How many 18th level fighters could an 18th level fighter take out

[orangefruitbat]

Power attack makes the difference

The 1st edition fighter has an AC of -10. The 3rd edition fighter has an attack bonus of +29. He could power attack for 18 (the max) and still hit on a 2. That's +36 damage/attack.

Game over

(Oh, you mean we have to translate one system over to the other?_

 

[DM-Rocco]

The gear is different in each edition, but so are the classes. And its a composite of things to compare. If such a battle were to take place, you're not going to have two naked fighters duking it out and see who falls first. Of course the 3.5 character would win, hands down. That wouldn't even be a challenge. No point in even comparing such a thing. The different editions had different dynamics. Gear and spells in 1e trump 3.5e virtually every time. While the 3.5 classes trump their 1e equivalent a majority of the time--not in such cases like Monks, Assassins and Wizards though. But definitely where melee/ranged fighters are concerned.

You're going to have a decked out 1st edition fighter (or fighter/mage, etc.) duking it out against a decked out 3.5 fighter. Besides, your topic doesn't specify "naked" characters toe-to-toe either. And who would do that anyway? 3.5 fighters have more options than a 1e fighter. But a 1e wizard will rule over a 3.5e wizard each and every time--that 1e wizard would be unleashing 9D4+9 magic missiles all over that 3.5 wizard, and that would quickly eat through a 3.5 brooch of shielding; or any other spells that have since been weakened with each successive edition. The factors in the scenario you are proposing (18th fighter 1e vs. 18th fighter 3.5e) is external options vs. inherent options. An 18th fighter in 1e was a bad-ass because of the treasure and gear he acquired. An 18th fighter in 3.5e is a bad-ass because of his feats since he is limited to gear that typically sucks hind by comparison.

If you're talking equal, then everything has to be equal including stats and such. In 1e, an 18 strength is not the same as a 3.5 strength score. Ogres had 18/00, which translates to about 24 or 26 in 3.5. Storm Giants had a 24, which translates to a 39 in 3.5e. If you're going "naked" and "equal", then you have to equalize the variants before you start tossing dice. If you're going to have 2h weapons do 1.5Xstr bonus damage in 3.5, then you have to apply the same to 1e to keep it "equal".

If you looked through the whole thread, I started out equiping the 3.5 fully and then a bit later I decided that the only way to see which would win was to make them naked and give then the same stats. If you notice I gave to examples of each, one with all 10s and one where the 1.0 had all 15s and the 3.5 had all 13s so they had equal plus bonuses. I know a 18 STR is different from each edition, duh, that is why I have equaled the stats between editions.

Also, the point of the post was to see how the base character in 1.0 would compare to the base character from 3.5. The post was designed to test how more powerful the rules are in 3.5 with feats and skills, not how obsurd the magic was in 1.0. That is why you have to make them naked and fight toe-to-toe.

As to giving the 1.0 artifacts and them being epic at level 10, completely up to the DM really. We never considered anything under 18 epic back then cause you still didn't max out your wizard spells by getting 9th level spells. Sure, at level 10 you could start to challenge Gods but that didn't mean that you did. Even if you have a large party, the shear amount of henchmen that a God would throw at you before you even had a chance to swing a sword at him or her would be so vast that you would most likely die. You can tell by modules how things are to work out and you never saw a module that gave away artifacts in 1.0. If you had the Wand of Orcus as an 18th level PC, and you didn't have every God in the world coming down on you trying to get it back, then you had a poor DM, bottom line.

Ah, the power of denying (with ludicrous arguments).

Of course the 3.5 fighter kills easily the 1e one. He has more hit points, four attacks instead of 2, a raw BAB better by 1 point, and many feat that chosen right for duel fight would greatly improve his combat abilities. The 3.5 fighter can probably kill two 1e fighters before dying.

Okay, someone kinda gets the point, thanks

I wanted to see how bad the rules have changed, I asked the question cause of the other thread where the guy wanted to know why all of the modules back in the day where made for 10+ characters. Back then they didn't have Unearthed Arcana to give people weapon specialization, they didn't have feats to do obsurd damage, they didn't have suggested wealth by level. Back in the day, at 18th level, we were lucky to have a +4 weapon, perhaps one person in the party had a +5, but most still had +3 weapons. Even though many considered over 10 to be epic, that really didn't mean you have +10 weapons of mass humaniod slaying, magic items were hard to come buy. Again, look to the older modules for higher level characters, anything over a +4 was a rarity.

Why was that important, cause then a fighter would do very little damage with a swing compared to the 3.5 counter part. The only way to really test it was to make then both naked.

Whew, I give up. Very hard to write about a topic when people by-pass what you are trying to prove. If the rest of you want to think that a 18th level character would have a wand of orcus for more than two seconds and want to through obsurd over powered magic at a 3.5 fine, then take into account that the 18th level 3.5 fighter would take 10 levels in the Dueliest prestiege class, take feats like improved two weapon defense and improved combat expetise and the right list of magic items for a 18th level character to get over a 100 AC (or a -80 in 1.0), making it impossible for the 1.0 to even hit him once since the 1.0 doesn't automatically hit on a natural 20.

So, I leave you with that bit of obsurdity if you want to add magic to the fray.

 

[Staffan]

An 18th level Fighter from 1E would kick the arse of a 3.5E.
2) There is no gold limit on gear. The f/1 can have unlimited amounts of stuff. The key thing is the 3e fighter gets a +6 to Str Girdle. The 1E gets a girdle of Storm Giant Str for +6/+12.

There's no limit in 3e either. There are guidelines for how much an Xth level character should have if created at various levels, but once you're out adventuring you find what you find. The advantage here goes to the 3e fighter, who has a lot more capability for customizing his gear. The 1e fighter MIGHT have a Girdle of Storm Giant Strength, but the 3e character WILL have a Belt of Strength +6.

3) Grand Mastery and Double Spec rules were in 1E. So the fighter did, on average, some incredible dmg with weapons. A grandmaster with the longsword is doing d10/2-16 +3/+3 with a speed modifier of 0, and attacking 7/2 ALL THE TIME...not just with full attack actions.

Are you sure you're not confusing 1e with 2e? I know Unearthed Arcana had rules for double specialization, but the Grand Mastery stuff was, IIRC, from the 2e book Combat & Tactics.

Attacks would be 7 Attacks every 2 rounds...there are no full attack actions. He'd be trading 1 attack for 3 1/2...and have to move 120' every round to inflict that dmg.

You are forgetting one of the most important advantages of the 3e fighter. He gets to do stuff every 6 seconds, the 1e fighter only once every 60. That's a 10-to-1 advantage in actions for the fighter.

 

[JamesDJarvis]

You are forgetting one of the most important advantages of the 3e fighter. He gets to do stuff every 6 seconds, the 1e fighter only once every 60. That's a 10-to-1 advantage in actions for the fighter.

actuallty it is the other way arround. 3e characters are a 1/10th as tough as an AD&D character at best. It'd take two AD&D fighters something like 13 minutes to finish a fight unless someone had tricky magic items up an armored sleeve. A 3e fighter would be dead against another 3e fighter in 54 seconds or less.

 

[dnabre]

You can't make a reasonable comparison. How you map between the editions is going to make or break the fighters.

A 1ed fighter is extremely gear dependent, while a 3ed will have much weaker gear, it'll likely be customized. You can't compare them fighting bare handed, because that'll mainly just compare the unarmed fighting rules between editions, not the fighters in general. You can't say, no artifacts for the 1ed fighter and be fair, because most 1ed fighters of that level would have artifacts (not to mention a keep and a sizable army).

THAC0/AC and BAB/AC are completely different systems. How you bridge this gap will determine a great deal of how they compare. An 18th 1ed fighter isn't going to miss, no matter his opponent's AC under THAC0/AC, while a 3rd will quite often miss, especially with his later attacks. You run into similar things with seconds per round, HP, saving throws, and ability scores.

Of course, how in the world do you handle things like AoO? It wouldn't be fair to the 3ed to just not have them, and non-sensical for the 1ed to deal with them.

 

[Endur]

I saw artifacts in the following 1e modules:
Axe of the Dwarven Lords (the Axe and other Dwarven artifacts)
Temple of Elemental Evil (The Answerer, The Orb of Golden Death, others)
Tomb of Horrors
White Plume Mountain (Black Razor, Whelm, etc.)
Q1 The Demonweb
There was a Hammer of Thunderbolts and Deck of Many Things in the G series
Other artifacts in many modules that I don't remember.

You can tell by modules how things are to work out and you never saw a module that gave away artifacts in 1.0. If you had the Wand of Orcus as an 18th level PC, and you didn't have every God in the world coming down on you trying to get it back, then you had a poor DM, bottom line.

 

[JamesDJarvis]

Of course, how in the world do you handle things like AoO? It wouldn't be fair to the 3ed to just not have them, and non-sensical for the 1ed to deal with them.

We had them in the old datys too they were open to the DMs judghemnt and weren't based on picky movemnt distinctions.

 

[Silverleaf]

Now try 1e or 3e fighter against B/X fighter. The rules only go to level 14, but the attack table is linear, so you can extend it. That won't help the poor B/X fighter from getting his @ss whooped. Max STR is 18 (no exceptional/percentile thingamajig) which means only +3 to-hit & damage. Hit dice are d8, and you only roll them on levels 1-9 (after that he gets only 2 hp/level and no CON bonus). He only gets one attack/round (round = 10 seconds). Weapons do 1d6 damage by default, unless you use the optional damage-by-weapon chart, and then the biggest 2-handed weapons do 1d10, and there's no such thing as critical hits.
I think fight would be over in one round, maybe two rounds if he got lucky.

 

[JamesDJarvis]

Now try 1e or 3e fighter against B/X fighter. The rules only go to level 14, but the attack table is linear, so you can extend it. .....Weapons do 1d6 damage by default, unless you use the optional damage-by-weapon chart, and then the biggest 2-handed weapons do 1d10, and there's no such thing as critical hits.
I think fight would be over in one round, maybe two rounds if he got lucky.

the weapon damage chart is not optional in Basic/Expert, it is the stabndard rule.

you also don't have to extrapolate to get to level 18, you could hety the companibn set or the rules cyclopedia. the cyclopedia covers level 1 to 36. Those rules aso come with the Weapon Mastery rules; an 18 th level fighter using those rules using a long sword as his primary weapon trained to the degree of Grand Master : will do 2d6+8 pts of dmg not accooubntibngh for magic weapon or str , will have a 4 pt bonus to AC, can deflect up to 3 attacks a round and can disarm foes.

when the differences in all the different versions of the game are considered this exercise is reallty tricky, it'd be better to see how fightyrs in each edition are agaibnst fighters in thier own edition and compare the results.

 

[Silverleaf]

the weapon damage chart is not optional in Basic/Expert, it is the stabndard rule.

you also don't have to extrapolate to get to level 18, you could hety the companibn set or the rules cyclopedia. the cyclopedia covers level 1 to 36. Those rules aso come with the Weapon Mastery rules; an 18 th level fighter using those rules using a long sword as his primary weapon trained to the degree of Grand Master : will do 2d6+8 pts of dmg not accooubntibngh for magic weapon or str , will have a 4 pt bonus to AC, can deflect up to 3 attacks a round and can disarm foes.

when the differences in all the different versions of the game are considered this exercise is reallty tricky, it'd be better to see how fightyrs in each edition are agaibnst fighters in thier own edition and compare the results.

Ahhh but you're talking Mentzer D&D ('83 BECMI rules) whereas I was stricly talking Moldvay/Cook D&D ('81 Basic & Expert rules). In the '81 rules, all weapon damage is 1d6 by default (see page B25). There are also some subtle differences in spells (eg, Magic Missile) and the progression of spells and thieving skills varies ('81 edition is more front-loaded).
It's also worth noting that the Weapon Mastery system that was introduced in the Master set is entirely optional. I've heard of people using it and enjoying it, and others saying that they thought it was too complex to bother with, or unbalanced their game. One thing's for certain though: it does significantly alter the power level.