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The antimagic field spell has the following effect on creatures:

A creature or object summoned or created by magic temporarily winks out of existence in the sphere. Such a creature instantly reappears once the space the creature occupied is no longer within the sphere.

Which creatures, or types of creature, fall within this category?

  • Obviously elementals or demons summoned by a spell will qualify.
  • What about constructs such as golems?
  • What about undead animated by magic, like zombies? Stronger undead?
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1 Answer 1

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Any creature created by magic with a non-instantaneous duration disappears

The official D&D Sage advice compendium contains the following clarification:

Whenever you wonder whether a spell’s effects can be dispelled or suspended, you need to answer one question: is the spell’s duration instantaneous? If the answer is yes, there is nothing to dispel or suspend.

The clarification continues to explain an example of this at play: the spell conjure woodland beings. Conjure Woodland Beings has a non-instantaneous duration, so the magic that summons the creatures is acting upon them and maintaining their presence for the whole duration of the spell. When they enter an anti-magic field, the magic that is keeping the summoned creatures in place is suspended, so the creatures disappear.

When this situation occurs, ask yourself whether or not the effect that summoned the creature is instantaneous. If it's instantaneous, then the creature will stay, otherwise it will disappear while its space is within the field.

To address your examples

Elementals and fiends will only disappear if the spell that summoned them is not instantaneous. A spell like conjure elemental falls into this category. However, a spell like planar ally can summon an elemental or fiend and has a duration of instantaneous. So a creature summoned by that spell will not disappear.

In general undead and constructs follow the same rule as any other creature. Unless the magic that created it is non-instantaneous, a construct or undead can enter an antimagic field with no ill effect (barring any specific exceptions from some other source: like that creature's stat block).

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Hmm. This would suggest that the familiar from find familiar would be unaffected (at least, it wouldn't disappear) in an antimagic field, in contrast to what Rykara's answer to this other question suggests. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 19:54
  • \$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast I believe that is correct. I updated my answer to use a better reference to support this claim. The sage advice describes how the creatures created by the conjure woodland beings spell will disappear in the field specifically because the spell has a non-instantaneous duration. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adam
    Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 20:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ Personally, I agree. perhaps you'd like to post an answer to the other question as well. \$\endgroup\$
    – ravery
    Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 20:05
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    \$\begingroup\$ You might want to mention that if you came across an elemental on an Elemental Plane, or across a fiend in one of the Lower Planes, or they otherwise crossed the planes to actually be wherever you are, then once again antimagic field would not affect them. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 20:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ I think there is an interesting theoretical corner case here that I'm not sure exists. If there was a spell that summoned/created a creature that had a non-instantaneous duration but the creature persisted after that then an AMF would suppress it during the duration but not after the duration. However, I don't think a spell like that currently exists. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 21:27

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