Since Animate Dead only requires mental commands to control undead, could you command your undead while taking a rest? Are mental commands as strenous as talking?
Can you Twincast Animate Dead? If so, could you target three dead bodies or four?
Are there any optimized builds for Necromancers yet?
JohnnyBlaise wrote:
That's a LOT of bodies you gotta find...
That being said, Twin Spell doesn't work, since there is more than 1 target. Unless there are two bodies and you pick one body and twincast it to choose the other body. But...why would you waste 3 Sorcerer points that way?
And unless you can think in your sleep, you can't exactly use mental commands while sleeping. But! An elf could potentially command them while Trancing. But that may be considered "strenuous activity" since you're commanding a zobmie hoard...not exactly very restful...
Timborama wrote:
Timborama wrote:
A long rest is 8 hours, yes, and you can do non-strenuous activity, also yes.
But you left off a very important end to your quote in the rules that says "at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or perform slight activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours." So even if you let that fly with a DM, that DM won't let you do Mental commands for more than 2 hours!
If you have 400+ undead, wait until that one level 5+ enemy cleric shows up and uses turn.
Plus, any given zombie takes up a finite ammount of space. Even if you have, say, 20 or so zombies attacking one dude (of whom at least half would have disadvantage, so they could crawl under their buddies and get some swipes in, you're going to get, like, 15-20 DPR, which is worse than just shooting firebolt at someone. Admittedly, you're going to have an essentially(?) impenetrable wall of corpses... but any old enemy with a fireball could make quick work of them. A normal fireball is going to kill a zombie, save or no.
Timborama wrote:
mellored wrote:
Going necromancer...
If money isnt an issue summon all skeletons, put them in Half Plate and a shield for 19 AC. Now give them all rapiers so they damage for 1d8+8 at Higher levels. Take the Inspiring Leader feat (lets assume you have the 'cloak of charisma' for a 19 CHR), which gives temp HP to 6 targets for the whole day (thats 6 targets every 10 mins....) so now your skeletons at lvl 20 wizard and with the Inspiring leader feat have Base 33 HP with 24 Temp HP.
Another fun idea... if you have a paladin, have them cast crusader's mantle for your pack of Longbow weilding skeletons that move in a 60 foot cube around the paladin. Thats 48 high level skeletons shooting longbows in a block with your paladin in the middle.
Lets stay you also have a druid in the party, have the druid cast faerie fire on a target and then 48 longbow attacks with advantage rain death on your foe. Each skeleton doing 1d8+8 +1d4 holy damage.
The High level paladin (if he/she is of the Oath of the ancients) would give the brick of skeletons resistance to all spell damage!!!! This could be really fun 
Don't forget the seventh-level finger of death. It's slower, but it creates permanent zombies, so your undead horde is essentially limitless; you can create 3 per day with enough...fodder. You can also use your level 6 slot to creating up to 3 ghouls. The ghouls last 24 hours so you can pretty much have 9 at any given time.
"Are mental commands as strenous as talking?"
Magically sending mental commands to another being, I think I would rule that as more strenuous yes. Depends on the DM and how good you are at influencing said DM ;)
HeirRaktus wrote:
Is there any way to heal undead? It doesn't seem like negative energy heals exist anymore.
dwgautier wrote:
HeirRaktus wrote:
mellored wrote:
HeirRaktus wrote:
mellored wrote:
Do they heal naturally during a rest? I dunno, maybe. They're not PCs but they have HD. So that's something.
Also, potions can work, since it's not actually a "Potion of Cure Light Wounds" but a generic "Potion of Healing"! So save potions for your super-special fun-time zombie club
Timborama wrote:
HeirRaktus wrote:
mellored wrote:
mellored wrote:
Anyone know how the 'special' skeletons and zombies are made? The minotaur skeleton and all those others look fun!
HeirRaktus wrote:
dwgautier wrote:
Malygris
Race: Human (Variant)
Background: Sage (Feature: Researcher)
Class: Wizard 6/Warlock 14
Starting Attributes: STR 8 / DEX 10 / CON 10 / INT 15+1 / WIS 13 / CHA 15+1
Ending Attributes: STR 8 / DEX 10 / CON 10 / INT 20 / WIS 13 / CHA 20
Skills: Arcana, History, Medicine, Perception, Religion
Weapon: Daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, light crossbows
Tools: None
Armor: None
Languages: Common +3
Progression
lvl1 (Wizard 1): Arcane Recovery, Spellcasting
FEAT: Inspiring Leader
lvl2 (Wizard 2): Arcane Tradition (Necromancy), Necromancy Savant, Grim Harvest
lvl3 (Wizard 3): -
lvl4 (Wizard 4): +2 Int
Lvl5 (Wizard 5): -
lvl6 (Wizard 6): Undead Thralls
lvl7 (Warlock 1): Otherworldly Patron (Great Old One), Pact Magic, Awakened Mind
lvl8 (Warlock 2): Eldritch Invocations
lvl9 (Warlock 3): Pact Boon
lvl10 (Warlock 4): +2 Cha
lvl11 (Warlock 5): -
lvl12 (Warlock 6): Entropic Ward
lvl13 (Warlock 7): -
lvl14 (Warlock 8): +2 Cha
lvl15 (Warlock 9): -
lvl16 (Warlock 10): Thought Shield
lvl17 (Warlock 11): Mystic Arcanum
lvl18 (Warlock 12): +2 Int
lvl19 (Warlock 13): Mystic Arcanum
lvl20 (Warlock 14): Create Thrall
Only just realized the Great Old One's level 14 power was one target at a time -_-
Lets get a bit morbid! Whats the best way to turn corpses into skeletons?
HeirRaktus wrote:
Summon Beast: Flesh eating beatles.
Minor Creation: A pound of lime.
Fire: Put it in a pot, fill with ale, and let it marinate for a long rest. Durring your next short rest, roast on low heat for about an hour. The meat should just fall off the bones at that point.
I was thinking about having skeletons with pots of acid strapped to their backs. Have them collect the corpses of the dead after every fight and put them in their pots. Not only to eat away at the flesh but to also have a mobile source of reinforcements.
mellored wrote:
I don't have the MM. Are any of the undead that can create thralls "Humanoid?" If so, you can use the lvl 14 GOO power to create an "Undead Generator." All you have to do is bring it victims.
Jumuraa wrote:
Caste it on a Vampire, who can make Vampire Spawn. You control him, he controls his army of Spawn at your behest.
Yeah, if you die to a vampires bite and are buried in the ground you rise as a vampire spawn under control of the vampire that turned you... Just gotta get them incap'd to use the GOO ability, lol.
EDIT: Unfortunately... the ability is only a Charm, not a dominate... which appears not to be a condition anymore.
HeirRaktus wrote:
Or it gets its buddies to kill you. I mean, Charm only stops it from doing harm to you, it's capeable of creating a spawn and telling the spawn to get you. Charm is rather useless in that respect.
Sure, he could send his spawn at you, but why would he if you are basically keeping him and his minions fed and cloacked in darkness? True, not Dominate good, but deffinitely better than spending most of your day trying to keep your zombies and skeletons on a leash. Plus, you'll have your own cadre of Finger of Death zombies to fight back with. They may not be as powerful, but they will give you the time you need to escape, learn Day Light and come back.
HeirRaktus wrote:
Jumuraa wrote:
Timborama wrote:
Ghremdal wrote:
The biggest wreck so far is the necromancer with animate dead.It starts off at level 5, with 8 skeletons each with 18 hp, +4 to hit and 1d6+5 damage with shortbows. Right then and there that is probably enough damage for 2 party members. And you still have level 1 and 2 spells.
IT goes up to level 20 where he can have 144 of the skeletal friends, which is enough to kill 2 CR 16 dragons per round, and still have damage to spare!
nockermensch wrote:
Dogbert wrote:
Ghremdal wrote:
It starts off at level 5, with 8 skeletons each with 18 hp, +4 to hit and 1d6+5 damage with shortbows.
I'm reading the PHB and, unless my reading skills suck right now, you can only create one skeleton per casting unless you use a higher-leveled slot (to a max of 13 skeletons for a level 9 slot).At level 5 a necromancer has 2 lvl 3 slots and can use Arcane Recovery to get one of these back during the day. Each casting of animate dead used to reassert control over animated undead targets 4 creatures. So the deal is:
day 1: three spells to animate three undeads
day 2: one spell to reassert control over three undeads, animate two more.
day 3: two spells to reassert control over five undead, animate one more
day 4: two spells to reassert control over six undead, animate one more
day 5: two spells to reassert control over seven undead, animate one more
day 6: two spells to reassert control over eight undead, GO TO TOWN.Things get much better by lvl 6, because the animating efficiency doubles (necromancer power) and undeads you animate start getting more hit points and damage. Sadly there's no word if Undead Thralls also doubles how many skellies you can reassert control over with each casting but even at the most restrictive reading the game right now allows enterprising 6th level necromancers to enter a cemetery and exit it two days after behind 12 controlled skeletons. So yeah, pretty brutal.
Dean wrote:
You don't need to wait 2 days. You can cast Animate Dead 4 times, long rest for 8 hours, then immediately cast it again. With 8 hours (and ten minutes) notice you could cast Animate Dead 8 times and walk into town with 16 Skeletons. Sure you'll lose control of them by tomorrow but who cares? Destroy a town and if any of your Skeletons have survived just command them to stand there while you kill them and, by 5E's XP rules, they will even give you XP. Once the former Skeletons have been reduced to piles of bones they are now legal targets for more Animate Dead castings. It's the circle of unlife.I actually think the winning move for a Necromancer would be to walk into town with 14 Skeletons and keep a Vampiric Touch spell loaded. Vampiric Touch gives you a 3d6 Necrotic damage melee attack for a whole minute that heals you for half of what you hit for and anytime you kill someone with it you regenerate 9 hp. A 6th level Human Necromancer could have 57hp and regenerate ~5hp per attack with a 9hp boost each kill which is amazing regeneration especially when he's wading into melee with his OTHER contribution of 14 Longsword attacks each round for 1d8+3 damage apiece.
So, I was thinking of a Death Domain Cleric, Human (Variant) with 15 str and Heavy Armor Expert for high defense. Pre-requsite Int/Wis for Wizard MC. Loses a level to the MC and slows down the animating speed, but I feel the gains are worth.
Thoughts?
Has the Death Domain been released as a DMG preview? If so, I totally missed it and would love a link 
Or are you potentially assuming the Death Domain for flavor and if it has Animate Dead as a Domain spell, that would just be a bonus?
Timborama wrote:
mellored wrote:
Yeah, sorry... I posted that image over in the Cleric guide but not over here. I think that the wizard levels are still important for the Prof bonus to damage.
So let's start with our small skeleton army at level 5.
First, a 13 AC is not actually bad. A CR 17 monster has an AC of 19, so really AC isn't some huge thing that's only going to get bigger and bigger. Looking at CR 5 monsters, they range from 9 AC to 17 AC, typically around 14.
Additionally, 18 HP isn't that bad, either - although it's still hardly good. I had assumed that was fodder; in actuality, only one of the CR 5 monsters can do 18 damage in a hit - a hill giant, who can do it twice a round. Most CR 5 monsters do more like 14, which will typically take two hits. Now, every single one of these monsters can make at least two hits per round, but that's still an entire round wasted for one renewable skeleton.
Also, the +4 to hit (which never changes) isn't terrible. Granted: every CR 5 monster has about +7 or 8 to hit, but the average AC is still around 14, giving our skeletons about a 50/50 shot to hit.
However, a skeleton doing 8 damage on a hit is still pretty darn low. Most CR 5 monsters have 100 HP (84-126), and more importantly, resistance to non-magical weapons. (Amazingly, dragons don't have this.) So even 4 skeletons - our max at level 5 - will be doing an average of 16 damage if they all hit, and since they have about a 50/50 shot, that's about 8 damage per round, or 16 if the creature doesn't have resistance to non-magical weapons.
Now, that's still pretty amazing given that it is a bonus action, but keep in mind these 4 skeletons cost you one 3rd level spell (and a few days of prep time). Casting a 3rd level spell that does about 16 damage as a bonus action feels... about right, actually.
So let's fast-forward to level 16, given the example above. According to the online supplement, the Adult Blue has an AC of 19 and 225 HP. At this point our skeletons have 29 HP and attack at +4 for 5+5 = 10 damage. Attacking an AC 19 means we'll hit about 30% of the time, doing 10 damage, so we'll call that 3 average. 225 / 3 is 75, so you would need 75 skeletons to kill the Adult Blue in one round, on average. (I have ignored crits for this equation cause it just makes things harder; you can assume you'd need a few less thanks to crits but it's basically the same.) And as Jack said, this is within possibility for a 16th level necromancer (although my calculations say you can get as high as 82 skeletons with a 16th level wizard, all total, so it's basically almost 100% of your 3rd level and above spell slots).
HOWEVER, this is assuming that you were able to fit 75 skeletons into the space where the blue was, OR that it was dumb enough to let them all get within 80 feet (especially since its lightning attack's range is 90, AND it can use a legendary action after the first skeleton's turn to move another 40 feet away, causing the rest of the horde to attack with disadvantage and effectively making them only hit on crits).
It would also require days and days of prep time, not to mention all the other practical considerations, and basically all of the wizard's spell slots. If a party basically had an unaware threat they could prepare for days to defeat, I would be willing to bet 75 skeletons is just one of many ways they could figure out how to do it very efficiently.
That said: the bigger point is that you COULD do it, you could do it ALONE, and that your ability to do tons of damage with a jillion little guys is actually practical - all fair points. You're basically enabling the use of all your spell slots in one action, potentially. It reminds me of the "Leadership" issue in 3.5, where someone figured out that a character with a high enough Leadership score and CHA could get a few hundred followers to shoot arrows and take down any threat. Unsurprisingly, this also didn't happen much in actual games. 