Why zombie livestock is a bad idea


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This is a new thread started to continue a discussion that was a derail in the aligned spells thread. Basically someone brought up the idea of an individual renting out zombie oxen and I thought this was a colossally flawed business plan. In order to keep the other thread on topic I'm replying here.

Ashiel wrote:
ryric wrote:


Yeah, Ashiel, I think we just disagree about a lot of things here. No way would I let someone tell a mindless undead "plow that field" and have it come out anywhere near usable, at least not without constant supervision. That's way too complicated a task for a zombie. Also, profession can't be rolled untrained so there's no way for the zombie to "pay for itself."

No, it's not, and you're just plain wrong about this. The absence of an ability score has a +0 modifier to checks related to that score. Skeletons and Zombies are both perfectly capable of perceiving and reacting to their surroundings, while being capable of doing things that an untrained laborer is capable of doing. As someone who has grown up in a rural environment, let me assure you that plowing a field is not rocket science. It takes no special sort of training.

So no, it's not too complicated a task for a zombie or a golem or anything similar. You're just wrong about this one. I'm sorry. There is nothing that prevents a mindless creature from making Craft or Profession checks. In fact, the rules even account for this by telling you their effective modifier is +0.

Profession can't be rolled untrained. So a creature with no skill ranks can never make a Profession check.

Also, do you have a Pathfinder rules reference for your assertion that a - score is equivalent to a +0 modifier? I can only find references to Con acting that way under constructs. All references to Mindless simply say "no intelligence score" but I sure can't find a general rule that makes that equivalent to +0.

Ashiel wrote:
ryric wrote:


Undead oxen also likely stink, can catch carrion-related diseases and pass them on to your family and actual livestock, and possibly contaminate the crops. They can't be used as a food source in a pinch and don't make copies of themselves.

Again, you're making stuff up. There are countless adventures and such with zombies both new and old and unless there is something special about said zombie then they aren't contaminated. Likewise, you'd only stink if you were rotting, but undead do not decompose so there is no rot. Further, skeletons. Skeletons man. Skeletons, seriously, skeletons.

You're just being contrary with no basis for it, just to be contrary.

Where do you get the idea that undead do not decompose? The zombie description in the Bestiary says "flesh rotting off its bones." Corpses decompose. Corpses stink. Corpses can harbor diseases. (I can find you references on those statements if you insist). Nothing in the monster description of zombies, the bestiary entry for the Undead type, or in the spell description of animate dead mentions any of that changing so animated flesh is just as susceptible to these things as a normal dead body.

I concede that skeletons avoid most of these issues.

Ashiel wrote:
ryric wrote:


At 3 HD per zombie a 7th level adept caster can have 4 of these ox zombies under his control. I'll go ahead and grant that he can give them the standing order of "do what this farmer says." I'd also presume, however, that said farmer is probably not an experienced necromancer with spellcraft, appropriate knowledges, or what have you and thus will make some, er, mistakes, when ordering his zombie around, mistakes that could lead to the zombie attacking him or his family.
You really should know more about farming given how good you are at shoveling manure. Again, making up stuff and just trying to be obtuse. NOTHING YOU JUST SAID is actually a thing. You do not need ranks in Spellcraft, Knowledges, or anything else to make animate dead work for you. It's very clear, they follow orders. The rules on Intelligence are very clear that mindless creatures are still at least as capable at performing Int based tasks as someone with 10 Int.

Where are these rules on Int of which you speak? I really can't find them. Mindless means that a zombie or skeleton has as much brainpower as a cricket. It follows literal orders from its creator or someone with Command Undead or such. Giving an automaton accurate orders is more like computer programming than it is farming. Someone experienced/knowledgable with magic knows how to phrase commands to get what they want - that's probably not the farmer.

Ashiel wrote:
ryric wrote:


I mean, it's pretty easy to tell a zombie "drag this plow to the end of the field in a straight line" (although you're also neglecting the role of the farmer in providing downward force on the plow to push it into the ground) but as soon as the zombie completes that task it defaults to "kill the living," so that seems like a pretty big problem.
Again, lies.

How about some rules text:

Bestiary wrote:
Zombies are unthinking automatons, and can do little more than follow orders. When left unattended, zombies tend to mill about in search of living creatures to slaughter and devour.

(emphasis mine)

While I don't posses a similar quote for skeletons, they are still Evil creatures and thus default to causing pain and suffering.

Ashiel wrote:
ryric wrote:


Also I calculate the initial investment at 300gp (15 gp for ox, 75 gp material component for 3 HD, 7 level caster(adept), 3rd level spell) per zombie ox. So for the same price you get 20 regular oxen.
Why would the necromancer renting the undead pay another necromancer to animate them? I'm beginning to wonder if the reason you seem so off-field in terms of how the game works is because you are actively refusing to actually read, pick a few words out, and then mush in a bunch of filler based on whatever you wanted to think it said.

Setting aside your insult, the reason I included the spellcasting cost is that that is the true "sale" value of the undead. Yes the caster can make it cheaper but that's like saying a 15gp sword is actually only 5gp because that's the cost to make it. The market value of a 3 HD undead made by an adept is 300gp. I can see how my original post made that distinction unclear so I apologize for any confusion. From the farmer's point of view, the undead ox is twenty times as expensive as a living ox.


Interesting.

Out of curiosity, what would you set the price model at for a rented skeleton ox? That's honestly the biggest problem with this that I see-- setting it up so the farmer can actually afford it but the necromancer is still turning a profit. Random farmers are kind of poor.


ryric wrote:


Where are these rules on Int of which you speak? I really can't find them. Mindless means that a zombie or skeleton has as much brainpower as a cricket. It follows literal orders from its creator or someone with Command Undead or such. Giving an automaton accurate orders is more like computer programming than it is farming. Someone experienced/knowledgeable with magic knows how to phrase commands to get what they want - that's probably not the farmer.

It would be reasonable for him to turn your argument around with "Where are these rules on computer programming in which you speak?". You may have extrapolated that giving orders to undead is similar to programming from your interpretation of the rules, but you are literally trying to pull the same tactic on him that you just called him out for trying to use on you. You BOTH are looking at the rules and then extrapolating. Either you both are allowed to do that, or neither of you are.


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First off, plowing a field is a job that can be done by an "untrained laborer" (defined rules-wise as someone with no Profession ranks). So that sidesteps that pretty easily.

Second, there's nothing that says giving orders to an undead is some specialized skill. It is in fact probably easier than getting an animal to do what you want, since they follow spoken orders without question.

Third, it says when left unattended, they TEND TO do things. However, that is not a hard and fast rule that any zombie without a currently assigned task defaults to "Kill", and could well only be intended for "wild" undead.

Created zombies remain "under your control indefinitely". Going out of control and killing random things contradicts that.

Fourth, animated dead remain animated until they are destroyed. That implies that they do not ever decompose fully (that would be them ceasing to be animated). They may be rotting, but are also magically preserved at the same time.

This does not mean that they carry diseases beyond, sometimes, Zombie Rot (and only specific kinds of zombies there). Zombies are still creatures, meaning they need to contract diseases before spreading them. However, undead are immune to disease.

Fifth, figuring up the "sale value" for some reason is disingenuous. That's high balling the actual cost of creation by over 3 times.

The only thing you really seem to have a point on is the "Int -- = Int 10" thing.

kestral287 wrote:

Interesting.

Out of curiosity, what would you set the price model at for a rented skeleton ox? That's honestly the biggest problem with this that I see-- setting it up so the farmer can actually afford it but the necromancer is still turning a profit. Random farmers are kind of poor.

You could actually turn a profit pretty easily. One zombie Ox costs 90 GP.

Assuming you rent it out for even as little as 10 gp a pop (undercutting the purchase price of an ox by 40 gp), 9 farmers will make you break even. From then on, it's all profit, since you don't need to pay for feed, or veterinary bills, or anything like that ever.


What we did in our current game is following the example of the spell: Skeleton Sailor, was to have the PC Wizard to make the spell: Skeleton Farmer. Solves any problem with needed knowledge or skills.


Rynjin wrote:
kestral287 wrote:

Interesting.

Out of curiosity, what would you set the price model at for a rented skeleton ox? That's honestly the biggest problem with this that I see-- setting it up so the farmer can actually afford it but the necromancer is still turning a profit. Random farmers are kind of poor.

You could actually turn a profit pretty easily. One zombie Ox costs 90 GP.

Assuming you rent it out for even as little as 10 gp a pop (undercutting the purchase price of an ox by 40 gp), 9 farmers will make you break even. From then on, it's all profit, since you don't need to pay for feed, or veterinary bills, or anything like that ever.

How much gold does the average farmer have though? I don't have any source on that handy, but I seem to recall that even five gold was a pretty solid chunk of change for them.

How long would each "rent" period be? That's the other half of the equation there too.

It's also probably not fair to say that you have no costs-- you need somewhere to store any skeletons that aren't working (as leaving them to wander around is likely to get them destroyed by murderhobos, not to mention probably unpopular with the townsfolk).

You'd also have to convince people that this is a good idea, so investing in Diplomacy might be wise for your sales pitch. But that's not much of a cost.


kestral287 wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
kestral287 wrote:

Interesting.

Out of curiosity, what would you set the price model at for a rented skeleton ox? That's honestly the biggest problem with this that I see-- setting it up so the farmer can actually afford it but the necromancer is still turning a profit. Random farmers are kind of poor.

You could actually turn a profit pretty easily. One zombie Ox costs 90 GP.

Assuming you rent it out for even as little as 10 gp a pop (undercutting the purchase price of an ox by 40 gp), 9 farmers will make you break even. From then on, it's all profit, since you don't need to pay for feed, or veterinary bills, or anything like that ever.

How much gold does the average farmer have though? I don't have any source on that handy, but I seem to recall that even five gold was a pretty solid chunk of change for them.

How long would each "rent" period be? That's the other half of the equation there too.

It's also probably not fair to say that you have no costs-- you need somewhere to store any skeletons that aren't working (as leaving them to wander around is likely to get them destroyed by murderhobos, not to mention probably unpopular with the townsfolk).

You'd also have to convince people that this is a good idea, so investing in Diplomacy might be wise for your sales pitch. But that's not much of a cost.

Lessee, the average Farmer is a Human Commoner 1/Expert 1 with a +9 bonus to Profession: Farmer.

Assuming they Take 10 on their Profession check every week, they end up with a 19, earning 9 gold, 5 silver per week.

He probably owns his own home, leaving him with only needing food as an expenditure. A Common meal is 3 sp a day, an expenditure of 2 gp, 1 sp per week. He gets 7 gp, 4 sp to save or spend as he chooses.

Given that he likely only needs to have his ox for about a week, once per year, this is likely easily affordable for him if he manages his money at all well.

That makes it sound like you won't be doing much business, because they'll only need i once a year for plowing, but you can also rent your skeleton Oxen (I go with skeleton since they're cleaner and more likely to be rented) for drawing carriages and other such things as well.

It takes a bit of start up, but makes a good supplementary income after you pay off the initial investment.


A more pertinent question might be: why would a cleric or wizard high enough level to make undead waste time doing this over, say, just selling his spellcasting services outright, for a much higher profit?

I could see it as an awesome side-venture though.

*edit*

I'm guessing blood money has been ruled out for this discussion, by the way? I guess if you have blood money you are already making inifinite gold via some other method anyway.


Blakmane wrote:

A more pertinent question might be: why would a cleric or wizard high enough level to make undead waste time doing this over, say, just selling his spellcasting services outright, for a much higher profit?

I could see it as an awesome side-venture though.

As you say, it's a neat side venture. Extra cash flow after a bit. Especially good for Adepts.


Blakmane wrote:
A more pertinent question might be: why would a cleric or wizard high enough level to make undead waste time doing this over, say, just selling his spellcasting services outright, for a much higher profit?

'Cause, once you handle advertising costs to get it started, there's relatively little investment needed. You'd have mild overhead for storage space, but really you can just throw a Wall of Stone-built shed up behind your house for that. Then you spend your 8 hours a day crafting items for sale to the murderhobos while your skeleton oxen go out and make some change for you.

*Shrug* Assuming you get past the issues ryric has, but I'm not getting into that debate.


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I think teamster work would probably be a much better field than farming, really. It would certainly make the most of their ability to cover large distances faster than living animals.


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I've witnessed the kind of GMing that punishes player creativity and bends the rules "for balance".

It's not fun.
It's not RAI.
It's not RAW.

Spells do things. Get over it. Let your players play the game.

Grand Lodge

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I think if your looking for a spell that makes money then creating undead is chump change..

fabricate now that is a great spell for making money

though im thinking i may need to hire your skeletal oxen to carry all my fabricated treasure around


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I'd just like to point out that canonically Geb has farms. They use them to raise humanoid slaves as food.


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undead are like robots….early robots of the "does not compute kind"…not jarvis or ultron.

if you can program a basic robot to mow a lawn or vacuum a rug, a zombie could plow a field..and you could walk away and do something else and it would continue to do that work, until there was no other work for it to do.

so if you left it "unattended" past the period of time for the task you gave it, one of two things would happen.
a) it would continue plowing the same field over and over again, or possibly plow the neighbors field or the road nearby.
or b) wander about in search of brains…possibly attacking anything living nearby.

what happens when you leave anything non intelligent alone for a specified task?
does it stop that task the minute you leave the room?

How does it know you left?

Does the oven immediately stop cooking the turkey and instead start a fire using the towels in the kitchen?

Or does it continue to cook the turkey, even 10 hours later, because you haven't come back and made it stop cooking the turkey?
the fire started because you never came back to stop the over from cooking the turkey.
NOT because you left the oven alone and it decided to do something else.

to do that, the oven would need to be intelligent, with decision making capability.

Zombies are like ovens… it ill keep doing the last thing it was set to do.
if you touch it…however you might get burned.

zombies have two settings….follow orders…. eat brains.
its going to default to one of those if not given any new orders.

Zombies can be given "if then statements"

"Dance with each other, IF people enter the room, Then eat brains"

If people never enter the room, they will dance for eternity.

if people enter the room, and they eat their brains, it is unclear what happens next… do they at that time mill about? or return to dancing?

question: wasn't the skeleton neutral in a past edition of the game?


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Rather than stipulate on the rules and game mechanics, which I believe Rynjin and others have well in hand, I'd like to point out that in Golarion itself there is an example of the undead providing reliable (albeit unskilled) labour within the nation of Geb.

Inner Sea World Guide, p. 75 wrote:
Zombie-harvested crops from Geb are a staple of the nation's diet... By royal decree, all mortals who die upon Geb's soil are reanimated as mindless undead to serve as slaves in the nation's lush fields or urban mansions...

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Pendagast wrote:

undead are like robots….early robots of the "does not compute kind"…not jarvis or ultron.

if you can program a basic robot to mow a lawn or vacuum a rug, a zombie could plow a field..and you could walk away and do something else and it would continue to do that work, until there was no other work for it to do.

so if you left it "unattended" past the period of time for the task you gave it, one of two things would happen.
a) it would continue plowing the same field over and over again, or possibly plow the neighbors field or the road nearby.
or b) wander about in search of brains…possibly attacking anything living nearby.

what happens when you leave anything non intelligent alone for a specified task?
does it stop that task the minute you leave the room?

How does it know you left?

Does the oven immediately stop cooking the turkey and instead start a fire using the towels in the kitchen?

Or does it continue to cook the turkey, even 10 hours later, because you haven't come back and made it stop cooking the turkey?
the fire started because you never came back to stop the over from cooking the turkey.
NOT because you left the oven alone and it decided to do something else.

to do that, the oven would need to be intelligent, with decision making capability.

Zombies are like ovens… it ill keep doing the last thing it was set to do.
if you touch it…however you might get burned.

zombies have two settings….follow orders…. eat brains.
its going to default to one of those if not given any new orders.

Zombies can be given "if then statements"

"Dance with each other, IF people enter the room, Then eat brains"

If people never enter the room, they will dance for eternity.

if people enter the room, and they eat their brains, it is unclear what happens next… do they at that time mill about? or return to dancing?

question: wasn't the skeleton neutral in a past edition of the game?

I think they were neutral in 3.X, but in Pathfinder skeletons and zombies are always Neutral Evil.

You raise some interesting points. Does a skeleton or zombie keep following its last order even if it becomes uncontrolled? In your dancing example, what if their controller dies? I'd think they would revert to uncontrolled behavior.

I am also of the opinion that if you give it a poorly defined task, or one that has a clear completion point, it reverts to "kill" behavior after completion unless told otherwise. You and I know to tell the zombie to plow and then stop and wait for new instructions. The guy animating it knows that. Does the farmer? He was probably told but if he forgets it could cost lives. You'd be amazed at people's inability to follow instructions, even crucial safety instructions, and if the farmer goofs up just once the results could be very bad. That's all I was trying to convey with my programming analogy - the farmer isn't an expert at ordering mindless undead to do tasks. The farmer isn't even directly in control of the undead, the entrepreneur is. That leaves a lot of room for error.

I also maintain that plowing a field takes expertise. I certainly couldn't plow a straight line, or know what depth to plow to, or how far to space the furrows as an untrained individual. I'd wager that most people who didn't grow up on a farm would not know these things. Pretty much by definition a mindless creature can't know more about anything than even the dumbest commoner. If it's possible not to know it, the undead does not know it. Really though all that means is that the farmer has to stay with the undead and guide it directly.

Edit: I'm going to surmise that those zombie farms in Geb have intelligent overseers that keep the mindless manual labor on task and provide expertise when needed.

Grand Lodge

though in that case the crop was live intelligent slaves not rows of crops. and their orders were eat these people if they escape.


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What Rynjin said.

Also...

Core Rulebook: Intelligence wrote:

Intelligence (Int)

Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons. This ability is important for wizards because it affects their spellcasting ability in many ways. Creatures of animal-level instinct have Intelligence scores of 1 or 2. Any creature capable of understanding speech has a score of at least 3. A character with an Intelligence score of 0 is comatose. Some creatures do not possess an Intelligence score. Their modifier is +0 for any Intelligence-based skills or checks.

So yeah, they follow your orders unquestioningly, and they function as well at any given task as a perfectly normal human being (sans acting on their own).

Meanwhile...

Core Rulebook: Animate Dead wrote:
The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely.

"Plow this field. When you are done, go over there and wait for further orders".

It would seem you should seek a druid with regeneration as you seem to be lacking a leg to stand on.


Undead labor again? Meh.

First off, agricultural undead are suboptimal, not impossible. Crunch-wise you have them being too stupid to do it right (think sorcerer's apprentice and the animated mops), the "does not compute" metaphor extends to them having "destroy all humans" breakdowns, they are occasionally toxic, and folk tend to have oxen for more than just the pulling power (meat am good).

Also, farmers are superstitious and get uncomfortable around undead.

Fluff-wise, while there are settings and stories (including pathfinder) where undead (usually intelligent) cultivate stuff, there are far more featuring necromantic "pollution" dripping off of the revenants and turning healthy ground into cursed earth that only evil and poison can sprout from.

Moreover, a skeletal ox can do the work of an ox, a skeletal or zombie Purple Worm can dig a mine shaft that would take years, burrow an irrigation ditch network the size of a town, and begin digging a drainage canal to turn a swamp into crop land in a single week. then the ogre skeletons can tromp along behind dragging wagonloads of paving stones to build the roads to ship the goods to market, the undead labor can be used to tear up and drag trees for experts to construct barges which will float the goods down the newly-dug (by worm) canal to the main river to the capital city.

Engineering projects pay better than agriculture, especially once you use the term ideas labor to guard the toll collection booths.

But this isn't Pathfinder, this is Simcity: Magic edition.

Grand Lodge

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there is nothing wrong with Sim city magic edition


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Humphry B ManWitch wrote:
there is nothing wrong with Sim city magic edition

Yep. If you're going to play a fantasy RPG, why not allow the world to be fantastic?

Silver Crusade

This is really a discussion of Energy Slaves. The proposal is to use undead as energy slaves. Given how incredibly useful real earth finds energy slaves, I can't imagine they'd not be tremendously valuable in Golarion. More energy slaves per capita equals a higher standard of living. Diminishing returns kick in after about 20 energy slaves per capita.

Each person in the Western nations of real Earth has about 100 energy slaves at any given moment, on average. Driving a car harnesses many hundreds of energy slaves at once. Third world dwellers have closer to 5 or 20 energy slaves, depending on standard of living. In modern earth all these energy slaves come from burning fossil fuels.

Using undead as energy slaves is an obvious application. Unless the GM forbids, it will be very economically beneficial. The reason is that a human guiding several energy slaves can get a lot more done. Not only do your current tasks (e.g. plowing) get a lot easier, but access to additional energy gives additional options. E.g. Ships powered by undead labor need not carry food or water for the crew, never get tired, and don't care about wind. Essentially, with a little ingenuity undead slaves can serve many of the same purposes that burning fossil fuels serve in modern earth.

Wikipedia Energy Slaves entry wrote:
Doing the labor of 10 persons with 2.5 persons worth of work (10-7.5), the laborers with Energy Slaves can produce 10/2.5, or 4 times, as much work, in the same amount of time.

This is a ramification of animate dead technology in Golarion. Fortunately, the necromancers have not yet collaborated with the tech-gnomes to take over the world.


depends on the world you are in….

Low fantasy?

standard fantasy?

High fantasy?

In a high fantasy world… I can see the undead servant thing going on.

Add robes/hoods/masks and some toilet water and poof…. how do the farmers KNOW they are undead?

in standard fantasy world, certain secluded areas might use the undead this way.

In low fantasy world, they superstitious locals would react like "Zombieland" at the first sign of "weird"

and lets face it…. even disguised zombies are weird.

as far as what'd o zombies do when they are done with their task?

if the controller dies, the obviously revert to "wild zombies"

BUT what about in the dancing example…. if then.

IF living people enter the room, THEN eat brains.

The controller isn't dead.
But he's also not there to issue new orders.
and the old routine is disrupted by a melee…. NOW what do they do?
wander looking for more brains or return to dancing?

This would be the difficulty with leaving them unsupervised.

Set zombies in field to harvest/plow.

nothing goes wrong for a month.

then a crow lands and one at pecks at its flesh (attacks it)…. this disrupts the process of mindlessly following the order as the zombies attacks the crow back.

it's orders are now disrupted…

likewise, automotons, how do you suppose to keep them from, over time of performing their duties…not wandering into each other.

you come back from summer vacation and they are all at the south end of the field in a jumble walking into each other, not one of the yielding and so they are all blobbed up doing nothing.

they would need some kind of supervisor, to manage the unforeseen.

anyone ever seen one of those lawn mower robots flawlessly mow the lawn for an entire summer?

nope…. they need minor interaction of some kind…

so would zombies or all sorts of funny things would happen.


Magda Luckbender wrote:

This is really a discussion of Energy Slaves. The proposal is to use undead as energy slaves. Given how incredibly useful real earth finds energy slaves, I can't imagine they'd not be tremendously valuable in Golarion. More energy slaves per capita equals a higher standard of living. Diminishing returns kick in after about 20 energy slaves per capita.

Each person in the Western nations of real Earth has about 100 energy slaves at any given moment, on average. Driving a car harnesses many hundreds of energy slaves at once. Third world dwellers have closer to 5 or 20 energy slaves, depending on standard of living. In modern earth all these energy slaves come from burning fossil fuels.

Using undead as energy slaves is an obvious application. Unless the GM forbids, it will be very economically beneficial. The reason is that a human guiding several energy slaves can get a lot more done. Not only do your current tasks (e.g. plowing) get a lot easier, but access to additional energy gives additional options. E.g. Ships powered by undead labor need not carry food or water for the crew, never get tired, and don't care about wind. Essentially, with a little ingenuity undead slaves can serve many of the same purposes that burning fossil fuels serve in modern earth.

Wikipedia Energy Slaves entry wrote:
Doing the labor of 10 persons with 2.5 persons worth of work (10-7.5), the laborers with Energy Slaves can produce 10/2.5, or 4 times, as much work, in the same amount of time.
This is a ramification of animate dead technology in Golarion. Fortunately, the necromancers have not yet collaborated with the tech-gnomes to take over the world.

man a paladin could really wreck a economy couldn't he?

"get that guy! he's been wandering around energy bursting and smiting all day! he's causing power outages!"


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ryric wrote:
This is a new thread started to continue a discussion that was a derail in the aligned spells thread. Basically someone brought up the idea of an individual renting out zombie oxen and I thought this was a colossally flawed business plan. In order to keep the other thread on topic I'm replying here.

Moving my part here (somewhat edited since this thread is going to expand upon the idea):

I could TOTALLY see this being a common practice in Geb, except that the Skeletons and Zombies are often derived from creatures other than oxen. Yes, this would have risks, including health risks of the disease and poison types as well of the unfortunate accident types, and would fail to supply fertilizer to replenish the soil. But it could work economically, even as it has bad effects on poor farmers who can't compete with the Undead-Industrial-Food Complex, just as unwholesome and downright dangerous practices in food production have been runaway economic successes on Earth. Farmers renting undead for agricultural purposes (and later on, those of other professions renting undead labor) would be compelled to sign all sorts of Infernal contracts relieving the lessor of liability, and promising not to compete by raising live oxen/etc. Violators and the occasional accident victim would end up as property of the lessor.

Thus, the Agricultural Undead (and eventually Undead Energy Slave) business model would be perfect as one of the product and service lines of . . .

* * * * * * * * MONSATAN * * * * * * * *

Pendagast wrote:

man a paladin could really wreck a economy couldn't he?

"get that guy! he's been wandering around energy bursting and smiting all day! he's causing power outages!"

Better get that Paladin before THIS happens . . . .


*facepalm* Son of a...how stu...gah...

Quote:

as far as what'd o zombies do when they are done with their task?

if the controller dies, the obviously revert to "wild zombies"

BUT what about in the dancing example…. if then.

IF living people enter the room, THEN eat brains.

The controller isn't dead.
But he's also not there to issue new orders.
and the old routine is disrupted by a melee…. NOW what do they do?
wander looking for more brains or return to dancing?

This would be the difficulty with leaving them unsupervised.

Set zombies in field to harvest/plow.

nothing goes wrong for a month.

then a crow lands and one at pecks at its flesh (attacks it)…. this disrupts the process of mindlessly following the order as the zombies attacks the crow back.

it's orders are now disrupted…

likewise, automotons, how do you suppose to keep them from, over time of performing their duties…not wandering into each other.

you come back from summer vacation and they are all at the south end of the field in a jumble walking into each other, not one of the yielding and so they are all blobbed up doing nothing.

Mindless undead have both a Wisdom of 10 and a Charisma of 10. They are perfectly capable of both perceiving their surroundings and telling them apart from themselves. The vast majority of what you said is either wrong or fabricated.

Why do you even participate in these discussions if you're not actually going to discuss?

Silver Crusade

Please every one up-vote like the above post from UnArcaneElection!!!!


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Seriously, again, sans having a will of their own, common mindless undead are as mentally functional as human beings. *headdesk*

That's why they are good sentries, tomb guardians, laborers, and a general *****-minion to badguys who just need some dudes. They are functionally similar to highly advanced AI robots. They have no will of their own but are capable of solving basic problems.

For example, a skeleton armed with a sword and shield can both perceive its surroundings, and even deduce if an Illusion spell is real or fake. If someone makes an illusion that there is a hole in the floor, the skeleton will be able to see the hole and will adjust its movement routines. If the skeleton is subjected to the hole (such as is bull-rushed onto the illusory hole) it gets a Will save to disbelieve it just like any other creature. If it deduces that it is false, the skeleton would no longer need to alter its movement patterns.

Skeletons, Zombies, and Golems are not these useless moronic husks that are incapable of functioning. In fact, they are highly functioning automatons. They are effectively as capable of reasoning and performing tasks as human beings (again, +0 in all mental stats) except they have no will of their own.

The level of extreme ineptitude that is described here would make them entirely unusable in any capacity as villains save for ONLY Romero zombie wander-bite-wander, whereas skeletons, zombies, and golems have never been so utterly worthless in D&D.


If I recall correctly, there is a 3.X Dungeon Magazine module called Totentanz wherein there were a lot of undead being created. They sort of continued doing in undeath what they did previously in life. Farmers plowing and harvesting. Shopkeepers haggling silently with their rotted tongues etc. I don't think that it was ever fully explained(rules wise) exactly how this worked. Obviously this was done for creepy effect not economics. However, could this not be a sort of example of how to solve some of these issues. Perhaps there is some sort of template (e.g. Celestial, etc.) that could be added to undead oxen, commoners or whatnot that would have them continue on as though they had not died. Perhaps this is the sort of thing that has happened in Geb?


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On a side note I still think its funny that a mindless undead with NO INTELLIGENCE has a +0 mod, whilst someone with an actual Into score of 8 has a -1 modifier. Seems odd that 'no brain > half of one'.


Shifty wrote:
On a side note I still think its funny that a mindless undead with NO INTELLIGENCE has a +0 mod, whilst someone with an actual Into score of 8 has a -1 modifier. Seems odd that 'no brain > half of one'.

Maybe undead ignorance IS bliss.......

Liberty's Edge

In Golarion, precisely this sort of thing is done in the nation of Geb.

It's workable, though I think people may be underestimating the risk of the undead in question going wild. I mean, inevitably, their controllers will die. Of old age or accident if nothing else (unless they're undead themselves) and then the mindless undead become uncontrolled and kill people.

So...not a strategy you want to use if you care too much about potential collateral damage.


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Shifty wrote:
On a side note I still think its funny that a mindless undead with NO INTELLIGENCE has a +0 mod, whilst someone with an actual Into score of 8 has a -1 modifier. Seems odd that 'no brain > half of one'.

Not being able to think for yourself means not being able to come up with really stupid ideas or make stupid choices.

Stupid is as stupid does.


But with no mind they are able to interpret commands, retain data, and carry out tasks flawlessly... yet 8 Int guy is less good. :p


On Golarion, I'd recommend being far away from any worshipers of Pharasma and any other undead hating deities.


I know it would not be RAW, but adding the Fiendish template (RAW says you can't add to undead) to our undead farmer would grant a 3 INT. Also implied is the ability to speak/understand I assume.....Infernal. This addition, or one similar, would allow a passable farming/laboring creature for all those evil overlords out there to order around to their hearts content. An above post mentioned Infernal contracts. Perhaps this "Template" could be tied in with Infernal power(s)?


I think the real question is not how high the INT is, but retaining/ gaining the memories of how to farm / work.... And of course being able to carry out these tasks with minimal supervision and not attacking the craniums of visitors to said operation.


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Ashiel wrote:

Seriously, again, sans having a will of their own, common mindless undead are as mentally functional as human beings. *headdesk*

That's why they are good sentries, tomb guardians, laborers, and a general *****-minion to badguys who just need some dudes. They are functionally similar to highly advanced AI robots. They have no will of their own but are capable of solving basic problems.

For example, a skeleton armed with a sword and shield can both perceive its surroundings, and even deduce if an Illusion spell is real or fake. If someone makes an illusion that there is a hole in the floor, the skeleton will be able to see the hole and will adjust its movement routines. If the skeleton is subjected to the hole (such as is bull-rushed onto the illusory hole) it gets a Will save to disbelieve it just like any other creature. If it deduces that it is false, the skeleton would no longer need to alter its movement patterns.

Skeletons, Zombies, and Golems are not these useless moronic husks that are incapable of functioning. In fact, they are highly functioning automatons. They are effectively as capable of reasoning and performing tasks as human beings (again, +0 in all mental stats) except they have no will of their own.

The level of extreme ineptitude that is described here would make them entirely unusable in any capacity as villains save for ONLY Romero zombie wander-bite-wander, whereas skeletons, zombies, and golems have never been so utterly worthless in D&D.

before you get so high and mighty about how awesome you are:

Look up the definitions of both mindless and automaton.

and also think for a moment why you can't leave low wage workers (live human beings with brains) alone, unsupervised for extended periods of time, or children/teenagers for that matter, unsupervised.
Same goes for automated assembly lines (RL Automatons)

Truth is you can't just leave assembly lines OR low wage thinking human beings alone for long without coming back to see just exactly the above mentioned dysfunctionality.

You are trying to assert that low level undead have a higher level of functionality than real life humans.

Yet there is no existing fantasy trope to back up that assertion…..other than, and i quote you "it's something you just fabricated"


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Pendagast wrote:


Truth is you can't just leave assembly lines OR low wage thinking human beings alone for long without coming back to see just exactly the...

I think using assembly lines as your counterexample is a really bad idea. Assembly lines, with all their faults and weaknesses, have been responsible for the birth of an era and the uplifting of a billion people from under the poverty line.

If undead labor gives half what the assembly line has given to modernised countries it would still be a fantastic deal, need for supervision or no.


the only things an automated assembly line requires human assistance for are repairs, modifications in programmed orders, activation and deactivation. most fully automated assembly lines really only require like less than 5 humans for an entire large factory. it is why we had the great depression and again, why we are having yet another great depression in the 21st century. because there are less jobs than there are people, and because of that, more people are leeching money from others, and because of that, those leeched wells are running dry and people are being bred to be lazy because those same wells that fund their livelihood in the moment, are the same wells they have to leech for a prohibitively expensive education that is really only affordable by the equivalent to nobility and even after a decade of education, still isn't entirely safe because automatons eat up 90 percent of the jobs we used to have available, meaning out of 7 billion people on earth, not even a billion of them have fully secure jobs and only 1% of them are actually guaranteed a full college education. the same 1% that control the worlds money.

in other words. automated assembly lines outright kill economies and breed lazyness because they outright kill jobs. they are profitable only for the people who can create, manage, program and repair the assembly lines, and only if you were like one of less than 5 people who get hired for one large mainstream factory. some of them only need 2 or 3 people on their payroll, because that is what automated assembly lines do. they kill jobs for the people who once worked them.


Blakmane wrote:
Pendagast wrote:


Truth is you can't just leave assembly lines OR low wage thinking human beings alone for long without coming back to see just exactly the...

I think using assembly lines as your counterexample is a really bad idea. Assembly lines, with all their faults and weaknesses, have been responsible for the birth of an era and the uplifting of a billion people from under the poverty line.

If undead labor gives half what the assembly line has given to modernised countries it would still be a fantastic deal, need for supervision or no.

automated assembly lines kill more jobs than they make. by doing the work for the people who would once be doing them. what we need is more entry level jobs for the teenagers and college students and to increase minimum wage to compensate for the cost of living increases. manual assembly lines lack this problem though.


Blakmane wrote:
Pendagast wrote:


Truth is you can't just leave assembly lines OR low wage thinking human beings alone for long without coming back to see just exactly the...

I think using assembly lines as your counterexample is a really bad idea. Assembly lines, with all their faults and weaknesses, have been responsible for the birth of an era and the uplifting of a billion people from under the poverty line.

If undead labor gives half what the assembly line has given to modernised countries it would still be a fantastic deal, need for supervision or no.

Im not saying it won't work… Im saying there needs to be even minor supervision.

You can't leave it alone for long, never mind indefinitely.

No one built an automated assembly line, walked away from it, and expected it to continue on with no interaction.

Supervision is still required.

I actually have direct, RL experience with assembly lines and low wage employees on a large scale. I have seen what happens as a result of leaving both unsupervised.

One (the assembly line) IS mindless, the other (employees) are not.


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Farming is not like an automated assembly line. There are many differences in soil, water, temperature, pests etc. that need to be adapted to /modified as you farm. There are many automaton uses for undead. Well-pumper, bellows-blower, grinding wheel pusher...the "energy slave" mentioned above. However, the profession "Farmer" is not that simple.


Auren "Rin" Cloudstrider wrote:

the only things an automated assembly line requires human assistance for are repairs, modifications in programmed orders, activation and deactivation. most fully automated assembly lines really only require like less than 5 humans for an entire large factory. it is why we had the great depression and again, why we are having yet another great depression in the 21st century. because there are less jobs than there are people, and because of that, more people are leeching money from others, and because of that, those leeched wells are running dry and people are being bred to be lazy because those same wells that fund their livelihood in the moment, are the same wells they have to leech for a prohibitively expensive education that is really only affordable by the equivalent to nobility and even after a decade of education, still isn't entirely safe because automatons eat up 90 percent of the jobs we used to have available, meaning out of 7 billion people on earth, not even a billion of them have fully secure jobs and only 1% of them are actually guaranteed a full college education. the same 1% that control the worlds money.

in other words. automated assembly lines outright kill economies and breed lazyness because they outright kill jobs. they are profitable only for the people who can create, manage, program and repair the assembly lines, and only if you were like one of less than 5 people who get hired for one large mainstream factory. some of them only need 2 or 3 people on their payroll, because that is what automated assembly lines do. they kill jobs for the people who once worked them.

you think the great depression had something to do with automated assembly lines? They weren't even a thing in 1929.

Why should high school kids earn an elevated minimum wage for early/entry level jobs? "cost of living"? they aren't supporting families let alone themselves.

Should adults have a greater cost of living increase above minimum wage? sure.

But I fail to see why some kid at a candy counter or bagging groceries should be entitled to a living wage.

but all that is kinda pointless in a debate about a fantasy world where we are talking about undead.

IF we are worried about the morality of automated workers putting living folks out of work, we should first be concerned about the morality of animating the corpses for this purpose (or at all) in the first place.

but since its a fantasy world and there is unlimited treasure in every cave and castle… its not a worry.


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You can not selectively blame automation for lack of wages/jobs. All technology could be blamed for this. Economics is fluid and constantly changes as humans change how they go to market.


Derail.... You have to factor in the fact that technology/automation lowers the cost of goods so the "entry level" person can afford to purchase......


Fantasy....oh yeah fantasy world. I forgot that I was on Paizo message boards.....puts soap-box away....


In my game somthing like this would work. For a time and then it would go horrible horrible wrong, as those things are supposed to.
Just getting to use zombies as cheep labor because the books pehaps open for the option is not fantastic. But some one being mad enoug, in game, to try it could very well be.
Edit: i have on several occations had bad guys using zombie miners so apperantly i have used this gric as a GM without making it go horrible wrong for the bad guys. But then again the PCs showed up and then it went wrong for the baddies, pehaps that counts?


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Ashiel wrote:
Why do you even participate in these discussions if you're not actually going to discuss?

Welcome to the internet.

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