Your proficiency bonus can’t be added to a single die roll or other number more than once. For example, if two different rules say you can add your proficiency bonus to a Wisdom saving throw, you nevertheless add the bonus only once when you make the save.
Occasionally, your proficiency bonus might be multiplied or divided (doubled or halved, for example) before you apply it. For example, the rogue’s Expertise feature doubles the proficiency bonus for certain ability checks. If a circumstance suggests that your proficiency bonus applies more than once to the same roll, you still add it only once and multiply or divide it only once.
That doesn’t really apply because you aren’t adding it twice. You’re adding for two different things. The rule even calls out Expertise as an exception.
The DM only calls for one check - a Dex check, modified by your proficiency bonus, if it applies on the check, and doubled if appropriate. You still only add it once.
Xanathar's Guide covers tool proficiencies in better detail. The DM could reasonably give you advantage on the check in addition to double proficiency. But no, you would not get quadruple proficiency.
The Expertise exception lets you double the proficiency bonus on the particular check. The general rule still applies. You can't apply the proficiency bonus more than once to a roll.
In your case, you are making a single Ability Check and you are adding the proficiency bonus twice to the roll.
When you make an ability check, it can be a raw ability check (such as "Dexterity"), a skill-based ability check (such as "Sleight of Hand", which ties to Dexterity unless the DM goes for the optional rule to ask for a different tied ability (Player's Handbook, page 175, or here)), or a tool-based ability check (such as "Thieve's Tools"). You do not make ability checks by combining skills and tools any more than you combine two different skills (which is to say, "not unless the DM says so" :) ).
The two traits from the example, Sleight of Hand and Thieves' Tools, do not have overlap.
From Sleight of Hand, (Player's Handbook, page 177, or here), we know its common usage: "act of legerdemain or manual trickery, such as planting something on someone else or concealing an object on your person", or "whether you can lift a coin purse off another person or slip something out of another person’s pocket."
From Thieves' Tools, (Player's Handbook, page 154, or here), we know their common usage: "Proficiency with these tools lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to disarm traps or open locks."
Even if they did have overlap, Filcat explains it with the raw, most generalized form of the rule: You cannot add your proficiency bonus (or your expertise) more than once in the same roll - it doesn't matter that they are different things (although that suggests different rolls), they would be the same roll. In fact, if you see the earliest encountered rule on Proficiency bonus (Player's Handbook, page 12, or here), you'll see that in its examples of usage, it differentiates between "Ability checks using skills you’re proficient in" and "Ability checks using tools you’re proficient with".
So, in your scenario, the roll should (usually) be a Dexterity (Thieves' Tools) roll to disarm a trap or pick a lock, for which you would have +13 (nothing to sneeze at. :p ).
It's not Dexterity (+5) + Proficiency (+4) + Expertise (+4)
It's Dexterity (+5) + Proficiency (+8 [doubled because of expertise])
Regardless of whether you have expertise or not, proficiency can only be added one time [per RAW]. Expertise isn't added separately, it doubles the existing proficiency bonus.
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Sorry to resurrect the thread, but the question does occur to me:
What is the point in taking Expertise with Thieves Tools then?
Or rather, is there any point to taking Expertise in Sleight of Hand and Thieves Tools when the vast majority of uses of the tools will be covered by the SoH Expertise?
It's going to depend on your DM and their interpretation of each skill, but Sleight of Hand typically wouldn't be a skill that you'd be using in a situation where Thieves' Tools are applicable.
If you wish to disarm a trap or open a lock, that uses thieves tools.
Sleight of hand is typically when you are trying to take a physical action, but conceal from someone what you are doing.
If you wanted to do it without someone noticing, they might have you make it as an additional check. One to see if you succeed, and one to see if you can do it without someone noticing in a room full of people.
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I understand the example above but what about bards and performance and their proficiency with instruments?
Let’s say that a bard is proficiency with flutes and he plays a song with his flute and had selected performance as one of his expertise skills. By the above statments he can’t add the bonus twice, so I understand that the proficiency with instruments here is used just to keep track on what instruments a bard knows how to play, right?
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Ok, here's the scenario:
Rogue level 10
Dex 20
Proficiency with Sleight of Hand
Proficiency with Thieves Tools
Expertise with Sleight of Hand
Expertise with Thieves Tools
So, if the DM calls for a Dex (Sleight of Hand) check to Disarm a Trap or Pick a Lock:
Dex (+5) + Proficiency SoH (+4) + Expertise SoH (+4) + Proficiency Tools (+4) + Expertise Tools(+4)
So, before even rolling a single die, that's a +21 to the Dex check to either Disarm a Trap or Pick a Lock.
Is that right, or am I missing something?
DCI: 3319125026
Either you add the Proficiency with Sleight of Hand or with the tools, not both. They are different checks.
Can you give some citations for that? I’m not seeing it.
DCI: 3319125026
From the PHB.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/phb/using-ability-scores#ProficiencyBonus
That doesn’t really apply because you aren’t adding it twice. You’re adding for two different things. The rule even calls out Expertise as an exception.
DCI: 3319125026
The DM only calls for one check - a Dex check, modified by your proficiency bonus, if it applies on the check, and doubled if appropriate. You still only add it once.
Xanathar's Guide covers tool proficiencies in better detail. The DM could reasonably give you advantage on the check in addition to double proficiency. But no, you would not get quadruple proficiency.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
The Expertise exception lets you double the proficiency bonus on the particular check. The general rule still applies. You can't apply the proficiency bonus more than once to a roll.
In your case, you are making a single Ability Check and you are adding the proficiency bonus twice to the roll.
When you make an ability check, it can be a raw ability check (such as "Dexterity"), a skill-based ability check (such as "Sleight of Hand", which ties to Dexterity unless the DM goes for the optional rule to ask for a different tied ability (Player's Handbook, page 175, or here)), or a tool-based ability check (such as "Thieve's Tools"). You do not make ability checks by combining skills and tools any more than you combine two different skills (which is to say, "not unless the DM says so" :) ).
The two traits from the example, Sleight of Hand and Thieves' Tools, do not have overlap.
From Sleight of Hand, (Player's Handbook, page 177, or here), we know its common usage: "act of legerdemain or manual trickery, such as planting something on someone else or concealing an object on your person", or "whether you can lift a coin purse off another person or slip something out of another person’s pocket."
From Thieves' Tools, (Player's Handbook, page 154, or here), we know their common usage: "Proficiency with these tools lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to disarm traps or open locks."
Even if they did have overlap, Filcat explains it with the raw, most generalized form of the rule: You cannot add your proficiency bonus (or your expertise) more than once in the same roll - it doesn't matter that they are different things (although that suggests different rolls), they would be the same roll. In fact, if you see the earliest encountered rule on Proficiency bonus (Player's Handbook, page 12, or here), you'll see that in its examples of usage, it differentiates between "Ability checks using skills you’re proficient in" and "Ability checks using tools you’re proficient with".
So, in your scenario, the roll should (usually) be a Dexterity (Thieves' Tools) roll to disarm a trap or pick a lock, for which you would have +13 (nothing to sneeze at. :p ).
To summarize:
It's not Dexterity (+5) + Proficiency (+4) + Expertise (+4)
It's Dexterity (+5) + Proficiency (+8 [doubled because of expertise])
Regardless of whether you have expertise or not, proficiency can only be added one time [per RAW]. Expertise isn't added separately, it doubles the existing proficiency bonus.
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Ok. Got it. Thanks.
DCI: 3319125026
Sorry to resurrect the thread, but the question does occur to me:
What is the point in taking Expertise with Thieves Tools then?
Or rather, is there any point to taking Expertise in Sleight of Hand and Thieves Tools when the vast majority of uses of the tools will be covered by the SoH Expertise?
DCI: 3319125026
It's going to depend on your DM and their interpretation of each skill, but Sleight of Hand typically wouldn't be a skill that you'd be using in a situation where Thieves' Tools are applicable.
If you wish to disarm a trap or open a lock, that uses thieves tools.
Sleight of hand is typically when you are trying to take a physical action, but conceal from someone what you are doing.
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Ah, ok.
Don't know where I was getting the idea that SoH was used for picking locks or disarming traps.
DCI: 3319125026
If you wanted to do it without someone noticing, they might have you make it as an additional check. One to see if you succeed, and one to see if you can do it without someone noticing in a room full of people.
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I understand the example above but what about bards and performance and their proficiency with instruments?
Let’s say that a bard is proficiency with flutes and he plays a song with his flute and had selected performance as one of his expertise skills. By the above statments he can’t add the bonus twice, so I understand that the proficiency with instruments here is used just to keep track on what instruments a bard knows how to play, right?
PbP Character: A few ;)