The creative use of Cantrips

[Buttercup]

I was talking with some folks elsewhere about low magic, and one person mentioned that in his game, all spells do HP damage, except for Cantrips, and that this change causes the spell casters to come up with creative uses for those cantrips. This sounds like an extremely nifty idea to me

So I was hoping that the good folks here could come up some creative uses of Cantrips. I'll start:

Use Mage Hand to give an enemy a wedgie, thus causing him/her to lose their next action.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Riiight. Creative or silly?

Use Mage Hand to bodily move those tiny sized enemies (like faeries) that no one ever uses.

Note: I allowed this one on normal rats.

 

[Tonguez]

Riiight. Creative or silly?

Use Mage Hand to bodily move those tiny sized enemies (like faeries) that no one ever uses.

Note: I allowed this one on normal rats.

Mage Hand
Target: One nonmagical, unattended object weighing up to 5 lb.
I'd personally say that neither fairy nor rats are unattended (and that action would be a grapple imho)

I've allowed ray of frost to freeze water in containers and make the containers burst, also the frozen lock trick for opening doors

Also using Presdigitation would it be possible to create grit -sand, pebbles etc- (ie small crude object), lift them into the air (ie up to 1lb), chill them and then drop them on an opponents head (or better in their eyes) as a distraction?

 

[kolikeos]

i once used open/close to open a trapet container without being blown by the tarp

also, as mentiond above, i used pristigitigitigitation (sp? ) to distract enemies with colorful little clouds

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Ghost sound... Bluff or Perform whilst casting to make the spell look really impressive and overdone. Then make roaring demon noises just out of sight of whoever you're trying to impress... figure that's worth a healthy bonus to intimidate checks?

 

[Richards]

With mage hand, ghost sound, and a normal human skull, you can whip up a pretty reasonable facsimile of a demilich....

Johnathan

 

[countgray]

If a Bard is performing you could use Ghost sound to make it seem like the audience is cheering or clapping more loudly than they are to help get the audience more in the mood or make a speech more persuasive. Sort of like a laugh track.

If an evil noble or overlord is giving a speech, you could use ghost sound to make it sound like people are booing or heckling him. Or that he has gastro-intestinal distress of some kind or verbal ticks or hiccups to diminish the effectiveness of his performance.

You could create an echo to make a dark room seem larger or a distance seem farther away than it is.

You could make an Orc voice or monster companion voice come from behind a dungeon door or from within a trapped chest or prison cell so that the orc or monster guard thinks his companion got locked inside and unlocks or breaks open the door for you or runs down the trapped hall, springing the traps for you.

You can make noises in a bush so the monster attacks or fires in the wrong direction.

If you are invisible or hiding you can make your opponent fight or move toward or away from the wrong square.

If you know any mating calls you can have them issue forth from an opponent or NPC or another partymember to attract the amorous attentions of an animal or monster.

You can mimic the sounds of certain spells going off (say like a fireball exploding) to try and get opponents to dive for cover or flee from a certain square.

The sound of a child crying coming from down a well might distract townsfolk long enough for you to sneak by or pick a pocket.

 

[handforged]

From the prestidigitation text in the SRD:

It can color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round

Notice that the color, clean, soil does not limit to nonliving material like the chill, warm, flavor does. You can make your eyes shift to red to intimidate. You could cause your opponent's body parts to change color (making this sound like a curse of some sort would also be pretty intimidating). Using a couple of rounds to change the color of your party rogue's gear to aid in camoflauge would probably inspire most DMs to give a circumstance bonus to Hide.

The Light spell could be cast on a pebble or other small object. Thrown from your hand just as the spell is cast might fool an opponent into thinking a fireball is on the way. Also, you could use a light pebble to power a bullseye lantern rather than carry around oil.

If you do carry around the oil, stick a strip of cloth into a flask, light it up, and use Mage Hand to carry it up into the air and drop it to do a grenade-like attack.

Also, Richards, I would suggest adding Dancing Lights to your demi-lich idea. There is an option of "one faintly glowing, vaguely humanoid shape." The spell does not require concentration and has a better range than mage hand.

For clerics or druids, Create Water can be used to distract foes.

~hf

 

[Voadam]

I got two xp in a game for my eldritch knight using prestigitation to clean blood spatter off himself after a battle. The DM thought it was a cool use of a cantrip in response to his gory battle descriptions.