DND Amazing cantrip usage

[Bruenin]

What are you some amazing uses of cantrips you utilized in the past?

Prestidigitation: By far one of the best spells ever, it's mini-wish.

https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20010707

It can offer you 2 fire resist and you can get a continuous version of the spell for only 1000gp. You can also sketch any image you can visual so you can easily duplicate famous paintings and sneakily sell them off in big scams or just jot down things quickly.

You can also completely transmute items as long as it ends up as another item in the same family. You could take sunflower seeds and turn it into black lotus extract which costs 4500 gold and is one of the strongest poisons. The poison will turn back after an hour but you only need 10 minutes to kill someone.

You could also legitimately turn coal into diamonds and sell them to a store. Unless they somehow detect the aura or just naturally dispel all the gems that come their way, they shouldn't be able to appraise check it to tell it's actually a fake. You might want to be out of town by the end of the hour though.

 

[deathbydeath]

Umm, this is the wrong forum. I think you're looking for either the Gaming or Off-Topic Forums; I'm not sure which D&D falls under.

 

[Bruenin]

Umm, this is the wrong forum. I think you're looking for either the Gaming or Off-Topic Forums; I'm not sure which D&D falls under.

woops <.< thanks for clearing that up at least

 

[sky14kemea]

Umm, this is the wrong forum. I think you're looking for either the Gaming or Off-Topic Forums; I'm not sure which D&D falls under.

woops <.< thanks for clearing that up at least

I'll move it to Gaming for you. You can always PM a Mod when you need us to move a thread. =P

 

[DocHarley]

Yeah, the old Cantrip spell pretty much did this. If you can find a copy of the Second Edition "Unearthed Arcana" you'll find a huge list of example effects Cantrip let you pull off. The spell was so flexible that they chucked it in Third and basically retooled the list from UA into the 0-level spells.
My guess is that too many people whined about the lack of a one-spell-fits-all "mini-wish," so Wizards added Prestidigitation--at least partially undoing the balancing act.

 

[Macgyvercas]

I never use my catrips...except to convert the six I have per day into three first level spells with Versatile Spellcaster, which I then sink into my weapon with Arcane Strike for a +1 attack bonus and an extra 3d4 to damage.

Duskblades, FTW.

 

[Bruenin]

snipped

You can make Launch bolt a level 0 cantrip do insane amounts of damage. With tons of metamagic at least, you can use reach spell on it which is +2, then chain it so it hits every bolt up to your CL and it'll fire all the bolts as if you fired from a crossbow. With arcane thesis you're at a 3th level spell, but you can use Invisible spell and it has a +0 adjustment but arcane thesis lowers the spell level cost per metamagic feat, not for each feat, so it'll drop to 3rd, and you can use easy metamagic feat for chain to drop it down to first level.

At level 6, that's... 8d8 damage for a level 1 spell(assuming you have arcane thesis because it adds 2CL) , and you can add your ranged feats and such, so adding point blank shot would be 8d8 + 8, if you got focus then crossbow sniper, you could later polymorph into an Avoral and it'd add +3 damage for each bolt. If you're a spontaneous spell caster then it takes a full round action to cast the spell, so you can bypass volley attack rules and every single one of them can have precision damage added to them. So one level of rogue or two levels of unseen seer and you have what, a max of 20d8 + 20d6 + 20 + 60 if you did all of the above and it'd only be a level one spell. If you find another +0 metamagic feat to add, like Sanctum spell or Alternative spell source feat then it'd still be a 0 level spell.

Hardest part is finding a way to get that many crossbow bolts out on the field, and overcoming DR, You could reach chain a greater magic weapon and enchant all your bolts pretty easily but that'll be a bit high of a spell slot. 7 unless you get arcane thesis and some other stuff for it.

Though if that doesn't work, you can split ray it for a cheap way to double the amount of bolts your shooting <.< and if you're a rich/crazy bastard you can enchant the bolts with splitting so after firing all of those they then double in the air.

**sidenote** I was mainly talking about how far you can take prestidigitation but yeah, I agree that you probably shouldn't. It'd most likely come to bite you but it's still a really useful utility spell even if you don't take it that far.

 

[Bruenin]

Umm, this is the wrong forum. I think you're looking for either the Gaming or Off-Topic Forums; I'm not sure which D&D falls under.

woops <.< thanks for clearing that up at least

I'll move it to Gaming for you. You can always PM a Mod when you need us to move a thread. =P

*salutes* thank you very much :3 I appreciate it

 

[mistahzig1]

I used to play a thief who had started as a mage... but kept pretending he was a high-level mage to other players. Flamboyant and full of himself, too. A bamboozler

Used to do cantrips of deadly spells at monsters and screamign that they were imune to magic or making people believe that I'd teleported away.. but remained in place, invisible. good times.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Honestly you're using it wrong. Prestidigitation is more or less mundane magic apprentices use to clean up the laboratory/workspace (if they're not apprenticed to a hardass). If your DM is allowing you to use it in the way you describe I'd say he's overpowering a basically 0-level spell. Such a DM would be trounced by myself and a few of my veteran friends (I know the DM type and they are easily swayed by "knowledgeable" arguments).
It can be creatively used in combat situations but its limited purposely so that you can't exploit it. With all of the modifications you have posted, as a DM I'd have to ask you to create such spells at a level equivalent power (daily, encounter, etc.) because of the fact that it takes more magic to make them work.

 

[EyeReaper]

Well, the only thing i really remember my wizard buddy using cantrips for was when he took great liberty with how the "dirty" cantrip makes material "stained" or "soiled." By that I mean he would make the other players look like they shit/pissed themselves (we aren't very serious DnD players).
oh! One time however he did do something useful, before being bitten by a Cajun Ogre chef tasting the party to see if they would make a great gumbo, he used the flavor cantrip to convince the monster they all tasted disgusting.

 

[Bruenin]

Honestly you're using it wrong. Prestidigitation is more or less mundane magic apprentices use to clean up the laboratory/workspace (if they're not apprenticed to a hardass). If your DM is allowing you to use it in the way you describe I'd say he's overpowering a basically 0-level spell. Such a DM would be trounced by myself and a few of my veteran friends (I know the DM type and they are easily swayed by "knowledgeable" arguments).
It can be creatively used in combat situations but its limited purposely so that you can't exploit it. With all of the modifications you have posted, as a DM I'd have to ask you to create such spells at a level equivalent power (daily, encounter, etc.) because of the fact that it takes more magic to make them work.

What are some creative combat uses? I admit the lotus extract is pushing it a bit too far, and you could easily argue that you could only turn it into the black lotus itself and then you'd need to craft it, and it'd revert back before you could accomplish much. The diamond scam is just that, and it could very easily get some goons after you, especially if you try to abuse it too much.

The sketch and the 2 fire resist though are taken straight from text. Well to be fair, the sketch one doesn't imply a level of skill to go with it so I have no clue. If it's limited to low detail then there are still some famous sketches. I know Leonardo has some so it would be conceivable to say there would be something like it in the DnD world too.