In general, the list of effects in spell description is all that it can specifically do - especially in official play. GMs might (and usually do) rule it can perform other effects on the same general level.
When it comes to spell duplication, the spell description refers to the already-published spells, or anything on the power level of a regular cantrip. The intent behind that line, as I understand it, is basically to prevent Prestidigitation from being a perfect do-anything spell due to its slightly ambiguous nature.
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No, limitations are the end points of spells capabilities. A limiting rule or restriction. The spell shouldn't do things beyond that in effect but you can come up with other things for it to do that don't reach that far.
Prestidigitation just does small things. It isn't a force that remembers or is omnipresent. Just a filler spell to allow for spell casters to have little tricks to seem more wizardly/etc. Creating a custom spell wouldn't have any effect on Prestidigitation. It isn't duplicating any spell effect, it is the spell being duplicated in your example.
I am curious why your bringing this up actually.
^ That. I don't think I've ever seen someone try to examine prestidigitation this hard, and I've gotta wonder why.
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Your friend's interpretation would make some of the spell's text kind of pointless. Why mention it can't duplicate spell effects if it can only do a few specific thing, or mention that it can't deal damage for that matter.
Thanks for explaining though. If you want to light a candle with prestidigitation you're probably fine. To be fair to Spark assume that you'd need to be limited to a candle and in decent conditions for lighting it.
There are several "what can you do with prestidigitation" threads, some several years old. The general rule of thumb is, you are taking this spell to do mage-ey things. what good is magic if you cant clean your clothes, blow dry yourself dry after that dunk in the river, comb your hair, shave your face, etc. Prestidigitation is magic parlor tricks for those who've spent their time studying real magic instead of charlatan-ery.
The wording is not to create a defined field of set-in-stone rules other than, don't try to get other spell effects out of paying just one orison slot. If you want boundaries, look at the list of 0 level spells and say "I do solemnly swear to not try to cast prestidigitation to mimic anything here!"
It's a role 'playing' aid, not an actual tool, but played just right, you can use it to fantastic effect.
Prestidigitation can't duplicate another spell. Spark has a "close" range and can light fires in any weather condition, while Prestidigitation has a 10' range. Pretty sure you can light small fires within 10' during normal conditions (not during a driving rain, for example) without duplicating a spell. After all, Mage Hand can move 1 lb. slowly, too, and Prestidigitation can explicitly still do that.
There's no way that enough heat to light a candle would not hinder spell casting when you apply it to someone's face, so prestidigitation shouldn't have been able to start a fire in the first place.
Mage Hand can move 1 lb. slowly, too, and Prestidigitation can explicitly still do that.
Not really - prestidigitation can lift an object but there's nothing about moving it sideways or even lowering it again.
Not really - prestidigitation can lift an object but there's nothing about moving it sideways or even lowering it again.
...ok, well if you want to be pedantic about it, Mage Hand can still lift an object slowly, so my point still stands.
I would probably let a PC light a candle the same with prestidigitation taking the same amount of effort as with flint & steel. I would not let them duplicate spark with it however.
...well, the fire lighting can be taken care of simply with what would amount to Conjure: box of matches. Depending on whether you can describe them as a 'tool.' I typically would think of them as weak and disposable enough to count for prestidigitation.
You could then proceed to toss the lit match 10'. Even if the spell effect didn't cause the match to stop existing after that range, I would rule that throwing a match hard enough to make it farther than that would cause it to snuff out. The other limits for this approach would be that matches are fairly useless in hurricane degree weather, what with all the wind and rain.
Can I use prestidigitation to emulate a hair dryer?
Spark is a 0 spell that is specifically for lighting things, so no you can't use presti for that. you need to think more along the lines of a magician making it pour coins from your ear into his hand, floating a box in front of a crowd to woo them when you run your hands underneath. buttoning up your jerkin, zipping your fly hands free, that sort of thing.
If you're looking to do something that another spell can do, then you're just trying to bend the rules so you don't get caught without x spell. presti is not a swiss army spell list for the unimaginitive.
@zark, yes you can, or clean clothes, comb, etc. but not repair.
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Spark is a 0 spell that is specifically for lighting things, so no you can't use presti for that.
But if nobody at the table owns the advanced players guide (unlikely, I know), then there isn't a spell it's replicating; and thus it can be used for lighting things.
So, as more spells are written, presti apparently can do less and less.
In general, I think you're right though. It does things a prepared stage magician could do.
I mainly use it for cleaning my clothes, flavoring food, and telling time. (Telling time? How do you use it for that? Well, we were locked in a razmiran dungeon. I used it to entertain the gnome by changing the color of her robes. In an hour, they turned back and I'd cast it again to a new color. Thus, the 1-hour timer)
Stage magicians often use flash paper to produce little bursts of flame. I don't see letting prestidigitation replicate that (and using it to light a candle) to be a problem. Spark would let you light that candle in a pouring rain, and have it immediately light.
I have to agree with Morgen on the fire thing. Allowing it to light a fire under circumstances where you could easily light a fire nonmagically seems to be well within the bounds of prestidigitation.
A few people (apparently) can get real nitpicky. On the bit about fire, for instance, someone noted that the heat required to light a candle would certainly distract a spellcaster, so prestidigitation can't do it. Me, I'd say that's probably wrong in the first place (unless you're taking real damage, spellcaster ain't distracted enough to matter), but beyond that, I don't think we need to get quite that worried about it.
Mostly, I feel like the specifics should just be ironed out between player and GM, but a decent rule of thumb for when the GM needs to step in is, I think, this: If you're trying to do something mechanically useful with Prestidigitation, then ask your GM. If you're just describing flavorful effects, do whatever the hell you feel like. That's what the spell's really for, after all - is to let an arcane spellcaster be 'magic-y' without using up spells for the day.
First: Love this spell. So useful.
However, to go back this spell is written in the CRB (!) Spark is not Core...
That being said, the listed things are what it could do. Those are the guideline for it. To be honest, it is not a combative spell but can be used to help with other things.
creating a plate with a crude map...
cleaning yourself to get a bonus (or not have penalty) talking to the clean clean noble
give penalties to someone else (or bonuses if orcish...i guess...)
turn someone pink...
flavor food.. warm food, chill drink (perhaps to help hide poison)
it is a set of minor tricks of a novice.
In alot of ways, its like illusion spells, in that subject to DM rulings.Also apparently you only need to 'cast' it once per hour. instead of for each trick.
About the most you can do to someone else physically, is create a rock and chuck it...
I would let the candle thing fly. I have had spellcasters in my games use prestidigitation to smoke their tobacco pipes. Makes for good roleplay when your questgiver goes for a tindertwig and you hold out your thumb with a dancing flame on the end of it.
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It doesn't say it can't have mechanical effects; just that those mechanical effects won't be (directly) causing damage or loss of concentration. If you used it to light a fuse tied to a barrel of gunpowder, you might certainly achieve those effects indirectly. Likewise with flavoring food (which might entice people to eat the poisoned food, provoking a Fort save) and so forth.
Also, it says you cannot duplicate another spell; that's not the same as doing a lesser, more limited version of the spell.
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Spark is a 0 spell that is specifically for lighting things, so no you can't use presti for that.
Correction: Spark is a cantrip that specifically lights things on fire at range as a standard action in any weather condition. As if you were using flint & steel except faster and more efficient.
There's already a precedent for Prestidigitation imitating existing spells in a crappier, less efficient manner (imitation, which is not the same as duplication, which would be practically identical) written right into the description. Both Mage Hand and Prestidigitation can lift objects. The difference is that Mage Hand can lift 5 pounds 15 feet with a single standard action, out to close range. Prestidigitation is limited to 1 pound, at a maximum range of 10 feet, and it can only move it "very slowly" (which isn't defined, but we're probably talking a time span better measured in minutes instead of 6 second rounds).
Really, most cantrips are just super-specialized Prestidigitation effects that have some sort of combat use. As opposed to the totally non-combat general effects you can create with Prestidigitation itself.
Personally I like to keep it simple and rule that it does the job of all the cantrips from 1e/2e unearthed arcana that aren't already covered by another cantrip... This includes things like sweeten/flavor/color/clean/polish/sort/gather/hairy/dilapitory... Those are the most common things I do with it. Dilapitory helps keep my mage clean shaven, and you'd be surprised how often the hairy cantrip becomes useful in a party that cares about their beards and encounters a lot of magical fire aoe's...
Cats and dogs will eat canned food that doesn't much look like meat to me.
Its mostly corn I think. Everything nowadays is made with corn. Seriously, check your pantry. Everything has high fructose corn syrup. Heck, the market is eventually moving so that everything at your dinner table, from the food and drink to any plastic cutlery, cups, and plates, is made from corn. But I digress. I'm fairly sure that the animal would eventually catch on, at least enough that they will not associate that specific kind of food with...food. Animals are pretty well built like that, able to unconsciously keep track of when something was eaten and what came from it. This helps them tell good, nutricious (or at least protein and sugar ladden) foods from bad, poisonous or spoiled ones. Over the time span needed for malnourishment, it would eventually gain an aversion.
I still think that while prestidigitation might not be able to duplicate effects directly, you can use it to make objects that can be used for that effect. It is like how many conjuration spells do not have spell resistance. The magic just summons the physical object, the physical object is what does the damage.
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Personally I like to keep it simple and rule that it does the job of all the cantrips from 1e/2e unearthed arcana that aren't already covered by another cantrip... This includes things like sweeten/flavor/color/clean/polish/sort/gather/hairy/dilapitory... Those are the most common things I do with it. Dilapitory helps keep my mage clean shaven, and you'd be surprised how often the hairy cantrip becomes useful in a party that cares about their beards and encounters a lot of magical fire aoe's...
I can cast Bee and mouse?
YAY! summon 1 bee, with a 90%chance of being angry. can summon in someones armor.
or a mouse. you cant control the mouse, but you summon a mouse
Exactly... That would include things like the old burp or fart or sneeze cantrip, but I dont tend to use those myself as much as the ones i listed... I'm not much of a 'prankster mage'
how you see stuck on 4... only 4 slots, you have almost all in your book...