Zombies and skeletons with intelligence? Not sure I like the sound of that, I've always enjoyed the "mindless" undead. Can you tell me what the Int scores are?
3 and 6. It looks like 3 might constitute the minimum intelligence for being trained, obeying orders (cf. Ochre Jelly with Int 2). But skeletons clearly have the ability to think.
Yes, and I'm one of those people. Animating a corpse is a far less morally questionable act than dominating someone, stripping them of their free will, melting their face off with acid arrows, turning people permanently into farm animals, or summoning and enslaving innocent elemental or other beings from other planes. Any type of magic can be used for good or evil, including necromancy. A tool or weapon is neither good nor evil, it's how you choose to use it.
This is my instinct too, independent of any setting details; i.e. it's the type of Necromancy I would want. I think it's not what we're being given, though, and I think this is an important distinction to make. Any arguments based on the real world skip over the element of magical fantasy that exists in the world, where all the physics and metaphysics can be re-written in an office in Seattle during an afternoon.
Anyone concerned about the mistreatment of the dead should go back and read the Necromancer rules in the very first play test pack -- it was truly appalling, in which a soul of a combat victim was captured and used up in exchange for a single advantage roll. In a fictional world where we know souls and gods exist, it represented an incredible violation -- the annihilation of another soul -- for the most minor benefit.
We're past this, but we still lack a consistent set of necromancy rules. Falling Icicle's take is completely consistent, even if it differs form the real world attitudes to the dead (where the existence of souls and gods lacks the same degree of external proof that exists in the fictional setting).
Magic puppets or not that skeleton, body, or remains belongs to someone. Necromancy is a clear violation of the dead's physical remains, that's just common sense, regardless of what a book says. The soul doesn't have to be involved, disturbing the bodies of the dead is on it's own a taboo, and to reanimate them against their owner's consent is a violation. It is evil. Ask any ancient culture in the world.
And if the fantasy world had the same uncertainties about all life and existence as permeated antiquity, this would be relevant. Sure, many will want the fantasy world to share these values; that's fine. But again, the fiction that we devise at the game table derives from the rules given, and those rules are inconsistent.
I always thought the evil in Animating Dead was the tie to the Negative Plane in previous editions. Bringing in Negative Energy, anathema to the prime material, to lend 'unlife' to a corpse was a profane act.
I know there were many subsequent arguments about the chaining of the soul to the undead because of restrictions on Raise Dead with regards to animated corpses, but using anti-life to power the creation is bad. This is why cure spells harm undead.
One problem in this space is the treatment of Negative Energy. I've seen presentations which make negative energy a simple mathematical opposition to positive energy, but I don't think it's that simple. Either, negative energy does work by creating more negative energy, or, negative energy is energy, with very bad mojo.
So, if animate dead is inherently evil, there needs to be a reason. My preferred reason is to link undead to the Abyss and say that any time you create an undead creature, the powers of darkness gain influence in the living world. Not only that, but they go through you to do it--you are exposing yourself to the Abyss's corrupting touch every time you cast the spell. So even if you're doing it with the best of intentions, you're causing harm to the world, and if you keep doing it you will eventually succumb to the dark side.
Here's some takes that attempt to do just that -- use the rules to explain the metaphysics.
I still can't help but feel there's still an inconsistency in these. If we do draw these conclusions and explain why necromancy is evil, then surely it has to apply to all necromancy. Not just animating the dead, but everything from Spare the Dying to Astral Projection.
That, too, makes for a compelling fantasy world -- one where the use of negative energy, inimical as it is to all life, is inherently evil, and that means that some spells, even those that appear innocuous, are psych ally corrupting.
(Note, this is not an argument to rebrand the spells -- I actually think all healing spells should fall under this rubric, since they are using energy from the positive/negative planes. That's just sidestepping the problem. But it seems to remain unanswered. Previous discussions on this topic have fallen back on the word necromancy; that's sophistry, though -- it's not the name that's relevant, it's the manipulation of life/death magic.)
