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You have to consider the following in reference to classes.

Martial Ability + Spells + Skills

Whether talking about combat or outside of it you have to determine how each class influences the areas above. A class that specializes one area should not negate another classes specialization under a different area, except for specific controlled circumstances. So if you use spells as an example that imitate skills, you may have special circumstances where it may replace a skill like open locks (knock) or stealth (invisibility), but overall spells should only add modifiers to existing skills that character has. In the same respect a fighter may be able to hold or intimidate someone, but it would not be as effective as a fear or hold person spell, or a rogue using their skill expertise. A rogue may be as effective or better using stealth which is comparable to invisibility, unless the spell caster has a spell that helps detect stealth. And finally where a rogue or wizard may be good at combat using a skill or spell, it should not surpass a fighter’s supremacy on the battle field.

What I want in a game is the rock, paper, scissors approach for combat and outside of it. Developing these along separate paths, where each class may have niche during or outside of combat is the easiest. But then someone would complain it is too much like 4E.

As to encounter design, it is much easier to make an enjoyable experience for the players if they can contribute in the area above, during and outside of combat. Even if one class is a master of one area, the others may still contribute

Jan 8, 2013 -- 2:03PM, wrecan wrote:

Jan 8, 2013 -- 1:55PM, Maxperson wrote:

There really isn't much onus, though.  Invisibility is seen through easily by a lot of creatures.  That just happens regardless.

But then the onus is on the encounter design.  

"Hooray!  I can cast invisibility... hey why are we only going against creatures that detect invisibility!"

"Hooray!  I can cast knock... hey, why are all the locked doors suddenly also trapped?"

The beauty is that you simply don't do that.  All you need to do is build encounters and traps normally.  Normal encounters will have creatures that see through it often enough that the party can't rely on invisibility.  Normal traps on doors will cause parties to want to have a rogue rather than risk knocking open every door. 

"Hooray!  I can cast detect traps... hey, why are all the traps I detect tied to treasure that would be destroyed if merely set off from a distance rather than disarmed?"

And this is just false.  It's "Hooray!  I can cast detect traps and rarely ever find any traps at all because search is cross class, and I only get 2 skill points that I need to spend on other things."  At 10th level the cleric gets +5 to search.  Search DCs start at 20+ for level 1 traps and go up from there.   

Maxperson, you have given your opinion that there isn't really aproblem, and that's cool.
However, my intention was primarily to get sugestions from people who had potential solutions, or at least ideas. You are now clutering up the thread with reasons why other people are wrong, rather than contributing in a constructive way.
Cheers

Interestingly, I was having an IRL conversation with someone this afternoon (remember them? seemed a lot more common before teh internetz) who said "meh, I just gave the fighter an extra background when I ran a playtest the other week... made the rogue the 'savant' and the fighter the guy who has picked up a broad range of things"
Haven't tried it out myself, but I liked it as a rough and ready fix.