I feel there should be a downfall to attempting.

I think that had more to do with it, personally.

From a design perspective, realism is not the primary goal. For example, it'd be realistic if most food rotted on a time scale of a couple days- remember this is before preservatives and germ theory. However, we don't implement it because we don't want people to spend 20% of their online time worrying about food, clean drinking water, and the location of the nearest outhouse.

One strong design goal is internal consistency. In other words, if I witness Principle X in one part of Thera, I should be able to apply it in other situations. To use an example regarding Weaponbreaker, certain shields can't be broken by Shield Cleave because they're too sturdy. Weapons of similar construction can't be broken either. Thus, as you learn about the game and figure out how to stop one, with a little thinking you can apply that knowledge to a separate skill.

I bring this up because people often confuse the two.