How to build a Necromancer in Dungeons and Dragons 5e

Dungeons and dragons is made up of a plethora of different classes from barbarian to wizards but its not always apparent what these classes can become. There are so many possiblities within D&D that allow players to play pretty much any type of class archetype they want.

Things like Necromancers, Pyromancers, and even Stormbringers are possible with the range of options provided in 5e. And none of them are more talked about than the Necromancer.

Raising armies of undead to do your bidding, escaping death with necromantic magic, this is arguably one of the most talked about and popular builds possible in all of D&D 5e. So today, we are going to showcase how we can use these options to build a Necromancer!

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#DungeonsAndDragons #dnd #5e
00:00 Introduction
00:25 Goal of the Build
01:18 Wizard Subclass
01:32 Cleric Subclass
01:50 Wizard Features
03:09 Cleric Features
04:19 Shameless Plug
04:30 Feats
06:18 Spells
07:21 Summoning Undead
09:13 What do you think?

[fledgling]

I think you are missing a very important spell. "summon undead". It's only one, and only for 1 minute, but it has 2 attacks using a 4th level spell slot, it uses your spell attack modifier to hit, and works with undead thralls(2nd part). So add your proficiency bonus to the damage and have bonus HP. Ghost is the best option, chance to frighten any target it hits.

[josephcittadino]

Another fun necromancer build I've messed with is Undead Warlock 3/Divine Soul Sorcerer 17, using Reborn (or elf) as race. The idea of this build is that you don't have the quality of minions a wizard build does, but make up for it with sheer quantity and "cost" of animation, The wizard has to basicly permanently invest spell slots in their minions...this build dosen't, because it can use the extra four hours it gets every night due to being a reborn (or elf) to convert its short rest 2nd-level warlock slots into 3rd level sorc slots via font of magic to assemble a small squad of animated undead, and then do the same in the morning, netting them a bunch of undead for completely free/while still being at full power slot wise. They can also do this throughout the day if they have enough downtime to get even more "free" undead that don't eat their sorcerer slots off their low-level warlock slots.

So this is another fun alternative to necro wizard, if you wanted one. It IS a lot more late blooming than necro wizard, though, but until then is still a Sorclock that can do all the normal Sorclock things.

[purplesans]

Here is an idea for more undead. If you get the item [Libram of Souls and Flesh] you can be mostly ignored by most undead which means you don't need to maintain control on all your undead you just need some to be maintained which could be done by [Control Undead] and other necromancy spells like [Finger of Death] so you can have permanent undead to corral the non controlled ones and if you can get multiple [Bags of Holding] or similar non-euclidian storage items you can just stuff them in since they don't need to breathe which allows for easy storage and surprise attacks with a legion of undead that come out when you send some controlled undead to spill the non controlled undead all over the battlefield. Also a [Nightwalker] would be difficult to get close to due to having [Annihalating Aura] which would harm anyone near it though necromancers tend to have resistance to necrotic damage so you can last long enough to control it. Then either put it in a [Demiplane] and which can then be released 60 ft away from you harming anything within a 30 ft radius of it with its aura alone and you would be safe or just put it in another store item preferably with a label as to not release what is essentially death incarnate from the negative plane into a royal ball when someone decides to take and open it. Also with enough bags of holding you could send weaker undead with 2 [Bags of Holding] with nothing in them so you could make a tear in the ethereals plane on any enemy you just don't want to deal with. With this in an army campaign who needs a country supporting you when you could slowly consume enemy countries into your own undead army and if not in a military campaign I hope your allies will like all the easily earned loot that they barely lift a finger for because if you don't need it give it to them and if they don't need it then sell it and buy more stuff like [Bags of Holding] for spares and to hide a larger army. With just one item most considered the worst of its set for the [Wizard School] specific tomes you can now make a near unstoppable army until either the [DM] says no or if the campaign ends early either due to life or the other players quiting because they can't have fun if they aren't killing something every few minutes. Thank you for listening to my undead TEDtalk also know as undeadtalk. Have a wonderful day.

[JanSkalski-vv]

If you wanted to really go down the route of having an army of undead, you could go much further with the build.

No multiclassing, just straight lvl 20 School of Necromancy wizard. Take the Fairy race. Among other benefits, it gives you flight, allowing you to position yourself better (it'll come in handy), as well as Faerie Fire. There are no strictly required feats, but Metamagic Adept could be useful if you want to Extended Spell your Danse Macabre.

You spend all your spell slots of 3rd level and higher on Animate Dead, save for the 9th level slot. If you recast it a few times, you'll get more undead because you'll be reasserting control rather than animating new ones. Definitely go for skeletons - they have better attacks, ranged options, higher AC, better immunities (immunity to Exhaustion so they don't need to make long rests, unlike zombies), better walking speed, higher Intelligence allowing them to complete more complex tasks, better Perception, and more potential in terms of equipment. Speaking of, you'll want to have a small number of skeletons in melee range two-weapon fighting with shortswords, and the rest of the army using shortbows. Find out what kind of armor "armor scraps" from the stat block are and equip your skeletons with a better version of it. Ideally, you'd want them wearing half plate, bumping their AC up to 17. That would require armor scraps to be medium armor, so how that goes depends on the DM. If it turns out to be light armor, give them studded leather for 14 AC.


So, with the aforementioned spell slots spent on Animate Dead, you end up with 112 skeletons. But that's just the beginning. Using Arcane Recovery, you can get 2 more 5th level slots each day, giving you 16 more skeletons. Choose Animate Dead as a Signature Spell, giving you one free casting per day, so 4 more skeletons.
Now, have a Simulacrum of yourself. That simulacrum can also cast Animate Dead, although it can;t regain spell slots so you'll get fewer skeletons and they'll betray you a day later so use them up quickly. Their total number, again spending every spell slot of 3rd level and up, is 98. Although Arcane Recovery won't work because it recovers spell slots, Signature Spell absolutely will, adding 2 more skeletons to the total.

So now you have 232 skeletons, each affected by Undead Thralls. But why stop here? Use Command Undead to bind a Mummy Lord to your service, and have your simulacrum do the same with another one. They're great picks - high CR, decent spellcasting, lair actions and all that, but now all we care about is that they can cast Animate Dead. Although they won't benefit from Undead Thralls, that's a total of 116 more skeletons if the mummy lords spend all their spell slots - and they will.

In this specific scenario we won't be using Danse Macabre because both our concentration and the simulacrum's will be doing something else, but if you happen to be in a defensive position where you can set up Glyph of Warding or if you have a Ring of Spell Storing to give to your familiar, it's totally possible.

And now the final part of the build - the active spells. You'll want your simulacrum to cast Faerie Fire on your targets, giving Advantage on attacks to all the skeletons. You yourself will spend your 9th level spell slot to cast Wish, creating the effect of... Crusader's Mantle. This spell, centered on you, gives all allied creatures within 30 feet of you a bonus to damage rolls of 1d4 radiant damage. With the number of allied creatures to affect, it's well worth the 9th level spell slot. To use it, fly a little up into the air and let the skeletons occupy all spaces below you. Since d&d deals with circles on a grid by turning them into squares, you can affect as many as 169 skeletons in this way, if they are all on the ground. However, if you also use the 3rd dimension (via flight, prepared defensive positions, or even a sick mobile archer tower with multiple stories), you could easily fit all your skeletons inside the AOE, with up to 1848 free spaces left.

Let's assume we're fighting a Large creature. That means we could surround it fully with 12 skeletons with the benefits of Undead Thralls. Each of those skeletons will be making 2 shortsword attacks, which add up to 2d6+14 damage, and have 33 hit points and 17 AC. Further back, we have a group of 336 skeleton archers, standing on prepared positions inside an archer tower, allowing you to reach all of them with Crusader's Mantle from its center. 220 of those skeletons have Undead Thralls applied and deal 1d6+1d4+8 damage each. The other 116, coming from the mummy lords, deal 1d6+1d4+2 damage each. Also, thanks to your simulacrum having cast Faerie Fire on the enemy, all attacks against it are made with Advantage. Adding up all that, you have a DPR of 4260 not accounting for misses. Against an AC of 19 (which is about average for creatures of appropriate CR), the chance of hitting with Advantage and a +4 bonus to attack rolls is 51%, with a 9.75% chance of a crit. Accounting for all that, we get a DPR of 2377.35. We could get that a little higher by using 2nd level spells to attack or spamming catrips along with the simulacrum and 2 mummy lords, but it wouldn't affect the DPR that much.

So you could go that route if you want to.

[deathrev]

Ok late to the game but I think you’d like my necro, wizard/ barb necro in plate. Only 5 levels of barb everything else in wiz. Fun to play. He ended up becoming the mad mages partner.

[brianquint]

My necromancer is just a Divine Soul Sorcerer with animate dead and inflict wounds (comes with evil alignment). Sometimes it's all in the roleplaying.

[glarak]

Ritual caster is unnecessary as you are a ritual caster already. Not only that but you can cast rituals out of your spell book without the need to prepare them. So all it does is giving you two first level spells you could have taken or bought. Overall a fun build tho ^-^

[Tommytuf]

Here’s a simple one.
Forge Domain Cleric Warforge.
Since the last thing you get from the class is at 19 you can spend one level in fighter class to make up for your lack of Martial weapon proficiency plus you can either go by the Dueling fighting style or defensive for more AC than what you really will need with this build.

At level 2 alone multi classing and just chain mail and a shield you can get 19 AC. Use your Cleric class feature to add a +1 to your shield or armor and you have 20 AC at level 2.

[Arc]

Missing out on commanding a Wight and then having it raise 12 villagers under it’s command ;)

Not sure if that was commented yet :)

[Hakaze]

You do know that you can cast Animate Dead multiple times right? And if you first use it to raise dead, then make a long rest, you can raise some more. Afterwards you only need to maintain control of them.

So, at 8th level, by using all 3rd level and 4th level slots, you can control a horde of 24 undead in this way. Having my skeleton horde attack with short bows at about 80 ft range, is a blast (for me, maby not the DM)

[Vampireknight]

14 necromancer wizard
2 shadow Sorcerer
4 undead Warlock
Human variant shadow touched/ reborn
Feats
Metta magic quickend and twin spell
Eldritch Adept Aspect of the moon
This my build

[kauanbrenner]

Would it be possible to use “animate dead” to control a Beholder that has already died?

[TheRobversion]

Yey! New vid! nice combo of animate dead + protective bond. Thought of peace cleric myself but just a 1 dip for emboldening bond.

i'm wondering though why not max your int instead of taking ritual caster? that didn't make sense to me as wizards can already cast find familiar and unseen servant as rituals. i also didn't get how extend spell helps the build. it can extend to max of 24 hrs and that's already the duration of animate dead. did you extend other spells instead? other feats i'd consider are alert, artificer initiate: magic stone (give 3 of your animated dead a way to overcome dmg resistance) and lucky. i get the eldritch adept + darkness combo but personally i'd rather use another concen spell (like summon undead) so i'd pick fighting initiate: blind fighting then use pyrotechnics for my obscurement.

I'm still theocrafting my own version but my 1st draft now is similar to yours, just a difference i think of some feat/spell selection and a 3rd class (fighter 2 for action surge). i'm considering dipping artificer 1-3 instead of fighter 2 as well. so default theorycraft now of:

fighter 2, necromancer 7, peace 1

with an action sequence of:

pre-combat: upcasted summon undead (skeleton), magic stone, 3 animate dead, phantom steed

1st turn:

bonus action: telekinetic
action: emboldening bond: skeleton and 3 animated dead
action surge: psychic lance, erupting earth, minor illusion or any other good non-concen spell
phantom steed: dash away
familiar: help
summon skeleton: shoot 2x
3 animated dead: throw magic stone 3x

still polishing it as i'm not really sold with action surge here (or this early) and i am considering what artificer can provide.

[jtramelli]

why would you take ritual caster when playing a wizaea, they already have ritual casting???

[saitouhajime]

Hmm. It's there a way to build a necromancer that both summons undead abs weakens enemies to make their indeed thrall have and even easier time tearing them apart?

[wilfredofigueroa]

We need a video for best 3rd party wildshapes. Especially from tome of beasts 1 and 2

[stanbunn]

Why would you waste a feat on ritual caster when your wizard is already a ritual caster and you can always just find Find Familiar and Unseen Servant from a merchant on scrolls or books somewhere.

[BD-Helldroid]

Meanwhile me, I give my zombies and ghouls enough of my intellect to allow them to speak, mainly for rp reasons cause nothing's funnier than a group having lunch then being served by a rotting corpse XD, My necromancer is a Vile bastard (quote from the emperor in this campaign) but even tho he is evil he helps out because well the citadel is where his stuff is and he can't be f**ked to move it all even tho be has a free work force

[keithkommerjr]

When do wizards or clerics get sorcery points?

[Spam]

Why are you taking ritual caster wizard? Wizards can ritual cast already. That's a waste of a feat.