Power level increase by levels

[Darkness]

That's a good point... Apart from combat power, the higher-level character also has better skills and better equipment, if not class skills and spells.

 

[UniversalMonster]

The crucial factor is player skill and customization.

In the case of two 1st level fighters, we say 50-50, because we reason that someone has to win. But let's say you get a min-max'd human fighter with optimized feat selection for fighting other fighters, and the second fighter is an elf fighter with say.. "Iron Will" as his feat.

I'd say that elf is going down, and it's going to be a lot more likely than 50%. Even if the elf is second level, he's probably going down. At third, depending on how good the player behind the 1st level guy is? That elf may still be going down.

 

[Pyrex]

Skill and customization are important, Philip has it right.

Our tabletop group has been playing together since 3.0 released, every two levels pretty much doubles your adventuring power.

Any random two 8th lvl PC's are pretty solid match for any random one 10th lvl PC. Just because you can construct scenarios where one or the other side is guaranteed to win doesn't invalidate the basic premise.

 

[jmucchiello]

10th level mage vs. 10th level fighter. Both begin 5'ft away from one another. Mage is toast.

Not really. It depends at the very least on who wins the initiative. Not really. It depends at the very least on who wins the initiative.

It doesn't even depend on that. It depends on what spells the wizard has memorized. He makes the concentration check to cast his spells defensively so he can dim door away, cast stoneskin and tough it out, teleport, heck he could cast charm person and then hire someone else to kill the fighter after getting him drunk at a tavern.

And what does defeat mean? Can the 20th level bard "win" by a couple diplomacy checks raising the opponent's attitude from hostile to friendly?