Spellcasters chance to shine

[Michael Thompson 307]

I'm shortly going to be running an Ironfang Invasion campaign, and want to start it with the players in the Market Festival so they can get a chance to get to know each other's characters and the npc's, shine a bit in their own right, and like the town a bit before the Ironfang Legion shows up.

To that end, I've been coming up with little contests and things that they might choose to participate in: Arm-wrestling, Archery, Drinking, but I haven't really been able to find anything that the spellcasters might be good at. I've seen a talent show suggested elsewhere, but not really sure how that could be played out, so am looking for help with that.

Alternatively other ideas for giving a spellcaster a chance to harmlessly show off a bit would be great. I thought about maybe giving them some sort of spellcraft test or something, but as Phaendar is a relatively small town and there probably wouldn't be that many casters around, anything like that would seem a bit contrived.

[Shinigami02]

The only issue is that how each Spellcaster can shine is going to depend a lot on the individual spellcaster's build. For instance an Illusionist, a blaster, and a control caster are going to have very different spells, and thus function in very different ways.

[Gallant Armor]

Firework/illusion show. Charm person hypnotist type performance. Feather fall and jump from a great height. Summon monster to briefly show off an exotic creature.

It would really depend on the class/character, but there are a lot of options.

[Set]

Prestidigitation could make for a simple 'magic show' with color changing scarves and puffs of colored smoke and trails of sparkly light from one's fingertips and spinning copper pieces stacked on top of other spinning copper pieces and similar fun magic tricks.

Other cantrips like dancing lights, ghost sound and mage hand could also be helpful for that sort of thing.

Higher level options would be silent image or minor image, both of whom have a concentration-based duration, so they could be used for a 'trick' or show that would last more than a few rounds, perhaps as illustration for a storytelling event. (kind of like a magic-assisted medieval 'movie) A pair of wizards with silent image / minor image could even have a 'duel' between their images, using a rock/paper/scissors sort of motif, where the three to five sorts of images invoked determines who wins each round. (Dragon eats minotaur, knight slays dragon, minotaur bashes knight, etc.)

[Sah]

We've played that you can specify how your spells look, and customize them to some degree (mechanically it does nothing, like if you cast magic missile and yours look skulls, and his look like bees, its the same dc to recognize the spell and stuff like that) so when we had this same thing come up, one thing was how impressive you could make a spell. Much more focus on aesthetics than mechanical skill, though on the fly creations would need a roll to determine if you could get it to work the first time. Something like 1d20 plus your casting stat vs a DC set by the GM based on how intricate the idea was.

For example, one contestant was a druid with a wolf from the north, so he used the Ice Armor spell to create armor with a stylized wolf motif.

In response, my character (A crossblooded Fire/earth Sorcerer, no I didn't pick it, probably isn't even an option) used Mount to create a a horse that rose from the ground made of Volcanic stone. I won that round.