newb!!! I dont understand items!!

MageSolberg

how do i know how much defense has an item, or how much attack has a weapon.
Also a player class can use club, can it use hammer too?

CrevsDaak

Items that help in the defense are the ones giving out more Armor Class bonus (also called AC), which is better when lower, all the items that give AC bonus have such bonuses denoted in their Identified descriptions (items with a blue overlay are UNidentified).

Attacking in this game (and AD&D/2E) goes like this:
To Hit Armor Class 0 (THAC0) determines were you are going to hit or no. To determine this the computer rolls a 1d20 (one die with 20 faces), 1 means critical miss and 20 means critical hit, for example, if you roll a 17, and you have a THAC0 of 19 and the creature you want to hit has an AC of 10 (this means 17 + 10 = 27 which is higher than 19 so it's a hit), the number you rolled minus the creature's AC has to give a number higher than your Character's current THAC0.

For the damage, each weapon has an unique damage amount and a damage type. Both are denoted in the identified descriptions. 1d8 means one die with 8 faces is rolled.

As items providing AC bonuses, items giving THAC0 bonuses will be denoted in their Identified descriptions, same goes for Damage measurements.

the_spyder

AC or armor class in the game can be confusing. Your naked character starts out with an AC of 10. Leather armor takes that AC down to a base of 8. Plate takes it down to 2 (?), which is the best non magical armor. Any magic items that effect AC, say +2 leather means that your AC which has a base of 8, goes DOWN by 2 to 6 reflecting the +2. Shields also "Increase" (read to mean lower) AC by whatever their value is. And Dexterity will also "Increase" (again meaning lower) Armor Class. It's kind of complicated. At the end of the day, your Fighters want to have an Armor Class of as close to zero (or into the negatives) as possible as this makes them harder to be hit in combat.

Weapon types all do a range of damage that is listed on the description of the item. A dagger does D4 which means it can do a random amount from 1-4 points. If you have a Strength bonus for a HIGH strength, that 1-4 gets increased (this time meaning going up) by whatever that amount is. So if you have an 18/00 strength, you get +6 and your dagger does 1-4 + 6 damage or 7-10 damage. If your dagger is magical, it will increase that damage by whatever the plus is. So a dagger +1 wielded by your freakishly strong (18/00 STRENGTH) will do 1-4 PLUS your STR bonus of +6 PLUS an additional 1 damage meaning that you are doing 8-11 damage. If the weapon has another effect, like say adding fire damage, that would be added on top of the stuff above.

There are other factors to consider, but basically for your front rank fighters you want to find the best armor (meaning the lowest AC) and the best weapon that they are proficient in.