>THAC0 is an acronym for To Hit Armor Class 0 (Zero). It is a number that represents the chances that a physical attack hit its target. Lower numbers are better.
what's the big controversy about?
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dogshit balance
It's not exactly difficult to do subtraction, but it is an entirely unnecessary system when you can just check number X against number Y.
when you put on clothing, it's strange to say you get "less prone to freeze" instead of "feel warmer".
more resistant to the cold.
but it does?
>more insulation = less heat loss
However, that's stupid since thermal exchange occurs as long as there's contact or some transfer medium, and it could be hot or cold. More accurately, it would be
>more insulation = lower thermal exchange rate
Properly simulated, wearing clothes in an extreme desert would cause the character to overheat, and wearing nothing in the arctic would cause him to freeze. Contextually, that is "less prone to freeze", even if it's functionally incorrect.
Man D&D is terrible. They need awful acronyms like Thaco for something as simple as rolling if something hits or not.
THAC0 isn't in current edition d&d, it's just AC vs rolls to hit
damn bro how did you know, the black girl in our group gets a few racisms rolls (RRs for short) to remind us to check our privilege
>it's just AC vs rolls to hit
which is exactly what thac0 is, only it's less confusing for mentally moronic people where you stack your proficiency against the "20 AC boober boss" to roll a 23 "oh I hit it because the number is bigger"
>black girl
Please tell me she’s slim thicc with braids
What controversy? People who started with THAC0 systems and people who think pretending to prefer THAC0 systems will make them more interesting and authoritative like THAC0 and everyone else thinks having attack rolls work like skill checks is fine.
It's just a rather counter intuitive system that is way more complicated to wrap your head around than needs to be. Emphasis on needs to be.
No THAC0 no buy, simple as.
When wizards took over dnd they wanted everything to be less confusing for mentally moronic people
Unfortunately 80% of population is mentally moronic
I haven't kept up with the "revisions" for D&D 5 lately. I wouldn't be surprised if you can just decide on your own whether you made a hit or not because die rolls are racist.
THAC0 was removed 23 years ago
THAC0 is just dumb. Its fine, but weird, that going lower is better. But when items give you +1 THAC0 and that actually makes your THAC0 go down, you got a fricking moronic system.
Question: why would I ever use Chill Touch when I could use a level 1 spell that doesn't rely on my shit Thac0?
THAC0 is pretty good for its purpose, it was just exceptionally poorly explained and trying to repurpose it is a massive headache. A lot of the b***hing involve asking players to use THAC0 to calculate a number to compare an enemy AC to, which is not at all what it was designed to do.
It's fairly irrelevant now. Not only because modern systems don't use THAC0, but also because modern systems have more to keep track of and so THAC0 isn't as quick and easy as it used to be.
Ask me anything.
>why would I ever use Chill Touch when I could use a level 1 spell that doesn't rely on my shit Thac0?
Generally you don't, although that has more to do with not wanting the be in melee combat than your THAC0 score. There's only one point of THAC0 difference between your Level 1 Wizard and the Level 1 Fighter, so that's not a big concern.
>Attack roll ≥ THAC0 - AC
>For example, a character with a THAC0 of 17 trying to hit a target with an AC of 1 needs a roll of at least 17-1=16 to succeed. This is a chance of 5/20, or 25%
i dont get it. doesnt that mean that hitting character with bigger AC is easier?
Yes. Both THAC0 and AC are stats, that get better the lower they are.
Yes, full plate and shield was 0 AC and being naked was 10
Its a dumb ass system. With AC, you can't know what the baseline is. If you had a more "normal" system, being naked would be 0 armor. In d&d 2nd edition, AC8 is you wearing a robe, AC3 is like chain mail.
I don't understand, why not have less armor also have less AC instead of the other way around
Because of THACO. This is why they changed it with 3rd edition
because AC is Armor Class, and "1st class" is better than "2nd class", which is better than "3rd class". Like when people say that someone was first-class or first-rate it means good. The term AC came first and the rest was created around it.
IMO when they changed to ascending AC they should have changed the term AC too. It's not a "class" anymore if a bigger number is better.
The class-system only makes any sense until you go into the negatives.
Several things.
>why generate a percentage of success when you can just set a bar to beat
>rolling to hit a big target number is more dramatic from the player perspective because the number statistically represents a large obstacle and by the power of luck, experience, and assistance do they get what they need to overcome it
>it's not approachable for users to understand, in a game where you can't play properly if people don't understand the rules, whereas a system like a video game has a hood that such complex systems can exist without people knowing how the frick it works
THAC0 is video game logic.
It was just weird to have one start that got better at the number for smaller while for everything else bigger was better
>never played golf
it makes sense for dnd where AC is just hit or miss rather than a linear defensive value like damage reduction. thac0 is easier to read because -x means you get hit less amount of times
It's moronic because instead of just subtracting a negative number your armor counts as negative instead.
I fricking hate this, but even more i hate bad dnd leveling and having to rest to cast spells and use abilities. It's beyond gay.
I'm playing through BG1+2 for the first time, and boy I didn't realize how boring the levelups are. 45h in BG1, and you are 95% done with your character after you leave character creation screen. After that you get automatic thac0 upgrades, hitpoints etc, and sometimes you get to pick weapon proficiencys.
I hear you. Going through bg1 as well, if knew somewhat beforehand what in going into after playing poe and tyranny, still, you are in a video game with lots of tools to interact with the world and the game actively punishes you for using them and exploring the world.
I still adapt and beat it cause that's the rules of the game but man are those rules moronic
There's literally nothing wrong with this. Fighters are supposed to be simple. Similarly in combat, martial classes mostly just auto attack; it's for this reason that RTwP isn't a completely insufferable mess in bg1, unlike in poe/the pathfinder games. You spend more time paused than playing in those games because you need to constantly micromanage everyone. In bg you only need to pause occasionally, e.g. to cast a specific spell or heal someone.
Its just that I like fallout 1 or 2 style systems more. You get skills, you get perks etc. Levelups are interesting. Even wizards are boring in BG1, because you only get spell-slots with levels, but you still have to find those spells yourself.
so armor +3 means you subtract 3, yep its confusing for no reason.
THACKON DEEZ NUTS
So wait, do you even have to roll to hit after a certain point?
Like could a level 10 fighter just melt a rat by looking at it?
well armor classes go down to -20
I don't know if this was in 2E but if you roll a 1 you miss no matter what.
Even in 1st rolling a 1 is always a failure regardless of any other outside factors, and rolling a 20 always is a success in the same way. It's been the 'balancing' factor so you always have a chance to hit, be hit, and dodge both ways regardless of how stat stacked either side is.
>try to convince king to give up his throne to me
>roll 20
>I am the king now
You're a moron or your dm is.
it's counterintuitive because bigger number not better, lower / negative number better, it's a reversed system, but once you get it it's fine
when i didnt not anything about dnd rules it took 2 mins to read about and understand, i can't see anyone having trouble understanding thac0
Its not hard to understand. Its just dumb
reminded me of a spoony video
?t=2185
THAC0 is actually the name of his new dog.
the one thing i can't figure out is how does negative armor class rolls
how does this work: THAC0 = 0 enemy AC -20 and a roll of 15 let's say
0 - -20 = 20
you need to roll a 20 or higher to hit a target with -20 ac if your thac0 is 0
i see thank you
There's no such thing as a thac0 of zero. You start off at 20. Meaning you have to roll a 20 to hit armor class 0.at level 1 if you're a fighter for instance.
So, if you have a thac0 of 20 and you run into a monster with a -1 AC, you wouldn't be able to hit it unless you had a bonus to hit from something like strength. So let's say you have an 18/00 strength. This would give you a +3 to hit. This would effectively give you a thac0 of 17. So you need a 18 or higher to hit an AC of -1.
doesn't that just sound like a horrible fight though? having an AC that high just sounds like it would drag the game down
Early D&D fights are just everyone missing all the time, and low level characters have so little hp that once they get hit they just die really quickly.
You shouldn't be running into a monster with that low of an AC when you have that low of a thac0 because you're either in a place you shouldn't be or you have a shit DM..
correction, the only way you could hit the monster with a -1 AC is with a natural 20 without a bonus to hit if you had a thac0 of 20.
its redutant
WoW and WoW classic has the same shit, it's why every endgame item had +hit to it
the hit rating in vanilla WoW is much easier to understand, whereas I still can't wrap my head around THAC0 and AC, granted I don't play D&D, but still
Nobody cares, try learning something difficult like being an amateur car mechanic, not so fricking circlejerking shit about a videogame
its really unintuitive to me. why does it matter "to hit armor class zero" if most enemies dont have an armor class of zero? its just a weird abstraction
Funny how normies realizing how shit all this dnd crap is and why game developers threw into the trash 20 years ago already. You have a computer now calculating everything, you don't need to throw a fricking dice anymore. Just let it go already. For how many years can you torture poor normies with this shit and ruin videogames?
I don't really get why people complain about low number = better, once you know that it's not confusing at all
It's weird until you take "miss" to mean "doesn't do damage"
Personally I hate all the missing in dnd and pathfinder
>It is a number that represents the chances that a physical attack hit its targe
No. It's self explanatory. Its a number that represent the chances to hit armor class zero.
the problem is that sometimes the games have contradictory information. lower armor class is better, ok...but why do items in shops then say things like +1 armor class? it makes it sound like if you buy a shield it will make your armor class higher, which would be bad. it should say -1 armor class in the shops. thats what makes it confusing
that confused me for a bit the first time i played bg
Armor should only be damage reduction.
It makes no sense that a higher armor class means it's less likely to get hit by things. That's just counter-intuitive and plain stupid.
Attack roll = a
Dodge roll = b
Successful attack = a > b
Armor = 6
Damage roll= 12
Received damage = 12 - 6
Easy and functional.
i think the reasoning is if i swing on someone wearing plate i'll either have the sword bounce off it or slip into between the plates to do full damage.
for leather and lighter armors you can reason it would mean they dodged the attack.
You can give any reasoning you want to any system. I just feel it's more organic and simple if successful hits can just deal 0 damage if the damage bonus is enough. I mean, you are hitting the target. Other systems, like durability, proc, enchants or whatever still apply.
Light armors could just have a bonus to dodge rating, and it would make more sense.
I think a lot of RPGs end up using DR to represent armor as well anyay. Dominions has a nice system. Opposed roll for attack vs defense representing either intercepting the attack or dodging it, an opposed roll of damage vs protection to represent the armor and natural armor of thick skin with a somewhat clumsy formula to determine whether the protection is halved by a critical hit, which is derived largely from fatigue of the unit being hit.
Totally unworkable in tabletop probably, but really good for a computer game when you've got the electric dungeon master to figure it all out in a fraction of a second for you. I really wish the idea of an RPG didn't fall into either "computerized D&D" and "the elder scrolls". There's a sizable gap in between those two.
I actually dream for a videogame with an extremely complex mathematical system, with tons of variables and stuff hidden to the player, but intuitive in nature using common sense. So players just have it really difficult to rely on the meta.
I like dwarf fort's system. There's force density modeling and all that, very complex maths behind it sure but what you actually play manages to instead give you "an enemy swung at you but you dodge around him to the left and counter attacked, your strike punctured his armor, allowing you to pierce his organs causing him to pass out from pain". Not a single number. Not "you did 15 damage which was enough to beat his armor".
Because most people go into games thinking high number is better and get confused. This is the golf of gaming
because americans can't math
I COULD understand this system but I CHOOSE not not.
>It is a number that represents the chances that a physical attack hit its target. Lower numbers are better.
That is completely illogical. Clearly if lower numbers are better, it does not actually represent the chance to hit the target. It would be more accurate to say it represents how likely you are to miss the target. Even then, to say it "represents the chance" feels misleading, because the number is not a percentage.
Lower numbers are better because it increases the range on the die needed to hit. The number represented is the minimum roll needed to hit on a d20. A one always misses (critical miss). A twenty always hits (critical hit).
>It represents the number you have to roll to hit an armor class of zero
But...what the enemy doesn't have an armor class of zero?
poorly represents reality
D100 system with 1 as the best value is simply better. THAC0 came from having the 20 of a D20 being the best value and people trying to build around that. With THAC0 you get stuck at 0 unless you start going negative which while you still get basic primal school level math makes things unnecessarily less simple than just 0 being no armor and having infinite level of possible armor in the positive.
AC and 3e is infinitely better than this weird shit system. Comfier to play around too.
If you're not wearing armor, you shouldn't need another formula for damage calculation.
The phrasing makes no sense whatsoever.
ThAC0 is hard in theory but in practice it makes balancing extremely easy for encounters, without needing made up CRs.
Consider this: a warrior generally has a ThAC0 equal to 20-(level-1), so a warrior level 5 has a ThAC0 of 16, meaning that they hit an AC of 0 (equivalent to full plate + shield) on raw roll of 16 or higher.
That tells me how often generally an enemy can be hit, how the ThAC0 for an enemy should be, how often I end up hitting my players AND the general progression and balance for things.
Instead of having arbitrary +1 to hit, +2 to hit, which endlessly scale, you have a limit to how effective armor is: a level 16+ fighter for example has a ThAC0 of 5, if you have an AC of 0 (hard to do without being a melee unit, since full plate + shield) he is still going to hit on a raw roll without bonuses of 5+.
I'm going on a loop because I'm a bit drunk point is I think it makes the player feel more accomplished that his own score matters more, rather than the endless "You're level 20! So this enemy has an AC of 78! Roll your d20".
Generally speaking in systems that use ThAC0 there is less absurd numbers: you're not going to find a lot of enemies with an AC under 0, the Tarrasque for example has -3 and they're supposed to be considered hyper tanks, a level 16 fighter can still hit a Tarrasque on a natural unaided roll of 8+.
I think it is a bit unbalanced for rogues though, I get they are skill monkeys but I tend to improve a rogue's ThAC0 progression in games I run, a +4 for backstabbing for one hit isn't enough to warrant getting a worse progression than clerics, who have spells to make up for their lack in combat.
its just normal ac and hit but in moronic way
I think this mechanic only ever existed because people liked saying THACKO.
i love Thac0 bell
>what's the big controversy about?
Tacos are Mexican. This is cultural appropriation.