Easy Necromancer Wizard in DnD 5e: Features and Spells

Trying your hand out in d&d as a Necromancer Wizard?

Here is the Easy Necromancer Wizard in DnD 5e: Features and Spells!

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Welcome to the (under)dark side of wizardry! Straight out of the player handbook:

“The School of Necromancy explores the cosmic forces of life, death, and undeath. As you focus your studies in this tradition, you learn to manipulate the energy that animates all living things. As you progress, you learn to sap the life force from a creature as your magic destroys its body, transforming that vital energy into magical power you can manipulate.

Most people see necromancers as menacing, or even villainous, due to the close association with death. Not all necromancers are evil, but the forces they manipulate are considered taboo by many societies.”

Necromancer Wizard Quick Build

Creating a necromancer wizard is a breeze with these suggestions:

• Prioritize Intelligence as your top ability score, followed by Constitution and a touch of Dexterity.
• Opt for either the Feylost background (exchanging skills for 2 points in Intelligence) or the Sage background.
• For cantrips, go with Fire Bolt, Mind Sliver (or Mage Hand), and Prestidigitation.
• As for your spellbook, add Shield, Find Familiar, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Absorb Elements, and Sleep.

With this easy-to-follow setup, you’ll be ready to command the power of necromancy and dive into your thrilling D&D adventures.

The Necromancer Wizard Table

Class Features

As a wizard, you gain the following class features.

Spellcasting

Embracing the path of arcane magic, your spellbook becomes a mysterious compendium of spells, with the dark allure of necromancy revealing the initial spark of your true potential. Within its pages, the secrets of manipulating life and death beckon, offering you a glimpse into the profound mysteries that await on your necromantic journey.

Cantrips

At 1st level, you gain proficiency in three cantrips of your choosing from the extensive wizard spell list. As you advance, your repertoire expands, allowing you to learn more wizard cantrips as indicated in the Cantrips Known column of the Necromancer Wizard table.

(We recommend: Fire Bolt, Mind Sliver, Mage Hand, or Prestidigitation)

Spellbook

Also at 1st level, a spellbook of great potential becomes yours, containing six carefully chosen 1st-level wizard spells. This precious tome houses the vast repository of your arcane wisdom, storing all your acquired spells, except for your fixed cantrips, which live within the recesses of your mind.

Preparing & Casting Spells

The Necromancer Wizard table shows your available spell slots for casting wizard spells of 1st level and higher. To cast a spell, use a slot of its level (or higher). All spell slots are restored after a long rest.

You prepare your list of wizard spells by choosing spells from your spellbook equal to your Intelligence modifier + your wizard level (minimum one spell). The chosen spells must match your available spell slots (you can’t choose a level 7 spell when you only have slots up to level 3).

For example:
A 3rd-level wizard with an Intelligence of 16 can prepare up to six 1st or 2nd-level spells from their spellbook. Casting a spell doesn’t remove it from the prepared list.

To change your prepared spells, spend at least 1 minute per spell level studying your spellbook after a long rest.

Spellcasting Ability

Your wizard spells draw power from your Intelligence, which you gained through diligent study and memorization. Whenever a spell mentions your spellcasting ability, it refers to your Intelligence. Furthermore, your Intelligence modifier determines the saving throw DC for your wizard spells and influences your attack rolls when casting them.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Ritual Casting

If a wizard spell has the ritual tag and is recorded in your spellbook, you have the ability to cast it as a ritual.

Unlike other spells, preparing the spell is not necessary for performing it as a ritual. So use your prepared spells for the ones that DON’T have the ritual tag.

Spellcasting Focus

You can use an arcane focus or choose to use a component pouch, both will cover the cost of non-gold spellcasting-related items (a piece of string, a piece of cured leather, etc). Try not to lose it.

Learning Spells of 1st Level and Higher

As you progress and attain new wizard levels, you have the opportunity to enrich your spellbook with two wizard spells of your choosing, completely free of charge. However, each of these spells must correspond to a level for which you possess spell slots, as indicated above. Additionally, during your adventures, you might come across other spells that you can learn and add to your spellbook (for a price).

Your Spellbook – Need To Know

Your adventurous pursuits might lead you to discover other spells along the way. Whether a fireball scroll dropped by a random goblin (who had no business with that in the first place) or tucked away in the dusty tomes of ancient Underdark libraries, these newfound spells present exciting opportunities for your magical repertoire.

Copying a Spell into the Book.

Adding a new wizard spell of 1st level or higher to your spellbook involves a process of copying and deciphering. To accomplish this, the following steps are essential:

1. Reproduce the Basic Form: Meticulously copy the fundamental structure of the spell.
2. Decipher the Unique Notation: Understand the distinctive writing used by the wizard who originally wrote the spell.
3. Practice and Transcribe: To truly grasp the spell’s essence, you practice the required sounds or gestures until you understand them completely. Then, you transcribe the spell into your spellbook, using your personalized notation.

For each level of the spell, this process demands 2 hours of dedicated effort and costs 50 gp. The expenditure covers the material components used during your experimental learning to master the spell, as well as the high-quality inks necessary for recording it. Once you have invested both the time and resources, you can prepare the newly added spell, just like any other spell in your spellbook.

Replacing the Book

Transcribing a spell from your spellbook into another tome, perhaps as a backup copy, is a streamlined process. Since you already comprehend your personal notation and are familiar with casting the spell, it is easier and faster than copying a new spell into your spellbook. For each level of the copied spell, you only need to invest 1 hour and 10 gp.

If you had the audacity to lose your spellbook, go ahead and give yourself a test of Lolth, then you can employ the same procedure to transcribe the spells you had prepared into a new spellbook (please for the love of Lolth, tell me you had a backup!).

To safeguard against such situations, many wizards wisely keep backup spellbooks stored securely in a safe location.

The Book’s Appearance

Your spellbook, a haunting grimoire of necromantic arts, exudes a unique compilation of spells, adorned with eerie decorative flourishes and cryptic margin notes. Within its pages lie the secrets of death and undeath, gathered through mysterious encounters and dark journeys.

It could be a weathered, plain leather volume received as a gift from a foreboding master, a finely bound gilt-edged tome discovered in a long-forgotten crypt, or an enigmatic collection of notes pieced together after the tragic loss of your previous spellbook in a sinister mishap.

The essence of necromancer wizardry courses through its very essence, empowering you with arcane knowledge beyond mortal comprehension.

Levelling Up!

Here is what you really want to know about unlocking your necromancer wizard (easy peasy level up)

Level 1

Cantrips & Spells

You know 3 cantrips and 6 spells to go into your personal spellbook

Arcane Recovery

You have learned to regain some of your magical energy by studying your spellbook. Once per day when you finish a short rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your wizard level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher.

For example, if you’re a 4th-level wizard, you can recover up to two levels worth of spell slots. You can recover either a 2nd-level spell slot or two 1st-level spell slots.

Level 2

Arcane Tradition – Necromancy

You decide you would rather play with skeletons and zombies, maybe one day become a BBEG, and take the road to “living life” to the fullest (see what I did there). Your choice grants you features at 2nd level and again at 6th, 10th, and 14th level.

Grim Harvest (Necromancy Feature)

At 2nd level, you gain the ability to reap life energy from creatures you kill with your spells. Once per turn when you kill one or more creatures with a spell of 1st level or higher, you regain hit points equal to twice the spell’s level, or three times its level if the spell belongs to the School of Necromancy. You don’t gain this benefit for killing constructs or undead.

Savant (Necromancy Feature)

At 2nd level, the gold and time you must spend to copy a necromancer wizard spell into your spellbook is halved.

Level 3

Level 2 Spells

Level two spell slots are unlocked, and therefore you get level two spells! Yay! If you need some help picking which spells to use, we highly recommend checking out RPGBOT.

Level 4

Ability Score Improvement

You can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.

Level 5

Proficiency Bonus Increase

Going from +2 to +3, don’t forget to update all the skills you are proficient in!

Level 6

Undead Thralls (Necromancy Feature)

You add the animate dead spell to your spellbook if it is not there already. When you cast animate dead, you can target one additional corpse or pile of bones, creating another zombie or skeleton, as appropriate.
Whenever you create an undead using a necromancy spell, it has additional benefits:

• The creature’s hit point maximum is increased by an amount equal to your wizard level.
• The creature adds your proficiency bonus to its weapon damage rolls.

Level 7

Level 8

Ability Score Improvement

You can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.

Level 9

Level 5 Spells

Level five spell slots are unlocked, yay!

Level 10

Inured to Undeath (Necromancy Feature)

You have resistance to necrotic damage, and your hit point maximum can’t be reduced. You have spent so much time dealing with undead and the forces that animate them that you have adapted to some of their worst effects.

Level 11

Level 6 Spells

Level six spell slots are unlocked, yay!

Level 12

Ability Score Improvement

You can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.

Level 13

Level 7 Spells

Level seven spell slots are unlocked, yay!

Level 14

Command Undead (Necromancy Feature)

You can use magic to bring undead under your control, even those created by other wizards. As an action, you can choose one undead that you can see within 60′ of you. That creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your wizard spell save DC.

• If it succeeds, you can’t use this feature on it again.
• If it fails, it becomes friendly to you and obeys your commands until you use this feature again.

Intelligent undead are harder to control in this way. If the target has an Intelligence of 8 or higher, it has advantage on the saving throw.

• If it fails the saving throw and has an Intelligence of 12 or higher, it can repeat the saving throw at the end of every hour until it succeeds and breaks free

Level 15

Level 8 Spells

Level eight spell slots are unlocked, yay!

Level 16

Ability Score Improvement

Increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As usual, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.

Level 17

Level 9 Spells

Level nine spell slots are unlocked, yay!

Level 18

Spell Mastery

You have achieved such mastery over certain spells that you can cast them at will. Choose a 1st-level wizard spell and a 2nd-level wizard spell that are in your spellbook. You can cast those spells at their lowest level without expending a spell slot when you have them prepared. If you want to cast either spell at a higher level, you must expend a spell slot as normal.

By spending 8 hours in study, you can exchange one or both of the spells you chose for different spells of the same levels.

Level 19

Level 10 Spells

Level ten spell slots are unlocked, yay!

Ability Score Improvement

You can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.

Level 20

Signature Spell

You gain mastery over two powerful spells and can cast them with little effort. Choose two 3rd-level wizard spells in your spellbook as your signature spells. You always have these spells prepared, they don’t count against the number of spells you have prepared, and you can cast each of them once at 3rd level without expending a spell slot.

When you do so, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

If you want to cast either spell at a higher level, you must expend a spell slot as normal.

At this point, I hope you’ve started looking for someplace to hide a phylactery because you are well on your way to becoming a proper lich. Szass Tam (one of the greatest necromancer wizards of all time) has got some competition!

Comment below if you have other awesome tips and tricks for playing as a Necromancer Wizard 🙂

This concludes Easy Necromancer Wizard in DnD 5e: Features and Spells.

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