Building a Necromancer, wanting to upgrade one specific skeleton/undead

[Ryunosuke]

I absolutely love Necromancy as my favorite school of magic honestly but I’ve never yet had a proper chance to actually play a Necromancer (last table someone already wanted a wizard so I made a bard and seduced her instead) and it honestly seems a lot simpler to pull off in 5th edition than 3.5.

What I do know is most DMs hate when the Necromancer just spams and makes an army from the get go but I was thinking of just making one (two tops) skeletons as personal body guard/pets and just keeping them around and outfitting them better for battle and using other spells to augment them like Enlarge or Haste.

A few things I wanted to know was if my 6th lv Necromancer ability to make undead I make stronger only works on a body animated at that level or will I imbue that to a skeleton I am reasserting control over? Also what rules if any exist for me giving my skeleton better armor and weapons based on proficiencies? Are they only proficient with the two weapons and tattered armor they have in their stat block? Is there a real drawback to dropping 750g putting my +2 Dex skeletons into some half plate armor (AC 17) and strapping a shield to their arm (AC 19), or even making them dual wield finesse weapons (short swords prolly) to get them a second attack each turn? Longbows? Thrown weapons, reach weapons? Is it all just my DMs discretion?

Any recommended spells over the levels to use for empowering my ‘Death Knight’ with my other Wizard spells? Once I have access to Create Undead, my chosen Knight will likely be replaced based on what I can create by level as well of course so would there be any significant changes to how I want to arm my warrior after I swap out for a Goul/Ghast/Mummy/something controlled permanently by the 14th lv ability?

I might end up playing this character for D&D adventures league as well (I’ve been racking up DM rewards from tomb of annihilation) but I likely wouldn’t make him start any higher than lv 6 to have the animate dead feature so I can enjoy the early levels of being an undead controlling boss. Also slightly torn between a yuan-ti pure blood (magic resistance, free Suggestion, and intel/charisa boosts) and a human variant with the feat depending on how badly I want War Caster or any other recommended feats.

TL;DR: I wanna play a Necromancer that just gets up one strong undead instead of an army of weak normal ones.

[Ventruenox]

Frog God/Necromancer Games' Book of Lost Spells (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/210853/Book-of-Lost-Spells-for-Fifth-Edition) has several spells that do that, of varying durations.

Talk with your DM about 3rd party products in your game.

[Lord8Ball]

Well, you could always kit out your undead in armor. Zombies in heavy skeletons in the medium armor. From there you can give them oils, poisons, or magic items. There is also a spell which can grant temporary hp to an undead equal to half the damage that would have been dealt. From there you can get the leadership feat to bolster your lesser minions by more. Dipping one into cleric could get you bless which could greatly impact the chance for your minions to hit If you're going for the death knight vibe you could instead multiclass oathbreaker paladin to further increase your minion's power. If you are going for numbers a warlock 5 could get you a lot of undead by spamming short rests.
Death priest(most optimal):
wizard/cleric 1
Minion overlord:
wizard/warlock 5
Death Knight:
wizard/Oathbreaker

[Ryunosuke]

Well, you could always kit out your undead in armor. Zombies in heavy skeletons in the medium armor. From there you can give them oils, poisons, or magic items. There is also a spell which can grant temporary hp to an undead equal to half the damage that would have been dealt. From there you can get the leadership feat to bolster your lesser minions by more. Dipping one into cleric could get you bless which could greatly impact the chance for your minions to hit If you're going for the death knight vibe you could instead multiclass oathbreaker paladin to further increase your minion's power. If you are going for numbers a warlock 5 could get you a lot of undead by spamming short rests.
Death priest(most optimal):
wizard/cleric 1
Minion overlord:
wizard/warlock 5
Death Knight:
wizard/Oathbreaker

No i used 'Death Knight' to refer to my gear gifted undead pet. The idea is to use my funds to put equipment on one skeleton and slowly trade them out for different undead like Gouls or a Wight as i gain levels for the Create Undead spell. And since I need at least the lv 14 ability to take control of any undead until i use the ability again, I wouldn't even consider multiclassing until after then and even then, the signature spell feature for Animate Dead is still rather nice as is getting the rest of my spellcasting. Plus my Wizard levels add more HP to my undead after i get lv 6.

My main concerns were recommended gear, enhancement spells, and proficiency limits to the skeletons (which are better on offense than zombies i believe who make better meat shields)

[Unoriginal]

There is no official way to make a single undead mook ver powerful. Even with you boosting it as a Necromancer, and putting good equipment and magic items on it, well, it's still a single undead mook.

Not tha it'd be ridiculously weak per se, just don't expect it to do much on creatures above CR 3.

[Ryunosuke]

There is no official way to make a single undead mook ver powerful. Even with you boosting it as a Necromancer, and putting good equipment and magic items on it, well, it's still a single undead mook.

Not tha it'd be ridiculously weak per se, just don't expect it to do much on creatures above CR 3.

Well after a point, Create Undead gives me access to Gouls, Ghasts, and then Wights, and all my undead gets 1/2 my level as HP and my proficiency as added damage, plus whatever spells i cast to make them fight better, but I am aware that they will fight less effectively than say a whole extra character with real class levels, but I wanted a more interesting way to have undead minions without just spamming them and bogging down the game with an army on hand and piss off the DM.

[kardar233]

I don’t know any RAW way of doing this apart from going Oathbreaker Paladin and using its Channel a Divinity to take control of a single Wight or similar. I’d ask your DM about replacing Animate Dead (and thus, most of the Necromancer subclass benefit) with an undead under your control limited to CR of one quarter your level or so. That’s pretty slow progression but I think it’s necessary so as to not overshadow your party Fighter.