Lion's Tactical Guide to Skeleton Warriors

Skeleton warriors are formed by skilled necromancers out of the remains of great warriors that retain their ability to speak and their considerable combat skills even after death. This essentially makes them super-skeletons, with much higher AC, hit points, and ability scores than typical skeletons possess across the board. More than this, however, skeleton warriors have immunity to the charmed and frightened conditions, resistance to cold and necrotic damage, and outright immunity to nonmagical weapon damage, at the cost of now being vulnerable to bludgeoning damage from magical attacks. They also come equipped with Magic Resistance and Magic Weapons in the form of a +3 greatsword that, for balancing purposes, I would recommend only functions as a +3 greatsword when held by the skeleton warrior that wielded it in life. Their highest ability scores are a three-way tie between Strength, Constitution, and Intelligence, curiously enough. They’re not just brutes, but rather cunning brutes, able to effectively plan and take advantage of their enemies’ weaknesses. The upside of their high intelligence is that necromancers can thereby employ them as a battlefield commander for standard skeletons to rally around, with the skeleton warrior devising more complex tactics than skeletons are normally capable of employing on their own. The downside of their high intelligence, or at least the downside for their necromancer controllers, is that this makes them much harder to control without the magical golden circlets that house their souls.

All undead have some kind of compulsion that drives them, and for skeleton warriors this compulsion is not to obey their creators without question, but to recover their circlets and, in most cases, destroy them in order to end their existence. Should a skeleton warrior ever get the opportunity to do so, such as if the circlet is knocked or magically pulled away from the necromancer that raised them, they immediately drop whatever they had been ordered to do and book it towards the circlet, their usual tactical discipline being brushed aside as they take however many opportunity attacks they need to in order to reach it. Unfortunately, the book itself does not have statistics for the circlet, so I would simply say that the circlet is an object with AC 15, 5 hit points, and immunity to poison and psychic damage, but which can only be targeted for attacks when it is unattended. Should a player get their hands on this circlet instead, putting it on allows them to use their action to take total control of the skeleton warrior without a saving throw, basically giving your party a free CR 5 skeleton minion. Needless to say, this is an excellent magic item to consider awarding your necromancer who has tired of their ordinary skeletons and zombies and wants to add a little spice to their undead army, but I would also recommend making the circlet require attunement so that folks don’t get too carried away.

In situations where the skeleton warrior’s gold circlet remains firmly placed on their necromancer master’s head, however, the skeleton warrior is strictly confined to melee combat. That’s fine by them, though, since their plate armor, damage resistances, and resistance to spells all come together to mean that they have little reason to truly fear anything other than magical bludgeoning damage and spells which target the lower ability scores that Magic Resistance won’t help them with too much, namely Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma. With this small, yet notable list of weaknesses, skeleton warriors will naturally prioritize taking down anyone attempting to use such strategies first and foremost, at least provided that their necromancer master isn’t a fool or a coward who orders them to protect their sorry skins instead. Between the absolute control granted to whoever wears their circlet and the skeleton warrior’s own compulsion to recover their circlet and end their undead existence, skeleton warriors will always fight to the death unless specifically ordered not to.

Where skeleton warriors are super-skeletons, skeleton lords are super-skeleton warriors, with even greater hit points, greater Strength, and marginally better Constitution and Intelligence scores, all owing to their origin as being raised from the remains of great kings and nobles as opposed to garden variety knights and adventurers. Skeleton lords have the same traits, equipment, and compulsion as skeleton warriors, with the only other thing that sets them apart being their magical Fear Aura, which forces a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw against all hostile creatures in a 20 foot radius to avoid being frightened of the skeleton lord until the start of their next turn, conferring 24 hour immunity to the effect on a successful save. Seeing as the skeleton lord already wants to be within walking distance of as many foes as possible anyway, the aura doesn’t really impact their tactics. As such, skeleton lords fight identically to their skeleton warrior brethren and will likewise fight to the death.