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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DM_Blake" data-source="post: 3894170" data-attributes="member: 57267">Good point.I created a spell that essentially does this to skeletons and had a necromancer use it on a few skellies. Gave the party fits.But, we're dealing with a magical world here. Magic has funny rules. It's not a big stretch to say that the magical power that animates the unliving bones requires a significant continuous structure and that breaking enough of the structure, or more specifically, breaking enough of it in different places, eventually dissipates the animating magic when the structure is sufficiently reduced.This makes for some fun interpretations.Suppose a fighter hits a skeleton in the wrist and severs the hand. Not enough HP damage to destroy it yet. The skeleton keeps advancing. So he hits it again in the same arm, near the writs, and severs a couple more inches of bone. This is essentially the same place, so the skeleton loses very little structure. Another hit to the same forearm, another little tiny bit of structure is lost. But hit the other forearm in the same place, severing that arm and hand, means a lot more structure removed.I play them this way. I often tell a player who hits the skeleton for tiny damage that that is exactly what happened: he hit pretty much the same place as someone else just hit it and didn't really do much new damage.I sometimes even describe a miss like this (much like I can describe missing a dragon as hitting it but bouncing off the hard scales).I do other fun things with skeletons. They have no eye balls, so I figure they "see" their targets differently. Invisibility means nothing to them, as one of my players found out the hard way one day.They have no need to move, ever, and can stand still as a statue indefinitely. So listening at the door will never hear a skeleton on the other side, even with a natural 20, unless it is under direction by its animator to do something. Open the door, and the skeleton who was animated with the order to attack anyone coming through the door will get complete surprise.I have fun with the Monster Manuals. I put a little thought into each monster I use. Why it's there. What it's doing. How it goes about its day. And how the PCs are going to interact with it. Sometimes some pretty funny stuff comes up without breaking any boundaries of what makes sense.</blockquote>

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