Simple Monsters

Still working on both the Low Talents/Low Wizardry materials for M20 and the Blanc document, and I have an interesting "Last-Minute GM" idea for later this week, but for now, since I've solved my missing LBB problem, I'm thinking about some LBB-style monster matters. Somewhere, I got the idea that in the LBBs, the hit-point bonus for monsters was also used as a damage bonus. I swear I saw a reference to this in Sham's Grog 'n Blog: cover to cover reading of the LBBs. However, I'm only finding a reference to the hit point bonus being a modifier to morale rolls and the (Chainmail) attack bonus on a monster's last attack.

Still, I like the way that a simple dice-plus-adds formatted bit of information can be used to represent more than one detail. Plus, I'm already violating the original rules one way by using a Target 20-ish "add the character's hit dice to the die roll" approach. So why not reinterpret the way monster hit dice are used?

Monsters are rated in terms of "hit dice" (HD) and "additional bonus hit points" ("adds"), written "HD+adds". Roll a number of six-sided dice equal to HD and add the "adds" number to the total to get hit points. When the monster attacks, add the HD number to the attack roll as an attack bonus. When rolling damage, add the "adds" as a damage bonus. When rolling to see if a monster breaks morale, add the "adds" as a morale bonus.

That's pretty concise. There's one other thing I want to do with that "adds" figure, but it's kind of tied to some other ideas and will need a separate post.