I don't think that in PnP RPGs the player skills with such tricks like timing and "hit and run" matter, but I disagree with the way the combat system was changed, I have some things to add about this system that would make it better.
1) You should be able hit someone that is not right at your front, but a little right or left from you and still ahead and with you facing the same direction from him, by horizontally slashing the target with a larger weapon (longsword) drawn to your left or to your right. Hitting enemies at your side would be easier with daggers, very hard with larger weapons and impossible with spears and polearms obviously. Only the hitting enemy on your back should be blocked.
2) A turn 180 degreess command(which speed of turning would depend on AGI) would be very useful in the case someone tried to backstab your character and immediate reaction is needed.
3) The "lock" attack seems to be just a temporary fix against the "hit and run" exploit. I think the best solution would be to make character collision and weapon ranges matter, right now you can't hit someone with a longsword before this one hits you with a dagger. There is another way of doing "hit and run", by changing it into withdrawing from range of your enemy, something that should not be so easy and that would give the enemy an opportunity to hit you before you withdraw.
4) Charging against your opponent instead of moving slowly to him should give you an offensive advantage and a defensive disadvantage. It should automatically change your instance to beserk or aggressive or perhaps add its effects to the stances.
5) Piercing, slashing and bludgeoning are equally sustained by all types of armor now, and a short sword is as effective to slash through a chain mail than a longsword. Kinds of weapons, damage types, sizes and such, for now, have no influence on the way armors will react to their strike.
6) Remove or reduce the power of the "one hit kills uber-weapons", they are the bane of all and turn combat into pure luck as someone with lvl 30 in daggers and 0 in light armors can kill anyone with some luck and two silverweaves(This is the case on the previous combat system as well, but in that case it was "someone with lvl 30 daggers, 0 in light armor and master of the timing and 'hit and run' can kill anyone with some luck". Also avoiding to use anything beyond a random number between 1-20 for combat rolls would be wise to avoid excessive randomness of combat.
7) Intelligence stat should be important as well. A smart character could actually withdraw automatically from combat if losing and take advantage of the environment.
And after all I disagree with such "fix" that seems to have brought more balance problems than to have solved the previous ones. The transition to character-based combat would definitively be better if it was implemented later after being a little more complete.
