Why doesn't D&D 5E have skeletons as an explicit player race? They don't seem overpowered

i had more of a "noble paladin who is not aware that he skeletonised a long time ago" in my head

he fell down the stairs of an evil overlord, broke his neck, and awoke years later due to his unfinished business as a skeleton, he is unable or unwilling to recognize his skelliness, but he continues to smite evil

whenever he takes his helmet off, and everyone gasps, he assumes its his scars, and will normally jokingly ask people if they never saw a paladin before

You could fluff a revenant as a skellington, I guess.

Though I don't know if Revenants have rules for 5e.

It's called the Revenant subrace. It can be applied to any race that has a subrace, replacing the existing subrace. It can also be added to race that don't have subraces with a little effort.

dnd.wizards.com/sites/default/files/media/upload/articles/UA Gothic Characters.pdf

I also recommend adding the following trait:
>Undead. You are undead, not humanoid. This makes you immune to any effect that specifically targets humanoids, but vulnerable to effects that target undead; this notably means the spell cure wounds has no effect on you, although the spell inflict wounds will heal you as though it were the cure wounds spell (although you are not affected by your own spells or traits that target undead unless you choose to be). Furthermore, you are immune to poison damage, and have resistance to necrotic damage. Finally, you do not need to breathe, eat, or sleep, though you must still rest in order to regain expended spell slots and other abilities based on resting.

There's no particular reason why your Revenant couldn't look like a skeleton instead of The Crow.

I once saw a paladin whose own skeleton was animated due to a miscast of animate dead. The skeleton had a bit of a Bender personality going on, as opposed to the paladin, and they constantly fought for the control of the body. A cool idea, but unfortunately I think the player didn't quite pull it off.

How about you fuck off with you telling me how to roleplay faggot

>Race
>Can't reproduce

>can't reproduce
>what are liches
>what are necromancers
>what are any mortal with access to necromancy
>what are general evil powers that be
>what are curses

Sure not conventional means but they can still reproduce in a none classical capacity

>Uses alignment system being broken as an excuse to disregard the concept of moral alignment entirely, forcing all his Pcs into a hero role

Get out

Why would they need to if they don't die?

Just look up the Awakened Undead homebrew, it's pretty well balanced.

+1 Dex, +2 Con
Medium size
Speed 30'
Darkvision 60'
Vulnerable to bludgeoning damage
Immune to poison damage
Immune to exhaustion and poisoned conditions
Doesn't require air, food, drink, or sleep
Langauges: Common + one other

Took me one minute, you're welcome
But I'm sure you could have done it yourself

>The BBEG is no longer the spookiest guy in the setting

> Join
> no freelance so all loot is yours

Nope!

Can skeletons break apart without dying?

Like, they're held together by magic so can you pop the skull and a few vertebrae off, plug the feet into the bottom of the neck and then be classed as like, diminutive or something to get shitloads of bonuses to sneak, then run around the corner and scout shit out while being much harder to detect, run back around the corner and reassemble and tell your buddies whats around the bend?

Or just pop your skull off and have the wizard cast fly on it, and float around, still getting the diminutive size class, which seems way simpler but you dont look as funny doing it and someone has to waste a spell slot for your bullshit

>Why doesn't D&D 5E have skeletons as an explicit player race? They don't seem overpowered.
Can't speak for 5E, but AD&D 2E had playable skeletons.

Liches and vampires too.

depends on the skeleton

most skeletons will slowly lose bits and pieces, and cant normally be fixed, so they wil lslowly fall apart from cumulative damage

other skeletons could be like the dragon teeth warriors from jason and the argonauts, simply reassembling until they are literally burned to nothing

>most skeletons will slowly lose bits and pieces, and cant normally be fixed, so they wil lslowly fall apart from cumulative damage
I posted a story about some skeletons suffering from this fate a couple years ago. I should dig it up and post it again.

maybe they're both different subraces

subrace A is always connected, but sturdier and wont fall apart over time (because its a PC race, and that would make people mad I'm sure)
subrace B is squishier (maybe by dropping your classes hit die down a level), but can mix n match their body around to goof off, but have a weakness to fire that makes them prone to losing bodyparts unwillingly against fire-based attacks

for instance, if you get hit with a fireball you'd scatter to pieces on top of the damage taken, and need a full round to summon yourself back together, whereas if you were subrace A you'd just get the damage and be done with it

the fuck you think this is, Plug n Play? magic's mysterious, that means we don't know how it works. Taking off the skull and attaching the feet to the basis caput ossis might work -- ubt its just as likely to leave your skeleton bro permanently disabled from the neck down.

Learn to roleplay correctly then. Alignments are an objectively bad game mechanic. Alignment is the shit flavoring core of the greatest shit twinkie of a roleplaying game of all time. Alignments are shit for several reasons:

>Arguments over alignment which has no strict guidelines.
>DM penalizing characters for acting out of alignment entirely based on black and white morality
>Alignment says nothing about what really motivates a character. Lawful good is NOT a character motivation. End. Of. Story.
>Mechanics based around it are confusing and shitty
>The "fixes" for alignments are often even shittier
>They limit roleplaying
>They discourage roleplaying
>They encourage roll playing
>They make everyone want to play evil characters

Fuck alignment.

Fucking this!

I can't tell you how many campaigns got derailed because someone either acted out of alignment for one scene or decided to play chaotic stupid and piss in the king's cheerios (sometimes literally).

It's also hard to make characters with depth because the shitty alignment mechanics make it so if you play the wrong class and you actually have character development, you end being punished for doing so, which means that future campaigns will be comprised of stereotypes with less dimenions than the paper their characters are written on.

I had a look at somebody else's efforts on the D&D wiki. 3 +2's to stats, but apart from that they're not bad ideas. Mostly about origin of skelly, which is baloney. I like your race write up and your abilities for subraces.

For subraces:

Jumbly-skelly
>A skelly who is jumbly with their bones
+1 to Dex
>Fall to Pieces: On hit You can fall apart as a reaction, taking halved damage and falling prone. Reassembling yourself uses up your action. While in pieces, you can move your various parts freely or try and attach yourself to something. Attaching yourself to something that can move means that you have to make a Dex check of varying DC depending on the size of the object.Once attached, you can move it around using your spooky skeleton power.
> Substitute: using your Jumbly bones, you can replace damaged or destroyed limbs freely. Replacing a limb requires a DC 10 Con check, and adding new limbs scales the DC by 2 for each additional limb you're attaching.

>Sturdy Skelly
>A skelly who is very sturdy and strong.
+1 Strength
>Strong Bones: If not wearing armour your armour is 13 + DEX modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit. You can use this value in place of lower armour.
>Powerful Build: You count as one size larger when hauling weights and heavy objects.
> Tough Bones: You reduce non-magical piercing and slashing damage against yourself by 3. Stacks with the Heavy Armour Master feat.
>Bony Fists: Your unarmed attacks use a d4 rather than 1 point of damage.

...

Try converting into a 5e game if you wanna get spooked.

>Learn to roleplay correctly then

opinion disgarded

>The skeleton had a bit of a Bender personality going on, as opposed to the paladin
So, the paladin kept trying to do good, while the skeleton just wanted to smoke, drink beer, and say "You can bite my bony white ass!"? That's actually kinda funny.

That's kind of awesome

I like using Alignment as a starting point for figuring out what kind of decisions my character would make. If I don't assign an alignment I'm always going to default to "selfish dickhead who lies constantly" just because that's my general method of problem solving.

I'm in a really enjoyable campaign right now where I am playing a Lawful Good Paladin and it's been a fresh experience for me. Having to be honest and trying to sort shit out where I can't lie cheat and steal my way through life has been really interesting. Trying to put myself in a shoes of a selfless nice guy was hard at first but way more rewarding than playing the same character for the eighth time.

Way too spooky