Tips & Tricks for Practical Animate Dead

[Stuempy]

An undead army! Hooray! But with the way animate dead works, there are few stumbling blocks. Here's how I approach them as a player.

What are other issues you've come across, and how do you solve them?

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Problem: you need to let minions go if you're going to animate more.
Because each 3rd-level slot can create 1 minion, or control 4, players who don't have a ton of 3rd-level slots will run into problems. At 5th level you have two 3rd-level slots, and can control 8 minions, max. After a few days & corpses you have 4 minions, then you make a 5th. Now you have to spend both slots just to control your minions, and if you make #6, #5 is now uncontrolled. How do you get ahead? How do you replace casualties without losing control of the guys you already have?

Solution: Stick them in a box!
A "Chest" can carry 6 cubic feet, 3' x 2' x 1' and weighs 25 lbs. A skeleton, with gear, is maybe 50 lbs. Simply buy a chest and a set of manacles for each minion in your "employ." When you know you have to let one go free for a bit, order it to put on manacles and lock it in a box. 75 lbs is still within the 150 lb carry capacity for a 10-strength skelly. It can be carried, bumping around in its box angrily, by a controlled skelly until you have time to give it that personal attention it needs.


Problem: Replacements take FOREVER to make
If you have two skeletons die, it's two days to replace those bodies, and while you're doing that the other skellies in its 4-skelly team are uncontrolled. Not great, especially when you're on the move and the party can't stop for a few days of downtime while you poke around at corpses.

Solution: carry spares!
We can't really get around the slowness of making your undead army... but you can make your spares ahead of time! Make more skeletons than you can control, and have the controlled ones carry spares, locked in chests like I outlined above. Could even have caches of reinforcements at strategic places, buried 10' underground and just waiting for you to come by and give them some personal attention.


Problem: Skellies & Zombies suck
Skellies have low HP, Zombies have low AC, both have blah attacks. How do you make it work?

Solution: Skellies with Gear
Skeletons can be trained to use weapons and armor, according to their Monster Manual description. Not much detail on how or the limitations, but generally I'd say the proficiency of a party member could be passed on with a day or two of training. They could potentially train each other too. Skellies aren't great, but if you put decent armor on them and give them finesse & ranged weapons, they get decent AC's. My recommended loadout: Scale Mail & Shield (AC 18), Short Sword (+4 1d6+2), and Heavy Crossbow (+4, 1d10+2, 100/400).
Alternatively if you want them to keep a shield up while doing ranged, could use a sling or hand crossbow. Gets expensive as your army gets bigger, but when a skelly dies you don't have to replace the equipment, just give it to a friend. You could add magic gear in there too, I just don't think it's worth it--these guys are about quantity, not quality.

Still, +4 attack bonus becomes ineffectual at some point. That's when you treat them as expendable advantage-granting machines. Send them up to a baddy, use "Aid Another" to give a specific ally advantage on their next attack. Maybe the skelly dies right afterwards, but he still ate up an attack and gave advantage. Not bad for 1/4th of a 3rd-level spell.

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There are more problems to solve - disguising them so that people don't freak out, or transporting them easily. Other exploits you can do with the free tireless labor. But there's plenty of posts about that. So far I haven't seen anyone address the whole "have to release minions to make minions" issue, or a practical way to keep replacements on hand for quick rank-filling.

What are some Animate Dead problems and solutions you've encountered?

[ftafp]

you'll get the most milage out of your skeletons by casting Creation with a 6th level spell slot. that will let you conjure a cannon which three or more skeletons can man, firing one 8d10 damage shot per turn per 3 skeletons.

since the cannon and its ammo are temporary conjurations, im fairly certain their damage is magical

[MaxWilson]

Problem: you need to let minions go if you're going to animate more.
Because each 3rd-level slot can create 1 minion, or control 4, players who don't have a ton of 3rd-level slots will run into problems. At 5th level you have two 3rd-level slots, and can control 8 minions, max. After a few days & corpses you have 4 minions, then you make a 5th. Now you have to spend both slots just to control your minions, and if you make #6, #5 is now uncontrolled. How do you get ahead? How do you replace casualties without losing control of the guys you already have?

Solution: Stick them in a box!
A "Chest" can carry 6 cubic feet, 3' x 2' x 1' and weighs 25 lbs. A skeleton, with gear, is maybe 50 lbs. Simply buy a chest and a set of manacles for each minion in your "employ." When you know you have to let one go free for a bit, order it to put on manacles and lock it in a box. 75 lbs is still within the 150 lb carry capacity for a 10-strength skelly. It can be carried, bumping around in its box angrily, by a controlled skelly until you have time to give it that personal attention it needs.

It sounds like you might be planning to let control expire and then re-assert control later. If so, you might be interested in this bit of text from Animate Dead:

"The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any Command you've given it. To maintain the 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."

I could be wrong, but I think once your control expires, you can't regain control over that skeleton again ever.

In practice it doesn't matter though because you can use Arcane Recovery to get a third 3rd-level spell slot at 5th level.

[Man_Over_Game]

I could be wrong, but I think once your control expires, you can't regain control over that skeleton again ever.

To be fair, the big thing separating a pile of bones from a skeleton are those pesky hitpoints, and that's an easy problem to fix when you can tell it what to do for 23.9 hours. Although this doesn't fix the OP's concern of having to rotate castings to have more than 4 skellies at once.

[Witty Username]

Uncontrolled undead can still be useful as they are hostile to all life, release them on your enemies and keep out of the main combat, the best way being demiplane, but coffins that can be unlatched before a retreat can work as well.

[Corran]

Uncontrolled undead can still be useful as they are hostile to all life, release them on your enemies and keep out of the main combat, the best way being demiplane, but coffins that can be unlatched before a retreat can work as well.
I am now thinking of burying these coffins as part of some trap. Seal them with arcane lock and maybe use magic mouth (maybe alarm will help further narrow the triggering conditions too) for suppressing it at the right moment? Or something like that. Can't see many benefits it would have over just using a demiplane (other than potentially not having to be there, even if it is just for a few seconds), and that's probably something that the average (low) level pc cannot afford, but the image of skeletons emerging from the ground seems pretty cool to me (and the idea of using undead as some sort of minefield trap is fun to think about). Any thoughts on if we can actually do something like that or on how we could improve it?

[JackPhoenix]

Solution: Skellies with Gear
Skeletons can be trained to use weapons and armor, according to their Monster Manual description. Not much detail on how or the limitations, but generally I'd say the proficiency of a party member could be passed on with a day or two of training. They could potentially train each other too.

Considering the training rules give time of about 3 months to learn new languages or tools, and don't allow weapon or armor training at all, I very much disagree that you can train a skeleton in day or two, much less have mindless, speechless skeleton be able to serve as a trainer itself.


Alternatively if you want them to keep a shield up while doing ranged, could use a sling or hand crossbow.

Once. They can't reload if they use a shield.

[Merudo]

The biggest concern with Animate Dead is how to turn corpse into skeletons. Skeletons are dramatically better than Zombies, so you really don't want to reanimate fresh corpse without stripping the meat off the bones.

[Klaus Teufel]

That's why I asked my DM if I could have the following spell:


Excarnate Corpse

1st level* transmutation

Casting Time: 1 minute (ritual)

Range: 30 feet

Components: V, S, small bone

Duration: Instant

You target the corpse of a humanoid or beast, medium-sized or smaller, that has a skeleton. After one minute of concentration on the ritual, the corpse splits allowing the complete, connected skeleton to appear inanimate lying atop the corpse.

At Higher Levels: For each level the caster is above 5th level, they can excarnate an additional creature**.

*I don't think a cantrip can be a ritual

**This matches the Animate Dead progression, because 2 character levels = +1 spell slot level

[cutlery]

The biggest concern with Anime Dead is how to turn corpse into skeletons. Skeletons are dramatically better than Zombies, so you really don't want to reanimate fresh corpse without stripping the meat off the bones.

Most every corpse has a skeleton inside waiting to get out.

"Debone that corpse" sounds like a job for an unseen servant.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Earlier editions made this a lot easier, if you wanted to animate a skeleton but targeted a corpse the flesh simply fell off the bones.

[MaxWilson]

Most every corpse has a skeleton inside waiting to get out.

"Debone that corpse" sounds like a job for an unseen servant.

Or even a job for an animated skeleton.

Of course that won't magically produce the equipment you'd like them to have: longbow + dual short swords + scale mail + shield. For that you need Fabricate, or corpses that already have equipment.

[Segev]

If you're happy with zombies, finger of death creates them from living people with no control limit.

It's worth noting that skeletons and zombies in 5e have an Int of 6. You could presumably work them over with Charisma checks until they're loyal without the magical control. Of course, you'll have to be evil enough to tolerate their natural proclivities and even sate their emotional desires for cruelty.

[cutlery]

Or even a job for an animated skeleton.

Of course that won't magically produce the equipment you'd like them to have: longbow + dual short swords + scale mail + shield. For that you need Fabricate, or corpses that already have equipment.

I was thinking unseen servants would do this better because they're adept at cooking, and it seems mildly complicated for a basic undead.

As for the gear, at some point you've collected so much of that you can't even sell it anymore, assuming you've found a way to store and carry it.

I was never particularly enamored with the army of skeletons, though, as it seems susceptible to aoe; aoe that might include the caster given the command range.

It's a shame there isn't a way to make one or two more powerful undead earlier.

[Blood of Gaea]

Mending is also very valuable for repairing Skeletons after they go down. If you can recover their remains, you can definitly spend a bit of time patching the bones back together.

On a slightly related note, a dead skeleton makes for an easy component to use for Animate Objects, and it's quite thematic as well.

[cutlery]

On a slightly related note, a dead skeleton makes for an easy component to use for Animate Objects, and it's quite thematic as well.

That's brilliant!

[MaxWilson]

If you're happy with zombies, finger of death creates them from living people with no control limit.

It's worth noting that skeletons and zombies in 5e have an Int of 6. You could presumably work them over with Charisma checks until they're loyal without the magical control. Of course, you'll have to be evil enough to tolerate their natural proclivities and even sate their emotional desires for cruelty.

Zombies are actually dumber than skeletons in 5E. Int 3.


I was thinking unseen servants would do this better because they're adept at cooking, and it seems mildly complicated for a basic undead.

As for the gear, at some point you've collected so much of that you can't even sell it anymore, assuming you've found a way to store and carry it.

I was never particularly enamored with the army of skeletons, though, as it seems susceptible to aoe; aoe that might include the caster given the command range.

It's a shame there isn't a way to make one or two more powerful undead earlier.

AoE in 5E tends to be both small and weak. Once you get your skeletons some temp HP to go with their Undead Thralls bonus HP, it becomes hard to take them down in one AoE even on a failed save (unless it's a save vs. Destroy Undead), and since they have ranged weapons and no particular reason to assume Fireball Formation, just don't keep all your eggs in one basket.

Also, don't feel compelled to bring all your skeletons into every room of every interior space you're ever in. Leaving twenty skeletons on guard outside a tower while the PCs and six skeletons (30ish HP each in late Tier 2) enter and surveil the ground floor is still a decent use of skeletons. You can always go back and fetch a dozen more if something kills these six, and then keep them in clumps 50' apart to minimize AoEs.

Skeletons are expendable. Expend them (judiciously) instead of expending PCs and you'll be glad you had them.

Also consider investing in Nystul's Magic Aura so that magical traps and glyphs can go off on a skeleton or zombie and not a living, very human PC. But it depends on whether genuinely lethal traps (Glyph: Wall of Force + Glyph: Sickening Radiance) are a thing with your DM.

[Segev]

Zombies are actually dumber than skeletons in 5E. Int 3.

Ah, my mistake. My point still stands: they aren't mindless, so you can win them over through persuasion. With low int, they may even be too dumb to resent the control you exercise while building that loyalty into them as a habit.

[cutlery]

Honestly, the biggest problem with animate dead I usually have as a player is finding a party that doesn't include a paladin with Alignment: Lawful Smite.

[JackPhoenix]

Ah, my mistake. My point still stands: they aren't mindless, so you can win them over through persuasion. With low int, they may even be too dumb to resent the control you exercise while building that loyalty into them as a habit.

Zombies are explicitly mindless. They are too stupid to grab a weapon they've dropped or to avoid a obvious danger in their way. Skeletons do have some problem-solving ability, but still nothing that would allow them to persuade them to do anything: they are compelled to attack any living creature when uncontrolled.

[MaxWilson]

Zombies are explicitly mindless. They are stupid enough to grab a weapon they've dropped or to avoid a obvious danger in their way. Skeletons do have some problem-solving ability, but still nothing that would allow them to persuade them to do anything: they are compelled to attack any living creature when uncontrolled.

They don't have any magical life-sensing abilities, so I can imagine a Necromancer with Seeming or Spell Mastery: Disguise Self potentially being able to escape their wrath. I'm not so sure he could actually make them do anything though. The MM implies that uncontrolled skeletons default to simple mimicry of life, until someone shows up for them to murder, and I'm not sure how the Necromancer player could possibly change that. Maybe I'm overlooking something though--I have no objections to someone at least trying.

Surprising insights and outcomes are part of the draw of TTRPGs, compared to CRPGs (and presumably MMORPGs).

[cutlery]

A skeleton is smarter than a mastiff; but probably has very different innate drives, and you can't exactly breed that out of them.

[Magicspook]

So at 5th level, it is impossible to have more than one skeleton, because you have just the one 3rd level slot? That seems like an oversight to me...

[Lord Vukodlak]

So at 5th level, it is impossible to have more than one skeleton, because you have just the one 3rd level slot? That seems like an oversight to me...
Full casters have two 3rd level slots at fifth level. And a wizards arcane recovery would let them get back one slot.

[Martin Greywolf]

Solution: Skellies with Gear
Skeletons can be trained to use weapons and armor, according to their Monster Manual description. Not much detail on how or the limitations, but generally I'd say the proficiency of a party member could be passed on with a day or two of training.

As someone who does train people to use swords: no. That's not enough time.

Seeing as these are skeletons, they will have no trouble with physical conditioning, so that cuts the time necessary down quite a bit. After that is dealt with, all you are doing is getting the movements of technique into muscle memory, so that they can be used without much conscious thought, and sparring to make sure you can do it under pressure. Assuming skeleton muscle memory works like human equivalent (remember, it's called muscle memory, but it is still memory, and therefore a mental thing), you can still cut down time necessary, as skeleton has to be shown a drill and can then repeat it without pause for 24/7.

With all that, you could get your skeleton up to speed with a melee weapon in about two weeks. He's not going to be brilliant, or even all that good, but will be able to execute all basic blocks, cuts and thrusts.

Ranged weapons will go faster, maybe a week or slightly less. Crossbow is just about aiming in the right spot and pulling a trigger, bow takes humans a long time to learn because you need to build up muscles to use them, historical bows meant for hunting or war start at 60 lbs and end at 160, most modern bows are at 30. So, maybe 4 days for crossbow, a week for bows.

Armor... well, armor proficiencies are stupid, there is no way of putting it. There is no training required to wear armor well, aside from physical conditioning - and there's not all that much of that, either. Sure, there is training to fight in armor, but those are grappling and weapon techniques, you don't need to train to wear it.

[Magicspook]

Full casters have two 3rd level slots at fifth level. And a wizards arcane recovery would let them get back one slot.
You are totally right,forgot abou that!

[Greywander]

I'm not sure exactly how 5e handles skeletons and zombies, but IIRC it at least used to be a thing that skellies and zombos have an animating spirit, but not a soul. I'm still not sure I quite get the difference between the two, but from what I've been able to gather, a soul is required to learn new information, while the animating spirit retains all of the memories*. As such, skeletons and zombies, who only have an animating spirit, can remember things they knew in life, but are unable to learn new things.
*This is, by the way, why Speak with Dead can't be used to pass information along to the dead creature; you're only calling up their animating spirit to recite things it knows from memory, while the soul is somewhere in the afterlife doing its own thing.

What you actually want to do, then, is to raise skeletons from creatures who already have the weapon and armor proficiencies you need. Guards, bandits, goblins, orcs, etc. Random peasants who lack weapon proficiencies are probably better raised as zombies and used as meat shields, or have them grapple or take the Help action.

Now, there is something I'm curious about. It seems like the intent of the spell, for balance reasons, is simply to create creatures with the regular zombie or skeleton stat block, but we actually have stat blocks for other types of skeletons and zombies, including things like a skeletal minotaur, or a zombie beholder. Alternatively, the way the spell is worded, you could totally throw the bones of a bunch of creatures into one large pile and raise them as a single skeletal creature that was an amalgam of all the individual skeletons. It seems implied that this spell (or another) can be used to create stronger skeletons or zombies, but again for balance reasons we're not allowed to. There's also the question of raising skeletons or zombies from creatures of disparate power, e.g. a random peasant vs. a powerful knight; what would make the most sense is to instead apply a template on top of the original creature's stat block, and it just so happens that page 282 of the DMG does contain such templates. And actually, although I said that it seems to be the intent that you can't raise a stronger skeleton or zombie, it doesn't actually say so, it just says that the DM has the statistics for these creatures.

As for what to do with your skellies when you're done with them, shove them in a bag. Once your control lapses, they'll be stuck in the bag (make sure it's secure), and when things go south you can dump out the bag and fly away, leaving whoever you're fleeing from to deal with the skeletons.

Here's another fun thing to do with undead, and it doesn't require any class features. Step 1: be a half-dragon. Step 2: get permission from the DM to be half shadow dragon, instead of one of the normal types. Congratulations, you now have a breath weapon that will raise humanoids you kill with it as shadows under your control, with no time limit or need to reassert control. Shadows can also create more shadows, although these ones probably won't be under your control. Still, this allows you to do a "shadow nuke", where you release a bunch of shadows in a town and have them convert the entire town into more shadows. The more they make, the harder it is for the locals to fight them off. Just pray you don't have to clean up the mess yourself.

[McSkrag]

I've found it very useful to keep my undead posse and a ladder in a portable hole.

But even more important is to give them cool matching outfits. I personally like clown suits.

[Greywander]

I've found it very useful to keep my undead posse and a ladder in a portable hole.

But even more important is to give them cool matching outfits. I personally like clown suits.
The clown suits have to at least give you advantage on intimidation checks. Regular clowns can be creepy enough, but spooky undead clowns? Instant nightmare fuel.

Bonus points if you, yourself, also dress as a clown, and pretend to be goofy and harmless most of the time. Would probably work better for a bard than a wizard, but I'm sure you could make it work.

[Doug Lampert]

To be fair, the big thing separating a pile of bones from a skeleton are those pesky hitpoints, and that's an easy problem to fix when you can tell it what to do for 23.9 hours. Although this doesn't fix the OP's concern of having to rotate castings to have more than 4 skellies at once.

On an off day: Animate 1 an hour or so before going to bed, short rest arcane recovery, 2 more right before going to bed.

Second off day: An hour -1 minute before bed, assert control, and animate one more. Then arcane recovery, and right before bed, create a fifth.

Any additional days off with less than 8 undead: An hour-X minutes before bed, reassert control, then arcane recovery, and right before bed add one more.

If you have 1 day off, 3 undead; 2 days off, 5 undead; 3 days off, 6 undead; 4 days off, 7 undead; 5+ days off, 8 undead.

Stop at 8, because on day off 6 and 7 you can start using arcane recovery to "backup" the control castings so that they eventually are all right before bed.

Adventuring day: Have your adventure as normal, if you do NOT use all your level 3 slots, including arcane recovery, then an hour -X minutes before bed, spend a slot to reassert control on 4 of the undead, and if you don't have another level 3 slot blow away numbers 5+ if there are still five+ of them (if there are still 5+ of them, why are you bothering with the undead horde? The whole point is EXPENDABLE minions, what part of expendable don't you understand), if you are out of level 3 slots and arcane recovery then let the remaining undead destroy themselves by any amusing method.

It takes time and trouble, and note that on day 2 you are at 5 undead, when 9 is your absolute maximum limit. So you really don't need to sweat getting the full number, most of it is available after 2 off days.

As for leaving undead scattered around as a trap, isn't that what all those undead skellies and zombies in forgotten tombs are? If the DM can do it to you, you can do it to the NPCs (or something like that).

[McSkrag]

Bonus points if you, yourself, also dress as a clown, and pretend to be goofy and harmless most of the time. Would probably work better for a bard than a wizard, but I'm sure you could make it work.

Hahaha... Excellent idea!

My wizard also bought a disguise kit to make his posse look like normal, living humanoids. But he is not proficient with it so the results have been rather poor to say the least. Barkeeps really need to be more tolerant.