Dig deep into your Bag of Holding and pull out the tangled bundle of vials, files, pouches, and pliers you threw in and forgot about way back at level 1. The tools you’ve lugged across the Sword Coast are now worth their weight in gold. In the 2024 Player’s Handbook, crafting rules have been updated; now your tool proficiencies help you create useful equipment that anyone in your party can use!

Take a look below to learn how you can make Potions of Healing, armor, and Spell Scrolls using something as simple as your starting equipment.

• How Does Crafting Work?
• How Can You Use Your Tools?
• Creative Ways to Use Tools in Your Build

The 2024 Player’s Handbook is Now Available!

Buy the 2024 Player’s Handbook today and dive into revised rules, enhanced character options, and exciting gameplay innovations.

Get your copy on the D&D Beyond marketplace and seamlessly integrate your new content with D&D Beyond's library of digital tools built to make D&D easier, so you can focus on the fun!

Crafting with Tools from the 2024 Player’s Handbook

Artist: POLAR ENGINE

Every hardy adventurer knows that bringing the right tools is half the battle. When you create a character using the 2024 Player’s Handbook, you’ll pack up for your adventure using equipment and/or Gold Pieces (GP) granted by your background and class. Handy adventurers should turn to Chapter 6: Equipment and cast their gaze upon the tools section. There's a world of potential waiting for you there!

How Does Crafting Work?

The new rules for crafting found in the 2024 Player’s Handbook allow any character with proficiency in a tool to craft items from that tool's crafting list. Now you can brew Potions of Healing on the fly with an Herbalism Kit or sew yourself a dragon Costume with your Disguise Kit.

Crafting a nonmagical item requires you to collect material worth half the cost of purchasing it, rounded down. For example, you’ll need 25 GP of raw materials to make Alchemist’s Fire, which is worth 50 GP. Unlike the Crafting downtime activity in the 2014 Player’s Handbook, you’ll now make progress toward completing your nonmagical item in increments of 10 GP per day instead of 5 GP. That Plate Armor will take you 150 days instead of 300 days, or 75 days with the help of a friend!

Not fast enough for you? Take a look at the Crafter Origin feat. You’ll pick up proficiency with three different Artisan’s Tools and the ability to create useful items like Torches, Rope, Nets, and Grappling Hooks overnight. Also, capitalism hack: Nonmagical items that you buy are 20 percent off. I wish knowing how to weave a basket offered that kind of perk in real life!

How Can You Use Your Tools?

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything expanded on the potential uses of tools by suggesting how they could assist you with specific ability checks, like using Investigation and Cobbler’s Tools to track where someone has been based on their shoes. The optional rules for tools also came with suggested DCs for activities. The 2024 Player’s Handbook inspires DMs and players to use tools more frequently with a streamlined set of suggestions.

Tools are now tied to one ability score, which you use when making an ability check with that tool. You’ll also add your Proficiency Bonus if you’re proficient with that tool. And, my dearest Rogues who keep their well-worn set of Thieves’ Tools close at hand, locked doors and trapped chests are no match for you. The new rules on tool proficiency grant you Advantage on ability checks you make that use both a skill (like Sleight of Hand) and a tool (like Thieves’ Tools) you are proficient with.

You’ll need proficiency with a tool to craft an item on its list, but you don’t need proficiency to use it for an ability check! Each tool includes a list of things a player can use it for when they take the Utilize action, along with the DC for that action. Chisel a peephole into a secret room with your Mason’s Tools. Dissuade pursuing bandits by setting fire to the bridge behind you with your Alchemist’s Supplies.

Creative Ways to Use Tools in Your Build

Artist: POLAR ENGINE, JOHN GRELLO, MICHAEL BROUSSARD

Turn Your Caster into a Scroll Crafter with Calligrapher’s Supplies

I’ve got a little Message for all my fellow Wizard mains: The first step to creating the magical infinite library of scrolls you’ve always dreamed of will only cost 10 GP. And no, I’m not trying to sell you a cursed tome. At that low price, a set of Calligrapher’s Supplies are now the best friend of casters hoping to stock up before they get stomped on. The Artisan, Acolyte, Sage, and Scribe backgrounds will serve you well if you want to pick up proficiency with Calligrapher’s Supplies, which you’ll need to mass manufacture all those Spell Scrolls. You’ll still need to pay crafting costs, but who said becoming an archmage was easy?

Of course, you can still rely on Arcana to make Spell Scrolls. It's just that proficiency in Calligrapher’s Supplies can serve as an alternative route to making them. In either case, you'll still need to have the spell you’re scribing prepared each day you’re working.

Previously, the 2014 Player’s Handbook only allowed you to craft nonmagical objects with your downtime activities. In the 2024 Player’s Handbook, scribing Spell Scrolls is similar to the expanded rules on Scribing a Spell Scroll found in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. But it's a little cheaper, as a level 2 spell will cost you 100 GP instead of 250, and potentially more powerful, as spells cast from a homemade scroll will use the spell save DC and attack bonus of the crafter.

Possession of Calligrapher’s Supplies also allows you to craft Ink, a popular component for spells like Illusory Script, Teleportation Circle, and the spellbooks you’ve spent hours copying spells into. One little bottle holds enough for five books!

Rangers and Sorcerers can make especially good use of these tools to churn out Spell Scrolls for the party Wizard, helping them learn spells that overlap with their class spell list. (I suggest Alarm, Arcane Vigor, Banishment, Dispel Magic, and Summon Elemental.) They’re also useful for the party Rogue. In the 2024 Player's Handbook, the Thief Rogue can cast spells from scrolls using the Use Magic Item class feature.

Painter’s Supplies Aren’t Just for Artists

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the bread and butter for Wisdom-based casters: a set of Painter’s Supplies. Similar to the rules in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, the Painter’s Supplies in the 2024 Player's Handbook enable you to paint an accurate picture of something you’ve seen before. In addition, proficiency with this set of paints, brushes, and canvases allows you to craft a Druidic Focus and a Holy Symbol. Yes, DMs, you sent the player home with a box of crayons for good behavior and they showed up at school the next morning with a glowing orb that makes storms. Never underestimate an artist!

Fulfill Your Witchy Dreams with an Herbalism Kit

My next D&D campaign is going to be all about the party opening a cozy Potions and Poisons shop together and I can’t wait. The challenge? They’ll start only with Poisoner’s Kits, Cook’s Utensils, and the star of the show, Herbalism Kits.

Join in on the joy of cottagecore characters! The Herbalism Kit allows you to craft Antitoxins, Candles, Healer’s Kits, and Potions of Healing. Pick up a vial of Antitoxin, which grants Advantage on saving throws to avoid or end the Poisoned condition for an hour, which you’ll need after taste-testing the Basic Poison bubbling on the front counter. The flickering candles around the witchy room shed atmospheric light in a dim 10-foot radius. And the Healer’s Kits will help you stabilize your unconscious Bard after they forgot to use the Herbalism Kit to identify the poisonous plants growing on the bookshelves. But of course, the main draw of this shop are the shimmering bottles of healing liqueur, each carefully brewed with a full day’s work and 25 GP of raw magic goo!

Rules Change for Drinking a Potion of Healing

Previously, consuming a Potion of Healing took an action. The 2024 Player’s Handbook now allows characters on their last legs to down a Potion of Healing as a Bonus Action! Fans of Baldur's Gate 3, rejoice. You may not be able to lob a healing missile at downed allies, but you can still spend a Bonus Action administering that sweet red elixir to a friend!

Become a Portable Armory with Smith’s Tools

At level 3, the Battle Master Fighter receives the Student of War feature, which grants proficiency with a set of Artisan's Tools. When you put down the broadsword for the night, pick up a set of pliers. You’ll be surprised at what Smith’s Tools can do!

This set of Artisan’s Tools boasts a handsome list of items to craft. Picture your blacksmith-turned-hero wiping their sweaty, heroic brow by the light of a campfire as they work, day by day, on the Plate Armor they’ll one day wear to cut down the corrupt king oppressing their home. Or pushing past the Rogue to pry open any locked chest or door with tongs in hand and advantage on their Strength (Athletics) check.

Smith’s Tools allow you to craft any metal Melee weapon, Medium armor, or Heavy armor, making them an excellent birthday gift for the party plagued by Rust Monsters. They’ll help keep your ammunition stocked with Firearm Bullets, Sling Bullets, and the endlessly useful Ball Bearings. But I would rather use them to make a ton of Grappling Hooks to swing down dramatically like Spider-Man every time I make an entrance.

Weaver’s Tools and Leatherworker’s Tools are other great choices for outfitting your adventurer on the fly. Both sets will let you add a design to your homemade Hide Armor, or stitch skulls onto your Padded Armor, to commemorate each foe you’ve slain!

Go Forth and Craft!

The 2024 Player’s Handbook is now available on the D&D Beyond marketplace, which means it's time to set out on new adventures with fresh or familiar characters!

The new options and revisions presented in this book are a result of a decade of lessons learned and adventures had. With updated rules and streamlined gameplay, it's never been easier to bring your stories to life.

We’re delighted to share with you the changes to fifth edition D&D that appear in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. Make sure to keep an eye out on D&D Beyond for more useful guides on using the wealth of new options, rules, and mechanics found in the 2024 Player's Handbook!

Alex Teplitz (he/they) is an LA-based writer, editor, and producer whose work spans live production and tabletop gaming. They have worked for Darrington Press, Hunters Entertainment, and Pixel Circus, on an award-winning suite of games, including Daggerheart, Kids on Bikes, and Alice is Missing: Silent Falls. He is a wizard in his spare time, of which there is not enough.