As I go through a list of the types of things a typical craftsman could make, I find that the list of skills and tools is woefully incomplete.

Leatherworking can be a very useful skill and it's easy to see why a DM could handwave away maintenance of leather items as part of the typical nightly camp. But what about tents? They're made of canvass and sewn and last time I checked there's no Tool Proficiency for Sewing Kit. What about rope? If your party was forced to cut up a rope and now they need it spliced back together, what Skill is that under?

I'm thinking of just adding a lot of this under Survival even though that Skill is more geared toward outdoor environments but I wanted to ask what other people thought. The tool proficiencies are easy because you can just add more tool kits. Some other skills that fall between the cracks, especially for a gritty, realistic, survival-oriented game are harder to pin down though.

Thanks in advance for your helpful input.

For sewing, I'd probably put that under weaver's tools, as XGTE says "Weaver’s tools allow you to create cloth and tailor it into articles of clothing." But I'd also accept a creative bid for leatherworker's tools, or a general dexterity check. XGTE also has a section on tying knots and how that's deliberately left vague, and I'd argue that this would apply to splicing rope as well, but there are also some backgrounds, like Sailor, where I would allow proficiency to be added.

A lot of this is deliberately left vague so that players can use their creativity to argue for whatever stat they think applies that would give them a better modifier or better RP. A rogue might use DEX for their thieves' tools, but an artificer might use INT because of their knowledge of how locks are physically built. Tool kit proficiencies are also hard to come by and add, so adding more tool kits and requiring them in order to be able to complete a task feels like it might create more limitations for players.

Not to be too cheeky, but why not just cast mending. Assuming someone has it, which may be a big assumption, I suppose. 

Quote from Xalthu >>

Not to be too cheeky, but why not just cast mending. Assuming someone has it, which may be a big assumption, I suppose. 

 When planning or running a grittier game, many of the spells that would make life too easy are banned.

Seriously, I have no clue what the Devs were thinking when they created the Goodberry spell. One spell slot, once a day, and nobody in your party needs food for that day. Between that at the Tiny Hut spells, it's like they WANTED to destroy the third pillar of the game. Add to this the fact that they bungled the Ranger class so badly that few people played it until the subclasses started getting better. Healing Spirit was also nerfed to prevent healing hundreds of HP out of combat.

In truth, not only am I planning on playing in a more realistic game but the DM and I are working on a unified crafting system. I'm just trying to be thorough. 

Having the Outlander background gives you the same effect as Goodberry without even the need to use a spell slot but for some reason nobody ever seems to consider it OP.  And Leomond's Tiny Hut has so many ways a clever enemy could exploit it.

This is a very dumb question, but I've been looking at my Fighter's tool skills and never been sure if his Carpenter's Tools would be a Str, Wis, or Int check plus his proficiency. Str because the skill itself is a very physically involved activity, but Wis also for some experience or innate knowhow on putting together a good barricade/helping put up a wall, yet Int would be also good if he was actually building a WHOLE thing or helping plan to build a whole thing. This is probably not something worth answering, but it's a question I got suddenly stuck in my head.

Edit: grammatical 

Quote from SFCody >>

This is a very dumb question, but I've been looking at my Fighter's tool skills and never been sure if his Carpenter's Tools would be a Str, Wis, or Int check plus his proficiency. Str because the skill itself is a very physically involved activity, but Wis also for some experience or innate knowhow on putting together a good barricade/helping put up a wall, yet Int would be also good if he was actually building a WHOLE thing or helping plan to build a whole thing. This is probably not something worth answering, but it's a question I got suddenly stuck in my head.

Edit: grammatical 

 There’s no one answer. It’s really between you and your DM and how good a case you can make for a given ability score on a given situation. 

Quote from Darkaiser >>

As I go through a list of the types of things a typical craftsman could make, I find that the list of skills and tools is woefully incomplete.

Leatherworking can be a very useful skill and it's easy to see why a DM could handwave away maintenance of leather items as part of the typical nightly camp. But what about tents? They're made of canvass and sewn and last time I checked there's no Tool Proficiency for Sewing Kit. What about rope? If your party was forced to cut up a rope and now they need it spliced back together, what Skill is that under?

I'm thinking of just adding a lot of this under Survival even though that Skill is more geared toward outdoor environments but I wanted to ask what other people thought. The tool proficiencies are easy because you can just add more tool kits. Some other skills that fall between the cracks, especially for a gritty, realistic, survival-oriented game are harder to pin down though.

Thanks in advance for your helpful input.

 You'd use Weaver's Tools for things made out of fibers, like cloth, canvas, burlap and rope. That's pretty simple. The rope would be pretty difficult to put back together good as new, you'd need to use Mending to achieve that. But if that's not an option, weaver's tools prof would help you to stabilize the cut ends so they're not just all frayed, and then you could knot the lengths of rope together (with a knot check if need be) the way you would any time you want to tie lengths of standard rope together.

In general I like tools and would like to see them expanded. So if you took soldier you would gain tool: weapon and armor repair, outlander would provide tool: basic repair, etc. These are very specific and basic uses of a variety of possible tools and does not cover in-depth uses of the tool like smithing and weaving (repair, weaving of cloth, making string, etc) would. 

Maybe every class should have a basic tool skill based on their class and subclass. 

Quote from SFCody >>

This is a very dumb question, but I've been looking at my Fighter's tool skills and never been sure if his Carpenter's Tools would be a Str, Wis, or Int check plus his proficiency. Str because the skill itself is a very physically involved activity, but Wis also for some experience or innate knowhow on putting together a good barricade/helping put up a wall, yet Int would be also good if he was actually building a WHOLE thing or helping plan to build a whole thing. This is probably not something worth answering, but it's a question I got suddenly stuck in my head.

Edit: grammatical 

 Tool proficiencies don't have stats associated with them by default because the relevant ability score is based on what you're trying to do.  If you're trying to hammer a heavy beam into place as an emergency fix to a roof that's in danger of collapsing, that's probably strength.  Trying to craft a small, extremely intricate carving might require Dex or Intelligence, instead.

I'm going to be wrong, but I'm going to beat this drum all day long: Tools are Wisdom. Swinging an ax hard will never split aot as quickly as swinging it correctly. When you're 18 and trying to split logs, using all of your might, and it's taking 6+ swings and your splintering the handle on your new ax, and your dad walks over and goes, "Watch" and does it right, splitting it in one go... then he does it to a stump in two, you learn just how valuable technique is.

Working alongside him, I've seen tons of fat guys who struggle to do half of the work, but they're the most valuable guy there because they can do more than hang drywall and mud. It's the brains.

ANYWAY I've always found 5e's tools lacking because they're mostly just alternate flavours of the same thing. Sure, I want a Foundry kit, but it's just another flavour of potter's tools, glassblower's tools, or smith's tools. Y'know what isn't? A coin press or coin striking kit. A rogue who can forge coins?! Hell yes! Forgery kits exist, but they're supposed to be for pedigree, not minting.

Another good one? A Barber's Kit. Barbers were the surgeons of the day, so they could use their kit similar to a medicine kit.

As for the whole Goodberry, Create/Destroy Water, and Tiny Hut conversation, I think the real problem is Divine Casting, where you get to pick your spells each day. If they had to find it in the wild, it'd be FAAAAAR more useful. A game where the third pillar doesn't matter? Sure you can have it, the DM doesn't care. But they're ultimately courtesy spells. Spells that allow DM's to say, "Not in my game" or else, "I don't want to book keep that stuff. Please just pack the spell."

Quote from Erokow32 >>

I'm going to be wrong, but I'm going to beat this drum all day long: Tools are Wisdom. Swinging an ax hard will never split aot as quickly as swinging it correctly. When you're 18 and trying to split logs, using all of your might, and it's taking 6+ swings and your splintering the handle on your new ax, and your dad walks over and goes, "Watch" and does it right, splitting it in one go... then he does it to a stump in two, you learn just how valuable technique is.

That's not wisdom, that's your proficiency bonus.

... I want to comically (and with good nature) say things that'll get my account restricted, but that would be bad, so I will calmly leave you with this: Touché.

Quote from Darkaiser>>

As I go through a list of the types of things a typical craftsman could make, I find that the list of skills and tools is woefully incomplete.

Leatherworking can be a very useful skill and it's easy to see why a DM could handwave away maintenance of leather items as part of the typical nightly camp. But what about tents? They're made of canvass and sewn and last time I checked there's no Tool Proficiency for Sewing Kit. What about rope? If your party was forced to cut up a rope and now they need it spliced back together, what Skill is that under?

Weaver's, both the tent and the rope.

I'm thinking of just adding a lot of this under Survival even though that Skill is more geared toward outdoor environments but I wanted to ask what other people thought.

Wherever possible, it's best to map something that ought to be a tool proficiency to a tool proficiency.  If you absolutely can't shoehorn something, you should probably invent a new tool proficiency (per Xanathar's PCs can pick these up with time and money, so you're not gating content when you do this provided you give the PCs downtime).  However, some skills are so bad it's warranted to expand how the skill works, like how Xanathar's expands Sleight of Hand to cover tying knots.  Survival is not a bottom-of-the-barrel skill like Sleight of Hand or Medicine, but it's also not top-of-the-line like Perception or Athletics, so consider carefully what you add to it.

The tool proficiencies are easy because you can just add more tool kits. Some other skills that fall between the cracks, especially for a gritty, realistic, survival-oriented game are harder to pin down though.

Thanks in advance for your helpful input.

By and large, anything flexible made of plant fiber should be weaver's, and don't forget, almost 100% of the items you can buy are mix of materials - e.g. a spear is wood and metal, just as a tent is canvas and whatever the poles are made of.  It's ok for 2 tools to cover the same item (woodcarving for a wooden stick and smithing for a metal stick) and it's ok for an item's tool to be based on whatever you arbitrarily decide is the most significant component of the item (woodcarving for arrows, despite the arrowheads and fletching).