D&D 5E On meaningless restrictions

[prabe]

So maybe in the interests of niche protection (and, yes, somewhat against the intent of this thread) the idea of background giving you two extra skills needs to be shut down?

As someone who's had ideas that were nonstandard, I'm not a big fan of eliminating the mechanic entirely, but I'd have less problem if a GM wanted approval of every background. Of course, I'm not particularly a powergamer, and I grok niche protection pretty thoroughly.

 

[Lanefan]

So now to play the concept I want, I must choose a particular race or get DM approval?

You can (almost certainly) play whatever concept you want.

Where the problems arise is the expectation (or dare I say entitlement) of there being hard-coded mechanical backing and support for any concept.

The game's going to mechanically support some common tropes and whatever else happens to be close enough for rosk and roll. You're free to go outside of that but in doing so you're on your own and the mechanics aren't necessarily going to support you.

The DM is going to approve anyways, why not just go ahead and pre-rule that it always will be?

Is the DM always going to approve? Sounds like a rather large assumption...

 

[FrogReaver]

You can (almost certainly) play whatever concept you want.

Where the problems arise is the expectation (or dare I say entitlement) of there being hard-coded mechanical backing and support for any concept.

The game's going to mechanically support some common tropes and whatever else happens to be close enough for rosk and roll. You're free to go outside of that but in doing so you're on your own and the mechanics aren't necessarily going to support you.

Well that's not really true is it. If 70% of concepts get mechanical support and I'm told to play the concept anyways without mechanical support then that's a totally different game than what everyone else at the table is playing. That's really not fair IMO.

That said I'm with your general point that concepts in general don't need mechanical support (and I agree with that) - it's just when there is mechanical support then it doesn't really work well to say play the concept without mechanical support

Is the DM always going to approve? Sounds like a rather large assumption...

Sounds like a thoughtless objection

 

[Immoralkickass]

There is only one meaningless restriction in the game: Druids can't wear metal.

Once they confirmed that armor material can be refluffed, there's no meaning to this. Metal armour just don't fit into their idea of a druid, but if it fits your character, then it should not be a problem.

 

[LordEntrails]

The archetype can be modeled without skill restrictions. The only role skills play there is ensuring that each class has access to the skills relevant to their archetypes, which is accomplished just fine by allowing anyone to take any skills.

"can"
There are many ways to model archtypes. Just because such a model can be built in a manner other than RAW does not invalidate the RAW method.

the single valid purpose of class restrictions is to simplify character creation by making sure that classes that have to pick several spells at level 1, and/or other class features, don’t also have to pick 3-4 skills from the entire skill list. The bard goes hard on making you pick stuff early on, but it’s the exception.

Not sure it's the only valid purpose, but even if it is, then it is a valid reason. Valid reasons are valid reasons. And look at the growth of 5E, making the game more accessible via simplified character creation seem like a very good business decision (in hindsight).

The thing is: what is the reason, and is it a good enough reason to justify not allowing players to pick whatever skills they like for all their skill choices? (rather than pick whatever you want for two and then two off this list)

Well, perhaps it is accessibility. Which has helped lead to the explosive growth of 5E. So whether or not that's a good enough "gaming" reason, it is certainly been proven a very good business reason.

I believe upthread someone argued that the class archtypes help new players not get confused about what to do. I'm not sure this works (because they still have the full list for half of their choices anyways) I can definitely agree that there are potentially mechanically bad skill choices, but those are still on several class skill lists, so the restriction isn't helping there.

Since most players don't create their own background and pick from the ones presented to them, and supported by the growth of 5E, I think it's proven to work (from a business perspective).

 

[LordEntrails]

There is only one meaningless restriction in the game: Druids can't wear metal.

Once they confirmed that armor material can be refluffed, there's no meaning to this. Metal armour just don't fit into their idea of a druid, but if it fits your character, then it should not be a problem.

I still have a problem removing this restriction or allowing refluffed materials. But at least I understand that's because it is ingrained from decades of playing with such a restriction

 

[prabe]

I still have a problem removing this restriction or allowing refluffed materials. But at least I understand that's because it is ingrained from decades of playing with such a restriction

I'm ... ambivalent at best about druids, even though they're really important in my setting. I'd probably be more willing to let someone playing a class I don't much like, because I don't want my feelings about the class to negatively effect their play.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

I still have a problem removing this restriction or allowing refluffed materials. But at least I understand that's because it is ingrained from decades of playing with such a restriction

and hey, in doing so you could come up with neat adventure plots, like the druid wanting Scale Mail so we gotta go kill a dragon, or maybe there's an ironwood grove or something that you need to find to make some might-as-well-be-metal armor.

 

[Monayuris]

There is only one meaningless restriction in the game: Druids can't wear metal.

Once they confirmed that armor material can be refluffed, there's no meaning to this. Metal armour just don't fit into their idea of a druid, but if it fits your character, then it should not be a problem.

Druids can't wear metal armor is definitely not a meaningless restriction.

Lack of access to the AC provided by metal armors is balanced by the massive amounts of buffer hit points druids get from the wild shape rules.

 

[Immoralkickass]

Druids can't wear metal armor is definitely not a meaningless restriction.

Lack of access to the AC provided by metal armors is balanced by the massive amounts of buffer hit points druids get from the wild shape rules.

That's just your perceived balance, and even then its for Moon Druids only. What about the caster druids? They got no Mage armor/Shield, no Shield of Faith, and they can't cast spells in wild shape.
Then there's the stupidity of having proficiency in Medium armour, but can't use any of them bar Hide because they are all metal. Why not just remove it all and leave Light armour?