Shapechange. Adult Red Shadow Dragon (easy to spot one in the Underdark or Shadowfell). Its breath attack turns killed targets into Shadows that are *permanently* under your control. Ransack any village and leave with an army of Shadows that require no upkeep. OR True Polymorph + Wish/Similacrum Turn your Sim into a Shadow Dragon after it's expended all its Spell Slots. You're now a Necromancer with a dragon mount. LETS GO
@@TheGeekPantheon instead of the enlarged skelly that breathes fire as your slumbering gate guardians of your party's keep use polymorph to change a kraken or tarasque into a chicken store the soul in the magic jar then cast similacrum on yourself to put your copy in control of the monster then release the soul back into the body and making it your new guard dog and loyal companion since your copy now resides inside of it
“A hideously-looking spirit slithers towards your target, it easily stretches its claw-like fingers through the armor, the spirit begins to wriggle, the armored man falls to the ground, cackling and wheezing, for they’re at the mercy of a centuries-old master tickler.” My flavor for Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, just a ghost literally tickling the target into submission.
You know... You might want to consider taking some more wisdom now that I think about it... Imagine this. You are a necromancer with a huge swarm of undead fighting and keeping your party from harm. Then an enemy wizard does something along the lines of Dominate Person onto you, and you fail the roll with your mediocre wisdom save... Now the enemy wizard controls you, who controls all your undead...
This is one of the reasons I chose to use High Elf instead. Advantage on saving throws against being charmed. If you pick the new Astral Elf instead, you can keep the same stat increases, and even get a cool little regeneration Feature to start off. Helps to keep you from being squishy. Plus, Elves can use their spell slots twice as often as other races in a day, meaning you can pull things off like the Sequester Army, or Cloning your party, much faster.
I’m preparing to start a long campaign with some people and I’m going to be playing a necromancer. I’ve watched a lot of videos on the class and this one was by far the best. Loved the flavor added to a lot of the spells and suggestions for spells to take that are on brand.
Excelent video, but i had some things i didn't get how some things works. 1- Spell mastery - "you can cast dragon's breath at will", but it has to keep its concentration, and you can't concentrate on more than one spell, right? still a good choice anyway but you can have only one undead at a time spitting fire right? 2 - signature spell - "you can cast Animate Dead at will", actually, it says you can do it without using a spell slot once per short or lonng rest, it's still a good choice too, am i right?
Dude, thanks for such a phenomenally rad video. Love the consideration for flavor, it's a game in our imagination and in my opinion that should be taken into consideration during character creation
I am building a Necromancer Wizard, whose whole theme is that he's trying to prove a theory that the undead actually serve an incredibly important role in the progression of the soul from life to the afterlife. It's not a mainstream opinion though, and it essentially boils down to conspiratorial thinking, so he was discredited by his academy and run out of his hometown by certain priests who were inclined to burn him at the stake for spreading heresy. He's a decent guy though - lawful neutral alignment. He's just a normal wizard, except that he is committed to this particular research project. He is very careful and conscientious about which corpses he animates, when he animates them. He really just wants to verify or falsify this hypothesis, because if he's right, every theology he knows of will be turned on its head in some pretty important ways. As a secondary motive, he has a side project where he is attempting to recreate healing magic using arcane means rather than by invoking natural or divine magic.
You can also use feeblemind on an undead under your control that has a high int and just make them fail the save then use you final necromancy ability to make them a permanent member and that kids is how you get past smart undead 😎 Note: they will take 4d6 psy dmg but that's the only thing you should worry about 🤭
Hey, watched the video and lots of what you say is spot on, but at level 4 I believe keen mind is very important for night time animation and creation of undead. Spells you are spot on, I would also add Nystuls magic aura to get your undead to not appear undead to divine sense and the like. Sadly signature spells is 1 free cast per short rest
Some friends and I are starting up a campaign here and I am running as necromancer. I know it's a ways out but at level 15 and having clone for myself and party members if a party member dies and their soul goes into the clone I make for them could I also animate the body of the fallen companion so it would be like having two of them on top of every other minion I have out at that point
😈This is an awesome idea! Mind if I put an evil twist on it LOL. After a long battle find a way to kill them with finger of death secretively so you don't have to keep reasserting control with animate dead and then use modify memory on the Clone so they don't know what you did. If you're persuasive enough you can convince them it's a joke if they find out since they're okay and they might let you keep a zombie of a teammate. LOL!
At 14th you get command undead so you don’t have to keep reasserting control they just have to have under 12 int and some would saying being undead cause a few Int to drop due to death
DUDE I am playing a deep gnome Necromancer in my current campaign! Get out of my head! I’m trying to tow the line between unhinged hermit and beguiling naughty boy
Wow, thanks a lot for the vid! I've grabbed some ideas and inspiration. I want to mix classic necromancer with debuffer tactics to make enemies weaker as they sence something wrong touching them from the other side. I think to grab muticlass for this OC, to be 1 lvl death cliric, so to have ability to wear fancy armor and weapons, and also to cast some spells on nearby enemies in one turn. Than, I think, I'll take all levels in wizard, to make ultimate horror general of marching dead. But I don't want my army to be big. It will be fun to have a bunch of minions for simple attacks and shield meat, and cast debuffs on enemies so they would die faster >:3 Can't wait to build this char!!!
With the new Tasha's Summon Undead Spirit, Im assuming this would change a lot. This dude loves his concentration spells. Also seems to be ignoring component cost.
I think of horrid wilting as a mummification gone wrong. Perhaps you stumble into it when trying to make one but was a little impatient Love the video btw! Keep them comming.
Great video, but you seem to have forgotten that Enlarge/Reduce and Dragon's Breath are concentration spells. So no giant firebreathing skeletons. Sorry bud.
I'm currently playing a necromancer and I really like your inspiration about the flavor. But you wouldn't want using concentration spells as signature spells. also why do you put 2 points in intelligence when you have an odd number? you could raise dex/con much earlier.
Thanks for the video, very helpful ideas for when I make a Necromancer, I was thinking of making a skeleton army with Mussket’s, or would that be too Op for a game?
Hear me out. In the long run itll be worth it but costly. Just cast simulacrum on yourself than have the simulacrum cast the same thing on you once your rest. So that the simulacrum can have all spell slots. Once that happens your main can cast create undead and summon wights for the simulacrums to command with the 14th ability. Repeat until you have a infinite army of wights and zombies or even control more powerful undead with your simulacrums
I hear your reasoning, but I still wouldn't take Animate Dead when you get it free a single level later. In an actual game, I recommend that people talk to their DM, and ask if you can take Animate Dead at Level 5, then swap out the spell at Level 6 for another Wizard Spell. However if your DM doesn't allow this, you really should just take another spell at 5th Level. Haste or Fly for example, which lets you buff your summons. But if course, there's also the choice of Summon Undead, which I assume was still not released when this vid was made.
Thank you so much! Even 2 years after making it, this video was very helpful - a walkthrough the character creation process was exactly what I needed! I did come across one problem, however, and it was about the school of necromancy. The only option I get on D&D Beyond is the school of evocation and I also don't have all the spells you listed. Could this be because I am missing the player's handbook (do I need to buy it from the marketplace)?
@@andrewhicks982 Thanks for the reply, though I must say it's just a tad too late, since after commenting on the video I made an exact homebrew copy of the necromancy subclass and used it for a while... that is, before I bought the PHB. Thanks, once again, though.
You don't have to wait to get animate dead it says you can add the spell to a spell book so imo it's for making a necromancer school. As you can add the raise dead spell to any spell book you have.
Undead skeletons with dragons breath choose poison breath all other undead are immune to poison just start spamming and don’t have to worry about killing your own minions
I love this video but in my honest opinion I have to disagree with you about taking anime Undead a level early. In the book you get it at level 6 for free it doesn't say if it takes up a spell slot or not so that means you could have another spell instead of taking animate Undead early using the spell slot. This is just my opinion and I'm not too knowledgeable on a lot of DnD things I read the phb and that's what it said though it was a little vague so if I'm wrong I'm sorry.
I must have missed something, you were talking about casting animate dead over and over but it has a 1 minute casting time so it does not seem that feasable.
I suppose I wasn't clear, but I meant outside of structured combat. After a fight if let's say the front-line fighters of a party want to take a short rest, but as a wizard you're fine you could then in theory cast animate dead over and over while the rest of the party rests to build up a nice little entourage. Thanks for the feedback though!
@@TheGeekPantheon but, at 38mins you said that you could do it every round and overflow a battlefield....does the wiz feature circumvent the 1 min cast time?
I made a drow necromancer wizard so I got a 17 in int and a 18 in intelligence because drow spells and meta magic adept and the same for my strength being a 8
This video have some major problems. Concentration is a thing. Lvl 20 wizard, cant cast 3th spells free, only once. But the video was good, so many good idea!
I have already a 20 in int the roll went well i have a low constitution 10 because i follow the Dice order 14 13 10 20 12 15 This already have the racial improvements thats why 20 🤣 I Wanna chose some feets 😅 i AM thinking About telekinetic Because invisíble Mage hand and pushing people around 😑
i mean, this build is kinda trash, wasting learning your free spell (animated dead) on the lv5 is such a bad choice especialy because you can learn sumon undead in the 5 lv, and then get animated for free. your only good job is in flavoring non necromancy spell into look like necromancy spell
Shapechange.
Adult Red Shadow Dragon (easy to spot one in the Underdark or Shadowfell). Its breath attack turns killed targets into Shadows that are *permanently* under your control. Ransack any village and leave with an army of Shadows that require no upkeep.
OR
True Polymorph + Wish/Similacrum
Turn your Sim into a Shadow Dragon after it's expended all its Spell Slots. You're now a Necromancer with a dragon mount. LETS GO
I know I'm a year late but you are a genius !!! Totally gonna use that now !
Why expend spell slots, do they delete upon becoming drago?
This dude actually considers flavor. Most people who make videos about necromancer are just min-maxing to get the most undead
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the video. I'm always a sucker for the flavor, and try to use the mechanics to back it up.
Flavor sure but adding aspects that don't exist in a spell no
@@TheGeekPantheon instead of the enlarged skelly that breathes fire as your slumbering gate guardians of your party's keep use polymorph to change a kraken or tarasque into a chicken store the soul in the magic jar then cast similacrum on yourself to put your copy in control of the monster then release the soul back into the body and making it your new guard dog and loyal companion since your copy now resides inside of it
“A hideously-looking spirit slithers towards your target, it easily stretches its claw-like fingers through the armor, the spirit begins to wriggle, the armored man falls to the ground, cackling and wheezing, for they’re at the mercy of a centuries-old master tickler.”
My flavor for Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, just a ghost literally tickling the target into submission.
You know... You might want to consider taking some more wisdom now that I think about it... Imagine this. You are a necromancer with a huge swarm of undead fighting and keeping your party from harm. Then an enemy wizard does something along the lines of Dominate Person onto you, and you fail the roll with your mediocre wisdom save... Now the enemy wizard controls you, who controls all your undead...
This is one of the reasons I chose to use High Elf instead. Advantage on saving throws against being charmed. If you pick the new Astral Elf instead, you can keep the same stat increases, and even get a cool little regeneration Feature to start off. Helps to keep you from being squishy. Plus, Elves can use their spell slots twice as often as other races in a day, meaning you can pull things off like the Sequester Army, or Cloning your party, much faster.
I’m preparing to start a long campaign with some people and I’m going to be playing a necromancer. I’ve watched a lot of videos on the class and this one was by far the best. Loved the flavor added to a lot of the spells and suggestions for spells to take that are on brand.
I love this type of video. It's always good to see what people's ideal character is.
Excelent video, but i had some things i didn't get how some things works.
1- Spell mastery - "you can cast dragon's breath at will", but it has to keep its concentration, and you can't concentrate on more than one spell, right? still a good choice anyway but you can have only one undead at a time spitting fire right?
2 - signature spell - "you can cast Animate Dead at will", actually, it says you can do it without using a spell slot once per short or lonng rest, it's still a good choice too, am i right?
Dude, thanks for such a phenomenally rad video. Love the consideration for flavor, it's a game in our imagination and in my opinion that should be taken into consideration during character creation
I am building a Necromancer Wizard, whose whole theme is that he's trying to prove a theory that the undead actually serve an incredibly important role in the progression of the soul from life to the afterlife. It's not a mainstream opinion though, and it essentially boils down to conspiratorial thinking, so he was discredited by his academy and run out of his hometown by certain priests who were inclined to burn him at the stake for spreading heresy.
He's a decent guy though - lawful neutral alignment. He's just a normal wizard, except that he is committed to this particular research project. He is very careful and conscientious about which corpses he animates, when he animates them. He really just wants to verify or falsify this hypothesis, because if he's right, every theology he knows of will be turned on its head in some pretty important ways.
As a secondary motive, he has a side project where he is attempting to recreate healing magic using arcane means rather than by invoking natural or divine magic.
This is an awesome twist on the "overlord building an army" trope
Unforunately the 20th level signature is once per long rest
You can also use feeblemind on an undead under your control that has a high int and just make them fail the save then use you final necromancy ability to make them a permanent member and that kids is how you get past smart undead 😎
Note: they will take 4d6 psy dmg but that's the only thing you should worry about 🤭
Hey, watched the video and lots of what you say is spot on, but at level 4 I believe keen mind is very important for night time animation and creation of undead. Spells you are spot on, I would also add Nystuls magic aura to get your undead to not appear undead to divine sense and the like. Sadly signature spells is 1 free cast per short rest
Some friends and I are starting up a campaign here and I am running as necromancer. I know it's a ways out but at level 15 and having clone for myself and party members if a party member dies and their soul goes into the clone I make for them could I also animate the body of the fallen companion so it would be like having two of them on top of every other minion I have out at that point
😈This is an awesome idea! Mind if I put an evil twist on it LOL.
After a long battle find a way to kill them with finger of death secretively so you don't have to keep reasserting control with animate dead and then use modify memory on the Clone so they don't know what you did. If you're persuasive enough you can convince them it's a joke if they find out since they're okay and they might let you keep a zombie of a teammate. LOL!
Clone is very good. That is definitely a protection against death either at will or against old age. Clone is the definition of necromantic skills
At 14th you get command undead so you don’t have to keep reasserting control they just have to have under 12 int and some would saying being undead cause a few Int to drop due to death
Thanks for all of the information
DUDE I am playing a deep gnome Necromancer in my current campaign! Get out of my head! I’m trying to tow the line between unhinged hermit and beguiling naughty boy
Wow, thanks a lot for the vid! I've grabbed some ideas and inspiration.
I want to mix classic necromancer with debuffer tactics to make enemies weaker as they sence something wrong touching them from the other side.
I think to grab muticlass for this OC, to be 1 lvl death cliric, so to have ability to wear fancy armor and weapons, and also to cast some spells on nearby enemies in one turn.
Than, I think, I'll take all levels in wizard, to make ultimate horror general of marching dead.
But I don't want my army to be big. It will be fun to have a bunch of minions for simple attacks and shield meat, and cast debuffs on enemies so they would die faster >:3
Can't wait to build this char!!!
PLEASE do more of these, I will definitely be subscribing
Well done sir. Great video.
With the new Tasha's Summon Undead Spirit, Im assuming this would change a lot. This dude loves his concentration spells. Also seems to be ignoring component cost.
Yeah, this would definitely need to be revisited!
I think of horrid wilting as a mummification gone wrong.
Perhaps you stumble into it when trying to make one but was a little impatient
Love the video btw! Keep them comming.
Great video, but you seem to have forgotten that Enlarge/Reduce and Dragon's Breath are concentration spells. So no giant firebreathing skeletons. Sorry bud.
You can have a Giant zombie☺️
If the zombie is in Control of One whight you create
@@LordDany Nah, Wights create a zombie as per the regular zombiue stat block from a humanoid corpse. Giants are Giant type,
@@newtondood cant you use enlarge on them?
@@LordDany That would make them size large. And again that takes concentration, so my original point stands
@@newtondood you can do half of the combo
Create undead is concentration?
The sad part is that its Impossible to have the Giant zombie breathing fire
I'm currently playing a necromancer and I really like your inspiration about the flavor. But you wouldn't want using concentration spells as signature spells. also why do you put 2 points in intelligence when you have an odd number? you could raise dex/con much earlier.
Loved when you picked the gnome. Underused race IMHO
I thought the opposite. Ew, variant human forever.
Thanks for the video, very helpful ideas for when I make a Necromancer, I was thinking of making a skeleton army with Mussket’s, or would that be too Op for a game?
I am also very new to DnD so any ideas or suggestions would be nice
Hear me out. In the long run itll be worth it but costly. Just cast simulacrum on yourself than have the simulacrum cast the same thing on you once your rest. So that the simulacrum can have all spell slots. Once that happens your main can cast create undead and summon wights for the simulacrums to command with the 14th ability. Repeat until you have a infinite army of wights and zombies or even control more powerful undead with your simulacrums
Aparently players league rules u cant do infinite simulacrum but yaaaa i Will use this wacky tecnique 🤣
Over lord Anzi for over power is a good one too. I'm gonna combine both of theses for the spells. The other one is a reborn.
Great video
I hear your reasoning, but I still wouldn't take Animate Dead when you get it free a single level later.
In an actual game, I recommend that people talk to their DM, and ask if you can take Animate Dead at Level 5, then swap out the spell at Level 6 for another Wizard Spell.
However if your DM doesn't allow this, you really should just take another spell at 5th Level. Haste or Fly for example, which lets you buff your summons. But if course, there's also the choice of Summon Undead, which I assume was still not released when this vid was made.
Thank you so much! Even 2 years after making it, this video was very helpful - a walkthrough the character creation process was exactly what I needed! I did come across one problem, however, and it was about the school of necromancy. The only option I get on D&D Beyond is the school of evocation and I also don't have all the spells you listed. Could this be because I am missing the player's handbook (do I need to buy it from the marketplace)?
If no one ever answered this for you, yes its extra to buy but free versions are online to download as well as any google search.
@@andrewhicks982 Thanks for the reply, though I must say it's just a tad too late, since after commenting on the video I made an exact homebrew copy of the necromancy subclass and used it for a while... that is, before I bought the PHB.
Thanks, once again, though.
You don't have to wait to get animate dead it says you can add the spell to a spell book so imo it's for making a necromancer school. As you can add the raise dead spell to any spell book you have.
I love your flavor ideas but you do know there is a concentration mechanic in the game right?
You could also go for a high elf which in my opinion would be the better choice (great vid tho😊)
Wouldn't a drow be good for a necromancer cause I've been deciding to play as a drown but idk what class is best for drow besides rouge
Dr Gnome Bones
Yes hes a doctor
No he doesnt have a "medicine license"
And hes not /evil/ remember, he takes most insurances
Hello i use dnd beyond for character making and i cant find encode thoughts or infestation any help?
elves and humans can put a +2 in INT too.
Undead skeletons with dragons breath choose poison breath all other undead are immune to poison just start spamming and don’t have to worry about killing your own minions
What makes best useful sorcerer necromancer
Infestation is a HORRI-BAD cantrip!!
Toll the Dead is a very necro
I love this video but in my honest opinion I have to disagree with you about taking anime Undead a level early. In the book you get it at level 6 for free it doesn't say if it takes up a spell slot or not so that means you could have another spell instead of taking animate Undead early using the spell slot.
This is just my opinion and I'm not too knowledgeable on a lot of DnD things I read the phb and that's what it said though it was a little vague so if I'm wrong I'm sorry.
you can add more spells into your book for a price, so technically you get it a level early for the measily price of 25 gold.
Reflavor cause fear to be a ghost or something...sounds like your trying to tie in an illusion aspect
I'd have put enlarge reduce in place of that 5th level animated dead
I must have missed something, you were talking about casting animate dead over and over but it has a 1 minute casting time so it does not seem that feasable.
I suppose I wasn't clear, but I meant outside of structured combat. After a fight if let's say the front-line fighters of a party want to take a short rest, but as a wizard you're fine you could then in theory cast animate dead over and over while the rest of the party rests to build up a nice little entourage. Thanks for the feedback though!
@@TheGeekPantheon but, at 38mins you said that you could do it every round and overflow a battlefield....does the wiz feature circumvent the 1 min cast time?
I made a drow necromancer wizard so I got a 17 in int and a 18 in intelligence because drow spells and meta magic adept and the same for my strength being a 8
Why would you learn Bestow Curse at level 8 and at level 12?
That's actually supposed to be Confusion at Level 12. It's just a typo in the edit.
I rode high intelligence is necromancy Wizard and the level 1 I now have a 20 and Intelligence
Sorry but the best race for a necromancer is the tabaxi. (Using tasha's rules of course)
Why? So that you can play a Neko-mancer.
This video have some major problems. Concentration is a thing. Lvl 20 wizard, cant cast 3th spells free, only once.
But the video was good, so many good idea!
What about drow
@15:35 truth
Take Summon undead at 5th it's better anyhow. Then get animate for free at 6th
:: | // yuhhp , cant forget about.. :: structure alla personale
Not gonna lie. First time watching your videos and you kind of looked like Post Malone if he got into DND instead of Drugs and Rap LOL
Sequester = 5.000 GOLD pieces =(
I have already a 20 in int the roll went well i have a low constitution 10 because i follow the Dice order 14 13 10 20 12 15
This already have the racial improvements thats why 20 🤣
I Wanna chose some feets 😅 i AM thinking About telekinetic
Because invisíble Mage hand and pushing people around 😑
i mean, this build is kinda trash, wasting learning your free spell (animated dead) on the lv5 is such a bad choice especialy because you can learn sumon undead in the 5 lv, and then get animated for free. your only good job is in flavoring non necromancy spell into look like necromancy spell
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