Necromancers a go go

[haplot]

I know in 3.5, playing a necromancer could allow you to have ooodles of undead under your command.

With feats etc, you could get them to explode on death, and otherwise make then lethal.

Is there a way to truely optimise them in 5e?

[Ir0ns0ul]

Necromancers and overall minionmancy in 5e are already optimized. It’s no surprise people love spells like Conjure Animals or Animate Objects — it’s the good and old bounded accuracy.

It’s a matter of quantity and not quality. A Necromancer leading an army of 8+ skeletons will cause havoc in battlefield. If you are able to provide magic bows to your army, even better. And I’m not even talking about really powerful things like Danse Macabre or Create Undead. It’s your basic Animate Dead with some dedication to build and manage your army.

I remember starting my turn casting devastating spells like Web or Slow, and then commanding my skellies to attack, DPR was impressive and truly effective.

[Naanomi]

Step 1) be a wizard/necromancer
Step 2) spend as many of your spellslots on animate dead to make basic skeletons as your table will tolerate
Step 3) equip them as your GM will tolerate

Already blows almost any other build out of the water on a number of metrics

[haplot]

good to know, but i miss the times where the opposing army / enemy group end up killing themselves due to exploding skeletons

[Burley]

If you're an exceptionally squishy wizard, Animate Dead to make zombies. They have higher HP than skeletons, and get a ConSave when they drop to 0HP to only go to 1HP, and its not "once per short/long rest," meaning you can create a bunch of literal meat shields that refuse to fall (especially if you use Enhance Ability to give Bear's Endurance for ConSave advantage and 2d6 extra tempHP.

[Segev]

Necromancers and overall minionmancy in 5e are already optimized. It’s no surprise people love spells like Conjure Animals or Animate Objects — it’s the good and old bounded accuracy.

It’s a matter of quantity and not quality. A Necromancer leading an army of 8+ skeletons will cause havoc in battlefield. If you are able to provide magic bows to your army, even better. And I’m not even talking about really powerful things like Danse Macabre or Create Undead. It’s your basic Animate Dead with some dedication to build and manage your army.

I remember starting my turn casting devastating spells like Web or Slow, and then commanding my skellies to attack, DPR was impressive and truly effective.

I'm curious why you rate danse macabre as "really powerful." It always struck me as weaker than animate dead, since it requires an action to use, your concentration to maintain, and doesn't give you anything better than animate dead does.

[Dork_Forge]

I'm curious why you rate danse macabre as "really powerful." It always struck me as weaker than animate dead, since it requires an action to use, your concentration to maintain, and doesn't give you anything better than animate dead does.

It would take 3 minutes and three 3rd level slots, or a 5th level slot and still one minute to get as many creature as Danse Macabre gives you. You don't have to worry about losing control and you can easily replenish at any point, heck you can raise a bunch of recently slaughtered minions to use against their boss mid combat, then carry them forwards for the rest of the hour.

It's also great for non-necormancers in terms of minion spamming, since any Wizard or Cleric can do it, and a Divine Soul has the option of Extending the duration to 2 hours if they want to.

Danse Macabre by far a more powerful spell than Animate Dead, it's just the Necormancer subclass in particular closing the numbers gap. But not all wizards want to go through the hassle of maintaining a corpse army every day or deal with the repercussions of looking like a plot hook for lower-level adventurers.

You could treat it almost like Animate Objects, have your two permanent Skeleton bodyguards drop bags of bones, then Danse Macabre them as necessary.

[Sigreid]

If you really want to go Necromancer Overlord, spells aren't going to do it for you in 5e. You need to invest in your charisma and recruit the more powerful intelligent undead to willingly serve under your banner. Possibly by converting a willing mortal follower.

Beyond that, your best option is to use finger of death to start emptying villages and turning them into zombies. That takes a lot of time though because it's a high level spell and you get one zombie per casting.

[JackPhoenix]

I'm curious why you rate danse macabre as "really powerful." It always struck me as weaker than animate dead, since it requires an action to use, your concentration to maintain, and doesn't give you anything better than animate dead does.

How is adding the caster's modifier to attack and damage not better than, you know, not doing that?


It would take 3 minutes and three 3rd level slots, or a 5th level slot and still one minute to get as many creature as Danse Macabre gives you. You don't have to worry about losing control and you can easily replenish at any point, heck you can raise a bunch of recently slaughtered minions to use against their boss mid combat, then carry them forwards for the rest of the hour.

The corpses also don't need to be humanoid, which means you can recycle them for as long as you want. Once a zombie 'dies', you can't use Animate Dead on the remains again.

[Dork_Forge]

How is adding the caster's modifier to attack and damage not better than, you know, not doing that?

Which I believe makes the damage of a Skeleton Archer something like this for a necromancer with a maxed Int:

1d6+2+5+5- 15.5 damage on average per hit, with a +9 to hit.

That's potentially 93 damage as a single bonus action on average if they all hit, which with a +9, wouldn't be hard.

You can even have something simple like Crusader's Mantle to turn up the damage to 11.


The corpses also don't need to be humanoid, which means you can recycle them for as long as you want. Once a zombie 'dies', you can't use Animate Dead on the remains again.

Excellent point, gives the Spores Druid a run for their money when it comes to 'green' necromancy.

reanimate, reuse, reanimate again

[Ryton]

I'm curious why you rate danse macabre as "really powerful." It always struck me as weaker than animate dead, since it requires an action to use, your concentration to maintain, and doesn't give you anything better than animate dead does.

For parity's sake, assuming 5th level slots for both spells, Danse Macabre only taking an action to use makes it usable in combat, as opposed to the full minute casting time of Animate Dead.

Danse also has a solid range of 60ft, again, helpful in combat, as opposed to the 10ft range of Animate requiring the targets to be real close to each other and the caster.

Both net 5 minions.

Animate doesn't take concentration and lasts 24 hours (and can be further extended at the cost of tying up some spell slots), while Danse is an hour with concentration, but with the benefit of more than doubling attack bonuses, and doubling average damage.

If you're looking to build hordes, Animate is the clear winner. But if you're looking to quickly turn the tide of a battle, Danse can do it more quickly and with more potent minions.

[Segev]

On the subject of locking up spell slots, are there any staves that have animate dead, or similar items? I am not finding one quickly as I look, but there might be one either in plain sight that I'm missing, or somewhere obscure.

[strangebloke]

yeah, there's been a lot of discussion about this. It's insanely powerful but runs into a few problems.

Superficially, you get four skeletons per 3rd level spell if you have a day to prep and access to enough bodies. So twelve if you're sixth level or higher, or even more if you use bigger spell slots. Fifteen if you're a necromancer! You can then set about improving them. These 'improvements' range from inarguably mechanically sound (class features like undead thrall) to "inarguably allowed by RAW but the DM may thwack you" (Aid, Inspiring Leader) to "genuinely and fervently debated" (what armor can skeletons wear??)

And of course, that "day to prep" may be difficult to get ahold of depending on the campaign's pacing. Obtaining dead bodies isn't hard, given your line of work, but getting into a position where you have the spells to expend on animating them is difficult. If you lose skeletons you'll need to replace them, which sucks because of the resources that have been invested at this point.

And further there's the problem of this really being a t2 into t3 strat that mostly relies on nonmagical damage and is (somewhat) weak to AOE.

And further there's the question of how detailed you can make your orders given the stupidity and evilness of your minions.

And FURTHERMORE you have issues with undead being generally something that people in setting will hate you for because of the local religions and also because the skeletons want to kill people and will gladly do so if you die.

And even if you should overcome ALL THE ABOVE hurdles, there's still a severe social problem in that people might get mad at you out of character for all the time this takes up both in and out of combat.

If you deal with all the of the above in one way or another, necromancy of this form is insanely strong against some types of enemies. Like even assuming you don't get to more powerful undead and you don't have some kind of universal damage buff, 12 skeletons attacking for +4/1d6+2 is insanity. Sure its low-accuracy but its better than a GWM fighter can get at this level. If you are allowed to give them scale mail their AC jumps up to 16 and its pretty easy to triple or quadruple their hp by one means or another. You might be able to order them to grapple opponents (and thus 'tank').

Tl;DR Undead minionmancy is a form of minionmancy and as such is very very strong, arguably the strongest. There are a lot of reasons why it might not be workable, though, so try to get a good read on your group's preferences.

[Segev]

yeah, there's been a lot of discussion about this. It's insanely powerful but runs into a few problems.

Superficially, you get four skeletons per 3rd level spell if you have a day to prep and access to enough bodies. So twelve if you're sixth level or higher, or even more if you use bigger spell slots. Fifteen if you're a necromancer! You can then set about improving them. These 'improvements' range from inarguably mechanically sound (class features like undead thrall) to "inarguably allowed by RAW but the DM may thwack you" (Aid, Inspiring Leader) to "genuinely and fervently debated" (what armor can skeletons wear??)

And of course, that "day to prep" may be difficult to get ahold of depending on the campaign's pacing. Obtaining dead bodies isn't hard, given your line of work, but getting into a position where you have the spells to expend on animating them is difficult. If you lose skeletons you'll need to replace them, which sucks because of the resources that have been invested at this point.

And further there's the problem of this really being a t2 into t3 strat that mostly relies on nonmagical damage and is (somewhat) weak to AOE.

And further there's the question of how detailed you can make your orders given the stupidity and evilness of your minions.

And FURTHERMORE you have issues with undead being generally something that people in setting will hate you for because of the local religions and also because the skeletons want to kill people and will gladly do so if you die.

And even if you should overcome ALL THE ABOVE hurdles, there's still a severe social problem in that people might get mad at you out of character for all the time this takes up both in and out of combat.

If you deal with all the of the above in one way or another, necromancy of this form is insanely strong against some types of enemies. Like even assuming you don't get to more powerful undead and you don't have some kind of universal damage buff, 12 skeletons attacking for +4/1d6+2 is insanity. Sure its low-accuracy but its better than a GWM fighter can get at this level. If you are allowed to give them scale mail their AC jumps up to 16 and its pretty easy to triple or quadruple their hp by one means or another. You might be able to order them to grapple opponents (and thus 'tank').

Tl;DR Undead minionmancy is a form of minionmancy and as such is very very strong, arguably the strongest. There are a lot of reasons why it might not be workable, though, so try to get a good read on your group's preferences.
Figuring out good "squad" rules - there are a number of possibilities, some suggested in the DMG and some suggested elsewhere - would be crucial to the "at table" issues.

If your fellow players are primarily annoyed by not getting to play while it's your minions' turns, you could assign some of them to each fellow-player, even directly ordering them IC to obey the other PCs.

[Eldariel]

How is adding the caster's modifier to attack and damage not better than, you know, not doing that?

It's basically Concentration to give 5 of your things +5 bonus to attack and damage. Which is certainly powerful but given this is where your Concentration could be doing things like Wall of Force or Summon Greater Demon or Polymorph or whatever, I'm not sure it's better enough than just Animate Dead (which gets you 4 things all day Concentration-free for a 3rd level slot) to justify spending a slot two levels higher and Concentration. Or rather, I'm positive it's not better - it's however a good secondary option for when you need a bunch of extra bodies right now and want to make use of your Necromancer bonus (for non-Necromancers, it's very rarely better than Animate Objects for 10 tiny things - 5x+9 for 1d6+7 is basically never better than 10x+8 for 1d4+4; it's not even particularly close even with 20 Int, but add +4-+6 to their damage and the decision gets much more interesting).

[Zanos]

And even if you should overcome ALL THE ABOVE hurdles, there's still a severe social problem in that people might get mad at you out of character for all the time this takes up both in and out of combat.
I have personally seen inexperienced players try to wield builds that control many minions; it never turns out well.

The out of combat time consumption problem I have seen come up but it seems to be a vastly artificial construct created by people playing murderhobos rather than characters. Every D&D book I've ever read indicates that adventures spend far more time in town spending their earnings on having weapons and armor made, drinking/cavorting, resting, and managing their growing crowd of onlookers/followers/harassers. This time shouldn't be and usually isn't described in detail, and most DMs will say "what are you guys going to spend the next month doing?", and people will briefly outline their activities and move on.

Again I have played in games where the characters were pushed to their limit in combat every calendar day with no time to (psychologically) rest and it always struck me as ridiculous. The adventurer lifestyle is a harsh one, sure, but it's not supposed to be life or death every single day of your life. Playing like that is how you end up with weird stuff like characters going from 1-20 over the course of two in-game months. Older editions were more explicit about this; even at low levels it could take a few months for the fighter to commission his plate armor since it had to be forged for a specific wearer, and at high levels magic items could take weeks, months, or even years to be commissioned from a wizard. The party wizard was usually spending the time scribing spells or scrolls or making items himself, the fighter had to manage the castle he got, etc. Although I think the real problem is just people not reading the DMG, since I still saw people doing this in 2e and 3e. And I've seen it done by players for next to no reason; people are so impatient that they can't handwave a few days of downtime for a wizard to scribe comprehend languages so they can translate an orc chieftains battle plans.

TL;DR if people act like this you should probably push back on it, because not having any downtime is unrealistic and not how the game was ever intended to be played.

[Segev]

I have personally seen inexperienced players try to wield builds that control many minions; it never turns out well.

The out of combat time consumption problem I have seen come up but it seems to be a vastly artificial construct created by people playing murderhobos rather than characters. Every D&D book I've ever read indicates that adventures spend far more time in town spending their earnings on having weapons and armor made, drinking/cavorting, resting, and managing their growing crowd of onlookers/followers/harassers. This time shouldn't be and usually isn't described in detail, and most DMs will say "what are you guys going to spend the next month doing?", and people will briefly outline their activities and move on.

Again I have played in games where the characters were pushed to their limit in combat every calendar day with no time to (psychologically) rest and it always struck me as ridiculous. The adventurer lifestyle is a harsh one, sure, but it's not supposed to be life or death every single day of your life. Playing like that is how you end up with weird stuff like characters going from 1-20 over the course of two in-game months. Older editions were more explicit about this; even at low levels it could take a few months for the fighter to commission his plate armor since it had to be forged for a specific wearer, and at high levels magic items could take weeks, months, or even years to be commissioned from a wizard. The party wizard was usually spending the time scribing spells or scrolls or making items himself, the fighter had to manage the castle he got, etc. Although I think the real problem is just people not reading the DMG, since I still saw people doing this in 2e and 3e. And I've seen it done by players for next to no reason; people are so impatient that they can't handwave a few days of downtime for a wizard to scribe comprehend languages so they can translate an orc chieftains battle plans.

TL;DR if people act like this you should probably push back on it, because not having any downtime is unrealistic and not how the game was ever intended to be played.

Have you read Storm King's Thunder or Tomb of Annihilation? I can't speak to other modules published for 5e, but those two at least offer little downtime, if any at all, unless you want to put the main plot clock on "Final Fantasy" time.

[Dork_Forge]

Multiple people have now said that Animate dead gives 4 minions per 3rd level slot, assuming that you can go into something with a dozen undead doesn't seem particularly helpful for comparing the spells or actual table play.

It assumes you did nothing with your 3rd level slots the day before but create undead basically, which falls apart after the first day of adventure.

[strangebloke]

TL;DR if people act like this you should probably push back on it, because not having any downtime is unrealistic and not how the game was ever intended to be played.

I think most everyone has downtime in their games, the trouble is if you have 4-5 adventuring days in a row and then a year or three of downtime, which IMO isn't that uncommon. You lose three skeletons on day 1, replacing them is going to be a struggle.

[JackPhoenix]

Superficially, you get four skeletons per 3rd level spell if you have a day to prep and access to enough bodies.

Well, no. You get four skeletons per 3rd level spell if you have 3 days (1 day for a necromancer) to prepare first, assuming you're willing to use extra slot during the creation. If you ever only want to use 1 slot for AD, you're limited to 1 skeleton kept under your control, 2 if you're a necromancer. That's why the warlock invocation that gives you AD 1/day sucks. You can keep 4 skeletons under control with a single 3rd level slot, but you only animate 1 skeleton with the same (double if you're a necromancer).


So twelve if you're sixth level or higher, or even more if you use bigger spell slots. Fifteen if you're a necromancer!

Assuming you aren't using Arcane Recovery to get another 3rd level slot, 9, 10 if you're a necromancer. If you *are* using Arcane Recovery, both numbers go up by 4
+3 skeletons on the first day (3 total), using all your 3rd level slots. A necromancer creates 6 skeletons instead.
+2 skeletons on the 2nd day (5 total), using the last slot to keep the skeletons from the previous day under control. +2 skeletons if you're a necromancer (8 total), using 2 slots to keep control
+1 skeleton on the 3rd day (6 total), using 2 slots to keep the skeletons from the previous 2 days under control. +2 skeletons if you're a necromancer (10 total), using 2 slots to keep control
+1 skeleton on the 4th day (7 total), using 2 slots to keep the skeletons from previous days under control. A necromancer uses all 3rd level slots to keep control from this day onward.
+1 skeleton on the 5th day (8 total), using 2 slots to keep the skeletons from previous days under control.
+1 skeleton on the 6th day (9 total), using 2 slots to keep the skeletons from previous days under control.
7th day onwards, you'll need to use all your spell slots to keep your skeletons under control, with no spell slots left to animate more.

[Dork_Forge]

I think most everyone has downtime in their games, the trouble is if you have 4-5 adventuring days in a row and then a year or three of downtime, which IMO isn't that uncommon. You lose three skeletons on day 1, replacing them is going to be a struggle.

This hits it on the head, downtime is common, but there's rarely ever a single adventuring day, or even two, before downtime can occur.

There should be at least an entire week of adventuring days before you get any meaningful downtime, and even if you get downtime, you might not have the remains or the slots to use.

[Segev]

That's why the warlock invocation that gives you AD 1/day sucks.

Maybe it needs to be revamped to actually be a unique power, the way most of the good Invocations are:


Undying Servitude
Prerequisite: 5th level
You gain the ability to command a number of skeletons or zombies equal to your Warlock level. As an action, you may target a number of skeletons, zombies, corpses, or piles of bones from individual creatures equal to your level, less however many are already under your control. Corpses or piles of bones animate as if you had cast animate dead. Extant skeletons or zombies must make a Wisdom save against your Warlock Spell DC or fall under your control; if they are controlled by another creature already, that creature may make a Charisma save against the same DC to retain control.

[Dork_Forge]

Maybe it needs to be revamped to actually be a unique power, the way most of the good Invocations are:


Undying Servitude
Prerequisite: 5th level
You gain the ability to command a number of skeletons or zombies equal to your Warlock level. As an action, you may target a number of skeletons, zombies, corpses, or piles of bones from individual creatures equal to your level, less however many are already under your control. Corpses or piles of bones animate as if you had cast animate dead. Extant skeletons or zombies must make a Wisdom save against your Warlock Spell DC or fall under your control; if they are controlled by another creature already, that creature may make a Charisma save against the same DC to retain control.

That is all kinds of too much, that's not only a lot of undead, but throwing the ability to control existing ones on top of it seems well above a 5th level character's purview.

Just imagine trying to run a normal skeleton/zombie encounter against a party that included a Warlock with this.

[strangebloke]

Well, no. You get four skeletons per 3rd level spell if you have 3 days (1 day for a necromancer) to prepare first.

Yeah fair enough. I think that in general if you have a prep day you're likely to have several so its not the biggest distinction but it does sort of underline how necromancy builds aren't 100% reliable.

IMO at least necromancy is best done with 3-4 low investment bodies alongside conventional mercenaries, but its not for everyone.

[Zanos]

Have you read Storm King's Thunder or Tomb of Annihilation? I can't speak to other modules published for 5e, but those two at least offer little downtime, if any at all, unless you want to put the main plot clock on "Final Fantasy" time.
I don't generally play long modules as written because they allow very little room for player freedom, which is the games strongest point. Running a prewritten module for 20+ sessions with little to no room for player deviation from the intended path is a very different kind of game, and I'd honestly rather just play a CRPG. Modules and Adventure Paths are best used when adapted or mined for plot threads. And of course, I'm not throwing out the idea that these books are simply badly written; generally I consider any modules whose premise is that the world as we know it ends if the cast of level 1 characters do not intervene to be fairly awful.

Most adventures take place over the course of 2-4 sessions for a good reason.


I think most everyone has downtime in their games, the trouble is if you have 4-5 adventuring days in a row and then a year or three of downtime, which IMO isn't that uncommon. You lose three skeletons on day 1, replacing them is going to be a struggle.
True. You could keep a chest full of corpses in your cart or something and cast your unspent spells on making new skeletons at the end of the day, maybe? Should probably lock the chest.

[Segev]

I don't generally play long modules as written because they allow very little room for player freedom, which is the games strongest point. Running a prewritten module for 20+ sessions with little to no room for player deviation from the intended path is a very different kind of game, and I'd honestly rather just play a CRPG. Modules and Adventure Paths are best used when adapted or mined for plot threads. And of course, I'm not throwing out the idea that these books are simply badly written; generally I consider any modules whose premise is that the world as we know it ends if the cast of level 1 characters do not intervene to be fairly awful.

Most adventures take place over the course of 2-4 sessions for a good reason.

I ask mainly because your claim that "the game was never intended" to be played with little downtime seems at odds with officially-published adventure modules encouraging it.

I am not disputing that it might work better with more downtime than with continuous time pressure and action, but I am questioning that the design intention is directly in conflict with major campaign modules.

[Zanos]

I ask mainly because your claim that "the game was never intended" to be played with little downtime seems at odds with officially-published adventure modules encouraging it.

I am not disputing that it might work better with more downtime than with continuous time pressure and action, but I am questioning that the design intention is directly in conflict with major campaign modules.
And, as I've already stated, material for D&D can be badly written, especially modules and APs, which are often not written by the same people who write the core rules. You can look at Xanthars for how downtime is intended to function within the context of 5e.

[Ir0ns0ul]

Just a sidenote: Undead Thralls from Wizard Necromancers turns Summon Undead probably the best “summon type” spells, besides Summon Greater Demon.

The Ghostly spirit provides great damage, Frighten spamming, Fly and some sort of good mobility.

I saw the whole discussion about Danse Macabre effectiveness, and I do agree that at higher levels you would have better spells to concentrate. But during tiers 1 and 2, an army of animated skeletons archers led by a summoned Ghostly Spirit brings true joy to your Necromancer.

[Ryton]

Just a sidenote: Undead Thralls from Wizard Necromancers turns Summon Undead probably the best “summon type” spells, besides Summon Greater Demon.

Is there a ruling to support this? I'd love to see one if there is, because I'm pretty sure my DM would rule that "whenever you create an undead" wouldn't apply to Summon Undead because they aren't being created. The spell name is pretty upfront about that.

[Deathtongue]

Is there a ruling to support this? I'd love to see one if there is, because I'm pretty sure my DM would rule that "whenever you create an undead" wouldn't apply to Summon Undead because they aren't being created. The spell name is pretty upfront about that.

RAI: Summon Undead Spirit doesn't summon or call anything specifically. You summon a spirit and then shape it in one of the three forms you want. A DM could be a Gygaxian pedant and say that you didn't create anything, much like how to certain points of views a woodcarver or a potter doesn't actually create a carving or pot. But someone who rules like that should be suspected of being, well, a Gygaxian pedant.