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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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 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?
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
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.
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.
I remember using it only once to a great effect, it's similar to your example with the gem. There was an item in the nest of big birds and we couldn't deal with them, so we hid behind a corner and used a hand to throw the item towards another hand who was able to throw it to a safe spot.