Skill Checks at higher levels. Where's the challenge?

[kid america]

This is a question to other GM's who have encountered the "Skill Checks are no longer a challenge conundrum."

So beginning around 6th level most players have the max ranks they can put into their skill, their ability score bonus, their class skill bonus, a class feature, a feat bonus, and a magic item bonus. This typically means that their skill check bonus is around +15-20 before they even roll a d20.

An average roll of 8 or higher gives them a success. And as we know a roll of 1 is not an automatic fail like in combat.

So disabling traps, surviving in the wild or underground, riding a mount in combat, flying, identifying magic items all become pretty meaningless in game mechanic's terms.

Around 10th level these skill checks pretty much become wasted die rolls, with players rolling their eyes and groaning for me as a GM even asking them for a skill check. This is especially true in a well rounded party that has all the skills covered.

Looking for suggestions on putting the challenge back into skill checks, and giving them purpose in the game.

[Athaleon]

Skill checks are made for tasks that low level characters would find challenging, which naturally means that high level characters would find them trivial. Except where opposed skill checks are made (Sense Motive vs Bluff, or Acrobatics vs CMD), these tasks should be trivial, even to the point of skipping the check because anyone with enough skill auto-passes it.

For example, I'm not sure why a high level Ninja with 30+ Dex would find, say, a tightrope walk difficult.

On top of that, walking a tightrope is entirely unnecessary at that level, unless it's a tightrope in an anti-magic field.

So there are your answers:

- To keep skills relevant, allow very high skill DCs to duplicate spells as (Ex) abilities when appropriate.

- Assume your players auto-pass things that should be trivial to a high level character, and make them check against high DCs for things that would plausibly challenge their abilities.