It's a Monstrous Monday and it is also Medium day for the #RPGaDAY.
Day 9 Medium
Most of my monsters in the various Basic Bestiary are Medium-sized. This works out well for a number of reasons, but mostly it is a boon for something I had been wanting to do for a while.
In D&D 5 monsters have different HD die types depending on their size. It works out like this.
| Size | Space | Hit Die |
|---|---|---|
| Tiny | 2½ by 2½ ft. | d4 |
| Small | 5 by 5 ft. | d6 |
| Medium | 5 by 5 ft. | d8 |
| Large | 10 by 10 ft. | d10 |
| Huge | 15 by 15 ft. | d12 |
| Gargantuan | 20 by 20 ft. or larger | d20 |
So Medium monsters use the common d8 for hit dice and the truly monstrous Gargantuan creature gets a d20. While AD&D and Basic D&D went more for larger creatures having more HD this works for what I call the giant baby problem. A gigantic creature can have a lot of hit points, but no combat ability, two things that HD covers.
I also like this idea for personal reasons. When I moved from Basic D&D to Advanced D&D I often used a d10 for monster hit points and not the RAW d8. I figured the monsters had to be more "advanced" so they got more hp. I also rationalized this with the fact that Basic fighters use d8 for hp, and Advanced fighters used d10. Of course on average, this is only 1 extra point per HD, but I liked it all the same.
3e and 4e also used different die types for hit dice, but these were different for different types of monsters. I like the 5e way of using these for size.
You might have seen these in some of my write-ups. The Mad Hatter Goblin is a small creature. I list it's standard HD is 2 and it's average hp from a d8 and it's Con mod is 9 +2 or 11. As a small creature, the same 2 HD and +2 con mod gives the creature an average hp of 7 +2 or 9. Sure not a lot of difference, but enough over the long run.
I am presenting both sets for people that want to use my "Advanced" set of size-based hp calculations or the standard RAW ones. I have been using this for a while now and while there might not be a significant difference in the play of the vast majority of monsters, the ones it does affect really affects them.
I hope people, especially in the OSR crowds, take to the change.
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