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?
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 😉