"How do you defeat a skeleton?" Topic

When our fantasy soldiers fight a skeleton army, how do they actually defeat them in your head?

Break some bones and they fall apart?

Inflict massive damage to the skeleton?

Something hand-wavy about the "magical force that holds them together" ?

The power of friendship?

From my old D&D days, one hit and down.

My players would be shocked at first and them just tear into them.

Hit them until they stay down, kill the animator if there is one, countermagic, religion, and just generally smashing things. Presumably they're animated skeletons, not animated bone golems or bone elementals – there may be some mix and match, but disrupt them enough that there's not a solid skeleton and that should work. If it's a mass of skeletons, I assume they're kind of bound together rather than raised individually, so once you deal with enough of them the rest get a lot more fragile as the magic breaks down.

It depends on the skeletons, for the specialists. Skeleton dogs? Throw a bone, they'll run after it en masse and get confused and try to catch each other. Skeleton giants? Break their legs. Bonewheel skeletons? Try blocking, then, try despair.

If they're capable of speech, or the more common skeletal laughter, try asking them how they're making those sounds and they'll start arguing with each other instead of fighting. Doesn't work if they're just using their ribs as a xylophone.

Smash it with a mace.

This is where clerics really shine. The skeletons are undead, so the cleric gets to do the "turn the undead" thing, and hammer and club beats thin, sharp blade when dealing with skeletons. Nothing worse than having your fighter get his/her blade stuck in the skeleton's ribs for a round or two.

set some dogs on them ……

I always imagine catastrophic major bone fracture, or skull smash would do one in.

And if all else fails, jump off a cliff:

youtu.be/JlFjNVTiI1c

Sticks and stones
may break those bones,
but a mace will really smash them.

Send in the dogs!!

The general D&D trope is that if you do enough physical damage (sometimes harder to do with piercing or even slashing weapons), then whatever force was animating them collapses as well.

However, there is a classic Conan short story ("The Thing in the Crypt", not Howard, but one of the better pastiches IMHO) where he confronts a skeleton and finds it almost impossible to hack his way to victory, and ends up having to use fire.

So, in wargame terms, skeletons/zombies/undead shufflers could range from fairly normal, weak melee foes to stubborn enemies with various resistances (and weaknesses) to different sorts of damage.

Good to be the King!
YouTube link

In the Walking Dead, the zombie skulls are made of warm butter. I guess that's not much help here.

Why is it easy to dispatch a skeleton:
Because he's got nobody to help him!

(actual paraphrased joke from one of last years Christmas Crackers)

I could be accused of taking this topic far too seriously but I remember watching Jason and the Argonauts as a kid and while being fascinated by Harryhausen's amazing creations I was also quite confused by the apparent danger these muscle-less monsters posed. The only advantage that a skeleton should possess I thought was the lack of any pain sense. But these guys seemed almost completely indestructible and possessed immense physical strength.

I suppose it is obvious that biology won't be helpful as there's already too many contradictions going on :) So I'd start off with the premise that their power is proportionate to the power that animates them. If the source is a lowly one then they should be easily dispatched. If something tremendously powerful directs their actions then it is really that power that the opponent faces. Skeletons after-all are mere frames or scaffolding of the power that clothes them whether visible or invisible.

Having said that I honestly believe that ochoin's dog there would be more than enough to handle any number of them

Something hand-wavy about the "magical force that holds them together" ?

That's always been my logic.

A (fantasy) zombie has in theory all the mechanical components to keep shuffling along. Like a wrecked car, with a bit of nasty magic driving and providing power.

But what makes a skeleton move? It has no muscles. So I figure an enchantment which projects a faintly visible aura around the skeleton gives it the ability to act and move about. Jerky, but much more swiftly than a zombie, but the downside being that it has to either be remotely controlled by it's master (which takes no real effort from a necromancer of decent ability, it just need to be in range).

Or, bound by enchantment to a specific location, with a specific, limited task.

Blunt attacks damage it's physical structure and therefore ability to move and fight, but its attacks to the aura itself that cause the enchantment to dissipate, like a slow leak in a tire, causing the skeleton to collapse eventually into a heap of bones.

Zombies are ostensibly a forcible possession by petty malevolent spirits, mostly negative emotion with no real identity, bound to the rotten husk.

Wait, what was the question again?

If they are close enough together, a bowling ball (still have to worry about those 7/10 splits… ;-)

Don't use arrows.

Fluorosulfuric acid.

Ochoin, that's the best idea yet!!!

A herd of puppies.

Dan

Do enough HP in damage and they "die".

My anti-skellie unit:

+1, Dynaman8789. It's fantasy. I hate getting into the minutia of combat, I keep it abstract, and moving as fast as possible. Cheers!

Superglue, they are helpless against it.

1. Pack of puppies or dogs.

2. Mace if you have to do it mano a skellie…

I kind of go for the an aura of magic that animates the skeletal frame, thus giving said bones the means to move and function. Of course the animated skeleton has a limited set of functions it can perform but due to being already dead it feels no pain and does not suffer from a loss of moral. I think this was well done in Warhammer Fantasy Undead armies. Skeletons were not the best warriors per se but they were relentless and kept coming and never tire. Therefore you have to take out the source of their power, i.e., the necromancer who created and controls them or beat them with overwhelming force.

In DnD skeletons are excellent guards with a limited set of commands to defend or protect an area from intruders. Here it comes down to doing a enough damage to end the enchantment that binds the bones together. In most cases the being who originally created the skeletons is most likely not in the area or has long departed so it comes down to just out fighting the skeletons. However, if said necromancer were to be present then he/she/it could keep its charges going by the use of rejuvenating spells. Then things get serious.

Regardless, the appeal of skeleton warriors is universal. After all the aspect of fighting a thing that is a symbol of your own mortality and the horror associated with the idea that you too might end up with your own bones standing eternal guard is daunting.

For me, "killing" a skeleton is when you strike a blow to it hard enough that it sort of "breaks" the necromancy spell cast over it that's holding it together and animating it.

I think of the necromancy aspect of it that whatever mage animated them dispersed his powers among many, many dead corpses. Therefore the individual strength and power of each skeleton is relatively weak. That is why they are created in such huge numbers, in order to overwhelm the enemy.

But most skeletons can be defeated by, as I said, one good heavy blow or strike which shatters them and breaks the spell.

I also think that skeletons could be partially damaged without actually being totally killed or eliminated, such as "cutting off" an arm (even though it's a reanimated skeleton arm) or disarming their weapons arm.

More resitent to arrows (but not Artillery) but mindless in combat.

So in DBX terms: don't recoil from Bow Shooting but are Destroyed if beaten (no Recoil in Close Combat).

TomT