Because I will wonder this again later: Prestidigitation

[beccaelizabeth]

While googling something else entirely I found someone on a forum confidently declare that Prestidigitation can only clean Objects, not Creatures.

This is wrong, though obviously I'm not going on an ancient forum post to tell them so, so you all get the benefit:

https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Prestidigitation
" It can color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round. "

Keyword here is 'item'. If 'item' is definied somewhere on AoN I can't find it because the word gets used so often.

But a number of magic items use Prestidigitation, including:
https://aonprd.com/MagicRingsDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Knight-Inheritor%27s%20Ring
" At will, the wearer can make himself presentable as if using prestidigitation to clean up his clothing, skin, hair, and armor. "

So cleaning clothing, skin, hair, and armor, are uses of Prestidigitation. Says so in the item description.

So I could drop it there, but, the forum argument was specifically about getting unstinky, because stinkiness has a rules interaction via Scent ability, so their GM was insisting they couldnt get clean enough to matter vs Scent.

And that is a defensible interpretation of the basic uses of Prestidigitation
because
there is a specific Magic Trick for that.

https://aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Magic%20Trick
"Adjust Scent (Survival 6 ranks): You can adjust the smell of an object or willing creature to become more or less powerful"

So once Chronicle of Legends applies several things I had thought were uses of basic Prestidigitation are in fact specific uses of Magic Trick (Prestidigitation) and some associated skills.

It doesnt quite clarify the object/creature/item debate re cleaning but states in the context of the Magic Trick
it works on willing creatures.

I imagine this is a good solve for Several arguments. Willing creatures can get Clean.

However I am unsure if it's a great answer to the Clean The Stink problem, since it is arguably talking about your natural Scent, and adjusting the unnatural one via Cleaning is also a defensible interpretation.

In the Wrath of the Righteous video game there is no Prestidigitation. But the Prestidigipainter Golem can change the look of things in quite complex ways. So it would according to these rules need
Magic Trick (Prestidigitation)
"Chromatic Savant (Disguise 3 ranks or gnome): When you change the color of an item, the changes are permanent. You can also change the color of part or all of a living being, but the effect gradually fades away in about a month. You must succeed at an appropriate Craft check to create complex or specific designs."

Which again is doing the thing to a living being, but again needs a Magic Trick.
This time it does *not* specifically say they have to be willing, which leaves some odd possibilities in the unwilling temporary tattoo department.

There is another specific spell that turns people's hands red, and "prestidigitation lacks the power to duplicate any other spell effects"
However "Red Hand of the Killer" does a very fancy scrying and manifests guilt as well as leaving a visible marker, so it is possible Prestidigitation can make red hands too.
Which could have worse than mischief for fallout.

That bit where it cannot duplicate other spells means it cannot Erase writing. "Erase removes writings of either magical or mundane nature from a scroll or from one or two pages of paper, parchment, or similar surfaces. " Adjudicating what counts as writing is a seperate issue. But it raises the possibility that a dirty or stained text could simply be cleaned with Prestidigitation without damaging the information on it. Maybe even if someone had painted or inked over it on purpose. That would be neat.


Fastidiousness is a continuous cleaning spell and specifically says it doesnt protect against most attacks, so it's fair to argue Prestidigitation isnt much help in a Get It Off Me situation. But Fastidiousness is good for your Fort saves against some diseases.
https://www.aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Fastidiousness

GURPS has more cleaning spells with specific effects. If you want to clean moulds out of your path there should be a spell for that. Clean, Soilproof, Cure Disease, Cleansing, Remove Contagion, all the way up to artillery cleaning, Disinfect, from the GURPS artillery spells supplement. " It aggressively cleanses the area in a way that’s no safer for living beings than being autoclaved, bleached, fumigated, and irradiated. " And it's still technically a Healing spell. So that's nice.


ANYway, this is an argument no one else was having today, so I'll go away.

Comments

[radiantfracture]

Very much like the idea of cleanliness (or its opposite) as a defense (or counter-attack). V. entertaining.

[beccaelizabeth]

:-)