I'm prepping a little for my Planescape Donjon game on Monday, and wanted to simplify the monsters. Two goals here:

+ Easier to improvise monsters during play.
+ Make combat easier for me as GM.
+ Hearken back to Basic D&D where Monsters have their own stat blocks, designed specifically as combat encounters.

Here are my alternate monster rules. Thoughts?

Monster Stats:
Level: Same as original
Flesh Wounds: Same as original
Combat: Attribute used for Attack, Parry, Dodging, Damage, etc.
Saves: Attribute used for Other Stuff (Resisting Poison, Magic, a measure of intelligence, etc)
Abilities (5 of 'em, just like the original)

Flesh Wounds: 3 + Level
Combat & Saves: 6 + level points to distribute
Abilities: 10 + (3 x Level) points to distribute

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I figure that Combat is a fine skill, and if I want to enhance attacking, dodging, damage, and so on, I just give the thing an Ability. Same with Saves. You want a magic-resistant monster? Just give it a high Resist Magic Ability.

I did my best to calculate the points given to match up with original Donjon monster stats. I'll let you all know how much I like this new method (so nobody else has to suffer) after our game.

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A quick 'n dirty conversion would look like:
+ Flesh Wounds = Recalculate.
+ Combat = (Virility + Adroitness + Wherewithal) / 3
+ Saves = [(Save vs. Illusion + Cer) + (Save vs. Poison + Whe)] / 2
+ Abilities = Allocate points to make as close to original Donjon monster as possible.

Zak,

Remember that most rolls are Attribute + Ability. You might want to do something like:

- Just add 3 to each Ability to make up for the missing attribute.

- Or, for each action, decide if the monster is Bad (1 die) at it, OK (3 dice) at it, or Great (6 dice) at it.

Oops. Forgot to clarify.

Combat is the generic Attribute for fighting, and if the monster has, say, an attack Ability, add that Ability to the Attribute.

I did try for Saves representing a combination of Donjon Ability + Save vs. Illusion or Poison. Add an appropriate Ability to the monster and Voila! Saves + Ability = dice.

I also like your 1, 3, 6 rule. Simple = good when it comes to Donjon. I may fiddle with something like that, too.

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Oh! I get what you're saying. An ability that would use, say, Sociality, would be lacking because of no Sociality for the monster. Yeah, I should up the points for Abilities a little. Or something. I'll ponder furhter.

I'm tempted to just leave Saves as "everything but combat" (seems somehow appropriate) so a Seduce Ability would use Saves + Seduce.