There are a few different reasons people (in this thread and otherwise) argue that animating dead is evil:
1. It desecrates a corpse.
2. It brings evil energy into the world in a semi-permanent fashion.
3. It creates evil creatures that want to annihilate anything living if not controlled.
4. In the case of intelligent undead, it's enslaving a sentient being.
I think 1 is kind of a weak argument, for many reasons mentioned here (animation isn't necessarily worse than eating a corpse, if we can eat a cow why can't we animate it? people can consent to being raised, especially with speak to the dead etc etc).
I also feel 4 is a weak argument in that many spells that literally enslave people such as Dominate Person are not evil. And the same can be said for creating golems. I feel forced restriction of someone's actions is generally mean, but like killing is dependant on circumstances in a way that makes it unfit as an argument to label something inherently evil. In most cases Dominate Person can still be an evil act - it's not that it's completely fine to cast Dominate Person - but like fireball it's not inherently evil.
Which leaves arguments 2 and 3, which are arguments that I think have merit. For 2: This is kind of a circular argument, but within the confines of an arbitrarily created ruleset circular arguments don't always have to be wrong. Basically, the argument is that because the spell is evil, it brings evilness into the world, which means dealing with it is evil. It comes down to the spell being evil being a pure design choice. Which is fine in a way - it's also a pure design choice that elves are intelligent but frail and that dragons can cast spells.
For 3, this I feel is the strongest explanation in itself. Undead (with very few exceptions) are evil. All unintelligent undeads are evil through and through, and if control of them is lost they'll go ahead and try to kill anything they come across. Animate Dead creates machines of pure destruction, with no exceptions. You can force them to do other things, but unlike golems, evil is at the very core of their beings. In this way it's much like summoning devils/demons, which is also an evil thing to do, except unlike Summon Monster, there are circumstances where the undead can escape and kill a large amount of people; for that to work with a summoned monster the caster has to pretty much tell it to.
As far as necromancy and raising the dead in a non evil manner goes there used to be the Juju Oracle but they removed the undead part because Paizo is kinda butthurt when it comes to how all undead are supposed to be evil.
Personally I still want a way to make semi-necromantic druids, as in druids that recycle corpses. They would not animate them using unholy energy but by infesting a corpse with larvae of some sort or causing vines to pull a skeleton together. Even intelligent undead would just the collective conciousness of the vermin (vampires and other "higher" undead would of course be out of the order).
Yellow Musk Zombies, Cuan?
I mean, you can have undead not be evil inherently. Just like you can have orcs, goblins, gnolls etc not be inherently evil.
It's not the cannon setting, and it just creates a bunch of moral ambiguity. I hate that part. Some people like it. If you're into that sort of thing, I admit that's much more real world. But I play this game to get away from the real world. The default assumptions is orcs are evil briggands who want to kill you. Goblins want to eat you. And Undead will attempt to kill all living things despite whether or not they're mindless and that they're all inherently evil.
As an aside, one additional connection I can think of to illustrate the inherent foulness of animating the dead is that turning a corpse into an undead defeats all but the most potent of revivification (True Resurrection). Somehow, the act of turning a creature's body into an Undead taints the very soul and body's connection barring the soul's return to the body except by the very most potent of means. Now, if that's not evil...
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Druids that do these sorts of things aren't Druids. A Druid doesn't go mucking about needlessly with the circle of life and death. He would recognise that the most proper use of corpses is what Nature does with them naturally, as fodder to feed the ground.
Personally I still want a way to make semi-necromantic druids, as in druids that recycle corpses. They would not animate them using unholy energy but by infesting a corpse with larvae of some sort or causing vines to pull a skeleton together. Even intelligent undead would just the collective conciousness of the vermin (vampires and other "higher" undead would of course be out of the order).
Yeah, 'cause nature's all Disney like that. :/
Corpses don't just lie there and magically turn into dirt. They get eaten by all sorts of creatures, some big, some small, some microscopic, and get pooped out as soil.
Sometimes those hippie druids murder them, eat their flesh, make their bones into tools and weapons, and sew their skin into jaunty hats.
Druid's not only can be evil, not only have no special undead-fighting focus (like clerics or paladins), but even have a setting specific group that embraces the use of necromancy, in Nidal.
Druids are often represented as being from cultural or societal mindsets that embrace the idea of using *everything* that you kill. Finding uses for skin and bones and organ meat, in addition to the normal muscle-meat, is very much 'natural' and 'respectful' and 'not wasteful.' Burying a corpse in a stone crypt, where it's nutrients are lost to nature, would be more likely to be anathema to a druid than animating it's body (or calling up it's animal ghosty spirit) and using it to guard a sacred spring.
Negative energy is not and never has been evil, or unnatural, or any of that rubbish, any more than positive energy has been good, or unnatural. *IF* negative energy, from another dimension, was unnatural, then positive energy, *also* from another dimension, would also be unnatural (but, as Golarion has both positive and negative energy planes as part of its cosmological nature, they, pretty much by definition, can't be 'unnatural'). Either all life is 'unnatural,' since it's all icky meat animated by unnatural extra-planar spirits, nurtured by icky other-planar positive energyy, in which case druids are hosed, or both living creatures and undead are both 'natural' to the fantasy settings of Greyhawk / Golarion / the Realms / etc.
Can't just cherry pick one of those alien unaligned sources of extra-dimensional energy to call 'natural.' Neither one is evil. Neither one is 'native' to this dimension. Neither one is 'unnatural,' since *both* are very much a part of the world.
Autumn, the season of decay and rot, and, to the druids, the traditional season of the 'day of the dead' ceremonies, where the barriers between the worlds of the living and the dead are at their thinnest (say, during Samhain), and winter, the season of bitter lifelessness, where the living creatures of the world hold their breath and wait for spring, with the weakest and least fortunate among them not making it through this trial, are both totally natural.
Nature is all up in that icky death stuff. It's only squeamish civilized folk, unfamiliar with nature, red in tooth and claw, that consider dead bodies taboo or 'sacred,' and do their best to make sure that nature can never reclaim them by pumping them full of preservatives and sealing them away from the natural world.
As for druids not mucking with the cycle of life and death, that's pretty much exactly what they do with the reincarnate spell, because it's not just the 'cycle of life and death' to a druid, it's the cycle of 'life, death *and rebirth.*' Death is only an intermediary step in a larger cycle, to a druid, not a final destination.
Some druids might hold that incarnating as an undead is a dead end in that cycle, freezing the creature in a static state, and preventing it from being reborn as a different sort of living creature, but, like pretty much every class / culture / race *ever,* that belief wouldn't be the one and true only way to play the class, and, IMO, it does no favors to the game or the setting to try and close off options that are in no way forbidden by either theme or mechanics, just because you don't personally like them.
I think LazarX forgot that the Blight Druid does exist in PF. They don't seem to fit his Druid image too well.
They also added a Vulture domain for the Druid in some recent book if I recall right. Was it Philosophies of Golarion?
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Take Animate Dead off the table a moment because it's really only ONE trick in the Necromancer's bag.
In truth you can play a Necromancer who is a wizard who studies death itself. Both for insights and power. You don't raise the dead but call upon the powers of the underworld for your might. Rays, Summoning of Ghosts and Spirits, rot and decay, the slow leaching of life for your own benefit. You wrap yourself in the trappings of death and perhaps worship Pharasma in her aspect of Judge of the Dead.
As long as you don't raise intelligent undead you are fine. If anything you might be a cross between Medium/Psychopomp for some people. Agent of Death!
They also added a Vulture domain for the Druid in some recent book if I recall right. Was it Philosophies of Golarion?
That it was! Gives you the power to reincarnate once per day and roll twice on the reincarnation table(for 1000 gold). There's also the Shade of the Uskwood feat that explicitly gives druids animate dead.(Also removes all your [fire] spells for some reason.)
Set you might have noticed that before you wrote your diatribe that I said that Nature does consider the prime use of a corpse to provide fodder for the next generation of living things?
Says who? Did Nature tell you this? Or is this the opinion of LazarX?
There were also those post after talking about examples of druids of decay, blight, and Uskwood. Do they not matter?
I don't see Blight Druids as a druidic version of Necromancer Clerics. While they can relate to undead, they have particular limitations in doing so. The only undead they're really at part with controllig are of a specific range of types as mentioned in the description. They're considerably more focus on vermin and rot.
And uskwood and opinion and... The feat I mentioned was explicitly for druids who do necromancy.
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For those who say that Golarion rules are intruding on the setting-neutral CRB, can you point to where it says in the rules that casting spells with the [evil] descriptor is an evil act that will change your alignment?
I know clerics can't cast spells that are opposed to their alignment, but what about other classes?
Personally I like the explination that Wizards of the Coast gave for a prestige class when it comes to raising dead. It was that evil binder guy from Magic of Incarnum book (I forgot the name of the PrC). In the block, they had a way to flavor it as a good guy. The class had an ability to raise dead, so the way they flavored the ability to raise the dead is that the Incarnum user simply gave the creature another chance to redeem itself or for it to have another chance at completing the task that i failed to do.
Animate Objects can be cast on any object right? Well why not cast it on a skeleton? It moves the skeleton for you and it doesn't bring in "evil" to the world when cast, after all Animate Objects is a spell with no descriptor...
I view Animate Dead in this same respect, Also Animate Dead says you can control up to 4HD of skeletons per caster level when each casting of the spell you can only create a number of HD up to double your caster so where is the problem in that? Obviously if you are a "good" necromancer you know your limits and wont go over them so I never see a scenario where the undead you create would attack anything you don't want them to. Even if you lose one undead in a fight you aren't going to be casting the spell for the total number of undead you can make you have complete choice as to how many you can make.
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I view Animate Dead in this same respect, Also Animate Dead says you can control up to 4HD of skeletons per caster level when each casting of the spell you can only create a number of HD up to double your caster so where is the problem in that? Obviously if you are a "good" necromancer you know your limits and wont go over them so I never see a scenario where the undead you create would attack anything you don't want them to.
Idiot Necromancer : I raise up 6 skeletons from the local graveyard, and put them to work fixing the orphanage.
Irate relatives of people who's bodies got desecrated begin hurling stones at necromancer for using their relatives bodies.
Necromancer is reduced to -1 hitpoints.
6 Skeletons begin attacking the orphans.
I view Animate Dead in this same respect, Also Animate Dead says you can control up to 4HD of skeletons per caster level when each casting of the spell you can only create a number of HD up to double your caster so where is the problem in that? Obviously if you are a "good" necromancer you know your limits and wont go over them so I never see a scenario where the undead you create would attack anything you don't want them to.Idiot Necromancer : I raise up 6 skeletons from the local graveyard, and put them to work fixing the orphanage.
Irate relatives of people who's bodies got desecrated begin hurling stones at necromancer for using their relatives bodies.
Necromancer is reduced to -1 hitpoints.
6 Skeletons begin attacking the orphans.
Stones do lethal damage now?? There would have to be a lot thrown to get the caster that low because Animate dead is a level 3 spell for clerics and a level 4 spell for Wizards/Sorcerers which would put the total health total at anywhere between 12-40 for the cleric (not including a con bonus or toughness feat), 12-42 for the Wizard (again not including con or toughness), and 13-45 for the Sorcerer...
EDIT: Also nothing in Animate Dead spell says that when the caster becomes unconscious the animated dead go berserk...
Since people can't bother reading past the intended to be funny story, here's another example :
Idiot Necromancer raises 6 skeletons to fight in defense of the town being attacked by Orcs.
Orc archer hits the Idiot Necromancer and takes him to -1 hitpoint.
Skeletons begin attacking necormancer's allies and innocent townspeople in addition to the orcs.
And yes, thrown stones do lethal damage. Why do you think people were stoned for thousands of years. Even if it was non-lethal, you're still unconscious.
As to the spell not saying you lose control when unconscious, undead that are uncontrolled attack the nearest living thing. If you are unconscious, you are not controlling them.
But if you want to be pedantic about it, fine, the orc above kills your idiot necromancer and the skeletons attack every living thing in sight, by raw. And even if you insist stones are nonlethal (which if you do, let me start throwing bricks at you and we see how long you think that is the case), non-lethal becomes lethal when you take your hp in non-lethal.
The entire point is, when you summon up an undead skeleton or zombie, you cannot guarantee it won't go off on it's own. You get gated to another dimension, you are no longer on the plane, and no longer exerting control of them. You get stuffed in a portable hole and are no longer around to control them, you get charmed or dominated and forced to release your control. I'm sure no evil bad guy would ever do that to a 'white' necromancer right?
The only idiots are the townsfolk.
If someone is killed by a forklift because someone was throwing rocks at the driver do you blame the forklift driver or the idiot throwing rocks at him while he's driving a forklift?
No, but we do blame people who train their dogs to attack people who come around them and then lose control of them.
Why don't you compare apples to apples, rather than rutabegas?
Where does it say in the Animate Dead spell that when the person who uses this spell becomes unconscious the Skeletons are no longer doing your biding?? Because here is the one line in the spell that negates that: "The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely." By that reading even if the caster is dead the undead he/she raised still does the last thing that the caster told them to do.
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Where does it say in the Animate Dead spell that when the person who uses this spell becomes unconscious the Skeletons are no longer doing your biding?? Because here is the one line in the spell that negates that: "The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely." By that reading even if the caster is dead the undead he/she raised still does the last thing that the caster told them to do.
Hurray!
We can now remove all undead as enemies in all worlds. Because they will only do the last command they had from whoever raised them when that person dies, because, you know, they are under that person's control indefinitately and because it doesn't say that control ends on death (you know, that undefined term), they are controlled for all eternity. If their last command was to salute, they'll salute forever and never move and never attack any living thing...
Or you know, we could take it as intended, that 'under your control indefinately' just means that you can control them as long as you wish to provided you are capable of exerting control. But if you prefer your ruling, go for it! It's your game.
Just make sure to give each and every undead in your world an order to follow as it's last order while it's creator was alive. Or at leas, the vast majority of them since it requires a specific act of will to release an undead from control under your ruling.
And yet, and I know this must be shocking, we also do not persecute those who train guard dogs either, do we? We recognize that guard dogs and attack dogs have valid uses and permit them to be bred and trained for those purposes.The only idiots are the townsfolk.
If someone is killed by a forklift because someone was throwing rocks at the driver do you blame the forklift driver or the idiot throwing rocks at him while he's driving a forklift?
No, but we do blame people who train their dogs to attack people who come around them and then lose control of them.
Why don't you compare apples to apples, rather than rutabegas?
Actually, if they turn on their owners after training, yes we do. For a variety of charges, reckless endangerment, or depraved indifference. In other words, if the trainer screws up the training, he can be prosecuted if he didn't exercise sufficient forethought in the training.
Where does it say in the Animate Dead spell that when the person who uses this spell becomes unconscious the Skeletons are no longer doing your biding?? Because here is the one line in the spell that negates that: "The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely." By that reading even if the caster is dead the undead he/she raised still does the last thing that the caster told them to do.
This is an interesting point, and quite a big deal for how the spell works. I've previously interpreted it as "there is no specific upper time limit to how long you can control them" rather than "regardless what happens you control them".
I agree though that it's not crystal clear.
But I do think "indefinitely" means there's not a specific upper time limit, otherwise other uses of the word throughout the PRD would be extremely weird.
For example, amphibious states that creatures with the trait can survive "indefinitely" on land. Does that mean they're immortal while on land, or just that their air-breathing doesn't have a specified upper time limit?
Other places to compare are the Shape Change ability and the Holding the Charge rules. Does the holding the charge rule mean that if you die to dragon fire while holding the charge, and someone finds your ashes a thousand years later, they'll get the effect of the touch spell you held?
That said, we've always let necromancers keep control even when they're unconscious (though they can't issue orders then) but not dead, because otherwise it'd just be obnoxious having to lock up your minions at night. It'd be a moodkiller both for the PC's and NPC's to have to do that.
If they die though, they lose control.
Raising people from the dead can be used as an evil spell just like every other spell out there. Just because people can do it doesn't mean they wont use it for evil just like how it can b used for good. Lets say there was a Necromancer who raised undead to protect a village but died during the battle but not all of the undead died. Indefinitely (as defined by Google) is "for an unlimited or unspecified period of time." therefore you can say that those undead protect the village even after the village is no longer "living" but their sole duty is to protect the village. That can be interpreted in many different ways but the way you are going to interpret that is "anyone who walks up to the village is an enemy, kill it." The way that others may interpret it is "Anything that is threatening the village but be destroyed."
Now yes people can be dicks and raise the undead to kill (and I'm sure that most do because they are shunned by the rest of the world and want revenge for being butt hurt), but not everyone does.
Zotsune, the difference is that Animate Dead _is_ an evil spell. Whether one likes it or not, by RAW it is an evil spell. The main methods of dealing with that is either houseruling it to not be an evil spell, or by using one of the many explanations offered here to explain why casting it is always an evil action (of course that doesn't mean animating dead to save a village would necessarily turn you evil - the evil of casting the spell might be outdone by the good of saving the village).
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Great, Zotsune, I'll play amhibious character in your games then, and never enter the water, since I can live indefinately on land. By your ruling of the word, I live forever on land.
Also, you still didn't address the other situations, like being dominated into releasing the skeletons 'guarding' the orphanage and them then slaughtering the orphans. And what happens if you enter an anti-magic field? What happens to the magic allowing you to control the undead?
Actually, if they turn on their owners after training, yes we do. For a variety of charges, reckless endangerment, or depraved indifference. In other words, if the trainer screws up the training, he can be prosecuted if he didn't exercise sufficient forethought in the training.
And yet, and I know this must be shocking, we also do not persecute those who train guard dogs either, do we? We recognize that guard dogs and attack dogs have valid uses and permit them to be bred and trained for those purposes.
To further expand on this, ANY dog, guard dog or family pet, that injures an innocent person can be considered a criminal act of reckless endangerment and prosecuted by the state. My son was attacked by dogs the neighbors had raised and had to be treated for serious wounds to his leg and arm. We called animal control and the dogs were put under a watch program. Eventually one of them had to be put down. We could have sued the owners for damages and were encouraged to do so, but we're not the suing type.
Owning guard dogs and letting them roam loose to wreak havoc on the local suburbs is at least an act of criminal negligence. If the negligence is so blatant as to demonstrate a complete lack of regard for the consequences, I'd call that evil.
Dominate Person is a mind raping effect thus you have no control over what your body does at that time so the undead will follow your order even if it contradicts what you previously said even if you don't want them to do it.
The anti-magic field is a different matter all together and I don't know how to answer that... How does it affect Summoned Monsters by the way, I've never encountered that problem when using that particular spell...
I don't think the rules have anything for the anti-magic field.
As to the dominate person, it is mental rape, but it doesn't negate the fact that you were the one who created the menaces to the public, knowing that you could lose control of them.
Is it losing control if you are being affected by something that controls your body? It's the same argument as a lawful good fighter being under Dominate Person and destroys the town that he is trying to protect... Is it his fault that he got affected by the spell and lost control of his own body? After all he built up his body to protect people.
Is it losing control if you are being affected by something that controls your body? It's the same argument as a lawful good fighter being under Dominate Person and destroys the town that he is trying to protect... Is it his fault that he got affected by the spell and lost control of his own body? After all he built up his body to protect people.
The fighter's body isn't going to run around on it's own by default if he's not in control all the time. The necromancer's skeletons, on the other hand, will run around killing indiscriminately if they are not controlled 100% of the time.
But the Animate Dead spell states that as long as the person doesn't have more than 4HD per caster level of undead created by the spell they are fully under his control... If the Necromancer knows his limits and is "good" then he wouldn't try to control more than this limit at a time... Therefore he is "always" in control 100% of the time (unless affected by Dominate person but then no one is in control of what they do at that time).
Zotsune, do you honestly think that Merfolk are immortal as long as they stay on land?
Say something like this:"Any magic can be good or evil. A carelessly cast fireball is far more dangerous to bystanders than any of the undead under my thrall. A charm spell cast upon a living creature is a far greater personal violation than an animation spell cast upon the dead. All wizards tamper with forces that, left unchecked, are quite dangerous. Do not delude yourself into thinking a pyromaniac evoker or a tactless enchanter is somehow on higher moral ground than a necromancer."
Convincing the party is one thing, convincing the mob with pitchforks and torches in another. The former is likely to let you explain yourself, the latter might let you talk as they drag you toward the oil soaked bonfire and stake.
Personally, I would love to see a group with a necromancer in it, especially an Neutral Necromancer. It would be more of a "get the job done, no matter what" kind of group, and not a heroic hero group, but it would be fun.
In addition, if the necromancer was charismatic as well as brilliantly twisted, he could very well convince people that what he is doing isn't evil, even though it is still evil as hell.
Or, he could be so convincing, he fooled himself, and truly believes that animating the corpses of former allies, sucking the life energy out of innocents, and shredding souls for temporary energy is perfectly okay as long as its for the greater good. He would be out of his gourd, but he would be honest about it.
Zotsune, do you honestly think that Merfolk are immortal as long as they stay on land?
Where does it say they can't die on land? It says they can be on land but prefer not to stay all too long... here and here
No where in these rules does it say that they are immortal on land but they do say that they can stay on land (however they prefer not to that doesn't mean that they can't live on land for their lives however).
I've really only skimmed this thread, but here are my thoughts:
In Golorian there are souls. To raise undead you have to pull the soul back (at least in my mind it's how it works) when you animate a skeleton, you aren't just telekinetically moving a pile of sticks. Skeletons aren't mindless, they have the ability to use weapons and act on their own. Pulling a soul back to animate undead is evil. Even if you only animate people that used to be evil. Doing evil is evil, even if you do it to an evil person. Even if you do it to do good. Would you say it was okay to kill a baby because it allowed an old woman to cross the street safely? If not where's the line?
Zotsune, do you honestly think that Merfolk are immortal as long as they stay on land?Where does it say they can't die on land? It says they can be on land but prefer not to stay all too long... here and here
No where in these rules does it say that they are immortal on land but they do say that they can stay on land (however they prefer not to that doesn't mean that they can't live on land for their lives however).
They have the Amphibious ability. Link.
That ability says they "can survive indefinitely on land".Would you say they are immortal while on land due to this ability? If not, why do you apply the "indefinitely" wording differently here than in Animate Dead?
And down the rabbit hole we go again.
Are we arguing house rules, how things should be, or what the game system says?
I can't refute the first two, as they are subjective. If the third one, undead are evil, creating them is evil, done. I'm honestly getting confused at this point because multiple posters quote rules when it suits them, then ignores rules when it's against their preferred stance.
Again, in the rules, safe. House rules, Safe. Arguing a mix - SQUISH!
Zotsune, do you honestly think that Merfolk are immortal as long as they stay on land?Where does it say they can't die on land? It says they can be on land but prefer not to stay all too long... here and here
No where in these rules does it say that they are immortal on land but they do say that they can stay on land (however they prefer not to that doesn't mean that they can't live on land for their lives however).
They have the Amphibious ability. Link.
That ability says they "can survive indefinitely on land".
Would you say they are immortal while on land due to this ability? If not, why do you apply the "indefinitely" wording differently here than in Animate Dead?
I see your point though about the wording on "indefinitely" but considering that living things in this plane of existence dies eventually indefinitely would be until natural death or slain in battle. But undead don't have a max age now do they? And besides Animate Dead isn't the only way to get undead under your control... The Summon Skeletons feat is another way though it is a bad choice to go for necromancy.
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mdt wrote:
We can now remove all undead as enemies in all worlds. Because they will only do the last command they had from whoever raised them when that person dies, because, you know, they are under that person's control indefinitately and because it doesn't say that control ends on death (you know, that undefined term), they are controlled for all eternity. If their last command was to salute, they'll salute forever and never move and never attack any living thing...
Or you know, we could take it as intended, that 'under your control indefinately' just means that you can control them as long as you wish to provided you are capable of exerting control. But if you prefer your ruling, go for it! It's your game.
Just make sure to give each and every undead in your world an order to follow as it's last order while it's creator was alive. Or at leas, the vast majority of them since it requires a specific act of will to release an undead from control under your ruling.
I disagree with you interpretation of rules as intended in there. Here is why:
1) I would be inclined to believe most unintelligent undead that were created have a last command of "guard this tomb" or "kill anyone who disturbs the treasure". That covers most dumb unintelligent undead (remember the necromancer in question here is an abberation most i think we can agree are still pretty evil.)
2) I would assume that the majority of undead in the world happen through means other then the animate dead spell (spontaneous, cursed, collection of negative energy something like that).
3) Intelligent undead need to be controlled separate and are in constant chance of breaking free so I doubt its hard to miss a saving throw vs. a dead guy.
does that sound like a reasonable argument.
hell think of all the fun you could have if this statement is the way it works (as I believe).
I disagree with you interpretation of rules as intended in there. Here is why:
1) I would be inclined to believe most unintelligent undead that were created have a last command of "guard this tomb" or "kill anyone who disturbs the treasure". That covers most dumb unintelligent undead (remember the necromancer in question here is an abberation most i think we can agree are still pretty evil.)
2) I would assume that the majority of undead in the world happen through means other then the animate dead spell (spontaneous, cursed, collection of negative energy something like that).
3) Intelligent undead need to be controlled separate and are in constant chance of breaking free so I doubt its hard to miss a saving throw vs. a dead guy.
does that sound like a reasonable argument.
hell think of all the fun you could have if this statement is the way it works (as I believe).
I can agree on these points. It is still has undead being evil but with a little wiggle room to have neutral undead if wanted.
Again, if you want to house rule this in a custom home game, you can do whatever you want. I wish I had a $1 for every time I've said that. However, people are arguing that everyone should run it this way, which is not the case. The rules are pretty clear, and 90% of the people who play play with 'undead = evil', 90% of the literature has 'undead = evil', and 90% of the mythology involved has 'undead = evil'.
So arguing that there's nothing that should make undead evil is basically bs. There's mythology, rules, history of the game and media (written, film, and tales told) that argue against it.
By the same token, arguing that NPCs should not be pissed off that you stole Aunt Mina's body and made her body walk around is BS. Because I guarantee you that anyone arguing that would be filing lawsuits if someone dug up their parents and made an art piece out of them.
I'm fine with arguing that a game setting could hold that view, or even a specific culture or country within a setting, but the idea that classical fantasy does is just pure BS.