D&D 5E (2014) Would skeletons avoid fire?

[Rya.Reisender]

So for example the Wizard summons a Flaming Sphere into a room full of skeletons. The skeletons during their turn could move out of the sphere's damage range and still attack, but would they do that? Or would they simply ignore that they are taking damage?

 

[Imaculata]

That is entirely up to you. They are not very intelligent, but if you want them to avoid damage, then that is what they do.

 

[Al2O3]

I would expect that even Int 1 allows for avoiding damage. Some exceptions for creatures that have enough hit points that they might have learned to ignore damage.

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[jayoungr]

Yeah, self-preservation is about the lowest level instinct there is. Maybe one step higher than "get food."

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Skeletons aren't mindless, so they aren't just going to stand there and allow themselves to be burned up. If they come under attack like that they will react to seek out and kill their attacker and anything living that they encounter on the way.

However they don't feel pain and do not have much of a sense of self-preservation compared to their drive to kill the living. I'd say that they would happily step into a damaging effect if doing so would allow them to attack a living person.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I wouldn't make it depend so much on Int in this case though. I mean do skeletons even have instincts? Or are they just like a state machine "Living creature in sight > Attack living creature".

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I think a better question to ask is; which is more entertaining to you and your players in the moment?

And go with whatever the answer to that question is.

I know that with my group it entirely depends on whether the skeletons appear as being afraid if they avoid the damage (which is not fun for skeletons to be in our opinions), or appear as being dangerously intelligent if they avoid the damage (which is fun for skeletons to be in our opinions).

 

[Jediking]

Depends on what they were ordered to do/how they were raised (from the dead, not from family). It's really your call, but not all skeletons need to act the same either. A group raised by some dread Necromancer may take orders better and move away; a group raised by a trap/spell/area may be mindless and ignore all surrounding.

 

[iserith]

I would do whatever is cooler and more cinematic at that moment. I like the idea of them just standing there, grinning skulls blackening, relentlessly attacking as the flames reduce them to ashes. But watching them dimly recall an aversion to fire from when they were living and instinctively moving away from it sounds cool too in the right scene.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I wouldn't make it depend so much on Int in this case though. I mean do skeletons even have instincts? Or are they just like a state machine "Living creature in sight > Attack living creature".

The fact that they have intelligence at all means they can reason it out, even if they don't have instincts. "If I stand here, I will be destroyed" doesn't take a great deal of thought, and their Int is, while low, well within human range.

As others say, go with what's most fun, but by the book? Yeah, I don't really buy any argument that they would just stand there, unless controlled by a necromancer or other outside force.