Rushbolt
Explorer
The recent UA for the 2024 Arcane Subclasses has once again brought the design of the Necromancer Wizard subclass to the forefront. Surveys will pile in for the UA that was released with the latest incarnation of this specialist that harnesses the powers of the dark arts. Many of them will bemoan the ineffectiveness of this new version to generate from 4-20 undead as quickly and easily as the 2014 version of the subclass or the fact that you don't get to bolster your undead at 6th level like before. They will acknowledge that this can create some complexity, but they will say it worked fine in their game. They will say it didn't cause a problem, and the game was richer for it. Most of those people have not been on the other side of the DM screen for 16 levels of play from a Necromancy Wizard. I have.
I am going to preface this by saying that I am fully aware everyone's experience will vary, and some groups may have figured out how to solve quite a few of these issues. That doesn't make the subclass more designable. Design means you are making a subclass where the DM and players don't have to agree on things like how many corpses are available. It also means you are making a character that has a somewhat predictable power level that can be played by any player without difficulty. Finally, and maybe most importantly, you are designing a class that is usable in organized play.
How many undead will the Necromancer animate? 5? 10? 20? You don't know. How do you handle that many extra creatures? It will depend. Is it an open forest or a cramped twisting passage? How many melee players are going to need to wait if the Necromancer sends his minions in first? What if the Necromancer is using ghouls? Those attacks need rolled first to see if anything gets paralyzed. Okay something was paralyzed. Roll all the attacks with advantage now. Wait-that's hard to do for 6 other creatures unless you have matched dice to see what rolls go together. Okay just roll them one at a time. Was that one in melee? Do I get to roll crit damage now? This is the type of combat that was pervasive in 4th edition D&D. People didn't like that complexity.
Many people know the origin of D&D is wargaming. I went to a seminar one time at Gen Con and was given the history of how the Role Playing genre evolved. Players had several units on the battlefield, and often they were referred to by their commander's name. "Sergeant York's unit has held that hill for 5 turns now." Eventually, the units were ignored and just the commander was fleshed out. Add in a little Lord of the Rings, change the commanders to characters and you have D&D. This is how you can design a consistent Necromancer that is interesting. Focus on the character, not the minions.
Wizards has done quite a bit of that here, but I don't think they have explained their features well or provided enough of them. For example, the10th level Bloodied feature could be written as the character explodes in a mist that reforms up to 60 feet away. They can also lean in to the Necromancer becoming resistant to conditions that normally don't affect the undead as their practice of the dark magic allows them to build up a tolerance against those effects The most obvious of these is the Frightened condition. How are you easily scaring a Necromancer? Anyone stating the Necromancer just needs to be an undead commander is just ignoring the lion's share of the other Necromancy spells that show many of the character's other skills.
I am going to preface this by saying that I am fully aware everyone's experience will vary, and some groups may have figured out how to solve quite a few of these issues. That doesn't make the subclass more designable. Design means you are making a subclass where the DM and players don't have to agree on things like how many corpses are available. It also means you are making a character that has a somewhat predictable power level that can be played by any player without difficulty. Finally, and maybe most importantly, you are designing a class that is usable in organized play.
How many undead will the Necromancer animate? 5? 10? 20? You don't know. How do you handle that many extra creatures? It will depend. Is it an open forest or a cramped twisting passage? How many melee players are going to need to wait if the Necromancer sends his minions in first? What if the Necromancer is using ghouls? Those attacks need rolled first to see if anything gets paralyzed. Okay something was paralyzed. Roll all the attacks with advantage now. Wait-that's hard to do for 6 other creatures unless you have matched dice to see what rolls go together. Okay just roll them one at a time. Was that one in melee? Do I get to roll crit damage now? This is the type of combat that was pervasive in 4th edition D&D. People didn't like that complexity.
Many people know the origin of D&D is wargaming. I went to a seminar one time at Gen Con and was given the history of how the Role Playing genre evolved. Players had several units on the battlefield, and often they were referred to by their commander's name. "Sergeant York's unit has held that hill for 5 turns now." Eventually, the units were ignored and just the commander was fleshed out. Add in a little Lord of the Rings, change the commanders to characters and you have D&D. This is how you can design a consistent Necromancer that is interesting. Focus on the character, not the minions.
Wizards has done quite a bit of that here, but I don't think they have explained their features well or provided enough of them. For example, the10th level Bloodied feature could be written as the character explodes in a mist that reforms up to 60 feet away. They can also lean in to the Necromancer becoming resistant to conditions that normally don't affect the undead as their practice of the dark magic allows them to build up a tolerance against those effects The most obvious of these is the Frightened condition. How are you easily scaring a Necromancer? Anyone stating the Necromancer just needs to be an undead commander is just ignoring the lion's share of the other Necromancy spells that show many of the character's other skills.
Last edited:
