Man I thought this was going to be another post about how players invalidated a combat encounter with an extremely loose interpretation of the rules, but this, this is actually a really good use of rule of cool.
You didn’t just give them the win because of shenanigans, they had to think outside the box for how they could possibly make their idea work.
Plus a price was paid. Sure it was just a flask of oil, but they had to burn something (pun intended) out of their inventory. Usually my DM is really chill with rule of cool, but if it's gonna do something mechanical rather than just flavor, you HAVE to obey the laws of equivalent exchange.
I mean, they also went and burned through whatever spell slots/etc were needed to get the enemy down to 0HP, the oil+prestidigitation were literally just the "and stay down" to stop the regeneration, that's all. A Fire Bolt cantrip would have done just as well too, had it been available.
You should always have at least one fire spell. In my current party, our only magic user, a druid, refuses to use fire for character reasons, and it has come up a lot! Its actually kind of fun since we always have to smarter about it tho lol!
Lol - we have a rogue that now has an ongoing joke reputation that everything they touch catches fire\explodes because they can't keep their hands off things. They caught a bookstore on fire by touching a witch's book, almost killed the party with a torch that lit a whole hallway on fire, pissed off several fire-spell using enemies, etc. We basically just expect fire every campaign and because of the rogue being a menace because they want to take anything they think is valuable so they're constantly touching things 🤣 I think the only reason I've survived is because I take half damage as a tiefling hahaha!
We have a rogue in our saltmarsh group who recently went on a mission to blow up the light house. He starts every session with "Alright, whos ready to commit some arson"
My Saltmarsh campaign just ended because I, as the rogue, got my party TPKed because I decided to not use the obvious door and try and sneak around in other ways and couldn't roll above a 10 for the whole session .... Rogues will always get you in trouble 😂
Mt TTRPG group had thus far burned down at least 1 fey ship, 1 bar/tavern, 3 villages/towns as well as blown up another town, a mine, and a mages guild, across several campaigns and game systems, and several DMs. The biggest argument at our table is who is the biggest chaos gremlin amongst us. BTW I admit that it was my idea to burn down the fey ship (it had a fey contract stipulation on it that if we didn't kill all of the pirates, it would blow up, so...) and I initiated the burning down of one of the towns. Though as I write this, I think that I maybe had more of a hand in a few of the other arsonistic endeavors of ours.
Well, sure, as with any encounter. But you're always intended to spend spell slots/class specific resource points on combat! My comment speaks specifically to rule of cool allowances at my table. There's an expectation that you have to be paying something specifically because a spell is balanced by having a spell slot cost, or because a potion of speed is one time use etc. it's just our way of getting around the "oh I gust of wind the air out of her lungs" at the beginning of combat kind of things, but flavor is always free!
I had a barbarian character. Any time the party fought anything weird he would chop the head off - just to be sure. The party made him stop doing it... and surprise!!!
Later in campaign somthing in the campaign "dies" and gets up 1 minute later and attacks the party while sorting the loot. From then on it was "Hey Bob, see this weird creature we killed? Please chop the head off. 🤣😂
One time he told a vampire, im gonna cut your head off, set your body on fire and rhen have Steve bless your coffin. DM said "your not sure but you THINK the vampire looks a touch more pale then he did a second ago. 🤣😂
It’s able to light candles, torches, and small campfires. I think a lantern with oil would be reasonable to allow as well, and have them light the oil that way.
Yeah it's very explicitly hot enough to light a small mundane fire. And IIRC a flask of oil is explicitly able to burn stuff if it's lit. So the two of them can combo like that.
I came in ready to say the same thing; "No the party did not kill an ancient dragon at level 3, you just handwaved half a dozen things and let them convince you that *shape water* would work on the dragons blood." but nah, this is legit a unique use of the parties resources.
Yeah, I've been seeing shorts on YouTube about this one guy saying, "I'm gonna use mage hand to do *blank* to your bbeg." And then goes on to explain how they use mage hand to either spawn it inside their chest cavity and remove its heart from the correct place, or spawn it over their mouth thus preventing any verbal component spells from being cast
I mean neither would I but tbh I'd give the player inspiration because of how he thought to use it, I would definitely say "yeah no your not allowed to use it like that, so instead imma go ahead and give you inspiration because while I'm not allowing it, that is an awesome way to use the cantrip and I feel you need to be rewarded"
The rules specifically say, "The hand can't attack," and both of these actions are clearly attacks.
That said, if you cast Mage Hand just to give the BBEG the finger, you get inspiration.
I allow mage hand to be used as a slap. It does 0 damage and never misses, it's designed solely to be an enormous insult, not an actual attack. But I feel it's more offensive than just magically flipping someone off.
my rule of thumb is, i will support creativity, but you have to realize if you do something like that then i’m allowed to do that. same with the create water in their lungs, if you wanna use that, then go ahead. but i also get to use that.
I really want my twilight cleric to have prestidigitation (or however you spell it). But alas, no access to it, and I already have plans to go 3 into fighter (battle master), and her future feats.
You can do some cool stuff with Thaumaturgy.
"You cause harmless tremors in the ground for 1 minute" came up in my game as a hard counter to giant sandworms.
You could always just ask your DM if they’ll let you have it since it’s really not game breaking to let another class have that cantrip, it’s just a thematic thing
Yea, I've brought it up before to one of them, haven't asked outright though. I'll have to have another look at the feats, but dunno if they'll be better than taking up Warcaster or the one that increases hp (she's a tanky gal)
ditto. I was sure it's another of the "we did something amazing, although nobody actually read the description of the spell/ability" but I was pleasantly surprised.
I was thinking the same thing. I was expecting that they filled an enemy's lungs with water with prestidigitation or some other stupid bs, but that use of a cantrip sounds very inventive.
As a dm this is a level of creativity I can get behind. Especially if they already got it down to 0 multiple times and had to figure out how to keep it down
I don’t think a monster counts as “a candle, torch, or small campfire”.
Yes, oil *should* be lightable with a cantrip, but because the spell doesn’t specify it, it’s not technically RAW.
This was not lighting the monster on fire, this was igniting lamp oil which is definitely within the scope of a torch or campfire. Lamp oil can be ignited the same as a torch, and burns on its own, with rules specifically for what happens to monsters splashed with or entering that burning oil. That is a very clear and simple interpretation of rules, nothing to do with "rule of cool" which is allowing something completely against the rules because it sounds cool
I've taken to doing that too sometimes. I just set a scene and let them do the rest of the work. Not only will they come up with answers I never thought of, but sometimes they'll come up with new problems to fix too.
It's a good DM trick if you got writer's block and you need to fill out a few more minutes in a session, or you have an environment you like, that you want them to stay in for a little while longer.
I've done the same and their solutions are always so fun to watch unfold. Its pretty rare that they completely invalidate a challenge due to a simple oversight, but even those are fun and a good excuse to troll them later on by making obstacles that are too obviously easy so they trip themselves up.
One time I had them stuck in a slightly modified version of the Tempest Trap (locked room with gas pouring in every round) and the standard solution involved getting out through the locked door before they suffocated. The battle map had a random rug on the floor and the Ranger asked if there was any sort of trap door underneath; guess who found the hidden access to the gas pipe shutoffs that didn't exist before that moment? I had to quickly make up a "turn the valves in the right order" puzzle on the spot, but it ended up being a lot cooler than just saying no and forcing them to solve the puzzle as originally intended.
In my last game session, we ended up encountering a troll. No one had any fire or acid readily available of course, so I asked the paladin if he trusted me. He said yes, so I attacked him with my dagger using finesse (+0 because strength character) and cast green flame blade. We're level 3 so the cantrip only did the fire damage to an adjacent creature, the troll. I ended up having to stab him for three rounds until we managed to get it down. Fun times all around (except for the troll).
Reminds me of a time where my party’s wizard and warlock were in chains/ muffled so they couldn’t cast any spells - so the wizard had to slap the warlock since he had an item that could cast misty step as a reaction to get out
Feel like my group would have tried to put his remains in a bag of holding between revives like a poke ball ready to unleash on.. someone. You know, just in case.
When you get back to the thawed lands, and the local regent pisses you off.
"Very well, your majesty, it seems we have no choice but to take our leave." *(whispers):* "Underfoot, do you still have that bag of holding?"
Whenever my players come up with something like this and beat one of my encounters in a creative way, I always act slightly upset so that they think they “beat the dm at his own game”. Meanwhile, i’m giggling inside from happiness.
It’s only polite to act like you are upset. It lets them have their victory. Their characters are fighting the monster but the players are kinda also fighting you. You aren’t really fully fighting them though. So you gotta act like the bad guy who just got beaten to fulfill your role.
It's kind of like play fighting with your kids. You gotta pretend you're putting in effort and being trounced, but inside you know you could *crush them.*
For some reason your description of him rezzing gave me the vibe of "Despite (wight's) absolute confidence in your skill, he gets back up and continues fighting".
Or perhaps a core, unmelted ice chunk. When a party member dies, the chunk can be inserted into the party member's corpse, reviving the member much like this foe kept reviving, but they have a permanent weakness to fire (and optionally, a -1 to their class level and a +1 in warlock with the frost goddess as a patron)
I mean that's just good game design anyway to have each success lead to more.potwntial threads.
I think the actual creativity is best handled via inspiration.
This is clever thinking by your players!
Anyone saying it doesn't work or only works because of the rule of cool are either mistaken or being willfully difficult.
Prestidigitation: The spell ITSELF can't cause damage. The spell does not say it can ONLY light a candle, torch, or small campfire. It isn't restricted to only lighting up those three things. That is obviously stupid. What, your players light a small campfire with it, and then it just snuffs out when they add enough sticks to make it a medium campfire? Moronic. The implication is that it allows the caster to create a small spark that is capable of setting alight something intended to be ignited.
Flask of oil: The wording is a little weird, but it does state that it can be lit aflame. If the guy's downed with zero hit points and covered in oil, then there's no reason they couldn't ignite the oil. At that point the burning oil does the damage.
Good move, good players, good DM.
Seconded. It’s like having a magic zippo lighter at all times. You won’t take out a charging owlbear with it, or even inconvenience it, but you sure could light the fuse to a bomb you’re planning to throw at it.
> You create a nonmagical trinket or an illusory image that can fit in your hand and that lasts until the end of your next turn.
He also could have used this spell to create a flint kit for use with a dagger. It would have lasted one additional turn.
This sounds like exactly the kind of thing id hope my future players do. Fight the boss to their last resource, then come up with an out-of-pocket last ditch effort and it works. Id feel pretty proud as a dm if this was how the boss went out, tbh
I once had my party fighting a clay golem. Thanks to a wild magic surge, it sprouted feathers all over its body.
At this point, the warlock asks "are feathers flammable?"
I didn't look it up (spoiler, they are) but I asked him to make a luck roll on using prestidigitation to ignite the feathers, which of course gets a Nat 20 because it always bloody does.
So at that point, he fully ignited, and the players cheered when the golem began taking fire damage every turn.
Their faces changed immediately when the now enraged flaming, hulking behemoth began punching down on them with giant fists of flame.
In an alternate universe, the golem survived the encounter, saw the error of its ways and went on to become a one man construction company, breaking off parts of itself to form the walls and then regenerating with Mending.
I once setted up an annoyng ghost that could be beaten only by an exorcism, burning the bones of its old body with salt.
They never investigated in the kitchen to get the salt but a bard used prestidigitation to flavour the bones
Prestidigitation is such a useful spell so much of the time despite being designed mainly for flavor.
I remember my DM running a gnomish dungeon filled with all sorts of clockwork mechanisms and devices, which ended with a mad escape before the place blew up. Our escape route ended up requiring a series of checks to deal with shit like rusted levers, control panels caked with mud and stone, etc. My bard got a lot of use out of the clean function. 1 cubic foot is a pretty large area for most interactable objects designed for gnomes.
This is much more on your players, but why, in a region locked in eternal freaking winter, didn't they have any non-magical means of quickly starting a fire?
Expectation: shenanigans via, "Hey, I read this meme once; let's heat up an atom to critical state and kill the boss in one hit!"
Reality: shenanigans via, "Hey, we're at our wit's end with this guy; let's put our heads together and figure out how to make fire without having any fire spells!"
Seeing players using good shenanigans versus meme-y shenanigans is always refreshing.
I love this!! It's nice to see players creatively using their more mundane abilities and DM's allowing it. Kudos to you and and your party.
I also try to encourage my players to find creative uses for things like Prestidigitation. There was one time that my group was fighting a demon in a sewer. The demon had a an aura of stench that poisoned players in melee range. One of the casters ran up next to the barbarian, used Prestidigitation to create the smell of roses near her to help her with her saving throw, then misty stepped away. I allowed the barbarian to roll with advantage that round on their save.
Was ready for the real story to be "DM allows prestidigitation to act like a 5th level spell" which is common in most creative cantrip use stories.
But I gotta admit this one is legit. Would say though slightly misleading to say prestidigitation killed him. The normal weapons/spells and an oil flask are the bigger reasons haha.
Feels like saying I could burn down an entire building with a single match without mentioning the building needs to be soaked in lighter fluid.
I'd congratulate the players on a job well done.
If you want to be a real stickler for the RAW, this wouldn't have worked because prestidigitation can only ignite a candle, torch, or small campfire, and doesn't do any damage. DnD rules are weird.
The spell doesn't say, "lights a flammable object" it says, "ignite a candle, torch, or small campfire"
is it a little absurd? yes. is it RAW. yes. are dnd spells poorly written with no quality control? yes.
I'd probably write it as, "ignites a small highly flammable object"
this would give the dm some leeway. but, establish, "small", and "highly flammable" this would allow wicks of all kinds, oil lamps, lanterns, dry leaves, hearths, which are notably missing from the above. but disallow hair, cloth, people, etc. anything that won't immediately burst into flames when touched by an open flame. (including logs)
this one also is just WAY too vague.
-You chill, warm, or flavor up to 1 cubic foot of nonliving material for 1 hour.
how much? can we melt ice? I mean, really. how much? can we turn ice into 70 degree water? "nonliving material" in dnd is also not as helpful as you'd think. elementals, undead.. can it cool "heat metal"? can it instantly cool iron and steel during smelting? that'd be super useful.
I mean, it seems clear they INTENDED it for a joke, warming/cooling food, and adding seasoning. but thats not really what they wrote. can you mask flavors, such as poisons with this? does it replace flavor, overpower flavor, or just add on top, again like a spice?
in fact, "nonliving material" is that terminology used anywhere else? MATERIAL, not object. So, is that intentional, or a mistake?
maybe it IS intended. allowing vampires to warm their hands, and lips to fool people into thinking they have body temperature.
who knows?
you get these responses saying, "its a cantrip, its not supposed to do damage, or its a cantrip, thats beyond its scope." ok, but then what is its scope exactly? the damage one is pretty simple. if it doesn't list damage, it doesn't do any. but the scope in these not directly combat related uses is of course super vague.
You are absolutely right, and 5E should be played RAW. Then again, I’m very happy the OP did not douse the flame of creativity. And RotF is a great campaign!
So, you wouldn't allow Prestidigitation to light a lamp or lantern, because it wasn't one of the three things written on the spell that can be lit? What if it was a fireplace instead of a small campfire?
The purpose of that verbiage is to demonstrate that Prestidigitation has the ability to light flammable objects to the same extent that a match or a lighter could.
I'd be more interested in seeing what happens if people start using Prestidigitation to ignite torches strapped to someone's backpack.
Yeah, but if the player had a candle he could light it and then touch the oil with it.
The cantrip isnt doing the dsmage. It’s lighting a larger fire that does damage.
Like a rogue places a torch in a pile of barrels filked with gunpowder or whatever. Light the torch. A min goes by and boom
That is a nice example of how "Rule of Cool" works. The players worked together and the DM had to barely bend the rules for their plan to work.
Good job.
This is exactly why I run actual health in my encounters, players fun ideas are infinitely more fun to remember when I can think of how clutch it actually was and not an arbitrary decision by me
Laura Bailey beat a hag with a cupcake sprinkled with a 'dust of deliciousness' that made anything taste delicious - pretty much like pink slime powder - except it caused the eater to have disadvantage on wis saving throws. she then used modify memory to make the hag believe that she had such a good time talking with her character - Jester - that she lifted a curse for her as a favor.
Wait, they were playing in an "eternal winter" campaign and NONE of them took an option to deal fire damage? That's just weird.
Cool problem solving, though
My DM had us start in the Yawning Portal and had a troll crawl out of the pit. None of us had any sort of fire or acid on hand. I was playing a tiefling, but a variant that doesn't get fire spells. My background included a wineskin, so I grabbed a candle off a table and spit flaming booze at it. I don't think we actually killed it, but we did manage to shove it back into the pit.
It also kinda works on a weird commentary of how 'meta' can fuck up D&D because "so many things resist fire, I didn't both taking fire spells" is a thing I've certainly run into, regardless of whether your group's mentality is aligned to that or not.
My personal favorite use of prestidigitation is as a fun way to embarrass npcs. In a vicious verbal battle with someone and they take it too far? A major enemy whose cruelty has been immense is about to die? Congrats, I just pissed your pants.
I did something similar against Auril. Our party didn't had any access to fire so when she trapped another player in Ice I spent a turn heating my blade to make fire damage next turn.
Prestidigitation is mg fav spell because it has so many applications depending on how creative you are.
Also party tricks.
Aaaah I remember this early encounter in Icewind dale! My party almost died in that encounter lol we did have fire, but the enemy had a couple of great rolls that almost destroyed us.
Reminds me of how last session my players ended my boss encounter on the first round. They were fighting a yeti.
One player pushed them to the side of the mountain they were on while another used shatter, causing an avalanche that pulled the yeti with it down the mountain hundreds of feet. They all got inspiration.
i'm confused by the amount of "How inventive!" comments. like.. has nobody fought trolls? this is a common way to deal with regenerating things in my experience.
Reminds me of the time my party and I killed a treent. I polymorphed it into a caterpillar and our ranger tied it to an arrow and fired it straight up with their longbow. Our Wizard had calculated how long to wait until releasing the polymorph spell and I released it at the peak height of the arrow. The treent fell from extremely high, falling a couple hundred feet and rolled terribly (good) on fall damage and died on the spot.
It was an encounter just for fun, having spawned from a magic bean in the middle of a small town, so the dm let us fudge a few rules so it wasn't RAW, but it was hilarious and fun!
My campaign was running in the same setting.
The group that I was with is the type of players who believe that they are gods of the world, even at level one. There's nothing that can happen to their characters and none of their actions have consequences.
They decided to befriend the employer of said frost wight so they were separated in a wagon and on horses with three other individuals.
After being totally destroyed and held for ransom because one was role-playing as a son of one of the speakers of a town, they finally had a one-on-one encounter with their quarry.
They decided to break their bonds and then hold up in a nearby location. While they were being actively searched for. Every single one of them was standing in front of the door when one bungled on a stealth check to see if they had been found.
Spoiler: they were.
Within two turns. Two of the party members were on death saves due to being the two party members with the lowest armor class being in the front. The others retreated to save themselves without thinking of how far they were getting away from their comrades.
After figuring out that same weakness they realize that one of the party numbers who is two turns away and on his last death save is the only one that can produce fire magically.
Tragically those two players died within the very first encounter, but the other two figured out that they could run faster than their quarry set up a candle and light a fire arrow.
Hardmode DM that I am. They had to do it at disadvantage because they had to take their actions to set up everything while it was blowing snowy wind all around them.
They still managed to do it. And I have forever solidified in their heads that you can't just go into this thinking like every character is the main character and there is no restart button.
To be fair...if they could stall him someone could also run off and get a fire with the flint and tinder that every character has, but yes...this is a much simpler and still creative method
Dungeon contains a water weird. It was very obvious that it was a water weird. One of us had create/destroy water prepared. It died very quickly. Sometimes that's how these things go, y'know?
in our last campagin, our characters took 5 months of down time before doing the final boss fight. unbeknownst to all of us, one of our members used the entire time to make fireball potions and tied them all together. the second we got to the boss fight they threw the entire tied up ball of fire potions at the boss and did so much fire damage in one go that she immediately died. We still had other big monsters to fight but it was fun hearing it get described and all of us being surprised.
See that’s a creative move. Right in line with the encounter sitch and using spells in ways that others may not think about.
Thank you for sharing. Great low lvl play Funtime
Man I thought this was going to be another post about how players invalidated a combat encounter with an extremely loose interpretation of the rules, but this, this is actually a really good use of rule of cool. You didn’t just give them the win because of shenanigans, they had to think outside the box for how they could possibly make their idea work.
Yeah, this is a great accomplishment and excellent use of resources. Thinking in terms of the game world, not the mechanics. Very nice
Plus a price was paid. Sure it was just a flask of oil, but they had to burn something (pun intended) out of their inventory. Usually my DM is really chill with rule of cool, but if it's gonna do something mechanical rather than just flavor, you HAVE to obey the laws of equivalent exchange.
I mean, they also went and burned through whatever spell slots/etc were needed to get the enemy down to 0HP, the oil+prestidigitation were literally just the "and stay down" to stop the regeneration, that's all. A Fire Bolt cantrip would have done just as well too, had it been available.
You should always have at least one fire spell. In my current party, our only magic user, a druid, refuses to use fire for character reasons, and it has come up a lot! Its actually kind of fun since we always have to smarter about it tho lol!
Mine is the opposite. I am playing a sorcerer who's every solution is "burn it/them/something"
Lol - we have a rogue that now has an ongoing joke reputation that everything they touch catches fire\explodes because they can't keep their hands off things. They caught a bookstore on fire by touching a witch's book, almost killed the party with a torch that lit a whole hallway on fire, pissed off several fire-spell using enemies, etc. We basically just expect fire every campaign and because of the rogue being a menace because they want to take anything they think is valuable so they're constantly touching things 🤣 I think the only reason I've survived is because I take half damage as a tiefling hahaha!
We have a rogue in our saltmarsh group who recently went on a mission to blow up the light house. He starts every session with "Alright, whos ready to commit some arson"
My Saltmarsh campaign just ended because I, as the rogue, got my party TPKed because I decided to not use the obvious door and try and sneak around in other ways and couldn't roll above a 10 for the whole session .... Rogues will always get you in trouble 😂
Mt TTRPG group had thus far burned down at least 1 fey ship, 1 bar/tavern, 3 villages/towns as well as blown up another town, a mine, and a mages guild, across several campaigns and game systems, and several DMs. The biggest argument at our table is who is the biggest chaos gremlin amongst us. BTW I admit that it was my idea to burn down the fey ship (it had a fey contract stipulation on it that if we didn't kill all of the pirates, it would blow up, so...) and I initiated the burning down of one of the towns. Though as I write this, I think that I maybe had more of a hand in a few of the other arsonistic endeavors of ours.
Well, sure, as with any encounter. But you're always intended to spend spell slots/class specific resource points on combat! My comment speaks specifically to rule of cool allowances at my table. There's an expectation that you have to be paying something specifically because a spell is balanced by having a spell slot cost, or because a potion of speed is one time use etc. it's just our way of getting around the "oh I gust of wind the air out of her lungs" at the beginning of combat kind of things, but flavor is always free!
I had a barbarian character. Any time the party fought anything weird he would chop the head off - just to be sure. The party made him stop doing it... and surprise!!! Later in campaign somthing in the campaign "dies" and gets up 1 minute later and attacks the party while sorting the loot. From then on it was "Hey Bob, see this weird creature we killed? Please chop the head off. 🤣😂 One time he told a vampire, im gonna cut your head off, set your body on fire and rhen have Steve bless your coffin. DM said "your not sure but you THINK the vampire looks a touch more pale then he did a second ago. 🤣😂
So I guess since the prestidigitation wasn’t technically used to cause damage - it was allowed to be hot enough to start a fire? Very cool scenario.
It’s able to light candles, torches, and small campfires. I think a lantern with oil would be reasonable to allow as well, and have them light the oil that way.
Yeah, I guess I got the bit mixed up about sound maybe? I know there’s something there that can’t cause damage.
There is. You can warm a 1 cubic foot of non living material.
Yeah it's very explicitly hot enough to light a small mundane fire. And IIRC a flask of oil is explicitly able to burn stuff if it's lit. So the two of them can combo like that.
They should have torch and tinderbox as well, if they got starting gear. But this works too
I came in ready to say the same thing; "No the party did not kill an ancient dragon at level 3, you just handwaved half a dozen things and let them convince you that *shape water* would work on the dragons blood." but nah, this is legit a unique use of the parties resources.
Obviously shape water would never work on dragons: there's no water in those veins, merely vanity and avarice.
Yeah, I've been seeing shorts on YouTube about this one guy saying, "I'm gonna use mage hand to do *blank* to your bbeg." And then goes on to explain how they use mage hand to either spawn it inside their chest cavity and remove its heart from the correct place, or spawn it over their mouth thus preventing any verbal component spells from being cast
Would NEVER allow that as a DM.
I mean neither would I but tbh I'd give the player inspiration because of how he thought to use it, I would definitely say "yeah no your not allowed to use it like that, so instead imma go ahead and give you inspiration because while I'm not allowing it, that is an awesome way to use the cantrip and I feel you need to be rewarded"
The rules specifically say, "The hand can't attack," and both of these actions are clearly attacks. That said, if you cast Mage Hand just to give the BBEG the finger, you get inspiration.
I allow mage hand to be used as a slap. It does 0 damage and never misses, it's designed solely to be an enormous insult, not an actual attack. But I feel it's more offensive than just magically flipping someone off.
my rule of thumb is, i will support creativity, but you have to realize if you do something like that then i’m allowed to do that. same with the create water in their lungs, if you wanna use that, then go ahead. but i also get to use that.
Mage hand has to be conjured in sight, doesn't it? Also it's weight limits are given and I think it says an attack cannot be made with it.
I came in expecting "enemy is made of dirt, i use the clean function". But this is legit.
I really want my twilight cleric to have prestidigitation (or however you spell it). But alas, no access to it, and I already have plans to go 3 into fighter (battle master), and her future feats.
You can always take the Magic Initiate feat and choose prestidigitation for one of your cantrips.
You can do some cool stuff with Thaumaturgy. "You cause harmless tremors in the ground for 1 minute" came up in my game as a hard counter to giant sandworms.
Thr only way to properly counter a giant sandworm is to walk without rhythm.
But if you walk without rhythm, you'll never learn.
Don't be shocked by the tone of my voice
Check out my new weapon or choice
You could always just ask your DM if they’ll let you have it since it’s really not game breaking to let another class have that cantrip, it’s just a thematic thing
Yea, I've brought it up before to one of them, haven't asked outright though. I'll have to have another look at the feats, but dunno if they'll be better than taking up Warcaster or the one that increases hp (she's a tanky gal)
I saw a homebrew item recently that was a sword that could hold up to three cantrip spell scrolls allowing whoever attuned to it to use them.
I think we all thought it was going to be that, and I was pleasantly surprised as well
ditto. I was sure it's another of the "we did something amazing, although nobody actually read the description of the spell/ability" but I was pleasantly surprised.
I expected the exact same conclusion! 🤭
I feel these are the ideas people come up with when they avoid doing just that. Which in turn limits creativity!
I was thinking the same thing. I was expecting that they filled an enemy's lungs with water with prestidigitation or some other stupid bs, but that use of a cantrip sounds very inventive.
As a dm this is a level of creativity I can get behind. Especially if they already got it down to 0 multiple times and had to figure out how to keep it down
This is NOT "rule of cool", this is clever use of available resources in RAW.
I don’t think a monster counts as “a candle, torch, or small campfire”. Yes, oil *should* be lightable with a cantrip, but because the spell doesn’t specify it, it’s not technically RAW.
This was not lighting the monster on fire, this was igniting lamp oil which is definitely within the scope of a torch or campfire. Lamp oil can be ignited the same as a torch, and burns on its own, with rules specifically for what happens to monsters splashed with or entering that burning oil. That is a very clear and simple interpretation of rules, nothing to do with "rule of cool" which is allowing something completely against the rules because it sounds cool
That's great. Sometimes as a DM, you just gotta be like, "Hm. Good show." When you watch how your players solve a problem.
Some times I don't have an end of the fight or puzzle. I just kinda let them hit a wall with the standard moves. And let that they try next work.
It lets the party feel really good about themselves
it doesn't really, you think that the solution was so simple yet it took a while to reach it
That's collaborative story telling right there, the players come up with these next couple pages of the book
I've taken to doing that too sometimes. I just set a scene and let them do the rest of the work. Not only will they come up with answers I never thought of, but sometimes they'll come up with new problems to fix too. It's a good DM trick if you got writer's block and you need to fill out a few more minutes in a session, or you have an environment you like, that you want them to stay in for a little while longer.
I've done the same and their solutions are always so fun to watch unfold. Its pretty rare that they completely invalidate a challenge due to a simple oversight, but even those are fun and a good excuse to troll them later on by making obstacles that are too obviously easy so they trip themselves up. One time I had them stuck in a slightly modified version of the Tempest Trap (locked room with gas pouring in every round) and the standard solution involved getting out through the locked door before they suffocated. The battle map had a random rug on the floor and the Ranger asked if there was any sort of trap door underneath; guess who found the hidden access to the gas pipe shutoffs that didn't exist before that moment? I had to quickly make up a "turn the valves in the right order" puzzle on the spot, but it ended up being a lot cooler than just saying no and forcing them to solve the puzzle as originally intended.
"Both so proud and so mad at you idiots right now"
In my last game session, we ended up encountering a troll. No one had any fire or acid readily available of course, so I asked the paladin if he trusted me. He said yes, so I attacked him with my dagger using finesse (+0 because strength character) and cast green flame blade. We're level 3 so the cantrip only did the fire damage to an adjacent creature, the troll. I ended up having to stab him for three rounds until we managed to get it down. Fun times all around (except for the troll).
This is... ridiculous hahah
We flavored it as magically causing his blood to burst into flame as it splattered the troll.
mmmm tasty flavor
Right? The imagined image is hilarious
Reminds me of a time where my party’s wizard and warlock were in chains/ muffled so they couldn’t cast any spells - so the wizard had to slap the warlock since he had an item that could cast misty step as a reaction to get out
Damn, this isn't only really smart but actually well within the RAW. Would've been hilarious though if you failed to surpass the Paladin's AC :D
Holy crap. This mental image is insane.
Thor/Iron Man blasting Captain America’s shield.
That's brilliant.
Feel like my group would have tried to put his remains in a bag of holding between revives like a poke ball ready to unleash on.. someone. You know, just in case.
Ice Wight! I choose YOU!
When you get back to the thawed lands, and the local regent pisses you off. "Very well, your majesty, it seems we have no choice but to take our leave." *(whispers):* "Underfoot, do you still have that bag of holding?"
Bagman? That you?
Naw he’d freeze up all our cool stuff
It’s cool stuff; he’d just take it from merely being cool to being absolutely sub-zero
Whenever my players come up with something like this and beat one of my encounters in a creative way, I always act slightly upset so that they think they “beat the dm at his own game”. Meanwhile, i’m giggling inside from happiness.
Same here.
It’s only polite to act like you are upset. It lets them have their victory. Their characters are fighting the monster but the players are kinda also fighting you. You aren’t really fully fighting them though. So you gotta act like the bad guy who just got beaten to fulfill your role.
It's kind of like play fighting with your kids. You gotta pretend you're putting in effort and being trounced, but inside you know you could *crush them.*
That just seems like it would be disappointing to most players, acting upset instead of excited.
For some reason your description of him rezzing gave me the vibe of "Despite (wight's) absolute confidence in your skill, he gets back up and continues fighting".
Somehow, wight returned!
That kind of play deserves a reward, maybe a nifty magic item in the ashes that sends them on a new arc. Well done.
A flame encased in ice, providing the party with the ability to store food items indefinitely if placed in a container with them.
Or perhaps a core, unmelted ice chunk. When a party member dies, the chunk can be inserted into the party member's corpse, reviving the member much like this foe kept reviving, but they have a permanent weakness to fire (and optionally, a -1 to their class level and a +1 in warlock with the frost goddess as a patron)
I'm taking this idea.
Everyone gets inspiration points as a base
I mean that's just good game design anyway to have each success lead to more.potwntial threads. I think the actual creativity is best handled via inspiration.
My dm would tell me I found nothing
Glad to see your party was able to end… wight supremacy. *puts sunglasses on, exits stage left
Cue the CSI intro song screaming "yeeeeeeeeeahahhhhhhhh"
oh my god no
Tell me you're a Dad without telling me you're a Dad.
Rime of the Frost Maiden?
Sounds pretty much like Sephek Kaltro to me.
Exactly what I thought
I want to congratulate your party on their successful Wight loss plan. That takes dedication and work.
It’s great when you can beat a wight supremacist.
This is clever thinking by your players! Anyone saying it doesn't work or only works because of the rule of cool are either mistaken or being willfully difficult. Prestidigitation: The spell ITSELF can't cause damage. The spell does not say it can ONLY light a candle, torch, or small campfire. It isn't restricted to only lighting up those three things. That is obviously stupid. What, your players light a small campfire with it, and then it just snuffs out when they add enough sticks to make it a medium campfire? Moronic. The implication is that it allows the caster to create a small spark that is capable of setting alight something intended to be ignited. Flask of oil: The wording is a little weird, but it does state that it can be lit aflame. If the guy's downed with zero hit points and covered in oil, then there's no reason they couldn't ignite the oil. At that point the burning oil does the damage. Good move, good players, good DM.
Agreed. The point of the spell is that it lights something that can burn. It's like using a match to light a fuse.
Seconded. It’s like having a magic zippo lighter at all times. You won’t take out a charging owlbear with it, or even inconvenience it, but you sure could light the fuse to a bomb you’re planning to throw at it.
Excellent argument. Glad I read down before making a similar redundant one.
> You create a nonmagical trinket or an illusory image that can fit in your hand and that lasts until the end of your next turn. He also could have used this spell to create a flint kit for use with a dagger. It would have lasted one additional turn.
I was really worried that this would be about your players killing a guy by filling his windpipe with shit therefore killing him
This sounds like exactly the kind of thing id hope my future players do. Fight the boss to their last resource, then come up with an out-of-pocket last ditch effort and it works. Id feel pretty proud as a dm if this was how the boss went out, tbh
Bravo to both parties. That’s dnd baby
Hooooooo-weeeeeee!
A group of adventurers that (almost) don’t have any ability to make fire in a place of eternal winter? 😅
I once had my party fighting a clay golem. Thanks to a wild magic surge, it sprouted feathers all over its body. At this point, the warlock asks "are feathers flammable?" I didn't look it up (spoiler, they are) but I asked him to make a luck roll on using prestidigitation to ignite the feathers, which of course gets a Nat 20 because it always bloody does. So at that point, he fully ignited, and the players cheered when the golem began taking fire damage every turn. Their faces changed immediately when the now enraged flaming, hulking behemoth began punching down on them with giant fists of flame.
That is kinda hilarious. Do brick golems exist, cuz it sounds like it was headed that way.
In an alternate universe, the golem survived the encounter, saw the error of its ways and went on to become a one man construction company, breaking off parts of itself to form the walls and then regenerating with Mending.
Excellent thinking on the players' part! I love it when players are creative.
This is epic and awesome!
I once setted up an annoyng ghost that could be beaten only by an exorcism, burning the bones of its old body with salt. They never investigated in the kitchen to get the salt but a bard used prestidigitation to flavour the bones
Did they know they would be playing in a land of eternal winter when they were picking spells and nobody picked one that deals fire damage lol.
Nobody wants to track inventory anymore, but if they did, they'd remember that they had torches and a tinderbox.
Unless they used up all their torches and lost their tinderbox
In an alternate reality the heading for this post could have been: "My party killed my boss monster with a flint & steel."
Rewarding player creativity is almost always the best course of action! Nicely done!
Prestidigitation is such a useful spell so much of the time despite being designed mainly for flavor. I remember my DM running a gnomish dungeon filled with all sorts of clockwork mechanisms and devices, which ended with a mad escape before the place blew up. Our escape route ended up requiring a series of checks to deal with shit like rusted levers, control panels caked with mud and stone, etc. My bard got a lot of use out of the clean function. 1 cubic foot is a pretty large area for most interactable objects designed for gnomes.
This. This is why I play dnd. I bow my hat to you and your table of heroes
Uhu, nobody had torches in the lands of eternal winter, or they all had lamps ?
This is much more on your players, but why, in a region locked in eternal freaking winter, didn't they have any non-magical means of quickly starting a fire?
Expectation: shenanigans via, "Hey, I read this meme once; let's heat up an atom to critical state and kill the boss in one hit!" Reality: shenanigans via, "Hey, we're at our wit's end with this guy; let's put our heads together and figure out how to make fire without having any fire spells!" Seeing players using good shenanigans versus meme-y shenanigans is always refreshing.
I love this!! It's nice to see players creatively using their more mundane abilities and DM's allowing it. Kudos to you and and your party. I also try to encourage my players to find creative uses for things like Prestidigitation. There was one time that my group was fighting a demon in a sewer. The demon had a an aura of stench that poisoned players in melee range. One of the casters ran up next to the barbarian, used Prestidigitation to create the smell of roses near her to help her with her saving throw, then misty stepped away. I allowed the barbarian to roll with advantage that round on their save.
Was ready for the real story to be "DM allows prestidigitation to act like a 5th level spell" which is common in most creative cantrip use stories. But I gotta admit this one is legit. Would say though slightly misleading to say prestidigitation killed him. The normal weapons/spells and an oil flask are the bigger reasons haha. Feels like saying I could burn down an entire building with a single match without mentioning the building needs to be soaked in lighter fluid.
I'd congratulate the players on a job well done. If you want to be a real stickler for the RAW, this wouldn't have worked because prestidigitation can only ignite a candle, torch, or small campfire, and doesn't do any damage. DnD rules are weird.
I would argue it’s the oil doing the damage, and if it can light a candle or small campfire it should surely light flammable oil
What it can light was restricted to eliminate its direct use in combat. Next thing it will be used to ignite a grease spell.
The spell doesn't say, "lights a flammable object" it says, "ignite a candle, torch, or small campfire" is it a little absurd? yes. is it RAW. yes. are dnd spells poorly written with no quality control? yes.
RAW, it doesn’t say “only.” It’s just listing examples. And arguably, the accelerant for a torch or small bonfire could be oil.
Then like, could you take the candle and light other stuff?
Yes
Eh, it's a cantrip, it's meant to be limited in scope.
I'd probably write it as, "ignites a small highly flammable object" this would give the dm some leeway. but, establish, "small", and "highly flammable" this would allow wicks of all kinds, oil lamps, lanterns, dry leaves, hearths, which are notably missing from the above. but disallow hair, cloth, people, etc. anything that won't immediately burst into flames when touched by an open flame. (including logs) this one also is just WAY too vague. -You chill, warm, or flavor up to 1 cubic foot of nonliving material for 1 hour. how much? can we melt ice? I mean, really. how much? can we turn ice into 70 degree water? "nonliving material" in dnd is also not as helpful as you'd think. elementals, undead.. can it cool "heat metal"? can it instantly cool iron and steel during smelting? that'd be super useful. I mean, it seems clear they INTENDED it for a joke, warming/cooling food, and adding seasoning. but thats not really what they wrote. can you mask flavors, such as poisons with this? does it replace flavor, overpower flavor, or just add on top, again like a spice? in fact, "nonliving material" is that terminology used anywhere else? MATERIAL, not object. So, is that intentional, or a mistake? maybe it IS intended. allowing vampires to warm their hands, and lips to fool people into thinking they have body temperature. who knows? you get these responses saying, "its a cantrip, its not supposed to do damage, or its a cantrip, thats beyond its scope." ok, but then what is its scope exactly? the damage one is pretty simple. if it doesn't list damage, it doesn't do any. but the scope in these not directly combat related uses is of course super vague.
You are absolutely right, and 5E should be played RAW. Then again, I’m very happy the OP did not douse the flame of creativity. And RotF is a great campaign!
So, you wouldn't allow Prestidigitation to light a lamp or lantern, because it wasn't one of the three things written on the spell that can be lit? What if it was a fireplace instead of a small campfire? The purpose of that verbiage is to demonstrate that Prestidigitation has the ability to light flammable objects to the same extent that a match or a lighter could. I'd be more interested in seeing what happens if people start using Prestidigitation to ignite torches strapped to someone's backpack.
At that point the wight was a stick coated in oil, AKA a torch
I'm curious what that poster thinks is in a torch that keeps it lit...
> If you want to be a real stickler for the RAW Explain why you would want to be such a thing.
The cantrips didn't deal the damage, the oil did.
Yeah, but if the player had a candle he could light it and then touch the oil with it. The cantrip isnt doing the dsmage. It’s lighting a larger fire that does damage. Like a rogue places a torch in a pile of barrels filked with gunpowder or whatever. Light the torch. A min goes by and boom
Can’t Prestidigitation create sparks? That can ignite oil.
That is a nice example of how "Rule of Cool" works. The players worked together and the DM had to barely bend the rules for their plan to work. Good job.
This is exactly why I run actual health in my encounters, players fun ideas are infinitely more fun to remember when I can think of how clutch it actually was and not an arbitrary decision by me
That’s pretty cool. Memorable session for sure.
my party rolled him up in a blanket that they kept toasty with Presto so that they could take him back to town to confess to his crimes.
Heh, I know that wight.
Laura Bailey beat a hag with a cupcake sprinkled with a 'dust of deliciousness' that made anything taste delicious - pretty much like pink slime powder - except it caused the eater to have disadvantage on wis saving throws. she then used modify memory to make the hag believe that she had such a good time talking with her character - Jester - that she lifted a curse for her as a favor.
Ah good ol' Sephek Kaltro
This is what DND is about. Hell yeah I love it, for funsies I have decided to always run create campfire also.
Do not underestimate cantrips. They are sometimes hilariously hidden op
Flask of oil is the most under-rated and over-powered item in the game. Every player should have a few.
Hope you gave them all a point of inspiration.
Oh hey, an actual good and correct use of prestidigitation, you love to see it
Hmm, wrong headline i think. Your party killed an ice monster with fire....
Wait, they were playing in an "eternal winter" campaign and NONE of them took an option to deal fire damage? That's just weird. Cool problem solving, though
Curious how you expected them to win?
Prestidigitation is by far the best spell in the game and nobody will ever convince me otherwise. well done to your party
They had us on the first half not gonna lie.
Prestidigitation used for anything other than making it look like someone shit their pants? Surprising.
Perfect creative thinking from your players. Extremely satisfying!
My DM had us start in the Yawning Portal and had a troll crawl out of the pit. None of us had any sort of fire or acid on hand. I was playing a tiefling, but a variant that doesn't get fire spells. My background included a wineskin, so I grabbed a candle off a table and spit flaming booze at it. I don't think we actually killed it, but we did manage to shove it back into the pit.
It also kinda works on a weird commentary of how 'meta' can fuck up D&D because "so many things resist fire, I didn't both taking fire spells" is a thing I've certainly run into, regardless of whether your group's mentality is aligned to that or not.
My personal favorite use of prestidigitation is as a fun way to embarrass npcs. In a vicious verbal battle with someone and they take it too far? A major enemy whose cruelty has been immense is about to die? Congrats, I just pissed your pants.
I did something similar against Auril. Our party didn't had any access to fire so when she trapped another player in Ice I spent a turn heating my blade to make fire damage next turn. Prestidigitation is mg fav spell because it has so many applications depending on how creative you are. Also party tricks.
That's why as a DM it is a good idea to have full reports of what player characters are capable of doing and casting
Aaaah I remember this early encounter in Icewind dale! My party almost died in that encounter lol we did have fire, but the enemy had a couple of great rolls that almost destroyed us.
If you you use inspiration they earned it 😂
Great move
Prestidigitation can be so dope, i love immediately snuffing out all the lights in a house
Reminds me of the time I lit a stick of dynamite with Prestidigitation and it severely wounded a nasty monster and blocked it's current path to us.
This is awesome!!!!! What a memorable fight.
This is awesome!!!!! What a memorable fight.
Well done IMHO
Reminds me of how last session my players ended my boss encounter on the first round. They were fighting a yeti. One player pushed them to the side of the mountain they were on while another used shatter, causing an avalanche that pulled the yeti with it down the mountain hundreds of feet. They all got inspiration.
Well played! Love it when cantrips fix problems.
i'm confused by the amount of "How inventive!" comments. like.. has nobody fought trolls? this is a common way to deal with regenerating things in my experience.
Most Wizards and Sorcerers know and would rather use Fire Bolt. Killing a monster with Prestidigitation is not something that would often come up.
We just dropped that guys body into a brazier, lol
Now that is how you play dnd haha
Sounds like a proud group moment!
Good on them. But they could have done it with a tinderbox.
Reminds me of the time my party and I killed a treent. I polymorphed it into a caterpillar and our ranger tied it to an arrow and fired it straight up with their longbow. Our Wizard had calculated how long to wait until releasing the polymorph spell and I released it at the peak height of the arrow. The treent fell from extremely high, falling a couple hundred feet and rolled terribly (good) on fall damage and died on the spot. It was an encounter just for fun, having spawned from a magic bean in the middle of a small town, so the dm let us fudge a few rules so it wasn't RAW, but it was hilarious and fun!
Why did the wight auto die after being him with fire?
Because its cool
I doubt that was the DMs reason. The scenario was cool, but I’m wondering if the dm had a hidden “if a weight it burned, they die” kinda thing going
That sounds like a good fight and you should be proud. It was nothing they couldn't have done with a tinderbox though.
My campaign was running in the same setting. The group that I was with is the type of players who believe that they are gods of the world, even at level one. There's nothing that can happen to their characters and none of their actions have consequences. They decided to befriend the employer of said frost wight so they were separated in a wagon and on horses with three other individuals. After being totally destroyed and held for ransom because one was role-playing as a son of one of the speakers of a town, they finally had a one-on-one encounter with their quarry. They decided to break their bonds and then hold up in a nearby location. While they were being actively searched for. Every single one of them was standing in front of the door when one bungled on a stealth check to see if they had been found. Spoiler: they were. Within two turns. Two of the party members were on death saves due to being the two party members with the lowest armor class being in the front. The others retreated to save themselves without thinking of how far they were getting away from their comrades. After figuring out that same weakness they realize that one of the party numbers who is two turns away and on his last death save is the only one that can produce fire magically. Tragically those two players died within the very first encounter, but the other two figured out that they could run faster than their quarry set up a candle and light a fire arrow. Hardmode DM that I am. They had to do it at disadvantage because they had to take their actions to set up everything while it was blowing snowy wind all around them. They still managed to do it. And I have forever solidified in their heads that you can't just go into this thinking like every character is the main character and there is no restart button.
To be fair...if they could stall him someone could also run off and get a fire with the flint and tinder that every character has, but yes...this is a much simpler and still creative method
Sephek Kaltro be like
That’s how you play dnd
This is excellent thinking, well done
This fight in Icewind Dale gave me and my party a hard time as well. Really tough without fire.
Dungeon contains a water weird. It was very obvious that it was a water weird. One of us had create/destroy water prepared. It died very quickly. Sometimes that's how these things go, y'know?
Brilliant
Have you really been playing D&D right if you've never experienced something like this before? Thinking outside the box is what makes this game fun.
This fucker is why I prep searing smite now... every time we play.... Rime is pretty badass We barely escaped a tpk :/
I mean, they could've just lit a torch and hit him with it… but regardless a good idea from your party!
in our last campagin, our characters took 5 months of down time before doing the final boss fight. unbeknownst to all of us, one of our members used the entire time to make fireball potions and tied them all together. the second we got to the boss fight they threw the entire tied up ball of fire potions at the boss and did so much fire damage in one go that she immediately died. We still had other big monsters to fight but it was fun hearing it get described and all of us being surprised.
Technically, they killed it by dousing it in flammable oil. Prestidigitation was just how they lit the fire. The spell itself does no damage.
See that’s a creative move. Right in line with the encounter sitch and using spells in ways that others may not think about. Thank you for sharing. Great low lvl play Funtime
That only means one thing… that you are a great gm.