How does Veeky Forums skeleton?

>end of campaign

>tiny human skull on dragons body

>Killed by a cat the next time he enters a town

Damn cats.

A "clean" sentient undead being in a fantasy setting (a intelligent skeleton or lich, as opposed to a ghoul or vampire) would, I think, be a lot like a full-conversion cyborg, but in the most negative potential sense. No glands anymore, so no really vivid hormonal emotions. No sense of touch or taste (or those senses are no longer viscerally linked to pleasure. Its just raw data). a Bender-like cheerfully sociopathic detatchment from living things.

I really liked that bit in one of the order of the stick prequel books about Xykon. Just after becoming a lich, he tries drinking coffee and realizes he can't taste it. Then he casually kills the evil-cafe cute tiefling waitress because she interrupted him, and threatens Redcloak that if he continues to annoy him he'll wring him by his disturbingly-warm air-pipe until his brain cells run out of oxygen, or something.

I played a similar character in 3.x. A skeletin paladin who was cursed to never meet his god in the afterlife by a liche as he killed it.
Wore his armour all the time to be less horrifying in towns.
Drawback was being a couple class levels lower than the party. For healing just used 3.xs negative energy heals undead thing with the partys neautral cleric. Dunno if negative energy is the same in 5e.

Grab the "metal as fuck" knob and turn it up to 11.

Used to be a regular mindless undead skeleton guarding some lich's fortress until he one day got tired of his job and submitted his two weeks notice. The lich was so confounded that he didn't notice the skeleton walking out the door cheerfully whistling a spooky tune on his nonexistent lips.

Now he goes around looking for !ADVENTURE! with no real idea of what it is, given that his only experience with adventurers has been "guys who go into lich castles and fight them".

One day he shows up in the middle of the party. Gets stabbed four times and then innocently asks "am i a lich? is that why you're attacking me?"

I've wanted to play as a skeletal lich ever since I got into Overlord two years ago. To be honest, that's the reason I got into tabletop. You can imagine how disappointed I was that I can't just simply choose an officially published, balanced lich template and go to town. I think it's downright absurd that simple skeletons aren't a default player race for the most mainstream fantasy game in the world like dwarves and elves in 2017.

Group of adventurers get killed trying to claim cursed treasure, years later rival adventurers successfuly claim cursed treasure and go there separate ways to enjoy their wealth. Original adventurers (now skeletons) are reanimated by the curse and pursue the thieves, heartfelt hilarity ensues.

That could be alot of fun to dm

> Game starts at dungeon
> party gets wiped
> many years later
> rez as skeletons and new game begins

Same desu.
Metal skeletons are fun as fuck. Just embrace it.

>Skeleton bard
How would it work

I played a skele once in 3.5, former Human Marshal multiclassed into Bard after death as he read the personal library of the necromancer that killed him.
Marshal hunted necro, necro killed marshal's wife, marshal killed necro but got cursed, marshal kept guardin wife's grave for a couple hundred years and reading books and stories, other players find grave due to plot and become friends due to diplomacy.

Skele kept the extra human feat, used charisma for HP bonus per level instead of Con, used class hit dice instead of d12 per level. Got all the regular undead immunities too.
Was okay, but the game reminded me of why I don't play 3.5: too fucking slow to play, and newbies that can't remember which die to roll.

Oratory, or barking orders at friendlies. Basically Warlord.

Use your ribs as an improvised Marimba.

The skeleton was resurrected along with a host of other undead creatures en masse. Ze twist? He was a former hero who had previously fought the necromancer before and has been given a second chance to finish the fight for good this time and be allowed in the hall of eternal heroes.

>One of my players asks to make a skeleton version of a class
>All the players get together and design the stats
>Cut to two sessions later
>Bonehead needs to be a distraction
>Tries to blow a warhorn
>No lungs
>Gets pissed off and climbs the mast of a ship and body slams the war horn
>horn dwoots
>Bonehead crumbles into a pile out of disgust
>Jams with a traveling band that likes the sound of that dwoot
>Distraction successful

i do like my witty skeletons.

this is also good

>and they dont eat sleep or drink
do they need to breathe?

if no then he's very well equipped as a fisherman or aquatic scavenger. he can catch fish for trades, he can investigate shipwrecks and go after things left underwater. he's very light so the party can easily retrieve him with only a light line

bonus to camouflage in many situations because thats clearly a dead guy and no threat to anyone.

>needs a macguffin to repair bones
perhaps it simply allows you to make an "enchanted bone paste" made from bone-meal and glue that seals the cracks.
do make sure to shellac yourself and wax your joints regularly to prevent wear and water damage

>a Bender-like cheerfully sociopathic detatchment from living things.
>playing a skeleton character exactly like bender
>YESSSSSS

In life, you committed an unforgivable sin against the Goddess of Death, for her reputation for kindness lead you to believe there would be no retribution.

Now, you are bound to walk this world for seventy seven years more, cutting down more sinners in Her name, and you are now a monster.

But you don't really let it get to you, do you? After all, it keeps you occupied, and you've no expenses like food or drink, and while Her voice haunts you in idleness, you're not often idle. Plus, people never much liked you before, what's a bit more bone showing? Your friends still care about you, and isn't that what matters?

aren't those the 3.pf undead rules, not the 5e ones? No CON score in particular would either be really good or really shitty.

>In life, you committed an unforgivable sin against the Goddess of Death
You fantasized about her and jerked off to that
>and while Her voice haunts you in idleness
You are determined to court her now, and regard every telepathic intrusion as flirting

Whenever you get really into it, though, she just reads off how long you've got left in your sentence. You're pretty sure she added a few extra weeks, since you've been keeping count.

You mean this fine gent?

This.

Every time it sings, put on a song from any song from the 1992 Tom Waits album Bone Machine. The drum parts obviously played on its own ribs.

Pretty much how I felt

I was surprised that dragon people were more legitimised then mr bomes

No CON score would result in less HP but a lot of immunities. Give it the racial stat-gains from the template the skeleton is from. Human skeletons will have different stat-bonuses than an Orc skeleton.

Resistance to piercing but weakness to blunt damage. Talks telepathically. Is held together by necromantic magic. If you actually do durabillity, and/or want the player to switch out parts instead of magically healing bones with necromancy, then just make something up.

Always wear a hood and full body-armor or cloak, nobody will react to you being undead if they don't know you're an undead.

Con-man that died at the hands of Count Strahd, resurrected by some loopy necromancer, and now roamed the land of Barovia before meeting a troupe of wayward travellers trying to escape the forsaken land as well

Wore a top hat, and long tailed coat, and walked with a cane that double as a rapier. Multiclassed thief rogue into fighter battlemaster.

Lovable jovial character who loves gold just as much as he does a pretty woman. Memorable moment was when he walked into a room full of revenants, saying the equivalent of "How do you do fellow undead?"

Ended up becoming a full blown edgelord due to an alignment change in the Amber Temple. Decided the only way to beat Strahd and get his revenge was to take all dark powers he can. Became a horrid smelling, black fur covered fiend with skeletal wings, eye holes like endless voids of stars, and would raid graveyards for dirt to eat or cannibalize enemies for their bones. Our paladin was less than happy about that. Obtained Strahd's crown and wears it in battle against him. Summoned hellhounds to fight him and his pawns and shot the mother fucker with finger of death. Was good fun to him. He decided to go back to the Amber Temple after Strahd is dead and hang with Lich Bro, slowly learning how to become a powerful skeleton lord himself. He never escaped Barovia.

Such was Mister Tibbz's wild ride.

I once DM'd a Pathfinder "wild west" game set in a new continent appeared suddenly in the middle of the ocean because of a magical catastrophe that altered tectonic plated and fucked up the world. The new continent is a lawless place that was quickly filled with criminals and other beings that were unlikely to live in society. All the players were undead. We had a Wendigo Barbarian, a Vampire Ranger (Rifleman), a Lich Oracle and a Skeleton Gunslinger.
The game started with them locked in the basement of an house in the middle of nowhere, killing a bunch of cultists focused on sacrificing undead. I created the game with an idea of a "go west!" quest, from the east coast to the western one, discovering shit about the new continent and altering its future, yadda yadda.

That's where the skeleton gets in. Once they got out of the house he realized the town they were locked in was a ghost one. The cult made all the citizens disappear. His reaction was simple.
"This is my town, now. Call me The Mayor."
The rest of the party was cool with it and they started to make their own houses, a lair for the wendigo, a library for the lich...
They still traveled a lot, gaining money to support their ever-growing town and recruiting enemies into their ranks. The Mayor usually spared them and even took bullets for them, always answering the perplexed party with his "A Mayor always looks out for his citizens. And everyone is my citizen.". He had an ungodly Charisma but no Diplomacy. Only a shitload of Intimidate.
It was SOMETHING, and I had a lot of fun building their town and adding new nice places built by their new citizens, like a witch's brewery where alcohol able to influence undead was produced and a theatre with ghost actors. A western adventure about a skeleton and his precious city. They fought raiders, countries and even gods to preserve it, and the players were all pretty hyped about the game. I kinda miss it, since I'm DMing a boring game right now.