So I created a Wizard character for a campaign who's backstory amounts to him being a doctor who began to study necromancy as he thought the medicine of the time was insufficient. Our party comp is currently pretty damage focused without a lot of support: 2 fighters (A Gunslinger and a Battlemaster), an Armorer artificer who's been focused on ranged attacks though he did pick up cure wounds, A Moon druid who's been a sort of tank, and a Whispers Bard who's been our primary instigator of chaotic situations. I'd like to lean into the doctor aspect as much as possible to work as a kind of battlefield control and support while my undead keep pressure on the enemy, though of course I wouldn't mind getting a couple of strong attacking spells as well. Our DM said we had free reign to change stuff around until we hit level 5 (We started at level 4) and we just hit that milestone so I only have until next session to make any changes. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for any spells to look out for or build opportunities I should work around. Here's what I currently have
Level 5 School of Necromancy Wizard Total Stats: 7 Str, 12 Dex, 10 Con, 18 Int, 14 Wis, 14 Cha Variant Human: Feat Taken Healer Lvl 4: Feat taken: Skill Expert: Medicine Cantrips: Chill Touch, Mage Hand, Mending, Prestidigitation Spells: Alarm, Detect Magic, Disguise Self, Distort Value, Silent Image, Magic Missile, Feather Fall, Find Familiar, Silent Image, Sleep, Cloud of Daggers, Misty Step, Web, Animate Dead, Leomund's Tiny Hut
I really like utility spells for role play potential (My guy spent a period of time as a sort of snake oil salesman so disguise, silent image and distort value felt apt). I don't have much in terms of big damage, mostly just CoD and MM. Find Familiar has been pretty great for a lot and I think I've actually gotten the party at least a little invested into the wellbeing of my familar. I do have some overlap, our druid has detect magic, and the artificer has feather fall. This is my first long term character I've made so I'd really appreciate any suggestions.
Trade out Feather fall (since the Artificer has it) for Ray of Sickness (since you have studied sickness as a doctor)
Trade out Web (which doesn't seem related to your story) for Gentle Repose which works for your background, preserving a body.
Try to get Life Transference since it's a necromantic healing spell.
Trade out Animate Dead which is pretty useless (at level 5, a single skeleton or zombie assisting you is worth very little), and take Summon Undead instead, which has a shorter duration but will actually do something when you need it to.
These spells tie better into the character concept, as what you have at the moment is a generic selection of wizard spells which have little relation to the doctor type background you're going with.
I have never known any wizard that did not take either a) Absorb Elements or b) Shield. Both of those defensive spells will save your life if you someone targets you. I can see not taking both of these spells, but you really need at least one of them.
Alarm and Tiny hut serve most of the same purpose, you only need one.
The three best 3rd level spells are Hypnotic Pattern, Counterspell and Fireball. I would take at least one of them. I suggest you trade out Sleep for the far superior Hypnotic Pattern. Note, Hypnotic Pattern's main advantage is there is they do not automatically get a save every round.
The value of Animate Dead is that you can keep your undead minions going from day to day, controlling up to 4 of them. 4 zombies is a fair amount of corpse shield. With a minute casting time it’s something you do outside of combat,
Possibly even more important is that Summon Undead is concentration and Animate Dead is not. If your possibly frail Necromancer loses concentration their summons is gone.
But both are viable for different situations and uses for a necromancer and you should strive to have both eventually.
The value of Animate Dead is that you can keep your undead minions going from day to day, controlling up to 4 of them. 4 zombies is a fair amount of corpse shield. With a minute casting time it’s something you do outside of combat,
Possibly even more important is that Summon Undead is concentration and Animate Dead is not. If your possibly frail Necromancer loses concentration their summons is gone.
But both are viable for different situations and uses for a necromancer and you should strive to have both eventually.
The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you've given it. To maintain control of the creature for another 24 hours, you must cast this spell on the creature again before the current 24-hour period ends
So at 5th level, every day you have to burn your level 3 slot to create it, and you don't have a second slot to maintain control, so you have to burn it right after you take a long rest. And then at higher levels, you have to waste your spell slots on a daily basis just to maintain them. A zombie has 22 hit points so it might take a couple of hits, but with AC8 it will take them fast, and since it only deals 4 (d6+1) damage even if it hits with its measly +3 attack. It's less offensively threatening than a goblin, not to mention it only has a movement speed of 20ft. There is no reason for enemies to attack a zombie when they can just attack the party instead.
By comparison, a Zombie created by animate dead needs to land 7 attacks at just +3 to hit to do the same damage to a single creature that fireball does to multiple enemies - hit two opponents with Fireball and your Zombie needs to land 14 attacks to equal the damage. A 3rd level magic missile deals 17 (5d5+5) damage without any risk of missing, which is the equivalent of the zombie landing more than 4 attacks, and happens on one turn instead of across 4.
At higher levels you might get a little posse of zombies or skeletons together, which will likely all die to an unavoidable area of effect attack, or be killed off easily in early stages of the dungeon, leaving you without higher level spell slots when you need them.
Animate Dead is one of the worst spells in the game. True Strike is worse and not much else.
I think it shouldn't be underestimated the value, outside of combat, of having disposable lackeys that can reliably take on tasks that require a humanoid. I remember playing with a Necromancer character, and one of the things they did was have their Zombie march about 20 feet ahead of the rest of us to trigger any traps or to use as a distraction for creatures. Strap a couple of them to a cart, and you've got a slow-but reliable transport.
In my group the Necromancer favored skeletons over Zombies... it's a lot easier to gather piles of bones to carry around in a bag of holding, and skeletons can used ranged weapons, so you can keep them in the back to release a volley of arrows round-after-round... you just need to either have a DM who sticks aggressively to RAW, where all Skeletons somehow have both a shortsword and a shortbow because it's in their statblock, or at the very least you need to keep some spare bows and arrows handy to give out to your skelebros after animating them.
The value of Animate Dead is that you can keep your undead minions going from day to day, controlling up to 4 of them. 4 zombies is a fair amount of corpse shield. With a minute casting time it’s something you do outside of combat,
Possibly even more important is that Summon Undead is concentration and Animate Dead is not. If your possibly frail Necromancer loses concentration their summons is gone.
But both are viable for different situations and uses for a necromancer and you should strive to have both eventually.
The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you've given it. To maintain control of the creature for another 24 hours, you must cast this spell on the creature again before the current 24-hour period ends
So at 5th level, every day you have to burn your level 3 slot to create it, and you don't have a second slot to maintain control, so you have to burn it right after you take a long rest. And then at higher levels, you have to waste your spell slots on a daily basis just to maintain them. A zombie has 22 hit points so it might take a couple of hits, but with AC8 it will take them fast, and since it only deals 4 (d6+1) damage even if it hits with its measly +3 attack. It's less offensively threatening than a goblin, not to mention it only has a movement speed of 20ft. There is no reason for enemies to attack a zombie when they can just attack the party instead.
By comparison, a Zombie created by animate dead needs to land 7 attacks at just +3 to hit to do the same damage to a single creature that fireball does to multiple enemies - hit two opponents with Fireball and your Zombie needs to land 14 attacks to equal the damage. A 3rd level magic missile deals 17 (5d5+5) damage without any risk of missing, which is the equivalent of the zombie landing more than 4 attacks, and happens on one turn instead of across 4.
At higher levels you might get a little posse of zombies or skeletons together, which will likely all die to an unavoidable area of effect attack, or be killed off easily in early stages of the dungeon, leaving you without higher level spell slots when you need them.
Animate Dead is one of the worst spells in the game. True Strike is worse and not much else.
It should be noted that the undead thrall feature for Necro 6 does buff undead that you create with a necromancy spell. It also grants Animate Dead for free. At level 6, it will add 6 more HP (your wizard level) and add +3 (your proficiency bonus) to their weapon damage rolls. This does help a bit with Animate Dead as it relieves the opportunity cost of taking the spell and improves the efficacy of the undead that is created. Still, the spell is better suited to a utility spell than a pure offensive spell. Options that buff the minions are also of benefit, especially if those buffs aren't going to be redirected from the party. Inspiring Leader could give additional temp HPs, though your DM would have to rule that the minions could take rests to have a refresh of those temp HPs. Adding armor could help and wouldn't be much different than adding barding to a mount. If you happen to have an oathbreaker paladin in your party, keeping the minions within 10 ft of the paladin does increase the minions saves as of the Paladin's 6th level and their weapon damage as of the Paladin's 7th level by the Paladin's charisma modifier.
The efficacy of the spell will be dependent on being able to take advantage of the minion for the entire duration of the spell, which means that it will often be DM and campaign dependent. Having the ability to increase your action economy at the cost of a bonus action (per turn) and a spell slot shouldn't be underestimated (particularly if you don't make use of that bonus action anyway). Still, the opportunity cost of buffing the minions to ensure that they will be around for that entire team can range from non-existent to extremely high and that should be considered. Animate Dead will be potentially more helpful over the course of a day than even Fireball, but that potential was considered when the spell was created and thus it can be fairly underwhelming if the right circumstances are not met.
I’d recommend looking into the spell “wither and bloom” from strixhaven. It’s not an incredibly potent spell, but it is somewhat reliable. It may also be thematically appropriate for your medicine themed necromancer. The healing aspect of it is actually a separate effect independent of the saving throw result. It’s not a super damaging spell, but if a creature does die then it activates your grim harvest feature, and is amplified by being a necro spell. It also has an element of damage control that allows for the caster to choose who takes damage or not, and friendly fire is definitely a consideration for AOEs.
It should be noted that the undead thrall feature for Necro 6 does buff undead that you create with a necromancy spell. It also grants Animate Dead for free. At level 6, it will add 6 more HP (your wizard level) and add +3 (your proficiency bonus) to their weapon damage rolls. This does help a bit with Animate Dead as it relieves the opportunity cost of taking the spell and improves the efficacy of the undead that is created.
That's a detail I had completely forgotten... The Necromancy School gives you Animate Dead, guaranteed, at level 6... and also there doesn't seem to be any language to the effect of, "If you already know this spell, you get something else instead"... to that end, would it make sense to not bother learning Animate Dead until you get it for free at level 6? I'm sure in a game where the DM regularly hands out spell scrolls or gives access to other wizards' spell books that it's probably not really a factor, but for a lot of players getting a free spell added to their spellbook, especially a modified version that works even better than the base version, is a pretty big boon.
I likewise had forgotten that you get Animate Dead for free at level 6. So take something else instead.
When you do get Animate Dead, you can raise two skeletons or zombies per spell, and they’re more powerful, as Transmorpher noted. So once you get it, you should try to keep four undead minions around every day if you can. Build them up during travel and downtime. Your undead minions are really the core of your subclass, so get all the use you can out of them, both in combat and out.
The value of Animate Dead is that you can keep your undead minions going from day to day, controlling up to 4 of them. 4 zombies is a fair amount of corpse shield. With a minute casting time it’s something you do outside of combat,
Possibly even more important is that Summon Undead is concentration and Animate Dead is not. If your possibly frail Necromancer loses concentration their summons is gone.
But both are viable for different situations and uses for a necromancer and you should strive to have both eventually.
The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you've given it. To maintain control of the creature for another 24 hours, you must cast this spell on the creature again before the current 24-hour period ends
So at 5th level, every day you have to burn your level 3 slot to create it, and you don't have a second slot to maintain control, so you have to burn it right after you take a long rest. And then at higher levels, you have to waste your spell slots on a daily basis just to maintain them. A zombie has 22 hit points so it might take a couple of hits, but with AC8 it will take them fast, and since it only deals 4 (d6+1) damage even if it hits with its measly +3 attack. It's less offensively threatening than a goblin, not to mention it only has a movement speed of 20ft. There is no reason for enemies to attack a zombie when they can just attack the party instead.
By comparison, a Zombie created by animate dead needs to land 7 attacks at just +3 to hit to do the same damage to a single creature that fireball does to multiple enemies - hit two opponents with Fireball and your Zombie needs to land 14 attacks to equal the damage. A 3rd level magic missile deals 17 (5d5+5) damage without any risk of missing, which is the equivalent of the zombie landing more than 4 attacks, and happens on one turn instead of across 4.
At higher levels you might get a little posse of zombies or skeletons together, which will likely all die to an unavoidable area of effect attack, or be killed off easily in early stages of the dungeon, leaving you without higher level spell slots when you need them.
Animate Dead is one of the worst spells in the game. True Strike is worse and not much else.
You can have 4 at level 5 as soon as you get it. Casting it to recontrol can target up to 4. So you can cast it once to recruit and once to maintain for four days in a row and have 4 lackies at level 5. You can set it and forget it too since it only takes a bonus action to command them and they go until they finish the command. Plus you could either get zombies for meat shields to split aggro and you get potentially what amounts to 4 attacks in a single turn on top of keeping your action. Plus they can do things outside of combat if you need them to.
I did know about the level 6 issue. I discussed it with my DM and he said it would be fine to take animate dead now and get a free level 3 spell next level. The idea of having a consistent undead entorage is part of what attracted me to the class in the first place so I definitely want it.
Some of the other spells mentioned definitely seem cool to use. Shield seems straight better than false life, but false life is definitely more thematic. Ray of sickness is also thematic and I had tested it out a bit before realizing how prevalent poison resist is, so I'm not sure if I want to pick it up or note. Wither and Bloom sounds very cool, definitely want to try it. Tiny hut is kind of just a straight upgrade for alarm so I think I can drop alarm for sure I agree. Plus it's thematic, my guy is a hypochondriac and always wears a plague doctor's mask and only takes it off after purifying the air around him, this gives him a confined space without setting up a tent. Life transference sounds extremely fun and I will take it, but I'm pretty sure even casting it at level 3 has a chance to kill me outright rn with my low health so I'll wait a level or two for that haha. I know web isn't exactly thematic, but it would be helpful to slow enemies for a volley of skeleton arrows, so I'll have to debate on whether to drop it or not. Distort value is effectively all flavor for the conman part of the traveling doctor archetype I was going for. I think I'll trade out sleep and alarm for either false life, and wither and bloom or maybe shield instead of false life. May consider trading out sleep or disguise self as well though I think that could be thematic for anesthesia or something. Thank you all for your input I really appreciate it.
I don't know why, but seeing a thread about a necromancer build has made me vaguely want to play a Reborn Necromancer who raised himself from the dead.
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Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
I don't know why, but seeing a thread about a necromancer build has made me vaguely want to play a Reborn Necromancer who raised himself from the dead.
Simple - they were just lying there, got bored, and so got up ;-)
So I created a Wizard character for a campaign who's backstory amounts to him being a doctor who began to study necromancy as he thought the medicine of the time was insufficient. Our party comp is currently pretty damage focused without a lot of support: 2 fighters (A Gunslinger and a Battlemaster), an Armorer artificer who's been focused on ranged attacks though he did pick up cure wounds, A Moon druid who's been a sort of tank, and a Whispers Bard who's been our primary instigator of chaotic situations. I'd like to lean into the doctor aspect as much as possible to work as a kind of battlefield control and support while my undead keep pressure on the enemy, though of course I wouldn't mind getting a couple of strong attacking spells as well. Our DM said we had free reign to change stuff around until we hit level 5 (We started at level 4) and we just hit that milestone so I only have until next session to make any changes. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for any spells to look out for or build opportunities I should work around. Here's what I currently have
Level 5 School of Necromancy Wizard Total Stats: 7 Str, 12 Dex, 10 Con, 18 Int, 14 Wis, 14 Cha Variant Human: Feat Taken Healer Lvl 4: Feat taken: Skill Expert: Medicine Cantrips: Chill Touch, Mage Hand, Mending, Prestidigitation Spells: Alarm, Detect Magic, Disguise Self, Distort Value, Silent Image, Magic Missile, Feather Fall, Find Familiar, Silent Image, Sleep, Cloud of Daggers, Misty Step, Web, Animate Dead, Leomund's Tiny Hut
I really like utility spells for role play potential (My guy spent a period of time as a sort of snake oil salesman so disguise, silent image and distort value felt apt). I don't have much in terms of big damage, mostly just CoD and MM. Find Familiar has been pretty great for a lot and I think I've actually gotten the party at least a little invested into the wellbeing of my familar. I do have some overlap, our druid has detect magic, and the artificer has feather fall. This is my first long term character I've made so I'd really appreciate any suggestions.
Skill Expert: Medicine shouldn't be doing anything for you whatsoever unless your DM has some house-rules in place, which you'd know better than we would. RAW it's completely implausible you'd ever need to make a difficult Medicine check, and the odds of you needing to make even an easy Medicine check are very slim, and they drop to nearly 0 with the Healer feat, since you have an extra incentive not to run out of Healer's Kits. It's hard to imagine a pair of feats with less synergy with each other, let alone with Necromancy. Your statline is also garbage and I am reasonably amazed you're still alive with an AC of *squints* 11 and 18 hit points; moving your 14s from Wis and Cha to Dex and Con would help a lot. If you wanted to be "doctory", I would have recommended Way of Mercy Monk (for the theme) or Thief Rogue (for the Healer feat).
If you want to be a Necromancer:
Grim Harvest is best when you've taken damage (so you want higher Con to have a higher hit point pool); you don't need to use Necromancy spells to do the killing, but it does mean you heal more. Single-target spells are better than AOEs because the ability only happens once even if you kill a bunch. If you strongly prefer utility to murder, Necromancy may not be for you.
Animate Dead is about having an insane action economy, so you'll want to acquire tools for your skeletons to use. An example such tool is Healer's Kits, which you're a lot better off having a minion use than using yourself. Other examples under most DMs include Healing Potions, Half Plate, Rapiers, Shields, and Heavy Crossbows.
Inured to Undeath is generally a worthless ability under most DMs, who don't obey the RAW because it's broken beyond all belief. In the unlikely circumstance you have a DM who follows the RAW, get your party Artificer to cast Aid on you and enjoy your infinite hp.
Command Undead is all about finding the biggest, baddest undead you can and trying to make them yours so the undead that undead makes are also your minions. Usually, your best targets have incredibly good saves, so you badly want to whip out Mind Sliver and related spells (like Silvery Barbs). It is normal and routine that you prefer Enchantment spells to Necromancy spells by this point - your only incentive to use Necromancy spells is Grim Harvest, after all, and your minion murders don't activate it.
If you prefer utility spells, Abjuration and Divination are two of the best Wizard subclasses anyway, so you might want to consider them instead.
In any event, you have barely any spells. You correctly grabbed very few Necromancy spells (as a Necromancer, it costs you less time and money to get such a spell from another book, so your automatic spells as you level should be non-Necromancy to maximize your use of time and money) base, but you need to prioritize picking up more in the world to keep up with especially the Druid, who will leave you behind in the dust unless you put effort in.
Inured to Undeath is generally a worthless ability under most DMs, who don't obey the RAW because it's broken beyond all belief. In the unlikely circumstance you have a DM who follows the RAW, get your party Artificer to cast Aid on you and enjoy your infinite hp.
Note that the HP maximum not decreasing doesn't mean that you can't lose HP, however, Aid does increase your HP maximum for the duration. As Quindraco alludes to here, Inured to Undeath states that "your hit point maximum can't be reduced". This should mean that Aid would increase your HP maximum (by 5 base) but Inured to Undeath would prevent that effect from the spell dropping off. As such you would get about a level worth of increased HP everytime Aid was cast on you and you would begin to increase your HP maximum more rapidly than the party barbarian.
The only reason that this shouldn't work is if you state that the effects of the spell are more specific than the feature, but that does open up the interpretation that other spells potentially could reduce the HP maximum also.
Jhaffan is right. Quindraco is forgetting that the rule for combined magical effects is that the same spell doesn’t stack. So while Inured from Death protects against the increased HP maximum of Aid being reduced during its duration, you can only benefit from Aid one at a time. A higher level casting would increase your max HP, but not pile that on top of a previous Aid spell.
Jhaffan is right. Quindraco is forgetting that the rule for combined magical effects is that the same spell doesn’t stack. So while Inured from Death protects against the increased HP maximum of Aid being reduced during its duration, you can only benefit from Aid one at a time. A higher level casting would increase your max HP, but not pile that on top of a previous Aid spell.
That's not quite what I was saying. After the duration of Aid dropped, Inured from Death would still prevent the maximum from reverting. Casting Aid again would allow for the HP maximum to increase again. I could see the rationale behind not allowing the increase via your statement, but I'm not sure that's how it should work. Still, having a permanent Aid spell applied to you isn't a terrible thing, particularly when Aid only allows you to target 3 people at a time. Either way is still a benefit to most parties.
I agree the interaction with the end of Aid’s duration with Inured from Death is less clear - keeping the increased HP maximum indefinitely from one Aid spell is consistent with RAW also. If a DM permits that resolution of the conflicting rules, the OP and other Necromancers should do whatever they can to get Aid cast on them at the highest level available. If they have to go on a multi-part quest for the head of a church to get a level 9 Aid spell cast on them, that’s totally worth it. Because that’s a 40 HP increase to their maximum HP!
Jhaffan is right. Quindraco is forgetting that the rule for combined magical effects is that the same spell doesn’t stack.
No I'm not, you're forgetting the duration of Aid.
So while Inured from Death protects against the increased HP maximum of Aid being reduced during its duration, you can only benefit from Aid one at a time. A higher level casting would increase your max HP, but not pile that on top of a previous Aid spell.
Once Aid wears off you are no longer benefiting from Aid. As one consequence of many, Dispel Magic won't change your HP total once Aid wears off.
My main point was that Inured from Death doesn’t allow infinite maximum HP increases because you can’t stack Aid. At most, you can get 40 additional max HP(!) from a 9th level Aid.
That might last indefinitely because of Inured from Death, but probably doesn’t because of Aid’s duration.
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So I created a Wizard character for a campaign who's backstory amounts to him being a doctor who began to study necromancy as he thought the medicine of the time was insufficient. Our party comp is currently pretty damage focused without a lot of support: 2 fighters (A Gunslinger and a Battlemaster), an Armorer artificer who's been focused on ranged attacks though he did pick up cure wounds, A Moon druid who's been a sort of tank, and a Whispers Bard who's been our primary instigator of chaotic situations. I'd like to lean into the doctor aspect as much as possible to work as a kind of battlefield control and support while my undead keep pressure on the enemy, though of course I wouldn't mind getting a couple of strong attacking spells as well. Our DM said we had free reign to change stuff around until we hit level 5 (We started at level 4) and we just hit that milestone so I only have until next session to make any changes. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for any spells to look out for or build opportunities I should work around. Here's what I currently have
Level 5 School of Necromancy Wizard
Total Stats:
7 Str, 12 Dex, 10 Con, 18 Int, 14 Wis, 14 Cha
Variant Human: Feat Taken Healer
Lvl 4: Feat taken: Skill Expert: Medicine
Cantrips: Chill Touch, Mage Hand, Mending, Prestidigitation
Spells: Alarm, Detect Magic, Disguise Self, Distort Value, Silent Image, Magic Missile, Feather Fall, Find Familiar, Silent Image, Sleep, Cloud of Daggers, Misty Step, Web, Animate Dead, Leomund's Tiny Hut
I really like utility spells for role play potential (My guy spent a period of time as a sort of snake oil salesman so disguise, silent image and distort value felt apt). I don't have much in terms of big damage, mostly just CoD and MM. Find Familiar has been pretty great for a lot and I think I've actually gotten the party at least a little invested into the wellbeing of my familar. I do have some overlap, our druid has detect magic, and the artificer has feather fall. This is my first long term character I've made so I'd really appreciate any suggestions.
You're a Necromancer with only chill touch and animate dead from your main school.
I'd suggest:
These spells tie better into the character concept, as what you have at the moment is a generic selection of wizard spells which have little relation to the doctor type background you're going with.
I have never known any wizard that did not take either a) Absorb Elements or b) Shield. Both of those defensive spells will save your life if you someone targets you. I can see not taking both of these spells, but you really need at least one of them.
Alarm and Tiny hut serve most of the same purpose, you only need one.
The three best 3rd level spells are Hypnotic Pattern, Counterspell and Fireball. I would take at least one of them. I suggest you trade out Sleep for the far superior Hypnotic Pattern. Note, Hypnotic Pattern's main advantage is there is they do not automatically get a save every round.
The value of Animate Dead is that you can keep your undead minions going from day to day, controlling up to 4 of them. 4 zombies is a fair amount of corpse shield. With a minute casting time it’s something you do outside of combat,
Possibly even more important is that Summon Undead is concentration and Animate Dead is not. If your possibly frail Necromancer loses concentration their summons is gone.
But both are viable for different situations and uses for a necromancer and you should strive to have both eventually.
The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you've given it. To maintain control of the creature for another 24 hours, you must cast this spell on the creature again before the current 24-hour period ends
So at 5th level, every day you have to burn your level 3 slot to create it, and you don't have a second slot to maintain control, so you have to burn it right after you take a long rest. And then at higher levels, you have to waste your spell slots on a daily basis just to maintain them. A zombie has 22 hit points so it might take a couple of hits, but with AC8 it will take them fast, and since it only deals 4 (d6+1) damage even if it hits with its measly +3 attack. It's less offensively threatening than a goblin, not to mention it only has a movement speed of 20ft. There is no reason for enemies to attack a zombie when they can just attack the party instead.
By comparison, a Zombie created by animate dead needs to land 7 attacks at just +3 to hit to do the same damage to a single creature that fireball does to multiple enemies - hit two opponents with Fireball and your Zombie needs to land 14 attacks to equal the damage. A 3rd level magic missile deals 17 (5d5+5) damage without any risk of missing, which is the equivalent of the zombie landing more than 4 attacks, and happens on one turn instead of across 4.
At higher levels you might get a little posse of zombies or skeletons together, which will likely all die to an unavoidable area of effect attack, or be killed off easily in early stages of the dungeon, leaving you without higher level spell slots when you need them.
Animate Dead is one of the worst spells in the game. True Strike is worse and not much else.
I think it shouldn't be underestimated the value, outside of combat, of having disposable lackeys that can reliably take on tasks that require a humanoid. I remember playing with a Necromancer character, and one of the things they did was have their Zombie march about 20 feet ahead of the rest of us to trigger any traps or to use as a distraction for creatures. Strap a couple of them to a cart, and you've got a slow-but reliable transport.
In my group the Necromancer favored skeletons over Zombies... it's a lot easier to gather piles of bones to carry around in a bag of holding, and skeletons can used ranged weapons, so you can keep them in the back to release a volley of arrows round-after-round... you just need to either have a DM who sticks aggressively to RAW, where all Skeletons somehow have both a shortsword and a shortbow because it's in their statblock, or at the very least you need to keep some spare bows and arrows handy to give out to your skelebros after animating them.
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It should be noted that the undead thrall feature for Necro 6 does buff undead that you create with a necromancy spell. It also grants Animate Dead for free. At level 6, it will add 6 more HP (your wizard level) and add +3 (your proficiency bonus) to their weapon damage rolls. This does help a bit with Animate Dead as it relieves the opportunity cost of taking the spell and improves the efficacy of the undead that is created. Still, the spell is better suited to a utility spell than a pure offensive spell. Options that buff the minions are also of benefit, especially if those buffs aren't going to be redirected from the party. Inspiring Leader could give additional temp HPs, though your DM would have to rule that the minions could take rests to have a refresh of those temp HPs. Adding armor could help and wouldn't be much different than adding barding to a mount. If you happen to have an oathbreaker paladin in your party, keeping the minions within 10 ft of the paladin does increase the minions saves as of the Paladin's 6th level and their weapon damage as of the Paladin's 7th level by the Paladin's charisma modifier.
The efficacy of the spell will be dependent on being able to take advantage of the minion for the entire duration of the spell, which means that it will often be DM and campaign dependent. Having the ability to increase your action economy at the cost of a bonus action (per turn) and a spell slot shouldn't be underestimated (particularly if you don't make use of that bonus action anyway). Still, the opportunity cost of buffing the minions to ensure that they will be around for that entire team can range from non-existent to extremely high and that should be considered. Animate Dead will be potentially more helpful over the course of a day than even Fireball, but that potential was considered when the spell was created and thus it can be fairly underwhelming if the right circumstances are not met.
I’d recommend looking into the spell “wither and bloom” from strixhaven. It’s not an incredibly potent spell, but it is somewhat reliable. It may also be thematically appropriate for your medicine themed necromancer. The healing aspect of it is actually a separate effect independent of the saving throw result. It’s not a super damaging spell, but if a creature does die then it activates your grim harvest feature, and is amplified by being a necro spell. It also has an element of damage control that allows for the caster to choose who takes damage or not, and friendly fire is definitely a consideration for AOEs.
That's a detail I had completely forgotten... The Necromancy School gives you Animate Dead, guaranteed, at level 6... and also there doesn't seem to be any language to the effect of, "If you already know this spell, you get something else instead"... to that end, would it make sense to not bother learning Animate Dead until you get it for free at level 6? I'm sure in a game where the DM regularly hands out spell scrolls or gives access to other wizards' spell books that it's probably not really a factor, but for a lot of players getting a free spell added to their spellbook, especially a modified version that works even better than the base version, is a pretty big boon.
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I likewise had forgotten that you get Animate Dead for free at level 6. So take something else instead.
When you do get Animate Dead, you can raise two skeletons or zombies per spell, and they’re more powerful, as Transmorpher noted. So once you get it, you should try to keep four undead minions around every day if you can. Build them up during travel and downtime. Your undead minions are really the core of your subclass, so get all the use you can out of them, both in combat and out.
You can have 4 at level 5 as soon as you get it. Casting it to recontrol can target up to 4. So you can cast it once to recruit and once to maintain for four days in a row and have 4 lackies at level 5. You can set it and forget it too since it only takes a bonus action to command them and they go until they finish the command. Plus you could either get zombies for meat shields to split aggro and you get potentially what amounts to 4 attacks in a single turn on top of keeping your action. Plus they can do things outside of combat if you need them to.
I did know about the level 6 issue. I discussed it with my DM and he said it would be fine to take animate dead now and get a free level 3 spell next level. The idea of having a consistent undead entorage is part of what attracted me to the class in the first place so I definitely want it.
Some of the other spells mentioned definitely seem cool to use. Shield seems straight better than false life, but false life is definitely more thematic. Ray of sickness is also thematic and I had tested it out a bit before realizing how prevalent poison resist is, so I'm not sure if I want to pick it up or note. Wither and Bloom sounds very cool, definitely want to try it. Tiny hut is kind of just a straight upgrade for alarm so I think I can drop alarm for sure I agree. Plus it's thematic, my guy is a hypochondriac and always wears a plague doctor's mask and only takes it off after purifying the air around him, this gives him a confined space without setting up a tent. Life transference sounds extremely fun and I will take it, but I'm pretty sure even casting it at level 3 has a chance to kill me outright rn with my low health so I'll wait a level or two for that haha. I know web isn't exactly thematic, but it would be helpful to slow enemies for a volley of skeleton arrows, so I'll have to debate on whether to drop it or not. Distort value is effectively all flavor for the conman part of the traveling doctor archetype I was going for. I think I'll trade out sleep and alarm for either false life, and wither and bloom or maybe shield instead of false life. May consider trading out sleep or disguise self as well though I think that could be thematic for anesthesia or something. Thank you all for your input I really appreciate it.
I don't know why, but seeing a thread about a necromancer build has made me vaguely want to play a Reborn Necromancer who raised himself from the dead.
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
Simple - they were just lying there, got bored, and so got up ;-)
Skill Expert: Medicine shouldn't be doing anything for you whatsoever unless your DM has some house-rules in place, which you'd know better than we would. RAW it's completely implausible you'd ever need to make a difficult Medicine check, and the odds of you needing to make even an easy Medicine check are very slim, and they drop to nearly 0 with the Healer feat, since you have an extra incentive not to run out of Healer's Kits. It's hard to imagine a pair of feats with less synergy with each other, let alone with Necromancy. Your statline is also garbage and I am reasonably amazed you're still alive with an AC of *squints* 11 and 18 hit points; moving your 14s from Wis and Cha to Dex and Con would help a lot. If you wanted to be "doctory", I would have recommended Way of Mercy Monk (for the theme) or Thief Rogue (for the Healer feat).
If you want to be a Necromancer:
If you prefer utility spells, Abjuration and Divination are two of the best Wizard subclasses anyway, so you might want to consider them instead.
In any event, you have barely any spells. You correctly grabbed very few Necromancy spells (as a Necromancer, it costs you less time and money to get such a spell from another book, so your automatic spells as you level should be non-Necromancy to maximize your use of time and money) base, but you need to prioritize picking up more in the world to keep up with especially the Druid, who will leave you behind in the dust unless you put effort in.
Note that the HP maximum not decreasing doesn't mean that you can't lose HP, however, Aid does increase your HP maximum for the duration. As Quindraco alludes to here, Inured to Undeath states that "your hit point maximum can't be reduced". This should mean that Aid would increase your HP maximum (by 5 base) but Inured to Undeath would prevent that effect from the spell dropping off. As such you would get about a level worth of increased HP everytime Aid was cast on you and you would begin to increase your HP maximum more rapidly than the party barbarian.
The only reason that this shouldn't work is if you state that the effects of the spell are more specific than the feature, but that does open up the interpretation that other spells potentially could reduce the HP maximum also.
Jhaffan is right. Quindraco is forgetting that the rule for combined magical effects is that the same spell doesn’t stack. So while Inured from Death protects against the increased HP maximum of Aid being reduced during its duration, you can only benefit from Aid one at a time. A higher level casting would increase your max HP, but not pile that on top of a previous Aid spell.
That's not quite what I was saying. After the duration of Aid dropped, Inured from Death would still prevent the maximum from reverting. Casting Aid again would allow for the HP maximum to increase again. I could see the rationale behind not allowing the increase via your statement, but I'm not sure that's how it should work. Still, having a permanent Aid spell applied to you isn't a terrible thing, particularly when Aid only allows you to target 3 people at a time. Either way is still a benefit to most parties.
I agree the interaction with the end of Aid’s duration with Inured from Death is less clear - keeping the increased HP maximum indefinitely from one Aid spell is consistent with RAW also. If a DM permits that resolution of the conflicting rules, the OP and other Necromancers should do whatever they can to get Aid cast on them at the highest level available. If they have to go on a multi-part quest for the head of a church to get a level 9 Aid spell cast on them, that’s totally worth it. Because that’s a 40 HP increase to their maximum HP!
No I'm not, you're forgetting the duration of Aid.
Once Aid wears off you are no longer benefiting from Aid. As one consequence of many, Dispel Magic won't change your HP total once Aid wears off.
My main point was that Inured from Death doesn’t allow infinite maximum HP increases because you can’t stack Aid. At most, you can get 40 additional max HP(!) from a 9th level Aid.
That might last indefinitely because of Inured from Death, but probably doesn’t because of Aid’s duration.