I've been playing a Necromancer for 8 levels now.  I was excited, because I'd always liked the concept, but -- at least for players -- it had always been kinda "meh", if not outright underpowered.  Back in 2nd edition, when specialists were barred from certain schools, and had a slight boost to their chosen school, Necromancers were barred from Illusion and Enchantment/Charm, which was harsh!  I don't remember exactly how they fared in 3rd edition, but I remember being unimpressed.  Now, in 5e (I skipped 4th edition entirely), they seemed great!  So I gave it a try again.

Well, it's been mostly fun, definitely.  The boost to Animate Dead is nice, I've been doing some damage with my 8-skeleton crew, and soaking up hits that would otherwise hit the party (the extra HPs on them certainly help!).  Grim Harvest has been mostly useless.  I don't tend to get hit much, due to tactical positioning and defensive spells (much love to Shield), so most often the HP gain from Grim Harvest goes to waste.  When I do find myself dangerously low on HPs, it tends to be towards the end of the fight, usually after most of the enemy minions are all dead, and usually when most of my higher-level spell slots are gone, so not only are there fewer creatures left to kill to get the HPs, but I get less of them when I do.  That's exacerbated by a lack of good damage-dealing necromancy spells (not a total lack, mind you, but a general lack).  The best in the bunch, at these levels, at least, seems to be Vampiric Touch, due to its higher level slot, the fact that you can get Grim Harvest off it multiple times, and the fact that it heals you by itself.  But that requires me to go into melee range, which I'm not crazy about.  I can't even combo it with self-Haste for 2 attacks per turn.  So Grim Harvest ends up being mostly a ribbon feature, rather than an actual combat-effectiveness boost.

All that is fine (kind of a bummer that Grim Harvest doesn't really "work" well, but it's no biggie)... the real problem is the logistic nightmare that is managing your undead thralls.  Managing them on the battlefield is a pain, especially when I have 8 of them, meaning I have to track 10 tokens on the grid (skeletons, plus my familiar and the necromancer).  But hell, DMs often have to manage tons more (our current DM just threw a huge gnoll warband consisting of ~100 gnolls, plus a leading Flind riding a Giant Hyena, and an accompanying Shoosuva... awesome encounter, btw), so I should be able to manage 10, and I do.  That's not that big a complaint.  The big hassle is maintaining Animate Dead on them.  Spending the slots daily means I've got less slots for actual casting, which, while a more than reasonable trade-off (I'm getting the skeletons, after all!), is a hassle.  I've got to deal with 8 more creatures, that can't do much by themselves.  So I've had to buy a carriage to transport them, can't just ride horses like the rest of the party.  They're not welcome everywhere.  I had to box 'em up recently for a trip on a boat.  I'm taking up extra time every game morning to cast up the spells, then take a short rest and get a slot or two back from Arcane Recovery.  There's no stealth whatsoever from my side, the skeletons are too noisy in their armor.  I've missed entire rounds of combat because I've left them behind guarding something, then I have to run back to get 'em (can't command 'em from too far away), and then run to where the party is fighting.

In short, it's been a mostly fun experience, marred by the ginormous logistical hassle of undead thrall upkeep and maintenance. =/

Thanks Tonio,

That's about what I was expecting.  I've still never gotten to make my Necromancer.
Part of it is that there is no "official" answer on equipping a horde, so it's fiat.

I'm surprised Stealth is an issue, but I was planning on giving them all Chainshirt.  They get to keep their +2 Dex to Stealth (not great), and gives them a 15 AC.  Not bad not great, but they are super cheap.

I was in a game were we did have a Death Cleric, and we generally found the Undead to be mediocre.  By 7th or 8th lvl they were just getting one-shotted.  Honestly the best use of of Animate Dead was when the GM let us cast it on our mule to make a zombie mule.  A Giant threw a rock and killed our mule, and we still had a cart.  So he used a spell slot to keep the undead mule under his command and it kept pulling out gear.  Necromancer gives them Temp HP and a bonus to damage, but they are still only roll +4 to hit with Dex!

Yeah, at this point, they pretty much get one-shotted by any serious enemy (minion-types still need a coupla shots to kill 'em), but that doesn't bother me so much, since it's at least 8 attacks the party's not receiving.  Regarding equipping, our DM allowed equipping them with whatever, so I opted for longbows for range, and rapiers (for finesse), shields, and scale mail, for 16 AC with longbow, 18 AC with rapier/shield.  Figured a +2 Stealth was gonna be bad enough that I didn't want to rely on it, so I might as well get the extra +1 AC of scale.

+4 to hit isn't much, but they're 8, so most rounds I get at least a couple of hits in.  Having darkvision isn't bad, either, since in darkness, against non-darkvision enemies, they'd all get Advantage, too.

They're immune to poison. Cast Dragon's Breath on one so they can spew poison. Or use stinking cloud while the skeletons surround an enemy.

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

They're immune to poison. Cast Dragon's Breath on one so they can spew poison. Or use stinking cloud while the skeletons surround an enemy.

Yeah, that'd probably be great... unfortunately, my concentration is usually being used for Haste on the barbarian.  I always forget they're immune to poison, thanks for reminding me!

Meh, **** the barbarian. With their frenzy/totems/spirits and R A G E they're fine on their own. I'd say focus on destroying your enemy with a level of efficiency and ruthlessness the barbarian couldn't ever dream of. ;)

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

Meh, **** the barbarian. With their frenzy/totems/spirits and R A G E they're fine on their own. I'd say focus on destroying your enemy with a level of efficiency and ruthlessness the barbarian couldn't ever dream of. ;)

 :D

Our barbarian's currently our biggest damage dealer, and Haste bumps that up nicely.  Wielding a Frost Brand greatsword, he gets 4 attacks per round, with Haste and Frenzy, at Advantage because of Reckless Attack.  Crits are frequent (he's rolling 8 d20's per turn!), and each crit is 7d6+7 damage (+5 from Strength, +2 from Rage, +1d6 from Savage Attacks).  Non-crits are still 3d6+7.  Kinda hard not to Haste him, hehe.

Honestly this lack of options for necromancers is why I add spirit guardians to their list of spells and have created spells like bone dance (like druid animal summoning but for undead) so that being a necromancer isn't all resource management and to get some variation into their casting as they are wizards not warlocks they shouldn't be spamming the same spell all the time.

The third ed necromancer mages were underperformers if played by anything less than an evil genius. With an evil genius? they were gods of death. Libre Mortis adding corpse crafting options, and the weak, 'pointless' command undead 2nd level spell that could control one mindless undead for a day per level seemed ok. Then you took chain spell, attracted your slaymate familiar and were commanding 1 mindless undead per level for 1 day per level with no save. A necromancer of 8th level could have with one fourth level spell per day in use and have 56 mindless undead at his command, and those good times meant even a 10hd undead (max hd on skeleton or zombies which are easily created) could include giant and hydra corpses. (which whenever you killed them spread the corpse crafted negative energy healing all their allies and ripping the life out of thier killer)

Today in the new technicolour 5th ed the maintenance on upkeeping undead sucks. Importantly and frustratingly although the necromancer wizard can animate a bonus undead he cant control an extra one as written. You can make a case that one hand didnt know what the other was doing and that you should be able to. So necromancers are likely to be specialists in name only, and in terms of roleplaying thats a good idea for what comes later.

When the necromancer chooses to become a monster he does so in style. Usually the signs are kidnapped diviner apprentices going missing and expeditions to deserts being funded. At 14th level you hunt the white whale of necromancers - the mummy lord, stupid enough to become  a permanent thrall, regenerates from death and has a whole bunch of spells that you can use to summon undead so you damn well dont have to - although they wont benefit from your bonus hits / prof bonus. And theres no 5th edition nonsense precluding your mummy from learning and casting healing spells on you. Woohoo.

After you have placed your Mummy lords jars of perpetual resurrection in your demiplane vault he is safer than houses. but you still have that itch to scratch dont you? You yearn to kill everything and have a vast empire of death. Well it takes work my lad and it takes a lot of fingering.. of death. The 7th level finger spell on a humanoid kill makes a zombie that is PERMANENTLY yours to control. (again almost like one hand didnt know what the other was doing) So when your party is partying in a town spending ill gotten loot your probably murdering your new soldiers and stacking them like tetris pieces in your demiplane. 

At some point your former party are going to realise the big bad of the campaign has nothing on you. Its time to monologue, reveal your master plan and go down fighting. In death hopefully your party will try and remember the  good times they shared and bemoan the twisted evil that changed you from a good man into an evil brute... and especially bemoan you appeared to have no more magic items probably having sold or traded them for dark tomes. (at least thats what your frustrated diaries eluded to) What they will never know is you planned for this... you need time to assimilate your knowledge, unlock the knowledge of past masters - how to create other types of undead that arent ruddy medium sized humanoids for example. Yes you died, but did any of them know you had a clone? Muhuhahahaahahaaahaaha ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED - EVIL GENIUS.

And yeah 5th ed clone is the most blatant I win again button I have seen, No necromancer would contemplate  going lich unless they hated themselves and the joys of eating drinking.. and other earthly enjoyments. So enjoy your retirement, it took a long time to get  to where you are and everyones happy. Well played.

An aside to grim harvest and a note on the necromancer spell life transference - 3rd level, the necromancer takes 4d8 (minimum) and then heals one target at a short distance double what they took. 

This is a spell that makes me itchy, I like being able to emergency  heal - I dont like the cost but its a variation Necro's had before. I suspect it was introduced for one of two reasons. First and more likely you can claim it is an exception that heals undead, some might disagree but hey ho. Second you could use this to be a healer and restore yourself with your grim harvest.(cloud of daggers and acting like a stage magician carrying around bunnies or slower clipped wing birds to feed into the wood chipper as a free action - dont hurl the bunny just release it and voila you have a necromancers selfish version of Healing Marmite)

The second part, acting as a healer to non undead doesnt make much sense resource wise, not as a third level spell. It heals nicely but takes away your animation (or other) options, I would have been more interested in it as a 2nd level spell reducing the damage a die by one as well. Even if you had it as third level but as a reaction, that would have been something to make you look at it seriously.

Please keep me posted on your necromancer adventures Tonio, I hope even if the subclass proves disappointing at times the mental exercise of how to utilise your undead (and hide them) is fun.

Interesting thread! My necromancer is currently only level 3, so I haven't had the opportunity to try out minion-management yet. From a roleplay perspective, I'm taking the stance that I have to get prior permission for any corpses that I use - kind of like asking people to donate their bodies to science. I may also take the loophole that I can re-use any undead that we slay in combat. (Waste not, want not!) Given this self-imposed limitation, it's possible that I won't be doing much raising of undead at all, which would be a rather unusual spin on a necromancer.

Instead of Grim Harvest how about a feature that lets Necromancers use the better Necromancy spells?

Spare the Dying, Inflict Wounds, Speak With Dead, Contagion - these are some great and thematic spells for a Necromancer and yet, not available to Wizards. I'd happily trade Grim Harvest for access to these.

Yeah, I'm thinking of multiclassing into cleric, or at least taking the Magic Initiate feat, for that reason.

Quote from Nat_30 >>

Interesting thread! My necromancer is currently only level 3, so I haven't had the opportunity to try out minion-management yet. From a roleplay perspective, I'm taking the stance that I have to get prior permission for any corpses that I use - kind of like asking people to donate their bodies to science. I may also take the loophole that I can re-use any undead that we slay in combat. (Waste not, want not!) Given this self-imposed limitation, it's possible that I won't be doing much raising of undead at all, which would be a rather unusual spin on a necromancer.

I mostly raised fallen enemies, except for one, who was a fallen party member (with the player's permission).  After those were gone, I resorted to more unsavory practices, and hired a local criminal to steal corpses for me (was pretty expensive, too).  Not too worried about them being recognized, since I stripped them down to the bones (literally) before raising, preferring skeletons to zombies.  I've definitely re-raised them though, and plan to keep doing so while I can.

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

Instead of Grim Harvest how about a feature that lets Necromancers use the better Necromancy spells?

Spare the Dying, Inflict Wounds, Speak With Dead, Contagion - these are some great and thematic spells for a Necromancer and yet, not available to Wizards. I'd happily trade Grim Harvest for access to these.

Speak with Dead... why that is not a necromancer spell is beyond me.  Party druid has asked me to cast it at least three times, assuming (as I did) necromancers got it.  It's become something of a running joke, in fact. =/

Quote from Tonio >

Speak with Dead... why that is not a necromancer spell is beyond me.  Party druid has asked me to cast it at least three times, assuming (as I did) necromancers got it.  It's become something of a running joke, in fact. =/

 
It's even more puzzling when you consider that the "-mancey" suffix originally referred to divination not magic and a necromancer was somebody who divined the past, present or future by speaking with spirits of the dead... The spell is therefore quite literally the defining spell of a Necromancer but they can't use it. O.o

Speak with deads difference is a hold over from way back, the 'world science' was: A necromancer can animate the husk, at later levels (in 1st / 2nd edition ) with death spell destroy the soul. What they had no power of was recalling a spirit from its afterlife and (possibly) god(dess) home plane to answer questions or restore them to life. - they dont have the juice or the big brass ones to draw that attention to themselves.

You can perhaps just assume contact other plane is allowing you to be possessed by the dead spirits from the other planes, you act as a medium and answer questions posed to you (voodoo style loa rider) And in the case of insanity resulting? Seems reasonable you were possessed. Its nice a full of juicey flavour.

Something to think about for minion summoning is disguises. Tonio if your going to concentrate on skeletons keep in mind the weight of a skeleton is a small % (estimated 15%) of a human, so a 180lb man weighs a heck of a lot less (27lbs+ 5lb weapon+ 2lb straw suit), some sewn together costumes and straw, sickles and one more for you and you can have your own 'scarecrow' constructs... honest your not a necromancer. Its funnier if you call yourself Dorothy, have a cowardly tabaxi and a warforged in the party. The weight factor is key because you can determine how many minions you can stuff into your bag of holding to pass checkpoints ta-dah! Your a devious necromancer. (If you go full OZ having an air elemental as the tornado is bonus points, sadly you cant animate a little lapdog as an undead anymore /sadface. Toto would have to be a familiar)

Your greatest ally as a necromancer in a party is a paladin (oathbreaker) its in the dmg, but its controversial as it describes it as a villain yada yada, so obviously ask before hand. The big deal with them is their aura at 7th adds damage to undead. Also zombies making death saves in the aura gain the paladins charisma 6th level buff to saves so are even more death resistant. with this pair at 7th level you could have a front line of paladin and 4 zombies who have +6 to 8 those con saves make undying fortitude more likely. If they hit your +3 proficiency addition to damage and the paladins +3to5 stacks potency. (and remember, monsters can rest so order your zombie to take mandatory union breaks and let them regain hits by spending hd on a short rest!)

At the levels when its time to go nuts anyway, you can -cheatamancy or wth?-amancy your way to controlling an undead army without the repeated animate controls. For reasons unknown undead in 5th all hate the living, thats an emotion, they arent mindless, and here I imagine Dr. Evil (Riiiiiiiiggghhhhtttt) arent all immune to charm. Mass suggestion can affect multiple targets and carefully worded will allow you to control the horde you always wanted. Now as a DM? I think this is just daft as heck (especially considering this would work on more undead for longer than any necromancer spell there is? It would be better to just make a specifically command undead variant than this) but if you have literal minded types determined to use every rule as written without concern for game world science? Then go for it. 

Grim harvest is not the best ability but it did save my life once. I had 1 hp we had no healer in the party and I literally killed my self  with a inflict wounds (2nd level) went unconscious and cane back to life with 6 hp. You should have seen the DMs face it was priceless. 

Hah! I had to go back and re-read Grim Harvest to make sure it didn't say "another creature"... it doesn't, so that would definitely work.  It's also pretty thematic, actually.

Mechanically speaking, though, if Grim Harvest gave temporary hit points, instead of actual healing, most likely you wouldn't have gotten to that point.  On the other hand, once you do, you can't do the "kill yourself for more HPs" trick, hehe!

Quote from Eraz >>

Grim harvest is not the best ability but it did save my life once. I had 1 hp we had no healer in the party and I literally killed my self  with a inflict wounds (2nd level) went unconscious and cane back to life with 6 hp. You should have seen the DMs face it was priceless. 

Hm, I've kept on thinking about this... how did you manage to get access to Inflict Wounds, without being a healer?  Afaik, that spell is only for Clerics and Oathbreaker Paladins, both of which can heal.  Was it from a magic item?

I assume it was a multiclass.