Back in the day, White Dwarf magazine was the British answer to the Dragon, and its regular "Fiend Factory" column was a source of many monsters for early D&D games. In fact, the first edition Fiend Folio (1981) was largely a collection of monsters submitted to WD. This 3e conversion is part of an ongoing project to resurrect some interesting WD monsters that, for one reason or another, fell by the wayside.

The heat skeleton was a submission of Nicholas Riggs and appeared in White Dwarf 17 (Feb/March 1980) , in a second Fiend Factory installment detailing monsters that very nearly made it into the Fiend Folio—complete with line art by some of the iconic Fiend Folio artists. Another one of Riggs' creations, the thoquaa, did make the Fiend Folio cut and was eventually resurrected for the 3e Monster Manual.

The skeleton jerks about and begins to walk, as if hung on invisible wires.

Heat Skeleton CR 3

Heat Skeleton

Always CE Medium undead

Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Listen +0, Spot +0

Aura heat metal (20 ft., DC 12)

AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14
(+2 Dex, +4 natural)

hp 32 (5 HD); DR 5/bludgeoning

Immune cold, fire; undead traits

Resist turn resistance +2

Fort +1, Ref +3, Will +4

Spd 20 ft. (4 squares)

Melee 2 claws +3 (1d6+1) or
longsword +3 (1d8+1 plus 1d4 fire/19-20)

Space 5 ft; Reach 5 ft

Base Atk +2; Grp +3

Abilities Str 12, Dex 14, Con –, Int –, Wis 10, Cha 10

Environment temperate plains

Organization guard (1-3)

Treasure none

Advancement 6–15 HD (Medium)

Heat Metal (Su) This power affects everything within a 20 ft radius as the druid spell of the same name (caster level 5th). Heat metal makes metal extremely hot. Unattended, nonmagical metal gets no saving throw. Enchanted metal is allowed a DC 12 saving throw against the power. An item in a creature's possession uses the creature's saving throw (unless its own is higher). A creature takes fire damage if its equipment is heated, as per the spell description. It takes 3 rounds for the affected metal to reach the burning stage. Once it does, it remains at that stage until the skeleton takes a standard action to end the effect. The metal returns to its starting temperature 2 rounds later.

Heat skeletons are a powerful variant of the normal animated skeleton, from which they are indistinguishable. They attack with their bony hands or with a burning hot weapon.