Prestidigitation question

[darkelfo]

I was just reading a spell last night called Faerie's Gold in a d20 book titled, of course, Faeries. The spell has the effect you're looking for. There was also another that fooled people into thinking certain items were valuable as well. Effects lasted for a few hours.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I'd say no. For balance purposes, it would make Prestidigitation too powerful- as all of those 1st-level Wizards would just make every rock they see into "gold" and end up with a ton of money.

Instead they just cast mount, and sell the resulting horse... Or just cast... I dunno, ANY spell for cash? Mending is a nice 0 level one.

Wizardry is a quick route to never really having to do much work ever again.

Long story short - I think prestidigitation will do it, and I see no problems with it. However they'll all turn back after an hour, so this is a recipe for getting your first level wizard quite, quite dead unless he can run fast.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Of course if you modify copper pieces to look like Platinum pieces instead of gold, you would increase your profits by a factor of ten. Then it just might be worth it.

I think you missed the part where I described the significantly dissimilar coins. IMC making a copper look like a platinum (or vice versa) is more work than making a fake plat coin from scratch. In medieval times it was more common to shave coins (collecting valuable metals) than to mint false ones. Minting is not something easily hidden. Magic does make couterfeiting more likely but IMO it's easier just to charm someone into giving you a line of credit ("I will pay you next tuesday for a hamburger today") or otherwise magically con them. (Masters of the Wild had the notion of a druid wildshaping into a horse to be sold by an ally)

 

[yennico]

In medieval times it was more common to shave coins (collecting valuable metals) than to mint false ones. Minting is not something easily hidden.

That is correct. I do not want the spell for disguising copper coins as gold or platinum coins because IMC also like in the real world gold coins are different that copper coins.
I want this spell for a prank e.g. used by gnomes. Finding gold nuggets in an old mine which become stones after some time.

 

[Storm Raven]

I'd say no. For balance purposes, it would make Prestidigitation too powerful- as all of those 1st-level Wizards would just make every rock they see into "gold" and end up with a ton of money.

And then end up with a cadre of annoyed ripped-off merchants who band together to hire a team of "collection agents" to take restitution out of the wizard's flesh. What a good idea that wizard had.