LvL 4, can scout with a familiar seeing through its eyes then use keen minds perfect recall and the minor illusion cantrip to create 3D maps of the dungeon or area you are in. As you continue to progress you can create a more filled in map, basically you are clearing the fog of war from an MMO map as you go. There are many amazing uses for keen mind.
LvL 7, 20 AC unbuffed(half plate + dex mod + racial + shield), 6 skeleton body guards buffed by Undead Thralls( + 6 hp and +3 to damage rolls). If you hex an enemy and it dies just "transfer the hex to a skeleton then have him melee so when he eats a hit from a bad guy you can "re-transfer" the hex to the BBEG you are fighting, skeletons are basically hex batteries!
LvL 11, Things become "problematic". Leading up to this point begin collecting the skeletons of small creatures, you will want at least 14 "piles of bones". once you are Necro6/Hexblade5 wait until the party rests for the night(8 hour long rest). Remember warforged don't need to sleep!
This cheese is Gouda
Step 1, Put bones on the ground and cast Animate dead twice using your 2 warlock lvl 3 spell slots.
Step 2, rest for 1 hour(short rest) recovering your warlock spell slots and repeat step one.
Step 3, Give your new slaves a shield, dagger, and shortbow + arrows.
Assuming you start the "long rest" with zero warlock spell slots you will still start the next day with a minimum of 14 skeletons with 14 ac(dex mod + shield) 33 hp(13 bas + 6 from Undead Thralls + 14 from inspiring leader feat) ready to set off traps, block hits, or perform 14 attacks at +4 to hit dealing either 1d4 +6 melee or 1d6 +6 from range all at the staggering cost of one bonus action(mental command per the animate dead spell).
If you equip your army with wands of magic missile you can order them to fire en masse, making your damage a product of your wealth. Things only get more ridiculous as you continue leveling as a warlock.
"Capstone Army"
At level Necro6/Hexblade11 you get 3, 5th level warlock spell slots. Lets math out some things.
5th Level spell slot Animate Dead + Undead Thrall class feature is 6 skeletons per cast. 7-8 short rest Warlock recharges per night, lets low ball 7 cycles.
6 skeletons per cast * 3 casts per cycle * 7 cycles per night = skeleton army of 126 skeletons.
Max "cheapest" damage(daggers)
(1d4 + 8) * 126 = 1134 - 1512 or an average of 1323 damage per round.
But this does assume they all hit, which is highly unlikely, it also costs you a whole bonus action and a sleepless night.
More Money
Lets be real tho, why stab or throw daggers, we have shortbows, and those do;
(1d6 + 8) * 126 = average of 1449 damage per round from a 80/320 range.
Ramblings
Realistically tho your munchkins will likely only hit on a 20, meaning you should divide the damages by 20 to get a realistic damage amount of ~ 94.5(72.5 if crit immune) damage per round as a bonus action. Unless you use your Eldritch invocation Misty Visions to at will a silent image of a fake wall that the skeletons shoot from behind. Thus providing them advantage to their ranged attacks averaging ~189(145 if crit immune) damage a round against any ac they only hit on a 20.
There are a lot of benefits to bringing an army of one hundred and twenty six. Your army has a combined carrying capacity of 18,900 lbs, and can "help" every party member with every task, ever. The only limit is your imagination. You also have proficiency with a poison kit meaning you can add poisons to your minions weapons.
also you have a specter for "flavor" from lvl 6 hexblade.
Any suggestions, or input would be appreciated with my first optimization.
Misleading title. Nothing in your think makes hexblade have anything to do with it.
your build can be done as well with Fiend or GOO or undying.
pact of the chain also seems unnecessary since you are essentially only using it for your scouring with keen mind. But you can also do that with gaze of two minds evocation.
Misleading title. Nothing in your think makes hexblade have anything to do with it.
your build can be done as well with Fiend or GOO or undying.
pact of the chain also seems unnecessary since you are essentially only using it for your scouring with keen mind. But you can also do that with gaze of two minds evocation.
🤷🏼♂️
I felt Hexblade was the best choice due to the added tankiness, as well as the ability to use skeletons as "hex batteries". You can, for instance pre Hex(spell and hexblabe feature) a minion, then suicide it into the BBEG(it has a dagger the rest have bows). This saves you a turn of combat since Hexblade curse is a bonus action to apply but not to transfer. This saves you a turn as you can only use one bonus action per turn https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1031604910226198528.
As for chain vs blade vs tome.
Tome offers you for cantrips, but you already have 4 wizard in addition to your warlock ones. it also offers Aspect of the Moon(to avoid needing to sleep), but a warforged has that baked in. Seems to not offer alot to this build unless I'm missing something.
Blade offers better melee, but that seems counter to the idea of a near endless horde tanking the hits. I am not a fan of melee in general so that may be blinding me to an upside. would prefer to just hex warrior a bow and shot with my charisma.
Chain offers an imp. which seems would be a better scout, especially in dangerous areas that may have ambushed or traps. A sacrificial imp seems preferable to the humanoid requirement of gaze of the two minds especially if you take Voice of the Chain Master(on same plane, you can scout / see through the imp / speak from the imps mouth). The imp can also do more then just scout, he can use wands, steal and turn invisible with up to 45 lbs. Another neat trick with an imp is to have it fly your curse battery skeleton somewhere you need to get, up to 30 ft away and then use "Relentless Hex" to teleport to it as a bonus action with no cooldown.
I could have better explained my choices and will edit my original post tomorrow to reflect the reasoning. The advantages to hexblade/chain may be small but I feel they edge out the other options. Thank you for the feedback and if I missed a trick or advantage to GOO, Fiend ect that the hexblade falls short on please let me know.
LvL 4, can scout with a familiar seeing through its eyes then use keen minds perfect recall and the minor illusion cantrip to create 3D maps of the dungeon or area you are in. As you continue to progress you can create a more filled in map, basically you are clearing the fog of war from an MMO map as you go. There are many amazing uses for keen mind.
LvL 7, 20 AC unbuffed(half plate + dex mod + racial + shield), 6 skeleton body guards buffed by Undead Thralls( + 6 hp and +3 to damage rolls). If you hex an enemy and it dies just "transfer the hex to a skeleton then have him melee so when he eats a hit from a bad guy you can "re-transfer" the hex to the BBEG you are fighting, skeletons are basically hex batteries!
LvL 11, Things become "problematic". Leading up to this point begin collecting the skeletons of small creatures, you will want at least 14 "piles of bones". once you are Necro6/Hexblade5 wait until the party rests for the night(8 hour long rest). Remember warforged don't need to sleep!
This cheese is Gouda
Step 1, Put bones on the ground and cast Animate dead twice using your 2 warlock lvl 3 spell slots.
Step 2, rest for 1 hour(short rest) recovering your warlock spell slots and repeat step one.
Step 3, Give your new slaves a shield, dagger, and shortbow + arrows.
Assuming you start the "long rest" with zero warlock spell slots you will still start the next day with a minimum of 14 skeletons with 14 ac(dex mod + shield) 33 hp(13 bas + 6 from Undead Thralls + 14 from inspiring leader feat) ready to set off traps, block hits, or perform 14 attacks at +4 to hit dealing either 1d4 +6 melee or 1d6 +6 from range all at the staggering cost of one bonus action(mental command per the animate dead spell).
If you equip your army with wands of magic missile you can order them to fire en masse, making your damage a product of your wealth. Things only get more ridiculous as you continue leveling as a warlock.
"Capstone Army"
At level Necro6/Hexblade11 you get 3, 5th level warlock spell slots. Lets math out some things.
5th Level spell slot Animate Dead + Undead Thrall class feature is 6 skeletons per cast. 7-8 short rest Warlock recharges per night, lets low ball 7 cycles.
6 skeletons per cast * 3 casts per cycle * 7 cycles per night = skeleton army of 126 skeletons.
Max "cheapest" damage(daggers)
(1d4 + 8) * 126 = 1134 - 1512 or an average of 1323 damage per round.
But this does assume they all hit, which is highly unlikely, it also costs you a whole bonus action and a sleepless night.
More Money
Lets be real tho, why stab or throw daggers, we have shortbows, and those do;
(1d6 + 8) * 126 = average of 1449 damage per round from a 80/320 range.
Ramblings
Realistically tho your munchkins will likely only hit on a 20, meaning you should divide the damages by 20 to get a realistic damage amount of ~ 72.5 damage per round as a bonus action. Unless you use your Eldritch invocation Misty Visions to at will a silent image of a fake wall that the skeletons shoot from behind. Thus providing them advantage to their ranged attacks averaging ~145 damage a round against any ac they only hit on a 20.
There are a lot of benefits to bringing an army of one hundred and twenty six. Your army has a combined carrying capacity of 18,900 lbs, and can "help" every party member with every task, ever. The only limit is your imagination. You also have proficiency with a poison kit meaning you can add poisons to your minions weapons.
also you have a specter for "flavor" from lvl 6 hexblade.
Any suggestions, or input would be appreciated with my first optimization.
My first read through the necromancer aspects leaves me with the impression that it can work, but you'll need your DM to sign off on some things and/or ways to speed up that many rolls.
Inspiring Leader can only hit 6 creatures at a time and the inspiring takes 10 minutes. Assuming that you are doing that during your short rests to prevent issues with the spellcasting, you can max out at 36 per short rest. If you're assuming 7 short rests that's 252 creatures. This means you'll get your 126 eventually in addition to yourself and your allies. However, the skeletons can only understand the languages that they knew in life. As a warforged, you'll know Common and one other language. You'll get up to 2 more from your background. If the DM gets sick of the cheese, they could rule that the skeletons don't understand you to limit the effect of inspiring leader. Doing things to speed up the game will help. No one will want to watch you play for an hour before any other turns come up. Consider making rolls for every 6 skeletons and either limiting at twelve total or twelve attacking. That will help you speed up your turn as will rolling the attack and damage rolls at the same time. Additionally, you could set up some as "meat" shields that would primarily be intended to provide help for the others (especially the rogue in the party), impede the progress of enemies, while wearing the best heavy armor the party can provide. If the DM rules that they are not proficient, they move at 20 ft instead of 30 ft and have disadvantage on saving throws, ability checks, and attack rolls involving strength and dexterity. If they aren't doing anything other helping and dodging, the dexterity saving throws are the main drawback while providing additional AC for attacks against them.
Jhfffan thanks for the input. probably the best way to speed things up is to count archers as squads, they are(or can be) small size, then roll them as 6 groups of 20, this limits the rolls to about what a lvl 6 necromancer will require. Also I like your idea of getting a few "elite" skeletons decked out in moderate gear to act as door jams / tanks!
Thank you again for the great input. I may end up rewriting this in it entirety once I polish it a bit more.
As a DM I’d be happy for you to try this but…..logisitically...
127 shields costs 1270 G AND weighs 762lbs
127 daggers costs 454 AND weighs 127lbs
126 shortbows costs 3150 G AND weighs 525lbs
Arrows: 20x arrows costs 1g and weighs 1lb, so assuming 20 arrows per skeleton thats another 126Gp and 126lbs of weights
as many Wand of Magic Missiles(if available) as you can ...unknown cost but would assum same weight as an arcane focus so....1lb per wand....
thats a total of 1539lbs without including the wands or weight of skeletons...thats about 3/4 of a ton in weight..
So you need to add on the cost of a wagon and 3x draft horse to pull it all that’s another 185gp and you don’t have proficiency so you’d need to also hire a follower/wagon driver which is a negotiation you’d have to do with the DM and but then you also need to factor in cost of food for the driver and the horses and their associated weight and it is getting so costly and the weight is going up and making my ears bleed…...
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As a DM I’d be happy for you to try this but…..logisitically...
127 shields costs 1270 G AND weighs 762lbs
127 daggers costs 454 AND weighs 127lbs
126 shortbows costs 3150 G AND weighs 525lbs
Arrows: 20x arrows costs 1g and weighs 1lb, so assuming 20 arrows per skeleton thats another 126Gp and 126lbs of weights
as many Wand of Magic Missiles(if available) as you can ...unknown cost but would assum same weight as an arcane focus so....1lb per wand....
thats a total of 1539lbs without including the wands or weight of skeletons...thats about 3/4 of a ton in weight..
So you need to add on the cost of a wagon and 3x draft horse to pull it all that’s another 185gp and you don’t have proficiency so you’d need to also hire a follower/wagon driver which is a negotiation you’d have to do with the DM and but then you also need to factor in cost of food for the driver and the horses and their associated weight and it is getting so costly and the weight is going up and making my ears bleed…...
Assuming that they are getting the items around the same time that they are animating the dead, they can tote their own gear. If not, valid point and one that the DM could use to limit your undead army.
The OP didn't say what background they had, so they could opt for a background that provides the proper vehicle proficiency and nothing was said about the party. Also, Animal Handling is a thing and directing a horse would be a valid thing for that. The vehicle handling would come into play when crossing difficult terrain (like mud on the road), on steep slopes, during chases, uneven roads, or similar events that would require advanced knowledge to handle properly.
Again, this shows that the DM has several toggles that they can play with if they don't like the theme. It would be best to talk to the DM first, find out what their feelings on the subject are, think of as many ways that you would be bothered by the strategy and what you would suggest to mitigate the problems so that you can present those ideas to the DM, and work through the concerns that you miss. Talk about your strategy for using them (some in battle, some as meat shields, some as porters or whatever) so that the DM gets a sense of exactly what adjustments they'll have to make for the campaign. Most DMs will work with you to help you fit in the theme as long as you aren't just trying to game the system and the drawbacks of a necromancer aren't going to be difficult to overcome, such as being in an urban campaign.
Funnily enough, hexblade mechanics lends itself better to necromancer builds than other patrons. Fiend gives the life leach mechanics, but hexblade has accursed specter. You could take pact of the blade and use a scythe as your pact weapon and be a grim reaper that curses their enemies to serve them after their death. Too bad that warlock doesn't have access to animate dead without multiclassing or UA.
Funnily enough, hexblade mechanics lends itself better to necromancer builds than other patrons. Fiend gives the life leach mechanics, but hexblade has accursed specter. You could take pact of the blade and use a scythe as your pact weapon and be a grim reaper that curses their enemies to serve them after their death. Too bad that warlock doesn't have access to animate dead without multiclassing or UA.
Having to go Wizard 5 (might as well go 6 if Necromancy) or Lore Bard 6 is a hit of a bummer if you think of yourself more as a Warlock. At least those options give reasonable RP reasons for making the MC (the Lore Bard being so stressed about learning and preserving knowledge, but could go Edgar Allen Poe for the "performance" angle if needed).
Dropping into Cleric or Spores Druid could be flavorful, and Oathbreaker Paladin is a fascinating thought... but each has it's own problems too.
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I have been thinking of optimizing a necromancer and think I got one that hits a pretty nice peak at lvl 11 and am seeking input.
the LvL 20 build is;
Classes: Wizard(necromancer) 6/ Warlock(hexblade) 14
Race: Warforged
Skills: Arcana, Medicine, Perception(racial), Poisoner's kit(racial)
Feats: Keen Mind(lvl 4 Wizard), Inspiring Leader(lvl 6 wizard/4 Warlock), Free spot(lvl 6 wizard/8 Warlock), Free spot(lvl 6 wizard/12 Warlock).
Ability Scores: Str 8, Dex 14, Con 12(+2 racial), Int 13(+1 Keen Mind), Wis 10, Cha 15(+1 racial).
Items: 127 shields(1270 G), 127 daggers(454 G), 126 shortbows(3150 G), Arrows.. many arrows, as many Wand of Magic Missiles(if available) as you can.
Important Progression:
1Wizard, Cantrips (Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Message), Spells(1st, Find Familiar, Magic Missile, Comprehend Language, Identify, Free Spot x2)
6Wizard(Necromancer), Undead Thralls, Spells(3rd Animate Dead, rest Free Spots)
6Necromancer/1Hexblade, Hex Warrior, Spells(1st Hex, all others are Free Spots)
6Necromancer/2Hexblade, Eldritch invocation(Misty Visions, Repelling Blast)
6Necromancer/3Hexblade, Pact Boon Chains
6Necromancer/5Hexblade, Pact Magic 2 slots at spell slot 3
6Necromancer/7Hexblade, Eldritch invocation(Misty Visions, Repelling Blast, Relentless Hex)
Tricks and "fun" abilities
LvL 4, can scout with a familiar seeing through its eyes then use keen minds perfect recall and the minor illusion cantrip to create 3D maps of the dungeon or area you are in. As you continue to progress you can create a more filled in map, basically you are clearing the fog of war from an MMO map as you go. There are many amazing uses for keen mind.
LvL 7, 20 AC unbuffed(half plate + dex mod + racial + shield), 6 skeleton body guards buffed by Undead Thralls( + 6 hp and +3 to damage rolls). If you hex an enemy and it dies just "transfer the hex to a skeleton then have him melee so when he eats a hit from a bad guy you can "re-transfer" the hex to the BBEG you are fighting, skeletons are basically hex batteries!
LvL 11, Things become "problematic". Leading up to this point begin collecting the skeletons of small creatures, you will want at least 14 "piles of bones". once you are Necro6/Hexblade5 wait until the party rests for the night(8 hour long rest). Remember warforged don't need to sleep!
This cheese is Gouda
Step 1, Put bones on the ground and cast Animate dead twice using your 2 warlock lvl 3 spell slots.
Step 2, rest for 1 hour(short rest) recovering your warlock spell slots and repeat step one.
Step 3, Give your new slaves a shield, dagger, and shortbow + arrows.
Assuming you start the "long rest" with zero warlock spell slots you will still start the next day with a minimum of 14 skeletons with 14 ac(dex mod + shield) 33 hp(13 bas + 6 from Undead Thralls + 14 from inspiring leader feat) ready to set off traps, block hits, or perform 14 attacks at +4 to hit dealing either 1d4 +6 melee or 1d6 +6 from range all at the staggering cost of one bonus action(mental command per the animate dead spell).
If you equip your army with wands of magic missile you can order them to fire en masse, making your damage a product of your wealth. Things only get more ridiculous as you continue leveling as a warlock.
"Capstone Army"
At level Necro6/Hexblade11 you get 3, 5th level warlock spell slots. Lets math out some things.
5th Level spell slot Animate Dead + Undead Thrall class feature is 6 skeletons per cast. 7-8 short rest Warlock recharges per night, lets low ball 7 cycles.
6 skeletons per cast * 3 casts per cycle * 7 cycles per night = skeleton army of 126 skeletons.
Max "cheapest" damage(daggers)
(1d4 + 8) * 126 = 1134 - 1512 or an average of 1323 damage per round.
But this does assume they all hit, which is highly unlikely, it also costs you a whole bonus action and a sleepless night.
More Money
Lets be real tho, why stab or throw daggers, we have shortbows, and those do;
(1d6 + 8) * 126 = average of 1449 damage per round from a 80/320 range.
Ramblings
Realistically tho your munchkins will likely only hit on a 20, meaning you should divide the damages by 20 to get a realistic damage amount of ~ 94.5(72.5 if crit immune) damage per round as a bonus action. Unless you use your Eldritch invocation Misty Visions to at will a silent image of a fake wall that the skeletons shoot from behind. Thus providing them advantage to their ranged attacks averaging ~189(145 if crit immune) damage a round against any ac they only hit on a 20.
There are a lot of benefits to bringing an army of one hundred and twenty six. Your army has a combined carrying capacity of 18,900 lbs, and can "help" every party member with every task, ever. The only limit is your imagination. You also have proficiency with a poison kit meaning you can add poisons to your minions weapons.
also you have a specter for "flavor" from lvl 6 hexblade.
Any suggestions, or input would be appreciated with my first optimization.
Misleading title. Nothing in your think makes hexblade have anything to do with it.
your build can be done as well with Fiend or GOO or undying.
pact of the chain also seems unnecessary since you are essentially only using it for your scouring with keen mind. But you can also do that with gaze of two minds evocation.
🤷🏼♂️
Blank
I felt Hexblade was the best choice due to the added tankiness, as well as the ability to use skeletons as "hex batteries". You can, for instance pre Hex(spell and hexblabe feature) a minion, then suicide it into the BBEG(it has a dagger the rest have bows). This saves you a turn of combat since Hexblade curse is a bonus action to apply but not to transfer. This saves you a turn as you can only use one bonus action per turn https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1031604910226198528.
As for chain vs blade vs tome.
Tome offers you for cantrips, but you already have 4 wizard in addition to your warlock ones. it also offers Aspect of the Moon(to avoid needing to sleep), but a warforged has that baked in. Seems to not offer alot to this build unless I'm missing something.
Blade offers better melee, but that seems counter to the idea of a near endless horde tanking the hits. I am not a fan of melee in general so that may be blinding me to an upside. would prefer to just hex warrior a bow and shot with my charisma.
Chain offers an imp. which seems would be a better scout, especially in dangerous areas that may have ambushed or traps. A sacrificial imp seems preferable to the humanoid requirement of gaze of the two minds especially if you take Voice of the Chain Master(on same plane, you can scout / see through the imp / speak from the imps mouth). The imp can also do more then just scout, he can use wands, steal and turn invisible with up to 45 lbs. Another neat trick with an imp is to have it fly your curse battery skeleton somewhere you need to get, up to 30 ft away and then use "Relentless Hex" to teleport to it as a bonus action with no cooldown.
I could have better explained my choices and will edit my original post tomorrow to reflect the reasoning. The advantages to hexblade/chain may be small but I feel they edge out the other options. Thank you for the feedback and if I missed a trick or advantage to GOO, Fiend ect that the hexblade falls short on please let me know.
My first read through the necromancer aspects leaves me with the impression that it can work, but you'll need your DM to sign off on some things and/or ways to speed up that many rolls.
Inspiring Leader can only hit 6 creatures at a time and the inspiring takes 10 minutes. Assuming that you are doing that during your short rests to prevent issues with the spellcasting, you can max out at 36 per short rest. If you're assuming 7 short rests that's 252 creatures. This means you'll get your 126 eventually in addition to yourself and your allies. However, the skeletons can only understand the languages that they knew in life. As a warforged, you'll know Common and one other language. You'll get up to 2 more from your background. If the DM gets sick of the cheese, they could rule that the skeletons don't understand you to limit the effect of inspiring leader. Doing things to speed up the game will help. No one will want to watch you play for an hour before any other turns come up. Consider making rolls for every 6 skeletons and either limiting at twelve total or twelve attacking. That will help you speed up your turn as will rolling the attack and damage rolls at the same time. Additionally, you could set up some as "meat" shields that would primarily be intended to provide help for the others (especially the rogue in the party), impede the progress of enemies, while wearing the best heavy armor the party can provide. If the DM rules that they are not proficient, they move at 20 ft instead of 30 ft and have disadvantage on saving throws, ability checks, and attack rolls involving strength and dexterity. If they aren't doing anything other helping and dodging, the dexterity saving throws are the main drawback while providing additional AC for attacks against them.
Jhfffan thanks for the input. probably the best way to speed things up is to count archers as squads, they are(or can be) small size, then roll them as 6 groups of 20, this limits the rolls to about what a lvl 6 necromancer will require. Also I like your idea of getting a few "elite" skeletons decked out in moderate gear to act as door jams / tanks!
Thank you again for the great input. I may end up rewriting this in it entirety once I polish it a bit more.
As a DM I’d be happy for you to try this but…..logisitically...
127 shields costs 1270 G AND weighs 762lbs
127 daggers costs 454 AND weighs 127lbs
126 shortbows costs 3150 G AND weighs 525lbs
Arrows: 20x arrows costs 1g and weighs 1lb, so assuming 20 arrows per skeleton thats another 126Gp and 126lbs of weights
as many Wand of Magic Missiles(if available) as you can ...unknown cost but would assum same weight as an arcane focus so....1lb per wand....
thats a total of 1539lbs without including the wands or weight of skeletons...thats about 3/4 of a ton in weight..
So you need to add on the cost of a wagon and 3x draft horse to pull it all that’s another 185gp and you don’t have proficiency so you’d need to also hire a follower/wagon driver which is a negotiation you’d have to do with the DM and but then you also need to factor in cost of food for the driver and the horses and their associated weight and it is getting so costly and the weight is going up and making my ears bleed…...
Assuming that they are getting the items around the same time that they are animating the dead, they can tote their own gear. If not, valid point and one that the DM could use to limit your undead army.
The OP didn't say what background they had, so they could opt for a background that provides the proper vehicle proficiency and nothing was said about the party. Also, Animal Handling is a thing and directing a horse would be a valid thing for that. The vehicle handling would come into play when crossing difficult terrain (like mud on the road), on steep slopes, during chases, uneven roads, or similar events that would require advanced knowledge to handle properly.
Again, this shows that the DM has several toggles that they can play with if they don't like the theme. It would be best to talk to the DM first, find out what their feelings on the subject are, think of as many ways that you would be bothered by the strategy and what you would suggest to mitigate the problems so that you can present those ideas to the DM, and work through the concerns that you miss. Talk about your strategy for using them (some in battle, some as meat shields, some as porters or whatever) so that the DM gets a sense of exactly what adjustments they'll have to make for the campaign. Most DMs will work with you to help you fit in the theme as long as you aren't just trying to game the system and the drawbacks of a necromancer aren't going to be difficult to overcome, such as being in an urban campaign.
What do you do after 8 hours and your control on all those skeletons suddenly expires?
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Animate Dead lasts 24 hours. You simply cast the spell again the next night.
For some reason I thought it had a shorter control duration than that.
Embarrassing; I actually played a necromancer in a game last year. Granted, we never got above 3rd level, but still.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Funnily enough, hexblade mechanics lends itself better to necromancer builds than other patrons. Fiend gives the life leach mechanics, but hexblade has accursed specter. You could take pact of the blade and use a scythe as your pact weapon and be a grim reaper that curses their enemies to serve them after their death. Too bad that warlock doesn't have access to animate dead without multiclassing or UA.
Having to go Wizard 5 (might as well go 6 if Necromancy) or Lore Bard 6 is a hit of a bummer if you think of yourself more as a Warlock. At least those options give reasonable RP reasons for making the MC (the Lore Bard being so stressed about learning and preserving knowledge, but could go Edgar Allen Poe for the "performance" angle if needed).
Dropping into Cleric or Spores Druid could be flavorful, and Oathbreaker Paladin is a fascinating thought... but each has it's own problems too.