As RAW I just don't see how they do it. Lvl 12 to 14 Necros, just don't have the spell slots to keep them around. You need acces to the lvl 9 slot to summon 3 wights who can summon 12 Zombies each. But before that it's just plain impossible to have and Zombies and spells for day to day spellcasting and suppressing populations.
Outside the NPCs are different angle, finger of death creates unlimited zombies, animate dead can create a decent unit, more powerful undead if they are intelligent can just be allies, he doesn't have to control them if persuade worked.
The explanation I've seen from WotC in the past is that
the spells presented in the various published sourcebooks are not an exhuastive list of all magic possible
NPCs do not use the PC design process on purpose
It is therefore entirely possible for your NPC necromancers to have access to ritual magic not available to your players.
Your players are way nicer than the ones I've had in the past to let that slide. Wizards have spellbooks. When you find it, and it doesn't have those spells in them... Yeah not a nice time.
I agree with this explanation, magic is extremely varied and one of the great things since 4e (recovering from the player-centric disaster that was 3e) is that what the NPC do does not necessarily have to be available to the PCs. It's exactly that way in most books and movies of the genre, after all.
Yeah that doesn't do it for me or the people at the tables I play at, it just reeks of badly thought out systems and broken rules.
Evil Necromancers should make intelligent undead into voluntary allies. And those allies will control the other undead such as zombies and skeletons for them if it’s really needed.
I also love the Create Plot Device spell. It’s one of my favorites.
I agree with this explanation, magic is extremely varied and one of the great things since 4e (recovering from the player-centric disaster that was 3e) is that what the NPC do does not necessarily have to be available to the PCs. It's exactly that way in most books and movies of the genre, after all.
Yeah that doesn't do it for me or the people at the tables I play at, it just reeks of badly thought out systems and broken rules.
This is not a board game. Even in 4e which was as boardgamy as D&D ever was, NPCs had very different rules from PCs. It's not a system that is intended for the players or the adversary to be limited by what others do. PCs are built so that players have fun over multiple encounters, NPCs are just built to provide a challenge once. Gimping the system so that people think it's fair are missing on what the intent of the game is. It can still be played and enjoyed, but there is no reason to inflict such limitations on all the players in the world.
Well I agree that gimping the system is bad, and that's what is happening now. Pc's should be able to do what npc's are able to do. Otherwise you're just handwaving plotholes and broken rules.
I agree with this explanation, magic is extremely varied and one of the great things since 4e (recovering from the player-centric disaster that was 3e) is that what the NPC do does not necessarily have to be available to the PCs. It's exactly that way in most books and movies of the genre, after all.
Yeah that doesn't do it for me or the people at the tables I play at, it just reeks of badly thought out systems and broken rules.
This is not a board game. Even in 4e which was as boardgamy as D&D ever was, NPCs had very different rules from PCs. It's not a system that is intended for the players or the adversary to be limited by what others do. PCs are built so that players have fun over multiple encounters, NPCs are just built to provide a challenge once. Gimping the system so that people think it's fair are missing on what the intent of the game is. It can still be played and enjoyed, but there is no reason to inflict such limitations on all the players in the world.
Well I agree that gimping the system is bad, and that's what is happening now. Pc's should be able to do what npc's are able to do. Otherwise you're just handwaving plotholes and broken rules.
I'm sorry, but I don't agree. If some NPCs are gods, why should the PC be able to replicate that ? By the way, it goes the other way too. In the genre, the hero frequently has one ability that is extraordinary and not replicated by anyone else in the universe. So the PCs are exceptional, and if the PCs are exceptional, they also deserve exceptional adversaries.
Also, most of the setting in the genre are unfair to start with, the hero starts as the underdog, which is necessary for the drama of the story. Again, it's possible to play D&D completely as a boardgame of successive fights that the DM need to stack up precisely so that the PCs always win, therefore getting the impression that they are indeed very clever. But that it not the intent of the game, and there can be so much more to the game than this : "Playing D&D is an exercise in collaborative creation. You and your friends create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama."
So you can indeed do what you proclaim, doing a game that is quite formal and centered about equality, but it has been demonstrated in the history of the game that the game is poorer for this, and less satisfying, both to gamers in general but more specifically to people who are able to play the game in many more ways than just this one.
Well yes but every argument you make I can just turn around. Templates for example are a lazy way to make npc"s, NPC X is a rogue? Give them a race and the needed levels in Rogue. They have a magic item, give them the item. Use the same rules to create them as pc's. As 5th is touted to be balanced around standard array, make npc's use the same rules. If fifth doesn't use prestige classes remove them from npc's (looking at you Archmage). It's not difficult, it worked in te past. Power creep in 3.5 was a major problem but that has nothing to do with balance between pc and npc but in making every newer thing more stronger than those that came before.
I always stay within the rules for my NPCs and it works very well. My players love employing the strategies I use against them and it builds a very real world where the players feel like nothing is hand waved and everything has justification.
Not all DMs do it this way, but I like it so much better. I’ve never used a mechanical plot device hand wave for any of my BBEGs.
Necromancer with an army? Not that hard!
Take 3 3rd level Animate Dead spells and that gives you control over 12 zombies/skeletons.
Add 3 4th level spells for 18 more.
Add 3 5th level spells for 24 more. That’s 54 total.
However, you could also choose Animate Dead as your Signature Spell, adding another casting every short rest - let’s use 3 short rests a day to create another 12 zombies for a total of 66.
Now you need some elite troops.
Take 2 6th level Create Undead spells to control 6 ghouls.
2 7th level Create Undead spells to control 8 more ghouls.
1 8th level Create Undead to control 2 wights. Each wight can control and create 12 more zombies each (24 zombies total).
1 9th level Create Undead to control 3 more wights, and another 36 zombies.
Now you need some artillery. Necromancers get Command Undead - it’ll take a save, but get yourself a T-Rex Zombie (less than 8 Int). It’ll disgorge a zombie, and it’s likely to create at least 3 more zombies for you.
So... tally:
129 zombies
14 ghouls
5 wights
1 tyrannosaurus zombie
And any number of additional Zombies from Finger of Death.
So your minimum standing army will be very potent and could be raised/controlled in a couple of days. And your top end with Finger of Death is unlimited.
That’s why I’m not sure I need to hand wave anything - the potential is there for a Necromancer to create massive armies over time, and raise a quick contingent in a couple days that could wipe out a town or two.
OR:
Get an Oathbreaker, max out your spell save DC and get permanent control of a Storm Giant Skeleton with your channel divinity. Aura of Hate will add to its damage, and throw on a Circle of Power to make that thing beastly.
I always stay within the rules for my NPCs and it works very well. My players love employing the strategies I use against them and it builds a very real world where the players feel like nothing is hand waved and everything has justification.
Not all DMs do it this way, but I like it so much better. I’ve never used a mechanical plot device hand wave for any of my BBEGs.
Necromancer with an army? Not that hard!
Take 3 3rd level Animate Dead spells and that gives you control over 12 zombies/skeletons.
Add 3 4th level spells for 18 more.
Add 3 5th level spells for 24 more. That’s 54 total.
However, you could also choose Animate Dead as your Signature Spell, adding another casting every short rest - let’s use 3 short rests a day to create another 12 zombies for a total of 66.
Now you need some elite troops.
Take 2 6th level Create Undead spells to control 6 ghouls.
2 7th level Create Undead spells to control 8 more ghouls.
1 8th level Create Undead to control 2 wights. Each wight can control and create 12 more zombies each (24 zombies total).
1 9th level Create Undead to control 3 more wights, and another 36 zombies.
Now you need some artillery. Necromancers get Command Undead - it’ll take a save, but get yourself a T-Rex Zombie (less than 8 Int). It’ll disgorge a zombie, and it’s likely to create at least 3 more zombies for you.
So... tally:
129 zombies
14 ghouls
5 wights
1 tyrannosaurus zombie
And any number of additional Zombies from Finger of Death.
So your minimum standing army will be very potent and could be raised/controlled in a couple of days. And your top end with Finger of Death is unlimited.
That’s why I’m not sure I need to hand wave anything - the potential is there for a Necromancer to create massive armies over time, and raise a quick contingent in a couple days that could wipe out a town or two.
OR:
Get an Oathbreaker, max out your spell save DC and get permanent control of a Storm Giant Skeleton with your channel divinity. Aura of Hate will add to its damage, and throw on a Circle of Power to make that thing beastly.
Yeah I agree, at high level you get there. And I also enjoy this way better than handwaved undead armies. The only problem with this is that youu will have no other spells but those to sustain that army.
I agree with this explanation, magic is extremely varied and one of the great things since 4e (recovering from the player-centric disaster that was 3e) is that what the NPC do does not necessarily have to be available to the PCs. It's exactly that way in most books and movies of the genre, after all.
Yeah that doesn't do it for me or the people at the tables I play at, it just reeks of badly thought out systems and broken rules.
This is not a board game. Even in 4e which was as boardgamy as D&D ever was, NPCs had very different rules from PCs. It's not a system that is intended for the players or the adversary to be limited by what others do. PCs are built so that players have fun over multiple encounters, NPCs are just built to provide a challenge once. Gimping the system so that people think it's fair are missing on what the intent of the game is. It can still be played and enjoyed, but there is no reason to inflict such limitations on all the players in the world.
Well I agree that gimping the system is bad, and that's what is happening now. Pc's should be able to do what npc's are able to do. Otherwise you're just handwaving plotholes and broken rules.
I'm sorry, but I don't agree. If some NPCs are gods, why should the PC be able to replicate that ? By the way, it goes the other way too. In the genre, the hero frequently has one ability that is extraordinary and not replicated by anyone else in the universe. So the PCs are exceptional, and if the PCs are exceptional, they also deserve exceptional adversaries.
Also, most of the setting in the genre are unfair to start with, the hero starts as the underdog, which is necessary for the drama of the story. Again, it's possible to play D&D completely as a boardgame of successive fights that the DM need to stack up precisely so that the PCs always win, therefore getting the impression that they are indeed very clever. But that it not the intent of the game, and there can be so much more to the game than this : "Playing D&D is an exercise in collaborative creation. You and your friends create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama."
So you can indeed do what you proclaim, doing a game that is quite formal and centered about equality, but it has been demonstrated in the history of the game that the game is poorer for this, and less satisfying, both to gamers in general but more specifically to people who are able to play the game in many more ways than just this one.
Well yes but every argument you make I can just turn around. Templates for example are a lazy way to make npc"s, NPC X is a rogue? Give them a race and the needed levels in Rogue. They have a magic item, give them the item. Use the same rules to create them as pc's. As 5th is touted to be balanced around standard array, make npc's use the same rules. If fifth doesn't use prestige classes remove them from npc's (looking at you Archmage). It's not difficult, it worked in te past.
Actually no, it did not. Because not only did you need hours to create simple NPCs (I gave up on the system when I realised that I needed more time to create ONE high-level monster than work on the overall intrigue for my games) you ended up with overly complex NPCs which were impossible to play properly because their sheet was more complex than a PC so you kept forgetting important capabilities as they were hidden behind tons of irrelevant fluff.
And on top of that, instead of being able to create very interesting NPCs with jut the very interesting and visual powers that you needed, you had to browse through endless supplements to find the power that you wanted.
And the crux is that even there it was STILL not equivalent for the PCs, because although you added PC classes with all their irrelevant fluff, you added that to monsters that were not playable by players anyway, and with some powers that the PCs could never have. So you really had the worst of both worlds, tons of constraints and unnecessary weights and still not the "fairness" that you claim, which is not relevant in any case because PCs and NPCs use their powers in very unequivalent situations and it's not a contest between the DM and the players anyway.
So I would say that it's exactly the reverse, it has been proven NOT to work. Only one edition of D&D tried that and it died much quicker than 5e.
Power creep in 3.5 was a major problem but that has nothing to do with balance between pc and npc but in making every newer thing more stronger than those that came before.
All the problems above have nothing to do with power creep, which was another problem of 3e, but that "player-centricity" also resulted in the worst ever player base of players who felt entitled to question and audit the DM to ensure that he was being fair to them instead of trusting that he should not be playing against them. Thankfully that was soon corrected in the next editions, and in particular 5e, but it has resulted in a very annoying player mindset that some of us are still struggling with today.
That's how I made my npc's in 2nd and it was not a big problem. That's how the dm I played 3.5 with did it and it was not a problem. Advantage was that you knew your main npcs like the back of your hand. Sure trash mobs (to use gamer language) where templates out of the monster manual. And the most entitled players I've ever played with where youngish players who only knew 5th through Mat Mercer podcasts. And maybe this (5th) works for you but for others it leaves a bad aftertaste.
I always stay within the rules for my NPCs and it works very well. My players love employing the strategies I use against them and it builds a very real world where the players feel like nothing is hand waved and everything has justification.
Not all DMs do it this way, but I like it so much better. I’ve never used a mechanical plot device hand wave for any of my BBEGs.
Necromancer with an army? Not that hard!
Take 3 3rd level Animate Dead spells and that gives you control over 12 zombies/skeletons.
Add 3 4th level spells for 18 more.
Add 3 5th level spells for 24 more. That’s 54 total.
However, you could also choose Animate Dead as your Signature Spell, adding another casting every short rest - let’s use 3 short rests a day to create another 12 zombies for a total of 66.
Now you need some elite troops.
Take 2 6th level Create Undead spells to control 6 ghouls.
2 7th level Create Undead spells to control 8 more ghouls.
1 8th level Create Undead to control 2 wights. Each wight can control and create 12 more zombies each (24 zombies total).
1 9th level Create Undead to control 3 more wights, and another 36 zombies.
Now you need some artillery. Necromancers get Command Undead - it’ll take a save, but get yourself a T-Rex Zombie (less than 8 Int). It’ll disgorge a zombie, and it’s likely to create at least 3 more zombies for you.
So... tally:
129 zombies
14 ghouls
5 wights
1 tyrannosaurus zombie
And any number of additional Zombies from Finger of Death.
So your minimum standing army will be very potent and could be raised/controlled in a couple of days. And your top end with Finger of Death is unlimited.
That’s why I’m not sure I need to hand wave anything - the potential is there for a Necromancer to create massive armies over time, and raise a quick contingent in a couple days that could wipe out a town or two.
OR:
Get an Oathbreaker, max out your spell save DC and get permanent control of a Storm Giant Skeleton with your channel divinity. Aura of Hate will add to its damage, and throw on a Circle of Power to make that thing beastly.
Yeah I agree, at high level you get there. And I also enjoy this way better than handwaved undead armies. The only problem with this is that youu will have no other spells but those to sustain that army.
Yeah, so here’s how you’d normally do it...
Low levels (before Finger of Death) - Animate Dead is your bread and butter and you summon as many as you can and replenish your numbers with new corpses
Mid-to-High levels (with Finger of Death) - You primarily use FoD to do all of your undead summoning, and use Animate and Create Undead to swell your numbers in a couple days to make an assault.
Mechanics wise, you save your spell slots as much as possible by deploying your Animated and Created minions first because they require spell slots to keep. Keep your FoD zombies for backup as necessary, because these are forever minions.
When doing a “replenish” assault, you Animate and Create as many zombies as you can and then use every available spell slot to use FoD and immediately bring those zombies into your reserve. That’s going to be 1-4 new permanent minions per day at level 13+, so you have to be efficient.
Once you have a big enough standing army, then you can fully devote spell slots to controlling an Undead Army when you need to make the big assault.
So, for a BBEG, here’s a quick way to think about it - find out how many 7-9th level spell slots the BBEG has and use the at times determine how many zombies per day they can create.
A level 15 Necromancer can create 2 zombies per day or about 60 per month. Then I would use this as a metric based on how long the Necro has been gathering his army and how long the PCs delay in attacking him.
3 scenarios come to mind:
1) If they assault the Necromancer in his stronghold before he’s prepared for it, he likely will only have a few Animated or Created Undead (he likes to save those spell slots), but he’ll have his standing FoD army and spell slots for casting.
2) If the PCs are defending a town that the Necromancer is attacking, or the Necromancer is prepared, he will definitely have as many Animated and Created allies that he can manage to control, on top of the FoD army.
3) If the Necromancer is on a replenishment assault, he’ll have saved his level 7-8+ slots only.
Also remember, this doesn’t require any Cantrips, 1st, and 2nd level spells. When a Necromancer is surrounded completely by allies it’ll give him great cover (3/4 cover at least for +5 AC, and potentially untouchable without reach), then he doesn’t have to worry much about melee attacks. Throw on Warding Wind and the Necromancer can cantrip with impunity while being relatively safe from any ranged attacks too.
Once you have access to 9th level spells, you can use Mass Suggestion 9 to control the top of your undead pyramid scheme, which frees up a lot of resources.
Once you have access to 9th level spells, you can use Mass Suggestion 9 to control the top of your undead pyramid scheme, which frees up a lot of resources.
I was going to say that Wights are immune to charm but they aren't! :) Thanks I learned something new and broken about 5th today :)
Army's of undead like NPC's tend to have? Those are far easier than anybody is making them out to be.
Do you want to know why? Large numbers of Undead do not actually all have to be controlled to be effective. Release ones you don't control into area's you want guarded but don't use much.
Have other non-spell ways to influence things like undead. For example there are features in the game that are not spells that can do things like make you effectively invisible to the wrath of undead. making you able to move through uncontrolled undead easily.
NPC Necromancers and the like also have the luxury of sitting around making undead and letting them out of their control and taking control back through magical items, various non-spell features, spells, and who knows what other means that players most of the time simply do not have. So they have the time to fill entire castles much more easily. Necromancer NPC's are almost never encountered cavorting around the country side.
Also. Much like the PC's have allies the Necromancers can make allies of things like Wights and Death Knights and other things that can create and control large numbers of undead. There's nothing in the rules that say they can't. So some of those undead may actually be helping to facilitate control and working with the Necromancer. You may have killed Allies of that Necromancer as you smashed your way through all those undead and never have even realised it. Because to the party they are nothing more than another monster.
Also. Not all magic that people use are just conveniently marked down in their spell books. Or at least the spell books your going to find on their person when they die. The spell books holding that kind of information could easily be in things like Pocket Planes or physically impenetrable vaults buried deep in rock or any number of other strange and unusual places that access just immediately gets lost to when you kill that Necromancer. Or it just plain could be some large Cauldron (or other object) in the area that for some reason doesn't ping as magical to a simple detect magic spell (which there are several ways to accomplish) but might actually be a super powerful necromantic artifact none the less. But because your party didn't have the knowledge to look for it and only did quick scans of magical loot they never found it.
Army's of undead like NPC's tend to have? Those are far easier than anybody is making them out to be.
Do you want to know why? Large numbers of Undead do not actually all have to be controlled to be effective. Release ones you don't control into area's you want guarded but don't use much.
Have other non-spell ways to influence things like undead. For example there are features in the game that are not spells that can do things like make you effectively invisible to the wrath of undead. making you able to move through uncontrolled undead easily.
NPC Necromancers and the like also have the luxury of sitting around making undead and letting them out of their control and taking control back through magical items, various non-spell features, spells, and who knows what other means that players most of the time simply do not have. So they have the time to fill entire castles much more easily. Necromancer NPC's are almost never encountered cavorting around the country side.
Also. Much like the PC's have allies the Necromancers can make allies of things like Wights and Death Knights and other things that can create and control large numbers of undead. There's nothing in the rules that say they can't. So some of those undead may actually be helping to facilitate control and working with the Necromancer. You may have killed Allies of that Necromancer as you smashed your way through all those undead and never have even realised it. Because to the party they are nothing more than another monster.
Also. Not all magic that people use are just conveniently marked down in their spell books. Or at least the spell books your going to find on their person when they die. The spell books holding that kind of information could easily be in things like Pocket Planes or physically impenetrable vaults buried deep in rock or any number of other strange and unusual places that access just immediately gets lost to when you kill that Necromancer. Or it just plain could be some large Cauldron (or other object) in the area that for some reason doesn't ping as magical to a simple detect magic spell (which there are several ways to accomplish) but might actually be a super powerful necromantic artifact none the less. But because your party didn't have the knowledge to look for it and only did quick scans of magical loot they never found it.
Army's of undead like NPC's tend to have? Those are far easier than anybody is making them out to be.
Do you want to know why? Large numbers of Undead do not actually all have to be controlled to be effective. Release ones you don't control into area's you want guarded but don't use much.
Have other non-spell ways to influence things like undead. For example there are features in the game that are not spells that can do things like make you effectively invisible to the wrath of undead. making you able to move through uncontrolled undead easily.
NPC Necromancers and the like also have the luxury of sitting around making undead and letting them out of their control and taking control back through magical items, various non-spell features, spells, and who knows what other means that players most of the time simply do not have. So they have the time to fill entire castles much more easily. Necromancer NPC's are almost never encountered cavorting around the country side.
Also. Much like the PC's have allies the Necromancers can make allies of things like Wights and Death Knights and other things that can create and control large numbers of undead. There's nothing in the rules that say they can't. So some of those undead may actually be helping to facilitate control and working with the Necromancer. You may have killed Allies of that Necromancer as you smashed your way through all those undead and never have even realised it. Because to the party they are nothing more than another monster.
Also. Not all magic that people use are just conveniently marked down in their spell books. Or at least the spell books your going to find on their person when they die. The spell books holding that kind of information could easily be in things like Pocket Planes or physically impenetrable vaults buried deep in rock or any number of other strange and unusual places that access just immediately gets lost to when you kill that Necromancer. Or it just plain could be some large Cauldron (or other object) in the area that for some reason doesn't ping as magical to a simple detect magic spell (which there are several ways to accomplish) but might actually be a super powerful necromantic artifact none the less. But because your party didn't have the knowledge to look for it and only did quick scans of magical loot they never found it.
So another round of handwavium. No thanks.
That's an incredibly disingenuous response to their post. Where is the "handwaving" in using Animate Dead but relinquishing control in places that you simply want to be guarded? This is literally what I do with my PC Necromancer from time to time to save spell slots for the next day, usually in situations where I know we are being followed or are likely being followed, and almost any time the undead are slowing down the party's travel.
What is the "handwaving" of using non-spells to control undead? Is it "handwaving" if the NPC has the Wand of Orcus? If so, do you apply the same logic to every non-undead related plot device cause then literally every NPC ever is handwaved into their plot devices? If the artifact of a demon prince is not handwaving, why would any lesser item or ritual unavailable to PCs be?
Army's of undead like NPC's tend to have? Those are far easier than anybody is making them out to be.
Do you want to know why? Large numbers of Undead do not actually all have to be controlled to be effective. Release ones you don't control into area's you want guarded but don't use much.
Have other non-spell ways to influence things like undead. For example there are features in the game that are not spells that can do things like make you effectively invisible to the wrath of undead. making you able to move through uncontrolled undead easily.
NPC Necromancers and the like also have the luxury of sitting around making undead and letting them out of their control and taking control back through magical items, various non-spell features, spells, and who knows what other means that players most of the time simply do not have. So they have the time to fill entire castles much more easily. Necromancer NPC's are almost never encountered cavorting around the country side.
Also. Much like the PC's have allies the Necromancers can make allies of things like Wights and Death Knights and other things that can create and control large numbers of undead. There's nothing in the rules that say they can't. So some of those undead may actually be helping to facilitate control and working with the Necromancer. You may have killed Allies of that Necromancer as you smashed your way through all those undead and never have even realised it. Because to the party they are nothing more than another monster.
Also. Not all magic that people use are just conveniently marked down in their spell books. Or at least the spell books your going to find on their person when they die. The spell books holding that kind of information could easily be in things like Pocket Planes or physically impenetrable vaults buried deep in rock or any number of other strange and unusual places that access just immediately gets lost to when you kill that Necromancer. Or it just plain could be some large Cauldron (or other object) in the area that for some reason doesn't ping as magical to a simple detect magic spell (which there are several ways to accomplish) but might actually be a super powerful necromantic artifact none the less. But because your party didn't have the knowledge to look for it and only did quick scans of magical loot they never found it.
So another round of handwavium. No thanks.
That's an incredibly disingenuous response to their post. Where is the "handwaving" in using Animate Dead but relinquishing control in places that you simply want to be guarded? This is literally what I do with my PC Necromancer from time to time to save spell slots for the next day, usually in situations where I know we are being followed or are likely being followed, and almost any time the undead are slowing down the party's travel.
What is the "handwaving" of using non-spells to control undead? Is it "handwaving" if the NPC has the Wand of Orcus? If so, do you apply the same logic to every non-undead related plot device cause then literally every NPC ever is handwaved into their plot devices? If the artifact of a demon prince is not handwaving, why would any lesser item or ritual unavailable to PCs be?
Even PC Necromancers have ways to control undead without using spell slots. There is actually a PC ability that can make one basically invisible to undead (or in a different light of viewing make them seem like just another undead). There may actually be a spell that does it as well but I'm not remembering right now.
NPC casters if they are based on the monster manual don't even actually have spell books on them when they die when following MM rules. That is something that the DM has to add in. All they have on them by default is weapons needed for actions in their stat blocks and armor listed in their stat blocks and reagents for their spells.
The Truth of the Matter is that if a PC wizard weren't traveling so much so it's actually most convenient to have the spell book on them. They wouldn't have to carry around their spell books either. The Books aren't needed for casting the spells. Just preparing them in the morning. So a PC wizard as stationary located as an NPC often is would not actually have to have all of their important things like spell books where they will be found on their bodies. This is not handwaving. This is part of the Luxury of staying put that Wandering PC's just do not have to amass undead armies.
I'll also point out that One of my evil wizards regularly took any special equipment that he gave undead back and released undead that had served their purpose for him to do whatever undead damage they were going to do without control. As a personality trait he found that raising an enemies freshly dead allies to attack his enemies was far more demoralizing and often much better than marching around with a bunch of pre-mades. Had he been in a location where he could remain primarily in one place. He certainly would have piled up undead over time because of this.
As RAW I just don't see how they do it. Lvl 12 to 14 Necros, just don't have the spell slots to keep them around. You need acces to the lvl 9 slot to summon 3 wights who can summon 12 Zombies each. But before that it's just plain impossible to have and Zombies and spells for day to day spellcasting and suppressing populations.
The explanation I've seen from WotC in the past is that
It is therefore entirely possible for your NPC necromancers to have access to ritual magic not available to your players.
NPCs all have access to the spell Create Plot Device.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
yeah lol
Also, there's such thing as an "ancient artifact that no one's heard of that allows them to control many many undead at a time" thing.
Come participate in the Competition of the Finest Brews, Edition XXVIII?
My homebrew stuff:
Spells, Monsters, Magic Items, Feats, Subclasses.
I am an Archfey, but nobody seems to notice.
Extended Signature
Outside the NPCs are different angle, finger of death creates unlimited zombies, animate dead can create a decent unit, more powerful undead if they are intelligent can just be allies, he doesn't have to control them if persuade worked.
Your players are way nicer than the ones I've had in the past to let that slide. Wizards have spellbooks. When you find it, and it doesn't have those spells in them... Yeah not a nice time.
Yeah that doesn't do it for me or the people at the tables I play at, it just reeks of badly thought out systems and broken rules.
Evil Necromancers should make intelligent undead into voluntary allies. And those allies will control the other undead such as zombies and skeletons for them if it’s really needed.
I also love the Create Plot Device spell. It’s one of my favorites.
Professional computer geek
Well I agree that gimping the system is bad, and that's what is happening now. Pc's should be able to do what npc's are able to do. Otherwise you're just handwaving plotholes and broken rules.
Well yes but every argument you make I can just turn around. Templates for example are a lazy way to make npc"s, NPC X is a rogue? Give them a race and the needed levels in Rogue. They have a magic item, give them the item. Use the same rules to create them as pc's. As 5th is touted to be balanced around standard array, make npc's use the same rules. If fifth doesn't use prestige classes remove them from npc's (looking at you Archmage). It's not difficult, it worked in te past. Power creep in 3.5 was a major problem but that has nothing to do with balance between pc and npc but in making every newer thing more stronger than those that came before.
I always stay within the rules for my NPCs and it works very well. My players love employing the strategies I use against them and it builds a very real world where the players feel like nothing is hand waved and everything has justification.
Not all DMs do it this way, but I like it so much better. I’ve never used a mechanical plot device hand wave for any of my BBEGs.
Necromancer with an army? Not that hard!
Take 3 3rd level Animate Dead spells and that gives you control over 12 zombies/skeletons.
Add 3 4th level spells for 18 more.
Add 3 5th level spells for 24 more. That’s 54 total.
However, you could also choose Animate Dead as your Signature Spell, adding another casting every short rest - let’s use 3 short rests a day to create another 12 zombies for a total of 66.
Now you need some elite troops.
Take 2 6th level Create Undead spells to control 6 ghouls.
2 7th level Create Undead spells to control 8 more ghouls.
1 8th level Create Undead to control 2 wights. Each wight can control and create 12 more zombies each (24 zombies total).
1 9th level Create Undead to control 3 more wights, and another 36 zombies.
Now you need some artillery. Necromancers get Command Undead - it’ll take a save, but get yourself a T-Rex Zombie (less than 8 Int). It’ll disgorge a zombie, and it’s likely to create at least 3 more zombies for you.
So... tally:
129 zombies
14 ghouls
5 wights
1 tyrannosaurus zombie
And any number of additional Zombies from Finger of Death.
So your minimum standing army will be very potent and could be raised/controlled in a couple of days. And your top end with Finger of Death is unlimited.
That’s why I’m not sure I need to hand wave anything - the potential is there for a Necromancer to create massive armies over time, and raise a quick contingent in a couple days that could wipe out a town or two.
OR:
Get an Oathbreaker, max out your spell save DC and get permanent control of a Storm Giant Skeleton with your channel divinity. Aura of Hate will add to its damage, and throw on a Circle of Power to make that thing beastly.
Yeah I agree, at high level you get there. And I also enjoy this way better than handwaved undead armies. The only problem with this is that youu will have no other spells but those to sustain that army.
That's how I made my npc's in 2nd and it was not a big problem. That's how the dm I played 3.5 with did it and it was not a problem. Advantage was that you knew your main npcs like the back of your hand. Sure trash mobs (to use gamer language) where templates out of the monster manual. And the most entitled players I've ever played with where youngish players who only knew 5th through Mat Mercer podcasts. And maybe this (5th) works for you but for others it leaves a bad aftertaste.
Yeah, so here’s how you’d normally do it...
Low levels (before Finger of Death) - Animate Dead is your bread and butter and you summon as many as you can and replenish your numbers with new corpses
Mid-to-High levels (with Finger of Death) - You primarily use FoD to do all of your undead summoning, and use Animate and Create Undead to swell your numbers in a couple days to make an assault.
Mechanics wise, you save your spell slots as much as possible by deploying your Animated and Created minions first because they require spell slots to keep. Keep your FoD zombies for backup as necessary, because these are forever minions.
When doing a “replenish” assault, you Animate and Create as many zombies as you can and then use every available spell slot to use FoD and immediately bring those zombies into your reserve. That’s going to be 1-4 new permanent minions per day at level 13+, so you have to be efficient.
Once you have a big enough standing army, then you can fully devote spell slots to controlling an Undead Army when you need to make the big assault.
So, for a BBEG, here’s a quick way to think about it - find out how many 7-9th level spell slots the BBEG has and use the at times determine how many zombies per day they can create.
A level 15 Necromancer can create 2 zombies per day or about 60 per month. Then I would use this as a metric based on how long the Necro has been gathering his army and how long the PCs delay in attacking him.
3 scenarios come to mind:
1) If they assault the Necromancer in his stronghold before he’s prepared for it, he likely will only have a few Animated or Created Undead (he likes to save those spell slots), but he’ll have his standing FoD army and spell slots for casting.
2) If the PCs are defending a town that the Necromancer is attacking, or the Necromancer is prepared, he will definitely have as many Animated and Created allies that he can manage to control, on top of the FoD army.
3) If the Necromancer is on a replenishment assault, he’ll have saved his level 7-8+ slots only.
Also remember, this doesn’t require any Cantrips, 1st, and 2nd level spells. When a Necromancer is surrounded completely by allies it’ll give him great cover (3/4 cover at least for +5 AC, and potentially untouchable without reach), then he doesn’t have to worry much about melee attacks. Throw on Warding Wind and the Necromancer can cantrip with impunity while being relatively safe from any ranged attacks too.
Once you have access to 9th level spells, you can use Mass Suggestion 9 to control the top of your undead pyramid scheme, which frees up a lot of resources.
I was going to say that Wights are immune to charm but they aren't! :) Thanks I learned something new and broken about 5th today :)
Army's of undead like NPC's tend to have? Those are far easier than anybody is making them out to be.
Do you want to know why? Large numbers of Undead do not actually all have to be controlled to be effective. Release ones you don't control into area's you want guarded but don't use much.
Have other non-spell ways to influence things like undead. For example there are features in the game that are not spells that can do things like make you effectively invisible to the wrath of undead. making you able to move through uncontrolled undead easily.
NPC Necromancers and the like also have the luxury of sitting around making undead and letting them out of their control and taking control back through magical items, various non-spell features, spells, and who knows what other means that players most of the time simply do not have. So they have the time to fill entire castles much more easily. Necromancer NPC's are almost never encountered cavorting around the country side.
Also. Much like the PC's have allies the Necromancers can make allies of things like Wights and Death Knights and other things that can create and control large numbers of undead. There's nothing in the rules that say they can't. So some of those undead may actually be helping to facilitate control and working with the Necromancer. You may have killed Allies of that Necromancer as you smashed your way through all those undead and never have even realised it. Because to the party they are nothing more than another monster.
Also. Not all magic that people use are just conveniently marked down in their spell books. Or at least the spell books your going to find on their person when they die. The spell books holding that kind of information could easily be in things like Pocket Planes or physically impenetrable vaults buried deep in rock or any number of other strange and unusual places that access just immediately gets lost to when you kill that Necromancer. Or it just plain could be some large Cauldron (or other object) in the area that for some reason doesn't ping as magical to a simple detect magic spell (which there are several ways to accomplish) but might actually be a super powerful necromantic artifact none the less. But because your party didn't have the knowledge to look for it and only did quick scans of magical loot they never found it.
So another round of handwavium. No thanks.
That's an incredibly disingenuous response to their post. Where is the "handwaving" in using Animate Dead but relinquishing control in places that you simply want to be guarded? This is literally what I do with my PC Necromancer from time to time to save spell slots for the next day, usually in situations where I know we are being followed or are likely being followed, and almost any time the undead are slowing down the party's travel.
What is the "handwaving" of using non-spells to control undead? Is it "handwaving" if the NPC has the Wand of Orcus? If so, do you apply the same logic to every non-undead related plot device cause then literally every NPC ever is handwaved into their plot devices? If the artifact of a demon prince is not handwaving, why would any lesser item or ritual unavailable to PCs be?
Even PC Necromancers have ways to control undead without using spell slots. There is actually a PC ability that can make one basically invisible to undead (or in a different light of viewing make them seem like just another undead). There may actually be a spell that does it as well but I'm not remembering right now.
NPC casters if they are based on the monster manual don't even actually have spell books on them when they die when following MM rules. That is something that the DM has to add in. All they have on them by default is weapons needed for actions in their stat blocks and armor listed in their stat blocks and reagents for their spells.
The Truth of the Matter is that if a PC wizard weren't traveling so much so it's actually most convenient to have the spell book on them. They wouldn't have to carry around their spell books either. The Books aren't needed for casting the spells. Just preparing them in the morning. So a PC wizard as stationary located as an NPC often is would not actually have to have all of their important things like spell books where they will be found on their bodies. This is not handwaving. This is part of the Luxury of staying put that Wandering PC's just do not have to amass undead armies.
I'll also point out that One of my evil wizards regularly took any special equipment that he gave undead back and released undead that had served their purpose for him to do whatever undead damage they were going to do without control. As a personality trait he found that raising an enemies freshly dead allies to attack his enemies was far more demoralizing and often much better than marching around with a bunch of pre-mades. Had he been in a location where he could remain primarily in one place. He certainly would have piled up undead over time because of this.