What IS the role of a Necromancer Wizard or Sorcerer?

[Luccan]

A lot of wizard/sorcerer spells of the necromancy school focus more on interacting with undead or debuffing opponents, rather than actually creating the undead (And at least using just the SRD, they start being able to do it later than clerics). I've also heard that the best undead creators are usually clerics (or dread necros, of course). So if you were a necromany specialist or sorcerer with a necromantic inclination, what would you largely be doing with your spells?

[DMVerdandi]

Debuffing with rays. Meta magic brings on the pew pew.

Conjuration is also good for summon undead.

[Captn_Flounder]

You're less of a "Necromancer" and moreso "Person with all the amazingly powerful spells of a Wizard and also has 4x his HD in undead minions running around with him."

Necromancy is just a small part of your kit, wouldn't build anything around it specially.

[Fizban]

There is no role for a necromancer: the necromancer has to find his place within the existing roles. Assuming they're filling the arcanist slot (crowd-control and bypassing defenses), then they might not be using necromancy spells for a while. Ray of Enfeeblement, Ray of Sickness, and Ray of Exhaustion bypass most defenses, Ghoul Touch and Blindess are save/lose, as are Cause Fear and Scare, but it's not until 4th level spells with Enervation and Fear that you really get crowd-control or crushing non-resistable effects in necromancy. After that you start doing insta-kill/mass insta-kill, then more Energy Drain. There are other fancier spells, but they're all just variations on "curse to target will save instead of fort, or otherwise slightly change the effect in an attempt to avoid immunities."

There is no role for animated undead: either you use them and the DM accounts for them, or you don't, or you use them and the DM doesn't account for them and you get free power. Doesn't matter if you're a necromancer or not.

[Eldariel]

A necromancer can do the following things:
- Debuff
- Kill
- Create minions
- Control minions
- Heal minions
- Grand Theft Body

Mostly, an arcane necromancer is a debuffer with a bunch of minions to tank for him. They have different ways to go about this than Clerics; they lack Desecrate by default and late Animate Dead isn't that amazing. They do have Command Undead though. So they can compete.


There is no role for animated undead: either you use them and the DM accounts for them, or you don't, or you use them and the DM doesn't account for them and you get free power. Doesn't matter if you're a necromancer or not.

They're as much a class feature as a Druid's animal companion and they fit the "meatshield"/"frontliner" role just fine. Of course, more creative uses exist but principally they're just things that are there to absorb punishment for you and to hit your enemies.