evilbob
Explorer
So the necromancer is a little different in 5.0 but sadly still pretty meh. Here's the breakdown:
First, you'll be a wizard this time, not a cleric. Clerics have access to the two spells you need, but ZERO class support. Wizards have a subclass - necromancy school - that gives you +your level to your pets' HP and +your prof. bonus to their attacks. It also lets you animate dead a little faster but whatever. You can also try to control one other undead that you didn't make, which is pretty awesome - see below. But overall wizards are way better than clerics, who get exactly nothing. No control undead, no Death domain - nada.
The entirety of raising an undead army is contained in (our familiar) two spells: animate dead and create undead. They work basically the same way as each other, but just change what you make. Both have a casting time of 1 minute so you will not be using them in battle. Animate is 3rd spell level (5th character level) and Create is 6th spell level (11th character level). They are WAY more constrained now in that they specifically only work on small / medium humanoids. /sigh Goodbye giant undead spider... Also the major other penalty is that you have to keep casting the spell EVERY DAY to maintain control. So that's a lot of spell slots you are dedicating to the task, and this effectively caps your army at the number of spell slots you feel comfortable giving up. (It also means you better hope you're not unconscious for a few days...)
So what do you get? Animate gives you 4 (+2 per spell level) skeletons or zombies under your control per spell slot per day. You CAN command them as a bonus action (take THAT ranger!) but you can only command any number (including all) to do one thing at a time. So you can't split the group and say half of you do this, half do that - unless you spend extra actions to do so. Skeletons and zombies are CR 1/4. As you level up they'll get +1 HP per your level and your prof. bonus to damage, but frankly that's still very little. These guys are mostly fodder, unless you can put together dozens of them - see later in the thread.
Create Undead is basically the same except you can make different stuff. It starts at 3 ghouls, +1 per spell level, and you can make stronger (but fewer) undead with an 8th or 9th level slot. You can create two ghasts or wights at 8th (+1 per spell level), and 2 mummies at 9th. Each of these groups still requires a dedicated spell slot to maintain control, although you could have 2 mummies, 5 ghouls, and 12 skeletons all at once if you were willing to give up a 9th, 8th, and 7th level spell slot. And you'd still need to use a bunch of actions to direct them all, unless your command was "everyone go kill that guy."
Since the Monster Manual isn't out, we don't know how good these guys are (*see later in the thread for some analysis), but I'm betting if you were in a fight calling down a 40d6 meteor (yeah, you read that) over an area is more effective than 2 mummies running around, so damage per round is not what you're getting here (unless you have dozens of archer skeletons fighting all at once - see later in the thread). There's probably some good utility in the effects your pets can dish out, but it also remains to be seen how party-friendly they are (ghasts in previous editions had a permanent "stink cloud" that your party members would definitely not appreciate). Ultimately, their best use is probably very situational - like when you need something immune to poison or necrotic damage, or if you need a quick distraction for a stupid monster that can't just rush past your guys to clobber you. Again: this ain't no all-purpose fireball.
Currently I don't see any way to heal your pets, or otherwise improve them once they are made. If you gain a level, you might as well wipe the group and re-raise them (which is sort of dumb).
There's also zero feat support, but that's not surprising since there's zero feat support for any kind of caster. There are +1 to casting-ability feats and other things casters might find useful, but there are no caster feats to speak of.
The one extra thing you get as a 14th level necromancer / wizard is the ability to control one undead you didn't make with no time limit. It's a CHA save to resist and you can only have one at a time, but the options are otherwise unlimited. The trick, though, is that intelligent undead are harder to control and anything with an Int of 12 or more gets to retry its save each round until it wins, so you will not be enslaving Strahd or a lich or something like that. Maybe that giant skeleton dragon your DM was foolish enough to throw at the party, though... (Update: Vampire spawn are only Int 11... but they have trouble in daylight.)
In the end, they sort of went in a different direction with action economy: the "bonus action" mechanic in 5.0 is a good way to handle pets. Overall, though, the main issue is that tons of dinky guys hasn't historically been as good as one big guy, so you're still limited in that respect. Although the designers have said that swarms of little guys can still be a challenge in 5.0. Limiting your power by tying up spell slots is probably the smartest idea they had. I don't think 4 skeletons is going to give you the same result as your fireball, but at least they can technically be used over and over? It's hard to say without some experimenting.
I also assume that while Bruce Cordell still breathes, there will eventually be some support - via feats or other spells or maybe cleric subclasses - that will bolster the idea of a necromancer in play. It's still a tricky thing to manage. I still wish someone would decide it's ok to summon them during a battle for a very short period of time - basically the Guild Wars 1 method - and boost their power accordingly, more like Animate Object. I find that a LOT more streamlined and easier to manage in-game - as opposed to having 14 index cards with various hit point totals you constantly need to track. Then again, if there are eventually supposed to be rules for overseeing a castle or something, maybe they can do something like that for your undead hordes... Also, it'd be nice to start your character's defining class feature at level 2 like everyone else, instead of level 5.
Edit: Changed the "meh" attitude based on some additional evaluations later in thread, cleaned up grammar, etc.
Edit: If you just want more info on necromancers and not discussion, here are some links to downthread:
lots of skeletons might be too good
what can you do with a drunken sailor - and create undead
First, you'll be a wizard this time, not a cleric. Clerics have access to the two spells you need, but ZERO class support. Wizards have a subclass - necromancy school - that gives you +your level to your pets' HP and +your prof. bonus to their attacks. It also lets you animate dead a little faster but whatever. You can also try to control one other undead that you didn't make, which is pretty awesome - see below. But overall wizards are way better than clerics, who get exactly nothing. No control undead, no Death domain - nada.
The entirety of raising an undead army is contained in (our familiar) two spells: animate dead and create undead. They work basically the same way as each other, but just change what you make. Both have a casting time of 1 minute so you will not be using them in battle. Animate is 3rd spell level (5th character level) and Create is 6th spell level (11th character level). They are WAY more constrained now in that they specifically only work on small / medium humanoids. /sigh Goodbye giant undead spider... Also the major other penalty is that you have to keep casting the spell EVERY DAY to maintain control. So that's a lot of spell slots you are dedicating to the task, and this effectively caps your army at the number of spell slots you feel comfortable giving up. (It also means you better hope you're not unconscious for a few days...)
So what do you get? Animate gives you 4 (+2 per spell level) skeletons or zombies under your control per spell slot per day. You CAN command them as a bonus action (take THAT ranger!) but you can only command any number (including all) to do one thing at a time. So you can't split the group and say half of you do this, half do that - unless you spend extra actions to do so. Skeletons and zombies are CR 1/4. As you level up they'll get +1 HP per your level and your prof. bonus to damage, but frankly that's still very little. These guys are mostly fodder, unless you can put together dozens of them - see later in the thread.
Create Undead is basically the same except you can make different stuff. It starts at 3 ghouls, +1 per spell level, and you can make stronger (but fewer) undead with an 8th or 9th level slot. You can create two ghasts or wights at 8th (+1 per spell level), and 2 mummies at 9th. Each of these groups still requires a dedicated spell slot to maintain control, although you could have 2 mummies, 5 ghouls, and 12 skeletons all at once if you were willing to give up a 9th, 8th, and 7th level spell slot. And you'd still need to use a bunch of actions to direct them all, unless your command was "everyone go kill that guy."
Since the Monster Manual isn't out, we don't know how good these guys are (*see later in the thread for some analysis), but I'm betting if you were in a fight calling down a 40d6 meteor (yeah, you read that) over an area is more effective than 2 mummies running around, so damage per round is not what you're getting here (unless you have dozens of archer skeletons fighting all at once - see later in the thread). There's probably some good utility in the effects your pets can dish out, but it also remains to be seen how party-friendly they are (ghasts in previous editions had a permanent "stink cloud" that your party members would definitely not appreciate). Ultimately, their best use is probably very situational - like when you need something immune to poison or necrotic damage, or if you need a quick distraction for a stupid monster that can't just rush past your guys to clobber you. Again: this ain't no all-purpose fireball.
Currently I don't see any way to heal your pets, or otherwise improve them once they are made. If you gain a level, you might as well wipe the group and re-raise them (which is sort of dumb).
There's also zero feat support, but that's not surprising since there's zero feat support for any kind of caster. There are +1 to casting-ability feats and other things casters might find useful, but there are no caster feats to speak of.
The one extra thing you get as a 14th level necromancer / wizard is the ability to control one undead you didn't make with no time limit. It's a CHA save to resist and you can only have one at a time, but the options are otherwise unlimited. The trick, though, is that intelligent undead are harder to control and anything with an Int of 12 or more gets to retry its save each round until it wins, so you will not be enslaving Strahd or a lich or something like that. Maybe that giant skeleton dragon your DM was foolish enough to throw at the party, though... (Update: Vampire spawn are only Int 11... but they have trouble in daylight.)
In the end, they sort of went in a different direction with action economy: the "bonus action" mechanic in 5.0 is a good way to handle pets. Overall, though, the main issue is that tons of dinky guys hasn't historically been as good as one big guy, so you're still limited in that respect. Although the designers have said that swarms of little guys can still be a challenge in 5.0. Limiting your power by tying up spell slots is probably the smartest idea they had. I don't think 4 skeletons is going to give you the same result as your fireball, but at least they can technically be used over and over? It's hard to say without some experimenting.
I also assume that while Bruce Cordell still breathes, there will eventually be some support - via feats or other spells or maybe cleric subclasses - that will bolster the idea of a necromancer in play. It's still a tricky thing to manage. I still wish someone would decide it's ok to summon them during a battle for a very short period of time - basically the Guild Wars 1 method - and boost their power accordingly, more like Animate Object. I find that a LOT more streamlined and easier to manage in-game - as opposed to having 14 index cards with various hit point totals you constantly need to track. Then again, if there are eventually supposed to be rules for overseeing a castle or something, maybe they can do something like that for your undead hordes... Also, it'd be nice to start your character's defining class feature at level 2 like everyone else, instead of level 5.
Edit: Changed the "meh" attitude based on some additional evaluations later in thread, cleaned up grammar, etc.
Edit: If you just want more info on necromancers and not discussion, here are some links to downthread:
lots of skeletons might be too good
what can you do with a drunken sailor - and create undead
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What we need now is a level 1 version that only works on dead things and I think we'd be in business.
