Rumor holds the Animate Objects spell was inspired by the Sorcerer’s Apprentice short from Disney’s Fantasia (1940), where Mickey animates brooms to carry his water.

Animate Objects is a 5th level spell in D&D 5th Edition that turns objects in your environment into weapons. DM David recently observed that this spell suffers from two mechanical issues:

• Tiny objects are always the best option.
• Numerous attacks grind combat to a halt.

Thankfully, both of these problems are fixable. Let’s unpack the spell and see what we can do to tweak it. Our goal here is not necessarily to come up with a solution (we do), but to give you the tools to understand and adjust the spell to your taste.

How It Works

The spell animates a certain number of objects based on their size:

• Tiny and Small targets count as one object,
• Medium targets count as two objects,
• Large targets…