Homebrew Bonekin Species Details

Bonekin, a skeleton creature that has broken the shackles that bind their more limited brethren, acts on their own will and walks the lands of the living as a stranger. Perhaps animated by some greater force or anomaly, or set free by a fluke mistake in the process of re-animation, the bonekin boast greater physical and mental abilities than the average skeleton, and have even adapted to adventuring practices that normally have no effect on others of their kind, such as magical healing, albeit in a roundabout way.

Bonekin Traits

As a bonekin, you gain the following traits:

Ability Score Increase

One of your ability scores increases by 2, and another ability score of your choice increases by 1.

As a recommendation, bonekin greatly benefit from an increased Constitution followed by either Strength or Dexterity.

Darkvision

Thanks to your undead nature, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Undead Physicality

Due to your nature a creature of naught but bone, you are conferred several benefits, and a glaring weakness.

  • You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
  • You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in an inactive, motionless state, during which you retain consciousness.
  • You are immune to Poison damage and the poisoned condition.
  • You cannot gain levels of exhaustion except those inflicted by spells or magical effects.
  • You are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage.

Adapted Recovery

While normally impossible, your time amongst the living has taught you to adapt to the healing methods that would not normally benefit you.

When you are targeted by an effect that cause you to regain hit points, but does not work on undead, you instead gain a number of temporary hit points equal to the amount of healing you would have received. As a bonus action on your turn, you can expend any number of your temporary hit points to regain that many hit points, you can take this bonus action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses when your complete a short or long rest. Temporary hit points gained from this trait are lost when your complete a rest.

Divisible Body

Your body is the sum of its parts, but those parts need not be attached to contribute.

As an action you can attach/detach one of your limbs or your skull. You must have a free hand to detach/reattach a part this way, unless someone else holds the part in place while you take this action.

A detached limb has: a number of hit points equal to 4 times your proficiency bonus, an Armor Class equal to 10 + your CON modifier, Strength and Dexterity scores equal to half of your corresponding ability scores, a Constitution score equal to yours, and Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma scores of 1. You can control your limbs from up to 60ft away, provided you can see them and they act on your initiative. Detached limbs can only Use an Object unless you take the attack action on your turn, in which case you can instead attack using one of the limbs. The limbs have a movement speed of 10ft unless they are carrying an object (if they are capable) in which case their movement speed is reduced to 5ft. While you have detached an arm, you have disadvantage on Strength checks with your main body and automatically fail if both are detached. While you have detached a leg, your walking speed is reduced by half or to 0ft if both legs are detached.

You detached skull has: a number of hit points equal to half of your current hit points, and Armor Class equal to 10 + your DEX modifier, a Strength score of 1, but otherwise uses your regular ability scores. While your skull us detached you see and hear from its space, though your body can continue to act under your control. If your body is out of your head's line of sight it is considered blinded and deafened. If your skull is destroyed your body can continue to act as normal, but is blinded, deafened, cannot speak and has disadvantage on all Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma checks. If your body falls unconscious, but your skull is detached you do roll death saving throws as normal. If your body is stabilized and your skull is re-attached, your current hit points becomes equal to the hit point total of the skull. If the body fails 3 death saving throws, you do not die unless your skull is also destroyed or you do not reconnect with a body (yours or a new skeleton) within 24 hours, otherwise when your skull re-attaches to the body, it regains a number of hit points equal to the skulls current hit points.

If one of your detached limbs or skull is destroyed you can replace it with a suitable limb over the course of a long rest by expending a hit die. Alternatively so long as at least one piece of the destroyed bone remains, you can regenerate the part in question by expending half of your maximum hit dice over the course of a long rest. Lastly a destroyed limb can also be repaired through the use of the greater restoration or similar magic. 

Previous Versions

Name Date Modified Views Adds Version Actions
3/22/2022 3:41:31 AM
4
2
1.0
Coming Soon

Comments

Posts Quoted:
Reply
Clear All Quotes