On Tools and the Practice of Craft

Tools define what kind of crafting work a character can perform.

In the Andórë Crafting System, a tool is not just a piece of equipment. It represents a practical discipline: the methods, habits, limitations, safety practices, and material knowledge required to make a finished object reliable.

A character may possess a tool without being proficient in it, but proficiency determines whether the character can use that tool well enough for meaningful crafting. Most ACS recipes require both access to the appropriate tool and proficiency with that tool.

This page explains how tools, proficiency, materials, collaboration, and magical crafting interact.

The Role of Tools

A tool allows a character to work a material in a controlled way.

Without an appropriate tool, a character is usually limited to what can be done by hand, improvised equipment, or brute force. With the right tool, the character can perform precise, repeatable work.

Tools may provide:

• precision;
• consistency;
• safe handling;
• measurement;
• shaping;
• preservation;
• refinement;
• and the ability to work materials that would otherwise resist ordinary handling.

The tool itself does not replace skill. A character still needs proficiency, proper materials, time, and a plausible method.

Proficiency and Practice

Tool proficiency represents practiced familiarity with a crafting discipline.

A proficient character understands:

• how the tool is used;
• what the tool can and cannot do;
• how to avoid common mistakes;
• how to prepare materials for that tool;
• how to recognize flawed work;
• and how to complete the task reliably under normal conditions.

Two characters using the same tools and materials may produce different results if only one of them has the relevant proficiency.

For most crafting tasks, proficiency is not optional. If a recipe requires a specific tool, the crafter must normally be proficient with that tool unless the DM allows an exception.

Materials and Tool Requirements

No tool is universal.

Each crafting tool is suited to particular materials and forms of work. The DM has final say over which tool applies, but the following assumptions are generally reliable:

• Smith’s Tools shape, repair, refine, and fit metal.
• Woodcarver’s Tools and Carpenter’s Tools shape wood, timber, hafts, containers, furniture, and structural pieces.
• Jeweler’s Tools handle gemstones, fine metals, delicate settings, inlays, and small precision fittings.
• Leatherworker’s Tools prepare hides, straps, bindings, sheaths, grips, containers, and flexible fittings.
• Weaver’s Tools produce cloth, rope, nets, padding, sacks, tents, and other textile goods.
• Alchemist’s Supplies refine, stabilize, dissolve, suspend, bind, preserve, and transform chemical or magical reagents.
• Poisoner’s Kit extracts, doses, stabilizes, stores, and applies toxins safely.
• Herbalism Kit identifies, gathers, harvests, preserves, and prepares plants, fungi, roots, bark, pollen, sap, and other natural reagents.
• Calligrapher’s Supplies produce inks, inscriptions, formulae, spell diagrams, labels, scroll-work, and written magical structures.
• Tinker’s Tools handle small mechanisms, fittings, hinges, locks, clockwork, containers, and precision assemblies.

A recipe may require more than one tool if the item combines several forms of work.

For example, a magic amulet might require Jeweler’s Tools to set the gem, Smith’s Tools to work the metal frame, and Alchemist’s Supplies to stabilize the essence before it is bound.

Improvised Tools

A character may attempt some simple tasks with improvised tools, but improvised tools are usually unsuitable for precise, valuable, dangerous, or magical work.

At the DM’s discretion, improvised tools may:

• prevent the attempt entirely;
• impose disadvantage;
• increase the crafting DC;
• increase the time required;
• increase material wastage;
• or create an unstable finished item.

Improvisation is most appropriate for emergency repairs, crude field work, simple mundane goods, or temporary solutions. It is rarely appropriate for high-value crafting, essence distillation, poison crafting, Gemsetting, Metallurgy, or magic item creation.

Time, Labor, and Collaboration

Crafting takes time because materials must be prepared, worked, tested, corrected, and finished.

Some crafting tasks can be accelerated by assistance. When a rule or recipe allows collaboration, each assistant must be capable of meaningfully contributing to the work.

As a default:

• assistants must have the required proficiency for the part of the work they are performing;
• assistance may reduce time;
• assistance does not reduce the item’s complexity;
• assistance does not reduce the required material burden unless a rule says otherwise;
• and assistance does not remove the need for a qualified lead crafter.

Collaboration works best when the item can be divided into clear tasks, such as forging fittings, preparing reagents, cutting gems, carving wood, copying formulae, or assembling components.

The DM may limit the number of useful assistants if the workspace is small, the item is delicate, or the work requires continuous attention from one lead crafter.

Magic and Craft

Magical crafting usually requires more than ordinary assembly.

A magic item may require:

• appropriate tools;
• tool proficiency;
• arcane or divine knowledge;
• harvested magical materials;
• distilled essence;
• specific raw components;
• gemstones, metals, woods, or other suitable vessels;
• inscriptions, runes, formulae, or ritual diagrams;
• and the ability to reproduce, channel, or stabilize magical effects over time.

The tool used in magical crafting is not merely shaping the object. It is helping define how magic enters, moves through, anchors to, or remains stable within the item.

For example:

• Smith’s Tools may shape the metal vessel for an enchantment.
• Jeweler’s Tools may set the gem that focuses the magic.
• Alchemist’s Supplies may stabilize the essence before it is bound.
• Calligrapher’s Supplies may inscribe the formula that gives the magic structure.
• Tinker’s Tools may align moving parts so the enchantment triggers correctly.

Limits of Tools

Tools enable craft, but they do not override the nature of the material.

A tool may refine, guide, cut, shape, measure, bind, polish, or stabilize. It cannot make unsuitable material suitable by itself.

For example:

• a flawed ingot may still produce a flawed blade;
• corrupted wood may remain unstable after carving;
• a fractured gem may be unsuitable for holding enchantment;
• spoiled plant material may fail to distill;
• poorly preserved monster organs may lose magical yield;
• and the wrong tool may damage a material that would have been usable with proper handling.

When a material is unsuitable, the DM may require better materials, additional preparation, a different tool, a higher DC, more time, or a different crafting approach.

Crafting in 5.5E

These ACS rules are designed to sit alongside the 2024 core crafting rules.

Useful official references include:

• Player’s Handbook: Tools
• Player’s Handbook: Crafting Equipment
• Dungeon Master’s Guide: Crafting Magic Items

The Player’s Handbook covers ordinary tools and equipment crafting. The Dungeon Master’s Guide covers magic item crafting. ACS expands those rules with material identity, harvested components, essence, substitution, and campaign-specific resource handling.

Final Rule

A tool defines the kind of work being attempted.

Proficiency determines whether the crafter can perform that work reliably.

Materials determine whether the work is plausible.

Or, in its shortest form:

Tools define method.
Proficiency defines competence.
Materials define possibility.

Referenced by

• Andórë Crafting System