Skeleton

Medium undead, lawful evil

Armor Class: 13; armor scraps
Hit Points: 13; 2d8 + 4
Speed: 30 ft.

STR 0
DEX +2
CON +2
INT -2
WIS -1
CHA -3

Damage Vulnerabilities: bludgeoning
Damage Immunities: poison
Condition Immunities: exhaustion, poisoned
Senses: darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 9
Languages: understands all languages it spoke in life but can't speak

Challenge 1/4 50 XP · Proficiency +2

Actions

Shortsword

Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) piercing damage.

Shortbow

Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 80/320 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) piercing damage.

How to run it

Skeletons are relentless and stupid. They have no self-preservation, no tactics and no morale. They walk at the nearest living thing and swing until destroyed, which makes them the easiest creature in the SRD to run and one of the most useful for pacing.

Use them when you want a fight that costs the party resources without any risk of a clever move on your part changing the outcome. They fight in a straight line, and that is a feature.

Building the encounter

Four to six is a solid fight for a party of four at level 2. They scale cleanly: twice as many is roughly twice as hard, which is not true of most creatures.

They work anywhere, but they are best when the party cannot simply leave. A crypt with one door, a collapsing bridge, a room that fills. Skeletons apply pressure over time rather than spiking, so give the party a reason to stay in the room.

What to pair it with

A necromancer or a cult fanatic turns a static skeleton fight into a puzzle, because the party has to decide between the thing hitting them and the thing making more of the things hitting them.

Zombies alongside skeletons is a good contrast: the skeletons are accurate and fragile, the zombies are slow and refuse to die. The party has to fight them differently in the same room.

Reskins

Animated armour without the construct tag, clockwork servitors, husks of something that starved, or scarecrows that stood up. The stat block says accurate, brittle and mindless, and any fiction that fits those three works.

Swapping the shortbow for a thrown weapon or dropping it entirely changes how the encounter plays more than any reflavouring will.

Commonly played wrong

Skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage in the Monster Manual, and a table that plays a lot of undead will expect it. Check the version you are running before promising a player their mace matters.

They are immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition, which quietly invalidates the rogue who has been saving a vial of poison for something important.

Compared to others at this CR

At CR 1/4 the skeleton is the accurate one. It has the same to-hit and damage as the goblin with a better AC and more hit points, and unlike the goblin it will still be standing in the same square next round.

Against the zombie it trades durability for reliability. Skeletons kill a party faster; zombies take longer to kill. For a fight that has to end on schedule, reach for skeletons.

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