D&D 5E (2014) Skeleton behavior

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Of course these are all just the tip of the iceberg of suggestions.

The

*ahem*

Bare bones.

Sorry.

Trying to be humerus.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Sometimes the PCs will kill all the skeletons before they have a chance to respond. Nothing wrong with that. They have a right to hit the win button every once in a while. The only problem here is if the "win button" is just a long, tedious series of the one archer character pew-pewing at skeletons for 10-15 rounds. This would be a good place to bring some of those wandering monsters in. Wandering monsters should always be employed when players spend too much time being boring.

Or a good place to skip to the end of combat. "Okay, you smash all the skeletons to bits from range. You're now in an empty cell surrounded by bits of skeleton corpses. On the north wall..."

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I just finished running an adventure in which a vampire is using skeletons to mine deep into the earth for something. He also has an army of skeletons making rounds of his lands.

The miner skeletons did not respond to the actions of the PCs other than to do their best to keep swinging picks, loading carts, pushing carts, etc... Nothing the PCs did to the miner skeletons would have resulted in combat. But yet they left them all alone. The party even rode around in mine carts pushed by skeletons.

The skeleton army would have attacked on "sight" had the PCs not hid from them.

 

[Fralex]

Going by my most recent experiences with living skeletons in RPGs, I'd say typical skeleton behavior includes telling really stupid jokes and going on dates.

 

[Staffan]

5e skeletons are a bit different from skeletons from previous editions (well, I don't know about 4e, but at least before that).

Here's the description of skeletons from the 3.5 SRD:
"Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, mindless automatons that obey the orders of their evil masters.

A skeleton is seldom garbed in anything more than the rotting remnants of any clothing or armor it was wearing when slain. A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do. It can draw no conclusions of its own and takes no initiative. Because of this limitation, its instructions must always be simple. A skeleton attacks until destroyed."

But here's what 5e has to say:

"This energy motivates a skeleton to move and think in a rudimentary fashion, though only as a pale imitation of the way it behaved in life."
"Although they lack the intellect they possessed in life, skeletons aren't mindless. Rather than break its limbs attempting to batter its way through an iron door, a skeleton tries the handle first."
"When skeletons encounter living creatures, the necromantic energy that drives them compels them to kill unless they are commanded by their masters to refrain from doing so."

These are two very different creatures. One is a robot that does only what it is commanded to. The other is a hateful creature that is, on occasion, temporarily leashed by the foul magic that created it. And if left alone for a length of time, the old-school skeletons will keep doing what they're doing, while 5e skeletons will break free and start being evil.