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[Toaster]

So clearly there needs to be a cave full of docile undead who only attack in self defense, as the standard adventurer response to a cave of undead is to go skull bashing.

[Sergius]

Well, the Tome of Necro assumes that's the case, gives two option: evil undead that attack living things, or neutral undead that aren't very active. But in both cases the undead will not only defend themselves, they will attack anyone attacking other undead. Still homebrew tho.

I think it would be funny to polymorph into one and then attack a room full of undead then run out and watch they all kill each other.

[scrdest]

I recall that a compelling reason for zombie/skellington necromancy being evil is that it involves taking a soul and putting it in a body, but not as a controller, as a power source of sorts - so you invoke a I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream on whoever's soul you used, even if you use the body to help kindly old ladies across the street - you're essentially burying a soul alive adead in a corpse.

[Jimmy]

Here's the rules from a purely mechanical standpoint:

Any spell with the [Evil] subschool is an evil spell. Many, many necromancy spells fall into this camp. A cleric that worships a Good deity cannot prepare these spells, period, because their deity forbids them. Casting a spell with the [Evil] subschool is an evil act.

As an example, here's the classic one:

Animate Dead
School necromancy [evil]; Level antipaladin 3, cleric/oracle 3, sorcerer/wizard 4; Domain death 3, souls 3

Since it carries the [Evil] subschool tag, it's an evil act to cast this spell and your alignment can change from doing so.

Compare to the following:

Inflict Light Wounds
School necromancy; Level antipaladin 1, cleric/oracle 1, inquisitor 1, witch 1

Even though it's a necromancy spell, casting Inflict Light Wounds isn't an evil act. A cleric that worships a good deity can freely prepare and cast this spell with no risk of alignment change (unless he's using it at your local orphanage).

Necromancy as a school isn't an entirely evil school. Many spells are evil in it, but that's just a side point.

As for non-evil undead, you'll find that many templates allow the intelligent undead creature to retain their previous alignment, meaning they can remain neutral or good aligned even as an undead creature. For example, the Ghost template in Pathfinder, which says it's unlikely but possible:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/ghost

When a soul is not allowed to rest due to some great injustice, either real or perceived, it sometimes comes back as a ghost. Such beings are in eternal anguish, lacking in substance and unable to set things right. Although ghosts can be any alignment, the majority cling to the living world out of a powerful sense of rage and hatred, and as a result are chaotic evil—even the ghost of a good or lawful creature can become hateful and cruel in its afterlife.

[Tack]

Soul of the rangry paladin now seems like a fun questghost.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I think the resolution to the old necromancy v evil debates is always best achieved culturally: e.g.note how in Morrowind necromancy in universally reviled as evil, except when the Temple does it to protect tombs and the power the ghost fence: then it is totally fine. 

Something as jarring as necromancy would have to be dealt with culturally: one way or the other.

[Tack]

HERE IT IS AND YOU CAN ALL JUST BOW DOWN TO ME

Honorary Footkerchief right here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

> I DO WISH JOCELYN WOULD STOP TALKING ABOUT HER SHREWBERRY PIES THOUGH
They were quite good in life, I'll admit
> IT HAS BEEN TWENTY YEARS AND THEY ARE JUST PIES
I'll talk to her about it.
> IT HAS BEEN TWENTY YEARS OF NOTHING BUT PIE

[Bohandas]

Likewise, the "vivomancy" I wish was more frequently present in tabletop games could be used for unspeakable purposes, and not just really powerful healing and resurrection spells.

Back in the 3e days one of the forumites of WoTC's official D&D message board posted stats for a custom demon that uses positive energy to rebuke and command the living and give people cancer, but I'm pretty sure that thread has surely either been lost in one of the several reorganizations of their forum in the intervening years or deleted because it was too old.

(I might have a downloaded copy saved somewhere, but the most likely location of said copy is either in one of the stacks and stacks of poorly labeled and poorly organized backup dvds in my room or more likely on an old hard drive from my first laptop whose file allocation table got corrupted that I've been meaning to have the data recovered from but I keep avoiding sending in to get worked on because he hard drive also has furry porn and grey-market music files on it; either way I'm not likely to find it any time soon)

[Jeshin]

I have to say I think running a custom Dread campaign using the tower system in other settings is really appealing to me. I would love to have a Warhammer 40k, dark heresy campaign using dread. Have the cast of characters be fledgling acolytes of the Inquisition in way way way over their heads. Do a nice horror vibe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0loSZFsyoQ

[Redzephyr01]

Likewise, the "vivomancy" I wish was more frequently present in tabletop games could be used for unspeakable purposes, and not just really powerful healing and resurrection spells.

Back in the 3e days one of the forumites of WoTC's official D&D message board posted stats for a custom demon that uses positive energy to rebuke and command the living and give people cancer, but I'm pretty sure that thread has surely either been lost in one of the several reorganizations of their forum in the intervening years or deleted because it was too old.

(I might have a downloaded copy saved somewhere, but the most likely location of said copy is either in one of the stacks and stacks of poorly labeled and poorly organized backup dvds in my room or more likely on an old hard drive from my first laptop whose file allocation table got corrupted that I've been meaning to have the data recovered from but I keep avoiding sending in to get worked on because he hard drive also has furry porn and grey-market music files on it; either way I'm not likely to find it any time soon)

One of the monsters in the "Elder Evils" sourcebook (Ragnorra, I think) uses positive energy to do something sort of like that, but on a ridiculously huge scale. Like, planet-wide scale.

[Rolan7]

Got a rules question.  Our warrior's getting grappled by a black pudding, and we're wonder how many hit points his mithral shirt has.  We came up with 100 somehow (plus 30 for +3 enchantments, from the Magic Item Compendium).  Which seems pretty good, but I'm curious.  Surely this comes up a lot...
He also had a magic amulet, fortunately not important, which gave him a +1 attack and damage.  We arrived at that having 5 hit points.

Where the heck are the rules for this??

[GiglameshDespair]

What edition?

[Rolan7]

3.5e sorry

[Dutchling]

3sorry5me

[BlackFlyme]

I know a bit about how it works in Pathfinder.

Armour has an amount of hardness equal to its material's defined hardness. In the case of mithral, it is 15 in Pathfinder, plus an additional 2 hardness per enhancement bonus, which would be 6, for a total hardness of 21. I'm not sure if hardness would apply in this situation, however.

The hitpoints of mithral would be 30 per inch of thickness, according to the Pathfinder core rule book. I do not know how that factors into armour, however. Armours have a base amount of health equal to the amount of base armour bonus it provides, multiplied by 5. Enhancement bonuses increase this health by 10 for each bonus it has. You would be correct in giving it thirty hitpoints from its enhancements.

I wouldn't know about the amulet though. The closest I could find would likely be either the base stats for rope or chain, plus its bonuses for being magic. Chain has 5 hitpoints, and rope has 2.