Discussion on answer by NautArch: Can you use animate dead on something that was previously animated by the same spell?

Feeds

15:44

4

A: Can you use animate dead on something that was previously animated by the same spell?

Unfortunately, no by RAW. As you've quoted, the spell requires (my emphasis): a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid within range. Once a dead humanoid is turned into a skeleton or zombie, they are no longer humanoids, but undead. Their form may be that of a humanoid, bu...

Max Colledge

What about a pile of bones?

NautArch

@MaxColledge They are a corpse of an undead, not the corpse of a humanoid.

Slagmoth

But a corpse is an object, isn't the pile of bones or the "body" of the dead zombie also an object? Used to be that the body was destroyed when you killed undead which made it impossible to be animated with additional castings.

NautArch

@Slagmoth Corpses are that confusing object/creature thing. But in this case, when it died it was not a humanoid, it was an undead. So now instead of having the bones or corpse of a humanoid, it is the bones or corpse of an undead.

Slagmoth

I know I am arguing semantics but... apart from the absolutely terrible wording that causes so much confusion in the resurrection and animate spells, what is the difference between a dead human and a "dead" zombie once their "life" is snuffed out? It is humanoid in the strictest sense.

After all it says "humanoid" not "of type humanoid".

Max Colledge

15:44

It does not require the bones of a humanoid, it requires "a pile of bones" or "a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid" - I would argue when a skeleton dies you have "a pile of bones"

NathanS

@MaxColledge This might be one of those parsing issues that comes from WotC not using enough commas. Basically, you're reading it "[a pile of bones] or [a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid]", whereas NautArch is reading it "[[a pile of bones] or [a corpse]] of a Medium or Small humanoid".

PJRZ

@MaxColledge: Think you are putting brackets around the wrong parts of the phrase. Despite English ambiguity I think it is: "Choose a (pile of bones or a corpse) of a Medium or Small humanoid within range."

Slagmoth

Ok. Not trying to be intentionally obstinate but... a "corpse" is "a dead body, especially of a human being rather than an animal." which we could reasonably extend to other humanoid creatures (using the English for 'humanoid' not the 5E definition of type here) so wouldn't a dead undead (which is silly to say) be a cadaver? Just saying I think a lot of players focus on specific words in this game without considering there is considerable ambiguity. A Vampire is humanoid but is not a humanoid as an example.

NautArch

@Slagmoth Humanoid is a creature type in 5e. It has a mechanical and not just general use to discuss form. I'm trying to find a specific example where they use humanoid form rather than discussing types.

Medix2

@Naut There's technically "Dragonborn look very much like dragons standing erect in humanoid form" also dancing lights

Slagmoth

15:44

@NautArch Understood, but depending on which dev wrote which piece the standards don't always jive on their intent. The disparity on Gazes is quite stark from MM to some of the other books with monsters that have a Gaze.

NautArch

@Slagmoth I'm not sure what specifically you're saying there regarding the Gaze mechanics.

Slagmoth

@NautArch Just using it as an example that not all the devs were on the same page when writing some things so their language choices differed and thus their intent in interpretation.

Max Colledge

What about this? rpg.stackexchange.com/a/143840/56895 (just found it on google)

NautArch

@Slagmoth Gotcha. In this case, I'm focusing more on the creature type requirements from the spell. I haven't brought in anything regarding dev input and focused solely on that. I guess it could be interpreted as a [pile of bones] or [a corpse of a small or medium humanoid], but that seems kinda strange. Since you could take the corpse of a large humanoid, removing the flesh, and now all of a sudden it's a legit target? That doesn't seem...right.

@MaxColledge That might be a duplicate of this, and I should probably add an answer to it.

Slagmoth

@NautArch Personally, their wording is just terrible... this is the way I have defined it at my tables as I interpret their intent: "Choose a corpse or a pile of bones of a humanoid corpse that was once Small or Medium." I would like to point out that "Small" and "Medium" are capitalized in the source text but "humanoid" is not... I realize that is not a consistent thing in the source material though would have been nice to have the game terms somehow noted when they were using them as opposed to English. But just one of many gripes I have with the vernacular therein.

NautArch

15:45

@Slagmoth based on my recent edit of being able to turn a invalid target into a valid by removing flesh, I really don't think it makes sense to read it as two separate target options.

But I also see absolutely no reason to not allow reuse of animated dead once slain.

Slagmoth

15:57

@NautArch I agree. I deem undead mostly destroyed and not viable for re-animation as it sort of used to be described way, way back. I am also very much aware I am in the minority on the reading of the corpse/object/creature reading and apparently the most vocal about it. My only disagreement was in the reading is all. I dislike a lot of word choices and the devs apparent reliance on previous edition conventions as well as reluctance to define a few things.

3.X for all its flaws had an object oriented approach, Gaze works this way unless specifically overridden in the monster's text or Cons…

NautArch

@Slagmoth I never played 3.5, but seeing all the questions here it looks really overwhelming.

But yeah, there's a lot of editorial inconsistency in 5e

Slagmoth

@NautArch That was the only thing I miss from 3.X otherwise, overly complex min/maxing and so was PF although they fixed some of the issues it got even more bloated don't miss in the slightest.

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Discussion on answer by NautArch: Can…