Dragon Encounters

The flameskull is the skull of a magician that was brought to life by a necromancer in a ceremony that surrounds it with flames and grants it magical powers, including flight and self-resurrection.

How to Use a Single-Use Spell

Its spell list is limited and includes a single use of Fireball, which is a big problem. Spells work best when they either have ongoing effects that the players have to figure out how to deal with, or when the players can anticipate them and work out how to avoid them. A single use of Fireball won’t do that.

Also, it will leave level 4 characters who fail their DEX saves awfully low on HP. That’s nasty for one spell.

The fact that the flameskull resurrects is perhaps going to be the saving grace. It means that the players will probably have to fight it more than once, letting them discover that it has Fireball. Afterwards, they’ll have a chance to prepare for that threat.

Note: At the end of the article, I’ll discuss how to keep the flameskull dead, even if the players don’t have holy water or Dispel Evil and Good. I’ll also discuss how to make it hard to hit the flameskull with these effects, for when you want it to survive a bit longer.

Combat encounter 0: Discovering Fireball (difficulty 4)

The players enter the enemy base. There is a flameskull guarding the entrance. As soon as it has a chance to hit most of them with Fireball, it does so. (Ideally, hit all of them, but the flameskull has limited HP. It can’t afford to wait too long.)

They should have enough HP left to finish it, but not enough to continue exploring. They’ll have to leave and take a long rest. Of course, when they come back, they’ll find…

Combat encounter 1: He’s Baaack (difficulty 4)

The players enter the enemy base. There is a flameskull guarding the entrance. As soon as it has a chance…

If the players have holy water, or are close enough to town to go and buy some, the encounter is quite basic. They take out the flameskull, make sure it won’t return, and leave to take a long rest. (If you want to prevent this, I discuss methods near the end of the article.)

If the players have a cleric, and you’re playing with the spell Ceremony, then they can make holy water, although they might not know this. Technically, they can also do this with a paladin, but a paladin can only switch spells when going up a level, so it’s a lot less likely.

Oh, and if they can cast Dispel Evil and Good, a 5th-level spell, then the fight is also over. (Which is yet another reason you shouldn’t use a CR 4 monster as a boss against a party of level 9 or higher.)

If the players don’t have these options, they’re going to have to find some way past the flameskull that doesn’t reduce their HP to almost nothing.

Whenever you create a tricky situation in D&D, it’s your job to make sure that the players have several ways to solve it. You can’t just say that it’s their job to figure it out. In the first place, they can’t do that unless you’ve prepared the tools. In the second place, that’s just plain unfair.

In that spirit, I’m going to give a few ideas for how to get past a flameskull.

Decoy and Stealth

The players send someone to slip past the flameskull. Add a door or two that leads around the flameskull’s chamber, but can only be opened from the other side.

A key would also work, if they have to manage a second fight to get it when taking the aggressive approach. (Fighting the flameskull will leave the players without enough HP to manage anything but the most minor fights. This should be more than minor.) With the sneaking approach, they’ll have to get past these guards as well.

This approach is ideal for a party with a rogue and illusion spells. Put decorations in the room with the flameskull to give the rogue room to sneak. If you want to stop them from using Invisibility, perhaps because that makes it too easy, have loose sand on part of the floor, and the flameskull will be watching for footprints.

Decoy, Stealth, and Attack

The players use a decoy and stealth to get into position to take down the flameskull before it can cast Fireball. Possible, but not easy, and it’s up to you whether you want to make it possible. It might be more fun to make this one impractical.

Disguise

If the people who have a right to be here wear a distinct costume, (such as standard cultist robes) imitating them becomes easier.

In order to make this interesting, I suggest that the flameskull realizes that it doesn’t recognize them and asks if they’re new. When they answer that they are, the flameskull decides to test them on the group’s beliefs to see if they’re worthy to enter.

Mostly, the flameskull is just bored and looking for entertainment, so it will be reasonably forgiving of mistakes, up to a point.

Like the previous approach, this can also be used to jump it. Here, allowing that works, as the question-and-answer session provides a buildup which makes the encounter feel earned.

Obscuring Smoke

The players get their hands on something that will make a lot of smoke when burned, such as incense, and throw it onto the flameskull. Unable to see, you have a fight where the flameskull has to settle for Fireball-ing what it can get.

Call in the Guards

The players call in the guards in the other room or talk a villain into entering with them. The flameskull can’t use Fireball without killing its own ally.

This can be made to work only if the other villains are too important for the flameskull to kill, or if they’re powerful enough that the flameskull feels they’re worth more than the effects of a Fireball. Alternatively, you could have the flameskull lean into its lawful side and refuse to kill its allies, regardless. Your choice.

The players will have to be careful to kill the flameskull before finishing off the allies. Also, if the room is big enough, they’ll have to make sure the ally stays between them and the flameskull. The flameskull itself is immune to fire damage.

Don’t Break Anything

Put a room of books, or anything sacred to the villains that’s flammable, into a nearby room. The players call the flameskull into that room and fight it there so that it can’t use Fireball without destroying its own valuables.

This only works if the players are also being careful with the room’s contents. If the players are casting spells without worrying about the damage they do to the surroundings, the flameskull might decide that the room is doomed anyway and let loose.

For more scenarios where the enemy has to be stopped before triggering disaster, see Bugbear Chieftain

Combat encounter 2: On Patrol (difficulty varies)

If they defeat the flameskull once, it will just come back to life an hour later (although its spells won’t refresh until the next day) and start patrolling the corridors to hunt them down. For a while, they might be able to keep an eye out for it and avoid it. The fact that it lights up the area will help, and you can create some interesting encounters around them finding places to hide, or ducking into a random room to avoid it and discovering something.

Eventually, they’ll need to do something that takes time, makes noise, or leaves them visible for too long, and they’ll have to take out the flameskull before doing it.

Their advantage is that they can choose the place and position themselves as they see fit. I suggest that you take advantage of any of the ideas mentioned in Combat encounter 1 that they haven’t yet used, while finding ways to prevent them from repeating the same method.

You might be able to hint at some of these ideas if the players feel stuck. For example, have a potential captive talk about how much he’ll be worth if they don’t kill him, or describe thick swirls of smoke coming from somewhere incense was thrown onto a fire.

See the end of the article for ways to kill the flameskull without holy water, and ways to prevent its death even if they have holy water.

More Flameskull Ideas

If you’re going to have the flameskull come against them repeatedly, here are a few ways to use it so that it won’t always be the same. (Even so, use it sparingly—only once every several encounters—if you don’t want it to become boring.)

• The flameskull sits down somewhere they have to pass, such as by the only entrance or exit to a room, and takes a Ready action to attack whoever comes into view first. It can wait forever, and doesn’t mind getting killed. This is more of a nuisance than a problem, unless there are barrels of oil that its fire bolt can make explode. Then it’s a problem.
• A hide-and-seek/tag scenario takes place in a room crowded with shelves and boxes. The flameskull has the advantage of flight and being able to slip through small cracks. The players have the advantage of not having an aura of light giving away their location. This might be best with multiple flameskulls, so that it isn’t over too fast. If you want to be really sneaky, have a different enemy also in the room without the players knowing.
• The flameskull is a good enemy to arrive while the players are already in the middle of fighting someone else, or tackling a different task. In the first place, they have to make sure to take it down before it can catch them together and use Fireball. In addition, if its fire bolt sets anything on fire, that makes a great hazard. It can not only destroy ropes, bridges, etc. that they need, but it works slowly and spreads.

For more fire based challenges, see Red Dragon Wyrmling

Or see my Hazards page, with a whole section for fire based hazards

How to Deflect Holy Water

If you want to prevent the players from taking out the flameskull permanently just yet, the only real danger is holy water. Keeping the stuff out of their hands is obviously the best and simplest way to make a flameskull immortal, but what if you can’t do that?

The solution is to make sure the holy water can’t get to the flameskull, of course. Here are three ways to do that.

• The flameskull is hovering over a pit. When killed, the flameskull falls into the pit and out of sight. Throwing holy water onto the flameskull now takes a good memory and a bit of luck. (If you want to make it impossible, put a slope at the bottom that the flameskull’s “corpse” can roll down.)
• The flameskull fights from inside a furnace. This makes hitting the spot where the flameskull was with holy water somewhat difficult, especially if the flameskull was moving around. (For that matter, it also makes hitting the flameskull rather difficult, and you could rule that this counts as partial cover.) It also messes up melee.
• The flameskull fights from inside a narrow opening. This greatly restricts its attacks, as it can only see what’s directly in front of the opening, but it also restricts attacks made against it. Should the players have Mage Hand, or a similar spell, this won’t protect it from holy water.

How to Stop a Flameskull Permanently

What about when you want to stop the flameskull and have it stay dead?

The best way is obviously holy water, or to homebrew an item that works like holy water. The challenge can be getting it, or getting the flameskull into a position where the holy water will be effective. If you’re using the defences from the last section, getting the flameskull into a position where its skull will fall somewhere the players can reach with holy water is an achievement in itself.

Below are two other ways to, if not kill it, then at least keep it out of their hair.

• Burial. The flameskull comes back to life, and that can’t be prevented, but what if it comes back to life and is stuck where it is? You can’t restrain it with ropes or anything flammable, but pinning it under a few feet of earth is pretty effective. Locking it in a stone room also works, or anything else where the flameskull can’t get free. Its only method of moving objects is Mage Hand, and that has a strict weight limit.
• Underwater. As said, if you merely tie it up, it will burn or blast its way free. That is, assuming it can. Fire, meet water.

You’ll also want to figure out what it looks like when the flameskull can’t get free. I’m assuming that the broken skull regrows into its full form, instead of magically appearing where it “died,” but what does that fragmented form look like?

It could simply be a shattered skull, but then what if the players break it into pieces and scatter the parts? You could make it so that the skull is unable to be separated—it can crack, but not come apart. You could give it an unbreakable seal on the back, and the skull reforms from there. You might be able to come up with something even more unique.

The choice is yours.

Summary: Six Ways to Use

1. A flameskull has a very powerful attack and few HP, making it a monster that the players don’t want to face head-on. Put hiding places around its room, and let the rogue show off their sneaking skills.
2. A flameskull is a great choice for a guard, as its attack is too lethal to take on head-on. Give the cultists hoods and let the players disguise themselves. Let the flameskull quiz them on their identities, and you have a fun evening of D&D.
3. The flameskull’s Fireball spell is so nasty that calling in the reinforcements might actually help the players, as then the flameskull can’t cast Fireball without hitting its own troops. Just make sure to kill the flameskull before dropping the minions.
4. For fun with a flameskull, put it with the players in a dark room, and give them a reason they can’t kill it yet. The players have to navigate silently, and perhaps make noise to distract the flameskull. Its light means they always know where it is.
5. Fire spreads and damages floors and bridges, so even after they kill a flameskull, it’s still a threat. On the other hand, the flameskull also has stuff it doesn’t want burned. Imagine a fight with a time-out while both sides move the treasure.
6. There are three ways to make a flameskull stay dead. Hit it with holy water, which can be hard if the flameskull is careful and falls dead into a pit, use a 5th-level spell (against a CR 4 monster. Really.), or tie it up somewhere that it can’t burn free. Like underwater.