Where can I find minor useful glamers?

[Celebrim]

I'd be inclined to allow either Prestidigitation or some Cantrip specific to the task to mask the appearance of a held object.

Prestidigitation
Universal
Level: Brd 0, Sha 0, Sor/Wiz 0
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 10 ft.
Target, Effect, or Area: See text
Duration: 1 hour
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: No
Prestidigitation is actually a collection of very simple and basic spells, which can be cast repeatedly, quickly and without strain, and used in combination by a creative magician to create an almost endless variety of effects. In general, creating a particular effect requires a standard action.

Although you cannot use prestidigitation to change an item’s actual properties, you can use prestidigitation to slightly alter how something appears and is perceived. You can alter the color, taste, odor, and feel of an object as long as it remains in range. These changes are superficial and obvious to a trained eye, but can fool casual inspection or less keen observers. The effect of this is to give up to a -5 penalty on attempts on skill checks to appraise, detect or analyze an object, depending on the suitability of the change. For example, making a bit of clear glass appear to be a diamond is a suitable change, or making a bit of bad wine taste like good wine is a very suitable change.

Prestidigitation can be used to move items weighing up to a pound slowly, at the rate of 5’ per round. Light weight ropes can be ordered to knot or unknot themselves, allowing certain use rope checks to be made at a distance. It can also be used in this way to move dust or dirt off or on to objects or separate and sweep light objects into piles. Items occupying up to 1 cubic foot can be cleaned, soiled, or gathered in this way per round. Alternately, very light weight objects such as raindrops can be held at bay, as an umbrella of force. This screen is however insufficient to seriously impede actual missiles or even hurled stones. Prestidigitation can be used to move the air and create slight drafts or breezes similar to that created by a hand fan. It may also be used to slightly chill or warm a small object, but never enough to create pain or injury. By frequently creating cooling or warming breezes and other minor alteration of the environment the spell caster may grant up to a +2 circumstance bonus on any endurance checks provoked during the duration of the spell as a result of the elements. Because of the weakness of the spell, this bonus can be extended to at most the caster and one other person.

Prestidigitation can be used to teleport fine sized objects about ones person, for example, from one hand to another, from a hand to a pouch or back again, and so forth. It is commonly used for retrieving pinches of spell components from their hiding places.

Additionally, prestidigitation can be used to create small objects – usually no bigger than what can be held in a palm - out of thin air. These objects may appear like anything, but are easily recognized as artificial if held and inspected. They have no significant weight, cannot bear more than a pound of force, have no hardness, no hit points, and automatically fail any break checks. They may however be used to engage in any action that doesn’t require significant force, so for example largely functional needles, magnifying or reading glasses, cups, toothpicks, sponges, hats, quill pens, paper for temporary notes, spoons, and other small tools that are not used with great force can be created. At the end of the spell or whenever they leave range, the objects vanish.

When using prestidigitation to create an appropriate effect, the spell caster may gain a bonus of between +1 and +3 to various skill checks - most obviously bluff, craft, disguise, hide, open lock, perform, sleight of hand, and use rope. The spell caster must explain how the effect he is creating helps in this particular situation, with highly appropriate explanations receiving higher bonuses at the DM’s discretion.

 

[Greenfield]

Prestidigitation
Universal
Level: Brd 0, Sor/Wiz 0
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 10 ft.
Target, Effect, or Area: See text
Duration: 1 hour
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: No
Prestidigitations are minor tricks that novice spellcasters use for practice. Once cast, a prestidigitation spell enables you to perform simple magical effects for 1 hour. The effects are minor and have severe limitations. A prestidigitation can slowly lift 1 pound of material. It can color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round. It can chill, warm, or flavor 1 pound of nonliving material. It cannot deal damage or affect the concentration of spellcasters. Prestidigitation can create small objects, but they look crude and artificial. The materials created by a prestidigitation spell are extremely fragile, and they cannot be used as tools, weapons, or spell components. Finally, a prestidigitation lacks the power to duplicate any other spell effects.
Any actual change to an object (beyond just moving, cleaning, or soiling it) persists only 1 hour.

Prestidigitation
Universal
Level: Brd 0, Sor/Wiz 0
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 10 ft.
Target, Effect, or Area: See text
Duration: 1 hour
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: No
Prestidigitations are minor tricks that novice spellcasters use for practice. Once cast, a prestidigitation spell enables you to perform simple magical effects for 1 hour. The effects are minor and have severe limitations. A prestidigitation can slowly lift 1 pound of material. It can color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round. It can chill, warm, or flavor 1 pound of nonliving material. It cannot deal damage or affect the concentration of spellcasters. Prestidigitation can create small objects, but they look crude and artificial. The materials created by a prestidigitation spell are extremely fragile, and they cannot be used as tools, weapons, or spell components. Finally, a prestidigitation lacks the power to duplicate any other spell effects.
Any actual change to an object (beyond just moving, cleaning, or soiling it) persists only 1 hour.
Characters typically use Prestidigitation spells to impress common folk, entertain children and brighten dreary lives. Common tricks with Prestidigitation include tinklings of ethereal music, brightening faded flowers, creating glowing balls that float over your hand, create puffs of wind to flicker candles, spicing up aromas and flavors of bland food, and making little whirlwinds to sweep dust under rugs.

I'm not sure where you got your quote from. I like it, and I'm not saying it's wrong, I just don't know where it comes from.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not sure where you got your quote from. I like it, and I'm not saying it's wrong, I just don't know where it comes from.

I decided that the SRD/RAW version of Prestidigitation was too vague. Attempts by WotC to fix this usually involved listing all the 1e cantrips as possible effects, which was both too vague and too wordy.

So I rewrote it to my taste. I shared it in response to your statement, "I'd prefer that we not add new functions to prestidigitation, which is already "screw with everything" though." The ideal version of the spell for me does let you 'screw with everything', just only very minimally.

In general, I feel that the 3e designers were - much like the 1e designers - far too conservative with cantrips. Later editions have actually done them better in certain ways.

 

[Greenfield]

Okay, just curious. I like your version and was kind of hoping that it was something official.

I do notice that you run counter to the official spell in at least one area: The spell says you can create crude objects. You allow the creation of finely crafted items, such as magnifying glasses or spectacles.

 

[Celebrim]

I do notice that you run counter to the official spell in at least one area: The spell says you can create crude objects. You allow the creation of finely crafted items, such as magnifying glasses or spectacles.

Much more than one, but yes, that's an important one. The official rules say that the object can't be used as a tool. I basically let you create little magic objects that can be used for anything that doesn't require significant force.

The intention of the spell to be useless is pretty pervasive in the official rules.

The official one though appears to let you create major image illusion effects at least within the limited 10' range of the spell ('ethereal music', 'glowing balls of light'), and also is very vague regarding what sort of transmutation magic is allowed - appearing to allow 'polymorph any unattended object' with a duration of 1 hour. It doesn't seem to prohibit substantial change, merely indicate that they aren't permanent. My version on the other hand makes clear you can't actually change objects, merely apply a glamor to them, and makes no mention of more substantive illusions. The official version also has the typical problem of the 3.X rules in not quantizing anything but instead writing rules in absolutes. For example, the official version lets you make perfectly good tasting wine from pretty much any fluid, because it basically lets you create whatever odor, taste, or appearance you want. As such, my version is simultaneously both more useful and less prone to interpretation problems and attempts at player abuse.

 

[Rabulias]

Ooooh! Juicy new spells! Thanks, Celebrim.

Confound Senses

Range should be Close, I presume?

 

[Celebrim]

Ooooh! Juicy new spells! Thanks, Celebrim.

Ooops. Sorry. No, the range would be Medium. You need a little room to get it off before your targets are on to you.

Ranges are probably messed up, because my homebrew uses different rules than standard 3.X.

 

[Greenfield]

At one time there was a spell simply called Cantrip that did a lot of what you're suggesting. The problem was that it specifically said that it couldn't duplicate the effect of any other spell. So, with Poly Any Object, that shut down all transformations. With Silent Image out there all forms of minor Glamer were outlawed. And, realistically, with Wish, Limited Wish and Miracle out there, every possible function becomes illegal.

In play, we use Prestidigitation to: Dry things, clean things, color things, warm things, flavor things, add sparkle to the waving of wands, do petite creations and transformations, and as a distinctly inferior form of Mage Hand. In short, just about any minor magical effect, more for show than for anything else.

You see, many at my table have been playing so long that we've seen the various versions and revisions, and kind of mashed them together in our minds. It's been changed so many times that, at this point, we "play to the spirit" rather than the letter.

 

[Celebrim]

In play, we use Prestidigitation to: Dry things, clean things, color things, warm things, flavor things, add sparkle to the waving of wands, do petite creations and transformations, and as a distinctly inferior form of Mage Hand. In short, just about any minor magical effect, more for show than for anything else.

You see, many at my table have been playing so long that we've seen the various versions and revisions, and kind of mashed them together in our minds. It's been changed so many times that, at this point, we "play to the spirit" rather than the letter.

You can go an awfully long way with playing to the spirit rather than the letter, but I still prefer the letter and the spirit to be in agreement. Prestidigitation often is written with the same clause that it can't duplicate the effect of any other spell. But this clause is meaningless, and just basically gives you the spirit of an idea. You yourself show just how much you violate the letter of the idea when you say, "distinctly inferior form of Mage Hand". By the same logic though, Prestidigitation can be used for creating a basically inferior form of every spell with effects that are not explicitly outlawed, as you sort of note when you observe that if you were strict to the letter every function would be outlawed.

For myself, one aspect of spell balance that I pay attention to that isn't generally considered is the economic impact. One of the main reasons I wanted to quantize all possible impacts of the spell is to ensure that allowing someone use the spell to change the flavor of things or the odor of things or to change the color of things, couldn't be used to effectively give the wielder of a 0th level spell the equivalent of something like a +15 skill bonus to cooking or painting or other acts of creation. So want the spell to be able to give the answer, "How much can you improve the flavor of something?", and the answer be something like, "At best, as much as if you had a +3 bonus on your Craft (cooking) skill check."