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Let's Talk About THAC0
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<blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 7618246" data-attributes="member: 15700"><p>There are two observations whenever we have discussions like that that always make me raise my eyebrows a bit.</p><p></p><p>1. The claim that THAC0 is too difficult, or that people have a difficult time figuring it out. Why? Because you're doing tougher math every time you take damage, or gain or spend your coinage treasure. If someone is having a tough time trying to figure out: THAC0-modified die roll, then certainly they have a hard time figuring out: current HP-modified damage taken or current gp - how much you spend. After all, with HP and gold, the numbers are often greater than less than 20 (which is the highest variance you'd typically find in THAC0, often much less).</p><p></p><p>2. The claim that when 3e came out, ascending was much easier. I mean, sure, on the surface ascending is more intuitive than descending, but 3e also brought with it a ton of <em>extra </em>modifiers, and huge numbers bloat, along with it. So in actual play, you did a lot more steps in 3e than in 2e. 3e not only had many more things that modified your rolls over 2e, but it also brought more complexity with things like 3 different ACs, and different attack bonuses depending on which attack you were making (2nd and subsequent attacks). So while ascending is more intuitive than descending, 3e compared to 2e was more complex.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sacrosanct, post: 7618246, member: 15700"] There are two observations whenever we have discussions like that that always make me raise my eyebrows a bit. 1. The claim that THAC0 is too difficult, or that people have a difficult time figuring it out. Why? Because you're doing tougher math every time you take damage, or gain or spend your coinage treasure. If someone is having a tough time trying to figure out: THAC0-modified die roll, then certainly they have a hard time figuring out: current HP-modified damage taken or current gp - how much you spend. After all, with HP and gold, the numbers are often greater than less than 20 (which is the highest variance you'd typically find in THAC0, often much less). 2. The claim that when 3e came out, ascending was much easier. I mean, sure, on the surface ascending is more intuitive than descending, but 3e also brought with it a ton of [I]extra [/I]modifiers, and huge numbers bloat, along with it. So in actual play, you did a lot more steps in 3e than in 2e. 3e not only had many more things that modified your rolls over 2e, but it also brought more complexity with things like 3 different ACs, and different attack bonuses depending on which attack you were making (2nd and subsequent attacks). So while ascending is more intuitive than descending, 3e compared to 2e was more complex. [/QUOTE]
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