Brought to you by: thedeckofmany.com / zeebashew The Forge Of Fury Module we played: (3rd Edition) www.dmsguild.co... Music: "Tiptoe Out The Back" by Dan Lebowitz "Amalfi" by The Barr Brothers "Archetype" by Anno Domini Beats
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...
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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...
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.
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.
@@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
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.
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.
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 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 😂😂😂
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
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.
What amazes me even more than your smooth animations is how frequently you put these out. I'm worried that you're not sleeping or something, usually animators need a million years to make videos, it being very time consuming.
I still think my favorite use of mage hand was when my party used it to open a sleeping vampire's coffin, take nine pounds of Alchemical bombs, silver dust, and holy water, float it across the most heavily trapped room we'd ever seen, and drop it on said sleeping vampire. The makeshift satchel bomb went off, causing the dazed, confused, and burning vampire to stagger into his own traps killing him near instantly and destroying his coffin.
The way I see it, people play DnD to have fun. If the party went to the trouble of figuring out a clever means of circumventing a combat encounter, and they enjoyed doing it, that's fine. No harm, no foul. The players had a good time, and that's all a DM should care about. Moreover, the DM can always get them next time.
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.
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.
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'.
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 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.
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)
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'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.
Use Mage hand to High five or give a pat on the back. Keg to far and you have a really good tome you don't want to put down? Mage hand. Lost the wand to the crystal ball and don't want to tune it yourself? Mage hand. Don't want to touch the copper change after seeing the fish monger sneeze into his hand before counting it out? Mage hand.
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 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!
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.
Protip: A ten pound object dropped 25-30 ft would kill an ordinary human being. Don't believe me? A ten pound object dropped a mere four feet hits with 1000-4000 lbs of force, depending on the amount of padding the victim has. A bag of holding full of 10 lb bowling balls and mage hand gives you the ability to literally rain death upon your enemies every turn, as long as you can convince the DM that the physics check out.
I mean yeah, but, by the PHB, a ordinary humain being is worth 4 point of damage, so that's not telling much. But yeah, dropping something on the head of someone using mage hand is a funny way to inflict damage.
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.
I play in an AL game with a barbarian who collects the severed hands of mages and wizards. Then throws them at NPCs crying out "I use Mage Hand" XD lol ah what fun
Pity you didn't bring up the Arcane Trickster's version of Mage Hand. It's invisible and if you bring a good bluff check to the table you can convince someone there's a ghost around letting you get away with all sorts of shenanigans.
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?
