Can a d&d wizard somehow take a photograph with some combination of core spells?
>>45607725
Prestidigitation.
>>45607725
Hmm, maybe with fabricate and craft (drawing/painting/etc.)
>>45607725
Some basic 2d illusion spell + permanency.
>>45607779
This is the correct answer. All petty, party-trick level magic is Prestidigitation.
>>45607725
What edition?
>>45607963
The only good one (2nd)
>>45607934
>photography
>petty, party-trick level magic
Choose one
>>45607999
Photography is effectively staining a plate or film with light, and prestidigitation is specifically noted for soiling things. It's not much to ask that you can soil according to what you can see, especially because the nature of that spell is predominantly governed by your imagination.
As for party-tricks, photography is to a wizard like photography is to a modern day 1st world person. You probably have three cameras you don't even use, and one or two cameras you carry everywhere you go.
>>45607844
>complex answer
>>45607779
>lazy answer
>>45607782
>an actually good answer
Almost 100% sure that there's a magical item that's basically a camera in some AD&D 2E book.
>>45608120
Lots of things that wouldn't be trivial in-setting are trivial to a wizard. I don't think that's the standard for "party trick" that the skill is intending.
Not prestidigitation (unless 2ed is wildly different than 3rd and Pathfinder). There are all kinds of provisos about how anything you make is crude, fragile, and disappears after an hour. I would go with >>45607844.
>>45609514
>Any actual change to an object (beyond just moving, cleaning, or soiling it) persists only 1 hour.
The soiling part is permanent. Or, you could take a piece of charcoal and use the spell to effectively draw the scene in front of you.
put an imp in a box with a tiny easel and a set of paints. they're too stupid to lie so they'll just paint what they see.
You can also use a salamander as a flash
>>45609613
Soiling something in a 1 foot cube is something my dick can do. If you draw a scene, it's drawing and not a photograph, and prone to the same limitations. Moving a piece of charcoal
would also happen very slowly according to the spell description, meaning you wouldn't even me able to go at regular sketch artist speed.
>inb4 'I am a gifted artist and my renditions are as good as any photograph"
>>45609719
>Moving a piece of charcoal would also happen very slowly according to the spell description
Move charcoal dust as needed.
>inb4 'I am a gifted artist and my renditions are as good as any photograph"
The prestidigitation is autonomous.
>>45609626
You. I like you.
>>45607725
In Forgotten Realms I believe, there is a 3.5 spell called Amanuensis. It's 2nd or 3rd level, and basically what it does, is that it copies text (as long as said text is not magical).
So while I don't think there is a photography spell (unless you can create film some other way, and then use stuff like Fireworks to burn an image into it). You do have precedent to a simpler spell with a similar concept. So you could create a +1/+2 higher level spell that can create photographs, and it wouldn't be that far off.
Infact, there is an official item of Legacy in the same edition, I believe a glove, that can memorize a page from any book, and then later be instructed to perfectl re-pen it on a new piece of paper, so you could make an item, or spell that "memorizes" a view, to then later be used with the other spell that creates a picture.Amanuensis is also what disqualifies Prestidigitation, because people like to pretend it's trivial to copy anything with that, yet you need a 2nd/3rd level spell to do as much as copy non-magical text.
>>45609719
>Soiling something in a 1 foot cube is something my dick can do.
It seems like you enjoy playing the role of an unreasonable DM, but that's fine.
Prestidigitation can create objects (substances) and even potentially alter the chemical properties of substances (flavoring). While the substances may disappear after an hour, it should be reasonable to expect that potential chemical alterations that they performed during that time should last, especially if those effects are stains.
A light-sensitive salt coating will induce chemical stains that effectively create negative photographs with the aid of a camera obscura. Quite simply, the wizard would be replicating the early photographic process with the aid of magic to produce negative prints, which isn't too farfetched for a wizard to come up with since the camera obscura predates Aristotle and light sensitive chemicals have likewise been know to antiquity. This would hardly make good photos initially, but considering that the developmental process would be quite rapid for a person who can rapidly test out hundreds of potential chemicals in minutes, a clever wizard could effectively develop a system of using prestidigitation to "manually" construct a photographic plate. Potentially, they might actually skip over the camera obscura and instead create a small and intense amplified light image directly over the treated surface using prestidigitation.
No spell is being duplicated, and ultimately the game effect is moderately minor and hardly game-breaking, though it's a bit sloppier than simply saying "Okay, you can soil that bit of parchment with an image of what you see."
>>45610224
>Amanuensis
That was originally a 3rd level spell because it could copy a spell book. It was reduced to a 0 level spell in the 3.5 spell compendium and became unable to copy a spell book. It likely would have been reduced lower if there actually was a less than level 0 spell.
>>45610466
Huh.
Been a while since I had a character with that spell, so must've mixed it up.
Oh well.
>>45610860
It was a good call remembering that spell, but it's a little bizarre to accept that designers would evaluate a spell that did something so mundane and so rarely useful as on the same tier as fireball and fly.
>>45611010
I see your point, but really, if we leave prestidigitation as it is, then it would be incredibly, incredibly easy for a Wizard to get extremely rich.
>See a great poem
>Copy it over and over again
>Make money selling it to various bards
>See a beautiful painting
>Make a dozen copies, selling it to nobles
>Visit dwarven city
>Copy down dwarven carvings to paper
>Forge signatures
>Forge code phrases
>Forge anything
Hell, in most settings I've been in, just the ability to copy books was very valuable, because it was a "low magic" setting in that wizards and by extension lore keepers, librarians and other people of great knowledge were few and far between, so nobles could and would pay large sums of money to anyone who can help them expand their prestigious personal librariesWas kind of a status symbol
>>45608120
>three cameras you don't even use
The life of a richfag must be nice
>>45610371
>>45608120
>>45609613
Prestidigitation can't create permanent objects. Soiling or cleaning does not circumvent this restriction. That's how I'd rule and we're moving on with the game.
Furthermore,depending on the setting, There is no way that your fantasy character would know the technical processes involved in creating a modern day equivalent photograph that were developed hundreds of years of scientific progress after the middle ages . Nor would the materials needed be available. You are using meta game knowledge your character simply wouldn't have.
And yes, you need to be able to direct the chalk with Prestidigitation because that's what the spell does. It lets you move objects as you direct them. That means it would only create a picture as good as your artistic skill allows. Automatically creating something and/or creating permanent objects is the purview of higher level spells than cantrips.
>>45607725
Silent Image + permanency would work without any skill involved.
Fabricate would be necessary to make a "safe" image that could survive anti-magic.
Prestidigitation is not precise enough for the task, it's abilities are limited and simple parlor tricks. You could use it to draw patterns in dust or chalk, but that's it. Remember that mage hand is a separate spell because it gives you the utility of using your own dexterity.
>>45612006
so a webcam, a (smart)cameraphone and an old camera are somehow, in 2016, not something that every orc has?
>>45613726
Huh, so you have a phone?
>>45612184
The imprinted parchment need not be made by the spell. The goal is to take a photo, and the easiest route is to use Prestidigitation to either soil or move some pigment onto a prepared piece of parchment.
As far as the question of the impossibility of a medeival-esque fantasy character coming up with something similar to the early photographic process, that's actually one of the non-religious hypotheses for creating the Shroud of Turin, with someone using silver bromide and a camera obscura to stain the image on the shroud without leaving any brush strokes.
Remember, the components of photography were known since antiquity, and even the process of using a camera obscura to set an image for tracing was a technique used well before the Middle Ages.
As far as directing the spell, one of the listed uses in Tome and Blood is to gather up a certain object, for instance to pull out all the silver coins from a purse while leaving the other coins. This selective process does not rely on the wizard directly directing each coin, but stating an intention and allowing the spell to fulfill his directions.
With that in mind, let's take the camera obscura, project an image onto a sheet of parchment that is layered with charcoal dust, and then direct the spell to gather up all the dust that is hit by the light, relative to the light.
The final, permanent objects, parchment and charcoal, need to be supplied by the wizard, but the rest can be done with prestidigitation, including levitating the parchment, covering it with the charcoal, creating the box for the camera obscura (since it could effectively be fashioned out of thin opaque sheets of any crude material and could weigh as little as that of six pieces of paper), levitating the box, and then gathering up the dust under the direction of only the charcoal that is illuminated.
A bit complicated, but well within the limits of Prestidigitation, and hardly game-breaking.
>>45612506
>Remember that mage hand is a separate spell because it gives you the utility of using your own dexterity.
It's actually a separate spell because it can lift either 5 or 10 pounds, depending on edition. That, and being able to move things quickly.
That's also the reason why telekinesis is a separate spell, because it has an even higher weight limit and higher speeds.
>>45607725
enhanced memory spell plus thoughtography spell
>>45614720
>A bit complicated, but well within the limits of Prestidigitation
>complicated
>within the limits of Prestitigitaion
>Once cast, a prestidigitation spell enables you to perform simple magical effects for 1 hour.
>simple
>complicated
>within the limits of simple
Do you grasp the problem here, yet?
>>45608473
get out tripfag
>>45611337
The thing is, if it's that easy to copy books then it won't be a status symbol to have many of them for long as any schmuck would be able to get them.
>>45614903
What problem?
It's more complicated than "soil the parchment according to what I see", but it's still nothing more than a series of simple effects, which I outlined for you.
Each step of the process is within the limits of the spell, is simple in of itself, and the entirety would hardly take an hour. It would hardly take a few minutes to perform those steps.
>>45611337
A wizard only gets 6 level 0 spells a day, though. I'm pretty sure I can copy a poem more than 6 times a day, I'll be fucking rich!
Another thing you seem to be missing is that translating what one sees into reality is one of the primary problems of the visual arts; it's a problem of seeing and directing your tools, not the method.
Prestidigitation simply does not work this way.
>>45614909
>If it's that easy to copy books
Again, in a setting with barely any wizards
I'm talking "you'll find a wizard in the ArchDuke and the King's court. Besides that, there's like three wizardry schools on the entire continent, and maybe upwards of 300 wizards in total, most of whom are engaged in study.
>>45614987
Maybe I should have been clearer, since I was actually using an example from the game.
Basically said wizard character uncovered a copy of an ancient lost epic poem.
Think Poetic Edda basically.
Good luck copying that even once in a year, especially when you can't even use the alphabet it was written in.
>>45612006
There are smartphones available new for less than US$4. Can't afford a medium-sized pizza?
Hell, you can get obsolete phones for free quite easily. We aren't richfags, you're just a dumbfag.
>>45614973
The entire universe operates on the simple interactions of a few basic particles. You are being deliberately obtuse, here.
>>45615075
I have no problems with Amenausis, which specifically does what you're describing. It's clearly outside of Prestidigitation's purview, though.
>>45615101
The deeper problem is that magic isn't really required for any of that. It's like saying a Wizard can make a cake by making all of the mundane movements with Mage Hand. They have essentially said "well yes wizards can do it because mundane people can do it", which rather misses the point.
>>45615101
Then your definition of 'complex' hinges on the number of simple interactions you can observe.
>>45615101
>You are being deliberately obtuse, here.
I send your own accusation back at yourself.
Are you really hoping to try and dismiss the process on account of you subjectively defining it as too complicated, when it's just a set of 5 simple tasks, with only one of them being essential (gathering the dust) while the other 4 are simply for ease of use?
The players who play wizard characters in fantasy roleplaying games are the reason why I never play fantasy roleplaying games.
>>45614720
I have to disagree. Pulling silver vs copper is one thing, but "remove charcoal dust in proportion to the amount of light striking that area" is more akin to "pull all of the silver coins from the pouch in order of minting date, with ties pulled in order of weight". I believe that a GM would be within his or her bounds to rule that too complex an intention.
>>45615169
What is the complex, if not the aggregation and interaction of the simple?
>>45615142
We're on the same page then.
The reason I brought it up, is because it still displays how prestidigitation doesn't just do whatever the hell you want it to within the limits of "colouring and making patterns" like a lot of people think.
>>45615179
So what you're saying is that "simple" and "complicated" are subjective judgement, and as such nothing can be ruled as too complicated an effect for Prestidigitation to achieve? I could as easily say that nothing can be ruled to be simple enough to be achieved by Prestidigitation. It is an empty argument.
And then you turn around and "subjectively" define your tasks as simple. If not deliberate obtuseness, then hypocrisy at least.
>>45615309
Trying to dismiss it on account of me calling it complicated is failing to recognize that that was relative to a more direct process omitting the camera obscura and charcoal layered parchment.
If you are demanding further clarification, allow me to call the entirety of the process simple. If you want to argue it's not, tell me which step is beyond your comprehension.
>>45609626
DISCWORLD IS DEAD, WHY REMIND ME
>>45615207
I'd argue otherwise. Gathering charcoal based on illumination requires no real intelligence or comprehension, simply an evaluation of how much light is hitting it. If neccesary, a DM might argue that the wizard would need to use a viewfinder to directly observe the process, but it's hardly more complicated than altering only the stripes on a garment to turn a different color, one of the other listed uses in Tome and Blood.
>>45615461
None of the steps are beyond my comprehension, but that's not what simple means.
Isn't there a spell that specifically imprints a mental image onto a canvas as a painting?
>>45615571
Altering the stripes on a garment to turn a different colour is an effect that would last 1 hour.
"If colourA then colourB" is a very simple binary evaluation, comparable to "if silver then pull". Responding to the spectrum of intensities of light at play is a sorting process of various related values and not a binary evaluation.
In any case, the result would naturally be far too crude to qualify as a modern photograph.
Color Spray + Prestidigitation
Or something...
>>45615724
>Altering the stripes on a garment to turn a different colour is an effect that would last 1 hour.
The duration has hardly any significance toward its complexity.
>"If colourA then colourB" is a very simple binary evaluation, comparable to "if silver then pull". Responding to the spectrum of intensities of light at play is a sorting process of various related values and not a binary evaluation.
I'm at a loss as to why you think that binary evaluations are the absolute maximum level of complexity permitted by the spell. Taking a typical medieval garment, you would be hard pressed to find one with stripes of fabric of a uniform dye job and uniform fading. You'd effectively have to set a designated variety of hue and value ranges to fall within the permitted color designation, which is hardly binary.
All in all, your argument is for a niggling point of very small significance, since Prestidigitation can alter and adjust a plaid pattern just as easily as it can adjust a simple set of black and white stripes.
We're looking at a spell that can tie a knot as if taking a 10 with the use rope skill, change a coin into a ring, turn a piece of paper into a rose, and can make a twig taste like steak (all of these examples are used in Tome and Blood). It's hardly a novice programmer's first run through BASIC.
>>45616541
Now, I will agree that it should be relatively crude, hardly a comparison to modern photography, but putting excessive limitations on the spell is hardly in the spirit of it. It's supposed to enable useful tricks that have almost no combat potential and very little explorative use, but it's not supposed to be absolutely useless beyond entertaining peasants. It's the utility spell that fills in the gaps of effects deemed too minor to even require a level 0 spell.
Now, I will gladly hear the argument that a spell that creates a photograph could be a reasonable 0-level spell. It's useful, and the only real argument for why it should be a higher level spell is because it can be sold for a fair amount of money. But, with that as the argument, Ray of Frost could be used to make someone fabulously wealthy if used creatively, especially in a hot climate.
All in all, I'd say that the 0-level spell "Lucigraph" or however you want to name it would be great for producing high resolution color photographs out of thin air, but that shouldn't prohibit Prestidigitation from creating cruder black and white photos with prepared parchment and charcoal.
>>45607979
Nice one.
>>45616541
You're making leaps in logic rather than sticking to what I actually say, and taking a full hour to do it. I don't think I'll discuss this any further. Thank you for being civil.
>>45614987
Rich.. Did you forget five gold is the average wages for a month? Bards by comparison probably makes twice that. Nobles don't want the written poem-they want someone to recite it. Every day before bed.
>>you'll never tell a qt Dame a story before bed and be paid in hugs
>>45617116
I didn't forget anything, you've said nothing new or enlightening. What is your point? Did you respond to the wrong person by mistake?
>>45613726
Look at Mr. Moneybags over here.
>>45617190
You can buy 2 cameras for $8.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Fujifilm-Disposable-35mm-Camera-With-Flash-2-Pack/11019775
>>45617190
US$10 is not particularly bank-breaking unless you are from one of the poorest countries in the world. It's less than a day's wage even in places like Pakistan or Tajikistan.
>>45617223
Not even disposables, there are smartphones for under US$4 if someone is really that poor.
>>45617178
Just pointing out get rich scheme flaws. It's the only thing interesting in this thread because all of the rest is dependsontheGMism. You can't copy the brush stroke indentations with a spell, so those would be blaring fakes too.
>>45617332
Paintings I mean.
>>45614720
>>45615179
>>45616541
At the gaming table, this is subject to DM interpretation of the spell. If I were the DM, I'd take into account the spirit of the spell within the context of the rest of the rules. Pedantic rules lawyering to force a spell to do something beyond the spirit of what it was intended to do, or arguing for meta game player knowledge to be usable by a character who would not have that knowledge, would only encourage me to rule against you.
I don't know of any other DM that would give this argument more than 5 minutes of game time.
You know... I refuse to believe that you would even try to make the argument at a gaming table because you seem smart and articulate enough to know that you would bring that whole session to a grinding halt. You would be That Guy. So I have to conclude that you are only engaging in this argument for its own sake and to prove to yourself (or show off to others) that you could win the argument online. Well done sir. 9/10 I have been trolled. But I will spend no more effort on this.
>>45617640
>Pedantic rules lawyering to force a spell to do something beyond the spirit of what it was intended to do,
Which isn't the case. Remember, this is a spell that can turn a piece of paper into a rose. It's hardly just the "clean your boots and flavor your oatmeal" spell.
>or arguing for meta game player knowledge to be usable by a character who would not have that knowledge
Camera Obsucra was known to antiquity. Remember, people were tracing projected images even before they had oil painting.
The issue is that this shouldn't have been an argument. If a player wanted to use Prestidigitation to make a photo, any sensible DM would consider the effects on his campaign, and realize that it's hardly the world-shattering miracle you want to pretend it is. It's useful, certainly, but compared to the effects of 0-level spells, it's hardly something to write home about, especially if the parchment isn't even created by the spell.
In short, accusations of That Guy are meaningless in the face of an excessively restrictive That DM who thinks that a few Polaroids will derail his carefully constructed railroad track.
I get it, that you don't want to be wrong or seen as such, but it's hard for me to see why you would even try to say it can't be done. Does that somehow make the game more fun for you?
