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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4056857" data-attributes="member: 4937">Yeah... but the thing about even the positive things is that while they are addressing a problem with the game (too much dice throwing to resolve an attack action, for example), when you start thinking about the implemented 'fix' you realize that for the most part it's going to be just as wonky or clunky of a situation as we have already.  I still have yet to hear a single suggestion that sounds like a strict improvement.Take 'Touch AC = reflex DC'.  Ok, fine.  But unless AC scales with level too, that's going to create a problem in that alot of times, you're touch AC might be better than your non-touch AC.  Why should it be easier to hit someone hard enough to hurt them than it is to touch them?  So is AC going to be 'your AC or your reflex DC' which ever is higher?  Or is reflex DC going to be the same as AC, in which case wearing armor makes you less likely to be caught in snares or fall into pits?  And supposing that I'm a naked rogue with a 28 reflex DC, and I put on a ring of protection?  Is it reasonable that my AC doesn't change?  Sorry, improving your AC doesn't help?  But suppose that AC does scale with level.  That solves the above problems nicely, but creates another one that's potentially just as bad.  If the primary impetus of the edition is to 'fix the math', AC that scales with level increases the gap between a higher level and lower level target so that actually a more narrow range of foes is playable than before.  You can't fix that by ramping up lower level creatures to hit modifiers, because that wonks the math up in another way.I've got similar problems with removing itterative attacks.  On the surface, doing away with them sounds great.  Faster combats!  More action!  Better ratio of hit points to damage so that you have fewer glass cannons!  In theory, I'm for all those things but when you start looking at how the game works without them all sorts of little annoyances start cropping up.Just as you started worrying when you heard about the 'kinder, gentler, rust monster', I started worrying when I heard them claim to have 'fixed the math'.  Math is one of those things that just doesn't get fixed.  Math has a tendency to be what it is whether you like it or not.  There are going to be inherent limitations with a d20 as a randomizer, or for that matter with any fortune mechanic that we could name.  The fortune mechanic dictates things about the game that are unavoidable.  When you start claiming to have 'fixed the math' and you are being really tight lipped about the specifics, little alarm bells go off in my head the way that they would if someone claimed to have invented a perpetual motion machine.</blockquote>

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