player vs enemy ac/thac0

Ocifer

I have noticed a disturbing trend while playing my max xp fighter/mage/thief: he has a thac0 of 5, ac of -8 (up to -13 against bludgeoning that i noticed, and ranged is really low too). He seems to miss a lot more than a thac0 of 5 should, assuming that npc's don't all have -10 and lower AC (He will hit maybe once every 2 turns against completely unbuffed human mages, and quite literally i don't think I have ever seen him hit twice in a row on ANYTHING). Furthermore, he gets hit QUITE often. I find it odd that one on one, in a melee-off, 5 thac0, -8 ac PC loses to a greater doppleganger, or battle horror, or skeleton warrior. It seems like there must be some sort of bug that is lying to me about my AC and thac0, or there is some extreme bias in the rolls, like a d20 for me is actually a d10, and for my enemies it's 10 coin tosses.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Also, my archer, who has a thac0 of 0 (even though only lvl 7), seems to ALWAYS hit (at ranged), as he probably should. I don't think it's mentioned, but there are steep penalties using ranged weapon in melee that make him worthless in melee. If there is something shady affecting my fighter/mage/thief, then it doesn't seem to be harming mr. archer.

Tresset

Welllll... Battle horrors, g dopps, and skeleton wars are all really, really nasty monsters that have really low AC (probably around -10 like you say (more like -2 to -7)) and I assume you are in D's tower so all of the stuff in there will be very nasty. As for the archer they get a bonus to arching every 3 levels so their thaco is naturally really, really good.

So all is well I think.

Edit: That was a really sloppy post.

Jalily

If you're using a ranged weapon, you get a -8 penalty to hit opponents within melee range. Opponents using melee weapons also get a +4 bonus to hit against you.

traill

This is kinda funny Ocifer, cause I've had a thread going complaining about the exact opposite to your problem, heh. My Half-Orc fighter (ac-6, thac0 8) has been mauling pretty much everything in his path, though like Tresset says, Durlag's Tower has taught him some humility.( those greater wyverns really pack a punch, as do Kiel's doom guards.). Maybe your char is just experiencing a run of bad luck? You haven't desecrated any temples recently, have you...?

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TJ_Hooker

You may already know this, but just because you see your character take a swing in-game, it doesn't mean that an attack actually occurred. Many of the swing animations are cosmetic, which can make it look like you're missing a lot more than you are. In order to know which ones are real attacks, turn on to-hit rolls. With ranged weapons, every attack animation corresponds to an actual attack, as far as I know.

Also, when you say you hit once every 2 turns, do you mean 2 rounds? Assuming you're playing at 30 FPS, a round is 6 seconds, while a turn is 1 minute (10 rounds), real time.

Ocifer

Why yes, I meant once every 2 rounds. I suppose I am surprised that monsters could have such low AC. I saw another post about BG2 ac's and it said the lowest enemy AC gets is -12 (ancient dragons). I did not know about melee attack animations being sneaky, and will have to check that out. The real confusion comes from unbuffed mages. An unbuffed mage shouldn't have much lower than 5 AC, thus with 5 thaco, every hit should hit without natural 1's. Does the game apply cheating stats to human mages wearing traveller's robes and set their ac much lower?

I am curious how the tougher monsters are balanced. Do they all have thac0 and ac that is near unobtainable for PC's (or comparable to the most carefully planned and buffed characters)?

Noon

Some mages have a low natural AC (Venkt in the bandit camp for exemple has 3 -2 from dexterity= 1AC), but they are rare.

Wowo

Yeah just watch the to-hit rolls, you'll see everything you need there.

Ocifer

Well, that is if I can decode the rolls. X + Y = Z. X is the d20. Y is some sort of convolution of bonus thac0 and enemy weapon-specific AC mods, but I don't think it includes racial bonus thac0, something is missing.

I think the moral of the story seems to be that a lot of these high level monsters have pretty decent AC, but outrageously low Thac0.

TJ_Hooker

Here's what Near Infinity has to say. The AC values are listed as "Effective AC" in NI, but the THAC0 is just listed as "THAC0", so I'm not sure if it's a base value or an effective value.

Greate Dopplegangers have AC 0, THAC0 7

Battle Horrors have AC -2, THAC0 10

Skeleton Warriors have AC 2, THACO of 9

traill

Sounds about right. and shows the importance of low AC. At -6 AC, I had zero problem with all the monsters listed above, especially because there are potions of healing strewn all over the place.

bill_zagoudis

don't mean to be a jerk but i assure you everything is 100% 'killable'

and yes thougher monsters have ac close to 0 maybe a bit less,btw 5 Thac0 is not that low,after all your character is only 1/3 fighter how would he be balanced if he could destroy everything in mellee?
(thieves in D&D are nothing like the thieves in MMO's or Dragon Age,they suck at close quarters,make up for it with backstabs and traps,also you need at least 1 anyways for the traps so no point complaining you have another 5 spots for real mellee classes and as for mages well their mellee is just like the MMO's,your character is a combination of those)

Ocifer

The 7 fighter, I would think get him the same attacks and thac0 as a non-multiclassed fighter. Curiously enough, my character sheet says he has 1 attack per round when hasted, and specialized in longswords. Sometimes it says 3/2 per round.

The odd lack of attacks and the fake animated attacks are the problem, I think. It looks like he is attacking 4-6 times a turn, but he really attacks once or twice. I am skeptic about battle horrors having those stats, as they would only hit my character on criticals, and my char should hit them way more than 50% of the time.

Thanks for the discussion so far. Lots of interesting insight.

Jalily

TJ_Hooker said:

Here's what Near Infinity has to say. The AC values are listed as "Effective AC" in NI, but the THAC0 is just listed as "THAC0", so I'm not sure if it's a base value or an effective value.

Effective AC doesn't include the Dex modifier. THAC0 is the base.

TJ_Hooker

Ocifer said:

The 7 fighter, I would think get him the same attacks and thac0 as a non-multiclassed fighter. Curiously enough, my character sheet says he has 1 attack per round when hasted, and specialized in longswords. Sometimes it says 3/2 per round.

All warrior classes (fighters, rangers, paladins, and their respective kits) get an extra half an attack per round at level 7. You also get +1/2 APR from specializing (2 pips) in a weapons, and a further +1/2 at Grandmastery (5 pips). You gain +1 APR if you're dual wielding. Some ranged weapons have a higher base APR. For daggers and bows it's 2, 3 for darts.

It's weird that you'd have only 1 APR while hasted, as a hasted character should have a minimum of 2 APR. Are you hasted via the spell or potion of speed, or are you just using the boots of speed? Becuase the boots only grant the bonus to movement speed, not extra attacks.

Luigirules

I've noticed that, even with characters with -10 AC or lower, the game tends to make up the difference by giving enemies a LOT of critical hits.

Or maybe I'm just bitter.

Ocifer

I should correct myself, in that the f/m/t is 6/6/7. So he should have his 3/2 attacks per round (1 base and 1/2 for spec.) When he casts haste, the character sheet says 2 attacks, rather than the expected 5/2. I will have to try to reproduce the 1 attack on the character sheet. The character wasn't slowed or anything, it was a bizzare fluke.

TJ_Hooker

Ocifer said:

I should correct myself, in that the f/m/t is 6/6/7. So he should have his 3/2 attacks per round (1 base and 1/2 for spec.) When he casts haste, the character sheet says 2 attacks, rather than the expected 5/2. I will have to try to reproduce the 1 attack on the character sheet. The character wasn't slowed or anything, it was a bizzare fluke.

Yeah that's due to a long standing bug with haste. The spell works fine if your APR is a whole number, but if you have X and 1/2 APR, you'll only end up with X+1 APR with haste. For example, someone with 2 APR would get 3 APR with haste, but someone with 1 1/2 APR would only get 2 APR with haste.

smeagolheart

I noticed the other day when fighting Salandrex (or whatever the dragon's name in Watcher's Keep is) that he was hitting my AC -11 or so guy on a roll of 2. Damn! (consider that a roll of one is critical miss).

Wanderon

It's been whispered that sometimes the devs have cheated a bit but you didn't hear that from me...