The Necromancer Build for Baldur’s Gate 3 we are using is a combination of Necromancer Wizard and Spore Druid to make a minion-heavy build. It also means you’ll essentially play it like a Death Knight, a melee dark warrior using the undead to swarm enemies. The playstyle can be leveled however you want, but, we do advise going Spore Druid first as you can get Create Undead, your spare zombies, and play the melee wizard build more ideally. You can also level as Wizard first, and play a more ranged playstyle using Ray of Sickness, so, the choice is up to you. The build will look the same regardless of starting point once you get to level 12 part way through Act 3. Moreso, you will see the best Necromancer builds for spells, gear, feats and ability scores to fully complete the build. Lets get into it.

Best Necromancer Build in Baldur’s Gate 3¶

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Here is a look at the best Necromancer Builds in BG3, featuring items, feats, race, spells and more.

You want to spread your multiclassing levels around as follows:

• 6 Necromancer Wizard
• 6 Spore Druid

You want to go six and six for the build for two reasons. The first is at level 6 Necromancer Wizard, where you get all the improvements to your create undead spells. At level 6 Spore Druid, you also get Fungal Infestation, allowing you to create another undead foe. You can have up to four of these fungal zombies, since you can only have four charges per long rest. They do between 5-15 damage each. They are very low HP and have very bad armor save, but, they can make for very good action sponges, and if they happen to survive, that’s a lot of damage for free on a target. They also get the cheat death and survive the first killing blow against them, bringing them to 1 HP. When you have a heavy minion build, you also get really good synergy with the Circlet of Bones headpiece, which can grant good resistance for your minions, including your fungal and regular undead minions. The Sporekeeper chest also enables you to give all of your minions haste too. Yes, that’s a lot of attacks for your undead creatures.

BG3 Necromancer Build Spells¶

In addition, you also get access to a lot of melee-themed spells with Necromancer. It means you will be running a melee-themed Necromancer, to support your minion aura bonuses when you get Circlet of Bones (more on items below), and because you can sustain really well with a few types of Necromancy spells:

Vampiric Touch: A third level Necromancy spell with concentration. Deal damage with a 3d6, then recast again at any point for a duration of ten turns. When you deal damage, you regain half of it as health. You can recast this while in a Wild Shape form too, if you want to use Wild Shape as part of your Druid shapeshifting forms.

Ray of Sickness: Your go-to necromancy spell for ranged damage. You can upscale the skill too, which becomes handy for when you get your Staff of Cherished Necromancy in Act 3.

Bone Chill: Deals damage and prevents the target from healing. A niche spell, but handy when fighting the Absolute in Act 2, since they all have Lay on Hands.

Shillelagh: Druid Cantrip that uses wisdom modifier to enable you to deal damage using that rather than strength. Handy for when you need to preserve Spell Slots in Act 1 and 2, and can combine with Broodmother’s Necklace when paired with Vampiric Touch heals.

Animate Dead: You get this either by Level 5 Spore Druid or Level 6 Necromancy.

Create Undead: You sadly can’t get this through your level spread of 6-6. However, there is a ring in Act 3 you can get that has it built in. You can use it once per long rest, which is a fine compromise that Larian thought of when creating that item. You’ll find the ring and how to get it in the gear section.

Danse Macabre: This spell isn’t learned; you get it by learning to read the Necromancy of Thay from Act 1. Make sure to read all three pages, and save scum if you have to pass it. Once all three pages are read, you can wait till act 3, do the Sorcerer’s Vault in !Sorcerer’s Sundries, and solve the Elminster puzzle room to get the Danse Macabre. This allows you to summon six ghouls at once, and when they die, they explode. This is your big prize for Act 3 spells. You need to have read all three pages from Thay to do this, so, that’s why it is so important to do it.

The rest of your spell options can be for party ability check dialogue improvements, or you can take niche spells for certain scenarios. One example is Heat Metal, which you can use against Steel Watchers in Act 3. You can learn some more spells from scrolls and use them when necessary, up to third-level spells since you can only go up to level 6 as your max level.

Best Necromancy Gear in Baldur’s Gate 3¶

Many of the build-defining gear you get comes from Act 3, so, be mindful that your build won’t fully come online until then. This should sync up with you getting level 12 so you can reap the full rewards from your build and get all your necromancy items. Also, this build is melee, so we recommend some decent shields and the weapon you want to use in its versatile one-handed state.

• Circle of Bones - Undead Ward: Allied undead within 6m resist Bludgeoning, Slashing and Piercing damage. It also comes with Animate Dead, cast a Broodmother’s Revenge once per long rest on a small or medium corpse, which is handy. You get this from killing Balthazar in the Gauntlet of Shar.
• Staff of Cherished Necromancy - Creatures have a Disadvantage on saving throws against your necromancy spells. It also comes with Life Essence Harvest. This allows you to get life essence when you kill a hostile creature until their next long rest, which is a spell slot for necromancy spells. You get this from Mystic Carrion in Act 3
• Armour of the Sporekeeper - +1 bonus to spell save DC and deal 1 extra Necrotic Damage. You also get bonus to Symbiotic Entity to help spread Bibberbang Spores, Timmask Spores, and Haste Spores.
• You also want a shield. Ideally, Ketheric’s Shield is good because it grants +1 bonus to spell save DC and Spell Attack Rolls. Ironvine Shield from the Reithwin Tollhouse is also decent since you can use Shillelagh on your melee attacks for some extra melee attack bonuses.
• Broodmother’s Revenge - A necklace that drops from Act 1, allowing you to get poison on your weapon whenever you are healed. You can use this in sync with Vampiric Touch to deal damage with that spell, heal, and then make melee attacks combined with Shillelagh.
• Dark Justiciar Gauntlets - Weapon attacks deal an additional 1-4 necrotic damage. Can find them in the Gauntlet of Shar.
• Crypt Lord Ring - Grants Create Undead which you get at by allowing Thrumbo to survive during the Mystic Carrion quest. You will likely do this since you want to kill Mystic Carrion anyway so that you can get the Cherished Necromancy and Sporekeeper armor pieces.
• Quickspell Gloves - Cantrips cost a bonus action instead of an action once per short rest. You get them from !Sorcerer’s Sundries. Allows you to cast Bone Chill as a bonus action when needed rather than it wasting an action slot in Act 3.
• Cloak of the Weave - +1 Bonus to spell saves and spell attacks. You also get absorb elements which allows you to take half damage from an element type, and deal 1d6 of that element type on your next attack.

If there’s any spare slots, it means you can fit whatever item you want there.

Best Necromancy Feats in Baldur’s Gate 3¶

• War Caster: War Caster is only useful for players seeking to maintain concentration. This could be for Vampiric Touch, or Bestow Curse concentration if you happen to start using that.
• Moderately Armored: You’re ideally using this for Shield Proficiency if you didn’t select Human or Half-Elf, as you desperately need a shield to increase your AC while in melee range for most of the Necromancer spells.
• Mobile: Grants you the ability to ignore triggering Opportunity Attacks from a target if you melee attacked a foe that turn. It helps with your escape potential.
• Ability Score Improvement: Intelligence is your main stat for Wizard spell casting, and even the Druid stuff you take can use Intelligence. Shillelagh will also use Intelligence if it’s the highest, so, you can dump more ability score in that.

Best Race and Ability Score for Necromancers in BG3¶

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Humans make for the best Necromancers simply because of the shield-proficient racial, which significantly helps the AC of Wizards.

Your ability scores will look as follows:

• STR: 8
• DEX 14
• CON 16
• INT 16
• WIS 10
• CHA 10

DEX helps initiation and any gear you get before the best-in-slot chest piece that can grant AC based on DEX score. CON makes you more tanky, which is needed as a lower AC class, and INT is your main stat. You can take 17 and 15 CON if you want, but, you lose out on the ability score modifiers by going to 15 on CON, and don’t get anything from 17 INT.

• Human - Humans come with Shield proficiency and quite a lot of weapon proficiency. Ideally, you want the race for shield proficiency, which makes you a lot tankier for the entire game, as you will be using less AC gear for the most part.

• Halfling - Reroll ones through the race’s base lucky feat.

• Gold Dwarf: Dwarven Toughness helps you get an extra 13 HP at max level, handy for tankyness.

You can still play whatever race you want, mind you, but if you do, make sure to get the shield proficiency Feat when you can. This concludes the Necromancer Build in Baldur’s Gate 3. You now know the starting feats, ability scores, races, spells and gear you want to use for the build. Good luck, adventurers.

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