Help me optimize my skeletal minions

[samuraijaques]

Hey guys,

I'm playing a necromancer in a relatively high level campaign (planning on ending around 20!) and I just recently got to level 6 in wizard for the sick necromancer bonus damage to my minions. I have them outfitted with heavy crossbows and cheap medium armor and I have been using siege tactics with the use of tower shields that can be set up as mobile cover for me and them to hide behind. It's been extremely effective but I have hit a bit of a wall. Where do I go from here other than just getting more skeletons? Flaming arrows works but is a little lackluster for the spell slot considering the skeletons have low accuracy and the ammo is wasted even if they miss. How can I utilize my spells and abilities to further improve the effectiveness of my skeletal minions?

My DM has allowed me to use a homebrew rule to animated dead where instead of specifically getting zombies or skeletons I get an equivalent amount of XP worth of undead creatures. I was considering trying to get a huge creature like an elephant to put a howdah on?

I would love to hear people's thoughts on how to make the best possible use of my undead friends.

Thank you!

[MaxWilson]

Hey guys,

I'm playing a necromancer in a relatively high level campaign (planning on ending around 20!) and I just recently got to level 6 in wizard for the sick necromancer bonus damage to my minions. I have them outfitted with heavy crossbows and cheap medium armor and I have been using siege tactics with the use of tower shields that can be set up as mobile cover for me and them to hide behind. It's been extremely effective but I have hit a bit of a wall. Where do I go from here other than just getting more skeletons? Flaming arrows works but is a little lackluster for the spell slot considering the skeletons have low accuracy and the ammo is wasted even if they miss. How can I utilize my spells and abilities to further improve the effectiveness of my skeletal minions?

For melee combat, dual wielding short swords. Sure, they won't get the +2 Dex bonus damage for the off-hand attack, but they'll get the Undead Thralls bonus damage.

But really, stay out of melee combat as much as possible because it makes you too vulnerable to AoEs. Hide behind your skeletons and cast spells like Web and Blindness instead.

You can also do fun combos with poison spells like Stinking Cloud, to which your skeletons are immune.

Zombies (in chain mail) aren't much good at attacking but they're fairly durable and you can always assign them to Help instead of attacking, or you can give them greatswords and just let them flail away in melee, threaten opportunity attacks, and draw fire.

[Sigreid]

You might look into upgrading to ogre skeletons. I'd expect you to get about half as many, but they'll be stronger, meaning they can do more because they would have the higher physical strength. Maybe 2 or 3 ogre skeletons to be the bulwark between you and your archers and your opponents. I mean, tower shields for them would pretty much be literal walls.

Oh, and IMO when you qualify, mummy lord is the best permanently enslaved greater undead. Tough, magical powers, and just 1 point too low in attributes to ever get another saving throw against your domination.

[stoutstien]

Magic stone and slings is a good combo

[Sparky McDibben]

See if your DM will let you do crazy combos, like allowing you to upgrade your zombies to explode (see Orc Nurtured One of Yurtrus). If not, have your zombies carry oil and torches. Have them douse themselves in oil, light themselves on fire, and grapple a fool.

Or, give your skeletons a Tenser's Floating Disk loaded with whatever explosives you can find, light it, and then charge the bad guys, carrying the Disk with 'em.

You can have your minions set hunting traps, caltrops, carry gear, stand watch, and just do anything a person could do.

And if none of that works, just use a wight. Sic it on a dozen villagers, and bam! A dozen extra zombies.

[Damon_Tor]

In a campaign of mine, a temple of death clerics devised a unique seige weapon: the skeleton bomb.

I figured out you could fit around 19 skeletons into a bag of holding, so I had them load a bunch of them up with their minions. A whole temple was working around the clock to both craft bags of holding and to animate skeletons to fill them with. Once inside the bag, the skeletons were allowed to "expire" and go feral, but tightly bound inside the bag and without anything living around to annoy them they would basically just sit there inert.

The bag was then fitted into a steel frame which was engineered to invert the bag on impact, spilling the 19 feral skeletons out wherever the thing lands. These were then transported to the battlefield (it was a "trench warfare" scenario) and loaded into catapults, where they were lobbed into the enemy trenches.

[samuraijaques]

For melee combat, dual wielding short swords. Sure, they won't get the +2 Dex bonus damage for the off-hand attack, but they'll get the Undead Thralls bonus damage.

But really, stay out of melee combat as much as possible because it makes you too vulnerable to AoEs. Hide behind your skeletons and cast spells like Web and Blindness instead.

You can also do fun combos with poison spells like Stinking Cloud, to which your skeletons are immune.

Zombies (in chain mail) aren't much good at attacking but they're fairly durable and you can always assign them to Help instead of attacking, or you can give them greatswords and just let them flail away in melee, threaten opportunity attacks, and draw fire.
I actually never thought about just having them do the help action. Everyone could have a personal support undead! The stinking cloud thing is something I had thought of but I'm trying to stay at range so it doesn't work as well for me.


You might look into upgrading to ogre skeletons. I'd expect you to get about half as many, but they'll be stronger, meaning they can do more because they would have the higher physical strength. Maybe 2 or 3 ogre skeletons to be the bulwark between you and your archers and your opponents. I mean, tower shields for them would pretty much be literal walls.

Oh, and IMO when you qualify, mummy lord is the best permanently enslaved greater undead. Tough, magical powers, and just 1 point too low in attributes to ever get another saving throw against your domination.
Unfortunately the xp of an ogre skeleton is 9 times as much as a skeleton! 450 vs 50. If it was 2 or 3 to 1 I'd definitely do it but I don't want to give up more than half my skele bois for one big one that's going to do less damage. I've heard that the mummy lord is a great choice. I'm excited about it.


Magic stone and slings is a good combo
Sadly it's not on my spell list.


See if your DM will let you do crazy combos, like allowing you to upgrade your zombies to explode (see Orc Nurtured One of Yurtrus). If not, have your zombies carry oil and torches. Have them douse themselves in oil, light themselves on fire, and grapple a fool.

Or, give your skeletons a Tenser's Floating Disk loaded with whatever explosives you can find, light it, and then charge the bad guys, carrying the Disk with 'em.

You can have your minions set hunting traps, caltrops, carry gear, stand watch, and just do anything a person could do.

And if none of that works, just use a wight. Sic it on a dozen villagers, and bam! A dozen extra zombies.
The exploding undead is a great idea! Totally going to try that.


In a campaign of mine, a temple of death clerics devised a unique seige weapon: the skeleton bomb.

I figured out you could fit around 19 skeletons into a bag of holding, so I had them load a bunch of them up with their minions. A whole temple was working around the clock to both craft bags of holding and to animate skeletons to fill them with. Once inside the bag, the skeletons were allowed to "expire" and go feral, but tightly bound inside the bag and without anything living around to annoy them they would basically just sit there inert.

The bag was then fitted into a steel frame which was engineered to invert the bag on impact, spilling the 19 feral skeletons out wherever the thing lands. These were then transported to the battlefield (it was a "trench warfare" scenario) and loaded into catapults, where they were lobbed into the enemy trenches.
Outstanding. Maybe I'll have controlled skeletons man a catapult that then has bags full of feral skeles loaded into it!

Thanks for all the great ideas guys.

[CheddarChampion]

Zombies (in chain mail) aren't much good at attacking but they're fairly durable and you can always assign them to Help instead of attacking, or you can give them greatswords and just let them flail away in melee, threaten opportunity attacks, and draw fire.

Ring mail is a cheaper but less effective option.
Maul is cheaper IIRC.
Good tactics mentioned here, you might also try having multiple zombies trying to shove prone and grapple. Not a high athletics bonus, but multiple attempts can stack up. It's also harder to get out of a grapple when multiple creatures are grappling you.
Finally, if you don't expect any direct offense from your tanking minions, put shields on them.

[MaxWilson]

Ring mail is a cheaper but less effective option.
Maul is cheaper IIRC.
Good tactics mentioned here, you might also try having multiple zombies trying to shove prone and grapple. Not a high athletics bonus, but multiple attempts can stack up. It's also harder to get out of a grapple when multiple creatures are grappling you.
Finally, if you don't expect any direct offense from your tanking minions, put shields on them.

Yes. Another thing you can do is order your zombies to Dodge and move to pin enemies in place with opportunity attacks.

You can have skeletons throw nets to grant advantage to other skeletons and PCs.

You can have zombies dump ball bearings or caltrops on the floor, or spread oil. (It's probably too much to ask them to light fires.)

The shove prone + grapple trick you mentioned works particularly well if there's a Lore Bard in the party who can Cutting Words any enemy who is just barely succeeding against the zombie. Also goes well with wolves or other creatures who knock prone. If two zombies are grappling a creature, there's almost no way for it to break both grapples in a single round without teleporting (have to either kill both zombies, Shove both zombies out of reach, or Action Surge two escape attempts).

IME the biggest limit on necromancy is never necromancer power--it's player boredom from lack of challenge. Necromancers wind up taking risks (like raising fewer skeletons than they really could, or splitting the party and fighting some threats solo, or going in dungeons with big nasty signs reading Keep Out: If You Go Through This Door You Will Die) in order to prevent the game from feeling like Easy Mode all the time.

[assafelron]

If access to magic items in the campaign world is not hard\you have means to create magical items I would equip the skeletons with cheap magical items, there as some uncommon items that can make them brutal, specifically wand of magic missiles & circlet of blasting.
If magic is rare, the is still one magic item which is worth trying to find\buy\craft, which is a ring of spell storing. It is an incredibly useful item for a party, and more so if you have skeletons. It can allow all your party to have a familiar, and if your DM allows (there is no raw against it and there is logic for it as they are intelligent) pass the ring among your skeletons and give all of them familiars, advantage on all attacks and supreme scouting is pretty nice.

[MaxWilson]

Oh yeah, if you are using Xanathar's rules it's pretty cheap to make longbows +1 for a dozen skeletons or so.

[pragma]

5e is very sensitive to action economy and skeletons break it wide open. Until you run out of skeleton crossbowmen that can attack each turn, more crossbowmen is the best bang for your buck.

Your actions should be spent directing them and throwing out nasty concentration spells. Web, any wall spell and fog cloud are great options. Don't forget that fog cloud has some very unexpected interactions: you can cancel your skeleton's disadvantage by casting it _on them_.

When you get the chance, fabricate makes ammo / gear very cheap.

[MaxWilson]

5e is very sensitive to action economy and skeletons break it wide open.

When people say 5E is all about action economy, that's actually not correct--5E is about bounded accuracy and aggregate HP/damage. 12 skeletons from a 20th level Necromancer would be just as deadly effective if they were instead one giant creature with (12 * 33) 396 HP and 12 longbows shooting 12 arrows for (12 x d8+8) 150 damage per hit in one giant Multiattack. It's not the number of actions which matter, it's the damage and the ability to focus fire.

[Flashkannon]

If you equip one or more skeletons with a Talking Doll (Common, XGE) you could use them as a distraction, with customizable sound! Bags of Tricks might also be a worthwhile investment, to multiply your army beyond reason.

[Sparky McDibben]

Put them in top hats and tuxedos and have them be your footmen when you're in town. Bonus points if they can play "Putting on the Ritz" for your grand entrance.

[MaxWilson]

Put them in top hats and tuxedos and have them be your footmen when you're in town. Bonus points if they can play "Putting on the Ritz" for your grand entrance.

I love it!


If you equip one or more skeletons with a Talking Doll (Common, XGE) you could use them as a distraction, with customizable sound! Bags of Tricks might also be a worthwhile investment, to multiply your army beyond reason.

I never noticed before that the Bag of Tricks is Uncommon...

Six dozen Weasels, Giant Goats and Brown Bears, coming right up! Honestly that combo is a bit terrifying. : ) And they last until dawn, too.

[Witty Username]

Equip your skeletons with firearms? Find/make magic weapons. When you hit the big levels shapechange into a shadow dragon or some wights with create undead can be useful. You will need a mount for presentation, a skeletal warhorse/giant eagle/dragon should be acquired.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Sadly it's not on my spell list.

It doesn't have to be, if there's a druid in the party or just a low level NPC you can hire to cast cantrips for you.

[Sparky McDibben]

When people say 5E is all about action economy, that's actually not correct--5E is about bounded accuracy and aggregate HP/damage. 12 skeletons from a 20th level Necromancer would be just as deadly effective if they were instead one giant creature with (12 * 33) 396 HP and 12 longbows shooting 12 arrows for (12 x d8+8) 150 damage per hit in one giant Multiattack. It's not the number of actions which matter, it's the damage and the ability to focus fire.


Actually, that dude would be significantly more dangerous. Going up against 12 skeletons means you could knock out some of the skeletons' attacks each round, or just channel divinity them into oblivion (assuming failed saves and a high-enough-level cleric). Against your hypothetical monster, it gets 12 attacks a round each round, regardless of the damage dealt to it. And no channel divinity will knock out something with that high of a CR.

That's actually a really good idea for making lower-level monsters matter at high levels of play. I mean, it's so obvious I can't believe I didn't sit down and do the math. Thanks, Max!

[Sception]

Skeleton offense stays pretty decent as you level for a non-concentration, couple bonus actions per combat thing. Especially if you have some of them help - though keep in mind that's extra bonus actions. The main problem you'll run into is that the skeletons are out from the start of the day and will suffer attrition in early combats that otherwise wouldn't eat up significant resources, forcing you to burn even more spell slots re-animating them or else just not have them around in tougher fights later in the dungeon when you really want them. Compare to a spell like animate objects that isn't around all day, but in exchange *is* reliably there when you need it.

This problem gets more significant as you level up, what with the primary means of animate dead scaling coming from sinking more and more slots into the upkeeping of more and more skeletons, while also running into more fights that can drop more skeletons at once with stray AOEs, suffering even more attrition or else forcing even more spell slots to get them back up.

A couple things that can help matters:

1) Danse Macabre. This is a 5th level spell that at first looks like a worse version of animate dead, in that it requires concentration and only lasts up to an hour. It targets 5 corpses instead of 1, but a 5th level animate dead could also animate 5 corpses so there's no real advantage there. The actual advantages are that the undead created gain a bonus to attack and damage equal to your spellcasting ability, which stacks with the damage bonus from the necromancer feature. The other, more significant advantage is that the casting time is only one action, so you can enter a combat with a bunch of skeletons, and if they start suffering attrition you can cast the spell to get 5 of them back into the fight with improved stats.

Of course, you're likely to suffer that attrition in early fights where the 5th level spell slot isn't justified, so what you'll actually do more is suffer your attrition early on, and then just have to carry the spare corpses that result around with you, and if you bump into a serious fight later you can cast danse macabre then. If you don't need it before the end of the day, then you use that slot on animate dead instead before you go to bed.

2) of course, that means carrying around a bunch of corspes & bone piles as you explore, so you'll want to look into convenient ways to do so. Ideally you'll want one or more portable holes or bags of holding, but since items are in DM hands if need be you can have remaining undead carry those that fall provided you don't lose too many at once. Even without a sack of holding, a single regular human skeleton should fit in a regular sack that another regular skeleton can carry.


Regardless, despite the seeming efficiency in action economy for damage, in the long term necromancy becomes very taxing on your spell slots. Animate Dead and Danse Macabre are likely to eat up most of your 3rd, 4th, and 5th level slots, and for most wizards that is the majority of everything they do. Even at the highest levels, you'll have extremely few slots above that, and slots below, while useful for utility, aren't going to make up the gap. It's not unworkable, but it is the main thing you'll be doing, and managing it gets more and more hasslesome.


House Rules:

the above are things you can do with the rules as written. A friendly DM might you get away with more, though, including:

1) giving your skeletons better gear. Particularly if your DM requires you to provide the short swords and short bows that skeletons use, maybe they can be talked into letting you give them better weapons - longbows, crossbows, greatswords, armor & shields, etc. This is not allowed by default, but ime many DMs are open to it.

2) variant skeletons/zombies. The Monster Manual lists a variety of variant skeletons and zombies, from skeletal warhorses to zombie ogres. Yet the spell animate dead can only target humanoids, and can only great the regular generic kind of skeleton or zombie. Ask your DM if maybe you could use animate dead to create those variant types, provided you have access to the right corpse. Maybe they might require a higher level spell slots to animate or maintain (eg 4th level slot to animate one skeleton warhorse, 5th level slot to animate one ogre zombie) or whatever, but just getting access to them, the way the higher level 'Create Undead' spell can make different creatures by upcasting, would do a lot for a necromancers versatility and scaleability.

3) delegating control. Skeletons aren't mindless. Int 6 isn't exactly smart, but it's well above animal intelligence. Is "follow bob's orders as though they were me" a simple enough command for that to work? By default, probably not. But if your DM allows it, then you can delegate control of some of your undead to party members. This has many advantages if allowed. If that party member isn't already doing something with their bonus actions, now they have something to do. While it doesn't speed up combat overall, it does make your turn take proportionally less, which reduces frustration from other players. It also gives their characters direct motivation to tolerate your shenanigans as they'll benefit directly.

Combined with 1 & 2 above you could even tailor-make minions for your allies. A barded skeletal warhorse for your cavalier, one they don't have to worry about dying because you can just reanimate it during downtime, an armored skeleton flanking / assist buddy for your rogue, a zombie ogre bodyguard for the cleric who can spend its turns walking to downed allies, picking them up, and carrying them back to the cleric for healing.

....

Unfortunately 5e simply doesn't support necromancy the way 3e and especially 3.5 did. Between template undead, custom classes, custom prestige classes, and a wealth of spells and feats and items from splat material, 3.5 really was a necromancer's dream. It's hard for me to play a necromancer in 5e without having flashbacks to better days, to Death Masters and Dread Necromancers, seated in floating thrones carved from animated beholder skulls, directing wild menageries of unlife in all shape, sizes, and degrees of corporeality, while their adventuring companions watch on grimly from their skeletal nightmare steeds, "heroes" who were once so leery of the necromantic arts long since won over by gifts of with undead grafts and unliving arms and armor, now serving as the grim generals of the necromancer's great army of the undead.

But those days are gone, and sadly don't look to be returning any time soon. Still, with a friendly enough DM you can still make a decent go of it.

[MaxWilson]

There are advantages and disadvantages to turning many creatures into one. Less vulnerable to Fireball and Channel Divinity (although spreading out also works, which is why skeletons using bows are more durable than conjured animals), more vulnerable to grapple/prone tricks and Tasha's Hideous Laughter/Hypnotic Gaze/etc. (Maze is probably overkill.)

The biggest advantage is of course as you said that you don't gradually lose attacks as individual skeletons die, but I would personally view that as a modelling bug, not a feature, unless the skeletons were literally conjoined somehow like in a Ravenloft Living Wall.

Still there is absolutely nothing stopping either a DM or a Necromancer PC from picking up a giant pile of d20s and rolling all attacks from all remaining skeletons simultaneously, AS IF they were one big multiattack. (DMs will often choose to spread fire instead of focusing but the principle is the same.) It saves a lot of table time.