Gunderholfen downtime 2 - reflections, THAC0, and another new character
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- Coming out of Session 3, I reflect on what I've learned playing Gunderholfen with BECMI rules. I try to explain THAC0 in the way that's clicking for me right now. And... I roll up another new character. RIP Dobahai.
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For me thinking about THAC0, I think about it as a "If I roll this number or above, I don't need to do math, I hit". Because even though there are creatures that have a AC below 0, 0 is supposed to be "The best" AC.
So like in a system with Ascending AC like 5e, you know there are creatures that can have an AC above 20, but 99% of creatures have a 20 or below. If I have a +7 to hit, then I know that if I roll a 13 or above, I hit. I don't need to do the math past 13, I'm hitting an AC only a few dozen monsters can have, and if needed my DM will let me know "Hey this guy has a really high AC, I need you tell me what AC you hit."
This is the same for THAC0, very little creatures have a negative AC. If they do, it will really stand out and the DM will say that. Knowing that, all you care about normally is hitting AC 0. So if the THAC0 is 19, then there is not a lot of wiggle room but if you roll 19 or 20 then you know you hit. As your Thaco goes down, you have to do less and less math as the chances of hitting your thaco goes up.
If you don't hit your Thaco, this is where your math normally comes in, but there's another secret here. The players don't need to tell you their attack roll, all they need to tell you is what AC they hit. Since AC goes down, if the number they tell you is less than or equal to the monsters AC, they hit.
For example, your dwarf has a Thaco of 19 and is fighting an AC 4 creature. Maybe you don't want to tell them what the AC is. All they need to do is roll the dice, let's say they rolled 15, add modifiers, +1 dex makes it 16, then they consult the table (or subtract the roll fron their thaco) to tell you "I hit AC 3" then all you have to do is think "4 is bigger than 3, so they hit." You as the DM don't actually need to do any math, and if they players have the attack matrix then all they are doing is adding modifiers to the roll and tell you the AC number.
Hope any of that makes sense 😅
Edit: Also to add, while 0 is the best AC, 10 is the worst. So if you have a thaco of 19 then you need to roll at least a 9 to have a chance to hit anything. So if you roll below a nine, then you just know you miss. You only have to worry about when you roll between a 9 and 18
You sir are spoiling us with this. Have to check out later just going to bed. Spent all night playing Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 ha. You seem to be getting more and more comfortable with each video love to see it bud
Goodness another person in the space with impeccable handwriting! I wish my handwriting wasn't like the scrawl of a particularly incompetent doctor. Vanilla thief skills are terrible. With THAC0 I tend to view it as a shorthand for Refs, on all my character sheets I have a to hit ribbon for missile and melee (so they can have the modifiers built in) I let players know the monster AC because they'll figure it out fast enough and I don't find value in hiding it or the abstractions. I also have all the HD to hit tables printed out.
I like that in 2e your base ac was 10 and base thac0 was 20. It makes converting everyting easier to acsending. example someones thac0 is 17 i just convert that automatically to +3. And if someones ac is 3 i convert it to 17.
Edit. also makes so much easier to do the math when dealing with things that have like -12 ac
A bit of advice. You're using BECMI for an AD&D adventure (OSRIC is an AD&D retroclone), which means your characters are about 10-15% less powerful at 1st level and thieves are even less useful than their AD&D equivalent. This increases the deadliness a little, so you might want to compensate for that somehow. Hirelings/henchmen are probably a good idea. Also, you don't seem to have a cleric, at least for the first few episodes? That seems crazy for old school D&D. I think that the way you're playing is also making it more combat-heavy than it has to be, the party can try to communicate with the monsters via reaction rolls. They can negotiate passage, get quests or assistance dealing with rivals, etc.. For THACO, convert characters' + monsters to a base to hit bonus (record this somewhere). A player then rolls D20 and adds this bonus, then DM adds monster's AC in their head to get a total. IF 20+ (or 21 if using OSRIC), then it's a hit. The Mantari is from the Fiend Folio, which can be bought in pdf form for about $5. It's a must have monster book for OSR games. And consider playing this in OSRIC, it'll work better in the system it was designed for and honestly isn't that much different or that much more difficult. Good luck!
Thank you for all of this insight! You’ve connected pieces I was struggling with, specifically around OSRIC/AD&D. It’s funny, when I’m DMing and converting an adventure on the fly, I think nothing of changing monster stats to face the party, but playing solo, it’s like I feel it’s “unfair” to change stats.
Oh man, I thought I looked in Fiend Folio for the mantari. I’ll keep that closer at hand.
And yes, my first cleric perished in session 1 but a new one is joining in session 4!
Thanks again!
Some other things to consider: the encounter check rate you're using is once every turn as per BECMI, the ones in Gunderholfen are generally 1 check every 6 turns, so you're ramping up the danger levels significantly. The BECMI cleric has no spells at level 1, but clerics in the system this adventure were written for do and depending on Wisdom may even start with 3 spells. That there radically changes the healing potential and magic potential of the party. I'd push the cleric up to level 2 or just give them spells at first level to better align with the danger level of this dungeon. Happy gaming and thanks for sharing. @everweirdworld
OSRIC is a clone of AD&D but it has stuff missing from it as it was the first of its kind and they were worried about legal stuff. But it's AD&D clone with most of the important things in it from AD&D with some minor changes here and there. It's another great way to get into things at a low price. You can also try to distract enemies in game throw things, make noises to make them investigate swap between thinking like a GM and a player. It's how I go about solo play same goes with knowledge that you know Vs what a character should or would know. You can try to do things that aren't skills on a page by using your strength or Dex and so on. 🙂
Hobby Gobby Lobby slaps lol
There's a easier way for Thaco. Thaco - players roll = ac to hit. If your thaco is 19 and you roll a 12 you hit ac 7, 19 - 12 =7.
Not sure why your players are having a hard time with the attack matrix, the chart makes it even easier.
I think it’s coming from 5e where higher AC is better. They (and I) have a cognitive block that we need to roll a high number to hit a low AC. It’s just muscle memory that will adjust with time. I prefer the descending AC of BX.