Necromancer Dracolitch?

[PandaPhobia]

Hey guys. I run a 5e campaign for a school club and was kicking around an idea I had for it. It involves a Dracolitch with necromancer powers as a kind of boss for the characters to fight. I ran into a few problems though as nobody seems to have done this before, so I just have a few questions:

The dragon will be forced to fight the characters by a demon, so what type of dragon should I use as the Dracolitch to make it possible for them to befriend it, if possible?

There will be 5-6 players fighting it, all lvl 7 or above and I want to make it pretty challenging. Will the necromancer powers affect the CR very much? If not, how do I make it more dangerous?

[GlenSmash!]

Very cool idea. it reminds me of Durnehviir in Skyrim. I would go with a Chromatic dragon that started learning Necromancy for what it thought was good reasons. Perhaps building an undead army to fight a greater evil, maybe even the Demon you mention. Now it's become morally lost and could use the guidance of the Party.

Any Chaotic Good dragon would fit the bill.

I could see the Necromancers powers effecting the difficulty of the encounter quite a bit, though honestly I am not very good with CRs.

What I would do is plan out how many Skeletons or whatever you will have on the Dracoliches side, and factor them into the cR of the encounter.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I might represent the necromantic powers through lair actions rather than personal powers. Let it summon a few zombies and skeletons every round, or scare players with ghosts, or maybe temporarily turn a player into a zombie version of themselves with some lightly reduced stats (nothing too crazy, but enough to add to the cool factor. Kids dig that).

[PandaPhobia]

I might represent the necromantic powers through lair actions rather than personal powers. Let it summon a few zombies and skeletons every round, or scare players with ghosts, or maybe temporarily turn a player into a zombie version of themselves with some lightly reduced stats (nothing too crazy, but enough to add to the cool factor. Kids dig that).

Yeah I was thinking about putting it in a cave with a bunch of bones lining the walls. Every 1d10 rounds he summons 1d4 skeletons. Also there r 4 elemental mage skeletons he can summon, though I don't know if that is too much.

[PandaPhobia]

Very cool idea. it reminds me of Durnehviir in Skyrim. I would go with a Chromatic dragon that started learning Necromancy for what it thought was good reasons. Perhaps building an undead army to fight a greater evil, maybe even the Demon you mention. Now it's become morally lost and could use the guidance of the Party.

Any Chaotic Good dragon would fit the bill.

I could see the Necromancers powers effecting the difficulty of the encounter quite a bit, though honestly I am not very good with CRs.

What I would do is plan out how many Skeletons or whatever you will have on the Dracoliches side, and factor them into the cR of the encounter.

The demon I mentioned is also involved in a one shot I'm doing over the summer that involves him sending a bunch of minions to recruit the dragon. Depending on how that goes, the dragon will either be a willing participant in the main campaign or chained to the walls and raging at anyone who comes near.

[Elminster298]

As far as color... Chromatic dragons are the most believable necromancers with Black dragons making the best necromancers and Green and Blue dragons being the most pragmatic and likely to switch sides. Of the Metallics, Brass and Copper would be the most likely to be lured or tricked into working for evil. Bronze however would make a surprisingly good surprise bad guy. While traditionally lawful good, they have a much more negative outlook on life and so can slowly slide to the dark side over decades.