A Promethean Alchemist that uses flesh crafting on death row prisoners, the criminally insane, (murders rapists so on) and his enemies. When / if they die he traps them in soul gems to use for constructs and reanimates their bodies as Alchemical Zombies. All of which he uses as manual labor to build orphanage, schools, and hospitals all which he volunteers at. And when the creations are not being used to better the community they are patrolling the woods away from the roads especially near those pesky goblin camps which he makes sure to raid once a month to ensure those chaotic evil spawn keep their numbers down. Any above the designated quota are hauled away or killed (see top). Unruly individuals receive an implanted bomb.
I know this is GM / party specific but I want personal opinions here.
A paladin in the same party or otherwise having their face rubbed in his actions couldn't ignore them. If a ruler is employing both then appropriate laws and keeping them well apart might work.
For paladins the immediate good rather than the ends justifying the means is a requirement IMO.
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Evil as all get-out, IMO, particularly if he's targeting the insane (as mentioned above, which includes a bunch of people who, regardless of their crimes, are victims of disorders, and need treatment, not to be fleshwarped for evil lolz, and then soul gemmed into golems).
You can make golems without trapping the souls of people. Animated objects work just fine, for a lot of these sorts of things, and the sorts of necromancy that just makes animal skeletons get up and move around, and doesn't tinker with souls or spirits (or distress the locals by using humanoid corpses), would be far, far more palatable.
I'm as big a fan of necromancy as you'll likely find on these boards, but this soul-trapping and fleshwarping business is just bad.
If you want to use fleshwarping and not antagonize good folk, use it on volunteers. Disfigured or deformed or crippled people looking to be less so. Short-sighted gladiators looking for a physical advantage that will shock and delight the crowd. Rich weirdos who want a tail. (Tieflings who *don't* want a tail...) Stuff like that. It will still annoy the goods, in some of the above cases (gladiators, rich weirdos), but at least you won't be mad scientist-ing unwilling subjects.
Even in the case of death row subjects, the law is the law, and unless your character lives in a Drow city, even a death sentence isn't a 'and before you die, we are going to let Crazy Harry saw off your hands and feet and graft crab claws there.' Similarly, unless you live in Nidal, in which case you probably wouldn't have a Paladin in your party anyway, John Law generally doesn't allow people to wander into the stockades and practice horrible tortures on the prisoners. It's death row, not torture row.
As for building orphanages and schools, the Paladin will probably help, and a few animated objects, or even just a good use of diplomacy on the local peasantry to rustle up some volunteers, will be just as effective as any number of brainless zombies, alchemical or otherwise.
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If you are trapping a soul against the wishes of the person who's soul you're trapping, it has to be considered as evil. What you do with it afterwards is more or less irrelevant.
Evil as all get-out, IMO, particularly if he's targeting the insane (as mentioned above, which includes a bunch of people who, regardless of their crimes, are victims of disorders, and need treatment, not to be fleshwarped for evil lolz, and then soul gemmed into golems).
You can make golems without trapping the souls of people. Animated objects work just fine, for a lot of these sorts of things, and the sorts of necromancy that just makes animal skeletons get up and move around, and doesn't tinker with souls or spirits (or distress the locals by using humanoid corpses), would be far, far more palatable.
I'm as big a fan of necromancy as you'll likely find on these boards, but this soul-trapping and fleshwarping business is just bad.
If you want to use fleshwarping and not antagonize good folk, use it on volunteers. Disfigured or deformed or crippled people looking to be less so. Short-sighted gladiators looking for a physical advantage that will shock and delight the crowd. Rich weirdos who want a tail. (Tieflings who *don't* want a tail...) Stuff like that. It will still annoy the goods, in some of the above cases (gladiators, rich weirdos), but at least you won't be mad scientist-ing unwilling subjects.
Even in the case of death row subjects, the law is the law, and unless your character lives in a Drow city, even a death sentence isn't a 'and before you die, we are going to let Crazy Harry saw off your hands and feet and graft crab claws there.' Similarly, unless you live in Nidal, in which case you probably wouldn't have a Paladin in your party anyway, John Law generally doesn't allow people to wander into the stockades and practice horrible tortures on the prisoners. It's death row, not torture row.
As for building orphanages and schools, the Paladin will probably help, and a few animated objects, or even just a good use of diplomacy on the local peasantry to rustle up some volunteers, will be just as effective as any number of brainless zombies, alchemical or otherwise.
One minor point I did say criminally insane. I got this idea when Lex Luther and Dexter got mixed up in my head. I'm making example characters for an RPG club and wanted an example of Defiantly Evil, but acceptable. I've played a few soul drinkers that just went around buying souls of the elderly to be paid to their families. 10GP to a poor farming family is worth it to a lot of dumb country bumpkins and technically speaking there soul is only worth 10GP on the soul market. But just so happens the black market on the martial plain pays ten times as much if you can find a buyer, and when you do they usually are glad to buy in bulk.
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Honestly, trapping souls and using them to power constructs is way more evil than just good ol' necromancy. Creating mindless undead doesn't do anything with the victim's soul while soul crafting keeps them from their final rest. And buying souls from the poor who don't know the real value of a soul is something devils do, except in that case, they do at least get to the afterlife and still have a chance in Pharasma's court. I would be extremely skeptical of a Paladin who would be okay with what your character is planning.
Also, by the way, an average peasant's soul would be a Basic Soul costing 100 GP on the soul market, not a Mindless Spirit which is worth 10 GP.
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If you are trapping a soul against the wishes of the person who's soul you're trapping, it has to be considered as evil. What you do with it afterwards is more or less irrelevant.
Counterpoint: Trap the Soul on a villain is inherently done against their will, but is generally considered a-ok, and a good tactic for making sure the BBEG doesn't get a rez and fight you again in a week.
Alignment debates are the fifty shades of gray of Pathfinder.
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A Promethean Alchemist that uses flesh crafting on death row prisoners, the criminally insane, (murders rapists so on) and his enemies. When / if they die he traps them in soul gems to use for constructs and reanimates their bodies as Alchemical Zombies. All of which he uses as manual labor to build orphanage, schools, and hospitals all which he volunteers at. And when the creations are not being used to better the community they are patrolling the woods away from the roads especially near those pesky goblin camps which he makes sure to raid once a month to ensure those chaotic evil spawn keep their numbers down. Any above the designated quota are hauled away or killed (see top). Unruly individuals receive an implanted bomb.
I know this is GM / party specific but I want personal opinions here.
I'd call it Lawful Evil (using Evil means towards Lawful ends).
The character clearly cares about infrastructure and the protection of their society and forcefully uses those who society considers - correctly or incorrectly - as unwilling resources for soul-based necromancy (which may or may not be inherently Evil, very campaign-dependent).
Proactively and aggressively targets creatures considered Chaotic and Evil - the goblins - and uses violence and evil magic to reinforce authority - the implanted bombs - all sounds pretty textbook Lawful Evil to me.
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A Promethean Alchemist that uses flesh crafting on death row prisoners, the criminally insane, (murders rapists so on) and his enemies. When / if they die he traps them in soul gems to use for constructs and reanimates their bodies as Alchemical Zombies. All of which he uses as manual labor to build orphanage, schools, and hospitals all which he volunteers at. And when the creations are not being used to better the community they are patrolling the woods away from the roads especially near those pesky goblin camps which he makes sure to raid once a month to ensure those chaotic evil spawn keep their numbers down. Any above the designated quota are hauled away or killed (see top). Unruly individuals receive an implanted bomb.
I know this is GM / party specific but I want personal opinions here.
I'd call it Lawful Evil (using Evil means towards Lawful ends).
The character clearly cares about infrastructure and the protection of their society and forcefully uses those who society considers - correctly or incorrectly - as unwilling resources for soul-based necromancy (which may or may not be inherently Evil, very campaign-dependent).
Proactively and aggressively targets creatures considered Chaotic and Evil - the goblins - and uses violence and evil magic to reinforce authority - the implanted bombs - all sounds pretty textbook Lawful Evil to me.
Furthermore, if I was playing the Paladin our characters would have serious issues and I'd possibly end up Smiting your character. Would depend very much on how much I knew of your methods and actions and how they were presented, of course (Paladins aren't infallible, and pinging as Evil doesn't mean Smite on sight).
I wouldn't play your character in a party with a Paladin though. Way more trouble than it's worth, both in and out of character.
Way way evil. As a paladin you getting lit up as soon as I find out half of what your doing.
Flesh crafting- generally an issue on non willing targets. Particularly pathfinder fleshcrafting which generally describes it as extremely painful and always resulting in a monsterous form
Death row inmates- generally it is acknowledged to be wrong to deliver a painful death. Experimenting on them beforehand is also pretty bad
Criminally Insane- as previously said in this thread. More of victims than anything else already. Abusing them further is pretty messed up
Murderers Rapists Etc.- so it is debatable what these people deserve and where which line is. I would still say everything you have said still qualifies as inhuman and therefore this is still evil
Enemies- expected of an evil person but definitely evil
Soul Gem Trapping- depends on the target. If they were going to a plane lower than neutral its probably ok. Denying the forces of evil a soul, ending any chance of Resurrection, and generally doing everyone a service
Community Service- finally something good. There is much easier and better ways to do it but at least your heart is in the right place here. On my good/evil scale though this actually seems less good than most of the other things are evil. Might want to come up with something a bit more good to do as well
Necromancy- actually I really can't find anything evil about necromancy in general. Assuming you aren't using it to screw with loved ones of the departed that is
Goblin Genocide- gotta call this evil. While admittedly most goblins are evil, regularly killing them preemptively in mass before they even do anything is pragmatic but wrong. Just my opinion on the classic orc baby conundrum and Nurture vs Nature.
Implanted bomb- ........
Summary- he is extremely evil with only a small token amount of good. I'm pretty sure any of my non evil characters would kill him once they found out what hes up to. Actually, once I think about it, most of my evil characters would probably kill him as well, although for totally different reasons
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I'm more puzzled at the supposed utility of using mindless undead as labor and patrols - with at best a Craft of +0, and unable to roll Profession, they would terrible at building anything. Plus, being mindless, you'd have to give them computer-programming level instructions to do nearly anything. Carrying supplies around? Sure. But I wouldn't trust a zombie to successfully nail two boards together in a useful way. Also there's the issue that mindless undead default to "kill the living" in the absence of other instructions, so they require constant supervision. Which means the wilderness patrols have to be directly supervised by the undead's creator or a proxy, and boy you'd better have loophole free, detailed instructions (but not too complex!; -Int, after all)about that proxy or else he's going to have some problems.
Also my devious GM brain would have the goblins target the patrol "leader" and now you have roving packs of murderous undead roaming around the wilderness hunting the living. Goblins would find this result hilarious.
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Now, this will be based on the argued presumption that Animate/Animating Undead is evil, in and of itself. This is the supported by the rules, and by Mr. Jacobs. There are a LOT of people who feel this unduly limits their characters, and messes with concepts like yours. You can probably find a table that Homerules differently without looking too hard.
You are attempting to innure and desensitize the public, and make them more accepting of evil acts.
You are also using the classic propaganda toolbox of every tiresome despot and demagogue. Dehumanize and devalue your victims, choosing victims that are already on or outside the fringes of society. You are highlighting the benefits of the evil act while obscuring the "cost". This is actually a far more invasive and insidious evil, because it leads to societal acceptance of evil things, like lynching innocent people, institutionalized theft, slavery (classic or "comfort women" or any other acceptable sex trafficking) or any other manifestation of the theme.
Paladins, Inquisitors, Witch-Hunters and any other defenders of the righteous with at least a basic clue will do their best to stop you. If you are lucky, learning the error of your ways won't be fatal. I rather expect that there are people whose whole purpose is to deal with characters like you have proposed.
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"And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things." - Granny Weatherwax.
You have come up with about as extreme an example of that as possible.
If I was running a game I wouldn't allow this character unless I was specifically running an evil campaign. If I was playing in a game as a paladin, and this character joined the party, one of us would have to leave. If I was playing a Paladin and heard about this character as an NPC I would indeed stop them.
I'm more puzzled at the supposed utility of using mindless undead as labor and patrols - with at best a Craft of +0, and unable to roll Profession, they would terrible at building anything. Plus, being mindless, you'd have to give them computer-programming level instructions to do nearly anything. Carrying supplies around? Sure. But I wouldn't trust a zombie to successfully nail two boards together in a useful way. Also there's the issue that mindless undead default to "kill the living" in the absence of other instructions, so they require constant supervision. Which means the wilderness patrols have to be directly supervised by the undead's creator or a proxy, and boy you'd better have loophole free, detailed instructions (but not too complex!; -Int, after all)about that proxy or else he's going to have some problems.
Also my devious GM brain would have the goblins target the patrol "leader" and now you have roving packs of murderous undead roaming around the wilderness hunting the living. Goblins would find this result hilarious.
Hey hey, Zombies are very good at landscaping. They are naturally fertilizing.
"And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things." - Granny Weatherwax.
You have come up with about as extreme an example of that as possible.
If I was running a game I wouldn't allow this character unless I was specifically running an evil campaign. If I was playing in a game as a paladin, and this character joined the party, one of us would have to leave. If I was playing a Paladin and heard about this character as an NPC I would indeed stop them.
Ah but both you and Daw have over looked a few key points. It is far more dangerous to kill this character as long as his minions are in or near town. He dies they lose control. Sure allot of the constructs would shut down but homunculi just go berserk, not to mention any flesh augmented killers that are only kept in check by the bombs in there chest. Bombs which by the way go inert after his death. "How many dead children are worth the life of a murder Paladin?"
Well, the paladin will also need to look into whether the authorities that allowed all this were corrupt, evil, or just straight up stupidly incompetent. And the local churches.
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Ah but both you and Daw have over looked a few key points. It is far more dangerous to kill this character as long as his minions are in or near town. He dies they lose control. Sure allot of the constructs would shut down but homunculi just go berserk, not to mention any flesh augmented killers that are only kept in check by the bombs in there chest. Bombs which by the way go inert after his death. "How many dead children are worth the life of a murder Paladin?"
I said I would stop you. I didn't say the first thing I would do was kill you.
Killing off the roving undead would be one thing that would be part of my plan. The first step would be to try to get local authorities to stop you.
In the end though, if the only option was to kill this character and people, including children, would die, my Paladin would do it. And while he would mourn the loss of life, he wouldn't feel responsible. The blame would lie with you. And the alternative would be worse, letting you continue on, doing more evil, creating more hostages, most likely using these hostages to make more and more demands, and eventually you would die anyway and the loss of life would be even worse.
Why does such a talented individual with the intention do good for society resort to such inhumane methods in the first place?
There are more effective and painless methods for achieving this for someone with such expertise in magic, so it comes off as the character really wants to inflict pain and eternal torture
Because they are effective with the greatest odds of success from his point of view. He's taking those who harm society and making them give back to society. Some of the most horrific inventions and ideas are the result of good intentions. Pathfinder is a world where the average person lives in very turbulent conditions. Your worst nightmare can literally leap out of your head and eat you, or a freaking troll could wander past your farm and decide he likes it there. The average person in pathfinder has very little control or power so the need to feel in control, the need to feel safe at night that's a strong force that can dive men to do horrible things out of good intentions.
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Lawful Evil and then some. There's no way this character isn't eating every Smite Evil and Smite Law in the general vicinity. Understanding the motive does not change actions taken nor the results thereof.
In the real world, consent principals and body autonomy are pretty much the most important points of ethical philosophy.
In Golarion, not so much. The Alignment based morality system is intended to replicate a more Iron Age outlook on right and wrong, while simultaneously making Good and Evil into objective universal forces rather than the conclusions of moral debates.
When considering whether an action is evil according to the Alignment system, first consider the goals it is furthering. Then consider if any of the actions used to achieve those goals are considered evil by the various gods. If neither of those are evil, then the action probably isn't either.
Your Alchemist is Evil as hell from a modern ethical standpoint. From the perspective of the Alignment system, he's solidly neutral. In the end, there's going to be a lot of table-variation on which is more important. You can argue about mechanics, ethical philosophy, and how they overlap, forever. In the end, if you're having to resort to an online forum to discuss the rationality hair-splitting necessary in calling your clearly-evil Alchemist neutral, you probably understand the answer to your question.
If you don't want him to be Smiteable, just give him a pair of Angelskin underwear. Or give him the Beyond Morality Mythic trait. Or make him a construct himself, who is self-aware enough to follow someone else's goals, but not enough to understand ethics.
In the real world, consent principals and body autonomy are pretty much the most important points of ethical philosophy.
In Golarion, not so much. The Alignment based morality system is intended to replicate a more Iron Age outlook on right and wrong, while simultaneously making Good and Evil into objective universal forces rather than the conclusions of moral debates.
When considering whether an action is evil according to the Alignment system, first consider the goals it is furthering. Then consider if any of the actions used to achieve those goals are considered evil by the various gods. If neither of those are evil, then the action probably isn't either.
Your Alchemist is Evil as hell from a modern ethical standpoint. From the perspective of the Alignment system, he's solidly neutral. In the end, there's going to be a lot of table-variation on which is more important. You can argue about mechanics, ethical philosophy, and how they overlap, forever. In the end, if you're having to resort to an online forum to discuss the rationality hair-splitting necessary in calling your clearly-evil Alchemist neutral, you probably understand the answer to your question.
If you don't want him to be Smiteable, just give him a pair of Angelskin underwear. Or give him the Beyond Morality Mythic trait. Or make him a construct himself, who is self-aware enough to follow someone else's goals, but not enough to understand ethics.
Your assuming this Character is in play. He isn't this is a thought experiment on aliment and the popular view. So far the general consensus is that Paladins give 0 quarter to "evil" even if it is doing "good". This is also giving the consensus that good ends do not justify evil means. From both of these I can form a hypothesis that most players (using this sample size) like things or rather see things in black and white.
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It isn't just paladins who behave that way. It is hard-coded into the rules. A necromancer who casts Animate Dead is evil even if all their skeletons do is till fields to feed starving children.
In Pathfinder, Good and Evil are PREscriptive, not DEscriptive. To the alignment system, Actions have ethical weight. Intent does not. The means are all that matters. The ends are inconsequential. That makes everything black and white. Paladins make perfect sense when you look at the morality of the game from that perspective. Detect Evil isn't showing people who think bad things. It's showing people who have done bad things. It takes all the guesswork out of justice.
It isn't just paladins who behave that way. It is hard-coded into the rules. A necromancer who casts Animate Dead is evil even if all their skeletons do is till fields to feed starving children.
In Pathfinder, Good and Evil are PREscriptive, not DEscriptive. To the alignment system, Actions have ethical weight. Intent does not. The means are all that matters. The ends are inconsequential. That makes everything black and white. Paladins make perfect sense when you look at the morality of the game from that perspective. Detect Evil isn't showing people who think bad things. It's showing people who have done bad things. It takes all the guesswork out of justice.
Here is the thing Good and Bad is not black and white. That is not good role play. If the Paladin just adheres the doctrine you just said then it they are just going to live long enough to see them self's become the villain. Pathfinder is a world of darkness everything is in shades of gray.
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Actually intent does matter, while certain actions automatically have weight alignment wise, intent of why you're doing something can change the result of the action.
And also Detect Evil specifically picks up Evil thoughts as well.
Creatures with actively evil intents count as evil creatures for the purpose of this spell.
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Alchemist,
Actually, Pathfinder™ is not a world of darkness, it isn't a world at all. The official Pathfinder world is Golarian, which, overall, is rather weighted towards Good. The rules system does actually cater to Good player characters, which annoys the stuffing out of a lot of players who want your shades of grey. Since homerules are a thing, this isn't really a problem for most. The ones who insist that their little bits of cleverness must be accepted as gospel by everyone else, should prepare for disappointment.
Your thought experiment is flawed, since you accept no contradiction. When people submit that their Goody types, and even their Goodish types would appose your concept character, you change the situation, making it entrenched, holding innocent hostages, creating dire consequences for any action against the evil Mary Sue. You then insist this character who does this evil stuff is somehow OK, because he does a few good things, so the world owes him. It very much seems you have more skin in this game than you are admitting too.
Now there are many Dark settings, and rules systems that actively support those settings. There have been MANY MANY Homerules that support them. They have many good ideas to support their preferences, and recognize that their preferences aren't completely supported, but many are fun concepts, so that's cool.
Alchemist,
Actually, Pathfinder™ is not a world of darkness, it isn't a world at all. The official Pathfinder world is Golarian, which, overall, is rather weighted towards Good. The rules system does actually cater to Good player characters, which annoys the stuffing out of a lot of players who want your shades of grey. Since homerules are a thing, this isn't really a problem for most. The ones who insist that their little bits of cleverness must be accepted as gospel by everyone else, should prepare for disappointment.Your thought experiment is flawed, since you accept no contradiction. When people submit that their Goody types, and even their Goodish types would appose your concept character, you change the situation, making it entrenched, holding innocent hostages, creating dire consequences for any action against the evil Mary Sue. You then insist this character who does this evil stuff is somehow OK, because he does a few good things, so the world owes him. It very much seems you have more skin in this game than you are admitting too.
Now there are many Dark settings, and rules systems that actively support those settings. There have been MANY MANY Homerules that support them. They have many good ideas to support their preferences, and recognize that their preferences aren't completely supported, but many are fun concepts, so that's cool.
I'm not sticking to a constant narrative and no I have 0 skin in this. In all honestly I would never play this character since its far too impractical for an adventurer. A thought experiment is a living dissuasion and I have every right to say well what if this or that. I have addressed each person individually not using multiple arguments or other posts arguments if I'm even making an argument. A lot of this is just seeing individuals react and going off that.
As for my statement that pathfinder is a world of darkness I stand by that. Could you imagine living in Golarian? Just reading your average adventure path or the inner sea world guide you can see it isn't a very nice place. The PC's are special snowflakes thats the point of the narrative but you got to remember NPC's drop like fly's and really can't defend themselves.Think of it this way the middle ages to early renaissance sucked for just about everyone. Add monsters, magic, and the constant fighting of gods who can step on you and ruin your life without even noticing and I feel fully justified in saying this is a dark environment.
I'm seeing this as just an academic round table on what I see as an interesting topic.
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You will receive several smites if this actual character becomes a real one in most games.
You can try to philosophy your way around it, but in Pathfinder it is going to be evil.
Frankly, I'm not really sure this question is something that should be brought up here, but I'll get to that later. Firstly, as Daw more eloquently put it, Pathfinder, as a basic game, is tailored generally towards good, or at least goodish (The usual murder hobo techniques somewhat exempt for everyone but clerics and paladins) characters. There's plenty of additions and homebrews that tailor to characters of a more evil variety. But, as the generic game is, there isn't really shades of grey, like your character is. He traps souls in flesh golems and has them wander around, whilst also committing mass genocide of a species. The species in question may be goblins, sure, but genocide is still genocide, and these goblins in particular, from what you're saying, haven't really done anything evil, which makes it significantly worse. That means you're evil, basically. Even if the ends are good, ultimately, you're still committing evil acts, and paladins don't turn a blind eye to anything, even if the end result is a good thing. Sure the level of reaction may change depending on who they worship (Abadar would probably at least somewhat appreciate his intent to preserve civilzation, whereas a Pharasmin would probably blow a gasket), but ultimately it would end with some smiting of the evil. On a more general note, should this question be here? You said yourself that it's a thought experiment, which I'd imagine would thrive more on some sort of philosophical forum, not the forum of a game where there are literal rules and gods who dictate what is good and what is evil.
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Try to be a legally registered necromancer that do that for your kingdom. You acted by your king's comment, he is legally obligated to not get in your way.
A Paladin who knows what you are doing would absolutely try to stop you, regardless of the local laws or the king's command. The "lawful" in a Paladin's Lawful Good is not the law of the land. And even if it was, Paladins always put Good before Law. They have Smite Evil, not Smite Chaos.
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a paladin who smites a necromancer who has permission from the king to use undead to help the kingdom by farming and whatnot would be committing an evil act by dooming the kingdom to starvationTry to be a legally registered necromancer that do that for your kingdom. You acted by your king's comment, he is legally obligated to not get in your way.A Paladin who knows what you are doing would absolutely try to stop you, regardless of the local laws or the king's command. The "lawful" in a Paladin's Lawful Good is not the law of the land. And even if it was, Paladins always put Good before Law. They have Smite Evil, not Smite Chaos.
Except no. Not in the slightest. At all. In any situation. Ever. No. Just. No.
To play off your example, now that the undead are gone the living citizens that need food and money can now take the jobs previously taken by the unliving.
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*sigh*
*deep breath*
1) what the f%*$ kind of food can only be grown by Undead?
2) a kingdom that regularly employs creating Undead as an enforced conscription is Evil (see Eberron's Karnath) so in your concocted example it'd be Evil vs Evil and a Paladin would be just as likely to wind up in either kingdom and start smiting.
3) if all the farmers are Undead, and all the soldiers are Undead, where are the actual living people?
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1) there's so many holes in that... if it's inhospitable for humans then why are they growing stuff there? It's probably inhospitable for them too. If there's a beast eating flesh then it'll go after Undead too. These "examples" are only occurring because you're going out of your way to say they're set up like that, no matter how nonsensical the scenario ends up being.
2) no that's very evil.
Well except for the everyone would keep their jobs bit I think Bob has nailed this on the head, after all if Animated Objects become wide spread then jobs are of course going to be lost the same way that automation costs jobs.
Personally, the only time that you need state-appointed necromancers is when you are facing a hoard of undead, so they can set the hoard to cannibalizing itself with Command Undead. This actually would probably be a neutral act, and avoid the problems with minions since you only plan on immediately sacrificing them into the grinder of their former undead allies.
Even then, you might be "better" off just having a cleric that can channel positive energy since Channel P can damage any number of undead within an area.
Now those state-run necromancers could go full evil and decide to animate dead your fatalities during the fight, this would prevent the enemy necromancer from turning your dead into reinforcements and help save some of the lives of your other soldiers. However, the moral problems that could cause in comparison to just burning your dead makes it a no-no except in the case of penal legions.
Basically, in case of undead, just have good or neutral clerics channel positive energy and spam Burst of Radiance.
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*sigh*
*deep breath*
1) what the f~%# kind of food can only be grown by Undead?
MURDERCAKES.
AM ACTUALLY REALLY DELICIOUS, BARBARIAN AM SURPRISED RYSKY NOT TRY. WHY? AM PREFERRING PIE? NOT WORRY, DESPITE NAME MURDERCAKES AM NOT MAKING PEOPLE DIE. NO LIE. THAT AM ALL. BYE, GUY.
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*sigh*
*deep breath*
1) what the f~%# kind of food can only be grown by Undead?
MURDERCAKES.
AM ACTUALLY REALLY DELICIOUS, BARBARIAN AM SURPRISED RYSKY NOT TRY. WHY? AM PREFERRING PIE? NOT WORRY, DESPITE NAME MURDERCAKES AM NOT MAKING PEOPLE DIE. NO LIE. THAT AM ALL. BYE, GUY.
WHY? also is it anything like RYE?