Well, I am not sure I myself undesrtand it correctly, but this is how I understand it.Somewhat. I meant to explain that in my vision, monsters have no levels except relative to players.NPC's
How will monsters work, you ask? Well follow closely cause this will probably make no sense. Here I go...
Each NPC (talking monsters here) will have a Level attribute which will determine who can fight with it. People 5 levels below the monster's level will not be able to fight it. Whereas anyone above that can attack it. To make killing monsters fair, the damage you do, the damage the monster does on you, the monster's HP, etc. will be based on both the monster's level and the player's level. There will also be a bonus for exp if you are within a few levels of the monster's level. This will encourage players to level on monsters in their range in order to get the greatest amount of exp. Weapons will increase the raw power of the user by adding on to how much damage the user would do to the monster w/o anything on.
A monsters toughness and what you get out of that monster depends on how close to that monsters level you are. If you are 5 levels or more below it, you cannot fight it because it would kill you and you would get nothing out of it, but say you are 4 levels below it, it would be hard to kill it, but it would be possible if you were good enough, and the reward for taking such a risk would be great.
As you come closer to the level of the monster, the reward is still good, but it is not as good as it was, the closer you get. And every level you achieve, the monster becomes easier to kill. Eventually you will start getting a higher level than the monster, and instead of the monster having the advantage, you will have the advantage, and because of that, you will have less reward for killing it.
So the monster has a level, but the way I read it is the level is only a statement of how hard that monster is and how well you, at your level, should do.
So, if I were to fight a lvl 5 monster at lvl 1, it would be extremely hard and more than likely I would die, but if I were to win, then I would have a big reward. Now if I were level 9, and I went back and fought that level 5 again, then I will own the crap out of that level 5, but my reward will not be that great. But, the monster will always be level 5, it just means that better you get, the worse the monster is compared to you.
Well, that's how I understand it hehe, dunno if I'm correct on all points though, Iunno. But if this is how it's set up, congratz for an ingenius setup for monster fighting hehe .