Baldur's Gate 3: Mage Hand - What are the best things you can do with it, and how can you buff it.

hey everyone this video is all about the Mage hand what you can do with it and how you can actually make it a worthwhile can trip I have some useful ways you can use the Mage hand and some methods you can use that will turn your Mage hand from a mostly useless help in combat into a one-handed killing machine everything is time stamped below for your convenience in balers Gate 3 there are several races and classes that can get the Mage hand they all last for 10 turns with the exception of the Arcane tricksters Mage hand which will last until it is killed and only the Arcane tricksters and the gith Yankees Mage hand are invisible all the Mage hands can only be cast once per long or short rest depending on who is casting it unfortunately the Mage hand cannot be healed either I primarily focus on the Arcane trickster's Mage hand in this video because that is the class I play but you can apply everything I show to any of the other Mage hands as well just some of the Buffs I use may be a bit of a waste on it as it's only active for 10 turns when I initially started my balers gate playthrough I did it blind I didn't look up any info on the game playay so I initially thought Mand ledgerman would work just like it does in dndd 5e I was quite disappointed when I learned how wrong I was about that however that gave me a reason to experiment with how I could make it a good spell and overall I am quite happy with my outcome one of the best features of the Arcane tricksters Mage hand is its invisibility as long as you don't attack with it or it's not caught by someone with detect invisibility it will remain invisible this means it will not enter the turn order effectively giving it unlimited actions and movement all you have to do is Select it on one of your party members turns and do what you want with it then switch back to the person if it does become visible it will still be useful but it will be entered into turn order meaning it can only do one action and move per turn so in no particular order here are some of the things the Mage hand can do it can be used to take an attack from an enemy if it is visible and close to an enemy they may choose to attack it instead of you and sometimes having one less hit on you is the difference between winning or losing a battle obviously this is best used on someone with very high damage you can use the Mage hand to disarm traps however due to it only having 10 dexterity and no other bonuses it is very limited as to when you would actually want to do this the main times I do this is if there's a trap to disarm in an unsafe area such as a room filled with poison the Mage hand can also be used to pull levers because it can fly it can reach areas you can't as a note though you can also usually just shoot most levers with an arrow to do the same thing however what the Mage hand can do that arrows can't is it can be cast behind locked off areas so you can pull levers to open a door from the other side the Mage hand can drag items around this is especially useful if you want to move an item out of you from a group of people so you can steal it or to lure a Trader to a more secluded area so you can pickpocket them or in areas such as this location in the underd dark you can move items SA L without triggering explosions you can also use this to cover vents any of the vents you see that are spraying poisonous gas into a room can be covered with an item to stop the flow of gas the Mage hand is immune to all poison damage so it can be used to drag an item over top of the vents stopping them and making it safe for you to enter the area the Mage hand can be used to throw potions or explosives you can set this up before combat by dropping a bunch of potions in a a safe spot for the Mage hand to use or just drop them as needed during combat dropping items is a free action so any point you can drop any number of potions and have the Mage hand through it this is especially useful for healing you can have the Mage hand throw a healing potion at you so you don't need to use up your bonus action drinking a potion you can also throw explosives at the enemy or a bottle of grease to knock enemies prone or you could throw the bottle of grease on a fire fire as well just be cautious because if you throw something and an enemy sees you it will then become visible and be entered into turn order meaning it can only take one action as opposed to unlimited as long as they are not locked you can also open or close any doors with the Mage hand a great use for this is if there are enemies in a room behind a door just have your Mage hand close the door and then you can safely enter the area without entering combat this allows you to get set up for the fight you can also use it to open an owned door that would normally anger an NPC this allows you to sneak in safely most of the time best be on my way the Mage hand can also be used to shove someone which if they are near a ledge can kill them however the Mage hand only starts with 10 strength so it will often fail this check unless you buff it and last but not least the main thing I use my Mage hand for is to almost always guarantee my sneak attack I have a full video on this linked on screen and down below but the short version is just move the Mage hand next to your target then you can get sneak attack as long as you are not at a disadvantage and as long as the Mage hand stays invisible you can move it on each of your Rogues turn to whatever Target you want this by far has made the spell well worth it for me because I get sneak attack very easily without worrying about trying to hide or sneak around each turn in its base form the Mage hand is fairly weak but there are a few things you can do that will greatly boost it the first thing I recommend to do is cast Aid on it this will give it an additional five hit points per spell level then cast long Strider giving it additional movement speed and Mage Armor to boost its AC up to 13 and finally you will want to cast warding Bond on it to give it resistance to all damage and boost its AC by another point up to 14 the great thing about all these spells is they can be cast by someone in your party or more effectively by a hiring from Withers all these spells last until you do a long rest and are not concentration spells meaning that you can have someone cast them then leave that person back in Camp and go out with different party members you can also cast spells requiring concentration on the Mage hand such as Shield of faith for another 2ac or sanctuary if you just need 10 turns where it can move stuff around without risk being hit although the Mage hand does not actually have an inventory you can actually pick up and use a couple different items the Mage hand can pick up any amulets which will then allow your Mage hand to cast whatever spell was on it but as a warning you can never get this item back even when you're Mage hand dies the item will be gone forever so only give it something you are willing to lose the Mage hand can also pick up some weapons which again will give it the ability to cast any of the Spells the weapon provides or just increase its damage it can do during an attack this takes the Mage hand's attack from a measly one to whatever the base damage of the weapon is to give it a weapon just drop the weapon on the ground and if it has a gear icon next to it as opposed to the hand icon on you can pick it up and use it it will also only use the most recent weapon it picked up so if you give it another weapon you are unable to use the first one anymore and as with the amulets any weapons you give the Mage hand will be lost forever I also have not figured out why it can use some weapons but not others I assume it may just be a bug that it can even use weapons in the first place and now for the best thing you can do for your Mage hand the Mage hand can drink most potions and elixir you can drink them right from someone's inventory by Simply Having the Mage hand selected then browsing inventories and choosing the potion you want or you can drop the potion on the ground and drink it from there The Elixir I recommend the most is the elixir of Hill drant strength this will boost your Mage hand strength up to 21 this gives it a plus five to all strength checks this means it can now succeed much more of its shove attacks it can also now pick up and throw most enemies meaning you can have your Mage hand sneak up to someone and toss them off a ledge before ever entering combat with all these Buffs I have turned my Mage hand from a weak three Health five Armor class summon with only 10 strength and deck into a powerful 16 Armor class 21 strength summon with resistance to all damage types and a good chunk of health so give yourself a hand with Encounters in this game you'd be surprised how helpful it is anyway that's all I have for you let me know down in the comments what you use your Mage hand for in this game I hope this video helps you and gives you some good ideas please leave a like if it did and please consider subscribing to my channel for some more content thanks for watching see you next time up the surface a

Channel: Ian is too Common

Views: 12,512

Keywords: BG3, Baldurs gate, Baldur's gate 3, Baldur's gate, Baldurs gate guide, BG3 mage hand, Baldurs gate mage hand, mage hand, bg3 arcane trickster

Id: 2OfTerTSqGA

Length: 10min 11sec (611 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 30 2023