Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Philotomy Jurament" data-source="post: 3797635" data-attributes="member: 20854">It's also worth pointing out that the older approach to AC wasn't as closely tied to the concept of a mathematical formula as it became, later.  AC started out as an indicator of the type of armor you wore.  <a href="http://www.philotomy.com/#armor_class" target="_blank">In OD&D, very little modified your AC</a> (not Dex, not magic armor, not magic rings, etc), and if your AC was 2, that almost always meant you were wearing plate mail and carrying a shield.  Also, since the rules assumed the use of the combat tables, AC could just as easily have been designated with letters, instead of numbers.  You weren't computing anything, you were just looking up the values on the appropriate table.  This assumption is clearly seen in the 1E combat tables, with its repeating 20s that throw off any nice and simple formula.  The old way of doing AC isn't math, it's a table heading.In 1E, THAC0 was a formula that would work in many (but not all) cases (again, tables were the default assumption), was only referenced in the DMG's monster tables, and was never really explained.  In 2E, THAC0 became the whole ball-of-wax.  2E abandoned tables, and made AC and "to hit" a formula you compute, instead.  3E is basically the same thing with the negative progression reversed to make the formula more intuitive.One thing I've been toying with doing is house-ruling AD&D AC such that non-magical modifiers can never bring your AC below 0.  This would create a symbolic break between "natural" and "supernatural" ACs (which almost exists in the RAW, anyway).  I think I read about that idea on a Knights-n-Knaves or Dragonsfoot thread.</blockquote>

Verification