Are you saying that BG2 allows non-specialists to be assigned after creation? Because if you are, you are wrong. Here's a test: start a new vanilla BG2 game. Immediately after Imoen frees your character, save. Now edit the game and give Imoen the Conjurer kit, and while you're at it give her the extra spells per level that a Conjurer gets. Now give her the 141,000 XP that she would have gained from BG1 TotSC (40,000 from Thief, the rest for reaching level 8 mage). Also give her some scrolls (or get them in-game) to produce some experience. She will level up and she WILL lose the extra Conjurer spells. The BG2 engine does not allow it.

Edwin's creature files contain completely false spell memorisation stats, that why he loses them. Same with Minsc and HD.

A funny thing to note about AD&D is that the "protection from good" spell is, funnily, nearly as effective as "protection from evil" to protect yourself from a fiend, and vice-versa. Those spells prevent an extraplanar creature from touching you or mentally controlling you, regardless of their alignment - it just adds some additional penalties to the named alignment.

But it's also worth noting that "protection from evil" won't prevent a fiend from kill you - it'll prevent the fiend from making melee attacks on you unless it makes a Magic Resistance roll (which higher fiends have a lot of), and from mentally controlling you - it won't prevent the fiend from casting a fireball to kill you.

There is not much details given in core AD&D books on how to "bind a fiend", but it is assumed to require more than just a few spells, but doing extensive research/preparation work, like signing a contract with the fiend, or knowing its True Name.

Baldur's Gate simplifies all that with the various "planar allies" spells/abilities.

I'm not sure how to tell which version of the Player's Handbook I have. It is on page 210. It specifically says:

"The casting of this spell is not a good act, and only evil wizards use it frequently."

Probably in this case is more close to the turn undead ability for the neutral clerics, they can choice to use "Good" summons or "evil" summons.

Yet, technically a angry good guy could invoke a demon with a swift in the good - evil axis :P

Just wanted to jump in real quick to say that I'm getting a kick out of dtgreene and Hickory sparring across this and other threads. It's a classic confrontation between chaotic and lawful characters. (Chaotic Good and Lawful Neutral, respectively, I'm thinking...)

[Typo]

I wasn't aware there was any sparring. And your alignment view is way off.

My question is why wouldn't a chaotic neutral character use the spell if needed. I understand some good person finding it as something NOT to do. But on the other hand, why wouldn't a chaotic neutral or true neutral cast it?

Animating the dead and summoning demons are strictly evil acts. When it comes to morality, it would be like killing someone just because you can. True and chaotic neutral characters are still heroes, and what kind of heroes would do these things?

Evil "heroes", on a regular basis.
And neutral ones, when it’s needed to save the day/preserve balance ;)

Or chaotic neutral ones, just because they felt like it.

A chaotic neutral character is a free-spirited, selfish individual who has no time for shackling laws or rules. They are equally averse to overt 'evil' acts, just as much as overt 'good' acts. I see no reason why such a character would stoop to evil acts such as reanimating the corpses of dead people.

I suppose that my idea of a chaotic neutral is evilish then. I always pictured a chaotic neutral to be reluctant for killing just for the shake of killing and, main difference with pure evil characters, would accept to change the course of action to avoid murders, specially when talking about innocents. But unlike good characters, I always thought that, in the end, a CN is able to do, with some remorse and as a last resort, but still do evil acts. But well, I always pictured a chaotic neutral to be too good to be evil but totally not a "hero".

Also, why is animating the dead evil? Summoning a demon is less about "negotiate" and more about "entropy and destruction", so I get it. But does the skeletons' / whatever original soul still suffer and the summon forces it out of rest, condemning it to still suffer forever or something like that? If that is the case, I can understand good people avoiding to do it. And if my CN concept is evilish, I suppose a "normal" neutral would find the idea horrible too.

I don't know if this is explained in early D&D manuals, sorry if it sounds dumb xD. The only manuals I actually own are D&D 4 (yes yes, I know xD) shared and Pathfinder's of my own (I lent it to a friend, so I can't check out right now).
I always found a Chaotic Neutral to be what you said, so I figured he using the spell not as in "stooping" (I didn't know this word, so I might be wrong, but I think it means leaning to evil, doesn't it?) to do evil, but rather as a tool to use if really needed. It is a tool, and as you said, he doesn't care about if it's right or wrong. He just wants to use it to get out of trouble and get to another thing ASAP.

But you are missing an important fact: the act itself is evil. A C/N person doesn't follow rules, but does not perform goody-goody acts, nor 'evil' acts. If a law/rule said you must not do this, a C/N person wouldn't care about that law, but they also would be averse to doing it anyway -- it's simply not their way.

I always pictured that the free-spirited nature made them not to care about rules but also not to care about morality, in the sense I interpreted a CN didn't label his acts neither as good nor evil. He just did what he felt his way.
I suppose then that my CN's idea of morality borderlines (if not steps into) evil. That's why I didn't picture a general evil action "not being the way" of a general chaotic neutral.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
- Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

The chaotic neutral you described is similar to the one on the tv tropes page, and isn't actually a wrong interpretation.Just one of many different ways to interpret CN.

Animating the dead is an evil act because:

1) You forcefully subject another creature to your will

2) You are denying the person his/her eternal reward

These things are mentioned in Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead. I don't think an end justifies the means scenario is addressed in that book, but the language and the tone implies that reanimating corpses is something only villains do.

Animating the dead isn't even morally justified in Dark Sun, which is pretty much D&D's version of Mad Max.