Necromancer Wizard: D&D 2024 (5.5e) Subclass Optimisation Guide

Transform the deceased into undead minions.

At a glance

What’s changed in D&D 2024?

The 2014 school of necromancy had a few features that were a bit too situational as they relied on facing undead. The new necromancer shifts away from these situational features and more on bolstering your own undead minions. We’ve had the following changes:

• Subclass at level 3: Like all subclasses in D&D 2024, the necromancer features now kick in at level 3 rather than level 2.
• Necromancy savant completely changes: No longer makes it easier and cheaper to copy necromancy spells to your spell book. Instead, you get an extra necromancy spell known whenever you gain access to a new spell level.
• Necromancy spellbook replaces grim harvest: This means no more self healing when killing. Instead you can summon an extra undead through find familiar, gain necrotic resistance and casting necromancy spells heals your undead minions.
• Grave power: Brand new feature that grants exhaustion recovery when using arcane recovery and the ability to ignore necrotic resistance.
• Undead thralls tweaks: Similar output, but you upcast animate dead allowing 2 extra undead animated rather than 1. The extra hit points are similar, but will tend to be a little less than previously gained. The extra damage will also tend to be higher at lower levels, but slightly lower at the highest tier of play.
• Harvest undead replaces inured to undeath: Necrotic resistance already occurs now at level 3. Now you can use a reaction when bloodied to drain life force from your undead minions.
• Death’s master replaces command undead: You can no longer steal control of undead from another. Instead you can bolster your undead summons with temporary hit points and cause undead to explode when they die.

Necromancer features

Necromancy savant (Lv3) – 3/5

A bunch more necromancy spells available is good, especially as you want to be casting plenty of these to bolster your undead minions.

Personally, I think quite a few necromancy spells feel comparatively weak compared to other spells schools (especially at lower levels), but there are still some quite good options. I’d prioritise spells like:

• Toll the dead
• Speak with dead
• Summon undead (these undead will also be bolstered by your other necromancer features)
• Circle of death
• Create undead (these undead will also be bolstered by your other necromancer features)
• Eyebite
• Finger of death
• Clone

Necromancy spellbook (Lv3) – 4/5

Necrotic resistance is decent for resilience. Find familiar is a solid spell with plenty of utility. The main advantage of having skeleton and zombie options for your familiar is their higher CR (1/4 Vs the usual 0). These still aren’t tough familiars, but at least they’ll survive a tickle! They also add 1 to your number of undead minions available at any time.

Making your familiars undead means they can benefit from your other features including healing when you cast necromancy spells. Of course most familiars only have a few HP so only really skeletons and zombies have the option of benefitting from this.

The healing is fairly significant, especially as you gain levels. The idea with this subclass is to keep on hand a bunch of undead creatures while you keep casting necromancy spells to keep them topped up with HP. By level 6, you’ll be able to have plenty of undead minions to command and heal.

Grave power (Lv6) – 3/5

Exhaustion isn’t particularly common but can be a pain when it occurs. This helps you handle it a bit. As you’ll be casting plenty of necromancy spells, ignoring resistance to necrotic damage is going to be really handy so you’re not stifled by fighting undead for instance.

Undead thralls (Lv6) – 4/5

Animate dead is a decent spell, but this really beefs it up. Because you’re upcasting the spell, you’re getting at least 3 undead rather than just 1 to command. They’re also all getting extra HP (at this level with 4 intelligence, that’s +7HP per creature animated).

The extra damage is nice too, but it does rely on actually hitting the target. Skeletons are your best bet for this with +5 to hit, but may struggle against heavily armoured foes. I’d focus them on less resilient enemies. You could also have them simply do things like the help action for allies or grappling creatures. Remember that they do have to do the same thing though.

Unfortunately, the extra HP doesn’t add to your familiar as find familiar isn’t a necromancy spell, but the extra damage does apply.

Keep in mind that although this is a fairly substantial meat shield, skeletons and zombies are not that tough or damaging. You’re attempting to harm enemies by volume of attacks rather than accuracy or brute force. Especially as you progress in levels, creatures may simply ignore your summons.

Harvest undead (Lv10) – 4/5

Transferring life from your summons to yourself is quite decent for resilience. Every day, you should have at least 4 of these for free (1 from find familiar and the other 3 from animate dead). Your familiar you can keep summoning as a ritual throughout the day too without expending spell slots. You can also cast animate dead with a spell slot too. This is a decent amount of durability so long as you retain your meat shield of undead around, which at this level, are probably of the most use healing you up when you get bruised anyway.

Be aware that your reaction won’t be available as much for spells as a result.

Death’s master (Lv14) – 4/5

Bolster undead is best used out of combat when you have your maximum number of undead available. It affects all your undead creatures so you want as many as possible to maximise on it. This should be at least 4, which at this level would mean 56 temporary hit points spread across your undead (more if you’ve cast animate dead multiple times or at higher levels, for example).

You can also explode undead that die. For a skeleton or zombie for example, this is just 1d6 which isn’t much, but can prevent reactions. Just be careful of friendly fire.

You can do this on undead you don’t control, but be aware that it costs your reaction and a level 5 spells slot. This means you won’t want to be using it on minions but if you kill a lich, for example, then that’s a 21d6, an average of 73.5 damage per creature. That could be well worth the spell slot, but you’ll want to be cautious of friendly fire even more here.

How good is the necromancer?

The necromancer is big on meat shields and becomes relatively resilient at mid-levels. You’ll really want to lean into the idea of having plenty of undead at your command and basically have them cause a nuisance for enemies while you enhance their durability. You then drain their life force when you get injured as thanks for their service.

Technically, you’ve got a decent bit of extra damage potential with so many minions, but they’re not hugely accurate. Don’t forget other minion spells like summon undead too which are bolstered by your features and can pack a bit more of a punch.

Overall, a really solid wizard subclass that properly fulfills on the concept of an undead animating master without overwhelming with hordes of undead.

4/5

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Building an optimised necromancer

Necromancers follow mostly the same pattern as other wizards when it comes to build optimisation. You want to build for a backline spellcaster. The spells themselves may be different (a greater leaning towards necromancy spells) but other aspects of your build will be largely the same.

Below I’ve pieced together loads of advice on how you can build an optimised necromancer.

Ability scores

Recommended options

• Intelligence: Your most important ability score. You’ll need this for spellcasting prowess, knowledge skills and more hit points and damage for your minions.
• Dexterity: You’ll need this to have any kind of decent AC. You should consider grabbing the mage armor spell or the lightly armored feat to complement this and enhance your AC further.
• Constitution: Wizards have the smallest hit die in the game making them highly susceptible to damage. Upping this where you can will help make your character a bit more durable and help with concentration saving throws.

Options to avoid

• Strength: You’ve got almost no use for strength.
• Wisdom: Only useful for some skills and saving throws, otherwise, not worth investing in.
• Charisma: This is mostly for face skills which wizards aren’t that great at and you don’t have the space for.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	8	8
Dexterity	15	14
Constitution	15	13
Intelligence	15	15
Wisdom	8	12
Charisma	8	10

Skills

Recommended options

• Arcana: Common knowledge skill and you have the intelligence to back it up.
• History: Another common intelligence skill.
• Investigation: Investigation comes up a fair bit and as one of the few intelligence based classes, you’re in a good place to help here.
• Nature: This feels like the domain of rangers and druids, but as an intelligence skill, this is another that a wizard is well placed to focus on.
• Religion: Unless you have a cleric in the party, religion proficiency can be useful for all that religious lore you need to know.

Species/race

I’d look for species with the following qualities:

• Resilience: You could use your species to make you more durable. Things like extra HP, damage resistances, flight and teleportation will all help you either survive more damage, or get away from danger.
• Innate spellcasting: The more spells you have in your repertoire, the more situations you can aid your party with. Innate spellcasting will help you fulfill that role more and often give you free castings of spells too.

Recommended options

• Aasimar (2024): Damage resistances make you more durable. Some bonus action healing helps you play backup healer (an area of spellcasting wizards happen to be quite poor at). But you’re mainly here for temporary flight which will keep you a lot safer in nasty battles.
• Elf (2024): An extra skill and darkvision are both helpful but innate spellcasting is the most useful aspect for a wizard. High Elf is a good option for misty step and an extra cantrip. Drow are good for buffs and debuffs with the likes of faerie fire and darkness. Wood Elves are more about speed and stealth.
• Gnome (2024): Gnomish cunning is great against magical effects. Minor illusion and speak with animals are good utility options for a utility caster.
• Human (2024): If you need to boost your skill proficiencies to take full advantage of all those knowledge skills, then Human’s a good option. The consistent supply of heroic inspiration is useful too. I’d use the extra origin feat on the kinds of feats that can be difficult to grab through a compatible background. Things like tough are good for this.
• Tiefling (2024): 4 extra spells known is mainly what you’re after here.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 with ability score increases, origin feats and skills all now linked to your background.

For a necromancer, I’d prioritise intelligence and then one of dexterity or constitution with the below being your best options:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Artisan	Strength, dexterity, intelligence	Crafter	Investigation, persuasion	One kind of artisan’s tools
Criminal	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Alert	Sleight of hand, stealth	Thieves’ tools
Merchant	Constitution, intelligence, charisma	Lucky	Animal handling, persuasion	Navigator’s tools
Mulhorandi tomb raider (HoF)	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Lucky	Investigation, religion	Mason’s tools
Sage	Constitution, intelligence, wisdom	Magic initiate (wizard)	Arcana, history	Calligrapher’s tools
Scribe	Dexterity, intelligence, wisdom	Skilled	Investigation, perception	Calligrapher’s tools
Spellfire initiate (HoF)	Constitution, intelligence, charisma	Spellfire spark	Arcana, perception	One kind of gaming set

Feats

Origin feats

I’d say the below are your best origin feats for a necromancer:

• Lucky: Invoking advantage and disadvantage is always handy. Consider using this for something like an upcast chromatic orb to increase the accuracy.
• Magic initiate: Grab some extra spells known from another spell list (or from your own). Wizards need a good range of spells and grabbing them from a other class list can help you fill any spellcasting gaps in the party (like becoming a backup healer with healing word for instance).
• Musician: A generally excellent origin feat for helping your allies out with some heroic inspiration (kind of like a slightly better lucky, you give to your friends).
• Skilled: If the party needs a bit more proficiency in knowledge skills, you’re a good candidate for that. This can bump up your number of skill proficiencies a decent bit.
• Spellfire spark (HoF): Some damage reduction against spells and a bonus action cantrip. The damage scales with your level too. You don’t need to command your undead every turn with your bonus action, you can just give sweeping commands like “Attack my enemies” which should often leave your bonus action free for other things, like this.
• Tough: Really valuable extra hit points for a subclass with few hit points.

General feats

At level 4, you can start picking up general feats. These are some of the better options for a necromancer:

• Fey touched: Misty step is great for staying safe. Plus you get more spells known.
• Genie magic (HoF): An extra spell you can cast and the utility to pick any spell on the sorcerer spell list of 1st level is pretty good on a class that relies entirely on casting spells.
• Lightly armored: If you don’t want to keep spending spell slots on mage armor, then you could invest in this, especially as studded leather and a shield will give you better AC than mage armor.
• Mage slayer: Great for disrupting spellcasters and gives you something similar to legendary resistance. Depending on your spell list, you could be dealing damage most turns which gives you regular opportunities to disrupt concentration spells.
• Ritual caster: If you feel like you’re struggling to have enough of the spells you want available to you, then this is the best way to boost your utility with more spells gained through this feat than any other. You can check out my full guide to ritual casting for more tips.
• Shadow touched: Invisibility and an illusion or necromancy spell are great for a caster class, especially as casting necromancy spells heal your minions.
• Spell sniper: Great for bypassing cover and getting some extra range on your spells. Pretty good for a subclass that might often be making ranged spell attacks.

Weapons

Wizards are no good with weapons and their cantrips will usually exceed the performance of any weapon attack.

I’d grab a light crossbow and a dagger in case you get caught in an anti-magic field, a silence spell or something similar (or if you want to use them for the true strike spell). Otherwise, you should be wholly focused on magical damage.

Armor

Wizards don’t naturally have proficiency in any armor, which makes them even more vulnerable to attacks. Increasing your dexterity and grabbing the mage armor spell is the easiest way to enhance your AC.

Alternatively, you could grab the lightly armored feat for light armor and shield training. The best setup for this (studded leather and a shield) will grant you 1 extra AC than mage armor and won’t require spell slots. You may need the war caster feat if you opt for a shield though so your spell casting isn’t hampered, but you may want war caster anyway.

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