Every Edition Has Its Setting

[Imp]

Well, a 3e fighter is maybe a little better off than a 1e fighter naked – it depends on what you send 'em against, if the fighter's built for it, and since CR is out the window it's totally subjective. In 3e everything will hit you harder. Other classes can handle it much much better in 3e of course; rogues vs. thieves...

Individual item loss is less disastrous usually, especially weapons, AC seemed more prized.

1e grappling makes me sad. I don't want to talk about it. It's... too soon.

I should amend my estimate of Mr. 10th level fighter's expected items – those five or ten extra items won't include potions, that's another five or ten. Girdles of Giant Strength were one of those unattainable mega-items IME, but the potions of course weren't.

 

[Hussar]

Girdles of Giant Strength were unattainable? Well, maybe. Again, if you played modules, you likely at least had Gauntlets of Ogre Power.

In any case, I think my point still stands reasonably well. There was a reason that many of those old modules stripped your equipment and made you run around naked. Fully loaded, you could cream just about any individual monster by the time you got into the high single digit levels.