Death Knight (5e Optimized Character Build)

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Description

"A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."
- commonly misquoted saying.

The Death Knight is a D&D 5th edition build that uses only official source material, namely the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide and Xanathar's Guide to Everything.

The Death Knight is an attempt to combine the survivability of a martial class with the versatility of a spell caster. It is hard to hit (though if it does get hit it won't last all that long) and even harder to push into a situation where the build doesn't offer multiple options for surviving or even overcoming the odds entirely. It can hold the line during the early levels just like any other martial build, but also cast rituals and utility spells once it hits Tier 2, before progressing to nearly full spellcaster in Tier 3 & 4. In addition, once it hits level 9-11, it brings its own troops to battle, thus adding more meatshield or damage to the party as needed.

Overall the Death Knight is a build for those that value versatility and being reasonably good in multiple things over being excellent in very few things. However, anyone taking up the mantle of a Death Knight should better be able to think ahead, prepare well in advance while also being able to quickly adapt to quickly changing circumstances. It is not a "Hulk smash!" kind of build in any way, shape or form!

In essence, you are the parties backup in almost everything but leave the first try at things to them while focusing on helping them out, rather than doing stuff yourself. This, by its very nature, makes you the perfect character to become the party leader ...

Overview

Progression

During the first tier (level 1-4) the Death Knight plays pretty much like a standard Fighter.

During the second tier (level 5-10) the build quickly swaps from a tank that focuses on weapons to a tough cantrip-focused caster and versatile party support with loads of survivability.

Finally during the third tier (level 11-16) the build truly comes into its own, getting the ability to raise a squad of tough zombies or hard-hitting skeletons by level 12 at the latest, and thus finally truly deserving the name of Death Knight.

Should your campaign last long enough for you to reach the fourth tier (level 17-20) then you'll have become the equal of most casters while still being tougher than them and having more options for surviving battles - in addition to having a small army of minions at your beck and call that you can send out to do your bidding or support the party in battle ...

Strengths

You will be very hard to hit (high AC, potentially Blur or Mirror Image) and have multiple ways of reducing the harm when you actually are hit (Heavy Armor Mastery, Absorb Elements, temporary HP) as well as having several options for recovering from whatever gets through (necromancer archetype feature, healing word, vampiric touch, and many more).

In addition, you are very versatile and have more sustainability in your base abilities than many other characters will bring to the table. Many of your class features recover on a Short Rest - including a 1st level spell slot thanks to the Warlock level - while the primary tool in your arsenal, cantrips, are infinite anyways.

Beyond the above, you also have a positive modifier in just about all attributes, granting you some competency with most skills right there. Add cantrips like Guidance (Cleric) and the various spells at your disposal and you can bring a lot of utility in both skills and other out-of-combat capacities to the table.

Overall you are highly versatile and very flexible while also having more endurance than one would expect. Your broad selection of abilities provides you ample means to adapt to just about any situation, and with some preparation, you can really shine when the rest of the party flounders.

This flexibility allows you to function very well as the leader of the party, letting others take point while supporting them from the back or stepping in if they fall short and giving the party a second shot at making it.

That endurance, on the other hand, lets you keep going long past where others would need their nth short or even long rest.

You shine in campaigns that restrict resting and focus on hordes of enemies (rather than few strong ones).

Weaknesses

While you are hard to harm in the first place and can recover reasonably well, your actual HPs are at most average. That easily suffices on the first tier (level 1-4), but on the higher tiers, you'll find them somewhat lacking, even with all the options you have to make them last longer. In addition, the majority of your defense is based on your high AC. Together that means that you'll want to avoid AoE abilities as well as hostile spell casters since your saves are rather low and a single big hit can ruin your day significantly more than a ton of small hits ever will.

Your attributes are also all over the place, thus making you lag behind more specialized characters when it comes to attribute modifiers. Getting an item like the Headband of Intellect to compensate for that is vital.

The wide spread of classes also reduces the number of spell slots and their level, which in turn makes it very important that you spend them carefully and only when truly needed. Even though you'll eventually be able to cast Fireball, Action Surge, cast a second Fireball in a single turn it is probably just about never an actual good use of your limited spell slots. I suggest you consider your spell slots emergency options and 'get out of jail free' cards and leave the regular spell spamming to characters more focused on spell casting than you are.

Lastly, this character build will lack in raw numbers and thus will have to compensate with good planning, ample preparations, good tactics, and quick thinking during actual encounters. It is certainly not something that a (mentally) lazy person would enjoy playing while also requiring a rather good grasp of the rules and all the various options they provide.

That means that while you can handle cannon-fodder and hordes easily enough, you struggle with your damage output vs fewer stronger enemies.

As a result of all the above you will spend most of your turns standing still, only occasionally moving to a new position, and casting Toll the Dead over and over with the intent of finishing off whichever enemies are most injured. Though you could do significantly more by spending some of your very limited spell slots, you are almost always waiting for an emergency before actually doing so, and thus, while things go well, don't actually spend any. This becomes even more so if you decide to go for an undead army as they lock out most of your higher spell slots in the process. That kind of playstyle can feel fairly boring.

Tactics

In battle, you mostly focus on positioning to screen your squishies so that hostiles can't get to them, and to provide flanking for your party's melee DPS.

For offense, you will usually just throw a single cantrip at whichever enemy is closest to death, finishing the chaff off and thus letting the DPS focus on the high-HP enemies (thereby ensuring that they waste less damage through overkill when finishing enemies that are close to death already). Alternatively, you will throw your cantrip at groups of enemies, hitting two targets adjacent to each other per cast.

You will reserve your spell slots and other limited class abilities/resources for emergencies (which will mostly be the use of Healing Word with a Bonus Action whenever one of your allies gets reduced to 0 HP - that will allow them to get up with half their Movement and then they are back in the fight, potentially without having lost even a single Action).

Thus, beyond throwing cantrips and moving around a bit, you don't really do much most of the time - that gives you ample mental capacity to keep an eye on the big picture and, with a few shouts (or telepathic equivalents) ensure that the entire party is positioned optimally and focused on the right targets. Just make sure you don't order them around out-of-character and don't take it personally if they ignore your orders and suggestions from time to time.

Author's Note

This build originally came into being as a concept for a Villain that the party would face over and over through an entire campaign.

After having completed and refined the build though, it became obvious that it also works well as a build for characters - assuming the DM allows the player access to 'villainous class options' (aka the Death Domain for Clerics) and works with the player to enable them to get the Headband of Intellect early enough (by level 5 if possible, by level 8 at the latest). It also relies quite a bit on being able to scribe spells into the wizard's spellbook. Thus without working closely together with the DM this build won't work.

I quite like the combination of very good survivability in the first 1-2 Tiers (level 1-4; level 5-10) with a good caster progression and fairly large spell selection (clerics know all their spells, regardless of spell slot availability, aka even with just a 1st level cleric you can, RAW, prepare and cast 9th level cleric spells if you get your hands on a 9th level spell slot).

Short Version

Fighter 4 / Eldritch Knight (Absorb Elements, Shield, two of [Chill Touch, Toll the Dead or Mold Earth])

Cleric 1 / Death Domain (Mending, Healing Word, do not pick Toll the Dead or Chill Touch)

Optional: Warlock 1 / Fiend (Blade Ward, Prestidigitation, Armor of Agathys, Hex)

Wizard Rest / Necromancer (whichever cantrip you didn't pick as a Fighter/Eldritch Knight, Haste, Vampiric Touch, Counterspell)

For attributes: 14/10/12/14/13/14 with intelligence being the most important.

For feats: get the Heavy Armor Mastery feat ASAP, at level 1 if possible, then the War Caster feat with the first ability score increase afterward.

Combat will primarily consist of casting Toll the Dead while being in a position where you can provide flanking to allies or pin down enemies through the threat of hitting them with opportunity attacks. The Cleric domain feature allows you to hit two adjacent targets with any necromancy cantrip you cast that targets one creature.

You keep a Healing Word handy for when an ally goes down and otherwise simply take your time to slowly grind the enemies down, leaving it to the rest of the party to waste their resources while you make sure you got enough to save the day if things go south.

Long Version

Race

Human (variant) recommended.

If you take human (variant) at first level, you can start with the Heavy Armor Mastery Feat (which is a significant boost to your survival in the first two Tiers, aka level 1-10) and take the Warcaster Feat at level 4-6, thus you'd get your first ability score increase at level 10.

If you don't take human at first level, you'll be able to take the Heavy Armor Mastery Feat at level 4-6 and Warcaster at level 10. This means you'd get your first ability score increase at level 14.

Thus starting as a human (variant) is a major benefit, but if the campaign lasts long enough - and more importantly if you can get the Headband of Intellect early enough (talk with your DM) then another race also works - just be aware that you'll be a bit squishier early on.

That said, if you really do want to min-max this build then races that increase your HP or toughness even further are a good choice:

• Half Orc (immunity to instagibs)
• Hill Dwarf (more HP)
• Warforged (several immunities and even more AC - start at 20 AC)

Though for tiers two and three (levels 5-15) you might be better served with races that allow you to achieve a higher intelligence instead ...

My personal favorite race is the Kalashtar race from Eberron, primarily because their Telepathy works wonders for coordinating forces on a loud battlefield and without the enemy being able to overhear ones plans.

Background

Any.

It really does not matter which one you take.

However, for RP reasons I tend to pick one that gives me the Arcana proficiency as being a 4/5th caster, and an arcane one at that, without having that skill proficiency feels weird to me.

I also recommend getting a proficiency in Alchemy as well as Alchemy Tools. That will allow you to create a variety of useful consumables for a wide range of purposes (e.g. smoke bombs, or incendiaries).

Attributes

Your main attribute is intelligence, followed by constitution.

However, you will need to meet certain thresholds for the multiple classes:

• Fighter: 13 STR (so you can multi-class 'out' of the Fighter)
• Wizard: 13 INT
• Warlock: 13 CHA
• Cleric: 13 WIS

In addition, your equipment also has certain thresholds:

• Chainmail: 13 STR
• Plate Mail: 15 STR (optional)

Alternatively, you can pick up a Scale Mail (AC 14) which, with at least 14 DEX, will get you to the same AC as a Chainmail at level 1. This, combined with a Finesse weapon like a Rapier, will allow you to neglect your STR to some degree and instead focus on DEX, which not only helps with initiative, but also with DEX Saving Throws, one of the, if not the, most common saves in the game. In addition, you can use armor with no stealth penalty. The downside is that your AC will never be quite as high as it could otherwise be, nor can you benefit from the Heavy Armor Mastery feat.

You'd cap out at Breastplate with AC 14 +2 DEX +2 Shield +1 Fighting Style = 19 AC vs Plate Armor with AC 18 +2 Shield +1 Fighting Style = 21 AC, that is before taking into account magic items or buffs since those apply to both options equally. That means the difference is a mere 2 AC. Every point of AC counts, but only until the enemy only hits on a nat 20 since AC above that is 'wasted' with nat 20s being guaranteed hits anyways. Hence how much this difference matters largely depends on the accuracy of your enemies and your access to ways to permanently increase your AC (+X to armor or shield; +AC items).

Anything beyond that is optional.

I suggest you get at least 14 Strength so that, with the +1 from the Heavy Armor Mastery Feat, you'll meet the 15 Strength required to wear plate mail without penalties. In addition, I suggest getting 14 Charisma so you get +3 temp HP per knockout from the Warlock class feature instead of +2 (it gives warlock level + charisma modifier temp HP).

Usually, that will leave you with something along the lines of 14/10/12/14/13/14 after racial bonuses.

It is worth reiterating that Intelligence is really the key attribute here as you will stop using a weapon at level 3 and instead rely on your cantrips, and the occasional spell, from there onward.

Note: you get an ability score increase (or Feat) at levels 4-6, 10, 14 and 18. Plus a 1st level Feat if you play as a Human (variant). This is a total of 4-5 'slots'. At least one of these is going to be the Warcaster Feat. This means you will usually have 2-3 ability score increases to improve your attributes. If you play as a Human (variant) you can get both the Heavy Armor Mastery feat and the Warcaster feat and still manage to raise your Intelligence to 20 by level 18. Otherwise, you either won't be able to get both Feats or won't be able to get your Intelligence to more than 18 (in which case relying on the Headband of Intellect to get an Intelligence of 19 and instead raising another attribute - e.g. Constitution - might be more beneficial).

Feats

Heavy Armor Mastery

This feat reduces any non-magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage you receive by 3 pts. That means that your average sword (1d8+2 = ~6-7) will basically do half damage to you.

Getting this feat early on is a major boon to your survivability and you'll definitely notice its presence for quite a while, at a guess I'd say until you hit Tier 3 (level 11-16) at the least and it'll probably still be noticeable even then, just no nearly as impactful.

Thus, this feat is something you'll want to get very early on to get the most out of it - the earlier the better.

Note: This feat has diminishing returns and is most effective when facing hordes of weaker enemies. It is absolutely brilliant in Tier 1 (level 1-4), and still rather good in Tier 2 (level 5-10), but it quickly falls of past that due to a combination of circumstances (it only works vs non-magical weapon damage, it's most effective at low damage per hit & high hit count both of which will be less and less the case at higher levels, and your AC will only get higher thus reducing hit count but making it more and more likely that if you do get hit, it's a crit).

Homebrew Recommendation: changing this feat from a fixed 3 pts to an amount equal to one's Proficiency Modifier as well as also letting it work vs magical weapon damage when wearing magical heavy armor makes this feat scale without making it OP - in my opinion that is.

Warcaster

This feat not only allows you to perform somatic components while holding a weapon or shield, and allows you to use single-target cantrips for Opportunity Attacks, but also grants Advantage on Concentration Checks caused by damage (though not Concentration Checks caused by other things).

Any one of these three effects would make the feat worthwhile but all three together make it essential to the build. As a result, this feat is a very close second choice behind Heavy Armor Mastery. It is so important that, if you haven't taken Heavy Armor Mastery at first level it might be a tie between that one and Warcaster when you get to your 4th level of Fighter and get that ability score increase and thus the option to pick a feat...

Items

Start Equipment

For your equipment, you'll want to pick the Chainmail (16 AC) and Shield (+2 AC), which, together with your defensive fighting style (+1 AC), will give you an AC of 19 at first level.

The rest of the gear doesn't really matter for the purpose of this build though I suggest you take a one-handed main weapon, a one-handed sidearm, and at least one ranged weapon in addition to the usual adventuring, dungeoneering, and survival gear.

For the main weapon, I recommend a Warhammer. Its versatile property allows you two switch between one-handed + shield and two-handed fighting, thus increasing your damage output at the cost of some AC if so desired. In addition, a warhammer grants you bludgeoning damage, which is the weapon-based damage type that is least often resisted, especially in the first Tier (Level 1-4).

For the sidearm, I recommend either a dagger or a handaxe. For this one, I consider two aspects: on one hand damage type versatility, aka having the option to switch to another damage type if needed, and on the other hand general utility, especially outside of battle. I personally tend to take the handaxe as it helps with making camp and is a good and versatile tool that can be used for a lot of things outside of combat and most backgrounds already bring a small knife with them anyways, thus making a dagger somewhat redundant.

Finally for the ranged weapon you are free to pick whatever you like, though should you be short on cash then a sling is always a good option to the point where I take one to three slings on just about all my characters even if I got cantrips or a better-ranged weapon already - after all having a backup never hurts.

Of course, later on, you'll want to swap to the best armor and weapons you can get your hands on and with a full plate, even without any magical items, you'll already reach an astonishing AC of 21 before buffs.

Magic Items

Headband of Intellect (uncommon, attunement)

You'll really want to get a Headband of Intellect as soon as you can.

Due to the number of classes and feats, you'll be behind in stat progression basically from the moment the game starts at level 1. The Headband can really help you out with its fixed 19 intelligence - and, as an uncommon item, it should not be too hard to get a hold of either. In addition, you are likely able to craft it yourself, even if you can't manage to find or purchase it otherwise.

Note: Ask your DM if this is an item that is available and something you can manage to acquire at some point before or at the latest by level 8. If you can't get it, then I recommend skipping the Heavy Armor Mastery Feat and the Warlock level, getting Warcaster a bit earlier, and using the 'freed up' ability score increase to raise your intelligence. Ideally, you'll want an Intelligence Modifier of +4 by level 8 at the very latest. If you can't get that, and the other players in your party are using (somewhat) optimized builds, then I would advise against using this build.

Adamantine Armor (uncommon)

Adamantine Armor of any kind reduces Critical Hits to Normal Hits, thus negating the bonus damage from Crits.

Given that your high AC means that every time something DOES manage to hit it is likely going to be a critical hit ... I think you can see how this might be rather beneficial.

Note: That said, you need to double-check with your DM to see if you can combine Adamantine with +1/+2/+3 enhancements for your Armor or not.

Author Comment: I usually play with the house rule of allowing one material, one effect, and the +1/+2/+3 enchantment in one item - if the character pays for all of them individually and either gets them as a combined package or has an enchanter upgrade the item afterward (in which case it already needs to be a Masterwork item of the desired material in order to be enchanted). Thus a +3 Adamantine Armor of Invulnerability would be possible in my groups, though rather pricy and hard to achieve - enchanters able to craft Legendary enchantments don't grow on trees after all.

Sentinel Shield (uncommon, attunement)

This shield grants Advantage on all Initiative and Perception checks (this converts to +5 for passive Perception checks). If your DM allows you to combine that with +1/+2/+3 enhancements for your Shield then this is an amazing boost.

Staff of Power (very rare, attunement)

This staff grants, among a whole laundry list of other things, +2 AC and +2 to your Spell Attacks and acts as Arcane Focus (aka can be held while casting spells with that hand). This alone is worth getting the item, the rest of its effects only make that even more desirable. The only issue is that it's a Very Rare item and thus unlikely to be something you can gain reliably or early enough for most campaigns.

Wand of the Warmage (+1 uncommon/+2 rare/+3 very rare, attunement)

This wand grants +1/+2/+3 to spell attacks and allows the user to ignore half cover when making spell attacks.

Spell Storing & Spellslot Restoring Items (attunement)

Any item that allows you to store a spell for later use (e.g. the Ring of Spell Storing) or that allows you to recover a spend spell slot is a major benefit - you are lagging behind in spell progression compared to single class casters (by 3-4 levels) and thus want to compensate for the lack of spell slots in some way.

In addition, you also have a lot of spells that take up 1st level spell slots. Thus being able to store those for later use or recover their spell slots as and when needed is a major benefit.

Classes

Level 1-3: Fighter

You start with three levels of fighter, picking the Defensive Fighting Style (+1 AC) at first level and the Eldritch Knight at the third level.

As cantrips, you'll want to take Prestidigitation or Mold Earth and either Chill Touch or Toll the Dead.

Prestidigitation will grant you a variety of options. From changing the color of your armor, shield & weapon so it blends into the area, over changing scents and cleaning up after battle to creating small tools and "holographic" displays - this spell provides a lot of versatile utility if applied creatively.

Mold Earth will allow you to create some cover on the battlefield for your team members, including total cover if need be (make a 5ft cube hole underneath your party member and put the excavated 5ft cube directly adjacent and in the direction of the enemy - voila, you got a 10ft high wall covering your ally). It is also a neat option for creating a base or bypassing enemy guards and patrols in many caves. Its full usefulness largely depends on how creative you can get and on how much the GM lets you get away with and what kind of terrain you will usually be in - if there is no loose earth to manipulate then this spell might be a bad choice (please note that "gravel" and "sand" are technically not "loose earth", nor is "solid rock" - ask your GM before picking this cantrip what you can and can't do with it).

Chill Touch would give you a ranged option with unlimited ammunition though the key portion of that spell is not so much the damage, but the fact that it prevents the target from regaining HP. This locks down any form of regeneration, healing, health potions, etc on the target and should make a couple of otherwise very tough fights quite manageable.

Toll the Dead is the primary damage option for this build but it does not really matter when you pick it up. You can either pick it up at the 3rd level as Eldritch Knight or at the 7th level as Wizard. I recommend choosing to pick it up later unless your party is severely lacking in damage output or you know that you'll have to fight from melee for the first 7 levels. (Using ranged attacks - e.g. a ranged spell attack for casting Chill Touch - while in melee gives you disadvantage on that ranged attack. Toll the Dead does not involve an attack and can thus be used while in melee with no issues.)

For the Eldritch Knight spells you'll want to pick the Absorb Elements and Shield spells for your restricted spells and either Sleep, maybe Feather Fall, or possibly Tasha's Hideous Laughter for your unrestricted spell.
Keep in mind that any spell you learn as an Eldritch Knight is a spell you do not need to prepare and have always available for casting. Thus putting spells that you always want to have prepared into those slots - or one that may cause you to die if you do not have it prepared - is a good idea. Additionally, you'll want to pick spells that still work well even at higher levels since you'll never be able to change them but will have them available even at level 20...

Level 4-6: Fighter, Cleric, Warlock

For the next three levels, you will have to pick up the 4th level in Fighter which brings a Feat, as well as picking up a level of Cleric with the Death domain and a level of Warlock with the Fiend patron.

The order you pick these in does not matter for the build and should be based on the requirements of your campaign.

Fighter 4

The Feat you pick for the ability score increase on fighter level 4 will be either Heavy Armor Mastery (reduce non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from weapons by 3) or if you already have that one, War Caster (advantage on Concentration rolls due to damage, can use single-target spells in Opportunity Attacks).

Picking the Heavy Armor Mastery Feat will also increase your Strength by 1 and thus most likely bring you to the 15 strength required for plate armor.

Cleric 1 / Death Domain

The Death domain from the Cleric gives you access to the Reaper class feature. That one allows you to get a free necromancy cantrip and, more importantly, allows you to target two adjacent targets with any cast of a single target necromancy cantrip. From here on forward, bunched up enemies will be your ideal targets and horde type encounters your preference...

Note: Do NOT pick any damage-dealing cantrip for that free cantrip. The cantrip you pick here counts as cleric cantrip and you'll want all your combat cantrips to use intelligence as their casting attribute, not the cleric's wisdom. I suggest taking Spare the Dying so you can stabilize your allies if you need to without having to make a roll for it.

As for the cantrips and spells that you can learn and ready, for the most part, they do not really matter.

I suggest that you get the Mending cantrip so you can repair your clothes, armor, and weapons after each battle and don't have to walk around looking like a murder hobo all the time and maybe the Light cantrip if you are lacking Darkvision from your race. A stone with light can easily be sling-shot forward quite some distance and give you that vision at a range that might otherwise be lacking - even with darkvision (which is limited to 60ft and thus not really useful beyond short ranged combat).

For the spells only Healing Word is a key component of this build, the rest does not really matter all that much, though you might want to prepare Shield of Faith or Bless just in case, especially if you already have War Caster for that advantage on Concentration saving throws.

Warlock 1

For the Warlock you basically have two options. You can either pick the Fiend Patron or the Hexblade.

Fiend Patron

The Fiend Patron will give you the Dark One's Blessing feature. With this feature, you'll get temporary HP whenever you knock someone down to 0 HP. The amount you get is equal to your charisma modifier plus your warlock class level which means you will usually get +3 temporary HP for each knockout.

While this does not stack with other temp HP - e.g. the ones from Armor of Agathys - it also doesn't require the use of a spell slot and thus is a great help if you have a DM that loves using hordes of lower-level enemies and battles of attrition.

Note: According to the Monster Manual monsters die or are destroyed when reaching 0 HP. Please double-check with your DM how they handle enemies (both NPCs and monsters) that reach 0 HP. There are a lot of aspects of this build that make the distinction between knocking an enemy out and killing them a rather important one.

Hexblade

Note: This is an option for those that don't want to be evil or desire a significant boost to the single-target damage dealing capacity of the build - for everyone else I suggest you don't take this option.

While the Hexblade doesn't have as much staying power as the Fiend Patron provides, it does grant the Wrathful Smite spell (which I recommend you ignore unless you have some way to boost your melee attack significantly) as well as the Hexblade Curse (once per short rest). The Hexblade curse really helps against strong single targets - like Bosses. The increased damage and crit range do apply to your spells, including to Magic Missile and Scorching Ray (in which case it applies to every missile or ray fired against the cursed target).

Whether that is worth the loss of 'free' sustainability is of cause up to you to decide. It does, however, allow you a less 'evil' character since you skip that 'pact with a demon' portion of things - something that might be required to make this build valid for certain player groups.

Spell Selections

For cantrips I suggest Prestidigitation.

Prestidigitation allows you to not only clean up after a battle, thus once again reducing your murder hobo appearance level to 'civilized', but also allows you to color your gear, thus giving you the option of using (mono-color) camouflage by painting up to three items (armor, shield, weapon) in a color of your choice ...

Although those two uses of Prestidigitation are the ones I use the most often they are by no means the only ones and I strongly recommend that you spend a few minutes to google for one of the dozens of '100 uses of prestidigitation' lists that are out there on various boards and wikis.

As for spells Armor of Agathys and Hex are most likely your best choices, but neither is a required component of this build. I do suggest that you take spells that are not on the Wizard list though since you can usually copy wizard spells to your spellbook for a fee at the local library or mage college.

Level 7-11: Wizard

Finally, once you reach level 7, you pick the last class of this build - the Wizard.

With the wizard, you will pick either Chill Touch or Toll the Dead as one of the cantrips you get - whichever one you did not pick as an Eldritch Knight. The rest of the cantrips and spells are entirely up to you.

I strongly recommend that you focus on getting as many ritual spells as possible since you are lagging behind in terms of spell levels and spell slots by roughly 4 character levels compared to pure full caster builds. Focusing on ritual spells alleviates your reliance on spell slots while offering a lot of utility potential for your party outside of combat. In combat you'll be using your spell slots for Shield, Absorb Elements and Healing Word almost exclusively anyways so having a lot of combat spells to choose from doesn't really matter for this build.

The spells that this build needs that you do not have by this time are Counterspell, Haste and Vampiric Touch, though Counterspell has the lowest priority among these for most campaigns - usually one simply does not encounter magic users often enough to make it more worthwhile than the other two options.

Wizard Archetype

Once you reach character level 8 - and wizard level 2 - and can pick your wizard archetype you'll have two choices. For this build, you can either pick the Abjuration Wizard and become even tougher while also becoming able to use your ward to tank for the party, or you can choose the Necromancer Wizard, which is what this build is named for.

Abjuration Wizard

I will ignore the Abjuration Wizard option as that is not the one I named this build after, nor the one I personally consider the better one. However, there is one thing I'd like to point out: casting abjuration spells as ritual counts for the purpose of activating or recharging the ward. Alarm is an abjuration ritual spell.

It is, however, a valid alternative if you don't want to play something quite so dark.

Necromancer Wizard

That being done with, let us focus on the Necromancer.

As a necromancer, you'll immediately get the benefit of being able to heal yourself when you kill enemies with your non-cantrip spells. Keep in mind that this specifically states killing, thus knocking someone to 0 HP may or may not be enough here (ask your DM how they handle this).

In addition, you'll, later on, get free access to the Raise Dead spell and even improved undead minions.

Together this not only increases your survivability but also gives you cannon fodder and cheap labor to use as you desire.

At level 11 you'll get the next ability score increase. If you have not already picked up the War Caster feat then now is the time to get it.

Level 12+

A level later you also get access to Raise Dead via the wizard level 6 class feature (I advice against picking that spell as a wizard 5 level up spell - Haste, Vampiric Touch, and Counterspell have priority here if you haven't gotten them already by copying them from scrolls or other sources). In addition, any undead you do raise will get increased HP and damage, thus allowing you to easily have a meat-shield that hurts or an archery squad of doom, depending on your preferences.

From this point forward you are a true Death Knight.

Anything you kill or knock out will heal you and you can bring your enemies back as undead to fight for you. Death is something you control, not fear.

Spells

There are many spells to choose amongst and for the most part, you can freely choose whatever you please and still make this build work. There are however a few key spells that are vital to the build.

Note: You can only prepare 2, maybe 3 if you got really lucky with your stats, Cleric spells. One of these will usually be Healing Word, the other will usually be Aid or maybe Bless (Concentration! Bless is most useful early on before you get better options for your Concentration Slot.)

Note: You are very short on spell slots. Picking Rituals allows you to cast those spells without having to prepare them or spend a spell slot on them - assuming you spend an extra 10 minutes to cast them. This makes utility rituals ideal choices.

Cantrips

The build relies on you using necromancy cantrips that deal damage as your 'baseline' damage source thanks to the Death Domain feature that allows your necromancy cantrip to hit two adjacent targets per cast. That means Toll the Dead for the most part, with Chill Touch adding a bit of extra range and utility where needed.

In addition, a couple of Cantrips allow you to affect the battlefield in some noticeable way that makes it worth spending some actions on doing so:

• Mold Earth
• Still Image

While other Cantrips instead offer some utility that can be fairly beneficial to the entire party:

• Mending
• Light (especially if one or more members of your party don't have Darkvision, note that once an object is glowing there is no range limit ... throw it, sling it, have a familiar drop it on the enemy, ...)
• Prestidigitation (cleaning away blood & dirt, coloring a single person's clothing & weapon in a single color of choice for camouflage, showing a hand-sized illusion to plan battles or relay scouting information from your familiar, ...)

Overall though, cantrips are what you are going to use the most. Hence, they are a large part of the image others get of the character you are playing. Which together means that you should not just pick them for mechanical benefits but also consider how they fit the character you are playing.

1st Level Spells

For your first level spells there are a couple of key choices:

• Shield and Absorb Elements from the Eldritch Knight restricted spell choices so those two are always available without taking up a prepared spell slot
• Healing Word for your Cleric to keep people from having to make Death Saving Throws
• Armor of Agathys for your Warlock since it scales really really well when up-cast with higher-level spell slots.

Honorable mentions:

• Bless as a good spell to prepare for your Cleric preparation slots since it buffs most of the party in almost all their activities for an entire battle without any chance of spell failure (e.g. due to enemy Saving Throws or missed attacks).
• Sleep as a choice for your unrestricted Eldritch Knight spell (but consider it a 'combat ender' rather than something you use at the start of a fight - it runs vs the current HP of all creatures in it's AoE, not their max HP, hence works nicely to 'finish off' enemies without killing them, e.g. for capture or interrogation)
• Feather Fall as a choice for your unrestricted Eldritch Knight spell (my preference)
• Find Familiar (Ritual) is highly recommended as a choice on your first Wizard level
• Alarm (Ritual)
• Detect Magic (Ritual) to detect magical traps as well as identify which pieces of loots are worth a more detailed look
• Comprehend Languages (Ritual)
• Identify (Ritual) is also quite nice if your DM doesn't allow you to get the same effect from a Short Rest basically or limits the information said Short Rest grants compared to what the use of Identify would provide.
• Silent Image
• Fog Cloud is a quick and reliable way to break line of sight - something most spellcasters require. It also provides Cover, and can thus be used to hide, reposition, or avoid Opportunity Attacks. (alternative: ask your DM about alchemical smoke bombs ...)
• Magic Missile is also a solid choice. Not only is it guaranteed to hit, even vs incorporeal targets, but it might also synergize well with Hex from the Warlock (+1d6 necrotic damage per missile hitting the hexed target if the GM lets the missiles count as an attack).

2nd Level Spells

Once you get access to 2nd level and higher spell slots you can prepare cleric spells of those levels. Other than those though, you only get Wizard spells for 2nd level and higher spell slots.

In addition, you can upcast certain 1st level spells to very good effect - primarily Armor of Agathys.

I recommend preparing Aid, and if you can prepare 3 cleric spells, maybe Lesser Restoration as well if you are likely to encounter status effects you can remove with it.

For your Wizard spells, having Mirror Image is almost a must-have, but I also recommend trying to get your hands on Darkvision if you don't already have that covered by your race, Flaming Sphere if you can get it early enough to be reasonably effective, and of course, Misty Step for that extra emergency mobility.

Honorable mentions:

• Blur synergizes amazingly well with your high armor class, though the fact that it requires concentration limits its actual utility rather severely
• Detect Thoughts for that extra edge when trying to figure out what an enemy is planning, both in battle (knowing the plans of the BBEG for the current battle can be a rather nice boon) and during negotiations or other social interactions as well as for the obvious benefit when interrogating captured enemies
• Web for the battlefield control
• Nystul's Magic Aura since that one can potentially hide your alignment as well as your undead from most, if not all, detections - potentially permanently.
• Gentle Repose since that one lets you preserve corpses for later use, something that is especially useful if your DM lets you raise undead other than just 1:1 the ones mentioned in the various spells that create undead.
• Suggestion
• Spiritual Weapon if you need more damage and can afford to spend the Concentration as well as Bonus Action for that on a regular basis.
• Silence
• Invisibility
• Flock of Familiars is a very solid option for scouting surprisingly large areas, you can share the senses of the 3+ familiars within a mile but nothing prevents them from ranging further, then reporting back in before the spell's 1-hour duration ends, in addition, you can simply dismiss a familiar at any time then use an action to have them reappear at a location you can see within 30ft of you, thus allowing them to skip the way back if so desired.
• Scorching Ray synergizes very well with the Hex from your Warlock (+1d6 necrotic damage for each ray hitting the hexed target).

3rd Level Spells

Once you get access to third-level spells things start to become more interesting. Unfortunately, you'll be way higher in character level than single class casters would be by this point and thus damage focused spells of these spell levels are significantly less effective against the enemies you are facing.

For your cleric spells, I recommend getting Revivify prepared but otherwise sticking to the lower level spells except maybe to upcast Aid since that provides a rather nicely scaling buff to the party.

For your wizard spells, on the other hand, I recommend getting Animate Dead with your 6th wizard level for free unless of cause you can get your hands on that one earlier via copying it from somewhere - those undead minions can really change the way you and your entire party handles combats. I advise against 'wasting' a free spell-on-level-up choice on that one though. Aside from that one, Counterspell is a must-have as is Hypnotic Pattern. Both of these scale perfectly fine all the way up to level 20 and can have a major impact on the battle. Aside from them, Vampiric Touch is a solid choice, especially if your DM lets you 'finish off' defeated enemies with it for some rather incredible amounts of self-healing.

Honorable mentions:

• Dispel Magic
• Fly
• Nondetection
• Glyph of Warding, especially if you got a base of sorts
• Leomund's Tiny Hut to ensure uninterrupted long rests wherever you want to take them
• Remove Curse
• Sending
• Sleet Storm, to force enemies to trickle in one by one instead of all at once
• Water Breathing

Tip: using a Glyph of Warding in a save location linked to "Cast Revivify if a dead or dying person enters AoE.", possibly with some verifications/checks to ensure it will only trigger on yourself and your friends, can be a nice way to get an emergency resurrection going. Especially when combined with another Glyph of Warding linked to "Cast Teleport if you or your ally either dies or drops to 0 HP in the AoE or enters the AoE dead or at 0 HP." and put that into any location you are likely to see combat in within your base - and make it target the first Glyph of Warding. Expensive to set up, but ... likely worth it (especially if you are the DM and use this on your villain and their base ...).

Alternatively, a Contingency can be used to prime the emergency Teleport, though the limited duration of that one makes it more limited and likely only of true use for things like Boss Fights outside the base.

4th Level Spells

Honorable mentions: Arcane Eye, Banishment, Dimension Door, Fire Shield, Fabricate, Polymorph

5th Level Spells

Honorable mentions: Animate Object (e.g. with a handful of silver coins), Dream, Greater Restoration (Cleric), Raise Dead (Cleric), Rary's Telepathic Bond, Scrying, Transmute Rock, Wall of Force, Wall of Stone (to build things quickly)

The combination of Mold Earth, Transmute Rock, and Wall of Stone can be used to quickly and reliably build fortifications. If you design it well, you can create a 40x40ft mini-fort with 3 stories within a couple of hours.

6th Level Spells

Create Undead

Honorable mentions: Contingency, Globe of Invulnerability, Mass Suggestion, Move Earth, Scatter

7th Level Spells

Finger of Death (potentially infinite numbers of permanently controlled zombies if you can kill enough goblins or other humanoids with this spell)

Honorable mentions: Forcecage, Plane Shift, Simulacrum, Teleport

8th Level Spells

Honorable mentions: Clone, Demiplane

9th Level Spells

You can only reach 9th level spell slots by skipping the Warlock, and even then, you only get guaranteed access to your 9th level cleric spells and at level 20 at that. As such you will probably have reached the end of the character's lifetime before getting to this point and if not have a very good idea of which spells you'll want to get your hands on. Hence I'll skip providing suggestions for this spell level.

Defensive Spells

Reactive:

• [1st] Absorb Elements
• [1st] Shield
• [3rd] Counterspell

Proactive:

• [1st+] Armor of Agathys (provides [spell slot level] x 5 temp HP and anything hitting you in melee takes as much cold damage, lasts for 1 hour or until the temp HP are used up, best if used in conjunction with the Heavy Armor Mastery feat as that one reduces damage taken and thus temp HP & HP lost, thereby making this buff last significantly longer)
• [2nd+] Aid (grants spell [spell slot level -1] x 5 extra max HP for up to 3 creatures for 8 hours - these can be regained through healing and by spending HD during a Short Rest)
• [2nd] Mirror Image (very high priority, provides 3 illusionary duplicates of yourself for 1 minute to which you can shift attacks if you roll well enough on a d20)
• [4th] Fire Shield (rather low priority, lasts 10 minutes and grants resistance to cold or fire and as a minor bonus does the inverse damage type to those hitting you in melee)

Note: none of these spells require concentration, hence using them does not limit your ability to cast buff, debuff or to control the battlefield in any way.

Tactics

Baseline

Your standard turns will consist of moving into a position where you can use your Reaction to prevent the enemy from getting to your squishy and/or where you can benefit from cover vs enemy ranged attacks, then flinging a necromantic cantrip - either Chill Touch or Toll the Dead - at either clustered enemies (ones within 5ft of each other), or ideally to finish of a low HP enemy.

Toll the Dead is the prefered option since it tends to do more damage.
Chill Touch is to be used when the enemy has a means to quickly recover HP (regeneration, healing, potions, etc.). It might be worth stepping out of melee and accepting one or more opportunity attacks to ensure you can cast Chill Touch without the 'ranged attack while in melee' disadvantage on your attack. Coordinate with your party to ensure they focus fire and burn down the target once your Chill Touch lands and the target's HP recovery is locked down.

Thanks to the Reaper class feature from your Cleric's Death Domain any cast of a necromantic cantrip that targets one creature can instead target two creatures within 5 feet of each other. This means you'll be focusing your Chill Touch and Toll the Dead spells on any situation where the enemy clusters up. In those situations, you might even outperform the rest of the party in terms of baseline damage per round, especially when the enemies are already wounded and you are in range to use Toll the Dead.

By focusing on low HP enemies and finishing them off, you allow your party members with higher burst damage on higher HP enemies and thus avoid 'overkill' vs a 1 HP enemy, improving the overall party damage output.

Note: Using Shoves (to knock enemies prone and thus not only grant all friendlies advantage for their melee attacks - and disadvantage for their ranged attacks - but also force them to spend half their movement to get back up again) and Grapples (which, if successful, reduces the target's speed to 0) in place of your Attacks, especially in place of Opportunity Attacks, can help you a lot with screening the squishies.

Advanced Options

In addition to the above, your focus should be on ensuring that everyone in the party is in the best possible tactical position and, if necessary, shouting over a word or two to ensure they don't lose track of the rest of the battle while focusing on whatever they are doing - e.g. calling out priority targets, repositioning or even retreat for the entire party as the situation demands.

Beyond that, you can use your comparatively limited resources on battlefield control spells. Any effect that isn't spell-level dependent and affects either the battlefield or multiple targets is a good potential option here - especially ones that don't rely on your casting attribute (aka your spell save DC or spell attack modifier). Examples include spells that create difficult terrain or create (possibly illusionary) obstacles or distractions. Spells that allow you to split the enemy up and have them trickle in are particularly effective.

Bless can boost the performance of your heavy hitters for basically an entire battle, assuming you can maintain concentration.
Aid can give the entire party that little extra HP buffer to get them through the day (especially since the extra max HP from Aid can be recovered with Hit Dice spend on healing during a Short Rest as well as with any other source of HP recovery).
Spells like Web, Fog, Ice Sleet, or Walls of various kinds can prevent enemies from piling onto the party and make them trickle in instead, thus allowing the others to take them on one by one rather than all at once.
Teleports like Misty Step or an outright Scatter can allow you to reposition up to the entire party or move those in danger to safety (assuming, in the case of Misty Step, Thunder Step, or Dimension Door, that you are able to carry them).

Preparations

Finally, I recommend getting several consumables - mundane, alchemical as well as and magical - to further give you options for affecting the battlefield or multiple enemies.

A smoke bomb should be fairly easy to get a hold of and a medieval Molotov cocktail can potentially give not just light but also provide (low-leveled) enemies with something else to worry about. Some traps like snares or ankle-pits designed to trap someone's foot with anchored spikes can further impede your enemies if you got the time to prepare (the Mold Earth cantrip excels in preparing an area quickly if you got even just a couple minutes to prepare). Add to that various potions and scrolls and you can fairly quickly become an utter menace without ever touching your limited resources.

Nets are particularly annoying to deal with. If someone gets hit by one, they have to spend an action to remove the net - possibly multiple ones if they fail the required check and the victim counts as Restrained for the duration (movement reduced to 0 ft, their attacks and dex checks have disadvantage and attacks against them have advantage).

All in all, you need to keep calm, think things through, and prepare for as many possibilities as you can.

Wargaming various theoretical situations with your party at the campfire each evening can definitely help there, as can going through any theoretical situation you can think of - starting with how you'd go about defeating the party and each of its members followed by preparing ways to prevent exactly that ...

Spells

You are short on spell slots. That is a direct consequence of multi-classing into so many different classes and can't be helped.

Hence you will have to think carefully about when to use your limited spell slots and what to use them for.

1st Level Spells

From the very beginning, your 1st level spell slots are your most sparse resource. Hence they are reserved for true emergencies and not to be wasted on trifles.

Healing Word

Healing Word uses a Bonus Action to heal a creature within 60 ft for 1d4+WIS HP.

As a means for recovering HP it is awful and you should never use it for that.

Regaining even just a single HP when one is at 0 HP and unconscious, however, is enough to wake one up again and put one back into the fight. Hence your primary use for your first level spell slots is to cast a Healing Word on any ally that got knocked out, ideally before they even have to make their first death saving throw.

That ally then uses half their movement to get back on their feet and is right back in the battle as if nothing had happened, potentially not even losing a single action.

Any other use of your 1st level slots has to be at least as effective - otherwise, it is a wasted spell slot.

Shield and Absorb Elements

Your two main damage negation spells are Shield and Absorb Elements.

However, unless you can convince your GM to play with the Spell Points optional/variant rule from the DMG, you will be lacking the sheer number of 1st level spell slots to truly make use of these two spells in anything other than an emergency.

Basically you will only cast either spell when doing so will do one of two things

• keep you alive/conscious when not casting the spell wouldn't or
• reduce the incoming damage by an amount equal to at least a third of your total HP

In just about every other situation you will want to hang on to those 1st level spell slots for Healing Words.

Armor of Agathys

If you picked that single level of Warlock then the Armor of Agathys spell is a very good choice.

Not only will it scale really well when you up-cast it with higher-level spell slots, but it also makes you significantly more durable and discourages people from actually hitting you - or at least punishes them if they do manage to do so in melee. It also synergizes nicely with the Heavy Armor Mastery feat since the feat's damage reduction applies before the damage 'gets through' to one's temporary HP. I'd advise against using a 1st level spell slot for this one though, since Healing Word, Shield and Absorb Elements - as well as Feather Fall once you got that one - definitely have priority on the low-level spell slots.

Life Steal / Burst Healing

Usually, with this build you'll fight fairly stationary, throwing around your cantrips and piling up a bunch of KOed or killed enemies around you. Once you have hit half HP it becomes time to capitalize on the KOed ones though.

At that point, you'll cast Vampiric Touch - or simply use a melee attack - and start touching/hitting those KO-but-not-dead enemies all around you.

Any attack on an unconscious target has Advantage. Any attack on an unconscious target from 5ft or less range that hits is an automatic critical hit.

This not only doubles the damage you do with Vampiric Touch (and thus the amount you get healed by) but also causes the target to fail two death saves, thus probably killing them either from the damage or the failed death saves especially since they probably failed at least one since you knocked them out), hence triggering your necromancer archetype feature for an additional 9 HP regained (2x spell level HP, 3x if using a necromancy spell. Vampiric Touch is a 3rd level necromancy spell).

Together this means you can heal for an average of 18 HP (3-27 HP healed per target: 3d6 necrotic damage, x2 for crit, you heal half as much, +9 HP if you get a kill) per target that you touch - and if you spend an Action Surge you can touch an additional target. With Vampiric Touch lasting for up to a minute that gives you up to 11 targets or 198 HP (33-297 HP) healed if you manage to touch a target with each attack for the full duration - which you rarely will. That said, even just a few targets finished off can easily top you off again, thus letting you keep fighting for quite a while.

Note: According to the MM, p7 Monsters usually die or are destroyed when reaching 0 HP. Make sure you ask your DM how they handle 0 HP on NPCs (both monsters and humanoids) so you know whether or not you can 'finish off' KOed enemies for bonus HP recovery both with the Wizard (Necromancer) class feature and with Vampiric Touch.

Undead Horde

You will gain access to a total of 3 spells that can give you permanent undead minions.

• Animate Dead
• Create Undead
• Finger of Death

Animate Dead

This 3rd level spell will become available at character level 9, if you find a way to copy it into your spellbook from somewhere. Otherwise, you could pick it as a free 'on-level-up' choice on character level 11/wizard level 5 or get it for free from the wizard/necromancer level 6 class feature one level later.

In any case, each casting of the spell raises 1 (or 2 with the necromancer class feature) undead, either zombies or skeletons, which you then control for 24 hours. Once this time has passed you no longer control the undead created this way but they still remain - though they are now hostile to all living things (including you) and potentially no longer bound by your orders...

Casting the spell on an existing group of undead allows you to control up to 4 undead (zombies or skeletons only) for the next 24 hours.

It is thus a good idea to raise the undead you want to control, restrain them until you have the desired number raised, and henceforth maintain your control of them by re-casting Animate Dead every 24 hours.

Casting Animate Dead using a higher-level spell slot increases the number of undead you can raise/control per cast of the spell.

Create Undead

This 6th level spell works along the same basic principles as Animate Dead and becomes available 6 character levels later. The only difference is the type of undead you can create with it. Unlike Animate Dead, Create Undead allows you to create Ghouls - and when using higher spell slots, more of them or alternatively even more powerful undead like Ghasts, Mummies, and Wights.

Wights (requiring an 8th level slot) are one of the best options here if you want numbers since each of them can, under the right conditions, create up to a dozen (permanent) zombies under their own (permanent) control.

Finger Of Death

This 7th level spell becomes available 2 character levels after Create Undead and is the key spell to an infinite number of permanently controlled undead.

Each time you kill a humanoid with this spell you raise it as a (permanent) zombie, under your (permanent) control. There is no limit to the number of zombies that you can raise & control this way - which makes this the best use of all your 7th level spell slots if you want to raise an undead army.

Optimizations

Each casting of Animate Dead or Create Undead maintains control over the targeted undead for 24 hours. A long rest takes 8 hours. Hence you could prepare a large number of raised (but uncontrolled) undead, then take control over half of them before taking a long rest, then rest and afterward take control of the other half.

This potentially doubles the number of minions you can control.

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be sustainable in the long run and may not be possible at all for the more intelligent undead. Wights and Mummies may rather violently object whenever they are given the chance (aka are not controlled). Thus, while this is a good way to go in order to raise a large army of cannon-fodder to throw at the enemy, it is fairly risky to extend that to the intelligent undead. Still, having twice the cannon-fodder from those two spells is quite the boon in any case.

Tips & Tricks

How to avoid getting hit.

You start with Chainmail (16 AC), a Shield (+2 AC) and the Defensive Fighting Style (+1 AC) for a base AC of 19 at the first level. At third level, you get the Shield Spell (Reaction: +5 AC for 1 round) and once you got the Cleric you also have Shield of Faith (Concentration: +2 AC basically for a fight).

That gives you 19 AC baseline, that you can boost to 21 AC baseline for a fight if you need to and a further boost to 26 AC for a single round. There is very little that will be able to hit you with anything other than a crit or something close to one when you don't want it to.

Replace Shield of Faith with Haste once you got access to that via your Wizard levels and add spells like Mirror Image or, better, Blur to make it even harder to hit you. Just keep in mind that spell slots are a valuable resource that can potentially save the lives of your party members. Don't waste them.

Combine that with cover from a cast of Mold Earth or through a Minor Illusion and very little will be able to threaten you with attacks even if you go easy on the spell slots.

But aside from using magic, one can always use mundane means too. Alchemy, shopping, or simply good RP can easily get you access to things like smoke bombs or flash powder to further obstruct any enemy attempt at striking you or your party members. Maybe the GM even allows you to use your sling to fire such items at your enemy from further away than you could reasonably throw them.

A warning though: while you can fairly easily avoid getting hit by attacks - including spell attacks - due to the high AC that does not make you immune to damage nor able to take damage once it manages to actually affect you. Area of Effect damage, be it from a fireball or a molotov cocktail, doesn't care about most of your defenses and neither do environmental or mental effects like illusions, suggestions or simply a sticky toxic swamp ...

Build Variants

Skipping Warlock

One of the interesting variants of this build is to simply skip the single level in Warlock - and thus forgo the continuously recovering temporary HP buffer - in favor of taking one more cleric or better wizard level, so you can reach those 9th level spell slots.

That, depending on how your GM interprets the multi-classing rules when it comes to the wizard spellbook, might be enough to allow you to copy 9th level spells to your spellbook, then cast them even without having learned them 'for free' on a wizard level up - so long as you find a scroll, spellbook or another source to copy those spells from in the first place.

Abjuration Wizard

Another potential variant and one more appropriate for 'heroic good' parties are to take levels as Abjuration Wizard rather then Necromancer Wizard and take the Celestial Warlock instead of the Fiend Warlock which in turn potentially allows you to skip the level of cleric all together depending on what exactly you want in terms of available spells and options.

That will give you the Ward from the Abjuration Wizard. The ward not only improves your own toughness and recharges whenever you cast an abjuration spell, like Shield or Counterspell, but at Wizard level 6 it also allows you to let the ward take damage that would otherwise be dealt to your party members. In addition, the Celestial Warlock gives you 60ft range Bonus Action based healing that does not require a spell slot. Together with the Cleric spells this, in turn, will give you a huge amount of emergency healing all over the battlefield but also allows you to spend more spells on things other than healing. All in all, it turns you into something like a spell rather than a martial focused paladin...

Just be aware that any damage resistances and even the damage reduction from the Heavy Armor Mastery feat do NOT apply to any damage the ward takes.

WARNING: By not picking the Death Domain Cleric you miss out on the Reaper class feature. This means you half your cantrip-based damage output. Without that class feature, this build is not able to keep up with other classes or builds in terms of damage per round, even before considering that other classes and builds have more resources to spend to boost their damage than this one does.

Skipping Cleric

Not recommended.

Skipping the single level of Cleric in this build robs you of what basically amounts to 'double damage vs clustered enemies'. It also removes your healing spells. Hence this choice is not something I can recommend.

You can, however, mitigate that somewhat if you pair it with swapping the Fiend Warlock to a Celestial Warlock (e.g. of an evil/death god) then suddenly you gain your healing options back and no longer even need to spend spell slots on them, though in turn, you have less total healing to offer ...

WARNING: By not picking the Death Domain Cleric you miss out on the Reaper class feature. This means you half your cantrip-based damage output. Without that class feature, this build is not able to keep up with other classes or builds in terms of damage per round, even before considering that other classes and builds have more resources to spend to boost their damage than this one does.

Ask Your DM

Death Domain

The Death domain is from the DMG. It is specifically listed as a villainous class option. Make sure you ask your DM whether or not you may use that domain.

Headband of Intellect

Your build is spread very thin thanks to its multi-classing. Getting the Headband of Intellect relatively early (before level 5 if possible) is almost required to keep up with more streamlined builds. Make sure to discuss how and when you might/will get this item with your DM before picking this build.

NPCs at 0 HP

According to the MM p7, monsters usually die or are destroyed when they reach 0 HP. The inverse of that means non-monsters, e.g. humanoids don't automatically die on 0 HP.

Knowing whether you need to knock out (0 HP) or kill (3 failed death saves) enemies for your Wizard (Necromancer) class feature to trigger is fairly important.

In addition, knowing whether or not you can use Vampiric Touch to finish off and regain extra HP (melee spell attack; attacks on incapacitated creatures are at advantage and on a hit from within 5ft are automatically critical hits - hence basically provide twice the HP) is also important to know so you can plan those long battles properly.

Make sure you ask your DM how they handle enemies that hit 0 HP.

Copying Spells

The multiclassing rules are fairly clear on what spells you can learn 'for free', aka when leveling up. They are however somewhat fuzzy when it comes to knowing which spells you may or may not copy to your spellbook.

My standard assumptions are that a) you can copy any wizard spell you have a spell slot and the required intelligence for into your spellbook and that b) you can prepare (and cast) any wizard spell that you both have a spell slot for and know, aka have written into your spellbook. I also assume that c) you get the opportunity to, on average, copy about 1-2 spells per character level - though not necessarily for free or without actively looking for it. This would mean that if you spend enough gold & time and the DM grants you access to spells to copy you can learn spells in advance of your wizard level.

Make sure you ask your DM how they handle multiclassed wizards and their spellbooks as well as how they intend to handle access to spells for the purpose of copying them in the game.

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5.00

(one vote)

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