by virferrorum
Monsters go first because they are designed to.Being mostly destroyed in the hero phase that follows their appearance, they really only have one chance to hit a hero.
Free swings at frozen monsters is basically (unless dice hate you) awarding yourself free XP and free treasure. That feels like a table top cheat code to me.
The game came with built in scaling- add/remove surges to increase/decrease challenge.
Variants that add new elements are one thing, variants that change the core mechanics are totally different.