Is prestidigitation really minor wish?

[Senko]

I was thinking about prestidigitation and how it can do a whole range of unrelated things (create sounds, clean dirty items, lift light items, etc) and what a higher level version would be like. Then it occured to me it already exists wish and limited wish both do a wide range of unrelated things within a power limit, as does mythic wish if your using those rules. So I'm now wondering is prestidigitation really a very, very weak version of wish? What do you think?

[zza ni]

Na, see? you got it all backwards, Minor Wish and Wish (and Miracle) are just more powerful versions of Prestidigitation. they are the Dire and Kaiju templates of this cantrip.

every standard wizard knows Prestidigitation, given enough time, research and power and the spell can be upgraded into it's more powerful versions.
it's like in Pokémon -the standard pre-evolved 'mon is the base. the upgrades are just evolutions of it...

[Diego Rossi]

For sure it fulfills the wishes of people that want to eat confectionery without putting on weight or having diabetes problems.
You can create pastries and cakes, flavor them, and after you have eaten them they disappear without adding to your calorie or sucre intake.
The perfect dietetic sweet.

[Heather 540]

More like they can eat healthy food that tastes like the sweet goodies.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Thanks to a player spamming the hell out of Prestidigitation (and to a lesser extent Detect Magic) I had to reduce Cantrips to X/day instead of at will and re-introduce several 2e cantrips which were covered by Prestidigication in PF, reducing the over-all usefulness of P.

[Melkiador]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

Thanks to a player spamming the hell out of Prestidigitation (and to a lesser extent Detect Magic) I had to reduce Cantrips to X/day instead of at will and re-introduce several 2e cantrips which were covered by Prestidigication in PF, reducing the over-all usefulness of P.

I want to know how that became a problem. In combat, they would surely have have better spells to cast. And out of combat, it's just a throw away line to cast it many times.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

It was a combination of constant interruptions about the use of the spell - as in casting several times an hour on occasion - and trying to squeeze way too much use out of what was meant to be a negligeable effect. The new cantrips with more specific uses are better.

[Hugo Rune]

Detect Magic spam can be annoying, especially at lower level. But can be dealt with in game by having lead lining being near ubiquitous in high quality furniture, scabbards, pouches etc. Also counting the rounds and rolling for wandering monsters will dissuade the activity.

Prestidigician spam sounds more like adding flavour, or overstretch of its capability.

[TriOmegaZero]

Detect Magic is basically just the tricorder from Star Trek. Useful for pointing players in the right direction and easy to misdirect.

[Mark Hoover 330]

All due respect, what? Like, who spams Prestidigitation? I mean, I play that way but, back in like 2011 or 2012 I got my hands slapped back by folks on these forums. No MH, Prestidigitation can't create sounds (Ghost Sound), can't tie boots together, can't make 2d maps or images (Silent Image) and so on.

A standard go-to that has ported from 1e D&D's Unearthed Arcana through 3.5 and then to PF1 was that Prestidigitation could create a candleflame of light; just one mote of light bright enough to provide Normal light in a 5' square, with a 5' radius of Dim Light. In a thread on these forums I was told that's illegal; there's the Light spell plus the Faerie Fire spell as well as others for creating light.

I'm serious when I say that sometimes these forums can use RAW to really sponge the fun out of the game. I personally still use Prestidigitation to do all the fun stuff I think it should and allow my players to do the same but more than half the stuff I've let this cantrip get away with over the years would be ruled out of existence.

[Niemand]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Detect Magic is basically just the tricorder from Star Trek. Useful for pointing players in the right direction and easy to misdirect.

"He's dead Jim."

"Quick, you get his Detect Magic and I'll get his wallet."

[Azothath]

Senko wrote:

I was thinking about prestidigitation and how it can do a whole range of unrelated things (create sounds, clean dirty items, lift light items, etc) and what a higher level version would be like. Then it occured to me it already exists wish and limited wish both do a wide range of unrelated things within a power limit, as does mythic wish if your using those rules. So I'm now wondering is prestidigitation really a very, very weak version of wish? What do you think?

nope

Design wise this is a generic DnD3 spell to catch all the tiny to "no mechanical benefit" effects that were going on in DnD2 via Unearthed Arcana, Dragon Magazine, & others many specific cantrips. A valid complaint was spending gold to scribe various spells for nothing which is a WBL drain. Paizo didn't make it more specific as time went on (unlike all the other changes).
There were a variety of spells designed to do household chores and make life cleaner and easier or annoying. A minority of those didn't make an appearance until late in the PF1 development life cycle.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

... I'm serious when I say that sometimes these forums can use RAW to really sponge the fun out of the game. I personally still use Prestidigitation to do all the fun stuff I think it should and allow my players to do the same but more than half the stuff I've let this cantrip get away with over the years would be ruled out of existence.

there are pedantic, XOR, and luddite(power/feature creep) contingents. In the Rules forum it's best to stick with RAW as that is what it is about. It's best to think of the Rules forum as a conservative rules centric interpretation.

The Game model is quite rough, inaccurate, and incorrect as it just tries to encapsulate some common experience as rules in conversational english. If you want a better model use physics as most of the work has been done for well over 100 yrs. The Game also has a rather limited scope and only addresses some topics/situations. It really needs a GM to make it workable.

[Melkiador]

I think the addiction to RAW on the boards is a side effect of Society play. But it is helpful to know the least friendly reading of a rule so you can have suitable expectations for what you are trying to accomplish.

[Senko]

Melkiador wrote:

I think the addiction to RAW on the boards is a side effect of Society play. But it is helpful to know the least friendly reading of a rule so you can have suitable expectations for what you are trying to accomplish.

I find the why also helps in deciding how to handle ones I dislike e.g. if it was introduced to counter a problem then its best left alone, if its a legacy thing then its potentially safer to decide to change or drop it. Of course there are exceptions I'll never use emanations as a rule in my games.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Ghost Shirt: how Prestidigitation and other cantrips saved the day

PCs are behind cover outdoors, with a wide swath of land cutting between two ascending rock formations. Hiding among the crags opposite them are a small horde of kobolds. The PCs need to jog up a shallow hillock approximately 80'. but they're L1 and out of spells at the moment.

The Void Wizard has Detect Magic, Ghost Sound and Mage Hand for cantrips for the day; the Swamp Druid has Create Water, Guidance and Light. Finally, the wizard's familiar can cast Prestidigitation at will and the druid has a scroll of Obscuring Mist.

The PCs have some extra clothing on them. To a shirt they add Prestidigitation effects: the thing is glowing a putrid green (think old Scooby Doo cartoon ghosts) and slightly billowing as if from some internal force. The druid creates a water cascade briefly to distract onlooking kobolds while the wizard uses Mage Hand to move the "ghost shirt" to just beneath where the row of these creatures are standing. With all of this in place, the action begins.

The druid uses the scroll and fills a small area with mist. Seemingly out of the mist rises Ghost Shirt, now receiving an otherworldly moaning thanks to Ghost Sound. Using Mage Hand, the shirt begins floating back and forth in the kobolds' field of vision while the PCs move through and out of the mist, trying to use other areas of cover to hide their movements.

As they go the familiar is adding other effects: the shirt's glow becomes as bright as a candleflame; a mannequin-like hook-handed arm appears from one side of the shirt; a briny smell somewhat matching the surrounding salt marsh areas emanates from it. All of this is trying to fool the kobolds into thinking some kind of ghost just materialized in front of them, to scare them and keep them from noticing the PCs' movement.

Up comes a Bluff check that somehow totaled out to a 20; not a natural 20 mind you but an 19 with the Void Wizard's +1 from Cha. I do Sense Motives out in the open for the kobolds; an array of rolls between 6-11 clatter out with ONE kobold managing a nat 20. That one kobold spent a couple rounds finding a Small sized longspear, carefully reaching out through a gap in the rocks, and poking the "Ghost Shirt" to prove to his allies this was a hoax, while the PCs all moved to safety up the hill.

Ghost Shirt has now been enshrined in my table's lexicon as a metaphor for using Prestidigitation, or really any minor tricks and skills to BS your way through a scene. If you can't run or fight your way through a fight, Ghost Shirt it.