How to make a necromancer?

[Nightgaun7]

I've got a character idea for a guy who has undead minions, can either be hordes of weaker ones or a few powerful ones. But as far as I can tell 5e heavily punishes this concept. What's the best way to make it work? And will it ever surpass a summoning druid?

[Man_Over_Game]

I've got a character idea for a guy who has undead minions, can either be hordes of weaker ones or a few powerful ones. But as far as I can tell 5e heavily punishes this concept. What's the best way to make it work? And will it ever surpass a summoning druid?

Well, the thing that a necromancer has over a Druid is that a necromancer doesn't have nearly the same time limitations that a Druid does. A necromancer can better use his minions throughout the day.

The game doesn't necessarily punish the concept, it just bogs down the game a little bit.

Necromancer Wizard is the way to go, obviously. You'll probably want to focus on keeping your undead alive. Additionally, melee units become less effective when they're clumped up, where ranged units have no such qualm. Combining both of these aspects, you'll want to have all of your skeletons use ranged weapons, so that they can hose down individual targets rather quickly, while you keep the majority of the targets occupied, using spells like Black Tentacles or Hypnotic Pattern.

If you can afford the feat or the Charisma, Inspiring Leader will grant your undead some extra THP to survive.

That's...about it. With spells like Danse Macabre or Create Undead, you have quite a few options to play with. I would recommend a single level into Undying Warlock, though. The ability to negate undeads' attacks against you might come in handy if you're unable to refresh your control over them in a particular day.




The way a necromancer does better than a Druid is by constantly recycling the same minions. You need to play like the Warlock: More skirmishes, less boss fights. You defeat enemies through attrition and numbers, so don't bite off more than you can chew (or you'll be set back a few days recuperating your forces).

[8wGremlin]

You could also play a Warlock:hexblade patron, pact of the tome

• Take the Golgari background (from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica GGoR)
• which gives you Animate Dead as a 3rd level spell, which you can now cast on a short rest!

Take a couple levels of Sorcerer (divine soul is good)
with the invocation: Aspect of the Moon - you no longer need to sleep, and can take as many short rests as you like and turn yourself in to a Necromantic Coffeelock

[Mortis_Elrod]

Necromancer?
Divine Soul Sorcerer/Celestial Warlock.

You grab animate dead from cleric list

Can use Celestials bonus action heal to heal undead.

can twin animate dead

and use 3rd level pact spell slot for it

then get it back by casting Catnap.


+normal Sorcerer/warlock shenanigans.

Have fun

[Dalebert]

Animate Dead seems pretty weak without the necromancer buff. I would not be excited about how many skeletons I could have unless they were toughened up by necromancer.

Ring of Spell Storing and Portable Hole are great items if you can get them. Have an undead (skeleton at first, wight later) attune to the ring. Cast a spell into the ring and have the undead cast it for you. Now it's concentrating. Tell it to get back in the hole and have another undead close it. Now you have a free no-concentration concentration spell like fly, haste, greater invisibility.

The Portable Hole is for storage when you can't be walking around in a city with undead. But if you must have them out in a city, grab Seeming. Also a great necromancer spell. Now they look like the humanoid personal guards of your choice.

Also, minions can be annoying in a game if you use a map at all. In theater of the mind, not as much but you still have to take them into consideration in limited space. I find that no more than 4 is really practical at one time. This is another way the portable hole is handy. Go ahead and make 8 or even 12 skeletons. Keep all but four in the hole. When one dies or even if it's just hurt badly, swap it out for a fresh one. It can now take a short rest. Keep extra bones in the hole to make more. If the one with the ring on dies, have another attune to it while safely inside the hole.

[LichPlease]

It might have been mentioned in the above and I strangely have not seen anyone post this advice before, but hordes of undead can be much easier to manage if you use the mob rules (DMG p.250). This might require DM permission but if it's helping the flow of the game while letting you maximize the size of your undead army, I don't see what the problem could be.

I would suggest maybe trying out the following house rules just to help manage numbers:

- You will have to be a bit creative and use the table from the above rules and some math to calculate how to handle mobs larger than 20, if you so choose to go that large.

- No swapping zombies between mobs in the middle of combat. It's counterproductive to the point of using mob rules.

- There don't seem to be any particular rules on how to manage the zombies-per-mob:size ratio but I would suggest 2-10 zombies take up a large size space. 11-30 take up a huge size space. Anything above takes up a gargantuan space.

- A gargantuan mob or another size mob that contains under half of its maximum number of zombies is considered difficult terrain for enemies and has no affect on the movement of allies. Otherwise, enemies cannot move through any non-gargantuan mob that has at least half of its
maximum number of zombies while you and your allies count it as difficult terrain. If a mob can't move (or squeeze) through a passage, it must wait until outside of combat to break down into a smaller size.

- Enemies moving through or moving away without disengaging provokes an attack of opportunity as if the mob were half its size (number of zombies).

Before anyone gets all up in arms and fussy as some do, yes, all of these little house rules I came up with off the top of my head and they are untested. The point is to make the game flow more easily, not to underpower/overpower your necromancer. Start with the mob rules and make the necessary modifications to the rules (with DM's help/approval) when necessary.

[druid91]

I've got a character idea for a guy who has undead minions, can either be hordes of weaker ones or a few powerful ones. But as far as I can tell 5e heavily punishes this concept. What's the best way to make it work? And will it ever surpass a summoning druid?

Heavily punishes? It's one of the single most powerful builds in the game. Particularly in Eberron Campaigns when combined with a Bone Knight.

[Ganryu]

Yeah, necromancer is probably one of the most OP builds.

Go for Wizard - School of Necromancy. Spam Animate dead as much as humanly possible, you need no other spells. You have a horde.

Alternatively, might be interesting to speak with your GM to let you be a Moon Druid who exclusively wildshapes into undead. It's be homebrew, but a lot of GM's would allow it.

[MaxWilson]

Heavily punishes? It's one of the single most powerful builds in the game. Particularly in Eberron Campaigns when combined with a Bone Knight.

Well, hordes of weak ones are powerful. "Heavily punishes" is a fair description of a necromancer trying to rely on high-level Create Undead though. If your goal is to have three or four really powerful minions instead of a horde of "weak" ones, you're better off with Planar Binding than necromancy.

[Kane0]

Ask your DM if you can use the XP budget the critters animate dead would give you on one bigger undead creature instead.

[druid91]

Well, hordes of weak ones are powerful. "Heavily punishes" is a fair description of a necromancer trying to rely on high-level Create Undead though. If your goal is to have three or four really powerful minions instead of a horde of "weak" ones, you're better off with Planar Binding than necromancy.

Nothing prevents your sentient undead from gaining in power. Pit them against mindless undead to grow their level.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Well, hordes of weak ones are powerful. "Heavily punishes" is a fair description of a necromancer trying to rely on high-level Create Undead though. If your goal is to have three or four really powerful minions instead of a horde of "weak" ones, you're better off with Planar Binding than necromancy.

Wights make great proxis. The can make their own undead. So you have a couple Wights and then your own personal guard.

[MaxWilson]

Wights make great proxis. The can make their own undead. So you have a couple Wights and then your own personal guard.

But now you're back to "hordes of weak undead," only they are weaker (no Undead Thralls bonus) and a lot harder to get. (You have to find humanoids for the wights to slowly murder, specifically with their life draining attack, instead of just raising dead bodies of enemies that you already killed.)

Compare that to Planar Binding e.g. a Salamander, a Nycaloth, and a Korred: tons of power in a fairly compact little package.

[Nightgaun7]

Heavily punishes? It's one of the single most powerful builds in the game. Particularly in Eberron Campaigns when combined with a Bone Knight.

What Bone Knight are you using?

[Mortis_Elrod]

But now you're back to "hordes of weak undead," only they are weaker (no Undead Thralls bonus) and a lot harder to get. (You have to find humanoids for the wights to slowly murder, specifically with their life draining attack, instead of just raising dead bodies of enemies that you already killed.)

Compare that to Planar Binding e.g. a Salamander, a Nycaloth, and a Korred: tons of power in a fairly compact little package.

Action economy is more useful than a salamander. there is alot of time investment outside of combat for necromancy for sure, but there is utility gained outside of combat, and lots of combat use. Its worth it.

5e allows even weak creatures to be useful, even deadly, if theres enough of them. and Wights/Ghouls aren't that weak either.

Its why you dont go around soloing encounters made for a party of people of your level. more people means more actions, which means the more you can do to prevent the enemy from succeeding.

[druid91]

What Bone Knight are you using?

The Bone Knight from Morgrave Miscellany?

But now you're back to "hordes of weak undead," only they are weaker (no Undead Thralls bonus) and a lot harder to get. (You have to find humanoids for the wights to slowly murder, specifically with their life draining attack, instead of just raising dead bodies of enemies that you already killed.)

Compare that to Planar Binding e.g. a Salamander, a Nycaloth, and a Korred: tons of power in a fairly compact little package.

Well. In comparison....

Planar Binding costs 1000 GP a pop and is effectively temporarily hiring the somewhat grudging help of an outsider. And if you aren't careful goes horribly wrong because the outsider summoned might be angry and determined to misinterpret you. Not to mention being a fifth level spell and gets you ONE enforcer.

Animate Dead specifically leaves open the option of negotiating with your DM for better/stronger skeletons in that 'The stats for these creatures will be given to you by the DM.' We default to 'The stats in the back of the players handbook' because that's easy.

[allthingslich]

I've got a character idea for a guy who has undead minions, can either be hordes of weaker ones or a few powerful ones. But as far as I can tell 5e heavily punishes this concept. What's the best way to make it work? And will it ever surpass a summoning druid?

Separate the concept of necromancer, from a story, "cool idea", roleplaying perspective and how they function mechanically. Otherwise, you'll never find a happy medium.

[DarkKnightJin]

Animate Dead seems pretty weak without the necromancer buff. I would not be excited about how many skeletons I could have unless they were toughened up by necromancer.

Ring of Spell Storing and Portable Hole are great items if you can get them. Have an undead (skeleton at first, wight later) attune to the ring. Cast a spell into the ring and have the undead cast it for you. Now it's concentrating. Tell it to get back in the hole and have another undead close it. Now you have a free no-concentration concentration spell like fly, haste, greater invisibility.

The Portable Hole is for storage when you can't be walking around in a city with undead. But if you must have them out in a city, grab Seeming. Also a great necromancer spell. Now they look like the humanoid personal guards of your choice.

Also, minions can be annoying in a game if you use a map at all. In theater of the mind, not as much but you still have to take them into consideration in limited space. I find that no more than 4 is really practical at one time. This is another way the portable hole is handy. Go ahead and make 8 or even 12 skeletons. Keep all but four in the hole. When one dies or even if it's just hurt badly, swap it out for a fresh one. It can now take a short rest. Keep extra bones in the hole to make more. If the one with the ring on dies, have another attune to it while safely inside the hole.

My LE Divine Soul Sorcerer is gonna dabble with Animate Dead, and I never thought of having Seeming as a 5th level spell option so I can have 3-4 undead 'guards' when in town.
The Portable Hole thing is also a good idea, and I should see about getting one of those soonish, if I'm going to lug around bones to animate, or have them animated but need them hidden.