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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7294072" data-attributes="member: 42582">The cost of getting Reliable Talent is being a 12th level rogue. (I think [MENTION=82779]MechaPilot[/MENTION] made a similar point upthread.)Many abilities in D&D have no chance of failure - a lot of spellcasting being the main example.The idea that a 12th level rogue who can auto-pick pockets or open locks is going to break a game that survived a mage with access to Knock, TK, Dimension Door, Fly, Invisibility, etc doesn't seem very plausible to me, but maybe there is something distinctive about your game that I'm not aware of.A combat is resolved through multiple checks. Any one of those checks may fail, but the odds of a fighter missing (say) 9 attacks in a row, assuming (not unreasonably) a 70% chance to hit, is 0.3^9 = approx 0.00002, or about one-five hundreth of 1%. In practical terms that's close enough to no chance of missing over the course of a combat.Conversely, 5e adopts the traditional D&D paradigm of having non-combat, non-casting checks be resolved by a single roll. So whereas combat establishes a minumum chance of success by allowing multiple rolls, Reliable Talent establishes a minimum chance of success by setting a minimum on the die.I often see this stated, but I'm not sure why it has to be true. What happened to the 3E idea of "balancing on a cloud", or the 4e martial utility effects like Hide in Plain Sight?</blockquote>