D&D 5E Bring Back THAC0 !!! (not serious - read the OP)

[Jer]

Yep. IMO, I think it is easier and faster than ascending AC for this reason. All the math is pre-loaded, so when you roll to attack, there are no modifiers. You simply know immediately what AC you hit. Here's an example from the 1e character sheet. You write in what you need to hit the various ACs with each weapon. So if you normally need a 15 to hit AC 2, but have a +2 bonus with your longsword +2, you'd put 13 in at the "2" column, a 12 in the "3" column, etc.

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You can do that with ascending AC as well. Just change those numbers at the top so they go from 10 to 20 instead of 10 to 2 and fill in the blanks with (AC-"hit bonus") and you get the same benefit. Using a grid of pre-computed roll-values isn't tied to descending AC except in the sense that nobody thinks to use it with ascending AC.

 

[Stalker0]

You can do that with ascending AC as well. Just change those numbers at the top so they go from 10 to 20 instead of 10 to 2 and fill in the blanks with (AC-"hit bonus") and you get the same benefit. Using a grid of pre-computed roll-values isn't tied to descending AC except in the sense that nobody thinks to use it with ascending AC.

Yep

 

[Stormonu]

But I want my chain mail +1 to change my AC from 5 to 4!

 

[Sacrosanct]

Well, technically when most things are rated by a class, the lower the better. A class I item is generally considered better than a class III item. Therefore the lower AC the better it should be

 

[ECMO3]

THAC0 maybe be literally backwards and easy to make fun of these days, but when I discovered it (it was first introduced in a UK module years before 2E) it was a revelation and a significant improvement over attack matrixes that I found hard to read and necessitated actually having a book or a screen to run a game, while a single number was much easier to deal with.

I found it really worked best when player simply subtracted what they rolled from their THAC0 and announced the AC they hit (rather than using it to determine a target number to be rolled) and then the DM could say if that hit or miss the target AC.

That said, one of the things that have kept me from going back and running 2E is the work of flipping AC so I never have to deal with THAC0 again. It may never have tripped me up, but many (new) players (especially) got confused by it.

The way we used it back in the day - the player rolled, added the AC to the roll and compared it to THAC0. If the result is higher than THAC0 then it was a hit.