Prestidigitation and tracks

[Fiend]

In relation to pathfinder, sorry if I haven't picked the right section

Just wondering whether a player should be allowed to use prestidigitation to cover tracks?
I thought it shouldn't be allowed because other people have to roll survival and there's even feats and class abilities to enhance these things e.g. the feat cover tracks
When I brought this up the reply I got was "Magic solves everything"
I don't know, but a cantrip that allows you to perfectly cover tracks seems too good?

[Fizban]

Prestidigitation already gets away with more than it should. I would allow someone to use it to cover tracks- about as well as they could cover tracks by hand, as long as they're actively using the spell. Prestidigitation is a good substitute for bringing a broom and that's about it. Assign the same bonus/penalty/time cost you would for trying to cover your tracks normally.

[Malphegor]

I'd still suggest they roll survival to guide the magic into covering up their tracks, but take off 5 from the DC to be found or whatever. Not gamebreaking, just makes the wizard seem cool and hella magic.

[Feantar]

Allow it, but follow the general concept of prestidigitation. As in, you clean (from tracks) an 1 foot cube each round. That would be the equivalent of "take a step, clean, take a step, clean...". That would literally make you take 5 rounds to move 5 feet. In most cases, when you wish to cover tracks you have some time sensitivity so it would be useless. In cases where, for example, you want to cross a dusty room and go to the secret door behind the bookcase without making it visible to everyone, then yes, it would be perfectly usable.

As to how well they cover the tracks, use a skill. Survival, possibly, or knowledge (nature).

[Ashtagon]

That spell lets you clean stuff easily. It doesn't have a setting for "make forest paths look undisturbed". So how effective it is would depend greatly on the ground cover of the area concerned. It areas that you would expect to be clear of ground debris, it would be as effective as having the tracks suddenly end without a continuation point. In areas that would naturally have ground debris (such as most outdoor settings, and most indoor settings that aren't regularly cleaned), it will look like a path of intentionally cleaned ground. That path could be tracked using the same techniques as the original path could, perhaps even easier if "cleaned ground" is more distinctive than "footprints".

If intent on doing this, your effective movement rate would be 10 feet per round while actively prestidigitating the ground clean.

Edit: The spell specifically lets you colour, clean, or soil (which I'd understand to mean randomly disturb and add dirt marks to) the ground. Whichever way is chosen, it would be a phenomenon that would potentially be trackable in its own right. So although it could effectively remove the original tracks, it'd still leave something trackable unless the "clean" setting happened to match the default ground cover of the area in question.

[Telonius]

Depending on how you're being tracked, I'd allow it. If you want to make your nonliving footprint ghost-pepper flavored so the bloodhounds' noses get messed up? Sure. It only lasts an hour though.

[JeenLeen]

That spell lets you clean stuff easily. It doesn't have a setting for "make forest paths look undisturbed". So how effective it is would depend greatly on the ground cover of the area concerned. It areas that you would expect to be clear of ground debris, it would be as effective as having the tracks suddenly end without a continuation point. In areas that would naturally have ground debris (such as most outdoor settings, and most indoor settings that aren't regularly cleaned), it will look like a path of intentionally cleaned ground. That path could be tracked using the same techniques as the original path could, perhaps even easier if "cleaned ground" is more distinctive than "footprints".

If intent on doing this, your effective movement rate would be 10 feet per round while actively prestidigitating the ground clean.

Edit: The spell specifically lets you colour, clean, or soil (which I'd understand to mean randomly disturb and add dirt marks to) the ground. Whichever way is chosen, it would be a phenomenon that would potentially be trackable in its own right. So although it could effectively remove the original tracks, it'd still leave something trackable unless the "clean" setting happened to match the default ground cover of the area in question.

I'd agree with this.
You can clean your tracks, but the cleaned ground is also obviously disturbed.

One way this could be very useful, though, is to do something misleading. The idea of 1-hour scents is neat. Also, you could walk on a fake path, leaving footprints, then circle back and head in your actual direction, using Prestigidation. If my players tried that, I'd give a penalty to the pursuers to notice that the actual path is a different direction instead of just getting mislead.

[Faily]

In relation to pathfinder, sorry if I haven't picked the right section

Just wondering whether a player should be allowed to use prestidigitation to cover tracks?
I thought it shouldn't be allowed because other people have to roll survival and there's even feats and class abilities to enhance these things e.g. the feat cover tracks
When I brought this up the reply I got was "Magic solves everything"
I don't know, but a cantrip that allows you to perfectly cover tracks seems too good?


Sure, magic solves everything.

But a cantrip can't do what a first level spell does (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/pass-without-trace/).

I'd say no, and point to Pass Without Trace, if they want to solve it with magic.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, Prestidigitation can sure hide some tracks, some of the time.

You could sure get rid of a boot print in snow or mud. And you sure could clean a surface like a flat rock or a floor to remove muddy boot prints.

So the spell is some what effective indoors. You could sure make say a kitchen 'clean' with no tracks to follow.

Outdoors it will be a lot less effective. Even more so for things like trampled grass and broken branches. And not only would it take a long time...effecting a five foot patch at a time, you would also leave an odd 'clear path' to follow anyway.

[ericgrau]

Seems fine to me under: "Tracked party hides trail (and moves at half speed)", +5 track DC

I'd allow it to be a poor substitute for a broom or tree branches, to smooth out the ground in the same way. It also slows your party down to 1 foot per round unless you have multiple mages helping. As said it won't unbreak foliage nor hide other clues. Even indoors restoring dust perfectly seems dubious, and a good tracker will notice the cleaned trail. And the DCs for hard surfaces are already high to reflect this. Simply cleaning doesn't perfectly mask your tracks.

[RedMage125]

Well, Prestidigitation can sure hide some tracks, some of the time.

You could sure get rid of a boot print in snow or mud. And you sure could clean a surface like a flat rock or a floor to remove muddy boot prints.

So the spell is some what effective indoors. You could sure make say a kitchen 'clean' with no tracks to follow.

Outdoors it will be a lot less effective. Even more so for things like trampled grass and broken branches. And not only would it take a long time...effecting a five foot patch at a time, you would also leave an odd 'clear path' to follow anyway.

This.

Indoor tracks that are essentially "dirt" or other foreign matter on a floor should, as per the spell, be erased completely. Impressions left in turf, mud, snow and the like, will be obviously cleared over, but will still be useful vis a vis hiding your numbers.

[Duke of Urrel]

I may be the stingiest interpreter of the rules who has replied so far.

Here is a quoted passage from the Pathfinder SRD's description of the Prestidigitation spell (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/prestidigitation/).


A prestidigitation can slowly lift 1 pound of material. It can color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round. It can chill, warm, or flavor 1 pound of nonliving material. It cannot deal damage or affect the concentration of spellcasters. Prestidigitation can create small objects, but they look crude and artificial. The materials created by a prestidigitation spell are extremely fragile, and they cannot be used as tools, weapons, or spell components. Finally, prestidigitation lacks the power to duplicate any other spell effects.

Straight away, the rules forbid the Prestidigitation spell to duplicate the Pass Without Trace spell, so that's already one indication that you generally can't use it to erase a trail.

Prestidigitation can "color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round," but it is debatable whether one square foot of flooring in an indoor area qualifies as an "item." It is at least equally debatable whether one square foot of ground in an outdoor area qualifies as an "item."

Moreover, how does one "clean" an area of dirt? Dirt is dirty, and not just dirty on the surface, but dirty through and through and all the way down. Making footprints in dirt doesn't make dirt any dirtier, and even if you could make dirt less dirty, I don't believe this operation would necessarily entail smoothing out footprints. Cleaning does not mean smoothing. For example, cleaning a piece of sandpaper would not make it any less rough.

My ruling would be that you simply can't use the Prestidigitation spell to cover tracks, at least not outdoors.

Now, if the tracks are indoors, and if you consider each square foot of flooring to qualify as an "item," and if the tracks consist not of impressions in dirt, but of scuff marks or smudges of dirt, mud, or grease on a formerly clean floor, then maybe you could erase these tracks by cleaning the floor, one square foot at a time, with Prestidigitation. Conversely, if the floor – once again allowing that you can regard it as a checkerboard of one-foot-square "items" – were formerly evenly covered with a film of dust or flour and somebody made tracks in this powdery covering by displacing foot-shaped patches of it, you could eliminate the tracks by gradually sweeping away all of the powder with Prestidigitation. But these would be the only two ways in which I could imagine allowing this spell to eliminate tracks.