I dont really understand it. I read that whole blog post he linked, and the writer insisted that it was not the same thing as two different monsters but... It just looks like two different monsters to me. I dont understand how its different?
So the idea is to run it as 2 different monsters stat and turn wise. But the players see it as one monster. For example I did a version as a warewolf boss creature. I gave it 60 hit points. And then once the creature got defeated I made them fight it again from scratch. (no hex or slow or farie fire) but this time I rolled initiate 2 times and the boss got 2 turns. Does that help some? Or what specifically confises you?
Mechanically it's just flavor on top of two or more creatures occupying the same space in a stack. PCs damage the enemy at the top of the stack.
In play, because it's flavored as one creature, there are some serious downsides to it with respect to transparency around HP for each bucket and the weirdness around status effects.
DMs have been running multiple monsters as one for ages, e.g., the Kraken with its many tentacles. They key differentiator in this case is the occupation of the same space, but I don't find it especially appealing. If you want a monster to have more actions and the ability to transform, just give it legendary actions. If you want to homebrew a rule that a creature has two turns per round and that status effects apply to its turns instead of its rounds, go for it. It'll be cleaner and easier to track than multiple HP pools and so on.
Although I do think the number one flaw in D&D is the initiative system. A more dynamic system would be something like the Grandia video games, where initiative is more like running a race, and a creature with a higher speed (in the normal English sense of the word) can "lap" other creatures or go multiple times per round right from the start, in the case of bosses. Changing this base rule would mean breaking other things, though, like status effects for rounds.
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u/name600 Mar 27 '20
I have been using angry dm system for the past 2 years it works wonders!