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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5452324" data-attributes="member: 87792">And the 4e Exception Based Design is even easier to learn because you have a simple collection of tools and modifiers, each with an obvious use.  THAC0 is in and of itself a clunky mechanism that is unnecessarily hard to understand and unnecessarily computationally expensive.  Subtraction is simply harder than addition - and in this case it's pointlessly harder than ascending AC.  To use an example, ascending AC is like using a hammer with a rubber grip, descending AC is a hammer with just a solid metal bar attached to the head.  You're advised to get a glove for both grip and comfort.  THAC0 confuses people and therefore requires study simply by being an unnecessarily confusing mechanic. And yes, ascending AC should be renamed AV - AC originally descended so Armour Class 1 was the best.  But this pattern broke with Armour Class Zero and Armour Class -1.  Indeed.  And having to learn that the milk goes in the milk refrigerator, the chicken goes in the chicken refrigerator, the beef goes in the red meat refrigerator, and the vegetables go in the vegetable refrigerator makes the game require more study than "Chilled foods go in the refrigerator.  We only need one."  Yes, by setting it at four degrees (or whatever) you lose the advantages of keeping the fish and the chicken very slightly colder than the beef and the vegetables.  But it means that you don't need a map for the kitchen - you just look for cold stuff in the refrigerator.  It is easier.  It requires less study.  I didn't say you couldn't do it the 2e way.  I was merely saying that to do it with seemingly arbitrary restrictions rather than universal sockets and adaptors means that you need much more study to actually learn what the hell is going on and what it's safe to do.  Which runs completely counter to your claims about 2e not requiring study. There are advantages to separate and distinct sub-systems; Rolemaster's Weapon vs Armour Type tables do an outstanding job at what they are designed for.  One disadvantage of disjoint systems is that once you've learned a system once in a game with standardised rules, you know it.  If you're running with disjoint systems you actively need more study to understand what is going on because you need to study each system separately.</blockquote>

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