Another old shitpost I don’t think I posted anywhere.

  • tacosanonymous@mander.xyz
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    4 days ago

    Is there a requirement that there needs to be 13 skeletons readily available? Also, does it work on fossilized remains?

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      As a DM, my answer would be yes because it says animate not will into existence and yes because fossilized skeletons would look awesome.

      • Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 days ago

        And also because Animate Dead, the spell the blurb in the meme is from, reads:

        Choose a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid within range. Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature. The target becomes a skeleton if you chose bones or a zombie if you chose a corpse (the DM has the creature’s game statistics).

        • neoman4426@fedia.io
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          3 days ago

          Interestingly, as written the pile of bones can be any pile of bones, since the Humanoid restriction parses to only being applied to the corpse section, confirmed in the Sage Advice Compendium for 5e (the wording of the spell has not been substantially changed in 5.5 for that part, only changing what the group does when you don’t issue a command. Though I don’t think that’s included in 5.5’s SAC so far). So if you have enough, like, chicken bones to arrange into the size for the skeleton statblock, that RAW works.

          • Frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            3 days ago

            If I was DM’ing, I might let you reanimate a pile of chicken bones, but you get a chicken skeleton with a chicken stat block.

            • snooggums@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              If I animate a wolf skeleton does it get a wolf statblock?

              A version that can animate up to specific sizes and CRs when cast at a high enough level would be pretty neat.

              • Frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                3 days ago

                I’d say sure. It’s not like the wolf statblock is crazy different from regular skeleton stats; it wouldn’t be game breaking or anything.

                RAW on Animated Dead doesn’t strictly limit the size of the creature when it’s a pile of bones, but I think keeping it to small/medium creatures is reasonable.

                • snooggums@lemmy.world
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                  3 days ago

                  D&D 5e does, not sure about other editions or other game systems off the top of my head.

                  Choose a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small Humanoid within range.

                  • Frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                    3 days ago

                    Well, that depends on how you group the statements.

                    Choose (a pile of bones) or (a corpse of a Medium or Small Humanoid) within range.

                    OR

                    Choose (a pile of bones) or (a corpse) of a Medium or Small Humanoid within range.

                    Though I suppose also:

                    Choose (a pile of bones) or (a corpse of a Medium or Small Humanoid within range).

                    Which would mean the bones version has unlimited range.

                    Yes, I am a programmer, why do you ask?

        • Naz@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          I loved casting clay or Earth golem as a melee warrior

          Nothing like beating the shit out of demons with the paving stones tanking hits

        • snooggums@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          I always saw those as something you made first and then animated, something that involved days to sculpt/construct.

    • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 days ago

      Always bring a cart full of bones with you everywhere you go. You will certainly not regret having a cart full of bones.

      • nathanjent@programming.dev
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        3 days ago

        Why cart around a bunch of old bones when so many fresh sacks of bones willingly approach you? Some of them even follow beside you on your quests.