Applying half your proficiency bonus still count as applying your proficiency bonus though, otherwise you would be able to stack them.
I'm not sure I understand. The only time you can apply 1/2 your proficiency is with Jack of All Trades which is ONLY allowed when you can NOT apply your proficiency. So there is explicitly no way to stack the 1/2 proficiency bonus of Jack of All Trades with proficiency. So adding 1/2 proficiency is not the same thing as adding proficiency.
Applying half your proficiency bonus still count as applying your proficiency bonus though, otherwise you would be able to stack them.
I'm not sure I understand. The only time you can apply 1/2 your proficiency is with Jack of All Trades which is ONLY allowed when you can NOT apply your proficiency. So there is explicitly no way to stack the 1/2 proficiency bonus of Jack of All Trades with proficiency. So adding 1/2 proficiency is not the same thing as adding proficiency.
It's not the only way, Remarkable Athlete is another way to add half your proficiency bonus to a check. Hence why Sage Advice says:
Remarkable Athlete and Jack of All Trades don’t work with each other, since you can add your proficiency bonus, or any portion thereof, only once to a roll.
Hare-Trigger is a simple but effective trait. Each time you roll for initiative, you add your proficiency bonus to that roll."
Reliable talent says
"By 11th level, you have refined your chosen skills until they approach perfection. Whenever you make an ability check that lets you add your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10."
As a result, a Harengon rogue CAN apply reliable talent to their initiative rolls because they specifically get to add their proficiency to the roll.
However, expertise is only allowed for "skill proficiencies" and initiative is NOT a skill proficiency so a character can not apply expertise to initiative rolls.
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Finally, on the topic of Jack of All Trades. There are two equally good reasons why it doesn't work with Reliable Talent and both are RAW.
"Starting at 2nd level, you can add half your proficiency bonus, rounded down, to any ability check you make that doesn't already include your proficiency bonus."
1) Jack of All Trades allows a character to add half their proficiency rounded down to ability checks where they are not proficient. Half of the proficiency is NOT the same as adding a character's proficiency. Clearly the values are NOT the same and reliable talent requires the addition of the proficiency bonus (not 1/2 of it) in order to be active.
2) Reliable Talent applies to checks where you add your proficiency bonus. Jack of all Trades only applies to rolls which do NOT include your proficiency bonus. As a result, Reliable Talent can't possibly apply to the same situation as Jack of All Trades since one applies when the full proficiency bonus is applied and the other does not.
Finally, Jack of All Trades can not be used to boost a Harengon initiative even farther since it only applies to rolls which do not already include the proficiency bonus.
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TL;DR: Harengon rogue can use reliable talent with initiative rolls since they add their proficiency. Expertise does not apply since it is not a skill. The situation is NOT the same as Jack of All Trades.
Your first point that I highlighted mistakenly regards half proficiency as not counting as proficiency. This is wrong according to the rules, which I took the time to quote earlier. Proficiency bonus halved, multiplied, or left alone counts as using your proficiency. Unless your willing to somehow say that doubling proficiency, or expertise, is not proficiency.
the second point is also mistaken, as the reliable talent feature wording isn’t written in a way that makes timing matter. The feature merely requires that you add your proficiency bonus. It doesn’t care how or why.
I don’t care one way or the other about the feature interaction, I’m merely pointing out that the reasoning provided by the tweet and sage advice blatantly disregards the RAW. Which again, is why I introduced an example of how the feature should have been errata’d if they intended the features to be incompatible with one another.
I do not dispute that the harangon cannot make use of jack of all trades and hair trigger, they both add proficiency bonus which isn’t allowed per the jack of all trades feature AND the proficiency general rules.
Here are the things I'm looking at mechanics wise and comparing wording:
Jack of All Trades: Starting at 2nd level, you can add half your proficiency bonus, rounded down, to any ability check you make that doesn’t already include your proficiency bonus. (This does apply to initiative.)
Expertise: At 1st level, choose two of your skill proficiencies, or one of your skill proficiencies and your proficiency with thieves’ tools. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability checkyou make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies. (Initiative is an ability check. Maybe it's poor wording since this is from the PHB?)
Reliable talent: By 11th level, you have refined your chosen skills until they approach perfection. Whenever you make an ability checkthat lets you add your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10. (This would work since initiative is a DEX ability check?)
Important bit in red.
Hare-Trigger
You can add your proficiency bonus to your initiative rolls.
Neither Expertise nor Jack of Alll Trades work.
Expertise: You cannot take Proficiency in Initiative (adding your proficiency bonus isn't the same as having proficiency, which is required for Expertise)
Jack of All Trades: You add your Proficiency Bonus to your Initiative due to Hare Trigger (which cancels Jack of All Trades).
Technically "can" does not mean "must" so you could opt NOT to add your Proficiency Bonus to your initiative roll which would allow you to use Reliable Talent but since the latter only gives half-proficiency I have to question why anyone would choose to do so.
I guess reliable talent is up to your table. Initiative is an ability check, and for a harengon, it applies your proficiency bonus.
It is not, however, one of a character's chosen skills. The first sentence of reliable talent says that it is intended to work with the character's chosen skills (presumably chosen by taking proficiency in those skills). That is a minor nitpick, but it sure shows RAI, and it is written in the rule. It could be grounds for a group to disallow using reliable talent on initiative.
I guess reliable talent is up to your table. Initiative is an ability check, and for a harengon, it applies your proficiency bonus.
It is not, however, one of a character's chosen skills. The first sentence of reliable talent says that it is intended to work with the character's chosen skills (presumably chosen by taking proficiency in those skills). That is a minor nitpick, but it sure shows RAI, and it is written in the rule. It could be grounds for a group to disallow using reliable talent on initiative.
The intent is definitely to not allow jack of all trades to work with reliable talent. I just want the jack of all trades wording to change to reflect that since it would be the easiest change with the least amount of ripple effect. Especially since it’s what’s called out by the tweet and sage advice for being the reason. The wording should reflect that.
a simple change from “you can add half your proficiency bonus” to “you can add a bonus equal to half your proficiency bonus” would solve this. A bonus equal to your proficiency is not actually your proficiency bonus. They did this with hexblades curse. They also did this with several subclass features in tashas. My issue is the answer to the problem already exists within the games rules and they won’t apply it.
Here are the things I'm looking at mechanics wise and comparing wording:
Jack of All Trades: Starting at 2nd level, you can add half your proficiency bonus, rounded down, to any ability check you make that doesn’t already include your proficiency bonus. (This does apply to initiative.)
Expertise: At 1st level, choose two of your skill proficiencies, or one of your skill proficiencies and your proficiency with thieves’ tools. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability checkyou make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies. (Initiative is an ability check. Maybe it's poor wording since this is from the PHB?)
Reliable talent: By 11th level, you have refined your chosen skills until they approach perfection. Whenever you make an ability checkthat lets you add your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10. (This would work since initiative is a DEX ability check?)
Important bit in red.
Hare-Trigger
You can add your proficiency bonus to your initiative rolls.
Neither Expertise nor Jack of Alll Trades work.
Expertise: You cannot take Proficiency in Initiative (adding your proficiency bonus isn't the same as having proficiency, which is required for Expertise)
Reliable Talent: You add your Proficiency Bonus to your Initiative due to Hare Trigger (which cancels Reliable Talent).
Technically "can" does not mean "must" so you could opt NOT to add your Proficiency Bonus to your initiative roll which would allow you to use Reliable Talent but since the latter only gives half-proficiency I have to question why anyone would choose to do so.
I think you mean "Jack of All trades" is "cancelled" by hare-trigger, since you add your full proficiency bonus, not half of it.
Hare-trigger means that your initiative rolls qualify for reliable talent.
Yes, sorry. I confused myself, haha. You are correct, I meant Hare Trigger cancels Jack of All Trades.
Ah, so if I'm understanding that correctly the Rabbit Hop is still constrained by the total movement a character has in a given turn. It just gives the character a bonus action Disengage as well as another way of calculating total jumping distance.
That's still pretty cool. Feels more balanced too, tbh. A bonus action Disengage+Dash in one would have been pretty bonkers.
Ah, so if I'm understanding that correctly the Rabbit Hop is still constrained by the total movement a character has in a given turn. It just gives the character a bonus action Disengage as well as another way of calculating total jumping distance.
That's still pretty cool. Feels more balanced too, tbh. A bonus action Disengage+Dash in one would have been pretty bonkers.
No. What he says is that Rabbit Hop does not expend movement, it is extra.
So it is a bonus action disengage+dash, but it is limited in how many times you can use it in a day.
Ah, so if I'm understanding that correctly the Rabbit Hop is still constrained by the total movement a character has in a given turn. It just gives the character a bonus action Disengage as well as another way of calculating total jumping distance.
That's still pretty cool. Feels more balanced too, tbh. A bonus action Disengage+Dash in one would have been pretty bonkers.
No. What he says is that Rabbit Hop does not expend movement, it is extra.
So it is a bonus action disengage+dash, but it is limited in how many times you can use it in a day.
Ahhh, I totally misread the post. Thanks for clarifying, that makes sense.
I'm not sure I understand. The only time you can apply 1/2 your proficiency is with Jack of All Trades which is ONLY allowed when you can NOT apply your proficiency. So there is explicitly no way to stack the 1/2 proficiency bonus of Jack of All Trades with proficiency. So adding 1/2 proficiency is not the same thing as adding proficiency.
It's not the only way, Remarkable Athlete is another way to add half your proficiency bonus to a check. Hence why Sage Advice says:
Remarkable Athlete and Jack of All Trades don’t work with each other, since you can add your proficiency bonus, or any portion thereof, only once to a roll.
Your first point that I highlighted mistakenly regards half proficiency as not counting as proficiency. This is wrong according to the rules, which I took the time to quote earlier. Proficiency bonus halved, multiplied, or left alone counts as using your proficiency. Unless your willing to somehow say that doubling proficiency, or expertise, is not proficiency.
the second point is also mistaken, as the reliable talent feature wording isn’t written in a way that makes timing matter. The feature merely requires that you add your proficiency bonus. It doesn’t care how or why.
I don’t care one way or the other about the feature interaction, I’m merely pointing out that the reasoning provided by the tweet and sage advice blatantly disregards the RAW. Which again, is why I introduced an example of how the feature should have been errata’d if they intended the features to be incompatible with one another.
I do not dispute that the harangon cannot make use of jack of all trades and hair trigger, they both add proficiency bonus which isn’t allowed per the jack of all trades feature AND the proficiency general rules.
Important bit in red.
Neither Expertise nor Jack of Alll Trades work.
Expertise: You cannot take Proficiency in Initiative (adding your proficiency bonus isn't the same as having proficiency, which is required for Expertise)
Jack of All Trades: You add your Proficiency Bonus to your Initiative due to Hare Trigger (which cancels Jack of All Trades).
Technically "can" does not mean "must" so you could opt NOT to add your Proficiency Bonus to your initiative roll which would allow you to use Reliable Talent but since the latter only gives half-proficiency I have to question why anyone would choose to do so.
I guess reliable talent is up to your table. Initiative is an ability check, and for a harengon, it applies your proficiency bonus.
It is not, however, one of a character's chosen skills. The first sentence of reliable talent says that it is intended to work with the character's chosen skills (presumably chosen by taking proficiency in those skills). That is a minor nitpick, but it sure shows RAI, and it is written in the rule. It could be grounds for a group to disallow using reliable talent on initiative.
The intent is definitely to not allow jack of all trades to work with reliable talent. I just want the jack of all trades wording to change to reflect that since it would be the easiest change with the least amount of ripple effect. Especially since it’s what’s called out by the tweet and sage advice for being the reason. The wording should reflect that.
a simple change from “you can add half your proficiency bonus” to “you can add a bonus equal to half your proficiency bonus” would solve this. A bonus equal to your proficiency is not actually your proficiency bonus. They did this with hexblades curse. They also did this with several subclass features in tashas. My issue is the answer to the problem already exists within the games rules and they won’t apply it.
Yes, sorry. I confused myself, haha. You are correct, I meant Hare Trigger cancels Jack of All Trades.
Thanks for catching that. :)
In a Ask The Sage Q&A at D&D Celebration, it was confirmed by Jeremy Crawford that Rabbit hop doesn't expand movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxb8xiDU5Kw (5:27)
Ah, so if I'm understanding that correctly the Rabbit Hop is still constrained by the total movement a character has in a given turn. It just gives the character a bonus action Disengage as well as another way of calculating total jumping distance.
That's still pretty cool. Feels more balanced too, tbh. A bonus action Disengage+Dash in one would have been pretty bonkers.
No. What he says is that Rabbit Hop does not expend movement, it is extra.
So it is a bonus action disengage+dash, but it is limited in how many times you can use it in a day.
Ahhh, I totally misread the post. Thanks for clarifying, that makes sense.
I would counter your last point, as then Reliable Talent wouldn't work with skills gained from boons, magic items, or spells.