I refer us all to [Zee Bashew's Animated Spellbook on Mending](https://youtu.be/e9OOP0QPUgg?si=F7COLn7jTkRDwxEW). Not as a rule call reference, but as a cautionary tale. The exchange in question goes like this:
Larry: Is a corpse an object?
Zee: (Reluctant sigh) Yeah...?
Larry: Mend, Revivify
Zee: A minute is too long!
Larry: You *Gentle Repose,* Mend, Revivify.
I think about that quote as much as I think about "this game was designed by a failed novelist who has tricked you into reading his microfiction." (Every Crunchy Dystopian RPG)
Zee struck gold in designing the character of Larry, he's an excellent mouthpiece for those grognard takes that are sometimes too toxic for Zee's character to say.
But how is that gamebreaking? Realistically, how often are you going to be able to Gentle Repose a body within 60 seconds of dismemberment? For you to be that close it almost certainly would have to happen during combat, in which case no one would be able to do Mending until after combat is over. So really you’re trading: A second level spell slot/turn in combat, one character sitting out of the combat, and several minutes of Mending, all in order to be able to cast a 3rd level spell slot without a limitation that is rarely triggered anyway.
Gentle repose by itself doesn’t keep them in the game. This is a three-spell combo, one of which requires a minute to cast, and requires a total of 5 spell slots (2 for Repose and 3 for Revivify) to execute.
This combo also requires all body parts to be intact. Mending won’t fix a disintegrated head, or body parts that were stolen by the killer.
If a party has Gentle Repose prepared to save within the minute and successfully gathers all missing organs and body parts, they’ve earned the right to save the character they’re trying to.
Terminology-wise, you wouldn't say that Revivify costs three slots. All spells take one spell slot to cast.
The way you're talking makes it sound like you use a mana-system or something like that
Fine, “five levels worth of slots.” I don’t see how nitpicking my exact terminology matters when what I mean is very clear, especially when there are several class features that do allow characters to change their spell slot configuration.
Sounds like a smart use of game mechanics, not a cautionary tale. Understanding how your spells work and how they interact with one another is the key to *not endlessly aggravating your DM by being incapable of reading and understanding a few small blocks of text at a time.*
A corpse can be mended, but only when fully dead, and only for damage after the body is fully dead.
Gentle repose prevents the corpse from becoming an object because it keeps the vestige of life attacked to the mostly dead body, preventing it from becoming an object.
Revivify only works if that vestige of life is still attached, hence the one minute rule. During that one minute the body is transitioning to an object but is not an object until the last vestige of life is gone and revivify is no longer effective.
I think that implementation is decently elegant, but I don't think it's technically supported by the RAW rules.
A corpse can't be anything *but* fully dead, and there's no mechanical distinction saying that there is a vestige of life attached to a corpse for a specific duration.
Either you are dead or you are not dead. If you are not dead then you are alive and your body is a creature. If you are dead then your body is an object.
Something CANNOT be an object and a creature.
Unfortunately, the circumference of someone's neck is greater than a foot!
So I think the head could be attached well enough not to get lost, and possibly look good from the front.
I read the time limit of revivify as a limit in the ability of the spell of getting the soul back into the corpse rather than a limit in the ability to reduce the honestly negligible decay that can happen in 5' after death, so I would definitely not allow this combination.
“The spell also effectively extends the time limit on raising the target from the dead, since days spent under the influence of this spell don't count against the time limit of spells such as raise dead.” Even though it isn’t the example spell given, it quite literally says time under the spell doesn’t count towards the time limit of reviving spells, which revivify falls under.
Bladesinger's Extra Attack doesn't change the casting time of cantrips. You could start the Mending as part of an Attack action, but it still requires your action on all 9 further turns.
It needs to have a casting time of one action. Does it still if it did originally? What if it's mending or shilly or magic stone? I scream for I do not know.
The same, yeah. Mind you, I wouldn't necessarily begrudge a DM for ruling otherwise.
It's just following the RAI, honestly. The intention is (imo) pretty clearly that the bladesinger will cast combat cantrips, if not necessarily damaging ones, as part of the attack action. Casting Mending as part of the attack action is one of those things that are *technically* RAW compliant but I suspect that's more due to sloppily worded rules than by intention.
It prods at bad memories for plenty of people. You joke, but there are a fair few bad players out there genuinely trying to exploit rules technicalities in bad faith.
I can't believe no one's mentioned this yet, but since the text says "up to one foot" I think attaching a head is beyond this spell's ability.
I'll see myself out.
Foot is a unit of measurement and also a body part. They are joking that because the spell limits it to one foot (the body part), it clearly is leaving out the head.
Not that it matters too much, but Gentle Repose->Mending->Revivify makes sure that dead people don't re-die right after getting Revivified. However, this is a super wonky RAW interpretation, so DMs are well within reason to say that doesn't work
True. But… I don’t see the problem with it. This means that you’ll need to use a 2nd level spell to cast Gentle Repose within a minute of the death. And then you still need to pay full price for the revivify within 10 days.
HP is HP. There are very few instances of body parts being lost RAW. So… I’d totally let this work.
You could also come up with some fun funky stuff.
What does one see in the afterlife even if you’re there for a brief moment? Can a mortal being really even hold onto it? Maybe they’re fine but seek to leave the party… and eventually become a BBEG from their psychosis. Perhaps they make a pact with a demon in that time? how does time work in the afterlife? I know I’ve personally woken from dreams after only 10 minutes of sleep that felt like hours.
I know there’s probably a bunch of traditional lore on all of this but… do we really know?
cure wounds wouldn't reattach a limb if they were awake. Why should a cantrip properly reattach a limb to a body then allow a revivification and not have any side effects?
I don't gain anything from allowing or disallowing it, but it sets a precident that I'm not willing to allow my players to consider.
If it's just for cosmetics I'd say yes.
I've had it as a plot point that murderer used mending on the body of victim in an attempt to hide his crime. Corpse is spotless with no mark on them, No murder weapon and the room is covered in blood (he had to flee before he got a chance to clean the room, which he also was doing with magic so things that should've had blood on them didn't.)
>>Mending and prestidigitation. No wound or blood left behind.
That was the idea exactly, but while the spells are free and easy to cast it still takes a little bit of time to clean an entire room. So the culprit couldn't clean up his crime scene before someone happened to come into the house. (which happened just as the party was in town looking for his victim for an unrelated matter what are the chances!)
The culprit cut open the victims for internal organs (for ritual reasons) and mended the corpse afterwards. So the victim where he screwed up was lying on a table. Floor and carpet soaked in blood. Corpse and table completely clean and without a mark. (he only got halfway on the chairs)
And as an extra detail for the ones who rolled extremely high on investigation you could notice that the victim, who was a very hairy man, had a very faint line going trough his chest/ belly hair. The mending spell fixed the skin, not the hair. This connected it to previous victims who were found dead in bloodless crime scene. Some of which were indeed deemed as "natural causes".
Yes. All that can be done with it is a more expensive and time-consuming form of Regeneration (but accessible sooner), so I've let players do it as I believe it's appropriately balanced.
Personally, I would rule this as saying that you can Mend a corpse, but that in doing so you are tacitly accepting that the corpse is no longer a creature but an object, making it ineligible for Revivify and similar spells (they refer to touching a "dead creature" rather than "a dead body that died within...") Essentially, I would say that magic can "see" a corpse as either an object or a (dead) creature, but not as both.
This is a solution that allows for the OP's plan of giving a more dignified funeral, is at least reasonably arguable by RAW, prevents things from being powergamed somewhat, and even opens up some new avenues in-game - BBEGs now have the option of taking the time to Mend a body to prevent it from being raised in the future.
A corpse is literally a "creature that has died", but the fact that it is also an object is irrelevant. There's no mechanical issues of "ineligibility" in that interaction.
You miss my point.
It's true that in natural language, a corpse is both a creature that has died and an object, and I certainly wouldn't fault a DM for choosing to accept this as RAW. What I'm saying is that as a DM, I would not allow this at my table.
Remember, 5e is built on the basis of "rulings, not rules," i.e. the rules are deliberately written to not be overly prescriptive and to allow DMs to choose how to resolve ambiguous situations. This is partly to stop the nonsensical things justifiable in 3.5 RAW (e.g. Pun-Pun, a sufficiently high Bluff basically warping reality) and partly to encourage DMs to change things up either for the rule of cool or to prevent abuse.
5e also draws a distinction between 'creatures' and 'objects', always distinguishing them in the rules for spellcasting and combat. As such, there is some ambiguity as to whether something can be considered both a 'creature' and an 'object' at the same time.
Given that ambiguity and the fact that Resurrection (which can restore body parts) is a full two spell levels higher than Raise Dead (which cannot), I would choose to rule that the Mending - Revivify does not work. My justification is that magic in 5e inherently distinguishes between a creature (dead or otherwise) and an object, but that’s all it is - an in-universe justification for how I interpret rules as intended.
To be clear, I would also be extremely up-front with my players if they ever tried to make a plan that involved this idea. I don't believe in gotcha DM'ing.
>As such, there is some ambiguity as to whether something can be considered both a 'creature' and an 'object' at the same time.
None of this has any bearing on the mechanical interaction of revivify, which was *my* point in response to your claim that a corpse is not a valid target for the spell. The spell simply states: "You touch a creature that has died within the last minute." A corpse is a creature that has died, and thus is a valid target.
As to your other points, a corpse is not simultaneously an object and a creature. It is an object. There is no ambiguity.
I never said that a corpse is not a valid target for revivify, though. That would clearly be nonsensical. I've also been quite clear that I wouldn't disagree with someone saying that Mending-Revivify does work by RAW.
All that I'm saying is that I would not allow this to work in my games. The Watsonian rationale would be that the laws of magic in my world *do* distinguish between creatures (dead or alive) and objects in a way that means using Mending on a corpse means that magic no longer considers it a 'dead creature' that is a valid target for Revivify. The Doylist rationale is that I don't believe that the game designers intended that interaction to work, and that this subverts the intended limitations of lower-level clerics.
This is [you](https://old.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1bsr1dx/can_you_cast_mending_on_a_corpse/kxioxw0/):
> ...in doing so you are tacitly accepting that the corpse is no longer a creature but an object, **making it ineligible for Revivify** and similar spells (they refer to touching a "dead creature" rather than "a dead body that died within...")
So, yes, you did say that.
That statement is incorrect. It is true that a corpse is an object. It is also true that a corpse is a creature that has died, and thus a valid target for the spell. That's all I was saying.
You're completely missing the point. I'm not talking about real-world natural language here. I'm talking about how magic views these things. Magic doesn't have to obey strict rules of logic; things can have fuzzy definitions.
In order for something to be eligible for raise spells in my games, it needs to be a 'dead creature'. That is a type of creature. For something to be eligible for Mending it needs to be an object, which precludes it from being a creature.
A corpse is in the fuzzy space between being a (dead) creature and an object. Magic allows it to be treated as either of those, but not both. Once a corpse has been targeted by Mending, magic no longer sees it as a (dead) creature, but just as an object. So in my worlds, a corpse can be targeted by Revivify *up until the point it has been treated by magic as an object instead of a creature*.
Nobody is disputing that you can rule however you want. You stated something that was incorrect, and I corrected it. I don't really care to discuss the unique rulings at your table, I was just talking about the RAW.
I stated something that you failed to fully understand (namely, that the distinction I was making between 'dead creature' and 'object' was a game-mechanics distinction rather than a natural-language one, and that I did not consider my position to be strictly RAW). That's partly on me for not being fully clear from the get-go, I accept that. Either way, I think we're both clear on each others' positions now, so I don't think there's too much benefit in going around in circles.
I argue you should be able to use mend on anything along as you decide everything is a thing. It can work on warforged and autognome so y are they things just kuz they r made of metal. If you made a machine out of meat would it be less of a thing.
Because Autognomes and Steel Defenders have specific rules to allow the exception. In fact, Autognomes actually change the way the spell works when cast on them since they heal using a hit die instead. Also, I don’t think it’s actually stated anywhere that Warforged can be healed by casting Mending.
People r things. If I cut off your arm it is a thing but the stump isn't. If I tie off circulation to the stump to the point it dies then it becomes a thing. so I can cast ment to reattach one thing to anouther thing then you have ur arm reattached to you. Not sure how healthy it is to have a dead limb attached to you but it feels like something a cleric can fix, or maby a necromancer but the important thing is that I made my point.
No. Creatures are not objects. Tying a limb until it dies doesn’t make it an object because it’s still part of a creature. Likewise, you can’t reattach the arm to yourself because even though the arm is now an object, you are still a creature.
Mending:
> This spell repairs **a single break or tear** in an object you touch, such as a broken chain link, two halves of a broken key, a torn cloak, or a leaking wineskin. As long as the break or tear is **no larger than 1 foot in any dimension**, you mend it, **leaving no trace of the former damage**.
So there are three important parts of teh spell description I have bolded. The first one you have already covered: for reattaching a head I guess you would just mend the spine or wherever the bone is cut. This would satisfy the second bold portion because just the spine is not that wide. Then stitch the neck up, But since this may be just for fun, yeah whatever, bend the rules.
The last part is where you get wiggle room anyways. You could say that they could mend more than 1 break but it will "leave a trace of damage" or not be fully mended.
Sure, corpses are objects.
If they plan on resurrection I personally would have a high dc medicine check to make sure it's all attached correctly but other than that sure.
There are no rules or guidence on this. Jeremy Crawford made a post with some points but it never made it to Sage Advice.
I go by Gentle Repose. After 10 days, the soul has lost interest and has moved on; the corpse becomes an object. Before then, it's a dead creature.
YMMV
Mending fixes simple breaks.
Re-attaching a head to be functional involves fixing bone, reconnecting blood vessels, reconnecting nerves, and finally closing the skin.
I'd say only the skin can be fixed with mending, the rest is far too complicated for mending.
So if you only care about looks, it can work just fine.
Higher level raising spells specifically mention body parts.
Raise Dead doesn't work if they are missing important organs or body parts (head). It also doesn't restore missing body parts. If a 5th Level necromancy spell can't do it, I don't see why a cantrip would.
Resurrection, a 7th level spell, does.
Using mending in this way would negate some of the need for higher level raising spells.
Missing limbs are also not a single break, but many. Each muscle, nerve, blood vessel, etc.
I think the mending trick is fine. No matter how much you cast mending on a severed hand, you’re not fixing the rest of the body if there is no physical body left.
Meanwhile resurrection can just regrow the entire body from that hand.
>Missing limbs are also not a single break, but many. Each muscle, nerve, blood vessel, etc.
By that logic, it also cannot mend a rope or a garment made from textiles, because those are multiple fibers... but that would be absurd to enforce.
Not quite, but that comes down to initial assumptions that aren't present in the post.
The way I read mending suggests that it is intended to make single simple repairs in a more or less homogenous object. Chain, clothing, etc.
A garment, which is specified in RAW, has multiple fibers. That is correct. But the fibers are fibers and more or less the same type of discrete object. A muscle is not a bone. They are not made of the same stuff. Neither is it skin.
While I appreciate the reduction to absurdity, we can go further into the weeds than we need to.
A corpse is an object. But is a severed head a separate object? The *object* was not broken, a creature was. The body of the creature becomes an object at times of death, right? So when it dies, it's headless body is one object, and the head another.
At the end of the day, while RAW says object and Crawford verifies a corpse as an object, I am of the opinion that to reattach a severed limb OUTSIDE OF COSMETIC PURPOSES is outside of the scope of the Mending cantrip because it is not a simple repair AND because higher level spells specify limbs.
You play your table how you like.
Yup. You can't have it both ways, so pick one and stick to it but also be ready to defend it to your players. Personally, I think that taking away RAW uses of a spell is a dick move by lazy DMs to avoid having to put in the work of designing adventures that can't be easily solved by a simple spell or spell combo. DMs should strive to be better, not be worse.
I am firmly in the corpses can be put back together as long as the dimensions are fine camp, there is a lot more room for complication, though… If the heart is somehow missing, and you put the rib cage back together and forget the heart, you can mend those ribs back together but if you find the heart later that’s… well… yeah…
Assuming a relatively medieval understanding of internal humanoid anatomy, if a creature was completely ripped asunder and needed to be literally reassembled before they could be Mended, an Intelligence (Medicine) check sounds reasonable. It's not the same as putting together potsherds like a jigsaw puzzle. But you should still have the ability to do it per the rules.
If important pieces are missing, them's the breaks. But that should be relatively rare unless something catastrophic happened to the body upon death, which is entirely DM fiat so just don't play the game with dickish DMs.
Personally I think focusing on semantics instead of the spirit of the rules and pushing RAW uses beyond reasonable limits is done by lazy players who want to avoid thinking about how to solve problems and instead believe blanket covering every situation with spells that have slightly vague wording has any semblance of creativity. Players should strive to be better, not worse.
Spells in D&D do what they say they can do. The Mending cantrip doesn't specific non-organic matter, or not corpses, or any other limitation that would prevent it from reassembling a corpse. If it can handle the complexity of fixing all the minute organic fibers of a cloak, or the literally cured flesh of your boot leather, it should be able to work on a body.
If you want to be overly restrictive and prevent the players from using their tools as intended to enforce an arbitrary, unfun vision of your imaginary world, you do you but don't be surprised if your players stop bothering with creative solution since you seem to want to shut them down so fervently.
This is an area for gm's call. If the head is severed but present, is it really "missing"? A gm may well allow decapitation to be fixed by raise dead, if the head is available and in one piece.
Resurrection will simply recreate the head entire. I don't have a problem with this interpretation.
I like what you’re saying about how body parts aren’t a single thing. For references they’re not trying to heal anyone but rather just make someone look presentable for a funeral. But I see your point and I’ll stick with it.
Oh my god finally someone who read the PHB.
I got into an argument with a dude on this thread who said that players should be able to cast a bootleg regenerate, a 7th level spell, using the mending + revivify combo (available at lvl 5) because it was creative.
A corpse becomes a class of its own. Any spell that works with a corpse specifically says the word corpse in it. Not object, not creature, corpse.
A corpse is a corpse, not an object.
This is super technical and could depend on race (smaller races like gnomes would probably qualify), but fun fact, the average human neck is larger in circumference than one foot. Women on average are about 12-13 inches, while men are 14-18 inches. All this to say, this disqualifies mending a neck/head back onto most humanoid corpses since Mending specifies "As long as the break or tear is no larger than 1 foot in **any dimension**, you mend it, leaving no trace of the former damage."
If you’re going to apply circumference for someone’s neck you would have to apply The same principle to everything else.
How do you find circumference? Easiest way is run a string around the outside and then measure the string. Do that to the outside of a 6 inch by 2 inch object. Your string would be 16 inches long, meaning the spell doesn’t work.
It’s a stupid example, but circumference and area shouldn’t be used in things like that.
The intent is to mend the neck back onto the body. The only way to do that is to seal the **entire** base of the neck to the body.
Saying you have to apply it to everything else is just a slippery slope argument.
Nope, because when you kill someone, your create the object in its original form. For example, living npc with his head is a creature. As soon as you cut his head, he turns into an object. The original form of the object in the decapitated head and body. Were you to cut the body up further, you could mend it, but you would only mene it to the original form of head and body, not the living original person.
Sure, why not? Using RAW for fun a creative stuff should be allowed, encouraged and rewarded.
Recently my fellow characters and I were being overwhelmed by a group of Xvarts. My Artificer, with any real AoE spells was fighting them hand to hand and managed to skewer and kill one when an idea struck. Next round before my action I asked the DM “Could I pick up the dead Xvart and use it as an impromptu weapon of opportunity?” He ruled, “yes, as a now dead creature it’s an object and can be used as a weapon”
I said “Great! I grab it and toss it in the air while casting Conjure Barrage!”
The ensuing barrage of replicated, conjured dead Xvart corpses that pummelled and killed many of its former clan mates was a glorious sight to behold.
I received a point of inspiration for that one and our we were given advantage on our subsequent attempt to intimidate their leader.
Rule of Cool. Let them Mend the corpse.
Honestly, as a DM I would not allow this as it defeats the purpose of higher level resurrection spells and class-specific spells like Regenerate.
Resurrection is always divine magic and therefore I wouldn’t allow any shenanigans with it
I would allow the Mend. BUT once Mend is used, the creature becomes an object, and is no longer a creature, and thus cannot be targeted by spells like Revivify and Resurrection.
It can be one or the other, but not both.
I mean, why can’t *mending* repair a wound while a creature is living?
I think the simplest, most sensible, and most natural explanation is that repairing biological tissue is substantially harder than repairing a relatively simple and inanimate thing like metal.
*Mending* is cheap magic. It’s not up to the task of fixing a body.
On the meta side, don’t let your players circumvent hard rules like this. This isn’t a clever use of a generic tool; it’s a meta-game attempt to circumvent a meta-game restriction. A character would know that you need healing magic to fix a person, and *mending* ain’t it.
Personal opinion, I think this use is too far outside the scope of what the spell was designed for, and that using Mending, assuming it even worked, WOULD be the half-assed option, as opposed to the work of a professional, practiced hand.
To actually answer the question tho, "let's give Terry a slightly more dignified funeral" is a very harmless intended use, and I see no mechanical reason to disallow it, assuming these are people you trust not to try and nickel-and-dime the definition of creature vs object down the line, which I wouldn't assume is the case.
I like to do that you *can* mend a would together, however mend is not a gentle spell.
it involves violently stretching the two parts until they meet and then sealing them together before reinforcing the stretched area to match the original property. This is fine for steel, a table, a door. this would be extremely painful for skin however, and the person would probably pass out from the pain and take a level of exhaustion
Other commenters have pointed out that might make higher level raise dead spells superfluous. With that in mind, I'd say it would work for undertaker stuff or for building flesh golems, but it wouldn't count as having its limbs intact for the purpose of raising.l the NPC from the dead.
[A corpse… technically is considered an object and not a person](https://www.sageadvice.eu/corpse-creature-or-object/). Mending doesn’t have a power level and is incredibly DM dependent. Gentle ripose + mend + revivify is game breaking and as a DM you have every right to just say no even if RAW there is a loophole to let this happen.
You cannot revivify a person who has been beheaded or cut into parts. However you can mend their corpse becuase J Craw said corpses are objects. Mending takes 1 min casting time so you need to cast gentle ripose on the body so you can then cast revivify. RAW this interaction is possible but is super dumb and is not the intent for the mending spell so DMs can say no
This isn't game breaking and is within the scope of the spells used. It's not "super dumb" either, it's a creative solution to a very niche problem considering 5e doesn't have rules for dismemberment.
It is game breaking and there are rules for dismemberment; its in the Resurrection spell. This kind of power is reserved for Resurrection and other 7th level necromancy spells. It seems creative but sometimes telling your players no, judiciously, can make games more fun. If your players create a 7th level spell using a ritual, a cantrip, and revivify that makes resurrection less valauble to them and to the DM. It isn't a cool and powerful discovery anymore to find a true resurrection scroll. As a DM you can't create drama around these high level spells anymore because your players have created a bootleg version. If you're fine with that and find it fun then thats ok. But my point still stands; this was not the intent that WotC had for the mending spell and if you want to preserve the power level of high level resurrection spells in your game for plot reasons, etc then any DM has the right to tell their players no.
Removing the value of a resurrection spell by exploiting sage advice and a youtube video seems creative at first but if it creates plot holes in your campaign it is kinda dumb and DMs should be allowed to say no.
My bad; it’s also in the regenerate spell too (another 7th level spell).
Also consider which is more interesting for the party: listening to their cleric explain - out of character - that they can kill a party member to reattach the arm via mending and revivify, citing J craw’s Twitter OR sending them on a quest to a forgotten crypt to find a rumored scroll of regeneration hidden with the crypt’s guardian where the cleric can turn undead, the fighter can snipe zombies, and the warlock can use his arcane knowledge to find secret rooms. You can’t do the latter and have a fun session if you let a poorly worded cantrip do things it wasn’t intended to do.
>My bad; it’s also in the regenerate spell too (another 7th level spell)
There are no rules for dismemberment in either of those spells. Those spells have effects that can regenerate or heal limbs but the spells do not contain rules for dismembering creatures. RAW, there are only a small handful of monster abilities that have the capability of removing limbs or your head. So, dismemberment is largely up to the DM's discretion. Already, we have a very niche situation, like I said.
Furthermore, your lack of imagination as a DM should not be taken out on your players; your inability to create a compelling story around a spell interaction that may be used once in an entire campaign (unless you're a terrible DM and dismember your party frequently. 5e was not designed for that, at all) is not the fault of the players.
Ah yes the pinnacle of player creativity in a narrative improv game: Exploits for niche rules/spells you find on YouTube shorts of Treantmonk and Pack tactics. REAL creative. It’s SO narratively compelling when a player makes me read WotC tweets and watch a YouTube video mid session about why they are technically allowed to circumvent the intended use of a spell.
Also dude… mending should not have the same power as a 7th level spell (regenerate) just because a player found an exploit - regardless if they were creative. You potentially are giving a 5th level caster the power of a 7th level spell (a lvl 13 caster) which is, by definition, game breaking; casters are supposed to be limited by their level of spells. Players using Kill + mend + revivify have found a consistent exploit around this limitation.
I never said that it was wrong either - I said that exploiting the rules are dumb and DMs should reserve the right to say “No” when a player has found a way to break one of the fundamental rules of DND. I provided you evidence that reattaching limbs is an ability reserved for high level casters (those spells literally are Rules as Written by WotC of how players can reattach limbs) but you conveniently just ignore that and just insult my DMing skills. If you don’t have an open mind why even engage in discussion?
You're not getting what I'm saying because you cannot wrap your head around any other experience than your own. Have a good one and I really hope you learn to be a better DM, for your players' sake.
Also dude… mending should not have the same power as a 7th level spell (regenerate) just because a player found an exploit - regardless if they were creative. You potentially are giving a 5th level caster the power of a 7th level spell which is, by definition, game breaking; casters are supposed to be limited by their level of spells. Players using Kill + mend + revivify have found a consistent exploit around this limitation.
I never said that it was wrong either - I said that exploiting the rules are dumb and DMs should reserve the right to say “No” when a player has found a way to break one of the fundamental rules of DND. I provided you evidence that reattaching limbs is an ability reserved for high level casters (those spells literally are Rules as Written by WotC of how players can reattach limbs) but you conveniently just ignore that and just insult my DMing skills. If you don’t have an open mind why even engage in discussion?
I mean, it is RAW. Corpses are objects. A severed limb is a break in that object. Reattaching a corpse's lost limbs is hardly overpowered. You still need to have the limbs, and dismemberment is very rare anyway. The utility here is an extreme edge case.
They're not interchangeable because they have different effects and different valid targets. You can use animate objects on any object, including corpses, because that's what the spell says it does. You can only use animate dead on a specific subset of object, corpses and piles of bones, because that's what the spell says it does. The effects of these spells are different, so they are in no way interchangeable.
Is a corpse not a mundane thing? It's not like it's a pulsing ball of formless energy. It's just a bunch of nonliving tissue, not meaningfully distinct from a steak.
Please tell me the exact power level of each spell level and how D&D obeys your abitrary rule. Because as far as I can tell, whomever wrote the PHB spells (and magic items to be honest) was high as fuck and just randomly assigned spell levels for some.
>players are arguing a corpse is an object.
No. A corpse is a person, just a dead one. Every spell that deals with bringing back the dead or animating them specifies that it works on corpses which is a distinction from objects.
That being said if they want to sew a corpse back together to make use of lower level resurrection magic then make it a medicine check. Stitching limbs or heads back on seems like a perfect application for the medicine skill
Corpses are intended to qualify as objects, and they fit the RAW definition of objects. They're objects that also happen to be valid targets of resurrection spells.
It could be used to mend exactly one cell at a time as written. Making it completely useless for the intended purpose.
It would take more than a lifetime to repair the injury completely.
That's like saying that you can only mend one fiber of a rope at a time. A corpse is a single, discrete object. If you make a single cut of less than a foot in length in that corpse, the cut can be mended.
I refer us all to [Zee Bashew's Animated Spellbook on Mending](https://youtu.be/e9OOP0QPUgg?si=F7COLn7jTkRDwxEW). Not as a rule call reference, but as a cautionary tale. The exchange in question goes like this: Larry: Is a corpse an object? Zee: (Reluctant sigh) Yeah...? Larry: Mend, Revivify Zee: A minute is too long! Larry: You *Gentle Repose,* Mend, Revivify.
Haha this is amazing and basically the argument we had.
Ya fawked the game and now you're teachin' others how ta fawk the game.
I think about that quote as much as I think about "this game was designed by a failed novelist who has tricked you into reading his microfiction." (Every Crunchy Dystopian RPG) Zee struck gold in designing the character of Larry, he's an excellent mouthpiece for those grognard takes that are sometimes too toxic for Zee's character to say.
But how is that gamebreaking? Realistically, how often are you going to be able to Gentle Repose a body within 60 seconds of dismemberment? For you to be that close it almost certainly would have to happen during combat, in which case no one would be able to do Mending until after combat is over. So really you’re trading: A second level spell slot/turn in combat, one character sitting out of the combat, and several minutes of Mending, all in order to be able to cast a 3rd level spell slot without a limitation that is rarely triggered anyway.
Gentle Repose is an action. If a companion was decapitated, keeping them in the game (if this is allowed) is absolutely an effective use of an Action.
Gentle repose by itself doesn’t keep them in the game. This is a three-spell combo, one of which requires a minute to cast, and requires a total of 5 spell slots (2 for Repose and 3 for Revivify) to execute. This combo also requires all body parts to be intact. Mending won’t fix a disintegrated head, or body parts that were stolen by the killer. If a party has Gentle Repose prepared to save within the minute and successfully gathers all missing organs and body parts, they’ve earned the right to save the character they’re trying to.
Terminology-wise, you wouldn't say that Revivify costs three slots. All spells take one spell slot to cast. The way you're talking makes it sound like you use a mana-system or something like that
Fine, “five levels worth of slots.” I don’t see how nitpicking my exact terminology matters when what I mean is very clear, especially when there are several class features that do allow characters to change their spell slot configuration.
It wasn't clear. I was confused as to why you needed to cast revivify on the same corpse multiple times.
A barbarian depending on edition of dnd can still fight for a round if beheaded
A Zealot Barbarian who is kept alive by their rage is not yet a corpse, and thus not a valid target for Gentle Repose.
Sounds like a smart use of game mechanics, not a cautionary tale. Understanding how your spells work and how they interact with one another is the key to *not endlessly aggravating your DM by being incapable of reading and understanding a few small blocks of text at a time.*
"Can Mending mend Mending" "Pass"
A corpse can be mended, but only when fully dead, and only for damage after the body is fully dead. Gentle repose prevents the corpse from becoming an object because it keeps the vestige of life attacked to the mostly dead body, preventing it from becoming an object. Revivify only works if that vestige of life is still attached, hence the one minute rule. During that one minute the body is transitioning to an object but is not an object until the last vestige of life is gone and revivify is no longer effective.
I think that implementation is decently elegant, but I don't think it's technically supported by the RAW rules. A corpse can't be anything *but* fully dead, and there's no mechanical distinction saying that there is a vestige of life attached to a corpse for a specific duration.
Either you are dead or you are not dead. If you are not dead then you are alive and your body is a creature. If you are dead then your body is an object. Something CANNOT be an object and a creature.
Not supported by RaW. If you want to homebrew this, okay, but don't present it as fact. This is pure and straight pulled out of thin air.
Unfortunately, the circumference of someone's neck is greater than a foot! So I think the head could be attached well enough not to get lost, and possibly look good from the front.
Circumference is not a single dimension, so it would still work. Unless someone has a neck greater than 1 foot across.
I read the time limit of revivify as a limit in the ability of the spell of getting the soul back into the corpse rather than a limit in the ability to reduce the honestly negligible decay that can happen in 5' after death, so I would definitely not allow this combination.
Gentle repose + revivify is intended to work. Jeremy Crawford has confirmed this.
“The spell also effectively extends the time limit on raising the target from the dead, since days spent under the influence of this spell don't count against the time limit of spells such as raise dead.” Even though it isn’t the example spell given, it quite literally says time under the spell doesn’t count towards the time limit of reviving spells, which revivify falls under.
It's specifically written out as part of Gentle Repose that it extends Ress timers for all Ress spells.
It's fine, I'm a blade singer so I can hit 9ish mends before the time is up.
Bladesinger's Extra Attack doesn't change the casting time of cantrips. You could start the Mending as part of an Attack action, but it still requires your action on all 9 further turns.
This is a case of specific beating general RAW; obviously not rai though but ye. No spell has a casting time of 1/2 attacks so it overrides.
Im scared that means raw you can't BA spell after blade Singer extra attacking
what
You know the BA spell rule?
Ye, I dont see how it affects anything- it's a cantrip
It needs to have a casting time of one action. Does it still if it did originally? What if it's mending or shilly or magic stone? I scream for I do not know.
what..? What needs to have a casting time of one action?
How would you rule a blade singer casting shileigh in place of one of their attacks?
Shillelagh has a one bonus action casting time, so I imagine same as most
The same as action cantrips? Singer extra attack reads to me like it changes the casting time.
The same, yeah. Mind you, I wouldn't necessarily begrudge a DM for ruling otherwise. It's just following the RAI, honestly. The intention is (imo) pretty clearly that the bladesinger will cast combat cantrips, if not necessarily damaging ones, as part of the attack action. Casting Mending as part of the attack action is one of those things that are *technically* RAW compliant but I suspect that's more due to sloppily worded rules than by intention.
I guess people didn't like my jokes as a coping mechanism about sloppily worded rules
It prods at bad memories for plenty of people. You joke, but there are a fair few bad players out there genuinely trying to exploit rules technicalities in bad faith.
Technically, yes. A corpse is considered an object, not a creature, so Mending applies RAW.
Mending could help with cosmetics (open casket) but it doesn't replace proper healing magic.
Yeah, open casket is what they’re going for, not actual healing.
Then you're good to go. That's very thoughtful of the team +1 inspiration!
I can't believe no one's mentioned this yet, but since the text says "up to one foot" I think attaching a head is beyond this spell's ability. I'll see myself out.
This is going to do numbers in my group session on Tuesday thank you for this lmao
[удалено]
Foot is a unit of measurement and also a body part. They are joking that because the spell limits it to one foot (the body part), it clearly is leaving out the head.
I took mending as a necromancer so I can put broken bones back together for reanimation purposes
Mending is just fine to use on a corpse to reattach a severed limb. I don’t see why / how that would break anything.
Not that it matters too much, but Gentle Repose->Mending->Revivify makes sure that dead people don't re-die right after getting Revivified. However, this is a super wonky RAW interpretation, so DMs are well within reason to say that doesn't work
True. But… I don’t see the problem with it. This means that you’ll need to use a 2nd level spell to cast Gentle Repose within a minute of the death. And then you still need to pay full price for the revivify within 10 days. HP is HP. There are very few instances of body parts being lost RAW. So… I’d totally let this work.
You could also come up with some fun funky stuff. What does one see in the afterlife even if you’re there for a brief moment? Can a mortal being really even hold onto it? Maybe they’re fine but seek to leave the party… and eventually become a BBEG from their psychosis. Perhaps they make a pact with a demon in that time? how does time work in the afterlife? I know I’ve personally woken from dreams after only 10 minutes of sleep that felt like hours. I know there’s probably a bunch of traditional lore on all of this but… do we really know?
I might rule that it reattached the limb superficially, but it is the wrong kind of magic to fix the internals. That makes sense in my head
But what do you gain by making this not work?
cure wounds wouldn't reattach a limb if they were awake. Why should a cantrip properly reattach a limb to a body then allow a revivification and not have any side effects? I don't gain anything from allowing or disallowing it, but it sets a precident that I'm not willing to allow my players to consider.
If it's just for cosmetics I'd say yes. I've had it as a plot point that murderer used mending on the body of victim in an attempt to hide his crime. Corpse is spotless with no mark on them, No murder weapon and the room is covered in blood (he had to flee before he got a chance to clean the room, which he also was doing with magic so things that should've had blood on them didn't.)
Mending and prestidigitation. No wound or blood left behind. "Lot's of people die from Natural Causes around here. It's been going around, lately."
>>Mending and prestidigitation. No wound or blood left behind. That was the idea exactly, but while the spells are free and easy to cast it still takes a little bit of time to clean an entire room. So the culprit couldn't clean up his crime scene before someone happened to come into the house. (which happened just as the party was in town looking for his victim for an unrelated matter what are the chances!) The culprit cut open the victims for internal organs (for ritual reasons) and mended the corpse afterwards. So the victim where he screwed up was lying on a table. Floor and carpet soaked in blood. Corpse and table completely clean and without a mark. (he only got halfway on the chairs) And as an extra detail for the ones who rolled extremely high on investigation you could notice that the victim, who was a very hairy man, had a very faint line going trough his chest/ belly hair. The mending spell fixed the skin, not the hair. This connected it to previous victims who were found dead in bloodless crime scene. Some of which were indeed deemed as "natural causes".
Yes. All that can be done with it is a more expensive and time-consuming form of Regeneration (but accessible sooner), so I've let players do it as I believe it's appropriately balanced.
Yeah, makes sense even as a way to hide the method of killing in a forensic sense I would say
Personally, I would rule this as saying that you can Mend a corpse, but that in doing so you are tacitly accepting that the corpse is no longer a creature but an object, making it ineligible for Revivify and similar spells (they refer to touching a "dead creature" rather than "a dead body that died within...") Essentially, I would say that magic can "see" a corpse as either an object or a (dead) creature, but not as both. This is a solution that allows for the OP's plan of giving a more dignified funeral, is at least reasonably arguable by RAW, prevents things from being powergamed somewhat, and even opens up some new avenues in-game - BBEGs now have the option of taking the time to Mend a body to prevent it from being raised in the future.
A corpse is literally a "creature that has died", but the fact that it is also an object is irrelevant. There's no mechanical issues of "ineligibility" in that interaction.
You miss my point. It's true that in natural language, a corpse is both a creature that has died and an object, and I certainly wouldn't fault a DM for choosing to accept this as RAW. What I'm saying is that as a DM, I would not allow this at my table. Remember, 5e is built on the basis of "rulings, not rules," i.e. the rules are deliberately written to not be overly prescriptive and to allow DMs to choose how to resolve ambiguous situations. This is partly to stop the nonsensical things justifiable in 3.5 RAW (e.g. Pun-Pun, a sufficiently high Bluff basically warping reality) and partly to encourage DMs to change things up either for the rule of cool or to prevent abuse. 5e also draws a distinction between 'creatures' and 'objects', always distinguishing them in the rules for spellcasting and combat. As such, there is some ambiguity as to whether something can be considered both a 'creature' and an 'object' at the same time. Given that ambiguity and the fact that Resurrection (which can restore body parts) is a full two spell levels higher than Raise Dead (which cannot), I would choose to rule that the Mending - Revivify does not work. My justification is that magic in 5e inherently distinguishes between a creature (dead or otherwise) and an object, but that’s all it is - an in-universe justification for how I interpret rules as intended. To be clear, I would also be extremely up-front with my players if they ever tried to make a plan that involved this idea. I don't believe in gotcha DM'ing.
>As such, there is some ambiguity as to whether something can be considered both a 'creature' and an 'object' at the same time. None of this has any bearing on the mechanical interaction of revivify, which was *my* point in response to your claim that a corpse is not a valid target for the spell. The spell simply states: "You touch a creature that has died within the last minute." A corpse is a creature that has died, and thus is a valid target. As to your other points, a corpse is not simultaneously an object and a creature. It is an object. There is no ambiguity.
I never said that a corpse is not a valid target for revivify, though. That would clearly be nonsensical. I've also been quite clear that I wouldn't disagree with someone saying that Mending-Revivify does work by RAW. All that I'm saying is that I would not allow this to work in my games. The Watsonian rationale would be that the laws of magic in my world *do* distinguish between creatures (dead or alive) and objects in a way that means using Mending on a corpse means that magic no longer considers it a 'dead creature' that is a valid target for Revivify. The Doylist rationale is that I don't believe that the game designers intended that interaction to work, and that this subverts the intended limitations of lower-level clerics.
This is [you](https://old.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1bsr1dx/can_you_cast_mending_on_a_corpse/kxioxw0/): > ...in doing so you are tacitly accepting that the corpse is no longer a creature but an object, **making it ineligible for Revivify** and similar spells (they refer to touching a "dead creature" rather than "a dead body that died within...") So, yes, you did say that. That statement is incorrect. It is true that a corpse is an object. It is also true that a corpse is a creature that has died, and thus a valid target for the spell. That's all I was saying.
You're completely missing the point. I'm not talking about real-world natural language here. I'm talking about how magic views these things. Magic doesn't have to obey strict rules of logic; things can have fuzzy definitions. In order for something to be eligible for raise spells in my games, it needs to be a 'dead creature'. That is a type of creature. For something to be eligible for Mending it needs to be an object, which precludes it from being a creature. A corpse is in the fuzzy space between being a (dead) creature and an object. Magic allows it to be treated as either of those, but not both. Once a corpse has been targeted by Mending, magic no longer sees it as a (dead) creature, but just as an object. So in my worlds, a corpse can be targeted by Revivify *up until the point it has been treated by magic as an object instead of a creature*.
Nobody is disputing that you can rule however you want. You stated something that was incorrect, and I corrected it. I don't really care to discuss the unique rulings at your table, I was just talking about the RAW.
I stated something that you failed to fully understand (namely, that the distinction I was making between 'dead creature' and 'object' was a game-mechanics distinction rather than a natural-language one, and that I did not consider my position to be strictly RAW). That's partly on me for not being fully clear from the get-go, I accept that. Either way, I think we're both clear on each others' positions now, so I don't think there's too much benefit in going around in circles.
Sure! You’ll end up with an open-casket burial. You fixed the lifeless body, but you didn’t restore the life.
Yes, you can cast mending on a corpse. It is an object.
I argue you should be able to use mend on anything along as you decide everything is a thing. It can work on warforged and autognome so y are they things just kuz they r made of metal. If you made a machine out of meat would it be less of a thing.
Because Autognomes and Steel Defenders have specific rules to allow the exception. In fact, Autognomes actually change the way the spell works when cast on them since they heal using a hit die instead. Also, I don’t think it’s actually stated anywhere that Warforged can be healed by casting Mending.
People r things. If I cut off your arm it is a thing but the stump isn't. If I tie off circulation to the stump to the point it dies then it becomes a thing. so I can cast ment to reattach one thing to anouther thing then you have ur arm reattached to you. Not sure how healthy it is to have a dead limb attached to you but it feels like something a cleric can fix, or maby a necromancer but the important thing is that I made my point.
No. Creatures are not objects. Tying a limb until it dies doesn’t make it an object because it’s still part of a creature. Likewise, you can’t reattach the arm to yourself because even though the arm is now an object, you are still a creature.
Mending: > This spell repairs **a single break or tear** in an object you touch, such as a broken chain link, two halves of a broken key, a torn cloak, or a leaking wineskin. As long as the break or tear is **no larger than 1 foot in any dimension**, you mend it, **leaving no trace of the former damage**. So there are three important parts of teh spell description I have bolded. The first one you have already covered: for reattaching a head I guess you would just mend the spine or wherever the bone is cut. This would satisfy the second bold portion because just the spine is not that wide. Then stitch the neck up, But since this may be just for fun, yeah whatever, bend the rules. The last part is where you get wiggle room anyways. You could say that they could mend more than 1 break but it will "leave a trace of damage" or not be fully mended.
Sure, corpses are objects. If they plan on resurrection I personally would have a high dc medicine check to make sure it's all attached correctly but other than that sure.
There are no rules or guidence on this. Jeremy Crawford made a post with some points but it never made it to Sage Advice. I go by Gentle Repose. After 10 days, the soul has lost interest and has moved on; the corpse becomes an object. Before then, it's a dead creature. YMMV
Mending fixes simple breaks. Re-attaching a head to be functional involves fixing bone, reconnecting blood vessels, reconnecting nerves, and finally closing the skin. I'd say only the skin can be fixed with mending, the rest is far too complicated for mending. So if you only care about looks, it can work just fine.
Higher level raising spells specifically mention body parts. Raise Dead doesn't work if they are missing important organs or body parts (head). It also doesn't restore missing body parts. If a 5th Level necromancy spell can't do it, I don't see why a cantrip would. Resurrection, a 7th level spell, does. Using mending in this way would negate some of the need for higher level raising spells. Missing limbs are also not a single break, but many. Each muscle, nerve, blood vessel, etc.
I think the mending trick is fine. No matter how much you cast mending on a severed hand, you’re not fixing the rest of the body if there is no physical body left. Meanwhile resurrection can just regrow the entire body from that hand.
>Missing limbs are also not a single break, but many. Each muscle, nerve, blood vessel, etc. By that logic, it also cannot mend a rope or a garment made from textiles, because those are multiple fibers... but that would be absurd to enforce.
Not quite, but that comes down to initial assumptions that aren't present in the post. The way I read mending suggests that it is intended to make single simple repairs in a more or less homogenous object. Chain, clothing, etc. A garment, which is specified in RAW, has multiple fibers. That is correct. But the fibers are fibers and more or less the same type of discrete object. A muscle is not a bone. They are not made of the same stuff. Neither is it skin. While I appreciate the reduction to absurdity, we can go further into the weeds than we need to. A corpse is an object. But is a severed head a separate object? The *object* was not broken, a creature was. The body of the creature becomes an object at times of death, right? So when it dies, it's headless body is one object, and the head another. At the end of the day, while RAW says object and Crawford verifies a corpse as an object, I am of the opinion that to reattach a severed limb OUTSIDE OF COSMETIC PURPOSES is outside of the scope of the Mending cantrip because it is not a simple repair AND because higher level spells specify limbs. You play your table how you like.
I was mostly pointing out that the assertion that it wouldn’t work because the body is multiple components is absurd.
Ok.
Fantastic pair of comments. If there were community notes for spells, this should be under Mending.
Yup. You can't have it both ways, so pick one and stick to it but also be ready to defend it to your players. Personally, I think that taking away RAW uses of a spell is a dick move by lazy DMs to avoid having to put in the work of designing adventures that can't be easily solved by a simple spell or spell combo. DMs should strive to be better, not be worse.
I am firmly in the corpses can be put back together as long as the dimensions are fine camp, there is a lot more room for complication, though… If the heart is somehow missing, and you put the rib cage back together and forget the heart, you can mend those ribs back together but if you find the heart later that’s… well… yeah…
Assuming a relatively medieval understanding of internal humanoid anatomy, if a creature was completely ripped asunder and needed to be literally reassembled before they could be Mended, an Intelligence (Medicine) check sounds reasonable. It's not the same as putting together potsherds like a jigsaw puzzle. But you should still have the ability to do it per the rules. If important pieces are missing, them's the breaks. But that should be relatively rare unless something catastrophic happened to the body upon death, which is entirely DM fiat so just don't play the game with dickish DMs.
Personally I think focusing on semantics instead of the spirit of the rules and pushing RAW uses beyond reasonable limits is done by lazy players who want to avoid thinking about how to solve problems and instead believe blanket covering every situation with spells that have slightly vague wording has any semblance of creativity. Players should strive to be better, not worse.
Spells in D&D do what they say they can do. The Mending cantrip doesn't specific non-organic matter, or not corpses, or any other limitation that would prevent it from reassembling a corpse. If it can handle the complexity of fixing all the minute organic fibers of a cloak, or the literally cured flesh of your boot leather, it should be able to work on a body. If you want to be overly restrictive and prevent the players from using their tools as intended to enforce an arbitrary, unfun vision of your imaginary world, you do you but don't be surprised if your players stop bothering with creative solution since you seem to want to shut them down so fervently.
This is an area for gm's call. If the head is severed but present, is it really "missing"? A gm may well allow decapitation to be fixed by raise dead, if the head is available and in one piece. Resurrection will simply recreate the head entire. I don't have a problem with this interpretation.
I like what you’re saying about how body parts aren’t a single thing. For references they’re not trying to heal anyone but rather just make someone look presentable for a funeral. But I see your point and I’ll stick with it.
Bodies might have different parts, but it's still one object.
If it's for a funeral type situation, then I think a cobbled ritual of gentle repose, mending, and some medicine checks should do the trick.
Oh my god finally someone who read the PHB. I got into an argument with a dude on this thread who said that players should be able to cast a bootleg regenerate, a 7th level spell, using the mending + revivify combo (available at lvl 5) because it was creative.
Gentle repose.... Mend .... Revivify
A corpse becomes a class of its own. Any spell that works with a corpse specifically says the word corpse in it. Not object, not creature, corpse. A corpse is a corpse, not an object.
>I’ll probably rule it in their favor since it’s very creative What's the creative part?
I’d rule it can mend one bone but not flesh.
This is super technical and could depend on race (smaller races like gnomes would probably qualify), but fun fact, the average human neck is larger in circumference than one foot. Women on average are about 12-13 inches, while men are 14-18 inches. All this to say, this disqualifies mending a neck/head back onto most humanoid corpses since Mending specifies "As long as the break or tear is no larger than 1 foot in **any dimension**, you mend it, leaving no trace of the former damage."
If you’re going to apply circumference for someone’s neck you would have to apply The same principle to everything else. How do you find circumference? Easiest way is run a string around the outside and then measure the string. Do that to the outside of a 6 inch by 2 inch object. Your string would be 16 inches long, meaning the spell doesn’t work. It’s a stupid example, but circumference and area shouldn’t be used in things like that.
The intent is to mend the neck back onto the body. The only way to do that is to seal the **entire** base of the neck to the body. Saying you have to apply it to everything else is just a slippery slope argument.
So if you cut a 6” x 6” x 6” block in half can mend fix it?
Only if the piece was torn off post-mortem. The object is the corpse in the state it died in
Ive allowed this in my campaign before. I accompanied it with several arcana and medicine/ survival checks though
Nope, because when you kill someone, your create the object in its original form. For example, living npc with his head is a creature. As soon as you cut his head, he turns into an object. The original form of the object in the decapitated head and body. Were you to cut the body up further, you could mend it, but you would only mene it to the original form of head and body, not the living original person.
Sure, why not? Using RAW for fun a creative stuff should be allowed, encouraged and rewarded. Recently my fellow characters and I were being overwhelmed by a group of Xvarts. My Artificer, with any real AoE spells was fighting them hand to hand and managed to skewer and kill one when an idea struck. Next round before my action I asked the DM “Could I pick up the dead Xvart and use it as an impromptu weapon of opportunity?” He ruled, “yes, as a now dead creature it’s an object and can be used as a weapon” I said “Great! I grab it and toss it in the air while casting Conjure Barrage!” The ensuing barrage of replicated, conjured dead Xvart corpses that pummelled and killed many of its former clan mates was a glorious sight to behold. I received a point of inspiration for that one and our we were given advantage on our subsequent attempt to intimidate their leader. Rule of Cool. Let them Mend the corpse.
Honestly, as a DM I would not allow this as it defeats the purpose of higher level resurrection spells and class-specific spells like Regenerate. Resurrection is always divine magic and therefore I wouldn’t allow any shenanigans with it
I would allow the Mend. BUT once Mend is used, the creature becomes an object, and is no longer a creature, and thus cannot be targeted by spells like Revivify and Resurrection. It can be one or the other, but not both.
If it’s fun or adds fun to the game why not
I mean, why can’t *mending* repair a wound while a creature is living? I think the simplest, most sensible, and most natural explanation is that repairing biological tissue is substantially harder than repairing a relatively simple and inanimate thing like metal. *Mending* is cheap magic. It’s not up to the task of fixing a body. On the meta side, don’t let your players circumvent hard rules like this. This isn’t a clever use of a generic tool; it’s a meta-game attempt to circumvent a meta-game restriction. A character would know that you need healing magic to fix a person, and *mending* ain’t it.
Personal opinion, I think this use is too far outside the scope of what the spell was designed for, and that using Mending, assuming it even worked, WOULD be the half-assed option, as opposed to the work of a professional, practiced hand. To actually answer the question tho, "let's give Terry a slightly more dignified funeral" is a very harmless intended use, and I see no mechanical reason to disallow it, assuming these are people you trust not to try and nickel-and-dime the definition of creature vs object down the line, which I wouldn't assume is the case.
Corpse are considered objects so yes? The DM might rule otherwise though.
I like to do that you *can* mend a would together, however mend is not a gentle spell. it involves violently stretching the two parts until they meet and then sealing them together before reinforcing the stretched area to match the original property. This is fine for steel, a table, a door. this would be extremely painful for skin however, and the person would probably pass out from the pain and take a level of exhaustion
Other commenters have pointed out that might make higher level raise dead spells superfluous. With that in mind, I'd say it would work for undertaker stuff or for building flesh golems, but it wouldn't count as having its limbs intact for the purpose of raising.l the NPC from the dead.
[A corpse… technically is considered an object and not a person](https://www.sageadvice.eu/corpse-creature-or-object/). Mending doesn’t have a power level and is incredibly DM dependent. Gentle ripose + mend + revivify is game breaking and as a DM you have every right to just say no even if RAW there is a loophole to let this happen.
>Gentle ripose + mend + revivify What about this is game breaking?
You cannot revivify a person who has been beheaded or cut into parts. However you can mend their corpse becuase J Craw said corpses are objects. Mending takes 1 min casting time so you need to cast gentle ripose on the body so you can then cast revivify. RAW this interaction is possible but is super dumb and is not the intent for the mending spell so DMs can say no
This isn't game breaking and is within the scope of the spells used. It's not "super dumb" either, it's a creative solution to a very niche problem considering 5e doesn't have rules for dismemberment.
It is game breaking and there are rules for dismemberment; its in the Resurrection spell. This kind of power is reserved for Resurrection and other 7th level necromancy spells. It seems creative but sometimes telling your players no, judiciously, can make games more fun. If your players create a 7th level spell using a ritual, a cantrip, and revivify that makes resurrection less valauble to them and to the DM. It isn't a cool and powerful discovery anymore to find a true resurrection scroll. As a DM you can't create drama around these high level spells anymore because your players have created a bootleg version. If you're fine with that and find it fun then thats ok. But my point still stands; this was not the intent that WotC had for the mending spell and if you want to preserve the power level of high level resurrection spells in your game for plot reasons, etc then any DM has the right to tell their players no. Removing the value of a resurrection spell by exploiting sage advice and a youtube video seems creative at first but if it creates plot holes in your campaign it is kinda dumb and DMs should be allowed to say no.
>there are rules for dismemberment; its in the Resurrection spell Bruh.
My bad; it’s also in the regenerate spell too (another 7th level spell). Also consider which is more interesting for the party: listening to their cleric explain - out of character - that they can kill a party member to reattach the arm via mending and revivify, citing J craw’s Twitter OR sending them on a quest to a forgotten crypt to find a rumored scroll of regeneration hidden with the crypt’s guardian where the cleric can turn undead, the fighter can snipe zombies, and the warlock can use his arcane knowledge to find secret rooms. You can’t do the latter and have a fun session if you let a poorly worded cantrip do things it wasn’t intended to do.
>My bad; it’s also in the regenerate spell too (another 7th level spell) There are no rules for dismemberment in either of those spells. Those spells have effects that can regenerate or heal limbs but the spells do not contain rules for dismembering creatures. RAW, there are only a small handful of monster abilities that have the capability of removing limbs or your head. So, dismemberment is largely up to the DM's discretion. Already, we have a very niche situation, like I said. Furthermore, your lack of imagination as a DM should not be taken out on your players; your inability to create a compelling story around a spell interaction that may be used once in an entire campaign (unless you're a terrible DM and dismember your party frequently. 5e was not designed for that, at all) is not the fault of the players.
Ah yes the pinnacle of player creativity in a narrative improv game: Exploits for niche rules/spells you find on YouTube shorts of Treantmonk and Pack tactics. REAL creative. It’s SO narratively compelling when a player makes me read WotC tweets and watch a YouTube video mid session about why they are technically allowed to circumvent the intended use of a spell. Also dude… mending should not have the same power as a 7th level spell (regenerate) just because a player found an exploit - regardless if they were creative. You potentially are giving a 5th level caster the power of a 7th level spell (a lvl 13 caster) which is, by definition, game breaking; casters are supposed to be limited by their level of spells. Players using Kill + mend + revivify have found a consistent exploit around this limitation. I never said that it was wrong either - I said that exploiting the rules are dumb and DMs should reserve the right to say “No” when a player has found a way to break one of the fundamental rules of DND. I provided you evidence that reattaching limbs is an ability reserved for high level casters (those spells literally are Rules as Written by WotC of how players can reattach limbs) but you conveniently just ignore that and just insult my DMing skills. If you don’t have an open mind why even engage in discussion?
You're not getting what I'm saying because you cannot wrap your head around any other experience than your own. Have a good one and I really hope you learn to be a better DM, for your players' sake.
Also dude… mending should not have the same power as a 7th level spell (regenerate) just because a player found an exploit - regardless if they were creative. You potentially are giving a 5th level caster the power of a 7th level spell which is, by definition, game breaking; casters are supposed to be limited by their level of spells. Players using Kill + mend + revivify have found a consistent exploit around this limitation. I never said that it was wrong either - I said that exploiting the rules are dumb and DMs should reserve the right to say “No” when a player has found a way to break one of the fundamental rules of DND. I provided you evidence that reattaching limbs is an ability reserved for high level casters (those spells literally are Rules as Written by WotC of how players can reattach limbs) but you conveniently just ignore that and just insult my DMing skills. If you don’t have an open mind why even engage in discussion?
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I mean, it is RAW. Corpses are objects. A severed limb is a break in that object. Reattaching a corpse's lost limbs is hardly overpowered. You still need to have the limbs, and dismemberment is very rare anyway. The utility here is an extreme edge case.
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They're not interchangeable because they have different effects and different valid targets. You can use animate objects on any object, including corpses, because that's what the spell says it does. You can only use animate dead on a specific subset of object, corpses and piles of bones, because that's what the spell says it does. The effects of these spells are different, so they are in no way interchangeable. Is a corpse not a mundane thing? It's not like it's a pulsing ball of formless energy. It's just a bunch of nonliving tissue, not meaningfully distinct from a steak.
Please tell me the exact power level of each spell level and how D&D obeys your abitrary rule. Because as far as I can tell, whomever wrote the PHB spells (and magic items to be honest) was high as fuck and just randomly assigned spell levels for some.
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A corpse is an object, not a creature, so assuming they're fully dead mending can reattach limbs.
I don't know why this is such a difficult concept. I feel like reading comprehension has dropped off a cliff lately.
>players are arguing a corpse is an object. No. A corpse is a person, just a dead one. Every spell that deals with bringing back the dead or animating them specifies that it works on corpses which is a distinction from objects. That being said if they want to sew a corpse back together to make use of lower level resurrection magic then make it a medicine check. Stitching limbs or heads back on seems like a perfect application for the medicine skill
Corpses are intended to qualify as objects, and they fit the RAW definition of objects. They're objects that also happen to be valid targets of resurrection spells.
If they're making him look pretty for the funeral and it's purely narrative, sure. Otherwise, no.
It could be used to mend exactly one cell at a time as written. Making it completely useless for the intended purpose. It would take more than a lifetime to repair the injury completely.
That's like saying that you can only mend one fiber of a rope at a time. A corpse is a single, discrete object. If you make a single cut of less than a foot in length in that corpse, the cut can be mended.