"It’s not, its for clerics and other divine casters

"It’s not, its for clerics and other divine casters.
The problem with necromancy, even sanitized regulated necromancy like this, all very reasonable sounding, is that in DnD arcana, all necromancy is powered by negative plane material magic. The stuff is toxic to all living things is essentially death made radioactive and literally evil, and everytime someone uses necromancy, it bleeds into the natural world. Excessive use not only makes the dead walk, but causes massive negative consequences. Children are stillborn, crops die well before they sprout, evil itself gets palpably stronger as everything else withers.
Paladins don’t have much tolerance for necromancy because for flavor, ok? It’s very much a significant danger even when used with the most benign intentions. I’ve explained this many times.
So, you can write your good alignment necromancers all you want, rewrite the setting so they’re not powered by evil distilled into a palpable toxin on the world. But this is how it works in the DND setting, and that’s why paladins are not fans of it, even going beyond the desecration of the dead and enslavement of souls necromancers like to get into, and that’s where I base my thoughts on the subject. So everytime someone comes in with “but I have a good necromancer” it just makes me want to roll my eyes out of my skull at how a paldin blog has to repeatedly explain why necromancy is bad beyond the obvious reasons."

Coming from a tumblr blog based around paladins. How accurate is his description of how necromancy works, in any Dnd setting? I'm relatively new and have only played 5e, and I'm not entirely sure how that statement works even in what little I know about magic from 5e's poster setting, it just got me thinking since I'd never heard that before.

Pic unrelated, no high elf paladin gf to smite me at night

It's entirely based on setting

We have this thread every week. When it gets really bad, we have this thread multiple times a day.

Yes, good necromancers are absolute cancer. People who play necromancers are either edgelords, or contrarians. But in two minutes, necrophilia defense force will arrive and start screaming "But in MY setting" and "But what about Diablo", and so on and so on.

There was even this fag who sincerely thought that in a setting where necromancy DOESN'T corrupt everything, but does have a bad reputation, is to become the most powerful necromancer ever, take over the world and kill all the clerics, and paladins, and then gods, who resist his rule.
He didn't understand what's wrong with this train of thought. That's an extreme case, but it's still a good example of how they think.

You do realize that negative energy is also just death itself right? Everytime anything dies anywhere it releases negative energy. Is the act of dying a evil act? How ever at this point the VAST majority of Necromancy spells in DnD are not just harvesting residual already present negative energy to do things like make things tired, preserving organs, or "see" how much life something has left in it, but rather to drain and snuff out the light and life by pushing its opposite on to it until it fades.

That IS evil and almost certainly results in a harm done even if no souls are enslaved. However that doesn't matter. What matters is that I HAVE THE POWER NOW DAD AND YOU CAN STOP ME. FUCK YOU I'M A GOD NOW. TASTE MY BLACK LIGHTNING YOU FUCKER.

I honestly didn't know any of that, but its good to know now I suppose. Understandable that most necros must be edgelords, I suppose.

Didn't know this type of thread was that common, sorry. I don't usually get on Veeky Forums unless I have some sort of question for the most part

>DnD

Found your problem. Obligatory:

HAVE
YOU
TRIED
NOT
PLAYING
DND
?

Technically, other settings also hold to this. For instance, in World of Darkness and Exalted, Necromancy is really bad shit. This is because it channels - on a certain level - the power of Oblivion, which is the power of universal entropy. This has terrible effects on Wraiths and mortal magicians, gradually corrupting them.

Interestingly, in the canonical ending to Mage: The Ascension, the ultimate villain (Voormas, Grand Harvester of Souls) is trying to preserve the world by locking it in eternal stasis. The PCs, opposing him, are actively trying to destroy the world.

>He didn't understand what's wrong with this train of thought

That's because nothing is wrong with it though user.

Don't bother replying to him with logic or sense. He's just here to shitpost about DnD being bad.

A major problem is that Necromancy doesn't, in fact, do that. Necromancy disrupts the natural order of things, because you're channeling power that is concentrated anti-life. You're basically drawing Negative Plane energy for Necromancy spells, polluting the world a little more.

And you're just here to blindly defend it. Don't the DnDrones have their own containment thread? Let us talk about other games on the rest of the board, thanks.

The fact that your niche system thread gets bumped off the catalog is not the fault of DnD, it's the fault of your system being unpopular and probably bad. Be angry at your system, little man, not mine.

It's the fault of community of your game turning literally every other topic on the board into shitposting because someone offended your system and you can't just stay in your containment topic and let anyone else have nice things. You're literally worse than the Pathfinder fanboys were, holy shit.

I feed on your tears.

You and every other DnDrone shitposter, congratulations on representing your community and making the board a better place.

And thank you for sustaining me with your powerless rage.

It depends on the setting. In most published DnD settings, it's literally evil, except when clerics do it because arbitrary reasons. DnD has never good Lore settings. You're better off making your own if you want sensible and consistent lore.

It's less the fault of DnD and more the fault of endless "stat me" topics, anime shitposting, and quests in disguise (sorry, CYOAs). But this getting really close to board meta-bitching now. Let people talk about other games if they want.

Np he called his system specifically bad because he was pissy his system is bumped off the board. He blamed D&D for its lack of attention instead of the idea it was unpopular for legitimate reasons like shitty rules.

Pretty sure he didn't state a reason at all, only that OP should try playing other games.

Even as someone who LIKES DnD, it's beneficial to try other stuff every once in awhile, help give a fresh perspective on things.

There ARE spells in necromancy that do just use the residual energy to do minor stuff and spells which use negative energy to turn itself on its head (the disrupt undead, halt undead, and undeath to death spells are all necromancy) as well as spells such as raise dead (the normal good way) as well as spells that draw negative energy from the wounded into yourself healing them, but wounding you (Healing touch in Faerun). Those are all necromancy but I doubt the strictest of paladins would even know. They are also vastly out matched by the spells you correctly identify as disrupting the natural order and polluting the world more with negative energy. Though I will contend that things dying is as much a part of the natural order as things being born.

Since no one else did, I'm going to explain a bit about Dungeons & Dragons metaphysics, at least how they worked in previous editions.

You know how there are some fantasy settings where it's said that just about everything is made of "elements", like Earth, Air, Fire, and Water? D&D has those, and they each come from an Elemental Plane, which is a sort of parallel reality composed entirely of that element. In addition, however, D&D has the Positive Energy and Negative Energy planes. Positive Energy is basically life energy, and it's present in every living thing; negative energy is antithetical to it, but it's what grants life to the undead. A cleric's Cure Wounds spells channel positive energy, which is how they heal the living and harm the undead, and the Turn Undead power also works similarly.

This is why mindless undead like skeletons and zombies are treated as inherently evil. They're powered by negative energy, which pollutes the world around them, and also grants them an instinctive malevolence to the living which could drive them to kill if they aren't controlled. Spells to create undead slaves are considered evil for the same reason.

However, that doesn't mean all spells in the "Necromancy" school are evil. There are a whole lot of them with many different effects which don't include creating, summoning, or controlling the undead, and many of these other spells lack the "Evil" descriptor that Animate Dead and its variants have. Even healing magic was considered a type of necromancy in some editions, though others listed it as "Conjuration (Healing)" while the very similar Inflict Wounds spells remained Necromancy.

Incidentally, the elemental and energy planes are collectively known as the Inner Planes, representing the physical substances that make up D&D's Prime Material Plane. This is in contrast to the Outer Planes, which represent philosophical concepts like character alignments and serve as the setting's various heavens and hells.

OP here. How did my question on whether or not a guy was right about necromancy devolve into a system war?
Thank you, that's very helpful

>.004 shekels have been deposited in your paizo account

>he thinks Pathfinder isn't d&d

I legit have a paladin wood elf gf PC
Don't worry op, it'll happen