What commands are available to undead raised from Animate Dead


Rules Questions

The Exchange

I am GM'ing a game and one of my players is using animate dead. From the spell it, "The undead can be made to follow you, or they can be made to remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place."

He interprets it as he can give simple commands and it will follow them, like, "attack the man in red", "stay", "attack whoever opens this door", "kill anybody in this area that you do not recognize." or "attack anyone who isn't an ally"

Should the mindless undead created by the spell be able to follow commands other than "follow me", "Attack" (triggering them to attack nearest living creature, necromancer excluded), "Attack the humanoid" (triggering them to attack nearest living humanoid)


I would allow "attack the man in red," "stay," and "attack whoever opens this door" but not "recognize" or "who isn't an ally" (those involve remembering faces, which I think is a bit much). But I don't think it's spelled out in much detail anywhere.


Think of telling the commands to a computer. If you think a computer would understand the command it should probably work.

So "attack that guy (in the red shirt)" works fine as does "attack anyone but me who opens that door". But it wouldn't understand the concept of "recognizing" individuals, though the necromancer could specifically point to people and tell the creature to not attack them. Again, "ally" is like "recognize". It wouldn't know what to do with that and doesn't "know" who allies are. You could tell it attack anyone who doesn't say a specific password.

Specific commands work fine. General commands that require one to extrapolate from ideas don't.


I've always treated them as simple programming. They can be made to do intricate complex tasks, however the instructions must be exact, otherwise they will fail to act, overact, etc, as befits their programming. Simple, direct instructions are the best, and a number of simple, direct instructions can be used to create more complex behaviors.

Attempt to trip any living creature that enters the room, then kill them.

That string should yeild the correct results of the undead making one trip attempt and then, regardless of success, they will attack until the entering creature dies. Living creatures already in the room will be safe, however no instruction was given to stop the undead from hunting down amd killing creatures which enter and then leave.

The Exchange

Thanks for the responses. Are there any rules that state that it's like a computer program or is that just how you handle it? I've seen that stated a few times but haven't seen any raw that backs that up


Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:
I would allow "attack the man in red," "stay," and "attack whoever opens this door" but not "recognize" or "who isn't an ally" (those involve remembering faces, which I think is a bit much). But I don't think it's spelled out in much detail anywhere.

For years, our group has used "attack anyone not wearing this particular uniform" (or alternatively, "attack anyone wearing this particular uniform") as a method of distinguishing friend from foe. Yes, this means that anyone who a) knows the command, b) has access to illusion magic or a stash of guard uniforms, and c) can make a DC 0 disguise check can probably get past my Zombie Minions. But, then, they are only zombie minions, after all.

Mindless creatures are commonly described as "automatons" [sic], as in "While most skeletons are mindless automatons, they still possess an evil cunning imparted to them by their animating force—a cunning that allows them to wield weapons and wear armor."

This, to me, together with their ability to follow simple commands, suggests that that they are programmed (after a fashion), but I'd not actually push the computer program metaphor too hard. After all, Google is just a computer program, too -- and I think your average skeleton is a lot stupider than Google. My rule of thumb is that they will follow a few (three or so, or fewer) simple declarative sentences as long as they are capable of doing so. "Attack anyone who isn't wearing a red hat" is fine; "attack anyone who is sixth level or lower" is not, since skeletons have no way to perceive levels. "Sing all of the songs from The Mikado" is probably too complex.

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