Talk:Awaken Undead (5e Spell)

Quality Article Nomination

This article is a current quality article nominee as of 15:00, 7 January 2022 (MST). Quality articles exemplify D&D Wiki's very best work, and therefore must meet the quality article criteria. Please discuss the page's merits below.

• Support — This spell provides another way to go about creating sentient creatures and really is the counterpart to the awaken spell as this spell targets a different type of creature and can be used by all the full spellcasting classes who can't use the awaken spell. The idea of making sentient undead is so flavorful and I love how this spell takes what DMs could do in their campaign by DM fiat and actually provides rules for implementing how sentient undead are created. --Blobby383b (talk) 15:00, 7 January 2022 (MST)
• Support — Very useful and fun, as stated. Would only have to ask: does this spell consume only the soul or the gem as well? --Malachai (talk)
• Support — It's good, it fits in with the Awakened spell but is also tellingly different. Dubiously loyal undead companions are a fun idea. The cost makes it not too overpowered, even if it only takes one hour (which means they can be pumped out in downtime).

I think there's some parts of the spell that should be changed. It should work on corpses (it would make the "if the creature has no intelligence score" line make sense). Additionally, it raising the target's social scores feels out of line with what the spell is going for. It's useful to know you're not raising idiots, but I think it's more entertaining (and in-line with common stereotypes) to let the creature keep its original (low) ability scores. Additionally, flavor has some holes in it. How does a spell perform surgery on a creature? Why does the spell create a new soul using an old one? Wouldn't it work just as well to put the soul in the undead? It should be reworded slightly. And it should be clearer whether the whole gem or just the soul is consumed. Lastly it should contain the line about your GM choosing the new creature's stat block, as with awaken. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by vladulenta (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts.

So basically, the semi-hidden flavor here is that you're literally powering up this undead with a gem that has somebody's soul in it (hence the visceral surgery + 1 hour casting time), and by the power of hooky "It just says so" magic you literally create a new person. Not just a minion, but a being with sentience. It being charmed for a week is simply the spell's doing, just as awaken does to your new beast/plant boi. Specifying "or no intelligence" score is a safety hedging against DMs that might have puppeteered Undead that just don't have an intelligence score for unfathomable reasons.

I do agree it should specify that the DM chooses the statistics, and will add that shortly. Endermage77 (talk) 07:43, 14 August 2022 (MDT)

Awaken also creates beings with sentience (or just makes them smarter) and doesn't give them 10's in charisma or wisdom, so I don't see the difference. As for visceral surgery, I got no idea what it means, what is the spellcaster doing surgery with? Is it a magical surgery? You'd think so, but it's a "visceral" surgery, it's confusing. Also, if the spell is not meant to work on bodies or remains, the "or no intelligence score" line can be removed, it's only there on awaken because awaken works on common plants, which aren't creatures, and do not have stat blocks. A creature without ability scores is "illegal", so it's an unneeded if. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by vladulenta (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts.

I agree that the raising of charisma and wisdom felt off compared to Awaken. I am also in favor of the idea of letting it target corpses so you can theoretically use this as an alternative to Animate Dead. Suitable targets for Awaken are very accessible, but this spell just about requires you to also use Animate Dead to make it work. As for the wording, I don't have a problem with it; I imagine "visceral surgery" to represent some gruesome process of stuffing the gem inside and using magic to bind it to flesh, which would be hard not to call "visceral." --Malachai (talk) 14:20, 14 August 2022 (MDT)

• Comment — Dare I ask where characters are expected to obtain the material component for this spell? Precious gems are relatively common, enough so that adventurers (or villains) could certainly get their hands on them. But you can't exactly go up to an everyday jeweler and ask them where the gems with human souls in them are. I'd also like to echo an earlier question, as to why this spell creates a brand new soul rather than binding the existing soul-- which you already have at hand and consume in the casting-- to the undead. --Kappatechy (talk) 22:48, 16 February 2023 (MST)

You can be evil and do glyph of warding using magic jar and then glyph again using this spell to create an undead. Besides that, a DM could also give out gems containing souls (from necromancers, random loot, ect.). Finally, you are probably right in that the spell should bind the existing soul to the undead. --Blobby383b (talk) 13:51, 14 January 2024 (MST)

• Comment — The wording could be wrongly interpreted, I would change the usage from an undead to a corpse (if this is intend to be used from a corpse to change to the "awakened Undead"), or the usage should be for a willing Undead (or touch). It's vague. --Green Dragon (talk) 10:38, 16 January 2024 (MST)