Skill Expert Feat 5E Guide

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything wants to let anyone excel in their field, if they’re willing to put in the effort. This is not the first time that a feat could give someone the Expertise class feature. However, with Skill Expert, anyone can become a complete and utter god at whatever they focus on! With time and energy, you’ve excelled in your field. But, is Expertise worth it? Or should it remain a class feature? Find out in our Skill Expert Feat 5E guide!

The skill Expert feat allows you to increase any ability score by +1. It also gives you proficiency in any single skill of your choice. Finally, you double your proficiency bonus in any skill in which you have proficiency. You cannot double the proficiency bonus of any skill that already has been doubled.

Pros

Wow, this is flexible! Any +1 ability score is as open as possible. You can choose your Primary skill, a secondary skill, Constitution, a casting stat… The world is your oyster! And it means you’re really only losing half of your Ability Score Improvement. And you’re getting a bunch of stuff in return!

You’re proficient in any one skill you’d like. It doesn’t even need to be attached to your Ability Score improvement! That’s pretty cool! You can get a +1 in Intelligence and Athletics proficiency. I’m… Not sure how that makes sense, but the flexibility is still incredibly cool.

Finally, you gain the Expertise class feature on a skill of your choice… Which is completely unrelated to the first or the second benefit! Doubling your proficiency bonus adds an (eventual) +6 to that check. You’ll be hard to beat, even by those with better Ability Scores than you! If you’ve ever wanted to be outstanding in your field, this feat is for you!

The fact that all of these are either separated or not separated, based on your preference, is absolutely incredible!

Cons

There’s… not many! You can argue that the skill proficiency and Expertise is not worth losing the extra +1 to an Ability Score. That’s super valid! +2 to your ability score guarantees that you get an extra +1 to your rolls with that score. That’s possibly more consistent in combat, certainly! Your skill proficiency might not help as much in a fight.

Potential Builds

But… Holy crap is this good! Are you a Sorcerer who wants to make Persuasion checks? Well, this feat gives a +1 to Charisma, Persuasion proficiency, and Persuasion Expertise! How about a Barbarian who wants to Grapple the world? Well, then this gives +1 to Strength (or Constitution, or Dexterity!), Proficiency in Nature, and Athletics Expertise!

This feat is theoretically good with any class, as long as that build has a specific, out-of-combat (or even in-combat) focus on a particular skill. If there’s a skill check that you cannot miss in order for your character to work, then this feat will help you! The more often you do the skill check, the better this feat gets.

Conclusions

This has a ton of potential, but does slow down how useful you are in combat. We recommend that you get to a comfortable point where the +1 to an Ability Score won’t ruin your growth. Then, the skill proficiency and expertise (on basically anything you can dream of) will be extremely useful!