Animate Dead Questions

[Dralnu]

I'm playing a lvl 4 Necromancer and super excited to start building up an undead army in the near future. However, I have a bunch of issues that I'm unclear about.

Here is the spell. I think I can paste it since it's in the SRD?

3rd-level necromancy

Casting Time: 1 minute; Range: 10 feet; Components: V, S, M (a drop of blood, a piece of flesh, and a pinch of bone dust); Duration: Instantaneous

This spell creates an undead servant. Choose a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid within range. Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature. The target becomes a skeleton if you chose bones or a zombie if you chose a corpse (the GM has the creature’s game statistics).

On each of your turns, you can use a bonus action to mentally command any creature you made with this spell if the creature is within 60 feet of you (if you control multiple creatures, you can command any or all of them at the same time, issuing the same command to each one). You decide what action the creature will take and where it will move during its next turn, or you can issue a general command, such as to guard a particular chamber or corridor. If you issue no commands, the creature only defends itself against hostile creatures. Once given an order, the creature continues to follow it until its task is complete.

The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you’ve given it. To maintain control of the creature for another 24 hours, you must cast this spell on the creature again before the current 24-hour period ends. This use of the spell reasserts your control over up to four creatures you have animated with this spell, rather than animating a new one.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, you animate or reassert control over two additional undead creatures for each slot level above 3rd. Each of the creatures must come from a different corpse or pile of bones.

Questions:

1) Am I using the generic skeleton/zombie stats in the MM for each undead made this way? If I raise a kobold as a zombie, do I use the zombie stats in MM (http://www.5esrd.com/gamemastering/monsters-foes/monsters-alphabetical/monsters-z/zombies/zombie-common) or do I put a zombie template on that kobold?

If I always use the generic stats, what do I do about stuff like armor and weapons that come with the generic stats on the skeleton?

2) Can I equip zombies/skeletons with weapons and armor? If yes, does it still add its proficiency bonus to hit like it does with its regular attack?

3) Let's say combat begins and I want my skeletons to attack a target while my zombies grapple it. Would it take a bonus action to say "attack this target" and then another bonus action to tell the zombies to grapple?

4) Can I animate a skeleton from a freshly killed humanoid, or do I have to remove its flesh first somehow?

5) I'm also a little confused on how many undead I can create + maintain each day.

At 5th, I can cast Animate Dead twice, so that's two undead. If I take short rest, I can use Arcane Recovery to get back a 3rd lvl slot and cast it again, so three total. Then the next day I only need to cast Animate Dead one time to maintain control of all three undead I made the previous day?

At 6th, I make an additional undead each time I cast Animate Dead, so that's 8 undead? And then next day 2 Animate Deads to control them?

[MaxWilson]

Why in the world are you asking GITP this question instead of your DM? If someone here says e.g. "Yes, you can give your zombies greatswords" and your DM says, "No, you can't," what good did asking GITP do you?

Opinions of people on the Internet mean nothing at the table.

Edit: but in case you want some opinions anyway, here's a link to a thread for one of your questions: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475328-Necromancer-s-army

[Segev]

As long as you don't care if they suffer disadvantage on dexterity checks, I don't think lack of proficiency is a hindrance to your skeletons or zombies. You might want to double-check this, though: look at precisely what the non-proficiency penalty for armor is.

[Sception]

Default by the rules, you can only create the normal skelton and zombie creatures with the spell, the basic human warrior ones, not anything fancy like 'skeletal war horse' or 'zombie troll' or anything else. It does not apply templates to the base creature as the 3rd edition version did.

DM's may allow other variants as a home brew thing, though creating anything stronger than a basic skeleton or zombie should probably require an upcast spell slot, but that's not how the spell works by default.

[Segev]

Are there methods for PCs to, in the rules as written, create any kind of undead other than a humanoid skeleton or zombie?

Never mind, I had forgotten create undead was in this edition, too, and is in fact even better than before.

[JackPhoenix]

1) Yes. There's no zombie template, you're getting basic human(oid) skeletons and zombies. The DM may houserule other types from non-humanoid and non-standard humanoid corpses

2) You certainly can equip them, but you should ask your GM if they are proficient in anything you give them

3) Yes, you need two bonus actions for two different orders

4) You need bones to create skeletons, using whole corpses will create zombies

5) Yes

[MaxWilson]

4) You need bones to create skeletons, using whole corpses will create zombies

Unseen servant to the rescue! Stripping the flesh off bones should be within its capabilities.

[Sception]

I generally animate zombies initially, then, during down time, I'll have the zombies strip the flesh off each other one per day, and re-raise the resulting bone pile as a skeleton.

Or, you know, just leave them as zombies. As an oathbroken paladin, I find zombies tend to work better for me than skeletons. As a cleric or necro wizard you'd definitely want to transition to boney undead, provided you don't have an oathbreaker in the party.

[MaxWilson]

I generally animate zombies initially, then, during down time, I'll have the zombies strip the flesh off each other one per day, and re-raise the resulting bone pile as a skeleton.

I just checked the Animate Dead spell to see if the bone pile has to come from a humanoid (because the bones of a zombie wouldn't be the bones of a humanoid) and discovered that... it's ambiguous. Which means that you could potentially raise the bones of a fish as a zombie, if you can talk your DM into believing that the qualifier "of a Small or Medium humanoid" applies only to "corpse" and not to "pile of bones."

And I agree, zombies are better than people give them credit for. Put them in chain mail and a shield and they become pretty durable, especially when Dodging. A wall of zombie flesh with eight opportunity attacks isn't bad, and Undead Fortitude makes them tough to kill. (As an aside, even a normal paladin aura is good for the zombies since his aura boosts Con saves for Undead Fortitude.)

Plus, zombies are not vulnerable to Bludgeoning damage like skeletons are.

Overall I still prefer skeletons of course, because ranged >> melee in 5E, but having a handful of zombies around is tactically advantageous. If you can stand the smell.

[Sception]

Yeah, skeletons are preferable for the ranged combat in most cases. I only specifically favor zombies when you have an oathbreaker around, because the antipaladin will buff saving throws and melee damage, two things zombies like bonuses on, but that don't do much for skittles.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah, skeletons are preferable for the ranged combat in most cases. I only specifically favor zombies when you have an oathbreaker around, because the antipaladin will buff saving throws and melee damage, two things zombies like bonuses on, but that don't do much for skittles.

RE: melee skeletons. Skellies can (potentially; ask your DM) dual-wield shortswords for massive damage including Undead Thralls boost (d6+8 primary and d6+6 secondaray). Zombies... well, I'll believe in dual-wielding zombies when I see them. :)

Agreed about the saving throws though. Oathbreaker + zombies = anvil.

[Alerad]

1) Yes, only the generic zombie and skeleton templates are available. Hence the target needs to be a humanoid corpse.
2) Yes and no, depends on your DM. If it increases their damage they won't be CR 1/4 anymore. Also, maybe they are not proficient with the weapons.
3) Two bonus actions.
4) They need to strip it first, but again, ask your DM. If it's ok the flesh just falls off the skeleton as it rises up should be sufficient.
5) It is confusing. Think of the spell slot as "gone". So if you cast the spell 3 times, the next day you have to cast it again 3 times to maintain control.


Unofficially, I altered the spell a little for one of my players. We use the gritty realism rules and 24 hours is really problematic. We use the following wording and options:
- Your spell slot is gone when you animate dead. As long as you choose to not recover it after a long/short rest the undead remain under your control. If you opt to recover the spell slot, you lose control. This works for epic and gritty realism rules because it's tied to long rest, not 24 hours.
- Your basic 3rd level spell grants you 1 CR1/4 humanoid zombie or skeleton. On higher spell levels you can use 1 point to allow yourself to target beasts as well (so a 4th level slot is 3 zombies or 2 zombie wolves for example), 1 point to target Large creatures (so 4th level slot can raise a skeleton horse for example), and higher level creatures (CR2 = 2x CR1 = 4x CR1/2 = 8x CR1/4), so a 7th level slot can raise a zombie ogre (Large humanoid of CR2). Apply a zombie or skeleton template to the creature's original stats as appropriate.

This is strictly our house rules, but just to give you some ideas. You can discuss with your DM if you want to allow this.

[JackPhoenix]

5) It is confusing. Think of the spell slot as "gone". So if you cast the spell 3 times, the next day you have to cast it again 3 times to maintain control.


Unofficially, I altered the spell a little for one of my players. We use the gritty realism rules and 24 hours is really problematic. We use the following wording and options:
- Your spell slot is gone when you animate dead. As long as you choose to not recover it after a long/short rest the undead remain under your control. If you opt to recover the spell slot, you lose control. This works for epic and gritty realism rules because it's tied to long rest, not 24 hours.
- Your basic 3rd level spell grants you 1 CR1/4 humanoid zombie or skeleton. On higher spell levels you can use 1 point to allow yourself to target beasts as well (so a 4th level slot is 3 zombies or 2 zombie wolves for example), 1 point to target Large creatures (so 4th level slot can raise a skeleton horse for example), and higher level creatures (CR2 = 2x CR1 = 4x CR1/2 = 8x CR1/4), so a 7th level slot can raise a zombie ogre (Large humanoid of CR2). Apply a zombie or skeleton template to the creature's original stats as appropriate.

This is strictly our house rules, but just to give you some ideas. You can discuss with your DM if you want to allow this.

You only create one undead at a time, and using higher level slot doesn't change that. You can, however, control 4 previously created undead with one spell, and using higher level slot adds +2 per spell level. With your houserules, you can create more undead at one time, but you control only a quarter of them compared to RAW.

[Alerad]

You only create one undead at a time, and using higher level slot doesn't change that. You can, however, control 4 previously created undead with one spell, and using higher level slot adds +2 per spell level. With your houserules, you can create more undead at one time, but you control only a quarter of them compared to RAW.

Page 213 PHB. At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, you animate or reassert control over two additional undead creatures for each slot above 3rd. Each of the creatures must come from a different corpse or pile of bones.

"Animate or reassert" makes me think either use of the spell is valid. So with a 4th level spell you can animate 3 undead, or reassert control over 3 undead. With 5th level spell you can animate 5 undead, or reassert control over 5 undead. And so on.

My houserules were intended to follow this rule. Only difference is that rather than recasting the same spell every 24 hours, you count that slot as unavailable while you control the undead. If you take 1 long rest every 24 hours it is essentially the same (barring arcane recovery which changes the math a little). Sorry if I wasn't very clear.

[Dralnu]

Thanks for all the rule clarifications. I'll run the equipment thing by the DM. I'm more than happy with the standard stat blocks.

I plan on having some mix of zombies and skeletons. I like the idea of having my zombies grapple targets. They're not particularly good at it, but I love the idea of my zombies dragging a poor monster into a cloud of daggers, or cloudkill.