I think the text from the Command Undead spell is a good guideline.
A nonintelligent undead creature gets no saving throw against this spell. When you control a mindless being, you can communicate only basic commands, such as “come here,” “go there,” “fight,” “stand still,” and so on. Nonintelligent undead won't resist suicidal or obviously harmful orders.
Mindless creatures are not capable of abstract thought. This means that they cannot count or use any kind of measurements. You can tell them to walk to the tree, but not walk ten feet ahead.
The best way to think about deal with it is if you could write it in a computer program without the use of numbers, or abstract concepts the command should work. Also if you give the creature a command it does not understand than it will not do anything.
Wait here and attack anything except me that comes into the room works.
Wait here for 1 day and then kill anything except me that comes into the room does not. In this case the creature will do nothing because it does not understand numbers and does not know what a day is.
Undead and constructs can probably be given more complex instructions because they are a blank slate. Vermin and other living things still have some instincts and also needs that they have to take care of. An insect still has to eat and drink or it dies.
You cannot tell a mindless creature to just build a house. You would need to give it specific instructions each time. For example if you want to have the skeleton build a house you would have to tell him where each board goes. Also since they have no skills it would be extremely crude and may collapse. It would probably take more time and effort this way than it is worth.
What mindless creature are good at is simple hard labor. Moving heavy objects, harvesting crops, etc..
Unless the creature can understand a language you cannot transfer control. Many spell that control or create mindless creatures have this built in
Vermin - I think vermin would behave rather like trained animals, only dumber. If you could train an animal to do something in real life you could probably command a vermin to do it in the game. Counting steps wouldn't be an option.
Constructs and Undead - While the game refers to many of these creatures as "mindless" they clearly have the capacity to understand language. It seems like they can also recognize creatures and object they've been shown such as their master and his allies. This is odd since it would seem to indicate that they have some form of memory. I guess even if they do they can't draw their own conclusions or make their own decisions based on it though.
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Generally mindless creatures can follow very simple instructions. They can even recognize colors, but they can not come up with waves to solve problems. They do exactly as they are told, much like a computer program does.
If you are present with the minions you can probably accomplish some pretty complex tasks by giving multiple successive orders. If you're out of sight a mindless minion will just keep following your last set of orders.
For this purpose I'd say that a set of orders for a mindless minion should be something you could reasonably command in a single sentence. I guess it comes down to a judgement call by the DM. I'd expect that complicated orders might suffer from some of the same risks as greedy Wishes.
Vermin are still living creatures so have a limit to how much they can remember. Vermin also have some basic instincts and limited awareness. If you give them unclear orders they will simply ignore them and do what they normally would. Even if they understand your orders they will still do what is necessary for survival like eating.
Constructs and undead are different, they have no sentience. They have no awareness and nothing to interfere with the commands they are given. This means that they can actually have more complicated instructions, but are subject to endless loops and other logic traps. You have to be very precise in your instruction and any unclear instructions can lead to them doing nothing at best, or disaster.
For example if you tell the group of golems to destroy anything that moves they may attack each other. Also they will follow orders in the exact order they are given. You also need to spell out any exceptions with each order. If you tell them to guard the door and attack anyone who come into the room they will attack you. You would need to order them to guard the door and attack anyone except me who comes into the room.
The instructions can be quite long and complex, but everything needs to be explicitly spelled out. If any order cannot be carried out or does not have an escape clause they do nothing. You also need to spell out if and when they are to resume the actions. Once they have completed your order they don’t do anything so you need to encapsulate the order in a loop.
1.) Stay in the room (Keeps them in the room).
2.) If I come into the room follow any orders I give (Allows you access to the room, and allows you to issue new orders not to attack someone).
3.) If anything except me comes into the room destroy it (Used anything and destroy in case another construct or undead enters).
4.) After dealing with the thing coming into the room start over until I order otherwise (Has them go back to guarding the room, but allows you to order them to do something else).
If you had swapped 2 and 3 then they would attack anything except you that comes into the room. You would not have been able to give counter orders as they would be following your previous orders. You could keep adding steps as long as you want, but the orders are processed in descending order so a higher order may prevent a lower order from being processed. You can also use nested if statements but any logic traps will cause a breakdown.
Undead have no limit to the number of commands that can "remember" but their comprehension level is extremely limited.
If you spent an awful lot of time stacking very simple commands you could "program" an undead to perform complex tasks. The problem is, you would have to do it individually for each undead. The time commitment wouldn't be worth it.
Mindless creatures are not capable of abstract thought. This means that they cannot count or use any kind of measurements. You can tell them to walk to the tree, but not walk ten feet ahead.
The best way to think about deal with it is if you could write it in a computer program without the use of numbers, or abstract concepts the command should work. Also if you give the creature a command it does not understand than it will not do anything.
Wait here and attack anything except me that comes into the room works.
Wait here for 1 day and then kill anything except me that comes into the room does not. In this case the creature will do nothing because it does not understand numbers and does not know what a day is.
I like this analogy, but in the case of a living creature, I think you could rephrase the "for 1 day" condition in terms of a "trigger" that the creature understands. "Until you sleep" will get approximately one day, and "until you get hungry" will probably get you several hours. You could also leave it a day's worth of food or water and use "until the food/water is gone." (For constructs or undead, of course, this wouldn't work.)
Generally, I would approach the question of "what does a creature understand" in terms of "if the creature didn't understand Y, could it survive?" So for the concept of "bigger", it's fair to say that a creature that doesn't understand the concept of relative size would pick fights it can't win or possibly get stuck in places. In other words, natural selection would favor those creatures who "got" the concept of "this thing is bigger than that thing/than me", etc.
I thought I saw somewhere that controlled skeletons can crew a ship. Not just from the skeleton crew spell but the stock ones. If this is the case they can help build a building. If not they can not.
Can a skeleton use tools? Construct?
Fighting fairly complex. One could argue that if they can do that they can do other task of equal complexity. Building a house under direct supervision is not more complex then fighting.
Rule of cool, I expect. Plus the skeleton-crewed ship is a staple of ghost stories all round the world, e.g. The Flying Dutchman, sightings of which seem quite consistent.
The skeletons crewing a ship is from the Skeleton Crew spell.
1.) Stay in the room
2.) If I come into the room follow any orders I give
3.) If anything except me comes into the room destroy it
4.) After dealing with the thing coming into the room start over until I order otherwiseAlso remember that there is going to be a lot of YMMV and DM discretion with this. Following Mysterious Stranger's orders could very well lead to the Golems allowing you to enter the room, then recognizing that your gear is not you and attempting to sunder it all into dust.
I would treat commands to mindless creatures like wishes, if you trust that your DM is going to let you do what you want, go nuts. But if the DM doesn't want it to go through then there are a million ways for him to make it fail.
May need to rephrase 2 to if I come into the room follow any orders I give, otherwise ignore me and anything I am carrying. This was just a quick example but I think it is still a valid idea. I would not require that my players actually write out their instructions, just that they give clear instructions that are not beyond the limitations of the being in question.
For the most part I assume that the person commanding the mindless is aware of what he needs to do. If the character giving the commands is an idiot that is another story, and the GM should play that out. Just to be clear I am referring to the actual character not the player. That is another reason not to dump mental stats. If you are playing an oracle of bones with an INT and WIS of 7 than except some of your orders are going to be misunderstood.
Herd dogs in real life convert to Int. 2 in Pathfinder. I've seen them solve problems in real life on their own initiative. They can certainly count and a have an understanding of distances.
My interpretation:
"Can we order them to walk ten miles then stop?" No.
"Can we order them to go to landmark?" If it's known or seen, yes.
"Can order them to walk 10K steps? 3 steps?" Somewhere in between- that's a tough one.
"Walk to the tree? The big tree?" Certainly.
"Walk to x then then turn right and proceed to Y." Again if seen or known, then yes. But that is pushing it I think.
I think the order:
-track thing Y, alert me as best you can when you get close, and don't kill it.
I'm making a big assumption you can talk, or the equivalent, to it.
Herd dogs in real life convert to Int. 2 in Pathfinder. I've seen them solve problems in real life on their own initiative. They can certainly count and a have an understanding of distances.
My interpretation:
"Can we order them to walk ten miles then stop?" No.
"Can we order them to go to landmark?" If it's known or seen, yes.
"Can order them to walk 10K steps? 3 steps?" Somewhere in between- that's a tough one.
"Walk to the tree? The big tree?" Certainly.
"Walk to x then then turn right and proceed to Y." Again if seen or known, then yes. But that is pushing it I think.I think the order:
-track thing Y, alert me as best you can when you get close, and don't kill it.I'm making a big assumption you can talk, or the equivalent, to it.
The question is not can something with an animal intelligence do these things, but can a mindless creature like vermin or constructs do them. If we are dealing with animals that is a completely different question.