D&D 5E What Can You Make With Tinkerer's Tools?

Fralex

Explorer

• Mar 30, 2015

• #1

That other thread about alchemist's tools reminded me of this. If the things you can craft with alchemist's supplies are unclear, the uses for tinkerer's tools are an enigma. There is a single solitary example of something you can craft with them, and it's just on the rock gnome racial traits. So, like, these are tools for making weird devices or something? For modifying other devices? Inventing things that don't exist already? Could I craft a firearm with them? According to Wikipedia, tinkers were tinsmiths that repaired silverware. That doesn't really help. What do you tink?

 

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77IM

Explorer!!!

Supporter

• Mar 30, 2015

• #2

I'd allow you to make or repair small metal devices that don't require a forge. Off the top of my head:

Thieves' tools
Mess kit
Hunting trap
Pulley
Lock
Whistle
Caltrops
Small metal buckles and things, like on riding harness
Clockwork gizmos like what gnomes can make (but using regular crafting rules it takes a LOT longer)

Granted, some of these items probably do require a forge at some point, but I try to err on the side of letting players do stuff, so I'd assume that any reasonably-sized pile of scrap has sufficient forged metal in it.

 

F

Fildrigar

Explorer

• Mar 30, 2015

• #3

Anything your DM will let you?

 

DEFCON 1

Legend

Supporter

• Mar 30, 2015

• #4

Yeah, the thing about all the Tools is that they seem useful for a certain style of gameplay, but might not see any use in other styles. I know for me... my adventures and campaigns tend to be very narrative focused with every day in-game accounted for with action. Thus the story pushes ahead day by day, and there's little "down time" in my particular games. As a result, most PCs not only wouldn't have a couple weeks avalable to sit around tinkering or making something... more often than not anything they might create could be acquired as part of the narrative just to keep things moving. If there's a plot afoot, the enemies and other PCs wouldn't sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the tinkerer to make a mess kit-- if that mess kit was functionally important to the story, they'd find a way to acquire one.

But I imagine that those campaigns that are much slower pace... ones that might use 1 Day / 1 Week short and long rests, and more sandboxy where the PCs go out to a location to find treasure, then come back to town to spend it (before then finding rumors of a new place to go out again) for example... the Down Time rules and using Tools to make/build/repair things could have more of a focus and an actual use.

 

Tony Vargas

Legend

• Mar 30, 2015

• #5

By natural language, either repair metal items made of tin, copper, or the like, that can be worked on without a forge (so no fixing iron or steel weapons/armor, for instance)...

or, fix/modify anything whether you know what you're doing or not.

Given the implied medieval setting, taking the older meaning of the word seems logical on the surface. But, then, the game has also had 'Tinker Gnomes' who work with complex mechanical devices...

 

Fralex

Explorer

• Mar 30, 2015

• #6

Fildrigar said:

Anything your DM will let you?

Click to expand...

But what if I am the DM? >:

One thing I do do for rock gnomes is interpret the three devices they can craft as examples, and let my players use the Tinker trait to build anything of a similar complexity. For instance, one player asked if she could build an alarm clock, and I was like, sure, that's basically a music box that works differently. She then went to a tavern and stuffed it into a sleeping woman's clothing (who was another player).

 

Fralex

Explorer

• Mar 30, 2015

• #7

Tony Vargas said:

or, fix/modify anything whether you know what you're doing or not.

Click to expand...

Every now and then I come back to toying with the idea of using these tools to make improvements to mechanical weapons, do things like give a crossbow the "burst fire" property.

 

The Grassy Gnoll

Explorer

• Mar 30, 2015

• #8

A tinker would repair small everyday objects - pits, pans, kettles, maybe horseshoes, necklaces, etc.
But that extra 'er' implies more of a mechanic/professor brainstawm hybrid, crafting steampunky things like maybe a helmet lantern for the non-darkvisioned adventurer. Potentially, things like quick loading crossbows, or caltrop grenades even...
I'd be more interested in the second interpretation (which would, as a skillset, incorporate the former for the more mundane bits of a campaign).

 

Fralex

Explorer

• Mar 30, 2015

• #9

G. Barrelhouse Esq. said:

A tinker would repair small everyday objects - pits, pans, kettles, maybe horseshoes, necklaces, etc.
But that extra 'er' implies more of a mechanic/professor brainstawm hybrid, crafting steampunky things like maybe a helmet lantern for the non-darkvisioned adventurer. Potentially, things like quick loading crossbows, or caltrop grenades even...
I'd be more interested in the second interpretation (which would, as a skillset, incorporate the former for the more mundane bits of a campaign).

Click to expand...

Yeah, I doubt minor repairs are that hard to make for adventurers with access to the mending cantrip. Although technically, the book doesn't use the extra "er." But it seems like it's what they meant.

 

T

Tormyr

Adventurer

• Mar 30, 2015

• #10

Dingbots? http://girlgenius.wikia.com/wiki/Dingbot_Prime