Best necromancer build (your opinion)

[Abyssian]

Which would be the best and the most enjoyable necromancer build? Did you try one? I cannot decide between Death Knight and the Lich builds, but the build must be about necro spells and raise dead.
Death Knight - warrior type of necromancer, rely on weapon and combat with the help of necromancer spells and tricks.
Lich - spellcaster type of necromancer

[victorvnv]

There is no good necromancies build as your minions don’t scale anywhere close to your character.

Most of the time they won’t even make a turn as your normal party will destroy everything and minions don’t have much initiative.

Also your main characters will be easily pushing 200+ damage a teen while the undead minions will be lucky to do 20.

[Beytran70]

I'm going Necro Wizard as my evil playthrough rn and I'm planning to stick with pure Wizard, focusing primarily on poison and ice spells for direct damage and debuff and more "evil" spells like Crown of Madness, etc.

I do think you could do something nice with a Death Knight style build esp if you were to get enough into Wizard to maybe grab Vampiric Touch or something for some health restoration, but idk.

[Leslian Lexter]

Im running Wizard 6/Cleric 6. Its fun.

[Toblm]

I'm a strong proponent of the Necro Wizard. Grim Harvest and Undead Thralls are both thematic and useful. Then access to Animate Dead with plenty of spell slots to upcast as desired. Necro Wizard works greats and retains all the flexibility of the Wizard spell list. Throw in the Danse Macabre from the Thayn book, your set.

(Side note: I'm also a Skeleton proponent, ranged DPS is more consistent than Zombies and having character front liners are better uses of space then Zombies as well.)

Other builds in BG3 are really limited to any Cleric, certain Paladins or Spore Druid.
Cleric doesnt have a subclass that leans into Necromancy, but have animate dead.
Paladin also lacks necro subclasses other than Oathbreaker. But thats going to be the Death Knight build you are after.
Spore Druid is nifty but the I usually find Druid underwhelming thematically and gameplay wise when compared to Wizard or Cleric based Necromancy.

[Abyssian]

Originally posted by victorvnv:

There is no good necromancies build as your minions don’t scale anywhere close to your character.

Most of the time they won’t even make a turn as your normal party will destroy everything and minions don’t have much initiative.

Also your main characters will be easily pushing 200+ damage a teen while the undead minions will be lucky to do 20.

I am no nerd to make brutal amount of homework watching builds on internet, maxing my potential with my characters. I want to make my own, with my own mistakes. Plus the more the necromancy level, the stronger the creatures you can summon, not just zombies and skeletons.

[Abyssian]

Originally posted by Toblm:

I'm a strong proponent of the Necro Wizard. Grim Harvest and Undead Thralls are both thematic and useful. Then access to Animate Dead with plenty of spell slots to upcast as desired. Necro Wizard works greats and retains all the flexibility of the Wizard spell list. Throw in the Danse Macabre from the Thayn book, your set.

(Side note: I'm also a Skeleton proponent, ranged DPS is more consistent than Zombies and having character front liners are better uses of space then Zombies as well.)

Other builds in BG3 are really limited to any Cleric, certain Paladins or Spore Druid.
Cleric doesnt have a subclass that leans into Necromancy, but have animate dead.
Paladin also lacks necro subclasses other than Oathbreaker. But thats going to be the Death Knight build you are after.
Spore Druid is nifty but the I usually find Druid underwhelming thematically and gameplay wise when compared to Wizard or Cleric based Necromancy.

How about little bit of sorcerer for dual casting, then wizard and warlock combo? Worth a try, no? For Lich build. But for Death Knight, it would be either paladin or fighter with wizard maybe. This build appears to be delicate, cuz wrong path make you end up playing a weak, good for nothing abomination.

[Reaver79]

I have gone sorc for mine, there's a necromancer staff that allows you to cast necromancer spells at no spell slot cost + enemies have disadvantage on saves, combo that with twin spell blights/quickened CoD's is the best bet i can come up with.

[guard65]

A death knight mod might be a great Paladin Subclass. Instead of divine smite you could run a Necrotic damage equivalent including a spell list with mainly dark, undead, and necrotic spells. May have to change primary skills away from charisma to intelligence or something. Giving it a multi-class foot into the wizard vertical.

Should be an easy mod to make for my friends. Not that I would ever post it outside of github family.

[Beytran70]

Also something to keep your eye on is that there is someone who has made an actual Death Knight class mod based on the class from World of Warcraft. It's very detailed and high quality, mainly lacking in the balancing side of things right now but he's working on fixing that.

[Toblm]

Originally posted by Nightsong:

Originally posted by Toblm:

I'm a strong proponent of the Necro Wizard. Grim Harvest and Undead Thralls are both thematic and useful. Then access to Animate Dead with plenty of spell slots to upcast as desired. Necro Wizard works greats and retains all the flexibility of the Wizard spell list. Throw in the Danse Macabre from the Thayn book, your set.

(Side note: I'm also a Skeleton proponent, ranged DPS is more consistent than Zombies and having character front liners are better uses of space then Zombies as well.)

Other builds in BG3 are really limited to any Cleric, certain Paladins or Spore Druid.
Cleric doesnt have a subclass that leans into Necromancy, but have animate dead.
Paladin also lacks necro subclasses other than Oathbreaker. But thats going to be the Death Knight build you are after.
Spore Druid is nifty but the I usually find Druid underwhelming thematically and gameplay wise when compared to Wizard or Cleric based Necromancy.

How about little bit of sorcerer for dual casting, then wizard and warlock combo? Worth a try, no? For Lich build. But for Death Knight, it would be either paladin or fighter with wizard maybe. This build appears to be delicate, cuz wrong path make you end up playing a weak, good for nothing abomination.

Maybe. But the MAD for either could be tricky.
The problem with multiclassing Wizard is it doesnt multiclass particularly well.
Recently an Artificer dip has become popular for some Wizards, but doesnt work in BG3.
Fighter dip, might work, but its just going to slow spellcasting progression and only really get you heavy armor.
Sorcerer is likely the better multiclass option but I dont find the BG3 subclasses (or any of the 5e subclasses) particularly thematic.

Death Knight is a Paladin, maybe a Fighter/Cleric, which is just a Paladin with more steps.
Fighter Wizard is never really going to fill that Death Knight role, its only ever really going to be a Wizard in Heavy Armor (which you can get from race in BG3)