Things that you use prestidigitation for

[Sir cryosin]

So the other day we are playing and our party doesn't have a rope but we have a board who said his character up to be a little bit Rogue-ish he has proficiency with thieves tools but at the time we didn't have any thieves tools but he had the cantrip prestidigitation and it says you can create a small little non magical trinket or whatever. So he used president atation to create lockpicks and pick the locks. So that got me thinking what are some other things you can do with the cantrip of prestidigitation.

[Coffee_Dragon]

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think Prestidigitation isn't supposed to be useful. It's supposed to be flavourful. If it's only for flavour, you can allow it to have a broad range of effects. If you allow it to be useful, its broadness becomes a source of endless angling for benefits and replacing other types of resources.

[ClintACK]

I wouldn't say it's *never* useful -- being clean is often helpful. But, yeah. Letting it make usable tools seems like it's stomping on the Conjuration-specialized Wizard's special power.


Also... isn't it amazing how many words autocorrect can "fix" and leave a sentence still perfectly comprehensible to a human reader. "... our party doesn't have a rope but we have a board who said his character up to be..."


And to the actual point -- "...what are some other things you can do with the cantrip of prestidigitation?"

- Cleanliness and personal hygiene. Nothing says "I am a Wizard" more succinctly than having a meticulously trimmed and sculpted short beard and immaculate white silk robes in the middle of a muddy swamp.
- This is even more useful when removing incriminating bloodstains -- or cleaning up a crime scene.
- Make your food taste good. Just because you're eating trail rations (basically stale sugar-free granola) doesn't mean it has to *taste* like stale cardboard.
- Make poison tasteless -- or at least adding a flavor to mask it.
- Cold beer. (Literally not possible without magic.)
- Warm soup/brandy/tea on a cold day.
- Create a small distraction (puff of wind or faint musical notes) to help the Rogue with his Sleight of Hand check. (i.e. Aid Another)
- Extinguish a torch at 10' range with no save. (Situationally handy if your party has darkvision and the bad guys don't.)

[Demonslayer666]

Cleaning is the best and most useful application of Prestidigitation IMO. I would not allow tools to be made and used with it in my game.


Magic is not the only way to make stuff cold. Beverages can be made cold by putting it in a stream.

[Specter]

Being all bloody in a city will attract a lot of unwanted attention. To avoid that, Prest it up.

I always use it on my tavern magic shows to create sparks and amuse the cattle.

[Daishain]

For many reasons, not stomping on Conjuration specialists included, I have always ruled that prestidigitation can only make crude objects, and highly encourage other DMs to follow suit. A lockpick that is worth a damn is anything but crude.

With that stated, I've used the flavor aspect to make someone think a dish was poisoned, and when a party member was afflicted with an uncontrollable desire to consume marmalade, flavored a piece of relatively clean leather for him to gnaw on so he could focus on other things.

Soooooo many uses of the cleaning aspect, the most practical among them aside from not walking into town covered in viscera being a trailblazing aspect (in particularly dirty dungeons, to find the path back, just follow the patches on the wall that are actually clean. in cleaner areas, the reverse is done).

Lit all sorts of fires, some of them being effective traps. Also have frequently snuffed the only source of light so the group can take those before us in darkness

Once pulled a fake One Ring moment, convincing some rubes that a particular trinket was in fact a powerful artifact, with the proof being that a particular magic symbol would appear when the object was heated. (It worked for the exchange, but we had to book it out of the region in case they tried tossing it in a fire again without me to fake the symbol)

As for the creation aspect. I've flashed large uncut gemstones at others, created illusionary images of things/people I can picture in my head for others to look at and hopefully recognize (particular synergy there with Keen Mind feat), created rocks to drop in a hole and gauge depth

Also once manage to scare the bejeebus out of some moron in our way with naught but minor light effects and a good intim check. Faked a large number of spells (such as pretending to cure the fake poison from earlier)

[Joe the Rat]

Thieves' Tools might exceed the "nonmagical trinket... that lasts until the end of your next turn" - and a single pick is probably not enough.
Now if you knew what the key looked like...

Other common uses:
Flavoring food and drink to disguise a poison
Flavoring food and drink to make the cleric's cooking not unspeakable.
Get your wine to the perfect temperature
Recoloring your hair
Covering your tracks in a dusty tomb
Putting a bullseye on the rogue's back
Covering up that Tiefling stank
Showing someone a rotating 3D image of a person or object you are looking for
Human(oid) Zippo

[TheTeaMustFlow]

In a previous edition I once used it to make a banana peel in front of someone's foot during a duel, which they duly tripped over. Not sure I'd allow that for the current iteration of the spell, alas.

[JAL_1138]

You can create a scent with Prestidigitation. You could possibly use it to create the scent of a snake right under a horse's nose to try and make it spook. It's technically "a harmless sensory effect, such as [...] an odd odor" since the scent itself doesn't harm the horse or rider, but the horse might react to it with panic.

I use the spell to clean up my character's clothes (and the rest of the character) whenever they've gone through mud or through a sewer, or when they're covered in blood from a fight.

Use it to damage the spice trade. The only people who need to buy them are the casters who are Prestidigitation-ing food up to an hour before it's eaten, so they'll know what the spices taste like and be able to flavor dishes appropriately, people who can't afford to have a cantrip-caster around (which probably means they couldn't afford much in terms of spices either, in a medieval setting), and people preserving foods for travel when there won't be a caster around.

If you have darkvision and the enemy is using a torch because they don't have it, snuff out their torch.

Use it to set things on fire (via candle, torch, or small campfire, by strict RAW. All three are easy to come by). The range limitation is problematic in the case of explosives triggered by the thing you ignite, but Spell Sniper or Distant Spell can extend that a little.

[BW022]

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think Prestidigitation isn't supposed to be useful. It's supposed to be flavourful. If it's only for flavour, you can allow it to have a broad range of effects. If you allow it to be useful, its broadness becomes a source of endless angling for benefits and replacing other types of resources.

I don't see its uses as leading to any of these. It's text and casting rules are pretty limiting.

"You create a nonmagical trinket or an illusory image that can fit in your hand and that lasts until the end of your next turn."

The casting makes noise, it only makes "trinkets", it only lasts a round, it must fit in your hand, etc. It is a poor replacement for almost any equipment or tool. There isn't much on the trinket list which is that useful, even if the DM expands it to mundane items. It is almost certain to exclude all tools and equipment. Given the small nature and cost of the items it could make... chances are any party is going to be able to easily buy and carry these. So... we are likely already talking about the 1 in 1000 cases where you are pretty much stripped of your equipment. Then, it can't really summon much useful. At best, maybe a hair pin to use to pick a lock (almost certainly at disadvantage and having to cast a verbal spell). Maybe a crude knife... to make an attack -- every other round. None of this is overpowering, nor are players likely to encounter the situation enough such that it is even needed.

In years of playing 5E, I've only once actually seen the cantrip used once to create an useful item.

[Coffee_Dragon]

I don't see its uses as leading to any of these. It's text and casting rules are pretty limiting.

Maybe your reading of it is closer to mine, but it's been fairly common in the forums with liberal "logical" extrapolations of literal readings of the spell to squeeze un-cantrip-like utility out of every thing it does. Wizard and sorcerer guides usually list Prestidigitation as a "god cantrip" because it's assumed it grants this level of utility in its whole spectrum of applications, while more narrow utility cantrips that maybe focus more on some particular mechanical effect get panned.

[Arial Black]

I use the 'dirty' an object (as opposed to 'clean' an object), along with artistic skill, to create a 'charcoal' drawing of anything normal charcoal could draw. Great for 'Have you seen this man?' moments, or 'Oh, is that me? You made me look so beautiful! Can I keep it?'

The dirtyness does not end when the spell ends.

[Rerem115]

I knew a guy who weaponized it; he caused the inside of someone's mouth to taste extremely foul, which caused the target to fall down, retching.

[Dalebert]

I knew a guy who weaponized it; he caused the inside of someone's mouth to taste extremely foul, which caused the target to fall down, retching.

Definitely far beyond the RAW. That was an extremely liberal DM.


Magic is not the only way to make stuff cold. Beverages can be made cold by putting it in a stream.

This is also what wine cellars are about. In many regions, it stays about 50F if you dig down about 10 ft or so.

You can also make a close-to-freezing box by digging into a hillside, placing a box, and leaving room around it. During the Winter you pack the snow down each snowfall until it's surrounded by ice and then cover it with something light-colored for Summer to reflect sunlight. In a relatively cold region, e.g. NH-ish climate, you can have an ice box that will last all Summer. It takes a long time for ice to melt when it's well-insulated by the hillside.

There's a adventure where brown mold is used to cool a cellar. Thought that was pretty creative, if a bit dangerous.

[ClintACK]

- Cold beer. (Literally not possible without magic.)

Okay... I take back my parenthetical note.

But still, try finding a medieval tavern with cold beer on tap. :)

[Callin]

I used it to shout "Everybody Move" on a crowded road. Also to shout words at range like Ghost Sound. Caused confusion in the enemy ranks.