D&D 5e 2014 Tool Proficiencies Guide — What Every Tool Actually Does

Introduction

Tool proficiency is the part of a character sheet most players glance at once during character creation and never think about again. That's a mistake. A tool proficiency does something no skill can: it lets a character actually make things, fake things, fix things, and identify things, on top of unlocking specific downtime activities that skills alone can't touch.

Short answer: proficiency with a tool lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability check made using that tool, and unlike a skill, it isn't tied to one fixed ability score. The DM decides which ability fits the task in front of you. Beyond that shared baseline, each tool category unlocks its own special use, from picking locks to brewing potable water to repairing a damaged suit of armor.

This guide covers how tool proficiency works mechanically, compares every tool category with the practical questions each one answers at the table, breaks down which classes and backgrounds hand out the best tools for free, and explains how tool proficiency feeds into the Downtime Activities system between adventures. If you've ever had a Rogue player ask whether their thieves' tools proficiency should also help them appraise a stolen necklace, or a DM unsure whether an herbalism kit should let a character brew a healing potion mid-campaign, the answers are all rules-verified below rather than table-to-table guesswork.

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How Tool Proficiency Works Mechanically

The core rule is short: "A tool helps you to do something you couldn't otherwise do, such as craft or repair an item, forge a document, or pick a lock." Proficiency with a tool lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability check you make using it. That's the entire baseline mechanic, and it's the same baseline whether the tool is a smith's hammer, a poisoner's vial, or a lockpick.

The part players trip over is the ability score. A skill check always pairs with the same ability by default (Stealth is always Dexterity, History is always Intelligence), but a tool check isn't locked to one. Tool use represents broader knowledge of a trade, not a single physical action, so the DM picks whichever ability actually fits what's happening. Carving a fine decorative detail with woodcarver's tools calls for Dexterity; forcing a particularly dense, knotted piece of wood into shape with the same tools might call for Strength instead. Same tool, same proficiency bonus, different ability score depending on the task.

What a Tool Check Represents vs. a Skill Check

Skills are broad. History covers any event in the past, Persuasion covers any attempt to talk someone into something. Tools are narrow and physical. A forgery kit is good for exactly one thing: making convincing fake documents. That narrowness is also what makes a tool proficiency worth taking over a skill in the right situation, because a tool grants a special use a skill never does: a character with smith's tools can actually repair a damaged suit of armor for hit points restored per hour of work; a character with a forgery kit can produce a forged document as part of a short or long rest. No skill proficiency does anything comparable.

Tools and Skills Together (Optional Rule)

The core rules leave tools and skills as separate, non-stacking proficiencies: you add your proficiency bonus once to a check, even when more than one proficiency could technically apply. If a DM wants tool proficiencies to compete more evenly with skill proficiencies as a character-creation choice, two optional rulings from Xanathar's Guide to Everything cover the gap, and it's worth asking your table which (if either) is in play before you build around a tool-heavy concept:

• Advantage. When both a relevant tool and a relevant skill apply to the same check, and the character is proficient in both, the DM can let the check be made with advantage instead of a flat bonus. A carpenter's-tools-proficient character searching a wooden room with Perception, for instance, could get advantage on that check under this rule.
• Added Benefit. On top of advantage, a DM can grant extra information or a narrative bonus on a success. The rulebook's own example: a character proficient with mason's tools who succeeds on a Wisdom (Perception) check to find a secret door in a stone wall doesn't just notice the door, they also get an automatic success on the Intelligence (Investigation) check needed to figure out how to open it.

Neither ruling is required by the core rules. Some DMs run tools exactly as written with no bonus for double proficiency; others use one or both of these house rules to make a tool proficiency compete evenly against a second skill. Ask before you build a character banking on it.

How Hard Is a Typical Tool Check?

Every tool's sourcebook entry ends with a short list of sample activities and matching difficulty classes, and the pattern is consistent across the whole book: routine, low-stakes tasks land around DC 10, tasks that require real skill or work against resistance land around DC 15, and tasks pushing the edge of what the tool can do (spotting an expert-grade forgery, identifying an obscure poison, reconstructing a shattered ceramic vessel's original shape) land around DC 20. Picking a mundane lock or disabling a simple trap with thieves' tools doesn't follow a fixed DC at all; the rulebook leaves that number to the DM based on how good the lock or trap actually is, which is why a master locksmith's strongbox and a farmhouse's front door shouldn't use the same number even though both are "pick a lock" checks.

That spread matters when you're deciding whether a tool proficiency is worth taking for a specific campaign. A proficiency bonus of +2 to +6 turns a coin-flip DC 15 check into something closer to a sure thing once your relevant ability modifier is added in, but it does very little against a DC 20 check with a mediocre ability score behind it. Read a tool's special use as the real payoff and its DC-checked identification or crafting tasks as the reliable, session-to-session value.

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Tool Categories Compared

Every tool in the 2014 rules falls into one of a handful of categories. Artisan's tools alone cover seventeen separate crafts, each requiring its own proficiency, while the remaining categories cover a specific niche each. The table below is the fast-reference version; the sections after it go deeper on the categories worth a longer look.

Artisan's Tools: The Crafting Backbone

Artisan's tools are the largest single category: alchemist's supplies, brewer's supplies, calligrapher's supplies, carpenter's tools, cartographer's tools, cobbler's tools, cook's utensils, glassblower's tools, jeweler's tools, leatherworker's tools, mason's tools, painter's supplies, potter's tools, smith's tools, tinker's tools, weaver's tools, and woodcarver's tools. Each one is its own proficiency; picking up smith's tools tells you nothing about how to use a loom or a potter's wheel.

The practical value split is uneven. Smith's tools and tinker's tools both grant a repair function (restoring 10 hit points to a damaged metal or mundane object per hour of work), which matters the moment armor takes structural damage from a sunder attempt or a trap. Alchemist's supplies grant a working crafting loop: as part of a long rest, a character proficient with them can produce one dose of acid, alchemist's fire, antitoxin, oil, perfume, or soap by spending raw materials worth half the item's value. Cartographer's tools let a character draw a map while traveling without eating into other activity time, which pays off in any hexcrawl or dungeon-mapping campaign.

The rest of the list skews toward flavor and niche identification checks rather than mechanics that come up every session, which is fine for a character concept but shouldn't be the deciding factor if you only get one tool slot. Mason's tools and carpenter's tools both let a character spot irregularities in stone or wooden walls, floors, and doors, turning a Perception check for a secret door into something a proficient character is unusually good at. Leatherworker's tools and jeweler's tools both grant a quick appraisal function: identify the source and treatment of a hide, or spot a gem's value and history at a glance, which is a small but real convenience the moment a party is dividing loot. Weaver's and woodcarver's tools both grant a fast repair as part of a short rest for cloth or wooden items, and woodcarver's tools specifically let a character craft arrows during a rest, a useful trick for an Archery-focused party running low on ammunition mid-dungeon. Cook's utensils, brewer's supplies, calligrapher's supplies, potter's tools, and glassblower's tools are the most purely flavor-driven of the set: real, occasionally clutch (a cook's Prepare Meals restoring extra hit points on a short rest is a legitimate action-economy trick), but not something to build a whole character around.

Gaming Sets and Musical Instruments

Gaming sets and musical instruments both require picking a specific type: proficiency with a dice set doesn't cover Three-Dragon Ante, and proficiency with a lute doesn't cover a drum. Both categories lean social. A gaming-set proficiency pairs naturally with Insight (reading an opponent across the table) and Sleight of Hand (cheating without getting caught, or using the game as cover for a pickpocketing attempt). A musical-instrument proficiency pairs with Performance and, for a Bard specifically, doubles as a valid spellcasting focus, which means an instrument-proficient Bard never needs to carry a separate arcane focus or component pouch.

Thieves' Tools: The One Every Party Wants

Thieves' tools deserve their own callout because they answer the single most common physical obstacle in the game: a locked door or an armed trap. Proficiency lets a character add their proficiency bonus to checks made to disarm traps or open locks, and it's rare for a dungeon-crawling campaign to go more than a session or two without a lock or trap showing up somewhere. A party with zero thieves'-tools proficiency across every character isn't locked out of the game, but expect a lot of forced doors, triggered traps, and Knock spells filling the gap.

Disguise Kits and Forgery Kits: Two Halves of the Same Con

Disguise kits and forgery kits solve adjacent problems. A disguise kit changes how a character looks; a forgery kit changes what a document says. They pair naturally with each other and with Deception, and a character built around infiltration or espionage often wants both. A disguise created as part of a long rest can be worn in one minute once made, while a quicker, rougher disguise built on the spot takes 10 to 30 minutes depending on how extensive the change needs to be. A forgery kit can turn out a one-page document during a short rest or up to four pages during a long rest, with the crafting character's own check setting the DC for anyone trying to spot the fake later.

Herbalism Kit and Poisoner's Kit: Two Sides of the Same Coin

An herbalism kit and a poisoner's kit look similar (vials, a mortar and pestle, small chemistry gear) but point in opposite directions. Herbalism kit proficiency is required to craft antitoxin and potions of healing at all, on top of letting a character identify plants and pick up on herb-related clues while investigating. It's flavor-neutral: a Fighter, a Barbarian, or a Sorcerer can carry one just as easily as a Druid, and it doesn't require any spellcasting to use. Poisoner's kit proficiency lets a character craft and safely handle poisons, and its most immediately useful function is simply not poisoning yourself while applying a poison to a weapon, which is a real risk for anyone using poison without this proficiency.

Navigator's Tools and Vehicle Proficiency

Navigator's tools and vehicle proficiency (land or water, tracked as two separate proficiencies) matter almost entirely by campaign type. A landbound dungeon-crawl campaign might never once call for either. A campaign built around a ship, a caravan, or any serious overland travel makes both close to essential: navigator's tools let a character chart a course and avoid getting lost at sea, and vehicle proficiency adds the proficiency bonus to checks made piloting that vehicle type through difficult conditions, such as a storm at sea or a chariot cutting a tight corner at speed.

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Best Tools by Class and Background

Most characters end up with two or three tool proficiencies before a single point of gold gets spent, because class training and background both hand them out. Checking what you already have is worth doing before buying a redundant proficiency or burning a feat on one.

Classes

Backgrounds

Nine of the thirteen core Player's Handbook backgrounds grant at least one tool proficiency, which is usually the cheapest way to pick one up:

• Criminal and Urchin both grant thieves' tools, plus a gaming set (Criminal) or disguise kit (Urchin).
• Sailor grants navigator's tools and vehicles (water), making it the default background for a nautical or exploration-heavy campaign.
• Hermit grants an herbalism kit, matching its Medicine and Religion skill proficiencies for a healing- or faith-flavored character.
• Folk Hero grants a choice of artisan's tools plus vehicles (land), fitting a character who grew up working a trade before adventuring.
• Guild Artisan grants a choice of artisan's tools directly tied to its guild-membership concept.
• Entertainer grants a disguise kit and a musical instrument, covering both halves of a performance-and-persona concept.
• Outlander grants a musical instrument, an easy way to justify a Ranger or Barbarian who also plays music around a campfire.

Feats

A character who wants a specific tool their class and background don't provide has a direct path: the Skilled feat grants proficiency in any combination of three skills or tools of the player's choice, and it's the single most flexible way to pick up two or three tool proficiencies at once without waiting on a class feature or a background rewrite. Several other feats grant a single tool proficiency as a smaller part of a broader package, usually tied to their theme (a soldier-flavored feat granting one artisan's tool, for instance). A variant human's or half-elf's bonus proficiency options can also cover a tool where the specific option allows it. None of that is required reading before session one, but it's worth checking your sheet for tools you already have before spending a feat or a multiclass level chasing a tool proficiency you can get another way.

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Tool Proficiency and Downtime

Tool proficiency isn't only a rolled-check mechanic. It's also the gate on one of the core Downtime Activities: Crafting. To craft a nonmagical item during downtime, a character needs proficiency with the tool related to what they're building (typically an artisan's tool), plus access to any special materials or workspace the item requires. A character proficient with smith's tools still needs a forge to craft a sword or a suit of armor; the tool proficiency alone doesn't manufacture a workshop out of nowhere.

Progress is measured in gold pieces of market value produced per day of dedicated crafting, with the character spending raw materials worth roughly half that value as they go. A cheap item can be finished in a single day; something as expensive as a full suit of plate armor takes a long, dedicated stretch of downtime to produce alone, though multiple characters with the same tool proficiency can pool their effort on one item if they're working together in the same place. This is exactly where a Fighter with a Battle Master's free artisan's-tools pick, or a Folk Hero's carpenter's tools, stop being flavor and start being a source of gear a party doesn't have to buy or find.

Choosing what to craft is its own small decision. A party with a smith's-tools-proficient Fighter doesn't need to buy every replacement weapon or piece of armor at full market price between sessions, provided someone's willing to spend the downtime and the party can find or build a forge. The same logic applies to a tinker's-tools character patching torn gear, a leatherworker's-tools character turning a monster's hide into usable armor, or a weaver's-tools character keeping the party in mended cloaks and bedrolls. None of it is fast, but it converts downtime a party would otherwise spend on Carousing or waiting into gear the party actually needed anyway, at half the usual gold cost in raw materials.

The parallel companion piece is the Downtime Activities guide's coverage of the wider system, including magic item crafting and the newer activities Xanathar's Guide to Everything adds to a DM's toolbox, such as Work, where a tool-proficient character can spend downtime practicing their trade for steady income instead of rolling the dice on Carousing or a business venture. Between the two systems, a tool proficiency stops being a character-sheet footnote and becomes an actual lever a player can pull between sessions.

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Hot Take: Tool proficiencies are underrated specifically because the core rules give them nothing extra for stacking with a matching skill. A Rogue who trades a skill for thieves' tools Expertise gets a real, permanent mechanical upgrade every session a lock or trap shows up. A Wizard who picks up calligrapher's supplies through a feat gets a proficiency bonus on checks that might come up twice in an entire campaign. The category isn't weak, the individual tools are wildly uneven, and the fix costs nothing: ask your table to run the XGE Advantage option before you build around one, and pick a tool that answers a question your specific campaign actually asks (locks and traps almost always qualify; glassblowing almost never does).

Bottom Line

Tool proficiency does what skills can't: it lets a character make, fix, forge, identify, and craft things a skill check alone never resolves. Thieves' tools are close to a universal pick regardless of class or campaign, an herbalism kit gives any character a renewable source of antitoxin and healing potions with zero spellcasting required, and the crafting-relevant artisan's tools (smith's, tinker's, alchemist's, carpenter's) turn straight into usable downtime output the moment a party has a spare workshop and a few days between adventures. Check what your class and background already gave you before spending anything further, and pick your next tool based on what your specific table's campaign actually puts in front of you, not a generic "well-rounded character" instinct.

For the full Armor and Weapons tables, see the D&D 5e 2014 Armor & Weapons Guide. For mounts, saddles, and drawn and waterborne vehicles, see the D&D 5e 2014 Gear Guide. Return to the Equipment Guide hub for the rest of Chapter 5.