Dungeon/Monster Level

Figuring out the “dungeon level” of a monster was a mystery for decades, as I missed a small table on page 174 of the Dungeon Masters Guide. It’s easy to miss as it has 5 lines and is not formatted like other tables in the book.

It’s simple enough to use — just look up the XP value of a monster in the table to determine the dungeon level. Except the XP for a monster varies by the number of hit points, so the level can vary.

I thought about it and skip the XP for hit points — I total the Base XP, Special XP, and Exceptional XP when determining the level. This is simple and is probably what was intended.

Following is this table, plus the corresponding table from OSRIC. I often use OSRIC tables in lieu of AD&D tables, as OSRIC is more consistent.

However, I took a fresh stab at this, starting with 10,001 as the minimum value for 10th level, and divided by 2 until I got 10 levels. I tweaked the values a bit to even them out, which resulted in the column titled “Bryan”.

Not that Dungeon Level matters much to me. I assume this attribute was designed to help adventure designers pick monsters, and I may look at the level, but choose monsters using other criteria.

I have been examining the XP system, as it’s just as inconsistent. I use Lenard Lakofka’s 5% Rule tables, which is IMO better, but still not consistent. In this respect the newer D&D games are better.

Especially with an inconsistent XP system, the Dungeon Level is less useful.