Even if I accept 95% as reliable, and I don't, your example is one that I already talked about in my discussion. I said in the very portion you quoted, "The abilities to distribute your points as you saw fit, didn't make you a skill monkey - it meant only that there was at least 1 skill you could be sort of reliable in at low level, before magic made your job obsolete." The numbers you are here quoting are exactly the ability to focus your skill points into a few areas and achieve a narrow sort of reliability I was referring to in my quote. I made that quote in full understanding of what the rules provided for, not the ignorance of it. Your numbers in fact prove my point, rather than undermine it. Congradulations, at 3rd level, you can have a 95% chance in a few narrow skill areas. That doesn't make you a good skill monkey. And 95% isn't reliable. What is the chance that a 3rd level Wizards invisibility will fail by comparison? If you can't assert something with 100% confidence, it's not reliable. That's what I mean by reliable in this context. The idea of skill reliability didn't evolve in D&D until 3e, with 'take 10', 'take 20', and '1' not necessarily being a failure.