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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 4670224" data-attributes="member: 3586">Definitely. I can see that. I have two areas of disconnection with what you assert, however:The first is that, in 3e, most characters did *not* have the skill points to actually branch out. Rogues and Bards, yes, as with other PCs with Int-based characters. Your average Fighter and Cleric? They could be really struggling to have more than 2 skill points per level. So, the idea of putting only a few skill points into a skill was something that was pretty much unachievable for most characters. (I saw more than one character with 1 skill point per level, because Int was the only stat they could dump).The second relates to DM design of challenges......you need to be lucky with your DM for non-maximised skills to be consistently useful.Resolving a challenge with Skills fall into two basic types:* There's one task, which the highest roll from the party is counted on the success. (Examples involve Gather Information and Search)* There's one task, which each party member must face individually (Example includes jumping a chasm with Jump/Athletics).The design of 4e Skill Challenges seems to have (at one point) been more towards the latter (everyone must participate), then gone towards the former, and ended up in a mess.However, the framework it's investigated is pretty much the same in 3e: either one person may make the check for the party - in which case you really want someone to have maxed out the ranks - or everyone has to make the check, in which case it's really bad to not have any ranks at all.Not having any ranks at all? Eep - that's back to my first disconnect: Most PCs in 3e don't have any ranks at all!You can get away with not maxing ranks (for one character makes check for party) in the case of DCs not being too high, but then the PC who does max ranks doesn't get the benefit of specialising!Cheers!</blockquote>

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