D&D 5e: Nobody Talks about D&D - Games

[QUOTE=Chronische;49886329]You can't misunderstand that all undead that a necromancer can make with the spells available are evil. They just are. And if you aren't making undead, might as well be any other kind of wizard![/QUOTE] Hey evil does not have to be edgy...

[QUOTE=DiscoInferno;49884728]its a custom half bahamut's and half tiamat's futa-dong, it shoots raspberry jam[/QUOTE] no jamming my butt please

[QUOTE=thisguy123;49886454]Hey evil does not have to be edgy...[/QUOTE] just look at clowns and mimes

[QUOTE=elowin;49888919]no jamming my butt please[/QUOTE] imma jam ur butt

[QUOTE=Hey I'm Grump;49889318]just look at clowns and mimes[/QUOTE] A decent clown is funny, a Good clown is Hilarious, a great clown is FEAR INCARNATE.

[QUOTE=Chronische;49886024]Necromancy is inherently evil in 5e, since all undead are evil. It's dangerous, at the very least, since having undead leave your control means you have just unleashed evil onto the world. That, and nobody likes seeing/smelling rotting corpses wander around town. Necromancers, more than any other kind of wizard, are the type that live way away from normal civilization if they aren't just going to be evil jerks and hole up in a cemetary somewhere. While it's a fun class, it IS looked on as evil and edgy for a reason, same as a demon summoner would be. You are inherently bringing evil into existance to serve you, and it can slip the leash if you are careless.[/QUOTE] I feel like in that regard the best way to play a longstanding Necromancer character would be to go with the charismatic sociopath route. Act as if you were a noble and kind individual. Dress well, speak politely, and always show empathy. Use this facade to manipulate and distract people from ever seeing your insidious hobby, perhaps even twisting the dark arts for some act of kindness to reinforce your intent. Gain the trust of your party. Laugh and smile on cue. Play the part of the puppet until the strings are entwined tightly in [I]your[/I] fingers. You never have to act edgy and violent, just a little too kind for a guy who plays with dead things.

[quote=Chronische]Necromancy is inherently evil in 5e, since all undead are evil. It's dangerous, at the very least, since having undead leave your control means you have just unleashed evil onto the world. That, and nobody likes seeing/smelling rotting corpses wander around town. Necromancers, more than any other kind of wizard, are the type that live way away from normal civilization if they aren't just going to be evil jerks and hole up in a cemetary somewhere. While it's a fun class, it IS looked on as evil and edgy for a reason, same as a demon summoner would be. You are inherently bringing evil into existance to serve you, and it can slip the leash if you are careless.[/quote] Problem stems from that the powers of evil/good are cosmological forces in default 5e settings. Not just moral/ethical standpoints of characters. You can play a necromancer with good intentions, obviously. You can play them without being mustache-twirlingly evil, who'd backstab other party-members on impulse. That's the problem with alignment, personally. It tries to sort of marry elements of fantasy adventures with morals and ethics, but falls flat when they get deeper or grayer. Then it's best to just handwave it. At least how it is represented in those editions. For example, in LotFP it only deals with how they deal with sorta eldritch forces ( clerics, always lawful, magic users, always chaotic, everyone else is either or neutral ). And demon summoning is not evil, you can perhaps play it like King Solomon? [sp]Or like it's portrayed in LotFP, careless puncturing of reality, which can result in apocalypse.[/sp] Lot boils into setting-specifics, though.

My Necromancer is chaotic neutral, and is pursuing the magic out of a fear and curiosity of death. To him, it is extremely volatile and dangerous magic and must be understood. He stands as Chaotic Neutral, though he's aligned mostly with the forces of good. The main difference being, he's the character in the group that will full-out kill mooks that he perceives as evil (though, they really are) and often in a messy fashion. He's a nobleman who was exiled precisely for exploring necromancy, and recognizes that most people see it as evil. His skills as a scion of high society and a natural charm mean that his chosen area of study goes largely unnoticed. Additionally, he's kind, generous, and loyal to those he considers friends. It's just that to his enemies he's a horrible monster, and knows very well that he will be seen that way. I drew heavily from the canon of Diablo necromancers, who were said to be most concerned with maintaining the balance between the forces of light and darkness, and would employ both in the service of the greater order.

I would like to toy around with a decently written evil character if I could find a Pathfinder game to play in.

[QUOTE=Sasupoika;49889662]Problem stems from that the powers of evil/good are cosmological forces in default 5e settings. Not just moral/ethical standpoints of characters. You can play a necromancer with good intentions, obviously. You can play them without being mustache-twirlingly evil, who'd backstab other party-members on impulse. That's the problem with alignment, personally. It tries to sort of marry elements of fantasy adventures with morals and ethics, but falls flat when they get deeper or grayer. Then it's best to just handwave it. At least how it is represented in those editions. For example, in LotFP it only deals with how they deal with sorta eldritch forces ( clerics, always lawful, magic users, always chaotic, everyone else is either or neutral ). And demon summoning is not evil, you can perhaps play it like King Solomon? [sp]Or like it's portrayed in LotFP, careless puncturing of reality, which can result in apocalypse.[/sp] Lot boils into setting-specifics, though.[/QUOTE] Anything involving the forces of evil, like undead or demons, is inherently an evil act in D&D. GMs can always handwave it or change it, but it is still creepy and gross even if it's not innately evil. Best way to be a necromancer is to be a SECRET necromancer. Keeping your stable of undead hidden away, doing other tasks for your GREATER plans while you run about being an 'adventurer'. Perhaps building your true lair! In general, though, dealing with evil shit like that is considered edgy for a reason, 'I DEAL WITH THE DARKNESS TO WIELD IT AS A TOOL FOR GOOD' is really shitty reasoning. Necromancy or demon summoning aren't things you pick up casually. A fear of death, a lust for power, ambitions of conquest are generally why you'd use such things, and while not INHERENTLY evil are absolutely selfish. Perhaps you use them as a way to revive a fallen loved one, one that divine powers couldn't restore. Overall, though, it's either a study you get into out of desperation or selfishness.

Demon summoning should be played like Bayonetta, of course.

[QUOTE=Jrose14;49889773]I would like to toy around with a decently written evil character if I could find a Pathfinder game to play in.[/QUOTE] Roll20's got oodles of them.

[QUOTE=Chronische;49889802]Anything involving the forces of evil, like undead or demons, is inherently an evil act in D&D. GMs can always handwave it or change it, but it is still creepy and gross even if it's not innately evil. Best way to be a necromancer is to be a SECRET necromancer. Keeping your stable of undead hidden away, doing other tasks for your GREATER plans while you run about being an 'adventurer'. Perhaps building your true lair! In general, though, dealing with evil shit like that is considered edgy for a reason, 'I DEAL WITH THE DARKNESS TO WIELD IT AS A TOOL FOR GOOD' is really shitty reasoning. Necromancy or demon summoning aren't things you pick up casually. A fear of death, a lust for power, ambitions of conquest are generally why you'd use such things, and while not INHERENTLY evil are absolutely selfish. Perhaps you use them as a way to revive a fallen loved one, one that divine powers couldn't restore. Overall, though, it's either a study you get into out of desperation or selfishness.[/QUOTE] What about Warlocks, though? They use darkness as a tool more literally than Necromancers, and I'm pretty sure they're allowed to be LG. [editline]7th March 2016[/editline] I'm still honestly a fan of the way CofD does demons. There's several varieties of them, all from their own respective places. Some are [I]from[/I] a 'hell', others want to [I]get to[/I] a 'hell'. Same goes for angels, and heavens, though, to be fair.

[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;49890098]Roll20's got oodles of them.[/QUOTE] I can never interpretate the L4G thingy on there.

[QUOTE=Rats808;49890363]What about Warlocks, though? They use darkness as a tool more literally than Necromancers, and I'm pretty sure they're allowed to be LG. [editline]7th March 2016[/editline] I'm still honestly a fan of the way CofD does demons. There's several varieties of them, all from their own respective places. Some are [I]from[/I] a 'hell', others want to [I]get to[/I] a 'hell'. Same goes for angels, and heavens, though, to be fair.[/QUOTE] Depends. Fae pact warlocks, maybe not, but infernal pact you literally made a deal with the devil, with all that entails. Or a demon, or yugoloth, but the point stands. Other pacts have other stories, like the weirdness of an undead pact, or madness of seriously trying to make a deal with Cthuhlu... or a light 'pact' warlock. Infernal pact is straight up a deal with evil though, and being LG while literally having made a deal with evil is.. odd. There are no alignment restrictions in 5e anyways, so up to your interpretation, but like I said: desperation or lust for power. That's why you'd be one of those 'dark' paths, you don't just decide one day to make a deal with the devil just for fun.

GM has the final say. You can always rework the nature of Necromancy as such.

pft necromancy isn't that edgy what's more rad than having an undead butler or servants in a sick lair, while living forever lavishly nothing

[QUOTE=Sasupoika;49889662]Problem stems from that the powers of evil/good are cosmological forces in default 5e settings. Not just moral/ethical standpoints of characters. You can play a necromancer with good intentions, obviously. You can play them without being mustache-twirlingly evil, who'd backstab other party-members on impulse. That's the problem with alignment, personally. It tries to sort of marry elements of fantasy adventures with morals and ethics, but falls flat when they get deeper or grayer. Then it's best to just handwave it. At least how it is represented in those editions. For example, in LotFP it only deals with how they deal with sorta eldritch forces ( clerics, always lawful, magic users, always chaotic, everyone else is either or neutral ). And demon summoning is not evil, you can perhaps play it like King Solomon? [sp]Or like it's portrayed in LotFP, careless puncturing of reality, which can result in apocalypse.[/sp] Lot boils into setting-specifics, though.[/QUOTE] The thing about Necromancy as presented in D&D is that you're not really creating an entirely mindless automaton. You're stealing someone's soul and sticking it in a dead body, creating a semi-alive abomination which may or may not "live" in eternal pain (or at least eternal until some adventurer comes by to beat it up), and then binding this "creature" to your will. That's why, unlike something like Summon Monster or Animate Objects, Animate Dead is permanent, the skelemans don't just disappear or fall apart eventually. And it's why you can lose control of them. I'd say it's pretty evil no matter how you look at it.

It would be nice if roll20 had some kind of "campaign clock" thing that was basically a GM-controlled clock internal to the game, and you could make stats and such refer to it. It would make tracking time-based rule stuff a lot easier.

[QUOTE=elowin;49890810]The thing about Necromancy as presented in D&D is that you're not really creating an entirely mindless automaton. You're stealing someone's soul and sticking it in a dead body, creating a semi-alive abomination which may or may not "live" in eternal pain (or at least eternal until some adventurer comes by to beat it up), and then binding this "creature" to your will. That's why, unlike something like Summon Monster or Animate Objects, Animate Dead is permanent, the skelemans don't just disappear or fall apart eventually. And it's why you can lose control of them. I'd say it's pretty evil no matter how you look at it.[/QUOTE] For the longest time I thought the soul-trapping aspect was only for intelligent undead, but I took a closer look at raise dead and such and it's for any currently-undead creatures. Huh. I wonder where Awaken Undead falls on that morality scale.

thinking of creating a one-shot set in a victorian-england style city in D&D5e what do people recommend as your go-to tabletop simulator? i think everyone uses roll20 but i have never used anything like this really

[QUOTE=Chronische;49889802]Anything involving the forces of evil, like undead or demons, is inherently an evil act in D&D. GMs can always handwave it or change it, but it is still creepy and gross even if it's not innately evil. Best way to be a necromancer is to be a SECRET necromancer. Keeping your stable of undead hidden away, doing other tasks for your GREATER plans while you run about being an 'adventurer'. Perhaps building your true lair! In general, though, dealing with evil shit like that is considered edgy for a reason, 'I DEAL WITH THE DARKNESS TO WIELD IT AS A TOOL FOR GOOD' is really shitty reasoning. Necromancy or demon summoning aren't things you pick up casually. A fear of death, a lust for power, ambitions of conquest are generally why you'd use such things, and while not INHERENTLY evil are absolutely selfish. Perhaps you use them as a way to revive a fallen loved one, one that divine powers couldn't restore. Overall, though, it's either a study you get into out of desperation or selfishness.[/QUOTE] Actually the Malconvoker from D&D 3.5 allowed you to summon Demons without taking a trip to the deep end of the alignment pool.

[QUOTE=DiscoInferno;49889337]imma jam ur butt[/QUOTE] i can accept dragon dildos but jam? that's where i draw a line in the sand, dude no jam in my butte

[QUOTE=elowin;49891932]i can accept dragon dildos[/QUOTE] Your butthole can't.

[QUOTE=ASIC;49892260]Your butthole can't.[/QUOTE] dont tell me what my butt can and cant accept you buttogynist pig

[QUOTE=elowin;49890810]The thing about Necromancy as presented in D&D is that you're not really creating an entirely mindless automaton. You're stealing someone's soul and sticking it in a dead body, creating a semi-alive abomination which may or may not "live" in eternal pain (or at least eternal until some adventurer comes by to beat it up), and then binding this "creature" to your will. That's why, unlike something like Summon Monster or Animate Objects, Animate Dead is permanent, the skelemans don't just disappear or fall apart eventually. And it's why you can lose control of them. I'd say it's pretty evil no matter how you look at it.[/QUOTE] depends, in pathfinder which is dnd 3.75 animate dead is quite literally powered by death(negative energy), rather than any souls, unless they're created with the "create undead" spell

[QUOTE=thisguy123;49886454]Hey evil does not have to be edgy...[/QUOTE] I played a Lawful Evil sorcerer once. He was like Disney villain tier of evil. Had the most ducking petty motivation and was nothing more than a smarmy asshole to everyone he met. No edgy "fighting the darkness inside me a bloo bloo bloo," more "The Emperor banished ME? Of all people. I'll kill him for that!"

[QUOTE=Fire Kracker;49893955]depends, in pathfinder which is dnd 3.75 animate dead is quite literally powered by death(negative energy), rather than any souls, unless they're created with the "create undead" spell[/QUOTE] Ehh. It doesn't explicitly say that it does, but I'd say it's pretty clear it is the case, for a number of reasons. Already kind of went through them in my original post but I'll go into some more detail. For one, using negative energy isn't considered inherently evil, just as using positive energy isn't inherently good, thus why cure and inflict spells aren't inherently good or evil spells respectively. And, unlike most every other spell that animates an object, or summons/creates a servant to help you, it's permanent. Every similar spell is temporary, even ones much higher level, so that extra power must come from somewhere. A soul is the most logical answer, in my opinion. And of course, the big one is that undead aren't quite mindless. You can lose control of them, and if you do they will rampage wildly because they are inherently inimical to all living things. If they were simply powered by magical energies, this wouldn't be the case, because it would have to be something the original inventor of the spell intentionally introduced to it, and no magician in their right mind would intentionally introduce a risk of their minions breaking free of their control.

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;49891366]thinking of creating a one-shot set in a victorian-england style city in D&D5e what do people recommend as your go-to tabletop simulator? i think everyone uses roll20 but i have never used anything like this really[/QUOTE] Well, roll20 is pretty nifty. It has its downsides, of course, but generally I think it's great. There's also the game "Tabletop Simulator" but you have to buy that, I think. There's also an older program whose name escapes me but seems to be more fondly remembered by my more veteran RPG friends, something with "dungeon" in the name.

Honestly if I ever play a Chaotic Evil character, I'll just base them off Wolf Pupy's twitter account [editline]9th March 2016[/editline] [t]http://38.media.tumblr.com/81a83930c4d7c05a1ea6281bf57982ab/tumblr_n74avfVh8S1qm7aevo1_1280.png[/t] [t]http://38.media.tumblr.com/9da7a67916b709da2f810ceae1146615/tumblr_n74avfVh8S1qm7aevo5_1280.png[/t] [t]http://i.imgur.com/hSw52sj.png[/t]