Well, not EVERY skelly, but many (if not most) of them. And not just skellies. Wights and Grey Ones too. Instead of pulling out their weapons to fight, many times these enemies will decide to attack with bare-knuckles (literally) and feet.
This isn’t entirely a bad thing. I have taken out my wrath on the now nearly helpless Grey Ones on SIptah, paying them back for their past viciousness. And having a skeleton kick me and my thralls so hard that we flay a dozen feet and land face down in the sand is very amusing.
Here’s a funny story. While raiding the Grey Ones on Siptah, my mate Kintara decided to throw a javelin that he’d picked up at one of the unarmed enemies. It went straight through the Grey Ones head…and then he pulled it out and armed himself with it! We killed him before we could see what he would do it it. This experience makes me wonder if the Grey Ones and others have somehow had their weapons taken away. They seem to use them if given the chance.
There is even an observation in the devkit on the comments over the code that selects “should equip weapon” to the effect of showing that is not something works “nicely”.
I was messing around once to define codes for getting the mod to check if a NPC is attacking or not, and scrounging the code of the devkit (which is not the same code of the game, I know, that does not mean one cannot know the code of the game), and there are several workarounds on that specific regard.
And no matter how the mod actually tries to change that thing, there will always be instances in which the game “proper” will get NPCs to do dumb stuff on that:
Not equip a weapon but attack. Even if they have epic weapons and ample time to equip them
Not change weapons. Archers will take “balls to the back” several times just “walking” to range while even a single attacker is present in close, while not equipping a melee weapon. That does not work even if you mod override the “melee weapon threshold” which is the number that “should” tell them if the target is at that distance, they should use melee.
Not turn to the enemy. Archers, more than others, will not turn to the enemies “automatically” even if, again, there is one enemy, and often will take, again, several “balls to the back” before turning the correct way.
And turning around seems to be a particular nasty problem since last update:
Lots of moonwalking “bears” (tigers, scorpions, thralls, etc) around.
But I guess it is true what they say, because the devs might not be seeing those, and players often might not as well, as this happens from a long time, but just now they are noticing. (this might fail even if the subject was brought up)
Yeah, I have noticed that thralls will sometimes attack unarmed for a few seconds, but they will eventually remember that they have a much more effective weapon. These skellies and other undead never seem to remember.
What’s interesting is that I have never seem a human enemy attack unarmed like that. Just the undead. Hmm.
It can happen to human NPCs too. Like with thralls, it seems to be dependent on whether they are hit before they can draw their weapon and if they’re within punching distance at the time. So if they can hit their attacker with fists, they will try to do it.
Grey Ones, on the other hand, don’t seem to have this prerequisite. The two standing guard at the main entrance to the Pools have all the time in the world to prepare for the big scorpion to approach and attack them, but they both still use only fists.
It makes bringing lower-level thralls to the Pools more viable now, as even the one-skull Grey One bosses don’t kill the thralls in one fell combo anymore. On the other hand, it feels a bit dirty to bring a pike into a fistfight.
The werewolf boss at the end of the midnight grove dungeon does the same thing. It poses like it’s gonna use claws, then stands up and proceeds to kick and punch.
