D&D General The Rules Cyclopedia - Unlearning Dnd Preconceptions from a 3e player

[transmission89]

That is irrelevant. What matters is how it plays. And it plays awful! Every single time it trips people up! Yes, in principle it should be simple. But it is just down right unpleasant and illogical to work with. It goes against the way many of our brains are wired. They changed it with good reason.

Nope, it's perfectly relevant because that is literally how it plays. "What matters is how it plays. And it plays awful!" Ok, so now we've moved from "confusing maths" to it playing awful. So that's different from what you've said before, where it was "confusing maths". As shown, the maths is not confusing. Play preference and overall analysis of the game as a whole is different from describing THAC0 as "confusing maths". You aren't a fan of the system, that's fine, different strokes for different folks. But again, that is different from THAC0 being particularly difficult or obtuse.

"Every single time it trips people up" - No it doesn't, my 11 year olds in school manage it fine, funny how anecdotes aren't entirely useful... "Yes in principle it should be simple" Again, As demonstrated above - it is.

"Illogical to work with" There is a logic to it. Notice it's Armour CLASS, not armour value. First class is better than second class. That's why it started with Descending AC. There is a logic to it.

 

[Imaculata]

Ok, so now we've moved from "confusing maths" to it playing awful. So that's different from what you've said before, where it was "confusing maths".

It's both.

Look, I've played 2E for a very long time, and I loved it. When 3E came out, I strongly resisted moving to the new edition. Me and my friends hated having to buy all new books again, and learn all new rules. We thought 2E was fine and that we didn't need a new edition.

Then we played ONE test game of 3E, and never moved back to 2E. Not having the thac0 system and reverse armorclass was such a relief. None of us could ever quite remember how it worked. It had to be re-explained every single time we made an attack. Asking our DM what AC we hit became the default mode of play, it was that bad, and terribly frustrating on our DM.

 

[transmission89]

It's both.

Look, I've played 2E for a very long time, and I loved it. When 3E came out, I strongly resisted moving to the new edition. Me and my friends hated having to buy all new books again, and learn all new rules. We thought 2E was fine and that we didn't need a new edition.

Then we played ONE test game of 3E, and never moved back to 2E. Not having the thac0 system and reverse armorclass was such a relief. None of us could ever quite remember how it worked. It had to be re-explained every single time we made an attack. Asking our DM what AC we hit became the default mode of play, it was that bad, and terribly frustrating on our Dm

So to be clear, your argument here is that THAC0 is confusing maths because you can remember AC hit = BAB + roll, but you couldn’t remember AC hit = THAC0 - roll? Interesting.

 

[Dioltach]

Regardless of personal arguments and experiences, I think the fact that subsequent editions of D&D did not go back to THAC0 is sufficient proof that players are happier without it. If only because the new way of d20 + modifiers against a target value is the consistent approach to resolving checks throughout the d20 system: THAC0 as such might be easy enough to understand, but if you're going back and forth for every single check trying to remember what die to use, whether to roll high or low, and whether to add or subtract, it just makes it needlessly confusing. Getting rid of THAC0 was just one part of streamlining the whole system.

 

[transmission89]

Regardless of personal arguments and experiences, I think the fact that subsequent editions of D&D did not go back to THAC0 is sufficient proof that players are happier without it. If only because the new way of d20 + modifiers against a target value is the consistent approach to resolving checks throughout the d20 system: THAC0 as such might be easy enough to understand, but if you're going back and forth for every single check trying to remember what die to use, whether to roll high or low, and whether to add or subtract, it just makes it needlessly confusing. Getting rid of THAC0 was just one part of streamlining the whole system.

Absolutely, again, I’m not arguing that THAC0 is superior. It’s definitely one of the warts of a warty system (for me, part of its charm). Just merely illustrating that it is not some arcane, hard to understand, complex system.
Also, you always need to roll high to hit. The confusion over high and low is various other sub systems, not related to THAC0 itself. That’s a separate discussion of the overall system.
This myth that THAC0 is complex needs to be put to bed. It is merely different from modern means is all.

 

[Imaculata]

This myth that THAC0 is complex needs to be put to bed. It is merely different from modern means is all.

It's not just different, it is counter intuitive. Just as negative armor class was counter intuitive too. That is what trips people up. It's not that the math involved is particularly hard, but that it is hard to remember how it works because all of it feels contrary to what a lot of people expect.

And look, you've repeated how it works several times now in your posts, and yet I already have forgotten how it works again, and have to reread it.

 

[transmission89]

It's not that the math involved is particularly hard, but that it is hard to remember how it works...

Huh, funny, because that's very different to what you said up thread.

" It meant a confusing bit of math every single time."

So now I'm confused. You are either arguing A) that it's confusing maths or that B)That apparently the system is forgettable. You struggle to remember the simple subtraction operation. Which isn't a knock on the system itself. But interesting that you find it difficult to remember AC hit = THAC0 - roll yet can remember AC hit = BAB+roll (these have the same number of operations). Another alternative is C) moving goal posts, which I'm not about to entertain.

option A) has been proven false, B) and C) don't really present a good look.

Fun fact as an aside, far from being contrary to what was expected, the negative armour class was expected during the game's inception as it was based on wargames and that's who was expected to play it. Now certainly, it went on far too long as a legacy system as the game evolved, and not doing so for AD&D 2E was a missed opportunity, but such as it was.

Again, all told, there are plenty of reasons to want to prefer 3e and later over AD&D, and indeed, preferring ascending armour class is a legitimate reason. But again, THAC0 was not complex, it was not difficult.

 

[transmission89]

But back on topic... I also really like the proto prestige classes of avengers and such, charting a new course and direction. It’d have been an interesting alternative history if TSR had explored that idea further instead of canning the D&D line.

 

[Weiley31]

I'll admit that "smaller is good" in regards to THAC0 is a tad bit unusual. Most of the times you want numbers to be higher while THAC0 wanted your numbers to be lower. Kinda like how the UA 5E Psionics Talent Die wanted you to roll low instead of high and that was after three editions of DND, and most other D20 rules, encouraging to always go high. And even after going over THAC0 recently, I'll admit that I found myself having to remind myself a couple of times about it.

Worse case scenario, if THAC0 is a headache, one could always jack the ascending AC rules for 2E variant games by using the method Lamentation of the Flame Princess, the controversial Myth and Magic, and a couple of other 2E retroclones do.

 

[Imaculata]

So now I'm confused. You are either arguing A) that it's confusing maths or that B)That apparently the system is forgettable. You struggle to remember the simple subtraction operation. Which isn't a knock on the system itself. But interesting that you find it difficult to remember AC hit = THAC0 - roll yet can remember AC hit = BAB+roll (these have the same number of operations).

The math involved is counter intuitive, and so it is hard to remember what the exact rule is, regardless of how simple it is.

I think the main confusion comes from 3 things:

The negative armorclass system:
It seems nonsensical that the lower your armor score, the better the defense. What makes it worse, is that we're basically dealing with both values above 0 and below it. THAT is confusing. Why does someone with no armor on, not have AC 0? But no, base AC is 10 in 2E. They could have just had it scale from 0 to -10, but instead for some weird reason it is from 10 to -10. So a character in 2E starts from AC 10. Then, as they add pieces of armor, their AC gradually lowers until it is below 0.

Thac0:
The fact that this isn't a straight attack bonus, but that you substract your roll from the Thac0 score is weird. Also, naming it Thac0, and not "attack", makes it further confusing.

Adding is easier than substracting:
While both are simple math, adding numbers is easier and more intuitive. Further more, it is easier for many people to compare positive numbers, rather than negative numbers.

So it is both confusing, and hard to remember, and unintuitive. And as I'm writing this down, I find myself rereading it just to make sure I got the rule right.