Zombie and Skeleton tricks

[BaldHero]

I have been thinking about vicious ways to use Zombies and Skeletons, effectiviely turning them into traps for adventurers. I have a couple of ideas, but was hoping to get more, even more insidious ones.
1) small zombies squirrels stuffed with tanglefoot goo that leap to attack and explode on impact? Chitter chitter twitch twitch splutch!
2) skeletons stuffed with oil flasks and caltrops that stick flaming torches into their ribcages to ignite the oil, and spread catrops and shrapnel over a large area.
3) Zombies stuffed with dozens of tiny skeletal animals that swarm out and attack when the zombie takes more than 50% of its HP, leaping from wounds and ragged holes in the flesh.
These are off the top of my head, ill be back with more later.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

A zombie with all its orifices stitched shut. Inside? Some kind of swarm or an ooze...

 

[Stormborn]

A zombie with all its orifices stitched shut. Inside? Some kind of swarm or an ooze...

I think Monsternomicon has somethign like this in it...a Husk or something.

Not a skeleton trick as such, but one time after the low level PCs had fought lots of undead on the surface and the 1st level of a ruined wizards lair (under an old inn) I had some animated objects/constructs that looked like Skeletons btu were held together by wire. The Disrupt Undead using Sorcerer and the Cleric really hated that.

 

[Arrellion]

Way back in the "Red" boxed set they had some special encounters listed.
My favorite one was a group of skeletons that could launch there fingertips
at the PC's like a bolt.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Wow, you really like stuffing undead, don't you? I'd hate to eat thanksgiving at your place!

- You can cover them in poison
- You can use them in an airless environment
- You can use skeletons in conjunction with any monster that deals piercing damage exclusively

AR

 

[Kesh]

Download the BESM d20 SRD, and add a few of those powers to them. Imagine a zombie with Jump +20.

Then, buy a copy of All Flesh Must Be Eaten. It's a Unisystem game about zombies, with a d20 conversion appendix. Plenty of fun things you can do with zombies, and the zombie-creation system can actually be used to build just about any creature you want.

 

[Anti-Sean]

A zombie with all its orifices stitched shut. Inside? Some kind of swarm or an ooze...

*fails Will save*

Necromancer Burns: "I suggest you leave immediately."
Paladin Homer: "Or what? You'll release the zombies, or the bees, or the zombies with bees in their mouths, and when they groan, they shoot bees at you? Well, go ahead. Do your worst."

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

I think Monsternomicon has somethign like this in it...a Husk or something.

There's the hollow husk in A Swarm of Stirges -- the skin of a humanoid that's been bled to death by stirges, whose death agonies attract a spirit which converts its innards to negative energy & then animates the paper-thin skin. Stirge-riding necromancers then fill the hollow husks with flammable gas, poisonous spores, or flesh-eating bacteria to create shock troops.

There's also a husk template in Silverthorne Games' Book of Templates: Deluxe Edition: a necromantically animated flayed skin which can be filled with acid, yellow mold, or a bunch of other nasty stuff. It also has nice mechanics for the filling spurting out when you strike it!

 

[Vrecknidj]

You can thank my kids . . . .

Stuff an alchemist fire into a tanglefoot bag, and then put the bag in the torso of a skeleton.

Fighter: I whack the skeleton.
DM: Okay. Skeleton's dead. Oh, you're all sticky, with little bones and stuff all attached to you; and you can't move. Oh, and you're on fire and can't put it out because you can't move.

Dave

 

[dvvega]

A really evil cleric could spend his days filling a room/hall/whatever with skeletons who all had a glyph or something explosive. The trigger would be destroying the skeleton (0 hp) and BANG off it goes. This in turn triggers the next skeleton obviously and so forth.

Pretty cheesy.