Here's my short story on skeletons. My brother was organizing a game and he wanted me to design a wizard villain for him, so I designed a necromancer whose goal was to replace the human population with living dolls for company. He would animate skeletons and then sew fabrics together to make a first doll skin to cover the whole frame, which would aid in his illusion magic that would act as the second, more believable skin layer. When my brother got back to me on how the group thought the idea, they said it was messed up. Mission Accomplished.
I know a DM that ran a castlevania themed short campaign. Bone Pillars, Slingers, Red Skeletons (regenerating), Skelerang (boomerang), Paranthropus (giant skeleton with bone-club), Skeletal Gunmen, and Nova Skeletons (beam).
I think the ineffectiveness of slashing weapons is overdone. Sword or an axe goes taught bone pretty well. Butchers use meat cleavers to go taught bones. Dry bones are extremely flammable too. As for piercing weapons , while spears, rapiers, and arrows are not that effective, pitchforks, tridents and similar are extremely good to keep them at bay. Skeletons make for great adition to traps. Poison gas(increase, sleeping stuff), or water moat with skeletons (or undead octopuses, or whatever the underwater plants with grapple were called), with skeleton archers on other side. Skeletons are a great addition to snake, spider, or spike pits. Add some shiny necklese to them to make people climb down there, and surprise them while they are climbing down. Also hang gliders, or wings. They are really light, so they fly way more easy. Use them in catapults to go over walls, or climb on rooftops using some climbing gear. Or hang them from ceiling, and have them attack from above. They are also great host for spider swarms and other bug swarm enemies. Have them run at you, tarantulas in their eyes, ,trowing them at you, or scorpions, piranhas, puffer fish, or whatever creepy crawly is around there. Poisonous frogs, wasp nest in middle of skeletons chest, animated objects they wear. Also Pixie and creatures with exoskeletons skeletons are nice to make undead.
I was thinking just that! Like you got to stab a skeleton and the dagger just goes between its ribs. But if you his it with a axe at the leg, it can and probably will break the leg.
A sword that cuts off an arm, cuts through bone, you're still being hit with a metal bar that just happens to be sharp, an axe is a blunt weapon with a wedge at the end.
That "introducing the skeleton" advice reminds me of the time i added a gargoyle to be the keeper of a crypt. Before even facing the thing i started by showing them that there was something lurking in the darkness "As you push open the door, you find a dead body blocking the opposite side, that's why it felt so heavy. By the tools and clothes it's wearing you can say it was some kind of thief. Its completely covered in dried blood with huge slashing wounds across his back. You can tell that it hasn't been dead for too long, maybe one or two days. You can see marks, fingernails, on the wooden door and a broken tool in the floor... a clear sign of what might have happened" Terrified. They were completely terrified (I really enjoy good roleplayers). There was no hallway they would go without shooting an arrow charged with a light spell or similar. They were completely afraid of losing their torches or being appart one from another (lots of moving walls in this dungeon). It was a really fun dungeon crawl session.
I introduced a group of skeletons which was lead by a cavalier. They each carried tower shields and the cavalier used tactician to make them form a shield wall. The second row did have polearms. The encounter was rather interesting since the formation was pretty much inpenetrable for at that level and the cavalier just did want to hold the characters off. I ruled that the skeletons were manipulated in a way that they perfectly could obey orders but were too dumb for anything else. The initial tactic of my players was to use area effect spells and weapons, but the damage reduction did make them less effective. The situation was resolved by taking the leader out with a hideous laughter. Later, the actual leader of the group - a devilbound cleric - also had some zombies in the final battle. She pretty much incapacitated the meelee fighters with blasphemy - and suddenly, the small mooks got dangerous.
+Heartbreaker Studios Punches break bones. Swords cut flesh. Without flesh, most blades have nothing to "catch". It's like stabbing a cannon ball with a spear, the blows will often glance off. Though when they do hit, they still cut.
We're not talking about piercing cannonballs here, we're talking about breaking bones. Realistically a sword can be swung with significantly more force than a fist and because it's metal it has less give than flesh and muscle. Even if we insist on bludgeoning damage only, swords can be swung broadside, or reversed to deliver pommel strikes. I get that it's just a game rule, but it's a failure on part of the game system itself that players are forced to purchase and carry an additional specialized weapon instead of roleplaying their combat intelligently.Sword Knight
+heartbreaker studios I'm pretty sure a sword swung broadside couldn't break bone, It would be far to flat and the weight would be far to evenly dispersed. As far as swords and bones go, a cutlass could likely cut bone, due to its shear weight and the angle of the blade it can cut through bone. Though most swords and spears would be hyper ineffective or useless realistically.
I ran a few sessions in which the party had gone underwater to a merfolk city to hide out from the main villain while they came up with a plan of action. However, they discovered the city was under attack by the undead. They were woken up by skeletal sharks bursting through the walls of their room at the inn. Putting skeletons in an unusual setting (the ocean) and putting the template on an unusual creature (the shark) spiced the idea up a bit.
There was this one encounter that I had with fire. It wasn't an elemental, it was just the party putting out fires in a warehouse. Each square was treated as an enemy that needed to be put out and if you don't, it'd spawn new hearths of fire in the squares surrounding it. You can use the same principles with skeletons and zombies. Instead of treating each skeleton or zombie as an individual, you can treat them as part of a bigger horde. A stream, if you will. Every turn, they move one square, but instead of moving all tokens, you put a new one in front, as though all zombies/skeletons behind it had all shuffled forward one square. There you can have the feeling of an "endless horde mode" in a corridor or something, where there's no real way to win. And by using the rules that I described, it's a bit easier to manage combat.
Speaking of Will-o-wisps, An idea I have for a trap is explosive will-o-wisps. Players walk into a room and inside are some torches and a sign in the middle. Upon further inspection, it states 'Lights Out'. If any character says the words aloud all Will-o-wisps charge at the player(s), doing 1d4 damage each. it'll easily spook the players and make them fear torches.
The last time I ran unique skeletons it was inspired by a group of Warrior Priests in the book Elandris that underwent magic rituals to improve their ability to kill mages using hand to hand combat, and the rituals mutated the bones of their skeletons. The party was doing a dungeon crawl as part of an initiation, and in one of the rooms they found a coffin that opened up, revealing the skeleton of one of these priests as a four armed skeleton. The Sorcerer shot a Fireball at it and the skeleton used Dispel Magic on it, so the party Druid summoned Thoqqas that took them to the next floor before they skeleton could charge them. On the next floor 2 of these skeletons were waiting, but only had 2 arms each, and so they were forced to engage in battle as the 4 armed skeleton dropped down on top of the Druid
Thanks T for the advice! I'm actually building a Crypt right now that uses dead people and animals of the local area and city to make undead that protect the treasures that once belonged to the local city's heroes. The Necromancers that run the place are actually Neutral Good too, since they use the money supplied by the city, which came from the Adventurers upon their passing into the afterlife, as a way to continue practicing their art, expand in their abilities, and help protect the Artifacts that could possibly be used against the city of Godstead, in order to destroy or seize control of it. This was actually pretty helpful for making me think about the unique way I can use the less flavorful undead, such as Skeletons, in a much more interesting and flavorful way. I had the idea of skeletons that are not only kamikaze, but may even be enchanted to unleash a cloud of smoke or toxic gas that makes it more difficult for the adventurers to fight, due to loss of vision, coughing, choking, and being poisoned.
Would wrapping a humanoid skeleton's bones in layers and layers of linen provide them some amount of protection against bludgeoning? I was thinking of having them wrapped up to the approximate proportions of muscles a fit living person, and then completely obscured by their full plate armor. They wouldn't have any decaying flesh smell, and their armor would fit appropriately, so the party wouldn't know they were undead at first, so even Clerics and Paladins might not try to Turn Undead at the start of the battle. Thoughts or better ideas?
Skeleton wrapped in linen....isn't that a mummy? Also they are treated with salt and spices and stuff and dried up....I guess mummy have no smell at all except for the perfume they were embalmed with....
I think the best way to use undead is to have another creature, either another undead or a necromancer or something, commanding them. Instead of Zerg Rushing the party, have a Banshee wearing the rags of a military uniform command archer volleys from skeletons atop barricades or a mummy with a rusty helmet and a scimitar create a spear wall of skeleton warriors as the party approaches
im a new dm but i had a campaign in which the players/adventurers found a very small room full of gold to the knees. The seasoned players didn't rush into the room right away because of traps but a very new player ran in and almost started to get some gold when 5 well armed skeletons stood up from the pile of gold and attacked the new player. The look on his face is still funny even now after 2 years XD
I had a DM throw (what I later found out to be) what he called magnetic backlash skeletons at us. Take a normal skeleton, make them black metallic looking, and apply the following two new traits: 1.) Any metal weapon that strikes this creature must succeed at a DC 25 STRENGTH check to pull the weapon off of them. the creature can remove said weapon and equip it as a swift action. I believe it had a bonus vs disarm but I never actually found out. 2.) 1/2 of any holy damage taken is reflected back in a 10 ft radius as unholy damage. Four of those guys nearly wiped our party of 4 at 5th lvl
now that you mentioned explosion..... we entered the next major room from the hallway as quietly as possible being extremely wary of traps. not seeing anything as an immediate danger we started to examine the room. our rogue who specialized in finding and using traps told us he can't find or doesn't see anything out of the ordinary (nat 1 spot check BTW) so we searched for the next way onwards. after searching the room for about ten minutes, and several failed trap finding checks later the rogue winds up stepping on a loose floor plate. three slabs instantly regress in the floor and out of them rise 3 skeletal figures each holding a weapon. one had a sword and was wearing plate mail, one was in chainmail and had a mace, and the third was in padded armor and held a bow. none of them moved. so we slowly moved to examine them. we each stood in front of one and the runes we hadn't seen before glowed. as the only one who could read them I read the messages and they were riddles and instructions. we were to stand before each GUARDIAN.... the word couldn't be stressed enough for some reason. we were to each answer a riddle and speak it to the respective GUARDIAN. they were simple riddles and we all answered in turn. oh, should we have gotten it wrong we were to fight them in single combat. after all answers were given the door swings open on its own. we celebrated with small cheers but before we moved on I noticed new runes. they read Congratulations thieves, now you die. and all three blew up with basic exploding runes. the rogue never got above a 5 on any of the search, spot or trapfinding checks that day so we weren't warned.....
+TtheWriter There are actually variant skeletons and zombies in the rules ( bloody skeleton = regeneration and doesnt die unless bathed in radient damage, burning skeleton = deals fire damage and explodes on death ). BTW bloody skeletons look rad, think hybrid state between zombie and skeleton.
here's a nasty trap. have a mage engrave explosive runes onto a skelly's forehead or sternum and use them as suicide bombers. like imagine 3 skellys with that set up charging anyone but a barbarian
The hardest encounter in my life was with skeletons. They were normal humanoid skeleton but had a special perk where they can regain HP by ripping off other skeleton parts as a bonus action and attaching it onto themselves. Each replaced limb healed 1d4 hp, this was difficult cuz we had to fight 13 of them in a 10ft hallway on difficult terrain. We started with 5 players and ended in 2. Being the fighter i decided to OVERRUN the 4 of them so the wizard and I could escape.
Im making a necromancer for pathfinder, whos gonna use skeletons, zombies, whatever she can. Imagine a wall of skeleton shield-bearers, or better, a phalanx of them.
In pathfinder atleast, skeletons, by raw rules, only have a DR 5 unless you use bludgeoning damage.so, going by raw rules, if i had to choose between doing a d3 bludgeoning with my fist, or dealing 1d12+1.5x strength -5, i'd choose the greataxe most likely but, an archer is pretty fucked if it doesnt have any bludgeoning arrows against a skeletons. but i do agree with you, the raw rules, atleast in pathfinder, they made them really not scary. they're the weak thing you kill in one hit, even while using something they have a nice DR against. Undeads in general, atleast in my opinion, as far as pathfinder goes, are generally less of a threat. because if you have a cleric, a paladin, a ranger that hunts undead, any of all those classes that are really good at fighting undead, combined with the amount of holy items or etc in the game to fight undeads, they become so much less of a threat, unless the DM is creative about it, that, and the fact that, as you said, most DMs doesn't know how to put undeads into context so most of the time in doesn't make sense that undeads are there. But especially paladins, if theres a paladin in the party, don't expect any undeads to last long in a fight
Surely theres a point in blunt weapons are more effective But how does a sword/axe/spear is less effective than bare fists? swords can break and and destroy bones it only depends on the strenghts of the wilder. as long as you can dismember and break them, its fine to me
Used this vid this past weekend. Skeletons as suicide bombers with various 2d6 exploding damage types(there eyes glowed a different color, i used the little colored rubber bands to track which was which), various save throw (DEX/STR/CON) to take half damage and avoid a lingering, 1 turn, condition (blind, confusion, etc)... A skeleton transforms from a sword/bow attacker that can barely scratch your players to a thing GREATLY FEARED! lol especially if you have the spawn locations 2-3 movement turns from the players... they see them coming!!!!.... fight or flight is a real scenario... good job T on the great suggestion.. RECOMMEND to every DM to try it.. I used a thing called a "chaos orb" to randomly spawn the different types at random locations on the battle board...
the slashing damage resistance that skeletons have always confused me. a well kept sword will still cut bone, an ax no matter how dull, will still split bones if they're unprotected (which they probably are.) They should still have a resistance, but not nearly as high as it is. piercing makes sense though. I can agree with that.
+Kaese Vanoostrum Well said, as I feel the same way. I can guarantee that the mentioned greataxe would cleave through skeletons like butter. When I run skeletons, they have a big resistance to light slashes, immune piercing, and a slight resistance to light-medium chopping, and medium slashing. Someone with anything more or a more powerful hit from a broadsword or medium axe will have no trouble at all. That's naked skeletons at least. Also if your not a monk, cestus weilding pit fighter, or some 7' tall barbarian with gauntlets, punching a skeleton to death is not an option. Breaking solid bone (not to mention magically animated bone) with a bare fist is retarded.
kingtigerww2 Also, what would happen if you managed to hit a skeleton in the head with an arrow? that's piercing, and we already know that it can go through a skull. does their resistance represent the difficulty of hitting one in the head, or would a called shot to the head, with a bow negate the resistance? I understand that it's abstracted to save time, but perhaps you could just keep their resistance, unless you used a bow, called shot to the head. Tell me what you think.
+Kaese Vanoostrum I feel that an arrow to the head won't do much to a skeleton, but I think that if you get a critical or a high roll with a called shot with a decent bow or crossbow then you should be able to shoot the lower spine, or at the very least an arm or leg. An arrow with decent damage would certainly break off a limb or break the spine, and in that case the arrow should do nearly if not full damage. The reason I say an arrow to the head wouldn't be effective is I support the idea that undead are able fight without a head. (still should do damage if you significantly damage the skull) The resistance should represent that type of damage not actually "hurting" them, like for example if you shot an arrow at a skeleton, and hit him in the ribs, sure you'll probably crack or break one off, but will that actually damage the skeleton? No. So for that attack I wouldn't reduce any of the skeleton's hitpoints. Now for a shot to the lower spine, or a shot that's actually able to crumble the skeleton significantly, the skeleton should take damage from it. Same thing applies to a spear for instance. Hope this all makes sense, what I'm mainly saying is even a weapon it is "immune" to should still be able to damage it if it's rightly placed with the right power. Either way it puts you at a big disadvantage. Now if you had a dagger, good luck, cause you're screwed lol
It's awesome to see the good content coming back. I really liked the creative part of the video, mixed up skeletons sound like a very cool idea. My only complaint is about the "immunity to slashes" bit. Actually, bones can be cut pretty cleanly, so a sword would be just as effective as a mace, more or less. It would be nice if you made a series out of this. I challenge you to make Kobolds scary.
+Swagatsu You can't scare the players with the Kobold's combat stats. Here's a hypotetical dungeon that will disturb the players and make then anxious whenever they hear the word "Kobold" Mission: A "fair maiden" has been kidnapped from the local town, and the Kobolds sent a zombie with a message written on her back. "(The adventurers) are to compete for the maiden". A map is tattooed on its back, with a X in the mountains. No ransom, no negotiation. Make them expect an arena. It isn't. Dungeon: upon opening the door, the players should know instantly it was a portal. A bell/gong is sounded, and the "games" begin. The floor is completely covered in obvious traps, with hidden triggers. Several pits are seen that show the end, but belch fire every half second making any attempts to use them as a shortcut very lethal. The maiden is shown at the end in a hourglass, that is flipped and the sand is not pouring down upon her Aladdin style. Be careful not to describe the maiden, and don't use her name for reasons explained later. To reach the maiden, you must run the gauntlet. The shortest route is the most dangerous, but there is no safe route. The kobolds are on a platform high above the center of the gauntlet, safe behind a shield. The platform is suspended by very large thick chains, and the only way up is via portal. No portals exist in the gauntlet proper, and the gauntlet is far below the actual base in a deep pit. They are laughing, drinking, jeering, and betting on the party's failure or "success". Every so often, a Kobold will pop up from behind cover to throw alchemical weaponry to cheat, before being beaten to death by the other gamblers, stealing their stuff and defiling their corpse afterwords. Upon breaking the hourglass, the party can get a good look at the Maiden... during the boss-fight. The maiden has been twisted a bloodthirsty fledgling vampire that has been starved of blood and tortured and "modified". Her hands now have metal coming out of them wolverine style, basically enchanted adamantine claws. With the exception of her fangs, her teeth have been replaced with razor sharp metal shards. Under her dress is metal plating implanted into her very skin. Be sure to make it known she is in a lot of pain. A single large rune is carved into her forehead, an arcana check shows it to be a rune to incapacitate her with a unknown command word. The command word is a randomly selected cuss used to describe women/a women's body. The party cannot take her alive, even if they accidentally discover the command word, since a spell-bomb has been implanted into her chest cavity that will kill her to prevent you from winning. For extra wrong, make it a high level healing spell (unless your using 5.0, in that case use radiant damage). Upon the vampire's death, there is a large cheer as countless bettors make a small fortune. The losers begin bombing the party from above with alchemical weapons. Someone also throws a switch, and the room begins to fill with lava. The party must flee, with or without the maiden's remains, through the door they came in. Upon exiting, the door slams shut behind you, and the portal is dispelled. It is not a door into a mountain wall. No treasure, no victory, no happy ending. The only fight was between victims of the Kobolds. That's how you scare the party with Kobolds.
Venser's Prodigy That's actually quite interesting and would definetly scare the players, but it would require you to change the standard concept of what a kobold is; otherwise, how could they arrange such an arena full of powerful magic? They'd have to be smart and magically strong, so that would pretty much make them a formidable enemy on the level of a lich more or less. Not saying it's a bad thing, but in this case you transformed kobolds so much that they became something else entirely.
@swagatsu You don't need much magic, and Kobolds have various mid-level spellcasters in their best dungeons. you need the shield of course (you could also use heavily enchanted glass I suppose). you need a lava pump, which is common in fantasy settings. Worst case its stolen from dwarves. You need a portal spell (not that much of a stretch, worst case have them buy a scroll. It's already about the money). The pacification rune is mid-level magic, you can already set triggers for spells so again mid-level magic for the spell-bomb. A big heal would be needed to 1-shot the vampire, or you could have several mid-level healing spells go off at once. The metal bits don't need a spell, you use surgery there and some negative energy magic, alternatively you leave her just a feral vampire. You don't need magic to suspend a platform, chains or pillars will do (and what we do in real life). I specifically kept it to mid-level magic used in insidious ways. The biggest stretch is the fire pits, but you can replace them with pools of acid in the worst case.
Skeletons have DR 5/bludgeoning. So piercing and slashing -5. They are immune to cold and constitution based stuf, but not to fire! In 3.0 it was immunity to piercing and half slashing damage if I remember right, but still: Mostly you are better of with your best Sword.
why would slaching and piercing damage not kill a skelet? if it would be ineffective, they would have slashing or piercing immunity, but they only have resictance against that, the force behind the weapon attack would still be powerfull enough to breack bones on impact
What about arc type skellys like different colors like green, red and black? Are they cannon and is there or can there be different advantages and disadvantages?
One complaint about Skeletons and all Undead for that matter is that they make no sense in a typical D&D setting. If you can make corpses walk why would anyone bury their dead? They would just burn them to be safe. Better that than having to deal with Grandma's skeleton down the road. In my world I choose to make Necromancy incredibly rare with more legend than truth surrounding it, that way I can still use undead and not create the problem I just brought up. Just something for my fellow DMs to think about.
+The Offline Raider Digging takes a lot of work. Perhaps most skeletons are former minions willing to serve after death, or a previous party of adventurers who failed to beat the dungeon.
+The Offline Raider Nothing makes a lot of sense. Why are there so many bandits on the roads? How can a merchant make a living with all those bandits? I think instead of a setting where there is danger around every corner, I think the DM needs to create the character's situation as a special circumstance that normal people don't have to deal with. Many settings it seems like are so dangerous you can't figure out how normal people ever survive.
+The Offline Raider Easily resolved. You have to be buried so your soul can depart otherwise you come back as undead regardless. The primal domain of the, "Death god" is earth. Like Pluto/Hades. The reason the religions bury is so you have a body to go back into on the day of judgement. So-on...
2 years late but whatever. Last time I ran into skeletons wasn't even in D&D it was actually in The Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind and good gods they are strong as all hell in that game.
Hi this is my first time commenting on one of your videos I thought this video was very interesting and inspired me to create a campaign of my own instead of using your ideas of buffing on the skeletons with armor and extra ligaments I decided that there would be a mechanic who is replacing skeletons with metal bits and he would make metal skeletons at the end they would explode or hiss hot steam so I guess on the thing to say is thank you for the ideas
the problem with dnd and skelies is that every weapons has mass and bludgeoning damage is based on that if you tell me that does no damage then plate makes me immume to slashing oh wait that would make sence
The idea of a sword or axe dealing zero damage to a skeleton is downright absurd, a reduction for sure but the idea of several pounds of sharpened steel impacting bone and doing nothing? Hell no. I'd personally reduce slashing damage to half and piercing to a quarter against skeletons. Damage ranges for something like alchemical fire given cremation is a thing... intense enough heat will turn bone to dust, massively dependant on the environment the bones are in for sure.
So i'm new to DnD but i know there was a technic in medieval times were a swordsman would grab the sword from the blade and hit his opponent with the hilt (often used when his opponent was wearing armor).If that was done in DnD how would you calculate the dmg?
+TtheWriter Also when you said "You can shoot a zombie in thhe face with arrows all you want but they dont feel pain." I think you meant skeletons there. But either way an arrow entering a skeletons head would shatter the fuck out of it.
Last time i encountered skeletons the entire party was equiped with swords an no one could do damage, but i took them all out with my sling (basicly a ranged fist punch) before they got in range to hit us... never thought of using stuff like bear skeletons and ogre skeletons, i will definitly suprise my players with that next halloween, good inspiration xD think i will also give the ogre mage an cursed amulet and if the players put it on they will basicly attract dead wildlife every night untill they get that amulet off xD townfolk will not be happy with what they attract (A)
+Daka Swift Weather, temperature, hunger, potent enemies followed by MANY of said potent enemies at the same time. Attack their stats directly (poison, torture, mind spells, etc.) Straight up kill someone right away. Show them your world is DANGEROUS and shouldn't be taken lightly. Remind them to eat, sleep, keep hygeine etc. If they fail to do so punish them accordingly. Take stock of upsetting things, children in peril, down on their luck women, boils and sores, screaming babies, etc. ROOT fears that are hard-wired into their minds despite any characters they might come up with.
+Daka Swift Describe what they can hear, smell, feel, see, taste in every scene. I prefer classic Gothic stuff that everybody recognizes such as a mysterious scraping sound or a ghostly child sobbing far off, a sudden cold draft and a candle flickering out. The smell of death and the coppery taste of blood in the air... We fear the unknown.
+TtheWriter hey T, could you do gargoyles, while watching this I remembered that special 4 armed one that ripped a player to pieces and am wondering other possible ways to use one please and thank you😁
Here's my short story on skeletons. My brother was organizing a game and he wanted me to design a wizard villain for him, so I designed a necromancer whose goal was to replace the human population with living dolls for company. He would animate skeletons and then sew fabrics together to make a first doll skin to cover the whole frame, which would aid in his illusion magic that would act as the second, more believable skin layer. When my brother got back to me on how the group thought the idea, they said it was messed up. Mission Accomplished.
I know a DM that ran a castlevania themed short campaign. Bone Pillars, Slingers, Red Skeletons (regenerating), Skelerang (boomerang), Paranthropus (giant skeleton with bone-club), Skeletal Gunmen, and Nova Skeletons (beam).
Any stats and tips on using these? Especially the Paranthropus/giant skeleton?
I'm planning on running a Castlevania inspired campaign myself.
I think the ineffectiveness of slashing weapons is overdone. Sword or an axe goes taught bone pretty well. Butchers use meat cleavers to go taught bones. Dry bones are extremely flammable too.
As for piercing weapons , while spears, rapiers, and arrows are not that effective, pitchforks, tridents and similar are extremely good to keep them at bay.
Skeletons make for great adition to traps. Poison gas(increase, sleeping stuff), or water moat with skeletons (or undead octopuses, or whatever the underwater plants with grapple were called), with skeleton archers on other side. Skeletons are a great addition to snake, spider, or spike pits. Add some shiny necklese to them to make people climb down there, and surprise them while they are climbing down.
Also hang gliders, or wings. They are really light, so they fly way more easy. Use them in catapults to go over walls, or climb on rooftops using some climbing gear.
Or hang them from ceiling, and have them attack from above.
They are also great host for spider swarms and other bug swarm enemies. Have them run at you, tarantulas in their eyes, ,trowing them at you, or scorpions, piranhas, puffer fish, or whatever creepy crawly is around there. Poisonous frogs, wasp nest in middle of skeletons chest, animated objects they wear.
Also Pixie and creatures with exoskeletons skeletons are nice to make undead.
I was thinking just that! Like you got to stab a skeleton and the dagger just goes between its ribs.
But if you his it with a axe at the leg, it can and probably will break the leg.
A sword that cuts off an arm, cuts through bone, you're still being hit with a metal bar that just happens to be sharp, an axe is a blunt weapon with a wedge at the end.
I was just thinking that myself
Best video to watch while painting my skeleton miniatures :)
That "introducing the skeleton" advice reminds me of the time i added a gargoyle to be the keeper of a crypt. Before even facing the thing i started by showing them that there was something lurking in the darkness
"As you push open the door, you find a dead body blocking the opposite side, that's why it felt so heavy. By the tools and clothes it's wearing you can say it was some kind of thief. Its completely covered in dried blood with huge slashing wounds across his back. You can tell that it hasn't been dead for too long, maybe one or two days. You can see marks, fingernails, on the wooden door and a broken tool in the floor... a clear sign of what might have happened"
Terrified. They were completely terrified (I really enjoy good roleplayers). There was no hallway they would go without shooting an arrow charged with a light spell or similar. They were completely afraid of losing their torches or being appart one from another (lots of moving walls in this dungeon). It was a really fun dungeon crawl session.
That's great! I'm totally setting up my encounter like this!
I introduced a group of skeletons which was lead by a cavalier. They each carried tower shields and the cavalier used tactician to make them form a shield wall. The second row did have polearms. The encounter was rather interesting since the formation was pretty much inpenetrable for at that level and the cavalier just did want to hold the characters off. I ruled that the skeletons were manipulated in a way that they perfectly could obey orders but were too dumb for anything else.
The initial tactic of my players was to use area effect spells and weapons, but the damage reduction did make them less effective. The situation was resolved by taking the leader out with a hideous laughter. Later, the actual leader of the group - a devilbound cleric - also had some zombies in the final battle. She pretty much incapacitated the meelee fighters with blasphemy - and suddenly, the small mooks got dangerous.
Punching is more effective against skeletons than a full-body swing with the broad-side of a sword?
How 'bout no.
With a three-kreen monk. Absolutely effective.
...OTHER than monks. We're talkin' Clerics and Fighters here.
+Heartbreaker Studios
Punches break bones. Swords cut flesh. Without flesh, most blades have nothing to "catch".
It's like stabbing a cannon ball with a spear, the blows will often glance off.
Though when they do hit, they still cut.
We're not talking about piercing cannonballs here, we're talking about breaking bones. Realistically a sword can be swung with significantly more force than a fist and because it's metal it has less give than flesh and muscle. Even if we insist on bludgeoning damage only, swords can be swung broadside, or reversed to deliver pommel strikes. I get that it's just a game rule, but it's a failure on part of the game system itself that players are forced to purchase and carry an additional specialized weapon instead of roleplaying their combat intelligently.Sword Knight
+heartbreaker studios
I'm pretty sure a sword swung broadside couldn't break bone, It would be far to flat and the weight would be far to evenly dispersed. As far as swords and bones go, a cutlass could likely cut bone, due to its shear weight and the angle of the blade it can cut through bone. Though most swords and spears would be hyper ineffective or useless realistically.
That thing with the mutation like skeletons ( dragon skull, 4 arms… ) is really amazing and I never thought about something like that. Thanks!
Now I want to make a campaign with almost every enemy being a skeleton
It shall be called: Lair Of The Spooky Skeletons
+Ragnaros 1001 Certificate 18 by the sound of it!
Regular Skeletons💀 are very weak but there still a Classic old School Undead Creature that very much bolongs in a DnD or Pathfinder RP Game👍
Same with the Regular Zombies 👍
I ran a few sessions in which the party had gone underwater to a merfolk city to hide out from the main villain while they came up with a plan of action. However, they discovered the city was under attack by the undead. They were woken up by skeletal sharks bursting through the walls of their room at the inn. Putting skeletons in an unusual setting (the ocean) and putting the template on an unusual creature (the shark) spiced the idea up a bit.
There was this one encounter that I had with fire. It wasn't an elemental, it was just the party putting out fires in a warehouse. Each square was treated as an enemy that needed to be put out and if you don't, it'd spawn new hearths of fire in the squares surrounding it.
You can use the same principles with skeletons and zombies. Instead of treating each skeleton or zombie as an individual, you can treat them as part of a bigger horde. A stream, if you will. Every turn, they move one square, but instead of moving all tokens, you put a new one in front, as though all zombies/skeletons behind it had all shuffled forward one square. There you can have the feeling of an "endless horde mode" in a corridor or something, where there's no real way to win. And by using the rules that I described, it's a bit easier to manage combat.
Speaking of Will-o-wisps, An idea I have for a trap is explosive will-o-wisps. Players walk into a room and inside are some torches and a sign in the middle. Upon further inspection, it states 'Lights Out'. If any character says the words aloud all Will-o-wisps charge at the player(s), doing 1d4 damage each. it'll easily spook the players and make them fear torches.
The last time I ran unique skeletons it was inspired by a group of Warrior Priests in the book Elandris that underwent magic rituals to improve their ability to kill mages using hand to hand combat, and the rituals mutated the bones of their skeletons. The party was doing a dungeon crawl as part of an initiation, and in one of the rooms they found a coffin that opened up, revealing the skeleton of one of these priests as a four armed skeleton. The Sorcerer shot a Fireball at it and the skeleton used Dispel Magic on it, so the party Druid summoned Thoqqas that took them to the next floor before they skeleton could charge them. On the next floor 2 of these skeletons were waiting, but only had 2 arms each, and so they were forced to engage in battle as the 4 armed skeleton dropped down on top of the Druid
Thanks T for the advice! I'm actually building a Crypt right now that uses dead people and animals of the local area and city to make undead that protect the treasures that once belonged to the local city's heroes. The Necromancers that run the place are actually Neutral Good too, since they use the money supplied by the city, which came from the Adventurers upon their passing into the afterlife, as a way to continue practicing their art, expand in their abilities, and help protect the Artifacts that could possibly be used against the city of Godstead, in order to destroy or seize control of it.
This was actually pretty helpful for making me think about the unique way I can use the less flavorful undead, such as Skeletons, in a much more interesting and flavorful way. I had the idea of skeletons that are not only kamikaze, but may even be enchanted to unleash a cloud of smoke or toxic gas that makes it more difficult for the adventurers to fight, due to loss of vision, coughing, choking, and being poisoned.
Would wrapping a humanoid skeleton's bones in layers and layers of linen provide them some amount of protection against bludgeoning? I was thinking of having them wrapped up to the approximate proportions of muscles a fit living person, and then completely obscured by their full plate armor.
They wouldn't have any decaying flesh smell, and their armor would fit appropriately, so the party wouldn't know they were undead at first, so even Clerics and Paladins might not try to Turn Undead at the start of the battle.
Thoughts or better ideas?
Lennard Church Probably as the linen would be shock absorbers for punches or bludgeoning blows
Skeleton wrapped in linen....isn't that a mummy? Also they are treated with salt and spices and stuff and dried up....I guess mummy have no smell at all except for the perfume they were embalmed with....
I think the best way to use undead is to have another creature, either another undead or a necromancer or something, commanding them. Instead of Zerg Rushing the party, have a Banshee wearing the rags of a military uniform command archer volleys from skeletons atop barricades or a mummy with a rusty helmet and a scimitar create a spear wall of skeleton warriors as the party approaches
What happened to Vampires and Litches??? :0
Tony deletes everything. You better download while you can!
im a new dm but i had a campaign in which the players/adventurers found a very small room full of gold to the knees. The seasoned players didn't rush into the room right away because of traps but a very new player ran in and almost started to get some gold when 5 well armed skeletons stood up from the pile of gold and attacked the new player. The look on his face is still funny even now after 2 years XD
I had a DM throw (what I later found out to be) what he called magnetic backlash skeletons at us. Take a normal skeleton, make them black metallic looking, and apply the following two new traits: 1.) Any metal weapon that strikes this creature must succeed at a DC 25 STRENGTH check to pull the weapon off of them. the creature can remove said weapon and equip it as a swift action. I believe it had a bonus vs disarm but I never actually found out. 2.) 1/2 of any holy damage taken is reflected back in a 10 ft radius as unholy damage. Four of those guys nearly wiped our party of 4 at 5th lvl
a BBG necromancer that Awakens his undead minions is pretty nasty
now that you mentioned explosion.....
we entered the next major room from the hallway as quietly as possible being extremely wary of traps. not seeing anything as an immediate danger we started to examine the room. our rogue who specialized in finding and using traps told us he can't find or doesn't see anything out of the ordinary (nat 1 spot check BTW) so we searched for the next way onwards. after searching the room for about ten minutes, and several failed trap finding checks later the rogue winds up stepping on a loose floor plate. three slabs instantly regress in the floor and out of them rise 3 skeletal figures each holding a weapon. one had a sword and was wearing plate mail, one was in chainmail and had a mace, and the third was in padded armor and held a bow. none of them moved. so we slowly moved to examine them. we each stood in front of one and the runes we hadn't seen before glowed. as the only one who could read them I read the messages and they were riddles and instructions. we were to stand before each GUARDIAN.... the word couldn't be stressed enough for some reason. we were to each answer a riddle and speak it to the respective GUARDIAN. they were simple riddles and we all answered in turn. oh, should we have gotten it wrong we were to fight them in single combat. after all answers were given the door swings open on its own. we celebrated with small cheers but before we moved on I noticed new runes. they read Congratulations thieves, now you die. and all three blew up with basic exploding runes.
the rogue never got above a 5 on any of the search, spot or trapfinding checks that day so we weren't warned.....
T..... this is GREAT!!! I just so happen to have an undead session this weekend... just got a major tweak... thanks for all of the great ideas
I'll have to direct my pissed off players here when they get eviscerated by a humanoid skeleton with a beholder head. Thanks for the great advice, T!
+TtheWriter There are actually variant skeletons and zombies in the rules ( bloody skeleton = regeneration and doesnt die unless bathed in radient damage, burning skeleton = deals fire damage and explodes on death ). BTW bloody skeletons look rad, think hybrid state between zombie and skeleton.
and guess who has players that are about to go into a city of the dead run by a vampire. this this made me happy.
here's a nasty trap. have a mage engrave explosive runes onto a skelly's forehead or sternum and use them as suicide bombers. like imagine 3 skellys with that set up charging anyone but a barbarian
The way we do skeletons is any weapon other than a bludgeoning weapon will do 1 hit point + strength
Tony, an axe is literally a big steel block on the end of a stick with an edge. I fail to see how you fail to see this.
Skeletons are not immune to slashing and piercing, they just have a resistance to it.
The hardest encounter in my life was with skeletons. They were normal humanoid skeleton but had a special perk where they can regain HP by ripping off other skeleton parts as a bonus action and attaching it onto themselves. Each replaced limb healed 1d4 hp, this was difficult cuz we had to fight 13 of them in a 10ft hallway on difficult terrain. We started with 5 players and ended in 2. Being the fighter i decided to OVERRUN the 4 of them so the wizard and I could escape.
Im making a necromancer for pathfinder, whos gonna use skeletons, zombies, whatever she can. Imagine a wall of skeleton shield-bearers, or better, a phalanx of them.
Oh an idea, how about exploding skeletons covered in knifes and stuff so when they blow up daggers go all over the place?
In pathfinder atleast, skeletons, by raw rules, only have a DR 5 unless you use bludgeoning damage.so, going by raw rules, if i had to choose between doing a d3 bludgeoning with my fist, or dealing 1d12+1.5x strength -5, i'd choose the greataxe most likely
but, an archer is pretty fucked if it doesnt have any bludgeoning arrows against a skeletons. but i do agree with you, the raw rules, atleast in pathfinder, they made them really not scary. they're the weak thing you kill in one hit, even while using something they have a nice DR against.
Undeads in general, atleast in my opinion, as far as pathfinder goes, are generally less of a threat. because if you have a cleric, a paladin, a ranger that hunts undead, any of all those classes that are really good at fighting undead, combined with the amount of holy items or etc in the game to fight undeads, they become so much less of a threat, unless the DM is creative about it, that, and the fact that, as you said, most DMs doesn't know how to put undeads into context so most of the time in doesn't make sense that undeads are there.
But especially paladins, if theres a paladin in the party, don't expect any undeads to last long in a fight
giant skeletons are scary/fun as hell. "what do you mean this skeleton is 9 feet tall?!"
So you want to have a Mystery Skulls themed adventure, make a super skeleton with flame powers and is actually incorporeal. Lol.
Surely theres a point in blunt weapons are more effective
But how does a sword/axe/spear is less effective than bare fists? swords can break and and destroy bones
it only depends on the strenghts of the wilder. as long as you can dismember and break them, its fine to me
Used this vid this past weekend. Skeletons as suicide bombers with various 2d6 exploding damage types(there eyes glowed a different color, i used the little colored rubber bands to track which was which), various save throw (DEX/STR/CON) to take half damage and avoid a lingering, 1 turn, condition (blind, confusion, etc)... A skeleton transforms from a sword/bow attacker that can barely scratch your players to a thing GREATLY FEARED! lol especially if you have the spawn locations 2-3 movement turns from the players... they see them coming!!!!.... fight or flight is a real scenario... good job T on the great suggestion.. RECOMMEND to every DM to try it.. I used a thing called a "chaos orb" to randomly spawn the different types at random locations on the battle board...
the slashing damage resistance that skeletons have always confused me. a well kept sword will still cut bone, an ax no matter how dull, will still split bones if they're unprotected (which they probably are.) They should still have a resistance, but not nearly as high as it is. piercing makes sense though. I can agree with that.
+Kaese Vanoostrum Well said, as I feel the same way. I can guarantee that the mentioned greataxe would cleave through skeletons like butter. When I run skeletons, they have a big resistance to light slashes, immune piercing, and a slight resistance to light-medium chopping, and medium slashing. Someone with anything more or a more powerful hit from a broadsword or medium axe will have no trouble at all. That's naked skeletons at least. Also if your not a monk, cestus weilding pit fighter, or some 7' tall barbarian with gauntlets, punching a skeleton to death is not an option. Breaking solid bone (not to mention magically animated bone) with a bare fist is retarded.
kingtigerww2 Also, what would happen if you managed to hit a skeleton in the head with an arrow? that's piercing, and we already know that it can go through a skull. does their resistance represent the difficulty of hitting one in the head, or would a called shot to the head, with a bow negate the resistance? I understand that it's abstracted to save time, but perhaps you could just keep their resistance, unless you used a bow, called shot to the head. Tell me what you think.
+Kaese Vanoostrum I feel that an arrow to the head won't do much to a skeleton, but I think that if you get a critical or a high roll with a called shot with a decent bow or crossbow then you should be able to shoot the lower spine, or at the very least an arm or leg. An arrow with decent damage would certainly break off a limb or break the spine, and in that case the arrow should do nearly if not full damage. The reason I say an arrow to the head wouldn't be effective is I support the idea that undead are able fight without a head. (still should do damage if you significantly damage the skull) The resistance should represent that type of damage not actually "hurting" them, like for example if you shot an arrow at a skeleton, and hit him in the ribs, sure you'll probably crack or break one off, but will that actually damage the skeleton? No. So for that attack I wouldn't reduce any of the skeleton's hitpoints. Now for a shot to the lower spine, or a shot that's actually able to crumble the skeleton significantly, the skeleton should take damage from it. Same thing applies to a spear for instance. Hope this all makes sense, what I'm mainly saying is even a weapon it is "immune" to should still be able to damage it if it's rightly placed with the right power. Either way it puts you at a big disadvantage. Now if you had a dagger, good luck, cause you're screwed lol
Skeleton with glowing blue eyes...
Reminds me of someone
Hint:bad time in undertale
It's awesome to see the good content coming back. I really liked the creative part of the video, mixed up skeletons sound like a very cool idea.
My only complaint is about the "immunity to slashes" bit. Actually, bones can be cut pretty cleanly, so a sword would be just as effective as a mace, more or less.
It would be nice if you made a series out of this. I challenge you to make Kobolds scary.
YES!! Kolbolds for arch demons lol
+Swagatsu You can't scare the players with the Kobold's combat stats. Here's a hypotetical dungeon that will disturb the players and make then anxious whenever they hear the word "Kobold"
Mission: A "fair maiden" has been kidnapped from the local town, and the Kobolds sent a zombie with a message written on her back. "(The adventurers) are to compete for the maiden". A map is tattooed on its back, with a X in the mountains. No ransom, no negotiation. Make them expect an arena. It isn't.
Dungeon: upon opening the door, the players should know instantly it was a portal. A bell/gong is sounded, and the "games" begin. The floor is completely covered in obvious traps, with hidden triggers. Several pits are seen that show the end, but belch fire every half second making any attempts to use them as a shortcut very lethal.
The maiden is shown at the end in a hourglass, that is flipped and the sand is not pouring down upon her Aladdin style. Be careful not to describe the maiden, and don't use her name for reasons explained later. To reach the maiden, you must run the gauntlet. The shortest route is the most dangerous, but there is no safe route.
The kobolds are on a platform high above the center of the gauntlet, safe behind a shield. The platform is suspended by very large thick chains, and the only way up is via portal. No portals exist in the gauntlet proper, and the gauntlet is far below the actual base in a deep pit. They are laughing, drinking, jeering, and betting on the party's failure or "success". Every so often, a Kobold will pop up from behind cover to throw alchemical weaponry to cheat, before being beaten to death by the other gamblers, stealing their stuff and defiling their corpse afterwords.
Upon breaking the hourglass, the party can get a good look at the Maiden... during the boss-fight. The maiden has been twisted a bloodthirsty fledgling vampire that has been starved of blood and tortured and "modified". Her hands now have metal coming out of them wolverine style, basically enchanted adamantine claws. With the exception of her fangs, her teeth have been replaced with razor sharp metal shards. Under her dress is metal plating implanted into her very skin. Be sure to make it known she is in a lot of pain. A single large rune is carved into her forehead, an arcana check shows it to be a rune to incapacitate her with a unknown command word. The command word is a randomly selected cuss used to describe women/a women's body. The party cannot take her alive, even if they accidentally discover the command word, since a spell-bomb has been implanted into her chest cavity that will kill her to prevent you from winning. For extra wrong, make it a high level healing spell (unless your using 5.0, in that case use radiant damage).
Upon the vampire's death, there is a large cheer as countless bettors make a small fortune. The losers begin bombing the party from above with alchemical weapons. Someone also throws a switch, and the room begins to fill with lava. The party must flee, with or without the maiden's remains, through the door they came in. Upon exiting, the door slams shut behind you, and the portal is dispelled. It is not a door into a mountain wall.
No treasure, no victory, no happy ending. The only fight was between victims of the Kobolds. That's how you scare the party with Kobolds.
damn..... i dont like kobolds now.... i need to think
Venser's Prodigy That's actually quite interesting and would definetly scare the players, but it would require you to change the standard concept of what a kobold is; otherwise, how could they arrange such an arena full of powerful magic? They'd have to be smart and magically strong, so that would pretty much make them a formidable enemy on the level of a lich more or less.
Not saying it's a bad thing, but in this case you transformed kobolds so much that they became something else entirely.
@swagatsu You don't need much magic, and Kobolds have various mid-level spellcasters in their best dungeons. you need the shield of course (you could also use heavily enchanted glass I suppose). you need a lava pump, which is common in fantasy settings. Worst case its stolen from dwarves. You need a portal spell (not that much of a stretch, worst case have them buy a scroll. It's already about the money). The pacification rune is mid-level magic, you can already set triggers for spells so again mid-level magic for the spell-bomb. A big heal would be needed to 1-shot the vampire, or you could have several mid-level healing spells go off at once. The metal bits don't need a spell, you use surgery there and some negative energy magic, alternatively you leave her just a feral vampire. You don't need magic to suspend a platform, chains or pillars will do (and what we do in real life). I specifically kept it to mid-level magic used in insidious ways. The biggest stretch is the fire pits, but you can replace them with pools of acid in the worst case.
as a DM my first total party kill was with skeletons. i did not understand how powerful they are.
Would a murder stroke from a zweihander's pommel strike for blunt damage?
“I got a bone to pick with you, little human!”
Skeletons have DR 5/bludgeoning. So piercing and slashing -5. They are immune to cold and constitution based stuf, but not to fire!
In 3.0 it was immunity to piercing and half slashing damage if I remember right, but still: Mostly you are better of with your best Sword.
why would slaching and piercing damage not kill a skelet? if it would be ineffective, they would have slashing or piercing immunity, but they only have resictance against that, the force behind the weapon attack would still be powerfull enough to breack bones on impact
7:50
Reminds me of the time it took our party of 4 around 2 and a half hours to kill one zombie.
Good times.
What about arc type skellys like different colors like green, red and black? Are they cannon and is there or can there be different advantages and disadvantages?
Shrapnel skeletons, best thing ever.
this was 2spooky4me 3spoopy5u
One complaint about Skeletons and all Undead for that matter is that they make no sense in a typical D&D setting. If you can make corpses walk why would anyone bury their dead? They would just burn them to be safe. Better that than having to deal with Grandma's skeleton down the road. In my world I choose to make Necromancy incredibly rare with more legend than truth surrounding it, that way I can still use undead and not create the problem I just brought up. Just something for my fellow DMs to think about.
+The Offline Raider Digging takes a lot of work. Perhaps most skeletons are former minions willing to serve after death, or a previous party of adventurers who failed to beat the dungeon.
+John Milius I like this idea too.
+The Offline Raider Nothing makes a lot of sense. Why are there so many bandits on the roads? How can a merchant make a living with all those bandits?
I think instead of a setting where there is danger around every corner, I think the DM needs to create the character's situation as a special circumstance that normal people don't have to deal with. Many settings it seems like are so dangerous you can't figure out how normal people ever survive.
+The Offline Raider Easily resolved. You have to be buried so your soul can depart otherwise you come back as undead regardless.
The primal domain of the, "Death god" is earth. Like Pluto/Hades.
The reason the religions bury is so you have a body to go back into on the day of judgement.
So-on...
***** But you can crush bones.
Pain has nothing to do with the damage. They can't lose blood.
2 years late but whatever. Last time I ran into skeletons wasn't even in D&D it was actually in The Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind and good gods they are strong as all hell in that game.
im feeling
spoopy
Hi this is my first time commenting on one of your videos I thought this video was very interesting and inspired me to create a campaign of my own instead of using your ideas of buffing on the skeletons with armor and extra ligaments I decided that there would be a mechanic who is replacing skeletons with metal bits and he would make metal skeletons at the end they would explode or hiss hot steam so I guess on the thing to say is thank you for the ideas
15:24 Well, you gotta admit, most people don't know how it works thanks to divine metamagic^^
Hey dude did you try Ponyfinder yet? Its incredible! :D
the problem with dnd and skelies is that every weapons has mass and bludgeoning damage is based on that if you tell me that does no damage then plate makes me immume to slashing oh wait that would make sence
The idea of a sword or axe dealing zero damage to a skeleton is downright absurd, a reduction for sure but the idea of several pounds of sharpened steel impacting bone and doing nothing? Hell no.
I'd personally reduce slashing damage to half and piercing to a quarter against skeletons.
Damage ranges for something like alchemical fire given cremation is a thing... intense enough heat will turn bone to dust, massively dependant on the environment the bones are in for sure.
So i'm new to DnD but i know there was a technic in medieval times were a swordsman would grab the sword from the blade and hit his opponent with the hilt (often used when his opponent was wearing armor).If that was done in DnD how would you calculate the dmg?
+makeris32 Using a weapon thus would be 1d4 bludgeoning damage, since you are improvising with a weapon and not using it properly. Also a -2 to hit.
+TtheWriter Also when you said "You can shoot a zombie in thhe face with arrows all you want but they dont feel pain." I think you meant skeletons there. But either way an arrow entering a skeletons head would shatter the fuck out of it.
Can you play as a skeleton?
I was just wondering that.
And apparently so.
dndbeyond.com/races/11643-undead
Great video man!
T do you make all the "class class"?
Last time i encountered skeletons the entire party was equiped with swords an no one could do damage, but i took them all out with my sling (basicly a ranged fist punch) before they got in range to hit us... never thought of using stuff like bear skeletons and ogre skeletons, i will definitly suprise my players with that next halloween, good inspiration xD think i will also give the ogre mage an cursed amulet and if the players put it on they will basicly attract dead wildlife every night untill they get that amulet off xD townfolk will not be happy with what they attract (A)
Awesome!
Hey T I'm gonna be running a text based game, how could I make my players feel like they're actually there? and possibly even scared
+Daka Swift Weather, temperature, hunger, potent enemies followed by MANY of said potent enemies at the same time. Attack their stats directly (poison, torture, mind spells, etc.) Straight up kill someone right away. Show them your world is DANGEROUS and shouldn't be taken lightly. Remind them to eat, sleep, keep hygeine etc. If they fail to do so punish them accordingly. Take stock of upsetting things, children in peril, down on their luck women, boils and sores, screaming babies, etc. ROOT fears that are hard-wired into their minds despite any characters they might come up with.
ok cool thanks
+Daka Swift Describe what they can hear, smell, feel, see, taste in every scene. I prefer classic Gothic stuff that everybody recognizes such as a mysterious scraping sound or a ghostly child sobbing far off, a sudden cold draft and a candle flickering out. The smell of death and the coppery taste of blood in the air... We fear the unknown.
+TtheWriter hey T, could you do gargoyles, while watching this I remembered that special 4 armed one that ripped a player to pieces and am wondering other possible ways to use one please and thank you😁
~ Spooky Scary skeletons ~
Spooky scary skeletons!
Spooky scary skeletons
is half swording ie flipping the sword around a good idea?
I would go w/ pommel strikes
+godhunter6789 Yes.
You should put a spook warning on the video next time. Nearly got spooked myself.
3spoopy5me