Depends on what the poppet is made of, I would say. I could see bones being used to craft poppets in some cultures.
But then again, does a "skeletal system" need to be made of actual bones? Would the wooden shell of a Conrasu be a "(exo-)skeletal system"? I think it might.
So gut reaction upon thinking about it, I would let this affect anyone with a hard organic suporting system. Which at a glance means Automatons are immune, some Poppets and Leshies (and maybe Ghoran? Don't know too much about those) might be immune, depending on their composition. Any other ancestry would be fair game.
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For Bone Skipper Swarm specifically that is focused into bones I wouldn't consider any creatures that don't have bones in the strict sense as valid target:
A large swarm of bone skippers can reduce a human skeleton into dry, brittle fragments in a matter of hours.
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Bonesense A bone skipper swarm identifies bones and creatures with a skeletal system in the listed range.
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Marrow Rot (disease) Marrow rot affects only creatures with a skeletal system; Saving Throw DC 24 Fortitude; Onset 1 day; Stage 1 enfeebled 1 (1 day); Stage 2 enfeebled 2 (1 day); Stage 3 enfeebled 2 and drained 1 (1 day)
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Orange-headed bone skippers feast on the flesh of the dead, particularly seeking out the marrow in the bones of large carcasses. These strange flies are named for the way they hop about on rotting bodies as they feed, causing the corpses to move and appear as if alive.
The point is that these creatures search for bones specifically. Due this context I would only consider creatures with bones in their skeletal system as valid targets to Marrow Rot what means that creatures like Automatons, Conrasu, Ghorans, Leshys and Poppets aren't valid targets for Marrow Rot and Bonesense.
In fact I wold not ever make a Bone Skipper Swarm focus their attacks in these ancestries. As animals I would narrate their action as hungry animals focusing in their target seek for food (the players bones) while try to avoid dangers from boneless targets. So their would attack only target with real bones until their are dispersed by the attacks of the players (basically when we consider a swarm as dead).
Things like poison and bleed are more balance concerns. Changing them for an ancestry can impact multiple fights, and even just something like an ancestry with low level poison immunity existing can pose problems for adventure writers.
Something like immunity to skeleton-based attacks, though? That's not gonna come up more than once, and it's not going to be an important plot beat.
I have seen similar discussions about bleeding for Poppets, and it doesn't seem like there's been a consensus.
Correct. There has not been a consensus. Because the designation of what creatures bleed or not has not been printed into the creature stats.
Similarly, the designation of what creatures have a skeleton or not has also not been printed into the creature stats.
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Also; Boneshaker.
Yeah, I often had poppets bleed sawdust and the likes, that's an effect that's much more universally applicable.
But very specific things like having bone marrow I believe is fine to let roleplay win over mechanics in such isolated cases, make characters more unique and believable without being a major balancing concern.
Exactly!
If it were a more general mechanic I think I probably wouldn't allow an exception to these ancestries, but as it's something very specific, for specific creatures, in a specific encounter I would let it pass for the sake of fun and making the encounter more unique and interesting.
If it were a more general mechanic I think I probably wouldn't allow an exception to these ancestries, but as it's something very specific, for specific creatures, in a specific encounter I would let it pass for the sake of fun and making the encounter more unique and interesting.
Want to try putting numbers to that?
How many different things need to reference targeting a creature's skeleton in order for it to be a general mechanic?
Currently in this thread we have one creature and one AP specific spell. So that's two - which isn't much, but it is strange that it has happened more than once.
But I also haven't looked all that hard for them.
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That's a simple no, even in the most compatible scenario where a player intentionally creates a Poppet made almost entirely out of bone that is still not LIVING bone and it wouldn't have any live marrow to rot away, the bones it would be made of would be long dead as they were harvested from whatever creature they came from before the poppet was created.
The only place that Bone Skipper Swarm mentions any restriction on the target skeleton is in the narrative description.
Where it says that it has to be a HUMAN skeleton, not a LIVING skeleton. Which seems overly specific for game mechanics.
The game mechanics for the disease simply says "Marrow rot affects only creatures with a skeletal system;"
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Not to fire back at you or be rude but I don't think you know what marrow is, it's not simply bone or even the stuff inside the outer casing of bone, it's the living fatty tissues inside of bone that manufacture blood.
The only bones that have any meaningful live marrow content in them are live ones or at the very least bones that belonged to a VERY recently deceased creature. You CAN get cuts of meat with cross sections of bone in them with cold/frozen preserved marrow that is perfectly good for ingesting but that is still no more alive than the meat it's attached to.
So, unless the poppet was JUST created, I'm talking crafted out of raw materials from a very fresh kill in the past 1-2 days, then the marrow would have long rotted away and even then, assuming that marrow rot would harm such a poppet in the first place would imply that the poppet would suffer, take damage, or even die because it was made with such raw wet bone material as it naturally dries out and the tissue dies which I don't think is ... quite right.
Since there aren't any kind of mechanical rules, traits, or other guidance relating to skeletal systems you have to infer the intended meaning (something I actually despise doing most of the time but here it is not reasonable for the game or rules to be thorough enough to flesh this out [not sorry]) from the words they used to describe it.
Now, I could envision someone going out of their way to make a SUPER edgy poppet that was JUST created prior to them picking up the character that IS made from freshly slain creature bones and perhaps even giving them a really macabre need and personality trait that the PC feels the need to constantly replace parts of their body to replace dry bones with wet ones on some grounds that their bones drying out actually physically or mentally causes them some great pain (or inversely they're addicted to the pain of their bones drying out) but that's not exactly in the same ballpark as the normal poppet which is described as being made of more traditional materials.... so I guess a player and GM could manufacture a scenario where applying those effects to it could make sense but that would be more than a little bit contrived.
Not to fire back at you or be rude but I don't think you know what marrow is, it's not simply bone or even the stuff inside the outer casing of bone, it's the living fatty tissues inside of bone that manufacture blood.
I do know what marrow is.
What I don't agree with is that the IRL definition of marrow has anything to do with a rules discussion about a TTRPG fantasy game. Especially when the target of the ability is a creature's skeleton, not their marrow. Marrow Rot is only the name of the disease.
I still remember the players making neutral characters to avoid any type of alignment damage.
Many creatures have exoskeletons. Would that count?
Is the poppets body considered an exoskeleton if its porcelain doll like but not if its teddybear like?
Poppets are so varied in their make up right?
Also from a game perspective do creatures even get immunity to a thing if they don't have a feature that specifically gives it to them no matter conceptually how they are considered to be made up?
I meant immunity for a player character not for non pcs
In cases where that thing has specific rules, like undead PCs being immune to bleed because they are not alive, instead of because of any feature saying they are immune, sure.
