Do you remember the scene in Beauty and the Beast when all of the objects start beating up on the townsfolk? That’s essentially the power you’ll wield when you use Animate Objects.
Today we’re looking at Animate Objects, a 5th level concentration spell from the school of Transmutation in DnD 5e. Available to Bards, Sorcerers, Wizards, Artificers, and Forge Domain Clerics, Animate Objects lets you bring objects to life. If you’re looking for how to use Animate Objects in your games, we’ve got a video for that. Otherwise let’s take a deeper dive into the spell itself.
As a bard, Animate Objects is probably one of your best chances at landing a bunch of damage in combat, and you can do so in many, many ways.
Those of you familiar with Tiny Servant from Xanathar’s Guide will recognize the general vibe of Animate Objects, but where Tiny Servant gives the object arms and legs, Animate objects lets legless objects fly and hover. You can Animate all the way up to huge objects, and command up to 10 objects, depending on size selected for up to a minute.
Another spell to bring up before we dive into uses is Telekenesis. Also a 5th level spell, but limited to Sorcerers, Wizards and Goolocks, Telekenesis only allows you to control one object up to 1,000 pounds, whereas Animate Objects let’s you move a Huge object of any weight, as long as it is within 15×15 feet cubed.
Telekenesis only gives you one object, whereas animate objects is 10, so I definitely lean more into Animate Objects. All that out of the way, let’s dive into the Rules as Written so you can get the most use out of the spell at your table.
Remember you’re dealing with objects, so no liquids or gasses, unless they are in vials or containers. From the DMG, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone. If you’re unsure if something is an object, check with your DM, but a general rule of thumb is “smaller than 15×15, not well-fastened to another object, and not being worn or carried by a creature”
We’ll have a full breakdown of hit points, and damage points further ahead in the video, so check out the chapters if you want to skip straight there.
Who Can Cast Animate Objects in DnD 5e?
Animate Objects is a 5th level concentration spell from the school of Transmutation in DnD 5e. Available to Bards, Sorcerers, Wizards, Artificers, and Forge Domain Clerics.
Rules As Written Explained for Animate Objects in DnD 5e
Objects come to life at your command. Choose up to ten nonmagical objects within range that are not being worn or carried. Medium targets count as two objects, Large targets count as four objects, Huge targets count as eight objects. You can’t animate any object larger than Huge. Each target animates and becomes a creature under your control until the spell ends or until reduced to 0 hit points.
As a bonus action, you can mentally command any creature you made with this spell if the creature is within 500 feet of you (if you control multiple creatures, you can command any or all of them at the same time, issuing the same command to each one). You decide what action the creature will take and where it will move during its next turn, or you can issue a general command, such as to guard a particular chamber or corridor. If you issue no commands, the creature only defends itself against hostile creatures. Once given an order, the creature continues to follow it until its task is complete.
An animated object is a construct with AC, hit points, attacks, Strength, and Dexterity determined by its size. Its Constitution is 10 and its Intelligence and Wisdom are 3, and its Charisma is 1. Its speed is 30 feet; if the object lacks legs or other appendages it can use for locomotion, it instead has a flying speed of 30 feet and can hover. If the object is securely attached to a surface or a larger object, such as a chain bolted to a wall, its speed is 0. It has blindsight with a radius of 30 feet and is blind beyond that distance. When the animated object drops to 0 hit points, it reverts to its original object form, and any remaining damage carries over to its original object form.
If you command an object to attack, it can make a single melee attack against a creature within 5 feet of it. It makes a slam attack with an attack bonus and bludgeoning damage determined by its size. The GM might rule that a specific object inflicts slashing or piercing damage based on its form.
At Higher Levels. If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, you can animate two additional objects for each slot level above 5th.
Player’s Handbook
Objects come to life at your command. Choose up to ten nonmagical objects within range that are not being worn or carried. Not allowed to animate clothes or armor, which as a DM, I’m totally fine with, though I feel like bards kind of naturally do this anyway. That means, no held weapon, no necklaces, nothing that is already on the individual. All seems fair.
Medium targets count as two objects, Large targets count as four objects, Huge targets count as eight objects. Rules on how to use your animation points. They don’t say it, but that means Tiny and Small targets count as one object. If you’re like me and you forget the difference, Medium takes up a 5×5 space, large 10×10 and Huge 15×15.
You can’t animate any object larger than Huge. No gargantuan objects. Don’t be greedy, you’ve been gifted the ability to control a boulder that takes up a 15×15 space plus one Medium-sized object, so show some appreciation (LOL)
Each target animates and becomes a creature under your control until the spell ends or until reduced to 0 hit points. We’ll walk through the hit points and damage here shortly, but each size gets specific stats, some better than others. I’ll drop a chapter that you can jump straight to for the table of HP and damage.
As a bonus action, you can mentally command any creature you made with this spell if the creature is within 500 feet of you (if you control multiple creatures, you can command any or all of them at the same time, issuing the same command to each one). Love the bonus action commands. Same with Animate Dead, but a much longer range, the object must be within 120 ft of you to be animated in the first place, but can then be up to 500 feet away from you to still use that bonus to control them. That’s like, more than one football field away.
You decide what action the creature will take and where it will move during its next turn, or you can issue a general command, such as to guard a particular chamber or corridor. If you issue no commands, the creature only defends itself against hostile creatures. Straight forward, general commands or specific commands, otherwise it will protect the very sentience you have given it.
Once given an order, the creature continues to follow it until its task is complete. Excellent, glad it is willing to do whatever its told. Think of this as a Mr. Meseeks box.
An animated object is a construct with AC, hit points, attacks, Strength, and Dexterity determined by its size. Important callout of construct in case there is a specific damage type that targets constructs specifically.
Its Constitution is 10 and its Intelligence and Wisdom are 3, and its Charisma is 1. The object will not be charming its way past anyone. Now for a PSA on object movement.
Its speed is 30 feet; if the object lacks legs or other appendages it can use for locomotion, it instead has a flying speed of 30 feet and can hover. Rules as written, that means it’s got three-dimensional movement capabilities. Rules as intended, an object with no legs should probably only be able to hover and float around, limiting the vertical movement so you can’t drop a giant boulder on someone from 200 ft up. 30 feet all around, up to your DM if those flying creatures can truly fly.
If the object is securely attached to a surface or a larger object, such as a chain bolted to a wall, its speed is 0. A speed of 0 essentially tells me to never cast this with something that’s attached to something else.
It has blindsight with a radius of 30 feet and is blind beyond that distance. Blindsight is incredible and is only foiled if someone is hiding. Otherwise, blindsight allows a creature to see folks who are invisible, see perfectly in the dark, but in this case only in a 30 foot radius.
When the animated object drops to 0 hit points, it reverts to its original object form, and any remaining damage carries over to its original object form. The floating pitchfork becomes a standard pitchfork again and takes any additional damage. Easy enough.
If you command an object to attack, it can make a single melee attack against a creature within 5 feet of it. It makes a slam attack with an attack bonus and bludgeoning damage determined by its size. The GM might rule that a specific object inflicts slashing or piercing damage based on its form. Come on and slam and welcome to the jam, so it makes a slam attack and must be next to the enemy to attack it. The full damage table gives you some insights, but for now, just remember it’s different per size. I like that they are clear on DMs having the ability to change the damage type so if you’ve constructed a flying V of daggers, they could likely do slashing or piercing on the enemy.
At Higher Levels. If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, you can animate two additional objects for each slot level above 5th. You could nearly double the tiny or small objects you’re sending after someone, but is it necessary? Up to you.
Now that we have the primary rules, let’s look at the table the spell presents for different size objects. This is going to be a bit numbers heavy, so TL;DR in most cases Tiny objects are best. Keep in mind, you’ll need
If you’re rolling with Tiny objects, they will do Slam damage of 1d4+4, so guaranteed 5 damage each slam. Problem is, you’re dealing with a -3 modifier on the attack roll. But then you get +8 to hit, so net of plus 5. Average damage of 6.5.
Small objects get a +6 to hit with a -2 modifier to strength, but 1d8+2 for damage. So much better than tiny, right? Wrong. Averages are the exact same on damage rolls, but min of 3 is worse and max of 10 per attack is better. Difference in size may come down to how hot your dice are that day.
If your eyes are glazing over, let me know in the comments below. Happy to dive further into these in the future, or just give higher understanding.
Medium starts to get into the “how many can I make” game and only allows 5 to be created. Total HP is equal to Tiny objects, with 40HP for medium objects. AC of 13, so we’re within the range of most average attacks, 10 strength and 12 dex with +5 to hit and 2d6+1 damage. This increases the average damage. But average damage per round maxed out is 40, nearly 25 points fewer than Tiny or Small objects.
It only gets worse from here from a damage and action economy perspective.
You could create two large objects, each gets 50 HP, 10 AC, and +6 to hit on 2d10+2 damage, for an average of 13 damage per object per round.
Huge objects get 80 HP with 10 AC, so you’ll probably want to think of them more as moving shields that are likely to get hit a lot and only deal an average of 17 damage per round with their +8 to hit and 2d12+4 damage.
In summation, to get the most damage and use out of Animate Objects, it’s likely that you’ll want to roll with 10 Tiny objects. Dealing an average of 65 damage per round when they all hit, and fairly tough to be hit themselves, this is the best bang for your buck in combat. If you disagree, let me know in the comments below!
From an action economy perspective, having 10 additional allies on the field of battle dealing a minimum of 5 damage per turn when they hit is fantastic. As far as I know, this is the highest number of minions you can get with a 5th level spell.
We’ve also got a spreadsheet we’ll link to that has all of this information in case you want more of a breakdown.
What are the Best Uses of Animate Objects in DnD 5e?
We’ll get into the uses for Animate Objects momentarily, but a few key use clarifications first about this 5th level concentration spell first.
When you animate an object, while technically you command the creatures, to help prevent the rest of the table getting bored, have them do the rolls for your Tiny or Small objects. It keeps them engaged and while you’re still doing the command, they can take on the personality of the item.
With so many objects, you can speed things up by using the average damage and if you’re using ten, you might just want to leverage a dice rolling app to save yourself some headache. You could also use mob rolling methods. More on that in a separate video.
Remember you’re dealing with objects, so no liquids or gasses, unless they are in vials or containers. From the DMG, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone. If you’re unsure if something is an object, check with your DM, but a general rule of thumb is “smaller than 15×15, not well-fastened to another object, and not being worn or carried by a creature”
All that out of the way, let’s get into some of the ways you can use Animate Objects as a player in DnD from basic to chaotic. Most uses fall into four categories: distraction, combat, chores, and puzzle-solving.
- Act out your Fantasia fantasies and party hard while brooms and other objects do your chores for you.
- Distract commoners by rolling gold pieces down the street, up to you whether the coins do damage once grabbed
- From Dr Elm Tree, fulfill the prophecy of the Dread Gazebo and animate what was once only a stationery misunderstanding
- Open a portcullis or heavy metal doors that block your way
- Roll a bunch of boulders into a barrier formation to take cover from the baddies
- The inverse, if the baddies are hiding in an area of animatable objects, have the objects turn on them and begin to beat them senseless.
- Make several scarecrows and deck them out to look like the party. Have them march through guarded areas, drawing folks away from doors and giving you clear entry
- Build your own cloud of daggers and chase after all of your enemies, dealing slashing damage as you go.
- From Iuithriel, gaslight your enemies by moving furniture around quickly while you stay in place
- Animate an entire wagon and crash it into foes, barricades, or stop a wedding.
- Have a sneaky little artificer hiding in the walls that animates any chest the party gets near so they think it’s a mimic, teasing them into destroying the chest and the goods inside
- Pretend a house is haunted to scare off bandits or squatters
- Launch 10 projectiles into a room to find an invisible enemy using their blindsight
- Lay out 10 bombs from your adventuring gear and send them off toward your enemies, each with a one minute fuse. The bombs do 3d6 fire damage to anyone within 5 feet once they explode, so technically as long as they are not attacked themselves, they could probably do the Tiny Object 1d4+8 damage for 1 minute of concentration and then explode at the end
- Staying on the explosive side of things, if you have 10 sticks of dynamite, you could have them do the same thing, as the bombs, 3d6 bludgeoning instead of fire, but if 8 of the sticks form up prior to concentration breaking, they can do up to 10d6 bludgeoning damage, increasing the blast radius to 20 feet. I’ll say that again, 10d6 bludgeoning damage in a 20 foot radius, from pseudo-sentient dynamite.
- Animate a huge boulder and fly it above your enemy right before you break concentration or before the minute is up. Not only can the huge rock deal damage prior to the spell ending, it can fly and hover, meaning if you have an enemy that’s entangled or grappled and can’t move, you can drop the 15×15 boulder on them, dealing 1d6 damage for every 10 feet it falls, up to 20d6. Fly speed of 30 means the boulder could be lifted to its max height after 7 turns, ready to fall 210 feet onto the head of whatever poor soul is under it. Once it falls, the boulder will do 70 bludgeoning damage on average. That poor kobold never stood a chance.
History of Animate Objects Across DnD Editions
1st edition had Animate Objects as an alteration spell that lasted for one round per level. It also got very into the details of the weight of objects and how much damage they could do based on that weight. Administrative nightmare for the DM.
Second edition added a bunch of boring rules about movement and attacking, and honestly I nearly fell asleep reading through them, so I’ll leave it there.
But Oooooo buddy, third edition of DnD let you animate all the way up to Colossal, taking 32 small object equivalents to do so. It also allowed for up to spellcaster level of objects, so from how I’m reading it, you would need to be a level 32 spellcaster in order to animate a colossal object. Gargantuan was only 16, so more reasonable. This was also a spell whose effects could be made permanent, nice.
5th edition is definitely the most DM-friendly version with clear details for how the objects move and deal damage, and way less wiggle room about how many objects and how long it lasts. I still wish 5e had permanence though.
Final Thoughts on Animate Objects Spell in DnD 5e
With a broad range of who can cast, Animate Objects is an awesome mid-combat spell, especially for bards. Plan your pack accordingly and you should never have an issue finding 10 tiny items to grind your enemies into a fine powder. What other questions do you have about Animate Objects? Let us know below.
Be sure to check out our 16 uses for Animate Objects and Until next time roll high and stay ridiculous, thanks for watching.
