Undead Creatures Begin Here
Description
Skeleton, Type II
Again, a much abused idea. Whatever happened to the scimitar wielding horrors of Jason and the Argonauts, or whatever that movie was called?
Statistics
| Statistic | Value |
|---|---|
| Frequency | planned |
| # Appearing | DM sadism determined |
| % In Lair | ? |
| Treasure Type | Incidental only |
| Alignment | Neutral (but considered evil) |
| Climate/Terrain | var., as zombies. |
| HD | 3d8/2d8/1d8/1 hp |
| Size | M (human sized usually) |
| AC | 3, 6 vs. blunt weapons |
| Magic Resistance | standard, unless the DM's feeling sadistic |
| No. Attacks | 1-2 per round (depending on DM - 1 in Jason movie) |
| Attack Damage | by weapon (fists do d4 damage) |
| Move | 9" (they can be outpaced by most in Jason movie) |
| Special Defenses | Once shattered, they can draw themselves back together, tho the magical cohesion holding them together is less the second time (subtract 1d8 from HD each time). When zero HD is reached, they have 1 hp the next time, and the magic supporting them is gone after that. All non blunt weapons do only 1/2 damage, except such things as darts, knives, daggers, and arrows, which do NO damage to a skeleton. |
| Special Attacks | none |
Skeletons are very similar to zombies, except that they are actually animated by an exterior force, like puppets on a string. For this reason, they can move relatively quickly for a dead thing, but are not as strong as their undead companions. In fact, because of the manner in which they are animated, they may be considered in some campaigns to be no more undead than an animated chair (using Animate Object).
Every time a skeleton is downed, the forces animating it can reconstruct the skeleton, but this weakens the magic each time (see special defenses). This can be particularly irritating if there are very many of them. I will suggest here that it take one or two rounds for a skeleton to reconstruct itself.
Skeletons are not affected by the same spells as zombies, except that Hold spells will have the same effect as if the skeleton had been downed once. Shatter spells will destroy the skeleton - it can no longer reconstruct itself, even if it had several times left.
Skeletons should be properly horrific to mid-level characters, and a decent annoyance to higher level characters with these stats. To low level characters, meeting a few of these will be a truly terrifying experience.