| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Why don't divine casters get prestidigitation or a prestidigitation like spell?
Because most gods do not resort to parlor tricks? Or something like that...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Because spit polishing your armor builds character.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Cleric: "God, can I color cloak of my master with your power, can I lift up that little key to escape from the prison, can I soil this food to make it more tasty or can I make something crude and artificial or make funny sounds with your power unlimited times every day?"
god:"No!"
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Because Create Water is way too useful for an orison, so it kinda balances out. Seriously, I pissed off a GM in Skull and Shackles book 1 by avoiding an entire island derail by saying "We don't need to stop for fresh water." "It needs to be enough for the whole ship." "So? I can do this all day, man, and it's gallons at a time." "Look, it's the rest of book 1, can you just work with me?"
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Prestidigitation seems to be the epitome of what low-level magicians and tricksters would use magic for-- basically a lot of flash but no substance. Low-level priests, meanwhile, are performing "minor miracles", like creating water where there is none.
Arcane magic is all about "magic as a tool invented by mages", compared to divine magic, which is about "the will of a higher power made form". As a result, divine spells get the job done efficiently and abruptly, while arcane spells are more about exploring just what a spell can do.
Because Create Water is way too useful for an orison, so it kinda balances out. Seriously, I pissed off a GM in Skull and Shackles book 1 by avoiding an entire island derail by saying "We don't need to stop for fresh water." "It needs to be enough for the whole ship." "So? I can do this all day, man, and it's gallons at a time." "Look, it's the rest of book 1, can you just work with me?"
We ran into the same problem, several times. A surprisingly large section of S&S* goes out the window because of that cantrip. Which is weird, since Sandara Quinn is a cleric of Besmara and has Create Water prepared in her stat block.
There's a drought at Rickety Squibs you say? Not for long!
Event 13 (the frying pan) relies entirely on the party deciding to sail up a river to take on fresh water. Yeah, that's not gonna happen.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Because Create Water is way too useful for an orison, so it kinda balances out. Seriously, I pissed off a GM in Skull and Shackles book 1 by avoiding an entire island derail by saying "We don't need to stop for fresh water." "It needs to be enough for the whole ship." "So? I can do this all day, man, and it's gallons at a time." "Look, it's the rest of book 1, can you just work with me?"
This is why create water is a second level spell in my game. Some priests make a town spring up around their temple purely because they can get fresh water where no one else can.
I'm not sure why they don't get very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very limited wish, but I did like how 5e handled it, where every class gets a spell that acts similarly. Like Clerics get Thaumaturgy, and Druids with Druidcraft. I wish they all were less restricted in what you can do.
But as it is, prestidigitation is a spell I take on any character who can take it. Never actually use it too often, but it's great when I need to.
Deities can't entertain?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Cayden is disappointed
Is there some actual mechanical/legacy (as in dnd throwbacks) reason that create water is so silly? Practically infinite potable water is definitely not something someone should be able to get with a single cleric level
Is there some actual mechanical/legacy (as in dnd throwbacks) reason that create water is so silly? Practically infinite potable water is definitely not something someone should be able to get with a single cleric level
It wasn't quite as bad in D&D. Cantrips weren't useable at-will. Though you could still put it in an at-will magic item.
At least the water disappears after 24 hours in Pathfinder. You don't have to worry about someone trying to flood a dungeon with it.
It wasn't quite as bad in D&D. Cantrips weren't useable at-will. Though you could still put it in an at-will magic item.
At least the water disappears after 24 hours in Pathfinder. You don't have to worry about someone trying to flood a dungeon with it.
But my dungeon themed water park D:
I did trap a boss between walls of stone, leave a hole in it, and start flooding it with create water as a means of interrogation once.
you need fruts and vegtebals beside fish and meat. otherwise you get the scurvy.
(this was actuly an historicly acurate illnes that hit sailors who didn't get their vitamin b enough becouse of food only being rations and such.)
you need fruts and vegtebals beside fish and meat. otherwise you get the scurvy.
(this was actuly an historicly acurate illnes that hit sailors who didn't get their vitamin b enough becouse of food only being rations and such.)
Also, Scurvy is quite common in modern day Uni students ... Seriously, it's making a comeback
Because Create Water is way too useful for an orison, so it kinda balances out. Seriously, I pissed off a GM in Skull and Shackles book 1 by avoiding an entire island derail by saying "We don't need to stop for fresh water." "It needs to be enough for the whole ship." "So? I can do this all day, man, and it's gallons at a time." "Look, it's the rest of book 1, can you just work with me?"
Plug whipped us and said he doesn't like the taste of magic water. You missed a fun island.
Create Water changes only games that depend on survival as a major theme and challenge. Not all do.
No, it has wider implications than drinking water.
House on fire? Oh, I can fill your buckets every 6 seconds (if I am not dumping it on the fire directly). No problem. This is particularly relevant in S&S, since your boat catching on fire means you are shark food, and the AP goes a long way to tell you which of your spells cause fires.
Invisible enemy? I can dump water everywhere. Not only might I splash the invisible creature (which makes it visible for a split second, letting you know what square it is in), it also makes the ground wet (and thus the invisible creature's foot steps make a much more obvious sound- again, telling you where it is).
There are probably more problems an infinite supply of water solves, but I just mentioned some of the common ones.
|
And a lot of those take a hefty amount of action economy. More of them aren't going to work as effectively as a decent Perception check.Create Water changes only games that depend on survival as a major theme and challenge. Not all do.No, it has wider implications than drinking water.
House on fire? Oh, I can fill your buckets every 6 seconds (if I am not dumping it on the fire directly). No problem. This is particularly relevant in S&S, since your boat catching on fire means you are shark food, and the AP goes a long way to tell you which of your spells cause fires.
Invisible enemy? I can dump water everywhere. Not only might I splash the invisible creature (which makes it visible for a split second, letting you know what square it is in), it also makes the ground wet (and thus the invisible creature's foot steps make a much more obvious sound- again, telling you where it is).
There are probably more problems an infinite supply of water solves, but I just mentioned some of the common ones.
Considering an invisible creature standing still has +40 to its stealth check, I think one PC using create water in this fashion is fairly effective, especially before anyone can access See Invisibility readily (looking at you, level 1), let alone god-level perception modifiers.
Create Water should be bumped up to a 1st level spell (maybe more, but that's probably enough). Of course, a few other spells (some of which are not Cantrips/Orisons -- for instance, Glitterdust) should also get level-bumped (don't remove or degrade the cool stuff, just make it take longer to get to).
Back on topic, Prestidigitation should probably not be able to remove (or add) really nasty filth or adhesive dirt -- that should take a higher level spell, if you are going to use magic. No more use of a Cantrip to almost instantly clean up from having fallen in a sewer! (Shattered Star PbPs I have followed, I'm looking at you.)
It has occurred to me that Prestidigitation is to Wish what an Elephant Shrew is to an Elephant, and that the text of Limited Wish, Wish, and Miracle already mostly support the potential for a fully scaling Miracle/Wish spell (only mild tweaks needed). Replace all of these spells with a Miracle/Wish spell that is ranked in the manner of Summon Monster, starting at Cantrip/Orison (rank N), which does pretty much what Prestidigitation does today, sobject to the constraint (as noted above) that you need a higher-level version to affect anything really objectionable. As you proceed up, these spells start becoming able to duplicate lower level spells and do more impressive parlor tricks and cleaning service, but with ascending material component cost, so that you wouldn't want to use them regularly for this purpose, with Miracle/Wish VII being closely equivalent to Limited Wish, and Miracle/Wish XI being closely equivalent to Miracle or Wish, although probably ending up with different numbers for the material component cost for at least some of these. This could actually scale up smoothly beyond 9th level without breaking anything, which would work well with opening up the opportunity for level-bumping other really overpowered spells to higher than 9th level (the upper spell levels both arcane and divine currently have compressed into them stuff that is just okay for their level or even underpowered together with stuff that should be beyond 9th level, an effect analogous to compressing 9 levels of spells into 6 levels in the Summoner list -- likewise, uncompress the Summoner spell list while we're at it, and to a lesser extent uncompress other limited level spell lists).