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<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6226626" data-attributes="member: 22424">People are, on average, considerably faster at addition than subtraction. Especially when dealing with a two-digit subtraction, and even more so when the subraction leads to a negative result.It's also worth noting that in the subraction you're deducting the variable from the fixed value, rather than the other way around, which makes a difference as well. (That is, (13 - roll) is harder than (roll - 13).)But finally, the calculation in older editions wasn't really THAC0 - roll. It was THAC0 - (roll + modifiers), giving rise to an extra step. Now, it is true that you could (and should) pre-calculate to get a modified THAC0 for each weapon, but that then gave rise to the oddity that a sword +1 meant that you had to subtract 1 from your THAC0. (And, equally, that a shield +1 required you to subtract one from your AC.) And, of course, even doing that didn't remove all the modifiers, as things like weapon vs armour type, or the bonus for attacking from higher ground, would needed added as well.Whether THAC0 was confusing or not is debateable, and for some people it clearly was not. But the 3e/4e/PF approach of a BAB and ascending Armour Classes is simply better.(By way of evidence, Delta did a lot of analysis on this in <a href="http://deltasdnd.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/what-is-best-combat-algorithm.html" target="_blank">this post</a>, which includes a link to the relevant claims about addition v subtraction.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="delericho, post: 6226626, member: 22424"] People are, on average, considerably faster at addition than subtraction. Especially when dealing with a two-digit subtraction, and even more so when the subraction leads to a negative result. It's also worth noting that in the subraction you're deducting the variable from the fixed value, rather than the other way around, which makes a difference as well. (That is, (13 - roll) is harder than (roll - 13).) But finally, the calculation in older editions wasn't really THAC0 - roll. It was THAC0 - (roll + modifiers), giving rise to an extra step. Now, it is true that you could (and should) pre-calculate to get a modified THAC0 for each weapon, but [i]that[/i] then gave rise to the oddity that a [i]sword +1[/i] meant that you had to [i]subtract[/i] 1 from your THAC0. (And, equally, that a [i]shield +1[/i] required you to [i]subtract[/i] one from your AC.) And, of course, even doing that didn't remove all the modifiers, as things like weapon vs armour type, or the bonus for attacking from higher ground, would needed added as well. Whether THAC0 was confusing or not is debateable, and for some people it clearly was not. But the 3e/4e/PF approach of a BAB and ascending Armour Classes is simply [i]better[/i]. (By way of evidence, Delta did a lot of analysis on this in [URL="http://deltasdnd.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/what-is-best-combat-algorithm.html"]this post[/URL], which includes a link to the relevant claims about addition v subtraction.) [/QUOTE]

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