Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
The books are pretty clear that casting [Evil] spells is an Evil act. D&D has objective material morality, which means doing Evil actively makes the world a worst place to be in, and contains creatures that are physically composed of manifest Evil.
Some of the books are clear on that. Those books are also clear that things like "using tranquilizers" are Evil acts. Those books are canon, but caring about them makes the game stupid. Other books portray necromancy as simply dangerous, in the same way that nuclear power or industrial machinery is dangerous in the real world.

Stinking cloud in the example doesn't actually solve the problem, though. It makes the problem easier to solve.
It solves the problem of "your enemies get to take combat actions". If your party can't kill enemies who cannot attack them without spending further scarce resources, that's a bigger issue.