Why a Wizard might become interested in undead is their own story. Perhaps, like most assume, the Wizard is desperate for power and wants unintelligent muscle – or, I suppose, bones. Maybe they have a simple curiosity about death, and wish to explore it to its fullest. Perhaps they simply wish to revive an old family member, or a spouse, and simply can’t generate enough piety to do so. In any case, these intelligent souls find themselves in the School of Necromancy, available in the Player’s Handbook. This subclass is interested in the Necromancy school of magic… For good or evil. Let’s see why you may want to step away from Clerics to practice Necromancy. Dive into our Necromancy Wizard 5E Guide!
Table of Contents
Reap the Soul: Necromancy Wizard 5E
Who hasn’t wanted to be a necromancer? Mechanically, the Necromancy school is a defensive wizard subclass with some summoning buffs and utility. The abilities aren’t exactly extreme, but you can get some mileage from the small amount of healing and undead army that you’ll summon.
Necromancy Savant
All PHB Schools have the Savant skill, with a very simple upside.
Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, the gold and time you must spend to copy a Necromancy spell into your spellbook is halved.
Yeah, not exactly impactful, huh?
This ability is as powerful as your GM wants it to be. Necromancy is considered taboo by most societies, so you’ll probably not find a library with a Necronomicon full of Circle of Death and stuff. That means you’ll be looking for scrolls or enemies for your Necromancy magic. That’s… Rough.
If you take out an enemy lich, you’ll be super happy (as long as they were a Wizard!), but that’s hard to rely on. And especially early on, you might be lucky and find Cause Fear or False life… But make sure you use your head. Get the Necromancy spells that you can’t be without, and just consider any ones you find in spellbooks on your journey a slightly cheap blessing.
Grim Harvest
Your actual level 2 ability is actually quite nice.
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to reap life energy from creatures you kill with your spells. Once per turn when you kill one or more creatures with a spell of 1st level or higher, you regain hit points equal to twice the spell’s level, or three times its level if the spell belongs to the School of Necromancy. You don’t gain this benefit for killing constructs or undead.
This is pretty great! Wizards have extremely limited access to healing, so now you’ll be rewarded for dealing a lot of damage. The problem is that Necromancy has precious few wizard spells that deal huge bursts of damage; you’ll be lacking on the 3x healing until around spell level 4 or so. This sadly doesn’t work on Cantrips, since they’re spell level 0. No Toll the Dead for you!
Thankfully, you’ll have a few good tools. Blight is a 4th level spell that actually does a solid burst of damage. Negative Energy Flood has fantastic synergy with your future abilities, and deals solid numbers. Once you reach high levels, Finger of Death was designed to kill people. And all spells that can kill people are valid here; learn Fireball and Lightning Bolt, and you’ll steal heal for 6.
This ability is great, but it just has the problem of Necromancy being more of a debuff/summoning school. You’ll actually need to learn some good damaging options if you want to use this heal.
On the bright side, if you want to cheese this, you don’t need to have a challenging fight to heal. You can buy a bag of rats and summon a Flaming Sphere, killing one creature per round to regenerate for 1 minute. Talk to your GM to see if something like that would work… And maybe make sure the Druid is a safe distance away.
Undead Thralls
At last, the main reason you want to learn from this school! This’ll be split into two parts.
At 6th level, you add the Animate Dead spell to your spellbook if it is not there already. When you cast Animate Dead, you can target one additional corpse or pile of bones, creating another zombie or skeleton, as appropriate.
You’re probably not too happy that this ability doesn’t offer a replacement for if you already had Animate Dead. I fully understand. But, waiting one level for a free spell learned is pretty solid for you. And… Well, you were going to learn Animate Dead anyways, so it’s a good free spell.
Animate Dead normally summons based on your Spell Level. The total number of creatures is 1 + (2x[Spell Level-3]). So, thanks to this ability, you get the effect of 2 level 3 Animate Deads at once. That’s value!
As you level up, this “+1 Body” will be a little bit less valuable, since Animate Dead becomes a bit more about reasserting control. But, trust me.. Thanks to the second half of this ability, that’s well worth it.
Whenever you create an undead using a necromancy spell, it has additional benefits:
- 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.
The health scaling is a bit rough, but 20 health at level 20 is not ineffective. That means a caster needs to roll 20 damage higher to kill your summons. Valuable, if slightly unimpressive.
The bonus to damage is the real meat of the ability! At level 20, your undead abominations gain a +6 bonus to damage, which is insanely high. This lets the basic Animate Dead spell almost keep up, since your pile of zombies will have a good burst of damage when they hit. And, when you create undead with better spells, they’ll be even more effective on the battlefield.
I would suggest considering the Summon Undead Spirit spell (if your GM allows you to explore UA content!), since it scales quite well with level. Negative Energy Flood can kill a creature and summon an undead. And, of course, Create Undead is a solid option later on. You’ll be shocked to see how effective your zombie army is when they are both tankier, deal more damage, and get one extra body on each cast!
Inured to Undeath
Now… We have a bit of a problem. This ability is a little weak.
Beginning at 10th level, you have resistance to necrotic damage, and your hit point maximum can’t be reduced. You have spent so much time dealing with undead and the forces that animate them that you have become inured to some of their worst effects.
In the basic Monster Manual, 22 creatures deal Necrotic damage. That’s not nothing, to be sure! But… It’s weak in comparison to Fire and Poison (46 and 43, respectively). And considering you’re going to be the one herding Undead, you’ll likely not be face-to-face with Necrotic damage.
More interesting is the “hitpoint Maximum cannot be reduced.” This is one of the rarer effects in the game, but it can occasionally be terrifying. For example, if you have an on-level Wight encounter, having your max HP be reduced can end you instantly, with the right combination of crits and poor saves. When effects can lower your HP, they tend to be constitution saves… Which is rough for a little Wizard like yourself.
However, the problems are twofold. One, why are you getting hit at all? You have an undead army, likely a melee frontliner, probably a Cleric. You should not be taking damage, let alone eating the effects of Life Drain or anything similar.
Two, even if you do get hit, you should be happy to not have your HP reduced… But you’re still a Wizard. Getting hit at all still puts you in rough shape, and the necrotic damage that normally comes with max HP damage is gonna still take a chunk outta you.
Neither of these abilities are bad, but they’re situational. And the situations really shouldn’t apply to you.
Command Undead
This ability is pretty awesome! It’s similar to a Turn effect, except instead of making monsters cower, they’re yours now!
Starting at 14th level, you can use magic to bring undead under your control, even those created by other wizards. As an action, you can choose one undead that you can see within 60 feet of you. That creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your wizard spell save DC. If it succeeds, you can’t use this feature on it again. If it fails, it becomes friendly to you and obeys your commands until you use this feature again.
There’s a few caveats; if an Undead has 8 or more intelligence, it gets Advantage. If it has 12 or more, they get to save once per hour.
So, Charm Monster actually doesn’t work on Undeads in most situations. They tend to be immune to charms. So you get a pretty rare talent! Making undead friendly is actually really good, since they have really high CR monsters. And almost anything can be undead if a Wizard’s insane enough! That means you could theoretically “charm” a giant skeletal dragon, a lich, a vampire, mummy lord… That’s a lot of strong creatures under your theoretical belt.
This will also let you theoretically have one weak-willed (but strong-muscled) Undead be your permanent bodyguard. Until you toss this out again, at least. Maybe you’ll get lucky and your GM will forget you have this, and then throw a Nightwalker at you.
Now… Problems. The Intelligence limitation lowers your chances of capturing monsters. Advantage would be bad enough, but at high enough int, you get monsters that get advantage and roll that advantage hourly. You can’t reasonably command high-ish level Undead. Too many of them have good Intelligence and good Charisma.
This is also one of the few abilities that literally just says “you can’t use this feature on it again.” That’s actually hilarious. You could not see that undead for a year, and you still couldn’t try and command it. You could hop through planes and the universe, and that one Wraith you tried to command is still immune. It’s so rare that these don’t have a “long rest” limitation that just having a flat “no” is weird.
However, it has good range, targets a save few creatures have (even Liches aren’t proficient in Charisma saves), and has a devastating effect. Most GMs won’t let you have the creature sit still and beat it to death, but… You might get away with it. Who knows? This is a pretty strong ability, but if you can force the creatures to roll it at disadvantage… Do it.
Best Race for Necromancy School Wizards
Unsurprisingly, ensure your Intelligence is as high as you can reasonably make it. The +5 will be essential for your magic to kill creatures for your healing, and increasing your control of Undead. Next would be Dexterity or Constitution, and your third will be the other of the two. Those stats are necessary to prevent your frail self from hitting the ground, in the rare cases where others target you.
Vedalken
The Vedalken from the Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica are a curious race of partially amphibious beings. Kinda like seals… But they look like blue humans. Strange… They gain a +2 to Intelligence, +1 Wisdom. The Wisdom’s nice for resisting mental spells, but isn’t too useful otherwise. What is definitely useful is Vedalken Dispassion, allowing you advantage on any mental saving throw. Insane! You also get even better proficiency in some Intelligence and Wisdom skills, adding 1d4 to rolls with your chosen ability. Really cool race for any wizard, and offers some good options for an anti-mage – and you, little necromancer, will be targeted by spells!
Warforged
These versatile creatures from Eberron: Rising from the Last War are made of metal and wood. Because of that, your +2 Con, +1 to one other ability score (also known as Intelligence) is defensive but great. Constructed Resilience and Integrated Protection boosts your survivability by a lot. Sentry’s Rest is good flavor, and informs you if your Undead are hassled. And hey, you even get proficiencies! That’s amazing.
And flavorwise… A Warforged who’s curious about death, for all the wrong reasons? It’s literally perfect.
Best Feats for Necromancy Wizards
Practicing Necromancy doesn’t really change what feats a Wizard likes. You still want to boost Intelligence to 20, and then use feats to improve your survivability or the versatility of your spell list. Preferably, your minions can keep you alive while you sling spells, reducing the need for purely defensive feats like Tough.
That being said, don’t be afraid to just pump your stats. Wizards really can afford to continuously boost Constitution and be in a good, safe spot. However, these three feats can be useful utility boosts to an otherwise solid Necromancy core.
Metamagic Adept
Metamagic Adept is a strong feature for any Wizard, largely due to the Quickened Spell metamagic. This feat provides your Wizard with 2 Sorcery Points which must be used on Metamagic, and then 2 metamagic abilities to work with. Usually, those metamagic features are Quickened Spell and then one option which suits your Wizard’s needs; often, Twinned Spell, Distant Spell, or Subtle Spell.
Quickened Spell is a must-have. Your Wizard will sometimes be in a position where they just can’t cast a spell. For example, if they need to take the Hide action, having Quickened Spell can be the difference between life and death. If they need just a touch of additional damage, a Cantrip and Quickened Spell can be extremely potent. This feat is one spell per day with Quickened Spell, since that option takes 2 Sorcery Points, but even that can be so incredibly powerful.
Your other Metamagic option is more versatile. Distant Spell is a personal favorite, since there’ve been a handful of situations where just 5 extra feet on a Hold Person could’ve saved a life. However, Subtle Spell is a useful counter to DMs that think they’re cute with Silence effects, since you can cast any spell under the effect of Subtle Spell. Twinned Spell is only available for 1st and 2nd level spells, but that means you can twin stuff like Protection from Good and Evil or See Invisibility.
Extended Spell is good for very specific situations, like using Summon Undead, but usually relies on your concentration holding. So, consider saving Metamagic Adept for when you have items or features which make concentration easier.
Resilient
Resilient is one of the most simple feats in the game. Resilient provides a plus-one to a single ability score while giving you proficiency in that score’s saving throw. For the case of the Wizard, this is almost always a plus-one in Constitution and proficiency in Constitution saves.
The Wizard is not a class which wants to take damage, often using spells like Greater Invisibility or Mirror Image to avoid damage entirely. However, taking chip damage is going to happen as a Wizard. And when it does, you really want your concentration to hold. Resilient is the most consistent answer to this, providing between +2 and +7 to your saving throw, depending on level and if Resilient improved your Constitution modifier.
Resilient is often compared to War Caster, a feat which gives you advantage on Concentration checks. War Caster is a lot more specific, and almost always worse for a Wizard. Resilient at least provides an opportunity to round out Constitution, potentially giving your Wizard some health. War Caster gives a lot of benefits, but usually only one that applies for Wizard.
Though, those Opportunity Attack Hold Persons are very, very funny.
Telekinetic
Telekinetic is the only feat on this list that provides a +1 to Intelligence, like Fey Touched or Shadow Touched. However, Telekinetic is so strong for a Wizard that we have to mention it here.
A +1 to Intelligence is very good. Most Wizards can start play with a 17 in Intelligence, so having a feat which gives them a +1 is perfect for the 18 at level 4. Usually, you want to narrow down which +1 INT feat you’d like, just because a core of 17 Intelligence, 14 Dexterity, and 14 Constitution is so common and so effective for non-Custom Lineage characters. And Telekinetic has a lot going for it.
Your first benefit is a better version of the Mage Hand spell. This version is invisible, requires no components to cast, and can be boosted to a range of 60 feet if you learn it from a class. Mage Hand is a very potent out-of-combat cantrip, but can suffer a lot in stealth situations. This solves the only real problem the cantrip had, so run wild with your little invisible friend.
The other benefit of Telekinetic is the world’s smallest little shove. As a bonus action, a Telekinetic character may shove or pull someone five feet. The person has to be within 30 feet and must fail a Strength save to be affected, although allies can fail on purpose.
This minor little push is a godsend. Five feet is enough to pull an ally out of harm’s way or an enemy attack range, put an ally back into an enemy’s attack range to threaten them, or get an ally out of the way of a large blast, such as from Fireball. You can target enemies, since Strength saves aren’t usually that high unless the enemy is a big jerk, so you can also maneuver your foes into the danger zones of spells. That Wall of Fire might be a bit more threatening now.
Seriously, if you haven’t played with Telekinetic before, do yourself a favor and try it. It’s so much fun.
FAQ for the Necromancy Wizard
Is Necromancy Good in DnD 5E?
Necromancy spells tend to be lower power but apply debuffs, like the cantrip Chill Touch, or are damaging with some limitations, like Blight or Toll the Dead. As a result, knowing which Necromancy spell is good or not requires game knowledge and a willingness to experiment. In terms of alignment, however, Necromancy is considered to be evil most of the time, though the intent of the caster is a major player in what the ultimate verdict is.
What is the Best Spell for Grim Harvest?
Theoretically, Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting could provide the largest number of hitpoints, with a total of 24 being given to someone who kills with it. However, in terms of easily-spammable Necromancy spells, you might be able to more easily achieve it with spells like Blight, which are spammable and lower level. Don’t be afraid to learn traditionally powerful spells like Fireball or Disintegrate if you want more guaranteed kills, even if they give less health.
Does Undead Thralls Affect the Spell Summon Undead?
By the wording of Undead Thralls, the Undead Spirit created through Summon Undead would gain the additional hitpoints and additional damage of the Necromancy school ability. That makes Summon Undead and the brand-new Spirit of Death go-to spells for a Necromancy Wizard. Unfortunately, since you’re not killing your foes, most DMs won’t let you heal off of Grim Harvest.
Example Necromancy Wizard Build
Before we begin on our example Necromancy Wizard build, we have some limitations to put on it. We want this build to be accessible to players with hardcore DMs and ones that allow everything, so our DM will have pretty harsh restrictions.
- No Multiclassing. Level 20 Wizards aren’t exactly bad characters. We get the opportunity to play around with cool abilities like Spell Mastery and Signature Spells. While not usually worth losing Fighter or Artificer levels, they’ll be good enough for us.
- No Lineage Rules. This really limits what types of characters we can utilize. It’ll be fine overall, but we’re going to need to be a bit creative if we want high Intelligence.
- Can use Any Book. This opens up our options for races and backgrounds, but we’re still stuck with a short list of +2 Intelligence races. 5E was not a fan of handing out Intelligence boosts willy-nilly, unlike every other stat. So, this is largely just good for the background options.
- Standard Array. This is the most restrictive of the ability score generation methods, so let’s use it! We’re putting 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8 into our stats.
- Standard Equipment. As a Wizard, selecting equipment is far from essential, especially while they’re just mundane pieces of weapons and armor. Just makes sure you have a component pouch of some variety.
- Our Party consists of a Fighter, Rogue, and Bard. A fascinating party. Our frontline will appreciate the extra bodies for flanking and tanking. However, we’ll definitely want the standard Wizard options for dealing with crowds. The Bard can stun many people, but we still need to defeat them afterwards.
I’m very much interested in getting our Wizard to 17 Intelligence immediately. There are only a handful of ways to do this without Lineage Rules, but one of these ways lets us take two Intelligence-based feats. We’ll go with Variant Human, using the two free boosts on Intelligence and Constitution. Then, we’ll take the Telekinetic feat to get a bonus to Intelligence, the shove, and Mage Hand immediately. Our skill will be in Perception, so we don’t get caught out as easily as some Wizards do without preparation time.
Woof, that was a lot for a start! Let’s make things a bit simpler. The Sage background is a traditionally Wizardly choice which provides a ton of skills that a Wizard loves. Arcana and History are both great for an Intelligence class. Two languages can be useful, depending on the campaign, but always ask your DM about what language you should learn. For our campaign, our DM recommends that we learn Infernal, Dwarvish, and – using our Human language – Elvish. And don’t discount the Researcher feature, as that can easily lead to a storyline itself.
For our Ability Scores, Wizards do care about more than just Intelligence. Specifically, they really want their Dexterity and Constitution scores to be higher than anything else. We’re going to want 17 Intelligence, 14 Dexterity, and 14 Constitution. That’s absolutely possible with our Racial Ability Score bonuses.
| 5E Necromancy Wizard Build |
| Race: Variant Human Ability Scores: STR 8, DEX 14, CON 14 (13 + 1), INT 17 (15 + 1 + 1), WIS 12, CHA 10 Proficiencies: Investigation, Religion, Perception, Arcana, History Starting Equipment: Dagger, Component Pouch, Scholar’s Pack, Spellbook, Bottle of Ink, Quill, Small Knife, Letter from a Friend, Common Clothes, 10 gp Languages: Common, Dwarvish, Elvish, Infernal |
| Level | Class Benefits | Choices |
| 1 | -Arcane Recovery -1st Level spells | Hopefully, you aren’t done with decisions yet! The Wizard has another batch of abilities to count up. Cantrips. The Wizard’s starting batch of cantrips are all quite important. For accuracy purposes, we’ll want a strong damaging cantrip like Toll the Dead. We’ll take Mage Hand to improve the range of our incredible cantrip to 60 feet. And we’ll finally grab up Prestidigitation for an all-purpose utility cantrip outside of combat. Spells. For the purposes of this build guide, we cannot assume that we can get any spellbooks, scrolls, or libraries along our journey. We only get the 44 spells that a Wizard gets for leveling up. Better make them count! Let’s start with a handful of impactful 1st level spells. Alarm and Find Familiar are great ritual spells which will be impactful for scouting for the rest of the campaign. Identify will keep us from messing up and ruining our Fighter’s day with a cursed item. Silvery Barbs is an incredible reaction which can buff allies as it prevents enemies from hurting you. Magic Missile deals consistent damage with no real downside, making it a great option for finishing off enemies. Sleep doesn’t scale great, but it can basically end combat by itself right now, so let’s abuse it while we can. |
| 2 | -Necromancy Savant -Grim Harvest | We now have Necromancy Savant, which is much more useful in standard campaigns than in this build path. Grim Harvest is more easily applicable. Ray of Sickness, for instance, could heal us for three if it kills. For our purposes, we’ll stick with Magic Missile. Spells. Our two other 1st level spells are important, though not as important as our first batch. Consider Mage Armor and Absorb Elements as two spells which will last quite a while for our enterprising Wizard. This leaves us with a single method for dealing damage, but that’s going to be fine. Spam Magic Missile against targets that might die to 11 average damage. |
| 3 | -2nd Level Spells | 2nd level spells remain relatively distant for us. Not a single Necromancy option here does damage. Ugh. Spells. Scorching Ray deals very high damage to a single target, which might be good for our Grim Harvest healing. It also scales well, so it’ll be a good strategy if you just want to murder someone. Web is our first area denial tool, and we’re going to use it. By Webbing a set area, we can keep a lot of melee enemies out. |
| 4 | -Ability Score Improvement | This is our first Feat level, and we have 17 Intelligence to round out. We have a handful of options for this, but I’m going to go for a bit of a wacky one. Feats. Fey Touched is one of the best feats for non-Wizards, but still works fine for our heavily restricted mage. Misty Step and Command are two legitimately strong spells. You can consider Hex if you’d like, but we like how Command is useful at all stages of the game. A 1st level spell to cancel a turn is very nice.Cantrips. For our cantrip, we’ll grab Mind Sliver. This is an impactful cantrip which targets Intelligence and reduces saving throws, which can be an excellent combo for our Bard. Spells. More 2nd level spells. Invisibility is a very handy scouting and safety spell which you should have in your pocket at all times. Maximilian’s Earthen Grasp does consistent damage, restrains foes, and can impact multiple targets in a single casting. By the wording of Grim Harvest, killing multiple creatures per turn is a handy method of healing over time, so we can look for spells like this in the future. |
| 5 | -3rd Level Spells | 3rd level is where a lot of Wizard builds start to kick in, and this build is no exception. Vampiric Touch may look enticing, but your concentration slot is a bit too important to be spending on melee-range healing. Try to find that spell in the wild. Spells. Summon Undead, while not necessarily effective for Grim Harvest, will be your go-to offensive spell for a long, long time. Fly is a great defensive option for if your frontline gets overwhelmed or if you want your Fighter to chase down something in the air. Your concentration is very valuable, so plan accordingly. |
| 6 | -Undead Thralls | Keep an army of skeletons on-hand. Animate Dead is a very strong ability for soaking damage, even into late game, since those skeletons and zombies are basically worth nothing. Protect yourself and your allies, and you might be surprised at the damage that your goons accidentally bring. Spells. Fireball is a shockingly effective spell which deals incredible damage to enemies. Counterspell is important for anti-magic matchups. Keep your allies safe from your foes fireballs and you’ll find that midgame combats are a lot easier. |
| 7 | -4th Level Spells | 4th level magic is quite awkward for most Wizards, and Necromancers are no different. Spells. Wall of Fire is a great way to spend Concentration, as a wall of 5d8 damage is a fantastic way to split an encounter in half. That damage can also very easily proc your Grim Harvest alongside Telekinetic. Greater Invisibility is a very useful get-out-of-jail card for either yourself or an ally, even being viable into the lategame if your DM doesn’t hand out See Invisibility like candy. |
| 8 | -Ability Score Improvement | Sadly, this feat level is significantly more boring than our first one. Feat. Our feat will simply be a +2 to Intelligence, getting us to 20 Int. This is as fast as non-Custom Lineage characters can get to 20, so we’re right on schedule. Our spells will be as effective as mundanely possible now. Spells. As for our magic usage, we’re going to take Vitriolic Sphere, a simple spell to throw out willy-nilly during combat which can heal us significantly during a tussle. Spirit of Death is another undead-summoning spell which serves as more of a flying annoyance than the durable Summon Undead. Still, this spell gives enough of a different experience that the bonuses from Undead Thralls will be noted. This is largely due to it having permanent, innate advantage, which is kind of hilarious. |
| 9 | -5th Level Spells | 5th level magic is the last level where you can consistently cast spells of the level, since 6th level spells and beyond tend to be harder to access. Make these levels count. Spells. Hold Monster is a save-or-die spell, especially with this brutal party we have. Use it to lock down a foe and make their life miserable, especially alongside Silvery Barbs. Creation is a fascinating spell which can let you create almost anything your heart desires. Well, as long as it fits in a box. |
| 10 | -Inured to Undeath | Inured to Undeath doesn’t open up any features or strategies for you. Remember you have it, but don’t exactly volunteer to take maximum health drain for someone. You normally won’t survive whatever other effects that attack has tacked on. Cantrip. As for your utility cantrip, Message is our choice. Hiding information is a good idea at this point, so this spell will at least let your Bard lie their way through situations while being well-informed. Spells. Bigby’s Hand is an active aggressor in combats with many small enemies, locking down some targets while just slapping the heck out of others. It’s not an undead, but it can persist as an annoyance for a very long time. Scrying is a good spell for this party, since you don’t have fantastic ways to get information from a distance, so let’s grab that to have it. |
| 11 | -6th Level Spells | 6th level spells must be impactful, but we can still get a variety of options to cover a handful of situations. Spells. Eyebite is a must-have Wizard spell, even if we could scribe it for a cheaper cost. Create Undead, alongside Animate Dead, will bolster your army of undead idiots with extra health and damage. Mauling your enemies to death with overwhelming numbers is a fantastic idea, and your Ghouls will actually deal respectable damage alongside their minute chance to paralyze. |
| 12 | -Ability Score Improvement | At this point, our feat options are going to be significantly more interesting. Feat. Metamagic Adept will be our choice here. Quickened Spell and Extended Spell, with Extended Spell being here to co-opt our Concentration spot for longer periods of time when casting our summoning spells. This lets us keep our undead or reaper minion after a Short Rest has concluded, which is very nice. Spells. Contingency is a really cool, if expensive, spell which can keep us safe by assigning spells like Misty Step or Greater Invisibility during dangerous situations. Globe of Invulnerability is great for if you know you’re walking into a den of magic users, since they’ll have to invest a ton of resources to breaking your globe, letting your undead minions attack for basically free. |
| 13 | -7th Level Spells | 7th level spells are a bit better than most other magic we’ve learned, and it’s only getting better from here. Unfortunately, this is the first spell level that caps out at 2 spell slots, so we’re not going to learn too many spells at this height. Spells. Plane Shift is one of the best get-out-of-jail free cards in the game, either serving as an escape route or sending the big bad boss into the Elemental Plane of Fire for an Uber ride back. Forcecage is an annoyance of a spell that locks down creatures without a saving throw and can even prevent teleportation, making it a very consistent way to keep one or more enemies under wraps. |
| 14 | -Command Undead | Command Undead won’t come up too often at level 14, but remember you have it. An enemy dominated is an enemy defeated. Command Undead also doesn’t have a “if this target takes damage, it can reroll the save” prompt like Dominate spells do, so if you successfully dominate something like a Lich, you can have your allies beat it to death while it can’t really do much to stop them. Remember, though, it’s Friendly and will likely be able to defend itself if given any room, so word your orders carefully. Spells. The last level seven spell we’re going to worry about is Simulacrum, a great spell for copying the damage and stats of our Fighter or Rogue. We’re then going to go back in time to get Remove Curse, a critical spell to learn at this juncture that, if you haven’t gotten it by now, might be a good idea to grab before someone gets cursed. Feel free to learn this earlier if you have a bad feeling about any upcoming encounters. |
| 15 | -8th Level Spells | 8th level spells, much like 7th levels, can easily end an encounter by themselves. Choose wisely. Spells. Maze takes up Concentration, but is way too effective at entrapping a dangerous monster until your party is ready to deal with it. DC 20 Intelligence checks are not even easy for you to make, let alone the most common enemies in the game. Dominate Monster, when used carefully, can add yet another incredibly strong ally to your team. It’s especially effective for social encounters, since dominating enemies during a party brings up fewer questions than trying to kill them. |
| 16 | -Ability Score Improvement | At this point, our feat options are wide open. The world’s our oyster! Feat. For our feat, we’re going to go with a nice and simple Resilient (Constitution). Yeah, very creative, but we don’t really need much more than that. This provides a +5 to Constitution saves, soon to be +6, so we’re going to almost guarantee rolls on Concentration checks that come from chip damage. Spells. Let’s grab Feeblemind, a strong spell which deals guaranteed damage, targets Intelligence, and causes a caster to become able to cast magic. With Silvery Barbs, this is devastating magic which can be very handy to throw out once a boss is out of Legendary Resistances. Let’s drop down a few levels once again to learn Dispel Magic, a good method to remove deadly magic during specific situations. |
| 17 | -9th Level Spells | There’s only one really good option for 9th level spells. Spells. Wish is one of the most impactful reasons to be an endgame Wizard, as you now have access to almost every single spell in the game, and more. Just in case you fail the check to keep casting Wish after doing something silly, let’s also learn True Polymorph which functions as both a buff and debuff in specific situations. That little orphan girl might not be threatening now, but how about as a CR 20 Dragon? |
| 18 | -Spell Mastery | This is a fun level! Not many campaigns get to this endpoint, so Spell Mastery doesn’t usually get a chance to stretch its legs. Let’s give it the chance to. Spells. Checking through our list, we have some solid options for Spell Mastery’s 1st level, but not it’s 2nd. Let’s change that with Mirror Image, such an annoying spell to have online permanently. Then, let’s get Rary’s Telepathic Bond, a spell which lets us communicate with our party in almost every single possible situation. Spell Mastery. No surprise, we’ll be taking Mirror Image as our 2nd level option. Such an annoying 2nd level spell, it’ll serve us well as a defensive tool. Silvery Barbs is similarly annoying, giving us a permanent reaction which messes with saving throws or attack rolls. |
| 19 | -Ability Score Improvement | Feat. Our other feat should be one which provides a +1 to Constitution. For our sake, we’re going to choose Chef, getting us to 16 Constitution and letting us hand out adorable little treats. 36 temporary health isn’t terrible, but think about this: The image of a necromancer surrounded by ghouls and zombies, cooking up a storm. That’s perfection. Spells. Clone is an excellent spell for long-term campaigns where years could potentially go by, since it lets you make more copies of yourself in case you perish. Reverse Gravity can be a handy tool for long-term combats, though be prepared for if your party can’t handle gravity being upside-down. Make sure Winged Boots are all on deck! |
| 20 | -Signature Spells | Signature Spells aren’t nearly as impactful as Spell Mastery is, but there are two third level spells we really like to cast daily. Spells. Animate Dead isn’t exactly clearing encounters by itself at this point, but your zombies can accidentally live a hit or your skeletons can deal shocking damage. So, let’s keep the theme. A more serious choice is Counterspell, since the opportunity to cancel a spell for free cannot be underestimated. |
Conclusion – Our Take on the Necromancy Wizard 5E
The DND 5E Necromancer is decent. It has a lot of “fine” abilities that make it a worthwhile replacement for any necromancy-based Clerics. The only real shining star is their level 6 ability. If you’re wanting to summon an undead horde, then this is the way to do so with a damage-oriented class.
