Skeletons and the Need for Bludgeoning Weapons

[Sunseeker]

Or maybe a 20% chance that a hit with a piercing weapon is really a miss. That way the weapon could still do full damage, but the chance to actually hit something that could be damaged is reduced.

Miss-chance, ie: higher to-hit roll needed is actually significantly more punishing than damage reduction.

 

[tlantl]

Miss-chance, ie: higher to-hit roll needed is actually significantly more punishing than damage reduction.

The miss chance isn't a higher roll to hit. It means you miss entirely even if you could have hit a creature's armor class.

The bolt you shot at it would have hit it in the abdomen, but since there is nothing there to hit, the bolt passed completely through the creature doing no damage to it at all. Otherwise the weapon does normal damage.

I think I'll give it a try in one of our games to see if it might be too punishing. 20% could be little high I think.

 

[am181d]

Sinbad's scimitar seemed to work just fine against the skeletons he fought!

Personally, I agree with the "carrot vs. stick" approach mentioned above. What I'd do is boost the skeleton's HP and then give folks attacking with bludgeoning weapons extra damage dice. Because rolling dice is fun! Players would be all like "Yay! We get to bash some skeletons!"

 

[Ichneumon]

DR can be frustrating, but I believe it has a purpose. A resistant monster is a reminder to the PCs that not everything will yield to the same old methods. They're also useful for making players think hard about tactics: do they try to take the resistant monster out first, or focus on more "reliable" targets and risk suffering lots of harm from it? If the battlefield contains ways to harm resistant monsters, e.g a rockslide that can be triggered to fall on them, this will help to make the fight memorable.

Different weapon types are a useful companion to DR. If a monster's going to be resistant, better to make it resist piercing or slashing damage than to resist all physical damage. I believe that it should be used sparingly, and always paired with a vulnerability. The "golf bag" effect can be reduced by having weapons that can do more than one damage type, or even two at once, such as the morningstar. I'd also like it if criticals always ignored damage resistance.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I think anyone complaining about DR is primarily a player and not a DM. I mostly run, and I love it. And the one time I played a werewolf PC it was awesome.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

The carrot method for skeletons doesn't really work. A fleshy humanoid takes just as much damage from a mace as a skeleton does, so it doesn't make sense to give a weakness to bludgeoning.

In this case DR 5/bludgeoning works. It says that only blunt attacks are effective, which describes a skeleton well.

I agree that weapons should be able to have more than one damage type for purposes of DR. A mace may only do bludgeoning, but a spiked mace would also do piercing. Don't bother with splitting the damage. Simply say that if a creature has DR 5/piercing, then a spiked mace means you're good to go.

Daggers would be slashing and piercing. Axes would be slashing and bludgeoning. A longsword can do all three.

 

[Li Shenron]

Giving skeletons DR/bludgeonging or a similar resistance has always bothered me. Granted, I can see why a spear or arrow might have some trouble, but a slashing weapon like an axe or sword? Are you kidding me? Such weapons can not only chop off limbs and heads, they can do so even with the meat still attached. You cant tell me that a diagonal slash through a skeleton's rib cage with a greatsword wouldn't really ruin its day!

IMHO, skeletons should have resistance to piercing damage only, not slashing.

It's the kind of rule that whatever you make of it you'll always have players bothered because it's not realistic enough, and players bothered because it's already more complicated than worth.

 

[S'mon]

I definitely think "DR 5 vs Piercing" is the best approach.

 

[Connorsrpg]

I always made these type of rulings on the fly anyway. I still like to picture the weapon, how it is used and compare to foe. I agree with the original post for most slashing weapons. How could a longsword of even battleaxe not be as lethal as a mace on a skeleton. But you know whips were slashing, rapiers could be too, and I would not give them any advantage.

Used to go with DR for skeletons but only vs piercing. In 4E I simply used the vulnerable mechanic if a player used an appropriate weapon. Anything to get through the hps faster.

It seemed to be a lot easier to make these calls when all the rules weren't so codified. I prefer to have these sorts of things kept to the monster descriptions so the DM can adjudicate given the monster and situation.

 

[Hassassin]

I always made these type of rulings on the fly anyway. I still like to picture the weapon, how it is used and compare to foe. I agree with the original post for most slashing weapons. How could a longsword of even battleaxe not be as lethal as a mace on a skeleton. But you know whips were slashing, rapiers could be too, and I would not give them any advantage.

It's all relative. If you compare how much damage a sword will do to a living creature and to a skeleton, the sword's bleeding effects won't work in the latter case.

Axes, OTOH, should be slashing/bludgeoning in my opinion.