tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post2853079176831960308..comments2024-03-07T16:20:50.007+00:00Comments on Librarians & Leviathans: First impressions of AD&D 2nd EditionShimmin Beghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-76337433352164868952013-10-30T14:17:24.743+00:002013-10-30T14:17:24.743+00:00Ah no, your original explanation was fine. It'...Ah no, your original explanation was fine. It's just we play over roll20 anyway, and Arthur remembers our THAC0, so he can tell from the rolls that come up onscreen whether or not we hit his monster's AC. Which means I never have to do the maths myself. <br /><br />Yours is definitely clearer than the PHB option, but it's still a bit more mental arithmetic than I want to do regularly.Shimmin Beghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-40922874911641963012013-10-30T13:14:10.316+00:002013-10-30T13:14:10.316+00:00Oh, I was forgetting about it. I went back reading...Oh, I was forgetting about it. I went back reading the PHB copies I have, the Thac0 expanation is really worse that I remember.. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13128896553218758183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-51827188401975488302013-10-30T12:58:56.286+00:002013-10-30T12:58:56.286+00:00"- roll 1d20
- appl... "- roll 1d20<br /> - apply modifiers"<br /><br />What we use to do is a further step where you subtract this number from your Thac0, doing this you het the AC you hit. If this is equal or lower than the enemy one (the DM check this) you hit.<br /><br />If you are the DM you already knows your player's opponent AC, so you just have to confront the AC number hit by you player and the AC of the opponent. <br /><br />I clearly recognize that this is not the best solution they could came out with, but however there's no need to "pass" any wierd information about AC, Thac0 or other stuff between players and DM. <br /><br />Possibly my English is not good enough to be clear (not native speaker), but here is an example:<br /><br />Let say we have a 5th level warrior, with Thac0 16 (from tables), specialist with the long sowrd that is the weapon he is actually wealding. He also is pretty strong since he has 17 in hi Strenght attribute, that means a +1 to hit and +1 to dmg. Note that I haven't said anything about his opponent since it is not relevant right now.<br /><br />The players roll a "9" with his d20. He adds up hi specialization bonus (+1) and his strenght bonus (+1), se he gets to 11. He subtract this number from his Thac0 and finds out that he hits AC 4 (15 -11).<br /><br />The DM checks the opponent AC and sees that it is 5. He tells the player that the hit is true and good. Had the opponent AC been 3 or lower the worrior's attack would have been a miss.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13128896553218758183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-67885341425431970462013-10-29T14:21:45.827+00:002013-10-29T14:21:45.827+00:00It’s interesting that your description is so diffe...It’s interesting that your description is so different from theirs, but on reflection I think it’s because their description is actually aimed at the DM. But theirs does require either the player or the DM to have information that is held by the other one, which was my point: if you’re trying to follow their instructions as a player (which is how I assume things work unless explicitly told otherwise) you need to know the AC to subtract it from your THAC0. If you’re the DM, you need to know the THAC0 to subtract from. Similarly, if you’re trying to follow my much simpler explanation, you need to know the AC to add it to the die roll.<br /><br />I’m not entirely convinced that THACO-(d20+modifiers) is a huge improvement myself, but of course different things work for different people. How it tends to work in practice in our games is:<br />- roll 1d20<br />- apply modifiers<br />- Arthur tells you if you hit or not<br /><br />On the plus side, despite being very clunky people have managed to play with it for decades and the game became a huge phenomenon, so hey, it could clearly be worse.Shimmin Beghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-86587967144966188742013-10-29T12:23:21.657+00:002013-10-29T12:23:21.657+00:00However I agree with you that is quite far from be...However I agree with you that is quite far from being intuitive or even very logical.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13128896553218758183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-77628934680997813972013-10-29T12:21:23.505+00:002013-10-29T12:21:23.505+00:00Re: Thac0, I've been played the 2ed for years....Re: Thac0, I've been played the 2ed for years. You may have got the Thac0 a little bit wrong. Tha DM doesn't need to tell yoo the enemy AC at all. <br />If we take a look at the combat resolution step what the player is expected to do for attacking is:<br />- roll the d20<br />- add to the d20 result all his bonus (strenght, specialization, magic..) and subtract all his penalaties (possibly encumbrance, some penaltise for specific ingiuries from the Combat&Tactics manual, magic..)<br />- take the resulting number and subtract it to the Tach0.<br /><br />the number you get is the AC your PG hits. If this is equal o lower (that is better) that your opponent's you hit, otherwise you miss.<br /><br />You simply tell the DM "My PG hits AC 5" <br />The DM will tell you if you hit or miss, not the AC of the opponents.<br /><br />Your party will still be able to figure out the opponents AC if the combat last enough to let you see some good and bad roll.<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13128896553218758183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-47316529997450668332013-03-25T21:34:53.852+00:002013-03-25T21:34:53.852+00:00You're very welcome!You're very welcome!Shimmin Beghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-17478172755435251682013-03-20T21:50:39.650+00:002013-03-20T21:50:39.650+00:00And now I understand how THACO works. Thank you.And now I understand how THACO works. Thank you.Shannonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00456068019298922261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-74309492886383747192013-02-14T16:19:08.180+00:002013-02-14T16:19:08.180+00:00Bear in mind also that THAC0 came in actually quit...Bear in mind also that THAC0 came in actually quite late - it's a 2nd ed. innovation (previous editions just gave you big tables). There may have been a desire to maintain backward compatibility with the extraordinary amount of 1st edition stuff they'd already printed and would ideally like to sell off to 2nd ed players.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-73707908392160177952013-02-11T10:58:49.348+00:002013-02-11T10:58:49.348+00:00Ah, I see. True, but I still can’t fathom how the...Ah, I see. True, but I still can’t fathom how they ended up with “THAC0 – AC vs. d20” as the mechanic. No, wait, I suppose if the GM is looking after both THAC0 and AC that does sort of work. But I can’t see how you’d wind up with that mechanic in wargaming unless it was all done in secret by referees, which isn't my experience at all.<br /><br />From what I’ve found online, one of the reasons things seem weird is that the original mechanic was not a scaling armour value, but just a list of armour types that happened to be given numbers. These worked on a chart vs. different attack types, so there really wasn’t any arithmetic in there, just pure comparison. <a href="http://playingattheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/armor-class-in-chainmail.html" rel="nofollow">This post</a> highlights the <i>Chainmail</i> rules where different weapons hit different armours on various numbers. It seems like at some point people switched to using number labels for the armour types (each number presumably covering several possible types), though they could perfectly well have used letters instead for what they were doing.<br /><br />So far as I can tell, “add AC to die roll and check vs. THAC0” wouldn’t have made sense then, because AC wasn’t a numerical value, just a label.<br /><br />Eventually the idea of AC as an actual number came in to presumably streamline things, and they introduced THAC0, except they didn’t quite take it far enough. So to me it looks like the real problem was that nowhere in that evolution process did anyone step back and say “hang on, if we’re changing all these elements, is there a more logical way to model it?”Shimmin Beghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-13764563368202133492013-02-10T22:27:33.861+00:002013-02-10T22:27:33.861+00:00I mean that in a wargame, you know your opponent&#...I mean that in a wargame, you know your opponent's stats (or they can tell you) so "D20 + AC vs THAC0" was a perfectly straightforward mechanic, a lot of what gets confusing about it comes in when AC becomes secret.<br /><br />Similarly in a tabletop wargame having a static to-hit based on your skill which is modified by circumstances (like enemy armour) is fairly common. If you think about it, it's sort of how shooting works in Warhams - BS3 means you need a 4+ to hit, and then you put modifiers on top of that.<br /><br />Sorry, I didn't express that very clearly at all.Dan Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05711867728179306264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-81662007130747492432013-02-10T21:52:53.609+00:002013-02-10T21:52:53.609+00:00Sorry, not quite getting you in the second paragra...Sorry, not quite getting you in the second paragraph there.Shimmin Beghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-67409723463533459692013-02-10T20:49:05.379+00:002013-02-10T20:49:05.379+00:00The other thing to remember about AC is that it ev...The other thing to remember about AC is that it evolved out of a tabletop wargame where Armour Class was literally an Armour Class - each type of armour had a value and there was no overlap, so AC1 was "first class armour" and AC2 was "second class".<br /><br />I suspect that in that context "add AC to dice roll and check vs THACO" was also just as sensible as "Add AB to dice roll and check vs AC".Dan Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05711867728179306264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-69960232769464950912013-02-08T14:38:17.407+00:002013-02-08T14:38:17.407+00:00...painstakingly written commend is blatted by sof......painstakingly written commend is blatted by software restart.<br /><br />The 1st edition arrangement sounds completely insane, but I suspect it's mostly down to a gulf in thinking. Coming to it from recent games, where players have a lot more direct control and sometimes the GM/player barrier is fairly blurry, keeping that kind of information from them seems weird. But I can see, if you come at it from a refereed wargames background, then for one thing you might actively want to conceal tactical information from players, and for another you might just not see any particular reason to share detailed mechanics with people. Especially if (as I get the impression) Gygax was viewing <i>D&D</i> as a game a knowledgeable GM would Run For people with no gaming experience whatsoever, rather than a more collaborative thing.<br /><br /><i>I'll just narrate the effects of their attack and then tell you your character is dead.</i><br /><br />Well, can’t say you didn’t warn us...<br /><br />Re: Layout – it seems to be one of those things that’s quite easy to spot flaws in, or at least perceived weaknesses, but incredibly hard to really pin down how to do well. <i>Cthulhu</i> has a lot of problems, <i>Hellcats</i> had some definite issues, and I seem to remember <i>After Sundown</i> was a bit all over the place as well. I suppose part of it is that any but the most basic game is going to have interaction between different subsystems, and there’s not necessarily any one right place to put some of the information.<br /><br />Re: Chargen – I think <i>Pathfinder</i> and the like take ages the first time you’re presented with them, because there’s an overwhelming choice of skills, feats, spells and so on. After a couple of goes, even if you don’t try to learn the details, you understand how they work, and are better at filtering out class-irrelevant options, or things you won’t be qualified for at 1st level. A bit more, and you can recognise the more straightforward and common options, which is fine if you’re not that bothered about mechanising things too much. However, to get the most out of the game both fluff- and crunchwise, you do really need to either learn the options, or spend a lot of time on chargen. On the plus side, good presentation can make it a lot easier by clearly showing you prerequisites, dependency chains, and generally helping to filter out some of the noise. Some books do better than others at that, though some kind of tool or app that could actively filter for you would be a good idea. I have somewhere a sizeable file, lovingly prepared, that collates the feats from all the major <i>Pathfinder</i> rulebooks, correctly alphabetised and indented for feat chains... Quite a job. I’d do something with it, only I’m not sure what, or indeed what I’d be allowed to do. Plus, I mean, my <i>Pathfinder</i> game is defunct now.Shimmin Beghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-62037878189748333522013-02-07T22:50:40.260+00:002013-02-07T22:50:40.260+00:00Re: THAC0 - It's interesting to compare this t...Re: THAC0 - It's interesting to compare this to the arrangement in 1st edition, where the <i>Player's Handbook</i> <b>didn't contain the to-hit charts</b>. Those were all bundled in to the <i>Dungeon Master's Guide</i>, along with saving throws, because Gary Gygax is the Old Testament God of tabletop RPGs and wanted to encourage GMs to be the same. Your GM could just let you know your saving throws and to-hit rolls if he or she wanted to, or they could just ask you to roll and add applicable bonuses and look it up themselves.<br /><br />FWIW, for the campaign my intention is to do something like that, simply to keep things speedy; you won't know the monster ACs, but then again if I've done my job properly you'll be able to tell roughly what standard of armour they are wearing and if you really wanted to you could suss it out fairly soon. Likewise, since I'll make sure to have your ACs in front of me, I won't be reporting monster dice rolls to you every time I roll a to-hit for them, I'll just narrate the effects of their attack and then tell you your character is dead.<br /><br />Re: Layout - Yep, no doubt it's a mess. It's somewhat friendlier once you are used to it - unlike, say, <i>Weapons of the Gods</i>, a game Dan and I played for months where I never sussed out the arrangement of the rulebook and I don't think anyone else did either. It's worth bearing in mind that the game was published at a time when the basic <i>D&D</i> game was also available, so the designers could be a little more sure that people coming to it knew their way around the system; all-noob groups were more likely to be playing basic before moving up to <i>Advanced</i> (or just ploughing on through the Expert/Companion/Master/Immortals sets or the <i>Rules Cyclopedia</i>), whereas a noob in a group of more experienced players could have a player or DM giving them a helping hand navigating the book. So I guess making the layout super-simple was a lesser priority back then.<br /><br />Re: saving throws - yeah, "stuff what's come up in games so far" was as far as I can tell how they came about in OD&D and nobody really bothered to rationalise them until 3rd edition.<br /><br />Re: character gen speed - I hear anecdotally that a lot of people find all-random systems like the TSR-vintage <i>D&D</i> systems much easier to introduce new players, because new people can get very, very easily overwhelmed with all the choice 3rd ed and later editions give you. And of course once you do learn your way around the rulebook it becomes much faster - based on your figures (which look right to me) the AD&D gen process could come to under half an hour, whereas with Pathfinder I don't see it going down below the 50-plus minutes you've worked out there unless you've spent a massive amount of time studying the feats or you're using a build guide.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com