Crusoe67: I've played Diablo on and off for twenty years. Since downloading Hellfire, my new characters get killed every single time by the first monster they encounter in the first level. My hero can't seem to hit them. They're highlighted and I'm swinging away, and hardly ever land a hit. And my hero dies in three or four hits. Anyone else running into weirdly invincible first opponents?
Devin_Rasmussen: Highlighted monsters are special creatures that have high stats than normal monster types. In Diablo 1 they're seen in packs. They drop weak to strong items. The rarity differs. When a player first starting out these monsters will destroy and will not die due to the player character at the time. The player character needs to be at a certain level range/stats in order to kill them. In hellfire this is also true. This is why you're having a hard time its best to avoid them until you get stronger.
In this case, the original poster was using "highlighted" to mean that he had properly pointed his cursor at the monster, and its statistics were shown in the bottom window. He did not mean it had the glow of a unique monster.
Some unique monsters have minions. Some do not. Unique monsters without minions may appear with no pack at all.
Unique monsters are generally more powerful than their base type, but they can be defeated by a well-prepared and carefully played character. They may be expensive to defeat though.
Being a higher level helps, but there is no minimum level required to beat a unique monster. Rather, the player needs to have sufficient to-hit and damage output to kill the unique before it kills the player. Even a level 1 character can prevail, if it is carefully played and sufficiently equipped. (Note that for some bosses, a level 1 character will only be "sufficiently equipped" if gifted equipment from a higher level character.)
I think qndel's suspicion is more likely: that the original poster has enabled Nightmare or Hell difficulty, and the resulting statistic boost for the monsters makes them impossible for a newly made character to beat.
