Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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While playing this weekend, I finally appreciated what THAC0 was trying to achieve and how cool it would've been if I had appreciated this a decade or two ago. The party was fighting a ton of ogres, all of whom had the same AC. In general, they had enough bonuses such that any roll of the d20 above a 10 was a hit. I kept telling them that if they rolled over a 10, just to go ahead with damage, quit wasting time figuring out if they hit 21 or 29 or 33. All we needed to know was what the roll of the die was and we could determine the to-hit from there.
That was THAC0's purpose. It was to let you know just by looking at the die itself without consulting your character sheet multiple times whether you hit. You weren't meant to calculate THAC0 every time you swung, you were meant to calculate the number on the d20 and use that as your benchmark.
Of course, once you move to the 3e iterative attack model, bonuses changing dramatically from round to round, and monsters that last only 2-3 rounds at most, the value of THAC0 goes down considerably. But back in the era of few modifiers and monsters that took many rounds to fell, THAC0 was a pretty good idea. I still wouldn't want it back in the game, but I appreciate it more now than I ever did before.
Perspective is a funny thing, ain't it? (too snarky?). Totally understand where you're coming from is my point.
You know THAC0 never bothered me. I hated trying to explain it to newbies (and still do, though I play C&C when I need my old school D&D kick, so it rarely comes up).
I actually still have an easier time converting THAC0, and figuring out results in 2nd edition than I do with 3rd. I've been playing 3rd since 2002 and haven't played 2nd since 1995.... Like riding a bicycle I guess.
You know THAC0 never bothered me. I hated trying to explain it to newbies (and still do, though I play C&C when I need my old school D&D kick, so it rarely comes up).
I actually still have an easier time converting THAC0, and figuring out results in 2nd edition than I do with 3rd. I've been playing 3rd since 2002 and haven't played 2nd since 1995.... Like riding a bicycle I guess.
You're joking right? To calculate a 3rd Edition roll, all you do is add your d20 roll to your modifier. If it beats the difficulty it succeeds. How is that not easy?
You know THAC0 never bothered me. I hated trying to explain it to newbies (and still do, though I play C&C when I need my old school D&D kick, so it rarely comes up).
I actually still have an easier time converting THAC0, and figuring out results in 2nd edition than I do with 3rd. I've been playing 3rd since 2002 and haven't played 2nd since 1995.... Like riding a bicycle I guess.
You're joking right? To calculate a 3rd Edition roll, all you do is add your d20 roll to your modifier. If it beats the difficulty it succeeds. How is that not easy?
I think the OP means that on 2E you need to perform a calculation just once (in the beginning of the combat - subtract your THAC0 by you enemy's AC to find the number to hit, and use it as reference for the entire battle), rather than having to add the d20 to your attack bonus on every attack.
Actually, I think this is not a virtue of the THAC0 system, but due to the fact that on 2E attack modifiers were not that common (there was no flanking, flat-flooted, iterative attacks, etc.). If in 3E attack modifiers were likewise rare, you could do the same thing - substract attack bonus from your AC (the opposite calculus) to find the number to hit, and use it as reference for the entire combat.
Since I frequently used groups of mixed monsters on 2E, and the party had a cleric which used lots of buff spells, we couldn't realy perform a single calculation for the entire battle, and THAC0 was somewhat cumbersome for my group, since adding is easier than subtracting.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Actually, I think this is not a virtue of the THAC0 system, but due to the fact that on 2E attack modifiers were not that common (there was no flanking, flat-flooted, iterative attacks, etc.). If in 3E attack modifiers were likewise rare, you could do the same thing - substract attack bonus from your AC (the opposite calculus) to find the number to hit, and use it as reference for the entire combat.
I think it's a bit of both. The THAC0 system naturally points you to the number you need to roll without deviating from its set-up. Yes, you can make the same calculation in 3e, but THAC0 was designed (I suspect) to get you to that result immediately.
That being said...
Since I frequently used groups of mixed monsters on 2E, and the party had a cleric which used lots of buff spells, we couldn't realy perform a single calculation for the entire battle, and THAC0 was somewhat cumbersome for my group, since adding is easier than subtracting.
It wasn't all that effective at its goal. In addition to the above problems, 2e encouraged DMs to be secretive about the AC of the monsters, so THAC0 generally didn't even get an opportunity to be used correctly. The DM had to keep track of the THAC0s of the players, the ACs of the opponents, and the number that each needed to hit the other. That was also a large reason the system broke down.
Still, I think it's worth noting that what THAC0 was trying to achieve was relatively elegant. As much as addition is easier than subtraction*, just looking at the die roll and determining if it is greater than x is even easier. THAC0 was designed to calculate x, but it didn't work because x changed a lot (in the case of different ACs for monsters) or because all the information necessary to calculate x was not known by the players.
*I need to put a star here, because someone, somewhere, will need to show off their big math skills and brag about how it's so easy for them to do basic addition and subtraction** that they, and everyone the ever know, can do it instanteously. I am very proud of you, oh wonderful math prodigy, and dream of achieving your greatness, but for we mere mortals, math takes processing power and time, and for us, subtraction is slower than addition, and math is slower than no-math.
**Though some have invested sufficient time learning the THAC0 algorythm that they can toss it off quickly, which is a different claim than the fact that subtraction is easier/quicker than addition.
I do like the new system better, it's more intuitive, but I never had a problem with THAC0 either.
I think it's funny that some people found THAC0 so difficult, and the new system so easy when under it all, the system didn't change, just the way of explaining it did.
In the old system, to hit someone in chainmail (ac5) and you had a THAC0=19, you needed a (19-5) 14 to hit.
Under the new system your character would have a BAB +1 so you get to add 1 to whatever your roll is, which means to hit someone in chainmail (ac 15) you would need a (15-1) 14 to hit.
I do like the new system better, it's more intuitive, but I never had a problem with THAC0 either.
I think it's funny that some people found THAC0 so difficult, and the new system so easy when under it all, the system didn't change, just the way of explaining it did.In the old system, to hit someone in chainmail (ac5) and you had a THAC0=19, you needed a (19-5) 14 to hit.
Under the new system your character would have a BAB +1 so you get to add 1 to whatever your roll is, which means to hit someone in chainmail (ac 15) you would need a (15-1) 14 to hit.
Yes, but what attack bonus allows is to add rather than subtract. Rather than subtract AC-Attack bonus to find the number to hit (or THAC0-AC on 2E), you can add d20+attack bonus and compare to the AC number.
Technically, you can do the same thing with THAC0 - Roll d20+Enemy AC and compare with your THAC0. But I don't think it's as elegant for the following reasons:
1. It's not very intuitive to have to roll "against yourself" when it's you who is attacking
2. It requires the DM to say the monster AC to the player
3. At high levels enemy AC had a tendency of becoming negative, so you are subtracting rather than adding again
You're joking right? To calculate a 3rd Edition roll, all you do is add your d20 roll to your modifier. If it beats the difficulty it succeeds. How is that not easy?
Oh it's not the main bonuses i have problems with. The core concept is easy in third, in fact explaining third edition to new players is wonderful on that account. (Whereas second edition was a pain). My problem is remembering all the nit-picky modifiers the crop up in the game (and there are alot of em). THAC0 had just become second nature to me, and it still is. I won't go back to using it, 3rd edition or C&C are the versions of the game I prefer. I'll stick with having to look up modifiers occasionally to trying to explain what the heck THAC0 is to people.
Edit: Punctuation.!?
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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In the old system, to hit someone in chainmail (ac5) and you had a THAC0=19, you needed a (19-5) 14 to hit.
The thing is that in practice, player's didn't have access to AC, so the way things tended to work is that instead of calculating the number you need at the beginning of combat (which is nice and convenient), you would calculate the AC you hit on each roll. So, in 2e, you would roll, subtract the result of the roll from your THAC0, and announce that number as the AC you hit. The DM would then confirm/deny the hit. It gets hairy when you end up with a low THAC0 and a high roll because now you start generating negative numbers, which are a slightly more complex area of math than basic subtraction.
If you know the opponent's AC and there are very few modifiers, THAC0 is a better system because you don't need DM confirmation and you don't need to calculate on each die roll. The plain vanilla application of THAC0 tells you the number you need to roll, whereas the 3e version requires a little more reverse engineering (but really, only a little).
Edit: Plus, THAC0 lends itself to back of the envelope calculations by giving you a fixed data point. Given how few creatures in 2e had a negative AC, you could almost always determine whether you hit or not just by virtue of whether you rolled over your THAC0. Of course, my experience described in the OP is that my players don't want a back of the envelope yes/no, they want to know exactly what AC they hit. I think THAC0 was designed to allow you to quickly compare the number you rolled against your THAC0 and give you a good approximation of whether you hit without any calculation whatsoever, it's just that the assumptions required for the back of the envelope calculation were the exception rather than the norm of play.
Under the new system your character would have a BAB +1 so you get to add 1 to whatever your roll is, which means to hit someone in chainmail (ac 15) you would need a (15-1) 14 to hit.
The new system recognizes that the basic method of determining success is to call out your ultimate result and have the DM confirm success based on the secret target number (the opponent's AC). By using addition instead of subtraction, you speed up calculation, which is extremely important given that 3e has substantially more bonuses than 2e.
You can of course reverse engineer to calculate the number you need to roll in 3e and it's not significantly harder to do so than in 2e. The problem with 3e is that there is a much greater need to calculate the number with each roll because the bonuses are so variable (iterative attacks are probably the biggest culprit, and I won't shed a tear when they pass out of this world in 4e).
Yeah, don't get me wrong, when I read 3E, BAB was probably my favorite "whoa, that is cool" moments. I just meant I got a kick out the fact that players that were never really comfortable with THAC0, immediately understood BAB. Some brilliant person made a difficult calculation into an easy one just by basically doing this:
Yes, but what attack bonus allows is to add rather than subtract.
Turning it into a math problem for Sebastian:
Dice Roll >= THAC0-AC ***was too difficult.
Dice Roll+BAB >= AC ***was way easy.
I found it funny (weird) how much easier it made the problem.
You know, the rough thing for me wasn't the math. The rough thing was the zigzag dicerolling. Some things you rolled high for, some things you rolled low for.
Yes! I rolled a natural 20! What, I botched? I was supposed to roll low? Argh!
To hit rolls worked one way. Skill rolls (NWPs) worked another way. Saving throws worked another way. Low armor was good. It was just weird. I never knew rolling the die what I wanted to roll. I'd just hold my breath and roll it and then consult my list of up and down arrows to see if I'd done great or terrible with that 1 I just rolled.
Plus, yeah it was a good thing to have a lower Armor Class. So having an 8 is terrible and a 2 is pretty cool. That broke my brain.
It would have been slightly better to if setting your rolls To Hit Armor Class 0 meant most things would have an armor class at or around 0--but as it turns out an armor class of zero was pretty rare, so then you'd have to adjust it back up again. If AC 0 was like a normal guy in average armor it would have been a lot more intuitive--then adjusting to a -3 would mean a guy in heavy armor, and maybe an AC of 6 would be a goblin or something. Instead it was just weird.
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Yeah, I agree that the main problem I had with THAC0 was the benchmark.
"Wait, you mean that the number I need to roll is what I need to hit a guy in magic full plate armor? WHA?"
So much easier in 3.0.
"So, I need to get a 10 to hit an average human with no armor? That means an untrained peasant has a 50% chance to hit another untrained peasant!"
No complaints over THAC0, it was the many different saving throws that were unnecessary.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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You're joking right? To calculate a 3rd Edition roll, all you do is add your d20 roll to your modifier. If it beats the difficulty it succeeds. How is that not easy?
It is fairly easier, but it easier to know what you need on the die. I've been doing that for a while now in 3rd, and it makes it make faster, especially with sequences ("This attack needs a 5...so my 2nd needs a 10, 3rd a 15th, 4th a 20th, hasted back to 5...")
..."So, I need to get a 10 to hit an average human with no armor? That means an untrained peasant has a 50% chance to hit another untrained peasant!"
You ever see two people who have no idea what they're doing (emphasis on the "untrained" or inexperienced) in a fist fight? I'd say 50% is generous if you're talking about a hit that's going to inflict some injury. Now, you get in a FEW fist fights and you get a better handle on what you're doing and your THAC0 drops.
Sebastian, the draw back of THAC0 that you pointed out is excatly why in our (2nd ed) games the DM simply tells people in the beginning of an encounter what the AC of the baddie is, so everyone knows going in what they need to hit. The secrecy of the AC bit was silly anyway as with a few "this hits and that misses" calls, any player could take a minute to figure out the opponent's AC. The "air of mystery" or whatever it was supposed to lend was negligible compared to the ease of combat when everyone knows what roll hits based on the weapon they're using that encounter.
I can't say I have really noticed the difference. In practise I have found that somewhere about halfway through round 2 one of the players calls out the monsters AC having worked it out via the hits and misses. This has been true at my table in pretty much every edition that I have played. I'd just tell them but a couple of players always seem to enjoy working it out and with 3.5 combats taking so long it probably helps keep them occupied even if it is make work. Its also fun when they realize over a couple of rounds just how high some monsters AC is (presuming its very high). In this specific situation it does add atmosphere as they grow ever more concerned.
I do however notice the difference in buff spells and calculations. In 2nd if I say miss the player pouts and we move on. If I say miss in 3.5 the player says 'hold on...' and double and triple checks that she has managed to account for every modifier. At 12th level my players usually have a minimum of half a dozen modifiers effecting them and often a whole lot more. They do this because its common for them to have forgotten a couple of pluses. On the down side having them go back and redo the calculation from scratch every time they miss-but-its-close burns game time and breaks up the atmosphere as you know have one player who is basically doing addition out loud and will likely continue for at least a minute or two. Everyone else is being quite (don't want to break her concentration and have her start over) unless they think she has forgotten a modifier and then their saying something like 'don't forget haste'.
This can be tough on the RP as I want to say 'you swing but the creatures tough hide easily absorbs the blow' but before I utter this line I have to sit quietly for about two minutes while she makes certain that it really was a miss.
Of course, my experience described in the OP is that my players don't want a back of the envelope yes/no, they want to know exactly what AC they hit.
My players simply want to know whether they've hit, not if they've hit a particular AC.Their job is to make the attack; my job is to tell them whether they have or not. How one gets there, whether using THAC0 or BAB, really doesn't matter in the end as long as the game keeping moving.
I think THAC0 was designed to allow you to quickly compare the number you rolled against your THAC0 and give you a good approximation of whether you hit without any calculation whatsoever, it's just that the assumptions required for the back of the envelope calculation were the exception rather than the norm of play.
THAC0 gives players the number they need to hit AC0. That's it, and technically, that's all they should know unless they're metagaming and have memorized the creature ACs front to back, but then, they're not playing their characters unless they conveniently happen to have a xenobiologist in their group. ;-)
There are enough modifiers and conditionals in the context of the game that no player should ever know precisely what they need to hit. They may have an idea based on their score or experience with the game, but conditionals will always be a possibility and something no player can rule out "why a 17 misses when I know it should hit!"