Quote Originally Posted by Blatant Beast View Post
At some point, even the Stealthiest Rogue, needs magic, to succeed....that is the system as designed.
Is it though? I ask genuinely rather than rhetorically. I mean, going back to my previous point regarding who can or can't hit those high DCs, it does require magic to achieve a DC of 30 before level 13 and even then it's a ritual that takes 10 times as long as the task would normally to do it with any certainty. With Expertise, it still takes 10 times as long, but without the magic and at the low, low level of 5.

To misquote "any sufficiently advanced technique appears as magic to the uninitiated". A level 5 character with Expertise is arguably pulling off what at least appear to be magical effects in their "near impossible" results. This isn't some houserule; it's just extrapolation from the rules at hand. Quite what extent that reaches in actual play is indeed GM dependent, but that such results should appear to achieve what any layman would consider actually impossible is without question. Once a Rogue hits level 11, those feats of "near magic" should become commonplace activity.

The rules are not a straight jacket and those that are written open to interpretation shoukd be interpreted accordingly.