Niche Protection: Everyone gets expertise

[Paraxis]

So I have been thinking about giving every character one free skill expertise at first level so that whatever one thing they want their character to shine at they can. I would encourage them to pick different skills from each other during character creation but not mandate it.

My thinking is I would like the cleric to be the best at religious knowledge, the fighter to be the most athletic, the wizard to know about arcane lore, the ranger to be the best survivalist, etc.... but leave it up to the player if they want to fall in line with those stereotypes maybe someone wants his fighter to be an expert in artisan tools: cooking utensils and be an iron chef so I don't want to pigeonhole them.

What do you all think of this house rule?

The only issue is it steps on the toes of the classes that already get expertise a bit, but they get the bonus expertise as well and it is only to one skill.

 

[Li Shenron]

My thinking is I would like the cleric to be the best at religious knowledge, the fighter to be the most athletic, the wizard to know about arcane lore, the ranger to be the best survivalist, etc....

In theory this is already a design goal of 5e.

As for expertise, I've been thinking about letting characters in my 5e conversion of Rokugan to gain that when they receive proficiency in the same skill twice (rather than selecting another skill) for example once from race, once from class and/or once from background. That's because in the Rokugan setting there's a cultural tenet about striving for mastery in an art, so that characters tend to either excel in something, or let others do it.

The only possible downside I can see, is that many players will only look towards maxing "general purpose" skills like Perception or Stealth, instead of a more character-defining art.