How to Play a Necromancer in Dungeons and Dragons 5e
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ส.ค. 2024
- MONSTERS OF DRAKKENHEIM is 300+ pages of eldritch horror inspired monsters for 5e by the Dungeon Dudes! Coming to Kickstarter March 26th, 2024: www.kickstarte... The dead rise as we open the Necronomicon to look at how you can play a Necromancer in Dungeons and Dragons 5e! We discuss ways to realize this classic character concept using the classes, spells, and features in the Player's Handbook and Xanathar's Guide to Everything so you can wield dark magic and command a horde of undead minions to send forth against your enemies!
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This is our new take on the "Class Guide" where we take a classic fantasy archetype and discuss how we can realize that character concept using the classes, spells, and features in Dungeons and Dragons 5e. We'll be covering big archetypes like archers, healers, melee damage dealers, blasters, and more. We would love to know what archetypes you'd like to see us cover in the future!
Breaking down Illusionist archetype might be interesting.
Another two necromancers that are great inspiration: Ainz Ooal Gown from Overlord and Liliana Vess from Magic the Gathering.
Grim Harvest
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to reap life energy from creatures you kill with your spells. Once per turn when you kill one or more creatures with a spell of 1st level or higher, you regain hit points equal to twice the spell's level, or three times its level if the spell belongs to the School of Necromancy. You don't gain this benefit for killing constructs or undead.
The incredible self-healing mage by timing when to cast magic missile.
enemy looks near death? Magic missile it. Drop it and heal the necromancer.
I've always liked the spell inflict wounds. Idk why lol. But any archer type archetype would be really cool magic slinger or otherwise
Very nice! How about subclass specials?
Prince:"I have an army"
Necromancer: "So do I"
Prince: "I have money and well equipped soldiers"
Necromancer: "So will I"
Prince: "HEY, that was my army and well equipped soldiers!"
Necromancer: "Sorry, but I called dibs."
@@shadowwarrior2772 Arrows cost money! Undead cost nothing. :)
Well, soldier are drill till their tactics become instint. So a zombie hoard made from dead soldiers should have no problem in closing ranks and forming a shield wall. Just a wall of meat moving your way till you trip and fall to the ground and they march over you.
" The zombies are not attacking with their hands or weapons, they are just doing the Shield Push tactic till the first row of our troops fall back and trip into the row of soldiers behind them. Them the poor fools are trample to death."
Very creepy line!!💀😈
Prince: "I have slain a dragon"
Necromancer: "oh look, it's back"
* dragon skeleton animated by the necromancer lands heavily *
After a fire elemental devastated a village we saved, my necromancer used Animate Dead to raise some of the charred bodies as skeletons, then used them to help rebuild the village. The paladin was very conflicted.
This is great! 😂 I could easily visualize this, especially a paladin raising his finger in opposition. Yet, he doesn’t say anything, and just walks away; contemplating whether you can use evil for good. 100% Conflicted 😐 😂🧟♂️
Want to confuse the Paladin even more? Use Speak With Dead to get permission from the deceased to use their body for the task(s) at hand. Or raise bandits to undo the damage they’ve caused as penance.
@@Vessekx The "Consent-cromancer"
Lol 😆
@@dirtydan1652 to ok lb on CBS ok b ho
I will avenge the death of my brother
Elf "You have my bow"
Dwarf "and you have my axe"
Necromancer "and your brother"
Hahahaha perfect!
Haha
I'm so glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read this LMAO
I know this is a year late but that's clever so clever
Omg lol 😆 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Necromancy for beginners: Chapter 1 "Correct use of shovel"
Joke stolen from renowned fantasy author, Terry Prachett from his book Jingo.
Original quote goes:
"'Chapter Fifteen, Elementary Necromancy'", she read out loud. "'Lesson One: Correct Use
of Shovel...'"
If you didn't take mold earth for speed running a grave robbery
Ave Shovel, holiest of instruments
Shovel knight as a necromancer paladin
@@SamanthaVimes177 Okay, Google! Define "reference".
"Oh? So whos in your party?"
"A Fighter, a rouge, a Wizard and roughly 30-40 Skeleton archers"
"Oooooooookaaaaaay"
"Sorry, two skeleton archers. Someone just cast fireball."
30-50 Feral Hogs*
@@gamercorehop "Jason Isbell wants to know your location"
I like the 3. 5 version of the spell where you can create a number of HD rather than numbers, this allows you to make one or two reasonable tough companions, basically just extra hp for the party rather than an army. Also I'd like to be able make the undead permenently under your controll although I'd make it costly and time consuming for ballance
@@armoduesgrimlock7677 this is why you have them carry their own cover into battle
A necromancer who genuinely believes he is a regular cleric. The people he "heals" just happen to be pretty loyal.
I was just reminded of that girl in Walking Dead that couldn't really distinguish between the living and the undead.
I love it.
*Party memeber dies*
"Cleric" : I got this. Done!
Dead party member: rrrrraaaaahhhhh
"Cleric": Your welcome!
Other party members: *facepalms*
Mind if I barrow that if I ever get to play a game of d&d?
@@shadowwarrior2772 Sure, go ahead. Another point is the difference between clerics and wizards is that one needs faith and the other has to study and write down the spells. Maybe he studies *how* spells work and just assumes that his faith is what actually makes it happen.
@@lucasm.3864 Excuse me mr. aggresive orc. Have you heard of our lord and savior, fireball?
XD
I love the necromancer that is practical to the point of insanity.
“Would you take your friend’s boots if they died?”
“Yeah, but...”
“If it’s not wrong to use the belongings of the dead, then why is it wrong to use the bodies of the dead? They weren’t their bodies, they were souls inhabiting the body, like a person living in a house. I’m just inheriting the homes of my enemies.”
“Ok, but...”
“The dead have to be pretty selfish to refuse to give up their life-saving belongings to those that are still alive.”
“That’s fine normally, but you slept through your alarm and now your zombies are trying to kill us!”
“And I’ll make good use of your corpses, don’t worry.”
This is why I love the idea of making a lizardman Necromancer. To them, this would not be an evil act. Rather, it would be a natural way to re-use the bodies of their loved ones. Eat their flesh, resurrect their bones and make them be meat shields during hunts, etc.
Well technically speaking that's not practical. Some friends are more reliable in combat than some mindless undead. Especially wizards.
There is an entire country in my world in which it's normal to donate your corpse to the civil engineering corps (lol) and/or the military for use.
Notice it's donate, not a compelled thing, it's seen as honorable and is largely expected, but if you don't want to, you don't have to, you're buried respectfully in the necropolis with everyone else who didn't want to.
The standard of living is far above the surrounding nations, all menial labor is done with the undead from farming to janitorial services, Construction and transportation, to national defense.
The living are able to pursue passions, art, cultural works, crafts and trades, spiritual pursuits, philosophy, etc free from the need to provide for their own basic needs.
The ruling family (it's an imperium) are all lich, and yes, they rule forever as the progenitors of this way of life, but they aren't evil, and are respected widely for their service and leadership.
@@theravenousrabbit3671 In goblin slayer there is a lizard priest, but he mostly uses necromancy. Pretty cool
@@aennaenn7468 bloody zombies coming over here and taking all our jobs :'D
Step 1: Be magic
Step 2: acquire calcium bois
Step 3: ?????
Step 4: Profit
step 3: sell your skeletons as unsleeping, never exhausted workers.
I was absolutely waiting for
''It's not easy to raise a family''
''Not if they're buried close to each other''
''What?''
''What?''
joke
Lol this made me laugh harder than anything.
Keep your family close and your enemies closer. That way you can raise them all at once. :)
Zombie has flesh, muscle and brain.... is slow and stupid. Skeletons lack muscles and brains.... smarter and more dextrous than zombies
I love this lol
@@TheZentegi zombies are using a rotting, decomposed brain. skeletons have arcane intellegence. zombies have decomping flesh for hands, skeletons have bones capable of fine manipulation.
I've thrown around the idea for a while for a necromancer detective. She would use spells like Speak With Dead to solve mysteries and then mint out poetic justice with the bodies of victims.
ok i love her
Look up Anita Blake. Might be up your alley :)
I also like anita blake but the side job she does for raising zombies for loved ones would be cool but only for profit or some kind of reward. The ultimate true neutral necromancer. Lol
I've done this in a game too. The party & DM were expected a vast swath of destruction as a necro, but nope.
He's got priestly duties to fulfill & crimes to solve.
Eh... sounds kinda anticlimactic to me...
"Who killed you"
"My neighbour"
"ok, thx, have a nice death"
When you calm down a skeleton by giving it some milk.
"You know, I'm something of a necromancer myself".
"Maybe the necromancer just lost his cat and wants to bring him back"
That hit home hard...
And then follow up with No Pet Semetary.. Devastating
Wait if he do it can I call him "nekomancer"
One character idea I had for a while is the spoiled kid of a BigBad seeking a way into the beastwild to return thier dead dog. Becuase raising it from the undead "just isn't the same".
Like the little Girl at the waterfall in BG 1. You retrieve her dead cat for her and she says "that's ok, my Daddy will raise it". Which creeped me out enough but then she gives you one of the best scrolls in the game for your efforts (Control Undead) so I'm totally cool with it. :)
p.s. that scroll would have been pretty damn helpful in BG2, going up against Bodhi and her ilk... :o
Had a teacher in highschool who played a lawful good necromancer. He made contracts with peasants to lease the body and would cast speak with dead to get consent. Had a ledger with him if he ran into trouble. The undead would do menial labour so the regular people could learn a trade, dm got pissed.
Or a 'holy' necromancer. "Their soul is in Heaven and their bodies remain to aid the living. It is their last gift."
He called himself "Lord Zuckerberg."
Awh, that's kinda sweet
"When I die, i will tell my ancestors what they have done for their family. " it is a concept I've thought on.
I have an NPC named Gozdo (pronounced Goozhdo) - The Undead Contractor.
It is a small town with well to do people who are humble and kind. Everybody is happy. Then you realize that Gozdo and his five shift bosses are all necromancers and that all the work in the town is run by the undead.
If the party comes by day they will see a happy village and be able to negotiate for three quite easy quests for a considerable sum of GP.
But, if they come at night, see the sceletons working the fields, and attack one of them, they will have a 120 strong undead army, a 15 strong human militia, and 6 necromancers to deal with all at once.
"they are expendable"
i somehow like the ideo of a necromancer who is attached to his undead. or at least to one. i mean... c'mon... it's frank. he was there with you from the beginning. and he always listens when you need someone to talk to
Strongly agree, I like my Necromancer to care about their minions who'd take each death to heart...
There was a centaur ranger in my party who stole the clothes off some guy's back and then kicked his head in. I instantly went in with Animate Dead so I had this zombie just in his underwear following me around and fighting for the party that I named Bob. Unfortunately he fell in battle and was erased from reality and nobody but me remembered Bob.
I making one now ironically. Didnt think of naming them. But now I'm gonna have name tags
But then you realise Frank was an Undead creature and he was just some really loyal dude who wanted a place to stay he pretended to be Undead so that you would protect them so that we would have a friend sure you sent him to his death multiple times and after he came back time and time again you form to kinship with him not wanting him to die so you made sure that the newer resurrected we're sending before him to give him the best chance of survival and surprisingly enough after you told him to do stuff time and time again he started doing stuff without you telling him to never went against you always charging head first into a fight I could finish this but I think it's better if I leave it open-ended
I have a necromancer who is just this shy bookworm who learned how to make friends from one of her books. They don't talk much, but they're always there for her.
I love the idea of Wights working for commission. I can imagine them gathering around a boardroom table at the end of a long campaign with the necromancer chairing. "Alright, Grothnorr, your Q1 performance was very strong, but things really began to slide after that orc bit your arm off. You need to work on your threat assessments going forward..."
Noone gonna mention "finger of death"?! Killing a humanoid with this spell, reanimates them as a zombie PERMANENTLY under your command! 7th level but still the best necromancy IMO
I know, and you can store them in gate or the one wizard spell that creates a pocket dimension. Then let them out to consume everyone, or just fire ball the pocket dimension to get rid of your zombos
@@petermaximoff4598 You mean Demiplane? It's an 8th level spell that doesn't expel its inhabitants at the end of the spell. Only makes a 30x30 room, though, so it has rather limited zombie storage capacity, and you can't exactly open multiple demiplanes in the same day, at least unless you dump both your 8th and 9th level slots. Magnificent Mansion would be way better except that it dumps people out the door once the spell ends.
And Gate just lets you move people to other dimensions. Gods over those dimensions can prevent you using it. It doesn't create a magical storage facility. Although with Orcus' permission, you could probably store all the undead in his realm and open a gate to whatever shambling dead happen to be nearby.
@@Nurk0m0rath yeah I meant demiplane
@@Nurk0m0rath bags of holding. just back the skeletons into them, and put the bags inside a normal non magical bag. boom, portable army.
major plus, you can tie the bag shut. and whenever you want you can untie it and chuck it like an undead grenade and a bunch of uncontrolled skeletons will climb out.
even better, with a normal zombie army march into a village, grab all the people and tie them up. then over the course of a few days finger of death them all. once you have a few you can kill off your temporary zombies and have the perminant undead keep the villagers alive long enough for you to convert them all into perminant undead. rinse and repeat with the next town.
For real, my girlfriend's last character was a senile necromancer trying to resurrect her dead cat. I laughed so hard when you brought up the cat thing.
"Doctor, it's too late. He's dead."
"I didn't get my license revoked for nothing. He will live again!"
My favorite necromancer type: the overzealous healer
Necromancers are just healers that have not given up
Same. Theres an entire book series about this character called the Johannes Cabel series and it's awesome.
I want to play this type of Necromancer soo bad!
Played this character. Based him off the idea that even in the real world death is a potentially preventable ailment given the right technology (magic) we could repair and renew degradation of organs and cells. Copy and upload consciousness's onto hard drives (phylactery), etc. Etc. My characters goal was to seek the ultimate cure to the ultimate disease plaguing mankind. Death itself. Was really fun. If he couldn't cure someone he'd take it very personally and would preserve the body so he could bring them back when he had the proper know how later to revive them. Benevolent necromancy.
Up you go!
Necromancy isn’t inherently evil, it’s just recycling.
Right! I had a Warforged Necromancer who made the argument that if humans could animate a wood and stone and remain good he could animate flesh and bone.
TheFunnyMan Oh snap ... lawyered!
@@AspenBrightsoul that's a good point actually. Conjurers constantly summon creatures and constructs that presumably come from other dimensions. How is taking control of an already dead person any less moral in that context?
Had a player until recently that kept going on about how his magic was inherently evil and taboo, despite it being a homebrew world where the DM said nothing to give that impression. Even as a Shadow Sorcerer I had to keep trying to say in game, with hints of me as a player, "magic is magic, all of it can be evil, it's how you decide to use it that makes it what it is". Cuz I was sick of him being a fucking edge lord about being necro; Back in the sea with you!
Exactly, reduce reuse recycle
My Necromancer was known as “Father” .He was an insane necromancer that believed that the undead were his children.
“Why are you hurting my children? They only want you to join the family.☠️❤️”Whenever possible,he would welcome people into the family☠️! Imagine an evil kindergarten teacher.
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
I love it
That’s scary as hell
I love it
Welcome to the family son! *casts animate dead*
Bards with necromancy for magical secrets + roleplay = Necrodancer
Danse macabre?
Necromance if you want to
You can raise your friends to life
Your friends are undead
and if they ain’t dead,
then they ain’t no friends of mine!
@@talongreenlee7704 Amazing
@@talongreenlee7704
Solid Gold!!
Grateful Dead Dancing Skeletons
"There was even one playing a flute."
*KNEE DEEP IN THE DOOT INTENSIFIES*
necrobard build?
Or.... Operate a ship? Skeleton crew anyone?
Pretty sure the O.X. Adventure Guild did and made that exact joke. #dontbeaDob
I see what you did there...
@@mitchellculp5623 thank you
Holy shit, just load up a ship with skeletons manning it while the necromancer just chills in the captains quarters. That's aesthetic as fuck
I have an AL Cleric that owns a Warship and uses Animate Dead for 8 Skeletons I can keep a crew for the ship and if anything goes wrong I have Turn Undead.
Just rewatched this video, a really strong option I’ve found to create a gross amount of minions as a Necromancer is to combine The Undying Patron Warlock, with The Divine Soul Sorcerer, and make them an Elf. Long rests only consist of 4 hours of meditation with 4 more hours of light activity. Warlock. Slots can be converted into sorcery points to be converted into Sorcerer Slots, I’m not gonna bother with the math of it here but the amount of undead you can make with adequate access to corpses this way is utterly horrifying.
Like how many are we talking here.
@@Dakarai_Knight Depends on your level as to how efficiently it can be done, but work out the math. You can do, a hell of a lot. Toss in a catnap spell and it gets even scarier.
This build is broken especially because divine soul sorcerer gets greater restoration meaning you can potentially create infinite sorcerer spells through constant short rests and turning warlock slots into points turning into sorcerer slots. So the number of undead you can have may be infinite depending on how cool your DM is with strait mechanics abuse.
ive done the math and its at least 3
The coffeelock
Why raise a giant army of undead when you can raise an undead army of GIANTS? My next BBEG is going to ride around in the ribcage of a skeletal giant.
Yoink!
Ah yes, the "Gecko Moria".
Okay Matt Mercer...
It's time tho use third party resources, Necromancer Games Book of Lost spells let's you conjure Undead from orcus for less time in exchange for a higher cr.
that zombie cloudkill mosh pit idea is GOLD!! totes stealing for a neutral/sketchy necromancer NPC in my campaign
Or you could top it...Pile on an enemy and cast Sickening Radiance for a a spell slot cheaper, 10 extra feet of radius, 4d10 Radiant instead of 5d8 Poison admittedly but damage isn't your goal...Sickening Radiance also deals 1 level of Exhaustion every round they are in the cloud, which Skeletons are immune to. 5 rounds=5 levels of exhaustion=instant death with no saves.
And as a bonus they are lit up so you can see silly :P
I’m so relieved I found this video! Im a first time DM running for my partner and child…. Partner wants a necromancer wizard and my son wants to play an undead skeleton bard. Lol They created their characters without knowing what each other was making 🤯 hopefully I can pull this off, I love their creativity and want to make those characters work. I’m probably just going to re-skin a human for the skelly-bard. But honestly any additional advice from experienced DMs is welcome.
Im a little curios how did it went? :)
Love this, the skelly bard can be one of the necromancer's turned, but he chooses to stay with him
So... How'd it go??
Technically, you would be un-skinning, though.
As a warlock main, I kinda feel that necromancer could be a sub class by making deals with old gods such as nergal/Anubis/Osiris, or deities like Baron Samedi
OoooOo Nergal. The thing with Warlock necros is that with a short rest, you could build a huge army and be too op
@@EvelynSucksAtLifenah the thing that gives you the spell says we can only do it once
My AL Necromancer, Shrap, hit level 17 at the GameStorm PDX convention doing the Stardock Under Siege Epic. I run with 8 Skeletons, 3 Ghouls, 2 Wights, a Simulacrum manages a Wight, and any zombies we pick up on the way.
In general the undead are just preemptive healing and grapplers.
Right before we departed for the final battle to destroy the Nautiloid I collected gobs of flesh from each of the players and had my Simulacrum stay behind to cast Clone for everyone (using the treasure points to buy scrolls).
Nearly the entire hall died when the ship blew up, but my table managed to end the session alive thanks to the clones. Never felt like more of a hero for planning ahead.
Hell yeah, A necro-wizard is best for setting up a party lair filled with clones. Scrolls FTW!
Matthew Conlon wow I played my Necromancer in that same Epic at Winter Fantasy and at that time in the end also leveled to 17....Tath’myr actual got command undead control of one of the Alhoons and had fun for a minute having it as a thrall before it got destroyed🤷🏼♂️💀💀🕷🕸💯
Clones take a long time to develop right? Did they just wake up months later?
@@coranbaker6401 My own was a long time done, but the other players spent downtime. The DM had no problem with that (and if he had I had a solution using Contact other plane, plane shift, mighty fortress, simulacrum and the Fey Wild. He knew high level wizards played by high level nerds like me always have something).
Contact other plane to find coordinates to a part of the fey wild operating at minutes to days, plane shift to that area, cast a mighty fortress to keep the clones safe, make a bunch of clones, let them mature, come back. Whole thing takes a couple hours of "real time" while my simulacrum goes with the party. DM just said spending the downtime days would be fine.
I don't understand, how do skeletons get weapons like bow and arrows?
Demiplane helped me a lot when hiding my undead from the townsfolk. And it's also funny to draw a door on a wall and let your undead horde lose.
A nice twist to the standart "I'm gonna raise the dead around me"-Necromancer.
The best thing is, you can create more than one demiplane with the spell. SO you could have one demiplane with zombies, one with skeletons,...
how did you create the demiplane?
@@leam1978 via the spell "Demiplane" :D
PHB. p. 231
Ah, the best necromancer archetype- the OCD.
@@MrFox-xr9cc oh dang, didn't notice that, thanks!
I always put my undead horde in a bag of holding, that only had undead in it. First thing to do, turn the bag inside out.
10th level Necromancer here, I'm loving this video!
I've played Cedric from level 2 and he keeps giving me a lot of satisfaction. Raised by a Lich who used him as her phylactery (my DM's idea), he's now commanding a battalion of 12 skeletons. They all got names, he loves each and every one of them.
22:00 Convince a party member to be an Oathbreaker paladin and Ooooooo baby, when his 7th level Aura of Hate kicks in, all undead within 10 ft of him get his Charisma modifier added to their damage.
If you use Create Undead, those five corpses will deal (your proficiency) + (your Int) + (his Cha) EXTRA damage on top of their normal attack damage for every attack! Zero concentration!!
One of my friends and I did this once. The campaign only lasted for one boss fight, and we started to genuinely feel bad for them.
@@BrenttFease Hahaha love it!
I'm sad that Kelly's name at the beginning didn't say "Skelly" McLaughlin... its a real missed opportunity
He actually made that joke in a later episode of Dungeons of Drakkenheim the campaign that Monty ran, and which is now on its season two. Totally recommend checking it out!
I dont see the joke, kelly skelly mclaughlin.
😹
I thought the same thing!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Clearly he has never played Eberron... That whole "Oh, hey friendly neighbourhood necromancer" thing could totally happen in one of the nations of Eberron.
you mean Karrnath?
if I am not mistaken the undead armies are not in contact with regular soldiers and civilians.
I had an Elven Dread Necromancer as a villain in Eberron 3.5 way back when. The concept was that he was from Aerenal who was dead set on proving that negative energy was just as useful for undead creation and could be used for good deeds. Eventually they kinda went nuts after being exiled from his home and wanted to destroy his homeland. It was a fun concept.
For those interested in this I recommend looking into the finger of death spell, as it specifically says the creature remains under your control permanently, though this is a 7th level spell, that persistence is very useful and this plus the necromancy school wizard's 14th level feature command undead, can make a pretty reliable army
I'm starting a new campaign with my main antagonist being a Necromancer. You guys have given me some great ideas on how to run her. Thanks a bunch!
Necromancer w/ a skeleton eh? Not biggie for a pally.
If you're having ghoul problems, I feel bad for you son. I got 99 problems but a lich ain't one
Zipperon Disney stealing this.
😂😂😂
YOU LEAVE MY DAD ALONE!!!
No joke i have a pathfinder character who's father is a lich and there mom is a Angel
Team up with an oath breaker paladin and use his aura of hatred to make your skellies even more stronk.
DM here. Watching this makes me want to set up a humorous encounter for my players where a novice necromancer loses control of his minions just as combat starts.
That would be evilishly hilarious 🤣
Necromancer: you are too late adventurers! I’ve already poisoned the water supply, now face my undead army!
*Combat starts and the undead aren’t moving
Necromancer: w-what?!
Skeledude: yeah sorry dude but like where just kinda....done y’know? Anywho we kinda need your flesh.
Necromancer: nuuu your my minions save me heroes ;w;
Necromancer: "Go forth, my minions!"
*Skeletons take a few steps forward, bones start to clatter to the ground*
Necromancer: "...Wait, what's that sound-"
*turns around to see skeletal army has collapsed to nothing*
Necromancer: "...Oh hells, not this again..."
This really inspired me to play a necromancer, thank you Dungeon Dudes!
Friend: hey dude, are you rebinding your necro army?
Me: ehmmm... Are we coming back to this town?
DM: i don't think so.
Me: I run like hell out of there.
I've been playing a necromancer for a year, and next session I will finally be raising my first minions with animate dead (we started at 1st level).
In the meantime my DM let me treat find familiar as a necromancy spell to keep the feel of it. My first familiar was Hans, the crawling claw. Hans was my character's second husband, and I kept his reanimated hand after he died. My favourite thing to do was have Hans be floated about with mage hand.
A fire trap finally got him though and now I have Ibsis, the delightful little undead hummingbird. (Don't worry, no hummingbirds were murdered in the creating of this familiar, I obtained a recently deceased one by bartering with a toucan.)
A bunch of nasty monsters recently tried to maul my heroic fighter to death after he selflessly put himself in harm's way to save us, and I've informed him that from now on we're having disposable undead taking the beating for him because I couldn't stand to lose him.
this sounds really fun
It is so, SO fun.
You've played for a year and only now reached level 5? Sounds tough.
Level 6, and acquired appropriate corpses just recently. We play twice a month for about 3-4 hours and love to engage with all the side-options. Like acquiring dead hummingbirds from a toucan Pharaoh who sponsors my embalming apprenticeship with macademia nuts because he wants my character to be a master embalmer by the time he dies...
Yeah you don't get much xp for that but I'd do it all over again....
I'd say you can't make that stuff up, but obviously my DM can.
@@TheFirstLanx Ah okay, you only play twice per month. Sounds like good fun. Cheers!
My necromancer character started off with the best of intentions. He was seeking a cure for death by studying necromancy. Of course he did go off the rails a bit after a while...
I need to know this story.
That was one of my best BBEG's motivations.
Lawful Good Goliath Necromancer. He made contracts with peasants to lease the body and would cast speak with dead to get consent. Had a ledger with him if he ran into trouble. The undead would do menial labor so the regular people could learn a trade.
"Their soul is in Heaven and their bodies remain to aid the living. It is their last gift."
"When I die, i will tell my ancestors what they have done for their family. "
“I only create undead from those who have been sentenced to death by the city, or have volunteered the bodies as a final gift of service.”
So while this wasn't in 5th edition, it was very fun all the same. So we were playing 3rd addition using lots of the extra classes and special features. I had originally rolled a Sylvan Elf Sorcerer and we all started at Level 1. I played my initial spellcaster as a sort of "unoffical" semi-religious combat focused type. Always focused on how to most effectively pass any encounter using the least amount of resources. I also was big into making a case for disappearing whenever we would go into towns and create scrolls. I always made sure to inform all of the other player characters that I was going to go "load up" while we were in town so they became used to me being off on my own for long periods of time from the very beginning. I was adept at creating spell scrolls to further augment my casting abilities. My favorite catch phrase was ... Hold on I think that I have a scroll for that. We were also told to plan on playing Epic Level Characters and plan accordingly. I absolutely did.
Every other level I alternated a level of cleric. So at 2nd level I was a 1st level sorcerer / 1st level cleric ... at 6th level I was a 3th level sorcerer / 3rd level cleric. I showed off my sorcerer skills and no one ever found out about my cleric side. I took on the "Death Domain" from becoming a priestess of Shar. Now Shar's other domain is trickery so my holy object was a silver medallion shaped and in all appearances was to the Goddess Selune (Shar's Sister); Secretly it was hollow with a compartment that had my actual blessed token of Shar. Needless to say splitting my levels like that was putting me behind the power curve which is why I focused the majority of my spell-casting abilities in direct damage combat to hide my actual progression. Based on how I roleplayed everyone thought that I was some permutation of the good or lawful alignments.
At 7th level is where I started to really get take off. I took Mystic Theurge as a Prestige Class at level 7. For every level of Mystic Theurge I gained 1 arcane caster level and 1 divine caster level simultaneously. When we were hitting levels 15/16 I was effectively a 13th level Sorcerer / 13th level Cleric and could shift spells between arcane/divine using the MT's combined spells ability. When I got my final MT prestige ability Spell Synthesis I could cast 2 spells as a single action. The next 4 levels I took levels in Divine Thuerge which again gave me 1 arcane caster level and 1 divine caster level for each level of Divine Thuerge. When we hit level 20 and hit the Epic plotline progression I was effectively a 17th level Sorcerer and a 17th level Priestess of Shar. When we started delving into the Abyss and confronting demons is when I stopped taking Mystic Thuerge and began the new Prestige Class of Artificer. I took 10 levels of this during our Epic Exploits.
I became very devious when we delved into the Abyss. Knowing that delving into the Abyssal Plane allowed me to be semi-free from Mystra's ban on magic I was able to now cast 10th level spells as long as I was able to fuel them with blood magic instead of drawing upon the weave. At least that is how the DM and I discussed it and made a compromise based on a future plot twist. So during our travels and demon slaying I was secretly seeking and trading information behind the scenes with demons and the occasional devil while the rest of the party spent hours dividing up loot and other spoils. Occasionally I would fight for an item or two but most of the time I would take whatever magical items no one else wanted as my share. I had better things to do. Such as learn blood magic rituals until I was finally able to create a spell focus which was my key to casting 10th level spells without Mystra's permission. It allows me to store magical energies in this focus and so each time we delved into the Abyss I would be disenchanting random magical items until I had enough spell essence from my Artificer Prestige Class to create more and more spell focuses. This was the REAL reason why I risked going into the Abyss.
We would constantly be coming back and forth between a few towns and spending about a month or so between trips into the Abyss. This is when each member would go off and do a lot of solo or small group adventuring to obtain rare materials to craft magical items. Once I became an Artificer everyone wanted me to pimp them out. So I would send them off finding materials to craft their 'uber' gear. Almost half of the materials I sent them to get was stuff for my ulterior motives. While these individuals were out getting me dragon blood or mining mithril ore I was busy creating my own greater undead minions. Through the amount of demonic lore that I was able to uncover I could in essence create custom greater undead. They weren't overpowered or anything and had much of the same combat abilities or stats as other undead; it was that I got to specifically choose which feats these greater undead would have rather than those straight out of the monster manual. Each of my undead generals would have the same three feats among a couple others based on what I needed them for. I was also able to make weaker versions of my generals as lieutenants that my generals could control.
*Extra Controlling (Turning) - Allows the user to attempt to control undead 4 additional times per day than normal. Can be taken multiple times. Each time grants 4 more control attempts per day.
*Enhanced Controlling (Turning) - Req's Cha 13+, Extra Controlling (Turning) - When using this feat roll 3d6 + cleric (or monster) level + charisma modifier to determine the amount of HD of undead to control.
*Master of Undeath - Req's Cha 15+, Extra Controlling (Turning) - For the purposes of controlling undead you are treated as if you are 2 levels (or 2 HD higher) higher.
I took the above feats and stacked all of these benefits not only on myself but on all of my Greater Undead minions as well. I then also went about having them seek out and kill lone and isolated individuals and others to rob graveyards for bones (didn't want people noticing large towns of people disappearing). I then went and had these undead begin mining stone, ores, etc from deep underground and stockpiling them in a desolate and out of the way location.
Now we fast forward to when we hit level 30. At this point my casting ability is now equivalent to a 27th level sorcerer and 17th level cleric. The journeys into the Abyss are no longer a challenge. All of my fellow party members are in their version of pimped out gear (many of them were very uncreative) when the Goddess Mystra came to them alerting them to someone casting forbidden magic (10th level and above) on the prime material plane and she is unable to stop the user from manipulating the weave (damn those blood ritual fueled spell focuses). She enlists their help only to find out that the person using the magic is me. Mystra had become aware of my spell casting ability when I successfully cast Proctiv's Move Mountain to create my very own flying mountain ... to which my now Legions of undead were busy building the fortress that I had designed. Needless to say, by manipulating and using my own party to gather everything I needed I became our campaign's very own Big Bad Evil Guy and pretty much something similar to The Night King from Game of Thrones in sheer ridiculous amounts of undead that I could control because of all of the stacking benefits.
The final battle was more than epic. I showed them all of the creative things that you can do with virtually endless amounts of low HD undead creatures (I had brought 10 sets of dice to speed up "my turn"). They also saw the (offensive?) capabilities of the Artificer as I began to disenchant their magical items (that I created) throughout the conflict. Because I was their primary spellcaster they had to go out and hire spellcasters as minions. I had taken the Absorb Spell and Bloodburn (increase effective caster level and take 1d6 damage for each effective level raised for the purposes of casting spells) feats to make me nearly immune to magical effects (every spell I absorbed replenished a spell of the same level that I had already cast) and to rain down devastating combat spells. I had crafted my own personal near artifact level gear to mitigate the negative effects of bloodburn and push my abilities and stats to near godlike levels (thanks guys for all the free materials!). I had crafted items that neutralized or mitigated most of my former party member's abilities and their gear (I did make all of their stuff after all). It eventually ended when I made my fortress into a quasi spell-jammer ship (thanks guys for all the free magical essence from disenchanting!) and they got to watch me leave the Forgotten Realms with my undead horde to pillage other realms in the name of Shar.
Sounds like pun-puns best friend to be honest
"theres a lot of ways to bring your necromancer to life"
Best necromancer concept is the guy who got kicked out of bard school for being too tone deaf. He plays any instrument SO BADLY that he LITERALLY WAKES THE DEAD.
Or find an ancient cursed instrument that litteraly steal the soul of the people hearing it and making them zombies
The bard who twists everyone’s words so much that rather than just rolling in their grave they have to rise from their grave
This sounds like an awesome cursed item. Sure it gives +1 (or whatever) to your bard stuff, but it sounds so bad that it raises zombies and skeletons, who seek you out for disturbing their rest...
One concept I've been sitting on for a while (that 5e definitely makes difficult because of established lore) is a necromancer who doesn't see anything morally wrong with using magic to reuse a body because the person who inhabited that body is gone now - its just societal taboos that have everyone treat it as inherently evil. Meanwhile he's staunchly opposed to enchantment magic because it's an attack on a person's sense of self and reality and you are your perceptions and memories and choices. All that necrotic "syphoning life energy" stuff in combat? Nevermind that - it's technically more humane than burning them or stabbing them right?
Still working out just how much wiggle room I'd need to as a DM for, but I'm excited to see where a character like that ends up.
Necromancy is D&D lore is considered evil because it uses energy from the negative planes to reanimate the corpses, those planes are evil so the undead created by it are inherently evil, no matter if they are intelligent or not and attack the living when they are not controlled.
It would be interesting to see a campaign where the negative plane is neutral, leading to mindless undead only attack in self defense and intelligent undead can be of any alignment.
That's exactly how my Wizard became a necromancer. The Undying where he used to live hated raising dead, calling it evil, so he wanted to be a bit contrary.
@@Hektols And here comes my next Idea for a wish-spell... Make it, that all undead from now on and to all enternity will be TN!
thanks for the explaination and the idea.
This has always bothered me; necromancy is inherently evil because it brings an evil creature into the world. (At least according to the logic.) Yet we have a lot of necromancy spells that aren't about raising dead. Chill Touch, Toll the dead, etc. Yet enchantment magic and illusion magic is directly created to manipulate living beings. How is that not inherently evil?
I have a character concept for a Bard Necromancer that takes animate dead at level 6 (Lore Bard). You use illusions and costumes to dress them up like members of your acting troupe/band since the skeletons have the dexterity to play basic instruments and would be okay at dancing if you give them specific enough instructions.
My favorite necromancer build for safety: divine soul sorc and warlock. Get your animate dead from divine soul, and use warlock spell slots to spam it even more when building your army and then to refresh it more often to ensure your control doesn't lapse
Team idea:
Fallen Aasimar Oathbreaker Paladin
Tiefling Necromancy Wizard
Drow Spores Druid
Yuan-Ti Pureblood Death Cleric
Would be such a cool idea to have these villainesque necromancers all in one team. Gives me a suicide squad vibe. (Not saying the movie was good btw)
Get ready for some Multi-hour turns though
sees a corpse
everyone: mine mine mine mine mine mine
Add a halfling rogue- assassin that specializes in poisoned cross bow bolts to the jugular vein...
a bard college of lore would also work - magical secrets for animate dead - also he's a skillmonkey to deal with traps etc.
There's a "Necroficer" homebrew class I found online, and it's essentially a doctor who discovered the mystery of re-animation.
He ain't evil, he has just been a hermit, studying anatomy for the last... 500 years.
He just doesn't realize it's wrong to raise the dead.
You mean "Herbert West, Re-animator"?
Give the necromancer the "Feeblemind" spell: "On a failed save, the creature's Intelligence and Charisma scores become 1". Use it against higher CR undead that you want to take control of through "Command Undead". You or someone in your party could throw on "Bane" or something similar to get an extra little boost.
Astoshan I think I spelled that correctly. Loved his story
You get a set of animated skeleton archers to have a sack of bones on their back. When the enemy gets close you cast Dance macabre on them and get up of their buddies back and pull out the extra weapon the carrier was holding for them.
Also take over a giant skeleton and make a armored platform for you to cast from, a giant, walking, undead platform giving you 3/4 cover.
Or ask your DM if you can cast animate dead at a higher level for an undead elephant.
Deadlifting can help you get on the necromancer mindset for great RP
Ha, I get it.
Bahabahahahahaahabah
Raising a family is hard
Necromancer: not if they’re buried together
What
Necromancer: what
Nice!! >XD
So after watching this from start to finish I think it can be stated that:
Necromancy in dnd 5e requires a lot of preparation ahead of time for both the character AND the player. And if you're up to the bookkeeping it's a rewarding bit of spooky mischief
Don’t forget the Castlevania necromancers. Those dudes were cool af
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, sooner or later you'll be one of us! :D
Thank you for this wanted to play a necromancer and now I can finally build one
In my current homebrew campaign, I added a faction of mostly peaceful necromancers who figured out how to live in their own isolated part of the world, using their powerful skills to obtain an infinite supply of food by creating zombie plants that can be grown, killed and harvested, and then raised from the dead to be harvested again in a continuous cycle.
All the plants looked off, though. The wheat had a sickly-green hue, the tomatoes were malformed, the potato plants had brown patches on them, etc.
They are truly using the best sustainable farming practices, and all the manual labor was done by zombies...including a zombie waiter at a cafe-style restaurant, wearing a shirt with the name "Bob" written on it, who speaks only in grunts and groans.
Necromancer, Death Cleric and Oathbreaker Paladin in the same party would be amazing to try out at some point. They would have so much synergy going on!
I think there was some sort of group/mob mechanics in the DMG if you happen to have a crazy amount of allies. This sounds like the perfect opportunity to check those rules out.
Are you guys interested in talking about homebrew classes/subclasses? I love testing them out so it would be fantastic to hear out what you guys think about them as a concept and if you have any favorites.
How about war cleric instead? They get crusader's mantle at level 5 to buff the many skeletons (way ahead of a paladin) and if that doesn't work for a combat a necrotic spirit guardians is just metal.
Throw in a lore bard as well, stocked with necromancy spells from the magical secrets...
The new UA gives the Warlock access to Animate Dead.
I'd add in a Hexblade Warlock for a bit of eldritch power, plus the ability to make Specters.
I've been thinking about trying to make my own full necromancer class lately, cause I feel like the necromancer options available right now are just different flavors of a true necromancer. It's still just concepts swirling in my head, but I wanna start with making INT and CON the proficient saving throws. I originally considered making CON the spellcasting ability, but decided better of that and made it INT. My logic behind it that I want to explore in the rest of the class is that Necromancers have a fascination with life and death, leaning heavily towards death. Things that can kill, and can bring back to life. I believe a good necromancer would want to understand the limits of the body and how to endure things, and would therefore have a high CON, and a proficiency in working with the life force CON provides. As they level up they will become resistant to poison, and endure more suffering than a wizard would typically be capable of. They will learn to harness and utilize the wear and tear on life force in different ways. Some would specialize in raising armies, others will specialize in casting dark curses to drain vitality, while others still will steal that vitality for themselves. There could be room for 'pestilence' necromancers that work with rot and the appeal to scavanger creature swarms, or a talent for poison and disease.
Raising the dead is - while iconic - only one small aspect of what necromancers are capable of at large.
15:10 food for thought sometimes if a DM is nice enough in a situation like this you can say you want to research Magic and they'll give the rules and rolls to slightly alter a spell if you do good enough. Four villains who researched that stuff for more than adventurers do would probably be able to alter spells enough to command an undead Beholder Army or for that Adventure that just wanted to bring his cat back to life studies the spell enough to alter it from humanoids to Beast so he can.
Don't forget about the bard as a necromancer option with their magical secrets ability. Its pretty much dual class spellcasting at its best. You get to use other spells as your own. So many options for background and personality. With the bards jack of all trades its the perfect character for a 1 man adventure.
I use command undead on shadows so you can create more shadows and build an undead army of shadows
so my DM actually let me do this and he regretted so much be cause when it came time to finish the final boss I had about 30 shadows that I had built up just before hand safe to say the DM hated me for killing his boss in one round before it could even attack because no creature in the game is given a strength stat of over 30 so yeah the boss is dead even if I roll a one for every shadow on their strength drain attack
@@YourBoyNobody530 the attack still has to hit in order to drain the strength stat
Shadows also have no built in control mechanic over any shadows they create. It's part of what makes them dangerous. So even if you take control of a few. You'd still have to deal with all the rest that came from those few.
@@Quandry1 Slap your command on those, too. Some will inevitably succeed but it should be a pretty reliable tactic.
@@jhinpotion9230 When you use command undead, you lose control of any previous undead that you had used it on. So you can only have control over one undead creature in that way, at least from how I'm reading the ability.
I'm so glad you mentioned The Dragon Prince
I have a character where my necromancer is a life insurance salesman but the fine print on the paper bonds them to his control before and after they die.
My current party is 3 tanks, a necromancer that creates a group of skeleton archers, and a terraforming wizard. We're unstoppable...
When you talk about the game text of spells, feats, or other official 5e content, it is really helpful when you put the text on-screen, and I love when you put pictures in to give your audience imagery of what you are talking about. It also helps maintain engagement and gives your audience a reason to watch the video rather than just listen to it like a podcast.
I am a new DM and have learned so much from listening to you two, so thanks a lot, and keep it up!
Seeing the title makes me want to play Mr. Rogers Necromancer, alignment Friendly Evil.
Robert Kirk I was thinking of making a necromancer with the body type and personality of mis. Doubtfire 😂🤣
I wanna hear more about ‘tis friendly evil
I haven't played her yet, but, this video helped me decide to build a Necromancer. Thanks guys. This is gonna be so mych fun
My favorite nonstandard presentation of necromancers is in a blog I read about a person's homebrew world that includes a country named the Necromantic Socialist Republics. Skeletons are used for all menial and repetitive labor like mining, farming, carrying mail, pulling rickshaws, etc. In return for providing a post-scarcity society, the state asks two things of each citizen: learn necromancy, and join the labor force when you die.
That's actually a super cool concept, a united necromantic front
I'm thinking USSR but with more Lich's
*Me re-reading my comment realising more Lich's implies the real USSR held the secret to lichdom*
@@philswiftdestroyerofworlds1988 Not totalitarian, though. More like the Jetsons, but with skeletons instead of robots and no Spaceley.
Gotta say, my favorite necromancer archetype are the Golgari necromancers. Undeath is just a continuation of life for them and they view leaving a body in the ground as a waste of materials.
Reduce, Reuse, Reanimate!
The trick is, it’s kind of hard to do the “bring back someone I love” story in a setting where clerics have access to a frankly much better option. It can be done, there just needs to be extenuating circumstances for why divine magic won’t cut it.
Only if we assume a setting where there are mid-to-high level clerics who will cast Raise Dead or Resurrection on anyone, no questions asked, in exchange for money -- and such costs are affordable to those who aren't hyper-rich. There's no reason to assume that's the case: the rules themselves make no judgement call on how common and accessible these services should be. In my view, most D&D worlds are much more interesting when on-demand divine-magic as-a-service is exceptionally rare or practically unheard of. It doesn't require banning the spells or nerfing player characters, either, just establishing that NPCs who do these things are rare/ basically nonexistent.
@@DungeonDudes Great point.
Some players came to the conclusion that clerics from gods of trade and commerce would offer this service because it perfectly matches their religion, then they found out that none of those clerics they could find had enough level to cast the spell because they were focused in gaining money throught regular business.
Unlike NPC wizards, who are generally focused in gaining power and knowledge, NPC clerics are more focused in gaining new followers for their gods and serving their communities, something that they can do without gaining high cleric levels.
A cleric's caster level doesn't determine how faithful they are but how skilled they are in handling divine magic.
Necromancer's who can cast the 8th level spell Clone . . . As long as you have access to the materials you can create more than one Clone. And if you have Demiplane you can store your clone in a demiplane so you don't have to worry about it being destroyed. Then when you die your soul automatically goes to your clone. And the spell states that you can make your clone a younger version of yourself. So Immortality for you and your wife forever. You just keep coming back as 20 something year olds . . .
@@DungeonDudes This also adds to the PCs as they feel like the original people who are carving these paths out, learning these magic's that no one has ever heard of before. Wish should be a common spell, nor should True Resurrection unless it fits your setting. These things were tailor made for the party to experience first, imo.
Grief can make people act in completely irrational ways. Perhaps the griever/soon-to-be-necromancer curses the gods for allowing their loved one to die, and decide to take matters into their own hands, to spit in the faces of the gods and show them that they don't have the 'final say', that they don't have all the power.
The exceptionally high cost and/or rarity of a cleric's abilities would also be a good reason to look to the darker arts, as already pointed out.
This has been quite a fun class to play in my campaign.
Undead minions aside, there have been a few occassions when my necromancer has come in clutch by casting Vital Sacrifice for a blood boon, stacking an additional 2x D6 necrotic damage, and then dropping an AoE Wither and Bloom on a few enemies, getting at least one kill or a few, and healing a downed/nearly downed ally.
The cherry on top is getting to finish with Grim Harvest to regain that lost health+ from your self-inflicted wounds of casting vital sacrifice 😎🤘🏻.
Vital sacrifice used in this way is also a great way to turn your Toll the Dead cantrip into quite a powerful tool. Only catch is that Vital Sacrifice is at the expense of your own health pool and Grim harvest cannot be used to regain HP on cantrips... only spells of 1st level or higher.
I'm just about to run a oneshot in which the bbeg is a necromancer except I've planned a plot twist where he was actually a good dude who was trying to move corpse's after a plague so they wouldn't infect more people. So when the party finally reach him he's just a good dude with good intentions who is completely misunderstood because he's a necromancer.
can't wait to tell my skeletons to start digging ditches/ trenches. finally my knowledge of WW1 trench warfare tactics will pay off!
Sappers.
"I lay siege onto the city!"
"why the hell would you do that?!?"
"It'S wHaT mY cHaRaCtEr WoUlD dO!"
In one campaign that was centered on a war between several nations and factions (as well as the politics of it) this one nation was demonized for using undead soldiers. Turns out the undead soldiers agreed to it and they wanted their bodies to still serve, even in death.
Weird ww2 info does ur character know that shit. Meta gamers...
over the top lads!
Bob the Necromancer: He is accually a bard that has high deception.
And a high decomposition
@@justanotherdayinthelife9841 The greatest de-composer
Alignement Role-playing a necromancer is pretty though too in a good or even neutral party,
You can also stockpile your army in a portable hole / bag of holding or dungeon cells (MCDM Strongholds & Followers) until you need them (they attack living things while not under your control not themselves). Then, the night before your attack, you assert control and you're ready.
I’m currently playing a CN tiefling necromancer. I dipped one level in death domain cleric. It’s worked out ok so far as close to classic fantasy necromancer as I could get.
Another fun idea that’s very thematic is casting Dragon’s Breath on one of your Undead and having the others hold them down whilst they spray poison on all of them.
It's funny you guys post this because I have a necromancer in my current campaign. He is also trying to turn into a lich.
Dereck Heineman combine magic jar with clone and it’s basically your phylactery. And it is mostly within the rules for you to have your way to “discover” lichdom.
@@secretsmith813 I am using a homebrew thing. First he has to find the scattered pages of the process. Then he has to perform said process. Then he is a lich
I’m new to D&D and after playing all the Diablo games I fell in LOVE with Necromancers. So when I found out you can create a Necromancer I had dive deeper into perfecting this class. Thank you so much for this I had a gist of how I wanted the backstory to my character.
Edit: you literally brought up the Diablo game once I posted this comment that’s awesome lol
For my Necromancer, his use of his powers was tied to his backstory. He came from a place where necromancy was normal. It was used in practices to honor the dead, seek guidance from ancestors, and to never forget their history.
My DM shit his pants because he’d never had a player flip his expectations on what their pc would be like.
I was just thinking of making a sheet for an important necromancer NPC, perfect timing.
Talion in Middle Earth Shadow of War is another example of a more complex and nuanced necromancer character. A good source of inspiration for a player back story.
I'm just starting a new game and really wanted to play a Necromancer so this has helped immensely.
Feeling a Gnomeish type character, heavy cockney accent, maybe a leather jacket, bit of a lad. Introduces himself with a business card "Turf McGowan, specialist in Labour recycling "
Will be a laugh casting dark magic but treating the risen like the new crew on the late shift
I created a Lawfull Neutral Gnome Necromancer who was simply facinated by the concept and the mechanics of death. He wasn´t driven by powerhunger and had no intention to cause death to others, he just wnated to study the boundries of life and death from a purely academic standpoint. He joined the party just for the high probability of witnessing death on a regular bases as well as the related amount of test subjects. He was the definition of high Int but low Wisdom combined with absolut social cluelessness, he could determen the time and cause of death by a quick look, but wouldn´t get the hint that he isn´t supposed to disect the corps at a funeral (which actualy happend in our campaign).
“Diablo defines how we think of the necromancer” Garth Nix would like to talk to you.
HECK FREAKING YES!!!!!!! Favorite book series EVER! Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen for you uninitiated.
Fantastic books, one of my favourite series!
Wow, I never realized how different real D&D necromancy works, especially with "Raise/Create Undead". How I did it in my D&D is the player would cast "Undead" by successfully rolling, then they would roll a D10 to determine that Undead's level, if the level was higher than that of the player's then they would have to constantly retake control of that Undead or run the risk of it basically growing its own personality which may conflict with the user's. If the level of the Undead was lower than the player's then they had complete control over the Undead and didn't have to recast the spell to maintain control. It made for some pretty funny moments, especially when one of my friends (who ran the Necromancer) accidentally made a Death Knight (lvl 10 Undead with an AC of 28 and a STR of 20 (+10)). The player was only level 7 and couldn't control the Death Knight but through some miracle the Death Knight was once an honorable general and pledged loyalty to the Necromancer for resurrecting him.
One of my favorite necromancers in the D&D universe is Bob the Necromancer from the Dragonlance novel Lord Toede. You never see him in person, but he makes a great presence.
I created a Mountain Dwarf Runecarver background Wizard who is currently lvl 1 but plans on School of Necromancy subclass, though he primarily uses Acid and Poison cantrips/spells outside of that (which is very neat and theoretically can use the Acid to create Skeletons rather then just Zombies). He is Chaotic Neutral and his reasoning to choose Necromancy is because he seeks Apotheosis/Immortality and his families Ancestral Home was taken over by an Army of Undead lead by an Arch-Lich. He seeks to reclaim it and realizes that the best way to counter them is being a Master of Undeath himself.
I also have a Drow Feylost Death Domain Cleric sworn to the Raven Queen currently lvl 1. I also have a High Elf Gate Warden Druid currently at lvl 1 who plans on Circle of Spores. I also have an Astral Elf Anthropologist Paladin currently lvl 1 who is planning on Oath of Conquest.
What's really fun with them is if I found a suitable D&D group I could theoretically attempt to play at least 2 of them at the same time and could have them augment each other:)
Thumbs up for the dragon prince reference
I had fun with my CN Orc Necromancer Blaster, i often had 2-4 zombie bodyguards in armor and hooded cloaks. I was able to solo kill a higher level Drow Cleric by starting with a fireball then 6-7 Chill Touch attacks and ended it with a fireball before she could get teleported away by the demon she summoned. I was also hidden in vegetation and never seen while she was on a barge in the lake. He also had a weasel familiar that was the spirit of his Necromancer grandfather. All of this was in an Orc only campaign, at least at the start.
In 3.5, I played a dark cleric who honored balance above all. He respected druids and good clerics but found them naive when death is concerned. He would not raise humanoid undead without permission, but animal/monster undead were fair game. He used them for utility and labor as often as combat. His stern yet ominous demeanor made it fun when entering new locations. He wouldn't break their laws (unless in combat or deemed necessary), but he'd constantly challenge their beliefs and way of life. He generally ended up with paladins or gaurds following him the first couple days in each area. :P
When I played a necromancer, I typically roll with 2-3 skeletons, 1-2 zombies, and whatever I've used my Command Undead on. I typically will use Command Undead on a Wight or a Mummy, depending on if I want it to do damage or raise some more zombies. With negative energy flood, I've actually managed to raise and command a zombie wyvern (since it specifies CREATURE and not humanoid).
Typically whatever undead creature I've commanded is treated like a lower level member of the party, as we give it our lesser magic weapons and armor. Again, with the addition of Negative Energy Flood I've been able to bolster my "cohort" with temporary hitpoints to where it survives, despite being focused on. I really do wish there was an "animate creature" spell at higher levels, allowing us to animate more than humanoids into zombies/skeletons. I also wish Create Greater Undead would come back, whether at 8th or 9th level.
Negative energy flood doesnt give you control over the zombie as far as i can tell
@@bryanmacdonald8015 It doesn't, but if you are a Necromancer Wizard you can get access to Command Undead.
My first ever character was a drow necromancer in 2nd edition. When I first started playing 5th edition I was a little upset with how players couldn't have hordes of undead like they used to.
That being said, now that I've been playing 5th edition for a year or two now, playing a necromancer in 5th edition can be a blast. It can get very powerful if a player knows what they're doing. The intelligence drawback on the Necromancer's command undead ability? Feeblemind. Take the lucky feat and wait for a vampire to run out of legendary actions. Very possible to have a vampire minion to do your bidding. They might be a lobotomized vampire, but still a vampire. The same tactic can be used with the Planar Binding spell. Feeblemind + Planar Binding = possible pit fiend as a buddy.
I love the idea of using undead as beasts of burden. Tactically, they can carry barricades forward to act as cover for your squishes and temporary walls (just imagine a zombie carrying a door in front of it). The AC bonus from cover would apply to the zombie and anyone else hiding behind the barricade.
Dude you have no idea how much you reminded me to plants vs zombies with the idea of a zombie carrying a door.
I know this is an older video but i recently found this channel. I play a lvl 20 necromancer in a high level planechase/spelljammer game, and the 19 necro wizard 1 death cleric works very well, as this lets me deal a lot more damage with toll of the dead and chill touch, and fill the role of wizard, tank and party healer with cure wounds, healing word, and wish for raises. Plus i get heavy armor and shields as a wizard.
The first character I ever played was a necromancer! I took the wizard path. I remember near the end of the game in a huge battle, I cast circle of death in the middle of the battlefield and killed like 300 dudes, both friendly and unfriendly (I never lived it down with the paladin). The school of necromancy allows you to gain temp hit points when you kill creatures with spells (3 times the spell's level for necromancy spells), and my GM ruled that since I was only gaining the temp hit points from one source (the spell), I gained 3 x 6(the level of circle of death) x ~300, the amount of creatures I killed. 5,400 temp HP later, I tanked most of the fight with the BBEG's second in command. So fun!!!