- PLAYER’S HANDBOOK (3.0)
- PLAYER’S HANDBOOK 1 (3.5)
Universal
Level: Bard 0, Hexblade 1, Merchant Prince 1, Sorcerer/Wizard 0, Vigilante 1, Wu Jen 0
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 10 ft.
Target, Effect, or Area: See text
Duration: 1 hour
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: No
Prestidigitations are minor tricks that novice spellcasters use for practice. Once cast, a prestidigitation spell enables you to perform simple magical effects for 1 hour. The effects are minor and have severe limitations. A prestidigitation can slowly lift 1 pound of material. It can color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round. It can chill, warm, or flavor 1 pound of nonliving material. It cannot deal damage or affect the concentration of spellcasters. Prestidigitation can create small objects, but they look crude and artificial. The materials created by a prestidigitation spell are extremely fragile, and they cannot be used as tools, weapons, or spell components. Finally, a prestidigitation lacks the power to duplicate any other spell effects. Any actual change to an object (beyond just moving, cleaning, or soiling it) persists only 1 hour. Characters typically use prestidigitation spells to impress common folk, amuse children, and brighten dreary lives. Common tricks with prestidigitations include producing tinklings of ethereal music, brightening faded flowers, creating glowing balls that float over your hand, generating puffs of wind to flicker candles, spicing up aromas and flavors of bland food, and making little whirlwinds to sweep dust under rugs.
Alternate Material Component: White silk gloves [Enlarge] (25 gp)
Editor (Utility): As far as spells go, the real use of this spell is your imagination. It should be noted, that if the spell is used creatively, the DM is permitted to allow up to a +2 circumstance bonus to a given skill check, but this is the full extent of any benefit the spell can grant. It cannot add to saving throws, to hit, damage, or any other roll. Just a +2 circumstance bonus to skill rolls, if the DM is impressed enough. And remember, circumstance bonuses don’t stack. Prestidigitation is the ultimate in spell versatility. Although extremely weak, it lets you perform the gamut of "tawdry tricks" that every sorcerer or wizard on television, in movies, and books should be able to perform. The effects produced by prestidigitation are great for distraction (or, for the optimist: entertainment) and annoyance Prestidigitation is a great and simple spell for injecting some personality into an NPC. Beyond its obvious use as a "performer's" spell, where it can produce flowers from behind an onlooker's ear or make a spoon stand up and dance, it allows sorcerers and wizards to "act" in a truly magical way. Have your NPC arcane spellcaster heat her mug of mulled wine with the use of this spell or make a grand show of her using prestidigitation to whisk away the dirt and grime from the surface she plans on sitting on. Remember that once cast, a character can perform these tricks for up to an hour, so an entire scene could be enhanced in this manner. Alternatively, you could make a house rule: As long as a character uses prestidigitation for purely cosmetic effects (such as those described above), an arcane spellcaster has this spell in effect at all times, which can add a bit of magic and mystery to his everyday actions
Change
You transform one object of Fine size or smaller into another object of roughly the same size. The object can weigh no more than 8 ounces. The change must be within the same kingdom (animal, vegetable, or mineral). Note, you have no control over an animal you create. It acts as an animal of it’s type would act. You can, however, set it’s original mood when it is created (Afraid, Angry, Hungry, Playful, Lethargic, etc)
• “Change” a bucket of paint to paint covering a wall.
• A belt buckle changes shape so it no longer holds the belt in place.
• A hole opens up in a bucket.
• Bite off a piece of your fingernail, spit it at someone, and have it turn into a severed hand in mid air.
• Blow snot out of your nose that turns into a butterfly. Later, when the duration expires, it will turn back. I hope nobody is playing with it. Remember: animal secretions fall under the animal kingdom.
• Create a mirrored surface so you can bounce sunlight down a corridor.
• Cut off a lock of your hair. Make a fake mustache.
• Fix a hole in a bucket for an hour.
• Get tomato seeds. Turn them into tomatoes. Throw them at people. No clean up in an hour.
• If you are paying someone you hate a bag full of gold, change a piece of cloth into a sack. Put the gold in the sack. An hour later (Hopefully while he is crossing the street) the bag reverts to a piece of cloth. Gold goes scattering across the street.
• Make a copper piece look like gold.
• Make a forged document seem aged and brittle.
• Make a gold coin look like it’s made of tin.
• Make alchemist’s fire smell and look like coffee.
• Make an angry wasp appear in someone’s hair.
• Make salt/dirt/poison separate from water to get pure water.
• Make that thunder stone look like candy.
• Make your foot prints disappear as you walk.
• Make your foot prints look like someone else’s.
• Put a hole in a vile of poison someone is holding.
• Put a lump of poison in the bottom of a goblet. Shape the goblet to cover over the poison in a sealed compartment. When the spell expires, the goblet returns to its normal shape, releasing the poison.
• Shape the smoke from a campfire to make your stories that much more dramatic.
• The bottom falls out of the enemy’s quiver.
• Turn a bug into a mouse to distract the wizard’s cat familiar.
• Turn a flask of poison into whiskey. When the spell wears off, then the poison kicks in. Hopefully by which time you have established your alibi.
• Turn coal into diamond.
• Write your name in the snow in “yellow”. Demonstrate amazing penmanship.
• YOU CANNOT Change a shield to have a new insignia. The changed object must be of Fine size and a shield is too big.
• You could animate the corpse of a fine sized animal for an hour. It cannot do any damage, but would count as undead for the duration of the spell.
• You could change a piece of paper into scrap of linen, and then change that into a rose. Likewise, you could change a coin into a ring. You could not, however, turn a strip of leather into a piece of paper.
Chill
You reduce the temperature of an object by about 40° F, but never below freezing (32° F). After an hour the object's temperature returns to normal.
• Chill the wine before serving it to a lady friend when you are on a date.
• In very Humid areas, slowly fill up a glass of water via condensation (1 oz water/minute) Sor
• Keep your chocolate from melting on a hot day.
• Sell lemonade on a hot day.
Clean
You remove dirt, dust, and stains from floors, walls, dishes, windows, and the like, leaving these surfaces or objects spotless. You can clean an object with a volume of 1 cubic foot, or 1 square foot of the surface of a larger object, each round. The effect does not remove any foreign object of Fine size or larger. Dirt you remove is permanently gone, but objects you clean can get dirty again just like anything else.
• Brush your teeth.
• Clean up part of a summoning circle.
• Clean up those pesky blood stains after you murder a nobleman.
• Clean yourself up after a long trip. Improve those diplomatic checks by smelling nice.
• Clean yourself up after a messy crime to help provide an alibi.
• Never have to wash your hands after going to the bathroom again.
• Pick your nose.
• Pick your friend’s nose.
• When the blood is being poured on the sacrificial stone, clean it up.
Color
You bring color to an object. You can restore faded hues or give it a new color. If you add color, it must be from the visible spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, or violet). You cannot change an object's pattern, such as adding or removing stripes or polka dots, but you can change the color in a pattern. If you change something’s color, any one section of the object must change to the same color. For example, if you change on polka dot to green, it is all green.
• A blue garment with white stripes becomes green with yellow stripes.
• Change your clothes to be the same color of an enemy militia or evil god’s clergy.
• Have a “truth stone” that can change red when someone “lies”. Useful when trying to bluff someone.
• Human skin has shading, so you cannot change your skin to another color convincingly. You can make it all the same color to help when it comes to camouflage.
• If you change your hair color, it will all be the same color and thus look somewhat unnatural. If you don’t mind Neon pink hair, then there is no problems.
• Make the paladin’s sword pink.
• Mood Ring.
• The next time you cast enlarge person on someone, turn them green. Encourage them to say, “Hulk Smash!”
• Turn yourself blue. Claim to be prince of the lake people. Tell villagers the lake people are angry and demand tribute or they will slay the land dwellers.
• You can change the color of your clothing. You cannot add patterns or words, but you can change the shading to anything you could pull off with normal dye.
• YOU CANNOT make an insignia out of color. That would be creating a pattern.
Count
You can count how many of a given object are in an area, as long as you can directly sense the entire area, the objects are all the same, and all objects are within 10 feet of one another. The objects are not moved, you just know a total number of said object in your mind. Note, if there are fake coins, you have to make an appraise check to sort them out.
• Count how many coins are in a pile of gold.
• Figure out how many grains are in a sack.
• Make a mark in the dirt ten feet away. Walk up to it. Make another mark ten feet away. Measure any distance. Figure out where secret doors are by mapping out exact dimensions. Hidden passageways have to take up SOME space, after all.
Create
You can create small objects from nothing. They are crude, fragile, and look artificial. They cannot serve as tools, weapons, or spell components.
• A fake dagger to stab someone. Create fake blood after doing so. Play possum.
• A puff a smoke for a momentary distraction. (at best allowing you to make a new hide skill roll).
• Create a field of fake caltrops that you have no problem running through, but may give pursuers pause.
• Create a small cluster of bells that drop and roll down the side of a mountain.
• Create dice for gambling.
• Create rotting garbage to hide something under.
• Have a pebble appear in someone’s shoe. No matter how many times they take off their shoe, there is always a new pebble in there.
• Have a puppet show.
• Make gritty dust fall on someone whenever they speak.
• Make smoke pour out of someone’s nose. Capture it in a bottle. Claim to have captured their soul. Have the smoke in the bottle resemble them and pound on the glass. A tiny voice cries out, “Help me!”
• Replace screws and bolts with conjured screws and bolts. Just enough to hold up something, so it collapses under additional weight. A bridge or balcony for example.
• Stab yourself with a fake dagger, making it crumble. Claim to be invulnerable to normal weapons.
• When you get hit with an arrow, have blood just gush out non-stop. Every time you get wounded, the blood just keeps flying out of you, splattering everywhere. Keep fighting and ignore the blood. After a few rounds, your enemies might freak out wondering exactly what’s going on.
• You create a puff of wind that can push something light up to 1 five foot square.
• You’re sneaking up to an enemy camp, but a guard is blocking your way. Use prestidigitation to drop a small object and make a ruckus.
Dampen
You leave an object damp to the touch for 1 hour. Damp objects have fire resistance 2 while the effect lasts.
• Dampen the front of the paladin’s pants just as you find the dragon.
• Put out a small campfire, given a few rounds.
• Put out a torch.
Dirty
You soil, spot, and sully walls, floors, dishes, garments, or the like, leaving them dusty, filthy, or stained. You can dirty an object with a volume of 1 cubic foot, or 1 square foot of the surface of a larger object, each round. Dirt you add remains after the effect ends, but objects you soil can be cleaned again just like anything else.
• Dirty yourself so that you look like you climbed out of a sewer, when you need to fake an alibi.
• Have the local town statue cry blood.
• Lipstick on a man’s collar.
• Look like a leper.
• Make something look worthless so it is overlooked.
• Put blood stains on some sucker and then call the town guards.
• Soil someone’s tunic/pants to embarrass them.
• Suspicious stains on the carpet, ranging from pools of blood to mud tracked in to skid marks left by a dog wiping his butt.
• You could cover your tracks, but it would be slow going. Instead, I recommend Sculpt Spell so that you can ‘dirty up’ your tracks in sand, dust, or snow in various shapes as needed.
Dry
You remove dampness and excess moisture from an object. Moisture you remove does not return after the effect ends, but the object can become wet again just like anything else.
• Dry out a book that got wet so the pages don’t curl up.
• Dry socks.
• Evaporate a glass of liquid. (1 cubic foot/round).
• Evaporate just the alcohol from your drink so you don’t get drunk.
• Get rid of all the water and leave only the alcohol.
• Make a spellcraft roll to dry out a potion until it’s just a highly concentrated drop of liquid. Put it in a fake tooth. Crunch down on it when you really need a +4 to your strength or something. Failing at the spellcraft roll means you ruin the potion while trying to concentrate it. (DC 20 check.)
• Make beef jerky.
• Make trail rations from fruit and nuts. By drying out the fruit
• Make salt from salt water.
• Make something appear “evil” by having drops of holy water boil away in a puff of white vapor. Claim the item cannot just be destroyed by smashing it, because the evil will just escape. Offer to hold it for safekeeping.
Flavor
You give a substance a better, worse, or different flavor. You could, for example, make porridge taste like lobster bisque. You do not change the substance's quality or wholesomeness. Spoiled food remains spoiled, a poisoned drink is still deadly, and inedible material provides no nourishment -- you can make a twig taste like steak, but it remains a twig.
• Add the favor of poison to convince someone they only have moments to live.
• Flavor the poison to make it harder to detect. (-2 to any skill check to detect.)
• Make a cheap spice taste like a rare an expensive one, then sell it to some sucker.
• Make a dwarf’s ale taste fruity.
• Make a gourmet chef’s work go sour.
• Make cheap inn food taste good.
• Make the food taste awful so everyone else eats less and you get to eat more.
Gather
You neatly collect numerous objects. The objects you gather can be no larger than Fine size, no two items can be more than 10 feet apart, and their total weight cannot exceed 1 pound. You can place the gathered objects into a container you touch, or you can form a stack or pile that you touch.
You can gather selectively; for instance, you can pick up just the coins from an area.
• Gather sticks as you walk along and ignite them. Make a trail of small fires at night.
• Gather up all the broken bits of a broken vase.
• Gather up all the oil just sprayed on you before it catches fire.
• Gather up spilt milk.
• Gather up the burning oil splattered on you into your hand and throw it back at the enemy, just to be a bad ass.
• Gather up the coins that have fallen in between your couch cushions.
• Pick up just the copper pieces.
Ignition
You cause a jet of flame up to 1/2 foot long to shoot forth from your finger. The flame is hot and ignites combustible materials. Lighting a torch with this effect is a standard action (rather than a full-round action), but lighting any other fire with it takes at least a standard action (DM's discretion).
• Breathe fire
• Burp smoke.
• If someone is drinking REALLY strong alcohol, set his drink on fire.
• Ignite a severed hand.
• Ignite a tinder twig without striking it.
• Light a candle.
• Make something appear to smolder.
Lift
You can slowly lift 1 pound of material. The material in question cannot move upward faster then 5 feet a round. An object has no sideways motion, but can be pushed sideways and will maintain it’s weightlessness and relative height.
• Build a ship in a bottle.
• Cause a small stone to float around your head. Tell everyone it’s an Ioun stone of ultimate magic and the source of all your power. Wait until someone tries to steal it.
• Dig a hole one pound of dirt at a time.
• Fish something you dropped in the sewer out.
• Float oil/sovereign glue over a target.
• Go fishing without a fishing line.
• Have a burning severed hand float up and flip someone the bird.
• Hold the torch.
• Itch in that embarrassing place.
• Lift a key off a hook. Use create air puff to slowly blow it your way.
• Lift a sheet. Have it float around. Make soft moaning sounds.
• Lift the curtains to let sunlight into a room.
• Lift the skirt of a comely maiden to make her think it was the result of the guard she was walking past.
• Make a rock float.
• Make a skeleton’s hand rise up and flip someone off.
• Make a small ball float a foot off the ground. Play air hockey.
• Make little fluttering paper butterflies.
• Make the judge’s powdered wig float off his head at trial.
• Make the pages of your spellbook turn without touching them, Tell people it’s because you don’t want the demon bound into it to escape into your skin.
• Pat yourself on the back.
• Pull the target’s hat down over his eyes.
• Rug supported over a hole.
• Your hair moves dramatically.
Light
You can create small balls of light, or small balls of darkness. These cannot blind or cause anything more then a small amount of light or a faint shadow.
• A glowing “mark of justice” appears on someone’s forehead.
• Have a “glow” about you.
• Have a gem stone sparkle.
• Have a red spark crackle at the tip of your finger.
• Have your eyes glow demonic red.
• Make someone else’s shadow act like it wants to kill the one it originates from.
• Make your shadow move around and do funny things.
• Motion blur, so you look like you have speed lines. Put it on you as you run, on your sword, on the monk’s hands, on your fork.
• Sparkling white teeth.
• YOU CANNOT make things invisible. You can make them transparent, but you still only gain a +2 to any skill roll to hide said items.
Polish
You bring luster to a wood, metal, stone, leather, glass, or ceramic object. The object must be clean to start with. It remains shiny after the effect ends but can become dull again like anything else.
• Actually polish a turd.
• Clean up a suit of armor to make it look better, giving you a +2 for the skill check to sell it.
• Polish the party’s weapons and armor on your shift so they stay rust free and in top condition. Very important in deserts, by the ocean, or any location high in salt content.
Scent
You create a smell. It can be nice or awful, but has no effect on scent based powers other then it can make it easier to follow by enhancing someone’s natural scent, or cover up a smell, making it hard to track someone.
• Always have the best perfume.
• Create a ball that smells like catnip to entertain your familiar.
• Make an orc smell like pork.
• Make it smell like someone else farted.
• The smell of brimstone fills the room as you enter dramatically.
• Your *bleep* don’t stink.
Sketch
You create a two-dimensional visual figment of whatever you desire. You can leave the image hanging in the air, in which case it is immobile, or place it on a mobile object, such as a shield. The image can be no more than 1-foot square, and it lasts a maximum of 1 hour.
• A fake tattoo. It will look fake.
• A good way to interact with people when you are invisible.
• Add a few words or a new insignia over someone’s shield, but only a 1 foot square.
• Create a small mirror floating over someone’s shoulder while you play cards with them. If you are fast and good at distractions, you might even get away with it.
• Make a battle map so you can review the plan of attack.
• Make a floating arrow that says, “They went that way!” then go the other way.
• Put a big target on the back of the paladin’s armor.
• Put a kick me sign on the Monk’s back.
• Put grid lines on something when you are drawing. The grid disappears, but the lines stay straight.
• Put mustaches on a portrait.
• Put X’s over a dead man’s eyes.
• Use sculpt to create a 40 foot wide billboard in the air.
Slight of Hand
You can perform minor slight of hand. You effectively can teleport any fine sized object to any other point on your body or clothing. You cannot move it into an extra-dimensional space.
• Be entertaining at a child’s birthday party.
• Dramatically offer a business card.
• Move a coin from your hand to your pocket, or vice versa.
• Pull a coin out of your ear.
• Pull a rabbit out of a hat. Wand of flowers, endless pocket of scarves.
• Run a shell game where the pea is only under the cup when you want it to be.
Sound
A faint tinkling sound is possible. A good rule of thumb is any sound you could make with the human voice box.
• Add a dramatic echo when you speak.
• Add that evil reverb when you speak so it sounds like you gargle broken glass when you talk.
• Make the sound of a closing door.
• Make your words have a few second delay, either happen a second too late, or a few seconds early.
• Play a lullaby for a baby.
• Ring for tea.
• Whoopee Cushion.
• Your sword makes “Swoosh” sounds when you swing it.
Stitch
You magically sew seams in textiles or leather. You can create new stitching or repair old work. Unlike the mending cantrip, you cannot heal rips, holes, or tears (though you can patch or sew them together). If you have thread on hand, the stitches you make remain after the effect ends, but they are no stronger or weaker than normal stitching. You also can sew without thread, but then the seams last only an hour.
• Make a pair of shoes in half the time.
• Stitch together clothing that will fall apart in an hour.
Tie
You magically tie a firm knot (as though taking 10 with the Use Rope skill) in a thread, string, cord, rope, or cable up to 10 feet long. You can knot together two such objects if they're within 1 foot of each other.
• Cut the time it takes for the fighter to get on his armor by half.
• Tie someone’s shoe laces together.
• Tie the peace cord over someone’s sword while it’s in his scabbard.
• Tie your shoes without bending over.
• You don’t need any help tying down the main sail.
Trigger
You can set off any trigger that you are aware of that is in a line of effect and within range. You have to be aware of the trigger and it has to be something that could be set off with approximately 1 pound of pressure. A pressure plate that needs a 100 pound man to walk over it cannot be triggered.
• Create something that holds an ingredient suspended over a boiling pot of water. When the spell expires, the ingredient falls in and the alchemical reaction takes place.
• Make someone’s cocked and loaded crossbow fire.
• Set off the dart trap by pushing on the tripwire.
Warm
You increase the temperature of an object by about 40° F, but never above 140° F. After an hour the object's temperature returns to normal.
• Melt a wall of ice. Very, Very, Very slowly.
• Warm a bath.
• Warm your apple cider on a cold night.
• Warm your bedroll on a cold night.
• Warm your soup after you left it unattended to go fight off the goblin ninja assassins.
• Warm your tent.
Untie
You can untie anything that would succumb to 1 pound of pressure. This is just about anything you could untie or unbutton with one hand.
• A no-hands striptease.
• No more bikini wax.
• Tie up your dress in the back all by yourself.
• Unbutton a blouse.
• Untie someone’s shoes while trying to outrun a dragon.
• You could shave someone, like a dwarf’s beard, or yourself.
And that’s all I can find. I hope this brings new life to an old spell.
