So, you might notice that I'm not starting with the Arcane Archer. The reason is, to be honest, to comment on the Arcane Archer would require so much cross-referencing both between the previous version of the UA and the original to find the subtle distinctions between them that I just don't have the energy to do right now. I'm reading House of Leaves right now (making better progress than my previous attempts) and my patience for jumping between several different related texts is being poured into that labyrinth of a book.
While I also have some (mostly good, I think) things to say about the Conjuration Wizard (a subclass I have a special affection for, as my best friend's character in my very first D&D campaign was one) I wanted to start with the great spooky wizard class and see how it looks.
For similar reasons, I think I'm going to approach this not as a big comparison with the versions that came before, but just treat this as if it were a brand-new subclass and evaluate it that way.
Level 3:
Necromancy Savant
This works just like any other Savant feature as we've seen in the 2024 PHB, giving you a free Necromancy spell for your spellbook every other level. I'm a big fan of the new Savant features.
Necromancy Spellbook
This is a multifaceted feature:
You get Necrotic Resistance, which I actually think is a pretty good - even at low levels, if you're fighting incorporeal undead like specters and ghosts, this will help out a lot. It's certainly situational, but I think it's a good resistance to have.
Grim Harvest lets you heal an undead creature within 60 feet of you when you cast a necromancy spell using a spell slot, healing them for the spell's level plus your wizard level.
I had initially missed the "Wizard Level" aspect of this, which made the healing pretty pathetic. But actually, no, this becomes quite a big heal. You won't be using necromancy spells every turn - there's no 3rd level Necromancy spell that clears out a crowd of monsters like a Fireball. But this can boost the resilience of your minions.
Undead Familiar grants you Find Familiar in your spellbook (I kind of like the language that "[the spell] appears in your spellbook," as if you didn't actually write it there as part of your research, but some mysterious power put it there) and allows you to summon a Skeleton or Zombie to use as your familiar.
What this accomplishes, and I appreciate that, is that from the very start, your Necromancer is going to have an undead minion following them around. Now, you might want to work it out with your DM whether town guards, innkeepers, etc., will freak out or not when you have this thing following you around, but then, you're playing a Necromancer - you're there for the spooky vibes. (I can't recall if the new version of Find Familiar technically lets you bamf your familiar into an extradimensional space anymore, but I figure you could rely on this if it does).
Level 6:
Grave Power:
This gives you two features.
Grave Resilience lets you reduce your Exhaustion level by 1 when you use Arcane Recovery.
This is certainly cool... if you find yourself getting Exhausted. Personally, I think the redesign of Exhaustion in 2024 means that monsters and other challenges can be far more liberal in their doling out of Exhaustion, but it's still pretty rare.
Overwhelming Necrosis allows damage form your wizard spells and features to ignore resistance to Necrotic damage.
This is basically useless. Almost nothing has resistance, rather than immunity, to necrotic damage. I get the intent: to make Necromancers feel good about using Necrotic spells. But it's already a very reliable damage type as long as you're not fighting incorporeal undead.
Undead Thralls:
You automatically get Animate Dead in your spellbook, and can cast it once (I assume this means per long rest, though the UA technically just says once) without using a spell slot. When you start casting the spell, you can modify the spell's level to effectively be one level higher (again, I assume per long rest, like when you use the free cast, but the wording here is flawed). Additionally, when you cast a necromancy spell using a spell slot that creates or summons an undead creature, they get the following benefits:
Undead Fortitude increases the creature's max HP (and current, as you summon it) by a number equal to the level of the expended spell slot plus your Intelligence modifier.
Withering Strike lets the undead creature deal extra Necrotic damage equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1) when it hits a creature with an attack roll.
Ok, a lot to process here: Animate Dead will turn a corpse or bone bile into a zombie or skeleton, respectively, but upcasting it actually turns that one into three (you still need the proper amount of remains to raise). The creatures are under your control for 24 hours, but you can re-cast the spell to regain control. This means that you could, with this feature, maintain three skeletons/zombies more or less indefinitely (unless they're killed, of course, which is not unlikely to happen).
In terms of combat capabilities, a Skeleton has a +5 to hit and a Zombie a +3. The former also has a ranged option for their attacks. That said, Zombies are far more resilient. There's no buff to their chance to hit here, so I do imagine that these will start to struggle a little at high levels to contribute much to the battle, but if they do hit, that's still going to be potentially 1d6+8 (mix of piercing and necrotic) damage from three different skeletons (so 3d6+24) once you get +5 to Intelligence.
Animate Dead doesn't require concentration, so between this and the free casting of it once per day at 4th level, there's not actually much standing in the way of your having a bunch of undead minions following you around, which is, you know, the Necromancer fantasy.
Notably, you might also have Summon Undead up at the same time, and this creature will scale a lot better because it uses your attack bonus. With +4 to Int and cast at 4th level, a Skeletal Undead Spirit is already dealing 2d4+3+4, or 12 on average with each hit. Thanks to this bonus, which does apply to that spell as well, you're going to be doing four more, or 16 on each hit, potentially dishing out 32.
I don't love using low-level creature stat blocks at high levels, but even at high levels, you might send your undead minions to act more or less like additional familiars, giving all your party members the Help action, if you hit a point where they're really struggling to hit the bad guys.
Level 10:
Harvest Undead:
Immediately when you become bloodied but aren't killed outright, you can use a reaction to reduce an undead creature under your control to 0 HP. You then regain HP equal to your Wizard level.
And hey, there's another use for your low-level undead minions. I really like that the limitation here is just how many minions you have. If this healing gets you back up from bloodied, you could use it again.
That said, I don't love that this has to happen in response to the damage that makes you bloodied. I might say instead that if you take damage and are bloodied afterward, you can use this. Also, technically, is this intended to let you heal if you hit 0 HP? You're not "killed outright" if the damage doesn't go past your negative maximum (which is unlikely at 10th level,) but in theory you're unconscious if you hit 0 HP, so do you have a reaction to use?
Level 14:
Death's Master:
You get two benefits when holding your spellbook (DMs, be generous with that).
Bolster Undead lets you use a bonus action to grant any undead you have created with a necromancy spell within 60 feet of you temporary hit points equal to your wizard level. A creature can benefit from this only once per 24 hours.
Interestingly, there's no duration here, so you'll want to use this right after summoning any of your minions. Note also that you don't need to cast the spell with a spell slot, meaning your three minions from your free Animate Dead each day can benefit from this.
Extinguish Undead lets you when an undead creature you can see is reduced to 0 HP, cause it to explode with necrotic energy. You roll d6s equal to half its unexpended hit dice (rounded up), and each creature in a 10-foot emanation makes a Dex save, taking necrotic damage equal to the number rolled and being unable to take reactions until the start of their next turn on a fialure, or half damage only on a success. If the target you explode is not under your control, you must use a reaction to use this and expend a 5th or higher level spell slot.
Once again, a closer reading makes this better: initially I thought this took a reaction regardless of target, meaning it couldn't work with Harvest Undead, but that was wrong. A 5th level spell slot to target a foe is a bit rough, but consider that you might use this on something as powerful as a Death Knight Aspirant (or even a Death Knight,) which would explode for 21d6! 73.5 damage is for sure worth a 5th level spell slot, right? (Also, DMs, don't play the "oh, well, they had taken a short rest and expended a bunch of their hit dice" game.)
Naturally, the most common use of this feature is to explode your own minions, possibly in tandem with Harvest Undead. Unfortunately, the Undead Spirit brought forth by Summon Undead doesn't seem to list hit dice, but given that exploding our own minions takes no action, we can ensure that they're all going to be a problem for anyone who takes them down. Just be careful using these near your allies.
Overall Thoughts:
I'll admit that in writing up this summary, I found myself less worried about the subclass' power level than I was before, spotting details I had missed. First and foremost, what this subclass accomplishes is giving you the necromancer fantasy.
Now, it does accomplish this in large part by going back on several changes I thought were wise from the 2024 revision: limiting how many extra creatures a player can control on the battlefield and also ensuring that the extra creatures have good attack scaling. This is a subclass that does, for sure, have the potential to bog down combat.
As such, I'd highly recommend that players talk with their DMs and fellow players to make sure that they're ok with one player commanding as many as four or more creatures in addition to their PC in combat. And if you do play one of these, try to be good about planning out your turns ahead of time and ensuring that you're able to efficiently move through those turns.
Again, I think my preferred version of a Necromancer subclass is essentially a pet subclass, or at least give it some Danse Macabre-style boost to your low-level minions' attack bonuses. But I do think that this is looking far closer to what people want out of this subclass.
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