What was so bad about thac0 anyway?

>and it was just an extra subsystem that didn't work like any other subsystem.

Literally every part of 2e. Literally every fucking part. There was absolutely zero coherence there.

It's literally the exact same thing as is done today, just badly explained and counterintuitively labeled.

If AC is putting your shirt on over your head normally, thac0 is putting your shirt on by stepping into the neck hole and pulling it up to your chest.

Yeah, most people can do it, but it's needlessly overcomplicated compared to a method that's a lot more convenient.

>needlessly overcomplicated

>thac0 - d20 roll = AC hit

so complicate!

In that poster's defense, complicated was the wrong word to use. Something like clumsy or awkward would have been better.

my DM had to re-explain it to me every session lmaooooooooo

There are a lot of things you can say about THAC0 being unintuitive and clunky, but one thing that never seems to be addressed is the fact that, as a closed system with a hard cap on high and low target numbers, you didn't have to worry about the numbers bloat you see 3rd Ed. & beyond.

There literally was nothing better than AC -10, and nothing worse than AC 10. Because of that, one of the things that they managed really well was character power level growth. Even taking the most powerful weapons and busted stats into consideration [18 (00)], THAC0 0 and AC -10 were the walls you couldn't overcome.

As long as the DM was doing his job and making sure that progression was being handled at a reasonable level, the system worked pretty well, even with all of its disjointed parts.

I will admit, as somebody who has played every edition of D&D, I do have a major soft spot for 2nd Edition, and part of it is because of THAC0. Call me crazy.

You pretty much stop missing if your a Fighter at a certain point

>3rd Ed. & beyond
The highest AC you see on monsters in 5e is 25, and without DM fuckery that's around the highest that players can ever get, too. It's not hard to functionally cap ascending AC with stricter bonuses to-hit.

Seems fine to me, considering all the batshit crazy things casters can do.

you didn't need to know the monsters #, the calculation specifically produced the actual ac value you hit.

and as it was and is the defining component of physical combat, it was meant to create different dc values for different classes based on the class' martial skill

The problem with thac0 is that it was ass-backwards for absolutely no reason, and it was almost entirely because armor class was the only thing in the game that got better as it got smaller (also for no reason). It was a winning combination of unintuitive and valueless.

youtube.com/watch?v=PDCZLsGLKaQ

You could theoretically stack enough bonuses to get below AC -10 in 2e, as well. The system had a rule that actually stated that -10 was the cap. You could just put in a rule that 30 was an absolute cap in an ascending system and it would be the same thing.

Ah 2nd ed. Where -5 AC was a GOOD thing.

>for absolutely no reason
Because early dice were shit, so having the system flip back and forth between roll over and roll under helped mitigate problems from unbalanced dice (they'd fuck you over on one as much as they helped you on the other).

Wouldn't it make more sense to just make dice that aren't shit?

TSR were a wargame & RPG publisher/designer, not a dice manufacturing company.

always worked for me, but it was explained rather confusingly.

the problem was the aspergers, not the mechanic.

Nothing was wrong about it.

People just thought that adding was easier than subtracting.

AC can go well above 25 in 5E, it just requires magical equipment. A War Wizard (Wizard w/ War Cleric) can tap out at AC 20 (25) without any magical kit, and every piece of magical kit after that point is an improvement (Dwarven Plate? AC 22 (27). Staff of Defense? AC 21 (26). Shield +3? AC 23 (28)). With the right cheesing it's very possible to get a War Wizard with a passive AC at or even above 25, with Shield boosting it even further (and since this is higher level we're talking about, it'll probably be with Shield as the free-to-cast L1 spell too unless they have a cache of Staves of Defense).

Anyways, back to OP. Nothing was wrong with thac0, it was just - as said - less straightforward than optimization would suggest. When rolling to hit is an integral part of the system and you will be doing it often, diluting the mechanic down to the most basic possibility is often for the best. At the same time, if you can "suffer" it the first few games it's not a problem after that because you'll have used it so damn often that it comes without thought.

Then again, I was also pretty big fan of AD&D 2E. Its main problems were that it suffered more than most other systems with starting level (start too low and certain classes are impaired, start too high and you NEED to use the Follower system RAW so that Fighters and their small army can keep viable with a Level 11+ Wizard) and additional material (Which was plentiful and great for rifling for ideas… but needs the DM to establish well ahead of time what is and isn't allowed for everything from races to class kits to weapons to spells to proficiencies to…)

Nothing's wrong with THAC0. I understood it as a twelve year old. Admittedly armor should have been -X instead of +X, but that was pretty easy to grasp.

I think it's just a meme that people have decided is true because they've never played 1E or 2E.

Huh, never thought of it that way before.

Consult the attack matrices

Can we also agree that THAC0 is an absolutely terrible name? Yeah I know it's an acronym, but you usually have to have that explained to you. Plus, every other stat has some in-universe name. Like I know what concepts like "strength" or "perception" or "armor" are even if I don't know how they work in game.

In fact, why not just THAC0 "Accuracy". Like that makes more sense right?

It was poorly explained. As a combat algorithm, it works as follows:

D20 + Mods >= THAC0 - AC

All the player needs to know is his roll and his mods. The THAC0 was generated and known before the session, and the DM, of course, knows the AC of the opponent.

I love thacos. Latht night for dinner I had El Pathtor thacos. Nothing wrong with thacos

I'd say it's a pretty nice name, in all honesty. "To hit armor class 0". It contains everything you need to know, and it forms a fairly easy-on-the-tongue acronym too. The bigger issue is explaining "What is armor class 0?"

Honestly, if anything's confusing about THAC0 it's that aspect.

Not only that, you could even do away with the subtraction and make it even simpler. Just roll a d20, add your bonuses, then add your opponent's AC on top. If it meets or exceeds your THAC0, you hit. It's retardedly simple.

In 5e, magical equipment totally counts as DM fuckery.

>definitely seen a marked decrease in the number of 2E defenders (possibly corresponding with the rise of OSR clones).

mostly likely we are tired of retreading this same old bait/flamewar bullshit.

>Didn't look at historical roots of the system
>Didn't into that AC comes from historical wargaming
>shitpost about dice

made me reply/10 go to bed little boys.
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>If THAC0 was based on simple additions instead of subtractions, it wouldn't had gotten so many players confused at it.

It is based on simple additions. The book is just (admittedly) bad at explaining this.

>3e, 4e, and 5e
>Hit: Attack roll + ClassToHitValue(BAB, Proficiency, whatever) + Modifiers > AC

>1e and 2e
>Hit: Attack roll + AC + Modifiers > ClassToHitValue(THAC0)

In modern systems you add your innate ability to stab things to the roll and AC is your target. In older editions you add the target's AC to your roll and your innate ability to stab things is the target.

Back then nothing was wrong with thac0. even the 8 year olds we had in the group could handle simple addition and subtraction.

First Post nailed it in one.

Another reason why it was counter intuitive was AC went down with Bonuses that had pluses. Shields subtract one from ac (-1), but then a Shield+1 would subtract two from ac (-2) even though the bonus was always said as plus one (+1).

Now, you might think "Well its still consistent at least". Unfortunately, this was a terrible, terrible age back then, and a single typo could fuck you over. Imagine you're reading a room from a module, and suddenly, you see

Helm: -1

Is that a typo? Does the helm reverse the bonus and ADD one to ac? Or is the semicolon denoting an effect and saying that the helm removes 1 AC and therefore is a boon? Is it even magic? Or what?

tl;dr
Ass backwards, unintuitive, superior to just subtract all numbers from 21 and work with ascending numbers.

>What was so bad about thac0 anyway?
It was poorly explained and everyone had different methods of determining how it worked, which would confuse the fuck out of new people. Even with relatively simple explanations, there were several ways of explaining how THAC0 worked, which meant that it was fairly easy for a new player to get something backwards and end up confused as a result.

I think that a big part of it was that a lot of tables had their own efficient method of working with it, which just caused problems when people from different tables attempted to work things out together.

It ironically made quite a bit of since when you were doing things right (a penalty to hit and a buff to defense ended up the same number, applied to the same side, so it didn't matter which you used) but even simple processes can end up confused.

One thing that you need to remember: in old D&D, the players didn't determine THAC0 or to-hits or if a strike connected. That was all done by the DM. The general idea was to make it easier for new players to roleplay: they just needed to say what they'd do and roll the dice when asked, not work out the math ahead of time. As such, it was designed to make the DM's job easier and quicker once a die is rolled, not designed for a player to understand or work out beforehand.

>Thac0
>Not complicated

With Attack Bonus, you add numbers and beate a total. That's as simple as it can get other than literally just rolling a dice and not adding anything.

THAC0 requires people to come up with short cuts, short hands, and a lot of them require proofs before a player will understand it.

How is it not complicated again?

Oh wait, this is Veeky Forums.

>Complicated = hard

Sorry friend, even if you get it easily, doesn't mean it's not complicated.

Mah man. Even if they didn't roll fantastically, your dice are the best looking in the market bar none.

You never thought of it that way because it's stupid. The ONLY time you want to roll lower is on a % roll or on an Attribute check. The former was usually the realm of the DM only, and the latter was such an obscure and unused rule (outside of that dogshit skill system) that most people, including WotC, forgot that it existed. In all other cases, you want to roll higher always.

This myth about flip flopping numbers to prevent cheating is pure sophistry, like that rumor awhile back that people held shields in their dominant arms and swords in their off-hands because shields were heavy.

thac0 - d20 = AC hit.

Still a shortcut that requires some proof to substantiate.

Look at the number rolled on the die.

Add the target's AC.

Is that the attacker's THAC0 or higher? Then the attack hit.

See

Nothing, arguments against it are made by shills paid by WotC in the past in order to avoid competing with themselves in the sale of 3rd Edition.

THAC0 was a part of OD&D, D&D, and AD&D 1E. There's nothing abnormal about 2E for including it. It was on many pages in the original 1979 1E DMG in the appendices. It's a powerful tool for calculating the number required on a 20–sided die to hit a target. One subtracts a target's AC from the THAC0 number to obtain the needed number. One then rolls it or above to succeed. This is how it is good and how it is used.

That comparison isn't a bar it has to hurdle, the comparison was always versus older editions with their cumbersome full-page tables that did the same thing. People trying to take superior 2E down a notch.

That's not a shortcut. That's literally all there is to it. All you are doing is adding or subtracting a single-digit number of a number off a die roll, and then comparing it to a given number of the character.

If you've ever had to wait on a player to calculate their attack roll bonuses in later versions of D&D, then you can appreciate how making things quicker and simpler is a benefit.

The high-quality plastic gives them a FIRE and LUSTER that competitors can only hope to duplicate through hoaky lighting tricks.

Buddy, I'm all about OSR, but descending armor class is objectively a bad system. Whenever I play 2e or earlier, I use the rules, but fuck you if we use descending for anything other than nostalgia. That shit gets converted. Stop hanging onto the past.

Seriously, the best argument I've ever seen in these threads for it is "I didn't mind it because I'm used to it".

Your logic doesn't work out in practice. People have more difficulty with subtraction, and even if you use the additive method, it's the same thing, just less intuitive.

And yes, it's a shortcut to the method. Hell, Thac0 itself is just a shorthand method of calculating out the attack matrices of 1e anyways.

You have a weird definition of "shortcut."

>solve a math problem
>correctly

>"You're taking shortcuts!"

Ascending AC is bad because high armor class means bad armor. If you think differently it's because you're a little babby who wants to play dice with big boys.

I define it as a short cut because the method itself belies the full calculations behind the method, I.E. the attack matrix, and/or the logic behind reducing your THAC0 number in reverse to find out what number you need to roll.

>I define it as a short cut because the method itself belies the full calculations behind the method, I.E. the attack matrix
The designers having done the math beforehand is not exactly a "shortcut". That would be like calling Jump checks a shortcut because the designers calculated the math required to give the desired results.

THAC0 already comes with its own chart, so I am not sure why referring to one chart is different from referring to another.

You don't need to reduce, or even change, the THAC0 with the method here, although the fact that most people think you do is what I said was confusing about the whole process. There are a dozen methods of using it, some simpler than others, and it just causes confusion when they run into each other or different ones get brought up.

Nothing. Secong edition, best edition!

That method works fine, but I prefer one where players don't need to know the AC beforehand. For that THAC0 - d20 roll is best IMO.

Who said anything about the players determining anything? The DM looks at the roll, adds the AC, and compares to the character's THAC0.

Having the players make the calculations and figure out their hit chances is a very D&D3e thing, from the Wizards of the Coast versions. And unsurprisingly, those editions use a completely different method which is more practical for having the player calculate all the numbers to determine what AC they hit.

I hadn't considered that. Fair point.

>That would be like calling Jump checks a shortcut because the designers calculated the math required to give the desired results.
That's a false equivalency and you know it. A better one would be telling someone to jump up and down and clap their hands together every day 20-30 times. They understand that this is exercise, but not what the exercise is meant to do.

It's the same thing with THAC0. Sure, you can tell someone these short cuts and how to use them to get a number they want, but they aren't really understanding what exactly it is THAC0 itself does to produce said results. Only that they have a number, and you can derive from that an AC that you're allowed to hit on a roll.

This is definitely a problem in game design as not understanding why you're doing it will result in players like that have a harder time "getting it" which results in an unnecessary barrier to play.

Whereas ascending AC is not only much simpler, the player understands it intuitively, both the how and the why, upon a simple explanation.

>In this game, in order to hit something to damage it, you roll a d20, add strength bonus and attack bonus, and if your number is that total or higher, you succeed.

That explains EVERYTHING you need to know about AC. That same sentence can be used to explain the how of THAC0, but not the why.

Also, to jump into this convo here:

That method can work to obfuscate AC, but requires more effort on the DM's part and a lot more communication than having the player just add up the numbers for the DM. It also slows down combat.

In programming terms, it is just as functional as any of its counterparts, but not elegant. It is mathematically identical to scaling-up difficulty-to-hit, but more circuitous, less intuitive, and harder to explain/poorly explained.

Nothing at all.

>the system itself couldn't really get right when to roll higher or roll lower

Gygax DMed for cheaters with rigged dice.

This was the top purpose for the games being schizophrenic between roll over vs. roll under. If players couldn't tell whether they should roll high or low for something, it's a lot harder to cheat.

The purpose of THAC0 was not to obfuscate the target's AC.

The reason is a design philosophy difference between AD&D and later D&D. With AD&D, it was generally assumed that there would be only one person at the table familiar with the rules: the DM. Part of this was intentional (AD&D and older D&D was modular, so only the DM knew the full rules being used) and part of it was practical. Not every group is going to have every person able to purchase all the books, or even have every person already familiar with the game. If the game needed just the DM to be familiar with the rules, then the rest of the players can just sit down and begin playing with little more than an introduction. As such, the mechanics are designed to allow the DM to quickly determine the results of a player roll.

Later D&D was designed with the assumption that every player coming to the table would have knowledge of the game's ruleset. Perhaps this was intentional - D&D3e was certainly trying to sell itself towards players in other regards - but the end result was twofold: it took some of the burden off the DM to follow numbers and mechanics, and it forced all the players to be familiar with the rules before sitting down. It was much harder to set up a game of D&D3e with a bunch of random people than it was to do the same with a group in AD&D.

This is why THAC0 behaves so differently than to-hit bonuses on a die. It is also why player understanding is irrelevant; the player isn't being asked to understand or calculate it.

>The purpose of THAC0 was not to obfuscate the target's AC.
Never said it was, but some DM's prefer it, and THAC0 makes it harder on everyone around the table to do so.

That's complete horseshit for the reasons stated here:

>harder on everyone around the table
Only if you are asking the players to calculate what AC they hit with each roll.

Attribute checks are important.

They're only important in 2e if you use the optional skills supplement. Everything before that point never acknowledged them.

You could apply that same logic to ascending AC.

when iwas 12, playing 2e, i could tell the dm the ac i hit, thac0 - (d20+to hit bonuses) = ac

now playing 5e i tell the dm the ac i hit,
d20+to hit bonuses = ac

simpler, yes and good
now the wizard shanks bitches with a knife with the exact same level of skill as a fighter. not so good imo. i miss thac0.

Exactly. I think it gets complained about so much because it represents everything people dislike about old school D&D.

>Still a shortcut that requires some proof to substantiate.
Basic algebra is all the proof you need.

>descending armor class is objectively a bad system
Nope. It's objectively superior because it makes sense. Something that is first class is better than something that is second class. Flipping that around makes nonsense of the meaning of the word.

You realize its all an abstraction right? Like hitpoints.

>What was so bad about thac0 anyway?
It causes bullshit threads like this.

If you didn't come here for an argument then why are you here?

Yes, and? Abstractions don't change the meanings of a word.

Pre-much this, but you really need to play it to realise how counterintuitive and poorly explained it was.

Both your Thac0 and you're AC can go into negatives if 'high' enough.

They kind of do if you're speaking about abstract concepts.

Since there no such thing as an 'armor class' we're just talking about a number that represents an idea. In 2nd ed a low number = good armor.

In 3.0 a high number = good armor.

But armor class isn't even about the armor itself, per say. Its about the character and how well defended they are. Thats why dexterity affects your armor class.

Then change the term. Don't use the same word when it already means something specific. Call it Defence, or Armor Rating, or Armor Level. Anything that already implies ascending = better rather than use something that already implies descending is better. There is no need to redefine the English language. This has nothing to do with abstraction.

Can the wizard attack twice?

Does he get the benefit of fighter features and fighting styles?

No? Then I guess he isn't as skilled as the fighter (putting it aside that there's no reason for a wizard to not to use a cantrip instead, even while in melee).

You know it doesn't have to be called a "class" just because that's how the way Gygax did it, right? If he'd called it "defense" or "armor value" or whatever, it would have made sense for a higher number to be good. Even as it stands, it doesn't make any sense for numbers lower than 1. First-class is the best there is; there is no zeroth or negative-first class.

He doesn't even have the right ability score, probably, and he likely doesn't know how to use anything better than a knife or a stick.

That shit is something everyone forgets about. THAC0 was only invented in 1989 for AD&D 2nd Ed. In earlier editions, you had to consult a table to determine whether your attacks hit. Best of all, in AD&D 1e, THIS TABLE WAS NOT AVAILABLE TO PLAYERS! It was nowhere in the PHB. Instead it was buried in the middle of the DMG. In a similar fashion, the PHB had psionics but did not give the rules for what exactly psionic powers did, and many of the spells in the PHB had secret rules that were only in the DMG that the DM would have to know about in advance. I guess it was assumed that knowing the rules interfered with roleplaying and the wonder of the unknown?

Yes. Agreed. See >Even as it stands, it doesn't make any sense for numbers lower than 1. First-class is the best there is; there is no zeroth or negative-first class.

So? The exact same situation applied in mathematics before the number system was extended to include integers, real numbers, irrational numbers, and complex numbers. I don't see the problem.

Not sure if this thread is proof that intelligence and roleplaying aren't actually correlated, or if it's just aspies really, really needing their own ideals of structure.

If you're reinventing language just to avoid having to use a simple system for your tabletop game where higher numbers are better than lower ones, you're just being recalcitrant.

user, you need to stop conflating a system you don't like with it being "bad".
Thac0 was obtuse, but generally simple to pick up once you started using it, rather than try to theorycraft and talk around it as is the habit with a lot of players these days.
Veeky Forums is the worst place for the kind of opinion you are putting out because I'd venture more than half of the posters do not actually play pnp games actively.
>I guess it was assumed that knowing the rules interfered with roleplaying and the wonder of the unknown?
It also reinforced the DM as the ultimate arbiter, rather than the book rules, and the assumption was an adversarial GM relationship.

Still required proof as opposed to simply explaining the mechanic with ascending.

There is actually no standard for "better or worse" when it comes to class. A class 3 threat is better than a class 2 threat, for example. So the argument of "CLASS 8 IS BETTER THAN CLASS 9" is utter, trite nonsense.

>the assumption was an adversarial GM relationship
That's retarded, though. What made D&D so unique was that it wasn't designed to see who at the table could "win." If the DM wanted to he could just say that everything misses. He could throw any number of powerful monsters at the players or just say that rocks fall and they die. Before 3.0 there wasn't even a set of guidelines to let DMs know what was a fair challenge for a party. If it's the players vs. the DM, there's no suspense; the DM wins.

This is the stupidest thing I've read all day.

It was Armor Class because it was inherited from the standards of older wargames, where first class armor was the best.

And getting negative armor in OD&D meant there was some magical fuckery going on. Plate mail + shield was the best armor you could naturally get, and only got you Armor Class 1. It makes sense to me that magic breaks the rules.