D&D 5e Necromancer Build – Complete Guide

Dark Magic has always fascinated us. Right from the Harry Potter books to the movie sets, knowing about the Dark Arts is something we all have thoroughly enjoyed. With the 5e necromancer build, you can invoke all that dark magic. That’s right!

The 5e necromancer build is something with which you raise yourself an army of the undead in your quest to greatness. Those seasoned in DnD know plenty of such character builds on offer.

Each of these character builds grants special abilities to your character, followed by other valuable perks. Each character build is designed explicitly to match a specific gameplay. This means irrespective of how you decide to play things out, you can always have the specified character build to rely on. In this article, we will be focusing on the 5e necromancer build.

As a necromancer, you will have otherworldly powers that will only add to your robustness. Here is a detailed DnD 5e necromancer build guide that will give you an insight into everything character build offers.

Necromancer Build 5e

Most DnD players we came across mentioned necromancers as their favorite character build in the game. These guys are wicked, clever, and have everything in store that makes them the perfect villains. However, when pinned down by the rules, these necromancers don’t exactly live up to their potential in the game. The best solution to tackle this is to build your own necromancers to see just how powerful a character we can build. 

Before we get to the best 5e Necromancer builds, we need to ensure we obey the laws of the game at all times. From our experience, the best way to do these is by laying down some basic ground rules when building the best 5e necromancer build. Here are some of the ground rules that have worked out well for users in the past:

• No Legendary Items
• One Year Time Limit before launching the first assault
• Using the Adventure League Rules Simulacrum
• Most summons as possible

Best Classes For Necromancers

Knowing the best classes for necromancers will only help in your quest for building the best 5e necromancer build. If you have the right class, you will be able to get the most out of your character. Here are some of the classes we think are best for necromancers:

1. Wizard

For the wizard class, you will need to select the School of Necromancy from the list of options displayed in the Wizard class. This school automatically cuts down the necromancy spells to half allowing your Necromancer to raise an extra undead.

After selecting a wizard class, you can use the all the fantastic wizard spells as a necromancer. Additionally, all your created undead get extra hit points followed by damage modifiers.

2. Druid

If you are a fan of gore films, then you can opt for the druid class. While this isn’t that much of an environment-friendly option, it presents you with a Druid Circle of Spores that reanimate the undead with fungal microbes. 

3. Warlock

Warlock is perhaps one of the strongest classes in the game. Choosing the warlock class will start you off as a small operations farmer at level 9. As a warlock, you will be able to use all spell slots towards the Danse Macabre, creating a horde of 5 undead for an hour straight. 

These are some of the most recommended classes for the best DnD 5e Necromancer build. Note that the classes depend on a person’s playing style, preferences, and the backstory that drives them to awaken the undead in the first place. 

Best Races For Necromancers

Just like a class depends on your playing style and preferences, the race depends on which class you decide to opt for. If you opt for the Wizard class, you will be looking for a race that only increases your intelligence, such as Gnomes and Vedalken, which grants you an additional +2 Intelligence each. 

In the case of Cleric, you need to pay special attention to the Wisdom, which is why you can either go with the Firbolg or Kalashtar, each granting your +2 Wisdom. You can stick to the same races if you opt for the Druid class as well. 

In the case of a Warlock, you will need to pay special attention to your charisma. In such cases, you can go for half-elves, tieflings, satyrs, aasimar, changelings, yuan-ti purebloods, or Verdan, who will grant you an added +2 charisma during character creation.

Best Feats For Necromancers

Like the races and classes, we will need to pay equal attention to the feats when choosing the DnD 5e character build. Note that if you choose a DnD feat, you will need to sacrifice a stat boost. This is why you must weigh out the pros and cons of doing so beforehand.

Finding a good feat that boosts a particular stat is not always easy. But you can work around this by choosing Resilient, allowing you to choose one stat and boost it by 1. Additionally, it grants you proficiency on every skill saved made using that particular stat. 

If you are a magic person, you can go for the Ritual Caster. As the name suggests, the spell allows you to cast a certain number of spells as rituals, thus saving on those previous save slots for later use. 

Now, the Feign Death and Gentle Repose are two vital necromancy saves that can also be cast as a ritual. Another great choice of feats is the War Caster, which gives you an advantage on Constitution saving throws to maintain their concentration. 

Best Spells For Necromancers

This is where things get interesting. One of the most intriguing reasons players go with the Necromancer build is the vivid ability of spells available. As a necromancer, you will always have the choice to cast the spells that reflect your motivation behind opting for a necromancer. 

As we mentioned above, as a necromancer, you want to cast every single spell that allows you to use dark magic to awaken the undead. And to give yourself an army of the undead, you can opt for different spells such as Spare The Dying, Gentle Repose, Life Transference, Revivify, Resurrection, and True Ressurection. All these spells are extremely powerful and give you the ability to defy death if you choose to do so. 

If you seek both power and domination, you can defy death and bend the spells as per your will. In such cases, you can opt for spells such as the Animated Dead, Speak With The Dead, Summon The Undead, Danse Macabre, Raise The Dead, and the Create The Undead. These spells will be step number 1 in your journey for creating an entire army of zombies and skeletons. 

If you wish to look beyond the usual, you will find great solace in manipulative spells such as Feign Death, Spirit Of Shroud, Shadow Of Moil, Tether Essence, the Finger Of Death, and the Soul Cage. These spells are all that stand between life and death, allowing you to control the very strand of life that hangs in the balance. 

Meanwhile, Necromancers being the wicked crazy villains they are, have access to spells that allow them to cast plagues and diseases around the land. Such spells include Blight, Curse, Ray Of Sickness, and Eyebite. Such spells come in handy if your opponent’s power is strong enough. This way, you can force them to crawl into an inevitable death. 

Necromancy School Of Magic

The Necromancy School of magic teaches you spells using which you can manipulate the very essence of life and the power of death. Every wizard who passes from the necromancy school of magic is deemed a necromancer.

The majority of the spells you learn at the Necromancy school of magic are aimed toward raising the undead. Some of the popular spells include the likes of animate finger and the finger of death. Given the school’s focus on exploring the cosmic forces of life and death, here you will learn to manipulate the energy that animates every last living earth on the globe. 

At the Necromancy School Of Magic, you will be trained in different aspects of life. Not all necromancers are evil, but most of them are considered one. Here are some of the spells you will be able to use at every given level in the game.

Best Necromancer Build 5E

Above we saw all the essential elements and went into the making of a Necromancer. With an ability to manipulate the essence of life and the power of death, Necromancer is perhaps the best character to play in Dnd 5e.

As we mentioned at the start of the article, one needs to have a deep train of thought before deciding to play as a Necromancer. You will need to take a step back to consider and analyze each possible reason for choosing this particular DnD 5E character. 

We will dig into two of the best necromancy builds to make it easier for you.

1. Lord Of The Undead Army

As cool as the title sounds, we can assure you it is certainly a whole lot cooler than that. As a necromancer, you spend all your formative years as a wizard studying in the Necromancy School of Magic. 

You are taught spells using which you can manipulate the very essence of life and the power of death. With an ability to manipulate the essence of life and the power of death, Necromancer is perhaps the best character to play in Dnd 5e.

Given the school’s focus on exploring the cosmic forces of life and death, here you will learn to manipulate the energy that animates every last living earth on the globe. One of the significant achievements that come as a Necromancer is the ability to lead an army of the undead. If that isn’t cool, we don’t know what is. 

To make this possible, you can take the help of the plethora of spells available at your disposal. If you think you aren’t up to it, just note that a single necromancer can raise an undead army of 7,500 in a year’s time. Now that’s the kind of power no one wants to forgo, do they?

If you are opting for this build, you first need to be thorough about how you will use it without breaching any laws of the game. Accordingly, you can either choose to be the ultimate villain or the savior by playing a necromancer. 

You can either take over the world and gain power or become a savior for those who cannot defend themselves. Additionally, this build allows you to be creative in the ways how you can use your army. Here are how you can use your army of the undead

• To set traps
• Make them serve as your bodyguards
• As servants or mules
• Take extra hit points from the undead using your spells
• Disguise them in a more socially acceptable manner
• Free Labor

2. Pursuer Of Knowledge

As we mentioned earlier in the article, you can either choose to do good with your abilities as a necromancer or become the evil villain you long for. While studying as a wizard at the Necromancy school of magic, you ultimately unlock the secrets that lie between life and death.

If you think necromancy is all about casting horrendous spells across the globe, then you couldn’t be more wrong. A necromancer has deep knowledge and a tenuous understanding of life and death. Necromancers have sought knowledge about life, death, secrets about the afterlife, future events, and much more throughout their lives. 

All these abilities depend on which class you choose. While some classes will give you a significant edge in combat, some will reward you with the intelligence and wisdom you deserve. And your class will impact your campaign and character’s origin story going forward. As a pursue of knowledge, your possible motives could include

• Gaining eternal life
• Optimizing the spectrum between healing and dealing with damage
• Selling your knowledge for profit
• Becoming a critical advisor to the aging kings such as Wyrmtongue from the LOTR. 

Recommended Resources For Your D&D Adventure

I’ve created a list of some of my favorite D&D accessories I like to use to get fully immersed in my adventures.

Conclusion

As we stated in our first paragraph, who wouldn’t want to harness the power of dark magic? This is precisely where necromancers come in DnD 5e. Given the number of characters the game has, a Necromancer is perhaps one of the best characters to go for. They give you plenty of options to help you make the most out of character. And if you want to be the crazy, evil, and wicked villain you always wanted to be, we sincerely hope our article comes in handy.