My Various 2025 House Rules - Monsters in Combat

[Kurgan]

Monster tweaks:

Boomerang Goblins:
These guys are like regular goblins but they can throw their boomerang in an arc to hit multiple heroes within LOS. They can also curve their weapon around corners to hit more than one hero within a corridor. The first ones I put out would "lose" their boomerang after throwing it, or if they "missed." Later goblins just had "infinite" boomerangs.
Their ranged weapon is 2 dice and they can still attack with 2 dice adjacent.

Grenade Goblins:
They can toss a grenade within LOS (like an archer) but it creates an explosion that encompasses four squares (including the square on the targeted hero) of 2 dice. They can target a single hero, a group, or an area (to hit an enemy who is standing around a corner for example). These guys can move, attack move... meaning they can also plant a bomb on a hero and run away. The explosions of course can hit more than one hero within that tight blast radius. When killed the goblins explode with a four square blast radius. Has normal attack at close range.

Orc Archers:
Armed with long-bows (4 dice at range) and attack with shortswords or dual wield daggers at close range (2 dice).

Ogre Warrior:
Just like the ones in ATOH remake, but they have an extra defend die (like Phoenix's version) and can "push" other characters out of the way as they pass through them (whether heroes or monsters, "shoving" them back one square. If they kill an enemy, they can regain 1 lost BP.

Animal Companions:
Carnivores (Raptor, Wolf, Saberfang) regain one lost BP after they kill a non-undead monster enemy. For Animals (and Ogre Mercs) ONLY, I use the "heroic" incapacitated rules. For heroes I use the standard NA/remake Death saves (yes, you can use an unused healing spell to save yourself if you die on Zargon's turn).

Ogre Mercenary:
Can be bribed with Ogre grog (equivalent to giving them gold) to join your party. Like Animal companion carnivores, they regain 1 lost BP when they kill a non-undead enemy.

Spawn:
Monsters that generate Spawnlings, when defeated, will be replaced by a spawnling of the type they normally generated as one last threat.

Elites:
Map icon based Game System monsters (including ranged versions) will have a check to see if they are elites. When most of the heroes are upgraded, I roll a blue combat die instead of a white one. If a black shield is rolled the monster is an "elite" (has an elite token under them, they roll black dice which makes them more likely to roll a skull, and blue dice for defense... effectively doubly their defense and making them have equal odds to heroes to block). The Twitch chat can still use their "gold coins" to upgrade monsters, or mutate existing ones, and add bonus monsters.

Beyond Elites:
An elite monster that gets upgraded often gets replaced either with a ranged version or a "ghostly" version (Using the translucent SQT or POT variants). So a ghostly green monster may have channel dread and be able to pass through walls or do short range teleportation. A fiery orange monster may have Ball of Flame or Fire of Wrath either as a single spell or being able to cast at will.

Double attacks:
Except for the Rogue, I treat multiple attacks upon the same target in the same turn to be just one big attack. So a polar warbear is rolling 8 dice against you. Orc's bane I would allow to be split between two adjacent orcs or hit one orc with 4 dice. The target gets to defend at the end against all, as planned in the drafts of the Hero-themed quest packs that Mike Gray's team was working on back in the day.

Villainous Feats:
Ice Gremlins:
When they steal an item, I roll to see if they can accomplish a "villainous feat" and there's a 50% chance they will succeed and can USE the item that turn (so imagine having your crossbow stolen and then USED on you!).
Regular monsters (usually bigger monsters or "leader" types, but could be any monster) will roll 1 combat die to see if they can batter down a closed door... usually I only attempt this if it's a room the hero revealed without having to go instead, and is avoiding opening that door now so the monsters are "trapped."

Enemy Raptors:
May open doors. But they don't automatically activate the room. Until a hero moves within LOS that is...

Hidden Monsters:
These get placed on the board when someone "buys" a bonus monster. They appear like eyes shining in the darkness (on a tile) and can move up to 5 squares on Zargon's turn. Until they move adjacent to a hero or mercenary, etc. then the tile is flipped over and revealed (if they would have had movement left as that monster, they can still move). It could be a monster (with a gold bounty for killing them, based on the Japanese rules), a harmless rat (who runs away), a potion, scroll, or piece of random equipment. If it's one of the latter "good" things, another hidden monster will spawn somewhere nearby... a revealed monster may attack immediately.

Equipment Switching (for heroes):
This is almost always only done once per turn. So if your hero switches to the Battle Axe in order to attack, you don't get to put the axe away and switch back to sword and shield at the end of your turn so you get the full defense against any attack on Zargon's turn. Instead you wait until your next turn to switch. Exceptions include when an adjacent ally gives you an item... you can switch to it right then and there, or if you had no item to begin with and found one as Zargon I'd let you immediately equip it. You could also immediately drop an item on the ground (to be claimed by anyone) on your turn. But unless someone is handing you an item, off turn, you really only get to use potions (and some spells that say they can be used off turn).

Holy Water isn't just for killing undead. It can alternately restore a lost Mind Point to any character.

[QorDaq]

Some neat ideas here.

I particularly like defining "Elite Enemies" with the upgraded Power Dice. Also, the Hidden Monsters riff off of the Space Crusade blips, but with a twist, is pretty nifty. Adding a decision point to the use of Holy Water is a nice idea as well. And finally, the carnivorous companions getting a dedicated healing perk, is great.

The special rules for Bomb and Boomerang Goblins, is something I've been doing too, though I've been going off of Banjo's rules (slightly more granular in terms of Goblin Ranged "Types).

Regardless, I like a lot of what you're doing with that list.