Skeleton Guard bonus abilities not clear

[Brenden]

The screaming skull ability that is listed under "skeleton abilities" in the bestiary states "...The skeleton removes its skull and throws it, making a *jaws attack* with a range of 20 feet. It then attempts to *Demoralize each foe within 10 feet of the target*...

There is no given bonus for this thrown jaws attack and no description of the jaws damage die or damage bonus. Nor what traits the attack itself has.

Similarly there is some confusion around the demoralize feature here. What is the bonus that the skeleton has to demoralize. They are not trained in intimidate and no DC or bonus for the skeleton is given to this ability.

I hope someone can clarify the *intended* interpretation of these rules for a standard creature -1 Skeleton Guard.

I saw another thread with a question about skeletons but these particular questions were not asked nor answered.

[Kennethray]

A straight roll with no bonus for an aoe demoralize on a -1 creature is not bad. Not sure if that was intended but that is how i ran it.

[JackieLane]

Considering the Skeleton Guard has no intimidation bonus in its stat block, that means it is untrained. Therefore, it would only add its Charisma stat to the die (0, in this case).

As for the jaw attack, skeleton creation rules state that you give the skeleton the Strikes granted by its shape. Since the Skeleton Guard is based on a humanoid with no jaw attack, I'd probably make it 1d4 damage (with no bonus since it is a ranged attack). As for the attack bonus, it should be the same as any other ranged attack on the creature, so +6 in this case.

[Brenden]

Kennethray wrote:

A straight roll with no bonus for an aoe demoralize on a -1 creature is not bad. Not sure if that was intended but that is how i ran it.

JackieLane wrote:

Considering the Skeleton Guard has no intimidation bonus in its stat block, that means it is untrained. Therefore, it would only add its Charisma stat to the die (0, in this case).

As for the jaw attack, skeleton creation rules state that you give the skeleton the Strikes granted by its shape. Since the Skeleton Guard is based on a humanoid with no jaw attack, I'd probably make it 1d4 damage (with no bonus since it is a ranged attack). As for the attack bonus, it should be the same as any other ranged attack on the creature, so +6 in this case.

Thank you both for the answers.

Since it says it is throwing the skull (thrown presumably) or because it is a jaws attack (what is in other cases in creature stat blocks a melee attack) should we add strength bonus to damage? I think a d4 sounds very reasonable for the die value. Should the skeleton take the -4 circumstance to the demoralize attempt for not having a language targets can understand?

[JackieLane]

Brenden wrote:

Thank you both for the answers.

Since it says it is throwing the skull (thrown presumably) or because it is a jaws attack (what is in other cases in creature stat blocks a melee attack) should we add strength bonus to damage? I think a d4 sounds very reasonable for the die value. Should the skeleton take the -4 circumstance to the demoralize attempt for not having a language targets can understand?

I somehow forgot that about thrown weapons. Yes, adding the Strength bonus would make sense.

As for the penalty on Demoralize when it comes to language, I tend not to apply it when it is on abilities that are clearly not intended to use spoken language (so most monsters with specific abilities don't take penalties, but monsters (or npcs that don't speak the same language) attempting to intimidate with just the skill would). Otherwise the ability wouldn't really be relevant and it would really hurt the feel of the encounter. That's just my call, though.

[Kelseus]

I agree with JackieLane, the intimidate action clearly has a [visual] not the [auditory] traits. You are literally freaked out because this monster just THREW IT'S HEAD AT YOUR FRIEND!!

[Brenden]

Thank you both your reasoning makes lots of sense to me. Definitely going to follow this advice in my session this week!

[beowulf99]

Kelseus wrote:

I agree with JackieLane, the intimidate action clearly has a [visual] not the [auditory] traits. You are literally freaked out because this monster just THREW IT'S HEAD AT YOUR FRIEND!!

The ability actually does have auditory, and not visual. It's the "screaming" part of Screaming skull I'd imagine. Still, wouldn't need to share a language, it isn't speaking words. It is screaming.

Edit: I agree with JackieLane for assigning +6 and 1d4+2 to the Skeleton Guards jaw attack for the same reasons. As to the Demoralize, I would recommend following the rules in creating Monsters in the GMG to assign an appropriate Intimidate. For a -1 creature, Low skills are either +1 or +2, so go with that if that is what you think is appropriate. If you want a slightly more spooky skellington, then go with a moderate +4.

Monster creation skill rules on AoN