Quality of Life
Mages, man. They’re all the same. Take them to the hinterlands and they start glamping. While Wizard has gone on record saying that she enjoys a bit of adventure, she’s clearly decided that’s no reason to start roughing it. Judging by her wife’s expression though, I’d say she’s about to find a few reasons pretty darn quick.
Today’s comic isn’t really about The Heroes’ marching order though. It’s about “quality of life magic.” And when it comes to quality of life magic, there are two broad classes.
- Low level spells, abilities, and items that ought to exist for the use of commonfolk.
- Applications of existing spells for non-adventuring purposes.
As today’s hover text suggests, the former generally falls into the the category of homebrew. Think of all those minor magic items that GMs sprinkle throughout their worlds. Self-churning butter churners, wondrous non-stick pans, and +1 apple corers all see play here. These are the generically magical background noise of a fantasy setting, and they can go a long way in contributing to a high magic tone. Modern convenience spells work similarly. Imagine a mage using ctrl + f in her physical spellbook, a cleric (or more likely a bard) casting magical contraception, or a druid dropping some environmentally-friendly mosquito repellant around the party’s campsite.
As for repurposing spells, look no further than Sorcerer’s thousand-and-one uses for fireball. We’re talking about weather wizards who hire on with merchant fleets, technomancers who create kitschy sculpture gardens via junk armor, or sorcerers who run unseen servant massage parlors. All are fine NPC ideas, and there’s no reason PCs can’t adopt these strategies as well.
So in keeping with this grand tradition, I ask you to contribute to the ever-expanding list of “quality of life magic” in today’s discussion! Come up with at least one example of a homebrew spell that ought to exist, and one new use for an old favorite. By the end of the discussion we should have a wide array of flavorful magics to call our own. All clear? Alrighty then! I’ll see you kids down in the comments.
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In my early adventuring days, before we read the spell description close enough, my wizard used Tenser’s floating disc to carry the party when we had a long march ahead of us.
We all had a good laugh about it and kept talking about skateboarding and surfing.
It’s more like a radio flyer wagon, right? I think you can put the party on it, but don’t get to ride yourself, walking ahead and “pulling” the disc instead.
Yeah, I’ve used it in a 5e game before to keep party members from making forced march exhaustion saves—but my poor wizard had to keep going, or else the disk wouldn’t move! We solved the problem by only ever letting him get one level of exhaustion before we long rested, so he could start fresh the next day; it meant we got at least one hour of extra movement, or two or more if I passed even of someone else failed.
That 500 pound weight limit comes into play faster than you’d think, though—most adventurers are carrying a lot of gear even before you factor in the weight of the person themself!
Attach the wizard to a pole and have the people on the disk hold them out in front of the disk, like a carrot-on-a-stick in front of a cartoon donkey.
Like I said, I hadn’t read the description that well. 😉
If I ever homebrew a version, I’ll make being able to ride on it a feature.
Well I mean, if Prince Adam can do it, any shmuck can!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cc0da0zXIAEX61b.jpg
The first edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (before colour-magic muscled its way in from the tabletop game) had a cantrip called Protection From Rain. That’s all it did, no combat utility or clever extra uses you could get out of it, but in all my year playing, I never saw a Wizard who didn’t pack that spell. I think the tipper was the picture alongside it of a completely soaked and miserable looking adventurer standing side by side with a smiling, completely-dry compatriot!
Who would pass up the chance to be a smug glamping wizard?
I ran a WFRP campaign set after the Great War against Chaos (Magnus’ time) where some PCs were regular citizens of the Empire, but two were young High Elven nobles. It was fun to watch and roleplay the Humans, unused to magic (that’s the time when the Colleges of Magic were freshly founded), gaping at the young Asur mage not getting rained on due to his enchanted (and otherwise, of course, ridiculously expensive ultra-fancy) cloak, and the teenage Elf thinking he’s being mocked for being a baby and explaining that his overprotective mother bought him that… 🙂
It’s back as a Petty Magic spell in 4th Ed!
Create/destroy water and shape water, properly utilized, make for great irrigation tools. Mending is an invaluable cantrip for tailors and parents alike, and just about any other profession honestly. Prestidigitation can keep hot food hot and cold food cold anywhere from the soup kitchen on the corner all the way to the royal banquet hall, and get nasty stains out besides.
As for purpose-built spells, I’m sure lots of people would pay for a magic circle against insects, vermin, or unwanted salespeople, even if you have to pay the guy to come out every day for a year to lay it down so it becomes permanent.
Detect Poison and Disease is great for checking crops for blights and making sure livestock are healthy, too.
You’d think successful disease diagnosis would give you a boost on heal checks.
something new for quality of life: detect plot armor. or what my characters would need, summon a lawyer(deamon naturally, there aren’t divine lawyers) handy things to have to distract the nobles and damsels you’ve angered accidentaly or on purpose while you make an exit to the left and maybe keep the GM from trying to issue alimonies or forced mariages.
expanded use… well any elemental spell to be usefull in artisan pursuits or usimg them to visually spice up the concert of “Bard in Black”. Currently touring in Saltmarshes.
What about fey lawyers?
Tecnicly everything they say is true, and they can twist your words beyond their limits!
Damn deconstructionist fair folk!
Scam artists using Mount and Magic Aura to conjure a horse that’s difficult to distinguish as a summoned creature, then selling it and getting away before it poofs out.
Other-handbook-uses of spells like unseen servant and summon monster spells.
Magic faucets that produce hot or cold water out of nothing.
An unmeltable icicle (4e, frozen tear) which is great for staving off heat stroke or for preserving food in an icebox.
Arcane Mark as impromptu graffiti art.
A salt shaker that casts prestidigitation to salt foods without needing salt. Also works for pepper and similar spices.
The Lyre of Building for any large scale construction job.
Scrivener’s Chant as the “CTRL+V” spell mentioned above, acting as a automatic notary.
Draconic Ally as a impromptu butler.
Hey. I quite like the salt shaker. That’s a very *snerk* flavorful magic item.
Damn Wizard, share some space in that for your wife. There’s benefits to it – the orb has room for spooning. And probably a privacy screen. And other-handbook foolery.
“My apologies, dearest! It is a self-only spell. I cannot alter the laws of magic. Now would you be a dear and hold the aromatherapy candles?”
Mage Hand (or any equivalent telekinetic ability). How many times have you been to a party, had a drink in one hand and a plate in the other, leaving you with no hands free to actually eat the food? Having your glass float in the air next to you is the perfect solution…
Honestly, mage hand would have loads of uses in everyday life. Having two hands, that can’t get more than ~3 feet from your shoulders, is so inconvenient!
Exactly. Even ignoring the cool factor, telekinesis has always been one of the most *useful* super powers, and while Mage Hand is relatively weak telekinesis, I can’t image why anyone wouldn’t learn it, given the chance.
My rogue memorably used it on a few occasions to trigger traps on pursuers who thought they could move through their own traps safely… only to fall prey to a Mage Hand tugging on the tripwire.
Pictured here: magic.
https://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/go-plate-bottle.jpg
Today I learned what ‘glamping’ means. Phantom Carriage is a good choice for it.
So is Wyoming: https://www.justshortofcrazy.com/10-places-to-go-glamping/
The sorcerer in our group just used Mage Hand to snatch a readied potion out of the hand of the BBEG.
Merciful Shadows (2E priest spell) is a great spell for keeping the heat of the Dark Sun from exhausting you.
Metamorphose Liquids (2E Tome of Magic) is a great wizard spell for limitless wealth (as long as you don’t mind the occasional burn on your tongue from depositing a drop of molten precious metal).
And finally Protection from Hunger and Thirst (2E Wizard Spell) for those times when the meal options available are completely… blech.
Or when it’s Fighter’s turn to cook dinner…
Word: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-opportunists-diet
Not a spell, but I like adding in the minor magic items you mentioned. My favorite was the Chill Box, an item owned by a local lord of a fishing town. All it was was a magically refrigerated basket for storing fish in, allowing them to stay cold without ice.
My favorite is Saonuihun’s Speeding Sphere Game: https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/images/5eedfb0d7a48aa649344da10d641e51d6dd5dacbd2bf40f13acb276817b2e539.png
Not exactly homebrew, but the RPG Ryuutama has a spell that makes your hair and makeup perfect for 24 hours.
It also have a spell that allows you to turn any food into jam. Which have the dual effect of making it last longer and letting you put it on a piece of bread. So you can use it to make a sandwich jam, a cake jam or jam jam.
As for outright homebrew, I must admit I am kinda surprised I have never seen anyone make a spell called Iggwilvs Magic Bra or something along those lines. Seeing how much trouble they can be. Or just more spells centered around clothing and appearance in general.
In general I also think there are way too few food based spells, with the few there are either being high level spells that uses food to buff you, or just very utility based. Create food and water is nice, but pretty bland. And good berry is just unsatisfying. Why aren´t there any spells that just lets you summon a delicious meal?
> Ryuutama has a spell that makes your hair and makeup perfect for 24 hours.
Do does Handbook-World:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/dominate-hair
😛
Prestidigitation is THE quality of life spell. Clean your clothes, wipe away the debris from your campsite before and after usage, warm your gloves, chill your drinks, or the reverse for the appropriate weather, clean weathered old tomes that would crumble without careful touch, flavor your gruel, send coded messages while sitting back to back or on adjacent tables in a tavern via flavor, try different colors before dying your clothes or color ink or chalk for time-sensitive messages, or color frosting on your baked goods so you know when something you sat out for sale is no longer the level of fresh you expect to serve your customers with. I’ve periodically chipped away at a “1001 uses for prestidigitation” list for 3.5e (which has more options thanks to a 3.0 splatbook admittedly) and it’s not there yet obviously but it’s longer than you’d think. Floating disk isn’t bad for another helpful example- especially if you get on horseback via mount and taxi the party around.
For a homebrew spell, a “Repel Insects” cantrip to avoid dealing with pests and forcing saves from low-hit dice vermin to approach would be a joy for most adventurers (and a genuine lifesaver for low level parties that can’t really deal with swarms efficiently).
> send coded messages while sitting back to back or on adjacent tables in a tavern via flavor
This is an example where I’d rule against. Vocal and somatic components make this biz pretty hard to pull off. Same problem with a lot of cool-but-too-conspicuous clandestine spell uses. 🙁
The first NPC wizard I ever made (3.5) spent his time making magic items for mundane nonsense and researching how to make it more affordable. Of course, at his level of mastery, gold meant very little to him, he just needed it to make more nonsense. The XP spends for magic creation also meant he was still somewhat involved in adventuring. Good way for the party to buy stuff and get plot hooks.
Some inventions were…
If you can make a floating disk of force that follows you around, why can’t you make an umbrella with magic (Floating Disk)? For the more discerning customer, there is also the deluxe version, a Ring of Rain Protection (shield instead of floating disk).
Unseen Helper – A magic item that continuously produced an Unseen Servant to follow your directions to assist around the house. (He made this one entirely because he couldn’t be bothered to hire staff to clean his workplace.)
Goblet-That-Detects-Poison (Name in Progress) – This is a fairly straightforward item that merely lights a small mark on the inside of a cup if it detects poison within the cup. He sadly explained that the Cup was not yet ready for the market, as any dwarven alcohol placed in the goblet was causing the rune to light up for some reason.
When the party arrived, he was researching a spell that could be set into an object to passively check anyone that passed near it for metal on them as the Elven Lord who hired him was paranoid about assassins. This so called “Metal Detector” was going to be using the mythical Detect Metals and Minerals Spell (3.0 spell) if only he could determine how that spell worked. He was working to find a way to only check for specific dimensions of metal instead of weight.
A mother-daughter magic item that could allow you to find missing objects. Using the Locate Object spell from the “parent” magic item to the “daughter” piece which you could magically adhere to something meant you’d be able to find your missing spellbook much more easily (Locate Object).
Star Chart – One of the most frustrating things for him was other people drawing things badly, including the stars. While it started out as a way to record the stars, this Silent Image allowed you to display nearly anything as an illusionary image. Downside was you had to choose the image at creation (to avoid forgetting things), but he was working on finding some way to have it scan a document to display it for larger groups.
Beyond that, if there was some mundane use of a cantrip, he had it as a magic item somehow. Continuous 5 lb telekinesis from mage hand, a mundane Mending spell to repair damage items, the magical torch (Light spell. say the magic word to light the torch and say it again to turn it off!), the Ice Box (ray of frost), and the Light Show Toy (Dancing Lights).
Solid stuff, top to bottom.
Not quite sure how the locate object example works though. Would the daughter piece zip into the air and fly towards the mother piece? Would it make a beeping noise like an electronic car key?
Just yesterday, my group got into a side tangent about how the rich totally have +1 silverware because it never corrodes or needs to be sharpened, even if it is made of lesser materials. Though the truly impressive also have adamantine steak knives. (I could see a flaming utensil that you can turn on and off being nice for reheating things. Maybe a plate?)
I long ago had a discussion with another player (who had a kitsune sorcerer who had concealed her species from her husband) and we both agreed that contraception cantrips are totally a thing. Now if only we could get demons and dragons to use them…
I am totally going to have my nobility have +1 silverware and adamantium steak-knives from now on.
Could be a somewhat “fun” start in a more survival focused game, where the party mainly have access to improvised weapons.
lol @ adamantine steak knives cutting through the table
for my female Catfolk Hunter I asked my DM for a contraceptive cantrip that I found in a 3rd party book.
Third party books know what’s up.
my 2ed crazy wild mage used Prestidigitation to conjure an obvious magical tiny ‘demon’ who was his alter-ego. think puppet Ventriloquist who argue with his made up doll.
btw, don’t think we didn’t notice the reuse of the background in today’s picture and the one linked up from the ‘travel time’ comic
Laziness from the artist or character growth for Wizard? YOU BE THE JUDGE!
Original – Quill of Book Balancing: When provided with lists of incomes, expenditures, and cash reserves, this quill will automatically balance the books. If they fail to balance, it will highlight the offending areas, turn bright red, and begin emitting a high-pitched klaxon sound.
Repurposed – Fabricate: Haul around some generic raw materials(wood, cotton, etc.) in a Bag of Holding, maybe throw in a Wall of Iron/Stone, and Fabricate can immediately turn all that into a structure with built-in amenities. Whether you want a grain thresher, a covered hot tub, an XL King-sized bed, as long as you have the material and the material volume is less than 10cu. ft./level, Fabricate has you covered.
I feel like the Quill of Book Balancing would either be restricted to basic addition/subtraction (e.g. to figure out current cash reserves), be specialized for specific types of accounting, or need to be programmable to a spreadsheet sort of extent. And if your world has Turing-complete quills, you’re perilously close to a 90’s-style personal computer boom…
Ooh. Traveling in style.
A scroll of *tiny hut* (concealment, illumination, climate control, protection from elements for the whole party, centered on you) lasts 10 hours and costs 375 gp.
An eternal wand of the same spell (4,500 gp) would do this twice a day (leaving a four-hour gap of sweaty grossness or frostbite, but still–).
How are these things not mass-produced for the adventuring crowd by the learned ranger-magus L.L.Bean and the famed cleric Cabella?
Homebrew Spell: Wilderness Code [transmutation] S3, R3 — Clears an area of underbrush, stones, etc., moving such obstructions to the perimeter to create a campsite and the center to create a fire ring. The spell has a duration of one day and repels non-monstrous swarms. At the expiration of the spell, the campsite is restored to its natural state to “Leave no Trace” and keep both the Druid, the Ranger, and the Rogue (who swears we were followed from the last village) relatively happy.
As the father of a 5 month old, I would bet many parents would pay a small fortune for the ability to cast Calm Emotions and Sleep.
Oh man… Wizard apprentice nannies is such a good NPC idea!
Find (lost children and livestock, metal ores, clay for pottery, etc)
Mend (pans, bowls, tools,…)
Heal (people & livestock)
Protection (keep people and property safe from storms, protect fishermen)
Weatherworking
Those would be the things that your humble village witch or wizard would probably be doing on a day to day basis. I liked the ones in LeGuin’s Earthsea where most magic users weren’t epic heroes and made a living in their home village. It seems based on most domestic magic as practiced all over the earth in older times. Medieval Europe has lots of examples.
I suspect that there would be multiple “tiers” of magician. The local authorities would probably employ a “court wizard” to handle things that affect an entire region—divination, weather control, bountiful harvests. “Hedge witches” in each village would handle specialized problems, like healing or figuring out what well Timmy fell into. And if the world wasn’t tied to D&D mechanics, I’d expect most people to learn a couple cantrips or sub-cantrip spells (like prestidigiation broken into several spells) for mending small breaks, easing household chores, getting kids to bed, etc.
In other words, they’d be doing the same sorts of thing that real-world priests, witches, and ordinary people tried (and still try!) to do through religious ceremonies, occult rituals, superstitions, and so forth.
Earthsea was 100% in the back of my head when I mentioned weather magic. 😀
On the setting i made for my table necromancy and medicine are related. Both got anatomical bases and benefits of knowledge of the other. One Necromancer i made in fact considers himself more of a medic that studies necromancy than a necromancer. He can allow himself that even more since he is the oldest and most powerful mortal necromancer on the setting. One spell he made is sanitary death zone, a spell that floods a room with necromantic energies. Doesn’t hurt anybody, people may fell uneasy but doesn’t damages anybody. It does damages virus and germs. He invented a spell to render sterile a room and anything in it for medical purpose 😀
> He invented a spell to render sterile a room and anything in it for medical purpose
Nicely done. Sounds ideal for a pseudo-Victorian setting just discovering the sciences.
It could be worse, Cleric. Wizard might have invited Rogue into the bubble to make out with her.
Anyways. I’d like to bring up something that isn’t a homebrew spell, or really a novel application of an existing spell. In D&D, goodberry-based sustenance should replace cereal-based agriculture in any society with access to druidic magic, and those societies should outcompete their rivals.
Even if we houserule that you need existing berries (explicitly not the case), it should be pretty obvious that it takes less land and labor to grow a single berry than to grow a day’s worth of wheat or barley; according to quick Googling and math, a single blackberry bush can produce something like 640 berries in a good year (and probably more than 365 in any non-famine year).
Sure, a goodberry isn’t as tasty as a bagel or baked potato, but staple foods are what can be grown en masse for the lowest cost (in whatever the local balance of labor, land, etc is), not what people want to eat.
This has obvious ramifications on society. To start with, population density and urbanization would be much higher. Assuming that dried or otherwise preserved berries can be used for winter months, it would be possible for an apartment building’s residents to survive primarily on goodberries grown on the roof, tended by a couple of gardeners and transfigured by a handful of druidic acolytes.
Of course, the presence of these druids at such a foundational level of society would have a serious impact on that society. (Barring any-spell features like the bard’s Magical Secrets, only druid-adjacent casters have goodberry access.) Druidic orders would have the same sort of power as aristocratic landowners, for the same reason—they control the means of food production. In our world, early states developed priesthoods and monarchies as part of the same institution; these worlds would have monarchies descend from a druidic “priesthood”.
Of course, with druids in positions of power, society would tend to follow druidic values. While high-density urban areas are made practical with goodberry, druids prefer natural environments; these urban areas would more likely be numerous towns with plenty of green space than distinct metropoles with dense high-rises.
Other institutions would be reshaped, both from druidic influence and by the ahistorical sustenance method. (The Mongols weren’t the best conquerors in history because of some technological development, but because steppe hunting and herding develops skills that are easily used in a form of warfare that’s very effective against agrarian armies.) It’s hard to guess how, though, because there aren’t a lot of historical parallels to draw on.
A couple of possible counters:
First, nutritional value. Maybe goodberries are just empty calories, and don’t provide the nutrients that other food does. (Even grain provides stuff like protein and minerals.) In this case, goodberry could be a cornerstone of a more diverse set of staple foods, like how Native Americans used squash and beans to make up for the deficiencies of maize. Since these supplementary staples would also contain calories, there might be an effort to spread a single berry among multiple servings (like, as jam or something) if that’s something the magic allows.
Pathfinder requires fresh berries (and also cuts the number created per 1st-level spell slot roughly in half), which is inconvenient for adventurers, but restricts this subsistence strategy to regions where berries can grow year-round or a seasonal supplement alongside food that keeps longer. Still, I expect that goodberry or GB-supplemented societies would outcompete traditional agrarian ones in such regions.
Another major place that magic could have a big impact on premodern economics is spinning. Not “making things spin” in general, specifically turning fibers into thread. That one task consumed more work-hours than any other task in most societies around the world, until the (shockingly recent) invention of the spinning wheel.
It’s easy to discount the importance of “women’s work,” but if enchanted spindles or unseen servants or anachronistic spinning wheels can be used to reduce or eliminate the amount of time spent on spinning thread, that frees a ton of labor to do literally anything other than twirl a spindle so your family doesn’t go naked. It’s much subtler than zombie-slave-based agriculture, but the effects could be just as profound, with a much lower risk of people getting necro-mauled if something happens to the necromancer.
> In D&D, goodberry-based sustenance should replace cereal-based agriculture in any society with access to druidic magic, and those societies should outcompete their rivals.
I choose instead to spend my time contemplating a fart-based society.
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpghorrorstories/comments/sb6g9f/dm_has_inflation_and_fart_fetish/
For serious though. Tippyverse is your place to play if you want to think through the implications of “rationally applied magic” in D&D.
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy
Not my brand of fantasy, but I understand how it can be a fun thought experiment.
In a game I ran, a wizard’s manservant had a Rod of Prestidigitation, just a little stick that gave him at will Prestidigitation. The party wasn’t on great terms with the wizard so you can bet they stole it.
Anvils with a “Heat Metal” enchantment built in would be super convenient for blacksmiths, heating the metal to temperature as long as the metal is being worked. Pair it with a rock of Chill Metal for instant quenching
New cantrip: Lace: ties your boots/shoes/corset/other fastened article of clothing to just the right tightness to be firm and not come loose, but not uncomfortably tightrope difficult to untie
Hello yeah heat metal anvil! That makes good sense.
Lace also sounds hella-useful for camping. I bet that it would provide some interesting effects in conjunction with 3.5’s “Use Rope” skill as well.
Sod those outrageously priced Unseen Servant massage parlors, learn Mage Hand (for a low low price if you act now!) and give *yourself* a message any time you want! No ten minute ritual casting time required!
For a new QOL spell perhaps…. Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Message Board. A spell that transmits illusory copies of any notice posted upon it to other ritually designated boards on the same plane.
(Hmmm, I was just thinking of something that might be useful to adventures and NPCs alike and seemed within the scope of existing spells but… I think I just accidentally suggested the fantasy internet. Oops! *shrug*)
I quite like Fantasy Internet. If you restrict it to only a small number of boards (rather than every board with the right URL [ubiquitous ritual location]), it probably wouldn’t even break the game. More like a telegram office than an internet at that point.
Bravo sir, that URL bit really got me. XD
Aims to please. 🙂
I think one of the big problems in a high-magic setting is widespread unemployment. At what point do spells become cheaper than people?
Or, if you’re using spell components and taking them seriously, you get a Mad Max type of world where insanely powerful mages are fighting over the diamond dust: when the resource is limited, power goes to who controls it rather than automatically increasing by level.
Nice that diamonds have worth in fantasy worlds for a discernable reason. 🙂
Somewhat tangential to the subject of utility spells, but my favorite utility ability in D&D is the Lucid Dreaming skill. Let’s you do anything from changing your appearance to changing the vegetation and architecture. Setting up camp? Create a convenient cave, or a bed if you were already inside. Want some food? Make the nearby trees laden with fruit. Forgot your keys? Switch the door around so the latch is on your side instead of the keyhole.
The caveat, of course, is that it only works on the Plane of Dreams. However, 3.5 also has a feat called Dream Scion, that lets you enter a state of waking dreaming several times per day. Ask your DM if you can use Lucid Dreaming while in a dreamtouched state. Not RAW (since the coolest use is specifically for reshaping a dreamscape), but not that unreasonable, since you’ve got limited duration and uses/day, high DCs, and it’s already illegal to use Lucid Dreaming for direct combat purposes.
Had a pretty slick Plane of Dreams combat the other day. GM let me get away with “I reshape the world with a Will save” stuff for the duration of the fight. Obviously abusable, but it was great fun getting to go nuts for the duration of one encounter as a PC.
Magic Watermark & Detect Magic Watermark for various official legal documents and/or ID. Adds a unique magical signature to an item which can be detected by the corresponding spell. Both spells have higher level versions which increases the complexity of the watermark and difficulty in falsifying it. Now, anyone wanting to forge a document need access to a mage at least as skilled as the local state wizard.
—
That said, I’ve always had mixed feelings about “quality of life magic.” It isn’t that I think such magic shouldn’t exist, but rather that non-adventuring magic often seems to get reduced to very low level magic or even cantrips. Personally, I find it problematic when issues that have plagued our real life history are completely resolved by low-level magic that can be easily cast repeatedly, thrown on a cheap magic item, etc.
For example, in PF1 I wanted to create the idea of a campaign that borrowed from the difficulty associated with the trading route across the Sahara Desert. Except then I realized Create Water was a Cantrip. Endure Elements was a 1st level spell that could easily be thrown on a wand. And even Create Food was only a 3rd level spell. So a 1st level Cleric with a wand alone would drastically reduce the difficulty of such a journey, and a 5th level Cleric could easily negate any environmental challenge. At which point crossing the Sahara is not much different than any other trade route.
Ran into this problem with Book 2 of Starfinder. You’re trekking through an alien jungle. It’s ridiculously hot and humid, and you’ve got to ration your power armor’s battery so you get a bit of life support and cool off each day. Except that oops no you don’t:
https://www.starjammersrd.com/magic-and-spells/spells/l/life-bubble/
You can counter it somewhat by saying that wands are relatively expensive after casters are comparatively rare, but that always feels like a bit of a copout.