Yeah, but, no, but, haven't you been reading the thread?
:rolleyes:

Quote from: Brad;729868It's not less intuitive if you play wargames. Hence, it has nothing to do with intuition, by definition. Gooby pls, learn to word. Also, there aren't additional steps. That is just some bullshit someone magically came up with.

It's not less intuitive if you aren't already interested in a niche part of the gaming hobby.  It's less intuitive for 99% of the rest of the population.

Quote from: Archangel Fascist;729858You should not bother arguing this with them, anyone who thinks THAC0 is a better mechanic than ascending AC is dumb or dishonest.

'Better Mechanic' I might agree with, depending on how that is defined.

But I see no problem with someone preferring Thaco.

Like I said earlier, it's a slightly better mechanic, assuming you are used to both options. The ascending AC algorithm is slightly faster and I'm sure if you were calculating dozens of strikes per second you'd see it. Of course, that doesn't happen. The main benefit of ascending AC is the initial uptake for beginners.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;729829Question?

How many times do people need to keep pointing out to you that "better" is completely subjective because you're trying to measure what a person's preference is, rather than measure something quantifiable like volume or mass, and therefore your entire argument is flawed from the get go, before it finally sinks in?

I'm pretty sure it's been clearly explained to you nearly a dozen times, and yet you keep ignoring it.

Thus my comment about irony overload.

That's because it's not a matter of preference. These are two rules designed that have the exact same input and output, and they have objective values. One of these rules does the job faster and easier.

Maybe you like descending AC better than ascending AC for whatever reason, ascending AC is still an objectively better designed rule.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;729832Ascending AC isn't inherently better for all outcome desires. In OD&D magical shields do not automatically stack with magic armor. Only if the magic of the shield exceeds the magic of the armor does the shield magical bonus count ( and a 50% chance at that).

Ascending AC doesn't consider the plateau of the value of 20 repeated six times on the attack matrix making modifiers of a certain range meaningless in the overall hit probability calculation. If you have an AC of -1 and I need a 20 to hit you, then if your AC was -7 I would still need a 20. Furthermore if I was using a +3 sword then I would hit either of those armor classes on a 17+.

If such things are not valued in your chosen playstyle then use your ascending AC and game the fuck on. They are of value in my choice of playstyle so I will use the charts.

I'm sorry..but all this seems to prove is that bonuses in OD&D are superfluous and counterintuitive. If you need a 20 to hit an AC of -1 and a 20 to hit an AC of -7, then what is the practical difference between -1 and -7?

Quote from: J Arcane;729834Not the mention his complete failure to actually cite evidence of even the supposedly 'objective' portions of his complaint, relying ultimately on that old canard about 'addition is faster than subtraction,' something that isn't even true for 3 year olds and I've yet to see a single person provide actual evidence of in almost 20 years of seeing gamers parrot it as if it were unassailable truth.

The relative speed of addition vs. subtraction isn't the point.

With descending AC, the target number to-hit is derived. It takes one more step to resolve than attacks vs. ascending AC. That is a fact.

Quote from: Gizmoduck5000;729912That's because it's not a matter of preference. .

What games people like and play absolutely is.  Anything else is worthless and not important.

Jesus...you are totally missing the entire point of GAMES

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;729849No. I responded to your points initially. When it became clear you were not acknowledging valid rebuttals, I took your SA ties into account. It may seem unfair to you, but it is common sense. Grognard.txt spends a quarter of its time posting things from this site with the intent to mock them. As a member of that forum, people here are naturally going to be suspicious of you and weigh that when reading your posts. There is also the fact that you used a thread about edition warring to edition war. So it seemed like a classic derailment attempt.

I'm sorry - but "I just like it better, so shut up!" isn't a valid rebuttal. Personal preference doesn't have any bearing on the quality of design, when such things can be objectively weighed and judged against one another, like ascending vs. descending AC can.

Also, I'm not edition warring. This isn't about any particular edition - it's about one specific rule. As I've said before it's perfectly reasonable that AD&D might have one inferior rule, but still be an all around better game than 3E.

Also, if people here weren't regularly posting stupid shit, grognards.txt wouldn't have so much ammo. So whose fault is it really?

Just makes me want to make an unholy abomination that includes BAB, descending AC, and roll under, just so more people can whine about the objective quality of things that are pretty subjective.

TN = BAB + Modifiers + AC, d20 roll under.

oddly, I actually do see benefits to it...

Quote from: Emperor Norton;729920Just makes me want to make an unholy abomination that includes BAB, descending AC, and roll under.

TN = BAB + Modifiers + AC, d20 roll under.

oddly, I actually do see benefits to it...

I already did this.

It works great.

Quote from: Brad;729855I'll repeat: you don't actually play games, do you?

Do you have any other argument?

Quote from: Brad;729867No, but Gizmoduck definitely claimed BAB is objectively better than THAC0. It's a different mechanic and gives you different information. People who cannot comprehend that the information provided by THAC0 differs from that provided by BAB probably have never actually played the game they're talking about. So the phrase "in actual play" is a fucking joke coming from their mouths. I wouldn't have one issue with, "I hate THAC0 and for me BAB is way better". That's a perfectly legitimate statement to make. The issue is simply saying THAC0 is a complete waste of time and a useless mechanic; it's not. It is different. That's it.

Oh goody.

I claimed that ascending AC is an objectively better rule than descending AC. BAB and Thac0 are only by-products of these rules.

Do you not agree that ascending AC and descending AC have the same inputs and outputs? (Input: Roll die, add modifiers; Output: determine success/failure of attack?)

Do you not agree that calculating or cross referencing the to-hit target number requires one more step of work than pulling the target number directly from the character sheet or monster entry?

Can you explain how that extra step improves the gameplay experience?

If two systems are designed to do the exact same thing: roll to-hit foe, and one of these systems gets from point A to point B faster and easier by streamlining the process and trimming unnecessary operations, thenis this noit the better designed system?

Quote from: Emperor Norton;729920Just makes me want to make an unholy abomination that includes BAB, descending AC, and roll under, just so more people can whine about the objective quality of things that are pretty subjective.

TN = BAB + Modifiers + AC, d20 roll under.

oddly, I actually do see benefits to it...

That would be fine.

Talislanta does something kind of like this, only that system is roll over.

The added value there is that the results table has degrees of success, instead of just binary pass/fail like D&D. Also, the damage is determined by the attack roll, so it actually resolves each action lightning fast.

Quote from: Gizmoduck5000;729917Personal preference doesn't have any bearing on the quality of design,...

It's clear you know about as much about designing a product as Arduin/Rooster knows about law.

Quote from: Gizmoduck5000;729917Personal preference doesn't have any bearing on the quality of design, when such things can be objectively weighed and judged against one another, like ascending vs. descending AC can.

Trollman? Is that you?

Anyway, regardless of your actual point of contention, it is my humble experience that people seeking to establish primacy in gaming debates by claiming that A is "objectively better" than B are (a) full of shit or (b) completely missing the point.

Ascending AC may be Objectively Better than descending AC, but descending AC has never stopped anyone in my gaming group from playing TSR-era D&D. If your players are actually complaining about having to do subtraction (or God help them, about looking up a number in a chart, in an age in which you can store image files and documents in you cell phone or tablet), well, I hate to break it to you, but you may be playing with idiots. Don't play with idiots. Problem solved.