D&D (2024) Skeleton Entry and Stat Blocks from New Monster Manual

Posted by Christian Hoffer on Twitter, here's a third stat block from 2025's Monster Manual!

Also don't forget check out the ancient green dragon and the kuo-toa.

 

[vagabundo]

Pretty boring apart from the Flaming Skeleton. Warhorse and Minotaur are a little pointless as the skeletony part does little or nothing.

 

[Reynard]

Pretty boring apart from the Flaming Skeleton. Warhorse and Minotaur are a little pointless as the skeletony part does little or nothing.

It is interesting that they chose to make "being a skeleton" a weakness (vulnerability to bludgeoning) rather than a strength (resistance to piercing).

 

[Thommy H-H]

Why are the "charge" type abilities for the warhorse and minotaur given different text when they work essentially the same way? Why isn't there actually just a "charge" standard ability?

They aren't quite identical. The minotaur's bonus damage works on any target, regardless of size or even if it's a creature or not (so it could ram a door or gate, for example), while the Prone effect works only a Large or smaller creature. If the warhorse charges into an object or a Huge or Gargantuan creature, it has no extra effect, and the action is therefore worded slightly differently. They could have put the "if the target is a Large or smaller creature" at the end of the warhorse's attack for consistency, but I guess they felt it wasn't that important, or the value of emphasising that it only works on certain creatures outweighed the value of identical formatting.

Also, it's only relevant from an editorial standpoint, but both those stat blocks will be derived from those of their living counterparts, which probably weren't written at the same time, so the inconsistency just might not have been noticed until they got to skeletonising them.

 

[vagabundo]

It is interesting that they chose to make "being a skeleton" a weakness (vulnerability to bludgeoning) rather than a strength (resistance to piercing).

Yeah I'm sure they could have spiced it up a little; you get bone shard splinters on a fumble or bone dust lung disease. Or you get Necrotic Plague from the dark energies that animate them if you fight them more than 5 rounds.

E: the picture is the most exciting part!!

 

[Stalker0]

Pretty boring apart from the Flaming Skeleton. Warhorse and Minotaur are a little pointless as the skeletony part does little or nothing.

eh not every monster is meant to be a grab bag of abilities. you just need basic footsolider monsters a lot of times, and skeletons are a classic.

But again there is nothing boring about a minotaur that can literally drop players of the appropriate level 2 in one hit. Hell at level 1, that thing will on average KILL most characters with its gore straight up, and has a decent chance to do that to even the fighter with a decent roll. Big Damage is always exciting!

 

[Warpiglet-7]

It's worth noting that there's nothing of this in the descriptive text. Like, I was fully expecting one of the entries on the random behaviour table to be "attacks anything that moves", but none of them are even particularly aggressive.

As tight as they say they are keeping things…the truth is there is probably a lot of interference with previous editions.

The author may assume that is how it works and it not be codified in the new book: whoops!

Clearly would be better if more explicit…as if the player had never seen any version of D&D before. Bet there are other games samples like this too.

Hell when we play the number of times someone says “that was the other edition” is not zero!

 

[vagabundo]

eh not every monster is meant to be a grab bag of abilities. you just need basic footsolider monsters a lot of times, and skeletons are a classic.

But again there is nothing boring about a minotaur that can literally drop players of the appropriate level 2 in one hit. Hell at level 1, that thing will on average KILL most characters with its gore straight up, and has a decent chance to do that to even the fighter with a decent roll. Big Damage is always exciting!

I disagree, bags of hitpoints are mostly pointless IMO. Each monster should have something unique about it, and passive stuff like vulnerabilities usually don't count.

There is nothing in that description that says Skeleton Minotaur for me, just Minotaur.

 

[Charlaquin]

Why are the "charge" type abilities for the warhorse and minotaur given different text when they work essentially the same way? Why isn't there actually just a "charge" standard ability?

Natural language. The enemy of consistency.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is interesting that they chose to make "being a skeleton" a weakness (vulnerability to bludgeoning) rather than a strength (resistance to piercing).

That’s been the case since at least 2014

 

[dave2008]

I disagree, bags of hitpoints are mostly pointless IMO. Each monster should have something unique about it, and passive stuff like vulnerabilities usually don't count.

There is nothing in that description that says Skeleton Minotaur for me, just Minotaur.

OK, I am curious. As a prolific monster designer myself, but one that does not particularly care for undead, what would you add to make it feel like a skeleton? The only thing that comes to the top of my head is to make it weaker than the parent creature because well - it is just a skeleton. However, I am open to your ideas and suggestions. What do you want a skeleton to be?