LBK:Skills

Tool benefits
Some skills use tools, this section doesn't apply to skills/specialisations that don't. Although, some mastercraft items provide bonuses to skills that don't normally use tools.

Tools provide three benefits to skill checks:
 * 1) They can allow the check to be made at all (eg. you can't fire a bow without a bow) or negate the penalty for not having the right tools (eg. crafting a tool using only ones hands and improvised tools)
 * 2) The "perfect tool for the job" raises the tool cap (see next section).
 * 3) If that tool is especially well-made (mastercraft), it can provide a bonus itself to skill checks with that tool.

Tool cap
If the skill requires a tool to be used, and a character has the right tools i.e. the "perfect tool for the job", then the skill bonus is capped at 5 + the tool's quality (to a maximum of 10, the absolute cap) -- this "quality" is different to mastercraft but all mastercraft tools have quality of 5 (the maximum).

If the character lacks the appropriate tool, then the skill either cannot be performed at all or can be performed at a -5 penalty. Substitute/improvised tools can negate this -5 penalty (though there are sometimes still other penalties such as material wastage for crafting).

Absolute cap
A bonus to a skill roll can never exceed +10. Bonuses eventually have so much overlapping benefit that bonuses that exceed +10 are negligible or redundant. Players can still take 10 (when they can otherwise do so ofc) so they can still make a DC of 20 without a roll (and most DCs are 20 or below).

It's not pointless to exceed +10 to a skill since bonuses can still negate penalties and for every +2 above +10, a bonus die is rolled with the skill check.