D&D 5E Does Prestidigitation Break the Law of Conservation of Energy?

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Simple question, but the consequences are a bit strange.

If you use Prestidigitation to clean an object . . . what happens to the "dirtiness" on it? Is it just magically destroyed? Is it teleported somewhere else? Is it somehow melded into the object you clean?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Simple question, but the consequences are a bit strange.

If you use Prestidigitation to clean an object . . . what happens to the "dirtiness" on it? Is it just magically destroyed? Is it teleported somewhere else? Is it somehow melded into the object you clean?

Essentially all magic breaks energy conservation--you certainly don't have inside you the energy to spontaneously generate several lightning bolts just because you took a nice long nap.

A lot of magic breaks the speed of light (anything involving long-distance messages), and some of it breaks other physical laws of our Earthly reality. Magic in general does not care what the laws of physics say. This is one of the reasons why magic, in general, is stupidly overpowered.

 

[pukunui]

Terry Pratchett addressed this in his usual humorous way in A Hat Full of Sky when Tiffany polymorphs someone into a frog and ends up with a "balloon" of all the extra bits that make up the difference between a human and a frog.

 

[Steampunkette]

The dirt and stuff just gets wiped off, magically.

It goes in whichever direction it is pushed.

Sand on the deck of the boat? Prestidigitation is just a perfect broom that pushes it over to the side 'til you run out of boat and it falls into the water, leaving behind clean deck boards.

Fell in a mud pit? Prestidigitation cleans you, 1 cubic foot at a time, and just sloughs off all the mud and water and dead skin cells and blood so it falls to the ground around your feet.

 

[FarBeyondC]

Clearly, magic is fueled by vacuum energy, which is why our universe - estimated to be deficient of said energy to the tune of 120 orders of magnitude or so- is bereft of magic.

 

[Maxperson]

Magic accesses demiplanes all the time. So there's no reason not to think that magic that brings matter or energy into existence comes from alternate dimensional places and planes. So if the Conservation of Mass and Energy is a scientific thing you actually care about for the physics of your campaign world... shunting or accruing energy and matter from other dimensions via magic is the way to go.

You don't even need to imagine it. It's RAW.

The worlds with in the D&D multiverse are magical places. All existence is suffused with magical power, and potential energy lies untapped in every rock, stream, and living creature, and even in the air itself. Raw magic is the stuff of creation, the mute and mindless will of existence, permeating every bit of matter and present in every manifestation of energy throughout the multiverse."

And...

"Whenever a magic effect is created, the threads of the Weave intertwine, twist, and fold to make the effect possible."

So the magical energy is there, you access it through the Weave which uses that energy to manifest the effect.

 

[Oofta]

All the dirt and clutter simply go elsewhere. I suspect much of it ends up in my garage and the back of my wife's car.

On the other end, random socks are transformed into pure energy to power spells like fireball. The unwashed ones into stinking cloud, of course.

 

[Maxperson]

Essentially all magic breaks energy conservation--you certainly don't have inside you the energy to spontaneously generate several lightning bolts just because you took a nice long nap.

No. You have a bit of energy inside of you that you use to tap into the Weave which in turn taps into the magic energy which suffuses everything. The energy is there and being used as spelled out on page 205 of the PHB. Conservation of energy isn't being broken.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Essentially all magic breaks energy conservation--you certainly don't have inside you the energy to spontaneously generate several lightning bolts just because you took a nice long nap.

A lot of magic breaks the speed of light (anything involving long-distance messages), and some of it breaks other physical laws of our Earthly reality. Magic in general does not care what the laws of physics say. This is one of the reasons why magic, in general, is stupidly overpowered.

Eh, you don’t need to. Creating a specific path of least resistance could be a fairly low-powered function that requires precision rather than internal power. The cable doesn’t have power, the battery does.

Perhaps gaining higher and more spell slots is essentially gaining more efficient capacitors and resistors and diodes, allowing you to put more power through the system at a time.

 

[Seramus]

Just take all the energy from Athas. They won't mind.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Is there even a Law of Conservation of Energy in a D&D setting?

Of course.
Luckily you have different plains of existence do steal from or donate to.

Probably for each clothing you cleaned, on another plane some stain appears out of nowhere.

 

[Seramus]

Of course.
Luckily you have different plains of existence do steal from or donate to.

I wonder if the Positive Elemental Plane can ever run out of positive energy, if it keeps creating more ex nihilo, or it creates some kind of cosmic imbalance that allows the Negative Elemental Plane to consume everything? I suppose the ones above AO can just make up whatever answer they want.

 

[Morrus]

All magic breaks the laws of physics, by definition. Otherwise it would be called science.

So… yes.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

having read Fizban's and noted that items left in a dragon horde become magical over time. I have come to the conclusion that magic is generated by Dragon excreta. I also hypothesize that depletion of too much magic generates Dragon eggs to rebalance the field.
It also explains the lack noticeable effects of overuse of wish. Overuse of which, and the resulting debilitation of the caster causes a dragon to show up and eat them.
So I propose that in a magical universe the conserved element is dragons.
Ungainly Titans law of the conservation of Dragons.

 

[Minigiant]

The Energy goes in and out the Weave/Force/Aether/Rift/Source/SW.

The Gods of Magic monitor this and let the excess return to the plane elsewhere.

That's why the worlds without magic gods tend to magic weird magic. No one to manage the magic energy.

 

[Seramus]

All magic breaks the laws of physics, by definition. Otherwise it would be called science.

So… yes.

We just haven't discovered all the laws, yet! Any sufficiently analyzed magic becomes part of our physics.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

All magic breaks the laws of physics, by definition. Otherwise it would be called science.

So… yes.

Every science so advanced that you don't understand it is undistinguishable from magic.

 

[Morrus]

Every science so advanced that you don't understand it is undistinguishable from magic.

Yeah, we all know the quote.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yeah, we all know the quote.

I supposed so. But I thought it was an appropriate time to leave it here.

 

[Horwath]

maybe it's E=mc2.

Casters can utilize direct mass to energy conversion on a small scale.

Maybe they like gold so much as it's dense so it takes less volume.

then again one gold coin in direct mass to energy would be around 15× Little boy.

 

[Guest 7034872]

We are talking about a fictional multiverse, right? People who expect total consistency in those have bad expectations.