Masterwork tools for Skills in 2e?

[nosig]

so... do we have any idea if the "Generic Masterwork" tool that we all know and love in 1e is still going to be in the same form?

Will we still be able to spend XXgp (currently 50gp) and assign "the perfect tool for the job" for a skill to one of our PCs and have it give a (circumstance?) bonus to that skill check (restricted circumstances)?

Say - a 1 lb. 'shiny' metal ball, that grants a +2 bonus to Bluff to Faint Goblins in combat... or whatever... "oooh! Shiny!"

[Tallow]

wow, this is a pretty premature question. We haven't even gotten a blog on general equipment yet.

[nosig]

Tallow wrote:

wow, this is a pretty premature question. We haven't even gotten a blog on general equipment yet.

Guess I am hoping to influence the developers then.

I just remember the "change" to the Generic Masterwork tool listing when we went from 3.5 to 1e.

+1 lb and +50gp changed to 1 lb and 50 gp.... so it went from a modification to existing equipment (like the difference between thieves tools and Masterwork Thieves tools) to a "tool" in and of itself. I'm not sure if I like the change we had then... I know at the time i really didn't think it was a good idea. Now... maybe it actually was.

So I'm wondering if we are just going to drop the concept of a "generic masterwork tool" in favor of "specific" tools (and much larger equipment tables, with more detailed rules and ... all that entails) or if we will just drop "specific" tools that give circumstance bonuses in "specific" circumstances...

Either way, I would like more thought put into it than appears to have been done last time... as long as we give it some fore thought. And addressing it early is easier then trying to "patch" it later... IMHO

[Joe M.]

Copying over the discussion of tools from the Equipment Blog for reference if folks are still interested in this discussion:

Equipment Blog wrote:

The Equipment chapter also includes all sorts of other gear you might want on adventures, from rope to tents to musical instruments to religious symbols. Many of these items are required to perform certain tasks, like thieves’ tools. The new system of item quality makes it pretty straightforward to figure out how tools work. For example, you need thieves’ tools to pick a lock or disable many traps. Normal thieves’ tools let you do this normally, expert-quality tools give you a +1 item bonus on your check, and master-quality tools give you a +2 item bonus on your check. Now what if you get stuck without your tools and need to improvise? Well, if you can scrabble something together, you’ve created a poor-quality set of tools, which gives you a –2 item penalty (much like the penalty for having an proficiency rank of untrained in a task). The same thing might happen if you had to turn vines into improvised rope or use an empty chest as a drum for an improvised musical instrument!