Sole Searching: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Shoe
Cobbler’s Tools cost 5 gold, run off Dexterity, and may be the most committed bit in 5.5e. The core book gives you three things: advantage on someone’s next Acrobatics check (DC 10, one-and-done, presumably via spring-loaded boot), the ability to craft a Climber’s Kit, and a hidden compartment that holds objects up to 3 inches long and 1 inch wide - more than enough for pocket sauce.
The Cobbler Cometh
Xanathar’s Guide gives Arcana and History bonuses that apply specifically to enchanted boots, an Investigation use that tracks where someone has recently walked based on wear patterns, a Maintain Shoes feature that lets up to six creatures travel 10 hours a day without exhaustion saves, and the compartment. The example activities listed in the book are “determine a shoe’s age and origin” and “find a hidden compartment in a boot heel,” which is the book reminding you that other cobblers exist in this world and might have already done this to your shoes. Paranoid? Perhaps. Accurate? Also perhaps.
The Arcana and History application is the strangest part. No other clothing, no other magic, no other discipline. But enchanted boots? That’s the cross-section where your cobbler becomes the most important person at the table. Sit down Wizard with Identify - nobody asked you.
Too Many Cooks?
Cook’s Tools come in at 1 gold and lean Wisdom. The 5.5e core use is improve a food’s flavor (DC 10) or detect spoiled and poisoned food (DC 15), plus crafting rations. If your campaign actually tracks rations, that last one can come in clutch. A ration is a full day of food for one creature, not a single meal, and raw materials cost less than buying them outright.
What Xanathar’s adds here is the short rest feature: prepare a meal that gives up to five creatures 1 extra hit point per hit die spent. At higher levels, across a full party, that accumulates into something worth taking. It scales, it costs nothing but proficiency and time, and it gives the party cook a moment to shine that isn’t just “I notice the soup is poisoned.”
Glassblower’s Tools and Non-Friction
Glassblower’s Tools run 30 gold (yowza) and use Intelligence. The core loop is: determine what a glass object held in the past 24 hours, and craft bottles, magnifying glasses, spyglasses, and vials. The vials matter more than they seem. Most DMs hand-wave containers, but asking “how are you holding that holy water” isn’t obstructionism; it’s an invitation. Players given a small friction point tend to come up with something interesting, and a glassblower in the party turns that question into a skill expression instead of a shrug.
Xanathar’s adds a potion-reading application that is theoretically about residue and glass interaction, basically the D&D equivalent of reading wine legs, though as anyone who has consulted a catering professional on the subject can tell you, that particular science is about 60% vibes. The “identify weaknesses in glass objects” feature doubles damage to glass struck at a specific point, which raises the question of why any glass object needed that feature, but here we are.
If your party has a glassblower and you want somewhere to log what they’ve crafted and for whom, the Party Tracker has item slots with the ability to hide objects from other players, which pairs suspiciously well with a hidden compartment in a shoe.