Level
Cantrip
Casting Time
1 Action
Range/Area
30 ft
Components
V, S
Duration
1 Minute
School
Conjuration
Attack/Save
None
Damage/Effect
Utility
A spectral, floating hand appears at a point you choose within range. The hand lasts for the duration or until you dismiss it as an action. The hand vanishes if it is ever more than 30 feet away from you or if you cast this spell again.
You can use your action to control the hand. You can use the hand to manipulate an object, open an unlocked door or container, stow or retrieve an item from an open container, or pour the contents out of a vial. You can move the hand up to 30 feet each time you use it.
The hand can't attack, activate magic items, or carry more than 10 pounds.
For using Mage Hand to do something annoying at distance... any character can use their action to "help" in combat by distracting an opponent within 5' of them. With mage hand, it seems like you could do the same thing at distance. Tugging on someone's clothes, or attempting to stick a spectral finger up someone's nose, or grabbing at a holy symbol or arcane focus - these things are certainly distracting. You couldn't pull off the clothes, injure their nose, or take the holy symbol - but you could be distracting and annoying.
As far as trying to actually steal something from a conscious character... the arcane trickster's improved version specifically talks about very limited ability to do this as an added feature of their mage hand (thus implying the base version can't do it). There are a number of things which work on unattended objects but not on possessions (for example, fire bolt will ignite unattended objects)... it would seem reasonable a mage hand could grab an unattended weapon or a piece of gear laying on the ground, but not one actively possessed. Still, it would serve at a minimum as a great distraction (thus the "help" action at a distance).
You could potentially steal from a sleeping or unconscious character... though the DM might require a skill check to not wake up someone sleeping.
Tripping a running creature is an interesting question... the hand isn't attacking (it is an unseen obstacle)... it doesn't take much to throw your balance off. But this is really such a very small force. Imagine someone with a strength of 1 trying to grab at the legs of a running back in a football game. At MOST, the creature would get an easy saving throw to keep their balance.
Everyone post about using the hand to fire projectiles has a deeply flawed understanding of physics. The hand being able to hold and move 10 pounds does not equate to anything related to the force of 10x gravity. Gravity is a unit of acceleration. Weight is a unit of force the acceleration due to gravity is having on the mass of a object. First being able to lift 10 pounds does not mean you can then accelerate a 1 pound object 9x gravity. If that were true you yourself could throw a rock faster than a bullet. I can easily lift 100 pounds off the ground. That does not equate to accelerating a 1 pound rock at 99 X 9.8m/s (gravity). It actually equates to only accelerating it at just a fraction over 9.8m/s just enough to make it move in the opposite direction against. Second in terms of horizontal movement the hand is not constantly accelerating just as you aren't when you move, you briefly accelerate to beat inertia and frictional forces and then travel at a constant speed. It is moving 30ft in 6 seconds your action. Meaning it accelerated to a constant velocity of 3.4mph to cover 30ft in 6 secs. Meaning whatever it is carrying is also traveling at a constant velocity of 3.4 mph. A toddler can throw something at 3.4 miles per hour. Its not going to hurt anyone.
The hand basically has the same movement speed and a vastly lower strength than a player character. Where are the arguments that your PC can fire a rock from their hand like a bullet. Also don't reply with that chain of people passing an object over their turns accelerating it like a bullet thing. That is equally as incorrect. The object is stopping briefly every time it changes hands. So it is not accelerating. Also if it were every one of your characters would die or at the very least loose a hand and the object would stop moving anyway.
As for the less ridiculous questions I would say those are somewhat up to your DM. The way I read it though the flavor text itself is preventing most of those things simply by saying the hand cannot attack as it is which would preventing the whole rock throwing thing in the first place. Technically dropping a rock from a height is an attack (this is the one that is the most difficult I think to rule on) . Tripping someone is an attack - its a push to prone. Since it cant attack it cant give you advantage to flanking by annoying someone. However can it tie up a rope that someone could trip on sure. Could it open a trap door that someone could fall down sure.
Also nothing in the text says it is invisible which people seem to keep implying. Spectral does not mean invisible. Quite the contrary its visible just ghostly in appearance. If you want to do all these other things get bigby's hand.
Aight, I know it can't attack... but it can help you attack by activating traps and such
so would it be unreasonable to assume it can't help you hold a two handed weapon while your now free hand is now carrying another weapon?
Either way it requires an action to move the hand, making using it as half of wielding a sword useless.
I must challenge the assertion that the mage hand can accelerate an object (any object) beyond its own speed. The hand itself can move 30 feet per round while holding something. It can't ever impart a speed greater than its own to an object it holds. 30 feet per round = 300 feet per minute = 18000 feet per hour = 3.4mph as somebody I think already calculated. This is similar to the limitation on a baseball - it can only go as fast as the hand holding it is moving upon release.
I think someone in the thread must have thought that the ability to offset gravity means that acceleration (i.e. force) equal to gravity is available to the hand. That is literally true, but because the speed of the hand has a maximum, the speed of an object it carries and releases must likewise have a limit. If you did manage somehow to use mage hand to accelerate an object beyond 30 feet per round, the hand would lose contact with the projectile and therefore no longer be able to accelerate the projectile.
A 10 pound object held by a mage hand and thrown at 3.4mph would not travel far or hit a target with enough energy to hurt it much. However: a ten pound object raised 30 feet off the ground and dropped, which a mage hand could do, would reach 60 feet per second velocity before hitting the ground which would deliver 560 foot-pounds or 758 kilojoules of energy. This is more energy than 9mm or .45 pistol bullets have at muzzle velocity but unless our 10 pound object had a small cross-section and aerodynamic stability, the force would not be concentrated as it is with a bullet or arrow.
This needs a number of subclasses tagged.
Does this work on the roundit was conjured?
I'm new to D&D and was going over the rules. Upon reading of them, from my understanding RAW, you can not use a move action, as well as a regular action at the same time. With that being said, does that mean you couldn't use mage hand to carry a torch 30ft in front of you while walking through a dungeon (albeit 1 minute at a time?) Also, under the Help action in the PHB "Alternatively, you can aid a friendly creature in attacking a creature within 5 feet of you. You feint, distract the target, or in some other way team up to make your allows attack more effective. If your ally attacks the target before your next turn, the first attack roll is made with advantage". That said, it is an action to "Help", so the Mage Hand would already have to be cast next to the enemy in order to to use this feature, which by my interpretation, means that the same turn you cast it, an action is already taken, if it was even allowed by the DM, so it would only be able to "Help" the next turn when the PCs action is available. Also, instead of grabbing someone leg with a -5 mod at best, why not just drop a bag of caltrops where they need to go to in order to hit you or a party member, and use your movement to obtain a better position, or put a torch in front of their face to distract a caster? Open up a vial of acid on a door's hinge from 30 feet to avoid traps on a locked door, or handle and destroy the lock mechanism while a safe(r) distance away? (Moreso for Warlock/Bard without Acid Splash cantrip as well as any class that has it on their list, but isn't selected for their PC.)
The mage hand itself can only move 30ft in 6 seconds, about 5 feet per second. Definitely not 94 MPH.
This is good information!
Important question: Can 2 mage hands perform a high five?
Can you actually change the shape of the hand? Like give it claws or something? Simply for aesthetic reason
Deleted redundant
I would think so. They don’t specify an appearance of it beyond it being spectral, so it could probably look however you want. But of course, like you said, it wouldn’t affect how it works or what it can do.
Having read through the comments, I believe I have a method for picking up an ooze with Mage Hand: Wrap it in an inanimate object and carry it in the "pouch", then simply drop it on the target. There's no need for acceleration damage, just getting the ooze onto the target should trigger the ooze's innate nature. In my next round I'll be swooping up an ooze in a sheet then directing it to be dropped onto a distracted foe.
DMs/GMs should develop some basic logical consistencies for their own sanity. "Cannot attack" is, otherwise, an argument waiting to happen. Here's mine if you want to add it to the pile... :-)
MH can carry a sword or a spear simple enough. Rules state it cannot attack. Ask yourself "why?". I figure it can't attack because it can't generate the speed or force to complete the action effectively - that's my standard and my players know it; therefore, it can carry a sword or spear but will be stopped from piercing or cutting anything denser than soft cheese, and can certainly be dodged without checks unless the target is somehow incapacitated. Exposed throat of a sleeping enemy, beware.
Can it pull a trigger? Yes but the kickback would cause disadvantage on or eliminate any ability to aim effectively (failed strength). Can it throw a rock? No, that's a velocity issue (speed). Can it carry a 10 lb rock? Yes... 30 feet up into the air? You bet. Drop it on an unsuspecting enemy? Sure... intelligence check for depth perception. The speed and strength aspects hold my logic together.
Admittedly, it's just one way of interpreting. I give the players a basic understanding and applaud their creativity. If I got hung up on "can't attack", it would take away the fun. Side note, I also assume the hand is always visible. That is another way to keep it in check.
Another logic that just occurred to me - maybe Mage Hand is just a glorified, buoyant grip point. It can grip or grasp, rotate, and shift in any direction but there is no arm to provide the strength, speed, or stability. A pistol gripped for firing, therefore, would always be pointed down since the center of gravity is closer to the barrel and there is no arm/wrist to stabilize it. Similarly, a sword held by the grip would hang point-down. MH could still drag the tip across the throat of a paralyzed target. It's just a thought...
So, my current game has stopped at a bit of a cliff hangar. My party is about to get into a fight with all of the champions from the local fighting pit at the same time. Basically, a party member challenged the pit, so we placed some bets with the house - and it was going well- until he stupidly turned into his beast form in the middle of it. Needless to say that it didnt go down very well. Guard draws a crossbow, and i had to sleep him before he fired it, which gave another part member the time to use thier charisma to calm the situation down.
However, we have a halfling rouge in the party. They took the opportunity in all this confusion to rob the steel box behind the bar - and we got away with nearly a thousand gold. Anyway, we obviously needed to escape town - so we forged a letter from local nobility, granting us passage through the kingdom in order to slay a local dragon. As we were leaving town, we were accosted by the staff of the fighting pit on the road out, who rightly suspect us of the robbery. We produced the letter, and they kind of bought it - they made it clear they didnt believe that there was a dragon nearby, but couldnt find any reason to doubt the authenticity of our forged letter. Begrudgingly they said we could go on our way, so we made to walk past them. As we moved past, one of my party placed his hand on the shoulder of one of the angry, suspicious staff members - who misinterpreted this gesture, and drew thier weapons.
Seems we didnt avoid this encounter after all.
Now, its the middle of the day - the sun is high. I understand that i cannot use mage hand to make attacks: but i can send it 30 feet into the air, and use it to cast shadows. Would i be wasting an action using the hand to cast the shadow of a dragon? like this: How to make a dinosaur hand shadow single handed - Bing video, or is that a bit of a wasted action?
MH is spectral so I imagine it's semi translucent and won't cast a decent shadow... plus, a hand 30' away won't cast a shadow - the shadow would blur and dissipate (I think that's the right word..?). Love the ingenuity, though.
Yeah i was wondeting about the shadow. Shame. If we wipe, we wipe, i guess.
I can open door with flying hand. Sure! :)