DWSI: skill bonus calculation bug
Hi, Minty. Thank you so much for working on this and sharing it with the rest of us! Your extension looks very helpful.
I may have discovered a problem, though:
I suspect you're incorrectly calculating the skill bonuses when in Wild Shape.
As a reminder for anyone reading along, a character's skill bonuses (not the proficiency bonus!) are the numbers in the Total fields on the Skills tab. They are derived from four values:
(A) ability modifier
(B) proficiency bonus
(M) proficiency multiplier
(X) miscellaneous bonus
The formula is: A + (B × M) + X
A is the ability modifier relevant to the skill in question.
B is 0, or the proficiency bonus if the character is proficient in the skill.
M is 1 usually, but can be 2 (double) or .5 (half) in some cases (PHB pg.173).
X is 0 unless you enter something in the MISC field (e.g. a magic item effect).
Meanwhile, beasts (like all monsters) have precalculated static skill bonuses in their stat block, so there is no need to derive them from a formula.
Regarding Wild Shape transformations, the rules say:
"Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast, but you retain your alignment, personality, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You also retain all of your skill and saving throw proficien*cies, in addition to gaining those of the creature. If the creature has the same proficiency as you and the bonus in its stat block is higher than yours, use the creature's bonus instead of yours."
With that in mind, one of your Wild Shape skill bonuses stands out:
Quote:
"Tthe total Skill bonuses (ability + proficiency), for the Skills that have proficiencies are:"
[...]
"Perception (Wis) +2 (+3) = +5"
The druid's perception bonus is +3. (derived: 3 + (0 × 1) + 0)
The weasel's perception bonus is +3. (static, from its stat block)
Yet you assigned +5 to the wild shape, which means you used neither the druid's bonus nor the weasel's bonus.
If I understand your explanation, you got +5 as follows:
1. Disregard the rules' direction to compare the character's bonus to the one in the creature's stat block and use the latter if it is higher.
2. Ignore the specific skill bonus printed in the weasel's stat block.
3. Cherry pick the general proficiency bonus printed for CR 1/8 monsters: +2 (You actually reverse engineered it, but there was no need, since it is printed in the Monster Manual.)
4. Cherry pick the druid's wisdom ability modifier: 3.
5. Use those two values, picked from different creatures, to derive a completely new skill bonus that is higher than the skill of either creature: 3 + (2 × 1) + 0 = +5.
The Wild Shape rules are worded awkwardly, but after re-reading them several times, I'm pretty sure this approach breaks them. The "specific beats general" rule seems to be broken here as well.
Even if I didn't care about the rules as written, I think I would still feel like I was cheating if I used this approach. I don't imagine that the designers intended Wild Shape to grant a proficiency exceeding that of both man and beast.
(I have a little trouble believing that they intended for pencil-and-paper players to manually calculate every skill bonus for every beast form, too. That seems like far too much work. Surely they must have had the simpler "pick one or the other" approach in mind.)
I guess maybe you got the idea from that Sage Advice podcast, wherein Jeremy Crawford suggests using the character's proficientcy bonus with the creature's dexterity modifier to derive a new stealth skill bonus. However, he also made three important clarifying points:
1. His example demonstrates a specific case where the character gains the creature's physical attributes while retaining his knowledge of the skill. This does not apply to our druid/weasel example, because the skill in question is not a physical skill.
2. It requires both the player and the creature to be proficient in the skill. Again, this does not apply to our druid/weasel example because our druid is not proficient in perception.
3. When comparing stats to determine who is better at the skill, the player's stats are compared to the creature's stat block. Since creature stat blocks do not list a proficiency bonus, but do list skill bonuses, we must conclude that he means to compare each party's skill bonus. (This makes sense, since any value not shown in a stat block would be unknown to players who have only the Player's Handbook as a reference.) Note that the deception skill bonus in our weasel's stat block is +3, which is the same as our druid's, not greater. If our druid was actually proficient in perception, his skill bonus would be +5, and we would obviously use that value in Wild Shape, but that simply is not the case in our example.
By the way, that podcast addresses a similar issue around 28 minutes in, where Jeremy considers the idea of combining a multiclass Druid/Monk's Unarmored Defense feature with the AC of a Wild Shape beast. Once again, he says you choose the higher of the two, but "you don't somehow cobble them together to come up with some [...] monstrously high armor class." This reinforces my view that Wild Shape should not grant a proficiency exceeding that of both man and beast.