Thac0 the Barbarian
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Let's Talk About THAC0
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lowkey13
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Sacrosanct
Legend
This is not true. At least as early as 1980, the character sheets had this info on them. See the examples above. So players knew what AC they were hitting from pretty much the beginning, at the very least when the game started to really grow and take off, and 9 years before THAC0 became a thing
Hussar
Legend
If you used the published character sheets, sure. We never did. We always hand wrote our character sheets. No fancy schmancy TSR sheets for us.
I mean, if everyone already had that number, why did the DM's screen have the matrixes? Seems like a total waste of space.
But, hey, you did it your way, I'm just reporting how we did it.
/edit to add
Funnily enough, [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION], if you look at the AD&D sheet you posted, you'll see that the player didn't actually fill in the numbers for hitting various AC's.
HarbingerX
Rob Of The North
Personally once I discovered Target 20 System, I never looked back. http://www.oedgames.com/target20/.
1. Works with descending AC.
2. Doesn't need any tables or lists, just the player's single +X to hit.
3. Keeps monster AC secret.
4. Mentally fast as it uses only addition of small numbers (<10)
It's what THACO should have been. Player rolls, adds their bonuses, then tells DM answer. DM add the monster's AC in their head and if the answer is 20 or higher, the player hits.
1. Works with descending AC.
2. Doesn't need any tables or lists, just the player's single +X to hit.
3. Keeps monster AC secret.
4. Mentally fast as it uses only addition of small numbers (<10)
It's what THACO should have been. Player rolls, adds their bonuses, then tells DM answer. DM add the monster's AC in their head and if the answer is 20 or higher, the player hits.
Sacrosanct
Legend
If you used the published character sheets, sure. We never did. We always hand wrote our character sheets. No fancy schmancy TSR sheets for us.
I mean, if everyone already had that number, why did the DM's screen have the matrixes? Seems like a total waste of space.
But, hey, you did it your way, I'm just reporting how we did it.
/edit to add
Funnily enough, [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION], if you look at the AD&D sheet you posted, you'll see that the player didn't actually fill in the numbers for hitting various AC's.
They also only listed 4 spells and clearly judging by their stats, were playing fast and loose monty haul. Point being, is that from pretty much the start, the players did have that info. They didn't need to ask the DM and the DM didn't need to consult the matrix for every PC attack made.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
Maybe not, but just try to explain it. I was enough of a math geek that I got it. But try to explain it to someone who's new and deal with questions like: "So... I add up the +1s, +2s etc and then subtract them from my AC but I add the defensive modifier from my Dexterity to my AC? ...Is adding good or is subtracting? This is stupid."
Yeah, that sucked. The armor class system was full of PITA.
bedir than
Full Moon Storyteller
How did you play Druids?
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
I think a lot of it comes down to the psychology. D&D's ACs and THAC0 were proud nails. They didn't make much intuitive sense - they just were and mastering them was a cultural marker that gamers of a certain type (mainly the ones who mastered it) valued.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
I generally subtracted my die roll from my character's THAC0 to get what AC he hit. Other players I knew tried the same with varying results thanks to the conceptual challenges lots of people have dealing with negative numbers. So I don't know exactly where your misunderstanding is coming from... but the main issue here is the DM wasn't telling us what our target was. We were telling him what target we hit.
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