To me, the argument "animating undead is evil because it is evil" reminds me of the 3.5 edition spell Deathwatch. Deathwatch is marked as [Evil], yet it does not seem logical that such a spell would be restricted in such a way. In fact, I could see a good aligned Cleric casting this spell in a disaster zone and using it to determine who to spend her limited healing resources on.

The way I see it, defining an act as inherently evil in all circumstances is flawed. The circumstances matter. What if you actually have the dead person's permission? What if the person's spirit has already passed to the next world? What if, in the setting, characters don't have "spirits" and are simply dead (like in the real world, if you don't take religion into account).

Well, even if I agree with the idea of reanimating dead (and necromancy as a whole basically) being evilish, IMO 1) isn't that far from an enchanter enchanting someone "hardcore style". And 2), if the denying is only temporal, I find it to certainly be a dick move, but no so grave as to be "evil baddies only". I find necromancy to be a favourite of evil wizards, but I think every wizard (LG aside) can practise it, with different spell focus of course.
It seems to be an ongoing question tough, as seen and [url=http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/45965/is-necromancy-necessarily-evil-in-5e-or-forgotten-realms]here.
Nevertheless, I am sure that book will shed some light on the matter, as it looks very interesting. Thank you very much!

On the other hand, if you create a character as a specialist mage and then later change them into a generalist with an editor, they'll still get the bonus spells like specialists do. There's a "gets bonus spells" byte in the character file somewhere, I'm just not sure where.

While playing Morrowind, a thought occurred to me:

Is it an evil act to gate in a demon and then kill it for XP? (Baldur's Gate 2, I believe, lets you do that.) I am inclined to say it isn't because you are killing evil creatures. (Of course, if I were the Dungeon Master and the players did this, I would eventually send demons that Protection from Evil wouldn't work against, who are angry at the players for slaying many of their kind, and some would be epic level or the equivalent.)

In Morrowind, I summoned an Ancestor Spirit and trapped its soul in a soul gem that I can then sell for money. I would be inclined to think this would be evil. On the other hand, what if it were a Daedra that I summoned? (Daedra, to my understanding, fall outside the D&D alignment system, which makes the answer to this question not so obvious.)

The Tanari Pit Fiend summoned by the level 7 cleric spell and level 9 wizard spell Gate has no XP value.

Well, if I remember my dnd lore correctly, killing a demon (or any other outsider) outside its home plane will just return it to said plane, possibly with some time passing before it respawns and/or is allowed to leave that plane. I'd say it's neither an evil nor a good act. On the other hand, xp is an out of character concept that your character shouldn't know about, so if I was DM I'd say you were metagaming and tell you you could do it but would get no xp. Which is exactly what BG does, too, according to Hickory.

Here's an in-character explanation: "I am killing these demons to practice my skills."

Of course, it isn't as silly as Daggerfall/Morrowind where it is possible to gain levels just by jumping up and down and running around. (Although maybe that does make more sense in some respects, but why would doing this (in Daggerfall) make your spells more powerful?)

Isn't that what they do in dragon age origins? or just for shits and giggles? Since we are making comparisons between different games.....

Because by jumping and running better, you can now use your legs to weave your spells and add more gusto to them!!!!

Same thing with unarmoured (or any armour skill). Getting whacked in the chest repeatedly strengthens it so you can thrust it out an get more gusto in your spells.

Same with martial skills. All that sword and axe waving gives your arms more gusto which also applies to magic.

Makes perfect sense to me.............