Does an undead raised with Animate Dead retain any knowledge it had in life?

[Stalker0]

In my last game, my players are trying to extract information from a dead cult member who is notoriously known for secrecy (this was my attempt to see if secrets can actually be kept from determined high level magic).

They first tried speak with dead on it, but got cryptic answers. They wanted to use zone of truth on it, but I ruled that as a corpse it was not a creature and so not affected by the zone.

They next tried to animate it, and use telepathy on it to communicate with it while in the zone of truth. The question is, would the undead retain any memories that could be useful in the questioning?

 

[CrimsonCarcharodon]

I would say no. Skeletons and zombies aren't smart enough. A ghoul might remember its past, but in vague terms, but skeletons and zombies not so much.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

This is a question that's easily solved with no wiggle room if you just read the MM descriptions. "A zombie retains no vestiges of its former self, its mind devoid of thought and imagination." "An animated skeleton retains no connection to its past, although ressurrecting a skeketon restores it body and soul, banishing the hateful undead spirit that empowers it". Unless you house rule skeletons or zombies to work in a radically different fashion than they have since first edition, they don't have any memories of their former life.

 

[Stalker0]

This is a question that's easily solved with no wiggle room if you just read the MM descriptions. "A zombie retains no vestiges of its former self, its mind devoid of thought and imagination." "An animated skeleton retains no connection to its past, although ressurrecting a skeketon restores it body and soul, banishing the hateful undead spirit that empowers it". Unless you house rule skeletons or zombies to work in a radically different fashion than they have since first edition, they don't have any memories of their former life.

Perfect. I realized I was looking at the quick section in the back of the PH instead of true monster description. You are absolutely right, thank you very much.

 

[77IM]

This is the kind of thing that I resolve with an ability check. Clearly the players think there are reasons for their ideas to work; but the text provides reasons to think that their ideas won't work. Rather than wracking my brain trying to decide which point of view is absolutely 100% correct and true in my universe, I just pick a DC and an ability score and let the dice decide.