just that a Morning Lord cannot. ...

 

But then he turns here and says:

SR bans Animate Skeletal Warrior and Death Knight because I give good aligned clerics False Dawn and Sunray. I do planned to add Searing Light and ban Animate Dead but I still haven't.

... and so:

In BG it means what Demi allready said.

Doesn't make sense.

[cipher]

That's not actually possible, since Druids must be True Neutral in BG.

Indeed, but I was going more with the later definition that a druid must be at least partly neutral. Some things are beyond arbitrary in AD&D. Isn't NG Jaheira and NE Faldorn a better fit for their characterization?

 

 

That's perfectly reasonable... but it describes vanilla BG1 or IWD, where there are no kits. Once you specialize your character and say "I'm a Good-aligned priest who venerates Lathander" and the lore of the setting is that Lathander hates undead, then your "clerics have general abilities" rationale is out the window. IMHO.

It's their training that gives them that knowledge and their faith/ethos/alignment (specialisation) that prohibits the practice. Like a doctor that must delve in corpses (anatomy classes) even if later they specialise in something that doesn't even go near the scalpel.

It's part of the carriculum, let's say. That's what I meant.

 

Bottom line is that, no matter the rationale (or "rationale" as Demi puts it ), it's all fun and games to discuss stuff like these and BG is a game and the purpose is fun. If SR goes with alignment based spell book, I'll still love the mod and as the good doctor puts it, it's not too much of a bother to tweak here and there.

[Almateria]

Okay, time to drop in my small amount of money in this conversation:

There's nothing inherently immoral in making skeletons fight for you. They are mindless undead with no will of their own, and therefore don't affect the ex-resident's soul+consciousness, since they already passed on to the respective plane/wall of faithless. Creating skeletons is, therefore, nothing more than utilizing the nearest, limited resources, and only as immoral as throwing a snowball.

[Bill Bisco]

Animate Dead makes the game fun and playable for me. I won't ever install something that removes them without something equivalent.

 

Fyi, the poorly worded 2e spell is below. It's funny because it mentions Wizards in the last line but not Clerics who get the spell earlier and would cast it more frequently.

 

No mod has ever attempted to fully use this spell pnp. I suppose a lack of animations is also a factor.

 

Animate Dead (Necromancy) Range: 10 yds. Duration: Permanent Area of Effect: Special Components: V, S, M Casting Time: 5 rds. Saving Throw: None

 

This spell creates the lowest of the undead monsters--skeletons or zombies--usually from the bones or bodies of dead humans, demihumans, or humanoids. The spell causes existing remains to become animated and obey the simple verbal commands of the caster. The skeletons or zombies can follow the caster, remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific type of creature) entering the place, etc. The undead remain animated until they are destroyed in combat or are turned; the magic cannot be dispelled. The following types of dead creatures can be animated: A) Humans, demihumans, and humanoids with 1 Hit Die. The wizard can animate one skeleton for each experience level he has attained, or one zombie for every two levels. The experience levels, if any, of the slain are ignored; the body of a newly dead 9th-level fighter is animated as a zombie with 2 Hit Dice, without special class or racial abilities. B) Creatures with more than 1 Hit Die. The number of undead animated is determined by the monster Hit Dice (the total Hit Dice cannot exceed the wizard's level). Skeletal forms have the Hit Dice of the original creature, while zombie forms have one more Hit Die. Thus, a 12th-level wizard could animate four zombie gnolls (4 x [2+1 Hit Dice] = 12), or a single fire giant skeleton. Such undead have none of the special abilities they had in life. C) Creatures with less than 1 Hit Die. The caster can animate two skeletons per level or one zombie per level. The creatures have their normal Hit Dice as skeletons and an additional Hit Die as zombies. Clerics receive a +1 bonus when trying to turn these. This spell assumes that the bodies or bones are available and are reasonably intact (those of skeletons or zombies destroyed in combat won't be!). It requires a drop of blood and a pinch of bone powder or a bone shard to complete the spell. The casting of this spell is not a good act, and only evil wizards use it frequently.

[Grammarsalad]

Okay, time to drop in my small amount of money in this conversation:

There's nothing inherently immoral in making skeletons fight for you. They are mindless undead with no will of their own, and therefore don't affect the ex-resident's soul+consciousness, since they already passed on to the respective plane/wall of faithless. Creating skeletons is, therefore, nothing more than utilizing the nearest, limited resources, and only as immoral as throwing a snowball.

The morality of the issue is tricky. 'Real life' moral philosophers would be divided on the issue. If you're a consequentialist, then what makes a given action right or wrong are the consequences that arise from those actions. What constitutes good or bad consequences is something consequentialists are divided about, but according to standard utilitarianism, roughly, pain = bad, pleasure = good with some thinking that there are 'higher' forms of pleasure (eg reading a good book is 'higher' than heroin use) whereas others think that it's all on a single spectrum (so, drugs are as good as hugs and books if they cause the same amount of pleasure).

 

For a consequentialist, raising a skeleton would not be evil in itself. They would ask, 'what are you going to use it for?' If you're going to use it to slaughter a town, and hurt a lot of people, then they would say that that is wrong. If you are going to use them to defend said town, then they might think that it's good. It all depends.

 

A deontological moral system is generally more stringent. That is, for a deontological moral philosophy, there are things that are just wrong/prohibited, neutral/allowed or required. For example, a given deontologist might say that torture is always prohibited, regardless of the consequences (though a consequentialist might insist that the consequences will never justify torture, so it's not so clear cut.) The statement that raising dead is always evil act implies a deontological stance on the issue. (an odd exception is that specialty priests of Torm--one of the most 'pure' faiths--can command undead without endangering their alignment. I believe that this is normally prohibited for good priests in 2nd edition. Also, they actually have minor access to the necromantic sphere, so it is conceivable that their priests can actually cast the spell, though it is not clear that this is the case)

[subtledoctor]

Animate Dead makes the game fun and playable for me. I won't ever install something that removes them without something equivalent.

 

Fyi, the poorly worded 2e spell is below. It's funny because it mentions Wizards in the last line but not Clerics who get the spell earlier and would cast it more frequently.

 

NB that spell says nothing about big MR-heavy Skeleton Warriors. Yet another ridiculous, munchkiny, out-of-left-field addition by the geniuses at Bioware.

 

Also NB the spell description says that good-aligned casters can't use the spell. I honestly think it's a bit crazy to say that spell (in its current form) "makes the game playable." The game is perfectly and wonderfully playable without that spell. Moreover no one is talking about removing the spell from the game; rather, just having a trade-off where if your character can cast it, you cannot cast Sunray, and vice versa. Just like how if your character can cast Entangle, you cannot Pick Locks. A trade-off. Surely the game is still playable with such trade-offs?

[toxin]

Also NB the spell description says that good-aligned casters can't use the spell

 

Actually the phrasing is: The casting of this spell is not a good act, and only evil wizards use it frequently.

I take it to mean that good casters can cast it, but don't do so frequently.

[Jarno Mikkola]

For a consequentialist... They would ask, 'what are you going to use it for?' If you're going to use it to slaughter a town, and hurt a lot of people, then they would say that that is wrong. If you are going to use them to defend said town, then they might think that it's good. It all depends.

OK, so I'll give you a scennario then... there are raider coming to take the land, your people are guarding and you as their leader are their only hope, is it good if you protect them ? Especially if the raiders also have special troopers with heavy steel armors that they have hired with gold.

And then what if those 'raiders' are actually also 'farmers' and you are a goblin ? And the hired mercs are the 'heroes' party.

 

Yes, the elves are "all evil" and the orcs are just "ugly good people", they are humble, they are strong and ... ever though of it that way ?

Even in the lord of the rings, what if Gandalf was evil, he killed a mighty guardian of the underpass, underpass that allowed the enemy to slip in unnoticed multiple rogues by the knights of the god, a god that the orcs had raised by doing all they could to make invinsible, as a god should be.

Later, yes, the orcs attacked to defend their only mage ally, Saruman, but it was invane as the evil Gandalf had made a plot to destroy his seat of power by sending yet another 2 rogues to lure the giant monster trees to attack the mages fortress. A forthress that had already been desided to not to be attacked, by the monster trees.

The orcs made futher plans to defend against the evil allies, and Saurons power had secured a stability in one of the towns in the lands beyond the mountains, and a leader amongs the people of the town. But Gandalf rose a rebelion and hell in the town until his minions could go to war as the hell riders from Rohan. There was also a traturous army of the undead that Gandalfs ally subserved by promising redemption without giving any sign of such action after the fight.

The orc forces weren't enough, to both defend the gates of final fortress and the mountains inner core as the rogues did what Gandalf had planed and the evil elves won the day at the end, buy dethroning the only good lord of the land(according to the orcs at least).

[Nilfalasiel]

 

Jarno Oghma is True Neutral in my world.

And can a Lawful Good cleric worship Oghma ? And thus, can a Lawful Good cleric summon undead from his deity ? Shouldn't be a problem.

 

 

I don't think I see the logic here...If a deity is Neutral, then, by definition, they are more tolerant of both Good and Evil. It doesn't follow from the fact that Oghma can accept both Good and Evil worshippers, that Lawful Good worshippers of ANY deity should be ok to summon skeletons, especially if Clerical spells are received from the deity. As has already been said, I just don't see Lathander giving Animate Dead to his worshippers.

[Jarno Mikkola]

... I just don't see Lathander giving Animate Dead to his worshippers.

Well, the Lathander'rite is what ? A cleric kit, or in other words a priest kit of the said god. So that feature can be set in the Kit Reversion mod, as a kit feature, not as a general rule of thum in the Spell Revision mod. And it should be there, only. Or yet in other words, the Lawful Good cleric is NOT a Lathander worhipper by default, just a cleric of a god they can themselves choose. And yes, they can do missions for Latherder worshippers, when they see it fit for their alignment, which is where the working for the temples in BG2 comes from, and the strongholds etc.