SKELETON
HP: Lower Medium
Melee Damage: Fair
Armor: Meager
Dexterity: Lowe
Accuracy: Medium
Spell: Lower-Medium

Notes:

Skeletons are an interesting case. The trick with skellies is figuring out how they function. In DK2, they formed in prison and then functioned as average fighters who simply zoomed all the way to level 10. They had lightning and armor to compensate for some flaws, but they hated Bile Demons and still needed pay.

In DK2, Skeletons were mindless and had no need for worldly possessions, including gold, lairs, or even safety. The amount of skeletons one could have maximum on hand was equal to the mex number of inner prison tiles +1. Any other starving creature just died regularly. The fact that their only expenses were the time they spent training (which they did fast anyway, and it was better than losing them to combat pit falling) meant they were great to have around and Patches later they could pray for mana.

Lets fastforward to the present. Skeletons should only be spawnable by fallen humanoids, which would mean almost (and I will stress for emphasis, ALMOST) any hero unit and the humanoid minions.

They still should have no desire for chickens, and whether or not they sleep or need money is perhaps the most debatable aspect of these guys. They will, of course, be fearless, though if Undead turning magic were introduced, they'd be out blindingly fast.

As well, they should probably be immune to vapors and poisons, as well as being easy to keep pleased. An angry skeleton may go to your prison ad start crying. This may seem pointless, but if at bad opportunity, you need those cells, you'll need to hold the angry skeletons in your hand. This will limit your pimpslap capacity.

In any case, their skill tree would probably be limited, maybe magical fear and some armor and melee combat based skills, but beyond that, a low budget brawler sounds nice. As well, they should leave a pile of bones when killed. There would be little to do with these bones, unless a Necromancer creature is added who can resurrect them and give them one more chance. Never would they be able to become Vampire fodder.

Was there really a skeleton limit in dk2? i dont think there was, because i remember having at least 60 skelies in the last level of the campaign with only a 5x5 prison.

Skeletons would not need any food, sleep or payment. This would be their big unique advantage.
For the rest they are just fearless, poison immume (dont breathe) and mindless melee fighters.
They may not be too strong.
They cant be stunned, since they have no mind.

Hey, since they are just made out of bones, why not have em be able to walk lava?

I doubt the high dexterity. They are somewhat clumsy and shocky in movement.

I did once consider the idea that skeletons should be relative in shape to the dead creature, then discarded that idea thinking it would make the game full of bones (not a major creature like the Horned Reaper) and may distract the player from the main focus of training and fighting. I agree, only human-shape creatures should become skeletons, the size can always be explained with the starvation.

I think skeletons should take wages, it would stop people making a huge army of them with minimal training cost and no lair space needed.

Skeletons should be immune to poisons, they do not have any guts to infect, however they should be vulnerable to lightning.

Skeletons should mainly use melee attacks, preferably with a sword, only using magic at later levels.

They should also bring a lot of fear to other creatures, especially when there is a large group of them.

Skellies, should be very much like DK2 in my opinion. As in average fighters, no pay, no emotion, no needs, fearless AND.. no lair (meaning the keeper has to keep an eye on their health and heal them with spells when necessary, as in they wont sleep and heal themselves. why would they? they're just as dead as the corpse they just killed anyway)

They should be immune to gas and should have no magic abilities. This is going to mean they fill of role of cannon-fodder quite effectively.

um, maybe coz bones melt much faster than STEEL in lava.. that's why not lol. 8-)

Crying skeletons? I find it hard to picture walking corpses as having emotions. Imagine that, emo zombies. Lol.

Anyway, I like the idea of skeletons being very frail and easily smacked into a pile of bones, although having a rough 99% of evading ranged missles. Magic should be another weakness.

Making up for this, you have no upkeep for them, requiring no food, no lair, no pay, not even population maximum.

Depending on the equipment you would give them though, they could none the less deal a decent average amount of damage before your free cheap bonusses get crippled.



Different question: Should skeletons be able to train?


Another question: What purpose or benefit would a Lich or Necromancer in your dungeon bring to skeletons? Or just another tool that instantly raises them ?

Keep in mind if a Lich or Necromancer is included in the game, and he will be able to raise skeletons, skeletons will be quite abundant in games that have a lot of battles.

Good points. For training i would like the skel's to inherit the level of the creature that they were made from. ie: lvl2 knight dies making lvl2 skeleton, but skel can't train.

Necro's... that could work actually, provided though the summoned skeletons had a time-limit fixed on them.. kinda like the ones that the Dark Angel from DK2 could summon, they lasted only 30sec so you couldn't keep summoning up a massive army out of thin air. also 3 at a time would be summoned so you couldn't "skeleton spam" as it were.

Well on the notion of what skeletons actually DO with their free time.... Do they just patrol your dungeon?

If so, one could say the moment a lich or necromancer enters your dungeon, about three of them will move to stick to it as its personal bodyguards. Seems nice :P

I think they should be able to train. The have a soul (I think), and a soul can learn.

NEW IDEA: BONE SYSTEM
Maybe instead of getting skeletons out of starving prisoners you get bones:
-Starved prisoners give a good amount of bones (humanoids give 100 bones, non-humanoid creatures give less)
-A corpse left to rot (not in the graveyard) leaves bones after some time. A random amount of bones is left.
-When a skeleton crumbles, some of his bones are still intact and can be regathered.

The bones will get gathered by the imps and put in the boneyard, graveyard, temple or just prison (we have to agree on which one yet) You can assemble the bones into skeletons with a bit of mana or a necromancer. Each skeleton costs 100 bones.

The bones system is interesting although I fear it will be too complicated.

While skeletons are useful as fodder they should need a requirement, the most logical from lair, food or wages looks to me like wages, then they can logically use that money in the casino or tavern etc, most likely the latter because ale would simply be poured onto the floor.
The reason I want them to have this requirement is to stop people having hundreds of skeletons, making the game too easy for players who have worked out they can have that army without any lair or hatchery and paying no wages.
Other options to stop 'skeleton spamming' would be to add skeletons to the creature count, the maximum creatures a player can have on the level or give skeletons, however they are made, a very limited life time, like one minute or 30 seconds.

very good concept psycix but alas i fear tis also too complex.. I suppose when more ideas get more concrete, this can be revisited as it's got quite a bit of potential for DK3.

@Blue_eagle
A counter to skeleton spamming could just be based on prison-size which would make it a lot simpler to restrict. I never really considered skellies to be any useful except for dumping them in temples to pray or something. since YOU made them, they shouldn't be paid, since they can't get any more dead than they already are, they shouldn't sleep, and since they have no stomach, or throat, or any way possible to eat, they shouldn't need food. I mean it's just a spirit bound to a couple of bones right?

Off-topic but that ale-pouring-on-floor thing is funny; reminds me of Pirates of the Caribbean 1 lol.

Soooo we're giving skeletons emotions and desires?

No way! I dont know why everyone is wanting to pay their skeletons. I think the drinking ale in the casino would be funny, but pay them just for that? Skeletons should be what they are: just a pile of bones tied together by the weakest of conciousnesses. no food, no pay, no emotion.

While the limit thing is a good idea, just think about it this way: you are limited by the amount of heroes. It seems fair that if you word hard to capture some heroes, you should be able to harvest their bones without a limit. And if a Keeper tries to turn his creatures into skeletons? that's a dumb idea, but of course that should be allowed.

Dumb? It may be, but iif you're in a money crunch and have plenty o mana to spare to micro healing... don't forget that once your creature becomes skeletal, he is no longer counted towards your portal maximum.

Then either limit skeleton creation, skeleton duration or count them along wiht portal max. (the creatures may become skeleton, but their soul and bones still remain and act as a creature)

Being that the :skeleton: is my favorite creature, I should state all I liked about him/her/it in Dungeon Keeper 1 and DK 2:

In DK 1: He/She/It had the ability to make a lair I liked this because it made a lot of sense. Why? The :skeleton: is an undead being, therefore, since undeads usually are not active 24/7 they rest, get it? Here; vampires sleep during the day, but they are undead, so what makes a :skeleton: any different? Ahh . . the ghost, another undead, they obviously will sleep because during the day their power is least active, so they must be in a slumber until twilight. When the sun rises again, they retreat back to their resting places. How come skeletons aren't any different?

In DK 2: They had no lairs, but were not enemies to bile demons? No. The skeletons and the bile demons have too rich of a hatred for one-another to just drop it. They MUST be enemies.

I know I'm not going to get my way with how the skeletons are like, but that's what editors are for, right?
Skeletons should not have emotions btw.

That's a good point about the lair, the skeleton is only another undead creature and a lair would give them something to do beyond training and battles.

But the difference between skeletons and other undead creatures that have a lair is that skeletons are completely mindless. They only need to kill. They require no rest, because they are just a pile of bones held together by the desire to kill.

Ghosts are more intelligent. They are spirits returned from the netherworld, ready to serve. They need a lair in order to rest.

Vampires are more powerful spirits who cheat death. They are also inteligent and powerful, which means they need a lair.

.. and we have to remember to keep these distictions. You can't pay a creature money that has no brain and therefore has no concept of any monetary systems. As an off-note this is also why you might not want to give training to a skeleton, as since they have no mind, they cannot learn new things, therefore should not be able to be trained further other than the level in which their body has formed in.

Ghosts... personally i don't see a need for a lair for them but i understand it as typically when you read about ghosts of some kind, they seem to be "tied" to some kind of past event or an object of some kind. Tread carefully on ghosts.

Vamps are vampires. They're close to humans apart from various animalistic aspects of them but point is there is no reason why they should not have a lair, need food, and want money. Remember Dracula?

@ MrElusive,

Actually, . . I was going to argue with you about :skeleton: not being able to train, but you have a point. I think :skeleton: should have a low Strength/HP Damage Infliction because he/she/it has no muscle. Now, I have a reason to back why :skeleton: should be weak as a :warlock: let's say;

1. Even if you have a large sword or a skillfully sharpened short-sword (these two weapons :skeleton: carry), you can't have ANY high damage or, even a medium damage infliction if you have no muscular strength to swing it. :lol:

2. Being more about MrElusive's point of :skeleton: not being able to train; How can you add more strength to yourself if you have no way of storing that gained strength? Muscle tissue, being the storage compartments, is what a :skeleton: lacks.

I assume a skeleton has the strength to hold anything (as well as holding himself up when he's walking) via some magical or spiritual cartilage or something. It makes a lot of sense for zombie coz at least they HAVE actual muscles to move, swing, blabla, but typically there has been no reason why skellies should move at all but in all lore skellies are one of those things that JUST did happen to move and be all evil, regardless of their lack of muscles.

If you wanna get really technical about strength, it's not even about how big your muscles are but how much force (in Newtons) that something can exert. A boulder has a lot of force (strength, high damage) but has no muscles.

Well as a skeleton you can't store any additional strength anyway but what's "strong" about the skely are the bones. That said, it seems like another logical reason why skellies shouldn't get stronger (other than their original level) as there's no way of replenishing or reinforcing their calcium levels (bones).

As to why skellies are so weak in the first place? coz they're skellies. It's offset by needing no lair, money, or food. Sure you COULD have like 25 or so and charge them all in, but it's not going to do much good other than cannon fodder.

Force = Mass * Acceleration.
So if you want to have more strength you can train to increase the mass of your muscles(skels don't have any), or just train your "spiritual cartilage" to make it move faster.
So I say skeletons should be able to train.

I don't care if skeletons have lairs or not, both options are good for me.
I also say they should leave a pile of bones when they die so some necromancer guy could be able to raise him again(for a short time).

bone pile idea is going to be too complex. Be wary of adding resources, particularly ones that only affect just 1 or 2 creatures. By the sounds of it, the necromancer is the only one that will really be able to interact with "bones" and so it seems like a lot of stuff being done just to implement 1 thing for 1 creature. I think we should not do this bone collection idea for the same reason why you shouldn't be able to scavenge armour and weapons from dead knights and other fallen enemies.

Then why do we collect corpses, but no bones?

...that's a good point :P . But it is just for vamps i suppose. I suppose you could argue that unless a skeleton dies, nothing is going to make a pile of bones unless it's from a corpse as a corpse has to decay first... and since the first action related to a corpse is being used in the graveyard then it really gives no chance for bones to form.

Besides corpses in general didn't really play a major part in the game, it was technically a resource but it was highly and heavily automated to the point where the keeper actually couldn't interact with them at all. It was just "there" so to speak.

As far as DK1 and 2 both go, they weren't focussed on making undead creatures like ghosts, vamps, and skellies. The undead were by that notion, 'extra' creatures that wouldn't really make up the bread and butter of an army but were just there as support. And they really were actually just support creatures as you couldn't "attract" them by any other means than killing (be it torture, making corpses, or letting em die in a prison).

I hope that made sense

Force! I forgot about that! O.K. :skeleton: has some strength.

I have seen movies (countless movies to be exact) that have walking skeletons in them. My point for this is perhaps we can take some attributes from the movies and apply them to :skeleton: ? One thing that kinda' dropped question marks over my head was when it was mentioned that :skeleton: was a mindless warrior incapable of doing any monetary tasks, or something along those lines. In Dungeon Keeper 1, the :skeleton: was showing that he/she/it was incapable of doing more sophisticated tasks but was very sophisticated in doing the ones he could do. Like combat, and doing common tasks, in combat, the :skeleton: struck horizontally and that is basically a more intelligent sword strike rather than a vertical sword strike. In doing common tasks, let's take walking for example, the :skeleton: isn't dragging his/her/its feet across the ground while limping or something, he/she/it actually walks somewhat intelligently! In Dungeon Keeper 2 it's almost the same thing, :skeleton: walks with a hint of intelligence, but the design team seemed to agree on making the :skeleton: a little dumb in combat, and his/her/its voice was stupid. So, before we agree that :skeleton: should be mindless I'll name the movie I've seen a/many skeletons in and describe my view of their attributes, including intelligence level:

Army of Darkness: While most of the skeletal soldiers were unintelligent, some, like a scout that described the location of the Necronomica (this book that does stuff ?) he sounded intelligent in speaking. In walking, they were choppy (due to the CGI effects) but I assume the CGI artists were aiming for human movement. In combat, the skeletons were ruthless beserks, especially in scenes where actors dressed up in skeleton uniforms for the role. Overall, this movie probably set the mindset for Bullfrog's implementing of the :skeleton: .

Leprechaun 2(?): There was a scene when a summoned skeleton came out of the wall and attacked the main hero kid of the movie. the skeleton was moderatly intelligent in speaking, but lousy in combat. He was also rather sluggish and moved zombie-ish so he was dumb in the walking catagory. Overall, if a skeleton has no sword or shield and is trying to get a coin from a hero, he/she/it will go down in combat really fast.

and,

Scary Movie 2: There was a scene with a skeleton that got owned by two chicks in the movie. They didn't kill the skeleton, but they did rearrange his bones, which made him hop away. The skeleton's intelligence was low as he did not attack the 2 chicks when their backs were turned, I don't remember how he walked, but when the chicks rearranged his bones he hopped away like a wimp. Overall, yeah I realize it was a comedy movie, but if we want to make :skeleton: a comical creature rather than a serious one, this is the one we should tell everything by.

. . . Hey, I wrote a novel! :lol:

I think its being too over thought. The skeleton is very very easy to make. Throw in a hero and a minute later voila, a skeleton.

Please, please, PLEASE, don;t discuss the physics in this game. This game does not have to be tied to physics in any way, and if you start questioning the skeleton's strength source, where will it end? (How does the Warlock get the sufficient energy to make a fireball? And how does the fireball stay intact? What is being combusted? )

The skeleton is what it is: a brainless structure of bones that is tied together and moving by a source of magic from the keeper or whoever. It only knows to kill. That's it. It has the simplest mind of all. It doesn't need food (obviously), it doesn't need rest, and it doesn't need pay.

That being said, they are of course very fragile. They can't really protect their bones with anything.

what? we're not discussing physics at all. We're discussing the REASON as to why skeleton can move.. like why. Warlock fireballs are magic, plenty of energy there i assume. But yeh, that's how skellies should be. Weak, mindless creatures... which is exactly what they currently are anyway

Are people in favour of giving skeletons short swords for a default weapon (obtains when 'born')?

if possible, skeletons should be defined by what they're a skeleton of.
I gather thats been discussed...be funny to see a skeleton of a Bile Demon.

It would be hazardous to make skeletons exactly represent the dead creature, it would make the game half skeletons and may distract the player from the main focus of training and fighting, only human-shape creatures should become skeletons, the size can always be explained with the starvation.

it wouldn't matter, only their build would be different, in all a skeleton is just a skeleton and all they would have is melee and whatever skills they can learn.

The fact their skeletons would be similar to what their skeleton is based on is just some in-depth detail to have for fun and good measure.
If the Bullfrog team could of done it back then, they would of. :P

I think making multiple sized skeletons is complicated.

Also, I think Sword and Shield should stil be the Skeleton's equipment.

It's simply for detail value and a bit of interest in the game.
it would just look in a way, a bit more realistic and prevent sarcastic people from going.
"why do bile demons, dragons and knights all have same skeleton lul"
and so on, having different sized skeletons isn't all that bad overall :P

I concur with Blue in saying skellies should start with shortswords.

As for different skeletons, it could work so long as it has MINOR variations and those variations do not affect gameplay. I'm going to be making many versions of the same goblin for instance, all slightly different in visual appearance (one might have a helmet, one might have some pauldrons or some greaves, one of em might have a slightly shinier looking shield, or a helmet with some horns on it) but nonetheless not affecting the stats of the creature in any way.

that way it will be more realistic as i'm pretty sure most creatures would bring in their own equipment into your dungeon.

On that note on variations regarding skellies, a bile skelly might just have a slightly bigger ribcage and maybe some horns sticking out of his skull, whereas a troll skelly will have more of a hunched skeleton, and a dark angel skelly might have a couple of small skelly wings.

I reiterate, this will not change their stats at all, it's purely cosmetic.

The skeletons would just be skeletons, their stats overall would be exactly the same lol so no need for separation :D

Same stats may pose a problem for the bile demon skeleton. It might look a bit wierd if he can haul his big frame around at the same speed as the humanoid skeletons using only his knuckles?

Sword in any case should be standard equipment for skellies.

However, if the armory is implemented, skeletons should, like orcs and rolls and goblins, be capable of being re-equipped with armors, shields, and various weapons.

@ Syn: I thought Bile Demons were more fat than bones :P Well sure, he might claim he is just big boned, but would his actual skeletal structive be that big? Take note, I read bile Demons DID have feet and even legs, but they get covered by that layer of fat and eventually became limp.

The Armory is absolutely horrendous in my opinion.

Creatures are much like time travellers: you must bring your own weapon. What's the point of having different creatures whose difference in style and strategy comes down to their weapons if you can just give them all different weapons?

And because of the compexity of different skeletons for each creature: I came up with the "bones" idea.

Partyly quoting myself:
BONE SYSTEM
Maybe instead of getting skeletons out of starving prisoners you get bones:
-Starved prisoners give a good amount of bones (humanoids give 100 bones, non-humanoid creatures give less)
-A corpse left to rot (not in the graveyard) leaves bones after some time. The amount of bones left is greatly reduced because of damage to the dead creature.
-When a skeleton crumbles, some of his bones are still intact and can be regathered.

The bones will get gathered by the imps and put in the boneyard, graveyard, temple or just prison (we have to agree on which one yet) You can assemble the bones into skeletons with a bit of mana or a necromancer. Each skeleton costs 100 bones. It could also just generate a new skeleton as soon as 100 bones are collected.


It is not as complex as you think:
We collect corpses, so why not collect bones?!!
When it goes fully automated, and say that like 250 bones can be picked up at a time by an imp, bones are collected even faster then corpses.

The big advantage is, that this solves the bile-demon skeleton problem. Non-humanoid creatures have got less parts suitable for a skeleton. For example: the spine from a bile demon can be used, but his ribs are too large, so not 100 bones are left, but less of em are.