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Well, the Gigas Caves have me reconsidering the issue of holding levels - even after my last post. Three things have made me reconsider: 1) I was not expecting such a large increase in experience points for the monsters I now face, 2) even at lvl 13, I'm having serious difficulties in some locations - SE wilderness and the approach to Bayjin, for example, and 3) The major reduction in monster difficulty, i.e. level, I noted when I recuited lower level NPCs into my party. For #3, I had direct comparison, as I dropped Vi (who is at the same level as the rest of the party) and picked up Sparkle (who was at lvl 10, relative to the 13 of my party) and returned to the tunnels in Gigas Caves for some "training". The single change reduced the level of monsters - pestilent rats, rather than chameleon rats, for example, and cavern spiders, rather than the ensaring spiders. Later, I tried the same (from a previous save), but replaced Vi with BOTH Sparkle and Saxx. Saxx was a lowly level 8 when we started and I accepted only his levels as we adventured, so that he eventually caught up to Sparkle at lvl 11.
The monsters scaled with Saxx and went from Twilight Bats to Bat Vampires. Now, he's lvl 11 and we are routinely getting various Golems - mostly flint.
Why reconsider holding levels? Minimally, I'm holding the entire party for a given level until the last character earns that level, so the party progresses together. This way, I hope to avoid the fast developing fighter and bard from skewing the monster levels while the others are not close to the next step. If I took levels as earned, the Fighter would be two levels ahead of the Samurai (she's set-back a bit by chronic death in her earlier days). However, the experience with Saxx and Sparkle suggests that one can add the low-level NPCs as a kind of "ballast" to spawn lesser beasts.
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