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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9506033" data-attributes="member: 6877472">By itself +17 is in the d20 range.  But it's not by itself.  It's been previously gone over that additional bonuses are all over the place in 5e.  Guidance d4s, Bardic Influence d6's, advantage is virtually +4.5, and that's not getting into luckstones, tomes, or that ioun stone of mastery.Also, um, what level 20 Rogue doesn't have a 20 Dex or higher?  You say the floor is 22, but isn't 27 more realistic?Anyways.  The fact of that matter is, +6 is a hefty bonus in 5e.  Expertise, which is not Rogue-exclusive, basically means this:Non-Expertise, max stat: +11.  Can get DC 20 60% of the time, DC 25 35% of the time, and DC 30 10% of the time.*Expertise, max stat: +17.  Can get DC 20 90% of the time, DC 25 65% of the time, and DC 30 40% of the time.Expertise, max stat: +17, with Reliable.  Can get DC 20 100% of the time, DC 25 100% of the time, and DC 30 40% of the time.*Numbers may not be accurate, math brain still not fully awake.My issue with this is, if the game has DC 20 and up checks, Expertise is basically a must-have.  I'm not including other forms of bonuses because whether or not they exist is equally up in the air based on party composition- even Help is not guaranteed since there are DM's who only allow proficient characters to take the Help action out there.  And if you can afford a Feat to boost a skill check, you can have Expertise.Reliable isn't really the problem here as much as Expertise is, but if your game has DC 25 checks, it's still equal to a +7 bonus, which again, is massive.  It's not quite "have Rogue or go home" but it's close.The game isn't supposed to be built so that any given class is a must-have.  But if very difficult checks are in the game, you must have an Expertise user, an optimized party, or some means (probably magic) to circumvent the skill check.Now the easy solution is not to have these kinds of skill checks if your party can't handle them.  But that's basically giving the party a virtual Rogue lol!And that's the crux of the issue for me.  I can't punish a party for not playing a Rogue or not making sure they have Expertise for whatever kinds of super difficult checks may or may not exist in the game.  But if the game never has super difficult checks, then you don't need Expertise!The ability is basically warping the game around it's existence, creating two wildly different scenarios if it's in play or not!</blockquote>

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