While a late addition to Diablo III, that series' Necromancer class has now established itself as one of the staples, appearing in II, III, and IV. A fully separate class from Wizards or Sorcerers, in the lore of Diablo, Necromancers are priests of Rathma, the first of the Nephalem (the offspring of angels and demons, whose descendants became humanity) and are committed to maintaining cosmic balance.
That lore is very cool, and the Necromancer fits well with the series' grimdark aesthetic. But I think one of the things that the class does really well is really make you feel the class fantasy - you are (nearly) always followed by a group of undead minions that automatically fight for you, and you use corpses left behind by monsters as a resource.
The fast-paced action-RPG (heavy on the action) gameplay of Diablo is very different from that of D&D, but I do think that one of the challenges that D&D has always had vis a vis the Necromancer is how to let you live out that fantasy of summoning an army of undead.
In D&D's 2024 update, one of the major efforts WotC made was to reduce the ability for players to flood the battlefield with several new creatures. Animate Dead, however, remained more or less unchanged (though buffed slightly because Skeletons are a little deadlier than they used to be).
The recent UA for Arcane subclasses (ironically not in the "horror subclass" one) gave us another look at the Necromancer, but amongst its changes was swapping out Animate Dead as the spell granted by Undead Thralls at level 6 for Summon Undead. I fully expected this to happen - the Summon spells, originally published in Tasha's, are designed to make summoning creatures less disruptive by giving you one big creature instead of several small ones.
However, one of the critiques that the revamp to the Necromancer got was that it felt unfocused and poor at enabling the (sub)class fantasy, in large part because it seemed just as focused on granting temporary hit points as it did summoning up undead minions.
In fairness, this was intended to be a non-disruptive update to the 2014 version.
But I think we can do better.
And I think the answer is obvious: the Necromancer should be a pet subclass.
There's some precedence for this, of course. The Beast Master and Drakewarden Rangers are built around fighting alongside a pet, and the Battle Smith Artificer is as well. There's also the upcoming Purple Dragon Knight revamp (which, dear lord thank you, because the SCAG version of that made me, like, angry with how crappy it was,) which now has you fight alongside a... purple dragon (which, yes, is a departure from the lore, but screw it).
While "Necromancy" has historically sometimes meant just "dark" or "evil" magic, the iconic fantasy image is, well, kind of the Diablo version - a slightly-emaciated, pale person who is followed around by skeletons, zombies, or spectral ghosts that serve them.
D&D Necromancers have historically raised the undead only through temporary spells - actually, Animate Dead and Create Undead technically raise the undead indefinitely, but you lose control over them if you don't cast the spell again.
But I think if we're going to be a true Necromancer, perhaps we shouldn't be so limited. I think a true master of Necromancy should be able to hold onto some minions.
So: to begin with, let's get the obvious out of the way:
The primary feature Necromancers should get at level 3 is some kind of pet in the vein of a Beast Master's (the updated version). That means a stat block that scales as we level up (in Wizard,) and probably has a single attack that uses our spell attack modifier as its attack modifier. You'd be able to re-summon it for free on a long rest, and maybe expend a spell slot of any level as an action (or a minute) to get it back if it dies.
Players could customize their minion's appearance - make it skeletal, make it spectral, make it a zombie, whatever brings you joy.
Now, you might be pointing out that the Reanimator Artificer is already doing something like this - though I'll also note that WotC has not been shy about sharing concepts between classes before, like the Drakewarden and Purple Dragon Knight, or the Rune Knight Fighter and Giant Barbarian.
But it's also fine, because I'm going to propose something very unorthodox. And I will say, this might be a deal-breaker. But bear with me (I'll also note that this shares a lot of ideas with what MCDM has proposed for their Summoner class).
In this version of the Necromancer, you get a number of minions equal to the tier of play. That means 1 minion at levels 3 and 4, 2 at levels 5-10, 3 at levels 11-16, and 4 at levels 17-20.
But won't that gum up initiative? No. Because no matter how many minions you have, they only have one action between them, and one pool of HP.
The minions have something like "linked essence," which means that they act as one, and they draw on the same pool of unlife energy to keep them animate. Where this might get tricky is Conditions - if one is subjected to a condition, they're all affected.
The damage will probably scale up as each minion is added. I envision it being like 1d6 plus your Intelligence modifier (or maybe a flat 3) at level 4, and then just adding a d6 each time there's a new minion (but the modifier remains flat).
I'll confess, as I think about this, there are some logistical issues that arise: among them being how they're all attacking a target if only some of them are within melee range. Also, while the action is simple, you could still get bogged down in positioning and movement, which can sometimes be the most time-consuming part of a player's turn.
So, let's make a radical shift mid-proposal:
D&D actually already has a mechanic for representing a large group of creatures that act as one: Swarms.
Truthfully, this actually solves a lot of our issues while still maintaining the iconic image. It's just a single stat block, with just one action and just one position on the map.
And I think we can have a lot of fun with how it works that plays on the themes of being a swarm.
First off, let's take a look at the existing pet classes' minions, specifically the Beast Master and the Battle Smith. Both use the PC's spell attack modifier as their attack modifier, so we'll stick with that idea.
The Beast Master has three options for pets, which do different damage. Beast of the Land hits for 1d8+2+the Ranger's Wisdom. The Sea Beast hits for 1d6+2+Wis, and the Air Beast does 1d4+3+wis. So, basically 6.5+Wis or 5.5+Wis. Notably, also, the Beast Master eventually lets the pet attack twice on a single bonus action activation. Also, these attacks can impose conditions as well.
The Battle Smith's Steel Defender does 1d8+PB damage, which means that it scales a little, but certainly doesn't do so as much as the Beast Master's pet (lacking the extra attack upgrade).
I'm inclined to believe that the Necromancer, who will have plenty of power as a Wizard, can probably stand to have a less powerful-hitting minion. The exact damage would be determined by playtesting, of course, but I'd propose something like 2d4+Int (the multiple dice because it's multiple creatures).
Next question: do we want to give the Necromancer multiple options for the kind of minions they get? I'm inclined, actually, to say no, given that there are other spells they can use to summon undead minions. This subclass feature should play a specific role, and that role is to protect the Necromancer and attack their foes.
Now: what makes our swarm of minions special?
First off, let's talk size: I think a Large Swarm of Medium and Small Undead is how it should be described. But because it's a swarm, we'll say that it can pass through any space large enough for a medium creature without issue.
Oh, and here's a fun thing: our 14th level feature should let us make it a Huge swarm of Medium and Small Undead.
That's partially an aesthetic thing, but I think we can also lean into the size of the swarm being a benefit:
Being a Swarm, it can occupy the same space as other creatures. And I think we would say that either the Necromancer, or even just any friendly creature who is entirely inside the swarm will get some benefits - perhaps just half cover.
Now, one downside is that the Swarm trait found on creatures also always says that the swarm cannot regain hit points or get temporary hit points. But this feels like something the Necromancer should get around. And we all know how: When a creature is reduced to 0 HP within 30 feet of the swarm, the swarm regains some amount of HP, ignoring its Swarm trait. Let's put a pin in this: we might just alter the Swarm trait on this one for our purposes.
The swarm of minions (perhaps called your "Undead Horde") would be upgraded as you got new subclass features. Let me toss out a few ideas:
At level 6, the first thing I'd say is that our Undead Horde, which was previously doing probably Bludgeoning damage, can now instead deal Necrotic damage. But... hm, that's all well and good, but certainly not enough to feel like a full level's feature. The Horde already has immunity to poison, surely, but maybe we give it immunity to necrotic damage as well, and likely the Necromancer gets resistance to it.
This might be too powerful, but it feels thematic: the Horde gets advantage on attacks against creatures whose space it occupies. Or maybe it's not powerful enough, given that the Horde isn't actually hitting that hard.
Another proposal: When the Horde hits with its Claws of the Dead attack (what I might call its primary attack,) the Necromancer can expend a spell slot to suffuse its strikes with magic power. The necromancer rolls a number of d6s equal to the level of the expended spell slot, and the Horde deals additional necrotic damage equal to the amount rolled. (Again, might need to adjust the damage here - it's clearly less than Divine Smite, but we're also not Paladins).
Ok, that might actually be enough for a 6th level feature.
For a level 10 feature, I think something a little defensive would be helpful: perhaps it's here that we do something along the lines of Grim Harvest, but perhaps a little more powerful given that we have to wait longer to get it.
I'd initially wanted to do something like allowing you to absorb health from any fallen foe, but you run into the Bag of Rats problem. So here's the alternative:
As an action, you can siphon animating energy from your Undead Horde. The Horde takes 30 Force damage. This damage cannot be reduced or prevented in any way. You then gain 30 temporary hit points.
That's the first half, but here's the second half:
If the Undead Horde would take necrotic damage from a spell you cast using a spell slot of 1st level or higher, it instead regains hit points equal to half the necrotic damage it would have taken.
And that feels like plenty for level 10 - it's defensive and thematic.
Now, the capstone:
At level 14, I think it's here that our Horde becomes Huge sized. But what else? Well, perhaps we boost its AC. I think we perhaps made it hit too weakly early on, but maybe it's at this level that we let the thing get two attacks, or we can boost the damage when we infuse it with spell slots.
So, this is all a big mess because it's my own brainstorm. Does the subclass encourage casting Necromancy spells enough? And is that a problem? I might work on a more formal set of features now that I've got the brainstorm done.
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