D&D 5E [2014 rules] Can you charm zombies (and other undead) in this edition?

[not-so-newguy]

I dusted off my 5e books and played a session. Somebody in our party casted charm on a zombie and I mentioned that it wouldn't affect the monster. After doing some research, I couldn't find any rule backing up my assumption.

To be clear, if you do a quick google search there is something stating that "Zombies do not possess minds (they are animated corpses with no personality, memories or motivations of the person they once were). Therefore they cannot be affected by mind affecting spells. The same applies to things like charm and illusion magic." On the other hand, I can't find any mention in the PHB (I checked the Charm Person spell), DMG, or MM.

If there is a rule about this, can somebody tell me where to find it?

 

[Shiroiken]

If a monster is immune to a condition, it would be listed in the stat block. Since it is not, then yes you can in fact charm undead.

 

[billd91]

Well, a zombie IS immune to charm person, but not because they're not affected by mind-affecting spells. That's a characteristic from 3e. Rather, charm person affects humanoids, and zombies are classified as undead, not humanoids.

 

[Burnside]

Some specific Undead (ghosts and specters, for example) specifically have immunity to Charmed (and many other Conditions) listed in their stat blocks. If it's not listed there, then the creature isn't immune.

Neither the 2014 nor the 2024 zombie is immune to the Charmed Condition. They ARE immune to the Charm Person spell specifically, since it only affects Humanoids, not Undead.

 

[Stormonu]

As a side note, I always found it unintuitive that charm person doesn't work on Giants.

@billd91 has the right of it though, the charm person spell doesn't affect them - but charm monster does.

 

[Vaalingrade]

There are a lot of very concerning implications as to who the magic of the world considers 'people'.

 

[Staffan]

5e generally doesn't have any rules about creature type X being immune to magic type Y. Those things are generally special cases, either in the description of the specific creature or in the specific spell.

 

[pukunui]

5e generally doesn't have any rules about creature type X being immune to magic type Y. Those things are generally special cases, either in the description of the specific creature or in the specific spell.

Yes, like how elves are immune to being paralyzed by regular ghouls (but not ghasts).