D&D General I'm a Fighter, not a Lover: Why the 1e Fighter was so Awesome

[Maxperson]

Heaviest armor wasn't the best.

Full plate didn't exist and the weaker armors usually came with higher Enchantment bonuses.

+3-5 chainmail was a lot more common than +3-5 plate mail.

By level 3 it wasn't unusual to see +1 armor, weapons, elven cloak and boots sometimes gauntlets of ogre power.

+3 and 4 weapons/atmor started turning up around level 4-7.

1e didn't work that way if you were rolling treasure randomly. Even low level creatures had lairs with treasure that could include magic items. There was only one chart for armor, so you could theoretically find +5 plate at 1st level. Also, the 1e DMG didn't have chain mail higher than +3. Splint went to +4 and plate to +5. Leather, ring mail and studded leather only had +1.

I rolled 4 random magic items and got.

1. Bracers of Defenselessness. Oops!
2. Long Sword +2, Dragon Slayer.
3. Hammer +2.
4. Shield +5(super lucky here).

As you note it wasn't unusual to see several magic items by level 3. Nothing kept them to weaker items unless the DM arranged it that way.

 

[Zardnaar]

1e didn't work that way if you were rolling treasure randomly. Even low level creatures had lairs with treasure that could include magic items. There was only one chart for armor, so you could theoretically find +5 plate at 1st level. Also, the 1e DMG didn't have chain mail higher than +3. Splint went to +4 and plate to +5. Leather, ring mail and studded leather only had +1.

I rolled 4 random magic items and got.

1. Bracers of Defenselessness. Oops!
2. Long Sword +2, Dragon Slayer.
3. Hammer +2.
4. Shield +5(super lucky here).

As you note it wasn't unusual to see several magic items by level 3. Nothing kept them to weaker items unless the DM arranged it that way.

That's random loot. Adventures are different.

Ran a few recently. Fighter ended up with AC 24 or 25 by 7th level iirc.

My druid had AC -7 (27). Level 12 (funky cp table).