  The soft excess seen in many AGN is most probably due to partially ionized
material moving at relativistic speeds close to the black hole. There are
currently two potential geometries for this material, one where it is out of
the line of sight, seen via reflection, e.g. the accretion disc, the other
where it is in the line of sight, seen in absorption e.g. a wind above the
disc. Both models require apparent fine tuning of the ionization parameter of
this material in order to produce the large jump in opacity at $\sim 0.7$ keV
associated with OVII/VIII, as required to make the soft excess. However,
Chevalier et al (2006) show that these states rather naturally dominate the
absorption spectrum for soft X-ray spectra if the illuminated material is (at
least approximately) in pressure balance. Here we explore whether hydrostatic
pressure equilibrium in a disc can likewise naturally select the required
ionization states in reflection. We find the opposite. The soft excess X-ray
excess is much weaker in the hydrostatic models than it is in the constant
density models. Since even the constant density models cannot fit the largest
soft excesses seen without the intrinsic continuum being hidden from view, this
means that reflection from a hydrostatic disc cannot realistically match the
data. Even if the disc structure is instead more like a constant density
atmosphere, the required fine--tuning of the ionization parameter still remains
a problem for reflection models.
