Comments on Tenkar's Tavern: The Myth of THAC0

It isn't what you use, but how you use it. Rem...

2012-01-22T23:40:50.068-05:00

It isn't what you use, but how you use it. Remember that Dragon Mountain had the PCs go up against kobolds.

@ryan - thanks. it was kicking around in the back...

2012-01-22T22:32:42.250-05:00

@ryan - thanks. it was kicking around in the back of my head for a bit, but then a post here was the key:
http://www.howlingtower.com/

I think part of the "getting nowhere" fe...

2012-01-22T22:22:18.051-05:00

I think part of the "getting nowhere" feel you get with THACo comes from the artificial nature of encounters. Like Mike said above, high level characters should crush orcs under their heels, but it seems that in most games (and I'm just as guilty of this as the next guy) you stop running into orcs after you gain a few levels...or at least, you stop running into them in small numbers

fricking awesome! thank you anon! :)

2012-01-22T17:40:06.717-05:00

fricking awesome! thank you anon! :)

I believe it's Steve Winter's new blog &qu...

2012-01-22T17:33:22.339-05:00

I believe it's Steve Winter's new blog "Howling Tower" you're thinking of.

@Chris - welcome aboard ;)

2012-01-22T16:20:32.385-05:00

@Chris - welcome aboard ;)

There's another problem with the scaling - it ...

2012-01-22T16:15:40.167-05:00

There's another problem with the scaling - it over emphasizes the combat bonus one gets from strength. I might have another post on the subject later ;)

This is really well put, and the scaling thing is ...

2012-01-22T15:49:00.842-05:00

This is really well put, and the scaling thing is something I try very hard to avoid. I like the fact that plate mail is plate mail is plate mail, and AC 2 should be a good AC no matter the level (IMO of course).

I agree with Aplus, OD&D and B/X do not suffer from this problem. I do think it started to creep into AD&D to some degree, and definitely existed in Second Edition.

The game takes this into account in several places...

2012-01-22T15:18:58.846-05:00

The game takes this into account in several places, e.g. by having varying levels of difficulty on wilderness encounter charts. If the PCs know where the dragon lives from level one, they can fear him the entire campaign, but finally test themselves when they want to claim the barony for themselves at name level. A little foreshadowing goes a long way.

If they encounter a raiding

I would agree with your description of THAC0/etc. ...

2012-01-22T12:19:29.733-05:00

I would agree with your description of THAC0/etc. However, I think this could be said about every game. As characters advance, GMs must put in correspondingly advanced baddies. Be it with combat abilities, spells, feats, etc.
The place where the real 'leveling' up happens in the story being ran. A long time ago I ran an AD&D campaign where the characters started as lowly

Not quite sure why this is a problem. It's a b...

2012-01-22T11:11:53.839-05:00

Not quite sure why this is a problem. It's a bit like telling a college physics major that their 4 years of study will just be running up a down escalator. After all, even though they learn more from semester to semester, the text books get correspondingly more and more difficult.

The point is that as PCs advance in level, the creatures that were once really hard to hit become less

I disagree. In the original/basic games, monster A...

2012-01-22T11:08:12.331-05:00

I disagree. In the original/basic games, monster ACs range from 9 to 2. If there are any that go beyond that, it's certainly not the norm.

What you describe certainly applies to 3E though.