Chapter 5: Equipment

The marketplace of a large city teems with buyers and sellers of many sorts: dwarf smiths and elf woodcarvers, halfling farmers and gnome jewelers, not to mention humans of every shape, size, and color drawn from a spectrum of nations and cultures. In the largest cities, almost anything imaginable is offered for sale, from exotic spices and luxurious clothing to wicker baskets and practical swords.

For an adventurer, the availability of armor, weapons, backpacks, rope, and similar goods is of paramount importance, since proper equipment can mean the difference between life and death in a dungeon or the untamed wilds. This chapter details the mundane and exotic merchandise that adventurers commonly find useful in the face of the threats that the worlds of D&D present.

Selling Treasure

Opportunities abound to find treasure, equipment, weapons, armor, and more in the dungeons you explore. Normally, you can sell your treasures and trinkets when you return to a town or other settlement, provided that you can find buyers and merchants interested in your loot.

Arms, Armor, and Other Equipment. As a general rule, undamaged weapons, armor, and other equipment fetch half their cost when sold in a market. Weapons and armor used by monsters are rarely in good enough condition to sell.

Magic Items. Selling magic items is problematic. Finding someone to buy a potion or a scroll isn’t too hard, but other items are out of the realm of most but the wealthiest nobles. Likewise, aside from a few common magic items, you won’t normally come across magic items or spells to purchase. The value of magic is far beyond simple gold and should always be treated as such.

Gems, Jewelry, and Art Objects. These items retain their full value in the marketplace, and you can either trade them in for coin or use them as currency for other transactions. For exceptionally valuable treasures, the DM might require you to find a buyer in a large town or larger community first.

Trade Goods. On the borderlands, many people conduct transactions through barter. Like gems and art objects, trade goods — bars of iron, bags of salt, livestock, and so on — retain their full value in the market and can be used as currency.

Armor and Shields

D&D worlds are a vast tapestry made up of many different cultures, each with its own technology level. For this reason, adventurers have access to a variety of armor types, ranging from leather armor to chain mail to costly plate armor, with several other kinds of armor in between. The Armor table collects the most commonly available types of armor found in the game and separates them into three categories: light armor, medium armor, and heavy armor. Many warriors supplement their armor with a shield.

The Armor table shows the cost, weight, and other properties of the common types of armor and shields used in the worlds of D&D.

Armor Proficiency. Anyone can put on a suit of armor or strap a shield to an arm. Only those proficient in the armor’s use know how to wear it effectively, however. Your class gives you proficiency with certain types of armor. If you wear armor that you lack proficiency with, you have disadvantage on any ability check, saving throw, or attack roll that involves Strength or Dexterity, and you can’t cast spells.

Armor Class (AC). Armor protects its wearer from attacks. The armor (and shield) you wear determines your base Armor Class.

Heavy Armor. Heavier armor interferes with the wearer’s ability to move quickly, stealthily, and freely. If the Armor table shows "Str 13" or "Str 15" in the Strength column for an armor type, the armor reduces the wearer’s speed by 10 feet unless the wearer has a Strength score equal to or higher than the listed score.

Stealth. If the Armor table shows "Disadvantage" in the Stealth column, the wearer has disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks.

Shields. A shield is made from wood or metal and is carried in one hand. Wielding a shield increases your Armor Class by 2. You can benefit from only one shield at a time.

Getting Into and Out of Armor

The time it takes to don or doff a type of armor or a shield is shown in the Donning and Doffing Armor table.

Don. This is the time it takes to put on the item. You benefit from its AC only if you take the full time to don it.

Doff. This is the time it takes to take off the item. If you have help removing armor, reduce this time by half.

Sleeping in Armor †††

Sleeping in light armor has no adverse effect on the wearer, but sleeping in medium or heavy armor makes it difficult to recover fully during a long rest.

When you finish a long rest during which you slept in medium or heavy armor, you regain only one quarter of your spent Hit Dice (minimum of one die). If you have any levels of exhaustion, the rest doesn’t reduce your exhaustion level.

Weapons

Your class grants proficiency in certain weapons, reflecting both the class’s focus and the tools you are most likely to use. Whether you favor a longsword or a longbow, your weapon and your ability to wield it effectively can mean the difference between life and death while adventuring.

The Weapons table shows the most common weapons used in the worlds of D&D, their price and weight, the damage they deal when they hit, and any special properties they possess. Every weapon is classified as either melee or ranged. A melee weapon is used to attack a target within 5 feet of you, whereas a ranged weapon is used to attack a target at a distance.

Adamantine Weapons ††

Adamantine is an ultrahard metal found in meteorites and extraordinary mineral veins. In addition to being used to craft adamantine armor, the metal is also used for weapons.

Melee weapons and ammunition made of or coated with adamantine are unusually effective when used to break objects. Whenever an adamantine weapon or piece of ammunition hits an object, the hit is a critical hit.

The adamantine version of a melee weapon or of ten pieces of ammunition costs 500 gp more than the normal version, whether the weapon or ammunition is made of the metal or coated with it.

Silvered Weapons

Some monsters that have immunity or resistance to nonmagical weapons are susceptible to silver weapons, so cautious adventurers invest extra coin to plate their weapons with silver. You can silver a single weapon or ten pieces of ammunition for 100 gp. This cost represents not only the price of the silver, but the time and expertise needed to add silver to the weapon without making it less effective.

Special Weapons

Weapons with special rules are described here.

Boomerang. ††† The boomerang is a ranged weapon, and any creature proficient with the javelin is also proficient with this weapon. On a miss, a boomerang returns to the thrower's hand.

Double-Bladed Scimitar. †††† If you attack with a double-bladed scimitar as part of the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action immediately after to make a melee attack with it. This attack deals 1d4 slashing damage on a hit, instead of 2d4.

Hoopak. † When you make a melee attack with this weapon, you ignore its ammunition property. You can use the hoopak as a martial ranged weapon. If you do, it uses the ammunition property, uses sling bullets, and deals ld4 bludgeoning damage on a hit.

Lance. You have disadvantage when you use a lance to attack a target within 5 feet of you. Also, a lance requires two hands to wield when you aren’t mounted.

Net. A Large or smaller creature hit by a net is restrained until it is freed. A net has no effect on creatures that are formless, or creatures that are Huge or larger. A creature can use its action to make a DC 10 Strength check, freeing itself or another creature within its reach on a success. Dealing 5 slashing damage to the net (AC 10) also frees the creature without harming it, ending the effect and destroying the net.

When you use an action, bonus action, or reaction to attack with a net, you can make only one attack regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make.

† Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, appendix A

†† Xanathar's Guide to Everything, chapter 2

††† Princes of the Apocalypse, chapter 7

†††† Eberron: Rising from the Last War, chapter 1

Ammunition

Adventuring Gear

Clothes

Common. This set of clothes could consist of a loose shirt and baggy breeches, or a loose shirt and skirt or overdress. Cloth wrappings are used for shoes.

Cold Weather. †† This outfit consists of a heavy fur coat or cloak over layers of wool clothing, as well as a fur-lined hat or hood, goggles, and fur-lined leather boots and gloves. As long as cold weather clothing remains dry, its wearer automatically succeeds on saving throws against the effects of extreme cold.

Costume. This set of clothes is fashioned after a particular costume, typically meant for entertaining.

Fine. This set of clothes is designed specifically to be expensive and to show it, including fancy, tailored clothes in whatever fashion happens to be the current style in the courts of the nobles. Precious metals and gems could be worked into the clothing.

Traveler's. This set of clothes could consist of boots, a wool skirt or breeches, a sturdy belt, a shirt (perhaps with a vest or jacket), and an ample cloak with a hood.

Containers

Case, Crossbow Bolt. This wooden case can hold up to twenty crossbow bolts.

Case, Map or Scroll. This cylindrical leather case can hold up to ten rolled-up sheets of paper or five rolled-up sheets of parchment.

Component Pouch. A component pouch is a small, watertight leather belt pouch that has compartments to hold all the material components and other special items you need to cast your spells, except for those components that have a specific cost (as indicated in a spell’s description).

Pouch. A cloth or leather pouch can hold up to 20 sling bullets or 50 blowgun needles, among other things.

Spellcasting Focus

Arcane Focus. An arcane focus is a special item — an orb, a crystal, a rod, a specially constructed staff, a wand-like length of wood, or some similar item — designed to channel the power of arcane spells. A sorcerer, warlock, or wizard can use such an item as a spellcasting focus, as described in chapter 10.

Druidic Focus. A druidic focus might be a sprig of mistletoe or holly, a wand or scepter made of yew or another special wood, a staff drawn whole out of a living tree, or a totem object incorporating feathers, fur, bones, and teeth from sacred animals. A druid can use such an object as a spellcasting focus, as described in chapter 10.

Holy Symbol. A holy symbol is a representation of a god or pantheon. It might be an amulet depicting a symbol

representing a deity, the same symbol carefully engraved or inlaid as an emblem on a shield, or a tiny box holding a fragment of a sacred relic. A cleric or paladin can use a holy symbol as a spellcasting focus, as described in chapter 10. To use the symbol in this way, the caster must hold it in hand, wear it visibly, or bear it on a shield.

EQUIPMENT PACKS

The starting equipment you get from your class includes a collection of useful adventuring gear, put together in a pack. The contents of these packs are listed here. If you are buying your starting equipment, you can purchase a pack for the price shown, which might be cheaper than buying the items individually.

Burglar’s Pack (16 gp). Includes a backpack, a bag of 1,000 ball bearings, 10 feet of string, a bell, 5 candles, a crowbar, a hammer, 10 pitons, a hooded lantern, 2 flasks of oil, 5 days rations, a tinderbox, and a waterskin. The pack also has 50 feet of hempen rope strapped to the side of it.

Diplomat’s Pack (39 gp). Includes a chest, 2 cases for maps and scrolls, a set of fine clothes, a bottle of ink, an ink pen, a lamp, 2 flasks of oil, 5 sheets of paper, a vial of perfume, sealing wax, and soap.

Dungeoneer’s Pack (12 gp). Includes a backpack, a crowbar, a hammer, 10 pitons, 10 torches, a tinderbox, 10 days of rations, and a waterskin. The pack also has 50 feet of hempen rope strapped to the side of it.

Entertainer’s Pack (40 gp). Includes a backpack, a bedroll, 2 costumes, 5 candles, 5 days of rations, a waterskin, and a disguise kit.

Explorer’s Pack (10 gp). Includes a backpack, a bedroll, a mess kit, a tinderbox, 10 torches, 10 days of rations, and a waterskin. The pack also has 50 feet of hempen rope strapped to the side of it.

Monster Hunter's Pack (33 gp). † Includes a chest, a crowbar, a hammer, three wooden stakes, a holy symbol, a flask of holy water, a set of manacles, a steel mirror, a flask of oil, a tinderbox, and 3 torches.

Priest’s Pack (19 gp). Includes a backpack, a blanket, 10 candles, a tinderbox, an alms box, 2 blocks of incense, a censer, vestments, 2 days of rations, and a waterskin.

Scholar’s Pack (40 gp). Includes a backpack, a book of lore, a bottle of ink, an ink pen, 10 sheets of parchment, a little bag of sand, and a small knife.

Tools

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. Your race, class, background, or feats give you proficiency with certain tools. Proficiency with a tool allows you to add your proficiency bonus to any ability check you make using that tool. Tool use is not tied to a single ability, since proficiency with a tool represents broader knowledge of its use. For example, the DM might ask you to make a Dexterity check to carve a fine detail with your woodcarver’s tools, or a Strength check to make something out of particularly hard wood.

Disguise Kit

The perfect tool for anyone who wants to engage in trickery, a disguise kit enables its owner to adopt a false identity. Proficiency with this kit lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to create a visual disguise.

Components. A disguise kit includes cosmetics, hair dye, small props, and a few pieces of clothing.

Deception. In certain cases, a disguise can improve your ability to weave convincing lies.

Intimidation. The right disguise can make you look more fearsome, whether you want to scare someone away by posing as a plague victim or intimidate a gang of thugs by taking the appearance of a bully.

Performance. A cunning disguise can enhance an audience’s enjoyment of a performance, provided the disguise is properly designed to evoke the desired reaction.

Persuasion. Folk tend to trust a person in uniform. If you disguise yourself as an authority figure, your efforts to persuade others are often more effective.

Create Disguise. As part of a long rest, you can create a disguise. It takes you 1 minute to don such a disguise once you have created it. You can carry only one such disguise on you at a time without drawing undue attention, unless you have a bag of holding or a similar method to keep them hidden. Each disguise weighs 1 pound.

At other times, it takes 10 minutes to craft a disguise that involves moderate changes to your appearance, and 30 minutes for one that requires more extensive changes.

Forgery Kit

A forgery kit is designed to duplicate documents and to make it easier to copy a person’s seal or signature. Proficiency with this kit lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to create a physical forgery of a document.

Components. A forgery kit includes several different types of ink, a variety of parchments and papers, several quills, seals and sealing wax, gold and silver leaf, and small tools to sculpt melted wax to mimic a seal.

Arcana. A forgery kit can be used in conjunction with the Arcana skill to determine if a magic item is real or fake.

Deception. A well-crafted forgery, such as papers proclaiming you to be a noble or a writ that grants you safe passage, can lend credence to a lie.

History. A forgery kit combined with your knowledge of history improves your ability to create fake historical documents or to tell if an old document is authentic.

Investigation. When you examine objects, proficiency with a forgery kit is useful for determining how an object was made and whether it is genuine.

Other Tools. Knowledge of other tools makes your forgeries that much more believable. For example, you could combine proficiency with a forgery kit and proficiency with cartographer’s tools to make a fake map.

Quick Fake. As part of a short rest, you can produce a forged document no more than one page in length. As part of a long rest, you can produce a document that is up to four pages long. Your Intelligence check using a forgery kit determines the DC for someone else’s Intelligence (Investigation) check to spot the fake.

Gaming Set

This item encompasses a wide range of game pieces, including dice and decks of cards (for games such as Three-Dragon Ante). A few common examples appear on the Tools table, but other kinds of gaming sets exist. If you are proficient with a gaming set, you can add your proficiency bonus to ability checks you make to play a game with that set. Proficiency with a gaming set applies to one type of game.

Components. A gaming set has all the pieces needed to play a specific game or type of game, such as a complete deck of cards or a board and tokens.

History. Your mastery of a game includes knowledge of its history, as well as of important events it was connected to or prominent historical figures involved with it.

Insight. Playing games with someone is a good way to gain understanding of their personality, granting you a better ability to discern their lies from their truths and read their mood.

Sleight of Hand. Sleight of Hand is a useful skill for cheating at a game, as it allows you to swap pieces, palm cards, or alter a die roll. Alternatively, engrossing a target in a game by manipulating the components with dexterous movements is a great distraction for a pickpocketing attempt.

Herbalism Kit

Proficiency with an herbalism kit allows you to identify plants and safely collect their useful elements. Also, proficiency with this kit is required to create antitoxin and potions of healing.

Components. An herbalism kit includes pouches to store herbs, clippers and leather gloves for collecting plants, a mortar and pestle, and several glass jars.

Arcana. Your knowledge of the nature and uses of herbs can add insight to your magical studies that deal with plants and your attempts to identify potions.

Investigation. When you inspect an area overgrown with plants, your proficiency can help you pick out details and clues that others might miss.

Medicine. Your mastery of herbalism improves your ability to treat illnesses and wounds by augmenting your methods of care with medicinal plants.

Nature and Survival. When you travel in the wild, your skill in herbalism makes it easier to identify plants and spot sources of food that others might overlook.

Identify Plants. You can identify most plants with a quick inspection of their appearance and smell.

Navigator’s Tools

This set of instruments is used for navigation at sea. Proficiency with navigator's tools lets you chart a ship's course, helps you determine a true course based on observing the stars, and follow navigation charts. In addition, these tools allow you to add your proficiency bonus to any ability check you make to avoid getting lost at sea. It also grants you insight into charts and maps while developing your sense of direction.

Components. Navigator’s tools include a sextant, a compass, calipers, a ruler, parchment, ink, and a quill.

Survival. Knowledge of navigator’s tools helps you avoid becoming lost and also grants you insight into the most likely location for roads and settlements.

Sighting. By taking careful measurements, you can determine your position on a nautical chart and the time of day.

Poisoner’s Kit

A poisoner’s kit is a favored resource for thieves, assassins, and others who engage in skulduggery. It allows you to apply poisons and create them from various materials. Proficiency with this kit lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to craft or use poisons. Your knowledge of poisons also helps you treat them.

Components. A poisoner’s kit includes glass vials, a mortar and pestle, chemicals, and a glass stirring rod.

History. Your training with poisons can help you when you try to recall facts about infamous poisonings.

Investigation, Perception. Your knowledge of poisons has taught you to handle those substances carefully, giving you an edge when you inspect poisoned objects or try to extract clues from events that involve poison.

Medicine. When you treat the victim of a poison, your knowledge grants you added insight into how to provide the best care to your patient.

Nature, Survival. Working with poisons enables you to acquire lore about which plants and animals are poisonous.

Handle Poison. Your proficiency allows you to handle and apply a poison without risk of exposing yourself to its effects.

Thieves’ Tools

Perhaps the most common tools used by adventurers, thieves’ tools are designed for picking locks and foiling traps. Proficiency with these tools lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to disarm traps or open locks. Proficiency also grants you a general knowledge of traps and locks.

Components. Thieves’ tools include a small file, a set of lock picks, a small mirror mounted on a metal handle, a set of narrow-bladed scissors, and a pair of pliers.

History. Your knowledge of traps grants you insight when answering questions about locations that are renowned for their traps.

Investigation and Perception. You gain additional insight when looking for traps, because you have learned a variety of common signs that betray their presence.

Set a Trap. Just as you can disable traps, you can also set them. As part of a short rest, you can create a trap using items you have on hand. The total of your check becomes the DC for someone else’s attempt to discover or disable the trap. The trap deals damage appropriate to the materials used in crafting it (such as poison or a weapon) or damage equal to half the total of your check, whichever the DM deems appropriate.

Artisan Tools

These special tools include the items needed to pursue a craft or trade. The table shows examples of the most common types of tools, each providing items related to a single craft. Proficiency with a set of artisan’s tools lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make using the tools in your craft. Each type of artisan’s tools requires a separate proficiency.

Calligrapher’s Supplies

Calligraphy treats writing as a delicate, beautiful art. Calligraphers produce text that is pleasing to the eye, using a style that is difficult to forge. Their supplies also give them some ability to examine scripts and determine if they are legitimate, since a calligrapher’s training involves long hours of studying writing and attempting to replicate its style and design.

Components. Calligrapher’s supplies include ink, a dozen sheets of parchment, and three quills.

Arcana. Although calligraphy is of little help in deciphering the content of magical writings, proficiency with these supplies can aid in identifying who wrote a script of a magical nature.

History. This tool proficiency can augment the benefit of successful checks made to analyze or investigate ancient writings, scrolls, or other texts, including runes etched in stone or messages in frescoes or other displays.

Decipher Treasure Map. This tool proficiency grants you expertise in examining maps. You can make an Intelligence check to determine a map’s age, whether a map includes any hidden messages, or similar facts.

Carpenter’s Tools

Skill at carpentry enables a character to construct wooden structures. A carpenter can build a house, a shack, a wooden cabinet, or similar items.

Components. Carpenter’s tools include a saw, a hammer, nails, a hatchet, a square, a ruler, an adze, a plane, and a chisel.

History. This tool proficiency aids you in identifying the use and the origin of wooden buildings and other large wooden objects.

Investigation. You gain additional insight when inspecting areas within wooden structures, because you know tricks of construction that can conceal areas from discovery.

Perception. You can spot irregularities in wooden walls or floors, making it easier to find trap doors and secret passages.

Stealth. You can quickly assess the weak spots in a wooden floor, making it easier to avoid the places that creak and groan when they’re stepped on.

Fortify. With 1 minute of work and raw materials, you can make a door or window harder to force open. Increase the DC needed to open it by 5.

Temporary Shelter. As part of a long rest, you can construct a lean-to or a similar shelter to keep your group dry and in the shade for the duration of the rest. Because it was fashioned quickly from whatever wood was available, the shelter collapses 1d3 days after being assembled.

Cartographer’s Tools

Using cartographer’s tools, you can create accurate maps to make travel easier for yourself and those who come after you. These maps can range from large-scale depictions of mountain ranges to diagrams that show the layout of a dungeon level.

Components. Cartographer’s tools consist of a quill, ink, parchment, a pair of compasses, calipers, and a ruler.

Arcana, History, Religion. You can use your knowledge of maps and locations to unearth more detailed information when you use these skills. For instance, you might spot hidden messages in a map, identify when the map was made to determine if geographical features have changed since then, and so forth.

Nature. Your familiarity with physical geography makes it easier for you to answer questions or solve issues relating to the terrain around you.

Survival. Your understanding of geography makes it easier to find paths to civilization, to predict areas where villages or towns might be found, and to avoid becoming lost. You have studied so many maps that common patterns, such as how trade routes evolve and where settlements arise in relation to geographic locations, are familiar to you.

Craft a Map. While traveling, you can draw a map as you go in addition to engaging in other activity.

Cobbler’s Tools

Although the cobbler’s trade might seem too humble for an adventurer, a good pair of boots will see a character across rugged wilderness and through deadly dungeons.

Components. Cobbler’s tools consist of a hammer, an awl, a knife, a shoe stand, a cutter, spare leather, and thread.

Arcana, History. Your knowledge of shoes aids you in identifying the magical properties of enchanted boots or the history of such items.

Investigation. Footwear holds a surprising number of secrets. You can learn where someone has recently visited by examining the wear and the dirt that has accumulated on their shoes. Your experience in repairing shoes makes it easier for you to identify where damage might come from.

Maintain Shoes. As part of a long rest, you can repair your companions’ shoes. For the next 24 hours, up to six creatures of your choice who wear shoes you worked on can travel up to 10 hours a day without making saving throws to avoid exhaustion.

Craft Hidden Compartment. With 8 hours of work, you can add a hidden compartment to a pair of shoes. The compartment can hold an object up to 3 inches long and 1 inch wide and deep. You make an Intelligence check using your tool proficiency to determine the Intelligence (Investigation) check DC needed to find the compartment.

Cook’s Utensils

Adventuring is a hard life. With a cook along on the journey, your meals will be much better than the typical mix of hardtack and dried fruit.

Components. Cook’s utensils include a metal pot, knives, forks, a stirring spoon, and a ladle.

History. Your knowledge of cooking techniques allows you to assess the social patterns involved in a culture’s eating habits.

Medicine. When administering treatment, you can transform medicine that is bitter or sour into a pleasing concoction.

Survival. When foraging for food, you can make do with ingredients you scavenge that others would be unable to transform into nourishing meals.

Prepare Meals. As part of a short rest, you can prepare a tasty meal that helps your companions regain their strength. You and up to five creatures of your choice regain 1 extra hit point per Hit Die spent during a short rest, provided you have access to your cook’s utensils and sufficient food.

Glassblower’s Tools

Someone who is proficient with glassblower’s tools has not only the ability to shape glass, but also specialized knowledge of the methods used to produce glass objects.

Components. The tools include a blowpipe, a small marver, blocks, and tweezers. You need a source of heat to work glass.

Arcana, History. Your knowledge of glassmaking techniques aids you when you examine glass objects, such as potion bottles or glass items found in a treasure hoard. For instance, you can study how a glass potion bottle has been changed by its contents to help determine a potion’s effects. (A potion might leave behind a residue, deform the glass, or stain it.)

Investigation. When you study an area, your knowledge can aid you if the clues include broken glass or glass objects.

Identify Weakness. With 1 minute of study, you can identify the weak points in a glass object. Any damage dealt to the object by striking a weak spot is doubled.

Jeweler’s Tools

Training with jeweler’s tools includes the basic techniques needed to beautify gems. It also gives you expertise in identifying precious stones.

Components. Jeweler’s tools consist of a small saw and hammer, files, pliers, and tweezers.

Arcana. Proficiency with jeweler’s tools grants you knowledge about the reputed mystical uses of gems. This insight proves handy when you make Arcana checks related to gems or gem-encrusted items.

Investigation. When you inspect jeweled objects, your proficiency with jeweler’s tools aids you in picking out clues they might hold.

Identify Gems. You can identify gems and determine their value at a glance.

Leatherworker’s Tools

Knowledge of leatherworking extends to lore concerning animal hides and their properties. It also confers knowledge of leather armor and similar goods.

Components. Leatherworker’s tools include a knife, a small mallet, an edger, a hole punch, thread, and leather scraps.

Arcana. Your expertise in working with leather grants you added insight when you inspect magic items crafted from leather, such as boots and some cloaks.

Investigation. You gain added insight when studying leather items or clues related to them, as you draw on your knowledge of leather to pick out details that others would overlook.

Identify Hides. When looking at a hide or a leather item, you can determine the source of the leather and any special techniques used to treat it. For example, you can spot the difference between leather crafted using dwarven methods and leather crafted using halfling methods.

Mason’s Tools

Mason’s tools allow you to craft stone structures, including walls and buildings crafted from brick.

Components. Mason’s tools consist of a trowel, a hammer, a chisel, brushes, and a square.

History. Your expertise aids you in identifying a stone building’s date of construction and purpose, along with insight into who might have built it.

Investigation. You gain additional insight when inspecting areas within stone structures.

Perception. You can spot irregularities in stone walls or floors, making it easier to find trap doors and secret passages.

Demolition. Your knowledge of masonry allows you to spot weak points in brick walls. You deal double damage to such structures with your weapon attacks.

Painter’s Supplies

Proficiency with painter’s supplies represents your ability to paint and draw. You also acquire an understanding of art history, which can aid you in examining works of art.

Components. Painter’s supplies include an easel, canvas, paints, brushes, charcoal sticks, and a palette.

Arcana, History, Religion. Your expertise aids you in uncovering lore of any sort that is attached to a work of art, such as the magical properties of a painting or the origins of a strange mural found in a dungeon.

Investigation, Perception. When you inspect a painting or a similar work of visual art, your knowledge of the practices behind creating it can grant you additional insight.

Painting and Drawing. As part of a short or long rest, you can produce a simple work of art. Although your work might lack precision, you can capture an image or a scene, or make a quick copy of a piece of art you saw.

Potter’s Tools

Potter’s tools are used to create a variety of ceramic objects, most typically pots and similar vessels.

Components. Potter’s tools include potter’s needles, ribs, scrapers, a knife, and calipers.

History. Your expertise aids you in identifying ceramic objects, including when they were created and their likely place or culture of origin.

Investigation, Perception. You gain additional insight when inspecting ceramics, uncovering clues others would overlook by spotting minor irregularities.

Reconstruction. By examining pottery shards, you can determine an object’s original, intact form and its likely purpose.

Smith’s Tools

Smith’s tools allow you to work metal, heating it to alter its shape, repair damage, or work raw ingots into useful items.

Components. Smith’s tools include hammers, tongs, charcoal, rags, and a whetstone.

Arcana and History. Your expertise lends you additional insight when examining metal objects, such as weapons.

Investigation. You can spot clues and make deductions that others might overlook when an investigation involves armor, weapons, or other metalwork.

Repair. With access to your tools and an open flame hot enough to make metal pliable, you can restore 10 hit points to a damaged metal object for each hour of work.

Tinker’s Tools

A set of tinker’s tools is designed to enable you to repair many mundane objects. Though you can’t manufacture much with tinker’s tools, you can mend torn clothes, sharpen a worn sword, and patch a tattered suit of chain mail.

Components. Tinker’s tools include a variety of hand tools, thread, needles, a whetstone, scraps of cloth and leather, and a small pot of glue.

History. You can determine the age and origin of objects, even if you have only a few pieces remaining from the original.

Investigation. When you inspect a damaged object, you gain knowledge of how it was damaged and how long ago.

Repair. You can restore 10 hit points to a damaged object for each hour of work. For any object, you need access to the raw materials required to repair it. For metal objects, you need access to an open flame hot enough to make the metal pliable.

Weaver’s Tools

Weaver’s tools allow you to create cloth and tailor it into articles of clothing.

Components. Weaver’s tools include thread, needles, and scraps of cloth. You know how to work a loom, but such equipment is too large to transport.

Arcana, History. Your expertise lends you additional insight when examining cloth objects, including cloaks and robes.

Investigation. Using your knowledge of the process of creating cloth objects, you can spot clues and make deductions that others would overlook when you examine tapestries, upholstery, clothing, and other woven items.

Repair. As part of a short rest, you can repair a single damaged cloth object.

Craft Clothing. Assuming you have access to sufficient cloth and thread, you can create an outfit for a creature as part of a long rest.

Woodcarver’s Tools

Woodcarver’s tools allow you to craft intricate objects from wood, such as wooden tokens or arrows.

Components. Woodcarver’s tools consist of a knife, a gouge, and a small saw.

Arcana, History. Your expertise lends you additional insight when you examine wooden objects, such as figurines or arrows.

Nature. Your knowledge of wooden objects gives you some added insight when you examine trees.

Repair. As part of a short rest, you can repair a single damaged wooden object.

Craft Arrows. As part of a short rest, you can craft up to five arrows. As part of a long rest, you can craft up to twenty. You must have enough wood on hand to produce them.

Musical Instruments

Several of the most common types of musical instruments are shown on the table as examples. A bard can use a musical instrument as a spellcasting focus. Each type of musical instrument requires a separate proficiency. If you have proficiency with a given musical instrument, you can add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to play music with the instrument. Proficiency also indicates you are familiar with the techniques used to play it and you have knowledge of some songs commonly performed with that instrument.

History. † Your expertise aids you in recalling lore related to your instrument.

Performance. † Your ability to put on a good show is improved when you incorporate an instrument into your act.

Compose a Tune. † As part of a long rest, you can compose a new tune and lyrics for your instrument. You might use this ability to impress a noble or spread scandalous rumors with a catchy tune.

Mounts and Vehicles

A good mount can help you move more quickly through the wilderness, but its primary purpose is to carry the gear that would otherwise slow you down. The Mounts and Other Animals table shows each animal’s speed and base carrying capacity.

An animal pulling a carriage, cart, chariot, sled, or wagon can move weight up to five times its base carrying capacity, including the weight of the vehicle. If multiple animals pull the same vehicle, they can add their carrying capacity together.

Mounts other than those listed here are available in the worlds of D&D, but they are rare and not normally available for purchase. These include flying mounts (pegasi, griffons, hippogriffs, and similar animals) and even aquatic mounts (giant sea horses, for example). Acquiring such a mount often means securing an egg and raising the creature yourself, making a bargain with a powerful entity, or negotiating with the mount itself.

Drawn Vehicles

Dog Sleds. ††† An empty sled costs 20 gp, weighs 300 pounds, and has room at the back for one driver. A sled dog (use the wolf stat block in appendix A of the Monster Manual) costs SO gp and can pull 360 pounds. Sled dogs must take a short rest after pulling a sled for 1 hour; otherwise, they gain one level of exhaustion.

Rowed Vessels. Keelboats and rowboats are used on lakes and rivers. If going downstream, add the speed of the current (typically 3 miles per hour) to the speed of the vehicle. These vehicles can’t be rowed against any significant current, but they can be pulled upstream by draft animals on the shores. A rowboat weighs 100 pounds, in case adventurers carry it over land.

† Tomb of Annihilation, chapter 1

†† Ghosts of Saltmarsh, appendix A

††† Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, chapter 1

†††† Xanathar's Guide to Everything, chapter 2

Vehicle Proficiency ††††

Proficiency with land vehicles covers a wide range of options, from chariots and howdahs to wagons and carts. Proficiency with water vehicles covers anything that navigates waterways. Proficiency with vehicles grants the knowledge needed to handle vehicles of that type, along with knowledge of how to repair and maintain them.

In addition, a character proficient with water vehicles is knowledgeable about anything a professional sailor would be familiar with, such as information about the sea and islands, tying knots, and assessing weather and sea conditions.

Arcana. When you study a magic vehicle, this tool proficiency aids you in uncovering lore or determining how the vehicle operates.

Investigation, Perception. When you inspect a vehicle for clues or hidden information, your proficiency aids you in noticing things that others might miss.

Vehicle Handling. When piloting a vehicle, you can apply your proficiency bonus to the vehicle’s AC and saving throws.

Trade Goods

Most wealth is not in coins. It is measured in livestock, grain, land, rights to collect taxes, or rights to resources (such as a mine or a forest).

Guilds, nobles, and royalty regulate trade. Chartered companies are granted rights to conduct trade along certain routes, to send merchant ships to various ports, or to buy or sell specific goods. Guilds set prices for the goods or services that they control, and determine who may or may not offer those goods and services. Merchants commonly exchange trade goods without using currency. The Trade Goods table shows the value of commonly exchanged goods.

SELF SUFFICIENCY

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The expenses and lifestyles described in this chapter assume that you are spending your time between adventures in town, availing yourself of whatever services you can afford — paying for food and shelter, paying townspeople to sharpen your sword and repair your armor, and so on. Some characters, though, might prefer to spend their time away from civilization, sustaining themselves in the wild by hunting, foraging, and repairing their own gear.

Maintaining this kind of lifestyle doesn’t require you to spend any coin, but it is time-consuming. If you spend your time between adventures practicing a profession as described in chapter 8, you can eke out the equivalent of a poor lifestyle. Proficiency in the Survival skill lets you live at the equivalent of a comfortable lifestyle.

Food, Drink, and Lodging

The Food, Drink, and Lodging table gives prices for individual food items and a single night’s lodging. These prices are included in your total lifestyle expenses.

Services

Adventurers can pay nonplayer characters to assist them or act on their behalf in a variety of circumstances. Most such hirelings have fairly ordinary skills, while others are masters of a craft or art, and a few are experts with specialized adventuring skills.

Some of the most basic types of hirelings appear on the Services table. Other common hirelings include any of the wide variety of people who inhabit a typical town or city, when the adventurers pay them to perform a specific task. For example, a wizard might pay a carpenter to construct an elaborate chest (and its miniature replica) for use in the secret chest spell. A fighter might commission a blacksmith to forge a special sword. A bard might pay a tailor to make exquisite clothing for an upcoming in front of the duke.

Other hirelings provide more expert or dangerous services. Mercenary soldiers paid to help the adventurers take on a hobgoblin army are hirelings, as are sages hired to research ancient or esoteric lore. If a high-level adventurer establishes a stronghold of some kind, he or she might hire a whole staff of servants and agents to run the place, from a castellan or steward to menial laborers to keep the stables clean. These hirelings often enjoy a long-term contract that includes a place to live within the stronghold as part of the offered compensation.

Spellcasting Services

People who are able to cast spells don’t fall into the category of ordinary hirelings. It might be possible to find someone willing to cast a spell in exchange for coin or favors, but it is rarely easy and no established pay rates exist. As a rule, the higher the level of the desired spell, the harder it is to find someone who can cast it and the more it costs.

Hiring someone to cast a relatively common spell of 1st or 2nd level, such as cure wounds or identify, is easy enough in a city or town, and might cost 10 to 50 gold pieces (plus the cost of any expensive material components). Finding someone able and willing to cast a higher-level spell might involve traveling to a large city, perhaps one with a university or prominent temple. Once found, the spellcaster might ask for a service instead of payment — the kind of service that only adventurers can provide, such as retrieving a rare item from a dangerous locale or traversing a monster-infested wilderness to deliver something important to a distant settlement.

Trinkets

When you make your character, you can roll once on the Trinkets table to gain a trinket, a simple item lightly touched by mystery. The DM might also use this table. It can help stock a room in a dungeon or fill a creature’s pockets.

† D&D Adventurers Leauge: DM's Guide

Trinkets

Feywild Trinkets †

The Feywild Trinkets table that follows offers a selection of trinkets appropriate for Feywild-themed adventures.

† The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, introduction

Horror Trinkets †

Sinister deeds and festering evils take many forms, sometimes as stories and sometimes as physical scars. All manner of talismans, mementos, criminal evidence, mysterious devices, cursed relics, and physical impossibilities might embody just such scars-summaries of terrors in material form.

These trinkets hint toward various horrific tales and might lead to dreadful revelations or be nothing more than grim keepsakes. At the DM's discretion any of these trinkets might also be a Mist talisman a focal item that can lead the bearer through the Mists to a particular Domain of Dread.

† Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, chapter 1

Icewind Dale Trinkets †

† Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, appendix A

About This Document

This publication was created to expand on Chapter 5 of the Player's Handbook, solely with WotC published material (which is referenced where applicable). None of it is homebrewed by the author.

version 1.01