What do you think of officially published "clean necromancy" in games like Pathfinder 2e, Draw Steel, and D&D 5.5e?

These are PC options that bring forth undead, yet never have to grapple with the ethics and morals of applying long-term reanimation magic upon a preexisting corpse.

Whether bone shaper, flesh magician, or spirit monger, a Pathfinder 2e necromancer's Create Thrall cantrip makes undead appear with no preexisting corpse needed. Maybe they are being formed ex nihilo, or perhaps they are being pulled from the Void/Negative Energy Plane or the Netherworld/Shadow Plane. If an enemy dies within 60 feet of the necromancer, they can use Inevitable Return to raise the creature as a weak, undead thrall, but it crumbles apart after a minute. A necromancer can learn the Create Undead ritual if they want to turn preexisting corpses into undead, but this is purely opt-in (and not that optimal, really).

In Draw Steel, one summoner subclass brings out undead, such as husks, skeletons, incorporeal shades, and more exotic specimens. Their Call Forth ability makes undead appear with no preexisting corpse needed. Maybe they are being formed ex nihilo, or perhaps they are being pulled from the Necropolitan Ruin/Last City. If an enemy dies within a certain range of the necromancer, they can use Rise! to raise the creature as a weak, undead minion, but it dissipates after the combat. There is no PC-available option that turns preexisting corpses into undead.

D&D 5.5e's Necromancer subclass has moved away from Animate Dead, instead focusing on Summon Undead. Whether Ghostly, Putrid, or Skeletal, the spell makes undead appear with no preexisting corpse needed. Maybe they are being formed ex nihilo, or perhaps they are being pulled from the Negative Plane or the Shadowfell. Any wizard can opt into learning the Animate Dead spell if they want to turn preexisting corpses into undead, but this is purely opt-in (and maybe not that good with the revision to Undead Thralls).

DnD / PF (any edition) combat gets worse the more combatants there is, so any class that adds more than a single body to the fray is generally a bad idea.

>>96060665

Pathfinder 2e's necromancer and Draw Steel's summoner try to get around this by heavily simplifying their respective thralls and summons.

D&D 5e's solution is to have the Summon spells require concentration, so in theory, only one can be active at a time.

>>96060690
5e animate dead and /create undead do not require concentration. animate has a hit dice cap beased on caster level, and create just locks in what you can make based on level, starting with ghouls.
Those are the spells that are most often abused by PC necromancers, and they slow down combat to a crawl.

>>96060740
>and they slow down combat to a crawl
of course they do, D&D isn't a Fast Zombies setting like 28 days later.

>>96060740

Is 5.5e Animate Dead even worth it with the change to Undead Thralls? It seems like a poor use of a level 3 slot, particularly since AoE is likely to wipe them all out.

>>96060621 (OP)
Fuck no, I want corpses stacked around my manor house, weird bones and body parts tied to me.
Give me that Rifts Necromancer any day. Wanna be moral? Parts is parts Necromancer is a perfectly fine explanation

>>96060787
What Rifts book(s) have the most information on necromancy?

>>96060621 (OP)
In games like D&D 4/5E and Pathfinder 2E, I tend to prefer "clean" necromancy. Easy to work into a party of good-aligned adventurers and nothing too under/overpowered or inconvenient. Boring, sterile, safe. Just like everything else in those games.
But in older editions, or literally any other game, I want necromancy with actual power, terrible costs, and vile consequences. It should require human sacrifice, desecrate the land, and taint the soul. It should require dark forbidden knowledge and painstakingly careful preparation. And beyond all things, it must give power commensurate with its costs. Necromancers should be feared for good reason.

>>96060621 (OP)
You might think its smart but its just further dumbing down, normiefying and simplifying things. These "undead" are just less uncool summoned elementals now.

>>96067344
This is the problem with D&D, not everything needs a player option.

>>96066343
Rifts Africa, and rifts mystic russia
Also palladium fantasy high seas

>>96067344
>And beyond all things, it must give power commensurate with its costs. Necromancers should be feared for good reason
I remembers the first time I was in an RP heavy (D&D3.5e) group the edgy warlock player talked about selling his soul for power.
Which given he got slapped around by goblins in the first fight, the monk player teased that the warlock should get a refund.
The warlock player quit after that.

But that was the first time I realized D&D has an issue with writing up how every character is a god among men, when the power scaling really doesn't allow for that until well after most campaigns end because a system designed to go from 0 to Super Hero needs a lot of thought to actually work.

>>96060690
“In theory”? What does that mean?

>>96067565
D&D was made on the (false) pretense that players could do anything that the DM is able to hammer into the system.
The biggest problem is they included this freeform ideology in with a highly restrictive archetype-based class system, that unfortunately improperly represents most of what people want to custom make.

In the end, it's a product whose company wants as many people to buy as possible, so whether it properly represents a vision doesn't matter, much like how the large and stacked styrofoam and CG burgers don't have to represent the actual flattened and lopsided burgers of a fast food joint.
THIS is the actual problem with D&D.

>>96060621 (OP)
>What do you think of officially published "clean necromancy" in games like Pathfinder 2e, Draw Steel, and D&D 5.5e?

I think they're retarded, like the "clean !darkside" force powers from the Star Wars EU.

If you want to use this shit, accept the consequences.

>>96073379
Hard agree, you can be good natured, postive down right lovely person , but you are using evil for power and it should leak into your personal life, appearance and motivations.
The necromancer who acts like santa claus to his own nation and consumes flesh and death of his enemies will slowly start seeing the darkness spill over to his time away from the front type deal, or should

>>96060621 (OP)
>D&D 5.5e's Necromancer subclass has moved away from Animate Dead, instead focusing on Summon Undead.
Please. This is moronic. Leave the Animate Dead Necromancer and if you want to play as a good (or someone close to this idea), then you don't go Summon Undead but make contracts with dead people, turn their spirits into contract partners and put them into bodies (any random body or specifically designed by you)...or have them literal Shades, Ghosts, Specters and such if you don't want them to be physical and act as your custom-made Revenants.

Have both types of necromancers exist and have both of them have distinct strengths and weaknesses.

>>96068088
>palladium fantasy high seas
Really? Why that one?

>>96060621 (OP)
>What do you think of officially published "clean necromancy" in games like Pathfinder 2e, Draw Steel, and D&D 5.5e?
Not my shit flinging monkeys, not my circus

Yeah I'm just gonna keep playing PF1e. Reanimating the dead is an evil act, and any cleric of Pharasma will kill you if they know you did it.

>>96060665
But I like playing master summoner...

>>96060621 (OP)
As morbid as necromancy is, I wouldn't call it inherently evil. During the course of their studies, a necromancy should have studied effective ways to eliminate the undead too, right? There are all sorts of things that could fall under the umbrella beyond just animating or summoning undead

>>96077756
Yeah. Stuff like undoing animating dead, banishing spirits or communicating with the dead...
And that's just the peak of the iceberg.

>>96073042
Thats where it was located way ba before rifts and modern pf, its one of the first expansions and had a ton of new classes in it
Book goes over ports around the world so it gives a new exotic caster class

>>96077756
These spells are basically off topic. Certainly there are cool things necromancers can do (or should be able to do, if the system doesn't support it) besides just making minions.

But the minion-making is the core aspect at work. Making a strike team of skeletons is a thing supported in 5e and the moral ramifications of this are left for the DM to add in- and there's no shortage of players who will cry on forums if they aren't allowed consequence-free use of innocent souls.

>but nothing about a skeleton says anything about a soul

Yea this is the problem, this is why its "clean necromancy" or "safe edgy". It's simply not how it should be- it deliberately refuses to state what necromancy is, while keeping all the pieces from the real world to appeal to players. It's some gay video game like Diablo where everyone is ok with you having the corpse of their beloved ancestors following you around whilst you vendor a huge pile of swords.