Reanimator Artificer: D&D 2024 (5.5e) Optimisation Guide

Command corpses and revive the dead with this brand new subclass from Ravenloft: The Horrors Within.

At a glance

What’s changed from the playtest?

When I reviewed the reanimator in the 2025 horror subclasses unearthed arcana, it already looked like loads of fun in the playtests and had a solid bunch of features. It did still need cleaning up a bit to get all the features functioning in the right kinds of ways. Fortunately, that seems to be what we’ve gotten with the core of the subclass still intact, generally better reviving, better utility, but less damage. I’ve summarised all the changes below:

• Reanimator spells: No change.
• Reanimator’s skill set: Jolt to life has been rolled into here. The healing is more profound and scales nicely with your levels. The damage is easier to calculate but tends to be smaller. You also get proficiency with alchemist’s tools.
• Reanimated companion: Is medium instead of small (so can be used as a mount for small characters). Attacks deal 2 less damage.
• Strange modifications: The ferocity option has been severely nerfed from an additional attack to changing the damage die to a d6.
• Improved reanimation: The playtest version of this is now called macabre modifications and this becomes a completely new feature enhancing your companion’s death burst and causing it to ignore resistances to necrotic damage.
• Macabre modifications: This is the new name for what was improved reanimation. Bloated no longer allows the creature to become medium sized (as it already is that size). Moist also allows the companion to squeeze through very small gaps.
• Refined reanimation: was previously promethean reanimation. Raise dead can be cast without spell slots and material components once per long rest instead of halving material costs of raise dead and revivify (this gives you access to raise dead earlier and revivify was an odd one as it wasn’t an automatic option for your spell list). Improved death burst occurs in a lesser way at level 9 now. Instead you get another strange modification. Life transfer grants you your companion’s remaining hit points rather than HP equal to your artificer level. This gives it a higher ceiling, but also a lower potential healing.

Reanimator features

Reanimator spells (Lv3) – 3/5

Level	Spells
3	False life, spare the dying, witch bolt
5	Blindness/deafness, enhance ability
9	Animate dead, lightning bolt
13	Blight, death ward
17	Antilife shell, raise dead

The reanimator gets a bunch of very Dr Frankenstein style spells that mostly involve reviving, protecting from death and lightning. They’re a solid bunch too with witch bolt and perhaps blight being somewhat weak options (blight does only a bit more damage than lightning bolt, but on just one target for a higher spell slot).

Importantly, you have a decent, repeatable spell for your spell storing item in lightning bolt. This means it can be cast over and over again by one of your pets like your reanimated companion or a homunculus servant.

One thing to be aware of is that some of these spells fade in potency by the time you gain access to them (because you’ve got a slower spell progression than a full caster). Animate dead is a good spell, but by level 9, skeletons and zombies may just be tickling your enemies more than causing them problems.

Reanimator’s skill set (Lv3) – 4/5

Proficiency with alchemist’s supplies is a ribbon feature really. However, jolt to life is super interesting. Basically, you can use a a cantrip to revive a downed creature with a decent number of hit points and harm the creatures around them.

You should be investing in intelligence anyway so this means 3-5 uses per long rest. It’s sort of like combining thunderclap and healing word into one package with a lower floor but higher ceiling for healing word. Plus it doesn’t eat into your spell slots at all.

Handily, the damage won’t affect allies, but there is a slight challenge in reviving allies and damaging enemies. Basically, this relies on reviving next to enemies, but this severely diminishes their survivability, especially when at earlier levels, you might only be giving them 3-5HP. At worst though, you’re sparing an ally from death, injuring enemies and creating another target for enemies to try and take down so this remains a strong option.

Reanimated companion (Lv3) – 4/5

This is your Frankenstein’s monster which you can command with a bonus action and essentially grant another attack each turn or provide a little more utility. Comparing it to the beast master’s land primal companion, it’s essentially more resilient with better constitution and more resistances and immunities, but deals less damage. It does explode on death, but otherwise, has weaker attacks.

With such little damage, I actually think the best use of your reanimated companion is for them to lurch into the middle of enemies, draw attacks, get knocked to 0HP and then be revived with jolt to life for extra damage against the creatures still around it and rinse and repeat. If enemies ignore your companion and just move past, at least it gets an opportunity attack too.

Interestingly, the reanimated companion heals from lightning damage so if you’re out of jolt to life uses or want to save them for PCs, then you can blast lightning bolts through your companion or heal them with shocking grasp to keep them going longer.

Strange modifications (Lv5) – 4/5

There’s some potentially good utility here. For example, casting from your reanimated companion’s space means easier access for your jolt to life feature which only has a range of 15ft. Lightning bolt might be easier to line up for example too (though you may want your reanimated companion being hit by your lightning bolt rather than casting from its space). Thunderclap and shocking grasp becomes great cantrips on a reanimator as you can wade your companion into the middle of enemies and blast them with some AoE damage or prevent reactions.

The extra damage from evocation and necromancy spells is going to benefit AoE spells the most as the damage boost will affect all targets. This makes thunderclap and lightning bolt 2 of your best options here. In fact, there are only a few spells this will affect, this includes:

• Acid splash
• Bigby’s hand
• Blight
• Fire bolt
• Lightning bolt
• Poison spray
• Ray of frost
• Shocking grasp
• Thunderclap
• Witch bolt

The damage boost to your companion’s attacks is so small that I just don’t think this is worth considering. The boost to something like thunderclap and lightning bolt which you can now cast from your companion’s space is just significantly better.

Improved reanimation (Lv9) – 2/5

Death burst damage increasing from 2d6 to 4d4 is an average damage increase of 3. It’s not a lot for something that is realistically situational. I don’t imagine this will even be happening once per encounter. Ignoring necrotic damage is OK but situational and again, the reanimated corpse isn’t a big damage dealer to majorly benefit from this.

Macabre modifications (Lv9) – 4/5

Fortunately, macabre modifications is much better. I’d still ignore ferocity as a weak option here. I’m also not too convinced by bloated. It’s alright but death burst isn’t a reliable source of damage. Push is good for moving enemies into the area of a potential AoE spells or pushing enemies backwards out of range of allies.

I prefer gaunt for the always on frightened emanation. Faster move speed and climbing is quite useful too. Moist also feels great if only for the fact that your meat shield now damages when hit (and you absolutely want your reanimated corpse drawing attacks). This allows for some great tactics where you just keep healing your reanimated companion with lightning bolts that harm the creatures around it while they keep trying to hurt it, only to be damaged back. The swim speed and squeezing through narrow openings makes for some interesting scouting utility.

It’s worth noting that you can change these options whenever you create a new reanimated companion. This makes for easily adapting to your circumstances.

It’s also worth pointing out that you can determine the form of your companion. If you give it the form of something that can be ridden, you can also make it large through the bloated attribute and ride it while it swims or climbs really fast and now you have a mount. If you’re small, you don’t even need to take bloated and can access this from level 3 and use your reanimated companion as a mount.

Refined reanimation (Lv15) – 4/5

Raise dead for free once is pretty good, especially as this occurs before you normally gain access to level 5 spells.

Stealing the life force of your reanimated corpse is handy for surviving a bit longer, especially as your life is of greater value than your companions.

A 3rd option for strange modifications makes your reanimated companion better and more flexible too.

How good is the reanimator subclass?

The reanimator is a really interesting subclass and more unique than other pet subclasses. It sort of has a very callous approach to it’s companion, sort of encouraging you to use it as an expendable meat shield and killing and reviving the companion over and over again until it bursts in a gory blast and you create a new one. It’s wickedly macabre conceptually and I love that.

Practically speaking, it does a lot of things kind of well without excelling in any department. Its extra damage dealing is OK, but can be unreliable or require careful tactics. Its healing isn’t as profound as a cleric, druid or even an alchemist, but its ability to revive from 0HP is much better. It also has some utility, but doesn’t fully throw you into this either. Perhaps the thing it’s best at is simply producing meat shields to protect yourself and allies from some enemy attacks.

In some ways, I think this subclass pushes more for fun than for reliable competence; and I love it for that. It’s not as reliably competent as something like a battle smith or artillerist. At the same time, it can be quite effective at times, drawing attacks, punishing enemies for attacking your companion and granting some interesting utility. This certainly makes it more effective than weaker subclasses like the cartographer or even the alchemist.

My initial reaction to the reanimator is it may be a little underpowered on the damage front. However, between enhanced spell damage and being able to cast spells from your meat shield companion, I actually think it does alright without the need for an extra attack. I still think ferocity is a very weak option, but everything else about the reanimator is great.

Ultimately, I think I really like it. The reanimator refuses to play it safe with its features, while still encouraging tactical thinking. Mechanically it’s solid, but when it comes to vibes, it’s excellent!

4/5

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Building an optimised reanimator

Artificer subclasses are all quite unique in how they function, and the reanimator is no different. Primarily though, you want to be building around spellcasting and enhancing your reanimated companion. Below is some advice on how you can approach this build.

Ability scores

Recommended options

• Intelligence: Your spellcasting ability and the one you’ll use for a lot of your best features like flash of genius and spell storing item as well as enhancing some aspects of your reanimated companion and the extra damage from features like arcane conduit.
• Dexterity: If you have medium armor, you’ll want to get this at least 14 for the AC boost. As a rogue alternative, you may need this for things like unpicking locks and stealth too. You might also use it for your ranged weapons, though cantrips will usually be more powerful.
• Constitution: All classes benefit from more resilience and artificers are no different. This will also help you concentrate more easily on spells too.

Options to avoid

• Strength: Dump, you’ve got 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 and these don’t come naturally to an artificer so I wouldn’t invest much here either.

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 an artificer is well placed to focus on.
• Perception: Perception is always useful, especially if you’ll be filling in as a scout.
• Sleight of hand: Great option if you don’t already have a rogue with this.

Stealth isn’t on the artificer list of skills, but I’d consider it for an artificer if you don’t have another more natural scout. Backgrounds or the skilled feat can help you get this.

Species/race

I’d look for species with the following qualities:

• Resilience: Make yourself tougher or more evasive through things like more hit points, resistances or flight. Being evasive is probably more important for a reanimator which means traits like flight can be very useful.
• Innate spellcasting: The more spells you possess the better. And as a utility caster, an expanded range will benefit you a fair bit.

Recommended options

• Aasimar (2024): Damage resistances as well as some light healing for recovering allies are solid. 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. The big thing here is the innate spellcasting though. High Elf is a good option for misty step and an extra cantrip. Drow is good for buffs and debuffs with the likes of faerie fire and darkness while Wood Elf works nicely for a more stealthy artificer.
• Gnome (2024): Extra magic resilience is great as you’ll undoubtedly be the target of some spells. Minor illusion and speak with animals are better options than what the Rock Gnome gives. Gnomes are also small allowing you to use your reanimated corpse as a mount. It’s still a tricky build and not one I’d necessarily recommend in battle, but could be useful from level 9 when the companion can climb or swim.
• Human (2024): If you need to boost your skill proficiencies to take full advantage of all those knowledge skills or add in stealth proficiency, then Human’s a good option. The consistent supply of heroic inspiration is useful too. However, the extra origin feat is probably the trait you want most, especially if you want to grab something like the tough origin feat, which is normally only available with backgrounds that don’t work for the artificer.
• Shifter (2024): Temporary hit points and a choice of benefits. Beasthide for the extra AC and swiftstride for the faster movement and the extra safety are good options. The skills aren’t the best for an artificer, but everything else works well.
• Tiefling (2024): 4 extra spells known is mainly what you’re after here. A lot of the spell options here are evocation or necromancy spells which makes them great for your arcane conduit feature and its enhanced damage. Chill touch is quite a good option to cast through your reanimated companion too but just be aware that it’s not an artificer spell so won’t benefit from the damage boost from arcane conduit.
• Warforged (2024): More AC, poison resilience, a skill and tool proficiency and a few other buffs all work really well for an artificer that wants to be tougher and have more skills at their fingertips.

Backgrounds

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

For a reanimator, 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
Criminal	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Alert	Sleight of hand, stealth	Thieves’ tools
Ice fisher	Strength, dexterity, intelligence	Alert	Animal handling, athletics	Woodcarver’s tools
Merchant	Constitution, intelligence, charisma	Lucky	Animal handling, persuasion	Navigator’s tools
Mulhorandi tomb raider	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

I’d go with criminal for a stealth build or sage for more of a spellcasting and knowledge build. The Mulhorandi tomb raider is also a strong option.

Feats

Origin feats

I’d say the below are your best origin feats for an artificer. Ironically, crafter is a poor option for an artificer who can do the things the crafter feat suggests in better ways usually:

• Alert: It’s always useful to go earlier in combat and once you start blasting AoE spells (especially if you have a homunculus servant or your reanimated companion with lightning bolt in a spell sorting item) then you’ll want to blast these off before other characters get in your way.
• Lucky: Advantage on d20 tests and disadvantage on your aggressors is universally useful. Especially as avoiding getting hit is one of the best ways to not lose concentration.
• Magic initiate: Grab some extra spells known from another spell list. A good way to make yourself even more flexible with spellcasting.
• 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 or you need to fill in for a rogue, then this works well for you. This can bump up your number of skill proficiencies a decent bit.
• Tough: Really valuable extra hit points for a class on the lower end of these.

General feats

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

• Fey touched: Misty step and another spell with free castings is pretty good and misty step makes a decent safety spell.
• Genie magic: Another spell to cast and there’s plenty of utility here as you can simply choose any that’s on the sorcerer spell list. Thunderwave and burning hands are both good options to cast from your reanimated companion using arcane conduit and are both evocation spells so can get the damage boost too.
• Mage slayer: Great for disrupting spellcasters and gives you something similar to legendary resistance.
• 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 spell are great for a caster class. Especially one built for stealth.
• Speedy: A good option for martial artificers that want to use hit and run tactics.
• War caster: Great for maintaining concentration on spells in the heat of battle.

Weapons

Weapon attacks are only useful if you’re using true strike (which is a strong option for your cantrip) or have no way to cast spells for some reason. A light crossbow works nicely with true strike and you can grab something like a dagger just in case.

Armor

Most reanimators will do best with medium armor as they don’t usually need dexterity for attacks as spells will serve them better so likely won’t want to prioritise this. Half plate will give you the best protection, but if you don’t want to be hampered for stealth, then a breastplate is best. The only exception is if you are going for a stealth and scout build, you may eventually find that studded leather outperforms a breastplate.

A shield is a great option for the extra protection. Just be aware that you may need to juggle spell components and a spellcasting focus if you’re also wielding a shield.

Other class guides

Not sure a reanimator artificer is for you. Not to worry. Why not check out one of our other D&D 2024 class and subclass guides.