Glyph of Warding + Animate Dead = Your Army*2

[DragonSorcererX]

I was reading through Glyph of Warding and I saw this: "Spell Glyph: You can store a prepared spell of 3rd level or lower in the glyph by casting it as part of creating the glyph. The spell must target a single creature or an area. The spell being stored has no immediate effect when cast in this way. When the glyph is triggered, the stored spell is cast. If the spell has a target, it targets the creature that triggered the glyph. If the spell affects an area, the area is centered on that creature. If the spell summons hostile creatures or creates harmful objects or traps, they appear as close as possible to the intruder and attack it. If the spell requires concentration, it lasts until the end of its full duration." (source: http://www.5esrd.com/spellcasting/all-spells/g/glyph-of-warding), so, if you have an army, you can cast Glyph of Warding this way with Animate Dead inside your soldier's armor and you will have a soldier who will die and become stronger, resilient and vicious and dumb, what do you guys think?

[MaxWilson]

I was reading through Glyph of Warding and I saw this: "Spell Glyph: You can store a prepared spell of 3rd level or lower in the glyph by casting it as part of creating the glyph. The spell must target a single creature or an area. The spell being stored has no immediate effect when cast in this way. When the glyph is triggered, the stored spell is cast. If the spell has a target, it targets the creature that triggered the glyph. If the spell affects an area, the area is centered on that creature. If the spell summons hostile creatures or creates harmful objects or traps, they appear as close as possible to the intruder and attack it. If the spell requires concentration, it lasts until the end of its full duration." (source: http://www.5esrd.com/spellcasting/all-spells/g/glyph-of-warding), so, if you have an army, you can cast Glyph of Warding this way with Animate Dead inside your soldier's armor and you will have a soldier who will die and become stronger, resilient and vicious and dumb, what do you guys think?

Works well as long as your army is totally immobile.



When you cast this spell, you inscribe a glyph that harms other creatures, either upon a surface (such as a table or a section of floor or wall) or within an object that can be closed (such as a book, a scroll, or a treasure chest) to conceal the glyph. If you choose a surface, the glyph can cover an area of the surface no larger than 10 feet in diameter. If you choose an object, that object must remain in its place; if the object is moved more than 10 feet from where you cast this spell, the glyph is broken, and the spell ends without being triggered.

Also, at 200gp a pop, it's probably cheaper to just hire more soldiers.

[JackPhoenix]

Object with the glyph can't move more than 10 feet from the place where you cast the spell. Soldiers that can't move out of place are useless.

Animate Dead doesn't target single creature or area, which is a requirement for spell glyph.

Even without those two problems, what would trigger be? Glyphs are triggered by hostile creature. One inside your soldier's armor would be useless.

The resulting undead would be either doing nothing (glyph "cast" the spell, and glyph can't give any orders) uncontrolled, hostile to both sides, though it would likely attack the triggering enemy first.

[NNescio]

Works well as long as your army is totally immobile.



Also, at 200gp a pop, it's probably cheaper to just hire more soldiers.

Well, he can glyph a surface instead and have them all carry tables? The object restriction seems to only apply to "an object that can be closed", but the RAW is kinda fuzzy there.


When you cast this spell, you inscribe a glyph that harms other creatures, either upon a surface (such as a table or a section of floor or wall) or within an object that can be closed (such as a book, a scroll, or a treasure chest) to conceal the glyph. If you choose a surface, the glyph can cover an area of the surface no larger than 10 feet in diameter. If you choose an object, that object must remain in its place; if the object is moved more than 10 feet from where you cast this spell, the glyph is broken, and the spell ends without being triggered.

I think the "if you choose an object" refers the earlier section of the spell ("an object that can be closed"), and not just any object in general, otherwise the table would count as both, making the rules nonsensical.

In any case, RAI the glyph is definitely not intended to be able to be moved, surface or no.

[DragonSorcererX]

Damn! Everything I think doesn't work! DAMN YOU WOTC!

[Belac93]

For an evil character, you could set up a perimeter around, with undead every 5 feet. Then, give them specific orders to not move more than 10 feet away from their starting point, unless commanded to by you.

[NNescio]

For an evil character, you could set up a perimeter around, with undead every 5 feet. Then, give them specific orders to not move more than 10 feet away from their starting point, unless commanded to by you.

As I said, have undead skellies carry tables around. The restriction on not moving the glyph only applies to "objects that can be closed", in which case the glyph is inscribed WITHIN the object. It doesn't apply to surfaces, and a table is an explicit example of one.

[Asmotherion]

good try but as mentioned difficult to work. And even if it did, an army costing 200g per soldier would be way too expensive... to say the least.

It would literally be less expensive to make your party partially immortal through clonning+demiplanes AND pay a non npc cleric/druid to cast regeneration on all of them (so they wouldn't miss their "pieces of flesh") than to do your plan for a whole army.

IMO the best way to have an undead army is to:
A) Get your hands on finger of death and:
B) Start slaying with it. Depending on your dm the humanoid that can get zombified might retain some of it's actions from when it was alive and it's challenge rating (or 1/3 of it, if one was to follow the beholder formula)

If you want an army of living soldiers that become zombies after you slay them, start casting true polymorph on them and put them in any form that suits you (permanently). After the players kill the polymorphed creature, it will revert into zombi form and continue fighting, giving the enemy this "what the...? I just kill that guy" impression I suppose you are going for..

Now you can always burn practically most of your high level spell slots and get the typical necromantic army but I'm not sure it would be worth it as much...

[Zalabim]

I think the "if you choose an object" refers the earlier section of the spell ("an object that can be closed"), and not just any object in general, otherwise the table would count as both, making the rules nonsensical.

In any case, RAI the glyph is definitely not intended to be able to be moved, surface or no.


As I said, have undead skellies carry tables around. The restriction on not moving the glyph only applies to "objects that can be closed", in which case the glyph is inscribed WITHIN the object. It doesn't apply to surfaces, and a table is an explicit example of one.

I think the "If you choose an object" line is supposed to be understood exactly as it's written, and not by adding in extra words that weren't written to make it a reference to the previous line in the spell. In other words, when it says "if you choose an object", that next line applies to any time you choose an object, whether the glyph is on a surface of the object or within it. The omission of the qualifier "that can be closed" from the previous line would be intentional. If you can find a surface that you can move that isn't an object, that would be fair game. That would make RAW line up with probably RAI.


If you want an army of living soldiers that become zombies after you slay them, start casting true polymorph on them and put them in any form that suits you (permanently). After the players kill the polymorphed creature, it will revert into zombi form and continue fighting, giving the enemy this "what the...? I just kill that guy" impression I suppose you are going for..

True Polymorph only has the creature revert if it reaches 0 HP before the spell becomes permanent. Once the spell becomes permanent, you have to do something like dispel it to make the creatures revert. This is probably appropriate for a custom researched spell, if it's something a player really wants. What level sounds right for making your contingent-zombie contingent? At least 6th, I'd figure. That seems to be the minimum for really long-lasting magical effects. And it's not really Clone quality, though that's pretty expensive and involved as well. I think it would be appropriate to require an expensive focus component for this too.

I mean, we might as well create contingent undead while we're on the subject, right?

[arrowed]

I have a similar idea on using Glyph of Warding, but it's less undead based. The jist of it is that you have a soldier in a room, who, when the enemy busts down the door speaks a password and triggers a load of GoW's. Each GoW gives a different buff, like Fly, Bless, Stoneskin... and so you give your warrior the benefit of a dozen concentration buffs without needing a wizard or similar to be on guard with him. A PC will probably never be in a situation to use this trick, but it could make a lone guardian much more of a challenge. And you could tell the guard another password which will 'heal' them, but actually kills them off with a finger of death and sets off a load of glyphs set to target a zombie. Dun dun dun!

[JackPhoenix]

I have a similar idea on using Glyph of Warding, but it's less undead based. The jist of it is that you have a soldier in a room, who, when the enemy busts down the door speaks a password and triggers a load of GoW's. Each GoW gives a different buff, like Fly, Bless, Stoneskin... and so you give your warrior the benefit of a dozen concentration buffs without needing a wizard or similar to be on guard with him. A PC will probably never be in a situation to use this trick, but it could make a lone guardian much more of a challenge. And you could tell the guard another password which will 'heal' them, but actually kills them off with a finger of death and sets off a load of glyphs set to target a zombie. Dun dun dun!


When you cast this spell, you inscribe a glyph thatharms other creatures

Finger of Death would work, but the resulting zombie would be uncontrolled. But using buffing spells with Glyph of Warding is against the intent of the spell: http://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/02/12/could-a-glyph-of-warding-be-used-for-positive-effects-for-allies/. Possible against RAW too, if you consider the sentence above part of the rules and not just fluff.