Add level, even if untrained

[Penthau]

I am seeing this phrase all over the rules and it doesn't seem to fit what I think is the intent. It occurs in the Follow the Expert rules and the latest place I have seen it is the Veil spell.

"...it gives the targets a +4 status bonus to Deception checks to prevent others from seeing through their disguises, and add their level even if untrained."

What that means to me, if read literally, is that everyone gets to add their level to the deception skill whether they are trained or not. If it said "add their level, if they are untrained", it would say to me that only untrained people get to add their level.

Does everyone get to add their level to their Deception check, even if they are a level 20 master in Deception? Or do only untrained people add their level?

[Aservan]

If you are trained you already add your level to a skill. You add your level plus 2 for trained, Lvl +4 for expert, Lvl +6 for master, and Lvl +8 for legendary. Untrained characters only add their stat modifier. No level.

These abilities let untrained characters have a chance of success at higher levels. When you're 16th level the +16 matters a lot.

[WatersLethe]

What Aservan said.

They originally had it so that everyone always added their level to all skills, but untrained gave you a penalty. They switched it to untrained giving you nothing, but they added spells, feats, and actions like Follow the Expert to avoid cases where one player is totally hosed if the rest of the party wants to do a specific thing.

So, those "add their level, if they are untrained" is just pointing out "Hey, this allows you to add your level here, even if you normally couldn't"

[Claxon]

What the others said, but you are correct that the wording is a little confusing and could confuse someone into thinking that if they're trained or better proficiency that they might add their level twice, which would be incorrect.