The Dread Necromancer: A TABLE FRIENDLY wizard optimized build D&D 5e
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- Опубликовано: 14 июл 2024
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Link to the completed character sheet: ddb.ac/characters/87087703/92...
If you would like to know how I calculate damage or how baseline damage is determined, I go through it in this video:
• How To Calculate Avera...
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
11:25 Level 1
20:50 Levels 2-7
36:40 Levels 8-13
45:10 Levels 14-17
54:40 Levels 18-20
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Big shout out to the Nightwalker as a a target for Command Undead. They have 8 CHA and 6 INT, so no advantage, and a -1 save means that if your save becomes 20 or higher they mathematically will never succeed. Plus they're absolute monsters at shock assault with flight, aura of death and a 300 ft paralysis.
I was able to leash a *Mummy Lord* using the feature once. It's a lower CR but I greatly prefer it to the Nightwalker. Not only is it less of a biohazard(if only barely, considering the Regional Effects) and easier to transport, it's a full spellcaster under your control, on the cleric list, and it has Legendary Actions and Resistances that don't go away.
An ancient white dracolich, or lesser-aged dracolich of low Intelligence is also possible. As are the various giant skeletons, or worst case scenario, _create undead_ once and pass control of a wight to Command Undead so you don't have to keep maintaining it.
@@RaggedVentures but only ancient or adult BLUE dragons can become dracolich. According to the monster manual.
@@dragonhearthx8369 It took me a while to figure out that you weren't just referring to the only example stat block.
"Only an ancient or adult *true* dragon ..." As in, not wyverns, shadow dragons, dragon turtles. TRUE, not BLUE.
@@RaggedVentures wait. ... yup that's right. Blue dragon was on the brain because of the example. Sorry about that.
If you get to 9th level spells, there are some great options you can create with True Polymorph for Command Undead.
You are absolutely correct that Animate Dead is usually not very table-friendly. But if I can play just a bit of devil's advocate, the first campaign I DMed had a necromancer who used a program in Excel to roll his attacks and damage for all his skeletons at once. Not saying this solves the issue, it's still probably the less effective option, but it did allow him to have his bony army without slowing things down too much.
It really depends on how much the dm lets you get away with. I've been thinking for a long time on how to let skeletons act as generals, but the lack of speech really makes it difficult.
Best I've got so far is to "teach" your hoard like a dog. Assign them to separate, permanent groups and teach them to do different things all for the same command, so you can issue one command to the whole hoard as a bonus action and have them immediately move like you need them to. Start playing Warhammer 40k in dnd
That's what we do at our table. Been working great.
Being well prepared is definitely a solution and beneficial for absolutely everyone. I think Summon Undead just reduces the burden of the level of preparedness you need.
How many undead was he walking with? Cuz touting 4 with me is still just 4 attack rolls on my round. How is this so bad? How is this worse than a warrior with extra attacks
@@murderyoutubeworkersandceos That's a single casting. Necromancers are built to do 5x that, or more
If I could give anyone advice on playing in necromancer it would be this. Have different colored dice for each of your zombies or skeletons. When it comes time for them to attack pick all of the D 20s up and the damage dice and roll them at the same time. I found that my summoned undead had the fastest turn out of everyone at the table. Move up, attack, deal damage with the ones that hit… done 💀
What's your opinion on doing average damage? - you'd still have to roll a d20 for each attack, though.
...
Secondary: What's your opinion on forgoing attack rolls and having the minions do crit/hit/miss-calculated average damage? You'd need a table for each likely AC value ( 10, 11, ..... 25 or whatever you think you need), though. But your GM would know that against e.g. a 16 AC your skeletons would do 3 damage for each attack (really 2.65, but have to round up or say that skeletons hits for damage, repeated. More accurate but more book-keeping). ?
I pre roll all of my attacks for my undead during other players turns, attack and damage, and when it comes to my turn I go down the line zombie on zombie 2 skeleton one skeleton 2 summoned undead etc and ask if their attack roll hits and if it does it does the damage I rolled and I move on to the next one. I currently have 15 undead creatures under my command and my turn goes by faster than the barbarians does.
@@Lord_necromancer How did I not think of this before!? You've actually made me feel that I can finally play a necromancer and not feel guilty about holding up the game
If Goodberry works with disciple of life, Summon Undead works with grim harvest. Amazing consistency Jeremy.
I wonder if Jeremy would have had a different response if he was asked about grim harvest and undead specifically.
@@christopherjones7191 in the sage advice Treant showed in the video, the question actually did specifically ask about that
Yeah, we sure wouldn't want wizards to be able to recover all 40 of their hit points!
@@serpentsembrace782 my grung wizard who had like 20 HP at level 7 from rolling so many ones would enjoy that much hp
First: Goodberry only works partially with Disciple of Life: the cleric bonus applies once per target per casting, so each recipient only gets the life bonus to one berry per casting, not every berry. This makes this combo better with larger parties and less effective with smaller ones.
Second: while the creations from Summon Undead don't get their own initiative roll, they do get a separate turn on the initiative order, which further supports that they are their own being, albeit under your control and as such their kills are their own.
That having been said...as a DM I rule against Crawford's comment purely due to this being a concentration spell, which implies that the Undead's presence is an extension of your power, almost like a single target version of Spirit Guardians. Also, in my games I straight up replace the legacy summons with the ones from Tasha's and so I apply all of the school of necromancy features to this spell so as to not nerf the whole subclass.
Just a quick update to this video, I did my test of the build in a game last night and it worked quite well (level 19). I focused entirely on doing damage and here were the results for all my characters turns during the game:
165 (Did a steel wind strike so this wasn't all single target damage)
66 (chill touch + summon attacks, just cleaning up a combat)
83 (blight + summon attacks)
92 (blight + summon attacks)
170 (Another steel wind strike so again not all single target)
42 (Target died after blight and the combat was over so the undead didn't attack)
60 (This was a readied attack action from the undead after a target was hit with a maze spell)
136 (This was single target damage - meteor swarm + undead attacks on the BBG)
Wow, so even against the big bad of the session (who probably had a high ac and magic resistance) you still did such a humongous amount of damage. Really shows how potent the build is.
Thanks for the update! I was just going to ask how it played. Now that makes _another_ wizard concept I want to play... Let's face it, there are too many good and fun ways to play wizards; it's difficult play anything else without even being tempted a little by this wonderful class.
Wow average of 102 damage
what were you fighting??
Sounds like a lot fun!
I'm not saying its the best choice... but unseen servant spell mastery really fits the theme and was a lot of fun on the Necro I played. Being able to summon a mini army of souls to do digging at rapid pace, or any other light work task is oddly satisfying.
Cool idea!
The imagery of a ghost on the phantom steed is just Epic!
Ghost Rider In the the sky!
I always recommend reflavoring spells to fit a characters theme, especially considering something like necromancers whose mythological and folk counterparts would really have a large amount of spells considered to be divination, enchantment, illusion, and conjuration.
^This
You could reflavor fireball to be the hands of burning corpses from the underworld erupting from the ground and clawing away at/setting fire to anything in the area.
I did this heavily when I was playing a necro,
fireball: flaming skull that he throws and that explodes in green necrotic fire.
Tasha' mind whip: a specter that appears and grabs someone's head to assault their mind
"A ghost appears and does a thing" works shockingly well as a description for most spell effects.
Off the top of my head:
Toll the dead
Unseen servant
Mage hand
Misty step/any teleportation spell
Any spell that gives you information (scry etc)
This build makes so much more sense for a necromancer adventuring with a party of companions. And the “army” of undead fantasy is still there in theory if the wizard ever “settles down” with a strong hold.
When my son asked me to help him build a necromancer style character, we finally ended up with a death domain cleric, which was quite table friendly and tanky as well.
Aww yes the death cleric whit the special "fuck you" attack
Death clerics are so much fun!
@@yuvalgabay1023 Are you referring to grave cleric?
@@joelsasmad nop .death cleric
@yuval gabay ? A max of 45 damage on touch of death even with inescapable destruction isn't that great.
SO excited to watch. Thematically necromancers are my
Favorite but I’ve never bothered with how tedious they are to play in 5e
I hope this changes that!!!
Yea definitely going to be my next build😊
they Just need to make a hord rule.
@@yuvalgabay1023
There is horde rule... For the DM, not for players.
Nice catch on the 6th level necromancer ability.
Being able to damage objects and set things on fire are the reasons I always try to fit Fire Bolt on my wizard and sorcerer builds.
I made an NPC "hero" in shining armor, holding a fancy longsword, who protects a small town from an abnormal amount of undead attacks. He would decline assistance and keep the citizens back while he slays the undead. Paladin? Armored knight? Nope, a necromancer without martial proficiency, he just makes a performance check to "battle" his foes, who just seem to miss while taking one shot death blows. The necromancer isn't evil, just opportunistic in being the hero and taking the rewards.
you and i have very different definitions of evil it seems
Thats pretty bad my man
Capitalist evil may be less evil than murder entire city evil. But it's still evil... arguably not even less evil
That's amazing!
"capitalist evil"
Can we not? Literally every modern communist uses capitalism far more than even libertarians, like Hasan. What the necromancer is doing is going against capitalism If anything, deceptive services or fake products go against it.
If it was the stone Age you wouldnt be calling it "evil capitalist" despite the guy taking meat, hides and other valuable trade goods. Trade will allways exist
If the Artificer component casting is an issue at your table, don't be afraid to grab a second level of the class and pick up the Enhanced Defense Infusion. Put it on your shield and now you're *always* holding your spell focus. It might hurt a bit in spellslot progression, but it'll make things go so much smoother at tables where spell components are more strictly enforced.
It also has a secondary benefit of higher AC!
You can also take a level of Cleric instead of Artificer and stick your Divine Symbol of your shield. The thing is, the best 1 level Cleric dip both in general and for Wizards in particular (and most especially for Summoning Wizards) is Peace Cleric, which Treantmonk basically refuses to use. Still, Emboldening Bond is a major non-concentration buff to our summons and allies. You do lose proficiency in Constitution saves, but Resilient is a good feat for everyone, and Emboldening Bond does a lot to make up for the lack.
@Tor Diryc'Goyust Well, sure. But, as you note, a single level of Peace Cleric practically makes *any* build better. And many tables ban the Peace Cleric for just that reason (including Chris' own tables). That first level feature is just THAT strong.
@@flandarz1 As I said, Chris pretty much refuses to include Peace and Twilight Clerics in his builds, which is certainly the reason he went with Artificer here instead.
But as good as Peace Cleric is, such that every maximally optimized party should have an Emboldening Bond user (if allowed at the table), it is in fact best on Wizards, largely because the other casters have other dips that are higher priority, and an early level of Cleric tends to be more disruptive to their builds, but also because, as I mentioned, Emboldening Bond basically gives the Wizard the "trifecta" by covering for the lack of Con save proficiency, and because the Cleric spell list is among the least reliant on ability modifiers (only Druid beating it). And it's extra strong on Wizards who use minions, as cheap non-concentration multitarget buffs are the strongest force multiplier available.
So yeah, sure, Peace Cleric is good on any character, but this build in particular is practically begging for it.
@Tor Diryc'Goyust Honestly, with this build, you'd sacrifice more than just Con Save proficiency to take Peace or Twilight. Chris built the character with 8s in Str, Wis, and Cha and 15s in Dex, Con, and Int. So, to multiclass into Cleric, he'd need to drop his Dex or his Con, either giving up AC and Initiative (keeping himself safer and making sure his Summon goes before enemies) or HP and Concentration (making it harder to die and making sure his Summon sticks around). Maybe Emboldening Bond is worth it, but I don't think it's a clear upgrade.
The best part about these summon spells is that even the niche forms can see play depending on the encounter so they can't be completely written off. If the putrid form conditions and damage are on the table for an encounter (a humanoid BBEG perhaps) it's the better option to take.
I played a more traditional necromancer character that focuses on animate dead a few times, and the only time it worked, is when we were playing on a virtual tabletop, where you can setup a quick one button macro to make all of your skeletons attack at once. The build that you presented will work for all kinds of games. Keep up the good work!
I've often felt the summon spells where undervalued.
Totally love these kinds of spells.
Yeah, people say often times that action economy wins the game. Getting a full extra turn every turn to do whatever you want is just... Of course it's good. The damage also helps lol.
@@crunchevo8974 yeah, and they value hit points spells like aid and armor of agathis, and man, if you summon is being attacked he is "absorbing" that damage. Those attacks would have damaged your allies.
@@adriel8498 yeah for sure it's awesome, and you can even lock enemies into melee with the threat of an opportunity attack, and even control them with some.
Never thought them to be weak, but definitely disruptive: played an AL module (season of mists) in which one of the players was a sheperds druid with a robe of useful items of sorts. The final "fight" was a showcase of half the MM in front of a "F@¢£ this shit" DM and two bored players. Halfway through the zoo the DM said "ok, they killed it, see you in two weeks"
I like the idea of an order cleric buffing his minion with bonus action spells allowing it to get extra attacks while we cleave enemies with a greatsword fit for the lich king
Animate Dead could be reworked to create a undead swarm that can grow with additional castings. (similar to the Ghost of Saltmarsh Skeletal Swarm)
I'm DMimg a spelljammer game right now and one of my players is a necromancer. The class actually works really well when the skeletons are operating ship weapons, it takes a lot of the table unfriendliness out.
Good morning Chris! I've made it from the Frostbane Barbarian to here in the past few days!
I'm in a campaign that's at level 12 right now, my previous character had some story reasons to leave last week, so I'm going to be making a necromancer so I'm excited to be at this video! Perfect timing! 💜
Incorporeal Passage would allow you to move the ghostly undead away from combat without an attack of opportunity if you’re fighting on the ground. It takes 10’ movement to go straight down into the ground, another 10’ movement to get out away from the combat radius of a non-reach creature and can then travel 15’ up into the air or just straight back if you’re fighting in an enclosed space.
Haha, nice! Ghost comes up, attacks a bunch, then slowly sinks into the floor while waving bye-bye :)
What I like about this is while it's an optimized damage build, the summon nearly keeps up with the baseline on its own, and if I'm not mistaken actually exceeds it at high levels. This means that using only your concentration your damage contribution is basically wrapped up. This means you can do Wizard Things with your standard action rather than blasting if you want.
You already mentioned some of them such as Transmute Rock and Tasha's Mind Whip, but I can think of others such as Blindness/Deafness. I think finding non-concentration control spells to use alongside your ghost would really match the fantasy you see regarding necromancers from novels and video games - where the mage himself is mostly there for support and is not as much of a direct combatant. Plus, it would allow for multiple different variations on this build which is just fun.
I absolutely LOVE this build, Chris. I;m already wanting to use this.Thank you.
I have fond memories of your 3.5 malconvoker guide, I always loved the summoner archetype; glad to see you're gonna dedicate a series to that!
Great video Chris. Loved the choice of font for the damage calculations. Bilbron has been carrying that Tasha summons torch alone for a while now and I am so glad that you're now advocating for this playstyle as well. This is going to make casters so much more effective
The promo at the start of this video convinced me to watch the previous one. I'm glad I did!
I think the way I'd wanna roleplay this build is as someone summoning the ghost of a loved one, like a dead spouse. So you still have the element of tampering into dark magic they shouldn't but in a way that's less overtly villainous turning people's corpses into an army and instead someone more sympathetic that it wouldn't feel outrageous for a typical band of heroes to hang around with.
I had a character who summoned their "imaginary friend" who turned out to just be a ghost living in their house
I love these kinds of builds, where you're taking problem builds and making them table-friendly. Can't wait to see things more like this in the future.
Incredible build Chris. Really great stuff. Best Build in a long time. Great work :))
Glad you like it!
I’m so hyped for the demon/fiend or shadow spawn builds. Great video so I’m looking forward to what you have next.
More to come!
I love this. This seems like a must try at higher levels of play.
Having played a Necromancer after Tasha's, I typically used Animate Dead as utility while Summon Undead was for combat.
I find that Grim Harvest with undead summons should use the same logic as Disciple of Life with Goodberry.
Both features do the things spells do, but both spells create something else that does the thing.
Therefore, if a GM allows lifeberry to work, the same train of thought should be used to enable Grim Harvest triggering when your undead kill enemies. Converesly, any table that adheres to Crawford's rulings on grim harvest should not allow lifeberry to work. Rules should be consistent, and follow an internal logic
I always had the idea of a necromancer who carried around a coffin on their back with like a big bad ghoul that fights for them instead of an army fine tuning their work and studies on that one body. this build work’s perfectly for that
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personally, while i love Telekinetic, i think Shadow Touched would be my half-feat of choice. invisibility is almost always going to come in handy, but i think a necromancer wizard with inflict wounds as your first level pick is the way to go. if you find yourself in melee (and even better if you have advantage on an attack roll from somewhere) you can dump a bunch of d10s on your adversary, and because it’s a necromancy spell you could trigger Grim Harvest and heal yourself a bit too! i’m not sure it’s optimal, but i could totally see a necromancer grabbing someone and choking the life out of them.
Agreed... I'm actually playing a Shadow Touched necromancer with Inflict Wounds. The character is a Reborn, and having a nasty melee spell attack really helps to get the lich flavor I'm going for. Besides being thematic, it's also a useful emergency fallback option if an enemy manages to get just a bit too close for comfort.
Necromancer's don't get enough love.
Thank you for this
Hey, I just made my first youtube video inspired by you! thanks so much for providing so much great dnd content over the years!
That is awesome!
the trick with oathbreakers is that you play a necromancer and your friend plays an oathbreaker as a duo
The hard part of that pairing is keeping them from betraying each other!
@@elliotbryant3459 luckily you’re playing the one with the undead, and aura of hate does not discriminate!
Love this build idea!
Also I'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the new Lunar Sorcerer subclass!
I recommend psychic lance over blight. It probably does more average damage when you account for saving throw and damage type. There's even a nasty incapacitation effect to boot.
Edit: it occurred to me after watching the video that FToD content isn't being used for the sake of the build. Ignore this comment if your DM doesn't allow that book.
Having a pet litch is something everyone in your party can get behind.
Chris - 2022
.
Gotta make this into a T-shirt
Wow I've been playing a Hobgoblin Necromancer for a year in a weekly OotA game. I've been saving my 3rd level spellslots for animate dead, but somehow hadn't thought upcasting Summon Undead would be that viable. I will definitely be doing so in the future. Thank you Treantmonk!
You were right, Chris. I loved this video! I love wizard from school of necromancy and when I saw your video, I felt nostalgia. This character was really fun and really effective, and table friendly.
Glad you enjoyed it!
fun fact : you can use planar binding on Tasha's summons to get concentration free minions.
The _really_ annoying thing about creating and maintaining a Skeleton army is the logistics of making sure you have enough Short Swords, Short Bows, and Arrows on hand so that they are actually equipped with weapons.
Fortunately most enemies you turn into skeletons come per-equiped with weapons.
Skeletons from animate dead stick around technically permanently, and have a high enough intelligence to learn tools using the teaching rules from Xanathars. You could theoretically have some make all the arrows themselves
At our table we allow a light hammer to be considered a tool, because smiths tools say they include a light hammer
So damn accurate about any summon build. I use a bag of tricks, and each choice is an index card for quick play. You have to be absolutely organized if you want to politely play this role.
I'm a bit late to the party, but i wanted to thnak you for this much detail and work to make summoning viable and friendly. I started playing just a year ago and i've always wanted to play a summoner type character, but was discouraged by how the community sees them. So this helps me out a lot for the future ! huge thank you !
The massive battle unearthed arcana always comes to mind with the standard necromancer.
Exactly what I needed for my player
I played this very build almost a year ago at the end of the pandemic, only difference I did 1 lvl Twilight Cleric into wizard, full campaign from lvl 4 up to lvl 13.
I must Say It was so fun, nothing out of the ordinary up to lvl 6 but from 7 to 13 i was unstopable.
At the start I used an army of undead with animate undead that i keept in my bag of holding and It was broken, but later i decided to stop because I didn't want to overshadow the other 3 players and It did bog down gameplay a bit ( I played quick and fast with the undead and It still was quite long each turn ).
After a while i switched to just summon undead and some blast spells with a +2 staff and I was still by far the best DPS of the team but at least everyone was having fun and covering their role so It was a blast as a whole.
Great guide as Always.
Thank you for this.
I liked the mechanics of this so much. It got me to write a character around it.
instead of a evil minion maker, I liked the idea of a necromancer that came from a line of warrior that was cursed to be physically frail, and 2 generations onward they have assembled all the knowledge they could in the dark arts that cursed them in order to over come them, and summon their matriarch’s spirit to take vengeance on their enemies.
I can’t believe you’re passing up putrid form with poison and paralysis.
I've been playing an _elven_ undertaker artificer-necromancer for half a year. Neat.
danse macabre is worth considering. yes, it has all the minion downsides, but they're temporary so its only a sometimes thing you break out in particular fights (typically boss + minions when the minions are dead), not an every fight bother.
I'm currently working on a table friendly necromancer build myself. Except I'm focusing more on the underrated 2nd level ability rather than the level 6 ability. Using the Lorehold Student background from Strixhaven to add Spirit Guardians to the Wizard spell list. Every time it procs damage, you regain hp for free. Useful if you're a squishy caster trying to maintain concentration on a spell. Life Transference helps the character feel a little more like a support character. Summon Undead[Ghostly] is also a great pick, good call
This is really great. I love how you get the necromancer to work without breaking the game. Also if you want to get that whole undead army feel with animate dead, you can use your summons to do out of combat work. Use them as foot soldiers to defend a town, or send them somewhere as a distraction while your party sneaks through. This way it doesn't bog the game down, but you still feel like a powerful necromancer.
Which has great synergy with learning it for free!
I can`t wait to play a build like this. I don`t like the idea of playing a Hobglobin, but I see that Fortune from many can help with wisdom saves.
I like still having Animate Dead just for the utility. Casting it means you have extra hands to carry dungeon loot, and Deathless Nature means you've got some guards during long rests or even heists that can alert the party if needs be, without all the mess of taking up half the initiative order because you're not using them for combat
I’ve been uncomfortable using spells like Animate Dead, Conjure [X], and Animate Objects just because you can get so much that the other players would leave the room. Even if you divide the creatures among the other players, it’s not fun for them to play creatures that just make your character look cool. The Summon [X] series of spells in Tasha’s does a good job of fixing this. I like the way you’ve put this necromancer together.
I think it works okay in VTT, but yeah I agree especially when playing in person. I have to make things easier for my players when one of them builds a conjurer with those spells
I run them the following way
1. They go at the end of your turn, I'm not rolling initiative for 8 creatures
2. You roll all your attacks at once and I enforce the "you issue the same command to the creatures" which means they all attack the same guy. In addition, I look at the AC and attack bonus and tell you what to roll to hit
3. We use average damage for the summons
4. If you have pack tactics or something to give advantage they instead get a +2 to hit.
5. Players choose the creatures
Animate objects can be less optimised and more fun, use the dungeon doors to allow the party to surf through the dungeon, make the tables block enemies, provide cover and assist the heroes, trap vampires in their own coffins, mummies in their own sarcophagi, rugs and tapestries and curtains can trip and entangle. These are all medium or larger uses of Animate Objects, so fewer, not just spamming flying daggers or coins. Nothing like using a dragons hoard against it!
@@ADT1995
In Divinity Original Sin 2. All summoned creatures go after their summoner one by one. But for 5e, just group named summons like "Skeleton Group 1" and "Familiar Group 2" then each group makes their Actions simultaneously until the turn is resolved.
I think the DMG even has rules for massive amount of NPC monsters.
@@samuelbroad11
Major Image + Illusory Reality at lv14 to summon an army is fun.
Or at least... For players who know how to do this. Illusions are difficult to master beyond the basic examples.
This build is why this channel is the best optimisation channel (no offence colby, I love you). Always looking at the game experience, not just at gEtTInG tHe numBerS.
This is amazing.
I love necromancy and my players seem to enjoy it too. Im sure one of my players in particular will get some great use out of this video.
Undertaker themed Artificer spells:
Magic Stone- Is actually magic bones. In this undertaker's tinkering with the dead, he has created gloves taken from the finger bones of the unfortunate souls he has laid to rest. With an incantation and a flick of the finger, the residual spirits contained within send the a shard of bone flying towards his enemies.
Faerie Fire- Contained within a small lantern is a flickering of soul fragments ripped from the dead before their mortal forms were entombed. With a word from their keeper, these fragments glow with intense jealousy of the living, seeking out enemies to for the keeper to extinguish.
Disguise Self- A macabre, patchwork mask of humanoid leather harvested from the deceased. It conforms to it's user, giving a new face and form resembling the victims it was made from.
One thing about the animate dead spell is the out of combat potential. If you just stick with one 3rd lvl spell, you have 4 monsters. I go with skeletons. Now they can give the help action to 4 party members at once. Carry things for you and the party. Carry you personally.
The commands that you give don't have to be combat related, so they can do mundane tasks.
Animate Dead is the spell you pull out when the rest of your party has been knocked unconscious. Even if you never use it, it’s a good ace in the hole.
Animate dead has a 1 minute casting time. You really can't use it mid fight
Now Danse Macabre...
My first 5e wizard. I had a long layoff from playing, and started again in 2021.
I think those Tasha’s summon spells are really great, and had the perfect opportunity to play to end game tier with a campaign that goes to lvl 20 plus.
I took 2 levels of artificer to get infusions, and mind sharpener will be my go to for this build.
I choose to succeed on a con save is just too good.
Everything else is very similar. Even the Hobgoblin racial choice.
I’m already having a lot of fun with it. (I love the grease spell, so much fun.)
Your Abberant Mind sorcerer build is in my head as a backup PC, just in case…😎😎
Horde rules works to simplify animate dead collection. Take base skeleton or zombie, then Each skeleton or zombie added to the horde adds it's HP, plus 1 to damage, attack bonus, and minus 1 to ac until it's size becomes unsustainable by spell slots. It acts as 1 monster but it's spell maintenance stays the same as if individual.
For Summon Aberration, I looked at monsters between CR 6 and 13 (levels you would likely be fighting in your campaign when S.A. becomes available). The vast majority of creatures with resistance or immunity are Undead. There are a few humanoids and fiends with resistance, but overwhelmingly it's Undead.
So with this build you're fine casting Summon Undead unless other Undead are on the table.
I've played a necromancer from levels 1-11 and I can fully agree that animate dead slows the game down drastically. I usually limit myself to 5 skeletons at a time to not bog everything down. It only requires a 3rd level slot to maintain, and once they start dying in combat I whip out Danse Macabre to bring them up. Really fun to play, but it definitely requires much restraint and preparation on my part to keep it fun for the other players and the DM. Great video Chris. Makes me want to try Summon Undead when I next play my necromancer.
Love the concept AND results. Solid all around.
Please, please, PLEASE, since you're on the summoning kick already, let's see a damage focused Wildfire Druid.
I know Druids' spell list isn't the most damage focused. But the Wildfire spirit isn't concentration, doesn't use slots, and scales in duration as well as hp. All super solid reasons IMO.
I mentioned my necromantic swords bard last video, but I also played as a lore bards necromancer who took summon undead and warding bond at sixt level... It makes the summon very meaty and a level in divine sorc made con saves really easy to pass... At higher levels I took spiritual weapon, greater steed and a dip in order cleric and I ended up with a weaponized action, bonus action (my spiritual weapon), reaction (silvery barbs with voice of autority) and a pet nazgul (my steed was a draconnel)... I had a lot of fun...
Very nice.
Also, “GREEN FLAME!”
Revisiting this build after your recent "best of" videos. Now I'm considering Rp'ing an orphan Kalashtar, and re-flavoring the summoned Undead as agents of the Dreaming Dark that she has learned to manipulate & control in her service. Damn, that could be sweet.
Gotta love Crawford and consistency of rulings. Life cleric ability and necromancer ability aren't too much different from each other, yet lifeberry somehow works in his eyes.
Inured to Undeath while situational, has a pretty decent benefit with two spells; Create Homunculus, and Create Magen (this spell is from the Rime of the Frostmaiden supplement, so it might not be available at all tables). The main drawback of these spells is the hitpoint maximum reduction, which the Necromancy wizard is immune to. These spells could easily be reflavored to be more undead, and they don't summon hordes of creatures, so they make decent scouts/control options.
Really enjoyed this build, I'm likely to run it as my next character. I did have a thought though; the first level in Grave Cleric would eliminate the issue with holding tools to cast your early spells. It will give you the armor proficiency, proficiency in con saving throws and wis saving throws (which comes up far more often than int. and eventually you can take resilient int as a feat if you wanted that over the dex saving prof). your first level in grave cleric also gives you the ability to target 2 creatures with a damage dealing necromancy cantrip instead of one, making chill touch even more wild at early levels.
This video definitely has taking the Summon Undead spell a lot more seriously.
I'm not so quick to dismiss the Putrid variant as a viable option though. Paralysis on enemies is a GREAT way to make the crit-fishers and damage dealers in your party love you.
I'm thinking you could easily paralyze someone within a single round by doing:
1) Wizard casts mind sliver on enemy
2) Putrid undead spirit runs into melee and readies an action to make a rotting claw attack whenever the enemy is affected by poison
3) The enemy starts their turn and makes a saving throw against the festering aura with possible reduction from mind sliver
4) Readied rotting claw triggers and potentially causes paralysis
Maybe you could even take the poisoner feat and use a bonus action to coat your undead spirit's rotting claw, which would allow the undead spirit to poison an enemy without even needing to ready an action and waste extra attacks.
So, my biggest issue with necromancy wizards aren’t the subclass abilities which are fine outside of one or two tweaks for personal preference almost exclusively for the 6th level ability. The real issue is the spells and lack of variety. There seems to be a complete lack of flavorful spells related to the school of necromancy in general, and that is the subject of a lot of my upgrades.
The fey wanderer in your party will like your summon
I love the flavor of the overly attached squire who resurected their lord commander on their phantom steed because the miss them to much
So, this video helped me a bit with my character in a level 20 mini-campaign. Admittedly, I didn't use this exact build; instead, I made my character a Reborn because I really like the lich flavor, and I skipped the Artificer level and went straight Wizard since I got to start with a Robe of the Archmagi and thus really didn't need the medium armor (I used the Resilient feat on Con instead of Dex). But the main thing I took from this video was heavy reliance on Summon Undead, which I thought would be just as great from a character standpoint as from a practical standpoint. The gilded skull he uses as the material component is his murdered daughter's; her death is what drove him towards necromancy and ultimately lead him to become a (pseudo)undead himself in order to make sure that he could avenge her, even if it took all of eternity.
Good stuff
I’ve been thinking about ways to do ‘ethically farmed’ undead in D&D and I stumble across this! Amazing. More to that point: if you’re trying to find a way to do a less problematic ‘bag of rats’ - take Artificer 2, do two ‘replicate items’. Ruby of the war mage for the material components problem, and a ‘hat of vermin’. If you’re stuck without a cleric or a short rest, take 1 minute and a vampiric touch to *conjure* frogs (fits with the undertaker vibe), and ‘practice your anatomy basics’ to regain (if we’re being kind to the ambiguous ruling) 159 HP, or (if we’re being cheeky) 420 HP.
With the necromancer you could technically spam life transference until you die, but killing a creature triggers grim harvest which means you get back up... And potentially boost life transference with bestow curse on yourself...
Command Undead against Nightwalker 😅 I love this build.
I pre plan my moves put a personal cap on the number of dead I can animate (Four) and get permission from my DM ahead of time to allow me to condense their movement to the bottom of the track (as in instead of rolling, they all just go last). I've personally never had a problem with action economy or having over long turns. But as a general rule, yes, I agree that animate dead needs to be soft banned at the table... it can if you go over the top with it too far. And no one wants to bog down the game.
This was an excellent video btw and I am grateful that Tasha's gave us one really solid summon spell for all the kinds of flavor and occasions. That'll be a like and subscribe.
yep, i did NOT think about summon undead and necromancy wizard last video, really does make the subclass go from "banned" to useable doesn't it.
How many years of play and you are still leading the pack of content creation for this game.
I love this so much more than the usual necromancer army of skeletons. I also like the idea of using phantom steel with the ghost so that you have ghostrider as your summon
So, I unironically did a similar build in this Adventure League game I’m playing in Ravenloft. He’s a Human Warlock, Patron of Undead, Shadowtouched feat for Invisibility and Inflict Wounds.
He uses Chill Touch and Toll the Dead for damage cantrips (though I have Produce Flame from Book of Shadows). He can’t learn Animate Dead, but I’m still preparing to grab Summon Undead at 5th. I keep my distance, weave into combat with Form of Dread to unleash Inflict Wounds.
Oh, and I have the Dark Gift “Deathly Touch”, so it’s been fun to RP too.
Artificer as soon as they get their infusions the infusion can be the M componunt of the spells so if you make your shield the +1 option it will count as your M componunt
This was really helpfull. Always wanted to play a necromancer in a dnd game but always felt it would be a big hassel.
This video came at a great time, a new player is about to enter the table I'm playing in, and apart from the complains me and another player have of someone who desecrates bodies and souls joining a mostly good aligned party, there are obvious mechanical problems with the play style slugging down the game and messing with action economy (also, the temp hp from our twilight cleric which was already bonkers is now at double efficiency).
Really liking these ideas. I DM for a player with a necromancer. The player found that in a rapid, dangerous game with a lot of RP, a dead animator is far less fun than a scary summoner (which he ended up going with). Animating dead is time consuming, your projects get blown apart easily, and parties find having these minions around problematic.
I've played this build (on a reborn for extra flavour - kind of a mini-lich) but I'm only at level 7 in the adventure, started at level 3.. It was in a party of just 2 also, so the extra body on the battlefield gave a lot of control, even if that mean it taking hits. Putrid Spirit is a good summon too at lower levels as the rider can be quite useful, but the extra mobility and immunity to magic resistance means the Ghostly Spirit soon pulls ahead. In the smaller teams Medium Armour and Shield comes up a lot too, so with the Con proficiency it does make the Artificer dip ok. I _did_ miss the level of spell progression, but pretty much just upcast summon undead with that slot. Never cast animate dead, even after I had it as the extra summons are just annoying to manage, and they are fairly weak compared to the Summon you are used to. Hope Animate Dead gets reworked with OneD&D.
There is some debate about whether Undead Thralls applies to Summon Undead, as it's not "creating" an undead, but I'd like to think most DMs would allow that, as without it there is kind of no point to playing a necromancer, and it doesn't in any way make it overpowered. I found the build very fun, and thought it was cool to see Treantmonk discovering it too - I was only a few months ahead and some of his spell picks were better than mine.
I really want to play a character like this. Of course any time I play a dark character like this there is a cleric, or paladin in the party that ruins my fun.