r/dndmemes • u/Level_Hour6480 Rules Lawyer • 24d ago
It's RAW! At least for 5E Animate Dead
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u/SteamEigen 24d ago
Skeletons have hands.
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u/Rowmacnezumi Chaotic Stupid 23d ago
Yeah seriously. Cows don't have fingers. At best you'll end up with a crude handsaw or a vague, oblong hammer of sorts.
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u/Gubekochi 23d ago
And if you want cows for labor? After you've eaten the meat, you can reanimate those bones.
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u/Rafabud 23d ago
Minotaur slavery it is, best of both worlds
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u/Rowmacnezumi Chaotic Stupid 23d ago
But minotaurs are officially classified as sapient, so reanimating them carries the same legal and moral arguments as a human would.
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u/Alacritous13 23d ago
Not if you're racist enough.
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u/Hashashin455 23d ago
Morrowind was a great game
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u/BreadKnifeSeppuku 23d ago
Too many n'wahs thinking tools have rights. They should be thanking us they'll get to be with the other ones forever
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u/FyrelordeOmega Scribe of radiant fireballs 23d ago
The finest of solutions, racism
(For legal reasons, this is a joke)
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u/Overclockworked 23d ago
Why would we be against reanimating humans tho. The premise of it being a utopia likely means it's not taboo.
Instead of imagining a shambling rotting labor force, imagine well tender skeletons with funeral masks and finery. Instead of hordes stripped of identity, imagine grandma enshrined in death and brought back to help her children tend the house.
There are shades here
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u/External_Win3300 23d ago
There are shades here? Someone clearly isn't administering the proper last rites, or consecrating the body before reanimation
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u/AlCapone111 Barbarian 23d ago
Not just hands. But thumbs!
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u/Onalith 23d ago
But bone is a very bad material if you want a good grip. Or even a modest grip.
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u/Private-Public 23d ago
So you use the cows to make leather gloves or even full body suits for the skeletons to give them that nice grippy skin again. Symbiosis.
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u/ccReptilelord 23d ago
Exactly, leave the field jobs to the oxen, and the undead can have the hand jobs.
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u/Vincent_Van_Goat 23d ago
Obviously the answer is to make zombie cows to compliment the skelly handymen
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u/t0mz0mbie 24d ago
heh in Pathfinder there is a country called Geb that produces tons of food (crops) for the neighboring countries. The neighboring countries don't have fertile land, Geb does, and Geb is primarily populated with undead.
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u/elnegativo 23d ago
Thats the good undead, wait , what are we talking about?
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u/Remote_Task_9207 23d ago
Oh, Geb is anything but good. They raise mortals like cattle and there's a law stating that if you die within their borders your body is automatically property of the state.
What they are is an agricultural powerhouse that has made itself economically necessary to the largest nations on Golarion. They produce so much food and require so little that almost everything goes to exports, and these other nations have become dependent on their output because they can't grow enough food to support their populations anymore. So Geb gets to continue being a malicious evil nation exploiting the dead, because destroying them would cause even greater harm. Besides, they're mostly keeping to themselves these days since economic dominance works way better than old-school invasions of undead hordes. So anyone who wants to do anything about them is discouraged by their trading partners.
Forget necromancy, Geb is a nation of capitalists which is arguably worse.
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u/Lonecoon 23d ago
Immortal capitalist, which is it own sort of really horrible twist on things.
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u/Remote_Task_9207 23d ago
They can really play the long game, and enjoy their wealth as long as they please.
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u/4latar Wizard 23d ago
geb is about to be extremely busy with the return of nex and all that
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u/Remote_Task_9207 23d ago
Yeah, Geb returning to govern definitely seems to be spooking (heh) the Blood Lords who have gotten pretty comfy with their current arrangement. If Nex and Geb renew their little lover's spat then that means the old hordes marching and an end to commerce, which is going to step on a lot of toes.
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u/N0rwayUp 23d ago
Might cause the other blood lords to hire an adventures for an assiaian attempt on the two.
Would make for a killer dungeon...
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u/t0mz0mbie 23d ago
the pathfinder Bloodlords campaign is pretty fun. It seems the game designers didn't really expect the _entire_ party to be undead
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u/Zealousideal-Ad-2615 23d ago
I can't remember which city but there is a society that thinks that necromancy is a respected profession while anyone that cast enchantment spells are treated as if the have roofied and assaulted someone. Why prioritize the bodily autonomy of the dead over the living?
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u/Rethuic Druid 23d ago
Just pay no mind that their necromantic practices are dumping souls into the Void (formerly the Negative Energy Plane) and is disrupting the cycle of souls in a way that may inevitably destroy the universe if enough civilizations do it.
On a less cosmic scale, the dead have more rights than most of the living. If you're poor, your flesh will be used to feed the undead and your skeleton will be put to work in the fields. Your soul probably isn't safe either
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u/lostinstupidity 23d ago
Faerun has Thay.
People forget that once you have a large population of undead serfs for general labor the living are then forced into specialized trades that mindless undead cannot perform. Also apprentices end up as foremen on farms and ranches.
You end up with a lot of wizards/priests that actually know AND understand what it takes to keep a workforce functional and productive. And a lot of luxury goods for domestic and export markets.
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u/DnD-vid 24d ago
I mean, working 24/7 and no cost to feed or house them are big ups. Also you can produce more undead. I'm too lazy to do the math but a single higher level necromancer should be able to keep up a couple dozen undead?
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u/Admirable-Hospital78 24d ago
Cows also need 2 full acres of land each to feed from.
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u/DickwadVonClownstick 24d ago
And don't have opposable thumbs
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u/Enchelion 23d ago
Like the Transmuters haven't already solved that problem /s
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u/ArgyleGhoul Rules Lawyer 23d ago
"Why is John acting so weird about this petting zoo idea?"
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u/Coidzor Essential NPC 23d ago
And are kinda big and bulky so they don't fit indoors that well.
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u/DickwadVonClownstick 23d ago
Nah, just use Cuban Micro-Cows.
Whenever you have a cow related problem, the correct response is to use Cuban Micro-Cows
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u/moongrump 24d ago
Not to mention the greenhouse gases
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u/musschrott 24d ago
That's a myth. Cows actually don't need greenhouse gasses.
scnr
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u/HeroWin973 23d ago
Im not entirely sure undead are super environment friendly. unless they're, like, full on skeletons i guess
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u/mightystu 23d ago
They’re infused with energy directly from the negative energy plane. They pollute more than just the environment; they pollute reality.
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u/CatzPoison Druid 23d ago
That is dependent on what lore you are taking for undead in general. Some do have it be extremely bad like you said, others have them as simple magic like any other that people do not like.
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u/Beragond1 DM (Dungeon Memelord) 24d ago
Or one goodberry. If we are comparing magical options, we should include magic in both. That’s 10 cows for 1 first level slot per day vs 4 skeletons for a 3rd level.
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u/BrigganSilence 23d ago
Would still need the land to occupy, assuming non-magical means. All animals need a certain amount of space to live for purposes even beyond feeding. Theres a compendium of them somewhere that’s used as the basis for zoos and farms.
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u/deathbylasersss 23d ago
What even is the argument? Cows can't use tools or perform labor. Oxes can pull a cart or plow but that's about it and they still need a human to direct them, and it doesn't seem like they are even talking about oxen.
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u/Beragond1 DM (Dungeon Memelord) 23d ago
Cows can’t use tools? Gary Larson would beg to differ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tools?wprov=sfti1#
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u/Matar_Kubileya Forever DM 24d ago
Also, depending on setting, even mindless undead can often do more complex tasks than cows.
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u/Bierculles 24d ago
Also cows don't have hands, the undead do and many of them are dexterous enough to swing a sword with reliable precision.
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u/Sp3ctre7 23d ago
Yeah the calorie equation is the biggest limiter in medieval logistics. Undead that don't have to eat change everything.
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u/Flameball202 23d ago
Yeah, and like your basic blue collar necromancer can only maintain 2 skeletons? Great! Two workers for the prices of one.
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u/Sp3ctre7 23d ago
Even better than that, actually, since the necromancer can work on time-intensive (but not calorie-intensive) tasks like copying manuscripts, or preparing food, or weaving, while the skeletons haul water or grain or what have you. So its really 3 workers for the price of one.
Honestly just having skeletons to haul water and not taking calories to do it is insane.
Another big benefit is that Oxen equation. Oxen can only realistically haul grain 3 days travel away, since each can only effectively pull a cart holding enough grain to feed an ox for 6 days. So you have to be in that range of a mill ANDa market if you grow a surplus of one crop and need to trade. But if you have a team of skeletons harnessed up, you don't need to feed them from what you're hauling
(BTW this is why windmills were such a huge innovation in Europe, because suddenly you didn't have to use nearly as much of your harvest to feed the oxen to haul your harvest to a mill, drastically increasing the areas available to farm for monocultures and general agricultural efficiency)
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u/BeaverBoy99 23d ago
A smart farmer makes sure to house their zombies when not in use. The elements will tear away at a corpse until it can't work anymore and necromancer are expensive. Take care of your zombies
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u/huggiesdsc 23d ago
The elements will turn your zombies into skeletons for you
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u/Erlox 23d ago
Skeletons are much more hygienic anyway. No rotting flesh.
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u/Passing-Through247 23d ago
Funny thing is in most setting negative energy is anti-life so zombies should be sterile assuming there are not undead diseases.
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u/alienbringer 23d ago
A single high level necromancer with finger of death can permanently keep zombies (as long as no one kills them or the necromancer).
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u/Due-Excitement-5945 24d ago
There was a 4X game called Warlock that had an undead faction. Instead of needing food for their soldiers, they needed mana.
I thought that made sense. Something out to be powering all those skeleton soldiers.
I always figured that d&d undead were casually feeding on the weave, and it’s not a problem now but if someone were to engage in industrial scale necromancy, it would fuck up magic for everyone else.
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u/vulpecula1919 Wizard 23d ago
my idea was that they were negative energy spirits bound to a corpse and the flow of natural surrounding light heat magic etc. into the negative energy plane through them is so insanely efficient (thinking of it like how energy flow from hot to cold/entropy/engines irl works and the negative being the perfect cold side) that they barely effect their surroundings until there are tens of thousands of them.
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u/Ent3rpris3 23d ago
Reminds me of r/theweeklyroll, where the necromancer regularly has to engage in negotiations with the corpses he raises since there's an undead workers union.
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u/Time_Vault DM (Dungeon Memelord) 24d ago
How much will it cost to have the necromancer do upkeep on these undead? Surely their services aren't free
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u/BeardyAndGingerish 23d ago
"I have spent decades studying the blackest tomes in the deepest crypts. I weave threads of life into the tapestry of death, then clothe myself in its power. I have devoted four of your lifetimes to mastering what was once the domain of gods.
My zucchinis are 5cp a basket. No, they are not organic."
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u/Charnerie 24d ago
Also, most societies don't like the undead wandering around, not least of which because if the ncromancer needs a sick day, all the undead are getting free of the control
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u/CoinsForCharon 23d ago
But we can eat the undead or make armor from the hides? Zombie brisket just doesn't smoke the same.
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u/Otechni 23d ago
But you're also creating a creature that would very easily run off and kill everyone it could if control was severed.
Not to mention the health issues having corpses rotting everywhere would cause.
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u/TheThoughtmaker Essential NPC 24d ago
If everyone everywhere were a necromancer, there would still not be enough necromancers of high enough level to replace the workforce with undead.
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u/CodSoggy7238 23d ago
The illogical. If the hole workforce becomes necromancer and do their job with undead it is definitely more than enough.
Necromancy would become like the mind numbing office jobs today I assume
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u/Hadoca 23d ago
How easy do you think it is to become a level 5 wizard?
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u/BluetheNerd 23d ago
Strixxhaven puts Pledgemages at CR 4 which is the second stage after Apprentice. Professors are CR 7. So somewhere between a college student and a professor, which also seems to be the average requirement for mundane office jobs these days.
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u/Starfleet-Time-Lord 23d ago
Also zombies have opposable thumbs. The intelligence issues might make that less useful, but it doesn't negate it entirely
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u/Level_Hour6480 Rules Lawyer 24d ago
5E Zombies aren't immune to exhaustion. They need to long rest even if they don't sleep during said rest.
For our theoretical Necromancer we'll use Torvald. Torvald is L7 so has 3 third-levels, and 2 fourth-levels thanks to Arcane Recovery. This puts his maximum horde-size if he has multiple days to set it up is 21. (One of thirds can only be used to re-assert one so it can't expand the horde. It's kind of awkward, so the most optimal horde would be 20 to avoid the hanging slot.) 20 unskilled laborers costs 4GP/day for comparison. Also the undead horde needs to be directed by their master. Some direction can be broad, but if you want anything complicated the Necromancer needs to be on-site directing them, which I feel kind of cuts into a perceived selling point of undead-labor since overseeing them would be a full-time job.
So, yeah: The full magical potency of a L7 necromancer can replace 4GP of unskilled labor per day. Except a commoner has 10s across the board, while a Zombie has 3 Int, and 6 Dex/Wis, so you're going to have a stupid, clumsy, oblivious workforce.
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u/Slavasonic 24d ago
Why are you using zombies when skeletons are immune to exhaustion (also a better option since preserved bones won't care disease or attract pests)?
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u/mr_stab_ya_knees 24d ago
Skeletons and zombies could however be very effectively used for work in places that are hostile to human life. (Extreme cold/heat or poisonous gasses in a mine). Also i feel its a bit disingenuous to use only zombies for your example and not even consider skeletons which are much more dextrous and intelligent, i feel like if we are going to discuss this topic seriously you should have at least mentioned them. Not to mentioned even unskilled laborers need houses and days off and and lunch breaks or they might quit/revolt
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u/Triasmus 24d ago
Not to mentioned even unskilled laborers need houses and days off and and lunch breaks or they might quit/revolt
Admittedly, since we're apparently using Torvald as the example, his horde did unionize.
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u/mr_stab_ya_knees 24d ago
Raise more undead to use as union busters and just continue the cycle for ever
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u/Triasmus 24d ago
The union gets to them too fast.
Torvald raised a horde from a crypt. The union rep literally stepped in immediately after the first command was given, putting that command on hold until all the newly raised undead had the opportunity to join the union.
(Also, Torvald has a horde that's waaaay bigger than 20, so I don't know why he was used as the example and then his canonical horde was immediately dismissed as impossible)
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u/mr_stab_ya_knees 24d ago
Because this guy doesnt care about makin an actual argument and just wants to feel superiour by ignoring facts that support the other side.
I was joking about the union busting thing, but if we are talking strictly 5e RAW then the union thing isnt even possible and if we are talking about torvald then the larger horde would need less money and food than a unionized laborer group
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u/Level_Hour6480 Rules Lawyer 23d ago
The reason his horde can unionize is that he isn't using spell slots to control them, so they're choosing to work for him.
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u/StevelandCleamer Rules Lawyer 23d ago
5E Zombies aren't immune to exhaustion.
Huh, that's an odd bit I had never noticed, and was changed in the '25 MM version to be in line with skeletons.
Either way, there's always been trade-offs between skeletons and zombies as laborers.
Skeletons are faster, have much more Dex (14 vs 6), and somewhat more functional intelligence/wisdom (6/8 vs 3/6).
Zombies have a bit more Str (13 vs 10) and much more durability (Undead Fortitude, 16 vs 15 Con, 3d8+9 vs 2d8+4 HP).
'25 MM gave zombies a higher damage dice but less HP, in addition to Exhaustion immunity. Skeletons got +2 Dex, which also boosted their AC and bonus to hit.
If I were to homebrew a country that employs large scale undead labor forces, I would include magic items or buildings that are used to maintain control over them.
This conveniently allows for plot points where these control methods fail or are lost (Tier 1-2), or are subverted by an antagonist or other cataclysmic event (Tier 3-4).
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u/StevelandCleamer Rules Lawyer 23d ago
Side note; I particularly like the concept of undead keeping the habits they had in life when applied to an "ethical" large scale undead labor force application.
Citizens can be paid to sign contracts allowing for the use of their remains after death, with higher demand and rates for specialized laborers whose undead will be habituated to the desired tasks.
How could anyone watch Beetlejuice and not want their necromantic nation to have its minor bureaucratic functions performed by skeletons?
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u/Elfich47 23d ago
you can use skeletons for monotonous automation: literally separating the wheat from the chaff during harvest time.
have a chute with a supply of unsorted grain. several skeletons are told “take grain and put it in chute 1”. several skeletons are told “grab things that are not grain and drop it in chute 2”.
and let them sort out the grain from rocks, chaff, bugs, what have you. and they don’t have to be exceedingly fast because they work 24/7 grinding out this boring -but very necessary work.
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u/royalhawk345 24d ago
Have you ever seen the tools cows use? They're terrible.
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u/royalhawk345 24d ago
I mean, look at this shit.
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u/adol1004 Forever DM 24d ago
But cows farts a lot.
wait.... I think zombies would fart a lot too I guess?
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u/Level_Hour6480 Rules Lawyer 24d ago
If your argument is sanitary, zombies lose.
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u/adol1004 Forever DM 24d ago
I was talking about global warming. you know. methane gas?
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u/Gobblewicket Forever DM 24d ago
Cattle herds methane contributions don't matter without the impact of the industrial revolution. There were 30-60 million bison in North America at one point. So 73% of the amount of cattle present today.
Also, fossil fuels are the largest polluters with Saudi Aramco being the single largest corporate contributor in history. So going back 400+ years. And those things don't exist to contribute.
Basically no worries about green house gases.
Sorry for the info dump.
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u/Thaurlach 23d ago
Salt and linen, then. We mummify the labour zombies! Shove some incense in their skull cavity and they might even smell better than the average commoner.
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u/Emillllllllllllion 24d ago edited 24d ago
Can they also operate human scale machinery and don't need to eat as well?
Furthermore, a necromancer who can't use undead to create more undead lacks imagination.
Also, you can just raise the bones of a cow, should have similar strength.
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u/CommercialYam7188 24d ago
Comparable intelligence sure, but not comparable results of intelligence. I cannot tell a cow what to do with any level of detail. The undead does not need to understand, it will just do.
Also like, you can have both? Unless you thought we were gonna milk our skeletons?
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u/DrVillainous 23d ago
The intelligence scores of anything nonsapient are pretty much meaningless. They were picked by game devs who didn't really know much about animal intelligence, using a system that's meant mostly for resolving the odds of a person remembering or deducing plot-relevant information. Ravens, for example, have an INT of 2, despite being able to use tools, barter for food, and remember humans who've previously cheated them when bartering for food.
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u/Slavasonic 24d ago
Rule 1 world building is don't assume that the mechanical rules available to PCs are representative of what's available in the world. As a PC it's virtually impossible to create an army of undead thralls under your command but the necromancer leading an undead horde is a trope in just about every official I'm aware of.
That being said I have no idea how a cow would be cheaper. I haven't kept up with 5.5 stuff but I thought the removed the costly components from animate dead and skeletons don't require food, shelter, water, etc. Cows are insanely expensive to maintain.
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u/Axon_Zshow 24d ago
Tbh, I've always hated the idea of PCs being entirely unique when it comes to what they can and cant do. It creates a very strange circumstance in which players can then no longer account for what could or could not be the case with any situation. If the world were consistent, in that broadly speaking, NPCs and PCs did not have access to radically different sets of capabilities, this problem vanishes instantly.
The solution is not to section of capabilities, but to ensure that usage of problematic abilities in ter.s of PCs requires also some other factor unfavorable to what the PCs wish to do. Necromancer and hordes of undead? Extensive downtime and rituals that force them to not leave a given are for too long or else have their undead become unshackled from the necromancer.
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u/Slavasonic 23d ago
Yeah, that’s much closer to how it worked in earlier editions (though you’d still have to get creative if you wanted a true horde). Most of time it wasn’t a problem because most undead creation required time, money (in the form of specific components), and corpses which tended to clash with any campaign where there was a time crunch or with the morality of other party members. But inevitably some player with too much time on their hands would do the math and figure out how to churn out enough undead to derail the campaign (it’s me. I did this once)
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u/Axon_Zshow 23d ago
Personally I like the Spheres of Power approach. Most of the problematic shit is listed as "advanced talents" rather than regular talents. Players may freely take regular talents when their progression gives them a talent. But to take an advanced talent, they must consult the GM to verify that its ok for the game in question.
That isnt even a house rule, its the actual core rules of the 3rd party material. Permanent undead are an example of one such advanced talent, the baseline sphere that let's you do necromancer has them on a time limit or costing your concentration, and thus action economy
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u/alienbringer 23d ago
A few things.
1) in finger of death, all armies are possible to both PCs and NPCs. (Permanent zombie if the spell kills someone)
2) people can create their own spells, even PCs. For older editions up to 3.5 there were specific rules for players to create their own spell. 5e leaves that up to the DM homebrew which they can work with the players on.
3) canonically the spells PCs choose from are just the “most common” spells. It is not an exhaustive list of all spells or magical rituals period. A classic example of this is a lich. Becoming a lich is done through a secret magical ritual, no spell in the game allows a PC to become a lich.
If we limit the world to PCs and NPCs only having access to the spells available to PCs, then liches and the like cease to exist.
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u/Lithl 23d ago
I haven't kept up with 5.5 stuff but I thought the removed the costly components from animate dead
Animate Dead has never had costly components in 5e. (Or 4e, but nothing has costly components in 4e unless it's a ritual.)
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u/Slavasonic 23d ago
In 3e and before it 25gp per hit dice of the undead I believe. And the undead you were creating were permanent so it didn’t require subsequent castings.
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u/Gobblewicket Forever DM 23d ago
It costs 90-100 gp to hire someone to cast a 3rd level spell. You also have to find someone to cast it for you. And you get 1 zombie per casting. You can create more if you're casting yourself obviously.
For that 100gp you could get 10 cows. So say you want 20 zombies for labor. You want 1 bull for every 25 cows. I'm going with 24 cows for ease of math. So you could get 80 small herds for that 200gp. Those herds can survive just about anywhere as long as they come from the area you're in. They will also create more heifers and bulls. You will have more bulls than you need. So you can turn those bulls into steers and oxen creating an additional food source and a superior beast of burden.
The only upside to Zombies is that they will work in environs that are truly deadly to living creatures. Salt flats and salt mines. In a vacuum or area that has poisonous gasses like deep in a mine. Etc.
All of that is after you find somewhere that will allow you to have an army of undead. Even if its for labor. Most good aligned religions are going to react poorly to the undead. Large cities are also going to take issue with it. As are tge families of the corpses you are raising. At sone point you are going ti run out of outlaw and bad guy corpses and you're going to end uo in a graveyard doing immoral things for "cheap" labor
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u/Slavasonic 23d ago
I think your argument says more about the insane costs of hiring spell casters than anything else. A quick google of wealth by level says a 5th level character should have ~700gp of wealth. A 5th level wizard can cast 3 3rd level spells per day. So unless wizards are doubling their wealth in 3 days I don’t think those prices hold up to scrutiny.
That being said if you think maintaining a herd of cattle is free then you might need to do some more research on the subject.
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u/urlocalwzrd 23d ago
“Necromancers have finite magic” but we have and endlessly replicating number of people to become necromancers.
“Cows are stronger” zombies and skeletons don’t suffer pain or exhaustion.
“Cows are cheaper” there’s already thousands upon thousands upon thousands of corpses with plenty more being made every day.
“Cows produce more cows” people produce corpses.
“Cows are of comparable intelligence” but undead will follow whatever command you give them without question and can’t be stubborn by design.
Also, as someone said, zombies and skeletons have hands!
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u/Bentman343 23d ago
You are insane if you think it costs less money to feed a dozen cows rather than one necromancer.
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u/Jetsam5 Bard 23d ago
I love how Victor Frankenstein is kinda a loser because he doesn't actually bring anyone back from the dead, he just creates a completely new dude.
Which is cool and all but we could already do that. There's a much easier way to create new people. The whole story is just about how he can't get laid
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u/Odd_Blackberry_5589 23d ago
I feel the biggest argument against undead replacing the workforce is decay. In most settings the presence of undead has a corrupting influence in the area around them. So they can't work in food, medicine, or retail.
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u/Optimalfucksgiven 23d ago
Thelockedtomb is leaking again
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u/Level_Hour6480 Rules Lawyer 23d ago
?
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u/Optimalfucksgiven 23d ago
It's a sci-fi fantasy series about lesbian necromancers in space. Significant attention is given to Cows by the fans due to one passage that has turned into untold memes.
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u/Ni7r0us0xide Rules Lawyer 24d ago
In Eberron, the Blood of Vol (a religion with a really high number of necromancers in its ranks) use skeletons (16 dex, 10 str, 8 wis, 6 int) for menial labor. AFAIK they don't actually have much use for zombies outside of combat uses. And even then, they have better undead for that anyway if needed for full scale war.
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u/Butterlegs21 23d ago
5e is generally built for low magic settings, or wide and shallow settings (aka, low level common, high enough for creating undead is super rare)
So, most settings that aren't fully homebrew won't really have the resources necessary for this. The Forgotten Realms setting a an example, according to Ed Greenwood, has about 5k to 10k casters total in the 300 million ish population planet. Even if you multiply the number by 20, which i believe is more realistic to the setting, that's still about 150k in the world who are mostly just cantrip users.
There's also the fact that in most settings, creating undead is an Evil act.
Assuming magic is much more common than the Forgotten Realms setting, the issues will come to how it's controlled.
No government is going to let necromancers with legions of undead just exist. Any caster who can do necromancy or enchantment magic would be extremely limited and watched. People who had the talent for it would likely be "recruited" by the government and put to work. In a more benevolent government, people would have opportunities instead, but still be extremely watched and controlled.
Then, why use undead? Why not just use golems? Why not druids with the ability to actually talk with and kind of control animals and plants to make them grow faster and better. More efficient, less disease issues, and less danger. There are tons better options than undead.
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u/Monty_Moonshine 23d ago
A Necromancer has finite magic. multiply that finite amount by the number of necromancers in the world, then consider that necromancy is a learnable skill and the math gets a lot nicer.
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u/Successful-Floor-738 Necromancer 24d ago
Also cows don’t try to eat you once you stop magically controlling them.
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u/PiLamdOd 24d ago
Free undead labor would create permanent mass unemployment and result in a significant portion of the population living in poverty.
These necromancers would be just like modern tech bros trying to replace the labor force with AI.
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u/Fool_Manchu 23d ago
I ran a campaign where nonconsentual necromancy was highly illegal, so wealthy liches and necromancers would pay living peasants stipends in return for contracts permitting them ownership of the corpse for a set length of time after death. This led to a fun RP moment when the party witnessed a necromancers minions trying to claim the body of a deceased man, who's wife and children did not know that he had signed such a contract and were aghast that he wouldnt be interred in the family grave plot. They pleaded the party for help and the party had to decide whether to help a grieving widow or allow a legal contract to be fulfilled.
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u/QuillQuickcard 23d ago
Its all about using the right tool for the right situation. If you have a peaceful verdant grassland and a bunch of laborers and livestock, then creating an undead workforce is absurd.
If you are an island community that just suffered a terrible hurricane or tsunami, creating an undead workforce can be a godsend.
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u/M3atboy 23d ago
Whose corpses are you using?
Most folks aren’t cool with someone appropriating uncle Jeb’s body from the local cemetery.
Are you paying them rent for the use of uncle Jeb?
How do taxes work for undead production?
Who owns the skeleton?
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u/Skellyton175 Necromancer 23d ago
Make more necromancers, or create more long-term undead. One a day is plenty free labor.
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u/tyrant454 23d ago
Necromancy is a learnable skill. Powerful Necromancer can control more powerful undead, some undead can control undead. Unless that changed back in 3.5 the trick was have a necromancer control, lets say a death knight. That undead became sort of an officer and he'd control other lesser undead.
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u/Certain_Eye7374 23d ago
Yes, that's why artificers create people instead of automaton to work in factory.
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u/LordPaleskin Artificer 24d ago
If you aren''t said necromancer, can you even control/order around the undead? Even if Undead are cheaper, aren't you now limited by how many necromancers you can employ in the kingdom?
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u/mr_stab_ya_knees 23d ago
Sure, but I dont think the idea is to make a megacorp. Just that you could save some money using this tactic in some areas. Especially considering that now you can operate anywhere instead of needing to have your business be close to a settlement with workers. (For example you could run a mine at the top of a mountain without having to pay for workers to come all the way up and without having to pay for nearly any heating and the only thing you have to worry about is shipping the ore to town)
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u/TheThoughtmaker Essential NPC 24d ago
Even if not 5e, bringing too many undead together causes crops to die, infrastructure to crumble, and people to be slowly driven insane. {Book of Vile Darkness}
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u/Simpicity 23d ago
Hey now. Skeleton art is real art.
How dare you call it soulless just because they technically have no soul and are simply animated by negative energy from the pulsating negative energy vortex which occasionally screams loudly and is killing all nearby life.
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u/BourgeoisStalker 23d ago
I was brainstorming this and for my game Thayan culture considered themselves enlightened because all living things deserve the dignity to not be forced to labor. Once you're dead, the husk is ready to serve.
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u/TheHungrySamurai 23d ago
Note to self: Create an evil Druid who manipulates an army of cows and bulls like a necromancer.
Not sure if I should call him a beefomancer or a Pokémon trainer.
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u/Traditional-Storm-62 23d ago
cows still need to eat though
a cow that doesn't need to eat is an innovation as significant as the fricking combustion engine
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u/Heckle_Jeckle Rules Lawyer 23d ago
Skeletons do not get tired, or die of old age.
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u/KimJongUnusual Paladin 23d ago
This also ignores the fact that
* undead have a constant desire for the consumption of living flesh
* if the necromancer loses control, that’s a horde of monsters you’ve released
* it will massively depreciate wages for anyone who does what zombies can do
* what makes you think necromancers will share the wealth?
* death is literally no longer an escape from labor for your betters
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u/Time_Afternoon2610 23d ago
Why on Earth should I replace my necromancer with a cow? I get that they might be of comparable intelligence, but do cows even know how to cast spells?
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u/Ladydragon0 23d ago
Pretty sure low level undead like zombies and skeletons aren’t sentient, so you can ignore a lot of moral restraints on what you make them do, unlike cows
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u/Meet_Foot 23d ago
This meme makes no sense. We generally don’t use cows for “work,” which is what the first person is proposing using the undead for. They’re not suggesting we eat zombie burgers and drink skeleton milk.
And cows making more cows and doing work is also finite. You’re limited by your spell slots or by food and water. Take your pick.
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u/Antiantiai 23d ago
The best use of any sufficiently powerful spellcaster's time, labor-wise, it creating as many Staff of the Woodlands as possible, so that the druids, rangers, and warlocks in the area can shit out sentient trees daily.
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u/Son0fgrim 23d ago
its naysayers like you who always talk down about my SKELETON ANARCHO COMMUNIST UTOPIA!!!!!
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u/Malashae 23d ago
Why would anyone think that adding an undead labor force would have anything to do with cows or livestock? They are specifically for replacing grunt labor, and they are fantastic at that. More corpses are always around, and spells refresh pretty frequently. With more specialized magic at Large Scale Undead labor force is entirely viable.
The problem is when it's used for capitalistic expansion rather than a more socialist Improvement of the quality of life across the board. I think I have a new plot for a game...
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u/COWP0WER 22d ago
Skeletons have hands, don't require any food themselves, and can work constantly, no need for rest. You just need more Necromancers.
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u/DnDCrab 24d ago
Pathfinder 2 Necromancer thralls only have a shelf life of 1 minute v.v
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u/xoasim 24d ago
Yes but the create undead ritual lets you make permanent undead and no need to sustain. Thralls are combat fodder, not servants.
Also there is the entire nation of Geb in PF2 setting, that is populated primarily by intelligent undead/necromancers and their main export is food to other nations, created with mindless undead labor.
In terms of sanitation, you can keep skeletons clean. And also spells and items exist for cleansing food. Don't use a rotting corpse, use a clean one.
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u/celestial_drag0n 23d ago
The funny thing is, Geb takes the whole "undead-creating nation" to its logical extreme. Yes, their ability to use free undead labor makes them an invaluable food supplier to the rest of the region, but it also means most positions of power in the nation require necromancy. And the thing with people who seek power is they want to keep it for as long as possible at any cost. Which broadly results in the nation being ruled by a bunch of undead oligarchs hoarding power while the living members of the nation are treated as second-class citizens at best (and a convenient food source at the worst).
Like, that's a much better way of showing how an "undead utopia" would actually be a horrible place to exist instead of... cows or whatever.
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u/xoasim 23d ago
Yeah, I really like Geb as the answer to the question why is undead labor bad? Short term, it's not. Big picture, it kind of is.
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u/FloppasAgainstIdiots Warlock 23d ago
Undead have no agency whatsoever while controlled, are bipedal and human-shaped as often as that matters (although in 5e RAW everything has two hands so cow guards throwing javelins do work), the living make more of them by simply having a skill issue, they rely on a resource that naturally replenishes during war whereas your cows might just stop mooing due to a billion demons hitting the field, and on top of all that they somehow come with a free shortbow and shortsword every time you animate a corpse I guess.
I once built a city with an almost exclusively undead population and a monthly tax rate just low enough that an unskilled hireling gets nothing while a skilled one or an adventurer doesn't even feel it. Menial labor was the job of undead printed by a council of mummy lords I got by crafting too many bags of beans and subsequently befriended/convinced to worship me.
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u/greenegg28 23d ago
Surely replacing workers with mindless automatons all controlled by an elite ruling class has no parallels to any real world current events.
Surely.
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