Tools

Tools are an integral part of the game, yet often their rules can cause confusion or friction. So these adjustments are meant to streamline the game and give them a greater purpose.

Tools have more specific applications than skills. Yet the History skill applies to any event in the past. A tool such as a forgery kit is used to make fake objects and little else.
Thus, why would a character who has the opportunity to acquire one or the other want to gain a tool proficiency instead of proficiency in a skill?

In this campaign, tools get additional benefits to make them viable in more situations. When a player asks for a check, they can ask or attempt to proclaim how their tool can benefit them, the DM can then allow them to add their proficiency bonus to the check. Depending on the circumstance, the DM can allow for rolls with advantage instead.

For example, someone proficient with Alchemist or Herbalism kits can now add their proficiency bonus to checks involving potions,
herbs and alchemical ingredients, potentially discovering that a potion is fake, or how to recreate it.

The player can ask: "Can I perhaps with my proficiency in alchemist kits, study the potion in attempts to discern the ingredients?"

Tools appear in four types: Artisan Tools, Gaming Sets, Musical Instruments and Miscellaneous.

Artisan Tools

Each Artisan tool now grants a Tool Skill Bonus, please note that these Tool Skill Bonuses are determined once you gain proficiency in a tool.
A player can suggest an minor skill. Tool activities show examples of how you could use your tool. Consult your DM for the possibility in the given situation.

Tool

Tool Skill

Tool Activities

Alchemist's supplies

Add proficiency bonus to
resisting poison.

  • Create a puff of thick smoke

  • Identify a poison

  • Identify a substance

  • Start a fire

  • Neutralize acid

Brewer's supplies

Add proficiency bonus to
stabilizing an ally.

  • Detect poison in drinks

  • Identify alcohol

  • Purify water
    Ignore effects of alcohol

Calligrapher's supplies

Add proficiency bonus to deciphering magic scrolls, ancient texts, etc.

  • Identify writer nonmagical script

  • Determine writer's state of mind

  • Spot forged text

  • Forge a signature

  • Find hidden messages in texts

Carpenter's tools

Add proficiency bonus to find traps or be stealthy on wooden floors.


  • Build a simple wooden structure

  • Design a complex structure

  • Find a weak points wooden wall

  • Pry apart a door

Cartographer's tools

Add proficiency bonus to survival checks in the wilderness or deserts.

  • Determine a map's age and origin

  • Estimate direction/distance of landmark

  • Discern that a map is fake

  • Fill in a missing part of a map

  • Spot hidden messages in a map

Cobbler's tools

Add proficiency bonus to prevent exhaustion while travelling by foot.

  • Determine a shoe's age and origin

  • Find a hidden compartment in a boot heel

  • Learn where someone has recently visited by
    examining the wear/dirt that accumulated on shoes


Cook's utensils

During a short rest, you can quickly prepare a simple meal that grants everyone 1 extra HP per spent hitdice.

(Does not expend your downtime)

  • Create a typical meal

  • Duplicate a meal

  • Spot poison or impurities in food

  • Create a gourmet meal

Glassblower's tools

You can throw a glass/vail on the ground within 30ft, which becomes a 5ft area filled with caltrops. A creature passing through it takes 1 piercing damage.

  • Identify source of glass

  • Determine what a glass object once held

  • Find weaknesses in glass


Jeweler's tools

Add proficiency bonus to checks related to gemstones.

  • Modify a gem's appearance

  • Determine a gem's history

  • Determine if a gem has magical properties

  • Embed a gemstone into weapons, armor or shields.


Leatherworker's tools

Attacking with a whip, allows you to use it as if casting Thorn Whip.

  • Modify a leather item's appearance

  • Determine a leather item's history

Mason's tools

Add proficiency bonus to find traps or be stealthy on stone floors.

  • Chisel a small hole in a stone wall

  • Find a weak point in a stone wall


Painter's supplies

Add proficiency bonus to checks related to art and paintings

  • Paint an accurate portrait

  • Create a painting with a hidden message


Potter's tools

You can throw a pot on the ground within 30ft, which becomes a 5ft area filled with caltrops. A creature passing through it takes 1 piercing damage.

  • Determine what a vessel once held

  • Create a serviceable pot

  • Find a weak point in a ceramic object


Smith's tools

During a short rest, you can expend a whetstone to grant +1 to attack rolls and +1 damage on any melee weapon for the next 3 attacks with that weapon.
(even if you miss)

This expends a whetstone.

  • Sharpen a dull blade

  • Repair a suit of armor

  • Sunder a nonmagical metal object

  • Finding Whetstones


Tinker's tools

Add proficiency bonus to repair or maintain a non-magical object, if the object is magical, it does not restore magic.

  • Temporarily repair a disabled device

  • Repair an item in half the time

  • Improvise a temporary item using scraps

  • Restore hitpoints to a damaged objects

Weaver's tools

Before finishing a long rest, you can repair or maintain one ally's clothes, which grants them +1 to Charisma Performance checks.

  • Repurpose cloth

  • Mend a hole in a piece of cloth

  • Tailor an outfit


Woodcarver's tools

During a short rest, you can expend some finewood to craft three arrows that grant +1 to attacks rolls and +1 to damage. (even if you miss)

This expends one bundle of Finewood.

  • Craft a small wooden figurine

  • Carve an intricate pattern in wood

  • Finding Finewood

Gaming Sets and Musical Instruments

Gaming set

Tool Skill

Tool Activities

Dice

Add your proficiency bonus to be added during rolls while playing these games.

Note: Dice games will often actually be played during the game itself, yet being proficient with them many allow you to re-roll one dice per round or game.

  • Catch a player cheating during a game.

  • Gain insight into an opponent's personality during games.


Chess

Playing Cards

Three-Dragon Ante set

Removed from the game, as it has no purpose in this setting.

Musical instrument



Bagpipes

Add proficiency bonus to performance checks that include that instrument.

As part of a long rest, you can compose a new tune and lyrics for your instrument. You might use this ability to impress a noble or spread scandalous rumors with a catchy tune.

  • Identify a tune

  • Improvise a tune

Drum

Dulcimer

Flute

Lute

Lyre

Horn

Pan flute

Shawm

Viol

Miscellaneous

The miscellaneous tools often fill a very specific niche such as lockpicking.

Miscellaneous

Tool Skill

Tool Activies

Disguise kit

-

  • Cover injuries or distinguishing marks

  • Spot a disguise being used by someone else

  • Copy a humanoid's appearance

Forgery kit

-

  • Mimic handwriting

  • Duplicate a wax seal

Herbalism kit

During a short rest, you can craft one minor potion if you have the required ingredients.

  • Find plants

  • Identify poison

Navigator's tools

-


Poisoner's kit

-


Thieves' tools

Just as you can disable traps, you can also set them. As part of a short rest, you can create a trap using items you have on hand. The total of your check becomes the DC for someone else's attempt to discover or disable the trap.

The trap deals damage appropriate to the materials used in crafting it (such as poison or a weapon) or damage equal to half the total of your check, whichever the DM deems appropriate.

  • Pick a lock

  • Disable a trap