Necromancer

[Chelios]

How do you build the best necromancer?

[calebrus]

How do you build the best necromancer?

Make a wizard.
Place his highest stat into Intelligence, with Constitution as secondary, and possibly Dexterity if you want to be able to use any weapons or stealth or have any AC to speak of ,or maybe a little Charisma or Wisdom depending on your preference.
Choose necromancy spells to add to your spellbook.
When you get to 2nd level, choose necromancy as your school.

There, you have the best necromancer.

[HoarsHalberd]

Best is subjective. School of necromancy is going to get you lots of the toughest minions. Oathbreaker gets you better damaging minions. Best combo of two players is school of necromancy wizard and an oathbreaker paladin.

[Naanomi]

And a cleric to take control of things of minions go bad

[CrusaderJoe]

Bard (lore or valor) could make a decent Necromancer, they wouldn't be your main ability but would be good backup.

Bard: w/Actor feat: These aren't undead monsters! These are lepers you insensitive jerk!

You could walk a small army into a city...

Edit: Currently making said Necrobard...

[Heartspan]

Clerics don't get control undead, do they?

[CrusaderJoe]

Clerics don't get control undead, do they?

They get create undead, is that what you are talking about? Or are you talking about the wizard subclass feature Undead Thralls?

[dev6500]

Your best bet for a necromancer is going to be either wizard(necromancer spec), some multiclass of wizard and oath breaker paladin for the aura of hate and 6th level necromancer damage buff, or warlock 14/wizard(necromancer) 6.

For animating dead, the 6th level wizard necromancy archetype ability is irreplaceable. +wiz lvl to hp, +proficiency mod to damage for all undead you create. End game this gives all your undead +20 hp and +6 to damage.

Aura of hate gives undead within 10 feet of you, + cha to damage. Not sure this is truly worth it.

warlock gives you pact spell slots which come back after short rests. By end game thats 3 5th lvl castings of animate dead per short rest allowing for easily maintainable armies of 200 skeletons.

So if you want lots of undead, go warlock/wiznecro ( do note that lvls 7-10 will be weak until you get 3rd lvl pact slots at lvl 11 character lvl). I suggest going elf of some sort since they only need to sleep 4 hours a night and you can spend the other 4 hours everyone else is asleep casting animate dead and short resting.

Sadly necromancy in 5e is not necromancy in dnd 3.5. You don't get to have 1 big strong undead creature like in the past. No animating the dragon you killed and applying skeleton to it.

[CrusaderJoe]

Sadly necromancy in 5e is not necromancy in dnd 3.5. You don't get to have 1 big strong undead creature like in the past. No animating the dragon you killed and applying skeleton to it.

This is not a bad thing however, being able to completely replace a party member as an action is bad game design. Especially when said replacement is better than some classes.

There needs to be a way to better limit how many undead one can create and control

[RulesJD]

While it is tempting to take a Warlock dip, I would recommend staying straight wizard for the utility of the spells you get later on.

One of the huge weaknesses of playing a necromancer is what you do with your minions when you're trying to enter a city. However, if you're a high level wizard, you simply shunt your minions into a Demiplane. At that point, all you need is 1 round to have access to your entire undead horde by casting Demiplane again and linking it to the undead storage room.

You also want access to Otto's Irresistible Dance to generate advantage for your undead. Their attack bonus is generally pretty poor and OID generates advantage without a saving throw until the creature's turn.

Ironically, Necromancers can make the best use of an Anti-Magic field because their undead may not be considered summoned or created by magic. You can also have your undead use Grapple as you drop a Cloudkill on them. Their immunity to poison damage makes it a lethal combo.

[CrusaderJoe]

While it is tempting to take a Warlock dip, I would recommend staying straight wizard for the utility of the spells you get later on.

One of the huge weaknesses of playing a necromancer is what you do with your minions when you're trying to enter a city. However, if you're a high level wizard, you simply shunt your minions into a Demiplane. At that point, all you need is 1 round to have access to your entire undead horde by casting Demiplane again and linking it to the undead storage room.

You also want access to Otto's Irresistible Dance to generate advantage for your undead. Their attack bonus is generally pretty poor and OID generates advantage without a saving throw until the creature's turn.

Ironically, Necromancers can make the best use of an Anti-Magic field because their undead may not be considered summoned or created by magic. You can also have your undead use Grapple as you drop a Cloudkill on them. Their immunity to poison damage makes it a lethal combo.

That's why Bard Necromancer is the best, those aren't zombies, just really really really sick people.

+17 to deception? Yeah those are really really really sick people.

Also if you want to blow a 5th level slot,seeming lasts for 8 hours.

Battlefield control is fun with undead though.

[TrexPushups]

While it is tempting to take a Warlock dip, I would recommend staying straight wizard for the utility of the spells you get later on.

One of the huge weaknesses of playing a necromancer is what you do with your minions when you're trying to enter a city. However, if you're a high level wizard, you simply shunt your minions into a Demiplane. At that point, all you need is 1 round to have access to your entire undead horde by casting Demiplane again and linking it to the undead storage room.

You also want access to Otto's Irresistible Dance to generate advantage for your undead. Their attack bonus is generally pretty poor and OID generates advantage without a saving throw until the creature's turn.

Ironically, Necromancers can make the best use of an Anti-Magic field because their undead may not be considered summoned or created by magic. You can also have your undead use Grapple as you drop a Cloudkill on them. Their immunity to poison damage makes it a lethal combo.


So what about ordering your undead to dig a large pit and then cover it like a normal pit trap. When you need them again just to to the pit.

[Myzz]

they can also climb into portable holes and such things... they don't need to breath after all...

14 Wiz Necro is pretty awesome if your going to encounter other roaming undead under someone elses control...

Death Clerics, while dealing with Necrotic Energy arent any better at animating undead...

Since Finger of Death is your favorite spell... I'd probably go Necro Wiz all way to 14 first... Unfortunately Animate dead is level 3, so you wont get to put that under Spell Mastery, but it does go under Signature Spell at 20...

Oh and dont forget to coat them all in poison if you find an endless poison supply =)

[TrexPushups]

they can also climb into portable holes and such things... they don't need to breath after all...

14 Wiz Necro is pretty awesome if your going to encounter other roaming undead under someone elses control...

Death Clerics, while dealing with Necrotic Energy arent any better at animating undead...

Since Finger of Death is your favorite spell... I'd probably go Necro Wiz all way to 14 first... Unfortunately Animate dead is level 3, so you wont get to put that under Spell Mastery, but it does go under Signature Spell at 20...

Oh and dont forget to coat them all in poison if you find an endless poison supply =)

Create a poison farm in your downtime.

[dev6500]

This is not a bad thing however, being able to completely replace a party member as an action is bad game design. Especially when said replacement is better than some classes.

There needs to be a way to better limit how many undead one can create and control

I agree that necromancy was too strong in dnd 3.5 and you could basically replace a whole party at lvl 5 with a 20 hd dinosaur but that is very fixable.

Being able to turn monsters you kill into interestingly different undead is good game design. Having animate dead only be able to create a 1 humanoid skeleton or zombie as its only options is too rigid and is poor game design. If the player wants to have lots of little undead or 1 big undead, they should have the option. The template applied should just handle the balance issues of turning larger size / higher hd creatures into skeletons. IE, apply str penalties for each size over medium the creature is because the larger skeleton is unwieldy. Now you have a huge dinosaur but its significantly weaker than the living dinosaur was.

I just think the fix they applied to necromancy in 5e is overly punishing. Have to recast the spell every day to maintain your army and your options for undead are boringly limited.

[jazzymantis]

they can also climb into portable holes and such things... they don't need to breath after all...

On a similar note, you can store a bunch of them in your demiplane. Order them to do crafts or something productive. This would work best for the zombies you get permanently from finger of death and the like. (Or if you want to be really mean your great old one warlock thrall.) It sucks up your 8th level spell slot though. It would be an awesome place to trap/torture somebody though.


If you have a halfling/gnome zombie you could hide it away in your Leomund's secret chest along with some other useful things that you would want in there. The cool thing about this option is that you can summon/unsummon only using an action forever.

[Heartspan]

Cast gentle repose on your corpses before you make a zombie. "Oh, thats george, he doesnt talk much." But otherwise just looks a little pale

[Shining Wrath]

I think that in 5e you want to optimize your party. Given that you are probably running Wizard 20 (Necromancer), the question that comes to mind is what friends would boost the power of your odoriferous minions?

Oathbreaker Paladin has some good auras.
An Assassin Rogue could take advantage of your zombies grappling the enemy - and if a halfling, could hide among the horde.
A bard can serve as the party face ... and, obviously, plays Death Metal.