While we are used to our characters inDungeons & Dragonsbeing able to cast spells and swing swords, we don’t usually see them crafting weapons or modifying their boots. Thanks to the tools in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, however, characters can now do all these things and more.
Gaining proficiency in a tool is just like gaining one in a skill: you either get it from your background, your class, or you gain it through a feat at higher levels. With so many tools to choose from, however, knowing what the best one has to offer is ideal before you even start making your character.
7Cobbler’s Tools
Making Boots More Aerodynamic
Acrobatics checks are often a dangerous endeavor, usually involving a perilous parkour to reach some hidden away treasure. Someone proficient with the cobbler’s tools can modify someone’s footwear to gain advantage on the check, making a daring leap become a simple affair.
Now, to make the most of these tools, you need to make sure whoever you are aiding is actually wearing footwear. That might seem obvious, but certain species like the dragonborn are usually depicted without boots, meaning that they can’t benefit from what the cobbler’s tool has to offer.
6Disguise Kit
Turn Into Someone Else
A few backgrounds and character options give players access to costumes, a very useful item when you need to pretend to be someone else. These costumes, however, often have limited uses, since a guard in the village will hardly dress the same as the one inside the castle.
This is where the disguise kit comes into play, letting you craft whatever uniform you need for a given location. That way, you’re able to always use the advantage given by your costumes, entering nearly everywhere without anyone noticing you don’t belong there.
5Poisoner’s Kit
Deadly Concoctions
If you don’t often use your bonus action during combat, then perhaps the poisoner’s kit could be for you. With it, you can craft some basic poison, applying it during combat as a bonus action, and dealing an extra D4 damage on your next hit.
The kit can also work as a preventive measure, since you can use it to detect poisoned objects in the vicinity. As a poisons expert, a simple intelligence check with a DC of 10 will tell you if the nearby food is contaminated, if water is safe to drink, or if the knife used to kill the king was poisoned beforehand.
4Herbalism Kit
Make Your Own Potions Of Healing
The herbalism kit has many uses, making you not only an expert on plants but also on healing. You can create healer’s kits to stabilize a dying ally without a medicine check, or an antitoxin to end the effects of poison on someone (or give them resistance to the effect).
Yet, by far, the best property is being ableto craft potions of healing.While you can only make the basic version with this kit, it is a more reliable way of gaining the potions than depending on stumbling into a town that may or may not have an alchemy shop.
3Smith’s Tools
Make Nearly Any Weapon
The new weapon proficiencies introduced in the 2024 Player’s Handbook mean that players will want to try different kinds of weapons. Most of those weapons can be crafted with smith’s tools, andyou can even make the heaviest armor piecesfor half the price, as long as you have the time to make them.
If you want to be able to craft all weapons, you’ll also need proficiency in leatherworker and tinker’s tools.
These tools also let you pry open doors and containers, but with a hefty DC of 20. If you’re proficient in Strength, however, the check will be made with advantage, so you can deal with most doors with ease without needing to have a thief in the party.
2Calligrapher’s Supplies
Inscribe Spells For Later Use
The main use you’ll get out of the calligrapher’s supplies is the ability to create your own spell scrolls. While a lengthy and expensive endeavor, you may potentially create several scrolls of Fireball, then have every member in your party cast it at the same time, decimating the incoming enemies.
Usually, only spellcasters can use scrolls, but most DMs let anyone use a scroll to cast the spell inscribed in it; ask your DM how this works in their particular campaign.
You don’t really need the calligrapher’s supplies to craft scrolls if you’re proficient in Arcana, although that is often only useful for wizards. Other spellcasting classes might have a better time using the calligrapher’s supplies and training a different skill down the line.
1Thieves' Tools
No Traps Can Harm You
With how tool proficiencies work in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, having proficiency with a tool and the needed skill means you’ll make any check with advantage. With the thieves' tools, this means that, as long as you are proficient in Dexterity, you can bethe designated trap disarmerwithout being a rogue.
While rogues will still be the best at that job, they are no longer indispensable. Rangers in particular will feel at home filling this role, since they are already great scouts that can spot danger from a mile away, and now they can do so while opening the way forward as well.
