Necromancers are great, except when you're in a party with one with a hoard of undead. 25 Minutes after initiative starts you get to take your turn after all of the skeletons and zombies have done their thing. For this reason, I limit a player to one PC + 2 other combatants in most cases. Sure, you can have 10 zombies following you around, but only two are fighting, because we're not all waiting on the rest to do something.
The problem with this rule is that is really pulls the rug out from under the necromancer. I don't really want to do that. So here is my rewrite to Animate Dead to help fix the problem. The CR derivation used in this new "At Higher Levels" is meant to balance the raw CR increase with the action economy. Time will tell if I got it right.
Replace the "At Higher Levels" text of Animate Dead with this text:
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, you animate or reassert control over stronger undead creatures as given in the table. Each of the creatures must come from a different set of remains as noted in the table.
The problem with this rule is that is really pulls the rug out from under the necromancer. I don't really want to do that. So here is my rewrite to Animate Dead to help fix the problem. The CR derivation used in this new "At Higher Levels" is meant to balance the raw CR increase with the action economy. Time will tell if I got it right.
Replace the "At Higher Levels" text of Animate Dead with this text:
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, you animate or reassert control over stronger undead creatures as given in the table. Each of the creatures must come from a different set of remains as noted in the table.
LEVEL | REMAINS REQUIRED | UNDEAD |
3 | Bones / Corpse of a Sm / Med Creature | Skeleton / Zombie (CR 1/4) |
4 | Charred Remains | Shadow (CR 1/2) |
5 | Remains of a Disease Victim | Ghoul (CR 1) |
6 | Bones / Corpse of a Large Creature | Minitaur Skeleton / Ogre Zombie (CR 2) |
7 | Unmarked grave | Will-O-Wisp(CR 2) |
8 | Corpse / Bones of a Full Spellcaster (Cleric, Wizard, etc) | Mummy (CR 3) |
9 | Corpse / Skeleton in their own Armor | Helmed Horror (CR 4) |
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