Daily Monster: Skeletons

In what I hope will become a semi-regular feature, today I will take a classic D&D monster and give it the Risus treatment. Given that my attention is focused on my monster-themed Pirates vs. Vampire game, I'm going to start things off with the lowly but time-honored skeleton.

[SPOILER WARNING: Players of Pirates vs. Vampires may want to skip this post until our current adventure has been concluded]

Skeletal Remnant: Disembodied Skeletal Appendage (1). 

Notes: Not really a threat in combat, unless it attacks an already weakened character. Useful mainly for establishing a mood by making the players roll dice. Such minor threats can often be represented by a simple TN roll. Failure at the TN roll would still mean the monster was destroyed but that the character was slightly wounded or lost some valuable resource in the process (or simply looked clumsy while doing it).

Skeleton Minion: Mindless Skeletal Fighter (2).

Notes: Like all skeletons, they require bashing or at least swung weapons to be engaged properly. Characters attacking skeletons with stabbing or piercing weapons would operate at half-dice for lacking proper tools. Lacking minds, skeletons are immune to mental attacks, unless those "attacks" are dirty tricks or attempts to outsmart them in some way (in which case the skeletons are going to be a real pushovers).

Skeleton Warrior: Tenacious But Mindless Skeletal Fighter (3).

Notes: A good foe to throw individually at competent fighters in the party.

Skeletal Champion: Agile Skeletal Fighter (4), Elite Undead Swordsman (5)

Notes: A worthy foe that should be able to avoid the Risus death spiral for a while and serve as a very challenging opponent for either a single highly-skilled combatant or a team of slightly less skilled fighters.

Minotaur Skeleton: Hulking Skeletal Bruiser (7), Undead Minotaur (5).

Notes: A great example of a tough boss fight where the party members will almost certainly have to team up or employ special resources or tactics. An alternate approach would be to use Funky Dice: Hulking Skeletal Bruiser (4d10), Undead Minotaur (3d10).

Bone Golem: Well-preserved and Reinforced Skeleton Animated With Kabbalistic Magic (3), Semi-Intelligent Automaton (3).

Notes: A potential Sidekick for player character Kabbalists (inspired by a discussion we had during play last Sunday).

Gang of 3 Skeletons: Grunt Squad of Skeletal Minions (3).
Squad of 10 Skeletons: Grunt Squad of Skeletal Minions (4).
Horde of 30 Skeletons: Grunt Squad of Skeletal Minions (5).

Notes: Illustrates my *rough* rule-of-thumb on handling Grunt Squads: I generally add a die for every threefold increase in numbers. Usually, I don't even bother specifying the exact number and resort to generalities (handful, dozen, dozens) instead.