Skill in crafting, and the associated tools, help you make specialized ability checks, craft certain items, or both. 

Skill. This entry lists the ability to use when making an ability check with the tool.

Utilize. Examples of things you can do with the tool when you take the Utilize action. You can do one of those things each time you take the action. This entry also provides the DC for the action.

Craft. This entry lists what, if anything, you can craft with the tool.

Variants. This entry appears if the tool has variants, which are listed. Each requires a separate proficiency. (For example, proficiency with a Lute, does not grant you proficiency with a Viol.)

Tool & Skill Proficiency

If you have proficiency with any Tool, add your Proficiency Bonus to any ability check you make that uses the tool.

If you have proficiency in the Skill that’s used with that check, you have Advantage on the check as well. 

For example: a musician with proficiency in the performance skill as well as an Instrument adds their proficiency bonus and rolls with advantage.

If you use an Artisan Tool you are not proficient with, you make the roll with Disadvantage.

To craft an item, you must have the appropriate Tool Kit in your inventory.

Toolkit and Crafting Synergies

Adventurers can combine their proficiencies to craft items or tackle complex problems together.

For example, a character proficient in Woodcarving might craft arrow shafts that another character—skilled in Fletching—can turn into finished arrows.

Or, a player with a Forgery Kit could partner with someone proficient in Calligraphy to produce a highly convincing invitation or collaborate with a Book Binding expert to fabricate an entire false historical text.

Crafting Consumables

Characters can craft various Consumable items for use in adventuring such as potions, oils, poisons, scrolls, and bombs. To create such items, the character will need to [tag:9365063|know the recipe] for the item, have sufficient Ingredients, and additional supplies to support the crafting, such as gemstones to power the magic in potions.

Recipes

Recipes provide characters with the knowledge and know-how to craft consumable items by detailing the ingredients required and the necessary steps taken for crafting. Some recipes are common and widely known enough for any character with Proficiency in the associated Crafting Skill to have already learned them. Characters can find or purchase additional recipes that have been written down or learn the recipes from others who know them.

In addition, characters can attempt to craft a consumable item through trial and error, thus inventing their own recipe. However, such improvisation in crafting will prove more difficult to achieve the intended outcome (either through a higher Skill Check DC for crafting or through an additional Skill Check for intuiting possible recipes) and may result in unknown results!

Ingredients

Ingredients are raw materials required to craft a consumable item. Ingredients have inherent properties that make them useful in creating some consumables but not others, depending on the properties of the item being crafted. Players can find ingredients while adventuring by attempting to collect them from local flora and fauna, harvesting them from the corpses of dispatched creatures, or extracting them from natural sources such as minerals found in rocks and soil.

Skill Checks and their associated DCs for collecting Ingredients will be determined by the rarity of the Ingredient as well as situational or environmental conditions. Additional Skill Checks may be required for identifying Ingredients or their potential uses in Recipes.

Crafting

Once a character knows a Recipe, has obtained the Ingredients, and has access to the appropriateTool Kit, they can attempt to craft a consumable item. Crafting consumables requires extra supplies, such as gemstones to provide magical energy for potions and oils or reagents used in manufacture of poisons and alchemical items, reflected by the Cost of Crafting. 

Number of Ingredients, Cost, Crafting DC, # of Successes Required for crafting, # of Failures allowed, and # of Items Created are determined by rarity of the item being crafted following the Crafting Table below. One Crafting check can be performed in a Workday (8 hours). Critical Success (Natural 20 or 10+ over Crafting DC) results in 2 Successes, while Critical Failure results in 2 Failures. When Character reaches  # of Failures allowed, no item is created and the Character loses their Ingredients and GP invested.