Tip for Managing Necromancy

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Don't go "by the book" 5e rules for Necromancy in this game.

No one likes their minions having an arbitrary timer which causes the undead to be more of a inconvenience than what necromancers really are, horde masters and mad scientists of the reanimation variety.

It might seem simple to copy over 5e rules, but to the players it is very dull to have a bunch of generic zombies which lose all practical use by level 6 and is horribly disappointing since you have to collect more after every battle.

My suggestion:

In order to have necromancy, (without breaking the game or being terribly unbalanced) these are the two spells you need to add. One to stow away summoned undead, and one to call them. As well as a few game mechanic changes.

First Spell

Call of the Grave: (3rd level)
What the spell would do is cause any undead you currently control to crawl into the ground (a pocket dimension) so the undead can be summoned later.

This would Avoid the issue of a horde of undead trying to follow the player over jumps, level transitions, etc.

The Second Spell:

Call of the Master: (3rd level)
This spell would cause all undead stored by "Call of the Grave" to come crawling out of the ground around the caster under their control.

Fairly Straightforward, thus the spell animate dead would simply be the spell to raise new lesser undead if old ones die. And since more spells are needed to manage the undead, the necromancy wizard would have less spells to attack with, and because of this undead could scale with the players stats + wizard level instead of having static HP and DMG like in 5e.

Removing the restrictions placed on players when raising the undead will make the undead useful without needing hundreds of them like with core 5e rules.

This means the undead would not need to go feral every long rest like in the core rules, as they can be stored away until summoned.

That said... for balance purposes the new spells can scale with the spell level. Such as 3rd level Call of the Grave can only store 4 undead, and Call of the Master 3rd level could only summon 4. Though +2 for each spell level above 3rd.

Preventing players from walking around with 666 zombies in their back pocket.

P.S.

For the love of all that is unholy, just don't stick us with the (you can only have the undead summoned for x turns) mechanic. If it's between that and (pet) mechanics i'd rather have undead pet mechanics instead of the timed BS.

Lastly, anyone who made it this far please feel free to share your thoughts, ideas, wishes, and suggestions. I'll read all responses, and comment on those I find odd or interesting.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

You don't get it. D&D doesn't want you to be a minion master.

The main reason is the action economy, but also the speed of combat.

Necromancers in D&D are more than just minion masters - they are debuffers.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Kairos:

You don't get it. D&D doesn't want you to be a minion master.

The main reason is the action economy, but also the speed of combat.

Necromancers in D&D are more than just minion masters - they are debuffers.

What you are describing is a generic Occult / Dark Caster. As the Necromancy Subclass focuses on minions, and Necromancy is specifically undead related spell casting.

That, and the problem with debuffing in 5e is that almost all non-humans have immunity to the poisoned condition. Additionally, due to most monsters having good or great constitution, most de-buffs wizards get are ineffective at best.

Have you read the Book of Vile Darkness? In 3.5e Necromancy was really amazing. Though 5e was designed very poorly in comparison, as you find no one likes the Necromancy Subclass nor the 5e Necromancy spells.

[Rekond]

*** Smells air
Smells like nerds in here
I like it! Tell me more.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Rekond:

*** Smells air
Smells like nerds in here
I like it! Tell me more.

Nerd? No, Geek? Maybe, or just your friendly neighborhood Necromancer.

Though you're free to pick your poison around here. https://youtu.be/0sPVEBAtwmg

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Tech-Priest:

Originally posted by Pan Darius Kairos:

You don't get it. D&D doesn't want you to be a minion master.

The main reason is the action economy, but also the speed of combat.

Necromancers in D&D are more than just minion masters - they are debuffers.

What you are describing is a generic Occult / Dark Caster. As the Necromancy Subclass focuses on minions, and Necromancy is specifically undead related spell casting.

That, and the problem with debuffing in 5e is that almost all non-humans have immunity to the poisoned condition. Additionally, due to most monsters having good or great constitution, most de-buffs wizards get are ineffective at best.

Have you read the Book of Vile Darkness? In 3.5e Necromancy was really amazing. Though 5e was designed very poorly in comparison, as you find no one likes the Necromancy Subclass nor the 5e Necromancy spells.

I'll say it again: D&D 5e doesn't want you to be a minion master.

This is partially due to the fact that the side with the most actions tends to win most often, so a severely unbalanced action economy for one side (which is what happens when you have 20 minions) makes the game trivial. Not to mention the meat shield aspect.

The other reason is that every minion gets a turn of it's own, and thus the pace of combat severely suffers.

It is for these two reasons together that minion masters were severely nerfed. I mean, at the table, you can still sorta do it, but it requires DM cooperation and a lot of between adventures work. Using the available spells, and a little creativity, you can in fact still create an army of the undead. It's just not fast or convenient.

I don't see this changing in BG3, either. Necromancy isn't just about minions. It's about necrotic damage and curses and speaking to the dead.

Animate Dead will give you some zombos or skelebois until your next long rest, and that's already a pretty big deal. Remember, zombos have a reanimation effect that makes them excellent at tanking hits for you, which in itself throws the action economy in your favor, even if they do next to no damage. Skelebois have short bows, so you can harass enemies for some extra dps while your party tanks.

If they include 6th level spells, you can get Create Undead later and you get a bunch of paralyzing attacks to set up some auto-crits.

It would be cool if we got Summon Shadowspawn too from Tasha's, I really dig incorporeal undead.

In any case, if you combine this with Conjuration, you can still pull off a kind of minion master - it just won't be anything like you imagine.

Conjuration + Necromancy + Find Familiar can still rack up a pretty decent swarm for you.

[Freak4Leeks]

Originally posted by Tech-Priest:

Nerd? No, Geek? Maybe, or just your friendly neighborhood Necromancer.

i want a friendly neighborhood nercomancer

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Kairos:

Originally posted by Tech-Priest:

What you are describing is a generic Occult / Dark Caster. As the Necromancy Subclass focuses on minions, and Necromancy is specifically undead related spell casting.

That, and the problem with debuffing in 5e is that almost all non-humans have immunity to the poisoned condition. Additionally, due to most monsters having good or great constitution, most de-buffs wizards get are ineffective at best.

Have you read the Book of Vile Darkness? In 3.5e Necromancy was really amazing. Though 5e was designed very poorly in comparison, as you find no one likes the Necromancy Subclass nor the 5e Necromancy spells.

I'll say it again: D&D 5e doesn't want you to be a minion master.

This is partially due to the fact that the side with the most actions tends to win most often, so a severely unbalanced action economy for one side (which is what happens when you have 20 minions) makes the game trivial. Not to mention the meat shield aspect.

The other reason is that every minion gets a turn of it's own, and thus the pace of combat severely suffers.

It is for these two reasons together that minion masters were severely nerfed. I mean, at the table, you can still sorta do it, but it requires DM cooperation and a lot of between adventures work. Using the available spells, and a little creativity, you can in fact still create an army of the undead. It's just not fast or convenient.

I don't see this changing in BG3, either. Necromancy isn't just about minions. It's about necrotic damage and curses and speaking to the dead.

Animate Dead will give you some zombos or skelebois until your next long rest, and that's already a pretty big deal. Remember, zombos have a reanimation effect that makes them excellent at tanking hits for you, which in itself throws the action economy in your favor, even if they do next to no damage. Skelebois have short bows, so you can harass enemies for some extra dps while your party tanks.

If they include 6th level spells, you can get Create Undead later and you get a bunch of paralyzing attacks to set up some auto-crits.

It would be cool if we got Summon Shadowspawn too from Tasha's, I really dig incorporeal undead.

In any case, if you combine this with Conjuration, you can still pull off a kind of minion master - it just won't be anything like you imagine.

Conjuration + Necromancy + Find Familiar can still rack up a pretty decent swarm for you.

I would agree in terms of the action economy, as it may have been better if 5e treated summons like a swarm where the swarm (of a creature type) had a turn instead of each summon individually.

I know most GMs (Myself included) often simplify spells like animate object and summoning minions as swarm mechanics. So you are dealing with one new initiative on the order whose power scales without scaling the time it takes to finish a round of combat.

Makes them much easier to manage.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Now that I think about it, I should have posted this in Suggestions & Feedback.

Hope a Mod can move it over there. My bad.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

So, I did some deep thinking about this, and also some light research, and, at least in tabletop D&D, I think that the Conjurer is not only the better minion master overall, but specifically makes a better Necromancer than the Necromancer subclass, namely because the Conjurer still has access to all the important Necromancy undead creation spells (like Animate Dead), but also because they could focus their summoning efforts on the Shadowfell, and just summon more powerful undead creatures from that plane, all the while still getting the weenies from lower level spells, it would seem to me that the Conjurer is actually a better necromancer than the Necromancer.

Of course, the reverse is true as well, the Necromancer has access to the Conjuration spells, and so could just as easily summon as many undead from the Shadowfell as the Conjurer could...with the only real difference being, do you want the subclass features of the Necromancer, or the subclass features of the Conjurer? Ultimately, I would say that the Conjurer subclass would benefit the undead army even more than the Necromancer does, but only when the level cap is much higher than in BG3, perhaps even as high as 20. This is because many of the best abilities and spells a Conjurer needs to truly become a minion master are only at the very highest levels. Then again, a Necromancer doesn't really get much more than Animate Dead and Create Undead, so they're not really much better off either.

And we don't know where the level cap for BG3 will be, and what spells will be included, or how they'll work differently in BG3 (Conjuration is potentially the most disruptive School in D&D, and Treantmonk considers them to be god-tier Wizards)...so, we'll have to see.

Personally, I intend to create a Conjuration Wizard with a healthy dose of Enchantment and Abjuration spells to boot (it's always helpful to be able to mind control any rebellious summons that don't obey, and have a backup plan - i.e. Abjuration - in case things go south and the devil you summoned decides it wants your soul instead).

I probably spend more time poring over Conjuration spells than I do any other school, as the depth it's tricks can get to really come closest to almost breaking the game. Hell, the Wish spell is a Conjuration spell. Gate. Demiplane. Like, most of the craziest stuff in D&D is Conjuration.

It just really amuses me that a Conjurer could do everything a Necromancer could do, but kind of potentially better. And if you use a low level Conjuration spell to summon an undead to you instead of re-animating it? It gets 30 extra hp if you're a level 14 Conjurer.

[Panic Fire]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Kairos:

So, I did some deep thinking about this, and also some light research, and, at least in tabletop D&D, I think that the Conjurer is not only the better minion master overall, but specifically makes a better Necromancer than the Necromancer subclass, namely because the Conjurer still has access to all the important Necromancy undead creation spells (like Animate Dead), but also because they could focus their summoning efforts on the Shadowfell, and just summon more powerful undead creatures from that plane, all the while still getting the weenies from lower level spells, it would seem to me that the Conjurer is actually a better necromancer than the Necromancer.

Of course, the reverse is true as well, the Necromancer has access to the Conjuration spells, and so could just as easily summon as many undead from the Shadowfell as the Conjurer could...with the only real difference being, do you want the subclass features of the Necromancer, or the subclass features of the Conjurer? Ultimately, I would say that the Conjurer subclass would benefit the undead army even more than the Necromancer does, but only when the level cap is much higher than in BG3, perhaps even as high as 20. This is because many of the best abilities and spells a Conjurer needs to truly become a minion master are only at the very highest levels. Then again, a Necromancer doesn't really get much more than Animate Dead and Create Undead, so they're not really much better off either.

And we don't know where the level cap for BG3 will be, and what spells will be included, or how they'll work differently in BG3 (Conjuration is potentially the most disruptive School in D&D, and Treantmonk considers them to be god-tier Wizards)...so, we'll have to see.

Personally, I intend to create a Conjuration Wizard with a healthy dose of Enchantment and Abjuration spells to boot (it's always helpful to be able to mind control any rebellious summons that don't obey, and have a backup plan - i.e. Abjuration - in case things go south and the devil you summoned decides it wants your soul instead).

I probably spend more time poring over Conjuration spells than I do any other school, as the depth it's tricks can get to really come closest to almost breaking the game. Hell, the Wish spell is a Conjuration spell. Gate. Demiplane. Like, most of the craziest stuff in D&D is Conjuration.

It just really amuses me that a Conjurer could do everything a Necromancer could do, but kind of potentially better. And if you use a low level Conjuration spell to summon an undead to you instead of re-animating it? It gets 30 extra hp if you're a level 14 Conjurer.

Command Undead kind of breaks Conjurer wizards vs Necromancers in a battle.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Panic Fire:

Originally posted by Pan Darius Kairos:

So, I did some deep thinking about this, and also some light research, and, at least in tabletop D&D, I think that the Conjurer is not only the better minion master overall, but specifically makes a better Necromancer than the Necromancer subclass, namely because the Conjurer still has access to all the important Necromancy undead creation spells (like Animate Dead), but also because they could focus their summoning efforts on the Shadowfell, and just summon more powerful undead creatures from that plane, all the while still getting the weenies from lower level spells, it would seem to me that the Conjurer is actually a better necromancer than the Necromancer.

Of course, the reverse is true as well, the Necromancer has access to the Conjuration spells, and so could just as easily summon as many undead from the Shadowfell as the Conjurer could...with the only real difference being, do you want the subclass features of the Necromancer, or the subclass features of the Conjurer? Ultimately, I would say that the Conjurer subclass would benefit the undead army even more than the Necromancer does, but only when the level cap is much higher than in BG3, perhaps even as high as 20. This is because many of the best abilities and spells a Conjurer needs to truly become a minion master are only at the very highest levels. Then again, a Necromancer doesn't really get much more than Animate Dead and Create Undead, so they're not really much better off either.

And we don't know where the level cap for BG3 will be, and what spells will be included, or how they'll work differently in BG3 (Conjuration is potentially the most disruptive School in D&D, and Treantmonk considers them to be god-tier Wizards)...so, we'll have to see.

Personally, I intend to create a Conjuration Wizard with a healthy dose of Enchantment and Abjuration spells to boot (it's always helpful to be able to mind control any rebellious summons that don't obey, and have a backup plan - i.e. Abjuration - in case things go south and the devil you summoned decides it wants your soul instead).

I probably spend more time poring over Conjuration spells than I do any other school, as the depth it's tricks can get to really come closest to almost breaking the game. Hell, the Wish spell is a Conjuration spell. Gate. Demiplane. Like, most of the craziest stuff in D&D is Conjuration.

It just really amuses me that a Conjurer could do everything a Necromancer could do, but kind of potentially better. And if you use a low level Conjuration spell to summon an undead to you instead of re-animating it? It gets 30 extra hp if you're a level 14 Conjurer.

Command Undead kind of breaks Conjurer wizards vs Necromancers in a battle.

Eh...

Command Undead

Starting at 14th level, you can use magic to bring undead under your control, even those created by other wizards. As an action, you can choose one undead that you can see within 60 feet of you. That creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your wizard spell save DC. If it succeeds, you can't use this feature on it again. If it fails, it becomes friendly to you and obeys your commands until you use this feature again.

Intelligent undead are harder to control in this way. If the target has an Intelligence of 8 or higher, it has advantage on the saving throw. If it fails the saving throw and has an Intelligence of 12 or higher, it can repeat the saving throw at the end of every hour until it succeeds and breaks free.

You only get to attempt to control one undead at a time, it gets a saving throw (although, admittedly, it's unlikely an undead will have a high Cha, unless it's a vampire), and if they are intelligent undead they get advantage on that saving throw and can repeat it every hour with an Int of 12 or higher.

But, mostly, one undead per turn - the Conjurer can likely summon quite a few more than that.

But, you're right - it IS a really nifty ability, and a Necromancer (or several) in a fight against a Conjurer who specializes in summoning undead from the Shadowfell would definitely have an advantage there.

However, that's only nifty when the Necromancer is fighting other undead summoners, I wasn't really thinking in terms of a 1v1 battle between them, but rather who, in the course of an adventuring day, is more efficient at creating an army of undead.

In some ways, the enhanced conjuration abilities of the Conjurer make them a better undead summoner, if they yoink their minions from the Shadowfell rather than merely using available corpses on the material plane (which they can ALSO do).

Since Necromancers can also use Conjuration magic (and vice versa), the distinction actually comes down to which subclass abilities are more useful for those summons, and I'd say that Durable Summons actually makes the Conjurer's low level minions better than the the Necromancer's, as they would all get an extra 30 hp if summoned using a Conjuration spell, for example Summon Shadowspawn. And in a 1v1 fight against a Necromancer, the Conjurer could easily switch to something other than undead to fight off the Necromancer's minions (nullifying their level 14 ability to command undead).

Overall, I think the Conjurer can do a better job at Necromancing - Necro's in 5e kinda got the short end of the tibia.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Let's put it this way - the Necromancy school of magic kinda caps out at creating ghouls (and if you're using supplements, spectral wraith like creatures and shadowspawn).

Conjuration could potentially summon and enslave almost any creature in the game.

The Shadowfell contains much more powerful undead than can be raised by simple spells like Animate Dead or Create Undead or Summon Shadowspawn (all spells that the Conjurer also gets access to anyway).

Creatures like Nightwalkers, Nightcrawlers, Nighthaunts, Nightwings, Wraiths and Spectres, among others (it's unclear to me the totality of the list of creatures that inhabit the Shadowfell, and it definitely appears to lean towards incorporeal undead, but I suppose it's up to DM interpretation what is on or off the table in terms of summoning directly from the Shadowfell).

While the Necro might get an ability that let's him take control of an undead creature that already exists (only useful in games where the adventure already includes undead, or other necromancers and summoners), the Conjur, with some preparation (Conjuration is a really involved and expensive process, nothing about it it straight forward), could potentially summon even more powerful undead entities under their control regardless of setting, and their lesser minions are going to be even more powerful with a hp boost that lets them tank even harder.

And let's not forget Orcus' realm of Thanatos, the 113th layer of the Abyss. While it might invite the demon lord's wrath, it's another alternative plane for summoning more powerful undead. The Shadowfell is not the only place where there are undead. For that matter, you don't necessarily have to summon them from another plane, you can summon any undead in the material plane too (stealing minions from other undead masters if you know where they are).

There are just so many possibilities with Conjuration that vanilla Necromancy doesn't have.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

There is one other benefit to the Necromancer subclass though - Undead Thralls. The extra skele or zombo is nice, yeah, but actually I'm looking at the proficiency bonus to your minions damage rolls. With a large number of minions, this is potentially a massive bonus to DPR (if they hit at all, however, as the usefulness of low level minions at higher levels is highly debatable - which is one of the reasons I favor Conjuration, as you will have the ability to summon far more powerful allies than skele/zombos. However, as previously noted, either a Necromancer or a Conjurer can take full advantage of either school of magic...the Necromancer gets Undead Thralls and Command Undead, which gives them one extra skele/zombo per cast of Animate Dead, hp+ equal to their Wizard level, and damage+ equal to their proficiency, along with the ability to attempt to control an undead with an action, while the Conjurer can get +30 hp to every summon which is 10 more than even the theoretical max from Undead Thralls).

So I guess it really just boils down to how you want to buff your minions specifically, and there are arguments to be made for both. I think the Conjurer's minions will be a little more tanky, while the Necro's will do a little more damage and be slightly more numerous (but also depending upon the availability of corpses and bone piles).

[Incunabulum]

If you want to be a minion master - don't be a necromancer, be a cleric with the death domain.

These types of clerics have always been better at necromancy than wizards.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

If you want to be a minion master - don't be a necromancer, be a cleric with the death domain.

These types of clerics have always been better at necromancy than wizards.

I'm not sure why people think this. They get some interesting features that add necrotic damage (and penetrate necrotic resistance), but nothing in particular that helps them raise more undead minions. They get access to Animate Dead, but so does everyone else.