[Vile] Your flesh is my armor!

[Xarlen]

I plan on introducing a recurring villain in my campaign that will be a Fighter/rogue. He'll start out human, but due to an accident with the PCs... He becomes a Bone Creature (BoVD), in essence an Intelligent Skeleton.

Now, what I plan on doing with this is, somehow, he has the ability to, after killing somone(thing?), he destroys the skeleton inside their body, and crawls in, wearing their tissue like a suit.

Seeing as he'll be about 5'6, 5'8, shorter targets will look like they're gaunt and stretched out thin, while larger targets will look fat and wrinkly.

But one of the ideas I had about this is, what if the Flesh effected him like armor?

For instance, it gave an AC bonus like a +1-+3 (I havn't decided), and doesn't impede Dex.

If someone misses his AC by one or two, they hit the flesh, and cut it up, but don't effect the skeleton beneath.

Or perhaps it offers some Damage Reduction properties? Subsequently bypassed by Blunt weapons, of course.

What do people think? Ideas? Am I being a munchkin? TELL ME.

 

[Maximillian]

There's no such thing as being a munchkin when you're DM. You control the rules in order to make it interesting. This, I would say, sounds interesting.

I'd say that the skin could easily work as Damage Reduction or AC bonuses, whichever you feel is more appropriate. I like DR, because then this creature can wear armor over his skin. I'd say that normal human skin, however, might only provide a DR of 2/- or 3/- at most.

Do you intend on having him wear the skin just to be scary/evil, or is he attempting to pose as a human? Maybe he gets a disguise bonus of +10 (like change self) to appear human while wearing the skin? Maybe not quite that high?

 

[Xarlen]

If he wears the human skin, and it offers an AC bonus, he can still wear armor. Let's call it a 'natural armor', or DR, or whatever.

Yes, very small DR. Likely vs. Slashing and Piercing weapons, or work as DR 1/- Bludgeon. Because he takes half-damage from Slashing/piercing, he should still take *some*, but not a lot. Because not all cuts go straight to the bone (Although it'd be easier for dead flesh, but in this case it's not Obviously dead, I don't think).

He wears it for two reasons. 1) Because he doesn't like being undead. It's an unfortunate situation, an accident that caused this curse, but he still wants to Try and be human. In someone's skin, I imagine he could have some control; taste and touch, the more carnal of things, so on. 2) For a more Practical reason, a walking skeleton (especially one that talks and is nasty with weaponry) is going to draw some attention.

He'll have some Rogue skills (MS, etc), and Disguise would definetly fit in. This would let him pass as human, when he needs to. But the corpses slooowly deteriorate, because they are, in a real sense, dead. So he's sort've like a 'Skin Vampire'.

The accident will likely be some BAD MOJO magical item shattering, and the shards getting blasted into his bones. Thus, likely the best way to kill him will be to kill him, then remove the pieces.

I can see him, the first or second time he encounters the PCs (Since he'll be a recurring villain), will likely either play dead after his 'skin suit' has been carved up and he's taken some serious hits, or try to get out of there. Each time the PCs encounter him, he'll be wearing a new skin, and wielding the same weapon (Evilly magic of course) and they'll think it's the weapon that keeps plaguing them.

Am I evil, or what?

 

[Ferrix]

Seriously a brilliant idea! Not only will it confuse the frell out of your PC's but the NPC has his own problems (being undead of course). This could almost lead to a solution for the PC's to "save" the NPC by in some manner returning him to actual life. Your ideas are quite well done. I would imagine a DR of 2 or 3/-, and keep a total of the reduced damage and inflict it to the body. Give the bodies a certain number of Hit Points and you have the perfect way of fooling your PC's when the body looks all cut up and drops. I'd steal this idea but I'd feel bad... well, maybe I won't but heheh... Brilliant...

~Ferrix

 

[Xarlen]

It'll certainly freak them out if the body gets up and SMACKS THEM AROUND if they get alone with it. Or the bone starts showing through, or they find the 'discarded skin puppet' somewhere...

Heck, I could even see them filling the puppet full of arrows, skeleton man falls into some water, they go looking when he doesn't come up... and he pulls them in.

And of course, Undead and Poison use are just so lovely. The guy keeping a viper in his mouth at one point, for instance. Viper likely wouldn't be very happy.

And, please use if you like.

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Relics and Rituals 1 has a Armor of Undeath spell which is basically what you're talking about here. It's mechanic is simply temporary hitpoints (I think 25 or so) for a long duration. Perhaps change that as you like and add DR or whatever you want.

 

[Xarlen]

Relics and Rituals 1 has a Armor of Undeath spell which is basically what you're talking about here. It's mechanic is simply temporary hitpoints (I think 25 or so) for a long duration. Perhaps change that as you like and add DR or whatever you want.

As I recall, sin't that just a corpse wrapping themselves around you?

 

[Xarlen]

This is of course a shameless bump.

 

[Oni]

Sounds similar to a monster from the Creature Collection I, a skin devil or something like that.

 

[Xarlen]

Note to self: Check it out later.