I feel like part of the problem isn't just with the subclass, but the spell school in general. Its the entire spell school in 5e. There is only around 2-6 spells for it per spell level, which while not as bad as divination, is broken up between wizards and clerics. Combined with the fact most of them suck or are too situational. If you were asked about what necromancy spells wizards actually get other than animate dead, you would be somewhat hard pressed to think of anything level 4 or lower where most play happens.
Ray of Sickness? It requires an attack roll to do unimpressive damage, and then on top of that requires a fairly common save to poison. Most enemies you want to poison likely have decent con saves. Its not a terrible spell, but the fact that it requires both an attack roll and con save makes this very unlikely to actually work.
Ray of Enfeeblement is a spell that tries to put a bandaid on a problem by lowering the damage of SPECIFICALLY strength enemies, requiring an attack roll to actually apply, and they get a save every turn. Plus this is a single target concentration.
Blindness/Deafness is a bit better, but requires you to be worryingly close at 30 feet. At least it isn't concentration, though the enemy gets that end of turn to save.
Vampiric touch is horrible for you because it requires a melee attack as an archtype that doesn't give you any bonus defenses. It heals you, but also requires concentration, so if you take damage you could heal, you might just lose the spell anyway.
Bestow Curse suffers the same problems as vampiric touch as well in being touch range, though it is also nicely debilitating.
The summary of this is that the necromancy spells for the most part are weak either in the conditions to actually use them (Very close range), or require attack rolls and saving throws for the effects to actually do anything for a turn. It doesn't help that the archtype doesn't actually do anything to fix these problems and only forces you to use spell slots to keep a small horde of zombies with you. You basically can't do any necromancy that isn't summoning zombies, and then your basically just a worse evocation or transmutation wizard. DMs also will tend to hate your zombie horde mostly because it will slow down the game a lot, it becomes like warhammer where you just roll a half dozen dice at a time and hope that things hit.
TLDR Necromany for wizards leads you you just being an annoying shitty summoner that will make your dm want to kill you for having to micromanage your zombie horde, assuming that you can even manage to keep one around for any period given that most of society would object to you having a bunch of rotting smelly corpses walking around and likely spreading diseases.
Finger of death spamming is pretty useful for zombie farming. Also, you can bully people so they become revenants, giving yourself undead that come right to you, just asking to be put under you control.
Grim Harvest lets you heal if you drop an enemy, but I'd honestly have preferred Temp HP as it would give a HP buffer, instead of requiring you to be injured already.
Undead Thralls at 6th lvl is what this subclass is build around. If you don't plan on spending lvl 3 slots to have an undead horde or CR 0.25 creatures, which individually aren't very impressive. Then you are wasting a feature. They are a little bit better due to the bonus damage and HP, might make them CR 0.5. That said, this does increase the action economy massively has you skeletons can have real weapons and shoot at a distance. Sadly the usefulness of this is entirely GM fiat, as the Dev official answer to playing Necromancer Barbie's Malibu Dream Horde is "if the GM says it's OK then you can give them any weapons and armor" which is a horses**t answer. If you can give them weapons/armor then polearms and crossbows are a great options. It can fill places where the party is missing. Also you have sentries while you sleep.
As for the smell. Skeletons don't smell, if you plan on taking Necromancy then taking good Artisan Tools will be a good idea. To add bulk to the skeletons so they can wear armor as if they had flesh. Cloth and heavy armor can cover their faces/hands/joints so people don't see undead.
Inured to Undeath is a really nice feature, but it's a long time to wait for it.
Command Undead is somewhere between OK and really nice. It gives you long term control of any non intelligent undead or temp control of an intelligent undead, but they are very unlikely to fail the roll. Int 8 has Adv and Int 12 rechecks every hour. That could be enough to end a fight though if you got lucky.
Finger of Death makes ANY Wizard into a horde-mancer.
Note 2: Vampiric Touch. This is not a horrible spell IF you build for it. Take 1st lvl in Cleric to get Medium Armor and Shields and start with 14 Dex. Wearing Scale Mail and a Shield, your Wizard has an AC of 18, don't hold a weapon in your other hand. Leave that open for somatic & spell components. I've played this Wizard very successfully in a campaign and having an 18 AC buffable to 23 with Shield has been very useful, and I've been able to "tank" for the party. Ontop of this if you are a Abjurationist Wizard instead of Necromancy, you'll have the Arcane Shield to soak up light hits without having to make a Con check. Once you have Vampiric Touch with this build, you'll have a high enough AC that you shouldn't easily lose Concentration. If your Wizard has an AC of 12 from their 14 Dex and no Armor then it's a terrible spell.
I mostly agree on that note 1, though I think the argument boils down to "Any feature that the dm is somewhat in the right to veto you using is weak"
And looking at the second note and expanding on it, Necromancy wizards suck at actually using necromancy. You had to multiclass into cleric for a handful of proficiencies to make yourself able to actually survive using it. You even note that a straight wizard likely sucks with it. TBH unless your breaking action economy with your skeleton horde, you suck.
The entire archtype basically deserves to be one of those villainous archtypes in the dmg, at the very least I'd rather swap it with the oath breaker since that would see more use.
Well, if spell availability is part of the issue, consider speaking to your DM about including some divine spells in the arcane list of a necromancer - perhaps at the cost of other spells available.
In my opinion, Necromancers don't really make good PCs because of morality and stuff BUT they are very effective despite their appearance. The main focus of this entire subclass is using Zombies if you are using something else then you are playing it wrong. As a DM it's hard to put them under control as a horde of zombies can pin down npcs and gain advantage the entire day and can grapple with them. At later levels you can get the better ones like ghouls and some others.
One way i read online to play them is (depending on the DM) is giving them armor and weapons. That way your horde of minions can be an entire squadron of meat shields to aid your party in doing their stuff. However it still has it's flaws, you need to maintain them every midnight casting animate dead over and over to maintain an entire horde which can be a problem. Some higher summoning spells need expensive materials unless your DM is nice enough to ignore them which by that time you'll have an entire legion walking with you. From a RP perspective, (sigh) Hiding them will be near impossible after they grow in number and being without them will render you useless to only using cantrips as you may have spent all your slots to keep your army up.
I really want to play a Necromancer someday but it might be hell to play if your DM isn't providing help and your party has the righteous crusader.
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Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
Personally I really enjoy Necromancy spells however I agree there isn't a lot of variety unfortunately because the healing spells were given to other schools. If the definition of Necromancy were to be broadened to "Spells that tamper with the nature of the soul", this would include the current list as well as healing spells, making it a wonderfully well-rounded school that can be played a variety of ways. However, due to necromancy being seen as "evil, army-building mad wizard" style stuff, they can't include something as beneficial as healing in it without putting a dark and evil spin on it, despite healing spells as a whole not really having a home in any particular school of magic. If a Necromancy Wizard were capable of healing their allies, the use of Necromancy wizards would go way up, as suddenly you can be both healing support and damage dealer rather than being railroaded into every party having one player stuck as the designated healer class.
Thank you all who've given their opinions. It's been very helpful seeing both sides of the coin, so to say:p I do like that I've seen both for and against the subclass.(roleplay and combat economy) I will have to talk to the DM about this to see if it will be worth it to continue this path.
Necromancy has a bigger problem than mechanic effectiveness, but it shouldnt be ignored - most game settings have a kill on sight order on necromancers once the dead start being reanimated. FMB mentioned bulking up and disguising your undead but that can only work for a while, and not at close range.
If you are safe to animate then you will sadly have to live with the fact that until 6th level you will be a wizard without a subclass to show for it (unless you are wounded a lot and healing with grim harvest - and if you are then try to have a damage per round concentration based 1st or 2nd level spell to maximise your potential recovery.
6th level - animate at 2 for one (weak), increased damage and a few extra hp undead.
1) Zombies are meat shields and boring. If you have a bizarrely cool with the shambling dead paladin in the party, command a group of four to follow his orders and have them take the front line - Zombie fortitude and paladin save bonus is a match made in necromancer heaven. Under the zombie entry in the MM it mentions they are lacking in comprehension. Combine that and a lack of armour and we can assume zombies are naturalists and have no armour proficiencies.
2) Skeletons the artisanal undead. Under the MM entry it states a skeleton can fight with weapons and wear armour. It also mentions that with complex instructions skeletons can perform complicated tasks and at this point your game may devolve into chaos.
The nature of necromancy is that prep time is the mood killer. A 6th necromancer can, with preparation have 8 undead, and a hard maximum 10 using all his spell slots and using his arcane refreshing once per day. If they juggle some early to bed late to rise and recontrol without oversleeping and accidentally being torn apart by their undead they could have 12, but for now lets assume 8. Each skeleton will require armouring and weaponry, they have dex so finesse weapons and crossbows or longbows. you should also include a shovel, 4 bags of caltrops some ballbearings and a maraca or castinet or similar. (and for the breach skeletons one alchemist fire and 20 lbs of oil skins sewn into the inside of their ribcage and clothing)
Whats a breach skeleton? When you have a room with people in it, a skeleton runs in jumps on top of the middle of the pack, savaged and mauled, leaking and shortly after dropping that alchemist fire to the ground. Now a section of the room is on fire and the targets in there will have to burn to get to you.
Regular skeleton duty is to play a musical instrument and point at a new target they see. Then normally become a firing line, helped by that earth they dug up and you the necromancer move with mold earth ahead of you in a rolling barricade in tunnels and corridoors. Do remember that any poison attacks wont effect your undead so later on cloudkill whilst grappled or even at 6th dragonsbreath (on a skeleton because why not) if someone is stuck up to their torso in earth at the time and unable to evade? So much the better. Importantly remember that when your day begins you will have about 15 hours before your undead are going to kill you. Up until that point you can still cast your 3rd level spells on fireball or other necessary magic but then you will have to have your minions begin to thin themselves down or accidents will happen. (to you)
Necromancy is a problem, because performed averagely or poorly it (like most minion-o-mancy) will be weak. When it is used with ruthless precision by a diabolical player it can lead to adventures being reduced to 'and the undead horde shoot / drown / poison everything with no damage taken... again.' Which again is a problem as the party are left out. in short. Its hard work to make necromancy work for you but you shouldnt even try unless you can make it fun for the entire group.
Final note - that undead thrall. Necromancers have a bad reputation, deservedly because when it comes to the thrall of their dreams what depths wouldnt they stoop to? Magenapping a diviner of at least 2nd level? You betcha! Having them auto fail guarantee the minions save with advantage? You betcha! Walking off with a Mummy lord as your permanent minion who is an 11th level cleric, and cant be killed till someone finds the canopic jars you have in lock up in your demiplane? You betcha! Throwing a mummy lord at a problem and waiting till it returns to do it again? You betcha! Same problem as before with the ability being no good or too good? You betcha!
I feel that one of the sublclasses abilities should allow you to bypass the rule of the undead you create being freed from your control, like with the spell create undead.
Keep in mind that several spells are not in the Necromancy school, but work really well with a Necromancer, both thematically and munchkiny. Sending zombies in to grapple is great, but works better with Stinking Cloud. Phantasmal Force your enemy to give them a horror show. Web your enemies while your skeletal archers shoot them. Bestow Curse through your familiar which might be a bat or a black cat. Fear your enemies then have your undead minions pick up the dropped weapons. Equip your skeletal archers with Flame Arrow. Gaseous Form lets you do the Vampire Shuffle. Phantom Steed let's you cosplay the headless horseman. I could go on, but I've made my point that there are a lot of effective and thematic spells in other schools. Don't feel any pressure to stick to Necromancy spells.
I feel that one of the sublclasses abilities should allow you to bypass the rule of the undead you create being freed from your control, like with the spell create undead.
Hell no. That would automatically lead to infinite zombies/skeletons. People already moan about action economy and turns taking ages as is, I can't imagine the uproar if wizards could have hundreds of undead under their control without any additional effort.
Create Undead doesn't prevent control loss either. You still have to keep recasting it every 24 hours.
Something I personally would like to see is School of Necromancy having ways to make zombies and skeletons stay relevant all the way up to 20 by giving them various buffs and better scaling. Enlarge, Flame Arrows, Mage Armor and such are all good and nice but are obviously balanced around being cast on player characters, not on undead with mediocre attributes. I know not everyone interested in necromancy wants to play a minionmancer, but that's what being a necromant is all about for me.
High level, have create Demiplane. Cast as much Animate deads as you want, equip them, send them in the demi plane, do this for a long, long time. They revert to enemy status but at that level you're considered undeath anyway. When needed cast demiplane and unleash your army of the dead.
A big challenge (and potential nerf) that I run into frequently with my necromancers is that their utility is completely subject to DM roulette. I have some DM's that make it all but impossible to find enough humanoid remains to ever make my little hoard of friends viable, and others that just like nuking them over and over. Even more challenging is taking advantage of this subclass in a world or city where necromancy is forbidden or considered anathema because simply by trying to play your character to their full potential they are made pariahs by default.
I think it really just depends on the context of the campaign. There are some tables they'll thrive at and others where they'll falter. The only truth that I have found applies in all circumstances regardless of any variable is that naming my smol friends and insisting on giving them personalities is my favorite thing. :)
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What's your opinion, is the School of Necromancy a bit lackluster compared to the other schools. Am I missing something crucial?
I feel like part of the problem isn't just with the subclass, but the spell school in general. Its the entire spell school in 5e. There is only around 2-6 spells for it per spell level, which while not as bad as divination, is broken up between wizards and clerics. Combined with the fact most of them suck or are too situational. If you were asked about what necromancy spells wizards actually get other than animate dead, you would be somewhat hard pressed to think of anything level 4 or lower where most play happens.
Ray of Sickness? It requires an attack roll to do unimpressive damage, and then on top of that requires a fairly common save to poison. Most enemies you want to poison likely have decent con saves. Its not a terrible spell, but the fact that it requires both an attack roll and con save makes this very unlikely to actually work.
Ray of Enfeeblement is a spell that tries to put a bandaid on a problem by lowering the damage of SPECIFICALLY strength enemies, requiring an attack roll to actually apply, and they get a save every turn. Plus this is a single target concentration.
Blindness/Deafness is a bit better, but requires you to be worryingly close at 30 feet. At least it isn't concentration, though the enemy gets that end of turn to save.
Vampiric touch is horrible for you because it requires a melee attack as an archtype that doesn't give you any bonus defenses. It heals you, but also requires concentration, so if you take damage you could heal, you might just lose the spell anyway.
Bestow Curse suffers the same problems as vampiric touch as well in being touch range, though it is also nicely debilitating.
The summary of this is that the necromancy spells for the most part are weak either in the conditions to actually use them (Very close range), or require attack rolls and saving throws for the effects to actually do anything for a turn. It doesn't help that the archtype doesn't actually do anything to fix these problems and only forces you to use spell slots to keep a small horde of zombies with you. You basically can't do any necromancy that isn't summoning zombies, and then your basically just a worse evocation or transmutation wizard. DMs also will tend to hate your zombie horde mostly because it will slow down the game a lot, it becomes like warhammer where you just roll a half dozen dice at a time and hope that things hit.
TLDR Necromany for wizards leads you you just being an annoying shitty summoner that will make your dm want to kill you for having to micromanage your zombie horde, assuming that you can even manage to keep one around for any period given that most of society would object to you having a bunch of rotting smelly corpses walking around and likely spreading diseases.
I have to mostly agree...
Personally, I would only use the Necromancy school for a BBEG, or something similar. :/
I honestly love it. Look at level 14. You can have a death tyrant. That means infinite zombies. Just feeblemind the thing.
Finger of death spamming is pretty useful for zombie farming. Also, you can bully people so they become revenants, giving yourself undead that come right to you, just asking to be put under you control.
I stole my pfp from this person: https://mobile.twitter.com/xelart1/status/1177312449575432193
I find Necromancy to be whole lackluster.
Grim Harvest lets you heal if you drop an enemy, but I'd honestly have preferred Temp HP as it would give a HP buffer, instead of requiring you to be injured already.
Undead Thralls at 6th lvl is what this subclass is build around. If you don't plan on spending lvl 3 slots to have an undead horde or CR 0.25 creatures, which individually aren't very impressive. Then you are wasting a feature. They are a little bit better due to the bonus damage and HP, might make them CR 0.5.
That said, this does increase the action economy massively has you skeletons can have real weapons and shoot at a distance. Sadly the usefulness of this is entirely GM fiat, as the Dev official answer to playing Necromancer Barbie's Malibu Dream Horde is "if the GM says it's OK then you can give them any weapons and armor" which is a horses**t answer.
If you can give them weapons/armor then polearms and crossbows are a great options. It can fill places where the party is missing. Also you have sentries while you sleep.
As for the smell. Skeletons don't smell, if you plan on taking Necromancy then taking good Artisan Tools will be a good idea. To add bulk to the skeletons so they can wear armor as if they had flesh. Cloth and heavy armor can cover their faces/hands/joints so people don't see undead.
Inured to Undeath is a really nice feature, but it's a long time to wait for it.
Command Undead is somewhere between OK and really nice. It gives you long term control of any non intelligent undead or temp control of an intelligent undead, but they are very unlikely to fail the roll. Int 8 has Adv and Int 12 rechecks every hour. That could be enough to end a fight though if you got lucky.
I totally agree with Tarrasque123,
Finger of Death makes ANY Wizard into a horde-mancer.
Note 2: Vampiric Touch.
This is not a horrible spell IF you build for it. Take 1st lvl in Cleric to get Medium Armor and Shields and start with 14 Dex. Wearing Scale Mail and a Shield, your Wizard has an AC of 18, don't hold a weapon in your other hand. Leave that open for somatic & spell components.
I've played this Wizard very successfully in a campaign and having an 18 AC buffable to 23 with Shield has been very useful, and I've been able to "tank" for the party.
Ontop of this if you are a Abjurationist Wizard instead of Necromancy, you'll have the Arcane Shield to soak up light hits without having to make a Con check.
Once you have Vampiric Touch with this build, you'll have a high enough AC that you shouldn't easily lose Concentration. If your Wizard has an AC of 12 from their 14 Dex and no Armor then it's a terrible spell.
I mostly agree on that note 1, though I think the argument boils down to "Any feature that the dm is somewhat in the right to veto you using is weak"
And looking at the second note and expanding on it, Necromancy wizards suck at actually using necromancy. You had to multiclass into cleric for a handful of proficiencies to make yourself able to actually survive using it. You even note that a straight wizard likely sucks with it. TBH unless your breaking action economy with your skeleton horde, you suck.
The entire archtype basically deserves to be one of those villainous archtypes in the dmg, at the very least I'd rather swap it with the oath breaker since that would see more use.
Well, if spell availability is part of the issue, consider speaking to your DM about including some divine spells in the arcane list of a necromancer - perhaps at the cost of other spells available.
Best part of d&d? The rules are just guidelines.
Storm King's Thunder - Ink, Elven Bladesinging Wizard
Core City: APbPA - Ormond, Human Twilight Cleric
The Inferno - BG:Dia - DM
They keep me rollin'
In my opinion, Necromancers don't really make good PCs because of morality and stuff BUT they are very effective despite their appearance. The main focus of this entire subclass is using Zombies if you are using something else then you are playing it wrong. As a DM it's hard to put them under control as a horde of zombies can pin down npcs and gain advantage the entire day and can grapple with them. At later levels you can get the better ones like ghouls and some others.
One way i read online to play them is (depending on the DM) is giving them armor and weapons. That way your horde of minions can be an entire squadron of meat shields to aid your party in doing their stuff. However it still has it's flaws, you need to maintain them every midnight casting animate dead over and over to maintain an entire horde which can be a problem. Some higher summoning spells need expensive materials unless your DM is nice enough to ignore them which by that time you'll have an entire legion walking with you. From a RP perspective, (sigh) Hiding them will be near impossible after they grow in number and being without them will render you useless to only using cantrips as you may have spent all your slots to keep your army up.
I really want to play a Necromancer someday but it might be hell to play if your DM isn't providing help and your party has the righteous crusader.
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
Personally I really enjoy Necromancy spells however I agree there isn't a lot of variety unfortunately because the healing spells were given to other schools. If the definition of Necromancy were to be broadened to "Spells that tamper with the nature of the soul", this would include the current list as well as healing spells, making it a wonderfully well-rounded school that can be played a variety of ways. However, due to necromancy being seen as "evil, army-building mad wizard" style stuff, they can't include something as beneficial as healing in it without putting a dark and evil spin on it, despite healing spells as a whole not really having a home in any particular school of magic. If a Necromancy Wizard were capable of healing their allies, the use of Necromancy wizards would go way up, as suddenly you can be both healing support and damage dealer rather than being railroaded into every party having one player stuck as the designated healer class.
Thank you all who've given their opinions. It's been very helpful seeing both sides of the coin, so to say:p I do like that I've seen both for and against the subclass.(roleplay and combat economy) I will have to talk to the DM about this to see if it will be worth it to continue this path.
Necromancy has a bigger problem than mechanic effectiveness, but it shouldnt be ignored - most game settings have a kill on sight order on necromancers once the dead start being reanimated. FMB mentioned bulking up and disguising your undead but that can only work for a while, and not at close range.
If you are safe to animate then you will sadly have to live with the fact that until 6th level you will be a wizard without a subclass to show for it (unless you are wounded a lot and healing with grim harvest - and if you are then try to have a damage per round concentration based 1st or 2nd level spell to maximise your potential recovery.
6th level - animate at 2 for one (weak), increased damage and a few extra hp undead.
1) Zombies are meat shields and boring. If you have a bizarrely cool with the shambling dead paladin in the party, command a group of four to follow his orders and have them take the front line - Zombie fortitude and paladin save bonus is a match made in necromancer heaven. Under the zombie entry in the MM it mentions they are lacking in comprehension. Combine that and a lack of armour and we can assume zombies are naturalists and have no armour proficiencies.
2) Skeletons the artisanal undead. Under the MM entry it states a skeleton can fight with weapons and wear armour. It also mentions that with complex instructions skeletons can perform complicated tasks and at this point your game may devolve into chaos.
The nature of necromancy is that prep time is the mood killer. A 6th necromancer can, with preparation have 8 undead, and a hard maximum 10 using all his spell slots and using his arcane refreshing once per day. If they juggle some early to bed late to rise and recontrol without oversleeping and accidentally being torn apart by their undead they could have 12, but for now lets assume 8. Each skeleton will require armouring and weaponry, they have dex so finesse weapons and crossbows or longbows. you should also include a shovel, 4 bags of caltrops some ballbearings and a maraca or castinet or similar. (and for the breach skeletons one alchemist fire and 20 lbs of oil skins sewn into the inside of their ribcage and clothing)
Whats a breach skeleton? When you have a room with people in it, a skeleton runs in jumps on top of the middle of the pack, savaged and mauled, leaking and shortly after dropping that alchemist fire to the ground. Now a section of the room is on fire and the targets in there will have to burn to get to you.
Regular skeleton duty is to play a musical instrument and point at a new target they see. Then normally become a firing line, helped by that earth they dug up and you the necromancer move with mold earth ahead of you in a rolling barricade in tunnels and corridoors. Do remember that any poison attacks wont effect your undead so later on cloudkill whilst grappled or even at 6th dragonsbreath (on a skeleton because why not) if someone is stuck up to their torso in earth at the time and unable to evade? So much the better. Importantly remember that when your day begins you will have about 15 hours before your undead are going to kill you. Up until that point you can still cast your 3rd level spells on fireball or other necessary magic but then you will have to have your minions begin to thin themselves down or accidents will happen. (to you)
Necromancy is a problem, because performed averagely or poorly it (like most minion-o-mancy) will be weak. When it is used with ruthless precision by a diabolical player it can lead to adventures being reduced to 'and the undead horde shoot / drown / poison everything with no damage taken... again.' Which again is a problem as the party are left out. in short. Its hard work to make necromancy work for you but you shouldnt even try unless you can make it fun for the entire group.
Final note - that undead thrall. Necromancers have a bad reputation, deservedly because when it comes to the thrall of their dreams what depths wouldnt they stoop to? Magenapping a diviner of at least 2nd level? You betcha! Having them auto fail guarantee the minions save with advantage? You betcha! Walking off with a Mummy lord as your permanent minion who is an 11th level cleric, and cant be killed till someone finds the canopic jars you have in lock up in your demiplane? You betcha! Throwing a mummy lord at a problem and waiting till it returns to do it again? You betcha! Same problem as before with the ability being no good or too good? You betcha!
Have fun everyone!
I feel that one of the sublclasses abilities should allow you to bypass the rule of the undead you create being freed from your control, like with the spell create undead.
Keep in mind that several spells are not in the Necromancy school, but work really well with a Necromancer, both thematically and munchkiny. Sending zombies in to grapple is great, but works better with Stinking Cloud. Phantasmal Force your enemy to give them a horror show. Web your enemies while your skeletal archers shoot them. Bestow Curse through your familiar which might be a bat or a black cat. Fear your enemies then have your undead minions pick up the dropped weapons. Equip your skeletal archers with Flame Arrow. Gaseous Form lets you do the Vampire Shuffle. Phantom Steed let's you cosplay the headless horseman. I could go on, but I've made my point that there are a lot of effective and thematic spells in other schools. Don't feel any pressure to stick to Necromancy spells.
High level, have create Demiplane. Cast as much Animate deads as you want, equip them, send them in the demi plane, do this for a long, long time. They revert to enemy status but at that level you're considered undeath anyway. When needed cast demiplane and unleash your army of the dead.
Summon Undead from Tasha’s works with Undead Thralls, which greatly increases the spell power.
A seasoned Necromancer can be lethal running with just a couple skeletons. You are a full Wizard in the end of the day.
Yeah it's more of a, ah well here goes nothing, scenario.
A big challenge (and potential nerf) that I run into frequently with my necromancers is that their utility is completely subject to DM roulette. I have some DM's that make it all but impossible to find enough humanoid remains to ever make my little hoard of friends viable, and others that just like nuking them over and over. Even more challenging is taking advantage of this subclass in a world or city where necromancy is forbidden or considered anathema because simply by trying to play your character to their full potential they are made pariahs by default.
I think it really just depends on the context of the campaign. There are some tables they'll thrive at and others where they'll falter. The only truth that I have found applies in all circumstances regardless of any variable is that naming my smol friends and insisting on giving them personalities is my favorite thing. :)