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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4669224" data-attributes="member: 5143">Most of that is an illusion, as I mentioned.  If you have 2 ranks in something, you are incapable of doing it.  Not even a little bit.  It sounds like you can in your head because you can look at your character sheet and say "I have 2 ranks, that's more than the fighter has, at least I have SOME idea what I'm doing" but you might as well have put no ranks into it, since it has no effect mechanically.The reason for this is the math.  When you are using a d20 to roll your skill checks, any difference of more than(approximately) 75% of the number of sides on the die means that the lower number is no longer statistically relevant.   This means that if there is more than a 15 point difference in the total bonus between the best person in the group and the lowest, then the lower person might as well not bother.  And, realistically, the odds are pretty much stacked against you even at 50% of the die.Unfortunately, this difference is easy to get as early as 1st level.  A character with an 8 stat and no ranks vs a character with a 20 stat, max ranks and skill focus, and a +2 bonus from race means a 14 point difference between highest and lowest in the party.  In 3.5e, the gap grows every level.  My best estimate is that is can grow about 37 more points by level 20.  Making it a maximum difference of 51 points.As I explained before, if the DC is below 51, there's no point in picking up a die, the expert succeeds automatically.  If it is above, there is no point in the low person picking up a die, he fails automatically.  Even if he then puts 23 ranks into the skill, he still only has +22.  He still fails automatically.  Those ranks are useless other than to make the player feel like he took something worthwhile.The only time they become useful is in the (rather rare) circumstance where the success and failure of each character matters individually.  So far, my experience has been that it might happen a couple of times in an entire campaign.  Most of the time, the success of one member of your party covers for everyone who fails(the one with the +50 jump check jumps over the pit with a rope and the rest use the rope to cross, the one with the good diplomacy check covers for the blunders of others, the one with the good sense motive lets everyone else know that someone is lying, and so on).  The couple of times that individual success matters, it normally means the party won't attempt it if anyone in the party can fail.  If there is a good chance the wizard is going to let go of the rope and drop to his death, then it doesn't matter if the fighter and paladin can both climb well.  If the whole party can't get across that way, then no one will.</blockquote>

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