General Rules: Monsters - Bone Creature (Template)

Bone Creature (from the Book of Vile Darkness)

Sometimes creatures that rise as living skeletons retain their intellect and abilities. Bone fighters wield deadly weapons and clank about in ancient armor. Bone sorcerers cast dreadful spells and are often confused with liches. Bone wyverns darken the skies and threaten with their poisoned, skeletal tails. They cannot be the result of a simple animate dead spell, but could arise from a create undead or create greater undead spell, as undead of their equivalent Hit Dice.

"Bone" is a template that can be added to any nonundead, corporeal creature with a skeletal system. The creature's type changes to "undead". It retains all modifiers and subtypes. It uses all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Hit Dice: Change to d12.

Speed: Winged corpse creatures retain the ability to fly. Now, however, flight is magical as the fly spell, but it still uses the creature's original fly speed.

Size	Natural Armor Bonus	Claw Damage
Diminutive	+0	1
Fine	+0	1
Tiny	+0	1d2
Small	+1	1d3
Medium	+2	1d4
Large	+3	1d6
Huge	+4	2d4
Gargantuan	+6	2d6
Colossal	+10	2d8

Armor Class: Natural armor changes to a bonus based on the bone creature's size (see table to the right).

Attacks: A bone creature retains all the natural attacks and weapon proficiencies of the base creature except for attacks that can't work without flesh, such as a mind flayer's tentacle attacks. A creature with hands gains one claw attack per hand: A bone creature can strike with all of them at its full attack bonus. if the creature already had claw attacks with its hands, use the bone creature attack format and damage if they are better. The bone creature's base attack bonus does not change.

Damage: Natural and manufactured weapons deal normal damage. A claw attack deals damage depending on the bone creature's size (see table to the right). Use the base creature's claw damage if it is greater.

Special Attacks: Same as the base creature.

Special Qualities: A bone creature retains all the special qualities of the base creature, and also gains the following ones:

• Darkvision with a range of 60 feet.
• Undead: A bone creature is immune to mind-affecting effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromantic effects, and any effect that requires a Fortitude save unless it also works on objects. It is not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, or death from massive damage. A bone creature cannot be raised, and resurrection only works if it is willing.
• Immunities (Ex): Bone creatures are immune to cold damage and take only half damage from piercing or slashing weapons.

If the base creature already has one or more of these special qualities, use the better value.

Saves: Same as the base creature modified by ability score adjustments.
Abilities: Same as the base creature modified as follows: Dexterity +4, Constitution -. As an undead creature, a corpse creature has no Constitution score.
Skills: Same as the base creature, modified by ability score adjustments.
Feats: Same as the base creature plus the bone creature gains the Weapon Finesse feat.
Climate/Terrain: Any.
Organization: Same as the base creature.
Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature +1.
Treasure: Same as the base creature.
Alignment: Always evil (any).
Advancement: Same as the base creature.
Level Adjustment: Same as base creature +1.

Home     Three Worlds     Monsters