Swords & Wizardry: HACZ

This post is designated Open Game Content as outlined in section 1(d) of the Open Game License.

What is HACZ?
A character’s HACZ (Hit Armor Class Zero; pronounced “hacks”) value provides an easy way to determine if an attack was successful against a given armor class, without having to reference charts or tables mid-combat.

Using HACZ
To make an attack, the player rolls a d20 and applies any modifiers (from ability scores, magic, etc.) to the die roll. The total is subtracted from the character’s HACZ value. The result indicates the lowest descending AC for which the attack would be successful.

Alternately, subtracting a descending armor class value from a character’s HACZ value will reveal the number an attack roll needs to meet or exceed in order to successfully hit that armor class.

Determining HACZ
To determine a character’s HACZ value, reference the character’s class and level on the following chart:

Level	Cleric	Fighting-man	Magic-user
1	19	19	19
2	19	19	19
3	18	18	19
4	18	17	18
5	17	17	18
6	17	16	17
7	16	15	17
8	16	14	16
9	15	13	16
10	14	12	15

For values beyond 10th level, please reference the Attack Matrix for the class in question.