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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 1738172" data-attributes="member: 18280">A human skeleton is a part of a dead creature, in the same way that a a severed arm is a part of a dead creature.  But that is neither here nor there, because D&D 3.X uses "dead creature" as a sort of cover-all for a number of things, including severed arms, severed fingers, a single bone, a lock of hair, and even the residue from a disintegrate spell.There are several spells that target one dead creature (or, more properly, "dead creature touched"); in all of these cases, the descriptive text clarifies just how much of the creature must remain.  Examining raise dead, resurrection, true resurrection, and speak with dead should verify that a spell which targets a "dead creature" has a large range of actual targets, depending upon the spell.If you had asked your question about, say, raise dead, rather than speak with dead, the target would be essentially the same.  Raise dead reads, in part, "While the spell closes mortal wounds and repairs lethal damage of most kinds, the body of the creature to be raised must be whole. Otherwise, missing parts are still missing when the creature is brought back to life. None of the dead creature’s equipment or possessions are affected in any way by this spell."If a skeleton is a valid target for raise dead, yet raise dead cannot actually produce any results from a skeleton, then why is a skeleton a valid target for raise dead?  If, as has been contended in this thread, the designers clearly meant different things when they say, in various places, "corpse" and "skeleton," then why didn't they simply write the target of raise dead as "one corpse"?You are indeed adding weight to the argument that WotC could have been more careful in its phraseology, however.Corpse:  A dead body. esp. of a person.Body:  The whole physical structure and substance of a man, animal, or plant.Skeleton:  The hard framework of an animal body for supporting the tissues and protecting the organs; specif., all the bones collectively, or the bony framework, of a human being or other vertebrate animal.These are the relevant definitions from the New World Dictionary of the American Language, second college edition, published by Simon and Schuster in 1984.If a corpse is a dead body, and a body is the whole physical structure, by definition a corpse cannot be a portion of the physical structure.  Under normal parlance, for example, a hand is not a corpse.  Obviously, as with all language, there is a degree of "fudge factor" in every definition.  This is because words are defined not by actual objects, but by the relationship between objects and speakers.  One speaks of a "headless body," for example, or a "bloodless corpse" without apparent dichotomy.  This is because our relationship with the remains allows us to decide that this is, or this is not, a body.  Essentially, we decide how much can be missing before a "dead creature" is just a particular part or group of parts of a dead creature.  In general, the majority of a body, including at least part of most subsystems of that body, must be present for most people to conclude that they are seeing a corpse rather than, say, a hank of hair, a head, an eye, a large intestine, or a skeleton.For most purposes, a head is not a dead creature.  On the evening news, the anchor would surely say "A head was found today," rather than "A bodiless corpse was found today."  Likewise, I can think of no example in common parlance, in literature, or elsewhere, where a skeleton is referred to as a corpse.  A head is sufficient to qualify as a "dead creature" for resurrection in the D&D game, however.  It is not sufficient to qualify for raise dead.  A mostly intact corpse is required for speak with dead.In the case of most of the aforementioned spells, having been turned into an undead creature precludes the use of the spell, even if the undead creature is a corpse (such as a zombie), or has previously been an undead creature and is now an inanimate corpse.  This is not the same as claiming that a zombie (or former zombie) is not a corpse.A pile of cremains is a "dead creature" though not a corpse for the purpose of casting resurrection or true resurrection, btw.No, I am thinking that spell affects a mostly intact corpse because that is what the spell description says:"You can cast this spell on a corpse that has been deceased for any amount of time, but the body must be mostly intact to be able to respond. A damaged corpse may be able to give partial answers or partially correct answers, but it must at least have a mouth in order to speak at all. This spell does not let you actually speak to the person (whose soul has departed). It instead draws on the imprinted knowledge stored in the corpse. The partially animated body retains the imprint of the soul that once inhabited it, and thus it can speak with all the knowledge that the creature had while alive. The corpse, however, cannot learn new information. Indeed, it can’t even remember being questioned."There's a huge difference between arguing on the basis of "That's not what I want it to do," and having an argument that can be accepted or refuted on the basis of logic and/or rules interpretation.  Whether or not you come to an agreement, at least a logical argument can cause you to examine the topic in a new light.Obviously, for the purposes of this discussion, the most relevant piece of information upon which there is no agreement is the definition of the term "corpse," particularly as it pertains to the D&D 3.X game.I think that I have demonstrated ad infinitum ad nauseum that, at the very least, within the context of the 3.X rules the term "skeleton" is not synonomous with the term "corpse".  I would further argue that a skeleton is a portion of a corpse, not a subset of the term.I do appreciate the argument you made, though, because it is clear that if you accept "skeleton" as a subset of "corpse", then your argument is correct.  I hope that I have been clear, in this post and others, why I do not accept that premise.  In general, your premise depends upon an acceptance of the "target" portion of the spell description being full and accurate.  In the spell listings, there are short, one-line descriptions of spells. At the heading of each spell there is summary data that gives you information on the spell, but this information is not always as detailed or as complete as the information in the descriptive text. In this way, the spell listings move from the less detailed to the more detailed.  In all cases, where the descriptive text adds more detail to the information in the summary data, including where it places restrictions or removes limitations on said data, the descriptive text takes priority.Although WotC has made some effort to keep the summary descriptions of spells clear and accurate, one can easily examine the descriptions of the spells in this thread to demonstrate that there are places where Wizards dropped the ball.  I think, however, that given the information in the more detailed spell description, most spells are simple enough to adjudicate.RC</blockquote>

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