Yeah, Prestidigitation is an easy winner. One particular aspect that I love is creating a small illusion in the palm of your hand. As someone who has no ability to draw/paint, the ability to create an image directly from my head, with no skill to put it on paper, this is wonderful. (IG I love the idea of using this to show other people the image of say..someone you caught a glimpse of, so they know what the person looks like now as well...a rotating head and shoulders image floating over your open hand, just is such a nice visual to me). Same can be used IRL, but sorry, Monty, nope. Objects or smells only for Minor Illusion, that's why imho Pretidigi is much better, you can create any sort of image hovreing over your hand. Granted, it's only got a 6 second duration, but it's actually got a much wider range. Mending, Guidance and probably Spare the Dying (in that order after Prestidigi), which for someone untrained in treatement is just as useful, when it is useful would be a great set of four. But, between that and Mending, you could do an awful lot in terms of a no cost, no training needed repairer and medic. Good catch on cleaning wounds w Pres as well though. (1st Level - Comprehend Languages, Unseen Servant or a weak option, but for certain people very nice, Feather Fall. I just worry about things that are too overtly magical, Prestidigi hovering over hand images 'could' be explained away as holograms at this point, but Silent Image, that's a much tougher one to explain away except as part of a stage magic act)
My Magic Initiate loadout would be: - Prestidigitation - Mending - Comprehend Languages I would become an amazing archeologist/historian! There are many undeciphered ancient scripts in the world (Wikipedia lists more than fifty!) and many other scripts that we have possibly deciphered correctly but we can't be sure. Choose any artifact with writing on it. Prestidigitation to clean it perfectly without causing damage. Mending to repair it perfectly without causing damage. (multiple castings) Comprehend languages to translate it.
Another benefit to mending no more having to buy new cars just keep mending the critical parts over and over till a big enough wreck destroys the car itself. Or if you're the only one with the power to do it. Become the worlds richest car flipper.
Comprehend Languages is a 1st level spell, not a cantrip, but that would be a useful set to pick. The main reason I would want Comprehend Languages is so I could watch anime and not have to read the subtitles. 😅
There isn't too many options, Speak with Animals? I don't even have an animal and I'd be tempted. Healing Word or Cure Wounds, if you can just pick willy nilly, because it's always Prestidigitation and Mending. But that's only one heal a day and nobody would be happy with you just healing one person a day. And you'd be at the hospital just waiting for an emergency patient, I don't have that in me.
Doctor here. Spare the dying would be useful in emergency situations. So like it's actually quite difficult and delicate work to "stabilise" someone. The knowledge required to manage a first aid situation isn't too heavy but once someone is in an ED it gets very complicated. Also the nature of these emergencies usually means the situation is chaotic and there's a constant need for quick thinking and adaptability which is *really* difficult while someone is dying in front of you. There's also less obvious things; a team of people with diverse skills that can be difficult to manage is needed, the situations this takes place in are usually complex and stressful and mistakes are easily made. There's also no guarantee that effective treatment exists for the thing this patient has. So to have one person to be able to just decide the patient is stable and have it be so would be amazing. The other side is the cost, actually stabilising someone in hospital might need the involvement of dozens of different professionals, most of whom have advanced degrees and high earning potentials in private land and who demand a premium to do a stressful and unpleasant job where night shifts are a regular occurrence and where they regularly watch people die. Also the cost of the stuff and equipment and drugs and cost of the people required to make sure all the stuff and drugs and people are there, effective and accessible at all times. Compare that to one guy, who needed four years to learn one cantrip and can now just decide that a patient is stable. Sounds *amazing*
It's definitely good, but the issue is that it's insanely restrictive in both it's range and the fact that it requires the target to be at 0 hit points, and at that point you are likely seconds away from death, so you'd have to act insanely fast. If it was more lenient in the HP range it targeted and had a longer range, it would absolutely be amazing.
@@sharmakefarah2064sorry dude but I’m gunna trust the doctors opinion on this one as like he said it will probably save millions of people and millions in cash for the government the only down side is quite a lot of people might be out of a job
Does that work? Control Flames can only target a fire which can fit inside a 5-foot cube. Most fires that a fire truck would be called out for are bigger than that. Not saying it'd be a useless spell in real life, since it's basically a fire extinguisher for a small household fire, but that kind of firefighting probably needs more than cantrips to be effective.
@@Sp4rt4nSl4ya I guess what I mean is that there might not be a valid target. The valid targets are pretty specific: "You choose nonmagical flame that you can see within range and that fits within a 5-foot cube." If there's a 10-ft diameter fire, my inclination is that Control Flames doesn't do anything, because a 10-ft fire doesn't fit in a 5-ft cube. My interpretation of RAW is that it wouldn't work, there probably isn't a valid target. Adding more casters wouldn't help, not with 8, not with 88 people casting the Control Flames. In terms of mechanics, I don't think that's inappropriate. This is a cantrip.
@@thebitterfig9903 my interpretation of that is if there's a 10ft square of fire and one person casts to reduce in that area they could take out a quarter of it, and if four people did it they could take out the whole thing. I don't think the fire being bigger than 5 square ft means the cantrip can't effect it at all, I think it just can only effect its max area. Your interpretation may be a bit too literal.
I played a warlock who used minor illusion to mimic voices (a very often overlooked portion of the spell) and mask of many faces to be the ultimate at deep fakes at level 1 (free feat to get the invocation). Then at level 2 I took misty visions to become more than just a grifter, but a pop up theatre company. The 15 foot cube is plenty of stage for a single actor and can be popped up in a few seconds, changed in a few seconds, and costs nothing. It was great.
my level 1 spell would most definitely be goodberry. You have any idea how often I wander around my kitchen feeling mildly hungry but unable to decide what to eat? Boom. Goodberry
Getting up and walking 30 feet to grab something might not be a big deal to _you,_ but as someone with muscular dystrophy who uses a wheelchair, Mage Hand would be _life changing_ for me. I've got a dozen or more long handled tools around my house that I use for everything from getting dressed, going to the bathroom, getting stuff out of cabinets/drawers, and Mage Hand could replace _all_ of them. It could also do a whole bunch of things I currently need another person to help me with. Example: repositioning my wheelchair footrests Prestidigitation would be a close second, simply because it would save me the ordeal of getting in and out of the shower/bath.
@@nickhayley Grabber claws are great, I own several already. But I could name a hundred everyday tasks that a Mage Hand could do that a grabber can't, lol.
I feel obligated to mention that mage hand doesn’t have hitpoints. This means that it can touch some pretty dangerous stuff. An application I can think of is cooking where you could now grab pans straight out the oven or use it to add or removing food while deep frying. There’s probably other better uses but that’s the first that comes to mind
the cooking idea isn't bad but it does need to face the 10-5lbs limit based on edition your sourcing from, but that would just require you to learn the limits of how that can be an aid.
Mage Hand for special needs would be another story. getting something high up when in a wheel chair, or down low when you have to fight to get back up, would probably aid someone in their daily life so well, as well as a third hand for crafts or blue collar work. As you said, the hands have no hp, so what's stopping them from manipulating a hot wire?
Would make you incredibly useful in dangerous industrial applications. Need me to just grab something out of the arc furnace? No problem. Need me to trip that damaged 480 kV switch? Sure.
I was thinking of the nuclear and even chemical and biological hazard industries. You can work that safety cabinet without the bulky suit or lead coated gloves. Imagine those skilled experts being able to work with flawless dexterity and zero risk. Trying to cure the new superanthrax pandemic? No problem! Its in a completely sealed environment, no chance of getting sick. Now I think about it, imagine a surgeon who has no physical contact with the patient! The risk of infection would be lower as you can opperate on the other side of a glass shield.
I saw the title, and wondered how you could possibly make a case for not taking prestidigitation. Glad to see i am not the only one confused by this question. Fast cleaning, fire, taste, tiny super fast 3d printer... It is everything we want our homes to be able to do for us in the next 50 years. I could see a short person picking mage hand, because I do have some family members that hate going shopping due to the height of the shelves. But, grocery delivery solves that and you could save enough money to justify that with prestidigitation. Second choice I will grant is a much harder decision. Meding and guidance are very strong.
1. Mending(never have to worry about paying repair fees and can also make a business out of it) 2. Guidance(I like the idea better results out of almost everything I do without putting in to much more effort then I already do) 3. Prestidigitation(for me hygiene is really the only practical use for me but I’d much rather go through the effort of cleaning and cooking then miss out on guidance and mending)
Mage Hand would be great as a blue collar worker. You could touch something electrical without worrying about getting shocked or electrocuted. Or you can grab a tool that's not next to you. Or get to something just out of reach in a tight space.
Mage hand is phenomenal for a criminal. The spells description does not require line of sight, so you could just waltz up to a locked door, cast Mage Hand inside and turn the lock to unlock it, and waltz right in like its the most casual thing in the world. Pickpocket people while having both hands where they can see them, as the spectral hand goes to work behind them. Mages hand is a Rogue’s best friend, and unlike most classes, Rogues essentially do exist, and can be a viable (if illicit) career path for them. Am i saying that i would immediately turn to a life of crime if given the smallest shred of magical power? Legally i think i have to say no.
Being able to 100% stabilize a patient every 6 seconds would greatly reduce the mortality in a busy trauma hospital. It would also make numerous highly trained medical professionals from codes available for working on what to do to actually get the patient to recover. We can already clean things. The only benefit to Prestidigitation would be if it could clean a burn victim's wounds with less pain than current techniques.
Also combat medics and other civilian first responders. So many lives could be saved. Though with the combat medic that darkly could cause more loss of life in the long run. As those soldiers they saved could be well enough to send back to the front line and do more fighting.
@@MandalorV7 Just because someone is in no danger of dying doesn't mean they will be ready for combat after a long rest, especially if dealing with things like lost limbs, damaged organs, or significant burn wounds.
Guidance would be more useful in the ER, patients that come in already dying are rare. Usually they come still alive, and it's better to find out whats the issue right away and act, than to wait to stabilize.
Number 1 pick is mending. I am a technician. Sometimes, things break and need replacement. Having new parts flown in overnight is expensive and slows down our work. Number 2 pick is prestidigitation. It is called "minor wish" for a reason. Number 3 is control flames. Mostly for the show I could put on around the campfire.
Most maintenance is 'remove dust and debris', and most repairs are 'this thing tore'. I'm pretty sure there exist industrial and/or artistic ways to benefit from refined flame control. Ooh! Grilling!
I call Prestidigitation _least_ Wish, to avoid confusion with Limited Wish and imply a progression like with Restoration where there are lesser/greater versions out there… but the point stands.
It may not be considered real in modern days, but a historically-accurate ninja? No way they’re taking any Class but Druid. “But what about Rogue?” I hear you ask. Well, it’s too obvious. Of _course_ the guy with a penchant for sneaking around would be the ninja, can’t be anyone else! Certainly not the guy who turns into animals and can cast spells and the like, no, why would people who were basically the feudal Japanese equivalent to James Bond want abilities like _that?_ …If you know anything about real ninja, you know that they would _love_ to have abilities like that.
@@Merilirem You're overestimating the NEED for healing spells in real life. Yeah, lesser and greater restoration are awesome. But how many people would reach level 3 at all? Or level 9 for greater. Revivify is also not a strict improvement over what modern medicine can already do. Yes, there are situations where modern medicine isn't as good as Revivify, but there are also situations where Revivify isn't as good as modern medicine. Especially when we factor in the cost of diamonds, which would only skyrocket if this magic actually existed.
So I loaded into this saying prestidigitation over and over, but then you talked about guidance. And I'm thinking to myself... be supernaturally good at everything. The more I think about guidance, the more sure I am that it's the best option. Remember in real life, we practice things to become better at them, and perfect practice makes perfect. So you don't just get this one time advantage. Doing it right this time contributes to you doing it right next time, when you can also use guidance to further improve your results beyond what you could achieve without it. There's never a skill wall you have to break through, because guidance just puts you on the other side of it. You never wonder "how do I improve" because you just use guidance and go, oh right! it will be better if I do that! It will apply to every single thing you might want to do. Cleaning? you're better at it. Fashion? you're better at it. Writing? you're better at it. Performing? you're better at it. Sex? you're better at it. Engineering? you're better at it. Even rarer and stranger skills. Whittling? you're better at it. Skipping rocks? better at it. Trick shots for youtube? better at it. The list goes on. Guidance. I choose guidance.
As a dad and someone who works in manufacturing, prestidigitation is number 1 then mending is a very close 2nd. Minor illusion would then be 3rd, being able to tell amazing bedtime stories and include visuals to my kids would be amazing.
Mending seems useful, but so many broken things are broken because they are missing something. I also don’t find that things break very often, and if you can only pick one cantrip it would be best to pick the most used one. Prestidigitation is the obvious first pick, but if I had a second choice it would be mage hand. I’m an artist, and having a third hand would be super helpful with everything. I think people are underestimating the handiness of having a third hand. My bard dnd character also uses mage hand in the bedroom lol.
Prestidigitation, Mending, Spare the Dying. I'm practically prepared for nearly every situation that I come across every day, including my job. So much tedium just REMOVED from my life.
Had the same list during the video. I would say guidance is also great. I would take your list and try to swap one for guidance, but it is kinda hard (either mending or prestidigitation).
@sebastiansirvas1530 unless you're around injured/dying people often, probably replace Spare the Dying. It's the least useful for the most people in the everyday.
So, I'm late to the party but I want to point out a couple things. But first- more of these videos from time to time. They are a lot of fun! Anyways! Prestidigitation creating small marks, or symbols could be done on paper- we generally call that drawing- and while it only lasts for 1 hour, we have cameras and scanners. If you don't agree with that use, creating an illusory image that can fit in your hand, and take a picture of it works great for a quick sketch to base something off of. Minor illusion is superior here as while people wont be fooled into thinking a minor illusion is a real creature (because its a still object) it can have all the required appearance like texture and color. If you could 3D scan that with your phone- well 3D modelling finally got a lot easier as well as texturing. You could also create the illusion of an illustration you want made, snap a picture of it- man the new Monster compendium you are working on is really moving now... Mending is great but still takes a minute to cast for each use. Sure, it's still worth it BUT- it has one glaring issue. Someone hands you a cellphone in pieces, and yes- all the pieces are there... It's still 1 minute of casting PER BREAK OR TEAR. O_O Shattered to pieces? Sorry- that's going to be hours of work- as written. I think it should be more like - healing the damage delt to the object or restoring its condition, but as written, kinda sucks for a lot of our use cases. Finally - Spare the Dying... I don't know how many people realize what this means exactly. So, to stabilize someone in D&D prevents them from dying, so long as they take no further damage, which again can be stopped by a spare the dying cantrip applied again. The creature that is stabilized will, wake up, gaining 1HP, after 1-4 hours. So, you stabilize, you make sure they are protected from harm for 1-4 hours, and you save a life, almost regardless of what happened to them. This only doesn't work against things that would prevent natural healing, death from massive damage, or some kind of ongoing damaging effect. If we are combining real word and D&D rules- Spare the Dying seems to halt any death from most diseases, until that disease can cause damage again, only to be stopped by another casting of the spell. Meanwhile, doctors can work without fear of the patient dying, allowing them the precious resource of time in figuring out how to save the patient. Till they can get that variant human in the room with magic initiate with cure wounds/healing word. And or the person who can cast Detect Poison and Disease and basically in 6 seconds can tell you exactly what disease someone has and if they are poisoned, and if so by what.
I will say that if mending worked exactly like you say it does, it would almost have no use in the game either. Cut rope? Well a rope consists of multiple strands of hemp and each of those were cut. My guess is that the minute represents the amount of time it takes to heal all parts of the damage you're fixing. A broken screen? The minute consists of you fixing each scratch and crack. One of the examples in the spell is cloth which we know are woven together from smaller pieces. I suppose the question is where you draw the line of what a single tear *or break* is.
@@dtfe3 yeah I agree. I think it considers it for either instance of damage and complexity. For example a wooden box has a gash and a lid cut in half. The lid and gash would be separate instances. Parts could also be considered. Hinges, wood, a plack or plate. For a cellphone the screen or at least the glass of it would be its own part. Then maybe some parts of the motherboard would be separate parts. The issue is how complex it is. Fixing a box is easy. Fixing a music box is a very different thing.
"That slightly incompetent co-worker..' is the best reason for vicious mockery. That being said, my personal top picks are, Thaumaturgy, Mending, and Prestidigitation.
Mage hand was undersold in the video. How many times have you wished you had a third hand because the first two were full? And the mage hand could touch dangerous stuff, like a wire that may still be live.
@godsamongmen8003 there are a ton of uses for it. Imagine someone who is say, really short, or in a wheelchair who can't reach something in a higher cabinet or on a shelf. Or if they can't afford an electric wheelchair, they can use mage hand to push themselves around. The disabled community would be able to make incredible use of that cantrip to vastly improve their quality of life.
I'm choosing Mold Earth, Druid Craft, and Mending. I love gardening, and the ability to instantly dig holes is essential to the planting season. So Mold Earth is awesome for me. I can till the soil and create a perfect grid of seed holes in 18 seconds. I can the be a human back hoe/ bull dozer. I can add swales to hillsides to catch water and end droughts through water infiltration. I'll go take Andrew Millison's course on permaculture earthen works principles to master the principles of terraforming. Then I'll take a few months to go camping throughout the Colorado River Basin and fix the water retention issues of the landscape, saving California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado from rampant droughts in a single year. Druid Craft allows plants to accelerate through their life cycles in a controlled fashion. Foremost in my mind is the ability to propagate plants instantly by forcing a cutting to grow roots and sprout leaves in 12 seconds. This is a process that takes months and fails half of the time. Now you can clone a plant 100 times in an hour. Sold at $10 each, that's $1000 of rare and exotic plants perfectly propagated and ready to sell. With enough genetic diversity, I could plant entire forests and end deforestation and global warming (through carbon sequestration into plants) at the same time. I could force a plant to put out flowers and produce food. Mending is just awesome.
i was going to comment this same thing about getting JUST ONE being Mold Earth for regenerative agriculture. I would be doing so much hiking with.... rebelliously benevolent illegal swale/pond/water landscaping system creation. While bringing various native seeds along for the swales and keep going as I walk.
@@velocitymg His example of the colorado river basin of the desert southwest was historically a seasonal grassland that was destroyed in the 1800s onwards and turned into a desert. It was not the desert you're used to seeing. This would be restoration in the example given.
As a regular civilian, its going to be prestidigitation. Whenever surfaces get dirty or greasy just waving your hand and it getting clean is super nice.
@@Dukedogdog My character became a werebear, and I wanted to give the other players an example of how jacked he became, so I compared Arnold's top lift weight with how the PHB calculates Strength, and it was the same.
Also, spare the dying is not useful at all for saving patients. We can stabilize pretty well already, we need to know whats the issue to help them, otherwise they get stabilized and stay in a coma forever
@@TheLublume The idea of a coma counting as stabilized is concerning. I didn't think of that. Though I still think being able to force people into a stable condition is worth it.
Their math is way off, forgetting the d20, but guidance is still pretty powerful just for its broad scope of uses in any profession, craft or social situation. (The increase would only be 9-38% for a skill you have no bonus in).
Average D4 role is 2.5. I think you’ve got that. The value isn’t 25% though. It’s roughly 25% better (23.8) of an average D20. But that’s virtually meaningless when you consider DCs which is how success is measured. Unless the average DC is 13 or less, it’s a fail either way. And if the average DC is 10 you would typically pass and not be 25% (23.8%) more likely to succeed. What it is though is a 12.5% increase (still great). It’s early and I’m still waking up, pardon me if I’m way off base. But, there is a target number you need to hit. There is a 5% chance of each number showing up on D20. So, if your target is 7 or 17 or whatever … the D4 effectively lowers that by 2.5 meaning you’re 12.5% more likely to hit your target. That falls apart if target DCs are impossible but that’s incredibly uncommon. Anything that boosts your roll or decreases a DC is worth 5% per point. All you’re doing is adjusting your target D20 number and each number is worth that 5%. Yeah? 1D8 bardic inspiration plus 1D4 guidance are (4.5 + 2.5) * 5 == 35% more likely to hit a target DC. You don’t add 4.5 and 2.5 then compare to an average D20 roll and decide that this is a 66.66% increased chance of success. It IS going to average 66.66% higher. But, success, your metric, isn’t based on you hitting that average roll. Success is a target number and these modifiers make you 35% more likely on that D20 to reach your target number.
Also working around buried utilities. I don't play D&D so I don't know what the rules are for how much it can move, but isn't it like a 5 foot cubr every 6 seconds? That's a lot of dirt!
Prestidigitation would be my first pick as well. Mending and Guidance is fighting each other for second place. For magic initiates free 1st lvl spell, Find familiar would be a great spell. Imagine all the shenanigans you could do, not to mention the fact that you could get a overhead view of any situation as well as look at yourself without a mirror. It probably wouldn't die ever, as you could just keep it out of danger, and since it's a magical creature it probably lives a long time. Tenser's floating disk, or comprehend languages would be very nice as well. A healing spell would maybe be the best option though, as magical healing would be invaluable. Of the 1st lvl options, goodberry would probably be the best option, as 10 hp guaranteed with the additional effect that you can sustain 10 people with it. When a person has only a few hit points, it would be overpowered. (False life would be very nice as well, although it only lasts an hour, while goodberry lasts 24, and also it is purely selfish)
Prestidigitation is the most realistic pick because cleaning is just a pain, even more so if you’re ND. 😂 like I don’t have to clean my dishes, do laundry, dust and vacume anymore. Plus you can make tiny items with it so if you need a random item you can just make it.
@@RichWoods23 Note that the trinkets you can make only last until the end of your next turn, so 6 seconds. That massively restricts what you can do with it. Vending machine coins is clever, though technically stealing. The only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is make stuff to throw at people.
1st Choice: Prestidigitation Everything described in the video applies, the cleaning function is so incredibly useful, on so many levels, it's impossible to pass up. Additionally, one can get very creative in many ways with the harmless sensory effect, and the "nonmagical trinket or illusory image that can fit in your hand" allows me to replicate what you described with using Minor Illusion to create models of creatures and such! 2nd Choice: Spare the Dying I graduated from high school recently, and I plan on becoming a firefighter, so having the ability to take a few seconds stabilize any living person with any level of wounds, to make sure they don't die? That's absolutely amazing! Spare the Dying would be a perfect cantrip for a first responder. 3rd Choice: Mending For money and for convenience, this is a deeply useful cantrip. I agree with the judgement that most broken electronics could be fixed using this spell, as in the VAST majority of cases all of the materials are present and the damage is smaller than 1 foot in any dimension. Fix phones, fix ripped clothes, fix holes in walls or floors, fix cars, fix damaged shoes, fix glasses, restore old scratched up disks and antique machines, fix windows (one square foot at a time)!
Now, if we're talking about Variant Human with the Magic Initiate feat? I'm taking Wizard, because I think of myself as more intelligent than I am charismatic (though not by much ;3). For the spells, I would go with Prestidigitation, Shocking Grasp, and Find Familiar. The note under Find Familiar about sharing senses and Touch spells had me thinking, I could use that power to functionally become the best spy in the world.
For that final note, I’d take Prestidigitation, Resistance, and Goodberry. Assuming that most people only have 10hp, eating all ten of my generated goodberries would bring someone back from the edge of death; or I could just never ‘have’ to buy food again, while making the berries taste like whatever I want.
"What Feat Would You Take In Real Life?" would be awesome to see! i could see ritual caster, alert, observant, and even shadow touched coming in useful!
Legitimately would consider taking Magic Initiate for once. Having prestidigitation, mending, and unseen servant would be such a quality of life game-changer for almost anyone.
@@Sawtooth44 I mean magic not being real kills most things. So you have to assume that it works as written. Which means you could gain all rituals should you be able to find the actual spells written down for those classes. Which also means druid and cleric rituals might actually work. I mean ones from real life druids and clerics. Find some holy books and see if it works. Expensive though.
Cleric magic initiate with spare the dying, guidance and cure wounds would turn you into the ultimate doctor! Stabilising a dying person is actually very difficult to do, and you can just snap your finger and their life is saved! Plus fully healing one person a day, and use guidance to make sure every surgery around you always succeeds!
Mage hand is my go-to lol! I’m constantly in situations where I just need a third hand to hold something, or move something. Cleaning dishes, or super flavoring food are very appealing…but just being able to multitask at 120% is just appealing!
Mending for sure. It's not just about fixing the small things in everyday life. I can also use it to fix problems in the household. Prestidigitation is a close second for all the obvious reasons. Third would probably be Mage Hand for the sheer flexibility.
Mage hand holds 10 pounds, not 5. Also, everyone has been working on something where they just need someone else to hold it, or a third hand to reach something, move something, etc. Super useful.
Also useful to, say, hold something that might burn you, be too cold, or covered in thorns or something. Could fit into spaces you otherwise can't reach, unlock doors from the inside, etc. It's definitely very useful.
While I'd also pick Presti as my 1st choice, Mage Hand would come in handy for a lot of things and might come third after Mending (if I could have three). I just started volunteering at a Parrot Sanctuary, and being able to interact with the birds without fear of getting nabbed would be huge. I could also use it to clean the gutters on my house, fetch a tool when I'm working out in the yard and dropped it a little way back (would be really nice when it's boiling hot), hold band-aids still so I can position them better, brush off skeeters when I'm out walking, take certain pictures with my cellphone on trips without having to deal with my fear of heights (it would be like owning a short-range drone). So many possibilities.
22:46 personally the reason why I argue that spare dying is more useful in a medical setting is because things go wrong quite often when it comes to blood loss and moisture loss that just can’t be fixed because once it goes so far, there’s no going back. For instance a burn unit. This would be soooo useful in a burn unit because once a burn goes so far there’s no going back at a can’t be fixed, but if you have a spare dying you can fix it.
This is what baffled me. They seem to think modern medicine is magic. Its not. People can die from complications or unknown reasons all the time. Modern medicine can't stop someone from dying. It can only try to fix what is killing them in time. Spare the dying just stops death. It stabilizes them which is a huge difference to someone dying. They could be bleeding out on the ground and spare the dying could just deny death until you stopped casting it. Healing and necromancy are the kinds of magic that go beyond what humanity can currently do. Its not at all comparable to convenience. Unless prestidigitation can actually clean radiation or toxins or microplastics from the earth, its not worth nearly as much.
I actually would take Eldritch Blast 😅 but not as my number one. I'm a cop so using EB to disarm someone or use it to get through a barricaded door when necessary would be really useful. Maybe forcing car doors open when people get in an accident and are trapped inside. Things like that
Probably my favorite video of yours in awhile, it’s fun to just listen to you guys theorize about real life stuff with the dnd context. Would 110% want to listen to the variant human load out video
I didn't even start the video and immediately shouted "Prestidigitation!" And then I watched the entire video :-). I concur with your assessments and would also choose mending as my second. Some objects are just irreplaceable and would be wonderful to fix. Imagine going into a museum and fixing all the displays.
Maybe I'll sound like "that guy" for saying, but I feel like fixing the displays would starkly go against some of the appeal. Like, seeing the history in an object or item, the age, is all part of it, isn't it? I can see practical use for it in a museum, certainly, but I think I would do my absolute best to keep the use of it on the displays themselves to a minimum. But if something got damage *by* the museum while setting up or transferring to and from storage... Yeah that's fair game lol.
@@knowwhoiamyet Agreed and the Japanese even developed an art style around repairing a number of items that would be in a museum or gallery that highlights the damage the item had taken.
Guidance is for sure the best cantrip for real life, it's not situacional, it has a significant impact in your chances to succeed and you can use it in other people.
I agree. As cool as prestidigitation is, it's basically just a conveince cantrip. I can clean by hand, I can flavor things with spices, I can warm or chill things with fire or ice-packs, I can scent things with essential oils. Guidence was make the "average" person like me 25% - 100% better at everything ? That's amazing.
an already just slightly above average person could possibly instantly become the best in the world at something with Guidance. you want to throw something? use Guidance on yourself and potentially increase your modifier to that throw by 4. learning something? potentially increase your intelligence by 4 for every instance of learning. anything charisma related? you could be the most motivating, charming person around.
Agreed, except I would say spare the dying comes in clutch when it matters most. Which could be worse more. You literally cannot die if someone is stabilizing you. Not unless its a quick death anyway.
My problem with guidance is that it in fact is situational. It has a 60 second duration with a 6 second cast time and requires that you make a loud determined vocal casting of the spell as well as a hand gesture and touch of some sort. Every 54 seconds you have to start that process just to keep it going and that is just not tenable for many many tasks. Imagine just even writing emails in an office. Every 54 seconds you have to start chanting loudly and touching your chest while waving your other hand, just to make sure Sharon in HR understands the importance of hiring one more person to work on Thursdays. And for very long tasks like repairing a vehicle while underneath and turning a wrench, your hands are full. It may not be reasonable to drop the nut you've been holding in your left hand for the past 5 minutes just to shout "Bastard engineers designed this!" and slap your chest to recast the spell.
@@fastrayd1 Yeah, And remember that an extra d4 doesn't guarantee a good result. If you roll a 2, even with an extra 4, that's still only a 6. I see guidance as being more useful for competitive games like shot-putting or archery, but the sports would soon catch on that you are using magic. Using cantrips would soon be regarded as being like using performance enhancing drugs.
I actually made a character who made me ask this exact question last week. I was making a maid for an inn that my party got as a reward ages ago, and was thinking 'from a pure utility standpoint, what would she put effort into learning to make her job easier?' I love thought exercises like this hehe
Im a service technician so mage hand would be my number one pick every time. There are so many times where you can use a third hand just to hold something in place, put a bolt in while you hold the part in position, mark something, be much faster with cabeling or have a way more easy way when soldering thin wires. Prestidigitation would be my second pick and Mending my third.
One thing about Mage Hand, it could be incredibly useful for people with limited mobility! The extra range when you're bedridden or using a mobility aid would be amazing. My top three are Prestidigitation, Mending, and Mage Hand.
Great video idea! Love the additional idea too! Mine would be Healing Word for the 1st level spell Prestidigitation and Mending for cantrips. Though if Mold Earth was permanent changes to the ground, I'd consider that one because of the financial benefits. Imagine doing precision land leveling work for construction sites and farms... all by magical means. No equipment expenses or contract labor to pay out.
Prestidigitation is so obvious, I pick it with every spellcaster, you can be SO creative with so little. I once kept a blizzard out of our druid's face with continuous Prestidigitation so he could drive our sled down the mountain, likely saved the entire party just with a "fan" on command.
Guidance would be my pick choice since as mentioned on average you'd be like 25-100% better at doing something or well anything. So while it's annoying it's only for a single action, you could also try it over and over again it also works on others. Also there are probably a lot more skill checks in RL compared to DnD. Mending is also pretty broken depending on how it would work in real life, I mean if it could repair a break or tear of 1 foot in a vehicale, building or what not. Spare the dying depending on how it works with how it's worded could also be quite OP since how exactly does it work? Does it save someone bleeding to death? One of the most common way's people die during surgery is from bloodloss/bleeding. Could it be cast repeatedly on a dying person to prevent them from dying? Like what are the limits of stopping someone from dying? Virtue could also be a great spell in my book if the temporary HP works like in DnD could be used in the same way as spare the dying examples. Would probably be the number 1 pick for people in health care. Though depending on how many temp HP you get it could also be used similar to a bulletproof vest / armor, could also be used in a lot of cases where you need to be more "tanky" would be quite the cheat in for instance a boxing match. Not much use in everyday scenarios unless your in health care I guess but still.
My Top 3 is the exact same as Kelly for the same reasons as well! Great minds think alike. Also you should absolutely make the Human Fea giving feature a whole video, like what feats would you choose, and what spells in Magic initiate and such!
Most people don't generally fail at things in life. This is only a problem for absurdly incompetent people, and likely would make those people even more reckless and impulsive than they were before, making Guidance ACTIVELY MAKE THEIR LIFE WORSE.
@@dontmisunderstand6041how about becoming better at life? I wonder if guidance can help with understanding things when learning, that would be huge. Also, what about persuasion checks, when closing deals, or, maybe intelligence checks, when trying to come up with the best solution to a problem. I would say, prestigigitation is the best "blue collar" job cantrip, guidance is the best "white collar" cantrip, and spare the dying is the best white coat cantrip.
@@dontmisunderstand6041what are you talking about? Catastrophic failures are rarer, sure, but mundane failures and minor slipups add up over time. Even getting rid of half of them would be great. Now the question is how to stop employers from knowing about it, lest they see it as an opportunity to overwork people harder with fewer consequences….
@@dontmisunderstand6041 If you're not failing, then you're not challenging yourself. For example, Every person you ever tried to persuade ended up agreeing with you? No, most people fail a lot. They're just failing at things that don't result in death.
Mage hand can do dangerous stuff! It can also do stuff that’s hard to reach, like getting at a bolt inside an engine, it also doesn’t get tired…. you could do things like unplug a clogged drain. How many times do you need an extra hand to hold something? Mage hand is S tier!
My DM asked the group this a few days ago, and now I realize he had just watched your video lol. I chose Mending because I like to be handy and fix things. But Prestidigitation would probably be more useful since I hate cleaning but I hate things being dirty too.
I think that you are greatly underselling the power of resistance. Every time you trip and fall you roll a dex save. Social interactions can turn into a charisma save. Any food poisoning or headache can be a con save. There are probably many situations that I have not even thought of yet. I would still choose prestidigitation, which guidance and mending above resistance, but it would still be useful. There are also a few errors in the average human stat block. The average human has 17 hp. Falling 10ft in dnd is 1d6 damage. You have a 50% chance of dying from a 40ft drop. The average of 4d6 is 16, so the average human has 17 hp. Additionally, it can be reasoned that a normal human has a +2 con. In dnd, you can survive asphyxiation for one minute plus your con modifier. Using the rule of 3’s, you can survive 3 minutes without air. Thus, the average person has a plus 2 con. As for strength, the average human does much worse. The average untrained human can deadlift 110 pounds. A dnd character can lift (with a movement speed of five) twice their maximum load. The maximum load is strength score times 15 pounds. 110/30 is 3.67. I round this up to 4, resulting in a strength modifier of -3 for the average untrained human. Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma are harder to quantify, so they take a little more judgement for each person. I know most of this because I ran an isekai dnd campaign for my friends.
Early on in 5th edition when I was running Tyranny of Dragons, one of my players was playing a Barbarian/Warlock multiclass who wasn't the brightest - he.. realized that he could make dirt taste good with Prestidigitation. Thus was born the term "Prestidigi-Bad-Idea".
My more mischievous characters would take a rock, paint it up like a cupcake, and put it somewhere people wouldn't find it weird. Then use that. My cruel characters would poison the rock, do all that, and then use prestidigitation to cover the taste of the poison.
It is a Somali dish, dirt cookies. You take some dirt and mix in a little bit of honey or sugar and let them dry in the sun, then you have something that tastes okay and will keep your stomach from collapsing into itself when you are starving.
my top 5 & a honorable mention 1. Mending 2. prestidigitation - instant teeth cleaning notably the old name for prestidigitation of "Least Wish" seems more right for what it does irl. 3. Guidance 4. Spare the Dying - just want the easy it done button. 5. Mold earth Honorable mention - Primal savagery - slight combat applications + I can have little snaggle fang things
1 Wildshape first choice especially if i can mix and/or augment myself or my forms 2 Guidance 3 Encode thoughts 4 Mending 5 prestidigitation 6 mage hands 7 Find steed 8 Conjure animal
IMO, electronics and other advanced mechanisms should be considered as magic items in DnD terms. They actually run on lightning energy. Basically it's only good for stuff that could be made in medeival era.
With mending, you are controlling chemical bonds. You are walking a nuclear reactor. You can mend diamonds together. If you are not careful, for sure you are on fbi list
@@alexmin4752Gotta disagree here, I don’t know why electronics stuff would be considered “magic-y” and mending has to be for medieval stuff. There’s like no description for mending that implies that at all. Even if we take a step back and say electronics are considered “magic items” (despite being built using the physical and chemical properties of the material element themselves), mending can still fix magic items remember, it just can’t re-imbue magic. Considering I’m not being called a wizard or artificer irl when I use a phone or driver a car, I think mending has to take the cake here. (Not to mention the amount of bank you can make from repairing antiques like an ancient painting or pottery or a broken Stradivarius)
The problem with Mending is that it does not repair wear or material fatigue damage, only tears and breaks. And only on a single 'physical' break or tear at a time at time on top of it. It 'could' repair a tear caused by wear or fatigue, but the wear would remain and it will break again in a blink. 95% of what breaks in our daily life is due to wear or it's a break but the item gets shattered in so many piece it's not practical at all to find all pieces. That hole in your socks or shirt, most of the time it's wear of the fabric that over time thins it so much that it can't hold itself up anymore, not tear. Leaky faucet? Wear. Tears usually only occur during accidents, misuse or similar occurences.
@@sir_wffles Ok, in this analogy we can say that the battery is the magic source and everything else is mundane/mechanical. But "Target: A single break or tear in an object you touch". If you break a phone there will be hundreds of conductive lines snapped. IMO, the wording implies you can fix something that's rather simple in design. Also, most devices aren't discarded due to physical damage but of malfunctions.
Honestly prestigitation and mending would make life so easy and BTW shadows of Drakenheim is such a banger of the series so far I've only seen two episodes so far but it's amazing and i learned something Kelly's character designs somehow ends up being my favorite part of this channel keep up the good work Kelly and Monty
I would love for yall to do this question with the leveled spells. For a first, any healing spell would be incredible, but specifically goodberry: ten people healed and/or fully fed for the day
As a home cook, prestidigitation would come in so clutch. All the times I've gotten ready to cook and realized I was missing a certain spice. And my house would be spotless. In fact, the top three general purpose cantrips for real life is Prestidigitation, Mending, and Mage Hand. Who doesn't rip their clothes now and then or need an extra hand? My magic initiate loadout is Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, and as my 1st level, Unseen Servant. It's all I need to get everything done and out of the way so I can get to important things.
I’m a janitor so prestidigitation would be phenomenal BUT I’d have to use it sparingly because if I was too supernaturally fast and thorough somebody would wanna see what I’m doing
Your problem is you're trying to be hidden about it and keep your current job, instead of creating your own company and cleaning 20+ businesses' entire office buildings every night shift by just yourself, at just below market rates. They are closed at night and just want their stuff cleaned. The only thing you'd still have to do is take the trash out physically, and people WILL see you doing that on their cameras etc... as you just prestidigitate everything around you constantly.
Paramedic here, adding to the spare the dying discussion: It definitely would save a ton of lives better than modern medicine without question. Most ICUs are loaded with patients forced into stability with lots of medications and a medically induced coma, a quick fix for that would be a literal miracle. But what are the limitations, would it save someone who needs CPR? their heart and lungs have already stopped, in some cases the heart is shaking around and can be restarted with electricity but would they be considered dead or dying? How many people would have access to this cantrip? If it becomes common (even like 1000 people in the US might be enough) it would collapse the entire corrupt healthcare system. We've built it around corrupt greedy businessmen and politicians profiting off the sick and dying, so that would all collapse. But I should also point out that most of our patients are not dying, even when we respond to 911 calls we don't often see real life or death emergencies, and if things have gotten that far (outside of massive multisystem traumas) it is usually due to a failure to find or treat a less severe problem. That being said, if prestidigitation can sterilize objects as part of its "cleaning" then it could save almost as many lives as spare the dying. Infection is a huge killer in hospitals, CLABSIs and CAUTIs (common hospital acquired infections that shouldn't exist if proper sterile technique or catheter replacement protocol was followed) would be essentially erased and sepsis would be a thing of the past. We wouldn't have to worry about antibiotic resistant superbugs or blood borne pathogens. I also can't stess enough how many times I wish I could use mending on various things in my ambulance. Many private ambulance companies don't invest enough in maintenance that lots of our trucks are running with check engine lights, jury rigged replacement parts, or just old equipment that should be replaced. Outside of maintenance, sometimes our equipment just fails. Wires, tablets/clipboards that you use for reports, oxygen regulators, BP cuffs, even my ventilator sometimes fails us in the field. A quick fix to all of these would make my job 10 times easier and probably save some lives (though less than spare the dying or prestidigitation). TLDR: all the top choices they mention would be AMAZING things to have in healthcare, especially emergency medicine but even in less emergent situations.
Spare the dying is my pick just so I never have to hold someone in my hands and watch them die. Assuming it stabilizes them you could just keep casting it if need be and the ambulance would make it to you. As long you can keep using it they shouldn't die from the kinds of things that kill most people. Its magic that stabilizes after all.
Spare the Dying effectively just creates that medically induced coma. It's the same thing. CPR, that's effectively modern medicine's version of Revivify, a spell that brings people back from the dead if they died within the past few seconds, and their body isn't so badly damaged that they'd just die again anyway.
If a DND character just had their chest caved in and arm severed by a series of brutal monster attacks, and would die in 18 seconds -- spare the dying STABILIZES THEM. That objectively means it must save someone who needs CPR. It must immediately stop the bleeding and stabilize blood pressure by sealing gaping wounds. It must stop sepsis. It won't bring them up from there... but that puts them in the medically safe stable coma! insane honestly for ER and paramedics
Y'all should go over how you'd run a seafaring campaign. Preferred ship combat and travel systems, letting players upgrade their ships or home bases, general tips on a fun open ocean adventure!
I actually just had this conversation a couple of weeks ago with my D&D group, before I knew this video existed. It's a fun thought experiment. I loved this video and would love to see this with 1st level spells. Rule: if you could have just one 1st level spell and could cast it only once, which would it be? There could be a discussion about whether you can cast spells ritually or not. My choice would probably be find familiar for all the obvious reasons, but there could be an argument for ceremony, goodberry, or really any of the spells that have the ritual tag. As far as my cantrips go: prestidigitation, mending, and probably blade ward. Blade ward may be less useful in many circumstances in D&D, but in real life it could go a long way to prevent myself from getting really hurt.
Number 1 is far and away Prestidigitation (though for the cleaning it specifies nonliving matter so no replacing showers or brushing your teeth), but if you're doing the magic initiate thing of 2 cantrips than the second would be Mending easily. Third would be one of the three; Mage Hand (for shenanigans, teasing, and laziness around the house) Minor Illusion (for as Monty said about being a creative where I can just show what I'm thinking of instead of having to describe it) Dancing Lights (for no more light bill) I also saw someone comment on a Dimension20 short about the same concept to this that Spare the Dying would basically be Coma the Spell. And for True Strike, if you're in a combat sport True Strike could get you that the first hit knockout if you cast it just as the match starts.
I always land on spare the dying because it means you never have to watch someone die in your arms. That should be more than enough. Let alone the ability to help out at a hospital. No one would die during surgery as long as you kept casting. The doctors could finish and the patient would then be stable and fixed. Almost no chance things go wrong. Guidance is my next pick because it just makes you better at everything by a large margin. I can clean stuff on my own and make healthy tasty food. I can't be better at things than I am literally capable of being. Your limits as humans are set in stone. Guidance raises those beyond such limits even if you roll a 1.
7:40 you know what else Prestidigitation does? Many minor magical effects. You can instantly light and snuff out campfires create smells, sounds and other small sensory tricks, you can mark a path you’ve been travelling to keep track as well.
I do a lot of agriculture landscaping and construction, and clean drinking water isn’t always available to me, so my two cantrips would have to be Mould Earth and Prestidigitation, and my first level spell would have to be create/destroy water. Creating seed beds, digging out dirt for foundations, digging up root vegetables, watering my plants, access to clean water 24/7, and I can clean all the dirt off me afterwards. It’s too good to even think about.
Shovel of lesser mold earth 😬👍 Now that I finished the video and understand the assignment 1. Mending (because its always my job to fix the things someone else broke more failing to fix it) 2. Prestidigitation (because all the reasons you listed 👍) 3. Mage Hand (because I’ve been bed ridden more than once in my life and independents is empowerment.) Besides I already have a “Shovel of lessor Mold Earth” 😬👍 Also looking forward to the second part of this video
Mage hand is excellent for all those times you wished they had a third hand. Assembling a piece of furniture, or rolling your own pasta come to mind. There is also just a huge upside to having a hand that can't be injured. If you've ever hit your knuckle on a cheese grater, you know the value. In a shop setting. Imagine having stability with your two real hands in the completely safe zone, and then having your mage hand handling the materials in the danger zone. Beyond that, there are people with issues with manual dexterity, and just having a steady hand with a sure grip would be life changing.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 just view every wound as a thing. In game, every person is just a cog in the wheel so they aren’t a creature to them 😆. Though one could argue a scrape or a cut is a thing/object not a creature.
As a nurse, Mage Hand would be so useful just to grab/hold that thing while my hands are full...but then prestidigitation would just clean up all my patients for me...that's a hard toss up. Spare the dying is ironic because if I had that, I would never send anyone to the ICU 😅 that would result in some strange staffing disturbances. I think I'd have to take guidance as my 3rd
Prestidigitation and start a cleaning business. Car detailing/car wash, house cleaning, dorm cleaning etc. Druidcraft and Mold Earth perfect for a landscaping business. Mending to start a repair business
The surface of a car is not a valid target for the spell, as it specifies an object less than or equal to 1 cubic foot. RaW does not permit the targeting of portions of a contiguous obeject. Parts of the car would be targetable, such as: screws, bolts, hubcaps, headrest, etc., as they are non-contiguous.
Car wash doesnt seem like the most efficient use of magic. You gotta think bigger! Do something noone else can do! Clean things that are too delicate to clean the conventional way, like priceless paintings! Or remove stains that are hard to get out conventionally, like blood!
I would also do prestidigitation, mending, and guidance. I write very complicated code for a living to make medicine and guidance would be amazing for that. Since it applies to that skill check I would use it before each coding session.
I've pondered this particular orb for many seasons. Prestidigitation is the ultimate quality of life boost. Guidance is a 5-20% increase in your odds of success at any given task. If we take Magic Initiate, as suggested at the end of the video, the Artificer gets both.
@@palatonian9618 Guidance is proactive, not reactive. Which massively restricts its usage and utility. And it often has no meaningful effect at all In fact, the math suggests it's almost never going to matter. For a 1 on the d4, it only matters 5% of the time, for the 2, 10% of the time, 15% and 20% for the 3 and 4. In effect, Guidance only has AN effect 12.5% of the time, roughly. Or, to put it into perspective, it's a waste of time and effort in 87.5% of cases. 7 out of 8 times, it's worthless.
@@recursiveslacker7730 Only in cases of extraordinary effort. Passive skills are the baseline, extraordinary efforts allow us to roll for a potential that's higher than our passive, but can also give a lower result. On average, the result of a roll will be 5% better than your passive. However, it's important to note... guidance doesn't affect your passive skills. And those passive skills are what make up almost all of the things you do. If it improved passives, then it truly would make you better at anything. But it doesn't. It does nothing 87.5% of the time, and prevents you from hurting yourself by doing stupid things the other 12.5%. Because remember... those extraordinary efforts generally don't have a benefit at all for success, they avoid consequences. When you roll acrobatics to make a sick jump across a chasm, success doesn't make you better off, it just stops you from falling to your death.
Yall say how some cantrips would only be useful for people who are in certain professions or do certain hobbies, but I'd argue that if you had a cantrip that made those easy, like digging with Mold Earth, you'd do those things a lot more than you do now.
So here are mine 1. Prestidigitation (Clear favorite for all the reasons you named) 2. Thaumaturgy (loud speaker, thematic lights/shaking/eyes, and you can open windows and doors at will.) 3. Produce Flame (you can make a harmless light in your hand that looks cool, and throw it... covers emergency lighting, and your self defense needs... - Note, if you could combine the first two with Druidcraft to make a super version i would take that... would not mind being able to just check the weather and make flowers blossom if you did combine them then id have one more to pick up and that would be mage hand... if i could id take the telekinetic feat version so it would just be invisible.
One thing about Guidance; it gives you (an average of) +2.5 to a skill check. That increases your probability of success by 12.5%. That means Guidance makes turns a fail into a success (on average) 1 time out of 8 castings. When compared to Mending, that sucks. Keep up the great work though!
To be fair, only Eldritch Blast is worth it, and I think the damage dealing cantrips are far less useful IRL primarily because of the verbal component, and in particular combat just isn't a part of a civilian's life almost all the time.
@@sharmakefarah2064 Eldritch blast specifically only can target creatures, so some others like fire bolt might have more practical uses. Considering 1d8 hp of a commoner, you don't really need d12 over a d10 either
@@Julia________ True, Fire Bolt definitely is the best generalist cantrip for a civilian focused on defense, though Eldritch Blast comes in a close second.
Most useful quality of life cantrip spells - prestidigitation - druidcraft - mending - message - mold earth - shape water - thaumaturgy - spare the dying - light - control flames - guidance - encode thoughts - dancing lights - hunter sense (Humblewood cantrip) - mage hand Least these are the ones I would consider. As for my tops choices, personally 1) Prestidigitation (of course) 2) Druidcraft (frankly being able to know the weather always and being able to grow things is too good to pass up, especially since I love herbalism irl) 3) Mage Hand (let’s be honest, this is amazing for short people and those who might have mobility issues, of which I am the short person in this case) With any additional it would be 4) mending 5) guidance 6) dancing lights 7) message 8) spare the dying 9) control flames 10) mold earth 11) shape water 12) light 13) encode thoughts (because that’s just neat to me) And that’s pretty much what I would be interested in.
i can make a reasonable case for wanting eldritch blast. i carry a gun, it would be great to not have to carry a weapon and still have similar offensive capability for self defense. it would also be great for places where weapons aren't allowed.
I'm with Kelly here. Prestidigitation, Mending and Guidance would be my first picks. I'd love to see a video of your picks for a real life Magic Initiate. My choices would probably be Prestidigitation, Mending and Cure Wounds.
You should do this for every level of spell, and then, using the class that can get all or most of them (probably wizards, since its not sorcerers of the coast is it), make the best real life spellcaster for dnd, id probably say be a divination wizard, but id love to see the argument for each subclass of the chosen class
![[TH] VALORANT Champions Seoul - Grand Final - EDG vs TH](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/WvObMc9VelI/mqdefault.jpg)
Prestidigitation. No more dirty dishes or bland food.
Also open a “green”laundry charge the hippie extra
It's under the "Flavour Cantrips" section of the video.
Pun intended?
Oh yeah that's a clear winner.....but gust of wind would be pretty cool for paragliding! You could make your own wind for take-off.
1st level spell, find familiar, centripetal easy prestifisication, mage hand miner illusion
Yeah, Prestidigitation is an easy winner. One particular aspect that I love is creating a small illusion in the palm of your hand. As someone who has no ability to draw/paint, the ability to create an image directly from my head, with no skill to put it on paper, this is wonderful. (IG I love the idea of using this to show other people the image of say..someone you caught a glimpse of, so they know what the person looks like now as well...a rotating head and shoulders image floating over your open hand, just is such a nice visual to me). Same can be used IRL, but sorry, Monty, nope. Objects or smells only for Minor Illusion, that's why imho Pretidigi is much better, you can create any sort of image hovreing over your hand. Granted, it's only got a 6 second duration, but it's actually got a much wider range. Mending, Guidance and probably Spare the Dying (in that order after Prestidigi), which for someone untrained in treatement is just as useful, when it is useful would be a great set of four. But, between that and Mending, you could do an awful lot in terms of a no cost, no training needed repairer and medic. Good catch on cleaning wounds w Pres as well though.
(1st Level - Comprehend Languages, Unseen Servant or a weak option, but for certain people very nice, Feather Fall. I just worry about things that are too overtly magical, Prestidigi hovering over hand images 'could' be explained away as holograms at this point, but Silent Image, that's a much tougher one to explain away except as part of a stage magic act)
You know you're an adult when you're offered a magic power and your top choice is doing house chores.
You could also be a master criminal. Being able to not just clean, but soil material means you could clean up evidence and plant new stuff.
Growing up means realizing you have a favorite sponge.
@@godsamongmen8003 I've always secretly loved that aspect of Presto. The "I shit YOUR pants" aspect is NEVER expected.
@@davidarmstrong1617I had to bin my favourite sponge the other day and now I’m sad because I don’t know where they were bought from.
I mean, that's what the vast majority of the machines we use on a daily basis is for, so why not magic?
"I'd be hard-pressed not to pick Prestidigitation just for the dishes" is the quote the rest of this video may as well have been built around.
Not just the dishes you can do it for the laundry too.
Also can chill your drink, or warm the soup you left out. It's a convenience workhorse.
_highly_ monetizable.
My Magic Initiate loadout would be:
- Prestidigitation
- Mending
- Comprehend Languages
I would become an amazing archeologist/historian! There are many undeciphered ancient scripts in the world (Wikipedia lists more than fifty!) and many other scripts that we have possibly deciphered correctly but we can't be sure.
Choose any artifact with writing on it.
Prestidigitation to clean it perfectly without causing damage.
Mending to repair it perfectly without causing damage. (multiple castings)
Comprehend languages to translate it.
Another benefit to mending no more having to buy new cars just keep mending the critical parts over and over till a big enough wreck destroys the car itself.
Or if you're the only one with the power to do it.
Become the worlds richest car flipper.
Comprehend Languages is a 1st level spell, not a cantrip, but that would be a useful set to pick. The main reason I would want Comprehend Languages is so I could watch anime and not have to read the subtitles. 😅
@@SovereignVis The Magic Initiate feat gives one 1st level spell and 2 cantrips. It's a question they posed at the end of the video.
@@SteveVig Where is the rest of them?
There isn't too many options, Speak with Animals? I don't even have an animal and I'd be tempted.
Healing Word or Cure Wounds, if you can just pick willy nilly, because it's always Prestidigitation and Mending. But that's only one heal a day and nobody would be happy with you just healing one person a day. And you'd be at the hospital just waiting for an emergency patient, I don't have that in me.
Doctor here. Spare the dying would be useful in emergency situations.
So like it's actually quite difficult and delicate work to "stabilise" someone. The knowledge required to manage a first aid situation isn't too heavy but once someone is in an ED it gets very complicated. Also the nature of these emergencies usually means the situation is chaotic and there's a constant need for quick thinking and adaptability which is *really* difficult while someone is dying in front of you. There's also less obvious things; a team of people with diverse skills that can be difficult to manage is needed, the situations this takes place in are usually complex and stressful and mistakes are easily made.
There's also no guarantee that effective treatment exists for the thing this patient has.
So to have one person to be able to just decide the patient is stable and have it be so would be amazing.
The other side is the cost, actually stabilising someone in hospital might need the involvement of dozens of different professionals, most of whom have advanced degrees and high earning potentials in private land and who demand a premium to do a stressful and unpleasant job where night shifts are a regular occurrence and where they regularly watch people die.
Also the cost of the stuff and equipment and drugs and cost of the people required to make sure all the stuff and drugs and people are there, effective and accessible at all times.
Compare that to one guy, who needed four years to learn one cantrip and can now just decide that a patient is stable. Sounds *amazing*
It's definitely good, but the issue is that it's insanely restrictive in both it's range and the fact that it requires the target to be at 0 hit points, and at that point you are likely seconds away from death, so you'd have to act insanely fast.
If it was more lenient in the HP range it targeted and had a longer range, it would absolutely be amazing.
@@sharmakefarah2064 0 hp is unconscious and dying, but not dead. The cantrip is at will so you just cast it on repeat until it takes.
I'm a paramedic. Spare the Dying would be quite useful. I'd get more use out of it than most Doctors that don't work in the ER or in trauma surgery.
@@sharmakefarah2064 you have a minimum of 12 seconds
thats rolling a nat 1 on the death save and failing in any other way, in an emergency thats HUGE
@@sharmakefarah2064sorry dude but I’m gunna trust the doctors opinion on this one as like he said it will probably save millions of people and millions in cash for the government the only down side is quite a lot of people might be out of a job
Fire truck rolls up, fire fighters jump out, all of them start spam casting Control Flames
Does that work? Control Flames can only target a fire which can fit inside a 5-foot cube. Most fires that a fire truck would be called out for are bigger than that. Not saying it'd be a useless spell in real life, since it's basically a fire extinguisher for a small household fire, but that kind of firefighting probably needs more than cantrips to be effective.
Add in shape water so you can move your water to split one big fire into multiple small ones that the collegues with control flames can handle...
@@thebitterfig9903Maybe not so effective if only one person is casting it, but a team of 6-8 all casting it could quell the flames at a decent pace.
@@Sp4rt4nSl4ya I guess what I mean is that there might not be a valid target. The valid targets are pretty specific: "You choose nonmagical flame that you can see within range and that fits within a 5-foot cube." If there's a 10-ft diameter fire, my inclination is that Control Flames doesn't do anything, because a 10-ft fire doesn't fit in a 5-ft cube. My interpretation of RAW is that it wouldn't work, there probably isn't a valid target. Adding more casters wouldn't help, not with 8, not with 88 people casting the Control Flames.
In terms of mechanics, I don't think that's inappropriate. This is a cantrip.
@@thebitterfig9903 my interpretation of that is if there's a 10ft square of fire and one person casts to reduce in that area they could take out a quarter of it, and if four people did it they could take out the whole thing. I don't think the fire being bigger than 5 square ft means the cantrip can't effect it at all, I think it just can only effect its max area. Your interpretation may be a bit too literal.
I played a warlock who used minor illusion to mimic voices (a very often overlooked portion of the spell) and mask of many faces to be the ultimate at deep fakes at level 1 (free feat to get the invocation). Then at level 2 I took misty visions to become more than just a grifter, but a pop up theatre company. The 15 foot cube is plenty of stage for a single actor and can be popped up in a few seconds, changed in a few seconds, and costs nothing. It was great.
this is hilarious and i love it
my level 1 spell would most definitely be goodberry. You have any idea how often I wander around my kitchen feeling mildly hungry but unable to decide what to eat? Boom. Goodberry
Getting up and walking 30 feet to grab something might not be a big deal to _you,_ but as someone with muscular dystrophy who uses a wheelchair, Mage Hand would be _life changing_ for me. I've got a dozen or more long handled tools around my house that I use for everything from getting dressed, going to the bathroom, getting stuff out of cabinets/drawers, and Mage Hand could replace _all_ of them. It could also do a whole bunch of things I currently need another person to help me with. Example: repositioning my wheelchair footrests
Prestidigitation would be a close second, simply because it would save me the ordeal of getting in and out of the shower/bath.
I totally second that.
Mage hand exists. It's called a grabber claw. 😂
@@nickhayley Grabber claws are great, I own several already. But I could name a hundred everyday tasks that a Mage Hand could do that a grabber can't, lol.
Even for someone who has full mobility, a third hand is incredibly useful
I was thinking this (I too am extremely disabled) while watching also lol
I feel obligated to mention that mage hand doesn’t have hitpoints. This means that it can touch some pretty dangerous stuff. An application I can think of is cooking where you could now grab pans straight out the oven or use it to add or removing food while deep frying. There’s probably other better uses but that’s the first that comes to mind
the cooking idea isn't bad but it does need to face the 10-5lbs limit based on edition your sourcing from, but that would just require you to learn the limits of how that can be an aid.
Mage Hand for special needs would be another story. getting something high up when in a wheel chair, or down low when you have to fight to get back up, would probably aid someone in their daily life so well, as well as a third hand for crafts or blue collar work. As you said, the hands have no hp, so what's stopping them from manipulating a hot wire?
It would be useful for scientists that work with toxic stuff or acids
Would make you incredibly useful in dangerous industrial applications. Need me to just grab something out of the arc furnace? No problem. Need me to trip that damaged 480 kV switch? Sure.
I was thinking of the nuclear and even chemical and biological hazard industries. You can work that safety cabinet without the bulky suit or lead coated gloves. Imagine those skilled experts being able to work with flawless dexterity and zero risk. Trying to cure the new superanthrax pandemic? No problem! Its in a completely sealed environment, no chance of getting sick.
Now I think about it, imagine a surgeon who has no physical contact with the patient! The risk of infection would be lower as you can opperate on the other side of a glass shield.
I saw the title, and wondered how you could possibly make a case for not taking prestidigitation. Glad to see i am not the only one confused by this question. Fast cleaning, fire, taste, tiny super fast 3d printer... It is everything we want our homes to be able to do for us in the next 50 years.
I could see a short person picking mage hand, because I do have some family members that hate going shopping due to the height of the shelves. But, grocery delivery solves that and you could save enough money to justify that with prestidigitation.
Second choice I will grant is a much harder decision. Meding and guidance are very strong.
with regards to the tiny super fast 3d printer, keep in mind it only lasts 6 seconds (until the end of your next turn)
1. Mending(never have to worry about paying repair fees and can also make a business out of it)
2. Guidance(I like the idea better results out of almost everything I do without putting in to much more effort then I already do)
3. Prestidigitation(for me hygiene is really the only practical use for me but I’d much rather go through the effort of cleaning and cooking then miss out on guidance and mending)
Mending, you can print a 1/2 lb of gold a day, or a really expensive pearl every two days and so forth. A truly broken spell even in D&D.
Mage Hand would be great as a blue collar worker. You could touch something electrical without worrying about getting shocked or electrocuted. Or you can grab a tool that's not next to you. Or get to something just out of reach in a tight space.
That's what I was thinking. 🔥
Mage hand is phenomenal for a criminal. The spells description does not require line of sight, so you could just waltz up to a locked door, cast Mage Hand inside and turn the lock to unlock it, and waltz right in like its the most casual thing in the world. Pickpocket people while having both hands where they can see them, as the spectral hand goes to work behind them. Mages hand is a Rogue’s best friend, and unlike most classes, Rogues essentially do exist, and can be a viable (if illicit) career path for them.
Am i saying that i would immediately turn to a life of crime if given the smallest shred of magical power? Legally i think i have to say no.
@@LilithNadyaCrow Not to mention you can reach that part of your back that is always itching and just out of reach.😜
@@samuelteare8160a little flexibility solves that issue just fine
Mage hand is also for crafty hobbyists that need that 3th hand to do things or hold things like the flashlight.
Being able to 100% stabilize a patient every 6 seconds would greatly reduce the mortality in a busy trauma hospital. It would also make numerous highly trained medical professionals from codes available for working on what to do to actually get the patient to recover. We can already clean things. The only benefit to Prestidigitation would be if it could clean a burn victim's wounds with less pain than current techniques.
Also combat medics and other civilian first responders. So many lives could be saved.
Though with the combat medic that darkly could cause more loss of life in the long run. As those soldiers they saved could be well enough to send back to the front line and do more fighting.
Also staff could finally get needed breaks for a change.
less pain and a 100% thorough cleaning guaranteed
@@MandalorV7 Just because someone is in no danger of dying doesn't mean they will be ready for combat after a long rest, especially if dealing with things like lost limbs, damaged organs, or significant burn wounds.
Guidance would be more useful in the ER, patients that come in already dying are rare. Usually they come still alive, and it's better to find out whats the issue right away and act, than to wait to stabilize.
Number 1 pick is mending. I am a technician. Sometimes, things break and need replacement. Having new parts flown in overnight is expensive and slows down our work.
Number 2 pick is prestidigitation. It is called "minor wish" for a reason.
Number 3 is control flames. Mostly for the show I could put on around the campfire.
Most maintenance is 'remove dust and debris', and most repairs are 'this thing tore'. I'm pretty sure there exist industrial and/or artistic ways to benefit from refined flame control. Ooh! Grilling!
I call Prestidigitation _least_ Wish, to avoid confusion with Limited Wish and imply a progression like with Restoration where there are lesser/greater versions out there… but the point stands.
Monty- "Do you have to make a saving throw to resist a bag of Doritos?"
Kelly- "I fail."
😂😂
Definitely do a series of "Real life" D&D. Feats, each spell level, class features... In real life situations.
Bard, with either keen mind or lucky.
Healing wins most of the time if its a choice. People overestimate doctors and modern medicine. Its not at all comparable to healing magic.
It may not be considered real in modern days, but a historically-accurate ninja? No way they’re taking any Class but Druid. “But what about Rogue?” I hear you ask. Well, it’s too obvious. Of _course_ the guy with a penchant for sneaking around would be the ninja, can’t be anyone else! Certainly not the guy who turns into animals and can cast spells and the like, no, why would people who were basically the feudal Japanese equivalent to James Bond want abilities like _that?_
…If you know anything about real ninja, you know that they would _love_ to have abilities like that.
@@Merilirem You're overestimating the NEED for healing spells in real life. Yeah, lesser and greater restoration are awesome. But how many people would reach level 3 at all? Or level 9 for greater. Revivify is also not a strict improvement over what modern medicine can already do. Yes, there are situations where modern medicine isn't as good as Revivify, but there are also situations where Revivify isn't as good as modern medicine. Especially when we factor in the cost of diamonds, which would only skyrocket if this magic actually existed.
Seconded!
Being able to warm up or cool down my clothes with Prestidigitation is clutch
Yes, cooling your shirt in summer or warming it in winter would be amazing. I even do that in game.
Our heat index here has three digits! Yes let me cool my clothes down, that would be amazing!
Yes! Sweaty in summer? Three prestidigitations later your clothes are clean, cool and smell nice!
Cool your pillow...
Make healthy and cheap food tasty.
So I loaded into this saying prestidigitation over and over, but then you talked about guidance. And I'm thinking to myself... be supernaturally good at everything.
The more I think about guidance, the more sure I am that it's the best option. Remember in real life, we practice things to become better at them, and perfect practice makes perfect. So you don't just get this one time advantage. Doing it right this time contributes to you doing it right next time, when you can also use guidance to further improve your results beyond what you could achieve without it. There's never a skill wall you have to break through, because guidance just puts you on the other side of it. You never wonder "how do I improve" because you just use guidance and go, oh right! it will be better if I do that! It will apply to every single thing you might want to do. Cleaning? you're better at it. Fashion? you're better at it. Writing? you're better at it. Performing? you're better at it. Sex? you're better at it. Engineering? you're better at it. Even rarer and stranger skills. Whittling? you're better at it. Skipping rocks? better at it. Trick shots for youtube? better at it. The list goes on.
Guidance. I choose guidance.
As a dad and someone who works in manufacturing, prestidigitation is number 1 then mending is a very close 2nd. Minor illusion would then be 3rd, being able to tell amazing bedtime stories and include visuals to my kids would be amazing.
Aww, number 3 is so wholesome!!
Mending seems useful, but so many broken things are broken because they are missing something. I also don’t find that things break very often, and if you can only pick one cantrip it would be best to pick the most used one.
Prestidigitation is the obvious first pick, but if I had a second choice it would be mage hand. I’m an artist, and having a third hand would be super helpful with everything. I think people are underestimating the handiness of having a third hand. My bard dnd character also uses mage hand in the bedroom lol.
You could make a living repairing cracked phone screens, but mostly I'd find it useful for clothes - particularly broken zips and busted buttons.
I actually laughed at that lol
Plus prestidigitation can also summon small illusions which could help you invision ideas.
Mending replaces missing material too based on the description.
You would still need another hand.
Prestidigitation, Mending, Spare the Dying. I'm practically prepared for nearly every situation that I come across every day, including my job. So much tedium just REMOVED from my life.
Had the same list during the video. I would say guidance is also great. I would take your list and try to swap one for guidance, but it is kinda hard (either mending or prestidigitation).
@sebastiansirvas1530 unless you're around injured/dying people often, probably replace Spare the Dying. It's the least useful for the most people in the everyday.
So, I'm late to the party but I want to point out a couple things. But first- more of these videos from time to time. They are a lot of fun!
Anyways! Prestidigitation creating small marks, or symbols could be done on paper- we generally call that drawing- and while it only lasts for 1 hour, we have cameras and scanners. If you don't agree with that use, creating an illusory image that can fit in your hand, and take a picture of it works great for a quick sketch to base something off of. Minor illusion is superior here as while people wont be fooled into thinking a minor illusion is a real creature (because its a still object) it can have all the required appearance like texture and color. If you could 3D scan that with your phone- well 3D modelling finally got a lot easier as well as texturing. You could also create the illusion of an illustration you want made, snap a picture of it- man the new Monster compendium you are working on is really moving now...
Mending is great but still takes a minute to cast for each use. Sure, it's still worth it BUT- it has one glaring issue. Someone hands you a cellphone in pieces, and yes- all the pieces are there... It's still 1 minute of casting PER BREAK OR TEAR. O_O Shattered to pieces? Sorry- that's going to be hours of work- as written. I think it should be more like - healing the damage delt to the object or restoring its condition, but as written, kinda sucks for a lot of our use cases.
Finally - Spare the Dying... I don't know how many people realize what this means exactly. So, to stabilize someone in D&D prevents them from dying, so long as they take no further damage, which again can be stopped by a spare the dying cantrip applied again. The creature that is stabilized will, wake up, gaining 1HP, after 1-4 hours. So, you stabilize, you make sure they are protected from harm for 1-4 hours, and you save a life, almost regardless of what happened to them. This only doesn't work against things that would prevent natural healing, death from massive damage, or some kind of ongoing damaging effect. If we are combining real word and D&D rules- Spare the Dying seems to halt any death from most diseases, until that disease can cause damage again, only to be stopped by another casting of the spell. Meanwhile, doctors can work without fear of the patient dying, allowing them the precious resource of time in figuring out how to save the patient. Till they can get that variant human in the room with magic initiate with cure wounds/healing word. And or the person who can cast Detect Poison and Disease and basically in 6 seconds can tell you exactly what disease someone has and if they are poisoned, and if so by what.
I will say that if mending worked exactly like you say it does, it would almost have no use in the game either. Cut rope? Well a rope consists of multiple strands of hemp and each of those were cut.
My guess is that the minute represents the amount of time it takes to heal all parts of the damage you're fixing. A broken screen? The minute consists of you fixing each scratch and crack. One of the examples in the spell is cloth which we know are woven together from smaller pieces. I suppose the question is where you draw the line of what a single tear *or break* is.
@@dtfe3 yeah I agree. I think it considers it for either instance of damage and complexity. For example a wooden box has a gash and a lid cut in half. The lid and gash would be separate instances. Parts could also be considered. Hinges, wood, a plack or plate. For a cellphone the screen or at least the glass of it would be its own part. Then maybe some parts of the motherboard would be separate parts. The issue is how complex it is. Fixing a box is easy. Fixing a music box is a very different thing.
"That slightly incompetent co-worker..' is the best reason for vicious mockery. That being said, my personal top picks are, Thaumaturgy, Mending, and Prestidigitation.
Mage hand, mending, and prestidigitation are top of my list
Get out of head! Same
Mage hand was undersold in the video. How many times have you wished you had a third hand because the first two were full? And the mage hand could touch dangerous stuff, like a wire that may still be live.
@godsamongmen8003 there are a ton of uses for it. Imagine someone who is say, really short, or in a wheelchair who can't reach something in a higher cabinet or on a shelf. Or if they can't afford an electric wheelchair, they can use mage hand to push themselves around. The disabled community would be able to make incredible use of that cantrip to vastly improve their quality of life.
These
Those, plus shape water and mold earth.
I'm choosing Mold Earth, Druid Craft, and Mending.
I love gardening, and the ability to instantly dig holes is essential to the planting season. So Mold Earth is awesome for me. I can till the soil and create a perfect grid of seed holes in 18 seconds. I can the be a human back hoe/ bull dozer. I can add swales to hillsides to catch water and end droughts through water infiltration. I'll go take Andrew Millison's course on permaculture earthen works principles to master the principles of terraforming. Then I'll take a few months to go camping throughout the Colorado River Basin and fix the water retention issues of the landscape, saving California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado from rampant droughts in a single year.
Druid Craft allows plants to accelerate through their life cycles in a controlled fashion. Foremost in my mind is the ability to propagate plants instantly by forcing a cutting to grow roots and sprout leaves in 12 seconds. This is a process that takes months and fails half of the time. Now you can clone a plant 100 times in an hour. Sold at $10 each, that's $1000 of rare and exotic plants perfectly propagated and ready to sell. With enough genetic diversity, I could plant entire forests and end deforestation and global warming (through carbon sequestration into plants) at the same time. I could force a plant to put out flowers and produce food.
Mending is just awesome.
You Win!
You have the most responsible and altruistic list - and Plan -
Thank you for watching out for the Earth and all of us!
There are animals and plants and environments that prefer drought conditions “fixing” it is just going to create even more ecological issues
Agree on all points except the 10$ per cut, you would over inflate the market so quickly
i was going to comment this same thing about getting JUST ONE being Mold Earth for regenerative agriculture. I would be doing so much hiking with.... rebelliously benevolent illegal swale/pond/water landscaping system creation. While bringing various native seeds along for the swales and keep going as I walk.
@@velocitymg His example of the colorado river basin of the desert southwest was historically a seasonal grassland that was destroyed in the 1800s onwards and turned into a desert. It was not the desert you're used to seeing. This would be restoration in the example given.
As a regular civilian, its going to be prestidigitation.
Whenever surfaces get dirty or greasy just waving your hand and it getting clean is super nice.
I actually calculated once that Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime had a STR of 19, same as a werebear.
Why? I'm not judging as I have many questions very similar to this but I need to know the story behind this fun fact haha
@@Dukedogdog My character became a werebear, and I wanted to give the other players an example of how jacked he became, so I compared Arnold's top lift weight with how the PHB calculates Strength, and it was the same.
100% guidance. Reducing my chance of missing a diagnose by AT LEAST 25% is huge. Would easily become the best doctor in the area.
Also, spare the dying is not useful at all for saving patients. We can stabilize pretty well already, we need to know whats the issue to help them, otherwise they get stabilized and stay in a coma forever
@@TheLublume If other D&D rules apply, they will actually only be in coma for 1d4 hours.
@@TheLublume The idea of a coma counting as stabilized is concerning. I didn't think of that. Though I still think being able to force people into a stable condition is worth it.
Their math is way off, forgetting the d20, but guidance is still pretty powerful just for its broad scope of uses in any profession, craft or social situation. (The increase would only be 9-38% for a skill you have no bonus in).
Average D4 role is 2.5. I think you’ve got that. The value isn’t 25% though.
It’s roughly 25% better (23.8) of an average D20. But that’s virtually meaningless when you consider DCs which is how success is measured. Unless the average DC is 13 or less, it’s a fail either way. And if the average DC is 10 you would typically pass and not be 25% (23.8%) more likely to succeed.
What it is though is a 12.5% increase (still great). It’s early and I’m still waking up, pardon me if I’m way off base. But, there is a target number you need to hit. There is a 5% chance of each number showing up on D20. So, if your target is 7 or 17 or whatever … the D4 effectively lowers that by 2.5 meaning you’re 12.5% more likely to hit your target.
That falls apart if target DCs are impossible but that’s incredibly uncommon.
Anything that boosts your roll or decreases a DC is worth 5% per point. All you’re doing is adjusting your target D20 number and each number is worth that 5%. Yeah? 1D8 bardic inspiration plus 1D4 guidance are (4.5 + 2.5) * 5 == 35% more likely to hit a target DC. You don’t add 4.5 and 2.5 then compare to an average D20 roll and decide that this is a 66.66% increased chance of success. It IS going to average 66.66% higher. But, success, your metric, isn’t based on you hitting that average roll. Success is a target number and these modifiers make you 35% more likely on that D20 to reach your target number.
I live in an area with a lot of dirt and gravel roads, Mold Earth would be SOOOoooo useful.
"Oh is that pothole back? Not anymore!"
Also working around buried utilities.
I don't play D&D so I don't know what the rules are for how much it can move, but isn't it like a 5 foot cubr every 6 seconds?
That's a lot of dirt!
Or if you’re evil: “Oh that pothole is gone? Not anymore!”
Prestidigitation would be my first pick as well.
Mending and Guidance is fighting each other for second place.
For magic initiates free 1st lvl spell, Find familiar would be a great spell. Imagine all the shenanigans you could do, not to mention the fact that you could get a overhead view of any situation as well as look at yourself without a mirror. It probably wouldn't die ever, as you could just keep it out of danger, and since it's a magical creature it probably lives a long time.
Tenser's floating disk, or comprehend languages would be very nice as well.
A healing spell would maybe be the best option though, as magical healing would be invaluable. Of the 1st lvl options, goodberry would probably be the best option, as 10 hp guaranteed with the additional effect that you can sustain 10 people with it. When a person has only a few hit points, it would be overpowered.
(False life would be very nice as well, although it only lasts an hour, while goodberry lasts 24, and also it is purely selfish)
Guidance is obviously the best choice, as it essentially gives you a +5 to ability scores (because of the +2.5 average to ability rolls)
As a paramedic, spare the dying would be the hardest part of my job done. The rest is talking to people, first aid, and driving a truck
Prestidigitation is the most realistic pick because cleaning is just a pain, even more so if you’re ND. 😂 like I don’t have to clean my dishes, do laundry, dust and vacume anymore. Plus you can make tiny items with it so if you need a random item you can just make it.
A coin for the vending machine, which then gives you both a snack and some loose change.
@@RichWoods23 Note that the trinkets you can make only last until the end of your next turn, so 6 seconds. That massively restricts what you can do with it. Vending machine coins is clever, though technically stealing. The only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is make stuff to throw at people.
@@2MeterLP Twelve seconds maximum, not six.
@@2MeterLP it's only stealing if you get caught.
Its such an easy pick for me based on the cleaning front alone. All the other abilities are just extra perks. 😅
1st Choice: Prestidigitation
Everything described in the video applies, the cleaning function is so incredibly useful, on so many levels, it's impossible to pass up. Additionally, one can get very creative in many ways with the harmless sensory effect, and the "nonmagical trinket or illusory image that can fit in your hand" allows me to replicate what you described with using Minor Illusion to create models of creatures and such!
2nd Choice: Spare the Dying
I graduated from high school recently, and I plan on becoming a firefighter, so having the ability to take a few seconds stabilize any living person with any level of wounds, to make sure they don't die? That's absolutely amazing! Spare the Dying would be a perfect cantrip for a first responder.
3rd Choice: Mending
For money and for convenience, this is a deeply useful cantrip. I agree with the judgement that most broken electronics could be fixed using this spell, as in the VAST majority of cases all of the materials are present and the damage is smaller than 1 foot in any dimension. Fix phones, fix ripped clothes, fix holes in walls or floors, fix cars, fix damaged shoes, fix glasses, restore old scratched up disks and antique machines, fix windows (one square foot at a time)!
Now, if we're talking about Variant Human with the Magic Initiate feat? I'm taking Wizard, because I think of myself as more intelligent than I am charismatic (though not by much ;3). For the spells, I would go with Prestidigitation, Shocking Grasp, and Find Familiar. The note under Find Familiar about sharing senses and Touch spells had me thinking, I could use that power to functionally become the best spy in the world.
For that final note, I’d take Prestidigitation, Resistance, and Goodberry. Assuming that most people only have 10hp, eating all ten of my generated goodberries would bring someone back from the edge of death; or I could just never ‘have’ to buy food again, while making the berries taste like whatever I want.
Minor Ilision would be amazing for Engineers, Architects, Filmmakers or some sort of Designer.
"What Feat Would You Take In Real Life?" would be awesome to see! i could see ritual caster, alert, observant, and even shadow touched coming in useful!
Legitimately would consider taking Magic Initiate for once. Having prestidigitation, mending, and unseen servant would be such a quality of life game-changer for almost anyone.
would ritual caster be useful? since in order to ritual cast you need magic, dose it give you any magic?
@@Sawtooth44 I mean magic not being real kills most things. So you have to assume that it works as written. Which means you could gain all rituals should you be able to find the actual spells written down for those classes. Which also means druid and cleric rituals might actually work. I mean ones from real life druids and clerics. Find some holy books and see if it works. Expensive though.
@@Merilirem just checked, you do actually gain 2 1st level spells from taking the feat
Cleric magic initiate with spare the dying, guidance and cure wounds would turn you into the ultimate doctor! Stabilising a dying person is actually very difficult to do, and you can just snap your finger and their life is saved! Plus fully healing one person a day, and use guidance to make sure every surgery around you always succeeds!
Mage hand is my go-to lol! I’m constantly in situations where I just need a third hand to hold something, or move something. Cleaning dishes, or super flavoring food are very appealing…but just being able to multitask at 120% is just appealing!
Mending for sure. It's not just about fixing the small things in everyday life. I can also use it to fix problems in the household. Prestidigitation is a close second for all the obvious reasons. Third would probably be Mage Hand for the sheer flexibility.
Mage hand holds 10 pounds, not 5. Also, everyone has been working on something where they just need someone else to hold it, or a third hand to reach something, move something, etc. Super useful.
Niche use, but mage hand would be useful handling dangerous things like radioactive waste.
@@thomasstyan2066 Or, more practically, the shards of a dropped plate or glass.
Also useful to, say, hold something that might burn you, be too cold, or covered in thorns or something. Could fit into spaces you otherwise can't reach, unlock doors from the inside, etc.
It's definitely very useful.
While I'd also pick Presti as my 1st choice, Mage Hand would come in handy for a lot of things and might come third after Mending (if I could have three). I just started volunteering at a Parrot Sanctuary, and being able to interact with the birds without fear of getting nabbed would be huge. I could also use it to clean the gutters on my house, fetch a tool when I'm working out in the yard and dropped it a little way back (would be really nice when it's boiling hot), hold band-aids still so I can position them better, brush off skeeters when I'm out walking, take certain pictures with my cellphone on trips without having to deal with my fear of heights (it would be like owning a short-range drone). So many possibilities.
Ive had a number of situations where a third hand would be a massive help. From mechanical work to basic house tasks.
22:46 personally the reason why I argue that spare dying is more useful in a medical setting is because things go wrong quite often when it comes to blood loss and moisture loss that just can’t be fixed because once it goes so far, there’s no going back. For instance a burn unit. This would be soooo useful in a burn unit because once a burn goes so far there’s no going back at a can’t be fixed, but if you have a spare dying you can fix it.
This is what baffled me. They seem to think modern medicine is magic. Its not. People can die from complications or unknown reasons all the time. Modern medicine can't stop someone from dying. It can only try to fix what is killing them in time. Spare the dying just stops death. It stabilizes them which is a huge difference to someone dying. They could be bleeding out on the ground and spare the dying could just deny death until you stopped casting it.
Healing and necromancy are the kinds of magic that go beyond what humanity can currently do. Its not at all comparable to convenience. Unless prestidigitation can actually clean radiation or toxins or microplastics from the earth, its not worth nearly as much.
I actually would take Eldritch Blast 😅 but not as my number one. I'm a cop so using EB to disarm someone or use it to get through a barricaded door when necessary would be really useful. Maybe forcing car doors open when people get in an accident and are trapped inside. Things like that
Probably my favorite video of yours in awhile, it’s fun to just listen to you guys theorize about real life stuff with the dnd context. Would 110% want to listen to the variant human load out video
I didn't even start the video and immediately shouted "Prestidigitation!" And then I watched the entire video :-). I concur with your assessments and would also choose mending as my second. Some objects are just irreplaceable and would be wonderful to fix. Imagine going into a museum and fixing all the displays.
Maybe I'll sound like "that guy" for saying, but I feel like fixing the displays would starkly go against some of the appeal. Like, seeing the history in an object or item, the age, is all part of it, isn't it? I can see practical use for it in a museum, certainly, but I think I would do my absolute best to keep the use of it on the displays themselves to a minimum. But if something got damage *by* the museum while setting up or transferring to and from storage... Yeah that's fair game lol.
@@knowwhoiamyet Agreed and the Japanese even developed an art style around repairing a number of items that would be in a museum or gallery that highlights the damage the item had taken.
Guidance is for sure the best cantrip for real life, it's not situacional, it has a significant impact in your chances to succeed and you can use it in other people.
I agree. As cool as prestidigitation is, it's basically just a conveince cantrip. I can clean by hand, I can flavor things with spices, I can warm or chill things with fire or ice-packs, I can scent things with essential oils. Guidence was make the "average" person like me 25% - 100% better at everything ? That's amazing.
an already just slightly above average person could possibly instantly become the best in the world at something with Guidance. you want to throw something? use Guidance on yourself and potentially increase your modifier to that throw by 4. learning something? potentially increase your intelligence by 4 for every instance of learning. anything charisma related? you could be the most motivating, charming person around.
Agreed, except I would say spare the dying comes in clutch when it matters most. Which could be worse more. You literally cannot die if someone is stabilizing you. Not unless its a quick death anyway.
My problem with guidance is that it in fact is situational. It has a 60 second duration with a 6 second cast time and requires that you make a loud determined vocal casting of the spell as well as a hand gesture and touch of some sort. Every 54 seconds you have to start that process just to keep it going and that is just not tenable for many many tasks.
Imagine just even writing emails in an office. Every 54 seconds you have to start chanting loudly and touching your chest while waving your other hand, just to make sure Sharon in HR understands the importance of hiring one more person to work on Thursdays.
And for very long tasks like repairing a vehicle while underneath and turning a wrench, your hands are full. It may not be reasonable to drop the nut you've been holding in your left hand for the past 5 minutes just to shout "Bastard engineers designed this!" and slap your chest to recast the spell.
@@fastrayd1 Yeah, And remember that an extra d4 doesn't guarantee a good result. If you roll a 2, even with an extra 4, that's still only a 6.
I see guidance as being more useful for competitive games like shot-putting or archery, but the sports would soon catch on that you are using magic.
Using cantrips would soon be regarded as being like using performance enhancing drugs.
I actually made a character who made me ask this exact question last week. I was making a maid for an inn that my party got as a reward ages ago, and was thinking 'from a pure utility standpoint, what would she put effort into learning to make her job easier?' I love thought exercises like this hehe
Oddly, this has been my favourite episode for a while haha.
Love ya work dudes
Im a service technician so mage hand would be my number one pick every time. There are so many times where you can use a third hand just to hold something in place, put a bolt in while you hold the part in position, mark something, be much faster with cabeling or have a way more easy way when soldering thin wires.
Prestidigitation would be my second pick and Mending my third.
One thing about Mage Hand, it could be incredibly useful for people with limited mobility! The extra range when you're bedridden or using a mobility aid would be amazing. My top three are Prestidigitation, Mending, and Mage Hand.
Please give us more of this I think we are all begging for more of this irl stuff please keep it up.
Great video idea! Love the additional idea too!
Mine would be
Healing Word for the 1st level spell
Prestidigitation and Mending for cantrips.
Though if Mold Earth was permanent changes to the ground, I'd consider that one because of the financial benefits. Imagine doing precision land leveling work for construction sites and farms... all by magical means. No equipment expenses or contract labor to pay out.
Prestidigitation is so obvious, I pick it with every spellcaster, you can be SO creative with so little. I once kept a blizzard out of our druid's face with continuous Prestidigitation so he could drive our sled down the mountain, likely saved the entire party just with a "fan" on command.
It has to be either Prestidigitation or Guidance. You either always have perfectly tasting food or are just a little better at everything
Guidance would be my pick choice since as mentioned on average you'd be like 25-100% better at doing something or well anything. So while it's annoying it's only for a single action, you could also try it over and over again it also works on others. Also there are probably a lot more skill checks in RL compared to DnD.
Mending is also pretty broken depending on how it would work in real life, I mean if it could repair a break or tear of 1 foot in a vehicale, building or what not.
Spare the dying depending on how it works with how it's worded could also be quite OP since how exactly does it work? Does it save someone bleeding to death? One of the most common way's people die during surgery is from bloodloss/bleeding. Could it be cast repeatedly on a dying person to prevent them from dying? Like what are the limits of stopping someone from dying?
Virtue could also be a great spell in my book if the temporary HP works like in DnD could be used in the same way as spare the dying examples. Would probably be the number 1 pick for people in health care. Though depending on how many temp HP you get it could also be used similar to a bulletproof vest / armor, could also be used in a lot of cases where you need to be more "tanky" would be quite the cheat in for instance a boxing match. Not much use in everyday scenarios unless your in health care I guess but still.
My Top 3 is the exact same as Kelly for the same reasons as well! Great minds think alike. Also you should absolutely make the Human Fea giving feature a whole video, like what feats would you choose, and what spells in Magic initiate and such!
Guidance. I'm needing it (also a +5% to +20% of success to everything would save so many headaches)
Would be useful at work
Most people don't generally fail at things in life. This is only a problem for absurdly incompetent people, and likely would make those people even more reckless and impulsive than they were before, making Guidance ACTIVELY MAKE THEIR LIFE WORSE.
@@dontmisunderstand6041how about becoming better at life? I wonder if guidance can help with understanding things when learning, that would be huge. Also, what about persuasion checks, when closing deals, or, maybe intelligence checks, when trying to come up with the best solution to a problem.
I would say, prestigigitation is the best "blue collar" job cantrip, guidance is the best "white collar" cantrip, and spare the dying is the best white coat cantrip.
@@dontmisunderstand6041what are you talking about? Catastrophic failures are rarer, sure, but mundane failures and minor slipups add up over time. Even getting rid of half of them would be great. Now the question is how to stop employers from knowing about it, lest they see it as an opportunity to overwork people harder with fewer consequences….
@@dontmisunderstand6041 If you're not failing, then you're not challenging yourself. For example, Every person you ever tried to persuade ended up agreeing with you? No, most people fail a lot. They're just failing at things that don't result in death.
Mage hand can do dangerous stuff! It can also do stuff that’s hard to reach, like getting at a bolt inside an engine, it also doesn’t get tired…. you could do things like unplug a clogged drain. How many times do you need an extra hand to hold something? Mage hand is S tier!
My DM asked the group this a few days ago, and now I realize he had just watched your video lol.
I chose Mending because I like to be handy and fix things. But Prestidigitation would probably be more useful since I hate cleaning but I hate things being dirty too.
I think that you are greatly underselling the power of resistance. Every time you trip and fall you roll a dex save. Social interactions can turn into a charisma save. Any food poisoning or headache can be a con save. There are probably many situations that I have not even thought of yet. I would still choose prestidigitation, which guidance and mending above resistance, but it would still be useful.
There are also a few errors in the average human stat block. The average human has 17 hp. Falling 10ft in dnd is 1d6 damage. You have a 50% chance of dying from a 40ft drop. The average of 4d6 is 16, so the average human has 17 hp. Additionally, it can be reasoned that a normal human has a +2 con. In dnd, you can survive asphyxiation for one minute plus your con modifier. Using the rule of 3’s, you can survive 3 minutes without air. Thus, the average person has a plus 2 con. As for strength, the average human does much worse. The average untrained human can deadlift 110 pounds. A dnd character can lift (with a movement speed of five) twice their maximum load. The maximum load is strength score times 15 pounds. 110/30 is 3.67. I round this up to 4, resulting in a strength modifier of -3 for the average untrained human. Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma are harder to quantify, so they take a little more judgement for each person. I know most of this because I ran an isekai dnd campaign for my friends.
Early on in 5th edition when I was running Tyranny of Dragons, one of my players was playing a Barbarian/Warlock multiclass who wasn't the brightest - he.. realized that he could make dirt taste good with Prestidigitation. Thus was born the term "Prestidigi-Bad-Idea".
My more mischievous characters would take a rock, paint it up like a cupcake, and put it somewhere people wouldn't find it weird. Then use that. My cruel characters would poison the rock, do all that, and then use prestidigitation to cover the taste of the poison.
It is a Somali dish, dirt cookies. You take some dirt and mix in a little bit of honey or sugar and let them dry in the sun, then you have something that tastes okay and will keep your stomach from collapsing into itself when you are starving.
Mage hand for changing light bulbs 15 feet in the air and other things that require reaching up 15-25 feet above your head!
Exactly. Especially useful for short people.
my top 5 & a honorable mention
1. Mending
2. prestidigitation - instant teeth cleaning
notably the old name for prestidigitation of "Least Wish" seems more right for what it does irl.
3. Guidance
4. Spare the Dying - just want the easy it done button.
5. Mold earth
Honorable mention - Primal savagery - slight combat applications + I can have little snaggle fang things
1 Wildshape first choice especially if i can mix and/or augment myself or my forms
2 Guidance
3 Encode thoughts
4 Mending
5 prestidigitation
6 mage hands
7 Find steed
8 Conjure animal
Mending. I don't need much. I will want to use everything until its gone gone.
IMO, electronics and other advanced mechanisms should be considered as magic items in DnD terms. They actually run on lightning energy. Basically it's only good for stuff that could be made in medeival era.
With mending, you are controlling chemical bonds. You are walking a nuclear reactor. You can mend diamonds together. If you are not careful, for sure you are on fbi list
@@alexmin4752Gotta disagree here, I don’t know why electronics stuff would be considered “magic-y” and mending has to be for medieval stuff. There’s like no description for mending that implies that at all. Even if we take a step back and say electronics are considered “magic items” (despite being built using the physical and chemical properties of the material element themselves), mending can still fix magic items remember, it just can’t re-imbue magic. Considering I’m not being called a wizard or artificer irl when I use a phone or driver a car, I think mending has to take the cake here. (Not to mention the amount of bank you can make from repairing antiques like an ancient painting or pottery or a broken Stradivarius)
The problem with Mending is that it does not repair wear or material fatigue damage, only tears and breaks. And only on a single 'physical' break or tear at a time at time on top of it. It 'could' repair a tear caused by wear or fatigue, but the wear would remain and it will break again in a blink.
95% of what breaks in our daily life is due to wear or it's a break but the item gets shattered in so many piece it's not practical at all to find all pieces. That hole in your socks or shirt, most of the time it's wear of the fabric that over time thins it so much that it can't hold itself up anymore, not tear. Leaky faucet? Wear. Tears usually only occur during accidents, misuse or similar occurences.
@@sir_wffles Ok, in this analogy we can say that the battery is the magic source and everything else is mundane/mechanical. But "Target: A single break or tear in an object you touch". If you break a phone there will be hundreds of conductive lines snapped. IMO, the wording implies you can fix something that's rather simple in design. Also, most devices aren't discarded due to physical damage but of malfunctions.
Honestly prestigitation and mending would make life so easy and BTW shadows of Drakenheim is such a banger of the series so far I've only seen two episodes so far but it's amazing and i learned something Kelly's character designs somehow ends up being my favorite part of this channel keep up the good work Kelly and Monty
I would love for yall to do this question with the leveled spells.
For a first, any healing spell would be incredible, but specifically goodberry: ten people healed and/or fully fed for the day
As a home cook, prestidigitation would come in so clutch. All the times I've gotten ready to cook and realized I was missing a certain spice. And my house would be spotless.
In fact, the top three general purpose cantrips for real life is Prestidigitation, Mending, and Mage Hand. Who doesn't rip their clothes now and then or need an extra hand?
My magic initiate loadout is Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, and as my 1st level, Unseen Servant. It's all I need to get everything done and out of the way so I can get to important things.
I’m a janitor so prestidigitation would be phenomenal BUT I’d have to use it sparingly because if I was too supernaturally fast and thorough somebody would wanna see what I’m doing
That is a great point. I never thought of it like that.
Or your boss might start cutting your hours. 😅
Your problem is you're trying to be hidden about it and keep your current job, instead of creating your own company and cleaning 20+ businesses' entire office buildings every night shift by just yourself, at just below market rates. They are closed at night and just want their stuff cleaned.
The only thing you'd still have to do is take the trash out physically, and people WILL see you doing that on their cameras etc... as you just prestidigitate everything around you constantly.
Paramedic here, adding to the spare the dying discussion: It definitely would save a ton of lives better than modern medicine without question. Most ICUs are loaded with patients forced into stability with lots of medications and a medically induced coma, a quick fix for that would be a literal miracle. But what are the limitations, would it save someone who needs CPR? their heart and lungs have already stopped, in some cases the heart is shaking around and can be restarted with electricity but would they be considered dead or dying? How many people would have access to this cantrip? If it becomes common (even like 1000 people in the US might be enough) it would collapse the entire corrupt healthcare system. We've built it around corrupt greedy businessmen and politicians profiting off the sick and dying, so that would all collapse. But I should also point out that most of our patients are not dying, even when we respond to 911 calls we don't often see real life or death emergencies, and if things have gotten that far (outside of massive multisystem traumas) it is usually due to a failure to find or treat a less severe problem.
That being said, if prestidigitation can sterilize objects as part of its "cleaning" then it could save almost as many lives as spare the dying. Infection is a huge killer in hospitals, CLABSIs and CAUTIs (common hospital acquired infections that shouldn't exist if proper sterile technique or catheter replacement protocol was followed) would be essentially erased and sepsis would be a thing of the past. We wouldn't have to worry about antibiotic resistant superbugs or blood borne pathogens.
I also can't stess enough how many times I wish I could use mending on various things in my ambulance. Many private ambulance companies don't invest enough in maintenance that lots of our trucks are running with check engine lights, jury rigged replacement parts, or just old equipment that should be replaced. Outside of maintenance, sometimes our equipment just fails. Wires, tablets/clipboards that you use for reports, oxygen regulators, BP cuffs, even my ventilator sometimes fails us in the field. A quick fix to all of these would make my job 10 times easier and probably save some lives (though less than spare the dying or prestidigitation).
TLDR: all the top choices they mention would be AMAZING things to have in healthcare, especially emergency medicine but even in less emergent situations.
Spare the dying is my pick just so I never have to hold someone in my hands and watch them die. Assuming it stabilizes them you could just keep casting it if need be and the ambulance would make it to you. As long you can keep using it they shouldn't die from the kinds of things that kill most people. Its magic that stabilizes after all.
Spare the Dying effectively just creates that medically induced coma. It's the same thing. CPR, that's effectively modern medicine's version of Revivify, a spell that brings people back from the dead if they died within the past few seconds, and their body isn't so badly damaged that they'd just die again anyway.
If a DND character just had their chest caved in and arm severed by a series of brutal monster attacks, and would die in 18 seconds -- spare the dying STABILIZES THEM. That objectively means it must save someone who needs CPR. It must immediately stop the bleeding and stabilize blood pressure by sealing gaping wounds. It must stop sepsis. It won't bring them up from there... but that puts them in the medically safe stable coma! insane honestly for ER and paramedics
Y'all should go over how you'd run a seafaring campaign. Preferred ship combat and travel systems, letting players upgrade their ships or home bases, general tips on a fun open ocean adventure!
I actually just had this conversation a couple of weeks ago with my D&D group, before I knew this video existed. It's a fun thought experiment. I loved this video and would love to see this with 1st level spells. Rule: if you could have just one 1st level spell and could cast it only once, which would it be? There could be a discussion about whether you can cast spells ritually or not. My choice would probably be find familiar for all the obvious reasons, but there could be an argument for ceremony, goodberry, or really any of the spells that have the ritual tag. As far as my cantrips go: prestidigitation, mending, and probably blade ward. Blade ward may be less useful in many circumstances in D&D, but in real life it could go a long way to prevent myself from getting really hurt.
Number 1 is far and away Prestidigitation (though for the cleaning it specifies nonliving matter so no replacing showers or brushing your teeth), but if you're doing the magic initiate thing of 2 cantrips than the second would be Mending easily.
Third would be one of the three;
Mage Hand (for shenanigans, teasing, and laziness around the house)
Minor Illusion (for as Monty said about being a creative where I can just show what I'm thinking of instead of having to describe it)
Dancing Lights (for no more light bill)
I also saw someone comment on a Dimension20 short about the same concept to this that Spare the Dying would basically be Coma the Spell.
And for True Strike, if you're in a combat sport True Strike could get you that the first hit knockout if you cast it just as the match starts.
Had this conversation many times and I think all of us decided prestidigitation was the way to go for most of the same reasons you guys landed on.
It's so damned versitile for all manner of little annoyances.
I always land on spare the dying because it means you never have to watch someone die in your arms. That should be more than enough. Let alone the ability to help out at a hospital. No one would die during surgery as long as you kept casting. The doctors could finish and the patient would then be stable and fixed. Almost no chance things go wrong.
Guidance is my next pick because it just makes you better at everything by a large margin. I can clean stuff on my own and make healthy tasty food. I can't be better at things than I am literally capable of being. Your limits as humans are set in stone. Guidance raises those beyond such limits even if you roll a 1.
7:40 you know what else Prestidigitation does? Many minor magical effects. You can instantly light and snuff out campfires create smells, sounds and other small sensory tricks, you can mark a path you’ve been travelling to keep track as well.
My initial thought was mending but you guys made a great case for prestigiditation
Very entertaining. One of my favorite videos.
1. Prestidigitation
2. Mending
3. Minor Illusion
If Magic Initiate, Find Familiar
1. Prestidigitation
2. Guidance
3. Mending
if Magic Initiate, Comprehend Languages
and if given a second first level spell, Speak with Animals
I do a lot of agriculture landscaping and construction, and clean drinking water isn’t always available to me, so my two cantrips would have to be Mould Earth and Prestidigitation, and my first level spell would have to be create/destroy water. Creating seed beds, digging out dirt for foundations, digging up root vegetables, watering my plants, access to clean water 24/7, and I can clean all the dirt off me afterwards. It’s too good to even think about.
Shovel of lesser mold earth 😬👍
Now that I finished the video and understand the assignment
1. Mending (because its always my job to fix the things someone else broke more failing to fix it)
2. Prestidigitation (because all the reasons you listed 👍)
3. Mage Hand (because I’ve been bed ridden more than once in my life and independents is empowerment.)
Besides I already have a “Shovel of lessor Mold Earth” 😬👍
Also looking forward to the second part of this video
Mage hand is excellent for all those times you wished they had a third hand. Assembling a piece of furniture, or rolling your own pasta come to mind. There is also just a huge upside to having a hand that can't be injured. If you've ever hit your knuckle on a cheese grater, you know the value. In a shop setting. Imagine having stability with your two real hands in the completely safe zone, and then having your mage hand handling the materials in the danger zone. Beyond that, there are people with issues with manual dexterity, and just having a steady hand with a sure grip would be life changing.
Prestidigitation, clean wounds as well! Never worry about a cut or scrape getting infected!
The spell states you clean an object. So not people. Maybe browse 4chan to become extremely sexist so you can cast it on women?
Creatures are not objects.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 just view every wound as a thing. In game, every person is just a cog in the wheel so they aren’t a creature to them 😆. Though one could argue a scrape or a cut is a thing/object not a creature.
@@kylesavage6319 Perspective does not change reality. Neither in real life nor the specific fictional game worlds these ideas come from.
Ok, but the real benefit is that after cleaning the wound through mundane means, you can ensure the dressings and bandages remain pristine.
As a nurse, Mage Hand would be so useful just to grab/hold that thing while my hands are full...but then prestidigitation would just clean up all my patients for me...that's a hard toss up. Spare the dying is ironic because if I had that, I would never send anyone to the ICU 😅 that would result in some strange staffing disturbances. I think I'd have to take guidance as my 3rd
Prestidigitation hands down! I can’t even tell you how many discussions we’ve had about this.
Loved this video, want to see the 2 cantrips and 1 first level spell!!! (Top pick is mending. Next are prestidigitation and minor illusion.)
Prestidigitation and start a cleaning business. Car detailing/car wash, house cleaning, dorm cleaning etc.
Druidcraft and Mold Earth perfect for a landscaping business.
Mending to start a repair business
Prestidigitation and become a world famous chef
I've worked as in CNC machine repair. It is A LOT of money a year. 200k+ without fixing an 8 hour day in 1 minute.
Spare the dying and become the worlds best paramedic.
The surface of a car is not a valid target for the spell, as it specifies an object less than or equal to 1 cubic foot. RaW does not permit the targeting of portions of a contiguous obeject. Parts of the car would be targetable, such as: screws, bolts, hubcaps, headrest, etc., as they are non-contiguous.
Car wash doesnt seem like the most efficient use of magic. You gotta think bigger! Do something noone else can do! Clean things that are too delicate to clean the conventional way, like priceless paintings! Or remove stains that are hard to get out conventionally, like blood!
I would also do prestidigitation, mending, and guidance. I write very complicated code for a living to make medicine and guidance would be amazing for that. Since it applies to that skill check I would use it before each coding session.
I've pondered this particular orb for many seasons.
Prestidigitation is the ultimate quality of life boost.
Guidance is a 5-20% increase in your odds of success at any given task.
If we take Magic Initiate, as suggested at the end of the video, the Artificer gets both.
There's nothing better than prestidigitation, but my second choice is control flames, with guidance right behind that
I think I go guidance followed closely by prestidigitation
Shoutouts to mage hand and control flames.
@@palatonian9618 Guidance is proactive, not reactive. Which massively restricts its usage and utility. And it often has no meaningful effect at all In fact, the math suggests it's almost never going to matter. For a 1 on the d4, it only matters 5% of the time, for the 2, 10% of the time, 15% and 20% for the 3 and 4. In effect, Guidance only has AN effect 12.5% of the time, roughly. Or, to put it into perspective, it's a waste of time and effort in 87.5% of cases. 7 out of 8 times, it's worthless.
I’d take being 12 and a half percent better at anything, personally.
@@recursiveslacker7730 Only in cases of extraordinary effort. Passive skills are the baseline, extraordinary efforts allow us to roll for a potential that's higher than our passive, but can also give a lower result. On average, the result of a roll will be 5% better than your passive. However, it's important to note... guidance doesn't affect your passive skills. And those passive skills are what make up almost all of the things you do. If it improved passives, then it truly would make you better at anything. But it doesn't. It does nothing 87.5% of the time, and prevents you from hurting yourself by doing stupid things the other 12.5%. Because remember... those extraordinary efforts generally don't have a benefit at all for success, they avoid consequences. When you roll acrobatics to make a sick jump across a chasm, success doesn't make you better off, it just stops you from falling to your death.
Yall say how some cantrips would only be useful for people who are in certain professions or do certain hobbies, but I'd argue that if you had a cantrip that made those easy, like digging with Mold Earth, you'd do those things a lot more than you do now.
So here are mine
1. Prestidigitation (Clear favorite for all the reasons you named)
2. Thaumaturgy (loud speaker, thematic lights/shaking/eyes, and you can open windows and doors at will.)
3. Produce Flame (you can make a harmless light in your hand that looks cool, and throw it... covers emergency lighting, and your self defense needs...
- Note, if you could combine the first two with Druidcraft to make a super version i would take that... would not mind being able to just check the weather and make flowers blossom
if you did combine them then id have one more to pick up and that would be mage hand... if i could id take the telekinetic feat version so it would just be invisible.
One thing about Guidance; it gives you (an average of) +2.5 to a skill check. That increases your probability of success by 12.5%. That means Guidance makes turns a fail into a success (on average) 1 time out of 8 castings. When compared to Mending, that sucks. Keep up the great work though!
Mending
Oh yeah.
Me: oh crap, I dropped another glass. Mending
The amount of DSes I would fix with this...
@@EliasMorals or old cds
I loved this video guys
I mean dudes
Please do more stuff like this and what you started talking about in the end with the first level spells
I love these kinds of thought. Experiments reminds me of choosing 3 pokémon in real life
prestidigitation is basically "least wish"
the ability to instantly clean my stuff, and instantly make my opponents soil themselves is amazing.
No damage dealing cantrips? This is very Canadian of you! :D
To be fair, only Eldritch Blast is worth it, and I think the damage dealing cantrips are far less useful IRL primarily because of the verbal component, and in particular combat just isn't a part of a civilian's life almost all the time.
Humans don't generally have a need to deal damage in real life. They go to jail or die if they try.
@@sharmakefarah2064 Eldritch blast specifically only can target creatures, so some others like fire bolt might have more practical uses. Considering 1d8 hp of a commoner, you don't really need d12 over a d10 either
@@Julia________ True, Fire Bolt definitely is the best generalist cantrip for a civilian focused on defense, though Eldritch Blast comes in a close second.
Why pick eldritch blast when you can get basically the same thing from literally any Walmart?
Most useful quality of life cantrip spells
- prestidigitation
- druidcraft
- mending
- message
- mold earth
- shape water
- thaumaturgy
- spare the dying
- light
- control flames
- guidance
- encode thoughts
- dancing lights
- hunter sense (Humblewood cantrip)
- mage hand
Least these are the ones I would consider.
As for my tops choices, personally
1) Prestidigitation (of course)
2) Druidcraft (frankly being able to know the weather always and being able to grow things is too good to pass up, especially since I love herbalism irl)
3) Mage Hand (let’s be honest, this is amazing for short people and those who might have mobility issues, of which I am the short person in this case)
With any additional it would be
4) mending
5) guidance
6) dancing lights
7) message
8) spare the dying
9) control flames
10) mold earth
11) shape water
12) light
13) encode thoughts (because that’s just neat to me)
And that’s pretty much what I would be interested in.
i can make a reasonable case for wanting eldritch blast. i carry a gun, it would be great to not have to carry a weapon and still have similar offensive capability for self defense. it would also be great for places where weapons aren't allowed.
I'm with Kelly here. Prestidigitation, Mending and Guidance would be my first picks.
I'd love to see a video of your picks for a real life Magic Initiate. My choices would probably be Prestidigitation, Mending and Cure Wounds.
You should do this for every level of spell, and then, using the class that can get all or most of them (probably wizards, since its not sorcerers of the coast is it), make the best real life spellcaster for dnd, id probably say be a divination wizard, but id love to see the argument for each subclass of the chosen class
If they did every level, the last video would just be two seconds: “It’s Wish”
Healing until you can get crazy stuff like wish. Healing magic and necromancy completely go beyond what humanity can do.
@@obi-wan-jacobi840 I highly doubt the video for level 4 spells would be as short as "The answer is Wish".