this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2025
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In my campaigns, Mystra does not take kindly to pedants or loophole researchers. A spell does what Mystra allows it to do, and you cast what Mystra allows you to cast
Mfs gotta remember that magic is a person, and that person can get annoyed
That’s a weird way of saying that she does not like Wizards. Because if you study something enough, you are bound to find loopholes.
And then you'll figure out how to cast a 12th level spell to steal the power of a god. Mystra learned her lesson the hard way.
But if you want to play RAW, go ahead. Oh, you died and you want to be brought back to life? Sorry, the spell targets a "creature that died in the last minute", and now that you're dead, you're an object.
I mean that outlook, while it's cool for your campaign, it would make raising the dead (to fight for you) pretty difficult as I thought most animate dead type spells required a dead creature to animate and wouldnt work with an object, otherwise people would just make small effigies to animate instead of summoning the dead in battle.
Animate Dead targets a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small Humanoid. Create Undead targets corpses of Medium or Small Humanoids. Danse Macabre targets Small or Medium corpses. And you could technically use Animate Object, which targets objects, or True Polymorph, which can target either. Finger of Death and Negative Energy Flood both target a creature, but they just bring back the target as undead if the attack kills them.
But if you really get into it, the game has way too many assumptions to be played RAW. There's no rule that you can't walk through walls. There's no rule that when you're reduced to zero hitpoints you become an object or get transported to an afterlife dimension or otherwise can't take actions (assuming you die instantly and don't become Unconscious). Some weapons require two hands, and nobody can use them because none of the races are described as having hands. Thri-kreen have four arms, but no mention of hands at the end of them. You also need one hand to wield one-handed weapons, but this doesn't come up because no weapons are described as one-handed. And sometimes the rules contradict. There's a rule that in the case of a contradiction, the more specific rule applies, but that just adds yet another contradicting rule.