Mini-Wish and You

[Lycanthromancer]

Prestidigitation.

There's a reason people call it mini-wish. It's capable of doing so damned many things you're pretty much guaranteed to use most of your cantrips on it (with only a few other 0-level spells coming in at a distant 2nd). It'd be worth a 1st level slot, if only for its insane versatility.

With that in mind, what kinds of things is prestidigitation realistically (and you should realize I use that term loosely) capable of?

For instance, are you trapped in a room with a poison gas that slowly kills anyone that breathes it in? "Clean the 1 cu ft of air around my head."

A kobold assassin is shooting poisoned arrows at you? "Clean the poison off any arrows that pass through that 4.8 ft² x half-inch thick area (a cubic foot) before they hit me."

Trying to poison the merchant that can't quite afford a constant detect poison effect? "Make that strychnine smell, and taste, and look like his favorite vodka."

Did you just spread those marbles or caltrops out over that space, and want to get them back? Or even that jar of slippery oil you just tossed out? "Collect it up and put it in that bag for me."

Got a sick person on your hands and don't want to catch it? "Clean up all of the germs on and around everything that person touches."

So, what other things can you think of that mini-wish can do for you?

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Make water taste like poison. Make poison taste like water.

[golentan]

My wizard always starts off the day with hot toasty cinnamon rolls, a full mug of the finest coffee money can buy, sweetmeats, candied roses, and exotic fruits.

Okay, he has hardtack, water, and rehydrated veggies with a slice of jerky like everyone else, but he enjoys it more.

Half a square worth of caltrops moved at will.

Firestarter aid (for camps or arson, your choice).

Temporary fixes to mechanical objects ("crude, obviously fake gears")

Temporary key duplication (the same)

Graffiti when you get bored.

Make someone hideously ill (soil their food).

Temporarily blind a foe who wears glasses (color the lenses)

Make yourself more Tengen Toppa-y (Hokey looking glasses from nowhere).

Ruin a messenger's note (color it, or "clean" it of ink).

Stop incoming arrows, daggers with a readied action or at least imply a penalty (move objects slowly).

[BobVosh]

Half a square worth of caltrops moved at will.
Can't duplicate another effect (mage hand) Well. Not really sure. I wouldn't care enough as a DM to rule that. You still have to squeeze to fit in the half a square without caltrops.

Firestarter aid (for camps or arson, your choice).
Indeed

Temporary fixes to mechanical objects ("crude, obviously fake gears")
They can't take any stress, so I doubt it would work. Just use mend.

Temporary key duplication (the same)
Same as above.

Graffiti when you get bored.
Funny

Make someone hideously ill (soil their food).
You can make it taste bad, but you can't make em sick

Temporarily blind a foe who wears glasses (color the lenses)
Can't effect attended objects

Make yourself more Tengen Toppa-y (Hokey looking glasses from nowhere).
Indeed

Ruin a messenger's note (color it, or "clean" it of ink).
Can't duplicate another spell (erase)

Stop incoming arrows, daggers with a readied action or at least imply a penalty (move objects slowly).
Can't effect a dice roll

[golentan]

From the SRD

Prestidigitations are minor tricks that novice spellcasters use for practice. Once cast, a prestidigitation spell enables you to perform simple magical effects for 1 hour. The effects are minor and have severe limitations. 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, a prestidigitation lacks the power to duplicate any other spell effects. Any actual change to an object (beyond just moving, cleaning, or soiling it) persists only 1 hour.

So. Says nothing about attended objects. Mage hand is 5 lb telekinesis, prestidigitation is 1 lb.

Says nothing about affecting die rolls, or attended objects. If nothing else, grab the arrows/daggers and empty his quiver while distracting him. Finally, a use for monologuing.

(I'm going to have to do that. My badguy goes and monologues for half an hour about his plans, the PC's say "Can we attack him now?" and I say "What were you waiting for? You realize he was just distracting you while he unstoppered and poured out all of your potions and snapped the band on your cleric's holy symbol, right? Oh no, because none of you put ranks in awareness, and decided to let him monologue rather than attacking. How silly of me.")

Fragile stuff may rule out gears, but you could still make something and use it for an impression to cast something later. (and yeah, I realize I'm ignoring some errata. Don't really care, most DM's don't bother looking it up unless it's clearly broken IME).

[BobVosh]

I coulda sworn it couldn't effect anything someone is holding. Well. Fine. Neat. Maybe I misread the PHB entry because that one looks different.

affect the concentration of spellcasters
Maybe I just remember this line very wrong.

[Rainbownaga]

That's interesting: the saving throw in the SRD says "see text" but there isn't any mention of saving throws mentioned in the text

[Melamoto]

I'm going to have to do that. My badguy goes and monologues for half an hour about his plans, the PC's say "Can we attack him now?" and I say "What were you waiting for? You realize he was just distracting you while he unstoppered and poured out all of your potions and snapped the band on your cleric's holy symbol, right? Oh no, because none of you put ranks in awareness, and decided to let him monologue rather than attacking. How silly of me."

Ahaha, that is awesome. I'm really going to have to borrow that idea for my campaign.

[The Dark Fiddler]

I've never actually used this, but when my group went up against a tough enemy (the DM had a habit of sending illegal enemies with 500 HP against us that couldn't hit us if he tried, but it was fun. We fought Super Macho Man), I'd always say "Slersh (my Halfling Sorcerer) casts prestidigitation to color his eyes black".

[Grumman]

Ahaha, that is awesome. I'm really going to have to borrow that idea for my campaign.

No, it's not. Punishing your players for being too polite to call you out for what appears to be bad DMing is a horrible idea.

[Godskook]

No, it's not. Punishing your players for being too polite to call you out for what appears to be bad DMing is a horrible idea.

It can be done without being bad DMing, but it would require establishing the rule that NPC's words 'happen' in 'real time'. In order to pull that off, this would need to be planned well in advance. Utterly impossible to pull off fairly in pbp, though, so solely a trick for real-time games.

[Frog Dragon]

This wasn't actually me, but I was DM:ing here. The Sorc just decided to go full-on awesome.
The chars were robbing a house, color-spraying any guards that noticed them. Anyway the noise they made alerted the guards downstairs and the Sorc was running short on lvl 1 spells.
Anyway long story short the sorc subbed for prestidigitation and invisibly walking toward them, laughing maniacally (like Heath Ledger's Joker) and using prestidigitation to make shadowy strands and blood pool up on the floor, run up their legs and create a chilling sensation. Suffice to say that trained guards can seem a lot like little girls in the right situations.

[ranagrande]

One of my characters dug a hole with prestidigitation once, by cleaning the dirt off of the ground.

[Johel]

For instance, are you trapped in a room with a poison gas that slowly kills anyone that breathes it in? "Clean the 1 cu ft of air around my head."

A kobold assassin is shooting poisoned arrows at you? "Clean the poison off any arrows that pass through that 4.8 ft2 x half-inch thick area (a cubic foot) before they hit me."

Mechanically correct.
And very creative.

But IMO, no sane DM should allow that. Maybe give you a +1 to the saving throw against poison, just because you made everyone laugh. But not immunity.

One of my characters dug a hole with prestidigitation once, by cleaning the dirt off of the ground.

LoL

[Acanous]

I've used it to set off detected traps (Move a 1 lb stone through that tripwire)

Also to create candlelight.

[Glass Mouse]

This wasn't actually me, but I was DM:ing here. The Sorc just decided to go full-on awesome.
The chars were robbing a house, color-spraying any guards that noticed them. Anyway the noise they made alerted the guards downstairs and the Sorc was running short on lvl 1 spells.
Anyway long story short the sorc subbed for prestidigitation and invisibly walking toward them, laughing maniacally (like Heath Ledger's Joker) and using prestidigitation to make shadowy strands and blood pool up on the floor, run up their legs and create a chilling sensation. Suffice to say that trained guards can seem a lot like little girls in the right situations.

That is AWESOME! I'm gonna have to remember this

Personally, I muchly enjoy the cleaning part of the spell.
Been trawling through sewers, food is possibly infected?
Been battling and travelling through wilderness, now need to speak to the king?
...and everything else, of course:
Maniac sorcerer wants to upstage the bard? (happened)
Need to disguise yourself from a monster sniffing its way to you?

Prestidigitation is the best spell

[Oslecamo]

A lot of the stuff I see here would only be allowed with a very condolescent DM, since they're based on twisting of the english language.

Can an expensive sophisticated poison/gas really be called dirt that can just be cleaned? Are magical diseases in D&D even caused by germs? Can you replicate any flavor you want?

You may as well claim you can "clean" a monster of his skin in this case. Or his entire dirty flesh!

Hmm, I don't think so.

[Brendan]

create small objects that last for one hour: rubber disc inside escophagus of enemy.
soil objects: there go all of those fragile spell components
move object slowly: enemy's brain goes boom as it twists a full circle

[Akal Saris]

One of my party members used it to clean off the bucket of chum that had been dumped on him, which stopped him from getting eaten by sharks and got rid of his penalties to climbing onto the ship.

Use it as part of an ambush to tip over a bucket containing your favorite contact poison, acid, etc onto an opponent's head.

Use it for the old 'Hey, what's this coin doing in your ear?' trick

Use it to make a diversion, like pushing a bunch of marbles down the floor.

There's a page-long list in Tome & Blood of more ideas, if I recall.

[Somewhere]

Soil, or chill, target enemy underwear?

Hmm, can you distract an animal by flavouring their hair/fur/claws? Or annoy them by chilling/warming hair/fur/claws?

Edit: Is tooth enamel nonliving matter?

[Milskidasith]

create small objects that last for one hour: rubber disc inside escophagus of enemy.

By D&D rules, that would mean... nothing, actually. Plus, it's not possible to summon objects where they cannot be supported, which would include in the air and inside the enemy (which, by D&D rules, is just a five foot cube of matter anyway).

soil objects: there go all of those fragile spell components

Soiled, not broken. Just because you made the mages bat crap look even more like crap doesn't mean it won't work. Plus, a spell component pouch is, IIRC, more than a pound.

move object slowly: enemy's brain goes boom as it twists a full circle

Prestidigitation cannot cause damage, nor could it move a brain anyway, because brains weigh more than a pound. Again, by D&D RAW, the brain doesn't do anything anyway.

[Catch]

Again, by D&D RAW, the brain doesn't do anything anyway.

Really. Then Mind Flayers are just doing the world a public service by relieving humanoids of something they weren't using anyway?

You sir, are an Illithid in disguise. Admit it!

[tyckspoon]

Prestidigitation cannot cause damage, nor could it move a brain anyway, because brains weigh more than a pound. Again, by D&D RAW, the brain doesn't do anything anyway.

See also: no line of effect or line of sight to the inside of a person's body/spell component pouch (oh no, you made the outside of his pouch a little more grimey! Well, you probably can't tell the difference anyway after it's been on a couple adventures.) And D&D doesn't do specific damage to bodies outside of certain individual exemptions- you can't target "that guy's brain," just "that guy" and hope you have a spell that does what you want to his brain.

[Milskidasith]

Really. Then Mind Flayers are just doing the world a public service by relieving humanoids of something they weren't using anyway?

You sir, are an Illithid in disguise. Admit it!

You still can't target a person's brain, and while mind flayers do eat them, getting your brain smashed by a mace does no more damage than getting your leg smashed by the same mace. It does make the brain more tender, though, but the blood ruins the flavor somewhat. Still, since this is a topic about mini-wish, I could just reflavor it with that... hmm...

Why don't mind flayers just flavor, say, cow brains to taste like human brains?

[tyckspoon]

Why don't mind flayers just flavor, say, cow brains to taste like human brains?

Depends on your reason for why they eat brains in the first place. If they just need some rare nutrient that can't be acquired otherwise (digestive problems or because of the squidface thing), that works and they just eat sentient brains because they're evil jerks. I think the current reason is that they actually consume the psychic energy of sentient beings, however, and trying to make a cow brain mimic that would be like coloring a chunk of tofu brown and trying to convince yourself it's a steak (or possibly eating a packet of food flavoring and attempting to convince your body that it had actually been nourished with the real food.)

[AstralFire]

One of the common explanations given for why Mind Flayers can't use Rings of Sustenance to not-be-evil would extend to here, I suppose - they need that specific nourishment. (Not that I ever bought that argument.)

[Somewhere]

Or for a person to flavour their human brain as... something that's not a human brain?

What I had in mind for tooth enamel is rapidly chilling/heating until it cracks; yea or nay?

[Lycanthromancer]

Make water taste like poison. Make poison taste like water.

It's like forcing someone to take the Improved Paranoia feat.

My wizard always starts off the day with hot toasty cinnamon rolls, a full mug of the finest coffee money can buy, sweetmeats, candied roses, and exotic fruits.

Okay, he has hardtack, water, and rehydrated veggies with a slice of jerky like everyone else, but he enjoys it more.

Could be used to improve the party's morale, at least.

Half a square worth of caltrops moved at will.

Two castings will cover a whole space. Or, you could use Small-sized caltrops.

Firestarter aid (for camps or arson, your choice).

Likely only if you have flammable materials, but definitely.

Temporary fixes to mechanical objects ("crude, obviously fake gears")

I can't quite see this working, since the objects would disintegrate as soon as any strain is applied. Could be used as the lynch-pin in a trap, though, so long as all it's supporting is a piece of wire or something.

Temporary key duplication (the same)

Good for using as a template for a real key, but not much else.

Graffiti when you get bored.

Or for a trail of bread-crumbs.

Make someone hideously ill (soil their food).

Likely just the DC for a cantrip, but still useful.

Temporarily blind a foe who wears glasses (color the lenses)

This would work. Reflex save negates, and a move action to remove, but it would do for improving action economy a bit.

Make yourself more Tengen Toppa-y (Hokey looking glasses from nowhere).

No idea.

Ruin a messenger's note (color it, or "clean" it of ink).

Well, you could capture a messenger, change the message, erase his memories of you from his mind via another spell, then send him on his way. Well done.

Stop incoming arrows, daggers with a readied action or at least imply a penalty (move objects slowly).

Probably a VERY slight penalty (like, a -1), and only against Tiny-sized objects, but still useful.

This wasn't actually me, but I was DM:ing here. The Sorc just decided to go full-on awesome.
The chars were robbing a house, color-spraying any guards that noticed them. Anyway the noise they made alerted the guards downstairs and the Sorc was running short on lvl 1 spells.
Anyway long story short the sorc subbed for prestidigitation and invisibly walking toward them, laughing maniacally (like Heath Ledger's Joker) and using prestidigitation to make shadowy strands and blood pool up on the floor, run up their legs and create a chilling sensation. Suffice to say that trained guards can seem a lot like little girls in the right situations.

This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Effects all out of proportion to what a 0 level spell should be able to do...which is why prestidigitation should be 1st level spell, at least.

One of my characters dug a hole with prestidigitation once, by cleaning the dirt off of the ground.

Clever.

Very nice.

A lot of the stuff I see here would only be allowed with a very condolescent DM, since they're based on twisting of the english language.

I'm interested in things that the rules indicate what mini-wish can do, that's all. Some DMs would allow it in the right situations.

Can an expensive sophisticated poison/gas really be called dirt that can just be cleaned? Are magical diseases in D&D even caused by germs? Can you replicate any flavor you want?

The air or surface is dirty. Doesn't matter how.

Dirty mouth? Clean it up! Mini-wish!

You may as well claim you can "clean" a monster of his skin in this case. Or his entire dirty flesh!

It's called racial cleansing. Deal with it.

Prestidigitation cannot cause damage, nor could it move a brain anyway, because brains weigh more than a pound. Again, by D&D RAW, the brain doesn't do anything anyway.

Doesn't it cool the blood?

That's why you die when an illithid eats it.

[Akal Saris]

One of the common explanations given for why Mind Flayers can't use Rings of Sustenance to not-be-evil would extend to here, I suppose - they need that specific nourishment. (Not that I ever bought that argument.)

Really? Who says they can't use Rings of Sustenance?

I mean, yeah, maybe an illithid could do that, but eating brains is probably so much more enjoyable, why would one do so?

[Milskidasith]

Really? Who says they can't use Rings of Sustenance?

I mean, yeah, maybe an illithid could do that, but eating brains is probably so much more enjoyable, why would one do so?

Because occasionally we they need to survive in lands without plenty of humans around besides our their party members (if they have any) or because the town happened to roll a bunch of epic level commoners and high-ish level NPCs who pose a significant threat to us them if they go about murdering people?