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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 7022835" data-attributes="member: 53980">Wow, for starters kudos for thoroughness! Secondly though, we're having a discussion, I'm not "making you" do anything. In case it wasn't clear, you're free to do whatever you want, and if I have inadvertently placed a geas upon you using the mystical art of forum-fu, I release you. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />That said, I still think that the Druid/Necro is clearly superior to the Necro for a significant period of the campaign. The sheet might have convinced me that the gap narrows at 11th, but that's still a 72,000 xp gap.For starters, I would never use Planar Binding as a 5th level spell outside of very specialized applications. It's an hour of time and 1,000 gp to extend your conjuration for 24 hours, with a longer setup time and more resources if you're casting it on a creature that isn't already bound. It's simply not worth casting every day unless the campaign features regular showers of thousands of gold that fall from the heavens and unlimited prep time for the PCs that is never interrupted by hostile creatures. It becomes a viable option at 11th level, when you only have to cast it once every 10 days.You are correct when you say that Necro's higher level slots are more efficient at creating undead. However, the point I think you're missing is that the Druid/Necro can burn all of his 3rd level and higher wizard spells on animating a horde and still be quite effective since he hasn't touched his druid spells. If Necro does the same, he'll get a slightly larger horde but not enough to be equivalent to even a single casting of Conjure Animals IMO, and he won't be able to cast anything aside from 1st and 2nd level spells (I'm assuming they both use Arcane Recovery to cast Animate Dead one more time). Sure, the Necro can go the route of not employing minions and just acting like a plain-jane wizard, but the point is that if he wants to be a master of minions (not unreasonable) then the Druid/Necro has him seriously out gunned, at least until he's 11th level and possibly as far as 15th level. I already said that at the very highest levels (17+) the Necro is very probably superior, but IMO that isn't enough.As I've said before, you're free to do as you please (obviously). I'm merely discussing my own point of view.In a given day, sure. But I've played a wizard who ran out of first level spell slots in a deadly encounter and had to use 2nd level spell slots (less than ideal) to cast Shield or go splat. For a normal mage, four per encounter is the limit without dipping into higher level slots that you'd ideally rather not waste on Shield. Granted, that's more than you need in most combats. But when you're taunting giants into chasing you because you melee is being annihilated while simultaneously maintaining polymorph on the one melee guy who would otherwise go down on the next hit, trust me, four isn't nearly enough. I think I was 8th or 9th level for that encounter, went in with all my spell slots, and ended with one (2nd level?) slot remaining. 8 or 12 slots though? I can't imagine ever needing that many Shields in a single encounter (and keep in mind that the Sor/Wiz can use both sorcerous restoration and arcane recovery, so he is even less likely to run out over the course of the day).</blockquote>

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