Improving Proficiencies Once an adventurer possesses a proficiency, spending character points can improve the adventurerÆs performance when that proficiency is used. The section on using proficiencies describes how to determine an initial ratingùwhich varies for the different proficiencies and can be modified by character ability scores.

This initial rating can be improved by spending additional character points during the course of an adventurerÆs career. For the most part, new characters will have a beginning level of proficiency, though the DM and player may agree on a rationale to explain a novice characterÆs high degree of proficiency. A young woman who embarks on a life of adventure, for example, after being raised beside her fatherÆs potterÆs wheel, might have a significant level of accomplishment at the pottery skill.

Spending character points can improve an adventurerÆs proficiency performance. This is a one for one exchangeù1 character point increases the characterÆs chance of success by one. A nonweapon proficiency only can be increased through character points once each level.

As a general rule, adventurers can add 1 character point to a given proficiency each time they advance a level of experience. They donÆt have to use the point at the time they reach the new level.

For example, Bellerana the wizard advances from 2nd to 3rd level. She spends 1 character point to improve her rope use proficiency. And she spends another to improve spellcraft.

It is possible to create exceptions to this limitation. A character who ceases adventuring for a while, and devotes much of that time to farming or laboring in a blacksmith shop, might continually improve his agriculture or blacksmith proficiency even while he does not advance in levels in his character class.

Maximum Ratings and Automatic Failure

Characters cannot improve their unmodified ratings in nonweapon proficiencies above 16. This can be modified upward by the charactersÆ relevant ability scores, or by a trait that improves their score in that specific proficiency.

Regardless of how high a characterÆs modified proficiency rating becomes, a roll of 20 on a proficiency check is always a failure.

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