This is me doing some amateur monster design.
You see, I noticed that the lowest level spider in the Monster Manual happens to be level 4. As I recall, there were plenty of level 1 vermin in the 3.5 Monster Manual. I decided to create a fairly simple spider with a mild poison.
At first I was winging it as far as the numbers are concerned because I feel pretty confident about what level 1 characters’ attack bonuses and defenses are. It turns out the numbers I was using matched up with the default recommendations, at least for the most part!
I’ll talk a bit more about it after the jump.