Divine Soul Necromancer: spell suggestions for buffing my pet army?

[Giegue]

As the title says. I wanted to try and make a divine soul Sorcerer of an evil deity that uses Inspiring leader to give their undead pets HP comproable to a wizard necromancer’s undead and act as a healer + undead hoard master, and am now looking for ways to help my undead in the dpr department. I already know Bless and Aid will be solid pet army buffs, but are their any other gems I am missing off the Cleric or Sorc list for buffing my undead?

[Spectrulus]

Warding Bond helps for 1, Aid gives 5hp+/spell level to three creatures, no concentration, other than those, twin casting stone skin our other buffs seems to be all I can find before 7th level spells.

[leogobsin]

Dragon's Breath is something that gets more useful when you've got creatures tagging along with the party that can throw out relatively little damage using an action- and zombies and skeletons both fit that description to a T. Cast it as a bonus action and then you're throwing out an average 10.5 damage to enemies that fail the save (and half damage on a success, plus the possibility of hitting multiple targets), vs 4 or 5 damage to a single enemy if the undead just attacks.

[Millface]

Not part of your build but if you convince someone else in the party to go wolf totem barbarian those help minion builds a TON if they're melee oriented.

+4 to attack against AC 16 gives them a 45% hit chance, advantage ups that to 69.7% so that's huge. Setting your goons up with advantage is the single best thing you can do to increase their dpr. Look for spells that knock things down.

So, pretty much, the only ways for a sorcerer to increase minion DPR is to give advantage, increase their hit chance, imbue them with Dragon's Breath, or simply summon more minions.

Each Skeleton With Base Accuracy = 2.5 DPR
Each Skeleton with Bless= 2.75-3.5 DPR
Each Skeleton with Advantage= 3.85 DPR
Each Skeleton with Both= 4-4.8 DPR
Skeleton with Dragon's Breath= 5.25-10.5 DPR per target

Disregarding your party, your concentration slot is better used on Dragon's Breath than Bless, as 3 Blessed Skeletons deal 8.25-10.5 DPR, while 3 Skeletons, 1 of which having DB would do 5+(5.25-10.5 per target)

Assuming level 5, most martial party members will be averaging between 15-30 DPR. Blessing them instead nets anywhere from ~3-12 extra DPR (varies depending on too many factors to narrow that down any more)

Based on that, the prioritization should be:

Bless if you have at least two Sharpshooter or GWM party members ---> Dragon's Breath a Skeleton ---> Bless Skeletons

[Throne12]

You can hire a valor bard to follow you around. Have him use his bardic of Inspiration to help skeletons. He can also help buff them.

[Millface]

You can hire a valor bard to follow you around. Have him use his bardic of Inspiration to help skeletons. He can also help buff them.

This is possible but... those inspiration dice will, 100% of the time, add more value to the group given to any other PC in the group.

That's the thing with necromancers. Either they're unoptimized to kind of a gross level or they're Wizards and you'll ruin the table by taking 30 minutes on your turn to make 20 different attack rolls/you can't bring your army anywhere in 99% of campaign settings.

Any non-wizard who creates undead minions and chooses to buff them is choosing to do far less with those buffs than they would if they'd just buff their party instead. PCs simply use the resources better than skeletons or zombies ever could. The only "good" necro is the Wizard who keeps their Skeletons at range with bows and takes inspiring leader.

At 5 they can have 6 skeletons under their control at max (2 slots day one make 2 each for 4, next day assert control over 4 with one slot and create 2 more, then day 3 you need both slots to keep control of those 6, leaving you none to create more) and each deals 1d6+5 with a shortbow at 45% accuracy against average AC 16.

8.5 average damage *.45 for hit chance x 6 = 22.95 DPR

A sorcerer uses both 3rd level slots to make 2 skeletons day one. Assert control over those 2 and make another day 2. A 4th day 4, then a 5th day 5. After that they need both slots to maintain control. Their skeletons at 5 do 10 less DPR, need 2 more full days to reach maximum count, and have 5 fewer hit points apiece.

Sure, you can give one Dragon's Breath to keep up, but the Wizard can do that too, and his will last longer to be able to maximize on that. Not to mention you can just give DB to an Owl familiar anyway for the same DPR result without having to also use a 3rd level spell slot.

Summoner Druids are better on every single level than Necromancers of any build. 8 Flying Snakes at level 5 with conjure animals have a +6 to hit instead, deal 1+3d4 (8.5) damage apiece, and don't provoke opportunity attacks with their absolutely asinine 60ft. fly speed. That's 37 DPR for two combats/day while you're still free to use your entire turn to add even more utility or damage.

[Giegue]

I suppose, but I just wanted a Necromancer with high charisma, is all. Taking charisma on a wizard is a bad idea, so yeah. Even if your a wizard who wants to grab Inspiring leader for their pets your better off leaving your Cha at 13 and grabbing more Dex. Like, how bad would it be to play a wizard with 12 Dex to grab that 16 Cha? Would it be that terrible dropping to 12 Dex to go as a half-Elf with Str 8 Dex 12 Con 14 Int 16 Wis 10 Cha 16?

[Millface]

I suppose, but I just wanted a Necromancer with high charisma, is all. Taking charisma on a wizard is a bad idea, so yeah. Even if your a wizard who wants to grab Inspiring leader for their pets your better off leaving your Cha at 13 and grabbing more Dex. Like, how bad would it be to play a wizard with 12 Dex to grab that 16 Cha? Would it be that terrible dropping to 12 Dex to go as a half-Elf with Str 8 Dex 12 Con 14 Int 16 Wis 10 Cha 16?

You're 100% correct that pumping CHA just for inspiring leader isn't worth it. The bulk of that comes from your level anyway, and the feat loses effectiveness as your army grows beyond 6. You're already giving cr 1/4 goons the buff over your much more capable party members.

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm kind of salty that Necro got such a bad look in this edition while summoning animals is nearly gamebreaking.

[stoutstien]

Honestly the best spells that buff a ton of weak minions must be provided by another class. Crusader mantle being the best seeing how there's no target cap.(as long as there's no conflict with the Paladin buffing your army of Undead). That also puts all your minions around the Paladin giving them access to his/her's different auras.
The 2nd is up casted bless if you have a small party to start with.
Personally if I'm using a small skellys or zombies Army as disposable fodder I just give them each a flask of oil and a torch and have them dash at the enemy..... still trying to find a way to rig Alchemist fire to the rib cage.

[Dalebert]

My level 6 wizard who started human with resilient con has 9/14/14/16/8/14. Seems decent to me. Took Inspiring Leader at 4th. Charisma is also nice flavor for a necromancer and this one in particular (a Thay noble). Part of the flavor of a wizard is that they're in danger in close combat and they should have party members that help with that backed up by tactics for when it happens like Misty Step or using minions to grapple your enemies, or pull you away without provoking AoO.

I think stacking IL with your necro bonuses makes it worthwhile. It still works on the rest of your party so it's hardly a waste. My wizard always uses it on himself and his minions first thing in the morning so he can do it again for the party later. You can hit an unlimited number of creatures with the only limit being how much time you have to run off at the mouth. And eventually you'll have wights with 87 hp instead of 45. Those scale a lot better than your basic undead.

Here's a fun trick btw (pardon for slightly off-topic). If you can get your hands on a Ring of Spell Storing, ideally the fast attunement kind, put it on a minion. Get your cleric to put Warding Bond in it. Now you have a makeshift Shield Guardian absorbing half the dmg from your tank. Also, now you have a minion who can cast your spells using your bonus action. Free Quicken!

[samcifer]

Dragon's Breath is something that gets more useful when you've got creatures tagging along with the party that can throw out relatively little damage using an action- and zombies and skeletons both fit that description to a T. Cast it as a bonus action and then you're throwing out an average 10.5 damage to enemies that fail the save (and half damage on a success, plus the possibility of hitting multiple targets), vs 4 or 5 damage to a single enemy if the undead just attacks.

Just so long as your concentration is free for Dragon's Breath as it requires concentration.