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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9500204" data-attributes="member: 71699">A character may need a tool to make a specialized ability check, based on this textA tool helps you make specialized ability checks, craft certain items, or both. Proficiency with a tool improves your chances on any ability check you make that uses the toolIf you have proficiency with a tool, add your Proficiency Bonus to any ability check you make that uses the tool. If you have proficiency in a skill that’s used with that check, you have Advantage on the check too.So it seems a DM could say that opening a given lock or disarming a given trap requires thieves' tools. Sleight of Hand would be a reasonable skill to apply in some cases, in others maybe a different skill, like Arcana as [USER=6906155]@Paul Farquhar[/USER] suggests above. Dexterity (Arcana), possibly (see Skills With Different Abilities.)As you suggest, they could say that something like the required tool allows that check, but at disadvantage.A check should only be called for whenwhen a creature attempts something other than an attack that has a chance of meaningful failure. When the outcome is uncertain and narratively interesting, the dice determine the result. If the task is trivial or impossible, don’t bother with a D20 Test. A character can move across an empty room or drink from a flask without making a Dexterity check, whereas no lucky die roll will allow a character with an ordinary bow to hit the moon with an arrow. Call for a D20 Test only if there’s a chance of both success and failure and if there are meaningful consequences for failure. When characters have all the time in the world and there's no cost for failure, don't bother calling for a d20 test. When guards are about to arrive, there's a trap to trigger, and so on - meaningful consequences - roll dice.</blockquote>

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