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Is it possible for my character to gain proficiency with a tool temporarily?
I'm playing an Artificer, so I can create the tools I need using The Right Tool for the Job, but that doesn't give proficiency.
I found the Borrowed Knowledge spell (Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos), but that only gives skill proficiencies, not tools.
There are different multi-classing options and the (Artificer-specific) magic item All-Purpose Tool.
This is the second level feature of the Knowledge Domain Cleric. This requires multi-classing but only two levels.
This feature gives proficiency for any skill or tool:
As an action, you choose one skill or tool. For 10 minutes, you have proficiency with the chosen skill or tool.
This is a Phantom Rogue feature and requires three levels of multi-classing. It grants a permanent proficiency that can be swapped on a rest to any tool or skill.
This is a magic item of varying rarity from TCoE (requires attunement by an Artificer, no problem in your case) that can transform into any tool and also grants proficiency while using it. This will make Right Tool for the Job redundant however.
Eladrin, Githyanki, Sea Elf, and Shadar-Kai from Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse, as well as Astral Elfs from Astral Adventurer's Guide have access to temporary tool proficiencies they can switch. They can select a new tool proficiency after a long rest or trance, and use it until they finish their next long rest.
Githyanki Astral Knowledge
Whenever you finish a long rest, you gain proficiency in one skill of your choice and with one weapon or tool of your choice, selected from the Player's Handbook, as you momentarily project your consciousness into the Astral Plane. These proficiencies last until the end of your next long rest.
Eladrin, Sea Elf, or Shadar-Kai Trance
Whenever you finish this trance, you can gain two proficiencies that you don't have, each one with a weapon or a tool of your choice selected from the Player's Handbook. You mystically acquire these proficiencies by drawing them from shared elven memory, and you retain them until you finish your next long rest.
Astral Elf Astral Trance
Whenever you finish this trance, you gain profciency in one skill of your choice and with one weapon or tool of your choice, selected from the Player’s Handbook. You mystically acquire these profciencies by drawing them from shared elven memory and the experiences of entities on the Astral Plane, and you retain them until you finish your next long rest.
(Thanks to @TheFallenOne, and @HenryMalinowski for Astral Elf and Eldarin).
The sourcebook Eberron: Rising from the Last War introduces the magic item Living Gloves:
These symbiotic gloves — made of thin chitin and sinew — pulse with a life of their own. To attune to them, you must wear them for the entire attunement period, during which the gloves bond with your skin.
While attuned to these gloves, you gain one of the following proficiencies (your choice when you attune to the gloves):
- Sleight of Hand
- Thieves' tools
- One kind of artisan’s tools of your choice
- One kind of musical instrument of your choice
When you make an ability check using the chosen proficiency, you add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.
Symbiotic Nature. The gloves can’t be removed from you while you’re attuned to them, and you can’t voluntarily end your attunement to them. If you’re targeted by a spell that ends a curse, your attunement to the gloves ends, and they can be removed.
Note that they require you to have access to a spell like Remove Curse to end the attunement and switch proficiency. Also, attunement of course takes the duration of a Short Rest to complete.
