"Some things tasks benefit if you have a tool and a skill": I agree but is there areas when you do not have a tool/equipment and you get a penalty. ie can you use athletics to climb a sheer cliff or do you need climbing kit/tools and use athletics? Or I have woodworking do I need also to have flute to carve a good flute? Or if I have flute can I carve a good flute out of wood?
Having thought more about tools since replying to the thread I think that slight of hand should be a tool and not a skill.
There's essentially two ways of looking at tool proficiencies:
1) They should work in conjunction with skills, providing an advantage. It's how it is now. I'd say it still doesn't solve the problem with tools being very situational and narrowly specialized.
2) Some tools should be merged with skills. Performance giving you proficiency with disguise kit, survival - with cooking utensils, sleight of hand - with thieves' tools and forgery kit, medicine - with herbalism and poisoner's kit. That would make some rarely used skills so much more attractive. I'm all for this approach.
I understand in 1D&D tools provide advantage (in 5e I have played as a skill, ie thieves tools are used to pick locks, disable traps, etc and is not related to Slight of Hand or Mining Tools (provides some knowledge of underground) allows a PC to have a better chance of survival underground if they do not have the survival skill. So how I have played ******** provide a focus area of proficiency. I am not a fan of SoH being used for picking locks, setting traps, disabling traps etc.
Edit: In 1D&D I think the default to skill and provide advantage if you have a tool is not a good idea.
You have misunderstood the playtest rules. Tool checks are still just tool checks. The playtest rules are that if you can also use a tool you're proficient with to aid in the performance of a skill check, you can make the check with advantage. Lockpicking doesn't allow a skill proficiency to apply, unless a DM wants to rule otherwise; it's just a Thieves' Tools check.
You have misunderstood the playtest rules. Tool checks are still just tool checks. The playtest rules are that if you can also use a tool you're proficient with to aid in the performance of a skill check, you can make the check with advantage.
Which is in fact no different from 5e, that's the rule in XGTE.
"Some things tasks benefit if you have a tool and a skill": I agree but is there areas when you do not have a tool/equipment and you get a penalty. ie can you use athletics to climb a sheer cliff or do you need climbing kit/tools and use athletics? Or I have woodworking do I need also to have flute to carve a good flute? Or if I have flute can I carve a good flute out of wood?
Having thought more about tools since replying to the thread I think that slight of hand should be a tool and not a skill.
There's essentially two ways of looking at tool proficiencies:
1) They should work in conjunction with skills, providing an advantage. It's how it is now. I'd say it still doesn't solve the problem with tools being very situational and narrowly specialized.
2) Some tools should be merged with skills. Performance giving you proficiency with disguise kit, survival - with cooking utensils, sleight of hand - with thieves' tools and forgery kit, medicine - with herbalism and poisoner's kit. That would make some rarely used skills so much more attractive. I'm all for this approach.
I understand in 1D&D tools provide advantage (in 5e I have played as a skill, ie thieves tools are used to pick locks, disable traps, etc and is not related to Slight of Hand or Mining Tools (provides some knowledge of underground) allows a PC to have a better chance of survival underground if they do not have the survival skill. So how I have played ******** provide a focus area of proficiency. I am not a fan of SoH being used for picking locks, setting traps, disabling traps etc.
Edit: In 1D&D I think the default to skill and provide advantage if you have a tool is not a good idea.
You have misunderstood the playtest rules. Tool checks are still just tool checks. The playtest rules are that if you can also use a tool you're proficient with to aid in the performance of a skill check, you can make the check with advantage. Lockpicking doesn't allow a skill proficiency to apply, unless a DM wants to rule otherwise; it's just a Thieves' Tools check.
Thanks for the clarification and that is what I thought it said....what I was trying to say is that I have played 5e as I described and I do not think the rule as presented is a good one. Why advantage provides +3 or maybe +5 depending on some others views to the roll but also tends to wipe out poor rolls altogether.
Note: I remember talking to a GM who allows slight of hand to be used to pick locks and other things in their game instead of requiring thieves tools because there was just not enough "tool" acquisition for players to do the things they wanted to do. This is something I think 1D&D can fix by allowing more tools or languages (focus in nature depending on background/race/class) but it would mean more detail in the rules vs wide open simplicity.
But tool proficencies and skill proficencies do not compete - you can see this in the way that 1dnd backgrounds are designed. Two skills, one tool, one language. In 5e you could also learn languages and tool proficencies during downtime, and could swap tools / languages in 5e backgrounds, so I'm assuming its kind of the same now.
With 1dnd feats, its also notable that the only feat that grants skills (Skilled) only grants three skills, whereas Crafter and Musician grant three tool proficencies on top of other, far more relevant and impactful abilities. Its pretty clear that even feats treat tool proficencies and skill proficencies as unequal. Weapon, armor, language, tool and skill proficencies are all different and have different values, and the game treats them as such.
With the exception of Perform / Instruments, there's a definitive use for everything. And, with how easy it is to learn a tool proficency during downtime, its not a bad idea to have them around.
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The rules for crafting are so half-arsed and terrible that I can't bring myself to call them actual, complete rules; its mostly DM houserules to fill in massive gaps. Sorry. Doesn't help that later books contradict the DMG.
The funny thing about rogue tool skills is that, yeah, they're completely rendured redundant by spells. Or worse. I'm planning on running some peeps through Beyond the Witchlight story with the playtest material. There's an instance of a faerie dragon locked in a cage. The book flat out says "You cannot pick this lock or break the cage. Period. Oh, the Knock spell works." Like, thanks D&D writers, way to spit in the face of non-magical characters. So funny I could cry.
That said, it is worth noting that Knock and Disguise Self are actually worse than thief tools and a disguise kit in some ways. Mainly, the noise from the former and the latter fails at touch, making them limited in use. There was some attempt at that in the core book. Depends on how much the DM wants to play it up or not.
Navigation tools are more of a sailor thing than wilderness, where Survival doesn't really apply, iirc. You can use them for land, especially for cartography and mapping, but there's plenty of reasons to to have them for sea or Astral travel too. Niche but worth including in the game should it become relevant.
Gaming sets ... I mean, Strategist and Gambler are fairly popular archetypes, so it makes sense to have rules for the occasional time that opposing commanders meet for chess or the Lucky one takes a seat at the card table in the tavern.
Apparently I was wrong about the bit and bridle. I thought they were another tool, but turns out they're not. Got them mixed up with Vehical Proficency and mentally categorized them together. So driving a wagon is a tool proficency, riding a horse is not.
You're right in that tools and skills don't compete in ODnD as they've been put into separate feats, but I was talking about 5e. ODnD feats give additional benefits to artisan tools and instruments in the form of discounts and inspiration, and that's a part of what I'm talking about - these proficiencies were too weak by themselves, and no one bothered taking them via skilled feat in 5e (aside from thieves' tools, I guess). While there is, of course, a use for anything, the relative value in frequency of those uses is a crucial point. Like I said before, who'd take glassblower's tools over perception? The amount of situations where you'd use perception is huge, but glassblower's tools? Extremely narrow, and why not just find and pay an artisan in a city to do the artisan's job for you? Which is why I advocate the merging of tools with some skills - that would raise the value of least used skills and give more use to tools. Mundane skills have to compete with magic as well.
Well, yeah, crafting rules are... loose. But I guess it's intended that you don't bother with it too much, so they left it to DMs. Would be a whole lot of trouble writing reagents for every magic item and every monster, thankfully it's not a videogame.
Frankly, I'd nerf some skill-beating spells, like make knock open only locks up to specific DC, so that you'd have to at least upcast it or level up to open harder locks. And for lesser restoration, you'd need to at least know what disease you're attempting to cure rather than just casting a spell to fix a creature from anything.
With the other tools... right now, the only saving grace is that they can be learned during downtime. But I don't see that used in campaigns, as events tend to unfold without pause, with exception for long travel periods. Tiamat won't wait for 250 days, you know.
Giving advantage makes it very hard to roll a 1, 1/20x1/20=1/400=0.25% and rolling 10 or below is 10/20X10/20=100/400=1/4=25% so it dramatically shifts the math of the game.
I have no problem with advantage for damage and other things but not all things all of the time.
The big thing about tool proficiencies, is that they make perfect sense on a character who would settle somewhere and have an actual career where they earn money through people buying stuff from them.
But because this is a game about characters who wander about, fight monsters, and get their money by selling stuff they find lying around, tool proficiencies as a whole are situational as hell. You even see a sliver of what I mean when you shift gears to a campaign centered around being on ships (like Ghosts of Saltmarsh). Certain tool proficiencies can become massively more useful in those kind of adventures, because you are in a semi-permanent settlement that needs repairs and maintenance, someone to cook for the crew, etc.
The big thing about tool proficiencies, is that they make perfect sense on a character who would settle somewhere and have an actual career where they earn money through people buying stuff from them.
But because this is a game about characters who wander about, fight monsters, and get their money by selling stuff they find lying around, tool proficiencies as a whole are situational as hell. You even see a sliver of what I mean when you shift gears to a campaign centered around being on ships (like Ghosts of Saltmarsh). Certain tool proficiencies can become massively more useful in those kind of adventures, because you are in a semi-permanent settlement that needs repairs and maintenance, someone to cook for the crew, etc.
downtime activities are a thing. not every character is busy grubbing for loot from sunup to sundown till they die. sometimes adventurers invest their treasure in a brewery, start a smithy, renovate a castle, or open a boutique offering exotic leather boots and bags. wandering around fighting monsters is a side thing for many characters.
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I agree during some "adventures" or settings specific tools become more useful (powerful) then others and they can be used in a downtime or uptime manner. Also some GM's can be more inclusive of tool use or looking for ways for the PC's to use their tool knowledge then others.
Like I said earlier I think tool's greatly expand the game in 5e and hope it is fully embraced in 1D&D from the start.
I agree during some "adventures" or settings specific tools become more useful (powerful) then others and they can be used in a downtime or uptime manner. Also some GM's can be more inclusive of tool use or looking for ways for the PC's to use their tool knowledge then others.
Like I said earlier I think tool's greatly expand the game in 5e and hope it is fully embraced in 1D&D from the start.
I've already given some thought to the idea of revising the "Running a Business" rules in the DMG to account for tool proficiencies.
That is, if you have a certain tool proficiency, you can spend the downtime to sell certain items that you make yourself like art objects (paintings and sculptures), musical performances, metal weapons and armour, the different types of clothing on the Equipment list, etc.
What items you sell in this way sets a baseline for how much you could earn that day. You'd then increase that based on the hours you spend for the job. And then you'd make a check using your tool proficiency, and that determines the quality of your work, which increase or decrease your revenue. This is where something like Tool Expertise in the Artificer class actually becomes exceptionally useful. As you do this for even just a workweek of downtime, you add the party's coffers.
The idea obviously needs refining, but something like this can help players decide what tool proficiencies they want to pick up, since even tool proficiencies are not all equal when it comes to money-making.
I am also for much more focused tools, such as basic armor and weapon maintenance and repair, basic camping or basic forest survival. Tools that are focused based on backgrounds or classes to provide some depth to PC's.
downtime activities are a thing. not every character is busy grubbing for loot from sunup to sundown till they die. sometimes adventurers invest their treasure in a brewery, start a smithy, renovate a castle, or open a boutique offering exotic leather boots and bags. wandering around fighting monsters is a side thing for many characters.
I wouldn't say it's a common thing. Usually a campaign focuses on one period of adventurer's life when they're... well, adventuring. Like I said above, campaigns tend to go without months and years of timeskips for downtime activities, as Tiamat, Auril, and all the demon lords won't be so kind to wait for another 250 days to let you learn a craft or start a business (not the best idea with cataclysm looming on the horizon).
Why would someone take a feat to learn a tool? You can learn their Proficiency for free during downtime in 5e. Tools and skills never competed like that.
Glassblower tools would be relevant if someone specialized in crafting glass magic items, or if an Artificer used them for magic. Which is not outside the realm of possibility - glass magic is a relatively well known option in fantasy stories.
I'd suggest to stop thinking of "glassblower" as a distinct tool, but rather just one option in a category:
Artificers are the artisan tool class. Rogues use, well, the extra-legal tools. Bards use instruments.
Spelljammers and ships for campaigns in space and seas use vehicle tools (spelljammers and ships and navigation tools, oh my!) I'm including navigation tools here.
There are three to four types of gaming sets. Dice, cards (includes three dragon ante) and dragon chess. The latter two are actual games that DnD writers made for the TTRPG and you can buy them in real life. The Deck of Many Things is also related.
Okay, the gaming sets are admittedly the weakest of the lot, but vehicles have specific campaign types that need them and the other three categories are tied to classes that need them.
Four out of five categories have immediate uses. If not every campaign, but enough.
Why would someone take a feat to learn a tool? You can learn their Proficiency for free during downtime in 5e. Tools and skills never competed like that.
Actually there's a gold cost to learning a tool proficiency if you go by Xanathar's Guide (25 gp per workweek), and it takes you ten workweeks (50 days) and thus 250 gp to learn it.
The number of workweeks is reduced by your Intelligence modifier, but since Intelligence is a common dump stat, that's often not a factor.
Also there is merit to picking up thieves' tools from a feat, since thieves' tools (unlike most other tools) is almost universally useful for adventuring and exploration.
Gold is meaningless in 5e. The real costs are in magic items and feat / ASI choices. Or, just as easily, tweak a background to give the desired tools. There's no reason to use a feat to learn any tool, even thief tools, even if you're picking Skilled for another reason.
Then what do you do with material components that have a gold cost? Also you typically need gold to buy things, so unless you just allow players to walk into a shop and pick out what they want for free, I don't see how gold is meaningless.
The real costs are in magic items and feat / ASI choices. Or, just as easily, tweak a background to give the desired tools. There's no reason to use a feat to learn any tool, even thief tools, even if you're picking Skilled for another reason.
I realize you're ignoring the time requirement that I also mentioned. Also I thought we were talking about gaining a tool proficiency mid-game, so I don't see how tweaking the background would help there.
Without meaningful gold sinks, and the occasional material cost IF your party happens to have spells that need them, gold income quickly outpaces your expendatures.
And time/pacing is completely under DM control. Time is not a real factor during downtime.
Without meaningful gold sinks, and the occasional material cost IF your party happens to have spells that need them, gold income quickly outpaces your expendatures.
And time/pacing is completely under DM control. Time is not a real factor during downtime.
Time is completely under DM control, BUT I think it is also more likely that a random DM will follow the guidelines set in sourcebooks like Xanathar's Guide or the DMG than actually homebrew it.
Gold is meaningless in 5e. The real costs are in magic items and feat / ASI choices. Or, just as easily, tweak a background to give the desired tools. There's no reason to use a feat to learn any tool, even thief tools, even if you're picking Skilled for another reason.
It's only meaningless if DM's not bothering with economy. I can't blame anyone if they don't, because this aspect is barely glossed over in game rules. But the one time I actually bothered to make money matter and players had to spend their precious limited time in a scenario working in the docks to scrape some coin to get them through the day, that was thrilling. Getting money became a challenge they had to resolve.
Going back to the OP's question: I think providing advantage when you also use a tool with a check shifts the chance to roll a "1" or a 20, too much in the players favor. Someone mentioned it is the same as in another book but to it does not matter it would be something for me to change.
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You have misunderstood the playtest rules. Tool checks are still just tool checks. The playtest rules are that if you can also use a tool you're proficient with to aid in the performance of a skill check, you can make the check with advantage. Lockpicking doesn't allow a skill proficiency to apply, unless a DM wants to rule otherwise; it's just a Thieves' Tools check.
Which is in fact no different from 5e, that's the rule in XGTE.
Thanks for the clarification and that is what I thought it said....what I was trying to say is that I have played 5e as I described and I do not think the rule as presented is a good one. Why advantage provides +3 or maybe +5 depending on some others views to the roll but also tends to wipe out poor rolls altogether.
Note: I remember talking to a GM who allows slight of hand to be used to pick locks and other things in their game instead of requiring thieves tools because there was just not enough "tool" acquisition for players to do the things they wanted to do. This is something I think 1D&D can fix by allowing more tools or languages (focus in nature depending on background/race/class) but it would mean more detail in the rules vs wide open simplicity.
You're right in that tools and skills don't compete in ODnD as they've been put into separate feats, but I was talking about 5e. ODnD feats give additional benefits to artisan tools and instruments in the form of discounts and inspiration, and that's a part of what I'm talking about - these proficiencies were too weak by themselves, and no one bothered taking them via skilled feat in 5e (aside from thieves' tools, I guess). While there is, of course, a use for anything, the relative value in frequency of those uses is a crucial point. Like I said before, who'd take glassblower's tools over perception? The amount of situations where you'd use perception is huge, but glassblower's tools? Extremely narrow, and why not just find and pay an artisan in a city to do the artisan's job for you? Which is why I advocate the merging of tools with some skills - that would raise the value of least used skills and give more use to tools. Mundane skills have to compete with magic as well.
Well, yeah, crafting rules are... loose. But I guess it's intended that you don't bother with it too much, so they left it to DMs. Would be a whole lot of trouble writing reagents for every magic item and every monster, thankfully it's not a videogame.
Frankly, I'd nerf some skill-beating spells, like make knock open only locks up to specific DC, so that you'd have to at least upcast it or level up to open harder locks. And for lesser restoration, you'd need to at least know what disease you're attempting to cure rather than just casting a spell to fix a creature from anything.
With the other tools... right now, the only saving grace is that they can be learned during downtime. But I don't see that used in campaigns, as events tend to unfold without pause, with exception for long travel periods. Tiamat won't wait for 250 days, you know.
Giving advantage makes it very hard to roll a 1, 1/20x1/20=1/400=0.25% and rolling 10 or below is 10/20X10/20=100/400=1/4=25% so it dramatically shifts the math of the game.
I have no problem with advantage for damage and other things but not all things all of the time.
The big thing about tool proficiencies, is that they make perfect sense on a character who would settle somewhere and have an actual career where they earn money through people buying stuff from them.
But because this is a game about characters who wander about, fight monsters, and get their money by selling stuff they find lying around, tool proficiencies as a whole are situational as hell. You even see a sliver of what I mean when you shift gears to a campaign centered around being on ships (like Ghosts of Saltmarsh). Certain tool proficiencies can become massively more useful in those kind of adventures, because you are in a semi-permanent settlement that needs repairs and maintenance, someone to cook for the crew, etc.
downtime activities are a thing. not every character is busy grubbing for loot from sunup to sundown till they die. sometimes adventurers invest their treasure in a brewery, start a smithy, renovate a castle, or open a boutique offering exotic leather boots and bags. wandering around fighting monsters is a side thing for many characters.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
I agree during some "adventures" or settings specific tools become more useful (powerful) then others and they can be used in a downtime or uptime manner. Also some GM's can be more inclusive of tool use or looking for ways for the PC's to use their tool knowledge then others.
Like I said earlier I think tool's greatly expand the game in 5e and hope it is fully embraced in 1D&D from the start.
I've already given some thought to the idea of revising the "Running a Business" rules in the DMG to account for tool proficiencies.
That is, if you have a certain tool proficiency, you can spend the downtime to sell certain items that you make yourself like art objects (paintings and sculptures), musical performances, metal weapons and armour, the different types of clothing on the Equipment list, etc.
What items you sell in this way sets a baseline for how much you could earn that day. You'd then increase that based on the hours you spend for the job. And then you'd make a check using your tool proficiency, and that determines the quality of your work, which increase or decrease your revenue. This is where something like Tool Expertise in the Artificer class actually becomes exceptionally useful. As you do this for even just a workweek of downtime, you add the party's coffers.
The idea obviously needs refining, but something like this can help players decide what tool proficiencies they want to pick up, since even tool proficiencies are not all equal when it comes to money-making.
I am also for much more focused tools, such as basic armor and weapon maintenance and repair, basic camping or basic forest survival. Tools that are focused based on backgrounds or classes to provide some depth to PC's.
I wouldn't say it's a common thing. Usually a campaign focuses on one period of adventurer's life when they're... well, adventuring. Like I said above, campaigns tend to go without months and years of timeskips for downtime activities, as Tiamat, Auril, and all the demon lords won't be so kind to wait for another 250 days to let you learn a craft or start a business (not the best idea with cataclysm looming on the horizon).
Why would someone take a feat to learn a tool? You can learn their Proficiency for free during downtime in 5e. Tools and skills never competed like that.
Glassblower tools would be relevant if someone specialized in crafting glass magic items, or if an Artificer used them for magic. Which is not outside the realm of possibility - glass magic is a relatively well known option in fantasy stories.
I'd suggest to stop thinking of "glassblower" as a distinct tool, but rather just one option in a category:
Artificers are the artisan tool class. Rogues use, well, the extra-legal tools. Bards use instruments.
Spelljammers and ships for campaigns in space and seas use vehicle tools (spelljammers and ships and navigation tools, oh my!) I'm including navigation tools here.
There are three to four types of gaming sets. Dice, cards (includes three dragon ante) and dragon chess. The latter two are actual games that DnD writers made for the TTRPG and you can buy them in real life. The Deck of Many Things is also related.
Okay, the gaming sets are admittedly the weakest of the lot, but vehicles have specific campaign types that need them and the other three categories are tied to classes that need them.
Four out of five categories have immediate uses. If not every campaign, but enough.
Actually there's a gold cost to learning a tool proficiency if you go by Xanathar's Guide (25 gp per workweek), and it takes you ten workweeks (50 days) and thus 250 gp to learn it.
The number of workweeks is reduced by your Intelligence modifier, but since Intelligence is a common dump stat, that's often not a factor.
Also there is merit to picking up thieves' tools from a feat, since thieves' tools (unlike most other tools) is almost universally useful for adventuring and exploration.
Gold is meaningless in 5e. The real costs are in magic items and feat / ASI choices. Or, just as easily, tweak a background to give the desired tools. There's no reason to use a feat to learn any tool, even thief tools, even if you're picking Skilled for another reason.
Then what do you do with material components that have a gold cost? Also you typically need gold to buy things, so unless you just allow players to walk into a shop and pick out what they want for free, I don't see how gold is meaningless.
I realize you're ignoring the time requirement that I also mentioned. Also I thought we were talking about gaining a tool proficiency mid-game, so I don't see how tweaking the background would help there.
Without meaningful gold sinks, and the occasional material cost IF your party happens to have spells that need them, gold income quickly outpaces your expendatures.
And time/pacing is completely under DM control. Time is not a real factor during downtime.
Time is completely under DM control, BUT I think it is also more likely that a random DM will follow the guidelines set in sourcebooks like Xanathar's Guide or the DMG than actually homebrew it.
It's only meaningless if DM's not bothering with economy. I can't blame anyone if they don't, because this aspect is barely glossed over in game rules. But the one time I actually bothered to make money matter and players had to spend their precious limited time in a scenario working in the docks to scrape some coin to get them through the day, that was thrilling. Getting money became a challenge they had to resolve.
Going back to the OP's question: I think providing advantage when you also use a tool with a check shifts the chance to roll a "1" or a 20, too much in the players favor. Someone mentioned it is the same as in another book but to it does not matter it would be something for me to change.