New Monster – Boneflower Skeleton (Template)

Coming through the dark and leafless woods is the moving skeleton of a massive stag, the span of its antlers wider by far than a tall man’s outstretched arms.  Its body was bare of flesh, the bones bleached white and dotted with flowers equally as white, for a moment, when the moonlight shown down, it almost seemed a being of purity, rather than the unnatural terror it was.

Boneflower Skeleton Irish Elk (Megaloceros) CR 3 (XP 900)
NE Large undead
Init +6; Senses darkvision 60′; Perception +1

DEFENSE
AC 15, touch 11, flat-footed 13 (+2 Dex, +4 natural, –1 size)
hp 26 (4d8+8)
Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +5
Special Defenses DR 5/bludgeoning, immunity to cold, undead traits
Weaknesses vulnerability to sonic

OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee gore +7 (2d6+5/19-20 + bleed 1 on a critical) or 2 hooves +2 (1d6+2/19-20 + bleed 1 on a critical)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks powerful charge (4d6+7/19-20 + bleed 1 on a critical)

STATISTICS
Str 20, Dex 15, Con –, Int –, Wis 12, Cha 12
Base Atk +3; CMB +9; CMD 21 (25 vs. trip)
Feats Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Toughness (all bonus)

Cutting Petals (Su): The boneflower skeleton’s boneflowers are exceedingly sharp causing damage to those stuck or struck by them.  Any unarmed attack against a Boneflower skeleton causes the attacker to take 1 points of slashing damage or 1d4 if it is a grapple.

Hideous Regrowth (Su): When a boneflower skeleton is reduced to 0 or less hit points, it is wreathed in dark energy and a new bloom of bone flowers knit it back together restoring it to full hit point but permanently reducing its Dex by 5 (if its Dex is reduced to 0 or less it reforms and then promptly collapses into a pile of razor sharp boneflower shards) but it gains a +2 bonus to Strength, an additional +1 Natural Armor bonus and the Improved Toughness Feat.

After first regrowth: Initiative +4, AC 14, touch 9, flatfooted 14, hp 28, Ref save drops to +1, +1 to attack and damage (+2 powerful charge damage).
After second regrowth: Initiative +1, AC 12, touch 6, flatfooted 12, hp 30, Ref save drops to -2, +1 to attack and damage (except +0 damages to hooves).

SKELETON, BONEFLOWER

Boneflower Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, infected with necrourgic energy that causes bone growths to spontaneously appear when it takes damage.  The bone flower protect the skeleton and are dangerous in and of themselves, each petal being razor sharp and happy to draw blood.

CREATING A BONEFLOWER SKELETON
“Boneflower Skeleton” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that has a skeletal system (referred to hereafter as the base creature).  Boneflower skeletons can be created using animate dead by a 10th level or higher caster, each HD of boneflower skeleton counts as 2 HD of the spell’s ability to animate undead.

Challenge Rating: As a skeleton 1 HD larger +1CR

Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to undead and the subtype corrupted. It retains any subtype except for alignment subtypes (such as good) and subtypes that indicate kind (such as giant). It does not gain the augmented subtype. It uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Hit Dice: A boneflower skeleton drops any HD gained from class levels and changes racial HD to d8s. Creatures without racial HD are treated as if they have 1 racial HD. If the creature has more than 20 Hit Dice, it cannot be made into a boneflower skeleton. A boneflower skeleton uses its Cha modifier (instead of its Con modifier) to determine bonus hit points.

Saves: Base save bonuses are Fort +1/3 HD, Ref +1/3 HD, and Will +1/2 HD + 2.

Defensive Abilities: A boneflower skeleton loses the base creature’s defensive abilities and gains DR 5/bludgeoning and immunity to cold. It also gains all of the standard immunities and traits possessed by undead creatures.

Speed: Winged Boneflower skeletons cannot use their wings to fly. If the base creature flew magically, so can the Boneflower skeleton.

Armor Class: Natural armor bonus changes to a number based on the Boneflower skeleton’s size:
Tiny or smaller    +1
Small            +2
Medium or Large    +4
Huge            +5
Gargantuan        +7
Colossal        +11

Attacks: A Boneflower skeleton retains all the natural weapons, manufactured weapon attacks, and weapon proficiencies of the base creature, except for attacks that cannot work without flesh. A creature with hands gains one claw attack per hand; the skeleton can strike with each of its claw attacks at its full attack bonus.

Damage: Natural and manufactured weapons deal damage normally. Their claw attack deals damage depending on the skeleton’s size (If the base creature already had claw attacks with its hands, use the boneflower skeleton claw damage only if it is better.).  Natural attacks, including its claws, from a boneflower skeleton have a 19-20 threat range and inflict 1 point of bleed damage on a critical hit.

Diminutive or Fine    1
Tiny            1d2
Small            1d3
Medium        1d4
Large            1d6
Huge            1d8
Gargantuan        2d6
Colossal        2d8

Special Attacks: A boneflower skeleton retains none of the base creature’s special attacks.

Special Qualities: A Boneflower skeleton loses most special qualities of the base creature. It retains any extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee or ranged attacks. A skeleton gains the following special qualities.

Cutting Petals (Su): The boneflower skeleton’s boneflowers are exceedingly sharp causing damage to those stuck or struck by them.  Any unarmed attack against a Boneflower skeleton causes the attacker to take 1 points of slashing damage or 1d4 if it is a grapple.

Hideous Regrowth (Su): When a boneflower skeleton is reduced to 0 or less hit points, it is wreathed in dark energy and a new bloom of bone flowers knit it back together restoring it to full hit point but permanently reducing its Dex by 5 (if its Dex is reduced to 0 or less it reforms and then promptly collapses into a pile of razor sharp boneflower shards) but it gains a +2 bonus to Strength, an additional +1 Natural Armor bonus and the Improved Toughness Feat.

Vulnerability to Sonics (Ex): The boneflower skeleton’s nature makes it take half again as much (+50%) damage as normal from that sonic damage, regardless of whether a saving throw is allowed or if the save is a success or failure.

Abilities: It has no Constitution or Intelligence score, and its Wisdom and Charisma scores change to 12.

BAB: A boneflower skeleton’s base attack bonus is equal to 3/4 of its Hit Dice.

Skills: A boneflower skeleton loses all skill ranks possessed by the base creature and gains none of its own.

Feats: A boneflower skeleton loses all feats possessed by the base creature and gains Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative and Toughness as bonus feats.

Special Qualities: A boneflower skeleton loses most special qualities of the base creature. It retains any extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee or ranged attacks.

Environment: Any, usually the same as base creature.

Organization: Any.

Treasure: Generally none, although sometimes a boneflower skeleton’s creator arms it with magical armor or weapons.

Notes: Yes, a monster at last!  Always good to have more variants on the tradition skeleton, at least I think so.

These are best used as the centerpiece of the encounter to keep the annoyance factor down for both the players and the GM.

Image from the Wikimedia Commons and used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.