Day to day magics?

[rubycona]

I swear I remember reading a book or something with this before... possibly... okay, possibly not. I dunno.

Anyway.

I was wondering if there was / where I might find a list of spells and/or items for D&D designed, not for combat purposes, but for day to day stuff.

Examples of things I'd ideally be looking for include:

Contraceptive spells, lactation spells, etc
A haverick's handy haversack, but like a purse, or a belt pouch, not a full backpack.
Permanent, minor alterations, like dying your hair (I'd imagine making your hair grow the new color would be more involved). A cantrip for shaving. Stuff like that.

I know there's some in the core books, like unseen servant, that does stuff like this. But I can't help but imagine, if one were to actually live in the world of magic, there's a lot of spells of that nature one would be inclined to learn.

Is there such a resource somewhere?

Thanks!

[Ravens_cry]

Well, prestidigitation does the colouring and I would allow it to do simple haircuts as well.
Book of Erotic Fantasy likely has contraceptive spells, though I don't know about lactation.
I do like the idea of minor utility magic. If you find nothing that fits, homebrew your own. I've often considered that adventurer magic is only a subset of available magic, been based around adventurer needs, even most utility spells.

[Gavinfoxx]

The SRD has contraceptive spells.

What do you think Bestow Curse is?

[Ravens_cry]

The SRD has contraceptive spells.

What do you think Bestow Curse is?

Eh, that's rather high level spell for that in all but the most high magic settings, though, yes, it could conceivably work with DM OK. It could also be used for transsexuals as well.

[Grinner]

There's a bunch of third party stuff like this. Just look through DrivethruRPG's d20 section, and you're bound to find something like this.

[Edge of Dreams]

RuneQuest, a competitor to D&D that's been around for ages has these kinds of spells in the form of Folk Magic. They include spells to keep you from getting tired during a day of labor, clean up your house, make stuff smell good, sharpen a blade, fix small broken objects, provide light, and so on.

Runequest 6th edition is the most recent, and it's a pretty awesome game, but if you just want examples of Folk Magic you can search around for books or PDFs of any edition.

[Grundy]

Magic as a weapon and trauma care, and nothing much else is fairly ridiculous. What about farming, building, pest control, weather control, communications, food prep/preservation, heat and sanitation, raising kids- you know, the things that people actually do.

Otoh, it's a game. And it's not papers and paychecks. So.... All that practical magic would make for a pretty cool world, if somebody wanted to build it.

As an aside, I've wondered why over hundreds (or thousands) of years of casting continual light, every dnd world isn't swimming in magical torches. I've never gotten a satisfactory answer.

[Ravens_cry]

The capital cost is prohibitive given the wages of the average non adventurer.

[rubycona]

Magic as a weapon and trauma care, and nothing much else is fairly ridiculous. What about farming, building, pest control, weather control, communications, food prep/preservation, heat and sanitation, raising kids- you know, the things that people actually do.

Otoh, it's a game. And it's not papers and paychecks. So.... All that practical magic would make for a pretty cool world, if somebody wanted to build it.

As an aside, I've wondered why over hundreds (or thousands) of years of casting continual light, every dnd world isn't swimming in magical torches. I've never gotten a satisfactory answer.

In my world, if the thing they're cast on is destroyed, then the spell is likewise destroyed.

But yeah, that's the list of things I was basically going for. I'm running a mageocracy - a wizard dominated nation, where power - magic, specifically - rules all. The common folk are kept happy, like a pack of trained dogs, to keep bringing in more spellcasters through breeding, to be used as fodder, or war material, or whatever else the mages want, and kept ignorant about the extent of the control through whatever means, including mind magics, as necessary.

So, in this world, you'd think day-to-day spells would be supremely common. The mages work together to keep their power in place, and presently, they're fat and happy, basically. So they'd share these spells freely and easily.

And it's a bunch of spellcasters with lots of time on their hands, and feeling like they aren't threatened at all. What sort of spells would they make?

I feel like I've got my work cut out for myself, as DM...

[Grundy]

The cost of continual light items is high, and say only 1% of the population could afford it. But of that 1%, they're all going to have it. Light, any time, without smoke or danger is something we take for granted, but it's something that people are eager to pay for. Plus in this case it's a one-time fee that will pay for itself.
So any private citizen with 125 GP to spend will have this item, multiples if they can afford it. Public institutions will, too. Streetilghts in the temple and rich districts? That's a no-brainer. They'll have to protect the items, of course, but it's worth it. Then as those areas get full of continual light, it will trickle down. The items never wear out, and you'd have to be crazy or desperate to destroy them.
That's not mentioning the benefits of not burning down all your stuff. Just ask any librarian. Or Chicago. It's also not mentioning the defense and security benefits, especially in a world where many of the PC races' enemies can see in the dark, but the PC races can't.

As far as writing practical magic goes, I assume you're not short on ideas, it's more a matter of making those ideas fit the rules, find the level for the effect, be balanced, etc. That's a valid concern, especially if you try to make rules for things like mining or forestry that could be used in a typical dungeon crawl.
There is some guidance in things like disintegrate, wall of x, or unseen servant. Also see tenser's floating disc.

Maybe you'd be better off working top down. Imagine the society, and then find the spells to make it go, rather than finding the spells first.
That would be closer to my world-building approach, which is to get a sketch or idea of the world at large, then make a detailed little setting for the PCs, then fill things in as they explore. With spells you can show the results first, and only do the crunch when you need to.

[inexorabletruth]

The Arms & Equipment Guide has a huge list of day-to-day mundane and magical items to chose from. It's technically 3.0, but a lot of DM's ok it.

If you're looking for contraceptives, you could try the Book of Erotic Fantasy. They have stats on those and cosmetics.

Also check out Sandstorm, Stormwrack, and Complete Scoundrel for some other day-to-day survival stuff that may be of interest to you.

[jseah]

Here's a short list of suggestions I got from elsewhere:

Spoiler

Show

Dictation - Writes down everything that's said, must provide ink and brush/pen

Copy - Creates a written copy of a written text, skill needed to copy images well and/or forge documents, caster must understand language (or it counts as a picture)

Read - Peasants are not literate, this spell cast on a text makes it read itself out loud, highlighting words it is reading. Permanent. Useful for teaching literacy or distributing messages

Calculate - Performs simple mathematical operations and writes down the result. Eg. Add all numbers in this column

Broadcast - Everyone in line of sight can hear you at talking volume

Sort - Cast on a pile of objects, sorts them into two piles according to a simple criteria

Chill - Makes a glass of liquid cold (not freezing)

Breeze - Cast in a room to make the air circulate, nice and cooling

Spark - Lights a fire

[Gavinfoxx]

Most of these are already possible somewhere in d&d 3.5e, if you know where to look...

[Randomguy]

About three of those are just different functions of prestidigitation.

[Chilingsworth]

In my world, if the thing they're cast on is destroyed, then the spell is likewise destroyed.

But yeah, that's the list of things I was basically going for. I'm running a mageocracy - a wizard dominated nation, where power - magic, specifically - rules all. The common folk are kept happy, like a pack of trained dogs, to keep bringing in more spellcasters through breeding, to be used as fodder, or war material, or whatever else the mages want, and kept ignorant about the extent of the control through whatever means, including mind magics, as necessary.

So, in this world, you'd think day-to-day spells would be supremely common. The mages work together to keep their power in place, and presently, they're fat and happy, basically. So they'd share these spells freely and easily.

And it's a bunch of spellcasters with lots of time on their hands, and feeling like they aren't threatened at all. What sort of spells would they make?

I feel like I've got my work cut out for myself, as DM...

I don't know how much help they'd be on this specific point, but I've started some threads recently for a similiar aim. Also, Gavinfoxx has some thieses somewhere that might help. (Assuming he hasn't already found this thread and posted links to them yet.) (I've mostly been focusing on the militaristic side of things rather than the civil, but haven't ignored the later.)

Off the top of my head, though:

Presdigitation can do alot of handy things, like cleaning and flavoring (and even changing the perceived texture of) food.

There's also light, create water, and purify food and drink spells
Not to mention create food and water and heroes' feast spells (heroes' feast: all the trendy hotels serve it as a complimentary breakfast!)

Mage's Magnificent Mansion (especially made permenant) could be make to make... well, any kind of dwelling (or even other building), of arbitrary level of luxury, more or less.

Walls of stone and iron can be used both for construction and to produce raw materials (combine with the invisible spell metamagic feat to create perfect (and extremely sturdy) picture windows)

Wall of stone could also be used to pave roads.

The message, whispering wind, and sending spells already exist for communication at varrious ranges. As does Telepathic Bond (when made permenant, especially.)

Items based on some of those spells (namely communication rings, farspeaking amulets, sending stones, and aspect mirrors) can be used as varrying types of permenant communication devices (and in the case of aspect mirrors, 1984-esque televisors.)

There's the mending and make whole spells for repairing things, and the fabricate spell for making them.

You could do what the Imaskari Empire did and use one-way portals for varrious purposes (examples: portals to the plane of water for fresh water, or to the plane of air for ventilation.)

Of course there's the continual flame spell. It's worth noting that the 50gp ruby is an arcane material component, and therefore doesn't apply to the divine version.

There's also the magewright NPC class out of Eberron. Actually, you might want to take a close look at Eberron in general if you haven't already.

Hope that helps some.