I was reading through the animate dead spell and was wondering as to how long you may maintain control over the undead at a time? The spell reads:
"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." (emphasis mine)
Let's say I have a 5th level cleric with 2 spell slots of level 3, I stumble across a skeleton and cast animate dead to animate it into a companion named Skully, the current time is 10:00AM, January 1. Skully and I spend the day together, we frolic through the flowers together, recreate Thriller together, make a treehouse together, etc. I grow rather fond of Skully and don't want it turning against me so at 10:00PM, January 1 I use my remaining 3rd level spell slot to cast animate dead again (adding another 24 hours?). Skully and I stay up until Midnight, then call it a night, Skully tucking me into bed. Then next morning I finish my long rest at 8:00AM, January 2. Today is moving day, so Skully and I pack up our stuff and start moving to a new area, we spend the day marching, singing, and sharing stories (as much as a skeleton can do so). After a long day of travel we find a cave to lay down our head in, I tell Skully to guard the entrance to the cave as I unpack and make it habitable. By 10:01PM, January 2 I have finished making the cave into a home and go out to meet Skully. What happens?
I interpret it in one of two ways, either Skully is happy to see me, or Skully wants to wear me like a coat. I think Skully would be happy to see me, this is because the spells says "for another 24 hours." I cast the spell to animate Skully at 10:00AM, so Skully will be friendly until 10:00AM the next day, before the current 24 hour period ends I cast it again which should add another 24 hours. Since the first 24 hour period started at 10:00AM, January 1 it should last until 10:00AM January 2, the next 24 hours should make it last until 10:00AM, January 3 and if I were to keep casting, it would continue adding 24 periods for the following 10:00AMs. If I were to casting Animate Dead 14 times within 7 days, should be able to take almost 7 days off before worrying about my friend wanting to skewer me. If this were not the case, the second casting of animate dead would only add another 12 hours. If I were to cast Animate Dead 2 times in a row would the first casting add 24 hours, and the second casting only add another minute?
In short, when casting Animate Dead do I need to carry around a stopwatch, lest my spell does next to nothing, or should I carry around a calendar?
Hmm, put another way... can you cast it three times in one day to create a 72-hour duration, then forget about it for a few?
The way I’ve always read it is as creating a new “24-hour period” starting the minute you cast it, not loading more credits onto a combined X-hour period. The lack of any other spells with a duration that works that way is one good indication of the RAI, as is the complication of bookkeeping that you cast it 18 times back during that 4 days of downtime in Waterdeep, but now you’ve been on the road for 6...
Keeping Animate Dead prepared is usually seen as one of the “costs” of Undead minions. I could be persuaded to play it your way, but it’s certainly a buff to the caster to have that spell freed up.
I’d agree with chicken. Casting it resets the clock. I read it as you maintain control for 24 hours from the last time you cast it. Less bookkeeping, which is the general flavor of this edition.
If your interpretation is correct, doesn't that create more bookkeeping since you need to keep track of what time you casted the spell last? "Did I cast that in the morning or evening last night?" "Oh, I was knocked unconscious and missed my window to cast it." "We had a forced march and are having our long rest later than normal, have my friends turned on me?" Guess you could just go with the method of "Did you mark off your spell slot for today?"
Agreed, something that keyed off of the end of a long rest would have been nice, instead of hours.... but I can't quite figure out a way to phrase "the end of the long rest after this coming long rest" to be functional :p
Ultimately, the slow creep of having to cast Animate Dead one second+ earlier every 24 hours is annoying, but the penalty for slipping up is... usually just kill your Skeleton or Zombie, and then re-Animate it in the morning if you still want it. Now, that doesn't work if you've been using it to accumulate and maintain 4 skeletons per 3rd level spell slot, since you can only raise one per 3rd level spell slot... but if you're leaning into optimizing a large group of permanent undead companions, then opening up the need to be cognizant of the logistical nightmare of maintaining that crew starts to become less "gotcha" and more "core gameplay experience of your class."
More bookkeeping than tracking how many times you have cast it recently vs. how many days have passed? Seems to me its easier to just do it once a day. I'd imagine most DMs would just let you, as chicken said, tick off the box once/day that you remembered to cast the spell, rather than actually worrying about the precise timing of it. Unless it becomes relevant, like you did some upcasting and burned all your slots of the appropriate level that day or something.
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I was reading through the animate dead spell and was wondering as to how long you may maintain control over the undead at a time? The spell reads:
"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." (emphasis mine)
Let's say I have a 5th level cleric with 2 spell slots of level 3, I stumble across a skeleton and cast animate dead to animate it into a companion named Skully, the current time is 10:00AM, January 1. Skully and I spend the day together, we frolic through the flowers together, recreate Thriller together, make a treehouse together, etc. I grow rather fond of Skully and don't want it turning against me so at 10:00PM, January 1 I use my remaining 3rd level spell slot to cast animate dead again (adding another 24 hours?). Skully and I stay up until Midnight, then call it a night, Skully tucking me into bed. Then next morning I finish my long rest at 8:00AM, January 2. Today is moving day, so Skully and I pack up our stuff and start moving to a new area, we spend the day marching, singing, and sharing stories (as much as a skeleton can do so). After a long day of travel we find a cave to lay down our head in, I tell Skully to guard the entrance to the cave as I unpack and make it habitable. By 10:01PM, January 2 I have finished making the cave into a home and go out to meet Skully. What happens?
I interpret it in one of two ways, either Skully is happy to see me, or Skully wants to wear me like a coat. I think Skully would be happy to see me, this is because the spells says "for another 24 hours." I cast the spell to animate Skully at 10:00AM, so Skully will be friendly until 10:00AM the next day, before the current 24 hour period ends I cast it again which should add another 24 hours. Since the first 24 hour period started at 10:00AM, January 1 it should last until 10:00AM January 2, the next 24 hours should make it last until 10:00AM, January 3 and if I were to keep casting, it would continue adding 24 periods for the following 10:00AMs. If I were to casting Animate Dead 14 times within 7 days, should be able to take almost 7 days off before worrying about my friend wanting to skewer me. If this were not the case, the second casting of animate dead would only add another 12 hours. If I were to cast Animate Dead 2 times in a row would the first casting add 24 hours, and the second casting only add another minute?
In short, when casting Animate Dead do I need to carry around a stopwatch, lest my spell does next to nothing, or should I carry around a calendar?
Hmm, put another way... can you cast it three times in one day to create a 72-hour duration, then forget about it for a few?
The way I’ve always read it is as creating a new “24-hour period” starting the minute you cast it, not loading more credits onto a combined X-hour period. The lack of any other spells with a duration that works that way is one good indication of the RAI, as is the complication of bookkeeping that you cast it 18 times back during that 4 days of downtime in Waterdeep, but now you’ve been on the road for 6...
Keeping Animate Dead prepared is usually seen as one of the “costs” of Undead minions. I could be persuaded to play it your way, but it’s certainly a buff to the caster to have that spell freed up.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I’d agree with chicken. Casting it resets the clock. I read it as you maintain control for 24 hours from the last time you cast it. Less bookkeeping, which is the general flavor of this edition.
If your interpretation is correct, doesn't that create more bookkeeping since you need to keep track of what time you casted the spell last? "Did I cast that in the morning or evening last night?" "Oh, I was knocked unconscious and missed my window to cast it." "We had a forced march and are having our long rest later than normal, have my friends turned on me?" Guess you could just go with the method of "Did you mark off your spell slot for today?"
Agreed, something that keyed off of the end of a long rest would have been nice, instead of hours.... but I can't quite figure out a way to phrase "the end of the long rest after this coming long rest" to be functional :p
Ultimately, the slow creep of having to cast Animate Dead one second+ earlier every 24 hours is annoying, but the penalty for slipping up is... usually just kill your Skeleton or Zombie, and then re-Animate it in the morning if you still want it. Now, that doesn't work if you've been using it to accumulate and maintain 4 skeletons per 3rd level spell slot, since you can only raise one per 3rd level spell slot... but if you're leaning into optimizing a large group of permanent undead companions, then opening up the need to be cognizant of the logistical nightmare of maintaining that crew starts to become less "gotcha" and more "core gameplay experience of your class."
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
More bookkeeping than tracking how many times you have cast it recently vs. how many days have passed? Seems to me its easier to just do it once a day. I'd imagine most DMs would just let you, as chicken said, tick off the box once/day that you remembered to cast the spell, rather than actually worrying about the precise timing of it. Unless it becomes relevant, like you did some upcasting and burned all your slots of the appropriate level that day or something.