Changing the "Caster beats Mundane" paradigm

[Tanarii]

Nothing in that edition was innovating and from design principle THAC0 was idiotic in the first place, me and my mates could see that already as a 13 year olds and turned it around already then. Not that we took any credit for being geniuses but most other system either had you roll under or add the die to a number to beat a target number like Cyberpunk 2020.

Not defending THAC0, but I do understand why it happened. Wargamers at the time were clearly used to referencing tables for things, including determining if you Hit (and often, what kind of hit you got), and allowing for repeating numbers.

THAC0 is merely a first attempt at a shortcut, trying to turn a hit table that into math based on two values (THAC0 and AC) instead, without completely revamping how the hell the table and AC are designed from the ground up.

If you look at BECMI's hit table, the repeating numbers and other factors (extra damage on hit) make it obvious that it's a table (or matrix) system.

Edit: and that's one of nice things about 3e, it did a lot of ground-up redesign. Of course, they had a few missed in the process. Leading to threads like this, which should have been posted in the 3e forum or been labeled 3.X. Because it's talking about a 3.X problem.