There is 0 reason to use "high OP" ( a term that hasn't been defined) as the standard for anything.

Quote Originally Posted by Blatant Beast View Post
The answer "4 is greater than one" is a bit jejune. The Expertise Ability is clearly subject to marginal utility. A Rogue's fourth selection of Expertise, is generally not worth as much as their prior picks, because those prior Expertise picks were spent on addressing needs and wants, and the fourth Expertise pick is probably just going wherever.
I can't believe this point began with calling people's opinions naive.

Again, we go back to this idea that out of combat challenges can be solved by a single skill. That's really nice. Makes it simple to assume only one Expertise matters, or that a single spell will solve the issue.

It seems to me rogues may have a bad reputation because no one engages with out of combat stuff all that much.

A Rune Knight fighter, that wants to be the King of Grapplers, does not need 4 options for Expertise, they just need Expertise in Athletics.
But what does this have to do with what the rogue can provide? I don't think the rogue is judged by how useful a dip would be to Rune Knights.

Ludic, in a prior post, mentions that a Rogue's Expertise, often is either enabling "win more" dice rolls, ("Hey look, my stealth check was a 37 against the DC 10"), or just maintaining a level of parity in terms of performance, (a 10 wisdom Rogue with Expertise in Perception, is performing at around the same level as a 20 Wisdom Cleric with proficiency in Perception, before Reliable Talent). I also find this observation to be true.
A rogue's expertise will enable 10-15% more successes, up to 20-30% at higher levels, and even more with Reliable Talent.

Yes, there is "win more", but there is also "more win".

And we can't create a simultaneous scenario where the skill system is so vague and up to fiat that rogues suck, and also a scenario where the DC is 10 and the rogue is just providing overkill.
We also have design artifacts in the system that throw skill usage off, even when dealing with Expertise and the Reliable Talent abilities. The Reliable Talent ability does not help with Passive Checks, only active checks. A Rogue that wishes to be the most perceptive person in the world, still needs to take the Observant Feat, to increase their Passive Perception.
That's fine.
If your Rogue with Expertise in Stealth is trying to streak across the court during a NBA game, or across the stage during a Taylor Swift concert, that rogue is going to be spotted, as they are visible.
A disguise kit and Deception/Performance might be useful here. Again... thinking that only one skill will ever be used at a time is sort of giving you the result that you want.
A Rogue, trying to cross a bridge made of webbing, stealthily, likewise runs into the limitations of Expertise: it does not matter that the Rogue's Stealth check was an astronomically high number, a Giant Spider's Websense still defeats a Stealth Ability Check of 42.

At some point, even the Stealthiest Rogue, needs magic, to succeed....that is the system as designed.
Firstly, I am not sure this is correct. Everyone has a normal jump distance, and then you can roll Athletics to surpass that. I don't know why a rogue can't roll exceptionally well and not alert a spider through websense. In fact, this seems like exactly the kind of thing that someone with a really high check could do.

In practical games, that aren't "high OP", the DM is free to adjudicate things however they want. They are not bound by the black letters in the book to only do what is explicitly said.

Secondly, who can approach this spider without alerting it? What sort of magic are you envisioning here? Is there a clear path in the air that you're seeing, and a high level wizard that is going to cast Fly on everyone? What sort of magic do you see bypassing this?
Without, something like this, Expertise at high levels, often is just "win more", which is not particularly useful.
It is, actually. Consistency is a good thing. Part of the problem of playing a big strong barbarian, as an example, is that you can still regularly fail Strength checks. There is value in consistently being able to do things that reflect what your character is good at.