I would go with a more tank-y build, since you used a 100kg man as an example I will too, as you said a 15kg skeleton with the strength of a 100kg man would be very mobile but add 85kg of armour and you have merely reduced his mobility back to what it would've been if he had flesh... except his flesh is armour. now since skeletons don't get tired he can tire out his opponents (or starve them if it really comes down to it) and with all the armour he will be fairly protected from damage. now for the weapon, a war hammer is going to be used because it can do lots of damage in a short amount of time
Now what about Dark Souls style skeletons? The ones where the magic can keep them alive for a very large amount of damage, but can't keep them together through too much physical stress? In such, if you hit a skeleton enough times in quick succession or with a heavy enough weapon they'll just break apart all over the ground and then magically reassemble. Dark Souls is the latest game I remember seeing skeletons like these, but surely it isn't the only game nor is it the first. So if that were how the magic worked, skeletons would get only a temporary benefit from armor since pieces would fall off after they were scattered and not come back to their reassembly once separated from the bone inside. Those are the ones I'm particularly interested on, since they'd need to be smarter and more creative.
George Takei Daggers have one major drawback when you compare them to other medieval weapons, that is reach. I do not care how fast you are, if I am holding a 3 foot sword and you are holding pair of daggers you will lose limbs before you get to me. And if I hold a shield paired with that sword, daggers would be utterly useless. Dagger is a sidearm, there is a reason that only daggers ever used as battlefield weapons were backup weapons intended to be used when range becomes so short that your primary weapon, usually spear or some other type of pole-arm becomes impractical to use.
wouldn't they especially benefit from being encased in armour? like wouldn't the armour help keep the bones in place to prevent them from going all over the place when hit too hard?
Go for a combination. Tanky armor skeleton on the front lines Fast rapier skeleton thrusting over, around, and _through_ the tank at the enemy. Tireless archer skeleton holding the arrow at full draw waiting for that split second opening.
The scariest thing about skeletons is their ability to hide inside ordinary human beings, think about it, you mom, your dad, even your best friend, might have a skeleton inside them.
Hold on a second, my brother landed really hard on his leg one time and it kinda snapped. When they took an x-ray of him, he had a broken *skeleton leg* inside his! From a few injuries, I think he might have a skeleton inside him! Oh man, what if a skeleton is just disguising itself as my brother!? I need a weapon to fight him in case he comes out (lol) as a skeleton! SHAD, WHAT DO I USE!?
Fuck, that sounds like a horrifying mortal combat move. Soak someone completely in magic then use the magic to separate their skeleton from their body , then possess said skeleton and puppet it.
A skeleton warrior rushes to its skeleton commander. "There's a group of adventurers entering the crypt!" The commander replies "Do they have any paladins?" "No" "Then we're fine" "No its worse!" The warrior insists frantically, "they've got dogs!" "Well...were boned" laments the commander
A lot of comments are talking about how a skeleton could wear a shitton of armour since they don't have to lug around all the fleshy bits humans have, but why not take the concept further? The way skeletons are being imagined here sound essentially like a magically powered animatronic chassis. There are no moving parts, complex structures or power sources required to move the bones, and the only logical way to damage them would be to break the bones themselves. So forget wearing armor- you could cast steel directly around the skeletons' bones to make invincible humanoid war machines, or a particularly evil necromancer might even build skeletons directly into the mechanics of a siege engine to act as an immortal, tireless equivalents to a hamsters on a treadmill. The possibilities are honestly endless, yet these guys always end up as derpy canon fodder in fantasy media.
oh yeah necropolisi powered by an undead horde is old hat. One trick I’ve seen in D&D is have a undead trigger a toggleable magic item repeatedly to charge up a arcane conversion field to fire off a spell to another conversion field instantly... wireless transmissions via spells. It’s not that big a step have the undead as a parser for simple language to transmit a message in magic to another location where it is then descrambled from spell form by the recipients.
I always assumed that if you had the resources to start casting your skeleton warriors in steel, you'd just make golems or something instead. Skeletons are the budget minion.
No, much cheaper actually since you don't have to go through the entire process of mummification which also requires a multi-person ritualistic curse to be done properly :)
@@helium-379 undead are weak to fire. Soak the cotton with watter. Now the have weight, fire resistance, crush resistance and scatter resistance. Genius
I had never considered the speed element. It's just one of those assumptions that never gets looked at. Another thing this this leads to... fast movement + good jumping + lack of muscle fatigue + low weight would make climbing along walls, or possibly even ceilings really, really viable. Give them a set of ninja style climbing claws and suddenly you have to be vary wary of verticality when fighting them as they may not be simply rushing you along the ground.
generally how it works, but if you start thinking about it, the approach from maybe the anime Overlord, where he equips high level undead with legendary class gear, is the smarter way to do it. would be counter productive to one of the main benefits of using skeletons in the first place (assuming a mage of some kind reanimates them) which is that they are cheap and disposable, but it could drastically increase their power to give them suitable gear. I suppose it depends on lore and how much the magic that animates them can change their attributes like durability and strength
Assuming there's enough of them, I'd say pikes. A fearless pike formation that is impervious to arrows and other pike formations, that would be a near impossible thing to defeat.
Or to all combine together and form one giant, unstoppable skeleton ball rolling down the stairs at it's enemies. And then roll back up again because why the hell not. Or even merge to become a dead guy made up of a thousand dead guys, that'd be neato. Or Nito, whatever.
@@eyeballpapercut4400 What? We wouldn't be able to speak unless we learned a language meaning we are intelligent. That's what intelligence is, the ability to learn.
I just realized something during the discussion, Skeletons wouldn't be able to wear plate armor. Plate armor is resting on your flash and muscles, not your bones, and even at places where it is interacting with your skeletal structure it's either straps, like over your collar bone, or heavily padded, like over the hips. Skeleton would be just rattling inside of it, it wouldn't be able to move properly. It would be able to wear mail Armour, but even that would be probably sagging to it's knees, impairing it's movement. Greaves, pauldrons and gauntlets are simply out of the question as is knee and elbow protection, all those things are made to fit your muscles.
Then the plates' formats would just have to be ajusted to this new shape. Because they're actually smaller then the plates can also be smaller, fitting around the bones and be much thicker.
true, but couldn't the skeleton just wear layers of thick cloth padding (multiple gambisons etc) to fill out the space needed for armor? to my knowledge this was done historically to people so why not double the padding to simulate muscle?
he would need some ethereal skin and muscles that can only interact with the skeleton and the enchanted armor, just saying if magic in its world would be able to accomplish that.
On the flip side, the bulge for their last thumb joint would function like a built-in thumb ring without the tendons and flesh getting in the way, so would be perfect for that kind of draw.
It's funny as soon as you said they'd be faster and lighter, I thought "well than they should use a rapier" and then you named axes and stuff and I was like "nahhh rapier man" but then you brought it up and I was happy.
They could wear a very thick gambison. They wouldn't be affected by heat and it would protect them from blunt damage. Their low weight is a disadvantage for close range combat, so they would need a weapon that is light and give them some range why they exhaust their opponent. A rapier is a good idea, but I think that a spear and shield might be better.
Actually the gambeson would hold their joints together too. If they're held together by magic if you break say their shoulder then as long as the arm is still in the sleeve it could reconnect.
Always great! Now I kind of want to use a disguised skeleton for a formal duel. His opponent stabs him "Aha!" The skeleton is unphased and stabs him back.
He could be the _legendary swordsman known to have never lost a duel_ (then you could have a squire aspiring to become the strongest swordsman aiming to one day meet the -skeleton- swordsman of legends and defeat him in a formal duel, the squire goes through his hero's journey and in the final battle against the skeleton, he loses -and maybe becomes an undead himself- )
That was in an episode of Merlin: this dead knight was reanimated to keep challenging Uther's Knights (the knight had a personal vendetta against Uther in life, and now cannot rest again until that vendetta is fulfilled).
Rew Rose Aha! Then this squire comes back as a skeleton with a mace, knowing -skeleton- master swordsman's greatest weakness and runs up to him and just cracks his skull and becomes the next greatest duelist
My Maximum Skeleton Survival Build™ (assuming you need to rip apart their joints or break their bones in two): >Use cords to bind the joints together for support >Wrap all the bones in cloth, treated to survive the elements. Basically mummy-style. >Use full plate armour, including a thick gambeson and chain. Preferably treated against the elements, and possibly made fire resistant too. Go extra thick on the armour. >Kite shield for 100% shieldy goodness. >Spear as primary weapon, rapier as backup. Maybe even carry a bow and arrows. >Top off the build with a doot doot. All skeletons need a doot doot.
@@lachlanmckinnie1406 thank you for the clarification. If its a skeleton that has the power of speach then i agree it deserves to toot its own horn. However if its of a type that can't speak a drum might be a better fit. And once again thank you for clearing up the doot doot thing.
And then of course, because The Laws Of Comedy are strong in my campaign, the skeleton hops after the dog carrying it's leg, completely forgetting it's orders to kill the PCs.
From my experience with roleplaying games, the most effective weapon you can give a skeleton in a medieval fantasy setting is the gun. No one expects the skeletal wizard to pull out a 1911.
Only a year behind. Its not if the skeletons are smart enough to pick out weapons and armor. Its what the discerning necromancer chooses to protect his bony automatons.
Sounds fun. I think you best bet, magic permitting, would be to just augment their their teeth and claws. Just replace one hand with a puncturing spike for getting through armor and the other with a hammer. Its not like they are smart enough to use much else and reach isn't much of a concern since the game plan is just to overwhelm. What would be really fun would be coating the skeleton bones in metal to protect them from shattering and adding spikes and sword breakers.
Then, he can stick them in a bag of holding, and shoot or teleport the bag of holding to the enemies he wants rattled, before the skeletons come out of the bag. Bad boys get the skeleton bag!
It's not proportional strength so they actually could wear armor weighing 80 kilos as that would be roughly the weight of the flesh that has been removed and so they would move almost as if they were a normal human with no armor
You raise some great and valid points but I think you're missing the obvious, true skeletal choice of weaponry: The Russian RPG-7. A dinky old warhammer or mace would stand no chance against a glorious pale-boned skeletal warrior with an RPG-7. You can't deny it: It's cheap and effective, one of the best anti-armor and even anti-tank kits you could use. And with Skeletons not having muscle fatigue, what's stopping them from carrying several RPG-7s, loaded and ready to blast into the general direction of a would-be hero or even British Army observation post, if your campaign happens to be set in Northern Ireland.
When it comes to applications with skeletons, one of my more favorite examples would be used in one of the novels I read which was to send skeleton armies underwater to suddenly overwhelm cities near oceans and other bodies of water
The only problem with that is because of their weight and lack of surface area to paddle, they would move extremely slowly in water, end up floating awkwardly, and be completely at the mercy of currents.
You know how in Dark Souls the skeletons fall apart when you hit them and then come back together moments later? I wonder if this could be used to absorb blows. So whenever a skeleton actually does get hit it loses all rigidity and behaves like a bunch of hanging stones. I mean, without anything to connect or stabilize them, their bones are just floating in the air through magic anyway right? Maybe fighting a skeleton could be a little like fighting a puppet where each limb is independent of the rest of the body. You could "shatter" an arm into all of its skeletal components only to have it reform from the broken pieces while the other runs you through. Just a thought.
@Split Haven in that case it will be either to break the skull which contains the soul fire, or if they are controlled by necromancers, kill the master.
His colleges Skallagrim and Lindybeige might beg to disagree. Skallagrim has started similar series already and Lindy talks about variety of stuff (mostly tanks lol) but his video about Cyclops 3d vision is really close to what Shadi is doing right here: adding logic to fantasy
+Shadiversity 1. Coat bones in metal, wolverine stile, or metal plates; e.g. bronze, brass, copper, maybe even steel, etc. 2. Use something to stabilise joints and spine with something: several leather strips, cordage, wire, etc. 3. Wear tight-fit gambeson (lots of flexible fabric, bound like tatami, to simulate flesh and bolster bones from heavy hits) covering the whole body. 4. equally tight fitted metal armour over that, e.g. chainmail or plate. 5. Fill the skeletons rib-cage with with straw or cloth-scraps to further lessen heavy blows, or find another way to do that.
If skeletons are moving with the help of magic, wouldn't it be more advantageous for the dark wizard who's created the skeletons to just make weapons fly instead? I mean, a typical skeleton has hundreds of bones. Imagine that instead of cooperating the movement of a hundred bones, you would cooperate the movement of a hundred daggers!
Magic and the supernatural in general operates on soundness, you can imagine a magic user commanding a skeleton because it once was a human, it is "plausible". But a bunch of daggers? The wizard might be able to levitate a few, but not really "give it commands", much less making them independent "beings" that could protect a dungeon for decades. That's also why magical constructs such as golems and the like are given a human shape, or at the very least a beast shape, because if it's just an everyday object, the magician can't truly "believe" those to be able to act on their own.
Great, now I am just imagining skeletons jumping around like crazy, and that sounds like a very spooky time. Definitely going to use this for my campaign setting.
One other the existential threats an intelligent skeleton would worry about (depending on the magic) is that they might not heal. Every nick of damage from weapons of weather would eventually wear them down to dust. If they wanted to last longer they might try to cover themselves in clothing or glazes. Imagine how tough a skeleton would be if they coated their bones in steel, that would be pretty awesome if they could survive the process.
Well Brook in One Piece just drink milk to power up from all the calcium! X,D Seriously though Skeletons are the most expendable undead, they are not for long term use anyway.
Because skeletons are so light and nimble the could be really stealthy. A short sword, small sword or dagger would enable them to sneak up on a foe more easily than with a pole arm. They'd be able to hide in small spaces and wait in ambush. No peeing or eating required!
Jonathan Gibson skeletons are usually depicted as kinda noisy because of the lack of flesh and cartilage to make them quiet. They would be really great for ambushes though, especially if they're the kind that can disassemble and reassemble themselves. They're so great at it, that it's almost normal to be wary of piles of bones if you're in/playing a fantasy rpg where they can do that.
DynamicWorlds Oh god, I can just imagine that...That would make formation fighting against them really hard...especially if skellatons can reset after combat...
I just found the perfect weapon against skeletons! WATER BOTTLES!!!!!! Because water bottles are for sophisticatedghagdadfifa people, and skeletons aren't sophisticated at all, they fight naked!
considering that skeletons are held together with magic (either from a castor or their own soul, which may affect their intelligence), it could be assumed that skeletons would make for very effective mages. typically the most powerful magics are shown to have devastating side effects on the persons health, but a skeleton doesn't have to worry about that. in fact it is usually the skeletal Lich who is depicted as the most intelligent and powerful spellcaster, because they shed their limitations of the flesh and have full control over their actions because their own soul is what powers them.
Lichs have a specific weakness, in that they typically cannot regenerate magic power like a living mage. This is important, or they would be almost unstoppable.
I like the way they portrayed the skeleton Brook in the anime one piece. They took into account the fact that he would have been faster and lighter by giving him much higher movement and attack speed and jump height. And for his weapon he has a very light cane sword and very fast fencing/dueling attack style.
"They always are portrayed as fast and mobile as humans" I have scars of the Catacombs and Nito's lounge, and a friend with a violin and an afro who would like to disagree! Joking aside, skeletons are some of my favourite monsters in fantasy. There is something about these phyiscal incarnations of both death and defying nature being kind of silly looking while still being intimidating and relentless killing machines. A particular setting I was working on had some heavy focus on the undead, and its core concept was that skeletons that were reanimated had their memories during life kept in their bones, and as they grew older and the bones got damaged, they would become more feral and insane. Add to it some necromancers feeling it would be funny to mix and match bones between corpses to create interesting looking abominations of calcium, mixing their minds with one another and forcing them into this constant existential crisis, if not outright madness. That way the usually boring first line redshirts of an undead army suddenly become a pretty fascinating fantasy "species"
Very interesting stuff here! Makes me think about how I would answer a lot of those questions as a writer. Skeletons would be simplistic but inefficient undead, animated for a brief period (as the magic is essentially the only thing keeping them alive), for a clearly defined, immediate task. They would be the last resort of a necromancer hiding in a crypt; leave an axe or rapier by every ancient corpse and raise them as soon as the heroes step down the final stair for a quick horde of essentially suicidal berserkers with natural armor (being resistant to blades).
I was thinking along the lines that skeletons would or could have a very large amount of mp, using it passively as hp and to keep them intact/moving, with them only able to use a small portion to cast magic if not at all. Liches on the hand would have the same amount of magic, but just inverted. Able to use the majority of thier mp for magic, but leaving little to hold the together, thus explaining why they're physical weak.
Actually magic in case of skeletons does much more. Because sceleton has to move around based on magic (no muscles). And basicly if it holds together it's based on magic too. So it's like telekinesis doll with some artificial soul stucked into. Also - lich is basically the same but with soul of a powerful necromancer.
I'm thinking a form of "ethereal muscles," created by magic, is how a skeletal being moves. And wether a skeleton can use magic or not usually depends on if they could in life or not. And in the lich's case, to be an execptionally powerfull necromancer, is sort of a requirment to become one in the first place.
This sort of "balancing" races and monsters for D&D sessions were causing me headaches for a very long time. How to make skeletons work and not destroy world integrity, rules of magic use etc? I decided to say final NO to classic skeletons. In my universe, even a skeleton needs to add a mass, usually some kind of cemetery soil / ash, so skeleton is basically decomposed zombie.
As soon as I saw the title of this video my thoughts were " they're re-animated corpses of warriors so wouldn't they just use the weapon they used in life?" Also due to the fact ( or fantasy ) they're being held together by magic it would take an amazingly powerful necromancer to make them able to run, especially if you want an army of them!
one of the main things to consider would probably be who's arming them. They're receiving magic from somewhere and are probably being deliberately maintained for some purpose. Also in most of the media i've seen they actually seem to be a bit feebler than usual humans, but i guess that would be a bit relative to how much power they're being fed, maybe you can adjust their strength depending on how much magic you wanna expend? Maybe as some are killed the remaining ones get stronger as magic is freed up? Also he mentioned skellys underwater at one point, which raises the interesting idea of unconventional tactics and ambushes only they could pull off.
Shad, wouldn't the skeletons' lack of fatigue give them an added advantage when wearing heavier armor than the average human could? If I understand it, it wasnt so much mobility that was hindered by heavier armor, but rather the ability to persist in battle without tiring. So a skeleton would be able to wear heavier armor than an equivalently sized human, since they don't have to worry about fatigue.
Dan Haas Although at that point, you are better off just animating the armor instead of the skeleton. Although, if you already have an animated skeleton... or an autonomous skeleton, it could help. Also, wouldn't need excessive padding, one thick layer should be enough.
Ninja Hombrepalito perhaps you could raise both? Have the skeleton wear the cursed armor but the armor has the warrior skills while the skeleton has a more mage like skill set perhaps even a mage skilled in necromancy itself... this combo screams boss fight.
I did a D&D monster like this. Flesh golems in animated plate armor wielding a dancing greatsword, all linked up mentally by the wizard who made them to protect his tower.
I really liked the 'physics' of skeletons in Dark Souls, where they were some of the most lightweight and athletic enemies (especially in Dark Souls 3), leaping all over the place and doing very acrobatic maneuvers with their lightweight frames, but the impact of a heavy weapon would cause their bones to scatter and leave them vulnerable while the magic keeping them animated took a moment to put them back together, and they fought with fittingly lightweight, dexterous weapons - shamshirs, falchions, sabers, and shotels (and bows). So not exactly a rapier, but the same general train of thought as to their agile fighting style.
I would give them gamesons rather than plate armor I think. Very thick pillow-y gamesons might soften the blow from blunt weapons, where plate would fold in and, if struck in the same place again, would hit the bones as well. A fast skeleton with a quick poking rapier would be a terrifying threat, assuming they have the intelligence to use proper stances and possibly parry and dodgw blows from maces and such.
Armor is already worn with gambeson, and if a blow is strong enough to fold the plate inwards, then gambeson isn’t going to protect anything as it yields far more easily than metal does.
@@trabladorr Maybe not, actually. A thick gambeson that would normally lock up a human may allow full maneuverability for a skeleton because of the fact they have less mass in basically their whole body, allowing for a greater range of movement. If it was fitted to a skeleton's proportions though, then maybe it'd need to be thinner.
I think a discussion like this requires a much more in-depth analysis. Since animated skeletons are the result of a necromantic spell, the magical strength to animate the skeleton and provide it its own strength would vary greatly depending on the skill and innate magical power of the necromancer who raised it. So in terms of their weight, we COULD treat the magical animation as a replacement for tendons, muscles, etc all depending on the power of the spellcaster. A novice necromancer would not be able to raise a skeleton with as much physical strength as a master necromancer. Therefore the weight of the weapon being a percentage of their own bone-weight seems to me at least to be highly variable. But... just going off the "comparable strength of a ____" In that regard, I think that the best kind of weapon used would depend on what kind of skeleton it is. (Human, Dwarf, Snakeman, etc)
3:15 Ha!. In my book, the first thing my MC mentions once he realizes he's been turned into a skeleton, is that he needs armor to gain weight, because otherwise he'd be thrown around too easily. I'm two steps ahead of you, Shad!.
FerretPirate The short version would be "Legendary hero rises from the grave to liberate his people from oppression and to do justice with the necromancer who turned him into a monster". The plot isn't really that important, though, it's mostly character driven, as the protagonist has to come to terms with the idea that maybe his people don't deserve him sacrificing his life again for them. It also goes pretty deep into the central father-daughter relationship, and there's plenty of drama. With all that being said, I'm writing in Spanish, so it's unlikely that it'll be translated, unless it somehow became a best seller.
Thanks, I really like how it's coming along (About 65% done, minus all the rewritting and editing). It worries me how could it be marketed, though, because it touches some pretty deep themes, so it's definetely not for everybody. It goes into subjects such as guilt, the meaning of life and heroism, forgiveness, justice, acceptance (Almost everyone is terrified of the MC and rejects him one they see he's a skeleton below the monk outfit he wears), and one of the main character archs is the MC struggling to find a reason to keep on living after 119 years (As of the current chapter) of having everything fall apart around him, and the guilt he feels for having failed almost everyone he cared about back when he was still "biologically" alive.
In this one fantasy story/series I'm working on, one of the characters I have is an animated skeleton called Skelly, who works as a city guard. His background is that he was a barbarian warrior who fought a necromancer, who, with their dying breath, cursed the barbarian into becoming an animated skeleton. Of course, after this, no one wanted him in their village - the other undead get more respect - and after a hundred years of wandering, he'd forgotten his own name, which is very sad. One day, he smuggles himself into a city, in a wagon filled with other skeletons destined for the wizards/apothecaries, and wanders the streets, where he ends up assisting in the capture of an Unlicensed Thief (basically, if you are part of the Guild and have a license, you're free to steal within reason, but if not, don't get caught by an Official Thief as they will break your bones), and thus comes to the attention of the Commander, who has the habit of looking past one's race, and basically gave him a job, and a name. Granted, the job isn't glamorous, because he's among the first ones sent to see just how upset a crowd is, depending upon if he comes back with arrows stuck in his armor in normally fatal areas, and is the training dummy the new recruits end up finding out from that real people fight back in a fight. It tends to poke fun at the usual stereotypes.
They'd be lighter so they'd fly easier, except their wing membranes are gone. They'd need their membrane replaced by leather or something and then they'd fly like nobody's business. Aerodynamics might become an issue, considering their lower mass and inertia, but most air could probably just go through them.
ninjacatcook If the skeleton dragon was.... just as strong as normal dragons.... and could breathe fire some how... and they where even faster and more maneuverable then normal dragons.. and they never get tired... and have powerful and strong dragon bones that are hard to break... They would give even the all powerful orc army’s and giant army’s Hell
Your videos are always so interesting, touching on subjects that most people wouldn't even realize about. You bring a whole new set of perspectives at looking at phantasy related stuffs, and I thank you greatly for your works, Mr. Shad. :]
One very important advantage a skeleton has over a human opponent is their complete immunity against poisonous and irritating substances, as the lack any sensitive organs like lungs or eyes. This means that a skeleton could simply throw globes filled with chlorine, tear gas or any other type of chemical weapon at its opponents, which then either would kill them outright, blind them or otherwise impair them, allowing the skeleton to end their misery with any weapons of its choosing. Alternatively, the skeleton could fix censers filled with burning toxic plants, chemicals or alchemical substances, to its armor thereby surrounding itself with a toxic fog or virulent miasma. Combine this idea with some of the heavy armor mentions in some of the other comments and you get an undeath knight wearing nearly impenetrable armor surrounded by a literal mist of death that chokes the life out of everything and everyone that dares to come to close to them. Just imagine a full formation of these "things" slowly marching towards you in eerie silence while the very grass at their feets withers and dies. In addition to their poison immunity skeletons are also very resistance against fire and heat (as long as the fire doesn't interfere with the magic holding them together), which would allow them to coat their armor or clothing with some sort of flammable material like oil, pitch or simply wood and then set themselves on fire becoming some sort of undead human torch. Depending on what sort of flammable material they used, the wouldn't even need to use a weapon, instead, they just could simply hug their opponent and cover them with some of the burning stuff. Combine this idea with their greater movement speed and you get a burning skeleton covered in some sort of medieval napalm charging at you with superhuman speed, literally hellbent on hugging you to death or tearing you apart with a giant war axe that is also on fire. Both of my ideas, therefore, help skeletons to not only become more effective in combat but also further improve the amount of fear and terror there are able to instill in their opponents, thereby crumbling the moral and fighting will of their enemies before they are able to crumble the bones of the skeletons. On a strategic level an army of skeletons would actually even more frightening than on the battlefield, because skeleton like other undead creatures require neither food nor shelter to keep them protected from the elements, which would allow them to use a scorched earth tactic on the offense as the burning of food supplies, the poisoning of wells and the destruction of houses would be meaningless to them but severely harm their opposition. TL;DR "Skeletons are spooky."
Honestly that's so OP that it would necessarily have to interfere with the magic holding the skeleton together, or else you'd have a fundamentally broken fantasy world that if followed to its logical conclusions would just be filled with warring states fighting proxy battles with standing skeleton armies, and any human fighting would be using some kind of insane magical supersoldiers or very small groups of permanent underdogs using guerrilla tactics
World War 1 would have had a completely different approach to chemical weapons if either side had Skeletons 0.0 Which could be an awesome fantasy setting of its own....
Lazypackmule You could make skeletons work as long as they require absolutely ridiculous amounts of effort, wealth or perhaps blood sacrifice to create. For example, emperors might only have a skeleton or two guarding their tomb. The skeleton's equipment would be a small fraction of the price paid for a skeletal soldier.
Yes and no. The answer depends on the efficacy of fire tactics and on the reactivity of aerosolized acidic poisons and blistering agents. High concentrations of mustard gas are still effective on Skeletons. As the main component of"dead bone" is hydroxylapatite ( Ca5(PO4)3(OH) ), which is a base; while mustard gas (sulfur mustard compounds) are all acids, as are their decomposition byproducts. Several studies have shown that acids (esp. strong acids) are more effective at destroying bone tissue than bases as the acids target the ossified extracellular matrix, while the bases target the structural proteins. (It would take days or weeks, but in a war where the primary tactic was trench warfare, time isn't your big issue.) Since "dead bone" is proportionally more ossified extracellular matrix than anything else, acids would be the most effective chemical attacker. The damage would also be cumulative, and acid damage of bone usually does not change the physical appearance of bone before it its mechanical properties are similar to shortbread. (www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/can-acid-dissolve-a-body/3007496.article) I would like to point out that mustard gas is not a strong acid, but it does form a film of sulfur mustard on things exposed to the gas (as it is an aerosol, not a true gas). "Dead bone" is also significantly more porous than "live bone" with respect to chemical absorption, and the lacuna and canaliculi of the bone are small enough that one would have to worry about capillary action causing deep bone penetration of sulfur mustard compounds, essentially dissolving the bone from the inside out. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/350579/DstlTR25697_V1.pdf) By Coincidence, most common classical non-alkaloid poisons are quite acidic, and damage inflicted by weapons coated would slowly fester as well. World War I, would have seen some differences, but probably not in its general usage of chemical weapons (since all were acids). I would assume that both sides would attempt to position themselves upwind and blanket the battlefield in chemical agents (without the need to supply rations, much more chemical agents could be manufactured for such a purpose.) The impurities found in chemical agents of the time caused the chemical clouds to be opaque, greatly limiting visibility. However, The gases saw development because of their heavier-than-air properties, which made them sink into the trenches. Thus, while mining the battle field would make it hazardous to cross (even for Skeletons), the gases would force charges across no-man's-land. So it is unlikely that major changes would be made to the use of chemical weapons in World War I, but their use would probably have been more ubiquitous (which would cause all sorts of problems after the war). Also, France, (specifically Paris) would be fine, thanks to the Catacombs of Paris. Ironically, snipers would still be useful during windy conditions, as the gases blanketing the battlefield would dissipate more quickly, increasing visibility. German snipers could, with the help of optical scopes, regularly make successful head shots across the trenches. Provided with frangible or fragmenting bullets, these would still be quite lethal to Skeletons. I would also point out that skeletons, while plentiful, are a finite resource. Replenishment of your army would be difficult because most chemical methods of speeding up skeletonization (oddly, a legitimate term) cause some sort of damage to the bone structure. Mechanical and thermal methods are more labour intensive, and would increase the cost of the war more than chemical methods. And even mechanical and thermal methods would require significant resource expenses after flesh removal before one could produce a skeleton. Thermal methods could also be used to enhance skeleton troops. One could strengthen skeletons by slowly exposing bone to dry heat under a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere to temperatures greater than 1360 C. This decomposes the hydroxylapatite and allows for bone densification. (It also speeds protein decomposition.) It must be noted that hydroxylapatite reforms as the temperature is brought below 1100 C. (This method could also be used to repair mechanical damages to bone structures.) (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10509191) Slow heating and cooling is a must, as the rapid recrystallization of the bone inorganic matrix would create a glass, making the skeleton brittle. Larger crystals improve chemical resistance, usually at the cost of the creation of cleavage planes. Thus accurately controlling the cooling to create optimal crystal size is very important. This would make rapid production of useful skeletons difficult. Skeletons would still have to worry about heat damage as well. Any method of heating (fire?) them above 1360 C would be absolutely devastating. The rapid cooling due to the presence of mud, rain, and snow on World War I battlefields would make glass transition more likely in skeletons. This would embrittle them. Consequently, bullets (esp. buckshot) would be more effective against them. As a result, we might expect more fire based defenses. Although, when chemical gases are deployed, it would be inadvisable to use fire, as the resulting conflagration would be extremely dangerous to everyone caught in it. (Great for clearing the air though.) Also, flaming Skeletons would be susceptible to attacks with rectified vinegar (or similar aqueous acid) in a manner similar to Hannibal's use of fire and sour wine crossing the Alps, or the ancient Chinese method of fire and frost. The rapid cooling introduces mechanical stresses and the heated acids react with greater efficacy. This type of attack substantially weakens a skeleton's bones. In fact, if this type of chemical attack proved very effective, the chemical gases used in world War I would be more of a hinderance, and used to cover troop movements (much like smokescreens were used.)
You forgot the most overpowered combination for a skeleton. A violin, an afro and a sad backstory. This will crush everyones heart. And good thing Brook does have a rapierlike weapon. The guard isn't neccisarry anyway.
I was going to mention Brook myself, but then I saw your comment. Not only does Brook have a rapier like weapon with his cane sword, but Oda even took the time to address the whole weight thing and made him super light and fast. You can tell that Oda really puts a lot of thought into every detail of his story, and it shows.
Give them a Dexterity score of 26, due to their increased speed because of loss of weight, but not strength, and make them minions. They can only take 1 point of damage before being destroyed, regardless of armor worn. But I would rule it must be actual weapon damage, or spell damage. They are immune to drowning, and won't take damage from poison, or gas, or cold, or heat, or radiation, or any normal environmental effect we could have in our real world. This way, they remain a threat with any level of play, but aren't impossible to beat.
The katana did not snap because the bone was so hard! The noble spirit of the katana just felt the cow had already suffered enough and broke itself instead of mutilating the leg.
I know how to do it - Party is about to take the Long Rest. Skeleton Dude takes the First Watch. Sits by a tree, with a sign by him saying "Warning - Don't mess with these guys!" Bandits walk past Skeleton Dude. Skeleton gets up, flips sign around, taps the shoulder of the rearmost bandit, who finds himself reading "I Warned You!" Skeleton then uses the sign to bash him in the head.
My skeleton dnd character actually uses this logic behind how he’s so agile as an assassin, and why he can take so much damage (apart from the titanium armor of the Bearer of The Curse) from swords, and why he uses a katana (half katana) and he’s a ranger because his dried bones can not be pierced
Not being limited to mechanical locomotion, they could achieve great rotational speeds. If their blades were wide enough and angled properly, they could potentially achieve lift. Skelecopters.
Shad Fact: Shad is the only person to see what a boggart actually looks like. When reached for a statement he says “They are short with almost cute with large eyes”
Skeletons are held together by and can move through magic. If you alter the magic so that they can keep together under high speeds you just give them two axes/swords and make them spin really fast. Skeleblenders! Or turn them upside down, have their arms and les spin in opposite directions. Certain helicopters have both rotors on top of one another instead of one in the front and one in the back, or have the back one be sideways. Apply this to your skeleton and you now have a SKELECOPTER. Another issue is armor: armor that fits a human is too big for a skeleton on account of no muscles. So they'd need custom-made skinny armor to wear, which adventurers can only pilfer to sell for scrap metal instead of use it themselves.
They wouldn't need custom armor, just more padding. In fact, that would be particularly advantageous to a skeleton, because all that padding would help protect them from blunt force trauma.
Have you ever seen Dark Souls? In the third game there is a type of enemy that ALWAYS closes the distance by rapidly somersaulting towards you until they use the momentum to slash at you with curved swords. And there is another type in all the games that has itself stuck inside of a spiked wheel, and they just roll towards you at super high speeds. Neither are the hardest enemies in the games, but they are well known because if one starts rolling, you better have some damn fast dodge reflexes.
8:00 Woah there Shad, if he's 15 kilograms and has a 100 kg man's strength, that means if he wears 85 kg of armour, his strength is exactly the same as if that 85 kg were coming from flesh. So, for example, if a 100 kg man can lift 50 kg, a similar skeleton would be able to lift 50 kg plus all the fleshy mass attached to the human. So if a skeleton's armour was distributed exactly like flesh, he'd be exactly the same as an unarmoured human strength-wise. Basically, a skeleton can handle a normal human's maximum armour plus 85 kilograms. Also, interesting armour idea, a skeleton could take advantage of the space where his organs would be by putting metal braces across his ribs, inside his skull, etc. to reinforce his natural structure in addition to any external armour.
That thought process is totally incorrect in my opinion.... Same strength means they have same difficulty with lifting same weight, thus skeleton would have same difficulty wearing 85 kilos of armor as regular human... humans get their strength from their muscles, thus muscles are not a dead weight on their body... At least this is my point of view on how their strength is compared to human strength
@@connecting1409 well its all in the eyes of the beholder, it depends on how strong the skeleton is, or more specifically, how much force it can provide from its bones. As it doesnt have any physical mechanisms (organic or otherwise) that provides the force, its only the "mystical magic" that provides it. So whether it has the strength to lift 85 + 50, or just 50, neither are wrong, mainly because it depends on the magic behind it.
I feel I need to point out that skeletons are not known for emitting much heat, so your heat-seeking rockets would not track onto the skeletons. The explosives would certainly be effective though, provided you have a way to hit with them.
