My take.

[Imp]

Actually, I would disagree and state in fact that most skills do scale with level in that skill encounters become more dangerous AND the use of opposed checks.

No. No. They don't have to. You don't have to make a high-level party fight on a greased rope to be level-appropriate; that doesn't even make sense unless you want to separate out the rogue-type (and unless nobody else can fly of course) – otherwise what you're doing there is adding an additional complication to a fight to make it harder, by forcing nonspecialized characters to make basic skill checks.

Even many opposed skill checks don't meet meaningful opposition – use rope vs. escape artist being a big one, bluff vs. sense motive; on the other hand spot/listen vs. hide/move silently do scale very frequently. It depends on the skill really. But there's no special reason that all skill checks have to scale in 3e. "Designer intent" doesn't count.

 

[Hussar]

First, for the archetypal wizard this is a good thing.

Second, there are feats out there to let you pick up a new class skill. Again, I am very much againt the idea that all wizards everywhere are skilled climbers. So the idea that some price must be paid somewhere else to be the exception is, again, a good thing.

It can be done. And I haven't even gotten in to magic items, multi-classing, etc...

Archetypal wizard? Like Harry Potter? Quick Ben (Steven Erikson)? Lythande from Thieves World? Or, are we still stuck with Gandalf for yet another decade?

Burn a feat? To gain exactly ONE more class skill. Whoo, there's a good trade. So, that gets me climb. How about the half a dozen other skills that would be a good idea for someone who spends his life facing danger to have.

Magic items? Multi-classing? Patches at best to spackle over a flaw in the system. Considering the hue and cry over the dependency on magic items there is already, do you really think that making characters dependent on skill boost items is a good idea?

Wizard Player- Hrm, I could get a wand of fireball that would really fit with my blowing crap up type of character, but, no, I'll get this rope of climbing that so fits with a wizard archetype.

I'm sorry, I sincerely don't understand the relevance of the question to what I wrote. Most of what I discussed isn't covered by rules, except generally. (It's one reason I'm disappointed by the removal of NPC classes in 4e; I like my important townsfolk to be as mechanically distinct as possible.) But otherwise, things like accounting for downtime and DM-granted XP bonuses can be done in almost any game which has, well, XP and downtime, and it works as well in 4e as it does in 3e.

That's my point though. You were telling how your group wants to spend so much time blue booking. My point was that that's great for your group, but, the mechanics cannot assume this to be true.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Magic items? Multi-classing? Patches at best to spackle over a flaw in the system. Considering the hue and cry over the dependency on magic items there is already, do you really think that making characters dependent on skill boost items is a good idea?

Well, you have to do the same thing if you want a wizard who can Whirlwind Attack, or a wizard who can Wild Shape.

So why not a Wizard who can climb?

Assuming they just don't take spiderclimb, I guess.

Wizard Player- Hrm, I could get a wand of fireball that would really fit with my blowing crap up type of character, but, no, I'll get this rope of climbing that so fits with a wizard archetype.

In a lot of my campaigns, this choice works just fine. Of course, my campaigns aren't RttToEE slaughterfests or anything, either, and I tailor my encounters to my party, so if I see a wizard who really wants to climb, and invests in it, I will reward that investment with interesting climbing scenarios. And with the simulationism of the 3e climb skill rules, I have a lot of granularity to work with to make things very interesting.

I could've sworn that's what running a game was all about.

Heck, in 4e, my wizard won't be able to use a finessed attack, where his agility matters more than his strength for his dagger attacks. He won't be able to do that without multiclassing to rogue. I guess that's just patching over 4e's broken system where my wizard can't learn fancy fighting unless he's a rogue....

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

First, for the archetypal wizard this is a good thing.

Second, there are feats out there to let you pick up a new class skill. Again, I am very much againt the idea that all wizards everywhere are skilled climbers. So the idea that some price must be paid somewhere else to be the exception is, again, a good thing.

It can be done. And I haven't even gotten in to magic items, multi-classing, etc...

You're talking about non-core feats as a valid fix? And the magic items can't be also used by the experts, and aren't flaws in and on themselves to make a balanced skill system that you can actually rely on - both as a player and as a DM?

And I am very much for wizards being skilled climbers (even if my personal flavor text describes them using magic) in a game where they are not sitting at home in their library and studying magic, but are travelling the world and fight monsters, climb mountains or explore dungeons.
It's bad role-playing if you still play a wizard in such a scenario as a book worm that is lost in the wilderness. He might still feel that way, but if he's left to his own devices, his previous experiences in the harsh adventuring world certainly will show compared to a "real" bookworm wizard...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, you have to do the same thing if you want a wizard who can Whirlwind Attack, or a wizard who can Wild Shape.

So why not a Wizard who can climb?

Assuming they just don't take spiderclimb, I guess.

It's unlikely you pick up something as specific as Whirlwind Attack or Wild Shape up just because you're going around adventuring. But climbing? This has to come up in your typical adventuring career! Even if you have no desire to do so, you will end up climbing sometimes.

 

[BryonD]

It's bad role-playing if you still play a wizard in such a scenario as a book worm that is lost in the wilderness.

That is an absurd comparison. The wizard Hussar described would be far far away from a book worm lost in the wilderness. And yet the rogue standing next to him would still be vastly superior at climbing. The wizard is pretty good, probably significantly better than the average person. But the rogue is heroic.
The wizard doesn't have to keep pace with the rogue to avoid being labeled a bookworm.
But for that matter, I'd greatly prefer that the option of bookworms remain as well.

 

[Lizard]

Wizard Player- Hrm, I could get a wand of fireball that would really fit with my blowing crap up type of character, but, no, I'll get this rope of climbing that so fits with a wizard archetype.

.

Or, uhm, learn spider climb, fly, dimension door, teleport, summon something to carry you...

I've never seen a wizard of any appreciable level having trouble getting from point 'a' to point 'b'. Usually, he's there long before the rogue.

 

[AllisterH]

No. No. They don't have to. You don't have to make a high-level party fight on a greased rope to be level-appropriate; that doesn't even make sense unless you want to separate out the rogue-type (and unless nobody else can fly of course) – otherwise what you're doing there is adding an additional complication to a fight to make it harder, by forcing nonspecialized characters to make basic skill checks..

Which is kind of why I dislike the 3.x skill mechanics. For example, if I sent an average CR 10 monster against a Level 10 party, the basic assumption is that EVERYONE can contribute in the battle. You have to specifically choose monsters to screw over classes (golems vs mages, undead vs rogues etc). Furthermore, nobody thinks that you should send a CR 1 monster versus the party. Hell, even a CR 5 monster sent against the party would leave many heads scratching

Why is it then that this same design paradigm isn't accepted for skills? Seriously, there's Appraise which has only *1* static DC but most other skills have variables DCs that increase as the task becomes more difficult (Exactly like how monsters are rated) or are skills that EXPLICITLY increase in level (Use Rope is tied directly to Escape Artist which itself is tied to the Grapple mechanics which increase in level)

Focusing on Balance for example, it does seem that the designers wanted skill challenges to be tied to level otherwise there's no reason to have so many variable increasing DCs. You would just need 1 static DC a la Appraise.

Whjat you're talking about (separating rogues and other high skill classes) is the AFTEREFFECT of the 3.x system. At levels 1-3, you can have most skill challenges that involve the entire party (due to the low DCs and the effect of attribute mods) but afterwards, thanks to how the system works, skill challenges become a singular endeavour.

Which, IMO, is _NOT_ a good thing because many DMs then don't even bother using the skill system in any meaningful way.

The ability of magic to trump skills so easily and completely is a whole different kettle of fish though.

Even many opposed skill checks don't meet meaningful opposition – use rope vs. escape artist being a big one, bluff vs. sense motive; on the other hand spot/listen vs. hide/move silently do scale very frequently. It depends on the skill really. But there's no special reason that all skill checks have to scale in 3e. "Designer intent" doesn't count.

Er, Bluff vs sense Motive in combat is tied directly to level. You add your BAB to your sense motive check to oppose Feinting in combat. How is this NOT a clear example of the designers saying "skill challenges are supposed to scale with level"?

 

[Hussar]

In a lot of my campaigns, this choice works just fine. Of course, my campaigns aren't RttToEE slaughterfests or anything, either, and I tailor my encounters to my party, so if I see a wizard who really wants to climb, and invests in it, I will reward that investment with interesting climbing scenarios. And with the simulationism of the 3e climb skill rules, I have a lot of granularity to work with to make things very interesting.

Ok, fine. The wizard invests in climbing skills. How about the cleric? And the fighter? Sure, the rogue likely has ranks but the other two don't.

See, it's all very well and good to talk about individual players, and snarkily refer to any differing opinion as mindless hack'n'slash, but, it doesn't wash. Groups adventure as, well, groups. That means, unless everyone invests, then you cannot throw skill tests at the party.

And, so many skills are so situationally based, that it doesn't make sense to invest heavily. Why would you invest in, say, climb and not spot? Spot is going to be used FAR more than climb in any normal campaign. It doesn't make sense to burn a very limited resource, like those two skill points you get as a fighter, on anything other than things you are going to get the most use out of.

Take Balance for instance. A fighter isn't very likely to invest in this since his ACP's are going to bury him so deeply that he'd have to invest heavily just to get back to zero. Zero's not good enough to do anything. He's still failing 50% on easy checks. Same with the cleric.

Decipher Script, Disguise, heck, even something like Handle Animal requires about a +10 before you've a decent chance of success. At +5, you're failing about 50% on many checks and 75% on several as well. You have to invest far too much to get any results.

 

[BryonD]

Archetypal wizard? Like Harry Potter? Quick Ben (Steven Erikson)? Lythande from Thieves World? Or, are we still stuck with Gandalf for yet another decade?

Oh yea, Gandalf is the one and only possible counter-example AND given a choice between supporting multiple styles and kicking the Gandalf version to the curb, exclusion is clearly the path to a better more broadly embraced game.

Burn a feat? To gain exactly ONE more class skill. Whoo, there's a good trade. So, that gets me climb. How about the half a dozen other skills that would be a good idea for someone who spends his life facing danger to have.

Magic items? Multi-classing? Patches at best to spackle over a flaw in the system. Considering the hue and cry over the dependency on magic items there is already, do you really think that making characters dependent on skill boost items is a good idea?

Wizard Player- Hrm, I could get a wand of fireball that would really fit with my blowing crap up type of character, but, no, I'll get this rope of climbing that so fits with a wizard archetype.

It has worked for me.

That's my point though. You were telling how your group wants to spend so much time blue booking. My point was that that's great for your group, but, the mechanics cannot assume this to be true.

Assume what to be true? Your bogus straw man that I spend time blue booking? I'll just stand by the assumptions that made 3X a very successful game.