A little while back, I was discussing just why is it that Warlocks don't get the spell Animate Dead. After some math, it became apparent, if a Warlock does get the spell, the number of undead they can raise is downright game breaking especially at 11tn level or higher. But then it occured to me, with a 6 level dip into Wizard, the necromancer Warlock is absolutely possible. So, the "ultimate necromancer" would be six levels of Wizard (Necromancer) and 11 levels of Warlock (Undying, for flavor). Because it explicitly says you can use pact slots to cast your other caster class spells, and pact slots return on a short rest with no limit on the number of short rests per day.
So to review, 5th level Animate Dead can normally make 5 zombies/skeletons, or control 8 of them for 24 hours, The Undead Thralls Arcane Tradition Feature from ups the number created by one. A short rest takes one hour and can replenish 3 pact slots (for an 11th level Warlock). So this build can make 18 undead per hour (and three minutes) and control 24 times as many undead as they spend hours in the day (again plus three minutes per hour for the time to actually cast the spells) on maintaining control. So a 17th level Warlock/Wizard can spend 10 hours (and 30 minutes) per day and have an army of 240 skeletons after 3 days. Mind you, this is just from their Pact slots, the Wizard side of the equation does still have two (well actually three, since one of those short rests also gives you Arcane Recovery) Wizard spell slots to use on Animate Dead at third level.
Of course, I only picked 10 hour "workdays" for this "Necrolock" to keep things easy, so 240 is certainly not the maximum, just a feasible example. With the Aspect of the Moon invocation, this could be doubled by just not sleeping. Though at that point when you actually want to use your undead beyond explicitly maintaining control, you're also losing control over 24 of them per hour, so pick the timing of your battles carefully. Practically speaking, this build at about level 11 is going to be more limited by the number of bodies they can find than they are by spell slots.
I feel like I can't be the first one to think of this, has there been anyone here that has tried such an ambitious necromancer?
A little while back, I was discussing just why is it that Warlocks don't get the spell Animate Dead. After some math, it became apparent, if a Warlock does get the spell, the number of undead they can raise is downright game breaking especially at 11tn level or higher. But then it occured to me, with a 6 level dip into Wizard, the necromancer Warlock is absolutely possible. So, the "ultimate necromancer" would be six levels of Wizard (Necromancer) and 11 levels of Warlock (Undying, for flavor). Because it explicitly says you can use pact slots to cast your other caster class spells, and pact slots return on a short rest with no limit on the number of short rests per day.
So to review, 5th level Animate Dead can normally make 5 zombies/skeletons, or control 8 of them for 24 hours, The Undead Thralls Arcane Tradition Feature from ups the number created by one. A short rest takes one hour and can replenish 3 pact slots (for an 11th level Warlock). So this build can make 18 undead per hour (and three minutes) and control 24 times as many undead as they spend hours in the day (again plus three minutes per hour for the time to actually cast the spells) on maintaining control. So a 17th level Warlock/Wizard can spend 10 hours (and 30 minutes) per day and have an army of 240 skeletons after 3 days. Mind you, this is just from their Pact slots, the Wizard side of the equation does still have two (well actually three, since one of those short rests also gives you Arcane Recovery) Wizard spell slots to use on Animate Dead at third level.
Of course, I only picked 10 hour "workdays" for this "Necrolock" to keep things easy, so 240 is certainly not the maximum, just a feasible example. With the Aspect of the Moon invocation, this could be doubled by just not sleeping. Though at that point when you actually want to use your undead beyond explicitly maintaining control, you're also losing control over 24 of them per hour, so pick the timing of your battles carefully. Practically speaking, this build at about level 11 is going to be more limited by the number of bodies they can find than they are by spell slots.
I feel like I can't be the first one to think of this, has there been anyone here that has tried such an ambitious necromancer?
While this is an interesting build, it suffers from some impracticality. You have to spend a huge amount of time maintaining your army if you wan't to make it truly massive. Still, spending two hours and getting 48 zombies is very impressive.
Interestingly, the "Class feature variants" Unearthed arcana adds Animate Dead to the warlock list, so if that ever gets published, then this necromancer build will get significantly better. How many undead could you get if you had four slots to work with, instead of three? (As well as four additional slots once per day from the warlock capstone.)
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
A few issues with this build concept based off of how you worded it.
1. In your calculations you are counting things at level 17, in which case I raise you access to meteor swarm, gate, etc. Contextualizing the power level to those does put a dampener on this concept but isn't a bust.
2. You ARE slowing down quite a bit of your spell progression limiting yourself to 3rd levels spells for a while. The rest of the party is able to be casting teleport and the like when you are still playing around with your skeletons and only now getting the 3rd level warlock slots, but only two of them.
3. Logistically how do you manage so many skeletons, both on a day to day level as well as actually procuring all those bodies. Doing it subtly would be pretty difficult since that IS a lot of bodies and unless you found an abandoned graveyard it would be difficult. Another thing to consider is just how large your loses are likely to be from any significant combat and how much of an annoyance it can be to replace those numbers.
4. Getting a party to be down for this type of play, as well as a gm, would be difficult but not impossible at least at the beginning. After a few sessions of you having this type of power though I can imagine having to deal with you managing 100+ minions to get very tedious just based on how I've seen druids be dealt with.
While this is an interesting build, it suffers from some impracticality. You have to spend a huge amount of time maintaining your army if you wan't to make it truly massive. Still, spending two hours and getting 48 zombies is very impressive.
Interestingly, the "Class feature variants" Unearthed arcana adds Animate Dead to the warlock list, so if that ever gets published, then this necromancer build will get significantly better. How many undead could you get if you had four slots to work with, instead of three? (As well as four additional slots once per day from the warlock capstone.)
I kind of went over that first part, maintaining control basically becomes the caster's full-time job if they want to get the most out of it.
Simply adding Animate Dead to the spell list certainly does simplify things. Not to mention it puts a whole other light on the whole "Why Warlocks shouldn't get Animate Dead because it breaks the game" conversation that spawned the build. I have a feeling that it will be a bumpy road for this particular addition to make its way into an official supplement.
Granted, having the six levels of Wizard in the mix isn't just chopped liver, being able to learn all those wizard spells third of level and below that you can upcast with your Pact casting, also having a bunch of emergency "once per day" spell slots is really nice, even if it's at the cost of getting some of the higher Mystic Arcanum levels (which never really impressed me, to be honest).
The biggest hurdle to assembling the army isn't so much spell slots, but the fact that:
You need a humanoid corpse for each skeleton/zombie. At the rate you are suggesting, that isn't easy to find.
You can't reuse bodies once they die, since they are now undead corpses instead of humanoid corpses. One huge AOE spell can permanently wipe out half your army, and rebuilding takes you back to step one, except this time its harder.
That's why I don't see Animate Dead on warlock as a power issue. You can try to break the rest system, but getting the bodies has some serious narrative implications that gives the DM a lot of levers to reign it in.
The biggest hurdle to assembling the army isn't so much spell slots, but the fact that:
You need a humanoid corpse for each skeleton/zombie. At the rate you are suggesting, that isn't easy to find.
You can't reuse bodies once they die, since they are now undead corpses instead of humanoid corpses. One huge AOE spell can permanently wipe out half your army, and rebuilding takes you back to step one, except this time its harder.
That's why I don't see Animate Dead on warlock as a power issue. You can try to break the rest system, but getting the bodies has some serious narrative implications that gives the DM a lot of levers to reign it in.
Very much so. The horde type classes tend to bog the game down considerably. I generally believe in letting players do what they will within the confines of the story, but if the game bogs down with 50 zombie rolls, I will take action, and suddenly there will be a lot more AOE casters to fight and those zombies are going to get cleared with a quickness. It might not be fun for the player, but waiting while 50 zombies act isn't fun for anyone else. Those 50 zombies will not unlive very long.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Well it doesn't need a fresh corpse. So you can get a lot out of it with the Bones-Skeleton option. One night, with Mold Earth cantrip and a bag of holding for a city's cemetery and you can have a great deal of the required. It takes 8-12? years for a corpse without a coffin. If a coffin a lot longer I imagine.
So. You pack up all them skelebones into your elsewhere storage. You got a steady supply to use. Can do this little harvest in several cities over the course of an adventuring life.
This would be pretty neat to break out near the ultimate end of the storyline. Or a "city defense" situation. When the situation is so forgone that its 'use whatever we have to win.. or we all die regardless" and you just.. quietly bolster the outter defensess with a hundred zombies. Thats the best way to me to use, since that means its affecting thigns outside of the group's matchs. The skelebuds you send out to help defend the city helps the city's side of events, buys you that extra time, etc.
I just don't get why this is such a problem, it takes one minute to make new ones and no gold cost for material components. Undead are first and foremost expendable. If they're taking a fireball that isn't hitting the party then they were worth making.
If I ever were pulling that many undead or really any summons. I would have it fluffed out pre battle wise.
SEnd them in first to 'weaken' the enemy before player inititive. That way i doesn't bog down battle, and you all get a real tangible benefit from their existance and use. And the GM doesn't have to deal with all that. Just do some quick guestimations on what resources they'd lose or hp they'd lose from that horde. an the effect on moral.
This kind of stuff is perfect. Not for character gameplay, but for justifying the ridiculously large hordes I can throw at players in a game.
Imagine infiltrating a castle with hundreds of skeleton archers on the walls. They rain down arrows with an extra +6 damage. Doesn’t even matter how bad their to hit is. You’re gonna hit something!
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A little while back, I was discussing just why is it that Warlocks don't get the spell Animate Dead. After some math, it became apparent, if a Warlock does get the spell, the number of undead they can raise is downright game breaking especially at 11tn level or higher. But then it occured to me, with a 6 level dip into Wizard, the necromancer Warlock is absolutely possible. So, the "ultimate necromancer" would be six levels of Wizard (Necromancer) and 11 levels of Warlock (Undying, for flavor). Because it explicitly says you can use pact slots to cast your other caster class spells, and pact slots return on a short rest with no limit on the number of short rests per day.
So to review, 5th level Animate Dead can normally make 5 zombies/skeletons, or control 8 of them for 24 hours, The Undead Thralls Arcane Tradition Feature from ups the number created by one. A short rest takes one hour and can replenish 3 pact slots (for an 11th level Warlock). So this build can make 18 undead per hour (and three minutes) and control 24 times as many undead as they spend hours in the day (again plus three minutes per hour for the time to actually cast the spells) on maintaining control. So a 17th level Warlock/Wizard can spend 10 hours (and 30 minutes) per day and have an army of 240 skeletons after 3 days. Mind you, this is just from their Pact slots, the Wizard side of the equation does still have two (well actually three, since one of those short rests also gives you Arcane Recovery) Wizard spell slots to use on Animate Dead at third level.
Of course, I only picked 10 hour "workdays" for this "Necrolock" to keep things easy, so 240 is certainly not the maximum, just a feasible example. With the Aspect of the Moon invocation, this could be doubled by just not sleeping. Though at that point when you actually want to use your undead beyond explicitly maintaining control, you're also losing control over 24 of them per hour, so pick the timing of your battles carefully. Practically speaking, this build at about level 11 is going to be more limited by the number of bodies they can find than they are by spell slots.
I feel like I can't be the first one to think of this, has there been anyone here that has tried such an ambitious necromancer?
While this is an interesting build, it suffers from some impracticality. You have to spend a huge amount of time maintaining your army if you wan't to make it truly massive. Still, spending two hours and getting 48 zombies is very impressive.
Interestingly, the "Class feature variants" Unearthed arcana adds Animate Dead to the warlock list, so if that ever gets published, then this necromancer build will get significantly better. How many undead could you get if you had four slots to work with, instead of three? (As well as four additional slots once per day from the warlock capstone.)
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
A few issues with this build concept based off of how you worded it.
1. In your calculations you are counting things at level 17, in which case I raise you access to meteor swarm, gate, etc. Contextualizing the power level to those does put a dampener on this concept but isn't a bust.
2. You ARE slowing down quite a bit of your spell progression limiting yourself to 3rd levels spells for a while. The rest of the party is able to be casting teleport and the like when you are still playing around with your skeletons and only now getting the 3rd level warlock slots, but only two of them.
3. Logistically how do you manage so many skeletons, both on a day to day level as well as actually procuring all those bodies. Doing it subtly would be pretty difficult since that IS a lot of bodies and unless you found an abandoned graveyard it would be difficult. Another thing to consider is just how large your loses are likely to be from any significant combat and how much of an annoyance it can be to replace those numbers.
4. Getting a party to be down for this type of play, as well as a gm, would be difficult but not impossible at least at the beginning. After a few sessions of you having this type of power though I can imagine having to deal with you managing 100+ minions to get very tedious just based on how I've seen druids be dealt with.
I kind of went over that first part, maintaining control basically becomes the caster's full-time job if they want to get the most out of it.
Simply adding Animate Dead to the spell list certainly does simplify things. Not to mention it puts a whole other light on the whole "Why Warlocks shouldn't get Animate Dead because it breaks the game" conversation that spawned the build. I have a feeling that it will be a bumpy road for this particular addition to make its way into an official supplement.
Granted, having the six levels of Wizard in the mix isn't just chopped liver, being able to learn all those wizard spells third of level and below that you can upcast with your Pact casting, also having a bunch of emergency "once per day" spell slots is really nice, even if it's at the cost of getting some of the higher Mystic Arcanum levels (which never really impressed me, to be honest).
The biggest hurdle to assembling the army isn't so much spell slots, but the fact that:
That's why I don't see Animate Dead on warlock as a power issue. You can try to break the rest system, but getting the bodies has some serious narrative implications that gives the DM a lot of levers to reign it in.
Very much so. The horde type classes tend to bog the game down considerably. I generally believe in letting players do what they will within the confines of the story, but if the game bogs down with 50 zombie rolls, I will take action, and suddenly there will be a lot more AOE casters to fight and those zombies are going to get cleared with a quickness. It might not be fun for the player, but waiting while 50 zombies act isn't fun for anyone else. Those 50 zombies will not unlive very long.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Well it doesn't need a fresh corpse. So you can get a lot out of it with the Bones-Skeleton option. One night, with Mold Earth cantrip and a bag of holding for a city's cemetery and you can have a great deal of the required. It takes 8-12? years for a corpse without a coffin. If a coffin a lot longer I imagine.
So. You pack up all them skelebones into your elsewhere storage. You got a steady supply to use. Can do this little harvest in several cities over the course of an adventuring life.
This would be pretty neat to break out near the ultimate end of the storyline. Or a "city defense" situation. When the situation is so forgone that its 'use whatever we have to win.. or we all die regardless" and you just.. quietly bolster the outter defensess with a hundred zombies.
Thats the best way to me to use, since that means its affecting thigns outside of the group's matchs. The skelebuds you send out to help defend the city helps the city's side of events, buys you that extra time, etc.
All this work to create a undead horde when all you need is to be a serial killer and the finger of death spell.
"Those 50 zombies will not unlive very long."
I just don't get why this is such a problem, it takes one minute to make new ones and no gold cost for material components. Undead are first and foremost expendable. If they're taking a fireball that isn't hitting the party then they were worth making.
If I ever were pulling that many undead or really any summons. I would have it fluffed out pre battle wise.
SEnd them in first to 'weaken' the enemy before player inititive. That way i doesn't bog down battle, and you all get a real tangible benefit from their existance and use. And the GM doesn't have to deal with all that. Just do some quick guestimations on what resources they'd lose or hp they'd lose from that horde. an the effect on moral.
This kind of stuff is perfect. Not for character gameplay, but for justifying the ridiculously large hordes I can throw at players in a game.
Imagine infiltrating a castle with hundreds of skeleton archers on the walls. They rain down arrows with an extra +6 damage. Doesn’t even matter how bad their to hit is. You’re gonna hit something!