I think they would just have them use “flesh shaping” magic from maldraxxus and call it a day.
As for the pain aspect for paladins, this isn’t small discomfort pain. This is searing pain, roasting in an inferno pain. The “canon” undead paladins if they had free will and a unclouded mind (which all the canon ones do not have, either they are under a powerful illusion or cannot control their bodies) would commit suicide from the unbearable pain alone or go insane.
That may’ve been the case at some point. May have been the key word there as it’s lore is from a post Wrath Ask A Dev interview and was never represented in game. I RP an undead Priest so I’ve looked into this pretty thoroughly and it never comes up. Not in Classic or any other content. You’d think that would be information the CotFS might give you a head’s up about while actively instructing you to go wield Light magic.
But at this point we’ve Lightforged Death Knights. And an undead powered by the Light. Neither of whom mention much in the way of discomfort.
Life magic on the otherhand seems antithetical to Death magic. It’s not a particularly adversial relationship if the Primarch and Winter Queen’s fairly cordial work relationship is any evidence. But undeath is decidely outside the ciiiircle of liiiife the natural world operates on.
So it seems weird to me they could wield it. We do have some middle ground stuff like the Drust though so there is some wiggle room. But personally I think it’d be more interesting if they used undead ecological magic. Because that is a thing. The Ghostlands, Plaguelands and Maldraxxus has undead trees and necrotic fungi. In the Eastern Plaguelands in particular there’s just an air of entropy. The Argents mention that they’ve to keep up constant maintenance on their outposts as everything just preternaturally withers there.
Undead using that sort of undead ecological magic to reverse engineer a sort of druidism for themselves to me would be more interesting than just flesh shaping Maldraxxi magic. As that might explain the shapeshifting bit but balance and resto would still require some explanation.
I think alonsous faol brings it up on occasion of how it feels to use the light acually. I could be wrong though.
Common theory is, that since racials are occasionally associated with the effects ir culture of the race, upon death all of the light residkng in their bodies leaves it, making it possible to raise them.
But that does not matter with all races/classes around the corner anyways.
There can be different possibilities with druidism on undead, like i mentioned they can use the flesh shaping excuse, or they can derive their power from ardenweild.
He doesn’t. A couple people have interpreted fire around him as the Light burning him. But that seems to just be his Priestly Inner Fire. As;
A. Even in the interview answer the pain was psychosomatic not literal.
&
B. Kinda seems like they just needed a 3rd spell effect as this happens when you’re opening the Conclave with a Holy, Shadow & Disc Priest. Faol is the Disc Priest there and as they can fling blessed napalm around with Purge The Wicked I guess that sorta makes sense.
Bit confused here as DK’s still have all their racials. The LForged DKs still explode with Light when killed so presumably it’s still there.
Hell the remaining racials are why I’ve to play a Forsaken DK even if they’re the definition of a hat on a hat. Tried a Tauren one and it bothered me an unreasonable amount that he still had to breathe.
All in all though between the Light being faith based magic and undeath broadly effecting everyone a bit differently I think there’s room to say your undead suffers from Light wielding if that’s how you want to do it. But it doesn’t seem like that’s a particularly widespread problem. Especially not now when you can do Light necromancy, according to Sindane at least.
I know that people pointed out the Drust but the Drust use the death aspect of the natural order of existence, they tap into the Ardenweald’s death type of nature magic to balance out Elune’s life type of nature magic.
Undead as far as I understand, exist outside of the natural order, it’s death being used to bring life, but since Shadowlands the whole cosmological order is so “expanded yet unexplained” being the best way I can put it, it might as well be possible, especially with the whole “necromancy is necromancy regardless of the type of magic used to power it” thingy with Calia.
But this is probably going to remain a mystery for the sake of character customizations, much like there being no explanation on whether the Night Warrior’s Elune’s magic overpowered Death magic used on DKs or not.
Arthas didn’t stop breathing when he became a Death Knight.
I’ve seen people “retcon” the undead Nelf skin for a Druid of the Nightmare look, which kind of fits the aesthetic of the Emerald Nightmare we saw back in Legion. Combo that with the Xavius shoulders and a few of the more “Nightmare” artifact appearances, and you have something there.
That’s not the only way to protect the woods. They can be druids, shamans, stealthy rogues, heck even Mages with a nature passion. or brute force barbarians (i.e. Warriors)
In Tolkien, Ranger was essentially a name for a people, the remnants of uncorrupted Numenoreans.
Try stretching your tropes a bit, you’ll find that it adds a lot more breath to your roleplay.
Well, thanks for the info 
My elves are not going to befriend, or even more than passingly acknowledge, your undead / darkfallen / dark ranger / san’layn blood elf.
You can do your edgy deathlord thing. I just won’t be participating. The Scourge was not long ago. Sylvanas’ betrayal didn’t help. A san’layn attempting to revive a Scourge assault on the Ghost Lands pretty much cemented the eternal unwelcome.
Maybe try Lordaeron. I hear they have a soft spot for dead people.
I mean by the same argument, Draenei DKs shouldn’t exist as by their culture undeath is anathema to them and they would canonically commit suicide if they ever got their free will and senses back.
It’s easier to play it loose. Let players be exceptions.
That’s not true the Draenei Auchenai used to put the souls of dead draenei into machine constructs to defend their cities. The Draenei are complicated when it comes to undeath, but they wouldn’t commit suicide at least not most of them. They’d rise again to serve their people one more time as others have done over their very long lifetimes.
People who touch grass don’t care what others do with their characters. So, everyone’s problem with undead elf skins is a lack of grass touching.