Is Hand of the Apprentice a superset of Mage Hand?


Combat & Magic

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

I was wondering: does the 0th level specialist Wizard ability (Hand of the Apprentice) function as a standard Mage Hand in addition to its combat utility, or can it *only* be used to wield weapons?


Tamago wrote:

I was wondering: does the 0th level specialist Wizard ability (Hand of the Apprentice) function as a standard Mage Hand in addition to its combat utility, or can it *only* be used to wield weapons?

As it says in the description: it functions like "mage hand" but has the additional capabability of wielding a weapon. So, YES, it works like the spell "mage hand" in every other aspect.


This seems very strong for a first-level at-will ability. Thanks to the Int/Wis bonus to hit and damage, it will almost always hit more reliably and do more damage than the evoker's energy ray, for example.

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username_unavailable wrote:
it will almost always hit more reliably and do more damage than the evoker's energy ray, for example.

Playtest much? Evoker's Energy Ray hits more often.

Evoker's Energy Ray is a ranged touch attack. Hand of the Apprentice is a regular melee attack. The difference? Hand has to go through the full ac, the ray bypasses armor bonus... and the ray deals more damage as the wizard levels.


I guess that's true after fashion, but the cleric using it [hand of the acolyte; same difference] in my game last night used it to pretty amazing effect.

While the ray is a ranged touch attack and ignores armour, the hand ignores pesky issues like the penalty for firing into melee, meaning it can easily be used to gang-bang whoever happens to be scrapping with the fighter. Furthermore, because the hand uses the wizard or cleric's spellcasting stat to derive its bonuses to hit AND damage, its initial damage has the potential to be very high.

My party's 1st-level cleric presently uses her hand to wield a morningstar, which gives her +4 to hit at a range of 30 ft for 1d8+4 damage, ignoring penalties for firing into melee.

That's better damage than the ray would give an 8th level wizard, at an attack bonus that is likely about the same, unless the evoker in question has an astounding Dex.

You can take or leave the benefits of a melee attack vs. a ranged touch attack, taht's going to depend on the situation in question, but average attack roll and, damage on a successful hit are still going to be higher for the hand, at least until the evoker is 10th level.


SirUrza wrote:
username_unavailable wrote:
it will almost always hit more reliably and do more damage than the evoker's energy ray, for example.

Playtest much? Evoker's Energy Ray hits more often.

Evoker's Energy Ray is a ranged touch attack. Hand of the Apprentice is a regular melee attack. The difference? Hand has to go through the full ac, the ray bypasses armor bonus... and the ray deals more damage as the wizard levels.

It's still a strong ability. I play a fighter with the Overhand Chop feat, but I'm abandoning my greatsword in favour of something one-handed plus a shield so that I can more effectively stand in the way and prevent people from attacking the cleric, who's the one actually killing all the baddies. My guess is that at higher levels this will even out and my fighter will be as good at fighting as the cleric, but for now I'm not needed for anything other than keeping the bad guys away from her while her Hand of the Acolyte kills everything.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

Calum wrote:
It's still a strong ability. I play a fighter with the Overhand Chop feat, but I'm abandoning my greatsword in favour of something one-handed plus a shield so that I can more effectively stand in the way and prevent people from attacking the cleric, who's the one actually killing all the baddies. My guess is that at higher levels this will even out and my fighter will be as good at fighting as the cleric, but for now I'm not needed for anything other than keeping the bad guys away from her while her Hand of the Acolyte kills everything.

I'm not sure why the cleric with the hand ability is better than your fighter. You're attacking the same ACs, and assuming that the fighter's best ability score is in strength and is the same as the cleric's wisdom, you have the same bonus to attack and damage. However, the fighter gets a +1 BAB over the cleric at 1st level, and using a greatsword, does better base damage dice on his weapon, plus gets one and a half strength bonus on damage compared to the cleric's straight wisdom bonus. Finally, the fighter gets feats that can work with his weapon, whether that's weapon focus for another +1 to attack, or power attack for a -1 to attack and +2 to damage (since it's two handed), I'm not seeing that the cleric using the hand power is better.


username_unavailable wrote:


You can take or leave the benefits of a melee attack vs. a ranged touch attack, taht's going to depend on the situation in question.

I'd have to disagree; touch ACs for perhaps 80% of the enemies out there (probably more than that) usually hover around 8-12, even at high levels. At CR 1 there's probably a 3-5 point difference, which only gets bigger as the game progresses; even an NPC with good magic gear probably only has a touch AC of 15 or so by level 10 unless he's an archer or rogue.

Even the mighty pit fiend and balor have touch ACs of 17 and 16 respectively, and the great wyrm red dragon has a whopping 2. Touch attacks are essentially guaranteed hits past level 8 or so. It makes a huge difference.


Khalarak wrote:


I'd have to disagree; touch ACs for perhaps 80% of the enemies out there (probably more than that) usually hover around 8-12, even at high levels. At CR 1 there's probably a 3-5 point difference, which only gets bigger as the game progresses; even an NPC with good magic gear probably only has a touch AC of 15 or so by level 10 unless he's an archer or rogue.

Even the mighty pit fiend and balor have touch ACs of 17 and 16 respectively, and the great wyrm red dragon has a whopping 2. Touch attacks are essentially guaranteed hits past level 8 or so. It makes a huge difference.

Consider the following situation:

RANGER 1, WIZARD 1 and CLERIC 1 are all attacking ENEMY, who is in a melee with FIGHTER 1 25 feet away.

RANGER 1:
Str 14
Dex 16
composite longbow
Point Blank Shot

WIZARD 1:
Dex 14
Int 16
energy ray

CLERIC 1:
Wis 16
warhammer
hand of the acolyte

ENEMY:
Dex 12
scale mail

* * *

RANGER 1:
Total bonus +1 (firing into melee) => 30% chance to hit AC 16
Average damage = 1d8+3 => 7.5 per hit
Average damage per round = 2.25

WIZARD 1:
Total bonus -2 (firing into melee) => 35% chance to hit AC 12 (touch)
Average damage = 1d6 => 3.5 per hit
Average damage per round = 1.225

CLERIC 1:
Total bonus +3 => 40% chance to hit AC 16
Average damage = 1d8+3 => 7.5 per hit
Average damage per round = 3

CONCLUSIONS:

RANGER 1 does the same damage as CLERIC 1 (thanks to his feat and expensive weapon), but hits less frequently.

WIZARD 1 hits almost as often, but for significantly less damage.

Winner: CLERIC 1

* * *

For kicks, let's put ENEMY in full plate, increasing his AC to 19, but reducing his Touch to 11.

* * *

RANGER 1:
Total bonus +1 (firing into melee) => 15% chance to hit AC 19
Average damage = 1d8+3 => 7.5 per hit
Average damage per round = 1.125

WIZARD 1:
Total bonus -2 (firing into melee) => 40% chance to hit AC 11 (touch)
Average damage = 1d6 => 3.5 per hit
Average damage per round = 1.4

CLERIC 1:
Total bonus +3 => 25% chance to hit AC 19
Average damage = 1d8+3 => 7.5 per hit
Average damage per round = 1.875

RANGER 1 still does the same amount of damage as CLERIC 1, and still hits less frequently (as expected).

WIZARD 1 now hit more often, but still has significantly lower damage output than CLERIC 1.

Note: For WIZARD 1 to overtake CLERIC 1, they must be fighting an opponent with an armour bonus of at least +10. I do not expect this to happen until at least level 4 in a standard campaign. Unfortunately for WIZARD, by this point, CLERIC's BAB will have gone up significantly, and she will probably getting a damage boost from a magic weapon. Every 8 levels, CLERIC will probably get an additional attack and damage boost from increasing her Wisdom, so it's likely she will always stay ahead in this respect.

Winner: CLERIC 1

* * *

Finally, to really beat the dead horse, let's bump them all to 10th level, and say they each took two ability boosts in their primary abilities (Dex for RANGER, Int for WIZARD, and Wis for CLERIC)

* * *

RANGER 10:
Total bonus +11 (firing into melee) => 65% chance to hit AC 19
Average damage = 1d8+3 => 7.5 per hit
Average damage per round = 4.5

WIZARD 10:
Total bonus +3 (firing into melee) => 70% chance to hit AC 11 (touch)
Average damage = 1d6+3 => 6.5 per hit
Average damage per round = 4.55

CLERIC 10:
Total bonus +11 => 65% chance to hit AC 19
Average damage = 1d8+4 => 8.5 per hit
Average damage per round = 5.525

CONCLUSION:

Even at 10th level, RANGER 10 and WIZARD 10's standard attacks fail to compete with the mighty CLERIC 10's. If CLERIC 10's Wisdom increases hadn't increased her damage, all three would have been more-or-less on par.

Winner: CLERIC 10

* * *

It's worth noting that I gave RANGER point-blank shot and better equipment to allow him to compete; CLERIC just got a plain old warhammer, and no feats whatsoever. Had I also given RANGER precise shot, he would have easily left CLERIC in the dust far earlier. This begs the question, however, as to why a RANGER should need TWO FEATS and EXPENSIVE GEAR to compete with what a CLERIC can do OUT OF THE BOX with regard to RANGED ATTACKS.

Realistically, the 10th-level example sort of falls apart, as a ranger's combat style feats will start to make a huge difference . . . but given that the Cleric's main power is, in fact SPELLS and not ranged combat, I don't think the two should even compete. The hand should be what the cleric falls back on when spells are not going to cut it, and the fact that it can in many ways compete with the areas in which other classes are supposed to excel is a problem.

In my playtest, the cleric makes our fighter look like a raw recruit, heals everyone, explodes undead, casts support spells, and uses her hand like Gordon Freeman's gravity gun to do a bunch of other cool things (drop rocks on potential pressure plates, goad unintelligent monsters into acting, etc.) I think this is an issue because everyone needs a chance to excel, but the Cleric is so generally awesome that she sort of eclipses the rest of the group (who have realized that the most tactically-effective solution to most problems at this point is to simply support the cleric).

* * *

SOLUTIONS:

I am looking at ways to nerf this ability in combat to reduce the already-apparent CoDzilla factor. Here are my current thoughts:

• Reduce the damage bonus of the hand to +1 per 3 levels to put it more in line with the evoker's ray.

• Have the hand always attack from the square adjacent to the opponent that is closest to the cleric, and say that if that square is occupied, the attack is subject to cover. This should stop the group from using the fighter to create a bottleneck and having the Cleric attack through him.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

In your example of firing into a melee, the cleric with this ability might be better, but things change drastically if you are firing at an enemy that is not in melee.

In most 1st level fights, you tend to be fighting a roughly even number of foes, so it should be pretty easy to 5 foot adjust back from the one attacking you, and then shoot at them, no cover, no firing into melee.


Up and hello !

What is the speed of the armed hand ? 15 feet (like Mage hand) or 30 feet ?

When the hand attack a foe "within 30 feet", is it "30 feet" from the wizard, or "30 feet" from the hand ?

Thanks !

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