A necromancer couple walks into a funerary home with a corpse. The Necro Husband - Hello, we've brought this corpse back. Mortitian - You've brought it back? Necro Wife - Yes, I'm afraid we're just not ready to raise dead right now.
Wait, saying that it's definitely not how you raise zombies irl mean you know the way. Master teach me how the ways. Edit: "how the ways"... F*** it why not.
You cross your arms and cast your chin high into the air, smug with victory, as five shambling zombies manually roll the massive skeletal orb at your call.
DM: Fine... but your "30 foot sphere of BONES" gets squished in the 10 by 10 corridor that your party and the enemy are standing in and shatters. Everyone roll a dex save to see if you can avoid the million little bone fragment projectiles coming at you. DC 20, since you all are effectively standing inside a 10 by 10 shotgun barrel. If you fail, it's 8d6 points of piercing damage, half on a successful save. Just be glad that I'm not making your roll a con save against disease.
@@ArtemisAndromeda Not even a bad idea. Rather than one player hogging all the glory as the army's head, you have each player have their own armies, specialties, strengths & weaknesses; who can work together in a war-game style rather than a skirmish style game.
While that'd be crazy badass... that sounds like a rough start until you get the ball rolling. A 4-wizard party sounds a bit on the squishy side at level 1 with no beefy paladins, barbarians, or fighters to take hits for you.
@@Schmeethe88 Maybe start with enough gold to purchase a Mercenary to protect you and your party while you level up casting low level magic spells, until you can summon your first set of undead soldiers to tank hits for you and then start the fun.
The necromancer's horde shouldn't be treated as 128 different bodies that all need to roll d20's, because that shit is crazy :P Instead treat it purely as a narrative tool (so don't do it in d&d) or do as Tom suggests and try to set up a framework much like swarms for how your army works ^^
The wizard: builds an undead army to protect them when they become a lich The cleric: builds an undead army to further their evil deities goals The warlock: builds an undead army to appease their patron's demands and pursuits The bard: builds an undead army because it's cheaper than paying roadies and musicians.
"Why, why would you become such a cruel and evil being? Immortality used only for the creation and commanding of undead?" "Well I was reading about some spells and magic items and thought it would be funny to have a ridiculous amount of undead, and, well... here we are."
"It belongs to Orcus and he's not he sharing type" Iunno bruh. The Necromancer you're describing sounds like perfect BF material for Orcus. I'd be worried more about Vecna getting jealous!
@@Nyghtking Orcus, dressed in a pink bath robe, watching a necromancer through a demonic crystal ball: "Mmm... He's not perfect, but I can change him!"
I actually did the math. A level 5 warlock can animate 184 spoopy Skelos or Zombabwes in a single day, provided they use all their spell slots, take a short rest, and then immediately use their spell slots again. They will then have about 12 minutes to do whatever they want before they start losing control of them, at a rate of 8 per hour. A 9th level warlock doubles that, so 368, losing control of their minions at a rate of 16 an hour. At 17th level it doubles again, meaning you've got yourself 736 undead, all at the low cost of one point of exhaustion maybe. Basically, if you want to immediately start raising undead to roam the country side like some asshole, go warlock. Edit: whoops, I goofed. So a level 17 + lock can summon 704 undead per day, assuming they're only using their spell slots and short rests. This is because they're spending 1 minute per cast actually raising the dead. This totals up to 1 hour and 36 minutes spent casting spells, so we only get 22 hours to do short rests. On the plus side, once you're all done you'll have 24 minutes of absolute necromantic ecstacy as you tell over 700 zombies to dance to Thriller exactly 4 times in a row, with 8 seconds to spare. And for completeness sake, you then begin to lose control of your spoops at a rate of 32 each hour by this level.
Undead and inderstanding uses pathfinder with some 3.5 classes. There you can control 4 healt dice of undeads per level and once animated your undeads don't die unless they are killed or you dispell them, so you can just make your undeads and never worry about having to cast the spells the day after. 5E really nerfed necromancers a lot.
Just get 40 of the 46 skeletons you have and put them in a ball, then get the remaining 6 skeletons to push it around and flatten your enemies. New most insane necromancy. Liches, eat your nonexistent hearts out!
You literally only need the Finger of Death spell. Any humanoid it kills becomes a zombie permanently under your control. Using it can create an army of unlimited size.
Raises at a much slower rate, but it’s a must if you want some undead sentinels to continuously guard a place from people you don’t want there and you won’t be around to upkeep cast Animate Dead.
Also from what I’ve found, you can use your control undead to take over your standard mummy lord. Just make sure they fail their charisma save (which they have advantage) and you’re all set with a powerful undead under your command.
@@tylergoerlich9494 I hadn't thought of using feeblemind to weaken an undead before controlling them. Though I think if you wanted to add to the undead you control, a mumy lord would be perfect.
@@tylergoerlich9494 or you could enslave a white dracolitch to nab yourself the most metal badass mount of all time. Also theres always the nightwalker for when you want a horrific shadow of pure negative energy that can kill things that merely stand NEAR it
Me: man, I would really like to play a necromancer in the next campaign... Runesmith: *makes this video* Me: stonks Now I just have to convince my dm to let me create a cult of undead praising mad men
You don't really have to convince them, you just have to succeed on the rolls, invest the time, and the DM has to allow it to happen, or barring that you have to be able to brute force it.
@@Nyghtking Maybe I'm in the minority here, but all of the game's I've played/ran to convince people of anything you had to actually make a convincing argument. Rolls only ever came up if the DM thought you made a good enough pitch and would basically be how well you presented it. A crappy idea can be made to sound very convincing, but most people are still smart enough to know it's a crappy idea.
One time my character got killed by a necromancer, and brought back to life a bit later. And then learned the necromancer had raised my old body, so then I beat my undead self to re-death. Shortly thereafter our bard seduced the necromancer and we realized he wasn't such a bad guy.
One of my personal favourite methods of creating an undead army is being a Lizardman and only raising through Finger of Death. Unlike Animate Dead or Raise Dead, Finger of Death creates a zombie under your control PERMANENTLY if you manage to kill what you target, rather than just for 24 hours. And if you’re a Lizardman you can find bones and create weapons out of them, this way every Zombie you have permanently under your control can have shields and clubs rather than just their fists.
Honestly I think the idea of starting a lawful good cult is one of the funnest character goals a good aligned character can have, I feel like it could, just, so naturally lend itself to moments, both the humorous, and the serious.
Zee Bashew had a frozen necromancer animate the dead body of one of the adventures from a previous attempt at an ice cave... He did a three part series, but here's part one: th-cam.com/video/FgdS8x_bQwA/w-d-xo.html
Not to mention True Polymorph, the 9th level wizard spell that lets you do this: Object into Creature. You can turn an object into any kind of creature, as long as the creature's size is no larger than the object's size and the creature's challenge rating is 9 or lower. The creature is friendly to you and your companions. It acts on each of your turns. You decide what action it takes and how it moves. The DM has the creature's statistics and resolves all of its actions and movement. If the spell becomes permanent, you no longer control the creature. It might remain friendly to you, depending on how you have treated it. A Necromancer is a CR 9 creature from Volo's Guide to Monsters that has access to animate dead and up to 6th level spell slots That's a new pretty strong necromancer every single day that can be loyal to you if you are nice. Alternatively you could just make any CR 9 or below undead and just go buckwild with zombie T-rexes
That moment when your group is composed of 15 players+1 DM (even though half of them never show up) and y'all could literally control the greatest undead army ever seen by men
Now make NAND gates by arranging three skeletons so that one skeleton is ordered to watch two others, and if one of them has its hand up, raise its hand also. Now you can start performing computer calculations on your skeleton army, increasing processing power by adding more skeletons. (See: Deep Rot on 1d4chan)
Just remember to keep Firebolt handy for when they actually do break out the book of laws that says (in whatever township you're at) that it is illegal to do so. BTW, it's a very common law most kingdoms have, which is funny because usually laws are enacted AFTER someone triest it.
i wonder how illegal it is with the stipulation that every undead you make consented to having their corpse used in such a way before their death? i am formulating a homebrew world which allows necromancy if used ethically.. or at least one major faction in it will.
@@companyoflosers I have a Sorlock, who when meeting a new person, gets their consent in written form, to make use of their body should they for some reason die. She has... quite the collection of contracts thus far. XD
I took your advise… now it’s short story time. Me and a handful of friends got together(with lucky vacation days off work) and played DnD every day for a week, like eight hours a day. For cliches I made a tiefling wizard(necromancer obviously) and after a bit I got my hands on a bag of holding. So me being the… whatever I am, decided the easiest way to get my undead around was to just pile them up in the bag of holding until I needed them. This let me sneak around easier, go through towns without issues. That is until the last day of us playing. We were walking through town, when suddenly I’m pulled into an alleyway, a dagger held against my neck. A half orc tells me to empty my bag onto the ground and walk away. I attempt to talk him down, as I know releasing a hoard of undead in the middle of the city will end bad for both me and the half orc, but my rolls didn’t got very well. I eventually just say screw it and dump the bag. Long story short, that city no longer has any residence because I killed anyone who tried to hurt my undead. TLDR: I kept my Undead in a bag of holding and then was forced to release them all in the middle of town
@@Attilladehun yeah but isint he allways high on _something_ like the tears of children, brain juce and whatever he did to become the master of riddles
@@Attilladehun Also pro tip with inflict wounds and especially vampiric touch: death clerics may deal extra necrotic damage with channel divinity, as can hexblades curse, hex and bestow curse, the more necrotic you deal the more damage you heal so go for it
How to make an army of Dogs: 7 mage levels (Fourth level spell slot for Mordenkainen Faithful Dog) 6 sorcerer levels (Sorcery points for Spell Slots) You know what to do.
Or: How to make your BBEG only out of what players have access to. Though I am envious (and pity) the party that goes from D&D to wargame management. Skeleton Balls aren't even a dumb idea. Assuming you do some magic + match so the weight of the ball does not damage the skeleton on the underside of the ball, you can end up with something that'd transport your skeletons faster than their own movement. Undead don't care about being comfy, so you could catapult or airdrop them in almost any formation. Though assuming you even have a DM that would let you have an army, odds are you can just use pocket dimensions, planes, teleportation spells, or a spell that'll make a hole in a wall and/or ground. Now covering your undead in substances they don't care about, but their living enemies do? That's the money! Biological warfare baby!!
Skeletons, living cloudkill, oath breaker Paladin, death cleric, undying warlock, and necromancer. And maybe a college of glamour bard just for a bit of bolstering for your still living compatriots.
@@CallMeCatalin and of course: circle of spores druid! Thanks to how druids work, a spores druid always has animate dead prepared, and it doesn't count against the number of spells they can prepare. And while you don't get access to any of the other features a necromancer wizard does, you have wild shape, some healing spells and lots of other summoning spells you can use to support yourself and your army of undead while expertly keeping yourself alive. I never played a spores druid, but for some reason it seems like they make great necromancers.
@@secretname2670 Technically it's not a measure on actual quality but rather an aggregation of a consensus. It's weird and not as simple as "higher number equals better"
Also consider the followimg. Finger of Death, when it kills someone they turn into a zomboi that are under your control permenantly. Antipathy/Sympathy. Casting this as Antipathy against undead on your skelebros allows them to herd a much larger amount of undead than you would normally be able to control. Demiplane, allows you to store bodies and undead for ease of use.
@Kathy Kat Finger of Death zombies is a downtime thing if you want a bunch if them. For Antipathy, its an 8th lvl spell that lasts 10days. When cast, you choose a type of creature to be effected. All creatures in 60ft range of tye antipathied target must make a wisdom save or run from thier fear. Cast it on your skeletons to fear zombies, and you can have a line of skeletons herding the zombies like sheep dogs. In that way, you dont need to have direct control of them. The other option of that spell makes a good undead collector as well. Sympathy, if creatures come within range, they need to make a wisdom save or be unwilling to leave the area. If yiu know undead travel through a spot, you just need to check it every 10days. Hope that was helpful.
The most amazing thing about the Necromancer subclass is the Command Undead feature you get at level 14. With only 20 intelligence (and at that level it's very feasible to have more) you have a 90% of successfully owning a Nightwalker if you see one. At level 15 you can learn the Feeblemind spell and a whole new world of possibilities open up. With this, Death Knights become trivial to scoop up into your service. They won't be casting spells, but they're pretty well and truly badass anyway. There are some very awesome targets below 10 CR as well, like Sword Wraith Commanders and Giant Skeletons.
Just as a note for what I just noticed, familiars can be undead. That was introduced in Curse of Strahd and can be used elsewhere...flock of familiars is more of the same. Find Steed has the same thing.
I live in northern Delaware and play D&D in Philly. I cannot tell you how stoked I am to learn that you’ll be at a con there next year! And since it’s a con AND Halloween weekend, I am 100% wearing a costume of one of my characters.
Built a Katamari deck in MtG once... People weren't to happy when I just shoved all their cards in a pile. Mycosynth Lattice, Bludgeoning Brawl, and Volshok Battlemaster.
Fun fact, an alternative option to lichdom (and a version that doesn’t require sacrifice outside of money) is magic jar and clone. Magic jar also lets your surpass your pitiful hit points and strength score through possession. Clone is just lich but not technically undead.
Hey at least he didn't point out the nice spell finger of death with a permanent raise zombie under your control :) that is the real way to make an army
EWanderer yeah that’s 2 permanent zombies per day if you have the wish spell. Also use the control undead to automatically control a CR 20 nightwalker.
@@lebanemcarl68 2 permanent undead? where are you getting this from? If you have the spell finger of death and already have a ninth-level spell slot, use it for more finger of death! at 17th level a sorcerer can twin it three times a day (for 6 zombies) and at 20th level you get an extra 7th level slot, so that's up to 8 zombies a day. Even a wizard with just the single uses gets the three castings a day at 17th level and four at 20th
You missed another couple important things here. After level 14 you can use your Command Undead feature to assert control of a Mummy Lord and you use all their spell slots to animate another 56 dead. Then you True Polymorph into an Atropal and summon 18 Wraiths, each of which can summon another 7 Spectres. But before you do any of that, you cast Simulacrum and do everything above twice.
Two things to note: Inflict wounds is not a Wizard spell. As far as I can tell, it’s only for clerics unless you take a feat to access it and even then you can only cast it once at min. level so I’m not sure if it’s that worth it. Find steed/find greater steed are paladin spells. You can get phantom steed but that has a limited time and can instantly disappear if it takes damage. It’s basically a worse version of find steed, your better at getting a legit nightmare for a mount. Outside of that, the guide is still pretty good. Also consider adding in other necromancy spells like finger of death, clone for a cheap lich option, or mass suggestion if you do want to go down the cult route.
Thank you so much for this! A group of friends and I are setting up our first ever D&D campaign and I desperately want to play a necromancer wizard, and this helps out a lot.
I've come up with a way that adds some permanency to an undead army that i guess i'll toss out here if anyone is interested. It requires a few things from the necromancer, they must be at least a level 14 wizard necromancer, and have access to the feeblemind spell. So, the first step is being level 14, straight forwards enough, next you need to either purchase a spell scroll of feeblemind, have a party member who can cast it, hire someone to cast it, or be high enough level to cast it yourself, then you will need to find a death tyrant (check the beholders section in the monster manual for details), successfully cast feeblemind on it reducing its Int and Cha to 1,this does two things, first it makes it very likely that the death tyrant fails its save against your command undead, and due to its reduced Int the beholder can be kept under your control indefinitely, feeblemind has a minimum duration of 30 days, after which the creature can remake the save, though with an Int of 1, that brings their total save to a +0, and with the likely high DC of the feeblemind cast on them, this makes it difficult for them to succeed the save, and even if they do they will still be under your command giving you ample opportunity to recast the spell. Now that you have a death tyrant, i'll enlighten those of you who don't know about their eye cone, unlike the standard antimagic cone of a beholder a death tyrant has a negative energy cone which does two things, prevents healing within it, and turns any dead humanoid in it into a zombie under the death tyrant's control, and in turn under your control.
Did you look at the new UA Article Runesmith? Warlocks can now cast Animate Undead, that combined with being an Elf and it's possible to have even greater numbers of undead.
Tried the ball o' undead in a one shot. DM had me roll int. to determine how I placed my fleshy followers and arcana for my control over them. One nat twenty later and all of them were successfully placed with their torso facing outwards with their arms free allowing them to push the ground thanks to my control thus causing the ball to roll. I enjoyed rolling this thing through a dungeon and the satisfaction my whole party experienced when the DM described the ball crashing into the BBEG, the ropes and chains snapping and an avalanche of undead raining down on him and devouring his now trapped corpse. Although I had no where near as many undead as this it was still fun with 20+.
I genuinely thank you for making this video, I have a couple friends that are trying to become really formidable necromancers (and possibly liches) in games but most of them don't know how they'd go about doing such a thing. This definitely made that so much easier and I'm almost astounded at how achievable such a thing actually is ._.
What about Finger of Death? While slow, it has the potential to raise an undead army with no limits. Take a couple levels in sorcerer and you can twin it to double the speed of your growth.
You can also use a Sorcerer/Warlock/Necro to cannibalize for spell slots and so long as you NEVER take a long rest you can have around 1443 level 5 spell slots for animating and maintaining all your fictitious bony/stinky bois. The only reason it’s not higher is because it takes pretty much all of your time for the next 70 days never taking more than a short rest for cat naps, wee breaks, and food binges as you recharge your pact magic to later burn into spell slots. Non-stop casting and there is literally not enough time to do more but that’s what friends are for. Now as any proper necro churning out wave after wave of animate corpses, you’ll need pawns to actually collect those bodies since all you do is cast, burn magic, and short rest. Bonus points if you don’t care to maintain control over the 8000 or so walking horrors and just send them off in the vague direction of the nearest animate dead supply depot, visit the town/city later to begin again (or send your lackeys/controlled creatures). At that point the pocket dimension “zombie bomb” can be Contingency’ed in emergencies, spam Clone (or Wish spell for some insta-Clone free of costs... because who doesn’t take wish?). Maybe join the undead, maybe not. At this point it’s no longer a PC, but a force of (un)nature/villain as it’s going around sending scores of undead to ravage the land to make more undead.
Math was off, in theory you could have about 11,000 skeletons. This is also not my own calculation but I found elsewhere on the web a while back. Whoever you are, thanks for dedicating the time to helping discover more ways to break the game and add more ridiculous power to a crazy build (the build needs the War 5/Sor 9 to burn the two 3rd level pact slots for sorcery points. You can never have more than 9SP and for every 7 SP, you turn into a 5th level which can just keep accumulating for each sorcerer slot you buy this way via all those bonus actions).
fun combo: demi-plane and create undead put all your created undead in there tied up and have the last one untie the others once the plane closes. Then death comes, open the demi plane in a battle field and use your run and dash (or misty step) to get as far away as you can while the hoard of undead swarm the enemies. It's the easiest way to beat a BBEG. Another one is: finger of death just kill a bunch of weak innocents (or just weak humanoids) to gain a permanent army of zombies. Finally: you can use the necromancer's command undead to permanently take control of 1 undead, this works of night walkers. so you can have a pet CR 20 monster that doesn't even cost a spell slot so my other two plans can also work with this.
True Polymorph into Titivilus, animate dead at will. 4 per minute = 240 per hour = 5760 (ish) per day (or slightly less if you sleep). Give them the attack command, swap back to wizard, have all your regular spell slots for the battle. Oh, and while you're waiting for the battle, enjoy setting up cost-free symbols 1/day around your lair or future battlefield.
Inflict wounds and find steed/find greater steed are not on the wizard spell list. Instead, pick up Phantom steed, which is on the wizard list and is a ritual. Also pick up finger of death, which whenever you kill a humanoid, gives you a permanently controlled zombie
I am reminded of undead reefs that (very, very slowly) make their way across like the ocean floor. Would probably be useful to act as controllable ice glaciers to to straight up run over all existing civilizations.
I've been fascinated with this process for a very long time. And i my travels i've noticed that there is a key difference in the school of necromancy. Two diverging possible pathways, though as it usually tends to be with human patterns, one of them is much more used than the other. The path described in your video is of the former. That of slaying spirited vessels, and using their shells to force your magical will into. The other path, is the usage of portals in the astral plane, the crystalline tethers between dimensions that houses the concentrated essences of souls on their journey to other places. Few are able to access them, like filling canteens from a running spring's river. Though when achieved, the level of quality of the Undead in question, is FRIGHTENINGLY apparent. Reflexes, levels of awareness and reaction times, persistence beyond continual damage, kinetic and magical. A soul derived directly from an astral source, its illumination reverberating through-out its form like a palace of forged mirrors, amplifying the astral light to burning heights. As a necromancer.. it is truly a sight to witness and behold. ... and it's usually best to just use skeleton bodies for it... flesh happens to.. "evaporate", quite quickly..
additionally, assuming you have a 9th level spell slot you should consider using either Shapechange or True Polymorph to become a young red shadow dragon. This allows you to use your shadow breath to convert people into Undead Shadows which are permanently under your control, also Finger of Death for zombies who won't abandon you.
Step 1: Be a level 5 warlock with a level in wizard, cleric, or devine soul sorcerer to learn animate dead (So level six total.) Step 2: Spend both your pact magic slots to cast animate dead, giving you 2 spooky boys. Step 3: Short rest, then do it again, then again, then again, theres no limit to how often you can short rest in a row so you'll have 48 boiz at level 6, of course they'll start betraying you in batches of 2 every hour, starting at the 12 minute mark because you spent 48 minutes casting the spells and 23 hours resting. This is deffinately enough time for you to march them into a town tho. I'm not gonna bother talking about the efficent method of reinstating control over pre-bakes spooks because I have a headache and can't be bothered with logisical bs. Also you get to have more as you level up, caping at 18th level (17 warlock 1 w/c/s) assuming you blow your 6th and 7th level mystic arcanum on animate dead, and your 8th and 9th on wights (5 wights, 65 firends) then started the rest spam you would end up with 516 regular spooks and 5 cool warrior spooks.
Find Steed/Greater Steed is a Paladin spell. But by Raw we can do this. Let's say we are 20th level wiz with a Simulacrum, and let's say we have a random Familiar from Find Familiar. Cast Find Steed or Find Greater Steed using the Wish spell. Now here's where things get fun. You have your Simulacrum cast True Polymorph on your familiar/steed, turning it into SOME sort of medium sized object. Now YOU cast True Polymorph, utilizing the Object to Monster rules. Turn your familiar into some sort of Shadow Dragon Wyrmling. After an hour, you have a perm Dragon familiar. This can be done following find Steed spell also, having up to two baby dragons who can control Shadows when they kill enemies with breath weapons. Now here comes the fun part. Rest. Cast True Polymorph on yourself. Turn into a Ghost(by this point it isn't far-fetched to say you can control many ghosts given the undead command ability.) Cast your and any other ghosts Horrifying Visage action on your dragon. If your dm allows you to command it to fail saves, do that to speed things up. Repeat until your dragons are now 800+ years old. Enjoy your Ancient Dragons. Can be doubled if you make a fresh Simulacrum and repeat it on his own familiar/steed.
I love this so goddamn much. I’ve been slowly building a plan specifically to play a litch, and this is a great addition to a small collection of videos I’ve got links to for reference
Farmer: It's difficult to raise a family.
Necromancer: Not if they're buried close together.
Farmer: What?
Necromancer: What?
A necromancer couple walks into a funerary home with a corpse.
The Necro Husband - Hello, we've brought this corpse back.
Mortitian - You've brought it back?
Necro Wife - Yes, I'm afraid we're just not ready to raise dead right now.
Wait... 1.2k likes and 2 comments...
Owen Grant it’s D&D alright
Cleric: interesting
Necromancer dad decides to become a lich to be able to make a d(e)ad joke
The only thing better than an undead army are two undead armies.
Fighting for your Entertainment
No a party of 5 necromancers each with an undead army
@@ceoofwarcrimes4600 basicaly a team up of 5 spooky bois
You have obviously never heard of an undead army with each undead having their own undead army.
how can u read my mind
Finally I can make a minotaur warlock with a dead cow army
I just want you to know I'm stealing your idea.
🐮
@@stickmanslasher :) perfect
Somebody has played Diablo 2.
There is no Cow Level
Gotta love the specification in the thumbnail that this is for D&D. Not for real life. This is definitely not how you raise zombie IRL
It's to specify that it's not for any other game, in case you've never seen his channel before.
@@bremensims6086 whoosh
Nah I'm pretty sure this is how it's done IRL
@@ArtemisAndromeda tfw my homeboy Orcus ain't calling me back :(
Wait, saying that it's definitely not how you raise zombies irl mean you know the way. Master teach me how the ways.
Edit: "how the ways"... F*** it why not.
Looks at DM "I summon my 30 ft sphere of *BONES* "
You cross your arms and cast your chin high into the air, smug with victory, as five shambling zombies manually roll the massive skeletal orb at your call.
DM: Fine... but your "30 foot sphere of BONES" gets squished in the 10 by 10 corridor that your party and the enemy are standing in and shatters. Everyone roll a dex save to see if you can avoid the million little bone fragment projectiles coming at you. DC 20, since you all are effectively standing inside a 10 by 10 shotgun barrel. If you fail, it's 8d6 points of piercing damage, half on a successful save. Just be glad that I'm not making your roll a con save against disease.
*megalovania but harder intensifies*
*DEAFENING RATTLING*
“GET EM BOIS!”
**Katmari Damacy theme plays**
this but an entire party of 4 is doing it.
Evil campaign, here we go
@@ArtemisAndromeda Not even a bad idea. Rather than one player hogging all the glory as the army's head, you have each player have their own armies, specialties, strengths & weaknesses; who can work together in a war-game style rather than a skirmish style game.
at that point, you just play warhammer.
While that'd be crazy badass... that sounds like a rough start until you get the ball rolling. A 4-wizard party sounds a bit on the squishy side at level 1 with no beefy paladins, barbarians, or fighters to take hits for you.
@@Schmeethe88 Maybe start with enough gold to purchase a Mercenary to protect you and your party while you level up casting low level magic spells, until you can summon your first set of undead soldiers to tank hits for you and then start the fun.
Alternatively: how to make every combat last for 3 days
IMO, druid of the shepherd is better for that
My DM once approved some questionable homebrew and I came to the final boss fight (at ninth level) with nearly 700hp of undead.
super easy to avoid that. point army at town, party goes SHOPPING! 8D
Use an extrapolation of swarm mechanics tbh, don't go resolving 128 attacks per round lmao
The necromancer's horde shouldn't be treated as 128 different bodies that all need to roll d20's, because that shit is crazy :P Instead treat it purely as a narrative tool (so don't do it in d&d) or do as Tom suggests and try to set up a framework much like swarms for how your army works ^^
The wizard: builds an undead army to protect them when they become a lich
The cleric: builds an undead army to further their evil deities goals
The warlock: builds an undead army to appease their patron's demands and pursuits
The bard: builds an undead army because it's cheaper than paying roadies and musicians.
Traveling Bard singer and his entourage Skelle band!
This makes me happier than a necromancer in a natural history museum
muahahahahahaha
but now i want to raise a zombie t rex in dnd
*[THRILLER INTENSIFIES]*
Most fossil skeletons are actually just plaster casts
@@zoroearc2582 you seem fun at parties
"Why, why would you become such a cruel and evil being? Immortality used only for the creation and commanding of undead?"
"Well I was reading about some spells and magic items and thought it would be funny to have a ridiculous amount of undead, and, well... here we are."
"A good D&D party requires balanced members who can supplement each other's skills"
My party:
s p o o k y s c a r y s k e l e t o n s
c o m e s h i v e r i n g u p y o u r s p i n e s
_Orcus wants to know your location_
I already do
O’ dear Orcus, my great, would you be so consider as to kind sharing the secrets of lichdom with me? Wait, fuck I got start struck and flubbed
*Yeah 'cause he wants his wand back*
"It belongs to Orcus and he's not he sharing type"
Iunno bruh. The Necromancer you're describing sounds like perfect BF material for Orcus. I'd be worried more about Vecna getting jealous!
Well Orcus tends to hate literally all living things, and probably all forms of intelligent undead because they can think.
@@Nyghtking I think he tolerates vampires.
@@Nyghtking Orcus, dressed in a pink bath robe, watching a necromancer through a demonic crystal ball: "Mmm... He's not perfect, but I can change him!"
@@Nyghtking
He also wants his artifacts and relics to be used though, it's why he just drops them in the material plane every few generations.
Orvis hates all living or death or undeath.
Just team up with a Death Cleric and a Oathbreaker Paladin and you will be unstoppable
That sweet, sweet Aura of Hate
Undead Warlock as the icing on the cake. The new unearthed arcana let's locks cast Animate Dead now
@@freakyzoid3565 The only thing casting an aura of hate in that situation is the DM!
I actually did the math. A level 5 warlock can animate 184 spoopy Skelos or Zombabwes in a single day, provided they use all their spell slots, take a short rest, and then immediately use their spell slots again. They will then have about 12 minutes to do whatever they want before they start losing control of them, at a rate of 8 per hour.
A 9th level warlock doubles that, so 368, losing control of their minions at a rate of 16 an hour. At 17th level it doubles again, meaning you've got yourself 736 undead, all at the low cost of one point of exhaustion maybe.
Basically, if you want to immediately start raising undead to roam the country side like some asshole, go warlock.
Edit: whoops, I goofed. So a level 17 + lock can summon 704 undead per day, assuming they're only using their spell slots and short rests. This is because they're spending 1 minute per cast actually raising the dead. This totals up to 1 hour and 36 minutes spent casting spells, so we only get 22 hours to do short rests. On the plus side, once you're all done you'll have 24 minutes of absolute necromantic ecstacy as you tell over 700 zombies to dance to Thriller exactly 4 times in a row, with 8 seconds to spare. And for completeness sake, you then begin to lose control of your spoops at a rate of 32 each hour by this level.
There"s also shadow magic sorcerer and grave domain cleric
You can avoid all of this if you just become a CEO of a retail chain, all of your low level employees will become zombies in less than a month
you could destroy dnd economy with an undead army of cheap workers
Mauricio Schug sounds like fun
To Late! Their all ready zombies to their smart phones.
Samuel Measa ok boomer 👌
Going on 3 my spirit hasn’t been crushed yet. I’m hanging in for dear life through the power of some decent supervisors and co-workers.
Runesmith: Bag of Holding,
Picture: Bag of Devouring
hmm
Honestly it's probably cheaper and perfect if you want boney boys as it only req eats flesh
SpectralKnight I don’t think it has the Same capacity
@@maddoxWolfe feed lots of flesh to enlarge or even to breed, it is a mimic after all. Just a really special one.
@@williamturner6192 I’m sorry breed
@@SpectralKnight how would you stick your hand in there
Runesmith: "Here's how to build an undead army."
Of Undead and Understanding: _"Mine's bigger."_
Undead and inderstanding uses pathfinder with some 3.5 classes.
There you can control 4 healt dice of undeads per level and once animated your undeads don't die unless they are killed or you dispell them, so you can just make your undeads and never worry about having to cast the spells the day after.
5E really nerfed necromancers a lot.
@@erdervv I know I’m late, but imagine. We’d be unstoppable as a party with only 2 necromancers.
4:05 Hey that's not a bag of holding!! Can't fool me Mr. DM
William McAllister my friend got eaten by one lol, the dm let him live bc plot tho
This is the quality content I've subscribed for.
Unironically.
Think about this level twenty wizard your speciality spell could be animate undead
Same
Even though he missed the spell that can get you a zombie army of unlimited size?
Ah yes, the bone squad.
Sightless_Seeker wouldn’t that be a bunch of oathbreaker paladins
@Sightless_Seeker But can we make these crusaders groovy?
Just get 40 of the 46 skeletons you have and put them in a ball, then get the remaining 6 skeletons to push it around and flatten your enemies. New most insane necromancy. Liches, eat your nonexistent hearts out!
You literally only need the Finger of Death spell. Any humanoid it kills becomes a zombie permanently under your control. Using it can create an army of unlimited size.
Raises at a much slower rate, but it’s a must if you want some undead sentinels to continuously guard a place from people you don’t want there and you won’t be around to upkeep cast Animate Dead.
Fitting this was uploaded - not even two hours ago, my players reawakened an entire kingdom of ancient, sentient undead by accident.
Diablo fucking Necrons, amirite?
Nekehara rises from the sand!!
Also from what I’ve found, you can use your control undead to take over your standard mummy lord. Just make sure they fail their charisma save (which they have advantage) and you’re all set with a powerful undead under your command.
Or you can use the feature on a Death Tyrant after having it fail a feeblemind spell, and then kill people in front of it and rule through delegation.
@@tylergoerlich9494 I hadn't thought of using feeblemind to weaken an undead before controlling them. Though I think if you wanted to add to the undead you control, a mumy lord would be perfect.
@@tylergoerlich9494 or you could enslave a white dracolitch to nab yourself the most metal badass mount of all time. Also theres always the nightwalker for when you want a horrific shadow of pure negative energy that can kill things that merely stand NEAR it
Finally, a guide for my army of darkness building needs. Thank you Runesmith, now I can become the lord of darkness I was always meant to be.
But this isn't Runescape, unless the years have truly changed it.
Coryn02 sorry, I meant Runesmith
Klaatu, Barada... Necktie!
Me: man, I would really like to play a necromancer in the next campaign...
Runesmith: *makes this video*
Me: stonks
Now I just have to convince my dm to let me create a cult of undead praising mad men
You don't really have to convince them, you just have to succeed on the rolls, invest the time, and the DM has to allow it to happen, or barring that you have to be able to brute force it.
@@Nyghtking Maybe I'm in the minority here, but all of the game's I've played/ran to convince people of anything you had to actually make a convincing argument. Rolls only ever came up if the DM thought you made a good enough pitch and would basically be how well you presented it. A crappy idea can be made to sound very convincing, but most people are still smart enough to know it's a crappy idea.
@Oscar Wind Thats what happens when you use an account you made when you were like 18 or something.
Me: *takes to adventures League!*
One time my character got killed by a necromancer, and brought back to life a bit later.
And then learned the necromancer had raised my old body, so then I beat my undead self to re-death.
Shortly thereafter our bard seduced the necromancer and we realized he wasn't such a bad guy.
Runesmith: Start wizard
Proceeds to include spells that aren’t available to wizards
I was going to comment this
Just homebrew a little
The rest of your party exists
also the magic initiate feat to get those extra spells
Absolutely no one:
My army of skeletons: *RATTLE ME BONES*
Underrated comment lmao
One of my personal favourite methods of creating an undead army is being a Lizardman and only raising through Finger of Death. Unlike Animate Dead or Raise Dead, Finger of Death creates a zombie under your control PERMANENTLY if you manage to kill what you target, rather than just for 24 hours. And if you’re a Lizardman you can find bones and create weapons out of them, this way every Zombie you have permanently under your control can have shields and clubs rather than just their fists.
9 times out of 10 i would want to start a cult no matter what my character alignment is
Honestly I think the idea of starting a lawful good cult is one of the funnest character goals a good aligned character can have, I feel like it could, just, so naturally lend itself to moments, both the humorous, and the serious.
Instructions unclear, ate my dog.
Rewatch it and then raise your pupper. Undead pupper will never leave you
_NOOOOOO_
i wasnt supposed to?
Keep reading. You will find the zombie dog and hell hound a couple pages later
Whoops, killed my whole family.
Fun fact, in Curse of Strahd all familiar like summons are undead instead of fey/celestial/fiend theme
"Looking like the fricking Wild Hunt"
"You humans are so... impractical."
Make sure to include dead adventurers from quests long passed.
Zee Bashew had a frozen necromancer animate the dead body of one of the adventures from a previous attempt at an ice cave... He did a three part series, but here's part one: th-cam.com/video/FgdS8x_bQwA/w-d-xo.html
Not to mention True Polymorph, the 9th level wizard spell that lets you do this:
Object into Creature. You can turn an object into any kind of creature, as long as the creature's size is no larger than the object's size and the creature's challenge rating is 9 or lower. The creature is friendly to you and your companions. It acts on each of your turns. You decide what action it takes and how it moves. The DM has the creature's statistics and resolves all of its actions and movement.
If the spell becomes permanent, you no longer control the creature. It might remain friendly to you, depending on how you have treated it.
A Necromancer is a CR 9 creature from Volo's Guide to Monsters that has access to animate dead and up to 6th level spell slots
That's a new pretty strong necromancer every single day that can be loyal to you if you are nice.
Alternatively you could just make any CR 9 or below undead and just go buckwild with zombie T-rexes
You're the only TH-camr I watch where I _don't_ skip the sponsorships.
1:50
Find steed can only be cast by palidins, and even if you are talking about phantasmal steed it can only be accessed at 5th level
I've beat dark souls and never thought of making a skeleball before
How did you get past BlightTown? Plz help. I can't get past it.
@Eldritch Hamster 😒 Really?
Fuck Gwyn, the true BBEG is overheating your processor.
@Sightless_Seeker we are brains inside skeletal armor riding flesh mechs.
...who are riding a giant rock that is hurtling through space at thousands of miles per hour.
*sitting in next campaign surrounded by a paladin, a cleric, and a noble knight* "Yeah I'm gonna take animate undead" *glaring intensifies*
That moment when your group is composed of 15 players+1 DM (even though half of them never show up) and y'all could literally control the greatest undead army ever seen by men
Just rolling imitative would take longer than the combat of fighting a single bandit
Horde innitiative
Now make NAND gates by arranging three skeletons so that one skeleton is ordered to watch two others, and if one of them has its hand up, raise its hand also. Now you can start performing computer calculations on your skeleton army, increasing processing power by adding more skeletons. (See: Deep Rot on 1d4chan)
The spell Finger of Death is not mentioned even once
I know! It can create unlimited zombies too!
Next video: "and How to Get Away With it Too!"
The first step is to get rid of any meddling kids.
Imma make an undead army!
Every 5th+ Level Cleric: Wait that’s illegal
Just remember to keep Firebolt handy for when they actually do break out the book of laws that says (in whatever township you're at) that it is illegal to do so. BTW, it's a very common law most kingdoms have, which is funny because usually laws are enacted AFTER someone triest it.
And then you remember clerics themselves have acces to animate dead...
i wonder how illegal it is with the stipulation that every undead you make consented to having their corpse used in such a way before their death? i am formulating a homebrew world which allows necromancy if used ethically.. or at least one major faction in it will.
@@companyoflosers Back then, who cared. This day and age, Oh, there would be lawsuits galore.
@@companyoflosers I have a Sorlock, who when meeting a new person, gets their consent in written form, to make use of their body should they for some reason die. She has... quite the collection of contracts thus far. XD
I took your advise… now it’s short story time.
Me and a handful of friends got together(with lucky vacation days off work) and played DnD every day for a week, like eight hours a day. For cliches I made a tiefling wizard(necromancer obviously) and after a bit I got my hands on a bag of holding. So me being the… whatever I am, decided the easiest way to get my undead around was to just pile them up in the bag of holding until I needed them. This let me sneak around easier, go through towns without issues. That is until the last day of us playing. We were walking through town, when suddenly I’m pulled into an alleyway, a dagger held against my neck. A half orc tells me to empty my bag onto the ground and walk away. I attempt to talk him down, as I know releasing a hoard of undead in the middle of the city will end bad for both me and the half orc, but my rolls didn’t got very well. I eventually just say screw it and dump the bag. Long story short, that city no longer has any residence because I killed anyone who tried to hurt my undead.
TLDR: I kept my Undead in a bag of holding and then was forced to release them all in the middle of town
The whole wrapping your skeletons in a ball and the Ants reference broke me. Well done
I always liked the idea of bringing back legendary hero's as undead warriors, I'm not sure if it's a trope or not but I like it.
Divine soul sorcerer with animate dead and twinned spell finger of death.
Also find steed is bard and palladin exclusive
inflict wounds is also a cleric only spell. I feel like he was high on something making this video
@@Attilladehun yeah but isint he allways high on _something_ like the tears of children, brain juce and whatever he did to become the master of riddles
@@Attilladehun Also pro tip with inflict wounds and especially vampiric touch: death clerics may deal extra necrotic damage with channel divinity, as can hexblades curse, hex and bestow curse, the more necrotic you deal the more damage you heal so go for it
Find Steed is only paladin exclusive
@@mechanicalincandescence391 Bard's Magical Secrets will have you believe otherwise
Now to start a gang of skeletons, it's either going be called the Calcium Marauders, the Boney Bois, or the Skellybone Gang
Dang, i named a homebrew band of skeleton bards the Boney Boys
How to make an army of Dogs:
7 mage levels
(Fourth level spell slot for Mordenkainen Faithful Dog)
6 sorcerer levels
(Sorcery points for Spell Slots)
You know what to do.
Take shadow for hound of Ill omen
Army of very good boys
Finger of Death (7th level necromancy) lets the caster have an undefined number of zombies that follow verbal commands, forever.
... I'm making that ball of undead an enemy in a dungeon and YOU CAN'T STOP ME!
Or: How to make your BBEG only out of what players have access to. Though I am envious (and pity) the party that goes from D&D to wargame management.
Skeleton Balls aren't even a dumb idea. Assuming you do some magic + match so the weight of the ball does not damage the skeleton on the underside of the ball, you can end up with something that'd transport your skeletons faster than their own movement.
Undead don't care about being comfy, so you could catapult or airdrop them in almost any formation. Though assuming you even have a DM that would let you have an army, odds are you can just use pocket dimensions, planes, teleportation spells, or a spell that'll make a hole in a wall and/or ground.
Now covering your undead in substances they don't care about, but their living enemies do? That's the money! Biological warfare baby!!
ChaoGuy2006 If a dm just “doesn’t let you” that’s a bad dm
Zombies + cloudkill = profit
I don’t think I laughed harder today LMAO
Skeletons, living cloudkill, oath breaker Paladin, death cleric, undying warlock, and necromancer. And maybe a college of glamour bard just for a bit of bolstering for your still living compatriots.
@@CallMeCatalin and of course: circle of spores druid!
Thanks to how druids work, a spores druid always has animate dead prepared, and it doesn't count against the number of spells they can prepare. And while you don't get access to any of the other features a necromancer wizard does, you have wild shape, some healing spells and lots of other summoning spells you can use to support yourself and your army of undead while expertly keeping yourself alive.
I never played a spores druid, but for some reason it seems like they make great necromancers.
Dropping the real uncomfortable truths: Antz the movie has a higher rating on Rotten Tomatoes than Avatar
What the fuck tomates
Honestly I loved that movie as a kid
@@secretname2670
Technically it's not a measure on actual quality but rather an aggregation of a consensus. It's weird and not as simple as "higher number equals better"
@@ianbailey4213 calm down Aristotle
I mean... Avatar was pretty silly. I'd rate Antz higher.
Wow, this video is exactly what I needed, since I’m making an undead army but didn’t know how! Thanks Runesmith!
Also consider the followimg.
Finger of Death, when it kills someone they turn into a zomboi that are under your control permenantly.
Antipathy/Sympathy. Casting this as Antipathy against undead on your skelebros allows them to herd a much larger amount of undead than you would normally be able to control.
Demiplane, allows you to store bodies and undead for ease of use.
@Kathy Kat Finger of Death zombies is a downtime thing if you want a bunch if them.
For Antipathy, its an 8th lvl spell that lasts 10days. When cast, you choose a type of creature to be effected. All creatures in 60ft range of tye antipathied target must make a wisdom save or run from thier fear.
Cast it on your skeletons to fear zombies, and you can have a line of skeletons herding the zombies like sheep dogs. In that way, you dont need to have direct control of them.
The other option of that spell makes a good undead collector as well. Sympathy, if creatures come within range, they need to make a wisdom save or be unwilling to leave the area. If yiu know undead travel through a spot, you just need to check it every 10days.
Hope that was helpful.
@Kathy Kat whoops, yeah. Glad my point came across despite my poor use of english. XP
Mmmm yes the spook squads in a giant ball rolling into the village
The most amazing thing about the Necromancer subclass is the Command Undead feature you get at level 14. With only 20 intelligence (and at that level it's very feasible to have more) you have a 90% of successfully owning a Nightwalker if you see one. At level 15 you can learn the Feeblemind spell and a whole new world of possibilities open up. With this, Death Knights become trivial to scoop up into your service. They won't be casting spells, but they're pretty well and truly badass anyway. There are some very awesome targets below 10 CR as well, like Sword Wraith Commanders and Giant Skeletons.
Inflict wounds and find (greater) steed ain’t wiz spells
Ya, should be Phantom Steed
Wiz can get Inflict Wounds with feat
Just as a note for what I just noticed, familiars can be undead. That was introduced in Curse of Strahd and can be used elsewhere...flock of familiars is more of the same.
Find Steed has the same thing.
Imagine an entire party of necromancers doing this
Spectum 113 at that point your playing Warhammer not d&d
you would have a hard time getting that far with just wizards so you should take some clerics as well
I live in northern Delaware and play D&D in Philly. I cannot tell you how stoked I am to learn that you’ll be at a con there next year! And since it’s a con AND Halloween weekend, I am 100% wearing a costume of one of my characters.
5:53 Katamari DnD
Built a Katamari deck in MtG once... People weren't to happy when I just shoved all their cards in a pile.
Mycosynth Lattice, Bludgeoning Brawl, and Volshok Battlemaster.
My necromancer BBEG in the campaign I'm writing just got a hell of a lot better at his job, thanks to you!
I'm confused, he says make a Wizard, then lists four spells, two of them can't be taken by wizards, and one isn't in an official source book.
Fun fact, an alternative option to lichdom (and a version that doesn’t require sacrifice outside of money) is magic jar and clone. Magic jar also lets your surpass your pitiful hit points and strength score through possession. Clone is just lich but not technically undead.
Runesmith makes a new video
Me: cool
Runesmith: necromancer armies 101
Me:*unconsciously starts taking notes*
I love how the image for bag of holding was actually bag of devouring
Please remove before my players find this thank you.
Too late.
Rip.
Hey at least he didn't point out the nice spell finger of death with a permanent raise zombie under your control :) that is the real way to make an army
EWanderer yeah that’s 2 permanent zombies per day if you have the wish spell. Also use the control undead to automatically control a CR 20 nightwalker.
@@lebanemcarl68 2 permanent undead? where are you getting this from? If you have the spell finger of death and already have a ninth-level spell slot, use it for more finger of death! at 17th level a sorcerer can twin it three times a day (for 6 zombies) and at 20th level you get an extra 7th level slot, so that's up to 8 zombies a day. Even a wizard with just the single uses gets the three castings a day at 17th level and four at 20th
You missed another couple important things here.
After level 14 you can use your Command Undead feature to assert control of a Mummy Lord and you use all their spell slots to animate another 56 dead.
Then you True Polymorph into an Atropal and summon 18 Wraiths, each of which can summon another 7 Spectres.
But before you do any of that, you cast Simulacrum and do everything above twice.
But what if I want to have a bound demon or devil army? :3
Devils might be fine, if you have the right contract. But you try to make an army of demons, and both Heaven and Hell will put you on their shit list!
Instructions unclear. Soul trapped inside Zuggtmoy's dildo.
Lucas Dezidério *graz’zt’s dildo. He’s the demon lord of lust. Zugdtmoy is just a walking mushroom that got too high on herself. /joke
Two things to note:
Inflict wounds is not a Wizard spell. As far as I can tell, it’s only for clerics unless you take a feat to access it and even then you can only cast it once at min. level so I’m not sure if it’s that worth it.
Find steed/find greater steed are paladin spells. You can get phantom steed but that has a limited time and can instantly disappear if it takes damage. It’s basically a worse version of find steed, your better at getting a legit nightmare for a mount.
Outside of that, the guide is still pretty good. Also consider adding in other necromancy spells like finger of death, clone for a cheap lich option, or mass suggestion if you do want to go down the cult route.
just become a death domain cleric :)
Thank you so much for this! A group of friends and I are setting up our first ever D&D campaign and I desperately want to play a necromancer wizard, and this helps out a lot.
Free advice, don't play a necromancer like this for your first time, focus on debilitating spells, you'll be much more useful
And try not to get on the nerves of other pc's
no views, 39 likes,
very yes
40 here, still no views
I was the first one on the video, so no likes and no views. I gave it the first like.
1:14 I recognize that artwork. That’s from awaken online! At least that’s the picture on the wiki.
0:45 to skip ad
I've come up with a way that adds some permanency to an undead army that i guess i'll toss out here if anyone is interested. It requires a few things from the necromancer, they must be at least a level 14 wizard necromancer, and have access to the feeblemind spell. So, the first step is being level 14, straight forwards enough, next you need to either purchase a spell scroll of feeblemind, have a party member who can cast it, hire someone to cast it, or be high enough level to cast it yourself, then you will need to find a death tyrant (check the beholders section in the monster manual for details), successfully cast feeblemind on it reducing its Int and Cha to 1,this does two things, first it makes it very likely that the death tyrant fails its save against your command undead, and due to its reduced Int the beholder can be kept under your control indefinitely, feeblemind has a minimum duration of 30 days, after which the creature can remake the save, though with an Int of 1, that brings their total save to a +0, and with the likely high DC of the feeblemind cast on them, this makes it difficult for them to succeed the save, and even if they do they will still be under your command giving you ample opportunity to recast the spell. Now that you have a death tyrant, i'll enlighten those of you who don't know about their eye cone, unlike the standard antimagic cone of a beholder a death tyrant has a negative energy cone which does two things, prevents healing within it, and turns any dead humanoid in it into a zombie under the death tyrant's control, and in turn under your control.
DnD: No
Total war: Warhammer 2: Yes
Did you look at the new UA Article Runesmith? Warlocks can now cast Animate Undead, that combined with being an Elf and it's possible to have even greater numbers of undead.
Tried the ball o' undead in a one shot. DM had me roll int. to determine how I placed my fleshy followers and arcana for my control over them. One nat twenty later and all of them were successfully placed with their torso facing outwards with their arms free allowing them to push the ground thanks to my control thus causing the ball to roll.
I enjoyed rolling this thing through a dungeon and the satisfaction my whole party experienced when the DM described the ball crashing into the BBEG, the ropes and chains snapping and an avalanche of undead raining down on him and devouring his now trapped corpse. Although I had no where near as many undead as this it was still fun with 20+.
I genuinely thank you for making this video, I have a couple friends that are trying to become really formidable necromancers (and possibly liches) in games but most of them don't know how they'd go about doing such a thing. This definitely made that so much easier and I'm almost astounded at how achievable such a thing actually is ._.
What about Finger of Death? While slow, it has the potential to raise an undead army with no limits. Take a couple levels in sorcerer and you can twin it to double the speed of your growth.
You can also use a Sorcerer/Warlock/Necro to cannibalize for spell slots and so long as you NEVER take a long rest you can have around 1443 level 5 spell slots for animating and maintaining all your fictitious bony/stinky bois. The only reason it’s not higher is because it takes pretty much all of your time for the next 70 days never taking more than a short rest for cat naps, wee breaks, and food binges as you recharge your pact magic to later burn into spell slots. Non-stop casting and there is literally not enough time to do more but that’s what friends are for.
Now as any proper necro churning out wave after wave of animate corpses, you’ll need pawns to actually collect those bodies since all you do is cast, burn magic, and short rest. Bonus points if you don’t care to maintain control over the 8000 or so walking horrors and just send them off in the vague direction of the nearest animate dead supply depot, visit the town/city later to begin again (or send your lackeys/controlled creatures). At that point the pocket dimension “zombie bomb” can be Contingency’ed in emergencies, spam Clone (or Wish spell for some insta-Clone free of costs... because who doesn’t take wish?). Maybe join the undead, maybe not. At this point it’s no longer a PC, but a force of (un)nature/villain as it’s going around sending scores of undead to ravage the land to make more undead.
Math was off, in theory you could have about 11,000 skeletons. This is also not my own calculation but I found elsewhere on the web a while back. Whoever you are, thanks for dedicating the time to helping discover more ways to break the game and add more ridiculous power to a crazy build (the build needs the War 5/Sor 9 to burn the two 3rd level pact slots for sorcery points. You can never have more than 9SP and for every 7 SP, you turn into a 5th level which can just keep accumulating for each sorcerer slot you buy this way via all those bonus actions).
Thank you runesmith, for quenching my thirst for lore, and scratching my itch for the dark arts of necromancy!
fun combo:
demi-plane and create undead put all your created undead in there tied up and have the last one untie the others once the plane closes. Then death comes, open the demi plane in a battle field and use your run and dash (or misty step) to get as far away as you can while the hoard of undead swarm the enemies. It's the easiest way to beat a BBEG.
Another one is:
finger of death just kill a bunch of weak innocents (or just weak humanoids) to gain a permanent army of zombies.
Finally:
you can use the necromancer's command undead to permanently take control of 1 undead, this works of night walkers. so you can have a pet CR 20 monster that doesn't even cost a spell slot so my other two plans can also work with this.
True Polymorph into Titivilus, animate dead at will. 4 per minute = 240 per hour = 5760 (ish) per day (or slightly less if you sleep). Give them the attack command, swap back to wizard, have all your regular spell slots for the battle. Oh, and while you're waiting for the battle, enjoy setting up cost-free symbols 1/day around your lair or future battlefield.
This would be the ultimate twist to a companion.
The friend you started out the game with is the final villain. And you helped him get there!
Inflict wounds and find steed/find greater steed are not on the wizard spell list. Instead, pick up Phantom steed, which is on the wizard list and is a ritual. Also pick up finger of death, which whenever you kill a humanoid, gives you a permanently controlled zombie
As someone who just made a necromancer. This video is very useful. Note should also mention mummy lordom as a alternative to lichdom.
Oooooh! Character idea?
A lick who had some complications in their ascent to lichdom, and got reset to a level one necromancer
I am reminded of undead reefs that (very, very slowly) make their way across like the ocean floor. Would probably be useful to act as controllable ice glaciers to to straight up run over all existing civilizations.
I've been fascinated with this process for a very long time. And i my travels i've noticed that there is a key difference in the school of necromancy. Two diverging possible pathways, though as it usually tends to be with human patterns, one of them is much more used than the other. The path described in your video is of the former. That of slaying spirited vessels, and using their shells to force your magical will into. The other path, is the usage of portals in the astral plane, the crystalline tethers between dimensions that houses the concentrated essences of souls on their journey to other places. Few are able to access them, like filling canteens from a running spring's river. Though when achieved, the level of quality of the Undead in question, is FRIGHTENINGLY apparent. Reflexes, levels of awareness and reaction times, persistence beyond continual damage, kinetic and magical. A soul derived directly from an astral source, its illumination reverberating through-out its form like a palace of forged mirrors, amplifying the astral light to burning heights.
As a necromancer.. it is truly a sight to witness and behold.
... and it's usually best to just use skeleton bodies for it... flesh happens to.. "evaporate", quite quickly..
I think more videos like this would be incredible.I really like this buildcraft aspect and think I am not alone.
additionally, assuming you have a 9th level spell slot you should consider using either Shapechange or True Polymorph to become a young red shadow dragon. This allows you to use your shadow breath to convert people into Undead Shadows which are permanently under your control, also Finger of Death for zombies who won't abandon you.
Step 1: Be a level 5 warlock with a level in wizard, cleric, or devine soul sorcerer to learn animate dead (So level six total.)
Step 2: Spend both your pact magic slots to cast animate dead, giving you 2 spooky boys.
Step 3: Short rest, then do it again, then again, then again, theres no limit to how often you can short rest in a row so you'll have 48 boiz at level 6, of course they'll start betraying you in batches of 2 every hour, starting at the 12 minute mark because you spent 48 minutes casting the spells and 23 hours resting. This is deffinately enough time for you to march them into a town tho.
I'm not gonna bother talking about the efficent method of reinstating control over pre-bakes spooks because I have a headache and can't be bothered with logisical bs.
Also you get to have more as you level up, caping at 18th level (17 warlock 1 w/c/s) assuming you blow your 6th and 7th level mystic arcanum on animate dead, and your 8th and 9th on wights (5 wights, 65 firends) then started the rest spam you would end up with 516 regular spooks and 5 cool warrior spooks.
Also learn simulacrum, +87 regular spooks and 5 more wights
Find Steed/Greater Steed is a Paladin spell. But by Raw we can do this.
Let's say we are 20th level wiz with a Simulacrum, and let's say we have a random Familiar from Find Familiar. Cast Find Steed or Find Greater Steed using the Wish spell.
Now here's where things get fun.
You have your Simulacrum cast True Polymorph on your familiar/steed, turning it into SOME sort of medium sized object.
Now YOU cast True Polymorph, utilizing the Object to Monster rules.
Turn your familiar into some sort of Shadow Dragon Wyrmling. After an hour, you have a perm Dragon familiar. This can be done following find Steed spell also, having up to two baby dragons who can control Shadows when they kill enemies with breath weapons.
Now here comes the fun part.
Rest.
Cast True Polymorph on yourself.
Turn into a Ghost(by this point it isn't far-fetched to say you can control many ghosts given the undead command ability.)
Cast your and any other ghosts Horrifying Visage action on your dragon. If your dm allows you to command it to fail saves, do that to speed things up.
Repeat until your dragons are now 800+ years old. Enjoy your Ancient Dragons.
Can be doubled if you make a fresh Simulacrum and repeat it on his own familiar/steed.
This dropped into my recommended at the PERFECT time
I love this so goddamn much. I’ve been slowly building a plan specifically to play a litch, and this is a great addition to a small collection of videos I’ve got links to for reference
Ruinsmith:
Why'd I make this video.
Us:
The populace must know
Everyone must know