What do you use your Traveler's Any-Tool for?

[Ravingdork]

Traveler's Any-Tool:

This implement at first seems to be nothing but a 12-inch iron bar lined with small plates and spikes. It can be folded, twisted, hinged, and bent, to form almost any known tool. Hammers, shovels, even a block and tackle (without rope) are possible. It can duplicate any tool the wielder can clearly visualize that contains only limited moving parts, such as a pair of scissors, but not a handloom. It cannot be used to replace missing or broken parts of machines or vehicles unless a mundane tool would have done the job just as well.

The any-tool counts as a set of masterwork artisan’s tools for most Craft or Profession skills (although very specialist crafts such as alchemy still require their own unique toolset). It is an ineffective weapon, always counting as an improvised weapon and never granting any masterwork bonus on attack rolls.

What tools come to mind, what would you be using it for? What's more, as a GM, what would you allow or not allow this marvelous device to turn into?

This here is a brainstorming thread. I hope to get (and give) a good grasp of what this little beauty is really capable of.

[Ravingdork]

Surely someone has some ideas.

[Ciaran Barnes]

Jewelry making. Cotton picking. Ivory Carving.

[Dilvias]

It depends on what your GM can let you get away with. Can you unfold it into a 10 foot pole? What about a mirror, is there a poilshed bit? How resistant is it to damage? Can you scoop up lava? Retrieve items in pools of acid? Can you make a fine mesh for filtering salt out of salt water? Catch butterflies?

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Basically it gets you around the trouble of not being able to use a craft skill because you lack and appropriate tool. There is a question of whether it can change size as well as shape because if the tool I want is a sewing needle so I can sew a button back on, there's a question of how a one-foot bar covered with barbs and plates turns into that.

Of course, you could always rule that it's basically a magic Swiss army knife and there are needles, tweezers, and toothpicks you can pull out.

There's also a question of how large a tool you can make. If I say I want a pruning hook, that's a long pole with a sharp bladed hook at the end and some form of rope to pull that hook. If it can become a shovel, can it become a lawn roller?

How many moving parts can it have? Scissors have one and are allowed, but looms have many and are disallowed. How about a magnifying glass? That has no moving parts, but is a tool. A telescope? How about a jack? That could come in useful in a dungeon.

If it can be shrunk down as small as a needle then enlarged as large as a lawn roller, you've made the ultimate hide-out weapon. How easy is it to jam a needle into some leather or even one's flesh and pull it out later?

[Ravingdork]

I've considered using it as a battering ram or as thieves' tools to unlock/disarm a device.

[Vicon]

A jack is a simple tool, and so is a wheel. If the GM permitted, you could quickly convert one or more such instruments into a "wheel-barrow" of sorts by using the jack to hike a big mess of gear atop it (also arguably secured by numerous tools or contained by various 'plates' sticking out of it) and once it was hiked up on the jack, the wheel (or wheels) could be extended to allow a person to roll the now elevated/contained material... considerably more carrying/drag/push capacity with far less work... if it were allowed. Depending on how light these tools were, and how effective they might be in this capacity they could effectively replace mining carts or even beasts of burden.

Or how about if there is a wheel attachment converting a set into rollerskates?
The wheel idea is not that far fetched as the block/tackle device contains a pulley-wheel within it... If there was a jack, by the same principles could it become a pogo-stick?

A pipe for concentrating explosives/magic on a small area (on the same principle as a 'bangalore torpedo')...

Crowbar arm to pry open a door/tomb JUST ENOUGH to get a jack inside and finish the job easily...

that's all I got for now!

[Benrislove]

boltcutters, zipline handle, hand drill, screwdriver (TAKE THAT HINGES).

[Pendagast]

P38 can opener. Pin that fighter and I'll peel his armor like a can of sardines and then maybe we can actually land a hit!

[Ravingdork]

• abacus
  
• artisan's tools
  
• astrolabe
  
• bear trap
  
• bell
  
• bellows
  
• chair
  
• clamp
  
• comb or brush
  
• compass
  
• crowbar
  
• fishing pole (or balancing pole or most any other kind of pole)
  
• glass cutter
  
• goggles
  
• grappling hook
  
• hammer
  
• hoe
  
• holy symbol
  
• kite
  
• ladder
  
• lantern/lamp
  
• lock (think like a bike lock)
  
• magnet
  
• magnifying glass
  
• manacles
  
• merchant's scale
  
• miner's pick
  
• mirror
  
• musical instrument
  
• parasol/umbrella
  
• periscope
  
• pitcher
  
• piton
  
• pliers
  
• pitchfork
  
• portable bridge
  
• portable ram
  
• pot
  
• prosthetic (like John Silver from Treasure Planet)
  
• pyrography kit
  
• saw
  
• scissors
  
• sextant
  
• shaving kit
  
• sheers
  
• shield sconce
  
• signal horn/whistle
  
• shovel
  
• skeleton key
  
• skillet
  
• snorkel
  
• spike
  
• spyglass
  
• stilt (works better in pairs)
  
• stove can
  
• stretcher
  
• surgeon's tools
  
• thieves' tools
  
• thurible
  
• waffle iron
  
• wrist sheathe
  

What else?

[RumpinRufus]

sieve
tweezers
pipe
broom
corkscrew
syringe
plane
whisk
grater
whetstone

[Ravingdork]

hang glider! :D