For us, 'name level' was the point where an adventurer builds a fortress, develops the land, sees off monstrous incursions, engages in politics, perhaps even building their own nations... our adventures moved onto a broader canvas (and were all the better for it IMO).
And I have to say, as a DM I never found any problem challenging 1e parties of all classes right up to 18th level or so. Nor did my fellow DMs. I find it hard to conceive how a party of 9th level characters could slay an 18th level lich without giving the lich some unrealistic disadvantages, but maybe that is just me.
Cheers
I agree with your first point completely! I also saw name level as when they build a fortress, have land, etc. However, none of my players particularly like politics like that, so we rarely did that. As I said, they held onto characters for too long and I let them.
As to the second, again, I don't have the books anymore to give you the numbers, although Puggins' post does have some of it. High level 1E dragons were a joke by the book, and I was literal enough back then that that is what I used, with 88 hit points being the max. I remember how huge it was that the 1E UA barbarian got d12 hit points and double CON bonus! It meant they almost averaged in triple digit hit points around 11th level! That was so many to me back then! And 88 hit points just doesn't last very long against five characters, potentially with two attacks each!
It might have been just my group but we thought AC topped off at -10. So, with STR and weapon bonuses, PCs had a reasonable chance to hit that, assuming that was the monster's AC. If a group of well equipped 9th level characters, or maybe up to 12th as Puggins said, finds the lich unprepared, it's over. If the lich finds the characters, it's probably over as well, depending on how paranoid/prepared the PCs are. If they meet in a dungeon, and that's where liches hung out back then for us, it depended on tactics but 1E liches, and monsters, didn't have lots of hit points. Usually, once the fighter got to them, even with fire shield doing double damage back, the spell caster couldn't last. Again, it's mostly anecdotal from my own experiences.
Didn't someone else mention that H4 was for 18-100 level characters? That at least implies, to me, that at some level, another level increase doesn't mean much. What that level is, though, is probably debatable. I also thought there was another module that had a lich and was for 9-10th level characters but don't have that stuff to check anymore. It's not a bad thing! It's just how the game mechanics worked.
Thanks!
edg
