I was recently reading Prestidigitation and realized that the "warm 1 cubic foot of non-living stuff" has no limit. So if i was to take a pipe, block one end, put in a ball bearing and use Prestidigitation on the pipe, heat the air behind the bearing and making the air expand as it heat to shoot the bearing in the same principle as a bullet (heat/pressure). would love some feedback and ideas.
A factor to consider is that: You chill, warm, or flavor up to 1 cubic foot of nonliving material for 1 hour. This would raise a question, to your idea, of if the air itself would qualify as "material" that can be targeted versus what is more the thought of this option for the spell that is meant for doing tings like warming up cup of water, chilling a pint of alcohol, etc.
Continuing down this path, the spell warms something up, it does not produce heat necessary for such a reaction to propel a piece of ammunition out of a pipe like a bullet of any sort. The difference here is making a cup of tea pleasantly warm versus freshly brewed and thus scalding. Similarly the spell can lower the temperate of something to a chilly level, but it is not able to freeze it outright.
Even if the spell allowed a continued increase in temperature, the rate that this would take would likely be rather slow since it is warming it up. Think of it as trying to cook an egg in luke warm bath water versus a roiling boil.
This idea might work more with something like Produce Flame, maybe, but Prestidigitation is not really a cantrip with any oof behind it. It's more of parlor tricks than anything else. This is somewhat evident in its own description as This spell is a minor magical trick that novice spellcasters use for practice.
I voted no, "warm means warm"; you can't eject a ball-bearing from a "warm" pipe, it needs to be hot enough to produce real pressure. D&D also isn't a physics simulator, in general spells don't obey the laws of physics they simply do what they say.
I'm all for encouraging creative uses of spells, and prestidigitation is my favourite spell in the game for this reason, but it has to have some limits.
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do you think a DM would accept concentration on the spell for a round or two to get the air to such high temps? you could prepare the weapon ahead of time and use your hidden gun later
do you think a DM would accept concentration on the spell for a round or two to get the air to such high temps? you could prepare the weapon ahead of time and use your hidden gun later
That's up to each individual DM, but if it were me I'd still be saying 'no'. As I said previously, the spell is nothing more than a novice spell that equates to parlor tricks. If it could create sufficient heat, it would say so. If anything, think of Prestidigitation and its component options are extremely weakened forms of other cantrips; it is a first step for a spellcaster in learning to produce stronger effects but in itself lacks the capability to produce any massive result.
do you think a DM would accept concentration on the spell for a round or two to get the air to such high temps? you could prepare the weapon ahead of time and use your hidden gun later
That's going to depend a lot on the DM; an improvised "gun" you can only use once before taking minutes to recharge doesn't sound overpowered, so it might be something they're fine with, but that's up to them.
The problem with prestidigitation as written is it can only "chill" or "warm" something, which is not the same as continually heating it; i.e- once the air in the pipe is "warm" the spell can only maintain that warm temperature, but for substantial pressure you need it a lot hotter than "warm".
If you want to prepare an invention in advance then you'd probably find it easier to argue heating using a campfire or maybe create bonfire or produce flame etc., it also feels to me like there's a crafting component here for which we have no real rules; as you need to create a pipe that you can reliably seal and then release on demand to shoot the ball-bearing. So your DM may also want to ask for some kind of crafting rolls, it will take time to make unless you have what you need ready-made etc.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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I play a blood hunter with magic initiate, would you say their exclusiveness to this spell would allow this to unlock new power in it through practice? (just really want this to work)
Still would be a hard sell. I guess I have to ask at this point, why? What is the use for this that could not be replaced with actual firearms (if available) or with a bow or crossbow? This seems like a great deal of work for potentially no payoff.
I play a blood hunter with magic initiate, would you say their exclusiveness to this spell would allow this to unlock new power in it through practice? (just really want this to work)
Nobody but your DM can give you a definitive answer on that; all we can really tell you here is that as written in the rules this wouldn't work because there are no rules for governing how to do this as such. But D&D 5e isn't a closed system, it has multiple rules which are basically "the player can ask for whatever they want" and "the DM can run this how they please", so there are absolutely mechanics that could make it work.
For example, if I personally were to run it I'd have you make some kind of crafting roll with relevant tools (maybe smith's tools or tinker's tools), otherwise you might need to find someone else who can make the "pipe gun" for you.
With that completed, an actual fire (magical or otherwise) is reasonable as a way to build pressure through heating, but I'd probably have it take a minute or so so it's not something you can do in combat. Produce flame would definitely be more practical, as this gives you a way to maintain the pressure on the move, whereas heating at a campfire would have the risk of cooling down before you use it (unless you're keeping it ready to defend a campsite). Then to use it I'd treat it as an improvised pistol, this means you wouldn't add your proficiency bonus, at least at first, though over time you might be able to make improvements to the design or gain enough experience using the weapon to gain proficiency.
I do like to allow player creativity, but some DMs are more or less permissive; another might just say no, or another might let you treat it as a regular pistol that takes a minute to reload without any of the crafting/progression, I can't speak for them, only for myself. I should note, I'm someone who made a sub-class with a giant section on crafting firearms, so I like to be open to the idea of player creativity, but this is the Rules & Game Mechanics sub-forum so usually we're focused on what the rules say, not what else is possible (which is more Homebrew & House Rules).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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"Flavor" would be taking fire bolt as your attack cantrip and describing it as superheated ball bearings you're firing out of a DIY tube, not trying to turn a non-attack cantrip into something that does damage
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I was recently reading Prestidigitation and realized that the "warm 1 cubic foot of non-living stuff" has no limit. So if i was to take a pipe, block one end, put in a ball bearing and use Prestidigitation on the pipe, heat the air behind the bearing and making the air expand as it heat to shoot the bearing in the same principle as a bullet (heat/pressure). would love some feedback and ideas.
This isn't even close to ever becoming effective. You could create air pressure in this way, but you wouldn't be able to send a ball bearing across the room with the pressure this could achieve - much less damage a person. So the same with heat metal, and you still do not even begin to approach weapons level pressure.
You might be able to use continuous castings of heat metal to float a hot air balloon. But the sort of pressure required to shoot people requires ... further components. Like, if you used water instead of just air, at least you'd be able to build up considerable steam pressure (this requires a certain level of metallurgy tho). But you'd still require a much larger water tank than would be pratical for a 'rifle' design.
Now, technically, if you build a sufficiently complex apparatus, you could use heat metal to drive a steam engine to drive a pump to compress air that you could store in a small canister, that might fit onto a rifle somehow - giving you an air rifle. But there are many, many steps of using science here that we know in our day, but that your character almost certainly doesn't.
Air rifles have been built IRL, and aren't really convincingly good. Also, they were created substantially after the gunpowder ones.
Oh, disclaimer: I'm by no means an expert. This is just stuff I read on another forum, once =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
The Prestidigitation is the least important aspect of this. If you have this apparatus set up, you're better off utilizing a torch or something to fire it. Even then it still seems like a lot of work to get what is, at best, the equivalent of a crossbow with a really long reload time.
do you think a DM would accept concentration on the spell for a round or two to get the air to such high temps? you could prepare the weapon ahead of time and use your hidden gun later
I’d almost be tempted to allow this just because it’s such a bad choice. You want to spend two rounds, and your concentration, the create an improvised weapon, have at it. You don’t get proficiency on your attack roll and if you do manage to hit, it’s a d4 damage. Seems like a good way to annoy the rest of the party as you fail to contribute to the fight.
I think AntonSirius has the best answer of how to make it work. Take an existing spell and flavor the visuals of it. Though what you’re describing seems like more of an artificer thing than a blood hunter thing, but that’s negotiable.
"Flavor" would be taking fire bolt as your attack cantrip and describing it as superheated ball bearings you're firing out of a DIY tube, not trying to turn a non-attack cantrip into something that does damage
I was recently reading Prestidigitation and realized that the "warm 1 cubic foot of non-living stuff" has no limit. So if i was to take a pipe, block one end, put in a ball bearing and use Prestidigitation on the pipe, heat the air behind the bearing and making the air expand as it heat to shoot the bearing in the same principle as a bullet (heat/pressure). would love some feedback and ideas.
If voting in the poll, please describe your opinion.
My thought is no, you would not be able to.
A factor to consider is that: You chill, warm, or flavor up to 1 cubic foot of nonliving material for 1 hour. This would raise a question, to your idea, of if the air itself would qualify as "material" that can be targeted versus what is more the thought of this option for the spell that is meant for doing tings like warming up cup of water, chilling a pint of alcohol, etc.
Continuing down this path, the spell warms something up, it does not produce heat necessary for such a reaction to propel a piece of ammunition out of a pipe like a bullet of any sort. The difference here is making a cup of tea pleasantly warm versus freshly brewed and thus scalding. Similarly the spell can lower the temperate of something to a chilly level, but it is not able to freeze it outright.
Even if the spell allowed a continued increase in temperature, the rate that this would take would likely be rather slow since it is warming it up. Think of it as trying to cook an egg in luke warm bath water versus a roiling boil.
This idea might work more with something like Produce Flame, maybe, but Prestidigitation is not really a cantrip with any oof behind it. It's more of parlor tricks than anything else. This is somewhat evident in its own description as This spell is a minor magical trick that novice spellcasters use for practice.
I voted no, "warm means warm"; you can't eject a ball-bearing from a "warm" pipe, it needs to be hot enough to produce real pressure. D&D also isn't a physics simulator, in general spells don't obey the laws of physics they simply do what they say.
I'm all for encouraging creative uses of spells, and prestidigitation is my favourite spell in the game for this reason, but it has to have some limits.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
do you think a DM would accept concentration on the spell for a round or two to get the air to such high temps? you could prepare the weapon ahead of time and use your hidden gun later
That's up to each individual DM, but if it were me I'd still be saying 'no'. As I said previously, the spell is nothing more than a novice spell that equates to parlor tricks. If it could create sufficient heat, it would say so. If anything, think of Prestidigitation and its component options are extremely weakened forms of other cantrips; it is a first step for a spellcaster in learning to produce stronger effects but in itself lacks the capability to produce any massive result.
That's going to depend a lot on the DM; an improvised "gun" you can only use once before taking minutes to recharge doesn't sound overpowered, so it might be something they're fine with, but that's up to them.
The problem with prestidigitation as written is it can only "chill" or "warm" something, which is not the same as continually heating it; i.e- once the air in the pipe is "warm" the spell can only maintain that warm temperature, but for substantial pressure you need it a lot hotter than "warm".
If you want to prepare an invention in advance then you'd probably find it easier to argue heating using a campfire or maybe create bonfire or produce flame etc., it also feels to me like there's a crafting component here for which we have no real rules; as you need to create a pipe that you can reliably seal and then release on demand to shoot the ball-bearing. So your DM may also want to ask for some kind of crafting rolls, it will take time to make unless you have what you need ready-made etc.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
what's your opinion on using produce flame for this?
I play a blood hunter with magic initiate, would you say their exclusiveness to this spell would allow this to unlock new power in it through practice? (just really want this to work)
Still would be a hard sell. I guess I have to ask at this point, why? What is the use for this that could not be replaced with actual firearms (if available) or with a bow or crossbow? This seems like a great deal of work for potentially no payoff.
flavour
and my dm doesn't have firearms
Nobody but your DM can give you a definitive answer on that; all we can really tell you here is that as written in the rules this wouldn't work because there are no rules for governing how to do this as such. But D&D 5e isn't a closed system, it has multiple rules which are basically "the player can ask for whatever they want" and "the DM can run this how they please", so there are absolutely mechanics that could make it work.
For example, if I personally were to run it I'd have you make some kind of crafting roll with relevant tools (maybe smith's tools or tinker's tools), otherwise you might need to find someone else who can make the "pipe gun" for you.
With that completed, an actual fire (magical or otherwise) is reasonable as a way to build pressure through heating, but I'd probably have it take a minute or so so it's not something you can do in combat. Produce flame would definitely be more practical, as this gives you a way to maintain the pressure on the move, whereas heating at a campfire would have the risk of cooling down before you use it (unless you're keeping it ready to defend a campsite). Then to use it I'd treat it as an improvised pistol, this means you wouldn't add your proficiency bonus, at least at first, though over time you might be able to make improvements to the design or gain enough experience using the weapon to gain proficiency.
I do like to allow player creativity, but some DMs are more or less permissive; another might just say no, or another might let you treat it as a regular pistol that takes a minute to reload without any of the crafting/progression, I can't speak for them, only for myself. I should note, I'm someone who made a sub-class with a giant section on crafting firearms, so I like to be open to the idea of player creativity, but this is the Rules & Game Mechanics sub-forum so usually we're focused on what the rules say, not what else is possible (which is more Homebrew & House Rules).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
"Flavor" would be taking fire bolt as your attack cantrip and describing it as superheated ball bearings you're firing out of a DIY tube, not trying to turn a non-attack cantrip into something that does damage
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
This isn't even close to ever becoming effective. You could create air pressure in this way, but you wouldn't be able to send a ball bearing across the room with the pressure this could achieve - much less damage a person. So the same with heat metal, and you still do not even begin to approach weapons level pressure.
You might be able to use continuous castings of heat metal to float a hot air balloon. But the sort of pressure required to shoot people requires ... further components. Like, if you used water instead of just air, at least you'd be able to build up considerable steam pressure (this requires a certain level of metallurgy tho). But you'd still require a much larger water tank than would be pratical for a 'rifle' design.
Now, technically, if you build a sufficiently complex apparatus, you could use heat metal to drive a steam engine to drive a pump to compress air that you could store in a small canister, that might fit onto a rifle somehow - giving you an air rifle. But there are many, many steps of using science here that we know in our day, but that your character almost certainly doesn't.
Air rifles have been built IRL, and aren't really convincingly good. Also, they were created substantially after the gunpowder ones.
Oh, disclaimer: I'm by no means an expert. This is just stuff I read on another forum, once =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
No Prestigitatio'is warming is nowhere near enought heat to build pressure necessary to burst ball bearrings out of a tube like a rifle.
You can warm them so they're less cold to the feet and more comfy though.
It is a cantrip. It can "warm" or "cool" something, not "heat" or "freeze" something.
The Prestidigitation is the least important aspect of this. If you have this apparatus set up, you're better off utilizing a torch or something to fire it. Even then it still seems like a lot of work to get what is, at best, the equivalent of a crossbow with a really long reload time.
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I’d almost be tempted to allow this just because it’s such a bad choice. You want to spend two rounds, and your concentration, the create an improvised weapon, have at it. You don’t get proficiency on your attack roll and if you do manage to hit, it’s a d4 damage.
Seems like a good way to annoy the rest of the party as you fail to contribute to the fight.
I think AntonSirius has the best answer of how to make it work. Take an existing spell and flavor the visuals of it. Though what you’re describing seems like more of an artificer thing than a blood hunter thing, but that’s negotiable.
I would allow this alternative.
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