D&D 5E 5.0 necromancer

[Jack the Lad]

I still don't think that's a big deal because the same argument can be made for the entire evocation school. Fireball potentially does WAY more damage than a fighter could do in one round; that's all there is to it. So 4 skeletons attacking someone should be compared to fireball, not fighter DPR. And it isn't even close to as good as fireball when it comes to damage.

It's not really a big deal until you get tons and tons of guys all at once; that is when the action economy thing starts to really unravel, because you're using the equivalent of 4 or 5 spell slots in one bonus action. THAT is crazy - the fact that 4 or 5 spell slots does more damage than a fighter is meaningless. I mean: of course it does.

It's not just using multiple spell slots as a bonus action that's the problem. It's doing so every round for 24 hours.

Let's look at Fireball.

Here's a table showing the damage you can expect to do to a single target, on average, by spending every level 3 or above spell slot on Fireballs - as always, by PC level and enemy defence (in this case Dex save) - and how many rounds it would take you to cast them all and reach that number:

As we can see, at level 16 and against the +5 Dex save Adult Blue Dragon, we can expect to deal a nice, even 300 damage. That's with 11 Fireballs, though, and those will take 11 rounds to cast, and it's probably unrealistic to expect that a combat will last 11 rounds.

If we go back to the skeleton chart, we can see that at level 16 a Necromancer can summon up to 68 skeletons and control up to 94.

Let's be conservative and summon half that many, giving us 34 skeletons. We can do that using our 4th, 5th and 7th level slots, leaving us with 5 spells in total - 3rd, 6th and 8th.

We know that a skeleton deals 3.325 DPR to the dragon, so our 34 skeletons are dealing 113 DPR together.

In 3 rounds of bonus actions, we've already beaten the Fireballing Wizard's entire daily damage output.

And we can cast Fireballs too, alongside our skeletons attacking.

Side point: anything that resists or is immune to non-magical attacks pretty much throws the chart out the window, and fighters zoom WAY ahead with a single +1 magic weapon. Even if you manage to get up to a few dozen skeletons, one stone golem is all it takes to destroy your entire army.

We've been told over and over again throughout the development process that magical weapons are not assumed or required in 5e. While it's true that that doesn't seem to be the case in the final game, resistance only halves the skeletons' damage output, meaning that instead of requiring - in an absolute worst case scenario, at level 20, when the Fighter finally gets his 4th attack - 12 of our potential 146 skeletons to beat his DPR, we need 24.

Which isn't exactly the biggest deal in the world.

Edit:
In all seriousness, your charts are awesome. Thanks for going to all that trouble to do all the analysis! Even if I disagree it will definitely help anyone else reading to know what is going on.

Thank you! I always enjoy doing this kind of number crunching and exploring whether my assumptions are actually based on fact

 

[evilbob]

Has anyone taken Finger of Death into consideration? After reading this thread I'm suddenly thinking it is very broken.

Nice catch! That does go above and beyond the Animate Dead. However it's a 7th level spell, only does 1 at a time, and melee zombies are not nearly as dangerous as ranged skeletons. Really, the entire point is that 100 ranged creatures CAN target 1 solo creature, whereas you can get far fewer melee creatures in range.

Edit: The necromancy school's bonus - +HP and damage - would definitely apply to this creature as well. It works on any undead you create with a necromancy spell.

I find it amusing that we all seem to have neglected the fact that a handful of mid-level clerics are just going to obliterate this entire skeleton army.

Oh, no one is ignoring it. Like a stone golem, there are huge holes in the "build an army of skeletons" strategy. Any cleric is one of them! (The stone golem would also wreck an army of hirelings.)

 

[evilbob]

In 3 rounds of bonus actions, we've already beaten the Fireballing Wizard's entire daily damage output.

Yes: this is where we agree. The ability to "spend" 2-11+ spell slots in one bonus action is where this breaks, even if individually those spell slots aren't that big of a deal.

That's why I think putting a cap of at most 20 on your total is probably best, but I am guessing you'd like a cap that was lower. Either way, a cap of some sort seems reasonable.

I do think assuming even 82 skeletons would last more than 4 rounds against a dragon (they hadn't already killed) is unlikely, though. Even with bonus HP, I still think they will melt quickly against most foes; at best a small group might last a couple rounds, but since they do ~1/4th the damage of most evocations, that still puts them on the low side re: DPR. Their value is really in wasting enemy actions.

Also, I would generally count Fireball as an AoE spell, so ~4 targets, typically. That's a more realistic use of the spell and expected damage, I think. So, even as a 3rd level spell, you're talking about (8d6) avg. 28 damage (save for half), times 4 = 112 DPR or 56 on all saves. That's the kind of bar I'm talking about with evocation. If you want to compare single-target damage, we might try something more like Disintegrate. That's a 6th level spell that does 10d6+40 (although apparently zero on a save!). So that's avg. 75 single-target damage, on a failed save. On the low side (as single-targets would be) compared to a 6th level Fireball (11d6) or a 7th level super-murder Delayed Blast Fireball (12d6 + as high as 60d6 more!!!! since it gains +1d6 per round for up to a minute) but still above the typical 10 skeleton DPR output of about 40 (assuming ~40% chance to hit against 11th level foes).

Yeah, the whole "magic items aren't required!" is a weird one to me. Both modules that have been released are still handing out items pretty frequently - certainly not what I would call "rare." And the existence of a stone golem - something that you HAVE to have either a magic weapon or an adamantine weapon to even hurt AT ALL - that's kind of tricky. I mean, I guess you could still say that you don't have to have a magic item since you could have adamantine, and you could also say "well just don't use that in your campaign," but it definitely seems more like the bar is "you will probably at least have a magic weapon" by about level 5-10, as opposed to "you won't ever have one."

 

[Heir Raktus]

Question... Is the wizard worth going Necromancer for?

I recognize that:

• The creature's hit point maximum is increased by an amount equal to your wizard level.
• The creature adds your proficiency bonus to its weapon damage rolls.

Are good bonuses, but are they worth it over a Cleric?

The Holy Necromancer:
Cons
-1 Target for Animate Dead
No Finger of Death
No Proficiency bonus to damage rolls
Less maximum HP
Pros
Same max number of undead that can be controlled
Heavy Armor
Healing
Speak With Dead
More control over wild undead

 

[TwoSix]

Question... Is the wizard worth going Necromancer for?

I recognize that:

• The creature's hit point maximum is increased by an amount equal to your wizard level.
• The creature adds your proficiency bonus to its weapon damage rolls.

Are good bonuses, but are they worth it over a Cleric?

The Holy Necromancer:
Cons
-1 Target for Animate Dead
No Finger of Death
No Proficiency bonus to damage rolls
Less maximum HP
Pros
Same max number of undead that can be controlled
Heavy Armor
Healing
Speak With Dead
More control over wild undead

Probably not, not when you can go Cleric 1/Wizard X and get a lot of the benefits. The proficiency bonus to damage is just huge, to huge to pass up, IMO.

 

[Heir Raktus]

Well, all you'd lose with Cleric 1/Wizard X is:
1 - 7th level spell slot
Signature Spell's

And gain:
Medium, Heavy Armor and Shields

Worth?

 

[Boarstorm]

Any talk of cleric necromancers seems premature until we get the death domain rules. Not sure how much that'll change things, but it might do so significantly.

 

[Heir Raktus]

Any talk of cleric necromancers seems premature until we get the death domain rules. Not sure how much that'll change things, but it might do so significantly.

I disagree... a War Cleric can still cast Animate Dead as many times as a Wizard. They retain as many undead, even if they only raise one less. Meaning a level five cleric can wade into the battlefield with the same eight skeletal archers backing him up that the far less armored wizard would have. Even without a death domain, the cleric has leverage the theory around.

also just stumbled across this cert given to players at cons for OP:

 

[Authweight]

This is just awful. On the one hand, they take the action economy to the extreme with the ranger, forcing them to use their own actions to command their pets, but then they let wizards animate dozens upon dozens of undead and up to 24 elementals. I just don't get it. What were they thinking? Do they not see how big of a problem it is for one player to control dozens of creatures? That's enough to grind the game to a halt and make people quit in frustration. And it doesn't even take some kind of rules exploit to do it. All it takes is using the spells as written.

I can't tell you for sure what the devs were thinking when they came up with this, but I have a pretty good guess.

My guess is that their attitude was that they felt the whole point of the necromancer was to control a horde of undead. If a DM doesn't want that style of play in their game, they can simply ban necromancy in their games and get on with it. They didn't see a point in offering an action-economy friendly necromancer.

On the other hand, they did think they could offer an action-economy friendly beast master. They didn't want to make it so only DMs with a certain play style would allow the beast master, and they felt they could effectively represent the beast master without relying on opening up the action economy.

I honestly think that the result of this leaves a lot to be desired. The beast master ranger is pretty weak while the necromancer is probably on the strong end of acceptable. But I do see the thinking behind it, and it somewhat makes sense.

 

[Heir Raktus]

Death Domain Cleric for a one level drop. Reaper is a pretty good opener. Go variant Human and take Heavy Armor Expert as your feat. You rock some pretty decent survival at the cost of one level less of Undead.