And I can totally understand what you mean by combats detracting from the interesting stuff. I feel my group concentrates on the combat mechanics too much, to the point where storytelling and roleplaying (what I’m more interested in) becomes less important.

I hope to correct that. I’ll be the DM for our next game (due in *checks clock* about 15 hours). Hopefully, I’ll give them a different game from what they’re playing. If nothing else, they’ll get the chance to be completely wiped out… muahahaha…

Thanks for your comments. They mean much to me, especially since you’re a math person.

First, my criticism is very much a gut feeling and may or may not generalise to other people. I’d assume it does not, mostly. You asked for opinions in the PDF and my opinion I gave.

I have played maybe four sessions of 4E and grew bored of it; the combats were taking all the time from the interesting material. I do know a bit about mathematics and maybe, maybe, even RPG design.

And I agree with you on the movement. I’m creating powers that mess with the positioning of enemies. You have actually given me quite a few ideas. I like this one in particular:

“A curse that makes someone count diagonal moves twice when moving”

Actually, I like them all. You are obviously a much better D&D player than I am…

Thanks for your comments.

Complex numbers causing psychic damage? Well, certainly I found it quite hard to understand constructing them from the ring of polynomials by taking equivalence classes of $latex X^2+1$, but damage?

To be slightly more constructive: 4E relies a lot on movement, so try messing with that. Topology is your friend. Have powers that alter the notion of distance and what it means to be near or far. A curse that makes someone count diagonal moves twice when moving. A spell that associates two squares with each other, so that any creature occupying one is also on the other and can move and fight (and be targeted) as if standing in either. A spell such that anyone directly targeting the mathemagician treats the distance as squared.

Or perhaps something to do with symmetries.