Animate Dead (5.5e Patch)

You reanimate the bones or corpse of a creature of CR 3 or lower, transforming it into your Undead Thrall. Until destroyed, your Thrall uses the rules below:

Undead Bond. While an Undead Thrall is under your control, you cannot regain the spell slot you spent to create it. However, when you finish a Long Rest, you can end your control over a Thrall to regain the spell slot. If you do so, that Thrall is freed and is hostile to all living things, but against you in particular.

Statistics. The Undead Thrall uses the same stat block as it had in life but with the following changes:

• Its creature type becomes Undead.
• It has half of its Hit Points maximum.
• It uses your spellcasting ability for attack and damage rolls.
• It has Immunity to the Exhaustion condition.
• If it can cast spells, you can command it to do so, but it uses your spell slots to fuel its spellcasting, even if it would normally be able to cast without spell slots.
• If commanded to attack, it makes a number of attacks equal to half of this spell's level, rounded down.

Undead Thralls cannot benefit from Short or Long Rests or regain Hit Points, and if destroyed, cannot be raised as an Undead Thrall again.

Control. So long as it is under your control, an Undead Thrall is an ally to you and your allies. In combat, it shares your Initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. On each of your turns, you can take a Bonus Action to mentally command any creature you made with this spell if the creature is within 60 feet of you (if you control multiple Undead Thralls, you can command any of them at the same time, issuing the same command to each one). You decide what action the Undead Thrall will take and where it will move on its next turn, or you can issue a general command, such as to guard a chamber or corridor. If you issue no commands, the Thrall takes the Dodge action and moves only to avoid harm. Once given an order, the Thrall continues to follow it until its task is complete.

Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot. The CR of the creatures you can raise as Undead Thralls increases by 1 for each spell slot level above 3.