reapersaurus said:
I'm not going to waste my time continuing a discussion with people who would argue that:
1) if your game uses skills to enhance role-play that the rogue doesn't have a ridiculous advantage.
2) the fighter would have as high of initiative as a rogue.
3) a wizard will have as much skills as a rogue. (ever heard of cross-class?)
oh - the best one is the statement that people play RPG's to have fun.
Brilliant. 
Also that roleplaying is more important than stats.
I'm not quite sure why anyone continues in discussions with you as well. In your comments regarding both rogues and mages, you seem to adopt inflexible positions, and procceed to hold regardless of statistical or anecdotal evidence to the contrary, while often attacking the intelligence of those disagreeing with you. After a certain point, you stop providing evidence and simply claim that your view is obviously correct, that everyone else is a fool for disagreeing and that you shouldn't even bother argueing the point because we're not smart enough to see the truth. You seem to have a problem with characters besides warrior-types achieving anything in combat, as seen in this thread and several others, especially those regarding wizards.
The rogue's skill advantage isn't as great as it seems. Remember 2e thieves? I watched one grow in a Night Below campaign. His combat output was insignificant. At about level 6, he used his mobility to set fire to downed trolls. At higher levels, the oppoonents were much tougher, and his abilities were essentially unchanged. His best bet was to fire wands that anyone could use. That's a quality character.
Now anyone can crossclass formerly exclusive skills, or take a few multiclass rogue levels. Also, a few spells or magic items can go a long way toward evening any skill gap. Social skill advantages aren't as great as they seem, unless one goes all out. Gather Info checks have a relatively static DC. If one assumes that the average NPC doesn't become worse over the course of the game, then Diplomacy checks are static. Against "common" targets, Bluff and Sense Motive aren't that hard either. High modifiers help mostly when facing off against other "skills" characters. Just a a rogue who faces a fighter in a face to face slugathon will have poor chances, a fighter going against a socialite rogue will have difficulties. Just as magic weapons, haste, etc can help a rogue close the gap in combat, relatively cheap items will boost a fighter's ability with key skills.
Of course, a rogue can't gain social dominance as effortlessly as you believe. To get into flanking positions, he needs to have Tumble. In the basic party of FWCR, he also needs the Spot and Listen skills. For dungeon crawls, he gets Search, Disable Device and Open Locks. Hide and Move Silently are needed for his scouting role and to set up ambushes that allow him to Sneak Attack. And there goes his 8 starting skill points. There are still other useful non-social skills he might want as well. Balance, Appraise, Escape Artist, Climb, Jump, Use Magic Device? All of them could come in handy. I can see many rogues learning Bluff, because of its versatility, but lying is hardly the best course of action in many social situations.
A Fighter learns Improved Initiative at little cost. A Rogue, especially attempting to take a path to maximize sneak attacks, might want all three 2 weapon feats, finess, and focus. So he might learn at 9th level. A fighter also has reasons to work on initiative: a chance to make missile attacks, to prevent sneak attacks, a swashbuckler type, use of Expert Tactician, etc. While my party is rather atypical, until recently, every member of the group had Improved Initiative - except for my cleric with -1 from dex - along with decent Dex. Quite often, two people would be acting before initiative 20. Anyone can have an excellent initiative bonus.
