Im sure I'm not the only father who has tried to get his daughter to like the cartoons he liked as a kid. I tried to do so recently, and put the old Wizard of Oz anime. I think she kind of liked it (Im so tired of that Blue's Clues!) and I got to check with my adult eyes that that series still have a fucking ton of soul.
But my gamist eyes also realized something about the Wicked Witch of the West: she surely has powers. She surely has a magic item on that hat. But in the end the threat is not as much as comparing a, say, level 3 Wizard vs some level 1 fighters (tin man and lion) and some assorted thieves. The witch is really dangerous because they are getting into her territory. Even people at Emerald City are aware of this because there is no road that goes into the west. "Why would anybody want to go there?"
Her main weapons are not her powers, but the fact that she is living behind a couple of hostile canyons and controls the local population of Crows, Wolves and Wasps, who in turn help her enslave her own army of Winkies, which are some sort of local hobbits (Though they all fail in the end and she has to resort to winged monkeys).
In the end it made me thought that monsters in D&D are most commonly found in their territories, and that intelligent monsters (and all monsters are intelligent in their own way) should have worked something up to protect their territories, or use their knowledge of that parts to their advantage, even if its just in a slight way.
For my mathematical head, maybe a Level 3 warrior is just a little better equipped than another similar Warrior that lives at some forest. Or even a bear. You could say that the fight is more or less equated, But in the practice, PCs are going to use their edge: as PCs are commonly in the role of intruders/invasors, that edge is their unexpectedness. Monsters are not aware the PCs are there: they might not even expect them or know they exist.
Monsters' edge, on the other hand, is that they are at home, and if even real life persons take measures to protect their homes, the GM should ponder if that monster you rolled up on that table is at their lair and what kind of measures would have taken to take away PCs advantage (detecting or predicting their appearance) mitigate their power (setting harsh environments or traps) or aquiring power beyond their own level/class (does it have allies? depending on which game you play, its not crazy that a pixie would alert a bear that there are intruders walking through the forest hex, or even have them form more complex symbiotical relationships)
So this might sound obvious to many, but it might serve as a reminder to myself and the rest to take it seriously when making encounters in lair. Taken to the extreme, a monster that can disconnect himself from the world might make a defence so fierce that its a labyrinthic amalgam of traps and hazards. We call those "a dungeon".
PD: Wizard of oz also reminded myself that one small race (hobbits) serve perfectly the role of friendly, jolly helpers when on their own; loyal retainers to noble fairies or vicious goblins, mostly when they happen to symbiotize with a dark lord. Just like humans. You don't need so many races.
