Rather than speaking about a specific monster in this post, I’m going to talk about the special abilities that can be added onto any monster from the Skeleton family. I wrote about the Skeleton Guard on Friday, and these abilities can be added to it to add some addiitonal diversity to your skeletons.
I really like these abilities and feel like they’re a great example of the way that you can have really dynamic tactical combat from your first session of Pathfinder.
Possum Skeleton image by Allen Gathman, used under CC-BY-SA 2.0
Bloody
This makes for a tough to beat down skeleton. If your party isn’t relying on bludgeoning damage to get through, a Bloody skeleton could take their hits and just heal the damage right back.
I’d put bloody on something meant to slow down or delay the Party. This is likely to be a miniboss level challenge for your low-level PCs, possibly while the spellcaster who created the skeletons gets away. Or it might be tasked with guarding the room that hides the boss’s true weakness, using its healing to just stay in position and block the party from getting in easily.
Collapse
Collapse is a reaction that converts critical hits into regular hits at the expense of needing to use an action to reform the skeleton. If you’re using skeletons whose AC is extremely low compared to your Party’s ability to hit, this reaction could keep skeletons in the fight long enough to have an effect.
Explosive Death
This is probably my favorite Skeleton ability. And that might just be because it was the first one I used and it was such a surprise to the party.
Imagine that your evil spellcaster is looking for completely disposable shock troops to just do a “shock and awe” style attack. These are not skeletons meant to stay in the fight, because their ability doesn’t kick in until the skeleton is dispatched.
Exploding skeletons deal damage to adjacent creatures when they are killed. This in turn makes them formidable foes when thrown into close combat.
My own group learned to fear clustered groups of skeletons in enclosed spaces when I deployed this ability. One skeleton explodes, and at low levels, a high roll on the damage die can kill the next skeleton and you get a chain reaction of d6 damage traveling through the party. At Level 1, this was a scary ability.
Screaming Skull
This one is just a cool image. The skeleton rips its own head off and throws it at someone and it bites them. It rolls a Demoralize action against everyone within 20 feet of its target. This is one that can start debuffing a party who stays clustered together.
The Frightened condition from the Demoralize rolls lowers the party’s rolls, AC, Saves, everything. This is the skeleton to sneak into a group of other skeletons with other abilities to use as a “leader” of sorts. It tosses its skull, demoralizes the enemies, and then the other skeletons have an easier time carrying out their attacks.
Blaze
This skeleton trades its resistance to cold for immunity to fire and persistent fire damage added to its strikes.
Skeleton Guy Fawkes on Fire by Edward Simpson used under CC-BY-SA 2.0
These skeletons are likely to be used in a place where their being wreathed in flame and catching adventurers on fire would be a deterrent to adventurers entering that place.
Or alternatively as the book says, in places that are very fire-themed and the fire spreads to the skeletons over time of them standing guard.
Frozen
Frozen skeletons are much like the Blaze skeletons, but for cold damage instead of fire. They emit an aura that deals cold damage equal to their level.
Think icy mountain lairs for these ones. Or a wintry themed villain spreading the cold.
Bone Storm
This is the cool tornado skeleton power, letting the skeleton transform into a cyclone and move through enemies causing damage. This is a once-a-day power, taking a full turn to deploy.
A necromancer endowing skeletons with this power is likely setting them up in places where there can be multiple skeletons arranged like a trap, then having them use the Bone Storm power and hope that takes care of the problem. Or at least softens them up for whatever other hazards lie in wait.
Crumbling Bones
These skeletons are made of crumbling bones floating in a cloud of dust. The bones are light enough to allow the skeleton a flying speed of 20 feet with a restriction of ending no more than 5 feet from the ground. It can also move through any space wide enough for its skull to fit through.
These are creepy chase scene skeletons that their creators program to just chase someone down and never stop. Put some hazard between you? Fly speed. Narrow passage? Crumbly bone cloud as the skull just keeps coming through. They just won’t stop in their pursuit.
Grave Eruption
These skeletons appear in what looks to be just a fresh series of graves until they burst from the ground to attack the party. If their strike is successful, they inflict the Frightened condition.
That basically says it all, they’ll be created and left as a trap. Possibly in ground just outside the lair of the necromancer. The only caveat is that the dirt they are in should be loose freshly turned dirt, so canny players should learn to be wary of “freshly dug plats about six feet long and three feet wide.”
Lacquered
These skeletons have had their bones coated with an alchemical substance that grants them both acid resistance and a bonus to effects meant to age or erode the target.
These skeletons had care taken in their making. Their bones were protected against the passage of time. That is not an accidental thing. These are likely going to be found somewhere within the necromancer’s sanctum guarding something dear to them. Perhaps the necromancer who has ascended to lichdom has left his soul cage guarded by carefully prepared lacquered skeletons.
Nimble
These are speedy skeletons that also have a climb speed and Nimble Dodge. So they’re speedy, they can go places people wouldn’t expect.
Your spellcaster wants something from somewhere hard to get, it’s too risky to go themselves, and they want a good chance that the thing is got without alerting too many people. This is a burglar skeleton that’s going to be designed to move into and out of a place as quick as possible.
They probably won’t even bother with fighting a party who catches them, because dodging away and getting out is the programming they were given.
Rotten
Do you want a gross skeleton that sickens everyone it encounters? This is the skeleton for you!
They emit a 10 foot stench aura, which requires a Fortitude Save versus the sickened condition. It even inflicts the Slowed condition on a critical failure to the save. The stench aura also creates a -2 circumstance penalty to saves versus disease or to recover from the sickened condition.
Yeah, these are the necromancer’s biological weapons that it can throw at towns that it doesn’t like. Combine a squad of these with some plague zombies that can benefit from the penalty to disease saves and you have a nasty encounter for your players that would make sense from how a necromancer would put together a team of undead.
Rules Regarding Abilities
Pathfinder’s Bestiaries state that most skeletons get one of the abilities, but that mixing and matching them could be done with a level adjustment.
So don’t hesitate mixing and matching what your Skeleton Guards or your Wolf Skeletons can do, especially if undead are a recurring enemy class in your campaign. A little diversity in what the monsters can do will add a lot to the game and keep your players guessing about what exactly these undead will be up to.
Licensing
This post relies on information from the following sources:
Pathfinder Second Edition Bestiary, copyright 2019, Paizo Inc.; Authors: Alexander Augunas, Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, John Compton, Paris Crenshaw, Adam Daigle, Eleanor Ferron, Leo Glass, Thurston Hillman, James Jacobs, Jason Keeley, Lyz Liddell, Ron Lundeen, Robert G. McCreary, Tim Nightengale, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Alex Riggs, David N. Ross, Michael Sayre, Mark Seifter, Chris S. Sims, Jeffrey Swank, Jason Tondro, Tonya Woldridge, and Linda Zayas-Palmer.
Pathfinder Second Edition Bestiary 3, © 2021, Paizo Inc.; Authors: Logan Bonner, James Case, Jessica Catalan, John Compton, Paris Crenshaw, Adam Daigle, Katina Davis, Erik Scott de Bie, Jesse Decker, Brian Duckwitz, Hexe Fey, Keith Garrett, Matthew Goodall, Violet Gray, Alice Grizzle, Steven Hammond, Sasha Laranoa Harving, Joan Hong, James Jacobs, Michelle Jones, Virginia Jordan, TJ Kahn, Mikko Kallio, Jason Keeley, Joshua Kim, Avi Kool, Jeff Lee, Lyz Liddell, Luis Loza, Ron Lundeen, Philippe-Antoine Menard, Patchen Mortimer, Dennis Muldoon, Andrew Mullen, Quinn Murphy, Dave Nelson, Jason Nelson, Samantha Phelan, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Danita Rambo, Shiv Ramdas, BJ Recio, Jessica Redekop, Mikhail Rekun, Patrick Renie, Alex Riggs, David N. Ross, Simone D. Sallé, Michael Sayre, Mark Seifter, Sen.H.H.S, Abigail Slater, Rodney Sloan, Shay Snow, Pidj Sorensen, Kendra Leigh Speedling, Tan Shao Han, William Thompson, Jason Tondro, Clark Valentine, Ruvaid Virk, Skylar Wall, Andrew White, and Landon Winkler.
Pathfinder Book of the Dead, © 2022, Paizo Inc.; Authors: Brian Bauman, Tineke Bolleman. Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Jessica Catalan, John Compton, Chris Eng, Logan Harper, Michelle Jones, Jason Keeley, Luis Loza, Ron Lundeen, Liane Merciel, Patchen Mortimer, Quinn Murphy, Jessica Redekop, Mikhail Rekun, Solomon St. John, Michael Sayre, Mark Seifter, Sen.H.H.S., Kendra Leigh Speedling, Jason Tondro, Andrew White.
Used pursuant to the Open Gaming License v 1.0a
Leave a Reply