What happens if two or more creatures are fighting for control over some undead? A PC has animate dead and is controlling 8 skeletons/zombies, but what if said PC fought Aphemia with the Grave Calling Song ability:
Grave Calling Song. Aphemia intones a low, growling magical melody. Every undead within 300 feet of her must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or fall under her control until the song ends. Aphemia must take a bonus action on her subsequent turns to continue singing, and she can mentally command the undead under her control as part of the same bonus action. She can stop singing at any time. The song ends if Aphemia is incapacitated or dies.
Who would be in control of the undead if they failed the wisdom saving throw?
What happens if two or more creatures are fighting for control over some undead? A PC has animate dead and is controlling 8 skeletons/zombies, but what if said PC fought Aphemia with the Grave Calling Song ability:
Grave Calling Song. Aphemia intones a low, growling magical melody. Every undead within 300 feet of her must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or fall under her control until the song ends. Aphemia must take a bonus action on her subsequent turns to continue singing, and she can mentally command the undead under her control as part of the same bonus action. She can stop singing at any time. The song ends if Aphemia is incapacitated or dies.
Who would be in control of the undead if they failed the wisdom saving throw?
Both of them. Both Alphemia and the original caster would be able to issue orders to the undead, and the undead would obey both orders without any understanding of hierarchy, so they'd obey an order until countermanded. Aphemia would not ordinarily have a telepathic link to the caster, so neither of the two would have any ability to "hear" the other's orders. You'd get a potentially very interesting game of the two entities trying to outguess each other's orders on their bonus actions.
Personally, I don't think creatures being "under control" of multiple controllers makes any sense. If a spell or effect "takes control" of a creature, then it will take that control away from whoever currently has it, either from the creature itself or some other master.
I would rule the best solution in this case would be a contested skill check, Aphemia's Charisma vs the controlling PC's Spellcasting attribute. The higher roll wins control of the undead in question.
It is generally not a great idea to bring your pet zombies to a fight with a creature known for mesmerizing zombies to fight for her...
Famously, 5E's rules do what they say they do and nothing else. Taking control for yourself does not deprive anyone else of control unless the rule in question says so.
if your undead servant harms any of your allies dispel it back to bones or corpse
and then reanimate it if you wish.
I did just want to quickly address this. You can't dispel animate dead. It is an instantaneous spell so the active magic is already gone and there is nothing to dispel.
Famously, 5E's rules do what they say they do and nothing else. Taking control for yourself does not deprive anyone else of control unless the rule in question says so.
This is not a situation of default rules. It's not two common spells with similar effects that need to be resolved. This is a situation of a single boss level-creature in a single adventure, with an ability to take control of undead creatures, who lives in an environment that is populated by a bunch of them. The intent of this creature's ability is to grab a bunch of those local undead and command them. It was not written with player-summoned undead in mind.
This situation is a near perfect example of a contest as described in the DMG. "Use a contest if a [creature] attempts something that either directly foils or is directly opposed by another creature’s efforts." Trying to take control of already controlled undead is that sort of situation.
Also famously, 5e tries to write its rules in *natural language* (and mostly fails). The plain-language meaning of "under control" is exclusive to one controller (or team of allied controllers). If a creature obeys my commands but also obeys commands of my mortal enemy at the same time, then that creature is by definition not under my control. There are many spells and effects that force a creature to do things or obey commands, without actually placing them under direct control (like geas or suggestion), but the control of summoned or dominated undead doesn't work like that.
A zombie I have animated is under my control by default for 24 hours. If it is successfully affected by Aphemia's grave call, then it will fall "under her control" as described in her ability. "Under control" does not mean obeying my enemy's command, so only one of us can have that zombie under control.
Basing the snatching of control of the zombie on the zombie's own Wisdom would not feel fair to the player, so I would rule a contest between appropriate attributes - or at least have the Wis save be made by the player using the higher of theirs or the zombie's score.
If you don't use some contest to decide who has the creature under control and go ahead with the a two-controllers situation, then you will still need to decide some mechanism to resolve which command it obeys on each of its turns. One assumes both controllers would tell the zombie to attack their enemy, and the zombie can't do both. This would still require some sort of contest to see who it obeys. The resulting chaos means the zombie would be even less "under the control" of anyone at all.
I agree with regent. Plain language of control is going to mean one person. If my wife is holding the tv remote, and I take it from her, she no longer has control of the tv.
If my employee is transferred to a new boss, I’m no longer in control of that employee.
I agree with regent. Plain language of control is going to mean one person. If my wife is holding the tv remote, and I take it from her, she no longer has control of the tv.
If my employee is transferred to a new boss, I’m no longer in control of that employee.
But if you and your wife both have a remote, you both control the TV.
You likely have a boss yourself right? Would they not also be able to order your employees?
I agree with regent. Plain language of control is going to mean one person. If my wife is holding the tv remote, and I take it from her, she no longer has control of the tv.
If my employee is transferred to a new boss, I’m no longer in control of that employee.
But if you and your wife both have a remote, you both control the TV.
You likely have a boss yourself right? Would they not also be able to order your employees?
Yes, but only one of the remotes and one of the bosses commands is going to have an effect on a turn. TV's don't show two channels, and employees (try as we might) cannot complete two mutually conflicting activities. Neither the TV nor the employee is functionally under control of either party. Control is messed up.
Being under control, in normal language, is not a conflicted state. It is stable, and requires that only one party does the controlling.
TVs only have one remote around these parts. Don’t know what kind of fancy TVs you have. And bosses giving orders to the person under the person is micromanaging and bad leadership. Though I guess it does happen. And in that case, the top boss is the one in control. They override the middle management. The employee can only do one thing at a time.
I agree with regent. Plain language of control is going to mean one person. If my wife is holding the tv remote, and I take it from her, she no longer has control of the tv.
If my employee is transferred to a new boss, I’m no longer in control of that employee.
Somebody has never worked under a dotted line manager... and it shows. Hahaha.
Either way, I am inclined to have a contest. What better struggle than a cool mental contest to determine the controller. 🙂
I do not think a contest is the right way to go. The fact that the undead need to make a Wisdom save against it already give the ability a chance to fail. In this way, the undead failing their save seems to point towards them failing some mental fortitude against her control and being forced to act against their original will.
I can see how the language isn't explicit on this, but I agree with the interpretation that the animated dead can only have one master at a given time and that the more recent effect takes precedence. I can see how it could feel cheap to rob a PC of their undead, but I think that if a character like this is meant to have a strong sway over undead then they should have the possibility of taking control from the PC and signaling to them that they should switch up their strategy and not try to fight this boss with an army of undead.
One "middle ground" ruling I could see is that if the undead are already under a PCs control, then it can repeat its Wisdom save at the end of each of its turns rather than being stuck for the duration of the song, returning to following the PC's orders on a success.
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What happens if two or more creatures are fighting for control over some undead? A PC has animate dead and is controlling 8 skeletons/zombies, but what if said PC fought Aphemia with the Grave Calling Song ability:
Who would be in control of the undead if they failed the wisdom saving throw?
Both of them. Both Alphemia and the original caster would be able to issue orders to the undead, and the undead would obey both orders without any understanding of hierarchy, so they'd obey an order until countermanded. Aphemia would not ordinarily have a telepathic link to the caster, so neither of the two would have any ability to "hear" the other's orders. You'd get a potentially very interesting game of the two entities trying to outguess each other's orders on their bonus actions.
Oh, that is interesting. Thanks!
I'd say both can command the undead in this case.
Personally, I don't think creatures being "under control" of multiple controllers makes any sense. If a spell or effect "takes control" of a creature, then it will take that control away from whoever currently has it, either from the creature itself or some other master.
I would rule the best solution in this case would be a contested skill check, Aphemia's Charisma vs the controlling PC's Spellcasting attribute. The higher roll wins control of the undead in question.
It is generally not a great idea to bring your pet zombies to a fight with a creature known for mesmerizing zombies to fight for her...
Famously, 5E's rules do what they say they do and nothing else. Taking control for yourself does not deprive anyone else of control unless the rule in question says so.
My first instinct was that the most recent effect takes precedent. And this is how I would likely rule it in my games.
Both having control does make sense from a RAW perspective unless there is some "common language" thing I'm not seeing.
I did just want to quickly address this. You can't dispel animate dead. It is an instantaneous spell so the active magic is already gone and there is nothing to dispel.
This is not a situation of default rules. It's not two common spells with similar effects that need to be resolved. This is a situation of a single boss level-creature in a single adventure, with an ability to take control of undead creatures, who lives in an environment that is populated by a bunch of them. The intent of this creature's ability is to grab a bunch of those local undead and command them. It was not written with player-summoned undead in mind.
This situation is a near perfect example of a contest as described in the DMG. "Use a contest if a [creature] attempts something that either directly foils or is directly opposed by another creature’s efforts." Trying to take control of already controlled undead is that sort of situation.
Also famously, 5e tries to write its rules in *natural language* (and mostly fails). The plain-language meaning of "under control" is exclusive to one controller (or team of allied controllers). If a creature obeys my commands but also obeys commands of my mortal enemy at the same time, then that creature is by definition not under my control. There are many spells and effects that force a creature to do things or obey commands, without actually placing them under direct control (like geas or suggestion), but the control of summoned or dominated undead doesn't work like that.
A zombie I have animated is under my control by default for 24 hours. If it is successfully affected by Aphemia's grave call, then it will fall "under her control" as described in her ability. "Under control" does not mean obeying my enemy's command, so only one of us can have that zombie under control.
Basing the snatching of control of the zombie on the zombie's own Wisdom would not feel fair to the player, so I would rule a contest between appropriate attributes - or at least have the Wis save be made by the player using the higher of theirs or the zombie's score.
If you don't use some contest to decide who has the creature under control and go ahead with the a two-controllers situation, then you will still need to decide some mechanism to resolve which command it obeys on each of its turns. One assumes both controllers would tell the zombie to attack their enemy, and the zombie can't do both. This would still require some sort of contest to see who it obeys. The resulting chaos means the zombie would be even less "under the control" of anyone at all.
I agree with regent. Plain language of control is going to mean one person. If my wife is holding the tv remote, and I take it from her, she no longer has control of the tv.
If my employee is transferred to a new boss, I’m no longer in control of that employee.
But if you and your wife both have a remote, you both control the TV.
You likely have a boss yourself right? Would they not also be able to order your employees?
Yes, but only one of the remotes and one of the bosses commands is going to have an effect on a turn. TV's don't show two channels, and employees (try as we might) cannot complete two mutually conflicting activities. Neither the TV nor the employee is functionally under control of either party. Control is messed up.
Being under control, in normal language, is not a conflicted state. It is stable, and requires that only one party does the controlling.
TVs only have one remote around these parts. Don’t know what kind of fancy TVs you have.
And bosses giving orders to the person under the person is micromanaging and bad leadership. Though I guess it does happen. And in that case, the top boss is the one in control. They override the middle management. The employee can only do one thing at a time.
Somebody has never worked under a dotted line manager... and it shows. Hahaha.
Either way, I am inclined to have a contest. What better struggle than a cool mental contest to determine the controller. 🙂
I do not think a contest is the right way to go. The fact that the undead need to make a Wisdom save against it already give the ability a chance to fail. In this way, the undead failing their save seems to point towards them failing some mental fortitude against her control and being forced to act against their original will.
I can see how the language isn't explicit on this, but I agree with the interpretation that the animated dead can only have one master at a given time and that the more recent effect takes precedence. I can see how it could feel cheap to rob a PC of their undead, but I think that if a character like this is meant to have a strong sway over undead then they should have the possibility of taking control from the PC and signaling to them that they should switch up their strategy and not try to fight this boss with an army of undead.
One "middle ground" ruling I could see is that if the undead are already under a PCs control, then it can repeat its Wisdom save at the end of each of its turns rather than being stuck for the duration of the song, returning to following the PC's orders on a success.
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Since the monster is not going to be around in 10 minutes give control to the monster.
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