I already posted a reddit threat about this subject, but I wanted to get wider opinions about the power. You can read it here.
The ability reads as follows:
Necromantic Servant (Sp): As a standard action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to raise a single human skeleton (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 250) or human zombie (Bestiary 288) from the ground to serve you for 10 minutes per occultist level you possess or until it is destroyed, whichever comes first. This servant has a number of hit points equal to 1/2 your maximum hit point total (not adjusted for temporary hit points or other temporary increases). It also uses your base attack bonus and gains a bonus on damage rolls equal to 1/2 your occultist level. At 5th level, whenever the necromantic servant would be destroyed, if you are within medium range (100 feet + 10 feet per level) of the servant, you can expend 1 point of mental focus as an immediate action to cause the servant to return to full hit points. At 9th level, you can choose to give the servant the bloody or burning simple template (if it’s a skeleton) or the fast simple template (if it’s a zombie). At 13th level, when you take an immediate action to restore your servant, it splits into two servants. You can have a maximum number of servants in existence equal to 1/2 your occultist level. At 17th level, the servant gains a teamwork feat of your choice.
The source for the necromancy implement and focus powers.
Given this has no attached descriptors and appears to be conjuring from nothing an undead, is the power and using the power fall under the usual 'evilness' that most other undead related powers tend to fall under? Is it actually a summoning effect and not really making an undead? Was the omission of this deliberate? Is even bringing a temporary, fake but still evil undead into existence an evil act if the ability used lacks any of the relevant descriptors?
A notable additional example (and likely the prototype for the occultist version) is the Oracle Bones power, Raise the Dead, which also lacks these qualities:
Raise the Dead (Su): As a standard action, you can summon a single skeleton or zombie to serve you. The undead creature has a number of Hit Dice equal to your oracle level. It remains for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier. At 7th level, you can summon a bloody skeleton or fast zombie. At 15th level, you can summon an advanced skeleton or zombie. You can use this ability once per day plus one additional time per day at 10th level.
The mystery's source is here.
Both summoning and creating undead are not evil. Not that there's anything wrong with being evil. Just because you're a bad guy doesn't mean you're a bad guy.
Unless the methods involved with creating or summoning the undead have the [Evil] descriptor added to the ability, it is not OBJECTIVELY Evil to do so. Or at least the universe in the Pathfinder game does not recognized it as being so. The relative MORAL relevance of doing so is entirely a different thing, and is up to interpretation.
Now, how those actions are perceived by elements within the game world, that don't understand the methods you use and their universal ethical relevance, might just assume you are an evil, dirty necromancer, and treat you as such.
This is something that probably should have had the [EVIL]descriptor, but it doesn't. The Occult classes were famously poorly edited.
In Golarion Undead are inherently Evil, since creating them takes a soul from their natural cycle of life and death. Creating an undead traps a soul within and forces it to be your unwilling slave within the abomination you have created.
This is a bit more interesting though, since the Necromantic Servant doesn't necessarily use an existing body to create an undead spawn, it just "raises a skeleton/zombie from the ground". You could potentially flavour this as a summon that looks like a skeleton (and has the properties of one i guess). Since you're not actually using a ody to create it there might be some wiggle-room.
Personally in my game I'd make it Evil - in line with everything else - but I'd discuss it with the player beforehand so everyone' on the same page. If I were playing in a campaign where creating undead was NOT inherently Evil, then this wouldn't be either.
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In Golarion, it should be evil, because the *general* rule is 'creating undead is always evil' even if there is no *specific* mention of it in every single rules element that creates undead.
Outside of Golarion, the setting might not have the 'creating undead is always evil' thing, and there's no *specific* rule there saying so, so I'd say not.
If the GM is cool with it, a version could create a 'body' out of elemental material (like earth and stones), and just use the stats of a skeleton or zombie, but that wouldn't necessarily be a necromancy effect...
On the other hand, such an effect could make a 'skeleton' or 'zombie' out of a heap of rotting vegetation, or a jumble of sticks and branches assembled into a man-shaped shambling figure, and be both necromancy *and* not evil, if the GM is open to finding a fun solution for the player. (Similar to how the Shadowdancer 'creates an undead shadow' but it isn't really evil, and instead shares her alignment, since it's not made from a dead person like a 'normal' undead shadow, but a fragment of her own soul given an independent consciousness.)
In Golarion Undead are inherently Evil, since creating them takes a soul from their natural cycle of life and death. Creating an undead traps a soul within and forces it to be your unwilling slave within the abomination you have created.
Not that this hasn't been said a billion times before, but canonically not all undead are evil in Golarion.
The bog standard revenant in 2e is LN, even. I think that's silly, but it is canon.
If you're a 1e purist, there's non-evil intelligent undead, such as ghosts, vampires, and I believe liches? They're uncommon, but exist. JJ's houserules are informative but aren't definitive.
If you're a 1e purist, there's non-evil intelligent undead, such as ghosts, vampires, and I believe liches? They're uncommon, but exist. JJ's houserules are informative but aren't definitive.
Any time there is 'intelligence' involved, there is always the possibility of an alignment that doesn't match the usual rule. Ghosts, in that list, are one of the few types of undead that do not have to Evil to begin with. Vampires and Liches start out their undeath as Evil, and may change over time. The Lich especially has to do some kind of unnamed, extremely Evil, act in order to make their Phylactery and perform the ritual to achieve lichdom.
Can some undead be non-Evil? Yes. But it is extremely rare, not just 'uncommon'.