An army of skeletons against a 9th level party - dumb?

[der_kluge]

I'm working on a dungeon, and I was thinking (just thinking, mind you) of filling a room with like a hundred skeletons. Now, skeletons are obviously no match for a 9th level party, but it was more for flavor, and since this would be like one of the first rooms in the dungeon, it would be more to set the feel of the dungeon.

So, is it feasible? Is there a way to run an encounter like that that won't take 4 hours, or where I can actually make it interesting so that I don't just have to say "You annihilate all the skeletons, and when the dust clears, you see a door on the other side of the room..."

 

[Latency]

What I did with my players is in the room with the skeletons was about waist deep water and the skeletons grappled and tried to drown the PC's. The PC's still destroyed the skeletons but they had a new found respect for them. Just a thought, good luck

Marc

 

[Eldorian]

Don't run this fight. I was involved in a similiar fight with 50 ghouls or so. We backed up to the door, so they could only come 2 at a time, and formed the conga line of death. The DM insisted that we fight the entire battle, it was increadably boring, and lead to the phrase, "Like killing ghouls in a corridor" for any time consuming yet utterly simple act.

Eldorian Antar

 

[der_kluge]

Hmm, that's a pretty nifty idea. I might be able to use that in one of the rooms. Part of the dungeon is flooded...

 

[S'mon]

Wait until the PCs are in the chamber, then the skeletons claw their way out of the earth-packed floor.

Also, maybe give them some intelligent leader types to direct them - Skeleton Warriors, maybe. Or a Death Knight.

 

[der_kluge]

Eldorian, yea that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid - round after round of the PCs hacking down skeletons. It would take a stupid amount of time if the tanks don't have cleave.

I might try to implement some kind of law of averages rule. Like, the skeletons need a 20 to hit, and if 20 of them are attacking, 1 of them will hit. That kind of thing.

 

[Olive]

Is there a cleric, or even a paladin? all they'll do it turn them, and with a decent rioole destroy a heap of them straight off. It's not worth it unless you use wierd skeletons, or something that looks like a skeleton, but isn't or soemthing.

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Have them be exploding skeletons.

 

[FireLance]

How large is the room? If we're talking Medium-size skeletons and each occupies a 5x5 space, the room would have to be at least 50x50 feet.

Perhaps, to prevent the PCs from taking their time and killing them one by one, there could be some nasty environmental effect in the room - poison gas or freezing cold, for example - so that the PCs take damage for each round they hang around.

Another possibility, if you just want the effect of having the PCs swamped by a large number of skeletons, is to use a swarm of Tiny skeletons. You'd have to come up with your own stats for the swarm, though, based on the rules in Fiend Folio.

 

[der_kluge]

Well, turning doesn't destroy undead unless you have the Sun domain.

S'mon, actually the skeletons just exist in large piles on the floor - which is made of stone. Not that it matters much...

Sir Osis - how does one create an exploding skeleton? I'd prefer to just keep them as ordinary skeletons.

It seems to me that, just because you're 9th level, doesn't automatically make you immune to having to deal with all the CR 1 and CR 1/2 crap in the world.