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.... yeah cause all cops are assholes, all lawyers are demons in disguise, polititians is nothing but greedy morons, doctors are ALWAYS nice and ethical, teachers are always friendly and encouraging and ofcorse a ibrarian must HATE rock in any kind. Do you see what I am sying? A profession does NOT determin a persons value or personality. It is part of who they are yes but just because ouer society sees necrofelia and disturbing a grave as a bad thing, does all societies have to see it like that? A dead body is nothing more than chemicals and what not, It is food if there is no other source of it. There are wonderfull cops out there that is friendly and helpfull, kind and caring as well as assholes who becomes a cop. There are doctors who want nothing but to help others and then there is doctors such ans mengele. There are teachers sexually assulting their students every day. There are men raping women on a daily basis but also men who steps in and protects women, children and men. There are women raping men and children as well as there beeing women who step inbetween the offender and a child, woman or man. Judging someone because of a element in their life is not a good thing and will only harm the game and in the end society as a whole depending on how you implement it.
I heard a story that supports a good necromancer. A DM did a solo campaign for a friend, the friend wanted to do a powerful wizard, but since he was going solo decided to do a necromancer. As the campaign went on The wizard started to travel from town, to city, to village teaching them that death was the end of the souls use of the body, but the body can be used for better things. The Wizard taught these places how to create and control the undead in simple ways. Showing the people undead can be used to plow fields, push/pull carts, Simple task such as an unseen servant can do. After a life of travel and teaching the Wizard has become old and wanted to look back on the places he helped and see how they were doing. He sat in his tower and looked into his scrying device to see nothing but horror as he looked at one place after another only to see them destroyed and in ruins. Once the campaign ended the DM told the solo player he was DMing another game for a full party of adventures that followed in the Wizards wake roughly a year behind him, They choice to destroy all undead on sight and kill the people controlling them, assuming they must be evil. The party never asked if the towns were evil, if the act of creating and/or commanding the undead was evil in the setting, or any real questions at all about this odd event they kept coming across. They just assumed and killed the undead and anyone protesting about it. I enjoy the idea of a game with a Necromancer that uses the undead to help defeat evil or in this case, help towns become more productive, while the undead did the labor the townsfolk could become better educated, becoming more skilled in their more difficult craft/profession. Not unlike today where we use machines to help reduce labor so we can become smarter and further evolve.
Thor Odenson The only necromancer I've played had the motivation that he believed life is the greatest gift, and he was sharing it with those who could no longer experience it. He also had a talking skull named Bartholomew with him that only he could hear that gave him questionable advice from time to time, so he was probably definitely insane
im kinda making a 3.5 game soon about a necromancer queen (whos undead) and rules an entire country of undead that are living like normal people and i have alot of ideas for it but being new to DMing have little idea of how to make it work with out railroading the players or having to talk for a good few hrs about the world
That was actually a story on /tg/ on 4chan quite awhile ago. In the end the party of adventurers found the Wizard's tower, being told he was a powerful and evil Lich, only to find a withered old Wizard baffled by the destruction they caused.
Ineffectual as it may be, waltzing around with a horde of undead is just (im)pure and simple fun. It's a way to raise a family and make friends all at once- thanks Necromancy!
I have had more than one player inquire about this. Hell, I have asked my own DM about this. What I can state unequivocally is that this whole issue about "All Necromancers are evil" falls into that same "all Paladins are Lawful Good" and "All (insert race) are (insert alignment). I hate that stereotyping old school dogma crap. One can't say "do what you like" in one breath then spout this sort of dogma with the next. It's crap. I am impressed that the player is ASKING about this ahead of time. Kudos to you sir. There's some math to consider before raising your undead servitors. Note that they all require reassertion of your magical authority 24 hours later, so having the right amount of spell slots means resource management. Keep careful track of that. Secondly, consider the Undead in a non-combat manner. You have an immortal workforce that requires no sleep, food, clothing, shelter, pay, housing, or upkeep outside of spell slots. Turn this undead force into the labour required to build your wizard tower, or even use their utility to bribe official otherwise fearful of them to build homes, dig trenches, build roads...etc. Talk to magistrates about using criminals condemned to death to utilize these recent dead to perform eternal communal service. They can work in conditions or areas the living cannot. Clearing debris in poisonous areas or those filled with deadly diseased mosquitos, under water, or in mines in danger of collapse. Undead could climb over each other to create body bridges or organic "ladders" so players could ascend walls or cliffs. They could carry ropes under rivers to help build lines over the river eventually. In essence, do not treat them as undead. Treat them as drones. I did this in a modern science-fantasy game, and undead were used in conjunction with our explosive expert to breach walls, deliver packages or notices into hostile territory where they might get shot or risk toxins/radiation and the like. It's very effective. Older versions of D&D had hirelings, servants and even torch bearers. Using the Undead to perform mundane tasks and carry treasure frees the party to do the majority of the heavy lifting (combat). If you're worried about masses of undead in combat, the DMG has optional rules for mass attacks.
I think the issue with necromancy and why its hard to be seen as good is the whole life and death thing. First off people dont want their loved ones and ancestors bodies desecrated and used as nothing more than meat, its a defilement of something sacred. There is a reason why there are so many elaborate rituals surrounding death and moving on to the afterlife. the idea that some nut can come along and summon forth a mother, brother , father ect would not sit well with the common folk, or indeed many adventurers. It doesnt help that necromancy is the purview of evil and demonic entities either, this isnt saying oh demons are just portrayed as bad ect, its the fact that these gods are genuinely hateful and malicious towards living creatures that puts them in the 'bad' category. i suppose if you were divorced of all sentiment desecrating a corpse with necromancy wouldnt mean the same to you and you could put that spin on it in your view that its for the greater good. The problem is that what is good is largely decided by a society so if everyone says its evil then ya shit outta luck and its all evil in that setting. Then again in a nation or society that actively uses undead and sees raising the dead as recycling perfectly good materials ect ,then necromancers would be A ok. i guess its all about campaign setting really.
As Colin touched on, necromancy in an inherently dark and evil magic. It comes from dark and twisted entities, in many cases demons and gods that are literally the very essence of evil given physical form. The issue is that the game's mechanics have never reflected this. I've completely thrown out the vanilla necromancy in my games for my own creation. Necromancy was rendered a complete contradiction to itself in D&D for balancing purposes and the "let the players do whatever" attitude. What it *should* be, and what most people and lores treat it as, is a dark, powerful, and corrupting force. It shouldn't be balanced. Necromancy is *supposed* to be stronger than most other forms of magic, that is what entices people into wielding it, but its power comes at a cost and inevitably twists its wielder into a horrid monster. Lichdom isn't just the final step of necromancy, it is an inevitability. Eventually the necromancer's body will become so horribly crippled and deformed by the deathly magic he uses that only becoming a lich will save him from death, but the necromancer's very soul is twisted by the hellish forces that guide it into the phylactery, leaving no room for misinterpretation. The resulting monster is either insane or the very definition of evil. There is also the common interpretation for animating the dead that states that they cannot pass on to the afterlife while under your control, so merely being a necromancer denies countless dead a peaceful rest, forcing them back to the world of the living with an insatiable hunger and a jealous hatred for those that still live. That is what necromancy is supposed to be and how it is treated. The problem is that the game's mechanics and rules don't reflect this, so you get contradictory information where it is supposed to be this horrible force of evil but it clearly isn't. Because we for some reason need to balance a role-playing game to the point that it actually ruins story elements.
the necromancers always being evil and paladins always being good. druids always neutral and barbarians being chaotic. that comes from older editions were good evil lawful and chaotic had a universal impartial reality. now most people dont play with alignment as a real factor in their games anymore at least on a cosmic level. if you dont have a cosmic good and evil then necromancy comes down to culture. but if you do have cosmic good and evil necromancy and paladins should be stuck in those roles.
Mike Gould, excellent points, well made!Think also of undead pack animals to get the population accustomed to the idea. Horses are extremely useful, and their entire bodies typically get used for things when they die, so why not make use of their skeletons a little longer to have a tireless and fearless "horse" for a while longer?Or for that matter, offer people "life-insurance" without premiums if they agree to let their body be used for your labour force upon death. A farmer might be more open to the idea of necromancy if he knows that should he die, his kids will be looked after for at least long enough to get their life back on track (this costs less than buying equipment for your battle-skeleton).Positively incentivise people to be okay with your necromancy, and do so respectfully!
Timely video. I'm currently playing a good necromancer. He's trying to create divine magic without the gods. A little insane but a legitimately well intentioned guy. He views corpses as abandoned property and thus homesteadable. He's going to be multiclassing into Celestial Warlock.
@ Andy, here are some of my suggestions. 1.) How much is too much? Summon whatever your Necromancer is able to, according to your situation. If you're worried about your upsetting your fellow players during combat due to time, one suggestion is to maybe divide your undead up amongst you and the other players. Your necromancer gives a basic command, like kill the enemies, and then your friends run a number of the undead themselves so they get to roll more dice and have fun during that turn. If you don't want to get rid of control of so many of your undead, I also liked what Ted said about just rolling multiple dice at once in order to speed up combat on your turn. 2.) How should your DM handle the Necromancer? Talk to your DM and see how this will work in his setting. Problems will only really occur if you and your DM aren't on the same page. Your DM should be able to convey to you how your necromancer is more than likely perceived in the world / region. Use that info to run your character. If necromancy is frowned upon in your setting, then your wizard will probably have to hide the fact that he is, in fact a necromancer. If necromancy is more commonplace, then perhaps it's not a big deal for your entourage of undead to follow you, perhaps its even seen as a mark of power. The crux of the matter is that your character should know how he fits into the world, and it's your DM's job to convey that to you so you can make meaningful choices based upon that knowledge. Hope that helps!
I typically run 8 skeletons with my Cleric and I just roll all the d20s and the damage dice. And I go from lowest to highest to hit. If I crit I use the closest damage die that doesn't match a hitting d20. Also with somthing like that I preroll if allowed. So I just line the 8d20s and call out to hit unless I already know. I also total damage on the preroll. With all of that I can usually finish a turn in under a minute and half of that is me deciding if I want to move and to where.
I mean... if you think about it undead an necromancers would make fantastically good military allies. you essentially have a infinite number of mindless fearless shock troopers. I can't imagine all the great an powerfull civilizations an empires in the DND world are going to look at such a incredibly potent form of magic an be like "nah... I'll pass!" not to mention for every undead soldier a civilization raises it doesn't have to draft or recruit a living soldier to risk their life in replacement. no more family's destroyed by the horrors of combat.
That would be fun, getting a bunch of evil NPCs trying to follow a good necromancer, and having to try to figure out how to slowly turn them to the side of good, without them realizing that you're not a big bad.
"And a parade of skeletons behind ... for entertaining." I have this mental image now of a Bard/Necromancer concept with a troupe of dancing skeletons.
The true flexibility of a necromancer is when their summons are permanent and used creatively. Imagine that a necromancer gets a chance to use skeletons and zombies as a labour force and make coin to do all kinds more things. The options are endless
Privateer Press put out a neat d20 module called the Witchfire Chronicle, which was our first glimpse into the fantasy world that would become War Machine. In the module, the players have to deal with girl that being persecuted as witch, because she’s a Sorcerer that can inherently raise the dead. And awesome story, as both the party and the girl race to acquire the Witchfire Sword, an artifact used to execute witches that was used to steel her mother’s soul. [spoiler] they introduced a new craft magic item feat: Craft Skeletons. It allowed you to create intelligent soldiers from mix-matched bones that could communicate with each other, use weapons, armor and tactics. [/spoiler]
Late to comment, but as a be necromancer player, I live by these words “War is an equation with death the solution, lives the cost. Necromancy provides the solution with out the cost.”
Animate undead works diffrent in PF you can have a number of undead equal to twice you cater level. They are under your command until they are killed. No time limit.
As a DM i have gone the route of how Wights are done. They have a passive ability how much they can have creatures following them and not try to make sense of the undead in the limits of spells listed in the books.
Last week one of my players made what he calls a "friendomancer", basically a necromancer that uses something like speak with dead to ask permission to use a corpse. I linked him this video to watch and will be using some of the sugestions from near the end about some of the possible challenges I can use with him
Even in Xanathar's, there isnt a lot od potential for really strong undead. A real high level necromancer is going to struggle with comparable enemies because his horde can't really do anything. I'd prefer a few flaming skulls or minotaur skeletons to a hundred zombies and maybe a few mummies which is all you can really get.
I played a necromancer in a 2nd edition game and everything was ok the dm even had this necromancer handbook for that edition I went from level 1 to 6 and I had this spell that animated dead animals and this spell that made it so my corpses stopped decomposing so I fixed up my undead so they were very alive looking then a new to our table guy comes in his first time and he gets another character killed and then steals my heavy spellbook and turns me into the town guard and the rest of the party was split 2 of them outright swearing to kill my guy so I escaped and was pretty pissed off by the ordeal because I was using the character for over a year and a dude who didn't even return for next session screwed me over so then me and 2 other players got together with the dm to do a evil campaign and my necromancer was joined by a death cleric and an anti paladin who we each had an agreement to not betray each other and funny enough we had phenomenal success
I think it would be fun to have a necromancer who also knows something akin to the speak with dead spell. only raising those souls with a reason to return, unfinished business and then helping them to complete their goals before letting them return to their final rest. This necromancer wouldn't have hordes at a time, max would probably be about 3 or 4. Unless of course, the horde approach is needed, then the battlefield itself becomes the source of bone and flesh which will be instantly returned to the earth as soon as their task is done.
I think one problem with 5e's Animate Dead is that you can't make Giant skeletons or Dire Wolf zombies. If you could make singular more powerful undead it would take up less time in combat to control fewer undead that are stronger. The undead from Create Undead generally aren't as good because they're not strong enough relative to what you're spending, and if they are smart enough, you can't even control them consistently.
When I was looking at CU & AD's wording for my above post for "next level88", I glanced over the "humanoid" wording and thought "With Animate Object, you could create a s**t ton of animate knives creating fun chaos, couldn't a Necromancer use AD/CU to create a s**t ton of animals (namely Squirrels)?" but I reread both, and they both say "humanoid", even FoD states "humanoid" (though wasting both (2) 7th Lv Slots @ Lv 20 to FoD 2 Squirrels would really be stupid).
Altryell unless you arm each squirrel with exploding Ice glyphs that happen on command or when a squirrel is destroyed. Ice does no damage to undead, so the squirrels would be immune. Just a clever thought from a "fiendly" GM. No that was not misspelled.
Outside of league games, most GMs I know are pretty flexible on animate dead. Instead of 2 humanoid skeletons, its not too hard to convince most GMs to let you raise something comparable, like maybe 2 wolves or a horse. As far as Create Undead, yeah, it's kinda unimpressive. Its not really on par with most of the summon spells at that level, considering the created undead can just dip out on you. Or turn on you. I'd rather just catch some animals and train them, between Animal Handling, Speak with Animals, and Animal Friendship. Plus healing spells work on animals. In fact...Hmmm...now I kinda wanna play a nature cleric or druid...Horde of Bears, wolves, etc and Mass Cure Wounds....
You could have a good necromancer who just raises the corpses of evil people as a punishment to make them work off their crimes doing good deeds in their undeath.
As a DM I would maybe try out the mass combat rules if a player made an undead horde. I would also (because rule of cool and general awesomeness) allow Animate Dead to raise larger creatures at higher spell slots (and not just humanoid ones) as an alternative to raising Medium creatures as per the spell as written. Something like: 3-4 Medium creatures as per the spell as written. 5-6 (1) Large creature. 7-8 (1) Huge creature. At 9th level (1) Gargantuan creature - because you've earned that badass undead dragon. Live the dream! Bigger creatures means less freaking minions to keep track of, so I'm all for it at my table. But the players run their own minions, because I've got enough to do as it is. You raise it - you run it! I'm playing the game with you - not for you. Obviously, the game world will have plenty of opinions regarding your evil monsters (that go on a murderspree if you forget to maintain control). But if a player wants to go all "Here at Grave Adventuring Services the only thing we don't raise is our prices!", go nuts and we'll see where the journey takes us.
People tend to forget that if you have to recast the spell every day to keep controlling them. Miss one day you have a horde of undead rampaging through the countryside. Also the PHB clearly states creating undead is an evil act so a PC will slide into an Evil alignment.
No it doesn't, it says that "not all necromancers are evil but, the forces they manipulate are considered taboo in many societies." It also says that without command un-dead you create simply defend themselves. Also, when the control timer runs out, it never says that they turn evil. It says you cant issue any more commands. Therefore the undead will simply defend themselves even after you lose control
not all necromancers walk around with undead, some of them utillize other spells and rituals available to them especially through level progression in order to aid /augment /heal thier fellow party members.In a campaign I was in I was a necromancer that operated asa second tier healer to my party. And yes I did cast raise undead ect in large scale battles and send my minions out as cannon fodder along side the party's priest in order to escort him to the wounded while the rest of my party continued the fight.
My cleric with the Zeal domain uses undead as a tool, he used to be a general, but formed a bond with an entity from the shadowfell, he now uses undead as soldiers (wrapped in gray cloth to not scare the peasants) to ultimately fight for good. He is a Scourge Aasimar with the LN alignment.
In one of the games, I played in the necromancer was more trying to be like an artificer. He experimented on his undead skeletons fusing metal to the bone in his attempts to make their ac go up. He then used their bodies as shields to protect wounded party members. or would try stuffing skeletons into toy dolls or stuffed animals. one skeleton he went so far to give it any ac bonus gear he could get his hands on.
here's a thought, instead of rolling a whole bunch of times for your 'swarm of undead' just treat them as a swarm, just need to adjust attacks and AC and hp and stuff and then you make 1 roll a turn. you can determine a base for all of the stats and it then have it be multiplied by the size category of the group (5 undead) = 2x multiplier ; (10 undead) = 3x multiplier ; (20 undead) = 4x multiplier ; (50 undead) = 5x multiplier ; (100 undead) = 6x multiplier... or some other method that allows for large scale forces and single rolls to determine their effects in combat.
Ive been wanting to do this for a while but haven't been in many games ao just not had the chance yet. I wanted to make a morally neutal character who took up necromancy because they are interested in learning all kinds of magic and don't see it as either right or wrong, its just a magic puppet. The backstory is as a child his parents being magically inclined taught him about magic and now no magic is evil just the people who use it can be. The father dies defending the town as a hero, the mother dies a few years later from sickness when they get snow in from a blizzard. The town helps raise the child but he was mostly by himself in his home reading the magic tomes his parents had collected from when they where adventuring, which of course he learned necromancy from, and so he decides to go off and adventure himself to seek more knowledge and excitement. The idea is generally good person, very polite, has manners but also has that hobby of necromancy. And so I would leave it up to the rest of the party for what path he goes down, is there a paladin or cleric that convinces him raising the dead is a bad thing and he converts? Does the party do nothing and things get awkward when a town gets raided and he offers his zombies to help speed up repairs? Or is there a warlock in the party who's demon or patron corrups him into becoming a full blown Litch? I like it because I can reuse the exact same character and still get a completely different story out of it. Also the conversations of "No raising the dead is a BAD thing." "But they've already passed on, im just making use of their body. Don't we use animals bodies for leather armor, fur coats and food? How's using a person's body for combat assistance any different?"
Made a good necromancer. He was a very polite man that carried around contracts for people to sign, he would only reanimate someone that had signed the contract before death. This did two things for me; firstly it stopped me having too many guys to animate, it gave the DM good control over the numbers and secondly it gave me some good outs for people that felt what I was doing was not so nice.
Not even the whole group goes missing, just one wanders off and the player has to decide to track it or not. One zombie gains sentience or remembers who they used to be and do their own thing or try to find their loved ones. Maybe they were an enemy and, "recover," enough to go find more of your foes to tell them key information. You have to make sure there is an explanation; delayed necromantic poison, an interfering spirit, player failure, etc..
I am currently running a 5E Curse of Strahd game. My players are a Oathbreaker Paladin, a Death Domain Cleric, a Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, and a necromancer themed Lore Bard. I have found limiting Animated Dead to 4 minions per character works best for me for combat encounters(Which I have slightly adjusted to be more of a challenge by increasing some stats and numbers of enemies). I havent had them do any dark powers style checks yet since they are all neutral alignments and followers of Wee-Jas. I am thankful a necromancer Wizard isnt part of the party for the full undead horde style.
You're right about zombies and skeletons in a way... But the thing is the Necromancer, especially a cleric necromancer, is a really powerful utility caster. They can heal, they can cast all the normal buff spells, AND, when you kill some ogres, the necromancer takes their bodies and BAM, instant super-strong henchmen with complete loyalty. Necromancers are really only limited by the type of enemy they fight. Humans and orcs make crappy skeletons and zombies because they only get 1 hit-die. But Ogres, dragons, giants, animals like bears and dire wolves... All make really awesome dispensable warriors. They're also very useful for carrying heavy stuff. An Ogre Zombie can carry an entire dragon hoard on its back.
A good use of the basic undead is to have them grapple higher power targets, like DOG PILE them. Also even if they are trash they still take up space so they can be used to block or cause choke points, they are also ultimately disposable.
As a GM and a Player who loves the theme of Necromancer, I love playing Necromancers who have limited undead and I really don't like clogging up combat with stuff. But some of my favorite classes are stuff like Oathbreaker Paladin, Death Domain Cleric, and Necromancer Wizard, all of Which somewhat revolve around raising dead
I have a level 9 necromancer. He is constantly at odds with our Paliten. But we need each other. We are kinda forced to work together. Even though we don't like each other and will often get into arguments during combat. Really fun playing. The other guys in our party even play along.
Thought of another scenario in which having a Necromancer would come in handy, and it sort of draws from the Nerdarchist Dave's Micro Celeb Game, in which a while back, they had to deliver the Nothic Bomb to at least 1 of the Vargarian Temples and detonate it within. A Necromancer in the above scenario could create an undead and instruct it to go deep into the Temple and detonate the Nothic Bomb. As a GM in such a scenario, I would give it a high/low roll in determining if the undead got to the center of the temple & detonated (if the player chose wisely) or the undead go to the center of the temple & forgot what to do with the bomb (if the player chose poorly).
Meet them with an enemy hoard, and basically you can right off both armies as they are going to be busy fighting each other and then focus on the main fight. Have some fights where the hoard is awesome, and other fights where they are useless. Also you can have them hounded by parties of clerics bent on purifying the scourge of undead.
I did the math the other day and at level 20 a necromancer can control a horde of about 130 skeletons/zombies at a time just using Animate Dead, sooo....
TheLangenator nice... now realize you just used all your spell slots to make them all, plus 130 body’s is a LOT of body’s, eh I don’t need spell slots I have a army! Bull, any self respecting foe going toe to toe with a level 20 party would more then likely either be borderline impossible to damage with such weak units... or could run though the horde like a hot knife though butter, hell a high level wizard has the quintessential good bye horde spell meteor swarm, or fireball, or... well pretty much any AOE really
"you're kinda responsible, you made the weapons and just left them laying around"...so the blacksmith is kinda responsible for the deaths caused by the swords he makes? By the description in the animate dead spell, if you let your control over your corpses lapse, they kinda just stand around doing nothing except to defend themselves if attacked. It takes an act of will for someone else to take control of them, and their commands to make them kill. Hence, you are even less responsible for the damage done by someone stealing your skellies than a person who leaves a knife lying on a table which a kid picks up and cuts themself on. The undead from the animate dead spell literally do NOTHING unless attacked or commanded. Basically my point is its not really gonna be a moral quandry, even if it does lead to a bad social/legal situation.
Hellspark Except that the DnD undead aren’t walking dead zombies. They will literally just stand there, indifferent. Maybe wander around the room, but they are not hostile to any creatures unless provoked. Go read the PHB
Don't forget maintaining control over all of those undead requires you to cast the spell once every 24 hours meaning if the necromancer in knocked out or incapacitated or otherwise unable to recast the spell in that time period the undead will act like standard undead with all of their hatred for life and desire to mindlessly attack any living creature that comes near them. In other words, while that undead army could be very useful it could also prove to be very dangerous to the caster or anybody else nearby if the dm is clever.
I think the backstory is where this should play in. for example i have a lizardfolk necromancer that will only raise the dead of those who commit evil acts, this is due to his backstory. He always does his research about a country and how they view necromancy which is why when he does travel with them he only travels with 2 skeletons, they are in full body black suits and armored to look like guards (think foot clan soldiers from ninja turtles but with chain shirt armor, rapier, long bow and shield). so while he will go out in public with them, they are not just bare naked skeletons. ive even put magic mouth on them in a campaign to respond in a generic manner when someone talks to them
i thought it would be easy to do if your character was true neutral, and doesn't understand social norms. like you get jumped by 3 people, and just as you would loot their bodies, you LITTERALLY loot their bodies, like its your possession now.
Oh my god. My necromancer is autistic. My gnoll necromancer doesn't understand most basic social norms. He tries to mimic them and fit in as best he can, but he cant. My character is an autistic necromancer. An Autistromancer.
I found this video incredibly helpful, I'm playing a campaign where me and my friend are both use necromancer spells with him being a classic necromancer and me being an neutral warlock who summons shadows, and I was afraid of breaking the game but this put me at ease, so thanks nerds :)
Ie Ben playing with a path of the grave cleric idea as a good Necromancer. One that took up death magic to try and still heal/save even when he is too late. Later, he could learn things like dance macabre as a desperation move (created undead only last an hour), and go from there. One path could make him a living chop shop. Grafting limbs and pieces of various species as augmentations and such. The BBEG is always a career option- but only an option.
Huh... magic is, in general, is gray from my experience. Yes, there can be cosmic/lore based reasons why certain forms of magic are corruptive/evil. However, it really depends on the user of said magic because everything can be used for constructive pursuits in moderation or towards a destruction endeavor. It really comes down to how the player uses the magic and how the view of said magic changes over time, along with what groups and ideologies are involved, as well as whatever the DM has chosen for their setting. As for me, I found that the school of necromancy can be interesting. I have experience with 2nd edition and the Complete Book of Necromancers. In the book, while there are the stereotypical nasty spells, there are also white necromancy spells or magic that is geared towards either a more neutral uses or even dealing with healing and useful effects. Plus, a kit dedicated towards the study of bodies and medicine. Then again, I have also started to look at magic as more a corruptive force in general, with various forms corrupting the user either slower or faster over time. The same with the idea of divinity and what divinity can represent in the balance of energies.
all right, bringing back the Chaotic Good necro i played a couple months back. every skeleton or zombie that i raised would be asked where they would like to be laid to rest once i was done using their body to save the rest of their town, city, caravan, etc. before the person fully expired, or if they had already, by using speak with dead, which i went out of my way to get and after clearing out every hostile entity in the area, i'd bring each undead creature to the spot that they individually chose to be laid to rest at and dug them a grave myself before killing each one.
With bounded accuracy, I think that the skeleton army is still very viable in 5e, and would even say they are better than the summon greater undead army if you equip them with bows.
"they probably have a sword and it might be glowing" Great! I could use that sword! Ive got about....700 swords but none of them are glowing. Lets see whos swords win.
I say it depends on the player and the GM ( the other players to an extent but that can be for an introduction and set some ground rules for a good guy necromancer aka no spawning a horde and you set it loose you hunt it down )
Ugh all this bad talking about necromancer, I will say we necromancers are a very helpfull bunch. I helped multiple towns with their goblin infestation, decrepit buildings,... the zombie workforce is amazing
I think your supposed to be tactical with your undead. Raise the right kind for the situation. Most other necromancy spells have a debuff effect. Something like blind half of the enemy party to give your undead advantage on their attacks. Put a curse on an enemy so its harder to resist the ghouls paralysis. Grapple then flank. Cause fear makes that ac of 8 and 13 just a bit harder to hit. Ray of sickness on the big targets to get that poison. The combo list is pretty extensive for necromancers and thats why I don't think you need hordes of undead, because the rest of the necromancy spells are there to shore up their weaknesses.
At around 04:00 they talk about Xanathar's Guide and Greater Undead. Do they just mean using an upcasted Create Undead? Because while research have shown me that previous editions of DnD had a 'Create Greater Undead' 5e doesn't as far as I know?
a good necro is one who maintains the balance between life and death (diablo necro) or one who just brings back the corpses from a battlefield to be buried in a church so they are no longer able to be used?
with a necro mancer you have to use modified mob rules with them... treating the entire horde as one hp bar and one initiative.... you roll 1 d20 for however many you have and either add a modifier for numbers to damage or chance to hit.
My Orc Necromancer never has more than 4 armored and hooded "bodyguards". He only turns those that the party have killed into skeletons and zombies. He currently has 2 "bodyguards", a wereshark and an annoying court functionary that was killed by an invisible stalker during breakfast that i was given permission to take to the burial site we will be heading to(never said that he would walk there as a zombie)! He is a CN orc book klepto who has his grandfathers spirit as his weasel familiar. His tribe used the our dead and the dead of our enemies to supplement the tribes troops in combat.
If we assume necromancy is just regular magic anyone could learn, it depends on the culture of the necromancer. If he comes from a culture where desecrating a body is heavily froned upon, then only an evil character would be a necromancer. But if his culture sees a dead body as an empty shell that only disposes of bodies for sanitary reasons, he could be anything. Either way, no townspeople you run into like the walking dead.
Magic is neither good nor evil. Same goes for Necromancy. A sword is not evil if a villain uses it to kill a King. Nor does it become good in slaying an Evil Overlord. Necromancy, like the sword, is just a tool. You can be of any alignment, even Lawful Good if you prep the right backstory.
I really like that this sentiment grows more and more popular. Maybe with next edition WotC will change the whole "Necromancy is evil" sentiment alltogether and at least create a path of "white necromancy". I have been an advocate of "It's not evil" for years now, and the best, while still not good, argument I have heard against it is "In DnD things like good and evil are forces comparable to gravity or radiation. You can't change that." The first time I played a Necromancer after years of yearning to do so but couldn't because Lawful good was the goto alignment it was fucking awesome. There were plants that grabbed everyone if you came to close to the. Ran my skeletons into the plants and we marched through the waste. Those trees looked suspicious? Let's send a skeleton towards it and see what happens. The trees shoot their needles? Ok, let's have a look at what it did to the skeleton. Oh, so the needled bored itself into the bones and released spores. Guess that's how the woods here came into existence. Necromancy is pure fun and brings so much utility, it is unholy. *pun intended*
i actually liked playing my necormancer. I rarely raised the dead but I did enfeeble and fatigue enemies into not being able to move or hold a weapon so my party could RP a bit. easier to take a bandit's stuff when he's too weak to lift it. and you save yourself from casting speak with dead by getting information from an enemy still alive and now outnumbered and too weak to run.
We need necromancers to be more powerful, how are they supposed to be the bad guy of every story if they suck ass as a viable build. Also the necromancer in diablo 2 and 3 is a good example of a good necromancer. generally disinterested in society but when something is upsetting the status quo they show up to make sure the natural order isnt disturbed.
I let them have 4 personal Undead to use in combat. Any more than that and I have them used as utility npc's. So like having them set up camp, carry supplies, or even carrying the party on a seated throne. I would also allow them to be used in a siege capacity.
This is the background of a Necromancer that I play in a one shot server... Maximillian is man in his late twenties from a country ravaged by wars and tyranny. As an army commander, he saw many young people die in vain throughout the capricious desires of the Lords. Not wanting to simply incite a rebellion that would drive others to die for their cause, he retired from his post and sought means to achieve his goals. He found his way in magic, spending much of his wealth in research. Pursuing magic considered by many to be "dark" for the sake of saving the people he cares about, he had a fortuitous encounter. The "Grey Council", a group made by good-aligned practitioners of the dark arts inducted and taught him on the path of a grey necromancer, for they can never be white. There he learned their magic and code of conduct. To never kill for the sake of raising an army; To never use sacrifices as a means to achieve power; And that the dead shall only rise again to protect the living His studies under the council were a brief, but enriching time, a tutelage more meant to induct him on the morals and ethics of practicing the dark arts than the magic itself. Now, he journeys the vast world, seeking new companions and magic, in order to one day return to his homeland, depose the tyrants without shedding the blood of the innocent. In his quest for discovery and adventures, he found himself outside of an odd-looking tavern. There he sees folks of different kinds, even powerful ones, capable of things written in legends.
I'm not sure, I have a Dwarf Tempest Cleric that has a animate dead in a DoMM run. Right now he has 8 skeletons with long weapons instead of short (sword and bow) I capped myself at 8 because I don't want to use dice rollers if I can avoid it and I liked the Idea that if they all hit (witch they don't) it would be the equivalent to fireball damage. The DM Actually suggested to get +1 longbows for them to increase their usefulness (it is an AL table and +1 weapons are always available to purchase) now I have set myself some rules for when I will use the spell. 1. It can't be a creature that my party killed or observed being killed. 2. No Corpses, if there is flesh it is off limits. 3. No grave robbing...ish, if there is any semblance of a funeral/burial it is off limits. I also will have them wear hooded cloaks and boots if we ever are in a city that might frown upon undead. So my first three were skeletons found in the dungeon the rest and the yet to be used bones are from a bone wall that I created the other five from. My Characters P.O.V. they faught and died here. I will give these fallen warriors one last chance for their bones to continue the fight that their spirit can not. And if we are victorious. I will bring these fallen soldiers home to their families for burial. I obviously won't let the families know about the animation if we survive. So on a scale of 1-10 where does that put me on the "Evil" scale? I personally think 2 or 3 but I may not be totally objective.
Had a couple players they escaped their circus that had been slaughtered by marauders. Later it showed with all the former circus family as undead. Nerdarchist Dave
if your a good as in skilled or well aware necromancer you wont go threw towns with undead humanoids period however other kinds of undead are probably ok other than an undead beholder and the best kind of necromancer will search for the vile book of darkness not to become a lich but to find a spell to make permanent minions
The whole taboo argument I disagree with. There is so many cultures that handles their dead differently and one is going to offend the other. There is some cultures that it is customary to eat the dead and in some cultures eating the dead is the greatest insult you can do someone. So a good necromancer would try to respect those who were against it but if he's resurrecting evil creatures or from creatures who don't have that taboo (i.e. lizardfolk) then I don't see an issue. I've made a neutral necromancer who was a lizardfolk. With their alien mindset they would think that a dead corpse is something to use or eat. Its like a magic version of their cunning artisan ability. I think you can create a good necromancer but he has to realize they're not going to be treated like a good person. He would also be powerless in areas where there are a lot of good races. I could see him living in the underdark or in an evil kingdom where he can fight evil unhindered. Or he sets up shop on the edge of an evil kingdom and basically acts as border patrol for that area. Or you could just be a necromancer with the Deck of Many Things minus the balance card.
Elves do not view udead like other races. They respect and honor their ancestors. Allowing them to carry on after death. Besides they need a labor force, elves do not breed very fast. ;)
didn't even answer the question that was asked just went on this whole tirade about how evil necromancers are and how horribly they're going to be looked at by society. The actual question was how to not make it overwhelming for the game table. Can we get an answer on the actual question instead of all this hoopla.
Necromancy really depends on the setting in question and the nature of reanimation. I'm inclined to view it as just another tool which is prone to abuse, highly taboo in most cultures & prone to the influence of malevolent beings such as Orcus and the like.
Roll halfling cleric of Milil, raise skeletons, give them maracas and sombreros. Multiclass bard and sing about PC and the Skinny Boys, looking for work across the land. If lucrative, buy them new instruments, fake mustaches, and fancy mariachi uniforms. If super lucrative, take them on tour as "¡Ay caramba! Los Skinny Boys!" Completely forget your main quest. OD on mind cheese. Skinny boys disband, leaving only humorously dressed but violent skeletons as someone else's problem.
The campaign we're in is actually set in a time without religion or Gods so it might be the perfect time to go Necro and maybe even resurrect me a dragon
horde master is nowhere near as powerful as it was in 3.5, 4e, and pathfinder. it's an easy thing to deal with, as both a player and a dm. As a player, even with xanathar, i just don't think the horde master is worth playing anymore. you're spending too many resources for too little benefit.
clericofchaos1 I’ve house ruled in a load of stuff so necromancy is worthwhile in 5e. Created 2 more create undead spells at higher levels so they can summon better or more things, flat out created a variety of new tempting uses of spell slots so I don’t have to account for the Zerg of hundreds of the undead in combat, and partially re worked the necromancy tree to have a “horde master” a “summoner of Armageddon” and a status based sub class within the subclass so my players can feel like necromancers instead of the guy with a small horde of low health skeletons and zombies.
Actions carry consequences. You can make the argument that a Necromancer can be good as long as certain criteria are met: what are his/her motivations for pursuing this school of magic, what use will it be given, what is the character's state of mind and outlook on the world. It is all in the character building of course, but then after that you have to stick to what you created. A good aligned necromancer might not wield the undead left and right willy-nilly. Most likely they wield them when there is no other choice (just tossing ideas here). However, w/e the case may be, for actions there should be consequences. Maybe the use of that kind of magic will corrupt the user over time, maybe using undead will spark other NPC's to take up arms against you (as was stated in the video), or perhaps your use will spark a new subset of beliefs in an area. Again, every action should carry a consequence. If you want to give it a good or bad one, as the DM, that is up to you. I personally like the double-edged sword style of real life. Almost all actions done in real life carry consequences and its like a coin: there is a good side and a bad side. Depends on whether the benefits outweigh the cost and what are the short and long term effects of said actions.
I still don't get why it's considered more evil raising a mindless corpse than burning people alive or making them walk off a cliff or stab their best friends due to mind control. Taboo and people finding it creepy and may even see it as more evil sure , but I simply can't get behind that raising mindless and soulless bone and flesh constructs should turn you more to the "dark side" than any of the previously mentioned examples.
My character is a Folk Hero Life Cleric with 4 undead at his disposal. One of them is named "Lurr". Lurr joins me as I walk around town wearing a "Hat of Disguise". It makes him look like a regular human so the villagers do not freak out. The Folk Hero background allows me to take up residence with some local people who live on the very outskirts of town and have a lockable shed for me to store my 3 skeletons in. My character is using divine healing energies to keep the dead animated. There are no trapped souls in my dudes. In fact once I have a good enough reputation with the leader of the town I will reveal my undead forces to them and have them easily identifiable by having them all were a red tabbard with my god's holy symbol emblazonned on it. That way the town guard can easily see they were the mark of the hero that protects their town and know that I do so with only the best intentions.
You know I've considered runing a necromancer that was trying to be good but was rather inept at it. For example he'd be all for stopping (lethally) an adult abusing a child, however he'd probably turn around and raise the offender as an undead and order it to take care of the child properly thinking he was doing a good thing and not understanding the horror that invoked in those around him or why the child runs away screaming. I can just picture him dressing up his undead hoard in bright colors and have them march into town banging drums like a rather macabre parade. would be fun but probably wouldnt last in a long campaign, more for a one shot or a couple session campaign. That said beyond 4-6 minions I wouldnt inflict individual rolling on the rest of the table. Sending a couple weak skeletons along with each party member to assist them would be one good use. Another would be mass attacks, break the hoard into a couple of chunks targeting specific enemies and just mass roll D20's. Think of it more as sending them off to dogpile a target to keep it busy. If they die it great, if not at least they are wasting their time trying to plow through disposable minions instead of the party.
Is necromancy evil? Whenever this question comes up, I always cite the same example: back in 1993, Capcom made a jrpg called Breath of Fire, with a game engine made by Square. In that game, there was a village called Romero (alluding to John Romero). Romero was a quiet village in the middle of nowhere, full of uneducated backwater hicks - in the Japanese version, the townsfolk speak in a touhoku accent, which is associated with, essentially, the Japanese version of hillbillies. There's an evil wizard who's been experimenting in the town, trying to find a way to make himself immortal. Those experiments have raised the village's dead. The worst the zombies have done is cause a food shortage by way of overpopulation. There's an old widow in the village who has the means to solve the zombie infestation, but she doesn't want to, because it's reunited her with her dead husband. Ultimately, the dead husband gives the means to end the infestation to the player characters, satisfied that he had the chance to say goodbye. Is reuniting an elderly widow with her deceased husband, giving them the chance to say goodbye, evil?
I always think magic is just a tool. you don't call someone who shoots gun evil just because someone else killed people with it. How is calling a meteor to kill an evil dragon different to the same spell destroying the village, killing people near said dragon? I get it, someone using someone else's body to do things is comparable to slavery. But first, they're dead. They can't feel anything now. Second, doesn't that make looting dead body stealing? Using the same logic, they're dead but it's still rightfully theirs. At least the deceased's family should have the right to the goods. So as a good hero, you should return the evil baddie's belongings to his family or something, or else you're not as good as you thought you were. I guess it depends on how the necromancer treats his zombies. It'll be funny roleplay moment to see this kind-hearted necromancer talking to his zombies/skeletons asking what they want as payment. said by a true neutral necromancer
Depends on the lore. If necromancy makes it so that her deceased husband comes back with an insatiable hunger and a jealous hatred of all things living, I'd say it is pretty evil.
notoriouwwhitemoth He did cause a food shortage. And by your description, the zombies do not want to be undead, they want to be deaddead. Also, if you assume zombies keep their mind after being resurrected, necromancy is slavery.
Overpopulation is a problem of logistics, not demographics. Couldn't they have traded with other communities, or indeed sent their undead to other communities? One, who accepted that he had died of old age, wanted to return to the dead after having the opportunity to say goodbye to his widow. Does that imply that they all wanted to have remained dead? I think the point I was trying to make is that there isn't necessarily an objectively right answer, that there are edge cases to be considered.
I was worried about this when a player decided to play a necromancer, because everything points to this being a mess, but after 15 levels, I've discovered that it just isn't. The speed of the creatures, pushing the masses of bodies through a dungeon corridor, the lack of acrobatics to get where you need them to go, how ineffective they are against higher level enemies, and the simple fact that there are a pile of spells that are just much more useful, all made my fears of the class go away. Once the novelty of the animate dead spell wears off, you'll find out that all the zombies in the world are no substitute for a well-placed fireball when it comes to third level spell slots...
Not just that but of the total amount of Necromancy Spells, only a few deal with animating dead NPC's. Th rest are either Debuff Spells or are "OoC" Spells. And sure the abilities for Necromancers have 2 that deal with creating/controlling, but if the Necromancer is ONLY relying on the creation of Undead, then they are doing something wrong because from a DM/GM perspective, there are easy ways around that. Plus the Create Undead can ONLY be casted at night and then really if there are undead humanoids IN SIGHT the same with Animate Dead (though with AD, you can cast it during the day). It would be different IF they were treated similar to Familiars in that the Summoner of the Familiar are able to use spells through the Familiar in some cases. Like having the created/controlled Undead go out past 30 feet and then being able to cast Blindness/Deafness or Blight on an enemy that is beyond your own range, but would be within 30 feet of your Undead Servant and using your Undead Servant as sort of "conduit" to cast Necromancy Spells further out. Or even use your Undead Servant to cast Bestow Curse/Contagion (Touch Spells) on enemies from afar. But still, you've got Chill Touch (Cantrip of 120 ft range, max 4D8 of non-healing damage until the start of your next turn), Circle of Death (Lv 6th Spell of 150 ft, max ~14D6 if used at a 9th Slot), Eyebite (Lv 6th Self Spell with a range of 60 feet to cause Debuffs), and hell, Finger of Death (Lv 7th of 60 ft, 7D8 + 30, with the add bonus of it this spell kills a target, said target permanently becomes your undead slave). So the Necromancers shouldn't JUST rely on the Create Undead/Animate Dead Spells because of how easy it is for a DM/GM to "work around" it. And even if the Necromancer were to "kill at night" to use the Create Undead Spell, would give the DM/GM an extra RP Element of (ex) the Necromancer killed the son/daughter of a [Insert High Position] and they would become the target of not only a Bounty but would also be AOS/KOS in the local of wherever that Person of High Position resides.
wut if the Necromancer (n maybe even the nation the game takes place in) r a sorta viking type people who find Glory in death by battle, they may view becoming an undead as a 2nd chance to fight for Glory n honour
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.... yeah cause all cops are assholes, all lawyers are demons in disguise, polititians is nothing but greedy morons, doctors are ALWAYS nice and ethical, teachers are always friendly and encouraging and ofcorse a ibrarian must HATE rock in any kind. Do you see what I am sying? A profession does NOT determin a persons value or personality. It is part of who they are yes but just because ouer society sees necrofelia and disturbing a grave as a bad thing, does all societies have to see it like that? A dead body is nothing more than chemicals and what not, It is food if there is no other source of it. There are wonderfull cops out there that is friendly and helpfull, kind and caring as well as assholes who becomes a cop. There are doctors who want nothing but to help others and then there is doctors such ans mengele. There are teachers sexually assulting their students every day. There are men raping women on a daily basis but also men who steps in and protects women, children and men. There are women raping men and children as well as there beeing women who step inbetween the offender and a child, woman or man. Judging someone because of a element in their life is not a good thing and will only harm the game and in the end society as a whole depending on how you implement it.
I heard a story that supports a good necromancer.
A DM did a solo campaign for a friend, the friend wanted to do a powerful wizard, but since he was going solo decided to do a necromancer. As the campaign went on The wizard started to travel from town, to city, to village teaching them that death was the end of the souls use of the body, but the body can be used for better things. The Wizard taught these places how to create and control the undead in simple ways. Showing the people undead can be used to plow fields, push/pull carts, Simple task such as an unseen servant can do.
After a life of travel and teaching the Wizard has become old and wanted to look back on the places he helped and see how they were doing. He sat in his tower and looked into his scrying device to see nothing but horror as he looked at one place after another only to see them destroyed and in ruins.
Once the campaign ended the DM told the solo player he was DMing another game for a full party of adventures that followed in the Wizards wake roughly a year behind him, They choice to destroy all undead on sight and kill the people controlling them, assuming they must be evil.
The party never asked if the towns were evil, if the act of creating and/or commanding the undead was evil in the setting, or any real questions at all about this odd event they kept coming across. They just assumed and killed the undead and anyone protesting about it.
I enjoy the idea of a game with a Necromancer that uses the undead to help defeat evil or in this case, help towns become more productive, while the undead did the labor the townsfolk could become better educated, becoming more skilled in their more difficult craft/profession. Not unlike today where we use machines to help reduce labor so we can become smarter and further evolve.
That... What?
Thor Odenson The only necromancer I've played had the motivation that he believed life is the greatest gift, and he was sharing it with those who could no longer experience it.
He also had a talking skull named Bartholomew with him that only he could hear that gave him questionable advice from time to time, so he was probably definitely insane
Wow that's almost like Yorick, using the power of "necromancy" to do something good
im kinda making a 3.5 game soon about a necromancer queen (whos undead) and rules an entire country of undead that are living like normal people and i have alot of ideas for it but being new to DMing have little idea of how to make it work with out railroading the players or having to talk for a good few hrs about the world
That was actually a story on /tg/ on 4chan quite awhile ago. In the end the party of adventurers found the Wizard's tower, being told he was a powerful and evil Lich, only to find a withered old Wizard baffled by the destruction they caused.
Ineffectual as it may be, waltzing around with a horde of undead is just (im)pure and simple fun. It's a way to raise a family and make friends all at once- thanks Necromancy!
See page 250 of the DMG for rules on streamlining mobs. If you use those rules, combat will move along just fine. No worries.
I have had more than one player inquire about this. Hell, I have asked my own DM about this. What I can state unequivocally is that this whole issue about "All Necromancers are evil" falls into that same "all Paladins are Lawful Good" and "All (insert race) are (insert alignment).
I hate that stereotyping old school dogma crap. One can't say "do what you like" in one breath then spout this sort of dogma with the next. It's crap.
I am impressed that the player is ASKING about this ahead of time. Kudos to you sir. There's some math to consider before raising your undead servitors. Note that they all require reassertion of your magical authority 24 hours later, so having the right amount of spell slots means resource management. Keep careful track of that.
Secondly, consider the Undead in a non-combat manner. You have an immortal workforce that requires no sleep, food, clothing, shelter, pay, housing, or upkeep outside of spell slots. Turn this undead force into the labour required to build your wizard tower, or even use their utility to bribe official otherwise fearful of them to build homes, dig trenches, build roads...etc. Talk to magistrates about using criminals condemned to death to utilize these recent dead to perform eternal communal service. They can work in conditions or areas the living cannot. Clearing debris in poisonous areas or those filled with deadly diseased mosquitos, under water, or in mines in danger of collapse. Undead could climb over each other to create body bridges or organic "ladders" so players could ascend walls or cliffs. They could carry ropes under rivers to help build lines over the river eventually.
In essence, do not treat them as undead. Treat them as drones. I did this in a modern science-fantasy game, and undead were used in conjunction with our explosive expert to breach walls, deliver packages or notices into hostile territory where they might get shot or risk toxins/radiation and the like. It's very effective.
Older versions of D&D had hirelings, servants and even torch bearers. Using the Undead to perform mundane tasks and carry treasure frees the party to do the majority of the heavy lifting (combat).
If you're worried about masses of undead in combat, the DMG has optional rules for mass attacks.
I think the issue with necromancy and why its hard to be seen as good is the whole life and death thing. First off people dont want their loved ones and ancestors bodies desecrated and used as nothing more than meat, its a defilement of something sacred.
There is a reason why there are so many elaborate rituals surrounding death and moving on to the afterlife. the idea that some nut can come along and summon forth a mother, brother , father ect would not sit well with the common folk, or indeed many adventurers.
It doesnt help that necromancy is the purview of evil and demonic entities either, this isnt saying oh demons are just portrayed as bad ect, its the fact that these gods are genuinely hateful and malicious towards living creatures that puts them in the 'bad' category.
i suppose if you were divorced of all sentiment desecrating a corpse with necromancy wouldnt mean the same to you and you could put that spin on it in your view that its for the greater good.
The problem is that what is good is largely decided by a society so if everyone says its evil then ya shit outta luck and its all evil in that setting.
Then again in a nation or society that actively uses undead and sees raising the dead as recycling perfectly good materials ect ,then necromancers would be A ok. i guess its all about campaign setting really.
As Colin touched on, necromancy in an inherently dark and evil magic. It comes from dark and twisted entities, in many cases demons and gods that are literally the very essence of evil given physical form.
The issue is that the game's mechanics have never reflected this. I've completely thrown out the vanilla necromancy in my games for my own creation. Necromancy was rendered a complete contradiction to itself in D&D for balancing purposes and the "let the players do whatever" attitude. What it *should* be, and what most people and lores treat it as, is a dark, powerful, and corrupting force. It shouldn't be balanced. Necromancy is *supposed* to be stronger than most other forms of magic, that is what entices people into wielding it, but its power comes at a cost and inevitably twists its wielder into a horrid monster. Lichdom isn't just the final step of necromancy, it is an inevitability. Eventually the necromancer's body will become so horribly crippled and deformed by the deathly magic he uses that only becoming a lich will save him from death, but the necromancer's very soul is twisted by the hellish forces that guide it into the phylactery, leaving no room for misinterpretation. The resulting monster is either insane or the very definition of evil. There is also the common interpretation for animating the dead that states that they cannot pass on to the afterlife while under your control, so merely being a necromancer denies countless dead a peaceful rest, forcing them back to the world of the living with an insatiable hunger and a jealous hatred for those that still live.
That is what necromancy is supposed to be and how it is treated. The problem is that the game's mechanics and rules don't reflect this, so you get contradictory information where it is supposed to be this horrible force of evil but it clearly isn't. Because we for some reason need to balance a role-playing game to the point that it actually ruins story elements.
Well said.
the necromancers always being evil and paladins always being good. druids always neutral and barbarians being chaotic. that comes from older editions were good evil lawful and chaotic had a universal impartial reality. now most people dont play with alignment as a real factor in their games anymore at least on a cosmic level. if you dont have a cosmic good and evil then necromancy comes down to culture. but if you do have cosmic good and evil necromancy and paladins should be stuck in those roles.
Mike Gould, excellent points, well made!Think also of undead pack animals to get the population accustomed to the idea. Horses are extremely useful, and their entire bodies typically get used for things when they die, so why not make use of their skeletons a little longer to have a tireless and fearless "horse" for a while longer?Or for that matter, offer people "life-insurance" without premiums if they agree to let their body be used for your labour force upon death. A farmer might be more open to the idea of necromancy if he knows that should he die, his kids will be looked after for at least long enough to get their life back on track (this costs less than buying equipment for your battle-skeleton).Positively incentivise people to be okay with your necromancy, and do so respectfully!
Have an actual parade of skeletons playing instruments and a float that you sit on to wave to the townsfolk when you enter.
Timely video. I'm currently playing a good necromancer. He's trying to create divine magic without the gods. A little insane but a legitimately well intentioned guy. He views corpses as abandoned property and thus homesteadable. He's going to be multiclassing into Celestial Warlock.
@ Andy, here are some of my suggestions.
1.) How much is too much? Summon whatever your Necromancer is able to, according to your situation. If you're worried about your upsetting your fellow players during combat due to time, one suggestion is to maybe divide your undead up amongst you and the other players. Your necromancer gives a basic command, like kill the enemies, and then your friends run a number of the undead themselves so they get to roll more dice and have fun during that turn. If you don't want to get rid of control of so many of your undead, I also liked what Ted said about just rolling multiple dice at once in order to speed up combat on your turn.
2.) How should your DM handle the Necromancer? Talk to your DM and see how this will work in his setting. Problems will only really occur if you and your DM aren't on the same page. Your DM should be able to convey to you how your necromancer is more than likely perceived in the world / region. Use that info to run your character. If necromancy is frowned upon in your setting, then your wizard will probably have to hide the fact that he is, in fact a necromancer. If necromancy is more commonplace, then perhaps it's not a big deal for your entourage of undead to follow you, perhaps its even seen as a mark of power. The crux of the matter is that your character should know how he fits into the world, and it's your DM's job to convey that to you so you can make meaningful choices based upon that knowledge.
Hope that helps!
I typically run 8 skeletons with my Cleric and I just roll all the d20s and the damage dice. And I go from lowest to highest to hit. If I crit I use the closest damage die that doesn't match a hitting d20. Also with somthing like that I preroll if allowed. So I just line the 8d20s and call out to hit unless I already know. I also total damage on the preroll. With all of that I can usually finish a turn in under a minute and half of that is me deciding if I want to move and to where.
I mean... if you think about it undead an necromancers would make fantastically good military allies. you essentially have a infinite number of mindless fearless shock troopers. I can't imagine all the great an powerfull civilizations an empires in the DND world are going to look at such a incredibly potent form of magic an be like "nah... I'll pass!" not to mention for every undead soldier a civilization raises it doesn't have to draft or recruit a living soldier to risk their life in replacement. no more family's destroyed by the horrors of combat.
That would be fun, getting a bunch of evil NPCs trying to follow a good necromancer, and having to try to figure out how to slowly turn them to the side of good, without them realizing that you're not a big bad.
agreed
I've always seen the enchantment school as far more evil than the necromancy school.
all to true
Especially Gnomish Enchanters, they are the purest embodiment of evil ;)
And Conjuration spells that summon elementals, they have an intelligence of 10 in their original plane.
And thats why a liches spell list in the MM looks more like an Enchanter than a necromancer
It depends how you use enchantments.
"And a parade of skeletons behind ... for entertaining." I have this mental image now of a Bard/Necromancer concept with a troupe of dancing skeletons.
The true flexibility of a necromancer is when their summons are permanent and used creatively. Imagine that a necromancer gets a chance to use skeletons and zombies as a labour force and make coin to do all kinds more things. The options are endless
Privateer Press put out a neat d20 module called the Witchfire Chronicle, which was our first glimpse into the fantasy world that would become War Machine. In the module, the players have to deal with girl that being persecuted as witch, because she’s a Sorcerer that can inherently raise the dead. And awesome story, as both the party and the girl race to acquire the Witchfire Sword, an artifact used to execute witches that was used to steel her mother’s soul.
[spoiler] they introduced a new craft magic item feat: Craft Skeletons. It allowed you to create intelligent soldiers from mix-matched bones that could communicate with each other, use weapons, armor and tactics. [/spoiler]
Late to comment, but as a be necromancer player, I live by these words “War is an equation with death the solution, lives the cost. Necromancy provides the solution with out the cost.”
Animate undead works diffrent in PF you can have a number of undead equal to twice you cater level. They are under your command until they are killed. No time limit.
As a DM i have gone the route of how Wights are done. They have a passive ability how much they can have creatures following them and not try to make sense of the undead in the limits of spells listed in the books.
Last week one of my players made what he calls a "friendomancer", basically a necromancer that uses something like speak with dead to ask permission to use a corpse. I linked him this video to watch and will be using some of the sugestions from near the end about some of the possible challenges I can use with him
Well better than the time my level 10 enchanter converted a city into his personal slaves in less than a month of down time
Even in Xanathar's, there isnt a lot od potential for really strong undead. A real high level necromancer is going to struggle with comparable enemies because his horde can't really do anything. I'd prefer a few flaming skulls or minotaur skeletons to a hundred zombies and maybe a few mummies which is all you can really get.
I played a necromancer in a 2nd edition game and everything was ok the dm even had this necromancer handbook for that edition I went from level 1 to 6 and I had this spell that animated dead animals and this spell that made it so my corpses stopped decomposing so I fixed up my undead so they were very alive looking then a new to our table guy comes in his first time and he gets another character killed and then steals my heavy spellbook and turns me into the town guard and the rest of the party was split 2 of them outright swearing to kill my guy so I escaped and was pretty pissed off by the ordeal because I was using the character for over a year and a dude who didn't even return for next session screwed me over so then me and 2 other players got together with the dm to do a evil campaign and my necromancer was joined by a death cleric and an anti paladin who we each had an agreement to not betray each other and funny enough we had phenomenal success
I think it would be fun to have a necromancer who also knows something akin to the speak with dead spell. only raising those souls with a reason to return, unfinished business and then helping them to complete their goals before letting them return to their final rest. This necromancer wouldn't have hordes at a time, max would probably be about 3 or 4. Unless of course, the horde approach is needed, then the battlefield itself becomes the source of bone and flesh which will be instantly returned to the earth as soon as their task is done.
I think one problem with 5e's Animate Dead is that you can't make Giant skeletons or Dire Wolf zombies. If you could make singular more powerful undead it would take up less time in combat to control fewer undead that are stronger.
The undead from Create Undead generally aren't as good because they're not strong enough relative to what you're spending, and if they are smart enough, you can't even control them consistently.
When I was looking at CU & AD's wording for my above post for "next level88", I glanced over the "humanoid" wording and thought "With Animate Object, you could create a s**t ton of animate knives creating fun chaos, couldn't a Necromancer use AD/CU to create a s**t ton of animals (namely Squirrels)?" but I reread both, and they both say "humanoid", even FoD states "humanoid" (though wasting both (2) 7th Lv Slots @ Lv 20 to FoD 2 Squirrels would really be stupid).
Altryell unless you arm each squirrel with exploding Ice glyphs that happen on command or when a squirrel is destroyed. Ice does no damage to undead, so the squirrels would be immune. Just a clever thought from a "fiendly" GM. No that was not misspelled.
Outside of league games, most GMs I know are pretty flexible on animate dead. Instead of 2 humanoid skeletons, its not too hard to convince most GMs to let you raise something comparable, like maybe 2 wolves or a horse.
As far as Create Undead, yeah, it's kinda unimpressive. Its not really on par with most of the summon spells at that level, considering the created undead can just dip out on you. Or turn on you.
I'd rather just catch some animals and train them, between Animal Handling, Speak with Animals, and Animal Friendship. Plus healing spells work on animals. In fact...Hmmm...now I kinda wanna play a nature cleric or druid...Horde of Bears, wolves, etc and Mass Cure Wounds....
David Beppler.... where does Ice come into play? Cause I don't remember mentioning anything about Ice.
You could have a good necromancer who just raises the corpses of evil people as a punishment to make them work off their crimes doing good deeds in their undeath.
As a DM I would maybe try out the mass combat rules if a player made an undead horde. I would also (because rule of cool and general awesomeness) allow Animate Dead to raise larger creatures at higher spell slots (and not just humanoid ones) as an alternative to raising Medium creatures as per the spell as written. Something like:
3-4 Medium creatures as per the spell as written.
5-6 (1) Large creature.
7-8 (1) Huge creature.
At 9th level (1) Gargantuan creature - because you've earned that badass undead dragon. Live the dream!
Bigger creatures means less freaking minions to keep track of, so I'm all for it at my table. But the players run their own minions, because I've got enough to do as it is. You raise it - you run it! I'm playing the game with you - not for you.
Obviously, the game world will have plenty of opinions regarding your evil monsters (that go on a murderspree if you forget to maintain control). But if a player wants to go all "Here at Grave Adventuring Services the only thing we don't raise is our prices!", go nuts and we'll see where the journey takes us.
People tend to forget that if you have to recast the spell every day to keep controlling them. Miss one day you have a horde of undead rampaging through the countryside. Also the PHB clearly states creating undead is an evil act so a PC will slide into an Evil alignment.
No it doesn't, it says that "not all necromancers are evil but, the forces they manipulate are considered taboo in many societies." It also says that without command un-dead you create simply defend themselves. Also, when the control timer runs out, it never says that they turn evil. It says you cant issue any more commands. Therefore the undead will simply defend themselves even after you lose control
not all necromancers walk around with undead, some of them utillize other spells and rituals available to them especially through level progression in order to aid /augment /heal thier fellow party members.In a campaign I was in I was a necromancer that operated asa second tier healer to my party. And yes I did cast raise undead ect in large scale battles and send my minions out as cannon fodder along side the party's priest in order to escort him to the wounded while the rest of my party continued the fight.
My cleric with the Zeal domain uses undead as a tool, he used to be a general, but formed a bond with an entity from the shadowfell, he now uses undead as soldiers (wrapped in gray cloth to not scare the peasants) to ultimately fight for good. He is a Scourge Aasimar with the LN alignment.
In one of the games, I played in the necromancer was more trying to be like an artificer. He experimented on his undead skeletons fusing metal to the bone in his attempts to make their ac go up. He then used their bodies as shields to protect wounded party members. or would try stuffing skeletons into toy dolls or stuffed animals. one skeleton he went so far to give it any ac bonus gear he could get his hands on.
here's a thought, instead of rolling a whole bunch of times for your 'swarm of undead' just treat them as a swarm, just need to adjust attacks and AC and hp and stuff and then you make 1 roll a turn. you can determine a base for all of the stats and it then have it be multiplied by the size category of the group (5 undead) = 2x multiplier ; (10 undead) = 3x multiplier ; (20 undead) = 4x multiplier ; (50 undead) = 5x multiplier ; (100 undead) = 6x multiplier... or some other method that allows for large scale forces and single rolls to determine their effects in combat.
Ive been wanting to do this for a while but haven't been in many games ao just not had the chance yet. I wanted to make a morally neutal character who took up necromancy because they are interested in learning all kinds of magic and don't see it as either right or wrong, its just a magic puppet.
The backstory is as a child his parents being magically inclined taught him about magic and now no magic is evil just the people who use it can be. The father dies defending the town as a hero, the mother dies a few years later from sickness when they get snow in from a blizzard. The town helps raise the child but he was mostly by himself in his home reading the magic tomes his parents had collected from when they where adventuring, which of course he learned necromancy from, and so he decides to go off and adventure himself to seek more knowledge and excitement.
The idea is generally good person, very polite, has manners but also has that hobby of necromancy. And so I would leave it up to the rest of the party for what path he goes down, is there a paladin or cleric that convinces him raising the dead is a bad thing and he converts? Does the party do nothing and things get awkward when a town gets raided and he offers his zombies to help speed up repairs? Or is there a warlock in the party who's demon or patron corrups him into becoming a full blown Litch?
I like it because I can reuse the exact same character and still get a completely different story out of it. Also the conversations of "No raising the dead is a BAD thing." "But they've already passed on, im just making use of their body. Don't we use animals bodies for leather armor, fur coats and food? How's using a person's body for combat assistance any different?"
Made a good necromancer. He was a very polite man that carried around contracts for people to sign, he would only reanimate someone that had signed the contract before death. This did two things for me; firstly it stopped me having too many guys to animate, it gave the DM good control over the numbers and secondly it gave me some good outs for people that felt what I was doing was not so nice.
Not even the whole group goes missing, just one wanders off and the player has to decide to track it or not.
One zombie gains sentience or remembers who they used to be and do their own thing or try to find their loved ones.
Maybe they were an enemy and, "recover," enough to go find more of your foes to tell them key information.
You have to make sure there is an explanation; delayed necromantic poison, an interfering spirit, player failure, etc..
I am currently running a 5E Curse of Strahd game. My players are a Oathbreaker Paladin, a Death Domain Cleric, a Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, and a necromancer themed Lore Bard. I have found limiting Animated Dead to 4 minions per character works best for me for combat encounters(Which I have slightly adjusted to be more of a challenge by increasing some stats and numbers of enemies). I havent had them do any dark powers style checks yet since they are all neutral alignments and followers of Wee-Jas. I am thankful a necromancer Wizard isnt part of the party for the full undead horde style.
You're right about zombies and skeletons in a way... But the thing is the Necromancer, especially a cleric necromancer, is a really powerful utility caster. They can heal, they can cast all the normal buff spells, AND, when you kill some ogres, the necromancer takes their bodies and BAM, instant super-strong henchmen with complete loyalty. Necromancers are really only limited by the type of enemy they fight. Humans and orcs make crappy skeletons and zombies because they only get 1 hit-die. But Ogres, dragons, giants, animals like bears and dire wolves... All make really awesome dispensable warriors. They're also very useful for carrying heavy stuff. An Ogre Zombie can carry an entire dragon hoard on its back.
i have a player in my party doing the same thing, he holds them in a beg of holding while traveling.
lol that's amazing
but makes total sense since the undead don't breath
it would also work to preserve the bodys since nothing can realy get at them
A good use of the basic undead is to have them grapple higher power targets, like DOG PILE them. Also even if they are trash they still take up space so they can be used to block or cause choke points, they are also ultimately disposable.
As a GM and a Player who loves the theme of Necromancer, I love playing Necromancers who have limited undead and I really don't like clogging up combat with stuff. But some of my favorite classes are stuff like Oathbreaker Paladin, Death Domain Cleric, and Necromancer Wizard, all of Which somewhat revolve around raising dead
I have a level 9 necromancer. He is constantly at odds with our Paliten. But we need each other. We are kinda forced to work together. Even though we don't like each other and will often get into arguments during combat. Really fun playing. The other guys in our party even play along.
Thought of another scenario in which having a Necromancer would come in handy, and it sort of draws from the Nerdarchist Dave's Micro Celeb Game, in which a while back, they had to deliver the Nothic Bomb to at least 1 of the Vargarian Temples and detonate it within. A Necromancer in the above scenario could create an undead and instruct it to go deep into the Temple and detonate the Nothic Bomb. As a GM in such a scenario, I would give it a high/low roll in determining if the undead got to the center of the temple & detonated (if the player chose wisely) or the undead go to the center of the temple & forgot what to do with the bomb (if the player chose poorly).
Meet them with an enemy hoard, and basically you can right off both armies as they are going to be busy fighting each other and then focus on the main fight. Have some fights where the hoard is awesome, and other fights where they are useless.
Also you can have them hounded by parties of clerics bent on purifying the scourge of undead.
I did the math the other day and at level 20 a necromancer can control a horde of about 130 skeletons/zombies at a time just using Animate Dead, sooo....
"Roll for initiative"....2 hours later..."Is that skeleton 122 or 123?"
Mad Hatman Yes, but I was just referring to if you only used Animate Dead. You definitely could make a bigger horde by using other spells.
A horde of skeletons are so easily defeated that it becomes laughable. But they make a great labor force. Albeit a dumb one.
TheLangenator nice... now realize you just used all your spell slots to make them all, plus 130 body’s is a LOT of body’s, eh I don’t need spell slots I have a army! Bull, any self respecting foe going toe to toe with a level 20 party would more then likely either be borderline impossible to damage with such weak units... or could run though the horde like a hot knife though butter, hell a high level wizard has the quintessential good bye horde spell meteor swarm, or fireball, or... well pretty much any AOE really
Smelly archers, and Spread them out with a aoe spell like posion air
"you're kinda responsible, you made the weapons and just left them laying around"...so the blacksmith is kinda responsible for the deaths caused by the swords he makes?
By the description in the animate dead spell, if you let your control over your corpses lapse, they kinda just stand around doing nothing except to defend themselves if attacked. It takes an act of will for someone else to take control of them, and their commands to make them kill.
Hence, you are even less responsible for the damage done by someone stealing your skellies than a person who leaves a knife lying on a table which a kid picks up and cuts themself on. The undead from the animate dead spell literally do NOTHING unless attacked or commanded.
Basically my point is its not really gonna be a moral quandry, even if it does lead to a bad social/legal situation.
If a blacksmith makes Swords that go about killing people if left unattended for more than 24 hours, then yes i would deem him responsible.
Hellspark Except that the DnD undead aren’t walking dead zombies. They will literally just stand there, indifferent. Maybe wander around the room, but they are not hostile to any creatures unless provoked. Go read the PHB
Don't forget maintaining control over all of those undead requires you to cast the spell once every 24 hours meaning if the necromancer in knocked out or incapacitated or otherwise unable to recast the spell in that time period the undead will act like standard undead with all of their hatred for life and desire to mindlessly attack any living creature that comes near them.
In other words, while that undead army could be very useful it could also prove to be very dangerous to the caster or anybody else nearby if the dm is clever.
I think the backstory is where this should play in. for example i have a lizardfolk necromancer that will only raise the dead of those who commit evil acts, this is due to his backstory. He always does his research about a country and how they view necromancy which is why when he does travel with them he only travels with 2 skeletons, they are in full body black suits and armored to look like guards (think foot clan soldiers from ninja turtles but with chain shirt armor, rapier, long bow and shield). so while he will go out in public with them, they are not just bare naked skeletons. ive even put magic mouth on them in a campaign to respond in a generic manner when someone talks to them
i thought it would be easy to do if your character was true neutral, and doesn't understand social norms. like you get jumped by 3 people, and just as you would loot their bodies, you LITTERALLY loot their bodies, like its your possession now.
Oh my god. My necromancer is autistic. My gnoll necromancer doesn't understand most basic social norms. He tries to mimic them and fit in as best he can, but he cant. My character is an autistic necromancer.
An Autistromancer.
I found this video incredibly helpful, I'm playing a campaign where me and my friend are both use necromancer spells with him being a classic necromancer and me being an neutral warlock who summons shadows, and I was afraid of breaking the game but this put me at ease, so thanks nerds :)
Ie Ben playing with a path of the grave cleric idea as a good Necromancer. One that took up death magic to try and still heal/save even when he is too late. Later, he could learn things like dance macabre as a desperation move (created undead only last an hour), and go from there.
One path could make him a living chop shop. Grafting limbs and pieces of various species as augmentations and such. The BBEG is always a career option- but only an option.
Huh... magic is, in general, is gray from my experience. Yes, there can be cosmic/lore based reasons why certain forms of magic are corruptive/evil. However, it really depends on the user of said magic because everything can be used for constructive pursuits in moderation or towards a destruction endeavor. It really comes down to how the player uses the magic and how the view of said magic changes over time, along with what groups and ideologies are involved, as well as whatever the DM has chosen for their setting.
As for me, I found that the school of necromancy can be interesting. I have experience with 2nd edition and the Complete Book of Necromancers. In the book, while there are the stereotypical nasty spells, there are also white necromancy spells or magic that is geared towards either a more neutral uses or even dealing with healing and useful effects. Plus, a kit dedicated towards the study of bodies and medicine.
Then again, I have also started to look at magic as more a corruptive force in general, with various forms corrupting the user either slower or faster over time. The same with the idea of divinity and what divinity can represent in the balance of energies.
all right, bringing back the Chaotic Good necro i played a couple months back.
every skeleton or zombie that i raised would be asked where they would like to be laid to rest once i was done using their body to save the rest of their town, city, caravan, etc. before the person fully expired, or if they had already, by using speak with dead, which i went out of my way to get and after clearing out every hostile entity in the area, i'd bring each undead creature to the spot that they individually chose to be laid to rest at and dug them a grave myself before killing each one.
With bounded accuracy, I think that the skeleton army is still very viable in 5e, and would even say they are better than the summon greater undead army if you equip them with bows.
"they probably have a sword and it might be glowing"
Great! I could use that sword! Ive got about....700 swords but none of them are glowing. Lets see whos swords win.
I say it depends on the player and the GM ( the other players to an extent but that can be for an introduction and set some ground rules for a good guy necromancer aka no spawning a horde and you set it loose you hunt it down )
Ugh all this bad talking about necromancer, I will say we necromancers are a very helpfull bunch. I helped multiple towns with their goblin infestation, decrepit buildings,... the zombie workforce is amazing
I think your supposed to be tactical with your undead. Raise the right kind for the situation. Most other necromancy spells have a debuff effect. Something like blind half of the enemy party to give your undead advantage on their attacks. Put a curse on an enemy so its harder to resist the ghouls paralysis. Grapple then flank. Cause fear makes that ac of 8 and 13 just a bit harder to hit. Ray of sickness on the big targets to get that poison. The combo list is pretty extensive for necromancers and thats why I don't think you need hordes of undead, because the rest of the necromancy spells are there to shore up their weaknesses.
At around 04:00 they talk about Xanathar's Guide and Greater Undead. Do they just mean using an upcasted Create Undead? Because while research have shown me that previous editions of DnD had a 'Create Greater Undead' 5e doesn't as far as I know?
Use tickle zombies that use the help action to give your party advantage on attacks?
a good necro is one who maintains the balance between life and death (diablo necro) or one who just brings back the corpses from a battlefield to be buried in a church so they are no longer able to be used?
with a necro mancer you have to use modified mob rules with them... treating the entire horde as one hp bar and one initiative.... you roll 1 d20 for however many you have and either add a modifier for numbers to damage or chance to hit.
My Orc Necromancer never has more than 4 armored and hooded "bodyguards". He only turns those that the party have killed into skeletons and zombies. He currently has 2 "bodyguards", a wereshark and an annoying court functionary that was killed by an invisible stalker during breakfast that i was given permission to take to the burial site we will be heading to(never said that he would walk there as a zombie)! He is a CN orc book klepto who has his grandfathers spirit as his weasel familiar. His tribe used the our dead and the dead of our enemies to supplement the tribes troops in combat.
I wonder if I could use a necromancer that has just one powerful zombie? Is it possible to level up one zombie?
If we assume necromancy is just regular magic anyone could learn, it depends on the culture of the necromancer. If he comes from a culture where desecrating a body is heavily froned upon, then only an evil character would be a necromancer. But if his culture sees a dead body as an empty shell that only disposes of bodies for sanitary reasons, he could be anything. Either way, no townspeople you run into like the walking dead.
Magic is neither good nor evil. Same goes for Necromancy.
A sword is not evil if a villain uses it to kill a King. Nor does it become good in slaying an Evil Overlord. Necromancy, like the sword, is just a tool. You can be of any alignment, even Lawful Good if you prep the right backstory.
I really like that this sentiment grows more and more popular. Maybe with next edition WotC will change the whole "Necromancy is evil" sentiment alltogether and at least create a path of "white necromancy". I have been an advocate of "It's not evil" for years now, and the best, while still not good, argument I have heard against it is "In DnD things like good and evil are forces comparable to gravity or radiation. You can't change that." The first time I played a Necromancer after years of yearning to do so but couldn't because Lawful good was the goto alignment it was fucking awesome. There were plants that grabbed everyone if you came to close to the. Ran my skeletons into the plants and we marched through the waste. Those trees looked suspicious? Let's send a skeleton towards it and see what happens. The trees shoot their needles? Ok, let's have a look at what it did to the skeleton. Oh, so the needled bored itself into the bones and released spores. Guess that's how the woods here came into existence.
Necromancy is pure fun and brings so much utility, it is unholy. *pun intended*
agreed
i actually liked playing my necormancer. I rarely raised the dead but I did enfeeble and fatigue enemies into not being able to move or hold a weapon so my party could RP a bit. easier to take a bandit's stuff when he's too weak to lift it. and you save yourself from casting speak with dead by getting information from an enemy still alive and now outnumbered and too weak to run.
We need necromancers to be more powerful, how are they supposed to be the bad guy of every story if they suck ass as a viable build. Also the necromancer in diablo 2 and 3 is a good example of a good necromancer. generally disinterested in society but when something is upsetting the status quo they show up to make sure the natural order isnt disturbed.
I let them have 4 personal Undead to use in combat. Any more than that and I have them used as utility npc's. So like having them set up camp, carry supplies, or even carrying the party on a seated throne. I would also allow them to be used in a siege capacity.
This is the background of a Necromancer that I play in a one shot server...
Maximillian is man in his late twenties from a country ravaged by wars and tyranny.
As an army commander, he saw many young people die in vain throughout the capricious desires of the Lords. Not wanting to simply incite a rebellion that would drive others to die for their cause, he retired from his post and sought means to achieve his goals. He found his way in magic, spending much of his wealth in research.
Pursuing magic considered by many to be "dark" for the sake of saving the people he cares about, he had a fortuitous encounter. The "Grey Council", a group made by good-aligned practitioners of the dark arts inducted and taught him on the path of a grey necromancer, for they can never be white.
There he learned their magic and code of conduct.
To never kill for the sake of raising an army;
To never use sacrifices as a means to achieve power;
And that the dead shall only rise again to protect the living
His studies under the council were a brief, but enriching time, a tutelage more meant to induct him on the morals and ethics of practicing the dark arts than the magic itself.
Now, he journeys the vast world, seeking new companions and magic, in order to one day return to his homeland, depose the tyrants without shedding the blood of the innocent.
In his quest for discovery and adventures, he found himself outside of an odd-looking tavern. There he sees folks of different kinds, even powerful ones, capable of things written in legends.
It's not a necromancer vs angry church, it's angry church getting destroyed by the team along with an undead army. Good knowing you church. Bye.
I'm not sure, I have a Dwarf Tempest Cleric that has a animate dead in a DoMM run. Right now he has 8 skeletons with long weapons instead of short (sword and bow) I capped myself at 8 because I don't want to use dice rollers if I can avoid it and I liked the Idea that if they all hit (witch they don't) it would be the equivalent to fireball damage. The DM Actually suggested to get +1 longbows for them to increase their usefulness (it is an AL table and +1 weapons are always available to purchase) now I have set myself some rules for when I will use the spell.
1. It can't be a creature that my party killed or observed being killed.
2. No Corpses, if there is flesh it is off limits.
3. No grave robbing...ish, if there is any semblance of a funeral/burial it is off limits.
I also will have them wear hooded cloaks and boots if we ever are in a city that might frown upon undead.
So my first three were skeletons found in the dungeon the rest and the yet to be used bones are from a bone wall that I created the other five from. My Characters P.O.V. they faught and died here. I will give these fallen warriors one last chance for their bones to continue the fight that their spirit can not. And if we are victorious. I will bring these fallen soldiers home to their families for burial. I obviously won't let the families know about the animation if we survive. So on a scale of 1-10 where does that put me on the "Evil" scale? I personally think 2 or 3 but I may not be totally objective.
Yeah now I have an Idea for a PC Necromancer with the Entertainer BG literally a carnival ring leader who's employees are undead
Had a couple players they escaped their circus that had been slaughtered by marauders.
Later it showed with all the former circus family as undead.
Nerdarchist Dave
Now I am thinking about retooling my necro gnome to disguise his minions as a really bad circus...
if your a good as in skilled or well aware necromancer you wont go threw towns with undead humanoids period
however other kinds of undead are probably ok
other than an undead beholder
and the best kind of necromancer will search for the vile book of darkness not to become a lich but to find a spell to make permanent minions
got a necro that has a sack of holding and is storing all the dead body's in them.
Is there any stat block for a group attacking instead of rolling for say, 15 individual skeletons separately?
isacc arce Dungeon Masters Guide pg. 250
The whole taboo argument I disagree with. There is so many cultures that handles their dead differently and one is going to offend the other. There is some cultures that it is customary to eat the dead and in some cultures eating the dead is the greatest insult you can do someone. So a good necromancer would try to respect those who were against it but if he's resurrecting evil creatures or from creatures who don't have that taboo (i.e. lizardfolk) then I don't see an issue.
I've made a neutral necromancer who was a lizardfolk. With their alien mindset they would think that a dead corpse is something to use or eat. Its like a magic version of their cunning artisan ability.
I think you can create a good necromancer but he has to realize they're not going to be treated like a good person. He would also be powerless in areas where there are a lot of good races. I could see him living in the underdark or in an evil kingdom where he can fight evil unhindered. Or he sets up shop on the edge of an evil kingdom and basically acts as border patrol for that area. Or you could just be a necromancer with the Deck of Many Things minus the balance card.
Elves do not view udead like other races. They respect and honor their ancestors. Allowing them to carry on after death. Besides they need a labor force, elves do not breed very fast. ;)
didn't even answer the question that was asked just went on this whole tirade about how evil necromancers are and how horribly they're going to be looked at by society. The actual question was how to not make it overwhelming for the game table. Can we get an answer on the actual question instead of all this hoopla.
Necromancy really depends on the setting in question and the nature of reanimation.
I'm inclined to view it as just another tool which is prone to abuse, highly taboo in most cultures & prone to the influence of malevolent beings such as Orcus and the like.
I say a Necromancer/Druid would be fun play him as a paleontologist it's a fun way to add dinosaur in a campaign.
New business franchises available. "Undead Day Care". Any child not picked up by midnight will be eaten.
"Dude! Where's My Zombies?" I'd watch that movie
This gives me an idea for a character! Multiclass bard/necromancer with undead background dancers, jugglers, and musicians.
Roll halfling cleric of Milil, raise skeletons, give them maracas and sombreros. Multiclass bard and sing about PC and the Skinny Boys, looking for work across the land. If lucrative, buy them new instruments, fake mustaches, and fancy mariachi uniforms. If super lucrative, take them on tour as "¡Ay caramba! Los Skinny Boys!" Completely forget your main quest. OD on mind cheese. Skinny boys disband, leaving only humorously dressed but violent skeletons as someone else's problem.
Could you do a build that concentrates on curses and debuts instead of animate dead?
swarm of skeletons or swarm of zombies... and roll just one thing... and if you have them turned against yourself - you deal with a swarm..
I think they can use less undead if they equip them with better armor and weapons
The campaign we're in is actually set in a time without religion or Gods so it might be the perfect time to go Necro and maybe even resurrect me a dragon
horde master is nowhere near as powerful as it was in 3.5, 4e, and pathfinder. it's an easy thing to deal with, as both a player and a dm. As a player, even with xanathar, i just don't think the horde master is worth playing anymore. you're spending too many resources for too little benefit.
clericofchaos1 I’ve house ruled in a load of stuff so necromancy is worthwhile in 5e. Created 2 more create undead spells at higher levels so they can summon better or more things, flat out created a variety of new tempting uses of spell slots so I don’t have to account for the Zerg of hundreds of the undead in combat, and partially re worked the necromancy tree to have a “horde master” a “summoner of Armageddon” and a status based sub class within the subclass so my players can feel like necromancers instead of the guy with a small horde of low health skeletons and zombies.
Have you made any of this public? I'm interested
Favoured soul sorceror. Warlock rest of levels. Regain all warlock spells after short rest. Cast animate dead forever.
Actions carry consequences. You can make the argument that a Necromancer can be good as long as certain criteria are met: what are his/her motivations for pursuing this school of magic, what use will it be given, what is the character's state of mind and outlook on the world. It is all in the character building of course, but then after that you have to stick to what you created. A good aligned necromancer might not wield the undead left and right willy-nilly. Most likely they wield them when there is no other choice (just tossing ideas here). However, w/e the case may be, for actions there should be consequences. Maybe the use of that kind of magic will corrupt the user over time, maybe using undead will spark other NPC's to take up arms against you (as was stated in the video), or perhaps your use will spark a new subset of beliefs in an area. Again, every action should carry a consequence. If you want to give it a good or bad one, as the DM, that is up to you. I personally like the double-edged sword style of real life. Almost all actions done in real life carry consequences and its like a coin: there is a good side and a bad side. Depends on whether the benefits outweigh the cost and what are the short and long term effects of said actions.
I still don't get why it's considered more evil raising a mindless corpse than burning people alive or making them walk off a cliff or stab their best friends due to mind control. Taboo and people finding it creepy and may even see it as more evil sure , but I simply can't get behind that raising mindless and soulless bone and flesh constructs should turn you more to the "dark side" than any of the previously mentioned examples.
It would be a interesting if a "Good" Necromancer character trait was to ONLY use the souls of either those who who say "Yeah why not" or of criminals
Undead Circus, a Necromancer with an undead circus
My character is a Folk Hero Life Cleric with 4 undead at his disposal. One of them is named "Lurr". Lurr joins me as I walk around town wearing a "Hat of Disguise". It makes him look like a regular human so the villagers do not freak out. The Folk Hero background allows me to take up residence with some local people who live on the very outskirts of town and have a lockable shed for me to store my 3 skeletons in.
My character is using divine healing energies to keep the dead animated. There are no trapped souls in my dudes. In fact once I have a good enough reputation with the leader of the town I will reveal my undead forces to them and have them easily identifiable by having them all were a red tabbard with my god's holy symbol emblazonned on it. That way the town guard can easily see they were the mark of the hero that protects their town and know that I do so with only the best intentions.
You know I've considered runing a necromancer that was trying to be good but was rather inept at it. For example he'd be all for stopping (lethally) an adult abusing a child, however he'd probably turn around and raise the offender as an undead and order it to take care of the child properly thinking he was doing a good thing and not understanding the horror that invoked in those around him or why the child runs away screaming. I can just picture him dressing up his undead hoard in bright colors and have them march into town banging drums like a rather macabre parade. would be fun but probably wouldnt last in a long campaign, more for a one shot or a couple session campaign.
That said beyond 4-6 minions I wouldnt inflict individual rolling on the rest of the table. Sending a couple weak skeletons along with each party member to assist them would be one good use. Another would be mass attacks, break the hoard into a couple of chunks targeting specific enemies and just mass roll D20's. Think of it more as sending them off to dogpile a target to keep it busy. If they die it great, if not at least they are wasting their time trying to plow through disposable minions instead of the party.
I laughed at the parade and dressing up part
The Danse Macabre!
Is necromancy evil? Whenever this question comes up, I always cite the same example: back in 1993, Capcom made a jrpg called Breath of Fire, with a game engine made by Square. In that game, there was a village called Romero (alluding to John Romero). Romero was a quiet village in the middle of nowhere, full of uneducated backwater hicks - in the Japanese version, the townsfolk speak in a touhoku accent, which is associated with, essentially, the Japanese version of hillbillies. There's an evil wizard who's been experimenting in the town, trying to find a way to make himself immortal. Those experiments have raised the village's dead. The worst the zombies have done is cause a food shortage by way of overpopulation. There's an old widow in the village who has the means to solve the zombie infestation, but she doesn't want to, because it's reunited her with her dead husband. Ultimately, the dead husband gives the means to end the infestation to the player characters, satisfied that he had the chance to say goodbye.
Is reuniting an elderly widow with her deceased husband, giving them the chance to say goodbye, evil?
I always think magic is just a tool. you don't call someone who shoots gun evil just because someone else killed people with it. How is calling a meteor to kill an evil dragon different to the same spell destroying the village, killing people near said dragon?
I get it, someone using someone else's body to do things is comparable to slavery. But first, they're dead. They can't feel anything now. Second, doesn't that make looting dead body stealing?
Using the same logic, they're dead but it's still rightfully theirs. At least the deceased's family should have the right to the goods. So as a good hero, you should return the evil baddie's belongings to his family or something, or else you're not as good as you thought you were.
I guess it depends on how the necromancer treats his zombies. It'll be funny roleplay moment to see this kind-hearted necromancer talking to his zombies/skeletons asking what they want as payment.
said by a true neutral necromancer
Depends on the lore. If necromancy makes it so that her deceased husband comes back with an insatiable hunger and a jealous hatred of all things living, I'd say it is pretty evil.
notoriouswhitemoth Depends on the spell. I would consider animate dead evil, but raise dead not.
notoriouwwhitemoth
He did cause a food shortage. And by your description, the zombies do not want to be undead, they want to be deaddead. Also, if you assume zombies keep their mind after being resurrected, necromancy is slavery.
Overpopulation is a problem of logistics, not demographics. Couldn't they have traded with other communities, or indeed sent their undead to other communities?
One, who accepted that he had died of old age, wanted to return to the dead after having the opportunity to say goodbye to his widow. Does that imply that they all wanted to have remained dead?
I think the point I was trying to make is that there isn't necessarily an objectively right answer, that there are edge cases to be considered.
I was worried about this when a player decided to play a necromancer, because everything points to this being a mess, but after 15 levels, I've discovered that it just isn't. The speed of the creatures, pushing the masses of bodies through a dungeon corridor, the lack of acrobatics to get where you need them to go, how ineffective they are against higher level enemies, and the simple fact that there are a pile of spells that are just much more useful, all made my fears of the class go away.
Once the novelty of the animate dead spell wears off, you'll find out that all the zombies in the world are no substitute for a well-placed fireball when it comes to third level spell slots...
Not just that but of the total amount of Necromancy Spells, only a few deal with animating dead NPC's. Th rest are either Debuff Spells or are "OoC" Spells. And sure the abilities for Necromancers have 2 that deal with creating/controlling, but if the Necromancer is ONLY relying on the creation of Undead, then they are doing something wrong because from a DM/GM perspective, there are easy ways around that. Plus the Create Undead can ONLY be casted at night and then really if there are undead humanoids IN SIGHT the same with Animate Dead (though with AD, you can cast it during the day).
It would be different IF they were treated similar to Familiars in that the Summoner of the Familiar are able to use spells through the Familiar in some cases. Like having the created/controlled Undead go out past 30 feet and then being able to cast Blindness/Deafness or Blight on an enemy that is beyond your own range, but would be within 30 feet of your Undead Servant and using your Undead Servant as sort of "conduit" to cast Necromancy Spells further out. Or even use your Undead Servant to cast Bestow Curse/Contagion (Touch Spells) on enemies from afar.
But still, you've got Chill Touch (Cantrip of 120 ft range, max 4D8 of non-healing damage until the start of your next turn), Circle of Death (Lv 6th Spell of 150 ft, max ~14D6 if used at a 9th Slot), Eyebite (Lv 6th Self Spell with a range of 60 feet to cause Debuffs), and hell, Finger of Death (Lv 7th of 60 ft, 7D8 + 30, with the add bonus of it this spell kills a target, said target permanently becomes your undead slave). So the Necromancers shouldn't JUST rely on the Create Undead/Animate Dead Spells because of how easy it is for a DM/GM to "work around" it. And even if the Necromancer were to "kill at night" to use the Create Undead Spell, would give the DM/GM an extra RP Element of (ex) the Necromancer killed the son/daughter of a [Insert High Position] and they would become the target of not only a Bounty but would also be AOS/KOS in the local of wherever that Person of High Position resides.
Check out the abzan from mtg for good guy necromancers
wut if the Necromancer (n maybe even the nation the game takes place in) r a sorta viking type people who find Glory in death by battle, they may view becoming an undead as a 2nd chance to fight for Glory n honour
making the dead meat shields for living sounds alright it if means keeping the living alive
Never leave them outside of town and use an illusion spell to make them look alive
Necromancer's focused on creating undead are god awful in 5e, which is a shame because I loved them in other editions. Am I wrong?
yes
yep