There are a few other basic tools that are placed as well.



The torch is probably the most used tool in the entirety of Minecraft- because the only thing it does is provide light.  Light, however is invaluable.  First of all, without light, you cannot see unless it is daytime, you are above ground, and you are not sheltered by too thick of a tree canopy.  Without light, it is nearly impossible to see what you are doing.  Second of all, monsters will never spawn in a space that is not in darkness.  Because of this, torches can be left in place to ensure that monsters will not spawn within an area- which includes inside of buildings, in deep underground caverns, or at nighttime on the surface of the world.  Torches can be placed as with anything else by right-clicking, however they will attach to the top or side of an adjacent block.  Filling the space a torch is in will cause it to ‘pop’ off of the surface it is attached to, after which it can be picked up and re-used.  In fact, unless a torch has been placed and then had sand, gravel, lava, or water fall on it, it will always be recoverable.... unless a creeper blew it up.  Torches are the second tool that you can make without a crafting table.




The ladder is another useful tool- it is placed on the side of a block.  If you move towards a ladder, you will ‘latch’ onto it, and begin climbing.  Climbing up is accomplished by moving towards the ladder, climbing down is achieved by not pressing any direction, and if you hold the Shift key, you will stay in place on the ladder.  You can also move horizontally while you are on a ladder, so be careful you do not fall off the ladder and plummet to your injury or death.  This does also mean you can climb a wall sideways by ladder, or use ladders to mine from walls, just as an example.



The chest is a very useful tool- it holds as much as your entire inventory, not counting your hotbar spaces, and stays where you put it.  Made entirely of wood, it is nonetheless a solid block and will only be destroyed by lava or explosions.  When placing a chest, you do have to keep in mind that its lid opens- which means that you cannot place a block immediately over a chest unless you don’t mind the chest being stuck closed.  While this is useful enough in its own right, the chest has an additional useful property- the property of confusing math.  That is to say that if you place two chests side by side, they will combine- making 1+1 equal 1- one bigger chest, that is! 



The larger chest holds twice as much and, because it is only one object, you don’t have to flip from one chest to the other.  In nearly any situation you can find, the large chest will be plenty of storage space for anything you want to keep somewhere.



This additional storage space is especially handy if you go into an area where you might get hurt- returning to it frequently to deposit what you mine, harvest, chop, or otherwise grab can keep you from suffering big losses in the event you fall into lava or get attacked by a large number of monsters, since the chests do not vanish when you die, and dying causes everything you are holding to be dropped right where you died.