D&D CATCH-ALL because Baron is dumb

From what I recall THAC0 required more steps than necessary, or just seemed counter-intuitive, but that could also be because I played 3.0 first. Adding numbers together and seeing if they beat another number seems more instinctive. I can't completely recall how THAC0 works, but it's almost the same thing, I think.

In truth, the two really aren't that different from what I remember. I just feel no need to try 2nd Edition. My brother, who I believe started with 2nd (or perhaps the original AD&D) was a bit put-off by 3rd edition at first, but now he has moved on to Pathfinder because 3rd edition and its updates basically do everything he wants D&D to do.

I won't touch a debate about 4th Edition with a ten foot pole. I just know it isn't for me.

As for me, I'm working on starting up a campaign of my own. I am not looking to define the world too heavily yet, since that often requires a lot of work that I don't currently have time for. Instead, I'm looking to mix and match, such as the Warforged from Eberron and Gobbers, Bodgers and Bogrin from Iron Kingdoms. I know one of my players wants to play a sort of Cat-Person. Does anyone know of an official race in D&D source books for such a thing? I believe something along the lines of a Khajit or whatever they're called from Elder Scrolls is what they have in mind.

Similarly, anyone know a good source of modules that are also free?

ccesarano wrote:

As for me, I'm working on starting up a campaign of my own. I am not looking to define the world too heavily yet, since that often requires a lot of work that I don't currently have time for. Instead, I'm looking to mix and match, such as the Warforged from Eberron and Gobbers, Bodgers and Bogrin from Iron Kingdoms. I know one of my players wants to play a sort of Cat-Person. Does anyone know of an official race in D&D source books for such a thing? I believe something along the lines of a Khajit or whatever they're called from Elder Scrolls is what they have in mind.

Catfolk from Races of the Wild. There's an homebrew variant here that sounds more like a Khajiit than the official version. It also includes some of the information from the book so you can compare them.

After looking through all of the supplemental 3.5 stuff, I really want to play a healing cleric with the prestige class for followers of Pelor that further boosts healing from Complete Divine. As it stands, I dunno if my campaign will even have a cleric.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

LISTEN OR WATCH D&D
1. Roll Play = a weekly game being played on twitch.tv but they also post on youtube.

Some of those people don't look like what i imagine, or remember D&D players looking like.

ccesarano wrote:

From what I recall THAC0 required more steps than necessary, or just seemed counter-intuitive, but that could also be because I played 3.0 first. Adding numbers together and seeing if they beat another number seems more instinctive. I can't completely recall how THAC0 works, but it's almost the same thing, I think.

If my THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class 0) is 18 and your armor class is 0, then I need to roll an 18 or better to hit you.

If my THAC0 is 18 and your armor class is 6, then I need to roll a 12 (18 - 6) or better to hit you.

If my THAC0 is 18 and your armor class is -2, then I need to roll a natural 20 (18 - -2) to hit you.

There's two cumbersome things about it: a lower AC is better than higher (counter-intuitive) and you subtract negative numbers.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

There's two cumbersome things about it: a lower AC is better than higher (counter-intuitive) and you subtract negative numbers.

Which is a lot like what I said upthread. I'd add that there's a third thing: when it comes to bonuses, they're expressed as positive values ([weapon]+n or whatever), but you're expected to subtract them. Bottom line is as follows: THAC0 doesn't make sense intuitively, it was crappily explained in the manuals, and it's extra work. The people who like THAC0 will tell you all day long not worry about it and to just do it and it'll work as designed, but this is ignoring that you (or at least your DM) needs to understand it correctly for it to work as intended. Again, Google THAC0 and you'll find lots of talk about it - some of which indicates that there are people who didn't understand it correctly. It leaves me wondering how many 2nd edition game sessions involved weird hits/non-hits that weren't picked up on because the numbers used in the calculation didn't make sense either. Wasn't a problem in any of the campaigns I was ever involved in back in junior high, but there was enough talk about THAC0's strangeness between those of us who bought the books that I wasn't at all shocked to find other folks were confused by it all.

You guys have explained it and i read a little elsewhere and that still hurts my brain. AC and attack bonuses just make so much more sense and I now understand at least part of my failure with the BG series.

Double post for double the confusion!

That's --2 posts! And a tribute.

We never subtracted weapon bonuses; we added them to the die roll. Can't imagine why you'd do it any other way.

Would anyone be interesting in trying out D&D Next? I wouldn't mind running the example test packet that WoTC has released.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

We never subtracted weapon bonuses; we added them to the die roll. Can't imagine why you'd do it any other way.

You're supposed to subtract the bonus from your THAC0 value, not add it to the die roll. Unfortunately, my 2nd edition manuals are in a storage bin at my parents' place in Florida (at least they'd *better* be! they do me such good there!), so I can't cite the specific passage, but this is part of what I meant when I said the official breakdown sucks.

EDIT: And now I'm second-guessing myself, because I'm wondering if we just added our modifiers to the base THAC0 value as we weren't changing weapons etc. willy-nilly, and this made for faster calculations with an annoying system. I'm getting older-ish.

EDIT - AGAIN!: Google reveals the following citation from the PHB: "Figure Strength and weapon modifiers, subtract the total from the base THAC0, and record this modified THAC0 with each weapon on the character sheet. Subtract the target's Armor Class form the this modified THAC0 when determining to-hit numbers." So we weren't just cleverly lazy! Argle-bargle!

Okay, yeah, THAC0 was the creation of some fevered dream brought on by some vile infection or something, because the more you guys discuss it the more I'm confused. It's simple in theory.

Still, saying "Beat this number" and then adding your rolls and bonuses to that is a lot easier.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

We never subtracted weapon bonuses; we added them to the die roll. Can't imagine why you'd do it any other way.

I'd do it Quintin's way...

Okay, it makes sense if you're recording a different THAC0 for each weapon on your sheet.

ccesarano wrote:

Okay, yeah, THAC0 was the creation of some fevered dream brought on by some vile infection or something, because the more you guys discuss it the more I'm confused. It's simple in theory.

Still, saying "Beat this number" and then adding your rolls and bonuses to that is a lot easier.

A hearty, kaiju-sized atomic fire breathing "Yup!" to that.

It was originally an optional 1st edition rule offered as an alternative to consulting attack tables. It became the standard way for doing things in 2nd. I've read/heard speculation that the "smaller numbers are better" AC business has some connection to Gygax's past, where some game or another involved a comparable stat classed out as A, B, C, D, etc. where precedence in alphabetical order indicated better values. It's conceivable that at some point this was brought over and turned into numbers so that you could have stats you could perform numerical operations with/against, though none of this is substantiated by anything published that I've seen. And thank goodness for things getting re-specced/re-designed, because man, at some point, you really need to stop and say, "Hey! That way you did that thing in the other thing? I know you guys were all used to that, but that's not necessarily the smartest way to do it here."

We could also talk about how having a didjahitit (and-by-the-way-it's-not-damage) mechanic be based on how good/bad your armor is happens to be a really weird abstraction if anyone's up for more brain-squeegeeing, but we don't have to.

Edwin wrote:

Would anyone be interesting in trying out D&D Next? I wouldn't mind running the example test packet that WoTC has released.

I'd love to. From what I've seen, it promises to be the best version so far. Back to the RP-centric approach of old but with a more sensible ruleset.

Is this something folks are doing via online tools. or meet in person type stuff? I would be interested if you guys wouldn't mind a newbie. I have been itching to jump into a game but just haven't found the right opportunity.

I may try to swing by a local Encounters game this week if I can get out of work in time.

RooneyFan wrote:

Is this something folks are doing via online tools. or meet in person type stuff? I would be interested if you guys wouldn't mind a newbie. I have been itching to jump into a game but just haven't found the right opportunity.

I may try to swing by a local Encounters game this week if I can get out of work in time.

Mine is local so that would be quite a drive for a campaign where the biggest unknown is how I will perform as a DM, especially as Clover is apparently ignoring me for a relative's baby!

I'm doing it online via http://roll20.net/

Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons Encounters is a great way to find weekly games to at least get your toes wet in 4th edition. I run once a week from a local hobby store and I'm sure people can find local games in their area as well.

I always found THAC0 very intuitive. D&D basic was a Christmas gift from Santa, so I learned with it at age 8-10 or around, and didn't find it hard to grasp when I was a blank slate and didn't know any other way. I think at age 8 your are just learning to add and subtract, no? D&D was the greatest teacher I ever had, I believe, for reading and math. It was like reading a dictionary with half the words going over my head but the game, dice, figurines, and picture were so enticing that it pushed me to learn the words. This was in the 70s before my eventual exposure to Atari. But I still like thac0 to this day. The reason I find it intuitive is that there is a swivel point (numero 0) where the armour is either a top tier non-magical type (plate) or has some sort of magical enhancement. It was a point where you knew the more negative you got, you were truly in the badass territory. I find the 3rd ed.+ systems sort of vague...I don't have a good sense of what is hard to hit. With Thac0, I had that sense. Once you dipped into weird negative numbers, you were becoming something unique and special. Monsters that had negatives were to be feared (and likely to give up some good bounty).

We just started a D&D campaign last week. My first live D&D campaign in over 25 years. And I'm happy to say that Thac0 will be there and I'll be back home.

Giants in the Playground has been hit with a Denial Of Service attack that has taking it off line for the last couple of days. They have no idea when it will be back up.

Yep... was just posting an update to the campaign I'm running then only to find it shallowed up in the website failing.

Yup... wonder what could have motivated that... I was getting ready to publish my campaign outline there for feedback.

Demosthenes wrote:

Yup... wonder what could have motivated that

People are douchewaffles.

mudbunny wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Yup... wonder what could have motivated that

People are douchewaffles.

Well yeah, but it seems like since anonymous popped up, most of those douchwaffles have been... let's say corralled and focused on targers by the politics of their friends and peers. Takimg down a webcomic and d&d forum seems pointless.

Well, with Giant in the Playground broke for a while... here's the outline for my D&D campaign setting as it sits now. (Big post, get ready!)

EDIT: Ok, wait, formatting isn't working.

Demosthenes wrote:

Well, with Giant in the Playground broke for a while... here's the outline for my D&D campaign setting as it sits now.

Huh.. I see... So... it's a sort of self-referential work wherein the players manifest their own deep-seated fantasies based on the guidance, or lack thereof, from the DM?

Duoae wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Well, with Giant in the Playground broke for a while... here's the outline for my D&D campaign setting as it sits now.

Huh.. I see... So... it's a sort of self-referential work wherein the players manifest their own deep-seated fantasies based on the guidance, or lack thereof, from the DM?

;)

Apparently GWJ doesn't like outlines or whatever that grammar thing is called when you hit the Tab button to ad that space to the beginning of a paragraph. :X