Animate Undead

[Santra]

Ok so I have never cast this spell in all the time I have played D&D and neither has anyone in my group to my memory. Currently I am playing a Dread Necromancer and trying to use it for the first time but me and my DM are having a bit of a disagreement.

The text states that the material component is as follows
Material Component: You must place a
black onyx gem worth at least 25gp per
Hit Die of the undead into the mouth or
eye socket of each corpse you intend to
animate. The magic of the spell turns these
gems into worthless, burned-out shells.

I am trying to animate an 8HD zombie and I have 8 25gp Onyx Gems on me. My DM is saying I need AN onyx gem worth 200gp as per the rules text.

I say that even if I needed only one gem but have the same equivalent value in smaller gem what is the difference as I am spending the same amount of resources. He does not agree. Has this been clarified anywhere.

[Jeraa]

Technically, your DM is correct. It says "place a black onyx gem worth 25gp per hit die", not "place onyx gems worth a total of 25gp per hit die".

Its really shouldn't matter, as long as you have the appropriate value of gems. But by RAW, it needs to be a single gem.

Compare to Resurrection, which does allow multiple gems:

A sprinkle of holy water and diamonds worth a total of at least 10,000 gp.

Or True Resurrection:

A sprinkle of holy water and diamonds worth a total of at least 25,000 gp.

[Santra]

Technically, your DM is correct. It says "place a black onyx gem worth 25gp per hit die", not "place onyx gems worth a total of 25gp per hit die".

Its really shouldn't matter, as long as you have the appropriate value of gems. But by RAW, it needs to be a single gem.

Compare to Resurrection, which does allow multiple gems:


Or True Resurrection:

Crap well any easy way to combine or separate gems?

[Zilzmaer]

Also, the spell is Animate Dead, not Undead. If they were already undead, they wouldn't need animation.

[Morcleon]

Glue them together. You now have one object, which is worth (price of aggregate onyx gems) + (price of glue). :smallwink::smallbiggrin:

[Eurus]

Give the gem to a party member. Buy it from them for 200 gp. :smallamused:

[Urpriest]

Did you buy the gems, or did they come as treasure? If the former, then your DM should be ok with you changing your purchase retroactively: you may not have known the proper gems to get, but your character would have.