SOURCE: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Rating the Benefits of Prodigy

Benefit #1 – 

Gain one skill proficiency, one tool proficiency, and the ability to speak one language

A wide selection of useful goodies. Nothing here is standout exceptional, but combined they’re a pretty little package which almost every character can find great use for, especially considering the second part of the feat. 

Benefit #2 – 

Choose a skill that you have proficiency in, and double your proficiency bonus whenever you use that skill. 

This feature is Expertise, without calling it Expertise. 

There is no single way of being better at skills than the Expertise feature, and this is an easy way to grab it in classes that otherwise don’t have the option. 

Mechanics and Requirements

Understanding How It Functions

The Prodigy feat offers a widespread list of benefits;

• One skill proficiency
• One tool proficiency
• One language
• Expertise in one skill

Skill Proficiency

Skills dictate most of what a character does outside of combat in D&D. There are 18 skills, split between 5 ability scores, and between class and background, a character can expect to start with 4 to 6 skill choices. 

Between a standard party, most skills should be accounted for. It’s common for a party to contain a “skill monkey” character that handles the general load for the most common skill rolls. 

With that said, redundancy is never bad, especially considering 5e accommodates multiple party members using the same skill (if you use the help action, an ally can gain advantage on the check.)

So gaining a skill proficiency is nice, especially if it’s coming slightly later, at level 4 or 8, when the party might have more of an idea of what skills are useful in their particular campaign, and what skills their group currently lacks.

Failing that, proficiency in any of the major skills that are most commonly used, but weren’t taken at character creation, is always worth it. Consider taking:

• Perception – Every character should probably have proficiency in this. It’s the seeing things skill, and used in situations as varied as “finding the hidden door” to “not getting ambushed and dogpiled by the kobolds hiding on the ceiling”
• Athletics – The doing things skill. If you’re climbing, jumping, wrestling with a monster, swimming, or any other physical challenge, that’s Athletics. 
• Stealth – Stealth doesn’t come up often, but when it does, you’ll wish you had proficiency. Unsurprisingly, Stealth is the hiding from things skill. 
• Survival – At least one member of the party should have this skill unless you’re stubbornly urbanite and hate the color green. It’s the finding of food and animals in the wild skill. A party with survival can forage on the run, and should never get lost, as long as they can see the sky. 
• Persuasion – The talking to things skill. Persuasion is essential in 5e unless everyone’s playing a party of mute badasses in long coats who stand in the corner and glower. Honestly, the Bard or Rogue probably already has this, but more people being good at the words is never a bad thing. 

Tool Proficiency

Compared to skills, tools come up less often, unless you’re using variant rules that add tool proficiencies to skill checks. Sometimes, it’s obvious; going on a round the world sailing journey? Navigators’ tools or Cartographer’s tools are probably gonna be very useful. But in a standard dungeon crawling adventure? Not so much. 

But there’s nothing stopping a permissive and on-point GM from playing with tool proficiencies, letting a character skilled in, say, stoneworking to examine the errant noble’s castle and gain a bonus to realizing that there’s a false wall in the bedroom they are staying in. 

On top of this, tools add an absolute ton of flavor and roleplaying opportunities. The grizzled, hardened Barbarian understanding the intricacies of early-century tapestry weaving asks so many questions that demand answers. A little thought when choosing tools adds easy depth and interest to any character. 

Learn a Language

Again, every character learns languages at character creation, generally starting with one or two from their racial aspects, and maybe picking up another one or two from their background. Occasionally, class features also offer languages, but normally what you start with is what you get. 

Often, your GM can help a party with language selection, subtly hinting at what might be useful in the coming sessions. Other times, the campaign itself makes the choice simple (We’re playing Storm King’s Thunder, about the return of the Giants? I’ll learn Gnomish, that’ll help!)

But because a character’s languages tend to be fixed at character creation, and learning new ones uses the downtime rules and takes literal in-game months, sometimes there’s a glaring omission in the party’s language base. 

While it’s probably the least useful part of the Prodigy feat, a bonus language is never bad, especially on characters with social skills who can make the best use of it. 

(Not) Expertise

The last thing the Prodigy feat does is let the character taking it choose a skill they have proficiency in, then double their proficiency bonus whenever they use that skill. 

Let’s be real, this is the Expertise feature of the Bard and Rogue, without calling it that. 

We’ll be frank. This is crazy strong, and the real draw of the Prodigy feat. Expertise is generally locked behind class features, and available to a very limited number of classes that are built around being good at the skill challenge sections of the game. 

Being able to glue that into any class and build, at the low cost of a feat, while also picking up all of these bonuses? Incredible. 

But why is Expertise so good?

Without delving into the maths (that’s later in the guide, if you’re interested) Expertise puts a character above the expected level of success for challenges at their character level. 

What this means is that a character with Expertise is outright better than a character without Expertise, and there is literally no way for that gap to be broached. Someone with Expertise is always, and will always, be outright better than someone without it. 

Again, if you wanna be the best at something, this is the way to do it. 

Is Prodigy actually good?

One of the biggest problems with comparable feats that offer skills and languages (like Skilled and Linguist, hah) is that they’re too linear and limited by what’s on offer.

But for once, a feat having a broad swathe of benefits isn’t a downside! Enough of what Prodigy does is going to be useful for many characters. Lots of parties can always use a spare skill or language as they push deeper into a campaign, and this is without factoring in Expertise, which is such a big boost to the chosen skill that it could even be considered near-essential in a lot of cases. 

Key Stats

The Prodigy feat doesn’t boost a character’s stats, though it does need stats to operate. Every skill in 5e is tied to a stat bonus, and if you’re planning on taking Expertise in a skill, then boosting the stat tied to it is probably also pretty important to your overall game plan of being super awesome at it. 

Ideal Characters for Prodigy

Top Classes

Fighter – But … the Fighter should be hitting things? How does this feat make me better at, y’know, Fightering?

Calm down, Conan, and put that chair back on the floor. Most 5e campaigns aren’t pure combat, and a character with nothing to do in the out of combat segments except clank around like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz can start to feel useless, and worse, be boring to play. 

Prodigy is one way of solving that issue, adding skills, tools, and languages to a class that traditionally lacks a little in all three areas. Expertise adds mechanical power as well as RP benefits, too. A Fighter with unparalleled knowledge of Religion? That’s interesting, and a serious story hook. 

Finally, the Fighter gains more ASIs than every other class in the game, meaning if any build has space for a utility feat like this one, it’s absolutely them. 

Warlock – The Warlock as a class is one of the least feat-reliant in 5e, so tends to have space for feats that don’t directly contribute to combat. Warlocks also naturally build very high Charisma, which makes taking Expertise in Persuasion (always a good option) or Deception an easy choice. 

Our choice of subclass is Genie, both because it’s a strong general purpose Warlock with a great list of bonus spells, damage boosts, and other abilities, and because their genie’s vessel feature can double as a portable, mobile base and crafting station for all of your shiny new skills and tools. 

Druid – The humble Druid is much better at skill usage than their class descriptions would suggest. High Wisdom naturally lends itself to Perception and Insight, both of which are great choices for Expertise. The class also tends to like proficiency in Survival and Nature, plus tools like Brewers and Woodcarvers kits, or the Herbalism kit. 

Alternatively, take Expertise in Stealth. There’s not much scarier than a bear that can perfectly hide itself behind a knee high shrub. 

No specific Circle lends itself to the feat, so build for purpose. Moon turns into animals and kills things up close and personal. Wildfire is a blaster with a summoning pet. Stars is a generalist with a lean toward consistent DPS, and Shepherd is a strong summoner with great party focus. There are skills for all of these. The world is your oyster, especially when you can turn into an actual oyster. 

Multiclassing Considerations

Instead of taking Prodigy, a character might consider multiclassing into a single level of Rogue. Instead of taking a feat, a character splashing a single level of Rogue gains:

• A skill choice
• Two Expertise choices
• Proficiency in Thieve’s Tools, one of the few ways to get it besides backgrounds
• A fixed language choice, in Thieves Cant, which can’t be learned anywhere else

In addition, a level in Rogue also gives the character

• 1d6 Sneak Attack, a solid boost to damage when using finesse or ranged weapons

Race or Subrace Choices

The Prodigy feat is available to Humans, Half-Elves, and Half Orcs, and it’s useful for all of them. 

Of these, base Human is the least interesting, though variant Human’s feat at character generation lets a character grab this from as early as level 1. 

The flexibility of Half-Elves as a race, choosing from a list of perks at creation, works well with the benefits here, leading to a character with a full suite of skills and abilities, even if their class wouldn’t generally offer it. 

Finally, the Half-Orc’s racial traits are heavily focused on combat, but most campaigns aren’t purely combat focused. Adding skills and languages to a build really fleshes it out, and can help to bring flavor and function both to something that might otherwise feel a little dull like the Fighter.  

Combos, Tactics, and Synergies

Complementary Feats

Observant – +5 to passive Perception or Investigation is a colossal bonus that’s almost unmatched. Combining it with Expertise builds a proto-Sherlock Holmes that notices every tiny detail, without even rolling 

Actor – While it’s very niche in focus, you can combine the Actor feat’s ability to mimic other creatures, with Advantage on the check using the Expertise of Prodigy to create a chameleonic master of disguise. 

Skilled – The Skilled feat is similar to Prodigy but different enough that there are defined reasons to take both. More on this later in the guide. 

Spells that Synergize

Enhance Ability – Advantage on specific ability checks, for up to an hour. Plus you can change the ability focus every time the spell is cast. Fun for the whole party. 

Guidance – +1d4 on skill checks outside of combat is just absurdly strong for a cantrip effect. Someone should always be able to cast this. It’s that good. 

Strategies for Maximizing Prodigy Effectiveness

Choosing to be an Expert

Choosing which skill to spend your single Expertise choice on can be a struggle because there are a lot of good choices out there. Here’s a quick guide to the most common, and most useful, options for becoming an Expert:

Perception

Possibly the most rolled skill in 5e, it’s hard to overstate how important Perception is as a skill. 

Spotting ambushes before they happen. Noticing the key in the corner of the dark and dusty room. Accurately counting the number of enemies tracking your party from half a mile away. The uses are endless. 

If you’re deliberating over which skill to boost, Perception is never a bad one. You’ll thank the gods you took it, literally every single time your party steps into a new room and your GM asks you to roll again. 

Persuasion

Unless your campaign has gone full murderhobo, someone in the party has to handle the social load. Failing a key Persuasion roll can have just as dire effects as failing to dodge an incoming ax. Angry kings and queens are notoriously dangerous, it just might take a little longer to land. 

Advantage in Persuasion, especially for characters already high in Charisma (so Bards, Paladin, Warlocks, and Sorcerers) is an easy and obvious choice. Nothing says the dark mage with literal shadows for blood can’t be everyone’s friend, right?

Athletics

There are two reasons to consider Expertise in Athletics:

One, you’re going to be scurrying around rooftops, climbing the masts and rigging of a sailing ship, climbing through ancient ruins, or plumbing the depths of the oceans, all of which use the skill. 

Or two, and probably more likely, you’ve built a grappling build. 

Grappling is decided entirely through skill contests in 5e, and as we’ve illustrated in this guide, a character with Expertise is just better than anyone without it. 

Most creatures, and many characters, aren’t going to have proficiency in Athletics. This means their roll is only boosted by their Strength stat, so probably somewhere between +3 and +6. 

But our grappler gets to add double his proficiency bonus to that. Plus, if you’re making a proper grappling build, should also have Advantage on the check from a feature like Barbarian Rage. (Barbs make great grapplers.) So you’re far more likely than not to win, and against certain creatures, there’s almost zero chance of failure. 

If your dream has always been to piledrive a storm giant through a whole building, the Prodigy feat is one way to realize it. 

Stealth

Stealth in 5e is a strange beast. While there’s a Stealth skill, sneaking around is often handled better through magic like Invisibility or other means (familiars make awesome Stealth buddies.)

There’s also the issue of party Stealth. No one likes sitting there for twenty minutes while the Rogue player sneaks off solo, but sneaking as a party has its own complications, especially if several members of it are clanking around in 50 lbs of plate and steel. 

But a playful party and permissive GM can awesome memories make, and if your character concept involves sneaking and thievery, the Stealth skill is a necessity. 

Again, Expertise makes it easy. The +10 bonus of a level 5 character easily outclasses the passive perception of common threats like standard guards (passive perception 12, only failing on a 1) and even things like Ogres (passive perception 8! Only failing on a critical failure. So, um, 1.)

Situational knowledge skills

Knowledge skills tend to come up infrequently in 5e, but occasionally, a campaign is structured in a way that makes picking one up a very good investment. 

Delving into the elemental planes, or running your own Baldur’s Gate 3 illithid invasion? Arcana is gonna be very useful. 

Demons welling up from the lower depths, and angels descending to meet them in glorious combat? Religion is now your best friend. 

While it’s possibly the last thing we’d consider from this list, if your campaign meets the requirements, situational knowledge can literally save a life. 

The value of Expertise

To someone unfamiliar with the maths behind 5e, Expertise might not seem like that strong a buff, but how strong is it, really?

The answer is simple. Expertise is incredibly strong and remains so at every single level of the game. 

Consider this: At 1st level, a character’s proficiency bonus is +2. Expertise doubles this when a character uses their specialist skill. +2 on a d20 roll is equivalent to a 10% increase, so Expertise directly translates to a 10% greater chance of passing a check. 

The maths looks even more lopsided as a character levels, and their proficiency bonus improves, from the starting +2 all the way to +6. 

D&D 5e is built around “bounded accuracy,” which means that skill challenges should always remain within a relatively narrow band, making them at least achievable to most builds, and relatively balanced around optimized characters. 

Expertise takes that equation, calls it a nerd, and then breaks it over its knee. If you want to be the best at something, Expertise is, unsurprisingly, the best way to do that. 

Why does this matter? Let’s look at a Very Hard challenge, rated at DC25. A character has to roll at least 25 on their skill check to pass. 

Our character has proficiency in their skill, and the stat for it is as high as it can be for their level. 

At level 5, a character without Expertise has +7 (3 from proficiency, 4 from stats.) 

They pass on 18, a 15% chance. Unlikely at best. 

A character with Expertise instead has a bonus of +10 (3 from proficiency, 3 from Expertise, 4 from stats)

They pass on a 15, or a 30% chance, twice as likely. 

At higher levels, the math becomes even more stark. 

At level 13, a character without Expertise has a bonus of + 10 (5 from proficiency, 5 from stats)

They now pass on a 15, exactly what Expertise gave our super special skilled character… 8 levels ago. 

The character with Expertise now has a colossal bonus of +15 (5 from Prof. 5 from Expertise, 5 from stats.) They pass on a 10, meaning they now pass Very Hard challenges more often than they fail. And this is without further boosts to the skill roll, which is very easy to find in 5e. 

In fact, at this level, a character with Expertise even passes Impossible challenges (DC30, the highest in the standard rule set) 30% of the time. This is, again, without stacking further bonuses onto the roll. So let’s talk about how to make this even stronger. 

Pushing Expertise further

Do you want to annoy or frustrate the GM? Do you want to take their carefully crafted campaign, with all of its thoughtfully designed challenges with balanced DC checks, and laugh in its face? Okay, maybe that’s extreme, but if a person was so inclined, they absolutely could create a character that all but ignores skill challenges, automatically passing anything that’s not a godly level challenge. 

Here’s how you do this:

• Advantage – Advantage is the easiest way to gain a major boost to a skill check. There are so many ways to gain it, that this guide can’t touch on all of them. Possibly the simplest one is the Enhance Ability spell, available on multiple spell lists, which gives a character Advantage on all checks using one stat for up to an hour, plus possible further benefits.
  
  Either way, rolling two dice and picking the highest is a major bonus. Especially when you stack more on top of it. 
• Guidance – It’s honestly crazy that Guidance is a cantrip. +1d4 to a skill check or saving throw is incredibly strong, especially when it can be cast an infinite amount of times per day. One member of a well made party should always have Guidance, as it’s basically an average of +2.5 to every skill roll the party ever makes. 
• Bardic Inspiration – One of the Bard’s core abilities is a pool of dice that can be given to allies to boost attack rolls, saves, or importantly for us, skill checks. A Bard gains up to five dice per day, which come back on short rests from level 5, with multiple ways to spend them depending on the subclass. 
• Minimum roll features – Several subclasses, for example, the Inquisitive Rogue and Eloquence Bard, have a minimum number they can roll on particular skill checks. Combining this with Expertise can push that minimum up to ridiculous levels. Take the Eloquence Bard for example, which treats any roll lower than a 9 on Persuasion checks as a 9. Adding Expertise to this means every roll for Persuasion the character makes from as early as level 5 is at least a 16!

Prodigy versus Skill Expert

Sharp eyed readers might have already realized that the Prodigy feat is similar in intent and feeling to the Skill Expert feat. 

Skill Expert also gives a character taking it a skill option, then allows that character to choose a skill they have proficiency in to gain Expertise. 

The difference comes in what else comes with it. Prodigy offers more utility benefits in a tool choice and language. This is better for characters handling the skill load of a balanced party. 

Skill Expert instead offers half an ASI, in any stat. The variability of being able to choose from any of the six stats is very strong, and something not offered by many other feats. To counter that, for characters with even ability scores, and no intent to take further feats that give ASIs, it does nothing. 

So take whichever fits your build best. Does your character want extra skills and supplementary abilities, or do they need to even out an odd stat for that essential stat boost? There’s your answer for which feat to choose. 

Final Thoughts on Prodigy

Every party needs at least one member good at the skills section of the game, and the Prodigy feat turns any character into a budget Bard. 

Between the availability of the feat across racial options, the fact that it can be picked up at level 1 by variant Humans, and the sheer range of stuff on offer here, there’s a surprising amount of play in Prodigy, especially considering most skill feats tend to fall flat. 

It’s a solid feat, is what we’re saying. Prodigy offers a ton of stuff, including the extremely limited, and extremely powerful Expertise (as if we haven’t said that enough in this guide.) 

It’s never going to make a character a killing machine, but for the other half of the game, there’s so much here to love.