But the rogue does have a unique ability all of its own, its skill bonus maneuver. Presentation wise, its a little hidden, its not put on the class sheet in bold letters like sneak attack once was....but yet it is an ability unique to rogue, at least this far.
...
So what do we want as a community? Do we want skill use to be considered important enough to be a factor in combat power....or should we return to combat specific abilities as the primary drive for such?
I think generally those skill maneuvers and saving throws boosts are nice and interesting.
The whole thing falls shorts because it is based on a mechanic (Fighter's expertise dice) which is solid and GREAT when entirely focused on combat actions, some of which may require some trigger (thus are situationals) but their
numerica effects are still pretty much comparable.
That's not true when the same mechanic is applied to a series of Rogue's abilities that are partly for the combat pillar and partly for the exploration pillar. Numbers don't compare anymore. You just can't have the same expertise dice for saving throw / skill bonuses and sneak attack, or either the first will be too large or the second will be too low.
Furthermore, ED works wonderfully for the Fighter because even if some maneuvers are situational, you can always fall back to Deadly Strike and thus you'll always have the ED benefit once per round. But if at least one situation occurs, you have a choice.
Some Rogue maneuvers for skills may not give you a choice: if you have it, you'll apply it for each and every skill check, and this might be too much at high levels (so long for bounded accuracy on skill checks).
At the other end of the ED spectrum, Sneak Attack is now totally worthless and tasteless. They are forced to lower the requirements to make it useful nearly all the time (tasteless, this is why it tastes like a lesser Deadly Strike).
I am just afraid that Sneak Attack cannot fit at all into the current ED mechanic together with totally different and non-comparable stuff. And they added ED to the Rogue specifically to make Sneak Attack optional!! If this is the result, I prefer SA not to be opt-out-able at all.