Level
Cantrip
Casting Time
1 Action
Range/Area
10 ft.
Components
V, S
Duration
1 Hour
School
Transmutation
Attack/Save
None
Damage/Effect
Utility
This spell is a minor magical trick that novice spellcasters use for practice. You create one of the following magical effects within range:
- You create an instantaneous, harmless sensory effect, such as a shower of sparks, a puff of wind, faint musical notes, or an odd odor.
- You instantaneously light or snuff out a candle, a torch, or a small campfire.
- You instantaneously clean or soil an object no larger than 1 cubic foot.
- You chill, warm, or flavor up to 1 cubic foot of nonliving material for 1 hour.
- You make a color, a small mark, or a symbol appear on an object or a surface for 1 hour.
- You create a nonmagical trinket or an illusory image that can fit in your hand and that lasts until the end of your next turn.
If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three of its non-instantaneous effects active at a time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.
@Alkoun #48
Spells only care where its effects are if it says so, ala Glyph of Warding or Faithful Hound. You can leave a Minor Illusion or Major Image in its spot and walk away.
I believe that minor illusion is unable to make a sound...but prestidigitation can make a "sensory effect" such as a small buzzing noise? It should be able to do so...
using the soiling effect to piss someone's pants
Stinky.
I'd say no, as it's an illusionary effect.
I love to subtle spell pee peoples' pants with this spell. No one can comfortably do anything with pee in their pants
Could you light a small fire on a persons clothes...as a distraction, not to cause damage? maybe just have them use an action to put it out during which time the player could sneak by or lift something ect.?
hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
So, I've put a candle in each of my vials of oil...lol.
wonder if i could use this to fake a fever on a character. technically the top layer of skin isn't living tissue, same for all visible hair, and saliva isn't living so i could probably heat up the upper body/face area long enough to fool a hand test or a thermometer? dump some mushed up rations in a bucket and soil them for believable vomit, and you're golden, fake sick. healing doesn't really work on minor illnesses so there's not really much to do but let them recover anyway, that'd be the perfect "get out of school for a day" 24-hour bug.
@Willieland78 "My character wont remove his mask in public can I drink with my finger using this spell?"
i dunno about drinking with your finger but you could create a "non-magical trinket" such as a small straw to put under the edge of the mask
I see so many trolling opportunities in this spell 😂
Or to break their concentration?
Heeheehee Lacarnum Inflamari !
Had a fellow PC use this spell to create a mark on my characters forehead (they did it for lols). My character was unwilling target so i argued there should at least be a save for it. We put it at a 10 saving throw which of course i failed and ended up with my pc having a mark on their forehead.
Personally i was kinda annoyed. But i do think the concept of using it in a way that effects living things that are potentially unwilling needs to be moderated by dm. And the concepts of a object or surface in the idea of RAI probably should not include living things. But rule of cool/dm call always prevails.
Could you use this to create false coins? Either by changing the colour and markings on a coin of a lower value, or would it be considered a non-magical trinket? (Used in the context of exchanging a “platinum” coin for the correct amount of gold coins, then getting out of there before the spell dispels)
"A minor magical trick" is the biggest understatement that could possibly be made if your DM is running a standard Middle Ages campaign properly. You could use this spell to ruin the taste of all the food and drink in any social gathering, infinitely. With Subtle Spell, that's a minimum of like 8 uses that are 100% untraceable back to you, and with Distant Spell, you could stay safely within any crowd of people. Has any NPC ever annoyed you at literally any point in the entire campaign? Just go "I'm gonna sh*t your pants," then use the feature that allows you to soil clothing on their underwear, or have them waste a 3rd lvl spell slot on Counterspell for the bit. Go within 10 ft of a bandit with a torch and snuff out their light source while remaining just out of range, rendering their probably-human eyes worthless in the pitch black. Make your sh*tty rations and whatever animals you caught out in the field taste like they were made for a king and beg your DM for a bonus or something for your creativity, then use that precedent to get free daily bonuses because of a Cantrip. Convince unintelligent peoples and/or Hill Giants that you're the god of magic by creating a confusing mass of geometric shapes in your hand that disappear about 6 seconds later. If you need to run away from someone, trick them by making footsteps in a direction that you're not going in, or blow wind in their eyes to distract them for long enough to gain some distance or get away (bonus points for Quickened Spell Minor Illusion to hide while they're distracted). Silently communicate with any secret organization or the rest of your party members by making a unique mark on any available surface that disappears in an hour, entirely unable to be traced. Clean laundry, light and snuff anything fire-related, entertain any group of children, entertain yourself in any boring situation, or reverse those concepts to create hell and heaven respectively for any person who wrongs or rights you, and more!
I'm telling you, this spell easily ranks within the top 5 most useful spells in 5e. You just automatically win basically any non-combat thing that the DM throws at you as long as you think long and hard enough, it's that simple. Minor Illusion and Mage Hand may be useful in dungeons and various escape/stealth/deception scenarios, but with the right amount of creativity, so is this one, in addition to the literal dozens of other uses that it has. I always pick this one up for any character that I make, and every DM I've been a player for has despised me for it.
my friend once used the soil part of the spell to make a guard seemingly "soil" their pants to get them to leave
Note that the authors could have used “Instantly” instead of “instantaneous(ly)”. There is a sense of the latter word that includes the meaning of simultaneous(ly). In this context it could define the creation of the effect as being simultaneous with the casting.
Also, casting as an action occurs, along with traveling at 5 feet per second, interacting with an object, and having a bonus action, during a 6 second interval. So no, you aren’t standing around gesticulating wildly for 6 seconds, I’d even say it takes less than a second.
Further, the text does not specify the duration of all the effects identified. Given the limited time resolution of the game system, it feels like any effect created under the first bullet should last the 6 seconds after the casters turn is complete unless the caster specifies shorter. So frisson and music fade, the puff, sparks, smoke, and odor dissipate.
Speculatively, presuming the same quantity of magic is used, if enclosed in a small area smoke and odor could last longer because they are akin to flavoring food yet not as long as the food effects because the are not bound to a solid substrate. Presuming the range of “10 feet” defines a cube of 1000 ft^3 and you get 6 seconds of odor/smoke before diffusion, one could assert that the same effect contained in a smaller volume would be more concentrated and therefore last longer. This could mean a 2.5 foot cube would hold the gaseous effect for 1 minute or until 6 seconds after opening, and 1 foot cube would last an hour or until 6 seconds after opening. Yes, it would be a pain to adjudicate
This line of thought leads me to wonder if prestidigitations could be combined with “alchemy” skill/knowledge to create reactants, that like fire, transmute the initial transmutation magic into permanent physical reality. Hypothetically, one could capture the odors and then mix them, to create useful chemicals.
when it says create a non-magical trinket is said trinket physical and not an illusion and if so can you use it like if a used this to to make a sword could it attack monsters with the sword
Press (what you do to a button)
Tid (as in tid-bit)
Idget (like in widget)
Ation (like in anim-ation)