Can you cast Animate Objects on a corpse?

[Bad Wolf]

As the title says. Would be an interesting tactic against anti-undead parties.

Furthermore, what happens if you cast Animate Dead on it?

[DrMotives]

It would make something that could understandably mistaken for a zombie. But it would be an animated object of appropriate size, and normal anti-undead things (turning, healing magic etc) wouldn't do anything, because the monster would be a construct type.

[InvisibleBison]

As the title says. Would be an interesting tactic against anti-undead parties.

Furthermore, what happens if you cast Animate Dead on it?

I'm pretty sure that dead creatures are still creatures, not objects, and thus invalid targets for animate objects.

Assuming for the sake of argument that you can cast animate objects on a corpse, the second question is rather tricky. Looking at the rules for combining magical effects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm#combiningMagicalEffects), I don't see any clear answers. Personally, I'd rule that animate dead overrides animate objects, as per the "one effect makes another irrelevant" rule, but that's just my personal opinion. I don't see what the actual RAW would be here.

[Bad Wolf]

I'm pretty sure that dead creatures are still creatures, not objects, and thus invalid targets for animate objects.


So does that mean you can cast buff spells on a corpse?

[InvisibleBison]

So does that mean you can cast buff spells on a corpse?

You could, yes. I'm not quite sure what that would accomplish, though, since dead creatures can't do anything.

[SangoProduction]

I'm pretty sure that dead creatures are still creatures, not objects, and thus invalid targets for animate objects.

Assuming for the sake of argument that you can cast animate objects on a corpse, the second question is rather tricky. Looking at the rules for combining magical effects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm#combiningMagicalEffects), I don't see any clear answers. Personally, I'd rule that animate dead overrides animate objects, as per the "one effect makes another irrelevant" rule, but that's just my personal opinion. I don't see what the actual RAW would be here.

I think this goes over that issue quite well. (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/87591/can-a-corpse-that-was-never-alive-be-raised-or-animated)

But an animated creature is not a corpse, even if it is made from one. It is a creature. So it's not a valid target for animate dead.

Now if you killed the animated corpse though... The corpse was now two separate creatures. But if we consider that, at one point, every cell in your body was at one point, probably, the building blocks of a dinosaur, and raise dead doesn't create a dinosaur out of your body, we can understand that it only takes the latest instance of the body's creature. With undeath being a special case that can be raised from.

This makes no difference to animate dead, as it doesn't care which life (so long as you consider a construct as 'life') it comes from, but Raise Dead does. And you can't raise a construct, which an animated object is. Thus, you can't raise the person, since its most recent form was a construct.

Or I could be talking out my az.

[InvisibleBison]

I think this goes over that issue quite well. (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/87591/can-a-corpse-that-was-never-alive-be-raised-or-animated)

Though I more or less agree with the answer to the question in this link, I'm not quite sure how this is relevant to the thread's topic.


But an animated creature is not a corpse, even if it is made from one. It is a creature. So it's not a valid target for animate dead.

Why is a corpse animated by animate objects* no longer a corpse? If you cast animate objects on a chair, it's still a chair. You can sit on it and everything. Being a corpse and being a creature are not mutually exclusive categories (after all, undead are a thing).

*Assuming you're able to do so in the first place.


Now if you killed the animated corpse though... The corpse was now two separate creatures. But if we consider that, at one point, every cell in your body was at one point, probably, the building blocks of a dinosaur, and raise dead doesn't create a dinosaur out of your body, we can understand that it only takes the latest instance of the body's creature. With undeath being a special case that can be raised from.

This makes no difference to animate dead, as it doesn't care which life (so long as you consider a construct as 'life') it comes from, but Raise Dead does. And you can't raise a construct, which an animated object is. Thus, you can't raise the person, since its most recent form was a construct.

Or I could be talking out my az.

If you cast animate objects on a chair, it doesn't become a different chair when the spell ends. I don't see why a corpse would be any different.

[Venger]

As the title says. Would be an interesting tactic against anti-undead parties.

Furthermore, what happens if you cast Animate Dead on it?
An animated object is no longer a corpse. It is a creature. You cannot target creatures with animate dead.


I'm pretty sure that dead creatures are still creatures, not objects, and thus invalid targets for animate objects.

Assuming for the sake of argument that you can cast animate objects on a corpse, the second question is rather tricky. Looking at the rules for combining magical effects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm#combiningMagicalEffects), I don't see any clear answers. Personally, I'd rule that animate dead overrides animate objects, as per the "one effect makes another irrelevant" rule, but that's just my personal opinion. I don't see what the actual RAW would be here.


I think this goes over that issue quite well. (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/87591/can-a-corpse-that-was-never-alive-be-raised-or-animated)

But an animated creature is not a corpse, even if it is made from one. It is a creature. So it's not a valid target for animate dead.

Now if you killed the animated corpse though... The corpse was now two separate creatures. But if we consider that, at one point, every cell in your body was at one point, probably, the building blocks of a dinosaur, and raise dead doesn't create a dinosaur out of your body, we can understand that it only takes the latest instance of the body's creature. With undeath being a special case that can be raised from.

This makes no difference to animate dead, as it doesn't care which life (so long as you consider a construct as 'life') it comes from, but Raise Dead does. And you can't raise a construct, which an animated object is. Thus, you can't raise the person, since its most recent form was a construct.

Or I could be talking out my az.
Dead creatures are creatures in certain respects, but your corpse is not your character.

You can be targeted with effects even if you have no physical body, such as true resurrection. Therefore, a character's corpse is not the totality of that character.

Are you implying that since the character (let's just say they were human initially for example) who was killed, and then turned into an animated object, would've had their type changed, and when the animated object was destroyed, then it will be considered a construct and not targetable with animate dead?

I don't see an actual rule against targeting a destroyed construct with animate dead. Do you mean that being animated via animate objects confers the construct type's lack of an anatomy onto the creature, and means it doesn't have "a true anatomy" for the purposes of animate dead?

That's pretty interesting.

However, I don't think it would be an issue.

(I assume we're saying the animate objects was permanent, so we can't just wait for it to lapse and then use animate dead)

Animated object isn't a template, because the designers stupidly assumed we would just target objects and not corpses with it. When you apply it to a corpse, it does not change the character's type.

This is because a character is not their body, as I said earlier.

So if our example human was killed, then he as a character still exists in the ether (he has to, in case his corpse is destroyed: that's how true res works)

unrelated to this, his corpse is turned into an animated object and then destroyed.

our human character still exists, and his type (and his class and skills and all that other stuff) never changed. thus, he can be raised from the dead normally

[The Viscount]

Ah the old bugbear of when a dead creature becomes a corpse. Whether there is any distinction at all is murky. A sensible argument that they are interchangeable can be made using the text of Speak with Dead. The target is one dead creature, and it then uses "corpse" in the main text. Speak with Dead also indirectly informs us that corpses are essentially, if not explicitly, objects (via the clause about Will save).

This question about using animate dead after using animate objects is an interesting one.

As to corpses and their status. We see in speak with dead that undead are not considered corpses for the purpose of the spell. It follows that the difference is the animating force, so animate objects would work similarly.

Animate object cast on the corpse would certainly protect against animate dead for the duration of the spell. Once the spell ends, it's a corpse again, so you can return it to life.

If it was destroyed while an animated object, I still believe we can come to a reasonable conclusion using the rules. We know that raise dead cannot be used on creatures that have been made into undead(because the body is in use) and even resurrection specifies that the undead creature must be destroyed before the spell can be used. The spell also requires that the body be intact. These limitations are both removed for resurrection. The final piece to make this fit together is that undead creatures and constructs do not die, but are destroyed at 0 hp. Combined with the fact that they have no vital organs, the conclusion seems that at 0 hp they are reduced to dust/parts/undifferentiated mass. If we follow with this, they don't leave behind corpses. As a result, you can't use raise dead on it and will need resurrection.
It then follows that animate object creates a similar situation for animate dead, and destroying leaves behind a non-intact mess that you could not use animate dead or raise dead on.

There is one catch to this and it is the existence of revive undead. This specifies that the body of the undead must be whole, which suggests that this is a possibility. This is from a section that's mostly copypasted from raise dead. It's from a splatbook, so the author may not have been there for the same writing session as these other spells. Regardless of this catch, it still informs us of an important fact, that undead do not leave corpses, because as discussed above corpses are dead creatures and undead don't die. So our conclusion is as follows:

Because constructs are destroyed, they do not leave corpses to be hit with animate dead or raise dead.