The DC 21 Spellcraft check allows an unseen servant to deliver touch spells for the duration but is restricted to normal spell limitations concerning distance from the caster. The spell does not provide evidence on whether the servant can or cannot levitate, so its behavior is mostly up to the DM. Unseen servants cannot communicate telepathically and have a non-existent intelligence. They take ten minutes and six seconds to ritual cast but have an hour duration and do not require concentration.
Unseen servants cannot fight but can interact with objects. During a fight, you can command your unseen servant as a bonus action to tip over a cauldron or pull a lever. They can also be used to pick locks and disarm traps at range without being noticed by a creature on a Dexterity (sleight of) level.
The Unseen Servant spell in DnD 5e has a standing order of “Whenever someone not in the party starts to cast a spell, touch their butt”. Casting a spell is not an attack, and the servant cannot be touched or manipulated in any shape or form. The reaction ability of the homonculus servant allows the creature to deliver a touch-range spell that its master casts as a reaction to the spell.
As in all editions of DnD, the unseen servant cannot be touched or manipulated, in any shape or form. You can make the servant do what you want within the spell. This spell creates an invisible, mindless, shapeless, Medium force that performs simple tasks at your command until the spell ends. An 18th-level magic-user will only have a max of 5 at once and they will only last for 4 hours.
📹 UNSEEN SERVANT | Summon The Means Of Production – Spell A Day D&D 5E +2
Alrighty day 344! Today is Unseen Servant. 21 more to go. Unseen and a servant. There’s something about the working class in …
Can the unseen servant fly?
An unseen servant is an invisible, mindless force that performs simple tasks at your command. It can run, fetch things, open unstuck doors, hold chairs, clean, and mend. It can only perform one activity at a time, repeating it if instructed. It can only open normal doors, drawers, and lids. It has an effective Strength score of 2, can trigger traps, but can only exert 20 pounds of force. It cannot perform tasks that require a skill check with a DC higher than 10 or using a skill that cannot be used untrained.
It cannot fly, climb, or swim, but can walk on water. Its base speed is 15 feet. The servant cannot attack, and it cannot be killed. It dissipates damage if it takes 6 points from area attacks, but it doesn’t get saves against attacks. If sent beyond the spell’s range, the servant ceases to exist.
Can an unseen servant swim?
An unseen servant is an invisible, mindless force that performs simple tasks at your command. It can run, fetch things, open unstuck doors, hold chairs, clean, and mend. It can only perform one activity at a time, repeating it if instructed. It can only open normal doors, drawers, and lids. It has an effective Strength score of 2, can trigger traps, but can only exert 20 pounds of force. It cannot perform tasks that require a skill check with a DC higher than 10 or using a skill that cannot be used untrained.
It cannot fly, climb, or swim, but can walk on water. Its base speed is 15 feet. The servant cannot attack, and it cannot be killed. It dissipates damage if it takes 6 points from area attacks, but it doesn’t get saves against attacks. If sent beyond the spell’s range, the servant ceases to exist.
Can unseen servant trigger traps?
An unseen servant is an invisible, mindless force that performs simple tasks at your command. It can run, fetch things, open unstuck doors, hold chairs, clean, and mend. It can only perform one activity at a time, repeating it if instructed. It can only open normal doors, drawers, and lids. It has an effective Strength score of 2, can trigger traps, but can only exert 20 pounds of force. It cannot perform tasks that require a skill check with a DC higher than 10 or using a skill that cannot be used untrained.
It cannot fly, climb, or swim, but can walk on water. Its base speed is 15 feet. The servant cannot attack, and it cannot be killed. It dissipates damage if it takes 6 points from area attacks, but it doesn’t get saves against attacks. If sent beyond the spell’s range, the servant ceases to exist.
How strong is an unseen servant?
An unseen servant is an invisible, mindless force that performs simple tasks at your command. It can run, fetch things, open unstuck doors, hold chairs, clean, and mend. It can only perform one activity at a time, repeating it if instructed. It can only open normal doors, drawers, and lids. It has an effective Strength score of 2, can trigger traps, but can only exert 20 pounds of force. It cannot perform tasks that require a skill check with a DC higher than 10 or using a skill that cannot be used untrained.
It cannot fly, climb, or swim, but can walk on water. Its base speed is 15 feet. The servant cannot attack, and it cannot be killed. It dissipates damage if it takes 6 points from area attacks, but it doesn’t get saves against attacks. If sent beyond the spell’s range, the servant ceases to exist.
Can an unseen servant fly?
The unobserved servant is incapable of flight and is thus limited to the execution of rudimentary tasks, akin to those of a human servant. It is capable of climbing ladders and swimming. The spell enables the issuance of mental commands for movement up to a distance of 15 feet, comparable to that of a human or an orc. It is, however, incapable of flight. In order to move into the air, the servant must possess a specified fly speed. The servant is only capable of climbing or swimming if commanded and is unable to fly without a specified speed.
What tasks can unseen servants do?
The spell enables the caster to issue a mental command to a servant, who will then move up to 15 feet and interact with an object. The servant is capable of performing a variety of basic tasks, including fetching, cleaning, mending, folding clothes, lighting fires, serving food, and pouring wine. Should the servant be commanded to traverse a distance exceeding 60 feet, the spell will conclude. Subsequently, the servant is required to complete the assigned task before awaiting further instructions.
Can an unseen servant touch people?
The servant materializes in an unoccupied space with a strength rating of 1, a hit point total of 10, and no armor class. The servant is unable to attack and will conclude the spell if its hit points reach zero. It is possible for the spell to be disabled or obstructed by extensions or browsers that do not support cookies.
Can unseen servant be detected?
In contrast to the majority of divination spells, Unseen Servants are not invisible. This is due to their “shapeless” nature, which prevents them from being seen with See Invisible or Blindsight. It is possible that they may be disabled or blocked by extensions such as ad blockers or browsers that do not support cookies.
What are the limitations of unseen servant?
The game is constrained by certain parameters, including a 15-foot speed limit and a 60-foot maximum distance that the servant is permitted to traverse from the caster. It is not feasible to demolish an enemy castle by merely remaining in proximity to it and surviving the resulting blast. Moreover, it should be noted that JavaScript may be disabled or blocked by an extension.
Can an unseen servant be attacked?
The spell description delineates an invisible human servant with an armor class of 10 and one hit point, rendering it susceptible to attacks.
What can unseen servant carry?
Unseen servants can interact with objects and create cover with their strength. They can carry 30lb or drag 60lb with strength 2. However, unseen servants are not creatures or objects, but rather from-less forces. As confirmed by J. Crawford, they cannot provide cover by themselves. The question arises what a floating shield could provide by itself. An animated shield, a magic item that gives a +2 to AC, is a better version of the same trick. Overall, unseen servants can provide cover with or without a shield, but they are not creatures or objects.
📹 Five Must-Have Ritual Spells in Dungeons and Dragons 5e
Catch new episodes every Thursday! Check out our Find Familiar video here: https://youtu.be/yzn3gHF0Lf0. Watch us play live …
Durable Summons w/ Conjuration Wizards can make servants effective 31 hit point body bags. Regular servants can also do things that would take an action like coating poison/oil, dropping caltrops, pouring holy water, etc. They could also pour potions into mouths if needed. Cast this multiple times and have a squad of squires helping the party. Tis a nice spell
One thing about Unseen Servant that I think is a bit weird for what it does is the fact it’s invisible. With Mage Hand (at least in 5e) the hand is clearly visible as a spectral hand, so it’s generally easier to consider it’s limits. People who know about cantrips would know that a floating spectral hand is likely a mage hand. However, an unseen servant is invisible and shapeless so even if they can’t attack people they could be kind of weird to be around. on the other hand, Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion comes with a staff of what are essentially unseen servants except that they take on the appearance of semitransparent servants of the caster’s choice. I can see it making more sense for Unseen Servant to have the resulting servant be at least somewhat visible so that people other than the caster can actually see the thing that’s doing all the work. As for unorthodox uses, I wonder if an unseen servant can record information? Like if you summon one and have it write down what you’re saying. Then, if it can do that have a servant invisibly sneak into a room, listen to what people are saying and write things down. Or have it basically hidden in a vent or under the floorboards with only the pen and paper being a visible object (I suppose someone could determine the spy’s presence by hearing the scratching of pen on paper as it’s writing things down. So a listen check to hear the unseen servant writing notes), or you could use an unseen servant as an assassin to pour poison into someone’s drink or food.
I love little spells like this that are not the big booming war magic but rather things that everyone would take. Every wizard would want this, things like prestidigitation are similar, or purify food and drink. In any of my worlds every bard has a healing spell, since if there’s no cleric around it saves lives, along with stuff like this and mending.
There was this one time I finally got to play a wizard. I took spells Mage Hand, Melody (Find Familiar), Tiny Servant, and Rupert (Unseen Servant). At night, after traveling for the day, I would play cards with my little menagerie. Yes I was controlling every thing that was dealt cards but it was funny because Tinies would cheat and try to palm cards.
This is in all actuality the deadliest spell in the hole players handbook. And the reason for it is the incredible amount of worldbuilding this spell covers. Any magic society has access to the spell (even low magic once). This means in essence that there is no need for slaves. This means there is no reasons for any survivors of defeated armies or nations. So wars are way deadlier because of one formless blob. For rating: This is a powerful niche spell (+5) with tremendous worldbuilding potential (+1). It is accessible and has creative use (+2). So this is an 8/10 in my books. Now lets clean up the questions Zaktact left. The servant is summoned on the ground, has no flying speed and a movement speed of 15 ft. It is a creature and no type or tag. It has the invisibility condition, can’t attack and can do any minor task that a mindless, formless blob can do. So what can the blob do? Any repetitive task that doesn’t require any complex knowledge or movements. So it can prepare you food but don’t expect any 5 star menu with any complicated steps. Expect something like a mulligan. Also as already stated there is a loophole in the wording where you can designate a servant to do a task and then move away the servant does the task you told it. I picture this spell like in the Harry Potter movies where Molly throws her kitchen with magic. Have a nice day AEther
I have 2 very fond memories of this spell. I was a wizard in a party with an artificer and we both had this spell, we were in a short dungeon and came across a sarcophagus but the party was low on strong characters, so we sat down for 20 minutes and suddenly we had a team of US and the party all lifting this ancient item (which had an anemic mummy inside) and just running off with it The second, I was playing a high level creation bard, and I summoned a cannon, and 2 unseen servants to use thier actions to load and aim it, so that a party member could fire it
the greatest part of this as a player is the trap detection, They are literally free, and can be commanded to push the ground with 30 pounds of force, then do the walls and ceilings if you are extra paranoid. Also you can stand behind it and probably have half cover, yes, it dies to one hit, however it can hide, and even if spotted, 10 ac is not a lot but invisibility helps Also the text is jank, it only vanishes the instant when you give it a command, if the command where to move it away. So if you command to clean the room you are in, and then leave, it should probably just continue cleaning.
My level 1 wizard had this one not for any practical reason just for roleplay reasons cause he was the son of a noble family of wizards sent out to adventure for actual experience and of course this would be one of the spells a spoiled brat would pick so he can get away with not doing menial tasks in his day to day life.
An interesting aside that no one else seems to have mentioned is that Unseen Servants are, RAW, nearly invulnerable. After all a magical force isn’t an object, creature, or location, so attack actions and most spells cannot actually target unseen servants. 1st Level, Ritual, great world building applications, can’t take attacks but can serve some decent utility especially when trap finding, takes a bonus action to command 9/10
Worldbuilding side: on the “killing the job market” and “replacing a manor staff”.. consider it is not a specialist, it is unskilled simple labor within range.. it may replace some measure of unskilled labor, but it replaces with a new specialist (the ritual caster) – the kitchen would still have a cheff or two, but also one caster to deal with cleaning the dishes while also peeling and dicing vegetables.. a maid caster that oversees the cleaning of an entire room (or a few smaller ones).. a stable boy that can keep all clean and tidy around the stable while focusing on caring for the mounts.. a blacksmith with “living” belows.. and more… such would not change for str based labor since str 2, same for long range tasks, but what labor it replaces (for those that can afford those specialists) will be free to work on other areas or lean and improve their skill.
Can it reload a crossbow? I would imagine that it might be able to reload them at a slower pace, with enough gearing. Back in 3.5, with a conjurer specialist with the Augment Summoning Feat it would have 6 strength, and you could cast it with longer duration metamagic and potentially have them last a very significant amount of time. In 3.5, it was awesome for precasting before social encounters, and people would ask the wizard to demonstrate their power and they could use the Unseen Servant in a number of ways to clearly demonstrate their power without using up a spell slot in each demonstration. 5th has cantrips that allow that, but back in the day, Unseen Servant was great for conveying magical status. As far as the economic effects, you could have one trained mage replace six weak and untrained servants. So either untrained weak servants get paid much less or servants are hired because they have skills, they are competent and physically stronger. In my campaign, there was a relatively recent event where magic went from being hoarded and monopolized with lots of gatekeepers to many factions starting to train as many wizards and other casters as they could. So instead of the magic profession being dominated by a very small number of level 7-10 or so professionals, there is now a huge base of level 1 casters who never go further. And the casters with Mold Earth cantrip mass produce molded clay pots and then fire them before the spell breaks so they are fired into shape. You have your ritual cast Beast Speech casters, Shape Water used to move large amounts of water to run mills or irrigate crops.
This is silly, but rules as written state “if you command the servant to do something that would move it 60 feet away from you, the spell ends”. So, by the letter of the rule, if you say “clean these sheets right here” and then walk 100 feet away, no problem. Conversely, as soon as you say “go over to that chest 65 feet away” it vanishes before even moving
Player spell. (for some reason an Unseen Servant is always named Rupert to me) Summon the Unseen Servant to set off traps. Throw a sheet over it to cause a distraction while you are sneaking around. Send it ahead of you holding a candle or a torch or even a Bullseye lantern. With the Bullseye you would have a 60 foot cone of light in front of the party right at the 60 foot limit of the spell. That would give you time to sneaky hide while the there is no light illuminating your crew. While traveling send it out for fire wood or pitch tents. Have it touch all the things you don’t want to touch. That lever over there, in the room with the knock out gas? Go a head Rupert go and pull that lever. Heck any thing a Mage Hand can do US does better. Longer range. Can keep preforming tasks over and over again. Longer time that it is active. You can use a spell if you need Rupert in a pinch but the fact it is a ritual is just Icing. World building This spell is one of those spells that you will get lost in. If you think of one thing to do with this spell then you will come up with 3 other things that tie into that first thing you thought of. You can get REALLY deep in the rabbit hole with just this one spell.
I was thinking of introducing a new type of magic item. Something that allows a ritual cast spell to be cast significantly faster, like in 2 minutes, not 10. Partly for convenience, partly for potential industrial magic. Perhaps it would be heavy or even immobile, but it would be great for things like Zone of Truth, or Tongues or Detect Magic or Identify. Might be a little too powerful if it can substitute for the material cost of the spell. Unfortunately, I think that the level of fun level that it would introduce into the campaign compared to the level of imbalance and world implications is too out of balance.
Sorcerer with magic initiate feat to pick this spell up and 7 sorcery points / Level 7 could spend ten minutes on this, upgrade it with extend spell metamagic and then take a 1 hour short rest to re-up the sorcery points and then have a nice invisible servant for 21.33 hours of the day for 1 hour 1 min investment 🙂
DMs and players will often have differing opinions but not all things about the spell are left up to them. It states it is a Medium force, which means it is not, and does not count as, a creature or oblect. In checking, most spells only affect creatures and/or objects, not forces. Therefore, even though it only has 1hp, how do you target it to deal that damage to it?
This is one of those spell that are low key broken. “simple tasks” yeah this is where DM want to put their foot down hard If you can’t send a child to do. It is more than one sentence. You have to make some thing from nothing. The Unseen Servant.can’t do it. If you don’t cap their skill level or define it very well. PC can get them to do some really crazy stuff.
So everyone says this isn’t combat applicable, but i disagree. I would keep a few healing potions on my belt and keep an active servant at all times. They would have the standing order to stay near me and feed me a health potion if I’m ever unconscious. Aoe damage effects would be a major counter to that, but it’s not really costing me much to ritual cast it and it has thy potential to get me out of a rough spot without needing the attention of a party member to waste their turn getting me back up.
It can do the help action, no? That’s a +2 to the majority of actions you could find yourself doing. Patching up an idiot Rogue/Barbarian, stripping the Paladin out of Heat-Metal’d armor, lighting a signal fire while the party wails on the BBEG’s lieutenant trying to protect it, sailing a small raft, looting a dragons hoard mid-raid, removing evidence while you distract the investigator, Etc. You name it, US can be there helping you accomplish it.
Also to put my hat in the ring I think it would be able to cook because it does say what a human servant can do so yes, granted it’s not under the examples but I still think it can make food granted I don’t think it would be like amazing/complicated foods but I think like simple things and at the very least it should be able to at least make a sandwich🤔