What are some good buff spells for Animated Dead?

[SociopathFriend]

Animate Dead in the hands of a Necromancer Wizard is a fairly stellar way of getting a lot of work out of a single spell slot. But as always the quest for improving death requires diligence and study.

If you already have Animated Dead that the DM allows to use the weapons and armor they had in life and can short rest to regain their HD- not much is left beyond figuring out decent spells to buff them with when they enter battle. Animated Dead isn't Concentration after all.

Assuming 3-4 Animated Dead and the party being around level 10- what are some useful buffing spells that can improve the gang as a whole to make them more effective in combat? Ideally something you can pay someone to make a scroll for in case it isn't a Wizard spell.

[CheddarChampion]

Well here's some stuff that synergizes well with undead:
Hold Person/Monster
Aid
Dissonant Whispers
Crusader's Mantle
Aura of Hate
Wall of X (to trap an enemy and your undead inside)
Poison damage AoE
Silence/Darkness/Antimagic Field plus ordering your minions to grapple a mage

[DarknessEternal]

Bless is the best buff spell no one will ever argue is too powerful. Takes some extra spell levels to make it apply to most of your undead, and may irritate your other party members that it isn't on them.

Faerie Fire is good for your entire team, since it's on the targets.

Those aren't actually Wizard spells, but they are 1st level spells, and there's many ways of picking those up.

[MaxWilson]

Surprised no one has mentioned Web. Remember that you can always drop it instantly, no action required, so it's safer for allies to take a chance on moving into it e.g. to grapple enemies and keep them there: the worst that can happen is they fail their save so you decide to drop the web prematurely, but the best that can happen is that they prevent an enemy from being able to exit the web so everyone gets advantage to hit and the enemy loses actions trying to escape both web and grapple.

Also, Animate Dead is a good buff spell for Animate Dead. Make some skeletons and give them nets, so they can restrain enemies for advantage. Can have them Help each other to negate the net disadvantage.

By RAW, Darkness and Fog Cloud are good at granting advantage on ranged attacks, and uncontroversially can be used to cancel out disadvantage from long range attacks or using nets. (However, at my table ranged attackers do not get advantage for being unseen--only melee attackers do, which fixes some major ranged exploits.)

[stoutstien]

Special mention for the inspiring leader feat. Not a spell but a solid buff for skeleton minions.

[Xenken]

Special mention for the inspiring leader feat. Not a spell but a solid buff for skeleton minions.

ditto Shepherd Druid totems, in a similar vein.

[SociopathFriend]

Special mention for the inspiring leader feat. Not a spell but a solid buff for skeleton minions.

Eyyy glad for the forum to be back.
This mind you won't work for my current Wizard and his almighty 0 Charisma modifier but it's a good suggestion nonetheless.

[Voidhawk]

Eyyy glad for the forum to be back.
This mind you won't work for my current Wizard and his almighty 0 Charisma modifier but it's a good suggestion nonetheless.

Well, you don't have to be the one with the feat. If your party has anyone with a decent Cha score, try and convince them to pick it up.

[stoutstien]

Eyyy glad for the forum to be back.
This mind you won't work for my current Wizard and his almighty 0 Charisma modifier but it's a good suggestion nonetheless.

Aye.

Magic Stone isn't a buff either but it does allow for the minions to have a better attack and bypass resistance for a bonus action. Magic Stone tossing skeletons with shields is a cheap and effective artillery unit.

[McSkrag]

You can drop a Stinking Cloud or poison Dragons Breath on the bad guys your undead minions are fighting.

[iTreeby]

Mold earth can let you set up cover for your skeletons to shoot from if you have time. Move earth also does this but to an extreme degree, probably not worth the spell slot unless you are setting up a base

[HPisBS]

Move Earth takes so long that it works out to roughly the same thing as repeatedly casting Mold Earth.

[Damon_Tor]

Flame Arrows, divide up the arrows equally among your skelebros. Bonus points for being a wizard spell, and with an hour-long duration it can easily be pre-cast before a battle begins. Compares favorably to Crusader's Mantle, depending on the number of minions you have and the number of rounds your combat will take.

[Man_Over_Game]

Dragon's Breath

[Zetakya]

Mold earth can let you set up cover for your skeletons to shoot from if you have time.

Mold Earth can also create difficult terrain, to allow your minions to catch up to people fleeing from them.

[Man_Over_Game]

Mold Earth can also create difficult terrain, to allow your minions to catch up to people fleeing from them.

Not sure if casting Mold Earth at a level 10 campaign is going to be a great use of your action.


One funny thing I realized is that undead don't need to take Long Rests like players do, so THP doesn't technically deplete on them.

When you have a slow day, start casting Negative Energy Flood on each of them. 5d12 THP, halved, is about an extra 16 life for each of your undead.

[Zetakya]

Not sure if casting Mold Earth at a level 10 campaign is going to be a great use of your action.

*Shrug* if your GM is anything like me, then occasionally you'll get thrown a mook run encounter where the name of the game is preserving resources.

[Daithi]

YMMV on a DM allowing it, but equipping your skeletons with Magic Missile Wands is seriously deadly.

[Quoz]

Goodberry always pairs well with permanent minions. Cast with any leftover slots at the end of the previous day, divide between your minions and familiars, and give standing orders to use them on any downed allies.

Any non-attack options like aid, shove, and grapple are good things to remember for minions. Use them to set up your PCs, not to replace them. Jars of oil and torches, alchemical splash weapons, and other cheap single use items are also good.

[SociopathFriend]

YMMV on a DM allowing it, but equipping your skeletons with Magic Missile Wands is seriously deadly.

My DM's personal approach IIRC as I haven't asked for a while was, "They count for YOUR Attument slots".
I haven't asked for quite a while because whatever he did say to me- I decided Magic Items for my Undead were a no-no.

Also since I made this thread I've been forced to become substantially more "durable" because of the rocket-tag we're experiencing. All of my Magic Items are related purely to keeping me from going down:
Periapt of Wound Closure
Amulet of Health
Spell-Warding Shield
And soon to be Adamantine Armor

[LudicSavant]

One I haven't seen mentioned yet.

At high levels, I hand them Otiluke's Freezing Spheres before kicking down the door (especially if I've used scouting or divination to know we'll be fighting something). As many 60-foot radius 10d6 AoEs as you have spell slots for, without using any of your in-combat actions.

[JackPhoenix]

My DM's personal approach IIRC as I haven't asked for a while was, "They count for YOUR Attument slots".

Wand of Magic Missile doesn't require attunement, doesn't care about the user's casting ability score or proficiency bonus, and it's dirt cheap if you can make them yourself: 500 gp/piece with DMG and 200 gp/piece with XGtE crafting rules, half that if they count as consumables.

[SociopathFriend]

Wand of Magic Missile doesn't require attunement, doesn't care about the user's casting ability score or proficiency bonus, and it's dirt cheap if you can make them yourself: 500 gp/piece with DMG and 200 gp/piece with XGtE crafting rules, half that if they count as consumables.

(Jaw drops)
I never even thought to look up otherwise and just assumed... wow that's... incredibly open to exploitation for a Necromancer. I'd fully argue with some merit I feel that Zombies and Skeletons are too stupid to use them properly (IIRC you need to be able to speak Command Words to use Wands) but Ghouls and up are definitely viable for that.

[AttilatheYeon]

All the poisons. Someone mentioned stinking cloud and dragon's breath. How about cloud kill. Zombies can even hold enemies in it. Plus it prevents sight.

[JackPhoenix]

(Jaw drops)
I never even thought to look up otherwise and just assumed... wow that's... incredibly open to exploitation for a Necromancer. I'd fully argue with some merit I feel that Zombies and Skeletons are too stupid to use them properly (IIRC you need to be able to speak Command Words to use Wands) but Ghouls and up are definitely viable for that.

Nope. Wands allow you to cast a spell without any components... which means undead need not to worry about not being able to speak the verbal component. Zombies are stupid as dirt and are propably out, but skeletons should be able to understand what that entails, as long as it is explained properly. There are few creatures with spellcasting abilities with Int score lower than skeleton's 6, but it's all innate casting, so it's pretty much up to GM, there's no RAW answer.

Speaking of Wand of MM: using DMG rules, they are strictly better than firearms. Cheaper, no need to reload expensive (and vulnerable) ammo, though you can only get 6 shots per day unless you want to risk breaking it, lighter and more concealable, better range, perfect accuracy (as long as the target doesn't have Shield or a Brooch of Shielding), damage type pretty much nothing resist, better damage (all 3 missiles you get from one charge will reliably kill a goblin, and have decent chance to deal with other weaker opponents, you can even fire the missiles at different target if you want or need to, and require no proficiency or natural talent, so anyone.... even commoners.... can use one. That knight can be taken out by an untrained peasant (in theory, in practice, it's impossible due to how HPs work) wielding an item that cost 1/8 to 1/3 of what his plate armor cost. The only thing stopping them from changing the warfare the same way firearms did in the real world is the fact they can't be mass produced, as you need a spellcaster who can cast MM to create one.

[Wintorn]

Bless is the best buff spell no one will ever argue is too powerful. Takes some extra spell levels to make it apply to most of your undead, and may irritate your other party members that it isn't on them.

Faerie Fire is good for your entire team, since it's on the targets.

Those aren't actually Wizard spells, but they are 1st level spells, and there's many ways of picking those up.

Fun fact, Light domain clerics can cast all these spells.

[Nagog]

I've been playing a Necromancy Themed Theurgy Wizard, and though we haven't had a session in a while (college life and now quarantine), I have planned to use Animate Dead and Bless in conjunction to great effect. It's first level, so it's pretty cheap, and the Animate Dead cast as upkeep can extend the spell's duration by 24 hours for up to 4 minions, so casting a single 2nd level Bless on 4 undead minions goes a long way, particularly for Saving Throws the undead aren't typically good at.

[FinnS]

Heh what is probably the best "Buff" to being a Necromancer is being an Elf and picking up at least 5 levels of Warlock after getting to level 6 Wizard Necro. So every night while the rest of your party sleeps for 8 hours, you take your 4 hours as an Elf then spend the remaining 4 hours taking 4 short rests after casting Animate dead right after your long rest then twice per short rest so when the rest of your group wakes up you already have 10 Undead ready to roll

You can maintain up to 40 Undead per day doing this with 3rd level Lock slots. 60 with 4th level Lock slots and a maximum of 80 Undead with level 5 Lock slots. If you go to Level 11 Lock you can then maintain up to 120.

[rohanjoshi0894]

Differnet parts having different things.

[SociopathFriend]

Heh what is probably the best "Buff" to being a Necromancer is being an Elf and picking up at least 5 levels of Warlock after getting to level 6 Wizard Necro. So every night while the rest of your party sleeps for 8 hours, you take your 4 hours as an Elf then spend the remaining 4 hours taking 4 short rests after casting Animate dead right after your long rest then twice per short rest so when the rest of your group wakes up you already have 10 Undead ready to roll

You can maintain up to 40 Undead per day doing this with 3rd level Lock slots. 60 with 4th level Lock slots and a maximum of 80 Undead with level 5 Lock slots. If you go to Level 11 Lock you can then maintain up to 120.

I'm fairly sure if your DM is giving you a chance to have upwards of 40 Animated Dead you have no room to be working towards optimization anymore considering you've well and good kicked the power curse off the bus.