Baldur's Gate 3 often has players roll a D20 to determine if they pass or fail a skill check. While there is a lot of randomness to those rolls, proficiency will add to that roll to increase your odds of passing the skill check.
While having a negative modifier to a roll is possible, you'll want to prioritize making checks that you're proficient in. There are many different things to be proficient in, ranging from specific gear, skills, or saving throws.
Proficiency Bonus
In Baldur's Gate 3, Proficiency and Proficiency bonuses are different. A player's proficiency is determined by the character's race, background, feat, class, and abilities. Your Proficiency bonus is universal, with all characters starting at +2. Your proficiency bonus can be seen at the top of your character menu. Every few levels you gain, your proficiency bonus will increase. Your proficiency bonus is applied to the following:
- Attack rolls with weapons or spells you're proficient in.
- Ability checks with skills you're proficient in.
- Saving throws for skill checks, you're proficient in.
Skill Proficiency
Being Proficient in a skill gives you a bonus to the dice roll when performing a check for that skill. Each skill is linked to its applicable ability score. You get a higher bonus for a skill depending on your ability score for the skill's applicable ability. Depending on how your character is built, you can be proficient in a specific skill to gain an additional bonus along with the bonus for the corresponding ability. When making a skill-saving throw, you'll add the abilities bonus and the skill's bonus to your final roll. Your skills menu can be found along the left side of your character menu, showing you each bonus applied to all the available skills. Each skill is effected by one ability as listed below:
|
Ability |
Skills |
|---|---|
|
Strength |
Athletics |
|
Intelligence |
Religion, Arcana, History, Investigation, Religion, |
|
Wisdom |
Animal Handling, Insight, Survival, Medicine |
|
Dexterity |
Acrobatics, Sleight Of Hand, Stealth, |
|
Charisma |
Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, Performance |
|
Constitution |
Constitution doesn't have any skills but does receive a lot of ability checks and saving throws making it worth being proficient in for any build. |
Proficient & Not Proficient
Being proficient with a weapon type will give you additional abilities to use with the weapon, along with applying your proficiency bonus on attack rolls. Not being proficient with a weapon or armor type will have you rolling disadvantage on checks that apply to that gear piece. Disadvantage will roll two dice and take the lower of the two options. Disadvantage will lead to big issues in difficult situations, making it important to be proficient with all the weapons and armor you have equipped.