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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9776237" data-attributes="member: 7026594">I know the subject has been given a lot of discussion in 1E circles, even though I'm only tangentially involved in them.  I've seen multiple discussions on Dragonsfoot over the years, for example.Stuart Marshall (aka Papers & Paychecks), the editor of OSRIC, has an interesting perspective in part because due to the nature of OSRIC they needed to create their own algorithm to avoid duplicating AD&D too closely.  So he went through much the same headaches you're experiencing, trying to break it down and rationalize the numbers and make sense of them.  He has <a href="https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=75836" target="_blank">talked about</a> how he had to do a lot of ad hoc fudging to try to better relate xp awards for monsters to their actual difficulty to fight, and his impression was that Gary/the DMG design folks had done the same.OD&D was really different, of course, prescribing 100xp/HD +100xp per special ability, though again with some fudge allowance.  Though Gary cut that way down in Greyhawk, and that table was pretty closely adopted by B/X.  AD&D added some more complexity and increased the values a good bit, as you know.I have never gotten into the weeds and really wrestled with these numbers, but I'll link you to a couple of prior discussions and  three different people's tweaks/calcs to rationalize it a bit:[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=55184[/URL][URL unfurl="true"]https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=90748[/URL]Nagora and Polvoi (the posters who started those two threads and each did their own calcs) agreed that "the DMG values are sometimes what Gygax calculated using the table, sometimes what he calculated and made a mistake, and sometimes just the number he thought was right."Here's another useful spreadsheet several DF posters endorsed:[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/8218448/dismembering-the-monster-manual-xp-v-4-rtf-208k?da=y[/URL]I can take a swing at these questions. I believe this note is primarily to clarify how to treat humans/NPCs of PC species, since the table is primarily talking about monsters and level in reference to what dungeon level encounter table those monsters are found on.  Most normal humans are described as "0 level" throughout the DMG, so this note explains how to fit them onto the table.Under Mercenary Soldier on page 30 of the DMG it tells us that "regular soldiers are 0 level men-at-arms with 4-7 hit points each". And later on page 88 when talking about setting up a campaign world and civilized areas, Gary gives us a table of "typical inhabitants" for inhabited areas telling us the combat ability and hit points for male or female NPCs who are sedentary, active, or laborers by profession, though all are still considered 0 level.So essentially that note, IMO, just means if you need to award xp for non-soldier 0 level NPCs, use that first row ("up to 1-1"), and for men-at-arms (tougher and better equipped) use the next row.  And that all NPCs with class and level use the row equating to their level (N) +.I don't know if they were even thinking about giving monsters class levels when they made the chart, but my inclination would be to say all such should be adjusted ad hoc.  But the baseline is just to start with HD and add bonuses for special and exceptional abilities.</blockquote>

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