Do anadi have skeletons?

[Vallisa the Runt]

Or exoskeletons?

I'm thinking about making an anadi skeleton character, but have no idea if it is even possible.

[PossibleCabbage]

You can make all sorts of things that don't make sense on face- like an automaton dhampir or a poppet nephilim or a leshy changeling.

If the player and the GM can come up with some sort of mutually acceptable justification for "how this works" (including "it's a mystery- that's the joke") then it's fine to play as a character. The rules themselves don't circumscribe any combinations.

If I was going to play an Anadi Skeleton I would simply describe it as "normally, big spiders just have exoskeletons which would be hollow when the flesh-stuff is removed, but for structural integrity the exoskeleton was filled with more bones."

[Finoan]

I'm assuming that you mean an Anadi that is in its natural spider form, yes?

As for the lore and narrative description, sure. An exoskeleton is still a skeleton.

Mechanically it kinda brushes up against homebrew territory. Player characters are supposed to have hands and be able to use manipulate actions. Also, nothing in the Skeleton ancestry says that you get any of the special ancestry abilities of the shape that your skeleton character is formed in. Monstrous Skeleton heritage just gives you an unarmed attack, and As In Life, So In Death just gives you Adopted Ancestry and lets you auto-succeed at deception checks to pass as a member of that Ancestry.

[Baarogue]

Hi Alias of Ravingdork. Who knows. I'm loath to answer one way or the other until I can spot your new scam but here's my initial thoughts

Skeleton is not a versatile heritage so it doesn't matter what its ancestry "was." If a player at my home game wanted to play a skeleton character of an ancestry with an exoskeleton I would probably let them, with the caveat that it changes absolutely nothing that's not represented by taking monstrous skeleton heritage and appropriate ancestry feats

[PossibleCabbage]

Yeah another thing is that the Skeleton is written not with the notion that the necromancer is animating specific people's remains, but rather "putting loose bones together like legos" It's possible to have a skeleton character who is 1/3 orc 1/3 elf and 1/3 human in a way it is not normally (206 isn't divisible by 3, but you can stick an extra bone in there, or leave out 2).

But this is definitely in "work with your GM territory". I could absolutely see (diagetically) a necromancer wanting to reanimate an anadi skeleton just to see if they could, but I'm not sure how useful this would be. Maybe they replaced the pedipalps with arms so you can do manipulate actions?

[Baarogue]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Yeah another thing is that the Skeleton is written not with the notion that the necromancer is animating specific people's remains, but rather "putting loose bones together like legos" It's possible to have a skeleton character who is 1/3 orc 1/3 elf and 1/3 human in a way it is not normally (206 isn't divisible by 3, but you can stick an extra bone in there, or leave out 2).

But this is definitely in "work with your GM territory". I could absolutely see (diagetically) a necromancer wanting to reanimate an anadi skeleton just to see if they could, but I'm not sure how useful this would be. Maybe they replaced the pedipalps with arms so you can do manipulate actions?

now I'mma have to play a loony tunes Charlie the dog inspired skeleton. Thanks a bunch

[Easl]

Setting and biology-wise, that's kinda up to you. AFAIK the background game material does not specify, and the gameworld being magic means you don't necessarily have to adhere to RL spider biology.

Player-character-wise, Skeleton is an ancestry not an archetype. So you must pick Anadi OR Skeleton for feat, HP, etc. purposes. But...

1. I would have zero problem with someone picking the skeleton ancestry and just saying their physical description is anadi-like. Reskinning ftw. But no the PC doesn't get any mechanical benefits for doing so. Mechanically, that's just Skeleton.

2. Post-remaster, the rules are pretty flexible on versatile heritages. So anadi ancestry with skeleton versatile heritage could be a thing, I suppose. Or vice versa. It's not forbidden by the rules...just a weird combo. Since anadi use transmutation magic you could even mix and match biologies...i.e. in human anadi-skeleton form, they are human skeletons. In spider anadi-skeleton form, hollow exoskeletons.

3. This discussion does make me wonder why Paizo did ghouls, vampires, mummies, liches, etc. as acquire-able archetypes but not skeleton. Skeleton archetype, please! ;)