cantrip level magic items

[Ikitavi]

What sort of interesting cantrip level magic items are in your campaigns, and how common are they?

I mean things like a purify water stone in a well, or necklaces that allow Message spells, or a sledge with a permanent Grease spell on the runners. Stuff that wouldn't break the game to have a lot of, that you could fit in the budget for relatively mundane forces. Items that wouldn't make the players overpowered if they got their hands on them either.

Also, can Glyph of Warding trigger a beneficial spell? The book says it triggers up to 3rd level spells, so it seems you could have a "break for emergencies" spell that even mundanes could use.

[weckar]

In my game (military) all divisions of the army have a specialised (slotless) brightly colored sash. In addition to providing recognition on the battlefield, they all provide minor boons depending on the division. For example, the field alchemists' sashes allow them to retrieve any item stashed on their person with a move action - even that flask at the bottom of their packs. The scouts' sashes, meanwhile, produce a variety of animal scents (randomly) to confuse enemy trackers and wild predators in hostile territory.

[GreatDane]

A pearl of power for a tier 0 spell fits the bill.

[Hunter Noventa]

A pearl of power for a tier 0 spell fits the bill.

Unless you play Pathfinder of course.

One fun thing I've run into before are minor items that duplicate on aspect of Prestidigitation. Like a brush that will Clean objects it's used on.

[Inevitability]

A bag of endless toys. Basically, an item that can use the 'create objects' function of Prestidigitation at-will, creating random toys as it does so.

[Warrnan]

I've had a holy symbol for a cleric of Pelor of mine. It was essentially an everburning torch, 100g, glued to a wand of cure minor that had unlimited charges, 750g. It was a brass sun disk medallion on a necklace.

Useful in the low levels but not so much unlimited healing that a creative DM couldn't disrupt its usefulness if it was being abused.

I've seen infinite use wand of ray of frost in Neverwinter Nights for PC as well. Not overpowered, just gives the wizard something more appropriate to do than shooting a crossbow at low level when they are out of spells. Although in a tabletop game I'd probably do acid splash instead.

[Gildedragon]

A bag of endless toys. Basically, an item that can use the 'create objects' function of Prestidigitation at-will, creating random toys as it does so.

OMG! This is what D&D Santa uses!
---
Also the Adventurers' Bath: a "ring" of use-activated cleaning prestidigitation (1/day) 200gp. Less if you discount it for the locked in use (let's say a 5-20?% for 190-160 gp)
Make it a FRA to work knock another 5-10% off
Make it require a day for attunement 10-30% off
It is cheep cheap (maybe gets a second charge) and a wondrous item no adventurer is without.

[Eloel]

Everburning Torch (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#everburningTorch) is literally a stick with Continual Flame cast on it.

[Gildedragon]

Everburning Torch (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#everburningTorch) is literally a stick with Continual Flame cast on it.

A Candlelight variant ought be in the dozens of gp

[Nibbens]

A Candlelight variant ought be in the dozens of gp

Oddly enough, in PF's Rise of the Runelords, PCs can find several eternal candles which are:


minor magic candles that burn eternally without heat, similar to a continual flame spell but shedding only shadowy light in a 5-foot radius. Each eternal candle is worth 25 gp.

They aren't included in the D20PFSRD and aren't included in the "Magic Items Index" at the end of the AP either. But they're there, clear as day. lol.

Another thing - back in the 2nd Edition, one of their settings "Mystara, the city of magic" or somesuch. The very currency was magical. GP would essentially have a portion of magic power and if anyone amassed 100gp of the same type - they could cast a 1 time 1st level spell which then extinguished the magic in those coins. Each coin would be minted to reflect the magic stored. For example: a gold piece with a picture of a shield would hold a portion of a shield spell.

[Gildedragon]

Oddly enough, in PF's Rise of the Runelords, PCs can find several eternal candles which are:



They aren't included in the D20PFSRD and aren't included in the "Magic Items Index" at the end of the AP either. But they're there, clear as day. lol.

Hah! And here I was guess-working with the 3.0 candlelight spell compared to light/continual flames' effect and duration/cost

[Nuada99]

Depending on how prevalent you want magic to be in your world, this sort of magic item should be ubiquitous. For example:


Wardrobe of Cleanliness
Place dirty clothes inside, close chest. After one minute, open chest and all clothes are clean, repaired to a new state, perfumed, and neatly folded. Other versions allow you to stand inside them, which cleans both you and your clothes.

To create, requires a prestidigitation cantrip, mage hand cantrip, and a mending cantrip.

Breeze Box
Open the box to fill a room with gentle, cooling breezes.

To create, requires a breeze cantrip.

Light Box
Open the box to light up a room or even several rooms.

To create, requires a dancing lights cantrip.

Music box
Open the box to play pretty music at a comfortable volume

Requires a Ghost Sound cantrip

Fire Quencher
Open this small chest to pour water on fires anywhere in the dwelling or within a fifty foot circle centered on the chest

Requires a drench cantrip.

Blanket of Restful Repose
A cuddly blanket that soothes you to sleep.

Requires a lullaby cantrip to create.

Headboard of Restoration
When you sleep in a bed with this headboard, you gain +1 hp in addition to any hit points you gain from rest.

Requires a Simple bed cantrip to create.

Spice Box
Open this tiny box when you sit down to eat and your food is delicious.

Requires an Alter taste cantrip to create.

Picture Book
This book, when opened, always has a new, different picture of something interesting. Landscapes, buildings, people, animals, creatures, there's an unlimited number of these images.

Requires a Trifling Image cantrip to create.

Chest of Servants
Opening this chest in a room of your house cleans and tidies the room immediately, and places any debris outside the closest door.

Requires an Unseen Attendant cantrip to create.

Food Chest
Place cooked food in this chest to keep it fresh and edible forever. Also will fill up any container placed inside with fresh drinking water and warn if any dangerous food or drink is placed inside.

Requires a purify food and drink cantrip, a create water cantrip, and a detect poison cantrip

[Gildedragon]

The food chest won't prevent spoilage, just make spoiled food edible (v good for aging wines, cheeses and meats)
To prevent spoilage all together you need gentle repose

[Inevitability]

The food chest won't prevent spoilage, just make spoiled food edible (v good for aging wines, cheeses and meats)
To prevent spoilage all together you need gentle repose

Well, arguably casting Purify Food and Drink on the entire box every turn will wipe out enough germs to prevent significant spoilage.

[Gildedragon]

Well, arguably casting Purify Food and Drink on the entire box every turn will wipe out enough germs to prevent significant spoilage.

Nope. Spell specifically says it doesn't prevent natural spoilage; it just makes it suitable for eating and drinking. Flavors, textures and colors are more than free to go off
Though it would prevent say, someone who is lactose intolerant from getting gassy and discomforted from drinking milk that had been so ensorcerelled. Ditto for poisonous foodstuffs like any odd mushroom, leaf, berry, or cactus juice.


NPC-PC dialogue during escort mission:

"Ah is that safe to eat? The bread looks... Fuzzy... And is that pufferfish?"
"Yeah! Don't worry, we cast purify food and drink! Chow down!"

[inuyasha]

I once statted up a heavy crossbow that could cast launch bolt at will.

I'm fairly proud of it.

[Coidzor]

Small amounts of things like lighters are in the hands of the well to do. The military of certain nations has support cantrips.

Great merchant houses have preservative magics on their ships' holds and warehouses.

[Zaq]

Nope. Spell specifically says it doesn't prevent natural spoilage; it just makes it suitable for eating and drinking. Flavors, textures and colors are more than free to go off
Though it would prevent say, someone who is lactose intolerant from getting gassy and discomforted from drinking milk that had been so ensorcerelled. Ditto for poisonous foodstuffs like any odd mushroom, leaf, berry, or cactus juice.


NPC-PC dialogue during escort mission:

"Ah is that safe to eat? The bread looks... Fuzzy... And is that pufferfish?"
"Yeah! Don't worry, we cast purify food and drink! Chow down!"

Close, but no cigar. Purify Food and Drink doesn't prevent subsequent spoilage, but it DOES explicitly remove existing spoilage.


This spell makes spoiled, rotten, poisonous, or otherwise contaminated food and water pure and suitable for eating and drinking. This spell does not prevent subsequent natural decay or spoilage. Unholy water and similar food and drink of significance is spoiled by purify food and drink, but the spell has no effect on creatures of any type nor upon magic potions.

(Emphasis added. SRD link. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/purifyFoodAndDrink.htm))

So casting PFaD once isn't going to preserve food forever, but an item that cast it continuously (or that cast it very frequently—or even that cast it just before you took the food out of the box) would mean that your food was always fresh and uncontaminated.

I mean, technically, it won't actually preserve the food at all. It'll let the food rot and then it'll un-rot it. (If the item casts PFaD every round or every minute, the food will rot to a trivial and unnoticeable degree before getting reset, but it's still getting reset to fresh rather than being preserved at fresh.) The net effect is the same (put fresh food in, take fresh food out no matter how much later that is—though technically you could put spoiled food in and take fresh food out), but I suppose you could concoct some kind of overly specific scenario where you needed to preserve a specific batch of food (rather than simply have it not be spoiled when you were done with it), and in that case, you would in fact need Gentle Repose instead of PFaD, or at least a Gentle Repose-style effect (RAW, Gentle Repose works on corpses, so any non-meat food couldn't use the actual spell if you're going by strict RAW; that said, magic items don't have to exactly copy the spells that are used in their creation. There's the Angriz's Chest in Races of the Dragon which is exactly a Gentle Repose-enchanted box that preserves dead flesh, but it wouldn't be hard to imagine one that worked on non-flesh matter as well).

[Gildedragon]

Close, but no cigar. Purify Food and Drink doesn't prevent subsequent spoilage, but it DOES explicitly remove existing spoilage.



(Emphasis added. SRD link. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/purifyFoodAndDrink.htm))

So casting PFaD once isn't going to preserve food forever, but an item that cast it continuously (or that cast it very frequently—or even that cast it just before you took the food out of the box) would mean that your food was always fresh and uncontaminated.

I mean, technically, it won't actually preserve the food at all. It'll let the food rot and then it'll un-rot it. (If the item casts PFaD every round or every minute, the food will rot to a trivial and unnoticeable degree before getting reset, but it's still getting reset to fresh rather than being preserved at fresh.) The net effect is the same (put fresh food in, take fresh food out no matter how much later that is

You're right, I misread, but it still doesn't say it will un-spoil, just make it suitable for consumption: spoilage can be desirable for conand volume, as such it just renders the food edible without risk.
if it unrotted things it'd turn yogurt into milk, unripen cheese, and beer into wort (though it does ruin beer, turning it into non alcoholic beer), ruin pickles, and flatten one's sourdough loaf in flavor and volume.

As to gentle repose on plant matter: fair enough: it does specify "a dead creature". Keeping vegetables still requires pickling.

[Zaq]

You're right, I misread, but it still doesn't say it will un-spoil, just make it suitable for consumption: spoilage can be desirable for conand volume, as such it just renders the food edible without risk.
if it unrotted things it'd turn yogurt into milk, unripen cheese, and beer into wort (though it does ruin beer, turning it into non alcoholic beer), ruin pickles, and flatten one's sourdough loaf in flavor and volume.

As to gentle repose on plant matter: fair enough: it does specify "a dead creature". Keeping vegetables still requires pickling.

Possible, but debatable. Even though ripening cheese involves pretty much the same process as spoiling cheese (the fundamental difference is degree rather than kind), we don't refer to ripened cheese as "spoiled." Wort that has been fermented into beer isn't "spoiled," "contaminated," or "rotten," it's just complete. You could even argue (though you wouldn't be on rock-solid ground by any stretch) that wort doesn't count as "food or drink" the way beer does; it's an ingredient (or perhaps more accurately an intermediary step that isn't a final product). Would you argue that PFaD turns raisins into grapes?

PFaD is written in plain English rather than saying that it "removes all effects of aging, decay, bacterial growth, fermentation, or similar processes." I'm not saying that your reading is impossible, but I don't think it's necessarily better supported than my reading is.