Want to know how to make it even worse? www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/nightwalker This thing (Nightwalker) is a cr 20 UNDEAD with an intelligence of 6 and a charisma of 8 with no legendary resistance, easy to enslave as a level 20 wizard, and feasible already at level 14. It does have a 30 ft. kill aura, but that is easily reduced with another necromancer feature + a bag of holding or other magical container. Also, zombies/skeletons can be trained to use other equipment, allowing you to make pikeman zombies! Also, if you don't want to keep casting create undead on your wights, just use Geas as a level 9 spell on them to force them to obey or die!
Personally I am doing this as a gnome neutral evil wizard, his motivation isn't actually evil in itself, he's just insanely paranoid and simply wants to live a nice and secure life, but constantly fears to be assasinated one day. He refuses to sleep before casting an alarm spell and uses other wards to keep his house secure. His reason for necromancy, is that a creature with no will can't betray him. He then intends to one day carve out a country of unwilling servants so that he has a security perimeter and can live safely and snugly in his ivory tower doing wizardy things.
@@theposhdinosaur7276 zombies actually have too low of an int. score to be trained to use equipment, skeletons however? well there you've got your archers, knights, pikemen, swordsmen, etc
@@shadowwarrior1003 "In the section on zombies in the MM, they have the Slam melee weapon attack, which does 1d6+1. The description section for zombies does read: A zombie armed with a weapon uses it, but the zombie won't retrieve a dropped weapon or other tool until told to do so." Source: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/120209/can-animated-undead-wear-armor-and-use-weapons
I’m going tbh when I play my favorite dnd character it is a cult necromancer robing the towns people betraying them and ruling actual villages filled with my cult zombies
@@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim gives me an idea though. the players work for a very lazy level 20 wizard and are tasked with completing the most mundane household tasks. but the batshit insane environment of a wizards property makes just surviving at low level let alone getting anything done a challenge.
Step 1: start a franchise opportunity for a mortuary business. People bring your franchisees their dead to be buried after a tasteful viewing. Keep it nice: flowers, memorial service, no open bar. Your intent is to collect the bodies, animate them and come back to town 1 year later reigning destruction. However, before you do, your accountant shows you the outrageous profit margins the mortuary business has and you decide to not invade as you make a better "living" already. Now what are you gonna do with 2 k undead?
As has been demonstrated IRL, you could always hide all those zombie/bodies in the pond out back. Instead of incinerating or interring them. Following in the path of pioneers.
My current campaign features a nation ruled by a LN aligned Vampire Clan, so any settlement in the nation of Large Town size or greater has a Necromancer's Guild office. Skeletons, clad in black clothing that hides their features, are a core part of the economy. They do a lot of the unskilled labor and grunt work around the country. The humans of the nation have been given a blood gift by the vampire house, and are like 1/8 vampire 7/8 human. So they're vulnerable to wooden piercing damage, they have to CHA save to enter running water, but they have boosted STR, CON, advantage on climb, resist necrotic damage. Pretty cool stuff. The Necromancer's Guild is always looking for more bodies, so it's fodder for lower level adventurers to make money going outside the nation and making war on the orcs, goblins, elves, and goliaths that are enemies and to bring back their bodies to turn into skeletons. Goliath skeletons are most prized.
@@angryrabbit7682 Unlikely that the Necromancer will have any spell slots 3rd level or higher as they will be spent to raise/retain control of the undead (plus the other wizard might be able to cast another meteor and counterspell isnt automatic...).
Level 20 Sorcerer. Convert 2 level 1, 3 level 2, and 1 level 3 spell slot every day into sorcery points after using 2 of the spells. Twin Spell finger of death 4 times/day. Completely free 2920 permanent zombies. Use all spell slots the last day on animate dead. Make spell scrolls and gems if you want. This method is simpler and yields more zombies.
Jerimiah Senger if you can kill 2920 people using finger of death no mean feat, Especially when you consider that you would likely have have an army sent after you and your horde.
It's better in raw numbers, but necromancer wizard has tougher and more damage causing minions. Personally I'd love to see a mix and match party of various types of necromancers, from wizards to sorcerers and warlocks even and bring out different tactical approaches to the undead.
Also, a cleric-forger to round out the party and make absurd amounts of roman legion style arms and armor for the skeletons would be nice. The sort of simple to make and mass produce, but effective gear that stacks the odd's in your favour through quantity of bonuses to multiple roll's is brutally grinding in the long run.
Also necromancers can carry rat skeletons from the party's last meal and have skeleton rats trigger all the traps, lead monsters to ambushes, and detect smartass traps in small anti-magic zones by falling apart in the anti-magic zone. They also chew ropes, carry exploding/acid/holy water type vials to where they fall on enemies...
It would use a lvl 8 spell slot, but could I (in theory) store my undead zombies like Lincoln Logs in a demiplane? I wonder how many you'd be able to reasonably fit, considering 30ft in every dimension.
@@00784865 No, he accounted for the simulacrum. The point is to have as many as possible on the day of the attack. the thought experiment dies there. If you really wanna be fiddly about it, then recast simulacrum afterwards.
So I accidentally mispronounced "Mausoleum" as "Maulosseum" and my table joked that it was a Giant Colosseum of Undead fighting for the right to be resurrected. This build now gives me a great idea for a necromancer amassing warriors to rig battles haha in my future Maulosseum story arc.
@@panitaeo you dont need human corpses, and you spent 20 whole levels presumably adventuring around slaughtering stuff. go find a goblin stronghold or lizardman brood or just raid ancient catacombs or graveyards for them--hell you'd probably find that many corpses/piles of bones/existing undead just raiding the pyramids in search of the two mummy lords.
_[sees a necromancer raising thousands of undead minions]_ *Inquisitor:* "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, B1?" *Paladin:* "I think I am, B2!" *Together: "ＩＴ＇Ｓ ＣＲＵＳＡＤＩＮＧ ＴＩＭＥ!"*
I have a wizard drafted up that's a stereotypical nerd that gets picked on named Nigel, he's going to he a necromancer to get back at his bullies... he's nigel the nerdy necromancer. He also talks in a nasally voice and caves to peer pressure, but one day.....
This is basically my necromancer. His culture views the dead as tools, like beast of burden. Use undead for dangerous labor and as front line soldiers.
I was thinking that during the video as well! "I will never ask another son of this nation to die for me again. Behold, the dead fight to protect the living!" Boi it's gonna get hella real in my next game!
@@liamassassingaming922 it depends on how many you have grouped around that cleric and they don't have to all bum rush it have a bunch of skeletons shooting bows as far as they can
Just a quick note, there's the "Feeblemind" spell that let's you temporarily, a.k.a for the moment of command undead-ing, turns creature into something with a 1 intelligence, allowing you to technically command undead even the most intelligent of the undeads. Now granted, one could argue that command undead is constantly checking if the creature dominated has high enough of an intelligence instead of checking it at the moment you dominate their mind. So, that Lich you thought was the bbeg? Just yet another minion, alongside the Ancient Red dracolich.
If a player successfully pulled that off I would totally allow it. But i would make it so that while the undead is "commanded" they are still capable of free thought and maybe even free speech. Only begrudgingly following the commands of their commander because of magic.
@@projectzeroexpectations7397 correct me if im wrong but a 9th tier bestow curse last til dispelled right if im right and it does NOT have a time limit then cant you just degrade intelligence on all undead and let that speak for itself? Ps true story This happened in 1 campaign i was in and while there was ALOT of homebrew it worked on the lich and commanded him to tell their army of wrights skeletons etc (this was near the end MASSIVE undead army led by this lich that i now control who somehow got lesser versions of death knights under its control) and with this army i just charged it at the big bad and our short rest ended we realized the boss was at 15hp and less then half dead due to bb only having 1 turn vs a army of 100k undead all i did was steal the killing blow during the end pop lesser god of death this is why you should consider the personality of your players how tf did they NOT think id try to cheese it
James Stewart sorry to ruin your fun, but most of the time initiative is rolled by a whole racial group at once. Like if there are 3 goblins they all do their attacks on the same turn.
I see a lot of videos showing builds all the way up to level 20. How about a video about great level 10 builds? How many players ever make it to level 20?
Before you do all that, first you need to: 1. Get some necromancer buddies from the College of Magic 2. Start a war to weaken the armies of the living and give you more bodies
everything he wanted was to move into an old castle... but everyone he came across on his journey immediately thought he must be evil and startet to fight him. now he stands there with quite an army and is forced to fight even if doesn't wanted to.
100% allow. And make sure the group would have issue with it and/or make that player be the final boss. Basically pushing him to take over once the other big bad is gone.
Well Archlich is good but you don't always need a necromancer who wants to become a lich you could have a necro who loves the sweet embrace of death and plans to die
I have a necromancer who's ambitions lie in ending war and death. he's a veteran soilder with severe PTSD and raises the already dead to act as his soilders so that he can end the bloodshed involved in war. I gladly accept that once I reach a point in my army I may have to face those who do not agree with them. there are a lot of contexts that a necromancer can take and I think its a bad thing that so many people seem to think all necromancers have to be evil powerhungry liches
You need to do a conjurer build. I would work the players goals into my campaign, and I often include large scale battles anyway so it wouldn't really break my campaigns, especially at lvl 20.
If a player in my game wanted to do this, that could be fine depending on the setting. Though i would make them take into consideration the potential consequences of having a horde of undead at their command. Additionally, once they reached 10+ i would group their army into, at most, four separate initiatives. And some things would just be, “Ok, yep. Your horde of zombies wins.”
Been playing necromancer for the past yeah and a half as my first ever dnd character, this really helps. Already level 11 and aiming to raise an army of undead for the greater good of the world my campaign is based in. So really good to know all this. Gonna be a goood time. Thanks again. I like being an elf race as I trance instead of sleep to regain full spell slots after 4 hours of meditation.
Cody i don't get to watch your videos alot anymore or save4dice. But there's no way I'd miss this as the necromancer and or death cleric is my favorite. I must say you brought true undeathly justice to it. Bravo my good sir bravo. Have a great weekend and hope to see you in a save4dice episode soon. :)
When talking about Finger of Death and said 'fingergun someone to death', my mind totally thought he said fingerbang someone to death. I played in a game once where I tried to go totally horde style necromancer build, trying to raise or create everything I could. The DM quickly just stopped putting in many humanoid enemies for me to raise and kept putting in foes that could AoE my groups with spells or one shot multiple of them with attacks. It really 'killed' the whole drive and vibe of the play. And on top of that half the party thought I was worthless in the group and the other half thought I was just giving them a free round to act with foes focused on my stuff first most of the time.
thats either a shitty DM or a heavily unprepared DM. dealing with a players character by making them useless and denying their flavour is a TERIBBLE way to handle things and WILL kill the fun. when you play a character like this communication is key, talk with your DM about making horde rules to streamline combat once you hit the point where you have dozens of undead. a character like this requires preperation on both sides and without that... there is no shortcut
Nice method you make great content. Wanted to offer my method up for review. If you can find a Sword Wraith Commander you can summon 2 to 5 Sword Wraith Warriors per day. It is not specified that the Commander controls the warriors but I would assume they would fight for the side of the Commander. So if we start the day we find the Commander and set the number summoned to 3 per day that's 1095 summoned Warriors. If we use Finger of Death 4 times per day for 363 days that is 1452 zombies. Using our 7th lvl slots for the remaining 2 days of the year that's 4 more zombies for a total of 1456. Day 364 we create 5 wights and make them kill 12 people each for a total of 60 zombies rising in 24 hrs. This gives us a total of 65 undead. Using Signature Spell to cast Animate Dead and all spell slots from 3rd to 6th level slots plus Arcane Recovery two 5th level slots we can create and maintain 92 undead. So that 1+1095+1456+65+92=2709 undead with no items and the only ruling the DM would have to make is, who do the Sword Wraith Warriors fight for.
At this scale, controling the horde would be a bigger chalange than creating it, but love the idea. I had my necromancer request two items from the DM. One that extended my range of control, and a variant of a Bag of Holding for easier transportation
of course legendary dragons book has dragons... and everyone knows that dragons makes everything better. so legendary dragons makes dragon things even more legendary.
@@josuanygren but wish dont have that limit aka i wish for all entities other then me to turn into death knights and liches under my peenoment controll and to never age
I wouldn't mind the players building such an army. But, they will have to find a way to deal with those pesky undead slaying adventurers and king's army who took notice.
Pssh.. Capture a group of goblins or a similar race that people don't like so it wouldn't be strange if they went missing, then breed said captives, proceed to keep breeding until you have a comfortable amount you can send to slaughter and then reanimate while keeping enough for continued breeding purposes! Though it would take longer than a year I imagine. Eventually you'd have enough undead to create yourself a sustainable society (skeleton farmers/hunters/guards/etc...) that can keep the breeders alive and well fed, though you would need to find a place to call your own, but that shouldn't be too difficult when so much of the world is unexplored wilderness! Once a suitable place is found you then use your undead labor force to make a cozy home where you can gradually mass more and more until you are ready to save the world!
Gods don't really interfere with things in most campiegns even canonically, only ever sending a servant or asking thoer most faithful to intervene. Would be hillarious to be in the campiegn where you were a big enough threat though. Even vecna didn't gain the atention of the gods like that untill he started messing with the realm of the doors.
@@Jackson-wy6wi then you can hide in another dimension then use wish for it again or can hide til you can put tier 9 rune on them, 9th tier dispell? Or a saved wish to counter all wish spells? You can always prepare ahead of time
I actually was going for this exact build in a campaign. I would also invest in portable holes, march my undead into them, and pass them off to party members so they each had their own deployable squad of meatshields. It also allowed me to hide my true nature every time we went into town without de-summoning them.
as a DM if one of my players wanted to try this I would say, "You can try..." and realistically play out how all the people of the world would react to this, desecrating so many dead and what not would easily invoke the wrath of many
There was a time where I never would have allowed this at the table, but now I think that it would be really cool if the players showed that kind of initiative.
Takes a minute to animated dead. At level 20 you can use level 3 spells without wasting a spell slot. 2 undead per min. Per hour 2x60 = 120 120x6 = 720 720 undead at the ready in 6 hours with +20 to their HP and +6 to their damage. If you spend all your time creating undead. OR if you spend a whole 10 hours 120x10 = 1'200 undead. Use that undead to wipe whole towns and then get caravan trains. That being just strictly corpses. Have the undead assault a city, get about 150 undead to carry corpses back and if all the undead die, well now you got 10 hours to send a whole other hoard of undead
Anybody that tries to take over the game because they've figured out how to manipulate the rules and gets away with it is playing with a terrible GM, and is the exact type of player that I would not allow at my table. D&D is a social event among friends. It's not a contest. It's supposed to be good fun. Having one character dominate the game by exploiting poorly written rules isn't fun. Fair warning, GMs, same thing applies to you guys. You may get away with such actions once or twice in my game, but rest assured, a team of Paladins with their Solar buddy would hunt you down and politely destroy your soul and your army for the good of society. At least in their minds :D
@@mackdaddie222 a) Playing by the rules is not "manipulation", and players don't need to "get away with it". It's the DM's job to handle it within the rules. b) If you can't deal with players playing by the rules, YOU are the "terrible GM". c) Just because YOU don't understand the rules and can't handle them, doesn't mean the rules are "poorly written" and "exploited". d) D&D is a GAME. Like any game, it has an element of contest. And yes, contest is a social activity. And yes, it is fun. If you don't understand this simple fact, then you don't understand D&D and definitely should not DM. Moreover, you apparently don't understand games and social activities in general. A football referee who gives a red card to one team just because they play too well and the other team might get upset at losing, would be kicked out of football. A coach who would tell the best player on the team not to play so well because his teammates might get upset, would be kicked out of coaching. It is disgraceful and destructive to punish players for having better ability or tenacity and achieving higher results, just so the others are not upset at being "losers": it discourages honest play, dispirits the best players, and creates an inferiority complex in the rest (who are led to believe they cannot achieve or compete without your intervention on their behalf). So yeah, what you described is one of the most toxic attitudes any kind of DM or referee or leader might have. Oh, and just FYI, there are a ton of ways to deal with a "horde-crafting necromancer" in a D&D game. Starting with the idea that the player just blew ALL of his spells and class features for a YEAR in order to have a crap ton of... weak, slow and dumb fodder creatures. Which he needs to maintain by... constantly blowing all of his spells and class features. Any structure is only as strong as its weakest link, and humanoid zombies in D&D 5.0 are really, really weak compared to lvl 20 characters. So yeah, the instant necro blows his entire spell load on maintaining his horde, he's gonna be roflstomped by 20th lvl wizards with better sense. And of course, a necromancer so ostentatiously flaunting his unholy powers can be a prime target for a variety of DMPCs. Hell, the BBEG would probably take him on as a rival encroaching on his turf
I have done this, though granted it was in 3.5 and a Dread Necromancer does this sooo much better. Even get a level 9 spell that raises actual armies of skeltons, or 10 adult dragon skellies. I took it a step further and made bone golems and blood oozes to to with my undead hord, and put a few Liches under a Geas to serve me and attracted a Ancient Shadow Dracolich as my mount/cohort. By the end the DM anounced that I was the Final Boss and tasked the rest of the party to bring me down. Good times. As a side note, you could in theory use glyphs to prep a battle field with hundreds or even thousands of animate dead spells, then instigate a war and raise the actual armies of a couple nations as your own cannon fodder.
For those who don't know. a Nightwalker is a CR 20! undead monster, with INT 6. They are literally end game monsters for most parties, and your necromancer can walk up to one and own it permanently as a pet. You can do this at least once a day. That's aside from the wights and mummies.
“Would you put a stop to a player become the ultimate necromancer” No. I would actively encourage it. Its so much more interesting than what most PCs do.
+Taking20 If you chose Animate Dead as one of your Signature Spells at level 20 there technically isn't a limit to how many undeads you can make. All you need to do is to is to instruct your undeads to come back to you before 24 hours.
@Taking20 as a sorcerer you could twin cast finguer of death 4x per day for a total of 2920 Undead. No cost, no maintaining control,no scribing and you still have all of your 3th,4th,5th and 6th level spell slot to do as you please during the year. (1-2 are sacrifised to get more sorcery point each day)
This could be a campaign. Adventure 1 could be about the players learning about three villagers that have mysteriously gone missing. The final battle would be the players vs our necromancer (Lich, maybe?) and their mummy lords and a few wights to soak up some damage.
Additional notes. You can dimension door skeletons into safe areas or shove them into bags of holding. As skeletons don’t need air or food you can just collect skeletons you no longer control then fling an open bag of holding over a wall or dimension door in an uncontrolled horde.
That only animates dead for 1 hour. It’s only useful if you are an adventurer with a slight desire to remove a few enemies after killing a couple of enemies first. Really, it’s far better to just use Conjure Elemental and treat it well (or use Planar binding on it, which gets expensive quickly).
Wow that is my Adventures League character he is a level 19 Drow Necromancer😳.....I’ve been playing him since season 3 in OotA . He is a cousin of Matron Mother Zeerith Xorlarrin I have a in-depth back story for him...and oh yeah he is evil. He has had under his control many zombies and skeletons and ghouls and wights...plus zombie beholders and Alhoons from season 8 epic 💀👍🏼👍🏼🕸🕷
I’ve been flipping through the 4e book “Open Grave” and holy shit, 4e packed a punch when it came to power. Some of those statblocks were insane, and I love them
It would go well until your army was met with 5 level 20 clerics, and your characters must cry their last as their army is incinerated against a wall of Spiritual Guardians.
Aaaaaaaand you just helped me finish an endgame portion if my campaign. Needed to see mechanically how to make the lich that my group didn't decide to finish off raise an army and come back after successfully destroying the kingdoms in the northern mountains. Oh they're coming at the most inconvenient time and it's gonna be glorious.
In a campaign last year, we were in the Shadowfell. The DM gave us a few homebrew rules for the plain; light sources only cast dim light, and were not visible from outside of the lights radius, failed death saving throws were permanent until a long rest, all necromancy school spells could be cast one level lower than normal (which everyone could cast spare the dying for free) and due to the fact the realm was pretty much made of corpses animate dead and similar spells did not require material components. At first the last two didn't really effect out party, but four sessions from the end my warlock failed a wisdom saving throw against the BBEG and ended up jumping off a cliff. We new the next session or two would probably involve climbing a big necromancers tower, so for ease of character introduction I decided to make my new character a one of the cultists in the tower who had rebelled against the lich in charge due to a lack of dental and other workers benefits. So, I started the next session with 20 skeletons. We were doing theatre of the mind for combat, which meant I didn't have to worry about controlling all of those tokens, but I did have to roll 20d20 each turn for their short bow attacks. The DM quickly realised he should be dealing with the complete inanity which was my large bony entourage, so by a couple of sessions later my skelebois had been whittled down to only 8. But due to the fact all the sessions my necromancer was in took place over one in game day, I never had to worry about maintaining control over them, so I could spend my spell slots on other things, like joining the BBEG in the last session and murdering my other party members. The last session devolved into a big brawl, me, my skeletons and the BBEG's army of shadow monsters vs my other four party members and a mid level celestial that had showed up to help them contain a breach the BBEG had opened between the shadofell and the material plain. At the end of the 5+ hour combat, I had been knocked unconscious, all but three of my skeletons were dead, the air elemental I had summoned had gone rouge, the celestial was being swamped wit hundreds of cr 1/2 shadows and the rest of my party was dead. My necromancer woke up as the last living servant a new shadowfell empire, but at least this time his new undead overlords provided dental!
I do like the unique creation method you are suggesting. I always love your videos and as an avid DND player, it gives a nice change of pace. As an AL DM… there are a few things that make the build not as viable, for AL sadly… but the information is still great [I have been looking at more Necromancy information as next season, which starts in September, I am taking a break from DMing and will be playing and I keep thinking I will be either playing a Necromancer.. [Or Samurai as those guys are OP]] So first thing that stands out are the spell gems. It would be nice… but getting that many seems to be pretty hard. Getting that many gems is hard… and in Adventurer’s League… it is impossible. Once again… my opinions counter ideas are solely based on AL. So the Spell Gems are out since they are an item that was added onto the AL “Problematic Item” list. That means that an AL character can no longer get that. ☹ The other thing that sticks out I that Command Undead is a Charisma save and while the enemy only gets the advantage roll if they have intelligence of 12 or higher… but I believe Mummy Lords still have a +8 to Charisma. So it is possible for it to still make the save and with Command Undead, if it makes the save once, that target can never be targeted again. What’s worse is that they naturally have Magic Resistance [They are above 8 so the roll is at advantage anyways… but Magic Resistance can be important for what I am discussing down below] as well… meaning they are making that it can actually be hard to get this to stick. Mummy Lords are hard to find… and for this fun… you want to make sure your monster engine sticks. Now… not being a downer as I do have something fun that will be fun… but as I like to tell stories… I want to share a story of necromancy.. So… let me tell you a story about Necromancy with a player... So I DM for Adventure’s League and this story is about a player I DMed for last Season, which for those who are not familiar was Season 7 [Tomb of Annihilation]. The party was getting near the end of the hardcover and the player had just managed to reach level 10. So he had been using his level 5 slot to summon his 6 undead [5 from Animate Dead and an extra due to undead Thralls.] So he had raised them as zombies. Now… he approached me with the question of “Can I equip my zombies”. Between Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford… there is a lot of “It is at DMs discretion” but they did both lean towards this is fine if the bodies were proficient in life, it should be fine… but also remember the strength requirements. Since there is nothing prohibiting this… I said it would be fine… so what is the worst that can happen. For those are not aware, Zombies are CR ¼ monsters.. they have low Armor Class [8], and about 22 HP. They also have 13 strength. Nothing to scary… these are level 10 PCs and dealing with level 10 quality threats. So he decides to give all six of his zombies the following things. The first is Chainmail. It is AC16 and just requires a strength of 13. So the AC for these zombies has just doubled. Now… this was also Season 7 and in Chult, there are Merchant Princes. Players were able to purchase some magic items [It was a very restricted list… but that list was all he needed]. So the merchants sold +1 Wooden Shields and +1 Yklwas [This is a weapon more unique to Chult. It is a Short Spear. Its throw range is super awful [I think 20/60… but more importantly… these are SIMPLE weapons that are a 1d8.] So all the Zombies have a weapon for melee that is 1d8 + 1 [The Weapon] + 1 [Strength] + 4 [Proficiency from Undead Thralls] with a reasonable +4 to hit [+1 from Strength, +2 from its proficiency which we can get from its slam attack and +1 from the weapon] . These zombies HP has been adjusted from 22 to 32 [Undead Thralls]. Also… with Chain Mail and a +1 Wood Shield… the zombies now have adjusted their AC from 8 to 19. There are 6 of them. Also… remember that Zombies have a skill called Undead Fortitude. [If they are reduced to 0, they make a Con save DC 5 + Damage taken] If they make the Con save, they go to 1 instead. Now radiant and critical hits negate this. This little army has become SLIGHTLY problematic… but let's see where this can go. So they ended up going into an area and the wizard made a poor mistake. We do that every once in awhile. Long story short… the necromancer dies. Now this is where things go sideways. If you remember… with Animate Dead.. when the caster dies, they do not die. They are merely no longer under control. There was originally 6 players and the monster they fought killed 2 players… leaving 4 players… who were injured… and now the super powered zombies are no longer being controlled. So they party had to flee in terror as those 6 zombies attacked the party. Good times… Anyways… so for your necromancy build… obviously you want to make sure that you can add as many attacks as possible. So the minions that your minion is creating doesn't matter since those would not be affected by Undead Thralls. So since we want this to stick. We already have been working off the idea of a level 20 wizard in the school of necromancy…. so we are going to shift the target. Assuming you have access to level 8 and 9 spells...we are also going to add another spell to the rotation. So the first thing is to change the target from a Mummy Lord to a Vampire. So now… I know what you are thinking… Vampires are awful for this idea. They have an intelligence of 17, so they will repeat the save every hour. Oh no… oh don't worry… we are not letting that happen... So the spell that we are going to be adding to our rotation is a level 8 spell “Feeblemind”. Now… this is a level 8 spell… so with our Sim, as long as it is fresh, it will have 1 level 8 slot and 1 level 9 [Unless you have one of those Boon of High Magic, but let's say you don’t]. Vampires, compared to their other saves, has an awful Intelligence save [+3] compared to it’s Charisma [+9]. It has 3 Legendary resistances… but assuming that you are a level 20 Wizard… your spell save is a probably a 19 or 20… so it would need to roll a 16-20 in order to pass. Let’s be honest… it’s going to using it’s Legendary Resistances to make sure that Feeblemind doesn’t stick… because it is a 30 day duration of “You Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma is 1. So for its saves… its intelligence save will change from +3 to -5 [So when you decide to reapply feeblemind during that 30 days… it will probably use its legendaries to resist the first 3 and the 4th will then stick because even on a roll of 20… it can’t make that saving throw. So this is our Vampire now. Its save will also adjust as it has a +9 Charisma save with an 18 intelligence. When it’s Charisma goes from 18 to 1, it will lose the +4 bonus from it’s high charisma [Save would drop to +5] then it would get a -5 penalty because the stat is at 1. So its charisma save is now a 0. So it would need to roll a 19 or 20… depending on if your Intelligence is 20 or 22 [Intelligence Tome aka Tome of Clear Thought is only a very rare.]. It is out of it’s legendary resistances. This is now your Vampire. You now have a creature that will always be loyal to you… because as long as you keep it Feebleminded. And this minion can keep creating Vampire Spawn [CR5 monsters] for as many people as you can find as the Vampire doesn't have a limit to how many Vampire Spawns it creates… but they are all obedient to him and he is obedient to you. Your limit is only based on the amount of people you can find. At the same time… now you are raiding graves for your own undead. Happy Hunting.
Love your videos. I have watched many of them, but I never realized you play MTG. I am a huge MTG player myself. I currently have over 40 commander decks and just can't stop making more.
Don't forget you can put them into +2 Full Plate Adamantine armor, +3 Shield and +3 Weapon. It is comfirmed by the creators that zombies and other creatures you've raised have proficiency IN ALL ARMOR, SHIELDS AND WEAPONRY. Don't forget the MOST IMPORTANT PART, you can make your summons attune to Magic Items by command, as the Zombies are indeed capable of focusing onto something IF commanded to.
TL;DR first: yes in any not labelled "good" campaign, but i'd make the player(s) put in the "work" to achieve it, that way they also get a proper sense of accomplishment. ------ Long version: it'd depend on the campaign if i'd allow it, in some campaigns it would just be outright no, but that'd be campaigns about being the heroes. In a more sandboxy campaign, sure go for it, and i'd work towards making some of the thigns you'd need into "quests" 1: scrolls: I'd go by the idea that spells require some unique materials to craft a scroll for them, so a fireball would have different material requirements from an animate dead spell, even though both are lvl 3 spells (on top of all the onyxes) now those materials could be in somewhat limited supply 3-5 scrolls? no problem, 52?, yeah that's not going to be available in any amount of time, and there would be questions asked, which you might not be ready to answer, so hunt for them. 2: Finger of Death fodder: you're going to need 1095 humanoids to kill for FoD, if my math serves me right. killing that amount of peasants, 3 a day, would cause some eyebrows to be raised somewhere. so you'd need to find another source of humanoids, fortunately most fantasy worlds are plagued by orcs and gnolls, so defeating and enslaving entire tribes of them with the sole purpose of putting them to work in your onyx mine, and FoD'ing them would require some work, and possibly be a source of an adventure in and off itself. not to mention the remaining corpses for animate dead and create dead shenanigans. 3: the mummies. you'd need to hunt these bad boys down too, it would be very likely that that would result in two dungeoneering adventures. 4: consequences: unless they are really good at keeping the project hidden, eventually someone will find out, and initially i'd roll some dice to determine if some god awfull seeres might get some vague visions regarding this. (to add spice, unless the player uses the correct anti-divination spells throughout the year) though an adventurers party looking for them based ona seeress would likely be fumbling through the complexities of prophecies, thus there'd be a good chance that if the player had spies out and about, they'd find out and be able to redirect the adventurers, move his stuff™, or just flat out kill them before they get too close. --- my MAIN concern would be with finding ways for other players to interact with this, but i think i just made room for a rogue or bard spymaster, and there's always room for a PC bodyguard. and for the adventuring parts there's always just the need for a party.
Love this video as I was interested in playing a Necromancer. However, I feel that if I wanted to play one, especially to this level, I’d have to play in an evil campaign
A couple different builds that can get more undead: Same build but you have each of your simulacrum cast simulacrum. As you aren't the one casting it you get more of them. As long as you have the money you can create infinite of you and therefore control infinite undead (each simulacrum gets a mummy Lord etc). Sorcerer/Warlock for infinite spell slots then use all of them for raise undead (the limit to control is how many times you can fit the 6 seconds into a day). Another thing to consider as an option for you possessing control over is the nightwalker, it's a cr20 with low charisma, no legendary resistances, and a low int. It's got an aura of annihilation and can fly. I'd take this over the mummy and their puny army. What do you think? Hope you enjoyed the read!
You can also create undead and then push them into a demi plane, building a supply of undead across multiple demiplanes (how many zombies fit crammed into a 30x30 demiplane?) You then open up the demiplane and assert control over zombies as they come out with your simulacrum or just open all the demiplanes within the city and GTFO, come back later and control whatever is left, make more from the carnage. stuff them back into demiplanes if you want. whatever.
Hi, I'm converting my Pathfinder campaign where 13 necromancers were the bad guys affectionately known as the Nightmare's Dozen to D&D 5e. Thank you, Cody, for your contribution (video) in making viable doom and gloom for the players later in campaign >:)
This is awesome. I just recently started playing and my DM wants to do a campaign with an evil party and I just started to put together a necromancer. And now I have this video to make him crazy good. Lol
I currently have a player whose goal is to become a powerful necromancer Drowlich. His whole deal is that he wants to create an army of undead to serve his House and bring them the power that they deserve. Though he is more likely to use his Create Undead spell slots to make Ghouls, Ghasts, and Wights. He hasn't commented about hunting down any mummy lords yet, but I wouldn't be shocked if he does decide to do so. It would definitely become a story adventure.
My home games have been blessed with DMs that let me turn our HQ into a necropolis. Adventurers League rules, you straight up can’t do this. First, I’m not sure any published material has featured Mummy Lords. Second, the current rules and treasure system don’t provide the option of picking and choosing magic items. I’d have to do more work than I care to to figure out how many you could make but as a player I limit my minion count to 1 wight (any zombies they make are bonus), 3 ghouls, 8 skeletons, and any zombies Finger of Death makes. I also begin the rolling, arrange dice and do all my math the second my own turn ends so when it comes back around I can just tell the DM the results. If I allowed a player to do this is work out how it impacts the setting between sessions, like “Okay, the king surrenders after the first engagement since you have 1000 special forces vs their conscripted commoners and 5000 guards. You’re king now. How do you work in running the kingdom around hunting the god vanishing mcguffin?”
Necromancer (with finger-guns): BANG! NPC: what the-*die* NPC(Necromancer’s zombie): ughhh-urgh Necromancer: well guess that works (This is basically what the spell: finger-of-death, can do)
i would just assume an average distribution of 5% for each possible result. so 50 go on each count, if it were 1000 exactly. with that many it would come out very close to that number.
The Mad Hacker or and hear me out. Roll initiative once and that’s the number they all get. 1000 skeleton archers raining arrows down is pretty much enough to TPK even some of the largest of groups.
17 Wizard & 3 Sorcerer is better, you can turn the lower spell slots into higher ones. Want to only use Finger of Death to make permanent undead? Go and do that.
@Kapten Krok that assumes that full "wipes" never happened when it wasnt actually all that uncommon for enough of the army to be killed off for said army to be effectively destroyed. If the general survives and tries again from such a lose its typically considered to be the creation of a new army in semantics rather than bolstering the old one
@Kapten Krok an army that no longer exists does not lose its classifcations just as anything else that ceases existance. Shakespeare is still classified as a playwrite, napoleon is still classified as a general, the soviet union is still classified as a country, the dodo is still classified as an animal, etc. all just gain the tagline of "dead or destroyed or extinct" before them.
@@theposhdinosaur7276 next plan : capture a dragon, proceed to damage its brain to reduce its int (7 or lower) turn it into a undead (via lich creation methods) command undead profit
See, Mummy Lords are fun. But I would instead use Command Undead on a Greater Death Dragon. While it doesn’t know Animate Dead, it’s breath weapon automatically animates all humanoid corpses (and humanoids it kills) within its *60-foot cone* into zombies permanently under its control. It also happens to have an 11 Int. And it can also fly, allowing you a form of transportation if you mount it. You can also Geas one of your Wights with a 9th level spell slot to put them permanently under your command every long rest. Meaning you can pick up 4 Wights a day and turn them into 52 permanent followers daily. You could also do this with your Commanded Undead so you can keep amassing more and more powerful undead over time. And let’s not forget Feeblemind.
Honestly, I'd allow it. BUT, the party would find the local 15-20th level undead hunter paladin order coming after them. It'd be a cool arc, if the party manages to survive long enough to take care of the paladins.
I want to make a gnome Necromancer, an call him Bugles.. He digs up his friends so he is never alone, he also enjoys teaching the local villagers about the power of friendship. He is such a friendly little gnome.
Vilifying necromancy is such a stereotype. Mindless undead are basically just machines, yeah they kill people if left to their own devices, but so does a lot of unsupervised technology (if you stop driving a car or piloting a plane, it will crash and possibly kill people, doesn't mean making cars and planes is "evil"). Sentient undead are beings just like humans, with metacognition and free will. Yes they might have some special needs, like vampires drinking blood, but humans eat other animals, and sometimes use other humans' bodyparts (organ transplants). Again, not "evil" per se. And immortality via lichdom or vampirism is basically the age-old human dream of eternal life free of disease and pain, it's a miracle that's only promised by religions in the afterlife, and possibly by science in the future. Summing up, Necromancy would be a God-send solution to a ton of humanity's economic and biological problems and could usher in a Golden Age of immortal civilization. So yeah, no reason why a Necromancer can't be Lawful Good.
Fighter: *dies*
Cleric: "Okay, 60 seconds on the clock to Revivify"
Necromancer: "Excuse me, coming through"
did anyone else notice that his hair almost perfectly matched the mountain in the background?
We were on the verge of greatness
XD
Yes I did
@@jorgenaranjo8029 Peak proformance
Now i cannot unsee this :D
Cody, you gotta stop making videos I'm scared that my players will find
Want to know how to make it even worse? www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/nightwalker
This thing (Nightwalker) is a cr 20 UNDEAD with an intelligence of 6 and a charisma of 8 with no legendary resistance, easy to enslave as a level 20 wizard, and feasible already at level 14. It does have a 30 ft. kill aura, but that is easily reduced with another necromancer feature + a bag of holding or other magical container. Also, zombies/skeletons can be trained to use other equipment, allowing you to make pikeman zombies! Also, if you don't want to keep casting create undead on your wights, just use Geas as a level 9 spell on them to force them to obey or die!
Personally I am doing this as a gnome neutral evil wizard, his motivation isn't actually evil in itself, he's just insanely paranoid and simply wants to live a nice and secure life, but constantly fears to be assasinated one day. He refuses to sleep before casting an alarm spell and uses other wards to keep his house secure. His reason for necromancy, is that a creature with no will can't betray him. He then intends to one day carve out a country of unwilling servants so that he has a security perimeter and can live safely and snugly in his ivory tower doing wizardy things.
@@theposhdinosaur7276 zombies actually have too low of an int. score to be trained to use equipment, skeletons however? well there you've got your archers, knights, pikemen, swordsmen, etc
@@shadowwarrior1003 "In the section on zombies in the MM, they have the Slam melee weapon attack, which does 1d6+1. The description section for zombies does read:
A zombie armed with a weapon uses it, but the zombie won't retrieve a dropped weapon or other tool until told to do so."
Source: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/120209/can-animated-undead-wear-armor-and-use-weapons
I’m going tbh when I play my favorite dnd character it is a cult necromancer robing the towns people betraying them and ruling actual villages filled with my cult zombies
That moment you realize that an NPC in a campaign can win the whole campaign if they put effort into it.
the higher the level the lazier the character, it's the only way.
@@EvelynNdenial Indeed, my friend, indeed
@@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim gives me an idea though. the players work for a very lazy level 20 wizard and are tasked with completing the most mundane household tasks. but the batshit insane environment of a wizards property makes just surviving at low level let alone getting anything done a challenge.
@@EvelynNdenial that would be amusing.
@@EvelynNdenial There's a quest like that in Dragonfable
Step 1: start a franchise opportunity for a mortuary business. People bring your franchisees their dead to be buried after a tasteful viewing. Keep it nice: flowers, memorial service, no open bar. Your intent is to collect the bodies, animate them and come back to town 1 year later reigning destruction. However, before you do, your accountant shows you the outrageous profit margins the mortuary business has and you decide to not invade as you make a better "living" already.
Now what are you gonna do with 2 k undead?
And I will be stealing this... tyvm!
You can always use them as an unskilled labor force with wight Forman and A mummy lord CEO.
Miguel del Mazo free labor yo
As has been demonstrated IRL, you could always hide all those zombie/bodies in the pond out back. Instead of incinerating or interring them.
Following in the path of pioneers.
expand, got a lot of free labor!
Maybe do some multi level marketing
My current campaign features a nation ruled by a LN aligned Vampire Clan, so any settlement in the nation of Large Town size or greater has a Necromancer's Guild office. Skeletons, clad in black clothing that hides their features, are a core part of the economy. They do a lot of the unskilled labor and grunt work around the country. The humans of the nation have been given a blood gift by the vampire house, and are like 1/8 vampire 7/8 human. So they're vulnerable to wooden piercing damage, they have to CHA save to enter running water, but they have boosted STR, CON, advantage on climb, resist necrotic damage. Pretty cool stuff. The Necromancer's Guild is always looking for more bodies, so it's fodder for lower level adventurers to make money going outside the nation and making war on the orcs, goblins, elves, and goliaths that are enemies and to bring back their bodies to turn into skeletons. Goliath skeletons are most prized.
Did NOT expect to see Vechs here. Hello~ :D
Man I would love to play in a campaign with that nation in it
@@Altearithe I offer professional DM services to my Patrons on Patreon if you'd like to give me a try!
@@VechsDavion oooooh but also a little scared lol
Seems logical to me.
Or- you know, raise the adventurers as undead if they fail.
**enemy Wizard see's a undead horde approaching his tower**
**laughs in meteor swarm**
*_LAUGHS IN PALADIN_*
DEUS... VULT!!
@@JayF2912 *LAUGHS IN CLERIC*
"RUN MOTHERFUCKERS RUN!"
Or crumble (Clerics can also destroy undead)...
**COUNTERSPELL**
@@angryrabbit7682 Unlikely that the Necromancer will have any spell slots 3rd level or higher as they will be spent to raise/retain control of the undead (plus the other wizard might be able to cast another meteor and counterspell isnt automatic...).
This is spooky, imagine that turn. The skeletons go, "1000 arrows pepper the skies.. Do I even need to roll..."
DM*crying*"no"
Level 20 Sorcerer.
Convert 2 level 1, 3 level 2, and 1 level 3 spell slot every day into sorcery points after using 2 of the spells.
Twin Spell finger of death 4 times/day.
Completely free 2920 permanent zombies. Use all spell slots the last day on animate dead. Make spell scrolls and gems if you want.
This method is simpler and yields more zombies.
however the mummy lords and wights system is way cooler, you actually create an undead hierarchy, the true way to rule an empire of the dead.
The thing is, zombies kinda suck compared to skeleton archers
Jerimiah Senger if you can kill 2920 people using finger of death no mean feat, Especially when you consider that you would likely have have an army sent after you and your horde.
It's better in raw numbers, but necromancer wizard has tougher and more damage causing minions. Personally I'd love to see a mix and match party of various types of necromancers, from wizards to sorcerers and warlocks even and bring out different tactical approaches to the undead.
Also, a cleric-forger to round out the party and make absurd amounts of roman legion style arms and armor for the skeletons would be nice. The sort of simple to make and mass produce, but effective gear that stacks the odd's in your favour through quantity of bonuses to multiple roll's is brutally grinding in the long run.
Also necromancers can carry rat skeletons from the party's last meal and have skeleton rats trigger all the traps, lead monsters to ambushes, and detect smartass traps in small anti-magic zones by falling apart in the anti-magic zone. They also chew ropes, carry exploding/acid/holy water type vials to where they fall on enemies...
I would allow my players to do it HOWEVER its not like the rest of the region wont notice trying to hide 1k zombies is difficult.
Naturally
Amassing undead is a secret best left buried.
(Fun Intended)
It would use a lvl 8 spell slot, but could I (in theory) store my undead zombies like Lincoln Logs in a demiplane? I wonder how many you'd be able to reasonably fit, considering 30ft in every dimension.
you want to get skellys and give them all armor and bows
Perhaps using mold earth to build a large crypt underneath a home base or abandoned buildings.
OUR UBERMENSCH OP BUILD
Level 20 wizard. Race doesn't matter.
Yeah sounds about right lol
And he doesint even use archivist artificer nor glyph of warding
I allmost think i can do better...
His math is also off and he completly misses the fact that simulacrum can only control the undead for a day.
@@00784865 No, he accounted for the simulacrum. The point is to have as many as possible on the day of the attack. the thought experiment dies there. If you really wanna be fiddly about it, then recast simulacrum afterwards.
for shits and giggles. Maxed out INT (So 20 at the least, 30 if possible) and a +3 focus for the juicy, juicy 22 to 27 DC on saves.
@@MarkWIXX how would that help the build?
So I accidentally mispronounced "Mausoleum" as "Maulosseum" and my table joked that it was a Giant Colosseum of Undead fighting for the right to be resurrected. This build now gives me a great idea for a necromancer amassing warriors to rig battles haha in my future Maulosseum story arc.
I love when silly things wind up inspiring us and we create dope shit out of it!
imagine asking your DM if you can spend a year raising an undead army
Eh I'd allow it
Isnt that normal everywhere
"so uhm... well, yes, of course.. but how are you going to find that many corpses? *neutral DM closed-mouth smile*"
@@panitaeo you dont need human corpses, and you spent 20 whole levels presumably adventuring around slaughtering stuff. go find a goblin stronghold or lizardman brood or just raid ancient catacombs or graveyards for them--hell you'd probably find that many corpses/piles of bones/existing undead just raiding the pyramids in search of the two mummy lords.
@@leafgreenbeast
"Must be Humaniod", monstrosities don't count, sadly...
_[sees a necromancer raising thousands of undead minions]_
*Inquisitor:* "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, B1?"
*Paladin:* "I think I am, B2!"
*Together: "ＩＴ＇Ｓ ＣＲＵＳＡＤＩＮＧ ＴＩＭＥ!"*
Necromancer: f u i cast 9th tier wish infinite death knights and liches under my controll
Exterminatus!
“That necromancer was easy to kill”
*boss music plays behind them*
@@Stormfire1777 ah the number one rule to necromancers.....if it was easy to kill one....you didn't kill it
Why send the living to die in your lord's wars when you can rally the dead instead?
This is so going to be my character's motivation for adventuring... lol
And thus, the CG necromancer was created.
I have a wizard drafted up that's a stereotypical nerd that gets picked on named Nigel, he's going to he a necromancer to get back at his bullies... he's nigel the nerdy necromancer. He also talks in a nasally voice and caves to peer pressure, but one day.....
This is basically my necromancer. His culture views the dead as tools, like beast of burden. Use undead for dangerous labor and as front line soldiers.
I was thinking that during the video as well! "I will never ask another son of this nation to die for me again. Behold, the dead fight to protect the living!" Boi it's gonna get hella real in my next game!
Cleric: Watch me ruin this mage's whole career with a 2nd level ability.
It only goes to a certain distance and only once so while yes turn/destroy undead would be useful in the end against a hoard useless.
I love to play necromancers and I can tell you its scary to find a cleric all my minions just run.
@@liamassassingaming922 it depends on how many you have grouped around that cleric and they don't have to all bum rush it have a bunch of skeletons shooting bows as far as they can
@@Multistrangedude1 level 20 wizard meet level 20 cleric. deus ex fuck your horde.
@@Multistrangedude1 you must be fun at parties
I cant take my eyes off how perfectly his head shape and hairstyle match the moutain behind him
I thought I was the only one
You and me both
Just a quick note, there's the "Feeblemind" spell that let's you temporarily, a.k.a for the moment of command undead-ing, turns creature into something with a 1 intelligence, allowing you to technically command undead even the most intelligent of the undeads.
Now granted, one could argue that command undead is constantly checking if the creature dominated has high enough of an intelligence instead of checking it at the moment you dominate their mind.
So, that Lich you thought was the bbeg? Just yet another minion, alongside the Ancient Red dracolich.
If a player successfully pulled that off I would totally allow it. But i would make it so that while the undead is "commanded" they are still capable of free thought and maybe even free speech. Only begrudgingly following the commands of their commander because of magic.
Id just use a 9th tier bestow curse to decrease their intelligence
@@projectzeroexpectations7397 correct me if im wrong but a 9th tier bestow curse last til dispelled right if im right and it does NOT have a time limit then cant you just degrade intelligence on all undead and let that speak for itself?
Ps true story
This happened in 1 campaign i was in and while there was ALOT of homebrew it worked on the lich and commanded him to tell their army of wrights skeletons etc (this was near the end MASSIVE undead army led by this lich that i now control who somehow got lesser versions of death knights under its control) and with this army i just charged it at the big bad and our short rest ended we realized the boss was at 15hp and less then half dead due to bb only having 1 turn vs a army of 100k undead all i did was steal the killing blow during the end pop lesser god of death this is why you should consider the personality of your players how tf did they NOT think id try to cheese it
@@Ryan_Silver_Fang yeah you're absolutely right. If you have something suppressing the intelligence perfectly then that's perfect.
Just get a white dracolich. It's dumb enough to be permanently commanded
My DM despises having to roll for tons of creatures in combat, so time to make them roll initiative for 5 party members and 1,000,000 zombies!
James Stewart sorry to ruin your fun, but most of the time initiative is rolled by a whole racial group at once. Like if there are 3 goblins they all do their attacks on the same turn.
@@amiratu5909 >most of the time
Maybe the way your DM does it, but each creature should have its own initiative.
@@suthamorak1370 it just the best way to do it to speed things up but not needed
hippywill yeah, I think it’s mentioned in the basic rules but I’m not sure
As a DM... roll initiative once for all your shit, and save your potty breaks for after your turn.
I see a lot of videos showing builds all the way up to level 20. How about a video about great level 10 builds? How many players ever make it to level 20?
Agree
Almost feels like dnd classes are designed like mmo classes *hey the real game is the endgame dont you love raids!!! Flips table*
You can start a campaign/one shot at any level.
Before you do all that, first you need to:
1. Get some necromancer buddies from the College of Magic
2. Start a war to weaken the armies of the living and give you more bodies
Just find some old battlegrounds, plenty of bodies for the horde
everything he wanted was to move into an old castle... but everyone he came across on his journey immediately thought he must be evil and startet to fight him. now he stands there with quite an army and is forced to fight even if doesn't wanted to.
I’m gonna make a necromancer who owns a mortuary and has no friends or family. He reanimates the dead in order to curb his loneliness.
Day 1: Finger repeatedly.
... I'm 31 years old but still giggled like a schoolboy.
Aggressively finger everyone to death. It is normal, right?
@@ferociousmaliciousghost yup
Take into account that by level 20 you are more than likely to have a few apprentices or followers, who can add to your undead army-
as an aspiring necromancer and grave domain cleric that dables in horde work i loved this vid !!
To do this, you basically need to make Demiurge's Happy Farm from Overlord.
A man of culture I see
@@oeiskiecleveland4793 Another man of culture I see
And it's even better because those scrolls are free.
What funny is that this is almost the same way ainz mad his army with Pandoras actor
Alastair Von Sheizenbouroug 3 men of culture I see.
This video really brings home the similarities between necromancers and school principals
This build sounds like an awesome basis for a sandbox campaign with a DM and one player.
This is literally what I'm running for my friend this summer. He sent me this build asking if he could play it ROFL. (Of course I'm allowing it!)
I just got the pdf for Legendary Dragons and it’s going to be an amazing addition to my first campaign!
100% allow. And make sure the group would have issue with it and/or make that player be the final boss. Basically pushing him to take over once the other big bad is gone.
Ehhh no.
I'd do it. Been wanting to play a character that seeks lichdom throughout the entire campaign, to become the final boss.
Well Archlich is good but you don't always need a necromancer who wants to become a lich you could have a necro who loves the sweet embrace of death and plans to die
I have a necromancer who's ambitions lie in ending war and death. he's a veteran soilder with severe PTSD and raises the already dead to act as his soilders so that he can end the bloodshed involved in war. I gladly accept that once I reach a point in my army I may have to face those who do not agree with them. there are a lot of contexts that a necromancer can take and I think its a bad thing that so many people seem to think all necromancers have to be evil powerhungry liches
You need to do a conjurer build.
I would work the players goals into my campaign, and I often include large scale battles anyway so it wouldn't really break my campaigns, especially at lvl 20.
If a player in my game wanted to do this, that could be fine depending on the setting. Though i would make them take into consideration the potential consequences of having a horde of undead at their command. Additionally, once they reached 10+ i would group their army into, at most, four separate initiatives. And some things would just be, “Ok, yep. Your horde of zombies wins.”
Been playing necromancer for the past yeah and a half as my first ever dnd character, this really helps. Already level 11 and aiming to raise an army of undead for the greater good of the world my campaign is based in. So really good to know all this. Gonna be a goood time. Thanks again.
I like being an elf race as I trance instead of sleep to regain full spell slots after 4 hours of meditation.
Cody i don't get to watch your videos alot anymore or save4dice. But there's no way I'd miss this as the necromancer and or death cleric is my favorite. I must say you brought true undeathly justice to it. Bravo my good sir bravo. Have a great weekend and hope to see you in a save4dice episode soon. :)
Holy F, this morning I woke up and said "I wanna make a bad ass Necromancer" AND YOU GO AND MAKE A VID ON IT?? WHAT ARE THE ODDS???
I secretly work for the FBI... ;-)
When talking about Finger of Death and said 'fingergun someone to death', my mind totally thought he said fingerbang someone to death.
I played in a game once where I tried to go totally horde style necromancer build, trying to raise or create everything I could. The DM quickly just stopped putting in many humanoid enemies for me to raise and kept putting in foes that could AoE my groups with spells or one shot multiple of them with attacks. It really 'killed' the whole drive and vibe of the play. And on top of that half the party thought I was worthless in the group and the other half thought I was just giving them a free round to act with foes focused on my stuff first most of the time.
thats either a shitty DM or a heavily unprepared DM. dealing with a players character by making them useless and denying their flavour is a TERIBBLE way to handle things and WILL kill the fun. when you play a character like this communication is key, talk with your DM about making horde rules to streamline combat once you hit the point where you have dozens of undead. a character like this requires preperation on both sides and without that... there is no shortcut
Nice method you make great content. Wanted to offer my method up for review.
If you can find a Sword Wraith Commander you can summon 2 to 5 Sword Wraith Warriors per day. It is not specified that the Commander controls the warriors but I would assume they would fight for the side of the Commander. So if we start the day we find the Commander and set the number summoned to 3 per day that's 1095 summoned Warriors.
If we use Finger of Death 4 times per day for 363 days that is 1452 zombies. Using our 7th lvl slots for the remaining 2 days of the year that's 4 more zombies for a total of 1456.
Day 364 we create 5 wights and make them kill 12 people each for a total of 60 zombies rising in 24 hrs. This gives us a total of 65 undead.
Using Signature Spell to cast Animate Dead and all spell slots from 3rd to 6th level slots plus Arcane Recovery two 5th level slots we can create and maintain 92 undead.
So that 1+1095+1456+65+92=2709 undead with no items and the only ruling the DM would have to make is, who do the Sword Wraith Warriors fight for.
The art of that book you contributed too is really cool, Cody.
At this scale, controling the horde would be a bigger chalange than creating it, but love the idea.
I had my necromancer request two items from the DM. One that extended my range of control, and a variant of a Bag of Holding for easier transportation
of course legendary dragons book has dragons... and everyone knows that dragons makes everything better. so legendary dragons makes dragon things even more legendary.
You sound like an unlikable antagonist from a childrens card game that owns mega corporation.
@@happylittlemisery you mean the one that owns a certain blue eyed dragon?
@@BahamutZerodragon Yup. That one.
@@happylittlemisery eh never really watched yugioh. *hides forever*
You left out the possibility of permanently dominating zombie t-rexes. They regurgitate zombies themselves.
Better yet, reanimate a Tarrasque before it regenerates, yea?
@@ryangainey94 ¿porque no los dos?
@@ryangainey94 Wait a minute, thats pretty good idea :D
Ryan Gainey Animate dead only work on beasts and humanoids.
@@josuanygren but wish dont have that limit aka i wish for all entities other then me to turn into death knights and liches under my peenoment controll and to never age
I wouldn't mind the players building such an army. But, they will have to find a way to deal with those pesky undead slaying adventurers and king's army who took notice.
Pssh.. Capture a group of goblins or a similar race that people don't like so it wouldn't be strange if they went missing, then breed said captives, proceed to keep breeding until you have a comfortable amount you can send to slaughter and then reanimate while keeping enough for continued breeding purposes!
Though it would take longer than a year I imagine. Eventually you'd have enough undead to create yourself a sustainable society (skeleton farmers/hunters/guards/etc...) that can keep the breeders alive and well fed, though you would need to find a place to call your own, but that shouldn't be too difficult when so much of the world is unexplored wilderness! Once a suitable place is found you then use your undead labor force to make a cozy home where you can gradually mass more and more until you are ready to save the world!
Currently playing a necromancer as a driver, thank you for this! I've been trying to find ways to make my character stronger
Obviously if my players started an undead horde that size they'd be met with an army of *Insert god that dislikes undead*.
Gods don't really interfere with things in most campiegns even canonically, only ever sending a servant or asking thoer most faithful to intervene. Would be hillarious to be in the campiegn where you were a big enough threat though. Even vecna didn't gain the atention of the gods like that untill he started messing with the realm of the doors.
Nah use wish infinite death knights and liches how would you kill infinite death knights?
@@Ryan_Silver_Fang Why would you need to kill them, just wish them away.
@@Jackson-wy6wi then you can hide in another dimension then use wish for it again or can hide til you can put tier 9 rune on them, 9th tier dispell? Or a saved wish to counter all wish spells? You can always prepare ahead of time
I actually was going for this exact build in a campaign. I would also invest in portable holes, march my undead into them, and pass them off to party members so they each had their own deployable squad of meatshields. It also allowed me to hide my true nature every time we went into town without de-summoning them.
as a DM if one of my players wanted to try this I would say, "You can try..." and realistically play out how all the people of the world would react to this, desecrating so many dead and what not would easily invoke the wrath of many
There was a time where I never would have allowed this at the table, but now I think that it would be really cool if the players showed that kind of initiative.
Takes a minute to animated dead. At level 20 you can use level 3 spells without wasting a spell slot.
2 undead per min. Per hour 2x60 = 120
120x6 = 720
720 undead at the ready in 6 hours with +20 to their HP and +6 to their damage. If you spend all your time creating undead. OR if you spend a whole 10 hours
120x10 = 1'200 undead.
Use that undead to wipe whole towns and then get caravan trains. That being just strictly corpses. Have the undead assault a city, get about 150 undead to carry corpses back and if all the undead die, well now you got 10 hours to send a whole other hoard of undead
As a newcomer to dnd you've just given me the best plans I could ever create
Anybody that tries to take over the game because they've figured out how to manipulate the rules and gets away with it is playing with a terrible GM, and is the exact type of player that I would not allow at my table. D&D is a social event among friends. It's not a contest. It's supposed to be good fun. Having one character dominate the game by exploiting poorly written rules isn't fun. Fair warning, GMs, same thing applies to you guys.
You may get away with such actions once or twice in my game, but rest assured, a team of Paladins with their Solar buddy would hunt you down and politely destroy your soul and your army for the good of society. At least in their minds :D
@@mackdaddie222 a) Playing by the rules is not "manipulation", and players don't need to "get away with it". It's the DM's job to handle it within the rules.
b) If you can't deal with players playing by the rules, YOU are the "terrible GM".
c) Just because YOU don't understand the rules and can't handle them, doesn't mean the rules are "poorly written" and "exploited".
d) D&D is a GAME. Like any game, it has an element of contest. And yes, contest is a social activity. And yes, it is fun. If you don't understand this simple fact, then you don't understand D&D and definitely should not DM.
Moreover, you apparently don't understand games and social activities in general. A football referee who gives a red card to one team just because they play too well and the other team might get upset at losing, would be kicked out of football. A coach who would tell the best player on the team not to play so well because his teammates might get upset, would be kicked out of coaching.
It is disgraceful and destructive to punish players for having better ability or tenacity and achieving higher results, just so the others are not upset at being "losers": it discourages honest play, dispirits the best players, and creates an inferiority complex in the rest (who are led to believe they cannot achieve or compete without your intervention on their behalf).
So yeah, what you described is one of the most toxic attitudes any kind of DM or referee or leader might have.
Oh, and just FYI, there are a ton of ways to deal with a "horde-crafting necromancer" in a D&D game. Starting with the idea that the player just blew ALL of his spells and class features for a YEAR in order to have a crap ton of... weak, slow and dumb fodder creatures. Which he needs to maintain by... constantly blowing all of his spells and class features. Any structure is only as strong as its weakest link, and humanoid zombies in D&D 5.0 are really, really weak compared to lvl 20 characters. So yeah, the instant necro blows his entire spell load on maintaining his horde, he's gonna be roflstomped by 20th lvl wizards with better sense. And of course, a necromancer so ostentatiously flaunting his unholy powers can be a prime target for a variety of DMPCs. Hell, the BBEG would probably take him on as a rival encroaching on his turf
I have done this, though granted it was in 3.5 and a Dread Necromancer does this sooo much better. Even get a level 9 spell that raises actual armies of skeltons, or 10 adult dragon skellies. I took it a step further and made bone golems and blood oozes to to with my undead hord, and put a few Liches under a Geas to serve me and attracted a Ancient Shadow Dracolich as my mount/cohort. By the end the DM anounced that I was the Final Boss and tasked the rest of the party to bring me down. Good times. As a side note, you could in theory use glyphs to prep a battle field with hundreds or even thousands of animate dead spells, then instigate a war and raise the actual armies of a couple nations as your own cannon fodder.
Just a clarity thing: *Signature Spells* lets you pick two 3rd-level spells, not 3rd-level or lower.
Ye, but check the lvl 18 feature
For those who don't know. a Nightwalker is a CR 20! undead monster, with INT 6. They are literally end game monsters for most parties, and your necromancer can walk up to one and own it permanently as a pet. You can do this at least once a day. That's aside from the wights and mummies.
My friend and I were talking about this.
Get out of my head!
3 days ago me and a friend did the same calculations. We didnt use any magic items though, but still got well over 1000 under our command
“Would you put a stop to a player become the ultimate necromancer”
No. I would actively encourage it. Its so much more interesting than what most PCs do.
Purports to have an mtg background but uses Sorin as a necromancer instead of Liliana SMH :p
Shit I use to travel around to compete.
I came VERY close to breaking the format in Shards of Alara with Goblins, but freaking Jund cascade... UGH
@@Taking20 Goblin master race
+Taking20
If you chose Animate Dead as one of your Signature Spells at level 20 there technically isn't a limit to how many undeads you can make. All you need to do is to is to instruct your undeads to come back to you before 24 hours.
@@Taking20 ahh yes good times... I used to play boros bushwhacker at that time
Is this english? lol jk
@Taking20 as a sorcerer you could twin cast finguer of death 4x per day for a total of 2920 Undead. No cost, no maintaining control,no scribing and you still have all of your 3th,4th,5th and 6th level spell slot to do as you please during the year. (1-2 are sacrifised to get more sorcery point each day)
Basically this build is what my current character was doing. :)
This could be a campaign. Adventure 1 could be about the players learning about three villagers that have mysteriously gone missing. The final battle would be the players vs our necromancer (Lich, maybe?) and their mummy lords and a few wights to soak up some damage.
The government wouldn't be happy about the zombies, the question is if they're powerful enough to stop them
Additional notes. You can dimension door skeletons into safe areas or shove them into bags of holding. As skeletons don’t need air or food you can just collect skeletons you no longer control then fling an open bag of holding over a wall or dimension door in an uncontrolled horde.
If I may, you did overlook a Xanathar's Guide to Everything Spell. A 5th level spell called Danse Macabre.
what's that do?
That only animates dead for 1 hour. It’s only useful if you are an adventurer with a slight desire to remove a few enemies after killing a couple of enemies first.
Really, it’s far better to just use Conjure Elemental and treat it well (or use Planar binding on it, which gets expensive quickly).
so many good D&D channels on here now one good thing about the future.
Wow that is my Adventures League character he is a level 19 Drow Necromancer😳.....I’ve been playing him since season 3 in OotA .
He is a cousin of Matron Mother Zeerith Xorlarrin I have a in-depth back story for him...and oh yeah he is evil. He has had under his control many zombies and skeletons and ghouls and wights...plus zombie beholders and Alhoons from season 8 epic 💀👍🏼👍🏼🕸🕷
I’ve been flipping through the 4e book “Open Grave” and holy shit, 4e packed a punch when it came to power. Some of those statblocks were insane, and I love them
Now imagine if you did this with a party of 5 people
It would go well until your army was met with 5 level 20 clerics, and your characters must cry their last as their army is incinerated against a wall of Spiritual Guardians.
@@siegfried1422 wait them out
Aaaaaaaand you just helped me finish an endgame portion if my campaign. Needed to see mechanically how to make the lich that my group didn't decide to finish off raise an army and come back after successfully destroying the kingdoms in the northern mountains. Oh they're coming at the most inconvenient time and it's gonna be glorious.
In a campaign last year, we were in the Shadowfell. The DM gave us a few homebrew rules for the plain; light sources only cast dim light, and were not visible from outside of the lights radius, failed death saving throws were permanent until a long rest, all necromancy school spells could be cast one level lower than normal (which everyone could cast spare the dying for free) and due to the fact the realm was pretty much made of corpses animate dead and similar spells did not require material components.
At first the last two didn't really effect out party, but four sessions from the end my warlock failed a wisdom saving throw against the BBEG and ended up jumping off a cliff. We new the next session or two would probably involve climbing a big necromancers tower, so for ease of character introduction I decided to make my new character a one of the cultists in the tower who had rebelled against the lich in charge due to a lack of dental and other workers benefits.
So, I started the next session with 20 skeletons. We were doing theatre of the mind for combat, which meant I didn't have to worry about controlling all of those tokens, but I did have to roll 20d20 each turn for their short bow attacks. The DM quickly realised he should be dealing with the complete inanity which was my large bony entourage, so by a couple of sessions later my skelebois had been whittled down to only 8. But due to the fact all the sessions my necromancer was in took place over one in game day, I never had to worry about maintaining control over them, so I could spend my spell slots on other things, like joining the BBEG in the last session and murdering my other party members.
The last session devolved into a big brawl, me, my skeletons and the BBEG's army of shadow monsters vs my other four party members and a mid level celestial that had showed up to help them contain a breach the BBEG had opened between the shadofell and the material plain. At the end of the 5+ hour combat, I had been knocked unconscious, all but three of my skeletons were dead, the air elemental I had summoned had gone rouge, the celestial was being swamped wit hundreds of cr 1/2 shadows and the rest of my party was dead. My necromancer woke up as the last living servant a new shadowfell empire, but at least this time his new undead overlords provided dental!
Legendary dragons, after reading the pdf, it is honestly worth they buy I have not been able to stop reading.
Meet me at Gen Con and I'll sign your... tablet? haha
@@Taking20 lol, if I can make it this year sure?
@@Taking20 how will he recognize you? Oh wait, the hair. :)
Thx for all the great content.
Ultimate Necromancer is also the ultimate Murder Hobo!
Seems like it
Literally first time I have heard a sponsorship that I am genuinely interested in and want to buy lmao.
I do like the unique creation method you are suggesting. I always love your videos and as an avid DND player, it gives a nice change of pace.
As an AL DM… there are a few things that make the build not as viable, for AL sadly… but the information is still great [I have been looking at more Necromancy information as next season, which starts in September, I am taking a break from DMing and will be playing and I keep thinking I will be either playing a Necromancer.. [Or Samurai as those guys are OP]]
So first thing that stands out are the spell gems. It would be nice… but getting that many seems to be pretty hard. Getting that many gems is hard… and in Adventurer’s League… it is impossible. Once again… my opinions counter ideas are solely based on AL. So the Spell Gems are out since they are an item that was added onto the AL “Problematic Item” list. That means that an AL character can no longer get that. ☹ The other thing that sticks out I that Command Undead is a Charisma save and while the enemy only gets the advantage roll if they have intelligence of 12 or higher… but I believe Mummy Lords still have a +8 to Charisma. So it is possible for it to still make the save and with Command Undead, if it makes the save once, that target can never be targeted again. What’s worse is that they naturally have Magic Resistance [They are above 8 so the roll is at advantage anyways… but Magic Resistance can be important for what I am discussing down below] as well… meaning they are making that it can actually be hard to get this to stick. Mummy Lords are hard to find… and for this fun… you want to make sure your monster engine sticks.
Now… not being a downer as I do have something fun that will be fun… but as I like to tell stories… I want to share a story of necromancy..
So… let me tell you a story about Necromancy with a player...
So I DM for Adventure’s League and this story is about a player I DMed for last Season, which for those who are not familiar was Season 7 [Tomb of Annihilation]. The party was getting near the end of the hardcover and the player had just managed to reach level 10. So he had been using his level 5 slot to summon his 6 undead [5 from Animate Dead and an extra due to undead Thralls.] So he had raised them as zombies. Now… he approached me with the question of “Can I equip my zombies”. Between Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford… there is a lot of “It is at DMs discretion” but they did both lean towards this is fine if the bodies were proficient in life, it should be fine… but also remember the strength requirements. Since there is nothing prohibiting this… I said it would be fine… so what is the worst that can happen.
For those are not aware, Zombies are CR ¼ monsters.. they have low Armor Class [8], and about 22 HP. They also have 13 strength. Nothing to scary… these are level 10 PCs and dealing with level 10 quality threats. So he decides to give all six of his zombies the following things. The first is Chainmail. It is AC16 and just requires a strength of 13. So the AC for these zombies has just doubled. Now… this was also Season 7 and in Chult, there are Merchant Princes. Players were able to purchase some magic items [It was a very restricted list… but that list was all he needed]. So the merchants sold +1 Wooden Shields and +1 Yklwas [This is a weapon more unique to Chult. It is a Short Spear. Its throw range is super awful [I think 20/60… but more importantly… these are SIMPLE weapons that are a 1d8.] So all the Zombies have a weapon for melee that is 1d8 + 1 [The Weapon] + 1 [Strength] + 4 [Proficiency from Undead Thralls] with a reasonable +4 to hit [+1 from Strength, +2 from its proficiency which we can get from its slam attack and +1 from the weapon] . These zombies HP has been adjusted from 22 to 32 [Undead Thralls]. Also… with Chain Mail and a +1 Wood Shield… the zombies now have adjusted their AC from 8 to 19. There are 6 of them. Also… remember that Zombies have a skill called Undead Fortitude. [If they are reduced to 0, they make a Con save DC 5 + Damage taken] If they make the Con save, they go to 1 instead. Now radiant and critical hits negate this. This little army has become SLIGHTLY problematic… but let's see where this can go.
So they ended up going into an area and the wizard made a poor mistake. We do that every once in awhile. Long story short… the necromancer dies. Now this is where things go sideways. If you remember… with Animate Dead.. when the caster dies, they do not die. They are merely no longer under control. There was originally 6 players and the monster they fought killed 2 players… leaving 4 players… who were injured… and now the super powered zombies are no longer being controlled. So they party had to flee in terror as those 6 zombies attacked the party.
Good times…
Anyways… so for your necromancy build… obviously you want to make sure that you can add as many attacks as possible. So the minions that your minion is creating doesn't matter since those would not be affected by Undead Thralls. So since we want this to stick. We already have been working off the idea of a level 20 wizard in the school of necromancy…. so we are going to shift the target. Assuming you have access to level 8 and 9 spells...we are also going to add another spell to the rotation.
So the first thing is to change the target from a Mummy Lord to a Vampire. So now… I know what you are thinking… Vampires are awful for this idea. They have an intelligence of 17, so they will repeat the save every hour. Oh no… oh don't worry… we are not letting that happen...
So the spell that we are going to be adding to our rotation is a level 8 spell “Feeblemind”. Now… this is a level 8 spell… so with our Sim, as long as it is fresh, it will have 1 level 8 slot and 1 level 9 [Unless you have one of those Boon of High Magic, but let's say you don’t]. Vampires, compared to their other saves, has an awful Intelligence save [+3] compared to it’s Charisma [+9]. It has 3 Legendary resistances… but assuming that you are a level 20 Wizard… your spell save is a probably a 19 or 20… so it would need to roll a 16-20 in order to pass. Let’s be honest… it’s going to using it’s Legendary Resistances to make sure that Feeblemind doesn’t stick… because it is a 30 day duration of “You Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma is 1. So for its saves… its intelligence save will change from +3 to -5 [So when you decide to reapply feeblemind during that 30 days… it will probably use its legendaries to resist the first 3 and the 4th will then stick because even on a roll of 20… it can’t make that saving throw. So this is our Vampire now. Its save will also adjust as it has a +9 Charisma save with an 18 intelligence. When it’s Charisma goes from 18 to 1, it will lose the +4 bonus from it’s high charisma [Save would drop to +5] then it would get a -5 penalty because the stat is at 1. So its charisma save is now a 0. So it would need to roll a 19 or 20… depending on if your Intelligence is 20 or 22 [Intelligence Tome aka Tome of Clear Thought is only a very rare.]. It is out of it’s legendary resistances. This is now your Vampire. You now have a creature that will always be loyal to you… because as long as you keep it Feebleminded. And this minion can keep creating Vampire Spawn [CR5 monsters] for as many people as you can find as the Vampire doesn't have a limit to how many Vampire Spawns it creates… but they are all obedient to him and he is obedient to you.
Your limit is only based on the amount of people you can find. At the same time… now you are raiding graves for your own undead.
Happy Hunting.
now this is giving me a massive idea for the next time im gonna DM
Well I'mma start my necromancer character rn, assuming I get the DMs approval of course lol.
Arizona Tea keep us updated
Love your videos. I have watched many of them, but I never realized you play MTG. I am a huge MTG player myself. I currently have over 40 commander decks and just can't stop making more.
Don't forget you can put them into +2 Full Plate Adamantine armor, +3 Shield and +3 Weapon.
It is comfirmed by the creators that zombies and other creatures you've raised have proficiency IN ALL ARMOR, SHIELDS AND WEAPONRY.
Don't forget the MOST IMPORTANT PART, you can make your summons attune to Magic Items by command, as the Zombies are indeed capable of focusing onto something IF commanded to.
TL;DR first: yes in any not labelled "good" campaign, but i'd make the player(s) put in the "work" to achieve it, that way they also get a proper sense of accomplishment.
------
Long version:
it'd depend on the campaign if i'd allow it, in some campaigns it would just be outright no, but that'd be campaigns about being the heroes.
In a more sandboxy campaign, sure go for it, and i'd work towards making some of the thigns you'd need into "quests"
1: scrolls:
I'd go by the idea that spells require some unique materials to craft a scroll for them, so a fireball would have different material requirements from an animate dead spell, even though both are lvl 3 spells (on top of all the onyxes)
now those materials could be in somewhat limited supply 3-5 scrolls? no problem, 52?, yeah that's not going to be available in any amount of time, and there would be questions asked, which you might not be ready to answer, so hunt for them.
2: Finger of Death fodder:
you're going to need 1095 humanoids to kill for FoD, if my math serves me right.
killing that amount of peasants, 3 a day, would cause some eyebrows to be raised somewhere.
so you'd need to find another source of humanoids, fortunately most fantasy worlds are plagued by orcs and gnolls, so defeating and enslaving entire tribes of them with the sole purpose of putting them to work in your onyx mine, and FoD'ing them would require some work, and possibly be a source of an adventure in and off itself.
not to mention the remaining corpses for animate dead and create dead shenanigans.
3: the mummies.
you'd need to hunt these bad boys down too, it would be very likely that that would result in two dungeoneering adventures.
4: consequences: unless they are really good at keeping the project hidden, eventually someone will find out, and initially i'd roll some dice to determine if some god awfull seeres might get some vague visions regarding this. (to add spice, unless the player uses the correct anti-divination spells throughout the year)
though an adventurers party looking for them based ona seeress would likely be fumbling through the complexities of prophecies, thus there'd be a good chance that if the player had spies out and about, they'd find out and be able to redirect the adventurers, move his stuff™, or just flat out kill them before they get too close.
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my MAIN concern would be with finding ways for other players to interact with this, but i think i just made room for a rogue or bard spymaster, and there's always room for a PC bodyguard.
and for the adventuring parts there's always just the need for a party.
I want to play this!
I want to either have a fallen paladin bodyguard of the necromancer or be one.
Always amazing content my friend love the video
Love this video as I was interested in playing a Necromancer. However, I feel that if I wanted to play one, especially to this level, I’d have to play in an evil campaign
A couple different builds that can get more undead:
Same build but you have each of your simulacrum cast simulacrum. As you aren't the one casting it you get more of them. As long as you have the money you can create infinite of you and therefore control infinite undead (each simulacrum gets a mummy Lord etc).
Sorcerer/Warlock for infinite spell slots then use all of them for raise undead (the limit to control is how many times you can fit the 6 seconds into a day).
Another thing to consider as an option for you possessing control over is the nightwalker, it's a cr20 with low charisma, no legendary resistances, and a low int. It's got an aura of annihilation and can fly. I'd take this over the mummy and their puny army.
What do you think? Hope you enjoyed the read!
You can also create undead and then push them into a demi plane, building a supply of undead across multiple demiplanes (how many zombies fit crammed into a 30x30 demiplane?) You then open up the demiplane and assert control over zombies as they come out with your simulacrum or just open all the demiplanes within the city and GTFO, come back later and control whatever is left, make more from the carnage. stuff them back into demiplanes if you want. whatever.
Yeah, this is what my character is doing right now, with a modified bag of holding.
This was really cool and interesting.
Hi, I'm converting my Pathfinder campaign where 13 necromancers were the bad guys affectionately known as the Nightmare's Dozen to D&D 5e. Thank you, Cody, for your contribution (video) in making viable doom and gloom for the players later in campaign >:)
Feeblemind+Command Undead+Death Tyrant+9th Level Bestow Curse=Infinite Zombies FOREVER
What curse do you use with bestow curse?
WIlliam Dorval Cursing INT saves to have disadvantage so that the Death Tyrant won’t eventually get lucky and break free from the Feeblemind.
This is awesome. I just recently started playing and my DM wants to do a campaign with an evil party and I just started to put together a necromancer. And now I have this video to make him crazy good. Lol
Wish: I wish for the undead army I create to be immortal and under my absolute undying loyal command.
DM: that is two wishes.
Better to just do what was stated in the video then proceed to wish for all the undead under your control to be under your control forever.
I currently have a player whose goal is to become a powerful necromancer Drowlich. His whole deal is that he wants to create an army of undead to serve his House and bring them the power that they deserve. Though he is more likely to use his Create Undead spell slots to make Ghouls, Ghasts, and Wights.
He hasn't commented about hunting down any mummy lords yet, but I wouldn't be shocked if he does decide to do so. It would definitely become a story adventure.
My home games have been blessed with DMs that let me turn our HQ into a necropolis. Adventurers League rules, you straight up can’t do this.
First, I’m not sure any published material has featured Mummy Lords. Second, the current rules and treasure system don’t provide the option of picking and choosing magic items.
I’d have to do more work than I care to to figure out how many you could make but as a player I limit my minion count to 1 wight (any zombies they make are bonus), 3 ghouls, 8 skeletons, and any zombies Finger of Death makes.
I also begin the rolling, arrange dice and do all my math the second my own turn ends so when it comes back around I can just tell the DM the results.
If I allowed a player to do this is work out how it impacts the setting between sessions, like “Okay, the king surrenders after the first engagement since you have 1000 special forces vs their conscripted commoners and 5000 guards. You’re king now. How do you work in running the kingdom around hunting the god vanishing mcguffin?”
why are you trying to work out how many minions they have?
let them do the math and have them show the workings out on how they got that many
Necromancer (with finger-guns): BANG!
NPC: what the-*die*
NPC(Necromancer’s zombie): ughhh-urgh
Necromancer: well guess that works
(This is basically what the spell: finger-of-death, can do)
imagining rolling initiative for 1000's of zombies lol
If a player I had seriously did this I would just homebrew Horde of zombies, same as swarm of rats etc.
i would just assume an average distribution of 5% for each possible result. so 50 go on each count, if it were 1000 exactly. with that many it would come out very close to that number.
The Mad Hacker or and hear me out. Roll initiative once and that’s the number they all get. 1000 skeleton archers raining arrows down is pretty much enough to TPK even some of the largest of groups.
David Levy Unless they have a wizard with Wall of Force.
17 Wizard & 3 Sorcerer is better, you can turn the lower spell slots into higher ones.
Want to only use Finger of Death to make permanent undead? Go and do that.
One of my friends loves to play necromancers in general.
I need to make sure he never sees this.
@Kapten Krok well i mean technically speaking history has seen many 30k+ dead armies. They just werent in fighting condition by any measure at all
@Kapten Krok that assumes that full "wipes" never happened when it wasnt actually all that uncommon for enough of the army to be killed off for said army to be effectively destroyed. If the general survives and tries again from such a lose its typically considered to be the creation of a new army in semantics rather than bolstering the old one
@Kapten Krok an army that no longer exists does not lose its classifcations just as anything else that ceases existance. Shakespeare is still classified as a playwrite, napoleon is still classified as a general, the soviet union is still classified as a country, the dodo is still classified as an animal, etc. all just gain the tagline of "dead or destroyed or extinct" before them.
You should have way more subscribers, you do great content!
If you finger of death a dragon will you get an undead-dragon or just a big pile of flesh and bones to raise "patchwork"-undead
"A humanoid killed by this spell rises at the start of your next turn as a zombie" Sadly no, WOC doesn't allow fun it seems...
@@theposhdinosaur7276 next plan :
capture a dragon,
proceed to damage its brain to reduce its int (7 or lower)
turn it into a undead (via lich creation methods)
command undead
profit
See, Mummy Lords are fun. But I would instead use Command Undead on a Greater Death Dragon. While it doesn’t know Animate Dead, it’s breath weapon automatically animates all humanoid corpses (and humanoids it kills) within its *60-foot cone* into zombies permanently under its control. It also happens to have an 11 Int. And it can also fly, allowing you a form of transportation if you mount it.
You can also Geas one of your Wights with a 9th level spell slot to put them permanently under your command every long rest. Meaning you can pick up 4 Wights a day and turn them into 52 permanent followers daily. You could also do this with your Commanded Undead so you can keep amassing more and more powerful undead over time. And let’s not forget Feeblemind.
I love playing a necromancer
Exactly.
A 14th level Warlock (Hexblade)/6th level Sorcerer (divine soul), using the Variant Human Race, is a killer build for a Tier 4 campaign.
You know his head and hair cut perfectly align with the mountain in the background LoL 🥷😁
I was already itching to play a necromancer and you just made it worse!
Just make sure to clear it with dm/players, it's no fun to have every encounter dominated by zombies.
1.Get bag of holding
2.Turn skeliton
3.Put in bag of holding
4.o to step 2 till full of uncontrolled skeletons
5. Repeat from 1 till done
Honestly, I'd allow it. BUT, the party would find the local 15-20th level undead hunter paladin order coming after them. It'd be a cool arc, if the party manages to survive long enough to take care of the paladins.
I want to make a gnome Necromancer, an call him Bugles.. He digs up his friends so he is never alone, he also enjoys teaching the local villagers about the power of friendship. He is such a friendly little gnome.
Vilifying necromancy is such a stereotype. Mindless undead are basically just machines, yeah they kill people if left to their own devices, but so does a lot of unsupervised technology (if you stop driving a car or piloting a plane, it will crash and possibly kill people, doesn't mean making cars and planes is "evil"). Sentient undead are beings just like humans, with metacognition and free will. Yes they might have some special needs, like vampires drinking blood, but humans eat other animals, and sometimes use other humans' bodyparts (organ transplants). Again, not "evil" per se. And immortality via lichdom or vampirism is basically the age-old human dream of eternal life free of disease and pain, it's a miracle that's only promised by religions in the afterlife, and possibly by science in the future.
Summing up, Necromancy would be a God-send solution to a ton of humanity's economic and biological problems and could usher in a Golden Age of immortal civilization.
So yeah, no reason why a Necromancer can't be Lawful Good.