Animate dead, create undead

[Fume]

Just a theoretical question on summoning undead.
The spell names imply 'creation' of undead which i think is much worse then 'summoning' an undead that already exists to help you out in a bind.
Sorry if this seems obvious but any clarification on this?
Reason coz when the inevitable ethics conversation happens before a pvp over undeads, i think it matters lol.
Any thoughts?

[Rubricae]

animate dead is the literally animation of a corpse and puppeteering it

it is the same as creating undead

[Fume]

lol. And thats what I thought for years untill I read the description.

Summon is not create.
So its a typo as either the title or description is wrong from what I can see

Spell level: cleric 3; sorcerer/wizard 5

Innate level: 3
School: necromancy
Descriptor: evil
Components: verbal, somatic
Range: short (8 meters)
Area of effect: point
Duration: 24 hours
Save: none
Spell resistance: no
Additional counterspells: sunbeam

Description: Animate dead summons forth an undead minion. The type of undead summoned is dependent upon the caster level.

[chris a gogo]

As evil things go creation is the bad one animating is just using a corpse as a puppet.
Distasteful sure but not objectively evil, where as creating undead is evil as it makes undead monsters rather than just some walking bones that fall apart when the magic fades, which if you think about it makes PM's less evil than normal necromancers/priests as they don't create they summon all there undead when using abilities.

Where this falls apart is in how the summoning streams now work and animate dead works the same way as the creation spells so there is no longer a distinction between the spells mechanic's wise.

[CNS]

I might be misremembering here but I always operated under the following assumption.

You're animating corpses, these corpses may have been prepared earlier off screen, but when you're using that spell that's what you are doing. It's acceptable to assume you did all the finding and preparing of corpses beforehand and simply store them somewhere for rapid deployment via your spell when you need them.

Also animation of undead, it's not like puppeting bones, they don't collapse when you're done, they go wild and revert to their 'unnatural' state when your magic fades. Seeking out life to snuff out and leaking negative energy everywhere that causes more undead to rise.

[CNS]

Also in DND lore and the aspects arelith subscribes to, all use and creation of undead is evil. Your characters can argue whatever they want but the truth of the world is it's evil. No ends justify the means, no loopholes. It is what it is.

The one noted exception in lore is coming across a den of undead and controlling those undead (via turn undead or a control undead spell) to use them to help destroy the rest of the undead and then once the place is clearz destroying those you controlled. This is an acceptable use of undead even for good characters or paladins (iirc the lore notes it's a common tactic for agents of Torm). But you'll note there no new undead are created, and the controlled undead are only used to destroy other undead in the crypt or barrow and then immediately destroyed.

[chris a gogo]

After reading the FR wiki it says I was wrong and animate dead in D&D it makes skeletons/zombies and they stayed permanently under the control of the caster wasn't until 5th edition they became uncontrolled.

But NWN makes a distinction between animate dead and create undead.
Not a typo but i clear description of what is done

Animate dead summons an undead.
Create brings one into being.
We are playing NWN after all.

[Irongron]

I'll always be a bit perplexed by how much hand wringing there is over the morality of summoning undead, in a game where people wade up to their armpits in the blood of ten thousand victims. Sure, I get the 'but they attacked first!' defence, but then it would be a lie to pretend that the adventurers aren't looking for it; rolling up to their village, heavily armed, and wearing the trophies of their past victims.

Alignment-wise I've always felt that good people can do evil things, and vice versa, and personally (and I mean PERSONALLY, I'm not speaking for DMs, server policy, or heralding in a new undead age) felt that literally committing aggravated murder in response to someone using undead a little strong, outside of fundamental Kelemvorites.

I also personally would react differently in character depending on the stream - summoning zombies, with blood pouring from their gaping mouth and a dragging their feet in an pursuit of brain-based nourishment? Not going to be so fond of the person animating THAT. Ghosts? Heck, that's almost spiritual, and more edgy than disgusting.

Jergalites might well summon undead under the insistence that summoning the church was always their fate - after all, everything is already written. Another non-evil summoner might want to insist that tortured soul inhabiting that skeleton is well deserving of the fate, and better being put to productive use than in the hands of the enemy.

At the end of the day, how we justify our characters' actions are a core part of their role-play, and when we reduce the game to a series of moral absolutes there really isn't much room for role-play at all.

Though I do agree - summoning undead is an evil deed. So might be felling an ancient yew to make a killing tool out of it.

[The GrumpyCat]

For the purposes of alignment and morality, in my experence the DM team don't really differentiate between Summon and Create undead.

The use of undead is always... lets say 'morally dodgy'. We might look at the circumstances around it, but not the difference between those spells neccesarly.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=41870&p=320081#p320081

[Rubricae]

Alignment-wise I've always felt that good people can do evil things, and vice versa, and personally (and I mean PERSONALLY, I'm not speaking for DMs, server policy, or heralding in a new undead age) felt that literally committing aggravated murder in response to someone using undead a little strong, outside of fundamental Kelemvorites.

I also personally would react differently in character depending on the stream - summoning zombies, with blood pouring from their gaping mouth and a dragging their feet in an pursuit of brain-based nourishment? Not going to be so fond of the person animating THAT. Ghosts? Heck, that's almost spiritual, and more edgy than disgusting.

Jergalites might well summon undead under the insistence that summoning the church was always their fate - after all, everything is already written. Another non-evil summoner might want to insist that tortured soul inhabiting that skeleton is well deserving of the fate, and better being put to productive use than in the hands of the enemy.

Actually to springboard off of your post, there's a specific sect that sanctions the use of certain undead. It's something I kind of wish was seen a bit more, though given the current climate as you've mentioned previously - it's currently next to impossible. Perhaps something can come from the Scrivener's Keep about it, but who knows.

In terms of ghosts / wraiths, there's arguments to be made regarding their use. I've personally seen it done with Beast Revenant that the summoner(in this instance, a shaman) was moreso wrangling the spirits so they wouldn't run amok. I personally like this interpretation, but again it's difficult to do because of how hyper-aggressive the playerbase is.

Then there's the matter of mummies, which are come to find out the most sentient and rational of the undead types. To the point where they're the only undead type that I know of whose alignment can actually change, going so far as to be the likeliest among all undead to follow the path of good. They're intended to guard tombs and places of burial, which is hardly an evil task.
Isn't that wizard?!

The nuanced use of undead is truly fascinating within the world of DnD itself, Libris Mortis was actually the second ever 3e book I read(Regards to Mike, who put up with my drunken ramblings about Myrkul and his undead horsemen for longer than I ever expected). I wish it was better explored in Arelith beyond that of ''''neutral''' Palemasters. That isn't to say there aren't outliers at all. The coolest undead related characters I've seen have had to have been Companions of the Pallid Mask clerics, as well as a couple of particular Dirgesingers.

Shout-out to a certain group of cursed death-touched characters, you know who you are.

I remember when Eira mentioned an interesting concept of undead adjacent clerics using Control Undead as a means of combatting other undead, instead of merely creating them themselves. I like that, and I'd hope to see it more someday.

Anyway undead are cool but definitely probably evil. Animate them, summon them, call them at the wee hours of the morning - they're evil by default.

[perseid]

lol. And thats what I thought for years untill I read the description.

Summon is not create.
So its a typo as either the title or description is wrong from what I can see

Spell level: cleric 3; sorcerer/wizard 5

Innate level: 3
School: necromancy
Descriptor: evil
Components: verbal, somatic
Range: short (8 meters)
Area of effect: point
Duration: 24 hours
Save: none
Spell resistance: no
Additional counterspells: sunbeam

Description: Animate dead summons forth an undead minion. The type of undead summoned is dependent upon the caster level.

This seems like a case of nwn terminology vs roleplay terminology. In nwn there isn't a distinction between summoning and animating so you can use the same term for both in the base game. In the rpg and setting though Animate Dead is animating a pile of bones or a corpse of sufficient size.