Necromancers are Hard Work

#tabletopgaming #dungeonsanddragons #ttrpg #dnd #rpg #5e #dungeonmaster #criticalrole #wotc #dnd5e #necromancer #diablo #warhammer #mtg #zombies #undead

[greynik]

As a summoner... ALWAYS have the darn stat blocks for your summons, it's a pain to set up but oh gods the relief when you just have to pick out the booklet and go some five pages through for your Summon Creature 3 statblocks to appear. I did this as a Wizard, categorized my spells by school, damage type and level of casting. Lotsa work at first but so happy.

[raider]

As a former Necromancer player myself…

Swarms. Just use swarms. Have them attack at the same time, just up the damage and health according to size. Do NOT try to be the guy who has to spend an hour rolling for every zombie in his horde. It’s not fun and your DM will absolutely be ready to murder you, and your party will let him.

[panwall]

The only rule that we switched out when I played a Grung necromancer is instead of micro-managing 10 zombies, my necromancer would make a zombie or skeleton swarm that would get more powerful or weaker based on current HP. Speeds up necromancer combat so much by only needing to action 1 mob instead of 10.

[azarinevil]

I made it fun by playing my necromancer as an antique dealer.. I never used my undead for combat, as a DM I know it's a waste of table time and resources. My undead were there to help me steal all the furniture and help carry the party's extra loot when needed. Usually played it for comic relief, so the party would jokingly ask for undead to help (we had talked about it ahead of time as an inside joke) then the DM or I would follow up with a hilarious situation. "You see Korhagen's skeletons run by carrying an armoire" or "They're a little busy, that wiring desk is a Viridianleaf original, do you have any idea how rare those are!". Good times. 😂

[benmwalls]

Dance macabre = all of the enemies getting ghoul hugs

[fishmasterfishmaster]

I ran a campaign once that had a necromancer in a party with a fighter, cleric, and paladin. Had such wonderful and deep arguments amongst my players about the morality and sanctity of life and death. Then there was me the dm who just lost his father a few months back. I never told them but those arguments they had in character helped me a lot.

[RyeFields]

It's the summoner's job to bookkeep and do the research for their style. If you start to bog down the game by not knowing how your character works, you should hold off on playing it until you can smooth it out

[andrewdonnelly]

Last part is the most important. If you want to play a summoner be ready to put in the work by having the stat blocks ready

[Onyxswallowtail]

Had a necromancer that thought he was just a really bad Cleric. It was cool bc the dm just looked at me while we were trying to save the king from dying, side note the party Cleric was in jail for refusing to pay for health potions. The king died, the dm looked at me after I cast raise dead on him and said thanks to the kings ring that completely stops spells that charm or give the player control over him so the king was using grunts and moans to have us executed for fraud and attempting to control the king.

[kylevidauri]

Tbh the best way I ever ran a Necromancer was a Hobgoblin Wizard who kept a contingent of skeletons buffed with high quality equipment. Basically an armored goon squad of a dozen or so skeletons armed with crossbows and sword and board. They were simple, inexpensive, all had identical statblocks, and were totally replaceable. But damn they were always useful, our party basically almost never got ambushed, and while combat slowed a bit, the party got to be very tactical with a fearless, well organized unit of skeletons to play with.

[underwarboy]

The necromancer also can explores way more layers of the necromancy outside of just raising the dead.
In a fantasy story I’ve read, they were the greatest medics and biologists in all of realms.
You can also use the “toying with life” aspect to explore more the undead nature inside a necromancer and how they slowly disconnect themselves and others from life.

[ShitpostingJoJo]

Tbh, I just want to play an undead necromancer that only ever summons the same two skeletons with tommy guns.🗿 *_"The name's Bones Malone, and these here are my spooky boys, see? 🗿🚬 RATTLE 'EM, BOYS!!"_*

[satibel]

If you have good players you can use them to control the summons too, that will give you the feeling of controlling an army that follows your orders and make it way faster while also giving the other players something to do during your 20 minutes turn.

[brandonleecross]

I play a necromancer in a recorded game called virgidad trails. His focus as a black dragon necromancer, he was a doctor. Studied hard for that. Kept his practices hidden, had his "nurses" covered head to toe in plague doctor gear with signs. Had the three undead summons named: Gran the zombie, cryptic the ghost, and moss the skeleton.

[Zelmel]

In my experience players (myself included much of the time) can barely remember to keep track of the actions and such of a familiar or animal companion, so summoned things are often not only a pain but end up being forgotten to some extent at times, which ends up frustrating the summoner player.

[Pizzagulper]

As a guy who has done summons, have your sheets ready, quickly designate how many attacks are going where, and roll them all at once. Mostly one it online, so just spamming the attack button on say roll20, the amount of times that the attacks are being done, can help speed things up. I usually designate the attacks in order from left to right or vise versa, so that it's easy to keep track. Using this, can make the summon's turn very quick.

[Leongon]

Baldurs Gate came up with grouping to handle mass of unimportant units that are similar, they act as an unit, they take their action together and attack the same target, so you roll for all of them doing the same thing... as a single entity. That saves a ton of time and is something that can be brought back to dnd to handle a ton of summons. Add to that pooling their health, and as the unit as a whole loses hp, you remove individuals from the total.

[PaladinZR]

I played a druid summoner at a table. With DM approval, I ran it so that I always summoned the amount of creatures equal to the number of party members. Each member got a stat card and could run one creature on their initiative turn (before or after). had a lot of good synergy with wolves and frontliners

[centrifugedestroyer]

Also the party size is important as well. It really makes a difference if you got 4 PCs or 6 PCs plus a bunch of familiars and animal companions

[MisterChelonian]

My first and current character is a necromancy wizard. I have two skeletons that act kind of like the pill bugs from A Bug's Life. I've played with little to no evocation, never even taking fireball at any point, and still have a lot of fun. The skeletons were recruited and have been changed over the course of the campaign, they've become their own little characters.