How's 5e Necromancy looking now?
I just watched the latest Game Of Thrones (edit - for spoilers) episode, and at the end ...
(spoiler alert #1)
... there's a massive "battle", where all of these guys:
... first things first can we edit this post to say spoiler alert? I am NOT up to date Q.Q No big issue though.
Honestly, none of them are great... ESPECIALLY if you can't get a DM who works with you in regards to raising and maintaining a skeleton army. However in my opinion the best is Paladin Death Cleric with 5 level of warlock thrown in. Feel free to add in a few other multiclass levels as long as you at least get the main Paladin features which are around level 12ish I think. Take drow as your race, which gets you trance, with that on your four hours of watch when not trancing you can cast animate dead twice, short rest, animate dead twice, short rest, animate twice, short rest, animate twice, short rest and then start the day having done 8 castings of animate dead with full spell slots remaining. Short resting and the quick moments of activity to cast those spells don't invalidate either the long rest or trance mechanics.
Additionally sunlight sensitivity is amazing RP fodder for the class. Makes so much sense.
Add in your damage aura, smites and other paladin abilities and you have a highly competent front line fighter who can also maintain an extremely effective army and smite for days.
That's my most effective build for necromancy thus far. Warning in advance though, it takes around level 15 to really get online. But it's an end game powerhouse and pretty okay for the rest.
Necromancers are very strong, untill you meet a wizard with fireball or dragon with an AoE breath weapon.
So... yea... that works.
or maybe Sorc with Favored Soul too.
Warlock 5 / Wiz Necro 15 gets all those goodies stuffed together.
mellored wrote:
For PC necromancers? Pretty limited in your choices of raising the undead army.
For NPCs, the DM is not limited to the options presented in the books. If he wants a walking army of 10,000 skeletons run by 1 BBEG, the BBEG simply has the ability to do so, mechanics be damned.
Grim harvest is nice because it's free healing, and there are a few interesting necromancy spells outside of undead creation. Undead thralls gives a bonus skeleton or zombie when casting animate dead, and any undead the necromancer creates using spells has bonus hit points plus inflicts bonus damage.
A high level necromancer can raise several dozen zombies and skeletons in a day and attack with them the following day. An extremely high level necromancer can raise nearly a hundred in a single day to attack the following day, and then building on that slows down extremely due to maintaining the force. A 20th level necromancer can create and maintain over 120 zombies and skeletons in 3 days. If he's planning on not maintaining them he can break 200 in those 3 days and let them attack but will be very limited on spells at that point. Each will have 20 bonus hit points and +6 damage.
Maintaining 120ish zombies and skeletons is a bit expensive but the costs are per 24 hours so on the attack day keep the spells and maintain the survivors or replace them during combat.
If you don't mind taking a hit in numbers, create undead will give you ghouls, ghasts, wights, and mummies as options for some stronger undead. That 20th level necromancer could have animate dead as a signature spell, create 5 ghasts, 14 ghouls, 36 zombies / skeletons plus 4 / hr short resting depending on how many short rests per day of rest the DM allows, attack the following day before 24 hours is up with no intention of maintaining the undead, add another 102 skeletons, and then attack with 2nd level spells or less but 160+ undead for a fast little force.
For longer term, you can replace the 5 ghasts with 5 wights. The wights would be better attacking at night, but each can control up to 12 zombies that are created when it kills while life draining for a chain of command effect to add 60 weaker zombies to the ranks.
You'll never get hundreds to thousands unless you want to risk never casting wish again and the DM allows it, or if you choose to let packs of undead run "free range" in the area not under your control.
All assuming a supply of remains.
That might give an idea of how far the subclass goes. It's a fair size force but not huge, and if you are a 20th level necromancer then all your work is dashed quickly by another 20th level caster with meteor swarm. If you are storming a little northern settlement with 100 warriors you'll likely crush them and have more bodies to start with for the next little northern settlement. If you leave free undead as you move from village to village you can create long term economic issues for a country in lost taxes, food supplies, and trade goods depending on how far you carry it. The key thing to remember is the undead minions are replaceable by the dead corpses who opposed them while the opposing forces are not so easily replaced. It's the type of scenario that a high level party might be called on to resolve after huge portions of northern territories are overrun.
Hope that helps. 
Good deal.
So ...
spam Animate Dead +++
semi-spam Animate Dead ++ with blended Create Undead
warlock volumized Animate Dead +
What about using Paladin 3 Oathbreaker at higher levels, to go get a Vampire and/or more ??