Spiritual Weapon - Am I reading that right?

[jaappleton]

Last night I played a Death Cleric for the first time. I used Spiritual Weapon, having a 7' scythe floating near me to cleave through enemies.

However, I was knocked unconscious. It's a two person party, so if one of us goes down, the momentum of battle can shift pretty dramatically.

I looked at the wording in the PHB of Spiritual Weapon, honestly desperate for... anything.

It lasts for the duration. No concentration. I got that. So it didn't fade away when I went under.

Now, strictly RAW..... does anything prevent me from controlling it while unconscious?

[Coffee_Dragon]

Incapacitated creatures have no actions, and you use a bonus action to control it.

[jaappleton]

Incapacitated creatures have no actions, and you use a bonus action to control it.

Ahh, there it is. I had a feeling there was something that'd prevent it from happening. Thank you.

[Toofey]

But that's a good catch, it's useful to know that it's still there if you get healed back to your feet.

[jaappleton]

But that's a good catch, it's useful to know that it's still there if you get healed back to your feet.

It ended up saving us, actually.

I rolled a Nat 20 on my death save, jumped back to my feet, and use Spiritual Weapon in conjunction with my Death channel Divinity to one-shot the enemy leader.

A bunch of enemies scattered.

I mean, the thing you just knocked unconscious shrugged it off like nothing and proceeded to slice through your commander with a floating, spectral scythe. I'd run, too!

[Saiga]

Using Spiritual Weapon in the form of a Scythe as a Death Cleric.

I see you too are a person of great taste.

It's funny, this also happened to me in a very short lived campaign as a Death Cleric. We were fighting a giant scorpion, and I got dropped down from a crit. The Bard healed me back up, and I read Spiritual Weapon and realized it should still be active. The DM was pretty reluctant to allow it - didn't make sense to him - but I'm glad he did, since that does appear to be the intent of the spell.

Unless 5E had a rule that spells you cast with a duration automatically expire when you're incapacitated (which people might assume, many video games operate under such logic), then I don't see why it wouldn't work.

[Squeeq]

Spiritual weapon is absolutely not a concentration spell, which is why it's so excellent! You can toss up Spirit Guardians to have this big walking-tank appeal, or Bless your comrades and yourself, or do any number of other useful things with your Concentration slot! It also makes it a very handy spell for Bards to steal, since it scales well, Bards have very poor on-demand damage, and it leaves their concentration slot free for their excellent control/debuffs (I'm looking at you, Fear, Hypnotic Pattern, and Faerie Fire!)