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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 5315585" data-attributes="member: 5143">I admit, I'm not extremely familiar with 1e, having started with 2e.  However, I was not aware of any system for monsters of a certain level.  Nothing the book ever explained.  It appeared to me as if the designers had guessed the difficulty of monsters and put them at that level.I know there was the random dungeon tables which suggested "level 1" monsters and so on.  But if memory serves me, monsters often appeared on multiple "levels" in that chart and that certain monsters were obviously way too powerful for the levels they were put on, since they were intended to be the "random extremely hard monster" for that level.And, unless my memory is failing me, most of the monster books to come out later didn't specify the level of the monsters.But, yes, it was an alright estimate in most cases.  However, my experience was that it wouldn't tell you how MANY monsters to use and sometimes individual monsters were way harder than their estimates.  I know there was a recommended number for each monster, but rarely did anyone actually follow that.  Fairly often, I'd see DMs go "Grey ooze is appropriate for your level, so is a beholder, so is a dragon.  You fight all of them".I'm not sure that's a good thing.  Better to guarantee that a monster is the appropriate challenge than hope that your formula generates the right difficulty.  Since most formulas are at least slightly flawed.  Most when it comes to extreme numbers.  After all, what difficulty is the 2e monster with an AC of -10 with only 10 hitpoints, but with a THAC0 of 20 that also has a special attack that causes enemies to save or die?  It is super low because it can barely hit and dies to low level spells or super high because it is nearly impossible to hit with weapons and can kill you outright?</blockquote>

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