Ha ha! You know what, how awesome would it be to have a high level Cleric that could actually do this? What a fantastic story moment... then he becomes a little sidekick ala the sidekick stuff in Tasha's? Love it.
When you think about it, it’s weird not to apply the sidekick rules to the intelligent undead that you make with Create Undead. They are intelligent creatures with independent thought, maybe just leave the levelling to the DM and reset the level of any minion that dies. You could get interesting stories, like one of your wights is becoming more intelligent and ambitious, so it’s constantly trying to twist your orders to get free from your control.
@@cyborgcatrj6794 In Guild Wars 2 there is a great lich that raised one of the heroes from GW1 and the guy follows orders but is constantly questioning them and re-interpreting them to get away with sneeky shit. The lich finally gets sick of him and sends him to guard an empty cave for all eternity so he doesn't have to deal with him ever again.
Paladin to Skeletons: Brave knights. You are the best and brightest in all the land. Today one of you shall prove himself. That champion shall have the honor - - no, no - - the privilege to go forth and rescue the lovely Princess Fiona from the fiery keep of the dragon. If for any reason the winner is unsuccessful, the first runner-up will take his place and so on and so forth. Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make. Let the tournament begin! 6 INT Skellies: Seems legit
We did this once back in 3.5e a Blackguard, a Necromancer, Undeath Cleric, We had so many undead we started using rules for mass combat and had our undead hordes attacking a kingdom in a War. Using battlefield tactics and such. Basically we were the BBEG trying to conquer a nation. it was amazing.
That's essentially the game I've been looking for my whole life. Wish I could do that instead of repeatedly becoming level 5 and watching games crash from the ultimate BBEG, scheduling
Me and my friends ran an evil campaign some years ago using 2nd edition rules. Our party consisted of a necromancer, an anti paladin, a fighter/thief, and a cleric of death. It was interesting and played out pretty much the way the OP described. Early on we were minions of a lich that was giving us orders. We eventually got high enough level to kill the lich and become bbeg's in our own right.
@@ChunkyTheClown imagine them passively starting to gather undead creatures, ultimately creating a new religion. If i was a dm, I'd allow it just to see what comes of it. :D
You had me fooled for a moment, there! But Anthony Starr is a NZer, and sounds like it. Colby sounds perhaps German or from one of the Netherlands countries?
I'm afraid you underestimated the power of this combo fairly severely. If you look more closely at the text regarding the recasting of Animate Dead to retain control, you'll see that each casting can retain control over three more undead than a casting can raise. (It's unclear how that interacts with the Undead Thralls ability.) So over the course of multiple days, you will be able to accumulate a significantly larger army of skeletons than you assumed.
Ha ha ha - nice catch! I forgot about that little bit at the end. Of all the things I was afraid I'd be accused of with this episode, underestimating it was not one of them :P
You assume you need to retain control? Pack in zombies into an iron wagon with a wooden door. Cast arcane lock on it and glyph of warding with dispell magic. Make the trigger whatever is convenient to you. You can make more and more of those wagons creating portable undead hordes. The elites of your horde would be the ones you control
@@tomraineofmagigor3499 Glyph of Warding spell fails if the glyph is moved more than 10' from the location of its casting. So those wagons aint going far.
@@adamkaris I forgot about that part Well you can set them up and people won't be able to be get in and I feel sorry for the poor soul that clears out the "abandoned" property
By my calculations, this brings the 6th level damage report up to 101 and 69, making it second only to the Yin/Yang team for that level and those ACs. That turns the "not bad" into "quite good." I didn't bother calculating adjustments to the later damage reports, because those are already ridiculous.
I think something people forget is that killing minions means the enemies aren't killing a PC. A few waves of zombies or skeletons that get wiped out in a handful of fireballs may be absorbing more than your low dex tank could have managed. And you can collect up what's left after the battle
"Two wights would pale in comparision of 12 skeletons" How about 2 wights and 24 zombies ? Because that's what the actual best case scenario is, since each wight can control up to 12 zombies at a time.
If you’re getting a free feat and are allowed to use UA I feel like it’s illegal to not play a Reborn Oathbreaker who was resurrected by the Necromancer.
At that point, find a campaign set a few hundred years before the current setting time, and Just have your characters BE Vecna and Kas. Granted Vecna's not a Tortle..as far as we know..its Vecna tho so it's entirely possible he either hid that fact about himself or bodyswapped with someone for awhile
In a home game, I'm playing a reborn oathbreaker/necromancer gestalt build. It's hilariously OP because all my low level spell slots go to necrotic smites and the higher spells go for minion creation. Aura of hate and the level 6 necromancer features pair BEAUTIFULLY to make elite undead.
As a DM I did the logistics to make a player mechanic necromancer, and I actually like the logistics of it, pretty fun how much you can get into the towns, catacombs, trade, you really become invested in order to make it work. Eventually the characters actually figured their deal and didn’t kill them, rather asked for help and ya, the necromancer became a mercenary of sorts to help the party and seized a castle to help them get the hobgoblin chief and reclaimed their family estate and castle. An potential bad guy who was wronged actually got to be ‘redeemed’ by helping the party and got their home back.
If you follow a statement by one of the creators you’re undead don’t have to be typical humanoids so you could theoretically offer modifications to the one who kills the most. The one with the most kills gets their bugbear leaders arms and claws.
@@DnDDeepDive A skeleton could want to be taller, so they’ll pick the tallest’s femurs and swap them for their own. Or graft their head to the body, so they can be muscular.
So... NOW you like necros eh? AFTER our strahd campaign?! We could have been gods amongst mortals if you’d just gone oath breaker... GODS! *shakes a dozen skeletal hands at you*
I mean... you did notice that the oathbreaker’s Aura of Hate ability effects *all* undead and fiends indiscriminately right. Imagine a Curse of Strahd campaign where your paladin buffs most of your enemies.
This is actually an incredibly useful video for a DM. This paring is an incredible villain for an undead domination plot hook. ‘As you gaze upon this small farming town, the blood of the guardsmen paints the cobbled streets in crimson. Their insides torn out and apparently eaten. The few peasants that have survived the attack approach and plead for your help’ “Please! Please you must help us!” ‘As they point to the cemetery you see a field of open graves, recently uncovered and every corpse missing’ “It were two men. One of them stood afar draped in black robes holding a staff. The other, clad in armour of ebony, and his sword drenched in the blood of our kin. They were commanding our dead like an army there was nothing any of us could do” ‘You ask the good people where these individuals went and they point you to the next town where a similar scene greets you. The trail continues. Town to town, village to village. Each report speaks of a larger army than the last. Then you realise... they’re marching on the capital.’ I’m sure as hell using this for my next plot hook. By all means, steal the idea, I wanna know if other players end up liking it.
As always excellent content. My son is playing a Necromancer in a level 10 campaign and he opted to take one level of Death Cleric at 1st level and the rest in necromancer. The ability to cast infinite twinned Toll the Dead while his undead minions attack give him a great deal of sustained damage without using additional resources.(Not to mention medium armor, shields and martial weapons)
You know the rp would be amazing. Himbo Paladin who just adores and does everything the really smart but somehow equally stupid Wizard says. The classic bad at being bad villain team.
If using Tausha’s, the Artificer Initiate feat gives you a spell from their list and you can take Faerie Fire which you can cast with your own spells slots (that also uses intelligence as the save) from what I see. As a bonus you can also take guidance and get a tool proficiency like alchemist tools which seems thematic.
I see this duo as a perfect NPC villain duo. They scale well and would present a continuous challenging foil to player characters. Maybe have the Paladin be a friendly NPC until level 3 when he does his heel turn. And the various undead could populate dungeons, while the strike team skellies hang out with the bosses. Also, Tortle Wizard? Welcome to the Dark Side! No more elves for you, my boy, only powerhouses like Tortle and Mountain Dwarf!
Last campaign DM made a full party counter to our own as the main competition/foe for us to deal with. Only it was a good party as we were being dicks in general.. So had a knight/paladin/double wizard and cleric to deal with.. All the time saving those bloody peasants our master got us to kill off. Highly irritating.
The Oathbreaker is one of my favorite subclasses for dealing lots of damage and for roleplay. Currently, in one campaign I'm in I have an oathbreaker who was originally a Conquest paladin for an empire ruled by clerics that serves Bane. He was allowed not to be evil since he broke his oath by leaving an evil god. I won't go into his whole backstory but he's in a pretty hopeless place currently which fits the oathbreaker description in a way I think. I really enjoy him wanting and trying to be good but also dealing with a power set that is very clearly evil and undead related. If you can get your DM to lift the evil restriction (or not who know what ur playing) I think oathbreakers have the potential for a great character arc. Also, Hexblade oathbreakers are amazing you really can't go wrong with level distribution either.
Oathbreakers who once served evil in ignorance and broke their oath in righteous anger are my favourite troupe. They don't have to be evil to the party, they could be evil from the eyes of the evil cult they once followed.
The way I did the Oathbreaker thing with my DM was that my character was a more powerful paladin in their backstory, but breaking their oath caused them to lose their powers. So, by the time the campaign starts, they start to discover this power that's somewhat familiar, but feels... different. That explains the paladin starting at level 1 and immediately jumping into Oathbreaker at 3rd level.
Honestly, if you play table top wargames (efficiently) you can play that skelly horde. Just actually care enough to play that way. If you are lazy with a minion army... don’t. Either bring your a game or do not play a minion army..
Can't really recommend it tbh. Last time I saw someone try to pull this stunt, some jerk tried to throw an old coot on the wagon -- an old coot who kept loudly insisting that he wasn't quite dead yet... At least it got people talking about how much better a democratic system of governance is compared to one based on watery tarts throwing swords at you...
I like running a house rule that lets you combine four skeletons or zombies into a single Ogre Zombie or Minotaur Skeleton (without the special Charge/Gore actions) that has a Multiattack feature. The damage is about the same (fewer attacks overall, so fewer applications of Aura of Hate and Undead Thrall extra damage), and it is fewer creatures on the map at once.
I’d love to see a tank-style damage report for the undead army here, seeing as one of their greatest strengths is that they takes hits that would otherwise be directed towards PCs. No of course the undead have no way to draw enemy fire as a “proper” tank would but I think it would be a cool exercise nonetheless
I mean, fair on the Feeblemind, but saving on a saving throw with a -5 to the roll for Command Undead? At the level required to cast Feeblemind? Not even a 20 on the die would be enough for most character save DCs, at that level.
@@NatsuDragn33I Their INT become 1, so the undead would be under your control in 30 days, just cast Feeblemind on it at the start of 27th-28th, your DC would be 17 or 18 by lv 14, so it would be very easy after the undead failed the Feeblemind save :p
I love the idea of working with a dm to scale up the undead better so you can still be a necromancer and have it not be too crazy. I had a plan to create a necromancer who only had 2 skeletons who were raised from his twin boys remains as a weird macabre homage to his family/trying to keep them "alive" and working with a dm to work them up as a good scaling but not broken.
Context: I"m running a campaign set in an empire that uses necromancy as a big part of its military force (being raised as an undead is the final service for an enlisted soldier, so it's seen as honorable, not evil). My house rule for using undead in combat, is that the caster can raise as many undead as they can get their grubby little hands on, but can only -command- up to 2 times their spellcasting modifier in any given round of combat. Send out your 8 or however many, and if they get killed, command some reinforcements to take their place without skipping a beat. Having a limited mental bandwidth to spread your commands feels logical to me, especially in the very short time you have to do it. Keep the extras out of harm's way (or attempt, anyway) and enjoy the added benefit of keeping the map unclogged. As for re-raising your undead after they've been killed again, that's fine, but you might have to piecemeal remains together so you have a complete body before you can raise it -- Percy lost a leg? Better find a replacement if you really want to re-raise him, Parts don't have to match -- sure, go ahead and hack a charred leg off one of those bugbears you fireballed. Percy is gonna have a serious swagger with his legs two different lengths. Why not just raise a bugbear? Well, you can replace Percy's -parts-, but you can never replace Percy, you monster.
So, I know this is a year+ old, and maybe someone's come in and said it already, but on the off chance: Regarding ghouls and elves, the short version is that the first ghoul was an elf who later regretted their life choices and prayed to their god to reverse it. They did and promised no other elf would suffer, so elves became immune to ghoul touch.
Use a horde of zombies to create a ring around your frontliners and the bad guys. All undead keep their actions readied for if an enemy comes into attack range they attempt a grapple
The one party comp I'm dying to play is necromancer, oath breaker, undead warlock, death cleric, perhaps a spirit bard and spore druid maybe. Shame no one ever does evil campaigns let alone have a full party of people all wanting to go for the undead army theme 😢
Back at the beginning of 5e I played a necromancer rules as written using armor/ weapons you aren’t proficient with grants disadvantage and plate mail halves speed if strength isn’t high enough. So I equipped 8 zombies with armor/shields and 8 with glaivs. I would use the unarmored ones to shove the armored zombies forward and when they reach the enemy they would help/ grapple any enemy’s. I also broke them down into teams to pass them to the other players at the table for them to roll the attacks/ damage. Kinda fun to have a little battalion of meatshields helping to give the others 1d10 at straight rolls. With about 6 skeletons that I granted to the ranger players. And when we would go into villages they were passed off as being a retribution squad paying for the evil they committed in life. It was a fun campaign.
Sounds like a good duo for villains in a campaign with a large final battle where the players build an army of followers versus the undead army. Then the players feel cool with large AoE's spells and the frontline just hack through waves of undead.
One way this could work is if your defending a village from a band of barbarians and your using all the skeletons in the cemetery of all the people who used to live there to protect to town :-)
One thing that I don't think you factored was Arcane Recovery. You can wake up early as an Elf, cast a whole bunch of Animate dead, take a short rest, then regain up to 10 levels of spell slots, converting that into about a dozen more skeletons
If you want to try to mitigate how insane this is, you could have plot-related reasons why you can't bring too many undead where you're going. Then you'd still be open to use your powers to their full effect in a one-off situation.
Hey new viewer and just wanted to say 1 great video! and 2 i'm watching this after having spent roughly 3-4 days looking at summons in 5e and how to make them work. I think the perfect middle ground for the necromancer wizard is having 1.5 times your level rounded up as a max on any given adventuring day. also for running them in combat the easiest rule to keep the turns fast is having them always go on your initiative and use the mob attack rules in the dmg, it gives a consistent basis for how much damage they can expect to do and how to balance against them. to lower the effectiveness on the players undead you only have to increase an enemies a.c. to 17, because then it goes from 1 out of every 2 hitting to one out of every 3, meanwhile the rest of the party probably wont notice the difference between that 16 a.c. enemy vs that 17 a.c. enemy. it makes stuff go quickly while also still rewarding the player for being a cool necromancer! of course if you need to use it as a plot point, let the character go ham and raise an army to assault the castle so the party can sneak in and get the mccguffin!
remember with command undead you can have one extra undead controlled, you can create a mummy and just use this for a general or whatever, not too strong but kind of funny if you don't find a nightwalker
With Half-Drow race there's a catch-up. That Faerie Fire save DC is based on the characters Charisma. Actually, a charismatic necromancer sounds interesting, so even going with default +2CHA bonus is viable.
The Paladin could inspire 36 undead per hour. Lawful Evil and a detailed party contract. Dress your undead in clown suits. Determine the average damage per hit vs AC and apply that. Raid old battlefields or mass graves. Arm your undead with Moon-Touched swords. They are common MAGIC items, thus cheap/easy to make. The interpretations I have found online all seem to say that is is impossible. A strict reading of the Animate Dead spell seems to indicate that the reason given for not allowing reanimation stems from it no longer being the "corpse of a medium or small humanoid", it is now the corpse of an undead creature. Creating skeletons should be okay, since they only require "a pile of bones". This would also relieve you of the grave robbing problem as apparently, any pile of bones would work. I wonder how many bones constitute a "pile? One problem with counterspell, it only has a range of 60, while fireball has a range of 150. Who makes the Giant Skeletons? Is there some way we could do it? I love this, as a DM. How are the party members going to deal with the two Chaotic Evil dudes who attack villages at random times, wiping them out and leaving destroyed undead behind.
I had a Mind-Flayer necromancer in Out of the Abyss who obtained the wand of Orcus and used a Simulacrum by the end. He had hundreds of of minions at this point so we just ended up using the Mob Combat rules to speed up combat.
Funny how I found this as I'm currently playing a Drow Necromancer in the "Icewind Dale, Rime of the Frost Maiden" Campaign - Currently lvl 6. Dauwn was an Acolyte who has become disillusioned from a faith that never seemed to truly accept him. So he found himself here posing as a man of the cloth to give prayers over the dead. But secretly has been studying death and how to manipulate it. He's not well in the head but is intelligent which makes him dangerous. Before he was kidnapped by Illithids he would exhume graves to study the bodies buried within. His time with the Illithids concerns him only as they are likely to take him away from his research. He actually anticipates they may have survivors that could come looking for him. But surmises that staying close to large crowds of people would not only keep him safe. But encourage his pursuers to find easier prey. Perhaps even leaving more dead in their wake to study. All the while his familiar Veil, a Celestial spirit he's bonded to tries to discourage his necromantic studies. Veil is a hold over from when he was still trying to gain favor of his faith in Kelemvor. The two of them can often be seen in long conversations together but only Dauwn's voice can be heard. Motivation - Stop this long winter which makes exhuming bodies easier. Also, unable to properly bury the dead. Fascinated by death he wants to take the opportunity to study as much as he can in the meantime. Justifies his actions as using bodies as vessels of retribution.
I know this is an old video, but my solution for carrying/moving undead around towns is gaining access to a bag of holding. They don't need to breath, and they're in a pocket dimension so no smell or sound, plus you can easily grab them out of it. Most DMs I've played with have let me either pull out a few as a full round round action, or 1 as part of a bonus action given how bag of holding works if we're in combat and they aren't out.
You can use Finger of Death on your undead army to keep them under your command permanently if they are humanoid undead and you command them to fail the save beforehand. But it would mean killing a few everyday with finger of death, keeping control over the rest, sleep and repeat til your army no longer needs a spellslot to maintain. Also note: It says to RECAST to maintain control, not use the same spellslot, so you can use a lower slot to control those not re-resurrected by Finger of Death.
As a “Forever DM…” maybe if the Necromancer summoned Wights that each had zombies, and maybe they had a Nightwalker… sounds like a tomb of horrors to me…
I think you may have missed an opportunity to optimize your necromancer build a slight bit more. A single level of death domain cleric to start would grant: medium armor / shield proficiency (which you got around by going tortle but this allows a greater variety of race / lineage choice), doesn't hamper spell slot progression, additional cantrips and 1st level spell preparations (bless, false life, healing word, etc.) and the Reaper feature which RAW I believe works with necromancy cantrips from any class. Just make certain to take any necromancy damage cantrips with your wizard levels. Plus, I really enjoy the flavor of a character who begins as an acolyte / cleric of death but decides to travel an even darker path. Lastly, I don't believe you touched on the potential to use the spells Danse Macabre or Summon Undead in your video, both of which would benefit from a Necromancer's "Undead Thralls" ability.
Inspiring leader speech: "Tonight we dine in Hell!...which, yes, I understand that's basically where some of u dine every night, but u get my point. But I don't want u to get down about that. You may be skin and bones, but you're all heart to me, lads. To arms!"
Hey Colby, I just wanted to share my opinion here, of course anyone can do it differently but the way I would rule this is that once your pc becomes a paladin at lvl 1 they take an oath, then that oath is broken when they become evil. Alternatively this could be used as a ruling where a pc who is a paladin doing too much evil stuff can have you transferred to this class. I really like the idea of playing a goliath paladin who starts out good but then is corrupted by the tortle wizard. He then proceeds to carry around the tortle like a backpack as they run around causing all sorts of mayhem
I’d love to see a tank-style damage report for the undead army here, seeing as one of their greatest strengths is that they takes hits that would otherwise be directed towards PCs. No of course the undead have no way to draw enemy fire as a “proper” tank would but I think it would be a cool exercise nonetheless
Before my necromancer could animate dead I made sure he was covered head to toe with a robe, mask and gloves. Then I had a tailor make 12 matching sets so I could present my skeletons as my followers. I took inspiring leader feat to boost their hp. I kept track of every dead body we left and started storing them in an abandoned shack. I tried getting a portable hole but could never find one. To speed up combat I made sure I had enough dice to roll them all at once. I've played summoner a few times and can say my turns are generally faster than other players. Playing a necromancer is fun because it creates a bunch of character based mini challenges.
re:discussion in problems with necro+animate dead: RAW, I don't believe you can re-animate a dead zombie/skeleton. Animate Dead specifically says you can raise the corpse/bones of a humanoid, but once you've raised them they become undead and thus are no longer humanoid. Similar to how there are all kinds of issues if you want to resurrect someone who was turned into a zombie.
@@DnDDeepDive You really gave me a ton of epic and really usable input here. I'm so glad that you took the time to explain a few common mistakes and what to do instead (Like taking ghouls vs skeletons). I very much enjoy your videos that focus on monoclass builds or characters with very little multiclassing as they feel the truest to the type of character the build is into.
I know this is an older video but i had to comment here now since in my group we all are necromancys (me wizard, druid spore, paladin oathbreaker) and one gloomstalker drow. (he is a snowflake not playing death cleric xD) I‘m really excited about this and shared your video with them. oh btw thanks for giving us optimizers a home colby. :)
What if upcasting Animate Dead still only made 1 skeleton, but combine the hp pools and damage potential? This would cut down on the amount of rolls and reduce their consistency.
"Dont ask me where you're getting all those bones" Fine I'll come up with my own bone zone- spend downtime when not maintaining the skelarmy building your own dungeon. Bribe bards to go forth and speak of the legendary treasures your dungeon holds to lure in overconfident adventurers, use their bones to build the foundation of your army, and their gear to fund/upgrade horde
@@pencilbender be sure to send a letter to that party congratulating them on their promotion from unwitting Victim to To target Skilled adventurers make for the best undead minions
ב"ה With wights from create undead, you could create really big armies of zombies by raiding some goblin vilages ^_^ Like with finger of death, there is actually no limit to the amount of zombies you can control this way.
Hey, I subscribed super recently but I just wanted to say - As I understand it, RAW, the corpse of a slain zombie/skeleton is technically undead, not humanoid, which means you can't target it with the animate dead spell.
It depend how you separate the clauses. A pile of bones. (You can raise a skeleton from any pile of bones) The corpse of a medium or small humanoid. Vs “a pile of bones of a humanoid or the corpse of a humanoid.” (The pile or corpse have to be humanoid) This is where the English language fails at rules sometimes.
Per sage advice the first one where you separate the clauses is correct. From sage advice - Specific Spells [NEW] Can I cast animate dead on the humanoid-shaped corpse of an undead creature such as a zombie or a ghast? When animate dead targets a corpse, the body must have belonged to a creature of the humanoid creature type. If the spell targets a pile of bones, there is no creature type restriction; the bones become a skeleton.
This is a great villain campaign duo. Also alignment is stupid and supper relative. The ideas of good and evil, lawful and chaotic are based off of OUR common morality.
Couple interesting things that come to my mind, sorcerer twinning animate dead to further increase numbers/spell slot efficiency. And using "bag of undead holding" aka bags of holding you cram your skeletons into to go into towns. Could also work to transport corpses/bones around with you so you don't need to raid the local grave yard.
Hey, you've made a mistake here, fairly big one too. The paladins aura isn't helping 7 minions, it's buffing 20 minions if fully surrounded. That's at a 10ft radius, 2 squares in each direction (excluding the corners and the center square where the Paladin is located.) It's 120 possible minions when when aura reaches 30ft radius.
If you are maintaining control of the same skeletons from one day to the next you actually get 2 extra skeletons per cast for a total of 30 extra if you use all of your slots for this
I like the idea of a Reborn necromancer. You can make them look like any race, but they get the 4 hour rest like elves, and I can see them hiding among their own to confuse the enemy.
Suggestion for a possible future video - a team of perfect melee butcher and perfect brainy wizard. Like a mastermind and his/her bodyguard. Would love to see this pairing :D
This duo should be BBEGs of a campaign rather than PCs. Because other way as you say so it's nearly impossible to play with. Nice video as always tho...
I want to note that falling unconscious does not release undead made by Animate Dead or Create undead, merely leaves them without new orders. Ghasts and Wights have some degree of thought so they may still act, but your skeletons and zombies will continue to follow your last orders and do nothing otherwise. Of course if the wizard can't be woken up before the 24 hour timer there is a problem.
This gets an auto-like for me even without watching yet. Great combo Colby! :) i disagree and i think multiclassing still benefit both of these builds. You can still beeline for the key abilities then multiclass after. Less of an issue as well if you start at higher levels. the necromancer doesn't add anything after level 6 to the concept. You just need the spell slots so as long as you multiclass into a caster class it should be fine. in fact you can speed up your army gain by muticlassing into classes with spell slot generation/recovery: any sorcerer, any land druid, etc. As for the oathbreaker, you don't gain anything important after level 7 (level 9 at most if you want crusader's mantle) until level 18. so if the campaign isn't going 18, the oathbreaker should multiclass away. Then, you can afford action surge, hex warrior or go for other support classes such as the bard or cleric. alpha striking casters and counterspell/silence/blindness are the solutions to those aoe spell threats to your army. how we handle animate dead at our table (very RAW): 1. animate dead-find new corpses once your current dies. 2. the skeletons animate with weapons. to avoid abuse, the DM rules that they are like shadow blade. they can't be sold, formed from shadowfell (where undead energies are from anyway). 3. the player should have a d20 roller app and have their actions ready before their turn. 4. the player prepares a story/rp reason once you are in town, dealing with npcs and to explain them to your allies, etc. 5. the DM ups the difficulty of the encounter for the party to deal with the extra action economy on the necromancer's end. agreed on the tight spaces/enclosed environment is not good for a minion setup (this is also why i prefer tiny servant as they can circumvent this better as they are tiny and you can fit at least 4 of them in a 5ft square.) Yeah if you go down, your party will be annoyed. As for dealing with dmg resistance, crusader's mantle is always there. my votes for the next builds: a caster type swarmkeeper, someone using renaissance firearms, a striker moon druid, n arcane archer or some sort of "aura build"
I once played a LN Necromancer who had three “laws” that governed his every action. Commit no crimes nor abide anyone who commits crimes against children, if he caught someone breaking this “law” they were marked for being reanimated upon death. Aside from this he would never reanimate an unwilling corpse, and thus informed all who stood against him was agreeing to be reanimated upon death. Finally he would never knowingly harm innocence with his undead. All of these “laws” were derived from his backstory, the players and DM loved the concept when I pitched it and because the PCs found me to be the lesser of two evils begrudging tolerated my PC after a time.
Here is the basis for a build that I have been fiddling with and thinking over that has a completely unique playstyle (would require a lot of dm buy in): A build around the conjuration wizard's 2nd level feature Minor Conjuration. Your conjuration disappears if it deals any damage or if you use it again, and it must be a nonmagical object that you have seen. I don't believe there has been an official ruling, just a crawford comment, but basically you can have single-use damage work at full strength, it doesn't disappear before damage occurs. The poisons in dnd are non-magical and the poison and its container are considered a single object depending on how the dm interprets things. There are also poisons that do not deal damage, like carrion crawler mucus, drow poison, essence of ether, malice, oil of taggit, torpor, or truth serum. Many are capable of taking out a single target in a fight, and if your wizard has action surge or haste, you can likely start the fight with at least a single enemy out of commission. It isn't great action economy, but I am sure there is a way around that and to make a true cost free sustainable poisoner build. There also might be a way to get catapult involved for extra shenanigans.
To inspire skeletons:
"Whoever kills the archwizard gets reincarnated"
*unleash the horde and watch it at work*
Ha ha! You know what, how awesome would it be to have a high level Cleric that could actually do this? What a fantastic story moment... then he becomes a little sidekick ala the sidekick stuff in Tasha's? Love it.
When you think about it, it’s weird not to apply the sidekick rules to the intelligent undead that you make with Create Undead. They are intelligent creatures with independent thought, maybe just leave the levelling to the DM and reset the level of any minion that dies. You could get interesting stories, like one of your wights is becoming more intelligent and ambitious, so it’s constantly trying to twist your orders to get free from your control.
"The necromancer offered them life, I offered them milk." - Steven the Everchosen
@@cyborgcatrj6794 In Guild Wars 2 there is a great lich that raised one of the heroes from GW1 and the guy follows orders but is constantly questioning them and re-interpreting them to get away with sneeky shit. The lich finally gets sick of him and sends him to guard an empty cave for all eternity so he doesn't have to deal with him ever again.
@@DnDDeepDive MAKE THIS BUIL
Paladin to Skeletons: Brave knights. You are the best and brightest in all the land. Today one of you shall prove himself. That champion shall have the honor - - no, no - - the privilege to go forth and rescue the lovely Princess Fiona from the fiery keep of the dragon. If for any reason the winner is unsuccessful, the first runner-up will take his place and so on and so forth. Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make. Let the tournament begin!
6 INT Skellies: Seems legit
I am laughing out loud quite loudly at the moment.
I am friggan dead bro XD I wanna watch that again
I just watched that last night with my parents, and holy crap I can not get that out of my head now. It's perfect!
We did this once back in 3.5e a Blackguard, a Necromancer, Undeath Cleric, We had so many undead we started using rules for mass combat and had our undead hordes attacking a kingdom in a War. Using battlefield tactics and such. Basically we were the BBEG trying to conquer a nation. it was amazing.
Would you mind sharing how you did that? My party is tryna do that rn
That's essentially the game I've been looking for my whole life. Wish I could do that instead of repeatedly becoming level 5 and watching games crash from the ultimate BBEG, scheduling
Goals
Me and my friends ran an evil campaign some years ago using 2nd edition rules. Our party consisted of a necromancer, an anti paladin, a fighter/thief, and a cleric of death. It was interesting and played out pretty much the way the OP described. Early on we were minions of a lich that was giving us orders. We eventually got high enough level to kill the lich and become bbeg's in our own right.
I'd inspire my horde with one line and one line only:
MEAT IS BACK ON THE MENU, BOYS!
Nah nah. Mine's, "MILK'S BACK ON THE MENU, BOYS!"
Gotta keep those old bones healthy.
What if there's no milk to be drunk? Can you beat your 20+ skeleton horde? :D
@@xcron3549 under my rule, these rivers will run white with milk. It will be a time of plenty for all!
@@ChunkyTheClown imagine them passively starting to gather undead creatures, ultimately creating a new religion. If i was a dm, I'd allow it just to see what comes of it. :D
@@ChunkyTheClown that sounds so wrong lol
Ah yes, nothing better than hearing Homelander talk about Oathbreakers
Million subscriber special: optimized homelander build
Homelands?... no...
Idk, I’d say he looks more like a discount Liam OBrian
You had me fooled for a moment, there! But Anthony Starr is a NZer, and sounds like it. Colby sounds perhaps German or from one of the Netherlands countries?
He's from the US. The Midwest to ne more accurate.
I'm afraid you underestimated the power of this combo fairly severely. If you look more closely at the text regarding the recasting of Animate Dead to retain control, you'll see that each casting can retain control over three more undead than a casting can raise. (It's unclear how that interacts with the Undead Thralls ability.) So over the course of multiple days, you will be able to accumulate a significantly larger army of skeletons than you assumed.
Ha ha ha - nice catch! I forgot about that little bit at the end. Of all the things I was afraid I'd be accused of with this episode, underestimating it was not one of them :P
You assume you need to retain control? Pack in zombies into an iron wagon with a wooden door. Cast arcane lock on it and glyph of warding with dispell magic. Make the trigger whatever is convenient to you. You can make more and more of those wagons creating portable undead hordes. The elites of your horde would be the ones you control
@@tomraineofmagigor3499 Glyph of Warding spell fails if the glyph is moved more than 10' from the location of its casting. So those wagons aint going far.
@@adamkaris I forgot about that part
Well you can set them up and people won't be able to be get in and I feel sorry for the poor soul that clears out the "abandoned" property
By my calculations, this brings the 6th level damage report up to 101 and 69, making it second only to the Yin/Yang team for that level and those ACs. That turns the "not bad" into "quite good." I didn't bother calculating adjustments to the later damage reports, because those are already ridiculous.
I think something people forget is that killing minions means the enemies aren't killing a PC. A few waves of zombies or skeletons that get wiped out in a handful of fireballs may be absorbing more than your low dex tank could have managed. And you can collect up what's left after the battle
Also in some circumstances you can reanimate your undead again
This and you can use them as trap detectors
"Two wights would pale in comparision of 12 skeletons"
How about 2 wights and 24 zombies ? Because that's what the actual best case scenario is, since each wight can control up to 12 zombies at a time.
I like skeleton archers. Positioning is key🎉
Wights are the sergeants of your army!
If you’re getting a free feat and are allowed to use UA I feel like it’s illegal to not play a Reborn Oathbreaker who was resurrected by the Necromancer.
yusssss
Playing a reborn oathbreaker now actually, he died in a shadow attack. So now he uses command undead everyday to keep another shadow around
No longer a UA, it’s now in Tasha’s, so go nuts
At that point, find a campaign set a few hundred years before the current setting time, and Just have your characters BE Vecna and Kas. Granted Vecna's not a Tortle..as far as we know..its Vecna tho so it's entirely possible he either hid that fact about himself or bodyswapped with someone for awhile
In a home game, I'm playing a reborn oathbreaker/necromancer gestalt build. It's hilariously OP because all my low level spell slots go to necrotic smites and the higher spells go for minion creation. Aura of hate and the level 6 necromancer features pair BEAUTIFULLY to make elite undead.
This team-up is giving me a Palpatine (Necromancer)/ Vader (Paladin)/ Stormtrooper (skeleton) kinda vibe.
ooo... I likey
Well palpatine is basically a lich
Well, you could use the Reborn gothic lineage for the Paladin. You could make it the Necromancer's end-goal to become a Lich.
I would add finger of death spell to the routine as it adds a zombie that is permanently under the casters control.
As a DM I did the logistics to make a player mechanic necromancer, and I actually like the logistics of it, pretty fun how much you can get into the towns, catacombs, trade, you really become invested in order to make it work.
Eventually the characters actually figured their deal and didn’t kill them, rather asked for help and ya, the necromancer became a mercenary of sorts to help the party and seized a castle to help them get the hobgoblin chief and reclaimed their family estate and castle.
An potential bad guy who was wronged actually got to be ‘redeemed’ by helping the party and got their home back.
Love this.
Oathbreaker's rousing speech to a bunch of low INT Skeletons...
"The one who kills the most people gets a brand new body!!!" 😈😈
Wait, but do you actually give a body to the winner? And what would it do with the body? ha ha
@@DnDDeepDive The winner would get to eat the tasty, fresh body, of course. What else would a zombie do with a newly deceased corpse?
@@scroth0303 lol
If you follow a statement by one of the creators you’re undead don’t have to be typical humanoids so you could theoretically offer modifications to the one who kills the most. The one with the most kills gets their bugbear leaders arms and claws.
@@DnDDeepDive A skeleton could want to be taller, so they’ll pick the tallest’s femurs and swap them for their own. Or graft their head to the body, so they can be muscular.
So... NOW you like necros eh? AFTER our strahd campaign?! We could have been gods amongst mortals if you’d just gone oath breaker... GODS! *shakes a dozen skeletal hands at you*
Ha ha! They’re broken! :) (can you imagine if we tried to bring more than the few you already had into the castle? That final fight was so crowded!)
I mean... you did notice that the oathbreaker’s Aura of Hate ability effects *all* undead and fiends indiscriminately right. Imagine a Curse of Strahd campaign where your paladin buffs most of your enemies.
@@cyborgcatrj6794 That would be... amazing! ha ha!
This is actually an incredibly useful video for a DM. This paring is an incredible villain for an undead domination plot hook.
‘As you gaze upon this small farming town, the blood of the guardsmen paints the cobbled streets in crimson. Their insides torn out and apparently eaten. The few peasants that have survived the attack approach and plead for your help’
“Please! Please you must help us!”
‘As they point to the cemetery you see a field of open graves, recently uncovered and every corpse missing’
“It were two men. One of them stood afar draped in black robes holding a staff. The other, clad in armour of ebony, and his sword drenched in the blood of our kin. They were commanding our dead like an army there was nothing any of us could do”
‘You ask the good people where these individuals went and they point you to the next town where a similar scene greets you. The trail continues. Town to town, village to village. Each report speaks of a larger army than the last. Then you realise... they’re marching on the capital.’
I’m sure as hell using this for my next plot hook. By all means, steal the idea, I wanna know if other players end up liking it.
love it!
Add in a 3rd character using the Death Cleric build and we have the beginnings of an evil nemesis npc party! Muwahahahaha!!!
@@dhavaram8064 Add an Echo Knight Fighter & Mastermind Rogue & you have a full evil party, you could run it, or what I think is more fun, play it.
As always excellent content. My son is playing a Necromancer in a level 10 campaign and he opted to take one level of Death Cleric at 1st level and the rest in necromancer. The ability to cast infinite twinned Toll the Dead while his undead minions attack give him a great deal of sustained damage without using additional resources.(Not to mention medium armor, shields and martial weapons)
Thanks! And that is fantastic!
You know the rp would be amazing. Himbo Paladin who just adores and does everything the really smart but somehow equally stupid Wizard says. The classic bad at being bad villain team.
Like Kronk and Yzma or Shego and Hego type team
@@Kolonite_ YES! I love Kronk. This actually would be amazing.
Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?
Pinky and the brain
Old school Skeletor, shouting “Nyah!!” just because.
Paladin: "Give me victory or give me death!"
Army of Undead: (Looks completely dejected)
Paladin: ".....well crap"
Lol
If using Tausha’s, the Artificer Initiate feat gives you a spell from their list and you can take Faerie Fire which you can cast with your own spells slots (that also uses intelligence as the save) from what I see. As a bonus you can also take guidance and get a tool proficiency like alchemist tools which seems thematic.
I see this duo as a perfect NPC villain duo. They scale well and would present a continuous challenging foil to player characters. Maybe have the Paladin be a friendly NPC until level 3 when he does his heel turn. And the various undead could populate dungeons, while the strike team skellies hang out with the bosses.
Also, Tortle Wizard? Welcome to the Dark Side! No more elves for you, my boy, only powerhouses like Tortle and Mountain Dwarf!
Could you make it a villain trio by adding a death priest? hmmm.... HMMMM.... I like your way of thinking!
I’m adding a lower-level UA undead patron warlock to make a trio. Can you guess who the patron is? 🤔 And I’m taking the Pally/Wizard combo to lvl12
Nice. Imagine if everyone in the party were undead but didn't know it (except for maybe the necromancer and the oathbreaker).
Last campaign DM made a full party counter to our own as the main competition/foe for us to deal with. Only it was a good party as we were being dicks in general.. So had a knight/paladin/double wizard and cleric to deal with.. All the time saving those bloody peasants our master got us to kill off. Highly irritating.
... And this is the reason I come to the comments. Bravo!
(Also, totally stealing this.)
The Oathbreaker is one of my favorite subclasses for dealing lots of damage and for roleplay. Currently, in one campaign I'm in I have an oathbreaker who was originally a Conquest paladin for an empire ruled by clerics that serves Bane. He was allowed not to be evil since he broke his oath by leaving an evil god. I won't go into his whole backstory but he's in a pretty hopeless place currently which fits the oathbreaker description in a way I think. I really enjoy him wanting and trying to be good but also dealing with a power set that is very clearly evil and undead related. If you can get your DM to lift the evil restriction (or not who know what ur playing) I think oathbreakers have the potential for a great character arc. Also, Hexblade oathbreakers are amazing you really can't go wrong with level distribution either.
Oathbreakers who once served evil in ignorance and broke their oath in righteous anger are my favourite troupe. They don't have to be evil to the party, they could be evil from the eyes of the evil cult they once followed.
1hr 20 mins? Today just got so much better!
Ha ha - I always get so nervous when the videos go extra long... thanks for calming my fears :P
The way I did the Oathbreaker thing with my DM was that my character was a more powerful paladin in their backstory, but breaking their oath caused them to lose their powers. So, by the time the campaign starts, they start to discover this power that's somewhat familiar, but feels... different. That explains the paladin starting at level 1 and immediately jumping into Oathbreaker at 3rd level.
Love it.
I imagine this concept is perfect for a 1 on 1 dnd campaign with the oath breaker being your sidekick ally
Honestly, if you play table top wargames (efficiently) you can play that skelly horde. Just actually care enough to play that way. If you are lazy with a minion army... don’t. Either bring your a game or do not play a minion army..
How to have a cart of corpses
Player : "Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!"
Can't really recommend it tbh. Last time I saw someone try to pull this stunt, some jerk tried to throw an old coot on the wagon -- an old coot who kept loudly insisting that he wasn't quite dead yet... At least it got people talking about how much better a democratic system of governance is compared to one based on watery tarts throwing swords at you...
I like running a house rule that lets you combine four skeletons or zombies into a single Ogre Zombie or Minotaur Skeleton (without the special Charge/Gore actions) that has a Multiattack feature. The damage is about the same (fewer attacks overall, so fewer applications of Aura of Hate and Undead Thrall extra damage), and it is fewer creatures on the map at once.
For the most effective use of your Necromancer's Control Undead feature be sure to invest in the spell Feeblemind.
I’d love to see a tank-style damage report for the undead army here, seeing as one of their greatest strengths is that they takes hits that would otherwise be directed towards PCs. No of course the undead have no way to draw enemy fire as a “proper” tank would but I think it would be a cool exercise nonetheless
* Walks up to high-Int Undead. *
* Casts Feeblemind *
* Command Undead *
* Profit *
I mean, fair on the Feeblemind, but saving on a saving throw with a -5 to the roll for Command Undead? At the level required to cast Feeblemind? Not even a 20 on the die would be enough for most character save DCs, at that level.
@@NatsuDragn33I Their INT become 1, so the undead would be under your control in 30 days, just cast Feeblemind on it at the start of 27th-28th, your DC would be 17 or 18 by lv 14, so it would be very easy after the undead failed the Feeblemind save :p
Finally! I have waited soo long for this video!!! They both are in my "ideal optimized party". Thanks Colby!!!!!!
I'm hyped for this nefarious duo.
The gruesome twosome.
Your videos are my new sleep aid, but I also re-listen while I'm awake too. Thanks for your work!
I love the idea of working with a dm to scale up the undead better so you can still be a necromancer and have it not be too crazy.
I had a plan to create a necromancer who only had 2 skeletons who were raised from his twin boys remains as a weird macabre homage to his family/trying to keep them "alive" and working with a dm to work them up as a good scaling but not broken.
This kinda makes me want to see a Death Knight build
I've played the Oathbreaker hexblade part of a similar combo, yes broken AF.
Context: I"m running a campaign set in an empire that uses necromancy as a big part of its military force (being raised as an undead is the final service for an enlisted soldier, so it's seen as honorable, not evil).
My house rule for using undead in combat, is that the caster can raise as many undead as they can get their grubby little hands on, but can only -command- up to 2 times their spellcasting modifier in any given round of combat. Send out your 8 or however many, and if they get killed, command some reinforcements to take their place without skipping a beat. Having a limited mental bandwidth to spread your commands feels logical to me, especially in the very short time you have to do it. Keep the extras out of harm's way (or attempt, anyway) and enjoy the added benefit of keeping the map unclogged.
As for re-raising your undead after they've been killed again, that's fine, but you might have to piecemeal remains together so you have a complete body before you can raise it -- Percy lost a leg? Better find a replacement if you really want to re-raise him, Parts don't have to match -- sure, go ahead and hack a charred leg off one of those bugbears you fireballed. Percy is gonna have a serious swagger with his legs two different lengths. Why not just raise a bugbear? Well, you can replace Percy's -parts-, but you can never replace Percy, you monster.
Ha ha! I like this :)
So, I know this is a year+ old, and maybe someone's come in and said it already, but on the off chance:
Regarding ghouls and elves, the short version is that the first ghoul was an elf who later regretted their life choices and prayed to their god to reverse it. They did and promised no other elf would suffer, so elves became immune to ghoul touch.
Use a horde of zombies to create a ring around your frontliners and the bad guys. All undead keep their actions readied for if an enemy comes into attack range they attempt a grapple
You’re easily my new favorite dnd content creator thank you for taking the time to put these videos out they’re exactly what I’ve been looking for :)
Thanks Jake! Glad you're enjoying :)
Necromancer creates skeletons from bones, takes the weapon. Dispels the skeletons. Sells the weapon as scrap.
Money!
ha ha
That's just graverobbing with extra steps
The one party comp I'm dying to play is necromancer, oath breaker, undead warlock, death cleric, perhaps a spirit bard and spore druid maybe. Shame no one ever does evil campaigns let alone have a full party of people all wanting to go for the undead army theme 😢
Back at the beginning of 5e I played a necromancer rules as written using armor/ weapons you aren’t proficient with grants disadvantage and plate mail halves speed if strength isn’t high enough. So I equipped 8 zombies with armor/shields and 8 with glaivs. I would use the unarmored ones to shove the armored zombies forward and when they reach the enemy they would help/ grapple any enemy’s. I also broke them down into teams to pass them to the other players at the table for them to roll the attacks/ damage. Kinda fun to have a little battalion of meatshields helping to give the others 1d10 at straight rolls. With about 6 skeletons that I granted to the ranger players. And when we would go into villages they were passed off as being a retribution squad paying for the evil they committed in life. It was a fun campaign.
Sounds like a good duo for villains in a campaign with a large final battle where the players build an army of followers versus the undead army. Then the players feel cool with large AoE's spells and the frontline just hack through waves of undead.
One way this could work is if your defending a village from a band of barbarians and your using all the skeletons in the cemetery of all the people who used to live there to protect to town :-)
"Mommy, I saw Grandpa helping fend off the Barbarians last night! Except he looked... different..."
Party leader: "We swear we will depend this town with our lives!!"
Fighter: "You have sword."
Ranger: "And my bow."
Necromancer:"And your parents. "
My friend and I are about to run these builds in our campaign! Thanks for the build and the help!
The Necromancer & The Oathbreaker - D&D: Optimized #36
Level 01:(see above) [wizard 1 & race + paladin 1 & race]
Level 02:(see above) [wizard 2 & subclass + paladin 2 & fighting-style]
Level 03:(@34:19) [wizard 3 + paladin 3 & subclass]
Level 04:(@39:23) [wizard 4 & ASI + paladin 4 & ASI]
Level 05:(@41:04) [wizard 5 + paladin 5]
Level 06:(@48:15) [wizard 6 + paladin 6]
Level 07:(see above) [wizard 7 + paladin 7]
Level 08:(@56:23) [wizard 8 & ASI + paladin 8 & ASI]
Level 09:(@57:11) [wizard 9 + paladin 9]
Level 10:(see above) [wizard 10 + paladin 10]
Level 11:(@1:02:07) [wizard 11 + paladin 11]
Level 12:(@1:05:27) [wizard 12 & ASI + paladin 12 & ASI]
Level 13:(@1:06:18) [wizard 13 + paladin 13]
Level 14:(see above) [wizard 14 + paladin 14]
Level 15:(@1:09:36) [wizard 15 + paladin 15]
Level 16:(@1:11:24) [wizard 16 & ASI + paladin 16 & ASI]
Level 17:(@1:11:54) [wizard 17 + paladin 17]
45:30 Watched this on Thanksgiving, and am now disappointed I will not see skeletons playing trombone during the parade... lol
One thing that I don't think you factored was Arcane Recovery. You can wake up early as an Elf, cast a whole bunch of Animate dead, take a short rest, then regain up to 10 levels of spell slots, converting that into about a dozen more skeletons
If you want to try to mitigate how insane this is, you could have plot-related reasons why you can't bring too many undead where you're going. Then you'd still be open to use your powers to their full effect in a one-off situation.
NEVER HUNGER
NEVER TIRE
NEVER FEAR
FOR THE LEGION
I have to tell you. The intro music gets me pumped about watching your videos. 🙂👍
If you are into mtg, playing this duo as Liliana and Josu Vess reunited could be a blast
Important notice: Skeletons can be stored in a chest! Very good for transport purposes :D
Nice! Would love to see a Gish version of the necromancer too see how good it could be
Hey new viewer and just wanted to say 1 great video! and 2 i'm watching this after having spent roughly 3-4 days looking at summons in 5e and how to make them work. I think the perfect middle ground for the necromancer wizard is having 1.5 times your level rounded up as a max on any given adventuring day. also for running them in combat the easiest rule to keep the turns fast is having them always go on your initiative and use the mob attack rules in the dmg, it gives a consistent basis for how much damage they can expect to do and how to balance against them. to lower the effectiveness on the players undead you only have to increase an enemies a.c. to 17, because then it goes from 1 out of every 2 hitting to one out of every 3, meanwhile the rest of the party probably wont notice the difference between that 16 a.c. enemy vs that 17 a.c. enemy. it makes stuff go quickly while also still rewarding the player for being a cool necromancer! of course if you need to use it as a plot point, let the character go ham and raise an army to assault the castle so the party can sneak in and get the mccguffin!
Thanks! Nice idea!
remember with command undead you can have one extra undead controlled, you can create a mummy and just use this for a general or whatever, not too strong but kind of funny if you don't find a nightwalker
With Half-Drow race there's a catch-up. That Faerie Fire save DC is based on the characters Charisma. Actually, a charismatic necromancer sounds interesting, so even going with default +2CHA bonus is viable.
The Paladin could inspire 36 undead per hour.
Lawful Evil and a detailed party contract.
Dress your undead in clown suits.
Determine the average damage per hit vs AC and apply that.
Raid old battlefields or mass graves.
Arm your undead with Moon-Touched swords. They are common MAGIC items, thus cheap/easy to make.
The interpretations I have found online all seem to say that is is impossible. A strict reading of the Animate Dead spell seems to indicate that the reason given for not allowing reanimation stems from it no longer being the "corpse of a medium or small humanoid", it is now the corpse of an undead creature. Creating skeletons should be okay, since they only require "a pile of bones".
This would also relieve you of the grave robbing problem as apparently, any pile of bones would work. I wonder how many bones constitute a "pile?
One problem with counterspell, it only has a range of 60, while fireball has a range of 150.
Who makes the Giant Skeletons? Is there some way we could do it?
I love this, as a DM. How are the party members going to deal with the two Chaotic Evil dudes who attack villages at random times, wiping them out and leaving destroyed undead behind.
The number one phrase that fixes all problems with playing evil characters: evil does not equal stupid.
I had a Mind-Flayer necromancer in Out of the Abyss who obtained the wand of Orcus and used a Simulacrum by the end. He had hundreds of of minions at this point so we just ended up using the Mob Combat rules to speed up combat.
Funny how I found this as I'm currently playing a Drow Necromancer in the "Icewind Dale, Rime of the Frost Maiden" Campaign - Currently lvl 6.
Dauwn was an Acolyte who has become disillusioned from a faith that never seemed to truly accept him. So he found himself here posing as a man of the cloth to give prayers over the dead. But secretly has been studying death and how to manipulate it. He's not well in the head but is intelligent which makes him dangerous. Before he was kidnapped by Illithids he would exhume graves to study the bodies buried within. His time with the Illithids concerns him only as they are likely to take him away from his research. He actually anticipates they may have survivors that could come looking for him. But surmises that staying close to large crowds of people would not only keep him safe. But encourage his pursuers to find easier prey. Perhaps even leaving more dead in their wake to study. All the while his familiar Veil, a Celestial spirit he's bonded to tries to discourage his necromantic studies. Veil is a hold over from when he was still trying to gain favor of his faith in Kelemvor. The two of them can often be seen in long conversations together but only Dauwn's voice can be heard.
Motivation - Stop this long winter which makes exhuming bodies easier. Also, unable to properly bury the dead. Fascinated by death he wants to take the opportunity to study as much as he can in the meantime. Justifies his actions as using bodies as vessels of retribution.
I know this is an old video, but my solution for carrying/moving undead around towns is gaining access to a bag of holding. They don't need to breath, and they're in a pocket dimension so no smell or sound, plus you can easily grab them out of it. Most DMs I've played with have let me either pull out a few as a full round round action, or 1 as part of a bonus action given how bag of holding works if we're in combat and they aren't out.
You can use Finger of Death on your undead army to keep them under your command permanently if they are humanoid undead and you command them to fail the save beforehand. But it would mean killing a few everyday with finger of death, keeping control over the rest, sleep and repeat til your army no longer needs a spellslot to maintain. Also note: It says to RECAST to maintain control, not use the same spellslot, so you can use a lower slot to control those not re-resurrected by Finger of Death.
It'd be cool to see this concept with the Tasha's Necromancer build released by Treantmonk
As a “Forever DM…” maybe if the Necromancer summoned Wights that each had zombies, and maybe they had a Nightwalker… sounds like a tomb of horrors to me…
I think you may have missed an opportunity to optimize your necromancer build a slight bit more.
A single level of death domain cleric to start would grant: medium armor / shield proficiency (which you got around by going tortle but this allows a greater variety of race / lineage choice), doesn't hamper spell slot progression, additional cantrips and 1st level spell preparations (bless, false life, healing word, etc.) and the Reaper feature which RAW I believe works with necromancy cantrips from any class. Just make certain to take any necromancy damage cantrips with your wizard levels.
Plus, I really enjoy the flavor of a character who begins as an acolyte / cleric of death but decides to travel an even darker path.
Lastly, I don't believe you touched on the potential to use the spells Danse Macabre or Summon Undead in your video, both of which would benefit from a Necromancer's "Undead Thralls" ability.
Inspiring leader speech: "Tonight we dine in Hell!...which, yes, I understand that's basically where some of u dine every night, but u get my point. But I don't want u to get down about that. You may be skin and bones, but you're all heart to me, lads. To arms!"
ha ha ha
Hey Colby, I just wanted to share my opinion here, of course anyone can do it differently but the way I would rule this is that once your pc becomes a paladin at lvl 1 they take an oath, then that oath is broken when they become evil. Alternatively this could be used as a ruling where a pc who is a paladin doing too much evil stuff can have you transferred to this class. I really like the idea of playing a goliath paladin who starts out good but then is corrupted by the tortle wizard. He then proceeds to carry around the tortle like a backpack as they run around causing all sorts of mayhem
This would be really fun to run as a villain for a DM or a PVP game.
I’d love to see a tank-style damage report for the undead army here, seeing as one of their greatest strengths is that they takes hits that would otherwise be directed towards PCs. No of course the undead have no way to draw enemy fire as a “proper” tank would but I think it would be a cool exercise nonetheless
The tank of the undead is a draug
Before my necromancer could animate dead I made sure he was covered head to toe with a robe, mask and gloves. Then I had a tailor make 12 matching sets so I could present my skeletons as my followers. I took inspiring leader feat to boost their hp. I kept track of every dead body we left and started storing them in an abandoned shack. I tried getting a portable hole but could never find one.
To speed up combat I made sure I had enough dice to roll them all at once. I've played summoner a few times and can say my turns are generally faster than other players.
Playing a necromancer is fun because it creates a bunch of character based mini challenges.
2 combo with necromancer:
Animate undead and fabricate
so you have a ballista in a party
re:discussion in problems with necro+animate dead: RAW, I don't believe you can re-animate a dead zombie/skeleton. Animate Dead specifically says you can raise the corpse/bones of a humanoid, but once you've raised them they become undead and thus are no longer humanoid. Similar to how there are all kinds of issues if you want to resurrect someone who was turned into a zombie.
This is PERFECT FOR ME!!! my friend and I JUST started a two man campaign using a necromancer and a paladin who hasn't decided their oath yet
Nice!
@@DnDDeepDive You really gave me a ton of epic and really usable input here. I'm so glad that you took the time to explain a few common mistakes and what to do instead (Like taking ghouls vs skeletons). I very much enjoy your videos that focus on monoclass builds or characters with very little multiclassing as they feel the truest to the type of character the build is into.
I know this is an older video but i had to comment here now since in my group we all are necromancys (me wizard, druid spore, paladin oathbreaker) and one gloomstalker drow. (he is a snowflake not playing death cleric xD)
I‘m really excited about this and shared your video with them.
oh btw thanks for giving us optimizers a home colby. :)
What if upcasting Animate Dead still only made 1 skeleton, but combine the hp pools and damage potential? This would cut down on the amount of rolls and reduce their consistency.
It's hard to raise a family... but it most certainly helps if they are buried close to each other. - anonymous necromancer.
"Dont ask me where you're getting all those bones"
Fine I'll come up with my own bone zone- spend downtime when not maintaining the skelarmy building your own dungeon. Bribe bards to go forth and speak of the legendary treasures your dungeon holds to lure in overconfident adventurers, use their bones to build the foundation of your army, and their gear to fund/upgrade horde
Until the dm sends in a capable party and you lose all your loot
@@pencilbender be sure to send a letter to that party congratulating them on their promotion from unwitting Victim to To target
Skilled adventurers make for the best undead minions
...do you want to recalculate the graphs with the newly discovered number of skeletons you can get, sir?
ב"ה
With wights from create undead, you could create really big armies of zombies by raiding some goblin vilages ^_^
Like with finger of death, there is actually no limit to the amount of zombies you can control this way.
you know it doesnt specify what kind of bones you need ... a pile of bones could be last nights chicken dinner lol ...
Hey, I subscribed super recently but I just wanted to say - As I understand it, RAW, the corpse of a slain zombie/skeleton is technically undead, not humanoid, which means you can't target it with the animate dead spell.
interesting!
yup. you'd have to look for new corpses every time. This is why i prefer tiny servant to animate dead.
It depend how you separate the clauses.
A pile of bones. (You can raise a skeleton from any pile of bones)
The corpse of a medium or small humanoid.
Vs “a pile of bones of a humanoid or the corpse of a humanoid.” (The pile or corpse have to be humanoid) This is where the English language fails at rules sometimes.
Per sage advice the first one where you separate the clauses is correct.
From sage advice - Specific Spells
[NEW] Can I cast animate dead on the humanoid-shaped corpse of an undead creature such as a zombie or a ghast? When animate dead targets a corpse, the body must have belonged to a creature of the humanoid creature type.
If the spell targets a pile of bones, there is no creature type restriction; the bones become a skeleton.
@@davidjohnson4657 Oh, thanks!
My party has a necromancer & conquest Paladin which is a horrifying combination
This is a great villain campaign duo. Also alignment is stupid and supper relative. The ideas of good and evil, lawful and chaotic are based off of OUR common morality.
Couple interesting things that come to my mind, sorcerer twinning animate dead to further increase numbers/spell slot efficiency. And using "bag of undead holding" aka bags of holding you cram your skeletons into to go into towns. Could also work to transport corpses/bones around with you so you don't need to raid the local grave yard.
I think the portable hole is a better option for your undead army. But Adventure league doesn’t give that as a free option.
Could reskin the Tortle as a hermit crab that is using a skull as it's shell.
I imagine the inspiring speech to undead to be more like an unholy chant using words of power.
Simulacrum and double skeletons.
Peace and Twilight domain clerics as other party members.
Aura increasing to 30 ft at level 17.
Am I crazy?
Aura increase comes at 18, I believe. And yes, you are crazy. Make it stop!
Hey, you've made a mistake here, fairly big one too. The paladins aura isn't helping 7 minions, it's buffing 20 minions if fully surrounded. That's at a 10ft radius, 2 squares in each direction (excluding the corners and the center square where the Paladin is located.) It's 120 possible minions when when aura reaches 30ft radius.
Ahhhhhhhh. I needed this. Thank you!!!!!
If you are maintaining control of the same skeletons from one day to the next you actually get 2 extra skeletons per cast for a total of 30 extra if you use all of your slots for this
With the Kobald rework it would be interesting for that to be the oathbreaker paladin to give the undead advantage to attacks for a round.
I like the idea of a Reborn necromancer. You can make them look like any race, but they get the 4 hour rest like elves, and I can see them hiding among their own to confuse the enemy.
Suggestion for a possible future video - a team of perfect melee butcher and perfect brainy wizard. Like a mastermind and his/her bodyguard. Would love to see this pairing :D
will put it on the list!
This duo should be BBEGs of a campaign rather than PCs. Because other way as you say so it's nearly impossible to play with. Nice video as always tho...
Thanks and I love the idea :)
I want to note that falling unconscious does not release undead made by Animate Dead or Create undead, merely leaves them without new orders. Ghasts and Wights have some degree of thought so they may still act, but your skeletons and zombies will continue to follow your last orders and do nothing otherwise. Of course if the wizard can't be woken up before the 24 hour timer there is a problem.
This gets an auto-like for me even without watching yet. Great combo Colby! :)
i disagree and i think multiclassing still benefit both of these builds. You can still beeline for the key abilities then multiclass after. Less of an issue as well if you start at higher levels.
the necromancer doesn't add anything after level 6 to the concept. You just need the spell slots so as long as you multiclass into a caster class it should be fine. in fact you can speed up your army gain by muticlassing into classes with spell slot generation/recovery: any sorcerer, any land druid, etc. As for the oathbreaker, you don't gain anything important after level 7 (level 9 at most if you want crusader's mantle) until level 18. so if the campaign isn't going 18, the oathbreaker should multiclass away. Then, you can afford action surge, hex warrior or go for other support classes such as the bard or cleric.
alpha striking casters and counterspell/silence/blindness are the solutions to those aoe spell threats to your army.
how we handle animate dead at our table (very RAW):
1. animate dead-find new corpses once your current dies.
2. the skeletons animate with weapons. to avoid abuse, the DM rules that they are like shadow blade. they can't be sold, formed from shadowfell (where undead energies are from anyway).
3. the player should have a d20 roller app and have their actions ready before their turn.
4. the player prepares a story/rp reason once you are in town, dealing with npcs and to explain them to your allies, etc.
5. the DM ups the difficulty of the encounter for the party to deal with the extra action economy on the necromancer's end.
agreed on the tight spaces/enclosed environment is not good for a minion setup (this is also why i prefer tiny servant as they can circumvent this better as they are tiny and you can fit at least 4 of them in a 5ft square.)
Yeah if you go down, your party will be annoyed. As for dealing with dmg resistance, crusader's mantle is always there.
my votes for the next builds: a caster type swarmkeeper, someone using renaissance firearms, a striker moon druid, n arcane archer or some sort of "aura build"
I once played a LN Necromancer who had three “laws” that governed his every action. Commit no crimes nor abide anyone who commits crimes against children, if he caught someone breaking this “law” they were marked for being reanimated upon death. Aside from this he would never reanimate an unwilling corpse, and thus informed all who stood against him was agreeing to be reanimated upon death. Finally he would never knowingly harm innocence with his undead. All of these “laws” were derived from his backstory, the players and DM loved the concept when I pitched it and because the PCs found me to be the lesser of two evils begrudging tolerated my PC after a time.
I like it!
Here is the basis for a build that I have been fiddling with and thinking over that has a completely unique playstyle (would require a lot of dm buy in): A build around the conjuration wizard's 2nd level feature Minor Conjuration. Your conjuration disappears if it deals any damage or if you use it again, and it must be a nonmagical object that you have seen. I don't believe there has been an official ruling, just a crawford comment, but basically you can have single-use damage work at full strength, it doesn't disappear before damage occurs. The poisons in dnd are non-magical and the poison and its container are considered a single object depending on how the dm interprets things. There are also poisons that do not deal damage, like carrion crawler mucus, drow poison, essence of ether, malice, oil of taggit, torpor, or truth serum. Many are capable of taking out a single target in a fight, and if your wizard has action surge or haste, you can likely start the fight with at least a single enemy out of commission. It isn't great action economy, but I am sure there is a way around that and to make a true cost free sustainable poisoner build. There also might be a way to get catapult involved for extra shenanigans.