Other uses for mage hand include: high fiving yourself when some one leaves you hanging, giving yourself a good ol' face palm while you are shackled, or when you really want to convey how much you hate some one, flip them off with three hands.
Alternatively, use Thaumaturgy to tell someone to go fuck themselves in the most badass way possible (eyes black with red pinpoint pupils, make your voice "boom", and create minor tremors) 60% of the time it works every time...
Letting the mold kill him would have been a chaotic stupid move rather than chaotic evil because if a self-respecting evil wizard wants to get full use out of a magic sword he needs to make sure he has a skilled minion to swing it around for him.
@@shii5795 A zombie is way shittier than even a low level martial class. They're not even better as minions because they're even dumber than your average barbarian.
Chaotic Stupid: All the treasure is mine! ...how do I carry this. Why are there bandits everywhere now?! Chaotic Evil: I need a meat shield and I can't wield swords.
@@Leftists_are_Losers You'd get stomped without your party. Being Chaotic Stupid never pays off. The cr of the enemies around you would be too high for just one player.
After my Wizard lost their right hand in a dodgy deal with a good ol riddles 'n' rhymes ethereal shopkeeper ("And in return, you lend me a hand..." "Ya ok sure, what do you want?") I asked the DM "I'm a super clever magic meddler, if I put enough time into it would I theoretically be able to make a magic hand? I'd take the Mage Hand cantrip that I already know and, using this power ring thingy we found as a power source, set up a mechanism of runes to create an arcane feedback loop, so once I use it as a focus to cast mage hand through, it keeps it going without need of my concentration and pours enough pure power into it to make it as strong as a real hand!" "Uh, yeah alright, but it's gonna take you like, let's say 10-int d100 hours to build." About 300 hours of working on the project later, I had a badass modified permanent Mage Hand using up our only magical artifact as a battery and was the proudest nerd.
you should go back and demand that hand back since you only lent it to the guy. probably lost or broke it though, happens to everything i let people borrow.
Pro tip: if you are small size, like a halfling or a cobolt, you can cast reduce on yourself, grab yourself by the scruff using mage hand and literally fly
This feels like it's pulling double-duty as an animated spell book and a bit of advice on "things to think about when you're playing the Token Evil Teammate so you're not infuriating for the rest of the table"
Technically you could be a; Drow, Halfling, or Gnome because the reduce part of Enlarge/Reduce makes you weigh one eight so a Drow can weigh at least 77lbs divided by 8 is less than 10 so mage hand can carry you
It ultimately depends on the goal of the character, if the sword was the evil character's ultimate goal for the campaign and he didnt want to have to share it or the rest of the riches i wouldnt necessarily call it stupid to just let another character die as long as that doesnt put you in danger as well. I personally dont like doing stuff like that because i care about the other players' enjoyment but i can see how it would make sense for a chaotic evil character or even a neutral character to let another pc die if it ultimately benefits them
@@taurelith4867 Well, in this instance, I would say the choice is a question of evil rather than chaos. If Skenk knows that the moss will kill Gideon and doesn't tell him because he want's Gideon to die so he can have the treasure all to himself, that would be an act of evil because he's essentially setting Giddeon up for death for his own gain.
My party went through glitterheim. We came upon the shiny sword clutched by a skeleton. The room was so obviously a trap. I warned the wizard "do you have some means to grab the sword without entering the room?". "I have mage hand, but i'd rather not use a spell for something so simple." he replied. He entered the room, grabbed the sword, and took all but 5 of his health in damage... Mage hand is a cantrip... just use it next time.
lol I am a rogue with the feat magic initiate just so I could have mage hand (even though I am a thief and not an arcane trickster) exactly for moments like this. I wanna be able to fuck shit up on a safe distance
I doubt that ever happened. Us wizard always want to use mage hand. Even if it obviously is a real chest because you just defeated a big monster guarding it: Mage hand.
I like that this video has that visual that demonstrates the distinction between Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Stupid. Chaotic Evil: Well, I could keep all the treasure... but then I have to haul it all out mostly myself and without a warrior to protect me. He might be useful beyond that as well, letting me obtain more wealth. Chaotic Stupid: Yes, let them all go to their death! I might even slaughter them in their sleep! *dies to monsters when the other players refuse to help after he gets them all killed*
Both of the choices there were chaotic evil. One was for gain now and one was for gain later. He simply chose the more gain later. But choosing less gain now would have been absolutely valid
I like how it wasn't the main point of the video, but justifying a Druid adventurer is SO hard from a role-play perspective! You love nature, you thrive in nature, and... you run around killing things for wealth, power, or to save those high-and-mighty kings in their smelly, intrusive cities?
Personally, I just throw out the stereotypical hippie druid characterization entirely. You can still have a fun character who uses the exact same mechanics as the druid class, but who isn't a super druidy druid. 5e is very friendly to reskins and reflavoring.
My party came across a tripwire. We spent 30 minutes figuring out what to do. The DM even went to the bathroom. We elected to jump over it. I had mage hand, scissors, and a mirror. I could have disabled it remotely. It still haunts me years later.
My character was at a tourney and when the knight that had once incarcerated me was jousting i used mage hand to open the clasps of his saddle which got him skewered. Lovely spell.
My favorite aspect of Mage Hand is what Arcane Tricksters can do with it. Mage Hand Legerdemain lets you stow and retrieve objects from containers worn or carried by other creatures, you can use Thieves’ Tools to pick locks and disarm traps remotely, perform any task using the mage hand without being noticed (by contesting your Sleight of Hand against the enemy’s Perception,) straight up turn the hand invisible, and the best part is, you can use your bonus action granted by Cunning Action to control the hand.
Mage Hand is also useful for interacting with anything that causes your adventurer senses to tingle. A surprisingly intact rug in a long-abandoned, decaying fortress? Flip it over with mage hand to reveal covered pits, pressure plates, or the fact that it might be a Rug of Smothering. Sword surrounded by corpses? Mage hand. It might be hooked to a wire, or it might be cursed, so keep it bundled in cloth or locked in a box until you're able to tell for darned sure it's safe. Rogue low on health? Use a mage hand to open a door, and breath a sigh of relief as the poison needle in the handle stabs into incorporeal force, or as the magitech claymore mine on the other side blasts apart thin air. It's like the magic version of the old veteran's favorite dungeon-crawling tool, the ten foot pole.
Reminds me of one group of adventurers my friends played. They didn't have a rogue so they just used the Barbarian. He got sick of it or was too low on health at one point so they picked up a nearby log and used it to trigger the traps by rolling it down corridors and such. It worked so well they made it an honorary member of the party and carved ROGUE into it.
The problem with that though is that the hand travels 30ft _away_ from the caster, since if it goes farther than 30 ft away it dissipates; this could be interpreted as the hand can only travel as far as it can get away from the one who cast the spell. Ergo, you could stand on it, but it wouldnt be able to travel anywhere because it cant get away from you. Of course, this is all at the DM's discretion so they can also rule that you can fly anywhere in a 30ft cube in any direction or travel at a speed of 30ft but must be no higher than 11 inches off the ground when doing so (and likewise reduce the travel speed for each foot you are off ground: 1ft off ground 29Spd 10ft off ground 20Spd, etc). Because I doubt that most DMs would just give the player unlimited flight and reach with a cantrip: that would be far too busted to allow, honestly.
@@Mellion555 Just for fair analysis, consider that Fly is a 3rd level spell, requires one action to cast, can be concentrated on for 10 minutes and gives a flying speed of 60 feet. This method to use mage hand to fly requires a 2nd level spell Enlarge/Reduce be cast on a creature max weight 80 pounds, causes them to have disadvantage on Strength checks and saves as well as deal 1d4 less damage on weapon attacks, requires 2 actions to set up and uses up your action every turn if you want to move (bonus action for Arcane Trickster Rogue), can be concentrated on for 1 minute, only gives a flying speed of 30 feet, and must remain within 30 feet of the caster (if you're trying to carry someone else). I think there's enough downside there to allow this use of mage hand and enlarge/reduce to effectively get a downgraded fly for a lower level spell slot.
Jacob K If u cast it on other people obviously, but the original comment is talking about casting it on yourself tho which means having it go 30 ft away from u won’t be a problem.
I remember using mage hand to take a goblin's bow before he could use it (not sure if that was actually legal, but it was our first campaign so w/e). The goblin was hopping around trying to grab the bow, which gave our rogue a good opportunity to eviscerate it (nat 20). I kept the bow for myself since I didn't have any ranged options otherwise and it went on to kill a bugbear.
The best use I ever had for Mage hand outside of utility was a very unique situation where me and my party managed to sneak up on a dragon resting in its horde, for General context this dragon we've been chasing down for some time and we managed to track it back down to its hoard after several previous encounters. I just added the spell levitate to my roster and I have been constantly thinking of new ways I can apply it and in a stroke of inspiration I had a brilliant idea, the spell levitate can lift something up to 500 lb. We managed to find a chest from the dragon's horde that was about 400 odd pounds, I cast levitate and let It go as high as possible, this is where the fun begins. You see the rules say you can lift an object up to 20 ft in the air but it doesn't specify whether or not it will maintain that altitude if you were to do something like say push it over a cliff or if instead it will just float at the predestined height. My DM ruled that it would float at the same height at which I lifted it meaning that it wouldn't fall after I pushed it off a cliff. The dragon was roughly about 40 ft below us in a lower section in the cave it was using, I then casted Mage hand to push the floating chest over as far as I could which was just enough to be over the dragon's head. My DM ruled that based on how levitate works it technically made the chest weightless or at the very least light enough to give it a good push. From here you can imagine what happened the chest fell a total of 60 ft crashing directly into the skull of this sleeping dragon, I don't remember the specific number but it did well over 80 damage if I'm not mistaken and honestly I think I'm lowballing it. Not enough to kill the dragon but the pride I felt will never go away
Some creative uses for Mage Hand: 1- To remove arrows from an enemy crossbow and possibly give them to a crossbow wielding teammate 2- Use It to gather some simple twigs around you and help start a campfire when your party starts their long rest 3- have it disarm an enemy wielding their crossbow, swords, daggers, etc. technically not an attack and even better if the weapon is still in reach of the creature whose item you stole may have to waste an action just to get it back, OR if it dies and it’s weapon is still being held by your Mage Hand, one of your buddies can claim the weapon for themselves 4- have it open a door that you feel is booby trapped 5- have the Mage Hand give vulgar gestures at creatures to tell them how much you hate them
also 3 needs to be clarified, to disarm someone who is wielding a weapon requires it to be an attack though you could argue with your dm why removing a sword from someones pocket is not
DMG pg. 271 allows you to disarm an opponent with an attack, forgoing the attack roll vs AC and the damage for an attack roll vs STR athletics or DEX acrobatics to have the target drop their weapon. But it's clearly an attack which PHB pg. 256 clearly forbids. Which I feel is a fair restriction considering the Battle Master needs a whole maneuver to not do it the standard way.
As an Artificer, I was once presented with a spider-filled room with a potential treasure in it. I used Magical Tinkering to imbue a tile to emit a 5ft radius light, and I used Mage Hand to aggravate the spiders with the illuminated tile. I drew the spiders to a far corner of the room, used Mage Hand to retrieve the treasure, then used Mage Hand to shut the door behind us. Mage Hand FTW.
I have a warlock that used Mage Hand for every conceivable scenario, especially for opening maybe-possibly-trapped doors and chests (he was paranoid like that). He and the rest of the party eventually took to calling the spectral entity "Handy" like some sort of ethereal pet.
Kyler Thatch I am almost positive there is a more powerful variation of Mage Hand they could have used ALSO checking for possible mimics and traps is GODDAMN GENIUS.
It should always be “how low am I willing to go to get what I want.” Instead of just maniacally twirling your mustache and wondering who you can fuck over. If persuasion isn’t mind control and insight isn’t a lie detector, alignments shouldn’t be the deciding factor.
Chaotic evil the way I would play it is actually quite willing to work with others. They don't care about making friends but will stick around so long as they get in on that sweet sweet loot at the end of the day. I play it as more of a ruthless mercenary type. Someone who has no moral issue with sacrificing others for their own gain but at the same time they are smart enough to realize the benefits of having someone watch their back. They want to keep the party alive because they don't want to risk facing danger alone. You offer them promise of treasure and they will follow you to the ends of the earth so long as you deliver.
Speaking of druids and mage hand... Be a vuman or Tasha's custom race, and pick telekinetic as your starting feat. This gives you an invisible, componentless version of mage hand. Use wild shape to turn into a creature that weighs less than 10 lbs. Since there's no components, you can use your mage hand while wild shaped, and since you weigh less than 10 lbs, you can pick yourself up. Even after you unlock flying forms, having the ability to invisibly manipulate small items in animal form is still incredibly useful.
@@witheredrogue Well, according to the PHB, Arcane Tricksters gain an ability called Mage Hand Legerdemain. The hand is invisible except to you where the standard Mage Hand appears spectral. Can steal things from containers being held by other creatures And you can disarm traps and operate thieves tools with it. I would argue that you need two hands to use thieves tools so one could say the Mage Hand Legerdemain could form two. As a DM, I'd allow this so long as the two Mage Hands have to be within ten feet of each other
I think for the fascinating story, the cool macabre atmosphere and description around the sword and the fallen dwarf warrior, as well as that gorgeous art and animation, that this might be my favorite animated spellbook. And that's saying something because all of these are awesome.
Reminds me of Bilbo Stabbins, Wizard Extraordinaire! Between his Belt of Scorching Ray and his quiver of wands, nothing could stop him! Even as every companion he had died one by one...
I'll square with you, I don't love Fireball the way I love Mage Hand. I check to see if I can resolve something with Mage Hand BEFORE I check to see if Fireball can solve it.
One of my personal favorites is to constantly cast magw hand and use it as my own personalized familiar. Give it a personality, a mind of its own(even if you always control it), or even just use it to be silly, like patting the bandits on the shoulder while they lay in wait to ambush you.
I remember the one time I ran that module I put a legit 'glitter ham' as a neat thing they could find. Basically It was a preserved haunch of meat you could use as a weapon that was big enough to eat from for several meals but every time you did you reduced the damage dice by one category.
Nice, now i have the second option about what to do with my newbies, if they somehow get rekt by the black spider, i throw then in "out of the abbys", if the win, forge of fury.
I absolutely love mage hand in my last campaign it was a large white comical almost Michael Jackson type glove thats I used to mess with npcs, players, and normal mage hand stuff like open doors. But I would also use it to "help" pull down a draw bridge, it would walk beside me and shake the hands of npcs while I took deep exaggerating bows overall 10/10 would use again lol. Also I just found your channel and I love it!
0:22-0:34 establishes the precise mixture of imagery, menace, and coolness that I always want to convey in my games. I need to master this style of narration on the fly.
One of my favorite ways i ever weaponized Mage Hand is with my Artificer/Rouge Kobold who would tinker up many gadgets and traps out of various bits of scrap and trap bits of any traps he disarmed from dungeon. His favorite things were bear traps and this gadget that weaponized Mage Hand used the lesser version of bear traps, mouse traps. Basically it’s a small bit of scrap and springs that would go over the neck of a vial of Alchemist Fire. When anything would touch the trigger, it would release the springs, sending a piece of metal swinging into the vial, detonating the Alchemist Fire. My Kobold would use mage hand to pilot vials of alchemist fire directly into enemies, this wouldn’t be with enough force to constitute a attack that would break the vial, but the small impact of making contact would set off the mechanism anyway, giving me undodgeable fire missiles. The metal mechanisms even survive the mini fireball and are reusable as long as we have more Alchemist Fire, and BOY did my Kobold have too much Alchemist Fire.
To be fair, if you have enough funds to buy that much alchemist fire then why not just buy spell scrolls or hire a mercenary that would attack enemies for you? 100gp per vial is a lot of money my guy
@@DashingSteel oh he didn’t BUY Alchemist Fire, he MADE it. (Although to be fair, it wasn’t ACTUALLY Shop brand Alchemist Fire, more like Kobold brand homemade Napalm, but functioned pretty much the same as Alchemist Fire)
I don't know why, but that animation at the end of Skank just grooving his way down the cavernous hallway, lookin like he's having a great time just tickles me.
I am utterly impressed with how fast you are putting these out. The art style is so charming and the videos are so funny, captivating, creative, and educational. Keep this up I look forward to each new video each week!
I mean you can't attack with mage hand but if a maul or any 10 pound object were to magically float above the target and suddenly started falling onto their head it would be most unfortunate now wouldn't it?
I've asked about this on a dnd discord and unfortunately they can make an easy acrobatics saving throw or take pitiful damage if you try this according to the rules as written. Still probably useful in some situations or if you don't want to spend a spell slot
Think about it this way: Imagine firing a crossbow vertically upwards. The bolt is gonna go a long way before it comes back down Even with a sword, a strong warrior can throw it rather high into the air before it'll slow and fall. That's how much weaker gravity is compared to the force behind an attack. Now....a bottle of Acid or Alchemical Fire on the other hand....
@@pavarottiaardvark3431 mage hand could pull triggers... Maybe you can get a pistol or a crossbow and lay waste, after all the hand is just manipulating an small object 😂😂😂
I once roleplayed as a Wizard who used to serve the King; he was forced to retire when during a war, both his hands were chopped off. With the approval of my DM, I made it so that he could only cast his spells through Mage Hand; due to the fact that he was still Level 1, both because he was retired for at least two years before learning how to case Mage Hand casually for practical and spell-casting purpose and because he had to relearn his more advanced spells. At first, he had to summon a Mage Hand with one action just to cast another spell; until it only required a Bonus Action at 6th Level, and able to cast it without an action at 10th level (Again, DM approved homebrew). At that point, he basically had a 30 feet range of grabbing things at all times. However, for RP purposes, I made it so that it would *appear* that I was only able to generate it right at the stumps of my hands, so that when his enemies thought: "Ha! He is too far away to do anything!" I would grin as I surprise them with "SUDDEN POCKET-SAND WITH A RANGE OF THIRTY FEET." By the time I was 10th level, I had access to 5th-level spells. Have you ever heard of a spell called "Bigby's Hand"? It's basically Mage Hand on *steroids*. It was Golliad's new favorite spell as bandits and goblins would watch in horror as the stumped Wizard's misty hands suddenly grow in size and then SLAM RIGHT INTO THEM, sometimes immediately killing them. My favorite moment using that spell was fighting a Goliath Champion in a tug-of-war using the spell, letting our entire group avoid a battle encounter by impressing the Goliaths.
So ive done 2 things with magic hand(generally stopped soon after start) but the dms found it funny and didn't get mad because it was always a 1 game joke. One was hover a good sword 31ft above a enemy causing the hand to dispel and no longer acting as the hands attack. The other doing the rope idea and carrying a extremely heavy object with the same idea.
Dropping an object is not an Attack, in Raw. That's the Falling Objects mechanic coming into play. So you could just use Mage Hand up 30 ft in the air, and drop your rock on enemies. Hopefully, they're not Dex based.
Ive used mage hand to stuff a ghostly hand in a caster's mouth to cancel spells with verbal components. Yes, we imposed a low DC DEX save to balance out countering spells with a cantrip. It's still jarring to suddenly have ghostly fingers in your mouth.
The hand appears at a point you can see within 30ft. Anywhere you can see. This means you can put the hand beyond a clear window, or behind that invisible wall of force, or even inside a pond or jar. The devious potential is AMAZING
WAIT! If you cast levitate you might be able to be pushed around by mage hand. Now you have a 2nd level fly spell that can move you up to 30ft horizontally and 20ft vertically. Sadly this does require your action to move horizontally. BUT! If you are an Arcane Trickster Rogue, “you can use the bonus action granted by your Cunning Action to control the hand.” This could actually be very useful until you get 3rd level spells for fly. To add on to this, Pick Air Genasi and you get Levitate at LvL 1 and can do this combo from the start once a day instead of having to wait for LvL 7 to get levitate from Arcane Trickster Rogue. …Be sure to clear this with your DM first tho ofc… don’t be the guy that springs this on them half way into the first session. They might have some rule disagreements here with you, so clear it first… and just be polite. XD (…or just pick Arakocra…)
@@OxyWorgon Levitate doesn't make you weightless. What you're suggesting would fall count as a normal "Push, Drag, or Lift" against your full body weight, which is probably more than 10 unless you're a tiny race or a small race under the Reduce effect.
I love how you’re able to piece together the story based off the characters that appears, and it’s also so sad when you see a character in a video but a companion is different like rip dude
That twist though, definitely didn't expect it to be a spellbook. With that said though, I can't help but think of two people casting mage hand and just high fiving each other to distract someone or something.
I’ve watched this specific episode at LEAST six times already, because I just can’t get enough of these. Your voice is so soothing, your art is so nice to look at, everything moves fluidly, and I just learn so much from your episodes. From the moment I hit play, I enter a zen state, where I am just relaxed. It’s such a nice way to end a day for me. Thank you, Zee. Keep doing what you’re doing.
Ok, I'm new to 5e and currently playing a 5th level sorcerer. Mage Hand has a range of 30' and can move 30'. If i use distant spell meets magic to double the range to 60', can it now move 60' too? What if i take the Telekinetic feat? Because that doubles the range stove i already have it. what if i take the feat AND use Distant Spell? Does it have a range of 120' and can move 120'? That would be cool
Distant spell wouldn’t do what you’re describing because the text of the spell still says it disappears if it’s not within 30 ft. The text of telekinetic explicitly bypasses this, but if u used distant spell I believe it would appear 90 ft away (because telekinetic says that when cast the range increases by 30, not that the range of the spell is now 60 so it would be 30x2+30) and than it would disappear because it was out of range If I was the DM I would allow it because no harm no foul, but RAW I’m almost certain it wouldn’t work
@starat2645 you know what? I think you might be right that RAW with that "disappears at 30'" but I don't think that's what's intended. I run the intention is that, because the caster and the hand move independently, that the the hands must stay in that 30' range from the caster, like the aura for Spirit Guardian stays centered on the caster. So it makes sense to me that increasing the range would increase the distance the hands can be from the caster. As far as movement speed... I think I could be persuaded either way
Anyone else want a 10 minute video loop of that ending walking animation/music? It's just so compelling... I actually first subscribed because of that. (Don't worry. I'd already liked it.)
Must have cantrips for every character I make that can learn cantrips: Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, and if there's room, a offensive cantrip, like Fire Bolt or Chill Touch. But I have made characters with 0 offensive cantrips. Also, a feat or tome lock for Guidance and Thamatuegy, and maybe sheleleh if they use a quarter staff. Mage hand is especially important to one of my most recent characters, a Talking Skull who uses their mage hand to carry themself. And you can never go wrong with being able to make your water taste like juice, or instantly clean stains, which is why I love Prestidigitation.
Not having prestidigitation literally killed one of my characters. (Not really, it was a series of bad decisions I made, but having the damn spell would have helped). We had to cross a river, and I was in heavy splint armor. I fell into the river as I attempted to ford it and got stuck in the muck. I may have taken some drowning damage, I don't remember. But when I got out, the DM ruled that my armor was too dirty to properly function, having mud seeping through its joints and impacting its maneuverability. So I removed it and stored it while we continued because our sorcerer didn't have prestidigitation to clean it (We all yelled at him for that, that player had been known for a few boneheaded decisions, but none as bad as the Rogue who in hindsight was probably trying to get killed). We were ambushed by Gricks and instead of Misty Stepping free (As I was a Vengeance Paladin at level 5), I uh....didn't do that. I was quickly killed. HOWEVER, through a completely unplanned (by me) coincidence, my character had become Important (TM) by interacting with a jar full of darkness earlier on in a dungeon we'd explored. The jar "cursed" the person who stuck their hand in and activated the lever with an arm covered in shadows, but in reality was a blessing from a god. Specifically, Blibdoolpoolp the patron deity of the Kuo-Toa, whose city we were on the way to. And that's how my party got me resurrected for free after my own foolish decisions and our Sorcerer not having ONE OF THE BEST BASIC UTILITY SPELLS got me killed. That character went through some shit, he got petrified not long after lmao
I always have a party of... questionably intelligent people who never thought to use mage hand for anything other than REALLY dumb stuff. Nobody ever used it to trigger traps at range or grab questionable items. Always "I put a bucket on the guard's head" or "I poke the sleeping dragon in the nose, while I hide". Mage Hand has caused me mental trauma due to the triggering of awful encounters.
@@jonathanwells223 Haha, it has happened. But they are a bit of a munchkin player so if they die, they basically come back twice as annoying. And even stupider than before. The player has a 'type', and that is 'socially stupid glass cannons'.
My fav mage hand scene was with DCA. Where in which instead of going into the room with the booby trapped, activate the giant sentinel on the book being moved, book Holly used Mage hand to pick it up. The sentinel activated of course, but Perkins narrated it as the thing was ready to attack, then slowly watched the book move out of the room in a slight stupor.
My dragonborn cleric recently took the Telekinetic Feat which gives an invisible Mage Hand that needs no components to cast. That'll be fun. What's more fun is that he can now force push foes into hazards or his Spirit Guardians. >:D
Unless you’re an arcane trickster or telekinetic, it’s not invisible. But you can only move it on your turn, so the opponent could just move their face
@@MrRydude17 I half agree, i dm as a hobby and i like to think a full round is happening at approx the same time so for the most part each turn happens at once (unless there is a clear separation between events, for example an attack from the PC to an creature then a retaliation from the creature). However i would say as the mage hand is moving to obscure the view of the enemy, it would be simple enough for the enemy to lean to one side and attack, then the next round when the hand obscures again the enemy will see that and lean the other way. In essence using it to obscure the view wouldn't work. But I do allow PC's to cause distractions so if that mage hand wanted to flip off the enemy for example, i'd have them make an intelligence check or an intelligence save against the spellcasting DC to see if they are briefly distracted (disadvantage on the next attack type thing)
For those looking to "Weaponize" this particular spell:
1st: (area of effect damage) 10lbs of whatever exploding potion combo's you can think of (drop the whole bag from 30 ft. up or shoot it (clockwork timer might work too if you have the skills).
2nd: (area denial) Drop a bag of Caltrops (10per lb.) between you and the enemy; or on the enemies position directly to trap them (probably give a good 10ft radius to them spreading out from that high up).
3rd: (area of effect damage/status effect) Bag of broken glass/daggers coated in poison... yes there is a pattern; drop it on a enemy from above or let it scatter along the ground for area denial. -Poison-covered broken glass raining from the sky vs. a paladin in plate armor might be iffy with their AC. But, someone wearing no armor or simple cloth/robes will likely be far more susceptible.
4th: (direct damage) get basic with it and drop a 10lb boulder from 30 ft. up in the air (or anything equaling 10lbs).
5th: (Indirect damage) Have it carry 10lbs of flaming garbage (logs, cloth, etc) and have it occupy the same space as the target. -The hand does not have HP (can't be attacked), cannot attack but can move into another creatures area every turn (presumably keeping up at 30ft a turn), and lasts for 1 minute (more than enough time to catch something on fire/or cause fire-based damage.
I would assume most DM's would have to agree that these are all within the capabilities of the spell.
How accurate, or how effective, these attacks are should be up to the situation of course and at the DM's discretion; but I would think that most might would require a Dex save of some sort if using it for direct damage.
That rope trick is wonderful! Gotta remember it! Man, as a DM, a player like Greenbeard over there without any obvious motivation is a serious liability. "He wanted to leave the dungeon altogether". Yeah... exactly. The players (with the aid of the DM) need to give the characters *some* reason to risk their lives, or else you might end up missing all the cool stuff the DM spent countless hours toiling over his or her handbooks to prepare.
To be fair, he was acting according to his character. Druid wants to commune with nature and only around to fight monsters? That he went with the group that far means he did so with great personal risk given how one character in that adventure had already died and another nearly died but lost his gear. So... props for roleplaying in that situation?
![เปิดใจ "อาจารย์เบียร์ คนตื่นธรรม" อดีตเคยสุดทุกทาง ถ้าใช้หนี้หมดไปบวชแน่ l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IxeE0xVhy08/mqdefault.jpg)
Using it to remove bolts from loaded crossbows is hilarious.
Devious bastard.
Holy crap that's genius.
Hm, would using it to move the trigger of a crossbow count as "attacking"?
Not sure about pulling the trigger, but dropping a 9,9 pound rock on the tip to make it point directly downwards is totally allowed.
No, I think it means directly (like punching someone).
Other uses for mage hand include: high fiving yourself when some one leaves you hanging, giving yourself a good ol' face palm while you are shackled, or when you really want to convey how much you hate some one, flip them off with three hands.
Jacob Fletcher now that is some good use
Similarly, one of the best uses for minor image spells is to go full Zenyatta on someone and flip them off with *eight* hands.
Alternatively, use Thaumaturgy to tell someone to go fuck themselves in the most badass way possible (eyes black with red pinpoint pupils, make your voice "boom", and create minor tremors) 60% of the time it works every time...
Don't forget the good old scratch your back were you cant reach.
lmao
I appreciate drawing the line between Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Stupid.
Best bit of the video right there.
There's something exceeding funny about the quote:
"I knew that if Gideon touched the mold, he would die.
I hesitated."
At the time of this comment you have 69 likes. I cannot bear to break the sacred number.
Letting the mold kill him would have been a chaotic stupid move rather than chaotic evil because if a self-respecting evil wizard wants to get full use out of a magic sword he needs to make sure he has a skilled minion to swing it around for him.
Couldn't have put it better myself :)
That was what Zee was saying.
Naw. Let the mold kill him. Then animate dead and have a mold zombie armed with a magic sword.
@@shii5795 A zombie is way shittier than even a low level martial class. They're not even better as minions because they're even dumber than your average barbarian.
The zombie wouldn't be nearly as skilled as the alive fighter.
Chaotic Stupid: All the treasure is mine! ...how do I carry this. Why are there bandits everywhere now?!
Chaotic Evil: I need a meat shield and I can't wield swords.
Who needs to carry things when you have Mage Hand, or in case of bandits, Bigby's Hand.
@@ThatGamerDude9000 I don’t need to carry things when i have suggestion and/or dominate person and even one other person.
@@Leftists_are_Losers You'd get stomped without your party. Being Chaotic Stupid never pays off. The cr of the enemies around you would be too high for just one player.
After my Wizard lost their right hand in a dodgy deal with a good ol riddles 'n' rhymes ethereal shopkeeper ("And in return, you lend me a hand..." "Ya ok sure, what do you want?") I asked the DM "I'm a super clever magic meddler, if I put enough time into it would I theoretically be able to make a magic hand? I'd take the Mage Hand cantrip that I already know and, using this power ring thingy we found as a power source, set up a mechanism of runes to create an arcane feedback loop, so once I use it as a focus to cast mage hand through, it keeps it going without need of my concentration and pours enough pure power into it to make it as strong as a real hand!"
"Uh, yeah alright, but it's gonna take you like, let's say 10-int d100 hours to build."
About 300 hours of working on the project later, I had a badass modified permanent Mage Hand using up our only magical artifact as a battery and was the proudest nerd.
Your wizard is awesome.
I love it!
you should go back and demand that hand back since you only lent it to the guy. probably lost or broke it though, happens to everything i let people borrow.
Congratulations your wizard is now also an artificer
That's a fun dm.
Pro tip: if you are small size, like a halfling or a cobolt, you can cast reduce on yourself, grab yourself by the scruff using mage hand and literally fly
Kobold*
:)
@@ramirezthesilvite
Somewhere a small peice of sentient cobolt ore disagrees with you
Nice idea Lorax.
Lorax RP
It’s been two years and I just realised the inscription in the blade says ‘YOLO’
YOLO? Ha, not in D&D you don't!
Only those aged and wise enough can see the inscription for what it truly says... fo-ho-ho...
This feels like it's pulling double-duty as an animated spell book and a bit of advice on "things to think about when you're playing the Token Evil Teammate so you're not infuriating for the rest of the table"
Step 1: Play gnome wizard
Step 2: Be minimum weight for gnome
Step 3: Cast "Reduce" on yourself.
Step 4: Cast Mage hand. Ride flying hand.
Step 5: Profit?
but you can only move the hand 30ft from the original point it was spawned, isn't it?
@@Morfeucomvoce nope. You can't move it 30 feet away from YOURSELF. RAW mentions nothing about spawnpoint.
niiiiice
Technically you could be a; Drow, Halfling, or Gnome because the reduce part of Enlarge/Reduce makes you weigh one eight so a Drow can weigh at least 77lbs divided by 8 is less than 10 so mage hand can carry you
Just don't wear too much armor
The dead Dwarven soldier having a beard as a skeleton was a nice touch
how know if dwarf if not have beard???
It was an animated spellbook the whole time!? What a twist!
Important note: The hand is always visible unless using the telekinetic feat or you are an arcane trickster
Or gith
The most important lesson here is learning the difference between 'evil' and 'stupid' in roleplaying, tbh.
Honestly, I'd say getting a player killed by withholding information would be more Stupid Evil than Chaotic Stupid.
It ultimately depends on the goal of the character, if the sword was the evil character's ultimate goal for the campaign and he didnt want to have to share it or the rest of the riches i wouldnt necessarily call it stupid to just let another character die as long as that doesnt put you in danger as well. I personally dont like doing stuff like that because i care about the other players' enjoyment but i can see how it would make sense for a chaotic evil character or even a neutral character to let another pc die if it ultimately benefits them
@@taurelith4867 Well, in this instance, I would say the choice is a question of evil rather than chaos. If Skenk knows that the moss will kill Gideon and doesn't tell him because he want's Gideon to die so he can have the treasure all to himself, that would be an act of evil because he's essentially setting Giddeon up for death for his own gain.
I dont think the sword and treasure was skank's ultimate goal, so it benefits him more to have a badass wielding it for him as they go forward.
My party went through glitterheim. We came upon the shiny sword clutched by a skeleton. The room was so obviously a trap. I warned the wizard "do you have some means to grab the sword without entering the room?". "I have mage hand, but i'd rather not use a spell for something so simple." he replied. He entered the room, grabbed the sword, and took all but 5 of his health in damage... Mage hand is a cantrip... just use it next time.
lol I am a rogue with the feat magic initiate just so I could have mage hand (even though I am a thief and not an arcane trickster) exactly for moments like this. I wanna be able to fuck shit up on a safe distance
the thing about that, that I find so funny is, its a cantrip so it costs nothing to use.
I doubt that ever happened. Us wizard always want to use mage hand. Even if it obviously is a real chest because you just defeated a big monster guarding it: Mage hand.
I mean, super cool as a character moment. It’s not even that it costs anything to use, he just thought his magic was above picking up swords.
I like that this video has that visual that demonstrates the distinction between Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Stupid.
Chaotic Evil: Well, I could keep all the treasure... but then I have to haul it all out mostly myself and without a warrior to protect me. He might be useful beyond that as well, letting me obtain more wealth.
Chaotic Stupid: Yes, let them all go to their death! I might even slaughter them in their sleep! *dies to monsters when the other players refuse to help after he gets them all killed*
Both of the choices there were chaotic evil. One was for gain now and one was for gain later. He simply chose the more gain later. But choosing less gain now would have been absolutely valid
@@DimT670 yea.. but chaotic stupid gets the point across better, and is actually funny VS what you said
I like how it wasn't the main point of the video, but justifying a Druid adventurer is SO hard from a role-play perspective! You love nature, you thrive in nature, and... you run around killing things for wealth, power, or to save those high-and-mighty kings in their smelly, intrusive cities?
Personally, I just throw out the stereotypical hippie druid characterization entirely. You can still have a fun character who uses the exact same mechanics as the druid class, but who isn't a super druidy druid. 5e is very friendly to reskins and reflavoring.
I lost it at, “Haha! It was an animated Spellbook the whole time.”
Bonus tech: if you are a gnome and use reduce on yourself you becone just light enough for a mage hand to carry you around, which is hilarious.
That... sounds useful,... or abusable.
If you were a gnome mage, could you carry yourslef?
yes, but you would have to use your action to do so
Kyle Banister gnome monk, no equipment required
@@sadeknight9112 but now you need to burn a level or a feat for mage hand
The tale and production value on this one was masterclass
I love the knowledge of the difference between Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Stupid
Also, Mage Hand is a Cantrip, so you can use it as often as you like.
Your mage never has to get his hands dirty.
Well... If you're looking for friendship in Glitterhame, there is a Sucubus that would be REAALLY grateful if you let her out....
My party came across a tripwire. We spent 30 minutes figuring out what to do. The DM even went to the bathroom. We elected to jump over it. I had mage hand, scissors, and a mirror. I could have disabled it remotely. It still haunts me years later.
My character was at a tourney and when the knight that had once incarcerated me was jousting i used mage hand to open the clasps of his saddle which got him skewered. Lovely spell.
My favorite aspect of Mage Hand is what Arcane Tricksters can do with it. Mage Hand Legerdemain lets you stow and retrieve objects from containers worn or carried by other creatures, you can use Thieves’ Tools to pick locks and disarm traps remotely, perform any task using the mage hand without being noticed (by contesting your Sleight of Hand against the enemy’s Perception,) straight up turn the hand invisible, and the best part is, you can use your bonus action granted by Cunning Action to control the hand.
Mage Hand is also useful for interacting with anything that causes your adventurer senses to tingle. A surprisingly intact rug in a long-abandoned, decaying fortress? Flip it over with mage hand to reveal covered pits, pressure plates, or the fact that it might be a Rug of Smothering. Sword surrounded by corpses? Mage hand. It might be hooked to a wire, or it might be cursed, so keep it bundled in cloth or locked in a box until you're able to tell for darned sure it's safe. Rogue low on health? Use a mage hand to open a door, and breath a sigh of relief as the poison needle in the handle stabs into incorporeal force, or as the magitech claymore mine on the other side blasts apart thin air. It's like the magic version of the old veteran's favorite dungeon-crawling tool, the ten foot pole.
Reminds me of one group of adventurers my friends played. They didn't have a rogue so they just used the Barbarian. He got sick of it or was too low on health at one point so they picked up a nearby log and used it to trigger the traps by rolling it down corridors and such. It worked so well they made it an honorary member of the party and carved ROGUE into it.
I'm now imagining a +1 ten foot pole.
@@badideagenerator2315An 11 foot pole that weighs the same as a 10 foot pole.
I can't believe that this is where skenk mcgenk came from, and subsequently became pretty much the channel mascot
I've watched every spellbook episode dozens of times over. Only JUST saw the YOLO on the sword...
Same!
Oh wow... Lol.
*It was an Animated Spellbook the whole time!*
I fucking love this channel
"A HA! It was an animated spellbook the whole time!"
You clever bastard!
Step 1: Play a Gnome.
Step 2: Cast Reduce on self.
Step 3: Carry self around with Mage Hand.
Step 4: Profit.
i need to check the weight but dammit i think this will actually fucking work... i like it
By the 5th Ed rules this could work so long as you're not too fat.
The problem with that though is that the hand travels 30ft _away_ from the caster, since if it goes farther than 30 ft away it dissipates; this could be interpreted as the hand can only travel as far as it can get away from the one who cast the spell. Ergo, you could stand on it, but it wouldnt be able to travel anywhere because it cant get away from you. Of course, this is all at the DM's discretion so they can also rule that you can fly anywhere in a 30ft cube in any direction or travel at a speed of 30ft but must be no higher than 11 inches off the ground when doing so (and likewise reduce the travel speed for each foot you are off ground: 1ft off ground 29Spd 10ft off ground 20Spd, etc). Because I doubt that most DMs would just give the player unlimited flight and reach with a cantrip: that would be far too busted to allow, honestly.
@@Mellion555 Just for fair analysis, consider that Fly is a 3rd level spell, requires one action to cast, can be concentrated on for 10 minutes and gives a flying speed of 60 feet.
This method to use mage hand to fly requires a 2nd level spell Enlarge/Reduce be cast on a creature max weight 80 pounds, causes them to have disadvantage on Strength checks and saves as well as deal 1d4 less damage on weapon attacks, requires 2 actions to set up and uses up your action every turn if you want to move (bonus action for Arcane Trickster Rogue), can be concentrated on for 1 minute, only gives a flying speed of 30 feet, and must remain within 30 feet of the caster (if you're trying to carry someone else).
I think there's enough downside there to allow this use of mage hand and enlarge/reduce to effectively get a downgraded fly for a lower level spell slot.
Jacob K If u cast it on other people obviously, but the original comment is talking about casting it on yourself tho which means having it go 30 ft away from u won’t be a problem.
I remember using mage hand to take a goblin's bow before he could use it (not sure if that was actually legal, but it was our first campaign so w/e). The goblin was hopping around trying to grab the bow, which gave our rogue a good opportunity to eviscerate it (nat 20). I kept the bow for myself since I didn't have any ranged options otherwise and it went on to kill a bugbear.
That is a HILARIOUS mental image. It's like playing with a cat, only the cat is green, angry and capable of curse words. XD
If they bow weighed more than 10 lbs it wouldn’t be RAW
Unless you pry it out of creature's arm its all legal.
The best use I ever had for Mage hand outside of utility was a very unique situation where me and my party managed to sneak up on a dragon resting in its horde, for General context this dragon we've been chasing down for some time and we managed to track it back down to its hoard after several previous encounters.
I just added the spell levitate to my roster and I have been constantly thinking of new ways I can apply it and in a stroke of inspiration I had a brilliant idea, the spell levitate can lift something up to 500 lb.
We managed to find a chest from the dragon's horde that was about 400 odd pounds, I cast levitate and let It go as high as possible, this is where the fun begins.
You see the rules say you can lift an object up to 20 ft in the air but it doesn't specify whether or not it will maintain that altitude if you were to do something like say push it over a cliff or if instead it will just float at the predestined height.
My DM ruled that it would float at the same height at which I lifted it meaning that it wouldn't fall after I pushed it off a cliff.
The dragon was roughly about 40 ft below us in a lower section in the cave it was using, I then casted Mage hand to push the floating chest over as far as I could which was just enough to be over the dragon's head.
My DM ruled that based on how levitate works it technically made the chest weightless or at the very least light enough to give it a good push.
From here you can imagine what happened the chest fell a total of 60 ft crashing directly into the skull of this sleeping dragon, I don't remember the specific number but it did well over 80 damage if I'm not mistaken and honestly I think I'm lowballing it.
Not enough to kill the dragon but the pride I felt will never go away
This some Looney Tunes shit. I love it!
Some creative uses for Mage Hand:
1- To remove arrows from an enemy crossbow and possibly give them to a crossbow wielding teammate
2- Use It to gather some simple twigs around you and help start a campfire when your party starts their long rest
3- have it disarm an enemy wielding their crossbow, swords, daggers, etc. technically not an attack and even better if the weapon is still in reach of the creature whose item you stole may have to waste an action just to get it back, OR if it dies and it’s weapon is still being held by your Mage Hand, one of your buddies can claim the weapon for themselves
4- have it open a door that you feel is booby trapped
5- have the Mage Hand give vulgar gestures at creatures to tell them how much you hate them
honestly, the last one is probably the most important one
2 lol is not creative its "im too lazy to grab some twigs myself"
also 3 needs to be clarified, to disarm someone who is wielding a weapon requires it to be an attack though you could argue with your dm why removing a sword from someones pocket is not
DMG pg. 271 allows you to disarm an opponent with an attack, forgoing the attack roll vs AC and the damage for an attack roll vs STR athletics or DEX acrobatics to have the target drop their weapon. But it's clearly an attack which PHB pg. 256 clearly forbids.
Which I feel is a fair restriction considering the Battle Master needs a whole maneuver to not do it the standard way.
Number 5 is "Bigby's Insulting Digit", a cantrip that can be cast by anyone with fingers.
As an Artificer, I was once presented with a spider-filled room with a potential treasure in it. I used Magical Tinkering to imbue a tile to emit a 5ft radius light, and I used Mage Hand to aggravate the spiders with the illuminated tile. I drew the spiders to a far corner of the room, used Mage Hand to retrieve the treasure, then used Mage Hand to shut the door behind us.
Mage Hand FTW.
I have a warlock that used Mage Hand for every conceivable scenario, especially for opening maybe-possibly-trapped doors and chests (he was paranoid like that). He and the rest of the party eventually took to calling the spectral entity "Handy" like some sort of ethereal pet.
If dm ever let him empower that cantrip you could call it, Master Hand.
Kyler Thatch I am almost positive there is a more powerful variation of Mage Hand they could have used ALSO checking for possible mimics and traps is GODDAMN GENIUS.
You may be thinking of Bigby's Hand +otakon17
So we just gonna gloss over the fact that the runes on the blade are just YOLO?
lol i came here to find this comment
Finally, someone who realizes that evil doesn't necessarily just mean betraying your party.
It should always be “how low am I willing to go to get what I want.” Instead of just maniacally twirling your mustache and wondering who you can fuck over. If persuasion isn’t mind control and insight isn’t a lie detector, alignments shouldn’t be the deciding factor.
Evil is simply "I do what's in _my_ best interest," and Skenk was smart enough to realize that he needed his team alive. For now...
Chaotic Evil or Chaotic Stupid
Surprisingly enough, some people cant tell the difference
Yeah, and main diference is: one is dead.
Chaotic evil the way I would play it is actually quite willing to work with others. They don't care about making friends but will stick around so long as they get in on that sweet sweet loot at the end of the day. I play it as more of a ruthless mercenary type. Someone who has no moral issue with sacrificing others for their own gain but at the same time they are smart enough to realize the benefits of having someone watch their back. They want to keep the party alive because they don't want to risk facing danger alone. You offer them promise of treasure and they will follow you to the ends of the earth so long as you deliver.
Mage hand as a lazy Faerie, lay on it while it floats you along. A tensers floating disk trailing behind with your party being lazy.
The Segway of DND
It seems like the Bag of Holding was made 15 pounds for the express purpose of preventing casters with Mage Hand from using Bag of Holding nukes.
We have rope technology
I wonder...
Could multiple mages hands work together?
USS Prinz Eugen How much does a mage hand weighs?
But the haversack
By the time you had nukes wouldn’t you just use Telekinesis?
Speaking of druids and mage hand...
Be a vuman or Tasha's custom race, and pick telekinetic as your starting feat. This gives you an invisible, componentless version of mage hand.
Use wild shape to turn into a creature that weighs less than 10 lbs.
Since there's no components, you can use your mage hand while wild shaped, and since you weigh less than 10 lbs, you can pick yourself up.
Even after you unlock flying forms, having the ability to invisibly manipulate small items in animal form is still incredibly useful.
I don't know about you, but the image of a gracefully flying rat cracks me the fuck up
I played a arcane trickster so I could make 2 hands used both to hold two ends of a rope and tripped a creature off a cliff
Brilliant!
How? Are you multiclassed in sorcerer and twinspelled it
Total of twenty pounds of force behind it, I think. Either way, ten pounds of force sounds more than enough to trip something over.
Arcane trickster isn't necessarily supposed to get 2 of them, but I like how creative you were with it anyway.
@@witheredrogue Well, according to the PHB, Arcane Tricksters gain an ability called Mage Hand Legerdemain.
The hand is invisible except to you where the standard Mage Hand appears spectral.
Can steal things from containers being held by other creatures
And you can disarm traps and operate thieves tools with it.
I would argue that you need two hands to use thieves tools so one could say the Mage Hand Legerdemain could form two. As a DM, I'd allow this so long as the two Mage Hands have to be within ten feet of each other
I think for the fascinating story, the cool macabre atmosphere and description around the sword and the fallen dwarf warrior, as well as that gorgeous art and animation, that this might be my favorite animated spellbook. And that's saying something because all of these are awesome.
"...I hesitated..." was the best line.
I also love that the "runes" read YOLO.
Doctor Discord of course you do, such chaos is your bread and butter lol
One of our players used it to lift the bar that was locking the door from the other side of the door.
And Critical Role took that personally...
@@CainLatrani Oh what are they gonna do? Make me cringe to death with their awful acting skills?
@@jonathanwells223 Was there a point to this other than proving you're an ass?
@@jonathanwells223 Careful there edgelord
yeah, I understand Skank here. good meatshields are hard to come by, you gotta protect your investments
Mages NEED their meat shields
So basically this is a party of a chaotic evil necromancer a neutral fighter in a lawful good druid
Mage Hand is possibly one of the best utility spells a Rogue could ever want.....I mean wizard. *Rolls Bluff/Deception*
Reminds me of Bilbo Stabbins, Wizard Extraordinaire! Between his Belt of Scorching Ray and his quiver of wands, nothing could stop him! Even as every companion he had died one by one...
You can also flip the bird with Mage Hand, like every mature adventurer
Just wanna say. The animation for this was truly top-notch dude. Well done!! Particularly enjoyed the walking scene at the end.
I'll square with you, I don't love Fireball the way I love Mage Hand. I check to see if I can resolve something with Mage Hand BEFORE I check to see if Fireball can solve it.
now that IS true love. I'm not sure I could betray my fireball like that.
What? I thought it was obligatory to cast fireball first.... even before initiative sometimes.
... I'm going to have to check the rules to be sure
One of my personal favorites is to constantly cast magw hand and use it as my own personalized familiar. Give it a personality, a mind of its own(even if you always control it), or even just use it to be silly, like patting the bandits on the shoulder while they lay in wait to ambush you.
What's your point, person within Fireball's distance?
I remember the one time I ran that module I put a legit 'glitter ham' as a neat thing they could find.
Basically It was a preserved haunch of meat you could use as a weapon that was big enough to eat from for several meals but every time you did you reduced the damage dice by one category.
Which module is it?
"The forge of fury" if I remember correctly..
Nice, now i have the second option about what to do with my newbies, if they somehow get rekt by the black spider, i throw then in "out of the abbys", if the win, forge of fury.
If only we knew how evil Skank would be. RIP Trevor. :p
jesternario to be fair Gideon did help kill the shopkeeper during the spell components ep sp its more a look at the whole party
I absolutely love mage hand in my last campaign it was a large white comical almost Michael Jackson type glove thats I used to mess with npcs, players, and normal mage hand stuff like open doors. But I would also use it to "help" pull down a draw bridge, it would walk beside me and shake the hands of npcs while I took deep exaggerating bows overall 10/10 would use again lol. Also I just found your channel and I love it!
I JUST noticed the sword has YOLO written on it.....
Curse you for pointing out this hilarity to me.
Praise the comment section, I would've missed it :p
No, you're reading it backwards, it's clearly 0-7-0-and the greek letter Lambda. (jk)
Like, I've watched this video the day it came out and at least 5 times since and I JUST noticed it 😂
0:22-0:34 establishes the precise mixture of imagery, menace, and coolness that I always want to convey in my games. I need to master this style of narration on the fly.
One of my favorite ways i ever weaponized Mage Hand is with my Artificer/Rouge Kobold who would tinker up many gadgets and traps out of various bits of scrap and trap bits of any traps he disarmed from dungeon. His favorite things were bear traps and this gadget that weaponized Mage Hand used the lesser version of bear traps, mouse traps.
Basically it’s a small bit of scrap and springs that would go over the neck of a vial of Alchemist Fire. When anything would touch the trigger, it would release the springs, sending a piece of metal swinging into the vial, detonating the Alchemist Fire. My Kobold would use mage hand to pilot vials of alchemist fire directly into enemies, this wouldn’t be with enough force to constitute a attack that would break the vial, but the small impact of making contact would set off the mechanism anyway, giving me undodgeable fire missiles. The metal mechanisms even survive the mini fireball and are reusable as long as we have more Alchemist Fire, and BOY did my Kobold have too much Alchemist Fire.
Nice.
To be fair, if you have enough funds to buy that much alchemist fire then why not just buy spell scrolls or hire a mercenary that would attack enemies for you?
100gp per vial is a lot of money my guy
@@DashingSteel oh he didn’t BUY Alchemist Fire, he MADE it. (Although to be fair, it wasn’t ACTUALLY Shop brand Alchemist Fire, more like Kobold brand homemade Napalm, but functioned pretty much the same as Alchemist Fire)
@@crowsenpai5625 It's not that hard to make alchemist's fire too so it's a plus
IVE BEEN USING MAGE HAND FOR MONTHS AND IVE NEVER THOUGHT OF USING A FUCKING ROPE GOD DAMN IT
XD
I don't know why, but that animation at the end of Skank just grooving his way down the cavernous hallway, lookin like he's having a great time just tickles me.
I am utterly impressed with how fast you are putting these out. The art style is so charming and the videos are so funny, captivating, creative, and educational. Keep this up I look forward to each new video each week!
I cannot begin to express my love of the name Skank McGank. What a hero
You guys make great stuff!
The animation/sound are fun and you've definitely got the voice for this.
IT'S JOVIAL AND I LIKE IT.
Elias Aguirre it certainly is smile enducing.
I mean you can't attack with mage hand but if a maul or any 10 pound object were to magically float above the target and suddenly started falling onto their head it would be most unfortunate now wouldn't it?
I've asked about this on a dnd discord and unfortunately they can make an easy acrobatics saving throw or take pitiful damage if you try this according to the rules as written.
Still probably useful in some situations or if you don't want to spend a spell slot
Drop a 10lb blade from 30 ft on their head
Think about it this way: Imagine firing a crossbow vertically upwards. The bolt is gonna go a long way before it comes back down
Even with a sword, a strong warrior can throw it rather high into the air before it'll slow and fall.
That's how much weaker gravity is compared to the force behind an attack.
Now....a bottle of Acid or Alchemical Fire on the other hand....
@@pavarottiaardvark3431 technically you could use it to poor oil as well. Its not directly harming anyone
@@pavarottiaardvark3431 mage hand could pull triggers... Maybe you can get a pistol or a crossbow and lay waste, after all the hand is just manipulating an small object 😂😂😂
My wizard got mage hand just to have a extra hand to use while eating. Ie, mage hand holds the drink.
I like that glorious walk cycle animation at the end more than I would care to admit ^_^
I was really expecting him to poke the mushroom with mage hand.
I once roleplayed as a Wizard who used to serve the King; he was forced to retire when during a war, both his hands were chopped off. With the approval of my DM, I made it so that he could only cast his spells through Mage Hand; due to the fact that he was still Level 1, both because he was retired for at least two years before learning how to case Mage Hand casually for practical and spell-casting purpose and because he had to relearn his more advanced spells.
At first, he had to summon a Mage Hand with one action just to cast another spell; until it only required a Bonus Action at 6th Level, and able to cast it without an action at 10th level (Again, DM approved homebrew). At that point, he basically had a 30 feet range of grabbing things at all times. However, for RP purposes, I made it so that it would *appear* that I was only able to generate it right at the stumps of my hands, so that when his enemies thought: "Ha! He is too far away to do anything!" I would grin as I surprise them with "SUDDEN POCKET-SAND WITH A RANGE OF THIRTY FEET."
By the time I was 10th level, I had access to 5th-level spells. Have you ever heard of a spell called "Bigby's Hand"? It's basically Mage Hand on *steroids*. It was Golliad's new favorite spell as bandits and goblins would watch in horror as the stumped Wizard's misty hands suddenly grow in size and then SLAM RIGHT INTO THEM, sometimes immediately killing them.
My favorite moment using that spell was fighting a Goliath Champion in a tug-of-war using the spell, letting our entire group avoid a battle encounter by impressing the Goliaths.
You made the runes say fucking yolo... yea I guess that dwarf did only live once
*"Aha! It was an animated spellbook all along!"*
So ive done 2 things with magic hand(generally stopped soon after start) but the dms found it funny and didn't get mad because it was always a 1 game joke. One was hover a good sword 31ft above a enemy causing the hand to dispel and no longer acting as the hands attack. The other doing the rope idea and carrying a extremely heavy object with the same idea.
Dropping an object is not an Attack, in Raw. That's the Falling Objects mechanic coming into play.
So you could just use Mage Hand up 30 ft in the air, and drop your rock on enemies. Hopefully, they're not Dex based.
I can't believe I never thought to use mage hand to do the rope thing. Thanks for the idea.
I only now noticed that the sword is inscribed with YOLO. Don't lose your touch Zee.
“AHA! It was an Animated Spellbook the whole time!” 😂 Not sure why that always cracks me up
Ive used mage hand to stuff a ghostly hand in a caster's mouth to cancel spells with verbal components. Yes, we imposed a low DC DEX save to balance out countering spells with a cantrip. It's still jarring to suddenly have ghostly fingers in your mouth.
Shrink+Gnome = Mage hand mount.
The hand appears at a point you can see within 30ft. Anywhere you can see. This means you can put the hand beyond a clear window, or behind that invisible wall of force, or even inside a pond or jar. The devious potential is AMAZING
Those (apart from the pond) are all behind total cover. You can't cast spells through total cover (PHB 204).
Rewatching this I don't know if I'd call that a choice between chaotic evil and chaotic stupid, I'd call it a choice between evil smart and evil dumb
So it was between Chaotic Evil and Stupid Evil
Fun fact about mage hand! If your a gnome you can cast reduce on yourself and be carried by a mage hand.
Oh my god this has just opened up so many possibilities
This is only assuming you weigh 40 pounds or less and are not carrying any equipment or armour. However, that’s nothing a bag of holding can’t fix.
WAIT!
If you cast levitate you might be able to be pushed around by mage hand.
Now you have a 2nd level fly spell that can move you up to 30ft horizontally and 20ft vertically.
Sadly this does require your action to move horizontally.
BUT!
If you are an Arcane Trickster Rogue, “you can use the bonus action granted by your Cunning Action to control the hand.”
This could actually be very useful until you get 3rd level spells for fly.
To add on to this, Pick Air Genasi and you get Levitate at LvL 1 and can do this combo from the start once a day instead of having to wait for LvL 7 to get levitate from Arcane Trickster Rogue.
…Be sure to clear this with your DM first tho ofc… don’t be the guy that springs this on them half way into the first session. They might have some rule disagreements here with you, so clear it first… and just be polite. XD
(…or just pick Arakocra…)
@@OxyWorgon Levitate doesn't make you weightless. What you're suggesting would fall count as a normal "Push, Drag, or Lift" against your full body weight, which is probably more than 10 unless you're a tiny race or a small race under the Reduce effect.
i would love a video game in this dudes art style... and comedic style.
I love how you’re able to piece together the story based off the characters that appears, and it’s also so sad when you see a character in a video but a companion is different like rip dude
That twist though, definitely didn't expect it to be a spellbook. With that said though, I can't help but think of two people casting mage hand and just high fiving each other to distract someone or something.
I’ve watched this specific episode at LEAST six times already, because I just can’t get enough of these. Your voice is so soothing, your art is so nice to look at, everything moves fluidly, and I just learn so much from your episodes. From the moment I hit play, I enter a zen state, where I am just relaxed. It’s such a nice way to end a day for me. Thank you, Zee. Keep doing what you’re doing.
God dammit the sword says yolo
Ok, I'm new to 5e and currently playing a 5th level sorcerer. Mage Hand has a range of 30' and can move 30'. If i use distant spell meets magic to double the range to 60', can it now move 60' too? What if i take the Telekinetic feat? Because that doubles the range stove i already have it. what if i take the feat AND use Distant Spell? Does it have a range of 120' and can move 120'? That would be cool
Distant spell wouldn’t do what you’re describing because the text of the spell still says it disappears if it’s not within 30 ft.
The text of telekinetic explicitly bypasses this, but if u used distant spell I believe it would appear 90 ft away (because telekinetic says that when cast the range increases by 30, not that the range of the spell is now 60 so it would be 30x2+30) and than it would disappear because it was out of range
If I was the DM I would allow it because no harm no foul, but RAW I’m almost certain it wouldn’t work
@starat2645 you know what? I think you might be right that RAW with that "disappears at 30'" but I don't think that's what's intended. I run the intention is that, because the caster and the hand move independently, that the the hands must stay in that 30' range from the caster, like the aura for Spirit Guardian stays centered on the caster. So it makes sense to me that increasing the range would increase the distance the hands can be from the caster.
As far as movement speed... I think I could be persuaded either way
The runes on the sword spell, "Yolo."
Anyone else want a 10 minute video loop of that ending walking animation/music?
It's just so compelling... I actually first subscribed because of that. (Don't worry. I'd already liked it.)
Must have cantrips for every character I make that can learn cantrips: Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, and if there's room, a offensive cantrip, like Fire Bolt or Chill Touch. But I have made characters with 0 offensive cantrips. Also, a feat or tome lock for Guidance and Thamatuegy, and maybe sheleleh if they use a quarter staff.
Mage hand is especially important to one of my most recent characters, a Talking Skull who uses their mage hand to carry themself. And you can never go wrong with being able to make your water taste like juice, or instantly clean stains, which is why I love Prestidigitation.
Did you make Morte from Planescape Torment?
Not having prestidigitation literally killed one of my characters. (Not really, it was a series of bad decisions I made, but having the damn spell would have helped).
We had to cross a river, and I was in heavy splint armor. I fell into the river as I attempted to ford it and got stuck in the muck. I may have taken some drowning damage, I don't remember. But when I got out, the DM ruled that my armor was too dirty to properly function, having mud seeping through its joints and impacting its maneuverability. So I removed it and stored it while we continued because our sorcerer didn't have prestidigitation to clean it (We all yelled at him for that, that player had been known for a few boneheaded decisions, but none as bad as the Rogue who in hindsight was probably trying to get killed).
We were ambushed by Gricks and instead of Misty Stepping free (As I was a Vengeance Paladin at level 5), I uh....didn't do that. I was quickly killed.
HOWEVER, through a completely unplanned (by me) coincidence, my character had become Important (TM) by interacting with a jar full of darkness earlier on in a dungeon we'd explored. The jar "cursed" the person who stuck their hand in and activated the lever with an arm covered in shadows, but in reality was a blessing from a god. Specifically, Blibdoolpoolp the patron deity of the Kuo-Toa, whose city we were on the way to. And that's how my party got me resurrected for free after my own foolish decisions and our Sorcerer not having ONE OF THE BEST BASIC UTILITY SPELLS got me killed.
That character went through some shit, he got petrified not long after lmao
I think the goals actually are 'gold, glory, and the best damn drugs I can find'.
Mage Hand+Rope with a slip knot+Levitate=Discount Flying.
I always have a party of... questionably intelligent people who never thought to use mage hand for anything other than REALLY dumb stuff. Nobody ever used it to trigger traps at range or grab questionable items. Always "I put a bucket on the guard's head" or "I poke the sleeping dragon in the nose, while I hide". Mage Hand has caused me mental trauma due to the triggering of awful encounters.
Have you considered killing the liability of a wizard who does that until their player stops doing it?
@@jonathanwells223 Haha, it has happened. But they are a bit of a munchkin player so if they die, they basically come back twice as annoying. And even stupider than before. The player has a 'type', and that is 'socially stupid glass cannons'.
My fav mage hand scene was with DCA. Where in which instead of going into the room with the booby trapped, activate the giant sentinel on the book being moved, book Holly used Mage hand to pick it up. The sentinel activated of course, but Perkins narrated it as the thing was ready to attack, then slowly watched the book move out of the room in a slight stupor.
My dragonborn cleric recently took the Telekinetic Feat which gives an invisible Mage Hand that needs no components to cast. That'll be fun. What's more fun is that he can now force push foes into hazards or his Spirit Guardians. >:D
Skank mcgank is one of the best ocs
How ghostly is mage hand? Could you flavor the Help action by casting mage hand and putting in an enemy’s face to block their vision?
How about you paint the hand or make it hold something
Unless you’re an arcane trickster or telekinetic, it’s not invisible. But you can only move it on your turn, so the opponent could just move their face
@@MrRydude17 I half agree, i dm as a hobby and i like to think a full round is happening at approx the same time so for the most part each turn happens at once (unless there is a clear separation between events, for example an attack from the PC to an creature then a retaliation from the creature).
However i would say as the mage hand is moving to obscure the view of the enemy, it would be simple enough for the enemy to lean to one side and attack, then the next round when the hand obscures again the enemy will see that and lean the other way.
In essence using it to obscure the view wouldn't work. But I do allow PC's to cause distractions so if that mage hand wanted to flip off the enemy for example, i'd have them make an intelligence check or an intelligence save against the spellcasting DC to see if they are briefly distracted (disadvantage on the next attack type thing)
Have the hand grab an eyeball. That's less than 10lbs, and now their vision is permanently "obscured."
Isn't that a specific feature the Arcane Trickster gets?
YOLO, truly the most powerful of Dwarven runic marks!
For those looking to "Weaponize" this particular spell:
1st: (area of effect damage) 10lbs of whatever exploding potion combo's you can think of (drop the whole bag from 30 ft. up or shoot it (clockwork timer might work too if you have the skills).
2nd: (area denial) Drop a bag of Caltrops (10per lb.) between you and the enemy; or on the enemies position directly to trap them (probably give a good 10ft radius to them spreading out from that high up).
3rd: (area of effect damage/status effect) Bag of broken glass/daggers coated in poison... yes there is a pattern; drop it on a enemy from above or let it scatter along the ground for area denial.
-Poison-covered broken glass raining from the sky vs. a paladin in plate armor might be iffy with their AC. But, someone wearing no armor or simple cloth/robes will likely be far more susceptible.
4th: (direct damage) get basic with it and drop a 10lb boulder from 30 ft. up in the air (or anything equaling 10lbs).
5th: (Indirect damage) Have it carry 10lbs of flaming garbage (logs, cloth, etc) and have it occupy the same space as the target.
-The hand does not have HP (can't be attacked), cannot attack but can move into another creatures area every turn (presumably keeping up at 30ft a turn), and lasts for 1 minute (more than enough time to catch something on fire/or cause fire-based damage.
I would assume most DM's would have to agree that these are all within the capabilities of the spell.
How accurate, or how effective, these attacks are should be up to the situation of course and at the DM's discretion; but I would think that most might would require a Dex save of some sort if using it for direct damage.
That rope trick is wonderful! Gotta remember it!
Man, as a DM, a player like Greenbeard over there without any obvious motivation is a serious liability. "He wanted to leave the dungeon altogether". Yeah... exactly. The players (with the aid of the DM) need to give the characters *some* reason to risk their lives, or else you might end up missing all the cool stuff the DM spent countless hours toiling over his or her handbooks to prepare.
To be fair, he was acting according to his character. Druid wants to commune with nature and only around to fight monsters? That he went with the group that far means he did so with great personal risk given how one character in that adventure had already died and another nearly died but lost his gear. So... props for roleplaying in that situation?