I've always been fascinated by making a Necromancer, but aside from the Dread Necromancer in 3.5, I never found them to be that "good".
Note: I got into D&D during Planescape for a Dustman has been my vision, not Necromancy is Evil.
Animate Dead lets you target a pile of bones/corpse to be animated (Undead Thrall gives you +1 corpse/cast, ups their hitpoints and gives proficiency bonus on damage).
This gives you control of the corpe(s) for up to 24 hours after which you have to recast the spell and a casting can control 4 (I assume Undead Thrall makes this 5, but it's not clear) with a 3rd level spell.
Theoretically, a 5th level Necromancer could control either 8 or 10 undead... but these 8 or 10 CR:1/4 minions...
At 5th+ level are they really going to be any use or will they just be pulped too quickly by everything you fight? Yes, very quickly a single Necromancer is going to start using the Mass Combat rules all by herself!
Also, I know most DM's hate "pets" as these minions will probably very quickly start outnumbering the party itself!
I use necromancy as a part of roleplay. You know that back in 3.5e, you had to pick one and abandon two schools. In 5e, you don't have to do that, just get some benefits about the school. I always think that a school of a wizard is a result of his/her personality. You can be sure that necromancy could be useful in many situations. It may not be always useful in combat, but this hobby is "roleplaying" game, so you have to consider whole. But if you want to be a certain combatant, just go evoker.
I'm leveling up a Necromancer in Adventure League and at level four I'm going to take the Skilled feat and pick up Tailoring, Leatherworking, Herbalism and Disguise. Then I'm going to buy a lot of redundant pieces of armor with the intent of turning them into fully covering clothing so I can have my undead minions act as porters and servants for the rest of my character's lifetime.
What Necromancers need more than anything right now is a skeleton and zombie TEMPLATE so we can start resurrecting things other than "generic medium humanoid".
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Just because you arbitrarily assign some sort of significance to the bodies of your dead doesn't make me not hungry.
My only qualm with the Necromancer specialization in the current edition is that I find their Wizard Tradition power tremendously lacking in theme.
Most of the other Traditions give you a neat minor trick that a) no one else can do b) really sells the theme of your specialization.
Summoners clicking their fingers and popping chairs into existence, or Diviners swapping out rolls because "they saw this coming" is a great way to feel special, especially at low levels.
But the Necromancer ability is just a slight combat bonus... and granted, the Invokers also are locked into something like this, but it's way more "on brand" for them and also signifcantly more useful.
I understand that, within the structure of the D&D rules, it's hard to have an ability tied to death that isn't all about combat... but how is a low level Necromancer to flaunt their specialization and give of a vibe of "I have powers you don't understand" with out going "hey, can you cut me a bit then die?" ? :D
Ideally you want to sell the idea that you have some sort of power over life and death, or that you are a spooky individual with grave powers, right?
Neat ideas might be: - Channeler: you drain small amounts of the natural life from the area around you. Non-sentient plants wither at your command and you feel sated as if you had eaten a meal. Likewise any creature killed within 15 ft of you satisfies your hunger for up to a week. Furthermore, any time you draw sustenance in one of these ways, you do not need to sleep for as long as you are sated by the drained energy (but you still require rest to regain abilities etc)
- Hand of Glory: You may spend 8 hours turning a severed hand from a sentient being into a magical candle, (you may only sustain 1 such item, and creating another destroys the first.) You may ignite this candle to gain one of the following effects, after which the candle is consumed: - open 1 locked door that is not magically warded - create a torch light light that only you, and those who touch you can see by for 4 hours - create a candle light that hovers like a mage hand that can not be extiguished except by you, (for an hour) - grants disadvantage to all targets of your next HOLD spell.
- Breath Collector: you may store the last breath of any warm blooded creature in a glass vial, match box, mouse skull, or similar small container. You must collect the breath with in a minute of it's death. You may keep as many breaths as you have necromancer levels, and the breath may be from anything as small as mouse up to and beyond a dragon. When you have collected the breath a small, unnaturally colored flame is visible in the container, but it sheds no meaningful amount of light. The Necromancer may destroy any number of these containers at once to gain information from the underworld and spirits. Speaking a topic aloud and sundering a number of vessels with a wave of their hand, the necromancer hears 1 word for each vessel shattered. These words may form a sentence if sufficient in number, but the words may not be in order. The usefulness and veracity of any information revealed tends to be a reflection on the power of the creatures from which the breath was drawn, but mastery over life and death washes away any bias that may linger due to the breath-givers former feelings towards the Necromancer. While a Necromancer held in captivity, (or just to lazy to look for better sources) may resort to constantly slaying vermin and collecting their breath in bowls and such, the power of such creatures is far to low for information to be very useful or varied from one attempt to another.
- Sleep of the Dead: You can choose what will and won't awaken you, and, once per day, you may choose to fall asleep as an action. Furthermore, while asleep you do not breathe, age or require sustenance. Lastly you are immune to nonmagical-slashing and nonmagical-crushing damage while asleep.
I'm playing in a West March as a Level 3 Necromancer and I have to say roleplay-wise it's pretty fun. The idea of being able to tamper with the dead and possibly raise them to do your bidding is a cool concept if you're playing for a more chaotic necromancer, or you could have been forced into Necromancy as a result of something happening in your life. Honestly Necromancy comes from the extent of your backstory and how it is affected by it. Right now my necromancer was studying to practice evocation magic but was forced into Necromancy after his father told him about his family secretly trying to create eternal life and allow people to resurect others without having to consult the Gods and giving man more power.
As a class I feel Necromancer is a bit lacking compared to other schools. You really don't hit your big power spike until level 6 and even then it's just copying Animated Dead into your spellbook, giving your dead proficiency bonus to weapon damage rolls, and their health is increased by your level.
Grim Harvest: Isn't really good since theoretically you should never be taking damage as a Wizard and even then you'll have to pop a few spell slots to even kill something, which need to be used for your undead thralls. Grim Harvest is good when you're facing a big creature you can kill and regain health back, but to really get value from it you need to use a lot of necromancy spells to kills things as it gives you back Spell Slot x 3 in health. Though the big caveat is that your only ranged spells from the necromancy school are: Ray of Sickness, Blight, Circle of Death, Finger of Death, and Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting. Other spells typically require you to have to touch them and the next real necromantic ranged damage spell you get is with a 4th level spell slot for Blight which isn't until level 7 and even then there could be even better spells you might take at 3rd, 2nd, or 1st slots.
Undead Thralls: Ah yes, the big power boost for Necromancers. This is when you get a free Animate Dead and the zombies/skeletons get free Health Points and Proficiency to damage rolls. While this might sound cool on paper, it takes a 3rd level spell slot to use and you need to reuse a spell slot every 24 hours to keep them under your control. Not to mention that the skeletons, if you're going for the ranged skeleton massacre, all require bows and arrows which will quickly deplete your wallet along with copying spells from the Necromancy school and other schools. Though there are some uses for it such as the fact its a free spell and you can use the zombies/skeletons to scout ahead for traps or other monsters, it definitely isn't as good as it could be.
Inured to Undeath: Free resistance to Necrotic damage and your hit point maximum can't be reduced. The free resistance is nice depending on if Necrotic is a popular damage type for monsters and from my experience that usually means undead and vampires. (If there are others I don't have my Monster's Manual or Volo's on me so feel free to correct me). The immunity to your hit point max lowering in my opinion can be pretty good depending on the campaign, but I doubt you'll be finding many monsters that reduce your hit point max.
Command Undead: Roleplay wise this spell is frickin' awesome! You can have a zombie take a CHA saving roll or else become your undead buddy and do what you want. Again it can be good depending on if you're fighting quite a bit of undead, and when it is good it is amazing being able to control a smart undead. Though the caveat is that smart undead get advantage on it and braniacs can repeat the saving throw every hour. At least for that hour you have control of a very powerful monster, but then you need to start running before it tries to kill you for controlling it. Overall I personally believe the capstone is very situational and requires there to be undead for it to be fully utilized.
So overall if you're looking for a fun class you want to play for Roleplay then I think Necromancer is really cool and a good backstory done correctly for those brooding wizards can really set you apart and give your character some life. If you're looking to play a class that is all about usefulness and survivability, while there is survivability in this school I suggest taking a hard look at the others and weighing their options before even pondering Necromancer. That's just my personal opinion and you don't have to take it if you don't want to, but I hope it somewhat or completely answered your question.
This is why custom magic items are always cool. I had my players fight a Necromancer and one of the items they found on him was a jet black crystal that was embedded at the top of his staff. Once they researched and identified it, it allowed the user to control/resume control 3x the amount of undead when they used Animate Dead. Whilst none of them are Necromancers, they may be able to sue this alter as a bargaining tool (if they can come to terms with allowing someone evil to release a horde of undead!)
Mathematically, Necromancer Wizards have one of the highest potentials for damage if you just spend most of your slots on raising armies of skeletons. It's a bit hard to justify RP-wise(I assume going into any city your army of skeletons would just be killed, and if you are with any LG-types you'll have a hard time keeping them from Turning your skeletons into dust) and honestly it just kind of feels cheesy to do, but in theory, even with that pathetic +4 to hit, with the damage bonus from Undead Thralls and especially if you can give them advantage somehow(Hold spells are a good candidate for this, or if another party member has, say, Faerie Fire), that is a TON of damage on average. All for the price of some shortbows. But yeah, it's a tough sell to most parties and most adventures are going to take you places where keeping skeletons is going to be a rough challenge.
The challenge is to play a Necromancer while either not falling into an Evil alignment, or not ending up on the really bad side of your non-Evil party members.
Animate Dead's great, but you're permanently creating a walking abomination, powered by undeath and evil. That's not considered a 'good' act. It will land you afoul of some nations, and some religions. And if you're not careful, you'll lose control of your creations. And then anything they do to innocents would be your responsibility, for bringing this eldritch manifestation of should-not-be into existence.
Approach it like that, and you've got some fascinating potential on your hands.
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I really like this idea. Even if the only benefit was allowing a character attuned to the item to renew control over a limited number of his undead creations each day it would still make running a character (or villainous NPC) far more feasible.
I think I'm going to port this idea into my home game. Thanks a lot for the idea!
I'm leveling up a Necromancer in Adventure League and at level four I'm going to take the Skilled feat and pick up Tailoring, Leatherworking, Herbalism and Disguise. Then I'm going to buy a lot of redundant pieces of armor with the intent of turning them into fully covering clothing so I can have my undead minions act as porters and servants for the rest of my character's lifetime.
What Necromancers need more than anything right now is a skeleton and zombie TEMPLATE so we can start resurrecting things other than "generic medium humanoid".
Actually, I think that if you cast animate dead on the corpse of a large giant (an ogre, oni, or troll), it assumes the statistics of a ogre zombie. And if you animate a dead beholder, it becomes a beholder zombie. Animating a skeleton of a horse creates a warhorse skeleton and so on.
Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.
I'm leveling up a Necromancer in Adventure League and at level four I'm going to take the Skilled feat and pick up Tailoring, Leatherworking, Herbalism and Disguise. Then I'm going to buy a lot of redundant pieces of armor with the intent of turning them into fully covering clothing so I can have my undead minions act as porters and servants for the rest of my character's lifetime.
What Necromancers need more than anything right now is a skeleton and zombie TEMPLATE so we can start resurrecting things other than "generic medium humanoid".
DM's Guide, page 282. It's not much, but it is something.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
These two ideas were touched on above, but I eanted to flesh them out a bit. For reference, I'm currently playing a lvl 5 necro that just leveled up to 6 via milestone.
-At lvl 6, you can regain a lvl 3 spell slot on short rest. If given the option and you take/acquire a Pearl of Power like I did, that's 2 lvl 3 slots regained before a long rest. Therefore, I now have 4 lvl 3 slots per day. Every day, I can re-assert control over 16 zombies!!! When I drop to 12, I use a lvl 3 slot to raise 2 more per day for 2 days (back to 16). You can literally have an entire squad of expendable minions at all times. Where do new corpses come from? Answer: didn't you just kill some baddies?
-"Zombies/skeletons are so weak! Why would I bother with such a useless minion?" Picture the above scenario in a minor degree. My necro currently has 5 zombies. Have them stand in a tight circle around me with prepared Actions, and they can effectively give me 22+ hp shielding with a retaliation attack and Cover. Want some offense? Surround the enemy and suddenly you could have up to 8 ZOMBIES FLANKING. That's 16 rolls to make potentially 8 hits. "But a boss's hits can kill several zombies!" How big is this creature? If it's Large or smaller, the zombies can Shove to prone and grapple to cease movement. You have effectively pinned and hampered the enemy. Multiple grapples=multiple checks to escape. Now your enemy is subject to a dogpile of claws and teeth with advantage. Think of a zombie movie: What makes the horde(s) so terrifying and dangerous even though individual zombies are walking targets?
- Zombies are excellent pack mules. I did the same thing as mentioned above and have extra clothes available. Keep them away from busy areas (stinky) and covered, then people will give weird looks, but not much else. Since you can telepathically control up to 60', they can also act as wonderful mobile extensions of you in case a situation may get dangerous.
-I just discovered this magical trick earlier today and I feel the compulsory need to share. So we are fighting werewolves. Zombies don't have magic fists, so they would useless, right? Nope! Attacked with all 5 against a werewolf using Shove. Got lucky and #1 was a hit, werewolf failed the save and hit the ground. Next 4 attack saw 2 grapple. Now the enemy needs 2 successful checks to eacape! What could be better than passively taking an enemg out of commission? Dragon's Breath gives zombies a poison breath weapon thst they are immune to for every turn!
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Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
The major problem with necromancy is the low amount of spells in the school tho that is improving with 26 spells now, contrast that to transmutation with 62 and evocation with 66 even abjuration has 28 and the role play problems involved with animate drama... oops animate dead.
It doesn't help that grim harvest requires a deathblow to trigger and that undead thralls effectively means locking oneself down to being a skeleton herder or just not using that ability at all.
Grim harvest honestly could be improved by simply making it +2hp/hit die of the creature reaction when anything dies within 60 feet and allowing an out of combat bonus when rolling hit dice as long as there is something in the environment to wither.
Undead Thralls honestly promotes characters to break the action economy of the game by having swarms of minions that have to be rolled for bogging down the game (fun for the necromancer but unfun for the rest of the party waiting for their turn) honestly I think this ability should have an option be a single undead that is more akin to a familiar.
I know part of the fun of a necromancer is controlling the swarms of undead but something like spirit guardians (how the hell isn't this spell necromantic) might be a better mechanically.
Above is very correct about the Grim Harvest. You get rhe ability at lvl 1 and it incentivizes the use of necromancy to kill. However, you don't get a damaging necromancy spell other than cantrips until Vampiric Touch (lvl 3 spell). The only other option is to take a build option that gives access to Inflict Wounds (Death Cleric/Necromancer is fun for an evil campaign).
Unfortunately, I don't see much utility in Necromancers OTHER THAN being a (Meat)Puppetmaster. The school of spells is extremely limited, so you have to dip into other schools just as often, and you really can't deal the same damage potential as one who is purely focused on a more combative school. Aside from the undead pets, a necromancer is like The Little Arcane Tradition That Could (Act Like A Different Tradition).
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Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
Can i ask a question re Undead Thralls, do I add my own proficiency bonus on top of the skeletons bonus, so as an example Skeleton is +2 mine is currently +3 do i replace theirs and they have +3 or is it as i suspect actually +5?
While I would love to say you can add proficiency to the minions' attack rolls, sadly it only adds to damage.
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Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
I've always been fascinated by making a Necromancer, but aside from the Dread Necromancer in 3.5, I never found them to be that "good".
Note: I got into D&D during Planescape for a Dustman has been my vision, not Necromancy is Evil.
Animate Dead lets you target a pile of bones/corpse to be animated (Undead Thrall gives you +1 corpse/cast, ups their hitpoints and gives proficiency bonus on damage).
This gives you control of the corpe(s) for up to 24 hours after which you have to recast the spell and a casting can control 4 (I assume Undead Thrall makes this 5, but it's not clear) with a 3rd level spell.
Theoretically, a 5th level Necromancer could control either 8 or 10 undead... but these 8 or 10 CR:1/4 minions...
At 5th+ level are they really going to be any use or will they just be pulped too quickly by everything you fight? Yes, very quickly a single Necromancer is going to start using the Mass Combat rules all by herself!
Also, I know most DM's hate "pets" as these minions will probably very quickly start outnumbering the party itself!
I use necromancy as a part of roleplay. You know that back in 3.5e, you had to pick one and abandon two schools. In 5e, you don't have to do that, just get some benefits about the school. I always think that a school of a wizard is a result of his/her personality. You can be sure that necromancy could be useful in many situations. It may not be always useful in combat, but this hobby is "roleplaying" game, so you have to consider whole. But if you want to be a certain combatant, just go evoker.
"What are you lookin' at, filthy mortal?"
I'm leveling up a Necromancer in Adventure League and at level four I'm going to take the Skilled feat and pick up Tailoring, Leatherworking, Herbalism and Disguise. Then I'm going to buy a lot of redundant pieces of armor with the intent of turning them into fully covering clothing so I can have my undead minions act as porters and servants for the rest of my character's lifetime.
What Necromancers need more than anything right now is a skeleton and zombie TEMPLATE so we can start resurrecting things other than "generic medium humanoid".
Just because you arbitrarily assign some sort of significance to the bodies of your dead doesn't make me not hungry.
A necro wizard can be the most powerful there is with his create undead raise undead finger of death he could literally be a walking army
My only qualm with the Necromancer specialization in the current edition is that I find their Wizard Tradition power tremendously lacking in theme.
Most of the other Traditions give you a neat minor trick that a) no one else can do b) really sells the theme of your specialization.
Summoners clicking their fingers and popping chairs into existence, or Diviners swapping out rolls because "they saw this coming" is a great way to feel special, especially at low levels.
But the Necromancer ability is just a slight combat bonus... and granted, the Invokers also are locked into something like this, but it's way more "on brand" for them and also signifcantly more useful.
I understand that, within the structure of the D&D rules, it's hard to have an ability tied to death that isn't all about combat... but how is a low level Necromancer to flaunt their specialization and give of a vibe of "I have powers you don't understand" with out going "hey, can you cut me a bit then die?" ? :D
Ideally you want to sell the idea that you have some sort of power over life and death, or that you are a spooky individual with grave powers, right?
Neat ideas might be:
- Channeler: you drain small amounts of the natural life from the area around you. Non-sentient plants wither at your command and you feel sated as if you had eaten a meal. Likewise any creature killed within 15 ft of you satisfies your hunger for up to a week. Furthermore, any time you draw sustenance in one of these ways, you do not need to sleep for as long as you are sated by the drained energy (but you still require rest to regain abilities etc)
- Hand of Glory: You may spend 8 hours turning a severed hand from a sentient being into a magical candle, (you may only sustain 1 such item, and creating another destroys the first.) You may ignite this candle to gain one of the following effects, after which the candle is consumed:
- open 1 locked door that is not magically warded
- create a torch light light that only you, and those who touch you can see by for 4 hours
- create a candle light that hovers like a mage hand that can not be extiguished except by you, (for an hour)
- grants disadvantage to all targets of your next HOLD spell.
- Breath Collector: you may store the last breath of any warm blooded creature in a glass vial, match box, mouse skull, or similar small container. You must collect the breath with in a minute of it's death. You may keep as many breaths as you have necromancer levels, and the breath may be from anything as small as mouse up to and beyond a dragon.
When you have collected the breath a small, unnaturally colored flame is visible in the container, but it sheds no meaningful amount of light.
The Necromancer may destroy any number of these containers at once to gain information from the underworld and spirits.
Speaking a topic aloud and sundering a number of vessels with a wave of their hand, the necromancer hears 1 word for each vessel shattered.
These words may form a sentence if sufficient in number, but the words may not be in order.
The usefulness and veracity of any information revealed tends to be a reflection on the power of the creatures from which the breath was drawn, but mastery over life and death washes away any bias that may linger due to the breath-givers former feelings towards the Necromancer.
While a Necromancer held in captivity, (or just to lazy to look for better sources) may resort to constantly slaying vermin and collecting their breath in bowls and such, the power of such creatures is far to low for information to be very useful or varied from one attempt to another.
- Sleep of the Dead: You can choose what will and won't awaken you, and, once per day, you may choose to fall asleep as an action.
Furthermore, while asleep you do not breathe, age or require sustenance.
Lastly you are immune to nonmagical-slashing and nonmagical-crushing damage while asleep.
I'm playing in a West March as a Level 3 Necromancer and I have to say roleplay-wise it's pretty fun. The idea of being able to tamper with the dead and possibly raise them to do your bidding is a cool concept if you're playing for a more chaotic necromancer, or you could have been forced into Necromancy as a result of something happening in your life. Honestly Necromancy comes from the extent of your backstory and how it is affected by it. Right now my necromancer was studying to practice evocation magic but was forced into Necromancy after his father told him about his family secretly trying to create eternal life and allow people to resurect others without having to consult the Gods and giving man more power.
As a class I feel Necromancer is a bit lacking compared to other schools. You really don't hit your big power spike until level 6 and even then it's just copying Animated Dead into your spellbook, giving your dead proficiency bonus to weapon damage rolls, and their health is increased by your level.
Grim Harvest: Isn't really good since theoretically you should never be taking damage as a Wizard and even then you'll have to pop a few spell slots to even kill something, which need to be used for your undead thralls. Grim Harvest is good when you're facing a big creature you can kill and regain health back, but to really get value from it you need to use a lot of necromancy spells to kills things as it gives you back Spell Slot x 3 in health. Though the big caveat is that your only ranged spells from the necromancy school are: Ray of Sickness, Blight, Circle of Death, Finger of Death, and Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting. Other spells typically require you to have to touch them and the next real necromantic ranged damage spell you get is with a 4th level spell slot for Blight which isn't until level 7 and even then there could be even better spells you might take at 3rd, 2nd, or 1st slots.
Undead Thralls: Ah yes, the big power boost for Necromancers. This is when you get a free Animate Dead and the zombies/skeletons get free Health Points and Proficiency to damage rolls. While this might sound cool on paper, it takes a 3rd level spell slot to use and you need to reuse a spell slot every 24 hours to keep them under your control. Not to mention that the skeletons, if you're going for the ranged skeleton massacre, all require bows and arrows which will quickly deplete your wallet along with copying spells from the Necromancy school and other schools. Though there are some uses for it such as the fact its a free spell and you can use the zombies/skeletons to scout ahead for traps or other monsters, it definitely isn't as good as it could be.
Inured to Undeath: Free resistance to Necrotic damage and your hit point maximum can't be reduced. The free resistance is nice depending on if Necrotic is a popular damage type for monsters and from my experience that usually means undead and vampires. (If there are others I don't have my Monster's Manual or Volo's on me so feel free to correct me). The immunity to your hit point max lowering in my opinion can be pretty good depending on the campaign, but I doubt you'll be finding many monsters that reduce your hit point max.
Command Undead: Roleplay wise this spell is frickin' awesome! You can have a zombie take a CHA saving roll or else become your undead buddy and do what you want. Again it can be good depending on if you're fighting quite a bit of undead, and when it is good it is amazing being able to control a smart undead. Though the caveat is that smart undead get advantage on it and braniacs can repeat the saving throw every hour. At least for that hour you have control of a very powerful monster, but then you need to start running before it tries to kill you for controlling it. Overall I personally believe the capstone is very situational and requires there to be undead for it to be fully utilized.
So overall if you're looking for a fun class you want to play for Roleplay then I think Necromancer is really cool and a good backstory done correctly for those brooding wizards can really set you apart and give your character some life. If you're looking to play a class that is all about usefulness and survivability, while there is survivability in this school I suggest taking a hard look at the others and weighing their options before even pondering Necromancer. That's just my personal opinion and you don't have to take it if you don't want to, but I hope it somewhat or completely answered your question.
This is why custom magic items are always cool. I had my players fight a Necromancer and one of the items they found on him was a jet black crystal that was embedded at the top of his staff. Once they researched and identified it, it allowed the user to control/resume control 3x the amount of undead when they used Animate Dead. Whilst none of them are Necromancers, they may be able to sue this alter as a bargaining tool (if they can come to terms with allowing someone evil to release a horde of undead!)
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Wary the wizard who focuses on homebrew, for he can create nightmares that you wouldn't even dream of
Mathematically, Necromancer Wizards have one of the highest potentials for damage if you just spend most of your slots on raising armies of skeletons. It's a bit hard to justify RP-wise(I assume going into any city your army of skeletons would just be killed, and if you are with any LG-types you'll have a hard time keeping them from Turning your skeletons into dust) and honestly it just kind of feels cheesy to do, but in theory, even with that pathetic +4 to hit, with the damage bonus from Undead Thralls and especially if you can give them advantage somehow(Hold spells are a good candidate for this, or if another party member has, say, Faerie Fire), that is a TON of damage on average. All for the price of some shortbows. But yeah, it's a tough sell to most parties and most adventures are going to take you places where keeping skeletons is going to be a rough challenge.
The challenge is to play a Necromancer while either not falling into an Evil alignment, or not ending up on the really bad side of your non-Evil party members.
Animate Dead's great, but you're permanently creating a walking abomination, powered by undeath and evil. That's not considered a 'good' act. It will land you afoul of some nations, and some religions. And if you're not careful, you'll lose control of your creations. And then anything they do to innocents would be your responsibility, for bringing this eldritch manifestation of should-not-be into existence.
Approach it like that, and you've got some fascinating potential on your hands.
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I really like this idea. Even if the only benefit was allowing a character attuned to the item to renew control over a limited number of his undead creations each day it would still make running a character (or villainous NPC) far more feasible.
I think I'm going to port this idea into my home game. Thanks a lot for the idea!
Also as a quick note, I made what I consider to be an improvement on the Animate Dead spell. I'll link it here. Hopefully you guys find this useful.
Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
Use the critter compendium for variety along with this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99zw0x2tQ-k
It explains how to convert the number of undead you can raise into CR/xp cap - allowing for different choices of undead, keeping the class exciting
These two ideas were touched on above, but I eanted to flesh them out a bit. For reference, I'm currently playing a lvl 5 necro that just leveled up to 6 via milestone.
-At lvl 6, you can regain a lvl 3 spell slot on short rest. If given the option and you take/acquire a Pearl of Power like I did, that's 2 lvl 3 slots regained before a long rest. Therefore, I now have 4 lvl 3 slots per day. Every day, I can re-assert control over 16 zombies!!! When I drop to 12, I use a lvl 3 slot to raise 2 more per day for 2 days (back to 16). You can literally have an entire squad of expendable minions at all times. Where do new corpses come from? Answer: didn't you just kill some baddies?
-"Zombies/skeletons are so weak! Why would I bother with such a useless minion?" Picture the above scenario in a minor degree. My necro currently has 5 zombies. Have them stand in a tight circle around me with prepared Actions, and they can effectively give me 22+ hp shielding with a retaliation attack and Cover. Want some offense? Surround the enemy and suddenly you could have up to 8 ZOMBIES FLANKING. That's 16 rolls to make potentially 8 hits. "But a boss's hits can kill several zombies!" How big is this creature? If it's Large or smaller, the zombies can Shove to prone and grapple to cease movement. You have effectively pinned and hampered the enemy. Multiple grapples=multiple checks to escape. Now your enemy is subject to a dogpile of claws and teeth with advantage. Think of a zombie movie: What makes the horde(s) so terrifying and dangerous even though individual zombies are walking targets?
- Zombies are excellent pack mules. I did the same thing as mentioned above and have extra clothes available. Keep them away from busy areas (stinky) and covered, then people will give weird looks, but not much else. Since you can telepathically control up to 60', they can also act as wonderful mobile extensions of you in case a situation may get dangerous.
-I just discovered this magical trick earlier today and I feel the compulsory need to share. So we are fighting werewolves. Zombies don't have magic fists, so they would useless, right? Nope! Attacked with all 5 against a werewolf using Shove. Got lucky and #1 was a hit, werewolf failed the save and hit the ground. Next 4 attack saw 2 grapple. Now the enemy needs 2 successful checks to eacape! What could be better than passively taking an enemg out of commission? Dragon's Breath gives zombies a poison breath weapon thst they are immune to for every turn!
Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser
Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale
Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
The major problem with necromancy is the low amount of spells in the school tho that is improving with 26 spells now, contrast that to transmutation with 62 and evocation with 66 even abjuration has 28 and the role play problems involved with animate drama... oops animate dead.
It doesn't help that grim harvest requires a deathblow to trigger and that undead thralls effectively means locking oneself down to being a skeleton herder or just not using that ability at all.
Grim harvest honestly could be improved by simply making it +2hp/hit die of the creature reaction when anything dies within 60 feet and allowing an out of combat bonus when rolling hit dice as long as there is something in the environment to wither.
Undead Thralls honestly promotes characters to break the action economy of the game by having swarms of minions that have to be rolled for bogging down the game (fun for the necromancer but unfun for the rest of the party waiting for their turn) honestly I think this ability should have an option be a single undead that is more akin to a familiar.
I know part of the fun of a necromancer is controlling the swarms of undead but something like spirit guardians (how the hell isn't this spell necromantic) might be a better mechanically.
Above is very correct about the Grim Harvest. You get rhe ability at lvl 1 and it incentivizes the use of necromancy to kill. However, you don't get a damaging necromancy spell other than cantrips until Vampiric Touch (lvl 3 spell). The only other option is to take a build option that gives access to Inflict Wounds (Death Cleric/Necromancer is fun for an evil campaign).
Unfortunately, I don't see much utility in Necromancers OTHER THAN being a (Meat)Puppetmaster. The school of spells is extremely limited, so you have to dip into other schools just as often, and you really can't deal the same damage potential as one who is purely focused on a more combative school. Aside from the undead pets, a necromancer is like The Little Arcane Tradition That Could (Act Like A Different Tradition).
Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser
Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale
Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
Can i ask a question re Undead Thralls, do I add my own proficiency bonus on top of the skeletons bonus, so as an example Skeleton is +2 mine is currently +3 do i replace theirs and they have +3 or is it as i suspect actually +5?
TIA
While I would love to say you can add proficiency to the minions' attack rolls, sadly it only adds to damage.
Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser
Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale
Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
No i know its not added to the attack but is it +5 to damage?