The revenge of THAC0 - tablewide scaling factors

[Eric Finley]

I have a couple of players in my group who are not exactly math geniuses. We've already predone as much of the math as possible for them, and yet still the equation of d20 + 7 (on power card) + 2 (combat advantage) takes them longer than, IMO, it really needs to.

So what I'm wondering about is a simple scalar offset. Look at the typical PC attacks and find the rough average. Usually it's within a few points of both the best and the worst to-hit numbers in the group, right?

Call that the scalar offset.

Now, before play, as the GM, subtract the scalar offset from all power cards' to-hit values, all the monsters' defenses, and anything else which directly interacts with those (skill checks such as Intimidate vs. Will to force surrender, for instance).

What this leaves you with is power cards which show, instead of (say) +17 through +22, a scalar offset of +18 and power cards which show -1 through +4. And monster defenses which are back down in the 5-15 range. Both of which make for purely and simply faster mental math.

You can do the same for the monsters attacking the PCs. In fact it might be interesting to use the same scalar offset in both cases; this would showcase a little more clearly where the PCs sit compared to monster values.

Taking the "average monster defense" of 14+lvl, I suggest a default scalar offset of (3 + party level). This makes that plain average into an 11+ to hit it, with players having typical bonuses around +0.

To address the first issue I personally see here... I think that the problem of making players feel like they're not as impressive with their new, shiny numbers can largely be circumvented. Because not everyone is going to level up at the same time (in most games), so you'll see people crowing over going from +2 to +3. And because displaying the scalar offset prominently - "Remember, everything you're rolling is actually 25 points lower than the 'real' values!" - should do a great deal to mitigate this issue as well.

Any thoughts about this? Good idea? Bad idea? Why?

[eriktheguy]

This just sounds like so much book keeping for what is only supposed to save a bit of time. Couldn't you just do the calculations for him, or let him to the d20+7 and add all the other modifiers yourself? These solutions are all work, but seem like less work than scaling.