Proficiency Bonus

Roll Factory

This time on Roll Factory, we’re learning about the Proficiency Bonus. It’s the number that separates innate talent from trained skill.

Proficiency Bonus is a mechanic that 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons uses to streamline the process of acquiring and using skills. Instead of assigning points to individual skills, your character has a single Proficiency Bonus. If your character is trained (or proficient) in a skill, you get to add that bonus to your d20 roll. If you’re not proficient in a skill you can still roll to use it, but you’ll be doing it without adding your proficiency bonus.

The proficiency bonus also comes into play when you’re making other rolls. Saving Throws can benefit from proficiency; so can a roll to use a tool, play an instrument, or attack with a weapon your character has practiced with. We’ll look at those rolls more closely in future episodes.

During character creation, your choice of race, class, and background will give you some automatic proficiencies, and you’ll have the opportunity to choose others.

At level 1, your proficiency bonus is +2, and it goes up as you gain levels. You may also have the opportunity to gain proficiency with new skills and items, either as part of the leveling up process, or if you and your DM decide you’ve had sufficient training in-game.

Finally, there are feats and features that can modify the way your character uses their proficiency bonus. The rogue’s expertise feature lets them double their bonus on some skill or tool checks, while the Bard’s Jack of All Trades gives them half their proficiency bonus on skills they’re not trained in. Again, we’ll talk about all that in more detail later on.

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Roll Factory is written, produced, and edited by K.O. Myers for Particulate Media.