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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6869497" data-attributes="member: 2067">You'd be fine, but one of the thing I'd note is that this hurts the ability of &quot;everyone&quot; to contribute to a given check and thus silos experts, making group contribution more difficult. In RAW 5e, because even the dumb barbarian has a chance at Arcana, you'd be generally OK forcing everyone to make an Arcana check to avoid a trap or something - even the dumb barbarian has a chance to get lucky or be heroic and succeed. Group Stealth checks or the like are fair game. With this, it means that the roll becomes less relevant - now if you make everyone take an Arcana check, only the experts are likely to succeed.This has the effect of limiting character choices - now, the player needs to think about what the party needs in addition to what they want to play, and the former might take precedent.For my mileage, less average results - more swing back-and-forth - is generally a Good Thing. Sometimes, the rogue makes noise while the paladin in full plate sneaks effortlessly. It adds unpredictability and thus surprise and delight to the game. I like that!But, you know, it's a good system if everyone's on board that &quot;making sense&quot; here trumps character options (or if they just don't feel the sting of the latter as much)!By way of example, the upthrust of this is that if no one bothers to be a rogue or get proficiency in theives' tools (because it just doesn't appeal to them for whatever reason), no one can pick locks, and that takes an entire aspect of D&amp;D off the table for the party. This encourages people to play rogues because &quot;we NEED a rogue.&quot; IMO, that's kind of a problem - I want people to play the characters they WANT to play, and if none of those characters happen to be expert lock-pickers, I still want the group to be able to try and pick the occasional lock, relying on intrinsic skill rather than training.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 6869497, member: 2067"] You'd be fine, but one of the thing I'd note is that this hurts the ability of "everyone" to contribute to a given check and thus silos experts, making group contribution more difficult. In RAW 5e, because even the dumb barbarian has a chance at Arcana, you'd be generally OK forcing everyone to make an Arcana check to avoid a trap or something - even the dumb barbarian has a [I]chance[/I] to get lucky or be heroic and succeed. Group Stealth checks or the like are fair game. With this, it means that the roll becomes less relevant - now if you make everyone take an Arcana check, only the experts are likely to succeed. This has the effect of limiting character choices - now, the player needs to think about what the [I]party needs[/I] in addition to what they [I]want[/I] to play, and the former might take precedent. For my mileage, less average results - more swing back-and-forth - is generally a Good Thing. Sometimes, the rogue makes noise while the paladin in full plate sneaks effortlessly. It adds unpredictability and thus surprise and delight to the game. I like that! But, you know, it's a good system if everyone's on board that "making sense" here trumps character options (or if they just don't feel the sting of the latter as much)! By way of example, the upthrust of this is that if no one bothers to be a rogue or get proficiency in theives' tools (because it just doesn't appeal to them for whatever reason), [B]no one can pick locks[/B], and that takes an entire aspect of D&D off the table for the party. This encourages people to play rogues because "we NEED a rogue." IMO, that's kind of a problem - I want people to play the characters they WANT to play, and if none of those characters happen to be expert lock-pickers, I still want the group to be able to try and pick the occasional lock, relying on intrinsic skill rather than training. [/QUOTE]

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