Interpreting Monster pips ("4+1 HD") -- Chainmail Curious

[rustic313]

An Ogre, for example, has 4+1 HD.  How am I to interpret that through the lens of a Chainmail-esque combat system?

- An ogre makes four man to man attacks (2d6 dice rolls vs. the armor chart), one of which is at +1?
- An ogre attacks as four foot (typically 1d6 each), one of which is at +1?  If so, attack as light, heavy or armored foot?
- An ogre gains an additional +1 to hit on the "alternative combat system" D20 roll?
- An ogre gains +1 damage on  the "alternative combat system" D6 roll?
- Something else?

Thanks!

[Desparil]

When I read Monsters & Treasure, it seemed unambiguous to me that your first bullet point is the "by the book" method. If you wanted to do mass combat or attacks (your second bullet) then you'd just use the ogre's Chainmail stats, and for the D20 "alternative combat system" the Monsters Attacking Matrix takes care of everything (while there's debate on which column to use for "border numbers such as 4 HD, the ogre at 4+1 HD fits nicely in the "4-6" column) and the +1 only adds an extra hit point and help determine what column it attacks on. The ogre deals +2 damage, but that's a special ability that it has unrelated to the 4+1 HD number.

[rustic313]

Thanks for the quick reply!

So if using mass combat, I would just treat the ogre as 6 heavy foot (per chainmail) and basically disregard the "4+1 HD" entry.

[Desparil]

Yeah, that's the interpretation that I'm confident in - for Chainmail Man-To-Man it gets 4 attacks of 2d6 each, the first of which gets a +1 modifier, but for the 20:1 scale mass rules nothing in the D&D books applies and you should just use Chainmail as written. On the other hand, there's plenty of debate on how to translate a PC fighter or magic-user into a 20:1 scale Chainmail battle, there are whole threads dedicated to that topic.