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Describing THAC0 Bonuses


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4 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

EDIT - regarding description text: it seems to me that both IR and EEs misuse the term “thac0.” (Or, “THAC0” if you prefer.) A bonus to hit is not a “thac0 bonus” - it’s a to-hit bonus. It’s been a long time since I looked at the original books, and I don’t have any nearby... anyone know if the 90s 2E source material used it that way? Or is that kind of item description an invention of Bioware in BG?

Officially, in 2nd edition AD&D, 'bonus to THAC0' and 'attack bonus' are basically synonymous - they're used that way by the text in the 2nd edition Players' Handbook that explains THAC0, certainly. But the spell descriptions in the Players' Handbook don't, on quick inspection, refer to THAC0 - they talk exclusively about 'attack bonus'. At a guess, that's because the text is in most cases taken over with little or no changes from the 1st edition AD&D Players' Handbook, which doesn't have the THAC0 concept. Later sources do use it - for instance, the spell descriptions in the 2nd edition Forgotten Realms Adventures hardback describe various spells as giving attack rolls 'at the caster's THAC0 with a +2 bonus'. 1990s-period TSR almost certainly didn't have the established style rules that (I would bet) WotC or Paizo have, so things are a bit inconstant from product to product.

My own feeling, FWIW, is that it's better to talk about 'attack bonuses' than 'THAC0 bonuses' because of the pre-3rd-edition awkwardness that lower THAC0 is better. Strictly, '+2 to THAC0' is a penalty, but it reads so weirdly to talk about a -2 bonus that in practice, +2 is used to mean a 2-point bonus. (Similar problems arise for AC, of course - a ring of protection +2 gives -2 to AC.)

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28 minutes ago, DavidW said:

spell descriptions in the 2nd edition Forgotten Realms Adventures hardback describe various spells as giving attack rolls 'at the caster's THAC0 with a +2 bonus'.

Yeah. THAC0 is not something to which bonuses are applied; it is a target number that you roll against. It’s shorthand by way if giving you a single row of old BECMI/1E tables like this

I would say the language you quoted is actually okay - I think “with a +2 bonus” implicitly refers to the previously mentioned attack roll. (“At the caster’s THAC0” is a bit of a weird way to define the number the attack roll must meet or beat... but it actually makes sense it you think about it as a reference to a row on that table. Having spent a lot of time with BECMI and big rectangular tables like that, I found the adoption of the “THAC0” terminology to be quite intuitive.)

For some reason, the people who deride THAC0 as “weird” seem to have no problem with saving throws, which are exactly the same - target numbers that a d20 roll must meet or beat. I suppose we routinely talk about “+2 bonus to saves vs. spells,” which is the same kind of incorrect-but-effective shorthand as saying “THAC0 bonus.”

Anyway yeah, in my mods I always say “2-point bonus to hit” or “bonus to attack rolls,” just to err on the side of clarity. 

Edited by subtledoctor
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I've seen similar wording used in English D&D books (3rd party) as well for a similar reason.  Of course the one that bugs me the most for ambiguous word selection early in the game's creation is Spell Level and Character Level.  So much would have been simplified if they'd chosen two different words to denote tier of character power or tier of spells if they were going to have a different spell tier range from character power tiers. (20 character levels, 9 spell levels).

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I remember being concerned about confusion regarding "+2 to THAC0" or "-1 THAC0" when I was editing descriptions a long time ago... probably for Spell Revisions.  I think our solution was to add "bonus" or "penalty" if it wasn't there already so players would know if it was good or bad.

I think the BG games lean so heavily on the THAC0 labelling that it's probably better to stick with that.  I find "attack roll bonus" to be a fairly understandable alternative.  I'm not a fan of "to-hit bonus" since it's awkward (even if it's the logical contraction of THAC0) and I think "attack bonus" might invite confusion with damage bonuses.

5 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

For some reason, the people who deride THAC0 as “weird” seem to have no problem with saving throws, which are exactly the same - target numbers that a d20 roll must meet or beat. I suppose we routinely talk about “+2 bonus to saves vs. spells,” which is the same kind of incorrect-but-effective shorthand as saying “THAC0 bonus.”

Why do we "roll" attacks, but "throw" saves?  Variety is the spice of life?

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3 hours ago, Caedwyr said:

So much would have been simplified if they'd chosen two different words to denote tier of character power or tier of spells if they were going to have a different spell tier range from character power tiers.

So what words would you have used ? Spell tiers, spell layers ... ? It's the same thing anyways.

 

41 minutes ago, Mike1072 said:

Why do we "roll" attacks, but "throw" saves?  Variety is the spice of life?

No. It's the silent plural. Yes, don't fail a single save throw, as the first, will kill you. But you can make several attack rolls.

But in my mind, one could very well do away the +x numbers completely. Just create a little more descriptive item names and you don't need +x'es at all. Rusty Full Plate Mail, Full Plate Mail, Fine Full Plate Mail, Magical Full Plate Mail. Imbued Magical Full Plate Mail, Legendary Full Plate Mail. So that's from -1 to +5.

Besided, it's not like it's actually a + anything... in most cases. The armors all have Armor Class bonus... which is not actually a real one, it just a static number set that has no bonuses that can overlap, at least in most cases.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola
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1 hour ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

So what words would you have used ? Spell tiers, spell layers ... ? It's the same thing anyways.

The word "layer" is not the same word on the page as "level" or "tier".  They are synonyms, yes; however,  you use a different word to avoid ambiguity when describing the components of a class so that whenever you are talking about level you are referring to character level and "rank" for whenever you are talking about spell level. 

This is a pretty basic technical writing thing done to reduce ambiguity in the writing.  If you are consistent throughout, especially early on in the game's existence you avoid all annoyances and confusion that come later.  For D&D it is far too late (though they might be able to do things with a new edition), but if you look at most newer well designed boardgames the writers tend to be very careful about this type of thing when writing the manual/quickstart instructions.

Edited by Caedwyr
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Which is why I asked, "what words would you have used ?". As one could just rewrite the Spell Rev's spell descriptions and you would have a mod that supports your system. It's not too late. It's never too late, you are just blind to the possibility. Or SCS could easily do it too... or BG2Fixpack... 😛

17 minutes ago, Caedwyr said:

The word "layer" is not the same word on the page as "level" or "tier".

It's not ? Hmm, tell me how does second tier spells differentiate from a second spelllayer spells ? Other than the tripple l's.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola
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What would the preferred nomenclature be here? Instead of

Quote

THAC0: +1, +4 vs. lycanthropes

perhaps

Quote

To-hit: +1, +4 vs. lycanthropes

or

Quote

Attack Bonus: +1, +4 vs. lycanthropes

It'd be easy enough to mass update item descripts in Tweaks.

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It seems unlikely everyone would agree on something (seeing as it's insanely subjective), may make sense to present multiple options. ...Although I say that as someone that prefers the "THAC0: +x bonus" format the best, with "Attack: +x bonus" the second best, which wasn't even an option discussed by anyone else. Also, if you really want to waste time, code up something that scans items and spells for dice rolls to change to either lowercase or uppercase (i.e. 1D8 vs 1d8), since people are particular about that too.

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12 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Also, if you really want to waste time, code up something that scans items and spells for dice rolls to change to either lowercase or uppercase (i.e. 1D8 vs 1d8), since people are particular about that too.

Where is the "Like" button when needed 😋

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