The Rich Brat or The Naked Veteran

[JNAProductions]

Just a little thought experiment.

Would you rather have a level 1 Fighter on your party, who has the WBL (spent appropriately, but Fighterishly) with the WBL of a level 20 character, or a level 20 Fighter with the WBL of a level 1 Fighter?

With a caveat-you cannot just murder the level 1 Fighter and steal his gear. It's bound to his soul, and so is useless to anyone else.

And by "spent Fighterishly", I mean he does not just have a +30 item of UMD and a bunch of Wizardly items. He's built to stab or shoot or something, not pretend to be a Wizard via MONEY.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I think a low-level party would prefer the rich brat, on account of the abilities 20th-level WBL brings to the table: flight, special senses, special damage types (as in, swarmstrike transmuting backup weapons, and so on), immunities, bags of holding, all that fancy stuff that's good for anyone.

In a mid-high-level party, you would presumably have those abilities covered, and the 20th-level fighter makes for a better buffee.

[Crake]

I think a low-level party would prefer the rich brat, on account of the abilities 20th-level WBL brings to the table: flight, special senses, special damage types (as in, swarmstrike transmuting backup weapons, and so on), immunities, bags of holding, all that fancy stuff that's good for anyone.

In a mid-high-level party, you would presumably have those abilities covered, and the 20th-level fighter makes for a better buffee.

Rich brat can still die to bad luck at low levels, on account of really low health, even with a +6 con item, and the game doesn't assume you'll have the things the brat will have, so while nice, they aren't NECESSARY. The veteran on the other hand will accumulate gear with the rest of the party and eventually get geared up with them, keeping on curve, while simultaneously just being able to take and dish far more damage than the encounters expect.

Just because the rich brat's gear is bound to him, the goblins and orcs you fight don't know that, so he'd likely be the primary target for most of the enemies, and would likely die nice and quick. A +6 con item, 14 base con, and D10 HD gives you 15 hp at level 1. Even with untouchable AC, a raging orc barbarian with a greataxe can one shot him on a natural 20.

[JNAProductions]

Rich brat can still die to bad luck at low levels, on account of really low health, even with a +6 con item, and the game doesn't assume you'll have the things the brat will have, so while nice, they aren't NECESSARY. The veteran on the other hand will accumulate gear with the rest of the party and eventually get geared up with them, keeping on curve, while simultaneously just being able to take and dish far more damage than the encounters expect.

Just because the rich brat's gear is bound to him, the goblins and orcs you fight don't know that, so he'd likely be the primary target for most of the enemies, and would likely die nice and quick. A +6 con item, 14 base con, and D10 HD gives you 15 hp at level 1. Even with untouchable AC, a raging orc barbarian with a greataxe can one shot him on a natural 20.

Isn't there a Starmantle Cloak or something that makes you immune to nonmagical damage?

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Is the party level 20? Level 1? Level 10?

What OP level is the fighter? There are a few things like Imperious Command a level 20 fighter could be built for which would be more useful that everything else poor veteran or rich kid could do.


I'm really not sure what is considered normal damage for fighter relying on just feats I'd they aren't a dungeon crasher. Both can one shot some low level monsters veteran has a much better to hit bonus so he's more reliable.

They both have a lot of holes defensively; both have a Will save below +10, rich kid can be one shot by most things that can hit him through his AC, veteran's AC will be low.

For utility Richie has flight and whatever else he can justify. If he's the first in your party to get these things that could be really good. If the veteran is a spike chain tripper he'll be useful. If you're level 10ish he'll be better than a level appropriate gear fighter.

So, I'm gonna say that at really low levels Richie's babysitting of the party will be effective enough that his utility may make him better than the veteran. Around 6-8 Richie ceases to be better at fighter than level appropriate gear fighter, by 10 Richie a liability in combat and most of the utility you could justify being fightery the wizard has.

Edit: Ya I was kinda assuming that for this thought experiment Richie couldn't level and the Veteran had a permanent starting gear curse and also couldn't be buffed.

[Luccan]

Depends on the party. Probably the veteran, but I assume for the experiment we can't just give him gear. Low to mid levels, definitely the veteran fighter. At high levels, I might say the rich kid. Get him some items to help deal with underwhelming defenses (which I would argue are totally necessary for a Fighter) and target him for survivability buffs. He'll level up fast, should be at cohort level after just a few level-appropriate encounters. The naked veteran (if we continue to assume we can't just give him stuff), isn't as useful at high levels because he's a mundane with 0 magical equipment.

[Lapak]

Rich kid is going to die. There are just too many holes in his defenses to patch that the game expects to be covered by actual hit dice, so unless he has spent his entire WBL on becoming untouchable he's a walking target. A single negative level, a save-for-half area effect, a lucky crit, some Magic Missiles - whatever gap in his defenses exists is going to get tagged sooner rather than later. The 20 Fighter might not have some options and powers you'd like her to have, but she'll be able to deal and absorb enough damage to contribute and not instantly die.

[Florian]

In PF? The Naked Veteran. Especially when the party is low level.

[AvatarVecna]

I choose skill over pay-to-win D&D.

[Cosi]

Can we take the first guy's stuff after he dies? Because I pick that. Even if we don't get a character to replace him, the extra wealth is worth more than a 20th level Fighter (particularly one with no gear).

[Nifft]

With a caveat-you cannot just murder the level 1 Fighter and steal his gear. It's bound to his soul, and so is useless to anyone else.

And by "spent Fighterishly", I mean he does not just have a +30 item of UMD and a bunch of Wizardly items. He's built to stab or shoot or something, not pretend to be a Wizard via MONEY.


Can we take the first guy's stuff after he dies?

Signs point to NOPE.

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I'd take the level 20 guy, since I tend to favor Polymorph magic and Item Creation feats, either of which can compensate for nudity.

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Also, in terms of full frontal disclosure: when I saw the title, I was expecting some kind of romance between a veteran and a brat.

[Random Sanity]

Can't really say I'd want either in my group.

The overgeared newbie doesn't have the raw stats to back up his toys, and goes splat on the first bad roll. The ungeared veteran is a piñata, plain and simple; a martial without magic items is deadweight.

[RoboEmperor]

Rich Brat because magic beats mundane and magic items are magic especially since the rich brat has access to epic level items.

As to which items are "fighterish", I don't know but what I do know is that a naked 20 fighter is utterly, utterly worthless so he's not an option.

[Bohandas]

Just a little thought experiment.

Would you rather have a level 1 Fighter on your party, who has the WBL (spent appropriately, but Fighterishly) with the WBL of a level 20 character, or a level 20 Fighter with the WBL of a level 1 Fighter?

With a caveat-you cannot just murder the level 1 Fighter and steal his gear. It's bound to his soul, and so is useless to anyone else.

You should add the contrapositive caveat that the LV 20 fighter can't simply murder people to accumulate money

[Goaty14]

Depends where the rest of the party is. At low levels, the Rich Brat is better because he can still stand up to CR 1 encounters (No, he won't just go splat... not in comparison to the rest of the party). The Naked Vet. is worse because he jacks up the encounter level (Level 1 dudes aren't equipped to take on CR 5, and that's a conservative estimate).

At higher levels, it's the opposite: The Rich Brat jacks down the encounter level (both making it too difficult for him and too easy for his compatriots), and the Naked Vet can't normally stick up to CR 20 encounters... but that doesn't matter because of high-level magic (who needs gear when you're polymorphed into a hydra?). One might argue that the lack of gear makes him vulnerable to rocket tag, but a normal, properly equipped, fighter still would've been vulnerable...

[Dr_Dinosaur]

“Level 20 WBL spent appropriately but Fighterishly” means maxed-out Big Six, a great weapon/armor set, and loads of wands and other magic doodads to help them try to catch up, so definitely the Rich Brat. If he dies, we all get buffed by redistributing his gear. What would the level 20 veteran bring to the table besides lots of HP?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Rich brat can still die to bad luck at low levels, on account of really low health, even with a +6 con item [...]
It depends on the kind of encounters you expect. Tenth-level encounters? Probably. First-level encounters? Probably not. I agree that mid-high-level parties will want the naked veteran, but for the lower levels, I think the brat will contribute more utility. It's not impossible to survive on low HP totals, else we'd see every elven wizard dead before ECL 3.

The brat has some crazy advantages, with items like starmantle cloak, collar of umbral metamorphosis, retribution armour, and so on. It's also possible to buy a fancy mount, maybe even a bodyguard (there's a few constructs, including one that shields you from damage, iirc). Money is really useful, and can get you exactly what you need.

The veteran, on the other hand, is limited by what feats they can get--a couple of Incarnum feats, a couple of Tome of Battle feats, maybe some Aberrant feats? Even with 18 feats spent optimally, with all subsystems in play, there are just a lot of things you can't do. It's better to have a psychoactive skin of the proteus than 11 fighter feats ( I'm not sure whether that's a hyperbole).


If we assume levelling is on the table, we get an interesting race: Can the rich brat hit level 20 before the fighter hits appropriate WBL, assuming by-the-book treasure? The rich brat can handle encounters well above their level, the fighter must be careful and pick only lower-level encounters. Anyone want to do the math?

[Kish]

That's at least two people who haven't read the OP.

It's bound to his soul, and so is useless to anyone else.
No gear redistribution. Whichever one you pick, upon dying, contributes nothing further to the party.

(That's without even getting to the "loads of wands" assumption when using cross-class UMD to imitate a wizard is also explicitly disallowed.)

[Eldariel]

Really depends on how the WBL is spent. Sure, weapons and armor with abilities but it's especially the wondrous items that are of interest; Rich Brat could literally be immune to almost all attacks (Starmantle Cloak + Ring of Evasion + save boosters), have reasonable offense and defense, and all the basic abilities needed. But the special options available are the big thing that the Naked Veteran could never replicate. Thus...well, the sky is the limit, really. That said, far as raw numbers go, the 20HD veteran has the upper hand in the basics. Thus it's the special options and particularly party buffs for the Rich Kid vs. the independent power of the Veteran. High OP party might get something out of the Rich Kid but nothing out of the Veteran but if the game is played on the level where warrior-types are relevant, the Veteran would probably outperform the Kid. WBLmancy has a much higher ceiling than feats but the floor is frighteningly low, amounting to maybe +10 to all rolls (which is pretty sad on a 1HD creature, all things considered)

[gkathellar]

Are we using standard CR and experience rules? Because if we are, at mid-to-high-level, there's a strong temptation to babysit the brat for a bit while his hit dice soar. Sure, he'll be useless to start out, but he'll level quickly, and in the meantime he need not get a share of the loot.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

I'd rather have the impoverished Veteran. Especially if he was built - or even better, *played* - taking this into account. Like, hypothetically, Vow of Poverty Fighter 20. Maybe mortal magic is low on this world. He'd have a selection of feats and abilities that could take advantage of a +1 weapon being hard to find. I mean, how often do you play Diablo-style games where you end up selling most of your equipment? Even more fun is when you have to sell off the stuff you actually use just because you want/need that ONE ITEM. But you have skills and abilities to help you through, and that's where the L20 Fighter would be.
Yeah. Give me him. In a heartbeat.

Mindstab Thrull
I like my brains sunny side up.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

That's at least two people who haven't read the OP.

No gear redistribution. Whichever one you pick, upon dying, contributes nothing further to the party.

(That's without even getting to the "loads of wands" assumption when using cross-class UMD to imitate a wizard is also explicitly disallowed.)

I'm not sure the veteran contributes nothing after death. The corpse of a level 20 fighter has uses.

[blackwindbears]

Can't really say I'd want either in my group.

The overgeared newbie doesn't have the raw stats to back up his toys, and goes splat on the first bad roll. The ungeared veteran is a piñata, plain and simple; a martial without magic items is deadweight.

Depends what level you are. The better question would be what level (using core rules) would you prefer a straight fighter with WBL gear at the parties level, to low wealth level 20 fighter. I'm guessing the number is actually pretty high assuming an otherwise standard party. Level 12?

[Elricaltovilla]

The naked veteran would be more useful in a low level party where he can pick up equipment from dead enemies to make up WBL as the rest of the party levels.

The over geared newbie is better at high levels where he can be kept safe as the rest of the party takes out enemies and he gets extra XP.

Of course both are generally undesired as they are both fighters.

[Bohandas]

In a non-good campaign the lv 20 fighter, because they can just mug people and be up to speed quickly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-TmQ1ktaLU
(edit: warning: I think there's swearing in the linked video)

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Depends what level you are. The better question would be what level (using core rules) would you prefer a straight fighter with WBL gear at the parties level, to low wealth level 20 fighter. I'm guessing the number is actually pretty high assuming an otherwise standard party. Level 12?

Core only? I think 12 is around when the standard fighter would close the gap at their schtick. That's probably also the point where the low AC is catching up with the extra hp. Similarly I don't think native flight is coming online much earlier.

[Khedrac]

A lot also depends on what level you are.

Suppose the party is of levels 1-3 - with the level 20 fighter you may not be gaining xp because the party's APL is now too high for level-appropriate challenges to give you any.

Equally, though peoiple have suggested that the level 1 fighter will level up quickly (and you can get them to take classes other than fighter) if the party is high level, then the character will be too low level to gain xp from your encounters...

[Crake]

The starmantle cloak appears to do absolutely nothing against natural weapons, newbie still dies to a regular old tiger

[ExLibrisMortis]

The starmantle cloak appears to do absolutely nothing against natural weapons, newbie still dies to a regular old tiger
The item says "renders the wearer impervious to nonmagical weapon attacks". Natural weapons are still weapons, I'm pretty sure.

[Heliomance]

Take the rich brat, bypass the soul binding issue by having the party Artificer deconstruct all his gear when he dies and use the XP to forge more useful equipment :P

[Necroticplague]

Rich brat. The veteran will have difficulties with the fact that Fighter simply flat-out lacks an ability to deal with some threats in any meaningful fashion. Like the first incorporeal enemy.

[Elkad]

Rules need fleshed out more.
Can the L20 acquire magic gear in play? Can the L1 gain exp?
If you set both of those to "No", I'm taking the L20. (I'm assuming he can pick up mundane stuff, so he can at least keep supplied in javelins and torches, and can pick up some plate armor if he wants it)

A giant bag of hitpoints is just too useful.
I've already done Ritchie Rich a lot in 1e/2e. We never started replacement characters at anything beyond 1st level, so hiding behind the L11 guys in your Twink gear (from your prior toon that got it's soul eaten or something else unrecoverable) and trying to just stay alive while you got powerleveled (one level per encounter, until you got close to the party level) is something I've already done a bunch.

If you can't level up, 25-35 hitpoints is just not enough (I'm including the 10 negative hitpoints), even if the rest of the party has Close Wounds and Revivify. You'll be unconscious/semi-dead a large portion of most encounters, as it's impossible to guard against everything at L1, no matter your budget.

So I'll build a sorta-generic L20 fighter. Something with flight (Raptoran, etc). Take Air Heritage for the speed boost. Spend some feats on a magic weapon (Incarnate Weapon is one, there may be others). Mooch buffs off the party. Resistance, Magic Weapon, Vestments, etc. Take BlindFight for the Miss Chance reroll. Distribute your initial stats well. I think there is a feat for a Save reroll. Get that, and save it for critical saves like Domination. It's OK to die, it's not OK to kill the rest of the party.

In all but the highest optimization games he'll steamroll stuff for a long time, and he'll always at least be better than the Animal Companion.

[Knaight]

Depends on the party. Probably the veteran, but I assume for the experiment we can't just give him gear. Low to mid levels, definitely the veteran fighter. At high levels, I might say the rich kid. Get him some items to help deal with underwhelming defenses (which I would argue are totally necessary for a Fighter) and target him for survivability buffs. He'll level up fast, should be at cohort level after just a few level-appropriate encounters. The naked veteran (if we continue to assume we can't just give him stuff), isn't as useful at high levels because he's a mundane with 0 magical equipment.
The assumptions are slanted here - if you instead assume the rich brat can't gain XP but the veteran can gain loot it very much aims the other way.


Rich brat. The veteran will have difficulties with the fact that Fighter simply flat-out lacks an ability to deal with some threats in any meaningful fashion. Like the first incorporeal enemy.
The same thing goes the other way though - the rich brat gets splattered by any of the Symbol of X spells, because they don't have the HP to resist. 20th level fighter-spent WBL leaves a lot of defensive holes, and when you have a 1st level character inside those defenses any of those holes getting breached at all means the character is gone.

[Mystral]

Generally, Level beats Wealth because of the law of diminishing returns.

That +6 sword only gives +6 to hit. Level 20 gives +20. That +6 Con belt only gives 3 more hitpoints. Level 20 gives hundreds.

Also, a high level party should be able to buy a level 20 character with standard kit a few magical items to get him up to snuff, while no money in the world can buy the rich brat more levels.

[Deophaun]

Rich Brat. The Level 20 Fighter is going to be a Level 20 Fighter for a long, long time. The Rich Brat is going to hit level 2 much quicker, take levels in a useful class, and retrain his one Fighter level out.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Naked vet.

Fighterish gear is selected to supplement and augment what the fighter is doing with his build. There's almost nothing to base that on with a level one character. The rich brat is trying to build a fortress with no foundation or a car with no frame or engine. Just about all you -could- do with him is pick a high ECL race and point out the OP said a "level 1 fighter" not an ECL 1 fighter. That's not really in the spirit of the challenge though.

With a good PC race choice and, at minimum, 18 feats you can do more than most people think and even mundane gear can go a good long ways without breaking the bank unless you're just arbitrarily barred from acquiring any gear at all during play.

For simplicity's sake, I'd probably do a VoP build.

[Florian]

Generally, Level beats Wealth because of the law of diminishing returns.

That +6 sword only gives +6 to hit. Level 20 gives +20. That +6 Con belt only gives 3 more hitpoints. Level 20 gives hundreds.

For PF, the Veteran already comes equipped with a virtual +5 on weapon and armor (Weapon and Armor Training class feature, Weapon and Armor Master keystone class features), most halfway sane builds will grab Warrior Spirit along the way, to self-enchant equipment up to +5 above and beyond the usual +10 limit and use the mundane crafting options along with that. For added fun, using the Viking archetype will also allow to pick the best of Barbarian Rage powers in a Fighter chassis, which has pretty good defensive options.

[Mordaedil]

I've actually played this scenario out.

Veteran wins out, every time. The skills you get from just being level 20 heavily outweighs the benefits of gear for a level 20 character at level 1. Certainly neither one is guaranteed to succeed, but one of these characters have the stats of 20 levels, while the other has the weakness of not being able to prepare for every eventuality.

We'd need to nail down what gear could prepare a level 1 character the most, but I assume we'd look at rings of freedom, necklaces of health and such and even with a shirt of resistance +5, it's not going to make the level 1 fighter capable.

[ShurikVch]

Question: what's about such things as grafts, Warforged components and plating, Item Familiar, Ancestral Relic, or focus for Kissed by the Ages spell?


Like the first incorporeal enemy.Shape Soulmeld (Crystal Helm) and Open Least Chakra (Crown) :smallwink:

[ExLibrisMortis]

We'd need to nail down what gear could prepare a level 1 character the most, but I assume we'd look at rings of freedom, necklaces of health and such and even with a shirt of resistance +5, it's not going to make the level 1 fighter capable.
Starmantle cloak, ring of evasion, psychoactive skin of the proteus, fiendish wings graft, +1 soulfire reinforced mithral breastplate, +1 proof against transmutation mithral buckler (or bracers of armour), +1 transmuting swarmstrike greatsword, belt of battle and +6 constitution... I don't think I'm even halfway yet. Plenty of space for some temporary hp boosters, a cowl of warding if you want to go that far, some (improved) invisibility, a ranged weapon, a nice rider effect on the greatsword, additional ability boosters...

The 20th-level fighter can make first-level threats go *splat*, but it can't sneak up on them through the Ethereal, hop into a sealed room, kill everything there (still invisible), and hop back out.