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<blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 6625671" data-attributes="member: 907">THAC0 was an intermediate step in the evolution of the game.1e had big honkin' attack tables for everything. These stated that if you were a 7th level fighter attacking an opponent with AC 3, you needed to roll 11 or higher on d20 to hit (modifiers, like Strength and magic weapons, applied to the roll). You looked this up by finding the Fighter attack table, finding the column appropriate for 7th level characters, and then cross-referencing it with the AC 3 row. I believe most character sheets in use at the time had space for the appropriate table column on the sheet.2e condensed the attack tables into just the AC 0 row, and massaged the numbers a bit (e.g. instead of fighters getting 2 points better at fighting every two levels, they got 1 point better each level). You would then calculate what AC you hit per roll - this wasn't a problem for me and my friends, but I can see how people would find &quot;lowest AC hit = THAC0 - (d20 + modifiers)&quot; bothersome. It helped a little that we included fixed modifiers in the adjusted THAC0 we had on our sheets (So you'd have &quot;THAC0 15, Str mod +1, Melee THAC0 14&quot; - counterintuitive that an attack bonus would reduce your value, but it worked). In some of the material, you'd still find legacies of the old way of doing things - e.g. &quot;Attacks as a 5th level thief&quot; instead of saying &quot;THAC0 18&quot;.With 3e, the designers decided it was time for some sacred hamburger and flipped the whole thing to the current system of higher-is-better AC and attack bonuses based on class progression instead of tables.IMO, THAC0 was a natural response to the clunkiness of attack tables while still wanting to maintain the backwards compatibility of lower AC being better. Is it as good as 3e's attack bonuses? No, but it's a lot simpler than looking the result up on tables.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Staffan, post: 6625671, member: 907"] THAC0 was an intermediate step in the evolution of the game. 1e had big honkin' attack tables for everything. These stated that if you were a 7th level fighter attacking an opponent with AC 3, you needed to roll 11 or higher on d20 to hit (modifiers, like Strength and magic weapons, applied to the roll). You looked this up by finding the Fighter attack table, finding the column appropriate for 7th level characters, and then cross-referencing it with the AC 3 row. I believe most character sheets in use at the time had space for the appropriate table column on the sheet. 2e condensed the attack tables into just the AC 0 row, and massaged the numbers a bit (e.g. instead of fighters getting 2 points better at fighting every two levels, they got 1 point better each level). You would then calculate what AC you hit per roll - this wasn't a problem for me and my friends, but I can see how people would find "lowest AC hit = THAC0 - (d20 + modifiers)" bothersome. It helped a little that we included fixed modifiers in the adjusted THAC0 we had on our sheets (So you'd have "THAC0 15, Str mod +1, Melee THAC0 14" - counterintuitive that an attack bonus would [I]reduce[/I] your value, but it worked). In some of the material, you'd still find legacies of the old way of doing things - e.g. "Attacks as a 5th level thief" instead of saying "THAC0 18". With 3e, the designers decided it was time for some sacred hamburger and flipped the whole thing to the current system of higher-is-better AC and attack bonuses based on class progression instead of tables. IMO, THAC0 was a natural response to the clunkiness of attack tables while still wanting to maintain the backwards compatibility of lower AC being better. Is it as good as 3e's attack bonuses? No, but it's a lot simpler than looking the result up on tables. [/QUOTE]

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