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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 7507804" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Fair point. But now we are talking design of an adventure. Sure, it isn't just that easy, but what if my high level plot involves the players finally taking down the Empire of Olkar which has been a thorn in their sides for the entire game, because they are about to gain control of the Armies of Selthoon sealed in the Palace of the Runed King. Are the locks in the palace on the material plane going to require special lockpicks and a DC 30 check? If they do then what does an inter-planar lock even look like if it is to be even more secure? Combat, I can make combat work at any level, and with magic and artifacts I can keep 20th level exciting on the material plane. But, when the players are so skilled that I begin to not feel the point in even including the skill challenges they are most skilled in, because they must either be artificially inflated or trivial, then I think it is fair to wonder if that indicates a less than ideal system. I see what you are saying, but the ability "I automatically succeed" is... a really boring ability. Speaking another language auto-succeeds in speaking that language, but it opens further avenues, additional plots, and gives you the opportunity to be proactive. Automatically finding and disarming traps... doesn't really. Unless I create an arbitrary barrier which you can now cross, then you haven't opened up chances or plots. You've just found and disarmed traps. And after a point, I stop putting traps in the game, because they are nothing but a waste of time. You will find them, you will disarm them, even if they exist they are no more interesting than saying the wall is green. And now we have a character who invested heavily in traps, who had great experiences with traps at low levels, in a world with no traps because they serve no purpose any more. Social checks are a bit weirder, succeeding really well on those can still have complications because people are complicated, but I could still see a game where I stop bothering to ask the character to roll persuasion or deception. They are going to succeed anyways, so I just have the character react to the success... and at a certain point wouldn't that just get boring? A fair point, but I think expertise and Reliable talent hit into the same area. Reliable talent just removes time as a factor, because the rules do still allow you to "take 10" in a lot of circumstances. Expertise is what allows reliable talent and taking 10 to create these monstrous scores which simply can't be beat. But even without them, 1's aren't auto fails, so a minimum result of 14 or 18 instead of 23 or 27. And if you only have a 5% or 10% chance of failing is there a point in making the roll?Yes there are other things they aren't as good at. But while a Fire Wizard feels like a Fire Wizard by just casting Fire Spells in combat, no trolls required, does a master burglar feel like a master burglar if there are no things to burgle? The fire wizard still is true to his concept if you are blasting trolls, golems, or even Demons with resistance. But, if an important aspect of the character is lockpicking, that aspect isn't being used when there are no locks to pick. And by mid levels, if you have a Bard and a Rogue who coordinate and are able to take something like the prodigy feat, you have 10 skills with expertise, and a floating skill with the Skill Empowerment spell. There a 18 skills in the game. By that metric alone, the party can be specialized for over half the things in the game. And while I can have the fire wizard fight things with fire immunity to spice things up and make them consider new tactics (or simply give someone else a chance to shine) there is no equivalent to that in skills. A skill either applies to a situation or it doesn't, so I can either include it or I don't. It becomes very binary which makes it very hard to change it up.</blockquote>

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