D&D 5E On meaningless restrictions

[Bawylie]

Two people walked along some road and came to a fence or whatever in the way.
“This is stupid,” said the first. “I’m tearing it down.”
And the second responded, “slow your roll, bro. For verily somebody had good cause to throw up this barrier or else it wouldn’t be here. Before you go on and change it, you best understand why it’s there in the first place.”

And then the first smacked the second or something. Or it was duck season. Or rabbit season I forget how it goes.

 

[Harzel]

The thing is, in general, there's no way to prove that a restriction is unnecessary. So unless removing the restriction has a really big benefit, I, personally, have no interest in spending the mental effort to convince myself that it's "probably" ok.

As for the particular things you've mentioned, removing skills restrictions seems likely to be benign, but there are other ways to get skills, so the benefit seems not very compelling.

Opening up saving throws seems more likely to cause problems, but, regardless, again the benefit doesn't seem very compelling to me.

As others have mentioned, this just seems to be chafing at restrictions that go along with a class-based system. For the two items you've mentioned, I wouldn't tell you you're wrong to remove those restrictions, but for me, that would not be worth even the small chance of causing a problem that I hadn't managed to think of.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What abusive builds do you forsee if the restrictions I mentioned are removed?

It's not about abuses and power gaming. It's about flavour and discouraging inexperienced players from making bad choices.

Consider Arcana. Wizards don't have to choose it. But it would be a pretty strange wizard who didn't. One way of encouraging wizards to take it is to limit their ability to choose something that isn't Arcana.

If you don't think that is an issue at your table feel free to drop the rule. The core rules are designed as "entry level".

Personally, I think completely dropping skill choice restrictions would lead to players making a lot of very similar choices - Perception and Athletics/Acrobatics at the top of the list for everyone.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And then the first smacked the second or something. Or it was duck season. Or rabbit season I forget how it goes.

It's baseball season.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Obviously the game will not do it for itself, because the restrictions are there to make the races what they are, the classes what they are, the game what it is. So if someone was looking for "official" (as stupid as they definition is) changes to open choices up, they'll be waiting for a long, long time.

Now for everybody else... any table can go ahead and mix and match abilities till the day is long. So long as the DM and the players have relatively good ideas about the power of the various game features as played at their table, there's no reason not to fiddle and futz with them. I mean, I'm a HUGE proponent of "class feature swaps", rather than level dip multiclassing (which players do just so can get that one single ability that is normally only acquired from a different class.)

There is definitely truth the idea that any game played long enough will lose its freshness and originality. If you've played every class several times over, the idea of wanting to create "something new" using the game's mechanics is not out of the realm of possibility. But I know for me, that usually means one of two things:

1) I'm better off playing a whole different game system (even if I wanted to remain in the fantasy theme) just so that I have new and fresh ways to interact with different rules and dice and help change/reset expectations.

or

2) Push the mechanical focus far back as possible and really just concern myself with character. Personality, needs, wants, attitudes, loves, hates, etc. Because by doing that... my concern is purely for what my character is and does through narration, and I no longer care about whether there is a game mechanic to "back it up". To bring it back to the other thread where I was talking about this stuff... if I want to say my PC was the "Greatest Swordsman In The Land"... I can just do that in the narration and his representation in the world, and not need my mechanics to emphasize it. Yeah, the mechanics are still there to play the combat mini-game when it comes up as necessary... but that mini-game is no longer the focus and end-all-be-all of what playing the game is. Instead, the improv is the end-all-be-all, and the mechanics are just an extra byproduct to enjoy when it comes up, but not care in the slightest how "precise" or "exacting" it is.

Obviously most people have the most difficult time with #2 (almost nobody seems to like sidelining game mechanics in their thoughts and minds as much as I do), so in that regard playing a completely new game like #1 is a good alternative way to go.

 

[DND_Reborn]

And then the first smacked the second or something. Or it was duck season. Or rabbit season I forget how it goes.

It was "Elmer" season.

 

[Umbran]

And I asked a specific question about removing a few specific restrictions. Instead of responding by telling me what you were talking about (and then having me do the same and going back and forth repeatedly ad nauseum), why not just answer the question?

Mod Note:

Hey, @FrogReaver - you do realize that EN World does not support threat ownership or editorial control, right? If folks don't answer exactly the way you want it, you are probably better off just passing them by and letting it be.

 

[HarbingerX]

It seems to me that you are conflating restrictions in the general sense with "meaningless restrictions" spoken of in the OP.

You aren't attempting to argue that all restrictions give the game it's shape and feel such that not one could be removed without the game losing it's shape and feel? Are you?

Actually, I am. It is the restrictions that determine what is possible in the game world. There are no 'meaningless' restrictions. Each restriction makes the range of possibilities in the game world different. Restricting skill choices changes what a class can be good or bad at in the game world.

There's nothing wrong with removing them, but they do serve a purpose. You are free to change what you want to make your game world different.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I wouldn't remove anything just because I saw no reason not to remove it. I would only remove something if I saw significant positive benefit in doing so.

 

[HarbingerX]

The 4e DM's guide had great advice on house rules. To paraphrase it was: "Clearly Identify what it is you are trying to change with the house rule and why it needs changing. Will the house rule achieve your goal?"

I could be reading too much into OP's post, but it reads to me like he'd like to remove skill choice restrictions so that any class can specialize in any skill - presumably because he has a class idea that would need a different skill. If I was a DM for a player asking this, I would instead make it an exceptional case if the player can give me a sufficiently compelling backstory to justify them being proficient with a few skills that they don't normally have. Then I'd roll it into a new background.