Fun with cantrips


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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There has previously been a discussion about whether or not you could use prestidigitation on a vampire to make it taste garlic. After an in game argument about whether or not we could hold a dancing lights in a guys face to blind him mid combat, it leads to a question.

What ridiculous rules legal abuses of 0th level spells can you come up with?

1. Prestidigitation as vampire repellent.

2. Dancing lights to blind your enemies.

3. Create water to flood a town after barricading yourselves in a room.


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Detect Poison to find where your host stashes their beer?

Sovereign Court

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Acid Splash for damage?:
False Focus(material components: Brimstone, Flask of Acid)
Actual Flask of Acid as a Focus
1 level of Crossblooded(Orc/Draconic) Sorcerer
1 level of Medium(Archmage)
Trait (or two) to reduce metamagic costs
Extend Spell (or Empower Spell)
1d3 + 6 damage for 4 rounds = 32 average damage per cast
or (1d3 + 6)*1.5 for 2 rounds = 24 average damage per cast

"Acid Arrow" as a cantrip? Priceless.

Arcane Mark "licking" things to claim them as your own.
Dancing Lights (vaguely humanoid form) to spring ambushes.
Summon Instrument for torches, improvised melee/thrown weapons, containers, flotation devices, levers, door stops, firewood, lightning rods, caltrops, etc


Summon instrument as a messaging system to your ship and crew. (meet me at the north docks NOW!)
Dancing lights to distract giant frogs (so they wouldn't eat the ranger).


-Prestidigitation to stain someone else's sword with blood, having them caught 'red handed' (based upon the 'dirtying' ability of the spell)
-Prestidigitation on a severed finger (or any bit less than 1 pound) to cool or heat it up, faking a time of death (hot finger- 'must have happened recently', cold finger' happened hours ago)
-Prestidigitaton to recolor your clothes to get a quick disguise check (REALLY stretching the time rules for the disguise skill there; technically, if you use magic as part of your disguise, the time is reduced to casting time/activation time)


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Used in one of my games: Behold the legend of Ghostshirt!

- Prestidigitation to slowly move a Small sized, 1 lb shirt
- Prestidigitation to draw a ghostly face on said shirt
- Ghost Sound to make... ghost sounds
- A scroll of Obscuring Mist at the end

The setting: PCs are attempting to ascend an earthen ramp up to a ruin. The path is only 10' wide cutting through a pair of sheer cliff faces. In one side of the cliffs, kobolds have gouged out 2 murder holes and are set to rain down javelins and slings on the PCs as they run up.

The result: "Ghostshirt" slowly rises up through the fog, blocking 1 murder hole, then the next. Meanwhile the PCs are moving up along the far wall. That means even when the kobolds can see past "Ghostshirt" they only see vague shapes moving through the mist (PCs are 10' away from kobolds in mist, so Concealment) and they can't track the party by sound because of the tortured moans and chain rattling emanating from the undead in their midst.

It was so ingenious I rolled Will saves for the 4 kobolds; 2 actually failed a DC 12 Will save and fled screaming about "Ghostshirt" in draconic. Now there is a kobold legend about the thing as an omen of death; once the PCs made it to the top they handily slew a tatzlwyrm which the kobolds were worshipping as a divine herald of their dragon god. So:

If you're a kobold in my homebrew, and a fog begins to roll in, beware. First you hear the terrible sounds of the damned soul. Then, rising out of the mist comes Ghostshirt; its neon face a cruel mockery of what it was in life. You have mere moments to live for Death follows in Ghostshirt's wake.


Prestidigitation to "soil" the fighters underpants.
Create Water to wash dirt out from someone
Create Water to push someone off a ledge


Goddity wrote:
What ridiculous rules legal abuses of 0th level spells can you come up with?

Telekinetic Projectile has a range, but no target. Which means either the object you're throwing has to be within range - but not the target, or vice versa. Either way, you can "throw" objects across continents with it.


Detect magic to bypass invisibility. It's considered a "functioning spell".

Grand Lodge

Magus using arcane Mark to "Mark" his enemeys with his sword. Yes he named his Magus Zorro and his mark was a Z.


If you keep read magic up, arcane mark becomes a nice anti-invisibility tool.

Mage hand can open locks and sabotage equipment.

Open/close can work on attended or magical objects, so you can open your enemies' bags of holding and whatnot in combat.

Create water can put out torches and lanterns, providing convenient darkness. Drench is intended for this purpose, but create water is less rare and can put out multiple flames with one casting.

Summon instrument has as many uses as you can think of. Guitars can work as excellent sources of fuel, and sousaphones would be rather painful if dropped on someone from above.

And this isn't really an unintended use, but I would just like to remark on how enjoyable spark is for the pyromaniac within us all. Setting fire to things has never been so efficient! And with cantrips like create water, drench, and mending can help deal with situations that get out of hand.


Recipe for endless Alcohol (warning uses a level 1 spell)
1)Cast Create Water
2)Cast Enhance Water on said water.
3)Enjoy with your Drunken Brawler and Monk of the Drunken Fist


Prestidigitation or mage hand to manipulate the color of the sides of a die, or which way it lands up. Profession gambler checks anyone?

Summon instrument for a large harp, grand piano, et cetera to quickly occupy a doorway and/or require a high strength check to open a wedged door, to cross a mid sized gap more easily, and to quickly raise the water level in a small pool (of water/acid/lava).

Prestidigitation to make someone think food is bad/poisoned/contains an allergen. This can get someone framed for attempted murder in the right campaign.

Any long duration cantrip cast with Heightened can be a dispel block you don't care much about, guarding a more important buff or one with a costly material component. "Oh no, you dispelled my hair dye." *Fireball*


Artifix wrote:

Recipe for endless Alcohol (warning uses a level 1 spell)

1)Cast Create Water
2)Cast Enhance Water on said water.
3)Enjoy with your Drunken Brawler and Monk of the Drunken Fist

Another recipe for endless alcohol:

Flask of Endless Sake
- costs 4,000 gp
- doesn't use any spell slots
- getting it is as easy as speaking the command word at the beginning of the day and drinking from the flask whenever you want to

Shiroi wrote:
Summon instrument for a large harp, grand piano, et cetera
Summon Instrument wrote:
This spell summons one handheld musical instrument... You can't summon an instrument too large to be held in two hands.

I suppose you were planning on summoning one of those good old handheld grand pianos?


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

For his trox pianist, obviously!


Can't believe you guys.

Ghost Sound for the whoopee cushion effect.

Knocks 'em dead at an elite dinner table.

I've also used Ray of Frost to make ice and cool mugs and whatnot.

Depending on how much your dm will work with you you can actually do some very interesting things with Ray of Frost.

For example cool the bolts holding the hinges to a door to make them easier to remove. Or since ice has a greater volume than liquid water for a given weight, you can freeze a small amount and potentially create interesting effects.


Artifix wrote:

Recipe for endless Alcohol (warning uses a level 1 spell)

1)Cast Create Water
2)Cast Enhance Water on said water.
3)Enjoy with your Drunken Brawler and Monk of the Drunken Fist

Or be a cleric of Cayden Cailean.

A lot of deities have variant rules for their spells, usually in the form of an altered spell/summon list. Cayden lets you make ale or wine with the create water cantrip.


Telekinetic projectile can make a grain of sand deal 1d6 points of damage. It can also rip the sword out of your hand, whack you with it, and then break it.


Avoron wrote:
Artifix wrote:

Recipe for endless Alcohol (warning uses a level 1 spell)

1)Cast Create Water
2)Cast Enhance Water on said water.
3)Enjoy with your Drunken Brawler and Monk of the Drunken Fist

Another recipe for endless alcohol:

Flask of Endless Sake
- costs 4,000 gp
- doesn't use any spell slots
- getting it is as easy as speaking the command word at the beginning of the day and drinking from the flask whenever you want to

Shiroi wrote:
Summon instrument for a large harp, grand piano, et cetera
Summon Instrument wrote:
This spell summons one handheld musical instrument... You can't summon an instrument too large to be held in two hands.
I suppose you were planning on summoning one of those good old handheld grand pianos?

Nah, I just stack strength really, really high. Or don't read bard cantrips often because I haven't played one yet. ;)


Some of the above constitute more reasons why some Cantrips/Knacks/Orisons should be bumped up to 1st level.


Ok, a little involved but here goes:

1. Telekinetic Projectile: flask of oil - hit foe dealing 1d6 damage and coating them in oil
2. Telekinetic Projectile: lit torch - foe takes another 1d6 damage and is on fire; takes 1d4 Fire and if not using a Move to put themselves out, takes another 1d4 next round

2 cantrips to deal a potential 2d6 plus 2d4 over the course of 3 rounds.

Grand Lodge

Is anyone else doing Shenanigans (excuse me::getting creative with the 0-Level words of power as well?
Acid Burn Acid UM
Bleeding Wounds Wounding UM
Cold Snap Cold UM
Cramp Pain UM
Decipher Language UM
Echo Illusion UM
Flame Jet Fire UM
Force Block Armor UM
Lift Gravity UM
Sense Magic Detection UM
Spark Electricity UM

Cramp is all around good, drop the weapon, a chance to become prone, this just doesn't get old
Lift was kinda slow but got the job done
Flame Jet for incinerating everything in sight =diversion
I have been using Echo for a fart made the scent based creature nuts.
I guess Sense Magic might detect there is an invisible person there, but, it is a process that might not have successful rolls to get there.


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Goddity wrote:

Detect magic to bypass invisibility. It's considered a "functioning spell".

"Hey guys, there's something magical over there somewhere."

"Just a moment, narrowing it down. Okay, just one aura somewhere that way."
"Few more seconds to pinpoint it... and... huh. It's gone. Oh, gee, maybe I just gave an invisible rogue 18 seconds to..."

SHANK!!!

But seriously, other than invisible doorways or something, this matters not at all. I ran an awesome Runelords encounter wherein a cramped room with six PCs provided a bad guy with invisibility the opportunity to play submarine. It was hugely memorable. My favorite was when a wounded PC retreated into a sub-room to heal up. Then I got to describe the door to the sub-room closing, and the PC realized he was now trapped WITH the bad guy. Heh.


Breeze in conjunction with using Survival to conceal our trail gave us a +2 Circumstance bonus in our Reign of Winter game. We used the brief draft to knock loose snow from trees, make small snow drifts and generally help obscure our passage.

For that matter in RoW, could you use Create Water to make ice and frost around your camp with Create Water? Like forming up squares of frost to make the ground crunch as an alarm, or perhaps using Create Water and Ray of Frost to craft actual squares of solid ice?


Anguish wrote:
Goddity wrote:

Detect magic to bypass invisibility. It's considered a "functioning spell".

"Hey guys, there's something magical over there somewhere."

"Just a moment, narrowing it down. Okay, just one aura somewhere that way."
"Few more seconds to pinpoint it... and... huh. It's gone. Oh, gee, maybe I just gave an invisible rogue 18 seconds to..."

SHANK!!!

But seriously, other than invisible doorways or something, this matters not at all. I ran an awesome Runelords encounter wherein a cramped room with six PCs provided a bad guy with invisibility the opportunity to play submarine. It was hugely memorable. My favorite was when a wounded PC retreated into a sub-room to heal up. Then I got to describe the door to the sub-room closing, and the PC realized he was now trapped WITH the bad guy. Heh.

The trick is to have cast it before you enter the room.

Alien:
Although the recreation of the ending of Alien sounds fun.

We did once use create water to immobilize an ice zombie. After an argument over the physics of it, our ninja convinced the GM that it would do lots of damage too. Not so sure if that would fly with every GM, but immobilization works.


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Goddity wrote:
The trick is to have cast it before you enter the room.

Detect Magic gives you info based on "how long you study a particular area or subject", not based on when you cast it. So, you still need to concentrate for three rounds before you see where any magic aura comes from.

That is, unless you use it through a wooden door, before opening it. That could work.
Unless (again) it's a heavy steel door (or a wooden, but lead-lined door, because people know divination spells are a thing and that lead blocks several of them), in that case you still sense nothing and can only start scanning the room after opening the door.


Prestidigitation to never have to bathe again.
Purify food and drink to turn roadkill into lean cuisine.
Dancing lights as signal flares.
Detect magic basically equals loot-dar.
Create water to speed up a bucket brigade.
Brand on a hexcrafter magus for even better shenanigans than arcane mark.
Spark because, as goblins know, more fire is always better.


Darigaaz the Igniter wrote:

Prestidigitation to never have to bathe again.

Purify food and drink to turn roadkill into lean cuisine.
{. . .}

These sound like the kind of things that a certain Emperor might fall for . . . .


And here I was considering Read Magic to cheat on exams at the local wizards' academy. Or just using Mending to put all the smiths, carpenters, and tailors out of work.

Or just visit a hospital and spam Stabilize and Bleed. Especially when someone else is trying to help that patient.


VRMH wrote:
Goddity wrote:
What ridiculous rules legal abuses of 0th level spells can you come up with?
Telekinetic Projectile has a range, but no target. Which means either the object you're throwing has to be within range - but not the target, or vice versa. Either way, you can "throw" objects across continents with it.

I don't think you're right there. I believe that both the target and object have to be within range; from the PRD:

A spell's range is the maximum distance from you that the spell's effect can occur, as well as the maximum distance at which you can designate the spell's point of origin. If any portion of the spell's area would extend beyond this range, that area is wasted.

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