Tony Vargas
Legend
lol. Death ends up becoming the House, though, as a campaign just has too many encounters to beat the odds every time. 5e may get ribbed for being 'too easy,' but it takes very little per-encounter mathematical risk to add up to a very dicey campaign, overall.The threat of TPKs makes one feel alive: alternatively, people have beaten the Half-Dragon Champion near the beginning of HotDQ, which is thrilling. It's like gambling, but way dorkier.
A side effect of BA is that a check only the best character can make is often a check that a much lower level character can also get lucky and make - it's kinda the point, to avoid the problem 3e had with divergent class vs cross-class ranks at high level - but it's an issue. Expertise opens that gap up more than a little, though.I think 5E does manage to make mundane skills relevant at high levels, though part of that is definitely going to be DM dependent: criticals are not part of the Skill system, so there are tasks that only high level folks with a maxed out attribute (or Rogues & Bards) can even attempt, and 5E like 4E retains the ability to keep the math the same, while upping the narrative ante. The DMG has some advise about this, like making a game wuxia simply by changing how Skill checks are narrated.
The real trick, though is for the DM to confidently narrate failure for lesser mortals attempting the really epic checks - but when The Master (I should say Expert) steps up to do it, needn't set the DC insanely high, because the play loop lets the DM be the gatekeeper, in stead of the DC.