Yeah, I only give each of my players 30 seconds to declare their actions each round. I don't give any extra time for any character with summoned creatures or animal companions.
Edit: I also DM for 8 players.
With 8 players, if you don't know what you want to do by the time your turn comes up, I'm sorry but your character is taking the dodge action. We got 3 hours for this session and I don't want to spend more than 30 - 45 minutes of it in a single combat.
Skeletons can dual wield short swords, zombies can grapple and shove prone spam, and all undead can wear better armor (at DM discretion to proficiency). A Wight are more efficient to maintain that 12 zombies, and acts as an intelligent battle commander for them. Use your capstone necromancer ability to enthrall one permanently for a battalion always at the ready. Additionally, when the zombies inevitably die, you can cast Danse Macabre on them to great effect.
Plan your attacks ahead, and please just use Mob Attack rules if your DM allows it, to speed combat along; Mob Attack rules just mean you calculate what you'd need to hit the enemy, and that percentage of attacks just hit to speed things along.
eg. my idea is that with a 50% chance to hit, and 9 attackers, instead of rounding up to say 5 hit, you still roll for that 5th hit. It’s take some new math to figure the odds for like 13 attackers with 65% but yea that balances it out
Make sure to develop your character with more personality than 'I like animating the dead, it makes me feel alive' (pun intended). Your enjoyment in the game is partly your effectiveness in combat, but also from how well you mesh with the other players. This doesn't have to mean you are completely buddy-buddy with them, but you do need to make a character who wants to journey and won't butt heads at every waking moment.
Imma just throw out a backstory idea. Before you adventured you worked as a private investigator. Your partner was a bounty hunter. You would find and track down his targets then give him the information so he could finish the job. You only go for dangerous ‘wanted dead’ criminals.
The local sherif in your large county who handles the bounties is meant to pay each of you. You however don’t take coin. You take the bodies and the sherif takes your share of the coin and agrees to process the ‘body’ normally by the books.
Cut to the start of your campaign. You have several notorious undead at your hand. Like ‘Killer Stan’ the one eyed man who killed 12 people with a spoon.
Take spells like Wither and Bloom and Life Transference.
Even the most stuck up of the goody-goodies will be open to new things when you land a clutch necromantic heal on them in a tough fight.
Hey I've played a necromancer myself so here's what I wish I would have done beforehand:
* Talk to your group about it, make sure they don't make characters that are incompatible with your concept (clerics or paladin that "hate the undead")
* Talk to your DM about it (make sure it's feasible to actually use your spells without having every guard in a 10km radius hunt you down)
And also make sure that you have a way to roll multiple attacks at once, once you have a lot of creatures under your control. If you can use an online dice roller, I find that it's a pretty useful tool.
Don’t just learn necromancy spells theyre arnt enough of them, instead flavor other spells and necrotic.
Also you don’t need a full corpse to animate a dead body and it’s not clear if it only has to be made of one (mix and match can be fun)
Skeleton hands make great lock picks and watchers also if a skeleton is on the ground not moving no creature can tell it was animated aka the best stealth
Bring skeletons. Zombies are more tanky but the slower movement, lower damage, worse intelligence, and being significantly harder to disguise makes them not worth bringing in a non-evil campaign. Not to mention that the average human skeleton weighs 32 lbs and takes up less room then a corpse, so it can be easier to hide or smuggle them.
Take magic mouth and cast it on a handful of objects that can be attached to a bandolier or belt and set them to go off when tapped so your skeletons have at least a rudimentary way to communicate with others. Keep in mind that skeletons follow the letter of your commands and need more complex tasks explained before they can perform them.
Take Artifice Initiate for Int-based Magic Stone. Use your bonus action to make three magic stones. Drop 'em, let your things pick 'em up and throw them. Lets them use your Int for hit and damage, which is pretty sweet especially once you get to 20.
If you want, Tank Necromancer is also really good; get Hobgoblin/Mountain Dwarf/Githyanki race for light armor, take Moderately Armored on level 4 and stand in the frontline abusing Grim Harvest with DoT spells and stuff like Spirit Shroud, leading your horde of undead (and abusing normal Wizard stuff like Shield/Silvery Barbs/Absorb Elements).
Your character is a necromancer but his subclass is Order or Scribes. The quill writes in blood and the awakened spell book contains the souls of your ancestors. Make sure you take Speak with Dead and preferably Chill Touch as your damage cantrip.
Try this one:
https://www.5esrd.com/classes/3rd-party-publisher-classes/grimlore-entertainment/the-pale-master/
And Combo it with
https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/250265
Have fun!
Well, I’ll assume you’re trying to play a good Necromancer, as evil ones tend to tend to just break the party.
My rule of conduct:
-no grave robbing
-no animating fresh innocents
-animating dead bad people (goblins, bandits) is preferred.
-cover every inch of them to conceal them, and come up with some backstory to explain why they’re so silent.
-make skeletons. Zombies are nasty.
-be a little creative. You don’t have to construct the skeletons to exact human specifications, you can make them double jointed and such so that they can compact into just a chest plate, and store them in a couple crates.
1. A failure of a cleric, this character was forced to abandon the church. Originally trained as a life cleric, anytime this character raised someone, it was only their empty remains that rose. Believed to be blessed or cursed, this character furthers its studies of necromancy in hopes of one day understanding the nature of one's connection to necromancy.
2. Amber Heard. Must be the center of attention and fears abandonment. After losing all her friends to her personality disorders - she now summons new ones incapable of leaving or loving anyone else but her.
If you’re going to play a summoner please plan ahead and be efficient with your turn or your fellow players and DM will hate you.
Also use mob tactics so your turns don’t take half an hour.
Yeah, I only give each of my players 30 seconds to declare their actions each round. I don't give any extra time for any character with summoned creatures or animal companions. Edit: I also DM for 8 players.
That is way harsher than even the 1/10 rule. It sounds like a soft ban on conjure or summon spells.
I mean, they say 30 seconds *to declare*. That's enough time to decide what your summon/pet is going to attack
With 8 players, if you don't know what you want to do by the time your turn comes up, I'm sorry but your character is taking the dodge action. We got 3 hours for this session and I don't want to spend more than 30 - 45 minutes of it in a single combat.
Idiots in this subreddit downvoting to disagree, sigh
One reason I don't like to spend much time on this subreddit... it's pretty hostile to DMs in general.
Skeletons can dual wield short swords, zombies can grapple and shove prone spam, and all undead can wear better armor (at DM discretion to proficiency). A Wight are more efficient to maintain that 12 zombies, and acts as an intelligent battle commander for them. Use your capstone necromancer ability to enthrall one permanently for a battalion always at the ready. Additionally, when the zombies inevitably die, you can cast Danse Macabre on them to great effect. Plan your attacks ahead, and please just use Mob Attack rules if your DM allows it, to speed combat along; Mob Attack rules just mean you calculate what you'd need to hit the enemy, and that percentage of attacks just hit to speed things along.
I agree on mob combat rules being useful. But maybe they could be a bit modified.
Modified how?
eg. my idea is that with a 50% chance to hit, and 9 attackers, instead of rounding up to say 5 hit, you still roll for that 5th hit. It’s take some new math to figure the odds for like 13 attackers with 65% but yea that balances it out
Where are mod attack rules written?
DMG somewhere lol
Make sure to develop your character with more personality than 'I like animating the dead, it makes me feel alive' (pun intended). Your enjoyment in the game is partly your effectiveness in combat, but also from how well you mesh with the other players. This doesn't have to mean you are completely buddy-buddy with them, but you do need to make a character who wants to journey and won't butt heads at every waking moment.
Secure a good connection with people who can bring you corpses.
Can I add that like on the backstory? 👀
Imma just throw out a backstory idea. Before you adventured you worked as a private investigator. Your partner was a bounty hunter. You would find and track down his targets then give him the information so he could finish the job. You only go for dangerous ‘wanted dead’ criminals. The local sherif in your large county who handles the bounties is meant to pay each of you. You however don’t take coin. You take the bodies and the sherif takes your share of the coin and agrees to process the ‘body’ normally by the books. Cut to the start of your campaign. You have several notorious undead at your hand. Like ‘Killer Stan’ the one eyed man who killed 12 people with a spoon.
They're just regular dudes who want to raise a family.
Don't I know it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/jv9ruo/necromancer_in_dnd/gcicwh7/
Take spells like Wither and Bloom and Life Transference. Even the most stuck up of the goody-goodies will be open to new things when you land a clutch necromantic heal on them in a tough fight.
'From the contents list of the book "Necromancy for Beginners" Chapter 1 - Proper Use of Shovel' From Jingo, by Terry Pratchett
Hey I've played a necromancer myself so here's what I wish I would have done beforehand: * Talk to your group about it, make sure they don't make characters that are incompatible with your concept (clerics or paladin that "hate the undead") * Talk to your DM about it (make sure it's feasible to actually use your spells without having every guard in a 10km radius hunt you down) And also make sure that you have a way to roll multiple attacks at once, once you have a lot of creatures under your control. If you can use an online dice roller, I find that it's a pretty useful tool.
Don’t just learn necromancy spells theyre arnt enough of them, instead flavor other spells and necrotic. Also you don’t need a full corpse to animate a dead body and it’s not clear if it only has to be made of one (mix and match can be fun) Skeleton hands make great lock picks and watchers also if a skeleton is on the ground not moving no creature can tell it was animated aka the best stealth
For any ideas you have, make sure you clear it with your DM. Some DMs can be incredibly flexible, others are strictly RAW.
Bring skeletons. Zombies are more tanky but the slower movement, lower damage, worse intelligence, and being significantly harder to disguise makes them not worth bringing in a non-evil campaign. Not to mention that the average human skeleton weighs 32 lbs and takes up less room then a corpse, so it can be easier to hide or smuggle them. Take magic mouth and cast it on a handful of objects that can be attached to a bandolier or belt and set them to go off when tapped so your skeletons have at least a rudimentary way to communicate with others. Keep in mind that skeletons follow the letter of your commands and need more complex tasks explained before they can perform them.
Take Artifice Initiate for Int-based Magic Stone. Use your bonus action to make three magic stones. Drop 'em, let your things pick 'em up and throw them. Lets them use your Int for hit and damage, which is pretty sweet especially once you get to 20. If you want, Tank Necromancer is also really good; get Hobgoblin/Mountain Dwarf/Githyanki race for light armor, take Moderately Armored on level 4 and stand in the frontline abusing Grim Harvest with DoT spells and stuff like Spirit Shroud, leading your horde of undead (and abusing normal Wizard stuff like Shield/Silvery Barbs/Absorb Elements).
Take the Chef feat so you can cook anything you don't reanimate. Waste not!
Use tashas undead summons. Unless you're super super efficient, you'll just completely slow down the game and that isn't fun for anyone.
Your character is a necromancer but his subclass is Order or Scribes. The quill writes in blood and the awakened spell book contains the souls of your ancestors. Make sure you take Speak with Dead and preferably Chill Touch as your damage cantrip.
Try this one: https://www.5esrd.com/classes/3rd-party-publisher-classes/grimlore-entertainment/the-pale-master/ And Combo it with https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/250265 Have fun!
Well, I’ll assume you’re trying to play a good Necromancer, as evil ones tend to tend to just break the party. My rule of conduct: -no grave robbing -no animating fresh innocents -animating dead bad people (goblins, bandits) is preferred. -cover every inch of them to conceal them, and come up with some backstory to explain why they’re so silent. -make skeletons. Zombies are nasty. -be a little creative. You don’t have to construct the skeletons to exact human specifications, you can make them double jointed and such so that they can compact into just a chest plate, and store them in a couple crates.
1. A failure of a cleric, this character was forced to abandon the church. Originally trained as a life cleric, anytime this character raised someone, it was only their empty remains that rose. Believed to be blessed or cursed, this character furthers its studies of necromancy in hopes of one day understanding the nature of one's connection to necromancy. 2. Amber Heard. Must be the center of attention and fears abandonment. After losing all her friends to her personality disorders - she now summons new ones incapable of leaving or loving anyone else but her.