D&D’s May 2020 Unearthed Arcana introduced a new technique for class features: proficiency scaling. This means that the number of uses you get to use a feature based on a short rest is based on your proficiency bonus. As confirmed by D&D Designer Dan Dillon, this is new tech for D&D:

Let’s take a look at this new mechanic with an eye for evaluating the benefits and detriments versus the traditional methods.

Traditional Methods

5th Edition has typically employed a few methods to determine how many uses a character gets from a specific class feature.

X/Rest

Most features say that you get to use them a certain number of times per rest. Most often, this is once, although there’s technically nothing stopping the design team from telling you that you get more than one use per short or long rest. The Cleric’s Channel Divinity is built this way, with additional…