Is it just me, or is Mage Hand useless? Like, impressively useless.
I’m new to DnD (and DnD-like games) so I could be in the wrong here, but every time I think of something that Mage Hand should be able to do, it just doesn’t.
Want to pick up an unreachable item and carry it to me? No.
Want to loot an otherwise unreachable body? No.
Want to pickpocket someone without being caught? No. (Okay, I get that this one would be pretty broken, even in normal DnD this is sometimes disallowed)
Want to fly a few feet up and light an overhead brazier? No.
Want to do literally anything useful? No.
Want to squeeze through a small hole to see a room you’ve already looted? Sure!
I’m at the point where instead of trying to think creatively about how to use it, I just immediately write it off because it probably can’t do whatever I’m thinking of. I am genuinely surprised when I find out Mage Hand can do something, and that’s not a good thing.
The only idea I had that actually worked was using it to stealth the early phase spider section by just throwing the gem at the end backwards, then moving the hand in the opposite direction to draw aggro. That’s literally the only “useful” thing I’ve done with it, and I’ve still not found a use for the gem.
So I ask, what have you done with Mage Hand that’s actually useful?
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It can’t carry, but it can throw stuff from the ground. Came useful in one side quest.
Other than that, used it few times to pull a lever or such. Nothing terribly handy (sorry, not sorry)
Not only have I used it to pull levers, I also got the “kill an enemy with an unarmed strike” achievement by booping an almost dead kobold for 2 hp with it. Imagine having your existence snuffed out by mage hand.
Mage hand + levers in the end of Act 1 was super helpful to prevent one of my party from getting stuck, but aside from that - yeah I’m not sure about the usefulness.
As someone with minimal tabletop RPG experience (only Warhammer not D&D), I’m enjoying the crap out of BG3 but I feel I’m missing out on when to use spells and what spells should be used.
Sure there’s a spell to go to a different plane after your attack, but like… should I use the scroll on that? What if I would need it later?
Same position here. After I finished my second playthrough I started a dnd campaign with some of my friends, we’re all noobs.
I figured late into BG3 that if you need a scroll, use it. There aren’t many spells in the game, odds are it’ll drop or be sold by a merchant later. Besides, having less resources makes the game more fun.
A lot of earlier scrolls also don’t scale well, so that Melf’s Acid Arrow that needed the right moment won’t be any better than a typical action sooner than one would think. Definitely use 'em.
Mage hand is the kind of spell that is incredibly useful and dynamic in actual ttrpgs, and incredibly difficult to design around in a video game.
A GM is going to consider the distance and weight limits of the spell, and determine of it makes sense of not. If you stole The One Ring from Frodo, for example, the GM can pivot and make the world react to that.
The video game has to program all possible uses of the spell while also trying to keep a prewritten story on track. If you steal The One Ring from frodo, the game would have to reinvent the plot dynamically, which isn’t really possible. The end result is that they have to severely limit the uses of Mage Hand.
Because Mage Hand is so potentially chaotic, it can’t be as useful as it would seem. The same would go for the spells Fly and Invisibility. Imagine the Black Gate of Mordor. If there was a level 6 wizard, they could use fly + invisibility to get everyone safely over the wall. Now, sure, it would take a while waiting for spell slots, but this is supposed to be the most fortified pass in the entire world. Even GMs have problems with this. Suddenly every remotely secure area needs a mage on staff detecting intruders, or permanent enchantments. At that point, Fly might as well not exist.
Edit: I forgot that fly and invisibility both require concentration. Oops. Still, now you only need a level 6 mage and a level 4 mage, which is still pretty easy to pull off.
Fly and invisibility both take concentration :p
I somewhat disagree with you overall, because almost all magic have countermeasures. Invisibility for example is good to bypass humanoid, but you still need to be stealthy, because creatures with good ear or smell don’t care about seeing you. And the time constraints is the biggest limit.
Sure, you can use spellslots, but you only have so many of them, and if you take a day to recover them, evil has its plans going forth too. Which city will you sacrifice to Sauron while you sleep to recover your spellslots?
Usually spells are far less potent than people think they are. But it’s hard to be accustomed to them to easily prepare or think about all the countermeasures. It’s not hard usually though. A dog will do a lot against any kind of infiltration for example. And there are far worse creatures than that.
Another note is that Gandalf is only a tier3 sorcerer. Between lvl11 and 16. And you can see how the character is treated in the story: he has the eye of Sauron on him, unlike the hobbit.
Ironically Larian is doing far better for countermeasures and time pressure than most dm I feel.
For mage hand, it’s a programming constraint I feel. Summons don’t have inventory you can access, so it’s easier to prevent you from stealing with the hand than having players lose items because they pick them with the hand. It’s a limitation of the game engine.
You’re right that you can come up with pretty good ways to challenge players with certain spells. The problem is that it can be pretty difficult to do on the fly. Assuming the party goes in a direction you haven’t really prepped for, they’re are a lot of abilities that can make it trivial if you forget about them.
There’s a really big, tedious, ongoing discussion on exactly how overrated 5e D&D is and what type of game it wants to be, but it’s fair to say the system has a lot of small things that trivialize challenges. Goodberry means you never have to worry about food ever again. Fly means physical distance is not much of a problem. Pass without trace means stealth will almost always work. Leomunds tiny but means sleeping is almost always safe.
All of these examples can be fixed. Goblins can stack a bunch of rocks on leomunds hut for example. The problem is that it gets repetitive and forced to counter everything all the time.
I agree though that the developers have done a really good job trying to handle all the complexity of turning a tabletop RPG into a video game.
Ok, second part is to take a step back, and instead of trying to counter the players, just make the world a living one. Have the enemies be smart. Think in terms of factions and resources instead of individuals and encounters.
Even the wildest monsters can be smart predators, not because they’re smart, but because they’re predators.
Another question you’re bringing is wilderness survival. With this, you’re trying to make dnd 5e something it absolutely isn’t: a survival game. Survival in dnd is abstract and easy up to lvl5. After that, it’s not supposed to be a difficult, which is why you have spells like create food and water.
But these spells are not free. A party with this spell and leomund’s tiny hut means two spellcasters are down one spell when the day begin. At level5 that means only 1 of the important lvl3 spells. And if they can’t cast it, they can’t rest, because I doubt they will have provisions and camp if they rely on this. And if they don’t have comfortable enough rest or no ration, they can’t benefit from a long rest.
Time is usually the resource you need to constrain. For each day that passes, the vilain should have something going. This way the players will have to manage their rest properly.
Back to the resources of the enemies. A big mistake many seem to do is to give the monopoly of magic to the players. But it is ridiculous to do it. Enemies should have available magic one way or another. No an infinite supply of it, but they would have some. How many sorcerers, warlocks and clerics in a colony of goblins? Certainly quite some. Below lvl5 is apprentice level. Lvl5 to 9 is expert level. You can have a bunch of apprentices and a handful of experts in a colony. And then dispel magic, counterspell and everything is also available to you, the dm.
Before tier3, you have easy solutions for each and any trick a spellcaster can come up with. If they use their spells for utility, they will very quickly run out of them, and they won’t have them for combat.
Usually people who prefer PF2 will have a bias against 5e balance. It’s a bias because both games have different philosophies about it. It’s perfectly valid to hate one and love the other, or the opposite. PF2 is more about the encounter and the tactic. 5e is more about strategy and finding ways around the obstacles.
Can you concentrate on 2 spells to fly and go invisible?
You’re right, you can’t. My bad. Still, a party containing two players who can cast these spells is pretty common too.
True, still difficult to pull off, both spells have vsm components. But obstacles are put there to be overcome, and your plan is as good as any, lets give it a go 😉
Drop items like healing potions, bombs, etc. with one of your characters. Then use mage hand to throw it by right clicking the dropped items. It’s like having a cheap (but weak) bonus healer shaped like a floating hand
Neat idea, never thought of that
I used it to
- Steal the idol of Sylvanus from the Emerald Grove without starting a fight.
- Open doors attached to levers on the other side of gates or rooms I could otherwise see into, but not enter.
- An extra bit of damage in combat; or to shove someone off a cliff from a distance.
- Grabbing objects that for whatever reason was out of reach of my character (often something on the top of a high shelf).
- Throwing things I can’t reach.
We tried to use it to steal the idol from Sylvanus and they still attacked us. Not sure what we did wrong
Make sure no one is looking directly at it. I had to use minor image to cause a distraction first then had the invisible mage hand just throw the idol down toward Astarion who was hiding in the middle canyon area that leads down to a bear by the water.
Oh dang yeah we didn’t do any of that lol
Yeah, it took some fanagling and I went through all sorts of other things I tried before I found the mage hand method. Knowing they just lose their shit the moment they notice the statue is gone was a crucial discovery lol.
You gotta be fast, too. The distraction doesn’t work too long and they will initiate combat (even if they can’t see a target) as soon as they see the statue isn’t on the pedestal. But if done right, you can toss it to your character, grab it and then just go directly to your camp and then fast travel elsewhere.
I just cast from top of the elevator by the tree. Fly the hand so it is on the idol. Throw idol down the hill. Pick up if out of site. Throw again if necessary.
I’ve only ever seen people write about using it in combat to knock enemies prone, otherwise, it’s oddly non-utilitarian for a spell I’ve almost always considered to be a utility spell.
You can also shove sleeping or downed companions?
I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, but I totally use mage hand to throw an NPCs backpack they couldn’t reach to them. Saved me having to try and tiptoe through a bunch of environmental hazards.
In actual DnD I’ve used it to pull people’s pants down twice, once to break concentration and also to start a barroom brawl.
I’ve also used it to sneak in and tie people’s shoe laces together, causing them to trip and go prone when we rushed them into combat.
Most useful cantrip ever.How do you lace shoes with only one hand?
Very carefully. But it’s not like you’re really tying your shoes, so it ain’t gotta be great, just good enough to make the mob trip.
I used it a whole 2 times in my entire playthrough. Once to get a certain book from it’s trapped pressure plate by throwing it, another to help a certain dwarf from his predicament. The biggest thing that stops me from experimenting more with it is it’s limitation to once per short rest and only being present for 10 turns. I get that it’s for combat balancing purposes but it does make me just never bother summoning it. Wish they removed that limitation, gave it more utility uses and just completely disabled it’s combat abilities instead.
Once per short rest makes no sense to me. It’s a cantrip. Why not just let it be a cantrip?
Once to get a certain book from it’s trapped pressure plate by throwing it
Okay, how do you do that without destroying the book? I’ve tried throwing it on the ground, which gave it 1 damage and poofed it out of existence. I tried throwing it at a character in the hopes that they would catch it, but it just damaged them and also destroyed the book.
I just threw it on the ground, it never took damage for me (I did it yesterday in fact on my new character and it worked fine). I do throw it only so far as to not be in the trap’s range, so it might be that you are chucking it too far?
Ah yeah could be. I was in the underdark and there was an area high up on a cliff with a chest and a book, but the entrance was covered in webs. I was able to throw the chest with no problem, but the book didn’t make it. It was probably too far of a fall.
Oh, we’re thinking of completely different book then! I was cryptic as to not spoil anything (Kbin still doesn’t have spoiler tags) but I meant the wannabe Necronomicon in the apothecary’s basement.
Oh, yeah that’s an undestroyable quest item, so that’s probably why it survived. The book I was trying to get was just a regular book.
I keep the permanent one summoned forever. Nice to have them around when the enemy is at 1hp. I also use it to reposition enemies to avoid needing to use Disengage
There’s also an achievement for killing someone with it
How do you get a permanent one?
Looks like Arcane Trickster for Rogue has a permanent one.
TFW rogue makes a better utility wizard than the wizard
I’m not sure, maybe it’s a rogue spec thing? I had Lae’zel in my first run and hers only lasted 10 turns but Astarion’s is permanent.
That would make sense. I ended up kind of ignoring astarion in my first play through so I wouldn’t have seen that ability if it is from him.
The only reason I’m putting up with Astarion is because I had Lae’zel, Wyll, and Shadow my first run and I wanted to see the other stories. Glad I did because some interactions are a lot different with him around
These are what I used the mage hand for
- Push enemy to prone or off the cliff
- Throw stuffs at enemy
- Throw items that bugged and hard to reach on the floor where you can reach them.
- Pull lever
It can punch mages to potentially break their concentration
I used it to activate the levers to make the bridge way above the grymforge work. It’s good for that I guess. Also to give me something to punch stupid undead that come back with 1 health or someone with death ward.
You can shoot at the lever with a bow or xbow and it’ll activate.
Be sure to target the lever portion, not the wall plate of the switch.
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You can simply shoot an arrow at levers too.
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Read Mage Hand’s 5e rules again. I’m convinced the only reason Mage Hand is so “useful” at the table is because of DM fiat on things it shouldn’t be able to do or non-functional utility that has no analogue in a hard-coded game. There’s no mechanic for pulling a shirt over someone’s head or pulling their pants down.
I’m not even sure they’re allowed to make checks or force saves.
I did read them. If you think the game follows them then tell me why it’s unable to pick up a small gem and carry it to me? It’s less than 10lbs and requires no fine-grained control.
You can move a whole barrel of powder to your character. You merely need to move them on the screen rather than trying to grab it in the hand.
As said, put stuff on the ground and the mage hand can throw them. Potions and grenades are especially handy.
