How to sabotage an undead.

[frogglesmash]

My party needs to eventually fight a specific undead that has not yet been animated. We have approx. 1 day of unrestricted access to the corpse prior to its animation, and wish to sabotage in it in a way that won't be apparent until during the fight. Our current idea is to put a container of holy water inside of it, and then have it break during the fight. The only problem is that we can't think of a way to trigger it when we need it to break. The party is 4th level and consists of a wizard, rogue, druid, and warlock.

[OldTrees1]

What type of undead and how closely will it be inspected?

For example could you cut the arms off and barely sew them back on? My ruling would be the undead would not animate the arms unless it was a skeletal undead.

If it is thoroughly inspected by a corpsecrafter, then even an incision could be detected.

[frogglesmash]

What type of undead and how closely will it be inspected?

For example could you cut the arms off and barely sew them back on? My ruling would be the undead would not animate the arms unless it was a skeletal undead.

If it is thoroughly inspected by a corpsecrafter, then even an incision could be detected.

Don't know what kind of undead, but it will be something that looks similar to how it did in life. It will be handled, but probably not actually inspected, as the people animating it have no casting ability of their own, and are relying on a magic item to animate it. We can probably get away with some incisions in discreet areas, but anything similar to your arms idea would be too obvious.

[Ashe]

If the container is made of regular glass then surely it would break if it's placed in an area that needs to move for the creature to do anything, like a humanoid's lower torso.

[frogglesmash]

If the container is made of regular glass then surely it would break if it's placed in an area that needs to move for the creature to do anything, like a humanoid's lower torso.

The problem is that we need it to break during the fight, and something that fragile is liable to break inside of it before then.

[GeoffWatson]

Soak it in highly inflammable oil, then use fire spells during the combat.

[Dungeon-noob]

Have you considered nailing some bodyparts together? Sure, the animators will see it, but what are they going to do about it? Removing that sort of thing is a lot harder than putting it in. Nail his arms and his legs together, can't walk or attack. Nail fingers together, so it can't grab or use somatic components. Nail it's mouth shut so it has trouble talking/screaming. Nail plates over its eyes so it can't see. You get the idea. Putting that in place is quite doable in a day, but taking that out in a way that doesn't have a corpse fall apart is a LOT harder, and if they leave it their undead toy will be so restricted as to be useless.

[Xihirli]

What level are you at? Can any of you just cast Gentle Repose to prevent the corpse being animated?

Or is the challenge more "sabotage it in a way that won’t just lead them to use a different body"?

[Kol Korran]

The problem is that we need it to break during the fight, and something that fragile is liable to break inside of it before then. Will it? Your characters carry potions, vials, and other stuff, you suffer blows, falls, crushing hits and more, and yet the containers don't break.

Does your wizard know the shatter spell? Or can he get a scroll? If so, insert into the body vials of holy water/ alchemist fire/ acid vials and such, and once the battle starts- Shatter!

Other ideas may depend on how corpse animation works in your world. If the dark magic moves the body, regardless of state of the actual corpse (such as in skeletons. Most bones aren't actually connected...) then this won't work. But if the mobility/ activity of the animated corpse does require at least working limbs... Well- you can do easily well by cutting (or nearly completely cutting) tendons, that will tear completely under serious strain (such as fighting). Might be worth suggesting it to the DM. I would make it a Medicine check.

Similarly you could break bones and reset them with only minot support, that would break easily under blows.

Another possibility, if you have access to the Heat Metal spell, is to insert into the body lots of small metal fragments, then just let the corpse fry!

[Chronos]

What kind of wizard? If they're a conjurer, then use Minor Creation to make the holy water container, and when you want to trigger it, make something else. Poof, container vanishes.

[Greywander]

My suggestion is to discreetly remove a few bones. The flesh will hide the fact that the bones are missing, unless someone tries to actually bend that limb. Take something small out of each arm, each leg, and maybe take a vertebra or two as well. If you're discreet enough, even bending a limb might not reveal anything wrong (unless someone tries to twist it the wrong way). Without a full skeleton, the resulting undead will likely find it difficult to stand up and/or move that limb.

But yeah, I'm curious why you can't just destroy the body or otherwise render it unusable. So what if they detect something amiss with the corpse? What happens if they do? I have to assume that you need them to animate the corpse for some reason, but I'm curious why.

[Joe the Rat]

And here I'm thinking about which items have command word activation, and do not require being in direct contact. Figurines of wondrous power or feather tokens for a little chestburster action, for example. Unfortunately it doesn't sound like an oversized body - shoving a broom of flying up its, erm, spine could make for a fun bit of enemy control.

The abdominal cavity has a fair bit of play - you just need to get something situated where it will sit alright, but won't break without particular effort or sufficient trauma.

For the anatomical tweaks, kneecaps. If it's a walking undead* that's going to seriously hamper movement. alteratively you could fuse the joints - extra slowness and poor balance makes for an easier target. Neither of these will work if the thing is up and moving before the showdown though.


*- I have a strong suspicion this won't be undead, but a construct, in which case acid or flammables is good - it works on everything.

[Kenny_Snoggins]

Another possibility, if you have access to the Heat Metal spell, is to insert into the body lots of small metal fragments, then just let the corpse fry!

Yeah, or maybe just rings and necklaces and stuff, since the DM might rule you have to see the metal you are heating, which would be unlikely if you use slivers.

If you have access to a watersource, like that decanter of endless water or a stream or something, you can use that to immerse the casket or whatever in flowing water, which some Undead really, really don't enjoy. Nystul's magical aura on a bunch of things disguised to look like powerful potions but actually containing holy water would be pretty funny, you could leave them around, maybe on the body of a dead humanoid if you have access to that or whatever. If the guy is in a casket you could try to just cast arcane lock on it and maybe he won't be strong enough to get out, which would also be pretty funny.

[Chronos]

Making it vulnerable to Heat Metal isn't that big a deal, anyway. I mean, lots of things are wearing metal anyway, and nobody says that makes them "sabotaged". You still have to cast the spell and spend bonus actions on it, and it still only does a few dice of damage a round.

[Kenny_Snoggins]

Making it vulnerable to Heat Metal isn't that big a deal, anyway. I mean, lots of things are wearing metal anyway, and nobody says that makes them "sabotaged". You still have to cast the spell and spend bonus actions on it, and it still only does a few dice of damage a round.

I think the bigger advantage is going to be giving them disadvantage on all attacks, rather than the chip damage. And at level 4 your bonus actions aren't really that valuable IMO.

[Kane0]

Shove a ceramic jar of holy water, acid, alchemist fire, etc into the stomach area, remove organs as necessary to fit.
Smash it in the gut with a blunt object when you want it to pop.

Fill its insides with caltrops or other small, sharp objects. Won't bother a corpse but will start tearing from the inside when it begins moving.

Use something flammable as embalming fluid or wrap.

Rig a trap that triggers when there's no weight on the place the corpse is laying, or tie the tripwire right onto it.

[yellowrocket]

Put boots on its feet with caltrops inside.

Carve/tattoo it with exploding runes. "Read" from a distance.

I'm sure there are more fun options. Invisible familiar shenanigans.

[Delicious Taffy]

I second the idea of stuffing the corpse full of small, sharp things so it gets shredded. There's a lot you can do with tons of little tiny metal objects, like studding the corpse with ball bearings and setting up a big magnet so it can't move. Or you could stuff some dynamite up its butt and hide the fuse under its pants, then light it on fire. Honestly, 5e has a ton of fun options if you wanna just go full Looney Tunes.

[Havlock]

Shove an immovable rod up its a** and when combat ensues, just have someone walk up and pat it on the butt.

[MrCharlie]

If the skin is still on, shatter its spine with a blunt instrument. It can't exactly bleed and bruising won't be inherently obvious, and if it needs those bones to function it won't be able to physically function properly.

(If it doesen't need an intact bone structure, any similar plan is likewise doomed).

Alternatively, inject holy water into its lungs. You don't actually need to keep the holy water from touching it, you just need to keep it inside the creature. There are several real-life conditions based on the fact that fluid that gets in between the lung and chest cavity (within a certain membrane) is very hard for the body to remove because it's a reasonable approximation of airtight, so most of it should stay in the body until animation. Fill its lung cavity with holy water and watch it explode on animation.