Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
That's yet another reason I dislike the 5e skill system's approach of using stat checks with small skill modifiers: someone who has a score of 20 will just be better than 10-stat trained characters at low levels, and it takes until 8th level for training to equal talent; contrast this with 3e, where you could have up to +4 from ranks or +5 from stat at 1st level, at 2nd level you could get +5 from ranks and another +2 from synergy, and training improved from there. Talent becoming a smaller portion of your bonus compared to training made starting stats, race, and such less important as you leveled, whereas in 5e as it stands you'll be feeling that 12 for a long time; the more important your stats are, the more you're encouraged to overspecialize in that one stat as we saw from 3e SAD classes and most 4e classes, and that's entirely at odds with 5e's goal of lower numbers making non-primary stats more relevant.
Again, math. By the nature of a 1d20 roll, a +5 is just as relevant when your total is +6 as when your total is +26. It increases your chance of success by 25% in both cases.

For example, let's say you're playing a 3e, and have a fighter with 20 strength and a wizard with 10 strength, and both have 23 ranks in the Climbing skill, and +10 boots of climbing. Now, you're set up against a super-difficult to climb wall, that's perfectly smooth and weeps fire and is covered in angry monkeys. It has a DC of 45 to climb.

The wizard, with no strength bonus, has a total modifier of +33, which means he has to roll a 12 or higher, or a 45% chance of success. The fighter, on the other hand, has a bonus of +38, which means he has to roll an 8 or higher, or a 70% chance of success.

Now, let's turn that around and say you're playing 5e. You have a fighter with 20 strength and a wizard with 10, and both have Atheletics trained. You're set up against a much more mundane wall, made of uncarved rock that's slick from rain. It has a DC of 15 to climb.

The wizard, with no strength bonus, has a total modifier of +3, which means he has to roll a 12 or higher, or a 45% chance of success. The fighter, on the other hand, has a bonus of +8, which means he has to roll an 8 or higher, or a 70% chance of success.

See how little those two situations changed? The only thing that changed was that the numbers were no longer inflated by the massive skill boosts.

What has changed, is that now un-skilled characters can be relevant alongside those who have trained the skills. In 3E, if you wanted to place a skill challenge in front of someone who's trained that skill, it had to be absurdly high in difficulty to be relevant to them, and thus the task would be impossible for the rest of the party. Now, skilled characters and high-ability characters have an advantage, but not so much of one that the DM can't put in something that everyone can handle, even if some can do it better than others. The 18 strength fighter with atheletics trained might be the best at climbing, but even the wizard with 10 strength and no training can attempt to climb the DC 15 wall, even if he's more likely to fall, or at least take a lot longer getting up.