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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ourph" data-source="post: 1642919" data-attributes="member: 20239">I'm sorry, I can't help you there, because I find the mechanic for Combat Expertise to be simple.  It's a straight one for one trade-off between to-hit and AC.It's when you start adding in a bunch of other conditional modifiers or exceptions to a general rule that things get complicated.  For example, I think the mechanics for Combat Expertise and Power Attack are great.  One represents you being "extra defensive" and one represents you being "extra offensive".  But when you have a system that accomodates Combat Expertise, Dodge, Fighting Defensively, Full Defensive, Off-hand Parry, etc. you go from elegantly simple options to unnecessarily complex and confusing options.  All of those abilities represent ONE THING (giving up attack advantage for defense advantage).  There's no need to have 10 "options" for doing the same thing.Another example is the VAST number of AC bonus types and their various situational exceptions.-Armor bonuses don't count against incorporeal attacks or touch attacks, except that force armor counts against incorporeal touch attacks, but it still doesn't count against regular touch attacks.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /> -Dodge bonuses count against all attacks, except you lose them under certain conditions, except you can keep them if you have certain abilities.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /> -Natural armor bonuses don't stack, except that if you have "natural" natural armor and an item or spell that grants natural armor, those stack.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" />Or how about the way armor affects your Dex modifier.-Certain armors decrease the amount of your Dex modifier you can apply to your AC.-The same armors impose a penalty to certain Dex-based skills, but the armor check penalty number isn't related to the maximum Dex bonus number in any way and you get to apply your FULL Dex bonus to skills even though it's limited in terms of what you apply to AC.-The same armor that decreases the Dex bonus you can apply to your AC and messes up some of your Dex based skills doesn't impose any penalty on your Dex bonus to Reflex saves. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /> All of the stuff I mention above could easily be coalesced under a single unified mechanic that does all of the same stuff and offers just as many options, but in a very consistent way that's applicable across the board and simple to both understand and implement during the game.</blockquote>

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