So would you say shackling the dead would be a good solution to stock up on them until you get a bag of holding or something?
No, that would not be a good solution, since after you lose control, you can't re-gain it by casting the spell. You would need to find new corpses or piles of bones to re-animate. You could get away with re-animating the bones of a dead skeleton (you'd need to kill it, first, though), but from a strict reading of the rules you can't re-animate a dead zombie, since the spell requires "a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small humannd a dead zombie is a corpse of a Medium undead, not humanoid. Your DM might let you do it, anyway, since once dead, you can argue that it's the same corpse, physically, so you should be able to target it with Animate Dead. That would be an entirely reasonable house rule.
Actually, per the description of the spell, you don’t have to find new corpses. Once you lose control over them, you can use that spell to reassert your control. RAW don’t state you lose the control forever, just that if you don’t want to lose control, recast the spell to maintain it. But you can regain control over them if you lose it.
“The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you've given it. To maintain 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.”
The spell actually says nothing about what happens when you cast it over non-controlled undead, only on undead you're currently controlling ("...cast this spell on the creature again before the current 24-hour period ends.", emphasis mine). Strictly speaking, casting this spell on an undead you've lost control over has no effect, since nothing in the spell's description says anything regarding affecting such a target. The next sentence expands on the previous one, to note that it works on 4 creatures; it is not listing a new way to use the spell.
If you have multiple casters casting the same buffing spell on you, it doesn’t stack, so I’d assume the same goes for Animate Dead. Second casting would just refresh the timer since it’s the same effect. At least that’s how I’m looking at it.
So would you say shackling the dead would be a good solution to stock up on them until you get a bag of holding or something?
No, that would not be a good solution, since after you lose control, you can't re-gain it by casting the spell. You would need to find new corpses or piles of bones to re-animate. You could get away with re-animating the bones of a dead skeleton (you'd need to kill it, first, though), but from a strict reading of the rules you can't re-animate a dead zombie, since the spell requires "a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid", and a dead zombie is a corpse of a Medium undead, not humanoid. Your DM might let you do it, anyway, since once dead, you can argue that it's the same corpse, physically, so you should be able to target it with Animate Dead. That would be an entirely reasonable house rule.
When the zombie is killed, it's no longer undead. So, it goes back to being a medium humanoid, which you can reanimate. That is the obvious logical interpretation, especially if it's one you originally animated.
I don't see that the "strict interpretation of the rules" suggested in the previous comment is actually definitively stated by the rules. One could interpret it that way, but it would be most illogical.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The spell actually says nothing about what happens when you cast it over non-controlled undead, only on undead you're currently controlling ("...cast this spell on the creature again before the current 24-hour period ends.", emphasis mine). Strictly speaking, casting this spell on an undead you've lost control over has no effect, since nothing in the spell's description says anything regarding affecting such a target. The next sentence expands on the previous one, to note that it works on 4 creatures; it is not listing a new way to use the spell.
If you have multiple casters casting the same buffing spell on you, it doesn’t stack, so I’d assume the same goes for Animate Dead. Second casting would just refresh the timer since it’s the same effect. At least that’s how I’m looking at it.
You're absolutely right. RAW would mean that an uncontrolled undead (even one you created with this spell) is unaffected by this.
When the zombie is killed, it's no longer undead. So, it goes back to being a medium humanoid, which you can reanimate. That is the obvious logical interpretation, especially if it's one you originally animated.
I don't see that the "strict interpretation of the rules" suggested in the previous comment is actually definitively stated by the rules. One could interpret it that way, but it would be most illogical.