Thac0 with Advantage 91. Beyond Roll to Hit

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is readying its action to cast hold person on us if we try to leave.

Sometimes no matter how much talking you do eventually you end up in a fight. It can be exciting to do big amounts of damage or to barely survive due to your low hit points, but sometimes the numbers game just isn’t as compelling as it could be. That’s why we’re looking at ways of making your D&D and other fantasy gaming combats more exciting and varied.

From the Bardic College

In AD&D 1e, Weapon Speed Factor represented how much effort it took to bring a weapon to bear in combat. It was the tie breaker in case both sides rolled the same number for initiative, but it also made life complicated for people that like heavy weapons or spellcasters. If you tied with someone and their weapon speed factor was five or more lower than yours, they not only got to attack, they got an additional attack, and another additional attack for every additional factor of five. So someone with a dagger could stab someone with a pike three times before the person with the pike got to act. If you were a spellcaster, you had to compare your side’s initiative plus the number of segments it took to cast the spell, against your opponent’s initiative and their speed factor, and if it was lower, they got to take a swing at you first, and if they hit, you lost your spell. Maybe concentration checks aren’t so bad after all.