How do you use magic in funny / random / trivial ways?


Gamer Life General Discussion


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"Sure you can use magic to crush enemies, become powerful and that stuff. But if you cannot use magic for really important things, what's the use?"- Kileanna, changeling witch, after using Alter Self during intercourse with her girlfriend.

We all know how to use magic encounter wise. But also, we often like using it just for fun. I want you to share your stories of how you have used your magic or special features in completely frivolous ways.

My best story about it is this one:
I had this player who was playing a CN high level wizard. He had taken a 15-year-old girl NPC as an apprentice for a time. Then she left to learn in a Hogwarts/ProffesorX's academy-like school of magic. He eventually started to think she was not learning fast enough at school so he decided to take her adventuring for about a week. So he casted Polymorph any object on his own rat familiar to create a copy of her apprentice, leaving it in her place.
The rat was very intelligent (for a rat) and could speak as it had ranks in linguistics. But it was still a rat. When they were back the rat had bitten some students, been skipping classes or sleeping at them, completely forgotten about keeping herself clean or wearing any clothes, stolen from school's kitchen and spreading food all over her room and causing all kind of mischief. It wasn't the best impersonation ever. The wizard thought it was perfect anyway.

I'm sure I will remember a lot more like that one but now I want to hear your stories! I'm sure you have many!


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This is how a Wizard messes with a trespassing Rogue . . . .


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We were adventuring through a haunted house. The family that lived there had died horrible deaths, because the parents were cultists. In the basement there was a family crypt with stone slabs covering a burial spot for each family member, but there was an extra space with a blank slab. In order to put each spirit to rest, we had to put their remains in their burial spot.

The player who played the fighter was late that day, so before he showed up, I cast an illusion on the slab to make it look like his name had been chiseled into the slab.


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The blank slab was asking for it. You just did what had to be done xD


Gaslight people who annoy you with mage hand, ghost sound, and prestidigitation. Nuff said. "What do you mean that mug was on the other side of the table? It was there the whole time, honest!"


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I also remember a game where the characters started playing with a Rod of Wonder and the bard in the group ended half dead because of a storm of gems and with grass instead of hair. They had to be disuaded from keeping using the rod to try to fix the damage it had done.
All the members of the party had wisdom scores below 10.


When it comes to cantrips I'm like santa claus when I make it to town. Lots of clean and polish and color cantrips for both the locals and their homes, lots of dilapitory for guys and girls alike.

I've often imagined that a low level hedge wizard could make a decent living with a local barber shop and laundromat.


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Prestidigitation and create water = ultimate self-sufficiency on the warm, cozy beverage front. :) Seriously, though...conjure a crude cup, conjure water into it, and heat, color, and flavor to your liking. It's fantastic. But the silly mean witch wouldn't take the cup of tea as a peace offering. :(

My psychic has also recently used prestidigitation to put her cooking gear away immediately after taking it off the fire...because it cleans and cools itself without her even having to really try.

Not terribly novel uses, but I love prestidigitation. I've even burned the trait to get it on spellcasters that normally wouldn't've had it otherwise. It's just so fun. And the apprentice wizard laundromat's always been my favorite thing, too.


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That brought another one to mind!
It's another story with the wizard with the rat familiar. There was a bard in the party who wanted to humiliate her ex-boyfriend (he had been dating her while engaged to another woman and was very harsh on her when she found out). So she tricked him to think she wanted to forgive him, seduced him and when he was fully naked she kicked him out of her room in the middle of a crowd.
Seemingly the wizard thought it was not enough punishment for him. I cannot remember if he used Prestidigitation or some kind of illusion, but he painted on him with magic this words on his belly: "Out of service" with an arrow pointing to his noble parts.
The poor man was a pretty influent cleric in town and was never taken seriously again.

Silver Crusade

Rennaivx wrote:
Not terribly novel uses, but I love prestidigitation. I've even burned the trait to get it on spellcasters that normally wouldn't've had it otherwise. It's just so fun. And the apprentice wizard laundromat's always been my favorite thing, too.

My witch has the trait to use intelligence for Use Magic Device, and I bought a wand of Prestidigitation at level 1, since it's not on the witch spell list.


Last campaign I was playing a middle aged celibate -to that point- cleric who fell in love with a not-so-middle aged npc (lovesick trait and all). So he went kinda all out.

- The moment he got 4th level spells he was not using them in battle, rather he was casting sending, to chat with her. He hid that from the party.
- Air walk (on her, she was kinda unstable), ant haul on himself, angelic form and flying around Sandpoint with her before leaving for the Runeforge.
- If she was around the party the GM had her fight with other npcs out of game, he still cast status, delay pain and nine lives on her.

He also took the feat Bonded Mind... with the npc...


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I was playing a noble born character. He commissioned an item called personal portable valet. It was a rug with an unseen servant spell. When he stood on the rug the servant would dress/undress him and keep his armor brightly polished.


Curious wrote:

I was playing a noble born character. He commissioned an item called personal portable valet. It was a rug with an unseen servant spell. When he stood on the rug the servant would dress/undress him and keep his armor brightly polished.

Where did they find such a thing and how much did it cost? I need one of those!


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Curious wrote:

I was playing a noble born character. He commissioned an item called personal portable valet. It was a rug with an unseen servant spell. When he stood on the rug the servant would dress/undress him and keep his armor brightly polished.

Shut up and take my gold!

Scarab Sages

In one of the groups I play with, we have a player running an inquisitor. He's a worshipper of Cayden Cailean. He acquired a very sturdy tankard of dwarven make and had it enchanted so that it does frost damage. He has a level or two in monk and the Throw Anything feat, so he throws his tankard at enemies - I think he may have added the returning property to it along with frost damage. He also does flurry of blows with his tankard. He gets a tankard of force when he casts 'spiritual weapon'.


Dire Elf wrote:

In one of the groups I play with, we have a player running an inquisitor. He's a worshipper of Cayden Cailean. He acquired a very sturdy tankard of dwarven make and had it enchanted so that it does frost damage. He has a level or two in monk and the Throw Anything feat, so he throws his tankard at enemies - I think he may have added the returning property to it along with frost damage. He also does flurry of blows with his tankard. He gets a tankard of force when he casts 'spiritual weapon'.

Makes me remember when I used to play WoW and my two-weapon Shaman carried a tankard in each hand. Ah, good old days when WoW was still good!


Not so related with magic but I had to post it somewhere. It happened yesterday and I had a good laugh.
My party and I were guests at a fortress that was under siege and hour hosts didn't fully trust us. So we were told to stay in our room for a full day until we could talk to the leaders. I was worried of the obvious: what do we do if we have to go to the bathroom?
So they brought us a couple of buckets! GM made us roll how much we filled the buckets and determined one of them was almost empty and the other was so full that we risked spilling it on the floor.
I decided it would be a good idea to pass some of the content of one bucket to the other to avoid an accident. But I didn't want to do it so I thought it was the perfect task for my unseen servant.
But the bucket was heavy and a careful manipulation was needed. GM rolled a natural 1. The servant spilled everything on the floor.
We couldn't stop laughing. I cannot say I didn't see it coming.
My attempts to cover or fix it only made it worse. I ended spilling perfume all over the place which only got us a really foul smell.

The Exchange

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Along with using snapdragon fireworks for actual entertainment, I've been known to get into water fights with clerics (create water), and prestidigitate to brush my teeth and regrow my hair when I accidently set myself on fire. And magehand is amazing for reaching that spot in the middle of my back that itches. But pranking people in the Rusty Dragon and making their ale taste like milk is probably the most fun you can have on a Starday night.


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I once used prestidigitation to "soil" the party fighters pants when a dragon flew overhead. Would not recommend making a habit of it.

Silver Crusade

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This one's a random cantrip use, but not trivial, as it was actually a big help in combat.

I was playing my caster focused druid at level 3 recently in a PFS game, and being a pure caster at low level, I wasn't very useful in general. In one combat, our party fighter was magically put to sleep. Since the enemies were between him and the rest of the group, we couldn't get to him to shake him awake. So I used Create Water from 30 feet away to soak him and wake him up. I figured getting him back into the fight was more useful than anything I could do with my spells in that environment (no plants for Entangle, not enough space for Stone Call without hurting my allies, etc).


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While I was not present for this, it made a great story.

A party member was bitten and grabbed by a large carnivore. Everyone knew that the next step was swallow whole, and nobody had liberating command to get him out of it. The wizard decides the solution was to use prestidigitation to make the party member taste like rotting feces. Naturally the carnivore retched and spat him out.


I love creative use of magic. That use of create water was great and I'm glad it worked.

*Note to self: Keep druids under control before slumberhexing*

I'm also glad this little thread of mine is alive again. I've always been too lazy to necromanciate it xD

Scarab Sages

Katisha's Flaming Boutique "The Pleasure of Fashion" in the Ivy District, Absalom, - where special orders are very welcome...

"usually that costs extra - but for you...we'll make an exception!"

So hurry down to get a custom creation by that master of fashion herself, Katisha Lee, enchanting fashion designer.

Recent releases seen include,

"The Hot Cloak", a black velvet day cloak, lined in the finest red silk, "Flames" tastefully placed in the lining so as the cloak move with the wearer the flames flash from around her body, giving that devilish look recently seen in the court of Egorian.

"Flaming Sword of Justice", rumor has it that a Andoran Eagle Knight of some note has been seen using an enchanted blade, a frost weapon, which seems to burst into flame when drawn in combat.

"Fire of the Sun", a golden holy symbol of the Dawnflower herself, set with fire rubies, shrouded in cold "Flames".

"Hot Lips", a pure silver tongue stud.

"Delayed Darkness", cast on a Wand of Darkness, and thus the spell is only suppressed when you are next to it (Darkness has range touch), so you tap something with the wand, and walk away. boom! darkness!

"The Light of Disinformation" 0r "Hidden in plain Sight" - a very important Ioun Stone - with Continual Flame on it so that it appears to be just an Ioun Torch.

"Flaming Mist?" Cast on my armor - so I have a flaming chain shirt! But this raises a question that will require a judges call.

Mistmail:
You see, my armor is Mistmail, so what happens when I turn it into mist?, does the Mist Flame? this is a judges call, is the Continual Flame spell still be active (on the Mist around me? or on me? or what?) or would it "not be active" when the armor is in mist form?
Either way is cool. Just wondering how different judges will rule this, and I can totally understand that it is YMMV.
1) surrounded by flaming mist - this is just a kewl effect!
2) surrounded by mist, but when I'm hit by a flame effect (like a fireball), then my armor reforms on me, and I'm wearing "flaming armor" or I've caught on fire ("I have a really good bluff!").

On the saddle blanket for my mule. So I can ride into town on a Flaming A... never mind..

these are but a few of the resent items - surely there will be others!

The Exchange

some Judges just try to figure out how you're "gaming the system", not realizing that the reason I want the visual effect, is for the visual effect.

Judge: "but if you got it on a tongue ring, fire would LOOK LIKE it was coming out of your mouth when ever you talked."
me: "Yeah! exactly! And I'm wearing a veil, so it sort of flashes whenever I talk."
Judge: "yeah... no way am I going to let that sort of thing fly at my table"
me: "what sort of thing?"

The Exchange

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how about casting Faerie Fire on a Returning Chakram and making it look like Tron?


RealAlchemy wrote:

While I was not present for this, it made a great story.

A party member was bitten and grabbed by a large carnivore. Everyone knew that the next step was swallow whole, and nobody had liberating command to get him out of it. The wizard decides the solution was to use prestidigitation to make the party member taste like rotting feces. Naturally the carnivore retched and spat him out.

Almost exactly the same thing happened in my last Freeport campaign, except the cantrip was cast by a PC's bard cohort. I decided to allow it with a Bluff check, which she made handily against the allosaurus that was chewing on their native guide.

In the same campaign, I had introduced an alter liquid spell from a 3PP book (Advanced Player's Manual, Green Ronin). It's 1st level, so the druid PC started preparing it all the time, and would use it whenever the party visited taverns (their default downtime activity). She'd pay for just enough of the house rotgut to not get the party kicked out, but once that was gone she'd use create water to refill their tankards, then alter liquid to change the water to rum. She was the most popular person within this party full of cheap drunks!

Scarab Sages

At the start of each game, I cast Unseen Servant, as I feel a lady of my class should have a servant to fetch and carry for her.

My outfit (clothing) contains an item that has Continual Flame cast on it, and I point out that I am trying to push this spell as a "fashion statement" - I've posted a thread to that effect sometime ago, and gotten good responses. ("hay, it's a hot outfit!").

I use a number of cantrips often - esp. Prestiditation, during the corse of talking (diplomacy) to NPCs ("Cookie?" hand wave, produce small sweet lump...). Message to order a drink in a loud crowded
bar.

The more we (as Players) use non-combat spells available to us, the more people (other players and judges, NOT NPCs) will view magic as being part of the Campaign setting and not something to react with aggression to.


How do you get your Unseen Servants not to spill things? Because mine seem to have issues xD (posted the story a few posts ago)


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A player in my girlfriend's group was going to have his gnome shadow illusionist open a strip club.
"New girls every night!"

I'm pretty sure he wasn't allowed to do the 3.5 120% real nonsense so he couldn't add "Better than the real thing!" to the ad.


Stilled silent message for voices in the head to convince someone they're possessed.

Silent image to change the image on a wanted poster.


I had an enchanter wizard who did silent still everything. Back in 3.5 when you could do that to hide spellcasting.
She was also afraid of running water so her equivalent of dressing her swimming suit was Magic Jar on a creature with a swim speed (and ability to talk and manipulate objects, she wouldn't want to lose her spellcasting.
She also used Magic Jar once to see on her own (borrowed) flesh how real pain looked like. She had controlled the body for other purposes but she decided to experiment a bit.
Of course she had an evil alignment.


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My wife played in a Shadowrun-esque D&D 3E campaign some years back. The party, consisting of a bunch of rogues and a cleric of the trickster goddess, was hired to publicly embarrass a local priest. They accomplished this by creating a Mackerel of Irresistable Stench: a cursed fish that charmed the finder into carrying it everywhere, but gave off a nauseating odor. The hardest part of the whole plan turned out to be locating a masterwork fish suitable for enchanting.

The Exchange

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Not exactly a trivial way - but here is a story about a time I used a spell in an unexpected way... and a funny "you do what?" story at the same time...

Party is getting badly beat up in a deeper darkness and four of us are in a cluster. One down (neg HP) with a cleric over him, another PC in front and my Arcane Trickster beside... the 4th square of the box has a Bad Guy in it.

Me: "I yell 'Down Elevator!' and cast create pit under us"
Judge & Players: "You do... what?"

Me: "Cast create pit, centered here" pointing at the center of the group of figures. "40' deep".

My companions didn't even blink, trusting me. It's was great!

Me: "When we fall out of the darkness, I'll feather fall my friends and I, and watch the Bad Guy go on past." Roll dice. "He takes 17 HP from the fall".

Shadow Lodge

Da Wander wrote:

Not exactly a trivial way - but here is a story about a time I used a spell in an unexpected way... and a funny "you do what?" story at the same time...

Party is getting badly beat up in a deeper darkness and four of us are in a cluster. One down (neg HP) with a cleric over him, another PC in front and my Arcane Trickster beside... the 4th square of the box has a Bad Guy in it.

Me: "I yell 'Down Elevator!' and cast create pit under us"
Judge & Players: "You do... what?"

Me: "Cast create pit, centered here" pointing at the center of the group of figures. "40' deep".

My companions didn't even blink, trusting me. It's was great!

Me: "When we fall out of the darkness, I'll feather fall my friends and I, and watch the Bad Guy go on past." Roll dice. "He takes 17 HP from the fall".

Impressive. I shall have to remember that one.


I had a sorc who would summon a hound Archon when he faced evil, and a Hell hound when he faced something flammable. Being pure neutral has it's advantages. Of course he never summoned both at the same time.


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NPC, very sexy:

A "dress" made of a bunch of animated semi-precious stones. They would move about her body quasi-randomly. They had a control image (replaceable) that would dictate the density over each part of her body and they would avoid all obstacles but within these constraints their movement was entirely random.


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A friend of mine was playing an elven mystic theurge and used animate dead in a necromancer run land to have a zombie carry him around in its arms because "Real spellcasters do not touch the ground." and "It will be a nice change from fly spells. I am so tired of fly spells."


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Speak With Animals to talk to stray dogs "to get some high-toned conversation."


back in 1st ed, I had a drow character who used color cantrips to alter his skin and hair color and pass for a surface elf

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