I absolutely cannot find a way to beat these suckers.

I have four level seven characters and two level six characters. I've disabled all the traps + quicksave, yet I still can't beat them. Magic doesn't work. Wand of Monster Summoning does nothing. Buffing my characters with magic and potions merely prolongs the fight but doesn't bring me closer to victory. Even my warriors with blunt weapons can barely damage these guys while they seem to do double digit damage with every hit. I'm on the verge of either cheating or just ragequiting and watching the finale on a youtube playthrough. Is there anything else I'm overlooking?

LOL! I'll be doing that fight soon.

Skeleton Warriors have 90% Magic Resistance, and b/c bones aren't flesh, bladed weapons won't do the damage they do against fleshy opponents. Same for missile weapons. And they're worth 4000 xp each, so your clerics won't be able to turn them effectively, unless they get a really high roll. I also don't believe they can be hit with non-magical weapons, thus Wand of Monster Summoning is of little use.

So ya gotta go at them with with your best fighters wielding magical blunt or crushing weapons, like maces, war hammers, clubs & morningstars.

With that in mind, get creative according to how your party is built, and go at'em. But make no mistake: your PC & party WILL get hurt, will be bleeding profusely, and more likely than not, will have at least 2 members near death by the end of that fight.

Protection from Evil on your fighters may be a good idea. In fact, it's an excellent idea! A cleric with that spell and Draw Upon Holy Might may be of quality help too.

Ooh, I remember those skeletons... Hardcore stuff, but oh so satisfying once you manage to take them down.

One tip I can give you is to make sure you disable the nasty (nasty!) traps near them before you engage them. The best way to go about this is having your Thief gulp down a Potion of Invisibility, so he/she can just disarm them at his/her leisure. Once that is done, deck out your best Fighter in missile protection gear like the Girdle of Piercing, Boots of Avoidance and Large Shield +1, +4 vs. missiles, and send him/her in to pummel on those skeletons, preferably with a blunt weapon as piercing and slashing weapons tend to be less effective against undead (lack of flesh and all that).

Who says summoned monsters is useless? if the skellies are attacking the monsters instead of your party, their not so useless because their giving you the best chance in the world to break those skellies in half.

And don't make the mistake of dismissing the idea of summoned monsters as cannon fodder simply because the hallways in there are too tight, ranged weapons aren't very effective, but they do still do SOME damage and some damage is better then none.

Also, magic isn't as ineffective as "90% spell resistance" might suggest, most spells still work sometimes so their worth trying to cast.

Well, I managed it. I reshuffled a bunch of equipment around. I sent my PC to bait them one at a time then retreated to my party where we'd buff with magic and potions. Then I'd send a couple fighters out there to slog through the fight while my cleric cast healing spells. It took me many attempts, but it feels good to finally kill those guys.

To anyone stumbling on this in 2021, I stumbled on the fact that if you cast protection from undead on Khalid, he can just sit there with a long bow and normal arrows and pick them off and they won't even move to attack him (BG EE).

I recognize this thread is quite old, but since it was resurrected, I may as well respond to some of the older points that were never addressed.True from a story perspective. From a gameplay perspective, the designers gave the Skeleton Warrior a damage resistance rating consistent with this observation. According to Baldur's Gate Wiki: Skeleton Warrior, this creature is 40% resistant to slashing damage, 50% resistant to piercing damage, and 60% resistant to missile damage, and 100% resistant to cold damage. The wiki makes no mention of other damage resistances, which usually means 0% resistance for all others.You are correct that they are difficult to turn, but incorrect about the reason. Effectiveness of Turn Undead is based on the level of the monster, not its experience value. However, Skeleton Warriors are level 9, so yes, OP's cleric has very little chance of a successful Turn Undead here.This seems to be incorrect. The Skeleton Warriors found in area AR0146 (Thieves' Guild Maze) do not wear IMMUNE1.itm, the typical way of granting indefinite protection from non-magical weapons. Additionally, I used a Dwarf Fighter equipped with a Throwing Axe (non-magical) in melee mode, and was able to damage one such Skeleton Warrior. That said, magical weapons are preferable for their to-hit and damage bonus, even if they are not required.Some spells bypass magic resistance entirely. For those that don't, trying to target a Skeleton Warrior should result in the spell failing outright in 90% of attempts. This suggests two courses of action:
- Use magic to improve the party, rather than trying to impair the enemy.
- Use spells that ignore magic resistance, if the party has them.Correct. Contrary to the in-game description of Protection from Undead, the practical effect seems to be that undead monsters are unable to detect the protected character at all. I used a similar technique to clear an area of Durlag's Tower. One character, under protection from undead, was able to clear out several rooms of skeleton archers without the enemy reacting at all. You could equally have used a melee weapon, and undead would still have ignored him.