Best Way To Play A Necromancer?

[Allistar]

So, a bit of a conundrum has just arisen in our campaign. We're level 6 now and as a necromancer I get access to animate dead as well as so many other valuable abilities. The problem comes in the form of how to use these resources appropriately.

The way I see it, I could blow all of my level 3 slots and get a quite good investment. A combination of 6 body blockers and damage dealers seems pretty good to me. Considering every zed is an extra 28 HP I just put in front of myself, or maybe moved into a flanking position for some of my other buddies (doubt it with 20 speed, but a man can dream). In any case if you don't want to be touched just make 168 HP that has the potential to keep going past it's mileage, in front of you and I guarantee the enemy fighters will have a great time trying to stab their way to you. Another thing to consider is that every skeleton is a ranged fighter along the likes of myself that have a pretty good bonus to hit and they add a respectable extra 1d6+5 damage each to your potential DPR. If all of them are skeletons you have the potential to 6d6+30 damage in 1 round. Realistically however the average is somewhere between 2 and 3 d6 + the respective amount per round, but that still seems pretty good for sustained damage. The damage would just keep piling higher as the levels came around too, eventually getting to the point where you get a whole company of undead troops at the cost of all your 3rd level slots and higher. It's susceptible AF to AOE attacks or other similar effects that tank large numbers of my minions, and a bit inflexible for dungeon crawls but I feel like there's something here.

Alternatively I could be responsible and keep 2 slots open for counterspells, or heck maybe cast haste on a buddy. Buffs start getting a bit better around this time as well, and so does battlefield control. I suppose one thing that can be said is that minions are a for of battlefield control and I can kind of get that, but It's not the same as dropping a sleet storm and watching an entire section of map get marked as a nope zone. I've always been a fan of the support class and buffing allies while controlling the enemy boardstate, but I kind of want to give the whole undead army thing a shot.

Edit: We know it's evil, we know that it goes against the natural order. We are playing in an evil campaign because we wanted to try it out at least once. It's been going good so far, but now comes the pivot point for what I do with my character and I was just wondering how you all think the best way to go about it is.

[NatureKing]

Hordes of Undead suck for ther people when in combat and the length of time spent on 'your' turn.

To be a Necromancer, do you absolutely need to have undead hordes? Or can you have less than maximum buffed minions and still have utility slots spare.

Find out how long your party are willing to wait for your Skeletons etc to take in combat, and then that is your max, regardless of how optimal it is to take more.

Then again, I get miffed when the player playing the Rogue spends an age trying to calculate the best angles of attack and um and arh and second guess enemy creatures actions. It's just boring to wait and do nothing.

[Allistar]

Hordes of Undead suck for ther people when in combat and the length of time spent on 'your' turn.

To be a Necromancer, do you absolutely need to have undead hordes? Or can you have less than maximum buffed minions and still have utility slots spare.

Find out how long your party are willing to wait for your Skeletons etc to take in combat, and then that is your max, regardless of how optimal it is to take more.

Then again, I get miffed when the player playing the Rogue spends an age trying to calculate the best angles of attack and um and arh and second guess enemy creatures actions. It's just boring to wait and do nothing.

Controlling a horde should be pretty simple since you can't give specific orders to more than one person at a time (unless that order is "hey everyone get that one guy). Also think the DMG has something for making a mob so we can simplify the individual rolling of each of the attacks into a big mob attack. All in all it shouldn't be that difficult.

Also I'm right there with you when the rogue takes 15 minutes per turn. I am trying to be considerate of other players as well, but that takes the form of pre-turn planning on my end. I don't really try and predict the moves of my opponents unless it's an absolutely necessity, or the foe is a pretty dangerous caster. That takes too long and ultimately doesn't matter, so on the turn or 2 leading up to mine I look at the battle map, and make a basic plan of action. If it changes it doesn't change much (just go on to the next mook), if it doesn't change then you're good.

[Aprender]

Getting a lot of color coded dice can help speed up combat a little bit. Roll the d20 and the damage die at the same time. When a colored d20 hits, look to the appropriately colored damage dice for the damage. If your DM will allow, using color coded undead minis might allow you to pre-roll even.

There are DM guidelines for mass combat, but 6 skeletons don't actually require it. 100 skeles probably do.


If your DM is amenable, talk them them about just making a singular, "better" undead with the same resource cost per day. It's more fun to me when your skeleton grows in strength as you protect him and y'all level up. It's faster in combat, more satisfying to have an undead henchman (not just a stat block) and ends up costing the same resource-wise. As your level increases, you might be able to make something other than a skele or zombie if you adventure to find the "improved animate dead" spell. Of course, this is table rules and not RAW.

[NatureKing]

Controlling a horde should be pretty simple since you can't give specific orders to more than one person at a time (unless that order is "hey everyone get that one guy). Also think the DMG has something for making a mob so we can simplify the individual rolling of each of the attacks into a big mob attack. All in all it shouldn't be that difficult.

Also I'm right there with you when the rogue takes 15 minutes per turn. I am trying to be considerate of other players as well, but that takes the form of pre-turn planning on my end. I don't really try and predict the moves of my opponents unless it's an absolutely necessity, or the foe is a pretty dangerous caster. That takes too long and ultimately doesn't matter, so on the turn or 2 leading up to mine I look at the battle map, and make a basic plan of action. If it changes it doesn't change much (just go on to the next mook), if it doesn't change then you're good.

Remember, it's not me you have to convince, it's the rest of your players and DM. And if you're rolling dice for 10 or so models to everyone else's one, it can cause an issue.

Plenty of years of experience playing various summoner types over the years results often in people having an issue with how much time is taken on a turn. Be sure to strike up a comfortable mix of numbers vs time with what your table accepts. Having 5 or 6 necro-buffed skeletons is still 5 or 6 Necro buffed skeletons, and you are still a necromancer. Just because you don't have 15+, does mean you are less of a necromancer

After all, you could create a Necromancy focused Wizard without using Animate Dead (although you may want a better Subclass than 'Necromancer' in that instance. Remember that your character in game is what your character does, not what a meta concept as character classes.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Are you fast with your math? Don't forget that you need to track the damage across each of your minions, and that can include AoE's. If you're even 'average', I'd seriously reconsider playing anything with multiple minions.

If you're playing Theater of the Mind then you're going to cause your DM a serious headache with mobs unless you avoid splitting them up in combat. Even with that caveat, be prepared to leave them at a loss a lot concerning distances and targeting- you're just going to have to accept whatever half measures they end up taking with you, because this concept is incredibly un-friendly for them. And if they just can't cope, consider retiring on the spot. You'll drag the entire game down and everyone will blame you for it.

If you're playing with miniatures, make sure you can differentiate each of your minions easily for HP and status tracking purposes. If you're using the same base miniature, either paint them differently or use a color-coding marker like a twisted bit of pipe cleaner or colored strips of sticky paper. This absolutely works better than TotM for minionmancy, since spacial issues are clear cut for everyone involved. As mentioned by Aprender, get multiple dice in different colors to speed things up. Reduce the HP and status tracking down to a single page for all of them, and if you're using multiple types, have cards or something similar handy for quickly looking up stats (or just have it all on the same one sheet). You need to cut every corner for time that you can. Practice making your turns fast. If you can make strategic calls and rolls in a reasonably fast manner that doesn't clog up everyone else, no one's going to have a problem with your concept.

In combat, be aware that sometimes, the sheer bloat of creatures you might bring can and will get in the other players' way. Do everything you can to avoid this problem, because it's incredibly annoying if your concept invalidates their entire combat round in such a manner. Give your allies preferential treatment for spacing. Hold off on closing every gap if you have a melee-type that isn't in position yet. And definitely be willing to sacrifice any or all of your pawns before a single player. You'll get an awful lot of resentment if you prioritize your summons over them, considering how much bloat their very existence brings to the game.

Consider using the skeletons with bows a lot. They cause far fewer issues in general, since they don't get in the way as much and don't have as many issues targeting enemies, speeding up your turn. They're also just genuinely a very good option. Give them sidearms just in case, but ranged ought to be your first priority.

[Nhorianscum]

For day to day use: Keep one set of skelebro's up with bows/utility junk and phase into danse Macabre (dual wielding short swords) for big fights at 9th level. Past that play as a normal wiz.

For big big showy setpeice fights with prep time. Go ahead and get your bonedaddy on. Skeletons are still preferable here.

[TheUser]

* Low to mid-tier keep a small contingent of skeleton archers to add dps/help actions; a single level 3 slot for 4 of them is ideal. It doesn't bog down encounters too much but it really helps in the smaller skirmishes meant to wear a party down and is essential in long fights where they can keep shelling out good damage. This sort of strategy makes Necromancers exception in low to mid tier play. Lots of spells that enhance your horde's ability to deal damage or isolate targets. Web, Slow, Hypnotic Pattern, Evards Black Tentacles (which can give you a lot of free HP). Any damage spell that deals damage repeatedly and on the creature's turn has the potential to siphon lots of life into you. You can save time by rolling your skeletons' hit/damage all at once (using color coded dice) or present your DM with a DPR sheet per skeleton based on AC of the enemy (I like this one a lot because your DM can largely keep your skeletons relevant without occupying lots of time). Also discuss with your DM if you can equip your skeletons with Half-plate; a nice AC boost.


* In high tiers keep 4 zombies with chainmail and full length tower shields/carrying around iron doors to provide cover for allies; if you do not have line of sight of something you cannot cast a majority of spells on it. They can use help actions in addition to providing cover easily. A single level 5 Animate Dead reasserts control of up to 8 undead so you can have a single slot that you use in the morning for an easy 4/4 split of cover and dps in higher tiers.


Super high level? Shapechange into a red shadow dragon and farm low level humanoids (like kobolds or goblins) turning them into shadow pets to be stored in a demiplane.
The demiplane contains your clones (via the spell) and a teleportation circle but you have used modify memory on your simulacrum proxy to forget the actual co-ordinates.

Use the Gate spell to haul your huge shadow horde into any fight that seems like you need to just flex hard D&D nuts by having a literal swarm of shadows skitter from the darkness of your pocket plane washing over the enemy like a wave of death and carnage.

[Damon_Tor]

I implemented this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?571122-A-System-to-Simplify-Large-Combats-Attacking-as-a-Unit) system in a game where a PC necromancer started holding up the game.

Basically, you start rolling not to see if a creature hits something, but how many creatures hit something.

[Segev]

I implemented this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?571122-A-System-to-Simplify-Large-Combats-Attacking-as-a-Unit) system in a game where a PC necromancer started holding up the game.

Basically, you start rolling not to see if a creature hits something, but how many creatures hit something.

Nice system, though I'd not have all creatures who hit do double damage on a 20, nor all creatures miss on a 1; the mob loses that benefit and that weakness, because the % hitting already includes averaging out one fewer hitting but one more double damaging, etc.

[Âmesang]

I played as a necromancer in my group's last campaign, and taking undead minions into account I took some wooden tokens I had cut up earlier and began writing "Z #1, Z #2, &c…" on one side with hit points, hit die, attack bonus and damage amount — making it easier to keep track of which zombie took which damage. I did the same for skeletons on the other side.

[Man_Over_Game]

The best way to play a necromancer is to not use them as body blockers. Make them ranged attackers.

This is because:
Animate Dead becomes more efficient the longer your undead live (as you can maintain control over multiple you've raised with a single cast, but you can only raise 1 with a single cast).
Ranged combat is easy to resolve.
Melee combatants get in the way, apply cover to things, and require tracking of opportunity attacks.
As ranged combatants, their HP won't be as relevant, meaning that the game won't be slowed down with their inclusion.


So focus on making your undead minions be archers that hose down single targets. Ask your DM if you can have them share the same initiative, as long as the DM chooses what their initiative is. Now all you have to do is roll their attacks 1-4 times (or however many you have), and the game keeps going on with no delays.

[Dalebert]

I implemented this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?571122-A-System-to-Simplify-Large-Combats-Attacking-as-a-Unit) system in a game where a PC necromancer started holding up the game.

Basically, you start rolling not to see if a creature hits something, but how many creatures hit something.

Not a bad system at all. My necromancer only has 4 skeletons out at a time; keeps 4 more in a portable hole as replacements. One skele gets dmged--after combat it goes in the hole to short rest and is replaced by a fresh one. I'm about to have wights so I will have two but they will mostly just stay by my side as personal body guards.

Anyway, I find minions are mostly fine if you just have multiple d20s to roll at once, color-coded if needed for slight variations, and take avg dmg on a hit. They do 10 or 11 on a hit. Easy math. Roll the dice for dmg only to add to a crit. My skele shots are over faster than it takes me to decide what I'm going to do based on the spell I have and the current situation.