So one of our players is making a White Necromancer.
What I need to know is how NPC’s and so on should react to him using necromancy.
Our GM says him using necromancy is not evil, it’s the enslavement of the soul that’s evil, which White Necromancer’s don’t do that, but people seeing him using necromancy will see him as evil, so what will they do when he does it? Will they try to kill him, banish him from the town, etc?
First off : it's a third-party thing, if your GM wants to integrate it the details of how entirely depends on him, what necromancy is in his world and how he wants to handle it. He's really the one you should ask about that stuff.
Normally the real evil part of necromancy is the undead creation part, the rest is usually fairly okay, or at least not worse than the rest of magic.
This white necro thing starts by making evil necromancy spells harder to cast, which is uncommon for arcane magic, then makes undead creation not evil, removing control and forcing respect. Makes sense.
Reactions from people depends on whether or not white necromancy is a known thing in this world. If it's commonplace, no reason to get into trouble.
If he is the first and only one ever, he will spend his life hiding. At least until he's influent enough to make the world change its mind.
You're going to have to be more specific about "people seeing him using necromancy".
Using Animate Dead and its variants.
White Necromancy is indeed "not evil" and instead uses the caster's own essence to revivify the non-living. You should roleplay out the reactions to this but the White Necromancer can feel justified in explaining their abilities.
The class itself solves the "inherently evil" part of the problem, by simply changing those rules.
For the rest of the world, it still depends on whether they know it is a possibility to begin with - and how he uses it. If people can't make tbe difference between white and regular necromancy, they won't bother asking the dude what his life philosophy is.
Good news is, he's pretty much obligated to also be a decent diplomancer, because those "good undeads" require some convincing.
Furthermore, even of he doesn't turn them into flesh-eating murderous abominations, if he decides to make tame, neighbourly zombies out of grandma, lil'Tim the much mourned young vic, the widower's freshly passed spouse and the late sir Fluffington the beloved housecat, just because he can and he might get some mileage out of their corpses : people will still hate him. Evil or not.
I stick to my "your GM knows how white necro works in his world, socially, better than we here ever could", and I'll raise you a "that guy also better show some actual respect and compassion to the living as well".
I mean, one of those "white necromancer" who reserves all his attention and reverence for the dead and none for the living people could be hilarious, but I don't see it working long-term without a lot of issues.
As a side-note, this should probably go the 3rd party forum ?