D&D 5E Why is animate dead considered inherently evil?

[Tolerable Tyrant]

I'm having a troublesome time understanding why the animate dead spell is considered evil. When I read the manual it states that the spall imbues the targeted corpse with a foul mimicry of life, implying that the soul is not a sentient being who is trapped in a decaying corpse. Rather, the spell does exactly what its title suggests, it only animates the corps. Now of course one could use the spell to create zombies that would hunt and kill humans, but by that same coin, they could create a labor force that needs no form of sustenance (other than for the spell to be recast of course). There have also been those who have said "the spell is associated with the negative realm which is evil", however when you ask someone why the negative realm is bad that will say "because it is used for necromancy", I'm sure you can see the fallacy in this argument.

However, I must take into account that I have only looked into the DnD magic system since yesterday so there are likely large gaps in my knowledge. PS(Apon further reflection I've decided that the animate dead spell doesn't fall into the school of necromancy, as life is not truly given to the corps, instead I believe this would most likely fall into the school of transmutation.) PPS(I apologize for my sloppy writing, I've decided I'm feeling too lazy to correct it.)

 

[Iry]

Don't leave your zombies unattended! Seriously, it is not hard to destroy them if you don't want or can't reapply the spell. I feel people apply completely unreasonable standard of safety here. It is mildly risky, sure, but hardly to a degree that you could reasonably call the thing obviously evil based on this. If they were funny looking artificer's bots with the exact same rules no one would be arguing that it is somehow inherently evil.

Destroying them isn't hard, but once you lose control you can't regain it. Another necromancer can't either (without different spells). You can definitely set up a society with safety nets, but human error happens all the time. All it takes is for Laura to call out sick or get into a carriage wreck, and Travis forgets to put a kill order on her skeleton crew. Or Abria just plain forgets to renew the magic on her household skelenanny because the castings kind of blur together and she's sure she did it today.

 

[James Gasik]

IMO that's not a crazy ruling at all.

If water doesn't hinder your movement when you're standing on the bottom it shouldn't hinder your movement when you're falling through it. Hence, I long ago ruled exactly this: someone wearing a Ring of Free Action in water will fall to the bottom as if the water was air.

As I recall, the answer that was given was that Freedom of Action/Movement prevents effects that hinder your attempts to move. So if you want to swim along the surface, you're fine, but if you want to swim downwards, it's like flying through the air.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

One doesn't need to, sure; but someone asked how a caster could lose control of their own undead without getting killed and I gave what seemed like an obvious answer.

I think the point was how could the control be lost accidentally though. People behave like the undead could randomly snap out of control any moment and start murderising people and that's just not how it works.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Destroying them isn't hard, but once you lose control you can't regain it. Another necromancer can't either (without different spells). You can definitely set up a society with safety nets, but human error happens all the time. Aaaaallllll the time.

Sure, but I really feel the standard for inherently evil should be way higher than "this could be dangerous if the operator seriously messes up" because that would make a hella long list of inherently evil things!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, but I really feel the standard for inherently evil should be way higher than "this could be dangerous if the operator seriously messes up" because that would make a hella long list of inherently evil things!

The standard should be higher (and in my campaigns it absolutely is), but WotC decided they wanted it to be Evil and went out their way (why are skeletons and zombies sentient now?) to make it so.

 

[Iry]

Sure, but I really feel the standard for inherently evil should be way higher than "this could be dangerous if the operator seriously messes up" because that would make a hella long list of inherently evil things!

I think the standard is "Will it try to murder as many people as possible if given the chance?"
It's not a checkbox we often have to worry about.
But the checkbox is a "Yes." in this case!

 

[Lanefan]

As I recall, the answer that was given was that Freedom of Action/Movement prevents effects that hinder your attempts to move. So if you want to swim along the surface, you're fine, but if you want to swim downwards, it's like flying through the air.

What's the flamin' difference between swimming along the surface and swimming downwards?! You're still swimming, and the water is still impeding your movement....

(not yelling at you at all, just at the ruling you're paraphrasing)

 

[Lanefan]

I think the point was how could the control be lost accidentally though. People behave like the undead could randomly snap out of control any moment and start murderising people and that's just not how it works.

Which raises a question someone here can answer: if an undead is met in the wild, whether already under someone's control or not, are there any mechanisms in 5e for taking (or taking over) control of it?

 

[James Gasik]

If I could remember the exact issue of Dragon, I'd happily share the reasoning, but I'm pretty sure the key words was intentional movement. You have to want to move in a direction to be hindered?

 

[Iry]

What's the flamin' difference between swimming along the surface and swimming downwards?! You're still swimming, and the water is still impeding your movement....

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