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The more I'm playing the more I tend to thing "not very". I bring this up because many of the arguments for X class over Y class are "well X class has more skills, that's a huge advantage." Is it a huge advantage? Because I'm not seeing it.
I'm playing alongside a fighter. He has one skill point/level. It's perception. He does fine. It doesn't even really cripple him in social situations. He still roleplays, he doesn't particularly contribute to *succeeding* at many skill checks but still... the kick in the door approach seems to be working out for him. And I can't think of many campaigns where it would not.
1. non-combat skills are effectively communal. Very rarely does it matter if *your* character has Diplomacy, so long as somebody in the party does. This can be said for pretty much any "out of combat" skill. Does not really matter much if you know Knowledge Arcana, so long as the Wizard has it covered. The wizard doesn't need to have Knowledge Religion, Mr. Cleric has that one, etc.
There are a few exceptions, Stealth, for one, is best if everybody can do it or nobody bothers. Swim, climb, ride, acrobatics matter if *your* character has those ranks. Primarily the usefulness of swim and climb is quickly eclipsed by magic, ride and acrobatics continue to be important for their bearers, but that is because Ride and Acrobatics are "combat skills".
2. In general, skills seem vastly less important than being good in combat. I mean... has anybody ever had their character *die* because they screwed up at Diplomacy and told the King they'd like to make love to his wife? Probably not. The GM also can't set skill check DCs too high if they want the PCs to pass. For example, I *could* make it a DC 30 Diplomacy check to gather information about the secret cult.... Or I could make it a DC 15 and we could have some fun this adventure. It doesn't really matter if somebody has a +20 to Diplomacy checks to gather information or if they don't and happen to roll a 15. As a GM, I can't set the DC too high or we don't go on the adventure at all.
3. As I alluded to earlier, there is typically no real consequence for failure (aside from combat skills, like acrobatics). You fail to impress someone, maybe you get to try again later, maybe you don't. You fail to know something, no big deal, you probably missed out on a piece of flavortext that the GM might give to you anyway because he wants you to get immersed in the campaign setting. You're not going to die for failing a skill roll. You might very well die if your character isn't tough enough to handle combat.
For number 2, there was this one time where our party had just finished a brutal combat, and immediately after, this guy appeared. If our ranger hadn't rolled so well on his diplomacy, we would have had to fight the guy. And being so beaten up from the previous combat, it would have likely ended in at least 1 death.
Now that type of thing is rare and situational, but it is possible.
But with more skill points, it just feels like you can do more than just swing your weapon around or cast a spell.
It all depends on the campaign to a degree. The fighter's "kick in the door" approach might work most of the time, but eventually there will likely be a trap and he will have wished the party rogue had disabled it. He may not even have had to go through that door if the party face was able to get more information from someone with diplomacy. Perhaps there is an unfamiliar critter behind the door and without the right knowledge check the party might have to burn through way too many resources to defeat it.
Then there's things some character's just have to have be it ride, perception, fly, spellcraft, or crafting skills.
Anyone ever played in a group where all the characters had minimal skills?
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Investigation and social interaction are huge in my games. You will die very quickly if you think you can just swing hard at every problem. The typical fantasy adventure though does allow violence to solve all problems. So depends.
Point 2 is a wash. I could give the enemies +10 to hit instead of +5. I could also inflated their AC or reduce it. The adventure could end with the first fight.
Cassidus; nope. He just triggers the trap, takes the damage, and we move on.
Pan, you're probably right about point-2, but even so your combat skills are still very important, be it only for how good you are at running away!
I've been looking for a way to implement more valuable skill checks in my campaign. I too am running into trouble seeing the practical use of some skills.
Having some skills is important. In anything but a dungeon crawl, having Perception as your only skill is not crippling, perhaps, but very STIFLING. You can't do much of anything besides see s!+* and beat it up. Gets old after a while.
However, skills have a bit of a diminishing return after a while.
2+Int skills is crippling for non Int based characters in an RP sense. If your Fighter can't climb a tree as well as the scrawny Rogue, your physical conditioning was terrible.
4+Int skills is "enough" in most cases. It should be the baseline.
Having 6+Int is very nice, but not super amazingly better than 4+Int compared to how 4 trumps 2. Allows your character to dump Int if you like and still have a wide array of skills though.
Having 8+Int is overkill, especially when the characters with 8+Int are actually giving up things in other areas (like combat prowess) to have that "advantage".
Fighters and Rogues represent the extremes on this scale. Fighters can't do jack but fight. This is a horrid design for a class.
Conversely, Rogues don't do much BUT skills. It's why the class is the worst one in the game (oh there's some quibbling over whether Monk or Rogue is the worst, but at least archetypes give Monk a much needed boost).
TL;DR: Skills are important, at least that you have enough of them to play your character as something other than a hyper-focused beatstick.
2. In general, skills seem vastly less important than being good in combat. I mean... has anybody ever had their character *die* because they screwed up at Diplomacy and told the King they'd like to make love to his wife? Probably not. The GM also can't set skill check DCs too high if they want the PCs to pass. For example, I *could* make it a DC 30 Diplomacy check to gather information about the secret cult.... Or I could make it a DC 15 and we could have some fun this adventure.
This is more a comment about adventure design than about game design.
I'm a firm believer that every task should have several options available to accomplish it. I've sometimes seen this formalized as The Rule of Three or some such; I guess it seems more Important if you Write It In Capitals. Whatever. The principle, however, stands. If you need to get the Eye of Argon from the High Temple of Ishkabibble, there are in theory several ways, including(*) simply asking nicely for it, carving your way through a river of blood, or tunneling underneath the temple to the treasury.
IMHO, all three should be viable approaches; if the players choose to approach everything through rivers of blood, that simply says that the players devalue skills.
If the GM says "nope, you can't ask nicely," then, yes, the GM is devaluing skills. And also, again IMHO, not being a very good adventure designer.
One thing I rather dislike about a lot of the APs I've seen is how many of them simply say : "Morale: Lord Axenrod fights to the death." Really? Lord Axenrod literally values his job as third assistant flunky to the High Priest of Ishkabibble so much that he's willing to die for it? He doesn't even know what he's guarding, and barely knows the layout to half the temple -- but nevertheless has a degree of fanaticism usually only associated with crazed suicide bombers. And so does everyone else in this d--ned temple?
A better approach (again, in my opinion) is to let skills bypass or give advantages in later combats. The DC 10 check will tell you where the temple is; the DC 30 gather information check will tell you about the gate into the herb garden that's never locked and that bypasses the main guardhouse. With a DC 25 stealth check, you can disable the ceremonial ballista covering the great hall. A DC 30 disguise check lets you pass the stone golem guardian. So I don't really care if you disable the ballista or not, but it will be a lot less bloody for you if you can manage it.
(*) or just pull the fire alarm and sneak in while everyone's outside. Lots of ways, with a group and GM that can work creatively. An ideal to which I hope we all aspire.
This isn't 3.x where the characters could only put points into specific skills. That fighter with one point could spread out and put points into other skills. Yes he's not going to be as good, but it's better than having a zero in everything.
In our game, everyone tries to contribute to out of combat situations. There are obvious things that we all can't do like Spellcraft checks. Unlike a lot of groups, we don't use a Party Face. We don't use specific roles for out of combat situations. Everyone participates. I think this gives people the opportunity to put skill points in places where they normally wouldn't.
OP: Your post points out how useful skills are. You dismiss it as "as long as SOMEONE has the skill" argument, but if you're all playing 6 int fighters that deal 400 damage, you're going to get stumped at a lot of turns. Don't treat high skill classes as lepers because they can't one-shot Balors at 7th level, they make it so your reality-altering god-spawn can actually find that hidden dungeon or riddle disguised oasis in some lost world. I've read plenty of modules that, quite literally, end on a skill check failure, as you have no idea where to go or what to do, leaving the DM to scramble to clumsily drop clues your skill-less players can pick up on.
Honestly, you can get by with no skills, but after decades of playing, it doesn't seem very fun to not be involved in the story skill-wise.
I haven't had a character DIE from a lack of skills, but I've wished for death before, so I could go do something else.
It depends on the campaign, but in a setting with a lot of skill checks, you might go from investigating in the library to exploring a place outside of town, to questioning suspects to a chase scene.
And the character who is only good at combat...waits for a fight to start. It can be agonizing.
Of course other games are 90% combat. As always, talk to your group before you make characters.
dotting.
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The funny thing about skills...lacking them actually promote more roleplaying and creativity like if anybody can't bluff their ways into the castle, the party would to think of a crazy ridiculous plan to get past the guards just to give an example.
Still tho, they are practical and do come in handy. I particularly like AP for that, they made skill checks actually giving meaningful rewards or even changing the entire course of the adventure. The Way of the Wicked is very good about using different skills to achieve various ends.
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Skills can make a huge difference either with a good GM or a well written AP. For example, I've almost finished running a Kingmaker game and virtually every skill has at some point or another been of incredible use, from Knowledge checks giving the weaknesses of otherwise incredibly tough creatures, to Diplomacy granting hundreds of extra soldiers to fight in the kingdoms wars, Perform swaying entire towns opinions, Craft making gifts that have gained allies or equipped troops, Sense Motive finding spies, etc. A skill poor party would have had a vastly harder time in the AP than one that was more well rounded, I suspect they would have lost many party members and possibly even battles (resulting in their kingdom being destroyed) in fact.
Failing climb checks, swim checks, perception checks, disable device checks and a few others have ended deaths. I know failed climb checks have killed in our games.
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As important as the GM makes them.
If the GM runs a campaign with few skill checks (i.e., does not use Diplomacy to gather information, Knowledge skills to discover lore, social interaction based on Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive, various terrain requiring Acrobatics, Climb, Fly, or Swim checks, etc.), then skills are "not very important." Similarly, if the campaign has few combats, then the 7 Int, 7 Cha super-optimized barbarian is going to seem like dead weight most of the time.
Even in a combat-heavy campaign, there are several important skills, if the GM is following RAW:
Acrobatics - provides a benefit for fighting defensively and is needed to avoid being hampered by grease, caltrops, marbles, etc.
Bluff - for feinting in combat (can be very important for rogues or other characters with Sneak Attack)
Escape Artist - can be used in place of a combat maneuver check to escape grapples
Fly - important at higher levels when flying is commonplace
Intimidate - can be used to demoralize opponents, especially when used with Dazzling Display, Intimidating Glare/Terrifying Howl, etc.
Knowledge (Arcana, Dungeoneering, Local, Nature, Planes, Religion) - by RAW, needed to identify opponents and their abilities/weaknesses.
Perception - required to act in the surprise round
Sense Motive - to make it harder for opponents to use feinting against you
Spellcraft - to identify what spell or spell effect is being used (can be very important if counterspelling)
Use Magic Device - to use magic items that would otherwise be unusable (especially for those cheap wands of cure light wounds, etc.)
mount spells are better trap finders than rogues,
disable device is needed when the mount dies.
I would not want to play in a game/campaign that did not have equal amounts combat and role-playing (and in that skills). I would agree that some skills are useless most of the time but at the same time I know players get equal satisfaction making a difficult skill check as they do rolling a nat 20. If no role-playing (skills) why not just play a board game then?
mount spells are better trap finders than rogues,
disable device is needed when the mount dies.
Only if the trap resets
Skill have absolutely no value. Unless we talking about fighters, because then another 2 skill point per level would mean A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE!
Outside of that discussion though skills are worthless unless we are talking about builds that can do skills better than a rogue, then skills are suddenly important again.
Being able to take 10 on a skill has no value because that deprives you from rolling dice, which as we all know as soon as the d20 is not your lord and master the game becomes un-fun rocket tag.
As with anything in this game (or any RPG), skills are as important as the GM and your group makes them.