General Chat:

Pfft, use your ears, not your eyes.

Would actually help perception when going into dark places. Switch the patch and you are already accustomed to the dark. Also, not buying Kerim's claims of innocence regarding the name Q for even a second.

Okay guys perception check. No, being able to hear doesn't mean you can perceive that roper who you are walking past. Don't worry, I'll keep things PG. Maybe.

Or you can uh... use a light or something. Maybe a torch or a lantern. You know, something conventional.

But if you don't want others to see you it's nice.

Also, is there a wizard spell that gives you darkvision/low light vision?

And how far do you encourage creative usage of prestidigitation?

Of course there are situations where you would need eyes, but from my RPing experiences, listening has oddly been more useful than seeing. Not sure if it's just the DMs I've had or a coincidence. XP

Maybe. I'm not quire sure. I do know there is the Darklight ritual which serves that exact purpose. Anyway there is always a little give and take. If you want to see then you gotta be willing to risk getting seen yourself. Anyway your character already has low-light vision. Consider yourself lucky on that I usually take away that. I seriously want to kill whoever's bright idea it was to give all the races different senses which just mean countless busywork for the DM to figure out who can see what and in what conditions all the time. It's annoying as hell!
Me: "Okay group, you all find yourselves in a dark room, only lit up by your torch and-"
Player 1: "Hey, I got low light vision, what do I see?"
Me: "You do? Damn, it." *looks through rulebook to see how much further ahead he can see.*
Player 2: "Also my character has darkvision, so I should be able to see everything right?"
Me: *Breaks down into a fit of unintelligible rage*

And don't get me started on trying to get through an encounter like that.

Fury towards a game mechanic/racial feature aside, my views of prestidigitation is that it should have its name changed to something easier to spell and pronounce. As for its usage, there is already a list of exactly what you can do with it so you're going to have to explain what you mean by "clever usage".

Oh that's easy to handle Keradi

Any light source that allows 'normal' vision cancels out low-light or darkvision. Those vision types being effectively blind in the presence of normal light. Which then encourages the squishy mage or whatnot to go ahead of the party members who need that torch so they can get a better look down the hallway. Allowing the rest of the party to hear the screams and rending that results. Possibly the occasional, "That doesn't go there!"

How about... we shorten it to just, "Prestidigitationsupercalifragilisticexpialidocious."

Also my characters always buy a flask and a lantern... a fancy lantern that is fancy for lighting areas. No crude torches for me...

The flask is for whiskey.

You're going to have to define what is "normal" vision. Low-light vision still requires some light to be present, and if there is some light present than people without low-light or darkvision can at still at least see when they are close to the light source. If low-light vision character step out of range then they are then in darkness and can't see through that.

Oh. 4e has a more exact definition of Prestidigitation

3.5e is awesome, because once I managed to convince the DM that because there was no spell that caused drug-like effects, to make it be usable as a drug.