The Necromancer: A Treantmonk Guide (part 3 of 3)

[@EpifanesEuergetes]

So after the Necromancer guide twelve minutes of darkness... Fitting.

[@killianduggan8730]

The most terrifying Necromancer takes wish to cast the 8th level Animal Shapes on as many skeletal minions as he can fit in a 30 foot radius around him. Suddenly your entire horde of CR 1/4 skeletons becomes a vast army of CR 3 Giant Scorpions grappling and stinging everything in sight!

[@keeganmbg6999]

Great video Chris. A few unmentioned things sir. Dragon’s Breath on your Zombie and have the other Zombies hold the creature down and Poison Breath all over your immune to Poison Zombies. 2. Mummies can also Summon Undead, Mummy Lord is another Great Creature to grab with your 14th level ability. 3. Mold Earth let’s you go to Cemetery and dig up corpses in seconds. 4. Using Wish for Clones, and then Finger of Death on your clone gives you easy & ethical permanent Zombies.

[@acm4bass]

great comment.

[@keeganmbg6999]

Alexander Maxwell thanks!

[@keeganmbg6999]

Rodrik18 the way I did it is within the rules set so it can’t go awry. Although your wish can come true, the DM can choose to screw yours up somehow.

[@Bruh-kg9nw]

Upgrade on the dragon's breath idea depending on the situation and the enemy: You could have a load of zombies grapple a major enemy on the battlefield and then drop a cloud kill 🤷‍♀️

[@keeganmbg6999]

@@Bruh-kg9nw I would contest that this requires a much higher tier of play and is relatively useless after one to two rounds, as within the 3rd round the creature would be out of the Sphere due to its disbursement. The damage is only slightly higher average at 22.5 over 21 if you were to just upcast Dragon's Breath. I will also argue that although the Saving throw is Con over Dex, all you have to do is hold your breath or not breath to be immune to Cloud Kill. So although I appreciate you intention, unless you were in the perfect situation where you could prevent cloudkill from leaving the area for at least 1 minute...Dragon's Breath wins out 7/10 times. I concede only slightly on the winning out from 9/10 to 7/10, as the Zombie doing the breathing could in theory get targeted and destroyed.

[@KINFIN123]

Worth noting. Wights are intelligent. They have a 10 Int, and an average wisdom, plus they can speak. It’s entirely possible for a wight to maybe be let out of your forced control and potentially negotiate with it for continued service. Just a point worth mentioning.

[@anthonynorman7545]

@@sharkforce8147 that is sick, sadistic, and so so sexy! Love it

[@KINFIN123]

To be fair, pretty sure Shapechanging info one of the Archdukes of Baator has its own complications other than maintaining concentration.

[@RobDastardly]

One thing I’d like to note is the usefulness of the Inspiring Leader feat. Giving your skelies a pep talk that nets them some additional hp can be extremely useful. Sure there are some limitations there, but if you want to really boost your hoarde this is an easy way to add an extra layer of durability

[@G33KST4R]

lol what could you possibly say to a skeleton that would inspire courage within them? I will reward each and everyone of you with 2 days ration of milk if you fight by my side!

[@RobDastardly]

@@G33KST4R calcium is important!

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@G33KST4R *ahem* Spooky scary skeletons have sharp and shrilly shrieks. Shrieking skulls will shake your bones tonight. We're so sorry skeletons, you're so misunderstood. You just want to socialize *and I think you should*

[@mylesdrake2949]

Wights+9th level Geas=Permeant intelligent undead army that are friendly to you and depending on your geas follows verbal commands.

[@N20Joe]

So a way that I found to cheese Command Undead goes thus: Pick up Feeblemind and if you run into an undead with intelligence above 8 who you would like to subjugate, then cast Feeblemind before trying to enslave it with Command Undead. Now when you use Command undead, it's intelligence will be 3 and so it will not get advantage on the saving throw OR get to re-try the saving throw if it does fail. Success = pet Lich or any undead that your blackened heart desires! Also you just gave me a great idea with Demiplane and Sympathy/Antipathy! Either create your own undead or use Sympathy to lure them into the Demiplane door then shut it and if you created them, do not even bother to re-up your control. Then if combat turns unfavorably, cast Demiplane and book it out of the area which gets flooded with out-of-control undead! Edit: you would need have 9th level spell slot to do this with wild undead since you only get one L8 spell slot, unless you employ some other method to lure them in.

[@ben5056]

N20Joe would you lose control of the Lich when it succeeds it’s saving throw for feeblemind? Also would the lich be able to casts spells when it has low intelligence?

[@N20Joe]

@@ben5056 "If it fails the saving throw and has intelligence 12 or higher, it can repeat the saving throw at the end of every hour until it succeeds and breaks free." It did not have intelligence 12 or higher when it failed the saving throw so that part should never trigger. As for Feeblemind duration, it gets another save vs Feeblemind every 30 days, so it's intelligence will return eventually and be back to normal. Feeblemind's duration is instant so I'm not sure Dispel Magic would work on it, though if it did then your Command Undead would likely also be at risk dispellation.

[@ben5056]

N20Joe You would have to wait for the lich to succeed it’s save vs feeblemind before being of any use. After that, assuming that the command undead holds, you have a useful lich buddy

[@alexwinter8423]

I have an creature that would work pretty well with Command Undead + Feeblemind. Death Tyrants are a creature that can turn things into undead just by looking at them as they die. They have very good saves, but no legendary resistances so feeblemind is at least doable.

[@ben5056]

@@alexwinter8423 and they would still be useful because their low int from feeblemind does not impact the ability. So you'd have a minimum of 30 days of control.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Note: There is about 12 min of blank screen at the end of this one. Just a glitch I think, as no content is missing from the video. Welcome to my Necromancer guide! In this video let's make a master of the undead. Until we get animate dead, this is just going to feel like any wizard, but after level 6, we are really going to feel like a Necromancer. This is part 1 of 3 of this build. For Part 1 of this build: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f3mnn5Z6mtSHarM For Part 2 of this build: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4u5YqZrpsd_apY Here's the link to the final build: ddb.ac/characters/17820943/ovktAW

[@thepopemichael]

I don't know if you read the old comments but your comment isn't pinned to the top as normal.

[@smile-tl9in]

you can put simulacrum in a glyph of warding, shapechange into a tutivullus, activate the glyph, and boom. You have the unlimited animate dead you wanted. Other solution is to put clone into said glyph (using a 9th level slot on the glyph), rest to recover your 9th level slot, shapechange, activate the glyph, wait for the clone to grow, kill yourself and boom you're permanently a tutivillus, and it's undispellable. Granted that works with any form, and i'd argue that if you use the simulacrum trick you can use that one to take another form. Maybe a dragon or a dracolich since we are a kobold.

[@muddlewait8844]

I really like the completely sincere/deadpan way you joke and troll sometimes. It happens rarely enough that it’s always a surprise, and it’s never smug, self-aggrandizing or cruel, like so much trolling is. Way to show you can both be kind and do that sort of stuff.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Me troll? Me?

[@aidan7525]

It's a shame that Shapechange doesn't work, and that True Polymorph means you lose your class features. There is a way to make the cool combo work, though, and keep Undead Thralls as Titivilus: 1. True Polymorph a Simulacrum into Titivilus and make it permanent 2. Have a friend True Polymorph your Simulacrum into a humanoid with low CHA (like a Xvard, which has -2), but don't make it permanent 3. Cast Soul Jar, and possess your Simulacrum. While controlling someone's body with Soul Jar, you retain all class features, including Undead Thralls. 4. Have your friend cancel their True Polymorph spell. 5. Your Simulacrum is now Titivilus, and you control its body, and have Undead Thralls. 6. Profit. I had a comment that cited the PHB to show that this works in an airtight manner, but I must've deleted it on accident.

[@mikehalloran93]

16:51 The joy of hearing you pronounce words continues. I about died when the robo lady chimed in.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I'm told my Dance Macbre pronunciation was spot on!

[@mikehalloran93]

@@TreantmonksTemple I have no idea how it's pronounced. But the fact that you said it twice and seemed so unsure was what made it funny. It's like "Eberron." I never even knew you were saying it wrong, but the hoops you jumped through for that word made it entertaining regardless.

[@SharanjitPaddam]

Necromancer 1: Kobold. PB: 8/14/15/14/12/8. Urchin [Other]: Sleight of Hand, Stealth. Equipment: Dagger, Component Pouch, Explorers Pack (Buy Light Crossbow - Use to Level 5). Wizard 1: Arcana, Investigation, Minor Illusion, Mage Hand, Toll the Dead, Shield*, Mage Armor*, Sleep*, Detect Magic, Find Familiar (Bat), Comprehend Languages. 2: Wizard 2: Necromancer, Absorb Elements*, Tenser’s Floating Disk. 3: Wizard 3: Web*, Misty Step*. 4: Wizard 4: Resilient Constitution, Ray of Frost, Mirror Image*, Pyrotechnics*, Sleep (*) 5: Wizard 5: Counterspell*, Fireball*, Pyrotechnics(*) 6: Wizard 6: Leomund’s Tiny Hut, Phantom Steed, Animate Dead*, Fireball(*), Pyrotechnics* 7: Wizard 7: Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere*, Polymorph*, Web(*) 8: Wizard 8: ASI INTx2, Watery Sphere*, Arcane Eye* 9: Wizard 9: Wall of Force*, Danse Macabre* 10: Wizard 10: Prestidigitation, Rary’s Telepathic Bond, Transmute Rock*, Pyrotechnics(*), Absorb Elements* 12: Wizard 12: ASI INTx2, Contingency (ORS), Scatter*, Soul Cage*, Create Undead* 14: Wizard 14: Crown of Stars*, Forcecage*, Simulacrum, Finger of Death 16: Wizard 16: ASI INTx2, Demiplane*, Maze*, Mind Blank*, Antipathy/Sympathy 18: Wizard 18: Spell Mastery: Shield, Misty Step, Shapechange*, Wish*, True Polymorph*, Psychic Scream*. 20: Wizard 20: Lucky [or Warcaster], Signature Spell: Counterspell, Animate Dead; Clone, Teleport, Plane Shift, Magic Jar

[@leodouskyron5671]

So once you reached the peak of Necromancy...the video died. Perfect!

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Not the worst place for a glitch...

[@SpruceReduce8854]

I noticed that the healer feat doesn't have the usual restriction on healing undead/constructs, so it's a great way to heal your minions essentially for free.

[@mistajames3213]

Have you thought about Feeblemind? A successful Feeblemind can reduce any intelligent undead’s intelligence to less than 8, and also tanks their Wisdom save. Just in case you want to Control Undead some high-cr monster with 10+ int. This also works with Planar Binding for non-necromancers. Also, Glyphs of Warding can be used with Magic Circle or Private Sanctum to summon what you want via Gate, prevent them from leaving, and then use Planar Binding/Control Undead and Feeblemind to snatch them up more-or-less permanently. Most monsters under the effect of Feeblemind can’t even save vs Control Undead or Planar Binding.

[@mistajames3213]

SharkForce Keep in mind, Feeblemind tanks their Int saves. A 17th level wizard with 20 int has a DC19 spell DC base. Creatures with 1 Int get a -4 to int saves. This means that the Feebleminded monster can’t save vs Feeblemind without legendary resistance or int save proficiency....

[@aidan7525]

Nice. Also, I noticed that nothing in the description of Command Undead says the target needs to stay undead. So you could (by RAW) True Polymorph anything into some Undead with a really low INT score, gain control of it, and then cancel True Polymorph. As long as the original had less than 12 INT, you can permanently control anything.

[@migueldelmazo5244]

14th level necromancers need an abjurer friend with portent. Hunt down powerful undead and force them to fail their saving throws. Talk to your DM about questing for variants to animate dead that allow you to make singular, higher CR undead. It's not RAW, but it's so much better than rolling for 20+ zombies/skeles.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

*Diviner friend ;)

[@migueldelmazo5244]

This time, I put in the error intentionally to see if you'd comment! Usually I mess up not on purpose, but you fell into my diabolical trap! Please allow me to continue my evil monologue. Please put away the swords and wands... Wait, what are you doing? Ack. But I have more of my back story, I want to impart! Nooooooooooooo.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

@@migueldelmazo5244 you made me smile, on a Tuesday morning no less.

[@migueldelmazo5244]

@@TreantmonksTemple if that is the case, then I am simply returning the favor. You've provided many smiles and laughs to me alongside the copious information in your videos. I don't know you in any real sense, but I get a vibe that you are a genuinely decent person. All of your fans are lucky to have you doing what you're doing. From this fan at least, thank you.

[@Vogue69]

OK another try in getting a Nightwalker. Nightwalker Info: Mighty Spawn. One can reach the Negative Plane from the Shadowfell, much in the same way that it is possible to step from the Material Plane into the Shadowfell in a place where the barrier between the planes is thin. Stepping into the Negative Plane is tantamount to suicide, since the plane sucks the life and soul from such audacious creatures and annihilates them at once. Those few who survive the effort do so by sheer luck or by harnessing some rare form of magic that protects them against the hostile atmosphere. They soon discover, however, that they can't leave as easily as they arrived. For each creature that enters the plane, a nightwalker is released to take its place. In order for a trapped creature to escape, the released nightwalker must be lured back to the Negative Plane by offerings of life for it to devour. If the nightwalker is destroyed, the trapped creature has no hope of escape. So we need a magic circle, maybe Plane Shift and some poor guy who will be banished to the Negative Plane?

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Our Necromancer has no shortage of poor humanoids to use in magical experiments. Consider it an honor, that instead of turning you inside out and into a zombie, I'm instead sacrificing you to another dimension as an offering to get a really cool pet, that will not only help us fight, but will make the adventurer's guild bake sale *to die for*

[@N20Joe]

IMO a better use of Signature Spell on the 1st level slot is Longstrider. Give you zombies (and the entire party really) +10 movement whenever you feel like it.

[@johndevlin9225]

You won’t get your class abilities like with shapechange, but you can always use true polymorph to turn into titivilus, concentrate on it for the full hour, then have as much animate dead as you want.

[@KINFIN123]

And probably land yourself turned into a Lemure when Asmodeus notices your hubris.

[@joaodias7152]

Nice idea, and you can also prepare contigency + dispel on a keyword so that you can easily revert back to your original form

[@aidan7525]

There is technically a way to True Polymorph and keep your class abilities, which I've detailed in another comment.

[@huggiesdsc]

@@aidan7525 I'm gonna have to hunt that comment down

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@KINFIN123 Offer Asmodeus a zombie fruit basket, and I'm sure he'll be tickled enough to let you finish your adventure first. Besides, with an entrepreneurial mind like yours, you'll earn a promotion in no time. Maybe 500, 600 years?

[@orfean]

Such solid work everytime. I was hardcore 3.5 loyalist , but treantmonk does so much to showcase the flavor of 5th edition, you just can't resist enjoying it. Keep up the good work!

[@mylesdrake2949]

Also something to note but may not be kosher with a dm is changing into a shadow dragon and breath attacking and killing humamoids making an army of permanent shadows under your command which also benefit from undead thalls. Wraith is also a good candidate for specters and wight for extra zombies. One however though which is the dm will most likely rule as you losing control when you revert is turning into a vampire and making vampire spawns. Edit:Looking over undead thralls it must be a necromatic spell that creates the undead not abilities. Still powerful though.

[@matthewconlon2388]

The Shadows wouldn't get Undead Thrall since Shapechange/Shadow breath are not Necromancy Spells :(

[@mylesdrake2949]

@@matthewconlon2388 Yeah I said as such in the edit part.

[@KhristianBolano]

Here's a way to "reliably" bind a Nightwalker to your service. 1) Cast an inverted Magic Circle that blocks Undead. 2) Cast Wish, take the risk and the toll to summon that Nightwalker inside the inverted Magic Circle. 2-a) You'll suffer the consequences of casting Wish without replicating another spell, but you won't cast other spells from now on. 3) Use your level 14 ability to attempt to control the Nightwalker and bind it to your service forever. This is relatively risky and potentially comes at a great cost depending on the DM. If you dedicate your downtime to the study of Nightwalkers and word the Wish as accurately as possible, you can probably summon the Nightwalker inside the Magic Circle. The Magic Circle will prevent any retaliation from this undead by RAW, your DM may rule otherwise given the power of this creature but you should at least have one turn to use the level 14 Necromancer ability. The great cost is the aftermath of casting Wish without replicating any effect, which is self-explanatory. But given the power of other 9th level spells, I think it's worth the risk, expecially since the worst possible case for you is death, which is a thing you can prepare for through the use of Clone and Demiplane. Or just make your Simulacrum do the job instead.

[@anthonynorman7545]

One of my favorite sentences: "Or just make your Simulacrum do the job instead!" XD

[@KhristianBolano]

@@anthonynorman7545 that's literally something you could say for anything as Wizard

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Or just send friendly Mr. Goblin on a one way paid vacation to the plane of negative energy. A Nightwalker enters your world as part of friendly Mr. Goblin's quest to get back, but becomes your buddy instead. And frankly, friendly Mr. Goblin is likely to die instantly anyways, so the odds of Friendly Mr. Goblin coming back as Unfriendly Mr. Space Goblin is quite low. Maybe send an entire village of Mr. and Ms. Friendly Goblins, if you aren't sure the Nightwalker will appear right next to you, go for the shotgun approach. Running into a Nightwalker is easier when you just added 120 of them to the world.

[@necrophoenixofc43studios74]

Mummy lord is a good one in absence of a night walker, it also controls undead, with the wights also controlling undead and all your animate deads plus your occasional fingers of death, arcane recoveries and simulacrum castings will build an amazing army quite quickly, if nothing else put them in a demiplane and release them into the middle of the enemies army i haven't done the math but i believe 4 digit #s of undead are possible from a single caster within a reasonable timetable

[@eliotoole4534]

11:38 You could always create one with plane shift! (Any/all)

[@wesker4472]

Hi Chris, What about use Glyph of warding at 9th level to cast true polymorph on yourself. to turn into titivilus. the glyph lasts and uses the concentration aspect

[@luiswi]

You could also just cast true polymorph on yourself and wait an hour. I'm not sure if you could use glyph of warding for shape change though.

[@wesker4472]

@@luiswi as chris mentioned you cannot hold the concentation yourself for the polymorph spell while you need concentration to cast animate dead (1 minute cast). So you need to shift the concentration to something else (the glyph)

[@luiswi]

@@wesker4472 no, I think you're mixing up true polymorph and shape change. True polymorph doesn't require concentration anymore if you concentrate for one hour (someone else or your simulacrum can also cast true polymorph you while shape change is self only), so that way you can easily transform into titivilus but you wouldn't get your necromancer abilities. That would only be possible with shape change. I've looked at some other comments under this video and it looks like you could store a 9th level spell in a glyph of warding but RAW you'd need a second 9th level spell slot for that because you must cast the spell when creating the glyph, and I think you can only do that with theepic boon that Grant's a 9th level slot.

[@Gnomeregrets]

I don't know if you noticed but there is around 12mins of a blackscreen at the end of the video

[@MauriceLacerda0]

That's a homage to the Necromancer. And also at the last few seconds of black screen you get a bonus Treantmonk jingle. =)

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I didn't, but it's been pointed out to me. Nothing is missing from the content.

[@Porphyrogenitus1]

It's so you have time for contemplation.

[@MateusNBueno]

Maybe a nice option for your Dance Macabre would be raising your undeads that have fallen in battle to fight for you once again and even more powerful! They Will have their bows at their feet, which would make it easier to you to command something like: grab your bows and shoot that Giant!

[@bradleydietz2129]

Contingency and Scatter are fun choices. I was considering dipping hexblade or cleric for some armor, but it doesn’t look like this build needs it. Just gotta race to as high as possible in wizard. Finger of Death, force cage, simulacrum, tons of defensive/offensive options. Makes me hesitate multiclassing even more. What I also love is all the resistances a wizard and necromancer can stack. With 5 elemental resistances from Absorb Elements, Fire Shield, summon Draconic spirit, Mind Blank, Necrotic Resistance, and a broach of shielding, your can potentially have a bunch of resistances. Even better if a cleric or someone casts protection from poison. For True Polymorph, becoming a Dracolich or something like that is always fun. Especially as a kobold. It’s a dragon ascension but undead! For spell mastery, unseen servant is another funny first level spell. Not optimal but having a bunch of ghosts can be hilarious. Nystul’s magic aura is another fun second level spell. Undead? I think not!

[@japphan]

Glyph of warding should solve the problem at level 17, or am I missing something? Store shapechange into the glyph, and the spell will last until the end of its duration. Sure, it brings the casting time up to an hour and costs 200gp, but hey, if you have 200 gold, an hour to spare and a graveyard.

[@aidan7525]

This wouldn't work since Shapechange is a 9th lvl spell, and to store a 9th lvl spell into a glyph you need to cast Glyph of Warding as a 9th lvl spell. Without getting 2 9th lvl spell slots, it wouldn't work, unfortunately.

[@japphan]

@@aidan7525 Thank you. After reading the spell description thouroughly, I believe you are correct. It does say you _cast_ the spell as _part of_ creating the glyph, meaning 2 slots are used, and that you can not do the 2 castings with a long rest between. Damn. That also explains why you would ever choose the explosive runes - fire instead of just putting in a fireball (provided you know the spell), which does the same thing but 5.5 extra points of damage on average, which I never understood until now. This means you would need a Shapechange _scroll_ to actually do this, bumping up the cost to 50k+ gp if you are able to find it in a shop, which seems unlikely. I think I'll spend my 50k on some mercenaries instead.

[@aidan7525]

@@japphan No problem. Technically, if you've captured one of the devil lords, you could True Polymorph them into a humanoid long enough to use Soul Jar to possess them, and then revert the True Polymorph. You'd keep Undead Thralls that way. But, of course "if you've captured one of the devil lords" is an even harder condition to meet than 50k gp.

[@triedtherest]

If you get the epic boon that gives you an extra 9th level spell then it would still be possible.

[@Raszul]

@@japphan just cast the 9th level glyph from a scroll ...

[@minibuscus2]

So what would you recommend shapechanging into then my man, as Titivilus is a named creature and is like the right-hand man to dispater not alot of DMS are going to let their PCs turn into him

[@ne3o0]

You could cast true polymorph instead. Then, when you cast animate dead wile you're in the titivilus form, you would lose concentration, but it would only mean that you would not stay permanently in the titivilus form (which is actualy good). So, you could cast animate dead multiple times during 1h and afterwards turn back to your original form.

[@aidan7525]

The entire point of the Shapechange is to keep your class levels as Titivilus and get necromancer buffed undead, which True Polymorph doesn't let you do.

[@44tuck3r]

I personally find the concentration aspect of shapechange to be near insulting. Just make it last an hour, it is a 9th lvl spell. Unless the player wanted to cast one of their own wizard spells requiring concentration, I would not penalizr use of innate casting traits that require concentration while shapechanged.

[@fyng.1582]

I think you missed a much cooler 9th level spell - Gate. Yes I hear you say "GATE?! That's not very good... The creatures don't even obey you." Yes. But you remember our good friend the Nightwalker? Well, with Gate, you could open up a hole directly to the plane of negative energy and call one through, then wrangle it with Control Undead. The one thing that makes this less likely is it unfortunately specifies "specific creature", so you might not be able to get your DM on board with it, as Nightwalkers likely don't have names or specific identities you can call on.

[@matthewconlon2388]

""The dumbest Nightwalker created that still resides on the Negative Energy Plane" is pretty specific and all but guarantees a permanent thrall.

[@Vogue69]

Find an Adult White Dracolich Boom flying undead dragon Master. Ok not really but for sure if you team up with a divination wizard of lvl2 or higher. Also maybe dominate a crazy powerful undead and cast feeble mind on it and have it fail the save.

[@acm4bass]

The necromancer and other summoners make gameplay at the table problematic , imagine 30 minute turn for the necromancer and then the rest of the party goes.... it also makes combat a grind.

[@acm4bass]

As a dm I would calculate after the first few combats a average damage per round and average loss per round, and just hand wave the rolls and deduct damage and minions per round thereafter.

[@RobDastardly]

These types of builds are better suited for more experienced players, especially ones that plan ahead and do their best to know exactly what they want to do prior to their turn. If you’re the guy that’s on his phone during everyone else’s turn the scrambles to decide what you want to do on your turn, necromancy is not for you.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

@@acm4bass yes, the DM can do a lot here by not being a slave to the mechanics

[@Raszul]

@@TreantmonksTemple I personally simply group up all identical creatures operating under the same will and have then use a single initiative. I also group all minions, pets, and summons with their owner/creator using said owners/creators initiative. Both of these significantly speed up combats without requiring any major changes of the mechanics or loads of number crunching to guesstimate average damage and attrition for the minions

[@TheTsugnawmi2010]

For 9th level spells, you could a) Shapechange into a: - Bael (CR19) who can Animate Dead at will and is strong enough to throw into battle unlike Titivilus - Shadow Red Dragon and kill humanoids with your breath attack to raise Shadows that permanently obey you - Death Tyrant and any humanoid that dies in a 150-foot cone raises as a zombie permanently under your control b) True Polymorph your Similacrum into any of the above to be your army factory or Dragon mount

[@Porphyrogenitus1]

> Soul Cage Take *Brian Cage* instead, it'll put the smackdown on your enemies.

[@dustinsmith2021]

Porphyrogenitus I’d rather have nick cage. I’M A SEXY CAT!

[@Porphyrogenitus1]

@@dustinsmith2021 Here u go then! kzbin.info/www/bejne/oqCVk3evmpd3n9k

[@DavidSmith-mi7sj]

Hello there. First want to say that I love all of your videos and I have taken an interest in this Necromancer Build that you have. I do have a quick question. Now I didn't go thru all the spells but in your final build I was looking at the spells and did not see Fireball listed on the character sheet but you did pick it as a spell at level 5. I was wondering if there is something that I am missing , was it something that you dropped off or was it forgotten to be on the list of spells. Thanks in advance

[@goatmeal5241]

Shapechange->animate dead doesn't work due to concentration, but why not true polymorph->animate dead? The undead wouldn't get boosted since you don't keep your class abilities, which is annoying, but true-poly doesn't require concentration after the first hour, so you can get that huge undead army. You probably want to drop out each day to also keep control of your boosted undead, but still, if you want a horde and don't want to murder commoners with finger of death it seems like the way to go.

[@keeganmbg6999]

The best part of this is whenever you turn into Titivilus you can do whatever you want. Transform back into yourself and no one will know the difference.

[@aidan7525]

There is actually a way to keep your class abilities while TPed, which I've detailed in another comment.

[@KageRyuu6]

What no Clone?

[@JaxonBurn]

Hey does anyone know how the bonus action commanding the creatures thing works when you have different creatures summoned from different spells? Like, if I've got some minions up from animate dead already and then I cast danse macabre, can I use my bonus action to command both groups of undead? Based on the wording it seems to me like I couldn't, which would create a lot of redundancy in this build.

[@philosopherhobbs]

A couple of more tricks you can do with Command Undead but I'm not sure how great they are. You can always True Polymorph an object into an CR9 creature. Not sure what the best undead to use would be. If your DM won't give you an encounter with a Nightwalker, you could also True Polymorph a creature of CR20 or greater into a Nightwalker permanently and then use Command Undead on it. So any high level monster could potentially be your undead servant.

[@nevyns9285]

A big problem I have with 5e Necromancer and Summoner is that 5e disincentives making or summoning stronger things. You are almost always better off with low CR minions than 1 or 2 "high" CR creatures. This is mostly due to bounded accuracy. Add to that, that moving from CR 1/4 to CR 2 isn't a huge upgrade in a lot of cases. There are exceptions of course, but the CR ratings seem all over the place, particularly low CRs, 1/8 to 4.

[@leebtheloser]

Could you use simulacrum to create a copy of yourself and then turn that into titivilus?? The zombies that they raise are then bound to your simulacrum which is in turn bound to you! :D

[@thepopemichael]

The whole "Whites creating zombies" thing, I thought, went a long with the spirit of the spell really well. It never seemed like an exploit to me. Also, it would be fun to have Strahd or even Old School Vecna as an undead minion. The chance is low to almost impossible... but it's not 100% impossible (though it may be with modern Vecna, since he's a Major Deity now).

[@MateusNBueno]

Maybe Mending would be a good cantrip option for this build. Since you are probably going to have lots of skeleton archers, arrow management may be a problem, depending on the DM.

[@Raszul]

What, no mass polymorph on your zombies?

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Zombies are low HD though...

[@Raszul]

@@TreantmonksTemple so are Shadows ... and STR Drain always rocks :-P ... or Rot Grubs ... get them out in the first turn or die ...

[@maltheopia]

What you want to do is Wish for an Animal Shapes. Enjoy your horde of Bristled Moonbounders that do +6/2d6+10 and +6/4d4+10 damage. Each. Or Giant Scorpions, whichever.

[@sixty5202]

I mean if you really want a full on undead army, why not just use True Polymorph with your Simulacrum? They turn themselves into Titivilus and sit in your demiplane creating and controling undead all day. IIRC, your Simulacrum is still you (At least for the purposes of stuff like Wish), so it's fairly reasonable to consider that you would also have control of those undead. Even if the DM doesn't want to allow that, all you need to do is take dispel magic for your simulacrum. True polymorph for an hour, wait out the duration on the concentration, create your undead army, and then have your Simulacrum dispel for you. Heck, you don't even need a Simulacrum, dropping your True Polymorphed form to 0hp lets you swap back. Another fun combo is Gate plus a Demiplane full of undead. Skeletons don't need food or water and don't take Exhaustion, so having a Demiplane filled with them that you can gate out at your leisure is a nice ace in the hole. They won't be under your control, but even uncontrolled Skeletons tend to be pretty hostile to nearby living creatures.

[@stevesmith4600]

After you make all of you Wizard videos, it would be interesting to see you do a ranking video against all of these builds.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

but isn't that like ranking my children?

[@anthonynorman7545]

@@TreantmonksTemple everyone has favorites! But to feel better, you could have them based on criteria so they all can win at least once.

[@donatszabo141]

True polymorph into titivilus. Wait, 1 hour, then you dont need concentration

[@Lujuria406]

Sad part is alot of dms I met don't really use undead unless it's zombies,skeletons and vampires

[@clarkside4493]

Just mind the costly material components for _create undead._ You don't want to be out adventuring and run out of components to reassert control over your minions.

[@clarkside4493]

@@sharkforce8147 Oh! Well, whaddaya know! You're right!

[@Aussiejosh90]

"Gate" the nightwalker in from the plane of shadow. Profit.

[@SpikeRosered]

I really want to make a Necromancer but I feel like it's not going to work out the way I hope and I'm better off just taking Undead creation spells as a War Wizard or something.

[@Lastofthesigilites]

Anyone planning lichdom remember Arcanist magic Aura and Sequencer are a must

[@SirPhoebus]

The solution was right in front of you all along. Have your simulacrum cast true polimorph on you and make you Titivilus. Boom infinite skeletons ! Also F that nightshade convince a ancient white dragon to become Dracolich and command than.

[@Porphyrogenitus1]

I always imagine that anyone caught in an *Otiluke's Resilient Sphere* has that look on his face that you have in the thumbnail for your 10K subscriber video. That and the resilient sphere sort of bouncing slowly around like a giant slow beach ball.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I think of a hamster in one of those balls running around.

[@Porphyrogenitus1]

@@TreantmonksTemple Oh great now I'll be thinking of a hamster in that "I CHOOSE HAMPTURE" guy's hamster-submersible.

[@Lastofthesigilites]

Here's something to counter any in-game argument against necromancy. "A single party can go out and face 20 baddies on a escort mission alone. You don't bat an eye when they get put in the ground. Why is this any different?"

[@thejammiestjam]

Lots of black screen at the end, fyi! Fun video! Definitely enjoy picturing g this small kobold with a small army of minions!

[@ben5056]

Sad about shapechange, concentration is a cruel mistress

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Sad wasn't the word I would use to describe my mood after 12 hours of recording and editing when I came to the realization the big reveal I had in this video was not going to work. I was crushed, but at least I caught it before releasing the video.

[@ben5056]

Treantmonk's Temple definitely would have been a fitting capstone. But be assured that the videos stand on their own. It gave me plenty of ideas for campaign villains and PCs.

[@goatmeal5241]

I felt so bad for you, but good to catch that. I was hoping you would follow up by saying true-polymorph doesn't require concentration after the first hour, so it's still possible (but the undead won't be boosted by your necromancer ability, which is annoying).

[@TreantmonksTemple]

@@goatmeal5241 Yeah, that would work, but it's not giving you nearly as much. At least I figured out the error before I released the vid.

[@tikiwikiki]

Couldn't you have a similacrum that casts shape hänge on you?

[@siddharthbianchi9322]

Feeble mind then target any undead?

[@bobbugoff7216]

Could u use glyph of warding to cast the shapechange?

[@KINFIN123]

Can’t. You’d need two 9th level slots to do that and you can’t have that.

[@GildedTongues]

@@KINFIN123 With boons or tome of the stilled tongue you can, though you can't count on those.

[@GildedTongues]

@@sharkforce8147 Single target or area are the only requirements.

[@GildedTongues]

@@sharkforce8147 You misunderstand. Shapechange targets a single creature. It meets the requirements to be cast into a Glyph of Warding. Glyph of Warding places no restrictions on range.

[@GildedTongues]

@@sharkforce8147 If the spell has a target, it targets the creature that triggers the glyph. In no way as written are interdimensional homing magic missiles a possibility.

[@jamesleighton1670]

Have you considered making a simulacrum and having it concentrate on shape change for you?

[@jamesleighton1670]

@@sharkforce8147 would true polymorph work instead?

[@aidan7525]

​@@jamesleighton1670 By RAW, to Shapechange into a creature "you must have seen the sort of creature at least once." and "You transform into an average example of that creature". True Polymorph says "the new form can be any kind you choose", but as SharkForce has said, not every DM will let you True Polymorph into a specific creature, cause they don't like it. Although, the fact that both Shapechagne and True Polymorph are from the same book makes it seem intentional that only Shapechange restricts you. True Polymorph also overrides class abilities, so there would be no difference between this build doing that, and any other Wizard. I actually did find a way to make this work by RAW, which I've posted a comment about.

[@roamingthereal4060]

True polymorph any creature for command undead :( thats a pretty big oversight. Also no mention of simulacrum to get a second pet.

[@aidan7525]

Are you referring to how you can True Polymorph any creature of less than 12 INT into an undead, and then control it forever?

[@ninjaturtlethug7]

Why not grave domain cleric at level 1?

[@TreantmonksTemple]

You could, it's a decent dip

[@Vogue69]

I asked this on Twitter - Rules question: lvl 20 necromancer uses command undead on zombie, then true polymorphs it into a Nightwalker. Does the necro end up with a nice cr20 dominated undead?

[@michaelkochalka3251]

"If you turn a creature into another kind of creature, the new form can be any kind you choose whose challenge rating is equal to or less than the target's (or its level, if the target doesn't have a challenge rating)." Answer is no.

[@N20Joe]

Poly must change into equal or lower CR. You could however polymorph your own Nightwalker into a zombie then drop concentration when you're ready to make someone crap their pants.

[@Vogue69]

Damn my exploit 😭

[@BrunoFerreiraDS]

@@N20Joe looooooooooooooool that's total tibia feelings, luring monsters do the city to kill noobs

[@Giant2005]

Titivilus would have worked if you used True Polymorph instead of Shapechange, but Monsters of the Multiverse went and nerfed Animate Dead right out of their spell list anyway.

[@kendrajade6688]

Your Shapechange idea would work with True Polymorph if you wait two hours, right?

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Not exactly, because you would not benefit from undead thralls

[@aidan7525]

@@TreantmonksTemple There is a way to keep Undead Thralls with True Polymorph, which I've detailed in another comment.

[@smile-tl9in]

something i'd like to note : using finger of death on a polymorphed ennemy actually kill them.

[@Vogue69]

Same with power word kill

[@smile-tl9in]

@@Vogue69 a bit too high level for my tastes

[@smile-tl9in]

@@sharkforce8147 fair enough

[@vadaritis]

Little dissapointed by the lack of thorough thought put into this. This may sound overky negative, but I dont mean it to be. Why not cast antipathy against undead on your skeleton minions, and use them as a set of sheep dogs to herd uncontrolled undead. Basically limitless undead, that you can control. Also, cast animate dead at the end of the day, so you get the slots back in the morning. Mending is more important to necromancers than other wizards, cause some dm's will rule once a skeleton is killed, that it is unusable as all the bones are shattered. Necromancy in many campaigns is considered illegal. Skeletons make better minions because the smell of rotting flesh doesnt give them away. Just dress them up in chainmail with a face covering helmet. Also important to consider, the intelligence of your undead. Skeletons you can give more generic commands cause they have an int of 6, but zombies have an int of 4. Skeletons are smart enough to use a doorknob, zombies are not. Vampiric touch is a great spell for necromancers. Have your undead dogpile an enemy, have the skeletons disarm them, and shackle the enemy, and you have a free hp battery. Sure the enemy will succeed against 1 or 2 grapples, but 10? Prolly not. Vampiric touch normally sucks, but using it like this also means you have enough hp, to be in the fray of combat. Always healing back damage. The true strength of necromancer is the action economy. to save time at the table, consider speaking the the dm about using mob rules in the dmg to speed up your turn in combat. Also, go with avg damage, cause rolling will take forever at the table and grind it to a halt. If you find a intelligent undead, feeblemind it, than use command undead. Dragons breath is also a great spell for necromancers, cause one of the dmg types is poison, making one of your zombies much more dangerous than it would be. And the normal downside of taking an action to activate the breath wont apply because a zombie is doing it. Speaking of poison damage, consider stinking cloud for control, and cloudkill for damage. Your undead are immune to the effects, and can keep the enemies trapped with grapples. Normally your videos are very insightful, which is why I subscribed, but I feel as though this build fell below the bar you have already set for yourself. Looking forward to the next build however.

[@aidan7525]

I agree with some of your points: casting animate dead at the end of the day, dragon's breath, stinking cloud/cloudkill. However, IMO Vampiric Touch isn't much better with a Necromancer than with any other wizard. It's still a 3rd lvl spell slot that uses your concentration and just heals you. It still has the problem that being in melee has more dangers than just taking damage - what if you lose concentration? And out of combat, you heal 6hp more per unit killed with it, so a maximum of 60, which is a lot, but that means you have captured/incapacitated 10 different enemies.

[@vadaritis]

@@aidan7525 those are valid concerns. However it is not a spell I would use in the middle of combat, unless its basically already a victory. Its mid to late game uses are to have your minions incapacitate your foes by disarming them, putting them in shackles, and grappling them. The reason I say Vampiric Touch is better for necromancers is the synergy it provides. It allows you to heal back hitpoints and stacks with Grim Harvest which is nice. The reason thats important is the spell Life Transferance. Life Transferance is useful because it allows the wizard to be a powerful emergency healer getting the cleric back up. Doing so you will take damage. But when you reach 10th lvl you gain Inured to Death which gives you resistance to the damage type. But in the phb, it states: "Resistance and vulnerability are applied after all other modifiers to damage." Which in this case means you calculate the damage, heal the person double that number, and because you have resistance, take half that number. Vampiric Touch, helps you stay topped up, worst case scenario, you use it on your zombies hoping they make the save to drop to 1hp, but wouldnt matter if they didnt cause thats an extra 9hp. Regardless, its only really useful for healing oneself as a low resource cost in mid to late game. Wouldnt bother getting till lvl8-10 cause despite all the things I mentioned, its only a so-so spell on its own. But it synergizes well enough with the other things in the necromancer kit that I thought it worth mentioning. Also, its a total of 90 since it would be a necromancy spell, not 60 hp healed from the 1 spell, not including the 3d6 halved each time.

[@aidan7525]

​@@vadaritis Upon further reflection, I have come around on Vampiric Touch as a higher-level, relatively cheap healing option, if the party lacks a druid. Though, I think that most of the benefit comes from having undead servants to handle the logistics of capturing 10 enemies. BTW, if they are incapacitated, attacks are automatic crits. So if you kill 10 enemies, that's (3d6+9)*10 = 195 points of healing! That's probably more than a lvl 20 wizard has. 105 of that comes from the spell itself, which is not enough for a 20th lvl wizard, but more than enough for a 8-10. Still good. I do not agree with your interpretation of Life Transference, however. Life Transference says the target "regains a number of hit points equal to twice the necrotic damage you take". The rules on making CON saves to maintain concentrations reads "Whenever you take damage while you are concentrating on a spell, you must make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your Concentration. The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher" (roll20). Note the use of the same phrase "damage you take" in both cases. Under your ruling with resistance, spells like Absorb Elements do not make it easier to maintain concentration, which is one o the benefits of the spell that Chris has mentioned. Also, using Apathy to corral hoards of undead is brilliant! I didn't quite understand it by the time of my first comment.

[@vadaritis]

@@aidan7525 I appreciate the civil discussion we are having like a pair of wizards in college. As far as the minions, when I said incapacitated I merely meant it as your enemies wouldnt be able to contribute to the fight anymore not the incapacitated condition. But if you could get that... (Starts to drool at the thought.) Fair enough on Life Tranferance, guess I have been letting my Aasimar player in the game I run get a little too much milage out of that spell. Nice catch on the concentration rule by the way. For a bonus tip: Skeletons are immune to exhaustion. Think about having a tireless work force of avg strength people with above average dexterity. They wouldnt need to take breaks to eat, go to the bathroom, or even sleep. Heck, the ancient Egyptions built the pyramids with primitive tech. But for adventuring, get a cart, have your party rotate watches at night, and tell your minions to follow the road, and the next directive given to either stop or turn at the person on watches discression. Bonus, bonus tip: Your zombies and skeletons can do a little damage, but your fighter and paladin do a lot of damage, have the minions give the help action to your allies to give them advantage. Suddenly everyone has advantage on just about anything they do, if it is feasable. Cause I dont see zombies being able to help the barbarian with math homework. (Grammar)

[@aidan7525]

@@vadaritis As do I! Ah, for getting the incapacitated condition (kinda) easily, take a look at page 198 of the PHB: Knocking a Creature Out. "When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable." This, plus stabilizing enemies (skeletons only have -1 to wis) who go down can potentially leave lots of unconscious bodies. I had thought of having undead construct something, but having them pull the party's cart is crazy smart!

[@corran2145]

Two spells that play well with the command undead ability are bestow curse and feeblemind. I guess true polymorph might too, though this comes later on. Sure, it's certainly up to the DM what undead creature we will face, but I would like to be prepared as best as I can when faced with a good candidate for the permanent undead thrall. Plus, feeblemind is not a bad spell anyway, and bestow curse does have a small bit of synergy with the ghouls (though yeah, this last one is only a very minor benefit). I am guessing that you didn't put much resources into this because of how situational command undead is. It would be interesting to see what spells one could use to locate and hunt down such creatures though (spells that come to mind are plane shift, contact other plane/ conjure invisible stalker, locate creature maybe, and probably several more I am missing). Using geass or mass suggestion could work on wights, and that could be a very cheap (yet risky; a lot of DM dependence there) way of keeping them around. Charm monster too, though it lacks the duration of others when upcast, so not much point in it.

[@dominicl5862]

This entire time you were hyping the lvl 17 thing, I could of sworn it was some other cheese. Like this: lvl 10 ability is that youre hitpoint maximum cant be reduced. When u shapechange you keep class abilities. So shapechange into a leviathan, 300+ hp and when u revert back you're hit points cant be reduced so now you're the tankiest wizard in the game

[@maltheopia]

Interesting idea, but then that opens all sorts of shenanigans with Amulets of Health and the Aid spell and the like. It's not gamebreaking prior to Shapechange or anything, but there's no way in hell a table would allow it.

[@toxicrainman1]

Kewl

[@RavenWolfStarcraft2]

There could be another weird way that would result in your Animate Dead shenanigans, but any way that could would probably result in infinite skeletons anyway, and the goal seemed to be to create 60 of them that have your necromancer features (having infinite of them doesn't really matter at that point either). Sorry you ran into that glitch. Incoming magic item, "you can concentrate on two spells at once", or maybe risk losing wish with a dangerous wish? I got a really good laugh at you talking about bad wizards. You might also have another consistent benefit with Command Undead. Maybe use true polymorph on a skeleton and turn it into something you really want to control? Or you definitely can create a creature via Create Undead and gain control of your own creature permanently to just gain one more free undead while you have nothing you want to grab? A mummy isn't amazing, but if it's 'free' after a downtime day, why not?

[@aidan7525]

You can't True Polymorph a skeleton into anything with a higher CR than it. You can, however, True Polymorph anything with a high CR into a skeleton, then control it, then cancel True Polymorph to revert them back, which by RAW doesn't break control. As long as it has

[@Adurnis]

Your video has about 12 minutes of black at the end. Shame about the failed exploit!

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Ruined my day yesterday as I was editing and listening to myself talk and thinking, "wait a minute...you would need to concentrate on.....nnonononononononono!" I only released the vid today at all because ultimately it was a theoretical thing and the build wasn't ultimately affected, but the way I go on and on about it...

[@Adurnis]

Treantmonk's Temple Yeah, it really hurts!

[@social3ngin33rin]

That's a lot of black screen lol

[@johannesdolch]

So i am watching the first video intro where you tell me to definitely check out the awesome thing that happens at level 17 and then i scroll all the way through this video (thanks to no timestamps) just to find out this great thing doesn't actually work... I really don't know what to say to that. So the two lessons here are 1. Dont tease shit that's not actually there, that's called clickbait. and 2. when you tell somebody to watch a specific part of another video of yours, just add a frickin timestamp.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I am sorry for that. It was not intentional.

[@keeganmbg6999]

Don’t be a jerk. He did apologize.

[@keeganmbg6999]

Also True Polymorph does exactly what he just said and you could still cast animate Undead infinitely and then lower your HP and boom lots of regular undead. The bigger problem is corpses.

[@johannesdolch]

@@keeganmbg6999 Standing up for yourself when people waste your time isn't being a jerk.

[@johannesdolch]

@@TreantmonksTemple Gotcha. It happens. Maybe you can add a comment at the time in the first video. I get that you can't change the video itself.

[@immastugots7959]

Why would you hype something up in multiple videos just for you to tell us you can't even do it? Kind of slimy tbh ...