So I have a budding necromancer in my group?

[otakulrd86]

Where can I find more undead stats? I own the dark conversion book and vamp. kingdoms, is that all I need, or should I be looking elsewhere?

[Nekira Sudacne]

Where can I find more undead stats? I own the dark conversion book and vamp. kingdoms, is that all I need, or should I be looking elsewhere?

There arn't really a ton of undead in Palladium in general. Necromancers basically work with Zombies and greater zombies and can deal with vampires. Mystic Russia has the necromancer OCC.

Psyscape has the soul harvester necro variant who can steal souls to increase their power (and get spells from spellcasters who's souls they take), but they make a deal with an alien intelligence to get that power.

[ShadowLogan]

Depends on what you are looking for. Necromancy is covered more in Rifts Africa and Mystic Russia (compiled also in the Book of Magic).

Additional Undead examples can be also be found in
-South America 1 & 2
-Rifts Psycape (Nxla, and its either Psycape or FoM might have another one)
-IINM Juicer Uprising has an undead Juicer
-Lumeria (I've heard)
-Land of the Damned Two from Palladium Fantasy line as numerous undead (not to mention Dead Reign line). LoD2 might be covered by Dark Conversions, but I doubt Dead Reign is. This will require some conversion from SDC to MDC universes.
-there might be a few more undead in more books, but I can't think of any off hand.

[eliakon]

If your willing to work with the need to tweek some conversions.....Dead Reign has a ton of 'zombies' that could work.
Especially if you remove some of the abilities (the Dead Reign head shot rules, change the sensing rules) The base book even has some conversion notes to port them over.

Yeah a lot of people dislike the Dead Reign zombies.....but the books have a wide range of them and variations on them.....

[taalismn]

Guy must be fun when the party's travelling in town.
"Let me go shopping for a while. I just need to pick up a few things."
"Damnit, Mort, how many times have you been warned? STAY AWAY FROM THE MORGUE!"

[Tor]

Hatred of necros and the 'max unprincipled' bit always bothered me, always seemed like they had so many good-for-humans uses. Revised VampKingdoms (what no Queendoms?) being a good example, fleshing out Planktal's anti-vamp measures with his zombies (although IMO I would have kept his LLW levels and just had him dual-class as a necro, like how Dunscon is LLW/shifter).

Think of the high risk of fatalities in many jobs like mining or construction. Now sure... you'll still need smart guys to do the thinking and all that, but you could use zombies in the more dangerous positions for basic stuff (carrying supplies, maybe putting a pillar under an unstable cave roof). Plus you could have intelligent zombies if you had necromancers use that spell that lets them put their mind into an undead body. Makes me wonder if you could invent a TW device to let your average joe pilot a zombie as well.

[Blue_Lion]

Hatred of necros and the 'max unprincipled' bit always bothered me, always seemed like they had so many good-for-humans uses. Revised VampKingdoms (what no Queendoms?) being a good example, fleshing out Planktal's anti-vamp measures with his zombies (although IMO I would have kept his LLW levels and just had him dual-class as a necro, like how Dunscon is LLW/shifter).

Think of the high risk of fatalities in many jobs like mining or construction. Now sure... you'll still need smart guys to do the thinking and all that, but you could use zombies in the more dangerous positions for basic stuff (carrying supplies, maybe putting a pillar under an unstable cave roof). Plus you could have intelligent zombies if you had necromancers use that spell that lets them put their mind into an undead body. Makes me wonder if you could invent a TW device to let your average joe pilot a zombie as well.

It is because the act of raising and using undead is normally seen as an evil act. You are basically talking about enslaving people after they die to do grunt work for you. That is why they put a limit on the aliment.

Just because something is use full does not mean it can not be evil. Being use full does not equal good. you can be use full to a vampire by innocents for him to snack on and then hiding the dead bodies, but that is clearly evil.

[taalismn]

It's also disrespectful of the dead; nobody wants to come into town after getting word of the death of a relative, only to find that their corpse has been re-animated to work off an old debt, to make somebody else a profit, or just because the grave's been desecrated. Uncle Bobby should be mouldering peacefully, not hijacked and lurching down the street at some mage's command.

And think of traditionalist cultures like in Japan and India, where people whose profession is gravedigging and handling the dead are discriminated against by 'polite' society...Now here comes somebody who actually reanimates the dead and makes them puppets. The soul may have winged to its hereafter, but a lot of folks, regardless of their station, don't want to see the dignity of the funeral mocked and thrown away by having the physical remains dancing to somebody else's tune.

Of course, in wartime, a lot of politeness goes out the door; Poul Anderson's novel Operation Chaos has battlefield casualties recycled into field labor by the Corp of Engineers' necromancers...and if enemy dead are used for assisting your troops to the detriment of their living comrades, all the better. Presumably the last jobs given the reanimated dead is disposal of themselves by digging their own graves or cremation pyres.

[eliakon]

Just going to throw in that this (and virtually any discussion about alignments and/or alignment restricted things in this game) will run into personal preference and personal viewpoints.
If the GM wants to change the default setting to one where animating dead bodies is not an evil act that's cool, the GM can do so. In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried, and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

[Kagashi]

In addition to the above:

-Dino Swamps lists out dinosaur parts a necromancy components concerning Union with the Dead.
-Rifts Conversion Book 1 (revised and unrevised) have the Maxpary Shambler, which is an undead version of the Maxpary.
-Rifter 62 has official information on Vampires of Arzno and additional official necromancy spells.
-Rifter 50 has official info on Mortificants (Nightbane) which are very Nercromatic in nature. Might want to allow those spells for a Necro if you are looking for more variation.
-Rifts Book of Magic not only has the spells from Mystic Russia and Africa in it, but new spells that were not previously in print.
-Although unofficial and optional, Rifter 8 has some Necromancer variants.

[SpiritInterface]

So I have a budding necromancer in my group.

ewww... they have sprays and ointments for that...

[kaid]

Also one thing to note necromancers deal with raising the dead for the most part and not so much the undead. They do have some things that allow them to control things like vampires but their primary focus is the animated dead skeletons/zombies/mummies so the dark conversion book alone is typically fine.

Necromancers are one of those OCC that skirts the line between good and evil pretty hard even avoiding some of the more icky aspects of what they can do. That said the new vampire source book gives some good examples of how you can run them and while they will never be good people can at least be useful productive citizens. Honestly if you are being swamped by a plague of vampires if I knew a necromancer could animate my body to help defend my family/friends if I die I would totally give them my permission to do so. Hell bury me with a stake in one hand and in my armor or whats left of it and point me at them if needed.


The other area I see necromancers being pretty welcome by communities is in places like the dinosaur swamp. They in many ways are the dark side of eco wizards and are capable of making a lot of armor/weapons to equip at least the elite warriors of a tribe and make good use of the materials they have to work with aka dinosaur bones/hide/teeth.

[Blue_Lion]

Just going to throw in that this (and virtually any discussion about alignments and/or alignment restricted things in this game) will run into personal preference and personal viewpoints.
If the GM wants to change the default setting to one where animating dead bodies is not an evil act that's cool, the GM can do so. In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried, and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

we where discussing why by default it is set the way it is. Good and evil are typically set by society as a whole not individuals. Global society as a whole sees it as an evil act, so it is evil. Many a person in prison do not think that their actions where wrong or evil but society deems it is. (Yes a GM does have the right to rule differently but we where stating why it is the way it is.)

In addition all the life saving methods mentioned above can be done without the desecration of the dearly departed. NG sales a labor bot that can be used but instead you are cheeping out and using the dead to make a profit.

Most people in Rifts are likely to have similar values on respect of the dead that we do today. So while a necromancer might justify his actions in a similar manor that Hitler did he will still not be good by the baseline culture standards which is what the aliment system represents.

[Nightmask]

Just going to throw in that this (and virtually any discussion about alignments and/or alignment restricted things in this game) will run into personal preference and personal viewpoints.
If the GM wants to change the default setting to one where animating dead bodies is not an evil act that's cool, the GM can do so. In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried, and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

we where discussing why by default it is set the way it is. Good and evil are typically set by society as a whole not individuals. Global society as a whole sees it as an evil act, so it is evil. Many a person in prison do not think that their actions where wrong or evil but society deems it is. (Yes a GM does have the right to rule differently but we where stating why it is the way it is.)

In addition all the life saving methods mentioned above can be done without the desecration of the dearly departed. NG sales a labor bot that can be used but instead you are cheeping out and using the dead to make a profit.

Most people in Rifts are likely to have similar values on respect of the dead that we do today. So while a necromancer might justify his actions in a similar manor that Hitler did he will still not be good by the baseline culture standards which is what the aliment system represents.

Except our values today include donating your body to science, for such things as medical studies and for medical students to learn from examining real bodies. So it's not like 'I donated my body for zombification to help the community after I die' is that far-fetched in a world where such a thing is possible.

[eliakon]

Just going to throw in that this (and virtually any discussion about alignments and/or alignment restricted things in this game) will run into personal preference and personal viewpoints.
If the GM wants to change the default setting to one where animating dead bodies is not an evil act that's cool, the GM can do so. In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried, and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

we where discussing why by default it is set the way it is. Good and evil are typically set by society as a whole not individuals. Global society as a whole sees it as an evil act, so it is evil.

Except, as I pointed out in my statement that in Palladium it is not set by society. It is a cosmological constant, even if you and everyone in your society thinks its fine its still evil in palladium!

Many a person in prison do not think that their actions where wrong or evil but society deems it is. (Yes a GM does have the right to rule differently but we where stating why it is the way it is.)

Which means that the GM (and only the GM) can redefine good and evil. Because it doesn't matter what society thinks, Good and Evil, in palladium, are unchanging laws of nature.

In addition all the life saving methods mentioned above can be done without the desecration of the dearly departed. NG sales a labor bot that can be used but instead you are cheeping out and using the dead to make a profit.

I was not saying that they should desecrate the dead. I was proposing that they their many OTHER abilities to aid the living. Such as by casting spells that are useful:
-Eyes of the Dead, can find undead infiltrators ludicrously quickly
-Divining Graves & Tombs: Great for finding vampires hidden coffins, its also good for recovery of bodies of people that have died and you don't know where (search and recovery operations) since you can locate their grave...
-Summon the Dead: Another spell that can allow you to get he bodies of the lost so that a proper funeral can be held
-Chicken Bone: one of the rare food spells in the game this spell can easily feed multitudes
-Necklace of Snake Skulls; Necklace of Bat Skulls; Necklace of Bird Skulls; Bone Scepter; Bone Staff; Bone Shovel; These spells all can use animal components to make very useful magical items
-Summon Vampire: can be used to summon vampires into traps, it also can help check if there ARE vampires in range
-Funeral Pyre: Very useful for cremating the dead. Especially useful if you have a plague or other mass casualty event.
-I could go on.....but Necromancers can do all sorts of things with out ever doing anything to the body of a sentient being other than bury it. And if they are not doing things to sentient bodies (and thus their actions are not evil) we must there for conclude that Necromancers are evil, not because their actions make them evil, but because the simple Laws of Nature in the Palladium world say that Necromancers=Evil.

Most people in Rifts are likely to have similar values on respect of the dead that we do today. So while a necromancer might justify his actions in a similar manor that Hitler did he will still not be good by the baseline culture standards which is what the aliment system represents.

Again your making a rather pointless statement that presumes several false premises
1) your presuming that the necromancer must 'do evil stuff to bodies' They don't
2) your making the false parallel between our world (where the nature of good and evil is up for debate) and the game world (where it is not up for debate)
Which means that other than getting us to the Godwnin's Law point of this debate your analogy does nothing.

[Tor]

It is because the act of raising and using undead is normally seen as an evil act.

Normally when? Historically? To people of predominating religions? If we based Rifts metaphysics on historical prejudices then we might as well demote homosexuality back to the 'insanity' category. If we go by modern viewpoints, I don't necessarily think the majority of people ARE against raising the dead, look at the popularity of 'Resurrection' or 'The Returned' for example, or people's love of vampires.

You are basically talking about enslaving people after they die to do grunt work for you. That is why they put a limit on the aliment.

I don't see it that way. In Palladium, it does not appear your mind or life essence remains long in your body after death. So it's only animating the body, not enslaving the territory the mind occupies. Plus you could have a necromancy get consent from a person in life to animate them while death. I could see people agreeing to this to protect a community, especially if additional incentives were offered.

Just because something is use full does not mean it can not be evil.

Necromancy can be used to commit evil, like if you animate a skeleton and tell it to go burn down an orphanage. My argument is just that it's a tool, not inherently evil or good, and that morality depends on circumstances. A knife can be used to slice bread or meat to feed people, instead of going Psycho in the shower. An anchor can be used to keep a boat from crashing into people and killing them, instead of weighting down a corpse. A torch can be used to light a dark path and prevent falls, keep people warm, instead of to burn down buildings.

Being use full does not equal good. you can be use full to a vampire by innocents for him to snack on and then hiding the dead bodies, but that is clearly evil.

I'm not arguing that usefulness is inherently good, just that it is neutral and morality should be judged circumstantially.

The debates to have to me are not "is it unethical to animate the dead" but more like "is it unethical to animate the dead who did not give you prior permission".

Plus: necromancers can animate all kinds of animal skeletons, so having a skeleton-horse pull your cart actually seems far better than forcing a live one to do it, since it isn't there to suffer anymore, what is doing the work is a magical intelligence you created. Using the corpse helps unburden the living, and is similar to melting the bones into glu, building weapons out of bone, turning hide into leather, eating beef, etc.

It's also disrespectful of the dead; nobody wants to come into town after getting word of the death of a relative, only to find that their corpse has been re-animated to work off an old debt, to make somebody else a profit, or just because the grave's been desecrated.

Nobody likes to come and find that money they thought would be left to them was used to pay off debts either, but it happens, doesn't make it wrong.

Sides, supposedly the wishes of the person who died should be more important than relatives. If Jack the Cyber-Knight says "if I ever die, make me into a Mummy and instruct me to defend the town from roving Gurgoyles so that I can help prevent more from dying" then I'd like to respect that, even if it creeps out his girlfriend or brother.

Uncle Bobby should be mouldering peacefully, not hijacked and lurching down the street at some mage's command.

Calling it 'hijack' is well-poisoning, if you relocate someone's property and use it after having received permission from them beforehand, it would not be hijacking. I see it like passing on a suit of power armor for others to use, except in this case the power armor is your bones.

And think of traditionalist cultures like in Japan and India, where people whose profession is gravedigging and handling the dead are discriminated against by 'polite' society...Now here comes somebody who actually reanimates the dead and makes them puppets. The soul may have winged to its hereafter, but a lot of folks, regardless of their station, don't want to see the dignity of the funeral mocked and thrown away by having the physical remains dancing to somebody else's tune.

Arguments based on variations on what is considered polite or good for appearances do not appear to be morally based. Analogies could be made to people complaining about the dignity of marriage being mocked by allowing it to non-traditional couples.

In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried

and yet nothing under the alignments prohibits necromancy.

Alignments are instead, later shadow-modified by OCCs having certain restrictions against them.

and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

That and 'animated and control dead' being a spell that can be learned by a Principled Mystic leads me to think that there's some unspoken-of evil acts that need to be committed to learn the Necromancer OCC and that they are unrelated to their ability to merge with or animate dead.

a necromancer might justify his actions in a similar manor that Hitler did he will still not be good by the baseline culture standards which is what the aliment system represents.

Baseline standards are going to be very different in locations in Rifts. This line of reasoning would mean that mages could not have good alignments if they grew up in the Coalition States.

Pretty sure necros are still align-restricted even in nations which accept the practise like Atlantis or the Phoenix Empire or Gargoyle Empire, so I don't think it has anything to do with social perceptions in the Megaverse at all, but as more of an inherent primal thing.

[taalismn]

[

I

And think of traditionalist cultures like in Japan and India, where people whose profession is gravedigging and handling the dead are discriminated against by 'polite' society...Now here comes somebody who actually reanimates the dead and makes them puppets. The soul may have winged to its hereafter, but a lot of folks, regardless of their station, don't want to see the dignity of the funeral mocked and thrown away by having the physical remains dancing to somebody else's tune.

Arguments based on variations on what is considered polite or good for appearances do not appear to be morally based. Analogies could be made to people complaining about the dignity of marriage being mocked by allowing it to non-traditional couples.
.

Of course, but if you phrase it right, ANYTHING can be made to sound morally acceptable, even laudable*. And in some cases, there are perfectly good reasons for them. And if your society permits people to sell or give away the corpse of their late relatives for re-animation, so be it. No problems, except maybe when outsiders from another culture come in and wince at seeing zombies mowing lawns, or being used as weapons.

But if those outsiders come from outside have the means to remake the laws and enforce them, you get something like:
Sir Charles Napier on the tradition of sati(the immolation of living widows with their dead husbands):
"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

Now Napier had the right of it; it WAS sheer bloody murder he was stamping out. Nothing, perhaps, to compare to a society that allows for one to will themselves to be an undead automaton after their death, to serve their relatives or the public good, but what happens if that same society is attacked, and starts using corpses of people who have NOT expressly willed their corpses to the cause, or uses the bodies of enemy fallen, or worse, executed prisoners? Does 'greater cause' trump the laws the society has set for itself, or has a moral line been crossed? That might make a good hardcore adventure itself; a pubic necromancer in Tolkeen, or a similar society, who finds himself faced with a moral dilemma; does he continue to practice his trade of the open society he serves now seems to be violating the same codes that make his particular magic form a legitimate and even wholesome pursuit? Or does he turn a blind eye and throw himself wholly into defending that society in the hour of its greatest need?


*And profitable too; this is the basis of an unfortunate amount of civil litigation.

[Blue_Lion]

It is because the act of raising and using undead is normally seen as an evil act.

Normally when? Historically? To people of predominating religions? If we based Rifts metaphysics on historical prejudices then we might as well demote homosexuality back to the 'insanity' category. If we go by modern viewpoints, I don't necessarily think the majority of people ARE against raising the dead, look at the popularity of 'Resurrection' or 'The Returned' for example, or people's love of vampires.

You are basically talking about enslaving people after they die to do grunt work for you. That is why they put a limit on the aliment.

I don't see it that way. In Palladium, it does not appear your mind or life essence remains long in your body after death. So it's only animating the body, not enslaving the territory the mind occupies. Plus you could have a necromancy get consent from a person in life to animate them while death. I could see people agreeing to this to protect a community, especially if additional incentives were offered.

Just because something is use full does not mean it can not be evil.

Necromancy can be used to commit evil, like if you animate a skeleton and tell it to go burn down an orphanage. My argument is just that it's a tool, not inherently evil or good, and that morality depends on circumstances. A knife can be used to slice bread or meat to feed people, instead of going Psycho in the shower. An anchor can be used to keep a boat from crashing into people and killing them, instead of weighting down a corpse. A torch can be used to light a dark path and prevent falls, keep people warm, instead of to burn down buildings.

Being use full does not equal good. you can be use full to a vampire by innocents for him to snack on and then hiding the dead bodies, but that is clearly evil.

I'm not arguing that usefulness is inherently good, just that it is neutral and morality should be judged circumstantially.

The debates to have to me are not "is it unethical to animate the dead" but more like "is it unethical to animate the dead who did not give you prior permission".

Plus: necromancers can animate all kinds of animal skeletons, so having a skeleton-horse pull your cart actually seems far better than forcing a live one to do it, since it isn't there to suffer anymore, what is doing the work is a magical intelligence you created. Using the corpse helps unburden the living, and is similar to melting the bones into glu, building weapons out of bone, turning hide into leather, eating beef, etc.

It's also disrespectful of the dead; nobody wants to come into town after getting word of the death of a relative, only to find that their corpse has been re-animated to work off an old debt, to make somebody else a profit, or just because the grave's been desecrated.

Nobody likes to come and find that money they thought would be left to them was used to pay off debts either, but it happens, doesn't make it wrong.

Sides, supposedly the wishes of the person who died should be more important than relatives. If Jack the Cyber-Knight says "if I ever die, make me into a Mummy and instruct me to defend the town from roving Gurgoyles so that I can help prevent more from dying" then I'd like to respect that, even if it creeps out his girlfriend or brother.

Uncle Bobby should be mouldering peacefully, not hijacked and lurching down the street at some mage's command.

Calling it 'hijack' is well-poisoning, if you relocate someone's property and use it after having received permission from them beforehand, it would not be hijacking. I see it like passing on a suit of power armor for others to use, except in this case the power armor is your bones.

And think of traditionalist cultures like in Japan and India, where people whose profession is gravedigging and handling the dead are discriminated against by 'polite' society...Now here comes somebody who actually reanimates the dead and makes them puppets. The soul may have winged to its hereafter, but a lot of folks, regardless of their station, don't want to see the dignity of the funeral mocked and thrown away by having the physical remains dancing to somebody else's tune.

Arguments based on variations on what is considered polite or good for appearances do not appear to be morally based. Analogies could be made to people complaining about the dignity of marriage being mocked by allowing it to non-traditional couples.

In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried

and yet nothing under the alignments prohibits necromancy.

Alignments are instead, later shadow-modified by OCCs having certain restrictions against them.

and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

That and 'animated and control dead' being a spell that can be learned by a Principled Mystic leads me to think that there's some unspoken-of evil acts that need to be committed to learn the Necromancer OCC and that they are unrelated to their ability to merge with or animate dead.

a necromancer might justify his actions in a similar manor that Hitler did he will still not be good by the baseline culture standards which is what the aliment system represents.

Baseline standards are going to be very different in locations in Rifts. This line of reasoning would mean that mages could not have good alignments if they grew up in the Coalition States.

Pretty sure necros are still align-restricted even in nations which accept the practise like Atlantis or the Phoenix Empire or Gargoyle Empire, so I don't think it has anything to do with social perceptions in the Megaverse at all, but as more of an inherent primal thing.

But the aliment system is built over all world baseline not nation A or B. They are more in line with traditional western standards of today. (Think that is what they used.)
Or seams how there is a pantheon of light in rifts it could be said they determine what is good and evil, not the wishy washy nations of man.

[Blue_Lion]

Just going to throw in that this (and virtually any discussion about alignments and/or alignment restricted things in this game) will run into personal preference and personal viewpoints.
If the GM wants to change the default setting to one where animating dead bodies is not an evil act that's cool, the GM can do so. In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried, and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

we where discussing why by default it is set the way it is. Good and evil are typically set by society as a whole not individuals. Global society as a whole sees it as an evil act, so it is evil.

Except, as I pointed out in my statement that in Palladium it is not set by society. It is a cosmological constant, even if you and everyone in your society thinks its fine its still evil in palladium!

Many a person in prison do not think that their actions where wrong or evil but society deems it is. (Yes a GM does have the right to rule differently but we where stating why it is the way it is.)

Which means that the GM (and only the GM) can redefine good and evil. Because it doesn't matter what society thinks, Good and Evil, in palladium, are unchanging laws of nature.

In addition all the life saving methods mentioned above can be done without the desecration of the dearly departed. NG sales a labor bot that can be used but instead you are cheeping out and using the dead to make a profit.

I was not saying that they should desecrate the dead. I was proposing that they their many OTHER abilities to aid the living. Such as by casting spells that are useful:
-Eyes of the Dead, can find undead infiltrators ludicrously quickly
-Divining Graves & Tombs: Great for finding vampires hidden coffins, its also good for recovery of bodies of people that have died and you don't know where (search and recovery operations) since you can locate their grave...
-Summon the Dead: Another spell that can allow you to get he bodies of the lost so that a proper funeral can be held
-Chicken Bone: one of the rare food spells in the game this spell can easily feed multitudes
-Necklace of Snake Skulls; Necklace of Bat Skulls; Necklace of Bird Skulls; Bone Scepter; Bone Staff; Bone Shovel; These spells all can use animal components to make very useful magical items
-Summon Vampire: can be used to summon vampires into traps, it also can help check if there ARE vampires in range
-Funeral Pyre: Very useful for cremating the dead. Especially useful if you have a plague or other mass casualty event.
-I could go on.....but Necromancers can do all sorts of things with out ever doing anything to the body of a sentient being other than bury it. And if they are not doing things to sentient bodies (and thus their actions are not evil) we must there for conclude that Necromancers are evil, not because their actions make them evil, but because the simple Laws of Nature in the Palladium world say that Necromancers=Evil.

Most people in Rifts are likely to have similar values on respect of the dead that we do today. So while a necromancer might justify his actions in a similar manor that Hitler did he will still not be good by the baseline culture standards which is what the aliment system represents.

Again your making a rather pointless statement that presumes several false premises
1) your presuming that the necromancer must 'do evil stuff to bodies' They don't
2) your making the false parallel between our world (where the nature of good and evil is up for debate) and the game world (where it is not up for debate)
Which means that other than getting us to the Godwnin's Law point of this debate your analogy does nothing.

I did not the assumption that necromancers must do evil things with the bodies PB did when they put in the aliement restriction. It is not about if there spells can be helpfull but about the study of knowledge the gods of rifts have decided is evil.(Studding how to desecrate bodies with magic and being willing to do so regardless of intent is evil, your changing your example is not what is in question hear but is it justified that a standard necromancer has an aliment restriction.)

I did not make the false parallel between the ailment system based of current standards that is cannon in rifts. Your assumption is the false assumption. As the default ailment system is based of the standards at the time it was written not you house ruled changes based on how you think things are.

(I find your line of thought smoke and mirrors to try and rules lawyer something other than the stated intent that necromancer have a aliment restriction.)

Using magic to summon a self aware creature into trap can be seen as an evil act. (If the spell brings it against its will so that it be helpless when you kill it most certainly will be seen as such.)

Most of your examples of help full necromancy can all be done without the use of dark arts. There are spells and psi powers that can be used to locate people and things. (Cast an oracle spell to find clues about where to locate person X or how to find monster Y.) Detect life can do a pretty good job of finding the undead allot faster than eyes of the dead. In other words all your defenses for necromancy can be done other ways that do not involve studying dark arts that are considered by most to be evil. So they are false flag defense as it is not required to use necromancy to achieve the desired affects.

[eliakon]

Spoiler:

Just going to throw in that this (and virtually any discussion about alignments and/or alignment restricted things in this game) will run into personal preference and personal viewpoints.
If the GM wants to change the default setting to one where animating dead bodies is not an evil act that's cool, the GM can do so. In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried, and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

we where discussing why by default it is set the way it is. Good and evil are typically set by society as a whole not individuals. Global society as a whole sees it as an evil act, so it is evil.

Except, as I pointed out in my statement that in Palladium it is not set by society. It is a cosmological constant, even if you and everyone in your society thinks its fine its still evil in palladium!

Many a person in prison do not think that their actions where wrong or evil but society deems it is. (Yes a GM does have the right to rule differently but we where stating why it is the way it is.)

Which means that the GM (and only the GM) can redefine good and evil. Because it doesn't matter what society thinks, Good and Evil, in palladium, are unchanging laws of nature.

In addition all the life saving methods mentioned above can be done without the desecration of the dearly departed. NG sales a labor bot that can be used but instead you are cheeping out and using the dead to make a profit.

I was not saying that they should desecrate the dead. I was proposing that they their many OTHER abilities to aid the living. Such as by casting spells that are useful:
-Eyes of the Dead, can find undead infiltrators ludicrously quickly
-Divining Graves & Tombs: Great for finding vampires hidden coffins, its also good for recovery of bodies of people that have died and you don't know where (search and recovery operations) since you can locate their grave...
-Summon the Dead: Another spell that can allow you to get he bodies of the lost so that a proper funeral can be held
-Chicken Bone: one of the rare food spells in the game this spell can easily feed multitudes
-Necklace of Snake Skulls; Necklace of Bat Skulls; Necklace of Bird Skulls; Bone Scepter; Bone Staff; Bone Shovel; These spells all can use animal components to make very useful magical items
-Summon Vampire: can be used to summon vampires into traps, it also can help check if there ARE vampires in range
-Funeral Pyre: Very useful for cremating the dead. Especially useful if you have a plague or other mass casualty event.
-I could go on.....but Necromancers can do all sorts of things with out ever doing anything to the body of a sentient being other than bury it. And if they are not doing things to sentient bodies (and thus their actions are not evil) we must there for conclude that Necromancers are evil, not because their actions make them evil, but because the simple Laws of Nature in the Palladium world say that Necromancers=Evil.

Most people in Rifts are likely to have similar values on respect of the dead that we do today. So while a necromancer might justify his actions in a similar manor that Hitler did he will still not be good by the baseline culture standards which is what the aliment system represents.

Again your making a rather pointless statement that presumes several false premises
1) your presuming that the necromancer must 'do evil stuff to bodies' They don't
2) your making the false parallel between our world (where the nature of good and evil is up for debate) and the game world (where it is not up for debate)
Which means that other than getting us to the Godwnin's Law point of this debate your analogy does nothing.

I did not the assumption that necromancers must do evil things with the bodies PB did when they put in the aliement restriction. It is not about if there spells can be helpfull but about the study of knowledge the gods of rifts have decided is evil.(Studding how to desecrate bodies with magic and being willing to do so regardless of intent is evil, your changing your example is not what is in question hear but is it justified that a standard necromancer has an aliment restriction.)

Your statements that "In addition all the life saving methods mentioned above can be done without the desecration of the dearly departed." and "Most people in Rifts are likely to have similar values on respect of the dead that we do today. So while a necromancer might justify his actions..." would seem to imply that necromancers must desecrate and/or disrespect the dead to do their work.

I did not make the false parallel between the ailment system based of current standards that is cannon in rifts. Your assumption is the false assumption. As the default ailment system is based of the standards at the time it was written not you house ruled changes based on how you think things are.

I am not sure what your saying here, nor to whom you are saying it. My statement was that we can not use our real world attitudes on what is good and evil to determine what is good and evil in game. The standards that were used to write the game do not matter, what matters is that the rules were written. They spell out what is and is acceptable to each alignment. Thus we can not make arguments that "well I think this should be good even thought the book says its not." nor can we say "I think this should be evil even though the rules say otherwise." (well we can but that is houserulling the rules to fit our view and not Rules As Written).

(I find your line of thought smoke and mirrors to try and rules lawyer something other than the stated intent that necromancer have a aliment restriction.)

Again I am not sure what (Or who) you are addressing here

Using magic to summon a self aware creature into trap can be seen as an evil act. (If the spell brings it against its will so that it be helpless when you kill it most certainly will be seen as such.)

Two things here
1) please show me the rule that says that this is evil. Not a 'well I think it should be' but an actual rule that says that it is evil to use summoning or traps to destroy essence fragments of Vampire Intelligences.
2) It presumes that vampires are self aware creatures. The VKr book seems to say that they are just essence framgents of a VI that has bonded with a corpse and not the actual person. It also makes the hidden assumption that vampires have a right to exist and not to be destroyed.

Most of your examples of help full necromancy can all be done without the use of dark arts.

Lets look at that shall we?

There are spells and psi powers that can be used to locate people and things. (Cast an oracle spell to find clues about where to locate person X or how to find monster Y.)

Oracle spell is a level 8 spell that has a 58% +2% per level chance of providing a snippet of insight into the future. It is specifically said to be unclear "These are brief glimpses of the possible future, not a motion picture."
The other divination spell Locate is also level 8 and has a 41% +1% (flat 89% for ritual) of locating the general location of the subject if you have personally met them or have a picture (material link for ritual) (and may or may not be able to target bodies GMs call)
Then we have the psionic power Remote Viewing. Which, assuming that a person with that particular psionic ability is available (unlike magic you can not train psionics) can, with a picture (which may not always be available in rifts earth), one time per day get a view of where the person is right then OR of 2-4 questions. (this is the closest to replicating the spell....but it cant be trained so its luck of the draw if you have a psychic with it.)
This is contrasted to the level 5 divining graves and tombs spell. Which always works, and has no range limit.

Detect life can do a pretty good job of finding the undead allot faster than eyes of the dead.

Eyes of the Dead has the significant advantage of actually existing.....there is no 'Detect Life' spell in the game that I am aware of (if I have missed it can you provide a book and page number of it?)
And I would ask how it can be better than "I can automatically recognize all undead on sight, no save allowed"

In other words all your defenses for necromancy can be done other ways that do not involve studying dark arts that are considered by most to be evil. So they are false flag defense as it is not required to use necromancy to achieve the desired affects.

Except that, as I pointed out many of the spells CANT be replicated. Your list of 'comparisons' has one magic that might do the job, on a good roll, and with a generous GM. The other effects were either not replicate able (the various enchantmenets, funeral pyre, mass food) or require unofficial house rule spells (sense life)
So if they can't be replicated except by using necromancy spells, then its not a "False Flag Defense" (what ever that is). It is exactly what it is, a list of beneficial magical effects that currently can not be replicated with out using necromancy spells.

It also just means that many of the good sides of necromancy, according to canon, do not outweigh something inherent to the class. Or put another way for some reason necromancers can't be good for some reason. And that reason can't be related to animating dead since it is perfectly possible to be a necromancer and never use your animation power. Nor is their any alignment restriction on the learning and use of the spells Create Zombie and Create Mummy. It can't be because they have to use their magic for harm, because it is possible to use necromancy spells for nothing but community good. Therefore it must be some nebulous 'other'.

[Blue_Lion]

Mass food lets see sustain? (quicker and allows the target to without food or water for X days, rinse and repeat and it can feed a fairly large amount of people.)
Funeral pier-create flame/fuel flame.

I am not even really digging deep and finding ways to do the same thing or close to it and do not require divulging into dark magic. (it would be a waste of my time to try to debunk you whole list but it can be debunked I do not normally look up necro spells because never play them and never had a player play one.)That is the point your whole the only way to do it is necromancy is not true. There are other ways in either tech, magic or psionics to do similar stuff that does not require use of dark magic. So it should be good because some of it can be used helpful is a false flag. By and large necromancies focus is in dark magic dealing with things that are not good.

Heck see aura should do a good job of telling if some one is alive. And I bet dog boys do a real good job at it to. (Sorry did not crack the book on sense life would have been sense evil was thinking psi powers as undead are supernatural and considered evil and guess what free for mystics.) And I would argue that is not true that eyes of the dead allow you to see undead without a saving throw it is has a saving throw, and is mimicking a lower level spells affect that allows a saving throw.

Range on Diving tombs & graves is 5 minutes of travel per level of mage so does not have a limitless range as you implying. And guess what there is a saving throw so I guess that means the grave gets a save to hide and I would not consider a vampires coffin a grave as not all vampires sleep in coffins and the do not contain the dead but are the resting place of undead.
If you do feel you need those "helpful" spells are there not rules for learning them with lets say a ley line walker?

[Blue_Lion]

Rule that says using a spell to capture and kill a helpless target is evil? *points at PG 290 RUE* By attacking this way they vampire is helpless which is the same as unarmed. (IN this case when you attack the vampire represents no threat at the time of the attack is not something a good person would do. Also if you read the detailed does not kill for pleasure you should be trying to bring the vampire to justice not killing it.)

[Blue_Lion]

The smoke and mirrors rules lawyering was that a statement to you Elian about how you are trying so hard to justify a necromancer not having to abide by the aliment restrictions placed on them by PB.

[eliakon]

Rule that says using a spell to capture and kill a helpless target is evil? *points at PG 290 RUE* By attacking this way they vampire is helpless which is the same as unarmed. (IN this case when you attack the vampire represents no threat at the time of the attack is not something a good person would do.)

A few problems with that
The first is that your making the (in my opinion false) assumption that helpless means unarmed
The second is that your ascribing to the 'good is dumb and must only fight in duels of honor' fallacy (No artillery, no snipers, no executions (which is what this would probably come under)....only facing armed foes in even fights) which I reject
The third and most important is that Anarchists are allowed to kill unarmed foes. Thus it can not be inherently an evil act, if doing it is allowed to non-evil alignments.

[eliakon]

Mass food lets see sustain? (quicker and allows the target to without food or water for X days, rinse and repeat and it can feed a fairly large amount of people.)

Which is great if your on a ley-line. But at 12 ppe per person that can get pretty draining quickly. That is why 20 ppe for 'a large cauldron of soup' seems to me to be a better deal.

Funeral pier-create flame/fuel flame.

I will concede that the three spell combination of Create Wood, Ignite Fire and Fuel Flame can also make good funeral pyres.

I am not even really digging deep and finding ways to do the same thing or close to it and do not require divulging into dark magic. (it would be a waste of my time to try to debunk you whole list but it can be debunked

That's an easy claim to make...except that my claim is explicitly that the sample spells provide services that are not replicable. Claiming that 'well it can be done' is not answering that claim.

I do not normally look up necro spells because never play them and never had a player play one.)That is the point your whole the only way to do it is necromancy is not true. There are other ways in either tech, magic or psionics to do similar stuff that does not require use of dark magic. So it should be good because some of it can be used helpful is a false flag. By and large necromancies focus is in dark magic dealing with things that are not good.

yes by and large it is. That is not the same as wholly, or exclusively.

Heck see aura should do a good job of telling if some one is alive.

Except that that is not one of the listed things that see aura says it can do....

And I bet dog boys do a real good job at it to.

Two issues here
1) Actually dog boys do NOT have an ability to sense if something is undead (they can sense that its supernatural, but not what kind of supernatural
2) Not everyone has dog boys
3) Again being a dog boy can not be trained

(Sorry did not crack the book on sense life would have been sense evil was thinking psi powers as undead are supernatural and considered evil and guess what free for mystics.)

Not a problem. I like sense evil too....but again it cant tell if something is undead.

And I would argue that is not true that eyes of the dead allow you to see undead without a saving throw it is has a saving throw, and is mimicking a lower level spells affect that allows a saving throw.

Do you think then that See Invisible allows a save? The spell says 'standard for victim' which requires a pretty contorted logic to mean 'people seen' and not people being attacked by the combat portion of the spell.

Range on Diving tombs & graves is 5 minutes of travel per level of mage so does not have a limitless range as you implying.

The RANGE is unlimited. You could detect a grave on the other side of the planet with it. You would be hard pressed to get there in the DURATION of the spell, but you could get started on the trip....

And guess what there is a saving throw so I guess that means the grave gets a save to hide and I would not consider a vampires coffin a grave as not all vampires sleep in coffins and the do not contain the dead but are the resting place of undead.

Graves though are 'inanimate objects' which are not given saving throws. So the standard save for a grave is "I don't get to make one."

If you do feel you need those "helpful" spells are there not rules for learning them with lets say a ley line walker?

Well besides requiring ignoring the fluff about how the various classes are repulsed by necromancy and would never learn it, which is easy enough to do.....

The whole point of my list of useful spells was to help demonstrate that the necromancers alignment restriction is NOT about what its doing with its magic. Thus it has to fall under the "because the rules say so." Why that is may be up for debate....but its proveable that its not because the spells are inherently evil (since A there are proveably good or at least non-evil spells (I would be hard pressed to find any way to say that 'Mend Living Bone' could be construed as evil) and B that the spells can be learned by others, who can be good (they may not want to use most of it, or any of it, but there is no prohibition like there is for say the spell "Sense Good"))

[eliakon]

The smoke and mirrors rules lawyering was that a statement to you Elian about how you are trying so hard to justify a necromancer not having to abide by the aliment restrictions placed on them by PB.

Except that I have never said that. I have said that the alignment restriction is not based on the spells of the class, nor on the powers. Since it is proveable that you can use the spells for good, that good people can learn them, and that the powers do not have to be used for evil.

Therefore what I claimed was that the restriction on their alignenment must be based on some other factor. A factor that seems to come down to "because the rules say so."

This is however pretty much a moot point since as of Vampire Sourcebook it is possible to play a Necromancer with a Good Alignment.

[Blue_Lion]

Mass food lets see sustain? (quicker and allows the target to without food or water for X days, rinse and repeat and it can feed a fairly large amount of people.)

Which is great if your on a ley-line. But at 12 ppe per person that can get pretty draining quickly. That is why 20 ppe for 'a large cauldron of soup' seems to me to be a better deal.

Funeral pier-create flame/fuel flame.

I will concede that the three spell combination of Create Wood, Ignite Fire and Fuel Flame can also make good funeral pyres.

I am not even really digging deep and finding ways to do the same thing or close to it and do not require divulging into dark magic. (it would be a waste of my time to try to debunk you whole list but it can be debunked

That's an easy claim to make...except that my claim is explicitly that the sample spells provide services that are not replicable. Claiming that 'well it can be done' is not answering that claim.

I do not normally look up necro spells because never play them and never had a player play one.)That is the point your whole the only way to do it is necromancy is not true. There are other ways in either tech, magic or psionics to do similar stuff that does not require use of dark magic. So it should be good because some of it can be used helpful is a false flag. By and large necromancies focus is in dark magic dealing with things that are not good.

yes by and large it is. That is not the same as wholly, or exclusively.

Heck see aura should do a good job of telling if some one is alive.

Except that that is not one of the listed things that see aura says it can do....

And I bet dog boys do a real good job at it to.

Two issues here
1) Actually dog boys do NOT have an ability to sense if something is undead (they can sense that its supernatural, but not what kind of supernatural
2) Not everyone has dog boys
3) Again being a dog boy can not be trained

(Sorry did not crack the book on sense life would have been sense evil was thinking psi powers as undead are supernatural and considered evil and guess what free for mystics.)

Not a problem. I like sense evil too....but again it cant tell if something is undead.

And I would argue that is not true that eyes of the dead allow you to see undead without a saving throw it is has a saving throw, and is mimicking a lower level spells affect that allows a saving throw.

Do you think then that See Invisible allows a save? The spell says 'standard for victim' which requires a pretty contorted logic to mean 'people seen' and not people being attacked by the combat portion of the spell.

Range on Diving tombs & graves is 5 minutes of travel per level of mage so does not have a limitless range as you implying.

The RANGE is unlimited. You could detect a grave on the other side of the planet with it. You would be hard pressed to get there in the DURATION of the spell, but you could get started on the trip....

And guess what there is a saving throw so I guess that means the grave gets a save to hide and I would not consider a vampires coffin a grave as not all vampires sleep in coffins and the do not contain the dead but are the resting place of undead.

Graves though are 'inanimate objects' which are not given saving throws. So the standard save for a grave is "I don't get to make one."

If you do feel you need those "helpful" spells are there not rules for learning them with lets say a ley line walker?

Well besides requiring ignoring the fluff about how the various classes are repulsed by necromancy and would never learn it, which is easy enough to do.....

The whole point of my list of useful spells was to help demonstrate that the necromancers alignment restriction is NOT about what its doing with its magic. Thus it has to fall under the "because the rules say so." Why that is may be up for debate....but its proveable that its not because the spells are inherently evil (since A there are proveably good or at least non-evil spells (I would be hard pressed to find any way to say that 'Mend Living Bone' could be construed as evil) and B that the spells can be learned by others, who can be good (they may not want to use most of it, or any of it, but there is no prohibition like there is for say the spell "Sense Good"))

See the invisible is listed as saving throw none.
Standard save vs magic is 12 regardless of weather the target is a living thing or not.

Now you are saying something different before you where coming across as trying to justify removing the restriction. The restrictrion was most likely based off the focus of the necromancer class.

AS to sustain the people getting the spell cast on them can provide part if not all the PPE required for the spell. How many does a large pot of broth feed? rather abstract and you would need to cast it what 2-3 times a day for the same people. Sustain they can go for days with no food, water or air. your chicken bone requires a pot of water and 20 minutes to cook. In a survival situation the Sustain spell is a far better choice.

Mend living bone used evil-break a bone in torture and fix it so you can break it again. (wow that was so hard to think of.)

[eliakon]

See the invisible is listed as saving throw none.

We are still back to defining 'things you see' as victims. I think we are just going to have to disagree on what does, and does not get a saving throw and why.

Standard save vs magic is 12 regardless of weather the target is a living thing or not.

According to RUE pg 188 "Non-living things do not get saving throws."

Now you are saying something different before you where coming across as trying to justify removing the restriction. The restrictrion was most likely based off the focus of the necromancer class.

*Sigh* I never "tried to justfy removing the restriction" What I said, and still say was that the restriction was arbitrary and not based on any inherent evil of the spells or abilities.
Do you see the difference?
I always said that the alignment restriction was in place (up until I double checked my Vampire Sourcebook and was reminded that it had been retconned)

I think you might be confusing me and Tor here.....

AS to sustain the people getting the spell cast on them can provide part if not all the PPE required for the spell. How many does a large pot of broth feed? rather abstract and you would need to cast it what 2-3 times a day for the same people. Sustain they can go for days with no food, water or air. your chicken bone requires a pot of water and 20 minutes to cook. In a survival situation the Sustain spell is a far better choice.

Possibly. Though the average person has 10 PPE, of which 7 can be shared. It also begs the question of if you still feel hungry, but that is neither here nor there since the primary spells pointed out were things that were impossible to replicate with normal magic (like devices that protect from poisons, or that let you see in the dark.)

Mend living bone used evil-break a bone in torture and fix it so you can break it again. (wow that was so hard to think of.)

[/quote]
Yes one can use ANYTHING for evil. By that logic all weapons, spells, skills, and psionics are evil since they could be abused. Or Healing Touch is evil since it could be used for torture....
Mend Living Bone is about as white as magic gets. Its a purely healing spell.

[Blue_Lion]

Page 188 says that inanimate objects do not get a saving throw vs magical attacks but this is not an attack. It is in a section talking about attacking or influence this spell is doing neither but a detection spell with a save. one of the few types detection spells that has a save.
Most detection abilities have a saving throw listed as none. See the invisible says saving throw none this necro spell is listed with a save. So the target is allowed a save.

[flatline]

Just going to throw in that this (and virtually any discussion about alignments and/or alignment restricted things in this game) will run into personal preference and personal viewpoints.
If the GM wants to change the default setting to one where animating dead bodies is not an evil act that's cool, the GM can do so. In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried, and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

The Palladium alignment system was the first thing we threw out. Black and white ideas of good and evil do not lend themselves to good role playing. Moral absolutes tend to crumble upon close examination.

When playing with a group that actually uses alignments, I choose Scrupulous of it's a mostly good group, Unprincipled if it's a mostly selfish group, or Aberrant if it's a mostly evil group. And then I play my character the way I was going to play them anyways...and nobody can tell the difference.

To be fair, most other game systems do no better. White Wolf had a nice take on things that allowed for complex characters without trying to impose concepts of good or evil, but it was tricky for players to get the hang of.

Mostly, we just let PC's personalities be defined by how they were played.

--flatline

[Nightmask]

Just going to throw in that this (and virtually any discussion about alignments and/or alignment restricted things in this game) will run into personal preference and personal viewpoints.
If the GM wants to change the default setting to one where animating dead bodies is not an evil act that's cool, the GM can do so. In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried, and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

The Palladium alignment system was the first thing we threw out. Black and white ideas of good and evil do not lend themselves to good role playing. Moral absolutes tend to crumble upon close examination.

When playing with a group that actually uses alignments, I choose Scrupulous of it's a mostly good group, Unprincipled if it's a mostly selfish group, or Aberrant if it's a mostly evil group. And then I play my character the way I was going to play them anyways...and nobody can tell the difference.

To be fair, most other game systems do no better. White Wolf had a nice take on things that allowed for complex characters without trying to impose concepts of good or evil, but it was tricky for players to get the hang of.

Mostly, we just let PC's personalities be defined by how they were played.

--flatline

Given good and evil are generally intrinsic parts of many games I can't see how you can remove something that's part and parcel with the very game you're playing and still say you're playing the same game. I also wonder about the thought here that somehow you can't play complex characters while still retaining the concepts of good and evil, particularly for game systems where those things are intrinsic aspects of the game (Nightbane/spawn for example is clearly imbedded in those concepts and the struggle to survive and try to remain good in the face of such evil).

[flatline]

Just going to throw in that this (and virtually any discussion about alignments and/or alignment restricted things in this game) will run into personal preference and personal viewpoints.
If the GM wants to change the default setting to one where animating dead bodies is not an evil act that's cool, the GM can do so. In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried, and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

The Palladium alignment system was the first thing we threw out. Black and white ideas of good and evil do not lend themselves to good role playing. Moral absolutes tend to crumble upon close examination.

When playing with a group that actually uses alignments, I choose Scrupulous of it's a mostly good group, Unprincipled if it's a mostly selfish group, or Aberrant if it's a mostly evil group. And then I play my character the way I was going to play them anyways...and nobody can tell the difference.

To be fair, most other game systems do no better. White Wolf had a nice take on things that allowed for complex characters without trying to impose concepts of good or evil, but it was tricky for players to get the hang of.

Mostly, we just let PC's personalities be defined by how they were played.

--flatline

Given good and evil are generally intrinsic parts of many games I can't see how you can remove something that's part and parcel with the very game you're playing and still say you're playing the same game.

None of us are playing exactly the same game. House rules or even just variance in interpretation of book rules guarantee that every game unique.

I also wonder about the thought here that somehow you can't play complex characters while still retaining the concepts of good and evil

That's not what I said. I said "black and white ideas of good and evil do not lend themselves to good role playing". There's nothing wrong with having the concepts of good and evil in your game, but to ignore the ambiguous gray areas between the extremes gives up a lot of role playing potential. Not every decision has a right answer.

--flatline

[Blue_Lion]

Just going to throw in that this (and virtually any discussion about alignments and/or alignment restricted things in this game) will run into personal preference and personal viewpoints.
If the GM wants to change the default setting to one where animating dead bodies is not an evil act that's cool, the GM can do so. In the canon setting you cant do this. Why? Because rules! Seriously the whole alignment system is predicated on the idea that there are specific actions that are determined, for the 'reality' that constitutes the game world, Good and Evil. They are pretty cut and dried, and even detectable in universe as concrete testable forces.....THAT said there are still a lot of amazingly useful things a Necromancer can do that don't involve animating undead. They have some incredibly useful spells on their spell list, some of which could be of great use to communities.

The Palladium alignment system was the first thing we threw out. Black and white ideas of good and evil do not lend themselves to good role playing. Moral absolutes tend to crumble upon close examination.

When playing with a group that actually uses alignments, I choose Scrupulous of it's a mostly good group, Unprincipled if it's a mostly selfish group, or Aberrant if it's a mostly evil group. And then I play my character the way I was going to play them anyways...and nobody can tell the difference.

To be fair, most other game systems do no better. White Wolf had a nice take on things that allowed for complex characters without trying to impose concepts of good or evil, but it was tricky for players to get the hang of.

Mostly, we just let PC's personalities be defined by how they were played.

--flatline

Given good and evil are generally intrinsic parts of many games I can't see how you can remove something that's part and parcel with the very game you're playing and still say you're playing the same game. I also wonder about the thought here that somehow you can't play complex characters while still retaining the concepts of good and evil, particularly for game systems where those things are intrinsic aspects of the game (Nightbane/spawn for example is clearly imbedded in those concepts and the struggle to survive and try to remain good in the face of such evil).

I have seen quite a few RPGs that do not have an aliment system. The idea behind aliment systems is to be a tool to help flesh out a charters motivation not limit what you can do. Many games with aliment systems have a in between aliment that is neither good nor evil. So they do sort of address a grey area. The struggle of trying to face the dark side wile holding onto your sense of honor and do what is right is a often used in entertainment. Good example would be the TV show Gothom so yes it should also be something that can be done in a RPG.

[Tor]

Anyone know where I can find this Chicken Bone spell which creates a cauldron of soup that people are referencing it? Is it in a Rifter? Checked Africa/Russia.

if you phrase it right, ANYTHING can be made to sound morally acceptable, even laudable*.

That's where it seems to make more sense to judge by the general guidelines under the alignments, as opposed to what societies outlaw or frown upon. In a place with as many differing legal climates as Rifts (or really, even modern Earth) having 'obey the law' guidelines really don't make any sense for metaphysical forces.

And in some cases, there are perfectly good reasons for them. And if your society permits people to sell or give away the corpse of their late relatives for re-animation, so be it. No problems, except maybe when outsiders from another culture come in and wince at seeing zombies mowing lawns, or being used as weapons.

The Coalition winces at seeing people use magic or treating aliens as equals (or betters) while other societies wince at the Coalition treating Psi-Hounds as lesser beings. Neither actually prevents good alignments though.

But if those outsiders come from outside have the means to remake the laws and enforce them, you get something like:
Sir Charles Napier on the tradition of sati(the immolation of living widows with their dead husbands):
"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

and a dragon can come and eat your children and enforce his morality by the same standard. I don't see how either impacts a universal good/evil concept

Now Napier had the right of it; it WAS sheer bloody murder he was stamping out. Nothing, perhaps, to compare to a society that allows for one to will themselves to be an undead automaton after their death, to serve their relatives or the public good

I am all for making a comparison, so long as comparing does not lead to equating, since presumably the widows do not consent to have their body burned while the heroes presumably do consent to have their bodies animated.

but what happens if that same society is attacked, and starts using corpses of people who have NOT expressly willed their corpses to the cause, or uses the bodies of enemy fallen, or worse, executed prisoners?

Then that is a subsequent debate to have and it does not impact the intrinsic nature of the most conservative uses of necromancy in a moral-conscious manner.

Similar discussions occur relating to whether it's okay to use prisoners as slave labor or medical research.

Does 'greater cause' trump the laws the society has set for itself, or has a moral line been crossed?

I see nothing wrong with using the corpses of executed prisoners or slain combatants, so long as they were killed for just reasons. The main problem is that dead people being able to be useful to you creates an incentive to kill and to create injustice. A good example of this occurs in the novel 'The Gilded Chain' by Dave Duncan.

If there was reason to kill the person anyway, and presumably they earned that punishment by depriving people of things (life, property, etc) then some of that loss can be recouped by harvesting their organs and animating their bones. Kind of like how you would keep and reuse the guns from captured prisoners.

I did not the assumption that necromancers must do evil things with the bodies PB did when they put in the aliement restriction. It is not about if there spells can be helpfull but about the study of knowledge the gods of rifts have decided is evil.

The justification, I imagine, would be something unwritten. Like to gain the OCC abilities of the necromancer, maybe you need to steal and eat an innocent baby. Except I don't think you could manage an Unprincipled alignment with that so... I'm not really sure what kind of act would fall under the bounds.

In particular this also depends on if it is a "you must be Unprincipled at the time of learning the OCC" or a "you can never rise above Unprincipled even if decades pass and you spend your time only doing Create Bread"

Studding how to desecrate bodies with magic and being willing to do so regardless of intent is evil, your changing your example is not what is in question hear but is it justified that a standard necromancer has an aliment restriction.

A necromancer is not necessarily 'willing to do so regardless of intent' because they could have honor restrictions per Aberrent.

Studying how to desecrate bodies is not evil, otherwise the autopsies performed by Morticians would be evil.

Using magic to summon a self aware creature into trap can be seen as an evil act. (If the spell brings it against its will so that it be helpless when you kill it most certainly will be seen as such.

I don't agree with you at all. If there is a serial killer on the rampage and nobody is able to catch him but they find some hair and fingernail clippings and a Summoner uses 'Summon Pawn' so that he can be captured and executed, that does not seem evil to me.

It would only be evil if you had no validly moral reason to capture/kill the being in question.

Most of your examples of help full necromancy can all be done without the use of dark arts. There are spells and psi powers that can be used to locate people and things. (Cast an oracle spell to find clues about where to locate person X or how to find monster Y.)

Psionics are out, not everyone has those, may as well say 'there are superpowers to do X'. As for Oracle, it is a good tool but does not seem as reliable since like Clairvoyance it's a but hazy.

presumes that vampires are self aware creatures. The VKr book seems to say that they are just essence framgents of a VI that has bonded with a corpse and not the actual person

You don't necessarily have to be the actual person to be self-aware. Surely some vampires realize they are essence fragments?

makes the hidden assumption that vampires have a right to exist and not to be destroyed.

Is there some reason we should assume Elves have a right to exist but Vampires do not?

[Kagashi]

Chicken Bone spell is in Book of Magic under Necromancy section.

[Tor]

Huh... is there a list of new magic they added in there for those curious what to circle for emphasis compared to earlier RMB/FoM stuff?

[ShadowLogan]

Huh... is there a list of new magic they added in there for those curious what to circle for emphasis compared to earlier RMB/FoM stuff?

Handy/Quick-Reference Type. No.

Within the book Spell wise no, I don't recall anything about spells being new or added. However IIRC in the equipment section they do mention if something is new.

[Tor]

Is a shame, would be a unique selling point. I have a tendency to skip over an entire section if I think it's just reprints and only look for stuff I hear about having changed or be new. I remember they did add a bunch of the FoM elemental spells into the Warlock section just didn't know necros got boosted.

[say652]

Necromancy in itself is viewed as a little bit evil, regardless of who is using it.
Also its not terribly useful. A few damaging spells but rather underwhelming.
Creating mindless servants, um that part is mildly useful.

[Blue_Lion]

More people have psionics than magic so they are not out. Heck more people are likely to have power X of psi than be necromancers.

Changing the conditions to make it sound better now? You said summon a vampire in to a trap so it can be destroyed. Or are you going to give the vampire a fair trial to bring it to justice? Your example of summoning a serial killer if he is giving a fair trail and brought to justice then it is not an evil act, but that is not what you said. To summon him for an execution without a trial is not bringing him to justice but revenge. (No self defense but inviolately summing him to be killed, even though he is evil that would still be murder.

You are building allot of misdirection and rules lawyer defenses in your debate. I said the gods of rifts stated that necromancy is evil and you replay with "The justification, I imagine, would be something unwritten. Like to gain the OCC abilities of the necromancer, maybe you need to steal and eat an innocent baby. Except I don't think you could manage an Unprincipled alignment with that so... I'm not really sure what kind of act would fall under the bounds." That is pure misdirection as it does not address why I said it was evil, in fact it does not even address what I said in the least but more of a slight of hand move.

You have failed to actually prove that there is any reason to remove any aliment restrictions in any of your post. All you did is use misdirection's and demand Identical affects. (The equivalent of demanding finding another spell that does the exact same thing as armor of ithan but not armor of ithan, something that even the other armor spells can not do.) and even use misinformation such as claiming detecting undead is not within the listed powers of see aura when it is covered in the same clause that catches shape shifted demons and dragons.-the presence of inhuman aberration. And false defenses such as comparing a saying that requiring a save roll on a detection spell with the save listed as standard to a detection spell with a listed save of none. (Your repeated use of comparing requiring eyes of dead to make a save when it says there is one to see invisible.)

[say652]

Cause adding pieces of your dead foes rotting corpses to your body is what the goodguys do, Yo!
Lol.

[eliakon]

More people have psionics than magic so they are not out. Heck more people are likely to have power X of psi than be necromancers.

Changing the conditions to make it sound better now? You said summon a vampire in to a trap so it can be destroyed. Or are you going to give the vampire a fair trial to bring it to justice? Your example of summoning a serial killer if he is giving a fair trail and brought to justice then it is not an evil act, but that is not what you said. To summon him for an execution without a trial is not bringing him to justice but revenge. (No self defense but inviolately summing him to be killed, even though he is evil that would still be murder.

You are building allot of misdirection and rules lawyer defenses in your debate. I said the gods of rifts stated that necromancy is evil and you replay with "The justification, I imagine, would be something unwritten. Like to gain the OCC abilities of the necromancer, maybe you need to steal and eat an innocent baby. Except I don't think you could manage an Unprincipled alignment with that so... I'm not really sure what kind of act would fall under the bounds." That is pure misdirection as it does not address why I said it was evil, in fact it does not even address what I said in the least but more of a slight of hand move.

You have failed to actually prove that there is any reason to remove any aliment restrictions in any of your post. All you did is use misdirection's and demand Identical affects. (The equivalent of demanding finding another spell that does the exact same thing as armor of ithan but not armor of ithan, something that even the other armor spells can not do.) and even use misinformation such as claiming detecting undead is not within the listed powers of see aura when it is covered in the same clause that catches shape shifted demons and dragons.-the presence of inhuman aberration. And false defenses such as comparing a saying that requiring a save roll on a detection spell with the save listed as standard to a detection spell with a listed save of none. (Your repeated use of comparing requiring eyes of dead to make a save when it says there is one to see invisible.)

Alignment restrictions are removed because the most current book (Vampire Sourcebook) says that necromancers can be good aligned.

I am not sure what the rest of your post is trying to say, nor to whom you are addressing it.....

But its not really relivent.
Heroic Necromancers exist.
Heroic Necromancers may be have good alignments
Therefor Necromancers are no longer restricted to non-good alignments.

[Blue_Lion]

More people have psionics than magic so they are not out. Heck more people are likely to have power X of psi than be necromancers.

Changing the conditions to make it sound better now? You said summon a vampire in to a trap so it can be destroyed. Or are you going to give the vampire a fair trial to bring it to justice? Your example of summoning a serial killer if he is giving a fair trail and brought to justice then it is not an evil act, but that is not what you said. To summon him for an execution without a trial is not bringing him to justice but revenge. (No self defense but inviolately summing him to be killed, even though he is evil that would still be murder.

You are building allot of misdirection and rules lawyer defenses in your debate. I said the gods of rifts stated that necromancy is evil and you replay with "The justification, I imagine, would be something unwritten. Like to gain the OCC abilities of the necromancer, maybe you need to steal and eat an innocent baby. Except I don't think you could manage an Unprincipled alignment with that so... I'm not really sure what kind of act would fall under the bounds." That is pure misdirection as it does not address why I said it was evil, in fact it does not even address what I said in the least but more of a slight of hand move.

You have failed to actually prove that there is any reason to remove any aliment restrictions in any of your post. All you did is use misdirection's and demand Identical affects. (The equivalent of demanding finding another spell that does the exact same thing as armor of ithan but not armor of ithan, something that even the other armor spells can not do.) and even use misinformation such as claiming detecting undead is not within the listed powers of see aura when it is covered in the same clause that catches shape shifted demons and dragons.-the presence of inhuman aberration. And false defenses such as comparing a saying that requiring a save roll on a detection spell with the save listed as standard to a detection spell with a listed save of none. (Your repeated use of comparing requiring eyes of dead to make a save when it says there is one to see invisible.)

Alignment restrictions are removed because the most current book (Vampire Sourcebook) says that necromancers can be good aligned.

I am not sure what the rest of your post is trying to say, nor to whom you are addressing it.....

But its not really relivent.
Heroic Necromancers exist.
Heroic Necromancers may be have good alignments
Therefor Necromancers are no longer restricted to non-good alignments.

I was talking to Tor.

Now does it say the class was redone or you using a NPC that may be breaking normal rules to justify it? (not a book I have any interest in.)

[eliakon]

More people have psionics than magic so they are not out. Heck more people are likely to have power X of psi than be necromancers.

Changing the conditions to make it sound better now? You said summon a vampire in to a trap so it can be destroyed. Or are you going to give the vampire a fair trial to bring it to justice? Your example of summoning a serial killer if he is giving a fair trail and brought to justice then it is not an evil act, but that is not what you said. To summon him for an execution without a trial is not bringing him to justice but revenge. (No self defense but inviolately summing him to be killed, even though he is evil that would still be murder.

You are building allot of misdirection and rules lawyer defenses in your debate. I said the gods of rifts stated that necromancy is evil and you replay with "The justification, I imagine, would be something unwritten. Like to gain the OCC abilities of the necromancer, maybe you need to steal and eat an innocent baby. Except I don't think you could manage an Unprincipled alignment with that so... I'm not really sure what kind of act would fall under the bounds." That is pure misdirection as it does not address why I said it was evil, in fact it does not even address what I said in the least but more of a slight of hand move.

You have failed to actually prove that there is any reason to remove any aliment restrictions in any of your post. All you did is use misdirection's and demand Identical affects. (The equivalent of demanding finding another spell that does the exact same thing as armor of ithan but not armor of ithan, something that even the other armor spells can not do.) and even use misinformation such as claiming detecting undead is not within the listed powers of see aura when it is covered in the same clause that catches shape shifted demons and dragons.-the presence of inhuman aberration. And false defenses such as comparing a saying that requiring a save roll on a detection spell with the save listed as standard to a detection spell with a listed save of none. (Your repeated use of comparing requiring eyes of dead to make a save when it says there is one to see invisible.)

Alignment restrictions are removed because the most current book (Vampire Sourcebook) says that necromancers can be good aligned.

I am not sure what the rest of your post is trying to say, nor to whom you are addressing it.....

But its not really relivent.
Heroic Necromancers exist.
Heroic Necromancers may be have good alignments
Therefor Necromancers are no longer restricted to non-good alignments.

I was talking to Tor.

Now does it say the class was redone or you using a NPC that may be breaking normal rules to justify it? (not a book I have any interest in.)

Vampire Sorcebook pg. 26 has the Necromancer OCC. it specifically says in the Alignment block that they can be good, just that they are usually evil. But that 20% of the ones in Mexico are Scrupulous.....