Does the Locate Animal or Plant spell locate the dead body of an animal?

[Brookshw]

What it says on the tin. Other night the party was interested in trying to use the Locate Animal or Plant spell to find the body of a dead dog that was lost somewhere in a bog. For the purpose of keeping the game moving I ruled that a dead body isn't subject to the spell. I'm not convinced that the ruling was correct, in part because of a recent discussion on these forums regarding whether a creatures type is preserved on death, or if a body is an object and not a creature.

How would people rule on the RAW in this situation? Alternatively, how would you rule in actual play (i.e., not by RAW).

[Man_Over_Game]

What it says on the tin. Other night the party was interested in trying to use the Locate Animal or Plant spell to find the body of a dead dog that was lost somewhere in a bog. For the purpose of keeping the game moving I ruled that a dead body isn't subject to the spell. I'm not convinced that the ruling was correct, in part because of a recent discussion on these forums regarding whether a creatures type is preserved on death, or if a body is an object and not a creature.

How would people rule on the RAW in this situation? Alternatively, how would you rule in actual play (i.e., not by RAW).

I'd say that it would detect the dead creature. There's rules in the spell about polymorphing not working if it's not the same creature, so it'd be reasonable to say that it'd mention whether the creature was dead or alive if it was relevant.

More specifically, though, I'd allow the Locate spells to tell you the difference between a living and a dead target, if only because of how seldom the spells are used, and that slight increase to the spell isn't enough for people to use it more than any spell they would have prepared otherwise.

Or, put another way, Balanced means less than "The Best" AND greater than "The Worst".

[Chaelos]

What it says on the tin. Other night the party was interested in trying to use the Locate Animal or Plant spell to find the body of a dead dog that was lost somewhere in a bog. For the purpose of keeping the game moving I ruled that a dead body isn't subject to the spell. I'm not convinced that the ruling was correct, in part because of a recent discussion on these forums regarding whether a creatures type is preserved on death, or if a body is an object and not a creature.

How would people rule on the RAW in this situation? Alternatively, how would you rule in actual play (i.e., not by RAW).

According to Crawford (https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/05/14/corpse-creature-or-object/), "A non-undead corpse isn't considered a creature. It's effectively an object."

In practice, I would allow the caster to perform a Nature check, as part of casting the spell, to include dead "creatures" of the specified type, probably with a DC of 15-17, depending on the circumstances.

[Trickery]

There is no "correct" ruling on this since the text doesn't specify. I'd allow it because the locate spells are situational enough as is.

[Chronos]

My inclination would be to say no if you were just looking for any old dog, but yes if you were looking for one specific dog. I don't think I can give any concrete rules reason for that, though.

That is to say, if you were just asking "Where's the nearest dog?", then the spell would skip over dog corpses, and point to the nearest live one (if there were one within range). But if you were asking "Where's Fluffy, the dog that that nice little girl in the village asked us to find?" (provided that she'd given enough of a description that Fluffy would count as "known to you"), then Fluffy would show up, dead or alive, provided he was in range.

...Except now, on double-checking the spell, it looks like "Locate Animals or Plants", the 2nd-level spell, doesn't let you look for a specific creature, only a kind. You'd need the 4th-level "Locate Creature" for that.

[Trickery]

My inclination would be to say no if you were just looking for any old dog, but yes if you were looking for one specific dog. I don't think I can give any concrete rules reason for that, though.

That is to say, if you were just asking "Where's the nearest dog?", then the spell would skip over dog corpses, and point to the nearest live one (if there were one within range). But if you were asking "Where's Fluffy, the dog that that nice little girl in the village asked us to find?" (provided that she'd given enough of a description that Fluffy would count as "known to you"), then Fluffy would show up, dead or alive, provided he was in range.

...Except now, on double-checking the spell, it looks like "Locate Animals or Plants", the 2nd-level spell, doesn't let you look for a specific creature, only a kind. You'd need the 4th-level "Locate Creature" for that.

That seems reasonable to me. A 4th level spell ought to be able to find a living creature or a corpse, in my opinion.

But I wouldn't hold it against anyone else for ruling the other way. A corpse isn't technically a creature, so the spell might technically fail. Technically.

[ImproperJustice]

I feel that regardless, the caster of the spell would know well enough before hand if the spell would work or not.
Seems like the sort of thing that comes up in Druid / Wizard school 101.
If it can’t find a corpse.

[Trickery]

I feel that regardless, the caster of the spell would know well enough before hand if the spell would work or not.
Seems like the sort of thing that comes up in Druid / Wizard school 101.
If it can’t find a corpse.

Most likely. I've sometimes had disagreements at the table about this, something like "What do you mean I don't know what my features do? If I had known that, I not only wouldn't have done it, I wouldn't have taken this feature."

In this case, I could see someone casting the spell not knowing that the target had died. That wasn't the case in the OP, but it could happen.

[Demonslayer666]

It's still an animal, it's just a dead animal, so I disagree with Crawford. Maybe some other rules thing applies here, but I'm not aware of it. I would not allow Animate Objects to target a corpse since there is a spell that specifically does that.

I'd let it work if the animal was not too far decayed, say the first few days or so.